Voter forum reveals nuts, bolts of Oakland mayoral recall
Article by howard dyckoff.
Last updated at Sat, 4 Feb at 7:48am.

An educational expert forum on the possible recall election of Oakland Mayor Jean Quan, recently was presented by the Oakland Tribune, the League of Women Voters of Oakland, the Robert C. Maynard Institute for Journalism Education and the Laney Tower newspaper.

The Jan. 25 event was carried live via video streaming so hundreds of Oaklander's participated.

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Experts, community discuss how to combat race bias in Oakland policing (Analysis)
Article by Amy Gahran.
Last updated at Mon, 3 Oct at 7:05am.

Bias is built in to the human psyche - and it has an inevitable influence on law enforcement.

Since it's impossible to prevent police (or anyone) from having biases, the challenge is how can Oakland police and communities work together to shed light on existing biases and minimize their impact on how policing gets done around here?

This was focus of discussion at a public forum hosted last Thursday by Oakland's Citizens' Police Review Board.

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San Francisco's Fred Blackwell joins Oakland city executive team, Walter Cohen will depart
Article by Susan Mernit.
Last updated at Sat, 24 Sep at 9:57pm.

Mayor Jean Quan’s Administration has named Fred Glover Blackwell, currently director of the San Francisco Redevelopment Agency, as Assistant City Administrator effective Oct. 17.

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No on Measure I (Opinion)
Blog entry by Len Raphael.
Last updated at Sun, 28 Aug at 2:24pm.

The $80/year parcel tax has been assigned Proposition I. It will be a vote by mail going out to all registered voters.

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Missed EPA grant stalls West Oakland brownfields cleanups (Toxic Tour 2)
Article by CB Smith-Dahl.
Last updated at Mon, 8 Aug at 5:17pm.

After more than a decade of getting approved for U.S. Environmental Protection Agency grants to remediate "brownfields" (contaminated properties), Oakland has been turned down.

This is the first such rejection in a long time - and it will delay both cleanup work and possible development in West Oakland.

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Workshops on local government, local policy a big success (Community Voices)
Blog entry by Oakland Food Poli....
Last updated at Mon, 9 May at 12:17pm.

By Alethea Marie Harper, OFPC

“Where does the money go? How do they move it around?”

“Why does it seem to take so long to make change?”

“Why do they keep cutting funding?”

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How to pick a City Attorney, Oakland-style (Community Voices)
Blog entry by Pamela Drake.
Last updated at Thu, 7 Apr at 10:39am.

This morning, I finally made it down to Cana - our wonderful new café and restaurant on Lake Park Avenue near Lakeshore - for a café con leche. Unfortunately, they had just run out of that sweet mild drink (sorta like me, eh?), but I still enjoyed what I had at an outside table on our second dry and summery day.

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New interim city administrator offers free hugs for a week
Article by Amy Gahran.
Last updated at Fri, 1 Apr at 8:23am.

To celebrate the appointment of Lamont Ewell as Oakland's new interim city administrator (pdf), Mayor Jean Quan announced that from April 1-8, citizens are welcome to stop by Ewell's office at City Hall to give and receive hugs.

"Ewell has bravely accepted a challenging job," Quan said. "In the next few months, he's got to guide this city out of a $46 million deficit and navigate the threat of state and federal budget cuts. He's gonna need a lot of love to make it work!"

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