Rockridge today is a long way from its near-undoing when construction of the Grove-Shafter freeway - Highway 24 - in the late 1960s wiped out more than 3,000 homes and many area commercial buildings, crippling businesses and leaving significant College Avenue storefronts boarded up. Was the evolution due to community involvement? Mere chance? Market action? The answer: all three, in that order.

Community Involvement

How's crime in the Rockridge beats? The board of the NCPC realizes that all crime is upsetting, and it is upsetting to the NCPC boardmembers, too, who also live in the neighborhood. But compared to almost anywhere else in Oakland, Rockridge has very low crime.

As board secretary, I collect monthly data from the Oakland Police statistics site. All the data for 2015 is not in yet, but there is enough to make some comparisons between 2014 and 2015 (through October). This is summary data; I publish monthly lists of reported crimes at http://tinyurl.com/pnkx4qk.

The Rockridge District Association (RDA) is pleased to bring security ambassadors to College Avenue for the holiday season. RDA has contracted with Intervention Group Incorporated, Security Services, an Oakland company, to provide personnel as security ambassadors during the holidays, helping to make this an enjoyable time on the avenue this season. They will not only work to keep us safe but will be able to provide assistance with directions and information.

This past year, FROG has conducted annual park maintenance events to support the park, and made significant efforts to settle park enhancement planning and design. Following are some of FROG's activities and issues over the past year:

A tree is growing at Oakland Technical High School, and so are butterflies and a Goddess with billowing hair and arms stretched wide. They're part of a four-wall tile-and-mirror mosaic mural coming to life on a formerly nondescript building alongside the field bleachers. Fifty feet from where football teams scrimmage and tackle, the student-led Oakland Tech Mosaic Club team adheres and grouts, hoping to catch as many sunny afternoons as possible to finish the project in December. The mosaic is one of several projects the group plans to create in the coming months.

Wait! Did you see that? "We come in peace," said the message on his uniform. Having seen his green head and her green hair, you could be forgiven your moment of doubt, a doubt confirmed when you spy the hapless human hostage confined to the mobile holding cell.

If you could scream, you would, but when you turn for help, you see only grotesque and distorted and Munchkinesque creatures advancing toward you, muttering their unearthly chant: Triggertreet, Triggertreet.

Too many Oakland and Rockridge residents today are unprepared for a major earthquake on the Hayward fault.

Although the City Council and Oakland Fire Department take the warnings seriously and have produced the disaster preparedness program "Communities of Oakland Respond to Emergencies" (CORE), community response has been lethargic.

In September 2014, Kevin Faughnan, RCPC boardmember and liaison to the Rockridge District Association (RDA), Rockridge's merchant association, submitted the first in a series of articles for The Rockridge News chronicling merchants in business in the College Avenue business district for 25 years or longer. With his report on Rockridge Furniture and Design (see page 7) in this issue, the series concludes. The list below is the record of the 49 businesses featured in the series.

Frog is pleased to announce park enhancement plans are moving forward.

On October 25, the FROG committee met with the immediate Frog Park neighbors, along with City Councilman Dan Kalb, to share our updated design proposal. After much design work to address neighbor concerns and the long-term needs of the broader community, we were able to present a new design with a reconfigured layout of play equipment and added trees.