Business

Garden program provides crucial link for parolees after prison

The blender roared to life, shredding kale, mint, strawberries, bananas and ice into a delicious concoction. Anthony Forrest, the smoothie maker, handed cups of the nutritious potion to the students surrounding him in the school garden at Fremont High School in East Oakland. Forrest and his colleague Vernon Ray Dailey both work for Planting Justice, a nonprofit advocating for locally grown food, food education, jobs and shared green spaces. Forrest and Dailey are not secretive about their past: Between the…

EBMUD changing its short-term financing for borrowing funds

In an abbreviated meeting on Tuesday before Thanksgiving, the East Bay Municipal Utility District (EBMUD) unanimously passed a proposal to change their short-term financing in order to reduce long-term risk. EBMUD will be moving from “extended” back to “traditional” commercial paper, according to Dari Barzel, EBMUD’s principal management analyst. What does that mean? “Commercial paper is by far our lowest-cost financing,” Barzel told the directors, citing a 30-day interest rate of about 0.09 percent. “You can’t beat it.” Commercial paper…

Union members protest proposed construction of a Hampton Inn in downtown Oakland

Protestors chanted “Living wage, not poverty wage!” and “Downtown Oakland not for sale!” to the lively rhythm of music played by a five-piece band featuring a tuba, saxophone, trumpet and drums as they took the streets of downtown Oakland on Tuesday evening. “We’re at the site of the hopefully-never-built Hampton poverty hotel,” shouted Wei-Ling Huber, president of UNITE HERE Local 2850, into a megaphone. Organizers and members of UNITE HERE, a union that represents East Bay and North Bay hotel and…

Reddit gamer day raises $282,000 for Children’s Hospital

The gamers’ cries were punctuated by clocks of game controllers, flips of cards and a crackle of pizza crusts—all part of the soundtrack at Reddit on November 7 as the social networking and news site participated in Extra Life’s 24-hour Game Day to raise money for Children’s Hospital Oakland.

EBMUD planning past drought to “water fix”

The “water fix” is an evolving $15.5 billion Bay Delta conservation plan to stabilize water diversions in the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta. The most expensive and controversial part involves building two huge tunnels, thirty miles long, from Courtland to Tracy.