The Oakland Merchants Leadership Forum on Wednesday, April 22, 2009, from 8:00 - 10:00 am, City Hall, Hearing Room 4.

Topic: Retailer’s Resources

Guest speakers include:

Rick Ohlrich, SBDC (Small Business Development Center).

Susanna Villarreal, Enterprise Program Tax Credit for Small businesses: How to save on your state income taxes with Enterprise Zone Tax Credits.

Michael McPherson, Urban Economic Analyst, CEDA Business Services: New! City of Oakland Business Assistance Center.

OMLF recorded the audio of this forum and it will be available next week.

The City of Oakland needs your help!  The City is updating its zoning regulations, which govern the physical development of land. Zoning regulations affect many people living and working in Oakland. We urge you to become familiar with the zoning update process and get involved click here to view Citywide Zoning Update Community Workshop flyer.

Please join us at one of our two community workshops to discuss zoning issues in the City’s commercial corridors and residential areas.  Workshop participants will engage in small group exercises that illustrate issues associated with the City’s residential and commercial zoning.  The purpose of the exercise is to familiarize you with the way zoning regulations affect the development pattern of our city.  Issues and different tools that can help address the issues will be presented and your input will be requested.

The same meeting is being held at two different locations and times; we hope you can attend one of the meeting dates below:

FEBRUARY 26, 2009, Thursday 5:45 to 7:45 pm

West Oakland Public Library, 1801 Adeline St. (about 1 mile from 12th Street BART Station)

OR

FEBRUARY 28, 2009, Saturday 10:00 am to 12 noon

Bella Vista Elementary School, 1025 E. 28th St. (off of the 62 AC Transit Line)

Help Us Get the Word Out!  Continue Reading »

NEWS from CPSC
U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission
Office of Information and Public Affairs        Washington, DC 20207

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
January 30, 2009
Release #09-115        CPSC Recall Hotline: (800) 638-2772
CPSC Media Contact: (301) 504-7908

CPSC Grants One Year Stay of Testing and Certification Requirements for
Certain Products
WASHINGTON, D.C. - The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission voted
unanimously (2-0) to issue a one year stay of enforcement for certain
testing and certification requirements for manufacturers and importers
of regulated products, including products intended for children 12 years
old and younger. These requirements are part of the Consumer Product
Safety Improvement Act (CPSIA), which added certification and testing
requirements for all products subject to CPSC standards or bans.
Significant to makers of children’s products, the vote by the Commission Continue Reading »

Click here to see OMLF’s updated accomplishments

If you are fed up with crime and are interested on how the
different agencies in the County work to help combat Crime in
Oakland…..Then YOU need to be at this meeting.

Click here for flier

The Public Protection Committee, Chaired by Nate Miley, is
hosting a special public meeting to hear and answer questions
and concerns regarding the role each Agency (DA’s Office,
Sheriffs Dept., Probation, Parole, Judicial and others) plays in
dealing with crime and the different steps that follow once OPD
does their job.

April 7, 2008
10:30 AM
1221 Oak Street, 5th Floor
Board Chambers

We have been asking the WHY’s…..Now we can get answers as well
as let the County Agencies know (by being there in sheer
numbers) that they need to play a bigger role in helping to
reduce the crime in our City!

Scott Hauge, President of Small Business California sent the following announcement:

One of the members of Small Business California told me how important the economic stimulus package was to his business. I asked him why only 12% of small businesses in a recent survey said it was not important. His comment to me was that small businesses didn’t know about it. He suggested I send out on my email tree information about it and that all of you that have email trees send it out to their list. Mark Herbert in Speaker Pelosi’s office said the Speaker is very interested in making sure small businesses were aware of the stimulus package and has put together the information below.
Small Business California is putting together its legislative agenda. We will be sponsoring or cosponsoring three bills this year and taking positions on 15 to 20 bills. You can see the bills we are following by going to our website at www.smallbusinesscalifornia.org
Are there any bills that you are aware of that are important to you? I know many of you have indicated Ma’s sick leave bill is a real problem and while we have not taken a position at this point I would expect we will oppose and testify against it.
Scott Hauge
President
Small Business California
2311 Taraval Street
San Francisco, CA 94116
shauge@cal-insure.com
415-680-2188

Dear Friends:

As you know Congress, under the leadership of Speaker Pelosi, passed an economic stimulus package earlier this year that will inject billions of dollars back into our faltering economy. Below is some information that I hope will be helpful to you and your small business. Continue Reading »

Stu Sweetow on NBC11 TV

http://avconsultants.com/news/?p=115

Progress has been made on the Zoning Study for the perimeter of Lake Merritt, initiated last year by City of Oakland Planning Staff at the request of Councilmembers Nadel and Kernighan, to address community concerns regarding future development around the lake. The next steps in this process include community workshops to get community feedback.  One workshop, addressing the western edge of Lake Merritt, was held on March 1.  The next workshop is scheduled for March 17, 2008 (see details below).

You may recall that the Zoning Study was initiated after a community meeting in January 2007, and included a community workshop on April 28, 2007.  Information gathered from these two meetings has been considered by Planning Staff in developing preliminary zoning proposals to regulate future development near Lake Merritt.  This phase of studying zoning alternatives around the lake addresses the western edge of Lake Merritt and dovetails with the on-going citywide effort to update all of the City of Oakland’s Planning and Zoning regulations to make them consistent with the General Plan.

The proposed regulations to be presented and discussed are for the Downtown (Central Business) District.  The Central Business District is the area generally bounded by 23rd Street to the north, I-980 and I-880 to the east and south respectively, and the western edge of Lake Merritt and the Estuary.

Please join us at the following community workshop:

Monday, March 17, 2008 ~ 6:30 to 9 pm:

      Community Meeting #2: Presentation and Discussion of Proposed Zones for the Central Business District (Downtown) - Allowed Uses and Development Standards.
    Location: Lake Merritt Sailboat House (inside Lakeside Park at Lake Merritt), 568 Bellevue Avenue, Oakland.
This meeting is the second of two community meetings that have been scheduled to introduce and discuss allowed uses and development standards for the proposed zones for the Central Business District, including Downtown and the western edge of Lake Merritt.  The first community meeting, held on March 1, 2008, focused on discussing proposed height/intensity regulations for the CBD area.  The purpose of the meeting on March 17, 2008 is to present an overview of the proposed zoning regulations for the CBD, focusing on allowed uses and development standards.

 For more information about these meetings, workshop materials for March 17th, future meetings, and the citywide zoning update in general, please check the following website regularly:
http://www.oaklandnet.com/government/ceda/revised/planningzoning/ZoningUpdateProject/
or contact Neil Gray in the Planning Department: (510) 238-3878, ngray@oaklandnet.com

“Local First,” an article by Michael H. Shuman in the San Francisco Chronicle on Wednesday, May 16, 2007, talks about a “New approach to Bay Area Economic Development.” Click here to read the entire article.

In a study by Civic Economics, a research firm, an important message for the S.F. Mayor’s office on Economic and Workforce Development was, “It’s high time for the city to refocus its economic development efforts on locally owned business.”*
Mr. Shuman states that, “Every dollar of city money and every hour of city time wasted on unreliable nonlocal businesses are precious resources unavailable to nurturing local businesses. Real economic development should begin with the home team.”*

*San Francisco Chronicle, Wednesday, May 16, 2007, Opinion, Open Forum, “Local First” page B9. By Michael H. Shuman.

Photo of Aziz Khatri, Co-Chair of OMLF and member of the Mayor’s Small Business Task Force.