Oakland Report’s Newsstand is a daily roundup of Oakland news from across the spectrum — a one-stop destination for readers to keep abreast of what’s happening in The Town. “I got 5” features the top five headlines we found interesting or notable this week.
1. “Paying everybody”: Secret recordings describe Sheng Thao’s working relationships, coordination between Oakland city officials and recycling company
Newly filed recordings in the federal corruption case against former Mayor Sheng Thao include a 2022 video of cooperating witness Mario Juarez toasting the Duong family for “paying everybody” after California Waste Solutions won its Oakland recycling contract. Also included are phone calls Andy Duong apparently taped without the other party’s knowledge, in which Thao shares details from a city council closed session during a 2019 city–CWS legal dispute and, as mayor in 2023, disparages Councilmembers Treva Reid and Janani Ramachandran. Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers has ruled that Juarez’s broader allegations of cash bribes to officials can go before the jury over defense objections. Read more
2. Governor enacts new law adding more environmental review to proposed Oakland coal terminal
Governor Newsom signed the bill Wednesday, adding new complexity to the proposal to construct the West Gateway Terminal Project at the former military base in West Oakland. If built, it would be largest coal export terminal on the West Coast. The proposal has been embroiled in lawsuits for over a decade, including the city breaching a previous agreement to allow the proposal, followed by court decision that allowed the project to proceed. Activists have strenuously opposed the coal terminal’s development. A new study this week found that the coal terminal have more environmental impacts than originally thought. Read more
3. Oakland teachers union rep caught posting political attack flyers outside high school’s main office
A school librarian at Skyline high school was caught posting political attack flyers about the school board elections on a bulletin board in a main hallway of the school. The flyers come a year after school principals reported union threats and intimidation. The employee was identified by school administration as an Oakland Education Association union representative who has been quoted in multiple news reports earlier this year criticizing the district administration over contract negotiations. The union, Oakland Education Association is the biggest outside spender in recent school board elections; four of the seven current board members were elected with OEA’s backing. Read more
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4. City of Oakland exits 23 years of federal oversight of its police department
A federal judge lifted what has been more than two decades of federal monitoring of the Oakland Police Department, ending the longest-running oversight of a police force in U.S. history. Plaintiff's attorney Jim Chanin, who brought the original police misconduct case with co-counsel John Burris that led to the federal consent decree in the early 2000s, called the police department’s progress “absolutely astronomical.” Robert Warshaw, the federal monitor assigned to police Oakland's progress on the reform tasks said, “The Oakland Police Department can continue its forward path no longer tethered to the court.” Warshaw also urged caution, warning the city and its police department that, “joy should be tempered with humility, because many of the things you've accomplished, you should have been doing all along.” Read more
5. Wealthy couple shot dead on Oakland’s Panoramic Way
Police responded to reports of gunshots at a residence in the Oakland hills near UC Berkeley. Two people were found deceased from apparent gunshot wounds, police say. The couple owned a fashion business, Bryn Walker that had suffered from risky financial moves by the husband, who was experiencing mental health struggles, a relative says. The couple had lost $100 million, while the husband’s mental state deteriorated, according to the wife’s brother. The family had intervened and made plans to institutionalize the husband to help him recover his mental state, but on the morning he was set to be institutionalized, the couple was dead from an apparent murder-suicide, the family member says. Read more
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The condition of those graffiti-strewn news stands says it all about Oakland. Thanks for keeping journalism alive here.
You gotta love the environmental wacko activists scaremongering everyone about the dangers of coal, which are completely unfounded. All based on junk science. No wonder big business disinvests in Oakland. It’s amazing the coal terminal operator wastes another dollar beating a dead horse. Meanwhile, the tax base further erodes, crime increases, and Oakland voters keep electing the same idiots.