What We Are Reading

Theater critic Chloe Veltman has a review of Sonoma's Cornerstone Gardens in the Financial Times that is worth checking out. "Since opening its gates four years ago, Cornerstone Gardens, in the heart of the California wine country, has rocked this otherwise genteel area with a riot of botanical bombast," Veltman writes.
The article is reposted on her blog, which you can find here.
If you are unfamiliar with the Cornerstone Festival of Gardens, it aims to be "an ever-changing series of walk-through gardens, showcasing new and innovative designs from the world’s finest landscape architects and designers. The first such gallery-style gardens in the United States, the nine-acre Cornerstone Festival of Gardens has been envisioned as an inspiration and resource for people interested in gardens, garden design and art."

Veltman is one of the many writers, artists, musicians and rabblerousers who live in HarriOak. The picture is by BubbleTea, a local photographer. Check out BubbleTea's work on Flickr.

Lake Merritt Beautification Hearing Feb 13

There is a hearing on February 13 at 6 p.m. before the City Planning Commission, Hearing Room 1, Frank Ogawa Plaza regarding Measure DD, a $198 million bond measure that was passed in November 2002. Among other things, Measure DD authorized funding for physical improvements to existing parks, clean water measures and implementation of creek and waterway protection and restoration activities. The hearing on Wednesday is to consider certification of the final Environmental Impact Report. For a copy of the report, please contact Eloise Thornton of the city planning department at (510) 238-6284.

Feb. 1, APAC social hour 6 p.m.. Los Cantaros

The Adams Point Action Council is resuming its regular happy hour on the first Friday of the month at Los Cantaros. The group meets from from 6pm -7:30pm in the back room (towards the restroom). Feel free to bring your family as well as friends and neighbors.

Major Traffic Enforcement -- Hurray!

The Oakland police stage a major traffic enforcement action on Harrison Street and Oakland Avenue on the morning of January 16. The entire "A" squad of the traffic division came to the neighborhood and wrote 67 tickets! Please send thank yous to Lt. Green (lgreen at Oaklandnet dot com) and let him know how much you appreciate the use of resources in our neighborhood. Other commanders who made sure this happened were Lt. Banks and Sgt. Dunakin from traffic.

Daffodils are Blooming

Elise and Naomi and a whole host of other neighbors have been working to beautify our little corner of the East Bay. Here they are doing "HarriOak Gothic."

The Daffodils have started blooming and the Big Island needs some weeding. If you feel like getting your hands dirty, please feel free to jump in.

Our New Look

Hi everyone. We have migrated over to Google's blogging platform. This should make it easier for contributors who were struggling a bit with Wordpress. We've left the blog archives over at Wordpress for now. You can find them by clicking here.