Public Policy
The City Council on Tuesday night voted in a slew of programs aimed at reducing violent crime in Oakland, including hiring a police consulting firm for $250,000, contracting with the Alameda County Sheriff’s Office, hiring 20 civilians to assist police, and funding a third police academy in two years.
In the wake of recent mass shootings—including one in December at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, which took 26 lives, and one in late July at an Aurora, Colorado movie theater, which left 12 dead—an East Bay politician is pushing for new state restrictions on the sale of ammunition in California. The move has received widespread support from city and school officials in cities like Oakland and Richmond, which struggle with high rates of violent crime.
Held at the Oakland History Room on Sunday, this was the first History Edit-a-thon, which is about to become a regular weekly event. The meeting was organized by Oaklandwiki.org as a way to generate more content for the fledgling site—a collaborative project that seeks to collect all things Oakland into one easily navigable website that any user can edit.
Oakland’s new city council members, who were inaugurated at a ceremony at City Hall Monday, set the stage for the elected body’s biggest policy focus of the next four years—public safety. While it’s no secret that crime is Oakland’s number one problem, with the city’s homicide rate reaching 131 on the last day of 2012, councilmembers old and new declared Monday that the council should formally proclaim that combating crime the city’s first priority. That means more than just acknowledging…
When Oakland resident Debi Mason set out to prevent mortgage associates from the Bank of America from foreclosing on her sister Patricia’s Maxwell Park home in 2007, she had only a few friends, neighbors and advocacy groups to help fend off the foreclosure. But last week, Mason, along with thousands of homeowners in Bay Area cities like Oakland and Richmond that have been profoundly effected by foreclosures and the ensuing blight, welcomed the new Homeowner Bill of Rights, a state…
This week will end the tenure of three of the longest-standing members on the Oakland City Council, each of whom has served for nearly two decades. On January 7, three new members who won in the November 2012 election will take over for District 5 Councilmember Ignacio De La Fuente, who gave up his position to unsuccessfully run against Rebecca Kaplan for the at-large seat and District 1 councilmember Jane Brunner, who lost her race for City Attorney to Barbara…
Behind the counter at Nick’s Liquor store in West Oakland, owner Abdullah Albasir tries to calm customers annoyed that they have to pay 10 cents for a bag now that Alameda County’s new regulations on plastic bags have gone into effect. “I don’t got 10 cents,” one customer says loudly, sliding a gallon jug of water and packages of Marie Callender’s TV dinners across the counter. “You charge 10 cents, too?” asks another customer overhearing this conversation. “Damn!” Albasir explains…
Oakland officials have announced a launch date for the city’s new Municipal ID program, which would allow Oakland residents to apply for a city-issued identification card that can also be used as a debit card. Oakland studied other cities that have implemented similar programs, including New Haven, Connecticut, and San Francisco, said Mayor Jean Quan, speaking to a room of reporters gathered at City Hall late Wednesday. But unlike the programs in those cities, Oakland’s identification cards will also include…
Nearly 200 people gathered at a North Oakland church Monday to remember Oakland’s homicide victims in 2012. On New Year’s Eve, the last day of the year, the number of killings had reached 131—a five-year high.