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Every member of the City Council says they want to stop the displacement of Black, Brown and poor people from Oakland. But there’s no better way to displace a population than to take away their access to work. Yet again, our elected leaders have failed to live up to their rhetoric or prioritize the interests of the people they represent.
The behind-closed-doors deals that are made by Oakland city officials must end. Pushing an RFP that cuts services to Oakland’s unemployed (primarily Black and Latino males) must be illuminated just as our allies have done with the mayor’s illegal protest curfew, the corrupt E. 12th St development process, and the domain awareness center.
Join us on Tuesday, February 9 at 1:30 pm at Oakland’s City Council Chambers to let the Council President and CED members know WE ARE PAYING ATTENTION AND WE DEMAND TRANSPARENCY. This illegal RFP designed to circumvent the mandated process must be stopped. Come make your voices heard.
Remember last week how we got thousands of people out in the streets to for our Tackle Homelessness Super Bowl Protest? And remember how we made #TackleHomelessness trend on twitter. And remember when nearly every major publication in America wrote about it and showed the world the fuckery perpetrated by Mayor Ed Lee?
Yeah, that was rad.
This Tuesday, February 9th, it’s time for the next step. I just received this from the Coalition on Homelessness:
#TackleHomelessness Superbowl Protest Next Step
Please come to speak during public comment at SF Board of Supervisors Feb 9 Tuesday at around 4:00.
The Mayor is scheduled to speak at 2:00, we are going to have a silent vigil that will be homeless people led/convened. We have about 30 shirts for folks to wear for silent vigil inside chambers. We are NOT planning on disrupting, just putting pressure on the Mayor with our very powerful presence.
We would appreciate support from the broader community to speak in public comment, which should take place no earlier then 4:00, but likely much later.
The Mayor will not be there for public comment, but it is OK to direct comments towards him.
We are demanding:
$5 million to go immediately to house homeless people
Moratorium on criminalization of homeless people
Sustained commitment from the city to end homelessness, which includes identifying progressive revenue source.
Stop (racist) displacement of 139 Fillmore Families
Action/Rally Wednesday, February 10th 4 – 5pm
Come stand with us to protect SF’s remaining (3%) Black population and to bring the Black Community back to our city.
#blackhomesmatter
#savemidtown
Critical San Francisco Police Commission meeting on tasers.
Please come and stop this escalation of force by SFPD.
Police Chief Greg Suhr will be formally recommending that the SFPD be given tasers at the next Police Commission meeting,
Please come and speak loudly and vociferously against the escalation in the use of force by the already unaccountable SFPD. SFPD should never be given lethal instruments of torture, such as tasers.
Chinatown Community & Workers Hold Lunar New Year Rally Against New Project by Lawbreaking Employer
Balaji Enterprises, owner/operator of the Holiday Inn Express Oakland Airport, violated the Oakland minimum wage ordinance, manipulated time-card records, and withheld evidence from City investigators, according to a new report from the City of Oakland.
Meanwhile, the City is poised to give Balaji Enterprises a permit to build a new Hampton Inn on a valuable downtown Oakland parcel – with no public process or community input. On Thursday, Chinatown high school students and hotel workers will hold a Lunar New Year rally at the site of the proposed hotel, calling on the City to deny the permit and ensure transparency and community involvement in planning for the site.
“The City of Oakland is on the verge of making a back-room deal with a hotel company that breaks the law and exploits workers – according to the City’s own report. We should have a voice in deciding what gets built in our community, so we can make sure this project benefits our families and our future.” said Joshua Fisher Lee, Executive Director of AYPAL, a Chinatown-based community organization comprised of students from Asian Pacific Islander immigrant and refugee families living in Oakland.
The City’s report details several violations of Oakland’s minimum wage ordinance affecting 37 workers. Investigators found that Balaji rounded off time-clock records to avoid paying workers for all hours worked; imposed unreasonable rules to prevent workers from using sick leave; reduced workers’ hours, blaming the passage of the minimum wage ordinance; and withheld a notebook tracking employee work hours from investigators.
Chinatown worker and community groups expressed dismay the report’s findings – and at the possibility of the same employer opening a new hotel in their neighborhood.
At Thursday’s rally, youth groups will adorn the fenced-off lot with Lunar New Year decorations and play interactive games to celebrate the Chinatown community and create a positive vision for a project on the site that would benefit youth and low-wage workers.
Participants will include youth leaders from AYPAL; Marriott and Marriott Courtyard Hotel workers and members of UNITE HERE Local 2850; and community allies from East Bay Alliance for a Sustainable Economy (EBASE), Asian Pacific Environmental Network, and Asians 4 Black Lives.
“I’ve watched classmates and even members of my family get pushed out of Oakland – because of rising rents and cost of living, my cousins who also grew up here had to move out of state. Youth in our community are dealing with a lot of problems, like gang violence. This land is empty – we have the chance to create something that would create safe spaces for youth to learn and have access to more opportunities, instead of a hotel that treats its workers poorly,†said Jason Le, a junior at Oakland High School and AYPAL youth leader.
BACKGROUND: For several months, the Oakland Planning Department has been considering approving Balaji Enterprises new Hampton Inn in downtown Oakland with no public hearing process. The decision on whether or not to approve the hotel is delegated solely to Planning Director Rachel Flynn, who came under criticism last fall for asserting that there is no affordable housing crisis in Oakland. Balaji already operates two local hotels, the Hampton Inn Alameda and Holiday Inn Express, where workers have reported low pay, no health benefits, shorting of workers’ pay, and humiliation from managers. The site of the new hotel is only blocks away from the Marriott Courtyard and Marriott Hotels, where union workers worry that the opening of a poverty-wage hotel nearby will make it difficult to maintain the standards and benefits they have fought to win and maintain over the years. Community activists believe the project will exacerbate the East Bay’s crises of inequality and displacement, and that workers at the new hotel will not be able to afford to live in Oakland. Last November, hundreds of hotel workers and community members marched from the lot of the proposed hotel into City Hall, where former workers of the Hampton Inn owners have testified to City Council about not being allowed lunch breaks, earning poverty wages with no benefits, and being fired for getting hurt on the job. The community protest of the proposed Hampton Inn comes on the heels of broad community opposition to the proposed development of market-rate housing at the nearby East 12th Street parcel.
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A film by Ron Blatman and KQED Public Television. We will also be honoring Sylvia McLaughlin who died recently at 99 years of age. She was always a most gracious friend of our BFUU and her daughter and granddaughter were treasured and active members for some years in the 90’s. So we are honoring her showing these two episodes which show how she was literally one of the miracle workers who in the 1960’s who saved this beautiful and magical bay that every human inhabitant (the Miwoks and Ohlone) of the Bay has depended on. From the earliest inhabitants 5,000 years ago through the Gold Rush, the Mexican period, the Gold Rush, the Earthquake and Fire of 1906, to Silicon Valley, we all have needed this bay which drains a third of California. Now the Bay is one of the world’s leading economic, academic, recreational and cultural regions. Narrated by Robert Redford, don’t miss two of the four episodes of “Saving the Bay” which highlights an unforgettable journey around the waters of the Bay.
Sponsored by the BFUU Social Justice Ctee as part of our Conscientious Projector series.
Free to the public.
Wheelchair accessible.
Ph:510-275-4272
For occasional email notices of peace/eco/social justice alerts and related events at BFUU, send any email to:
bfuusjev-subscribe [at] lists.riseup.net
Sponsored by the Coalition for Police Accountability.
We were asked by the Federal Monitor team to convene a community event in which folks who had had encounters with OP
D in the last two or three years would give testimony about their experiences. The Monitor are interested in hearing directly from those who had negative experiences. They want to know what happened — when, where – and whether or not a complaint was filed, and, if so, what was the outcome, so they can do follow up.
We promised to convene such a meeting. This is an opportunity we should not miss to counter the Schaaf cheerleading about how much progress OPD has made, despite the fact that there were 7 killings of African-American males in the last year! The City is anxious to get out from under Federal oversight and the Monitor wants an ‘on the ground’ assessment of whether OPD behaves differently than they did in the ‘Riders’ era, or whether things are basically still the same.
Please share this widely — especially with those who are likely to have been impacted directly, or even indirectly, as observers, and we hope youth will be encouraged to attend, along with their parents.
No City officials (including police) have been invited to attend — only the Federal Monitor team.
There will be no panel discussion — the whole evening will be devoted to hearing testimony from the community!!!
In conjunction with Strike Debt Bay Area
Mehrsa Baradaran talks about her new book
How the Other Half Banks:
Exclusion, Exploitation, and the Threat to Democracy
How the Other Half Banks is a history of banking for the masses in the United States, the story of how it has failed in the last thirty years – to be replaced by predatory payday lenders and their ilk – and the case for Postal Banking (find out about this!) as the way to once again provide banking services at reasonable rates for the tens of millions of unbanked and underbanked.
Mehrsa Baradaran is Associate Professor at the University of Georgia School of Law
See Mehrsa Baradaran on YouTube
Friday: At the Green Arcade Bookstore in SF.
Also in Oakland on Saturday at 6:00 PM a the Laurel Bookstore at Oscar Grant Plaza.
Event flyers:
strike debt – baradaran flyer color
strike debt – baradaran flyer color 4up
strike debt – baradaran flyer bw
strike debt – baradaran flyer bw 4up
SF Mime Troupe presents: “COINTELSHOW: A Patriot Act”, by L.M. Bogad on February 12 & 13 in SF
Follow Special Agent Christian White on a cheerfully creepy tour of declassified government surveillance documents. White probes the redacted (blacked-out) texts of the FBI’s notorious Counterintelligence Programs, searching for the words erased in the name of the Freedom of Information Act.
Learn fun techniques for the infiltration of activist groups, how to earn benefits and a pension as an agent provocateur, and how to, in the words of J. Edgar Hoover, “expose, disrupt, misdirect, discredit or otherwise neutralize” your neighbors! Read on!
Tickets: FREE but you must reserve a seat!
JOIN US FOR A SHIFT: LATE NIGHT MASS COPWATCHING
· February 12, 10 PM – 1 AM
· February 27, 8 PM – 11 PM
Since October 2015, Berkeley Copwatch has been holding “mass copwatch” events that invite folks to join us for a shift. It’s been fun and very empowering to have up to five cars full of copwatchers patrolling our city and on the scene when police stop people.
This month we have two shifts scheduled. Please join us; we will train you in the essentials of copwatching, how to document and how to stay safe!
Contact us at (510) 548-0425 or berkeleycopwatch@yahoo.com to learn where we will be meeting.
Food Not Bombs will be hosting a fundraiser for Oakland’s Omni Commons, and YOU’RE invited! This event will last pretty much ALL DAY– from 2pm until late in the evening (10 or 11pm).
Come prepared for:
*A DANCE PARTY! (or several)
*Readings and book signings!
*Open mic!
*A DELECTABLE vegan meal!
*Meeting the best friends you’ll EVER have!
…and MORE!!!!
FEATURING: (And this list has only just begun…)
Antioquia: https://antioquia.bandcamp.com/
Carol Denney: http://www.caroldenney.com/
Bicicletas por la Paz: www.bicicletasporlapaz.com/the-band/
Maracatu Pacifico: http://www.maracatupacifico.com/#!/bio
V.E.X.:
http://moirascar.blogspot.com/
http://thebaybridged.com/2015/06/10/get-to-know-moira-scar-and-v-e-x/
Interested in performing? Decorating? Cooking? Promoting? Reach out to Saryta at srod622@gmail.com and Arthur at arnoldmcpeebles@gmail.com.
Presale tickets coming soon!
PRESALE suggested donation: $10 to party, plus $10 to guarantee your seat at the FEAST! Nom nom nom nom nom.
DOOR suggested donation: $15 to party, $10 to eat, $25 for the Full On Experience.
ABOUT THE COMMONS:
The Omni Commons is comprised of several Bay Area collectives with a shared political vision—one that privileges a more equitable commoning of resources and meeting of human needs over private interests or corporate profit.
We invite you to join us in establishing a safe, productive place to pool resources for the collective use and stewardship of the greater community. A space that fosters an ethic of radical collaboration across disciplines and between individual collectives, creating a living model for future radical spaces. https://omnicommons.org/
CAN’T WAIT TO SEE YOU!
ANSWER Coalition Forum
The Mario Woods Case & the Struggle Against Police Terror
On Dec. 2, 2015, the life of 26-year-old Bayview resident Mario Woods tragically ended by police firing squad. The SFPD, led by notorious Chief Suhr, claimed Woods attacked the officers, but video exposed that lie. Since the shooting, the Justice 4 Mario Woods Coalition (J4MWC) has come together and shut down police commission meetings, disrupted Mayor Lee’s inauguration and “Super Bowl City.” As a result, the federal government has been forced to open an investigation of the racist corrupt SFPD.
Join us to learn more about the case, what’s next, and how you can join the growing struggle against racism and police brutality!
Featured Speakers:
• Phelicia Jones, union organizer & coordinator of J4MWC
• Eugene Puryear, Stop Police Terror Project—DC and Justice First
• Frank Lara, ANSWER Coalition
Sponsored by Strike Debt Bay Area…
Writer and lawyer Mehrsa Baradaran will be at Laurel Bookstore to read from her new book How the Other Half Banks and talk about credit inequality in modern American banking.
The United States has two separate banking systems today—one serving the well-to-do and another exploiting everyone else. How the Other Half Banks contributes to the growing conversation on American inequality by highlighting one of its prime causes: unequal credit. Mehrsa Baradaran examines how a significant portion of the population, deserted by banks, is forced to wander through a Wild West of payday lenders and check-cashing services to cover emergency expenses and pay for necessities—all thanks to deregulation that began in the 1970s and continues decades later.
Corporate megabanks with trillions of dollars in assets believe, with some evidence, that they can run the government and control how money works in the lives of people and the budgets of local governments. Baradaran explains how banks and governments have always been in complex relationships with each other; governments need banks to provide money services to people, and banks need governments for protection against economic fluctuations and to provide credit on favorable terms. But in the 21st century, American banks in particular have shed their social contract with the American people and the U.S. government, demanding to be treated as a private industry while enjoying all the benefits of a public service industry.
Baradaran proposes a solution: reenlisting the U.S. Post Office in its historic function of providing bank services. The post office played an important but largely forgotten role in the creation of American democracy, and it could be deployed again to level the field of financial opportunity.
Mehrsa Baradaran is Associate Professor at the University of Georgia School of Law.
Also Friday 2/12 At the Green Arcade Bookstore in SF.
Event flyers:
strike debt – baradaran flyer color
strike debt – baradaran flyer color 4up
strike debt – baradaran flyer bw
strike debt – baradaran flyer bw 4up
SF Mime Troupe presents: “COINTELSHOW: A Patriot Act”, by L.M. Bogad on February 12 & 13 in SF
Follow Special Agent Christian White on a cheerfully creepy tour of declassified government surveillance documents. White probes the redacted (blacked-out) texts of the FBI’s notorious Counterintelligence Programs, searching for the words erased in the name of the Freedom of Information Act.
Learn fun techniques for the infiltration of activist groups, how to earn benefits and a pension as an agent provocateur, and how to, in the words of J. Edgar Hoover, “expose, disrupt, misdirect, discredit or otherwise neutralize” your neighbors! Read on!
Tickets: FREE but you must reserve a seat!
Monthly interfaith prayer meeting, held on second Sundays, dedicated to survivors and victims of violence and police terror in Oakland.
The Baha’i community of Oakland is organizing this gathering for the community to connect, share prayers, writings and poems from all spiritual traditions, reflect and recharge and build coalitions interested in healing.
In April, it was two years since we started holding these prayer meetings at the Baha’i Center. Come share prayers, quotes, poems, and favorite passages from your scriptures with us. We will serve a simple breakfast.
The Oakland City Council has the power to block coal exports out of a new terminal under development at the former Army Base. But despite an avalanche of community opposition to the prospect of dirty coal trains traveling through Bay Area communities, the Council has pushed action again and again. We need to let Council members know that we’re watching and we won’t let them delay on this critical issue. Join us on February 16th and show your support for immediate action to block coal from being a part of the Army Base redevelopment project.
At 4:30, an interfaith group of clergy will hold a press conference on the steps of City Hall to voice their opposition to coal. This will be followed by a brief theatrical dance piece, “The History of Coal.” A half-hour prayer vigil will follow, before going in to the city council meeting.
The council meeting begins at 5:30. A group of clergy will speak during open forum, which is the first agenda item, voicing their opposition to coal. Later in the agenda we will have a chance to comment on the administrative update delaying a vote and on the allocation of funding for experts to review testimony regarding the dangers of coal.
The Oakland City Council has the power to halt a reckless proposal to bring in coal by rail and ship it overseas from its port. It can do that on the basis of the proposal’s significant health and safety impacts. At its Feb 16 meeting the council will discuss the issue and there may be a vote on options. We need to make sure the council votes for the option to ban coal outright.
Three Ways to Help Ensure the Council Bans Coal
These are not mutually exclusive. But you need to act now.
1. Help the No Coal in Oakland campaign campaign do outreach and build pressure on the Oakland City Council. To find out more about joining the Sunflower Alliance team, contact Margaret Rossoff, margaretmft@gmail.com
2. Sign up ASAP to be a speaker at the Feb. 16 city council meeting. You don’t need to speak but we ask you to cede time to No Coal in Oakland activists and supporters so they can speak. You do have to be present to cede time. Sign up here. For Item, enter “coal” You don’t need to say if you are for or against. You can also sign up for open forum instead or on a second card.
3. If you live in Oakland, write a letter to your city council member and to Rebecca Kaplan, the at-large council member (districts, names, contact information). Urge him or her to vote to ban coal outright. If you live in another Bay Area city, write Mayor Libby Schaff (contact information).
Background
For meeting updates, flyers, media coverage and more, please visit our No Coal in Oakland campaign page. And for more background on this hazardous proposal, see A Coaltastrophe Threatens Oakland.
The Alameda City Council will once again consider various proposals for tenant protection, including rent control, just cause eviction and moving-out compensation. Come support the Alameda Renters Coalition in its battle against the powers-that-be in Alameda.
Gather at 4:30, rally at 5!
Bring your cellphone or tablet tuned to www.protestsign.org and stand up for your privacy!
This is really dangerous. The FBI just got a judge to order Apple to build a software “backdoor” to help them hack into an iPhone. They’ve been wanting to do this for years, but now they’re exploiting the tragedy in San Bernardino, CA to push their agenda to weaken the security of all of our phones to enable more government surveillance.
Our basic safety and security is at stake! So we’re gathering at Apple stores nationwide with two simple messages: “Don’t Break Our Phones!” and “Secure Phones Save Lives!”
We’re not protesting Apple, they are fighting back against this too. We’re protesting the government’s dangerous attempt to undermine our security by demanding a backdoor.
See our main site for nationwide protests next week: https://
WHY THIS IS IMPORTANT:
Breaking the security features of our iPhones won’t just hurt our privacy, it puts all of our safety at risk. Once a backdoor is built, it won’t just be used by governments or law enforcement. It will enable malicious hackers, foreign governments, terrorists, thieves and stalkers to use our data against us.
What the FBI is doing is dangerous, but it’s also illegal. Apple has a right to offer customers secure devices that protect our most sensitive information. According to the ACLU, forcing Apple to hack their own customers is unconstitutional and will undermine our privacy and safety without improving national security.
So far, Apple is vowing to fight this unlawful and reckless demand by the government, but we need to show them that they’re not standing alone. Join us at one of these important events to stand up for everyone’s safety.