Public restrooms in Oaktown?

Where are Oakland’s public bathrooms?

Yes, if they exist they’re probably frequented by homeless, druggies and other people conducting less-than-desireable behavior.  But if we’re going to have lots of food trucks here or pretend to promote local tourism, business districts ought to provide at least one public bathroom each if they are major commercial districts.  With non-unionized attendants, just like in China or many other places.

Midnight Garden

Fenced off city land. Photo by Becks.

There’s a spot of unused open space in downtown that I’ve gazed at for over a year now.  I was part of a group of people who spoke at city hall in 2009 to protest the city’s building of an asphalt desert (car storage space) there.  Lately I hear there are other, newer proposals for the space.  No FREE-for-100-year leases like some apartment developers got, but who knows.

In any case, I seeded a garden there last night ahead of tomorrow’s showers.

Making Crime Unprofitable

This post comes in the wake the author getting assaulted on Broadway at 25th Street over the weekend.

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What are our society’s financial incentives to keep crime down?  How are financial incentives set up right now?

Is the Mayor of Oakland (Ron Dellums) paid according to how safe our city is? Hell no.  Same for the OPD Chief.  Does he get a bonus for a safer city? Should he? I believe so.

And how would we measure “safer”?

A – truly lower crime stats (not fake numbers like us govt employment and CPI figures) — fewer murders, muggings, car thefts (hooray, inept ACo DA Tom Orloff is gone as of a month ago! he reminded me of Doug from Weeds)

B – hire a 3rd party to independently and randomly survey real Oakland city residents. do they “feel” safer?

C – what do you think?

If these two people and those under them were paid more if the city was measurably “safer” would Oakland be a safer city? Or just safer on paper?

Side note: This idea isn’t original to me.  Google “Popsicle index” and you’ll find it.

There are other people who benefit from higher crime too, financially.

• Prison wardens and their unions.

• For-profit private/corporate prisons. You think these don’t exist? Google “corrections corporation of america” or “corporate prisons.”

• “Bail bonds” outfits benefit from higher client turnover and fees
• At the end of the day, crime IS profitable. For many.  And stopping crime is NOT profitable.

If you want to help me catch the pedicab passenger who attacked me Saturday night, head over to my site and click “donate.”

20 OPD detectives are sitting at HQ right now investigating complaints of OPD misconduct — probably over half of these reports are generated by criminals themselves to take the heat off themselves — and only 8 [eight, viii] investigators are covering all robberies and assaults in Oakland.

Effectively, misdemeanors are not being investigated.  The lab techs have such a work backlog that OPD investigators themselves cannot ask for fingerprinting work to be done even if they have a burglary suspect and stolen goods IN HAND.  The only dusting work these techs are allowed to do is homicide-related cases. (Highest priority.)

As you can see, as Charlie Pine and Chief Batts have BOTH said, Oakland really does only have HALF A POLICE DEPARMENT.

Since OPD effectively is over-burdened and not allowed to catch criminals, I’ll need to do more investigating on my own and hire a PI.

Ken

Alphabet Soup Agency of the Day

ABCD:

Alcohol Beverage Control District Office: 1515 Clay St. Suite 2208, Oakland CA 94612

Rationale behind occasional doom’n'gloom

I write about gloomy ideas sometimes: needing to cut the city budget, cut bloated city staffing, downshift from cars to busses, trains and bikes and skateboards.  But we have no choice — that’s reality.  I like trafficking in reality, not fiction nor hype. “Hope” will not get us anywhere.

When I put up posts such as “city of oakland needs to cut budget this year by 10%” which necessarily means cutting 10% of the workforce, or cutting people’s salaries and rich benefits by 10%+, I don’t take joy in the consequences such decisions would bring. But does it not need to happen?

Upcoming BusRapidTransit meetings

Repasted from email:

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Full View
BRT Public Meetings in OaklandFrom: Samantha Robinson <s.robinson@circlepoint.com>

BRT_Oakland_Post card_Final.pdf (1725KB); BRT_Oakland_Bilingual_Chi.pdf (966KB); BRT_Oakland_Bilingual_Span.pdf (823KB)

Hi there,

The City of Oakland has planned 7 public meetings on BRT (Bus Rapid Transit) for the month of January; see www.oaklandbrt.com. The first meetings are next week! (The final meeting date is not yet on the Web site, but is in the PDFs attached.) Will you please help us spread the word?

Public attendance and feedback at these meetings is critical, as City Council will vote on the project in spring. See below for intro text and attached for PDF fliers. We appreciate any help you can give to encourage Oakland to speak up!

As an FYI, I am contacting other Oakland bloggers too– but I hope you have time to help spread the word.

Cheers, Sam

BRT Project Team
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Oakland councilmembers need your input on the East Bay Bus Rapid Transit ( BRT ) Project, a proposed plan for improving transit along Telegraph Ave. and International Blvd. in Oakland. BRT is being used all over the world to make transit faster and more reliable by incorporating a variety of features such as bus-only lanes, real-time arrival information, signal priority, level boarding and more . Compared to the existing 1R service, BRT would be:

- Fast: 20% faster
– Frequent: Service every 5 minutes on weekdays
– Convenient: 50% more stops

Your councilmembers want to hear from you. Attend a meeting on BRT!

January 11, 6-8 pm, Fruitvale Senior Center
3301 E. 12th St., Ste. 201

January 12, 6-8 pm, Eastside Arts Alliance
2277 International Blvd.

January 21, 6-8 pm, East Oakland Youth Development Center
8200 International Blvd.

January 26, 6-8 pm, Faith Presbyterian Church
430 49th St.

January 27, 11am-1pm, Oakland City Hall, Hearing Room 2
1 Frank Ogawa Plaza

January 27, 5-7pm, Oakland City Hall, Hearing Room 4
1 Frank Ogawa Plaza

January 28, 6-8pm, St. Louis Bertrand Church
1410 100th Ave.

I’ve attached so that you can spread the word about these meetings. Please invite your community to these meetings– your councilmembers need Oakland’s input!

With any questions about BRT , please see www.oaklandbrt.com or call the BRT project manager Jim Cunradi (AC Transit) at 510-577-3371 .

Thanks, Sam
Samantha Robinson, Project Coordinator
s.robinson@circlepoint.com * 415.227.1100 x150

CirclePoint
135 Main Street, Suite 1600, San Francisco, CA 94105
Listening, learning, leading … for a better world.

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CP must be ACT’s regional transportation consultant. Big bucks eh?

All I have to say about BRT is, to paraphrase a regular bus rider I spoke with: It’s about f’in time!

Tweeting Oakland911; city disaster prep 411

If you want to know more about any emergencies in and around Oakland metro, tune into Oakland911 on twitter. News posts are supposed to cover only major emergencies, although we’ll throw in occasional minor happenings or preventative info during news droughts.

This is an unofficial account I started as a public service. Looking to add other admins shortly. Direct message or mention @Oakland911 in your posts to be retweeted if and when important news happens! Major 3+ alarm fires, riots, biggish quakes, nuclear attack, etc.

If you are interested in being part of any local solutions, you may want to enroll in the City’s CORE classes.

I’m really curious what City of Oakland’s disaster plans are for a major earthquake.  I haven’t confirmed this at all, but OPD HQ is supposedly retrofitted to implode instead of falling onto the surrounding streets, in a major quake. Likewise it is apparently officially condemned but I haven’t confirmed this either.

I was quoted in Forbes a while back talking up our region’s quake risk. The later a quake happens the worse off we may all be. I wouldn’t really count on city/state/fed/utility support and grocery store resupply right away, or even after a week. Recall Katrina, and how very broke our state/nation are. We’ll probably depend on each other. At the very least, we shouldn’t count on outside help. If SF is lucky, the new billion dollar eastern span of the Bay Bridge will remain standing to allow food supplies to enter that city.

In August I found by asking CCM Nadel (thanks!) that the city claims to have a 12-14 day supply of fuel for all vehicles including emergency vehicles. Something to think about. I believe that’s an OFD figure and it came back with no further detail.

Of course, thanks OFD/OPD and other first responders!

KO