Development
Safeway supermarkets plans to demolish its Pleasant Valley shopping mall — which at 185,000 square feet is about half the area of the Great Pyramid at Giza — and replace it with one almost two-thirds larger. The new mall would be 304,000 square feet with 1,066 parking spaces, or 50 percent more spaces. Neighborhood critics say the new mall, which would include Long’s Drug and other retailers, would be too big, attract too much traffic and therefore endanger pedestrians accustomed…
After six years of state control, the Oakland Unified School District resumed local control last week and new Superintendent Tony Smith, an Oakland native, was inducted into office. But what exactly does this mean for Oakland residents in terms of change? Not much, apparently. While the OUSD Board will now be in a position to make independent decisions – versus advising a state administrator – the looming budget crisis seems to be tying everyone’s hands. One reason why school officials…
The Oakland Council members unanimously passed an Energy and Climate Action Plan late Tuesday night. The approval by the eight-member council now sends the city to preliminary planning to see how it can reduce greenhouse gasses to 36 percent below the 2005 level by 2020. Targets listed in the plan would meet international standards of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a unit put on partly by the United Nations Environment Program. “We are unlikely allies,” said Ian Kim, member…
Ever since I moved to Berkeley from Japan a year ago, my friend, Josh Allen keeps asking. “How can you survive without a car?” Allen, an associate movie producer, who drives his three-year old Mercedes convertible everywhere he goes, will never understand. But those who ride the buses and need the buses do. AC Transit serves more than 230,000 of us a day. When Privately owned Key System started its streetcar and bus services in East Bay in 1903,…
by SHILANDA WOOLRIDGE BART commuters said the 25 cent fare raise that went into effect yesterday is unlikely to change their habits, even if they don’t like it.
Residents gathered Thursday at the Chapel of the Chimes Mortuary on Piedmont Avenue for a second meeting called by Safeway officials to talk about the store’s plan to redo the shopping center in Pleasant Valley. “Obviously, it is a corporate sponsored meeting,” said Eric Edwards, a resident of the Rockridge Manor condominium next to the shopping center, referring to the Safeway brand foods and beverages offered those who attended. Safeway, which also has a development plan underway at its College…
The roller coaster ride of city budget-balancing will not come to an end on July 1, at least according to several Oakland City Council members at last week’s meeting. However, looking at Mayor Dellums’ original proposal to balance an $83-85 million general fund deficit in comparison with the revised proposal that four city council members put forth on June 11 gives us a slightly clearer picture of what to expect . Here’s how some of the departments will be affected:…
President Obama’s stimulus package meant little to Linda Russell until she went to borrow money at OneCalifornia Bank in Oakland for her school photography business, Mugshot. But when her $300,000 loan was quickly approved she discovered what the stimulus is all about. “I think the Recovery Act is working,” said the San Rafael based photographer and business entrepreneur who plans to expand with an online presence and possibly franchise the idea to other parts of the country. Russell is not…