Calendar

ATTENTION ALL FAMILIES WHO HAS BEEN A VICTIM OF POLICE TERRORISM join us as we march on State Capital Sacramento during Crime Victim Day April 8, 2014. Please organize your communities and unite with us as we speak out against State Attorney General Kamala Harris for turning a blind eye under the Color of Law. Let’s organized now to address the Peace Officers Bill of Rights, Police Terrorism, and failure to resolve gun violence in our communities. Those families harmed by Gun Violence that are still seeking justice and an investigation into the killing of your Love one, please join us. Lack of forensic labs or non efficient labs must be addressed. Please share this with your network. “We are only as strong as our UNITY”

STOP STAPLES SCABS. STOP THE PRIVATIZATION OF THE POST OFFICE!

Join American Postal Worker Union members protesting against Post Office counters in Staples stores staffed by low wage Staples employees instead of living wage Postal Union members.

Meeting open to the public. Come and tell CAB members what you think about KPFA.

The Robin Hood Committee needs your help gathering signatures to place two initiatives on the November ballot. The initiatives will create $4.5 million for affordable housing and other city services in Berkeley by taxing the windfall profits of large landlords. Right now, Berkeley tenants are paying more than $100 million a year in excess rent, wealth that is taken out of our community. We can recapture a fraction of that by putting these measures to a vote of the people.

Join us this Sunday to pick up petitions and a partner for signature gathering.

Cant make it Sunday or want petitions earlier? Call us at 1-510-548-FAH-1. The Robin Hood Committee is supported by the Green Party of Alameda County, Councilmembers Worthington and Arreguin, Rent Board members Stephens, Harr, Soto-Vigil and Townley, the Berkeley Tenants Union and many others.
The Windfall Profits Tax on High Rents Initiative will raise the business license tax on residential rental units by 1.9%, but exempts small live-in and low-income landlords with less than 10 units. It also reduces the tax for units occupied by long-term tenants with moderate rents. In order not to discourage new construction, it allows a 20 year exemption from the increase starting with initial occupancy of the building. This is expected to raise $4.5 million annually for the City’s general fund to start with, rising as units occupied by long-term tenants turn over, as 20 year exemptions expire and as rents continue to rise. The tax cannot be passed on to tenants, since current tenants are protected by the city’s Rent Stabilization Ordinance.
The Affordable Housing Initiative will require the City Council to set aside at least $3 million annually for the Housing Trust Fund, which is used to develop affordable housing for low-income people either through new construction or acquisition and rehabilitation of existing housing by non-profit organizations. Once passed by the voters, Council will have 120 days to do a fiscal analysis and determine whether to accept the measure or to reduce or veto the allocation. The $3 million set-aside is expected to derive from the windfall profits tax revenue described above. Activists consider passage of the tax measure to be the best means of ensuring that the City can invest in affordable housing without reducing other needed services.
Background: Rents in Berkeley are rising to record highs, bringing windfall profits to most landlords while tenant incomes remain stagnant. Rents are going up because Berkeley is a very desirable place to live, not because landlords have so greatly improved the buildings they own. A strong Bay Area economy and public investments in the University, transit, parks and other public services all make Berkeley an attractive place to live. When public activities increase the value of private property it is only fair that the public recapture a small fraction of the value we the people create and use it for public benefit rather than allowing it all to be taken for private profit.
Before 1999 Berkeley had a strong rent control system that only allowed landlords to raise rents enough to provide a constitutionally required fair return on their investment but did not allow windfall profits at the expense of tenants. In 1999 the State legislature imposed �vacancy decontrol�, which now allows landlords to raise rents without limit whenever a new tenant moves in.
As a result, 85% of Berkeley’s older rentals have had vacancy increases. Tenants are now paying more than $100 million annually in additional rent, over and above what is needed to provide landlords with a fair return on their investment. Real, inflation-adjusted rents have gone up by more than 50% yet Berkeley’s landlords are taking out permits for building renovations equal in value to less than 3% of their massive annual rent increases. This transfer of wealth from Berkeley tenants to landlords, the majority of whom live outside of Berkeley, drains money from the community and increases demands for public services of all kinds, from social services to subsidized housing to public safety.

P.S. We only have until May 10 � we need you today!

STOP STAPLES SCABS. STOP THE PRIVATIZATION OF THE POST OFFICE!

Join American Postal Worker Union members protesting against Post Office counters in Staples stores staffed by low wage Staples employees instead of living wage Postal Union members.

The Postal Service has put the Berkeley Post Office up for sale!!

The Postal Service has started to outsource Post Office services to Staples, replacing union jobs with low-paying, low benefit work.

And we’re fighting against both!

Come help us plan our next steps.

The American Postal Workers Union is planning more actions against Staples; we need to support them. There is a protest rally on Saturday, two days before this meeting, at the Berkeley Staples at 11:00 AM. We’ve started a “Don’t Shop at Staples” campaign with some awesome… what else? … postcards to send to Staples management!  Here’s the front of the postcard.

The Berkeley City Council is on a path to pass some sort of Zoning Overlay which may protect the Post Office against various commercial uses, or be totally ineffective. We need to stay on top of it.

And we need to be prepared if the Post Office announces a sale! The Office of Inspector General’s report on the sale of Post Offices was supposed to come out before the end of March – anything could happen after it comes out. Come help us plan our response.

Encouraging articles have come out recently about using Post Offices as banking facilities for the unbanked. We held a forum on postal and public banking on March 29th on the Post Office steps.

THINGS ARE HAPPENING!

AND CHECK OUT OUR WEBSITE.

The Fight to Wake up the City,

Stop Displacement,

and Take Back Control of Our Communities

Our next Politics of Debt class will be in one week, Wednesday April 16th.  Here is the node on the public school website: http://thepublicschool.org/node/37127

We’ll continue our reading of Michael Hudson and the Public Banking Workbook.  Bear in mind we didn’t get to discuss ch.1-3 of the Public Banking workbook, so read up on all that you can on the new chapters.

Here are the chapter readings from Hudson for the meeting: 11, 15 and 18.

HudsonCh11-15-18

and chapters from the Public Banking Workbook.

Ch1-3

PublicBankWorkbookCh4-7

SATURDAY, April 19, 10 am-1pm: SAVE THIS DATE for our big Friends of Knowland Park Earth Day Rally at the Oakland Zoo entrance!

SPECIAL GUESTS: COUNTRY JOE MCDONALD and the duo of Hali Hammer and Randy Berge! If you can only come out to help with one thing, this is it! Our goal is to turn out even more people than our last successful rally, so please come and bring your friends!

SHOWING UP MATTERS. Homemade signs are great—we will have a bunch, but bring your own if you can (or organize your own sign-making party and we’ll contribute materials!) We’ll have music, fun, some surprises and inspiration! The great places that have been saved, from Yosemite down to small bayside parcels, have been saved because lots of ordinary people took a stand and fought to protect them. This is ours – time to take to the street and stand up for what you believe in! Watch our new video!

Oakland Zoo is at the intersection of Golf Links Road and Mountain Blvd. Allow time for parking on nearby streets and walking to zoo entrance; please carpool, if possible. Let us know if you have something special you could contribute to make it a fun and fruitful rally. Bring water, sunscreen, lunch and plan a picnic in Knowland Park after the rally! Please RSVP to info@friendsofknowlandpark.org so we have a rough head count for planning purposes.

The Postal Service has put the Berkeley Post Office up for sale!!

The Postal Service has started to outsource Post Office services to Staples, replacing union jobs with low-paying, low benefit work.

And we’re fighting against both!

Come help us plan our next steps.

We’ve started a “Don’t Shop at Staples” campaign with some awesome… what else? … postcards to send to Staples management!  Here’s the front of the postcard.

All four Postal Unions have joined together to support maintaining full service, public Post Offices in every community, with expansion to include postal banking, and to oppose subcontracting and privaztization of services. We need to support them in these endeavors!

The Berkeley City Council is on a path to pass some sort of Zoning Overlay which may protect the Post Office against various commercial uses, or be totally ineffective. We need to stay on top of it.

And we need to be prepared if the Post Office announces a sale! The Office of Inspector General’s report on the sale of Post Offices was supposed to come out before the end of March – anything could happen after it comes out. Come help us plan our response.

Encouraging articles have come out recently about using Post Offices as banking facilities for the unbanked. We held a forum on postal and public banking on March 29th on the Post Office steps.

THINGS ARE HAPPENING!

AND CHECK OUT OUR WEBSITE.

National website.

Local actions:

SAN FRANCISCO
Time: 10:00 AM
Address: 1700 Van Ness Avenue, San Francisco, CA 94109

SAN LEANDRO
Time: 1:00 PM
Address: 15555 East 14th Street #200, San Leandro, CA 94578

Berkeley Post Office Defenders and Save the Berkeley Post Office will be supporting these actions.

 Staples attacks good jobs and public post offices.

Staples and the U.S. Postal Service have cut a deal that jeopardizes your mail service and your local post office. In fact, post offices across the country are at risk – along with thousands of good jobs.

The Staples deal will replace full-service U.S. Post Offices with knock-off post offices in Staples stores that are not staffed with U.S. Postal Service employees.

A bad deal for workers and consumers.

You have a right to post offices staffed by workers who are accountable to you and the American people. You have a right to postal services provided by highly trained, uniformed Postal Service employees, who are sworn to safeguard your mail – whether it’s at the Post Office or Staples.

The Staples deal is bad for consumers like you who will pay the same for less service. And if Staples and the USPS move forward with this deal, it could lead to the end of the Postal Service as we know it.

Undermining good jobs.

In the meantime, the Staples deal is replacing good-paying jobs that our community depends on with low-wage jobs that hurt our economy.

New to Strike Debt?? Don’t walk cold turkey into a bunch of radicals talking about debt! Show up a half hour early—at 2:30 PM—for an informal pre-meeting intro session. If you’d like to attend this pre-together please email strike.debt.bay.area@gmail.com and let us know you’re coming.

Join Strike Debt Bay Area in working on some exciting projects locally and nationally to fight unjust debt.

– The latest on our coalition efforts to Save the Berkeley Post Office and fight the privatization of our commons.

– The latest on our efforts to help Richmond and NGO allies push for principal reduction for Richmond’s homeowners. Read two articles here and here, written by two Strike Debt Bay Area members  on the Richmond principal reduction / eminent domain case.

In addition, we are exploring the use of a public bank to help Richmond, CA and other communities escape the thrall of Wall Street.

– Work on our radio segment on KPFA

– Other projects include efforts to fight against student debt in conjunction with peeps at UC Cal via a Strike Debt UC Berkeley chapter of Strike Debt, a book group with semi-weekly discussions, investigations into the legitimacy of mortgage ownership and therefore the right to foreclose, efforts to thwart payday loan usury and more.

“Just as bosses are dependent on workers, so are lenders dependent on borrowers. If workers walk out, the enterprise stops. If borrowers refuse to pay their debts, the lenders could be in real trouble. Each side depends on the other. The millions of underwater mortgage holders, of student debtors and credit card holders, need the bank loans –  but so do the banks need those borrowers, and they especially need them to cooperate by paying their monthly charges. Otherwise, the capital that the banks list on their books begins to drain away.” ~Francis Fox Piven

Check out our website, our Facebook, and follow us on Twitter.

Check out the Berkeley Post Office Defenders website too.

The Postal Service has put the Berkeley Post Office up for sale!!

The Postal Service has started to outsource Post Office services to Staples, replacing union jobs with low-paying, low benefit work.

And we’re fighting against both!

Come help us plan our next steps.

We’ve started a “Don’t Shop at Staples” campaign with some awesome… what else? … postcards to send to Staples management!  Here’s the front of the postcard.

All four Postal Unions have joined together to support maintaining full service, public Post Offices in every community, with expansion to include postal banking, and to oppose subcontracting and privaztization of services. We need to support them in these endeavors!

The Berkeley City Council is on a path to pass some sort of Zoning Overlay which may protect the Post Office against various commercial uses, or be totally ineffective. We need to stay on top of it.

And we need to be prepared if the Post Office announces a sale! The Advisory Commission on Historical Preservation came out with its report, recommending that sales of Historic Post offices be halted until the USPS conforms with historical preservation law. Here is our response.

The Office of Inspector General’s report on the sale of Historic Post Offices was also supposed to come out before the end of March – anything could happen after it comes out. Come help us plan our response.

Encouraging articles have come out recently about using Post Offices as banking facilities for the unbanked. We held a forum on postal and public banking on March 29th on the Post Office steps.

THINGS ARE HAPPENING!

AND CHECK OUT OUR WEBSITE.

The Community & Economic Development Committee of the City Council will be considered a “proposal” by Larry Reid to increase the minimum wage to $10.20 beginning January 1, 2015.

Come tell Reid and the other members of the committee that Oakland wants nothing less than a living wage – $15.00/hr, and that his proposal is an insult to the working class.

Link to Agenda Item (Item 8).

March with community members from across the Bay Area in the streets of Oakland!

3:30PM: Fruitvale Bart Plaza Opening Rally
4 pm: March Starts
5:30: Return to Fruitvale Bart Plaza for Closing Rally and Celebration!

Hosted by Oakland Sin Frontera (OSF) and Partners

WHY ARE WE MARCHING?
Oakland Sin Frontera

· LEGALIZATION FOR ALL UNDOCUMENTED IMMIGRANTS
· STOP THE DEPORTATION OF ALL IMMIGRANTS & SHUT DOWN DETENTION CENTERS
· UPHOLD WORKERS RIGHTS
· STOP FEDERAL AND LOCAL POLICE VIOLENCE, AND BRING OUR LOVED ONES HOME FROM PRISONS AND JAILS
· BUILD AND DEFEND STRONG AND HEALTHY COMMUNITIES
· END U.S. MILITARY AGGRESSION & POLICIES THAT FORCE MIGRATION

Facebook Event & RSVP.

The committee to create a DAC privacy policy, formed because of the protests against the DAC, will hold its first meeting.  By City Council resolution a privacy policy must be in place before the DAC can operate.

Open to public.

Come and tell the committee members:  “The only good DAC is a dead DAC.”