Public Policy
Dear Readers, We’d like to explain the background story behind Learning in Golden Gate. This project was a collaboration between Berkeley’s Graduate School of Journalism, which runs the Oakland North website, and the Berkeley Graduate School of Education, where all of those who worked on this project took a class called Urban Education taught by Professor Ingrid Seyer-Ochi. As part of this class, Seyer-Ochi requires groups of students to learn more about a particular urban neighborhood and about the learning…
What does the word “independence” mean for Eritrea, one of the world’s youngest nations? The final podcast in a 3-part audio series on Bay Area Eritreans.
Sitting at a café in north Oakland, Dawit Bermane remembers his escape from Eritrea. This audio podcast is the second in a series on the Bay Area’s Eritrean community.
If you are arrested in Oakland, prepare to have your immigration history checked. Alameda County is now participating in a federal immigration enforcement program that mandates fingerprint checks of everyone booked at local jails to determine whether they are subject to deportation.
During Tuesday’s City Council meeting, the seven City Council members present unanimously passed a resolution that condemns S.B. 1070, Arizona’s stringent new immigration enforcement law and called for a city boycott of Arizona and businesses headquartered in the state.
At campaign events during the last week, former State Senate President Don Perata is suggesting that Oakland needs a firmer hand in City Hall and that he’s the one to provide it.
The proposed Oakland gang injunction has, in recent weeks, been the focus of heated listserv debates, community meetings and a rally held Thursday afternoon in front of the Alameda County Superior Court. The injunction, which aims to restrict certain behaviors of members of the North Side Oakland gang, has sparked considerable debate about the balance between crime prevention and individual rights. But supporters and detractors of the injunction will have to wait for a definitive pronouncement on its future.
On Thursday, more than fifty people celebrated the 40th anniversary of Earth Day by protesting the so-called “Dirty Energy Proposition,” or the signature-gathering effort in support of a ballot measure that will delay implementation of AB 32, California’s clean energy and air law.
Dianne Feinstein, California’s U.S. Senator and the former mayor of San Francisco, has declared her support for former State Senate President Pro Tem Don Perata’s bid to become Oakland’s mayor in November’s election.