This month’s general meeting will focus on the Green New Deal: what could it mean for the Bay Area and how do we win it? We’ll hear from a panel of union members and representatives from local grassroots organizations, followed by a questions and comments session.

We need volunteers! From setup to sign-in to mic-running, volunteering for our meetings is lively, easy, and low-commitment. Volunteer here: https://forms.gle/EEhhQ1GPhqFxiPvq9. Use this form, too, if you have child supervision or accessibility needs, including the need for an ASL interpreter.

Member-submitted resolutions will be accepted on a rolling basis—please email them to resolutions@eastbaydsa.org. The submission deadline for each meeting is three weeks in advance of the meeting itself.

Accessibility Information

The Omni Commons ballroom is wheelchair-accessible via a lift and has wheelchair-accessible restrooms, and we provide child supervision and wireless microphones with runners.

The Occupy Oakland General Assembly meets every Sunday at 3 PM at Oscar Grant Plaza amphitheater at 14th Street & Broadway near the steps of City Hall.  If for some reason the amphitheater is being used otherwise and/or OGP itself is inaccessible, we will meet at Kaiser Park, right next to the statues, on 19th St. between San Pablo and Telegraph.  If it is raining (as in RAINING, not just misting) at 3:00 PM we meet in the basement of the Omni Collective, 4799 Shattuck Ave., Oakland.  (Note: we meet at 3:00 PM during the cooler months,  once Daylight Savings Time springs forward we tend to assemble at 4 PM).

On every ‘last Sunday’ we meet a little earlier at 2 PM to have a community potluck to which all are welcome.

OO General Assembly has met on a continuous basis for over five 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. We encourage everyone participating in the Occupy Oakland GA to be part of at least one associated group, but it is by no means a requirement. 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.

General Assembly Standard Agenda

1. Welcome & Introductions
2. Reports from Committees, Caucuses, & Independent Organizations
3. Announcements
4. (Optional) Discussion Topic

Occupy Oakland activities and contact info for some Bay Area Groups with past or present Occupy Oakland members.

Occupy Oakland Web Committee: (web@occupyoakland.org)
Strike Debt Bay Area : strikedebtbayarea.tumblr.com
Berkeley Post Office Defenders:http://berkeleypostofficedefenders.wordpress.com/
Alan Blueford Center 4 Justice:https://www.facebook.com/ABC4JUSTICE
Oakland Privacy Working Group:https://oaklandprivacy.wordpress.com
Prisoner Hunger Strike Solidarity: prisonerhungerstrikesolidarity.wordpress.com/
Bay Area AntiRepression: antirepression@occupyoakland.org
Biblioteca Popular: http://tinyurl.com/mdlzshy
Interfaith Tent: www.facebook.com/InterfaithTent
Port Truckers Solidarity: oaklandporttruckers.wordpress.com
Bay Area Intifada: bayareaintifada.wordpress.com
Transport Workers Solidarity: www.transportworkers.org
Fresh Juice Party (aka Chalkupy) freshjuiceparty.com/chalkupy-gallery
Sudo Room: https://sudoroom.org
Omni Collective: https://omnicommons.org/
First They Came for the Homeless: https://www.facebook.com/pages/First-they-came-for-the-homeless/253882908111999
Sunflower Alliance: http://www.sunflower-alliance.org/
Bay Area Public School: http://thepublicschool.org/bay-area

San Francisco based groups:
Occupy Bay Area United: www.obau.org
Occupy Forum: (see OBAU above)
San Francisco Projection Department: http://tinyurl.com/kpvb3rv

It’s time to put a stop to all the ways children are impacted by walls, criminalization, and state violence. Every child deserves a life of safety and freedom. Join us at a family-friendly event to learn more about the shared experience of youth across the world from Palestine to the US, and to share action steps and strategies for change. We will have artwork, performances, interfaith prayer and youth voices.

Doors open at 7. We start promptly at 7:30.

Questions? Email info@indivisibleberkeley.org.

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.

ACCE Action Oakland is calling for a Bay Area-wide spokescouncil to plan and coordinate actions for a Week of Action for Housing Justice – November 17th – 23rd.

The housing crisis has never been this bad – at least in our lifetimes. Low-income communities of color are being hit the hardest. People are literally dying on our streets, because they cannot afford housing. We are calling on everyone who is being impacted in any way by the artificially-created housing scarcity in Oakland – whether you are unhoused, housing-insecure, rent-burdened, or just tired of watching your friends and , family and neighbors being forced to leave – to help us SHUT IT DOWN!

We need to continue raising the alarm and demanding action until our politicians recognize that housing is a basic human right; until everyone has a stable and affordable place to call home. We need to take the crisis in our communities to the doorsteps of decision-makers.

During this week we will be highlighting the damage being done by large corporate speculators that have bought up homes in our neighborhoods as an investment strategy for Wall Street bondholders. We will expose the large number of units sitting vacant in luxury buildings, bought as investments by the wealthy. We will expose speculators that are flipping our apartment buildings and jacking up our rents to move in wealthier tenants.

Together, we will unleash the vast creativity and organizing capacity of our communities and produce a spectrum of disruptive and visionary activity. We want these actions to meaningfully interrupt business as usual whether that be with direct action, teach-ins, flash mobs, or prayer vigils, and to do so with action-logic that links our resistance to fighting racism, economic injustice, and colonization. We want you to plan these actions independently, but together we will coordinate collective support for these actions through a spokescouncil so that they have maximal support and impact.

Attend a spokescouncil meeting :
Monday, November 4th at 7 pm
Thursday, November 7th at 7 pm
Saturday, November 9th at 11 am
Monday, November 11th at 7 pm
Thursday, November 14th at 7 pm

What is a spokescouncil?
A spokescouncil is a collective framework for direct action mobilizations, where large masses of people organize themselves into smaller teams called “affinity groups”. Affinity groups plan their actions independently with the intention of advancing the larger goal of the spokescouncil. Affinity groups are represented by at least one person (“a spoke”) at the meetings, where they are able to share resources and coordinate their actions with other groups.

Why a spokescouncil?
We propose the spokescouncil as a solution to many of the shortcomings of unstructured mass assemblies. We intend to provide a highly structured organizing space with clear tactical and messaging guidelines, that empowers participants to organize independently and in parallel. We intend to inspire a multitude of diverse actions and awaken the massive potential we have as a community engaging in direct action.

Start forming an affinity group now:
Discuss this callout with your friends, comrades, fellow workers, families, roommates, etc. See if you can pull together a crew of people who will be in close contact for the next few weeks, who are similar-minded and want to step up to organize or take part in actions. Then start planning an action! At least one of you should come to the spokescouncil meeting to share ideas and coordinate with the larger group.

Members Needed for Working Groups:
If you have the capacity to participate in the week of action but do not have an affinity group, plus come and join one of our Week of Action working groups:
– Media
– Outreach
– Big March – Wednesday, November 20th

Ninth Circuit To Hear Argument on Oakland Coal Ban

On November 12, a panel of three Ninth Circuit judges will hear oral argument on the appeal by the City of Oakland, Sierra Club, and San Francisco Baykeeper, from Judge Vince Chhabria’s decision striking down Oakland’s ban on siting of a coal terminal on City-owned waterfront near the Bay Bridge toll plaza.

After a three-day trial last year, Judge Chhabria ruled that the City violated its contract with the developers who sought to build a coal export terminal when the City Council adopted an ordinance prohibiting the storage and handling of coal in Oakland and applied the ordinance to the planned Oakland Bulk and Oversized Terminal.

The hearing will be open to the public. All supporters of No Coal in Oakland are encouraged to attend. We will bring you further details regarding the hearing and NCIO’s plans for November 12 as the hearing date approaches.

The parties will learn the identities of the three judges who will hear the case about a week before the hearing.  The Ninth Circuit has 29 active judges and 18 judges on senior status, any of whom may be assigned to the panel.  The attorneys in the case will be keenly interested in who will be hearing the case and will seek to tailor their arguments to appeal to the known inclinations of the three judges on the panel.

“Some judges always focus on the standard of review. Others often seem to know the record better than the lawyers appearing before them. Others like to engage the advocates in hypotheticals while others care about the pragmatic outcome of a case,” explains appellate specialist MaryBeth LippSmith.

The Court’s notice of cases shows that the panel in Courtroom 2 will hear one habeas and three criminal cases during the same morning session. If the four other cases are heard first, the argument in the City of Oakland case will begin around 10:30 a.m.  The schedule can change without notice, however, so it is advisable to get to the courthouse before 9 a.m. in order to clear security and be seated in the courtroom at 9 a.m.

The Court has allotted 20 minutes of time to each side for the argument.  Assigned time limits are usually strictly observed so the entire morning’s calendar will be completed before noon.

After the argument, the Court will face no time limit to reach a decision, but most Ninth Circuit cases are decided within 3 months to a year.

The Browning Courthouse is likely to be very crowded on November 12.  At approximately the same time as the City of Oakland hearing, another three-judge panel will be hearing oral argument in the case brought by Sierra Club challenging Donald Trump’s attempt to redirect federal resources to build the wall on the U.S.-Mexican border.

Phones may not be used in the courtroom and must be silent.

For those who cannot attend in person on November 12, the hearing will also be livestreamed and then archived.

Noura Erakat is a human rights attorney and an Assistant Professor at Rutgers University, Department of Africana Studies. She is a frequent commentator on CBS News, CNN, Fox News, NPR, and Democracy Now! — and is widely published in the national media and academic journals.

Noura will be discussing her new book, Justice For Some: Law and the Question of Palestine, in conversation with Lara Kiswani from the Arab Resource & Organizing Center.

Tuesday, November 12th

Noura Erakat is a human rights attorney and an Assistant Professor at Rutgers University, Department of Africana Studies. She is a frequent commentator on CBS News, CNN, Fox News, NPR, and Democracy Now! — and is widely published in the national media and academic journals.

Noura will be discussing her new book, Justice For Some: Law and the Question of Palestine,  in conversation with Lara Kiswani from the Arab Resource & Organizing Center. More info about Noura Erakat can be found HERE.

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At the Wednesday October 23rd school board meeting the School Board and Superintendent used OUSDPD and OPD to attack the community, deny access to the meeting, and prevent public comments.

We are mobilizing to rally before the next school board meeting to send a clear to the School Board and Superintendent. We will not let them use the police to attack our community. We will not let them illegally deny access to their meetings and illegally cancel public comments. We will not let them close our schools. We will not let the school board continue to mismanage OUSD.

Let’s show the School Board that parents, students, teachers, staff, and community members are united in demanding that we create a school district that serves the community. These are our schools and our school board meetings, we will not let the School Board, Superintendent, nor the OUSD police deny the voice of the community.

#DefundOUSDPD
#FailureByDesign
#EraseTheBoard
#NoCutsNoClosures
#OaklandNotForSale

Want to get involved with SURJ Bay Area? Come learn about our current work and activities. SURJ moves white people to act for justice, with passion and accountability, as part of a multi-racial majority.
​
You will hear about SURJ’s pathways for entering the work, including committee work, upcoming workshops, and events. We’ll answer your questions and share how you can get involved in the movement for racial justice.

There will be a greeter in the lobby until 7:15, but please arrive by 6:45 to check-in and get settled so we can begin promptly at 7 pm. If you are driving, please try to carpool and arrive early to leave time to find a spot. Street parking is generally available in a 2-3 block radius.

BUILDING ACCESS
Folks have to sign in at the front desk when they arrive (and sign out when leaving), then take the elevator to the 5th floor.

We’re having another Wood Street community cookout on Wednesday 11/13 at 7 pm. I hope housed Oakland residents come out to learn more about how they can support their unhoused neighbors. Bring food if you can, if you can’t, no big deal. It’ll be fun. Meet at 24th and Wood.

— Zack Haber (@ZZZZZZZZZZZack) November 12, 2019

Venue is wheelchair accessible

Agenda Items of Note:

IV. Draft Ordinance on Military Police Equipment
The Coalition for Police Accountability will present a draft ordinance for review. OPD will
also present their response to the draft ordinance.

IX. Subpoenas Regarding OBOA Allegations of Racial Discrimination
The Commission will discuss and possibly take action on whether or not to serve
subpoenas relating to the Oakland Black Officers Association’s allegations of racial
discrimination.

X. Report on Policing of Oakland’s Unhoused Communities
The Commission will discuss the report which was prepared on behalf of the Coalition for
Police Accountability by students at the University of California, Berkeley. This is a new
item. (Attachment 10).

XI. Vote to Submit Request to City Council to Create Standing Policy and Legislation
Committee
The Commission will vote to authorize the submission of a request to the City Council for
approval of a Standing Policy and Legislation Committee.

The Oakland Police Commission will consider the proposed ordinance on militarized equipment. Please come to the first part of this meeting to show support for this ordinance and make a short public comment. BAY Peace organizers will also present video testimony of youth violated by police military equipment.

Oakland PD has submitted a response to the proposed ordinance falsely claiming that it currently requests listed equipment through the Police Commission, City Council and Council’s Public Safety Committee. OPD says that the ordinance would remove these three bodies from their part in governing Oakland and the OPD! In fact, the ordinance will give the City Council and Police Commission authority for reviewing police equipment, with community input, that they have never had.

Please join us on Thursday at 6:30pm and consider asking others to come out on Thursday as well. The militarized equipment ordinance is the first item on the agenda. You can speak during Open Forum at 6:30, and/or right after the ordinance is presented.

You can share this online Petition to Regulate Police Military Equipment in Oakland.

We want civilian control over OPD’s use of military equipment, including sound cannons known as LRADs (Long Range Acoustic Devices). A federal court ruled last year that NYPD’s indiscriminate use of LRADs at a Black Lives Matter protest, where it caused damage to people’s eardrums, was illegal. An LRAD was used in Oakland against Occupy in 2011, causing some protesters to fall over and vomit. Yet, OPD states that “LRAD is not a weapon LRAD is a communication device…” OPD says it has no use policy for the LRAD, and appears to suggest that it doesn’t need one.

We’ve created this interactive map of deployments of the tank-like BearCat in Oakland in 2018 and 2019.

The more we learn, the more clear it is that the militarized equipment ordinance is necessary. Please join us on Thursday.

American Friends Service Committee
California Healing Justice Program
Tel: 510-282-8983

• Information about recent dramatic radio network conflicts, resulting lawsuits, and proposed new bylaws
• The shut down and lock out of staff at New York affiliate WBAI
• The elimination of various independent programs at KPFA
• The truth about the Pacifica network’s financial state
• “Why can’t we all just get along?”

Whether you are a member or an occasional listener, Pacifica’s survival is essential to everyone’s free speech.
Please come and learn more if you value free independent media. Join us in protecting the fierce independence of KPFA’s local and Pacifica’s national programming, which speaks truth to power.