Public Policy
Ever since I moved to Berkeley from Japan a year ago, my friend, Josh Allen keeps asking. “How can you survive without a car?” Allen, an associate movie producer, who drives his three-year old Mercedes convertible everywhere he goes, will never understand. But those who ride the buses and need the buses do. AC Transit serves more than 230,000 of us a day. When Privately owned Key System started its streetcar and bus services in East Bay in 1903,…
To balance an $83 million general fund deficit, the Oakland City Council passed an amended budget proposal Tuesday night that leaves many departments’ budgets substantially smaller. The most controversial change, Council member Jean Quan noted while reading the proposal aloud, was the $13.4 million cut to the Oakland Police Department’s personnel budget. It’s equivalent to the 10 percent cut the city requested from all departments. The police union is still in talks with the council and how the money will be…
The roller coaster ride of city budget-balancing will not come to an end on July 1, at least according to several Oakland City Council members at last week’s meeting. However, looking at Mayor Dellums’ original proposal to balance an $83-85 million general fund deficit in comparison with the revised proposal that four city council members put forth on June 11 gives us a slightly clearer picture of what to expect . Here’s how some of the departments will be affected:…
by SHILANDA WOOLRIDGE The Citizen’s Police Review Board earned permission to move forward with their plans at the Public Safety Comission Meeting; but not without some consternation from City Council Member Larry Reid.
The BART boardroom opened its doors Tuesday night and community leaders and members said they feared the “top to bottom” assessment by an outside consulting group was nothing more than a public relations ploy by BART. “You don’t know the facts as we know the facts,” Dr. Ramona Tascoe, an ordained minister and medical doctor practicing in Oakland, told the consultants, the National Organization of Black Law Enforcement Executives, known as NOBLE The NOBLE assessment team of eight began their…
By SHILANDA WOOLRIDGE Nuisance parking—cars left, abandoned or parked indefinitely—was most on the minds of the dozen or so residents at the West Oakland Senior Center Tuesday night for the joint Neighborhood Crime Prevention meeting.
Mayor Ron Dellums’ proposal to reduce the Oakland Police Department by 140 officers if he fails to get federal stimulus money could end up cutting 202 officers and effectively ending community policing, according to police. The emergency 911 would not be affected, police said. “It is going to be traffic officers and Problem Solving Officers,” said Jeffrey Thomason, the public information officer at the Oakland Police Department. Thomason said that even if the cuts were made, the Oakland Police Department…
In the murky darkness underneath the 24 Freeway in Rockridge is a little slice of doggie heaven. On a recent Thursday afternoon, five or six pooches – it’s difficult to keep track – romp inside a large, caged doggie run while their owners chat. The dark, mulched run is not pretty to look at, but it’s convenient. Not far away, in a much more verdant spot, several children climb on small rocks in a shallow, plant-fringed pond or play on…
The City Council voted 6 to 1 in favor of the ordinance allowing Oakland to have a City ID program – as long as council members Ignacio De La Fuente and Jean Quan can do their math homework. De La Fuente and Quan received strong support from a packed hall but council members Desley Brooks and Larry Reid were vocal about looking at the economics of the program-especially given Oakland’s $83 million budget deficit. “You are forcing it down our…