Local News & Views

I will be your voice at City Hall if you will be my feet on the ground of District 10. Together we can make sure that District 10 finally gets its fair share of affordable housing, quality schools and business opportunities.

I managed the front office for Supervisor Chris Daly, who has endorsed my campaign for Supervisor, for more than three years and assisted him closely as the Board of Supervisors heard emotional testimony about dust and asbestos at the Hunters Point Shipyard.

KPFA is one of the few community stations with an elected board. For example, KQED, where I also served two terms, got rid of elections in 2006. Our mission is to generate and support local, hard-hitting, radical journalism and prioritize coverage of and collaboration with underrepresented Bay Area communities that have little access to other media.

A group that had formerly called itself the Concerned Listeners, a faction in the community who are partisan supporters of the status quo controlling clique that runs KPFA and who oppose accountability and participation by “outsiders” in the station, is now calling itself Save KPFA.

SFUSD announced, “Willie Brown Jr. Academic College Preparatory School is closing by the end of school year 2010-2011 in order to rebuild a state of the art facility.” Parent Daphina Marshall commented, “I don’t see where they are going to get the funds to rebuild.”

Jimon Clark, a young bright Black male, 13 years old, was executed on the mean streets of East Oakland on Wednesday, Aug. 25, 2010. His execution was a one-day news story. His young life was so much more. We need police who are trusted by the East Oakland community.

With this campaign we have to fight to plug the mass leak of people systemically pressed into nearly abject poverty. It is like watching the death of the spirit of a city that the world depends upon to be the one place where right is right and fair is fair.

On Sept. 1, we learned that Liberty Builders, owned by Bay View publisher Willie Ratcliff, will build the new Bayview Library. That's a great breakthrough for Liberty Builders, the Bay View and the entire community and a step toward heeding the advice of Malcolm X: "We should own and operate and control the economy of our community." Keep an eye on www.sfbayview.com. In about a month, we should know when the jobs will begin and how you can benefit.

KPFA's election season has begun, with ballots and postcards arriving on our doorsteps. What should members do? There’s a really short answer. Don’t vote for the Save KPFA – Concerned Listeners – candidates. Any of them. No matter what.

District 6 Supervisor Chris Daly, champion of the have-nots in San Francisco for a decade, has passed the torch and endorsed James Keys, his longtime legislative assistant and campaign coordinator, to be his successor. “James was by my side through my toughest battles,” Daly said.

On July 28, the Oakland redevelopment commission met to consider recommending that the City Council adopt a city wide Project Labor Agreement. Such an agreement would put small contractors out of business and keep the unemployed of Oakland out of the work force.

KPFA 94.1 FM, your Bay Area progressive radio station, began its local board election cycle June 1 that will end Sept. 30 when ballots need to be returned. As the voice of the progressive left, KPFA is an example of "‘citizens’ media" that enables the powerless to shape media and make it a new social force.

Supporters of killer cop Johannes Mehserle rallied in San Jose Aug. 2 with no counter-demonstrators. KTVU was there and last week presented two features on Mehserle’s life story, presumably intended to soften his public image and engender sympathy for him as the Nov. 5 sentencing date approaches. Justice for Oscar Grant supporters will protest in the parking lot outside KTVU on Thursday, Aug. 12, 12:30 p.m., at 2 Jack London Square, Oakland. Be there to honor Black August! And Oscar Grant supporters are asked to demand the maximum sentence for Mehserle.

Who will fight for the people? Who will stand with them on tough issues? Nyese Joshua. Why is Bayview Hunters Point at the center of my focus? Because it is the political boiling point; Bayview, as they say, is San Francisco’s future.

After a POCC People’s Investigation into the Oakland 2010 Rebellion’s shutting down of Foot Locker, what baffled me was that many people could not politically put together that liberating merchandise was putting political pressure on downtown to pressure government to prosecute the criminals that killed Oscar Grant on New Year’s morning of 2009.

A rally staged in support of former BART police officer Johannes Mehserle in Walnut Creek July 19 drew hundreds of protesters, dozens of journalists and photographers and plenty of police.

The National Farm Workers, not to be confused with the United Farm Workers, is trying to strong arm long time Afro American tenants out of their San Francisco apartments at Vista Del Monte, a HUD-subsidized apartment complex located on Diamond Heights in San Francisco, one of the city’s highest and most scenic hills.

The seven Child Development Center in Oakland are slated to close on Friday, July 30. The People’s Takeover will begin on Monday, Aug. 2. Funds and volunteers are urgently needed for this effort. Please call OPT at (510) 452-8680, visit our website at www.parentstogether.org or email us at henry@parentstogether.org.

Here we go again: another police kill at the same rail transit station in Oakland, California, where 22-year-old Oscar Grant was shot in the back last year. Fred Collins, 48, died in a barrage of police bullets – at least five cops shot him down. Given the number of shooters, it may never be known which bullet killed the man.

Let Liberty Builders build the new Bayview Library! The people of Bayview Hunters Point deserve those good construction jobs and trust Liberty Builders, owned by Bay View publisher Willie Ratcliff, to hire and train local workers. But City Hall is holding up the award over bonding, a problem they can easily solve. Help them do the right thing by signing the petition at http://www.petitiononline.com/LB4BL/petition.html and contacting Mayor Newsom at (415) 554-6141 or gavin.newsom@sfgov.org and the Board of Supervisors at (415) 554-5184 or Board.of.Supervisors@sfgov.org.