Posts Tagged ‘West Oakland’

From the living room of his sparsely furnished West Oakland apartment, Joseph Moreno, 30, runs a vintage costume rental business. That he can do so for just $25 per rental is perhaps the most remarkable thing about his work.

The Oakland Unified School District’s controversial proposal to close five elementary schools this fall, and more in coming years, follows a multi-year program of encouraging small small schools–subdividing bigger facilities into multiple smaller ones, each with fewer students and a more intimate climate. But funding and enrollment changes have pushed the district to what promises to be an emotional meeting and vote Wednesday night.

Dozens of Oakland residents approached the podium at the city council meeting Tuesday night to voice their displeasure with three items on the agenda intended to curb violence in the city –  an anti-loitering law, a teen curfew, and more gang injunctions. However, the council deferred voting on these measures by sending them to the…

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.

Blade, 29, describes Sight School as a studio with multiple platforms for supporting Bay Area artists. ”I’m trying to build this as an art space for learning how to see together as a community,” she said, noting the limitless possibilities for how she can use her space. Starting next month, Blade is introducing Café Sunday, a weekly brunch in the studio prepared by guest chefs for neighbors.

The Oakland Police Department released sketches of two men suspected of robbing and sexually assaulting three women in West Oakland. Police and Crime Stoppers of Oakland are offering up to $30,000 in reward money for information leading to the suspects’ arrest.

Thanks to a $4 million grant from the California State Parks Department, which City Slicker Farms was awarded on November 8, the parcel will soon be transformed into a community farm and park. Although the department allows organizations up to eight years to get their programs established, Finnin estimates that City Slicker Farms will break ground for the community farm at the end of 2011.

Members of the public burst into applause at the Oakland City Council’s Tuesday meeting when council members unanimously agreed to allow use of eminent domain to bring a large grocery store to West Oakland. “I’m tired of Oakland residents continuing to subsidize the surrounding cities at our expense,” councilmember Larry Reid said.

Deep in West Oakland, behind a big gray façade, is one of the most lauded soymilk, tofu and yuba factories in the Bay Area—Hodo Soy Beanery. Inside, Minh Tsai, tofu master and co-founder of Hodo, runs around wearing tall white rubber boots and a striped railroad hat while checking on each steaming batch of soy milk.

On Monday morning, Oakland police officers and community leaders gathered at the site of a recent murder in West Oakland to warn of what could follow if Oakland’s police force is drastically cut to help close the city’s $31.5 million budget gap. “This is a dangerous city,” Dominique Arotzarena, president of the Oakland Police Officer’s Association, told a small group composed mostly of journalists. Laying off one quarter of the police staff, he said, “sends the wrong message.”

MacArthur Boulevard gets some leafy new duds.

By SHILANDA WOOLRIDGE Nuisance parking—cars left, abandoned or parked indefinitely—was most on the minds of the dozen or so residents at the West Oakland Senior Center Tuesday night for the joint Neighborhood Crime Prevention meeting.