CITY BACKS AWAY FROM RIGGED ELECTION

Oakland Residents for Peaceful Residents is reporting that the City Council voted not to collect the $12 million LLAD tax that was passed via a rigged election. The council members did not admit any wrongdoing at the meeting, which was held early this morning (Tuesday, July 22, 2008). According to ORPN, Pat Kernighan, who represents our neighbors near Grand Lake, went out of her way to defend the vote. There's great picture on the ORPN site that shows a vacant city lot on 71st Avenue who was given a vote of 169 versus a tidy single-family home across the street whose vote was counted at 67. (The city devised an ingenius -- and certainly illegal -- way of counting the votes so that votes associated with property owned by the city, the county and the Port of Oakland, would be worth more.)