Safeway unveils new design plans for College Avenue store

Last night I attended what I thought would be another community meeting about Safeway. Well it turned out to be less of a meeting and more of an exhibition, which means that I don’t have dramatic moments to share but I did get to look at Safeway’s plans closely.
Overall, I’mvery pleased with what I saw. [...]

CED Committee approves surface parking lot, but changes overall outlook on parking and transit

Yesterday, after hearing from nine advocates who opposed the surface parking lot and two business owners that supported it, the Community and Economic Development (CED) Committee voted 3-0 (with Ignacio De La Fuente absent) to approve the surface parking lot in Uptown. The meeting was a bit maddening, but our efforts were not a failure, [...]

Advocates secure temporary win on the Oakland Airport Connector

Last week I attended the BART Board meeting to weigh in on their brilliant plan to fully finance the Oakland Airport Connector (OAC) through borrowing up to $150 million. The meeting was frustrating at times (and incredibly long), but in the end, Director Bob Franklin negotiated a compromise to bring the loan resolution back in [...]

April 27-29 Oakland Political & Community Events

This week’s listing is a bit sparser than usual, since I was busy all weekend at the California Democratic Party convention. If you’re curious about how the convention went, I highly recommend checking out the fairly thorough coverage at Calitics. (For my perspective, check out my post at Calitics.) Tomorrow I’ll finally post a write [...]

Loose ends, the CDP convention, and a couple requests

I had hoped to post someting about yesterday’s BART Board meeting this morning, but I’ve been a bit frantic getting ready to go to Sacramento for the California Democratic Party convention and the California Young Democrats convention. Don’t worry though, I’ll write the post on the train ride up and will hopefully publish it this [...]

BART’s brilliant plan for financing the Oakland Airport Connector

UPDATE: Read my post-meeting report here to find out what happened.
I had a fun, lighthearted post planned for today, but thanks to BART, that will have to wait another day. Because shockingly, BART has gone and pissed me off once again. You might remember my post in February about the Oakland Airport Connector (OAC). If [...]

Mayor Tom Bates takes transit leadership to the next level

The Chronicle featured a really inspiring story yesterday about Mayor Tom Bates of Berkeley. Much like I did last year, he decided to give his car up entirely and to walk and bus around town instead:
The 71-year-old mayor is trading in his 2001 Volvo for an AC Transit pass and a sturdy pair of walking [...]

Take Action: Stop the Council from approving a surface parking lot in Uptown!

Next week, the Community and Economic Development (CED) Committee will once again consider allowing a surface parking lot to be developed between the Fox Theater and the Uptown apartments. This decision will have far reaching impacts on the Uptown area, and judging from the comments that I received on my last post about this issue, [...]

April 20-25 Oakland Political & Community Events

Monday, April 20th – City Visions Radio presents “What’s Next for Oakland’s Downtown – Ten Years After the 10K Project”
So the title of this show sounds pretty inacuous and interesting – I think it’s a good idea to reflect back on former plans to see how they went. But the description I received from the [...]

New Oakland restaurants and bars continue to defy the recession

Did someone neglect to mention to small business entrepreneurs that we’re in a recession? Because in Oakland you’d never guess it by the sheer amount of restaurants and bars opening. What’s most incredible though is that all of these new establishments seem to not only be surviving, but thriving.
Burma Superstar, a sister of the restaurants [...]