Please come out to support folks who got arrested in the streets on protesting the election. MONDAY and TUESDAY 9am Monday morning at Wiley Manuel Dept 112.

We need to make our voices heard!  It looks like we can no longer count on next spring’s scheduled vote by the Board of Directors of the Bay Area Air Quality Management District (BAAQMD) on our proposal to set strict limits on pollution from oil refineries—greenhouse gases, toxic gases (NOx and SOx), and dangerous particulate matter.  This proposed regulation would stop oil refineries from increasing the amount of pollution they emit, and it will be in trouble unless we turn things around.

Emission caps are crucial not only for protecting our health and safety and the planet, but for preventing the Bay Area from becoming a major outlet for tar sands crude oil.  Refining tar sands crude produces much higher levels of both health-harming air pollution and greenhouse gases.  With a cap on refinery emissions in place, a tsunami of tar sands into Bay Area refineries could be effectively prevented.

But without intensive public pressure, staff will continue its delay-divert-obstruct-and-kill mode.  What should be a public, transparent and democratic process is increasingly being carried out in secret sessions.  In these closed meetings, Air District staff continues to argue that the emissions caps are not legal.  And it has abandoned its original commitment to a community-based forum in Richmond, where frontline community members were to have weighed in on inclusion of an emissions cap in Rule 12-16.  (By contrast, the staff will hold six widely publicized community forums on its alternative Rule 11-18 for reducing health risks from pollutants.)  Instead of the promised forum on Rule 12-16, staff is offering two “scoping” meetings for comments on the technical scope of the Environmental Impact Report.

It is critical that we show up for the November 16 Board of Directors meeting.  We must demand that our elected representatives on the Board prevent further staff obstructions.

• Separate the emissions cap from the Rule 11-18 development and hold a separate and independent vote.
• Reject “secret sessions.”  We need an open, transparent and democratic process for developing and voting on the emissions cap rule.

We strongly encourage all public health professionals and all other concerned citizens to attend this hearing.  We misjudged the need for turnout at October’s Board meeting:  the Western States Petroleum Association (WSPA) turned out over 20 professional refinery staff, and we had only two speakers.  The Board pays close attention to public comments, and our strong presence at meetings keeps them on track.

KEY UPCOMING DATES:

• Dec 2, 5 p.m. – Deadline for comments on NOP and initial study (see Notice of Preparation)
• Dec 21, 9:45 a.m. – Final BAAQMD Board of Directors meeting for 2016.

For individuals and organizations desiring to make detailed comments on the rule-making process, please note the December 2nd deadline.

ONGOING CITY COUNCIL RESOLUTIONS SUPPORT WORK

To ensure that the Board doesn’t fall further behind—and votes YES on the proposal next May—we are mobilizing a grassroots campaign in the entire nine-county Bay Area to encourage city councils to pass resolutions supporting caps on refinery emissions.

Thus far the city councils of Belmont, Berkeley, El Cerrito, Emeryville, Oakland, Richmond, San Pablo, San Rafael and San Francisco have endorsed our call for rapid completion of rules for emission caps!  This is citizen democracy at its most basic: community residents stepping up to demand their elected representatives act to protect their health and safety.  It will take a majority of the 24-member Board of Directors of BAAQMD to vote and pass the regulation limiting refinery emissions.

Gathering support resolutions from city councils and other elected bodies in their districts is the best way to make sure that Air District Board members do their job and protect our communities.  Dozens of elected bodies remain to be contacted.  We need members of all communities to bring this resolution to their local elected bodies.  Join us at our bi-monthly meetings!   Contact: sunflowerjsj at gmail.com .

WHEN:

First and third Thursdays of every month, 11 a.m. – 12 p.m.

WHERE:

Bobby Bowens Progressive Center
2540 Macdonald Ave., Richmond

For more information about the Community-Worker Proposal, the draft resolution, and a support letter from United Steel Workers Local 5 (which represents 80% of Bay Area refinery workers), check out these documents:

Model BAAQMD resolution Aug 2016

Cover Letter

Full Community-Worker Proposal

USW Local 5 Support Letter

THE STORY BEHIND THIS CAMPAIGN

Four years.  Endless meetings.  Hundreds, if not thousands of public comments.  And finally last June, overcoming opposition by BAAQMD staff, the Board of Directors unanimously voted to set a date, May 2017, to vote on the Community-Worker proposal to cap refinery emissions at their current level.

But there was a catch. The caps proposal was paired with a staff proposal for a massive program to reduce emissions at all industrial facilities.  That’s a worthy goal, but the process could take up to ten years.  Unless refinery emissions are capped at their current level, air pollution could rise disastrously while that lengthy process goes on.

The staff proposal was another effort by the BAAQMD bureaucracy to delay and divert attention from our caps proposal.  The staff counter-proposed a plan to do a Health Risk Assessment (HRA) on all industrial sources of pollution.  This means doing a detailed analysis of the potential health impacts of various amounts of each chemical in the pollution emitted by every industrial facility in the Bay Area.

The positive aspect of the staff proposal is that it would set a stricter standard for protecting health.  A Health Risk Assessment (HRA) calculates how many deaths per million would be caused by exposure to different amounts of each chemical.  The current standard is that exposure should not cause more than 100 deaths per million people.  The new rules would bring this down, first to 25 deaths per million and then to 10 deaths per million—among the strictest levels in the nation.  Industrial facilities would be required to install “Best Available Retrofit Control Technology” to bring their emissions down to these levels.

However, the entire process—doing an extensive HRA, determining and agreeing on needed retrofits, installing them, demonstrating their efficacy, remediating retrofits that don’t achieve necessary goals—could easily take five to ten years or even longer.  Moreover, this process must be done on a case-by-case basis for thousands of individual industrial pollution sources.  Without a cap in place, refinery emissions will inevitably increase during these extended studies.

BAAQMD Staff continues to oppose the refinery emissions cap, supporting the fossil-fuel industry’s false claims that:

• The cap is not legal because BAAQMD must allow refineries to offset increased emissions with emission credits from anywhere in the nine-county air district.
• The cap is not legal because BAAQMD cannot single out refineries for emissions controls.
• The cap will result in gasoline shortages and higher gasoline prices.

The board set a specific schedule for the work on the two proposals:

• A Notice of preparation (NOP) of the Environmental Impact Report (EIR) and draft regulation would be released by August 19 and October 15, 2016 respectively, with public workshops and comments completed by December.

Release of the NOP for the EIR is already two three months late!

• Draft EIR, socioeconomic analysis, staff report and final regulatory language for both proposals would be released by March 3, 2017.
• Required public meetings and comment periods would be completed by April 19, 2017.
• Board of Directors would vote by May 17, 2017.

The Board has committed to monitor progress.   It agreed to separate the two rules, as we have been demanding all along, if combining the two regulations were to delay adoption of the emissions cap.

(Note: The significance of the August 19, 2016 date is that regardless of the final completion date, this sets the reference point used to calculate the current refinery emissions baseline.)

In addition to delaying tactics from its own staff, the Air District Board faces strong opposition from the Western States Petroleum Association and other oil industry groups.  Without intensive public pressure, the Board could give in to pressure from Big Oil for more delay, and reject this critical proposal when it comes up for a vote.

This is why a coalition of organizations—including the Sierra Club, Communities for a Better Environment, Sunflower Alliance, 350 Bay Area, Asian Pacific Environmental Network, Richmond Progressive Alliance, and others—have launched this major grassroots campaign to let the Bay Area Air Quality Management District know:   The people of the Bay Area demand caps on pollution from oil refineries!

SIGN THE PETITION

[Event] Meeting Video 5 Years After Fukushima & US Bases and War In And On Okinawa https://t.co/bAS0uDusTs

— Indybay (@Indybay) November 8, 2016

Noura will speak about “From Occupation to Warfare: How Israel Expanded its use of Force and Diminished Palestinian Resistance.”

With Special Guest Palestinian musician Yara Mubarak

Tickets: $10 low income, $15 general, $25 supporter, $50 freedom fighter, $100 change-maker!

NOURA ERAKAT is a human rights attorney, activist, and Assistant Professor at George Mason University. She is a Co-Founding Editor of Jadaliyya, an ezine on the Middle East and an Editorial Committee member of the Journal of Palestine Studies. While an undergraduate student at UC Berkeley, Noura helped launch the first university divestment campaign in 2001. Upon graduating from Berkeley Law School, she helped seed BDS campaigns throughout the country as the National Organizer with the US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation.

Noura has served as Legal Counsel to a Congressional Subcommittee in the House of Representatives as well as the Legal Advocacy Officer for the BADIL Resource Center for Refugee and Residency Rights. Most recently, she released a short multimedia documentary, Gaza In Context, that rehabilitates Israel’s wars on Gaza within a settler-colonial framework. She also produced the short video, Black Palestinian Solidarity. Currently Noura is writing a book tentatively titled, Law as Politics in the Palestinian-Israel Conflict.

Benefit for the Middle East Children’s Alliance, wheelchair accessible.

$10.00 – $100.00, sliding scale.

Come stand with the mothers of murdered children and family members from 12:00 – 2:00 every Friday

to pressure District Atty George Gascon to charge killer SFPD cops with murder
who executed Mario Woods, Jessica Nelson, Luis Gongora Pat, Alex Nieto, and all the rest.

Bring signs! STOP POLICE MURDER!
We have signs that say “Mario Woods is our Son”, and signs for each one murdered.
Please find the box of signs and “Say Their Names” for the Media.

James “Nate” Greer was killed by Hayward and BART Police on May 23, 2014. Please support us in love and solidarity for our fight for his justice at a rally and candle light vigil on Friday November 18, @ 5:00 pm. We will all meet outside the Lake Merritt Bart Station in Oakland.

We welcome other coalitions, families and activists to share their stories as well and memorialize the loss of their loved ones, who were killed by police. Feel free to bring posters, banners. We are all in this fight together

Same rules apply: This is a peaceful event

For more info on the wrongful death of James Nate Greer, please follow us at

https://www.facebook.com/groups/1760883287473600/

Free thanksgiving meals for the community this Sat. Spread the word for those who might need it! @LibbySchaaf @Abel_Guillen @Kaplan4Oakland pic.twitter.com/NMR9GenItT

— Oak Life Church (@oaklifechurch) November 15, 2016

There is just under a week left before the No New SF Jail Coalition’s upcoming town hall on our next steps towards a jail-free city.

On December 1st, the SF Board of Supervisors will review a series of proposals put forth by the city’s work group on alternatives to the jail at 850 Bryant. Though we successfully advanced recommendations of bail reform, supportive housing and services, we will need to keep up the pressure in order to move the city away from its reliance on jails.

While we have a lot of ideas to uplift, we also need to stay vigilant against efforts to re-entrench jailing and policing as solutions to unmet needs in our communities.

On Saturday, we’ll present the concrete steps behind our vision, which we’ve also published in tools like 8 Steps to a Jail-Free San Francisco and the San Francisco Community Health Initiative. This will be your chance to learn how you can get involved in the next steps of this city-wide fight.

We hope you can make it!

Lunch will be provided.

If you would like Spanish interpretation at the Town Hall, please email us at nosfjail@curbprisonpending.org and we will be sure to provide it.

See you there!

Fight Back Against Racism, Sexism, and Bigotry!

Donald Trump is the next President of the United States. His racist, sexist and bigoted program offers false solutions for a real crisis. He will continue the same policies of the establishment and elites that he claimed to be pushing back against.

The same Democratic Party elites that spent the majority of the campaign painting a Trump presidency as a catastrophic threat to the world are now demanding that we unite behind him. They aren’t going to stand in the way of the racist, sexist, bigoted forces let loose by Trump’s campaign. They aren’t going to stand in the way of the plans of a Trump presidency. Only a people’s movement can do that.

It is of the utmost urgency that all progressive people take to the streets in defense of immigrants, Muslims, women and all people of color. We take to the streets to advance an alternative vision. A vision of unity and solidarity in the struggle against the ravages of a system that has left half of the country in poverty and the 99% under the boot of an administration threatening to deny climate change, rights for immigrants, women and LGBTQ people, and all historically oppressed communities.

Join us in the streets to continue building a sustained mass movement fighting to take power to the people!

Initiated by the ANSWER Coalition

Join SURJ at Grand Lake Famers’ Market corner of Lakeshore and MacArthur Blvd. in Oakland, rain or shine, to call attention to injustice and demonstrate solidarity.

Throughout the East Bay and nationally, folks have been holding weekly gatherings on prominent street corners and freeway overpasses, holding signs and making visible our support for Black communities in these critical times. These gatherings – or “human billboards” – have been a simple yet effective way of channeling anger and sadness over injustice into collective action by demonstrating solidarity.

If you feel a drive to do something about the environment, immigrants’ rights, healthcare, Black Lives Matter, indigenous rights, reducing bullying, increasing a culture of peace and inclusion, or any other issues to make this community better, please come to this gathering and learn about the ways you can participate! Whether you are a long time activist or have never attended a rally in your life, your contributions matter!

Confirmed organizations (more to come!):

* Anti-Assault & Hate Crime Intervention Trainings
* Arab Resource and Organizing Center
* Asian Americans Advancing Justice- Asian Law Caucus
* Beyond Separation
* CAIR- Council on American-Islamic Relations
* Centro Legal de la Raza
* CFGF Consulting (restorative justice services for communities, families, government & faith-based agencies)
* CircleUp Education
* Community Democracy Project
* East Bay Asian Local Development Corporation
* Faith Alliance for a Moral Economy
* First Christian Church of Oakland
* Food First
* The Green Life at San Quentin
* Healthcare for All- California
* HeartMath Trainings
* Jewish Voice for Peace
* Mustard Seed Immigration Law
* Network for Spiritual Progressives
* Niroga Institute
* Nueva Esperanza
* Oakland Peace Ambassadors
* Oakland Peace Center
* Oakland Women’s Center (of Women’s Centers International)
* Peer Counseling Collective at the Berkeley Free Clinic
* The Rotary Club Boat House
* Soul Shoppe
* Sunflower Alliance
* SURJ (Showing Up for Racial Justice) Oakland/Bay Area
* United Roots
* Urban Peace Movement
* White Awake

Benefit show for the Land Action 4 legal defense fund. The courts are really dragging us through the wringer…. So far, our estimated out of pocket expense is about $10k and that is with all of our lawyers donating all of their time!!

So, what do we do? Throw a parrrrrty!!!!!

Come out for some slammingly stellar musical performances, drinks, friends and all the good stuff.

$8-$28 Suggested and highly appreciated donation
notaflof

The line up:

Leftover Crack
http://www.leftovercrack.rocks/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5aIf5_U5OG4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rhucBTHN4yU

Mystic Priestess
https://www.facebook.com/MysticPriestess777/?fref=ts
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wi9-iGpr834

Kicker
http://kickersucks.com/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2MPFQE5h-lE

Rapid Decline
https://rapiddecline1.bandcamp.com/releases

Aninako (formerly Eskapo)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ckpUBRFIU0s

You are invited to the next lecture featuring Civil Rights Lawyer, Mr. Fred Gray from Tuskegee, Alabama. Mr. Gray was the lawyer for Rosa Parks, and the Montgomery Improvement Association. He was also Dr. King’s personal lawyer. Mr. Gray continues practicing law today, and he has been integrally involved in the struggles to transform public schools, colleges, and universities into exemplars of educational democracy.

A benefit for NEED (Berkeley’s needle exchange) and the Radical Mental Health Collective.

• Space Toilet
• Skank Bank
• Film: OASIS… One Mission: Nobody Dies From Hep C” followed by Q&A with filmmaker
• I-MAN BANJO
• Invisible Cinema

Host: La Peña and the Free Land Project

‘
Thangs Taken: Rethinking Thanksgiving is an annual cultural arts event that brings Native and non-Native artists, activists and communities together to explore the complex history of Thanksgiving and to acknowledge the legacy of U.S. colonialism and genocide against Native Americans.
More Info
There’s also a program for kids & families, 10:00 – 11:00 am

More info