Calendar
Workshop on police body camera implementation.
Council will hear presentations from the PRC and from the City Manager/police chief.
Agenda: http://records.cityofberkeley.info/Agenda/Meetings/ViewMeeting?id=234&doctype=1
Note that the police department proposal differs from the PRC proposal in these respects:
1. The police position is to let officers review camera footage before writing their incident reports, except for an officer-involved shooting or in-custody death investigation. The PRC made a broader exception for all use foo force incidents; this was in itself a compromise position. This issue is important to prevent officers from tailoring their report to the video. Our position even allowed officers to review the footage and file an amendment.
2. The PRC proposed some very moderate provisions for public release of footage, for example, to the media with permission of the police chief or designee, an in compliance with a public records act request. The police object to these provisions on logistical and bureaucratic grounds.
*** Additionally the staff proposes a very cautious one-year pilot program of only twenty cameras. Body cameras have been shown to save lives and keep particularly people of color out of the mass incarceration system. This proposal is much too conservative.
See the attachments in the link above for other less critical issues.
Council needs to hear from you to produce the best possible policy.
The Committee to Protect Oakland Renters (sponsor of, and collector of signatures for an effective rent control Initiative) is organizing a stepped up campaign to show councilmembers that broad components of Oakland civil society are concerned about the rental and displacement crisis that is pushing so many long time Oakland households out of the city.
We ask that you send a letter to Council Members Lynette McElhaney, Abel Guillen, Anne Campbell Washington, Dan Kalb, Mayor Libby Schaaf, in addition to your councilmember.
Email Addresses: lmcelhaney@oaklandnet.com, dkalb@oaklandnet.com, aguillen@oaklandnet.com, acampbell-washington@oaklandnet.com, officeofthemayor@oaklandnet.com,
Select Emails: ngallo@oaklandnet.com, dbrooks@oaklandnet.com, lreid@oaklandnet.com, rkaplan@oaklandnet.com,
In addition to sending the letter below in the name of your organization (or in your name as a member of your organization), please urge your members and colleagues to attend two very important events this week and next:
- Thursday, 7/14 “Major Media Event,” 12 Noon – 1:30pm, City Hall Plaza — Labor, Clergy, Councilmembers, Tenants, Landlord speakers !
- Tuesday, 7/19 , “Pre Council Rally”, 4pm to 5pm, City Hall Rally — Pizza, drinks, chants !!
Urgently requested
Oakland Tenants Union and the Protect Oakland Renters Coalition
_________________________________________________
Oakland City Council
1 Frank H. Ogawa Plaza
Oakland, CA 94612
To Oakland City Councilmember ___________:
(YOUR ORGANIZATION’S NAME) urges the City Council to approve placing Council Member Rebecca Kaplan’s “Renters Protection Act of 2016” on the November ballot. This is the only legislation that will establish strong and lasting tenant protections and will safeguard the diverse communities that make our city unique.
The current crisis of displacement in Oakland has deeply affected many families and communities, including many of our own members. Working families of Oakland whose incomes cannot keep pace with rising rents are most at risk, and now that the moratorium on high rent increases and unjust evictions has expired, the Council desperately needs to act as the massive displacement that caused thr demand for the Moratorium will surely resume, with the unfortunate result that more families will be forced from their homes and from the City.
The Committee to Protect Oakland Renters (CPOR) supports Councilmember Kaplan’s legislation. It is based on best practices established and functioning efficiently in other cities in California that have rent control ordinances. The policies that inform CM Kaplan’s “Renters Protection Act” have been drawn from what works well in these cities.
The “Renters Protection Act of 2016” will require landlords to petition for, and justify rent increases above the automatic pass-through that keeps owners at pace with the rate of inflation. Landlord petitions will take the burden of having to petition off tenants when their landlord raises rents illegally. This change will dramatically reduce the workload of the Rent Board. Last year, 726 tenants petitioned the Rent Board, while in Berkeley, which has a landlord petition system, only 28 landlords petitioned for an extra increase.
Presently, tenants who live in buildings constructed after 1980 have no protection against being arbitrarily evicted. For simple justice, the exemption date for the current Just Cause for Eviction law must be expanded past the present date of 1983. The current date of 1983 exempts far too many landlords and puts many good tenants at unnecessary risk. This, too, is a much-needed reform.
One of the reasons we are in this situation is the ineffectiveness of the Rent Board & Rent Adjustment Program (RAP). The City Council recently passed Councilmember Kaplan’s proposal to add alternate members to the Rent Board, which will enable the Board to hear more appeals and eliminate the backlog of unheard cases. The proposal also expands the powers and responsibilities of the Rent Board & Rent Program to be more efficient in carrying out its various responsibilities. Anyone who has had relations with the Rent Board and Rent Program staff knows it is severely under-sourced to serve a City in crisis.
(YOUR ORGANIZATION’S NAME) urges you to approve the Kaplan proposal for the November ballot, and to let the voters of Oakland decide whether the need is ungent to put lasting tenant protections in place at this November election. Only by establishing the needed changes by ballot, can residents can be assured that the protections will remain in place for years to come.
Thousands of activists and advocates have been fighting for these common sense solutions to our displacement crisis for years. They know that failing to act now will force more people out of Oakland and destroy the fabric of our communities.
Sincerely
___signer’s name______ ,
YOUR ORGANIZATION’S NAME
Subject: Ordinance Amending Chapter 8.22, Article I (Rent Adjustment)
From: Councilmembers Kalb, Gibson McElhaney and Guillen Recommendation: Adopt An Ordinance Amending Chapter 8.22, Article I (Rent Ajustment) Of The Oakland Municipal Code To:
- (1) Modify Exemptions For Owner-Occupied Duplexes And Triplexes And Sustantially Rehabilitated Properties;
- (2) Require That Owners File Petitions For Rent Increases In Excess Of The Annual Consumer Price Index Increase
- (3) Change The Amortization Period For Capital Improvements To That Of The Useful Life Of The Improvement;
- (4) Clarify That Certain Types Of Work Are Not Capital Improvements;
- (5) Amend Timelines For Filing Petitions;
- (6) Require Owners To Pay Interest On Security Deposits; And
- (7) Amending Chapter 8.22, Article Iv To Permit Tenants To Choose To Pay Their Portion Of The Program Fee Either In A Lump Sum Or In Six Monthly Installments
Subject: Renter Protection Act of 2016 (Rent and Eviction Ordinance Amendments Ballot Measure)
From: Councilmember Rebecca Kaplan
Recommendation: Adopt A Adopt A Resolution On The City Council’s Own Motion Submitting To The Voters At The November 8, 2016 Statewide General Election Proposed Amendments To The Rent Adjustment Ordinance (O.M.C. Chapter 8, Article I (8.22.100, Et Seq.)
- (1) To Require Owners Petition For Rent Increases In Excess Of An Annual Allowance; And Proposed Amendments To The Just Cause For Eviction Ordinance (Measure EE (2002), (O.M.C. Chapter 8, Article Ii (8.22.300, Et Seq.) To
- (2) Modify The New Construction Exemption To Apply To Units Constructed After January 1, 2002,
- (3) To Require Relocation Payments For Owner-Occupancy Evictions,
- (4) To Permit The City Council Limited Authority To Modify The Ordinances, And
- (5) Amending O.M.C. Chapter 8.22 (Rent And Evictions) To Increase Transparency, Including Regular Reports From The Rent Program To The City Council And
- (6) Removing The Requirement For Council Approval Of Regulations, And Directing The City Clerk…
.@DanKalb: "Council will Not be voting on the Police Comm measure tonight." #oakmtg pic.twitter.com/oKndpAyGM7
— MakeOaklandBetterNow (@MakeOakBetter) July 19, 2016
1. Attend the City Council meeting on July 19th and speak (or cede your
time. https://solar.oaklandnet.com/Speaker/form
2. Contact Council members (email, tweet, social media, phone) urging
them to accept the changes to the Kalb/Gallo measure offered by the
Coalition. Earlier, Kalb/Gallo had made changes some of which we agreed to
but some of which we disagreed with. We need to fight to have the original
language of our measure re-inserted so we want to ask the Council members to
vote “yes” on the 19th to accept the changes advocated by the Coalition (7
specific changes; see attached for specifics)
Dan Kalb <mailto:dkalb@oaklandnet.com> dkalb@oaklandnet.com 238 7001
Noel Gallo <mailto:ngallo@oaklandnet.com> ngallo@oaklandnet.com 238 7005
Desley Brooks <mailto:dbrooks@oaklandnet.com> dbrooks@oaklandnet.com 238 7006
Abel Guillen <mailto:aguillen@oaklandnet.com> aguillen@oaklandnet.com 238 7002
Lynette McElhaney <mailto:lmcelhaney@oaklandnet.com> lmcelhaney@oaklandnet.com 238 7003
Ann Campbell Washington <mailto:acampbellwashington@oaklandnet.com> acampbellwashington@oaklandnet.com 238 7004
Larry Reid <mailto:lreid@oaklandnet.com> lreid@oaklandnet.com 238 7007
Rebecca Kaplan <mailto:rkaplan@oaklandnet.com> rkaplan@oaklandnet.com 238 7008
Agenda Item
Subject: Police Commission Charter Amendment Measure
From: Councilmembers Noel Gallo And Dan Kalb
Recommendation: Adopt A Resolution On The City Council’s Own Motion Submitting To The Voters At The November 8, 2016 Statewide General Election
- 1) A Proposed Amendment To The City Charter To Create The Oakland Police Commission, The Community Police Review Agency, And A Process For Police Discipline And
- 2) A Proposed Enabling Ordinance Relating To The Oakland Police Commission And The Community Police Review Agency, And Directing The City Clerk To Take Any And All Actions Necessary Under Law To Prepare For And Conduct The Election
Come down to City Hall! Stop them from fighting Rent Control!https://t.co/YTivkvbJ6I
— Alameda Renters (@Alameda_Renters) July 19, 2016
Because the Democratic & Republican National Conventions are coming up later this month:
Medium Cool
Directed by Haskell Wexler (1969)
John Cassellis is a tough TV-news reporter who covers violence and racial tension in the ghetto. When he discovers that his network has been giving his tapes to the FBI to look for suspects, he protests and is fired. He goes to cover the 1968 Democratic National Convention as an independent journalist, but instead of being an objective observer, he finds himself becoming personally involved in the violence that erupts…
Medium Cool is a critically acclaimed and obscure film from the 60’s about the unhealthy interaction between a corporate media in search of spectacle and violence and a restless and angry populace. It was notable for Wexler’s use of cinéma vérité-style documentary filmmaking techniques, as well as for combining fictional and non-fictional content. In 2003, the film was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant”.
Doors open at 7pm, film at 7:30. Please note that this screening will be held in the basement! $5 donation appreciated, but no one turned away. Free popcorn!
~ Liberated Lens ~
Join the Oakland Privacy Working Group to organize against the surveillance state, against Urban Shield, and to advocate for privacy and surveillance regulation ordinances to be passed around the Bay Area, especially by the Alameda County Board of Supervisors, the BART Board of Directors, and by the Oakland City Council.- We are also engaged in the fight against Predictive Policing and other “pre-crime” and “thought-crime” abominations, drones, improper use of police body cameras, requirements for “backdoors” to your cellphone and against other invasions of privacy by our benighted City, County, State and Federal Governments.
OPWG originally came together to fight against the Domain Awareness Center (DAC), Oakland’s citywide networked mass surveillance hub. OPWG was instrumental in stopping the DAC from becoming a city-wide spying network; its members helped draft the Privacy Policy that puts further restrictions on the now Port-restricted DAC, and made Oakland’s Advisory Privacy Committee to the City Council happen. We were also the lead in having Alameda County pass the most comprehensive privacy and usage policy in the country for deployment of “Stingray” technology (cell phone interceptors).
We have presented our work at the recent RightsCon in San Francisco and at Left Forum in New York City in May.
Stop by and learn how you can help guard our right not to be spied on by the government & if you are interested in joining the Oakland Privacy Working Group email listserv, send an email to:
oaklandprivacyworkinggroup-subscribe AT lists.riseup.net
For more information on the DAC check out
Monthly APTP meeting, held on every 3rd Wednesday of the month.
Please join us for this important general meeting. We will be working specifically on the four demands we put forth following the OPD Rape Scandal:
1) Nancy O’Malley must publicly state she intends to launch a full investigation into the police officers who raped and trafficked a 17 year old child and press charges against all officers involved.
2) Divest 50% of the Oakland Police Department’s budget and redirect those funds to career centers, job training programs, mental health services, youth programming and services for sex workers.
3) The establishment of a CIVILIAN controlled police review commission
4) Libby Schaaf must to resign�
We will also be discussing next steps in the Teodora Valencia case, as well as First Responders needs and work.
See you in the streets~
The Anti Police-Terror Project is a project of the ONYX ORGANIZING COMMITTEE that in coalition with other organizations like The Alan Blueford Center For Justice, Idriss Stelley Foundation, Community Ready Corps and Workers World is working to develop a replicable and sustainable model to end police terrorism in this country.
We are led by the most impacted communities but are a multi-racial, mutil-generational coalition.
As part of the Movement for Black Lives call for #FreedomNow Actions across the United States, we support the people of Berkeley in calling their city officials to make a Special Meeting to 1) Oppose By-Right Development and 2) Support Police Accountability by forming a strong Police Review Board and vote to put those measures onto the November election ballot.
Brooks said activists plan to hold an 11 a.m. news conference in advance of a 3 p.m. march from Oakland police headquarters to Frank Ogawa Plaza as part of nationwide Black Lives Matter protests Thursday.
From The Movement for Black Lives:
Join Black Lives Matter Bay Area, Black Youth Project 100, and community members as we respond to the call from the Movement for Black Lives and demand #FreedomNow! We will be marching to many of the sites responsible for/benefiting from the war on Black people to lift up the names of lives lost to state sanctioned violence. We will also be converging with 2 other actions, one organized by youth & families, the other by the Anti Police Terror Project.
We Demand the immediate defunding of police departments & the immediate divestment from a system that criminalizes & imprisons our people at the local, state and federal level and a direct investment into the education, health and housing of our people. We demand investments that promotes the economic stability of our communities and increased community control over the institutions that are meant to serve us.
We need to divest from the institutions that decimate Black communities and invest in Black futures. #FreedomNow #blacklivesmatter #FundBlackFutures
The Sheriff wants to build a new $55 million jail expansion at Santa Rita for treating mentally ill inmate. It needs to be stopped in its tracks and the money redirected to mental health treatment outside of jail.
We’ve got some momentum to re-invigorate and have a lot to discuss with the decarceration plan. Here a tentative agenda for 7/28, feel free to add additional items by directly replying to me.
- Check in
- What’s happening, what’s coming up in the community
- LeeLoo Update
- Individual and org commitments
- Shared leadership structure and coalition admin.
- agenda setting
- meeting location
- facilitation
- meeting frequency
- listservs
- Decarceration Plan
July 22, 2016 would’ve been Mario Woods’ 27th birthday. Join us Tuesday 7/19 noon for our press conference on the steps of City Hall.
July 22 was declared Mario Woods Day officially by the city of San Francisco – at the urging of this Coalition. This first memorial weekend for Mario, we celebrate and honor Mario’s life.
July 22, 2016 is Our Son Our Brother Mario Woods Birth Day. San Francisco Board of Supervisors passed a resolution unanimously to make his birthday a Day of Remembrance. That we remember that he should have not been murdered on December 2, 2015 shot down execution style in Bayview Hunters Point.
Justice 4 Mario Woods Coalition remembers, the community remembers and let us come together collectively to remember Our Son Our Brother. Join us and Gwen Woods Mario’s Mother and his family to celebrate Mario’s life. Let us remember why we continue to fight for Justice for Mario. All are welcome and after the program there will be a prayer vigil at the site were he was murdered.
Power to the People
July 22 was declared Mario Woods Day officially by the city of San Francisco – at the urging of this Coalition. This first memorial weekend for Mario, we celebrate and honor Mario’s life.
Come hear four of the victorious Boston School Bus Drivers talk about their fighting strategies, as part of their west coast tour.
* ATU hall is directly across from Lake Merritt BART.
* Refreshments will be provided. Hall is wheelchair accessible.
After more than two years of hard-fought struggle, last year the militant, fighting rank and file of the Boston School Bus Drivers Union — United Steelworkers Local 8751 — won a historic victory against global giant Veolia/
Four fired union leaders, out of work since October 2013 on bogus charges of leading a wildcat strike, went back to work on Dec. 23, 2015. In addition to reinstatement of the four with full seniority rights and a substantial monetary payment, the local won a contract with economic justice and the protection of 40 years of the collective bargaining process.
Solidarity is key to the Boston school bus drivers success. “Team Solidarity” has been building power among the working class through a 40+ year commitment to racial justice, disability justice, LGBT*Q rights, local struggle and anti-colonial/
These drivers are truly an inspiration and have so much knowledge and experience to share with us about solidarity and building power among the working class to push corporate power back.
Veolia has been in the business of union busting for centuries. How did the Boston school bus drivers prevail?
A commitment to racial justice: USW 8751 is a rank and file union with roots in the antiracist struggles of the 1970s and the desegregation of Boston schools in 1974. Today the union is 98% people of color, mostly Haitian and Cape Verdean immigrants and African American, Latin@ and Asian. Members including President Andre Francois are active in the Black Lives Matter movement and the Haitian liberation party Fanmi Lavalas of Boston.
A commitment to anti-colonial, anti-imperialis
A commitment to LGBT*Q rights: The very first contract of USW 8751 in 1977 had domestic partner benefits before this was widely recognized. The contract extended medical insurance, life insurance and all other benefits to partners of drivers in a “marital-like relationship”. In 1974 some of the founders of the union housed Leslie Feinberg (author of the cult classic trans* coming of age novel Stone Butch Blues) — they ran in the streets together standing up to racists and learned about being in solidarity with LGBT*Q folx and LGBT*Q struggles. This past year USW 8751 invited national trans* justice organizers to write the language around trans* inclusion and LGBT*Q rights which now appears in the new contract.
A commitment to disability justice: The union since its formation has worked in alliance with disabled folks under the leadership of the Disabled People’s Liberation Front. The union has worked with disabled activists to serve the disabled student population in Boston and in the broader disability rights movement marching for full accessibility and to defend gains they’ve been a part of winning, incl. full-service on the MBTA, and other state programs. USW 8751 has been a part of the campaign against so-called “sheltered workshops”, which exploit the labor of disabled people.
A commitment to local struggle: USW 8751 consistently stands and puts bodies on the line with those who are struggling in the local community — with other workers, students, parents, teachers, indigenous communities, communities being gentrified, disabled folks, LGBT*Q, immigrants, all who are oppressed. Together Team Solidarity and the community have so many impressive wins. The union local was a key part of the Coalition to Save Grove Hall Post Office, supporting all four postal worker unions in a successful fight that saved the post office in the heart of Boston’s African-America
Join the movement to fight corporate power and imperialism!
July 22 was declared Mario Woods Day officially by the city of San Francisco – at the urging of this Coalition. This first memorial weekend for Mario, we celebrate and honor Mario’s life.
The next general meeting of the Oakland Justice Coalition. Join us to talk politics in Oakland, endorsements, campaigns, elections, ballot initiatives, canvassing, the Renters’ crisis in Oakland and next steps.
Come learn about the candidates we have or soon will be endorsing in races for school board and City Council. Come learn what you can do to join the fight for a fair and just Oakland for workers, renters, homeowners and the homeless, school parents and school kids.
Directions: go directly across 14th St. from City Hall at the crosswalk, continue in about 20 yards, it’s the building diagonally to your left.
Agenda:
- Overview, analysis, and discussion of nationwide police terror against black and brown communities
- by Tur-Ha Ak from Community Ready Corps (CRC) and the Anti Police-Terror Project (APTP)
- Status & next steps on issues & ballot measures
- Police Accountability – Rashidah Grinage
- Protect Oakland Renters – James Vann
- No Coal In Oakland – Michael Kaufman
- City Council and School Board candidate endorsement discussion & member vote (Candidates will speak briefly)
- Noni Session – District 3 City Council
- Ben Lang – District 3 School Board
- Discussion on how OJC can further support endorsed candidates with Dan Siegel
- 2016 Presidential Election – Report from the Bernie Sanders campaign
Experiences on the National Platform Committee – Carroll Fife
Experiences as a California Sanders Delegate – Shimeko Franklin:
We’re building a people’s movement driven by the power of organizations with different goals coming together as one to support each other and build collective strength. We have anchored our 2016 work in three demands, all captured in ballot initiatives proposed by community-led grassroots organizations.
- Strengthen rent control and other tenant protections to stabilize rent prices and stop displacement of Black, Brown and poor people from the community they helped to build; as proposed by the Oakland Tenants Union and Citywide Network
- Create a police commission with the authority to fire the police chief and conduct independent investigations of incidents of police violence; as proposed by the Coalition for Police Accountability
- Establish a $20 minimum wage by 2020 and fair scheduling regulations, and mandate enforcement for both; as proposed by the Oakland Livable Wage Assembly
We are on the ballot! Now what? Now we organize! Now we let the City Council candidates know what they have to do to earn our endorsement! Now we get mobilized and get people registered to vote! Come to 2027 Clement Ave, the Fireman’s Union Hall, and let’s get our sleeves rolled up!
Councilman Daysog says he will have no pity for us if we do not fight. Challenge accepted!
Join Jack Gescheidt, TreeSpirit’s founder, to see for yourself what a massive deforestation plan, under the guise of “habitat restoration” and “fire danger mitigation” looks like.
MEET AT “Signpost 29,” a mile marker on Claremont Ave. approx. 1.5 miles uphill/east of Claremont Ave. from the Claremont Hotel (1/2-mile below/west of Grizzly Peak Blvd.) Signpost 29 is on the south (downhill) side of Claremont Ave. Park in dirt pullouts on either side of Claremont Ave. Pre-registration not required, but parking is limited, so arrive early.
LEARN MORE about the 450,000-tree clearcut & herbicides plan for over 2,000 acres of Berkeley & Oakland hillsides on Million Trees.me
come and build the secret art
come for a little bit or a long bit we’ll be here makin’ art
