The official Oakland Grown website has just launched!  Check it out at http://oaklandgrown.org

Is your business Oakland Grown? Review the Oakland Grown membership Application and all the benefits of becoming an Oakland Grown business. Continue Reading »

If you would like to receive an email notice of our monthly forums and announcements of workshops for merchants, click here.

The Shop Oakland website has a list, descriptions, and links of all of the shoppping districts in Oakland. It also has listings of retail businesses in the districts. If you’re not on the site, you should be — it’s free!

 Stephanie Floyd-Johnson Bio

Stephanie Floyd-Johnson graduated from UC Berkeley with a degree in architecture.  After which she accepted a position with the City of Oakland.  Over the next thirty years she worked in all the various aspects of neighborhood revitalization and business development.  Since all of this experience was with the City of Oakland she was able to develop an intimate understanding of the economic conditions in Oakland’s many diverse neighborhoods. She was the Manager of Neighborhood Commercial Revitalization Division for more than fifteen years until it was disband in FY 2007/09.  Her work involved building partnerships with community based organizations, business groups, and a wide range of government and development related entities.  She is currently a Redevelopment Program Manager assigned to the Redevelopment Division where her duties include management of the Façade and Tenant Improvement programs, production of the Redeveloping Oakland quarterly newsletter and oversight of redevelopment projects.

About Courtney Ruby, Oakland City Auditor

On January 1, 2007 Courtney Ruby assumed office as Oakland’s
elected City Auditor. She was elected in November 2006 with over
65% of the vote, and is currently the only woman holding citywide
Office in Oakland. City Auditor Ruby is committed to creating a
model City Auditor’s Office that will work to ensure accountability
and transparency in government for all Oakland citizens.

As City Auditor, Courtney Ruby is committed to a risk-based audit approach to identify and prioritize the areas of government most vulnerable to fraud, waste, and abuse. Upon taking office she immediately began to restructure and redefine the Auditor’s Office toward a performance auditing focus that will return in-depth and meaningful results to the citizens of Oakland.

City Auditor Ruby is a Certified Public Accountant and Certified Fraud Examiner who has dedicated her life to the service of others and to ensuring that organizations manage their financial resources effectively. She is the former vice-chair of the Budget Advisory Committee for the City of Oakland and former Board Finance Chair for a local nonprofit dedicated to ending the cycle of homelessness.

Ruby, a graduate of American University, began her accounting career with Deloitte & Touche as a public accountant and was later recognized as a Deloitte & Touche Alumni Role Model. The City Auditor’s career has also included several key leadership roles, including Deputy Chief Financial Officer of the 1996 Democratic National Convention, Deputy Chief Financial Officer of the Democratic National Committee, and Chief Financial Officer for the Illinois Department of Human Rights.

Beginning in 2000 Ruby began to focus her leadership abilities on creating change in the nonprofit arena while deepening her commitment to serving those in need. In 2001, she became Chief Financial Officer and Director of the Episcopal Charities Service Center where she worked with several Bay Area nonprofits to create an environment of stability and success through structured change. In 2003, City Auditor Ruby traveled to Ghana to volunteer with children for almost a year. Today, she continues to fund the education of more than 20 children in Ghana. City Auditor Ruby then went on to become the Chief Financial Officer and Director of Administration of the East Bay Conservation Corps, a $7.5 million nonprofit organization dedicated to promoting youth development through environmental stewardship and community service. The City Auditor then made the decision to assume a greater role in impacting the lives of Oakland citizens by holding government accountable and by requiring efficiency and effectiveness in city processes.

The City of Oakland’s Recycle Department is working on reaching out to
Oakland merchants about their “Bring
Your Own Bag Program.”  There is no cost to enroll in this
program and this is a great opportunity for Oakland merchants. The city
will run free print ads that
list all Oakland merchants that have enrolled and participate in the Oakland Bring Your Own Bag Program.
This program is trying to encourage people to bring their own bag and if
they do, there are incentives for them to shop at the enrolled
businesses. All the City asks is that the merchants create some kind of
customer appreciation for patrons who bring their own bag (raffle ticket
for an item, 5% off, etc…). It is entirely up to you to create an
incentive for your customers. The City will also have poster, window
decal, register decal, and cashier buttons; these are available for you
to display to show that you are enrolled in the program. The merchants
don’t have to be retail either, any business that sells goods that
customers will take home can participate (i.e. coffee shop that sells
coffee beans, hair salon that sells hair spray, etc…)

           
For any business that would like to enroll, please click on the registration form below and the City will deliver your items in the
next few weeks. Please respond by March 9th, this is the  deadline for all merchants so the printing
deadline can be met. Click here to view a mailer that was sent out a few
months ago. It has some images of what the button and decals look like.
You can also visit the City’s Bring Your Own Bag website http://www.oaklandrecycles.com/Page848.aspx for more
information. If you have any questions, feel free to email recycling@oaklandnet.com or call (510) 238-SAVE (7283).

BYOB Mailer

To register for the Program, fill out this form:
Bring Your Own Bag Program Form

Bring Your Own Bag - City Website

Ready to participate? Send us a message at recycling@oaklandnet.com. Give us your name, store name & location and contact information.
We’ll help you get started. You can also call
the hotline and register at
(510) 238-SAVE (7283).

EAST BAY EXPRESS:  To view the Small Business Monthly click here.

More than 99 percent of all US companies are small businesses, and more
than half of all American workers work for one. In California, women own
or co-own more than 44 percent of them, and members of a minority group
own more than one third. Small businesses play a vital role in the
economy and the lives of tens of millions of Americans. So why is it so
hard to find news coverage about them? There is much fine reporting
coverage in the Bay Area, but also way too much coverage of Apple,
Google, Apple, Facebook, Apple, Twitter, and Apple. Small businesses
touch far more lives than the iPhone, government, crime, Lindsay Lohan,
or the Oakland Raiders, but try finding evidence of that in the local
media.

Starting with this week’s issue of the East Bay Express, we will be Continue Reading »