Politics
This November, Oakland voters won’t just be choosing the city’s next mayor—they’ll be changing the balance of power in the city’s legislature as well, as Jean Quan steps down from her city council position of eight years in order to run for mayor. Quan currently represents the wildly diverse swath of Oakland marked as District 4, and with seven new faces contending for her position, voters in that area face a range of candidates not seen in over a decade.
Police chief Anthony Batts did his best to positively portray the state of the city’s law enforcement capacity in a presentation of the Oakland Police Department’s strategic plan at Tuesday night’s city council meeting, but it was a difficult task.
Mayoral candidate Joe Tuman opened a new campaign office at 3219 Grand Avenue only a few weeks ago—not entirely because he wanted one, but because his participation in an upcoming mayoral forum depended upon it.
Local drug abuse treatment patients and providers are pushing the legislature to keep Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger from cutting Medi-Cal funding for state-supported addiction services.
President Obama’s controversial former pastor visited Oakland Sunday to deliver a rousing sermon to worshipers at Allen Temple Baptist, the church whose four members are still being held in Zimbabwe.
On Wednesday, Don Perata, former senator and mayoral candidate, hosted a breakfast with more than 50 of Oakland’s most influential religious leaders to solicit their help in addressing school truancy, one of the city’s most pressing challenges.
Five of the ten candidates for Oakland mayor stood on the steps of Oakland City Hall Tuesday afternoon to reaffirm their commitment to campaign expenditure limits while slamming fellow candidate Don Perata, accusing him of attempting to raise the spending ceiling agreed upon by all candidates.
After years of contest, Acting Governor Abel Maldonado signed an agreement Tuesday to expedite the start of construction on the Oak to 9th land development project. Beginning as soon as 2011, the waterfront property along the estuary south of Jack London Square will be rebuilt over the next two decades.
While the rest of the country memorialized the September 11 attacks and debated one Florida pastor’s threats to publicly burn the Quran, Joe Weston, owner of Temescal’s Heartwalker Studio, sought to create peace in his own small way. At sundown on the eve of the 9th anniversary of September 11, a diverse group of Oaklanders joined together to say their ecumenical prayers for peace, and they didn’t stop until the next day.