- March 4, 2026
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After serving the town of Oakland for more than a decade, Sal Ramos is saying goodbye to his seat on the Town Commission.
“I want to give a big, humble thank you to all the citizens for believing in me to be here and supporting me while I was here,” he said. “It’s been a great honor to have served the town all these years, and thank you for the opportunity you gave me. It’s been a privilege to be amongst you guys and an experienced team, because it’s a good balance we have here.”
While Ramos’ term has finished, he will be recognized for his time as commissioner at the March 24 meeting.
Vice Mayor Mike Satterfield said the commission is not done with him.
“Thank you, Sal,” he said to Ramos. “In all the years being here, it has been personally a pleasure working with you. Professionally, what you have brought to this town has been phenomenal, and it’s very, very deeply appreciated.”
Ramos said he plans to still be around to help it in any way he can.
Yumeko Motley will take his seat starting Tuesday, March 24.
Trail connection funded
The town of Oakland is one step closer to making the Healthy West Orange Trail Connection a reality.
Former Public Works Director Mike Parker announced during the Oakland Town Commission meeting Tuesday, Feb. 24, the town received a $100,000 grant from Healthy West Orange to fund the Healthy West Orange Trail Connection.
While the trail is in its design phase, Parker said the funding will be used for constructing fitness stations, landscaping, shade canopies, wayfinding signage and more, while supplementing the funding already set aside for the project in the Recreation Impact Fee budget.
“The Healthy West Orange Trail Connection grant was originally set up at $50,000 — you could ask for that much,” he said. “They really didn’t have that many applicants, so they raised it to $100,000, and that’s when we said, ‘OK, we’re going to go for this,’ and we got it.”
Parker said the money will be used for the Saddler Trail Loop that runs from the Longleaf subdivision all the way around to the town center.
Parker said two other projects currently are underway: a paving and drainage project on Oakland Avenue and Daniels Street, as well as a septic to sewer design project.
New public works director
Johnnell Kemp was hired August 2025 as the town’s assistant director of public works.
Since then, Parker retired.
The Oakland Town Commission voted Tuesday, Feb. 24, to have Kemp serve as the next Public Works director.
“I want to say thank you for giving me the opportunity to be the next Public Works director,” he said. “I know I got some tough shoes to fill with Mike (Parker) here. I’m proud to be here and I’m also glad he’s given me the opportunity and helping me out as I go along with this.”
Kemp also mentioned Public Works’ successful sanitary survey, which is a comprehensive on-site inspection of the town’s water system.
“We actually did really good with (it),” he said. “We had one hiccup and that was an air-relief valve that was facing downwards. We corrected that right away, and we passed everything.”
Surveillance system complete
Oakland Police Chief Darron Esan announced the completion of the department’s 72-camera, high-resolution surveillance system upgrade, in which the cameras were installed around Oakland Avenue Charter School to increase safety and monitoring abilities.
“There’s AI technology, so we can really look after the safety of the kids at the school,” Esan said. “Should a child go missing or something, and they described the outfit, we can just type in the colors of the outfit in the computer and it’ll pull up that color outfit anytime it crossed the path of one of the cameras. We have pretty much every inch of that school covered on cameras. We feel really good about it.”
Esan said more cameras were installed at the Oakland Police Department and Town Hall, with installations taking two to three days to complete for each of these locations.
“It’s nice to finally tie a bow on this project,” Esan said.
