Melrose Street Scape
Back in 2012+ a group of dedicated Melrose residents worked many long hours to co-create a Street Scape plan for the district to not only beautify the area but to use transporation-related street scaping solutions to cut down on speeding and Sideshows in the community.
The plan was approved and budgeted through the Department of Public Works back in 2014, and while other communities that engaged in the same process have already received and been living with the benefits of their Street Scape projects Melrose has yet to break ground on this already funded project.
Join the Street Scape 2014 AC to bring this project to Melrose.
Leads & Contributors
Razzu Mitos
Stephanie Hayden
Gant & Missy Bowman
Braunz Courtney
Barbara Oplinger
Lynne Ching
The 2014 Blueprints
These are the plans created by the City of Oakland in collaboration with Melrose community members and the Chair of the NCPC, Preston Turner, back in 2014.
The plans were created in the Department of Public Works and in 2015 work did not start on the project as a new Department of Transportation was forming at the City of Oakland and delays caused residents to become concerned the project would not be fulfilled as promised and budgeted.
The community members got together and created a letter writing campaign to continue asking what had become of the Melrose Street Scape project.
Barbara Oplinger, Lynne Cheng, and Razzu Mitos have begun this effort and appreciate all community members joining them in this Letter Writing Campaign in order to get the project going.
More information → visit the Melrose High Hopes NCPC 27x website.
Letter Writing Campaign
In October 2019 Melrose started a second letter writing campaign focused on the safety issues and escalation in deaths by hit-and-run collisions on Foothill Blvd to illustrate the critical need for immediately breaking ground on the Street Scape to stop constituent deaths in Melrose and Fruitvale.
In early 2019, Barbara Oplinger kicked off the community Letter Writing Campaign for the inquiries sent to City of Oakland Staff and Elected Officials. She sent the letters to staff email addresses and went the extra mile to print and send physical pieces of mail to the City of Oakland to amplify her message.
Join our next Community Council meeting to join in this campaign and/or learn how to start your own for a subject you feel strongly about. The odds are other people feel the same way you do and the more people we can connect the louder our voices become.
At a certain point the weight should shift and we should start getting traction and action that leads to change.
More information → visit the Melrose High Hopes NCPC 27x website.