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BAY AREA REPORTER . eBAR.com . 1 July 2010
COMMUNITY
Pride back and punched the back of his head. The other three proceeded to punch and kick Tilton in the head and face, among other places, he said. Tilton, who weighs 250 pounds and is about 6 feet, said, “I’m a big guy so it did take four of them to hold me down.” He also said, “There was so much noise and commotion going on by this point I couldn’t clearly make out much of what was being said at all.” Tilton said the 440 staff pulled him into the bar, which had closed by then. He and his three friends then went to an apartment at 17th and Hartford streets to “regroup,” then walked to 17th and Diamond streets, where Tilton was staying. He said as they left the first apartment, the four alleged assailants were waiting for them. Tilton said they were taunting him and his friends, saying things like, “We’re going to get you.” He said he couldn’t remember them saying
Kaplan ▼
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want to lose the younger officers with less seniority, likely to be among the first to be let go, she is adamant that pension reform is needed. “The Oakland Police Department is the only group that doesn’t pay,” she said. She said that the younger officers “have a lot of skills we need.” They tend to be more diverse, she added, and they have been trained under the new rules that the police department operated under as part of a court settlement stemming from the Riders police brutality case. “Losing them, in my mind, is not the right way to go,” she said.
Council record When Kaplan ran for city council two years ago, she had the support of only two of the eight council members, Desley Brooks and Nancy Nadel. She went on to win the atlarge seat with 62 percent of the city-
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mary. Laird’s spin can only be described as factually inaccurate and just plain silly.”
Long, hot summer It is sure to be a long, hot summer for both candidates and their party backers. This week Laird challenged Blakeslee to debate him in each of the five counties that are covered in the sprawling 15th Senate District. Laird is proposing that the League of Women Voters moderate the forums. “The voters of the 15th District deserve more than 30 campaign ads
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D.C. next week for its Fourth of July recess, and the summer recess in August, there’s not much time left before members head out on the campaign trail in the fall ahead of the November midterm elections. Speier also said that right now there are 290 bills in the Senate awaiting action that the House has already passed. Pelosi spokesman Drew Hammill said Monday that the number was now over 300 bills. “A lot depends on the Senate,” Speier said.
Promises, promises Local LGBT leaders reacted strongly to Speier’s comments, calling
Ray Tilton, as he appeared after being beaten over Pride weekend.
Courtesy Ray Tilton
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anything anti-gay. He said at that point, a friend called the police. He didn’t know why the police weren’t called before. He said he and his friends took refuge in the doorway of Orphan Andy’s, a nearby diner. At the same time, he said, the four other people sat down at a table at 17th Street Plaza, which is outside the diner. Between 2 and 3 a.m., the police and an ambulance arrived, said Tilton. He said that while he was in the ambulance, the alleged assailants were brought to the door one by one so he could identify them. He said the ambulance driver held his hand during the process and “the police were great.” Tilton said that he and the others were surprised the other four hadn’t run when police arrived. “I don’t know if they were trying to wait for us again to come from Orphan Andy’s or if they were so stupid they didn’t realize we were calling the police,” said Tilton. Tilton said all four were arrested at the scene. Lieutenant Lyn Tomioka, a spokeswoman for the San Fran-
cisco Police Department, said Otis Cooley, 28, of Emeryville; Derek Price, 27, of San Leandro; Laselle Manning, 31, of Mesa, California; and Deonsay Roberts, who will be 19 in July and lives in Oakland were all cited for misdemeanor battery and released. She said their court date is August 23. Tilton has formed a Red Saturday group on Facebook to call attention to violence. He said there are plans to have a rally Saturday, July 3, at 6 p.m. at 17th Street Plaza. Also on Saturday, according to Tomioka, there was one arrest for hit-and-run at the Dyke March involving somebody on a motorcycle. In other events that occurred Saturday, four intoxicated people were temporarily detained, and there was also an arrest for malicious mischief to a police vehicle, said Tomioka. She said on Sunday, June 27, at the Pride Parade, three intoxicated people were detained temporarily; there was one arrest for misdemeanor battery; and there was one citation for having an open container and urinating in public.▼
wide vote; she received 85,000 votes. “I was elected by more votes than any other elected official in Oakland – ever,” Kaplan said, as she and her consultant, Jim Ross, acknowledged that the voter turnout in the November 2008 election of Barack Obama was very high. Nonetheless, a map of those 2008 results shows that Kaplan carried virtually every part of the city. The one exception was the area northeast of Piedmont, but that was the neighborhood of Kaplan’s opponent, former Perata staffer and school board member Kerry Hamill. Regarding her time on the council, Kaplan said she has “felt very good about being there.” A cabaret reform ordinance has been passed, she said, to help development in the entertainment sector. There were live music restrictions that were addressed. A law was also approved that updated downtown zoning, “to attract more economic opportunity to downtown,” she said. Last July, the city council put four budget measures on the ballot in a
special election; all passed, including one to tax proceeds from medical cannabis. Earlier this year, the council unanimously adopted an ordinance to remove an 1879 law that prohibited the wearing of clothes of the “opposite sex.” Kaplan, who wears suits, likes to joke that before the law was passed she could have been arrested because of her attire. On a more serious note, Kaplan said the council approved an ordinance regarding vacant foreclosures, which give the city options in working with banks on vacant properties that are blight. “Politics is very much separate from the day-to-day work,” Kaplan said of her colleagues and the council’s work. “I work with everybody.” Kaplan said she agreed with fellow council member Brooks’s criticism of the city’s budget process. And she said that Brooks has also been involved in efforts to fight blight. Prior to serving on the city council, Kaplan was the elected at-large
member of the AC Transit board. If Oakland is to thrive as an urban center, Kaplan said that a vibrant arts scene is crucial. Already, the city’s new Uptown District is bustling with restaurants and the renovated Fox Theatre. The nearby Paramount Theatre, she said, needs more programming. The board that oversees the Paramount came under criticism earlier this year when gay resident Sean Sullivan led a protest of the reappointment of longtime board member Lorenzo Hoopes, a retired leader in the Mormon Church who contributed heavily to the campaign to pass Proposition 8, the same-sex marriage ban. Dellums pulled not only Hoopes’s nomination, but those of three other people. The mayor has met with small groups of LGBT people in an effort to find qualified out people to serve on the board. Kaplan said earlier this month that that process is continuing. She
said she has met with the board and staff of the Paramount and other LGBT leaders in Oakland. Specifically, she noted that more programming at the theater would attract a wider segment of the community. “How we make the asset more strongly connected to the entire community, which would bring in more business,” Kaplan said, is something she is working on. “To me, that has to be fixed.” The Paramount, she said, is a “micro-example” of “a gorgeous building in a hopping area” where on “most nights nothing is there.” “We absolutely have to have more LGBT programming but I don’t want just LGBT programming,” she said. “Oakland’s LGBT community is part of the solution to these issues.” To Kaplan, a busy Uptown means jobs. How to accomplish economic revitalization that benefits everybody is part of her mayoral platform. That means “real local hiring policies,” she said, so that the benefit re-circulates in the community.▼
and twice-a-day attack mailers on how either of us would deal with these problems,” wrote Laird in a letter sent to Blakeslee. “As the economy staggers forward, teachers are laid off, local public safety programs are threatened, the middle class is priced out of higher education, and the Central Coast visitor-serving industry is hit by the possible further reduction of open hours for state parks – the voters need to hear from each candidate on their solutions. They need to hear these solutions in a forum that allows for thoughtful discussion and for the public to ask questions of each candidate.” As of press time Wednesday, Blakeslee had yet to take up Laird on his debate offer.
“We are going to keep asking because he didn’t appear anywhere in the primary,” said Laird. “We are going to do our best to meet with him.” Should Laird win, he would be the fourth out person serving in the state Senate. Following Wilson’s defeat, there are now three non-incumbent gay Democrats and two gay Republicans seeking Assembly seats this fall. Currently, the Assembly has two gay male members: Tom Ammiano (DSan Francisco) and Assembly Speaker John A. Perez (D-Los Angeles). They are both seeking re-election this year.
All five Democrats are expected to win, though former San Diego City Councilwoman Toni Atkins, an out lesbian who briefly served as her city’s mayor, is facing a strong challenge from her gay GOP opponent, Ralph Denney, in their match-up for the 76th Assembly District seat. Denney has twice before sought the seat, and this week he boasted to reporters that he received 53 percent in an unscientific online poll conducted by the San Diego Gay and Lesbian Times, versus Atkins’s 47 percent showing. “I think this poll indicates the growing frustration in this community with the Democrats’ inability to not only deliver on LGBT rights, but also their inability to govern respon-
sibly,” stated Will RodriguezKennedy, president of Log Cabin Republicans of San Diego County, in an e-mail from Denney’s campaign. Should Denney pull off a surprise victory, he would be the first openly gay Republican candidate to win election to state office. State Senator Roy Ashburn (R-Bakersfield) came out this year while in office. No matter who wins the state’s first gay versus gay general election contest, the four-person LGBT Legislative Caucus in Sacramento should number at least seven members come 2011 and potentially could have eight people if Laird wins. Ashburn is not considered a member of the caucus and is termed out of office this year.▼
them a departure from what Pelosi had promised during a phone call she had with them in May. During that May 17 call, Pelosi “was very clear that ENDA would pass the House with enough time to pass the Senate this year,” Equality California Executive Director Geoff Kors told the B.A.R. Tuesday. Kors was on that call with Pelosi, as was Masen Davis, executive director of the Transgender Law Center. Both were also at the Alice breakfast. Davis told the B.A.R. that he grew concerned when he heard Speier’s remarks from the podium. LGBT groups have been pushing Pelosi hard in recent weeks to make sure she brings ENDA up for a floor vote. During Sunday’s Pride Parade, Davis said that about 1,200 signs were distributed to other contingents and
those watching the parade. The blue and white placards read, “Pelosi Promised. ENDA Now.” Many were visible along the parade route. “Everything we’ve been told led us to believe ENDA would hit the floor this year,” Davis said Tuesday. Asked for his reaction to Speier’s comment, Davis was blunt. “That means we’ll have five years of people being fired,” he said. “Putting a five-year time limit on the bill feels out of touch.” Kors said five years “is not acceptable.” “This may be the best Congress we have in a decade,” he added. Davis was adamant that a House vote on ENDA must happen this year. “We believe it’s time for movement in the House,” he said. “No vote is a failed vote.”
Despite Pelosi’s statements to local leaders in last month’s conference call, in her video message played at Sunday’s Pride festival, no mention was made about a vote on ENDA. “And as for ENDA, we will not stop working until we pass an inclusive Employment Non-Discrimination Act. This has been a priority of mine for nearly two decades, and your continued advocacy is essential to our success,” Pelosi said in the taped message. Hammill told the B.A.R. this week that Pelosi remains committed to passing ENDA this year. “Passing ENDA this year is a top priority for the speaker,” Hammill said. Kors and Davis both mentioned the current economic downturn and
high unemployment rate among LGBTs, particularly in the transgender community. “In a difficult economic climate, it is abhorrent not to pass protections for some of the most vulnerable members of our community, especially when public support for ENDA is higher than for other priorities Congress has pushed through,” Kors said. Kors also said he was concerned about the midterm elections. “I’m worried LGBT people won’t vote in the midterms” if Pelosi’s promise is not kept, he said. “That would be disastrous for LGBT rights but it’s understandable. People felt they did work, gave money, and lobbied members only to see once again being pushed to the back of the line.”▼
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