Development

The majority of people in the room seemed to be women, and many wore proud smiles on their faces. They were attending the graduation ceremony of the first all-female Green Energy Training Services (GETS) pre-apprenticeship cohort held by Berkeley non-profit organization Rising Sun Energy Center, and the room at John F. Kennedy University’s Berkeley campus was buzzing with excitement. Dubbed “Women Build,” the program trains women for union jobs in construction and other skill-based industries traditionally employing men. It launched on March…

“Dogtown Redemption,” a documentary film shot over seven years in West Oakland, follows the lives of three local shopping cart recyclers.

Last Thursday, The Town Kitchen was awarded the “Most Community-Oriented Employer” at the Work Local Awards party. The award aims to recognize and celebrate the best employers in the Bay Area.

Proposition 39, also known as the “Smaller Classes, Safer Schools and Financial Accountability Act,” was passed by voters in 2000, and requires all California school districts to provide equivalent facilities to charter schools and the students who choose to attend them. The ballot initiative was based on the premise that students who attend charter schools would have otherwise attended district schools, so the district should have planned to accommodate those students with space and resources. To be “equivalent” means that the district must provide resources and facilities to a charter school that match what they provide children at schools in the same part of the district, and according to the proposition’s text, they must be “contiguous, furnished and equipped, and shall remain the property of the school district.”

In a meeting Tuesday morning, the Oakland Public Works Committee concluded the southbound bus stop on Broadway and 30th Street, which was removed last year, would be reinstated, but it is still unclear if it will return to its original location or be moved south of 30th Street to be in front of Summit Bank.

Making space for more people without forcing out existing residents is a key dilemma of the housing crisis, affecting cities across the Bay Area. While large apartment buildings can take years to go up, advocates say tiny houses can go in now.

Guests could hear music and laughter the moment they walked through the entrance of Building L at Merritt College one chilly March evening. They were here for the community open house for the new Africana Studies Community Research Center and Curriculum, which focuses on educating the public on African-American Studies and history. Every inch of the room was occupied by excited attendees, trays of soul food, decorations and detailed pamphlets that explained how the interactive curriculum in the center’s computer…

Today in Los Angeles, Governor Jerry Brown signed off on a new minimum wage bill that will make California the state with the highest in the country at $15 an hour by 2022. The bill cleared the state legislature last Thursday.

This startup’s goal is to ensure the future of home-cooking, connecting local chefs to a hungry community.