OPD at 837 doesn’t mean what Dellums seems to think it means

So, if you read the newspaper, it probably did not escape your notice that the Oakland Police Department has now exceeded its staffing requirement of 803 officers, and is, in fact, now at its highest level of staffing in history, with a total of 837 officers.

When you read these stories, you may have noticed two claims from Oakland Mayor Ron Dellums that probably made you feel a little better about the direction Oakland’s been heading. Read more

Anti-prop 8, pro-equality rally at City Hall on Saturday

The passage of Proposition 8, which eliminated the right of same sex couples to marry in California, put a serious damper on what should have been an amazing election night for many of us. While 52.2% of California voters said yes, we can take maybe a little bit of comfort in the fact that bigotry isn’t quite so much in vogue in our neck of the woods - 62.2% of Alameda County voters said no. (Just for fun - our no vote was bested only by Marin, San Francisco, Santa Cruz, and Sonoma Counties, and we tied with Mendocino County.)

It was a banner day for intolerance, not just in California, but across the country. Read more

Don Perata for Oakland Mayor?

How funny, I was just talking about this last night. I’m not particularly interested in speculating on who’s going to be Mayor two years from now - I’d rather focus on what’s happening in the City right now. But I’m sure that Chip Johnson’s column today about Don Perata, barring indictment, running for Mayor of Oakland in 2010 will get some of my readers fired up, so rather than having the issue clutter up the comments section of an unrelated post, I’ll give you guys a space to duke it out. Read more

OPD, 803, and Measure Y

So tomorrow, four years and twelve days after Oakland voters approved an $88 annual parcel tax to fund increased police services, the Oakland Police Department will hit an important milestone and finally reach (surpass, actually) the 803 officers voters have been paying for.

Before you get too excited, this does not mean that the promise or obligations of Measure Y have been filled. Read more

The new Safeway on College

So, I don’t think I’ve even mentioned the debate over the new Safeway on College. One of the things that delights me most as a blogger is when other people write about important issues so I don’t have to, and happily, the Safeway expansion has been extensively covered in the blogosphere even without any contribution on my part (see the list at the end of the post).

So, in case you live in like, a cave or the other side of the Lake or something, Safeway wants to tear down their Rockridge store on College and Claremont and build a new, bigger, fancier one in its place. 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

Free Wi-Fi at the Oakland Airport

Wow! How often do I get to write about something in this City that I’m just completely over the moon about? Like, never. Until today! Starting today, the Oakland Airport is going to be offering free wi-fi! Free! Read more

What is the City of Oakland’s subsidy to Forest City’s Uptown project?

Somehow, the comments on my election results post turned into a discussion of City subsidies to Forest City and the Uptown Apartments. There seems to be a lot of confusion about our agreement, so I’m just going to explain the whole deal.

The City of Oakland’s total funding contribution to the Uptown Project was $60,031,057. Read more

Jean Quan and elementary math

My little sister has this, like, handheld video game thing. It’s like a game boy except that it’s sleek and has a color, not sepia-tone screen, also, the screen is much bigger than on a game boy. In fact, there are two screens, and they both respond to touch. Also, it recognizes voice. So I guess it isn’t actually that much like a game boy after all. Anyway. She will sit on the couch for hours and hours playing this totally inane “game” that’s supposed to help prevent Alzheimers or something. Why she can’t just read a book or pick up a crossword puzzle, I couldn’t say. Wev, I spend my free time watching DVDs of months-old City Council and Planning Commission meetings (you should see my collection!), so I’m hardly in a position to judge. Read more

Oakland Crime Stats Update

We haven’t heard much lately about crime in Oakland. Maybe it’s because people were distracted with elections or the economy or the budget or who knows what else. Maybe it’s because people lost interest once the spate of restaurant robberies subsided. In any case, I figure it’s about time to check in. So here you go, Oakland crime numbers, 2007 and 2008, as of November 4th. Read more

Encinal Tower scoping session tonight

Remember the tallest building in Oakland? Well, it’s moving through the CEQA process right now, and will have its EIR scoping session at tonight’s Planning Commission meeting (PDF). This is where you go and tell them what issues you want studied in the Environmental Impact Report. If you can’t make it to the meeting, you have until November 17 to submit comments in writing.

In case you missed it the first time around, here’s a brief project description from the staff report (PDF): 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

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