Here are the details for the grand opening event:

Uptown Art Park Grand Opening!

What: Nine Sculpture Art Pieces by Local Artists, Music, Tours, Food Trucks

Where:  Telegraph & 19th Street

When: Friday, April 5th from 6:30 – 8:30 pm

Facebook Event: http://www.facebook.com/events/170069043142598/

Get There: 19th Street BART Station or Free Broadway Shuttle… or bike there from West Oakland with the East Bay Bicycle Coalition, Walk Oakland Bike Oakland and Bikes4Life: Riders of all ages gather at 5:30pm at Bikes4Life, 1600 7th Street @ Willow in West Oakland (take BART to the West Oakland station) for 1.5 mile ride to the event. Free bike lights courtesy of the City of Oakland (limited supply –arrive by 5:30pm). Bike valet parking provided by Richmond Spokes.

I’m really looking forward to this event. Advocating for this art park and making it a reality was one of the highlights of my years of blogging and Oakland advocacy. It was amazing to see so many people come together to make this happen. We all kept sending emails and attending meeting after meeting, even when it seemed unlikely to many that we would succeed. Though I don’t keep up with my blog anymore, I would love to see Living in the O readers at this event. This is a great opportunity to celebrate one of our shared successes!

Here are some photos I took of the art park two weeks ago, as the art was being installed:

Previous posts on the Uptown surface parking lot/arts space:

• 9/28/12: The Uptown art park Bike Bridge sculpture on the horizon
• 9/7/12: Uptown art park to open this fall, City puts out call for art
• 7/26/11: Bike Bridge – Gateway to the Uptown sculpture garden
• 3/16/11: Our dream of an Uptown sculpture garden is becoming a reality
• 10/7/10: We did it! The Uptown sculpture garden will soon be a reality
• 5/6/09: The power of the blogoaksphere
• 5/5/09: Another chance to stop the Uptown surface parking lot
• 4/29/09: CED Committee approves surface parking lot, but changes overall outlook on parking and transit
• 4/20/09: Take Action: Stop the Council from approving a surface parking lot in Uptown!
• 3/30/09: Imagining an alternative to a surface parking lot in Uptown

Before jumping into Dan’s blog post, I wanted to mention that on Thursday I will be sworn in to the BART Board of Directors. I invite you to join me at the swearing in at 9 am and the celebration from 6 pm – 9 pm, both in downtown Oakland. You can find all the details and RSVP on my campaign website or on Facebook. – Rebecca

The third item on the agenda for the December 19 Planning Commission is for the demolition and re-build of the Taco Bell on Telegraph at West Grand. This item was originally scheduled for October, but it was pulled due to unanticipated community objection. Originally, the applicant wanted to rebuild at the same location, but staff convinced them to move to the corner so as to minimize the “auto-orientation of the building” and “give the restaurant a greater street presence.”

While staffs’ goal of increasing the urban-feel of this highly visible intersection is laudable, their solution left a lot to be desired. In order to accommodate the drive-thru facility, a corner location would have required stacking the cars parallel to the West Grand sidewalk. While myself and others had a number of objections, the poor pedestrian experience afforded by being sandwiched by cars was our primary concern. In December of 2010, a group of activist successfully raised over $1,400 to appeal the Planning Commission’s decision on the rebuild of the Telegraph McDonald’s for precisely this reason.

Fast-forward to December of 2012 and the plan to rebuild the Taco Bell has apparently reverted to the original applicants desire to rebuild on the existing spot. I say “apparently” because even though it is Sunday, staff reports for the Wednesday meeting are still not publicly available. We are forced to go off of poor staff communications and old report to understand the current incarnation of the project.

Urban Design and CDB Zoning

While staffs’ solution was poor, their original concern of an overly auto-centric design is back in full-force. The zoning map below shows the location of the proposed project. That corner of Telegraph and West Grand has become the center of Oakland’s First Friday – what often gets cited as the centerpiece of the Uptown urban revival. In addition as Naomi Schiff has noted “the site is heavily traveled, highly visible, and is located between two valuable historic buildings – Jenny Lind Hall, and the First Baptist Church, with its priceless Julia Morgan sanctuary.”

So, we have a relatively large parcel, that is under-utilized (mostly occupied by 28 parking spaces), on a highly visible corner in an area that’s experiencing urban growth. In the Planning Code that took years of negotiation and just became effective on May 30, 2012, CBD-C zones (see map below) recognize a desire for increased density and urbanization

The intent of the CBD-C zone is to create, maintain, and enhance areas of the Central Business District appropriate for a wide range of ground-floor office and other commercial activities. Upper-story spaces are intended to be available for a wide range of residential and office or other commercial activities.

CBD-C Zones have specific Development Standards and Design Guidelines including:

• Fast-food restaurants are a conditionally permitted use in the zone which is one reasons this is going before Planning Commission.
• CBD zones have a height overlay. This project is in Zone 7 which has a minimum height of 45 ft.
• There is also a minimum height requirement of 15 ft for the ground floor.

Project Description

According to the staff report,

the primary purpose of the project is to rebuild and expand the size of the existing one-story 1,683 square foot Taco Bell restaurant building. The new building would be 2,558 square feet in size (875 square feet larger than the existing building).

Plan is for a one-story 23 foot high building with a higher parapet. Basically, the proposal is for a slightly larger Taco Bell with an improved dining area and restrooms accessible from the inside. The elevation is a generic from a stock book of Taco Bell designs:

Variance from Zoning

Staff recognizes that a 23 foot high building is less than the 45 foot height minimum, so they are seeking a minor variance from Planning Commission. This original recommendation in the October report was based on the new site location

The City encouraged the applicant to move the building towards the corner of the property to give the restaurant a greater street presence and give a better urban form to this intersection … Therefore staff is recommending a variance from the minimum height requirement as we believe this to be a significant improvement in the property and consistent with the proposed activity.

In other words, the rationale for the granting of the variance no longer exists if it is rebuilt at the same spot.

The original staff report was deficient in citing other variances from zoning. While it is not codified as design standard, it seems pretty clear that CBD-C zoning does not even envision single story buildings. From all of the wording of standards (see above), there seems to be a pretty clear indication that 45 foot high buildings are expected to have more than one floor.

Additionally, the whole project is so far outside the vision of the zoning, that it doesn’t properly account for the height of the first floor. Nobody bothered to argue that the 15 foot height minimum of the first floor shouldn’t include the roof parapet, because everybody assumed that the top of the first floor would be a second floor. It is hard to make out from the provided design sketches, but it looks like the top of the window line is only 9 feet high.

Can’t We Do Better

When talking to people about development projects like the Taco Bell, they often retort along the lines of “So what? Oakland has bigger problems to worry about.” While issues like public safety and municipal finances clearly supersede a lone fast food restaurant, they also have more difficult answers. Right now, coming to Planning Commission is a really bad project that we can do something about.

If this project goes forward, that high visibility corner site will be locked into low-intensive use for at least the next 30 years. I have nothing against Taco Bell, I would just like to see it as one of several ground floor commercial businesses in a high-rise mixed-use building.

What our your thoughts? Continue the discussion on a new Oakland forum website at http://www.oakhash.com/topic/taco-bell-on-telegraph/

The Black Rock Arts Foundation (BRAF) is close to fulfilling a dream and needs the community’s help. We have art. We have a place to put it. We have 12 extraordinary young artists worth celebrating. All we need now is a few more dollars to make it happen!

Donate to the Kickstarter campaign for The Bike Bridge!

If you’ve been following this blog, then you’ve heard mention of The Bike Bridge. We can’t say enough about this project, and it’s so close to becoming a reality. The City of Oakland has approved the installation of the sculpture in a new park on Telegraph Avenue, between 19th and 20th Streets, adjacent to the beautifully renovated Fox Theater.

The sculpture was created by 12 young women from Oakland schools and artist Michael Christian, well known for his large-scale metal works displayed at Burning Man. We partnered with The Crucible to teach the young women welding and art-bike creation. These courses imparted the skills needed to undertake the creation of a large-scale work of art. Working together, the youth designed and fabricated a sculpture using reclaimed bicycle parts. The entire process was incredibly collaborative and the results are inspiring!

This is just the kind of project the BRAF staff and Board have been dreaming of, ever since the organization’s inception in 2001. Founded by several of the partners who produce Burning Man, an annual arts event in the Nevada desert, BRAF was established to share the benefits of interactive, community-driven art projects with the rest of the world.

At Burning Man, we’ve seen how participatory art experiences can build community. Collaborative art projects encourage cooperation, dialog, negotiation and exchange of ideas. The artworks created are far more than the sum of their collaborators’ inspirations. When many creative minds work together, the potential of public art expands, both in form and in function. A public art piece can be more than a static representation of one artist’s vision. When approached collaboratively, the creation of a work of art engenders meaningful connections between individuals, bringing them together in the spirit of creativity, wonder and community pride, thereby strengthening the community as a whole.

The Bike Bridge demonstrates these values in a new, exciting format. This educational and creative project is designed specifically to engage Oakland’s youth, providing them with a fun, empowering new means of self-expression.

We’re so close to making The Bike Bridge a reality. To fully fund this project we need to hit our goal of $20,000.

Make a pledge to the project’s new Kickstarter campaign and get cool special gifts! Every dollar helps!

Donate now!

Watch a great video about the young artists and their creation at www.youtube.com/blackrockarts

Why give to BRAF’s Kickstarter campaign?

Donate now and get cool new BRAF gifts!

• BRAF Stickers, T-Shirts and Hoodies.
• A limited edition signed print of Michael Christian’s Flock
• Your name on a plaque at the sculpture site!
• A tour of Bay Area artists’ studios for you and 25 friends on the fabulous art car, the Kazbus!

These talented young artists deserve recognition. Thank you for joining us in celebration of their achievements!

Previous posts on the Uptown surface parking lot/arts space:

• 9/7/12: Uptown art park to open this fall, City puts out call for art
• 7/26/11: Bike Bridge – Gateway to the Uptown sculpture garden
• 3/16/11: Our dream of an Uptown sculpture garden is becoming a reality
• 10/7/10: We did it! The Uptown sculpture garden will soon be a reality
• 5/6/09: The power of the blogoaksphere
• 5/5/09: Another chance to stop the Uptown surface parking lot
• 4/29/09: CED Committee approves surface parking lot, but changes overall outlook on parking and transit
• 4/20/09: Take Action: Stop the Council from approving a surface parking lot in Uptown!
• 3/30/09: Imagining an alternative to a surface parking lot in Uptown

A gem at the heart of Oakland, Lake Merritt has been many things – the nation’s first wildlife refuge, beloved waterway, sewage-filled cesspool, and even the rumored home to a lake monster. There’s one thing that Lake Merritt has never been, however – and that’s a lake.

What we now call Lake Merritt has for most of the past ten thousand years been a tidal lagoon where the waters of several East Bay creeks met the brackish tides of the Bay. Ringed with mudflats and tidal marsh, this lagoon was home to an abundance of native wildlife, including hundreds of species of birds.

This changed dramatically in 1869 as Oakland Mayor Samuel Merritt dammed the channel connecting the lagoon to the Bay. Later becoming the 12th Street Bridge, the lagoon’s water was forced through narrow culverts on its way in and out of the Bay, significantly reducing circulation and largely disconnecting the waterway from the rest of our great estuary.

Over the next century, the lake was inundated by raw sewage and considerable amounts of pollutants. 62 storm drains were routed straight into the lake, bringing with them car oil and other toxins from the city’s streets. To this day, the majority of these storm drains remain unfiltered. All of this has resulted in poor water quality, low oxygen levels, algae blooms, and numerous massive fish kills. The Environmental Protection Agency declared the lake an “impaired water body” in 1999.

Residents’ Effort Leads to Historic Project to Improve the Lake

Spurred by a development proposal near the Lake’s 12th Street shoreline, a group of residents got together to chart out a different future for the Lake. Named the Coalition of Advocates for Lake Merritt, the group drew up a proposal to reduce the bridge from twelve lanes to six, increase the width of the channel, and increase public access and wildlife habitat.

Oakland elected officials supported the plan and with the overwhelming approval of a bond measure (Measure DD) in 2002, the plan was put into action. Since that time, the City of Oakland has rebuilt the 12th Street Bridge and is actively removing tide-blocking culverts and widening the channel that connects the lake to the Bay. Several acres of newly restored wetlands are being created along with a 4-acre park and numerous walking paths.

Once the project is completed, estimated by the City to be late this year, the amount of water currently going in and out of the lake with the tides will be doubled, significantly improving water quality and circulation. The new wetlands will filter toxins out of the water, provide habitat for young fish and birds, and offer a pleasant experience for the thousands of walkers, joggers and bikers that enjoy the lake every day.

While there is still considerable work left to be done to restore the health of Lake Merritt, this project can bring a renewed sense of hope and determination that this is just the beginning of an ecological transformation in the blue heart of the city.

For more information on the history and the transformation of Lake Merritt, read KQED Quest’s story, “Polishing Oakland’s Crown Jewel: Lake Merritt Reborn” and “Undoing the 1950s – The Death and Revival of Lake Merritt” by the Alameda Magazine. You can follow the daily progress in photos by visiting Erik Neiman’s 12th Street Project blog. Gene Anderson’s Our Oakland blog also shares with us some fascinating old pictures of the lake.

The Uptown lot that we saved from becoming a parking lot back in 2009 is finally becoming a public arts space!

I know, I know, I’ve shared this news a couple of times here already. Unfortunately there were major delays due to funding issues after the dissolution of the Redevelopment Agency. But now it really is happening. And by now I mean that construction should start this month, and if construction stays on schedule, the art could be installed as early as mid-late October.

The City of Oakland Public Art Program has put out a call for art, with applications due on September 18th. With such a short timeline for submission, acceptance, and installation, they’re currently looking for existing artwork, to be displayed for 6-12 months. After that, they might commission some new artwork. From the call for art:

The City of Oakland Public Art Program seeks existing sculptures from Bay Area artists for display in the opening exhibition at the Uptown Art Park. Sculptures incorporating light, media arts, and/or kinetic elements are particularly desired. Six to nine sculptures, in addition to one work already committed, will be selected for the exhibition. Each applicant may submit up to three sculptures for consideration. Works will be installed in October, 2012, and will remain on display for 6 to 12 months. Artists chosen to participate will receive a stipend of $1,500 per work…

The Uptown Art Park has up to nine (9) opportunity sites still available for sculptures in the opening exhibition on concrete sculpture pads ranging from eight (8) to eighteen (18) feet in diameter… This Call is seeking sculptures to be displayed on the six (6) art pedestals indicated along 19th Street. Additional lightweight sculptures may be considered for installation along the perimeter of Henry J. Kaiser Park, located immediately west of the Uptown Art Park site…

Electricity will be available onsite for sculptures with intrinsic and extrinsic lighting, or kinetic elements requiring an outside source of power.

Here’s the planned layout for the art park:

Artists must live or work in the Bay Area region, and Oakland artists are encouraged to apply.

If you’re considering applying, know that you’ll be in good company, as one incredible project has already been selected for the space – Michael Christian’s Bike Bridge. From the Black Rock Arts Foundation webpage about the project:

The Bike Bridge is a collaboration with the youth of Oakland, artist Michael Christian, and with partner organization The Crucible. The twelve enrolled participants, all young women, began the project with classes in welding and art-bicycle creation, generously hosted by The Crucible. The program culminates in the collaborative creation of a large-scale sculpture made of reclaimed bicycle parts, led by Christian, which will be installed publicly in 2012, funds permitting.

N.E.A.’s grant of $10,000 sets this ambitious project in motion. We still need funds to install this project publicly. Help us share this artwork with the greater public, so that all may appreciate and celebrate the achievement of these talented young women. Fundraising efforts are underway to meet the project’s overall budget of $60,000. Help us reach our goal!

If you’re a local artist, please consider applying. And if you have artist friends or know of amazing art pieces that you want to see in Uptown, please forward this on and encourage artists to apply.

To everyone who advocated for the art park, to the City staff who have worked so diligently to make this happen, to the councilmembers who approved this, and to the artists who are applying to display their work – thank you! This art park will be a huge improvement and a fantastic addition to Uptown. Check back here for updates on the art park opening, as that will be a time to celebrate the work we started on this three and half years ago and the work that’s continued over those years.

Previous posts on the Uptown surface parking lot/arts space:

• 7/26/11: Bike Bridge – Gateway to the Uptown sculpture garden
• 3/16/11: Our dream of an Uptown sculpture garden is becoming a reality
• 10/7/10: We did it! The Uptown sculpture garden will soon be a reality
• 5/6/09: The power of the blogoaksphere
• 5/5/09: Another chance to stop the Uptown surface parking lot
• 4/29/09: CED Committee approves surface parking lot, but changes overall outlook on parking and transit
• 4/20/09: Take Action: Stop the Council from approving a surface parking lot in Uptown!
• 3/30/09: Imagining an alternative to a surface parking lot in Uptown

Once issue that I have felt strongly about since childhood is ecology. In elementary school, our classes held an annual fund-raiser to buy and preserve several acres of the rain forest. I also participated in my school’s ecology club during eighth and ninth grade. Each year we organized an ecology fair and disseminated information covering issues ranging from vegetarianism to fuel conservation. We also instituted a recycling program, which the school still uses.

Being a longtime environmentalist, I was so excited this week to receive the news that the Sierra Club had endorsed my candidacy for BART Board. The decisions made in the next decade at BART are crucial not just for BART, but also for the Bay Area’s environment for decades to come. I’m just as eager as I was in elementary school to address the environmental challenges we face.

The City of Oakland also faces a myriad of environmental challenges, and next year we will have at least two new city councilmembers to address these issues. The Sierra Club and the Oakland Climate Action Coalition (OCAC) recognize the importance of the open seat races in districts 1 and 3 so they’re holding a forum on Monday featuring nearly all of the candidates running for these seats (a few couldn’t make it). From the Facebook event description:

Please join us on July 9th, 2012 in the Council Chambers at Oakland City Hall to listen to what each candidate in these two races has to say about the most pressing issues facing Oakland and their proposed solutions.

The agenda for the evening:
5pm – Reception
6pm to 7:30pm – City Council District 1 Forum
7:45pm to 9:15pm – City Council District 3 Forum

Our ultimate goal is to support leaders who are conscientious of the environmental wellbeing and are most effective in introducing and advancing policies that support the Sierra Club’s vision for a sustainable and healthy city environment for all its inhabitants!

Please come to listen, engage and (hopefully) come closer to choosing your preferred candidates!

What: Oakland City Council District 1 & 3 Candidates Forum

When: July 9th, 2012
5pm-6pm – Reception
6pm-9:30pm – Forum

Where: The Council Chambers at Oakland City Hall
1 Frank H. Ogawa Plaza, Oakland, CA
(entrance/exit of 14th street)

For more information please call 510-910-4733 or email obolotina at presidiomba dot org

Oakland City Council Candidates

District 1:
Dan Kalb, http://www.dankalb.net/
Don Link, http://www.linkforoakland.org/
Craig Brandt
Richard Raya, http://www.rayaforoakland.com/
Amy Lemley, http://www.amylemleyforoakland.com/
Donald L Macleay, http://oaklandgreens.org/don/

District 3:
Sean Sullivan, http://seansullivan.org/
Nyeisha Dewitt, http://www.dewittforoakland.com/
Alex Miller-Cole , http://www.oaklandcitycouncil2012.com/
Damond Eaves, http://damoneaves.com/
Lynette McElhaney, www.lynettemcelhaney.com
Derrick Muhammad, http://www.muhammadforoakland.org/

I hope you’ll join me in attending this forum to learn more about the candidates. (Disclosure: I endorsed Sean Sullivan for District 3, but I have not endorsed and don’t plan to endorse in District 1. I think there are several qualified candidates, and I look forward to voting for three of them on election day.)

But today I felt compelled to write because writing this blog and building a community around Oakland blogs is part of why I’m running for office.

Five years ago, many things rapidly changed in my life. Over a span of three or four months, my sister (who I’m very close with) and my two best friends moved away from the Bay Area. And right after that, my girlfriend (now wife) was diagnosed with a major health issue. To say it was a tough year would be an understatement.

I needed something positive to focus on outside of work, so I decided to start blogging, but I couldn’t have imagined how much blogging would change my life for the better.

I’ve met some of my closest friends through blogging, engaged in many political and policy campaigns, and developed a passion for fostering citizen engagement in local government.

As I’ve taken this next leap in my life, running for BART Board, I’ve been so grateful that the blogoaksphere community has been there with me. Looking at my endorsement, donor, and volunteer lists last night, I realized that I’ve met many of my supporters directly or indirectly through blogging, and this support means so much to me.

If you’d like to get a birthday present for Living in the O, please donate to my campaign for BART Board.

Readers of this blog know me, but most of the 150,000 voters in BART District 3 don’t know me so well. With your support, I will have the resources to reach them and share my vision for BART.

My goal is to reach 200 donors by the first campaign fundraising deadline – June 30th – and I hope the blogoaksphere will help me meet that goal, as you’ve helped so many times in the past.

And if you’d like to celebrate in person, join blogoaksphere community members Dave Campbell and Karen Hester at Sliders for Saltzman, a fundraiser for my BART Board campaign on Saturday, June 30th from 4:00-6:30 p.m. at Temescal Creek Cohousing. You can find out all the details and RSVP on my website.

It’s been an incredible five years, and after the election, I hope to blog for years to come.

• 6/8/11: Living in the O’s Fourth Birthday
• 6/8/10: Living in the O’s Third Birthday
• 6/8/09: Living in the O’s Second Birthday
• 6/8/08: Living in the O’s First Birthday

Oakland is designing a new “Zero Waste” collection system to be implemented in 2015, which will last for 10 years or more. The proposal has many excellent points, but it still needs an essential improvement.

Under the current proposal, single-family residences would continue to put out separate carts for recyclables, compostables, and garbage. Multifamily buildings, however, would receive pick-ups just for recycling and garbage, with compostables mixed in the garbage. This mixed garbage would be processed at a mixed-materials processing facility, which would try to sort out the compostables (organic matter) from the items going to landfill.

This distinction between residential and multi-family buildings is wrong — both for the environment and for the people. Compost derived from mixed garbage is contaminated (sometimes by hazardous waste in the dumpsters), and can’t be used for farms and food crops. Further, treating apartment-dwellers as second-class residents, unable to learn to distinguish between compostables and trash, is insulting to them, and leaves them out of the city’s efforts to achieve Zero Waste.

Multi-family buildings could get separate pick-ups of compostables for an extra charge, paying a penalty for the opportunity to dispose of their waste responsibly. History has shown, however, that when Oakland rental owners are asked to pay extra fees to provide an extra service, they will almost always decline.

Send a message to Oakland’s City Council before their meeting on June 5th.

Let them know that it is essential that the new Oakland recycling contract require that compost bins be provided at multi-unit buildings at no extra cost.

Please feel free to modify the middle section of the email, letting the City Council know why this issue is important to you. Or just leave this section as it is, whichever you prefer.

The Oakland City Council will vote on the zero waste system on Tuesday, June 5th at 6:30pm in the Council Chambers, on the 2nd Floor of Oakland City Hall, 1 Frank Ogawa Plaza. You can fill out a speaker card online – sign up for item number 16.

Should the City’s data be free? The Oakland City Council will decide this Monday night on an Open Data Resolution, which would liberate City data from paper and PDF and make it readable by civic web sites and smartphone apps. The resolution, first proposed by Council Member Libby Schaaf, has been watered down and delayed – yet Open Data is the key to unlocking incredible assets.

What is Open Data? It is government sharing data with the outside world, in a format that computers can read. Anyone can use that data to inform citizens, engage communities, and help government do its work. Open data is typically used on web sites or smartphone apps. What kinds of government data? All kinds: public facility locations, job listings, crime data, meeting schedules, street sweeping schedules, test scores, transit schedules, wastewater data, anything.

Earlier this month, at the 55-country Open Government Partnership meeting in Brazil, Hillary Clinton stated that she and President Obama “believe that countries with open governments, open economies, and open societies will increasingly flourish. They will become more prosperous, healthier, more secure, and more peaceful.” Oakland should comprehensively embrace open data, a City with a legacy of supporting citizen participation and openness. A few other reasons open data should thrive here:

1. Open Data is like free money. Oakland has a budget crisis. We will never meet our Citywide challenges and goals until we fully use the power of the Web and open data to increase efficiency. Open data creates value by leveraging private talent and resources, improving budgeting and decision-making, and growing political support for government. All this for the cost of putting numbers into computer-readable files. The data is fuel to power an underutilized group of Oaklanders — hackers, designers and makers looking for signs that the City supports their work.

2. Tech made by others is better. Public agencies, including the City of Oakland, rarely build great technology, so why not let others do it instead? Oakland Crimespotting was one of the earliest uses of open data in Oakland. It was developed and maintained for free by some of the best data visualization and mapping experts in the world who felt like the City’s Crimewatch could be improved upon. How is that not a win-win? The Bay Area is the center of the civic hacker movement, host to Code for America, Gray Area Foundation for the Arts, Stamen Design, among many others (Civic hackers are people who develop public/community technology). Oakland is sitting among an embarrassment of tech riches; other Cities would do anything to have access to this much talent and civic engagement willing to help on city issues for little to no cost.

3. Open Data makes life better. Open Data actually improves productivity for City workers — a substantial amount of a knowledge workers’ time is spent looking for information and performing duplicate tasks. Making data accessible saves public money on consultants, technology and public outreach. Apps built on open data also improve communities, like the award-winning bilingual Mi Parque app built for the community using a new 23 acre park in Chicago. BART, another Oakland institution, has embraced open data, and now offers 25 third-party (someone else made it) apps for iPhone alone. Civic Commons, a clearinghouse for open data apps now hosts 584 apps from 186 cities. Oakland has one app so far – txt2work (which won 3nd place in the national Apps for Communities Challenge last year).

4. Open Data is pro-entrepreneur. Civic hackers like to build solutions, designers like to make delightful products, entrepreneurs like to create businesses. If they can’t pursue their passions here in Oakland, they will do it elsewhere, as they have for years. The philanthropic and venture capital communities have already recognized the value of open data – Google recently invested $1.5 million to grow tech businesses that are based on open data and the MacArthur foundation offered $50,000 in prizes for apps built on 200 Chicago data sets.

5. The future of government is here. Transparency, openness, co-creation, hacking and making are the new way of life in public institutions across the world. Once the City of Oakland’s data have been set free, the City can move on to other wonderful Government 2.0 opportunities like crowdsourcing, better utilizing cloud computing, and using new creative problem solving methods like design thinking. Oakland’s public leaders might not have the time or interest to become open government experts and hang out with civic hackers. That might have been okay in years past but it’s time to evolve.

As Jen Pahlka, Oaklander and founder of Code for America said, “There is a certain generation who have grown up being able to mash up, to tinker with, every system they’ve ever encountered. So they are meeting their relationship with government in a new way, with a new assumption: We can fix it.”

While citizens want to interact with government in a new way, government officials are often reluctant to try something new. At last week’s City Council Committee hearing on the Open Data Resolution, Council Members Jane Brunner and Desley Brooks objected to asking city staff to promote Open Data, and instead asked for a study of the costs to City staff of releasing information to the public. Open Data is so Oakland. Cynicism, insularity, and politicizing good ideas are also so Oakland. Which Oakland is better?

The Oakland City Council will take up the resolution to explore an open data policy at its meeting this Monday, April 30th. To express your support, please comment below or contact the council members:

Rebecca Kaplan, At-Large
RKaplan@oaklandnet.com or 510-238-7008

Jane Brunner, District 1
JBrunner@oaklandnet.com or 510-238-7001

Patricia Kernighan, District 2
PKernighan@oaklandnet.com or 510-238-7002

Nancy Nadel, District 3
NNadel@oaklandnet.com or 510-238-7003

Libby Schaaf, District 4
LSchaaf@oaklandnet.com or 510-238-7004

Ignacio De La Fuente, District 5
IDeLaFuente@oaklandnet.com or 510-238-7005

Desley Brooks, District 6
DBrooks@oaklandnet.com or 510-238-7006

Council President Larry Reid, District 7
LReid@oaklandnet.com or 510-238-7007

As has happened in the past when I got busy, I optimistically thought I’d find some time to write a blog post here and there, but clearly that has not happened. So today I wanted to let Living in the O readers know that I’m taking a blogging hiatus, and I of course wanted to share the news that I’m running for BART Board.

If you’re a longtime reader, you know that I’m passionate about transportation and land use issues and have a particular interest in public transit. I’ve been following the BART and AC Transit Board for years and have advocated on multiple issues before their boards, as well as before regional transportation agencies like the Metropolitan Transportation Commission and the Alameda County Transportation Commission.

Last year I went through the Emerge eight month training program for Democratic women who want to run for office because I knew that at some point I wanted to run for office to further engage on the issues I’ve been involved with as an advocate. I didn’t realize at the time how soon I would be running, but I’m ready and eager to take on this challenge.

I won’t be blogging much between now and the November election, but if anyone is interested in writing a guest blog post, I still have time to edit and post those so please contact me at oaklandbecks at gmail dot com to set that up.

If you’d like to keep up with my campaign, you can sign up for email updates (probably one or two a month). You can also keep up with the campaign through Facebook and Twitter.

I’d greatly appreciate your support for my campaign. You can support the campaign by donating, endorsing, signing up to volunteer, and spreading the word online.

The blogoaksphere community that’s developed over the past five or so years has been incredibly important to me, so even if you’re not interested in getting involved with my campaign, please do keep in touch via Twitter, email and in person (I’ll be at many events throughout District 3 in the coming months.)

Emerge California East Bay Reception
Saturday, January 14th from 6:30-8:30pm at Make Westing

I wrote about Emerge California when I graduated from the 2011 class back in June. Emerge California is the premier training program for Democratic women who want to run for office. The goal of Emerge is to increase the number of Democratic women in public office.

I learned so much through the seven month training program and met some amazing women leaders from throughout the Bay Area. I want to do everything I can to make sure women – particularly Oakland women – have the same opportunity as I did, which is why I’m on the host committee for this Saturday’s East Bay reception.

Here are the event details:

This year, Emerge California alumna and current 2012 program members are running for School Board, City Council, State Assembly, and yes, even Congress!

Join us for another fun yet purposeful evening as we celebrate all of the hope and possibilities of the New Year and all of our 2012 candidates.

EVENT DETAILS:

Saturday, January 14th
Make Westing
6:30-8:30PM
1741 Telegraph Avenue Oakland 94612
(between 17th & 18th)

TICKETS:

Deal Broker $50
Because “fifty-fifty share alike” IS a good motto
(includes 1 event ticket and 1 drink ticket)

Change Maker $83
Because 83% of our Congress members are NOT women;
and we need to work on that.
(includes 2 event tickets and 2 drink tickets)

Host Committee $100
(includes 3 event tickets and 3 drink tickets)

Buy your tickets today: http://bit.ly/ECAEastBay2

HOST COMMITTEE:
Congresswoman Barbara Lee
Oakland Councilwoman Libby Schaaf
Oakland Councilwoman Rebecca Kaplan
Scott Karchmer
Karen Frank
Carol McGruder
Kat Nouri
Shon Buford
Lisa Gasperoni
Rebecca Saltzman
Shakari Byerly
Annie Eagan
Bari Williams
Vivian Oh
Stephen Waters
Beverly Greene
Stephanie Linder
Jason Newell
Paulina Miranda
Lori Nelson
Carol & Mark Norberg
Van Nguyen
Melanie Sweeney-Griffith

Cocktails for Keyna
Tuesday, January 17th from 6-9pm at Luka’s

A few months ago, my good friend, fellow planning wonk, and neighbor Kenya Wheeler was diagnosed with lymphoma. The good news is that it is treatable. He is currently undergoing treatment and is being cared for by his loving partner, family, and friends. The bad news is that even though Kenya has reasonably good health care coverage, he has already had to pay $6,400 out-of-pocket for his care.

I could go on and on about how screwed up this situation is and how we really need to fix our health care system, but I won’t do that. Instead, I’m going to invite you to the party that I’m co-hosting for him to raise some funds to cover some of his expenses.

You may not know Kenya directly, but chances are that he’s worked on something that’s near to your heart. He worked on the Obama campaign in 2008 and after that he worked at Organizing for America coordinating volunteers. At OFA he worked as part of core leadership staff that mobilized volunteers in all 58 counties to support Health Care Reform and resulted in every California Democratic congressional member voting in favor of HCR. He also worked at BART for several years and at a local planning firm. Kenya is currently finishing his planning degree at UC Berkeley and I have a feeling that when he graduates he’ll continue his awesome work in the land use or transportation field.

He cares deeply about Oakland community, so much so that after moving here a couple of years ago, him and his partner Ruby went through the CORE emergency training. For National Night Out this year they hosted a mini-training and get together in front of their apartment on Randwick Street and started an emergency contact list for the street and neighborhood. Ruby and Kenya also fostered four adorable kittens this summer, which you might have read about here. (They’re still fostering one, and though I not-so-secretly hope they’ll keep him, if you’re looking for an awesome cat, let me know.)

If you haven’t met Kenya yet, Tuesday night’s fundraiser will be a great opportunity to get to know him. We’re asking folks to contribute what you can and any donation would be greatly appreciated.

Here are the event details:

Please join us for a fundraiser for Kenya and if you can’t make it, please consider making a donation on-line.

Date: Tuesday, January 17, 2012
Time: 6:00pm – 9:00pm
Location: Luka’s Taproom & Lounge
2221 Broadway, Oakland, CA

Donation Levels (what your $$’s can help cover):
Insurance Deductible: $250.00
Medicine: $100.00
X-Rays: $50.00
Medical Supplies: $25.00

Please makes checks payable to: Frank Wheeler or Kenya Wheeler

Host Committee in formation:
Katie Balk – Matt Haney – Jeff Harry – Andy Kelley – Linda Leu – Steve Ngo – Dave Nicely – Mary Nicely – Keesa Ocampo – Jenn Pae – Shobana Ramamurthi – Ruby Reid – Rebecca Saltzman – Tony Thurmond – Colbert Tse

Here are a few of my favorites. (Note that besides being great cafes to enjoy with friends or colleagues, all of these places also offer free wi-fi so they’re great places to work too.)

Awaken Cafe - 1429 Broadway at 15th

If you’re a regular reader of this blog, you probably know that I’ve long been a fan of Awaken Cafe. Awaken used to be located on 14th Street, just a block and a half from the office I worked at for many years so I often stopped in for a chai, coffee, or tea. I was so sad when they closed and were forced to move but was excited when they reopened last year on Broadway at 15th, a half block away from my current office.

Right now they’re operating as a coffee cart out of OAKOLLECTIV, Monday-Friday from 7:30am-noon, offering their full array of caffeinated beverages and pastries. But in February they’ll be opening up in their permanent home at 1429 Broadway. Here’s how they describe the future space:

The full 2000 sq ft cafe will add plenty of seating (indoor and outdoor), beer and wine, organic ice-cream, longer hours, an expanded home brew and retail area, additional creative food items, awesome events, cool performances and more.

There is a LOT to be excited about in that description, but, despite the current cold weather, what I’m most excited about is the organic ice cream. Every summer I lament that there’s no great ice cream in downtown Oakland, especially as multiple delicious ice cream and gelato spots have opened throughout North Oakland. There’s a huge market for ice cream downtown, yet no one has stepped up to serve it. This summer I was tweeting back and forth with a bunch of people, all of us complaining about the lack of ice cream downtown when I realized that Awaken would be a perfect place to offer it. Luckily, they had already planned to.

But until the summer arrives, you should still stop in for their warming beverages. My favorite drink is the chai, which I think is easily the best chai in Oakland. Chais at other places are often cloyingly sweet, but not so at Awaken.

Farley’s East - 33 Grand Avenue, between Broadway & Webster

If you’re looking for somewhere to caffeinate, eat a meal, have a meeting, work online, or grab a beer, Farley’s is your place. It’s one of the larger cafes in downtown Oakland, offering plenty of seating downstairs and upstairs. Farley’s is very community oriented, participating in PARKing day every year and holding monthly mixer/fundraisers for local nonprofit organizations.

Though it can get a bit crowded and noisy, I’ve found it’s the perfect place for small morning meetings or evening meetings on the nights that they’re open later. Not only is it great for meetings because there’s enough room, but also because they have a pretty large food menu. Meetings full of hungry people are not so enjoyable.

But maybe you just want to enjoy your latte alone – Farley’s is good for that too. Many people set up with their laptops, but if you want to pull yourself away from your computer for a while, they sell a huge selection of magazines so you’re sure to be able to find something to read. If you’re looking for a non-coffee option while you read or type away, try the lychee tea, which I probably would drink daily if it was on my (very full) tea shelf at home.

Caffe Teatro - 300 Frank Ogawa Plaza off 15th

Since Awaken Cafe won’t offer seating until February, I’ve come to enjoy meeting people at Cafe Teatro. There’s plenty of seating inside and out, including chairs and couches. The staff at Teatro are super friendly and the service is quick so it’s also a great place to grab some tea or coffee on the go.

Somehow I only recently noticed that Teatro serves sandwiches, soups and salads, and though I’ve yet to eat lunch there, I’ve heard the food is good.

The one downside of Teatro is their limited hours – they’re only open until 4pm on weekdays and not at all on weekends.

Zaya Cafe - 1768 Broadway at 19th Street

Zaya is a place I might never have stopped into, except that it was right next door to the Prop 19 campaign office so I often stopped their for tea or coffee before going to meetings at the office when I worked on the campaign. I’m so glad I happened upon it because it offers something that no other cafe I know of downtown does – quiet. Though there’s plenty of space to sit at the back of the cafe, including comfortable couches and armchairs, most people grab their drinks and food and go so I’ve rarely seen it crowded there. This makes it perfect for a one on one meeting or for getting some serious work done.

Zaya has the basic cafe breakfast food items, but not much lunchy food. One thing I love though is that they have smoothies, which were so refreshing on hot days during campaign season.

What’s your favorite downtown cafe?

This list is by no means exhaustive, and I’d love to hear about more cafes, especially in other downtown neighborhoods so please share in the comments. I would also be happy to take more requests for what I should cover next in this series.

But this year my wife and I decided we wanted to go out and when I found out that the Free Broadway Shuttle would be running its usual Saturday night schedule of 6pm-1am, I realized we could bar hop around downtown Oakland. Getting around will be super easy (and free), and if any of the places we go to are too crowded, we can move on.

I researched free or cheap bars and clubs in downtown and put together this list, which I figured I’d share here.

Getting Around

Before diving into where to go, it’s important to review how to get around, since I’m often surprised that people aren’t frequent riders of the Broadway Shuttle. Even if you’ve ridden the Free B during the day, you should review this map, as the route is a bit different from the daytime route. On the shuttle you can travel all the way from Jack London Square to 27th and Broadway. The blue route on this map is the night-time map (click on the image for a larger map):

But maybe you don’t live in downtown Oakland or even walking distance to the shuttle (like I do). That’s fine. You can take dozens of AC Transit buses to the shuttle or take BART and get off at either the 12th Street or 19th Street stations. (BART will run until 3am on New Year’s Eve.)

The Broadway Shuttle is entirely free. Look for the bright green buses and board through any door.

Now that you know how to get around downtown without worrying about getting a DUI or miraculously catching a cab, here are some spots you can check out along the Free B route that are cheap or free. (This list is clearly not exhaustive so if you have other ideas of cheap or free things to do in downtown Oakland on New Year’s Eve, please share them in the comments.)

Vitus – 3rd Street Stop, 201 Broadway – $10 cover

Last Friday my wife celebrated her 30th birthday at Vitus and it was amazing. The space is huge (by Oakland standards), the drinks are cheap, the food is delicious, and they have four pinball machines and two skee-ball machines. The NYE party at Vitus runs from 9pm-1am and features the music of:

Lord Loves A Working Man

Winner of the 2008 SFWEEKLY best Soul/R&B/Funk act in San Francisco music award! Based out of the Mission District of San Francisco, Lord Loves A Working Man is a 10-piece band inspired by the raw and emotive sound of the Southern Soul shouters and horn-driven Rhythm & Blues of the 1960s. Mixing originals with obscure covers from the Stax Collection, LLAWM puts everything they got into respectfully invoking the spirit of old soul music while giving it their own distinct voice.

Rube Waddell

Rube Waddell is a San Francisco-based quartet performing their own breed of modern Americana music. They mix together cast-off parts, twisted scraps, and rusty hinges of Blues, Gospel, Country, American and Irish Folk, Punk,Rock, comic Vaudeville, German theater, Mexican Banda, Mid-Eastern and Asian ditties into a raw junkyard stew stirred by their varied array of traditional and homemade instruments.

The Trappist or Tamarindo Antojeria- 7th or 9th Street Stop, 468 or 460 8th Street

Maybe you want to escape from the DJs for a while to enjoy some of the best beer or tequila in Oakland. Eighth Street is the place to go. The Trappist and Tamarindo are  neighbors so you can easily stop in to either or both. The Trappist closes at 1am and Tamarindo closes at midnight.

The Layover – 14th Street Stop, 1517 Franklin Street – $5 cover

Stop by the Layover for a delicious cocktail and stay to listen and dance to DJ Fee Dog & DJ Dennis Yadroff. The party runs from 8pm-2am and there will be a champagne toast at midnight.

Spice Monkey – 16th Street Stop, 1628 Webster – $5 cover

(Somehow I hadn’t seen the DTO’s NYE recommendations until just now and saw this event there.) Here’s the info from Spice Monkey’s website:

Doors: 7:00pm | Show: 7:30pm – 12:30am
All Ages Welcome!

Headlining Band:

San Francisco’s own, “The Feral Cats”

with Special Guests:

The Alegre Sisters
The Lost Library

$5 Cover (includes a free glass of champagne for 21 & Over at midnight!)

Somar – 16th or 19th Street Stop, 1727 Telegraph – $5 before 11pm, $10 after 11

Somar may be small, but they know how to pack a lot of music and a big party into their space. Here are the details from the Facebook event:

From the front to the back, Somar will be representing the diversity and spirit of Oakland as One. Ring in 2012 with us!

7pm to 9pm – The Final Happy Hour of 2011
****Enjoy complimentary appetizers at Happy Hour

9pm to 2am – SoulProfess and Williemaze

Make Westing – 19th Street Stop, 1741 Telegraph – Cover Unknown

If you’re looking to do something besides drink and dance, stop by Make Westing to play some bocce ball (though you might have to wait a while as it’s quite popular there). They haven’t announced the cover charge yet, but since there’s usually no cover, I’m guessing it will be reasonable. Here’s the small amount of info they’ve devulged about the party on Facebook: “‎2012 New Years Eve Party at Make Westing: DJ Cousin Frankie, Champagne toast at midnight, Cocktails, Noise Makers, Bocce, Good Eats and Laughs!”

The Punchdown – 22nd Street or Grand Stop, 2212 Broadway

The Punchdown wine bar is having a New Year’s Eve champagne celebration. Entry is free, but you’ll of course have to pay for wine or champagne (which is not so cheap). Here’s some info from the Facebook event:

Please join us from 5PM-12:01AM on New Year’s Eve for a champagne celebration. We will be pouring a special champagne flight that comes with a special offer of one free “corkage” on any bottle of BYO sparkling (you have to share!)!

The cost of the flight is $30 – and consists of three two ounce tastes. All wines are available by the glass at special pricing for the evening.
-NV Champagne Benoît Lahaye “Rosé de Macération” a Bouzy $15 per glass
-NV Champagne Cédric Bouchard “Inflorescence” a Celles-sur-Ource $20 per glass
-NV Champagne De Sousa & Fils “Grand Cru Cuvée des Caudalies”, a Avize (solera started in 1986!) $22 per glass

Mua – 25th Street Stop, 2442a Webster Street

I don’t think Mua has a special event planned for NYE, but they generally have a DJ on the weekend and there’s no cover charge. But the best part might be that they serve food (and not just bar snacks) all the way up until they close at 2am. So if after a night of drinking you need something to eat, Mua is a great place to end up.

Yesterday I found out that Sanjiv Handa had passed away from this tweet from Chronicle reporter Matthai Kuruvila:

Larry Reid just told me that Sanjiv Handa, a fixture at Oakland Council meetings, passed away. Don’t know much more. #oakmtg

I was in complete shock for several minutes. I had heard that Sanjiv had looked sick at last week’s Council meeting, but I had a hard time grasping that he was gone. I had an even harder time imagining what City Council and other meetings would be like without him.

I was equally saddened and shocked a few weeks ago when I found out that Oakland bicycle advocate Ron Bishop had died. I hadn’t seen him at Oakland Bicycle and Pedestrian Advisory Committee (BPAC) meetings for a few months, which – now that I’m looking back – should have alerted me that something was wrong, as he had been a founding member of the BPAC, was chair for many years, and rarely missed a meeting. But reading the news on Facebook surprised me and brought tears to my eyes.

Oakland is so lucky to have benefited from the watch-dogging and advocacy of these two men. I could write pages about each of them, but I won’t, since others have already done that. I highly recommend reading Dave Campbell’s blog post about Ron Bishop on the East Bay Bicycle Coalition website. For more on Sanjiv Handa, read this 2006 East Bay Express in depth piece about him.

And if you’ve never seen Sanjiv in action at a Council meeting (though I have a hard time believing that’s possible), watch this video of him speaking for 8+ minutes at a Council meeting last year:

What I’ve been thinking about for the past few weeks since Ron passed away and in the past day since hearing the news about Sanjiv is how I and others could honor their lives. I didn’t know either of them very well, but I did spend countless hours with both of them at city and regional meetings. Ron focused on bicycle, pedestrian and transit issues, while Sanjiv focused on transparency. Issues aside, they were both equally passionate about local government and citizen engagement with it. I didn’t always agree with them, but I greatly respected their commitment and persistence.

In just a few days, we will start a new year, a year that will present Oaklanders with nearly limitless opportunities to engage with local government. In honor of Ron and Sanjiv, I hope you will engage. Here are just a few ways you can get involved that I think both of them would approve of:

• Attend a City Council meeting on the 1st or 3rd Tuesday of the month and speak about an item you care about.
• Watch a Council meeting from your home on KTOP and tweet or blog about it. (For more on how to watch and understand Council meetings, read this blog post I wrote years ago.)
• Write an email to the Council about an issue you care about.
• If you already keep up with and engage with the City Council, start following another local government body. The possibilities are endless, but here are a few suggestions: Oakland Planning Commission, BART Board, AC Transit Board, East Bay MUD Board, Metropolitan Transportation Commission, or East Bay Regional Park District Board.
• Watch a Council meeting with a friend who doesn’t follow the Council and explain what is happening (meetings can be hard to follow without a guide).
• Get a friend involved in a local issue you care about by walking them through the steps of writing to their councilmember or speaking at a meeting.

Another easy way to honor the memory of Sanjiv Handa? Bring some pastries or pizza to a meeting. As many people have mused on Twitter, Facebook and blogs in the past day, Sanjiv often brought food to share to Council and other meetings. I usually didn’t partake but at one particularly long Planning Commission meeting (I think it was about one of the Safeway projects), I was so hungry after hours of sitting there and appreciated the pastry he offered me. I hope someone or several people will continue this tradition.

As for Ron, honor him by taking a bike ride around Oakland. Outside of local government and advocacy, he spent much of his time leading bike rides and encouraging folks to ride. He tried and tried to get me to bike in Oakland and I’m sad I never went on one of his rides. Maybe my new year’s resolution will be to finally ride a bike in Oakland.

Sanjiv Handa Memorial Service:

Saturday, December 31st @ 11:00 a.m.

Chapel of the Angels
40842 Fremont Boulevard (just South of Grimmer)
Fremont, California  94538
(510) 656-1226

Transit directions:
BART to Fremont
AC Transit line 350 Clockwise @ 10:13 a.m. (sorry, only runs once an hour)
Alight @ Fremont Blvd @ Papazian Way
Walk to 40842 Fremont Boulevard

If you are going to drive, please car pool.

Ron Bishop Memorial Service & Navy Honors:

Monday, January 2nd at 11am:

Sacramento Valley National Cemetery
5810 Midway Rd.
Dixon, CA

The resolution, authored by Councilmembers Ignacio De La Fuente and Libby Schaaf, opposes any purposeful upcoming or future Port of Oakland shut downs and calls on the Mayor and City Administrator to use lawful tools to prevent future shut downs.

There are, unsurprisingly, strong opinions on both sides of this resolution. And voicing opinions is incredibly important in a democracy. But much of the opposition to this resolution I’ve heard and read in the past few days has been expressed as personal attacks against the councilmembers who authored the resolution.

Reading comments on Twitter about De La Fuente and Schaaf over the past few days reminded me of a blog post I wrote almost three years ago, which seems just as apt today. So here’s that blog post, in full:

(Dis)respect for the City Council

There’s been something on my mind for the past several months that I was reminded of on Tuesday night, as I watched the Public Safety Committee meeting. I often hear Oakland residents blaming all of Oakland’s problems on one council member (the council member varies based on the person), to the point where they accuse that council member of being corrupt or not really caring about Oakland. I try not to fall into that trap anymore, but I used to harbor such feelings towards one council member, Larry Reid.

My first exposure to Reid was back in 2004, when I attended the Public Safety Committee hearing on regulating medical marijuana dispensaries. At that time, there were a dozen dispensaries, all clustered in downtown Oakland, and the City was the first municipality in the state to see the need for regulations of this industry. I remember that meeting and subsequent meetings fairly clearly, and what I remember most was how Larry Reid seemed to dismiss the needs of medical marijuana patients and sometimes sounded very rude in his comments. To our community, it felt that he just didn’t care and would rather patients go to the illicit market.

Very quickly, Reid became my least favorite council member. I knew little about the Council and how the city functioned, but I knew that I did not like Larry Reid. All the negative medical marijuana regulations that came from the council, I blamed on Reid.

Looking back, I realize just how absurd and unfair that judgement was. Reid had legitimate, though misplaced, concerns about dispensaries. He had seen rampant drug use in his district and witnessed Oaklanders who spent their lives selling drugs. So Reid equated dispensaries with the black market and felt like this land use was being pushed onto Oakland, while other neighboring cities were not doing their part to accommodate dispensaries (which is true, especially South of Oakland). And the medical marijuana dispensaries had not fully done their part in educating Reid. I doubt patients from his district or dispensary employees from his district met with him to explain how dispensaries were a vital part of Oakland.

On Tuesday night, as I watched Reid and the other Public Safety Committee members discuss Reid’s proposed curfew for juveniles, I was reminded of this. I am entirely opposed to the curfew but could see that Reid truly meant well. He sounded saddened that the curfew had not passed and explained that he was not trying to victimize youth, but to ensure young people could live in a safe environment. He called on the community to reach out to him and other council members to help develop a solution and to address the problem of youth violence.

Look, I know we’re not always going to agree with the decisions of particular council members (or sometimes a terrible unanimous decision by the Council), but to me it’s clear that all of the council members mean well. Everyone of them cares deeply about Oakland. If they didn’t care, why do you think they’d be on the Council? It doesn’t pay well, it’s an incredibly difficult job, and their motives are constantly questioned. But we all have different policy ideas for making Oakland a better place, and sometimes those policy proposals are going to piss us off. That doesn’t mean it’s necessary to hate a council member or to think of a member as evil. Instead, it might be more productive to turn that negative energy into action and to try to work with the Council to make the changes you’d like to see in Oakland.