Pick up your new Oakbook today

Most regular readers of this blog have probably visited the Oakbook online at one point or another. What you may not know is that starting last December, Oakbook also publishes a kick-ass print magazine. The fifth issue hit the streets yesterday. Read more

History Lesson

This isn’t about Oakland, but if you have some time to spare this weekend, I highly recommend heading over to Transbay Blog and checking out Eric’s posts No Subway for You and A Tale of Geary Street. Eric has done a phenomenal job and must have put a huge amount of work into compiling a fascinating history of failed subway plans in San Francisco. Both posts are a must read!

High school journalism

In response to my post about the Council meeting on Jean Quan’s proposed Kids First compromise, a reader sent me a link to this column, about a promising, but poorly marketed after-school program at the YCMA on 45th Avenue, which I enjoyed enough to start poking around the rest of the website. The column had appeared in The Green & Gold, a paper published by students at the Media Academy High School in Oakland, part of the Fremont Federation of High Schools.

Anyway, I don’t have the foggiest idea when the last time I read a high school newspaper was, but I had an absolute blast paging through the archives of this one. The product the kids put out really impressed me. I especially enjoyed stories about the girl who started a dance squad, students’ reactions to hearing their school called a dropout factory, seniors mentoring underclassmen with poor study habits, and clashes with teachers over texting in class. And then my favorite - a delightful little debate on a school program called code-switch, in which students are expected to use only academic English during classes. I love it! You guys should totally go check it out.

Ignacio De La Fuente on why he opposes the police parcel tax

I wouldn’t usually devote a whole post to reprinting a Councilmember’s mass e-mail, but Oakland City Council President Ignacio De La Fuente sent out a really excellent letter this afternoon about why he’s opposing the police parcel tax, and I think as many people as possible should read it. So here you go (PDF!). An excerpt: Read more

DeLauer’s on The DTO

dto510 wrote a really good post last week about how important DeLauer’s is to the DTO:

13th and Broadway is a major transit hub. DeLauer’s light and street presence provide a needed active space between the BART station, bus stops, and taxi stand: the “eyes on the street.” While the folks who create and inhabit this space are not exactly Jerry Brown’s dream downtowners, there are fewer medical and criminal emergencies at DeLauer’s than at Burger King across 13th, which hosts an ambulance weekly. On balance, DeLauer’s makes a tremendous contribution to downtown safety, and whatever criminal activity it may attract is generally of the victimless sort. With a dark, closed store at night (assuming DeLauer’s space isn’t abandoned, torn down, or subject to years of construction, all of which would be even worse), the center of the DTO would be much more grim.

We were all very happy that the store, with assistance from the City (among other sources), was able to remain open. Now the Trib reports that the store’s new owners do not intend to continue 24 hour operation. In a new post, dto510 rightfully questions what the point is of subsidizing the store’s operation if they just want to be another coffee shop. Go read it on the DTO.

Sad news, happy news

ROV has finally updated the returns, and Nadel is now 137 votes ahead of a run-off. This doesn’t make me any more or less sad that I was before, and according to the Express today, final tallies may not even be completed this week. Anyway, no point in sitting around depressed and mopey. Besides, there are lots of things in the news to be happy about. Below are a few I’d like to share. Read more

Sean Sullivan on Food Security

Oakbook today has a great op-ed from Sean Sullivan on food security and food access.

OPOA endorsement of Sean Sullivan

Bob Valladon wrote a great endorsement of Sean from the OPOA. He seems to have a lot of the same reasons as I have for supporting Sean, which actually surprised me a little. But the whole thing is great and everyone should read it. Read more

City Attorney responds to Mario Juarez’s accusations

So in case you’re like, living in a cave or something and haven’t noticed, the District 5 race has turned all sorts of nasty. Mario Juarez had his office windows broken last weekend (his windows had been broken repeatedly in the past, well before he was ever running for office, prompting Ignacio to install a security camera on the office). Anyway, despite this, and despite the fact that Ignacio De La Fuente’s campaign office also had windows broken earlier in the campaign, Juarez all but straight up accused Ignacio’s campaign of doing it, and the local media totally bought his sob story. De La Fuente sent out a classy response, and Juarez responded by claiming that the lawsuit (PDF!) he settled with the City for breach of contract and fraud was political intimidation.

Juarez sent a message to a District 5 listserv denying the charges on the Oakland City Crook website and included this statement about his settlement with the City:

My attorney had no doubt that I would prevail in a lawsuit, but the fight was projected to cost $300,000 in legal fees to me. Spending that kind of money would have bankrupted us - forcing closure of our business and putting more than 60 people out of work.

So, I made a business decision to settle with the City, essentially paying back the amount we had been paid for the contract.

And that was just too much, so the City Attorney’s office sent this response to Juarez, and it’s just so awesome that even though I know I’m going to regret posting about this because of the irritating comments it will generate, I just have to share the entire thing: Read more

The new Novometro

Now 100% more pleasant to look at! Check it out at www.theoakbook.com.

By the way

In case not all of you read The Argus - Fremont was considering a plastic bag ban of their own, conducted a study of the impacts it would have, and decided not to ban them based on the study’s results.

Happy Birthday, Future Oakland!

I’d like to wish a very happy birthday to Future Oakland. The blog, one of the oldest on my links list, turns two today! dto510 (nee Oakland Native) and I started Future Oakland one evening after spending hours sitting in my living room gossiping about the Mayoral election. We were frustrated that our perspective wasn’t represented anywhere in the media, and thought it would be great to have a platform to share how someone other than the usual players in this town felt about Dellums, De La Fuente, and inclusionary zoning. I certainly never imagined then that it would lead to the daily coverage of legislative minutia I provide here.

Back then, there were only a handful of Oakland blogs. Now, there are lots, and the list just keeps growing - I added two to my links page just this week. Some have come and gone (I miss you, Dogtown Commons), but others persist. Living in the O, Oakland Goods, Oakland Geology, East Bay Conservative, and very new addition Brooklyn Avenue all provide regular and high quality content.

While I’m thrilled Future Oakland has lasted this long, and I love most of the posts, I’m a little sad that they’re so infrequent. On March 4 of this year, dto510 wrote the following:

I promise to post at least once a week! This blog will focus narrowly on planning and zoning issues.

Since then, there have only been two posts! I learned 10 years ago, when we co-edited our college student newspaper, that the only way to get dto510 to do anything is to nag, nag, threaten, and nag some more. So if you want to see more of his excellent coverage of planning and zoning, head over to Future Oakland, wish dto510 a happy birthday, and tell him he needs to post more often!

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