Government
More than 100 students and adults gathered at Fremont High School in Oakland Thursday to learn about the District 5 school board candidates, Jorge Lerma and Sasha Ritzie Hernandez. Since Mike Hutchinson ended his term early in March due to Oakland’s redistricting process, District 5’s school board seat has been vacant, leaving around 7,000 students unrepresented. The special election will happen on Nov. 7 to fill the District 5 seat on the Oakland Unified School District board. The Fremont High…
The 17-member Oakland Youth Commission met with new members for the first time this month, focusing on a project to provide more housing and mental health support to young people. The commissioners — Oaklanders between the ages of 13 and 21 who are appointed by the mayor — are hopeful about the next year. “This year, I want to speak at more events and engage with the community,” said Quincy Russell,15, who began his appointment last year. “I want to…
Oakland’s Department of Violence Prevention narrowly avoided a multi-million dollar budget cut in an 11th-hour reprieve by the City Council. Because of a looming $360 million budget shortfall, the cityhad proposed cutting an estimated $5.7 million from the DVP in its 2023-2024 budget. This reduction would have forced the DVP to cut funding from several violence prevention organizations that offer community-building strategies, including juvenile justice reform, youth leadership training, legal literacy training, and voter awareness. With a unanimous vote Sept….
An event on Saturday that was intended to build community in East Oakland started with discord. “You don’t live here!” yelled Johnny Williams, interrupting Mayor Sheng Thao’s introduction to her second “Talking Transition” event. She was in the middle of discussing city investments in deep East Oakland. “You keep saying deep East Oakland,” continued Williams, “but we’re one Oakland.” Williams was referencing Thao’s slideshow, which projected her social media slogan “#OneOakland.” According to Sean Maher, Oakland’s acting communications and engagement…
The Oakland City Attorney’s Office is about to become more powerful, if the City Council passes an ordinance on July 18 that would enable City Attorney Barbara J. Parker to enforce all municipal laws. Currently, Parker, who was first elected in 2012, does not have the authority to enforce approximately half of Oakland’s 164 municipal ordinances. This makes Oakland an outlier compared to other large cities including San Jose, San Diego and Los Angeles, whose city attorneys are able to…
Oakland has been trying to curb sideshows for years and even celebrated a “sideshow-free” summer in 2010, but the illegal street car shows haven’t gone away, and City Council seems to be at a loss on how to restrain them. The Oakland sideshow saga witnessed a stunning escalation last month as footage of a big rig participating in an event went viral on social media. In a frenzied incident near Keller Avenue and Mountain Boulevard, the rig was caught on…
Oakland City Council called a special meeting Thursday to proclaim a local emergency from a cyber attack that has ensnared the city’s computer systems for the past week. The resolution was needed for the city to take the next step in asking the governor’s office to issue a state of emergency that would enable Oakland to recover costs associated with the attack. Members of the public and the media expressed disappointment that city officials and the council didn’t answer more…
In between bites from a chicken and veggie sandwich, Oakland resident Connor Hunter, 9, read aloud from a poster he had just signed at Lincoln Summer Nights, a community event hosted by a coalition of local organizations. The prompt: “If you were an elected official in Oakland, what would your first act be?” “I wrote that if I was elected mayor, I would give $500,000 to businesses in Oakland because it would help the community and businesses grow. I could…
Oakland’s Public Ethics Commission fined Councilmember Rebecca Kaplan $19,000 Wednesday, for violating the Government Ethics Act by failing to fully report her real estate holdings. Kaplan, an at-large member of Oakland City Council since 2009, purchased a condo with her parents near Estuary Park in 2013 but failed to disclose it on a form filed annually by public officials to declare ownership of any real estate in Oakland other than their primary residence. That was problematic also because Kaplan voted twice…