Development
Oakland Police officers and protesters faced off in the downtown street Tuesday afternoon, as police fired tear gas canisters and using flash bang grenades to disperse protesters from the intersection of 14th Street and Broadway at about 12:15 pm today.
Early Tuesday morning Occupy Oakland activists kicked off a May Day general strike and protest to challenge what they see as a destructive capitalist system. May Day, which is often called International Workers’ Day, has a long history as being a day for unions to protest on behalf of employees.
The OUSD board voted 5-2 to deny the application of Lazear Elementary, which is slated to close after this school year, to convert to a charter school.
Every day, employees of the city of Oakland’s and the city of Richmond’s public works departments each collect around 30 abandoned mattresses. These discarded beds cause a litany of problems for a city—there’s the cleanup cost (about $500,000 annually for Oakland), they pose a public health risk by attracting insects and rodents, and contribute to neighborhood blight. The issue of abandoned mattresses is a “regional problem” State Senator Loni Hancock (D-Oakland) said Monday during a press event in an area…
The federal government has been collecting the Harbor Maintenance Tax from port customers for years with the specific purpose of port maintenance and dredging. When the government increased the tax in 1990, it did so with the explicit promise that all dredging needs would be met with funds collected from the tax, according to Port of Oakland’s spokesperson Marilyn Sandifur. Today, in the long, drawn-out battle over port funds, Port of Oakland officials claim the government has not released sufficient funds for maintenance over the years, and the proof is in the channels’ depths.
After a federal raid in early April on Oaksterdam University, an education center located in downtown Oakland that trains students to work in the marijuana industry, founder Richard Lee has decided to step down as head of the institution. His successor will be former executive chancellor Dale Sky Jones, which will officially be announced on Wednesday morning.
Rozlyn Steele offers a morsel of lemon chess pie to a customer at the Grand Lake farmer’s market in Oakland. She stands proudly behind a neatly checkered table displaying stacks of golden cookies, seasonal pies, and flaky biscuits from Little Ladybug Bakery. But before Steele started renting commercial kitchen space from a catering company, she was one of a number of renegade food entrepreneurs who sold baked goods “illegally” prepared at home.
Rebecca Kaplan was once a rabbinical student, and the Oakland City Councilmember still knows her scripture well. On Wednesday afternoon, Kaplan quoted the books of Isaiah, Leviticus and Exodus while speaking during a teach-in about the city’s bond debt with Goldman Sachs at Allen Temple Baptist Church in East Oakland.
Medical marijuana dispensaries often strive to keep a low profile, but this has been even more the case after federal agents raided Oaksterdam University and the home of founder Richard Lee on Monday. Half a dozen East Bay dispensaries responded with “no comment” when asked about how their organization was reacting to the raid, and others ignored voicemails. To date, there are no known closures of dispensaries in the East Bay as a reaction to Monday’s raid, and for many dispensaries, such as Harborside Health Center and the Berkeley Patient’s Care Collective, it’s business as usual.