As of 2:45 pm on Monday, the Oakland Police Department has confirmed that a total of 10 people were injured, of whom 7 died, at a shooting on the Oikos University campus earlier this morning. The Oakland Police Department currently has one person in custody in connection to this incident, said OPD spokesperson Officer Johnna Watson. Police are referring to the man, whom Watson described as Asian and in his 40s, as a “person of interest” in the case. “We believe…
Oaksterdam University, a center that offers training for workers in the marijuana industry, and several of the organization’s related buildings were raided Monday morning by federal agents. According to Dale Sky Jones, Oaksterdam University’s executive chancellor, federal agents raided five Oaksterdam-related locations around 8 am, including the home of founder Richard Lee and the organization’s downtown dispensary, storage unit, school, and the former site of the Blue Sky coffee shop, the last four of which are located on Broadway in…
The Oakland Unified School District board reconvened Thursday afternoon after Wednesday night’s meeting was adjourned early thanks to chanting protesters who drowned out the board members’ discussion. Nine people were arrested later that night when they refused to leave the chambers as they protested the shutdown of five elementary schools.
In an emotional, chaotic meeting that had numerous contentious items on the agenda, the Oakland school board postponed most of its agenda until the next day after the meeting was interrupted by a group chanting and blocking the entrance to the board members’ desks.
OUSD Superintendent Tony Smith addressed controversial topics like the “Acceleration Teacher on Special Assignment” position that was created at three schools, which extends the school year there by a month. He also spoke about ”partnership schools”—charter schools that retain a close relationship with the district, the district’s budget and role in the city, as well as about how those who work for the district can do a better job of educating kids, especially young African American male students.
Oakland North is continuing with our feature. Every week, we will publish a photo submitted by one of our readers. This week’s photo is by Melanie Peterson.
For the second consecutive time, the Oakland City Council’s finance and management committee failed to meet because not enough members showed up. The lack of a quorum—only Councilmembers Jane Brunner (District 1) and Patricia Kernighan (District 2) were present—shelved a resolution that would have taken away the power of the City Administrator’s Office to extend the city’s banking contract with Wells Fargo past this year, instead giving the power to the city council to negotiate a new deal.
Oakland North is continuing with our feature. Every Tuesday, Oakland Animal Services will spotlight an “Animal of the Week” that’s up for adoption at their facility. This week it’s Cyrano.
Even to his family, Charles Klinkner was known as an eccentric character. That tends to happen to a man who is arrested for counterfeiting after distributing nickel-sized coins carrying the name of his rubber stamp company, who wears a suit with 40 or 50 pockets in order to carry goods he could sell to a customer at any time, or who drives a team of red, white and blue painted mules through the streets of Oakland on the Fourth of…
The place where the Mai Tai was invented is now a vacant lot. The original Trader Vic’s—where the world famous rum cocktail was invented in 1944—once stood at 6500 San Pablo Avenue, on the corner of 65th Street. But Trader Vic’s closed that location in 1972 and moved to Emeryville. In the first half of the 20th Century, there were “50 bars from the Emeryville line to the Berkeley line” around San Pablo Avenue, according to historian Don Hausler, who…
Many of the 20,000 people from Ethiopia and Eritrea living in the Bay Area call Oakland home. Oakland North is taking a look at the culture and history of the Ethiopian or Eritrean community in Oakland with “East Africans in Oakland” a series of profiles on everyday people living in the city.
A discussion about Measure Y funds developed into a debate about Mayor Jean Quan’s “100 block” public safety plan at the Oakland City Council meeting Tuesday night.
Keith Salminen is passionate about his favorite team, the Oakland A’s. He’s the host of an Internet radio talk show called “A’s Fan Radio,” has been going to games since he was 2 years old, and says he regularly goes to 50 or 60 games a year. (The exception was the four years when he was in the Marines, stationed at Camp Pendleton in Southern California, when he only made it to handful of road games.) Last weekend, Salminen had the finishing touches put on his arm tattoo: the A’s logo with the Oaklandish tree behind it.
“Basically, for the last decade I’ve been planning on getting an A’s tattoo because of avid of an A’s fan I am,” Salminen said. He’s such a big fan, he recently became part of a group of committed fans who are working to keep Oakland’s three professional sports teams—the A’s of Major League Baseball, the NFL’s Oakland Raiders and the NBA’s Golden State Warriors—from leaving town.
Oakland North is continuing with our feature. Every Tuesday, Oakland Animal Services will spotlight an “Animal of the Week” that’s up for adoption at their facility. This week it’s Oliver.
Frank Garcia can’t help but start laughing. He’s standing in the middle of the Bushrod Recreation Center gym on a Thursday night, wearing gym shorts and holding a small, red plastic ball that looks like a miniature version of the ones found in schoolyards from coast to coast. Two of his high school buddies are standing next to him, and they’re cracking jokes of the ball-pun variety at each other’s expense. All around the gym, these plastic balls are whizzing by, as dozens of people warm up for a night of dodgeball.
Howard Jordan, a longtime Oakland police officer, and former San Jose assistant fire chief Teresa Jordan, were officially named to the top posts in their departments at a ceremony at the city hall rotunda building on Thursday.