SCOOTY TIME

Back home--meaning, the back South version of back home--there used to be an older woman who, under certain unusual circumstances, would raise her hands, roll her eyes, and declare, "Oh, my God, it's scooty-time again." By "scooty-time," I think she meant a series of odd, unexplained circumstances that were not especially remarkable or noteworthy in and of themselves, but put together in a long string, they added up to a condition of general looniness. As for me, "scooty-time" always gave me the image of a pack of old men wearing dark shades and riding scooters, running around in circles bumping smack into each other and anything else that got in the way. But maybe it's the same thing.

Scooty-time.

Bill Lockyer, the Attorney General of the state of California and a member of the Democratic Party, without apparent prompting, announces a few days after the gubernatorial election that he cast a vote for Mr. Schwarzenegger, a Republican, in that election. This is very much like Red Queen justice from the Alice stories (if you haven't read the book, you might not get the reference, so just skip over this next part if that's the case). First came the election. Then came the announcement of support. Next will come?what??an announcement that Mr. Schwarzenegger is free and clear of any sexual battery crimes he might have been accused of? (Has that already happened? And in advance of a trial, too.) In any event, figuring out why Mr. Lockyer favored us with these particular revelations is like trying to plot a graph from one dot on a piece of paper. You'll just have to wait for the next move, which is sure to come.

Five years and some five hundred violent deaths after he was hired as Chief of Police of Oakland, Richard Word releases a plan to reduce violence in our city. I don't mean no harm to a fellow who seems like a decent-enough guy, but don't you think this might have been one of the first things the Chief should have taken up?

Alameda's own Don Perata gets elected to the California State Senate in a special election to serve out the second half of the four-year term of Barbara Lee after Ms. Lee trades up to Congress. Mr. Perata serves two years, and then gets elected for a full four-year term. Now he wants to run for another four-year term, but finds that he is blocked by the voter-approved term limit law, which says, pretty emphatically, that he can run again only if that first two-year term he served was "less than half of the full (four-year) term." Not to worry, says the afore-mentioned State Attorney General Lockyer. Even though he was elected in November of 1998, Mr. Perata did not actually first report for work in until December 7th, three days after all the other legislators reported. Because of this, according to Mr. Lockyer, Mr. Perata served less than half of that first four year term, and just last week, a California Superior Court Judge agreed. And so, solely because he reported late for work on his first day on the job, Mr. Perata is declared eligible to run for the State Senate past the normal term limit time. And you thought there were no rewards for being a slacker.

On May 30th of this year, the State Superintendent took over the Oakland Unified School District because the district's budget was out of balance and the district was forced to take out a $100 million loan from the state. The State Superintendent hired Randolph Ward to run the Oakland schools, taking all control out of the hands of the city's elected School Board. Some of that control is supposed to be returned to the elected School Board after certain criteria is met. In a report issued last month, the state-sanctioned school oversight group called FCMAT (the Fiscal Crisis and Management Team) spelled out that criteria, saying the Oakland schools must bring up its standards in five areas: Community Relations and Governance, Personnel Management, Pupil Achievement, Financial Management, and Facilities Management. Problem is, the person responsible for bringing up the district's standards in those five areas is?guess who??Randolph Ward. Maybe I'm reading this wrong, but doesn't this seem to mean that so long as he keeps the Oakland schools below FCMAT's standards, Mr. Ward gets to keep running Oakland's schools?

And, finally? Earlier this year, the City of Oakland reached an agreement with Camden USA builders of Texas to put up a high-rise housing project between Preservation Park and the Dellums Federal Building. As part of the deal, Camden agreed to buy the vacant property from the city for $7 million. But now that the deal has been signed, Camden says that because of the downturn in the rental market, they want a guarantee that the city will return to them half of that $7 million if Camden doesn't make enough of a profit on the project. According to the Tribune, "[Oakland] Redevelopment Agency Director Dan Vanderpriem said [this proposed rebate is] not a subsidy because Camden is still paying the appraised market value for the land if not more, even if the city gives something back." Is this what my Republican friends call "fuzzy math"?

Or is it merely what that lady used to call "scooty-time"?