to combat that the state pushes the dnc to move us to super tuesday. problem is what do you do with the local elections. if you keep the events coupled, you give the incumbent a huge advantage. if you decouple the events, the incumbent still has an advantage but presumably not as huge. but let’s face it people are f-n lazy so only the die-hards, those who actual appreciate that people shed blood to ensure that all have the right to vote free of misc poll taxes, the civic minded, and those who actually give a damn vote.

apparently d3 is littered with the brain-dead.

Still, the odds of Juarez’s litany of skeletons staying out of the limelight in a runoff – slim as hell.

I fail to see a direct correlation between D5′s African American voters and anti-Ignacio voters. We’d have to assume that they’re one and the same. Is there any proof of this? I can’t seem to remember any particularly bad blood between Ignacio and the African American community within his district.

Also strange to me: claiming a runoff would definitely unseat IDF, while a runoff in D3 would be a waste of “city expense”. IDF had a higher percentage of the vote (54 to 51), while Jaurez didn’t have that much more than Sullivan (33 to 27). That would mean, to you, a 21% margin-loss is a sure win for a challenger in runoff, but a 24% margin is a waste of time and resources. I know it’s a lot more complicated than that, but it’s funny how wildly different your conclusions are from two races that were very statistically similar.

Weren’t you at the JLS forum. After Nancy left, Greg talked about how she tried to keep him off the ballot. She had told the press through one of the staff that she was uninvolved, but somehow, she called Greg and asked for his endorsement before he even found out he was off the ballot. Greg remarked that he found it awfully weird that she found out he was off the ballot before he did.

You think he’d endorse her after that? I’d expect he’d do something far closer to the opposite.

They were surprised when I forwarded the summary of the finanical statements to learn the N Nadel had, in fact, accepted more money from sevelopers the S Sullivan.

As to clean Air forums just focusing on West Oakland: Here’s a newsflash: Lakeview kids have 580 zooming past the western perimeter of their playfield AND they are down wind so they get to suck in the macro and micro particulates from one of the most busiest highways in the Bay Area (thanks to Jerry Brown’s dad who created the freeway system that cut vast swathes of Temescal and Adams point for the benefit of people who don’t live in Oakland.) Oakland High is in the same fix in terms of their playfield, except that it is upwind so the deposit of micro-particulates may be slightly less in quantity than Lakeview.

Why the extra “expense?” for a run off, if in fact one is called for?

Well, let’s see, there would be: five months to dispell the misstatements/mythology and five more months of meeting people and hearing their concerns and coming up with creative and viable solutions.

Well worth every penny.

I used to go – and tried hard to get Nancy to see the light (or the bad air) in our District. At some point I’ve given up because she isn’t going to change her mind (to include our area) and I’m not going to change mine (I say our air quality may be worse than West Oakland).

CH kids don’t stay there long enough to be affected since they are limited to the length of their stay. Besides, quite a few that I have met smoke and you could say that has an impact. (just playing devil’s advocate)

2. In District 3, however, Nancy would beat Sean again, as she would almost cerrtainly receive the overwhelming majority of Greg’s votes whether he endorsed her or not. Knowing that, it becomes problematic to think that Sean or his supporters would want to put the city to the expense (and more lugubrious attack ads) of a runoff he couldn’t possibly win. Even my flaccid math skills guesstimate that, already at 50%, Nancy would only need at most 4 or 5 percent of the voters who turned out for Greg to win. Again, with Barak on the ticket, the turnout among African-Americans will be stunning, and that’s not exactly Sean’s base. So, again, why in the world should District 3 taxpayers have to bear such a needless expense?

3. I never see any one of you at any of the clean air forums, nor hear doodlysquat in the debates about how Oakland’s worse-than-almost-anywhere asthma rate (9 times worse in West Oakland than the State average) is of consequence to you or your neighbors, especially those with kids. What’s with that? Is it because Nancy (and no one else on Council) fought to make this an issue back when she first began her political career? The reason BAAQM is in the room at all is because of Nancy. Maybe having Covenent House’s kids as potential asthma cases will add to the discussion and help make MTC and some of the other regional players pay as much attention as may be possible for a bureaucracy of that size and unwieldiness.

??????

– S

Richmond’s Costco and Alameda’s South Shore Shopping Center and Trader Joe’s get a lot of Oakland dough that could be spent here. More households in Oakland have dogs than kids…someone at City Hall eventually will think “Dogs? Kaching!”

If the City of Oakland wants to fill the acres and acres of empty new condos downtown, then making Oakland a dog friendly city might be the smartest and CHEAPEST way to increase the quality of life for many…instead of giving potential buyers and renters yet another reason not to choose to live here.

As for the geese and dogs — if the dogs are on leash, the geese really don’t care. I live next to the lake — when geese see bikes and runners they tend to move or scatter as fast moving objects are like faux preditors to them. Dogs on leash — the geese are vigilant and give them then eye, but don’t do much in terms of slowing waddling a few inches that-a-way before they resume grazing again.

Off leash, dogs would happily bound into the middle of a flock and not accomplish much. That said, scattering birds near traffic is not good for the geese or dogs, so that’s why on-leash rules would be especially important to follow around the lake.

Which, in fact, is the current practice. People walk dogs on leash on the paths around the lake all the time. No great shakes until the occasional cop gives you a ticket or a warning. The geese don’t care — dogs on leash seem to be a non-issue to them.

PRAC should just codify the existing usage at Lake Merritt and, like every other city from here to Timbucktu, allow people to walk with their dogs on leash in a public park.