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Post Salon Investigates School District’s State Overseers

Cobb said he hopes the discussion at the Post Salon will stir action to end the control of Oakland by state overseers – a state-imposed trustee and the Fiscal Crisis Management and Assistance Team (FCMAT), a semi-public, state-funded agency.

Published

4 years ago

April 16, 2021

Kiki

Paul Cobb, Publisher, Post News Group

The Oakland Post Salon Community Assembly will hold a Zoom meeting this Sunday, April 18 to investigate the Oakland Unified School District’s state-imposed overseers and call for a return – after 20 years – of local voters’ control over their public schools.

Speakers at the Post Salon will include Jackie Goldberg, member of the Los Angeles Unified School District Board of Education and former State Assemblymember; Oakland school board members VanCedric Williams and Mike Hutchinson; Kampala Taiz-Rancifer, OUSD parent and teacher; Dr. Nirali Jani, education professor at Holy Names University and a former Oakland teacher; Frankie Ramos, doctoral candidate at UC Berkeley and OUSD parent; and Paul Cobb, publisher of the Oakland Post.

“I hope we can inspire the candidates for Rob Bonta’s soon-to-be-vacated Assembly seat and the rest of our state legislative delegation to work to let the district have control of its resources and forgive the rest of the state loan, which Oakland never wanted in the first place,” he said.

“The state needs to stop trying to penalize the district and instead to support it,” he said. “Our legislators need to ask the governor to recall and audit FCMAT, a quasi-public body that takes no responsibility for its management of public funds.

“Their decision-making has not proved to be any better than local decision-makers. After 20 years, they can’t show any measurable improvement. We’ve paid them millions of dollars, and they had set us up to be characterized and to sell off district real estate.”

Ken Epstein is inviting you to a scheduled Zoom meeting.

Join the April 18 Zoom Meeting AT 2pm PT:

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/88651834204?pwd=YWUvSWlqOHJVckdQTUlHcjJZQW5ldz09

Meeting ID: 886 5183 4204; Passcode: 848752

Kiki

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Oakland Post: Week of July 2- 8, 2025

The printed Weekly Edition of the Oakland Post: Week of July 2 – 8, 2025

Published

1 day ago

July 7, 2025

Oakland Post

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Trump Set to Sign Largest Cut to Medicaid After a Marathon Protest Speech by Leader Jeffries

BLACKPRESSUSA NEWSWIRE — The bill also represents the biggest cut in Medicare in history and is a threat to the health care coverage of over 15 million people. The spending in Trump’s signature legislation also opens the door to a second era of over-incarceration in the U.S.

Published

5 days ago

July 3, 2025

Oakland Post

By Lauren Burke

By a vote of 218 to 214, the GOP-controlled U.S. House passed President Trump’s massive budget and spending bill that will add $3.5 trillion to the national debt, according to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO). The bill also represents the biggest cut in Medicare in history and is a threat to the health care coverage of over 15 million people. The spending in Trump’s signature legislation also opens the door to a second era of over-incarceration in the U.S. With $175 billion allocated in spending for immigration enforcement, the money for more police officers eclipsed the 2026 budget for the U.S. Marines, which is $57 billion. Almost all of the policy focus from the Trump Administration has focused on deporting immigrants of color from Mexico and Haiti.

The vote occurred as members were pressed to complete their work before the arbitrary deadline of the July 4 holiday set by President Trump. It also occurred after Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries took the House floor for over 8 hours in protest. Leader Jeffries broke the record in the U.S. House for the longest floor speech in history on the House floor. The Senate passed the bill days before and was tied at 50-50, with Republican Senator Lisa Murkowski saying that, “my hope is that the House is gonna look at this and recognize that we’re not there yet.” There were no changes made to the Senate bill by the House. A series of overnight phone calls to Republicans voting against, not changes, was what won over enough Republicans to pass the legislation, even though it adds trillions to the debt. The Trump spending bill also cuts money to Pell grants.

“The Big Ugly Bill steals food out of the hands of starving children, steals medicine from the cabinets of cancer patients, and equips ICE with more funding and more weapons of war than the United States Marine Corps. Is there any question of who those agents will be going to war for, or who they will be going to war against? Beyond these sadistic provisions, Republicans just voted nearly unanimously to close urban and rural hospitals, cripple the child tax credit, and to top it all off, add $3.3 trillion to the ticking time bomb that is the federal deficit – all from a party that embarrassingly pretends to stand for fiscal responsibility and lowering costs,” wrote Congressional Black Caucus Chairwoman Yvette Clarke (D-NY) in a statement on July 3.

“The Congressional Budget Office predicts that 17 million people will lose their health insurance, including over 322,000 Virginians. It will make college less affordable. Three million people will lose access to food assistance through the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). And up to 16 million students could lose access to free school meals. The Republican bill does all of this to fund tax breaks for millionaires, billionaires, and corporations,” wrote Education and Workforce Committee ranking member Rep. Bobby Scott (D-VA) in a statement. The bill’s passage has prompted Democrats to start thinking about 2026 and the next election cycle. With the margins of victory in the U.S. House and U.S. Senate being so narrow, many are convinced that the balance of power and the question of millions being able to enjoy health care come down to only several thousand votes in congressional elections. But currently, Republicans controlled by the MAGA movement control all three branches of government. That reality was never made more stark and more clear than the last seven days of activity in the U.S. House and U.S. Senate.