Public Policy
At the corner of 23rd Street and San Pablo in West Oakland, dozens of people form a packed queue leading in to the free dining room run by The Society of St. Vincent de Paul of Alameda County.
After forcing a one-day closure of the Port of Oakland over regulatory and wait-time complaints last week, independent truckers say they are pursuing negotiations with the California Air Resources Board, and have promised no further work stoppages through at least Monday, Nov. 4.
The Oakland City Council tackled the thorny issue of redistricting Tuesday night, hearing from communities of interest about balancing the goals of equalizing numbers of people in each council district, while preserving the integrity of the city’s historic neighborhoods.
In the past year, the amount of illegally dumped junk has shot up by 34 percent, according to the Oakland Public Works Agency, which logged almost 18,000 incidents in 2012. San Francisco, which has twice the population of Oakland, had just 22,000 incidents.
Governor Jerry Brown is weighing a request by AC Transit management for a 60-day cooling off period in the planned strike by the bus line’s workers, which otherwise could happen as early as this Thursday.
As drama continues to build around BART contract negotiations, Sen. Bob Huff (R-Diamond Bar) is pushing legislation forward that would make a BART strike illegal while Orinda City Councilman Steve Glazer works to gather support locally.