Development
By CLARE MAJOR Nov. 5 — A proposition to give additional funds to children’s hospitals passed with 54 percent of votes in favor and 45 percent against. Proposition 3 authorizes $980 million in general obligation bonds to fund grants for the construction, renovation, or related improvements of California children’s hospitals. The bonds will be repaid over 30 years, for a total estimated cost to the state of $2 billion, or $64 million per year.
While the presidential election and the same-sex marriage initiative rule California headlines, little-noticed Proposition 3 could have serious impact in North Oakland. Click here for the story.
by BAGASSI KOURA After its first approval 20 years ago, a local park development measure running out of money is back on the ballot this fall. The East Bay Regional Park District is asking residents of Alameda and Contra Costa counties to vote for Measure WW, which would raise up to $500 million through government bonds.
Neighbors of this Golden Gate neighborhood motel say they’re fed up with what seems to go on inside. Click here for the story.
By BAGASSI KOURA As the busy holiday season nears, North Oakland residents and business owners can expect an added hassle as Bay Area Rapid Transit officials embark on a yearlong earthquake retrofit project. Sometime between Thanksgiving and the New Year, construction workers will descend on the area around the Rockridge BART station and begin a makeover that will reconstruct it section by section. Noisy machines breaking concrete will drown out carolers and airborne dust will dim the twinkle of tree…
Story and audio slides by MARTIN RICARD It was a little after 7 p.m. on a recent Monday night at Eli’s Mile High Club, and a slow, celestial song by the British space rock group The Telescopes was blasting over the speakers to an empty room. Jason Herbers, the assistant to Eli’s owner, who manages the day-to-day operations of the club, was visibly frustrated by the lack of customers as he strolled back and forth throughout the place.
By HENRY JONES As AC Transit’s Bus Rapid Transit plan grinds through the bureaucracies of Berkeley, Oakland, and San Leandro, North Oakland residents and merchants are trying to grasp just what their civic leaders are getting them all into. Take an already bustling avenue like Telegraph, devote the two middle lanes to public buses, and run it all the way from Berkeley to San Leandro, and you have yourself either a transportational triumph or an unmitigated disaster. No one’s quite…
By MELANIE MASON and BAGASSI KOURA SEPT. 25 — After three years and $190 million spent, the Cathedral of Christ the Light, Oakland’s newest house of worship, was officially dedicated today in the presence of Cardinals, Bishops and over 1,500 East Bay residents. The dedication ceremony of a new cathedral — in which the cathedral is formally consecrated — is a relatively rare liturgical service; the Cathedral of Christ the Light is one of only three cathedrals in the United States…
Plans for ambitious supermarket reconstruction are being rethought as trouble neighbors and local business owners; . Click here for the story.