November 30-December 6 Oakland Political & Community Events

Note: Due to the holidays, there are dozens of events happening in the next couple of weeks so I’m picking and choosing a bit. For a more complete list of Oakland holiday events, check out City Homestead’s comprehensive listing.
Tuesday, December 1st– AC Transit Community Open House for Revised Service Adjustment Proposal

Via Ride ACT: “On November [...]

My growing gratitude for Oakland art

There are so many reasons that I’m grateful to live in Oakland that I couldn’t possibly list all of them in a blog post. Luckily, V Smoothe covered many reasons that overlap with mine (especially AC Transit and all the great farmer’s markets). But there’s one thing that I’ve grown an appreciation for over the [...]

November 2-8 Oakland Political & Community Events

Monday, November 2nd – Town Hall with Mayor Dellums and Police Chief Batts

Come hear Mayor Dellums and Chief Batts share their vision of public safety. Topics include:

Mayor Dellums — public safety strategy: PIES (Prevention, Intervention, Enforcement, Sustainability)
Chief Batts — vision for the Oakland Police Department
Crime statistics: crime is down double digits citywide,but more must be [...]

October 26-November 1 Oakland Political & Community Events

Tuesday, October 27th – Walk Oakland Bike Oakland Meeting
You may not have thought about it this way, but walking and biking are climate action! Attend WOBO’s October Volunteer Meeting this Tuesday night to discuss opportunities for advancing walking and biking within Oakland’s Energy and Climate Action Plan. The discussion will be led by WOBO Board [...]

A brief break from Oakland politics & blogging

Note: I am no longer working for TransForm, and as always, the thoughts below are my own.
Tuesday night was a bit devastating for me. I’ve been working with so many others since February to defeat the OAC, and I had always hoped that if all else failed, the Oakland City Council would come through for [...]

What’s so special about Oakland? – Restaurant owners explain

When I first started reading this week’s East Bay Express article about Oakland’s restaurant scene, it seemed like it would read just like all the others: wow, Oakland has lots of great new restaurants! and you won’t necessarily get shot if you go to them!
But past the long listing of new restaurants were some quotes [...]

September 28-October 4 Oakland Political & Community Events

Monday, September 28th – The Story of How Copenhagen Became a Cycling City

In the 1970s, Copenhagen was an automobile-centric city, even though it had a substantial cycling population. Huge public demonstrations in the early 1980s resulted in significant changes in the city’s transportation infrastructure. Since that time, Copenhagen has become of one the world’s preeminent [...]

Two events to attend next Tuesday

Next Tuesday, September 15th is going to be a busy day for me, and I hope it will be for you too. The morning will start off with what should be a heated hearing at Public Works and the evening will end with a casual mixer with young, politically involved East Bay residents.
9:30 am – [...]

Replay 4/12/08: Berkeley/Oakland Reflections: Downtown

I spent the day in downtown Berkeley today, and it really got me thinking about the hurdles downtown Oakland has to overcome before it becomes a more vibrant and contiguous neighborhood.
Though there’s plenty I don’t like about Berkeley, downtown Berkeley has transformed into a bustling area, filled with people and plenty to do. Today, I [...]

Replay 11/23/07: DC/Oakland Reflections: Urban Walking

So I know I promised to write a series about my Oakland and Los Angeles inspired reflections on urban space, but the truth is that I compare just about every city to Oakland and I almost constantly think about the intricacies of urban space. So I’m going to broaden this series to include urban reflections [...]