Rockridge

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…

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. 

Bay Area child sex trafficking stings lead nationwide effort

  By ISABEL ESTERMAN OCT. 28 –Thirteen juveniles have been taken into custody in the Bay Area and 123 adults have been arrested as part of Operation Cross Country II, a nationwide effort to combat the sex trafficking of children, law enforcement officials announced this morning. Bay Area operations are responsible for almost 25 percent the juveniles apprehended, and a fifth of nearly 650 arrests nationwide, said FBI spokesman  Joe Schadler. “A bulk of the national work was done in…

Rockridge’s Lawton: a trick-or-treater’s oasis

Story by MAGGIE FAZELI FARD, slide gallery by SAMSON REINY Oct. 31 — They come from the hills and they come from the east. Every year on Halloween, children from all over Oakland descend in the hundreds on Rockridge’s Lawton Street. Spare in its decorations — just days before the holiday only a handful of homes had adorned their homes with plastic ghosts, skeletons and cobwebs, with most opting to forgo the traditional macabre regalia — Lawton is not an…

Farmer’s market both hurt & helped by money crisis

By BAGASSI KOURA At first it looked like a great Sunday for Samuel Lunes. Just after 9am, when the Temescal Farmers Market opened, customers lined up by the dozen before his produce stand. For hours, working with his son and his son’s friend, Lunes was busy selling organic fruits and vegetables. But by the end of the day, Lunes said the sales could have been better.

Cyclists on sidewalk face tickets, complaints

by SAMSON REINY Lined with coffeehouses and bookstores, bakeries and flower shops, College Avenue is one of North Oakland’s busiest streets. Sidewalks are frequently jammed as couples stroll idly side by side, dogs mosey around testing the length of their owners’ leashes, and friends sip café lattes while chatting on the outside tables. Large trees, planted every several yards, make up for their hoggish use of walkway space with plentiful shade. What is not as easily reconciled are the occasional…