City Government

Oakland Council Seeks to Safeguard Soda Tax Funds

Published

7 years ago

February 16, 2018

Council responds to mayor’s attempt to redirect funds for public health to close the city’s budget.

The City Council’s Life Enrichment Committee on Tuesday approved a proposal by Councilmembers Annie Campbell-Washington and Rebecca Kaplan to ensure funds from Oakland’s sweetened beverage tax are appropriately spent.

Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf’s budget proposal for 2017-19 was met with criticism when it attempted to allocate funds accumulated from the sweetened beverage tax to close the city’s budget deficit.

Measure HH, a penny-per-ounce tax on sugar-sweetened beverages, was passed by 61 percent of Oakland voters in the November 2016 election.

The measure was expected to generate $10 million annually in revenue, to be spent on health education and children’s health initiatives. Measure HH also created a nine-member advisory board tasked with reporting to the City Council their recommendations for spending.

This week’s proposal designates a sub-fund within the City’s general fund group for the sweetened beverage tax revenue, to be used only for the health-related purposes originally intended by the measure.

Campbell Washington, Kaplan, and Desley Brooks are united in wanting to keep faith with the voters when spending soda tax revenue.

“It’s important that we keep the faith with the voters as well as with the dedicated community volunteers who’ve stepped up to serve on the community advisory board,” Kaplan said at the Life Enrichment Meeting on Tuesday, Feb. 13. “I hope we will all vote yes on it so that it is totally clear to people that we are doing what we told the voters we would do.”

The proposal was approved by the committee, and will be heard at City Council in the coming weeks.

According to the recent proposal, Measure HH had clear expected impacts: to raise awareness, raise revenue, and reduce consumption. It aims to inform the public about how sugary drinks impact health.

It also clarifies that the health programs for which Measure HH was designed should specifically combat the impact of sugary drink marketing by educating families about healthy eating and drinking.

In the long term, these programs are expected to reduce the consumption of sugar-sweetened beverage, thereby reducing or preventing deadly diseases and saving billions of dollars in health care costs.

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Remembering George Floyd

BLACKPRESSUSA NEWSWIRE — Minnesota State Attorney General Keith Ellison acknowledges that the Floyd case five years ago involved a situation in which due process was denied, and five years later, the president is currently dismissing “due process. “The Minnesota Atty General also says, “Trump is trying to attack constitutional rule, attacking congressional authority and judicial decision-making.” George Floyd was an African American man killed by police who knocked on his neck and on his back, preventing him from breathing.

Published

6 days ago

June 2, 2025

Oakland Post

Mural showing the portrait of George Floyd in Mauerpark in Berlin. To the left of the portrait the lettering "I can't Breathe" was added, on the right side the three hashtags #GeorgeFloyd, #Icantbreathe and #Sayhisname. The mural was completed by Eme Street Art (facebook name) / Eme Free Thinker (signature) on 29 May 2020. (Wikimedia Commons)

By April Ryan
BlackPressUSA Newswire

“The president’s been very clear he has no intentions of pardoning Derek Chauvin, and it’s not a request that we’re looking at,” confirms a senior staffer at the Trump White House. That White House response results from public hope, including from a close Trump ally, Georgia Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene. The timing of Greene’s hopes coincides with the Justice Department’s recent decision to end oversight of local police accused of abuse. It also falls on the fifth anniversary of the police-involved death of George Floyd on May 25th. The death sparked national and worldwide outrage and became a transitional moment politically and culturally, although the outcry for laws on police accountability failed.

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In 2025, Police-involved civilian deaths are up by “about 100 to about 11 hundred,” according to Ellison. Ellison acknowledges that the Floyd case five years ago involved a situation in which due process was denied, and five years later, the president is currently dismissing “due process. “The Minnesota Atty General also says, “Trump is trying to attack constitutional rule, attacking congressional authority and judicial decision-making.” George Floyd was an African-American man killed by police who knocked on his neck and on his back, preventing him from breathing. During those minutes on the ground, Floyd cried out for his late mother several times. Police subdued Floyd for an alleged counterfeit $20 bill.