Occupy Oakland plans to occupy lot and park at 19th & Telegraph… unless the vote is rescinded

UPDATE: The facilitation committee has put this proposal on tonight’s GA agenda as the first item. This proposal has been merged with another proposal – see the new proposal below.

On Wednesday, for the first time in weeks, I decided to take a full afternoon and evening off from Occupy Oakland and Twitter. I had left work early – the cold that had been trying to catch up to me for weeks finally caught me – and I thought I could use some rest. When I finally logged into Twitter later that evening, I found out that the Occupy Oakland General Assembly had voted to occupy the lot at 19th and Telegraph and the adjacent park.

At first I was upset because of all the work I and many others have put into that space, to save it from becoming  a parking lot. (You can read a quick synopsis of that story here or check out the many blog posts about it linked to at the bottom of this post.) But the more I thought about it, the more I realized it was the wrong space to occupy for many reasons. And it became clear to me, from the General Assembly minutes and from the proposal text, that the people voting on this proposal might not have understood the full context of the space they voted to occupy.

I tweeted a bunch on Wednesday night and Thursday morning and saw that many people agreed with my perspective. So last night I drafted a proposal to rescind the vote and worked with several other people to refine the proposal. A few of those people signed on and we’ve submitted it to be heard at tonight’s General Assembly.

Luminous Oakland – Light art comes to 17th Street BART alleyway

Over the past several years, Uptown has improved in so many ways. The Fox opened, many restaurants and bars opened (and all seem to be doing quite well), the Art Murmur brought new people to the area, and most recently, the Broadway Shuttle started running through Uptown on Friday and Saturday nights. But there are a few places in Uptown that could use some work. One is of course the huge lot next to the Fox that will turn into a sculpture garden next March. Another is the 17th Street BART alleyway between Telegraph and Broadway.

If you’ve ever walked through that alleyway, you know it’s not very appealing or welcoming – definitely not the first thing we want Oakland visitors to see as they come out of BART for a show at the Fox or for dinner at Flora. Thankfully, the Oakland Cultural Arts Department is working to improve it. From their website:

Bike Bridge – Gateway to the Uptown sculpture garden

You might have read earlier this month that the opening date of the Uptown sculpture garden has been delayed from December 2011 to March 2012, but have you heard about the centerpiece sculpture chosen for the space? Because I’m often a month behind on blogs (except for a few), I was ecstatic this morning to read a Black Rock Arts Foundation (BRAF) blog post written a month ago about this piece.

From the beginning of this fight – when advocates including myself convinced the City Council to approve an arts space instead of a surface parking lot in the lot between the Uptown apartments and the Fox Theater – I dreamed about Burning Man style art being featured there. I’m often frustrated that San Francisco gets to publicly display so many East Bay Burning Man art pieces, like Ecstasy and the Raygun Rocket Ship, and I thought this was the perfect space for Oakland to showcase East Bay art. Well, my dreams have come true.

Actually, this art piece is even better than what I imagined. The project is being led by one of my favorite Burning Man artists, Michael Christian, but it’s being created by 12 young Oakland women. Also, it’s made of reclaimed bike parts. Here are the details from BRAF’s blog:

Oceans and farms come to Uptown

The Oaksterdam mural is still in progress and looking better and better every day (I’ll post some more photos when it’s done or close to done), but a new mural caught my eye last weekend. I was on my way home from Amtrak and saw about a dozen people in the small parking lot on the east side of Broadway just north of 21st. They were playing music and painting the parking lot wall.

On Wednesday I walked by to snap some photos, and though it appears unfinished, it depicts the ocean and agriculture – kind of an odd pairing, but I’m guessing it will be tied together a bit more when it’s complete. The mural is a huge improvement over the empty grey wall that was there before.

Our dream of an Uptown sculpture garden is becoming a reality

Last month I went to a special presentation about Parcel 4, the large Uptown lot we saved two years ago from becoming a parking lot and that Cultural Arts and Redevelopment staff are now working to turn into a public arts space. I promised afterward that I’d follow up with some images, and since Cultural Arts Manager Steven Huss was kind enough to send me images that were visible (unlike the ones in the staff report), I can now deliver on that promise.

First, I’d like to detour a bit and say that I think the Oakland Cultural Arts department is awesome. While certain other city departments seem to be stuck in the 80s (or worse), Cultural Arts is on the cutting edge, sponsoring events like Uptown Unveiled and art projects like the light based art piece planned for the 18th Street alleyway entrance to the 19th Street BART station. And their plans for Parcel 4 are equally exciting.

We did it! The Uptown sculpture garden will soon be a reality

Longtime readers of this blog (or just about any Oakland blog) will remember that a year and a half ago a bunch of activists, including many bloggers and blog readers, joined together to prevent Oakland’s Redevelopment Agency from building a parking lot in Uptown Oakland next to the Fox Theater.

Don’t remember that? Well that’s ok because I recently wrote about it in a 500 word essay for an application to a program I’m applying to be in (excuse the focus on me – it was the nature of this essay assignment):

In March 2009, an issue came before the Oakland City Council that inspired me to organize Oakland residents and community leaders to work together to make change. The City had leased a large parcel in Uptown Oakland to a developer and most of it had been turned into apartments and a park. Part of the parcel that had been slated to become a condominium complex sat empty because the housing market had tanked and the developer asked the City for a two year continuance on its permit. As a condition of the continuance, the Redevelopment Agency asked the developer to contribute funding to build a temporary parking lot to fill the space.

I opposed this proposal because the parking lot was proposed for the heart of Uptown, an area of Oakland that had recently become vibrant after being nearly empty for decades. Part of what made this area so vibrant was its walkability, and adding another parking lot with dangerous curb cuts would have endangered that.

Together with three other Oakland residents – a motley crew of smart growth advocates and historic preservationists – I attended a committee meeting to speak against the parking lot and urged the committee members to consider other uses that would be more pedestrian and eco friendly.

The committee members listened and directed redevelopment staff to return with alternative proposals. We knew that staff were pushing hard for this parking lot and were unlikely to return with serious alternatives so I wrote a blog post about the situation and asked for readers to chime in with their ideas for the empty lot.

In nearly 50 blog comments, Oaklanders shared their ideas for the lot, including a solar panel array, community garden, soccer field, mini-golf course and large scale Burning Man art. I and other Oakland bloggers posted action alerts urging Oaklanders to email committee members and to attend the next committee meeting. Dozens of people sent emails and nine of us testified at the meeting (in the middle of a workday).

Staff stated at the meeting that there was no alternative to the parking lot, and the committee members listened. They unanimously approved the parking lot and put the item on the agenda for the next Council meeting (just one week away).

I and a few other bloggers wrote action alerts. A resident inspired by our blog posts wrote an op-ed in the Oakland Tribune. I and a colleague urged councilmembers to consider using the lot to display large-scale Burning Man sculptures. My colleague talked to the Oakland Arts Department and I contacted a Burning Man artist to discuss logistics and to ask him to come to the Council meeting.

More than a dozen Oaklanders turned out to speak – several of whom had never spoken at a Council meeting before. Councilmember Ignacio De La Fuente carried our proposal and the Council voted unanimously to direct staff to pursue it and not to build the parking lot. City staff fought this directive for months so the sculpture garden was never built. However, the parking lot was also never built and the fence around the lot is now used to display beautiful murals by local artists.

Well as of yesterday, the end of the story has changed.

The City of Oakland has secured a $200,000 grant from the National Endowment for the Arts to make our dreams come true! From the NEA website, the Cultural Arts Division:

plans the creation of the Uptown Arts District Park, a historic and re-emerging arts and entertainment district. Development of the park will transform an unused vacant lot into an outdoor cultural space for at least four years. The park will include rotating temporary exhibitions of public sculpture, newly commissioned public art projects, and an amphitheater for events by arts and community organizations. The park will complement the Fox Oakland Theater, the Oakland School for the Arts, and new restaurants and nightclubs, all within two blocks of the proposed park site. The division is partnering with Black Rock Arts Foundation to exhibit works of public art, many by Oakland artists. The park is expected to become the core of the downtown arts scene.

So yeah, we’re getting art, and not just a lot with art that is fenced off, but a gathering space too!

I could not be more excited about this. Many of us worked for months to make this happen, and I’m so proud of what we accomplished. Instead of a parking lot with dangerous curb cuts that blights this vibrant neighborhood, we’re getting a huge space filled with art that will attract even more people to the arts center of Oakland.

Thanks to everyone who helped make this happen – especially to dto510, Naomi Schiff, and Joyce Roy, who joined me at that first committee meeting when few thought we had a chance at winning. And thanks to the City’s Cultural Arts staff for pursuing this grant.

I look forward to the day when instead of looking at that empty lot, we’ll be standing in the middle of something like this:

OK, well, that minus the dust and with buildings instead of mountains in the background, but you get the picture. See you on the playa… I mean in Uptown.

Previous posts on the Uptown surface parking lot saga:

• 5/6/09: A Better Oakland – Becks and dto510, my heroes
• 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

Plum

The last thing I’ve been able to do lately is keep up with all the restaurant openings (or even check out all the established restaurants in my new neighborhood), but I have been keeping up on the development of one – Plum. Why? Well, I walk by it every day on my way to work and sometimes on my way back home. It’s in the space right next to Franklin Square Wine Bar, where Franklin and Broadway meet at Grand.

For months, I’ve been peeking my head in, watching the space develop from essentially an empty box to an entirely wood covered inviting restaurant. A couple days ago, I noticed more movement inside than usual. Instead of construction staff, there were chefs and wait staff inside so I asked when they’d be opening and they told me next week.

Lucky for me, I was walking home last night and noticed a lot more activity inside – they were having a private pre-opening party. And even luckier, a friend of mine who works for the City called me in to join him. As I already knew from my view from the sidewalk, the space is gorgeous. It’s not entirely done yet (art is still going to be installed on the walls), but I’m a sucker for wood, and Plum has plenty of it. Wood walls, wood floors, wood tables, wood chairs, and of course a wood bar. It might sound like wood overkill, but trust me, it’s not.

I couldn’t stay for long, but I did get a chance to sip on a glass of wine and nibble on some food. There was spiced popcorn, which was quite addictive, crackers with a fig leather (which didn’t sound that interesting but were absolutely delicious), and my favorite, a chickpea fritter with sheep’s milk cheese. Yum! (If you want to read more about their food, there’s an awesome and thorough review on Yelp.)

There’s been some talk of Plum expanding into the now empty Franklin Square Wine Bar space next store, but those rumors were just a bit off. They’re actually going to expand in the other direction (towards Grand), into the former Chinese restaurant. That space will house their bar. I’m pretty happy about this, because that means FSWB will still be available for another restaurateur to move in and start up business again. If you ever walk by there, you’ll know that FSWB looks like it never closed or could open any day, since they didn’t gut the space after closing.

I’m not sure about the time line for expansion, but Plum opens next Wednesday. They opened up reservations this Tuesday and already have 200 reservations made for their first couple of weeks. So if you’re interested in checking it out, I highly recommend visiting their website and making a reservation. They’ll be open daily from 5pm-1am so if you can’t get a dinner reservation, you could stop in for a late night bite.

Broadway shuttle offers environmental, economic & community benefits at no cost to the General Fund

Tomorrow’s committee meetings are going to be packed with some exciting, forward thinking transportation projects, including an update on BRT and another discussion of the citywide parking study at the Public Works Committee. But the transit item I’m most excited to will be heard before the Community & Economic Development Committee (CED) – a free shuttle on Broadway from Uptown to Jack London Square.

Sound too good to be true, considering the dire situation our city budget is in?

Well, it’s not, because the shuttle won’t use any money from the General Fund. In fact, most of the funds covering the project come from a grant and private funding sources. As the Oakbook explains:

A $1 million grant from the Bay Area Air Quality Management District combined with $200,000 from Jack London Square Partners and $160,000 from downtown area redevelopment funds will pay for most of the shuttle’s first two years of operation.

This is not the first time a free shuttle linked Jack London Square to other parts of downtown. Between 1996 and 2001, a free, lunchtime service between Embarcadero and Grand Avenue ferried 1,000 passengers a day before a lack of private funding forced it to shut down…

I didn’t live in Oakland when that shuttle was still running, but I’ve heard that people loved it, even though it was limited to lunchtime hours. The proposed shuttled has funding to run from 7am-7pm, Monday-Friday at 10-15 minute intervals. I know, I know – that’s not ideal and won’t help much with dinner and weekend dining and entertainment, but keep in mind that this is just the start of the project. There is great interest in ultimately expanding the hours to evenings and weekends if the shuttle is successful, and city staff will be reviewing the shuttle after three months, six months, and one year to see what changes should be made.

But even without evening and weekend service, the shuttle will hugely improve the connectivity of downtown Oakland’s various neighborhoods. A problem that I’ve written about before is that downtown Oakland has lots of vibrant neighborhoods, but they’re not entirely contiguous and they’re spread out so it’s difficult to get between them quickly. What this means is that downtown workers (and some residents) either spend most of their time in their particular downtown neighborhood, or they drive around downtown, which is not desirable, in terms of efficiency, environmental pollution, and community connectedness.

I worked on Webster and 14th for four and a half years, and in that time I rarely strayed from the City Center and Chinatown areas to get lunch, simply because I didn’t have enough time to get to the other downtown neighborhoods. Had this shuttle existed, I would have explored Old Oakland, Uptown, and even Jack London Square, and I probably wouldn’t be the only Oaklander who has never eaten at Ratto’s.

You might be wondering why I didn’t just take the bus to get around for lunch. The first reason is the cost. Two dollars is a reasonable fare to pay to get to work but to pay $2.25 round-trip to get to a lunch that costs $10 doesn’t usually make sense. Even when I had a monthly bus pass, I didn’t use the bus all that much to get around downtown because of reliability. The 72 would have gotten me to Jack London Square and I could make this work using NextBus, but when I finished lunch, I could have gotten lucky and caught a bus right away or could have waited for 20 minutes until the next bus arrived.

The free Broadway shuttle will break through both of these barriers and will be more reliable because its route is short and riders can board quickly from the front and rear doors. Beyond this, many people who don’t ride the bus because they’re uncomfortable with it will likely ride the shuttle, which will be advertised to businesses and employees and will be branded differently than AC Transit.

The staff report estimates that the daily ridership of the shuttle will be 2,045, and I think that’s doable between commutes from home or BART, lunch trips, rides to happy hours, and random errands.

Why am I so sure this can be successful? Because it worked in LA, and much like I feel about BRT, if LA drivers can be lured out of their cars to use particular public transit lines, than so can Oaklanders. LA’s downtown shuttle, the DASH, has been wildly successful. It started out in the late 80s with one line and has been expanded to six lines that criss-cross through downtown and run at 5-20 minute intervals. The fare is $.25 and in 2006, the daily ridership of the lines ranged from 351 riders (the most infrequent line) to 7,520 riders (the 5 minute headway line).

Downtown LA of course is denser and geographically larger than Oakland so we’ll never have that kind of ridership, but downtown LA and Oakland have a lot in common otherwise. Both areas were near-abandoned, except for government offices, until redevelopment efforts brought new businesses and residents to the area. Both have new, thriving arts and entertainment scenes. And both are served by multiple types of transit that connect to the DASH and will connect to the Broadway shuttle.

As businesses in downtown Oakland grow and Oakland attempts to attract new businesses to the area, the shuttle will be a huge benefit. If marketed correctly, the shuttle should be able to meet its ridership goals quickly. For a cost of zero to Oakland’s General Fund, the shuttle will help Oakland meet its environmental and economic goals, while also making downtown Oakland feel more connected. The CED Committee should approve this project and the City should move swiftly to implement it.

To see the committee discussion, tune into KTOP at 2pm or follow the meeting on Twitter #oakmtg.

The power of the blogoaksphere

Last night the blogoaksphere won the battle over the surface parking lot. The Council voted unanimously in support of Ignacio De La Fuente’s resolution, “To spend the next two weeks confirming a plan to use the subject lot for a temporary public art installation space at no additional cost to the Redevelopment Agency…”

V Smoothe saved me the trouble of recounting the long struggle we engaged in to get to this point so if you’d like to read the history, head over to A Better Oakland. Her post was one of the sweetest things I’ve ever read and it brought tears to my eyes. Thanks V!

Reading her post this afternoon helped me reflect on the process. Going into this fight, it really did seem hopeless. When dto510, Joyce Roy, Naomi Schiff and I spoke out at that first meeting, we thought the parking lot was a done deal. But we did it anyway. And throughout the process, no matter what the Council and RDA threw at us, we responded.

You know why? Because that’s how activism works. When you truly care about something, you have to keep trying, even if it seems like a lost cause. The hard part of activism is that sometimes you try your hardest, rally as many people as you can, do all the research needed, and you still lose. That doesn’t mean that you should stop trying or that you didn’t make a difference.

Because once in a while, the hard work pays off, and you win BIG. Just think about this for a minute. Our win means that instead of having to walk by an eyesore of a paved lot filled with cars, worrying about one of them running into you, you’ll instead be able to gaze at gorgeous, large-scale artwork. Like these great pieces by Dan Das Mann and Karen Cusolito:

And when you sit in the Uptown park or on the second floor of the Den and gaze out at these beautiful art pieces, you’ll be able to think: WE DID THAT! The blogoaksphere came together to fight an uphill battle, and we won. That is the power of activism.

Thanks so much to everyone who spoke at a meeting, sent an email, made a phone call, or wrote a blog post. Your voices made a profound difference.

I want to especially thank Dan Das Mann and Karen Cusolito. Not only did they come to the City Council meeting last night to speak, but Dan guided us through this process, offering advice and figures on displaying large scale public art. His expertise was a huge help in showing the Council that an art display was a viable option for the space. So thanks!

I hope this is only the beginning of wins from the blogoakshpere and that you feel as empowered as I do from this experience. We made a difference and can continue to do so. Tomorrow, I’ll be asking you to join me in taking action once again on the Oakland Airport Connector, another battle that everyone told me was a lost cause. Well if we work together, it won’t be.

Until then, continue daydreaming about what this art space will look and feel like. Almost two years ago, I wrote a post about how Oakland’s a lot like Black Rock City. And soon it will be so much more similar…

Previous posts on the Uptown surface parking lot saga:

• 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

May 4-10 Oakland Political & Community Events

Monday, May 4th – BART Police Department Review Committee Meeting

You might have heard that the BART Police Department Review Committee had been holding secret meetings, but luckily Sweet Melissa called them on this and now they’re announcing their meetings. Well, announcing the times and locations, but they’re still not providing any further info in the form of an agenda or even a general description. So you’ll just have to head down there to find out what they’re talking about. The meeting is at 10am in the BART Board Room, which is located in the Kaiser Center 20th Street Mall, Third Floor, 344 20th St., Oakland

Tuesday, May 5th – Oakland City Council Meeting

On Tuesday, the Council will be considering approving the surface parking lot in Uptown and we need your help to stop it. Check out the full action alert here. Oh, and they’ll be discussing some other issues too. They’re done voting on the special election tax measures so now they’re moving on to discussing other ways to get money, mostly in the form of federal stimulus funds. See the full meeting agenda and check out my post about how to watch and understand City Council meetings if you need some guidance on how or where to view the meeting. The non-ceremonial parts of the meeting start at 7pm at the Council Chambers in City Hall, 1 Frank Ogawa Plaza.

Wednesday, May 6th – Young OBA Mixer

The Oakland Builders Alliance now has a younger arm and they are holding their first mixer this Wednesday. According to their Facebook page, “This will be a special opportunity to meet with young professionals like yourself interested in the future of Oakland.” They’re holding the event at Somar, which I’ve yet to check out so I’ll likely be stopping by for a drink before BARTing to the County Democratic Central Committee meeting. You should stop by too from 5:30-7:30pm at Somar, 1727 Telegraph Avenue. For more info and to RSVP, see the Facebook event or check out V Smoothe’s post about it.

Thursday, May 7th – East Bay Young Dems’ First Annual Awards Gala

East Bay Young Dems is holding our first awards gala this week, honoring Alameda County Supervisor Keith Carson. I’ve personally invested a lot of time and energy into this event, and I would love it if you could make it to the party on Thursday. If you’ve attended or heard about an EBYD event, then you know we know how to throw incredible parties, and this one will be no different. So join us on Thursday from 6:30-9:30pm at Swarm Studios & Gallery, 560 2nd Street in the Jack London Square neighborhood. For more info and to RSVP, head over to Facebook.

Sunday, May 10th – Visit Chabot Space & Science Center or Oakland Museum of California for Free

This is awesome – on Mother’s Day, the Koret Foundation is sponsoring several Bay Area museums to offer free admission. And two of the museums offering free entry are in Oakland – Chabot Space & Science Center and the Oakland Museum of California. If you’re looking for a Mother’s Day activity, this sounds like the perfect opportunity. Chabot is open from 11am-5pm and is located at 10000 Skyline Boulevard. Oakland Museum of CA is open from 12-5pm and is located at 1000 Oak Street.