Public Policy
When Oakland’s 2014 mayoral candidates were asked to name their favorite local building Monday night, Bryan Parker chose the Tribune Building.
Tuesday night’s Public Safety Committee meeting announced the Oakland Police Department will surpass its staffing targets for sworn officers, bringing the total up to 715 officers.
As morning traffic sped down Telegraph one morning a few days ago, a high school student named Alesha was in a group of local people publicly pleading for passage this November of a 1/2 percent county sales tax increase called Measure BB.
California residents will vote on Proposition 47 in a week. The act would downgrade specific felonies to misdemeanors.
Proposition 45, a November ballot measure empowering the state’s elected insurance commissioner to rule on health insurance rate hikes, is drawing heated debate and hefty donations from Oakland groups with a stake in health care.
Around 400 people gathered in downtown Oakland yesterday to protest police violence as part of a nationwide event. The event, dubbed the “National Day of Protest to Stop Police Brutality, Repression, and the Criminalization of a Generation,” was organized by the Stop Mass Incarceration Network.
OPEN Conversation and 100 Black Men of the Bay Area, hosted an event last Wednesday evening to facilitate a discussion about the shooting death of Michael Brown, an unarmed African American teenager. 100 Black Men of the Bay Area is the local chapter of 100 Black Men of America. The members are professionals, such as doctors, lawyers, and businessmen. They mentor young people, and provide scholarships as well as a professional network for the Bay Area. OPEN Conversations is part of the larger non-profit, OPEN. Also aimed at professionals of color, the group holds events to discuss topics important to people in that community.
The Republican and Democratic candidates for California Secretary of State faced off in Berkeley last week, less than a month before the pair faces off again at the polls in a tight race for the job of the state’s top election officer.
It’s easy. It’s convenient. These two reasons repeatedly cited by voters, county election officials, voter advocacy groups and other organizations may account for the growing number of Oakland residents planning to vote early this year, by mail, instead of going to the polls on Election Day. Jamie Israel, 26, a server who works late shifts at a restaurant in Berkeley, is giving early voting a try for the first time this fall, after eight years living and voting in Oakland….