Neighborhoods

Safeway and Rockridge butt heads once again

by HENRY JONES Nov. 13–Rockridge residents met for the fifth time in three months last night to discuss with Safeway representatives the supermarket’s planned reconstruction on College Avenue.  It was not a cheerful evening.  

Door-breakdown burglaries subject of meeting tonight

by ISABEL ESTERMAN Nov. 13–Nanci, 50, a teacher living in Montclair, hardly ever uses her front door.  She and her family just go in through the carport.  But one bright Tuesday  afternoon in September, a burglar came right through it.  “They just broke the door,” says Nanci, who asked her last name be withheld because of the recent burglary.  The deadbolt was locked, she and her husband say, but their hollow-core door barely slowed the burglar down.  It gave way…

Dollars & Change: a special report tracking Obama donations

by RHYEN COOMBS, LISA PICKOFF-WHITE and ELIZABETH SHEMARIA.  Bay Area residents gave over $26 million to Barack Obama’s presidential campaign, making our region one of the nation’s most concentrated centers of donation to Obama’s candidacy. This multi-media close-up, produced by reporters in the U.C. Berkeley School of Journalism’s advanced multi-media program, invites you to track the buildup of money, compare Obama donations to those for previous campaigns, and hear the voices of people who chose to contribute to the 2008…

Voters approve more cash for children’s hospitals

By CLARE MAJOR Nov. 5 — A proposition to give additional funds to children’s hospitals passed with 54 percent of votes in favor and 45 percent against. Proposition 3 authorizes $980 million in general obligation bonds to fund grants for the construction, renovation, or related improvements of California children’s hospitals. The bonds will be repaid over 30 years, for a total estimated cost to the state of $2 billion, or $64 million per year.

Kaplan wins at-large Oakland council seat

By CHRISTINA SALERNO and MARTIN RICARD Nov. 5 – AC Transit board member Rebecca Kaplan won the race tonight for the at-large seat on the Oakland City Council, with 61 percent of the vote. Her opponent, Oakland school board member Kerry Hamill, trailed with 38 percent.

Get out vote effort starts before dawn

By MELANIE MASON Nov. 4 – It is 6 am, and most of the storefronts on Broadway are dark and shuttered.  The sun has yet to rise.  But the lights are on at the Oakland Democratic Party headquarters, and the people streaming in are awake and attentive.  This is no day for early morning grogginess.  It is Election Day, and the activists and volunteers are ready to get down to business.