Well, the Saints won the Superbowl, but most of the blog chatter seems to be about the commercials. Slate.com dedicated an entire two page post to dissecting the various commercials. Slate also ran an amusing bit on what the Superbowl would be like if directed by certain well-known directors.

And this ABC7 story is technically from last Tuesday, but visiting teachers-in-training from South Africa, were in East Oakland last week, where they connected with students at Oakland’s Castlemont School of the Arts.

Not a lot of other big headlines for now!

Have a great day,
O.N.

“When anyone talks about East Bay graffiti, everybody knows Mike DREAM,” said a long-time friend, Vinny Rodit. “He always helped inspire other kids with his art.”

In the seventh grade, DREAM and his friends got into hip hop and started seeking out mural space in the streets. Their adventures eventually took them to a red brick warehouse in Alameda where DREAM started his first masterpiece. It was the development of his signature, huge block letters that spelled out his tag, although the word “DREAM” itself is hardly legible unless you follow each curve of the paint. A crown sits above the “R,” appropriate for the “King of Graf” as supporters came to call him. A simple “TDK” rests on the bottom of the “D” — a reference to one of the grafitti artist crews he led.

But the real artistry is behind the name. In a notebook sketch reprinted on a fan website, “DREAM” is surrounded by camouflage. A stream of blood flows from the arrow at the bottom of the “E,” which looks like a pipe, oozing and fading into a red sky permeated by tanks. Barbed wire frames the shot and a note, “Battle Drills for a Bloody Revolution!” is scribbled in the corner.

DREAM was born in Vallejo. He was known amongst friends as a verbal and visual master, charismatic and rebellious. Outside of graffiti, DREAM was an accomplished tattooist at Built to Last in East Oakland, and did works on canvas and paper for various record labels. He became a leader of TDK (Those Damn Kids) and TSF (Taller Sin Fronteras) crews and was featured in numerous exhibitions including No Justice No Peace, an anti-police brutality art expose held annually.

The TDK Crew was notorious for tags around Oakland and the larger Bay Area. The group would spray tags surrounded by intricate backgrounds.

Every year in February, graffiti artists gather here at the club in Oakland for “Dream Day” to celebrate their historic culture and remember DREAM. Murals line the walls. Black notebooks float through the crowd as writers of all ages write their tags and fill the pages with signatures and drawings.

“Piece Books,” an old-school term short for “masterpiece,” are a tradition at these events. They are personal sketch books writers keep before putting up tags in public spaces. At “Dream Day,” writers have others tag their books to gather different styles.

“Blame,” 19, dressed in all black and wearing a wide grin on his face, picked up the permanent maker and scratched his tag on a fresh piece of white paper. He spoke with extreme enthusiasm as if overwhelmed by the spirit of hip hop and his place as one of thousands of writers. “Graffiti’s always been my art. That’s what I drive myself with. My whole lifestyle is the culture of this place,” he said. “Our culture is very united.”

Under the roof of the New Parish, the atmosphere was one of joy. Two eight-year-old boys wowed the crowd with their breakdancing in front of a stage where local DJs includng Apollo, ShortKut, Sake One, Fuze and Myke One displayed beat-boxing techniques and ended each segment with a shout out to the memory of DREAM.

The New Parish collected $10 donations at the door to benefit DREAM’s only son, Akil, now 10, who lost his mother to breast cancer in January. “I do it every year because it’s someone who changed my life and brought energy and love to the city of Oakland,” said Marty Aranaydo, the event’s organizer. “His son should know how important his father was. It’s more important than how his father was taken from him.”

A fight of sorts broke out this week between John Burris, the lawyer representing Oscar Grant’s family and friends in various civil suits against Johannes Mesherle and BART and KTVU 2, the local TV station that reported a possible change in eye witness testimony on Thursday. (Warning: The links to KTVU start an auto-play, including sound.) The testimony is for the criminal case the city has brought against Mehserle, but may affect BART’s liability in the civil cases being brought by Grant’s family and friends. The latest from KTVU is here. Stay tuned to O.N. for the full story.

In other news this week, Mayor Dellums has announced that federal stimulus officials will be visiting Oakland to see how our “model city” is handling it’s large share of stimulus funds. A local boxing hero, Stanley Garcia, who ran the East Oakland Boxing Club since the late eighties, passed away on Thursday. He was 69. And finally, if you’re looking for a cozy cafe to spend this rainy weekend, you might check out the newly opened Actual Cafe in Golden Gate, but don’t bring your laptop!

Have a great Saturday!
O.N.

In an effort to keep Actual Cafe an actual cafe, owner Sal Bednarz will embark upon a month-long social experiment to create the kind of social atmosphere that existed before wireless internet and mobile computers. Bednarz wants people to step away from their Facebook profiles and connect face-to-face. “It’s important to me to have a place that’s not just about sitting around and studying and surfing the web on a laptop,” said Bednarz.

During these weekends the wireless router will be turned off.  Customers using laptops will be kindly reminded about the experiment and asked to put them away. Never fear, laptops will be okay on Monday and the wireless Internet will be crackling through the airwaves.

Sal Bednarz, owner of Actual Cafe

Bednarz is aware this is a bold stance to take in the current coffee shop culture where people are accustomed to hiding in plain sight behind the glow of their computer screens. Bednarz call these kinds of cafes “wi-fi shacks.”

Coffee shops are also a popular choice for those who can’t afford Internet access at home, and for workers who are keeping cabin fever at bay, like Art Prateepvanich, who lives in the neighborhood. Prateepvanich is a marketer for Yahoo! who was enjoying a drink while tapping away on his laptop. “I fall more under the anti-social aspect,” he said with a bashful grin.  “I like being around people, but I don’t necessarily want to be interacting.  I actually have work to do.”

Christina Zanfangna, a UCLA PhD student in ethnomusicology, is living in Berkeley while finishing her dissertation.  She noticed the cafe while driving down San Pablo. “As a grad student you’re always looking for places to work,” she said.  When asked if she comes to a cafe to socialize she said, “I don’t go to cafes to socialize that much. I’d probably go for a walk or to a bar instead.”

But what has become a habit for today’s cafe goers has evolved into the bane of a coffee shop owner’s business. Rows of silent laptops users often unintentionally affect the tone of venues designed for socializing. Sometimes, they do it intentionally with a shush or a stony glare when a nearby conversation gets too loud. “When I walk into those places.  I feel alienated.  I feel isolated. I don’t feel social.  I don’t feel like I want to spend time there, and I know I’m not the only one,” said Bednarz.

Chris Tse checks out Sparkle Motion. A video juke box controled by a bicycle.

Actual Cafe opened its doors on the corner of Alcatraz and San Pablo on January 8, 2010.  Bednarz, a Morris County, New Jersey native created the space to bring back a piece of the bohemian Oakland he fell in love with when he first arrived from the east coast. “I came from a place where being a weirdo was frowned upon.  Here it was encouraged. So I felt like I fit in,” said Bednarz.

After moving to Oakland Bednarz made jewelry for a living and played percussion in a band.  He would hang out in coffee shops with other creative folk. Unfortunately the dot.com boom and the rise of real estate prices drove a lot of those places out of business he said. After a stint as an IT professional, Bednarz was laid off and went backpacking in Central and South America. While on the road he had an epiphany: “There are no chains. I really appreciated the community created around small businesses and local commerce. It made me want to create a similar model when I got back home,” said Bednarz. “I really realized that was one of the things missing from my life today.”

Bednarz lives four blocks away from Actual Cafe in the Golden Gate neighborhood. Before he started the business he often went to Temescal, Rockridge or other neighborhoods to socialize. “I’ve lived in my house for almost ten years.  I was really frustrated with the lack of local things to do.  Outside of a block or two radius I didn’t know anyone in my neighborhood because there was no place for me to go and meet them,” he said.

With no business degree or previous restaurant experience Bednarz started planning. He reached out to his neighbors known and unknown and sought their help.  He posted signs and sent e-mails to the Golden Gate neighborhood listserv. People gladly came out to help build the cafe, he said: they painted, cleaned and helped haul furniture.

“I think all of those things made it feel like a place that was really about a neighborhood,” said Bednarz.  “By inviting people in [to participate] it makes it feel like neighborhood where people are contributing.  It’s lived in and it’s comfortable.”

Bednarz hopes it won’t stop there.  The lounge area has a book and magazine exchange that went from empty to full in two weeks.  Bednarz has invited his customers to decorate the bike parking wall with stickers and refrigerator magnets.  All of the seating is communal.  “It’s so much easier to have a conversation with a stranger when you’re sitting six inches away from them than it is when you’re sitting three feet from them,” he said.

For Bednarz, the laptop free weekend experiment isn’t about taking something away from his customers, but building relationships.

“It’s important for me to be a part of the neighborhood and support the neighborhood I live in,” he said

Actual Cafe isn’t the only Oakland cafe that has come up with a creative way to address customers camping out with laptops.  Last year Nomad Cafe located at 6500 Shattuck Avenue covered up most of its outlets. Dani Meyer is a barista and doula who has worked at the Nomad Cafe for four months. “I remember being in coffee shops before there were tons of laptops around.  There was a different vibe,” she said.

She remembers when coffee shops were lively places that served many needs.  There was more balance.  Customers came to read, write poetry, do homework or socialize with friends, she said.  Meyer thinks it’s a challenge in this economy for a cafe owner to make a profit without alienating working customers. “Probably about fifty percent of our business here is people that bring in wireless computers,” she said.  “We don’t want to tell them. ‘no you’re not welcome,’ of course they are welcome. But we have to strike a balance and make the space available for a multitude of customers.”

In-door bicycle parking and a sheet metal wall that customers can decorate with stickers and magnets.

Cutting down to one outlet turned out to be okay for Payam Imani, who was a longtime customer before he started working at Nomad Café last August. He and his roommates frequented Nomad Cafe when they didn’t have wireless at home for a spell. Imani is also a student at San Francisco Academy of the Arts, so he would camp out when he had a lot of work to do that required Internet access. “I used to come here for the wi-fi pretty much exclusively,” he said.

Imani noticed right away when the plugs were covered last spring.  Unlike other customers who were angered, Imani was empathetic with the cafe and understood why they made the change.  He admits it encouraged him to use his one hour of battery life more efficiently. “I was more conservative about when I’d open it. I might get all my stuff in a row first,” he said.  “Maybe go back home, charge it up, and come back later in the day.”

So far, the idea of Actual Cafe’s laptop and wireless free weekend experiment has garnered mixed responses from customers.

“Initially I kind of thought it was annoying because I felt like I couldn’t come here to work,” Zanfangna said. She said it is unlikely she will darken Actual Cafe’s door during the laptop free weekends, but she said she gets the concept. “I support the experiment, and the cause of people actually looking off their screens and talking to one another.”

Prateepvanich was dubious at first, but hopes for the best, “I think it’s admirable.  I was curious about how you make a cafe work without laptops. I’m fully supportive of having more of a community aspect going on.  I wish him luck.”

Bednarz knows some people will be put off by his experiment or will assume he is anti-technology. “I’m not a luddite.  I’m a technology guy,” he said. “I use technology to promote the business. I use technology to run the business. But I don’t think it should run our lives. I don’t think it’s healthy to go out into a social place and pretend that you’re by yourself.”

Bednarz feels it’s fair to ask his customers who enjoy the vibe, music, atmosphere and the liveliness of his café to participate in it. “In order for me to continue to serve customers I have to ask for certain things that make it profitable for me,” he said.

To create community Bednarz has activities planned like Wednesday movie nights, art openings on First Fridays, bike rides and much more.  As always, he is open to feedback from customers to help shape the direction of the neighborhood cafe.

“I just want to remind people we have a real need for human interaction,” he said. “We don’t get that out of our television screens or our gadgets.  We get that out of pressing flesh and looking people in the eye.”

*****

Video co-produced with Mary Flynn.

“We are the one of the most diverse cities in America.  We represent the future,” said Dellums at the luncheon hosted by the Oakland Chamber of Commerce and Oakland based Clorox Company. He said  that this is an opportunity to attract more federal funds to create jobs in Oakland.

California tops the nation for stimulus funds awarded, with $23 million having come into the state by December 31, 2009. Within California, Alameda County is the third biggest recipient of the funds, and Oakland was awarded one of the most expensive projects—$192 million for the construction of a two-lane tunnel on State Route 24 between Alameda and Contra Costa counties.  Dellums said infrastructure is one of the most important agenda items for the city because its infrastructure is getting old.  “Here in Oakland, we are still one of the top several earthquake cities. The disaster is waiting to happen. A new infrastructure program is the most significant for the city to grow,” said Dellums.

Talking to hundreds of business leaders, Dellums also unveiled a strategy that he said will help generate more than 5,000 jobs over the next three years.

Dellums  said that the city and its partners have been working hard to create jobs in the areas of public safety, community and public infrastructure, economic development, social services and the environment. “These projects alone will generate over 5,000 jobs in the next three years,” said Dellums.

Dellums also mentioned that he hoped that the A’s will stay instead of moving to San Jose. He mapped out a preliminary plan to apply for federal Department of Transportation grants to revive Oakland’s street car system to connect Oakland’s heritage sites with A’s stadiums.

His tone throughout the speech was optimistic and encouraging. He said that between 2007 and 2009, jobs increased 2.8 percent in Oakland, and that the Oakland Partnership program, a public-private collaborative effort to implement a work plan for creating a vibrant economy for Oakland, has created more than 10,000 jobs over five years.

However, Oakland still has $9 million budget deficit to close in coming weeks.  Dellums encouraged communication among residents and city officials to discuss what services are more important to keep  “We have to think about what services we want and what budget can be cut for that,” said Dellums.

The City Council is scheduled to meet on February 16^th at 5 p.m. to decide what services to cut to save $9 million.

Garcia, founder of the East Oakland Boxing Association, died last Friday. Although he never married he was far from alone, and on Thursday afternoon at his memorial at Lake Chalet on Lake Merritt, the tributes poured in. His apartment on East 7^th Street was a “hub” for family and friends, said nephew Danny Garcia—his door was always open but, most importantly, so was his gym.

In Stanley Garcia’s own experience, boxing breathed life, maturity, and hope into the lives of young boys. His younger brother, Eddie Garcia, said they grew up with the sport, that it “opened doors into prosperity.”

“You learned the skills of living through boxing,” Eddie said. “You have to learn to control your temper in a fight and the best chance you have is to box clever.”

Stanley Garcia was born in 1940 in Peralta, New Mexico. The family moved to the Bay Area when he was 10, during what Eddie describes as the “tail end of the Grapes of Wrath” in San Jose, and spent summers in Santa Cruz picking fruit. He was the eighth out of nine children and grew up on the streets of East Oakland. To escape their treacherous surroundings, the boys found boxing. It was a way to fight without engaging in the violence of their community, Eddie Garcia remembers, and it taught them to eat right and stay in shape. He remembers the 2.5-mile run the boys would do around Lake Merritt, appropriately the backdrop of Thursday’s ceremony.

Following in the footsteps of his older brother Art, Stanley became the strong side of what Oakland came to know as “the Garcia brothers.” At the top of their game in the late 50s early 60s, the boys were always touted as the top of the card at local venues such as the Ringside Boxing Club, the Oakland Auditorium, the Oakland Army Terminal, the San Francisco Civic Auditorium, and Pier Six. In 1959, Stanley Garcia won a Golden Gloves Championship for his weight class and represented California in the Ohio-based National Championships.

But that was just the early years; Garcia’s true legacy was what he brought to the inner city kids of East Oakland. His contemporaries remember him going door-to-door from 1984 to 1987 to ask for contributions of start-up cash to open his gym, which now goes by E.O.B.A Smartmoves, on 98^th Avenue. Throughout the 23 years of the boxing association’s existence he would apply for grants and be supported in a large part by the East Oakland Community Foundation.

When the gym opened in 1987 it was equipped not only with boxing equipment but with computers as well. Homework always came first. The gym was a place to develop your mind as well as your body. Stanley was more than just a coach. He was a life coach as well, according to accolades given by close friends at the ceremony.

Friends and family remember Stanley as grumpy but generous. He was serious about boxing, but he had a soft side for children, be they nieces and nephews or the kids that crawled into the gym after school, and they often drained his wallet: he was known to always be good for a handout. At the memorial service, Rev. Dr. Arlene Nehring of the Eden United Church of Christ called Garcia “a dedicated servant to the community.”

Mentees and protégés at the service remembered the long hours of maintenance repairs at the gym. When Garcia held tournaments for his young fighters, his family would work the hot dog stands and usher in the crowds and Garcia would stand proudly in the middle in a three-piece suit—the master orchestrator.

Garcia is credited with having founded an organization that has touched the lives of 50,000 kids from East Oakland. In 1991 and 1992, the gym was selected to host the Junior Olympics and it continues to thrive. “Stanley was simple in his approach but he achieved miracles,” said one gym patron at the service.

Garcia ran the gym until about three months ago, when he had a stroke and started looking into assisted living homes in Santa Cruz. He passed away at the age of 69.

On the cloudy day of the memorial, Lake Merritt was still. Inside the boathouse, friends and family admired a collage of old photos of Garcia and his “kids.” People embraced with joy in their eyes as if grateful that Garcia had brought them together. At the front of the room was a recent photograph of Garcia framed with flowers and a candle. A blow-up poster of a boxing tournament with his name on the bill was set up to the left of the podium. For the most part the tributes brought laughter and warmth but when the young poet got up to speak there was not a dry eye in the house.

A long time ago, the young man in the pressed suit said, he was afraid. Garcia told him to look at the eyes of everybody in the crowd and fill himself with that fear and then fight his way through it. True he’d end up with a few bloody noses—one broken nose that Garcia himself would set back into place in the gym shower. But ultimately, he said, a fight would be won.

The homicide investigation into the disappearance of Fremont boy Hasanni Campbell continues amid reports that his foster parents have left the area. On Tuesday, The Oakland Tribune reported that Louis Ross and Jennifer Campbell had moved out of their Fremont rental home a month ago, and that Ross may be in Arizona. The article stated that Jennifer Campbell’s mother, Pamela Clark, does not know where she is.

John Burris, the Oakland attorney who had been advising the couple, said he was unaware they have allegedly left the area. “I know nothing,” he said. “I didn’t know they were gone.”

Missing Fremont child Hasanni Campbell. Photo courtesy Oakland Police Department

Press spokesman Officer Jeffrey Thomason of the Oakland Police Department could not comment on what impact the departure could have on police proceedings because “the case is still under investigation,” he said.

Hasanni Campbell, who has cerebral palsy, has been missing since August 10, 2009. Ross claimed Hasanni went missing when he left the boy in a car behind Shuz, a Rockridge shoe store on College Avenue, where Jennifer Campbell worked. So far, the OPD has released no evidence linking the boy to that location. The couple was arrested on suspicion of murder Aug. 28, but was released when prosecutors declined to file charges against them.

The Citizens for the Lost Society, a local group that helps search for missing people, is planning a rally in front of the Oakland Police Department on February 10, the six-month anniversary of Campbell’s disappearance. Sheri-Lyn Miller, a San Leandro print-shop owner, helped found the group after she began donating t-shirts and flyers to help find missing persons. Miller estimates the rally will draw a crowd of 100 to 150 people, including city council members and supporters of Oscar Grant, the Hayward man shot and killed by a BART police officer on January 1, 2009.

Participants are invited to come make signs for the rally at Miller’s San Leandro print shop on Saturday, February 6 between 12 and 6 p.m.

Miller has not had contact with either Ross or Jennifer Campbell “since Louis Ross was released from jail about four months ago,” she said. “They should be looking for him. They haven’t been.”

Even though the OPD classified the case as a homicide, rather than a missing persons case, back in August, Miller still encourages people to look for the boy, who would now be six years old. “He was a ward of the state,” said Miller. “He is everyone’s responsibility. Everyone with a car should have a flyer for him taped in their window.”

The Oakland Police Department Crime Stoppers reward for finding Campbell is $75,000.  Anyone with information regarding the case can call the Oakland Police Department at (510) 777-8572 or (510) 777-3211.

Miller’s print shop is located at 15976 E. 14th St. in San Leandro

Heal the Streets is a ten month paid fellowship  designed to create social change by empowering Oakland teens to advocate for violence prevention policies. The program, which began last October, has ten fellows ranging from age 15 to 17 and hailing from different Oakland neighborhoods. “We wanted to train young people pragmatically and give them their own voice,” said Crystallee Crain, the program’s director.

Crain said the fellows are split into two teams, each tasked with discussing the root causes of violence and brainstorming possible solutions with other Oakland teens and community members. Over the past few months the teams have been conducting research through focus groups and community strategy sessions. The groups meets weekly to discuss their violence advocacy prevention projects, and also learn skills like public speaking and critical thinking.

Crain said the first team is focusing on jobs and unemployment, and the second team is focused on ways the community can heal its social environment. The first team presented the results of their findings on Saturday, and the second team will hold an event to present their findings later in the spring.

On a sunny Saturday afternoon, approximately ninety people filled the rows of chairs facing the stage in the multi-purpose room at the West Oakland Public Library. Some sat chatting together holding small children on their laps, while others sat quietly, patiently waiting for the program to start. A large projection screen bearing the Heal the Streets logo stood onstage beside the single table designated for the panels. Friendly, bright-faced fellows buzzed about the room in preparation for their first public event—a few stood near the door, greeting people as they entered, while others straightened items on the table of refreshments.

As the program began, four fellows sat onstage at the panel table to discuss strategy sessions that had been held on January 16^th. The strategy sessions covered four topics: ways to protect oneself on the street, general concerns about violence, violence in the media, and job resources. The team had chosen these topics based on research they had conducted in focus groups last fall.

The young man who conducted the strategy session about safety said that poor education and easy access to weapons were major contributors to violence among teens, and that unemployment is also a critical factor. “When the parent can’t get a job anywhere, the oldest child may feel like they need to bring in everything for the family,” explained fellow Rodquel Branch, 17, of Skyline High School. She said this added pressure would often compel that child to do whatever necessary, including illegal activity, to bring in more income.

Brian McAlister, 17, a fellow from Oakland Tech High School, presented results from his strategy session called “What’s on your mind?” which discussed concerns residents have with violence in Oakland. “There needs to be more police officers from our community that know our community better,” McAlister said. “A lot of police officers come [to Oakland] with stereotypes.” McAlister said that residents in his group wanted to find ways to improve that relationship, and suggested hiring more police officers with ties to the community, or holding a community dinner that police officers could attend in their civilian clothes.

Another fellow, 18 year-old Jerrica Webb of Skyline High School, conducted a strategy session focused on violent messages in the media, including video games, movies and music, and asked participants to examine the effects of those messages. The audience listened attentively, nodding in agreement, as Webb described how such media can be misinterpreted by younger kids, or can lead to increased aggression in youth or cause residents to fear each other.

Fellow Rickiea Lacy, 17, who attends the Youth Empowerment School, said that the working group she had organized that discussed barriers to employment, and also provided information for interviewing and other jobs skills.

The presentation was followed by a question-and-answer session with a panel that included Oakland councilmembers Nadel and Kaplan and two students, Eric Adams of the Student School Board and Nikita Mitchell, a member of the nonprofit leadership development group Youth Together, and vice president of the All-City Council, which represents students from each school in the Oakland Unified School district. The audience submitted questions to the panel on plain white notecards, while a fellow moderated the conversation.

One audience member asked what the panel members intended to do to employ people from the community in the police department. Nadel said that the city could not legally require officers to live in Oakland, and that many native Oakland applicants have criminal records, thereby disqualifying them for positions in the police department. She acknowledged that relationships between the police and neighbors needed to be improved, and hoped the hiring of new police chief Anthony Batts would make a difference.

However, the panel unanimously disapproved of Chief Batts’ proposed youth curfew, which would prohibit minor from being outside after 10 p.m., unless they were headed to a specific destination. “Anything imposed on students where there’s no student engagement, no parent engagement, and no community engagement will not work and will not be effective,” Mitchell said, drawing loud applause from the audience.

A question asking how the state budget cuts would affect youth community centers and violence in Oakland drew a wide variety of responses. Mitchell and Adams were frustrated with the effect of the cuts on the school’s already lean budget. “They’re not looking at their priorities correctly,” Mitchell said. “Obviously our students are not the top priority, obviously the teachers are not the top priority, because if so, they would direct more resources to them.”

Nadel said the budget cuts would negatively impact youth and adult education, health care, and substance abuse treatment. Kaplan agreed and criticized the government’s practice of funneling money to new state parks, rather than funding improvements for existing parks. She encouraged the audience’s registered voters to sign the petition to create a ballot measure barring the state from taking local government money to fund their issues.

The panel was asked what steps they were taking to decrease violence in Oakland. Mitchell and Adams discussed the recently implemented Restorative Justice initiative in the Oakland school district, a program that emphasizes getting students to work together to repair the harm caused or revealed by criminal behavior.  It is a philosophy of which Nadel said she has been a long-time supporter. Nadel added that she is working to bring the Restorative Justice philosophy to the juvenile justice system as well.

Kaplan also mentioned the importance of re-entry programs, which are aimed at helping formerly incarcerated people return to society. ““We have a system problem where people make money based on keeping other people in prison,” she said. “There’s not a lot of motivation to help people turn their lives around.” Kaplan also said there may be a state grant for re-entry housing, and she would look into applying for it.

Kaplan said she is also in talks with the police department to keep minors out of the criminal system in the first place by not arresting them for prostitution. Kaplan said these children should be treated as victims of sexual exploitation, and not as criminals.

Finally, the panel was asked what measures they would be taking to create more jobs in Oakland. Nadel reminded the audience that creating jobs in a bad economy is difficult and said the current strategy focuses on applying for stimulus grants to develop more green energy related jobs. She said doing so would promote social equity while improving the environment. “It’s not going to be enough, but it’s something,” she said. Nadel added that the city had provided some of the start-up capital for the worker-owned Mandela Food Co-op in West Oakland, and she encouraged continued support for the grocery store.

Kaplan pointed out the changes the council had made to city zoning, including easing requirements for obtaining a conditional use permit, which makes it easier for small businesses to set up shop. Kaplan also said there were state grants coming next year which focus on “transit-oriented development,” or developing housing and businesses near public transportation hubs, and she thought Oakland would be well positioned to obtain them.

Fellow Elona Everett, 17, of Mandela High School, said she was pleased with how the day’s event had turned out, and was enjoying her experience with the program.  “I’m very proud to be part of Heal the Streets,” she said. “ It helps me learn more about what I’m doing and how I can help in my community and in the town I live in.”

Everett was also happy that she could help with the entertainment portion of the afternoon. Elona is a poet and a member of Youth Roots, an after-school program that provides youth with opportunities for “anti-oppression work” through activities such as performing, video arts, and adventure education.  Following the question and answer session, several Youth Roots members read dramatic poetry they’d written, drawing on their own experiences or those of other kids they knew. A captivated audience, many students themselves, listened intently to the poetry. Following the readings, several rap groups also performed, drawing enthusiastic cheers and impromptu dancing from the audience.

Longtime East Oakland resident Stephen Gilbert had heard of the Heal the Streets program, and he attended the Solutions Salon to see how the group was progressing. “It’s good to see youth involvement,“ he said. A retired BART employee, Gilbert spends summers teaching culinary skills to young adults through the Oakland Green Civic Campaign and he is also involved with the Urban Peace Movement. He agreed with much of what the panel had said, but said he had also “heard it all before.”

Gilbert stood in the library’s lobby, hands in his pockets while inside the multi-purpose room, the Youth Roots performers had the crowd cheering and clapping.  Around his neck hung a single dog tag, bearing a photograph of his son Daniel, who had been gunned down in 2007 after leaving a friend’s house in East Oakland. Gilbert attributes Daniel’s death to the random violence that plagues the city, and works to focus on reducing the conditions that create the culture of violence. “That’s what community involvement is all about,” he said, “to fight for those improvements, to fight foreclosures on homes, fight for better wages, or to improve funding for services and education.”

He appreciates the opportunity Heal the Streets provides to direct young people’s energies in a positive direction. “I like the idea—giving kids a chance to get active in their community and then give them the tools and the skills to get active in their community,” he said. Gilbert looked away. “It’s something that’s needed,” he said.