Community

Historic tall ships The Lady Washington and Hawaiian Chieftain have returned to Oakland’s Jack London Square for nearly two weeks of tours, sailing activities and educational programming.

“Here you have the unrehearsed, totally spontaneous expression of truth—a concentrated exposure to the thinking of black men,” said photographer Chris Johnson, who is also a California College of the Arts (CCA) professor, longtime Oakland resident, and one of the four brains behind Question:Bridge.

Writer and home renovation expert Jane Powell is fighting to save her historic Oakland home, dubbed the Bunga-Mansion, from foreclosure.

Oakland North reporters Meghan Walsh and Roberto Daza take you on a walk around Lake Merritt in the first of an ongoing series chronicling the city’s busiest neighborhoods.

Big Brothers Big Sisters of the Bay Area, a local chapter of one of the nation’s biggest youth mentoring organizations, has about 750 children and teenagers in the Bay Area waiting for a mentor.

Oakland Mayor Jean Quan has had a tumultuous first year in office. Since her first day one year ago, the mayor has been faced with overseeing severe budget cuts and scores of layoffs of city workers, as well as the resignation of the city attorney and the chief of police, battles with Occupy Oakland, an undermanned police force that is close to federal receivership and is battling a debilitating crime problem, and not one, but two efforts to recall her from her job.

But through it all, Quan said she’s “optimistic” about what’s in store for the city during her State of the City address at City Hall on Wednesday night.

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 Ricardo Moran.

Is a bar worthy of historical landmark status primarily because of the people who have been going there for years? That’s the crux of the argument that the owners and a group of regular customers at the Kingfish Pub and Café made in a presentation to the Oakland Landmarks Preservation Advisory Board on Monday night at City Hall.

Proposition 8, California’s voter-approved ban on same-sex marriage, was struck down by the Ninth U.S. Circuit of Appeals in San Francisco earlier today.