Politics
The Oakland City Council passed a budget Tuesday night that will eliminate 80 city jobs. But thanks to a last-minute proposal from four councilmembers, funding for art and culture programs that had been on the chopping block was spared.
About 20 concerned citizens, activists and advocacy leaders debated the mayor’s new budget proposal Monday night at a town hall meeting organized by Councilmembers Patricia Kernighan and Nancy Nadel.
Nearly 400 people were swept up in mass arrests at an Occupy Oakland protest on Saturday night, according to a city of Oakland press release, including six local journalists.
For years, West Oakland residents have pushed government officials to do something about air quality in their neighborhood, which is sandwiched between three major highways and the Port of Oakland, and dotted with industrial sites. In particular, locals have pointed to the estimated 2,000 diesel trucks that drive in and out of the port several times each day. Diesel exhaust has been linked to increased cancer rates, premature deaths and respiratory illness, including asthma, among West Oakland residents.
Occupy Oakland kicked off its “Move-In Day” with a rally Saturday afternoon at Frank Ogawa Plaza followed by a march through the city and several attempts to take over and move into a building. More than 9 hours later, clouds of tear gas once again hung over Oakland, more than 200 protesters had been arrested for unlawful assembly, and an American flag had been burned inside City Hall.
On Saturday afternoon, Occupy Oakland protesters gathered in Frank Ogawa Plaza with a goal: To occupy a building and convert it into a social center to be used for the planned Oakland Rise Up Festival this weekend. But what began as a march with several hundred people quickly turned into yet another turf battle between protesters and the Oakland Police Department.
On Wednesday afternoon, members of the Alameda County Waste Management Authority voted for two ordinances that will require mandatory recycling for businesses and multi-family properties and prohibit stores that sell packaged food from giving out single-use bags. Both ordinances are supposed to help reduce waste in Alameda County.
The Oakland City Council began the process of scaling down the city budget last night in response to the projected loss of $28 million in redevelopment funding.
Following a federal judge’s decision on Tuesday, the Oakland Police Department must now relinquish some of its executive powers to the monitor in charge of overseeing court-ordered reforms within the department.