Eager readers of the blogoaksphere certainly noticed many bloggers’ cause du jour – preventing the city from installing a surface parking lot in the middle of downtown’s up-and-coming Uptown neighborhood. The issue touched on a lot of the causes dear to bloggers’ hearts: pedestrian and transit-oriented planning, civic engagement, and enjoying nightlife. While advocates were clearly outlobbied at the City Council yesterday, and I find the Community and Economic Development Committee’s pro-parking decision as frustrating as everyone else, I see how the city came to this decision. It’s not just that the CED Committeemembers decided, for whatever reason, that they love parking and don’t understand its pedestrian impact, but also contributing to this result are the structural flaws that beset Oakland’s government in general. It’s the poor performance of the Redevelopment Agency, the deeply flawed labor contract, and the city’s lack of transportation planning that lead the city to push for parking lots instead of better solutions.

An ineffectual agency

It was the Redevelopment Agency that made the decision to ask the Council and Forest City for a surface parking lot. I have been told that the decision was reached after much internal debate, since Redevelopment had the option to ask Forest City for pretty much anything as a condition of extending their lease on the 19th and Telegraph parcel. Parking won out because the Agency has planned to build a parking structure on 18th and San Pablo for almost ten years, but can’t get it together to move forward. In fact, last year they ignored an unsolicited offer to build a structure with a bowling alley on top, and have no timeline for issuing an RFP. Yet Redevelopment told the Council that temporary parking is needed because it will take some time to build new parking, which is entirely the Agency’s fault, as the planed parking structure could have been built at any time in the last decade. In effect, pedestrians are being punished for Redevelopment’s inefficiency. And long-promised Uptown sidewalk improvements are still going nowhere, adding insult to pedestrian injury.

Labor issues

The city employees’ contract, which expired last summer but is still basically in effect, imposes stringent work rules that limit the City Council’s ability to pursue programs or efficiently manage the workforce. Several of the rules governing employees limit the options available to Councilmembers concerned about adequate parking in Uptown. Pedestrian advocates and local businesses suggested that, to increase the supply of street-side car storage, parking meter hours be extended until 2am, and street sweeping hours be pushed back until 2 or 3am. The City Council ignored those cost-effective ideas, because city work rules prevent meter maids from working after 6pm and street-sweeping crews from working past 3am. Since the city workers’ contract prevents the Council from adjusting parking enforcement to meet the needs of a late-night district, adding additional parking becomes an easier prospect than increasing the use of existing parking. It’s not just the enormous expense of the city workers’ contract that’s holding Oakland back, but its work rules as well.

Lack of transportation planning

Oakland’s transportation connections are the engine of its economy and the linchpin of residential demand. However, overlapping jurisdictions severely complicate the picture: AC Transit and BART provide most public transportation (though not all: Emeryville’s Emery-Go-Round, Contra Costa County’s WestCat, and the Water Emergency Transit Authority’s ferries also serve Oakland), CalTrans controls the freeways and some major roads, the Public Utilities Commission oversees railroads, and the Alameda County Congestion Management Agency and Transportation Improvement Authority direct most local transportation funds. When the City of Oakland is provided representation on these commissions, it is spread among the elected officials: Rebecca Kaplan is Oakland’s ACTIA rep, Larry Reid is Oakland’s CMA rep, and Jane Brunner sits on the joint ABAG/MTC policy-making board. The officials are free to pursue whatever policies they think are best on each commission without talking to one another, and the citizens of Oakland have no opportunity to influence transportation planning at public hearings.

Making matters worse, Oakland’s bureaucratic and official structure does not unify transportation decision-making. The Redevelopment Agency (the only part of Oakland city government with any money) is responsible for many if not most transportation improvements, and they do not necessarily work with CEDA’s bike/ped program or the planning department. Building Services also has jurisdiction over many transportation issues, especially as related to large-scale development projects. When Pat Kernighan asked the head of Redevelopment at the parking lot hearing if he was working with BART on signage and wayfinding, he said no. However, the bike/ped program is in fact working with BART on signage, but probably don’t realize that there are redevelopment goals that the signage can further. Transportation policy decisions are made by several different Council committees: most parking issues are handled by Finance and Management, planning for parking or transit-oriented development goes to Economic Development, most street improvements are heard by the Public Works Committee, and taxi regulation is governed by the Public Safety Committee. With most policy decisions made at the Committee level, Oakland’s City Council is structurally unable to coordinate transportation policy.

How does this lead to a bad parking lot? Besides the fact that a parking lot is obviously bad planning, if the Council committeemembers were up to speed on its transportation planning they may not have approved it. There is a transportation plan for Uptown, and it involves moving major vehicle traffic off of Telegraph and to Broadway at 20th St, a goal that clearly conflicts with a parking lot on 19th St. Sidewalk and bicycle improvements and a plaza are planned for lower Telegraph, AC Transit has already built their transit center on 20th and moved bus stops off of lower Telegraph, and Oakland’s taxi regulator is exploring adding a taxi stand to Uptown. Had the CED Committee been able to evaluate the parking lot in the context of these plans, they may have realized that it just doesn’t work. But not only is the Council unaware of existing transportation plans, it appears that city staff is as well. In such an environment, it is impossible to implement a transportation plan. It’s because of these factors, which also impact other aspects of Oakland’s poor governance, that Uptown pedestrians may be stuck with a parking lot.

Three years ago today, V Smoothe and I started this blog, FutureOakland (then on blogspot). We were disappointed by media coverage of the mayor’s race, and felt the minority of Oaklanders opposed to growth and revitalizing the city were completely dominating the public discussion of Oakland’s future. Under the reactionary handle of OaklandNative, I hoped to help move public discussion in favor of a more informed and more hopeful vision for this beautiful city’s success. Three years later, that goal has been largely realized.

It was not long ago that any discussion of redeveloping downtown was clouded by the angst of those wishing to preserve the failed past. Now, Oakland and East Bay residents take justifiable pride in the rebirth of Uptown as an entertainment destination, and countless neighborhoods have rediscovered their identities and are demanding their rightful share of city attention. Three years ago city government was regarded as problematic because of the influence of “greedy” developers; now the public is aware of the timidity of our elected officials and the enormous self-imposed barriers to economic success. Wednesday night’s meeting of the Planning Commission on the downtown zoning update feature a much younger and more hopeful crowd than perhaps the commission has seen in its history. While I may not agree with everyone who was there, I agree that they should offer their practical and optimistic vision to public officials. I am sure that this blog helped drive the ever-higher public meeting attendance that Oakland has experienced for the last year or so.

I don’t necessarily mean to take credit for the dozens of committed activists who have shaken up a complacent City Hall in the last few years, or for the New Media explosion allowing Oaklanders to understand the context and impact of city policy and cultural change for the first time in perhaps decades. Maybe I was just a little ahead of the curve. Of the three major Oakland blogs that predate mine, one is still kicking. But, as I am often reminded by longtime politicos, Oakland’s public discussion is light-years ahead of where it was when Ron Dellums was elected Mayor on a platform of nonsense.

Real change, whether you call it shaping the future of Oakland or creating a better Oakland, does not come from reporting alone. Since starting this blog I have become not only more informed, but more engaged. I have joined several civic organizations, taken leadership roles, and found my political niche. I have learned that, while full-throated advocacy (always nuanced and well-founded, to be sure) may make for exciting blogging, making a positive impact in the community means working with others. We Oaklanders are a clever and mostly well-meaning lot; civic engagement has been rewarding and thought-provoking.

So while I am thrilled that so many bloggers are lighting up cyberspace with a wealth of thought and information about every facet of life in this complicated city, and of course everyone should totally follow my Twitter, I ask the reader to do more than just read these brilliant blogs, but to take a more active role in the future of our great city. Volunteering, attending public meetings, starting a neighborhood organization, cleaning a local park on Earth Day, and emailing city councilmembers are the tools with which we make a stronger, healthier Oakland. Individually, we each only have so much time and so many issues that excite our attention, but together, we contribute to creating a thriving community.

As Becks and I have written, we and other pedestrian advocates are opposed to the construction of a surface parking lot on Telegraph Avenue at 19th St, next to the Fox Theater. The one hundred or so spaces created by this ugly lot could be found by better using existing parking resources, including the several nearby parking structures, or by extending parking meter times. The issue is not parking in the abstract, but urban design and transportation planning. At the City Council committee hearing at which the members postponed approving the lot, Pat Kernighan observed that “Oakland is not Manhattan,” and that parking is needed for Oaklanders to come from all over the city to enjoy Uptown. I do not disagree, but because 90% of trips are not going to car-free, does that mean 90% of trips must be by car? Parking is more complicated than being for it or against it. Though surface parking next to the Fox is not acceptable not matter how dolled up in flowers, planning for parking can be a boon for bicyclists and pedestrians. 

The main argument against surface parking is that it is a pedestrian hazard, and its prominence may have some driving-inducing effects. Surface parking is a pedestrian hazard in three main ways: curb-cuts allow cars to cross the sidewalk, surface parking lots are often magnets for crime, and traffic swarming around the lot will make crossing the street more dangerous. Additionally, surface lots symbolize disinvestment, and a lot on Telegraph would entirely ruin the pedestrian experience of up-and-coming Uptown. All of these objections do not apply as well, or at all, to structured parking. Portland OR has a great deal of structured parking in its transit-oriented downtown, but it is appropriately located and designed. I would not necessarily oppose structured parking in the Uptown area, as it is more efficient use of valuable downtown land than surface parking, and can integrate retail or other uses.

Not planning, but parking

The Redevelopment Agency apparently agrees, though their appetite for structured parking is insatiable. In addition to the lot under contract with Forest City for which they want surface parking, the RDA controls three lots downtown, for all of which it is in preliminary talks to dispose and develop. The three lots are 21st and Telegraph, 20th and San Pablo, and 21st and Broadway. For all three the RDA envisions structured public parking as a major component of development. This has been arrived at by no analysis or even guesstimate of parking demand; the RDA justifies their call for surface parking on Telegraph by asserting that because there were hundreds of parking spaces where The Uptown Apartments now sit, and those spaces have been replaced by new development (including parking), therefore there is a “severe parking shortage” now. That is not planning, and certainly not becoming to an allegedly transit-first city. Before requiring all future development of Uptown Redevelopment lots to include public parking, Uptown’s demand for parking should be studied in the context of overall transportation patterns and existing parking resources. It is possible that parking demand may require an additional parking structure, and, as part of an informed look at Uptown circulation, this could be a benefit to pedestrians as well.

What induces parking demand is not parking itself, but artificially cheap parking. Imposing minimum parking requirements, subsidizing parking facilities, setting meter or public lot rates lower than market rates, and planning for an overly large number of parking spaces, are all government actions that weight transportation choices in favor of driving a car. But an appropriate amount of parking, at market rates and in response to market demand, does not necessarily encourage people to drive rather than take transit or other means, but allows commercial districts to meet actual parking demand and be more economically successful. The economic success of transit-oriented neighborhoods in an inherently green endeavor, even if most customers are not taking transit. Without artificially-cheap or overly-abundant parking, well-conceived alternative transportation can compete with driving, and punitive anti-car regulations are unnecessary.

Putting the car before the house

Just as lot parking is worse than structured parking from a pedestrian perspective, and the main problem with building Uptown structured parking lots is that it is not part of a transportation plan, the idea that parking is inherently problematic can lead to a misunderstanding of the relative harm of different kinds of parking. In January, there was a brief tussle in San Francisco over a 36-unit development receiving permission to exceed San Francisco’s maximum parking requirements. In this case, the developer wasn’t arguing only that there is demand for more than one space for every other unit, but also that building so little parking would make it infeasible to put it underground, and so preclude pedestrian-oriented streetfront retail. It was a tussle because progressive San Franciscans were aghast at the prospect of parking. But what SF’s bike-ped activists miss is that advocating for a 21st-century streetscape does not mean blindly opposing the construction of new parking.

While I do not drive, I don’t think that owning a car forces someone to live a lifestyle that is bad for the environment. One can take transit to work, walk to restaurants, bike the grocery store, and still have a car for the occasional trip out of town or to Ikea. In the case of the aforementioned housing development, its residents were effectively being asked to give up their cars in order to live near transit, a position that will not smooth the transition of cities to transit-dependence. And since it’s unrealistic to demand that residents of any particular new building not even own a car, using the planning process to artificially lower the construction of off-street parking will simply encourage dependency on curbside parking. It is not private parking, but curbside parking that poses the greatest opportunity and real costs on bicyclists and pedestrians, and on car drivers and mass transit as well.

A car-park off the street is worth two in the street

In-street parking is the most harmful kind of parking because its presence in the street necessarily takes away from other transportation options. While lot parking, and structured parking to a lesser degree, may be an inefficient use of land parcels, street parking uses the precious, and severely limited, public right-of-way. The linear (street width) space devoted to car parking on a major street necessarily takes away from sidewalk, bike lanes, or lanes for motorized traffic (including cars, taxis, buses, and light-rail). Street parking’s impact on bike lanes is increased by almost one-half by the “door zone,” the area of the public street occasionally occupied by open car doors, which pose a particular danger to cyclists. A well-built bike lane does not use this space and so has to push even further into the shared right-of-way.

Curbside car parking also imposes a congestion impact beyond the opportunity cost of using its space for moving traffic. The act of parallel parking slows circulation, and the potential convenience of curbside parking over off-street parking encourages unnecessary car driving, circling the block looking for a space. While parking structures, whether stand-alone or as part of mixed-use buildings, plan the locations of their entrances and exits based at least in part on optimal circulation, street parking is haphazardly littered across major streets, with parking absent only when it is a huge and obvious barrier to other forms of transportation. Even in areas with abundant off-street parking and severe traffic congestion (like College or Piedmont Avenues), the majority of the main street is lined with car parking.

Street parking’s impact on other forms of transportation that share the right-of-way is worse than the possible driving-inducing effects of structured parking. If some amount of parking is needed for commercial districts to thrive, careful planning should guide decisions to install transportation facilities. The Redevelopment Agency must study how much parking is actually needed in Uptown before deciding that every single one of its lots should have a large parking component, and a surface lot is simply too ugly to front Telegraph Avenue. But some new public parking is probably needed in Uptown, and it’s no environmental crime to own a car. If off-street structured parking is built, rather than adding to existing street parking, new parking can replace it.  Removing curbside parking as part of building off-street parking can create additional bicycle and pedestrian facilities: widened sidewalks and door zone-free bike lanes. And that’s how car parking can be good for pedestrians and bicyclists.

Today, the attention of the blogoaksphere has turned to the open seat on the AC Transit Board. The largest bus-only transit agency in the United States will appoint a member to replace Oakland City Councilmember Rebecca Kaplan, and transit activists as well as other concerned leaders are weighing in. I am proud to report that East Bay transit advocates have conducted an endorsement process, and chosen Elizabeth Echols (PDF) as the best candidate to replace Ms. Kaplan.

Last year I asked a respected community leader to apply for this seat. After seriously considering it, he declined due to other commitments to important causes. Since I did not know any of the candidates personally or from their work as transit advocates, I felt it was important for transit activists to have a role in the process of choosing our new transit director. In January I invited several leaders of different transit advocacy groups to meet and discuss the open AC Transit seat. We decided that, instead of putting forth one of our own as a candidate, we would offer our joint endorsement.

We put together a detailed questionnaire and sent it to the candidates that we had heard about (including three of the four finalists). The questionnaire was created with input from leaders of every East Bay transit advocacy group: Walk Oakland Bike Oakland, Friends of BRT, the No on KK Committee, Alameda Transit Advocates, the City of Oakland Bicycle and Pedestrian Advisory Committee, Bicycle-Friendly Berkeley, Livable Berkeley, the East Bay Bicycle Coalition, and TransForm. (I am on the Oakland BPAC and was on the No on KK campaign committee.)

We scheduled interviews with the respondents and talked to them about their qualifications, their vision and priorities for the agency, and followed-up on some of their answers to our questions. I attended all but one interview, and found them incredibly informative. The candidates explained different facets of the challenges facing AC Transit: one explained exactly how the Metropolitan Transportation Commission’s totally ass-backwards financing priorities screw AC Transit (apparently they think bus stops are just as useful to the regional transportation infrastructure as new desks for administrators), another had a very in-depth understanding of the position of the drivers and mechanics (they are concerned about working conditions, and understand the agency’s financial pressures), and another related his experiences as a rider advocate and how the agency works with community groups (rather well, in his opinion, as long they know about a project).

Walking to our endorsement meeting in transit-proximate Old Oakland, I didn’t know who would be our consensus choice. There are many strong candidates. But one offered the combination of experience, new ideas, and appropriate priorities that appealed to everyone at the table: Alameda County Democratic Central Committeemember Elizabeth Echols. A former Google executive who served on the technology cluster of the Obama-Biden Transition Team, she has a fresh perspective on the agency, new ideas about improving service using technology and data, but also a solid grasp of the importance of service reliability to attracting and maintaining an expanded ridership base. Her energy and political connections will allow her to help the agency get approval for the best Bus Rapid Transit system in the next few months, and help her work with regional, state and federal officials to improve the agency’s long-term financial health. I am pleased to be one of many local transit advocates to endorse her candidacy, and I am confident she is able to help guide AC Transit through its troubling financial times without sacrificing the needs of both “choice riders” and the transit-dependent.

It is no secret that there are many qualified individuals applying for this seat. When the Board voted on its four finalists, a former Boardmember who had applied was not among them – that’s a clear signal that the agency is extremely pleased with the quality of those who want to join the Board. With the overwhelming electoral victories racked up by AC Transit last November (78% voted no on Berkeley’s anti-BRT measure KK, and 72% of the district’s voters backed a parcel tax to make up for last year’s state budget cuts), and the caliber of those vying to lead it through a recession, it is clear that AC Transit is on the right track. All transit advocates are pleased by these developments, and the phrase “embarrassment of riches” to describe the selection of a new Boardmember has been used by more than one observer. This is a far cry from six years ago, when Rebecca Kaplan was the only well-qualified applicant for this open seat. Though transit advocates will be satisfied with any of the four finalists to represent us on the East Bay’s largest and most important transportation agency, Elizabeth Echols is the best choice, and we hope that Board will agree.

For a list of all five blogs that today endorsed Ms. Echols, see A Better Oakland’s Elizabeth Echols for AC Transit

While blogging by nature is an art rooted firmly in the present, this blog is called FutureOakland because it covers current controversies that shape the future. Yet to avoid repeating the mistakes of the past, a knowledge of history is necessary. As 2008 draws to a close, the year that Oakland’s blogosphere broke through to the mainstream also saw bloggers put aside media criticism, and begin to use their unique platform to write and to build Oakland’s history.

Food security emerged as a major issue in 2008, thanks to local activists and political campaigns, and also because elite foodies finally found a sympathetic cause. Brahm’s Blog recording the travails of the People’s Grocery, the Inadvertent Gardener’s quest to get space in a community garden, and Urban Farmer raising animals and vegetables in the heart of Ghost Town, explore today’s local urban agricultural and food access issues. But as A Dish A Day lovingly documents, the present is played out against Oakland’s past: its legacy of historic fast-food joints.

Other subjects of public discussion explicitly seek legitimacy in history. Oakland’s identity is always a furiously debated topic, whether the subject is gentrification, “East” Oakland, or negative media portrayals. But since highways displaced and divided nearly every part of the city, Oaklanders have searched for and contested neighborhood names, from Lower Bottoms (vs. Prescott / Oakland Point) to Rockridge (vs. Temescal) to Jingletown (vs. Kennedy Tract or just Fruitvale). A skilled researcher goes to the source, and that’s exactly what City Homestead did in her excellent rendition and map of historic neighborhood names gleaned by reading a century’s worth of Trib articles, including real estate listings and society columns. She also pieced together a complete history of her own home in the Westlake district. Some highlights: Auto Row has been named so since 1913, the Planning Commission quit en masse in the 1920s, high-density housing was once restricted narrowly to the Lakefront, and proximity to rapid transit as well as having a chicken coop were a Realtor’s favorite amenities.

A good grasp of the past can inform debates about the future, but it’s also necessary to understand conditions of the present. Unfortunately, that’s often missing from debates over transportation. Even as the Planning Commission routinely rejects NIMBY arguments that a less car-oriented future is wishful thinking, their Zoning Update Committee expressed amazement when I told them that I don’t have a car and in fact most of my friends rarely use a personal car. Similarly, when MediaNews published a casually-written editorial in favor of a multi-billion-dollar public investment in electric-car charging stations, championed by all three Bay Area big-city mayors, they failed to note that electric cars do not exist. Bike/ped/transit advocates may squabble with each other over sidewalk bulbouts versus bike lanes versus Bus Rapid Transit versus light rail, but those entrenched in car culture will continue to fight all alternatives. Oakland’s past and much of its present is built around mass transit and walkable neighborhoods: rediscovering this history, for example by watching a digitized pedestrian safety film from 1948, illuminates the shared goals of bike, ped, and transit advocates.

This blog is not meant to be a roundup of the best posts of 2008, but certainly there were many excellent entries about Oakland’s past, present and future. This year, the blogoaksphere expanded several times over: my favorite new blogs include City Homestead, 38th Notes, Oakland Space Academy, Oakland Streets, We Fight Blight, and Brooklyn Avenue. Some blogs met their demise in 2008, including Beautiful West Oakland, Dogtown Commons, and The Grand Lake Guardian. A Better Oakland once wrote that much of Oakland’s “news” is something that also happened many times before, so after writing enough blogs, she can just begin to repost them. With an ever-expanding blogosphere allowing for the presentation of in-depth research and an ever-lengthening record of debate, there are more opportunities than ever to know Oakland’s history, and so avoid being doomed to repeat its sorrier episodes.

Before the clock runs out on election interest, this is the first of two blogs noting electoral trends.

Real estate development is a political football in many cities in California, with some battles reaching the ballot box. This November, NIMBY initiatives across the state were defeated. The three most radical anti-growth measures in California were Measure KK in Berkeley (anti-Bus Rapid Transit), Measures V and W in Redwood City (wetlands preservation), and Measure T in Santa Monica (cap on commercial construction). All lost, by substantial margins.

Regular readers of this and other blogs know that Bus Rapid Transit’s showdown in Berkeley was followed closely by transit activists. I was part of the No on KK campaign, which won with 77% of residents voting No. Measure KK received more attention than anything else on the Berkeley or even East Bay ballot. The media, from the blogs to the Daily Planet to the Chronicle, devoted far more space over the course of the year to Measure KK than to Berkeley mayor’s race, the wide-open City Council seat, or Oakland and regional measures. Now BRT opponents are arguing that people voted based on No on KK’s excellent mailer and not because they support BRT on Telegraph Avenue, but the overwhelming margin of defeat and the great deal of substantive public discussion shows that voters support changing car lanes to other uses.

Several years ago, Cargill Inc sold their pink-hued, salt-producing wetlands to the state in a large and complicated deal, while reserving two profitable portions to offset the cost of the land. In Redwood City, influential Oakland-based nonprofit Save The Bay placed a measure on the ballot to upend this deal and prevent development on a newly-created parcel by requiring a two-thirds vote to change its General Plan designation to open space. In response, the City Council placed a measure requiring only a simple majority vote. In the end, voters rejected both measures, Save the Bay’s W by 63%.

Arguably the most radically anti-growth local ballot measure was in Santa Monica. City Councilmember Bobby Shriver, working with a local NIMBY group, sponsored an initiative to cap commercial construction at 75,000 square feet. Not only would that entirely preclude office development, it would also prevent retail and urban mixed-use (housing over retail) projects. Much like Smart Growth links transportation and growth, so did Mr. Shriver and other supporters of Measure T attempt to convince voters that ending growth would somehow “fight traffic.” Also like KK, Measure T enjoyed a sympathetic media. Yet just as KK supporters failed to convince Berkeleyans that next-generation bus service would worsen traffic, Santa Monicans rejected T’s traffic argument by 56%.

There are other examples: Beverly Hills voters narrowly approved construction of three hotel / residential skyscrapers on the ugly white concrete high-rise Beverly Hilton, referended by NIMBYs; and Moraga’s restrictive Measure K was voted down by 56%. On the other hand, San Francisco voters approved NIMBY-in-chief Aaron Peskin’s powerful Landmarks Preservation Commission (Measure J), but there was no argument filed against it and it was lost in the confusing morass of San Francisco’s ballot questions, A-V. Without opposition, it earned only 57% of votes. The failure of anti-growth measures across California show that Smart Growth proponents can craft winning messages, and that electoral sympathy for NIMBYs and anti-transit activists is low.

Today’s blog is critical of recent news. No, I’m not yet ready to comment on Mayor Dellums’ attempt to take the Second Start program away from destitute, illiterate mothers of small children, or put an end to community gardens, or reduce library service by a quarter. No, the surprisingly tiny savings from eliminating such direct services are not the focus of this blog, and neither is the evidence that Oakland’s city workers are the highest-paid in the entire country and are significantly overpaid by several measures. This blog is not about the bad budget. It’s about the bad media.

The SF Weekly publishes parts of former Berkeley Daily Planet reporter Judith Scherr’s email to colleagues explaining that she quit the NIMBY mouthpiece because she could not longer stand editor Becky O’Malley’s constant meddling to make articles more ideologically bent. The Weekly’s comments are hilariously dismissive of the Planet. BeyondChron, which occasionally swaps articles with the Planet, rises to Ms. O’Malley’s defense, but doesn’t address the issue of altering articles to be more one-sided (for example, this article about a Berkeley hearing on BRT is so different from what a friend at the meeting reported to constitute disinformation).

The always-relevant SF Bay Guardian, in a pioneering work of political journalism, reveals that former Don Perata Chief of Staff Kerry Hamill enjoys the support of Senator Perata in her bid for the Oakland City Council. The article also handily summarizes all the relationships between Councilmembers and interest groups in a single phrase, which is quite illuminating. Not!

The Chronicle’s popular urban design critic John King discusses the new Cathedral of Christ the Light, but completely neglects its unfortunate pedestrian presence that is the talk of downtown and Westlake. That, and the, um, yonic design concept. Also, he thinks the building is modest?

That lazy blogger from The DTO finally posts something.

The New York Times shows some love for Oakland’s ambitious office developers, but kinda skips the issue of who exactly will occupy these new commercial highrises. Meanwhile, a prominent North Oaklander calls for exorbitant business taxes to balance the budget on a neighborhood listserv.

After running biased articles in favor of the city’s “industrial preservation” policy adopted this Spring, the Trib now criticizes industrial pollution and thinks that converting industrial land to housing helps revitalize neighborhoods. Confusing!

When I’m disappointed in the MSM, I can go directly to the primary source or just make my own news through activism. Tomorrow (Thursday), there’s an opportunity to do both. Rather than read analysis of the pundits’ analysis of public reaction to the Vice Presidential debate, you can watch it yourself with a crowd of energetic young Democrats at downtown’s Geoffrey’s Inner Circle. The event is a fundraiser for not-quite-so-establishment Council candidate Rebecca Kaplan, whose election would be big news. See you newsmakers there!

Becks is reposting some of her favorite blogs from Living In The O while she burns the man. Though a Playa-hata myself, I particularly like her blog comparing Black Rock City to Oakland. Last year, I used examples from the Art & Soul Festival to illustrate some local controversies. I’m much less thrilled than usual about the Festival this year, what with the absence of The Lovemakers or a headliner that appeals to my youthful demographic.

Though rejected from the festival lineup, Ghost Town-based jazz-funk ensemble Daemon and the Heathens released a demo CD with a raucous concert at Cafe Van Kleef Friday night. They brought down the house with an eerily familiar cover of The Talking Head’s Life During Wartime (“the sounds of gunshots, off in the distance / I’m getting used to it now”), with a few lyrics changed to place it firmly in West O (“this ain’t no Stork Club or goddamn Uptown”). If this were my MySpace page (no, you don’t get a link), I’d play the tune, but such are the limits of polite, political blogging.

A Better Oakland swiftly rebuts an article in the San Francisco Business Times claiming that the widely-discussed “condo glut” as a result of the 10k project is dragging condo resale prices down by 12%, with 1600 units on the market and developers converting unsold inventory into rentals in hopes of gaining profit in a few years when the market recovers. V Smoothe finds that single-family homes have plunged 36% in value over the same period, and median condo prices are now more than $100k over median house prices. Commenters seem to have drunk deep from the well of condo haterade, however.

Oakland Geology is a great diversion: Oakland’s colorful bedrock is one of the defining features of our hilly landscape. Inspired by a post, I found the Rock Ridge Rock a few weeks ago: my mother remembered it from when we lived in the neighborhood a decade ago. It’s now pretty much veiled by landscaping, but its top still looms over Acacia Avenue, near Village Market.

All Things Considered thinks Oakland needs a costumed superhero, Miss Carnivorous bemoans criminal coddling in “Gotham City / Oakland,” Brooklyn Avenue sees safety in pedestrian activity, and East Bay Conservative decides to avoid Oakland restaurants while waiting for long-term demographic change. Even Oliveto’s Tomato Dinners, Boss?

And you can get even more of us over at the new Novometro, launching tonight, where we’ll be providing our very opinionated take on Oakland politics.

Thanks to Zennie Abraham at Oakland Focus for finding and sharing this gem.

I know we haven’t posted in a while, but check back soon for our reflections on OUSD’s state of the art education center, Ron Dellums’s {unsuprisingly) non-”inclusive” task forces, the East Bay Express cover article “Hipster Invasion,” and the Berkeley Daily Planet’s Note’s on NIMBYism, all coming next week.