oaklandside.org

One OPD officer logged 5,242 total working hours, racking up $490,000 in overtime pay. If he worked more than half of the time in a calendar year, why can’t the city tell us what he did?

The result was Saba Grocers Initiative, which [Lina Ghanem] co-founded in 2019 with Dhaifallah M. Dhaifallah, receiving $200,000 in initial funding from the City of Oakland’s soda tax. Saba distributes over 150 different produce varieties to corner stores and covers the cost of refrigeration and all the infrastructure it takes to get a product to a store. Since its founding, Saba has sold more than $3.5 million worth of produce from 54 California farms, generating some $5 million in local economic impact.

In Oakland, students from 14 schools participated in the Oakland Unified School District’s inaugural “Battle of the Books” event. The competition aimed to promote literacy and teamwork by having teams of fourth and fifth graders answer detailed questions about ten pre-selected books. This challenge not only engaged students in reading but also encouraged a deeper comprehension of the texts, fostering a spirited and educational environment among the participants. For more details, you can read the full article here.

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