Public safety and the city's budget tops readers concerns in a recent survey on what newly elected Oakland Mayor Jean Quan's areas of focus should be.

In a recent Oakland Local online survey that focused on a range of issues around Quan's administration, more than 84 percent of respondents said they want Quan to immediately focus her efforts on public safety and police resources.

Oakland Mayor Jean Quan announced today several immediate changes to enhance staffing and increase support to the Oakland Police Department were about to happen -- including bringing back 10 lad-off Police officers.

The Oakland City Council will meet at 5:30 p.m. TONIGHT, Feb. 1, on the third floor of City Hall, 1 Frank Ogawa Plaza.

If you’re puzzling over what’s going to be covered, here are our top five to watch for tonight.

1. Cannabis cultivation

The results are in.

The latest batch of data pertaining to the Negotiated Settlement mandated as a result of the civil lawsuit filed by victims of the Oakland Riders, aka Delphine Allen, et al., v. city of Oakland.

Police Accountability. It’s a controversial topic in Oakland, a double-edged sword, which cuts deeply into the fabric of the community.

On one hand, there are the tough-on-crime folks who maintain that desperate times call for desperate measures, and that we should not only maintain higher levels of police staffing, but that police should be allowed to do their jobs, no matter what it takes.

On the other hand, there are the civil rights activists and those concerned about police abuse, who point to cases like the shooting death of Derrick Jones as proof that police are out of control and need to be reigned in.

Where’s the middle ground? The Citizens' Police Review Board.

According to East Bay News Services' Sanjiv Handa, down in San Jose the Mayor and City Council members were handed a memo from City Manager Debra Figone about next steps in the process of selecting a new SJ poice cheif when they met last night. The memo reads in part:

Can Oakland Police Chief Anthony Batts break his contract with the city to take the top cop position in San Jose?

Looks like it. Batts' employment contract does not appear to penalize him if he chooses to step down before it expires in 2012.

Was it the time last year when his ambitious strategic plan started to look like a dream versus a reality? Or was it this summer when OPD had to lay 80 cops off?

The Oakland Police Department wants to inform the community of a series of robberies occurring within the city.

A guy on a motorcycle with a long white beard may not be an uncommon sight these days — particularly in the Bay Area — but one in a Santa suit giving out toys to kids is still pretty remarkable.

More than five weeks after Derrick Jones was shot and killed by two Oakland police officers near his own barber shop, his family remains unsupported.

by Lance Williams

 Johannes Mehserle, the former transit police officer who shot an unarmed* man on an Oakland BART platform, wants the judge to set him free pending appeal.