Public Policy
Once a hub of automobile commerce, Broadway Auto Row is fast becoming a cultural enclave, thanks to the gentle prodding and financial investment of an eclectic group of gallerists, restaurateurs and niche shop owners who are mixing the old (and big) with the new (and small) to create a hybrid commercial corridor that keeps money flowing through the street from day to night and back again.
Every year, more than 700 million plastic bags are given away by stores and restaurants in Alameda County, but that could all change if a ban on one-time use plastic bags is approved in January.
Despite the rain and cold, scores of Occupy Oakland protesters gathered Sunday morning around what remained of the group’s latest makeshift campsite, a vacant lot at 19th Street and Telegraph Avenue. Once again, earlier in the morning, police had cleared away tents and told Occupy protesters they could not camp in the city overnight.
Despite warnings from police and Mayor Jean Quan against setting up any more campsites in Oakland, Occupy Oakland protesters staged a peaceful march Saturday and then broke into a fenced downtown lot to begin staking more tents. Some neighbors pleaded with them, in vain, not to camp there.
The old Oakland Army Base, a 330-acre parcel that stretches from the city’s waterfront to the base of the Bay Bridge and into West Oakland, has lain fallow for more than a decade, as officials from the city and the Port of Oakland have mulled over how best to use the space. Over the past twelve years, plans for redeveloping the army base, which is owned in equal parts by the port and the city, have ranged from the spectacular…
At the Occupy Oakland encampment at Snow Park near Lake Merritt, cooking equipment that used to serve hot meals in the middle of the camp is gone, and the library and clothes donation area are a shell of what they once were–but, since the evacuation of the Frank Ogawa Plaza Occupy camp this Monday, the number of tents at Snow Park has been growing.
Last month, Governor Jerry Brown signed a bill designed to give kids more time in the extra protection of booster seats. State Senate Bill 929, which will go into effect on January 1, 2012, makes booster seats mandatory for kids up to eight years old, or 4 feet 9 inches tall.
Oakland North asked Oakland residents their thoughts on Mayor Jean Quan’s handling of the Occupy Oakland demonstration.
All three Oakland city ballot measures failed to pass in a special election held today. Of a total of 196, 851 registered voters, only 49,058 (24.92 percent) cast a ballot.