Public Policy
The sanctuary of East Oakland’s St. Louis Bertrand Church was filled with house keys on Saturday morning—keys on string encircling the room and hanging from the balcony, keys in jars, in pockets and around necks, keys in hands being jingled in uniform outrage, all because there are fewer house keys in Oakland than there used to be. The display of keys was a symbolic part of Saturday’s rally as over 1,200 people protested the recent wave of home foreclosure.
Newly appointed Chief Probation Officer David Muhammad spent an evening with community leaders discussing his plans for revamping the juvenile justice system in Alameda County.
After the defense spent three days questioning Oakland police officer Douglass Keely, who was involved in creating the list of the 40 alleged Norteño gang members named in the Fruitvale gang injunction, prosecutors finally got a chance to cross examine him on Tuesday. The crux of their examination involved showing the judge dozens of photos of the alleged gang members’ tattoos and gang clothing, as well as graffiti in the Fruitvale neighborhood, that were meant to demonstrate that the defendants had been correctly identified as active gang members.
Limited staffing and budget constraints hamper Oakland’s recently reinstated problem-solving officers, Deputy Chief Eric Breshears said in a report presented to the City Council Tuesday. Breshears said the police department is optimistic about the program but has faced challenges in implementation since its reinstatement in January.
More than 40 parents and family members completed classes as part of a program called Oakland Baby Learning Communities. The classes, run by the city, county, and privately funded SafePassages program, teach parenting skills to immigrants and parents of children who have experienced domestic or community violence.
In Oakland’s Frank H. Ogawa Plaza, building inspector Ed Labayog walks past a line of nearly a hundred people waiting to apply for a job with the city on his way to the street where his car is parked. Wearing a black button-up City of Oakland shirt and carrying a bag containing case files, a camera, and his lunch, he’s setting out to find blighted properties. For Labayog, seeking out trash, graffiti and signs of crumbling structures on private property is his job.
As the hearing over the proposed Fruitvale gang injunction grinds on, tension is rising between the two sides over how long the process is taking. On the prosecution’s side, the Oakland City Attorney’s Office wants the court to approve the proposed injunction as quickly as possible while the defense, which represents 27 of the 40 alleged gang members named in the injunction, wants to prevent its enforcement.
Oakland School Board members voted to send notices to 538 teachers warning of potential layoffs, renewed four charter schools, and approved the second interim budget in a marathon eight-hour meeting Wednesday night.
A state bill that would ban the possession and distribution of shark fins in California has led to debate between conservationists and Chinese American leaders, and has its share of critics in Oakland’s Chinatown. The bill would prevent hundreds of restaurants from serving shark-fin soup, a traditional Chinese delicacy that is a mark of prestige at banquets.