Public Policy
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.
Oakland City Councilmember Dan Kalb is attempting to put the spotlight on civic accountability with a new ethics work group. The group will provide a forum for public comment, and it will work in an unofficial advisory capacity with the Oakland Public Ethics Commission.
For decades, the last block of Fifth Avenue has attracted artisans and craftsmen who find creative space amid the industry and decay on the Oakland waterfront.
Oakland city officials on Tuesday launched RecordTrac, a new program designed by Code for America that allows users to request public records online.
BART management is preparing for a strike by making contingency plans as an October 11 deadline approaches.
Gov. Jerry Brown signed Assembly Bill 10 today, which will increase minimum wage in California from the current $8 floor wage to $10 by 2016 – one of the highest rates in America.
If signed into law, AB 180 would take the historic step of making Oakland the first city in the state to regulate the registration or licensing of firearms on a local level.
For the first time in the Oakland Unified School District’s history, parents of all low-income children eligible to receive a free or reduced lunch must apply for the program by February 6 — or the system could lose government subsidies for the next school year.
Pastor Billy Dixon Jr. leaned forward in his seat. “Do you know what 26 seconds of solid gunfire sounds like?” he asked. He placed his cell phone on the table, and started a timer. “Bang bang bang … !” he cried repeatedly, as a table full of Oakland North reporters, students at the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism, looked on in silence. Dixon wasn’t joking. As co-chair of the Oakland Ceasefire program and a longtime resident of Oakland, he…