The Oakland Post equally endorses Cat Brooks and Pamela Price for mayor of Oakland and supports Saied Karamooz in third place on the Nov. 6 ranked choice ballot.

We recommend that voters in November choose either Cat Brooks or Pamela Price for number one and the other candidate for number two—and Saied Karamooz for number three.  Do not include an unwanted candidate in your ranked vote—not first, second or third.

Journalist, actor and activist Cat Brooks, who lives in Oakland with her husband and daughter, has become prominent locally during the past few years for her courageous work for social justice—demanding an end to police brutality and accountability of officers who committed sex crimes and their superiors who covered for them.

She has fought for the mayor and city officials to end their indifference as homelessness and displacement skyrocket, calling on our leaders to listen to and incorporate voices of the homeless in fashioning real—rather than symbolic—solutions to this urgent and horrifying problem.

Born in Las Vegas, Nev., Cat Brooks has worked in Oakland for Education Trust-West, as well as executive director of Youth Together and the National Lawyers Guild. She is the co-founder of the Anti-Police-Terror Project (APTP).

Brooks’ platform, fashioned with community participation, calls for building an economy that works for all Oaklanders, “investing in job training programs, supporting cooperative efforts with businesses and recruiting companies to base in Oakland.”

Her website is www.catbrooksforoakland.com
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Long time Oakland resident Pamela Price is a civil rights attorney who has spent her entire career advocating for justice for women and she has successfully represented victims of sex and race-based discrimination.

Growing up in the foster care and juvenile justice systems, she was emancipated at the age of 16 and went on to graduate from Yale and the UC Berkeley School of Law.She has won large settlements on behalf of victims of sexual harassment against the City of Oakland and against the California Department of Corrections (CDC).

She was one of only a handful of Black women to ever argue in front of the United States Supreme Court.
Her website is www.pamelaprice4mayor.com

“Oakland is at a crossroads – a time of opportunity and a time of challenge,” Price said at a recent candidate forum held at First Presbyterian Church of Oakland.

“If you want to live in a city without homelessness, you need to vote for a change. If you want to live in a city with clean streets and safe neighborhoods, you need to vote for a change.”
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Saied Karamooz has served Oakland as a member of the Oakland Privacy Advisory Commission and the president of the Jack London Business Improvement District. He has worked on many progressive causes: Police Accountability, Fight for 15, Stop Urban Shield, Renter Protection, Public Bank and No Coal in Oakland.

Born in Iran, he has lived in the US since 1978.  A senior executive at a technology consulting firm and a software company, he directed large multi-national initiatives in Fortune 100 companies. He and his wife currently operate a start-up skincare company.
“Let’s prevent the wealthy, influential, and selfish few from hijacking our elections again,” said Karamooz on his website.

Bamboozling us with fancy words and hollow rhetoric is how politicians trick their way into office each time,” he said. Visit his platform at https ://everyonesmayor.org/speaking-the-truth/.

Despite a well-funded campaign touting Oakland’s success, the city, under the present leadership, has failed to live up to the needs of Oakland’s most vulnerable residents.

A brief drive around our city will reveal how over 6,000 of our homeless neighbors live under the freeways, in tents and cars around the city, where they are chased from here to there by police and city workers.

Piles of garbage and sewage litter city streets and unmaintained city parks, as protesters rally in front of City Hall demanding clean up.

More and more holes in the streets put drivers at risks, although voters passed measures that were supposed to produce solutions.

Meanwhile, real estate speculators are doing fine. Upscale housing, with rents as high as $8,000 a month, are going up all over the city. The present leadership refuses to adequately fund workforce training leading to sustainable jobs, which means that Oaklanders cannot afford to live in these buildings. More importantly, the mayor, who avoids the recommendations of the city’s Department of Race and Equity, has not advocated for, or expressed an interest in, any plans for the aggressive hiring of residents on these projects.

The city’s budget, fashioned by the mayor’s administration, has not come to grips with these urgent issues.

We need a mayor who will work with the community on real solutions rather than seeking to replace City Council members who push to end homelessness through affordable housing, tenant rights, police accountability, and  job training funding for low-income residents.

How and Why the Post Recommends Your Votes
The Oakland Post invited community representatives to participate in panels that asked questions of City Council, mayoral candidates and school board candidates to  help decide who the Post would recommend. The recommendations we make were based on the track records and experience of the individual candidates, their platforms and responses to the questions asked by the panelists.’

We thank the volunteer panelists for committing many hours to interviewing candidates and discussing endorsements.  the panelists included community members who are working for police accountability, a public bank in Oakland, solutions to the city’s homelessness crisis, jobs for Oakland’s most vulnerable residents, affordable housing and an end to displacement.

The panel that spoke with school board candidates included representatives of the Bay Area Parent Leadership Action Network (PLAN), school activists, Network for Public Education, professional educators and parents.

The Oakland Post editorial board takes responsibility for its recommendations.

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