District 2 from 2000 feet!
City Budget Balancing Continues
Launch of City's New Website, and Increased Bandwidth for Live City Council Streaming Video
PG&E Starts Further Excavation under El Embarcadero
Family Bridges Grand Opening Celebration of Hong Lok II Center for Seniors
Your Chance to Comment on Oakland Public Library Branch SchedulesEast Bay Culture Corridor, www.510Arts.com, Showcases Art Communities of East Bay Cities
EVENTS
Throughout February Black History Month Events in Oakland Tuesday, February 16 Special City Council Budget Workshop - At City Council Chambers and Viewable on Cable Channel 10 Thursday, February 18 Lakeshore and "Complete Streets" project– Discussion of Preferred Alternative (Landscape Design) Saturday, February 20 FREE Lunar New Year Festival Activities at Oakland Asian Cultural Center Monday, February 22 Mayor Dellums to Present his Third State of the City Address Saturday, February 27 FREE Immigration Workshop: Private Consultations with Immigration Attorneys for the First 200 Participants, and Training on How to Avoid Fraud Throughout February Recycling Facility Open to Accept Your Various Waste Items Including Electronics. Thursday, March 4 Residential Rezoning in the Grand Lake - A Town Hall Meeting Hosted by Grand Lake Neighbors Community Group Thursday, March 4 Campaign Contribution and Voluntary Expenditure Ceiling Limits considered by the Oakland Public Ethics Commission
EVENTS
Throughout
February: Black History Month Events in Oakland
Gather family and friends for a series of community events, concerts, readings, rallies, work projects and more celebrating Black History Month. For a complete list of events & activities go here.
Tuesday 16: Special City Council Budget Workshop at City Council Chambers
City Council Chambers, Oakland City Hall, 1 Frank Ogawa Plaza, 5:00 pm
City Council discusses how to close remaining budget gap of $10.4 million to balance the ’09-’10 City Budget and previews even worse structural budget deficit of $30 million in Fiscal Year 2010-11, which begins on July 1, 2010. This won't be a happy discussion, but we want you to be informed of the realities and weigh in on decisions that will affect you and all Oakland residents.
Thursday, February 18: Lakeshore "Complete Streets" Streetscape
Project – Discussion of Preferred Alternative (Landscape Design)
Lakeshore Avenue Baptist Church, Family Room – 7:15 p.m.
In early January, Grand Lake Neighbors and the Grand Lake Traffic Calming Committee hosted a community forum to discuss the Lakeshore Complete Streets project, scheduled to begin in January 2011. City Transportation Engineers presented the project, which includes pedestrian improvements and a plaza at Lakeshore and Lake Park and Lakeshore and MacArthur, and Joanna Fong, landscape design consultant for the project, presented three potential concepts for landscape design. After hearing the productive discussion and feedback on each design, City engineers indicated that Ms. Fong would return to the community with a “preferred design alternative.” The meeting to present and discuss the “preferred design alternative” will be held on Thursday, Feb. 18 at 7:15 p.m. at the Lakeshore Avenue Baptist Church, Family Room (3534 Lakeshore Avenue). For previous article on this project click here. This is your opportunity to weigh in on the landscape design concept before the project proceeds.
Saturday, February 20:
FREE Lunar New Year Festival Activities at Oakland Asian Cultural Center.
Noon to 3:30pm
Oakland Asian Cultural Center, 388 9th Street, Suite 290, Oakland 94607
12:00 noon –1:00 pm: Cultural Art Activities for Families
1:00 –3:30 pm: PerformancesRing in the Year of the Tiger with a joyous afternoon for families at the OACC's annual Lunar New Year Festival. Start with a hands-on cultural art activities hour for the whole family and stay for featured performances by OACC's weekly class students and teachers including:
Patty Chu's Chinese Folk Dance Troupe, China's Spirit Music Ensemble, American Center of Philippine Arts, Ger Youth Center, Dohee Lee, and Shaolin Buddhist Temple & Education Foundation.
There will also be performances by the Jamaesori and the Vietnamese American Community Center of the East Bay will showcase a Vovinam (Vietnamese Martial Art) demonstration. OACC Artist in Residence Kyoungil Ong will be premiering her new work Sounds of Korea.
For more information, go here.
Monday, February 22:
Mayor Dellums to Present his Third State of the City Address
Oakland City Hall, Council Chambers, 6:00 pm, doors open at 5:30 pm
Mayor Ron Dellums will address Oakland residents during his third State of the City address, outlining his vision to generate more jobs, improve upon public safety achievements, and detail Oakland’s federal stimulus efforts. While the City encourages taking public transportation, free parking will be available at the Clay Street Garage at 14th St. For more information, please call 510-444-2489 or visit the City's website.
Saturday, February 27: FREE
Immigration Workshop: Private Consultations with Immigration Attorneys
for the First 200 Participants, and Training on How to Avoid Fraud
Oakland City Hall, Sponsored by Office of Oakland City Attorney, 10:00 am to 3:00 pm; Languages available: Spanish, Mandarin, Cantonese, Vietnamese, Tagalog, French, English. Click here for flyer.
While the City encourages taking public transportation, free parking will be available at the Clay Street Garage at 14th St.
Recycling Facility Open to Accept Your Various
Waste Items Including Electronics
Residents can take their residential or business waste, usually free of charge, to Universal Waste Management at 721 37th Ave. Click here to see the various types of waste that Universal Waste Management will accept for disposal. Their toll free number is 1.888.832.9839. See here for hours and details.
Click here for directions and map.
Thursday,
March 4:
Residential Rezoning in the Grand Lake - A Town
Hall Meeting Hosted by Grand Lake Neighbors Community Group
Grand Lake Neighbors, Lakeshore Baptist Church, Barnett Hall – 7:00 pm
The Grand Lake Neighbors (GLN) community group will host a town hall meeting at Barnett Hall behind Lakeshore Avenue Baptist Church, 3534 Lakeshore Ave, starting at 7:00 pm on Thursday, March 4, 2010. The topic will be residential zoning concepts for the Grand Lake neighborhood that are being proposed as part of the city-wide zoning update. Planners from the City's Planning and Zoning Department will be available to answer questions. This meeting will focus primarily on residential zoning update proposals. A well-attended meeting was held by GLN in December which focused on commercial zoning proposals and there may be a brief time for follow-up questions regarding commercial zoning, but it will not be the focus of this meeting. All property owners and residents are invited and encouraged to participate.
Thursday, March 4: Campaign Contribution and Voluntary Expenditure
Ceiling Limits Considered by Oakland Public Ethics Commission
Oakland City Hall, Hearing Room 1, 6:30 pm
The City Clerk is responsible for annually adjusting the campaign contribution limits and voluntary expenditure ceilings set by the City Council for City elections. The City Attorney has proposed to double the current contribution limits (currently $700 for those accepting voluntary expenditure limits) and voluntary expenditure ceilings. At its last meeting the City Council’s Rules & Legislation Committee referred the proposal to the Oakland Public Ethics Commission for review and recommendation.
A staff report will be available by Monday March 1. Go here to find the report. Please provide any comments to the Commission at your earliest opportunity by contacting Dan Purnell, Executive Director of the Public Ethics Commission, here or Public Ethics Commission, Oakland Floor City Hall, 4th Floor, Frank Ogawa Plaza, Oakland, CA 94612. Comments received in writing (including email) will be submitted to the Commission in advance of the March 4, 2010, meeting.
REPORTS
City Budget Balancing Continues
Despite the recession, I see all sorts of great signs of energy and vitality in Oakland, which is encouraging. As many businesses are doing, the City is working hard to build on our strengths and manage the challenges of substantially reduced revenues. But I must tell you that the financial realities of the City budget have become extreme and, if not managed correctly, threaten much of the wonderful progress our City has made in the past six or seven years. Because of falling revenues, the City's budget is dramatically out of balance and the City Council must make decisions in the next two months that will substantially reduce basic public services.
Over the last 18 months, the City Council reduced hundreds of jobs and cut employee compensation, but fortunately, we were able to maintain an acceptable, though reduced, level of public services. We will scrape by through the remainder of this fiscal year (June 30) with one-time revenue sources and budgetary slights of hand. However, starting July 1, 2010, there will be no more avoiding the reality that we have a $30 million structural budget deficit. What does that mean? It means that this coming fiscal year and every year thereafter, Oakland's tax revenues are $30 million lower than the cost of providing the services you have come to rely on. The deficit will actually grow in future years as pension costs rise. The City Council will have no choice but to cut back basic services to a level that none of us find acceptable. These decisions are very painful, but unavoidable. We need the public to be aware of what the issues are and to responsibly participate in the conversation about how our city can weather this storm. We will survive, and hopefully will come out stronger and better managed in the end, but it will entail major sacrifices by both citizens and City employees alike.
Next week is the first special Budget Meeting of the City Council to grapple with the next wave of budget cuts these issues. It will take place on Tuesday, February 16, from 5 to 7pm in the City Council Chambers, Third floor of City Hall. You can view it on cable TV Channel 10 or on streaming video from the City website.
You can read the budget report to be discussed at this meeting here.
To see a snapshot of where your tax dollars are spent, see this chart. I will be providing more analysis and recommendations on what actions the City should take in a special issue of the E-News in two weeks.
Launch of City's New Website, Increased Bandwidth for Live City Council
Streaming Video
The City Administration has recently unveiled a beta website showcasing a new and improved Oaklandnet.com Many new features have been added and information reorganized so that users can find what they are looking for fast. This is a beta site - the City is still working out the kinks. Usability and accessibility testing is now underway. In the coming months, they’ll redesign the rest of the site to have one consistent look for all City departments. They’d like your feedback! Email the City here to offer your thoughts and suggestions. To go back to “classic view,” click here.
Good news for those of you who don't have cable TV, but want to watch City Council meetings: The City's IT department has recently implemented a new server, which allows many more viewers to watch City Council meetings on streaming video. The previous 130 user limit restriction had been causing headaches when many were trying to log on at the same time. The newer system will utilize the available bandwidth the City has for its Internet pipeline.
PG&E Starts Further
Excavation under El Embarcadero
The Embarcadero-Lakeshore Avenue park improvement project, funded by Measure DD, is close to completion. Once the rains stop and the new lawns dry out a bit, the black plastic fencing will be removed and the landscaping contractor will mow the lawn. At present, the ground is too wet and the mowing equipment would be sure to leave ruts. Before all is said and done, however, PG&E has more work to do on its Transmission Project under El Embarcadero.
What is PG&E’s Transmission Project? Here is its description: To meet the growing energy demands of the North Oakland Area (NOA), PG&E has undertaken a significant project to enhance its capacity to deliver safe and reliable energy to its electric customers. PG&E supplies electricity to over 150,000 customers in NOA, which consists of Downtown Oakland, Berkeley, Piedmont, and the northern portion of the City of Alameda. Before this project, the transmission system’s capacity was 200 megawatts. This project will double capacity to 400 megawatts.
Here’s how PG&E describes the work ahead on El Embarcadero. In 2009, PG&E Engineering revisited the design of the 500 feet of duct bank system installed in 2008 in the El Embarcadero. This portion of work was originally scheduled for construction in 2009 but completed between July and August 2008 in order to vacate the area before the City converted the area into a pedestrian park zone. New concerns related to seismic performance of the concrete encased duct system, such as seismic settlement and liquefaction, were raised and evaluated in detail during the final overall design of the transmission line, resulting in the decision that further work was needed. The plan is to use a horizontal directional drilling (HDD) construction method to build a parallel alignment below the existing El Embarcadero duct bank, which would be similar to the system that was installed on Grand Avenue between Harrison Street and Bay Place and would limit surface disruption to the recent City’s enhancement to the area by limiting construction to:
• Opening one 10 by 20 foot entry pit, 15 feet of which will encroach in the landscaped area, and 5 feet in the sidewalk of Lakeshore approximately 100 feet west of the El Embarcadero and Lakeshore intersection and tying in the newly pulled cable into the existing duct bank in the median of Lakeshore Avenue by trenching 100 feet across the westbound lane of Lakeshore Ave.
• Upon completion of this work, PG&E has committed to restore all disturbed areas, including the small landscaped area and the median, and will repave the disturbed pavement curb to curb.PG&E expects this work, including pavement restoration, to be completed within 7 weeks, including landscaping of the Lakeshore medians at El Embarcadero.
Family Bridges Grand Opening Celebration of Hong Lok II Center for Seniors
Grand Opening Celebration of Family Bridge's Hong Lok II Senior Center
Family Bridges’ new Hong Lok Senior Center is now open. It’s located at the center of Oakland Chinatown, at 261 11th Street, inside the Lincoln Recreation Center grounds.
The center will be open from Monday to Friday, 11:30 am to 2:30 pm. It will provide seniors with various activities, such as English language class, Mahjong, bingo, chess, computer class, movie and music entertainment. For inquiries, please call (510) 419-0160.
Your Chance to Comment
on Oakland Public Library Branch Schedules
Six months have passed since the previous budget crisis in the City of Oakland led to a reduced schedule at all branches of the Oakland Public Library. Last August, all branches cut their
days of service from six days to five, with a pledge from Library Administration to reassess the new schedule after six months. That review is now underway, and input is sought from the public.A survey has been developed and is available to Library patrons – both online and on paper. The online survey can be accessed via the Library’s homepage, at www.oaklandlibrary.org. The survey can also be accessed directly here. It has been designed for maximum simplicity and clarity, and should takes less than a minute to complete.
Additionally, English language paper copies of the survey will be available at all locations of the Oakland Public Library system. Translations into Chinese and Spanish are being
worked on, and will also be available at the Library. The timeline for tallying survey results has not yet been finalized, as Library Administrators are hoping to get as broad a sampling as possible. All patrons are encouraged to take the time to fill out the survey. In addition, we welcome input from parents with children ages up to 5 years of age regarding the best days and times for storytimes at their library.In the current budget situation, increasing branch hours is not an option. Branches must
remain open five days a week only. Currently, all branches are open Tuesday through Saturday, and closed Sunday and Monday. The Library hopes to assess whether some branches can better serve the community by changing schedules without increasing the hours of operation. The Main Library is open every day, with the exception of holidays and closures mandated by the City to address budget shortfalls.
East Bay Culture Corridor,
www.510Arts.com, Showcases Art Communities of East Bay Cities
The East Bay Culture Corridor (EBCC) is a collaboration among the cities of Berkeley, Emeryville, Oakland and Richmond. This partnership reinforces the role of the arts in our local communities. The mission of the collaboration is to increase the visibility, accessibility and sustainability of the arts communities. The EBCC is intended to support the diverse arts communities of each city by leveraging new audiences and resources for the arts as well as new resources for each partner city. Local business will also benefit locally through partnerships with the arts.
510Arts.com is a portal website launched by the partners in the EBCC to provide information about the diversity and wealth of arts organizations, artists and activities in the East Bay, one of the nation's most active arts regions.
To get listed on this website, organizations and artists in the cities of Berkeley, Emeryville, Oakland and Richmond should provide information to their respective City arts agency, which in turn will select events to be included on 510Arts.com. For Oakland arts organizations and artists, the City EBCC representative is:
Samee Roberts 510-238-2136 or
Steven Huss 510-238-4949