Don Kinkead

A 15-year veteran of the Oakland Public Library system, Paul Schiesser has worked "all over the city," including Oakland Main and the Elmhurst, Eastmont and Montclair branches. He can add the Rockridge Branch to that list of postings since his appointment as Branch Manager last July.

Thursday evening can be a noisy time for a meeting in the Library's upstairs meeting room when the voices of pedestrians on the sidewalk drift up through the windows. Still, distinctive sounds can rise above the hubbub, distracting some meeting attendees from the topic. Late in the Thursday, June 18, Town Hall meeting, as Oakland Police Lt. Randy Brandwood began to describe the effects of Proposition 47 on criminal activity - lesser penalties for non-violent crimes such as car burglary - a woman heard a noise, looked into the Library parking lot, and cried, "Hey! Hey! Hey!

Rockridge resident and BART commuter Amy Lemley has bought her daily newspaper from vendor Robert Mohead at his BART lobby newsstand for the past nine years. "Over the years, we became friends," she says. Mohead, who worked on the City Council campaign of Carter Gilmore in 1976, reviewed Lemley's mailing pieces during her council candidacy in 2012.

If you happened to be heading up to College via Forest Street near Miles Avenue late last month, you might have seen EBMUD at work, connecting a water supply line for the irrigation system that should have been nourishing the landscaping at the Forest Street side of the BART parking lot.

BART had installed extensive plantings to restore greenery to areas at the Forest Street edge of the lot after the stationÕs earthquake retrofitting project was completed late in December 2009.