› Home ›

Bay Area

In ‘Deep East’ Oakland, youths pegged as criminals say police harassment spurs more violence

Crosscurrents on KALW Public Radio — Oct 7 2009 - 4:39pm

For many, the police are here to serve and protect. The men and women in blue are those we call when we’re in trouble. And no part of Oakland is more in need of policing than the streets between the East 70s avenues and the East 100s avenues — stretching from the base of the hills to the bottom of the flatlands — or what residents call the “Deep East.”

It is where over one-third of the city’s 124 homicides occurred last year. But many of the youths living on these dangerous streets don’t welcome the police as protectors — they consider them the enemy.

How BART lost $70 million in federal grants

Nathanael Johnson, KALW Public Radio — Feb 22 2010 - 3:40pm

When the federal government announced that BART would not be getting $70 million for extending its rail service to Oakland International Airport, it seemed puzzling. Wasn't this just the kind of project that the stimulus funds were meant to help? It turns out that the project was derailed by not following the Civil Rights Act. Project boosters and foes tell what happened in this report from KALW-FM.

East Bay children’s theater company makes debut in San Francisco

Ambika Kandasamy, SF Public Press — Feb 17 2010 - 5:59pm

In its second, and final weekend, the Active Arts children’s theater company is staging its first San Francisco production with “Ramona Quimby” at the Zeum Theater.

A possible path to bikes on the Bay Bridge

Gianmaria Franchini, SF Public Press — Jan 28 2010 - 1:03pm

While the Bay Area Toll Authority met on Wednesday morning to vote on Bay Area bridge toll increases, dozens of bicycle activists demonstrated support for the building of a bicycle and pedestrian pathway addition to the Bay Bridge’s western span. They are pressing bridge officials to pave the way for a cross-bay bike lane. But construction of the pathway, which could double as a maintenance and safety shoulder, remains hung up in a bureaucratic no-man’s land: it has garnered some public support, but it is not clear who has legislative power to funnel toll revenue to new projects.

Lawyer leads fight to save species on city-owned golf course

Angela Hart, SF Public Press — Jan 19 2010 - 2:33am

Environmental lawyer Brent Plater has single-handedly brought the fight to close the Sharp Park Golf Course to the attention of San Francisco city leaders, who are on the verge of making the city-owned course in Pacifica a high-profile example of local leadership to save endangered species on public lands.

A leader in several groups such as Wild Equity and the Sierra Club, Plater also is the mastermind behind the Big Year contest to discover more rare plants and animals on public land as a way of saving and expanding sensitive endangered species’ habitats.

Bay Area green firms band together to lobby Washington

Victoria Schlesinger, SF Public Press — Dec 28 2009 - 3:41pm

Green and socially responsible business are flexing their collective lobbying muscles to have their concerns heard in Washington, with firms from the Bay Area leading the way.

Unparalleled bridge, unprecedented cost

Patricia Decker and Robert Porterfield, McSweeney's San Francisco Panorama/SF Public Press — Dec 8 2009 - 1:50pm

When completed, the new east span of the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge will be not only the most complex engineering feat in California history, but also the most expensive, with a cost never subjected to public scrutiny. Although today’s price tag stands at $6.3 billion, the figure accounts for only salaries and hard materials—things like concrete and steel and cranes. When all is said and done, the new Bay Bridge will wind up costing tax- and toll-payers more than $12 billion—a figure that leaves even the officials in charge “staggered.”

Building the bay’s signature span

Patricia Decker, McSweeney's San Francisco Panorama/SF Public Press — Dec 8 2009 - 1:48pm

When all the pieces are finally welded together and tethered by the main suspension cable, the Bay Bridge east span will be not just a new American icon, but also a truly global monument. From the enormous solid steel castings of cable saddles, brackets and bands being forged in Japan and England to the gigantic bearings and hinges being manufactured in South Korea and Pennsylvania, fabrication of the bridge is under way in seven foreign countries and in more than two dozen American cities, including 12 in California.

The fine print: Interest doubles total price tag

Robert Porterfield, McSweeney's San Francisco Panorama/SF Public Press — Dec 8 2009 - 1:47pm

Overall cost estimates have been presented to the public in annual reports and press briefings, but the cost of interest on money borrowed to pay for construction has not been included.

A timeline of the old and new Bay Bridge east span

Mike Adamick, McSweeney's San Francisco Panorama/SF Public Press — Dec 8 2009 - 1:46pm
Syndicate content