Public Policy
Just a few days before Oakland limps into the new fiscal year, the city now has six budget proposals. Last Friday, three budget scenarios, in addition to the three previously issued by Mayor Jean Quan in April, were introduced by three factions of the city council.
The City of Oakland can impose a preliminary gang injunction in Oakland’s Fruitvale district, a judge ruled Friday afternoon in downtown Oakland.
A new bill authored by Oakland State Assemblyman Sandre Swanson could lift the ban preventing former drug offenders from receiving food stamps. “It is the right thing to do,” Swanson said, adding that California invests millions of dollars supporting prisoners that are released, only to find them returning within a couple of years.
Few know what lurks the depths of the murky, brackish, crustacean-filled Lake Merritt. Few know what beastly beast, what cryptid, what leviathan, what man-eating monster could be swimming below, slithering through those fetid waters. Few know… but many have seen.
More than 200 people showed up to Tuesday night’s Oakland City Council meeting at City Hall in downtown Oakland, only to find that all budget-related items were removed from the meeting agenda at the last minute.
Oakland home gardeners may be able to legally sell their produce in a few months. On Wednesday the city’s Planning Commission unanimously approved a proposal from city planners that includes modifying the zoning regulations to allow “crop growing” as a home occupation.
A motion to vacate last summer’s Proposition 8 decision, which ruled the state’s ban on same-sex marriages unconstitutional, was denied today. Proposition 8 supporters argued that federal Judge Vaughn Walker should have been disqualified from presiding over the case because his same-sex relationship gave him an interest in the outcome of the trial.
Former BART police Officer Johannes Mehserle was released from a Los Angeles jail shortly after midnight on Monday, after having served a total of 365 days in the Los Angeles Central Jail. This included his time served while incarcerated during his trial and while awaiting sentencing.
Oakland activists organized a peaceful march from the Fruitvale BART station to Frank Ogawa Plaza on Sunday night to protest the upcoming release of ex-BART police officer Johannes Mehserle from jail. Mehserle was convicted of involuntary manslaughter last July for the 2009 shooting death of Oscar Grant, and sentenced that November to two years in prison.