Oakland leaders discuss future of 'First Fridays'

OAKLAND, Calif. - Oakland City Councilmember Carroll Fife held a town hall meeting on Wednesday at Cloud Park on Telegraph Avenue to debate the future of the city's popular "First Fridays" event.

The meeting gathered top city leadership, including Mayor Barbara Lee and Police Chief James Beere, to address growing safety concerns surrounding the festival. The community forum was prompted by the decision of several key sponsors to pull their support from the event. 

"I want Oakland to be the safest, cleanest, greenest city in America," Lee told the crowd. "Violence is not an option in Oakland." 

The loss of sponsorship follows a recent spate of violence occurring in the hours after recent First Fridays gatherings. Incidents include a mass shooting in March that left two people dead, as well as a serious car crash last month.

Tony Leong, the general manager of the Fox Theater, attributed the current crisis to dwindling enforcement by the city and called for greater accountability. He asked that someone from the city meet with a First Fridays group every month. 

"We can have fun and we can have culture and we can still be safe and that's what we're here to say," Leong said. "We want to make sure that we have someone meeting with us here monthly so that we can continue and we don't have to start over again."

Despite the recent challenges, the next First Fridays event is still scheduled to take place this Friday, June 5. Nothing else concrete was really decided at the meeting, although it gave people a chance to talk to each other and communicate how they want to make the event a success. 

Additionally, city organizers plan to launch a new monthly event in about two weeks called "Oaktown Thursdays." The new initiative will run every third Thursday of the month and aims to provide more positive community engagement.