Leona Heights Neighborhood News

by Gordon Laverty

Late in March, the Home Depot corporation turned on lobbying tactics full-steam to make an end-run around Oakland development planning regulations. Even before the City Council-appointed Quarry Development Advisory Committee had data or official plans, a mass mailing arrived complete with tear-off ballot voting for support of a large, box-design Home Depot warehouse store at the Gallagher-Burk quarry site. This kind of activity on the part of a national corporation, in the absence of the required, up-to-date traffic, economic and environmental studies, is without parallel in City history. Such performance is crude, uncaring, and typical of steamroller techniques poorly managed firms use in an urban environment. No wonder Home Depot has been rebuffed on several occasions in the eastern U.S. where they have been trying to locate new stores. Leona Heights and neighboring improvement and homeowner associations have in good faith been cooperating in the Advisory Committee work. But now it is clear that local citizens who will be affected by car and truck traffic and crime as reported around other Home Depot sites, must write to the City Council protesting the short cut action of Home Depot and opposing the project until proper studies are submitted. What is our city coming to? Write to Mayor Jerry Brown and your Councilmember at City Hall, 1 City Hall Plaza, Oakland, CA 94612.