Bay Area Reporter

EQCA loses another key staff member

Cynthia Laird - Bay Area Reporter
August 4th, 2012

Equality California spokeswoman Rebekah Orr is leaving the statewide LGBT lobbying organization next week, Orr confirmed Thursday.

The departure of a communications staffer would typically be a minor development, but Orr has essentially been the only public face of EQCA since October 2011, when former Executive Director Roland Palencia abruptly resigned. Palencia had joined EQCA just three months beforehand.

The organization has an interim executive director, Laurie Hasencamp, but she rarely speaks to the media and it’s never been clear what exactly she’s doing with the organization.

In Oakland, LGBT youth center destroyed by unexplained fire

Elliot Owen - The Bay Area Reporter
July 31st, 2012

OAKLAND, Calif. — Officials at an Oakland queer youth space are frantically trying to find a new location after the building they had been using was destroyed by a fire.

The fire broke out in the morning hours of July 8 and displaced a gem of Oakland’s queer community known as SMAAC (Sexual Minority Alliance of Alameda County), a nonprofit, multi-service safe space and youth center serving primarily LGBTQ youth of color. The blaze consumed the 50,000 square foot building the organization occupied in downtown Oakland at 1608 Webster Street.