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Are you experiencing financial hardship or homelessness?

Get a free haircut, hot coffee, hygiene kits and more.

Brookfield Branch Library is hosting a care village on July 24 for anyone experiencing homelessness and financial hardship.

SB 54, the California Values Act (signed into law in 2017) curtails use of state and local resources from engaging in deportations; and creates safe spaces at schools, health facilities, and court houses. A related law, the TRUTH Act (signed into law in 2016), requires that records related to ICE be considered public and that the governing body of any city or county in which a local law enforcement agency has provided ICE access hold at least one public community forum during the following year, to provide information publicly and to receive comments.

Through the advocacy efforts of the Contra Costa Immigrant Rights Alliance and others, the Board of Supervisors finally scheduled a TRUTH forum to ensure that our community can obtain information and ask questions about how our county works with ICE. The Forum will be on Tuesday July 24 at 2pm at the Board of Supervisors Chambers at 651 Pine Street, Room 107, Martinez. This will be the first TRUTH Forum in the state, and Sheriff David Livingston will be at the forum to answer questions from the Board of Supervisors and the community. Media reports indicate that Livingston has helped ICE organize ambushes of immigrants to help ICE arrest and deport immigrants – even permanent residents.

Given the many abuses that have been exposed under Sheriff Livingston’s watch, including ICE-related ones, the RPA and the Contra Costa Racial Justice Coalition urge people to come out to this important Forum!

Join community members and immigrants’ rights advocates at the first ever TRUTH Act forum in California to demand transparency and accountability! If we uphold our values, we’ll move Contra Costa County forward together.

Under the TRUTH Act, any jurisdiction that has allowed ICE access in the past year is required to hold a community forum bringing transparency to local jail entanglement with immigration enforcement.

Through our advocacy efforts, the Board of Supervisors finally scheduled the forum to ensure that our community could obtain information and ask questions about how our county works with ICE. Sheriff David Livingston will be at the forum to answer questions from the Board of Supervisors and the community.

Contra Costa Immigrant Rights Alliance

Nonprofit Organization

**Join us for a show of support during public forum at 3. We’re the last agenda item, #16, so we probably won’t be heard till after 8:30. We’ll post live updates, so come when you can and ceed your time to the coalition or other tenants if you can’t stay!

Oakland voters have a chance to amend the Just Cause ordinance to make sure ALL units in Oakland built before 1995 are covered by Just Cause eviction protections. We just have to make sure City Council votes Tuesday to put the amendment on the Nov ballot.

Currently, if tenants live in a duplex or triplex and their landlord resides on the property or claims to be moving in, they can be evicted for NO REASON. This loophole allows landlords and speculators to evict rent-controlled tenants, including seniors and disabled longtime residents who would otherwise have extra protections, avoid paying relocation payments and raise rents to market rate.

Community members and the Close the Loopholes Coalition have pushed this amendment through two committee meetings and have one final vote to get it before voters. At each step of the way, we’ve fought off attempts by landlords to squash this protection. Now, Council Member McElhaney is trying to add exceptions to the amendment by creating loopholes within loopholes and even expanding some exemptions to fourplexes!

We need your help making sure this amendment is put before voters in Nov and that it is not water down. Oakland is in a housing crisis and we cannot wait. In 2016, 75% of voters Oakland voted to extend Just Cause to 12k units. Let’s win protections for another 8k units, most of which are in predominantly Black and Latinx neighborhoods.

*The City Council meeting starts at 3, but the agenda item number has not been set for this amendment. It’s likely that this will be a long meeting, so please check back for a better estimate of when to arrive for public comment.

We are also asking community to EMAIL City Council to ask them to PASS this legislation without any AMENDMENTS. You can also email Supervisor Gallo to thank him. Here is the script:

Mayor Schaff lschaaf@oaklandnet.com

D1 Councilmember Dan Kalb dkalb@oaklandnet.com

D2 Councilmember Guillen aguillen@oaklandnet.com

D3 Councilmember McElhaney lmcelhaney@oaklandnet.com

D4 CM Campbell Washington acampbellwashington@oaklandnet.com

D5 Noel Gallo ngallo@oaklandnet.com

D6 Desley Brooks dbrooks@oaklandnet.com

D7 Larry Reid lreid@oaklandnet.com

At Large Kaplan rkaplan@oaklandenet.com

EMAIL SCRIPT:

SUBJECT: SUPPORT JUST CAUSE AMENDMENT BALLOT MEASURE

Councilmember _____________,

My name is _____ and I’m a tenant in Oakland (City Council District ________). [If you live in a duplex/triplex: I live in a duplex and triplex and feel vulnerable to an eviction if the owner decides to move onto the property]. I am writing to you to ask that you recognize that all tenants [including myself] deserve to be protected under the Oakland Just Cause for Eviction Ordinance and to ask you to take action to close the duplex/triplex loophole before going on summer recess.

There are over 8,000 duplex/triplexes in Oakland, not including un-permitted units. This exemption leaves multiple families, including the elderly and disabled individuals at the risk of eviction with no protections or even relocation payments. I ask that you vote to support the Just Cause Amendment Ballot Measure that will ensure all tenants in Oakland are afforded the same protections.

I look forward to hearing that you will be in support of this ballot measure.

Are you in California? Are you passionate and concerned about the issues happening in and to your community, as they relate to climate justice? There’s an opportunity for you to be a part of planning the largest mobilization on the the West coast for climate, jobs and justice! Everyone is invited to ensure that everyone is represented as we build a bold, visionary action that will channel power to the people through the Rise for Climate Jobs & Justice March.

All are welcome to participate and organize!
RSVP HERE: https://ca.riseforclimate.org/mass-meeting/

On Saturday, September 8th, the largest mobilization for climate, jobs, and justice on the West Coast will grace the streets of San Francisco. This action will not be your ordinary march – we will shift power to demand real climate leadership that protects vulnerable communities, workers, and future generations; keep fossil fuels in the ground; develop a just, equitable, resilient 100% renewable energy economy that rapidly expands economic opportunity; and create family sustaining jobs for a thriving society that does not sacrifice any community around the world.

The whole world is coming to San Francisco for the Global Climate Summit from Sep 12-14. Because of this, it is important that we show up not only for our state, but in solidarity with all those impacted by the climate crisis internationally.

We know that the environmental, economic, and social issues we see day-to-day are very interconnected. On July 24, we are inviting you, your organizations, your friends, and your family to rise up with the world on September 8th to demand real solutions.

This is the third community grassroots organizing meeting. We will be updating everyone on the working groups progress and then breaking down into those groups giving opportunity to plug in and network for those who are just joining us as well! This is a wonderful way for you to bring your gifts and talents you were born with to create this beautiful movement! The working groups as they were at the last meeting are as follows!

Logistics
Art
Labor
Youth
Elders
Faith
Digital/Comm
Health
Statement Engagement
Language Liberation
Power, Race and Gender
Frontline/Indigenous Mapping Project
Women
Outreach/Street Team

Join communities of all identities, spanning interracial, indigenous, faith, labor, environmental groups, youth and elders, and many more as we look forward to creating a world of equity, justice, and a sustainable and safe future for the next seven generations to come. It’s up to us, working along with APEN, California Allegory Youth Fellowship, CEJA, Idle No More SF Bay, Jobs With Justice, North Bay Organizing Project, PODER, SEIU 1021, 350.org and over 50 other organizations at a mass meeting on July 24th.

The story of a better future is unfolding as we make it possible and it’s incredible that we all get to participate in this rising! Are you part of the story?

BERKELEY GRAY PANTHERS REPORT BACK FROM THE NATIONAL ALLIANCE OF HUD TENANTS CONFERENCE IN WASHINGTON DC.

What is NAHT? NAHT is the only National organization run by HUD Tenants who are mandated to lobby for the housing rights of low income, senior, and disabled people and promote housing as a “right” of all people. Gray Panthers is a member of NAHT and a sponsor of their work in the Bay Area.

Presenters will report back from the conference and report on the work being done to overturn the abusive work being done by the Trump administration to derail the advances of housing availability gained so far.

Eleanor Walden: Co-chair Berkeley Gray Panthers. Board representative to NAHT.

Stefen: Former Co-chair of Redwood Gardens. Original Director of Strawberry Creek Tenants Assoc.

Frederick Martin: VISTA Worker at Housing Rights Committee SF.

Renee Cyprian: Elected to Board of NAHT from SF.

Discussion is welcome. Coffee and tea and noshes will be available!

All are welcome – Wheelchair Accessible – No one turned away.
graypanthersberk [at] aol.org

Join Oakland Privacy to organize against the surveillance state, police militarization and ICE, and to advocate for surveillance regulation around the Bay.

We fight against “pre-crime” and “thought-crime,” spy drones, facial recognition, police body cameras and requirements for “backdoors” to cellphones, to list just a few invasions of our privacy by all levels of Government.

We draft and push for privacy legislation for City Councils, at the County level, and in Sacramento. We advocate in op-eds and in the streets. We stand in solidarity with Black Lives Matter and believe no one is illegal.

Oakland Privacy originally came together in 2013 to fight against the Domain Awareness Center, Oakland’s citywide networked mass surveillance hub. OP was instrumental in stopping the DAC from becoming a city-wide spying network.

Our major projects currently include local legislation to regulate state surveillance (we got the strongest surveillance regulation ordinance in the country passed in Oakland!), opposing Urban Shield (now gone!) and pushing back against ICE with local legislation.

If you are interested in joining the Oakland Privacy email listserv, coming to a meeting, or have questions, send an email to:

contact@oaklandprivacy.org

Check out our website: http://oaklandprivacy.org/   Follow us on twitter: @oaklandprivacy

Check out our sister site DeportICE.

“WATCHING YOU WATCHING US”

Oakland Privacy works regionally to defend the right to privacy and enhance public transparency and oversight regarding the use of surveillance techniques and equipment.  Oakland Privacy drove the passage of surveillance regulation and transparency ordinances in Oakland and Berkeley and is kicking off new processes in Richmond and Alameda County.  To help slow down the encroaching police state all over the Bay Area, join us at the Omni.

Comrades! Are you excited about housing justice, connecting with neighbors, and building real people-power in South Berkeley? Come have a beer, meet organizers in your neighborhood, and learn about the work East By DSA is doing to fight for housing justice in South Berkeley!

We would like to invite you to our event: No ICE’d Coffee! We will be discussing about the tools necessary to lead a Deportation Defense Campaign, current challenges in this work, and create a network of support to share strategies and tools!

RSVP needed to receive location details!

Also see information here.

A mother of four, murdered in her home.

She was “a great Black woman activist” deeply involved with the Oscar Grant Committee which worked for justice in the police murder of Pedie Perez in Richmond”

More info: https://www.kron4.com/news/bay-area/richmond-mother-of-4-found-brutally-murdered-inside-her-apartment/1321817937

“Harley, as she was called, was a mom to a 2-year-old, a 3-year-old, a 14-year-old, and an 18-year-old who just graduated from Marine boot camp.  She was also an activist who attended Richmond city council meetings on a regular basis.”

Join the East Bay DSA’s Labor Committee for their regular Beer and Roses Social!

Hang out with other members who are interested in the labor movement, hear about what’s happening in the EBDSA Labor Committee, and learn how you can get involved!

Energy Democracy: Advancing Equity in Clean Energy Solutions, co-edited by Al Weinrub of the Local Clean Energy Alliance and published in 2017, captures the historical and conceptual framework, as well as the underlying values and principles of the emerging Energy Democracy movement.

Join Al Weinrub and local community energy activists to learn more about Energy Democracy‘s national tour and the launch of a new Local Clean Energy Alliance book club.  The Energy Democracy tour is inspired by the highly-acclaimed book, and includes a series of events hosted by local organizations all across the country highlighting the alternative, frontline-led and justice-centered renewable energy projects they are undertaking in their communities.

This event also marks the launch of a local book club, which will focus on reading and discussing books that promote a decentralized renewable energy economy—one that is equitable, sustainable, resilient and democratic.

RSVP here.

Emma’s Revolution is the award-winning, progressive activist duo of Pat Humphries and Sandy O, whose songs have been sung for the Dalai Lama, praised by Pete Seeger, and covered by Holly Near. With beautiful harmonies and acoustic guitars, the duo’s songs cover issues from reproductive injustice to refugees and Black Lives Matter to the sustaining power of love. You can find more about them and get tickets at emmasrevolution.com.

Documentary, 97 minutes, Rated NR

This depressing documentary, focusing mostly on matters in the state of Montana, shows the effect of untraceable corporate money on the American political system. It tries to be hopeful, but hope is hard to come by.

Waffles & Zapatismo is a free space for learning about and discussing the history, ideas, values and practices of the Zapatista National Liberation Army, EZLN or Zapatistas. We serve waffles at the start of the class to those who want them.

#OccupyICESF is having a potluck this Saturday July 28 @ 12PM at 16th St. BART Station. Everyone welcome! Bring food, friends and family; support ongoing efforts to abolish ICE and ALL prison structures as we search for communal alternatives together #AbolishICE #AbolishALLCages pic.twitter.com/OEHK2e8y79

— Abolish ICE SF (@occupyicesf) July 25, 2018

Saturday 7/28: #AbolishICESF potluck BBQ to raise money to bail out ICE detainees in Richmond. Donations to: https://t.co/NGhq9r5bzC #OccupyICE #OccupyICESF #AbolishICE pic.twitter.com/JQjvvDpFbs

— Occupy Oakland (@OccupyOakland) July 27, 2018

It’s Election Night 2018 and Bob swears she’ll never vote again. A lifetime of fading fortunes made this former Obama voter take a chance on the new guy promising change-Donald J. Trump. But it’s two years into his presidency and Bob’s still waiting to start winning. Tonight she’s telling everyone in her small-town bar that all politicians are liars, the system is rigged, and nothing’s ever gonna change.

Along comes a mysterious stranger with an intriguing offer. He’ll show her an America where working people come together to demand a brighter future, where socialism isn’t a dirty word. He’ll take her all the way … to 1912.

Bob soon finds herself traveling back to a time when the Socialist Party was winning millions of American votes; uncovering a hidden history and realizing that she may have more in common with those pesky progressives on the coasts. She begins to ask: what will it take to get people to stop voting against their interests? How do we overcome the divide-and-conquer tactics that keep us all down? When did our electoral choices get so limited? And isn’t it time to get off the swinging pendulum that’s left us at our current impasse?

MoveOn Community Potluck at the Farm!

Connect with MoveOn Members near you at a Resist & Win Community Potluck!

Our path to ending Republican control of the House begins in our own communities: marching, calling, canvassing, and … eating! Come together with fellow activists in your area to share a meal and recharge for the work ahead at a Resist & Win Community Potluck near you!

Here’s a brief description of this Resist & Win Potluck from the host:

Meet your neighbors and share some grub; as we draw, sing and speak about what community means to us in Oakland. Join us at our local West Oakland community garden – City Slicker Farms – from 2-4pm. Bring your favorite dish or drink, guitar or drum, paint brush or sharpie! Let’s build some community and momentum as we organize with MoveOn for the 2018 mid-terms. City Slicker Farms is an urban farm and park providing individuals and groups a comprehensive farm to table, we hope that in joining our event you can also learn more about what they do to address food scarcity in our community.