Girl Robbed Next to Library Branch in the Hills

"This is getting bad. The head librarian told me that yesterday a 14-year-old girl was robbed at knife point on the corner of Thornhill and Mountain (next to the branch library at 1687 Mountain Blvd). I also heard a woman was robbed, also with knife, near the tennis courts. As I've said, I always look around when I walk down to the library." – message on a neighborhood email list, Jan. 3, 2008.

Girl robbed at knife point

The area is in the district of councilmember Jean Quan, prime campaigner for Measure Y and now the leading apologist for its failure.

Quan promoted a huge bond issue to build a $100 million palace library downtown. She was ready to put the City in hock for this bauble, but here we see that children cannot safely visit a library branch in the hills. Public safety should be the first order of duty for a City government, but in Oakland it comes last.

Nor is Quan really a champion of libraries. The City got a State grant at the end of 2004 to build a new branch at 81st Ave. and Rudsdale, one of the poorest areas of Oakland. However, the City halted the project in 2005 so that Quan could stuff a bit of window dressing for it in her bond proposal. Voters defeated the bond issue. The branch was supposed to be finished in June 2007, but construction has not even started.