Cole Street Block Meeting 9/21/00

Organizeing Ourselves

On Thursday night we elected our Block officers and disaster planning team leaders.

The positions were filled as follows:

Election of neighborhood watch officers

Block Captain - Jackie  and Bob W will serve as co-block captains.  It was recommended that we have one present block captain serve as the co. so that we can have information passed form on to the next in an orderly fashion.

Treasurer will remain as Mrs. J. with Mr. P as the co-signer.

Secretary will be Gerry G,

Election of Emergency Response Team Leads

Team Coordinator - Lucus D.
Records - Jean
Medical/First Aid  - Melenie T. and Larry F.
Communications - Paul
Search and Rescue - Andrew
Damage Assessment Team - Ray
Hazard Reduction Team - Mr. J.
Sheltering and Specian Needs Team - Jackie, Cheryl and Julia
Childcare -

Lucus will be meeting with the team leads during the next month and discuss how we will begin building our teams and what the priority of the obligations will be.

Give a big Cole Street Welcome To!

We were joined at our meeting by Jose D. The Chairman of the NCPC. Jose joined us to discuss the possibility of bringing the various blocks of Maxwell Park under a single umbrella of disaster planning. I was pleased we were able to share our  planning strategies with him. We will be discussing creating a committee to discuss a  Maxwell Park Emergency Response team at the next NCPC meeting at Mills Grove Church on October 11.

Please attend if you would like to participate.

Come Again?

We discussed the request that Counsilman Miley made to the Alameda County Beverage Counsel regarding the Whitehouse Market and the conditions that are being placed on the license transfer. Two of the conditions are of concern to us, first because we live in the immediate vicinity of the market and second for the larger issues they represent.

The first issue is the Guard that Counsilman Miley has requested be onsite at the location, two hours before closing and one half hour after closing. Our concern is whether or not this guard is to be armed. If so, we strongly oppose this condition of the license transfer. If not,  this will no longer be an issue.

The second and not so easily dismissed issue is the request that the location have security surveillanced cameras on the street as well as inside the location. On two occassions now, the City Counsel has rejected street surveillance cameras on downtown Oakland streets. We feel that these cameras constitute an intrusion  into our daily lives. It smacks of big brother and are concerned that the street cameras are being  brought onto the streets of Oakland through the back door.

I believe that this is an issue that has civil liberties that we should not be allowed into our neighborhood without further and in depth discussion.

I will be inquiring into the filing deadline and conditions for the ABC license transfer for the Whitehouse Market.

I will provide further information as it comes.

If anybody would like me to post a counter argument or would like to contribute  thought of their own please contact me here,