Public Policy
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.
As negotiations dragged on in last week’s BART debacle, a raft of politicians stepped in hoping to build up their political capital around a new issue: transportation issues in the Bay Area. Though Mayor Jean Quan was in China for some of the negotiation process, meeting with current and potential investors for the Brooklyn Basin project, her spokesperson, Sean Maher, described her as heavily involved, checking in on the negotiations “at least daily and sometimes multiple times daily.” Maher added…
We’re following this morning’s snarled commute. Stay tuned to Oakland North for updates.
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.
A strike by the bus line would have left thousands of riders without their usual transportation on Thursday.
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.
Restricting food stamp users from buying soda with their benefits is an idea sparking debate in Oakland, where City Hall officials, food policy advocates and food stamp users are far from consensus on whether a ban would hurt or help the city’s poor.