City Of Oakland Settles 2016 Ghost Ship Warehouse Fire Lawsuit
ONN – City Of Oakland Settles 2016 Ghost Ship Warehouse Fire Lawsuit
Oakland, CA –Today the Oakland City Council authorized settlement of the lawsuits filled on behalf of 32 of the 36 people who tragically lost their lives in the December 2016 Ghost Ship fire. The total settlement is $32.7 million. The settlement will be allocated, with $23.5 million for the families of the fire victims who perished, and $9.2 million for plaintiff Sam Maxwell, who survived the fire but will live with severe, lifelong injuries and major medical expenses.
This was a horrific tragedy that deeply impacted every corner of our community. Mayor Schaaf, the City Council, City Attorney and City Administrator express their deepest sympathies to Mr. Maxwell and the families, whose losses are unimaginable.
The City continues to assert, as the agreement provides, that it is not liable for these tragic losses. The City decided to settle this case because of the cost-benefit analysis. The City’s total insurance coverage is $22 million. The criminal case against the Master Leaseholder of the warehouse, Derick Almena, is ongoing, and a retrial is scheduled to begin in October 2020.
Note from Zennie62Media and Oakland News Now: this video-blog post demonstrates the full and live operation of the latest updated version of an experimental Zennie62Media , Inc. mobile media video-blogging system network that was launched June 2018. This is a major part of Zennie62Media , Inc.’s new and innovative approach to the production of news media. What we call “The Third Wave of Media”. The uploaded video is from a vlogger with the Zennie62 on YouTube Partner Channel, then uploaded to and formatted automatically at the Oakland News Now site and Zennie62-created and owned social media pages. The overall objective is smartphone-enabled, real-time, on the scene reporting of news, interviews, observations, and happenings anywhere in the World and within seconds and not hours. Now, news is reported with a smartphone: no heavy and expensive cameras or even a laptop are necessary. The secondary objective is faster, and very inexpensive media content news production and distribution. We have found there is a disconnect between post length and time to product and revenue generated. With this, the problem is far less, though by no means solved. Zennie62Media is constantly working to improve the system network coding and seeks interested content and media technology partners.