Everyone expected it to pass. As the Oakland Post put it before the vote
City Council Set to Approve Sale of City Land for Luxury Apartment Tower
and again after it
Before Tuesday night’s City Council meeting, the proposal to sell a city parcel to build a luxury apartment tower at Lake Merritt seemed like a done deal.
On June 2nd, with the doors blockaded and the upper galleries closed off, 90+ speakers’ names were called to speak on the proposal to sell the 12th St. parcel at a fire sale price, every one of them in opposition to the sale of public land not for public good. Well, except for the owner of the development company himself.
The speakers list was not extinguished until after June 3rd began. At that point a pale of resignation fell over the audience as Council member Guillen reconstructed the history of the project, the compromises he had wrested out of the developer, and finally indicated his intention to vote for the sale.
Council President McElhaney spoke next, damning with faint praise the speakers for their spirit, then saying that she expected the measure to pass and would be voting for it.
Councilperson Kalb, as is his wont, took a few minutes to get to the point but finally said he would abstain on the basis that he was not convinced the deal was not in violation of the California State law known as the Surplus Land Act.
The gallery began, subtly, to stir.
Councilperson Brooks came out against the plan, noting the meager community benefits package.
The stirring grew as some in the audience realized that one more nay or abstain would kill the deal; five votes are need to pass measures and Councilperson Kaplan had recused herself. With seven members present there could be no tie for the Mayor to break in favor of the one percent.
All ears went to Councilperson Gallo as he began to speak. Within about thirty seconds many realized that he might well not be in support of the measure. The buzz became distinctly audible. Then he made it obvious, saying:
“I was not for selling public land at the school district, and I will not be for it at City Hall.”
The gallery exploded; Guillen ultimately withdrew his motion, Brooks got a motion passed to renegotiate the deal, and a very surprised crowd, at first stunned but ultimately exuberant, marched down the City Hall marble and out.
This would not have happened if, on May 5th, activists had not shut down the City Council meeting. Those activists, by braving arrest, demonstrated with crystal clarity that the Oakland City Council does not listen to the will of the people – until and unless forced to. They were going to pass this in the face of clear community opposition, and in the face of the plain meaning of the Surplus Land Act. Called out by Public Advocates to such illegality days before the May 5th shutdown, they were apparently not the least interested in following the law, snookered perhaps by dubious legal advice that claimed that with enough reinterpretation, redefinition and attorney mumbo-jumbo they could get around it.
Let’s repeat this: This defeat would not have happened unless the City Council had been shut down.
This was a bad deal from the time it was proposed; this was a bad deal when the sales price was negotiated, and it was a bad deal when it first came before the City Council.
Selling public land is a bad idea. Selling public land at a fire sale price is a terrible idea. Selling public land for development and not ensuring that a large portion of the development is affordable housing is an ethically challenged idea. And selling public land in violation of the Surplus Lands Act, not to mention possibly in violation of Oakland law, is an illegal idea.
And yet: this only didn’t happen because of direct action civil disobedience.
Somewhere the leaders of the Tea Party, Henry, Susan and Alice, Martin and Rosa, and Russell, to mention just a few, are smiling.
The Justice 4 Alan Blueford Coalition takes over City Hall.
Organized resistance to the DAC in Council Chambers.
Protesting Schaaf’s curfew.
Occupy shuts down the Port of Oakland.
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