Last night was a long, drawn-out and critically important meeting of the Oakland City Council on the fabulously expensive and not at all worth the cost Oakland Airport Connector, planned long ago, at a time when the idea of a 3.2 mile shuttle seemed wise.  The tweets were flying fast and furious, with v.smoothe doing a great job of almost realtime tweeting, and Bart Diaries, among others, posting summaries of the night's discussion.

Sadly, the city council passes the OAC, approving the  proposal for an elevated line connecting the Dublin/Pleasanton and Fremont lines to the Oakland International Airport  at a cost of roughly $522 million.

It was almost 1 am when the city council finally voted on the OAC and many opponent were shocked when the city council came out in favor of the project--even with some caveats. CM Ignacio De La Fuente (Glenview-Fruitvale). offered a motion to affirm the city's support for the $500 million project so long as the following conditions were met:

 Rules ensuring local workers will be hired for the construction were put in place
 An intermediate stop on Hegenberger Road was added
An evaluation of fare rates that would ensure affordability for Oakland residents was conducted

According to the Oakland Tribune, Council president Jane Brunner (North Oakland) and Council members Larry Reid (Elmhurst-East Oakland), Jean Quan (Montclair-Laurel) and Patricia Kernighan (Grand Lake-Chinatown) voted yes with  De La Fuente. Nancy Nadel (West Oakland) and Rebecca Kaplan (Member at Large) abstained from voting.