Visit the City Visions archives to hear some of my shows:

-Campus in Crisis: UC Budget Cuts and the Future of Public Education

-San Francisco’s Central Subway: Innovation or Boondoggle?

-Filling the Gap: Making Up For What’s Missing at Public Schools

-The End of Free Parking: How Parking Reform is Changing the Way We Drive

-Closing the Doors: Cutting Subsidized Health Care for the Undocumented

-Oakland’s 10K Housing Initiative: Ten Years Later

-Urban Forests: How Planting Trees on Sidewalks and Streets Is Impacting Our Cities

Exciting fun for me, getting involved in live radio. I’m working on City Visions (www.cityvisionsradio.com), a live call-in panel show that focuses on topics important to Bay Area residents. Besides the producing credit, I’m falling in love with radio all over again. 91.7 KALW San Francisco.

But! I have been writing. I did a piece on the 80th birthday of Neldam’s Bakery and got to poke around the giant mixing machines (love this job). There was another budget story (Oakland has no money) and a nice day at a middle school in Alameda, watching kids opening up with poetry slam workshops. I did a profile of the woman who runs Kids Paint the Town and an update on the Safeway story and…other stuff. So, still working!

My stories for BANG are also on the websites for the Contra Costa Times and the Oakland Tribune (known as Inside Bay Area).

Recently, when I search for my articles, I only see fairly recent ones. So some of the links below might not work anymore, and I don’t know why. I wrote my first one, for the Montclarion, in January of 2008 and I’ve written some 80 stories since then, plus had quite a few photos run. So I’m sorry there’s not a good record of all of that online anymore.

Forgot about this one, which ran in the Alameda Journal in December.
It was a lot of fun — the guys were so eager and earnest.

Bump in popularity for indie rock band

BYLINE: By Maya Mirsky Correspondent

SECTION: MY TOWN; Alameda; Oakland-Berkeley; News; Local

Alameda indie rock band Finish Ticket was anxiously waiting Dec. 14 to hear whether it had won anything after playing that day at a San Francisco competition. But band members missed the announcement because they had to go to bed.

That’s because all five band members are students at Alameda High.

“At seven in the morning I got a text message,” said guitarist Alex DiDonato.

It turned out the band had placed second at the event, in which some 50 bands played for the chance to win money and recording time.

“It was exciting and kind of amazing,” said drummer Garren Orr.

I think this was in the Tribune, too. It was fun to go to city hall, of course. Although the council chambers have just terrible sight lines.

Oakland leaders discuss economy’s impact on city

Oakland can’t expect the federal stimulus package or other outside help to ease it through tough economic times, but must step up and actively find workable solutions for itself, speakers concluded at a panel convened Feb. 20 by City Council President Jane Brunner.

Speakers did express cautious optimism about President Obama’s stimulus plan during the “Progressive Perspective on the Economic Crisis” panel planned and moderated by Brunner, who represents District 1, North Oakland, but several stressed that it is not a magic solution.

“It will not fix the Oakland budget problem,” Brunner said.

Two nice little human interest stories. I really enjoyed doing the one on the circus arts.

Talented girl flying high with her circus dreams

Eight-year-old Cassie Weigel balances on the hands and feet of another girl, toes pointed and body perfectly arched. Then she jumps down and does a few flips on her way to hug her mom, who’s watching at the side of the room.

It’s Saturday morning, and instead of watching cartoons, Cassie is at Oakland’s Trapeze Arts school for three and a half hours of circus arts training. It’s the high point of the week for Cassie, whose passion for tumbling and trapeze are matched by her prodigious physical talents.

“From the first time she came, it was just magic for her,” said Cassie’s mother, Cheryl Weigel.

Learning about science first-hand

North Oakland residents get help with solar panel costs
By Maya Mirsky
Correspondent
Posted: 01/21/2009 08:29:38 PM PST
Updated: 01/22/2009 06:36:02 AM PST

North Oakland residents are taking advantage of a chance to install solar power as part of an ambitious program run by a San Francisco environmental group.

One Block Off the Grid is harnessing Bay Area interest in clean energy and using the power of collective buying to obtain cheaper prices on solar panels in order to encourage people to use clean energy.

“This gives everyone an incentive,” said general manager Dave Llorens.

The One Block Off the Grid program, which covers Oakland, San Francisco and other Bay Area cities, allows participating households to receive roof-tip photovoltaic panels at a discount of about 20 percent, depending on the size of the house.

Anyone who signs up through One Block Off the Grid’s Web site before the Jan. 31 deadline will receive a no-obligation inspection and an estimate. They then have two weeks to decide whether or not to take the offer. Nearly 900 homes have signed up, with a strong cluster of interest in North Oakland.

Rockridge resident Rachel Hollowgrass said she wished One Block Off the Grid had been around when she installed her own solar panels. Now she’s making sure to tell her neighbors.

“I was really hoping something like that would be possible in Rockridge,” she said.

Hollowgrass used SolarCity to install her panels, the same vendor One Block Off the Grid has chosen for its program. SolarCity beat out other companies with competitive prices, thinner panels and free
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add-ons such as energy-consumption monitoring.

“It lets people make improvements to their homes or change their behavior and see the impact immediately,” Llorens said.

A 15-year lease program is available for people who can’t afford to buy the whole system.

“People can go solar with zero down and save money right away,” said SolarCity’s director of brand marketing, Leela Voges.

Photovoltaic panels, also known as solar panels, transform sunlight into energy for the home. Houses stay linked to PG&E for energy needs at night, but pay a lower rate, according to SolarCity’s Jonathan Bass.

They require an up-front investment of about $30,000, depending on the size of the house, but recent federal legislation included a tax credit worth 30 percent of the cost of the installation. The state also offers a rebate for putting up solar panels, which also increase the resale value of property.

“There are very few safer investments than solar energy,” Llorens said.

One Block Off the Grid, based in San Francisco, will roll out programs in more than 20 cities around the country. It was founded last year by Llorens along with Sylvia Ventura and Dan Barahona, who had done outreach on solar via their Web site. A successful pilot project in San Francisco led them to expand to other Bay Area cities.

It’s really word-of-mouth that is helping the program locally, according to Hollowgrass, who is hopeful about the results.

“I’m seeing 1BOG signs going up in our neighborhood,” she said.

I am about two months behind in posting clips, which means about ten stories or so.

One of my most recent stories was about how the local merchants are weathering the shopping season.

Residents spend their dollars locally

(I think this one might have run in the Tribune.) Inside Bay Area

Muggings nearby the BART station and a brazen morning robbery of a gas station in Rockridge this past week have raised new concerns about safety in the neighborhood.

The crimes come after a relatively peaceful period of low crime, according to Oakland Police Department data.

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