City Government
City Considers Prompt Payment to Nonprofits
The City Council is considering an amendment to its Prompt Payment Ordinance that would ensure nonprofit organizations that do business with the City of Oakland receive payments for the work they do in a timely manner.
The ordinance is scheduled for discussion and a vote at the city’s Finance and Management Committee meeting, Tuesday, Oct. 28, 9:30 a.m., at City Hall.
Many agencies, especially smaller nonprofits, have frequently complained that they in effect have to float a loan to the city, as they wait for months or even over a year for the city to pay invoices of tens of thousands of dollars or more for work that has already been completed.
A few nonprofits even have had to curtail programs or even shut down as result of failure to receive payments from the city.
Sponsored by Councilmember Desley Brooks in 2008, a Prompt Payment Ordinance was passed requiring timely payments to city contactors – normally within one month.
However, the City Attorney ruled that the ordinance applied only to private businesses that do work for the city, not to grant-funded programs
“Nonprofits frequently would carry the burden of the city,” said Brooks. “We’re talking not just small sums of money. Sometimes, it would be in the six figures. Sometimes, they wait for over year to be paid.”
“They couldn’tan’t function when faced with that kind of uncertainty.”
The amendment, introduced by Councilmembers Brooks and Rebecca Kaplan, is intended to clarify and extend the ordinance to nonprofits that are grant recipients.
“We’re supporting this amendment that would go back to ordinance’s original intent, that everybody should be paid in a timely fashion,” said Brooks.
Oakland Private Industry Council CEO Gay Plair Cobb welcomed this clarification, stating, “The question is why would the city not want prompt payment requirements to apply to non-profits, which do such important work for Oakland citizens?”
Cobb has disputed previous rulings that the current ordinance excluded contractor that receive grant funds. “This made no logical sense whatsoever,” she added.
Activism
Racially Motivated Violence Against Black Teen Prompts $10 Million Claim Against LAUSD
In December, a second altercation, on a video shared with news media, showed 4 to 6 boys attacking a Black student and using racial slurs. The video also shows a person in a safety vest trying to stop the fight and telling them to “handle it after school.” Then, the video ends.
By Solomon O. Smith, California Black Media
A distraught mother and her legal team announced a $10 million lawsuit against the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) on Dec. 16, alleging that her son was the target of bullying because of his race.
“CS DOE is a 14-year-old African American student at Verdugo High School. He is a Ninth Grader,” reads a statement the plaintiff’s attorneys shared with California Black Media (CBM).
“Almost from the first day of class (in August 2024), CS DOE was targeted by Latino students who called him racial slurs, physically attacked him and threatened to stab him.”
The family’s identity has not yet been released to the public due to safety concerns, according to their attorneys Bradley C. Gage and Caree Harper. The student’s mother is identified only as A.O. in the complaint.
The first video, filmed in August, showed several non-Black students punching and kicking a Black student in a bathroom on campus while yelling racial slurs. The mother claims that the students who attacked her son were not punished, and the administration asked her to move her son to another school for his safety.
“They wanted him to leave the school without giving any disciplinary action towards those students,” said the student’s mother. “He’s not going anywhere. He’s going to finish. I wanted him to at least stay until the December winter break, and then I was going to transfer schools for him.”
Before she could enroll her son in a different school the attacks escalated.
In December, a second altercation, on a video shared with news media, showed 4 to 6 boys attacking a Black student and using racial slurs. The video also shows a person in a safety vest trying to stop the fight and telling them to “handle it after school.” Then, the video ends.
CS DOE, a 14-year-old freshman, left the school but was followed by a car, according to Gage. Several individuals exited the vehicle, one with a “large butcher knife.” A fight ensued and two people were stabbed. The Black student was arrested for assault with a deadly weapon but was later released into his mother’s custody.
The high school freshmen is scheduled to appear in juvenile court on Feb. 1, but Harper says she will reach out to the District Attorney and make the case against charging the young man.
“His mama had to go find him because he was hiding and fleeing for his very life,” said Harper.
According to the boy’s mother, the young student is still traumatized and has not been able to return to the area because it remains unsafe. Racial slurs have also been spray painted on their home.
“I’m sad. I’m devastated, you know,” said the mother. “I still feel like they’re after him. I still feel like they can kill him, possibly.”
The LAUSD and principal of Verdugo High School did not respond to CBM’s requests for comment.
If you are – or someone you know is – has experienced a hate crime or hate incident, please visit CAvsHate.org for more information and to find out what you can do about it.
Activism
OPINION: Solutions to the Housing Crisis Exist, but Governments Waste Tax Dollars Instead
People who are homeless want real housing, not temporary shelters that are dangerous and crowded. The City of Oakland has been telling the public that the sweeps of encampments are an effective solution, but it just pushes people from block to block, wasting tax money on paying police officers overtime in a budget crisis. This is true at the state level too, where California spends $42,000 per person that is unhoused per year. The city and state could just help pay residents’ rent, rather than pay for police to harass people on the streets, many of whom have disabilities or are elders.
By Kimberly King and Victoria King
In a powerful demonstration of grassroots organizing, activists joined forces in direct action that started on Dec. 17 to call for the establishment of sanctuary communities across the West Coast
The goal of the effort is to raise awareness about misleading narratives around homelessness and to present concrete solutions to a crisis that leaves over 35,000 people unsheltered each night in the Bay Area.
The action, led by members of Oakland’s Wood Street Commons and Homefullness/Poor Magazine, represents a direct response to the U.S. Supreme Court and Gov. Gavin Newsom’s approach to homelessness. At the core of the movement is a fundamental truth: housing is a human right, not a commodity to be bought and sold for profit.
People who are homeless want real housing, not temporary shelters that are dangerous and crowded. The City of Oakland has been telling the public that the sweeps of encampments are an effective solution, but it just pushes people from block to block, wasting tax money on paying police officers overtime in a budget crisis. This is true at the state level too, where California spends $42,000 per person that is unhoused per year. The city and state could just help pay residents’ rent, rather than pay for police to harass people on the streets, many of whom have disabilities or are elders.
The coalition of organizations, led by people with lived experience of homelessness, coordinated their efforts to show the unity behind this movement, including setting up sweeps-free sanctuary communities and resource centers and presenting solutions to city council. The message is clear: unhoused residents refuse to remain invisible in the face of policies that have resulted in 347 deaths for people experiencing homelessness in Alameda County just this year alone.
The coalition presented four key demands, each addressing different aspects of the housing crisis. First, they called for the establishment of sanctuary communities instead of sweeps, urging the redirection of encampment management funds toward positive solutions like encampment upgrades and permanent low to no-income housing.
The second demand focuses on utilizing public land for public good, specifically identifying vacant properties like the Hilton Hotel on Port of Oakland land. The coalition emphasized the immediate availability of these spaces to house hundreds of currently unhoused residents.
Prevention forms the third pillar of the coalition’s demands, with calls for strengthened renter’s rights, rent subsidies, and a permanent moratorium on rental evictions and foreclosures for non-payment.
Finally, the coalition demands the defunding of coercive “Care Courts,” advocating instead for non-carceral approaches to mental health care and harm reduction.
The Poor People’s Campaign’s motto, “When we lift from the bottom, no one gets left behind,” encapsulates the spirit of the action. Daily activities, including opening prayers for those who have died while homeless, served as powerful reminders of the human cost of failed housing policies that treat housing as a commodity rather than a fundamental right.
As this crisis continues to unfold, these activist groups have made it clear that the solution to homelessness must come from those most directly affected by it.
About the Authors
Kimberly King and Victoria King are Oakland Residents who advocate for the unhoused and propose solutions to end homelessness and housing insecurity.
Alameda County
Barbara Lee Releases Statement on Possible Run for Mayor of Oakland
Already, her backers are organizing to urge her to run for the position left vacant by the recall of former Mayor Sheng Thao, which became effective on Dec. 17. At present, Council President Nikki Fortunato Bas is serving temporarily as mayor.
By Ken Epstein
Questions continue to swirl in Oakland and throughout the Bay Area over the possibility that Congresswoman Barbara Lee might run for mayor of Oakland after she leaves Congress in January.
Already, her backers are organizing to urge her to run for the position left vacant by the recall of former Mayor Sheng Thao, which became effective on Dec. 17.
At present, Council President Nikki Fortunato Bas is serving temporarily as mayor.
Lee is already meeting with city leaders and learning more about the major issues facing the city. In a social media post on Dec. 20, she released a statement clarifying her timeline for making a decision.
“The decision to run for Mayor of Oakland, a city that I have long called home, is not one I take lightly,” she said.
“As my time in Congress wraps up, my current priority is navigating the crisis before us in DC. I am working around the clock to reach a deal that will keep our government open and provide crucial resources for my district,” she continued.
“I will announce my intentions in early January,” Congresswoman Lee said.
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