Public Policy
More than 300 people packed the North Oakland Senior Center on Thursday evening to discuss the future of urban agriculture in Oakland. The forum, organized by Oakland’s planning and zoning division, is the city’s latest effort to gain public input on updating its urban farming regulations.
At tonight’s Oakland City Council meeting, three of the foremost items on the agenda will concern the vacant city attorney position: possibly voting in a replacement for John Russo, and approving two conflicting ballot measures that could change how the position is chosen.
The City of Oakland firefighters’ union voted to approve a new contract with the city Thursday, a deal they say will save the city close to $30 million over three years by cutting firefighters’ salaries, among other concessions. All five of the city unions approved contracts with the city this week, helping shave off $23 million from a $58-million budget gap. All unions agreed to give back approximately nine percent in compensation, according to Mayor Jean Quan. Along with the…
The Oakland Police Officers’ Association voted to approve a new contract today that it says will save the City of Oakland $65 million over the next four years.
The Oakland Police Department is consolidating units to reduce the workload on strained divisions, and make better use of a reduced personel, Police Chief Anthony Batts said Wednesday.
The Oakland City Council heard a report from Chief of Police Anthony Batts about a reorganization of the city’s police department and approved a mail ballot-only special election for November 15 at the city council meeting Tuesday night in downtown Oakland. Now it just needs to be determined what will be on the ballot.
Three hours ahead of the new fiscal year, Oakland’s city council finally voted in a budget. The council, by a narrow vote, approved the biennial budget resolution during a special council meeting on Thursday evening.
On Tuesday night the Oakland City Council once again postponed a vote to adopt a biennial budget, pushing the decision back until this Thursday, hours before the new fiscal year begins on July 1. With the divergence between councilmembers on the each others’ budget proposals, the timely adoption of a budget resolution remains uncertain.
With a debate over the city budget looming this evening, there’s one item that won’t be factored into it—how to come up with $40 million to save Oakland’s redevelopment agency.