Measure Q, Measure Y, Measure NN, and the public trust

So, the Mayor sent an almost comically whiny letter (PDF) to the Council last week explaining why he decided to cancel December’s police academy. First, he seems shocked to learn that Measure Y isn’t just a bottomless pit of money he can use for whatever he wants forever:

Read more

Highlights from last night’s Council meeting

Did you skip the show last night? Had something better to do with your Tuesday evening than stare at KTOP for seven straight hours? Don’t worry. I watch these things so you don’t have to. Here’s what you missed: Read more

1 Frank Ogawa Plaza: Oakland’s most expensive child-care center

Alerting all municipal melodrama addicts. Make sure to tune into to KTOP tonight for yet another episode in the increasingly tiresome soap opera I like to call Brooks and De La Fuente hate each other.

The pathetic pettiness of the 2008 season of this show peaked at the Council’s July 1st meeting, when De La Fuente asked to revisit a vote from the previous meeting where the Council had approved a redevelopment agency purchase of some property in District 6. This happened is response to a error-ridden and nonsensical item in the East Bay Express asserting (without any evidence) that Ignacio was somehow responsible for the City overpaying for the land. Ignacio, who one would assume is accustomed enough to paranoid accusations of corruption from Robert Gammon to ignore them most of the time, was apparently so incensed by the mere suggestion that he’d ever do anything to benefit Brooks’s district that he had to make a huge scene about it. Read more

The story with CompStat and Oakland

So, Chip Johnson’s column today is sort-of about general problems with the police department and sort-of about CompStat. I’ve noticed that the word CompStat is getting thrown around more and more often in discussions about OPD, and while I’m thrilled about that because I think we desperately need to do it here, I also think that it sometimes seems people aren’t exactly clear on what it is. Read more

Late night local election results

In November 2006, I cried myself to sleep on election night. The next day, I was so despondent, I could barely bring myself to speak to my co-workers all day. When one of them finally cornered me and demanded I tell her what was wrong, all I could manage to say was “I’m upset about the election. I don’t want to talk about it.” She recoiled, then recovered, then whispered, in like, the most sympathetic tone imaginable, “Oh, V! You poor thing! I had no idea you were a Republican.” Read more

Endorsements, better late than never

So, regular readers will be happy to know that after a completely miserable week without it, I now have my computer back and working and I should be back to my regular daily blogging schedule tomorrow. There’s been a lot going on that I’ve wanted to write about and just haven’t gotten around to yet. And I figure people have been distracted with the election lately. Anyway, you will also be happy to know that I’ve secured myself a back-up computer so that this problem will hopefully not happen again, even if my lemon of a laptop fails me in the future. Also, I have received ample lectures about storing my drafts online from now on, and I promise I’m going to start. Read more

Budget debate over, for now.

So the Council passed their budget adjustment last night and we get to stop worrying about it for a while. Well, for a little while, anyway. As time goes on and we either do or don’t receive the revenue we budgeted for, the Finance & Management Committee will have to make monthly adjustments. Read more

Save the arts? At the expense of what, exactly?

So, tonight the City Council hopes to finally pass their second budget for the year and close the $42 million deficit hanging over our heads. The biggest point of contention tonight is likely to be suspension of the Cultural Arts funding program.

What program, you ask? Here’s the deal. Every year, we award grants to roughly 70 non-profits and individual artists to, well, make art. Read more

We’ll be keeping the park rangers after all

So, it looks like the City won’t be shutting down on Fridays after all. (Or closing parks!) You may recall that when Oakland Mayor Ron Dellums submitted his budget proposal a couple of weeks ago, he left a $10 million deficit and told the Council to figure out how to close it (offering them three options). Subsequently, Dellums explained that he actually didn’t want the Council to make their own decision, and instead expected to save the money by closing the City every Friday, cutting the pay of every non-sworn employee by 20%. Read more

More taxes for everyone, not just property owners

So at the Council meeting way back in July when the Council voted in favor of putting the police parcel tax (Measure NN) on the November ballot, District 2 Councilmember Pat Kernighan, who supported the tax, said that she would be introducing a proposal in the fall that would allow landlords to pass the cost of the new tax onto their tenants. Read more

Can I be on the Housing Authority Board, too?

The Oakland Housing Authority, much like the Port, AC Transit, and East Bay MUD, doesn’t receive anywhere near the amount of media attention it deserves. Read more

Dellums on the budget

So, last night, the City Council had its first special budget workshop of this year’s second round of budget adjustments. The first round took place last spring, and culminated in the Council approving a mid-cycle budget with $15 million in cuts. Read more

Next Page »