Bay Area
Bay Area Leaders and Community Are Rallying Behind Vice President Harris’ Recent Presidential Race News
In a wild turn of events that many had been speculating about and asking for over the last several weeks, President Joe Biden decided over the weekend that he would be stepping down from running for reelection and instead endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris to be the Democratic nominee to fight against former President Donald Trump. Shortly after Biden’s announcement, Harris proudly declared that she would indeed be throwing her hat in the ring to run for president. The news immediately created a frenzy of excitement and hope from voters.
By Magaly Muñoz
In a wild turn of events that many had been speculating about and asking for over the last several weeks, President Joe Biden decided over the weekend that he would be stepping down from running for reelection and instead endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris to be the Democratic nominee to fight against former President Donald Trump.
Shortly after Biden’s announcement, Harris proudly declared that she would indeed be throwing her hat in the ring to run for president. The news immediately created a frenzy of excitement and hope from voters.
Leading up to the announcement, Democrats had been calling for Biden to step down, especially after his debate with Trump, where slip ups in speech and body language had many questioning whether he was in the right physical and mental state to carry on for four more years as president.
Democratic political leaders such as former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi reportedly were having conversations with Biden to step down, fearing he would lose in November. Big donors like George Clooney also felt that the president was no longer a viable option, going as far as writing an opinion piece in the New York Times expressing his concerns.
But the support for Harris has been overwhelmingly positive over the last several days.
In the first 24 hours since her announcement, her campaign raised over $81 million, the largest donation day in history, Harris’ campaign team said.
Local Bay Area leaders quickly took to social media in the hours and days following the news to endorse Harris for president.
“I am thrilled to give my support to Vice President Kamala Harris in her bid to win the presidency and defeat Donald Trump. VP Harris is an Oakland native, a fighter, and a visionary leader who is THE VOICE we need in the White House. Her dedication to justice, equality, and progress reflects the very spirit of Oakland, and I am confident she will bring the same passion and tenacity to the presidency,” Oakland Mayor Sheng Thao wrote on X (formerly known as Twitter).
Miles away, San Francisco Mayor London Breed expressed her support for the former San Francisco District Attorney and California Attorney General.
“I am confident that my friend, Vice President Harris, has the experience, the strength, the judgment and the integrity to defeat Donald Trump and serve as our next President,” Breed said on Instagram.
Oakland city council members Treva Reid and Nikki Fortunato-Bas also shared their excitement to have Harris as a contender for president.
Residents also have expressed their immense happiness at seeing a Black woman as the first to potentially hold the title as president.
The Sunday of the announcement, a political coalition called Win With Black Women held their weekly Zoom meeting to discuss the news and attracted an estimated 44,000 participants eager to join the conversation.
This meeting, which typically has a few hundred participants on the call, had people waiting up to an hour to get into the online webinar.
Patrice Berry, who’s currently running for an Oakland Unified School Board seat, told the Post that the Zoom meeting was “the conjuring of ancestral wisdom, love and power.”
Berry had not previously attended the Win With Black Women conversation but was feeling uneasy after reading the news about Biden not seeking reelection so she wanted to hear what others had to say about the matter.
She was in awe at the number of people that had shown up to begin organizing and rallying behind Harris. People prayed, spoke words of encouragement, and recognized the Black female leaders in their own communities that were making a difference.
Harris’s potential presidency would create opportunities to hold people accountable and “build the world we want to see” because it would be the first time a Black woman was elected as president, Berry said.
“Even as I talk to my daughter, who is thinking about imagining herself as a president, that’s been wild. I didn’t think I would see that in my lifetime,” Berry shared.
$1.6 million was raised for the Harris campaign during the Zoom call, organizers of the event have reported.
A similar organization called Win With Black Men met Monday night and had an attendance of about 53,000 participants who raised $1.3 million in four hours, attendees said on social media.
“The BLACK COMMUNITY is uniting in ways we have not seen in politics before,” one participant wrote on X.
Bay Area
Homelessness Committee and Advocates Urge City to Stop Confiscating Unhoused People’s Belongings
Encampment sweeps are not a new method of action to evict people from living and sleeping on the streets in San Francisco. However, recent reports indicate that city staff are not following proper policy, exacerbating the problems for unhoused people. Homeless advocates and allies held a press conference on Thursday at City Hall, condemning staff workers for destroying people’s property during encampment evictions and asking officials to ensure that important documents and medication are not being stripped from these individuals.
By Magaly Muñoz
Encampment sweeps are not a new method of action to evict people from living and sleeping on the streets in San Francisco. However, recent reports indicate that city staff are not following proper policy, exacerbating the problems for unhoused people.
Homeless advocates and allies held a press conference on Thursday at City Hall, condemning staff workers for destroying people’s property during encampment evictions and asking officials to ensure that important documents and medication are not being stripped from these individuals.
“By destroying the very items that could help people regain stability, the city is not just punishing people for being poor, but actively making it harder for them to escape homelessness,” Jennifer Friedenbach, executive director of the Coalition on Homelessness, said.
Friedenbach criticized the city for not fixing their housing problem or finding new ways to shelter people, instead they are further adding to the harm of the “humanitarian crisis that San Francisco is facing.”
The press conference was held before the monthly Homelessness Oversight Commission (HOC) meeting, where commissioners discussed a draft resolution to submit to city staff highlighting the importance of not separating people from their items as this might cause further distress.
The resolution lists ssential items that workers should be cautious of not destroying or throwing away including medical documents and medication, work permits, identification, and survival gear, such as blankets or tents.
City policy instructs workers to “bag and tag” items left behind after an encampment sweep. These items are labeled by Public Works and kept at their operations yard for 90 days before being discarded.
But according to several reports and videos of the sweeps, the city has not always followed this policy and has on numerous occasions thrown away people’s medications or tents, leaving individuals without their essentials.
During the meeting, commissioners suggested adding school records and family related support items, such as diapers, to the resolution because of the increasing number of families living on the streets.
Virginia Taylor, senior policy advisor for Safe & Sound, said 531 families are waiting for housing in San Francisco. Many of these families are living out of their cars or in RVs, yet the city has limited safe parking spots where people can situate themselves.
Along with not throwing out people’s belongings, advocates are also continuing to ask the city to stop the encampment sweeps because all they are accomplishing is moving unhoused folks block to block without solving the root problem of lack of consistent housing.
“We need urgent action, more family shelter beds, a stop to vehicle sweeps, expanded safe parking programs and housing solutions that keep our multi-generational families together. Our children’s futures depend on it. Let’s build a San Francisco where no family falls through the crack and every child has the opportunity to thrive,” Taylor said.
Speakers referenced the RV sweep conducted in early August on Zoo Road, where dozens of people, many of them non-English speaking immigrants, were asked to leave the parking lot or else their vehicles would be towed and they would be cited.
While people were offered shelter beds or housing vouchers, some worried about where they would stay while the city processed their applications. This drew criticism of San Francisco’s method of not always having immediate options for people yet continuing to sweep unhoused folks with nowhere to go.
Commissioners of HOC agreed that the city is not trying to exacerbate the issue and the resolution is one of many steps to ensure that there are no setbacks in the progress to ending homelessness in San Francisco.
The HOC will approve the resolution at a later meeting once amendments and changes are made.
Bay Area
Former Mayor Willie L. Brown Endorses Dana Lang for BART Board District 7
Former San Francisco Mayor Willie L. Brown has announced his endorsement support for Dana Lang for BART Board District 7 Seat, which includes voters from both sides of the Bay, and in San Francisco includes Bay View Hunters Point and Treasure Island. Brown acknowledged that Lang has been a behind-the-scenes force in transportation funding for many years and can help BART manage its financial challenges.
By Oakland Post Staff
Former San Francisco Mayor Willie L. Brown has announced his endorsement support for Dana Lang for BART Board District 7 Seat, which includes voters from both sides of the Bay, and in San Francisco includes Bay View Hunters Point and Treasure Island.
Brown acknowledged that Lang has been a behind-the-scenes force in transportation funding for many years and can help BART manage its financial challenges.
“When I met with Dana Lang I asked many questions, then I asked others about her contributions. Getting to know her I realized that she truly understood transportation. At a time when BART is facing a “fiscal cliff” and an upcoming deficit of nearly $360 million per year, Dana is more than ready for this job, she is ready to meet the moment!”
Over the past 24 years Lang has been a funding and grants specialist with several municipal transportation agencies, including the Metropolitan Transportation Commission, San Francisco Muni, San Francisco Police Department and San Francisco International Airport (SFO).
Lang says, “I’ve faced a number of fiscal crises in my career — such as securing $52 million in new transit security funding for SFMTA (Muni) during the 2008 Great Recession, when others thought it was not possible. I have always managed to identify new funding and ways to make transit more secure. Facing a crisis is the best time to act, through advocacy and policy setting. We’ve got to keep BART running and make it safer and more vibrant in order to meet the needs of our riders, our work force, and our community.”
Lang grew up in the low-income minority community of East Palo Alto, CA, and knew that locating grants and resources could positively impact an entire city and its surrounding region — helping to create and retain agency jobs, getting transit riders to their workplaces, and encouraging small business development near transit hubs.
With that in mind, she pursued a bachelor’s degree in economics from Wellesley College, then an MBA from UC Berkeley’s Haas School of Business. She started her municipal career as a policy advisor to Mayor Elihu Harris and helped secure grants for the City of Oakland before moving to the Metropolitan Transportation Commission to serve as a transportation grants specialist.
During her 24-year career she has helped secure hundreds of millions of dollars for Bay Area transit agencies and municipalities. In addition to BART’s financial health, Lang’s priorities for BART also include safety, cleanliness, station vitality — and bringing riders back to BART. She has served on the BART Police Civilian Review Board since 2022.
Lang is also endorsed by BART Board Director Robert Raburn, former BART Board Director Carole Ward Allen, the Rev. Amos Brown, pastor of San Francisco’s Third Baptist Church, Alameda County supervisors Keith Carson and Nate Miley, former Oakland Mayor Elihu Harris, District 4 Oakland City Councilmember Janani Ramachandran, Oakland Chinatown leader Carl Chan, and many others.
Lang is seeking the BART Board District 7 Seat, which includes San Francisco’s Bay View Hunters Point and Treasure Island, a large portion of Oakland, the cities of Alameda, Emeryville, Piedmont, and a small portion of Berkeley.
Art
Phenomenal Woman’ Maya Angelou Monument Unveiled at San Francisco Main Library
In a joyful community celebration attended by over 200 people, including Mayor London Breed, the highly anticipated ‘Portrait of a Phenomenal Woman’ monument to Dr. Maya Angelou was unveiled at the San Francisco Main Library on Sept. 19. Oakland-based artist Lava Thomas created the 9-foot bronze and stone monument in the form of a book featuring a portrait and quotes from the celebrated author, poet, civil rights activist and former San Francisco resident.
By Linda Parker Pennington
In a joyful community celebration attended by over 200 people, including Mayor London Breed, the highly anticipated ‘Portrait of a Phenomenal Woman’ monument to Dr. Maya Angelou was unveiled at the San Francisco Main Library on Sept. 19.
Oakland-based artist Lava Thomas created the 9-foot bronze and stone monument in the form of a book featuring a portrait and quotes from the celebrated author, poet, civil rights activist and former San Francisco resident.
The work was commissioned by the San Francisco Arts Commission in response to legislation passed in 2018 by San Francisco’s Board of Supervisors, requiring at least 30% female representation in the public realm.
Attending the unveiling were Angelou’s grandson, Elliott Jones, social advocate, philanthropist, and board member of the Dr. Maya Angelou Foundation; and Rosa Johnson, Angelou’s niece and family archivist, who spoke about the historic unveiling of this first public monument portraying a Black woman in San Francisco’s history.
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