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Democratic Club Wants Answers to How City Lost $600,000 for the Unemployed

Published

14 years ago

March 1, 2013

Oakland Post

Deanna Santana

Larry Reid

By Ken A. Epstein

In an email exchange with city officials, the head of an Oakland Democratic club demanded “an immediate investigation” of why the city lost over $600,000 in federal funds to help laid off workers and called on the City Council “to get to the bottom of this as quickly as possible.”
“Oakland taxpayers and residents are entitled to know exactly what happened, when it happened, and why it happened,” said Gretchen White, president of the Metropolitan-Greater Oakland Democratic Club (MG0) in an email addressed Feb. 19 to City Council members.
“This appears to be due to incompetence,” she wrote.
“Oaklanders expect you to begin to restore trust that city personnel who cause losses of this magnitude will not escape scrutiny of their actions,” she continued. “If this malfeasance occurred during a previous administration, it is still important to provide full disclosure in order to prevent similar lapses in the future.”
Responding the following day, City Administrator Deanna Santana put the blame for the loss of funds on the Ron Dellums administration, which received the grant in the months before Dellums left office at the end of December 2010.
“This administration inherited this problem, (but) when we discovered the errors, despite significant effort, the problems could not be fully sorted out before the grant funds expired,” she wrote.
Santana said that city has already fixed the issues that led to the loss of money.
“Rest assured the current workforce investment staff and this city administration put corrective actions in place to address this and other issues and to enhance the transparency and accountability of this important process.”
In a follow-up email to Santana dated Feb. 25, White wanted to know what the city had done to fix the issues.
“What specific corrective actions were taken and when were they taken?” she asked.
Santana said in an interview with the Post that she has nothing to add in regard to the loss of the $600,000. “Our position is well documented,” she said.
As reported earlier in the Post, the grant as written by the Dellums administration, proposed to train first-time workers, such as the formerly incarcerated, rather than placing laid-off workers in on-the-job training positions, as required by the Department of Labor.
The plan also proposed to utilize Volunteers of America and the Youth Employment Partnership to implement the program, though they had no on-the-job training background or were they part of an open bidding process, as required by the state.
According to the state Employment Development Department (EDD), which was responsible for overseeing the federal money, Oakland had received support and warnings with enough time to spend the money to help the unemployed.
“During the initial phase of this project, the state hosted periodic conference calls with all 20 of this grant’s project operators (grantees),” said Dan Stephens, of the Communications Office, EDD Public Affairs Branch.
“The city was periodically reminded of the need to develop a corrective action plan that would get their project implemented quickly,” Stephens said.
“Warnings were issued … primarily through the conference calls … with all the grantees,” he said.
“The city’s current Workforce Investment Act (WIA) administrator John Bailey and his staff were first notified in late October 2011, that the City needed to deobligate (send back) funding from this project or present a written justification substantiating why they should be allowed to retain this funding as the availability of this funding to the state was scheduled to end on June 30, 2012,” Stephens said.
In an interview with the Post, White said that she and her fellow Democratic club were still looking for answers.
“ We would like to know who did this. Are they still there? What happened? Why was it done wrong in the very beginning?” asked White.
She said she believed the problem began with the previous administration, and it is understandable that the current administration was unable to find agencies to place unemployed workers in on-the-job training positions between January 2011 and the end of June 30, 2012 when the grant expired.
However, according to Pedro Toledo, a former member of the city’s workforce staff, the city had more than enough time to repair the errors of the previous administration and use the money to create positions for unemployed workers.
Under the Quan administration, he said, “Nothing was done … for almost a year until the state, pressured by the U.S. Department of Labor, took action to recapture most of the funds.”
A public discussion on the loss of funds is scheduled for Tuesday, March 12, 2 p.m. at the meeting of the City Council’s Community and Economic Development Committee. Vice Mayor Larry Reid had asked for the hearing.
William “Bill” Patterson, a leader of the Oakland branch of the NAACP and longtime member of the Oakland Workforce Investment Board, said he was pleased Councilmember Reid is holding a hearing on the lost funds. But he said he was concerned that neither the city administrator nor any other city official responded to the letters he has written over the past two years to the city on the lost funds and other job development problems.
“I´ve never received an official communiqué from anybody on the issues,” he said.

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COMMENTARY: Valarie Bachelor and Jennfier Brouhard are Excellent School Board Members and Deserve to Be Reelected

The Oakland Unified School District recently achieved a major milestone by escaping 22 years of state control and opening the school year with a teacher in every classroom. Incumbents Jennifer Brouhard and Valarie Bachelor are seeking reelection to the school board after overseeing balanced budgets, averting labor strikes, and reversing previous decisions to close local elementary schools. While the board now focuses on student-centered programs and school-based health facilities, a new wave of opposition candidates backed by wealthy tech donors has emerged. Read more about the shifting dynamics in this local election.

Published

5 days ago

October 25, 2026

Post News Group

Valarie Bachelor and Jennfier Brouhard, File images.

By Dr. Kitty Kelly Epstein and Dr. Kimberly Mayfield, Special to The Post

The Oakland schools have excellent leadership right now. I know it’s hard to believe – because there is so much wrong with the national education picture. But sometimes good things do happen locally.

This school year:

The Oakland Unified School District escaped from state control after 22 years.
Every classroom had a teacher at the beginning of the year, unlike past years when many classes started the year with day-to-day substitute teachers.
Dr. Denise Saddler, an African American woman, is leading the district as superintendent now. She was an excellent choice with vast understanding of Oakland, of schools, and of educational systems locally and nationally.
The school board and teachers managed to avert a teachers’ strike by some strategizing, listening and compromising.
The school board does not plan to close more schools. For the first time in decades, those in charge of the district were not discussing closures.

The two women leading the school board are excellent educators themselves.

Board President Jennifer Brouhard (District 2) served as an Oakland teacher and was awarded a Fulbright Distinguished Award in Teaching and the U.C. Berkeley Social Science Project Teacher of the Year Award.

When Brouhard joined the board four years ago, she voted to reverse the decision of the previous board which had planned to close Brookfield, Carl B. Munck, Grass Valley, Fred T. Korematsu Discovery Academy and Horace Mann elementary. Half the students at Carl Munck and at least a third of the students at several others were African American.

In refusing to close schools, she pointed out that in Oakland and other districts it has been Black and Brown students who have been most affected and that closing schools does not save money.

Then, she focused funding on classrooms rather than paying outside consultants. For that, she and her colleagues have incurred the wrath of real estate developers and school privatizers who want to get their hands on public property.

Board Vice President Valerie Bachelor (District 6) has worked on important facilities projects. She helped to set up the first school-based dental project at Frick United Academy of Language, an Oakland middle school. She championed the Melrose Leadership Academy groundbreaking and the Skyline dining facilities.

Bachelor facilitated a balanced budget, which was pivotal in helping the district finally end state control. She also worked to direct funding toward student-centered programs like the Black Thriving Community Schools Program, instead of spending money on the never-ending. highly paid outside consultants.

The people financing the opposition candidates are Ryan Graciano, co-founder of Credit Karma, which made $ 2.7 billion last year; and Gagan Biyani, who says he became a millionaire at age 25.

The literature produced on behalf of the opposition supports closing schools, which harms students, and advocates expenditures that would put OUSD back under state control.

To read more, go to Education Week, “The Harm of School Closures Can Last a Lifetime, New Research Shows” (2024), www.edweek.org/leadership/the-harm-of-school-closures-can-last-a-lifetime-new-research-shows/2024/06

Dr. Kitty Kelly is a Professor of Education and Urban Studies. Dr. Kimberly Mayfield is Dean at Kalmanovitz School of Education, Saint Mary’s College of California.

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PRESS ROOM: Transformative Justice Coalition 2026 Voting Rights Champion Awards Reception ‘Yesterday Is Today: The Battle For Voting Rights

BLACKPRESSUSA NEWSWIRE –

Published

2 weeks ago

October 13, 2026

Post News Group

Featuring a Special Fireside Chat with 16th Street Baptist Church Bombing Survivor Sarah Collins Rudolph

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Sixty-three years after the bombing of Birmingham’s Sixteenth Street Baptist

Church shocked the conscience of the nation, Sarah Collins Rudolph—known as the “Fifth Little Girl”—will join the Transformative Justice Coalition (TJC) for a special Fireside Chat examining the enduring connection between the civil rights struggle of 1963 and the battle for voting and civil rights in 2026.

The Fireside Chat, hosted in partnership with Attorney A. Scott Bolden of Reed Smith, LLP, will be a featured part of TJC’s 2026 Voting Rights Champion Awards Reception, held in commemoration of the September 15, 1963 bombing of the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama.

Collins Rudolph survived the bombing that killed four young girls, including her sister, Addie Mae Collins, and left her seriously injured. During this extraordinary conversation, she will share her firsthand experience of the bombing, its lifelong impact, and her continuing struggle for justice.

Her appearance comes at a consequential moment for voting and civil rights in America and offers a living reminder that the struggle against racial hatred, disenfranchisement, and injustice is not simply a chapter of history. Under the theme “Yesterday Is Today: The Battle for Voting and Civil Rights in 2026,” the evening will connect the sacrifices of the Civil Rights Movement with the continuing responsibility to protect voting rights and advance justice today.

WHAT: Transformative Justice Coalition 2026 Voting Rights Champion Awards Reception

“Yesterday Is Today: The Battle For Voting And Civil Rights In 2026”

Featuring a Special Fireside Chat with 16th Street Baptist Church Bombing Survivor Sarah Collins Rudolph

WHO: Barbara Arnwine, Esquire, Founder/President/Co-Leader, Transformative Justice Coalition

Daryl D. Jones, Esquire, Board Chair/Co-Leader, Transformative Justice Coalition

Sarah Collins Rudolph, Sixteenth Street Baptist Church Bombing Survivor

A. Scott Bolden, Esquire, Reed Smith, LLP; Sponsor of the Fireside Chat and Reception

WHEN: Wednesday, September 16, 2026, from 6:00 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. WHERE: Location will be emailed to registrants 48 hours before the event.

WHY: Attorney Barbara Arnwine, the President & Founder of the Transformative Justice Coalition (TJC), and Attorney Daryl Jones, Co-Leader and Board Chair of TJC, said of Mrs. Collins Rudolph’s appearance that “TJC believes that it is critically important that people hear from the sole survivor of the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church bombing.” Arnwine and Jones further stated that “this event will provide people with an opportunity to hear, first-hand, the results of racial hatred through the eyes of Mrs. Collins Rudolph, who was in the church with the four little girls who were killed at the time of the bombing.”

Attorney A. Scott Bolden, the sponsor of the Fireside Chat and Reception to benefit the non-profit Transformative Justice Coalition, said, “I am proud to support the work of the Transformative Justice Coalition. This is an organization that is truly in the trenches fighting for social justice and voting rights in America.” Bolden continued, “I have been an advocate for social justice my entire life. I strongly encourage people to come hear Mrs. Collins Rudolph and support the work of the Transformative Justice Coalition.”

TJC will bestow its 2026 Voting Rights Champion Award upon Collins Rudolph in recognition of her courage, perseverance, and continuing struggle for justice.

Attorney Arnwine and Attorney Jones concluded that, “Mrs. Collins Rudolph’s determination, heart, and perseverance to survive is to be applauded. This is the reason why TJC is bestowing upon her the 2026 ‘Voting Rights Champion Award.’ The character that Ms. Collins Rudolph displayed in her struggle to survive exemplifies the depth of commitment we must have today to protect our voting rights and work toward building a more robust, multicultural, and inclusive society for the future.”

REGISTRATION & SUPPORT: Registration for the Fireside Chat and Reception is available through Eventbrite or TJC’s website. Donations are tax-deductible to the extent permitted by law and are strongly encouraged. Proceeds will support the TJC John Lewis Make Good Trouble Vote Bus, which will travel across America to marginalized communities, register voters, and help take voters to the polls.

Founded in 2015 by Barbara Arnwine, president emeritus of the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights, where she created the national election protection program. Ms. Arnwine serves as President and Founder of the Transformative Justice Coalition, which seeks to catalyze transformative institutional change that advances justice and equality in the United States and abroad. Learn more at tjcoalition.org.

This story originally appeared on Black Press USA as “PRESS ROOM: Transformative Justice Coalition 2026 Voting Rights Champion Awards Reception ‘Yesterday Is Today: The Battle For Voting Rights”. Auto-delivered via NNPA Newswire.

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Locals Can Get Locally Grown Produce Delivered Through Urban Tilth

The standard price is $50 per week, which Urban Tilth says reflects the true cost of fresh, sustainably sourced, locally grown produce. Urban Tilth offers a subsidized “Food for All” price of $15 per week for individuals and families with extremely limited financial resources. Both options provide the same produce and service.

Published

2 weeks ago

October 13, 2026

Post News Group

A client receives groceries from a member of Urban Tilth. Courtesy photo.

By Richmond Standard Staff

West County residents can receive locally grown produce through Urban Tilth’s Farm to Table Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) program, with home delivery and pickup options available.

Contra Costa County Supervisor John Gioia highlighted the program in his newsletter, pointing out that his district office in El Cerrito serves as a pickup location.

Weekly or bi-weekly subscriptions include seasonal greens, vegetables, fruits and herbs. Produce comes from Urban Tilth’s North Richmond Farm and farms within 200 miles of Richmond, including small family farms and those owned by BIPOC, women and LGBTQIA+ growers.

Subscriptions also support hands-on job training for local youth and volunteer opportunities.

The standard price is $50 per week, which Urban Tilth says reflects the true cost of fresh, sustainably sourced, locally grown produce. A subsidized “Food for All” price of $15 per week is available for individuals and families with extremely limited financial resources. Both options provide the same produce and service.

Gioia’s office is located at 11780 San Pablo Ave., Suite D, in El Cerrito. To sign up or learn more about pickup and delivery options, visit urbantilth.org/heal/csa.