After having done very little positive in Oakland, aside from getting himself back into the public eye--and that was only self-serving and harmful to Oakland--Jerry Brown leaves Oakland worst off than he found it.

The crime rate is sky high (140+ murders this year) and employment rates for Black youths higher than most  Bay Area cities. While here, he put his long time crony and past housemate, Jacque Barzaghi, on the city's payroll without any real duties. But even without real duties as he pulled down a salary of some $78,000 a year, he managed to sexually harass a female employee, which the city had to pay damages to.

His bald friend was such a continuous embarrassment to the city through beating his wife, carrying a gun, and other unseemly acts that finally exiled him back to France. But that exile was only temporary, while Brown was campaigning for the Attorney General's office.

Since Brown is now the Attorney General-elect, look for the return of Jacque Barzaghi from France as a Brown sidekick in Sacramento that he will put on the public till again. He has been with Brown since governor and as Mayor of Oakland; This strange life-long friend will be back again as a Brown crony in Sacramento as Brown tries to reinvent himself as innovative and some wiz kid or geek.

Jerry Brown has never been good at anything other than promoting Jerry Brown. He did very little as governor; his father was a governor, Jerry was just a stand-in. In Oakland, he was a disaster as mayor. He thought that recruiting more whites into the city was innovative and good to others as it felt good to him.

His opponent for Attorney General rightly labeled Brown a "fictional crime fighter." He was correct about that because under Brown's mayoral leadership, crime has gone up, although Brown lied about his record. In fact, with Brown's fear of going into the community and talking with problematic elements of the community who are engaging in crime, along with his friend Barzaghi, who was adding to the crime statistics, Brown did more to enhance crime than he did to decrease it.

If you are going to be a mayor of a city that has a 61% Black population, you cannot be afraid to sit and talk to Black people. You cannot interview on national TV as though you are ridding herd on a Black city as some type of geek white mayor. That is odorous to the Black population of that city.

It will be interesting to see what he will do as Attorney General of California. He has done nothing good for Oakland, but we hope that he will not carry that do-nothing practice into the AG's office. Jerry Brown talks a good show to the simple-minded, but he does not know what to do when leadership is necessary, especially when Blacks are heavily involved. Thankfully, the AG position will not present these problems for him.

Simond Griote
12/4/06

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