This week, the East Bay Express published the results of a review of civil rights settlements for police misconduct by the Alameda County Sheriff’s Department. Not surprisingly, they found that Alameda County leads the region in civil rights payouts. The article describes the brutal and often fatal lawless behavior that has cost us millions of dollars in just the last 3 years.

We know that the Alameda County Sheriff and deputies invested heavily in the re-election of incumbent District Attorney Nancy O’Malley to protect and preserve the status quo. We also know that O’Malley has publically stated that she will NOT swiftly, thoroughly and transparently investigate officer-involved shootings and police brutality and make her findings publicly available. Without that check, lawlessness rules the day and the taxpayers will continue to pay.

We cannot give up the fight! We have to continue the political fight to hold all law enforcement agencies and public officials in Alameda County accountable. Civil rights attorney Glenn Katon (quoted in the East Bay Express article) says it best:

“Apart from the obscene amount Alameda County taxpayers are paying for the sheriff’s incompetence and/or malice, more disturbing is the emotional trauma that has been inflicted behind those numbers, . . . The dead and maimed bodies, grieving families, and emotional trauma people will live with for the rest of their lives.”

I invite you to join us  for the first organizing meeting of local activists by the Real Justice Political Action Committee. The public is welcome to attend and help us plan the way forward. I hope to see you there. Bring a friend.

Thank you in advance for your courage and continued support,

Pamela Price

Safety Is… Rethinking Violence Using a Restorative Justice Lens

With Harvey Smith

This walk will explore the “New Deal nexus” in Berkeley that includes Berkeley High School, the Community Theater, Civic Center Park, Post Office art, the old UC Press Building (now being repurposed as the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive), and the old Farm Credit Building. The tour will also include the incredible mosaic mural on the UC Berkeley campus, photographs of the California Folk Music Project, Western Museum Laboratory, WPA prints at the Berkeley Public Library, and WPA projects on the UC Berkeley campus.

For more info: 510-684-0414

The one thing that everyone working towards justice can agree on is that kids are the future. As youth living in the Bay Area we demand that adults treat kids better- no border cruelty, no climate chaos.

On July 21st, young people will march in San Francisco and demand climate change legislation. We march to protect the rights of the youth: we demand an end to border cruelty and greenhouse gas emissions. While this is a youth-led movement, the march is open to all people passionate about defending the safety and prosperity of future generations. Our movement is called This is Zero Hour.

We say:
Dear Decision-Makers (Jerry Brown, Gavin Newsom, and our Senators)
-Replace all Fossil Fuel extraction with renewable energy sources and sustainable jobs!
-Stop the Delta Tunnels!
-Get Fossil Fuel money out of politics! Don’t accept money from the Fossil Fuel industry!
-A liveable planet means climate justice– we need justice for youth from our climate policy to our immigration policy.

Can your group help us by spreading the word and inviting participants, especially youth?

Where: ICE Headquarters, 230 Sansome Street, San Francisco, marching to Aquatic Park, Beach Street, SF
What: Our event will include drumming, chanting, a speak-out, and a live mural painting project that anyone can participate in.
Who: Zero Hour is organized by youth ages 11-18. Youth and allies encouraged to participate!
Why: My generation did not create climate change, but as the climate crisis unfolds and elected officials fail to take meaningful action, young people are standing up to defend our planet. We cannot afford to wait any longer: we must ensure that our elected officials stop ignoring the needs of young people and their right to a safe, healthy, and clean environment.

How you can help:
1. Sign up to co-sponsor!
2. Spread the word and encourage your member/contacts to attend!
3. Are you in touch with youth (or adult allies) who could help with tasks like planning, art-making, chant-leading, and social media? Please put them in touch with us by messaging Youth Vs. Apocalypse on Facebook, or email <lpaczkowski20@sandomenico.org>
4. Please share our event page widely!

#zerohour #justice #environment #familiesbelongtogether#youthvsapocalypse

Freedom Summer recalls the events of the 1964 Mississippi Freedom Summer, when more than 700 student activists worked together to register African-American voters in violently segregationist Mississippi and shatter the foundations of white supremacy in the nation’s most segregated state. Fifty years later, Stanley Nelson’s documentary film takes a look back at the epochal campaign.

Our generation is creating change in this country.

Join us for a special event. We’re having a barbecue and registering people to vote!

March For Our Lives

Feed The People!

Usually the last Sunday of every month (but this month the Sunday before) attendees of the OO GA get together a little earlier than usual, at 3 PM (2 PM during cooler months) to share some food with each other and the community.  There will be a table, utensils/plates, salad, meat and veggie entrees, dessert and whatnot, courtesy of the Kitchen Committee (such at he is), so just bring yourself, or something to share as well if you’d like. All are welcome!

After the meal the Occupy Oakland General Assembly meets at 4 PM .

The OO General Assembly has met on almost weekly basis for more than six 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. 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.

Exquisitely beautiful, immensely touching and ultimately inspiring, Albatross takes us on a journey to the Midway island where these amazing birds come to mate and breed.
We are brought into intimate contact with the albatrosses, get to witness their mating dances and caring for the young.
The beauty is soon to be broken as when the time comes to fly away, many of the young stay behind and face a long painful death. Their bellies filled with ocean plastic make them unable to fly and feed…

The Berkeley City Council will hold a special meeting on the 2018 Police MOU compendium and the recommendations of the Ad-Hoc Subcommittee on NCRIC and Urban Shield.

 Please come out tonight to MacArthur BART at 5:30 !

As Oakland braces itself for the potential invasion of white supremacists into our City today – we should continue to #sayhername Nia Wilson. Nia is the second Black woman brutally murdered in the Bay Area over the last couple of days. We are inviting community to come hold space, light a candle and be together in our collective grief. We also know that we are each others best defense. Community READY Corps will provide on-site self defense training for those who want it. We demand that our City officials respond with immediacy and efficiency and catch the man who killed this young woman. We demand that our City officials take a loud and public stand against white supremacy. Hate Speech is NOT Free Speech. We stand in solidarity with and support of Nia’s family. We know who we are as a City. Let’s stand together in our love for each other and protection of each other.

Calling all poets, storytellers, emcees, musicians, laureates, old-schoolers, and first-timers to join Solespace in the streets to reject hate and white supremacy, and to celebrate the power of the spoken word.

White supremacist groups have announced a “social gathering” at a Downtown Oakland bar for this Monday evening. In direct opposition, this “poetic emergence” calls people into Oakland’s streets to be vigilant and to clearly state: “Nazis, fascists and the alt-right are NOT welcome in Oakland or anywhere else in the Bay.”

OPEN MIC: Sign-up at 6:00 pm, 10 spots on the list, 5 minutes max per presenter. If more poets show, we’ll book subsequent sets @ 8 presenters/ set until . Note: we will practice a preferential option for Black, Brown, uniquely-abled, cis-women, trans and queer voices against racism, sexism, trans- and homophobia.

Hosted by Zoé Samudzi.

Program begins @ 6:30 pm

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.

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

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!

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.”