Activism
‘Life Over Rent’ Rally Speakers Urge Tenants to Organize, Prepare next Steps
About 175 tenants gathered on the steps of Alameda County’s Superior Courthouse for a rally called Life Over Rent/Nuestrxs Vidas Si Renta No last Saturday.
A Facebook invitation for the rally claimed “Our needs come before our landlord’s profits” and showed that five different tenants’ unions organized the event: Tenants and Neighborhood Councils (TANC), SMC Tenants Council, Lonay Tenants Council, Village Residents Association at UC Berkeley Family Housing and JDW Tenants Union.
The invite also listed three goals: canceling rent during the pandemic, recognition and negotiation from landlords of collectively organized tenants, and prohibiting all evictions and expanding unemployment and food stamps for those hit hardest by the pandemic.
Although the day was hot with temperatures in the upper 80s and 90s, the courthouse provided shade where tenants sat in as they listened to about a dozen speakers representing different local grassroots tenant, labor, and housing justice groups.
A march was planned, but it was canceled as smoke increasingly blew into the area. Tenants held signs, mostly in red, some of which read “EVICTIONS = POLICE VIOLENCE,” “BLACK LIVES MATTER, BLACK TENANTS MATTER,” “HOMES FOR ALL, WE WON’T WAIT” and “LANDLORDS MUST NEGOTIATE.”
Gerald Smith, a former Black Panther who’s currently a member of the Oscar Grant Organizing Committee spoke first and encouraged people to join in the fight to release people from San Quentin State Prison, where currently 26 people have died from COVID-19. Then Smith spoke of lessons he learned participating in The Harlem Rent Strikes in the mid-1960s and highlighted the importance of organized leadership and planning beyond small wins against landlords. After some landlords abandoned buildings during the Harlem strike, Smith said many renters weren’t organized or prepared on how to respond.
“We figured if you beat them, things are going to be all right,” Smith said. “But it’s not going to be all right. As long as capitalism exists it’s not going to be all right. You have to prepare people for the next step.”
Judy Greenspan, a local teacher and member of the Oakland Education Association spoke next and pointed out that COVID-19 could cause massive privatization of schools in addition to evictions if people do not organize well.
ILWU Local 34 president Keith Shanklin spoke against the Howard Terminal Project, which plans to place an Oakland A’s ballpark and market-rate condos in The Port of Oakland, and said it would destroy union longshoreman jobs.
Members of several local tenants’ unions including JDW Tenants Union, SMC Tenants Council and Alice Street Dunsmuir Tenant Union spoke of the need to connect and organize with other tenants, particularly ones who rent from the same landlord.
Jourdan Sales of JDW Tenants Union said her landlord, Justin Douglas Wallway, found a loophole he tried to use to remove rent control from more than 30 of the households he rented to in 2017. But through tenants organizing and collaborating with Centro Legal De La Raza, they were able to close the loophole.
“We actually changed housing legislation,” they said. “This battle took two years before it was won. This isn’t something that’s going to happen overnight. These things that we want to take time.”
Kieryn Darkwater and Casey Busher of Alice Street Dunsmuir Tenant Union spoke of how they have fought to stop their landlord from charging them for utilities they claim they are not legally obligated to pay. As their fight has been hung up in the Rent Adjustment Program and court, they have expanded and worked with the Ivy Hills Tenant Union.
Their landlord has refused to negotiate with them. Together, both groups have 25 units currently on rent strike. They’ve also started meeting regularly and have a bulletin board in their shared laundry room where they lend out tools and help each other with pet sitting.
“We have become our landlord’s worst nightmare,” said Darkwater.
Dayton Andrews of The United Front Against Displacement spoke of unifying unhoused and housed people together, dismantling distinctions between different struggles including housing, immigration, and queer rights.
“We have to come together as a class to oppose the enemies of the people,” said Andrews.
Activism
Oakland Post: Week of March 13 – 19, 2024
The printed Weekly Edition of the Oakland Post: Week of March 13 – 19, 2024
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Activism
Oakland Post: Week of March 6 – 12, 2024
The printed Weekly Edition of the Oakland Post: Week of March 6 – 12, 2024
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
Who are the Alameda County District 4 Supervisor Candidates’ Top Campaign Contributors?
Below, we’ve listed each candidate’s 10 highest campaign contributors. For Miley, two of his top campaign donors also bought their own advertisements to support him and/or oppose Esteen through independent expenditures. Such expenditures, though separate from campaign donations, are also public record, and we listed them. Additionally, the National Organization of Realtors has spent about $70,500 on their own independent expenditures to support Miley.
By Zack Haber
Nate Miley, who has served on Alameda County’s Board of Supervisors since 2000, is running for reelection to the District 4 supervisor seat.
Jennifer Esteen, a nurse and activist, is seeking to unseat him and become one of the five members of the powerful board that sets the county’s budget, governs its unincorporated areas, and oversees the sheriff, Alameda Health System, and mental health system.
District 4 includes most of East Oakland’s hills and flatlands beyond Fruitvale, part of Pleasanton and unincorporated areas south of San Leandro like Ashland and Castro Valley.
Voting is open and will remain open until March 5.
In California, campaign donations of $100 or more are public record. The records show that Miley has received about $550,000 in total campaign donations since he won the previous District 4 election in March 2020. Esteen has raised about $255,000 in total campaign donations since she started collecting them last July. All figures are accurate through Feb. 20.
While Miley has raised more money, Esteen has received donations from more sources. Miley received donations of $100 or more from 439 different sources. Esteen received such donations from 507 different sources.
Below, we’ve listed each candidate’s 10 highest campaign contributors. For Miley, two of his top campaign donors also bought their own advertisements to support him and/or oppose Esteen through independent expenditures. Such expenditures, though separate from campaign donations, are also public record, and we listed them. Additionally, the National Organization of Realtors has spent about $70,500 on their own independent expenditures to support Miley.
Nate Miley’s top campaign contributors:
The California Apartment Association, a trade group representing landlords and investors in California’s rental housing business, has spent about $129,500 supporting Miley’s election bid through about $59,500 in ads against Esteen, $55,000 in ads supporting Miley, and $15,000 in campaign donations.
The independent expenditure committee Preserve Agriculture in Alameda County has spent about $46,025 supporting Miley through about $27,200 in their own ads, and $18,825 in donations to his campaign. Preserve Agriculture has supported reelection efforts for former Alameda County DA Nancy O’Malley, and Sheriff Greg Ahern, a republican. It’s received funding from Chevron, PG&E, and a the California Apartment Association.
Organizations associated with the Laborers’ International Union of North America, or LiUNA, have donated about $35,000 in total. Construction and General Laborers Local 304, a local chapter of the union representing which represents over 4,000 workers, donated $20,000.
Laborers Pacific Southwest Regional Organizing Coalition, which represents 70,000 LiUNA members in Arizona, California, Hawaii and New Mexico, donated $15,000.
William ‘Bill’ Crotinger and the East Oakland-based company Argent Materials have donated $26,000. Crotinger is the president and founder of Argent, a concrete and asphalt recycling yard. Argent’s website says it is an eco-friendly company that diverts materials from landfills. In 2018, Argent paid the EPA $27,000 under a settlement for committing Clean Water Act violations.
Michael Morgan of Hayward, owner of We Are Hemp, a marijuana dispensary in Ashland, has donated $21,500.
Alameda County District 1 Supervisor David Haubert has donated $21,250 from his 2024 reelection campaign. He’s running unopposed for the District 1 seat.
SEIU 1021, which represents over 60,000 workers in local governments, non-profit agencies, healthcare programs, and schools in Northern California, has donated $20,000.
UA Local 342, which represents around 4,000 pipe trades industry workers in Contra Costa and Alameda counties, donated $20,000.
The union representing the county’s deputy sheriffs, Deputy Sheriff’s Association of Alameda County, has donated $17,000.
Becton Healthcare Resources and its managers have donated $14,625. Becton’s mission statement says it provides “behavioral health management services to organizations and groups that serve the serious and persistent mentally ill population.”
Jennifer Esteen’s top campaign contributors:
Mary Quinn Delaney of Piedmont, founder of Akonadi Foundation, has donated $20,000. Akonadi Foundation gives grants to nonprofit organizations, especially focusing on racial justice organizing,
Bridget Galli of Castro Valley has donated $7,000. Galli is a yoga instructor and a co-owner of Castro Valley Yoga.
Rachel Gelman of Oakland has donated $5,000. Gelman is an activist who has vowed to redistribute her inherited wealth to working class, Indigenous and Black communities.
California Worker Families Party has donated $5,000. The organization’s website describes itself as a “grassroots party for the multiracial working class.”
David Stern of Albany has donated $5,000. Stern is a retired UC Berkeley Professor of Education.
Oakland Rising Committee—a collaborative of racial, economic, and environmental justice organizations—has donated about $3,050.
Fredeke Von Bothmer-Goodyear, an unemployed resident of San Francisco, has donated $2,600.
Robert Britton of Castro Valley has donated $2,500. Britton is retired and worked in the labor movement for decades.
Progressive Era PAC has donated about $2,400. Its mission statement says it “exists to elect governing majorities of leaders in California committed to building a progressive era for people of color.”
East Bay Stonewall Democrats Club has donated $2,250. The club was founded in 1982 to give voice to the East Bay LGBTQIA+ communities.
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