One of the greatest shows on earth happens live every two weeks in Oakland City Hall. Hopefully you’ve been tuning in: meetings of the Oakland City Council, starring shady lobbyists, glad-handing contractors, self-promoting nonprofit execs, greedy developers, hopeless idealists, direct action militants, NIMBY naysayers, cops and copwatchers, masked ninjas, techno evangelists, union activists, poverty pimps, Chairman Meow, and some guy holding an owl statue. Since 2009, one of the best ways to catch episodes of Oakland’s political drama is to follow the Twitter hashtag #OakMtg. The origin of the #OakMtg tag has been, at times, a matter of dispute, but based on Twitter’s records, it was first used by Jonathan Bair, a public relations consultant, on July 25, 2009. Today #OakMtg is used by dozens of gadflies, politicos, journalists, lawyers, lobbyists, and even members of the city council to discuss the big issues and petty distractions facing Oakland.
Correction: The original version of this Best of pick erroneously stated that the first #OakMtg tweet was by Sean Sullivan on July 28, 2009. Instead it appears that Jonathan Bair (@dto510) was the first person to tweet the #OakMtg hashtag on July 25, 2009
