Economy
This video was shot by John Osborn of Mission Local during the initial part of the police raid on the Occupy Oakland campsite in downtown Oakland, from around 4:30 am to 6:30 am Tuesday morning.
The Oakland Unified School District spent a week in October hosting meetings at each public schools recommended for closure: Lakeview, Marshall, Maxwell Park, Lazear and Santa Fe Elementary Schools. These meetings were a chance for parents, teachers, students and concerned community members to ask questions about what their future might look like.
The Oakland Unified School District’s controversial proposal to close five elementary schools this fall, and more in coming years, follows a multi-year program of encouraging small small schools–subdividing bigger facilities into multiple smaller ones, each with fewer students and a more intimate climate. But funding and enrollment changes have pushed the district to what promises to be an emotional meeting and vote Wednesday night.
At around 5:30 Tuesday morning, Oakland police raided two Occupy Oakland encampments, the main one at Frank Ogawa Plaza that had grown to house more than 100 protestors, and a smaller site at Snow Park near Lake Merritt.
At 7:30 Tuesday morning, Oakland Mayor Jean Quan’s office issued a statement regarding the police raid on the two downtown Occupy Oakland camp sites.
In the pre-dawn hours on Tuesday, Oakland police conducted raids on two encampments created by the Occupy Oakland protesters, the main one at Frank Ogawa Plaza and a smaller one at Snow Park near Lake Merritt.
As the Occupy Oakland encampment grew, shop owners offer mixed reports on whether the protest has been good or bad for business.
There used to be grass here, but it didn’t last long―not after the bodies started multiplying and the make-shift community started growing. Now the space is covered in mud and heaps of hay. And a runaway pancake that slid off of someone’s blue-plastic plate. And a stray sock, and a boardwalk of planks. And feet. Hundreds of feet. This used to be Frank H. Ogawa Plaza, but not any more. Welcome to Occupy Oakland.
Homes where families used to live, beloved pets left behind, a phoenix rising from the flames—a ceremonial visit to these hand-painted images, which adorn thousands of tiles at Rockridge’s Firestorm Community Mural Project, was one several Saturday events winding up the 20th anniversary week of the devastating 1991 Oakland Hills fire.