Economy
Public officials and maritime industry leaders met on Friday to urge Congress to release funds collected from the Harbor Maintenance Tax in order to improve California’s port infrastructure and help stimulate economic growth.
The California Healthy Food Financing Initiative (CHFFI) landed on Governor Jerry Brown’s desk last week, after the state Senate and Assembly both voted to approve it by a wide margin. If signed by the governor, the bill would help bring more grocery stores, farmers’ markets and other sources of produce to under-served communities throughout the state, including West and East Oakland.
Going from a dingy yellow wall to a bright-colored, futuristic work of art, the 28th Street Partners apartment complex off of Telegraph Avenue in downtown Oakland has received quite a facelift. Earlier this month, Oakland artists Sidharth Chaturvedi, Samuel Garland and Lindsey Millikan took their art to the streets by painting a mural on the side of the two-story apartment building. Millikan found out about the job after property manager Tony Toppanno posted an ad on Craigslist. Soon after, Millikan…
Founded in October 2010 by Danny Rosen, Arthur Coulston and Billy Parish, Berkeley-based Solar Mosaic is using Oakland as a proving ground to test for the first time its model of this crowd-funded community solar, with plans to finance five to seven projects, of which the Asian Resource Center (ARC) project is the first.
An emotional Oakland Unified School District board meeting that attracted hundreds of agitated parents and children went on until nearly midnight, though the board took no action in its controversial plan to close or consolidate more than a dozen of the city’s schools.
On Sunday, 20 local businesses exhibited their products and services at Tilt—a contemporary wedding fair catering to, as the event’s website put it, “the creative, alternative-thinking bride or groom.”
The preliminary list of OUSD schools recommended for closure three weeks has changed. Now five elementary schools are recommended for closure while two others are being proposed for “quality expansion.”
At the Eat Real Festival in Oakland’s Jack London Square on Saturday afternoon, crowds of people gathered on the waterfront, queuing up for $4 miniature sweet-potato pies and $5 citrus pork sandwiches on organic, brick oven flatbread. But in front of Bay Area Bikes, four cyclists had a different idea—riding gloves were slipped on, four helmet locks clicked shut, and the group rode away from the food festival to get an inside look at some of Oakland’s local food and drink makers.
An estimated 21,000 healthcare workers joined picket lines, attended rallies or simply stayed home from work in protest of proposed employee benefit cuts at 40 hospitals across California.