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Two More Measures on November Ballot? Why Not Police Accountability?

Published

11 years ago

July 3, 2014

When a community coalition sought the City Council’s approval recently to put a police oversight commission on the November ballot, most of them opposed it.

The majority opinion on the council seemed to be that putting the $22 million a year public safety tax, the successor to Measure Y, on the ballot trumped all other issues.

They said any other ballot measure would be a distraction and confusing to the public and jeopardize funding to pay for 60 police officers and programs for crime reduction and youth.

Council members also said they could not vote to put the issue on the ballot because they did not have time to discuss and modify it, and staff did not have time to analyze it.

Therefore, supporters of police accountability noted with surprise that council members voted Tuesday night to put Councilmember Libby Schaaf’s charter amendment, an Independent Redistricting Commission, on the ballot.

Councilmembers also may be prepared to add a second charter amendment to the ballot at their July 15 meeting: an enhanced Public Ethics Commission that would cost $900,000 a year, backed by Councilmember Dan Kalb.

Neither of these measures has gone through the council’s committee process, nor were they analyzed by staff for their budget, legal and policy implications, which was cited as an insurmountable obstacle to the police measure.

Community member Rashidah Grinage

“Different strokes for different folks – Both Kalb’s and Schaaf’s ballot measures were written by them, and ours was written by the community,” said Rashidah Grinage, a spokesperson for the coalition that had wrote the police accountability measure.

“ It’s OK for them to skirt the process, but it’s not OK for the community,” she said.

“The implication is the they know what they’re doing, and the community doesn’t.”

“I promise that if you poll the community, police oversight would come up as the number one issue, compared with the priorities of the council,” said Grinage, adding that the she was not sure the council had still had time to reconsider the police measure.

Councilmember Noel Gallo, who had championed putting the police measure on the ballot, said he has no problem backing a ballot measure that encourages citizen involvement and allows the public to vote.

He also noted that the redistricting measure will have no impact for six years, and is author, Libby Schaaf, is a mayoral candidate.

Councilmember Noel Gallo, District 5

“I have no problem getting the citizens to engage and letting the public vote, and Libby is running for mayor,” he said.

Councilmember Lynette McElhaney is chagrined by her fellow council members’ double standard as to what ballot measures are considered legitimate.

She told the Post that she strongly backs putting police accountability on the ballot in the future but remains convinced that nothing is more important than passing the successor to Measure Y at this point.

“I think it was the height of hypocrisy and insensitivity to bring (the redistricting measure) forward,” said McElhaney, adding that Schaaf made powerful arguments in the Public Safety committee against allowing the police measure to go forward but took the opposite position on her own ballot measure.

“She wanted to ramrod this measure that has no life or death consequences to it through the City Council,” she said. “This is something that doesn’t even apply until 2020.”

McElhaney is also concerned that putting a measure on the ballot costs between $350,000 and $400,000, which was not discussed or budgeted at this week’s council meeting.

When the council polled the public’s concerns, public safety was a top issue, she said, but, ”There was a very low response on public ethics reform, and redistricting never shows up.”

“I am going to ask the council to reconsider the (redistricting) measure,” she said. “There are considerable flaws in how the measure was drafted.”

To support police oversight “is a hard vote but a right vote,” McElhaney said. “Redistricting is a

Councilmember Lynette McElhaney, District 3

wrong vote.”

“I don’t know how we can look at the faces of the people who came to council to ask for the police oversight commission

Councilmember Desley Brooks says she has nothing against a measure that would create an independent commission to redraw council districts but questioned the rush to adopt a ballot measure that appears to be ill-considered.

“If you say you’re doing this for the benefit of the community, why don’t you take it the community and discuss it?” She asked.

First of all, the names of people who are interested in being part of the commission would be reviewed by a retired judge, a law student and someone from a good government nonprofit. “Why these people?” Asked Brooks.

“The measure says there be ‘robust outreach’ to find members of the commission, but the proposal does not explain what that outreach would be,” she said.

After that, names of potential members of the commission “would be dropped into a hat and drawn,” she said. “This commission is supposed to be representative – people of color, low-income people, people from different parts of the city. I don’t know how that happens on a random draw.”

“This is very serious – it’s about voting rights,” added Brooks. “Be wary and leery before you vote for something just because it calls itself good government.”

Councilwoman Desley Brooks, District 6

Post Publisher said he agrees with the questions being raised about the redistricting measure by Brooks and by Mayor Jean Quan at Tuesday’s council meeting. “I think these questions are serious and mean that the measure should be postponed.”

“However, I agree with the public ethics issue addressed by the public ethics commission measure and the police oversight measure. I think the two measures should be joined and placed on the ballot.

At press time, Councilmember Schaaf had not responded to the Post’s questions.

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Alameda County

Oakland Acquisition Company’s Acquisition of County’s Interest in Coliseum Property on the Verge of Completion

The Board of Supervisors is committed to closing the deal expeditiously, and County staff have worked tirelessly to move the deal forward on mutually agreeable terms. The parties are down to the final details and, with the cooperation of OAC and Coliseum Way Partners, LLC, the Board will take a public vote at an upcoming meeting to seal this transaction.

Published

2 months ago

January 11, 2025

Oakland Post

Alameda County Board of Supervisors Chairman David Haubert. Official photo.

Special to The Post

The County of Alameda announced this week that a deal allowing the Oakland Acquisition Company, LLC, (“OAC”) to acquire the County’s 50% undivided interest in the Oakland- Alameda County Coliseum complex is in the final stages of completion.

Oakland has already finalized a purchase and sale agreement with OAC for its interest in the property. OAC’s acquisition of the County’s property interest will achieve two longstanding goals of the County:

The Oakland-Alameda Coliseum complex will finally be under the control of a sole owner with capacity to make unilateral decisions regarding the property; and
The County will be out of the sports and entertainment business, free to focus and rededicate resources to its core safety net

In an October 2024 press release from the City of Oakland, the former Oakland mayor described the sale of its 50% interest in the property as an “historic achievement” stating that the transaction will “continue to pay dividends for generations to come.”

The Board of Supervisors is pleased to facilitate single-entity ownership of this property uniquely centered in a corridor of East Oakland that has amazing potential.

“The County is committed to bringing its negotiations with OAC to a close,” said Board President David Haubert.

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Arts and Culture

Rise East Project: Part 3

Between 1990 and 2020, Oakland lost nearly half of its Black population due to economic and social forces. East Oakland, once a middle-class community, is now home to mostly Black families living in poverty.

Published

1 year ago

October 12, 2023

Oakland Post

CEO of Black Culture Zone Carolyn Johnson, a native from Deep East Oakland is making the change she wishes to see in her community and in her people. Black Culture Zone has created a power base of Black folks making a difference in Deep East Oakland. Photo by Kumi Rauf.

The Black Cultural Zone’s Pivotal Role in Rebuilding Oakland’s Black Community

By Tanya Dennis

In 2021, 314 Oakland residents died from COVID-19. More than 100 of them, or about 33.8%, were Black, a high rate of death as Blacks constitute only 22.8% of Oakland’s population.

This troubling fact did not go unnoticed by City and County agencies, and the public-at-large, ultimately leading to the development of several community organizations determined to combat what many deemed an existential threat to Oakland’s African American residents.

Eastside Arts Alliance had already proposed that a Black Cultural Zone be established in Deep East Oakland in 2010, but 2020’s COVID-19 pandemic galvanized the community.

Demanding Black legacy preservation, the Black Cultural Zone (BCZ) called for East Oakland to be made an “unapologetically Black” business, commercial, economic development community.

Established initially as a welcoming space for Black art and culture, BCZ emerged into a a community development collective, and acquired the Eastmont police substation in Eastmont Town Center from the City of Oakland in 2020.

Once there, BCZ immediately began combating the COVID-19 pandemic with drive-thru PPE distribution and food giveaways. BCZ’s Akoma Market program allowed businesses to sell their products and wares safely in a COVID-compliant space during the COVID-19 shutdown.

Currently, Akoma Market is operated twice a month at 73^rd and Foothill Boulevard and Akoma vendors ‘pop up’ throughout the state at festivals and community-centered events like health fairs.

“Before BCZ existed, East Oakland was a very depressing place to live,” said Ari Curry, BCZ’s chief experience officer and a resident of East Oakland. “There was a sense of hopelessness and not being seen. BCZ allows us to be seen by bringing in the best of our culture and positive change into some of our most depressed areas.”

The culture zone innovates, incubates, informs, and elevates the Black community and centers it in arts and culture, Curry went on.

“With the mission to center ourselves unapologetically in arts, culture, and economics, BCZ allows us to design, resource, and build on collective power within our community for transformation,” Curry concluded.

As a part of Oakland Thrives, another community collective, BCZ began working to secure $100 million to develop a ‘40 by 40’ block area that runs from Seminary Avenue to the Oakland-San Leandro border and from MacArthur Boulevard to the Bay.

The project would come to be known as Rise East.

Carolyn Johnson, CEO of BCZ says, “Our mission is to build a vibrant legacy where we thrive economically, anchored in Black art and commerce. The power to do this is being realized with the Rise East Project.

“With collective power, we are pushing for good health and self-determination, which is true freedom,” Johnson says. “BCZ’s purpose is to innovate, to change something already established; to incubate, optimizing growth and development, and boost businesses’ economic growth with our programs; we inform as we serve as a trusted source of information for resources to help people; and most important, we elevate, promoting and boosting Black folks up higher with the services we deliver with excellence.

“Rise East powers our work in economics, Black health, education, and power building. Rise East is the way to get people to focus on what BCZ has been doing. The funding for the 40 by 40 Rise East project is funding the Black Culture Zone,” Johnson said.

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Alameda County

Help Protect D.A. Pamela Price’s Victory

Alameda County District Attorney Pamela Price is asking supporters of the justice reform agenda that led her to victory last November to come to a Town Hall on public safety at Montclair Presbyterian Church on July 27.

Published

2 years ago

July 25, 2023

Oakland Post

D.A. Pamela Price

By Post Staff

Price is facing a possible recall election just six months into her term by civic and business interests, some of whom will be at the in-person meeting from 6:00-9:00 p.m. at 5701 Thornhill Dr. in Oakland.

“We know that opponents of criminal justice reform plan to attend this meeting and use it as a forum against the policies that Alameda County voters mandated DA Price to deliver. We cannot let them succeed,” her campaign team’s email appeal said.

“That’s why I’m asking you to join us at the town hall,” the email continued. “We need to show up in force and make sure that our voices are heard.”

Price’s campaign is also seeking donations to fight the effort to have her recalled.

Her history-making election as the first African American woman to hold the office had been a surprise to insiders who had expected that Terry Wiley, who served as assistant district attorney under outgoing D.A. Nancy O’Malley, would win.

Price campaigned as a progressive, making it clear to voters that she wanted to curb both pretrial detention and life-without-parole sentences among other things. She won, taking 53% of the vote.

Almost immediately, Price was challenged by some media outlets as well as business and civic groups who alleged, as she began to fulfill those campaign promises, that she was soft on crime.

On July 11, the recall committee called Save Alameda for Everyone (S.A.F.E.) filed paperwork with the county elections office to begin raising money for the next step toward Price’s ouster: gathering signatures of at least 10% of the electorate.

S.A.F.E. has its work cut out for them, but Price needs to be prepared to fight them to keep her office.

In a separate sponsored letter to voters, Price supporters wrote:

“We know that you supported DA Price because you believe in her vision for a more just and equitable Alameda County. We hope you share our belief that our criminal justice system has to be fair to everyone, regardless of their race, gender, ethnicity, religion, or socioeconomic status.

“The Republican-endorsed effort is a blatant attempt to overturn the will of the voters and a waste of time and money. It is an attempt to silence the voices of those who want real justice. We cannot let these election deniers succeed.

“Will you make a donation today to help us protect the win?

“Please watch this video and share it with your friends and family. We need to stand up to the sore losers and protect the win. Together, we can continue to make Alameda County a more just, safe and equitable place for everyone.”

For more information, go to the website: pamelaprice4da.com
or send an e-mail to info@pamelaprice4da.com