California voters came out for and against some of the most controversial propositions and measures in recent memory. Proposition 19, which would have legalized recreational use of marijuana, was rejected by a slim margin statewide despite support in Alameda County. Prop 19 proponent Richard Lee has publicly vowed to bring another initiative before voters in 2012. Proposition 23, which would have suspended air pollution regulation until unemployment figures improved, was rejected by a large margin, locally and statewide. Voters’ rejection of…
Looking up at the bar’s television and surrounded by strangers Monday night, Marie Bolten was wiping away tears moments after the San Francisco Giants won the first World Series title in the city’s history. “Oh my god, I’m so excited,” said Bolten, 35, at Barclay’s Restaurant and Pub in Rockridge. “I’ve been a Giants fan for 15 years. Baseball is such a beautiful game, and the Giants have played amazing ball. Seeing them win is like giving birth for me.”
This Halloween Oaklanders dressed up in their holiday finest. They went out to parks, bars, costume contests and parties, wherever there was Halloween fun to be had. Above are some of their submissions.
Following California’s lead after 1996’s Proposition 215, medical marijuana is now legal in 14 states plus Washington, DC. On November 2, three more states will vote on medical marijuana. In California, voters will consider legalizing growing or possessing pot for recreational use, and many cities will vote on pot taxes and dispensary regulations. Our interactive map explains what’s legal where, and who will be voting on new pot laws next week.
We need your most spooktacular Halloween photos. Do you have a creeptastic costume you want the world to see? Send us a pic. Is your home decked out strike fear into the hearts of children for years to come? Then we want to see it. Oakland North plans to publish the photos you submit in a multimedia presentation kicking off our coverage of the most terrorrific holiday of the year.
In 2004, Lorrain Taylor, the mother of two twin sons murdered in 2000, founded an advocacy group she called the 24/7 Gospel—now called 1,000 Mothers to Prevent Violence—and part of its mission is the support group, the Circle of Prayer and Empowerment, or COPE. The group meets every other Saturday, near Lake Merritt, at Regeneration Church. Her main job at these support groups is to hear the survivors of these loved ones mourn, as well as to simply invite family members to come and sit with others and talk, or just listen. Reaching out to families of homicide victims is Taylor’s full-time job now. When needed, she shows up to their doorsteps with groceries, a smile, a hug, kind words.
For more than two decades, the automotive attractions nicknamed “sideshows” have been a dangerous and illegal ritual in Oakland, claiming many lives along the way. Often referred to a “block party on wheels,” sideshows are impromptu tire screeching, doughnut-spinning, traffic-blocking congresses of cars surrounded by a crowd of people cheering on drivers as they execute dangerous twists and turns.
On Monday night, the Oakland Police and leadership-training group Youth Uprising celebrated the city’s first “sideshow-free” summer in 20 years with a reception that highlighted the dangers of the Oakland-born tradition.
Led by running back Jordan Sanford’s four touchdowns, the Fremont Tigers took down the Tech Bulldogs, 26-7, in opening weekend Oakland Athletic League (OAL) football action this past Saturday at Curt Flood Field.
When James Smith was released on parole in 2007, the Department of Corrections gave him $200 and pointed him out the door—he had no support, nowhere to go, nothing but the clothes on his back. It had been years since he had been on the outside. In a matter of months, Smith was asking his parole officer whether he could be sent back to prison rather than finish parole. Without a job, life outside proved to be difficult—too uncertain. “I couldn’t find a job,” said the 45-year-old Oakland native. “It’s like being a pariah.”
Vandals sawed off eight branches of a commemorative sculpture in Oakland’s Firestorm Memorial Garden Thursday. The bronze monument, dedicated to the victims and survivors of the worst fire in Bay Area history—the Oakland hills fire of October 20, 1991—symbolized the eucalyptus trees that were decimated by the fire but would blossom again years later.
There was talk of chickens and pigs at North Oakland’s Niebyl-Proctor Marxist Library on Friday night, but it wasn’t a discussion of Animal Farm. Jordan Ruyle named the barnyard critters while calling out square dance steps as part of a monthly event he puts on with his wife’s quartet, the Squirrelly Stringband.
The sun was shining this weekend as Swim A Mile swimmers of all ages, colors, shapes, and sizes donned swimsuits, swim caps, and goggles in rainbow colors and dove into the sparkling blue water of the pool. At the Mills College Trefethen Aquatic Center, the event arena, the large outdoor pool was able to accommodate the 400-plus participants swimming throughout the weekend.
Oakland police officials said that the department would be reviewing its policies after a routine call to an Oakland home resulted in the shooting death of a dog—the second shooting in five months involving animals. The incident happened Tuesday when officers responded to a burglar alarm at a house on the 9000 block of Burgos Avenue in the Oakland hills. One of the officers, while checking the house for suspects, encountered a Labrador coming out the rear door, and shot…
After October 30, the more than five million Americans born on the island of Puerto Rico—1.4 million of them on the US mainland, the rest still living in Puerto Rico— will have to reapply for their own birth certificates.
Laughter, prayer, song and tears marked Saturday night’s third annual PURPLE Fundraising Gala for the families and friends of those who have lost their lives to violence. The event, organized by the Oakland-based advocacy group 1,000 Mothers to Prevent Violence, recognized two Oakland police investigators and a retired schoolteacher for having gone “beyond the call of duty to bring healing to surviving families.”
The Oakland Police Department released a sketch of the man suspected of robbing two women on their way home in Oakland’s Lake Merritt neighborhood on September 19.
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