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Reporter’s Notebook: Committee Failure Breaks Flock Momentum For Now--More on Oakland Arms Embargo and OPD's Bearcats

Flock Fails at Public Safety Committee Meeting A surprise stalemate at Oakland’s Public Safety Committee Tuesday sapped the trajectory of what many observers believed was an all but assured vote to institutionalize and expand OPD’s Flock surveillance program. OPD’s proposal that would see the department taking over

At Committees This Week: Showdown on Flock at Public Safety—Update: Hofer Files Suit to Ban OPD's ALPR

Public Safety Committee Update, 11/18/2025 8:05 am: Today, Brian Hofer and Secure Justice are filing suit against the City of Oakland, alleging that OPD has failed to follow state law governing ALPR use, as well as its own use policies, city laws and a previous settlement agreement.

Live Reporting: City Council Vote Ties Over Changes That Would Have Curtailed Evening Meetings

Live reporting yesterday's Council meeting often felt more like announcing an unhinged sports event than the typical council meeting. After Ramachandran stalled CM Fife's amendments to the Jenkins/Ramachandran Rules of Procedure update with an unheard of three substitute motions—the Council finally took a vote

At Council This Week, 11/4/2025

It's a 9 am meeting, with rationale that it's an election day and normal 3:30pm start time would conflict with voting. An 11am special meeting to introduce the "Encampment Abatement" proposal was cancelled last Thursday, rescheduled for an early December date. But ironically,

News Analysis: Public Participation–And Avoiding It–Becomes Major Theme at Oakland City Council

In October, public participation in legislative processes, and the lack of it, became an over-riding theme at the Oakland City Council's scheduling meetings. Three issues of significant importance to the public—a major institutionalization and expansion of Oakland's Flock surveillance, big changes to Oakland's

At Committees This Week, 10/28/2025

Despite an aborted effort to have an additional special city council meeting on Monday right before a full day of Committee, tomorrow’s meetings are full to the brim with important issues for Oakland residents. Probably too many for any one person or group to focus on. After an item

Week in Review [while Trump invaded Oakland, a lot of other stuff happened]

In this week’s review —Council Decision Leaves Oakland Police Commission with Bare Quorum, Body Unable to Meet on Thursday —EAP Would Have Come to Council in Special Meeting Monday, With One Business-Day Notice, But Brown, Ramachandran Intervene —Oakland Arms Embargo Demands Port Commission Ban Weapons Cargo Transits at Oakland

At Council This Week, 10/21/2025

Non-Consent Calendar There’s only one item on the Non-Consent this week, and it's the already delayed reappointments of Police Commission Chair Ricardo Garcia-Acosta and alternate Commissioner Omar Farmer. You can read more about it here. After weeks of delay and demand by CM Jenkins that the appointments

Reporter's Notebook: Committees Review, 10/14/2025; 10/16/2025

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

Oakland Public Safety Ecosystem Faces Upheaval; Chair Pulls Controversial Contract Ahead of Mayor's SOTC

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

At Council This Week, 10/7/2025

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

Committees in Review 9/30/2025, 10/02/2025

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

Oakland Observer Weekly Newsletter Transitioning to Live Reporting Thread/Notes Combo

Hello, supporters, subscribers and readers. Beginning this week, OO will be transitioning to a new format for the weekly newsletter available to general public. I've found that presenting the live reporting thread, which can be read in a PDF or off twitter in the link to Twitter Thread,

At Council Committees This Week, 9/30/2025

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.