Phew, this whole thing is exhausting...I was gonna write about some of the flaws I see in the various sides of this argument, but (especially with my real name attached) that's way too (metaphorically) dangerous in Oakland.
Instead, let's celebrate great points made by all here. Note Jeff and Greg, who both appear concerned about these advertising billboards. Advertising, and the increased commodification of us by large corporations and tech oligarchs, is a problem of our time that keeps getting worse. So is the idea of making our city look like Las Vegas or Times Square. I for one am happy to see their zeal for the value that comes through from their writing: making Oakland beautiful and limiting the negative externalities of decisions like implementing billboards.
On the other hand, Rajni and Oakland Report ask a question we should all be asking ourselves: how do we talk about thorny issues like
- "what should our city's public space look like?" and
- "how should we balance the tradeoff between business interests [a significant section of our tax base] and competing community interests [like aesthetics] in our civic discourse?"
in an environment that, due to social media, is algorithmically destined to become a flamewar and chock full of at best misleading and at worst outright fake imagery and claims? (God help us all when AI slop no longer is so easy to differentiate from real images!)
So as we say goodbye to 2025, let's say goodbye to some of this animosity and instead find gratitude for our opponents. Gently, we correct their excesses; loudly we praise their values (even if we have to re-frame those values a bit!). I'm grateful for you all.
I do agree that actions reveal truth more reliably than rhetoric. I do like how you emphasizes shared responsibility, implying that communities can build resilience without waiting for institutional reform from above. We have seen those in Finland and Taiwan recently.
I also agree deeply that observable behaviour should be a "truth metric" for both journalism and civic education. How that works? I... don't know.
Am I allowed to do a shameless plug? I am going to do a shameless plug! Hi, my name is Phil I "try" to write some sense regarding the world that is disinformation and our relationship to information.
For added color, check the 2023-2024 Grand Jury Report on the billboard contract proposal passed by the city council, potentially costing taxpayers millions in forsaken revenue. For a quick preview, council person Gallo conflict of interest is prominent - and it appears he is again involved.
Finding 24-9:
The Oakland City Council disregarded expert city staff and an impartial consultant’s
recommendations to select Becker/Outfront over an option that would have paid the city
substantially more money with less visual impact.
Finding 24-10:
Out of public view, the Oakland City Council used a non-competitive process to select a revenue
producing billboard provider.
Finding 24-11:
Out of public view, the Oakland City Council used a non-competitive process to select nonprofit
organizations to receive billboard revenue and free advertising space.
Finding 24-12:
An Oakland City Council member should have recused themselves from consideration of
nonprofit recipients because their spouse has been a board member of one of the organizations
and has been a paid consultant to another.
Finding 25-13:
The Oakland City Council allowed lobbyists for billboard companies to have undue influence
over the process by providing content and language that was inserted verbatim into official
This is a weak and condescending justification of the choice to publish an article attacking a concerned resident about the proliferation of digital billboards in our town. There are so many questions you could be asking about the behavior of our council members around these billboards, and you chose to focus on a Next Door post. This really strains your credibility as a reliable source of information about Oakland and its issues.
Greg, thank you for your comment. Our article was, in fact, the only one we know of that published word of the billboard proposal, including the actual renderings of the proposal and details about the proposed locations. We invited the maker of the Nextdoor post to write a counterpoint article, which they did and which we published in Oakland Report two days later. For that counterpoint article, Oakland Report provided video clips of the council members discussing the billboard item scheduling, and we published more details and renderings of the billboard proposals in the counterpoint article.
So you are ok with disinformation...as long as it lines up with your agenda? Do you not see how wrong that is? Shame on you for defending a disinformation campaign.
This “concerned resident” knowingly used fake images to try to push their agenda. That is dictionary definition, misinformation. And you’re here defending it. That’s not my opinion, that’s a literal fact as witnessed by your own words.
Watch yourselves folks. There are libel laws applicable here. Let's keep this discussion civil and not personal.
To clarify for M Ballard: I did not create the graphic illustration. I did not "knowingly" use fake images. It was an illustration of a PROPOSED billboard at that location. So by the definition being used here, any graphic of a PROPOSED billboard is fake. That includes the Oakland Report/Outfront Billboard Co. images. Which they called "real renderings." Hah!
Fact: The proposed electronic billboards would be huge. They would be illuminated on two sides, be from 48-to-60-feet wide and from 14-to-20-feet high, and have a height up to 85-feet above highway level.
And nobody is disputing the facts that you stated. What they’re disputing is the fact that you used, knowingly, a fake image to push your agenda. Are you denying that?
You can’t honestly say that you looked at the image that you used and thought it was real. You yourself, in the article you wrote, admit that you knew it was fake yet you still used it. That is literally the definition of disinformation. My statement still stands.
For a purported journalist, M. Ballard sure gets a lot of things wrong. I did not write that it knew the image was fake. Here is what I wrote: "I was the author of that Nextdoor post. In retrospect, I agree that the illustration did significantly exaggerate the size of the two proposed billboards, and does not show the billboards’ exact locations within the PG&E Lake Temescal substation nor their exact orientation to the lake. Mea culpa."
I will persist in repeating this: The proposed electronic billboards would be huge. They would be illuminated on two sides, be from 48-to-60-feet wide and from 14-to-20-feet high. And have a height up to 85-feet above highway level.
I would like to hear from anyone who literally believed an obviously fake AI rendition was real. Presumably such a fictional person would not be able to read, but if so, would see that indeed, two billboards were indeed being considered near Lake Temescal on PG&E property. Not fake news. The real story should have been that they violate 2 state laws and 3 city of Oakland codes (were on a scenic byway, that PG&E is zoned residential so it would be illegal to put them there, and is 100% surrounded by residences, etc.,), would impact the views of hundreds of people, dangerously distract the drivers trying to exit and merge, and disrupt wildlife and visitors to Lake Temescal park. Instead, the story was twisted and squirmed to fit into a very long narrow one-idea story the picture was fake and how terrifically awful that was because obviously anyone who saw it would believe it (ha!). The real story was one of yet more bad governance in Oakland. Gallo and Wang refused to tell other city council members or the public where they would be. The author somehow found out the five proposed locations and and triumphantly declared the story even more fake because the PG&E billboards were in the alternative list, not in the top 5. Which brings me back to the real story: These two advertising signs should not be on any list. City council members need to be honest and forthcoming with information so there is not another Alameda County Grand Jury investigation of how they handle billboard deals
Oakland Report’s original article and this one are a red herring. Taking aim at a graphic on NextDoor, righteously claiming not to advocate for or against the billboards, they instead divert attention from the proposal to erect five huge day-and-night LED billboards in Oakland. The City Council is scheduled to decide this one or way or the other in February.
The proposed billboards indeed are huge. As we have now learned, the electronic billboards would be illuminated on two sides, be from 48-to-60-feet wide and from 14-to-20-feet high, and have a height up to 85-feet above highway level.
The post I published in NextDoor is the target of the Oakland Report attack. It was the first public notice that the billboard proposal was working its way through the City approval process, doing so unobserved, undisclosed, and unreported. The Oakland Report had not published word of this proposal.
Ironically, the Oakland Report article was itself misleading, committing the exact same graphic transgression of which I was accused. The Oakland Report’s “real rendering” of the proposed Lake Temescal billboards was provided by the Outfront billboard company. It distorts what these billboards will look like, shrinking them to less than what would be seen by the naked eye.
The Oakland Report/Outfront Billboard Co. image is a wide-angle camera view of Lake Temescal which makes the billboards far across the lake appear smaller and more distant than they are to the naked eye. Wide-angle lenses make objects look farther away mainly because they include a much wider field of view in the same rectangular frame. Thus, everything in that frame has to be “shrunk down.” I dare say that if the billboards were this unobtrusive, almost invisible in the trees, they would not serve their purpose. This “real rendering” from Outfront diminishes the billboards. It is a rendering, but it is not real.
The real issue here is not the billboards’ size, but their visual impact on the landscape. Particularly at night. Billboards are designed to catch the eye and grab your attention. At night, electronic billboards command your attention.
As for a depiction that truly represents the visual impact of these towering electronic billboards: Consider the existing electronic billboards near the Bay Bridge Toll Plaza and, at night, how prominent they are even four or more miles away to tens of thousands of homes in the East Bay. How about we see a rendering of what these new proposed billboards look like at night! All of the “real renderings” are in daylight. No wonder that!
City Council members Charlene Wang and Noel Gallo have sponsored the billboard proposal. They will argue that the city needs the revenue from the billboard deal. The legal notice for the proposal says the City will receive “up to” $2,305,000 plus “up to” $750,000/year per billboard. Up to could be something, or it could be nothing.
If the City Council’s Community and Economic Development committee approves the measure at its February 10 public meeting, it is scheduled to be voted on by the full Oakland City Council on February 17. Don’t let it get that far. Email City Council members and let them know how you feel about this crass sell-out of our city, neighborhoods, and our regional park. Tell them to vote no on all five billboards.
City Council’s Community and Economic Development committee members:
Jeff, thank you for your comment. Our editorial included a link to the counterpoint article we invited you to write, and which we published in Oakland Report two days after our original article was published.
Jeff is responsible for posting the image on Nextdoor, but I don't think he made it. regardless, he knowingly posted that fake image...and yet calls anyone calling him out about it a "Bad Journalist"...while stating he is a second generation journalist. Real journalists don't use disinformation...
For a former journalist M. Ballard, you sure get a lot of things wrong. Here is what I wrote: "In retrospect, I agree that the illustration did significantly exaggerate the size of the two proposed billboards, and does not show the billboards’ exact locations within the PG&E Lake Temescal substation nor their exact orientation to the lake. Mea culpa."
Fact: The proposed electronic billboards would be huge. They would be illuminated on two sides, be from 48-to-60-feet wide and from 14-to-20-feet high, and have a height up to 85-feet above highway level
So let’s talk about the other aspects of this project. How about the 11 traditional billboards that will be removed before the five electronic billboards will be put up? What about the fact that the city is going to make $35 million over the contract.? What about the fact that the city also will receive close to $13 million in free advertisement space that will be used for local businesses and nonprofits? Instead, all you were doing is reiterating the physical attributes of these billboards. Nobody is denying that these billboards are going to be large, but you started this whole thing by over exaggerating what is happening by using a completely fake image that depicted the billboards as being 400 feet tall with big spotlights shining on the neighborhood and with advertisements for guns and alcohol that have been banned in Oakland since 1997. You don’t talk about any of this. I’m sorry, but you were being disingenuous by not mentioning these things and only focusing on the fact that you “in retrospect“ regret using a fake image. But yet you still did.
Thank you for proving my point. And I’m not a former journalist. That’s you I was talking about. Taken directly from your statement.
And admitting that it was “in retrospect“ is ridiculous. You and I both know you looked at that image knew it was fake yet you still used it. There was no retrospect involved you knowingly posted that image and you knew it was fake. And using “Mia Coppa“ as an excuse is ridiculous.
Phew, this whole thing is exhausting...I was gonna write about some of the flaws I see in the various sides of this argument, but (especially with my real name attached) that's way too (metaphorically) dangerous in Oakland.
Instead, let's celebrate great points made by all here. Note Jeff and Greg, who both appear concerned about these advertising billboards. Advertising, and the increased commodification of us by large corporations and tech oligarchs, is a problem of our time that keeps getting worse. So is the idea of making our city look like Las Vegas or Times Square. I for one am happy to see their zeal for the value that comes through from their writing: making Oakland beautiful and limiting the negative externalities of decisions like implementing billboards.
On the other hand, Rajni and Oakland Report ask a question we should all be asking ourselves: how do we talk about thorny issues like
- "what should our city's public space look like?" and
- "how should we balance the tradeoff between business interests [a significant section of our tax base] and competing community interests [like aesthetics] in our civic discourse?"
in an environment that, due to social media, is algorithmically destined to become a flamewar and chock full of at best misleading and at worst outright fake imagery and claims? (God help us all when AI slop no longer is so easy to differentiate from real images!)
So as we say goodbye to 2025, let's say goodbye to some of this animosity and instead find gratitude for our opponents. Gently, we correct their excesses; loudly we praise their values (even if we have to re-frame those values a bit!). I'm grateful for you all.
I do agree that actions reveal truth more reliably than rhetoric. I do like how you emphasizes shared responsibility, implying that communities can build resilience without waiting for institutional reform from above. We have seen those in Finland and Taiwan recently.
I also agree deeply that observable behaviour should be a "truth metric" for both journalism and civic education. How that works? I... don't know.
Am I allowed to do a shameless plug? I am going to do a shameless plug! Hi, my name is Phil I "try" to write some sense regarding the world that is disinformation and our relationship to information.
https://thedisinformationobserver.substack.com/
👍👍, Great piece!
For added color, check the 2023-2024 Grand Jury Report on the billboard contract proposal passed by the city council, potentially costing taxpayers millions in forsaken revenue. For a quick preview, council person Gallo conflict of interest is prominent - and it appears he is again involved.
Finding 24-9:
The Oakland City Council disregarded expert city staff and an impartial consultant’s
recommendations to select Becker/Outfront over an option that would have paid the city
substantially more money with less visual impact.
Finding 24-10:
Out of public view, the Oakland City Council used a non-competitive process to select a revenue
producing billboard provider.
Finding 24-11:
Out of public view, the Oakland City Council used a non-competitive process to select nonprofit
organizations to receive billboard revenue and free advertising space.
Finding 24-12:
An Oakland City Council member should have recused themselves from consideration of
nonprofit recipients because their spouse has been a board member of one of the organizations
and has been a paid consultant to another.
Finding 25-13:
The Oakland City Council allowed lobbyists for billboard companies to have undue influence
over the process by providing content and language that was inserted verbatim into official
council documents.
https://grandjury.acgov.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/2023-24-GJ-Full-Report.pdf
This is a weak and condescending justification of the choice to publish an article attacking a concerned resident about the proliferation of digital billboards in our town. There are so many questions you could be asking about the behavior of our council members around these billboards, and you chose to focus on a Next Door post. This really strains your credibility as a reliable source of information about Oakland and its issues.
Greg, thank you for your comment. Our article was, in fact, the only one we know of that published word of the billboard proposal, including the actual renderings of the proposal and details about the proposed locations. We invited the maker of the Nextdoor post to write a counterpoint article, which they did and which we published in Oakland Report two days later. For that counterpoint article, Oakland Report provided video clips of the council members discussing the billboard item scheduling, and we published more details and renderings of the billboard proposals in the counterpoint article.
So you are ok with disinformation...as long as it lines up with your agenda? Do you not see how wrong that is? Shame on you for defending a disinformation campaign.
Your comment is a purposeful misreading of what I said.
This “concerned resident” knowingly used fake images to try to push their agenda. That is dictionary definition, misinformation. And you’re here defending it. That’s not my opinion, that’s a literal fact as witnessed by your own words.
Watch yourselves folks. There are libel laws applicable here. Let's keep this discussion civil and not personal.
To clarify for M Ballard: I did not create the graphic illustration. I did not "knowingly" use fake images. It was an illustration of a PROPOSED billboard at that location. So by the definition being used here, any graphic of a PROPOSED billboard is fake. That includes the Oakland Report/Outfront Billboard Co. images. Which they called "real renderings." Hah!
Fact: The proposed electronic billboards would be huge. They would be illuminated on two sides, be from 48-to-60-feet wide and from 14-to-20-feet high, and have a height up to 85-feet above highway level.
And nobody is disputing the facts that you stated. What they’re disputing is the fact that you used, knowingly, a fake image to push your agenda. Are you denying that?
You can’t honestly say that you looked at the image that you used and thought it was real. You yourself, in the article you wrote, admit that you knew it was fake yet you still used it. That is literally the definition of disinformation. My statement still stands.
For a purported journalist, M. Ballard sure gets a lot of things wrong. I did not write that it knew the image was fake. Here is what I wrote: "I was the author of that Nextdoor post. In retrospect, I agree that the illustration did significantly exaggerate the size of the two proposed billboards, and does not show the billboards’ exact locations within the PG&E Lake Temescal substation nor their exact orientation to the lake. Mea culpa."
I will persist in repeating this: The proposed electronic billboards would be huge. They would be illuminated on two sides, be from 48-to-60-feet wide and from 14-to-20-feet high. And have a height up to 85-feet above highway level.
Actually, it’s not. You were advocating for disinformation because it aligns with your agenda of not wanting those billboards. It’s painfully obvious.
I would like to hear from anyone who literally believed an obviously fake AI rendition was real. Presumably such a fictional person would not be able to read, but if so, would see that indeed, two billboards were indeed being considered near Lake Temescal on PG&E property. Not fake news. The real story should have been that they violate 2 state laws and 3 city of Oakland codes (were on a scenic byway, that PG&E is zoned residential so it would be illegal to put them there, and is 100% surrounded by residences, etc.,), would impact the views of hundreds of people, dangerously distract the drivers trying to exit and merge, and disrupt wildlife and visitors to Lake Temescal park. Instead, the story was twisted and squirmed to fit into a very long narrow one-idea story the picture was fake and how terrifically awful that was because obviously anyone who saw it would believe it (ha!). The real story was one of yet more bad governance in Oakland. Gallo and Wang refused to tell other city council members or the public where they would be. The author somehow found out the five proposed locations and and triumphantly declared the story even more fake because the PG&E billboards were in the alternative list, not in the top 5. Which brings me back to the real story: These two advertising signs should not be on any list. City council members need to be honest and forthcoming with information so there is not another Alameda County Grand Jury investigation of how they handle billboard deals
Who made the “fake site”? What organization? That’s important because usually they get $$ from public entities
Oakland Report’s original article and this one are a red herring. Taking aim at a graphic on NextDoor, righteously claiming not to advocate for or against the billboards, they instead divert attention from the proposal to erect five huge day-and-night LED billboards in Oakland. The City Council is scheduled to decide this one or way or the other in February.
The proposed billboards indeed are huge. As we have now learned, the electronic billboards would be illuminated on two sides, be from 48-to-60-feet wide and from 14-to-20-feet high, and have a height up to 85-feet above highway level.
The post I published in NextDoor is the target of the Oakland Report attack. It was the first public notice that the billboard proposal was working its way through the City approval process, doing so unobserved, undisclosed, and unreported. The Oakland Report had not published word of this proposal.
Ironically, the Oakland Report article was itself misleading, committing the exact same graphic transgression of which I was accused. The Oakland Report’s “real rendering” of the proposed Lake Temescal billboards was provided by the Outfront billboard company. It distorts what these billboards will look like, shrinking them to less than what would be seen by the naked eye.
The Oakland Report/Outfront Billboard Co. image is a wide-angle camera view of Lake Temescal which makes the billboards far across the lake appear smaller and more distant than they are to the naked eye. Wide-angle lenses make objects look farther away mainly because they include a much wider field of view in the same rectangular frame. Thus, everything in that frame has to be “shrunk down.” I dare say that if the billboards were this unobtrusive, almost invisible in the trees, they would not serve their purpose. This “real rendering” from Outfront diminishes the billboards. It is a rendering, but it is not real.
The real issue here is not the billboards’ size, but their visual impact on the landscape. Particularly at night. Billboards are designed to catch the eye and grab your attention. At night, electronic billboards command your attention.
As for a depiction that truly represents the visual impact of these towering electronic billboards: Consider the existing electronic billboards near the Bay Bridge Toll Plaza and, at night, how prominent they are even four or more miles away to tens of thousands of homes in the East Bay. How about we see a rendering of what these new proposed billboards look like at night! All of the “real renderings” are in daylight. No wonder that!
City Council members Charlene Wang and Noel Gallo have sponsored the billboard proposal. They will argue that the city needs the revenue from the billboard deal. The legal notice for the proposal says the City will receive “up to” $2,305,000 plus “up to” $750,000/year per billboard. Up to could be something, or it could be nothing.
If the City Council’s Community and Economic Development committee approves the measure at its February 10 public meeting, it is scheduled to be voted on by the full Oakland City Council on February 17. Don’t let it get that far. Email City Council members and let them know how you feel about this crass sell-out of our city, neighborhoods, and our regional park. Tell them to vote no on all five billboards.
City Council’s Community and Economic Development committee members:
Rowena Brown: atlarge@oaklandca.gov
Zac Unger: zunger@oaklandca.gov
Janani Ramachandran: District4@oaklandca.gov
Carroll Fife: District3@oaklandca.gov
The Mayor and other Oakland City Council members to contact:
Mayor Barbara Lee: officeofthemayor@oaklandca.gov
Ken Jenkins: District6@oaklandca.gov
Ken Houston: District7@oaklandca.gov
Charlene Wang CWang@oaklandca.gov
Noel Gallo: Ngallo@oaklandca.gov
You can view the legal notice about the billboards online at https://www.capublicnotice.com/advert/-notices_905648
Jeff, thank you for your comment. Our editorial included a link to the counterpoint article we invited you to write, and which we published in Oakland Report two days after our original article was published.
Who made the “fake site”? What organization? That’s important because usually they get $$ from public entities
Jeff is responsible for posting the image on Nextdoor, but I don't think he made it. regardless, he knowingly posted that fake image...and yet calls anyone calling him out about it a "Bad Journalist"...while stating he is a second generation journalist. Real journalists don't use disinformation...
For a former journalist M. Ballard, you sure get a lot of things wrong. Here is what I wrote: "In retrospect, I agree that the illustration did significantly exaggerate the size of the two proposed billboards, and does not show the billboards’ exact locations within the PG&E Lake Temescal substation nor their exact orientation to the lake. Mea culpa."
Fact: The proposed electronic billboards would be huge. They would be illuminated on two sides, be from 48-to-60-feet wide and from 14-to-20-feet high, and have a height up to 85-feet above highway level
So let’s talk about the other aspects of this project. How about the 11 traditional billboards that will be removed before the five electronic billboards will be put up? What about the fact that the city is going to make $35 million over the contract.? What about the fact that the city also will receive close to $13 million in free advertisement space that will be used for local businesses and nonprofits? Instead, all you were doing is reiterating the physical attributes of these billboards. Nobody is denying that these billboards are going to be large, but you started this whole thing by over exaggerating what is happening by using a completely fake image that depicted the billboards as being 400 feet tall with big spotlights shining on the neighborhood and with advertisements for guns and alcohol that have been banned in Oakland since 1997. You don’t talk about any of this. I’m sorry, but you were being disingenuous by not mentioning these things and only focusing on the fact that you “in retrospect“ regret using a fake image. But yet you still did.
Thank you for proving my point. And I’m not a former journalist. That’s you I was talking about. Taken directly from your statement.
And admitting that it was “in retrospect“ is ridiculous. You and I both know you looked at that image knew it was fake yet you still used it. There was no retrospect involved you knowingly posted that image and you knew it was fake. And using “Mia Coppa“ as an excuse is ridiculous.
Also...as a former pro photographer for 30+ years...your wide angle argument does not line up with the facts...
You used disinformation...everything after that point was rendered moot. If you had approached it with truth and facts...we would not be here.