City Government

Mayoral Ranked Choices: Kaplan and Beckles Want Brooks and Price for Mayor

Published

8 years ago

September 23, 2018

By Jovanka Beckles & Rebecca Kaplan

We write as leaders who have endorsed Pamela Price for Mayor, and who have endorsed Cat Brooks for Mayor, to urge that all of us—regardless of who we have endorsed as our first choice—to unite together for the future of Oakland, to use all of our voting power.
Oakland has “ranked choice voting” allowing people to list a first, second, and third choice candidate.

We urge that anyone who is listing Cat Brooks as their first choice, list Pamela Price as their second choice, and anyone who is voting Pamela Price as their first choice, list Cat Brooks as their #2.

Oakland is at a crossroads, with record levels of homelessness, housing displacement and wrongful evictions. The current mayor has refused to treat this like a real emergency, and not yet taken needed actions with public lands, RVs and more.

The Schaaf administration even managed to “misplace” over $2 million that Council had authorized for emergency tenant assistance that would have helped protect renters facing displacement.

Oakland also faces repeated problems of police misconduct being covered up by the highest levels of the administration. The former police chief acted to cover up and allow repeated acts of sexual misconduct against a minor girl by multiple police officers —and Mayor Schaaf publicly defended him at a press conference and refused to bring disciplinary action, and publicly said he’d done nothing wrong.

More recently, when police arrested a community leader and advocate for bicycling while Black, Schaaf did not ask to drop the charges and has not taken corrective action.

When Federal ICE agents came into West Oakland last August and tore apart a local family to send someone for deportation, Schaaf not only authorized OPD to help them, she also publicly spread ICE’s false propaganda about crimes that the family hadn’t actually committed.

Oakland deserves better. We need a Mayor who is committed to justice and is committed to serving the needs and protecting the well-being of everyone in our community, including those who have been most left behind.

Some of our communities are suffering disproportionately —from air pollution and toxins, from violence and from housing displacement. Their needs cannot keep being ignored while harms like illegal dumping and blight are also left to spread unabated.
We can, and must, unite for the sake of our communities.

Attorney Pamela Price, and activist and executive director Cat Brooks provide us the best opportunity to help the people of Oakland and to elect a Mayor who will put public needs first.

We urge voters to use their power and use their votes. Thanks very much for your consideration.

Sincerely,

Jovanka Beckles and Rebecca Kaplan

Jovanka Beckles is a two-term Richmond City Councilmember. She is currently a candidate for State Assembly (15th district), running to build a California for the many, not just the few. She has endorsed Pamela Price for Mayor of Oakland.

Rebecca Kaplan is the at-large council member for the city of Oakland, who was re-elected citywide by a large margin in 2016, and authored Oakland’s vacant property tax to fund homeless solutions (Measure W). Kaplan has endorsed Cat Brooks for Mayor of Oakland.

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Oakland Post: Week of July 8 – 14, 2026

The printed Weekly Edition of the Oakland Post: Week of July 8 – 14, 2026

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2 days ago

July 12, 2026

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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

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1 week ago

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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

3 weeks ago

June 26, 2026

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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.”