[Editor’s note: This is a sidebar to “An emerald view or a gaze through a Coke bottle fragment?”]

A longtime player in San Francisco development politics, Joe O’Donoghue has been noted for florid poetry slamming his opponents and for tough tactics at San Francisco City Hall.

Now some of his SF relationships are coming into play here in Oakland, in particular with Gerald Green, former planning director in San Francisco and currently a developer in Oakland; he lives at 244 Lakeside (the Bechtel Building).

These gentlemen have a long-standing relationship with Willie Brown, whose wife also lives at 244 Lakeside, and Dean Macris, interim planning director in SF.

Are we a wannabe San Francisco, with a yearning for pointy buildings, or should Oakland define itself as a liveable city for its people?

See also “Three more Oakland highrises planned” (SF New Developments), “O’Donoghue and Zacks Launch New Attack Against DBI Head Amy Lee” (BeyondChron), “Ed Jew supporters blame media” (San Francisco Sentinel), “S.F. unions vs. anti-labor builders” (LaborNET), and “Deconstructing Joe” (San Francisco Bay Guardian).