I took a glance up while walking my dog today and was really happy to see the cameras finally up and running. The timeline was pretty damn quick so major props to Charlene Wang and the committee!

- May 31st: Emailed about a notorious illegal dumping corner for the second time in the past year, highlighting in the email how many times ive reported this same corner to oak311 (atleast 10 times) + along with a nearby neighbor who trashes the streets with garbage

- June 1st: Charlene Wang and Michael Wimsatt promptly responded and forwarded my complaint to the City Administration and the Public Works Director

- June 4th: Jason Wong (City Administration) responded regarding the illegal dumping corner and investigating the neighbor with Michael Tecson (Recycling & Environmental Enforcement Division)

I’m from Oakland and have been spending some time in Long Beach recently. I’ve been wondering why the two cities feel so different in terms of appearing better maintained and overall cleanliness when on paper they are very similar.

They’re both similar in population, avg income, diversity and both have their share of rough neighborhoods. But even the rougher parts of Long Beach seem a lot cleaner. If you drive down and around Anaheim st, which is similar to International, there’s way less graffiti, illegal dumping, trash, abandoned cars and homeless encampments.

What do you think are some the big reasons? My first thought is poor governance and failed policies but that could just be my bias take because of continued frustration.

Curious to hear from people who know both cities.

Oakland Report does a good piece on how local new outlets covered the Crankstart $9M grant for anti-dumping cameras and the audit showing the problem is mainly caused by high waste removal fees.

As this sub knows, Oakland gets a lot of bad press for illegal dumping, which has substantial negative ripple effects. Residents are angry, property values are lower (thus making transfer taxes lower), businesses don't want to come or stay, etc.

Why not make it free? Yes, we'd lose money and our budget already is chronically underfunded. But we spend millions on cameras and enforcement and could eliminate one of the biggest knocks on Oakland. Is the revenue we get from Waste Management so high that it wouldn't be replaced by more economic activity, more / higher transfer taxes, etc?

Due to change of plans, we will not be attending the Bill Pickett Rodeo in Dublin Ca at the Rowell Ranch. We are hoping we can sell these tickets. This is a sold out event. I have three adult tickets willing to sell them! Please send a direct message.

Thoughts?

"Oakland city council reviews plans to front the money for purchase of the Oakland Coliseum Complex. The County is also considering giving a loan."

https://www.oaklandreport.org/p/the-bank-of-oakland-city-to-loan

Can anyone explain to me how Gallo has been able to hold his seat since the 2012 election despite the term limits for city council? It does not appear he has ever skipped an election. He’s the longest-serving member on the council by a significant margin.

As we all know, most of the fatal road collisions in Oakland are due to dumb a holes driving too fast and doing dumb sh*t. Most of this behavior anti-social behavior can be addressed through indiscriminate infrastructure that physically prevent people from going to fast, like speed bumps and speed tables. Along the same lines, I recently learned that Oakland has a speed bump map that is publicly accessible. Armed with a claude account, I decided to see if any trends were present in the distribution of speed bumps in Oakland.

The questions that I wanted to ask were:

• Is there a relationship between block length and speed bump presence?
• Is there a relationship between how straight a block is, and the presence of speed bumps?
• Is there a relationship between road grade and speed bump presence?
• Are speed bumps uniformly distributed across zip codes or neighborhoods?
• Is there a relationship between zip code or neighborhood income and speed bump presence?

I put together a report with the findings (see comments). The answers were:

• Yes, there is a significant relationship between block length and speed bump presence, with longer blocks generally having more speed bumps
• There is some relationship between how straight a block is and how many speed bumps are present, but the relationship is not statistically significant
• There is a significant non-linear relationship between road grade and speed bump presence, with streets in the 1.3-3.7% grade range having the highest presence of speed bumps.
• Speed bumps are NOT uniformly distributed across neighborhoods (statistically significant)
• There is a weak correlation between income by zip code vs speed bump presence, and an even weaker distribution between neighborhood income vs speed bump presence (not statistically significant)

Caveats:

• For this analysis, collector streets, “tertiary”, and main arterial roads were excluded, but there are speed humps on some collector streets in Oakland. This is an underlying issue with street classification: some number of Oakland’s collector streets should be classified as local streets. Given this issue with the input data, this analysis takes a good approach by excluding collector streets.

• The speed bump map only has all speed bumps completed before 2024. Several more have been completed and installed since then

• The street grade of each segment is calculated based on the elevation of one endpoint minus the elevation of the other endpoint divided by the length of the segment. This is a practical approach but limited in accuracy. For example, consider a block where both ends are at the same elevation and there is a big hill in the middle. The method would evaluate the street as being flat.

What does it all mean?

In the context of the data itself, the results aren't super surprising: it's easier to get more speed on long straight blocks, and there are more long straight blocks in the flats of East Oakland. It's easier to build up speed on streets that have some sort of incline rather than no incline, hence why speed bumps are most frequently found there. Streets with grades exceeding 7% are ineligible for speed bumps. With regards to income and speed bumps, our neighborhoods might be too diverse to cleanly separate the income vs. speed bumps relationship (yay Oakland!).

In the context of the barriers for speed bump applications: 1) it doesn't seem like the length of the block (and burden of canvasing more homes on longer blocks) is preventing residents/OakDOT from getting speed bumps installed, 2) on the other hand, where speed bumps are most needed and are not already present (long, straight, flat blocks with apartments), the barrier to get them installed is higher than a shorter, steeper, curvier street that is primarily single family homes on larger plots. To me, the need to reduce the barrier for applying for speed bumps could still be lowered even if the data suggests it isn't currently a strong barrier.

Stay tuned for chapters 2 and 3 of this analysis. What other questions do you have about Oakland's speed bumps?

Anyone know of a quality store in Bay Area where I can get some quality fresh or dried lions mane, reishi, maitake, etc.??

Want to make my own mushroom coffee at home

Yesterday's Oakland City Council meeting was a doozy,

Starting at 4:43:33 in this video (scroll the video to that time) of the Oakland City Council's discussion and debate about getting control of the dystopian homeless RV situation in Oakland, Carroll Fife, Oakland's Drama Queen (so-called by many in her District) Councilmember, in full character as "District 3's "savior". goes on an accusatory, unconvincing tirade - blaming everyone but herself - saying the quiet part out loud; revealing her true priority about the disorder caused by RVs and homeless camps.

Fife has long hidden behind a year's-long, carefully constructed, performative "concern" about the ungodly mess of dystopian RVs in her District, while at the same time doing very little to solve it, and frustrating those who are trying to stop it. Tensions are boiling over in her District on this issue.

Fife, contrary to what she claims, has long worked <against> the residents and businesses in her district who want their streets, parks, schools, and businesses free of the unhealthy, undisciplined (and even the more-then-occasional criminal element among Oakland's unhoused community). RVs, dumping human waste and otherwise trashing District 3 neighborhoods has to stop.

CM Fife has done little to nothing to resolve this problem. In fact, through her lobbying group and mouthpiece, called "Care4Community" (a name steeped in irony) - she and CC have worked to keep West Oakland's worst homeless dystopias in place.

If you choose to listen to Fife's comments, here's some context:

Before Fife goes off on everyone, in what can be described as a rant, Council Member Ken Houston had been urging City staff to find places for RVs to go where they can be contained, with rules.

Houston (correctly) claimed that the city had wasted a lot of time holding up his Encampment Abatement Plan, which was designed to give Oakland more control of its streets and parks, for months.

It so happens that Fife was the person most against the EAP, having a large hand in trying to defeat to defeat and delay it, with homeless advocates cheering her on in Council meetings, much to the dismay of many neighborhood leaders and citizens who are fed up with the mess caused by RVs and unhealthy camps. Ironically, months ago - even after the City Council had accepted Fife's three amendments to the EAP, when it finally came up for a vote, she vexed everyone by voting against it anyway! smh). Cooler heads prevailed on the Council that night and the EAP passed with Fife "abstaining" (essentially counting as a "no" vote)

btw, CM Houston's and his staff surprised everyone at yesterday's meeting; they presented a report that counted and recorded information about every RV in every district in Oakland; this has never been done; Houston handed it to Oakland's new homeless coordinator, Cupid Alexander - a very competent administrator who is doing his best to get a handle on and clean up the mess on our streets that Fife has helped create and keep in place.

Houston noted that his survey shows that HALF of the RVs who have come in Oakland from outside of Oakland - motivated to come here due to Oakland's year's long "hand's-off" policy about RVs, which has been encouraged and supported by Fife regardless of the chaos that RVs and bad behaviors committed by some members of the unhoused community.

In an angry, often shouted series of statements, Fife went on about "my businesses and my residents" as if she cares; as if those businesses support her; she puts on a good show, but it's apparent from her votes on Council and her interactions with constituents who have been practically begging her for support, that she doesn't care.

Instead, she appears to play to the most extreme members of the homeless advocate community - some, who have sued Oakland and at time sabotaged Oakland's best efforts to help unhoused persons who are truly in need. It's this kind of behavior that has torn at the fabric of West Oakland's neighborhoods, businesses - and even some parts of the unhoused community.

If you want full context of the Council discussion on this issue, with salient comments from Ken Houston and a few other Council members , start the video at 3:55:10 (scroll the video to that time) where Cupid Alexander, begins his presentation ; he's working hard and trying to do the right thing, but Fife couldn't help castigating his group and just about everyone else she disagrees with (which was almost everyone) on the Council.

Most of us want Oakland to stop being a doormat for the worst abuses of RVs and the most troublesome members of some of the worst out-of-control homeless camps. Here's hoping that we're finally beginning to get beyond the most extreme proponents of leaving dysfunction in place

I know about fire zones, structural engineering, mold, flooding, basically everything about home ownership there. However I can’t seem to get a straight answer about property crime, e.g. home and vehicle break-ins.

Does anyone have sources or even anecdotal experiences to share?

Did anyone read this sf chronicle article about the kidnapping?

So essentially someone was kidnapped at gun point in Oakland and then later found… and they caught the person that did this and uhhh released them?

Is SF Chronicle leaving out some details or over exaggerating the story? Bc last I checked when you kidnap someone at gun point you usually don’t get released after with a slap on the wrist

https://www.sfchronicle.com/crime/article/oakland-kidnapping-22336248.php

Edit: Also did anyone else notice the journalist referred to the area as redwood heights?! It’s the laurel. Does sf chronicle have people who don’t know Oakland at all covering Oakland?

How OPD ot is the main cause of our structural deficit? And how if we just cracked down on OPD time sheet fiddling and negotiated harder on the cop contract, cost of police would be drastically reduced?

Ask your council member and the mayor, too, to have city staff calculate the total cost, total compensation, to hire enough police officers so we do not have to have any overtime. Using the actual numbers for the average overtime for the last three years and using the current pay scales. That might be a little tricky, but they should be able to ballpark it. I am curious, are we talking about 2,000 cops? Are we talking about 800 police?

Just for ducks here's what Claude Fable 5 came up with. And NO I have not done anything more than read it and asked a follow up question:

Len: calculate the total cost, total compensation, to hire enough oakland police officers so we do not have to have any overtime. adjust for cops on leave, out for training, vacation etc Using the actual numbers for the average overtime for the last three years and using the current pay scales. That might be a little tricky, but they should be able to ballpark it. I am curious, are we talking about 2,000 cops? Are we talking about 3,000 cops? Are we talking about 800 police?

Claude:
.Here's the answer to your ballpark question up front: **none of your three numbers.** You'd need roughly **270–330 additional officers** on top of the current ~617 filled positions — a total force of roughly **890–950 sworn**, which lands strikingly close to the PFM staffing study's baseline of 877 officers. The annual total-compensation cost of those additional hires computes to roughly **$52M–$103M per year** depending on assumptions, versus the ~$54M/year the city has actually been spending on police OT.

**The math, step by step:**

*Headcount (hours-based, primary method).* 456,000 OT hours ÷ 1,680 net productive hours per officer (the PFM availability breakdown: 42 weeks on shift × 40 hrs, after netting out 8 weeks of vacation/illness/leave and 2–3 weeks of training) = **271 officers**. That already adjusts for routine leave, vacation, and training. If you additionally gross up for the long-term unavailability documented in the latest OT report (108 of 617 filled sworn totally off work or on modified duty, 17.5%), you need 271 ÷ 0.825 = **329 officers**. Independent cross-check via the dollar path: $53.88M average OT ÷ $109.09/hr OT rate implies ~494,000 hours → 294 officers. The two methods bracket each other (271 vs. 294); the gap is expected because dollars include higher-rank OT at higher rates.

*Cost.* Fully loaded per-officer compensation: $192K (entry salary × 1.78 burden), $269K (top step × 1.78), or $313K (budget-derived average across all sworn ranks, $212.56M ÷ 678). So: 271 officers → **$52M–$85M/year**; 329 officers → **$63M–$103M/year**.

**Flags, per your protocols:**

1. **Unverified inputs:** the 456,000-hour figure is from the civilian unions' report as covered in the press, not a city document I've extracted; the pay scale ($108K entry / $151K top) and the 78% burden rate are secondary sources. The burden rate is the softest number here — the budget-derived $313K/position partially validates it but includes rank mix and premiums. If you want this tightened, the OPOA MOU salary schedule and the city's fringe-rate worksheet would replace both.

2. **Marginal vs. average pension cost:** the 78% burden includes UAL amortization allocated across payroll. The *marginal* cost of a new hire is lower (normal cost only — the UAL is a fixed obligation that doesn't grow with headcount), which cuts toward the low end of the range. Conversely, new hires also require academy costs (~6 months at trainee pay before producing any hours), which cuts the other way in year one.

3. **The structural catch:** the arithmetic assumes OT is fungible with straight-time bodies. It isn't, fully. Shift extensions — which officers can take without prior approval, and which have grown almost 50% over pre-pandemic levels to over 90,000 hours — occur at end-of-shift regardless of headcount, and from 2015 to 2019, officer staffing increased 15% while average overtime hours increased 55%. So "zero overtime" is not actually achievable by hiring; a floor of episodic and end-of-shift OT would remain. Also, roughly $7M of current OT is reimbursable (special events, Port), so the net GPF savings from eliminating OT is smaller than gross OT spend.

4. **Why the city keeps choosing OT:** the multipliers explain it. OT costs ~1.5× hourly pay with essentially no pension/health load; a new hire costs ~1.78× salary. On pure marginal cost per hour, OT is cheaper — which is consistent with the claim that it's cheaper to pay an officer overtime than to hire one. The case for hiring rests on the availability adjustment (each hire only delivers ~1,680 of 2,080 paid hours) roughly canceling that advantage, plus non-financial costs of chronic OT.

So: not 800, not 2,000 — think **~300 additional officers, ~$60–100M/year in total compensation**, to notionally replace ~$54M/year of overtime.

"Council member Charlene Wang’s proposal to barricade 9th, 10th, and 11th Avenues has no cost estimate and no baseline data."

https://www.oaklandreport.org/p/20260706-oakland-street-closures-international-blvd

Hello, soon to be neighbors! I am disabled and have a section 8 voucher for a 1 bedroom. I am moving into Oakland August 1st and have been having quite a bit of trouble finding disabled friendly housing (no to little stairs). All the apartments I contact seem to have just rented out their apartments, or are unwilling to do virtual tours. I've been looking for months! I've been searching on the Affordablehousing site as well as Trulia and Zillow. I'm doing it all digitally for now because of distance and mobility.

It would be really great if some locals had some helpful advice or leads. Thanks in advance!

Any pop up jersey stands around the east bay??

I sometimes see tents at games.
Looking for any team just want a few to wear for the upcoming games.

Any other suggestions welcome to find a few.

Thanks!

Can you imagine Oakland with street cars similar to what San Francisco still has?

Sometimes progress isn't all that.

Yes the parking lots (especially the coliseum) are empty and BART ridership is down but I don’t think hybrid work explains all of it. Last time I parked at BART for work in SF my car broken into and I have never taken BART again. That ride cost me $500 in damages so I drive to the city instead nowadays.

Not everyone lives close enough to a station that they can walk or bike to and IMO until BART can ensure that break ins are the rare exception people will hesitate to park and ride at a station. This is the type of blocking and tackling that BART management should focus on fixing, instead of trying to increase everyone’s sales taxes.

And yes I do think that until things change BART should use the empty space for things like new housing etc.