City Government

State Pushes Oakland to Shut Schools, Sell Property

Published

6 years ago

February 25, 2019

Parents at targeted schools are beginning to come together to demand the school district and the state halt the proposed closing of as many as 24 Oakland schools in the next few years.

The first speaker at a rally last Friday on a cold and blustery morning in front of one of the targeted schools, Roots International Academy, was Tamella Jackson, educator and parent at Kaiser Elementary School, which is on the school board’s closure list.

“Something that I can’t get out of my mind (is the saying), ‘If you stand for nothing, you fall for anything.’ We’re not falling – we’re standing for equality. We are standing for our city. We’re standing for our kids,” she said.

“Closing schools displaces (students) and causes family strains so parents can’t take of their kids. We’re slowly understanding and letting more and more people know that this system is set up to fail us,” Jackson said.

“None of us here are going to stand for letting you displace us or choose which teachers you want and what type of schools (we will have),” she said. “I’m speaking directly to the State of California. Give us our damn schools back.”

Roots parent leader Ady Rios has been active in the fight to save her son’s school since December when the district first announced that Roots would close in June.

“We’re here to fight for our kids. We’re here to keep our schools open,” she said. “We know that another 23 schools will be going through this. We’re not going to let them take those schools. We’re going to fight. This is just the beginning.”

Teacher education professor Kitty Kelly Epstein said she was inspired by the commitment and perseverance of Roots parents and teachers “to fight with the school board to show them that their assessment of their school is totally wrong.”

The board justifies its decision based on “bogus” numbers, she said, racially biased test scores that do not prove what they claim to prove, and assertions that closing schools save money, which has been shown to be false in urban school districts across the country.

The district claims it would save a small amount of money—$325,00—by closing Roots, a neighborhood school at 66th Avenue and International Boulevard, currently serving 309 students.

But in a report issued last Friday to the state-appointed fact finder, OUSD wrote that “the district’s attempts to close schools have been difficult and have not led to significant reductions in cost over time.”

When OUSD officials realized that this statement was included in the report, they asked everyone in the room to rip that page out of their binders and return it to the district.

Meanwhile, the school district is moving ahead with plans to lease school property to charter schools for as long as 40 years and has set up a surplus property committee to sell public school parcels to developers and charters.

The pressure to dispose of public property district comes directly from the state and raises the question of what state legislators are doing to defend the existence of public education in Oakland and other urban districts.

According to community members speaking at Friday’s rally, Assemblymembers Rob Bonta and Buffy Wicks and State Senator Nancy Skinner have a responsibility to intervene against school closings and the selling and leasing of public-school land,

A state law passed last year, AB 1840, encourages the dismantling of Oakland’s public-school system.

According to the law, OUSD can get a loan from the state if it “sell(s’) or lease(s) surplus real property… owned by the school district and uses the proceeds from the sale or lease to service, reduce, or retire the debt on the emergency apportionment loan, or for capital improvements.”

The state law also hands over significant decision-making control over school district finances to the Alameda County Office of Education and the state-funded nonprofit agency, the Fiscal Crisis and Management Assistance Team (FCMAT).

The law said the district is required, “in collaboration with and with the concurrence of the Alameda County Superintendent of Schools and the … Fiscal Crisis and Management Assistance Team, to take certain actions (FCMAT) by March 1, 2019 regarding its financial plans and school district construction plans.”

Ken Epstein

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Oakland Post: Week of December 25 – 31, 2024

The printed Weekly Edition of the Oakland Post: Week of December 25 – 31, 2024

Published

2 days ago

December 26, 2024

Oakland Post

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Bay Area

Glydways Breaking Ground on 14-Acre Demonstration Facility at Hilltop Mall

Glydways has been testing its technology at CCTA’s GoMentum Station in Concord for several years. The company plans to install an ambitious 28-mile Autonomous Transit Network in East Contra Costa County. The new Richmond facility will be strategically positioned near that project, according to Glydways.

Published

4 days ago

December 24, 2024

Oakland Post

Image of planned Richmond facility courtesy of Glydways.

The Richmond Standard

Glydways, developer of microtransit systems using autonomous, small-scale vehicles, is breaking ground on a 14-acre Development and Demonstration Facility at the former Hilltop Mall property in Richmond, the Contra Costa Transportation Authority (CCTA) reported on social media.

Glydways, which released a statement announcing the project Monday, is using the site while the mall property undergoes a larger redevelopment.

“In the interim, Glydways will use a portion of the property to showcase its technology and conduct safety and reliability testing,” the company said.

The new Richmond development hub will include “over a mile of dedicated test track, enabling Glydways to refine its solutions in a controlled environment while simulating real-world conditions,” the company said.

Visitors to the facility will be able to experience on-demand travel, explore the control center and visit a showroom featuring virtual reality demonstrations of Glydways projects worldwide.

The hub will also house a 13,000-square-foot maintenance and storage facility to service the growing fleet of Glydcars.

“With this new facility [at the former Hilltop Mall property], we’re giving the public a glimpse of the future, where people can experience ultra-quiet, on-demand transit—just like hailing a rideshare, but with the reliability and affordability of public transit,” said Tim Haile, executive director of CCTA.

Janet Galvez, vice president and investment officer at Prologis, owner of the Hilltop Mall property, said her company is “thrilled” to provide space for Glydways and is continuing to work with the city on future redevelopment plans for the broader mall property.

Richmond City Manager Shasa Curl added that Glydways’ presence “will not only help test new transit solutions but also activate the former Mall site while preparation and finalization of the Hilltop Horizon Specific Plan is underway.

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Alameda County

Last City Council Meeting of the Year Ends on Sour Note with Big Budget Cuts

In a five to one vote, with Councilmembers Carroll Fife and Janani Ramachandran excused, the council passed a plan aimed at balancing the $130 million deficit the city is facing. Noel Gallo voted against the plan, previously citing concerns over public safety cuts, while Nikki Fortunato-Bas, Treva Reid, Rebecca Kaplan, Kevin Jenkins, and Dan Kalb voted in agreement with the plan.

Published

4 days ago

December 24, 2024

Oakland Post

Oakland City Council voted on a plan to balance the $130 million deficit at their last regular meeting of 2024. The plan reduces police spending by $25 million, temporarily closes two fire stations, and guts the cultural arts programs. iStock photo.

By Magaly Muñoz

In the last lengthy Tuesday meeting of the Oakland City Council for 2024, residents expressed strong opposition to the much needed budget cuts before a change in leadership was finalized with the certification of election results.

Oakland police and fire departments, the ambassador program, and city arts and culture will all see significant cuts over the course of two phases.

Phase 1 will eliminate two police academies, brown out two fire stations, eliminate the ambassador program, and reduce police overtime by nearly $25 million. These, with several other cuts across departments, aim to save the city $60 million. In addition, the council simultaneously approved to transfer restricted funds into its general purpose fund, amounting to over $40 million.

Phase 2 includes additional fire station brownouts and the elimination of 91 jobs, aiming to recover almost $16 million in order to balance the rest of the budget.

Several organizations and residents spoke out at the meeting in hopes of swaying the council to not make cuts to their programs.

East Oakland Senior Center volunteers and members, and homeless advocates, filled the plaza just outside of City Hall with rallies to show their disapproval of the new budget plan. Senior residents told the council to “remember that you’ll get old too” and that disturbing their resources will only bring problems for an already struggling community.

While city staff announced that there would not be complete cuts to senior center facilities, there would be significant reductions to staff and possibly inter-program services down the line.

Exiting council member and interim mayor Bas told the public that she is still hopeful that the one-time $125 million Coliseum sale deal will proceed in the near future so that the city would not have to continue with drastic cuts. The deal was intended to save the city for fiscal year 2024-25, but a hold up at the county level has paused any progress and therefore millions of dollars in funds Oakland desperately needs.

The Coliseum sale has been a contentious one. Residents and city leaders were originally against using the deal as a way to balance the budget, citing doubts about the sellers, the African American Sports and Entertainment Group’s (AASEG), ability to complete the deal. Council members Reid, Ramachandran, and Gallo have called several emergency meetings to understand where the first installments of the sale are, with little to no answers.

Bas added that as the new Alameda County Supervisor for D5, a position she starts in a few weeks, she will do everything in her power to push the Coliseum sale along.

The city is also considering a sales tax measure to put on the special election ballot on April 15, 2025, which will also serve as an election to fill the now vacant D2 and mayor positions. The tax increase would raise approximately $29 million annually for Oakland, allowing the city to gain much-needed revenue for the next two-year budget.

The council will discuss the possible sales tax measure on January 9.