Politics
On Friday, all five Alameda County supervisors and the county administrator convened, not in their downtown meeting room, but beside a construction site at Highland Hospital to celebrate the groundbreaking of the hospital’s Acute Tower Replacement Project. A dozen ceremonial shovels were placed next to the podium, while several excavators were doing the real work on the other side of the fence.
The Port of Oakland just secured $18 million in federal funding for its harbor deepening project, said the port’s spokesperson Marilyn Sandifur on Wednesday. The funding is going to help the port receive maintenance dredging services from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in fiscal year 2011.
Bring a blanket and sit underneath the palm trees as you listen to Soundwaves, a new outdoor live music series on the waterfront of Jack London Square. It continues tonight with San Francisco Latin band, Lava.
John Russo is getting ready to pack his bags on June 10, ending his 11-year term as Oakland City Attorney to start his new position as Alameda City Manager on June 13. In this exclusive interview, Russo looks back on his time in Oakland, including six years on the city council, and talks about the city’s budget problems, gang injunctions, and the vote he thinks he got wrong.
Most people may not know that the carpets in Alameda County’s General Services Agency’s office in downtown Oakland are partially made from shredded recycled plastic bottles. They also may not know that over 25 percent the power used at the Santa Rita jail comes from solar panels. These, along with other energy efficient and recycled materials projects, are part of Alameda County’s green purchasing policy. The idea is for the county to buy and use as many green products as possible in order to save water and energy and reduce waste.
One-foot-tall national flags were stuck on both sides of the path at the Mountain View Cemetery in North Oakland, where more than 100 people convened on Monday to pay respect to deceased military service members at the cemetery’s 90th Memorial Day commemoration.
On Sunday at Oakland’s Evergreen Cemetery, dozens of people gathered in the sunshine to remember Jonestown at the unveiling of a memorial for those who died in the Peoples Temple mass suicide in 1978. Bring up Jonestown to people who read and watched the news in 1978, and you may hear a story of disgust, anger and shock. But ask the people who were there for this weekend’s service, and you will hear about love, dedication, agony and finally—after 32 years—closure.
Equipped with whistles, banners and plastic noisemakers, hundreds of people crammed into the City Council Chambers on Thursday evening to voice their concerns about the city’s proposed budget cuts at a special hearing held by the city officials. The crowd was so large that many had to be relocated to another hearing room for safety reasons.
The city of Oakland wants to put its energy and climate action plan into practice, and you’re part of it. The plan aims to reduce Oakland’s greenhouse gas emissions 36 percent by 2020 and requires individuals’ help to get the job done.