Friends,
First, THANK YOU for your support, your votes, and all that you have brought to our community. There are some special thanks for certain folk on this campaign and you know who you are.
It was an honor and a pleasure to be a candidate for mayor of this city. I came into contact with a large number of people doing what they can for our city in their own way. The organizers and participants in the 35 plus public forums were a pleasure to meet and a cause for optimism about our city’s future. Another cause for optimism was the collaboration of young and old and people of different races and backgrounds spreading the message of reform. Our messages resonated much further than the vote result might seem to show.
Now that the election is over it is very important to help our city be a success. That means to also help our new mayor be a success. There are many issues where we can agree with Mayor Quan and put our efforts in solving some of our city’s ongoing problems. In the area of community policing and youth outreach there is a big need for community members to volunteer and help out. I will continue to help out in promoting grass roots volunteerism in our communities and will practice what I preach in my neighborhood and my son’s school. We will also participate with a “debriefing” with the Mayor Elect on Monday Nov 22nd with some other citizen candidates. I will get back to people about what she is proposing and if you have anything to tell me before that meeting takes place, please get in touch.
There will also be times we will strongly disagree with Mayor Quan and we will do so publicly when needed. What I would like to do is PROPOSE something when we do not like what is being done. Our city is about to confront a serious budget crisis that will require a lot of work to resolve. I encourage all Oakland residents to get informed and stay informed on this. I will do as much as I can to get messages when we have information and advocacy to share.
There is much we can continue to do for our grass roots groups. I will also continue to speak out and work with whoever is willing to empower our neighborhood committees, reform our council districts and develop alternatives to our city budget. We can use help and I strongly encourage anyone interested in helping out with reform efforts to contact us.
We will be holding a meeting on December 1st to discuss what we learned from this campaign and to start work on how we will continue to work on these issues. Also, if you are interested, let us know and we would be happy to have you join us.
There will also be yet another showing of American-Sandinista as part of INTERNATIONAL EDUCATION WEEK Thurs NOV 18th @ 12:15pm BERKELEY CITY COLLEGE 2050 Center Street, Berkeley CA In the BCC Auditorium. I will be there to take questions after the showing.
The campaign website and email will be closed down soon, in the meantime it will continue up and eventually it will become oaklandgreens.org .
If you wish to contact us, please use dmacleay@earthlink.net or 510 290-1200 and for Orlando Johnson, please use ocan20005@yahoo.com or 510 866-7488
yours
Don Macleay
