My webmaster last month launched a site comparable to htis
skoede pantebfev
and the site having problems making the site to work.

Is this forum created on Nexys BBS ?

I just spoke with Jean Quan who offered to assist me many years ago with my nonprofit. She informed me that I should speak to you because you are the Council person for the area where my nonprofit will be moving to. My name is Stacey jones and I am the founder and Executive Director for Family Life Improvement, ( FLI).
I am going to Harvard for a two week program, for which I leave this weekend. This program is designed to equip community and economic development professionals for better mission conceptualization, information management, strategic planning, program performance, and partnership building with business, government, and industry. The underdstanding is that today’s community and economic development professionals must address complex issues related to jobs, housing, education, health, criminal justice, and social services and therefore a super structure is neccessary.
With this training FLI will receive a well structured plan designed specifically for Oakland CA, and a certificate that the plan was created at Harvard. I would like to meet wit you to discuss this plan when I come back. Whether you are or are not interested please reply to scjones_2000@yahoo.com. FLI’s phone #510-569-4FLI(4354).

I look forward to hearing from you or someone in your office.

Sincerely,

Stacey Jones

“The reason that Patrick was assaulted by these suspects is that he stands up to drug dealers in a way that normal citizens do not.” (Berkeley Daily Planet, Dec. 9, 2005)

And hear community activist and Neighborhood Crime Prevention Council leader Don Link:

‘First and foremost, the incident that took place at Pat McCullough’s residence was not a “vigilante shooting” but an act of self-defense by a man rushed on his own property by five or six young men, one of whom attacked him, aided by others who were throwing objects at and cornering him between his car and his house, 20 feet up his driveway’. (Berkeley Daily Planet commentary, Mar. 11, 2005)

The irony in JB calling Pat the V word in her recent mailer, is that JB is criticizing him for following her oft repeated advice given at her town halls: “call the police whenever you see suspicious” persons/behavior/activity. (and those town hall meetings were frequent but 99% dog and pony shows with Brunner trotting out half a dozen cops to sit on their butts for an hour during prime crime time)

Once upon a time in Rockridge, most of the time, if you called 911 the cops would come fairly quickly and arrest the bad guys. Now that probably takes anywhere from minutes to the half hour it took for police to respond to my false panic alarm on Desmond Street one day last year.

Hopefully not a life or death matter, so maybe the suspicious character moves away to case the house down the block, mug your neigbor instead of you, etc. End of story.

But where Pat lives on 59th between Tele and Shattuck, taking JB’s advice to call the cops can result in the bad guys taking your life. In Rockridge and Temescal it’s just “calling the cops”, in many parts of Oakland including Pat’s it’s called “snitching”.

JB’s freeze on cop hiring in 2002 made it difficult to quickly respond to 911 calls, and impossible for the OPD to conduct survelliance operations so that neighbors like Pat didn’t have to risk their families’ lives by following JB’s advice to call the police to report drug dealing.

-len raphael
volunteer treasurer, McCullough for City Council

For me it comes down to knowing that Pat has crime as his highest priority – I don’t think he’ll let it slip through the cracks while he plays footsie with developers (i like developers a lot!) or piddles around building street furniture that nobody wanted.

Most Oaklanders don’t keep track of what their councilmembers do and hold their feet to the fire – we hear from them around election time or when they decide to send out a newsletter bragging about how they’ve wasted our money on some pointless project — I feel that if Pat were elected he would keep working on Oakland’s crime problems without having to have citizens constantly nag at him.

I live in the District, in Rockridge. Indeed, I would hope I would have more to do in my life if I didn;t!

As for the whole McCullough vs. Brunner thing, you sure do know a lot about that race for someone who doesn’t live in the district… why so much attention? why a lawn sign for someone you can’t vote for?

Fair enough. I would say if I lived in some crappy neighborhood with thugs all around and an unresponsive police department, I would make my priority moving and not arming myself. I tend to think there is less harm done in my moving than there is my shooting someone, no matter how terrible that person may be. I understand the feeling that one’s home should be sacrosanct, and I know many people believe that much can be justified in rising to the defense of One’s Castle. I just don’t think where I live is all that important to my personal pride (certainly not enough to insist on living in an unpleasant place!) Not only because of the safety of me and my family, but because life is too darn short, faced with violent thugs I’d just get the heck out of dodge ASAP.

I guess I just don’t think there is anything particularly admirable about staying in a crappy neighborhood. I appreciate folks who work hard in their community, but I really hope they are doing it for themselves first and foremost, because, ultimately, nobody cares where you live or why you live there. Most people who live in nice neighborhoods will profess admiration for folks who “manage” to stay in bad neighborhoods, but they are really not anyone’s personal heroes and most folks would not move into bad neighborhoods to be like them. That’s one reason why I think McCullough’s appeal is limited.

Surfways, I don’t doubt McCullough has people’s support, but I think it remains to be seen if he has “the people’s” support. And I certainly hope I am not to vote for McCullough because he TALKS about crime more than anyone else…:)

Pat has the people’s support not because he actually had the guts to shoot someone but because he has been talking about the issue of crime for a long time and will definitely put his energy, time, and focus in crime, unlike some of the other city council members.
The others simply talk about it when election time comes along. Pat has been talking about it all along, he is more inline with our current concerns.

Maybe he should have moved?

What would you do if you had thugs selling dope on your block every day and the cops weren’t showing up fast enough, or couldn’t act when they did show up? I can’t really think of an option to McCullough’s actions other than capitulation.