Benny Lee

Benny Lee is represents District 4 (Washington Manor) in the San Leandro City Council. He is the former president of the Heron Bay Homeowners Association and a member of the Asian Community Cultural Association of San Leandro.

His campaign for City Council was characterized by vile personal attacks against his opponent Lee, a conservative, became a Democrat after deciding to run and flip-flopped on key positions such as his support of marijuana dispensaries.

After receiving over $4K in campaign contributions and independent expenditures from the Police, Benny Lee has consistently voted on their favor. For example, he’s voted to increase surveillance of San Leandro citizens, to ban medical marijuana facilities and to allow police to enter private property without warrants, if people get a permit to keep chickens or bees.

In September 2013, Lee proposed to honor the totalitarian regime of the People’s Republic of China by racing the PRC flag over San Leandro on October 1st, the day that commemorates the Red Army victory in the Chinese civil war and the establishment of the Maoist communist regime, which would lead to deaths of 73 million people, the greatest democide in history. When confronted with China’s continues horrendous human rights violations, Lee refused to even acknowledge them saying simple that he is for “freedom of speech” – only to then try to get my Facebook Page that criticizes him banned.

Lee’s latest stunt is to lobby the Oakland City Council to not contract with the garbage company that has its transfer station in San Leandro. This will mean the City will lose multiple millions of dollars in taxes. See http://www.sanleandrobytes.com/archives/016548.html

Free “Disappeared” Human Rights Defender Cao Shunli

Free “Disappeared” Human Rights Defender Cao Shunli Benny Lee's China No Responses »

Sep 262013

Cao Shunli

On September 13th, Cao Shunli was about to board a flight to Geneva to testify about human rights violations in China, when she was questioned and barred from taking the flight.

She has not been heard of since, and she’s thus suspected of being the victim of a “forced disappearance” by the Chinese government. As you read this, she is likely to be enduring torture and/or cruel, degrading and inhuman treatment. It won’t be the first time.

After participating in a street protest in 2009, Cao Shunli was arrested without charges, tortured during a week in a police station and then sent to a “re-education camp” for another year of mistreatment. She was never allowed to see a lawyer.

In re-education camps, prisoners must spend the whole say – save for meal breaks – sitting down, with their backs straight and arms next to their sides, listening to lectures on how to be proper Chinese citizens. At night, they have to work for free. They are not even allowed a break when they sleep, they are forced to do so straight, on their backs, with their mouths facing upwards (like corpses). Their only hope of being freed is being convincing enough in their “confessions” to convince the authorities that they have been rehabilitated into mindless, servile citizens.

Cao Shunli spent a year in the camp before being freed, but was arrested soon after and sent to another one for another year. She continued her human rights activism after being freed, and in October 2012 she was arrested for requesting public disclosure of China’s “National Human Rights Action Plan.”

Please e-mail the Chinese Embassy in Washington (chinaembassy_us@fmprc.gov.cn) to ask for her freedom.

This post comes to you thanks to San Leandro Council Member Benny Lee

Alameda will NOT Raise Chinese Flag on October 1st.

Alameda will NOT Raise Chinese Flag on October 1st. City Hall, Politics 2 Responses »

Sep 262013

San Leandro City Council member Benny Lee argued that San Leandro should raise the flag of the People’s Republic of China at City Hall because other cities like “Alameda do it”.

It turns out that that is not true.

Tibetan activists all over the world have been writing to Alameda Mayor Marie Gilmore asking that they don’t fly the PRC flag on October 1st. One activist got the following response from Assistant City Manager Alexander Nguyen:

Please be informed that the City of Alameda, California, has not, does not, and will not raise a foreign national flag on City Hall’s flagstaff.

The flag-raising ceremony scheduled next week is sponsored by our local Sister City Association and the Alameda Wuxi Friendship Committee, who use their own portable flagpoles.

This event is not a formal City Hall event; the Mayor and City Council do not sponsor it; they do not vote on it; they do not fund it.

Sincerely,

Alexander Nguyen
Assistant City Manager

So it would appear that Mr. Lee was, to put it politely, less than truthful.

Council to Vote to Raise People’s Republic of China flag in San Leandro

Council to Vote to Raise People’s Republic of China flag in San Leandro City Hall 3 Responses »

Sep 122013

chinaflag San Leandro Actually Considering Honoring Repressive Chinese Government

If City Council member Benny Lee has his way, on October 1st San Leandro will awaken under the red banner of the People’s Republic of China. October 1st, “National Day”, will be the 64th anniversary of Mao Zedong‘s proclamation that the communists had won the civil war and that China was now a communist republic. No word yet on whether Lee will propose to adorn City Hall with pictures of Mao as well.

Item 10.B on the September 16th agenda is pretty straightforward:

10.B. 13-458 Consideration of Request to Raise the Flag of the People’s Republic of China on October 1st

It comes with no accompanying materials to explain the reason for giving such an honor to the PRC state. No similar honor is requested for the flags of Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macao or Tibet – or any of the multitude of nations from which San Leandro citizens come.

But it makes little difference. The People’s Republic of China was established as a dictatorship and, 64 years later, it continues to be one. Until it becomes a democratic nation and its citizens can enjoy full civil and political rights, the PRC’s flag can only be said to represent the Chinese state. We don’t honor the Chinese people as a whole, much less the Chinese-Americans who live in San Leandro, by honoring that flag, we honor a dictatorial, communist government and its political allies. That is not a position that the City of San Leandro should be taking.

Honoring the PRC state is spits on the face of all the people who live and have lived under its dictatorial rule, including the citizens of the countries mentioned above, some of whom are among our neighbors. The honor confers a nod of approval to the horrible actions by the PRC government – from the arrests of pro-democracy and pro-human rights activists, to police brutality, the use of forced labor and torture and the generalized repression of Tibetans.

It is so incredible that a city in the Bay Area would be thinking of honoring the PRC in such a way, that when I first posted it one of my readers said he thought I was trying to be “The Onion“.

Unfortunately I’m not. This is a real proposal, and if the San Leandro City Council does not hear from people who believe honoring the PRC in such a way is harmful to democracy and human rights, they probably will.

You can e-mail them at the following addresses (please copy and paste): scassidy@sanleandro.org,blee@sanleandro.org,mgregory@sanleandro.org,ureed@sanleandro.org,dsouza@sanleandro.org,pcutter@sanleandro.org,jprola@sanleandro.org

You can also sign the petition below.

You can also attend the City Council meeting and be heard: The meeting is at City Hall, 835 East 14th St. in San Leandro. The meeting starts at 7, though this item will most likely not be heard until 8 or 9 PM. That is, unless the Mayor changes the order of items in the agenda.

Thank you.

UPDATE

An Open Letter to the San Leandro City Council Members – by the Tibetan National Congress

An Open Appeal To The Mayor of San Leandro, California – by Tibettruth

Is Head Librarian SLPD’s Chief Next Target?

Is Head Librarian SLPD’s Chief Next Target? Police No Responses »

Jun 102013

A scene from the movie “Flowers in the Attic.” The SLPD considers the book to be “child pornography”.

An Open Letter to Chief Sandra Spagnoli

Dear Chief Spagnoli:

You have requested that the public alert you about “similar incidents” to those concerning the charges for child pornography filed against SLHS teacher Rick Styner.

According to court documents, as reported by the media, these charges arise from “more than 200 pornographic stories” found on his computer, including one about a 14-year-old girl having sex with her brother, reportedly accompanied by the naked picture of a girl that looked to be underage.

The story mentioned in court records sounds very much like “Flowers In The Attic

“, the best seller by V. C. Andrews. The novel – which was made into a very bad movie

– concerns four siblings that are raised hidden in an attic and repeatedly abused. As the children enter puberty, the older siblings start to develop sexual feelings for one another, and they consummate that relationship when the girl is 14 years old.

I have checked the San Leandro library catalog, and it would seem that the library does have multiple copies of this “pornographic story”. It would thus seem prudent that the SLPD get warrants to search the homes and computers of all library personnel responsible for distributing such “child pornography”.

“Flowers in the Attic” has sold over 40 million copies worldwide, and it’s a favorite among teenage readers. It would therefore seems likely that the book is also present in San Leandro school libraries and English classrooms. The SLPD should not take any chances and start investigations into all SLUSD librarians and English-language teachers. Perhaps the SLPD should get a court order to have Amazon.com and other booksellers disclose the identity of everyone in the city that has bought a copy of this “pornographic” novel, so the investigation can become even more inclusive. Who knows what other untold crimes people who read this story may be committing?

Of course, I understand that the problem is not only this “pornographic story” in Mr. Styner’s computer, but the fact that it was illustrated with a picture of someone who appeared to be underage. While there may be a question about the age of the model in that photograph, there is no question that actress Thora Birch was only 16 when she appeared nude in the Oscar winning film American Beauty. The main library, and undoubtedly hundreds of San Leandrans, have a copy of this movie and thus, according to SLPD standards, seem to be in possession of “child pornography.”

As you probably also know, when I wrote my article on the Styner investigation, I linked to pictures of Brooke Shields in Pretty Baby
– a movie in which she appeared nude when she was barely 12 years old. Not only should the SLPD thus be able to arrest me, but everyone who read my story and clicked on the link. I should be able to provide for the Chief the IP addresses of everyone in that situation. Will arrest warrants follow?

Thank you, once again, for your commitment to keep San Leandro free of any real crime. I support your crusade to clean the bookshelves of San Leandro’s citizens. It’s definitely a much more important endeavor than paying attention to pesky little things like robberies, actual burglaries, domestic violence and, the peskier of them all, corruption and misconduct within your own department.

Sincerely,

Margarita Lacabe

—

This letter was e-mailed to Chief Sandra Spagnoli and copied to Mayor Stephen Cassidy, the other members of the City Council, City Manager Chris Zapata, Assistant City Manager Lianne Marshall and City Attorney Richard Pio Roda.

Jim Prola appointed Vice Mayor; Diana Souza, Chief Whiner

Jim Prola appointed Vice Mayor; Diana Souza, Chief Whiner City Hall, Politics No Responses »

May 232013

Jim Prola

Council Split in Two Camps

The last item on last Monday’s agenda of the San Leandro City Council was the selection of the Vice-Mayor. It had been put off from a previous meeting as the then current Vice Mayor, Michael Gregory, had been absent. Gregory made a motion to nominate Jim Prola for the position. Pauline Cutter quickly seconded him and then Mayor Cassidy immediately called for a vote. He left no room for discussion, counter-motions or public comment. Of course, other council members could have interrupted to offer their own motions nominating someone else – but they didn’t do so. The vote went 4-3, with Gregory, Cutter, Cassidy and Prola voting to make Prola Vice-Mayor, and Ursula Reed, Benny Lee and Diana Souza voting against him.

Diana Souza

The reasons for this pretty unusual vote came clear at the end of the meeting when Diana Souza paid homage to her mentor Joyce Starosciak (who, you will remember, left town because she couldn’t deal with the pain of not having been elected Mayor), to sing her own “why don’t you love me” swan song. She said she didn’t vote against Prola because he was unqualified – all of them, said Souza, are equally qualified -, but because she wanted to be Vice-Mayor and she’s never gotten the chance. She blames this on her willingness to stand up for her principles rather than compromise (principles such as “we should spend all our money building an Olympic swimming pool in the Manor”, “people shouldn’t be allowed to raise chickens or bees”, “no marijuana dispensaries in town”, “porn theaters yes, Shakespeare no in the industrial district”, “let the police do as they will”). I don’t know if I’ve ever seens as clear an example of the Dunning–Kruger effect.

Almost as interesting as Souza’s public whining session, was the fact that it was done without an actual vote against her. Either Lee or Reed could have a motion to nominate Souza as Vice-Mayor – Reed, indeed, made it clear on her comments that she voted against Prola because she wanted Souza to have the position -, but they didn’t. This begs the question as to why. The obvious answer is that they knew Souza didn’t have the votes to win – which is the sort of thing that can only happen if you’ve been breaking the Brown Act right and left to find out how your colleagues are voting.

I’m not sure what to make of the fact that Souza and her cohorts voted against Prola knowing that he had the votes to win. It solidifies the theory that Souza is not going to run for Mayor against Cassidy, but rather that her appearances around town were part of her campaign for Vice-Mayor. Ursula Reed, on the other hand, is ostensibly running for Alameda County Superintendent of Schools and you would think she would know better than publicly spiting Prola. Prola, after all, has a lot of influence in Democratic and labor circles, and while he’s not personally petty, Reed’s vote shows a lack of common sense that is unlikely to make her many friends.
The vote, moreover, solidifies the division of the City Council into two camps. Interestingly, the Reed-Souza-Lee camp is the more solid of the three. They are driven together as much by conservative social views and loyalty to the police (the police union were huge contributors to the Lee and Reed campaigns, and Souza has other reasons to be grateful to them), as by their unwillingness to move to city forward. The other four Council members form an uneasy alliance, as their political views run the gamut and they don’t necessarily share the same vision for the City. On the other hand, they do seem to take their job more seriously. It will be interesting to see if this split stays in future votes such as that on the marijuana dispensary.

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