SF News An Oakland BART Station Might Be Renamed, If Someone Pays $750k A recent BART Board of Directors meeting saw the unanimous approval of a motion to rechristen the station as the Oakland Chinatown Station, provided a third-party fronts the capital required to do so.
SF Politics Is This Why the FBI Raided Sheng Thao’s Home? Filings Allege High-Rollers Traded Campaign Donations for City Contracts A new set of filings allege that a recycling company and a security firm funneled nearly $300,000 to a Sheng Thao political operative in exchange for lucrative city contracts, and now that political operative may have flipped and could be cooperating with the feds.
SF Politics Oakland City Council Weighing Drastic Cuts as $130 Million Deficit Looms Layoffs, pay cuts, and reductions to the police and fire departments are all on the table in Oakland, as the City Council looks for ways to slash the city's budget as they confront a deficit of nearly $130 million.
SF News Sideshow In Oakland Ends With BMW In Flames A roving sideshow early Sunday morning that moved from North Oakland closer to downtown, drawing hundreds of spectators, ended with one car fully engulfed in flames.
SF Politics FBI Probe That Brought Raid of Sheng Thao’s Home Has Witnesses Giving Closed-Door Testimony The FBI appears to be making progress in whatever investigation resulted in the June raid of Oakland Mayor Sheng Thao’s home, as witnesses are being subpoenaed, but we still don’t know why the raid happened or who the FBI’s suspects are.
SF Politics President of Oakland City Council, Nikki Fortunato Bas, Declares Victory In County Race, Complicating Mayoral Transition Who will be interim mayor of Oakland? That's a more open question now as City Council President Nikki Fortunato Bas announced victory in her bid to become an Alameda County supervisor.
SF Restaurants, Food & Drink Acclaimed Oakland Restaurant Daytrip Is Calling It Quits, Owners Say Costs Are Too High In another disappointing end-of-year closure announcement in the local restaurant world, a restaurant that won national accolades is shutting its doors in Oakland after three years in business.
SF News Giant Oakland Apartment Fire Displaces 13, Thick Smoke Was Visible for Miles A Fruitvale District fire early Sunday afternoon destroyed one residential building and damaged another, displacing 13 residents in the two-alarm fire whose smoke was visible from nearly five miles away.
SF News Man Who Claims Pamela Price Tried To Extort $25,000 Out of Him Produces Small Shreds of Evidence An Oakland businessman with a checkered past and connections to the Sheng Thao raid claimed this month that Alameda County DA Pamela Price tried to shake him down for $25,000. His attorney just produced some documents that kind of, sort of support his claim.
SF News Here Is the Affordable Housing Project Slated to Rise on the Site of Oakland’s Ghost Ship Fire Nearly eight years after the Ghost Ship fire killed 36 people, we have our first look at the plans for the two-building, five-story affordable housing complex being built to replace it in Oakland’s Fruitvale neighborhood, and it will have an on-site memorial.
SF Politics Recall Sheng Thao Rally Devolves Into Chaos When Passerby Gets Called Out by Name, Tries to Grab Microphone There may not have been many people attending a Recall Sheng Thao rally on Tuesday in Oakland, but it’s making headlines anyway, as a businessman walking past was yelled at from onstage, confronted the speaker, and mayhem ensued.
SF News Biden Announces $322 Million Package for Port of Oakland to Bolster Zero-Emissions Infrastructure The Biden Administration just announced a $3 billion package to make US ports more climate-friendly, and $322 million of that is going to the Port of Oakland to buy clean-energy, electric- and hydrogen-powered cargo handling systems.
SF News Oakland Woman Attacked by Violent Group in Downtown Oakland, Says Bystanders Refused to Help A woman who was the victim of an unprovoked attack five blocks from Lake Merritt in the wee hours Saturday morning says the attackers did not even take anything from her, though left her concussed and brutalized, and she adds that multiple bystanders simply ignored the incident.
SF Politics Sheng Thao Touts Drop In Oakland Crime and $2 Million Crime-Fighting Grant, as Recall Election Looms Oakland Mayor Sheng Thao is trumpeting a 33% drop in crime and a new $2 million federal grant to the city's crime-fighting ceasefire strategy, but a couple major Bay Area newspapers just endorsed recalling her.
SF News [Updated] Four-Alarm Wildfire In Oakland Hills Damages Two Homes A vegetation fire in Oakland quickly grew to 13 acres Friday afternoon, amid a Bay Area-wide Red Flag warning, and has damaged multiple homes in the Caballo Hills neighborhood and prompted 500 residents to evacuate.
SF Politics Sheng Thao Insists She Was Not a Target of FBI Raid in Fiery Chronicle Interview Oakland Mayor Sheng Thao gave an interview to the Chronicle, claiming the FBI has informed her she was not a target in the raid on her home, and insisting that the recall effort against her is 80% funded by one donor who does not even live in Oakland.
SF Politics Minor Figure in Sheng Thao FBI Raid Claims DA Pamela Price Tried to Shake Him Down for $25,000 Bribe Two of the East Bay’s strangest political stories just collided head-on, as a very colorful character from the FBI probe that led to the Sheng Thao raid now says that Alameda County DA Pamela Price tried to shake him down for $25,000. But oh, this fellow has credibility issues.
SF News Oakland City Council to Decide Whether to Renew Controversial ShotSpotter Gunfire Detection System Several US cities have recently ditched the police surveillance tool ShotSpotter that’s used to detect gunfire, and Oakland could become the latest, as critics say it bogs police down with false-positive notifications.
SF News Dramatic Video Shows Oakland Police Rescue Drowning Man From Lake Merritt Channel Bodycam video from the Oakland Police Department shows a high-stakes drowning situation in the Lake Merritt Channel, but officers were able to rescue a man by jumping into the water themselves to pull him ashore.
SF News Oakland Mother and Five-Year-Old Son Have Been Missing For Nine Days, Police Asking Public’s Help 29-year-old Mikala King, and her five-year-old son King Scott, were last seen in Oakland on September 24. Both have disappeared since, and the Oakland Police Department is asking for the public’s help in locating them.
SF News Man Shot and Killed at McClymonds High School Reunion in West Oakland Park A 38-year-old man was shot and killed at a McClymonds High School alumni gathering early Saturday evening at West Oakland’s De Fremery Park, and the victim was just two days away from his 39th birthday.
SF Politics Sheng Thao Issues Executive Order to Ramp Up Oakland Encampment Sweeps Facing a recall election and a slew of scandals, Oakland Mayor Sheng Thao is seizing on a recent Supreme Court decision to proclaim that the city will get a lot more aggressive in clearing homeless encampments.
SF News Kidnapped at Age 6 in 1951, Man Finally Reunited With Oakland Family 73 Years Later It's a stunning happy ending to a 73-year-old cold case, as a man who was kidnapped in Oakland when he was six years old was finally reunited with his family once he was 79 years old.
SF Politics Sheng Thao Will Skip Tie-Breaking Vote on City Contract to Business Associate of Possible FBI Probe Target Confronted with the very messy optics of steering millions of dollars to someone whose business partner may be a target of the very same FBI investigation that Oakland Mayor Sheng Thao may be a target of, Thao is choosing to merely duck the vote.
SF News Four People Shot In Oakland in Four-Hour Span Saturday Night, Three of Them Killed While the big sideshow that shut down the Bay Bridge at 3:30 am Sunday morning is all over the news, we’re also learning that there were four shootings with three fatalities in Oakland early Saturday night, plus reports that another TV camera crew was robbed.
