Jaime Omar Yassin

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

Public Safety Upheaval; as Chief Mitchell Departs, the Police Commission Selection Panel Faces Pushback from Council That Could Change the Calculus Ahead of a New Chief Selection Process A big City of Oakland public safety shuffle, and a possible secondary one, could bring significant change to Oakland’s public safety

The headline at this week's council meeting will be Mayor Barbara Lee’s first State of the City address. The State of the City address is mandated and required at the first regular meeting in October, but through the years, Mayors have been loose with the scheduling in

City Council Committee meetings are usually held on a single Tuesday, starting at 9:30 am, with the last meeting beginning at 6pm and potentially lasting until 9pm and later. In the current legislative frame, substantive deliberation on items from individual CMs, the CAO and its various sub-departments as well

The Committee meetings this week are designated as “special”—meaning they do not need the same kinds of advanced noticing that a committee would usually require. The meetings would have happened last week, but were bumped for Rosh Hoshana in the original schedule prepared at the beginning of the year.