According to the San Leandro Community Action Network's latest e-newsletter, City Council candidate Ursula Reed just picked up some huge support.
Actor Danny Glover has apparently taken a personal interest in Reed's campaign and will be coming to San Leandro on Saturday to speak at a reception for her.
Wondering how this all happened? Her campaign manager, Terrell Santiago, said Glover heard about Reed "through a friend of a friend." After their conversation, Glover, who is known to be pretty politically active, apparently asked what he could do to help.
In addition to coming to support Reed's campaign, Glover will be talking about his upcoming film, which is about Toussaint L'Ouverture, who led the Haitian slave revolt against the French colonial regime in 1791.
The Hayward Chamber of Commerce will hold a Gourmet Gala to raise funds for the Measure I campaign from 5:30 to 8:30 p.m. Thursday at Stonebrae Country Club, 222 Country Club Drive.
The exclusive event will feature food prepared by Stonebrae's Executive Chef, Richard A. Bailey, and will provide attendees an opportunity to hear more about the bond. For tickets or for more information, call 510-537-2424.
Still think San Leandro is virtually unknown to the outside world? Well, think again.
The city's unconventional marketing campaign to attract folks to downtown, aptly called "I Am San Leandro," apparently is attracting some unconventional interest.
A LiveJournal blogger recently wrote an entry about his fascination with one of the marketing campaign's tools. In the entry, he stated that he had been at a restaurant in Berkeley and noticed a small cut-out of a man used for the "I Am San Leandro" campaign (pictured above). Then he went on to say that he was so fascinated by the cut-out, he decided to name it "San Leandro" because, on the back, it read "I Am San Leandro." The next part is too hilarious to summarize. He went on to say:
I have been carrying him around in my backpack ever since, trying to decide what to do with him, and my current trip to Palm Desert has finally given me the answer. So, much like the Travelling Gnome and other such efforts, I have taken on the wholly unoriginal task of carrying San Leandro with me, taking photos whenever I can be bothered to remember it and hopefully not destroying his fragile paper body in the process. Wish him luck.
Unbeknownst to the blogger, the cut-out is not just some random piece of paper. It is actually a photo of a real person. In fact, it is San Leandro planner Elmer Penaranda. That was supposed to be the whole point of the marketing campaign: to show folks not familiar with San Leandro what the city is all about and that all kinds of people live and work there.
But I guess the blogger didn't quite get that point. Instead, he wrote that he will be taking his "little San Leandro" along with him on various trips for a few "traveling gnome"-type photo ops.
At least San Leandro is getting some props. But it makes one wonder: Are the people this marketing campaign was hoping to target — retailers — getting it?
In what may be a recent record, the San Francisco Chronicle has published two Hayward-centric stories within a matter of weeks that are not about crime or carnivores.
The first was by architecture critic John King, who had one take on downtown ("half-inch-thin brick is pasted ... alongside brick-red stucco") last year and a bit of a new take ("fragrant wisteria bloom(s)") this year.
The other was by golf writer Roy Kroichick, who revealed today that the Stonebrae Country Club golf course has a new name and new affiliation with the PGA Tour. Jane Sacco, vice president of Vox Populi, Stonebrae's PR consultant, said this insider golfball scoop was the result of her firm being "under non-disclosure" with the bigger paper.
And in what other others are saying about others, our cutthroat rivals at the Fremont Argus point out that the Chronicle also made a springtime visit to Lake Elizabeth.
Contract talks appear to be heating up between San Leandro teachers and the school district. Union leaders have sent this letter to staff at Pleasanton Middle School, where school board member Lisa Hague is a history and journalism teacher.
Teachers at PMS took offense to the letter, as outlined in this e-mail:
To the members of the executive board of SLTA,
The teachers at Pleasanton Middle School received a letter from Brian Kennedy of behalf of the SLTA dated April 21, 2008 (copy attached). The letter is slanderous. It is an example of the least professional behavior I have seen in my eight years of teaching.
Ms. Hague is the hardest working educator that I know. She is an outstanding teacher and communicator. She is one of the strongest teacher-advocates that I know. Her manner is professional at all times.
She is well-respected throughout the Pleasanton Unified School District, including teachers, administrators, union members, and non-union members, like myself.
If this is how the teachers in San Leandro are represented, it is apparent why there is an impasse in the negotiations.
Leni Seymon
Algebra Teacher/Math Department Chair
Pleasanton Middle School
As promised by today's story on a shoe fanatic's passion turned into a play at Chabot College, here are The 10 Sneaker Commandments by Kevin Palofox:
1. Thou shalt always bring heat!!!!
You always got to have a fly pair of shoes on. You want to be walking down the street breaking necks, meaning people are turning and looking hard at your kicks (shoes).
2. Thou shalt not rock (wear) beaters even if they are vintage.
Even if you have a pair of original Air Jordans 1's from 1984 — which is cool because they're classic — they're more than likely to be beat up because they're so old. You don't want to look like you took your shoes from a bum. Really, you want to always be wearing something nice and crispy.
3. Three is the magic number.
One pair to rock, one to store for the future and one to store, lose and later find to rock (wear) 10 years from now.
4. Thou shalt not camp out less than six to 12 hours for a highly anticipated release, or no more than two days.
Beyond that, you really have no hookup or no life. If you don't put in the time, you'll most likely lose out in getting the goods, but if you put in too much time — like, say, two days in line — then that's pretty extreme.
5. Thou shalt not exceed or recede more than one, maybe 1.5 shoe sizes.
Does the neighborhood where a City Council member lives impact how the official serves the community at large? This question has come up before — in Hayward, there are no districts so all council members are elected citywide. As our map below shows, certain neighborhoods, such as those in the hills, tend to attract a lot of candidates. Meanwhile, there are no candidates running from the vast and populated area between I-880 and Mission Boulevard.
According to the San Leandro Community Action Network's latest e-newsletter, City Council candidate Ursula Reed just picked up some huge support.
Still think San Leandro is virtually unknown to the outside world? Well, think again.
