Politics

More than a dozen business and community groups will haul furniture and plants into parking spaces this weekend, establishing miniature curbside parks on the road in front of Oakland shops. In conjunction with Friday’s International PARK(ing) Day, participating groups are building “parklets” to add green public spaces to urban landscapes.

During a tense city council committee meeting on Tuesday, the deputy director of Oakland’s Community and Economic Development Agency (CEDA) presented the agency’s response to a grand jury report on building inspection malpractice.

The Oakland City Council finance committee considered several options for implementing a proposed municipal ID card system Tuesday, but ultimately decided not to forward with the proposal until an ongoing examination of costs and feasibility is completed.

A half decade after the painter Norman Rockwell turned her portrait into a powerful symbol of American public school desegregation, Ruby Bridges-Hall was back in Oakland last weekend, telling a packed church, “At the end of our time, there is not going to be a white heaven and a black heaven. There is only going to be one place.”

An overflow crowd packed Oakland’s Cathedral of Christ the Light near Lake Merritt early Sunday evening for a concert on the tenth anniversary of the September 11 terrorist attacks. Titled “Requiem of Remembrance,” the concert was part of a series of Requiem performances nationwide to commemorate the anniversary of the attacks with a day of thoughtful remembrance and reflection.

We asked six Oakland residents to remember the events September 11, and reflect on how it’s changed their lives in the decade since. For some the impact was immediate and life-altering. Others experienced the drama from a distance. None of them will ever forget it.

Rockridge residents, many who feel they are left on their own while a reduced and overworked police force focuses on violent crime, spoke of their concerns with crime in the area at a meeting Thursday night.

During a day of national remembrance for the tenth anniversary of the September 11 attacks, on Sunday the Oakland Symphony Chorus and the Oakland Civic Orchestra will perform Mozart’s Requiem at the Cathedral of Christ the Light near Lake Merritt.

This September, in an effort to encourage public engagement in the fight against hunger, Alameda County’s Community Food Bank is working with 200 food banks nationwide to promote “Hunger Action Month.”