Oakland Focus News | Oakland News Online Blog

"Welcome to Pacific Gas and Electric Company. If you're calling about billing, press one or say 'billing.' If you're calling about outages, press or say two, or 'outage.'" On Tuesday and early Wednesday residents of Oakland's Adams Point neighborhood -- 32,000 strong including this blogger -- had to hear that recording three times. The power went out along a massive area that made the entire district look the darkest it's been since the lights were deliberately turned out during World War Two. The cause of this -- according to what PG&E told me -- was damaged equipment. But what bothers me is that the company has no automatic system to alert them to the problem. They have to wait until someone calls the company. Moreover, the person taking the call isn't even in Oakland or the Bay Area, indeed, after a certain time, they're out of state! What also irks me is that the company apparently didn't fix the problem because it ...

Peggy Stinnett explains it well here: WHEN the slick, full-color mailer arrived with City Council President Ignacio De La Fuente's photo, I thought, "Oh, the latest political mailer." In his campaign for mayor, he has been sending us these cheery cards for several months telling of his "accomplishments." But this one was different. It promised something that made my heart leap with joy. He declared unequivocally he wants to remove all parking meters in the city. Not so fast, I thought, being a cautious sort. Can this be true? I read on to learn De La Fuente wants to replace the meters with a "new system." Now moving from cautious to suspicious, I thought, "Now, what is the new system?" What's really strange about this mailer? It's not his idea; it's one the city staff has been working on for some time. In fact, the city has been testingnew meters on 12th Street for several months. Later I learned the city wants to replace existing...

This is a sign that the future development of downtown Oakland will include more housing and even higher densities with more traffic. But it's also a step in the right direction, decades overdue. Here's the Tribune account Builders reach for the sky in downtown Planning Commission approves two 22-story apartment buildings near Lake Merritt By Cecily Burt, STAFF WRITER OAKLAND — After years of low-rise residential construction, Oakland's push for higher density building downtown is finally paying off. A practically giddy Planning Commission last week approved plans for two 22-story apartment buildings — one at 11th and Jackson streets and the other at 23rd and Webster streets. The commissioners gushed over the designs, but more than anything, over the height and the density of the projects. "After four years of approving four-over-two projects, this is a nice change," said Commissioner Mark McClure, referring to the glut of low-rise wood or metal-framed resident...

Oakland Councilmember (District 1- North Oakland) Jane Brunner pictured here This fee -- reported by Oakland Tribune Columnist Peggy Stinnett -- was Oakland Councilmember Jane Brunner's idea, and a bad one. It's amazing that a city with almost 10,000 acres of land giving tax money to its redevelopment agency, that a part of that can't be used for trash collection rather than burdening business people. Here's part of the Stinnett column: ENOUGH is enough, says Maureen Dorsey of the Laurel District Business Investment District. The ink is barely dry on a city agreement with Laurel merchants to form a BID, following in the footsteps of other Oakland business districts such as Lakeshore, Montclair and Rockridge. Now the city wants to add another charge to pay for trash collectors. "This is ridiculous," says Dorsey, and you can hear a chorus behind her calling "Yeah, yeah."Opponents are planning to speak their minds when the City Council Community and Ec...

At a recent Christmas Party, someone remarked that the Oakland Chamber of Commerce supported a particular political candidate. My response was "The Oakland Chamber has no juice." Really, who listens to the chamber? The newspapers? People don't read those anymore, at least not much in the Bay Area -- except the New York Times which isn't a local paper. What about television? Well, the Chamber doesn't have a TV show, so there. So just how many people are really influenced by the Chamber's opinion? I would say the number is probably somewhere in the area of 100. In a city where several hundred thousand people will come out to vote next year, that's nothing. The Oakland Chamber has no juice.