Thursday, February 28, 2013

Mayor Quan Promotes a Class For Adults - On How To Pick Locks. Really?

This one defies belief.

In a city where the murder rate is high, burglaries are soaring and neighbors are forming vigilante street patrols (more on that bit tomorrow!), Oakland Mayor Jean Quan was out there this week promoting a class that teaches people how to pick locks? Come on, Oakland, we can do a bit better than this!

Yes, she has apologized, and yes, the class she promoted is geared towards people who misplace their keys and are locked out. But really, such blundering only inflames the city's public image and is easy fodder for all the Bay Area news outlets and the eWallStreeter.


No, really, officer - I totally lost my keys. I'm a total klutz like that. That's why I always make sure NEVER to misplace my lockpicking set.

Personally, I like the SF Weekly blog's take, and headline: WTF? Mayor Jean Quan Promotes Lock-Picking Classes, Gives Young Burglars a Chance to Suceed

Also take time to read the comments that followed the SF Weekly entry. Priceless.

Wednesday, February 27, 2013

Good Golfing in The Oakland Area is NOT an Oxymoron, Thank You Very Much

I detest this quote attributed to Mark Twain: "Golf is a good walk spoiled."

In fact, some dispute if he ever said that. As one who caddied for my dad when I was a 10, golf is a lifetime joy. I spent more quality time with my dad playing golf than anywhere else, and he would have loved the choice and access to good, basic golf in and around Oakland.

The public courses are well maintained, relatively cheap, and often bask in the East Bay sunshine, whether along the coast or up in the hills. None of these courses is more than $60 on weekends (I think Tilden is $65 with cart), and the bonhomie is real and welcoming - no snobs, just good folk. I've played with stroke victims who cherish every moment outdoors, I've introduced friends to Carlotta's grilled hotdogs at the 12th in Lake Chabot. I've shared twilight fairways with deer and turkey buzzards.

I've made friends at Lake Chabot, where on a clear day, the view from the 15th fairway to Oakland, Bay Bridge, San Francisco, Golden Gate and Marin is just astonishing.

The best practice area is at Oakland Metropolitan, by Oakland Airport, where the natural turf is more forgiving that plastic mats. Just north of the airport are two courses at the Chuck Corica golf complex in Alameda. You can always find a game here.

I wonder about the private course at Sequoyah, which this year celebrates its centennial, and while I love the views from Grizzly Peak Boulevard in Berkeley, I haven't played yet at Tilden Park. I just keep hearing you have to allow up to 6 hours to play on weekends, and that just is too much.

I will be playing soon at Monarch Bay in San Leandro just south of Oakland airport and will report back soon.

What's your favorite course?

Tuesday, February 26, 2013

Should Oakland Downsize First Friday?

First Friday & Art Murmur are good. Shootings are bad. When those two issues collide...

I watched several Oakland City Councilmembers the other week debate whether to cut back on First Friday street fairs (also known as Art Murmur) after a young man was fatally shot and three others wounded on February 1 at the end of what had been another crowded and busy monthly downtown festival.

Councilmembers Larry Reid and Desley Brooks said the street fair should be scaled back to the art walk it once was for neighborhood galleries, and that Oakland can't afford to shift 30 officers from their regular neighborhood beats to provide beefed up security for the monthly event. Lynette Gibson McElhaney defended the First Friday, pointing out the positive publicity it has brought Oakland and warning councilmembers not to throw the baby out with the bath water.

These monthly events bring thousands of people to the city's uptown and downtown districts - the music, the food, the dancing and street theater - and the economic activity is vibrant and spreading. The Trib reports that the next First Friday event will be smaller - but I hope the city's reaction will be moderate. I always have time for Robert Gammon at the East Bay Express, who says no one called for an end to football at Candlestick Park when two fans were shot in 2011. He believes it would be a mistake for Oakland to downsize or eliminate First Fridays, and I agree with him.

What do you think? Should we downsize First Friday in the name of preventing crime and other mishaps?

Saturday, February 16, 2013

Sex Positivity.

Why bother with a longer headline? If the words "sex positivity" don't set the hook, what will?

Okay. It's Valentine's Day, and I thought taking my girlfriend to a fancy romantic restaurant in San Rafael would be a nice night out. A little traditional, maybe a little conservative. Staid, even. But that's pretty much the kind of person I am. I put on my "try to be a little more exciting" hat and cast around looking for some ideas other than the standard dinner out, just to see what else might be worth doing. I took a look at Oaklandlocal.com and what do I find -- a whole feature promoting "sex positivity" for women through adult boutiques in Oakland.

I know I've been away for a while, but where did this come from, when did this start, and is it basically just for women?

First stop: wikipedia. I need answers. Is this some sort of strange New Hedonism movement? A throwback to the Summer of Love? What in the heck is sex positivity? I was ready to be all weirded out. Of course, after a little research, it turns out it's a pretty normal, healthy idea, just with a strange name. Although, around here, it seems to be heavily female focused...which seemed a little strange.

The headline says Oakland is "home to several sex-positive businesses that offer more than retail". You see some adult boutiques in Oakland and Alameda that offer sex toys and tips and advice, they only mention women. Then there is this outreach to your home that sounds like a 21st century version of Tupperware or Avon Calling, where someone shows up on your doorstep with a bunch of sex toys for a passion party - but again, for women-only.

A friend of mine in Chicago started a website called Get Lusty and that has some contributions from men, but it seems like that might be an isolated example.

Sex positivity ought to reach out to everyone... I think. Right? Equal...positivity? I think this bears some further investigation, and discussion. Interesting concept and idea, and who's not for a more open, enlightened understanding of human sexuality? But if we're going to be open, and enlightened, and allow for a better understanding of this among everyone, shouldn't men be involved?

Anyway, it all sounded interesting, enticing, and possibly educational...but we ended up going out to dinner. And I'll just stop the story there ; )

Thursday, February 7, 2013

A Pretty Trashy Story!

I don't expect to win converts overnight, but, trash is nasty, and there is a fascinating,disturbing garbage monopoly story about a company in San Francisco that wants to spread to Oakland, Solano County and other parts of northern California.

Recology has held a 70-year monopoly on trash-hauling in San Francisco (you might remember it in a previous iteration as Nor-Cal).

Last year it spent $1.7 million to defeat a city referendum that would have opened garbage collection to competitive bidding. Last weekend a state appeals court reinstated a lawsuit by a former Recology employe who says the company made fraudulent overpayments in its recycling program and fired him for reporting it to superiors and police.

According to the San Francisco Chronicle, Brian McVeigh was a supervisor at Recology's Pier 96 recycling center and later managed its buy-back center in Brisbane, where customers would be paid cash for turning in glass and metal to be recycled. At both sites, he said, he learned that employees were over-reporting weights for the trash they took in and were overpayng customers, perhaps in exchange for kickbacks.

Luke Thomas outlined the fraud scheme in the Fog City Journal last May.

McVeigh, his lawyers say, was shocked to discover that employees at the Recology recycling center where he worked were regularly inflating the weight of cans and bottles brought in by certain individuals. After further investigation McVeigh and his lawyers claim in court filings, they uncovered broader schemes to bilk government recycling programs. David Anton, one of McVeigh's lawyers, said those schemes could cost the company nearly $10 million in false claim fines. Under the False Claims Act, McVeigh could be awarded 15 to 25 percent of any recovery.

How did the scheme work? Recology’s scheme defrauded two separate government programs, Anton said. At the state level, money paid by consumers when they purchase goods in cans or glass bottles goes into the California Redempton Value (CRV) fund. Money is given back to the consumer when they recycle those goods at centers like Recology’s. Recology applied for reimbursement from the CRV funds based on the weight of the recyclables whey collect and that value is reported by employees who received kickbacks for inflating the weight for certain customers, McVeigh contends in court filings. At one center, Anton said, the inflation accounts for $1-2 million in increased CRV claims for Recology.

In San Francisco, Recology receives bonuses from the city when it meets certain thresholds for diverting waste away from landfills and into recycling programs. According to McVeigh and his lawyers, Recology over-reports the amount of diverted waste by co-mingling it with waste from third party facilities, as well as other schemes. The fraud, Anton said, is largely possible because of Recology’s monopoly on waste removal in San Francisco.

“Recology has a non-competition situation, they’re able to make San Francisco look good by having good recycling programs,” Anton said. Recology “shouldn’t need to fake the numbers to get a few million more dollars into their pocket, but they’re been doing that.”

If true, imagine the potential for further fraud if the scheme was extended to Oakland under a waste contract awarded to Recology that would permit San Francisco waste to be brought to Oakland and hauled together up to Yuba County or Solano County.

The kicker about fraudulent claims actually took place last October, when Mayor Ed Lee, who has enjoyed political support from Recology, announced with great fanfare that San Francisco had reached 80 percent of landfill diversion, waste that was being recycled instead of going into landfills. A bold and impressive claim, except that it was promptly questioned by a source no less credible that a national waste association. Chaz Miller, state programs director for the Environmental Industry Associations, wrote in Waste 360 last month about how San Francisco’s shiny new diversion rate begins to break down under scrutiny.

You may need a calculator to sort this out, but San Francisco brags that it is recycling 80 percent of its waste, meaning it sends only 20 percent to landfills and the rest is landfill diversion. However, the only figure the city’s press release gave was for 444,000 tons of waste that were landfilled. It gave no tonnage or percentage figures for recycling or composting, nor did it say how much waste was generated. So how, Miller asks, can it say how much it diverted and if it set any recycling records?

If the city sent 20 percent of its waste to landfills, then it generated 2,220,000 tons of waste. If San Francisco stands by that number then each man, woman and child in San Francisco generated 2.73 tons of trash last year, or more than three times as much as EPA’s estimated national per person waste generation rate.

Yet, the City announced grandly in October its 80-percent landfill diversion rate!

More on this to come, sooner than later. If you have any information to help us explore this amazing story further, email me at madivan@rocketmail.com

Monday, February 4, 2013

Oakland Schools Praised for Green Gloves Food Waste Composting Program

Image Source: OaklandNorth.net
Whenever I hear the words "waste" and "Oakland," I think of illegal trash dumped on our city streets.

Critics often point to dumping waste as part of that "broken-window" syndrome that drags down Oakland neighborhoods with low self-esteem, as families and kids get used to piles of garbage thrown out of cars and trucks.

So it was good to read that Oakland kids were praised last month for a unique school food waste composting program by a national waste industry magazine, Waste Age. Green Gloves has been teaching children, parents and custodians to separate out food scraps at lunchtime for composting in nearly half the city's schools.

It may be only a small lesson, but the Green Gloves/Sustainability Initiatives gives our kids a better image than illegal dumping, even if that still goes on outside the schools. Waste Management, the Houston-based contractor that holds Oakland's garbage contract, worked with about 20 schools to start the composting program three or four years ago.

Things really took off after Waste Management, the Alameda County Waste Management Authority and the school district custodians director concluded that school custodians should be more involved to make the program a success - and that means changing the mindset of 230 permanent custodians and 75 substitutes.

There are several lessons here: progressive program, environmental awareness, involving kids and their schools and parents, and finally, getting the custodians themselves to lead the change.

Oakland North wrote in more detail about the program at one elementary school. Good vibes all around.