Government

Candidates For Oakland’s District 5 Share Their Platforms

Published

3 years ago

September 25, 2020

Incumbent Noel Gallo

East Oakland native and District 5 incumbent Noel Gallo touts his Oakland public education with pride. He’s been holding his city council position since 2013 and before that, he served 20 years as a member of the Oakland Board of Education.

In his time on the City Council, Gallo helped create the Police Commission and is committed to reducing the police department budget by 50%. He says he is committed to reimagining public safety and believes in providing a model of counseling for youth that is from the school level to street level as a form of violence prevention.

Gallo supports affordable housing, currently working with the Unity Council to continue Phase 2 development for housing in transit areas that includes 30 units of housing for the homeless. He has helped the Native American Health Center develop 110 units on International Boulevard next to the health center. He is also working with the Agnes Memorial Church to create senior housing.

Gallo is open to negotiating the leasing of the Coliseum land that is publicly owned in order to maintain control of how it is used by the city, rather than sell it or sell the Oakland Port to private entities.

To learn more about Noel Gallo’s campaign go to https://www.noelgalloforoakland.com/

Zoe Lopez-Meraz

Zoe Lopez-Meraz has worked in the medical fields of physical therapy, transplant, and urology and volunteers at the Berkeley Free Clinics. She puts a high value on supporting teachers and education. She wants to decriminalize homelessness, sex work, and drugs as she says on her website all three disproportionately affect people of color and create a revolving door of criminalization.

Since 80% of calls to OPD are non-violent, Lopez-Meraz says reinvesting into the community from the money saved in the 50% decrease in OPD’s budget would make sense. She sees a great need for addressing mental health in the community so that police are not the first responders to mental health crises.

On sheltering and housing issues, Lopez-Meraz holds a straight-forward stance. If it’s vacant, take the property, repurpose vacant lots, warehouses, empty hotel rooms and vacant units using state emergency funding that is already available. She said the city creates policies with no real plan for execution.

Lopez-Meraz does not support the project proposed to build 3,000 units of high-end housing and a ballpark on the Oakland Port property. She thinks more support should be placed in existing infrastructure and more should be done to boost business in East Oakland.

To learn more about Zoe Lopez-Meraz’s campaign go to https://www.zlm4oak.org/

Richard Santos Raya

Long-time Bay Area resident Richard Santos Raya has a background as a classroom educator and lawyer. He says he wants to connect with those who are looking to work on labor, racial, housing, and economic justice.

Regarding OPD, Raya says one of the first things that can be done is to curb police spending and police injustice is to address rampant overtime funding. A huge drain on city coffers, it also incentivizes police to make arrests near the end of their shift in order to rack up overtime pay. He also says malpractice or brutality cases should not be paid out of taxpayer money, instead possibly from the police pension fund.

On homelessness, Raya says that in addition to the construction that has already been undertaken and Tuff sheds, he believes Oakland needs to convert existing housing to deeply affordable housing.

He says there should be a partnership with local land trusts and recommends removing housing from the unstable, untenable rental market into a more sustainable holding pattern. Small landlords need incentives to maintain their housing at below affordable rates.

Raya does not support a new ballpark at the Oakland Port. He wants to keep the public land at Oakland Coliseum and says it’s important to retain the Oakland A’s at that site.

To learn more about Richard Raya Santos’ campaign go to https://www.santosraya.com/

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Michelle Snider

Associate Editor for The Post News Group. Writer, Photographer, Videographer, Copy Editor, and website editor documenting local events in the Oakland-Bay Area California area.

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Activism

Oakland Post: Week of May 31 = June 6, 2023

The printed Weekly Edition of the Oakland Post: Week of May 31 = June 6, 2023

Published

4 days ago

June 2, 2023

Oakland Post

The printed Weekly Edition of the Oakland Post: Week of May 31 = June 6, 2023

To enlarge your view of this issue, use the slider, magnifying glass icon or full page icon in the lower right corner of the browser window.

Activism

Community Opposes High Rise Development That Threatens Geoffrey’s Inner Circle

City Council chambers were full for the May 17 Planning Commission hearing, and almost all the 40 speakers who had signed up to make presentations talked about the importance of the Inner Circle as part of Oakland and Geoffrey Pete as a stalwart community and business leader who has served the city for decades.

Published

1 week ago

May 30, 2023

Oakland Post

Geoffrey Pete went to City Hall to appeal the city Planning Commission’s approval of the high-rise development that threatens the closure of his 44-year historic cultural mecca. Photo by Jonathan ‘Fitness’ Jones.

By Ken Epstein

An outpouring of community supporters – young, old, jazz lovers, environmentalists and committed Oakland partisans – spoke out at a recent Planning Commission hearing to support Geoffrey Pete and his cultural center – The Inner Circle – an historic Oakland landmark whose future is threatened by a proposed skyscraper that out-of-town-developer Tidewater Capital wants to build in the midst of the city’s Black Arts Movement and Business District (BAMBD).

The speakers argued passionately and persuasively, winning the sympathy of the commissioners, but were ultimately unsuccessful as the Commission unanimously approved the high-rise to be built either as a residential building or office tower on Franklin Street directly behind Geoffrey’s building.

Mr. Pete has said he would appeal the decision to the City Council. He has 10 days after the hearing to file an appeal on the office building. His appeal on the residential tower has already been submitted.

Mr. Pete said the Planning Department still has not published the boundaries of the BAMBD. “Tidewater’s applications and subsequent applications should not be approved until the Planning Department fully acknowledges the existence of the BAMBD,” he said.

“This (proposed) building poses a grave danger to the historic (Inner Circle) building next to it, arguably Oakland’s most meaningful historic building,” Pete said.

“We’re here to advocate for what’s best for the African American district and community that has gotten no representation, no advocacy, as of yet,” he said. “The (commission) is guilty, the City of Oakland is guilty, and Tidewater is guilty.”

One of the first speakers was Gwendolyn Traylor, known as Lady SunRise, who directly addressed the developers.

“With all due to respect to your business, it’s not a need of this community. I would like to ask you to reconsider the location …What is being (promised) here does not add to the healing of this community,” she said.

Naomi Schiff of the Oakland Heritage Alliance emphasized that Geoffrey’s Inner Circle is a treasure of Oakland’s history.

“Our first concern is the integrity of the historic district, in particular the former Athenian-Nile Club, now Mr. Pete’s equally historic venue, which has been the location of a great number of important community events,” she said. “It would not be OK with us if the integrity of the building were damaged in any way, no matter how much insurance (the developer bought) because it is very difficult to repair a historic building once it’s damaged.”

The Inner Circle was previously owned and operated by the Athenian-Nile Club, one of the Bay Area’s largest all-white-male exclusive private membership club, where politicians and power brokers closed back-room deals over handshakes and three martini lunches.

Cephus “Uncle Bobby X” Johnson pointed out that commissioners and the city’s Planning Department have “acknowledged that you went through the entire design review process without even knowing that the Black Arts Movement and Business District existed.”

The district was created in 2016 by City Council resolution. “At the heart of the opposition to this building is the desire to further the legacy of local Black entertainment and entrepreneurship exemplified by businesses like Mr. Pete’s … a historical landmark and venue (that serves) thousands of people who listen to jazz and other entertainment and hold weddings, receptions, and memorial services,” said Uncle Bobby.

This development is taking place within a context in which the “Black population in Oakland has decreased rapidly … because of the city’s concentration on building houses that are not affordable for people who currently live in Oakland,” he said.

John Dalrymple of East Bay Residents for Responsible Development said, “This project will result in significant air quality, public health, noise, and traffic impacts. He said the city has not adequately studied the (unmitigated) impacts of this project on the Black Arts Movement and Business District.

“This project is an example of what developers are being allowed to do when they don’t have to follow the law, and they don’t have to be sensitive to our city’s culture and values,” he said. The commission should “send a signal today that we will no longer be a feeding ground for the rich.”

Prominent Oakland businessman Ray Bobbitt told commissioners, “Any decision that you make is a contribution to the systemic process that creates a disproportionate impact on Black people. Please do yourself a favor, (and) rethink this scenario. Give Mr. Pete, who is a leader in our community, an opportunity to set the framework before you make any decision.”

Though the City Council created the BAMBD, the 2016 resolution was never implemented. The district was created to “highlight, celebrate, preserve and support the contributions of Oakland’s Black artists and business owners and the corridor as a place central historically and currently to Oakland’s Black artists and Black-owned businesses.”

The district was intended to promote Black arts, political movements, enterprises, and culture in the area, and to bring in resources through grants and other funding.

Activism

Community Meeting on Crime and Violence

Join Oakland City Councilmember Dan Kalb to discuss the uptick in crime and violence in District 1 and across Oakland. Representatives from the Oakland Police Department will be in attendance. This event will be held in-person and online.

Published

1 week ago

May 29, 2023

Oakland Post