A public forum on People’s Park. Mayor Arreguin and UC Berkeley’s Chancellor Christ are hosting a public forum to rally support for the final devastation of People’s Park. Along with the development plan, they will discuss what the mayor calls “the displacement plan”.

Attend this meeting to challenge their narrative. There is no particular reason why the dorm must be built on People’s Park. UC Berkeley does have other locations to build a dorm.

The Chancellor and the Mayor will describe a 3 part development plan: a dorm, a separate building for very-low income residents, and park space. People’s Park is big, but it’s not that big. After the buildings are established, there won’t be much room left for open space. Any remaining park will be a trivial afterthought.

There are no plans for a replacement park. Despite owning several empty lots in Berkeley, the UC has not offered one to be a replacement user-developed, community open space. Such an issue circles back to the question: if there are empty lots, why not build there instead?

POSTPONED. NOT HAPPENING ON THIS DATE.

San Francisco is supposed to be a sanctuary city for immigrants; but it also gives sanctuary to corporations that have contracts with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP).

Corporations like Salesforce, Amazon and Google profit from deportation and detention; yet City Hall continues to give them contracts while mouthing support for immigrants. Fortunately, the Immigrants’ Rights Commission is taking the first step to ending these contracts and has asked the City Controller to issue a report highlighting which companies that have City contracts continue to profit off detention and deportation.

Come join us as we highlight this Corporate Hall of Shame and demand that the City stop doing business with deportation and detention profiteers!

If you would like to come early and get an introduction to the concepts of public banking, or more locally to who we are and what we do, please email us and someone will come meet you at 5:30.

Working Group Meetings:

Some of our working groups meet between organizers’ meetings, and others just confer by phone and email. You can plug into any one of these:

• Outreach to Organizations
• Outreach to Individuals
• Digital Outreach
• Advocacy (working with politicians)
• Governance
• California Public Banking Alliance
• Fundraising
• Operations

Just send us a note and we’ll help you get connected to the work you want to do.

OTU’s Mission

The Oakland Tenants Union is an organization of housing activists dedicated to protecting tenant rights and interests. OTU does this by working directly with tenants in their struggle with landlords, impacting legislation and public policy about housing, community education, and working with other organizations committed to furthering renters’ rights. The Oakland Tenants Union is open to anyone who shares our core values and who believes that tenants themselves have the primary responsibility to work on their own behalf.

Monthly Meetings

The Oakland Tenants Union meets regularly at 7:00 pm on the second Monday evening of each month. Our monthly meetings are held in the Community Room of the Madison Park Apartments, 100 – 9th Street (at Oak Street, across from the Lake Merritt BART Station). To enter, gently knock on the window of the room to the right of the main entrance to the building. At the meetings, first we focus on general issues affecting renters city-wide and then second we offer advice to renters regarding their individual concerns.

If you have an issue, a question, or need advice about a tenant/landlord issue, please call us at (510) 704-5276. Leave a message with your name and phone number and someone will get back to you.

Every Tuesday at 5pm from February 11th to March 3rd, we have an opportunity to learn from impacted communities all along the Trans Mountain pipeline route.  Click here to RSVP for the free webinar series, “From Wellhead to Tidewater.”

On March 3rd, Isabella Zizi of Idle No More SF,  Stand.Earth, and the Protect the Bay Coalition will speaking about the impacts of the Trans Mountain pipeline and tankers in California: the plan to dredge San Francisco Bay to make room for more fully loaded tankers, the impacts of the refinery expansion, and what resistance looks like where she lives.

OPEN is supporting SEIU 1021 in calling for a community mobilization to stop the school board from cutting at least $6.27M from our schools and firing at least 68 vital employees.

When Oaklamd’s school board proposed $30 million in cuts that led to the teacher’s strike he posted evidence that there has actually been about a $70 million SURPLUS being illegally “put aside” (presumably to be given to the charter schools bought by the supporters of the real estate developer controlled school board but that’s what I deduced from what I have seen and not an official union position that I am aware of). I am clear that this money is supposed to be spent on students and their classroom needs (I think that includes food but that’s another issue for another day) in the current year not held back “just in case we need it” (and laying off 68 essential personnel seems a reason to spend it, doesn’t it?)

Help launch the campaign for a sustainable and accountable electricity system in California. The Utility Justice Campaign is leading a movement to Reclaim Our Power, demanding that front-line communities have a seat at the table in designing a blueprint for restructuring PG&E.

The campaign sent a  letter to Governor Newsom outlining the principles that should govern a new California electricity system:
1. Distributed energy
2. Worker and community control
3. Clean renewable energy for all
4. Corporate accountability
5. Frontline leadership
6. Indigenous sovereignty and land stewardship
7. Environmental justice
8. Equitable emergency planning
9. Protection for workers
10. Investment in climate resilience

RSVP

The Utility Justice Campaign is led by the Asian Pacific Environmental Network, California Environmental Justice Network, Local Clean Energy Alliance, Movement Generation, North Bay Organizing Project, and People Organizing to Demand Environmental and Economic Rights (PODER)

Join Oakland Privacy to organize against the surveillance state, police militarization and ICE, and to advocate for surveillance regulation around the Bay and nationwide.

We fight against spy drones, facial recognition, police body camera secrecy, anti-transparency laws and requirements for “backdoors” to cellphones; we oppose “pre-crime” and “thought-crime,” —  to list just a few invasions of our privacy by all levels of Government, and attempts to hide what government officials, employees and agencies are doing.

We draft and push for privacy legislation for City Councils, at the County level, and in Sacramento. We advocate in op-eds and in the streets. We stand in solidarity with Black Lives Matter and believe no one is illegal.

Check out some of what we worked on in 2019.

Oakland Privacy originally came together in 2013 to fight against the Domain Awareness Center, Oakland’s citywide networked mass surveillance hub. OP was instrumental in stopping the DAC from becoming a city-wide spying network.  We helped fight and helped win the fight against Urban Shield.

Our major projects currently include local legislation to regulate state surveillance (we got the strongest surveillance regulation ordinance in the country passed in Oakland!), supporting and opposing state legislation as appropriate, battling mass surveillance in the form of facial recognition and other analytics, and pushing back against ICE.

On September 12th, 2019 we were presented with a Barlow Award by the Electronic Frontier Foundation for our work.

If you are interested in joining the Oakland Privacy email listserv, coming to a meeting, or have questions, send an email to:

contact@oaklandprivacy.org

Check out our website: http://oaklandprivacy.org/

Follow us on twitter: @oaklandprivacy

“WATCHING YOU WATCHING US”

Oakland Privacy works regionally to defend the right to privacy and enhance public transparency and oversight regarding the use of surveillance techniques and equipment.  Oakland Privacy drove the passage of surveillance regulation and transparency ordinances in Oakland and Berkeley and is kicking off new processes in various municipalities around the Bay.  To help slow down the encroaching police and surveillance state all over the Bay Area, join us at the Omni.

“The Alameda County Sheriffs have not taken responsibility for their grossly exaggerated use of force in the pre-dawn eviction of Black women and children in Oakland. They are still holding arrest charges over the heads of 2 mothers and 2 supporters.

Join us all to stand with the moms and demand transparency, accountability and that all pending charges be dropped immediately.”

Also, if you haven’t signed this petition (and for more background info), go to: https://www.change.org/p/alameda-county-sheriff-gregory-ahern-hold-the-sheriff-accountable-protect-moms-babies-from-tanks?signed=true
Petition � Hold Them Accountable – Protect Moms & Babies from Tanks, AR-15s, and Tactical Troops � Change.org

NO TANKS, AR15s or TACTICAL TROOPS TO EVICT MOMS & BABIES! For years, the Alameda County Sheriff’s Office (ACSO) has been the source of questionable, if not criminal behavior.

Agenda.

Items of particular interest:

• Election of Char
• Use of Force Ad Hoc Cmte
• Draft Ordinance on Militarized Police Equipment
• Process for Drafting Policy

Many of you witnessed or saw images of the Moms4Housing visionary action for the right to housing and the Alameda County Sheriff Office’s warrior deployment of assault weapons, a tank and battering ram in response to peaceful protest in Oakland. The event demonstrated more clearly than ever the need to push back on police use of military equipment in our communities.

The Oakland Police Commission will be considering the proposed ordinance for civilian control over the acquisition and use of militarized equipment by OPD. A key point on the agenda is how this ordinance can impact agencies like the Alameda County sheriff that deploy in Oakland. The Moms will be making comments, and we invite you to come and also make a public comment.

When sheriff deputies deploy to evict someone, they do so as an officer of the court, and are not required to consult with OPD. Our proposed ordinance applies to military equipment deployed by outside agencies in Oakland that are called in through “mutual aid” agreements. We are proposing additional language to the ordinance to ensure OPD doesn’t cooperate with the sheriff’s unfettered use of military equipment and require OPD to notify the police commission and city council if they know of such deployments. (see attached)

The Police Commission likely won’t vote on a recommendation next Thursday, but we want them to know clearly how the community feels about ANY deployment of war-like gear and weaponry in Oakland.

Please be there, Thur. Feb. 13, at 6:30 pm, Oakland City Hall, City Council chambers. Sign up to make a comment at the beginning of the meeting in “Open Forum”, when the agenda comes up, or both. 

Bay Area Skeptics Talk
This critical thinking-focused organization meets Every Second Thursday of the month with a different topic and guest speaker for every conversational meeting. This month’s topic: Big Data: What it is, how its used, where it’s headed by Mike Olson
T

Weekly Friday Vigil with music, snacks, letter writing, conversation

Register here to work either in East Oakland or El Sobrante:

https://plantingjustice.org/work-with-us/individuals

Nothing could be more ignorant and hypocritical than criminalizing the human body in a city that is named after a preacher who preached in the nude.

In early 2013 a law was passed in San Francisco that is commonly called “the nudity ban”. According to this law you can go to jail for a year for merely taking off your clothes on a warm summer day. (That’s if you do it 3 times in a year. If it is your first or second time you get a $100 fine.)

Nothing could be more hypocritical than criminalizing God’s creation – the human body.

Criminalizing genitals is no different from criminalizing flowers – they are plant’s genitals. Imagine if flowers had to be covered. Imagine if plants got thrown in jail for blooming and showing their flowers.

And what about animals? Imagine having to put underwear on your dog and worrying that if your dog rips it off it will be thrown in jail.

How come we have less rights than dogs and flowers?

It’s time to legalize humans!

NUDE LOVE PARADE will start on Saturday, February 15th at 11 am in Jane Warner Plaza. We start marching at noon (hopefully). We will loop around a bunch and end up at Haight and Stanyan.

The parade is fully permitted by the SFPD, no one will get arrested nor cited.

Come join us! We want to see you naked.