As a growing number of Oakland residents embrace urban farming—including the raising of chickens, goats and pigs in their back yards—the city planning commission is investigating the trend’s potentially negative impacts on the surrounding community.
About two dozen protesters jammed the entrance of the Oakland Unified School District’s office building near Lake Merritt on Wednesday afternoon, demanding the dismissal of recently-appointed OUSD interim police chief Barhin Bhatt, who was involved in the fatal shooting of 20-year-old Raheim Brown earlier this year. Bhatt was appointed to head the district’s small police force earlier this month after the previous chief stepped down.
To celebrate the company’s upcoming 100-year anniversary, designers from Oakland-based household products manufacturer Clorox have turned dozens of its iconic bleach bottles into artistic works. On Wednesday afternoon, the company kicked off an exhibition of these works at Oakland City Center to present the public with an alternative usage of what otherwise would be thrown away.
The Oakland town hall meeting called “Speak Out for Good Jobs Now” attracted more than 600 people to the Acts Full Gospel Church in East Oakland on Tuesday evening. It was the last stop on a group of Democratic legislators’ national tour to gather public opinions about job creation issues.
The Islamic Medical Association of North America, or IMANA, is launching its first chapter in the Bay Area. A network of Muslim physicians and other health care professionals all over the country, the organization promotes Islamic medical values and provides medical relief to disaster-affected areas around the world.
From August 12 to September 8, Actual Café, located at San Pablo Avenue and Alcatraz Avenue in North Oakland, is hosting a bicycle art show inside its shop, featuring works from a number of local artists.
Holding banners and large withdrawal request forms, about 30 customers gathered on Wednesday in front of Wells Fargo’s main branch in downtown Oakland to announce that they would close their Wells Fargo bank accounts to protest the bank’s foreclosure practices.
Known for its long history of fostering basketball stars, including legendary National Basketball Association guards like Gary Payton and Jason Kidd, the East Oakland Youth Development Center’s latest basketball camp has attracted more than 100 students.
Health workers, government officials, including Vice Mayor Desley Brooks, and dozens of mothers and their children gathered in front of Oakland City Hall Thursday afternoon to celebrate 2011 World Breastfeeding Week.
Made up of five Bay Area broadcast journalists and one musician, the Eyewitness Blues Band has been telling their own stories through music for five years. Check out the video of their performance on Wednesday at the Oakland City Center.
Parents at the Peralta Elementary School in North Oakland are raising money to keep a $100,000 art program, run by two artists-in residence, alive after the program lost half its funding for next school year.
Opened in 1912 at 16th Street and Wood Street, the Southern Pacific Train Station in West Oakland used to be one of the three original train stations serving Oakland at the beginning of the 20th Century, bringing goods and people—from coastal workers to jazz musicians—to the region from all over the country.
More than 200 people flocked to the Jack London Square Aquatic Center on Wednesday evening to show support for Oakland’s bid to host the expansion project of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, a massive scientific research institute run by UC Berkeley on behalf of Department of Energy.
An Alameda County Superior Court judge today denied the request to issue a temporary restraining order to halt the Oakland Zoo’s expansion project. The request, filed jointly by Friends of Knowland Park and the California Native Plants Society (CNPS), called for a three-week suspension of the zoo’s project, which the groups say will damage the natural habitat for endangered native species living in the city-owned Knowland Park.
More than 300 people packed the North Oakland Senior Center on Thursday evening to discuss the future of urban agriculture in Oakland. The forum, organized by Oakland’s planning and zoning division, is the city’s latest effort to gain public input on updating its urban farming regulations.
A Wednesday evening planning commission drew a big crowd eager to argue the pros and cons of allowing Safeway to develop a 62,000 square-foot project at the corner of College and Claremont Avenues.