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In Mosswood Park’s community garden, two local businessmen have installed a growing area that displays their new eco-technology. It’s got vegetables, goldfish, and self-contained watering–and it’s set off deep divisions among the neighbors.
Maria Elena Terriquez had always wanted to run her own business. She had sold perfume in Mexico for 15 years when she immigrated to the United States to join the four of her five adult children who were living here.
Newly appointed Alameda County District Attorney Nancy O’Malley, who comes from a Bay Area family of judges and prosecutors, steps into the job at a time of budget cuts and high-profile homicide cases. “It’s still looked at as one of the best D.A. offices in the country,” she said during an extensive interview last week. “I take the job very, very seriously.”
An ambitious east-west bike plan proposal set off agitated debate at a meeting Tuesday in North Oakland’s Longfellow district, where one speaker likened the neighborhood to a bride on her wedding day. The plan to remove medians, he said, is going “to take her dress, smear her make-up, shave her head, and pare her down to a tank top.”
The East Bay Community Foundation released a report Tuesday that outlines the employment hurdles facing many immigrants with limited English proficiency, individuals previously imprisoned, and former foster care recipients in Oakland and recommends ways community groups and private employers can help remove the barriers.
The Julia Morgan School for Girls participated in ShakeOut, the second annual statewide earthquake drill.
Sister Spit: The Next Generation, a collaboration of spoken-word performances by local “queer” writers, poets, artists, and a comedienne kicked off their 2009 national tour at the Lab Wednesday night. The closest they get to the Bay Area again is Oct. 7 at the Oakland Metro Operahouse in downtown Oakland. Presented by local literary nonprofit Radar Productions, it was a return to roots for many of the performers including local celebrity Michelle Tea, founder of Sister Spit. Tea made her…
It’s been just over a week since Typhoon Ketsana hit Luzon, in the northern part of the Philippines, before storming through Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos. Amelia Desesto, 45, a masters student at Berkeley’s Franciscan School of Theology, has spent hours this week watching Filipino news on television, and checking for updates on the latest death counts, injuries, and cleanup efforts. She said that even her young nieces and nephews are reacting to the news. “They feel devastated with what they…
Cowboys? In Oakland? Locals hit the streets with their trusty steeds and ten-gallon hats for the Oakland Black Cowboy Association’s annual parade. Story by Paige Ricks/Oakland North
This fall, Oakland North welcomes a new staff of 18 reporters, all members of the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism’s class of first-year students. Got story ideas? Questions? Complaints? Please drop us a line at staff@oaklandnorth.net S. Howard Bransford S. Howard Bransford is a lifelong resident of Northern California. Prior to moving to the East Bay, he worked as a staff reporter in the town of Marysville, just north of Sacramento, and later as an independent writer for newspapers and…
The Crucible, where students do everything from fixing bikes to giving live performances with flaming batons, is having an open house this Saturday, September 12. “We’re best known for the fire,” says Ismael Plasencia, the Crucible’s Youth and Community Program Manager. “Everyone knows about that, but we’re a school too. We’re a school first.” Twenty-four Oakland community outreach organizations will set up information tables in and around the Crucible’s industrial workspace. The open house will be punctuated by live performances,…
Desiree Davis, the 17 year-old Oakland Tech student killed in a drive-by shooting Monday, had been trapped with her family in Hurricane Katrina’s floodwaters before they sought safety and a new life in California. Her uncle says they tried Santa Cruz for a while, but that Oakland had felt to them more like home.
Eight years after the attacks of September 11, 2001, a group of people who call themselves “truthers”—those who insist that the American government’s version of that day’s events is a lie—will gather at Oakland’s Grand Lake Theater Wednesday and Thursday for a film festival. For the last five years, the Northern California 9/11 Truth Alliance, an organization that seeks to further people’s understanding about the September 11, 2001 attacks, has sponsored the festival, which brings together filmmakers, speakers and other…
After 33 years, the owner of the Bread Garden bakery is considering closing down his shop. The bakery that in the 1970s helped ignite the Bay Area artisan bread trend is now in danger of becoming a victim of its own success.
Michelle Mapp and Rachel Carroll, of Oakland’s Temescal neighborhood, took their 8-year-old daughter Lauren to Labor Day lunch yesterday, taking their seats at a white-cloth-covered table in the middle of Berkeley’s Martin Luther King Civic Center Park. The menu, on their plates, at least, was enchiladas, red grapes, and freshly squeezed lemonade. It was a community potluck–with a purpose. The three gathered at the end of one of five long tables lined with bright red apples. As Lauren alternated between…
Nearly ten percent of US workers were jobless this Labor Day. That’s a five percent increase in unemployment since December 2007, according to the Department of Labor. In the midst of global economic turmoil, the Alameda County Labor Council of the AFL-CIO held its annual barbeque at Shoreline Park in Oakland. Union officials, members and community groups gathered to celebrate and drum up support for what some say are major political battles to come: health care reform, passing a federal…