Economy
Oakland City Council’s finance and management committee met Tuesday to discuss several city budget and finance issues, the most contentious of which was how to pay for the Police and Fire Retirement System.
At PayLess Self Storage auctions in Richmond, the winner takes all: the good, the bad and the worthless.
The Oakland Heritage Alliance continues its battle to save one of the area’s historic structures.
If the week’s sudden turn to winter has you hankering for some comfort food, you’re in luck. Homeroom, Oakland’s newest restaurant, specializes in everyone’s favorite comfort food: macaroni and cheese. After a scrape with McDonalds, and a couple years of planning, building and recipe-testing, Allison Arevalo and Erin Wade opened the doors to cheesy goodness on Tuesday.
Perched above a steaming stainless steel cauldron, Adam Lamoreaux rhythmically stirs the contents with a large metal oar. Inside, a thick amber-colored concoction of cracked grains and hot water simmers. As he continues to stir, a sweet malty smell fills the air. Lamoreaux looks down into the vat and studies his mixture, then says, “For the first two years of my daughter’s life, she thought I made oatmeal.”
The newly minted Oakland chapter of the Green Party met for the second time on Tuesday evening to talk politics: city redevelopment funds, gang injunctions and whether to support a statewide moratorium on foreclosures.
The title of the economic forum held yesterday in downtown Oakland said it all: “The Worst Is Yet to Come.” The forum, a repeat of one hosted by Alameda County in Fremont on Tuesday, aimed to provide an outlook on the county’s economy and illustrate potential impacts of the proposed federal and state budget cuts on the region.
Mayor Jean Quan plans to travel this year with the Oakland Port Authority on its annual trade mission to Asia, looking to expand the volume and variety of the city’s business with China. “China understands that they should invest back in the United States,” Quan said.
In a low-fuss meeting on Tuesday, the Oakland City Council voted to match a federal grant with city money to fund a study about developing the Oakland Army Base. With a unanimous vote, the council committed over $3 million to the study, to be matched by $1.6 million out of a larger grant from the federal government.