Calendar
We will be gathering signatures for our three endorsed ballot measures for 2016: the Protect Oakland Tenants Initiative, sponsored by Oakland Tenants Union and the Citywide Development Network, the charter amendment to create a police commission sponsored by the Coalition for Police Accountability, and the measure to establish a $20 minimum wage by 2020 and enforce fair scheduling regulations from the Oakland Livable Wage Assembly.
Check out this cheat sheet on how to collect signatures, and contact info@oaklandjustice if you are interested in gathering signatures independently. We encourage our member organizations to host their own canvasses. For your reference, quick talking points on the three measures are in the cheat sheet linked above and listed below:
Rent Stabilization Measure
- Set limits on rent increases tied to the Consumer Price Index (inflation)
- Close loopholes in the current Just Cause Eviction Ordinance to prevent no-fault evictions
Minimum Wage / Fair Scheduling Measure
- Raise minimum wage to $14/hr in 2017, slowly increasing to $20/hr by 2020
- Create and enforce rules for worker scheduling and on-call requirements, so that workers’ lives will not be turned upside down by continually changing work schedules
Police Commission Measure
- Establish civilian oversight of our Police Department
- The Commission will be able to investigate police misconduct, review complaints and discipline officers. If progress toward reform is not being made, they will have the authority to fire the police chief
Monica Moorehead, Presidential candidate of Workers World Party , and John Parker, candidate for US Senate of the Peace and Freedom Party and west coast leader of Workers World Party from LA, will be in Oakland to speak about what a real socialist program looks like and why capitalism must be overturned. http://
https://
Also hear Clarence Thomas, former Secretary-Treas
See the pinned post with the WWP 10 point campaign program short form. We are participating in the elections to expose them, not because we believe the elections have any meaning.
The location of the meeting is significant, in and of itself, right next to Lil’ Bobby Hutton Park, named in memory of the youngest Black Panther Party member to be killed by the Oakland Police. The site is wheelchair accessible. Light refreshments will be served.
Join us for the Berkeley premiere of SOLD!
Based on the award-winning international bestseller by Patricia McCormick and inspired by a true account, SOLD tells the story of a 13 year-old Nepalese girl who is trafficked from a peaceful, rural village to the brothels of Kolkata, India. One extraordinary girl’s story becomes both a call to action and a testament to the power and resilience of the human spirit. Directed by Oscar winning filmmaker Jeffrey Brown, this extraordinary story illustrates the brutality of child trafficking, which affects millions of children around the globe every year.
Saturday, April 16th @ 4PM and 7PM shows
Q&A with filmmaker Jeffrey Brown
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LIVE FROM DEATH ROW
PHONE CALL FROM KEVIN COOPER FROM SAN QUENTIN !
Free this innocent man! END the Death Penalty NOW!
At the young age of 16, Mark Clements was wrongfully convicted for murder in Chicago when he was tortured into a false confession by the corrupt police precinct of Jon Burge. After serving 28 years toward the sentence of Life Without Parole, Mark was finally exonerated and released from prison. Mark is on a tour across the country to highlight cases of the wrongfully convicted in the fight to end the death penalty.
Join Mark Clements to hear about the VICTORY fight to win reparations from the city of Chicago for the torture of African American and Latino men by Chicago police. Please come and join Mark Clements at a gathering organized in Oakland to bring attention to the case of Kevin Cooper, an innocent man on death row in California
Featuring: the movie about the Police Torture in Chicago. Organizations welcome to come and table. Please contact us via email.
For info: contact: FreeKevinCooper@gmail.com www.Freekevincooper.org Facebook: FreeKevin Cooper
Oh snap! We’re gonna kick it off with hors d’ouvres and beverages, fundraiser-style. Will there be beer? Yes! Will there be wine? Yes!! Will there be non-alcoholic beverages? Yes!!!
And what are we asking from you? Your attendance, your good cheer, and your open wallet — because let’s face it, this is a fundraiser!
Let’s get down to discuss local politics, play party games, and raise money for the incredible Oakland Justice Coalition so that the OJC can pay for canvassers, window signs, and all the good stuff that makes for a winning grassroots political campaign.
We’re looking to put three ballot initiatives to the vote in November, and we need contributions to support our efforts. Those initiatives are for strong renters protections, a citizen-controlled police comission with real power, and finally, a higher minimum wage and workers’ scheduling rights.
See you there, social justice warriors!
Meaty Menu:
Chorizo black bean dip
Carnitas sliders with cilantro lime slaw, salsa verde and chipotle mayo
Coronation chicken sliders with chutney carrot slaw, coronation sauce and coriander mayo
Bulgogi sliders with daikon and jicama slaw, sweet and spicy sauce and ginger citrus mayo
For vegetarians:
Tomato and baby bell pepper tartlets with taleggio
Fingerling potato tartlet
Sundried tomato pesto palmiers with goat cheese spread
For Vegans:
Mediterranean Lentil Spread and tomato coulis on sourdough crostini
Hummus and baba ganoush with veggies and pita wedges
Brownie bites
Clementine upside down cupcakes
And other stuff that other people are bringing.
Donation jars will be scattered around for your pocket change. Andrew will be bar-raising, exchanging drinks for cash and of course, we’ll accept your checks and large folding money, too!
Presidential Candidates Forum hosted by the Alameda County chapter of the Peace and Freedom Party.
Confirmed speakers:
Gloria La Riva (Party for Socialism and Liberation) http://
Monica Moorehead (Workers World Party) https://
Lynn Kahn http://
Jill Stein* (Green Party) or her representative http://
John Parker (Workers World Party), Peace and Freedom Party candidate for U.S. Senate https://
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*The Secretary of State has refused to place Jill Stein on our primary ballot
Celebrate a Step towards Economic Justice
Winning this in Berkeley strengthens the fight of working families throughout the bay.
Join Berkeley for Working Families as they turn in 150% of the required signatures to put an initiative on the November Berkeley ballot that will:
– Raise Berkeley’s minimum wage to $15 by October 2017
– Raise it further each year by 3% + inflation till it gets in sync with Berkeley’s official “Living Wage” – currently $16.37
– Bring sick leave up to the standards set by Oakland, Emeryville and SF
There is a deepening crisis in Berkeley and the Bay Area. Housing costs are skyrocketing and wages are just too low. Families work and work and still can’t make ends meet. Most new jobs are paying the lowest possible wages. The standards are just too low.
Working families need relief now.
“Dear President Obama,” narrated by actor and activist Mark Ruffalo, is a new film that reveals the true costs of Obama’s energy policy. Since 2008 under Obama’s watch, the drilling and fracking industries have boomed. As a result, today more than 20 million people live within a mile of an oil or gas well. Pro-drillers argued that this new “black gold” rush would create energy independence for the United States. Meanwhile, development of new renewable energy sources has stalled, and new threats are being posted to our water, environment and health.
Three years in the making, “Dear President Obama” documents the contamination of our environment, shares victims’ stories, exposes the false promises of an economic boom, and focuses on clean-energy solutions. This important film calls upon the president to change course away from fracking and toward a renewable energy future. Here in the Bay Area there are two screenings in Berkeley and San Francisco (as part of the Green Film Fest). The Berkeley screening is free. The film (running time 105 minutes) is followed by a panel discussion at both screenings.
SF PANEL DISCUSSION WITH: Jon Bowermaster, director/producer, “Dear President Obama“; Kassie Siegel, Senior Counsel, Climate Law Institute at the Center for Biological Diversity; Mark Schlosberg, National Organizing Director, Food & Water Watch; hosted by Greg Dalton, Climate One.
BERKELEY PANEL DISCUSSION WITH: Jon Bowermaster, director/producer, “Dear President Obama”; Kassie Siegel, Center for Biological Diversity; Ella Teevan, Food & Water Watch; Kristy Drutman, UC Berkeley Student, Students Against Fracking campaign; hosted by UC Berkeley Student Environmental Resource Center (SERC).
Monday, April 18, 6 pm
FREE
“A lot of people don’t know much about Palestine or haven’t met a Palestinian,” Abdelrazaq said. “I hope this teaches people a bit, not just about the political situation, but the importance of the refugee situation.
“These are stories you’d hear from your parents over and over again, to the point where you’d say, ‘You can stop telling that story now,'” Abdelrazaq said. “All parents have those few stories. But while my father’s stories are common in Palestinian families, outside communities don’t hear them much. People react by saying, ‘Whoa, what?'” But mass displacement and ethnic cleansing, while weird to an American audience, is something many of us have experienced or have family members who have experienced.”
Q&A session to follow. Books available for purchase onsite.
Please note time: 7:00 – 8:30 PM
THIS ITEM SEEMS TO HAVE BEEN REMOVED FROM THE CITY COUNCIL’S AGENDA.
Come to the April 19 meeting of the Oakland City Council to tell them not to hire Environmental Science Associates (ESA) to review evidence about the dangers of shipping coal through Oakland’s bulk terminal. ESA is not the right choice to evaluate evidence about the health and safety dangers of coal. No Coal in Oakland will be proposing a better alternative.
ESA is notorious in the Bay Area for writing the Environmental Impact Review that gave the green light to Valero’s crude oil-by-rail project, which is now being contested in Benicia. Many critics, from environmental and community groups to the California’s attorney general, have called that review inadequate because it fails to fully report the many negative impacts the crude-by-rail project would cause. In addition, activists question ESA’s commitment to a fair review of the health and safety dangers of coal, pointing to the fact that the team they propose to do the review doesn’t include a single public health expert. No Coal in Oakland says the city should hire public health experts–not a consulting firm with a vested interest in maintaining a good relationship the fossil-fuel industry — to evaluate evidence about the dangers of coal.
The No Coal in Oakland campaign has been gathering huge support, including a growing grassroots movement of residents, Mayor Libby Schaaf, many local clergy and and labor leaders, newspapers including the San Francisco Chronicle, and State Senator Loni Hancock, who has introduced four bills in the California legislature restricting coal exports from the state. A recent poll by the Sierra Club showed that 76 percent of Oakland voters oppose exporting coal from Oakland. Thanks to all this support, opponents of coal exports persuaded the city council to pass a moratorium on issuing any permits for the Oakland Bulk and Oversize Terminal until this question is resolved. And the council has signaled its intention to enact an outright ban on coal exports.
The focus of the campaign is an agreement the city signed with Phil Tagami’s California Capital and Investment Group to build and operate the terminal at the former Oakland Army Base. Tagami said he had no intention to export coal through the terminal. There was never any environmental analysis of the impacts of shipping coal or other fossil fuels through Oakland. Now he says the city has no right to control what commodities go out through the terminal and threatens to sue the city if it tries to block coal exports.
But the agreement specifies that the city can pass regulations to protect the health and safety of the community and workers if there is substantial evidence that not doing so would be dangerous. The No Coal in Oakland campaign and other groups have assembled extensive evidence from health and legal experts — more than enough evidence to justify banning coal on health and safety grounds. But the city wants to make sure it has solid justification as it faces a likely lawsuit.
The move to hire Environmental Science Associates stems from the city’s need to assemble strong evidence for banning coal. But hiring a consultant with a record of supporting fossil fuel developers against environmental concerns is not the way to go. No Coal in Oakland has an alternative proposal for reviewing evidence that will do a better job of providing the legal justification the city needs to act.
The city council was set to approve a contract with ESA on February 16, but before the council meeting, Mayor Libby Schaaf convinced the council members to postpone the contract vote “so that we may further evaluate other, potentially more effective options,” to bar coal shipments through Oakland. “I remain strongly opposed to the transport of coal and crude oil through our city,” Schaaf wrote in a press release that day.
Now a proposed contract with ESA is again on the table for the April 19 city council meeting. Strong public pressure is needed to tell the council to reject the contract with ESA and make sure the investigation of evidence is valid and unbiased. Come help push the No Coal In Oakland campaign over the finish line.
Please sign up to speak or waive time at
http://www2.oaklandnet.com/Government/o/CityClerk/s/SpeakerCard/SpeakerCard/OAK032373
For Item, enter “coal” or “11.”
Check back for updates at NoCoalinOakland.org or email nocoalinoakland (at) gmail (dot) com
FIERCE GREEN FIRE: The Battle for a Living Planet is the first big-picture exploration of the environmental movement – grassroots and global activism spanning fifty years from conservation to climate change.
Directed and written by Mark Kitchell, director of Berkeley in the Sixties, and narrated by Robert Redford, Ashley Judd, Van Jones, Isabel Allende and Meryl Streep.
Mark Kitchell will be present for Q7A after the film.
doors open at 6:30pm, film starts at 7pm
We believe that love is the universal language. We also believe that love is the universal cure to heal what ails societies worldwide. These meditation happy hours are our love offering to the community and are the result of a beautiful new & evolving partnership w/The Art of Living facilitated by Neelam Patil…& the universe ♥
Hunger Strike starts Thursday!! Our demands are for Mayor Lee to fire Chief Suhr or step down as Mayor of SF.!! pic.twitter.com/S7DFetupxq
— Equipto (@EQUIPTO) April 16, 2016
Eat at Cafe Eritrea D’Afrique.
Just stop in for lunch or dinner and tell them you are eating for the Coalition for Police Accountability. 20% of your bill total will go to the CPA.
This Eritrean cafe focuses on bold flavors in traditional stews, vegetable platters & honey wine.
Phone: (510) 547-4520
Hours: 10:00 AM to 11:00 pm
Menu: www.urbanspoon.com
If you can’t make it, you can make a donation at www.coalitionforpoliceaccountability
This funding will be used to print petitions for our Oakland Police Commission ballot measure, flyers, and order more tee shirts, among other needs we have.
Let’s make this a HUUUGE success – we intend to make this a regular feature, with new restaurants each time.
“Occupy The Farm” tells the story of 200 urban farmers who walked onto a publicly owned research farm and planted it with two acres of crops in order to save it from becoming a real estate development. The Village Voice calls the film, “Riveting from the start.” This story took place in the East Bay, and is still unfolding to this day.
The filmmaker and some organizers from Occupy The Farm will do a Q&A following the screening.
Seating capacity is limited to 45. First come, first served.
As part of 8 days of anarchy, homes not jails will be screening films about squatter movements from around the world. This will be followed a panel and discussion about the films and squatting in general.
Donations will support east bay homes not jails and the omni commons.
Update 4/29 (via email) :
This morning when the #Frisco5 were asked how they were feeling they replied: “ Let the press know that we are tired and bodies are getting weaker and that yesterday took a lot out of the five strikers – thousands of people stopping by to share their love to two dozen press outlets. They will be resting for much part of the day to conserve energy and sustain the through this journey that may continue for many more days.”
They are on day nine of their hunger strike and city hall seems to be ready to let them starve to death.
The mayor’s tone deaf attitude towards citizens who have put their life on the line, to stop police terror , has enraged the community. Members of the community have started a petition to remove Chief Suhr as Chief of Police.
Tomorrow they will hold a rally in front of Mission Police Station in support of the strikers.
Enough is Enough!!! The chief must go.
The crowd is chanting the names of black and brown people gunned down by SFPD (self-appointed judge, jury and executioner), for as many bullets the police shot into their bodies. This video also shows The People’s demand for a full community meeting (after the most recent killing of Luis Gongora) casually denied. Hunger Srriker Edwin confronts the Captain about the murdering of our brothers and gets a smirk. We will win. The word is out now. Join us at 17th and Valencia. Also Justice 4 Mario woods coalition meeting tonight at 350 Rhode Island 6 pm. We will take this hunger strike to focus our power.
Hunger strike is growing. Please come down to Mission Police Station at Valencia and 17th in solidarity. Spread the word to friends in other cities and states: this hunger strike is because racist SFPD continues to murder black and brown people in the streets in ethnic cleansing. We have lost members of our community. This is a national emergency. Our power comes from love and from the word being spread: along with it: OUTRAGE.
Original Post:
Hunger Strike at Mission Police Station until Greg Suhr is fired as Chief of the murdering SFPD
Hunger strike at Mission Police Station today, tonight, tomorrow until Greg Suhr is fired as Chief of the murdering SFPD. Join us in solidarity: on Valencia between 16th and 17th. The hunger strikers are dead serious. And they need you.
Bring blankets.
Stay tuned for an announcement of OccupyForum this Monday night at Global Exchange on Strategizing: How Do We Keep the Police from Killing People?
People of San Francisco, support 5 community members on #HungerStrike4Justice outside Mission police v @yayneabeba pic.twitter.com/CduXnTdGsZ
— Francisco Herrera (@FHerreraSFMAYOR) April 23, 2016
Urban Shield is a weapons expo and war-like police training that brings together law enforcement agencies from across the country and world to learn how to better repress, criminalize, and militarize our communities.
It is a key player in creating militarized emergency response systems that make police the first responders to everything from climate disasters to uprisings. But as we saw during Katrina, when “public safety” relies on armed emergency management, communities of color, and particularly Black communities, become an “emergency” that need to be controlled and managed with a military response.
Join the Stop Urban Shield Coalition to learn about the fight and how to get involved. Space is wheelchair accessible.