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"content": "\u003cp>When Noni Session first imagined reopening Esther’s Orbit Room, she saw a gleaming new building that would serve as an anchor for a reinvigorated cultural and commercial corridor.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For Session, who was born and raised in \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/west-oakland\">West Oakland\u003c/a> and is the executive director of the \u003ca href=\"https://ebprec.org/\">East Bay Permanent Real Estate Cooperative\u003c/a>, or EBPREC, renovating Esther’s was a chance at a fresh start.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The former blues club had been a staple of the historic Seventh Street district, called the “Harlem of the West,” serving as the center of Black life in West Oakland for roughly half a century. While a series of policy decisions decimated the strip, with dozens of businesses and thousands of homes razed, Esther’s had remained the lone holdout, keeping its \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/arts/13809453/evolutionary-blues-resurrects-west-oaklands-musical-legacy\">doors open until 2011\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The building had sat vacant for around a decade by the time it came to EBPREC’s attention. But the decision to reopen it as a performance venue, bar and eatery seemed self-evident, Session said. She and her team at the developer co-op purchased the building and planned contemporary additions, including a wellness studio, working and living spaces for artists and an outdoor patio.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>They released renderings of the proposed upgrades: new balconies, murals, and a bold new sign replacing the rough faux-stone facade in favor of a fresh, modern aesthetic.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We thought we were doing West Oakland a favor by getting rid of the sniff of the trauma and the lack of resources, right? You know, new facade, new bar, new vibe, new day,” Session said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12062061\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-12062061 size-full\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/10/Esthers-Orbit-Room-1.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1514\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/10/Esthers-Orbit-Room-1.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/10/Esthers-Orbit-Room-1-160x121.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/10/Esthers-Orbit-Room-1-1536x1163.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Esther’s Orbit Room photographed in 1987. \u003ccite>(Courtesy of the African American Museum & Library at Oakland)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>And then came the outcry.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Some of the old men in the neighborhood — on public record — were like, ‘That’s cultural genocide,’” Session recalled.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She and her colleagues at EBPREC were already having some misgivings about the proposed design and had resolved to change it. But the criticism still threw Session for a loop.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“And then after some time sitting with it, looking at it, we realized you couldn’t really see West Oakland in that rendering,” she said. “It was only really then that I understood what they meant by cultural genocide, that they could not see their story on the surfaces of these buildings that we were calling assets, but not treating like assets.”[aside postID=forum_2010101895065 hero='https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/43/2023/11/010_KQED_AlamedaAffordableHousing_01122023-qut-1020x680.jpg']Now, instead of a ground-breaking ceremony, planned for later this year, there will be a rock-breaking ceremony. With help from professional masons, volunteers will painstakingly remove the building’s original fabricated stones from the exterior so \u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/p/DLa2PyfBllH/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link&igsh=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==\">they can be reconstructed\u003c/a> when the restoration is complete.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For some of West Oakland’s older generation, who experienced Seventh Street in its heyday, the decision to restore — rather than remodel — is one step toward repairing what was lost.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It is sort of a love letter to a legacy,” said Cheryl Fabio, whose documentary film, \u003cem>Evolutionary Blues: West Oakland’s Music Legacy\u003c/em>, recounts the area’s musical history. “It is some repair — not enough repair — but some repair for what was stolen in places like Seventh Street.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Inside, Session said EBPREC plans to repurpose the building’s original wooden walls, painted yellow and orange and long hidden beneath a layer of sheetrock, to use as a decorative backing for the bar and stage. The bar’s antique safe, rolltop desks and other furniture will feature prominently. “So that everywhere you turn, you see the authentic textures of this historical space.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In a true act of serendipity, Session said, they uncovered Esther’s original stage lights, hidden behind an artificial wall and perfectly positioned where a new stage had already been planned. Standing inside the blackened room with only a headlamp to see by, Session pointed to the conical spotlight covers, their bulbs removed, nestled into the ceiling.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We were just dumbfounded,” she said. “What we’ve realized we need to do is, in some ways — this is a made-up word — but that we need to museumize the whole space.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>‘The place to be’\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>At its height in the middle of the 20th Century, Seventh Street was not only a prime entertainment district drawing national acts — such as B.B. King, Al Green, Aretha Franklin, Big Mama Thornton and other blues greats — but the locus of civic and community life. There were banks and lawyers’ offices, barber shops and grocery stores, a record store and recording studio, pharmacies, clothing stores, a bowling alley, theaters, and plenty of eateries.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Esther Mabry, the Orbit Room’s namesake, founder and operator for more than a half-century, first came to Seventh Street during WWII, drawn from her hometown of Palestine, Texas, by the promise of good pay, she said in a \u003ca href=\"https://californiarevealed.org/do/97295ae0-188e-425d-96ca-264375d3b633\">2002 interview\u003c/a> with the African American Museum and Library at Oakland, or AAMLO.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12062065\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12062065\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/10/Esthers-Orbit-Room-3.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"2471\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/10/Esthers-Orbit-Room-3.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/10/Esthers-Orbit-Room-3-160x198.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/10/Esthers-Orbit-Room-3-1243x1536.jpg 1243w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/10/Esthers-Orbit-Room-3-1658x2048.jpg 1658w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Two men stand shaking hands on the sidewalk underneath Elsie’s neon sign on Seventh Street, circa the 1950s. \u003ccite>(Courtesy of the African American Museum & Library at Oakland)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“Everybody was making good money, and they were talking about how much money they were making,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>By that time, West Oakland, the terminus of the transcontinental railroad, had already become a magnet for working-class people of all ethnicities, said Mitchell Schwarzer, an architectural historian and author of the book, \u003ca href=\"https://www.ucpress.edu/books/hella-town/paper\">\u003cem>Hella Town: Oakland’s History of Development and Disruption\u003c/em>\u003c/a>. But, he said, it had a particular pull for Black transplants as the West Coast headquarters of the \u003ca href=\"https://oaklandlibrary.org/content/oaklands-pullman-porters/\">Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters\u003c/a>, a large and influential union representing Black workers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The Porters became the genesis of a larger black community. They were kind of the foundation because they had decent-paying jobs at the time,” Schwarzer said. “And for Black people, this was probably one of the best jobs you could get until the war industries.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Mabry herself worked for the Southern Pacific Railroad when she first arrived in West Oakland, she told AAMLO.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I sold tickets and made sandwiches — they had boxed lunches — and just did it all,” she said. “It was the place to be.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12058750\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12058750\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/10/251003_ORBIT_ROOM-_-3-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/10/251003_ORBIT_ROOM-_-3-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/10/251003_ORBIT_ROOM-_-3-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/10/251003_ORBIT_ROOM-_-3-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The exterior of Esther’s Orbit Room, a historic former jazz club on Seventh Street in Oakland, on Oct. 2, 2025. Once a hub for music legends such as BB King and Etta James, the building is being renovated by the East Bay Permanent Real Estate Cooperative. \u003ccite>(Gustavo Hernandez/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>And Mabry was at the center of it. She told AAMLO she first opened Esther’s Breakfast Club, located across the street from the Orbit Room’s current location, in 1950.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>By then, Schwarzer said West Oakland was well on its way to becoming a majority Black neighborhood, in part because racial covenants prevented Black residents from owning property in other parts of the city, and the \u003ca href=\"https://dsl.richmond.edu/panorama/redlining/map/CA/Oakland/context#loc=11/37.8099/-122.2263\">federal government’s policy\u003c/a> of redlining made buying and improving properties in most Black neighborhoods very difficult. So, working-class residents mingled with their wealthier neighbors in West Oakland, providing a diverse economic base that allowed businesses to thrive.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And they all frequented Esther’s. “The pimps and prostitutes, they’d be up all night, and they would be ready to come in and eat and drink,” Mabry told AAMLO, adding that Sunday dinners were a different crowd, “All the attorneys and the judges and doctors, they all came.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“All walks of life,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She and her husband, William Mabry, bought the building in 1959 and expanded it to include cocktails and live music in 1961, according to the \u003ca href=\"https://www.eastbaytimes.com/2010/06/01/esther-mabry-owner-of-esthers-orbit-room-in-west-oakland-dies-at-90/\">East Bay Times.\u003c/a> In 1963, the couple opened Esther’s Orbit Room, at 1753 Seventh St., with a dance hall that could \u003ca href=\"https://cdnc.ucr.edu/?a=d&d=OT19850729.1.7&srpos=8&e=-------en--20--1-byDA-txt-txIN-%22Esther+Mabry%22-------\">host some 300 guests\u003c/a> and Harry “Daddy O” Gibson and Jay Payton headlining, according to a \u003ca href=\"https://cdnc.ucr.edu/?a=d&d=OT19631105.1.40&srpos=6&e=-------en--20--1--txt-txIN-%22Esther%27s+Orbit+Room%22-------\">notice\u003c/a> in the Oakland Tribune.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12058753\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-12058753 size-full\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/10/251003_ORBIT_ROOM-_-17-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/10/251003_ORBIT_ROOM-_-17-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/10/251003_ORBIT_ROOM-_-17-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/10/251003_ORBIT_ROOM-_-17-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">An old safe was discovered inside Esther’s Orbit Room with plans to be made into a liquor cabinet during renovations in Oakland on Oct. 2, 2025. \u003ccite>(Gustavo Hernandez/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Patrons came as much for the performers as for her down-home Southern food.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Chitlins,” Mabry told AAMLO. “That was my thing that kept me in business was chitlins. Nobody had chitlins but me; I started everybody having chitlins.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But Mabry did more than serve food. She often connected her patrons in need of work with available jobs or served as the conduit between employers and their employees.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She told AAMLO, “They’d come there to look for somebody, and I’d find them for them. I knew just about where to get in contact with somebody, where they’d be playing cards or something, and go and tell them that they’ve got a job for them this evening. That would work out real good.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And Esther’s served a civic function, hosting meetings for the East Bay Democratic Club, \u003ca href=\"https://cdnc.ucr.edu/?a=d&d=OT19660603.1.5&srpos=4&e=-------en--20--1--txt-txIN-%22Esther%27s+Orbit+Room%22-------\">political forums\u003c/a> and city council \u003ca href=\"https://cdnc.ucr.edu/?a=d&d=OT19670405.1.31&srpos=5&e=-------en--20--1--txt-txIN-%22Esther%27s+Orbit+Room%22-------\">candidates’ fundraisers\u003c/a>; it was even visited \u003ca href=\"https://cdnc.ucr.edu/?a=d&d=OT19701208.1.19&srpos=1&e=-------en--20--1--txt-txIN-%22Esther%27s+Breakfast+Club%22-------\">by Ethel Kennedy\u003c/a>, the widow of Robert F. Kennedy, on a tour of West Oakland in 1970.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>‘We always come back’\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>By then, massive developments were well underway, Schwarzer said. And a series of governmental policy decisions had, over several decades, hastened the hollowing out of Seventh Street.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The first was the construction, during the mid-1950s, of the Cypress Street Viaduct, a freeway that tore through the middle of West Oakland, along with the city’s Chinatown, Japantown and Mexican communities, \u003ca href=\"https://archive.ph/20250111235351/https:/www.fhwa.dot.gov/environment/environmental_justice/case_studies/case5.cfm\">uprooting some 600 families\u003c/a> and dozens of businesses.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“So you have a freeway that takes its route through the primary minority communities in Oakland, and disrupts them dramatically,” he said. “That’s the first big change. This was called the Cypress Viaduct, and it went right through the middle of West Oakland — a two-level concrete structure.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12062064\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12062064\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/10/Esthers-Orbit-Room-2.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1416\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/10/Esthers-Orbit-Room-2.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/10/Esthers-Orbit-Room-2-160x113.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/10/Esthers-Orbit-Room-2-1536x1087.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">In an Oakland Post story from Sept. 25, 1963, the newspaper reports on the status of the new Oakland Main Post Office development: “Weeds are over nine feet high. This is an insult to the Negro community. In the background are businesses on Seventh St. This area was sold to the federal government for an alleged Post Office. Over 500 homes were destroyed, to create this blight.” \u003ccite>(Courtesy of the African American Museum & Library at Oakland)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Then came what politicians called “slum clearing” for the \u003ca href=\"https://www.oaklandca.gov/files/assets/city/v/1/city-administrator/documents/archive-oakland-redevelopment-agency/redevelopment-plan.pdf\">Acorn Urban Renewal Plan\u003c/a>, Schwarzer said, and a new Oakland Main Post Office and distribution center. Demolition for that began in 1960, when a contractor used a \u003ca href=\"https://cdnc.ucr.edu/?a=d&d=OT19600816.1.13&srpos=4&e=------196-en--20-OT-1--txt-txIN-%22sherman+tank%22-------\">surplus WWII Sherman Tank\u003c/a> to plow through hundreds of homes. “The elapsed time from the first resounding snap to the last dusty roar was 10 minutes,” an Oakland Tribune article from the time stated. But despite the expediency of demolition, construction was slow, and the new post office didn’t open \u003ca href=\"https://cdnc.ucr.edu/?a=d&d=OT19691017.1.17&srpos=1&e=01-01-1969-01-12-1970--en--20-OT-1--txt-txIN-Oakland+post+office-------\">until 1969\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Esther’s Orbit Room, which was located next to the new post office, eventually had to move to make way for its parking lot, and Mabry relocated across the street to its current location.[aside postID=news_11823182 hero='https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/06/002_KQED_Oakland_GeorgeFloydProtest_06032020-672x372.jpg']But the real death knell for Seventh Street, said Ronnie Stewart, executive director of the Bay Area Blues Society, was the construction of the West Oakland BART Station, with its elevated tracks running down the middle of the street. To accommodate them, businesses along one side of the street were leveled. For those that remained, there were years of construction to contend with, Stewart said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“During the process … they parked bulldozers and tractors and earth-moving equipment. They put that in front of all the different clubs. Cars couldn’t park. You couldn’t even hardly go down Seventh Street,” Stewart said. “And so consequently, that destroyed it.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Esther’s and a neighboring restaurant, The Barn, which also served Southern cuisine, continued operating in large part because they received patrons from the post office, Stewart said. But many of the other businesses “just died on the vine.” And while Esther’s still had live music, the rumble of passing BART trains would interrupt it, shaking the walls, rattling glassware and setting lights to flicker, he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Residents displaced by the redevelopment or who left voluntarily moved to North Oakland and West Berkeley, to the Oakland hills if they could afford it, and to East Oakland, Schwarzer said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12058749\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12058749\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/10/251003_ORBIT_ROOM-_-2-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/10/251003_ORBIT_ROOM-_-2-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/10/251003_ORBIT_ROOM-_-2-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/10/251003_ORBIT_ROOM-_-2-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Noni Session, executive director of the East Bay Permanent Real Estate Cooperative, stands in front of the Barn next to Esther’s Orbit Room on Seventh Street in Oakland, part of plans to revive the corridor with a community café, meeting, and maker space, on Oct. 2, 2025. \u003ccite>(Gustavo Hernandez/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“So there’s a segmentation which hadn’t been present as much before 1960 because the community was so jammed into West Oakland,” he said. “Dispersal of the Black community into segmental class groups starts to weaken the older commercial districts.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But Fabio said that mass displacement had a deeper, psychological impact on the people who lived it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“So all of those homes they took out also removed all of those voices, right?” she said. “The impact is devastating.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>By 1985, when the Oakland Tribune \u003ca href=\"https://cdnc.ucr.edu/?a=d&d=OT19850729.1.7&srpos=8&e=-------en--20--1-byDA-txt-txIN-%22Esther+Mabry%22-------\">profiled Esther and her Orbit Room\u003c/a>, West Oakland featured “mostly boarded-up shops, liquor stores, vacant lots and a fried chicken outlet.” Still, Mabry remained, serving as “a sort of neighborhood update service, a place where people who used to live around Seventh Street go to look up old pals who are still there.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Customer Betty Johnson commented to the Tribune, “It seems like, regardless of where we go, we always come back to Esther’s.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>‘Back like it was before’\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Mabry’s business persisted past the turn of the century as the “Grand Lady of Seventh Street” and the last remaining testament to the storied strip. When Mabry’s health began to fail, her nephew took over operations. Mabry \u003ca href=\"https://www.eastbaytimes.com/2010/06/01/esther-mabry-owner-of-esthers-orbit-room-in-west-oakland-dies-at-90/\">died in 2010\u003c/a>, and the bar closed the following year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>To Stewart, it’s vital the building — and Mabry’s legacy — is preserved, and he’s grateful EBPREC listened to his and other community members’ feedback, urging them to keep that history alive.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12058748\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-12058748 size-full\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/10/251003_ORBIT_ROOM-_-1-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/10/251003_ORBIT_ROOM-_-1-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/10/251003_ORBIT_ROOM-_-1-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/10/251003_ORBIT_ROOM-_-1-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The Barn, next to Esther’s Orbit Room on Seventh Street in West Oakland, is part of efforts to revive the corridor as a community café, meeting and maker space in Oakland on Oct. 2, 2025. \u003ccite>(Gustavo Hernandez/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“[Seventh Street] was the center of Black life. And we think it’s very important to have that remembrance,” Stewart said, “And we feel that the community should have some sort of an iconic symbol of where it used to be.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The building next to Esther’s, which held The Barn and where EBPREC now has its headquarters, will house a new museum to recount the story of Seventh Street, complete with oral histories, archival photos and other memorabilia, Session said. Some of Esther’s original furniture, gambling gear, signage, a clock — even one of Mabry’s hats — will be housed inside the Orbit Room.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>EBPREC hopes the roughly $9 million restoration will become the cornerstone of a plan to revitalize the entire 13 blocks of the historic stretch in an initiative called \u003ca href=\"https://www.7thstreetoakland.com/\">7th Street Thrives\u003c/a>, which includes a coalition of other area residents, business and property owners and city officials.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The vision is to have “every commercial space leased up, the lights turned back on, the trash picked up regularly, and foot traffic and business at increasing levels,” Session said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12058751\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12058751\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/10/251003_ORBIT_ROOM-_-5-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/10/251003_ORBIT_ROOM-_-5-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/10/251003_ORBIT_ROOM-_-5-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/10/251003_ORBIT_ROOM-_-5-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Noni Session points to the spot where the first brick was removed from Esther’s Orbit Room during renovations on Seventh Street in Oakland on Oct. 2, 2025. The cooperative is seeking skilled masons to help preserve its original stone facade. \u003ccite>(Gustavo Hernandez/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>But more than that, she said it’s also about retaining community control of the corridor’s future and ensuring existing and returning residents can benefit from it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“People don’t want something new,” Session said. “They want to recover what was lost.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>To her dying day, that’s what Mabry wanted, too, Stewart said. In her 2002 conversation with AAMLO, Mabry told her interviewers it was her “greatest ambition” to see Seventh Street, and all of West Oakland, revitalized.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After all, she told the Tribune in 1985, “This is where people’s roots are. We just try to take care of ‘em.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n",
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"excerpt": "The restoration of Esther’s Orbit Room, a historic blues club in West Oakland, will include a performance venue and bar, artist spaces, food and more.",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>When Noni Session first imagined reopening Esther’s Orbit Room, she saw a gleaming new building that would serve as an anchor for a reinvigorated cultural and commercial corridor.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For Session, who was born and raised in \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/west-oakland\">West Oakland\u003c/a> and is the executive director of the \u003ca href=\"https://ebprec.org/\">East Bay Permanent Real Estate Cooperative\u003c/a>, or EBPREC, renovating Esther’s was a chance at a fresh start.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The former blues club had been a staple of the historic Seventh Street district, called the “Harlem of the West,” serving as the center of Black life in West Oakland for roughly half a century. While a series of policy decisions decimated the strip, with dozens of businesses and thousands of homes razed, Esther’s had remained the lone holdout, keeping its \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/arts/13809453/evolutionary-blues-resurrects-west-oaklands-musical-legacy\">doors open until 2011\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The building had sat vacant for around a decade by the time it came to EBPREC’s attention. But the decision to reopen it as a performance venue, bar and eatery seemed self-evident, Session said. She and her team at the developer co-op purchased the building and planned contemporary additions, including a wellness studio, working and living spaces for artists and an outdoor patio.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>They released renderings of the proposed upgrades: new balconies, murals, and a bold new sign replacing the rough faux-stone facade in favor of a fresh, modern aesthetic.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We thought we were doing West Oakland a favor by getting rid of the sniff of the trauma and the lack of resources, right? You know, new facade, new bar, new vibe, new day,” Session said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12062061\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-12062061 size-full\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/10/Esthers-Orbit-Room-1.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1514\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/10/Esthers-Orbit-Room-1.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/10/Esthers-Orbit-Room-1-160x121.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/10/Esthers-Orbit-Room-1-1536x1163.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Esther’s Orbit Room photographed in 1987. \u003ccite>(Courtesy of the African American Museum & Library at Oakland)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>And then came the outcry.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Some of the old men in the neighborhood — on public record — were like, ‘That’s cultural genocide,’” Session recalled.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She and her colleagues at EBPREC were already having some misgivings about the proposed design and had resolved to change it. But the criticism still threw Session for a loop.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“And then after some time sitting with it, looking at it, we realized you couldn’t really see West Oakland in that rendering,” she said. “It was only really then that I understood what they meant by cultural genocide, that they could not see their story on the surfaces of these buildings that we were calling assets, but not treating like assets.”\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>Now, instead of a ground-breaking ceremony, planned for later this year, there will be a rock-breaking ceremony. With help from professional masons, volunteers will painstakingly remove the building’s original fabricated stones from the exterior so \u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/p/DLa2PyfBllH/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link&igsh=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==\">they can be reconstructed\u003c/a> when the restoration is complete.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For some of West Oakland’s older generation, who experienced Seventh Street in its heyday, the decision to restore — rather than remodel — is one step toward repairing what was lost.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It is sort of a love letter to a legacy,” said Cheryl Fabio, whose documentary film, \u003cem>Evolutionary Blues: West Oakland’s Music Legacy\u003c/em>, recounts the area’s musical history. “It is some repair — not enough repair — but some repair for what was stolen in places like Seventh Street.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Inside, Session said EBPREC plans to repurpose the building’s original wooden walls, painted yellow and orange and long hidden beneath a layer of sheetrock, to use as a decorative backing for the bar and stage. The bar’s antique safe, rolltop desks and other furniture will feature prominently. “So that everywhere you turn, you see the authentic textures of this historical space.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In a true act of serendipity, Session said, they uncovered Esther’s original stage lights, hidden behind an artificial wall and perfectly positioned where a new stage had already been planned. Standing inside the blackened room with only a headlamp to see by, Session pointed to the conical spotlight covers, their bulbs removed, nestled into the ceiling.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We were just dumbfounded,” she said. “What we’ve realized we need to do is, in some ways — this is a made-up word — but that we need to museumize the whole space.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>‘The place to be’\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>At its height in the middle of the 20th Century, Seventh Street was not only a prime entertainment district drawing national acts — such as B.B. King, Al Green, Aretha Franklin, Big Mama Thornton and other blues greats — but the locus of civic and community life. There were banks and lawyers’ offices, barber shops and grocery stores, a record store and recording studio, pharmacies, clothing stores, a bowling alley, theaters, and plenty of eateries.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Esther Mabry, the Orbit Room’s namesake, founder and operator for more than a half-century, first came to Seventh Street during WWII, drawn from her hometown of Palestine, Texas, by the promise of good pay, she said in a \u003ca href=\"https://californiarevealed.org/do/97295ae0-188e-425d-96ca-264375d3b633\">2002 interview\u003c/a> with the African American Museum and Library at Oakland, or AAMLO.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12062065\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12062065\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/10/Esthers-Orbit-Room-3.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"2471\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/10/Esthers-Orbit-Room-3.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/10/Esthers-Orbit-Room-3-160x198.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/10/Esthers-Orbit-Room-3-1243x1536.jpg 1243w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/10/Esthers-Orbit-Room-3-1658x2048.jpg 1658w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Two men stand shaking hands on the sidewalk underneath Elsie’s neon sign on Seventh Street, circa the 1950s. \u003ccite>(Courtesy of the African American Museum & Library at Oakland)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“Everybody was making good money, and they were talking about how much money they were making,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>By that time, West Oakland, the terminus of the transcontinental railroad, had already become a magnet for working-class people of all ethnicities, said Mitchell Schwarzer, an architectural historian and author of the book, \u003ca href=\"https://www.ucpress.edu/books/hella-town/paper\">\u003cem>Hella Town: Oakland’s History of Development and Disruption\u003c/em>\u003c/a>. But, he said, it had a particular pull for Black transplants as the West Coast headquarters of the \u003ca href=\"https://oaklandlibrary.org/content/oaklands-pullman-porters/\">Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters\u003c/a>, a large and influential union representing Black workers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The Porters became the genesis of a larger black community. They were kind of the foundation because they had decent-paying jobs at the time,” Schwarzer said. “And for Black people, this was probably one of the best jobs you could get until the war industries.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Mabry herself worked for the Southern Pacific Railroad when she first arrived in West Oakland, she told AAMLO.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I sold tickets and made sandwiches — they had boxed lunches — and just did it all,” she said. “It was the place to be.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12058750\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12058750\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/10/251003_ORBIT_ROOM-_-3-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/10/251003_ORBIT_ROOM-_-3-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/10/251003_ORBIT_ROOM-_-3-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/10/251003_ORBIT_ROOM-_-3-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The exterior of Esther’s Orbit Room, a historic former jazz club on Seventh Street in Oakland, on Oct. 2, 2025. Once a hub for music legends such as BB King and Etta James, the building is being renovated by the East Bay Permanent Real Estate Cooperative. \u003ccite>(Gustavo Hernandez/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>And Mabry was at the center of it. She told AAMLO she first opened Esther’s Breakfast Club, located across the street from the Orbit Room’s current location, in 1950.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>By then, Schwarzer said West Oakland was well on its way to becoming a majority Black neighborhood, in part because racial covenants prevented Black residents from owning property in other parts of the city, and the \u003ca href=\"https://dsl.richmond.edu/panorama/redlining/map/CA/Oakland/context#loc=11/37.8099/-122.2263\">federal government’s policy\u003c/a> of redlining made buying and improving properties in most Black neighborhoods very difficult. So, working-class residents mingled with their wealthier neighbors in West Oakland, providing a diverse economic base that allowed businesses to thrive.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And they all frequented Esther’s. “The pimps and prostitutes, they’d be up all night, and they would be ready to come in and eat and drink,” Mabry told AAMLO, adding that Sunday dinners were a different crowd, “All the attorneys and the judges and doctors, they all came.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“All walks of life,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She and her husband, William Mabry, bought the building in 1959 and expanded it to include cocktails and live music in 1961, according to the \u003ca href=\"https://www.eastbaytimes.com/2010/06/01/esther-mabry-owner-of-esthers-orbit-room-in-west-oakland-dies-at-90/\">East Bay Times.\u003c/a> In 1963, the couple opened Esther’s Orbit Room, at 1753 Seventh St., with a dance hall that could \u003ca href=\"https://cdnc.ucr.edu/?a=d&d=OT19850729.1.7&srpos=8&e=-------en--20--1-byDA-txt-txIN-%22Esther+Mabry%22-------\">host some 300 guests\u003c/a> and Harry “Daddy O” Gibson and Jay Payton headlining, according to a \u003ca href=\"https://cdnc.ucr.edu/?a=d&d=OT19631105.1.40&srpos=6&e=-------en--20--1--txt-txIN-%22Esther%27s+Orbit+Room%22-------\">notice\u003c/a> in the Oakland Tribune.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12058753\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-12058753 size-full\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/10/251003_ORBIT_ROOM-_-17-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/10/251003_ORBIT_ROOM-_-17-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/10/251003_ORBIT_ROOM-_-17-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/10/251003_ORBIT_ROOM-_-17-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">An old safe was discovered inside Esther’s Orbit Room with plans to be made into a liquor cabinet during renovations in Oakland on Oct. 2, 2025. \u003ccite>(Gustavo Hernandez/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Patrons came as much for the performers as for her down-home Southern food.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Chitlins,” Mabry told AAMLO. “That was my thing that kept me in business was chitlins. Nobody had chitlins but me; I started everybody having chitlins.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But Mabry did more than serve food. She often connected her patrons in need of work with available jobs or served as the conduit between employers and their employees.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She told AAMLO, “They’d come there to look for somebody, and I’d find them for them. I knew just about where to get in contact with somebody, where they’d be playing cards or something, and go and tell them that they’ve got a job for them this evening. That would work out real good.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And Esther’s served a civic function, hosting meetings for the East Bay Democratic Club, \u003ca href=\"https://cdnc.ucr.edu/?a=d&d=OT19660603.1.5&srpos=4&e=-------en--20--1--txt-txIN-%22Esther%27s+Orbit+Room%22-------\">political forums\u003c/a> and city council \u003ca href=\"https://cdnc.ucr.edu/?a=d&d=OT19670405.1.31&srpos=5&e=-------en--20--1--txt-txIN-%22Esther%27s+Orbit+Room%22-------\">candidates’ fundraisers\u003c/a>; it was even visited \u003ca href=\"https://cdnc.ucr.edu/?a=d&d=OT19701208.1.19&srpos=1&e=-------en--20--1--txt-txIN-%22Esther%27s+Breakfast+Club%22-------\">by Ethel Kennedy\u003c/a>, the widow of Robert F. Kennedy, on a tour of West Oakland in 1970.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>‘We always come back’\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>By then, massive developments were well underway, Schwarzer said. And a series of governmental policy decisions had, over several decades, hastened the hollowing out of Seventh Street.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The first was the construction, during the mid-1950s, of the Cypress Street Viaduct, a freeway that tore through the middle of West Oakland, along with the city’s Chinatown, Japantown and Mexican communities, \u003ca href=\"https://archive.ph/20250111235351/https:/www.fhwa.dot.gov/environment/environmental_justice/case_studies/case5.cfm\">uprooting some 600 families\u003c/a> and dozens of businesses.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“So you have a freeway that takes its route through the primary minority communities in Oakland, and disrupts them dramatically,” he said. “That’s the first big change. This was called the Cypress Viaduct, and it went right through the middle of West Oakland — a two-level concrete structure.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12062064\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12062064\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/10/Esthers-Orbit-Room-2.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1416\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/10/Esthers-Orbit-Room-2.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/10/Esthers-Orbit-Room-2-160x113.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/10/Esthers-Orbit-Room-2-1536x1087.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">In an Oakland Post story from Sept. 25, 1963, the newspaper reports on the status of the new Oakland Main Post Office development: “Weeds are over nine feet high. This is an insult to the Negro community. In the background are businesses on Seventh St. This area was sold to the federal government for an alleged Post Office. Over 500 homes were destroyed, to create this blight.” \u003ccite>(Courtesy of the African American Museum & Library at Oakland)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Then came what politicians called “slum clearing” for the \u003ca href=\"https://www.oaklandca.gov/files/assets/city/v/1/city-administrator/documents/archive-oakland-redevelopment-agency/redevelopment-plan.pdf\">Acorn Urban Renewal Plan\u003c/a>, Schwarzer said, and a new Oakland Main Post Office and distribution center. Demolition for that began in 1960, when a contractor used a \u003ca href=\"https://cdnc.ucr.edu/?a=d&d=OT19600816.1.13&srpos=4&e=------196-en--20-OT-1--txt-txIN-%22sherman+tank%22-------\">surplus WWII Sherman Tank\u003c/a> to plow through hundreds of homes. “The elapsed time from the first resounding snap to the last dusty roar was 10 minutes,” an Oakland Tribune article from the time stated. But despite the expediency of demolition, construction was slow, and the new post office didn’t open \u003ca href=\"https://cdnc.ucr.edu/?a=d&d=OT19691017.1.17&srpos=1&e=01-01-1969-01-12-1970--en--20-OT-1--txt-txIN-Oakland+post+office-------\">until 1969\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Esther’s Orbit Room, which was located next to the new post office, eventually had to move to make way for its parking lot, and Mabry relocated across the street to its current location.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>But the real death knell for Seventh Street, said Ronnie Stewart, executive director of the Bay Area Blues Society, was the construction of the West Oakland BART Station, with its elevated tracks running down the middle of the street. To accommodate them, businesses along one side of the street were leveled. For those that remained, there were years of construction to contend with, Stewart said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“During the process … they parked bulldozers and tractors and earth-moving equipment. They put that in front of all the different clubs. Cars couldn’t park. You couldn’t even hardly go down Seventh Street,” Stewart said. “And so consequently, that destroyed it.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Esther’s and a neighboring restaurant, The Barn, which also served Southern cuisine, continued operating in large part because they received patrons from the post office, Stewart said. But many of the other businesses “just died on the vine.” And while Esther’s still had live music, the rumble of passing BART trains would interrupt it, shaking the walls, rattling glassware and setting lights to flicker, he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Residents displaced by the redevelopment or who left voluntarily moved to North Oakland and West Berkeley, to the Oakland hills if they could afford it, and to East Oakland, Schwarzer said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12058749\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12058749\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/10/251003_ORBIT_ROOM-_-2-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/10/251003_ORBIT_ROOM-_-2-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/10/251003_ORBIT_ROOM-_-2-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/10/251003_ORBIT_ROOM-_-2-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Noni Session, executive director of the East Bay Permanent Real Estate Cooperative, stands in front of the Barn next to Esther’s Orbit Room on Seventh Street in Oakland, part of plans to revive the corridor with a community café, meeting, and maker space, on Oct. 2, 2025. \u003ccite>(Gustavo Hernandez/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“So there’s a segmentation which hadn’t been present as much before 1960 because the community was so jammed into West Oakland,” he said. “Dispersal of the Black community into segmental class groups starts to weaken the older commercial districts.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But Fabio said that mass displacement had a deeper, psychological impact on the people who lived it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“So all of those homes they took out also removed all of those voices, right?” she said. “The impact is devastating.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>By 1985, when the Oakland Tribune \u003ca href=\"https://cdnc.ucr.edu/?a=d&d=OT19850729.1.7&srpos=8&e=-------en--20--1-byDA-txt-txIN-%22Esther+Mabry%22-------\">profiled Esther and her Orbit Room\u003c/a>, West Oakland featured “mostly boarded-up shops, liquor stores, vacant lots and a fried chicken outlet.” Still, Mabry remained, serving as “a sort of neighborhood update service, a place where people who used to live around Seventh Street go to look up old pals who are still there.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Customer Betty Johnson commented to the Tribune, “It seems like, regardless of where we go, we always come back to Esther’s.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>‘Back like it was before’\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Mabry’s business persisted past the turn of the century as the “Grand Lady of Seventh Street” and the last remaining testament to the storied strip. When Mabry’s health began to fail, her nephew took over operations. Mabry \u003ca href=\"https://www.eastbaytimes.com/2010/06/01/esther-mabry-owner-of-esthers-orbit-room-in-west-oakland-dies-at-90/\">died in 2010\u003c/a>, and the bar closed the following year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>To Stewart, it’s vital the building — and Mabry’s legacy — is preserved, and he’s grateful EBPREC listened to his and other community members’ feedback, urging them to keep that history alive.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12058748\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-12058748 size-full\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/10/251003_ORBIT_ROOM-_-1-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/10/251003_ORBIT_ROOM-_-1-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/10/251003_ORBIT_ROOM-_-1-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/10/251003_ORBIT_ROOM-_-1-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The Barn, next to Esther’s Orbit Room on Seventh Street in West Oakland, is part of efforts to revive the corridor as a community café, meeting and maker space in Oakland on Oct. 2, 2025. \u003ccite>(Gustavo Hernandez/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“[Seventh Street] was the center of Black life. And we think it’s very important to have that remembrance,” Stewart said, “And we feel that the community should have some sort of an iconic symbol of where it used to be.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The building next to Esther’s, which held The Barn and where EBPREC now has its headquarters, will house a new museum to recount the story of Seventh Street, complete with oral histories, archival photos and other memorabilia, Session said. Some of Esther’s original furniture, gambling gear, signage, a clock — even one of Mabry’s hats — will be housed inside the Orbit Room.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>EBPREC hopes the roughly $9 million restoration will become the cornerstone of a plan to revitalize the entire 13 blocks of the historic stretch in an initiative called \u003ca href=\"https://www.7thstreetoakland.com/\">7th Street Thrives\u003c/a>, which includes a coalition of other area residents, business and property owners and city officials.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The vision is to have “every commercial space leased up, the lights turned back on, the trash picked up regularly, and foot traffic and business at increasing levels,” Session said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12058751\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12058751\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/10/251003_ORBIT_ROOM-_-5-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/10/251003_ORBIT_ROOM-_-5-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/10/251003_ORBIT_ROOM-_-5-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/10/251003_ORBIT_ROOM-_-5-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Noni Session points to the spot where the first brick was removed from Esther’s Orbit Room during renovations on Seventh Street in Oakland on Oct. 2, 2025. The cooperative is seeking skilled masons to help preserve its original stone facade. \u003ccite>(Gustavo Hernandez/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>But more than that, she said it’s also about retaining community control of the corridor’s future and ensuring existing and returning residents can benefit from it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“People don’t want something new,” Session said. “They want to recover what was lost.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>To her dying day, that’s what Mabry wanted, too, Stewart said. In her 2002 conversation with AAMLO, Mabry told her interviewers it was her “greatest ambition” to see Seventh Street, and all of West Oakland, revitalized.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After all, she told the Tribune in 1985, “This is where people’s roots are. We just try to take care of ‘em.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"slug": "californias-clean-air-program-for-polluted-communities-faces-crossroads",
"title": "California’s Clean-Air Program for Polluted Communities Faces Crossroads",
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"headTitle": "California’s Clean-Air Program for Polluted Communities Faces Crossroads | KQED",
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"content": "\u003cp>On Aug. 6, 2012, a fire \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/73746/new-photos-chevron-refinery-fire-and-its-aftermath\">broke out\u003c/a> at the Chevron refinery in Richmond. Liquid hydrocarbon spewed from a leaky pipe in the crude unit and ignited, sending smoke plumes into the air that could be seen across the Bay.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Nearby residents struggled to breathe and reported headaches, chest pains and itchy eyes. More than 15,000 people sought medical help. For Luna Angulo, then in middle school, it was an awakening.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“As someone who is 12 and you see the sky suddenly turn black, you’re like — the city is on fire,” Angulo, now 25, said. “What is this about? What is going on?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Chevron later \u003ca href=\"https://www.dir.ca.gov/DIRNews/2017/2017-62.pdf\">agreed\u003c/a> to upgrade the refinery, which was first established in 1902, and pay more than $1 million in fines. The company also \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11665999/chevron-richmond-move-to-settle-lawsuit-over-2012-refinery-fire-that-sickened-thousands\">settled a lawsuit\u003c/a> with the city of Richmond for $5 million.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For Angulo, the flames revealed the human cost of living in the shadow of California’s third-largest refinery.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The 2012 fire in particular was a big catalyzing moment for me in terms of how I saw the role of Chevron in Richmond,” Angulo said. “But I think also for a lot of the youth from Richmond that I organized with, it was a big ‘Oh s—’ moment.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12051503\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12051503\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/08/250808-CAP-AND-TRADE-ENVIRO-JUSTICE-MD-01-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/08/250808-CAP-AND-TRADE-ENVIRO-JUSTICE-MD-01-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/08/250808-CAP-AND-TRADE-ENVIRO-JUSTICE-MD-01-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/08/250808-CAP-AND-TRADE-ENVIRO-JUSTICE-MD-01-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Luna Angulo looks at the Chevron Refinery from the Wildcat Marsh Staging Area in Richmond on Aug. 8, 2025. \u003ccite>(Martin do Nascimento/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The 2012 Chevron fire was a key flashpoint in the yearslong effort to empower frontline communities like Richmond to fight for cleaner air. That work culminated in the Path to Clean Air — a hyperlocal pollution-reduction roadmap that places decision-making in the hands of residents, not regulators. With such lofty goals, the Path to Clean Air could be a community-powered blueprint that dramatically reshapes Richmond’s local economy and the health of its residents. Or it could collect dust.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Over the next decade, Angulo became deeply involved in local activism, often pressing state and regional agencies to adopt tougher regulations on Chevron. Then, in 2021, she heard about an opportunity to claim a seat at the table.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Four years earlier, Gov. Jerry Brown had signed Assembly Bill 617, aimed at improving air quality in California’s most polluted communities. Crucially, the law created local steering committees — made up of residents, not experts — with the power to craft plans to measure and reduce air pollution.[aside postID=news_12040941 hero='https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/05/250509-BeniciaRefinery-30-BL_qed-1020x680.jpg']“It’s a sick concept — you’re putting decision-making power in the hands of community members in this very direct way,” Angulo, 25, said. “And I was like, ‘This is incredible.’”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Many local activists saw AB 617 as a breakthrough for community power-building. But statewide environmental justice organizations viewed it as a half-measure, meant to win support from progressive Democrats for Brown’s true priority: extending California’s landmark environmental program known as cap-and-trade.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Cap-and-trade sets a declining limit on greenhouse gas emissions from industries such as refineries, power plants and factories. But it does not require reductions at specific sites, such as Chevron’s Richmond refinery, and it only regulates climate-warming greenhouse gases, not local air pollutants like particulate matter.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Cap-and-trade is really looking at the broader scale, looking at overall greenhouse gas emissions at the statewide scale,” said Jonathan London, a UC Davis professor who has spent years studying the AB 617 program. “So local communities that are facing these significant air quality burdens can sometimes not be on the map and not actually show up as a key topic of concern when things are at that really broad level.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Assemblymember Cristina Garcia hoped to spotlight local air pollution when she brought Brown \u003ca href=\"https://x.com/AsmGarcia/status/867123969140285441\">on a 2017 tour\u003c/a> of her hometown of Bell Gardens. She walked with the governor along freeway overpasses above backlogged trucks spewing exhaust and invited him to speak with local environmental activists. After \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11473247/state-democrats-have-new-leverage-in-effort-to-curb-greenhouse-gases\">months of negotiations\u003c/a>, Brown and legislative leaders included AB 617, written by Garcia, in the \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11573588/california-lawmakers-approve-plan-to-extend-cap-and-trade-system\">deal to renew\u003c/a> cap-and-trade.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12051504\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12051504\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/08/250808-CAP-AND-TRADE-ENVIRO-JUSTICE-MD-03-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1334\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/08/250808-CAP-AND-TRADE-ENVIRO-JUSTICE-MD-03-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/08/250808-CAP-AND-TRADE-ENVIRO-JUSTICE-MD-03-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/08/250808-CAP-AND-TRADE-ENVIRO-JUSTICE-MD-03-KQED-1536x1025.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A sign for a petroleum pipeline in Richmond on Aug. 8, 2025. \u003ccite>(Martin do Nascimento/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Eight years later, leaders like Angulo have used AB 617 to create local plans for reducing pollution. But those plans lack real enforcement power, making it difficult to gauge how much AB 617 has actually reduced pollution in the frontline communities it was designed to help.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Now, Gov. Gavin Newsom and state legislators are weighing another renewal of cap-and-trade, which could change the way AB 617 is funded. Environmental justice advocates view the negotiations as a chance to strengthen the program and deliver on the promise of clean air in California’s most polluted neighborhoods.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Ten communities were selected in 2018 for the program’s rollout by the California Air Resources Board. These were predominantly Black and Latino neighborhoods — such as West Oakland, Carson and East Los Angeles — where decades of discriminatory planning had placed backyards near industrial facilities.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The goal was for local steering committees to work with regional air districts to monitor pollution and draft community emission reduction plans, or CERPs.[aside postID=news_12000170 hero='https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/08/017_Richmond_ChevronRefinery_01132022_qed-1020x680.jpg']The rollout was rocky.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In West Oakland, established environmental justice advocates were ready to use new state funding and authority to push for emissions cuts from trucks at the Port of Oakland.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But in Richmond, North Richmond and San Pablo, London found the Bay Area Air District still largely controlled the steering committee process. Local environmental justice groups did not participate because of their opposition to AB 617, and residents who did join struggled with procedural hurdles.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We had to make ‘motions,’ get ‘seconds,’ make a ‘friendly amendment,’” Angulo remembered. “We operate under consensus very much in these community spaces — no one knows how to make a motion.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In a 2020 survey, London asked members of the 10 steering committees if they believed the process benefited their communities. Richmond’s steering committee members gave themselves the lowest score.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Gradually, through turnover and years of monthly meetings, the steering committee found its footing. Data from AB 617’s expanded air monitoring helped identify local pollution hotspots — from highways to rail yards to auto body shops. Angulo pushed through a change to the committee rules to give community members more control over meetings and agendas.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12037033\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1586px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12037033\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/04/PHOTO-2-Chevron-RUPTURED-PIPELINE-CSB.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"1586\" height=\"1084\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/04/PHOTO-2-Chevron-RUPTURED-PIPELINE-CSB.png 1586w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/04/PHOTO-2-Chevron-RUPTURED-PIPELINE-CSB-800x547.png 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/04/PHOTO-2-Chevron-RUPTURED-PIPELINE-CSB-1020x697.png 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/04/PHOTO-2-Chevron-RUPTURED-PIPELINE-CSB-160x109.png 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/04/PHOTO-2-Chevron-RUPTURED-PIPELINE-CSB-1536x1050.png 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1586px) 100vw, 1586px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The Aug. 6, 2012, fire at the Chevron Oil Refinery in Richmond, California, began near the rupture of this 8-inch pipe, shown in this photo included in the U.S. Chemical Safety Board’s final investigative report. \u003ccite>(Courtesy of U.S. Chemical Safety Board)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“Issues that we found early on … many of those really have been addressed,” London said. “Fixes have been put in to improve community engagement, to ensure that community priorities are well reflected in the eventual emission reduction plans.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Richmond’s CERP, called The Path to Clean Air, was finalized in November, years behind schedule. It calls for the Bay Area Air District to adopt new rules limiting refinery emissions, invest fines collected from polluters back into Richmond and neighboring San Pablo, and move toward a “just transition” away from fossil fuels.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A large focus, to no surprise, is Chevron, which the roadmap cited as “by far the largest single generator of emissions in the Path to Clean Air community for many air pollutants,” including PM 2.5 — microscopic particles linked to asthma and emphysema.[aside postID=news_12040286 hero='https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/05/20250203_MartinezRefineryFolo_GC-26_qed-1020x680.jpg']“The [Path to Clean Air] community is a frontline community that has long been subject to historical and systematic racist policies and impacted by the largest refinery in Northern California, the Chevron Richmond Refinery,” the report reads. “In order to reach our climate and equity goals, we must end the refining and combustion of fossil fuels as soon as possible.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That’s an audacious goal for a city whose local economy and tax base have long been tied to Chevron.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The company participated in the process as a non-voting member of the steering committee. It declined an interview request but said in a statement that it “values the program described in AB 617 as an important initiative to address local air quality.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We believe the AB 617 framework is important to the program’s success, including inclusive engagement, data-driven assessments, and clear objectives to cost-effectively reduce local emissions,” Chevron spokesperson Caitlin Powell said. “For the past few decades, California’s energy policies have discouraged investment, reduced fuel reliability, and ultimately hurt consumers through higher prices and broader economic strain.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It is crucial that policies aimed at reducing emissions do not unduly burden California families.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But in a 2024 email to the Bay Area Air District, Chevron manager Kris Battleson criticized the CERP’s call for a just transition.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12051541\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12051541\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/08/250603-PollutersPay-21-BL_qed.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/08/250603-PollutersPay-21-BL_qed.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/08/250603-PollutersPay-21-BL_qed-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/08/250603-PollutersPay-21-BL_qed-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The Chevron Richmond Refinery, seen from the Point Richmond neighborhood in Richmond on June 3, 2025. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“The concept of a ‘just transition’ does not relate to emission reductions and is more akin to providing a safety net for workers and residents impacted by the State’s goals of eliminating an entire industry,” he wrote.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>BK White, a former Chevron refinery operator and current policy director for Richmond’s mayor, said the plan is not a “shot” at Chevron, but responsible planning for a future in which demand for gasoline refined in California is projected to decline.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Any city that is too dependent on one industry — we’ve seen it with coal, with the automobile industry in the Midwest — you have to transition your tax base to where you’re more diversified,” White said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Bay Area air regulators have said the local CERPS have driven the rules they make to limit pollution. But a core flaw of AB 617 is that the community plans carry no legal weight, said Dan Ress, attorney at the Center on Race, Poverty and the Environment.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“They put together these really thoughtful and nuanced plans,” Ress said. “And then they’re told, ‘Well, that’s really a nice document you put together, gold star.’”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12051551\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12051551\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/08/20140709_184808_qed.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1125\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/08/20140709_184808_qed.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/08/20140709_184808_qed-160x90.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/08/20140709_184808_qed-1536x864.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">More than 300 people attended the Richmond Planning Commission’s meeting on July 9, 2014, to weigh in on the environmental impact of a proposed upgrade to the Chevron refinery in the city. \u003ccite>(Alex Emslie/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>While Ress praised the work of residents on the 617 steering committees, he warned that the lack of enforcement could erode trust.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I think that causes some real problems where you’re saying, ‘Community members, tell us what you want. OK, cool, we’re going to ignore that now,’” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In Shafter, a Central Valley AB 617 community, members demanded earlier notice before pesticides were sprayed on local fields. With an advanced heads-up, parents could keep their children inside on a day when chemicals were being sprayed in the area.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Kern County agricultural commissioner refused, even though the data was already available. The steering committee turned to state regulators, and after a five-year campaign, California launched a statewide pesticide notification program earlier this year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“So we see both the main benefit of 617 in that organizing and power building,” Ress said. “And the main drawback in its lack of weight.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12051554\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1999px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12051554\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/08/250603-PollutersPay-07-BL_qed-1.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1999\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/08/250603-PollutersPay-07-BL_qed-1.jpg 1999w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/08/250603-PollutersPay-07-BL_qed-1-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/08/250603-PollutersPay-07-BL_qed-1-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1999px) 100vw, 1999px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Part of the Chevron Richmond Refinery, seen from the Point Richmond neighborhood in Richmond on June 3, 2025. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Advocates want lawmakers to expand the program beyond the current 19 communities, add environmental justice-aligned regulators to local air boards and give the local plans real enforcement power.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The core concern is that [AB 617] pits disadvantaged communities against each other in competing to get into the program,” Ress said. “Then once they’re in the program, it takes a ton of resources and focused effort with relatively small payback for that effort.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The program’s future may hinge on the upcoming cap-and-trade negotiations, which are expected to intensify when the Legislature returns from recess on Aug. 18.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A key point of debate is how to allocate the revenue generated from the sale of emissions credits purchased. Since 2017, the Legislature has dedicated $1.4 billion in support of AB 617. The funds have paid for EV charging stations, bike paths, urban greening programs and staff support for the local steering committees.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Newsom has touted the AB 617 projects as a reason to renew cap-and-trade, which he is proposing to rename Cap-and-Invest.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12008449\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12008449\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/10/GavinNewsomAP3.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/10/GavinNewsomAP3.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/10/GavinNewsomAP3-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/10/GavinNewsomAP3-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/10/GavinNewsomAP3-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/10/GavinNewsomAP3-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/10/GavinNewsomAP3-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Gov. Gavin Newsom speaks during a press conference in Los Angeles on Wednesday, Sept. 25, 2024. \u003ccite>(Eric Thayer/AP Photo)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“We’re cutting harmful pollution across California with a special focus on communities that have some of the dirtiest air in our state,” Newsom said in a statement. “Thanks to Cap-and-Invest, we’ve invested hundreds of millions of dollars in projects that are proven to clean the air.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But Newsom and legislative leaders also want to use cap-and-trade funds for other \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12040286/how-california-cap-and-trade-works-and-how-newsom-wants-to-change-it\">priorities\u003c/a>, such as funding high-speed rail, firefighting and lowering electricity bills. A Chevron executive \u003ca href=\"https://www.politico.com/newsletters/california-climate/2025/08/01/chevrons-andy-walz-isnt-satisfied-00490144\">told \u003cem>Politico\u003c/em>\u003c/a> that cap-and-trade should be paused for up to 20 years to avoid harming refineries.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Supporters of AB 617 argue that cutting the funding would break the promise that communities breathing the dirtiest air would not be left behind on the state’s path to global climate leadership.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This program was made with the intention of using this polluter money to help reduce the impact of these industrial facilities,” said Angulo. “If we’re not using that money to fund programs like these — that are putting decision-making power directly into the hands of community members —what are we doing?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n",
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"excerpt": "Touted as an environmental justice companion to California’s cap-and-trade system, AB 617 promised cleaner air for frontline communities like Richmond — but has it actually delivered?",
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"title": "California’s Clean-Air Program for Polluted Communities Faces Crossroads | KQED",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>On Aug. 6, 2012, a fire \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/73746/new-photos-chevron-refinery-fire-and-its-aftermath\">broke out\u003c/a> at the Chevron refinery in Richmond. Liquid hydrocarbon spewed from a leaky pipe in the crude unit and ignited, sending smoke plumes into the air that could be seen across the Bay.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Nearby residents struggled to breathe and reported headaches, chest pains and itchy eyes. More than 15,000 people sought medical help. For Luna Angulo, then in middle school, it was an awakening.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“As someone who is 12 and you see the sky suddenly turn black, you’re like — the city is on fire,” Angulo, now 25, said. “What is this about? What is going on?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Chevron later \u003ca href=\"https://www.dir.ca.gov/DIRNews/2017/2017-62.pdf\">agreed\u003c/a> to upgrade the refinery, which was first established in 1902, and pay more than $1 million in fines. The company also \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11665999/chevron-richmond-move-to-settle-lawsuit-over-2012-refinery-fire-that-sickened-thousands\">settled a lawsuit\u003c/a> with the city of Richmond for $5 million.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For Angulo, the flames revealed the human cost of living in the shadow of California’s third-largest refinery.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The 2012 fire in particular was a big catalyzing moment for me in terms of how I saw the role of Chevron in Richmond,” Angulo said. “But I think also for a lot of the youth from Richmond that I organized with, it was a big ‘Oh s—’ moment.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12051503\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12051503\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/08/250808-CAP-AND-TRADE-ENVIRO-JUSTICE-MD-01-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/08/250808-CAP-AND-TRADE-ENVIRO-JUSTICE-MD-01-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/08/250808-CAP-AND-TRADE-ENVIRO-JUSTICE-MD-01-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/08/250808-CAP-AND-TRADE-ENVIRO-JUSTICE-MD-01-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Luna Angulo looks at the Chevron Refinery from the Wildcat Marsh Staging Area in Richmond on Aug. 8, 2025. \u003ccite>(Martin do Nascimento/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The 2012 Chevron fire was a key flashpoint in the yearslong effort to empower frontline communities like Richmond to fight for cleaner air. That work culminated in the Path to Clean Air — a hyperlocal pollution-reduction roadmap that places decision-making in the hands of residents, not regulators. With such lofty goals, the Path to Clean Air could be a community-powered blueprint that dramatically reshapes Richmond’s local economy and the health of its residents. Or it could collect dust.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Over the next decade, Angulo became deeply involved in local activism, often pressing state and regional agencies to adopt tougher regulations on Chevron. Then, in 2021, she heard about an opportunity to claim a seat at the table.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Four years earlier, Gov. Jerry Brown had signed Assembly Bill 617, aimed at improving air quality in California’s most polluted communities. Crucially, the law created local steering committees — made up of residents, not experts — with the power to craft plans to measure and reduce air pollution.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>“It’s a sick concept — you’re putting decision-making power in the hands of community members in this very direct way,” Angulo, 25, said. “And I was like, ‘This is incredible.’”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Many local activists saw AB 617 as a breakthrough for community power-building. But statewide environmental justice organizations viewed it as a half-measure, meant to win support from progressive Democrats for Brown’s true priority: extending California’s landmark environmental program known as cap-and-trade.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Cap-and-trade sets a declining limit on greenhouse gas emissions from industries such as refineries, power plants and factories. But it does not require reductions at specific sites, such as Chevron’s Richmond refinery, and it only regulates climate-warming greenhouse gases, not local air pollutants like particulate matter.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Cap-and-trade is really looking at the broader scale, looking at overall greenhouse gas emissions at the statewide scale,” said Jonathan London, a UC Davis professor who has spent years studying the AB 617 program. “So local communities that are facing these significant air quality burdens can sometimes not be on the map and not actually show up as a key topic of concern when things are at that really broad level.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Assemblymember Cristina Garcia hoped to spotlight local air pollution when she brought Brown \u003ca href=\"https://x.com/AsmGarcia/status/867123969140285441\">on a 2017 tour\u003c/a> of her hometown of Bell Gardens. She walked with the governor along freeway overpasses above backlogged trucks spewing exhaust and invited him to speak with local environmental activists. After \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11473247/state-democrats-have-new-leverage-in-effort-to-curb-greenhouse-gases\">months of negotiations\u003c/a>, Brown and legislative leaders included AB 617, written by Garcia, in the \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11573588/california-lawmakers-approve-plan-to-extend-cap-and-trade-system\">deal to renew\u003c/a> cap-and-trade.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12051504\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12051504\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/08/250808-CAP-AND-TRADE-ENVIRO-JUSTICE-MD-03-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1334\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/08/250808-CAP-AND-TRADE-ENVIRO-JUSTICE-MD-03-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/08/250808-CAP-AND-TRADE-ENVIRO-JUSTICE-MD-03-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/08/250808-CAP-AND-TRADE-ENVIRO-JUSTICE-MD-03-KQED-1536x1025.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A sign for a petroleum pipeline in Richmond on Aug. 8, 2025. \u003ccite>(Martin do Nascimento/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Eight years later, leaders like Angulo have used AB 617 to create local plans for reducing pollution. But those plans lack real enforcement power, making it difficult to gauge how much AB 617 has actually reduced pollution in the frontline communities it was designed to help.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Now, Gov. Gavin Newsom and state legislators are weighing another renewal of cap-and-trade, which could change the way AB 617 is funded. Environmental justice advocates view the negotiations as a chance to strengthen the program and deliver on the promise of clean air in California’s most polluted neighborhoods.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Ten communities were selected in 2018 for the program’s rollout by the California Air Resources Board. These were predominantly Black and Latino neighborhoods — such as West Oakland, Carson and East Los Angeles — where decades of discriminatory planning had placed backyards near industrial facilities.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The goal was for local steering committees to work with regional air districts to monitor pollution and draft community emission reduction plans, or CERPs.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>The rollout was rocky.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In West Oakland, established environmental justice advocates were ready to use new state funding and authority to push for emissions cuts from trucks at the Port of Oakland.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But in Richmond, North Richmond and San Pablo, London found the Bay Area Air District still largely controlled the steering committee process. Local environmental justice groups did not participate because of their opposition to AB 617, and residents who did join struggled with procedural hurdles.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We had to make ‘motions,’ get ‘seconds,’ make a ‘friendly amendment,’” Angulo remembered. “We operate under consensus very much in these community spaces — no one knows how to make a motion.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In a 2020 survey, London asked members of the 10 steering committees if they believed the process benefited their communities. Richmond’s steering committee members gave themselves the lowest score.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Gradually, through turnover and years of monthly meetings, the steering committee found its footing. Data from AB 617’s expanded air monitoring helped identify local pollution hotspots — from highways to rail yards to auto body shops. Angulo pushed through a change to the committee rules to give community members more control over meetings and agendas.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12037033\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1586px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12037033\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/04/PHOTO-2-Chevron-RUPTURED-PIPELINE-CSB.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"1586\" height=\"1084\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/04/PHOTO-2-Chevron-RUPTURED-PIPELINE-CSB.png 1586w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/04/PHOTO-2-Chevron-RUPTURED-PIPELINE-CSB-800x547.png 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/04/PHOTO-2-Chevron-RUPTURED-PIPELINE-CSB-1020x697.png 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/04/PHOTO-2-Chevron-RUPTURED-PIPELINE-CSB-160x109.png 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/04/PHOTO-2-Chevron-RUPTURED-PIPELINE-CSB-1536x1050.png 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1586px) 100vw, 1586px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The Aug. 6, 2012, fire at the Chevron Oil Refinery in Richmond, California, began near the rupture of this 8-inch pipe, shown in this photo included in the U.S. Chemical Safety Board’s final investigative report. \u003ccite>(Courtesy of U.S. Chemical Safety Board)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“Issues that we found early on … many of those really have been addressed,” London said. “Fixes have been put in to improve community engagement, to ensure that community priorities are well reflected in the eventual emission reduction plans.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Richmond’s CERP, called The Path to Clean Air, was finalized in November, years behind schedule. It calls for the Bay Area Air District to adopt new rules limiting refinery emissions, invest fines collected from polluters back into Richmond and neighboring San Pablo, and move toward a “just transition” away from fossil fuels.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A large focus, to no surprise, is Chevron, which the roadmap cited as “by far the largest single generator of emissions in the Path to Clean Air community for many air pollutants,” including PM 2.5 — microscopic particles linked to asthma and emphysema.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>“The [Path to Clean Air] community is a frontline community that has long been subject to historical and systematic racist policies and impacted by the largest refinery in Northern California, the Chevron Richmond Refinery,” the report reads. “In order to reach our climate and equity goals, we must end the refining and combustion of fossil fuels as soon as possible.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That’s an audacious goal for a city whose local economy and tax base have long been tied to Chevron.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The company participated in the process as a non-voting member of the steering committee. It declined an interview request but said in a statement that it “values the program described in AB 617 as an important initiative to address local air quality.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We believe the AB 617 framework is important to the program’s success, including inclusive engagement, data-driven assessments, and clear objectives to cost-effectively reduce local emissions,” Chevron spokesperson Caitlin Powell said. “For the past few decades, California’s energy policies have discouraged investment, reduced fuel reliability, and ultimately hurt consumers through higher prices and broader economic strain.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It is crucial that policies aimed at reducing emissions do not unduly burden California families.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But in a 2024 email to the Bay Area Air District, Chevron manager Kris Battleson criticized the CERP’s call for a just transition.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12051541\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12051541\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/08/250603-PollutersPay-21-BL_qed.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/08/250603-PollutersPay-21-BL_qed.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/08/250603-PollutersPay-21-BL_qed-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/08/250603-PollutersPay-21-BL_qed-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The Chevron Richmond Refinery, seen from the Point Richmond neighborhood in Richmond on June 3, 2025. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“The concept of a ‘just transition’ does not relate to emission reductions and is more akin to providing a safety net for workers and residents impacted by the State’s goals of eliminating an entire industry,” he wrote.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>BK White, a former Chevron refinery operator and current policy director for Richmond’s mayor, said the plan is not a “shot” at Chevron, but responsible planning for a future in which demand for gasoline refined in California is projected to decline.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Any city that is too dependent on one industry — we’ve seen it with coal, with the automobile industry in the Midwest — you have to transition your tax base to where you’re more diversified,” White said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Bay Area air regulators have said the local CERPS have driven the rules they make to limit pollution. But a core flaw of AB 617 is that the community plans carry no legal weight, said Dan Ress, attorney at the Center on Race, Poverty and the Environment.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“They put together these really thoughtful and nuanced plans,” Ress said. “And then they’re told, ‘Well, that’s really a nice document you put together, gold star.’”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12051551\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12051551\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/08/20140709_184808_qed.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1125\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/08/20140709_184808_qed.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/08/20140709_184808_qed-160x90.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/08/20140709_184808_qed-1536x864.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">More than 300 people attended the Richmond Planning Commission’s meeting on July 9, 2014, to weigh in on the environmental impact of a proposed upgrade to the Chevron refinery in the city. \u003ccite>(Alex Emslie/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>While Ress praised the work of residents on the 617 steering committees, he warned that the lack of enforcement could erode trust.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I think that causes some real problems where you’re saying, ‘Community members, tell us what you want. OK, cool, we’re going to ignore that now,’” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In Shafter, a Central Valley AB 617 community, members demanded earlier notice before pesticides were sprayed on local fields. With an advanced heads-up, parents could keep their children inside on a day when chemicals were being sprayed in the area.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Kern County agricultural commissioner refused, even though the data was already available. The steering committee turned to state regulators, and after a five-year campaign, California launched a statewide pesticide notification program earlier this year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“So we see both the main benefit of 617 in that organizing and power building,” Ress said. “And the main drawback in its lack of weight.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12051554\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1999px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12051554\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/08/250603-PollutersPay-07-BL_qed-1.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1999\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/08/250603-PollutersPay-07-BL_qed-1.jpg 1999w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/08/250603-PollutersPay-07-BL_qed-1-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/08/250603-PollutersPay-07-BL_qed-1-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1999px) 100vw, 1999px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Part of the Chevron Richmond Refinery, seen from the Point Richmond neighborhood in Richmond on June 3, 2025. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Advocates want lawmakers to expand the program beyond the current 19 communities, add environmental justice-aligned regulators to local air boards and give the local plans real enforcement power.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The core concern is that [AB 617] pits disadvantaged communities against each other in competing to get into the program,” Ress said. “Then once they’re in the program, it takes a ton of resources and focused effort with relatively small payback for that effort.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The program’s future may hinge on the upcoming cap-and-trade negotiations, which are expected to intensify when the Legislature returns from recess on Aug. 18.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A key point of debate is how to allocate the revenue generated from the sale of emissions credits purchased. Since 2017, the Legislature has dedicated $1.4 billion in support of AB 617. The funds have paid for EV charging stations, bike paths, urban greening programs and staff support for the local steering committees.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Newsom has touted the AB 617 projects as a reason to renew cap-and-trade, which he is proposing to rename Cap-and-Invest.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12008449\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12008449\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/10/GavinNewsomAP3.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/10/GavinNewsomAP3.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/10/GavinNewsomAP3-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/10/GavinNewsomAP3-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/10/GavinNewsomAP3-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/10/GavinNewsomAP3-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/10/GavinNewsomAP3-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Gov. Gavin Newsom speaks during a press conference in Los Angeles on Wednesday, Sept. 25, 2024. \u003ccite>(Eric Thayer/AP Photo)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“We’re cutting harmful pollution across California with a special focus on communities that have some of the dirtiest air in our state,” Newsom said in a statement. “Thanks to Cap-and-Invest, we’ve invested hundreds of millions of dollars in projects that are proven to clean the air.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But Newsom and legislative leaders also want to use cap-and-trade funds for other \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12040286/how-california-cap-and-trade-works-and-how-newsom-wants-to-change-it\">priorities\u003c/a>, such as funding high-speed rail, firefighting and lowering electricity bills. A Chevron executive \u003ca href=\"https://www.politico.com/newsletters/california-climate/2025/08/01/chevrons-andy-walz-isnt-satisfied-00490144\">told \u003cem>Politico\u003c/em>\u003c/a> that cap-and-trade should be paused for up to 20 years to avoid harming refineries.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Supporters of AB 617 argue that cutting the funding would break the promise that communities breathing the dirtiest air would not be left behind on the state’s path to global climate leadership.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This program was made with the intention of using this polluter money to help reduce the impact of these industrial facilities,” said Angulo. “If we’re not using that money to fund programs like these — that are putting decision-making power directly into the hands of community members —what are we doing?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"title": "Alameda County, Air District Sue Radius Recycling Over 2023 West Oakland Fire",
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"content": "\u003cp>The \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/alameda-county-district-attorneys-office\">Alameda County District Attorney’s Office\u003c/a> and the Bay Area Air Quality Management District on Thursday filed a joint civil lawsuit against Radius Recycling — formerly Schnitzer Steel — for air quality violations stemming from a fire that engulfed the company’s West Oakland facility in 2023.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The lawsuit alleges negligence on Radius’ part for the Aug. 9, 2023, blaze, which intensified environmental advocates’ outrage against the company that has a \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12031593/california-falls-short-enforcing-regulations-for-metal-shredding-industry\">history of environmental violations\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Last month, Radius reached an agreement with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to reduce pollution from operations at the same West Oakland facility. After elevated levels of zinc, copper and other pollutants were detected in the facility’s wastewater discharge, Radius agreed to install a carbon treatment unit to reduce toxicity.[aside postID=news_12031593 hero='https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/XTRA-GRAPHIC-PHOTO-1-DTSC-20230810_023711906_iOS-1020x765.jpeg']But District Attorney Ursula Jones Dickson and air quality officials are seeking monetary penalties for the 2023 fire’s effects, arguing the impact on air quality was significant.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Philip Fine, the Air District’s executive officer, said the company “endangered the health and well-being of the West Oakland community,” adding that the area is already one “burdened by decades of air pollution.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The county and the Air District allege that the company stored an influx of scrap beyond a safe capacity and failed to monitor the rising temperatures in the material, which substantially contributed to the fire.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In addition to monetary penalties, the suit seeks an injunction prohibiting Radius from storing scrap material at any location not equipped with heat-monitoring cameras or adequate watering systems.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Jones Dickson said a main goal of the civil suit is to ensure “further protections to prevent future toxic air contaminants from impacting West Oakland.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>The \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/alameda-county-district-attorneys-office\">Alameda County District Attorney’s Office\u003c/a> and the Bay Area Air Quality Management District on Thursday filed a joint civil lawsuit against Radius Recycling — formerly Schnitzer Steel — for air quality violations stemming from a fire that engulfed the company’s West Oakland facility in 2023.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The lawsuit alleges negligence on Radius’ part for the Aug. 9, 2023, blaze, which intensified environmental advocates’ outrage against the company that has a \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12031593/california-falls-short-enforcing-regulations-for-metal-shredding-industry\">history of environmental violations\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Last month, Radius reached an agreement with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to reduce pollution from operations at the same West Oakland facility. After elevated levels of zinc, copper and other pollutants were detected in the facility’s wastewater discharge, Radius agreed to install a carbon treatment unit to reduce toxicity.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>But District Attorney Ursula Jones Dickson and air quality officials are seeking monetary penalties for the 2023 fire’s effects, arguing the impact on air quality was significant.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Philip Fine, the Air District’s executive officer, said the company “endangered the health and well-being of the West Oakland community,” adding that the area is already one “burdened by decades of air pollution.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The county and the Air District allege that the company stored an influx of scrap beyond a safe capacity and failed to monitor the rising temperatures in the material, which substantially contributed to the fire.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In addition to monetary penalties, the suit seeks an injunction prohibiting Radius from storing scrap material at any location not equipped with heat-monitoring cameras or adequate watering systems.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Jones Dickson said a main goal of the civil suit is to ensure “further protections to prevent future toxic air contaminants from impacting West Oakland.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"slug": "oakland-built-a-shelter-for-unhoused-residents-of-wood-street-now-its-evicting-them",
"title": "Oakland Built a Shelter for Unhoused Residents of Wood Street. Now, It’s Evicting Them",
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"content": "\u003cp>\u003cem>Updated 2:05 p.m. Friday\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On Monday, Oakland officials are expected to begin evicting residents of two city-run homeless shelters along Wood Street, the site of what was once the \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11949327/the-end-of-wood-street-inside-the-struggle-for-stability-housing-on-the-margins-of-the-bay-area\">largest community of unhoused people\u003c/a> in Northern California.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The two sites — a safe RV parking site with 40 spots and a 100-bed cabin community — were always meant to be temporary shelters, but ceased operation in mid-May, \u003ca href=\"https://www.mercurynews.com/2025/05/30/oakland-wood-street-cabins-shelter/\">when the shelter operator abruptly left\u003c/a>. While some residents have found permanent housing, others have already left to find shelter in tents, RVs or other makeshift homes, according to SheMika Crawford, who was living in the cabins until she moved out on Thursday. At least five residents remain, city officials said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Two weeks ago, Crawford signed the lease on a new home. She was only meant to stay at the cabin for 90 days, but June marked two years living there.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“You’re looking at the cabin falling apart,” she said. “We fix it ourselves.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After BOSS stopped managing the sites in May, Crawford said, “We’ve been winging it.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In 2022, the city and Caltrans began evicting unhoused residents from a sprawling, nearly milelong encampment on a vacant lot underneath Interstate 580 that runs parallel to Wood Street.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12047669\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1999px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12047669\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/07/250710-WoodStreetCabins-03-BL_qed.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1999\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/07/250710-WoodStreetCabins-03-BL_qed.jpg 1999w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/07/250710-WoodStreetCabins-03-BL_qed-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/07/250710-WoodStreetCabins-03-BL_qed-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1999px) 100vw, 1999px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Resident SheMika Crawford stands near the Wood Street Cabins in Oakland on July 10, 2025, before the city shuts down the temporary tiny-home site, which opened in 2023 to shelter people displaced from a nearby encampment. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Most of the RVs and makeshift homes were on Caltrans’ land, which the agency closed in the fall of 2022. A portion of the encampment, which was on city-owned land, remained there until the spring of 2023, when the city moved many of the remaining residents into the newly opened cabin community.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It partnered with nonprofit Building Opportunities for Self-Sufficiency (BOSS) to operate \u003ca href=\"https://www.self-sufficiency.org/post/wood-street-community-cabins-registration-is-open\">both sites\u003c/a>. Along with RV spaces and cabin beds, BOSS also promised to provide services to find stable housing and employment opportunities. During its two years of operation, 185 people lived between the two sites.[aside postID=news_12032734 hero='https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/005_KQED_WoodStreet_12162022_qed-1020x680.jpg']But in late May, the nonprofit stopped operating the sites \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12032734/homeless-services-nonprofits-oakland-fails-pay-contracts\">after months of late or missing payments\u003c/a> from the city of Oakland. In June, the City Council voted to \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12045763/oaklands-wood-street-shelters-to-close-on-june-30\">decommission the two sites\u003c/a> and return them to the owner by December. According to a city notice, residents remaining after 5 p.m. on Monday will be arrested. Any belongings will be discarded and vehicles will be towed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The city estimates that the work to restore the property to returnable condition will require up to six months,” Sean Maher, a spokesperson for the city of Oakland, wrote in an email to KQED. “Work to implement this closure and find alternative support for the program residents has been underway for the last several months.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>BOSS started providing housing and employment services for people living at the RV safe parking site on Wood Street in July 2022, according to the company. From then through late May, the nonprofit served 48 people. Of those, 75% found permanent housing before the nonprofit left the site.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But the numbers look more grim for those who lived in the cabins. Of the 137 residents, fewer than a quarter found permanent housing and nearly 84% went to other shelters.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Donald Frazier, CEO of the nonprofit, said the program had its issues — the roads leading to the sites were riddled with potholes, staff slowly left and services dwindled as the city’s payments to the nonprofit grew less frequent. Though people are remaining on the sites, he said it’s not for a lack of trying on BOSS’s part.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12047668\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12047668\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/07/250710-WoodStreetCabins-01-BL_qed.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/07/250710-WoodStreetCabins-01-BL_qed.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/07/250710-WoodStreetCabins-01-BL_qed-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/07/250710-WoodStreetCabins-01-BL_qed-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The Wood Street Cabins in Oakland on July 10, 2025, before the city shuts down the temporary tiny-home site, which opened in 2023 to shelter people displaced from a nearby encampment. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“We were brought in from the beginning to provide housing navigation services, clinical services and just day-to-day services, food and making sure that everything is operational,” he said. “A vast majority of people were successful.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>According to the \u003ca href=\"https://homelessness.acgov.org/homelessness-assets/docs/infographic/Oakland%20PIT%202024%20Infographic.pdf\">city’s latest count\u003c/a>, roughly 5,480 unhoused people were living in Oakland last year, about two-thirds of whom were living in tents, cars and RVs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Maher said the city is working with Alameda County officials to place those remaining at the sites into temporary housing. In the meantime, John Janosko, a former resident of the Wood Street cabins, hopes the city and the county consider the solutions he and other housing rights advocates proposed to address housing insecurity.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>“\u003c/strong>The city needs to really start listening to us,” he said. “We have an opportunity because of Barbara Lee right now to change the narrative, to change how things are being done, how we treat unhoused people in Oakland right now and in Alameda County and be a leader in change.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>KQED’s \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/author/blaberge\">Beth LaBerge\u003c/a> contributed to this report.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n",
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"excerpt": "While some left the site and found permanent housing, others remain and could face either arrest or a return to street homelessness.",
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"title": "Oakland Built a Shelter for Unhoused Residents of Wood Street. Now, It’s Evicting Them | KQED",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003cem>Updated 2:05 p.m. Friday\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On Monday, Oakland officials are expected to begin evicting residents of two city-run homeless shelters along Wood Street, the site of what was once the \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11949327/the-end-of-wood-street-inside-the-struggle-for-stability-housing-on-the-margins-of-the-bay-area\">largest community of unhoused people\u003c/a> in Northern California.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The two sites — a safe RV parking site with 40 spots and a 100-bed cabin community — were always meant to be temporary shelters, but ceased operation in mid-May, \u003ca href=\"https://www.mercurynews.com/2025/05/30/oakland-wood-street-cabins-shelter/\">when the shelter operator abruptly left\u003c/a>. While some residents have found permanent housing, others have already left to find shelter in tents, RVs or other makeshift homes, according to SheMika Crawford, who was living in the cabins until she moved out on Thursday. At least five residents remain, city officials said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Two weeks ago, Crawford signed the lease on a new home. She was only meant to stay at the cabin for 90 days, but June marked two years living there.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“You’re looking at the cabin falling apart,” she said. “We fix it ourselves.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After BOSS stopped managing the sites in May, Crawford said, “We’ve been winging it.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In 2022, the city and Caltrans began evicting unhoused residents from a sprawling, nearly milelong encampment on a vacant lot underneath Interstate 580 that runs parallel to Wood Street.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12047669\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1999px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12047669\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/07/250710-WoodStreetCabins-03-BL_qed.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1999\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/07/250710-WoodStreetCabins-03-BL_qed.jpg 1999w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/07/250710-WoodStreetCabins-03-BL_qed-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/07/250710-WoodStreetCabins-03-BL_qed-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1999px) 100vw, 1999px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Resident SheMika Crawford stands near the Wood Street Cabins in Oakland on July 10, 2025, before the city shuts down the temporary tiny-home site, which opened in 2023 to shelter people displaced from a nearby encampment. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Most of the RVs and makeshift homes were on Caltrans’ land, which the agency closed in the fall of 2022. A portion of the encampment, which was on city-owned land, remained there until the spring of 2023, when the city moved many of the remaining residents into the newly opened cabin community.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It partnered with nonprofit Building Opportunities for Self-Sufficiency (BOSS) to operate \u003ca href=\"https://www.self-sufficiency.org/post/wood-street-community-cabins-registration-is-open\">both sites\u003c/a>. Along with RV spaces and cabin beds, BOSS also promised to provide services to find stable housing and employment opportunities. During its two years of operation, 185 people lived between the two sites.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>But in late May, the nonprofit stopped operating the sites \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12032734/homeless-services-nonprofits-oakland-fails-pay-contracts\">after months of late or missing payments\u003c/a> from the city of Oakland. In June, the City Council voted to \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12045763/oaklands-wood-street-shelters-to-close-on-june-30\">decommission the two sites\u003c/a> and return them to the owner by December. According to a city notice, residents remaining after 5 p.m. on Monday will be arrested. Any belongings will be discarded and vehicles will be towed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The city estimates that the work to restore the property to returnable condition will require up to six months,” Sean Maher, a spokesperson for the city of Oakland, wrote in an email to KQED. “Work to implement this closure and find alternative support for the program residents has been underway for the last several months.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>BOSS started providing housing and employment services for people living at the RV safe parking site on Wood Street in July 2022, according to the company. From then through late May, the nonprofit served 48 people. Of those, 75% found permanent housing before the nonprofit left the site.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But the numbers look more grim for those who lived in the cabins. Of the 137 residents, fewer than a quarter found permanent housing and nearly 84% went to other shelters.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Donald Frazier, CEO of the nonprofit, said the program had its issues — the roads leading to the sites were riddled with potholes, staff slowly left and services dwindled as the city’s payments to the nonprofit grew less frequent. Though people are remaining on the sites, he said it’s not for a lack of trying on BOSS’s part.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12047668\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12047668\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/07/250710-WoodStreetCabins-01-BL_qed.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/07/250710-WoodStreetCabins-01-BL_qed.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/07/250710-WoodStreetCabins-01-BL_qed-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/07/250710-WoodStreetCabins-01-BL_qed-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The Wood Street Cabins in Oakland on July 10, 2025, before the city shuts down the temporary tiny-home site, which opened in 2023 to shelter people displaced from a nearby encampment. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“We were brought in from the beginning to provide housing navigation services, clinical services and just day-to-day services, food and making sure that everything is operational,” he said. “A vast majority of people were successful.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>According to the \u003ca href=\"https://homelessness.acgov.org/homelessness-assets/docs/infographic/Oakland%20PIT%202024%20Infographic.pdf\">city’s latest count\u003c/a>, roughly 5,480 unhoused people were living in Oakland last year, about two-thirds of whom were living in tents, cars and RVs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Maher said the city is working with Alameda County officials to place those remaining at the sites into temporary housing. In the meantime, John Janosko, a former resident of the Wood Street cabins, hopes the city and the county consider the solutions he and other housing rights advocates proposed to address housing insecurity.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>“\u003c/strong>The city needs to really start listening to us,” he said. “We have an opportunity because of Barbara Lee right now to change the narrative, to change how things are being done, how we treat unhoused people in Oakland right now and in Alameda County and be a leader in change.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>KQED’s \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/author/blaberge\">Beth LaBerge\u003c/a> contributed to this report.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"slug": "oaklands-army-base-redevelopment-was-a-win-for-locals-can-the-coliseum-be-the-same",
"title": "Oakland’s Army Base Redevelopment Was a Win for Locals. Can the Coliseum Be the Same?",
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"headTitle": "Oakland’s Army Base Redevelopment Was a Win for Locals. Can the Coliseum Be the Same? | KQED",
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"content": "\u003cp>For three years before Sadakao Whittington’s release from \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/arts/13956038/in-the-50-incarcerated-men-become-mentors\">Solano State Prison\u003c/a>, the phone book-sized pamphlet taped under his bunk represented hope for his life on the outside.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Every day, he said, he would study the pages of the Sprinkler Fitters’ union handout for information on fire sprinklers, explore the apprenticeship courses he could take through the union, and calculate how much money he could make with a full-time job in the industry.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I would look at it every day for the next three years and dream how my life would be different,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When Whittington was released on parole in 2014, he went to the West Oakland Job Resource Center to apply to the Sprinkler Fitters, only to find that they weren’t hiring. But the center, which helped contractors who were redeveloping the waterfront \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12022479/why-are-there-so-many-abandoned-military-bases-in-the-bay-area\">Oakland Army Base\u003c/a> to meet mandatory local hire minimums, connected him with a job at the Oakland Laborers’ Union.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Whittington remembers working three-week stints at the Army base, cobbling together just enough money to pay rent for the bare apartment where he spent his nights in a sleeping bag, and then heading up to the Laborers’ training facility in San Ramon for a week at a time to take skills and certification classes like welding or heat fusion.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12022110\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/OaklandColiseumEmptyGetty1.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12022110\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/OaklandColiseumEmptyGetty1.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/OaklandColiseumEmptyGetty1.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/OaklandColiseumEmptyGetty1-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/OaklandColiseumEmptyGetty1-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/OaklandColiseumEmptyGetty1-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/OaklandColiseumEmptyGetty1-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/OaklandColiseumEmptyGetty1-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The Oakland Coliseum sits empty before the Oakland Athletics game against the Texas Rangers on Sept. 26, 2024, in Oakland, California. \u003ccite>(Ezra Shaw/Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>At the time, Oakland was just a few years into an employment deal with the developers redesigning the city’s share of the former Army base that required hiring local workers, including historically marginalized or formerly incarcerated people. A few years later, a similar deal was struck between a coalition of public health, environmental justice and racial equity advocates, and the developers of the Port of Oakland’s share of the 400-plus acre property.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Now, a \u003ca href=\"https://laborcenter.berkeley.edu/when-labor-and-community-come-together/\">new report from the UC Berkeley Labor Center\u003c/a> shows that 25 years after the Army base’s decommissioning, those deals have been largely successful — potentially offering a model for how the planned redevelopment of the \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/oakland-coliseum\">Oakland Coliseum\u003c/a> can be a boon for the community.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The construction phase of the Army base redevelopment generated tens of millions of dollars in wages for Oakland workers, union jobs offered career advancement opportunities for city dwellers, and new hiring and investment practices “have begun to address the racial injustice and economic loss experienced by West Oakland residents,” according to the report.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Whittington, the man who was incarcerated in Solano State Prison, is now over a decade out from his release. He is a service foreman in the Oakland Sprinkler Fitters and teaches those apprenticeship classes he had once hoped to take.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I had no experience, I didn’t even really know how to use a measuring tape,” he remembers. “Being able to go to the job resource center, me being able to get into the Laborers’ Local, they actually gave me the foundation to which I built everything else.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>An opportunity in East Oakland\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The successes and lessons of the Army base redevelopment deals offer insight into how a long-anticipated community benefit agreement tied to the Coliseum sale could yield similar results, said Kate O’Hara, the executive director of the East Bay Alliance for a Sustainable Economy (EBASE).\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“One of the biggest opportunities we have in Oakland and Alameda County to expand on what we’ve done at the Army base is the Coliseum project,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Both the city of Oakland and the Oakland A’s, the Coliseum’s joint owners, reached deals last year to \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12036060/oakland-pushes-coliseum-sale-next-year-delaying-funds-again\">sell to the African American Sports and Entertainment Group\u003c/a>, a local and Black-owned development group that hopes to revitalize the hole left in East Oakland by the departures of all three of the city’s major sports teams — the Warriors, Raiders and now the A’s — since 2019.[aside postID=news_12021914 hero='https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/241010-RiseEastDeepDown-33-BL-1536x1024.jpg']The pro sports exodus has cut local jobs and hurt business at nearby commercial stores, compounding \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12021914/rise-east-unlocks-100-million-to-reimagine-east-oakland\">decades of disinvestment in the neighborhood\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Included in AASEG’s sale agreement with Oakland is a provision that it create a community benefit agreement with local stakeholders, many of whom helped secure the Army base deals, including EBASE and other community groups. AASEG leaders have repeatedly said that community input and investment are their top priorities.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>”We are looking for the developers and the city and the county to work closely with community organizations to really formulate a community benefits agreement that delivers on good jobs, just like in this project, but also affordable housing, environmental protections and real long-term community oversight and partnership,” O’Hara told KQED.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>AASEG has already vowed to create affordable housing on the site and expressed its desire to realize the city’s 2015 Coliseum Area Specific Plan, which it called “the guiding framework for reinventing the City of Oakland’s Coliseum area as a major center for sports, entertainment, residential mixed use, and economic growth.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Other specifics of the community benefit agreement will be hammered out once the group’s deals with the city of Oakland and the A’s are finalized — timelines that have been stalled thanks to ongoing negotiations with Alameda County, which has to sign off on the A’s sale.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12041779\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/05/250527-OAKARMYBASE-05-BL-KQED.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12041779\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/05/250527-OAKARMYBASE-05-BL-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/05/250527-OAKARMYBASE-05-BL-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/05/250527-OAKARMYBASE-05-BL-KQED-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/05/250527-OAKARMYBASE-05-BL-KQED-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/05/250527-OAKARMYBASE-05-BL-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/05/250527-OAKARMYBASE-05-BL-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/05/250527-OAKARMYBASE-05-BL-KQED-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Sadakao Whittington poses for a portrait at the East Bay Alliance for a Sustainable Economy offices in Oakland on May 27, 2025. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>When it comes to successes that the Coliseum deal could aim to replicate, one of the biggest wins of the Army base was job creation, according to O’Hara.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The agreement called for half of the construction and long-term operations work to be done by local employees, and a quarter of the operations workers and apprentices to qualify as disadvantaged. For the formerly city-owned property, that meant workers who lived in low-income parts of Oakland, and for the port-owned half, it included single parents, long-term unemployed people, recently incarcerated or emancipated people, and those on welfare.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The report found that on the city’s side of construction, Oakland residents accounted for 45% of infrastructure construction work done, including nearly 20% by apprentices.[aside postID=news_12033094 hero='https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/20250327_As-Vendor-Fund_DMB_00007-1020x680.jpg'] The port’s side was even more dominated by local workers: Nearly 66% of work hours were performed by Oaklanders, and more than 23% by apprentices.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Both jurisdictions exceeded their targets for hiring local apprentices from marginalized communities, and in total, individual contractors who didn’t meet the local hiring targets paid more than a quarter-million dollars in damages.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The best benefit is that it provided a lot of really good jobs for the community of Oakland,” said Andrew Jaeger, the UC Berkeley Labor Center study’s author. “It brought in hundreds of new local apprentices who probably would not have become apprentices under other conditions, if it wasn’t for this agreement.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Those job openings are what led Whittington to complete his parole in Oakland rather than San Francisco or Contra Costa County, where he grew up. He said other jurisdictions also didn’t have resources like those he could access at the West Oakland Job Resource Center, which was created by the Army base deal. That included skill-building classes and growth opportunities in addition to stable work.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“All of these things gave me a step to get to where I am today,” Whittington said.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Bringing the community to the table\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The uses for the Coliseum land are more flexible, O’Hara said, and negotiations could secure benefits beyond jobs — like community spaces and neighborhood services that East Oaklanders need.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>AASEG managing partner Ray Bobbitt and fellow member Shonda Scott told KQED in September that the entertainment group had over the last few years sought input from over 50 community organizations as well as relatives, residents and young people.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Oftentimes those young people’s voices aren’t part of the discussion,” Scott said at the time. “And that’s really what this project is for. It’s not for us to sit under the shade of the tree. This is for us to put these trees up and then have shade for the next generation. This is a legacy project.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>AASEG has said that 25% of any housing it builds will be affordable. It is also eyeing commercial attractions that have slowly faded from East Oakland — a resounding desire of Castlemont High School’s urban design students, who have completed \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12003025/east-oakland-students-share-bold-vision-for-coliseum-revamp-with-new-owners\">proposals for the space’s use\u003c/a> as part of their class during the last few school years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Like movie theaters, [an] arcade, things that are fun, because East Oakland does not have a lot of that,” Lilly Jacobson, the school’s 11th-grade urban design teacher, told KQED last fall about what her students wrote in their proposals. “There’s been so much disinvestment that all of the fun stuff has left. Students have to go to San Leandro or Hayward to go to the movies or the mall.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Despite the construction-related employment successes of the Oakland Army Base deal, Jaeger said permanent jobs haven’t materialized on the scale that the community coalition had hoped for.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12032884\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/240920-COLISEUM-WORKERS-MD-06_qed.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12032884\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/240920-COLISEUM-WORKERS-MD-06_qed.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/240920-COLISEUM-WORKERS-MD-06_qed.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/240920-COLISEUM-WORKERS-MD-06_qed-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/240920-COLISEUM-WORKERS-MD-06_qed-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/240920-COLISEUM-WORKERS-MD-06_qed-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/240920-COLISEUM-WORKERS-MD-06_qed-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/240920-COLISEUM-WORKERS-MD-06_qed-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Teams prepare the field at the Oakland Coliseum in Oakland on Sept. 20, 2024. \u003ccite>(Martin do Nascimento/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“One of the reasons why [that is is] completely out of the hands of the coalition,” Jaeger told KQED. “The port has not been doing as much business as was projected, and so there’s actually just not as much permanent employment happening there.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Such a consideration could be especially important for the community groups bargaining in the Coliseum deal, as the city tries to rebound from long-term disinvestment.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Perhaps there should be institutions put into place that allow for … say, a warehouse, if it’s idle for years on end, maybe it could be used for something else for the community benefit,” Jaeger said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Ultimately, he said, the biggest key to success for development that benefits the community is their presence at the bargaining table — something Bobbitt has told KQED will be key to the AASEG development deal, if and when the sale is complete.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Everyone knows that businesses work individually, or through lobbying firms, to help write laws and policies. Then from their perspective, [the policies] work quite well for them,” Jaeger said. “Community groups and workers, they can do this too, and they should, and I think this is a case where they did it quite successfully.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n",
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"excerpt": "A new UC Berkeley report shows that 25 years after the base’s decommissioning, community benefit deals have been largely successful. Similar deals are in the works for the Coliseum site.",
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"title": "Oakland’s Army Base Redevelopment Was a Win for Locals. Can the Coliseum Be the Same? | KQED",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>For three years before Sadakao Whittington’s release from \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/arts/13956038/in-the-50-incarcerated-men-become-mentors\">Solano State Prison\u003c/a>, the phone book-sized pamphlet taped under his bunk represented hope for his life on the outside.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Every day, he said, he would study the pages of the Sprinkler Fitters’ union handout for information on fire sprinklers, explore the apprenticeship courses he could take through the union, and calculate how much money he could make with a full-time job in the industry.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I would look at it every day for the next three years and dream how my life would be different,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When Whittington was released on parole in 2014, he went to the West Oakland Job Resource Center to apply to the Sprinkler Fitters, only to find that they weren’t hiring. But the center, which helped contractors who were redeveloping the waterfront \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12022479/why-are-there-so-many-abandoned-military-bases-in-the-bay-area\">Oakland Army Base\u003c/a> to meet mandatory local hire minimums, connected him with a job at the Oakland Laborers’ Union.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Whittington remembers working three-week stints at the Army base, cobbling together just enough money to pay rent for the bare apartment where he spent his nights in a sleeping bag, and then heading up to the Laborers’ training facility in San Ramon for a week at a time to take skills and certification classes like welding or heat fusion.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12022110\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/OaklandColiseumEmptyGetty1.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12022110\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/OaklandColiseumEmptyGetty1.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/OaklandColiseumEmptyGetty1.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/OaklandColiseumEmptyGetty1-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/OaklandColiseumEmptyGetty1-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/OaklandColiseumEmptyGetty1-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/OaklandColiseumEmptyGetty1-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/OaklandColiseumEmptyGetty1-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The Oakland Coliseum sits empty before the Oakland Athletics game against the Texas Rangers on Sept. 26, 2024, in Oakland, California. \u003ccite>(Ezra Shaw/Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>At the time, Oakland was just a few years into an employment deal with the developers redesigning the city’s share of the former Army base that required hiring local workers, including historically marginalized or formerly incarcerated people. A few years later, a similar deal was struck between a coalition of public health, environmental justice and racial equity advocates, and the developers of the Port of Oakland’s share of the 400-plus acre property.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Now, a \u003ca href=\"https://laborcenter.berkeley.edu/when-labor-and-community-come-together/\">new report from the UC Berkeley Labor Center\u003c/a> shows that 25 years after the Army base’s decommissioning, those deals have been largely successful — potentially offering a model for how the planned redevelopment of the \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/oakland-coliseum\">Oakland Coliseum\u003c/a> can be a boon for the community.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The construction phase of the Army base redevelopment generated tens of millions of dollars in wages for Oakland workers, union jobs offered career advancement opportunities for city dwellers, and new hiring and investment practices “have begun to address the racial injustice and economic loss experienced by West Oakland residents,” according to the report.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Whittington, the man who was incarcerated in Solano State Prison, is now over a decade out from his release. He is a service foreman in the Oakland Sprinkler Fitters and teaches those apprenticeship classes he had once hoped to take.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I had no experience, I didn’t even really know how to use a measuring tape,” he remembers. “Being able to go to the job resource center, me being able to get into the Laborers’ Local, they actually gave me the foundation to which I built everything else.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>An opportunity in East Oakland\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The successes and lessons of the Army base redevelopment deals offer insight into how a long-anticipated community benefit agreement tied to the Coliseum sale could yield similar results, said Kate O’Hara, the executive director of the East Bay Alliance for a Sustainable Economy (EBASE).\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“One of the biggest opportunities we have in Oakland and Alameda County to expand on what we’ve done at the Army base is the Coliseum project,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Both the city of Oakland and the Oakland A’s, the Coliseum’s joint owners, reached deals last year to \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12036060/oakland-pushes-coliseum-sale-next-year-delaying-funds-again\">sell to the African American Sports and Entertainment Group\u003c/a>, a local and Black-owned development group that hopes to revitalize the hole left in East Oakland by the departures of all three of the city’s major sports teams — the Warriors, Raiders and now the A’s — since 2019.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>The pro sports exodus has cut local jobs and hurt business at nearby commercial stores, compounding \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12021914/rise-east-unlocks-100-million-to-reimagine-east-oakland\">decades of disinvestment in the neighborhood\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Included in AASEG’s sale agreement with Oakland is a provision that it create a community benefit agreement with local stakeholders, many of whom helped secure the Army base deals, including EBASE and other community groups. AASEG leaders have repeatedly said that community input and investment are their top priorities.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>”We are looking for the developers and the city and the county to work closely with community organizations to really formulate a community benefits agreement that delivers on good jobs, just like in this project, but also affordable housing, environmental protections and real long-term community oversight and partnership,” O’Hara told KQED.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>AASEG has already vowed to create affordable housing on the site and expressed its desire to realize the city’s 2015 Coliseum Area Specific Plan, which it called “the guiding framework for reinventing the City of Oakland’s Coliseum area as a major center for sports, entertainment, residential mixed use, and economic growth.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Other specifics of the community benefit agreement will be hammered out once the group’s deals with the city of Oakland and the A’s are finalized — timelines that have been stalled thanks to ongoing negotiations with Alameda County, which has to sign off on the A’s sale.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12041779\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/05/250527-OAKARMYBASE-05-BL-KQED.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12041779\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/05/250527-OAKARMYBASE-05-BL-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/05/250527-OAKARMYBASE-05-BL-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/05/250527-OAKARMYBASE-05-BL-KQED-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/05/250527-OAKARMYBASE-05-BL-KQED-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/05/250527-OAKARMYBASE-05-BL-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/05/250527-OAKARMYBASE-05-BL-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/05/250527-OAKARMYBASE-05-BL-KQED-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Sadakao Whittington poses for a portrait at the East Bay Alliance for a Sustainable Economy offices in Oakland on May 27, 2025. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>When it comes to successes that the Coliseum deal could aim to replicate, one of the biggest wins of the Army base was job creation, according to O’Hara.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The agreement called for half of the construction and long-term operations work to be done by local employees, and a quarter of the operations workers and apprentices to qualify as disadvantaged. For the formerly city-owned property, that meant workers who lived in low-income parts of Oakland, and for the port-owned half, it included single parents, long-term unemployed people, recently incarcerated or emancipated people, and those on welfare.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The report found that on the city’s side of construction, Oakland residents accounted for 45% of infrastructure construction work done, including nearly 20% by apprentices.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp> The port’s side was even more dominated by local workers: Nearly 66% of work hours were performed by Oaklanders, and more than 23% by apprentices.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Both jurisdictions exceeded their targets for hiring local apprentices from marginalized communities, and in total, individual contractors who didn’t meet the local hiring targets paid more than a quarter-million dollars in damages.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The best benefit is that it provided a lot of really good jobs for the community of Oakland,” said Andrew Jaeger, the UC Berkeley Labor Center study’s author. “It brought in hundreds of new local apprentices who probably would not have become apprentices under other conditions, if it wasn’t for this agreement.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Those job openings are what led Whittington to complete his parole in Oakland rather than San Francisco or Contra Costa County, where he grew up. He said other jurisdictions also didn’t have resources like those he could access at the West Oakland Job Resource Center, which was created by the Army base deal. That included skill-building classes and growth opportunities in addition to stable work.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“All of these things gave me a step to get to where I am today,” Whittington said.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Bringing the community to the table\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The uses for the Coliseum land are more flexible, O’Hara said, and negotiations could secure benefits beyond jobs — like community spaces and neighborhood services that East Oaklanders need.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>AASEG managing partner Ray Bobbitt and fellow member Shonda Scott told KQED in September that the entertainment group had over the last few years sought input from over 50 community organizations as well as relatives, residents and young people.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Oftentimes those young people’s voices aren’t part of the discussion,” Scott said at the time. “And that’s really what this project is for. It’s not for us to sit under the shade of the tree. This is for us to put these trees up and then have shade for the next generation. This is a legacy project.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>AASEG has said that 25% of any housing it builds will be affordable. It is also eyeing commercial attractions that have slowly faded from East Oakland — a resounding desire of Castlemont High School’s urban design students, who have completed \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12003025/east-oakland-students-share-bold-vision-for-coliseum-revamp-with-new-owners\">proposals for the space’s use\u003c/a> as part of their class during the last few school years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Like movie theaters, [an] arcade, things that are fun, because East Oakland does not have a lot of that,” Lilly Jacobson, the school’s 11th-grade urban design teacher, told KQED last fall about what her students wrote in their proposals. “There’s been so much disinvestment that all of the fun stuff has left. Students have to go to San Leandro or Hayward to go to the movies or the mall.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Despite the construction-related employment successes of the Oakland Army Base deal, Jaeger said permanent jobs haven’t materialized on the scale that the community coalition had hoped for.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12032884\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/240920-COLISEUM-WORKERS-MD-06_qed.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12032884\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/240920-COLISEUM-WORKERS-MD-06_qed.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/240920-COLISEUM-WORKERS-MD-06_qed.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/240920-COLISEUM-WORKERS-MD-06_qed-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/240920-COLISEUM-WORKERS-MD-06_qed-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/240920-COLISEUM-WORKERS-MD-06_qed-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/240920-COLISEUM-WORKERS-MD-06_qed-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/240920-COLISEUM-WORKERS-MD-06_qed-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Teams prepare the field at the Oakland Coliseum in Oakland on Sept. 20, 2024. \u003ccite>(Martin do Nascimento/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“One of the reasons why [that is is] completely out of the hands of the coalition,” Jaeger told KQED. “The port has not been doing as much business as was projected, and so there’s actually just not as much permanent employment happening there.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Such a consideration could be especially important for the community groups bargaining in the Coliseum deal, as the city tries to rebound from long-term disinvestment.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Perhaps there should be institutions put into place that allow for … say, a warehouse, if it’s idle for years on end, maybe it could be used for something else for the community benefit,” Jaeger said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Ultimately, he said, the biggest key to success for development that benefits the community is their presence at the bargaining table — something Bobbitt has told KQED will be key to the AASEG development deal, if and when the sale is complete.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Everyone knows that businesses work individually, or through lobbying firms, to help write laws and policies. Then from their perspective, [the policies] work quite well for them,” Jaeger said. “Community groups and workers, they can do this too, and they should, and I think this is a case where they did it quite successfully.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cp>\u003cem>Updated 5:04 p.m. \u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Environmental justice advocates and former Alameda County District Attorney Pamela Price are not happy with prosecutors’ decision to drop charges against a West Oakland scrap metal processing plant that \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11957894/smelly-smoke-from-oakland-metal-recycler-fire-prompts-health-concerns\">caught fire two years ago\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Radius Recycling, formerly Schnitzer Steel, had \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12031593/california-falls-short-enforcing-regulations-for-metal-shredding-industry\">a history of environmental violations\u003c/a> before the 2023 blaze that Price’s office said spewed toxic smoke across the East Bay. The company and two of its managers will no longer face criminal charges and millions of dollars in fines after Alameda County District Attorney Ursula Jones Dickson’s office quietly dismissed the case on Friday, citing a lack of proof for criminal liability.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This isn’t a question of us standing with polluters — we’re not. But we can only proceed where we can proceed,” said Casey Bates, an assistant district attorney in Jones Dickson’s office.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He said, however, that the decision does not preclude the district attorney from seeking criminal charges against the company and its employees in the future, or from pursuing a civil case against them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But that comes as cold comfort to advocates who backed the high-profile prosecution that Price launched last year. Calling the action “historic,” Price in July announced \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11996994/west-oakland-steel-recycler-charged-with-10-crimes-after-toxic-fire-last-summer\">a 10-count grand jury indictment\u003c/a> against the company for its “terrible legacy of environmental racism and poison in Alameda County that has had a deleterious impact on West Oakland.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12031603\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/PHW-Photo-3.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12031603\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/PHW-Photo-3.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1500\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/PHW-Photo-3.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/PHW-Photo-3-800x600.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/PHW-Photo-3-1020x765.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/PHW-Photo-3-160x120.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/PHW-Photo-3-1536x1152.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/PHW-Photo-3-1920x1440.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">6231 Schnitzer Steel workers use cranes to pull metal out of the smoky mound after a fire started deep in a pile of scrap on Aug. 9, 2023. \u003ccite>(Courtesy Oakland Fire Department)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Voters \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12014858/alameda-county-da-pamela-price-concedes-recall-defeat-after-long-holdout\">recalled Price\u003c/a> several months later, and Jones Dickson was appointed in January by the county Board of Supervisors to complete her term.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Price called her successor’s decision to dismiss the case “outrageous” and disconcerting.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It was grounded in the evidence and the experience of the residents of West Oakland, of the firefighters who were called to fight this very dangerous and toxic fire and who risked their lives to protect the community,” she said. ”And for the district attorney to step back from enforcing the rights of the people and holding this corporation and its corporate managers accountable is absolutely disgraceful.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The decision is further evidence that the district attorney’s office is no longer “concerned or accountable to the community,” she noted, suggesting that Jones Dickson was beholden to corporate interests.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Margaret Gordon, who’s lived near the West Oakland facility for three decades and founded the West Oakland Environmental Indicators Project, accused Jones Dickson’s office of failing to reach out to her community about its decision to dismiss the charges against a company that she said has a long history of air quality violations.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We should have been informed that she was doing that,” Gordon said. “We should have some kind of communication.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Environmental justice advocates have long called for the facility to leave Oakland, citing harmful smoke from frequent fires, including large blazes in 2009, 2010, 2018 and 2020.[aside postID=news_11957894 hero='https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/08/230809-altenberg-port-fire-3-KQED-1020x681.jpg']West Oakland residents, who live near a major highway, the port, and industrial facilities, have some of the \u003ca href=\"https://ww2.arb.ca.gov/sites/default/files/2018-03/capp_consultation_group_march_2018_alameda_county_health_presentation.pdf\">highest rates of asthma\u003c/a> and other respiratory diseases in the region.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>State Assemblymember Mia Bonta, who represents West Oakland and the surrounding areas, decried the district attorney’s decision to drop the case against the company.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Serial polluters shouldn’t be allowed to fill our lungs with hazardous waste, including lead, and get away with it with nothing more than a slap on the wrist,” Bonta said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She noted that the company — which is located within a mile of 18 day care centers, 10 parks, eight schools and two hospitals — has been hit with 13 notices of violation from local air regulators since 2018.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The repeated fires from this facility threaten the well-being of the entire Bay Area, particularly the surrounding community in Oakland,” Bonta said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Past investigations by the Alameda County district attorney’s office and the California Department of Toxic Substances Control found that the facility released particulate matter contaminated with hazardous metals such as lead, cadmium and zinc. The investigations were cited in a 2021 settlement between Schnitzer and the state Department of Justice over “the release of toxic air contaminants and hazardous particulates” in West Oakland and across the Oakland Estuary.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The DA’s office had a long history of negotiating settlements with Schnitzer and then not enforcing the settlements,” Price said, noting that Radius was shocked when her office set out to hold the company accountable.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12027613\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/02/250218-AlCoDASwornIn-07.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12027613\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/02/250218-AlCoDASwornIn-07.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/02/250218-AlCoDASwornIn-07.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/02/250218-AlCoDASwornIn-07-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/02/250218-AlCoDASwornIn-07-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/02/250218-AlCoDASwornIn-07-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/02/250218-AlCoDASwornIn-07-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/02/250218-AlCoDASwornIn-07-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Alameda County District Attorney Ursula Jones Dickson speaks during a press conference at the René C. Davidson Courthouse in Oakland on Feb. 18, 2025. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The charges \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11996994/west-oakland-steel-recycler-charged-with-10-crimes-after-toxic-fire-last-summer\">filed last year\u003c/a> by Price’s office alleged that Radius Steel as well as Daniel Woltman and Dane Morales, the heads of the West Oakland facility, recklessly managed hazardous materials, elevating the risk of fire, and later destroyed evidence by cleaning up the 40-ton charred “tin pile” before prosecutors could inspect it to help build their case against the company.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The company and the two men were also charged with violating local air quality regulations and state toxic substance control laws.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The charges, which carried a penalty of up to $33 million in criminal fines and up to three years in county jail, were the first ever filed by an Alameda County district attorney for environmental crimes allegedly committed by a corporation, Price said at a press conference in July.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Price’s office first announced the investigation against the Oregon-based company days after the August 2023 blaze at its Oakland facility, which burned for more than 24 hours, shrouding the region in a gray smoky haze.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The fire started in a pile of scrap metal and was likely caused by a lithium battery, according to the Oakland Fire Department, whose crews were unable to reach the source of the blaze for hours due to the sheer size of the pile. County and city officials advised residents near the Port of Oakland to avoid Jack London Square and to keep their windows closed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The West Oakland facility, which shreds cars and other large appliances, is one of at least four operated by Radius Recycling in California.[aside postID=news_12041689 hero='https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/05/Alameda-Fire_5-1020x765.jpg'] The company, which rebranded in 2023, bills itself as one of North America’s largest manufacturers and exporters of recycled metal products, with 100 operations centers and over 50 recycling facilities in the U.S. and Canada.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“From the beginning, we have been confident that a full and fair review of the facts would confirm that our actions were responsible, transparent, and fully compliant with the law,” Eric Potashner, a Radius spokesperson, said in an email to KQED. “We are proud of how our team responded in the aftermath of the 2023 fire—prioritizing safety, collaborating closely with regulators, and maintaining our commitment to environmental responsibility.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In a statement issued last year after charges were filed, Aaron Dyer, an attorney for Radius, said that the company does not treat or store hazardous waste and that it did not hide or destroy any evidence.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We are fully confident that the company’s actions will be proven to have prioritized public safety and compliance with the law,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The company’s attorneys at the time argued that the case was politically motivated because Price was facing a recall election and wanted to secure a high-profile win. They also denied destroying any evidence from the fire, saying that officials were allowed to inspect the debris and collect samples.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Last month, Alameda County Superior Court Judge Scott Patton removed four prosecutors from the case over their ongoing contention that the company had ignored orders not to clean up the burn pile in its alleged effort to destroy evidence.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In his recusal order, Patton dismissed the prosecution’s argument as negligent and “disingenuous,” insisting that they should have done more to “act immediately” to find any evidence of toxic chemicals in the wreckage. Not cleaning up the burn pile for days, he wrote, would have also “created an unacceptable public health hazard.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Price staunchly defended the team of prosecutors she picked to pursue the charges against Radius.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“These are folks who were trained and experienced in prosecuting this type of case,” Price said. “And they went to the grand jury, which was a collective body of residents of Alameda County, everyday people, looked at that evidence, and they made a decision.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12011912\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/10/241021-OaklandPDDrunkDriving-06-BL_qed.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12011912\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/10/241021-OaklandPDDrunkDriving-06-BL_qed.jpg\" alt=\"A middle-aged Black woman in a suit jacket speaks at a podium, with a 'Alameda County District Attorney's Office banner behind her.\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/10/241021-OaklandPDDrunkDriving-06-BL_qed.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/10/241021-OaklandPDDrunkDriving-06-BL_qed-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/10/241021-OaklandPDDrunkDriving-06-BL_qed-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/10/241021-OaklandPDDrunkDriving-06-BL_qed-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/10/241021-OaklandPDDrunkDriving-06-BL_qed-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/10/241021-OaklandPDDrunkDriving-06-BL_qed-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Alameda County District Attorney Pamela Price speaks to reporters during a briefing in Oakland on Oct. 21, 2024. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>She called it dumbfounding for the district attorney’s office to argue that it could not meet the burden of proof for criminal liability, and she criticized prosecutors for dismissing the case without attempting to secure a plea deal.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The investigation of the case and preparation of the case took many months, and then it went to the grand jury, and then the indictment was approved by a judge,” Price said. “And so why they don’t know how to use that evidence is beside me, other than these folks are not really experienced in doing this kind of work.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The case, she added, was a critical step in working to hold the company accountable.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I think the danger of allowing corporate criminals to violate environmental laws with impunity is obviously something that undermines public safety for all of us,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>This story includes reporting from KQED’s Sara Hossaini and Annelise Finney.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003cem>Updated 5:04 p.m. \u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Environmental justice advocates and former Alameda County District Attorney Pamela Price are not happy with prosecutors’ decision to drop charges against a West Oakland scrap metal processing plant that \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11957894/smelly-smoke-from-oakland-metal-recycler-fire-prompts-health-concerns\">caught fire two years ago\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Radius Recycling, formerly Schnitzer Steel, had \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12031593/california-falls-short-enforcing-regulations-for-metal-shredding-industry\">a history of environmental violations\u003c/a> before the 2023 blaze that Price’s office said spewed toxic smoke across the East Bay. The company and two of its managers will no longer face criminal charges and millions of dollars in fines after Alameda County District Attorney Ursula Jones Dickson’s office quietly dismissed the case on Friday, citing a lack of proof for criminal liability.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This isn’t a question of us standing with polluters — we’re not. But we can only proceed where we can proceed,” said Casey Bates, an assistant district attorney in Jones Dickson’s office.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He said, however, that the decision does not preclude the district attorney from seeking criminal charges against the company and its employees in the future, or from pursuing a civil case against them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But that comes as cold comfort to advocates who backed the high-profile prosecution that Price launched last year. Calling the action “historic,” Price in July announced \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11996994/west-oakland-steel-recycler-charged-with-10-crimes-after-toxic-fire-last-summer\">a 10-count grand jury indictment\u003c/a> against the company for its “terrible legacy of environmental racism and poison in Alameda County that has had a deleterious impact on West Oakland.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12031603\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/PHW-Photo-3.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12031603\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/PHW-Photo-3.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1500\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/PHW-Photo-3.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/PHW-Photo-3-800x600.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/PHW-Photo-3-1020x765.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/PHW-Photo-3-160x120.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/PHW-Photo-3-1536x1152.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/PHW-Photo-3-1920x1440.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">6231 Schnitzer Steel workers use cranes to pull metal out of the smoky mound after a fire started deep in a pile of scrap on Aug. 9, 2023. \u003ccite>(Courtesy Oakland Fire Department)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Voters \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12014858/alameda-county-da-pamela-price-concedes-recall-defeat-after-long-holdout\">recalled Price\u003c/a> several months later, and Jones Dickson was appointed in January by the county Board of Supervisors to complete her term.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Price called her successor’s decision to dismiss the case “outrageous” and disconcerting.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It was grounded in the evidence and the experience of the residents of West Oakland, of the firefighters who were called to fight this very dangerous and toxic fire and who risked their lives to protect the community,” she said. ”And for the district attorney to step back from enforcing the rights of the people and holding this corporation and its corporate managers accountable is absolutely disgraceful.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The decision is further evidence that the district attorney’s office is no longer “concerned or accountable to the community,” she noted, suggesting that Jones Dickson was beholden to corporate interests.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Margaret Gordon, who’s lived near the West Oakland facility for three decades and founded the West Oakland Environmental Indicators Project, accused Jones Dickson’s office of failing to reach out to her community about its decision to dismiss the charges against a company that she said has a long history of air quality violations.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We should have been informed that she was doing that,” Gordon said. “We should have some kind of communication.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Environmental justice advocates have long called for the facility to leave Oakland, citing harmful smoke from frequent fires, including large blazes in 2009, 2010, 2018 and 2020.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>West Oakland residents, who live near a major highway, the port, and industrial facilities, have some of the \u003ca href=\"https://ww2.arb.ca.gov/sites/default/files/2018-03/capp_consultation_group_march_2018_alameda_county_health_presentation.pdf\">highest rates of asthma\u003c/a> and other respiratory diseases in the region.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>State Assemblymember Mia Bonta, who represents West Oakland and the surrounding areas, decried the district attorney’s decision to drop the case against the company.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Serial polluters shouldn’t be allowed to fill our lungs with hazardous waste, including lead, and get away with it with nothing more than a slap on the wrist,” Bonta said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She noted that the company — which is located within a mile of 18 day care centers, 10 parks, eight schools and two hospitals — has been hit with 13 notices of violation from local air regulators since 2018.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The repeated fires from this facility threaten the well-being of the entire Bay Area, particularly the surrounding community in Oakland,” Bonta said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Past investigations by the Alameda County district attorney’s office and the California Department of Toxic Substances Control found that the facility released particulate matter contaminated with hazardous metals such as lead, cadmium and zinc. The investigations were cited in a 2021 settlement between Schnitzer and the state Department of Justice over “the release of toxic air contaminants and hazardous particulates” in West Oakland and across the Oakland Estuary.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The DA’s office had a long history of negotiating settlements with Schnitzer and then not enforcing the settlements,” Price said, noting that Radius was shocked when her office set out to hold the company accountable.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12027613\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/02/250218-AlCoDASwornIn-07.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12027613\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/02/250218-AlCoDASwornIn-07.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/02/250218-AlCoDASwornIn-07.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/02/250218-AlCoDASwornIn-07-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/02/250218-AlCoDASwornIn-07-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/02/250218-AlCoDASwornIn-07-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/02/250218-AlCoDASwornIn-07-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/02/250218-AlCoDASwornIn-07-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Alameda County District Attorney Ursula Jones Dickson speaks during a press conference at the René C. Davidson Courthouse in Oakland on Feb. 18, 2025. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The charges \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11996994/west-oakland-steel-recycler-charged-with-10-crimes-after-toxic-fire-last-summer\">filed last year\u003c/a> by Price’s office alleged that Radius Steel as well as Daniel Woltman and Dane Morales, the heads of the West Oakland facility, recklessly managed hazardous materials, elevating the risk of fire, and later destroyed evidence by cleaning up the 40-ton charred “tin pile” before prosecutors could inspect it to help build their case against the company.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The company and the two men were also charged with violating local air quality regulations and state toxic substance control laws.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The charges, which carried a penalty of up to $33 million in criminal fines and up to three years in county jail, were the first ever filed by an Alameda County district attorney for environmental crimes allegedly committed by a corporation, Price said at a press conference in July.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Price’s office first announced the investigation against the Oregon-based company days after the August 2023 blaze at its Oakland facility, which burned for more than 24 hours, shrouding the region in a gray smoky haze.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The fire started in a pile of scrap metal and was likely caused by a lithium battery, according to the Oakland Fire Department, whose crews were unable to reach the source of the blaze for hours due to the sheer size of the pile. County and city officials advised residents near the Port of Oakland to avoid Jack London Square and to keep their windows closed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The West Oakland facility, which shreds cars and other large appliances, is one of at least four operated by Radius Recycling in California.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp> The company, which rebranded in 2023, bills itself as one of North America’s largest manufacturers and exporters of recycled metal products, with 100 operations centers and over 50 recycling facilities in the U.S. and Canada.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“From the beginning, we have been confident that a full and fair review of the facts would confirm that our actions were responsible, transparent, and fully compliant with the law,” Eric Potashner, a Radius spokesperson, said in an email to KQED. “We are proud of how our team responded in the aftermath of the 2023 fire—prioritizing safety, collaborating closely with regulators, and maintaining our commitment to environmental responsibility.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In a statement issued last year after charges were filed, Aaron Dyer, an attorney for Radius, said that the company does not treat or store hazardous waste and that it did not hide or destroy any evidence.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We are fully confident that the company’s actions will be proven to have prioritized public safety and compliance with the law,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The company’s attorneys at the time argued that the case was politically motivated because Price was facing a recall election and wanted to secure a high-profile win. They also denied destroying any evidence from the fire, saying that officials were allowed to inspect the debris and collect samples.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Last month, Alameda County Superior Court Judge Scott Patton removed four prosecutors from the case over their ongoing contention that the company had ignored orders not to clean up the burn pile in its alleged effort to destroy evidence.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In his recusal order, Patton dismissed the prosecution’s argument as negligent and “disingenuous,” insisting that they should have done more to “act immediately” to find any evidence of toxic chemicals in the wreckage. Not cleaning up the burn pile for days, he wrote, would have also “created an unacceptable public health hazard.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Price staunchly defended the team of prosecutors she picked to pursue the charges against Radius.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“These are folks who were trained and experienced in prosecuting this type of case,” Price said. “And they went to the grand jury, which was a collective body of residents of Alameda County, everyday people, looked at that evidence, and they made a decision.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12011912\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/10/241021-OaklandPDDrunkDriving-06-BL_qed.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12011912\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/10/241021-OaklandPDDrunkDriving-06-BL_qed.jpg\" alt=\"A middle-aged Black woman in a suit jacket speaks at a podium, with a 'Alameda County District Attorney's Office banner behind her.\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/10/241021-OaklandPDDrunkDriving-06-BL_qed.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/10/241021-OaklandPDDrunkDriving-06-BL_qed-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/10/241021-OaklandPDDrunkDriving-06-BL_qed-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/10/241021-OaklandPDDrunkDriving-06-BL_qed-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/10/241021-OaklandPDDrunkDriving-06-BL_qed-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/10/241021-OaklandPDDrunkDriving-06-BL_qed-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Alameda County District Attorney Pamela Price speaks to reporters during a briefing in Oakland on Oct. 21, 2024. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>She called it dumbfounding for the district attorney’s office to argue that it could not meet the burden of proof for criminal liability, and she criticized prosecutors for dismissing the case without attempting to secure a plea deal.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The investigation of the case and preparation of the case took many months, and then it went to the grand jury, and then the indictment was approved by a judge,” Price said. “And so why they don’t know how to use that evidence is beside me, other than these folks are not really experienced in doing this kind of work.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The case, she added, was a critical step in working to hold the company accountable.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I think the danger of allowing corporate criminals to violate environmental laws with impunity is obviously something that undermines public safety for all of us,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>This story includes reporting from KQED’s Sara Hossaini and Annelise Finney.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cp>As fans nationwide celebrate the start of the Major League Baseball season, the Bay Area is adjusting to a new reality: \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12006211/sad-devastated-bittersweet-oakland-as-fans-process-feelings-during-teams-final-week-of-home-games\">a baseball season with just one MLB team\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While the San Francisco Giants \u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LUtpRW3Lau4\">celebrated an Opening Day victory against the Cincinnati Reds on March 27\u003c/a>, the Oakland Athletics — their historic rivals across the Bay — \u003ca href=\"https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/6243315/2025/03/31/sacramento-athletics-oakland-mlb-kings/\">now play their home games in West Sacramento\u003c/a> as of Monday, following the team ownership’s decision to leave the Town. Their move means this will also be the first year without an official “Battle of the Bay”: the nickname given to \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12000643/giants-and-as-fans-gather-for-one-last-battle-of-the-bay\">the beloved face-offs between the Giants and the A’s\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But baseball lovers rejoice: this tradition is back — with a twist.\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>\u003cstrong>Jump straight to: \u003ca href=\"#HowcanIwatchSanJoseGiantsv.OaklandBallers\">How can I watch San José Giants vs. Oakland Ballers?\u003c/a>\u003c/strong>\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>On Wednesday, the San José Giants — the Single-A minor league affiliate of the San Francisco Giants — will play against the Pioneer League’s Oakland Ballers in a single-date exhibition game at Excite Ballpark in San José at 6 p.m. And both teams are, naturally, calling this game “The Battle of the Bay 2.0.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The Battle of the Bay 2.0, at its core, is a celebration of Bay Area baseball fans and the history of baseball in this region,” said Ben Taylor, president of the San José Giants.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12001247\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12001247\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/08/DSC5811_qed.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/08/DSC5811_qed.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/08/DSC5811_qed-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/08/DSC5811_qed-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/08/DSC5811_qed-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/08/DSC5811_qed-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/08/DSC5811_qed-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Pitcher Derrick Cherry tosses his pitch during the Oakland Ballers game against the Yolo High Wheelers in Oakland, California, on June 4, 2024. \u003ccite>(Aryk Copely for KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“Anybody who has grown up in the Bay Area knows the history between the San Francisco Giants and the Oakland Athletics and the great ball games that used to take place between them,” Taylor said. And when it became clear that the A’s would not play the 2025 season from Oakland, he and the Oakland Ballers ownership met to think of how they could once again give fans the experience of seeing two Bay Area teams face off against each other.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Wednesday’s game marks the first time in history that an MLB-affiliated team will play against an independent team from the Pioneer League — no mean feat considering each league operates on different season calendars.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’ve had to really accelerate our off-season plan to pull this game off,” said Casey Pratt, vice president of communications and fan entertainment for the Oakland Ballers. While the Ballers will have their own \u003ca href=\"https://www.oaklandballers.com/news/2025/03/opening-day-tickets-for-sale-2025\">Opening Day on May 20\u003c/a>, Pratt said the team wanted to give Oakland’s baseball fans the experience of a season opener around the same time as the MLB Opening Day.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At a time when \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12004485/oakland-as-athletics-leaving-last-games\">many A’s fans are still grieving the loss\u003c/a> of their team to West Sacramento, the Battle of the Bay 2.0 “hopefully helps the healing process,” Pratt said. “This is baseball that is for the people and for the community first.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>What to expect at Wednesday’s ‘Battle of the Bay 2.0’ at Excite Ballpark\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>All attendees at Wednesday’s game will receive a free Battle of the Bay 2.0 poster designed by local artist \u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/guysliwinski/\">Guy Sliwinski\u003c/a>, who will sign posters at the ballpark. J.T. Snow, former first baseman for the San Francisco Giants and currently part of the Oakland Ballers coaching staff, will throw the first pitch. And both team mascots — the Ballers’ Scrappy the Rally Possum and Gigante from the San José Giants — will be hyping up fans throughout the game.[aside postID=news_12032881 hero='https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/20250322_Roots_4275_qed-1020x680.jpg']“This is going to be the unofficial opening day for Bay Area professional baseball,” said Taylor with the San José Giants. He adds that both teams are coming into this game after making it to their respective post-seasons last year. “All that energy and excitement will be inside the ballpark.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Elected officials for both Bay Area cities are also trying to get behind this new rivalry. Last week, San José Mayor Matt Mahan and Oakland interim Mayor Kevin Jenkins \u003ca href=\"https://x.com/MattMahanSJ/status/1905698327200780477\">announced a wager for Wednesday’s game\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I am so confident that the San José Giants are going to win this thing that I’m putting a bottle of La Vic’s famous orange sauce on the line,” said Mahan, referencing a popular salsa sold by the San José-based La Victoria Taquería. In response, Jenkins has bet a bottle of barbeque sauce from Oakland’s Everett & Jones restaurant chain.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Ballers will be successful, mark my words,” Jenkins said.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003ca id=\"HowcanIwatchSanJoseGiantsv.OaklandBallers\">\u003c/a>How can I watch San José Giants vs. Oakland Ballers?\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Who: \u003c/strong>San José Giants vs. Oakland Ballers\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Where: \u003c/strong>Excite Ballpark in San José\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>When: \u003c/strong>Wednesday, April 2 — first pitch scheduled for 6 p.m.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Official tickets to Wednesday’s game between the San José Giants and the Oakland Ballers \u003ca href=\"https://mlb.tickets.com/?orgId=56749&agency=MILB_MPV&eventId=12355&tfl=#/event/E12355/seatmap/?selectBuyers=false&minPrice=23&maxPrice=53&quantity=1&sort=price_desc&ada=false&seatSelection=true&onlyCoupon=true&onlyVoucher=false\">are still available at mlb.tickets.com\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If you plan to take public transit, you can take BART to Berryessa/North San José BART Station, take the 500 Rapid VTA bus to San José Diridon and then transfer to the 73 VTA bus to the Senter & Alma Avenue bus station. Oakland 68’s, \u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/oakland68s/?hl=en\">an independent fan group\u003c/a>, is organizing a bus to take fans from Raimondi Park in West Oakland to San José. The bus will leave Raimondi Park at 4 p.m. Bus tickets \u003ca href=\"https://www.oakland68s.org/product-page/bus-ticket?fbclid=PAZXh0bgNhZW0CMTEAAaZRLJNtwFiKnDZ_tcBZzuw0dMbjR9x7wCwwVqjS79rvZSApKKZ2_Pa1rf8_aem__qrinlJS5Z_D6SVsecCuoQ\">are sold for $40 each\u003c/a>, which comes with two drinks but do not include game tickets.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Not able to watch the game in person at San José’s Excite Ballpark? You can watch the game live on the \u003ca href=\"https://www.milb.com/san-jose\">San José Giants official website\u003c/a>, stream it on your cellphone using the \u003ca href=\"https://apps.apple.com/us/app/milb/id508217833\">MiLB app\u003c/a> or watch it on TV on KPIX+ (channel 44 cable 12).\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n",
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"headline": "How to Watch 'Battle of the Bay 2.0': Oakland Ballers vs. San José Giants",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>As fans nationwide celebrate the start of the Major League Baseball season, the Bay Area is adjusting to a new reality: \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12006211/sad-devastated-bittersweet-oakland-as-fans-process-feelings-during-teams-final-week-of-home-games\">a baseball season with just one MLB team\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While the San Francisco Giants \u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LUtpRW3Lau4\">celebrated an Opening Day victory against the Cincinnati Reds on March 27\u003c/a>, the Oakland Athletics — their historic rivals across the Bay — \u003ca href=\"https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/6243315/2025/03/31/sacramento-athletics-oakland-mlb-kings/\">now play their home games in West Sacramento\u003c/a> as of Monday, following the team ownership’s decision to leave the Town. Their move means this will also be the first year without an official “Battle of the Bay”: the nickname given to \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12000643/giants-and-as-fans-gather-for-one-last-battle-of-the-bay\">the beloved face-offs between the Giants and the A’s\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But baseball lovers rejoice: this tradition is back — with a twist.\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>\u003cstrong>Jump straight to: \u003ca href=\"#HowcanIwatchSanJoseGiantsv.OaklandBallers\">How can I watch San José Giants vs. Oakland Ballers?\u003c/a>\u003c/strong>\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>On Wednesday, the San José Giants — the Single-A minor league affiliate of the San Francisco Giants — will play against the Pioneer League’s Oakland Ballers in a single-date exhibition game at Excite Ballpark in San José at 6 p.m. And both teams are, naturally, calling this game “The Battle of the Bay 2.0.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The Battle of the Bay 2.0, at its core, is a celebration of Bay Area baseball fans and the history of baseball in this region,” said Ben Taylor, president of the San José Giants.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12001247\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12001247\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/08/DSC5811_qed.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/08/DSC5811_qed.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/08/DSC5811_qed-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/08/DSC5811_qed-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/08/DSC5811_qed-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/08/DSC5811_qed-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/08/DSC5811_qed-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Pitcher Derrick Cherry tosses his pitch during the Oakland Ballers game against the Yolo High Wheelers in Oakland, California, on June 4, 2024. \u003ccite>(Aryk Copely for KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“Anybody who has grown up in the Bay Area knows the history between the San Francisco Giants and the Oakland Athletics and the great ball games that used to take place between them,” Taylor said. And when it became clear that the A’s would not play the 2025 season from Oakland, he and the Oakland Ballers ownership met to think of how they could once again give fans the experience of seeing two Bay Area teams face off against each other.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Wednesday’s game marks the first time in history that an MLB-affiliated team will play against an independent team from the Pioneer League — no mean feat considering each league operates on different season calendars.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’ve had to really accelerate our off-season plan to pull this game off,” said Casey Pratt, vice president of communications and fan entertainment for the Oakland Ballers. While the Ballers will have their own \u003ca href=\"https://www.oaklandballers.com/news/2025/03/opening-day-tickets-for-sale-2025\">Opening Day on May 20\u003c/a>, Pratt said the team wanted to give Oakland’s baseball fans the experience of a season opener around the same time as the MLB Opening Day.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At a time when \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12004485/oakland-as-athletics-leaving-last-games\">many A’s fans are still grieving the loss\u003c/a> of their team to West Sacramento, the Battle of the Bay 2.0 “hopefully helps the healing process,” Pratt said. “This is baseball that is for the people and for the community first.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>What to expect at Wednesday’s ‘Battle of the Bay 2.0’ at Excite Ballpark\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>All attendees at Wednesday’s game will receive a free Battle of the Bay 2.0 poster designed by local artist \u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/guysliwinski/\">Guy Sliwinski\u003c/a>, who will sign posters at the ballpark. J.T. Snow, former first baseman for the San Francisco Giants and currently part of the Oakland Ballers coaching staff, will throw the first pitch. And both team mascots — the Ballers’ Scrappy the Rally Possum and Gigante from the San José Giants — will be hyping up fans throughout the game.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>“This is going to be the unofficial opening day for Bay Area professional baseball,” said Taylor with the San José Giants. He adds that both teams are coming into this game after making it to their respective post-seasons last year. “All that energy and excitement will be inside the ballpark.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Elected officials for both Bay Area cities are also trying to get behind this new rivalry. Last week, San José Mayor Matt Mahan and Oakland interim Mayor Kevin Jenkins \u003ca href=\"https://x.com/MattMahanSJ/status/1905698327200780477\">announced a wager for Wednesday’s game\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I am so confident that the San José Giants are going to win this thing that I’m putting a bottle of La Vic’s famous orange sauce on the line,” said Mahan, referencing a popular salsa sold by the San José-based La Victoria Taquería. In response, Jenkins has bet a bottle of barbeque sauce from Oakland’s Everett & Jones restaurant chain.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Ballers will be successful, mark my words,” Jenkins said.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003ca id=\"HowcanIwatchSanJoseGiantsv.OaklandBallers\">\u003c/a>How can I watch San José Giants vs. Oakland Ballers?\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Who: \u003c/strong>San José Giants vs. Oakland Ballers\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Where: \u003c/strong>Excite Ballpark in San José\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>When: \u003c/strong>Wednesday, April 2 — first pitch scheduled for 6 p.m.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Official tickets to Wednesday’s game between the San José Giants and the Oakland Ballers \u003ca href=\"https://mlb.tickets.com/?orgId=56749&agency=MILB_MPV&eventId=12355&tfl=#/event/E12355/seatmap/?selectBuyers=false&minPrice=23&maxPrice=53&quantity=1&sort=price_desc&ada=false&seatSelection=true&onlyCoupon=true&onlyVoucher=false\">are still available at mlb.tickets.com\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If you plan to take public transit, you can take BART to Berryessa/North San José BART Station, take the 500 Rapid VTA bus to San José Diridon and then transfer to the 73 VTA bus to the Senter & Alma Avenue bus station. Oakland 68’s, \u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/oakland68s/?hl=en\">an independent fan group\u003c/a>, is organizing a bus to take fans from Raimondi Park in West Oakland to San José. The bus will leave Raimondi Park at 4 p.m. Bus tickets \u003ca href=\"https://www.oakland68s.org/product-page/bus-ticket?fbclid=PAZXh0bgNhZW0CMTEAAaZRLJNtwFiKnDZ_tcBZzuw0dMbjR9x7wCwwVqjS79rvZSApKKZ2_Pa1rf8_aem__qrinlJS5Z_D6SVsecCuoQ\">are sold for $40 each\u003c/a>, which comes with two drinks but do not include game tickets.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Not able to watch the game in person at San José’s Excite Ballpark? You can watch the game live on the \u003ca href=\"https://www.milb.com/san-jose\">San José Giants official website\u003c/a>, stream it on your cellphone using the \u003ca href=\"https://apps.apple.com/us/app/milb/id508217833\">MiLB app\u003c/a> or watch it on TV on KPIX+ (channel 44 cable 12).\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"slug": "homeless-services-nonprofits-oakland-fails-pay-contracts",
"title": "‘It’s a Mess’: Homeless Services Nonprofits Say Oakland Routinely Fails to Pay Contracts",
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"headTitle": "‘It’s a Mess’: Homeless Services Nonprofits Say Oakland Routinely Fails to Pay Contracts | KQED",
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"content": "\u003cp>\u003cem>Updated 12:07 p.m. Tuesday\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A year without pay. Millions in debt. Months without a contract.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Those are some of the allegations from homelessness services providers in Oakland that have surfaced since one nonprofit nearly had to shut down two shelters this month. Its experience is shining a spotlight on a broken repayment system that’s thwarting the city’s ability to address one of its most pressing problems.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The \u003ca href=\"https://www.oaklandca.gov/news/city-of-oakland-opens-100-bed-cabin-shelter-program-at-wood-street\">Wood Street Community Cabins\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"https://www.self-sufficiency.org/rvpark#:~:text=The%20Wood%20Street%20RV%20Safe,support%20to%20find%20permanent%20housing.\">RV safe parking\u003c/a> sites in West Oakland, which consist of 100 cabin beds and 40 RV spots, are slated to close at the end of June but were nearly forced to shut down three months early, after the city missed some five months of payments to the nonprofit running the sites, Building Opportunities for Self-Sufficiency (BOSS).\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Nonprofits say BOSS’ experience is only the latest example of an ongoing struggle that has them operating under the weight of massive debt as they wait on the city to reimburse them for housing and feeding its most vulnerable residents. And it’s those residents who are hurt most as they contend with subpar living conditions at some sites that are exacerbated by the stymied cash flow.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“No one really knows exactly what’s going on,” John Janosko, a former resident of the Wood Street Cabins, said during a Monday press conference outside the shelters, where advocates rebuked the city and lobbied to take over the sites.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12032760\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12032760\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/016_KQED_WoodStreet_12162022_qed.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/016_KQED_WoodStreet_12162022_qed.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/016_KQED_WoodStreet_12162022_qed-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/016_KQED_WoodStreet_12162022_qed-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/016_KQED_WoodStreet_12162022_qed-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/016_KQED_WoodStreet_12162022_qed-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/016_KQED_WoodStreet_12162022_qed-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Tiny homes trucked into the Wood Street Cabin Community, a planned 100-bed shelter program on the second portion of the Game Changer lot located at 2601 Wood St., in Oakland, on Dec. 16, 2022. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>He said muddled information has left residents uncertain of when they’ll need to find alternative housing, with some expecting to leave in a matter of weeks and others circulating rumors the site may run through the end of the year. According to BOSS, there are currently 70 people living in either the cabins or at the RV site. Of those, 41 are still awaiting a housing placement.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The bottom line is we don’t know, so we’re basically here to help uplift and support our family,” Janosko said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>BOSS CEO Donald Frazier said he issued layoff notices to staff last week in preparation to shut down at the end of March after repeated and increasingly urgent requests for payment went unaddressed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It was only after the layoff notices went out that city officials sat down with Frazier and provided assurances the city would make good on its debt. In all, Frazier said the city owes BOSS about $900,000 through April and that the organization will need another $480,000 to fund the programs through June.[aside postID=news_12030792 hero='https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/001_SanFrancisco_Housing_07292021_qed-1020x680.jpg']“We’ll see,” he said. “Until the money is in our hands, I won’t be content.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Sean Maher, a spokesperson for the city of Oakland, said in a statement to KQED that staff is working on solutions to “bring the city’s outstanding payments to BOSS up to current, as well as identifying solutions to support the programs’ operations to the end of June.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At a Friday meeting, officials with the City Administrator’s Office told Frazier they would provide the back pay owed for November through January within 10 days. As a result, Frazier said he would rescind the layoff notices and inform staff of the June closure.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This will allow critical time for identifying options for the residents currently being served by both programs,” Maher said, adding that those options would be finalized over the next several days.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But on Monday, some cabin residents said they had little sense of where they’d end up.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I’ll go stay in a tent if it comes to that,” said Jared Defigh, who’s been living at the site for about two years. “I might get housed before then, it’s hard to say.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12032761\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1999px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12032761\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/012_KQED_WoodStreetCommonsEviction_04102023_qed.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1999\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/012_KQED_WoodStreetCommonsEviction_04102023_qed.jpg 1999w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/012_KQED_WoodStreetCommonsEviction_04102023_qed-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/012_KQED_WoodStreetCommonsEviction_04102023_qed-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/012_KQED_WoodStreetCommonsEviction_04102023_qed-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/012_KQED_WoodStreetCommonsEviction_04102023_qed-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/012_KQED_WoodStreetCommonsEviction_04102023_qed-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1999px) 100vw, 1999px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A Wood Street resident tours the Tuff Sheds near the Wood Street encampment in Oakland on April 10, 2023. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Late payments from local governments and the state are \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/housing/homelessness/2024/10/nonprofit-reimbursements/\">a thorn in the side of services providers around California\u003c/a>, with some large organizations regularly waiting on tens of millions of dollars in reimbursement at any given time. However, local nonprofits say the lags in Oakland are extreme.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>KQED spoke with three other local nonprofit providers who said payment delays make it particularly challenging to operate in the city. While a typical wait time is two to three months, one leader estimates Oakland takes nearly twice as long to pay. Another said it’s not unusual for the city to run a year behind on payments.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Roots Community Health CEO Noha Aboelata said that for the second year in a row, the city has racked up a million-dollar debt with the nonprofit. She and other CEOs, including some who declined to speak on record, said that while the situation long predates Oakland’s \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12027537/oakland-budget-crisis-leads-nonprofit-cuts-leaving-social-services-limbo\">current budget crisis\u003c/a>, it’s only gotten worse. And, Aboelata said the delays now extend to the contracting process itself, meaning organizations are often working for months without contracts in place.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Without a contract in place, you can’t invoice,” she said. “So the delays have gotten incredibly lengthy.”[aside postID=news_12031813 hero='https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/240409-SJEncampmentBan-045-BL_qed-1020x680.jpg']In a statement, Maher said the city values its service providers and welcomes feedback “on ways we can collaboratively improve our work together, including in our contracting, invoicing, and payments processes.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Aboelata said she understands the city is in a fiscal crisis and is willing to work through it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“But we really do need clarity,” she said, echoing the frustration over poor communication with the city that the other CEOs expressed. “Every week we’re not knowing what’s going to happen next or what we’re going to be told, or what we are going to find, so it does create kind of an instability.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That instability also breeds inefficiency, leaders said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For BOSS, that means taking out a line of credit to cover operating costs, resulting in added interest payments that will most likely get passed on to taxpayers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And residents say it also manifests as mismanagement and subpar conditions at the shelters themselves.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“They didn’t have toilet paper, they didn’t have drinking water,” said a former resident of the Wood Street Cabins and advocate who goes by Freeway. “The facilities were constantly non-functioning as they are right now.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We don’t even have shower heads anymore,” Defigh said. “There might be sewage coming out of that bathroom.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Frazier acknowledged those challenges, though he said the sewage issue had been addressed. With cashflow severely limited, he said BOSS struggled to maintain the shelters, leading to health and safety concerns.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12032924\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-12032924 size-full\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/004_KQED_WoodStreet_12162022_qed.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/004_KQED_WoodStreet_12162022_qed.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/004_KQED_WoodStreet_12162022_qed-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/004_KQED_WoodStreet_12162022_qed-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/004_KQED_WoodStreet_12162022_qed-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/004_KQED_WoodStreet_12162022_qed-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/004_KQED_WoodStreet_12162022_qed-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A small home is transported to the Wood Street Cabin Community, a planned 100-bed shelter program on the second section of the Game Changer lot at 2601 Wood St. in Oakland, on Dec. 16, 2022. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“There were tremendous problems,” he said. “All that was a direct result of not having funds to do all the existing maintenance and some deferred maintenance.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/25867210-letter-to-city-administrator-1/\">In a February letter (PDF)\u003c/a> to City Administrator Jestin Johnson, Frazier alerted officials that delays had “significantly impacted clients, staff wages and limited our ability to accept new clients.” The letter lists an estimated $130,000–$150,000 worth of necessary maintenance, including mold testing, remediation and repairs to over two dozen units. One charred cabin needed removing, according to the letter; others needed new locks, doors, floors and windows.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In an email accompanying the letter, Frazier called the conditions at the cabins “unconscionable.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Staff and participants’ health and safety are at risk,” he wrote.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That pressure ultimately led the city to reimburse BOSS for payments owed from September and October of last year, he said, but the organization hasn’t been paid since then.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s a mess,” Frazier said. “It strains the entire agency. It’s like stretching a rubber band — how far can you stretch it before it pops?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n",
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"excerpt": "Homeless services providers say they’re struggling under the weight of massive debt as they wait on the city of Oakland to reimburse them for housing and feeding its most vulnerable residents. And it’s those residents who are hurt most.",
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"title": "‘It’s a Mess’: Homeless Services Nonprofits Say Oakland Routinely Fails to Pay Contracts | KQED",
"description": "Homeless services providers say they’re struggling under the weight of massive debt as they wait on the city of Oakland to reimburse them for housing and feeding its most vulnerable residents. And it’s those residents who are hurt most.",
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"headline": "‘It’s a Mess’: Homeless Services Nonprofits Say Oakland Routinely Fails to Pay Contracts",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003cem>Updated 12:07 p.m. Tuesday\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A year without pay. Millions in debt. Months without a contract.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Those are some of the allegations from homelessness services providers in Oakland that have surfaced since one nonprofit nearly had to shut down two shelters this month. Its experience is shining a spotlight on a broken repayment system that’s thwarting the city’s ability to address one of its most pressing problems.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The \u003ca href=\"https://www.oaklandca.gov/news/city-of-oakland-opens-100-bed-cabin-shelter-program-at-wood-street\">Wood Street Community Cabins\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"https://www.self-sufficiency.org/rvpark#:~:text=The%20Wood%20Street%20RV%20Safe,support%20to%20find%20permanent%20housing.\">RV safe parking\u003c/a> sites in West Oakland, which consist of 100 cabin beds and 40 RV spots, are slated to close at the end of June but were nearly forced to shut down three months early, after the city missed some five months of payments to the nonprofit running the sites, Building Opportunities for Self-Sufficiency (BOSS).\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Nonprofits say BOSS’ experience is only the latest example of an ongoing struggle that has them operating under the weight of massive debt as they wait on the city to reimburse them for housing and feeding its most vulnerable residents. And it’s those residents who are hurt most as they contend with subpar living conditions at some sites that are exacerbated by the stymied cash flow.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“No one really knows exactly what’s going on,” John Janosko, a former resident of the Wood Street Cabins, said during a Monday press conference outside the shelters, where advocates rebuked the city and lobbied to take over the sites.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12032760\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12032760\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/016_KQED_WoodStreet_12162022_qed.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/016_KQED_WoodStreet_12162022_qed.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/016_KQED_WoodStreet_12162022_qed-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/016_KQED_WoodStreet_12162022_qed-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/016_KQED_WoodStreet_12162022_qed-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/016_KQED_WoodStreet_12162022_qed-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/016_KQED_WoodStreet_12162022_qed-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Tiny homes trucked into the Wood Street Cabin Community, a planned 100-bed shelter program on the second portion of the Game Changer lot located at 2601 Wood St., in Oakland, on Dec. 16, 2022. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>He said muddled information has left residents uncertain of when they’ll need to find alternative housing, with some expecting to leave in a matter of weeks and others circulating rumors the site may run through the end of the year. According to BOSS, there are currently 70 people living in either the cabins or at the RV site. Of those, 41 are still awaiting a housing placement.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The bottom line is we don’t know, so we’re basically here to help uplift and support our family,” Janosko said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>BOSS CEO Donald Frazier said he issued layoff notices to staff last week in preparation to shut down at the end of March after repeated and increasingly urgent requests for payment went unaddressed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It was only after the layoff notices went out that city officials sat down with Frazier and provided assurances the city would make good on its debt. In all, Frazier said the city owes BOSS about $900,000 through April and that the organization will need another $480,000 to fund the programs through June.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>“We’ll see,” he said. “Until the money is in our hands, I won’t be content.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Sean Maher, a spokesperson for the city of Oakland, said in a statement to KQED that staff is working on solutions to “bring the city’s outstanding payments to BOSS up to current, as well as identifying solutions to support the programs’ operations to the end of June.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At a Friday meeting, officials with the City Administrator’s Office told Frazier they would provide the back pay owed for November through January within 10 days. As a result, Frazier said he would rescind the layoff notices and inform staff of the June closure.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This will allow critical time for identifying options for the residents currently being served by both programs,” Maher said, adding that those options would be finalized over the next several days.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But on Monday, some cabin residents said they had little sense of where they’d end up.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I’ll go stay in a tent if it comes to that,” said Jared Defigh, who’s been living at the site for about two years. “I might get housed before then, it’s hard to say.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12032761\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1999px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12032761\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/012_KQED_WoodStreetCommonsEviction_04102023_qed.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1999\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/012_KQED_WoodStreetCommonsEviction_04102023_qed.jpg 1999w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/012_KQED_WoodStreetCommonsEviction_04102023_qed-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/012_KQED_WoodStreetCommonsEviction_04102023_qed-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/012_KQED_WoodStreetCommonsEviction_04102023_qed-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/012_KQED_WoodStreetCommonsEviction_04102023_qed-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/012_KQED_WoodStreetCommonsEviction_04102023_qed-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1999px) 100vw, 1999px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A Wood Street resident tours the Tuff Sheds near the Wood Street encampment in Oakland on April 10, 2023. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Late payments from local governments and the state are \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/housing/homelessness/2024/10/nonprofit-reimbursements/\">a thorn in the side of services providers around California\u003c/a>, with some large organizations regularly waiting on tens of millions of dollars in reimbursement at any given time. However, local nonprofits say the lags in Oakland are extreme.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>KQED spoke with three other local nonprofit providers who said payment delays make it particularly challenging to operate in the city. While a typical wait time is two to three months, one leader estimates Oakland takes nearly twice as long to pay. Another said it’s not unusual for the city to run a year behind on payments.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Roots Community Health CEO Noha Aboelata said that for the second year in a row, the city has racked up a million-dollar debt with the nonprofit. She and other CEOs, including some who declined to speak on record, said that while the situation long predates Oakland’s \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12027537/oakland-budget-crisis-leads-nonprofit-cuts-leaving-social-services-limbo\">current budget crisis\u003c/a>, it’s only gotten worse. And, Aboelata said the delays now extend to the contracting process itself, meaning organizations are often working for months without contracts in place.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Without a contract in place, you can’t invoice,” she said. “So the delays have gotten incredibly lengthy.”\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>In a statement, Maher said the city values its service providers and welcomes feedback “on ways we can collaboratively improve our work together, including in our contracting, invoicing, and payments processes.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Aboelata said she understands the city is in a fiscal crisis and is willing to work through it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“But we really do need clarity,” she said, echoing the frustration over poor communication with the city that the other CEOs expressed. “Every week we’re not knowing what’s going to happen next or what we’re going to be told, or what we are going to find, so it does create kind of an instability.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That instability also breeds inefficiency, leaders said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For BOSS, that means taking out a line of credit to cover operating costs, resulting in added interest payments that will most likely get passed on to taxpayers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And residents say it also manifests as mismanagement and subpar conditions at the shelters themselves.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“They didn’t have toilet paper, they didn’t have drinking water,” said a former resident of the Wood Street Cabins and advocate who goes by Freeway. “The facilities were constantly non-functioning as they are right now.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We don’t even have shower heads anymore,” Defigh said. “There might be sewage coming out of that bathroom.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Frazier acknowledged those challenges, though he said the sewage issue had been addressed. With cashflow severely limited, he said BOSS struggled to maintain the shelters, leading to health and safety concerns.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12032924\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-12032924 size-full\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/004_KQED_WoodStreet_12162022_qed.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/004_KQED_WoodStreet_12162022_qed.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/004_KQED_WoodStreet_12162022_qed-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/004_KQED_WoodStreet_12162022_qed-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/004_KQED_WoodStreet_12162022_qed-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/004_KQED_WoodStreet_12162022_qed-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/004_KQED_WoodStreet_12162022_qed-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A small home is transported to the Wood Street Cabin Community, a planned 100-bed shelter program on the second section of the Game Changer lot at 2601 Wood St. in Oakland, on Dec. 16, 2022. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“There were tremendous problems,” he said. “All that was a direct result of not having funds to do all the existing maintenance and some deferred maintenance.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/25867210-letter-to-city-administrator-1/\">In a February letter (PDF)\u003c/a> to City Administrator Jestin Johnson, Frazier alerted officials that delays had “significantly impacted clients, staff wages and limited our ability to accept new clients.” The letter lists an estimated $130,000–$150,000 worth of necessary maintenance, including mold testing, remediation and repairs to over two dozen units. One charred cabin needed removing, according to the letter; others needed new locks, doors, floors and windows.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In an email accompanying the letter, Frazier called the conditions at the cabins “unconscionable.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Staff and participants’ health and safety are at risk,” he wrote.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That pressure ultimately led the city to reimburse BOSS for payments owed from September and October of last year, he said, but the organization hasn’t been paid since then.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s a mess,” Frazier said. “It strains the entire agency. It’s like stretching a rubber band — how far can you stretch it before it pops?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"slug": "california-falls-short-enforcing-regulations-for-metal-shredding-industry",
"title": "California Falls Short in Enforcing Regulations for the Metal Shredding Industry",
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"headTitle": "California Falls Short in Enforcing Regulations for the Metal Shredding Industry | KQED",
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"content": "\u003cp>\u003cem>Updated 11:15 a.m. Tuesday\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This article was \u003ca href=\"https://publichealthwatch.org/2025/03/18/california-metal-shredding-lead-waste/\">originally published\u003c/a> by \u003ca href=\"https://publichealthwatch.org/\">\u003cem>Public Health Watch\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem>, a nonprofit investigative news organization. \u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The engine from Oakland Fire Department’s Station Number 2 had rolled out to \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11958816/alameda-county-das-office-wants-your-help-investigating-schnitzer-steel-fire\">Schnitzer Steel\u003c/a> before, but this call was different.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It wasn’t the typical smoldering nugget of debris. Instead, smoke was billowing from a massive pile of scrap as flames shot outward from an orange glow deep within.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Lt. Eduardo Ibarra was on that engine, the first to respond to the metal shredder’s bayside yard that night in August 2023. He guessed the burning pile was close to the size of a football field, 50 to 70 feet high in places.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We knew that we were gonna be there for a long time,” Ibarra told an Alameda County criminal grand jury, according to a transcript of the proceedings obtained by Public Health Watch.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The glowing core — the seat, the origin of the fire — proved hard to reach, with the scrap piled up near the back fence. Fire crews struggled to maneuver their trucks and hoses around the mound, and it soon became clear that something inside was volatile.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Hours after the first fire truck arrived, repeated explosions sent hot metal sizzling through the air. At one point, an oval piece of metal about two feet long and four feet wide flew over the heads of Ibarra and his crew, landing on a discarded Bay Area Rapid Transit car, where it burned through the roof and started another fire.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12031598\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-12031598\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/Ibarra-800x1066.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"1066\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/Ibarra-800x1066.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/Ibarra-1020x1360.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/Ibarra-160x213.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/Ibarra-1152x1536.jpg 1152w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/Ibarra-1536x2048.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/Ibarra-scaled.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Lt. Eduardo Ibarra can see the Schnitzer Steel facility from Oakland Fire Department Station 2, which took the call to respond to a fire in 2023. \u003ccite>(Molly Peterson/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“The explosions [are] not something that we deal with all the time,” Ibarra later told Public Health Watch. “We do deal with explosions from, like propane tanks and things like that, RV fires and things of that nature. But we never deal with explosions of this caliber on a regular basis.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Ibarra’s sworn testimony and the testimony of others recorded in the 2,700-page grand jury transcript provide new details about the fire and its aftermath.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Public Health Watch also reviewed hundreds of pages of additional documents obtained under the California Public Records Act that recounted what state and local regulators have done — and what they haven’t — to keep the public safe over the years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The new details raise questions about California’s oversight of the metal shredding industry and the potential health hazards posed by the toxic and airborne metals and other pollutants that drift off the property.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>About 23,000 people live in West Oakland within a mile of the Schnitzer site, and thousands more live downwind.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The company, which has since been renamed Radius Recycling, and two employees were later charged with up to 10 separate environmental felonies and misdemeanors.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The charges include felony violations of the state’s health and safety code between 2021 and 2023, as well as conspiracy to destroy evidence, reckless handling of hazardous waste and negligently emitting air contaminants. The company and both employees pleaded not guilty in December.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Radius Recycling did not respond to requests for comment from Public Health Watch, before the article published, but the company has defended its business and the metal shredding industry as a way to produce steel — a construction staple — with a small or neutral carbon footprint that can help mitigate climate change and meet regulatory requirements for greener building.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On Tuesday, after the story published, the company issued a statement to Public Health Watch via email, complaining that allegations raised in the story, based on grand jury testimony and multiple other sources, were false.[aside postID=news_11996994 hero='https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/07/012_KQED_SchnitzerSteelPortofOakland_03082022_qed-1020x679.jpg']“Radius Recycling remains committed to safety, environmental compliance, and transparency,” according to the statement from Eric Potashner, the chief sustainability officer. “Following the fire at our Oakland facility, we worked closely with the District Attorney’s Office and multiple regulatory agencies — including the California Department of Toxic Substances Control and the Bay Area Air Quality Management District — who were on-site immediately.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Our operations follow strict environmental regulations, and we remain fully confident that the facts will demonstrate Radius Recycling’s continued prioritization of public safety and compliance with the law,” Potashner said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The statement also challenged some of the testimony presented to the grand jury that later issued the indictments, saying the company had alerted officials it would immediately shred the evidence from the fire and that no one objected.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“As part of standard fire prevention protocol, we proactively informed regulators that we would begin shredding the burned material that day to eliminate any risk of reignition. No agency or regulator objected to this process,” according to the statement.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Then-District Attorney Pamela Price called the criminal charges “historic.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We believe Radius has often shrugged off the regulations when it was convenient to them, treating minor administrative penalties and fines as the cost of doing business,” Price said at the time the indictment was handed down.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Regulators, it appears, also fell down on the job.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12031603\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12031603\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/PHW-Photo-3.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1500\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/PHW-Photo-3.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/PHW-Photo-3-800x600.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/PHW-Photo-3-1020x765.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/PHW-Photo-3-160x120.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/PHW-Photo-3-1536x1152.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/PHW-Photo-3-1920x1440.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">6231 Schnitzer Steel workers use cranes to pull metal out of the smoky mound after a fire started deep in a pile of scrap on Aug. 9, 2023. \u003ccite>(Courtesy Oakland Fire Department)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Oversight of the metal shredding industry has repeatedly faltered. Over the years, the state has granted exemptions from a key rule, missed a deadline for drafting new regulations and avoided enforcement of existing laws, either through lack of resources or lack of effort.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Along the way, decades of poorly coordinated efforts among a host of public agencies have enabled — and in some cases exacerbated — problems across the industry, Public Health Watch learned.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There’s multiple agencies in charge of making sure industry complies with relevant laws, but these agencies have failed to actually do the job of enforcing those laws,” said Karen Chen, an attorney with the Natural Resources Defense Council, which has filed friend-of-the-court briefs in support of stricter enforcement.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“In the meantime, real people suffer irreversible health harms while [the state Department of Toxic Substances Control] waits to truly do its job and enforce the hazardous waste control law,” Chen said. “In turn, metal shredders get to skirt regulations in order to make a buck.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Read the full story at \u003ca href=\"https://publichealthwatch.org/2025/03/18/california-metal-shredding-lead-waste/\">Public Health Watch\u003c/a>.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003cem>Updated 11:15 a.m. Tuesday\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This article was \u003ca href=\"https://publichealthwatch.org/2025/03/18/california-metal-shredding-lead-waste/\">originally published\u003c/a> by \u003ca href=\"https://publichealthwatch.org/\">\u003cem>Public Health Watch\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem>, a nonprofit investigative news organization. \u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The engine from Oakland Fire Department’s Station Number 2 had rolled out to \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11958816/alameda-county-das-office-wants-your-help-investigating-schnitzer-steel-fire\">Schnitzer Steel\u003c/a> before, but this call was different.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It wasn’t the typical smoldering nugget of debris. Instead, smoke was billowing from a massive pile of scrap as flames shot outward from an orange glow deep within.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Lt. Eduardo Ibarra was on that engine, the first to respond to the metal shredder’s bayside yard that night in August 2023. He guessed the burning pile was close to the size of a football field, 50 to 70 feet high in places.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We knew that we were gonna be there for a long time,” Ibarra told an Alameda County criminal grand jury, according to a transcript of the proceedings obtained by Public Health Watch.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The glowing core — the seat, the origin of the fire — proved hard to reach, with the scrap piled up near the back fence. Fire crews struggled to maneuver their trucks and hoses around the mound, and it soon became clear that something inside was volatile.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Hours after the first fire truck arrived, repeated explosions sent hot metal sizzling through the air. At one point, an oval piece of metal about two feet long and four feet wide flew over the heads of Ibarra and his crew, landing on a discarded Bay Area Rapid Transit car, where it burned through the roof and started another fire.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12031598\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-12031598\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/Ibarra-800x1066.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"1066\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/Ibarra-800x1066.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/Ibarra-1020x1360.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/Ibarra-160x213.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/Ibarra-1152x1536.jpg 1152w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/Ibarra-1536x2048.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/Ibarra-scaled.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Lt. Eduardo Ibarra can see the Schnitzer Steel facility from Oakland Fire Department Station 2, which took the call to respond to a fire in 2023. \u003ccite>(Molly Peterson/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“The explosions [are] not something that we deal with all the time,” Ibarra later told Public Health Watch. “We do deal with explosions from, like propane tanks and things like that, RV fires and things of that nature. But we never deal with explosions of this caliber on a regular basis.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Ibarra’s sworn testimony and the testimony of others recorded in the 2,700-page grand jury transcript provide new details about the fire and its aftermath.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Public Health Watch also reviewed hundreds of pages of additional documents obtained under the California Public Records Act that recounted what state and local regulators have done — and what they haven’t — to keep the public safe over the years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The new details raise questions about California’s oversight of the metal shredding industry and the potential health hazards posed by the toxic and airborne metals and other pollutants that drift off the property.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>About 23,000 people live in West Oakland within a mile of the Schnitzer site, and thousands more live downwind.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The company, which has since been renamed Radius Recycling, and two employees were later charged with up to 10 separate environmental felonies and misdemeanors.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The charges include felony violations of the state’s health and safety code between 2021 and 2023, as well as conspiracy to destroy evidence, reckless handling of hazardous waste and negligently emitting air contaminants. The company and both employees pleaded not guilty in December.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Radius Recycling did not respond to requests for comment from Public Health Watch, before the article published, but the company has defended its business and the metal shredding industry as a way to produce steel — a construction staple — with a small or neutral carbon footprint that can help mitigate climate change and meet regulatory requirements for greener building.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On Tuesday, after the story published, the company issued a statement to Public Health Watch via email, complaining that allegations raised in the story, based on grand jury testimony and multiple other sources, were false.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>“Radius Recycling remains committed to safety, environmental compliance, and transparency,” according to the statement from Eric Potashner, the chief sustainability officer. “Following the fire at our Oakland facility, we worked closely with the District Attorney’s Office and multiple regulatory agencies — including the California Department of Toxic Substances Control and the Bay Area Air Quality Management District — who were on-site immediately.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Our operations follow strict environmental regulations, and we remain fully confident that the facts will demonstrate Radius Recycling’s continued prioritization of public safety and compliance with the law,” Potashner said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The statement also challenged some of the testimony presented to the grand jury that later issued the indictments, saying the company had alerted officials it would immediately shred the evidence from the fire and that no one objected.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“As part of standard fire prevention protocol, we proactively informed regulators that we would begin shredding the burned material that day to eliminate any risk of reignition. No agency or regulator objected to this process,” according to the statement.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Then-District Attorney Pamela Price called the criminal charges “historic.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We believe Radius has often shrugged off the regulations when it was convenient to them, treating minor administrative penalties and fines as the cost of doing business,” Price said at the time the indictment was handed down.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Regulators, it appears, also fell down on the job.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12031603\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12031603\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/PHW-Photo-3.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1500\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/PHW-Photo-3.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/PHW-Photo-3-800x600.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/PHW-Photo-3-1020x765.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/PHW-Photo-3-160x120.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/PHW-Photo-3-1536x1152.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/PHW-Photo-3-1920x1440.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">6231 Schnitzer Steel workers use cranes to pull metal out of the smoky mound after a fire started deep in a pile of scrap on Aug. 9, 2023. \u003ccite>(Courtesy Oakland Fire Department)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Oversight of the metal shredding industry has repeatedly faltered. Over the years, the state has granted exemptions from a key rule, missed a deadline for drafting new regulations and avoided enforcement of existing laws, either through lack of resources or lack of effort.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Along the way, decades of poorly coordinated efforts among a host of public agencies have enabled — and in some cases exacerbated — problems across the industry, Public Health Watch learned.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There’s multiple agencies in charge of making sure industry complies with relevant laws, but these agencies have failed to actually do the job of enforcing those laws,” said Karen Chen, an attorney with the Natural Resources Defense Council, which has filed friend-of-the-court briefs in support of stricter enforcement.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“In the meantime, real people suffer irreversible health harms while [the state Department of Toxic Substances Control] waits to truly do its job and enforce the hazardous waste control law,” Chen said. “In turn, metal shredders get to skirt regulations in order to make a buck.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Read the full story at \u003ca href=\"https://publichealthwatch.org/2025/03/18/california-metal-shredding-lead-waste/\">Public Health Watch\u003c/a>.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"info": "\u003cem>Code Switch\u003c/em>, which listeners will hear in the first part of the hour, has fearless and much-needed conversations about race. Hosted by journalists of color, the show tackles the subject of race head-on, exploring how it impacts every part of society — from politics and pop culture to history, sports and more.\u003cbr />\u003cbr />\u003cem>Life Kit\u003c/em>, which will be in the second part of the hour, guides you through spaces and feelings no one prepares you for — from finances to mental health, from workplace microaggressions to imposter syndrome, from relationships to parenting. The show features experts with real world experience and shares their knowledge. Because everyone needs a little help being human.\u003cbr />\u003cbr />\u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/podcasts/510312/codeswitch\">\u003cem>Code Switch\u003c/em> offical site and podcast\u003c/a>\u003cbr />\u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/lifekit\">\u003cem>Life Kit\u003c/em> offical site and podcast\u003c/a>\u003cbr />",
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"info": "The Commonwealth Club of California is the nation's oldest and largest public affairs forum. As a non-partisan forum, The Club brings to the public airwaves diverse viewpoints on important topics. The Club's weekly radio broadcast - the oldest in the U.S., dating back to 1924 - is carried across the nation on public radio stations and is now podcasting. Our website archive features audio of our recent programs, as well as selected speeches from our long and distinguished history. This podcast feed is usually updated twice a week and is always un-edited.",
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},
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"airtime": "SUN 7:30pm-8pm",
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},
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"info": "Inside Europe, a one-hour weekly news magazine hosted by Helen Seeney and Keith Walker, explores the topical issues shaping the continent. No other part of the globe has experienced such dynamic political and social change in recent years.",
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},
"latino-usa": {
"id": "latino-usa",
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"info": "Latino USA, the radio journal of news and culture, is the only national, English-language radio program produced from a Latino perspective.",
"imageSrc": "https://ww2.kqed.org/radio/wp-content/uploads/sites/50/2018/04/latinoUsa.jpg",
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"apple": "https://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?s=143441&mt=2&id=79681317&at=11l79Y&ct=nprdirectory",
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},
"live-from-here-highlights": {
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"title": "Live from Here Highlights",
"info": "Chris Thile steps to the mic as the host of Live from Here (formerly A Prairie Home Companion), a live public radio variety show. Download Chris’s Song of the Week plus other highlights from the broadcast. Produced by American Public Media.",
"airtime": "SAT 6pm-8pm, SUN 11am-1pm",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Live-From-Here-Podcast-Tile-360x360-1.jpg",
"officialWebsiteLink": "https://www.livefromhere.org/",
"meta": {
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"link": "/radio/program/live-from-here-highlights",
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"rss": "https://feeds.publicradio.org/public_feeds/a-prairie-home-companion-highlights/rss/rss"
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"marketplace": {
"id": "marketplace",
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"info": "Our flagship program, helmed by Kai Ryssdal, examines what the day in money delivered, through stories, conversations, newsworthy numbers and more. Updated Monday through Friday at about 3:30 p.m. PT.",
"airtime": "MON-FRI 4pm-4:30pm, MON-WED 6:30pm-7pm",
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},
"mindshift": {
"id": "mindshift",
"title": "MindShift",
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"info": "The MindShift podcast explores the innovations in education that are shaping how kids learn. Hosts Ki Sung and Katrina Schwartz introduce listeners to educators, researchers, parents and students who are developing effective ways to improve how kids learn. We cover topics like how fed-up administrators are developing surprising tactics to deal with classroom disruptions; how listening to podcasts are helping kids develop reading skills; the consequences of overparenting; and why interdisciplinary learning can engage students on all ends of the traditional achievement spectrum. This podcast is part of the MindShift education site, a division of KQED News. KQED is an NPR/PBS member station based in San Francisco. You can also visit the MindShift website for episodes and supplemental blog posts or tweet us \u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/MindShiftKQED\">@MindShiftKQED\u003c/a> or visit us at \u003ca href=\"/mindshift\">MindShift.KQED.org\u003c/a>",
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"officialWebsiteLink": "/mindshift/",
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"order": 13
},
"link": "/podcasts/mindshift",
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"onourwatch": {
"id": "onourwatch",
"title": "On Our Watch",
"tagline": "Deeply-reported investigative journalism",
"info": "For decades, the process for how police police themselves has been inconsistent – if not opaque. In some states, like California, these proceedings were completely hidden. After a new police transparency law unsealed scores of internal affairs files, our reporters set out to examine these cases and the shadow world of police discipline. On Our Watch brings listeners into the rooms where officers are questioned and witnesses are interrogated to find out who this system is really protecting. Is it the officers, or the public they've sworn to serve?",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/On-Our-Watch-Podcast-Tile-703x703-1.jpg",
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"order": 12
},
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"title": "On The Media",
"info": "Our weekly podcast explores how the media 'sausage' is made, casts an incisive eye on fluctuations in the marketplace of ideas, and examines threats to the freedom of information and expression in America and abroad. For one hour a week, the show tries to lift the veil from the process of \"making media,\" especially news media, because it's through that lens that we see the world and the world sees us",
"airtime": "SUN 2pm-3pm, MON 12am-1am",
"imageSrc": "https://ww2.kqed.org/radio/wp-content/uploads/sites/50/2018/04/onTheMedia.png",
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},
"our-body-politic": {
"id": "our-body-politic",
"title": "Our Body Politic",
"info": "Presented by KQED, KCRW and KPCC, and created and hosted by award-winning journalist Farai Chideya, Our Body Politic is unapologetically centered on reporting on not just how women of color experience the major political events of today, but how they’re impacting those very issues.",
"airtime": "SAT 6pm-7pm, SUN 1am-2am",
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"meta": {
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},
"link": "/radio/program/our-body-politic",
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"google": "https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5zaW1wbGVjYXN0LmNvbS9feGFQaHMxcw",
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},
"perspectives": {
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"officialWebsiteLink": "/perspectives/",
"meta": {
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"order": 15
},
"link": "/perspectives",
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"planet-money": {
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"title": "Planet Money",
"info": "The economy explained. Imagine you could call up a friend and say, Meet me at the bar and tell me what's going on with the economy. Now imagine that's actually a fun evening.",
"airtime": "SUN 3pm-4pm",
"imageSrc": "https://ww2.kqed.org/radio/wp-content/uploads/sites/50/2018/04/planetmoney.jpg",
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"politicalbreakdown": {
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"tagline": "Politics from a personal perspective",
"info": "Political Breakdown is a new series that explores the political intersection of California and the nation. Each week hosts Scott Shafer and Marisa Lagos are joined with a new special guest to unpack politics -- with personality — and offer an insider’s glimpse at how politics happens.",
"airtime": "THU 6:30pm-7pm",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Political-Breakdown-2024-Podcast-Tile-703x703-1.jpg",
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"officialWebsiteLink": "/podcasts/politicalbreakdown",
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"order": 6
},
"link": "/podcasts/politicalbreakdown",
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"google": "https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5tZWdhcGhvbmUuZm0vS1FJTkM5Nzk2MzI2MTEx",
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"pri-the-world": {
"id": "pri-the-world",
"title": "PRI's The World: Latest Edition",
"info": "Each weekday, host Marco Werman and his team of producers bring you the world's most interesting stories in an hour of radio that reminds us just how small our planet really is.",
"airtime": "MON-FRI 2pm-3pm",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/The-World-Podcast-Tile-360x360-1.jpg",
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},
"radiolab": {
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