Economy
During a contentious meeting Tuesday afternoon, the Oakland City Council’s Committee on Community and Economic Development debated whether or not to expand the boundaries where food trucks can do business throughout the city, as well as loosen some of the restrictions that govern where food trucks can park.
The City of Oakland kicked off its annual month-long pothole overhaul on Tuesday. Workers in florescent-orange jackets set down cones on Telegraph Avenue at 56th Street in North Oakland, then sprayed a sticky black substance called asphalt emulsion to delineate the culprit area, which contained several wide, shallow potholes.
Mike H. had been waiting for half an hour to hear his name called by an intake counselor at the Rubicon Legal and Economic Service Center in Richmond. But he was in no rush. He had been waiting for over 30 years for this; Saturday was the closest he’d ever been to getting his criminal record dismissed.
After nearly a year of contract negotiations, Children’s Hospital Oakland nurses and administrators are at an impasse over benefits and the nurses now poised for a strike. They will go back to the bargaining table early next week, but if they don’t come closer to a compromise, they will stage a five-day walkout starting May 5. The strike would be their second in the same contract negotiation cycle; Children’s nurses staged a three-day strike last October.
Oakland designer Zoe Hong is a 31-year-old emerging fashion talent in a region rarely recognized for its style. Hong is currently working on her third season, a 10-piece mini-collection for summer, and is planning a larger collection for Fall. She sells her creations at Etsy.com and Kreeya.com, as well as in three boutiques, including The Factory in San Francisco.
Nurses at Children’s Hospital in Oakland have approved a five-day strike amid contract negotiations with the hospital administration over pension and healthcare benefits.
One of the all-time favorites dishes at the old Jon’s Street Eats was the ahi tuna roll. Chef Jon Kosorek would lightly sear rare tuna encrusted with black sesame seeds, top it with Asian-inspired slaw and wasabi aioli, then layer it all into a grilled soft white roll. When Kosorek shuttered Jon’s Street Eats in February, moving onto an executive chef job in Calistoga, his customers lamented the loss.
With no public libraries of its own, Piedmont depends on Oakland for its books—not to mention its groceries, and access to the outside world. But the most recent contract granting Piedmonters access to Oakland’s libraries expired in 2008, and representatives of the two cities have been negotiating a new contract ever since. Though a long-term agreement is still far off, this week officials did manage to settle on one thing: a price for last year’s service
Much to many Oakland’s residents’ chagrin, over the past few months the CVS superstore on Broadway and Pleasant Valley has been packing up its wares. This colossal neighborhood general store, which has been around since the 1960s, carries everything from motor oil to shoe racks to extensive gardening equipment. The shopping center’s master leaseholder, Safeway, notified CVS in 2009 that it would not renew its lease in order to make way for a shopping center redesign. The mega-drugstore was initially slated to close this June.