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The budget passed by the Oakland City Council last night in a 7-1 vote contains $83 million in cuts, but it doesn't mean the city's out of the woods just yet with respect to its $100 million projected deficit. If employees don't take the 10 percent pay cut that's part of the plan in the case of the police department , layoffs will take place. Moreover, the proposed 10 percent ticket surcharge on Coliseum event tickets is being challenged by the County of Alameda, which threatened a lawsuit. Someone in the City of Oakland should have called the Coliseum Authority before installing that plan. The lawsuit threats a reflection of lack of communication. More soon.

More at Zennie62.com | Follow me on Twitter! | Get my widget! On Monday, June 29th the City of El Cerrito approved the Rialto Cinema Theater chain's proposal to own and operate The Cerrito Theater, which was the creation of Catherine and Kyle Fisher, the owners of the now-closed Parkway Theater and the executives behind " Downey Street Productions ." According to El Cerrito Redevelopment Agency records , Downey Street Productions failed to pay timely rent after doing so for the first 12 months of operation of The Cerrito Theater.   The Cerrito Theater (A personal side note: it's very painful to see Catherine and Kyle Fisher's business problems presented this way in public, but that is one downside of working with a redevelopment agency: the public gets to see the information, both good and bad. But a detailed read of the letters explains that they, working as Downey Street Productions , got into a debt problem after theater construction costs. In a le...

From a Twitter feed, Oakland's City Council just approved its budget, complete with cuts and layoffs - with seven votes. More later.

The East Oakland Sports Center has been a goal of Councilmember Larry Reid for a decade. Now, it's going to be a reality. This is the Oakland Tribune's account : OAKLAND — Plans for a 25-meter East Oakland swimming pool and athletics center, in the works for decades as planners struggled to raise the cash to pay for it, finally broke ground Monday. The ceremony marked the beginning of construction for the East Oakland Sports Center, a $24 million project at 9175 Edes Ave., at Brookfield Village Park. "It's the community that dreamed of this place, and that dream, those people are responsible for why we're finally building it," said Councilmember Larry Reid (Elmhurst-East Oakland), whose work many credited as responsible for the project's long-awaited arrival. Community members began pushing for the project in 1976, when a neighborhood pool closed and children began swimming in a nearby estuary, community representative Jacquee Castain said. ...

More at Zennie62.com | Follow me on Twitter! | Get my widget! On YouTube.com With BART's deadline to reach a new union contract or face a worker strike extended to July 9th but still coming up on us fast, I took to the streets to learn what the public thinks about this possible event. What I found was that many claimed they didn't even know of the possibility, but of those who did they all believed it would "severely cripple" transportation service in the Bay Area. I didn't tell those I talked to that the average BART union worker's salary was $115,000, or that the public ridership took in an average of $55,000, as that would be leading the witness. I wanted to learn what was on their minds and you can see that in the video. But people not being informed about this? That's crazy. But I encountered a frightening number of people who were not informed. It's not that they don't care, but I think they see themselves as powerless to...

More at Zennie62.com | Follow me on Twitter! | Get my widget! Right on the heels of the passage of the landmark American Clean Energy and Security Act , which establishes a kind of "cap-and-trade" system for greenhouse gas emissions, we have a project I'm excited about as it will be the first power plant in America designed with a federal greenhouse gas limit. It's called the Russell City Energy Center and will be constructed in Hayward, California. The facility is slated to employ 650 people and generate a one time tax revenue of $30 million and an annual revenue of $6 million for the City of Hayward, according to the website for the proposed facility. What's exciting about the development that we're finally seeing a project that languished in development hell since 2001 finally see the light of day under the Obama Administration and the new act. The act calls for modernization of the electric grid; this is a brand new power plant. It calls for...

From bavc on YouTube: The 1981 Oakland Tech High School senior class fought to make MLK day a nationally recognized holiday. The story of the Apollos is a story of those who reach beyond the stars. Created by Jazmin Jones and Nick Parker. 6 minutes.