No leadership, no decisions, no progress
As of today, Oakland has gone 54 days with a permanent Fire Chief. We have gone 170 days without a permanent City Administrator. 227 days without a Planning Commissioner....
Grafitti and Blight in Downtown Oakland
So, one my all time favorite posts on any Oakland blog ever is the seventh post on Living in the O, where Becks shares an exercise from a writing class she took....
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...
Army Base, quickly
Aah, I had so wanted to write a whole bunch of posts about the Army Base last week before the item came to Community and Economic Development Committee (CED) today,...
June 2008 Endorsements
So one of the funnest parts of having a blog, or so people tell me, is that you get to make endorsements. I wouldn’t know. I’ve somehow managed to find...
Larry Reid v. Clifford Gilmore: LWV Forum Recap
Since I know next to nothing about Clifford Gilmore (other than that he’s the son of longtime Councilman Carter Gilmore), I was really looking forward to this...
The sad story of subarea 8
People will tell you that the new industrial land use policy is about providing certainty and predictability to developers, business owners, and property owners....
Does nobody in this city play golf?*
I’ve explained before how banning smoking for air quality reasons in a venue where you’re virtually guaranteed to be no less than 50 yards away from...
Nancy Nadel exempts golf courses from smoking ban
So for the third time this fall, the Oakland City Council passed a first reading of the new outdoor smoking ban tonight. A first reading of an amended ordinance...
This isn’t a vision – it’s a list.
So the exciting news about the Army Base is that it looks like pretty much everyone (except Ron Dellums) is on the same page. Nancy Nadel, who I’m thrilled...
Council finally listens to constituent concerns on smoking ban!
So, amazingly, the Council did not do as I predicted yesterday and just let Barbara Killey get away with this ignoring the instruction to exempt bars. Not that she...
Once again, the Council proves they don’t care about good public policy or practicality
The Council voted to pass the smoking ordinance just before 2 am this morning. Jane Brunner left the meeting before the item was heard. Ignacio De La Fuente, Pat...
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Newest Comments
- len raphael: Unconfirmed that MJQ laid off 100 employees today, blaming RDA court case. How much did she and the CC waste in legal fees betting against Jerry’s lawyers?
- ralph: No, Livegreen, Occupy Oakland is doing plenty good. They are the poster children for the new, “This is Your Brain on Dope” Campaign.
- Livegreen: They seem to b determined to shut down Oakland and little else. They’ve forgotten Wall St. I can’t help but think the Officers who were preventing them from breaking in to City Hall could have spent...
- gregory mcconnell: The Occupest disrupted City Hall today. They managed to make it difficult, but not impossible, to go into City Hall. They demanded that people who accosted cops on Wednesday should be released. I was out...
- livegreen: I watched the M-Y mtg last night, & it was painful. Jose is a nice guy, but he has difficulty running a meeting that gets anything done. They debated for about 1 hour whether they should discuss recommendations...
- len raphael: The murder of 5 year old Gabriel Martinez. Got a call from an acquaintance who lives in East O and often gets supper at his family’s taco stand. She asked where she can sign up to help on the recall.
- Ravi: I’m sure that all of those Quan diehards (“a recall would be a waste of time and too expensive”) are very gratified that this lovely and deserving woman is having such a good time. No doubt they prefer...
- len raphael: JQ “”I’m actually having a lot of fun,” she said after rehashing many of the lower moments from her first year in office.” “http://www.insidebayare a.com/news/ci_19651889R...
- Ravi: And regarding police reform and the crime thing, Judge Henderson could decide to put OPD under Federal jurisdiction because the terms of the NSA haven’t been fulfilled by the City Administration. Those folks in City...
- len raphael: Harbinger of things to come to the City Council when they eventually have to make similar decisions. But they won’t. The Fed bankruptcy judge will do it for them.
- livegreen: Yeah, but OUSD has to do something. There are way too many schools for the school population. There’s simply no choice. At least they’re willing to make the tough decisions. Unlike the City of...
- len raphael: Are those school board recalls entirely over the school closing decisions? Different groups or one umbrella?
- Ravi: Two recall petitions for Quan; five recall petitions for five school board members.
- len raphael: City says there are now 7 concurrent recall petitions. Not clear how many are for Quan and how many for Council Members. Direct democracy at work.
- Ravi: Can the Oakland City Council lead? Nope, nor can the Mayor. It’s up to the citizens, who are deeply divided and have been for a very long time.
- len raphael: Oakland Local is the only on or offline general circulation media that shows understanding of the depths of our fiscal situation and understands that it’s causes precede the real estate crash. One of these...
- Mkilian: Related to the Cal Supremes haircut to Oakland with respect to RDA and the immediate need for a “fiscal operations plan” is another issue put forth in Oakland’s internet newspaper, Oakland Local, is...