Ignacio De La Fuente: Join me in demanding real solutions to Oakland’s financial crisis
February 18, 2010 by Ignacio De La Fuente · 68 Comments
Since the outset of the current financial crisis, I have encouraged the residents in District 5 and my supporters throughout the city to participate in the Budget process to advocate for the preservation of what I believe should be the focus of our City budget, CORE SERVICES. These core services are: Police; Fire; Parks; Libraries; Streets; Sewers; Sidewalks; and the most essential services for our Seniors and Youth. I have been pleading with my colleagues on the council to realize the urgency of this crisis, and I am again urging you to join me as I push them to stop delaying critical decisions that impact Oakland’s immediate and long-term fiscal health.
Bruce Nye: This Place Is A Mess: Now What Do We Do About It?
December 29, 2009 by Bruce Nye · 132 Comments
Bruce Nye is Board Chair of Make Oakland Better Now!The opinions in this post, however, are his, and do not necessarily reflect the positions of the organization. Make Oakland Better Now! will be holding an emergency city budget meeting to vote on the organization’s position on the city budget on Monday, January 11, 2010 at 6:30 p.m., at Oakland City Hall, 1 Frank H. Ogawa Plaza, Hearing Room 4.
My guest post last week used about 1400 words to say the following: the city really is in dire financial straits, there’s no place to hide, there is no possibility of an immediate miracle and the problem won’t be fixed without political courage and leadership. The post drew more than 50 on-line comments. Other MOBN! Board members and I heard just as many comments off-line. A lot of people are angry at city government —as they should be — and responses ranged from the highly macro (e.g., this is the beginning of the end of civilization as we know it) to the policy-based (e.g., the relative values of parks vs. police, parcel taxes, bonds, etc.) to the very micro (elimination of living wage initiatives, furloughs vs. pay reductions, etc.). Many citizens are apoplectic over the very thought of another parcel tax, and some seem even to welcome a municipal bankruptcy.
Bruce Nye: Does Oakland have a budget crisis? Sure enough it does.
December 23, 2009 by Bruce Nye · 73 Comments
Bruce Nye is Board Chair of Make Oakland Better Now! The opinions in this post, however, are his, and do not necessarily reflect the positions of the organization. Make Oakland Better Now! will be holding an emergency city budget meeting to vote on the organization’s position on the city budget on Monday, January 11, 2010 at 6:30 p.m., at Oakland City Hall, 1 Frank H. Ogawa Plaza, Hearing Room 4.
For some time, we’ve been hearing Oakland’s politicians talk about a budget crisis. And everybody should be forgiven if they’re numb to this whole discussion. But guess what? There really, really is a crisis, and it’s going to have a huge impact on all of us, particularly if we, as a city, don’t take action.
League of Women Voters: What is Records Management – and Why Should You Care About it?
December 10, 2009 by League of Women Voters · 11 Comments
Records management is the practice of maintaining the records of an organization — in this case, the City of Oakland — from the time they are created up to their eventual disposal. This may include the classification, storage, securing, and destruction of records.1 Capability for timely record retrieval is also a key part of a modern records management system.
John Klein: Project CX3 – The Great Grand Avenue Dig of 2009
December 9, 2009 by John Klein · 18 Comments
I know a lot of people are following the progress of Measure DD, but what is all that work in the middle of Grand Avenue? I did some checking and it turns out that PG&E is making really important infrastructure changes there. The name of the project is the “New Oakland C-X #2 115kV Underground Cable Project,” or “CX3″ for short. That is, three new electrical lines are being installed from 2nd & Castro Street near Jack London Square (sub-station C) to Grosvenor & Park Blvd. (sub-station X); this is where the name CX3 comes from. The new lines will carry 115,000 volts to sub-station X, which is a transmission and distribution sub-station.
Bruce Nye: Make Oakland Better Now! Announces its ninety-day plan and February 21, 2010 General Assembly
November 30, 2009 by Bruce Nye · 3 Comments
Last August, more than 100 Oaklanders met at St. Theresa’s Church to form Make Oakland Better Now!, a grassroots issues and advocacy organization devoted to improving public safety, public works, transparency and accountability in the City of Oakland. Make Oakland Better Now! was formed by Oakland residents, many of whom hadn’t been activists for a long time and many of whom admitted they hadn’t paid as much attention to Oakland politics as they should have. But they believed Oakland was a wonderful city that urgently needed to change. And they were determined to build an organization that would be a force in these three critical areas in the 2010 mayor’s race and beyond. More specifically, Make Oakland Better Now! is determined to shine a light on mayoral and city council candidates’ positions in these three areas and to monitor improvement after the election.
Tom Thurston: Why I killed Amber Tree Apartments
November 23, 2009 by Tom Thurston · 49 Comments
Amber Tree Apartments lay behind a fence along 200 feet of the south side of Foothill Boulevard between 25th and 26th Avenue. I first noticed them last summer when I was on a walking tour of the 23rd Avenue area with other members of the Central City East Redevelopment Project Area Committee (CCE PAC). Walking west, the sidewalk abruptly narrows to accommodate the first of two motel-like structures. We look down the cluttered central courtyard and saw that the properties suffered from great disrepair. Staff members Theresa Navarro-Lopez and Doug Cole agreed to contact code compliance about the property.
Greg McConnell: Oakland wants city leaders to attract new business to Oakland
October 29, 2009 by Greg McConnell · 75 Comments
In a poll conducted this October a whopping 96% of Oakland voters say Oakland leaders should attract new companies and businesses. This comes from residents in every district in Oakland. It includes every demographic – every age group, ethnicity, party affiliation, sex and sexual preference; in short, everybody. This is the highest approval for a single concept that we have seen in our polls since 2005.
John Klein: Boat House Re-Dedication and the origins of Measure DD
August 18, 2009 by John Klein · 102 Comments
The Boat House Rededication went off without a hitch earlier this month. The Mayor and several council members (including former council member) were present as was the media and numerous individuals and groups involved with Lake Merritt, the Boat House, and the Lake Chalet restaurant. Read more
Vivek B: Digging into Oakland crime statistics
August 14, 2009 by Vivek B. · 52 Comments
Hi folks. My name is Vivek B, and for about 2 years now i’ve been doing monthly graphs & analysis of the OPD crime stats. I load up the data from CrimeSpotting.Org into an access database, and look at it 16 ways from Sunday. I live in Rockridge, so I started off focusimg on Area 1 & our beats, mainly as I wanted to make sure the #s jived up with the feeling around the ‘hood. About 9 months ago I started doing this for all Areas, but kept a detailed analysis on the neighboring beats. My theory is that if crime moves due to higher enforcement, the bad guys are more apt to only move 1-2 beats away, rather than clear across the city to an unknown neighborhood.
Steve Brown: Measure DD progress report
August 5, 2009 by Steve Brown · 71 Comments
If you’ve walked around the south end of Lake Merritt lately, you may have noticed construction equipment and big pieces of concrete sewer pipe stacked in the median area of the busy 12th Street Dam. Your heart may have jumped, like mine did, as you thought perhaps this is the start of the long-awaited destruction and rebuilding of that crumbling bit of infrastructure.
Chris Kidd: Sim City is fun, Sim Oakland is *funner*
July 10, 2009 by Chris Kidd · 26 Comments
Let’s take a trip in the Way-Back-Machine, guys. Read more
