Berkeley is a city on the eastern shore of San Francisco Bay in northern Alameda County,California,United States. It is named after the 18th-century Anglo-Irish bishop and philosopher George Berkeley. It borders the cities of Oakland and Emeryville to the south and the city of Albany and the unincorporated community of Kensington to the north. Its eastern border with Contra Costa County generally follows the ridge of the Berkeley Hills. The 2020 census recorded a population of 124,321.
Oakland is the most populous city in and the county seat of Alameda County,California,United States. A major West Coast port,Oakland is the largest city in the East Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area,and the third-largest city overall in the Bay Area. With a population of 440,646 in 2020,it serves as the Bay Area's trade center:the Port of Oakland is the busiest port in Northern California,and the fifth- or sixth-busiest in the United States. A charter city,Oakland was incorporated on May 4,1852,in the wake of the state's increasing population due to the California gold rush.
Todd Rex Gloria is an American politician serving as the 37th and current mayor of San Diego since 2020. As mayor,he is the chief executive officer in the city of San Diego. He is a member of the Democratic Party.
Rebecca Dawn Kaplan is a Canadian-born American attorney and politician who has served as an at-large member of the Oakland City Council since 2009. She is a member of the Democratic Party.
Occupy Oakland refers to a collaboration and series of demonstrations in Oakland,California,that started in October 2011. As part of the Occupy movement,protesters have staged occupations,most notably at Frank H. Ogawa Plaza in front of Oakland City Hall.
Desley Brooks is a politician in Oakland,California. She served as a Councilmember on the Oakland City Council from 2002 to 2018. In January 2011,Brooks was also inaugurated as the vice mayor of Oakland.
The Oakland City Council is an elected governing body representing the City of Oakland,California.
Lynette Gibson McElhaney is an American politician and member of the Oakland City Council in Oakland,California. She was elected to her first term holding the District 3 Oakland City Council seat in 2012 after the retirement of four-term incumbent Nancy Nadel. In 2015,she was named one of San Francisco Business Times' "most influential women in Bay Area business" and was reelected to City Council in 2016.
Mitch O'Farrell is an American politician,who served as a member of the Los Angeles City Council for the 13th district from 2013 to 2022,during which he spent eight days as President of the City Council during the 2022 Los Angeles City Council scandal. A member of the Democratic Party,O'Farrell was the first Native American elected to the body,and was one of its two openly gay members until the end of his second term in 2022.
The San Francisco Bay Area comprises nine northern California counties and contains five of the ten most expensive counties in the United States. Strong economic growth has created hundreds of thousands of new jobs,but coupled with severe restrictions on building new housing units,it has resulted in an extreme housing shortage which has driven rents to extremely high levels. The Sacramento Bee notes that large cities like San Francisco and Los Angeles both attribute their recent increases in homeless people to the housing shortage,with the result that homelessness in California overall has increased by 15% from 2015 to 2017. In September 2019,the Council of Economic Advisers released a report in which they stated that deregulation of the housing markets would reduce homelessness in some of the most constrained markets by estimates of 54% in San Francisco,40 percent in Los Angeles,and 38 percent in San Diego,because rents would fall by 55 percent,41 percent,and 39 percent respectively. In San Francisco,a minimum wage worker would have to work approximately 4.7 full-time jobs to be able to spend less than 30% of their income on renting a two-bedroom apartment.
Dan Kalb is an American politician. He represents District 1 on the Oakland City Council,a position he has held since January 2013.
Jesse Arreguín is an American politician serving as mayor of Berkeley,California. He served on the Berkeley Housing Commission and Rent Stabilization Board from 2004 to 2009 and represented District 4 on the Berkeley City Council from 2009 to 2016. He is the first Latino elected Berkeley's mayor and one of the youngest mayors in the San Francisco Bay Area. Mayor Arreguín is the president of the Association of Bay Area Governments,the Bay Area's regional planning agency.
John S. Lee is an American politician,serving as a member of the Los Angeles City Council for the 12th district. Formerly a Republican,Lee is now an independent and is the only non-Democrat currently on the city council.
In the United States,"defund the police" is a slogan that supports removing funds from police departments and reallocating them to non-policing forms of public safety and community support,such as social services,youth services,housing,education,healthcare and other community resources. Activists who use the phrase may do so with varying intentions;some seek modest reductions,while others argue for full divestment as a step toward the abolition of contemporary police services. Activists who support the defunding of police departments often argue that investing in community programs could provide a better crime deterrent for communities;funds would go toward addressing social issues,like poverty,homelessness,and mental disorders. Police abolitionists call for replacing existing police forces with other systems of public safety,like housing,employment,community health,education,and other programs.
Nithya V. Raman is an American urban planner,activist,and politician serving as the Los Angeles City Councilmember for the 4th District since 2020. Raman,a member of the Democratic Party and the Democratic Socialists of America,defeated incumbent Councilmember David Ryu in 2020.
The 2022 Oakland mayoral election was held on November 8,2022,to elect the mayor of Oakland,California. The previous incumbent mayor Libby Schaaf was term-limited. Sheng Thao won the election and was inaugurated as mayor in January 2023.
The U.S. city of Minneapolis featured officially and unofficially designated camp sites in city parks for people experiencing homelessness that operated from June 10,2020,to January 7,2021. The emergence of encampments on public property in Minneapolis was the result of pervasive homelessness,mitigations measures related to the COVID-19 pandemic in Minnesota,local unrest after the murder of George Floyd,and local policies that permitted encampments. At its peak in the summer of 2020,there were thousands of people camping at dozens of park sites across the city. Many of the encampment residents came from outside of Minneapolis to live in the parks. By the end of the permit experiment,four people had died in the city's park encampments,including the city's first homicide victim of 2021,who was stabbed to death inside a tent at Minnehaha Park on January 3,2021.
Robin Wonsley is an American activist and politician of the Democratic Socialists of America who has been a member of the Minneapolis City Council from the 2nd Ward since 2021.
Traci Park is an American attorney and politician,who is the Los Angeles City Councilmember for the 11th district since 2022. Having entered the race to challenge incumbent Mike Bonin,Park became a frontrunner for the open seat upon Bonin's announcement of retirement,and defeated civil rights attorney Erin Darling in the general election.
Sheng Thao is an American politician and the 51st mayor of Oakland,California. She is the first Hmong American mayor of a major city in the United States.
