Uncategorized
After a 4-year-old’s death in August, the push to develop protected bike lanes under Oakland’s Safe Oakland Streets citywide initiative has grown. But funding constraints and low personnel are preventing their construction. Maia Correia was in a seat behind her father’s bicycle on Lakeshore Avenue on Aug. 6 when a vehicle door opened in front of them. Maia hit her head on the street and died six days later. Since then, residents and traffic safety advocates have called for more protected…
Every Sunday for the last six weeks, Craig Morris has walked through Oakland streets populated by drug users to St. Mary’s Center, the shelter, soup kitchen and transitional housing provider that pulled him from the brink. There, Morris, who is 60 years old, painted a canvas as part of the Sacred Storytelling Art Project, a program created by St. Mary’s and the Center for ArtEsteem to uplift older Oaklanders. Morris and 11 others worked on self-portraits depicting some difficult aspect…
Oakland’s two soccer teams moved closer Tuesday to getting a temporary stadium. The Oakland City Council voted unanimously to enter into an exclusive negotiating agreement with Oakland Pro Soccer LLC, the company that owns the Roots and Soul teams, for the Malibu property, a lot near the Coliseum in East Oakland. Oakland Pro Soccer LLC will now negotiate with the city and the county, the joint owners of the lot, over the next six months to build a temporary stadium…
About 130 people showed up at International Community School Thursday for an Oakland Unified School District career fair, where recruiters were trying to fill 97 teaching vacancies, particularly for bilingual and special education teachers and paraeducators. “We have strong dual language programs, especially in Spanish and English. We want our students to be multilingual and we want to honor their multilingual backgrounds,” said Sarah Glasband, director of OUSD’s recruitment and retention team. “So we really want to cultivate multilingual educators…
Record rainfall last winter mitigated California’s severe drought and brought a slow start to fire season. But the wet weather hasn’t reduced the threat. The heavy downpours that bombarded the Bay Area and the relatively cool weather that followed kept vegetation from drying out in the spring and early summer. But as the summer wears on, that vegetation will become fuel for fires, said Ranyee Chiang, director of the Meteorology and Measurement Division at Bay Area Air Quality Management District. …
Oakland City Council passed an ordinance Tuesday making it a crime to organize, facilitate or promote sideshows. The ordinance passed with six votes — councilmembers Kevin Jenkins and Janani Ramachandran were absent. Councilmember Noel Gallo originally proposed a stricter ordinance in December that would also have made it a crime to watch a sideshow, but that proposal was rejected and revised. The revisions remove any mention of spectators and “bystander participants.” The city has sought to deter people from participating…
Getting around town might get a lot easier, especially for college students in the East Bay. The Metropolitan Transportation Commission wants to subsidize 20,000 annual Bay Wheels passes for community college and public university students across the Bay Area, with the addition of 600 electric bikes and 19 stations in Oakland. The rollout would begin in 2027 if a proposed contract between Lyft and the Metropolitan Transportation Commission comes to fruition. The project is part of the larger Plan Bay Area…