City Government

Kaplan to Propose Amendments to Schaaf’s Budget at June 10 Meeting

Published

7 years ago

May 29, 2019

City Council President Rebecca Kaplan has called a special City Council meeting in June to present proposed amendments to the $3.2 billion, two-year budget proposal recently released by Mayor Libby Schaaf’s administration.

“I have been working with numerous stakeholders, my team and community to ensure we have the opportunity to adopt a budget to protect and enhance vital needs and honor Oakland’s communities and priorities,” said Kaplan in a media release.

“In drafting my amendments, I will be taking into consideration the importance of a budget that is sound and thoughtful and respects vital needs and equity in our community,” Kaplan wrote. She is “still considering and receiving suggestions” and already has some initial proposals.

Her proposed amendments seek to address:

•“Significant and Inequitable Harm to our Parks.”

Mayor Schaaf’s budget proposal cuts 8.5 full-time employees who perform park maintenance.

“This would result in unacceptable degradation of these important public spaces, as they become less well maintained and more trashed, and less usable by our communities,” wrote Kaplan. “Even worse, they propose to cut maintenance inequitably—for some parks and not others—leaving some of our hardest hit communities with more blight and less safe spaces for healthy recreation.

• “Stronger Action Needed on Homelessness.”

“Over the past few years, the number of people living on the streets, sidewalks and underpasses in Oakland has increased dramatically,” Kaplan wrote. “Oakland’s…budget needs to respond to the scale of the crisis we face. This should include navigation centers and designating allowable locations for people in tents and RVs which are staffed and clean and have storage options and toilet access. We also need to prevent more people from being pushed into homelessness, by strengthening support for tenants facing displacement.”

Kaplan encouraged residents to send budget suggestions to jwedge@oaklandca.gov

The special council meeting will take place Monday, June 10, 5 p.m., at Oakland City Hall. The city is required to approve a new budget by the end of June.

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Oakland Post: Week of July 1 – 7, 2026

The printed Weekly Edition of the Oakland Post: Week of July 1 – 7, 2026

Published

4 days ago

July 5, 2026

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Inaugural Juneteenth Awards Ceremony Celebrates the Fillmore’s Black History, Leadership and Resilience

Addressing more than 100 Black and Asian attendees, San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie stated “San Francisco is reliant on the Black community, and we must invest in this community.”

Published

2 weeks ago

June 26, 2026

Oakland Post

District 5 Supervisor Bilal Mahmood, Rev. Dr. Amos Brown, Pastor Emeritus of Third Baptist Church, SF Mayor Daniel Lurie. Photo by Linda Parker Pennington.

By Linda Parker Pennington

The Fillmore Community Ambassadors held its first annual Juneteenth Wesley Johnson White Horse Awards ceremony on June 19 inside the newly reopened Fillmore Heritage Center.

The event featured awards for former San Francisco mayors London Breed and Willie Brown, along with Third Baptist Church Pastor Emeritus, Rev. Dr. Amos Brown.

The Koret Heritage lobby at the newly reopened center at 1330 Fillmore St. held a standing-room-only, culturally diverse and multi-generational audience while the art gallery featured photos of Fillmore community members in action, red Japanese lanterns, art and calligraphy, and Chinese artwork, giving the space a multicultural feel.

Addressing more than 100 Black and Asian attendees, San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie stated “San Francisco is reliant on the Black community, and we must invest in this community.”

District 5 Supervisor Bilal Mahmood acknowledged that “the Fillmore community has had a difficult history. Thanks to Rev. Amos Brown’s continuous focus on accountability and resistance, you hold us accountable and continue to inspire us.”

Mahmoud is referring to the Fillmore’s Japanese residents who were forced from their homes and sent to concentration camps during World War II. Black people occupied those homes until the return of their Japanese neighbors and then gave them back, while homes that had been unoccupied were lost. The presence of the Asian community on Juneteenth is a testament to that shared history.

In receiving his honor, Amos Brown elicited a powerful spontaneous call-and-response, where members of San Francisco’s many Black churches proudly shouted out the names: “Bethel AME! Providence Baptist! Jones Memorial! Glide!”

Awards program Master of Ceremonies Shawn Richards of Brothers Against Guns warmly introduced Breed, highlighting her many accomplishments, particularly on “March 16, 2020, when she became the first mayor to shut down a major U.S. city due to COVID-19, saving thousands of lives.”

The audience was captivated by Breed’s emotional speech touching on past traumas, present conditions, and future hopes for the neighborhood where she grew up.

She recalled another trauma of the neighborhood during the City’s redevelopment era in the 1960s, where Black residents were forced to move with a promise of being able to return that was largely unfulfilled.

“We remember when this land was just a field because they bulldozed hundreds of Victorian homes that Black people owned. They built the Fillmore Center, where most Black people can’t afford to live or start their own business. But we are still here.”