Oakland politics, wtf. I just caught up on yesterday's news. Here's a thread, with action items.

First of all, the backstory. Council President Nikki Bas & Vice Mayor Rebecca Kaplan had proposed cuts to the OPD budget. These cuts were strategic, proposed to the council, and focused on using police funds for violence prevention.

If you don't know about Oakland's police department, they're a mess. I don't even know how many police chiefs we've had in the time since the sex trafficking scandal broke. The department is liable for multiple, multimillion dollar lawsuits for all kinds of misdeeds.

Anyway, as you are probably aware, targeted violence against Asian Americans -- especially our elders -- has intensified since the beginning of the pandemic. There's been a rash of these attacks in Chinatown recently.

Mayor Schaaf and the City Administrator have also been slicing and dicing the budget behind closed doors -- using executive privilege to make arbitrary cuts to all kinds of stuff. People have spoken out, for instance, on their foolish cuts to the Fire Department.

At this presser about the recent attacks in Chinatown, Schaaf basically accused CP Bas and VM Kaplan of endangering the Chinatown community through their efforts to redirect resources from the PD to violence prevention, when she's the one who tried to cut walking beat cops.

I was stunned that she made these comments. You can watch CP Bas and CM Fife discuss what happened here: https://www.facebook.com/Nikki4Oakland/videos/464294491613441

Bas is also making the connection between this evasion about the city budget and what happened -- and is happening -- with the E. 12th St. Parcel, which you *might* remember we've been working to turn into 100% affordable housing for YEARS.

UrbanCore, the developer who entered into an agreement with the city despite our concerted organizing and design efforts, has missed every deadline, and the city is considering this agreement in a closed session today. https://twitter.com/DarwinBondGraha/status/1357218357636861955

This is not a done deal and the Council and Mayor need to hear from you about it. We need to hold the Mayor accountable about a lot of things, but this is today's thing.

Today, you can write [email protected], [email protected], [email protected] and tell them that we want public land to be used for the public good.

If you're available this afternoon, you can also make a comment during the public portion of the meeting. Register BEFORE 1:30 PM at this link [ https://us02web.zoom.us/.../reg.../WN_pjEZY0mBRzSigCe90pEztQ] ASAP. You'll get 2 mins to speak, so be ready; join the meeting a little before 1:30!

Bas and Fife both pointed out that one of the main reasons people engage in crimes of opportunity is that their needs aren't met. We've been trying to get people's needs met in this city through creativity and community, and been stymied at every step.

We've got another shot, let's fucking go.