Oakland

Opinion: News Organizations Tell State Leaders Dynamex Law Will Gut Black Press

Published

6 years ago

September 12, 2019

By Regina Brown Wilson
California Black Media

This is a direct appeal to Governor Newsom, Assemblymember Lorena Gonzalez and our entire state Legislature. I’m writing this on behalf of the more than 20 African American-owned newspapers that operate in cities and towns across California.

As the leaders we’ve elected to represent and protect the interests of all Californians, we are asking each of you to search your hearts, look beyond blind spots, step in, and do the one thing that will prevent AB5, known as Assembly Bill 5, from putting the Black press in California out of business. That is: Exempt the contract couriers who deliver our newspapers from being reclassified as employees under AB5.

The bill Assemblymember Gonzalez is proposing intends to bring definition to our Supreme Court’s Dynamex decision and defend the rights of working Californians.
But in the push to create a more equitable California for all, we must not lose sight of the specific needs and priorities of our most vulnerable communities.

Our best intentions may sometimes harm some Californians while uplifting others. We must always be as cautious and fair as we are forceful and deliberate in approaching our most challenging problems.

Shouldn’t AB5 be helping to narrow the immense wealth gap that exists in the richest state of the nation? The disparity between the ultra-rich and the almost 20 million people in California who live below the poverty line — or who fight to hover just above it — is growing.

For African-American newspaper owners, surviving in an industry with emergence of the internet has almost put us on life support, AB5 would do the exact opposite of what Gonzalez wants it to achieve. She might as well just pull the plug on our businesses.
Although our publications reach almost 2 million Californians of all races, most of our operations are still family-owned businesses.

We are small shops with multi-tasking staff members who struggle to attract advertising, grind to meet deadlines and tighten belts to remain profitable. None of our papers can afford to offer full-time jobs with benefits to the part-time delivery people who work, on average, about four hours on the days our newspapers are published. Many of our papers are weeklies.

My dad, Hardy Brown, former publisher of Black Voice News in Riverside, remembers a time when he had to gather the news stories, type them, take the copy to the printer and then deliver the published papers by himself throughout the Inland Empire at night. He would drop them off at churches on Sunday mornings because he could not afford to pay a courier. AB5 would take Black newspapers back to those difficult days.
Although some of our publications in California have websites, more than 60 percent of them still publish only print editions.

We’ve done the math. Having to hire couriers as full-time employees would force us to limit our circulation areas or raise the prices of our papers. Either option would hurt our revenue so bad it would no longer make sense to stay in business. We all know the backbone of our democracy is a free and independent press providing truthful, objective and balanced information critical to the lives, health and overall wellbeing of all our citizens.

Since Freedom’s Journal, the first African-American newspaper, was published in 1827, the Black press in the United States has played a central role in the lives of Black Americans as an advocate, trusted source of information and rallying point for often life-and-death issues directly affecting our communities. From the years of legal slavery to the Emancipation Proclamation, through the Civil War and the eras of Jim Crow and lynching — to the fight for civil rights and economic improvement — we have always depended on the Black press for news crucial to keeping our families safe, informing our decisions and shaping our opinions.

Today, Black newspapers across the country have a combined circulation of about 15 million. Americans read Black publications even though mainstream newspapers exist. Those national or citywide papers often overlook or under-report very important issues vital to the lives of African Americans. Our papers bring unique perspectives to the news, pointing out how news stories may affect Black Americans differently. We expand the base of knowledge on every topic we cover and bring untold stories to the historical record. Most of us also write in familiar and relatable voices, and from points of view, that resonate with our readers.

In California, the cost to live in our coastal cities has become unaffordable for the majority of African Americans. More and more, we see our families migrating to distant suburbs or inland cities and towns east of Los Angeles, the Bay Area, the Central Coast and San Diego.
While many of our papers are still located in historic Black neighborhoods near or our around those major metropolitan areas, our drop-off points have become more far-flung and the radius of our circulation areas have dramatically increased. Now, more so than ever before, the role of our contract delivery drivers is an essential aspect of our businesses.

We understand the importance of passing AB 5 to introduce guidelines for implementing the Dynamex decision. But we also need your intervention to protect the legacy and livelihood of our publications as we live up to the responsibility upon us that we never take lightly: That is to strengthen and maintain freedom and democracy in our state and across our country.

In the words of educator and journalist Ida B. Wells, “The people must know before they can act and there is no educator like the press.”
Regina B. Wilson is the Executive Director, California Black Media.

Regina Brown Wilson

California Black Media

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Oakland Post: Week of May 21 – 27, 2025

The printed Weekly Edition of the Oakland Post: Week of May 21 – 27, 2025

Published

3 days ago

May 25, 2025

Oakland Post

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Activism

Oakland Hosts Town Hall Addressing Lead Hazards in City Housing

According to the city, there are 22,000 households in need of services for lead issues, most in predominantly low-income or Black and Latino neighborhoods, but only 550 to 600 homes are addressed every year. The city is hoping to use part of the multimillion-dollar settlement to increase the number of households served each year.

Published

1 week ago

May 18, 2025

Oakland Post

iStock.

By Magaly Muñoz

The City of Oakland’s Housing and Community Development Department hosted a town hall in the Fruitvale to discuss the efforts being undertaken to remove lead primarily found in housing in East and West Oakland.

In 2021, the city was awarded $14 million out of a $24 million legal settlement from a lawsuit against paint distributors for selling lead-based paint that has affected hundreds of families in Oakland and Alameda County. The funding is intended to be used for lead poisoning reduction and prevention services in paint only, not water or other sources as has been found recently in schools across the city.

The settlement can be used for developing or enhancing programs that abate lead-based paint, providing services to individuals, particularly exposed children, educating the public about hazards caused by lead paint, and covering attorney’s fees incurred in pursuing litigation.

Most of the homes affected were built prior to 1978, and 12,000 of these homes are considered to be at high risk for lead poisoning.

City councilmember Noel Gallo, who represents a few of the lead-affected Census tracts, said the majority of the poisoned kids and families are coming directly from neighborhoods like the Fruitvale.

“When you look at the [kids being admitted] at the children’s hospital, they’re coming from this community,” Gallo said at the town hall.

In order to eventually rid the highest impacted homes of lead poisoning, the city intends to create programs and activities such as lead-based paint inspections and assessments, full abatement designed to permanently eliminate lead-based paint, or partial abatement for repairs, painting, and specialized cleaning meant for temporary reduction of hazards.

In feedback for what the city could implement in their programming, residents in attendance of the event said they want more accessibility to resources, like blood testing, and information from officials about lead poisoning symptoms, hotlines for assistance, and updates on the reduction of lead in their communities.

Attendees also asked how they’d know where they are on the prioritization list and what would be done to address lead in the water found at several school sites in Oakland last year.

City staff said there will be a follow-up event to gather more community input for programming in August, with finalizations happening in the fall and a pilot launch in early 2026.

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Alameda County

Oakland Begins Month-Long Closure on Largest Homeless Encampment

At 8 a.m. sharp, city workers began piling up trash and dismantling makeshift homes along the nearly five-block encampment. City crews blocked off streets from 14th Ave to 17th Ave, between E. 12th and International Blvd, due to the Safe Work Zone Ordinance that was passed by the city council in 2022 to protect workers from harassment during cleanings, according to a city spokesperson.

Published

1 week ago

May 18, 2025

Oakland Post

The City of Oakland began sweeping their largest homeless encampment on E 12th St. Monday morning. Advocates claim that the city has not done its due diligence with providing ample resources or outreach for residents at the encampment. Photo by Magaly Muñoz.

By Magaly Muñoz

The City of Oakland began a three-week-long breakdown of the largest homeless encampment in the city on E. 12th Street on Monday morning. Residents and advocates said they are devastated about the displacement of dozens of people.

Jaz Colibri, one of the many advocates at the closure, said the encampment sweeps were “intense and terrifying” to witness. They claimed that several residents, many of them non-English speakers, had not been aware that the sweep was happening that day because of a lack of proper communication and outreach from Oakland.

Colibri added that the city had done a Census “many months ago” and “had not bothered to count people since then”, meaning dozens of individuals have missed out on housing and resources in the last few weeks because the city doesn’t offer outreach in multiple languages.

“Basically, [Oakland] dropped the ball on actually getting to know everybody who lives here and then creating a housing solution that meets everyone’s needs,” Colibri said.

City spokesperson Jean Walsh told the Post that notices of the closure operation were posted in Spanish and Chinese prior to Monday, but did not clarify if outreach was done in those languages as well.

Nearly a dozen Oakland police vehicles, California Highway Patrol officers, and Oakland Public Works staff were gathered along E 12th waiting for residents to pack up their belongings and move away from the area.

Advocates said residents “felt unsafe” due to the hefty law enforcement presence.

One city worker, who was picking up debris near 16th Ave, said, “They’ve known we were coming for a long time now” in reference to resident confusion about the sweeping.

The state doubled down on its requirement to get cities and counties to deal with their homelessness crisis at a press conference Monday afternoon. Gov. Gavin Newsom’s office released a “model ordinance” that is intended to provide a starting point that local municipalities can use to build from and adjust in creating their own policies on encampments, if they haven’t done so yet.

Newsom said “No more excuses, time to deliver” after the state has poured hundreds of millions of dollars into solving the issue.

Oakland was awarded a $7.2 million grant from the state in 2024 to close long-standing encampments in the city, including camps at Martin Luther King, Jr. and 23rd Street, and Mosswood Park.

Residents at these encampments were offered wraparound supportive services, temporary shelter, and eventually will be transitioned to permanent supportive housing, according to a city statement from last year.

Residents who accepted housing at these three encampments were moved into newly acquired property, formerly the Extended Stay America Hotel in West Oakland, which will first serve as interim housing for up to 150 individuals and couples in 105 units, and in the coming year, will be converted into 125 units of permanent housing.

Walsh said as of May 2, “32 residents of the recently closed Mosswood Park encampment moved into the Mandela House program” and as of May 12, “41 residents of the East 12th Street encampment have already accepted offers to move to the Mandela House.” The city will provide final numbers of how many accepted and moved into housing after the closure operation is over.