Features

In this photo are the remains of one of some 200 trees removed by the City of Oakland from the Henry J. Kaiser Convention Center parking lot, the 12th Street median between the convention center and Lake Merritt and the Lake Merritt Channel. In the background is the Kaiser Convention Center, which the Oakland City Council closed a year ago in a cost-cutting measure. The tree removal, which took place in mid-June, is part of the multimillion dollar Measure DD renovation of the eastern Lake Merritt grounds that will eventually result in a shrinking of the 12th Street-14th Street corridor from 12 lanes to six, the creation of a four-acre park, and the connection of Lake Merritt with the convention center grounds by a pedestrian walkway bridge. Last October, an Alameda County Superior Court judge dismissed a lawsuit filed by Friends of the Lake which had challenged the City of Oakland’s procedures in condemning the trees.