Environment
Without voting on a single ordinance, members of a beleaguered Oakland City Council spent Tuesday night’s meeting discussing their two most pressing concerns: threats of prosecution by the state and federal government over the city’s plan to permit industrial cannabis cultivation, and dramatic budget cuts from the governor.
Oakland’s Center for Environmental Health tests everyday objects for lead, a toxic heavy metal that is associated with impaired cognitive and behavioral development in children. It may be no further away than your closet.
Oakland is considered a great place to ride bikes—it has temperate weather, flat streets, hills and a diverse array of scenery. After Oakland North did a story on 10 great walks in Oakland, we thought a story on five great bike rides in Oakland would be helpful, too.
As the market for eco-friendly vehicles grows, car dealers across the country are seeking new ways to capture the attention of green-minded drivers. Honda of Oakland has made a bid to attract those drivers as they shop for their next car on Oakland’s Auto Row by opening the nation’s first showroom dedicated exclusively to the hybrid and alternative-fuel cars of a major car company.
Lots of people were out on Saturday at two of North Oakland’s most popular parks, Bushrod Park and Mosswood Park, enjoying the warm weather. The photo slideshow above gives an idea of the breadth of activities people took part in. “Parks are important,” Norma Herbert, 59, said from a picnic blanket in Mosswood Park. “Kids need somewhere to go and play.”
Say you’re at the Rockridge BART station and you’re planning to ride your bike to downtown Oakland. You get on Shafter Avenue—the main through street with the least amount of traffic—and begin riding. The Webster/Shafter corridor, as bike route is called, is one of the several dozen projects the City of Oakland’s Bicycle and Pedestrian Program will be working on in 2011.
Medical marijuana is now legal in 16 states, and during the last election cycle 22 state legislatures considered marijuana-related bills. Reporter Abby Baird has put together an interactive US map showing which states have considered marijuana-related legislation, and how each legislature voted.
Underneath a network of highways, off of Martin Luther King Jr. Way in the Longfellow neighborhood, is a big expanse of green grass in the Grove Shafter Park. Here Oakland’s newest public dog park was opened on Saturday.
Holding an oversized, fleshy mushroom in one hand, an excited Steven Cochrane says, “Let’s key this out!” Cochrane is an amateur mycologist, and he’s holding an item irresistible to mushroom enthusiasts: an unidentified fungus.