Politics

Oakland City Council gives schools $1.2 million in one-time funding for the school year

Last Tuesday, the Oakland City Council passed a resolution to provide $1.2 million in funding for the Oakland Unified School District’s (OUSD) restorative justice program, foster youth case manager positions, and school libraries. All three programs were at risk of enacting widespread layoffs or reductions to the services they provide following the Oakland school board’s vote last month to cut about $22 million from the district’s budget. When introducing the resolution, Council President Rebecca Kaplan (at-large) highlighted how each of…

From square dance to political activism at Oakland’s Marxist library

It’s Friday night at 6501 Telegraph Avenue in Oakland.  A group of young people in their late twenties are standing in front of a white building. “Must be a bar,” we say to each other. Our night was supposed to start in a bar across the street, but some missing dollar bills for an entrance fee that we mistakenly assumed we could pay with a card made us leave before we’d even had a drink. So we venture over the…