Calendar

Join Eviction Free San Francisco for a spirited lunchtime march and picket at Vanguard Properties to demand that Michael Harrison of Vanguard Properties rescind the Ellis Act eviction of Benito Santiago!

Meet at 24th street BART station and march to Vanguard Properties at 2501 Mission Street at 21st.

Co-founder of Vanguard Properties Michael Harrison is currently using the Ellis Act to attempt and evict long-term tenant and native San Franciscan Benito Santiago.

Benito Santiago is a senior and disabled Filipino resident of the Duboce Triangle. He was born and raised in San Francisco. Benito is a teacher for the San Francisco unified school district where he teaches dance to children. He received his first eviction notice the day before Thanksgiving, on November 24th 2013. Benito has been organizing with Eviction Free San Francisco to fight his eviction.

Michael Harrison is a “property flipper”: his shell company Pineapple Boy LLC bought Benito’s home in November 2013 and tried to evict Benito and the two other tenants immediately. Vanguard Properties is currently involved in a number of luxury property developments in the Mission District including the development at 19th and Valencia that in February 2014 set record sale prices for the neighborhood with a 2 bedroom rental apartment going for $10,500 /month.

Facebook Event.

Endorsed by Housing Rights Committee of San Francisco, Anti-Eviction Mapping Project, Our Mission NO Eviction, San Francisco Senior and Disability Action, Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment (ACCE), San Francisco Tenants Union, POOR Magazine/Prensa POBRE, Mission SRO Collaborative, Bill Sorro Housing Program (BiSHoP), Tenants Together, Manilatown Heritage Foundation, Causa Justa Just Cause, Gray Panthers, New York City Anti- Eviction Network

Or next class will be discussing Michael Hudson’s The Bubble and Beyond ch.9 – ‘Junk Bonding Industry.’

We will also be taking a look at the Public Banking Workbook ch 1-3 to further understand Public Banking and what it can provide.

Here are the readings.

HudsonCh9

PublicBankWorkbookCh1-3

Emergency Picket Line needed TOMORROW Thursday April 3rd 6 AM Campell Hall UC Berkeley!

Tomorrow there will be a militant picket line in solidarity with UC Santa Cruz UAW that were attacked and arrested. Police used tasers while forcefully opening the west entrance to campus. http://www.ksbw.com/news/planned-2day-strike-is-underway-at-uc-santa-cruz-this-morning/25282900

Picket  at the Campbell hall construction site on UC Berkeley where union workers won’t cross @ 6:00 am sharp. We need about 30 to 50 people so please forward to as many people as possible!

 

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.

We are having an assembly to plan direction actions from April 22nd to May 1st to raise awareness about the intersections of labor, immigration and environmental issues. You can propose actions or events. Examples include film screenings, sit-ins, tree-sits, guerrilla gardening, pickets, marches, blockades, strikes, etc. After the proposals are voted on we will have a discussion about strategies to unite workers and environmentalists against the bosses.

Following this will be a screening of he file “Rocking the Foundations,” about the Builders Labourers Federation of Australia.

Facebook event and more info.

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. 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.

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.