Mayor Quan reflects on first two months in office

When Jean Quan began campaigning to be the mayor of Oakland, she promised to clean up Oakland’s neighborhoods and improve the city’s schools. Quan’s win surprised those who expected front-runner Don Perata to sweep to victory. But when the new, ranked-choice voting system took second choices into account, Quan pulled ahead. There are big roadblocks for the new mayor, but so far they haven’t slowed her down.

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Beating back Oakland’s blight

City of Oakland blight inspector

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.

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Oakland’s bike paths

I was curious what the City of Oakland is doing to create more bike paths and found this information on the City of Oakland Public Works Agency Web site. They have a bunch of information about signs, trails and paths. They say that from 1999 to 2007 they installed more than 87 miles of bike…

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Shiny new bike racks

The City of Oakland has been hard at work installing bike racks this last month in Oakland’s commercial districts, including 40th Street, Piedmont Avenue, College Avenue and the Grand/Lakeshore area. This project started when the city got rid of parking meters and so unintentionally also removed 4,300 on-street bike parking spots. To read more about…

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