Politics

Teen center to remain open after debate at City Council meeting

The Oakland City Council voted Tuesday night to keep a teen center open, while agreeing to the let the city take control of the center from Councilmember Desley Brooks (District 6), who had helped to establish and run it using funds from her own office. The council also unanimously approved a $3.5 million package to develop hotels, a conference center, a new stadium, and a shopping center in a 750-acre area around the Coliseum in an effort to entice the Raiders, Warriors and A’s to stay in Oakland.

For transgender people, a life without binary norms

As a child, West Oakland resident Jack B. Pierson, 27, hated wearing the pink and purple outfits his mother chose for him. He craved the sensible, utilitarian clothing his older brother got to wear, the kind that permitted a more rough-and-tumble lifestyle. Pierson was a girl back then.

OUSD exploring “partnership” model in attempt to keep two schools close to the district

In January, the OUSD board voted to reject charter school applications from two elementary schools, ASCEND and Learning Without Limits. Shortly after the denial by the school board, school and district officials began meeting over a compromise measure that would allow the schools to become charter schools but also have stronger ties to the district than other such schools.

City trying to shut down East Oakland hotels that it says cater to prostitution

In December, 2010 the city attorney’s office sued the National Lodge and the Economy Inn under California’s Red Light Abatement Act, which requires hotel owners to prevent prostitution on their property. The lawsuits include many instances of crime, including prostitution and child prostitution. The city is now trying to shut down both hotels in an ongoing trial that continues Friday.

Crowd control at Oakland protests: A visual explainer

Scroll down to see each frame of this slideshow.  As the Occupy Oakland protests continued this winter, so did confrontations between Oakland Police Department officers and protesters. In the most recent incident, which happened on January 28 after Occupy Oakland supporters attempted to take over the Kaiser Convention Center in order to transform it into a social center, over 400 protesters were arrested, many after police encircled marchers and did not allow them a clearly indicated avenue to disperse. That…

New background check process not required for city parking enforcement employees

At the beginning of the year, the Oakland City Council started preparing to merge parking enforcement services with the Oakland Police Department to save the city money.

Under the policy at the time, each parking enforcement employee would have been subject to the lowest level of background checks that all OPD employees are subject to, which stirred controversy.