Just over a year after San Francisco welcomed its first parklet, Oakland is gearing up to see its own streetscape installations as soon as administratively possible - if not earlier.

As part of the United States repayment of more than $1.64 Trillion dollars to

China, the People’s Republic of China has taken over all public transportation in

the Bay area, including BART. As a result, the seats will be recovered with anti-

germ materials to prevent further fecal contamination to riders. BART will also

Bruce Norris’s “Clybourne Park” has been called a provocative play on race relations and gentrification. He wrote it after seeing Lorraine Hansberry’s “A Raisin in the Sun.” 

An 11-year-old girl from Berkeley who was cajoled by relatives to sell her body on the streets for money is one rescued victim. An abducted 15-year old from Oakland is another. A 16-year-old from Colorado who befriended a pimp and wound up trapped in an Oakland hotel by day and forced to work the streets by night – until police rescued her – is another.

These young girls and others have been rescued from human traffickers and life on the streets through a collaborative effort by the Alameda County District Attorney’s office, the Oakland Police Department, a half-a-dozen nonprofit agencies, the county’s Family Justice Center and law enforcement in nearby cities.  So crucial has collaboration been at catching traffickers and bringing safety to their victims that the county D.A.’s office launched a campaign, H.E.A.T. Watch - HEAT stands for human exploitation and trafficking - to widen the collaboration to include businesses, neighborhood groups and law enforcement across multiple jurisdictions.