Volunteers Welcome at Castlemont Garden

This Saturday at 10 a.m. students, staff and volunteers at Castlemont High School will have a work party to restore the school’s garden, which has lain dormant for a number of years.

The workers will restore the greenhouse and knock down weeds that have overtaken the garden’s 37 raised beds and 16 fruit trees.

Malcolm Hoover, director of the Castlemont’s after school program has big plans for the garden which include a pond and several benches.

“We’ll turn it into an organic garden that kids can feed their families from. Hopefully, some of the food will be used in the school salad bar. Eventually, we’ll have an organic farm stand,” Hoover said.

The school recently won a $2500 grant from UC Davis that will fund the project.

 

Enviromentalists oppose high-speed rail plan

The  Metropolitan Transportation Commission recommended a route Wednesday for a planned high-speed rail line linking Northern and Southern California.

The selection of the Pacheco Pass route is controversial, and has been publicly opposed by several environmental groups.

“I have to believe politics was involved, and specifically a coalition of folks that want very much to have San Jose be the hub of the high speed rail system,” said Stuart Flashman[cq], an Oakland-based attorney representing the coalition of environmental groups, which includes the Sierra Club.

 

Rockridge neighbors meet to discuss zoning

By Maya Mirsky

The future rezoning of North Oakland was the topic of a neighborhood meeting Thursday night, hosted by the Rockridge Community Planning Council. Among the speakers were District 1 councilwoman Jane Brunner and city planning manager Eric Angstadt.

Neighbors think the current system is too lenient for developers, but are still concerned that when the area is rezoned, the city will allow more density and higher buildings than residents want on busy streets like Telegraph Avenue.

 

ROMERO SENTENCED FOR CARJACKING – By Kerry Seed

OAKLAND – Robert Antonio Romero, 29, of Oakland put his face in his hand as he was sentenced Friday to 31 years and eight months in the state penitentiary for carjacking and assault.

Four people, all family and friends, spoke on his behalf, but their pleas for leniency were not enough to soften the sentence of Alameda County Superior Court Judge Jean Cartwright who was unsympathetic to their claims that the trial and the mandatory sentences for his crimes were unfair.

Cartwright interrupted Belinda Romero’s  assertion that Romero deserved leniency because she was not a good mother to him.

“Lots of people have hard lives,” Cartwright said.

 

CHURCH SPEAKS OUT TO STOP VIOLENCE – By Kerry Seed

It’s hard to find anyone who lives or works in Oakland who hasn’t been touched in some way by violent crime, but Roy Northington sees the crime wave’s effects more than most.

For the past 12 years Northington, 39, has been a mortician in Oakland. By his own estimate, he prepares an average of four bodies a month, using wax and cosmetics to repair the faces of people cut down by gun violence on the streets of Oakland.

“I ask myself when I will stop seeing young black men laid out on my table as their parents or grandparents are grieving,” Northington said.

He’s not the only one asking, but there are few visible signs of the community fighting back.

One big sign of resistance now hangs over the doors of the First African Methodist Episcopal church on Telegraph Avenue. A large white banner reading “Stop Black on Black Violence” lets the world know that the church is trying to put an end to the violence. And, the church is about to kick off a year of outreach events to engage neighborhood residents who’ve lost hope that the crime wave will end.

 

Arrests made in Oakland pot bust

The West Oakland photo lab that housed a massive marijuana farm

 

By Maya Mirsky

Four arrests have been made in connection with a large pot-growing operation discovered by police in West Oakland on Oct. 9, the Drug Enforcement Agency said today.

The pot bust was one of the largest in history – and followed another even larger, but unrelated bust, at a house in East Oakland the previous day.

The four men arrested on state drug charges in the West Oakland incident are Jackson Wong, 23, Kevin Lieu, 28, Eric Tran, 32, and Joey Tran, 25.

All four of the men were released from the Glenn E. Dyer Detention Facility on Oct. 11 after having each posted $60,000 in bail.

 

Halloween parade in Rockridge

Trick or treat on College Avenue on October 28th with the Rockridge Halloween parade.

Starts at noon in front of 5951 College Ave.

 

School for Newly Arrived Immigrants Holds Ceremony

By Allison Firestone

Dedication ceremonies were held Tuesday at Oakland International High School, a new facility devoted solely to educating recently arrived immigrants.

The school is part of the International Network for Public Schools, a nationwide non-profit organization supported in part by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Though the school’s first class of nearly 70 ninth-graders began their year on Aug. 27, the ceremony sought to officially introduce the school’s staff and students to the rest of the Oakland community.

“We’ve had a lot of support from Oakland Unified as well as financial donations from private parties,” said Denise Walker, the school’s secretary. “We wanted to thank them.”

The school is made up of immigrants from all over the world, including at least 18 different countries. It approaches these newly arrived students with close teacher-student interaction in the early years and opportunities for internships and community service for juniors and seniors. Tuesday’s ceremony included an open house where Oakland educators and community members could observe classrooms and facilities.

The school is a member of the International Network for Public Schools, an organization that formed in 1985 from a group of similar schools in New York City. The network now includes nine New York schools and Oakland International, its first in California.

 

Governor vetoes local school control

By Maya Mirsky

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger vetoed legislation Saturday that would have returned the Oakland school district to local control, citing concerns that the law moves too fast, according to a press release from the governor’s office.

“The pace at which it seeks to restore the authority of the school board may surpass the pace at which the state administrator can imbed sustainable reforms,” he wrote in the veto message.

AB 45 was publicly opposed by state superintendent of public instruction Jack O’Connell, who said he believes the school district is not ready for the timeline set by the bill.
The Oakland school district went into state receivership in 2003 because of massive debt. Under current law, O’Connell has the authority to decide when to return the district to school board control

 

Crime and development the themes at mayor’s community meeting

 

 By Maya Mirsky

Crime and development were the issues of the day at a community meeting with Mayor Ron Dellums, held today at Peralta Elementary in North Oakland. The meeting was hosted by Jane Brunner, councilwoman for the district.

Both issues are hot topics in this ethnically mixed, mostly middle-income neighborhood.

More than fifty speakers from the audience of over 200 addressed Dellums, who began with the announcement of upcoming projects and reports, and an evocation of Oakland as a model city.

But some residents felt less optimistic.