Crime

BART consultants get first degree from community

The BART boardroom opened its doors Tuesday night and community leaders and members  said they feared  the “top to bottom” assessment by an outside consulting group was nothing more than a public relations ploy by BART. “You don’t know the facts as we know the facts,” Dr. Ramona Tascoe, an ordained minister and medical doctor practicing in Oakland, told the consultants, the National Organization of Black Law Enforcement Executives,  known as NOBLE The NOBLE assessment team of eight began their…

Making it

Gabriel De Jesus is bent over a laptop, eyes moving back and forth between the screen and the stack of forms on the desk next to him, jotting occasional notes. An older man knocks on the door and says he’s there to pick something up; De Jesus has him sign in on the sheet outside while he looks for his file. The phone rings; he answers, “Citizens for Education, this is Gabriel.” De Jesus works four days a week here…

Youth Speak Up, Curfew Shot Down

Diana Montaño/OaklandNorth Last month, a youth curfew ordinance was voted down by the City Council’s Public Safety Committee. And while the ordinance failed to become law, it did succeed in rousing the voice of Oakland’s youth.