City Council passes zoning update, with modifications

Last night, the Oakland City Council voted 5-2-1 to adopt a new zoning code for Oakland’s Central Business District.

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Hopefully the final update on the CBD Zoning Update

Oakland’s new Central Business District (that’s downtown) zoning will come before the City Council for approval tonight. This process started over a year ago and I’ve written like a zillion posts about it.

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Budget decision coming on Tuesday

After like two months of discussion, the Oakland City Council will finally pass a budget on Tuesday. Last week, Councilmembers Brunner, De La Fuente, Kernighan, and Quan submitted a revised version of their proposed changes to the Mayor’s budget (PDF), which you can read in its entirety here (PDF). Here are the highlights, and I’ve noted the places where this proposal differs from what was discussed on the 16th:

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Writing about the budget in 140 characters or less

So the main news about last night’s budget discussion is that nothing happened. Really. Desley Brooks, Nancy Nadel, and Larry Reid all complained about the alternative budget proposal submitted by four of their colleagues, but amazingly, considering how strongly they appeared to feel about how unfair it was that their own ideas weren’t included, none of them submitted any specific adjustments of their own.

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What are the core functions of a city?

Sitting around fighting about whether the police are paid too much (they are) and if they care about Oakland and its residents (they do) is not productive. Let’s try to move the conversation on this blog in a more useful direction.

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What’s going on with the Cleveland Cascade?

Honestly, I don’t have a clue. But do know where you can find out.

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Becks and dto510, my heroes.

Okay, I feel like a jerk. I’m sorry to say that I am not going to have a post up laying out the Mayor’s budget proposal today like I said I would. After last night’s Council meeting, I was so happy about them not approving the parking lot, that I went out to celebrate instead of going home to write today’s blog, and well, a girl’s allowed to have a little fun once in a while, right? Anyway, that will hopefully go up tomorrow.

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Council steals money from police widows, blames budget shortfalls

Once upon a time, Oakland had something called the Police and Fire Retirement System (PFRS) (PDF). PFRS is a long and interesting story on its own (well, not really PFRS itself, but money stuff related to it), which I will have to reserve telling until another day. All you really need to know is that we don’t use it anymore (today everyone gets CalPERS), and the PFRS system is underfunded to the point where the City is probably going to have to cough up around $56 million annually starting in 2011 to cover it.

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What you missed at Council last night

Last night’s City Council meeting was full of fireworks. It was not, however, full of progress. On the two most controversial items on the agenda, the Council decided to just not do anything, at least for now. But just in case you had something else so pressing to do with your Tuesday night that you couldn’t tune into KTOP, here’s what you missed.

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New Oakland taxes, OO repeal update

So the big Finance and Management Committee tax meeting is over, and here’s what happened. If you missed yesterday’s post about the new taxes being considered on today’s agenda, you can read it now to get some background on the items being discussed.

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Oakland New Year’s Resolutions

Aah, I love the end of December. It feels good to reflect on all the things I didn’t accomplish and promise myself how I’m going to do so much better next year. There’s nothing quite like a clean slate, a whole untainted year ahead of you with all the potential in the world to be great, accomplish something noteworthy, or put some of your worst qualities behind you. I’ve resolved that 2009 will be the year I finally quit smoking and get a driver’s license. But what about our elected officials? I know that settling on a goal can be tough, and I’m nothing if not helpful, so I’ve listed a few suggestions below:

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The year in review

dto510 reminds us today that those who forget the past are doomed to repeat it. In that spirit, let’s take some time to remember what dominated the news in Oakland in 2008.

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