Community
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.

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.
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.
“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
Activism
Oakland Post: Week of September 27 – October 3, 2023
The printed Weekly Edition of the Oakland Post: Week of September 27 – October 3, 2023

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Antonio Thomas Stiles
Mothers in Mourning: Moms, Allies Protest Gun Violence in California
On Sept. 9, elected officials, community leaders and concerned citizens took to the streets of Watts in South Los Angeles to march against gun violence in California. Dubbed the “Mothers in Mourning March,” the women-led event was organized by Assemblymember Mike Gipson (D-Carson) featured guest speakers and over 34 participating organizations.

Aldon Thomas Stiles | Califoria Black Media
On Sept. 9, elected officials, community leaders and concerned citizens took to the streets of Watts in South Los Angeles to march against gun violence in California.
Dubbed the “Mothers in Mourning March,” the women-led event was organized by Assemblymember Mike Gipson (D-Carson) featured guest speakers and over 34 participating organizations.
Participants marched from Jordan High School to Edwin Markham Middle School and walked back to Jordan in temperatures that hovered up to the high 80s, shouting impassioned chants like “put those guns down,” “stop the killing,” and “start the healing.”
“We are proud to be here at Jordan, and from the housing complexes to the highways we are making our voices known: Let our babies live,” Gipson posted on X, formerly known as Twitter.
At a post-march rally, speakers shared personal accounts, some tearful, about their experiences with gun violence.
“For our children we lost, we are their voices, and their voices will continue to be heard here and everywhere around this nation,” Mattie Scott, the California chapter leader of the advocacy organization Mothers in Charge, said. “We will stop the killing and start the healing because this is for all of us or none of us.”
Scott reminded voters that they have power to push anti-Gun policies against the forces across the country that fiercely oppose them — from “our house, to the courthouse, to your house, to the White House.”
As of last year, firearms are the leading cause of death among children in the United States.
While the Center for Disease Control (CDC) reports that California has the 8th lowest death rate by guns and Los Angeles has seen a decrease between 2021 and 2022, Los Angeles County accounts for a majority of California’s gun related deaths, according to Hope and Heal Fund.
African Americans between the ages of 15 and 34 experience gun-related deaths more than any other group in the United States, according to the Center for American Progress.
Overall, Everytown Research & Policy reports, that Black Americans “experience 12 times the gun homicides, 18 times the gun assault injuries, and nearly 3 times the fatal police shootings” as compared to White Americans.
Karren Lane, the Deputy Mayor of Los Angeles, stressed the importance of all Californians getting involved in the legislative process to help stem gun violence.
“Our commitment is to prevent that violence,” she said. “We cannot do that as a city without the organized political power of everyday people.”
She went on to speak about how the march might have an impact on those who have a vested interest in the prevention of gun violence.
“This event is so significant because one mother suffering alone feels isolated and silenced,” she said. “But when we come together and organize our voices, we are political power. We are organized power.”
Speakers also focused on explaining anti-gun violence bills that Gov. Newsom has signed and others the Legislature has approved.
Assembly Bill (AB) 28, for example, which has been approved by the Legislature, would impose an 11% tax for sales for firearms and firearm related items like ammunition and other “precursor parts.”
Gov. Newsom signed AB 1621, authored by Gipson, last year. It bans ghost guns, which are “unserialized and untraceable firearm” parts that can be assembled without any form of regulation or oversight.
LA Unified School District board member Tanya Ortiz Franklin, one of the speakers, encouraged Californians to vote to protect their children.
“We have the power to change the world with the kids in our district. We have future presidents, we have future engineers, we have future public safety officers, we have future changemakers right here in our district. But they need to have a future and they have to live into their potential and it’s going to take all of us demanding that,” she said.
Franklin’s voice echoed that of many of the women and allies attending the march who chanted at intervals, “No more silence, end gun violence!”
Bay Area
Writer Marc Spears Honored in Oakland
Bay Area leaders and key notables in the city of Oakland congratulated Marc Spears, NBA writer for Andscape/ESPN for receiving the 2023 Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame Curt Gowdy Media Award

Bay Area leaders and key notables in the city of Oakland congratulated Marc Spears, NBA writer for Andscape/ESPN for receiving the 2023 Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame Curt Gowdy Media Award. The event was held at Hiiiwav, a new location at 2781 Telegraph in Oakland recently purchased by Grammy Award-winner Bosko Kante and his wife Maya Kante. Pictured here, left to right, are Oakland African American Chamber of Commerce President Cathy Adams, Chef David Lawrence, Marc Spears, and Nola Turnage of Okta, Inc. Photo courtesy of Cathy Adams.
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