Activism

OP-ED: Faith Leaders Call for Accountability Over

A demonstration is planned for Tuesday May 24 at 11:30 a.m. at the Board of Supervisors on Oak and 12th streets in Oakland to protest a culture of death at the jail and this dysfunctional incarceration system. Join us in our call for accountability. The U.S. Justice Department recently found our county jail violates Constitutional rights and subjects the 40% of persons in custody who need mental health services to “unlawful harm.”

Published

2 years ago

May 8, 2022

Oakland Post

Negligence, Deaths at Santa Rita Jail

Alameda County’s Santa Rita jail, run by Sheriff Gregory Ahern, has been the target of multiple lawsuits over jail conditions and has had the most in-custody deaths in Northern California: at least 58 in-custody deaths since 2014, including 19 suicides.

We lift up the names of the two most recent to die in Santa Rita – Marcos Garibay and Larry Roberson. Their families are among many who have been given conflicting and incomplete information about their deaths by the sheriff.

The U.S. Justice Department recently found our county jail violates Constitutional rights and subjects the 40% of persons in custody who need mental health services to “unlawful harm.”

The sheriff has also evaded a county ban on collaboration of local law enforcement with ICE.

The county continues to hemorrhage millions of taxpayer dollars on settlements and legal fees for this mismanagement – the most recent costing upwards of $300 million. The Alameda County Sheriff’s Department needs a major transformative intervention.

Assembly Bill 1185, recently enacted by the California state Legislature, authorizes civilian oversight boards and a full-time Inspector General with subpoena power to investigate sheriff’s departments and jails. Our communities can gain accountability for brutal practices by the sheriff and assist supervisors in exercising their legal and fiscal authority to oversee this county department.

Sopath Mey, speaking for her Cambodian immigrant family, told us of her cousin Soto’s medical crisis and death in Santa Rita in January 2020:

“To this day we don’t understand how he died in custody of the jail and the sheriff. Did he get medical care he needed? … Our family has no resources for an investigation … The sheriff is also the coroner, which raises serious questions. Independent oversight without conflict of interest could tell us learn what happened so we can have peace of mind.”

A sheriff’s oversight coalition initiated by Faith In Action East Bay and Oakland’s Coalition for Police accountability including dozens of organizations and clergy of diverse faiths – ACLU of Northern California, Alameda County Public Health Commission, SEIU Local 1021, Oakland Education Association, Brotherhood of Elders, National Institute for Criminal Justice Reform, and working closely with the League of Women Voters – researched essential principles for effective independent civilian oversight:

A community selection panel process that is open and transparent to create a representative oversight board insulated from politics and the sheriff’s influence.
Legal counsel for a civilian Oversight Board and Inspector General that is fully independent of the County Counsel’s conflicts of interest representing the sheriff in lawsuits against the county.
A dedicated funding stream to ensure adequate staff of investigators working with an experienced, full-time Inspector General.
Access to records and testimony, regular public meetings and reports to the community and the Board of Supervisors (BOS.)
Elected officials – including the sheriff – must be held accountable. Civilian oversight with subpoena power can conduct independent investigations and recommend necessary change to the Board of Supervisors – who have the ultimate power of budgeting tax dollars.

Working with a full-time inspector general, they will investigate jail deaths, in-custody conditions, conduct of the sheriff’s deputies and can help identify alternatives to the county’s current cruel and costly mass incarceration of individuals with mental health challenges.

We must bring the sheriff’s operations into alignment with constitutional law enforcement, our community’s ethical values and the public trust.

Let Supervisors know you support the community coalition calling for strong oversight of the Sheriff – email the Board at cbs@acgov.org.

Rev. Dr. George Cummings, executive director, Faith In Action East Bay

Cathy Leonard for the Coalition for Police Accountability

Regina Jackson, Oakland Police Commission*

Rev. Dr. James Brenneman, president, Berkeley School of Theology*

Rev. Ken Chambers, West Side MBC & co-chair Interfaith Coalition of Alameda County*

Rev. Dr. James Hopkins, co-chair, Faith In Action East Bay; Lakeshore Avenue Baptist Church*

Rev. Derron Jenkins, associate minister, Allen Temple Baptist Church, Oakland*

Rev. Andrew Loban, rector, St. Bartholomew’s Episcopal Church, Livermore*

Fr. Aidan McAlaneen, pastor of St. Columba Catholic Church

Rabbi Dev Nolly, senior rabbi, Kehilla Community Synagogue, Oakland*

Rabbi Judith Seid, Tri-Valley Cultural Jews*

Rev. Jeffrey Spencer, senior pastor, Niles Discovery Church, Fremont*

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Oakland Post: Week of July 24 – 30, 2024

The printed Weekly Edition of the Oakland Post: Week of July 24 – 30, 2024

Published

13 hours ago

July 26, 2024

Oakland Post

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Oakland Post: Week of July 17 -23, 2024

The printed Weekly Edition of the Oakland Post: Week of July 17 -23, 2024

Published

6 days ago

July 20, 2024

Oakland Post

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Community Celebrates Historic Oakland Billboard Agreements

We, the Oakland Billboard Economic Development Coalition, which includes Oakland’s six leading community health clinics, all ethnic chambers of commerce, and top community-based economic development organizations – celebrate the historic billboard agreements approved last year by the Oakland City Council. We have fought for this opportunity against the billboard monopoly, against Clear Channel, for five years. The agreements approved by Council set the bar for community benefits – nearly $70 Million over their lifetime, more than 23 times the total paid by all previous Clear Channel relocation agreements in Oakland combined.

Published

2 weeks ago

July 13, 2024

Oakland Post

The Oakland Billboard Economic Development Coalition.

Grand Jury Report Incorrect – Council & Community Benefit

Unfortunately, a recent flawed Grand Jury report got it wrong, so we feel compelled to correct the record:

Regarding the claim that the decision was made hastily, the report itself belies that claim. The process was five years in the making, with two and a half years from the first City Council hearing to the final vote. Along the way, as the report describes, there were multiple Planning Commission hearings, public stakeholder outreach meetings, a Council Committee meeting, and then a vote by the full Council. Not only was this not hasty, it had far more scrutiny than any of the previous relocation agreements approved by the City with Clear Channel, all of which provide 1/23 of the benefits of the Becker/OFI agreements approved by the Council.
More importantly, the agreements will actually bring millions to the City and community, nearly $70M to be exact, 23 times the previous Clear Channel relocation agreements combined. They certainly will not cost the city money, especially since nothing would have been on the table at all if our Coalition had not been fighting for it. Right before the decisive City Council Committee hearing, in the final weeks before the full Council vote, there was a hastily submitted last-minute “proposal” by Clear Channel that was debunked as based on non-legal and non-economically viable sites, and relying entirely on the endorsement of a consultant that boasts Clear Channel as their biggest client and whose decisions map to Clear Channel’s monopolistic interests all over the country. Some City staff believed these unrealistic numbers based on false premises, and, since they only interviewed City staff, the Grand Jury report reiterated this misinformation, but it was just part of Clear Channel’s tried and true monopolistic practices of seeking to derail agreements that actually set the new standard for billboard community benefits. Furthermore, our proposals are not mutually exclusive – if Clear Channel’s proposal was real, why had they not brought it forward previously? Why have they not brought it forward since? Because it was not a real proposal – it was nothing but smoke and mirrors, as the Clear Channel’s former Vice President stated publicly at Council.

Speaking on behalf of the community health clinics that are the primary beneficiaries of the billboard funding, La Clinica de la Raza CEO Jane Garcia, states: “In this case, the City Council did the right thing – listening to the community that fought for five years to create this opportunity that is offering the City and community more than twenty times what previous billboard relocation agreements have offered.”

Oakland Billboard Economic Development Coalition

Native American Health Center	La Clínica de la Raza	West Oakland Health Center
Asian Health Services	Oakland LGBTQ Center	Roots Community Health Center
The Unity Council	Black Cultural Zone	Visit Oakland
Oakland African American Chamber of Commerce	Oakland Chinatown Chamber of Commerce	Oakland Vietnamese Chamber of Commerce
Oakland Latino Chamber of Commerce	Building Trades of Alameda County	(partial list)