Macleay for Oakland Mayor 2010

Inauguration / volunteerism / Local Green Chapter forming

2011-01-02T13:59:00.001-08:00

Inauguration / volunteerism / Local Green Chapter forming

Oakland Greens on the Quan inauguration.

The Oakland Greens again congratulate our new mayor and congratulate Oakland voters for making good use of our new instant run off voting system. Mayor Quan’s election reflects the first, second and third choices the majority of us made. Her mandate is an expression of the wishes of her supporters and the wishes of many of the supporters of the other candidates, including our own Green Party voters.

We have committed ourselves to help Jean Quan’s term of office be a success and to work with her constructively wherever we find we can make common cause. By volunteering within our communities we can solidify and empower our communities and avoid the pitfalls of patronizing institutions and charities. The will, the skill and the leadership we need to address our major problems is to be found among us all. We think Ms. Quan is on the right track to make volunteerism a priority and we will fully support it. Outside of the schools and city hall managed projects, there are many other local resident initiatives we encourage you to consider.

On the occasion of her inauguration we encourage all Oakland residents to attend as they can. We particularly want to bring everyone attention to the city hall open house and the opportunity to sign up to volunteer for Oakland schools and other worthy local initiatives. To quote the invitation:

On Jan 3^rd, Inauguration day, 5 - 9 pm: Open House City Hall. We will literally open the doors of the Mayor's Office for a reception line, young citizens will be invited to sit in the Mayor's chair. Live Music Performances, talks on Oakland history, and many opportunities to sign up to volunteer for the city or schools.

The ad-hoc steering committee of the Oakland Green Party strongly encourages local residents to participate in this open house and to consider donating their time to moving our city forward.

We also invite you to join the Oakland Greens. To date the Oakland Greens has been an informal group of the Alameda County Greens in Oakland. We now plan to formalize our local chapter. The founding meeting will be on Jan 12^th at 6 PM. All are welcome to attend and to join. You are also very welcome to just come and check us out. For location and more information write to Don Macleay at dmacleay@earthlink.net or call 510 290-1200.

THANK YOU for your support, your votes and .....

2010-11-17T19:23:00.000-08:00

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 22^nd 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 1^st 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 18^th @ 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

Re: Oakland's Budget Woes: an extra $627 per taxpayer?

2010-10-26T15:20:00.000-07:00

Emily,

The article is OK as far as it goes.
That is a good description of his reporting over the last year that I have been watching it.
Reporting on our budget is never very good.

So quickly, there is more than one bomb in the budget future and some of my friends have asked me specifically "are you sure you want that job?"
The answer to that is "of course I do, if not, who is going to clean it up?"

As to how we get ourselves solvent that is not so easy. So on to some of the points:
Yes we are going to end up paying more taxes one way or another.
Yes the pension issue is the big time bomb, but there are many smaller ones.
For example, our infrastructure spending on sewers and sidewalks is way behind.
No, nothing is locked in stone, but we may have to declare a fiscal emergency and go to the state to ask for the temporary lifting of some rules.

What do we do about it?

My proposal is a budget summit or convention to bring it into a single plan.
A new budget and new budget process will require a 2/3 vote of the public.
Things like our current Measure Y would become part of how we do things without the specific, unworkable provisions or the political promises to unrelated parties, such as the fire department.

What I propose to have in that budget is a series of starting positions to kick off the discussion.
I would like to see:

A new pension system that is pay as we go and GOES OUT OF OUR HANDS EVERY PAYDAY.
A negotiated buy out of the old pension plans that gives the member what funds we do have set aside for them.
(Probably a last contribution from the city and a graduated cash-securities payment to the employees depending on how soon they will retire, giving those who will retire soonest the most cash and younger workers the most stocks and such.)
PFERS (which Lindheim says is cast in stone) is going to have to be changed. Considering that this same problem affects much of the state, we will probably end up participating in a state wide solution to at least part of our pension and retiree health care cash flow problem. I think we will be looking at something akin to the divestment of the big three automakers.

For more on this, see the city auditor's recent report:
http://www.oaklandauditor.com/images/oakland/auditreports/pfrs%20pension%20funding%20options.pdf
I want a required vote of the people before disposing of publicly owned real estate.
I would like to limit special measures and mostly use the public measure process for major changes.
Minor changes should be avoided. We need a STABLE tax, zoning, permitting and regulatory environment for investment.
We need some kind of graduated, or sliding scale taxes to replace the parcel tax system. We also need split roles for commercial and residential property taxes. It may take the form of a high base rate that then offers discounts based on when the property taxes were last assessed and what the property is being used for (in other word off set from Prop 13)
We may have to issue our own credits in the form of a local currency such as they have in Berkshire http://www.berkshares.org/
We need the new budget process to have a good times / bad times provision. I would like to pay debts and save when GDP is high, including a spending cap in good economic times, and be allowed to spend reserves and borrow in bad economic times. I think our bigger public works and infrastructure projects should be done in spurts during times of high unemployment (and costs are lowest)

There are a lot more ideas to put forward in a new budget, but that is the general idea. There will also need to be a transition from the mess we are in to a sustainable budget. One idea I would like to look at is a pause in the spending of redevelopment funds. We spend more in the redevelopment committee each year than the whole general fund. That is over a half billion dollars. We could ask Sacramento for an emergency suspension of the redevelopment spending. We could join our request with other cities facing the same problems. The state needs funds badly and so does the city. We could suspend the use of those funds for earmarked projects and split them between the state, city and school board without any strings attached for a couple of years until economic growth picks back up.

I am not in favor of two tier payment or benefit packages. They are very bad for morale. How would you like to have a job where you know you will always be paid worse than those before you no matter how well you do and no matter how poorly they do? We need to offer city employees good jobs, with good wages and benefits where we expect them to settle into a career of public service. We need it to be stable, reliable and we need to get the city out of debt with its employees every payday. Everyone working for the city should get a fair deal and an equal chance to advance.

We need to cut police overtime costs NOW. This can not wait.
We need to cap salaries. I would like to put the mayor's salary down to 100K (from about 160 I think) and make that the most any city employee can make. STOP.
And we need to stop the cuts and layoffs. They are bad for job creation in the private sector.
A little more creativity in the days off and such would be a big help.

Outside of city hall we need more employment whether or not the city gets paid a lot of sales tax from those businesses.
The EXISTING small and medium sized private, non profit and government agencies all need to be cultivated to thrive in Oakland.
Big growth is fine, but not at the expense of small growth over the larger economy. Even a couple percent growth of the small business employment would make a lasting impact on our local economy.

Lastly there is the problem of sales tax "leakage". We need to get people to shop locally as much as we can and explain to people how badly our city is hurt by the tax structure. We also have to advocate that this out of date sales tax equalization structure be changed. We do not ride horses to shop any more and do not need to allocate sales tax revenue by where purchases are made. We should allocate those revenues based on the number of residents measured in the census.

One could go on at length about these issues and unfortunately for my friends, I have a habit of doing so. If we want to keep our city out of bankruptcy, we need to do a lot of things quickly. I did not get a lot of details about the proposals I put forward in the debates from our other candidates. Perata says he will cut CEDA to keep cops. He may need permission from Sacramento to do that and it still sounds very piecemeal to me. Tuman talks about early retirement for the police and I am not sure we have authority to do what he is saying. They all talk about the pension, but I have not heard any proposals, such as my sliding scale cash out, that they want to make public. Quan and Kaplan are both keen to say that the police should have taken the payment of 9% of their pension costs, but that leaves a lot of other aspects of the pension plan a problem. Greg Harland honestly said that we need to be less generous at the top, which I agree with, and we should consider bankruptcy, which I do not trust.

As to the budget measures, I really disagree with the process. This is why I want a budget convention to scrap the system.

That said I will vote for L and BB because the schools and crime prevention programs can not wait or be trashed.
I see this as stop gap on our road to some real budget reform.

At first I was going to vote for the parcel tax for the same reason, but since then the damage of laying off 80 newest police officers has been done and with reassignments, overtime and other big time mistakes, there is no longer any hardship to avoid or reverse quickly.
We now need to rebuild community policing.
So I have changed my mind and will vote against the parcel tax, even as a stop gap measure.

I expect all the tax measures to be defeated, so if elected the declaration of a fiscal emergency will probably be on inauguration day.

Don Macleay
dmacleay@earthlink.net
510 290-1200

On 10/25/2010 1:48 PM, Emily Montan wrote:

Don,
Why don't you send me a reply to this and I'll forward it to my church's list? Thanks
Emily

--- On Sun, 10/24/10, ronwei wrote:

From: ronwei
Subject: [uuoakland] Oakland's Budget Woes: an extra $627 per taxpayer?
To: uuoakland@yahoogroups.com
Date: Sunday, October 24, 2010, 6:19 PM

Hi all,

I happened upon this article about Oakland's budget deficit and am startled at the potential for higher taxs; and, wondering how the various mayorial candidates are addressing this. The article is from the SF Chron May 5 this year and can be viewed:

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/05/05/BARQ1D7JUI.DTL&tsp=1

A few quotes give the flavor:

"Ballooning pension costs will push the city's projected deficit to $58.7 million by July 2011.

The biggest portion of that budget shortfall is a debt payment of $43.9 million due July 1, 2011, to the old Police and Fire Retirement System. The payment would be more than 10 percent of the roughly $400 million city budget.

The costs of benefits to retirees appears to be the single biggest issue facing Oakland. Not only are the costs growing, but the city has not been funding them adequately, some council members said.

Last year, Oakland was supposed to pay $85.7 million for retiree medical care, according to a city staff report. But the city only paid $12.5 million, the report said."

TAXES on the Ballot: According to "ballotpedia":

A City of Oakland parcel tax, Measure X ballot proposition is on the November 2, 2010 ballot for voters in the City of Oakland in Alameda County.

If approved by a 2/3rds supermajority vote, the tax will be $360/parcel per year and will last for four years. Money from the tax would go to police and fire salaries. Landlords would be allowed to pass half of the tax bill on to renters.

The vote on the Oakland City Council to put the tax on the ballot was 5-3. Voting in favor were Nancy Nadel, Jane Brunner, Jean Quan, Pat Kernighan and Larry Reid. Voting against were Councilmembers Kaplan, Brooks, and De La Fuente.

According to Chip Johnson, a columnist at the San Francisco Chronicle, "...if voters approve every tax measure sought by the city and the Oakland Unified School District this November, the average Oakland resident would have to pay an extra $627 a year. That would nearly double the local tax bill to about $1,400 a year." Other tax measures on the Oakland ballot are Measure BB, Measure L, Measure V and Measure W.

Ron W

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Teachers' Perspective Voters Guide

2010-10-20T04:17:00.000-07:00

Teachers' Perspective Voters Guide

Posted by: "Stephen Neat" steve_neat@yahoo.com Steve_Neat

Tue Oct 19, 2010 8:03 am (PDT)

[Attachment(s) from Stephen Neat included below]

Not an OEA Publication

>From a Teacher’s PerspectiveFall 2010 Voters’ Guide
By Steve Neat

So many people (colleagues, parents, friends) have asked me advice on the
upcoming election that I’ve decided to put out a special voters’ guide edition
of From a Teacher’s Perspective. (From a Teacher’s Perspective was a newsletter
for parents that I put out during the last round of contract negotiations
between OUSD & OEA [2005-2006].) I have included an endorsement for many local
and state offices below and more detailed rationales follow. I have started with
offices and issues that I think will be most crucial to the future of public
education and to schools in Oakland. Note: the political opinions expressed
below are my own and do not constitute an endorsement by the Oakland Education
Association.

Proposition 24: Yes
School Board District 4: Ben Visnick
OaklandMeasure L: No
Governor: Jerry Brown
Superintendent of Public Instruction: Tom Torlakson
Proposition 25: Yes
Oakland Mayor: (1) Don Macleay (2) Rebecca Kaplan (3) Jean Quan (anyone but Don
Perata)
State Assembly District 16: Sandre Swanson
Propositions 23 & 26: No
Propositions 20 & 27: No on 20, Yes on 27
State Board of Equilization: Sherill Borg
Proposition 21: Yes
Proposition 22: No
Proposition 19: Yes
OaklandMeasure X: No
AlamedaCountyMeasure F: No

DETAIL
Proposition 24: Yes
This is a no-brainer. In the early autumns of 2008 and 2009, in the midst of a
heated budget battle, our elected representatives in Sacramento reached a
sweetheart deal with the corporations that pay for their campaigns. Three tax
loopholes were created that will cost this state at least $1.3 billion annually
when they go into effect next year. These tax breaks will benefit only the
largest corporations and are granted unconditionally. No jobs created. No jobs
saved. Just a hand-out. The No on 24 campaign is making job loss claims that
academic studies (Fisher 2010) call “outlandish.” In fact, Prop 24 would save up
to 25,000 jobs in the public sector. The same corporations that are spending
money on the No on 24 campaign made a total of $65 billion in profits last year.
Times are tough for some, not so tough for others. The fact that students across
California are being crammed 40+ deep into classrooms and having their school
year cut to save a few bucks while the same old greedy people rake in the green
is disgusting. If all you do in this election is fill in one bubble on your
absentee ballot, make it YES on Proposition 24. While 24 wouldn’t raise enough
money to solve all of our funding problems, it would send a clear message to
lawmakers in Sacramento: the people think corporations should pay their fare
share to maintain the society upon which they profit.

School Board District 4: Ben Visnick
Just this previous spring the Oakland Unified School District (OUSD) Board of
Directors (school board) voted unanimously to impose a contract on Oakland
public school teachers and other members of the Oakland Education Association
(OEA). This virtually unprecedented move was a slap in the face to the men and
women who work hard with the students of Oakland every day. It is important to
note that the imposed contract did not save a penny more than the expired
contract that would have remained in effect as long as the OUSD and OEA
continued to negotiate. In addition, according to how labor negotiations work,
the employer only imposes when they are through bargaining. For the school board
to come back and claim that now they want to bargain again doesn’t make sense.
The only reason that I have heard school board members give for their imposition
vote is that “we need to start bargaining fresh with a clean slate.” That is a
ridiculous statement. You don’t start with a clean slate by smacking someone
over the head with it. It is also interesting that a group of Oakland teachers
and I were told by one school board member that the idea of imposition was
strongly advocated for by Superintendent Tony Smith. This does jibe well with
some of the confused statements school board members made after their vote. One
school board member even asked, “What did we just do?” What did we just do? So
according to the actual words of school board members, Tony Smith asked for
imposition and the school board went along with it, even though some of them
didn’t fully understand the significance of their actions. If this account of
what happened isn’t true I would love to be publicly corrected. In addition,
school board members continue to push for corporate-funded reforms like test
score pay (even though all the research shows that “merit pay” does not even
improve student test scores, much less actual student learning) and more charter
schools (even though only one-fifth of charter schools outperform traditional
public schools). The only clean slate we need to start with is a brand new OUSD
school board. I urge every parent, teacher, and community member who wants to
bring real reform and real democracy to Oakland Public Schools to vote for Ben
Visnick for school board District 4. In addition, if you live in Districts 1, 3,
5, or 7, and want to work with Oakland teachers and parents for better Oakland
Public Schools, think about a run next time.

OaklandMeasure L: No
I am an officer of the Oakland Education Association, and the OEA has officially
voted to take NO POSITION on Measure L. The opinions below are my own and are
not part of an official statement of the OEA. My opinion is this: why would we
vote to give more money to OUSD through another parcel tax when there has been
little oversight over Measure E/G funds and a significant amount of it has been
misspent (example: staff development for principals)? Why would we vote for a
per-parcel tax which means that working class homeowners in the Fruitvale or
West Oakland pay the same amount as the Port of Oakland and Wells Fargo? Why
would I ask the wonderful, generous people of Oakland to continue being a
co-dependent enabler of a District that spends tens of millions of dollars on
non-mandatory contracts for Si Swun Math, Action Learning Systems Inc., Edusoft,
BayCES, Cambridge Education Group, etc., etc., etc.? Are these contracts
useless? That’s a question that more people should be asking and it’s a question
to which I don’t necessarily know the answer. I will say this: that money would
be better spent keeping teachers in Oakland and keeping kindergarten class sizes
at 20 students. Until OUSD makes a commitment to spend money on what the voters
expected: the classrooms, I’m not even comfortable saying “no position” on
Measure L. Some OEA members will be upset with me for saying this publicly,
because if Measure L fails that would mean, in theory, that less money would be
available for our next contract. However, what is meant by the phrase “effective
teachers” in the parcel tax language? I still haven’t heard an answer. If
“effective” means high test scores, that’s another reason not to vote for
Measure L. If those blankets have smallpox on them, I say we throw ‘em back in
the fort and just be cold.

Governor: Jerry Brown
This is a tough one. I personally often vote for the Green Party candidate for
governor, particularly when the Democratic candidate is “Ten-Shades-of” Grey
Davis. But this election is so crucial. Brown’s opponent is a hypocritical,
corporate-funded demagogue whose TV commercials come across more like a
recruitment video for a cult than a summary of a platform of policies. Whitman
is threatening to turn the state of California into California, Inc. We let the
corporations run the world and look where it’s got us. I don’t understand why
when someone becomes a billionaire doing one thing (and often not a very nice
thing), they are suddenly an expert on everything. Meg Whitman claims she will
cut the state’s budget in half without cutting education (which takes up a
significant proportion of the budget). When her opponents point out that this is
impossible, she threatens to sue them. Meg Whitman fires the undocumented
immigrant she employed for years when she decides to run for governor, telling
her that “you don’t even know me.” When this woman speaks out to call attention
to the plight, Whitman chides the Brown campaign for using her, as if her former
employee is not a grown woman who can make her own decisions. The OEA has had
its differences with Jerry Brown in the past, but Meg Whitman is the Barry
Goldwater of California 2010. She must be stopped.

Superintendent of Public Instruction: Tom Torlakson
For a democrat, Tom Torlakson actually seems like a decent guy. Unlike OUSD
Superintendent Tony Smith or US Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, he was
actually a classroom teacher (what a concept!), and he has worked to put forward
real education reform in California. He authored the Quality Education
Investment Act (QEIA) with the support of the California Teachers Association
(CTA). This law has brought significant new funding and resources—rather than
sanctions and back-door privatization—to lower-performing schools. He has also
done important work around pre-school and after-school programs.

Proposition 25: Yes
This measure is more of a powerful statement than a solution. It would end the
requirement that there be a two-thirds majority to pass a budget in CA. However,
it would not end the two-thirds requirement to find new sources of revenue.
Therefore it is debatable what this measure will achieve apart from taking the
first step towards a time when democracy will finally rule in California. Will
it ever be true that the same simple majority vote in the legislature that is
needed to cut taxes is the same majority vote needed to approve new sources of
revenue, as well as a new budget? The passage of Prop 25 could send a message
that—outside of such unusual measures as impeachment—two-thirds requirements are
a bad idea when it comes to democracy.

Oakland Mayor: (1) Don Macleay (2) Rebecca Kaplan (3) Jean Quan (anyone but Don
Perata)
Using ranked choice voting (see Note 1 below), we can finally vote our
conscience without having any misgivings about handing over the race to the Meg
Whitmans of this world. I am giving Don Macleay my first-choice vote. Macleay is
a longtime Oakland resident with the best interests of Oakland at heart. He is a
small business owner, an environmentalist, and a former shop steward. He has
been the most thoughtful and open candidate as regards responding to the
community at the grassroots level, even posting on the Oakland parents’ online
listserve. Rebecca Kaplan has been a largely consistent progressive voice in
Oakland, but she has been known to favor political expediency over staying true
to her values (she opposed public election funding in one vote for example).
Jean Quan has the best chance of keeping Don Perata out of the mayor’s office. I
agree with many of her campaign statements and some of her policy decisions over
the past few years (libraries, affordable housing, youth programs). She will get
my 3rd choice vote, despite differences she has had with the teachers of Oakland
in the past. If she had come out and publicly admit that some of the statements
she made and actions she took during the 1996 Oakland teachers’ strike were
wrong, she might have even got my first choice vote.

State Assembly District 16: Sandre Swanson
Sandre Swanson has been a strong advocate for Oakland and Oakland public
schools. Since he was elected to the California State Assembly in 2006, he has
consistently called attention to the sorry state of Oakland Public Schools and
has pushed for the return of democratic control (including still-withheld fiscal
control) to OUSD. His consistency as an ally of working people and public
services (a.k.a. civilization) shouldn’t be such a rarity in the Democratic
Party. If it wasn’t, then perhaps the Dems wouldn’t be about to get their butts
kicked after four years in power.

Propositions 23 & 26: No
Just as one has to admire cockroaches for their tenacity and for their ability
to take advantage of any vulnerability or opportunity in our kitchens, one has
to admire oil companies for their insect-like determination to profit off of any
situation that is hurting the rest of us. People are anxious about the economy.
Okay, say the oil companies, how can we take advantage of this to boost are
already obscene profits? Let’s put lots of money behind some propositions that
will weaken California’s laws on greenhouse gases and on punishing polluters.
California has some of the strongest environmental regulations in the nation,
and oil companies (among others) would love to use the anxiety of the people
over the economy to weaken these laws. Don’t let them. Tell your neighbors, tell
those you worship with, tell your friends. A vote for Props 23 & 26 is a vote
for dirty oil.

Propositions 20 & 27: No on 20, Yes on 27
In 2008, Proposition 11 passed in a very close vote. This removed the
redistricting process from the purview of the state legislature and put it in
the hands of an unelected, unaccountable commission. Some argued that having the
legislature in charge of redistricting just entrenched the party in power.
However, it’s hard to see how putting redistricting in the hands of a commission
appointed by that very same state legislature changes anything. Speaking as a
teacher who has lived under 10 years of state administration and trusteeship, I
would rather have decisions in the hands of those I’ve elected than in the hands
of those they have appointed. Proposition 20 would expand the powers of the
commission. I say vote no on 20. Proposition 27 would repeal the original
Proposition 11 and I will vote yes on 27. This whole circus, however, exposes
the silliness of the proposition system. (see Note 2 below)

State Board of Equilization: Sherill Borg
“The marginal tax rate for businesses is 9.5% for corporate state income tax.
But the effective tax rate for large corporations is much less in practice. For
example Chevron, based in California, paid no state income taxes in California
in 2008—instead sending its taxes—both federal and state—to foreign governments
where rates are cheaper. How’d they do it? It’s complicated—sort of—but
basically they structure their business so that they take a loss in the U.S. and
earn profits abroad. By moving ownership of profitable assets to overseas
subsidiaries while incurring expenses in the U.S. Chevron can avoid being taxed
here where tax rates are relatively high.” This is from Borg’s website. She gets
my vote just for breaking it down even better than Stewart or Colbert.

Proposition 21: Yes
This is a hard one for me. I am getting pretty sick of companies like Chevron
paying 0% and millionaires paying less than 10% on capital gains while we pay
20% on the mediocre salary that we bust our ass for. This is a flat vehicle
license fee of $18 which would fund a trust fund to maintain state parks. So it
would affect those who have too many cars more than it would affect the rest of
us. However, we wouldn’t have to Magiver stuff like this together if we had a
progressive tax structure where the people who made the most money from society
contributed the most to maintain it.

Proposition 22: No
More lazy American democracy. This Proposition is designed to stop state
government from dipping into local money when they can’t raise enough to keep
the state running. Fair enough, but here’s a better idea: if you want money for
your town, neighborhood, city, or county, elect people who will find the revenue
sources to get that money. If they take campaign donations from corporations and
the rich and then refuse to force them to pay their share to maintain
civilization, then don’t vote for them any more. It’s called democracy people.
Let’s start today.

Proposition 19: Yes
Fact: between 1999 and 2009, 570,000 California residents were arrested for
misdemeanor marijuana possession. Fact: enforcing marijuana prohibition in CA
costs our state $1.87 billion per year. Fact: there is no evidence that
marijuana prohibition has resulted in a drop in use. Fact: African Americans are
arrested for pot possession at higher rates than whites even though studies show
marijuana use is more widespread among white youth than black youth. Fact:
marijuana is less harmful to health than alcohol or cigarettes. Marijuana
prohibition makes no sense and Prop 19 would end it.

OaklandMeasure X: No
Here we go with another parcel tax. Million-dollar homeowners in the hills would
pay the same rate as a homeowner in West Oakland. What would they be paying for?
More police officers. But if you call the police from a West Oakland phone
number will you be served as fast as if you call from a phone number in
Montclair? And what if three teens are walking the dog through the fog on
Skyline Dr.? Are they going to be treated the same by all these new police
officers as three kids walking home on 98th? Will more police on the streets
solve anything? No. No on X

AlamedaCountyMeasure F: No
Another increase on the vehicle license fee, this time to pay for road
maintenance, public transit, and pedestrian and bicycle routes. No thanks. How
about Chevron paying a 1% CA tax on its income (Chevron is based in CA, but pays
no taxes here) to maintain the roads that we the taxpayers maintain and from
which Chevron profits. Prop 21 is the last vehicle license fee increase I’m
voting for before corporations pay their fair share.

Note 1: Rank-Choice Voting, Beyond Tweedledum & Tweedledee
Finally, rank-choice voting comes to Oakland. Here’s how it works. If your first
choice doesn’t get close to enough votes to win, your 2nd-ranked vote counts as
if it was your only vote. If neither your 1st- or 2nd- choice vote comes into
play, then your 3rd-choice vote becomes your vote that counts. This could allow
people to vote without fear that they are handing a public office to a corporate
shill or a reactionary demagogue. For example, I get to vote for my personal
choice for Oakland mayor, Don Macleay, even though he will likely have a hard
time mounting a strong challenge. If he doesn’t do well, then my vote reverts to
my 2nd and then my 3rd choices. Republican and Democratic Party machines don’t
really appreciate ranked-choice voting because it encourages independent
thinking and discourages people from voting a straight party ticket. However,
after what Republicans and Democrats have brought us these past 30 years (a
boom-and-bust economic cycle, the collapse of public education in California,
the shredding of the social safety net, expensive foreign military adventures,
etc.), I don’t know how they still feel qualified to speak on anything. It’s
about time they started taking orders from we the people.
Note 2: Propositions, putting the lazy American in democracy
Speaking of we the people, we need to start doing our job as active participants
in democracy. Enough of these propositions. Even when we get a good one passed
(Prop 98 that guarantees minimum school funding for example), the politicians
just ignore it when it suits them (as they ignored Prop 98 when passing this
year’s 100-day-late budget).

This is how democracy works right now:

1) Corporations decide which two candidates we should vote for.

2) We vote for the one with the better ads, or the better speaker, or the
prettier one

3) They do what the corporations paid them to do

4) If we get mad at them or find them out, the people that run the show have
another one ready. Have you ever seen a shark’s mouth? They got another tooth
ready right behind the one you just knocked out.

This is how democracy is supposed to work:

1) We elect them.

2) A. They do what we want. OR B.They stab us in the back.

3) If A, we re-elect them. OR If B, we vote them out.

Propositions are just a lazy short cut. We’re not willing to put in the work to
make democracy work, so we just try and make things happen on a single-issue
basis by passing a proposition every now and again. Of course there are more
important factors that are stifling democracy. Campaign finance reform would be
a big step in the right direction, but now that’s going to take a constitutional
amendment (thanks Supreme Court). Propositions solve nothing, however, and they
allow powerful and monied interests from out of state to influence this
democracy that is supposed to be of the people, by the people, and for the
people.

Attachment(s) from Stephen Neat

Oakland Mayor Questions Hunger & Poverty Issues Forum

2010-10-19T15:53:00.000-07:00

Oakland Mayor Questions Hunger & Poverty Issues Forum

Response from Donald L Macleay, Green Party candidate for Mayor of Oakland.

1. 1 in 6 Alameda County residents rely on the Food Bank to help meet their basic needs. Oakland’s poverty rate is 17.2% while the child poverty rate is 25.2%.

• What is your general philosophy of local government’s role and responsibility in helping families move out of poverty and achieve self sufficiency?

I believe in employment with a living wage as a human right. I do not agree with the kinds of philosophies that treat the poor as the cause of poverty.

It is the powerful and the affluent who run our economy and to blame the poor for not having jobs or treating them as if they have some kind of inherent deficiency in their character, education or personal habits is to shift attention away from those who are responsible for the economic mess the country is in right now.

The problem is not the unemployed not having what it takes to find employment, the problem is the employers not doing what it takes to provide employment.

So what is a city to do about it? Engage the employers and potential employers and become an employer ourselves. We need to have jobs programs and we need to have jobs. We need to make part of the price of receiving any money from our city, our school district, our port and our redevelopment agency the provision of jobs for our people. Not the promise to try to employ locally, not some kind of vague set aside or goal, just flat out employment. Any employer should know that there is one thing that the city wants out of them at all times and that is jobs.

If I become mayor, the business owner that comes through my office door with a proposal that does not include jobs will be making a serious mistake.

• In your view, what is the key to ensuring social equity so that children and families have an equal opportunity to succeed?

We need more than an equal opportunity to succeed. We need a place for every child.
We need schools to have a place for every child, graduation be a goal for every child, security be a goal for every child. Our public schools adult education and our Peralta Junior College district need to make a place for everyone who can get employed to study what they need to keep employed.

Families poverty and/or crisis need support and not admonishment or arrogant “education”.

Families need health care, food, housing, transit and help with marital crisis, substance abuse, truancy, and other common events in our 21^st century lives.

The current public environment treats those in need of support as somehow unworthily losers in a winners and losers society. Every step we take towards this post Reganomic anti-social behavior towards families in need is another step we take towards impoverishing our whole country and weakening our sense of community.

We need to go back to a sense of social solidarity. We need to see ourselves in every child in need, every family in need. We need to see how a healthy society cares for us all and raises the standards for everyone in the process. Because we no longer do that we have won a race to the bottom and find our social indicators in education, health, housing and employment lower than all of Canada, Japan, and our European partners. The only social indicator we score higher than a third world nation on is crime, especially violent crime, which can be up to 10 times the level of any other G7 nation.

The key for us now is to understand that the affluent need to contribute more and get less for it and that the bulk of our resources to support families must be spent on those who need them most. This is an old idea and it remains essential.

• How would you leverage resources to assist seniors on fixed incomes in meeting their basic needs?

I am for sliding scale tax relief. Housing is a number one expense for most of seniors and everyone else. I would like to see seniors relieved from any property tax at all. They could carry that to a place that they rent and pass through the credit, both helping the landlord and providing lower rent to the senior. This is but an example of the kind of targeted taxation that could help our community.

2. Only slightly over half of eligible families in Alameda County are participating in the Federal Food Stamp Program. The Food Bank employs a large staff to expressly assist hundreds of clients each month to access this nutrition assistance program. Most of the people we serve at the Food Bank do not know that Food Stamps are an option to provide nutritious food for their families.

• What can the City of Oakland do to ensure that eligible residents are participating in the Food Stamp Program?

This number surprises me (I did not know it was that high) and is upsetting for two reasons. First is that means many families could be receiving help and may be suffering hardships when relief is available. Second is that we need this revenue circulating in our local economy.

Instead of telling people active in this area what I think that they should do, I will ASK them what they would like the city to do to help them get all eligible residents on the program and then do it for them. As mayor I would lead the fight and make all the public noise necessary taking the leadership from the grass roots who really know what we should be doing.

3. Over 50% of food distributed by the Food Bank is fresh fruits and vegetables. The food sector in Oakland is important to the local economy and the food available in Oakland is an important determinant of health. Many residents do not have access to local, healthy foods, which contributes to health inequities.

• How do you see the food sector fitting into economic development and job creation in Oakland?

The “food sector” means many things. Farmer’s markets and other businesses that bring food directly from farm to city are helpful and have many side benefits. Growing food ourselves in the city is also very viable (we can grow a lot more than just marijuana indoors) and we need to address the neighborhoods that are not served with good grocery and produce stores, often abandoned by the big food chains.

There is not one part of this that does not benefit our local economy and breathe more vitality into our neighborhoods and community at large.

• How will you insure that such development also provides improvements to the Oakland food system?

I am not sure we have a food system. We mostly have a “food market” dominated by large retail corporations. What we need is to make from that a food system that includes zoning and permitting to meet our neighborhood needs. I would like to see zoning that allows everyone in the city to walk to a convenient store to buy quality foods at a decent price.

• How would you help create a regulatory environment that supports alternative food access points, such as food trucks or farmer’s markets?

The city has a lot of control here and can set the ground rules in most cases. The city can also be “”very convincing” if it takes an active role demanding that the county and state apply their rules in a practical and prompt fashion.

• How can the City of Oakland provide access to the capital needed to encourage these small businesses?

For one, we could lend it to them. Currently the city spends half a billion a year on “redevelopment” almost always defined as building oversized projects contracted to developers. If we can redefine a part of that money to providing support for all of our small businesses, (not just the new ones or the ones we like most) we could set up some revolving low cost funding.

For another, we can spend it for them. Another part of the redevelopment funds should be pointed towards infrastructure that helps us all. That includes transit, transit centers (buss and/or BART with better facilities) Business distinct facilities such as safe centers and clean, safe public restrooms. If we want people to come to work, shop, go to school and basically live in a reduced car world, we need to find a place to leave the car. Parking, especially parking in residential areas and at transit centers will be key to this kind of development.

There are departments of the city that do some of this already. I think we can do it better and I like what has been done so far with the Business Assistance Center. Just like we need to be getting the families eligible for food stamps on the program, we need to get our local businesses, especially the small businesses, on the kind of programs they could qualify for. This is not just loans, there is also help with health benefits, adding employees, and getting those local government bids and sub-contracts, for example.

With the right infrastructure, and it is less than we are spending now, and good zoning, permitting and public safety these businesses will thrive and we will see much more commercial life in our neighborhoods.

4. The Summer Lunch Program is a program that provides food to children when school is out of session during the summer months. In California, we have some of the lowest utilization rates of this federally funded nutrition program, with only 27% of those eligible participating in 2008.

• How would you work to increase the number of sites where children can eat summer meals?

. I am an advocate of turning most of our schools, parks, libraries and other publicly owned facilities into community centers. By doing this we can provide more services and more opportunities to locate community groups around the city. This is large project and I will skip the major outline and jump to the food program as an example.

By having community centers located all around the city with the goal of having at least one located in walking distance from everyone’s one, we now have a place to operate something like a summer meal program. It can be right where the other summer programs are. By being a multi outreach facility right in the community we will be best placed to find those who qualify and get them connected to the center that serves them. My idea is to have each center have its community outreach group who canvases the neighborhood on all manner of subjects from adult education, getting people signed up for library cards, earthquake preparedness and vaccinations.

• How would you work to improve the quality of the meals provided?

I was not aware that this was more than a policy issue. Is there a price difference? Does there always have to be? Again, I would look to the food policy activists to explain to their mayor what obstacles they face and find a way to help them.

• How would you work to increase local food purchasing and leverage the purchasing power of the city?

Going back to the concept of public property as civic centers I think there is more than enough room for the city to put some conditions on access to the markets we set up and fund. We also need to make sure we are respecting the rights of food stamp and other program participants to make their own choices. The participants also have to be partners in health for any project in food price, availability and quality to work.

Note that these ideas are not really my own. Much of what I have described here above is already taking place here in Oakland. My son’s own school has a farmer’s market on site. What I bring to this discussion is a sense of priority and the willingness to place conditions on our private sector partners to make sure we get these markets and programs out to the less served areas. For example, I would make it a condition of having a booth at a highly lucrative farmers market to also turn up and serve a farmer’s market we are trying to establish in another neighborhood.

East Bay Express article

2010-10-17T20:52:00.000-07:00

This is from an article called

The Dark Horses
They may have no chance, but we talked to them anyway.
By Ellen Cushing

here is the part about this "dark horse"

Don Macleay

For one of the race's lesser-known, less-funded candidates, small-business owner Don Macleay has been working hard to make his presence known. He was among the first to officially declare his candidacy, has set up a web site and blog as active as some of the campaign's front-runners, and his schedule shows him crisscrossing the city for a full slate of public forums, press conferences, and appearances. He also has a developed organizational infrastructure behind him in the form of the Green Party brand name, as well as a dedicated campaign manager, Orlando Johnson, who also entered the race before dropping out. Although at 43, he has never run for office before, he says he's interested in being a career politician and is trying to lead his candidacy in a professional way. "I don't see anything wrong with being a professional politician or being a policy wonk," he said. "I'm trying to be ready to win the election."

In a race crowded with bigger names, this will, of course, be an uphill battle. He has yet to rack up any big-name endorsements, and as of the August filing deadline had only raised $1,607 in the first six months of 2010. (He also drew criticism from some local bloggers early on for what some saw to be positions antithetical to Green Party philosophy, including doubts about Bus Rapid Transit.) Currently the manager and majority owner of a small computer networking company, Macleay touts his administrative and technical skills as a machinist, independent businessperson, and electrician, as well as his experience as a local activist, volunteer, and longtime resident. "I was telling Rebecca Kaplan the other day that I could take one of her fuel cell buses apart and put it back together," he said. "I have a common citizen's view of a lot of this. I have a manager's view and a working-man's view. I have a better mix of skills for making these decisions."

As for his platforms, Macleay said, "the sound bite is 'schools up, crime down.'" What that means practically is that Macleay would like to see schools used more like civic centers, and set up afterschool support systems for truant students, though he's emphatic about not wanting to interfere in schools' operations and has expressed skepticism about charter schools. He also told the Express he'd consider suspending the city's redevelopment agency and putting the money into schools and the general fund.

As for the second half of the sound bite, crime, Macleay is a strong proponent of restorative justice and community policing — a Green Party tenet — and in this regard places himself to the left of Kaplan and Jean Quan. In a statement released last week and coauthored by Kaplan, he advocated for more civilianization of the police department, though he has yet to take a stance on the exact number of police officers the city should have.

Macleay said he believes the city's budget problems are too complicated to be dealt with piecemeal, so, unlike other candidates, he'd like to reform the city's budget and charter by calling a budget convention and implementing a "pay-as-you-go budget." He'd also like to cut a deal with the police to put an end to pensions that aren't funded, and proposes changes to the city's zoning and permitting processes to further attract small business.

Are we allowed to say that our schools are in crisis?

2010-10-16T01:12:00.000-07:00

Re: Questions about the school system in Oakland
Posted by: "detta" dmacleay@earthlink.net babel1958
Thu Oct 14, 2010 5:52 am (PDT)

Dear Chris, Kate and list readers,

For the last 10 months I have been listening to our mainstream politicians pretend to talk about our problems. Most of the time they give the kind of "correct image" answers that play down the harsh realities in Oakland. They especially play down the harsh realities that affect our youth of color.

If you want career politicians who will tell you what they think you want to hear, you are well served in this election.

I am less worried about fixing our image problem in Oakland and a lot more worried about fixing our problems.

My opinion is that we have to do better and should not put up with these high school truancy and dropout rates. I also do not feel that what has been done so far is even half way up to the task.

In some ways I am an old fashioned kind of guy. The way I see it we have to face the facts in order to deal with them. The things that are going well are not what needs to be urgently dealt with. The projects and programs that show hope and promise need to be nourished and cultivated like the best plants in a garden. They should not be used as a way to make things look better than they are.

It would be very hard to convince me that the city could not do more to support our youth and families and improve the atmosphere at and around our schools. Add to that the other two crisis hitting our youth, crime and jobs, and I really can not think of what should be more important for a Mayor of Oakland.

We all know that as a Green Party candidate for mayor, the odds are against me. Part of why I do it is to keep talking up the issues that the professional politicians would rather play down.

Thanks

Don

1b.
Re: Questions about the school system in Oakland
Posted by: "Christopher Vernon" vernfami@pacbell.net vernfam
Wed Oct 13, 2010 8:41 am (PDT)

Hi Don,

Yes, problems abound, many of which originate outside the schools, but it's concerning when a mayoral candidate puts forth what seems to be such a one-sided, unnuanced view of the situation in OUSD (think Jerry Brown?). I think that is part of Kate's point.

I agree that many of the problems you reference and the difficulties in addressing them stem from lack of adequate resources in comparison with the German schools. And, yes, that does give me pause. But, like Kate, I'm pleased that my kids and their friends have largely flourished in OUSD schools and that a number of OUSD schools are functioning well in the face of unbelievable odds.

Chris Vernon
Oakland Tech parent

--- On Wed, 10/13/10, detta wrote:

From: detta
Subject: [oaklandpublicschoolparents] Re: Questions about the school system in Oakland
To: oaklandpublicschoolparents@yahoogroups.com
Date: Wednesday, October 13, 2010, 5:58 AM

Everything I said here was from information provided to me by the Oakland Police, the OUSD or Ms. London.

And I did not mention the killings, such as the killing of one of my friends' son two weeks ago stemming from a school fight, or the fact that in some areas the parents can afford to create opportunities for the students after school and in some areas they can not. Our violent crime rate can be as much as 10 times that of Germany.

Other readers have told me that I did not go far enough.

No this is not part of any campaign, but the contrast between schools in the USA and schools in Germany should give us all pause.

The fact that conditions at many of the jobs available for our youth would be illegal in Germany should also make us reflect.

I have two sons in the public school system, one in Oakland grade school and have a lot of good to say about what we are doing here and the improvements over the past few years. But we should not kid ourselves about how we place on the international scale, we should look at what others have shown to be possible and be able to do as well here. I believe that we can.

Re: Questions about the school system in Oakland
Posted by: "Kate Rix" katerix@comcast.net kathrynerix
Tue Oct 12, 2010 12:21 pm (PDT)
Don Macleay:
What exactly is the point of this?
Your summary of Oakland Public Schools is exaggerated, distorted and inaccurate. Why would you want to give a foreign student, or anyone for that matter, this picture of our city's schools?
Is this actually part of a mayoral campaign?

Kate Rix
Oakland native and parent of two children thriving in Oakland Public Schools

Walk Oakland, Bike Oakland, Questionaire

2010-10-16T01:10:00.001-07:00

Oakland City Council and Mayoral Candidate Questionnaire

November 2010

Contact Information

Candidate’s Name: Don Macleay

Telephone: 510 290-1200

Fax: 510 645-1800

Candidate’s Email: candidate@macleay4mayor.org

Website: http://macleay4mayor.org/

Campaign Manager name: Orlando Johnson

Campaign Manager phone number: 510 866-7488

Campaign Manager email: Orlando@macleay4mayor.org

Lifestyle and Culture

1. What initiatives would you develop or support to continue the growth of cycling and walking as every day modes of transportation in Oakland? (150 words or less)

I have not made a study of this. This answer is mostly based on personal experience. My main concern is to upgrade the type of bike path we set up and have safer places around town. Quickly following that I think we are still far away from having safe, convenient bike parking at most business and transit locations.

2. Do you support establishing a pedestrian and cyclist safety campaign in Oakland? (Yes/No)

I do, but I think the infrastructure plays a big role.

3. Do you bike or walk for regular transportation? If so, for what purposes (commuting, recreation, errands) and how often? Please indicate how you most commonly commute to work. (300 words or less)

It depends the weather, the destination and if my 7 year old son is with me. I live upstairs from my work and can walk to most of my shopping, health care, dining and entertainment. I drive very few miles and my 94 has only 78K on it. That car sits for days at a time.

Most of my trips are walking, downtown bike trips are a couple of times weekly most weeks. Since I have been running for office I have needed to use the car more.

I bike a lot between Temescal and downtown/Chinatown/Old Oakland and Lake Merrit for my work or to go to things like Art Murmur.

I only bike with my son on small side streets over to Mosswood or inside of Temescal. By and large I find the “bike lanes” unsafe for a small child. A lot of them I find unsafe for myself and try to use smaller streets when I can. I used to take the bus from 40^th and Broadway, but now find the service too infrequent and unreliable, so I bike more often.

Most of the time I take the car it is to pick someone up who would be very delayed by using public transit, or to get somewhere that is hard to get to, or for questions of safety, speed and access.

Infrastructure

4. In your opinion is Oakland a bicycle-friendly city? (Yes/No)

Not in the way the bike paths are done, but yes in the way the public views bike use.

5. Do you support increasing funding for the City’s bicycle and pedestrian programs and projects? (Yes/No)

Yes after we clean up some of the mess. The safety of some of the current projects give me pause and the result over costs makes me wonder if we are not loosing a lot of revenue to the planning process that would be better spent on the bike paths, cross walks and signage.

6. For generations, State, regional and Oakland policies have prioritized traffic flow and space for private motor vehicles, to the detriment of walking, bicycling and transit. Around the world, many cities are reversing this priority and using the following hierarchy in transportation planning; pedestrians first, then bicyclists, transit vehicles, and lastly private motor vehicles. If elected, will you support this new hierarchy in the City of Oakland? (Yes/No)

I am opposed to ANY increase in the road infrastructure. Our nation needs to urgently put all of our transit resources into mass transit. This is an urgent problem for global warming, pollution, resource waste and quality of life.

7. If elected, will you help achieve the goals of Oakland’s Bicycle Master Plan and Pedestrian Master Plan? What would be your top three priorities for implementation in each of these two plans. (500 words or less)

I am not too familiar with both of these Master Plans.

I was very disappointed in the quality, cost and time delays, not to mention the quality of the final decisions that went into the 40^th Street bike lane plan that is to run in front of my house. I heard the master plan quoted a lot during the public meetings and did not get a clear picture of what it is.

I really hope it is not another one of our city’s over elaborate, over budget plans.

As a regular rider my general feeling is not that some great plan is moving forward, but that could be the funding and permitting and not the plan itself. Some of the stuff I have seen looks very good and other parts seem dubious.

8. How would you prioritize the implementation of Oakland’s Climate Action Plan. If elected, what would be your top three priorities for implementation in this plan. (200 words or less)

1 Better zoning for live/work, walk-bike-bus to work neighborhoods. The lowest carbon footprint in the form of transit and commute is the one you do not have to take. My situation should not be a luxury or a stroke of luck, we should make it a lot easier to live locally.

2 Better building code and permitting. Simple things like skylights, and more advanced projects, such as photovoltaics should not face the current obstacles. The use of “gray water” is illegal for all practical purposes.

3 Trees. We need to line our city streets with trees. We need to buffer our freeways and pollution sources with trees. We need to use trees for our sound barrios. We need to use gray water for those trees and we need to plan native vegetation that will resist drought and require less upkeep.

Additional Thoughts

Are there any additional thoughts that you would like to share regarding bicycling and walking in Oakland?

As a long standing Green Party member, this is the kind of issue that is dear to me. As an Oakland Community organizer I want to mix these needed projects into the integrations programs, education projects and jobs we need to address the crisis that affects our youth.

The changes we need to make on where we work and how we get there are crucial and we need to avoid that becoming in any way in conflict with our URGENT need to address crime, education and employment. It should also not become a false trade off with economic development as a whole.

The city planning process is in need of an upgrade. Our transit goals should be part of that better management we have to provide the public if we are ever going to build an atmosphere of public trust in government. Bike infrastructure is very visible and we need to make sure it LOOKS viable, well thought out and practical to the average resident when they see it.

My answers to a German-American high school student about Oakland Schools.

2010-10-12T11:14:00.000-07:00

On 10/1/2010 9:04 AM, Nicole C-----------i wrote:

Hi Don,

How are you doing? My summer was great. I went to Morocco for two weeks (and actually spoke some French). That was an amazing trip. School started two weeks ago, and everything is getting really busy. The teachers all expect so much from us, because junior and senior year count towards our end grade. Drama started again as well. We just got our lines for the play “The Importance of Being Earnest” by Oscar Wilde today.

Well as I said, school is getting really busy and I have to hold this huge presentation in my English class about the American school system. In this presentation I will tell them how the school system is set up (elementary school, middle school, High school), I will tell them about the differences to the German school system and then I wanted to show them why schools in richer areas often get more money than schools in poorer areas. You explained it to me once, do you remember? That the schools get money depending on how many students attend the classes a day. I thought I would explain this using the example of Burlingame and Oakland. I know you must be really busy, but you would do me a HUGE favor if you could answer some of the questions bellow really briefly (obviously only if you have a moment). If you don't know the statistic stuff, no problem...

thanks,

Nicole

Does the schools’ low financial support in Oakland have an effect on the crime rate in the city (especially concerning teenagers)?

I think it does. The degraded schools are not very attractive to young people. There is little outside of rote learning. There is nothing in the way of vocational training. Arts, music and sports are cut back and close to non-existent. After school programs, clubs, excursions and the like are very limited in scope. In this atmosphere we have an extremely high truancy rate. It is said that as many as 50% of our high school students are chronically truant. The funds for programs to reach out to these families whose students do not regularly attend school are cut way back and in many cases truants are treated as a police issue.

Is it then any surprise that a high percentage of students never finish, or if they do, they do not qualify to graduate?

This is much higher among our black and Hispanic students.

The percentage of young people from these communities who end up going to jail is disproportionately high.

And I feel that a big part of the reason is that the schools did not offer much and did not offer any path to employment.

What do you plan on doing to improve Oakland’s public schools?

I want to bring more resources into the schools as civic centers. That means locating public libraries and parks as part of the school infrastructure. That also means getting more City neighborhood projects to be part of the school infrastructure. Note that in our area, there is one government for the city, the City Council and Mayor and another for the schools, the School Board.

What alternatives are there to Oakland’s public schools? Can parents send their kids to schools in other districts?

One alternative is private schools. Private schools are expensive, but a lot of parents, especially white and Asian parents do that. There are school choice programs inside the school district. Some students can apply for a district transfer. Divorced parents can choose which one of the parent's school district the child will go to. Oakland also has some charter schools. Many of the "choice programs" are used as a way to get out of bad schools. The "no child left behind" laws based on standardized, high stakes testing punish the low performing schools and give parents reason to leave them. There is not a real system by which the schools most in need get the most help.

What exactly are the disadvantages of Oakland’s schools?

We described the lack of resources above. Add to that a social situation where crime and violence spill into the schools and you do not have a formula for success.

What are advantages of Oakland’s schools?

This school district is improving despite the bad conditions. There are a lot of dedicated staff and volunteers putting time and money into the system. There is also a wide diversity of programs and cultures making up the district. A parent who pays attention and who puts in volunteer time can still make sure their student receives a quality education, especially at the younger grades.

On an average school day, how many kids cut lessons in Oakland?

I am not sure. The number that the school district gives us is 50% chronically truant. My guess is something high, maybe 5 to 10% for at least some of each day. Note that my local police tell us that home robberies and break-ins increase when our local high school is in session.

What are reasons for kids cutting school in Oakland?

I think that there are a mix of reasons. A lot of youth have trouble at home or in their neighborhoods. Many come to school unprepared for class, without their work done and with no real chance of catching up. A lot of youth cut class to do more fun things, such as have sex or smoke pot. There is a significant number of young people who are involved in harder drugs, more crime and the sex trade. Some of our youth are parents before graduating high school.

Another reason that I think is relevant, is that the reasons for going to school for many youth are not so obvious. It is not very fun, we do not teach much in the way of useful life skills, we do not teach job skills and most of the interesting programs are too small to have much of a chance of getting into them. The US school systems right now make a big deal out of COLLEGE as the main goal. Well, then what happens to the majority who will not go to college? This lack of options and future may not be obvious to many in our government, but it is crystal clear to young people who will not see college and do not stand much of a chance of getting a good job.

When saying this, the German public needs to keep in mind that many Americans have jobs that do not offer health insurance, do not provide vacation time, do not pay well and provide no opportunity for advancement. In the US to say "working for McDonald's" means having a job that provides nothing and goes nowhere. You do in only because you are desperate for money and you are being ruthlessly exploited when you are there. The conditions that many young Americans, especially young Americans of color, work under are illegal in the BRD.

How many kids drop out of high school?

They don't tell us. One of the games that is played is bad management when they do not want the numbers to reveal the bad news. There is no real tracking. School districts do not take any responsibility for tracking students who do not turn up at the beginning of a school year. Looking at the population as a whole, we find that in many of these communities about half of the youth in the 20's have not finished high school. There are a couple of equivalent tests, but they do not mean much unless the student passed out of high school to go to Junior College. Most who pass the test do not go on to adult education.

Kaplan & Macleay Response to Questions regarding CPRB

2010-09-29T16:15:00.000-07:00

Response to Questions from PUEBLO regarding CPRB From

Mayoral Candidates Don Macleay and Rebecca Kaplan

Questions:

1. If you are elected Mayor, do you commit to ensuring that the
Citizens? Police Review Board (CPRB) will continue to be funded by the
City? and

2. Do you commit to providing sufficient funding to allow the
CPRB to staff up to enable them to receive all citizen complaints.
This policy change, approved by the City Council overwhelmingly, would
allow for the redeployment of at least eight IAD officers to be
reassigned to functions that promote public safety and will become
cost-neutral by the third year and cost-savings thereafter.

RESPONSE:

We are writing jointly with our shared vision and plan to preserve and
strengthen civilian police review and improve public safety in
Oakland.

By Don Macleay and Rebecca Kaplan.

First, we would like to make clear that our answers to the two
questions above are both an unequivocal and strong Yes. Furthermore,
we have discussed this issue at length and want to make it known to
the public where we stand on the issue of the relationship between the
police the public.

Public safety is an essential goal for our city. All parts of our
community must be safe. Ensuring widespread public safety requires a
coherent set of actions, including effective use of police resources,
violence prevention, and strengthened community-police relationships.

Maintaining and strengthening the Citizens Police Review Board (CPRB)
is vital, not only because it is legally-mandated, but also because it
is good public policy and it is fiscally responsible.

>From a public policy perspective, we believe in the principal of
democratic civilian control, including over police. It is incumbent on
the elected officials, as the civilian government, to have the final
say over all police matters including, but not limited to, budgeting,
internal controls, and public complaints.

Intake of public complaints should be handled by civilians, for several reasons:

a) In order to provide effective policing, and to be fiscally
responsible, we should be working to ensure that as many police
officers as possible are deployed in a way that provides safety to the
public. When a task can be handled by a civilian, doing so makes it
possible to re-deploy sworn officers to the essential task of fighting
crime, while saving money due to the lower cost of civilian staffing.
Therefore, civilianizing this process is an important part of
providing effective policing for our city while reducing our budget
crisis for the long-term.
b) We believe that a member of the public who has been mistreated
by a police officer should have the right to speak to someone who is a
civilian when filing that complaint. A person who claims to have been
abused by a peace officer should not be forced to come to an officer
or be confronted by an officer in order to file their complaint.

c) Any reforms to the charter or budget should incorporate
principals of civilian control, review and oversight.

d) Our police officers work very hard, and should be treated with
respect, and should be expected to treat the community with respect.

In addition to the issue of handling complaints, we believe that
civilianization and improved connections with our local Oakland
communities should be used as a broader public safety strategy:

e) We propose that the police department itself become the
employer of more civilians. Trained civilians can do supportive
investigative work at the crime scene, in the lab, and in
neighborhoods. These strategies can be used to strengthen evidence
gathering and analysis, blight and illegal dumping enforcement, and
more. Use of trained civilians can help improve response times, ensure
that police officers are deployed to fight crime, and improve
community safety while balancing the budget.

f) We also want to see a police force with a higher percentage of
officers living in our city, which will improve neighborhood safety
and strengthen community-police relationships. Without violating legal
prohibitions on ordering officers to live in Oakland, we can improve
this situation by: recruiting Oakland residents to the police
department, including through strategies like the ?cadet? program;
providing homebuyer assistance to purchase homes in Oakland; and
ensuring that officers live close enough to respond quickly in an
emergency. In addition, we should ensure that a prior conviction does
not bar someone who has turned their life around from joining our
police department.

g) Lastly, we would like to add that there are additional
?civilian-based? strategies that should be strengthened to improve
public safety in the long-run, like Restorative Justice. Programs like
the McCullum Youth Court can be a very effective tool, by providing a
system in which victims receive restoration, and preventing a new
generation from entering the cycle of crime and revenge. People can
be held accountable for the harms they cause, and required to make
amends to those they have harmed, in a process that increases (rather
than decreases) the chances to then go on and lead a non-violent life.
h) Since California?s prison system is greatly harming our State
budget and our State economy, while simultaneously failing utterly at
the goal of ?corrections? ? with a recidivism rate so high that that
our incarceration system as a whole has actually been causing more
crime -- we must be willing to employ more effective options.

MakeOaklandBetterNow.org MAYORAL CANDIDATE QUESTIONNAIRE

2010-09-20T23:58:00.000-07:00

MAYORAL CANDIDATE QUESTIONNAIRE

Please complete, sign and e-mail to

Oaklanders@MakeOaklandBetterNow.org

Candidate Name: Don Macleay

City Budget

1. Please state your position on the following November ballot measures:

Measure V (increased medical cannabis tax and new non-medical cannabis tax). Answer:

Measure W (telephone trunk line and access line taxes). Answer:

Measure X ($360 parcel tax). Answer:

Measure Y (suspends police staffing appropriation requirements for collection of 2004 Measure Y parcel tax). Answer:

I have the same answer for all four. These tax measures are a bad idea, product of a bad budget process. Despite that I will vote for all four of them. My view is that we have to decide if the hardship of the new taxes is worse than the hardship that the budget cuts will cause. If these measures do not pass, key city resources will become even more substandard during a time when the civil society is least able to help out.

Some feel that voting these taxes down will “draw the line” or force city hall to clean up its act. If that were true the budget mess in Sacramento and in many of our California cities and counties would have been solved years ago. Reform will be done by electing reform minded officials, not by sending some vague negative message voting ballot initiatives up or down.

I answer questions 2, 3 and 4 together, because my proposals link them together. They are part and parcel of a flawed budget process.

2. In June, the City Budget director reported that Oakland faced a five-year general purpose fund structural deficit of $589 million. (See page 19 of City Administrator’s report at http://tiny.cc/5jytp and a spread sheet adding the numbers at http://tiny.cc/9sowf). After the City Council’s recent budget amendments, much of that structural deficit remains. As mayor, what steps will you take to eliminate that deficit? Answer:

3. Budgeted expenditures reflect a city’s priorities. When you present your first budget to the City Council for consideration, what current city functions will you give the highest priority, and how will your proposed budget reflect that prioritization? For what city functions will you reduce or eliminate expenditures? Answer:

4. Each of the city’s labor agreements will open during your term as mayor, which means that wages and benefits will be up for negotiation. As mayor, what will be your plan for balancing the city’s interests in maximizing taxpayer services per tax dollar and retaining and attracting skilled and motivated employees? Answer:

I think the city administrator has the facts straight.

If elected, I will call a budget summit, and kind of budget “constitutional convention” where we put the whole budget on the table. A mayor who convenes such a summit can not predict or dictate the outcome. What I will advocate in the process will include:

Negotiate a transfer of the existing retirement plan to the employees.
Start a new retirement plan that pays its liabilities on pay day.
Have a plan for the ups and downs of the business cycle
Focus outside funding on LONG TERM infrastructure projects.
Mandates, such as Measure Y need to become part of the law and policy of city government, but not the budget handcuffs we now have.
Prioritize civilian services to abate, reform and prevent crime.
Prioritize city services that most improve the quality of life.
Set budget goals that stabilize the different departments.
Increased independent oversight and auditing.

Working for the city should be a good, stable job. Maybe not the best paid, but with good conditions, good benefits, security and the room for city employees to treat their jobs as a vocation and as a social service. This has been the deal for public employees. We need to increase the partnership with our city workers, as represented by their unions in order to restore this promise. As each city contract comes up for negotiation we need to keep this goal in mind. Staff is a big cost, but remember that it is nor an evenly distributed cost. We will not get the partnership we need from our employees and our unions if we do not live up to this promise of good conditions, good benefits, JOB SECURITY and a positive working environment. If we do, then we can work out viable contracts.

A new budget and a new budget process will need to be taken to the voters for a mandate,
for an authorization to change the tax plans and to allow it to replace the mess we now have.

Public Safety

5. Under recent adjustments to the 2010-11 budget, 120 police officers are scheduled to be laid off in January 2011 (in addition to the 80 laid off in July 2010) if Measure V, W, X and Y do not pass. If you are elected in November and these measures are not enacted, will these layoffs take place? If not, what specific budgetary steps will you take to prevent them? Answer:

If I am elected and the budget items did not pass, I will have to declare a budget emergency.

That may end up being a good thing if the process leads to a real budget reform.

There are many things we can do; to be specific does not make sense because the real budget outcome will be the result of a series of government and union negotiations and a complicated political process with our city council, our county and our state.

EVEN IF THEY DO PASS WE HAVE A HORRIBLE PROBLEM and the next mayor should treat our public safety budget as an emergency on day one. It has been an emergency for a long time.

6. Several citizens groups have advocated “civilianizing” police functions that do not require the use of sworn officers, arguing that using civilians for such functions as police misconduct complaint intake, press relations and property crime investigations can substantially cut personnel costs and maximize the availability and effectiveness of sworn officers. Chief Garcon of San Francisco implemented civilianization in Mesa, Arizona and has begun doing so in San Francisco. Do you support civilianization, and if so, for what functions? Answer:

Yes to the civilian jobs and yes to the civilian oversight, but they are two different questions.

The police needs civilian employees to do police work. The back end of investigations (such as fingerprinting, data collections, background research) , community policing, restorative justice, truancy control, substance abuse issues, homelessness, parolee outreach and mental health issues, just to name a few, would all be done well, if not better by a trained civilian. Those civilians should have more appropriate training to their tasks. Social service support will allow the uniformed, armed police officers to focus where they are most effective. Currently they waste a lot of their time.

Civilian oversight of those in uniform is a basic fundamental of American Democracy.

It gives the civilians the guarantee that no-one in uniform is above the law and it gives us collectively the ability to review what our police are doing in a checks-and-balance system.

I not only advocate independent civilian oversight of the police, but I think we need independent oversight of ALL of the city departments. Nobody should be in charge of their own cookie jar. Every staffer, and every outside vendor and contractor should be inspected, reviewed and supervised.

I will propose that we enhance the Auditor’s office to an Audit, Review and Oversight office.

7. At the end of your first term as mayor, how many sworn police officers do you believe Oakland should have, and what steps will you take to accomplish that goal? Answer:

I have no idea and have no target number. I think dreaming one up is just posturing.

We need to see what funding we have, we need to see what jobs become civilian and we need to do something about the large amount of overtime hours we now pay.

8. In recent years, key components of community policing in Oakland have been the interactions between the Measure Y Neighborhood Beat Officers, Neighborhood Safety Coordinators, community members and Neighborhood Crime Prevention Councils. The Neighborhood Beat Officers have now been eliminated, and the functions of the NSC’s have been consolidated. To what extent do you believe community policing is important, and if you believe it is important, how can it be accomplished in Oakland? Answer:

I am an avid member of my own NCPC, a strong supporter of Beat Officers and the Problem Solving Officers. My own now works somewhere else. These last layoffs, followed by the decision to sacrifice community policing in favor of patrol duty has done a lot of damage. This is a case of short term, hand to mouth; budget thinking causing us to lose much of what has been painstakingly accomplished over the last few years.

You can find my statement on public safety here:

http://macleay4mayor.org/macleay-on-public-saftey.pdf

To answer the question directly, I think the public outreach is the LAST thing that they should ever cut and for some reason it is always the first one. There is no law enforcement – crime study to support doing this. The research on restorative justice is the same. At its worst, restorative justice never does worse than the current revolving door jail criminal justice system at its best.

I agree with the goals of Prop Y, but not Prop Y itself.

To start with community policing and community sentencing COST LESS than standard policing.

So why do we need more funds to make this policy work?

Richmond did not, they are saving money and making headway using community policing and did not need any Prop Y equivalent to get going. They just got a mayor and a council that would stick to the policy and hired a chief of police who wants to do it. http://articles.sfgate.com/2009-01-13/bay-area/17198437_1_patrol-districts-richmond-police-address-problems

I plan to be such a mayor.

Public Works

9. In its April, 2009 performance audit of the Oakland Public Works department (http://tiny.cc/afihq), Matrix Consulting Group, which conducted the audit, recommended that:

a. The City should be replacing or rehabilitating an average of 1% to 2% of its sanitary sewer mains each year” at a cost of about $7.5 million; and

b. The City should be spending approximately $30 million annually for the repair and replacement of the City’s streets (at the time of the audit, the annual expenditure was $7.2 million).

Matrix also noted that the General Purpose Fund contribution to the Public Works budget was far less than that of comparable California cities, and made a series of recommendations (at pages 24-25) for adequate funding of the city’s public works needs. Which of these recommendations do you support, and how will Oakland meet its obligations to repair and replace sanitary sewers, streets and infrastructure if you are mayor? Answer:

This is exactly the kind of issue that makes me think we should have a budget reform and better oversight. This is not the only Auditor’s report worthy of attention. The report on Hiring Practices should also be part of our discussions when electing our next mayor.

Our local library, which houses the tool lending library is badly damaged because of the state of our sewers. Many other examples abound, but here in Temescal, this one stands out.

As part of the budget reform that I propose, we need to include this. I am not sure how we can deal with our infrastructure problem without a reform. If we ever get to the point that we actually will put money aside during good times and spend it during downturns in the business cycle, then we could do this in spurts about every 10 years when unemployment is high.

Another source of funding MAY be the stimulus funds and the redevelopment funds, but the get them focused on real long term infrastructure instead of speculative projects is a reform of its own.

Management, Leadership, Accountability and Transparency

10. Oakland is a large and very complex entity with a $1.1+ billion budget and thousands of employees. Please describe:

a. Your specific experience that qualifies you to oversee an enterprise of this size and complexity;

b. Your theory of management, with examples of how you have applied that theory;

c. Your philosophy of executive leadership, with examples of when and where you have shown that philosophy. Answer:

I am running for Mayor. I am not running for City Administrator. The reason that I feel ready to do the job is because I am ready to provide political leadership to the residents of Oakland and the employees of the City. To that end I have a lifetime of political activism and leadership that I will bring to bear on leading the city. My knowledge of the languages spoken in Oakland gives me perspective inside many of the communities here. My mix of a working class background and current life as a small business owner gives me affinity with a cross section of social classes. When I speak with the unions, it will be as representative of the city, but also as a dedicated union member. My technical background will be a major contribution as our city plans projects in a time when America is changing the technology of its infrastructure. My environmental background puts me at the leading edge of the major problems of our time. As a trade school graduate and a trade school teacher, I know what our young people are going through in this job crisis and I have a good idea of what needs to happen to really provide training.

But the most important things I have to offer the people of Oakland are a vision for the reform of our city, the will to do it, the ethics to keep on course and the independence to stay and advocate for the city of Oakland and only the city of Oakland.

11. The City Administrator is the day-to-day head of city government. What criteria will you employ and what qualifications will you look for in appointing the City Administrator? Answer:

The three sub questions above would make good questions for a potential city administrator.

What I will do is search first among people closer to the process, including among my fellow candidates for mayor for talent. I do plan to hire from within. I also plan an administration that includes the people who contested the election. We will need a unity government.

12. What will you do as mayor to ensure that your agenda is being executed? Answer:

Outreach. I will be the kind of mayor who is at the council meeting, goes to Sacramento when needed, meets with the business community, who reviews all the open contracts for compliance, who calls, comes and acts. In other words, a mayor who is on campaign for the agenda all the time.

13. What metrics or benchmarks will you establish for your performance and the performance of City department heads? How will Oaklanders know whether benchmarks are being met? Answer:

The next mayor has to fix the budget. All Oakland will know how well we do.

They will also know how safe the streets are.

They will know if they have jobs.

And they will know how well the schools are doing.

14. How can Oakland’s television station, its web site and other media be used to more effectively inform and engage Oaklanders concerning city government activities and issues? Answer:

Do you mean KTOP or Channel 2?

The answer to KTOP is to make it more available, and make it more relevant, mostly on line.

The answer to Channel 2 is to turn the current situation on its ear. The press should not be asking where the mayor is, the mayor should be on the ground asking where the press is.

15. Should the City be taking other steps to more effectively engage the citizenry in city issues, and if so, what steps? Answer:

Good leadership should always encourage the public to be engaged, empower and informed.

I think that there is a lot of room for changes to how we deal with our grass roots groups.

Have we considered ELECTED neighborhood committees? Ones with some control and budget?

Are we looking at our council districts? Do they represent the neighborhoods or cut them up?

This question makes me want to ask the questions of why the public is not more effectively engaged and start knocking down the barriers to public service and civic involvement.

As mayor I will be asking this question of the public and taking the time to listen to the answers.

Economic Development

16. Many Oakland candidates and office-holders express the opinion that Oakland city government systemically business-unfriendly. Do you agree or disagree? If you disagree, explain how the city has established a favorable climate for business development. If you agree, describe what you see as the systemic problems and explain how you, as mayor, would fix them. Answer:

I disagree, but I know why business owners feel this way. The problems come in how we handle Permitting, Zoning, and Code and from having the highest business taxes in the Bay Area. There are times when asking for an authorization to put up a sign, to sell beer in a restaurant, or adding a pizza oven becomes a ridicules series of trials and tribulations. The new Business Assistance Center is a beginning of moving things in another direction. The taxes are another issue, and would be accepted if we had the advantages of city life more in the front and the disadvantages more under control.

That the city administration needs to become user friendly, is without any doubt, but to call that “anti-business” is a bit of a stretch. There are a long list of home owners, non-profits organizations, artists and other groups will tell very similar stories of frustration dealing with the city.

17. What, if anything, does Oakland have to learn from Emeryville, Berkeley or other cities about how to effectively use Enterprise Zones and redevelopment funding to attract and retain businesses? What, if anything, have other cities done that Oakland will start doing if you are mayor? Answer:

On this I will keep quiet for the most part, but there is much for us to learn from others.

San Jose has made some strides in Restorative Justice.

Richmond moves forward with some good ideas in policing.

A local enterprise zone took in companies that could have been here.

Other

18. What, if anything, can Oakland city government learn from other cities about how to maximize its ability to provide quality services to its citizens in difficult economic times? Answer:

I would like to have us open our view and not only look around our area, state and country, but also look around more internationally. Many parts of the world do a lot of civic improvement without spending so much money, because they never had it. Our core communities include a large number or Mexicans and Central Americans who have personally experienced different urban models that are closer to us than New York and more relevant to our way of life. All of our immigrant communities have stories to tell and can show leadership in brining in fresh ideas. Oakland has personal contact with such ideas, so instead of just picking which ones I think are good, I would like to engage our grass roots groups to propose and hold up other projects as examples of what we would like here.

19. The majority of Oaklanders love their city, and believe it has unparalleled positive elements that are simply not recognized in the rest of the state and country, including history, diversity, and vibrant activity in its culture, arts, restaurants, etc. Does the mayor have a role in getting this message out there, and how should the city send this message? Answer:

I have been asked by a lot of journalists what I think of Oakland image out in the world, in the press and in our own eyes. That question has made me conclude that I will not work on the image. I will work on the reality. We need to get the schools further up, the crime further down, the employment and business environment more healthy and we need to value and nurture our multi ethnic community. If we do that, then the image will take care of itself.

Dated: Monday, September 20, 2010 By:

Don Macleay

OakPAC’s endorsement questionaire

2010-09-18T00:08:00.000-07:00

Questions

Your answers to the following questions will allow OakPAC to make an informed judgment about your candidacy. This questionnaire is a first interview and will assist OakPAC in making the fully informed decisions and make our interview process efficient.

What best describes your motivation for running for office?

A strong desire to see the office of Mayor play a more positive role in our city.

How does your prior experience prepare you for elected office?

My background is that of a trade school graduate, general machinist (19 years), trade school teacher and on the job training instructor. Since 1998 I have worked in computer network administration, starting as an employee, becoming self employed and currently a small business owner with 4 employees.

My qualifications for leadership in Oakland comes from 4 parts of my background.

I am a long time Oakland resident and civic volunteer. My sons are both born here and one is currently enrolled in Oakland public school. My business and my home are both located in a building I own here. Having come here 20 years ago, my life is fully committed to this community

As a world citizen I know much of the communities that make up our multicultural city. I speak both Spanish and Mandarin as well as four other languages. I have lived and worked in many other countries and have been exposed to a wide spectrum of what it is possible for us to do with out city. I have seen other possibilities and so have most of our immigrant residents.

As a working class person who has been able to return to school and obtain a college degree, start my own business and become a landlord I am part of how our economy works. My perspective of it is much more varied than probably anyone else running in this race. My knowledge of environmental issues, technical issues, engineering, recycling, construction, as well as service and retail allows me to understand the transit, development and industrial projects Oakland has involved itself in from the implementation side.

I bring to Oakland a life time of working for social justice and the environment. I have been project director of a small scale hydro project, I have worked in the environmental movement and I have been a community activist in Oakland for the past 10 years. This is not what a main stream political office holder calls being a politician, but it is the kind of politician that I have been. From that perspective I have a wide grasp of city issues as viewed from the resident point of view. That includes our crime problems, our school problems and our budget.

What do you consider the three biggest challenges facing Oakland? What will you do to address these during your term in office?

Crime, schools and budget.

On crime I am an advocate of the community policing and restorative justice model that has already been started.

On the schools I believe that the city should support the schools as a complement of their activities and STAY out of school district business. The schools need help with social problems, especially families in crisis and truancy, and they need infrastructure support. For infrastructure I am a supporter of the civic center model and duel use of the school grounds together with the libraries, parks and recs, etc.

The budget and the budget process need a global reform. If elected I will call a budget convention designed to replace our Byzantine budget with a new global budget. Kids First! Measure Y and other mandates need to become policies and laws, not handcuffs, and we need a pay-as-we-go method of funding. In that convention I will push for a budget would have a plan for both the upswings and the downsides of the business cycles. The most important thing that a budget convention needs to produce is a budget and budget process that will earn the trust and support of the public.

Once we have this new budget and a new budget process we will need to take it to the voters in order to have it fully replace the mixed up mess we have now and give the city a mandate to implement it.

What do you consider the largest impediments to attracting, growing and starting a business in Oakland and how will you eliminate or minimize these impediments?

These are very different problems and only a few policies will help them all.

Attracting an existing business to either move to Oakland or expand into Oakland is one of the things that the city can play a lead role in, especially with our enterprise zones.

Growing existing business requires an overall healthy economy and that is beyond the scope of what can be discussed in one of these questionnaires. Much depends on the area the business is in, and if it involves real estate, then it involves when that real estate was purchased and what the cost of mortgage and property taxes are. There is much the city can do for the overall business environment if we keep in mind that Prop 13 has created a situation where different businesses doing exactly the same thing have wildly different costs.

Starting a business in Oakland brings the city in on permitting, zoning and code.

This is another large subject where the city needs to improve its services and practices. I think the Business Assistance Center is a good start. We will need to have a model where the city’s middle managers are in contact with the business community and have the authority to fix snags in the permitting and licensing process.

What businesses and industries do you view as Oakland’s greatest current economic assets and how would you stimulate their continued growth and success in Oakland?

Oakland has a good diversified portfolio of employment and businesses.
We have a big government sector and a big non-profit sector that we should cultivate.

Oakland, like most of the USA, has a large small business base crossing all kinds of sectors of the economy. Collectively small businesses are our largest employer. Even if this not a “high growth potential” part of the economy, moderate grown in small business can produce more jobs and local investment than many other plans.

The small business area in Oakland is the one hurt most by the bureaucratic delays in the permitting and licensing process. Wanting a 4 digit fee just to APPLY for a beer and wine license, or causing a 6 month wait to install a pizza oven is typical of dealing with the city. Changing that would be a big priority for me.

In all these things what I think the business community needs most from its mayor is the constituent advocacy and service. When one business owner is having a problem, it may be best to take that problem to a city council member, but when a pattern of a problem becomes apparent, the Mayor should step in on behalf of the lager community.

I see this as part of the Mayor’s job to back the business community and the rest of the community in this kind of constituent service mode.

What businesses and industries do you believe Oakland should work to attract to the city and what specific efforts would you undertake during your term in office to effectively compete with other cities for these jobs and economic development?

I think the city should listen more to the market, focus more on the overall infrastructure and environment and get out of the business of speculative investments. I will focus on lower crime, better schools, better transit, and better government and then reach out to the businesses that are interested. We have a lot to offer and we are the hub of the bay area. We need to make this a place anyone would be happy to work in, send their children to schools in and live and make sure we work to make all our businesses a success.

What do you think should be done to help Oakland businesses attract and retain a qualified workforce?

Schools for the skills, schools for the workers children and better public safety.

What have you done in your career to advance a healthy business climate or promote sustainable economic development?

I have been a community volunteer and activist for most of the 21 years I have lived either in Oakland or in the nearby bay area.

The OMCC knows me as an advocate of the chamber itself and as a strong advocate of small business. I have also been there when we were searching for solutions to problems such as with the parking problems last year, even if those kinds of problems are not what I am most focused on or affected by.

Will you make a public pledge in your campaign to “Promote Oakland Jobs and Businesses” if elected? Will you make a pledge to oppose the appointment of nominees for any City Board or Commission that are opposed to job and business growth in Oakland?

Of course I will promote Oakland jobs and businesses. How could any Mayor not do so?

There will be some very different ideas of what that means and what we expect from each member of our community as we resolve our serious problems around the budget. As a business owner myself, I know that business can do a lot, as long as it can stay healthy and in business. As a resident, I also will ask those who are benefiting most to contribute the most. To get there will require serious engagement and leadership towards all the communities that make up this city.

How do you think public safety can be improved?

HOW I propose to deal with public safety and crime:

With broad based public support
We need to do the hard work of bridging the divisions, disdain and distrust in our community.
Since we agree that there should be enforcement, prevention and community policing, then we should focus on that and spend our time on outreach to all sectors of the community. Volunteer community groups across the city and across our society are working hard on social outreach, violence and crime prevention and neighborhood law enforcement. City government can reach out to all of them and bring disparate groups together, but it is going to be a long, difficult campaign and each and every one of us will need to be willing to LISTEN to the other views.

Some actions, such as the recent gang injunction, provoke more disagreement and distrust dividing the community.
Using law enforcement as a way to collect more taxes cheapens the reputation of the city and the police in the eyes of the residents. The same can be said for the recent blame game of political posturing, photo opportunities, endorsements, budget deadline pressure tactics, robo-calls and fear mongering. Vote against it.

With credibility
The public has a right to know that our crime prevention and enforcement policies are based on solid research and proven methods based on real, full information including a study of unreported crime.
We have to face the fact that the California justice system is a failure from trial to parole and we in Oakland will have to deal with the consequences. To say otherwise is to ignore the global problem.
No resident should ever feel that they are on their own without police protection, yet many do. We need to make plans that include extending the circle of protection to everyone, not just those who complain most or have the most money.

With accountability
The police force, like all of city government, needs to be held accountable to civilian oversight.
Measure Y funding and all other programs need transparency, managerial review and inspection.
Every public official should be accountable and not present any conflicts of interest.

With stability
The current hand to mouth budget process is a large part of our general security problem. To get a good program up and running can take years of work and canceling it for a few months at a time is a major setback. A more modest, but reliable funding plan would be more effective than constantly coming up short and changing the plan. We need to get away from complicated, inflexible plans like measure Y and have fair, progressive taxes that the public can support. City government must gain the public trust in how the money is spent and stop reorganizing every couple of years.

What I suggest we do about crime:

Prevent
One of 4 factors is part of most of our city’s crime: Substance abuse, homelessness, truancy, and recidivism.
When we work on crime prevention programs we need to know that we are always staying focused on at least one or more of these four social problems. These four are the priority.

The best crime prevention plan we could come up with is a better economy. Less poverty, better housing, better health care, more jobs, and more educational opportunities can only help and should be part of every decision a mayor makes.

Restore

Our goal should always be to repair the damage. It is fair to ask those who have done damage to make amends and restitution to those who have been hurt. It is also fair, to lend support to the families of offenders and potential offenders. If a youth is acting out, they should be expected to stop, but if the reason they act out is that their parents are in crisis, we all should be expected to help.

The District Attorney’s Office, local judges and local civil society groups have started to break the vicious circle of punishment, incarceration and separation from the community that needs the city’s whole hearted support. Community sentencing involving the perpetrators, victims, families and the general community provide an alternative. This is called Restorative Justice and it has been proven to work as well as or better than incarceration.

Enforce

The Mayor’s job is also to lead a high moral, ethical, honorable and successful police force.
I support giving the police the flexibility to concentrate their resources, to take the initiative and bring the enforcement to the crime. The element of surprise should always be in law enforcement’s favor.
Crimes of intimidation and retaliation against residents who have asked for police protection need priority status
Our police need to be protected and supported when they takes risks.
Work conditions should be healthy for the officers and their families and supportive of long term service.
They need to be supported in better relations with the community including foreign language training.

And we should ALWAYS fulfill our commitment to community policing keeping those positions staffed first.

Candidate agreement

I hereby apply for OakPAC’s consideration of and support for my candidacy for public office. I have read the terms above and agree to them. I certify that I have answered truthfully and completely to each of the questions asked in this application.

Signed: Don Macleay Date: Sept 17^th 2010

Oakland Tribune questionnaire for Mayor Candidates:

2010-09-17T22:20:00.000-07:00

Oakland Tribune questionnaire for Mayor Candidates:

Please provide your name, age, occupation, address, phone number(s), e-mail and the address for any relevant campaign website. Also please provide the contact information for your campaign manager, if any. Keep your answers as brief as possible.

My name is Donald L Macleay, I am 52 years old and currently work as the manager of East Bay Computer Services, a small computer networking company that I hold the majority share in.
I live and work at 4004 Opal Street, near 40^th and Broadway in a building I own.

All the other biographical information is at http://macleay4mayor.org/biography.html and campaign contact information, including the campaign manager is at the bottom of any page on our website, including that one.

What in your opinion is the most serious issue facing Oakland? What would you do about it?

I do not think that there is ONE serious problem facing Oakland, there are 3 big ones and they are public safety, our schools and the economy and there are several structural problems with our local government. The three big ones of those are the budget, city management and regional government (or the lack thereof).

There are many valid efforts under way working to fix all of these key issues. If there is anything common to how I would deal with them it would be reliance on the grass roots organizations with good track records to provide civic leadership.

If I had to pick one problem, it would be the crime. The first place a Mayor could start would be with the serious failure of our parole system. The city has to find an immediate way to integrate our parolee population and needs to get as many of our people out of the criminal justice revolving door as we can.

2. Please list your top three priorities after taking office.

Quickly put in place a management team and fill all appointments.

Call a convention for an overhaul of our budget

Engage with City Council and regional government bodies, especially ABAG and the MTC.

3. How would you solve Oakland’s budget problems, given that more than 75 percent of General Purpose Fund revenues are earmarked for police, fire, debt service and voter-mandated programs such as Kids First! And other services. Be specific.

We need a new budget and a new budget process. As I said above, a top priority will be to call a budget convection. Kids First! Measure Y and other mandates need to become policies and laws, not handcuffs, and we need a pay-as-we-go method of funding. In that convention I will push for a budget would have a plan for both the upswings and the downsides of the business cycles. The most important thing that a budget convention needs to produce is a budget and budget process that will earn the trust and support of the public.

4. Do you think Oakland needs more police officers? If so, how would you pay for them? Do you think a new $360 parcel tax is necessary?

I do not believe in any of the “magic numbers” people are throwing around for police offices. We need more, that is sure, but how many is not so sure. First we need to work out some other things. The two most important ones are 1 How much police support work and social work can be done by civilians? And 2 How much money do we have once we stop overtime staffing?

The parcel tax is a bad idea that I think we should vote for. We need a new budget, we need to have our house more in order, but we do not need to burn that house down while we are repairing it. If you do not trust the current council and mayor to do the right job, vote them out, but do not make it impossible for anyone to govern. I am running to be a responsible administrator of the public’s property and do not want to see it lost or damaged.

5. Do/did your children attend Oakland public schools?

I have one son in Oakland public school. My other son attended Berkeley public schools.
I have been a volunteer in both districts.

6. Do you support inclusionary zoning to provide affordable housing? Why or why not?

Yes I support it as one of several things we need to do to support working class housing.
My first reason is that I see housing as a right. I also see being able to live where you were born and raised as being a healthy society. In order to have working class housing be viable, it really needs to be profitable to provide that housing. Oakland can provide the environment to make that possible.

Not to protect affordable housing is to support gentrification, which I oppose.

7. Do you think it’s important to keep the A’s in Oakland? How would you accomplish that?

For what they are asking for, I think it would be reasonable to consider buying the team.

8. What are Oakland’s best assets?

Too many to count.
I live here, my sons were born and raised here, my business and home are here all because I have found a rewarding life here, as have so many others.

9. How would you describe your city to someone who is thinking of visiting for the first time?

Because I am something of an immigrant myself, I get to do this all the time.
Oakland is everything you would like about California and it is the real deal.
From the music, to Chinatown to the Redwoods, the Hells Angels or the Black Panthers, Art Murmur and the gourmet ghetto, this is one of the most interesting places in the Bay Area.
I have never seen anyone leave unimpressed.

Please return your responses no later than Sept. 17 to Cecily Burt, via email: cburt@bayareanewsgroup.com, regular mail: c/o Oakland Tribune, suite 950, 7677 Oakport St., Oakland, CA 94621; or fax: 208-6477.

Cecily Burt
Oakland Tribune
cburt@bayareanewsgroup.com
510 208-6441

League of Women Voters we are pleased to invite all registered Mayoral Candidates

2010-09-16T07:18:00.000-07:00

Dear Candidate,

On behalf of the Oakland Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce, the Bay Area Business Roundtable and the League of Women Voters we are pleased to invite all registered Mayoral Candidates to the Candidates Forum scheduled for Thursday, September 23.

The Oakland Tribune, KTVU Channel 2 and ABC Channel 7 will be present as well as other media. We request you arrive at or before 6:30 pm to be briefed and seated so we may start promptly at 7 pm.

Being guided by the ‘WHAT IS BEST FOR OAKLAND’, we believe the voters deserve to hear from each candidate and not just those who met or would accept the eligibility criteria.

The forum will be held at the Kaiser Center Auditorium at 300 Lakeside Dr., Oakland, our program will start promptly at 7 pm with questioning till 8:30 pm at the discretion of the media and our moderator.

If you have not done so already, please confirm your intention to participate by replying to this message.

For the Oakland Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce, Bay Area Business Roundtable and the League of Women Voters of Oakland,

Helen Hutchison

-------------------------------------------------------

Join the League of Women Voters where the hand-on work to safeguard democracy leads to civic improvement.

Helen Hutchison
League of Women Voters of Oakland
lwvoakland.org

LOWV "you have not met the criteria"

2010-09-13T19:49:00.000-07:00

Below is my non answer from the LOWV Oakland
with my reply.

I think both speak for themselves.

Don

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: RE: September 23 Mayoral forum (was:RE: LOWV non response)
Date: Mon, 13 Sep 2010 19:32:14 -0700
From: Donald Macleay
To: Helen Hutchison
CC:

Helen,

In my prior letter I explained that we had no intention of trying to meet the exclusive criteria.
For example, you require that we have an office. We have gone to a lot of trouble to build a cloud computer space so that we would not need an office.

I know that your co-sponsors are very influential but can the LOWV-Oakland not give reasons for the criteria that excludes candidates from their own event? The LOWV candidate forum is something of a local tradition, or at least it was.

My real question now for the LOWV and the other two sponsors is this:

How does the Sept 23rd Mayoral candidate event serve the voters of Oakland?

Yours

Don Macleay

Green Party Candidate for Mayor of Oakland 2010

----- Original Message -----
From: "Helen Hutchison"
To: "'Donald Macleay'"
Sent: Monday, September 13 2010 11:34:16 PM
Subject: September 23 Mayoral forum (was:RE: LOWV non response)

> Mr. Macleay -
>
> This is to inform you that you have not met the criteria for participation
> in the September 23 Mayoral Forum, cosponsored by the Bay Area Business
> Roundtable, Oakland Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce and the League of Women
> Voters of Oakland.
>
> If you have questions about the criteria specifically, I'd be happy to
> answer your questions. If you have questions about why the criteria are
> being used for this forum, I would refer you to Bernard Ashcroft of the
> Business Roundtable and Scott Peterson of the Chamber of Commerce.
>
> Helen Hutchison
>
> -------------------------------------------------------
> Join the League of Women Voters where the hand-on work to safeguard
> democracy leads to civic improvement.
>
> Helen Hutchison
> League of Women Voters of Oakland
> 510 654 2216 - home
> 510 332 6252 - mobile
> lwvoakland.org
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Donald Macleay [mailto:candidate@macleay4mayor.org]
> Sent: Sunday, September 12, 2010 4:44 PM
> To: helen@helenhutch.com
> Cc: orlando@macleay4mayor.org
> Subject: LOWV non response
>
> To: Helen Hutchison LOWV Oakland,
> helen@helenhutch.com 510 332 6252 ? mobile
>
> Last week I wrote you a letter asking the League of Women Voters to change
> policy around your Mayoral Forum on Sept 23rd. We have not had any
> communications from the LOWV about this letter. As far as we know, there has
> been no change of policy and not all ballot qualified candidates are welcome
> to attend.
>
> Would you be able to let us know your intentions by Sept 15th?
>
> After that time, we will need to put our efforts into organizing an
> alternative event.
>
> Thank you
>
> Don Macleay
> 2010 Green Party Candidate for Mayor of Oakland.
> Candidate@macleay4mayor.org
>
> Orlando Johnson, Campaign Manager,
> orlando@macleay4mayor.org
> 510 866-7488
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>

Great Oakland Public Schools Information Center Questionnaire

2010-09-11T01:48:00.000-07:00

Please answer each question in 250 words or less.

1. Oakland Unified School District has been the most improved large, urban school district in California over the last five years, yet continues to fail many of its students. Only 42 percent of high school graduates in OUSD have taken the A-G courses required to apply to a CSU or UC for college, and this does not take into account the 28 percent of students who drop out in grades 9-12. We are not producing excellent outcomes for all students. What is your vision for equitable public education in Oakland, and what systemic changes will you work toward to achieve that vision?

I do not feel that it is appropriate for a mayor, or a mayoral candidate, to micromanage the schools and that includes setting forth a docent policy. The role of the city is to help the school board as a whole and the role of the school board is to bring forth the policies that will address our problems.

That said, the city does have a responsibility to support youth in crisis. The students who drop out and the students who fail are overwhelming from communities of color and overwhelming part of our at-risk groups. I feel it is appropriate to expect the city to take a role getting our youth back into school and supporting the families in a way that will help them graduate.

2. OUSD’s “Options” program allows families to choose which of Oakland’s public schools they would like their children to attend. Students are then assigned to schools based on their preferences and a school’s available openings. What reforms, if any, would you propose for OUSD's “Options” program?

The majority of people of my own ethnic group have left the Oakland school district. Another significant number use any method that they can to get their kids into the better of our schools. This puts a pressure on the Options program that is different from the intent.

Our family has used the options process twice, first to get our son into my neighborhood school so he/we can walk to school and again to get him into his mother’s neighborhood school where he can develop his Spanish skills. We have a mixed race family and Spanish is important to us.
So, the system worked for us and I have met many other parents for whom it also works.

But until all the schools of all the neighborhoods are good enough not to want to Opt-out, then options will also be used to avoid certain schools. This kind of policy always leaves some children in schools that nobody wants to be in. These kids probably need the most support and will get the least.

3. What role should charter public schools play for students and families in Oakland?

I am not a big fan of charter schools. I certainly will not promote my own as Mayor Brown did.
The elements that give me pause are the non-union employees, the over long work hours and cherry picking in the selection of students. I am more comfortable with programs such as SEED. All the data I have read seems not to show any major advantage to charter schools.

4. What State-level practices and policies hold back the quality of our public schools, and what are your plans to change them?

• Prop 13 is a strong negative for almost all city and county governments funding.
• The ADA system as currently enforced puts our urban school districts at a disadvantage and takes away the funds needed to deal with high truancy.
• The sales tax and lottery dollars are also not distributed in a manner that is fair for local government.

All three of these are FISCAL policies and I name them because I feel that the biggest problem with our schools is that they are underfunded. I would advocate for reforms and exemptions on all three of these tax issues and I would continue to look for other funds as our current mayor has done.

5. Where do you turn for information and ideas about how to improve Oakland public schools?

I am a regular volunteer at my son’s school and have kept in touch with how staff and faculty are treated, supported and trained. I also participate in the local on-line communities.

Having been a trade school teacher in the past and having a Liberal Studies, teacher oriented degree from SFSU I have been part of the community for some time and get information from those circles.

6. What will you do to ensure there is an effective, qualified teacher in every OUSD classroom?

I am not sure we don’t have good teachers in every classroom.

The biggest problem that I have observed and have seen in the literature is CLASS SIZE, especially at the lower grades. What I have observed as a volunteer is that people are under supported and all the schools are under staffed.

Having taken courses in the California Credential program at SFSU I do not believe that just having the right degree or credential makes one a good teacher, or even all that well informed in their area.
I think that there should be teacher training for people who have worked in the areas that are being taught. I think peer, student and parent opinions should form part of teacher evaluation. Test scores are very problematic and I do not believe in the current fad of high stakes tests.

My number one concern is to offer teachers support and security in a situation where they can invest time into their profession. I also feel that continuing teacher training and job rotations providing breaks from stressful and potential burn-out positions would all improve the overall situation.
We should be appreciative of our teachers and provide them with an environment that they would want to stay employed here.

7. Do you support the November 2010 Parcel Tax (Measure L - Oakland Student Achievement, Support and Safety Measure) to increase compensation for Oakland's teachers? Please explain.

I do, but only because of the damage that will be done if it does not pass.
Longer term I think we need to hold a city wide budget convention and reform our entire budget and the process that produces it. The school budget needs to stay separate and have secure funding.

8. President Obama is making the largest single Federal investment in education in history via competitive and formula grants. How will you ensure Oakland students benefit from this funding?

By retaining the Dellums fund raising team and pointing them at this task. They have been doing a wonderful job raising money from Federal grants. They can help the team at the OUSD and they can be the City counterpart in different funding applications.

9. Are there other cities you would look to as models of city-schools partnership and why?

I have not studied this from the point of view of a model. I do know that our problems in Oakland sound typical for urban core areas like ours.

What I do admire was the political will that San Diego showed when they had similar problems to ours. The main difference seemed to be that all local government made schools their priority.

10. OUSD has just released a new strategic framework called “Thriving Students,” in which City government plays a significant role. How will you make the City a partner in the implementation of “Thriving Students?” What role can City agencies play in developing the Promise Neighborhoods envisioned within OUSD's new “Thriving Students” strategic framework?

I see the “promise neighborhoods” and the key point of safe and healthy schools as the proper place for city government to be involved in school partnerships. Other aspects of the plan and the cooperation with the city do not sound very specific to me. I would like to see more about vocational training and adult education.

I am an advocate of taking our prior policy of turning school facilities into multi use civic centers, off the shelf and renewing it. Projects such as the 81st Ave Library are what I see as the future.

An overall atmosphere of public safety and available jobs is needed in our neighborhoods and all of it has a direct impact on our schools and all of our public services.

11. The Mayor is the City’s Chief Executive. How would you use City staff to put education as a top priority in your administration and support and improve our public schools and outcomes for children?

As Mayor the first place I would work to make our city schools a top priority is City Council.
At times I will call joint meetings of City Council and the School Board for direct collaboration.

From an administrative point of view, I will prioritize inserting the well being of our schools into planning, zoning, permitting and redevelopment processes. It will take policy leadership and the selection of a good team to keep schools on everyone’s mind as they are working on related projects.
When working for the city, all top managers will need a culture where we think about the impact on our schools, public safety, public health and employment and be willing to apply the brakes when these goals are not being met.

12. How will you be a leader that brings Oakland together to support our public school students? How would you encourage and recruit people to volunteer in our public schools?

Oakland needs to update its volunteer efforts. The volunteers already exist. They are working in the schools, they are helping in neighborhood committees and they are found in all kinds of public and non-profit groups.

What I think we need most in physical support is coordination. For example, if the city had an official volunteer corps, we could screen, fingerprint and provide ID to willing school volunteers. The school volunteer effort would also benefit from database support to help match the skills to where they are needed. Some supervision would also be helpful. Even volunteers need to be held accountable to complete their tasks.

I attest that the above answers represent my actions and beliefs, are now part of my public record, and may be used by Great Oakland Public Schools.
_Saturday, September 10, 2010

Oakland Education Association Mayoral interview and questionnaire

2010-09-10T20:16:00.000-07:00

Oakland Education Association Mayoral interview and questionnaire

bbalderston@earthlink.net
bolsonjo@yahoo.com

Dear Mr. Macleay,
This communication is sent on behalf of the Oakland Education Association's
Political Involvement Committee to all the Oakland mayoral candidates to invite you to an in-person interview and to request that you feel out a questionnaire which will help us in our endorsement process. We apologize that this has not been sent earlier but we have been reorganizing our PIC with the start of the new school year.
The date for the interview is Saturday, September 11th from 9 am to 2 pm. We are providing 20 minutes for each candidate. If you could select three time slots in order of preference, we could attempt to best accommodate you. The location for the interviews will be the CTA/OEA Regional Center at 1211 Embarcadero, Suite 204, Oakland. You can respond as to your availability by calling OEA President Betty Olson-Jones at
(510) 763-4020 (office) or (510) 866-3676 (cell).

In addition, there is a questionnaire you will see below which we would ask you to complete and return before the 11th, sent either to the OEA office (272 East 12th St., Oakland 94606) or on-line to: bolsonjo@yahoo.com

Thank you for your commitment and prompt responses.

For the OEA PIC,

Bill Balderston

Questionnaire for Oakland Mayor Candidates:

1. What is your background and are your qualifications to be Mayor?

My background is that of a trade school graduate, general machinist (19 years), trade school teacher and on the job training instructor. Since 1998 I have worked in computer network administration, starting as an employee, becoming self employed and currently a small business owner with 4 employees.

My qualifications for leadership in Oakland comes from 4 parts of my background.

I am a long time Oakland resident and civic volunteer. My sons are both born here and one is currently enrolled in Oakland public school. My business and my home are both located in a building I own here. Having come here 20 years ago, my life is fully committed to this community

As a world citizen I know much of the communities that make up our multicultural city. I speak both Spanish and Mandarin as well as four other languages. I have lived and worked in many other countries and have been exposed to a wide spectrum of what it is possible for us to do with out city. I have seen other possibilities and so have most of our immigrant residents.

As a working class person who has been able to return to school and obtain a college degree, start my own business and become a landlord I am part of how our economy works. My perspective of it is much more varied than probably anyone else running in this race. My knowledge of environmental issues, technical issues, engineering, recycling, construction, as well as service and retail allows me to understand the transit, development and industrial projects Oakland has involved itself in from the implementation side.

I bring to Oakland a life time of working for social justice and the environment. I have been project director of a small scale hydro project, I have worked in the environmental movement and I have been a community activist in Oakland for the past 10 years. This is not what a main stream political office holder calls being a politician, but it is the kind of politician that I have been. From that perspective I have a wide grasp of city issues as viewed from the resident point of view. That includes our crime problems, our school problems and our budget.

2. What are your main priorities for leading the city government of Oakland?

Restorative justice and community policing.
Whole community support to our schools.
Reform the budget process.
Reform the council districts and elections.

3. How do you see city policies and programs relating to the Oakland Unified School District (OUSD), its students, parents and staff? How do you see your role as mayor in relation to the school?

I support the schools districts autonomous relationship to the mayor. I do not believe that a mayor should be getting involved in making educational policy.

That said, I think the city could do much more to help the schools. I would like to bring back out the failed promise to make better dual use of school infrastructure and build them into more of a civic center environment. I also feel that Oakland students would benefit from city programs that continued at school, before and after school and from the schools. Another area where I would share resources with the school would be to revamp our city wide volunteer organizing. In all these areas some good starts and some false starts have already taken place, what I would like to do different is to manage and support it better in a more central manner.

See the funding questions below for more

4. Would you advocate for canceling the OUSD debt to the state? How would you facilitate this?

YES and I would like to see an audit / investigation of the period of state control.

It is my firm belief that we need a mayor who would ADVOCATE for the city, schools especially, in a constituent service mode. Just as a resident goes to their member of council to get help dealing with some individual bureaucratic problem, the mayor should be the constituent advocate for the whole. The school district should count on the mayor to make a ruckus on our collective behalf.

In practice that would mean a mayor who was stepping outside of charter description of the job and making our issues part of EVERY negotiation with the county and state.

The current system of ADA funding allocations punishes districts with problems like ours. At the very least the formula should be modified to help us deal with truancy. I will advocate its modification all the time. It will become a major subject of every conversations with our state representatives, and I will reach out to the other cities who are also hurt by it and campaign for a change.

This change will not come easily and may not come in a single administration.

So at the same time I will join every effort that can get more funds to our schools NOW under current allocation rules. The Dellums fund raising machine should be retained and we should make it a major city priority to help our schools in every way.

The dual use I mentioned above is also a budget issue. We should think of investing on our public spaces. School libraries can be entwined with the public library system, school space can be entwined with park space and we can choose to have many of our programs start and stop on school ground. This is a way for our city to keep our services up and also make more resources available to the school system.

5. What new funding sources, both internal and external to the city, would you pursue? What strategies do you have for accessing these funds? What timetables do you project for obtaining these funds? Do you see a role for the Port of Oakland in expanding resources?

I can not answer this question and I do not believe that anyone can.
The City of Oakland is facing and will continue to face a major budget crisis.

A major part of my program is to advocate for a budget convention and revamp both the budget and the budget process. The results of that convention I will bring to the voters. My job as mayor will be to lead the budget reform movement and process, not to micro manage it.

6. What services, especially around jobs, housing and health care, would you stress? Is expansion of programs possible? How would you deal with potential cuts in services?

I will resist service cuts. As I stated above, I will continue to seek funds inside the existing framework while at the same time request changes from the State to provide relief to the city.

When I speak of re-organizing I am including the hundreds of contractors providing city services. There is also a half billion redevelopment budget being spent here. I will set up an administration that pushes very hard on the conditions applied to those contracts such as local hire, affordable housing and local contracting. Considering the amount of money involved, there should be more flexibility if we put the whole system on the table, but it still we be very hard to make sure our public needs stay funded.

Yes it is possible to expand some programs, but there will be some cuts in pet projects and speculative development in favor of public programs and infrastructure.

7. What is the potential impact of the "Oak to Ninth" project on downtown Oakland? Are there other projects involving more "green development" that you could envision?

I was opposed to Oak to Ninth and continue to have serious doubts. The most important one is that the current EIR says that freeway pollution at the site is above acceptable levels, whatever acceptable means. Maybe the down economy has done us a favor here and we have a chance to reconsider the best use of that land.

I am very much in favor of development and Green standards. My focus will be more on conversion of the existing buildings in our city and bringing Green Development into the regular permit and planning process.

The Brower Building in Berkeley is a good example of what our building codes should look like. I think Oakland is ready to embrace the future and just make environmentally sound policies part and parcel of how we do our building, renovations, large projects and not need to be in some kind of special category. There is really not a need to authorize other methods in our building code and we need to make the permit process for retrofitting existing real estate realistic.

Not part of your question, but probably part of the answer is the Zoning and Planning required to make more walkable neighborhoods. (and this involves the schools as civic center). The least polluting transit method is the one you never take. We need a Green vision as part of our vision for our neighborhoods and then we need to stick by it.

8. What are your ideas on the funding for and practices of the Oakland Police Department? How does this relate to restorative justice? How does it relate to truancy?

The police have 4 social problems dropped on their laps that cause a major portion of what becomes crime. They are:
Truancy
Homelessness
Parolee recidivism.
Substance abuse.

These problems are better handled by social workers than police officers.
(Of course all 4 can be symptoms of other problems, but that is for the social workers.)

In the example of truancy, a school based civilian city employee based out of the neighborhood school will be much more effective than a police officer reaching out to these families.

And it costs less. Much less. The Byzantine aspects of our budget need to be changed because we seemed to be trapped choosing the more expensive, less effective method due to lack of funds. I have heard the explanations and I continue to want budget reform.

Restorative Justice gets thrown around to mean a lot of different things.
I prefer the McRae methods of community sentencing.
In our schools what I see is a need to help youth take responsibility for their actions to the community and to their victims and for the community to keep these young people here to make their amends and AWAY from our criminal justice and prison system which is doing no good at all. This is not always possible, but when it is, it has proven to be as effective as criminal court as its LOWEST result. It usually does better and again it ALWAYS costs less.

I am a strong advocate of restorative justice.

9. What are your feelings on the role of public sector unions? Have you ever been a union member and acted in a union leadership role?

I have been an IAM member from when I first became a Journeyman machinist in Vancouver back in 1981. I am still a member. My last shop job I was the Shop Steward. My first ever political activity was to organize a union in the plastics manufacture where I worked in Montreal in 1979.

I do not know a lot about public sector unions. I was in one, but not in the US.
My main feeling is that is natural and normal for any worker to be organized and represented.
Of course that right has been seriously eroded in our country and I am one of those people who stands up for unions and people’s rights to be in them. I will be no different as mayor.

10. What main endorsements from individuals and organizations have you obtained?

I am the official candidate of the Green Party endorsed by the city and county branch.

11. What are the sources of funding for your campaign?

We are a grass roots group. We do not accept big money. Almost all of our campaign materials, website, online resources and such are produced by our volunteers.

12. What are ways to have ongoing communications and to plug-in to your campaign should we endorse you?

If you should endorse me you will be the first labor organization to do so.
And I would be VERY honored.
My campaign manager, myself and our core volunteers are all local activists and we are very available all the time. Our support of the union movement and our support for Oakland teachers is not in any way dependant on who supports us. Support of Labor is one of our core values.

I will welcome open communications between myself and the Green Party with labor no matter who you endorse. As a community leader I consider that a responsibility. If elected mayor then all the more so.

13. Any final thoughts?

I was expecting more questions about the teachers and schools.

So, please let me say a few things. While I think a mayor should stay out of running schools, we should not be blind to what is going on.

I am opposed to all this convoluted high stakes testing.
It is great that our students have better grades, but this is not way to evaluate students, teachers and schools. I do not like the pressures it puts on schools and I feel that EDUCATION suffers.

I do not think that there is a bad teacher crisis. Too much concern has been places on teacher performance with the sub text that bad teachers are to blame for our bad schools.

Maybe if we funded the schools well, had good music, sports, and other social programs, smaller class sizes, more support staff, more and better school health clinics with schools in safe neighborhoods then we could look at the teacher performance and test scores. We are not there but I am very ready to try THAT experiment.

The LOWV should open their event to all candidates

2010-09-07T12:30:00.001-07:00

The LOWV should open their event to all candidates

Dear League of Women Voters, Oakland Branch,

I am writing with concern about the event you have planned for Sept 23rd.
My concern is about the “viability” standards I have received as a requirement to participate as a candidate in this event.

It is my firmly held belief that all ballot qualified candidates should be allowed to participate.
If you do not believe that so many people should be on the ballot, then just say so and advocate a change in the city charter.

We did not respond to your “qualification test” because we do not feel that there should be any other criteria than that of the City of Oakland.

It was my understanding that the Oakland branch of the League of Women Voters had the missions of INCLUDING and INFORMING the public away from our money dominated, media advertizing politics. The “viability” standards seem to be based only on media, money, and existing political connections. Do you now want to make sure that some people get exposure and others do not? It does not really matter what your intention is, that will be the effect. Now one place where all candidates were to be given a chance to make their case in front of the public and see their message distributed by the broadcast media has become one more place where the citizen candidate has been excluded.

The current press coverage is already strongly biased towards a pay-to-play model of politics which creates a self fulfilling prophecy of who is viable. The public is poorly served by the press which has done nothing to inform the public of their choices in this election. Why has the Oakland branch of the League of Women Voters become part of that process that does not fully inform the public?

Other events have taken place and other people have found ways to deal with the large number of candidates. In our modern media age, I think you could find a way to deal with this as others have.

What in effect will happen is that you will end up holding an event that tells the public:
There are people you are allowed to vote for and all the others are not viable.

Is that really the mission the League of Women Voters has now?

So I ask you to reconsider.

Don Macleay

Green Party Candidate for Mayor of Oakland, 2010
510 866-7488
candidate@macleay4oakland.org

P.S. We have received “consolation prize” invitations to at least one other Oakland branch of the League of Women Voters sponsored events.
This does not address the issue I raise here and I wonder who is served by these second string events.

Answer to Causa Justa :: Just Cause's housing question.

2010-08-30T17:41:00.000-07:00

QUESTION:

“With the number of foreclosures nationally topping 6 million (since 2007), and an Oakland average of 1 in every 156 homes reaching foreclosure in July - what plans do you have, as Mayor, to address this local housing crisis and stem the continuing tide of displacement in Oakland."

Amber,

Here is my answer:

As mayor I would work to put pressure on the note holders to either re-negotiate their loans or to take title of foreclosed homes without evicting the families in default. (the families would become tenants with tenants rights) There are many carrots for the banks, including offsetting the high cost of foreclosure, the high cost of eviction and the high cost of homes sitting empty. An added incentive comes in the form of neighborhood with a low vacancy rate, which is very key in conserving property values. For a stick we can do the opposite. I would raise the cost of foreclosure, the price of eviction and the heavily punish vacancy.

Other cities in the USA have placed heavy fines on landlords with vacant housing with extra penalties for boarding a building up. That policy was usually matched with use of eminent domain where the city was able to seize boarded up housing, refurbish it and rent it out passing the repair bills back to the property owners. These kinds of policies are usually threat enough to cause the owners to put affordable housing back on the market and gives the city a final card to play if they do not. Oakland has some pieces of this that I would enhance into a more compressive housing regulation and rent control.

Our housing crisis is not caused by us, but falls on us to deal with the social pain that it causes.
The federal government fell down on the job and continues to not rise to the occasion.
The state loan and property tax environment is a windfall for some and a disaster for most of us.
The market is not providing housing in a socially useful way, made all the worse by Prop 13.
Both the boom and the bust has been harmful for normal working class people who rent or own.

Housing should be a right, not a high stakes, roulette wheel, investment. This is my view and the view of the Green Party for the same reasons of social solidarity that we believe in universal health care and a right to an education. A healthy society takes care of its own.

As mayor I would hold up the view that housing is a right and providing it is a social responsibility.

Yours,

Don Macleay
candidate@macleay4mayor.org
(510) 866-7488

----------------------------------------------

Sent to:

Amber McZeal amber@cjjc.org
Communications & Oakland Housing Rights Organizer
Causa Justa :: Just Cause
(the union of St. Peter's Housing Committee and Just Cause Oakland)
Unity is Strength! La Union Hace La Fuerza!
MAILING: PO Box 3596 | Oakland, CA 94609
MAIN OAKLAND OFFICE: 3463 San Pablo Ave., Oakland, CA
PHONE: 510.763.5877 ext. 405 | fax: 510.763.5824

SIERRA CLUB 2010 QUESTIONNAIRE

2010-08-30T17:40:00.001-07:00

SIERRA CLUB 2010 QUESTIONNAIRE
for OAKLAND MAYORAL CANDIDATES

Please return this questionnaire with your answers included after its question.

1. Why do you want to run for Mayor? What is your vision and what are your priorities for the City, and how would you implement them?

My first reason for running for Mayor is to be the advocate for the city. I see this as a stand and deliver kind of job and if elected I will be one of those mayors you see everywhere reaching out to the public and on campaign for the city’s projects.

The main theme of my campaign is one of STRUCTURAL REFORM.

Reform of the criminal justice system, of which Oakland is only a part.
Reform of the council and charter with a representative council with checks and balances.
Reform of the budget from top to bottom bringing a new budget process before the voters.

2. How would you implement environmental policies? Would you re-establish an Office of Sustainability, or has the sustainability function been effective within the Public Works Department? How would you integrate sustainability within CEDA and other departments? How will the Mayor’s office be structured to address sustainability?

My strongly held view is that city hall is over complicated. I believe that CEDA and Public Work, along with zoning, planning, and permitting all should be helping implement an environmental plan. I do not find them effective and many policies loose a lot of value in the details and implementation. Our bike paths and our building codes are two good examples. Having an Office of Sustainability does not equal a strong, detailed set of policies. The elected officials have the responsibility of providing those policies. We have some good ones and some that seem more like a laundry list. I really feel that this problem is part and parcel of the lack of a general office of oversight. If we set one up, as I advocate, I see a place for commissions with true review and investigation powers. One of those commissions would be for the implementation of our environmental policies, one for community policing, one for the budget, one for police complaints and so on.

3. Development in the older urban centers helps the environment by redirecting new development away from wild and rural land on the edge of the urbanized region. What is your vision of future development for Oakland, both in downtown and in the neighborhoods? What is your vision for development in Oakland’s designated priority development areas? Should minimum parking requirements in the Zoning Ordinance be reduced, waived, or eliminated?

I am in favor of urban density and opposed to any more wild or rural land being developed.

I believe in a system of Neighborhood centers, each zoned to allow for transit centers, shopping, essential services, schools, and mixed use buildings.

The development area plans give me some certain pause. They are based on a market economy concept and has many projections along those lines, but do not have the number of client partners I would like to see to make them work. The environmental additions I have seen on the Valdez Triangle plan look like little more than window dressing to me. Some plans, such as Oak to Ninth, should probably be scrapped and the lands turned back into green space.

Where we do build up we need plans that are sustainable environmentally and economically. Infrastructure is where I would put more resources, especially transit. If we want people out of their cars, we need a place to either store a car or good alternatives to owning a car. So far the alternatives are insufficient, but they are well within our reach if the city works on infrastructure first and does not depend on the market to create a need. The need is there and it is up to government to provide the regulations, create the urban schools, rec, park and public spaces and build the transit.

4. Affordability of housing remains an issue for many Oakland residents, and in planning for a future balance in jobs-housing match. What would you do to address this problem? If the Palmer decision is overturned or if state law is amended, would you support an inclusionary zoning ordinance, and if so, at what percentage? Do you support an affordable housing mitigation fee, and at what level?

I do not support an affordable housing mitigation fee. Since housing is in the private sector we need some private sector solutions. This is one of the reasons I believe in split roll taxation and inclusionary zoning. I think of affordable housing as working class housing, not some kind of welfare. What we need to do is protect the working class housing market space, both for renters and home owners. To do that it needs to be profitable to provide housing to that market. We should look at the overall percentage of needed working class housing across the city and fix goals by area, not an arbitrary percentage. Some areas and some projects should be more and some should be less and transit should be a big part of how we decide that.

In a world of Prop 13 and bowing down to Pro 13 thinking without much of a challenge, I do not seem much leadership from the state to change much of the property tax structure that is one of the two main engines behind rent inflation. Oakland should advocate better policies and should ask for an exemption to use a more fair and rational tax method. This is the budget fight of our decade and Oakland must make its voice heard here.

5. Do you support preserving existing open space in the Oakland Hills?

Yes

- Should there be additional residential growth on undeveloped areas of the Oakland Hills?

No

- Do you support preserving the land in and around the Dunsmuir estate?

Yes
- What is your position on the Oakland Zoo proposal to fence 56 acres of open space in Knowland Park?
-
I have not followed this one.

6. What are your views on the Oakland Creek Ordinance? Do you support restricting development within the setback to protect open and culverted creeks?

I am in favor of the setbacks and in restoring culverted creeks. I do not know the Oakland ordinance well enough to comment. When I was a Diamond District resident I was involved in a minor way with the The Friends of Sausal Creek and if that is the kind of creek bed care we are talking about, I am in favor of it. There are two good examples in Berkeley of these re-opened creeks. These are the kinds of ideas the help the environment, create health public parks and spaces and increase land values.

7. The city and the Port of Oakland are planning 425 acres of the former Oakland Army Base together with the base's master developers. What are your priorities for how this important piece of real estate should be planned?

I am very skeptical and concerned about this plan. It sure looks good for the master developers, but for the rest, I have my doubts. Of course it was not very long ago that we had a different plan that involved car dealerships. This is one of the projects where I ask who the clients are. For example, the upper Broadway plan has been revised with less requirements on the building owners because the Uptown project did not sell as well as projected.

This opens up an entire discussion, which we should have, about the redevelopment commission. In this election we have not been talking enough about the council’s other role as the redevelopment committee. The redevelopment budget is larger that the city discretionary budget and needs much more public scrutiny. We can not use this money for general funds, but I question the wisdom of these projects without the heavy spending in infrastructure that we need. There are better choices that could be made here and I feel that they are not getting considered. We do not always have to think in terms of projects with a builder.

8. The Port of Oakland plans to double the number of containers entering and leaving the Port by 2020, with increased emissions of air and particulate pollution in nearby communities.
- How do you evaluate the Port’s current efforts to reduce air pollution?

I think this is an area where Oakland and other ports should band together and do what we can to go eclectic. This is very possible with redevelopment and stimulus funding.

- Do you support a container fee that would be dedicated to air quality improvements such as truck replacements and retrofits, and electrification?

Yes, and I think the port should continue to the city general fund. What we need is a sustainable tax plan that is based on performance.

- Should a new railyard serving the Port be required so that all rail cars use best available control technology, and limit idling?

Yes but, I strongly feel that we should work together with the federal authorities to be in compliance with the standards for our rail system. We do have a way to electrify the tracks and we do not need another piece of incompatible infrastructure, such as BART.

- Will you include residents impacted by air pollution, and leaders committed to reducing air pollution, in your appointments to the Board of Port Commissioners?
- Yes of course, and I will include a reform of the Board as part of charter reform.

9. The Bay Area Air Quality Management District has identified communities in West Oakland and East Oakland as areas with high cumulative air pollution. Should the City of Oakland work with BAAQMD to develop a community risk reduction plan (CRRP) for these communities?

Yes of course.

- Should a CRRP limit new sources of pollution to more stringent levels in East and West Oakland? (i.e. no additional heavy industrial sources)
-
- Yes of course.

- Should a CRRP require use of best available control technology for construction equipment to reduce particulate pollution by up to 85% and protect community health?

Yes of course.

- What other measures would you support to improve air quality in Oakland?

At your forum I said that we should plant trees as if our lives depended on it. This is one of the cases. Green buffers around our freeways and pollution centers and heavily tree lined streets go a long way towards abetment. It is no replacement for pollution reduction, but together with pollution reduction urban trees can help clean the air, reduce heat and cooling costs and greatly reduce noise at the same time it can help us return gray waters to the aquifer.

10. The City of Oakland is in the process of developing a Energy and Climate Action Plan, which calls for a reduction in Greenhouse Gas Emissions (GHG) to 36 percent below the 2005 level by 2020. Many of the measures suggested by the ECAP call for additional funding and staffing, and to fund all the recommended priority actions in the ECAP is projected to cost $11 million. How will you ensure that climate action in Oakland has sufficient funding so that its measures will lead to action?

Frankly, this is one of those areas where the commitment is great, but the process is a bit of an overreach. Why are we doing what is really the State of California’s job and why should a cash strapped urban core city be budgeting for this. Serious climate reduction requires bigger players such as regional transit, auto manufacturers, energy providers. I seriously believe in Oakland participating agressivly in big ticket projects that will make a difference.

11. In terms of the Port and City working on Climate Action, the Sierra Club commented in response to the draft ECAP that the Port is not being pushed by the City to partner in developing climate change reduction strategies. The Port is one of Oakland single biggest contributors to carbon / greenhouse gas emissions. How do you suggest the City do to get the Port to contribute its share in funding and planning for climate action?

That the Port needs to do its share, fall fully in line with City plans and pay its share is a given.
We need to appoint a board that will cooperate and not obstruct.

12. Nearly 66% of Alameda County residents voted against Proposition 16, which would have restricted local governments from implementing Community Choice Aggregation (CCA). A CCA would provide participating jurisdictions the ability to set targets for renewable energy procurement, offer lower rates for electricity generation, direct investments for green jobs and energy efficiency upgrades, while maintaining PG&E as the transmission and distribution provider. Do you support partnering with additional East Bay jurisdictions to provide a greener renewable energy portfolio through a CCA?

I have run a local electrical generation station in a rural setting. I am not opposed to Oakland getting involved with such a program in the urban setting. CCA is a method of investing in the generation infrastructure and giving the communities a choice. I will support it only because the State is not doing what it should be doing and that is to regulate PG&E and the other suppliers and REQUIRE that they convert to renewable. As far as I am concerned they are a state regulated monopoly out of control.

13. Oakland has historically not played a leadership role in the Bay Area on transportation issues. How would you remedy this? What is your vision for Oakland as an urban core public transportation and freight hub?

Of course we are a major hub. My vision is to expand that inside a strong regional transit plan.

- As Mayor, you have the opportunity to influence the selection and performance of the representative of Alameda County cities on MTC, BAAQMD, BCDC, and ABAG.

We in Oakland really need to engage the process as it is, but also demand better. The 9 year fiasco to get a common BART/Bus ticket is a prime example of how poorly our regional transit and regional government work. Part of engaging the process is to make sure we have strong city advocates representing us and to make participating in the regional meetings part and parcel of the mayor’s job. We also have to make sure that the city is better served by the BART and AC Transit boards. The city should speak up about the district boundaries too.

What would you do to support Mayor Bates’ role?
I do not know enough about Mayor Bate’s role to comment. What I have heard so far seems to accept the logic of having all these overlapping levels of transit and regional government.

14. What is your position, and why, on currently proposed transportation projects, including:

I do not want to get into each one of these in detail. They are all well intentioned projects deserving of support or being addressed with a good alternative. They are also muddling along in an environment where we do not really invest in infrastructure nor do we really support operations. I am in favor of massive public spending and expansion in transit. We do not have that kind of commitment to transit from our region, state or federal government. We also need a funding model that is government based. Somehow the overall savings of mass transit to the community has to translate into stable funding for operations and reliable service. I do not think the mayor, or council should be micromanaging these efforts and should be advocating on behalf our city for a real commitment to transit.

- Telegraph-International Blvd Bus Rapid Transit
- AC Transit “Rapid Bus” improvements on Macarthur Blvd; Broadway-College, other corridors
- BART extensions to Livermore, San Jose, e-BART, etc. Do you believe that these can be implemented without reducing current levels of service?
- High Speed Rail (Please address both the Altamont and Pacheco alignments, and the implications of extending a route to Oakland)
- Additional projects and transit services you would initiate as Mayor
- Please comment on potential regional revenue sources for public transit. Would you support a regional fee on gas or vehicle miles traveled, or other additional sources (please be specific)?

15. The BART Oakland Airport Connector project is likely to proceed. How would you help to ensure that the civil rights of residents and passengers are balanced and protected in comparison to contractor employment opportunities? What will you do to ensure that the full BART seismic retrofit program is constructed safely and promptly throughout all of Oakland , adjoining communities, and the Tube?

I am seriously opposed to this project. I support Transform’s opposition to this project.
So I have not yet converted over to figuring out how to make this part of it work.
The other aspects of the project, such as the price and the lack or real benefit remain objectionable.

The BART seismic retrofit is like any other retrofit except that it is URGENT. Again, Oakland’s role is to require accountability from BART.

16. What are your priorities for the proposed reauthorization of Measure B?

I have mixed feeling about the measure. I do not like the methods, but do not like the consequences when the funds are lost. It feels like two bad choices.

- Should AC Transit funding be increased, decreased, or remain the same, and why?

All transit funding should be increased. The cuts are way over what the system should take.

- What other programs to reduce driving and provide transit access should be included?

Problem number one is more frequent busses

- One proposal currently being discussed by community groups is to provide every middle and high-school student in Alameda County with a free bus pass. What are your thoughts on how to implement such a program, including getting the schools to assist in the implementation and monitoring?

We need buss passes and we need buss passes for students. Schools can distribute passes. This is really a small thing if it does not increase operational costs much. Getting students into the buss habit is fine and I am sure it could be done without much trouble. Remember that this is between AC Transit and OUSD and the mayor’s role is very limited.

- How can local road maintenance be improved (including for bus transit operations)?

Ron Dellums has brought us a lot of stimulus monies that will come into play soon. These kinds of priorities are already in some of the funds and can be in some of the others.

- Should any new highway expansions or highway interchange capacity expansions be included, and why?

I am opposed to any spending on more auto infrastructure. Our urgent need is transit and once we get enough transit to get cars off the road, we will have a “nega-watt” effect. We can expand our freeways by reducing the traffic and not much else makes sense right now.

17. Oakland adopted a Transit First policy in 1996. How should it be updated? As Mayor, what would you do to encourage sustainable adoption of walking, bicycling, public transit, and other alternatives to autos?

Let me give a general answer here too, and please look at my short piece on the environment that I have put here below.

I really believe that much of this can be accomplished by changing the WAY we do things we already do and fund. What we need to do is stick to the clear goals. The “complete street” idea of mixed use streets has been used elsewhere with great effect. When I lived in China I got the feeling that they rarely had any other kind of street. Again I go back to my main point. Are we planning and zoning with a clear set of goals in mind or are we doing a lot of half measures, feel good projects and building a laundry list. The public is very skeptical of a lot of these projects because what they see in practice is a white stripe on a dangerous street called a bike lane. In every case I would want to review how effective we are being, what the real cost is and how do we keep the active participation of the community.

- Do you support a transportation mitigation fee on new development, and at what level? What transportation services should this source fund?
- How would you advocate for City staff and officials to set an example by adopting programs such as transit-passes, parking-cash-out and guaranteed-ride-home? What would you do to reduce use of city-owned vehicles and parking privileges?
- How would you fund construction and maintenance of bike lanes and complete streets? Explain your understanding of the concept of “complete streets,” and how this can be used in Oakland to improve transit service, pedestrian access, and community quality of life.
- How can real-time pricing be implemented as a parking management strategy in commercial zones? What should be done to reduce parking in downtown Oakland? What should be done to reduce the approximately 5,000 spaces proposed for the Upper Broadway Redevelopment Project, and how can additional transit and bike access be funded?
- How should dedicated space on additional Oakland streets be allocated for potential bus/light rail transit and/or bike corridors?
- How should transportation planning be implemented within city departments? Do you support establishing a transportation commission?

18. Despite current levels of recycling, Oakland has the same amount of garbage now that it had twenty years ago. What are your goals for waste elimination in Oakland?
- There is some sense that multi-unit buildings may be slow to develop recycling programs because they pay single family garbage rates multiplied by the number of units. Would you be willing to reconstruct rates for multi-unit buildings to be more like commercial accounts (no requirements on minimum payments/levels of service) and less like residential buildings, or consider effective models in other cities? Do you support mandatory multi-family building recycling?
- The garbage franchise will be up for reconsideration in a few years. How do you evaluate Waste Management in that role as Oakland's garbage service provider? Do you support extension of their contract? What aspects of the contract would you like to see improved?
- Currently, food and green scraps are sent by truck to the Central Valley for composting, while EBMUD maintains a local facility that can produce renewable energy from captured methane. As future garbage and recycling contracts are up for reconsideration, do you support sending commercial, and also residential food scraps to EBMUD’s food waste-to-energy digester?

I am for obligatory recycling. That includes the strict regulation of the packaging industry who produce the lion’s share of our garbage. This is a state issue and I think the city should form a pressure alliance with other cities facing the same problems.

19. How would you fund and prioritize maintenance of city parks and urban forestry?

I would go for a lower maintenance required native species approach.
We need a new public / property owners agreement on the care of the trees.
And we need to take a civic center approach to our parks.
More in my statement below.

20. Should Oakland’s sewer fee increase be restructured as fixed rate on all households, or a variable rate, to reflect differing impacts on the sewers and to encourage water conservation?
- Should Oakland take a position opposing the expansion of Pardee Reservior, as the cities of Berkeley and Richmond have?

I think a variable rate is for sewer use is better, but the only concern is not water conservation. There is also a question of WHAT is going into the sewers. Certain businesses should help pay the costs of extra processing.

I have not looked at the Pardee Reservoir issue well enough to take position. That fact that Berkeley and Richmond both oppose it makes me want to listen to their arguments. These are two credible city governments.

YOUR ENVRONMENTAL COMMITMENTS

Please identify pro-environmental actions you have taken either as a private citizen or public official in your career and any environmental or civic organizations active on environmental matters in which you have been active. Please attach any written environmental campaign material or platform plank.

Most of my life I have been an environmental activist of one kind or another.
In the 1980’s I installed a small scale hyrdo electric plant in rural Nicaragua.
That project also put in charge of watershed management for the district.
General third world development required that I learn about Integrated Pest Management.
From there I became more formally involved, including 5 years at Earth Island.
As a machinist-millwright I have also been involved directly in the industrial processes around food processing, recycling and other forms of alternative energy including wind and fuel cells.

Politically I come from a labor-left background.
My first exposure to a Green Part was in Germany
I have been a member and activist in the Green Party in the USA for many years.

CANDIDATE AND CAMPAIGN INFORMATION

a. Please indicate up to four major issues which your campaign emphasizes.

Community policing with restorative justice.
Support of our schools via multi use and civic center development.
Council reform.
Budget reform.

b. Please provide electronic, telephone, and physical addresses for the campaign.
Attached below

c. Please attach a copy of your official candidate statement, a current list of endorsers, expected endorsements, expected fundraising, and your most recent campaign finance report.

Also below, but note that we are a grass roots campaign. We do not seek big money.
Your endorsement is requested and highly valued and so are our resident supporters.

SIERRA CLUB ENDORSEMENT PLEDGE (REQUIRED FOR INTERVIEW)

The Sierra Club can:

1. Endorse.

2. Engage in actions short of endorsement, which can allow a candidate to identify supporters by their Club titles or use Club mailing lists for mailings. The Club may describe the candidates' records in newsletter articles.

3. Oppose.

4. Remain neutral. The Club may describe the candidates' records in newsletter articles.

A few candidates have misrepresented action short of endorsement in their literature or statements to the press as a Sierra Club endorsement. Others, while not endorsed, have quoted selectively from Sierra Club articles to suggest Club support for them or opposition to their opponent. Others, also not endorsed, have advertised their support by Sierra Club members or leaders to give the impression of Club support. To protect the validity and credibility of the Sierra Club endorsement, we ask each candidate seeking our endorsement to sign the following pledge:

I pledge not to misrepresent any Sierra Club support of me nor of any of my opponents; nor to quote the Sierra Club to give any such misimpressions; nor to report a supporter of mine by their Sierra Club affiliation to convey any such misimpression. In other words, I pledge to represent the Sierra Club position honestly and fully, and to seek guidance from the Club on interpretation of this pledge.

Name: Donald L Macleay Office Sought: Oakland Mayor

Signature: Date: Sunday, August 29, 2010

This is my campaign statement for the voter pamphlet:
The Oakland I want is already growing all around us in the many community groups working to keep our schools up, our crime down and our neighborhoods vibrant. Grassroots Oakland volunteers are replacing the failed vicious circle of blame and mercilessness with circles of helping one another and circles of community that include all of us. I want to lead an activist administration that trusts and supports this grassroots Oakland and helps bring the various parts into a citywide partnership. We all need to participate, beyond just voting. I will convene a full review of our budget structure and bring a reformed progressive tax and budget system to the voters. I will make good on the promises of whole community support for our schools, community policing, restorative justice, growth and jobs by choosing the path of being willing to help one another. http://macleay4mayor.org/

Macleay for Mayor 2010
candidate@macleay4mayor.org 510 866-7488
P.O. Box 20142 Oakland CA 94620
http://macleay4mayor.org/
FPPC # 1322980
HOW I propose Oakland deals with environmental issues:
Think Globally
Advocate at the county, state and national level for better environmental policies such as:
• Real regional transit: BART and AC Transit are way under built for the kind of transit we really need.
The regional coordination provided by them and the MTC is also not up to the task.
• Conversion off of fossil fuels. This is the future and Oakland should always say it in public
• Progressive social policies around employment such as job swapping, job site daycare, etc.
• 100% recycling. If it is not recyclable, California should not allow it to be sold.
• Detoxification. We have too many toxics in our homes, in our workplaces and on our farms.
• Watershed management. Before piping more water around the state we need to conserve, protect and expand the amount of reforested lands and wetlands that buffer, clean and add to the available fresh water supply.
• Green Jobs. In the end all jobs can be green jobs as we convert our economy to a sustainable model. During the conversion, which will last most of our lifetimes, new and neglected industrial skills will need to be developed. Tax policies, education policies and overall industrial zoning and planning will all come into play.
Act Locally
• There are many things a city can do, (see other side) and we need to focus what recourses we have on those.

• Avoid spending any city money on small scale symbolic efforts. For one, a lot of these symbolic projects are just a chance for someone to make themselves look ‘green’ without doing anything of substance and two, most of the problems are social, not technical. We have the examples of what can be done; now we need to learn what happens when we really try to do it.

• Seek out large scale partners for large scale projects.
There certainly are projects and experiments we should be willing to spend those redevelopment and federal stimulus dollars on. They need to be BIG to come up the measure of what is needed. For example, if someone wanted to do a full scale trial of fuel cell trucks, we have a port that we should volunteer, but it needs to be someone large such as the Department of Transportation or General Motors. Another example would be to partner with a major player if they would use a significant part of our solar space here in town.

What I propose for city government around the environment:
Enforce Air Pollution laws
• Get relief for the asthma sufferers. The areas with high concentrations of child asthma need to be declared emergency zones needing immediate pollution relief. Consider leading up a class action suit.
• Get stricter standards around the port, airport and the freeways and promote alternatives such as electric trucks.
• Be very proactive around every projects environmental impact study, do not allow more building in highly affected areas such as Oak to Ninth and do not allow more air pollution in residential areas.
Zone for walkable neighborhoods
• Allow and encourage neighborhood stores, pharmacies, restaurants, schools, sports and entertainment.
• Develop the bus/BART connections as safe neighborhood centers, open 24/7 with services.
• Allow and encourage more employment near where people live.
• SAFE bike lanes that run between the parked cars and the sidewalk, not a strip in traffic.
Intelligent home improvement
• Allow, encourage and in certain circumstances require the use of “grey water” systems.
• All home improvement building permits need to be made easier to do and much faster. We should actively support putting in simple things like skylights (the most ancient, effective and lowest cost way to use solar energy), atrium, passive solar, rooftop gardens and building side green houses.
Land Management
• Plant more trees in all areas and take ownership of all the sidewalk trees in town.
• Go back to California native plants for most of our public parks and landscaping.
(New England style lawns should be for ball fields and botanical gardens)
• Encourage privately owned commercial and residential owners also go California Native.
• Put what lands we can back into environmental buffers, such as wetlands, tidal areas and restored creek beds.

Sierra Club Aug 25 Green Oakland Mayoral Forum

2010-08-20T01:47:00.000-07:00

Now that the forum has been opened up to all ballot qualified candidates, we plan to attend.
Thanks to everyone who wrote to me and/or made their opinions known.

Don

======================================================================

From: Kent
Received: Thursday, August 19 2010 09:59:46 PM

Dear Candidates & Campaign Managers,

After consideration and listening to community voices, the Sierra Club
have decided to open our "Green Mayoral" forum on August 25th to all
registered candidates for mayor (as of August 16, 2010). Please see
the attached document from the Registrar of Voters listing all
candidates who filed by August 16th, 2010 (starting page 22). There
are 10 registered candidates listed there. If there are other
candidates that have registered (in other words, if our information is
not correct and somebody is missing from the list), and it can be
verified, those candidates will also be invited.

We are going to modify the format of this forum to have fewer
questions so that we can hear from all the candidates. A moderator
will be appointed and we will attempt to stick to a limited time per
speaker and question. The event takes place next Wednesday, August
25th from 5:30 - 7:30 at the East Bay Community Foundation, 353 Frank
Ogawa Plaza, next to City Hall. Please be there no later than 5:15.
Doors open at 5.

Please rsvp with an email to me (kentlewan@gmail.com). We need your
rsvp so that we can develop a program for the event and get some
biographical information from all the participants. If you could
develop a *brief* statement / bio (no more than 3-4 sentences), we
appreciate it. We will have a very simple program and try to squeeze
some information about each participating candidate on it.

We appreciate your coming and participating in a discussion about
issues concerning the environment, affecting all the people of
Oakland. Please ask your supporters to attend, as well.

We look forward to an informative and enlightening discussion,
hopefully the first of a series on green issues.

Kent Lewandowski
Chair, Northern Alameda County Group
Sierra Club, S.F. Bay Chapter

p.s. I apologize for any bitterness my previous email caused. I am a
volunteer and not skilled at public relations.

Sierra Club decides to exclude Green Party and all non professional politicians from their "Green Oakland" Mayoral Forum

2010-08-17T23:52:00.000-07:00

Sierra Club decides to exclude Green Party and all non professional politicians from their "Green Oakland" Mayoral Forum

From: Kent Add to Contacts... To: , , , , , , Subject: Green Oakland Mayoral Forum - Sierra Club Received: Tuesday, August 17 2010 12:41:34 AM Flags Read (+)

Dear Candidate,Thank you for your interest in participating in the "Green Oakland"forum sponsored by the Sierra Club. We made the decision to invite the 3 candidates who are considered by all accounts as the "most viable" in the race. The decision which candidates are considered"viable" has to do with a number of factors, which includes the elected office they may have held in the past (if any), their ability to raise money for the campaign, and the level of organization of their campaign.We have only 90 minutes of time to discuss our issues, and hope to include members of the community in the discussion. Thus there simply isn't enough time to incorporate all 10 or more mayoral candidates in this forum.We understand your disappointment, but felt this was the best decision in the interest of having a productive and informative event.

Sincerely,Kent Lewandowski,
volunteer Chairperson
Northern Alameda County Group
Sierra Club, San Francisco Bay Chapter

Alameda Labor Council, Local Candidate Questionnaire 2010

2010-07-14T23:46:00.000-07:00

Now let's see how the interview goes.

http://macleay4mayor.org/ALC_Candidate_Questionair_Don-Macleay-Oakland-Mayor.pdf

Black Women Organized for Political Action Mayoral Candidate Questionnaire

2010-07-05T09:46:00.000-07:00

BWOPA City of Oakland
Mayoral Candidate Questionnaire
Please fax back by Monday, July 5th to 510.225.3823, or email staff@bwopa.org

1. Describe your platform:

Schools up, crime down.

I think the city should support the schools without interfering with the work of the school board. We can do this by making more dual use of school, park and city property and by getting involved in youth activities, after school programs and truancy abatement. The city can also help with volunteer support of our schools. There is also a parallel value of having a mayor who makes our schools a preoccupation. It shines light on the issues and makes it clear to state and county officials that this is what our city needs first.

I think the crime / public safety issue is the most important challenge that Oakland faces. We have a historical problem, typical of urban areas like ours. Public safety is the most developed part of my program. I propose a commitment to the standard 3 parts of public safety:
Prevention, Restoration and Enforcement.

In no way am I in agreement with crippling the rest of Oakland City government to work on schools and crime. I am also opposed to actions like cross the board budget cuts, which are blind and only sound fair, but in reality hurt some much more than others. Our budget issues require a longer term fix and may require that we take some more aggressive actions. We will also have to take a hard look at our relationship with the redevelopment committee, the state and the county negotiating changes where needed.

What our budget needs more than anything else is public support.
My general approach is to:

Take the advice of INFORMED opinion and existing research.
Look at the structural issues and propose reform.
Promote a government of checks and balances.
Act as the collective constituent service or ombudsman.

2. Why are you running for this particular seat?

The Mayor’s office is a place where good things should happen for people in our community. The job of mayor involves having a vision for what is possible. It means convening and listening to visionaries in our own community, and harnessing their talent. It means supporting and empowering people in our community to create enduring solutions to problems, and together seeking positive opportunities for the future.

3. How do you differentiate yourself from the incumbent/or other candidates? Explain what you bring to this seat that the incumbent/other candidates do not?

I have a very different background than most of our official political class.
It includes much more grass roots political activity, much more overseas exposure and working class and small business experience.

My background is as a labor organizer and local community activist. The first thing I ever did politically was factory floor organizing. I was also involved in the international solidarity movement with Latin America during the height of US intervention in that part of the world. For 5 years I worked in Nicaragua, much of it in a small scale hydro electric project. I have also been a long time environmentalist working in both grass roots groups and in a well known non-profit foundation.

I was an industrial machinist for 19 years and an industrial worker for a few years before that. My industrial, manufacturing background goes deep. As an industrial working I have been exposed to the technology of many of the things we discuss in the public debate. That includes recycling and alternative energy. I know computer technology from manufacturing automation (CNC or robotics) to standard MS Windows networking. Following an industrial injury I have worked as a computer networking engineer. For the last ten or so years I have run a small business in Oakland with a few employees providing services to small offices.

In the last 10 years my local activism has included Small Business promotion here in Oakland with the Oakland Metropolitan Chamber and with Larry Reid’s office Small Business Symposium. I have also been a member of local NCPC’s, neighborhood watch etc. in my neighborhoods and I have been a constant volunteer in my sons’ schools. All the while I continue to be active in grass roots support of the environment and social justice. Some of this via non profits, some in the anti Iraq war movement and consistently in the Green Party.

On a personal note, both of my sons are born here in Oakland and are in public schools. (one in Oakland, the other in his mother’s district) I have purchased a building here where I live in an apartment and my business is on the ground floor. For the past 20 years Oakland has been my home and I have put down deep roots here.

On the list of other skills I have a strong knowledge of foreign languages. I speak Spanish very well; I speak fluent French too. I also can make myself understood in Italian and German. At Laney and SFSU I studied Mandarin Chinese which I speak and read haltingly. I have lived many years outside the USA and have firsthand knowledge of a lot of the things people here speculate about, such as nation health or transit.

I seriously believe that all the of the above skills and experiences are not common among our political regulars.

I am not a lawyer, not a career politician and am not “connected” to the inside circles. I do not think the personal differences between us are as important as policy differences. But I do think our Mayors and Council members seem to come from a narrow background when it comes to industrial skills, business experience and foreign language. So I think it would be good to have more some skill diversity.

4. Please list your major endorsers’ to-date?

I have been endorsed by the Oakland and the Alameda Green Party.

5. How much money do you estimate that it will take you to run a credible race? How much money have you raised to-date?

We have intentionally not raised any money before 2010 and have not raised much before July 1st to make our FPPC reporting simple.
This summer and fall we plan to raise about ten thousand dollars.
We will not accept corporate funds as a matter of principal.

6. Do you have a full time job? What is your time commitment to the campaign?

Yes, I own a small business that requires my active involvement every week. Being self employed gives me some extra time and a lot of flexibility, but I cannot neglect my company. My time for the campaign is limited and I depend on my supporters to keep our message out there much of the time.

7. Will you have a campaign manager, a campaign consultant or both – if so please tell us who is your campaign consultant and/or manager?

We have a campaign committee that acts as a campaign manger would act. It is broken up into sub committees. We also have a group of advisors. We do not have a campaign consultant of the normal type.

8. Why are you seeking BWOPA’s endorsement?

Because I was asked to do so by Aisha Brown, who I have had contact with for years and have a lot of respect for.

9. How do your goals and objectives fit in with our organization’s mission?

Your FaceBook page describes your group goals as: BWOPA's purpose is to activate, motivate, promote, support, and educate African-American women about the political process, encourage involvement, and to affirm our commitment to, and solving of, those problems affecting the African-American community.

I encourage the involvement of all peoples and dialog with all parts of our community. In BWOPA I also see a set of preoccupations that would fall under the banner of “progressive”. As you can see from what I wrote here, I am very much a progressive and very committed to grass roots involvement in the political process.

10. Considering these challenging economic times, tell us your vision for economic revitalization and job creation, specifically for residents of Oakland.

What Oakland needs is jobs, that we all agree on.
We also need them for our own residents.
And we need them to be well paid, have benefits and be stable.

Oakland has a lot of youth unemployment, but it also has a varied economy. In a way we have a “diversified portfolio” in our public and private sector. We have a high percentage of residents who work for some level over government or another. Another, larger than average, group works in the non-profit sector. We have a very diverse service sector when it comes to housing and auto. Oakland fixes homes, gardens and cars. Everyone talks about the new restaurant sector; we also have a sizable old restaurant sector and quite a constellation of retail.

First and foremost I want to support the employment sectors we already have. We can grow it a few percentage points and do a world of good in local jobs, taxes and land values. We can do this many ways. Public safety is an economic concern, no doubt. A commitment to vocational education in the areas where Oakland residents currently work would be a big help at attracting more of the same kind of business and retention of existing firms.
Other things we could do to support our existing local activity include making navigating the city services more realistic. Actions like setting up the business portal are a good start and this kind of effort could use more support. Some of the fees and fines discourage people from even trying to set up in Oakland. That could be changed quickly.

The city can also do old fashioned blight control, one building at a time. We can make use of existing laws and the power of eminent domain to put boarded up buildings back into the active, available economy.

What we need mostly in larger development is the kind of infrastructure that helps ALL residents and all businesses. There is still much to do on transit and much more to do in public spaces.

When it comes to making a space for new larger employers I feel that we can do a lot, but we have to stop paying people for it. This falls under the Redevelopment Committee and CEDA, but a Mayor should chime in.

I am not a big fan of big projects that spend lots of public money with a named developer, but no named clients. I would also like to look at a lot of those contracts to see what exactly Oakland gets out of big CEDA projects. Paying outside firms to bring in outside workers in to create real estate property that will not belong to the city needs some real scrutiny.

Often City Council talks of development in the light of the kind of activities that the city can tax and use to raise revenue. This seems like a bad measurement to me. If there are things we can to encourage more employment in Oakland we should consider it and not only view it in the light of sales and business taxes.

Overall I think of the city’s role in local economy is similar to raised bed gardening. The city has to set the rules, it decides what can go in and where, and once a healthy fertile space is made, let things grow.

Donald L Macleay 510 866-7488 Monday, July 05, 2010
candidate@macleay4mayor.org
http://macleay4mayor.org/

Macleay for Oakland Mayor 2010

Inauguration / volunteerism / Local Green Chapter forming

THANK YOU for your support, your votes and .....

Re: Oakland's Budget Woes: an extra $627 per taxpayer?

Teachers' Perspective Voters Guide

Oakland Mayor Questions Hunger & Poverty Issues Forum

East Bay Express article

Are we allowed to say that our schools are in crisis?

Walk Oakland, Bike Oakland, Questionaire

My answers to a German-American high school student about Oakland Schools.

Kaplan & Macleay Response to Questions regarding CPRB

MakeOaklandBetterNow.org MAYORAL CANDIDATE QUESTIONNAIRE

City Budget

A new budget and a new budget process will need to be taken to the voters for a mandate,for an authorization to change the tax plans and to allow it to replace the mess we now have.

Public Safety

Public Works

Management, Leadership, Accountability and Transparency

Economic Development

Other

OakPAC’s endorsement questionaire

Oakland Tribune questionnaire for Mayor Candidates:

League of Women Voters we are pleased to invite all registered Mayoral Candidates

LOWV "you have not met the criteria"

Great Oakland Public Schools Information Center Questionnaire

Oakland Education Association Mayoral interview and questionnaire

The LOWV should open their event to all candidates

Answer to Causa Justa :: Just Cause's housing question.

SIERRA CLUB 2010 QUESTIONNAIRE

Sierra Club Aug 25 Green Oakland Mayoral Forum

Sierra Club decides to exclude Green Party and all non professional politicians from their "Green Oakland" Mayoral Forum

Alameda Labor Council, Local Candidate Questionnaire 2010

Black Women Organized for Political Action Mayoral Candidate Questionnaire

A new budget and a new budget process will need to be taken to the voters for a mandate,
for an authorization to change the tax plans and to allow it to replace the mess we now have.