Economy
Members of the Occupy Oakland general assembly discussed more details of the proposed general strike in the early evening Friday, agreeing after much fanfare to march on the Port of Oakland on Wednesday, November 2— the day of the proposed general strike— at 5 p.m.
As Mayor Jean Quan fielded reporters’ questions on Friday about the clash between police and protesters earlier this week, she was suddenly drowned out by cheers coming from outside as documentarian and activist Michael Moore arrived to speak to a gathering crowd of hundreds on the steps of City Hall.
The ACLU and the National Lawyers Guild (NLG) jointly sent a public records request to the Oakland Police Department this week, asking for detailed information about the arrests and use of force in response to the Occupy Oakland confrontations.
Frick Middle School’s new on-site health center, which has been open to students since mid-October, is the newest addition to the Oakland Unified School District’s nine school-based health centers, all providing medical, mental health and health education services for students and their families—at no cost, and in a place that is already part of their daily lives.
On Thursday evening, hundreds of Occupy Oakland supporters gathered in the amphitheater at Frank Ogawa Plaza to discuss details of a general citywide strike planned for November 2, and to support war veteran Scott Olsen, who was injured during the confrontation between police and protesters earlier this week.
More than a dozen people waited in a fourth-floor hallway of Oakland’s Wiley W. Manuel courthouse on Thursday afternoon, waiting for the arraignment of the nine protesters still being held after Tuesday’s eviction of the Occupy Oakland camp and subsequent clashes between police officers and protesters.
The Oakland Unified School District board voted 5-2 to close five elementary schools — Lakeview, Lazear, Marshall, Maxwell Park and Santa Fe — and transform or merge several other schools at its meeting at Oakland Technical High School on Wednesday night.
In coming months, the first of hundreds of prisoners will be transferred from state facilities back to the counties’ care. Derreck Johnson, the owner of Oakland’s Home of Chicken and Waffles, has a message for other employers: Don’t be afraid to hire people with records. At his family-style restaurant, it’s a tradition that works.
A jubilant crowd of Occupy Oakland supporters poured into the city’s downtown streets late last night, after their “general assembly” approved supporting a citywide strike Nov. 2. But the crowd’s efforts to cross the bay to join the Occupy S.F. group were thwarted by BART officers, who shut down the 12th Street BART entrance amid cries of “Police brutality!” and “This is what democracy looks like!”