News Clips
Oakland sends Valentines to LGBTs
Bay Area Reporter
Oakland Mayor Jean Quan used Valentine’s Day Tuesday to host a reception in City Hall to celebrate last week’s federal court ruling declaring Proposition 8 unconstitutional.
Among those who attended were Oakland City Attorney Barbara Parker, left, San Francisco Chief deputy City Attorney Therese Stewart, and out Oakland City Councilmember Rebecca Kaplan.
In her remarks, Stewart thanked Oakland for its participation in fighting Prop 8 (the city was one of nearly two-dozen that filed an amicus brief during the state court hearings) and she acknowledged Oakland resident Helen Zia and her mother, both of whom provided important testimony during the federal Prop 8 case, Perry v. Brown.
About 50 people who attended the reception enjoyed sparkling cider and cake to mark the occasion.
Oakland’s Toxic Deal with Wall Street
The city has already paid $26 million to Goldman Sachs, and local activists say the deal is unfair gift of public funds and should be terminated
By Darwin BondGraham
East Bay Express
Although last week’s $26 billion settlement between the Obama administration, attorneys general from 49 states, and five large banks over unscrupulous lending practices appears to have been deeply flawed, it may provide a modicum of relief for two million homeowners nationwide, including a half-million Californians. The agreement, however, does nothing for cities like Oakland that are trapped in expensive and toxic financial deals with some of Wall Street’s biggest players. Oakland’s bad lending deal is with Goldman Sachs, and it’s already cost the city $26 million. By 2021, the total pricetag for local taxpayers could reach $46 million.
Oakland’s debt to Goldman Sachs has angered progressives in part because the Wall Street giant received multibillion-dollar bailouts from the federal government, and yet refuses to renegotiate expensive financial instruments with cities that are costing local taxpayers millions more. During a meeting last June on Oakland’s budget, Councilwoman Rebecca Kaplan fired off a letter to Goldman Sachs’ CEO: “Many of us stood united as leaders supporting federal action that used taxpayer funds to save your company from economic disaster,” Kaplan wrote to Lloyd Blankfein, whose pay topped $40 million in 2008. “These actions — to use taxpayer dollars in order to salvage private, for-profit corporations — was justified to the public on the grounds that it would enable companies such as yours to then be able to operate in a manner that would be beneficial to the public.
“Unfortunately,” she concluded, “that half of the deal has not taken place.”
Kaplan’s letter followed research by the Service Employees International Union and the Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment that exposed the unfairness of so-called rate-swap agreements between cities and investment banks across California. Last June SEIU members picketed the California Street offices of Goldman Sachs in San Francisco, demanding renegotiation of the deal’s terms. “The $26 million the city has already paid is half of Oakland’s deficit this year,” activists said at the time, “but only 1 percent of Goldman Sachs’ profits for the first quarter of 2011.” But this campaign, as well as a resolution for the Oakland City Council to seek termination of the swap deal, later fell by the wayside.
The toxic rate-swap agreement in question dates to 1997 when Goldman Sachs convinced Oakland officials that it would protect taxpayers against the possibility that interest rates would rise on variable rate bonds that the city planned to issue the next year. Rate swaps — essentially contracts between two parties — allow governments to transform variable-rate debt payments into fixed-rate debt. Oakland’s deal with Goldman Sachs converted floating rates on $187 million of bond debt into a fixed 5.6 percent.
The problem for Oakland, however, was that floating interest rates only briefly exceeded 5.6 percent in the past fifteen years; first between 1998 and 2001, and again at the height of the housing bubble between 2006 and 2008. During the economic recession that followed 9/11, interest rates plummeted below 2 percent, forcing Oakland to make much higher payments to Goldman Sachs than it would have had it never signed the deal. Then, with the collapse of the economy in 2008, the US Federal Reserve reduced its lending rates to virtually zero, with variable rates in markets trailing close behind. Yet Oakland was still stuck paying more than 5 percent.
If rates stay artificially depressed due to the Federal Reserve’s decisions, Oakland will owe Goldman Sachs another $20 million between now and 2021. That’s on top of the $26 million the city has already paid.
Beyond labor and community groups, mainstream business publications also have pointed out how unfair these swap deals have become for cities since the crash in 2008. The Wall Street Journal reported on the subject two years ago, while reporters for Bloomberg News noted last month that US municipalities have paid more than $20 billion on rate swaps during the past five years.
Locally, pressure is now building again to do something about the Goldman Sachs deal. Leaders of some of Oakland’s largest churches are uniting with community organizers, Decolonize Oakland, and Occupy Oakland activists to focus on how “predatory” banks are draining Oakland’s budget and causing cuts to vital city services. They plan to bring the issue up with the city council on February 21, and say that many future actions are in the works.
Reverend Daniel Buford, head of the Prophetic Justice Ministry at Allen Temple Baptist Church in East Oakland, said the rate-swap deal with Goldman Sachs is an injustice. “Oakland should end its relationship with Goldman Sachs,” said Buford, “and Goldman Sachs should give back the money that’s been paid to them by our city.”
One challenge this coalition faces, however, is that the legal terms of the agreement will require Oakland to pay a hefty penalty — the “fair market value” of the swap — if the city unilaterally terminates the agreement before its expiration date in 2021. That penalty is around $16 million, according to Oakland’s most recent comprehensive annual financial report. “Goldman Sachs has gotten millions from Oakland each year from this swap. They’ve also gotten bailed out by taxpayers under the TARP program,” Buford said. “The swap should be terminated without penalty to the city.”
Members of Occupy the Hood and Decolonize Oakland, groups created to bring greater focus to racial justice issues within the larger Occupy movement, have researched Oakland’s swap agreement with Goldman Sachs. They say the city has strong moral and political justifications to demand cancellation without penalty. “It’s a second bailout for the big banks,” Yvonne Michelle of Decolonize Oakland said of the millions that investment banks are making off cities in the toxic rate-swap deals. “They were first bailed out by the administration when the market crashed. Now we’re in limbo with one foot in recovery and one foot in recession mode, and Goldman Sachs continues to prosper from our monies a second time over.”
Luz Calvo, a faculty member at Cal State University East Bay and a member of Decolonize Oakland, noted that policies by the Federal Reserve that keep interest rates low also allow Goldman Sachs to reap big profits from rate-swap deals made before interest rates collapsed. “Federal policy keeping interest rates at historically low levels is helping to transfer wealth out of municipalities to Wall Street,” Calvo explained. “The interest swap was set up so that if interest rates drop below a certain level, the city pays Goldman Sachs. If it goes above a certain level, Goldman Sachs pays the city.” The problem, concluded Calvo, is that “in normal times, the interest rate would fluctuate so that both sides would have good years and bad years. The Fed’s policy to hold interest rates at extremely low levels since 2008 is helping the financial sector extract more wealth out of municipalities that are involved in these swaps.”
Political leaders in Washington are forcing cities and taxpayers to suffer financially, Buford and other organizers also argued. Meanwhile the federal government is keeping rules in place that benefit corporations. It’s an onerous double standard that penalizes cities.
Under the Troubled Asset Relief Program of 2008, Goldman Sachs and other major financial corporations had their “troubled” derivatives (the class of financial products including rate swaps) relieved from them with billions in taxpayer dollars. Goldman Sachs alone got $10 billion under TARP, plus another $30 billion in interest-free money from the Federal Reserve under a secretive program called the Single Tranche Open Market Operation.
Able to unload many of its toxic derivatives with this public assistance, the bank reaped large profits during the financial crisis. In 2010, Goldman Sachs paid its top five executives approximately $70 million in salaries and stock awards, according to the firm’s most recent filings with the US Securities and Exchange Commission. Compensation is expected to have risen last year. In the same timeframe Oakland paid $5 million to Goldman Sachs because of the swap.
Goldman Sachs’ deal with Oakland is by no means the only toxic swap that’s bleeding Bay Area cities to the benefit of big banks. According to an SEIU study from February 2010, San Francisco must pay $19 million on swap deals with JP Morgan Chase, Goldman Sachs, and Bank of America, and the City of Richmond must hand over $6 million to the Royal Bank of Canada.
Other local agencies have been stung by swaps, too. The Peralta Community College District was forced to pay $1.6 million in 2011 on a swap with Morgan Stanley. “We find it unconscionable that while students, teachers, and staff go begging, Morgan Stanley — a recipient of $10 billion in federal bailout money — continues to collect millions from an impoverished community college district,” wrote Peralta Federation of Teachers President Matthew Goldstein in a letter sent to the executive director of Morgan Stanley’s San Francisco office. Goldstein’s faculty union and students took this message to the Peralta’s board of trustees last November. Peralta administrators have reportedly attempted to renegotiate the swap with Morgan Stanley. A spokesperson for Morgan Stanley declined to comment on the status of the swap agreement.
Last month San Francisco leaders successfully brought JP Morgan Chase to the table, convincing the bank to terminate a rate swap agreement that has been draining cash from the foundation that operates the Asian Art Museum. The swap was terminated without penalty.
Examples like this give hope to Oakland’s community organizers who are aiming to terminate the city’s swap with Goldman Sachs. These activists are also keen on pointing out that this is only the first step for them. “These rate swaps are only the tip of a larger iceberg,” said Jack Gerson of the Oakland Education Association. Gerson points to numerous other financial and tax and revenue arrangements that have Oakland paying off ballooning debts to banks and the state government.
Reverend Buford said now is the time for the Occupy movement to gain focus and ally itself with broader community organizations to push for fundamental changes affecting Oakland’s budget problems. “We have an opening, morally, socially, and politically, and we’ve got to seize it. All the banks and corporations are vulnerable now to public pressure.” Of the city council and other government bodies, Buford said, “Some leaders have wanted to do something about these financial injustices for a while now, but they lacked the power. We’re going to give them the strength and backing to do right.”
http://www.eastbayexpress.com/ebx/oaklands-toxic-deal-with-wall-street/Content?oid=3125660
Editorial: The Oakland City Council Was Right to Reject Occupy Crackdown
Even police brass and port officials opposed the idea
By Robert Gammon
East Bay Express
Although support for Occupy Oakland has nosedived recently in the wake of violent protests, the Oakland City Council made a smart decision last week, rejecting a call for more police crackdowns on Occupy demonstrations. The measure likely would have resulted in additional violent confrontations between Oakland police and so-called Black Bloc protesters — which is exactly what the violent fringe of Occupy appears to covet.
It’s become increasingly obvious over the past month that a hard-core group within Occupy Oakland relishes violent confrontations with cops. These masked protesters show up at demonstrations armed for violence, equipped with shields and packs full of objects that they can hurl at police. However, they usually don’t unleash their fury until police act first — either by firing teargas canisters or other less-than-lethal weaponry at demonstrators. It’s almost as if the Black Bloc protesters realize that if they were the first to attack, then they would be viewed within Occupy as the aggressors, a development that might prompt nonviolent demonstrators to finally shun them.
Instead, the Black Bloc protesters appear to prefer to make provocative acts toward police designed to trigger crackdowns, so that they then can claim that police are the true violent ones. But when police hold their fire, remain calm, and allow protesters to march, demonstrations often turn out to be peaceful, like the ones that took place the last two Saturdays. Indeed, during the February 4 Fuck the Police March, Oakland Police Chief Howard Jordan and his new command staff showed indications that they’re beginning to understand this dynamic.
But the crackdown proposal, sponsored by Councilmembers Ignacio De La Fuente and Libby Schaaf, would have forced Jordan’s hand. It would have put significant pressure on police to use force against Occupy, and thus would have played directly into the hands of the Black Bloc. Jordan seemed to understand this, and Council President Larry Reid, the strongest backer of police on the council, did as well when he refused to vote for the crackdown proposal.
Along with De La Fuente and Schaaf, Councilwomen Desley Brooks and Jane Brunner voted in favor of the crackdown measure, while Councilwoman Pat Kernighan, who is generally viewed as being pro-police and is chair of the council’s public safety committee, abstained with Reid. Rebecca Kaplan and Nancy Nadel, the two most progressive council members, voted against the crackdown plan.
Last weekend the San Francisco Chronicle reported that the De La Fuente-Schaaf measure failed to garner the five votes needed, in part because Oakland police brass had quietly opposed it. Police officials were reportedly worried that more Occupy crackdowns could push the department into federal receivership. Port officials also reportedly opposed the crackdown plan because they were concerned it would prompt more violent protests at the port.
In short, it seems increasingly clear that police are starting to realize that if they maintain their poise during Occupy protests, hold their ground, and refrain from striking first against demonstrators, then the Black Bloc might lose steam. Even the anarchist group Anonymous posted a video last week strongly criticizing the Black Bloc in Oakland. Indeed, the Black Bloc acts at times as if its whole reason for being is to battle police and turn downtown Oakland into a war zone. But if police — and the city — refuse to play this ugly game, both Oakland and Occupy may emerge from this struggle peacefully.
Another Tax on the 99 Percent
Last week, we told you about Governor Jerry Brown’s semi-regressive tax plan, and how aspects of it will hurt low- and middle-income earners through a sales tax hike, but there’s another proposal vying for the November ballot that may be almost as bad. This measure is being pushed and financed by Los Angeles lawyer Molly Munger, and it would raise income taxes across the board, including for Californians who make as little as $14,642 a year.
Munger, like Brown, appears to be hoping that voters will approve her plan because the $10 billion in annual revenues it will produce will go directly to public education. Brown has said that if voters don’t approve his plan, he’ll have to cut education funding dramatically.
But it remains to be seen whether voters will endorse Munger’s proposal once they learn that it will raise their taxes, and is not just a tax on the rich. According to Munger’s website, her proposal would progressively raise taxes on incomes above $14,262 a year with tax hikes rising from .4 percent on low-income earners to 2.2 percent on incomes above $3.4 million.
Although Munger’s proposal, like Brown’s, taxes wealthier Californians at higher rates than it does low- and middle-income earners, both proposals fail to adequately address California’s unfair tax policies. As the Express reported last week, a 2009 analysis by the nonpartisan Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy showed that the effective tax rate for the lowest 20 percent of wage earners in California, when counting all taxes, including sales taxes, is higher — 10.2 percent — than it is for middle-income residents (8.1 to 8.7 percent) and the One Percent (7.4 percent). While Munger and Brown’s proposals would help close that gap, both plans would still leave low-income workers paying a higher effective tax rate in California than the rich.
There’s only one tax proposal vying for the November ballot that targets the One Percent and leaves the 99 Percent alone: It’s known as the Millionaire’s Tax, and it’s being sponsored by the California Federation of Teachers and the California Nurses’ Association. It’s the only true tax-the-rich plan out there right now; it would raise taxes on incomes above $1 million, but would leave everyone else’s tax rates intact. As a result, the Millionaire’s Tax would do far more than Munger and Brown’s proposals to address California’s rob-the-poor-and-give-to-the-rich tax policies.
The Millionaire’s Tax appears to be gaining momentum statewide. Last Friday, progressive activist and former Obama administration official Van Jones told the state Democratic Party convention that he believes that the Millionaire’s Tax will excite younger voters and get them to the polls, the Sacramento Bee reported. “The idea that the people who have already climbed that ladder have to give back to them, that’s the pathway forward I think to electrify that generation,” Jones said.
Three-Dot Roundup
Richmond’s Chris Magnus, who is perhaps the most progressive police chief in the Bay Area, took the stand in a civil trial last week and denied that he was a racist who discriminated against black police officers. … Kathy Neal, a former Oakland port commissioner, pulled out the 18th Assembly District contest in a surprise move. Neal was one of four major candidates in the race, along with Alameda Vice Mayor Rob Bonta, Peralta Community Colleges Trustee Abel Guillen, and AC Transit board member Joel Young. … And Tim Rood, a critic of the large sports field planned for Blair Park in Piedmont, lost his bid for the Piedmont City Council by just 26 votes. Rood’s defeat may be an indication that the sports park controversy has died down.
http://www.eastbayexpress.com/ebx/council-was-right-to-reject-occupy-crackdown/Content?oid=3125650
Oakland honoring gay rights on Valentine’s Day
By Matthew Artz
Oakland Tribune
Mayor Jean Quan and the Oakland City Council are hosting a Valentine’s Day reception at City Hall to celebrate the recent U.S. Court of Appeals decision invalidating 2008′s Proposition 8 that made same sex marriage unconstitutional in California.
The event is scheduled for 4:30 p.m. Tuesday, and will feature a talk by Therese Stewart, San Francisco’s chief deputy attorney who was one of the primary attorneys arguing the case before the State Supreme Court.
“This Valentine’s Day, we celebrate progress toward equality marked by the recent court decision,” said Councilmember Rebecca Kaplan, who serves the city at-large and is the first openly lesbian member of the council. “And we continue our work because we know that justice is not yet done.”
New tax for Alameda Co. could help transportation
By Nick Smith
ABC 7
Oakland council seeks to save jobs, programs
By Matthew Artz
Oakland Tribune
City leaders are proposing laying off far fewer employees than anticipated, and council members Wednesday moved to spare even more jobs and provide extra notice for workers still slated for unemployment lines.
City Administrator Deanna Santana told council members that she’ll have an updated proposal Friday that takes into the city’s newfound understanding that it can keep an additional $7.5 million to help pay the cost of laying off workers it can no longer afford with the loss of redevelopment funding.
Santana’s current proposal to slash $28 million from the city’s budget, mostly by consolidating departments and cutting several programs, would have resulted in 81 city employees losing their jobs — far fewer than the 100 to 200 job losses city leaders were telling employees to brace for last week.
Council members generally supported the plan, but wanted to preserve funding to several programs including Children’s Fairyland and the 211 information system as well as to preserve neighborhood service coordinators.
Several council members also opposed a consolidation proposal to place Kelly O’Haire, a former police officer, at the helm of the Citizens’ Police Review Board.
“The perception of objectivity needs to be there,” Councilmember Desley Brooks said.
Oakland workers filled the chambers Wednesday upset about the proposed layoffs and the city’s rush to implement them before it is forced to dissolve its redevelopment agency, which had sustained the equivalent of 159 full-time city jobs.
With seniority rules still being sorted out, workers said they likely wouldn’t know until the end of next week if they would still have a job the following Monday.
“The transition time for employees is being handled with a complete lack of respect,” Housing Development Coordinator Christia Katz Mulvey told the council.
But council members think they’ve managed to slightly delay layoffs and provide a full 10 days notice.
The budget cuts presented this week were based on the city having to pay for the costs involved in laying off the employees including unemployment and pension benefits. But new information, including a letter from State Speaker John Perez, D-Los Angeles, pointed to the city being able to list those expenses, estimated at $7.5 million, as obligations that can receive continued redevelopment funding.
Unless the state challenges that estimate, proposed by Councilmember Rebecca Kaplan, the city would be able to provide enough money to scale back cuts and give proper notice to laid-off workers.
The city earlier this week estimated that the budget cuts would result in losing the equivalent of 105 full-time workers. However, because many of the positions slated for cuts turned out to be vacant, the proposal would only result in 81 actual layoffs, Santana said.
Of those currently slated for layoffs, about half worked in redevelopment.
City council debates funding for violence prevention programs
By Ryan Phillips
Oakland North
Violence prevention programs funded by Measure Y are working, according to a report presented at the Oakland City Council meeting on Tuesday night. But not well enough, councilmembers and speakers from the public responded.
“We can not ignore that we have had an increase in violent crime,” said councilmember Desley Brooks (District 6), “and so we can not continue to do the same thing the same way and expect that it’s going to be a different result. And there lies the problem—we continue to do what we’ve always done.”
The council approved a three-year funding cycle for Measure Y—the anti-violence, voter-approved initiative that provides $19 million annually for violence prevention programs, and police and fire services—that will extend through 2015, the final year of the initiative. The report estimated the annual revenue for those years will be about $22 million, which would then provide about $4 million to fire services, more than $11 million for police and about $6 million for violence prevention programs centered around youth.
Tuesday’s discussion centered around authorizing funding for the violence prevention program aspect of Measure Y, though the opportunity to talk about the initiative allowed those present to criticize all aspects of it. Councilmembers criticized Mayor Jean Quan for not better explaining her “100 Block” initiative, which Quan has said will concentrate police efforts on the 100 blocks in Oakland where 90 percent of the violent crime occurs. Supporters of Occupy Oakland railed against the Oakland Police Department for alleged brutality. And dozens of public speakers asked the council to spare from cuts the position of a re-entry specialist who would help the formerly incarcerated transition back into society.
The council approved a resolution to fund Measure Y that struck any reference to the mayor’s initiative. Councilmembers Ignacio De La Fuente and Brooks were especially critical of the plan, which they said hadn’t been properly vetted by the council. Quan, who usually attends city council meetings though she is not required to do so, was not present at the meeting Tuesday night.
“I don’t know what the 100 blocks are, I don’t know what the plan is,” Brooks said. “The last time I saw the mayor on the news talking about the 100 blocks, she said it was a concept. I have no clue what this is.”
Councilmembers criticized the Measure Y report, which was presented by Sara Bedford of the city’s department of human services for not including more statistics on just how the initiative is helping to reduce violent crime in Oakland. While the report noted that violent crime across the board has decreased since the last three-year funding cycle, gun violence is on the rise. Councilmember Rebecca Kaplan (At-large) called gun violence “our crisis” and noted that there is no city-wide strategy to combat the problem, or public safety in general, and advocated more of an effort to get illegal guns off the street.
“How does this Measure Y money fit in to a bigger strategy is missing, and that’s specifically the fault of people working on Measure Y,” Kaplan said. “The question is really ‘Where is the big picture strategy?’”
Supporters of Occupy Oakland also used the opportunity to talk about dealing with the OPD, which they characterized as violent. Two people were arrested at an Occupy-supported rally against police brutality on Saturday night in the latest clash between protesters and police. “Giving more money to the police department to decrease crime or decrease violence is not working,” said Oakland resident Jessica Hollie, an Occupy supporter. “They are in effect the ones increasing crime and increasing violence and inciting riots. That’s exactly what’s happening now.”
In other business Tuesday night, the council approved spending $1.3 million in city funds on fixing up the abandoned 16th Street train station project. After the redevelopment agency was disbanded, the city had until February 1 to decide if it wanted to spend the money in order to receive a matching grant of $1.3 million.
http://oaklandnorth.net/2012/01/18/city-council-debates-funding-for-violence-prevention-programs/
Lousy economy doesn’t deter determined entrepreneurs in Oakland
By Cecily Burt
Oakland Tribune
When he was forced to close his denim clothing shop in Old Oakland a few years ago, Alfonso Dominguez got a firsthand lesson in how tough it can be to keep a small business afloat in a bad economy.
But he and dozens of other determined entrepreneurs aren’t waiting for things to turn around. They are thumbing their noses at the economy and opening new shops, restaurants and galleries in Oakland at a pace most other cities can only envy.
Many of them are able to do that by forming collectives that support multiple businesses and by convincing landlords to allow their vacant storefronts to be filled with “pop-up” stores that trade rental payments for an injection of vitality and dollars to Oakland.
Dominguez and his partner Sarah Filley are helping fellow entrepreneurs gain a foothold in Old Oakland by doing just that. They are the brains behind the popuphood pilot project, which launched Friday as a collection of six new shops and galleries in formerly vacant storefronts — and one shipping container — on or near Ninth Street in Old Oakland.
Dominguez approached property owner Peter Sullivan about letting the shops come in rent-free for six months, and the company agreed. Dominguez said it benefits both sides: the landlord who can’t find someone to rent the space, and budding entrepreneurs who need a little time to build up their business without the huge financial commitment of a lease.
Dominguez knows what he’s talking about.
He and his family opened Tamarindo more than six years ago. He is also the owner of Era Art Bar and Lounge and La Calle. He’s also seen the downside. FIVEten Studio and Drift Denim Essentials didn’t survive.
“I opened Drift Denim in 2008 when everything was taking off and everybody was buying two homes,” he said. “Then the bottom dropped out and I had to close. Literally, people just stopped coming in.”
The new pop-up shops in Old Oakland are clustered together and benefit from shared advertising and foot traffic. “All of the new business owners are all well-known and on the verge of opening their own stores,” Dominguez said. “I was the little angel who helped them over the hump. … They can concentrate on getting the store together, with no outlay for rent and marketing.”
Jeneane Jennings, assistance property manager with CAC Real Estate Management Company Inc., said the PSAI Old Oakland Associates owns four of the vacant spaces now inhabited by the pop-up stores. Three had been vacant for a year, and the fourth was used for storage.
“It’s a good idea, to bring people back to the area and get them to recognize what’s down there in Old Oakland,” she said. “If they are successful, maybe they can sign a lease.”
Drew Lisac, the mayor’s economic adviser, said it’s a no-brainer. Empty spaces aren’t generating income for landlords, and vacant storefronts contribute to the feeling of blight.
Despite the economy, he is pleased and amazed that people are willing to take a chance.
“It’s been so odd for me. Everybody outside of Oakland is saying everything is doom and gloom, but actually here it’s quite the opposite.”
Jason Overman, aide to Councilwoman Rebecca Kaplan, said businesses have added about 1,500 new jobs in the past year, which he called amazing given the state of the economy. Those jobs were created through a combination of new small businesses and new companies either relocating to Oakland, such as Target, or existing companies that are expanding their workforce, such as Sungevity and Pandora. There also have been 50 new restaurants opened the past year, he said.
Alanna Rayford showcased emerging designers in a rotating event called Urban Stitch on the ground floor of the Cathedral Building last February. She had spent four years building up a database of designers, and the community support she got during that event helped convince her that the time was right to open her own store, and that Oakland was the place. She has leased the gorgeous basement space in the building for her new venture called Runway Style House. Runway will be a marketplace venue for emerging designers to show their collections and for wholesale and retail buyers to find quality merchandise.
“It definitely is scary, but that is what entrepreneurship is all about, taking risks,” she said. “There is fear in that, but they do say that the most sustainable businesses started during the Depression, and this is our modern-day depression.”
New bike lanes installed in downtown area
Bikers try out the new bike lane on Webster Street on Friday morning
By Ryan Phillips
Oakland North
Wearing a bright green hat and sunglasses, on Friday morning Rachel Davidman hopped on her mountain bike and took a short lap on the newest bike lane in Oakland, on Webster Street right off of Broadway Auto Row.
And what did she think?
“I’m excited with the progress,” said Davidman, an Oakland resident and the education coordinator of the Safe Routes to Schools program for TransForm, which advocates for public transportation and bicycle safety. “There are some obstacles to deal with, the cars are kind of wondering what’s going on. But fresh paint on the street is a great thing.”
Oakland Mayor Jean Quan, public works director Vitaly Troyan (second from left) and Councilmember Libby Schaaf of District 4 (second from right) cut a ribbon to open the new bike lane on Webster Street in downtown Oakland on Friday morning.
As Davidman spoke, contractors hired by the City of Oakland’s public works department were painting new bike lanes on the side of Webster Street that goes toward downtown, and sharrows [a shared-lane marking for cars and bikes] on the other side of the street. New bike lanes were also installed on Franklin Street on Friday, connecting a northern route into downtown.
The new bike lanes are part of 18 miles of bikeways installed in the city this year, giving Oakland a total of 115.8 miles of bike lanes. Their installation is a part of an effort by the city to have more bike-friendly streets, as part of the city’s Bicycle Master Plan.
Right before Davidman took her test lap on Friday morning, a group of about 60 people gathered in front of the bar and restaurant MUA to celebrate the new lanes. Many were dressed in bike gear, including bright green jackets and hats, or spandex racing gear. About a dozen brought their bikes to try out the new lane, and Bicycle Coffee had set up a stand on the corner.
Mayor Jean Quan and Councilmember Libby Schaaf (District 4) were among the speakers at the event, which was hosted by Renee Rivera, the East Bay Bicycle Coalition’s executive director. Quan said the new bike lanes will be important for helping people get to work in a safer way, but will also aid the city in reducing greenhouse emissions. “To get to those goals, every one of us has to eliminate at least one of our car trips a week,” she said, to applause from the crowd. “And the easiest and best way to do that is by riding your bike, right?”
Schaaf said the city has also added 92 bike parking spaces this year, and a bike station, where there will be valet bike parking and bike repairs, is scheduled to be built at the 19th Street BART station next year. Jason Overman, the spokesperson for councilmember Rebecca Kaplan (At-large), said a $500,000 grant from the Safe Routes to Transit program was secured for the project. The new bike station “will encourage visitors and commuters alike to travel to Oakland on a bicycle,” Overman said.
But there is still a lot of work to be done to improve bicycle safety on the streets of Oakland. City public works director Vitaly Troyan mentioned there are 800 miles of roads in Oakland, so that means “700 miles to go” for bike lanes that need to be installed.
Contractors working with the city’s public works department paint a new bike lane on Webster Street.
City staffers also handed out copies of a map of the Oakland Bikeway Network which featured miles of proposed bikeway improvements, including many proposed lanes in North Oakland, including lanes down Telegraph Avenue, Shattuck Avenue, Alcatraz Avenue and 51st Street. Some bikeways scheduled for construction in 2012 include extending the path on Webster further north to connect to a lane on Shafter Avenue that was installed this year, connecting the route from North Oakland to downtown.
Davidman said she’s waiting for a bike lane to be installed on her route to work, which starts on 14th Street on the east side of Lake Merritt. She said there are some challenges, like narrow streets, but adding it is important because, “that’s the main artery for people commuting east of the lake downtown,” she said.
Still, she said she’s happy with the city’s progress in installing the new lanes. “I live and bike to work in Oakland,” she said, “so I’m very grateful for the ones that exist.”
http://oaklandnorth.net/2011/12/16/new-bike-lanes-installed-in-downtown-area/
Coliseum City Unveiled
By Robert Gammon and Nate Seltenrich
East Bay Express
Jean Quan has taken a political beating this fall, particularly from Occupy Oakland and the insurgent recall campaign. But on Friday, the mayor came out swinging with a new proposal to build a massive sports village at the Oakland Coliseum. Dubbed “Coliseum City,” the project is designed to be privately funded and would include a new ballpark for the A’s, a new stadium for the Raiders, and a new arena for the Warriors, along with a convention center, hotel, and retail strip.
Although some of the mayor’s critics scoffed at the sweeping plan, city officials said they’ve already received interest from six private development teams in response to a request for bids. Coliseum City also appears to have strong support on the city council. “It could really be a transformative project,” Councilwoman Rebecca Kaplan told the Express. “I’m really excited.” Kaplan has been working on the plan with council President Larry Reid, who said he’s also jazzed about it. “It would just be incredible if we were able to do something bigger and better than AT&T Park or LA Live” in Los Angeles, he said in a phone interview.
The mayor’s announcement followed news last week that the Warriors’ owners had talked with San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee about a possible new basketball arena near AT&T Park. The San Francisco Chronicle reported that the Warriors also talked to Quan about a new arena in Oakland — apparently it was about Coliseum City. In addition, the San Francisco 49ers have been trying to convince the Raiders to move to the South Bay and share their planned new stadium in Santa Clara.
There also has been widespread speculation recently that Major League Baseball will soon green-light the A’s planned move to San Jose. The team has been assembling land there, and A’s co-owner Lew Wolff is good buddies with baseball commissioner Bud Selig. However, it remains unclear how the A’s can overcome the San Francisco Giants’ territorial rights to the South Bay, which prohibit any other major league club from moving there — unless three-fourths of the league’s owners agree to it.
Still, if Oakland were to lose three professional sports franchises to nearby cities on Quan’s watch, it might be a death blow to her political career. And keeping the teams will be no easy task. It remains to be seen, for example, whether the city’s efforts to keep the A’s will be successful, because the team’s ownership desperately wants to leave. Moreover, questions abound as to how Oakland would be able pull off a major new development like Coliseum City, especially if the state Supreme Court sides with Governor Jerry Brown’s plan to kill redevelopment in California.
Kaplan, however, said Coliseum City could potentially be built without redevelopment funds because the city and county already own the land. Kaplan noted that the city has been buying up property around the Coliseum so there is plenty of space for the large development. Kaplan also is working on scoring $40 million in funds from the Alameda County transportation plan. Because of its proximity to BART, rail, and I-880, the project may be eligible for transit-oriented-development funding.
As for Quan, Coliseum City represents a chance to shift the conversation in Oakland away from Occupy and the recall. She said that her administration has been talking to Major League Baseball about Coliseum City and she feels upbeat about its prospects. That’s not to say, however, that she has completely given up on the possibility of a waterfront ballpark at Victory Court in the city’s Jack London District not far from downtown. “That’s still my favorite site,” she said.
http://www.eastbayexpress.com/ebx/coliseum-city-unveiled/Content?oid=3068937
