Local journalism, in this economy? This week the Oakland Observer's reporting on proposed Flock expansion and the EAP netted numerous new subscribers.

I am incredibly grateful for everyone's support and could not do this work without you

About to start a special 9 am city council mtg, ostensibly scheduled to not interfere with election day. But perhaps as also intended, there are no people in chamber as important legislation that changes Rules of Procedure, grants 1 MM/yr contract to ICE-contracting company is up

Five days after publishing powerpoints and press releases about its 2025 poll, I still can't find Chamber of Commerce's data, i.e., number of respondents by gender, race/ethnicity, zip code, income, education, district, etc. I can't think of one decent reason to uphold this info

At Council This Week, 11/4/2025 It's a 9 am meeting, with rationale that it's an election day and normal 3:30pm start time would conflict with voting. An 11am special meeting to introduce the "Encampment Abatement" proposal was cancelled last Thursday, rescheduled for an early December date. But ironically, a very important change to the

While it doesn't reach level of scheduling hijinks I covered in today's other article, look out for $1MM Martin Marietta asphalt contract. MM refuses to abide by City's sanctuary/border wall ords, but City says it has no choice but to grant them a waiver

News Analysis: Public Participation–And Avoiding It–Becomes Major Theme at Oakland City Council In October, public participation in legislative processes, and the lack of it, became an over-riding theme at the Oakland City Council's scheduling meetings. Three issues of significant importance to the public—a major institutionalization and expansion of Oakland's Flock surveillance, big changes to Oakland's homelessness policies, and a significant overhaul

Oakland Observer News Analysis: In the past months, it's been difficult to ignore efforts by CMs that curtail public participation in important Oakland legislation. OO drills down on a Council practice which may only get worse with new Rules of Procedure

Week in Review [while Trump invaded Oakland, a lot of other stuff happened] In this week’s review Council Decision Leaves Oakland Police Commission with Bare Quorum, Body Unable to Meet on Thursday EAP Would Have Come to Council in Special Meeting Monday, With One Week-day Notice, But Brown, Ramachandran Intervene Oakland Arms Embargo Demands Port Commission Ban Weapons Cargo Transits at Oakland

A lot happened while Trump was trying to invade Oakland, Council made an unprecedented move that by any measure has undermined the citizen led Police Commission; then for good measure an attempt to sneak EAP into a last minute meeting with a day's notice.

A lot happened while Trump was trying to invade Oakland, Council made an unprecedented move that by any measure has undermined the citizen led Police Commission; then for good measure an attempt to sneak EAP into a last minute meeting with a day's notice. oakland.legistar.com...

At Council This Week, 10/21/2025 Non-Consent Calendar There’s only one item on the Non-Consent this week, and it's the already delayed reappointments of Police Commission Chair Ricardo Garcia-Acosta and alternate Commissioner Omar Farmer. You can read more about it here. After weeks of delay and demand by CM Jenkins that the appointments be substantively

The Oakland Observer Council meeting preview for Tuesday

Thanks to CM Houston, one of only a handful of Black male appointees to Police Commission since its start almost 10 years ago will face more fabricated allegations at a full council meeting after weeks of delays and baseless complaints from a marginal, mostly white, group

Reporter's Notebook: Committees Review, 10/14/2025; 10/16/2025 Reporter's Notebook Rules Committee, the committee that schedules all legislation to the Council's agendas, can be a pretty boring meeting. But this past Thursday's Rules Committee, October 16, was far more exciting [relatively] than usual from a news gathering standpoint. Two arcs that Oakland Observer has been diligently following reached

In a reality where OPD can become a part of Trump admin over night, detailed reporting on city politics is essential. You won't find these first drafts of history in any other Bay pub, so please consider supporting w/either 1x contribution or subscription

Reporter's Notebook: Committees Review, 10/14/2025; 10/16/2025 Reporter's Notebook Rules Committee, the committee that schedules all legislation to the Council's agendas, can be a pretty boring meeting. But this past Thursday's Rules Committee, October 16, was far more exciting [relatively] than usual from a news gathering standpoint. Two arcs that Oakland Observer has been diligently following reached

OO's Reporter's Notebook recounts an eventful Rules meeting Thursday, where Council's questionable handling of OPC's appointment process continued into murky waters, and Houston's Encampment "Abatement" returned unexpectedly, among many other things

Making the original Encampment Abatement reporting thread public as its coming up again. Several videos here from life-long Oakland residents now homeless, and its worth taking a look at.

Oakland has almost half the homicides it had in 2023, a decline that began in mid-2024 and has steadily continued today. There is no way to undercount the murders by a substantive amount.

How long will Oakland be stuck with a security company linked to key figure in federal corruption case? It may take three months or longer for a new contract to be prepared, officials estimated.

OO was only publication to note this to date---given new process, its conceivable ABC Security will finish its time w/Oakland after 2 years of non-contracted work. It's mostly bungling at this point; but Gallo specifically asked ABC be awarded contract

Raising barrier to move a consent item to non-consent by a CM means that it will be harder for CMs to move a non consent item to consent to give public a chance to weigh in.

Removing the req that committee split votes send the item to non consent means that with current leadership at Rules and Council, controversial items will lack debate, opportunity for community to contest

Removing the 5pm barrier for non consent, running non consent first, means that most working people will have limited opportunity of interacting with legislation at Council meetings. 5 is already too early, but at least public has a shot of making it

It's hard to read the substantive changes in Jenkins/Ramachandran proposed Council Rules of Procedure as anything but a way of diminishing public participation in the council process. They'll be discussing them today at Rules

It's also worrisome to see her and other CMs again attack Oakland's volunteer led commissions on issues they know are fallacious rhetoric from those that support breaking the budget for useless public safety theater and disinformation.

Wang is Chair of Public Safety, with the entire legislative database and department directors she can query about anything. But she's made a habit out of referring to half-remembered news articles that themselves are often flawed, instead of using the source at her workplace

During this time, OPD/Armstrong was never blamed for flubbing ALPR. Local corporate media simply moved on from the issue of ALPR, after helping police-focused CMs and OPD argue PAC was standing in the way of the difference between life and death for crime-fighting

Oakland Observer Week Ending 7/9/2023: OPD's License Plate Readers Went Down During Ransomware Attack, Then Stayed Down Due to OPD Decision to Keep Them Offline; Last Committees Before Summer Recess: Update 7/27/2023 OPD License Plate Reader System Has Been Inactive Since February Oakland Police representatives revealed that the OPD's license plate reader system has been offline since February’s ransomware attack at a Privacy Advisory Commission [PAC] meeting Thursday. The February ransomware attack was responsible for shutting down the department's Automated License

In the last ALPR fight, OPD enthusiastically signed on to poorly conceived patchwork fix for vehicle mounted ALPR. It failed during ransomware---OPD turned off vehicle-mounted ALPR and left it off. For more than a year, OPD had no ALPR, OPD's choice

Why didn't OPD ask for Flock? Because they were involved in a years-long ALPR battle premised on the idea that their decrepit vehicle-mounted ALPR was wonderful, & their use policy superb, instead of admitting both were useless and asking to move to another system completely.

When Flock finally came to Oakland, it sailed through PAC because the OPD worked with PAC to create on paper good use/retention policy [which we now know OPD haven't followed]. The reason it took OPD so long to turn to Flock has nothing to do w/PAC: OPD they didn't ask for Flock

Oakland HOAs are quietly installing surveillance cameras to watch public roads To fight crime, private neighborhoods are using license plate readers to track cars on city streets. One is already sharing data with police.

I suspect Wang was struggling unsuccessfully to recall an Oaklandside story in which a HOA that already had FLOCK wanted OPD to have it too, to upload specific plate captures to OPD easily. But OPD didn't have Flock yet, so couldn't upload it directly.

This is CM Wang claiming at a private Chamber of Commerce event that Privacy Advisory Commission prevented a community from buying Flock w/their own funds, using the story to demonize Commissioners. It's false. Only tech owned/run and/or purchased by City needs PAC approval

Despite Flock's participation with Trump's immigration machine and a negative recommendation from the Privacy Advisory Commission, OPD is bringing a plan for panopticon level surveillance in Oakland run by a problematic company that is rep'd by a former AIPAC lobbyist.

After a significant public backlash that included every major arts organization, including the Oakland Symphony, Ramachandran's ill considered and perhaps personal deletion of the cultural affairs director will be reversed via budget amendment

Push back from small pro-police group pressured Selection Panel to re-do OPC Selection process after already choosing Farmer & Garcia Acosta. They said another applicant had been excluded. That candidate dropped out on day of 2nd vote. Another got 0 votes oakland.granicus.com...

So much to be concerned about Jones Dickson's loyalty to the people who put her in office. oaklandside.org/2025...