Government
An Oakland restaurant’s viral Instagram post last week had a ripple effect in the Bay Area: “Monster Pho will now offer children a free meal until the SNAP is funded,” it said. Several other restaurants then followed Monster Pho in offering free meals to the thousands of people who don’t have money to buy food this month because their Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits have stalled during the federal government shutdown. On Friday, two federal judges ordered the Trump administration…
Alameda County announced Friday that it has secured $1.5 million in emergency funding to support residents who receive SNAP benefits, which have been delayed by the federal government shutdown. “One thing I know about Alameda County, one thing I know about the town, and one thing I know about the East Bay and these electeds behind me is that we take care of our own,” U.S. Rep. Lateefah Simon said at a news conference Friday that included county officials, mayors…
Oakland Mayor Barbara Lee held a news conference Thursday urging calm and unity as federal enforcement threats loomed over the Bay Area. “Oakland is and will continue to be a welcoming city for our immigrants and our refugees,” Lee said. “We will remain calm, focused, and united. We will not allow outsiders to create chaos or exploit our city.”. Her remarks came moments before President Donald Trump posted on Truth Social that he was calling off plans for a federal…
Oakland Mayor Barbara Lee announced Friday that the city would deploy crews to clean up illegal dumping sites during weekends. The weekend crews will respond quicker to residents’ trash complaints, Lee said. Her announcement comes amid increased pressure from advocacy groups and residents who say officials need to do more to clean up the trash littering the city. “As Mayor, I want all of us to build an Oakland where our streets reflect the dignity, pride, and resilience of this…
Hundreds of people — from toddlers to teenagers to seniors and everyone in between — spilled into Oakland Technical High School’s auditorium Sunday to learn how to resist the rise of authoritarianism under President Donald Trump. Nearly 1,000 people attended Get Ready: Noncooperation Training by Bay Resistance, a group advocating for racial, economic, climate and gender justice. Some participants sat on the floor or filed into overflow rooms. The session was meant to energize and inspire people as well as…
Oakland City Council’s Finance Committee on Tuesday discussed how to structure a proposed property tax increase that would help balance out a $265 million shortfall projected by the end of the fiscal year in June. The discussion comes three months after the City Council passed a $4.36 billion two-year budget that cut vacant positions and tightened spending to address the deficit. With voter trust on the line and services at risk, the city faces a high-stakes balancing act: raise new…
Oakland leaders closed a $265 million city budget deficit by cutting spending across many departments and programs earlier this month in what Councilmember Zac Unger called a “nobody’s happy budget.” But one controversial area of spending is seeing a substantial increase in the new budget: police overtime. Over the last decade, the Oakland Police Department has consistently overspent its overtime budget by tens of millions of dollars each year. Last year, as the city’s fiscal crisis deepened, the police department overspent…
“The Stakes” is a UC Berkeley Journalism project on executive orders and actions affecting Californians and their communities. After turning 66 in January, Oakland preschool teacher Rosa Carranza applied for Social Security benefits, receiving $1,126 a month in February and March. But in April, an alarming letter arrived in the mail from the Social Security Administration. “Based on the information we have, we cannot pay benefits beginning March 2025,” the letter said. “We cannot pay you benefits because you are…
“The Stakes” is a UC Berkeley Journalism project on executive orders and actions affecting Californians and their communities. Since President Donald Trump took office in January, Jessie Papalia has felt the panic and confusion among her students and their families at Bridges Academy Elementary in Oakland, a dual-language school with many students who have recently arrived in the United States. “The first week was rough. I had kids asking me if they could sleep at school because they were too…