Showing posts with label Bay Area. Show all posts
There Will Be Bloods & Crips: The Latest in Soft-On-Crime Initiatives
The news out of Richmond, California today is that a bloody fight broke out at City Hall...in the office of a gang prevention unit. The details are pretty funny... if you think bringing the ghetto into the corridors of power is a bad idea:
A bloody fistfight broke out among rival gang members at Richmond City Hall on Friday, according to police.
Seven men from different parts of the city brawled in a third-floor suite that houses the city’s Office of Neighborhood Safety around 12:30 p.m. Friday, department director Devone Boggan said.
He said all of the men involved in the melee are enrolled in the office’s “Operation Peacemaker” fellowship and happened to show up at the office at Richmond’s Civic Center at the same time unexpectedly.
The fight stemmed from an “exchange of looks” and heated words after the men spotted each other, Boggan said.
Love how these bright young men - who are all in their twenties, grow the f*** up, please - are Operation Peacemaker "fellows." How intellectual...and ineffectual.
Of course, there's always a bright side when your precious gang prevention group leads to more gang violence:
The ONS director said he sees the unarmed brawl as a sign of progress, since the young men involved all have a history of gun violence.
“They decided to pick their fists up instead of a gun,” Boggan said. “Everyone got up and walked away—not one mother has to bury their child this week.”
And, over in San Francisco, the Board of Supervisors will be considering whether to grant a tax break to City businesses that hire convicted felons. Great idea! Non-felonious people are placed at a disadvantage during a job search, and any employer foolish enough to hire a convicted criminal will be strapping a grenade to their business.
San Francisco businesses that hire people with felony convictions would get a tax break, under legislation expected to be introduced today.
"Ex-felons are among the most challenged populations in getting work," said Supervisor Ross Mirkarimi, who is crafting the plan.
...The goal is to shave about $10,000 off a business' companywide payroll tax burden for every new convict it hires full time. The tax relief for companies hiring part-time employees would be less.
The exact formula was still being developed Monday. The city's payroll tax is equivalent to 1.5 percent of the value of an employee's compensation package.
Supervisor Mirkarimi is running for sheriff by the way. We're going to have some tough as nails law enforcement in San Francisco, let me tell you.
For whatever reason, liberals are forever pandering to the criminal element seeking to de-criminalize whole swaths of the criminal codes and trying to develop "alternatives" to the simple, easy-to-understand solution to crime: lock 'em up.
Housing Bubbleheads: The "Delusional" California Seller
Dr. Housing Bubble looks at an underrated aspect of California's depressed housing market: the seller who is reluctant to plumb the depths of the housing market because he wants so badly to believe he can hold on to his inflated valuations.
One aspect that is largely left out of the California housing market dialogue is the reluctant and often delusional home seller. The conversation has been dominated by distressed home sales because really this is where the action has occurred. You also need to realize that most foreclosures, not all of course, but the vast majority of distressed sales occur because people simply do not have the economic means to continue supporting their home payment. The shadow inventory is a very real indication of this troubling reality. Yet you also have a cohort of home sellers that are enamored by the peak prices of 2005 and 2006 and somehow want to recapture that incredibly inflated sales price. Many of these sellers are part of the cohort that bought pre-2000 and still actually carry some equity in their property even after the massive California correction.This has some personal relevance over here at Free Will headquarters as we have begun to seriously look into buying a home (with the idea of making a buy within the next 2 years). Here in the Peninsula/Silicon Valley area, you can find plenty of homes selling for around $300,000 - so long as you don't mind living in East Palo Alto. You can also find plenty of homes priced to the north of $900,000 - and these are regular houses, not mansions. But - and I think this is part of what the Doctor is describing - there is very little in between, which is odd because (1) the Bay Area economy is not exactly booming and (2) there aren't a lot of people running around who can pay around $1M for a freakin' house. But, if you pay attention, you can see that homes stay on the market for weeks and that the price will drop quite a bit, although not so quickly that you can imagine someone with a normal middle class income committing to buy.
The housing bubble didn't just mess with people's finances. It also messed with their heads.
Obama's Enron? The FBI Raids Solyndra
FBI agents executed search warrants Thursday at the California headquarters of Solyndra LLC, which was awarded more than $500 million in federal stimulus loans in 2009 to make solar panels in what the Obama administration called part of an aggressive effort to put more Americans to work and end U.S. dependence on foreign oil.
But the firm filed a bankruptcy petition Tuesday in Delaware, shedding more than 900 full-time employees, leaving just a “core group” of 113 employees, according to bankruptcy records.
FBI spokesman Peter D. Lee said multiple search warrants were served at the company’s Fremont, Calif., headquarters in what he called a joint investigation by the FBI and the Energy Department's Office of Inspector General. But he said he could not provide any details about the ongoing probe.
Energy spokeswoman Karen Sulier confirmed that the department was involved in the investigation but would not elaborate. Solyndraspokesman David Miller said the company was cooperating in the investigation but did not know the reason for the search.
News of the raid prompted key Republicans in Congress, who already were investigating the loan to the company, to issue a statement calling for answers from the company.
De-Stimulator: Solyndra Files For Bankruptcy
Solar-cell manufacturer Solyndra Inc. announced today that it would seek bankruptcy protection, suspend work at its Fremont facilities and lay off 1,100 employees, as the recent plunge in panel prices undercut the company's sales.
Solyndra, whose modules are thin tubes rather than flat panels, gained national attention in 2009 when it won a $535 million loan guarantee from the federal government to build a second factory in Fremont, near the company's headquarters. State and federal officials cited the project as an example of how the green tech industry could generate jobs.
But the company had to cancel its plans for a $300 million initial public stock offering last year, and it struggled to compete against a flood of inexpensive solar cells pouring into the market from new factories in China.
Gold To Lead: Violence Mars SF-Raiders Game
San Francisco police were seeking witnesses Sunday to the shooting of two men and the severe beating of a third in a restroom at Candlestick Park, as city and league officials condemned a rash of attacks and brawls that marred the annual preseason football game between the Raiders and 49ers.
The most severely injured victims from Saturday night - a 24-year-old wearing an anti-49ers T-shirt who was shot, and a 26-year-old who was beaten - were listed in serious condition at San Francisco General Hospital, suggesting they would survive.
Meanwhile, video footage of fights between fans at the stadium popped up on YouTube, showing a chaotic and dangerous scene at an event that drew tens of thousands of fans.
MS-13 Mystery Theater: Gang Member Murders Baby in
East Palo Alto police have arrested a 17-year-old boy in the fatal shooting of a 3-month-old baby, a killing that investigators said stemmed from a case of mistaken identity.
The teenager was out for revenge after being beaten up May 31 by Sureño gang members in Redwood City, police said at a news conference today. At about 1 a.m. Sunday, he thought he saw one of the gang members getting into a car on the 400 block of Wisteria Drive in East Palo Alto, said acting police Capt. Jeff Liu.
In the car, however, was a family of four leaving a baby shower, not the gang members who had fought with the teenager. The suspect opened fire, killing 3-month-old Izak Jesus Garcia-Lopez and wounding the boy's parents.
Izak's mother, Ivonne Garcia-Lopez, was shot in the leg as she threw her body in front of her 4-year-old son, Isaiah. When the shooting stopped, she saw that her baby had been shot in the head.
"He was such a precious angel," Garcia-Lopez, 28, said at the news conference, sobbing. "He is my everything. I was making my own little family and we were happy, and this person came into my life and destroyed it. They killed my baby and they destroyed my soul, too."
Raging Against The Wrong Machine: Code Pink vs. Netanyahu
A San Francisco woman interrupted Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's speech to a joint session of Congress Tuesday. Check out the video here of Code Pinker Rae Abileah's interruption -- and turn the volume up WAY high, because you can barely hear her say, "Stop Israeli war crimes."
The Pinkers describe the Half Moon Bay native as "a young Jewish American of Israeli descent" who now lives in SF.
Netanyahu briefly paused as Capitol law enforcement removed Abileah. He followed up with an ad lib about how great it was to be in a "real democracy" where folks can freely express their displeasure with government. She was charged with disrupting Congress.
Pitcairn's Island: Inside The Mind Of An Obama Donor
Naomi Pitcairn, the ringleader of the East Bay serenaders who disrupted President Obama's breakfast fundraiser to protest the treatment of accused WikiLeaks source Pfc. Bradley Manning, says she's actually a big supporter of the president.
In fact, records show she gave $28,500 to Obama's Victory Fund in 2008.
"He's the best shot we have," said Pitcairn, a fourth-generation heir to the Pittsburgh Plate Glass fortune.
Pitcairn and fellow anti-war activists disrupted Obama's big-ticket gathering at San Francisco's St. Regis Hotel on Thursday with an a cappella song: "We paid our dues ... where's our change?"
The cost of the group's tickets was over $76,000, which Pitcairn said she fully intends to pay.
Gone In 6 Seconds: Celebrity Lamborghini Stolen in SF
The thief pulled the heist with panache and was gone in a flash, but will he get the cash?
Most likely not, investigators are saying with somewhat bemused - though still serious - shakes of their heads.
That's because it's going to be mighty hard to sell what an unusually athletic thief using climbing gear stole from a swanky car dealership in San Francisco early Tuesday morning: a 2008 Lamborghini Gallardo sports car.
For one, as one of the most exclusive, distinctively designed and longed-for vehicles in the world, the car will stand out like neon wherever it is driven. It's even bright yellow, making it even more conspicuous.
For another, the car is worth more than $200,000 - and is owned by celebrity chef Guy Fieri, star of the game show "Minute to Win It" and "Diners, Drive-ins and Dives." Not the sort of thing that peddles easily on a used car lot or in the want ads, investigators note.
Liberty, Fraternity, Equality In Berkeley? Non!
Just so you know, Solano Ave. is not a nest of reactionary right-wingers. Everyone knows that Berkeley's Republican population lives in caves in the Oakland Hills (AKA Tora Bora West). And I can understand their concerns about homeless people - a broad category that includes drunks, lunatics, and itinerant gutter punks - given that Berkeley's sidewalks are already overflowing with layabouts and their leavings. But, Goodwill is not what attracts the homeless. Berkeley itself is the attractant. I'd say it's well known on the street that places like Berkeley and San Francisco promise relatively easy living if all you want to do all day is get drunk and cage for change. Loitering and drunk-in-public laws simply have no meaning when progressives are in charge of every level of government, and even if the voters become disgusted, there are homeless advocates who somehow manage to carry a greater voice in city government than the voters and merchants who are degraded by the presence of the homeless.Goodwill isn't getting a whole lot of it in Berkeley.
Solano Avenue merchants are trying to stop the nonprofit giant from opening a thrift store in the upscale commercial district, saying it would be a magnet for the homeless, noisy delivery trucks and bargain-hungry shoppers not likely to patronize the area's boutique baby stores and Persian rug shops.
"We need specialty stores that will draw people here, and that's not going to be Goodwill," said Anni Ayers Forcum, owner of a jewelry store on Solano Avenue.
Goodwill Industries of the East Bay began looking to open a store at 1831 Solano Ave. last summer and asked the city for an administrative use permit.
The permit is still pending, and Goodwill has not yet signed a lease for the storefront that was once occupied by a dance studio and a video store.
(...)
That has not stopped some merchants from circulating anti-Goodwill petitions and asking the city to stop the project on the grounds that it would alter the character of the neighborhood.
"We have nothing against Goodwill, we just don't think they belong on upper Solano," said Gerry Ruskewicz, who works at Sottovoce women's clothing boutique. "We're worried about the homeless and people leaving bags of donations outside."
Blaming Goodwill for attracting the homeless is not only wrong, it's a jerk move and snobby as well. I've never seen a Goodwill that wasn't clean, well lit, and orderly, even when they are located in rougher areas like the Tenderloin. What Solano Ave merchants don't like are the down scale shoppers who might appear in their delicately balanced land of Persian Carpets and Whole Foods Markets.
That's liberals for you: always ready to fight for the little guy as long as the little guy stays in their own neighborhoods.
Ignoring The Flow of Information
San Francisco's big push for low-flow toilets has turned into a multimillion-dollar plumbing stink.
Skimping on toilet water has resulted in more sludge backing up inside the sewer pipes, said Tyrone Jue, spokesman for the city Public Utilities Commission. That has created a rotten-egg stench near AT&T Park and elsewhere, especially during the dry summer months.
The city has already spent $100 million over the past five years to upgrade its sewer system and sewage plants, in part to combat the odor problem.
Now officials are stocking up on a $14 million, three-year supply of highly concentrated sodium hypochlorite - better known as bleach - to act as an odor eater and to disinfect the city's treated water before it's dumped into the bay. It will also be used to sanitize drinking water.
That translates into 8.5 million pounds of bleach either being poured down city drains or into the drinking water supply every year.
A Don't Bleach Our Bay alert has just gone out from eco-blogger Adam Lowry who argues the city would be much better off using a disinfectant like hydrogen peroxide - or better yet, a solution that would naturally break down the bacteria.
Free Silly: Legal Liberals Petition For The Release of Kidnappers
Thirty-five years ago, three men in their 20s kidnapped a bus full of schoolchildren in the Central Valley town of Chowchilla (Madera County), stuffed them and their driver into a makeshift underground dungeon and demanded a $5 million ransom.
The 27 prisoners dug their way to freedom after 16 hours, the abductors were nabbed and given life terms in prison, and the victims all tried to get on with their lives.
...The Schoenfelds lived in Atherton and Woods lived in Portola Valley. They told relatives they hijacked the school bus at gunpoint on a road in Chowchilla on July 15, 1976, to get money to pay off a $30,000 debt they'd racked up in buying a house.
After piling the driver and all the children into vans, they drove them 100 miles north to Livermore, where they left the prisoners buried in a moving van in a quarry.
That's when, failing to get through overloaded phone lines at the Chowchilla police station, they took a nap. When they woke up, they learned from the radio that their victims had dug themselves free. Richard Schoenfeld turned himself in eight days later, and the other two were captured less than a week later. The Schoenfelds' only brother, John Schoenfeld of Belmont, said his siblings would have jobs waiting if they got out. Richard Schoenfeld, now 57, could work at drafting, and James Schoenfeld, 59, could work in air conditioning, he said.
Retired state appellate court Justice William Newsom, who took part in the 1980 ruling giving the three a chance at parole, said Wednesday that they have paid their debt.
"This is a gross injustice to leave them in prison," Newsom said. "Nobody was physically injured in the kidnapping, and that is a major factor."
Also speaking out for parole was retired Madera County sheriff's Detective Dale Fore, who led the kidnapping investigation. Lead prosecutor David Minier, now a retired Madera County judge, sent a letter in support.
"These were just dumb rich kids who tried to rip a city off, and they've paid hell of a price for what they did," Fore said.
$50,000 a year?! Wow, just imagine the savings! Let's empty the prisons! We can't afford "vengence!" (cut to Gov. Brown nodding enthusiastically)."Vengeance is a luxury California can no longer afford," attorney Scott Handleman said, noting that it costs about $50,000 a year to keep a state prisoner behind bars.
That's straight talk from a decent man who did more in one terrifying afternoon that those three guys in prison have done in their entire lives.Bus driver Ed Ray, 89 and ailing in health, feels just as adamantly that the kidnappers should stay in prison, said his wife.
"We're not for them getting out," Odessa Ray said at their Chowchilla home. "We're thinking those three knew better. They really jeopardized a lot of lives."
If The Schoolhouse Is A-Rockin', Don't Bother Knockin'
A teacher at an East Oakland elementary school has been placed on leave as officials investigate accusations that two of his second-grade students engaged in oral sex in the classroom and that some ran around without their clothes on, a district spokesman said Friday.
Oakland Unified School District officials said the allegations involved students in a classroom at Markham Elementary School, and that the reported conduct happened sometime last week. A student came forward with details of the incidents Wednesday, district spokesman Troy Flint said.
"Acting on early findings, the investigation is leading us to believe that these details have merit," Flint said.
The district placed the teacher on paid administrative leave, Flint said. The teacher told officials that he was unaware of either incident. His name was not released.
Although details of the incidents remain sketchy, authorities said they are investigating reports that a girl and a boy engaged in oral sex in the classroom, Flint said.
When I first heard this story, I thought, no way; maybe the kids were talking about oral sex, or playacting at something and calling it oral sex, or whatever. But, the Free Will wife, who is a child psychologist with a couple years in Oakland working with (euphemism alert) "at-risk populations" under her belt, found the story to be absolutely plausible. There's a lot of prostitution and sex-for-drugs bartering that goes on, usually in front of the kids, who go on to imitate what they see. Pitiful, I know.
I don't think I have to mention that all of this doesn't arise from loose-moraled neo-hippie types living in Marin County mansions. No, this is going on in the other segment of the left-wing base: the ghettos and poor neighborhoods that have been the focus of so much earnest concern, and bottomless Great Society-style programs, all with the same perverse result. As Walter Williams said in the WSJ just this morning: The welfare state has done to black Americans what slavery couldn't do, what Jim Crow couldn't do, what the harshest racism couldn't do," Mr. Williams says. "And that is to destroy the black family.
Maybe liberals are right that budget-cutting Tea Partiers are just white racist crackers. But at least we haven't been using the power of government to destroy generation after generation of minority youth, all the while smugly bragging about how they are "saving" them.
Climate of H8: SF Bay Area Slowly Going Mad From Political Rhetoric
A former Los Angeles deputy city attorney has been charged with assaulting police with a pole after creating a scene at San Francisco International Airport in which she vandalized a coffee kiosk, authorities say.
Angela West, 50, a Harvard Law School graduate, was seen by airport police officers smashing merchandise, milk containers and other food items with a 3-foot-long metal pole at a Peet's Coffee kiosk at SFO on Christmas Eve, said San Mateo County District Attorney Steve Wagstaffe.
When officers tried to speak to her, West "raged" at them and began swinging the pole, which she had taken from a janitor's cart, Wagstaffe said.
An officer had to use a chair to fend off at least 10 blows, authorities said. West then calmed down and sat in a booth, only to start throwing items at the officers, Wagstaffe said.
When the officers tried to arrest her, she kicked one of them in the groin, Wagstaffe said. After being subdued, West shouted out that she was a lesbian and that the officers "should stop trying to have sex with her," the prosecutor said.
West was taken to a hospital and held in a psychiatric ward for a week, Wagstaffe said.
Two of the three men killed over the weekend in a shootout at a San Jose club intended to kidnap the bar's owner, and the third opened fire on the assailants before they could carry out the plan, police say.
The violence at the Mexicali Club on Oakland Road began at about 8:30 p.m. Saturday when Antonio Barraza Allon, 31, and Manuel Rodriguez Barraza, 29, both of Salinas, and a third man came into the bar looking for the owner, police said.
The three wanted to kidnap the owner over an alleged debt, said Officer Jose Garcia, a San Jose police spokesman.
But the three were confronted by a man inside the bar, Manuel Morales Mendosa, 26, who was armed with gun, Garcia said.
A shootout ensued, and Allon and Mendosa were killed, Garcia said. Barraza was also shot and managed to stumble two blocks to a Ford Explorer, where his body was found the next morning.
Another man hit by bullets during the gun battle, Humberto Velasquez Sanchez, 28, of San Lorenzo, was listed in stable condition at a hospital.
A bank employee and another man have been arrested for allegedly staging a bank robbery in San Jose, police said.
Jose Everardo Luna, a teller at the Bank of America at 565 W. Capitol Expressway, pretended to be robbed by Steven Anthony Davis at about 10:15 a.m. Dec. 28, said Officer Jose Garcia, a police spokesman.
Davis handed Luna a demand note, police said, and Luna turned over an undisclosed amount of cash.
Police investigated the case as an actual robbery until Bank of America security personnel determined that Luna had failed to follow certain procedures during holdups, police said without elaborating.
Think Armageddon is near and don't know what to do? Well, you might some take some pointers from Lark Ann Freeman of Fremont, who thought she could be among the survivors by hopping into a U-Haul and conning four men into the vehicle with the promises of money and cigarettes, authorities say.
Freeman, 36, believed the world was going to end in one big earthquake on New Year's Day, said Marin County Deputy District Attorney Linda Witong.
So Freeman got into a U-Haul truck and headed toward Marin County, but not before she kidnapped a 74-year-old man after luring him into the rental truck by telling him she would get him cigarettes in Berkeley, authorities said.
At some point, Freeman picked up three more men and told them she was hiring them as movers, Witong said. She locked them into the back of the U-Haul, prosecutors say.
Everyone ended up at Fort Baker near Sausalito, where Freeman ran a red light at a one-way tunnel in front of a U.S. Park Police car. She led officers on a chase to Rodeo Cove, where she was stopped.
She told police she was affiliated with "Save the World," authorities said.
2010: the Year In Bay Area Sports
Standing Athwart Progress Yelling "STOP!": The Palo Alto Tree v High Speed Rail
Towering 10 stories above the banks of San Francisquito Creek, the El Palo Alto redwood predates the U.S. Constitution by more than 800 years. It is widely believed to have been a campsite for explorer Gaspar de Portola when he discovered San Francisco Bay in 1769.
It has endured everything from ecological changes to economic shifts, all of which left marks on the ecology of this venerable tree. Now it’s entangled in the debate over high-speed rail.
The tree stands within 10 feet of existing Caltrain tracks between the Menlo Park and Palo Alto stations, with commuter trains passing by 90 times every weekday. Initial plans by the California High-Speed Rail Authority called for widening the tracks to accommodate the new rail line, which would put the tree in jeopardy. Proposed alternatives included a trench or raised track.
To be sure, critics cite many reasons for their opposition, including the costs. But in Palo Alto and neighboring communities, the tree has become a budding symbol for why high-speed rail — approved by a majority of the state’s voters in 2008 — needs to be evaluated carefully. Dave Dockter, Palo Alto city arborist and current steward of the tree, said, “I think all of the alternatives have a potentially significant and catastrophic potential to impact the El Palo Alto redwood.”
Modesty Blaze, Pt. 2
A federal civil rights agency sued Abercrombie & Fitch on Wednesday on behalf of an 18-year-old woman who said she applied for her first job at the company's store at the Great Mall in Milpitas and was turned down because she wore a Muslim head scarf.
The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission went to court against Abercrombie & Fitch last year over a similar incident in Tulsa, Okla. In Wednesday's suit, filed in U.S. District Court in San Francisco, the agency again accused the Ohio company of discriminating on the basis of religion.
"This retailer that targets a youth market is sending the message that you cannot aspire to their 'All American' brand if you wear a head covering to comply with your faith," said William Tamayo, the agency's regional attorney.
You may recall a similar complaint made by a San Mateo woman last February. It's an odd trend to say the least. These girls are modest and devout enough to insist on wearing a headscarf, yet they insist on enforcing their right to get a job at Abercrombie & Fitch, a retailer that is ... not known for its modesty or sympathy for the religiously devout. Just wait, after we have gay marriage, the new "civil right" propagated by the Left will be sharia-compliance.
From Russia With Love: Yacht A Arrives In San Francisco
Criminal Mindless
Two Bay Area women were arrested and charged with embezzlement Wednesday after allegedly writing $2.6 million in bonus checks to themselves over a four-year period at a San Francisco software company, prosecutors said.
The investigation started shortly after one of the women, Maria Lourdes B. Dionisio, 46, of Pacifica, filed for unemployment insurance in May after she was fired from the firm for unrelated reasons. Dionisio listed annual pay of nearly $450,000, far above her $63,000 salary, San Francisco District Attorney Kamala Harris said.
Pet Cemetery: San Francisco Readies Pet Shop Ban
Sell a guinea pig, go to jail.
That's the law under consideration by San Francisco's Commission of Animal Control and Welfare. If the commission approves the ordinance at its meeting tonight, San Francisco could soon have what is believed to be the country's first ban on the sale of all pets except fish.
That includes dogs, cats, hamsters, mice, rats, chinchillas, guinea pigs, birds, snakes, lizards and nearly every other critter, or, as the commission calls them, companion animals.
"People buy small animals all the time as an impulse buy, don't know what they're getting into, and the animals end up at the shelter and often are euthanized," said commission Chairwoman Sally Stephens. "That's what we'd like to stop."
San Francisco residents who want a pet would have to go to another city, adopt one from a shelter or rescue group, or find one through the classifieds.
