Writing Work
I’ve been reporting and writing stories for print and digital media outlets for years. I’ve covered everything from local government to agriculture to the arts. I love digging into long form investigative stories and I’ve also got the skill set to report breaking news. To see my latest work, visit my bio page at The San Francisco Standard.
Oakland’s illegal trash-dumping crisis is worse than ever. Here’s why.
San Francisco Chronicle, August 2021
The 2020 fiscal year marked a new low in Oakland’s long-running struggle with illegal dumping. I investigated the roots of the city’s illegal dumping problem for the San Francisco Chronicle and the UC Berkeley Investigative Reporting Program. This was a data-driven story, including my analysis of county-wide waste collection rate sheets that showed that Oakland has the most expensive commercial collection rates. In addition to reporting and writing this piece, I also built several charts and graphs using Datawrapper.
Dozens of Oakland Police Officers Collect 6-Figure Overtime Payments, Straining City’s Budget
KQED, May 2021
While Oakland leaders pledged in the summer of 2020 to cut the police department budget in half, the department continued its trend of overspending, driven by large police overtime costs that added hundreds of thousands of dollars to some officers’ paychecks. This data-driven story was grounded in public records I obtained from the city of Oakland. I reported this story for the UC Berkeley Investigative Reporting Program and KQED co-published the story.
The Oakland Police Department says it is underfunded. Is that true?
San Francisco Chronicle, August 2021
The Oakland Police Chief criticized the City Council’s 2021-22 budget, saying that crime was out of control and the department needed more officers on the ground to address increases in violent crime. I examined personnel, spending, and crime figures to assess the chief’s contention in this data-driven story.
Roaming in caravans, swarms of burglars overwhelmed Oakland’s cannabis shops in 2020
The Oaklandside, December 2020
Burglaries and robberies have long been a problem for Oakland cannabis businesses. But in 2020, the threat morphed into something new: large groups of burglars taking advantage of moments of social upheaval to hit multiple businesses in the same night. They traveled in fast-moving car caravans and struck in overwhelming numbers so that security guards didn’t stand a chance. Drawing from court filings, public records requests, and over a dozen interviews, I reported and wrote this deep-dive for The Oaklandside.