signs: Latham Square

This wonderful sign marks the surprisingly controversial Latham Square at Telegraph and 16th Street. For many years the intersection between Telegraph and Broadway was a mess. Telegraph comes in at an angle, and 15th Street doesn't quite line up. It's been the scene of many a near-miss, not just cars vs. pedestrians or bikes, but cars vs. cars, too. So Walk Oakland Bike Oakland, East Bay Bicycle Coalition and others lobbied to have it made into a pedestrian plaza. The decision was made to try a 6-month trial to see what all the effects were, but instead of 6 months, the city mysteriously cut the project off at 6 weeks, and changed the configuration to one-way south. There were complaints from some local businesses that business had dropped off, but it's impossible to tell if the closure had anything to do with it after only 6 weeks. Sole Space, Aardvark Engraving, and especially Rudy's Can't Fail Cafe, I'm looking at you! Not all your customers drive. Many of them walk, bike or take transit, and it's absurd to try to blame a change in business on it after such a short pilot. As CM Rebecca Kaplan said, "I just want to say, on a process perspective, I think the City of Oakland owes every stakeholder involved a huge apology." Sigh.

Anyway, back to the sign. It's both old and new. It's made of old city of Oakland street signs (the ones without the oak tree), and includes a planter on top. The square is named for the Lathams. There's the Latham Fountain honoring them, and the historic Latham Square Building across from the Cathedral Building.

signs: Oakland Police

Oakland Police HQ

Istarted writing a post the other week when the big news was that the federal judge had approved the deal between Oakland and the civil rights attorneys that stops just short of federal receivership for the police department. Instead, there will be a "compliance director", with the power to fire the chief and demote deputy and assistant chiefs. And ironically but not surprisingly, Oakland proceeded to hit 122 homicides for the year. (Now we're at 127, and the year isn't over yet.)

They've got a lovely sign, but as the article in Oakland Local says, it's been "A bad year for the Oakland Police Department". Here's hoping for all our sakes that 2013 is better for OPD, and brings reduced crime and particularly reduced violence for Oakland.

photo of the week: Oaksterdam mural

Lots of people in Oakland were surprised, even those who aren't marijuana supporters, when the beautiful Oaksterdam mural was painted over earlier this week. According to Matthai Kuruvila on SFGate, Oaksterdam University moved out of the space in November after the building was sold. The new owner apparently didn't want to be associated with Oaksterdam and the medical marijuana community.

If you look in Google Maps Street View, it shows the mural, as well as various photos of it. But if you walk by in person, all you'll see is a blank beige wall. That's what it was for a long time, and was frequently tagged with spray paint. Then it was a large, collegiate-looking Oaksterdam University sign, which apparently fell afoul of city regulations regarding the size of signs. The mural was partly a response to that, by creating something that highlighted all of Oakland. Sadly, even the mural got tagged (with large red letters), which was probably part of the new landlord's decision, as fixing the mural would have been extremely difficult.

Read more about the mural and the original controversy, and see some pictures of the painting in progress in an old post on Living in the O.

Here's a closer look at the whole mural:


Note: I fully intend the new photo of the week feature to be, well, a photo from the current week. And while I have some photos that would work, it seemed appropriate to include this one from last year's walking tour of Uptown since the mural was painted over this week.

voting recommendations for Oakland

When asked what I write about on Our Oakland, I list a variety of things: food, history, art, maps, bicycling; "whatever catches my interest about Oakland." Rarely do I write about politics in Oakland, in part because they generally annoy me too much. But a number of people have asked me for recommendations lately, so I figured it was time to put them down in writing. Agree or disagree, here are my recommendations for the upcoming election.

If you're unsure which BART, AC Transit, or whatever district you're in, check out this web page from Alameda County, Districts Lookup. It will even tell you your flood control zone! Don't know your Oakland city council district? Check the Oakland City Council Districts map I made a couple of years ago.

U.S. Representative - Barbara Lee - Barbara Lee is the only one in congress who voted against a blank check for Bush to invade Iraq. She's also the only major politician who's never disappointed me. 'nuf said.

BART Board District 3 - Rebecca Saltzman - Rebecca Salztman is passionate about Oakland as well as transit, bicycling and pedestrians. She rides BART (& AC Transit) and knows the challenges facing BART. She's got a zillion endorsements from the Sierra Club to state senator Loni Hancock to much of the existing BART board, and for good reason. She's clearly the best candidate for the job.

Oakland City Council at large - Rebecca Kaplan - Many people have wondered why Ignacio De La Fuente is giving up his sure-thing seat in District 5 to run for the at-large seat. The only reason that makes sense is so that he can have more influence over the council and get wider support in Oakland for an eventual mayoral run. Which would be OK if he was up front about it, but he's running by trying to downplay the contributions of Rebecca Kaplan. And if his linking to his campaign site from his city council page isn't illegal, it should be. See also this EBX article. And this list of 10 reasons not to vote of Ignacio De La Fuente.

City Attorney - Barbara Parker - I was leaning towards supporting Barbara Parker because it seems like she's done a good job. Then the OPOA came out in support of Jane Brunner, and released some ads that lie about Parker's record. Then there's this gem about Brunner's plagarism. See the same EBX article.

Measure A1 - NO on A1 - I love the Oakland Zoo (while being somewhat conflicted about zoos in general.) The zoo is pushing A1 as "for the animals" and say the money won't be used for a controversial expansion into Knowland Park. However, the measure has a loophole you could ride an elephant through that would allow them to, and my trust in them dropped further when it was discovered the zoo has broken several election laws during the campaign, and is spending nearly $1 million to try to pass the measure.

Measure B1 - YES on B1 - It's always hard to vote for increased taxes during a down economy, but this is one I can support. There's currently a 1/2 cent sales tax in Alameda County that goes towards "transportation", which generally means roads and infrastructure for cars and transit. Measure B1 would extend the sales tax, increase it to 1 cent, but most importantly, specifies that 48% go to transit, 8% of the funds would go to bicycle and pedestrian projects, and 5% would go to sustainable land use and transportation projects.

Proposition 30 - YES on 30 - The state economy is a mess, and one of the no-brainer ways to help fix it and get additional funding for education is by increasing taxes on the wealthy (people earning $250,000 or more a year). It's not perfect, but it's better than nothing.

Proposition 32 - NO on 32 - It's a clear attempt by big corporations, PACs and their moneyed friends to try to limit the voice of unions, while they continue to spend lots on buying elections.

Proposition 33 - NO on 33 - Another attempt by insurance companies to increase their profits. They're spending $16 million to try to get their way.

Proposition 34 - YES on 34 - The death penalty doesn't work as a deterrent, is hella expensive to implement, and too many innocent people across the country have been wrongly executed. It's telling that most of the countries that still have the death penalty are ones like China, North Korea and Iran that we regularly ding for human rights violations. Even if you don't agree with the moral aspect of opposing the death penalty, the finances of it and its failure to work should be reasons enough.

Proposition 36 - YES on 36 - "Three strikes" was a good idea, but went a little too far. 36 will dial it back a little, by making it so the 3rd strike has to be for a serious or violent crime. It will save the state money, reduce prison overcrowding, and provide fairer sentencing for lesser crimes.

Proposition 37 - YES on 37 - This measure isn't perfect, but is a big step in the right direction. Genetically modified food hasn't been sufficiently tested to prove it's safe; some of the studies that have been done show unexpected side-effects. Consumers (that's all of us that eat food) deserve to know what's going into our food.

I live in city council district #4, which isn't being contested this year, but it also means I haven't been following the races in districts 1, 3 and 5 as closely. If there's something I haven't listed, the race either doesn't apply to me or I haven't figured out how I'm going to vote on it. Or I forgot.

blog pulse: Sanjiv Handa

Inever met Sanjiv Handa, but everyone who follows Oakland politics knew who he was. He passed away unexpectedly this week at age 55. Sanjiv was a fixture at city council meetings; a council meeting without Sanjiv didn't seem like a real meeting. He was best known for haranguing city officials about transparency in government, or to be more accurate, their lack of it.

Sanjiv always seemed to stay within the rules. When the council changed things to further limit speaker time (informally referred to as "the Sanjiv rule"), he collected speaker cards from others to maximize his speaking time, and he always used the full time allotted to him. And even though everyone on council certainly knew who he was, per the rules he always began by stating his name: "For The Record, I'm Sanjiv Handa, East Bay News Service."



Some blog posts and articles remembering Sanjiv:

• OaklandBecks - Living in the O
• Zennie - Oakland Focus
• Today in Montclair
• Jayson Landeza - City Brights
• Tammerlin Drummond - Tribune
• Oakland Tribune
• OaklandLocal
• SFGate.com

He wasn't universally loved, and was strongly disliked by more than one city official, but his absence at city council meetings will be noticed. Hopefully someone else can step up and work to try to keep Oakland's government working in the open as it's supposed to.

A memorial service is planned for Sanjiv this Saturday in Fremont. @OaklandBecks and others on Twitter also came up with the idea of riding bikes (to honor cycling advocate Ron Bishop who also recently passed away) to an upcoming city council meeting and delivering pastries and pizza for attendees. (Various remembrances above refer to him bringing food to share at meetings, and to victims of a fire not far from his home in Oakland.) Rest in peace, Sanjiv, though you'd probably rather haunt city officials to make sure they're following the rules.

• Matthai's coverage of the memorial service

additional reading:

• East Bay Express article on Sanjiv
• Oakland Sunshine Ordinance
• Brown Act
• California Public Records Act
• Maddy Act

some of Sanjiv's articles:

• Guess what, camping at Frank Ogawa Plaza may be legal
• Will Occupy Oakland Costs Exceed $3 Million?
• Nobody Cares About Public Safety? Huh?

we've got a budget!?

In a city council meeting that came right down to the June 30th deadline, Mayor Quan cast the tie-breaking vote to give Oakland a budget. At least for now, the $58 million deficit is covered. Starting with one of Mayor Quan's proposals and adding and removing things, the council worked back and forth until it was down to two sides which weren't that far apart. Given the various limitations, it wasn't possible to save everything, but they finally came up with a budget.

Following the budget process has been interesting. I don't envy the council or mayor their jobs. And while I was impressed that they came up with a solution at all, I disappointed with the acrimony in some of the council meetings. As Trib columnist Tammerlin Drummond said,

"the lack of civility displayed by some Oakland City Council members toward each other and members of the public was appalling."

You can follow along with city council meetings on Twitter with the hash tag #oakmtg, and watch it on KTOP (while it still has funding), either on cable or online. Or attend them in person and join in the fun.

The real questions are about the budget itself:

• It depends in part on concessions from some of the city unions, some of which are only tentative. And we don't know full details, other than what the firefighters are offering. Some of what has been heard is unsettling, including: Council members may no longer "support, endorse or sponsor" any proposal to change any City Charter provision relating to the police union. Mayor Quan thinks the pact is unenforceable.
• While the libraries were mostly saved, if funding for them falls much the city won't be able to collect Measure Q funds. That would greatly reduce the funding: Measure Q provides about 60% of the library's budget.
• The budget depends on the sale of the Kaiser Convention center for $28 million. The seller? Oakland. The buyer? Oakland. Chip Johnson calls it bizarre. The building is worth no where near that in the current market, but the city would transfer the funds from its (state budget-imperiled) redevelopment agency to the general fund. Whether the state will allow it remains to be seen.

Mayor Quan would like to pass an $80 parcel tax to help balance future budgets and restore some of the things that were cut. But as Max Allstadt said on Twitter,

Nobody should vote for a parcel tax without other much needed reforms. #oakmtg

Personally I'm wary of another parcel tax after the Measure Y debacle (i.e., the city was only supposed to collect the tax if they kept at least 802 officers; we're currently at about 637). I'm also not fond of parcel taxes in general, as they don't spread the load evenly. In any event, the city is having to call a special election (at the cost of $700,000) to try to get the voters to approve it. If it passes, it will bring in approximately $11 million a year, but it's a very big 'if'.

Deeper than the 'ifs' and 'maybes' is the fact that no real substantive changes were made. One of the underlying issues is that a large percentage of the city budget goes to public safety, yet people don't feel safe. The concessions from the unions help, but they're not a long-term fix to the problem by themselves. Then there are some of the social programs funded by Measure Y that have no accountability, yet aren't facing budget cuts the way basic services are. The $28 million sale of the Kaiser Convention Center is a one-time deal.

I don't know what all the right answers are, but I do know that the current budget doesn't address the basic problems. As council president Larry Reid said:

"I just know we're all going to be back here doing this again very soon."

Additional reading
...on the budget:
Sean Maher (Tribune)
Tammerlin Drummond (Tribune)
Chip Johnson (SFGate)
Bob Gammon (East Bay Express)
VSmoothe (A Better Oakland)

...on the parcel tax and special election:
Mayor Jean Quan (on OaklandLocal)
Ryan Phillips (Oakland North)
Matthai Kuruvila (SFGate)

...on the OPD reorg and budget:
Matthai Kuruvila (SFGate)
Harry Harris and Sean Maher (Tribune)
Chip Johnson (SFGate)
Daniel Borenstein (Tribune)

Finally, a big thank you to all those who make it possible to keep track of the goings on in Oakland: KTOP, all the people who tweet #oakmtg, and A Better Oakland, Sean Maher and Matthai Kuruvila for their reporting.

signs of the times

brick-and-mortar
video store, anyone?

The economy is still struggling, both here and around the world. But at least we're not digging out from a blizzard, facing sub-zero temperatures, trying to oust a dictator, or facing a major typhoon. We've been having some unseasonably beautiful weather, and things are slowly getting better.

Even though I didn't vote for her, I'm already happier with Jean Quan as mayor than Ron Dellums. She may still screw up the budget and the situation with the police, pensions, and Chief Batts, but damn it, at least she's interested and involved in Oakland.

But things are a long ways from fixed, which has led to some creative approaches. Tonight, there's a fundraiser for Mama Buzz Cafe.

Similarly, people have been trying to resurrect the Parkway Theater. Part of their fundraising has been more conventional, but part was crowd-sourced, asking folks in Oakland to invest a few dollars to make the re-opening happen. A lot of work needs to be done to the Park Blvd. location, and despite the economy, the landlords seem reluctant to do the work and get a tenant. So the New Parkway may happen somewhere else, or maybe not at all. But hats off to those trying to make it work.

Speaking of questionable landlord tactics, even areas like Montclair have had a serious downturn from the economy. Montclair Village has a number of empty storefronts, so you'd think landlords would be willing to talk -- a lower rent is better than no rent, right? Well, Montclair Village Hardware is now going to move to nearby Piedmont Pines -- something that's been feared since last fall. As that's my nearest hardware store, I'll definitely miss having them so close.

But despite those things, I'm hopeful about Oakland. The Oakland Museum, after a super successful run of the Pixar exhibit, is launching The Oakland Standard. It's all about some interesting art projects. Oakland is full of interesting art, from the OMCA to graffiti to . And the OMCA is launching the Oakland Standard with style -- a big party. Read more about it at Living in the O.

what a long, strange two weeks it's been...

First, thank you to Oakland Magazine for featuring Our Oakland in the Oakland Online piece in the latest edition! Welcome to any new readers (whether you found the blog through that or not :-) As the title suggests, this post is somewhat long and strange compared with what I usually post here: no signs, no restaurant reviews, no cool maps.

Now, on to an explanation of the paucity of posts of late. It started two weeks ago with a short trip through the stairs of our carport. No broken bones, but plenty of aches and bruises and a renewed appreciation of the power of gravity.

not Oakland

I recovered enough from that in time for a trip for work to near Fellows, CA. Outside of Bakersfield is the town of Taft. Outside of Taft is Fellows. Outside of Fellows are a bunch of oil fields and several power plants. It's a strange-looking bit of California, so it was appropriate I was there over Halloween. Doubly spooky since the entry on Wikipedia says Fellows is where the film version of Shirley Jackon's always creepy short story The Lottery was shot.

Had I been 30 minutes or so to the west, I could have been in the beautiful Carrizo Plain National Monument. Instead, I was inside most of the time working on software at one of the power plants, working long hours to launch a new version of the software.

The long hours lead to a nasty cold, but we got the new version launched, and made it home in time to vote on Tuesday. The results from across the nation were somewhat depressing, but many of the California and local contests have had good results: we don't have Meg Whitman as our governor, nor Carly Fiorina as our senator, and Prop 23 didn't pass. (And even more locally, I'm happy that Libby Schaaf will be our new council member for district 4.) Tammerlin Drummond of the Tribune asks the question I ask almost every election: isn't there a better way for rich candidates to spend their money? The flood of negative ads didn't persuade me to vote for anyone; rather it confirmed my votes against those sending it out.

We didn't know who the next mayor of Oakland would be, though -- due in part to ballots like mine. I requested a mail-in ballot in case I wasn't able to get back in time on Tuesday. Unfortunately, it didn't arrive before I left, so I had to cast a provisional ballot upon my return. The changing results as the IRV ballots are tabulated has been interesting, and it's clear why Don Perata was against IRV since he's gone from 1st to 2nd in the process (and speaking of spending lots of money...) For what it's worth, although I think Don Perata is "ethics challenged", he was my second choice after Rebecca Kaplan. Jean Quan's responsibility for Measure Y, et al, was enough to convince me she's probably not the right person to lead Oakland out of its budget problems.

By Friday, I was mostly over my cold, but we still didn't know who the next mayor would be, but Oakland was now focused on the impending sentencing of Johannes Mehserle for his killing of Oscar Grant. Like many, I was disappointed with the involuntary manslaughter verdict, but was hoping for for a reasonable sentence because of the gun-enhancement charge the jury included. Instead, the judge inexplicably gave a minimum sentence and credit for time served. Not surprisingly, this made many people unhappy. A peaceful rally lead to a march towards Fruitvale BART, which lead to some vandalism, and ended with 152 arrests. Reports differ widely about the nature of the march, but at least the understaffed OPD was better prepared. My question for those involved in the vandalism: if you feel like you have to trash something to make your point, why not go trash the BART offices instead of the property of innocent Oaklanders?

Sunday morning I woke up barely able to swallow and my tongue looking absolutely disgusting. After I nearly passed out, K called the advice nurse at Kaiser. A trip to the doctor and pharmacist later, I had diagnosis of strep throat and a prescription for penicillin.

Rosie

Since then, the kitties and I have been doing a lot of this. To be fair, that's what they do a lot of even when I'm feeling well, but they enjoyed the company and were probably wondering why I don't join them every day.

So there you have it: the long, strange post of why I haven't updated the blog recently. I'm off to rest a while, and will hopefully be back to normal posting soon.

Oakland mayor's race

In a move that should have surprised no one, last week Oakland mayor Ron Dellums announced he wasn't going to run for re-election. That automatically extended the filing deadline to Wednesday.

After a flurry of activity, we now have 13 candidates running for mayor:

• Arnie Fields
• Don Macleay
• Don Perata
• Greg Harland
• Jean Quan
• Joe Tuman
• Lionel Young, Jr.
• Marcie Hodge
• Niki Okuk
• Rebecca Kaplan
• Sharika Gregory
• Terence Candell
• Tim Brown

OaklandSeen has a good rundown of the activity, plus the various elections for council districts 2, 4 and 6; SFGate's Matthai Kuruvila has a brief rundown of the 13 candidates.

I'm a long way from deciding who I'll vote for, other than Anybody But Don. I've heard Rebecca Kaplan and Jean Quan speak at council meetings and other city events, and Kaplan and Joe Tuman were amongst the people who stopped by the EBBC bike parking at the Best of the East Bay party in Jack London Square, but there are a lot of candidates to educate myself about before deciding.

According to the East Bay Express, Perata is nearing the campaign spending cap, and we're still a long ways from the election. The article also talks about the spending of Kaplan and Quan, which has been fairly limited so far. Tribune reporter and The Education Report blogger Katy Murphy has an article on late-comer Marcie Hodge, a Peralta college trustee. Rounding out recent coverage is OaklandLocal's article about the response of various candidates to the the idea of a local currency for Oakland, and a different view of the event from Oakland North.

I'm sure there will be lots more coverage in the weeks and months to come, and I'd be surprised if all 13 candidates are still actively in the race by the time the election rolls around. Whether they all are or not, I'm glad we're going to have ranked voting / Instant Run-off Voting this time. With this wide a field, it'll be easier to pick a 1st, 2nd and 3rd choice and hope one of them wins, rather than have no clear winner and require a run-off in a separate election requiring more money.

politics and stuff

I don't blog about politics very often (I noticed I didn't even have a tag for it until this post), but lots has been happening around Oakland and California of note. In no particular order...

Rebecca Kaplan is running for mayor. It comes as no great surprise (like Ron Dellums deciding to run again would be), but it's finally official. Amongst other things, that means the blog FutureOakland is going to be on hiatus until November as they're going to be working on the Kaplan campaign.

It turns out that former Oakland mayor and gubernatorial candidate Jerry Brown is sort of a neighbor. Back when he was mayor, he lived in a loft downtown. These days as AG of California he's in Sacramento much of the time, but his official residence is in a house along Skyline here in the Oakland hills. (To be clear, although it's less than a mile from our house, it's way out of our price range. Heck, our house is out of our price range these days, but I was fortunate to buy it 15 years ago.) Anyways, Jerry is getting some heat because the 3 bedroom home isn't in line with his message of 'frugality' that's part of his campaign. While price-wise the house is out of most people's range, if they can afford it and it's not some energy-gobbling monster house, I say why not? Particularly if they can pay the property taxes.

"Were we getting a no-down payment loan and buying a house that you can't afford, that would be a reflection on how the candidate spends money," he said Tuesday in response to a reporter's question.

"But when a couple buy their dream house with their life savings, I think that's the American dream and I'm very proud that I can do that," Brown said

Further afield, Guvenator Schwarzenegger is calling for an $11 billion water bond to be pulled from the November ballot so they can focus on the budget. That's a strong suggestion it wouldn't pass in the coming election. I'm happy it might be off the ballot because it calls for $3 billion for new dams in California, never mind the huge amount it would add to the state's already staggering debt.

In a move that surprised many, the NAACP came out in support of Prop 19 which would tax and regulate marijuana...er...cannabis. I've never used the stuff myself, but I think a far better use of money would be to collect taxes on it instead of filling the prisons with people for having it. The fact black people in California are arrested at two to four times the rate as white people for possession just means it needs to happen sooner rather than later.

Back home in Oakland, we move on to the 'stuff' category. The Oakland City Center complex was sold for $360 million. That still doesn't mean it would be easy to find a buyer for the Kaiser Convention Center, though.

Finally, the trial of former BART cop Johannes Mehserle is approaching the end. The defense has rested their case, and the judge has ruled that first-degree murder is not a possible verdict. Which seems a good thing, because if the choice for the jury was first-degree murder or acquittal, it's not clear there's enough evidence to prove the former beyond a reasonable doubt (first-degree stupidity, yes). Oscar Grant's uncle said he was pleased with the judge's ruling and asked supporters to remain calm regardless of the final outcome of the trial. Speaking of staying calm, amidst the fear-mongering about possible rioting is a well-written piece by the Tribune's Tammerlin Drummond calling for calm in not just the aftermath, but in the reporting about it, too.

Tucker out = good. Lindheim in = ?

Mayor Ron Dellums appointed Dan Lindheim to the long-vacant city administrator post. The Oakland blogosphere is generally unhappy with it:

• Lindheim Choice as Administrator Result of Cronyism, Hypocrisy, and Low Expectations at City Hall
• Take Action: Ensure Top-Rate Management for Oakland
• Appointment puts Oakland on the brink
• Op-Ed: Mayor Appoints Crony, City Suffers

I don't know much about Lindheim, but there seem like some serious warning signs. The first being that Lindheim is a "longtime confidant". There was supposed to be a nationwide search to fill the post, with former city manager Robert Bobb being a favorite. When he opted to take a job with the Detroit school system, the job quickly went to a friend of Dellums. There's been no list of who else was considered or what the process for the search actually was.

Another warning sign is that "Lindheim also tried hard to keep outgoing police Chief Wayne Tucker on board". Tucker's classless departure erased any doubts that he wasn't the right man for the job, if the list of problems under his command wasn't enough.

Lindheim may be the most qualified person willing to take the job, but he doesn't meet the Mayor's listed qualifications ("12 to 15 years of senior level executive management experience preferably in a large sophisticated diverse urban governmental organization").

The charges of cronyism don't seem far off the mark given the lack of information and Lindheim's lack of qualifications.

Regardless of whether he is the best person for the job, there needs to be more transparency about how he was selected. If there's not, Dellums' already low approval ratings are likely to go even lower. And if he's not the best qualified, then the council shouldn't approve his appointment.