During the Winter the Occupy Oakland General Assembly meets every Sunday at 2 PM at Oscar Grant Plaza amphitheater at 14th Street & Broadway near the steps of City Hall. If it is raining (as in RAINING, not just misting) at 2:00 PM we meet in the basement of the Omni Collective, 4799 Shattuck Ave., Oakland.  On every last Sunday we meet a little earlier at 1 PM to have a community potluck to which all are welcome.

OO General Assembly has met on a continuous basis for over four years! Our General Assembly is a participatory gathering of Oakland community members and beyond, where everyone who shows up is treated equally . Our Assembly and the process we have collectively cultivated strives to reach agreement while building community.

At the GA committees, caucuses, and loosely associated groups whose representatives come voluntarily report on past and future actions, with discussion. We encourage everyone participating in the Occupy Oakland GA to be part of at least one associated group, but it is by no means a requirement. If you like, just come and hear all the organizing being done! Occupy Oakland encourages political activity that is decentralized and welcomes diverse voices and actions into the movement.

General Assembly Standard Agenda

1. Welcome & Introductions
2. Reports from Committees, Caucuses, & Independent Organizations
3. Announcements
4. (Optional) Discussion Topic

Occupy Oakland activities and contact info for some Bay Area Groups with past or present Occupy Oakland members.

Occupy Oakland Web Committee: (web@occupyoakland.org)
Strike Debt Bay Area : strikedebtbayarea.tumblr.com
Berkeley Post Office Defenders:http://berkeleypostofficedefenders.wordpress.com/
Alan Blueford Center 4 Justice:https://www.facebook.com/ABC4JUSTICE
Oakland Privacy Working Group:https://oaklandprivacy.wordpress.com
Prisoner Hunger Strike Solidarity: prisonerhungerstrikesolidarity.wordpress.com/
Bay Area AntiRepression: antirepression@occupyoakland.org
Biblioteca Popular: http://tinyurl.com/mdlzshy
Interfaith Tent: www.facebook.com/InterfaithTent
Port Truckers Solidarity: oaklandporttruckers.wordpress.com
Bay Area Intifada: bayareaintifada.wordpress.com
Transport Workers Solidarity: www.transportworkers.org
Fresh Juice Party (aka Chalkupy) freshjuiceparty.com/chalkupy-gallery
Sudo Room: https://sudoroom.org
Omni Collective: https://omnicommons.org/
First They Came for the Homeless: https://www.facebook.com/pages/First-they-came-for-the-homeless/253882908111999
Sunflower Alliance: http://www.sunflower-alliance.org/
Bay Area Public School: http://thepublicschool.org/bay-area

San Francisco based groups:
Occupy Bay Area United: www.obau.org
Occupy Forum: (see OBAU above)
San Francisco Projection Department: http://tinyurl.com/kpvb3rv

Issue #121 is due out on April 22, 2016
(Article Deadline for Issue #121 is April 9, 2016)

*Brainstorm articles for next issue
* Orientation on how you can submit articles, art, photographs
* Help us discuss our audience and themes for the next issue
* Discuss fundraising and distribution
* Your chance to comment on Slingshot

Lead poisoning is irreversible. Pediatricians such as Dr. Mona Hanna-Attisha (who discovered the Flint water crisis) fear the Flint children who tested with elevated levels will suffer lifelong consequences. “If you were to put something in a population to keep them down for generation and generations to come, it would be lead,” Hanna-Attisha said. “It’s a well-known, potent neurotoxin. There’s tons of evidence on what lead does to a child, and it is one of the most damning things that you can do to a population. It drops your IQ, it affects your behavior, it’s been linked to criminality, it has multigenerational impacts. There is no safe level of lead in a child.”

The Flint water crisis is a drinking water contamination crisis began in April 2014. After Flint changed its water source from treated Detroit Water and Sewerage Department water to the Flint River, its drinking water had a series of problems that culminated with lead contamination with extremely elevated levels of the heavy metal. In Flint, between 6,000 and 12,000 children have been exposed. Nine lawsuits have been filed against government officials on the issue, and several investigations have been opened. The city was declared to be in a state of emergency by the Governor of Michigan, Rick Snyder, before Obama declared it as a federal state of emergency. Four government officials: one from the City of Flint, two from the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality, and one from the Environmental Protection Agency resigned over the mishandling of the crisis, and one addditional MDEQ staff member was fired and another has a termination hearing pending. Governor Snyder issued an apology to citizens and promised to fix the problem.

While the local outcry about Flint water quality was growing in early 2015, Flint water officials filed papers with state regulators purporting to show that “tests at Flint’s water treatment plant had detected no lead and testing in homes had registered lead at acceptable levels.”The documents falsely claimed that the city had tested tap water from homes with lead service lines, and therefore the highest lead-poisoning risks; in reality; the city does not know the locations of lead service lines, which city officials acknowledged in November 2015 after the Flint Journal/MLive published an article revealing the practice after obtaining documents through the Michigan Freedom of Information Act.

In 2003, Bayview Hunters Point residents and community environmental justice organizations filed complaints with the US Department of Energy, charging the California Independent System Operator and PG&E with violating Title VI of the United States Civil Rights Act of 1964. By applying standards that subject Bayview Hunters Point residents, the majority of who are low-income people of color, to unnecessary levels of fossil fuels, PG&E and California Independent Systems Operator are violating civil rights, the residents and organizations said.

Two years later, residents continued to suffer a medical chart’s worth health problems through being exposed to pollution from two of the state’s oldest power plants. This is in addition to the constant bombardment they’ve received of fumes and gases from sewage treatment, cement factories, a radioactive shipyard, and two highways. According to a 2003 study by the nonprofit Greenaction, residents in Southeast San Francisco are hospitalized for cognitive heart failure, hypertension, diabetes, emphysema, and asthma at three times the statewide average. “The city of San Francisco has never made a commitment to the people of Bayview Hunters Point or to their health,” said Dr. Raymond Tompkins, administrative lecturer at San Francisco City College.

The rate of breast cancer in African American women under the age of 50 is twice as high there as in the rest of the state, he said. “The same chemicals that cause breast cancer cause testicular cancer,” he cautioned, adding that the health department has not even been searching for the latter disease when collecting its statistics on Bayview Hunters Point residents. He also pointed out that while the life expectancy for a white male living in San Francisco is 78 years, for an African American male in Bayview Hunters Point, it is 58 years. “We’re talking about life and death here.”

Please join us at OccupyForum Monday night to hear from Steve Zeltzer and Dr. Ray Tomkins about environmental genocide in communities of color; to call out the perpetrators, and to take a stand with communities against the corrupt agencies and systemic racism in the United States that allows, and perhaps encourages this to happen.

Meetings held Mondays at 7:00 PM
Excepting Monday March 7, when we will meet at 8:15 PM. Come one, come all!

VOLUNTEER NOW!!!
If you would like to go out on Copwatch shifts, work in our office, create art, become a Know Your Rights Trainer or help us out in other ways, WE NEED YOU! Send us an e-mail, subscribe to our email list, call our office or just come to our weekly meetings on Mondays, 2022 Blake Street, Berkeley or our weekly office hours on Wednesdays from 6:00pm – 8:00pm.

Meet at 14th and Broadway and take the streets in solidarity with the three anti-racists who were stabbed in Anaheim when confronting a KKK rally on February 27th.

The klansman that stabbed the three comrades is reportedly from San Francisco. He was later let go while counter protesters are still held in jail. This is unacceptable! Let’s take a stand against the KKK and white supremacy in the Bay and everywhere!

This is happening at the same time as riots and demonstrations in the streets of Salt Lake City, Utah and Raleigh, North Carolina in the wake of yet more police shootings of black youth.

This is not a coincidence. The cops and the klan go hand in hand. The whole damn system is guilty.

#blacklivesmatter
Solidarity with those who fight back!

2016 International Working Women’s Day: Fight the Right, Deportations are Violence against Women!

This March 8th, join working women across the world to celebrate the resistance of immigrant women and stand up against right-wing attacks against immigrant families!

2 PM: Art and cultural Celebration [Lake Merritt Amphitheater, Lake Merritt Blvd & 12th St.]
March to the Federal Building [1301 Clay Street, Oakland] Vans provided to drive those with mobility needs
Rally: Immigrant Women speak out against Deportations and to stop the right wing attacks to immigrant women’s rights and survival!

Sponsored by ACUDIR, the World March of Women Bay Area Chapter, and GABRIELA USA.

The second of three community “listening sessions” to be conducted by the Justice Department’s Office of Community Oriented Policing Services, known by its acronym COPS, which was called in by police Chief Greg Suhr and Mayor Ed Lee following the fatal shooting of Mario Woods on Dec. 2.

Background article.

Our first film this year will be Salt of the Earth (1954), which was produced, directed and written by victims of U.S. Congressional blacklisting, (aka redlisting). Originally banned in the U.S., it was directed by Herbert Biberman, one of the Hollywood Ten. The cast is almost entirely workers who participated in the real-life strike that the film is based upon.
In a gritty mining town in New Mexico, Mexican-American workers go on strike to protest their dangerous working conditions and low wages. They meet with fierce opposition from company thugs and local deputies. After vicious beatings the wives and mothers of the striking workers take over the picket line in a final demand for justice.

Sponsored by the BFUU Social Justice Ctee
Wheelchair accessible.

Join us for an amazing panel discussion with four women activists with Black Lives Matter and associated organizations. Plus a documentary screening of “We Have Nothing to Lose But Our Chains!”

The future is up to us.

Join with activists, community, labor, students and faith-based groups to begin to formulate a vision, priorities and a plan of action for A BERKELEY FOR WORKING FAMILIES.

Berkeley can lead the way on expanding affordable housing, strengthening rent control, and creating livable wages, a healthy environment and expanded city services.

Sponsored by the Berkeley Minimum Wage Coalition.

Join us to fight for a livable wage for all Bay Area workers! We collaborate in principled reflection and action on what the Bay Area livable wage would be and where we are at on the right to a livable wage.

The Oakland Livable Wage Assembly builds Community and Power among those who seek higher wages and better work life conditions for area workers.

Our work together encompasses:

(1) The concerns of precarious, care and contingent workers,
(2) Campaigns to improve wages for low wage workers, and
(3) Efforts by unionized workers and unions to improve wages and quality of work life.

We share stories and information in an egalitarian and participatory way to build relationships and build the movement.

Oakland Livable Wage Assembly meets every 2nd and 4th Tuesday of the month, 6:30-8:00 pm at the SEIU Local 1000 Union Hall, 436 14th Street #200, Oakland, CA

Please love and support one another ~ We have a duty to fight ~ We have a duty to win!

olwa.org

https://www.facebook.com/groups/1568668586707336/

 

Department 110 on the 5th Floor.

This is the last day of court for the incident with the CHP from last September.

“Good, stable jobs protecting the climate can help challenge the growing inequality and injustice of our society, but only if policy is designed to do so.”

Join us for a conversation with Jeremy Brecher, cofounder of the Labor Network for Sustainability and author, most recently, of the just-published Climate Insurgency: A Strategy for Survival. He has received five regional Emmy Awards for his documentary film work and holds a PhD from the Union Graduate School.

“Good, stable jobs protecting the climate can help challenge the growing inequality and injustice of our society, but only if policy is designed to do so. Climate policy needs to include strong racial, gender, age, and locational hiring requirements to counter our current employment inequality and provide a jobs pipeline for those individuals and groups who have been denied equal access to good jobs. It needs to help remedy the concentration of pollution in low-income communities, the lack of transportation, education, health, and other facilities in poor neighborhoods, and other manifestations of discrimination.”
—  Jeremy Brecher, Making the Promises Real: Labor and the Paris Climate Agreement

This event is free and open to the public.

We encourage all Oakland residents to attend the weekly No Coal in Oakland meeting.

Up until its February 16th meeting, the position of a majority of Oakland City Council members on permitting coal shipment from the city’s port may have been in doubt. Even now the proposal remains on the table. But at that meeting, council members took concrete steps toward banning coal exports once and for all. Thanks to the efforts of Mayor Libby Schaff, local clergy, State Senator Loni Hancock, and community activists, the Council has signaled its intention to enact an outright ban on coal exports. In fact, it passed a moratorium on the issuance of any permits for the terminal until the question has been resolved. Read details on the latest developmemts here.

(And for more background, see A Coaltastrophe Threatens Oakland on this website.)

The US DoJ wants to hear your perspectives, concerns and suggestions concerning the San Francisco Police Department.

 Pizza is being served for free provided by SEIU (Union).

San Francisco residents don’t miss our next community mtgs 3/8 & 3/10! We want to hear from you regarding the #SFPD. pic.twitter.com/A5dUpv4MD9

— COPS Office (@COPSOffice) March 2, 2016

THEY RELEASED THE CORONER’S REPORT.  PRESS CONFERENCE ON TUESDAY.

Previous event notice:

—–

Richard Perkins’ family needs our support!

Richard Perkins’ family has asked for APTP’s help in obtaining the coroner’s report of his death. Perkins was killed by the Oakland Police Department on November 15, 2015, and the report still hasn’t been released – 3 and a half months later.

The Alameda County Sherriff’s office refused our demand letter on March 1st, 2016 asking the Sheriff’s office/Coroner to release the report to Perkins’ family or attorney.

Law enforcement are notorious for delaying the release of coroner’s reports as well as video surveillance in order to have as much time as possible to get their stories straight. We have no confidence in the Oakland Police Department nor the Alameda County Sheriff’s office and DEMAND the RELEASE of the CORONER’S REPORT now.

We will meet at the Coroner’s office out near the zoo @ 2901 Peralta Oaks Court. It is difficult to get there by public trans. Car pooling is encouraged.

In December, we celebrated an enormous victory when the San Francisco Board of Supervisors unanimously rejected plans for a new jail.

But last week, on the deadline for officially returning state financing for the jail, we were shocked to learn that San Francisco city officials had covertly requested a 180-day extension for their decision, arguing that they may still build the new jail “as proposed”.

The jail pushers — the City’s conservative governmental block and their wealthy base — are doing everything they can to cirvumvent the will of San Francisco, and to build a jail that we have demonstrated that we do not want or need.

Members of the No New SF Jail Coalition are participating in the City’s Workgroup to Re-envision the Jail Replacement Project — and we will not be deceived by sneaky backroom attempts to push forward on cage construction! We will not contribute to plans to build any sort of jailing facility, but will develop plans for the City to permanently close 850 Bryant and to meet the needs of communities most impacted by incarceration.

The first open meeting of this workgroup is on March 11 from 2:00-5:00pm at 25 Van Ness, Room 610.

We need a strong community presence at these monthly meetings (through October), to hold SF accountable and ensure the focus is jail closure, not rebuild.

We know it is possible to say no to funding for jail construction, expansion, and renovation. More importantly, San Francisco has shown that it is possible to say yes to community investments, such as supportive housing, community-based mental health care, and treatment on-demand. These services and programs will ultimately keep more San Francisco residents out of jails and prisons and in our communities where we can heal and transform our lives.

March 11, 2016 is the fifth anniversary of the Fukushima nuclear catastrophe that is still reverberating in Japan and around the world. The nuclear plants are still releasing thousands of tons of radioactive water and over 1000 tanks filled with contaminated radioactive water surround the broken nuclear plants.

The children and families continue to have a rising level of thyroid cancers and this uptick is taking place in other places in Japan. Despite these dangers the Japanese Abe government has said that the problem has been solved. They are demanding the the families and children return to Fukushima or lose subsidies for housing. The government is also claiming that they have “decontaminated” Fukushima and told the Olympic Committee that the problem had been solved.

The government has also raised the limits of allowable radiation to those of nuclear research facilities in Japan. The Japanese government has also passed secrecy laws threatening the journalists and investigators getting information out about the disaster and also seeks to militarize Japan by eliminating Article 9 of the constitution that limits wars and intervention. The government is seeking for the full militarization Japan including nuclear weapons despite mass opposition among the majority of the population. Hundreds of thousands of citizens have gone to the streets to demand an end to the restarting of Japan’s remaining more than 40 nuclear plants.

On March 11, 2016 people throughout the world including in San Francisco will be speaking out and calling for an end to the restarting of it’s nuclear plants, for the evacuation of the children and families in Fukushima and for the government to take responsibility for subsidizing housing outside the area.

We call for an end to the censorship laws and also against the elimination of Article 9 which will lead to further militarization and war.

We call for the closure of all nuclear plants around the world including Diablo Canyon in California which is also running on an earthquake fault like many nuclear plants in Japan.

Please Join Us and Speak Out

Initiated by No Nukes Action Committee

Endorsed by

Tri Valley CAREs (Communities Against a Radioactive Environment), Livermore, Codepink Golden Gate Chapter, Occupy SF Action Council, Fukushima Response, Veterans for Piece- Chater #69,SF, Veterans for Peace East Bay Chapter #162, Asian Americans for Peace and Justice, EON (Ecological Options Network), BARK ( Barkers Agitating for Reactor Closure), PG&E Ratepayer Revolt, Mt.Diablo Peace and Justice Center, Walnut Creek, Sloths Against Nuclear State(反核ナマケモノの会), New York, Solar Justice, San Louis Obispo Mothers for peace, United Public Workers For Actionhttp://www.upwa.info, and more groups and much more individuals.

http://nonukesaction.wordpress.com/

Additional links:

http://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20160216/p2a/00m/0na/010000c
http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/02/24/the-great-fukushima-cover-up/
https://jfissures.wordpress.com/2016/02/04/on-fukushima-prefecture-and-hiroshi-kainuma/
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/five-years-after-nuclear-meltdown-no-one-knows-what-to-do-with-fukushima/2016/02/10/a9682194-c9dc-11e5-b9ab-26591104bb19_story.html?hpid=hp_hp-cards_hp-card-world%3Ahomepage%2Fcard
http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/34565-radioactive-water-from-fukushima-is-leaking-into-the-pacific