thinks we’re a ship of fools.

Quick note to address the misinformation published in The Alameda Sun recently.

There is no group of local activists called Raising Hell for Good. There is no RHG acronym.  Raising Hell is merely my blog. D’oh.

Letter to the State AG: The group of people who wrote and signed a request for an investigation into the city corruption to CA AG Kamala Harris are a group of friends who have HAD IT and thought it appropriate to engage the state AG and expedite a letter thereto. The signers are unaffiliated with my blog; I  just happen to be one of the signers; and the letter was sent quite a while ago, not last week. Our primary issue is that we have a right as residents to expect our fire services to at least meet contemporary standards in the industry of firefighting and actually, oh, rescue us and protect us and our environment, and we gave proof that we have been receiving substandard fire response and performance in the City of Alameda repeatedly, year after year, that is correlated deaths in years past, recent extreme toxic pollution to individual, public, and environmental health, and culminating in the death of Mr. Zack. It’s gotten worse, not better. We are not safe, people have died, and we need help because we have repeatedly asked for help from fire management, city management, the county DA, the county grand jury, and all have been unresponsive.

Dom Weaver (local fire union president) wants you to think that all those who signed this letter are all DeHaan supporters. He’s trying to get you to believe that there’s a politically split faction at play here. That couldn’t be further from the truth. …

Political $$.

During the first six months of this year, January 1, 2011 to June 30, 2011, the 2010 political campaigns for our mayor and every city council member except Mr. DeHaan received monies from the same donor.

Gilmore: $1,000

Bonta: $2,500

Tam: $5,000

Johnson: $2,000

$10,500 in total. From who? The Alameda Firefighters Political Action Committee (AFA PAC), that’s who!

That’s right. The Alameda firefighters made sizeable donations to the elected officials while the firefighters were negotiating their contract with the city. Ahem: our elected officials accepted these donations while they were negotiating the firefighters contract. Source documents are here.

Johnson, ignored by the AFA PAC in 2010, suddenly this year, in 2011, gets money from the AFA PAC for her 2010 campaign. Why? Moreover, her FPPC (Fair Political Practices Commission) filings show she also paid the Local IAFF 689 Printshop $10,000 (!) for mailers and/or fliers. HUH?

And those four—GilBonTamJo—who accepted those monies, voted to approve a contract that got ZERO concessions in pay & benefits from current fire employees. This is what is known as trading in influence. It is corruption.

And then there’s this little tidbit reported on over at Action Alameda News: The Boys & Girls Club made a donation this year to Gilmore’s 2010 campaign for mayor. This is a BIG NO-NO. Both the B&G Club and Gilmore know that no political candidate can receive donations from a 503(c) corporation, that no 503(c) corporation can make a donation to a political candidate. The rules are very, very clear. And this kind of thing really rubs the IRS the wrong way. And rubs the FPPC too: there’s that little thing Gilmore’s supposed to check before she signs her FPPC form: accuracy and legality of donations and payments.

More corruption than you can shake a stick at in our city and everyone involved in the corruption expects us to think this is normal, just people helping each other out. What the heck.

I sure hope yawl are outraged about these very real facts, this data. Because if you aren’t, then seriously, Alameda: we have a problem and it is you. For we have nothing less on our hands than a ship of fools.