A Spin Around Town

• Stories Coming Up

• Cops Arrest Two Teenagers for String of Robberies - Union City police arrested one of the teens and San Leandro police caught the other who they suspect of robbing 16 restaurants and convenience stores between San Leandro and Union City. One of the suspects is just 15 years old, the other is 16.

• Make room for some pie. The Cherry Festival is coming up on Saturday, May 31.

• The Chicago Blues — Officials keep pressure on the little cafe owned by Mark Tichy. The Chicago Blues Cafe isn’t up to snuff, they sniff. On top of that, Tichy’s landlord it telling him to move out of the little shop at the Palma Plaza. If that isn’t enough, city officials are now after Tichy about junk in the yard of his house, which is also in San Leandro. And as if Tichy isn’t henpecked enough by officialdom, school board member Mike Katz-Lacabe posted pictures of Tichy’s house on his web site. The picture focuses on some junk in Tichy’s yard. Oooh… tisk tisk.

• The school board cut back the hours of around a dozen non-teaching positions in the school district last week. The total savings of $100,000 or so is equal to one employee at the district office. And it’s less than half of the superintendent’s salary. By that way, the San Leandro Times has requested the list of employees and their salaries at the district office. We’ve been asking for six weeks now, and still haven’t gotten the information.
Really, though, what right does the public have to know where its money’s going?

• Barack Obama has the lead now in both delegates and “superdelegates,” as they call the party honchos. But Hillary isn’t through. She’s pulling the race card, saying that Obama can’t beat McCain because he doesn’t have the support of “working Americans, white Americans.” Hmm. So does Hillary think that only white people work? The turning point of this election came when the Clintons started dragging race into it. On the other hand, Obama is simply above all that.

“Eye Witness” News

That shooting in downtown San Leandro two weeks ago made the TV news where a woman seemed to give an eye-wintess account of the whole thing. But she sent me an email the next day, saying that she never saw it. The TV people told her to just say what she had heard, so she did.

But they don’t explain that when they show the clip on the air. So one would assume that the speaker was a witness, when she’s just repeating second- or third-hand accounts.

It’s 3 a.m. and that Damn Phone Is Ringing Again

It’s 3 a.m.
The phone rings.
Who’s going to answer it?

I don’t know when the ability to answer a telephone became the deciding factor in electing a president. Hillary Clinton’s TV ads lead me to believe I’ve missed something. Did Obama make a speech saying that he can’t wake up at 3 a.m. or something? Does he pass out every night? I guess I missed that disclosure.

Until now, I thought that if you call the White House some operator probably answers the phone. But just think, if you call at 3 a.m. the phone will ring on the night stand right by the president’s bed and the “hello” you hear will be the President of the United States!

That settles it. There’s hope for democracy after all.

Who’s in Charge?

A teacher raised an interesting question at the recent school board meeting. Who’s in charge of San Leandro schools, the school board or the superintendent’s office?
Technically, the school board is in charge. They’re elected by the people. They hire the superintendent to manage the schools. They can fire the superintendent, too.
But in real live it doesn’t always work out the way they drew it up on paper. Sometimes it doesn’t appear that the representatives elected by the voters really run the schools and city government.
Let’s say you’re on a school board, or the city council. You have a job and family responsibilities. You get a 400-page report the night before the meeting. Are you able to read the whole thing and study other material on your own before voting? Or do you listen the the staff people make their presentation, hear the comments of others on the board, and then just kinda go with what feels right?
I’m guessing it’s the second one, but that’s just me.

Super What?

It looks like there’s no stopping Barack Obama now. He’s on a winning streak and if Hillary doesn’t take Texas on March 4, she’s done. If it’s still close after the primaries, the decision will be up to the super delegates, the party honchos. What if they nominate Hillary, after Obama got more votes from the public? Is this the democratic way? Or Democratic way? I don’t know, but if that’s what happens, somebody’s gonna have some splanin’ to do.

On the Republican side, John McCain just about has it wrapped up. McCain’s got one thing going for him. If al Queda ever kidnaps the president, McCain won’t spill the beans. He can hold out for years if he has to. It’s not going to help McCain that he said we could be in Iraq for a hundred years. But he could be right. American troops are still in Korea after 50 years, and we’re still in Germany after more than 60 years. You can’t say Americans don’t stick around. But I don’t think we’ll be in Iraq for too much longer. For one thing, we won’t be able to. We’ll be broke.

More Bad News

The newspaper looks a little grim today, considering it’s Valentine’s Day and all. This week’s news included two high school girls shot and killed, a guy killed trying to beat the train across the tracks, and San Leandro’s first casualty in Iraq.

We were wondering, what can it be next? I know how people like to say that the press wants bad things to happen because it’s news, but that’s not true. There are plenty of things to write about. I really don’t know how crime reporters do it on the bigger newspapers where a reporter on that assignment works on crime stories every day. To me, that would get old real fast.

One thing I can say for a small newspaper, you get to do a variety of stuff — news, politics, sports, entertainment, business, everything.

By the way, out of all the stuff in the paper this week, the thing that spurred the most angry telephone calls was a typo on the back page, the story that said a bank robber “fleas.” As I tried to explain, he was a very small bank robber.

Signing Our Lives Away

The voters didn’t fall for the “term limits” proposition on the ballot in last Tuesday’s primary election. That’s a good sign. That initiative would have had the opposite effect in the state legislature. Sometimes the people aren’t fooled.

But people voted to allow the expansion of casinos in California, falling for the TV commercials that said gambling will help balance the state’s budget. Come on, do you really believe that one?

About half the registered voters in the state voted in the primary. You have to wonder. Why did all of those people register if they don’t vote? I think they just sign up at the table in front of the supermarket to make it look good, but never have any intention of really going through with it. But that’s okay, because if somebody doesn’t vote, it just makes my vote count more.

Now they’re already gathering signatures for the next election. The signature gatherers (Is that what you call them?) are out in force, catching people as they come out of the store. I guess we’ll find out later this year what those signatures put on the ballot. At least half the time, the propositions would result in bad laws. Yet people sign to put these things on the ballot — without even reading it.

The signature gatherers always say, “This just gets it on the ballot so people have a choice.” Well, when you put it that way it sounds so democratic. Gosh, you want people to have a choice, right?

But people also have a choice of what they want on the ballot in the first place. If it’s a bad law, and you put it on the ballot, it just might win. And it takes millions to defeat one of those propositions. So I’m just saying, be careful what you sign.

That’s all for now. Signing off.

Perambulating Perceptions

From what I’m hearing, people aren’t buying the politicians talk about “perceptions” about crime in San Leandro, seeming to dismiss claims of increased crime as a fantasy. The takeover robberies at a downtown restaurant and a drug store caught people’s attention. But when City Councilman Bill Stephens and Manor Tony Santos brushed off claims of a rise in crime as a “perception of crime,” and an unwarranted “fear,” they seemed to imply that people were just getting paranoid. In the past month or so, quite a few people have told me that the mayor and city council are just brushing it under the rug and not addressing the problem realistically, although they’ve put it a little more bluntly than that. Is there a genuine upswing in crime, or was the end of 2007 sort of a blip on the radar? Your comments are welcome.

It’s (not quite) Done

A newspaper headline surprised me this morning. “Bay Bridge Skyway Finished,” it read.
Whoa, you mean it’s done?
“At the end of 2007, the skyway portion of the bridge is complete,” said Caltrans spokesman Bart Ney.
Well, now we’re making progress. Oh wait, what did he mean by “skyway portion”?
Ah, now I got it. They just finished the skyway, the ramp that climbs up from Oakland out over the Bay — and ends in mid-air.
The bridge isn’t even close to completion. It still has 2,000 feet to go to reach Yerba Buena Island.
So I don’t know if I trust Caltrans anymore. Every time they announce “It’s Done!,” it means they’re “done” with a little piece of the whole pie. This is the kind of PR scheme that inspires me.
Hey, you know those dishes you told me to do? Well, I’m done! Yeah, I’m done with the first two dishes.
That yard work… I’m done! … with the first 10 feet of lawn.
That news story I’m supposed to write… Done! … With the first paragraph.
Things are looking up for the New Year. I have a great future ahead of me at Caltrans.

Happy New Year to everybody. And to those of you at Caltrans, congratulations on the completion of 2007.

The Real Hood

I got a letter today from “R. Hood” whose address is “Sherwood Forest, USA” They must have an American branch of the famous forest because Robin Hood mailed his letter from a local ZIP code. Hood is a little down on the two-party system and he says it’s time for a general strike and to boycott big business. I just had to go through 20 minutes of computer voices on the phone to get my AT&T bill straightened out, so I agree. Anyway, in order to print his letter in the newspaper we need Robin Hood’s phone number, so if you’re out there, Robin, drop me a line.