UPDATE: Oakland Mayor Quan Recall Details Leaked To Zennie62
This is an Oakland News entry based on information given to this blogger over the weekend from various sources that do not wish to be named. The first most recent one was this morning. Oakland Mayor Jean Quan held a meeting at 7:30 AM today (Monday) to consider various sites to relocate Occupy Oakland. Currently the giant encampment is at Oakland Frank Ogawa Plaza, which is also called Oscar Grant Plaza or Grant Ogawa Plaza.
Here’s the meat of the email from John Doe:
Zennie, you have been doing a great job covering Occupy Oakland from different angles, and you understand what it’s like for us in the Mayor’s office to have to make decisions for the whole city. I thought you would want to see this. I am very frustrated with how we’re communicating to the media and I think people need to know what is really going on, that we do a plan to fix the problem, and people need to be patient and help us.
Mayor’s possible sites for Occupy relocation. DO NOT FORWARD.
D1: Not many parks in D1. Looking at Safeway on College parking lot. Brunner likes encampment’s support for small businesses and proximity to BART. Finding out if asphalt will be issue – or if it will actually be safer with the rain.
D2: Grand Lake – Space at Splash Pad. Pamela Drake from BID supports camp, Grand Lake Theater too. Plenty of space for campers, some protection from rain under freeway. On border with District 3 so may get support from Nadel.
D3: Nadel offered to try to expand existing homeless camp in Clawson. May have some resistance from campers regarding this location.
D4: Woodminster – plenty of space, away from neighbors, not used in winter. Transportation will be difficult, talking to Mary at AC Transit about shuttles. Schaaf supportive of encampment.
D5-7: Several large parks or parcels in several neighborhoods and possibly Coliseum parking lot. Will be difficult to move camp here due to Councilmember resistance. Trying to move to D1-4.
Send me your thoughts. See you at 7:30am Monday in Mayor’s large conference room.
That meeting just happened this morning – it’s 9:19 now. No news on the outcome of the gathering. But it does signal a new direction and potentially more confusion in how Occupy Oakland’s being handled by the City of Oakland.
On Thursday, the Oakland Redevelopment Agency / Oakland City Council held a public hearing on a resolution posted by District Three Councilmember Nancy Nadel to allow Occupy Oakland to remain at Grant Ogawa Plaza. The occasionally contentious meeting attracted 28 speakers, most notably Oakland Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce Director Joe Haraburda and Oaklander Max Allstadt.
Eventually that night, Councilmember Nadel said she would postpone seeking a vote on her resolution that would allow a long-term camp in front of Oakland City Hall.
Oaklanders On Occupy Oakland – More Views
Here’s Joe Haraburda from that Thursday Oakland City Council meeting, openly calling for the Occupy Oakland encampment to end because he says it’s costing the city in the form of cancelled real estate deals:
And Max Allstadt talked about how he was arrested by the Oakland Police the previous night (after the Occupy Oakland General Strike Day) and while he was only trying to follow their instructions to leave a place he didn’t plan to be in, only to be literally swept up by cops and taken in after he stopped in between police teams out of fears he might be shot by them.
And former Oakland Mayor Elihu Harris talked about the Mayor’s approach to Occupy Oakland in the video below, and said that had he been the Mayor today, the group would not be allowed to camp in front of City Hall.
Stay tuned for more on this breaking Oakland news.