NorCalUrban

Sam, Melissa and I went to see M. Ward last night. The newly renovate Fox Theatre in Oakland is truly amazing. It's a restored 1920's movie palace. It could now be my favorite venue for shows in the Bay.  M. was amazing. He's the real deal, for sure. An amazing guitarist, intriguing vocalist and brought along a stellar backing band. He'll be around for a long time - I'm sure. Here's video: 

Reflections from Jackson For the better part of the last year I’ve been working on the Emerging Leader’s Initiative for the Christian Community Development Association (CCDA). This initiative is designed to recognize and empower the emerging leaders within CCDA. John Perkins, Wayne Gordon, Mary Nelson and many others originally founded CCDA in the 1980’s. These men and women were very tight-nit and have a strong bond of friendships. CCDA has now grown to be many thousands of people. As a board we’ve been concerned about the aging of the leadership of the Association and I was tasked to develop and lead this initiative. The initiative revolves around choosing 20 or so individuals, we call them cohorts, to journey together for a year. The cohorts are mostly leaders under 40 years old who are in primary leadership in a CCDA member organization. During the year there is a focus on relationships, on transfixing the ‘legacy’ of the founders and considering the future of CCDA. Last w...

See the entire article here. Menlo Park's City Council tonight will consider an innovative approach to preventing foreclosure for struggling homeowners - but one that comes with a big up-front price tag for the city. "To me, the most important thing is to keep people in their homes and not disrupt families, not take kids out of school," said Councilman Andy Cohen. "This is the only program on the horizon that does that." The Foreclosure Prevention Program targets owner-occupied homes with mortgages more than 90 days past due. Program administrators would approach the bank that holds the defaulting mortgage and ask it to sell the mortgage at the home's current fair market value - the same amount the bank would receive if the home went through foreclosure, but with fewer expenses and less time and trouble for the bank, said David Shapiro, CEO of the EARN Group, a Los Gatos company that develops real estate financing tools. A local community bank would then ref...

Sam's gonna be a star! No doubt! This is his rap group. Song: Glommy Day Priduced by Samuel J. Liotti Vocals: Samuel J. Liotti, Malik R., Sierra and Cody K.