Calendar
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Board of Trustees Meeting
The Agenda includes a discussion of audio-taping or videotaping the Board of Trustees’ meetings as well as an Affordable Housing Presentation by the Council of Community Housing Organizations.
The Save City College Coalition is working with affordable housing advocates to fight for the principle that scarce and irreplaceable public land must go toward the public good, and truly affordable housing – not toward yet more luxury condos and profits for market rate developers! (See opinion editorial by Fernando Marti and Peter Cohen, Public land ideal for affordable housing, March 4, 2015 which brings in other needs.
The deal at 33 Gough is being guided by CBRE, a huge commercial real estate company that has a long track record of stripping out public assets at fire sale prices. Three Inspector General Reports and a book length study show that CBRE sold off 52 main post office buildings at 70% of fair market value, often to their own business partners (Peter Byrne, Going Postal). We should not be fooled by vague language about “below market rate” units – there are clear affordable housing guidelines that are legally and morally required.
No additional information available.
Strategy/Organizing Training for people working to end solitary confinement and for people wanting to get involved.
Free event, food included!
Hosted by Prisoner Hunger Strike Solidarity Coalition (PHSS)
Public awareness of the need for aggressive climate action grows stronger as we approach of the COP21 Conference in Paris in December. Join us for reports and discussion of activities aimed at fossil fuel resistance and promoting climate justice in our region.
At our next meeting, Steve Nadel will lead a discussion on the value of direct action in bringing about social and institutional change.
Newcomers especially welcome.
Come learn about continuing developments in the battle save the Berkeley Post Office and the Postal Service from privatization, support our Occupiers and help us plan our next steps in opposition to the theft of our public commons.
The postal service wanted to sell the post office to Hudson-Mcdonald, a local developer. The City of Berkeley sued the post office to stop the sale. Hudson-Mcdonald backed out of the deal in early December.
Federal Judge William Alsup decided to dismiss the lawsuit in April because the Postal Service says it is not currently selling the building. But we’re not fooled. The Postal Service could “find” a buyer at any moment. Fortunately, the Judge ordered the Postal Service to provide 42 days notice before any sale, so that the lawsuit could be refiled.
Check out the Community Garden at the Post Office.
In the latest developments, Berkeley has Declared War on Its Homeless, and an ordinance criminalizing the homeless came before the City Council on June 30th (see here and here) but was tabled until September.
Also check out our website and the Save the Berkeley Post Office website, and First they Came for the Homeless Facebook for updates.
BPOD is an offshoot of Strike Debt Bay Area, which itself is an offshoot of Occupy Oakland and a chapter of the national Strike Debt movement, which is an offshoot of Occupy Wall Street.
No agenda or other information provided.
OptikAllusions is a digital filmmaking collective dedicated to social change, based in Oakland, California. We share resources, skills and knowledge to help each other tell stories that might otherwise remain untold. We make films in a spirit of collaboration and solidarity, share a lending library of film equipment for creative projects, organize free, at cost or donation-based workshops.
Join us for our weekly meeting and a workshop!
We usually, meet briefly and then work on projects. It’s open to all!
BACE Timebank General Meeting
Every 1st Wed of the Month @ the Omni.
The Bay Area Community Exchange (BACE) Timebank promotes and facilitates the use of Time instead of money in the exchange of goods and services. The foundation of the Timebank is a free, open source online directory, reputation and accounting system.
These exchanges help develop stronger, more resilient connections between individuals and community service organizations which participate in them, by improving communication and the distribution of skills and resources among our participants. We work to help people meet their needs regardless of economic status.
Please join our Meetup Group:
And our timebank at:
http://www.bace.org
Join Oakland Privacy Working Group to organize against the Domain Awareness Center (DAC), Oakland’s citywide networked mass surveillance hub, and other invasions of privacy by our benighted City Government, to support privacy ordinances now being considered by the Oakland City Council emerging from the effort to fight the DAC, oppose Urban Shield, fight against Predictive Policing, Stingray and help in other fights to preserve and restore our privacy around the Bay Area, in California and nationwide.
OPWG was instrumental in stopping the DAC from becoming a city-wide spying network, and its members helped draft the Privacy Policy that puts further restrictions on the now Port-restricted DAC.
Stop by and learn how you can help guard Oakland’s right not to be spied on by the government & if you are interested in joining the Oakland Privacy Working Group email listserv, send an email to:
oaklandprivacyworkinggroup-subscribe AT lists.riseup.net
For more information on the DAC check out
Interfaith prayer & rally TODAY @WholeFoods (27th & Harrison, Oakland) @1PM in response to Black man attacked by security guards on Friday
— Nicole Deane (@sassmasterdeane) September 6, 2015
Help us let @WholeFoods know that we won't accept this in our neighborhood or in our city. Rally TODAY at 1 PM at the 27th & Harrison store
— Nicole Deane (@sassmasterdeane) September 6, 2015
TAKE ACTION
Tell Congress and the White House:
Keep the Ban on Crude Oil Exports
& Stop Exports of All Fossil Fuels
Protect Our Climate, Health and Environment!
No More Fracking or Tar Sands Mining!
No More Crude Oil Rail Shipments Through Our Communities!
Stop the Utah – Oakland Coaal Export Scheme!
Support Renewable Energy!
Bring Signs!
The Oil Industry is currently working with their friends in Congress in an effort to lift the decades-old ban on shipping crude oil abroad.
In late July, the U.S. Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee – chaired by Senator Murkowwski of Alaska – approved the Energy Policy Modernization Act of 2015 that includes a dangerous measure to lift the decades-old crude oil export ban.
Exporting crude oil will encourage even more fracking and tar sands mining, causing increased health, environmental and climate problems in the US and abroad.
To protect health, the environment and stop climate change, we need to keep the crude oil export ban in place, stop fracking and tar sands mining, build the campaign to keep dirty oil and other fossil fuels in the ground, and support renewable energy.
September 8th Action sponsored by: California Environmental Justice Coalition, Center for Biological Diversity, Community Food & Justice Coalition, Community In-power Development Association, Food Empowerment Project, Forest Ethics, Grayson Neighborhood Council, Greenaction for Health and Environmental Justice, Huntersview Mothers & Fathers Committee for Health and Environmental Justice, Idle No More/Bay Area, Oil Change International, Occupy Forum, Occupy San Francisco Environmental Justice, Sierra Club, Sunflower Alliance, Tri-Valley CAREs, West Berkeley Alliance for Clean Air & Safe Jobs, West County Toxics Coalition, West Oakland Environmental Indicators Project, Youth United for Community Action, 350 Bay Area, 350 SF, APEN, CBE
We need to come together and talk, work out where to go from here with these issues around the brutalization of the young black man at Whole Foods. Please join us and please bring your ideas so we can keep moving forward.
(We will be meeting in the Atrium Area) Look for signs
On Thursday Sept. 4th a Black man who was attempting to make a purchase with his EBT, was beaten and bloodied by armed security guards at the Lake Merritt Whole Foods. This man was left unconscious in a large pool of his own blood out front of the store, while employees called for more back-up rather than sending for paramedics.
This inhumane beating adds to the national narrative around a crisis of anti-Black violence. Currently, every 28hrs a black person is murdered by police, vigilantes, or security guards.*
This latest brutality is also in context of many ongoing discriminatory practices and anti-Black policies engaged by Whole Foods:
**Whole Foods materially supported the state violence in Baltimore**
During the Baltimore protests, Whole Foods distributed free water bottles to the National Guard and created a photo opportunity, rather than providing any food/water donations to the Baltimore children left hungry by the forced school closures.
**Whole Foods depends on Prison Labor**
WF uses exploitative prison labor in Colorado to supply products to their stores nationally.
*Whole Foods has a poor labor record**
WF is known for their union-busting and anti-worker labor practices.
*Whole Foods was a significant gentrifying force in Oakland*
WF only opens locations in areas that meet their median income standards. The Lake Merritt location was an exception to this policy; in 2007 this store was opened based on a projected rise in income. Meaning WF both fostered and depended on the gentrification of this area in particular.
On Thursday Spet 10th, we are calling for a picket at Whole Foods with the following demands:
1. Disarm all security guards at the store
2. Compensate for the pain, suffering, and humiliation of the attack victim
3.Issue a public apology
4. Suspend all managers on duty that night, as well as the employees who called for more backup rather than calling the paramedics.
5. Provide discounts and giveaways for EBT customers, in solidarity with the working families being displaced from the area.
6. Require on-going staff training on how anti-Black racism functions within customer service
Please turn out with SIGNS and BANNERS for a two-hour picket line out front of the Whole Foods. This violence against our community has to stop!! And we will not support a business that promotes these acts of brutality!!
~This event is being hosted by members of black.seed and the Anti-Police Terror Project~
*This statistic comes from Malcolm X Grassroots Project annual report, Operation Ghetto Storm.
Protest Alameda County Sheriff Ahern’s
militarized police exhibit and exercises
Urban Shield is the largest SWAT training & war-weapons expo in the world. We will gather on September 11th, across communities, to end it & resist police militarization around the world!
Join the Stop Urban Shield Coalition to say NO to policing, militarization and state violence!
While Urban Shield is just one front in the fight against the state’s attempt to militarize every aspect of our lives – from its war-making here and abroad, to the increasing presence of police in our schools, to the systemic murder of Black and Brown people at the hands of police – stopping Urban Shield would be a major victory against this growing trend of militarization in cities everywhere, from Oakland to Ferguson to Baltimore.
Join us in resisting violence against our communities and in fighting for genuine visions of justice, safety, and self-determination.
Organized by American Friends Service Committee, Arab Resource & Organizing Center, Bay Area Latin America Solidarity Coalition, Civilize the Cops, Code Pink, Critical Resistance, International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network, Iraq Veterans Against the War, Justice for James Rivera, Million Hoodies, Oakland Privacy Working Group, Oscar Grant Committee, Palestinian Youth Movement, Restore the 4th, San Leandro-SAFE, School of the Americas Watch-Oakland & San Francisco, UAW Local 2865, War Resisters League, Xicana Moratorium Coalition
- student debt resistance
- organizing for public banking.
- advocating for Postal banking.
- ongoing study group
- helping out America’s only non-profit check-cashing organization and fighting against usurious for-profit pay-day lenders and their ilk
- our famous Strike Debt radio program
- staging Debtors’ Assemblies
- Restaging our recent presentation on money and debt at the US Social Forum
- Working on debarring US Banks that have been convicted of felonies from municipal contracts
- saving the Berkeley Post Office and stopping the Staples non-union takeover of good Post Office jobs
- and much more!
Strike Debt – Principles of Solidarity
Strike Debt is building a debt resistance movement. We believe that most individual debt is illegitimate and unjust. Most of us fall into debt because we are increasingly deprived of the means to acquire the basic necessities of life: health care, education, and housing. Because we are forced to go into debt simply in order to live, we think it is right and moral to resist it.
We also oppose debt because it is an instrument of exploitation and political domination. Debt is used to discipline us, deepen existing inequalities, and reinforce racial, gendered, and other social hierarchies. Every Strike Debt action is designed to weaken the institutions that seek to divide us and benefit from our division. As an alternative to this predatory system, Strike Debt advocates a just and sustainable economy, based on mutual aid, common goods, and public affluence.
Strike Debt is committed to the principles and tactics of political autonomy, direct democracy, direct action, creative openness, a culture of solidarity, and commitment to anti-oppressive language and conduct. We struggle for a world without racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, and all forms of oppression.
Strike Debt holds that we are all debtors, whether or not we have personal loan agreements. Through the manipulation of sovereign and municipal debt, the costs of speculator-driven crises are passed on to all of us. Though different kinds of debt can affect the same household, they are all interconnected, and so all household debtors have a common interest in resisting.
Strike Debt engages in public education about the debt-system to counteract the self-serving myth that finance is too complicated for laypersons to understand. In particular, it urges direct action as a way of stopping the damage caused by the creditor class and their enablers among elected government officials. Direct action empowers those who participate in challenging the debt-system.
Strike Debt holds that we owe the financial institutions nothing, whereas, to our friends, families and communities, we owe everything. In pursuing a long-term strategy for national organizing around this principle, we pledge international solidarity with the growing global movement against debt and austerity.
OTU’s Mission
The Oakland Tenants Union is an organization of housing activists dedicated to protecting tenant rights and interests. OTU does this by working directly with tenants in their struggle with landlords, impacting legislation and public policy about housing, community education, and working with other organizations committed to furthering renters’ rights. The Oakland Tenants Union is open to anyone who shares our core values and who believes that tenants themselves have the primary responsibility to work on their own behalf.
Monthly Meetings
The Oakland Tenants Union meets regularly at 7:00 pm on the second Monday evening of each month. Our monthly meetings are held in the Community Room of the Madison Park Apartments, 100 – 9th Street (at Oak Street, across from the Lake Merritt BART Station). To enter, gently knock on the window of the room to the right of the main entrance to the building. At the meetings, first we focus on general issues affecting renters city-wide and then second we offer advice to renters regarding their individual concerns.
If you have an issue, a question, or need advice about a tenant/landlord issue, please call us at (510) 704-5276. Leave a message with your name and phone number and someone will get back to you.
The Anti-Police Terrorism Project is a project of the ONYX Organizing Committee that in coalition with other organizations like the Alan Blueford Center for Justice, Workers World and Healthy Hoodz is working to develop a replicable and sustainable model to end police terrorism in this country.
We are led by the most impacted communities but are a multi-racial, mutil-generational coalition.
Subcommittees / action teams include First Response, Media, Santa Rita Jail, Yvette Henderson/Emeryville and more.
We meet the 3rd Wednesday of every month at Eastside Arts Alliance at 7:30 pm.
Omni General Assembly
omni working group meeting
Come by our open Delegates Meetings every Thursday evening at 7pm! We’ll give space to brief announcements, updates from working groups, proposals up for consensus, and discussion around important issues. The schedule is created weekly at the following url: https://pad.riseup.net/p/omninom