February 2022
Dear friends, family and constituents,
In this newsletter, I want to share some of what my office will be working on this year as we continue to represent District 3. We learned so much in our first year and now I look forward to getting back to the basic services all residents deserve, while building for the future we want to see. Thank you for your continued support; you are the reason I am in this role and why I continue to fight every single day for a better city for all of us.
In service and solidarity,
Councilmember Carroll Fife
Back to Basics
It is almost impossible to travel around the city of Oakland right now and not see the decline that’s increased dramatically over the last 8 years. Oakland is experiencing revenues above projections and decreasing unemployment, but California’s economic growth, much of which is fueled by the Bay Area, is not reflected in the experiences of countless residents. Times like these require a broad vision of caring for our community so that improvements are felt across the board. Much of my work this year will address the basic infrastructure needed to have a functioning city. This includes opening up City Hall for residents to understand why and how things work, or don’t. I will focus on housing, economic and environmental justice as the foundation of safety. This means strengthening youth pathways to living wage work, creating housing access to those who need it most, working to clean up our streets, and addressing the historic harm caused by urban renewal and racist government policies.
Refunding Communities
My office will continue to find ways to direct resources to communities so we can address the harm that decades of under-resourcing has caused as well as build new spaces and ideas of how collective care can operate in our neighborhoods. I seek to realize this through a legislative framework called a Black New Deal, small business tax relief, and a public bank.
A Black New Deal
A Black New Deal is a movement to address the disproportionate ways Black communities have been impacted as a result of historic and ongoing structural racism. Historic and current public policies have had clear negative impacts on Black residents of Oakland - from eminent domain which destroyed the 7th Street Black cultural district and redlining policies preventing Black upward mobility, to ongoing gentrification and the impacts of pro market development projects like the Howard Terminal which has the potential to further displace Black residents. The 2018 Race and Equity Report clearly showed that Oakland has failed Black residents and very little has changed since then.My team is researching funding sources and legislation to support developing a Black New Deal for Oakland. We seek to reinvest in Black Oakland around six focus areas: art & culture, economics, education, environment, housing, and public safety.
We will begin by hosting a series of discussions on what it means to repair the harm and what investment in Black Oakland can look like. On Feb 19th, during this month that celebrates Black history, we will also look to the future at The Black New Deal Symposium where there will be talks and discussion with Black UC Berkeley scholars Brandi Summers, Jovan Lewis and Nikki Jones, Keith Brown from OEA and the Reparations for Black Students campaign, as well as other key Oakland stakeholders. They will share background concepts and experiences to inform potential programs and policies, and allow an opportunity for you to share your insights on ways we can improve conditions for Black residents and all of Oakland.
You can pre-register at tinyurl.com/symposium4BND
Restructuring Oakland’s Business Tax
I will continue to work with City Council President Nikki Fortunato Bas on developing a new tax structure for Oakland businesses. The city currently utilizes a flat business tax which means that the same rates apply to all businesses in a particular industry, regardless of how high or low their gross sales are, which is their revenue before deductions for business expenses. The details of the legislation are being finalized, but in a nutshell, larger companies with high gross sales will pay more in tax and smaller businesses will pay less.
If Oakland restructures the city’s gross receipts tax system, we could generate an additional $32.7 million for public services like fire, human services, parks and recreation and other departments. We are not the first city to implement something like this. Currently in the Bay Area San Francisco and Richmond have a similar system. Many residents, representatives, and small business collectives have called in support of the new business tax structure. Large corporations should pay equitably for the services they expect to be provided. We need to fix the broken system that allows big businesses to pay the same taxes as small shops - we have to make things fair to strengthen our city.
Public Bank East Bay
I will continue my work with the Public Bank East Bay, which is getting close to becoming a reality. I’m excited about the progress made since I was introduced to the bank in 2014. A public bank is a government-owned and operated bank that prioritizes public access and uses profits to benefit the immediate community, whereas a private bank produces profits to benefit private shareholders. The Bank of North Dakota is the oldest public bank in the country and was founded in the early 1900s by farmers to support farmers in accessing affordable loans (How a brief socialist takeover in North Dakota gave residents a public bank). Their profits continue to go back into the community by providing funding to people and projects that would otherwise be seen as too risky.
The Public Bank East Bay will be owned by the cities of Oakland, Berkeley, and Richmond as well as the County of Alameda, allowing us to move our tax dollars out of Wall Street banks - which invest our money into pipelines and private prisons - and channel profits back into community investments. This year, I will continue to attend meetings and support the work happening at Public Bank East Bay. The Bank’s Viability Study will go before the City Council in the next few weeks. Once approved, the Bank’s business plan will be written, there will be an application to the state regulatory agency for a license, and when the license is issued, the Bank will open for business!
You can support the Bank by visiting its website at PublicBankEastBay.org and following it on social media @PublicBankEastBay on Facebook and Instagram, and @PublicBankEB on Twitter. You can also sign our petition in support of the Public Bank here: https://forms.gle/5DTLoaTU5pyTyg356
The Friends of the Public Bank need start-up money to pay for the Business Plan and to hire the Bank’s CEO so s/he can get to work. Please use the button on the website to contribute !
Housing
Social Housing
This year my office will continue to find ways to house more poor and working class people through social housing. Why do we need social housing and not just affordable housing through private development? Because quite frankly, affordable housing through private development has not produced enough units or at the affordable rates they often promise.
Many cities throughout the world do not have these same housing shortages as we do in Oakland even though they have the same or even smaller urban geographies as Oakland and increasing populations, such as Vienna, Singapore and Hong Kong. By developing and turning a quarter or more of their housing stock into municipally owned and managed housing, these cities have been able to create a floor for not only the most vulnerable, but also average working class families.
Historically, there were many more family and single residence dwellings in Oakland than there are today and this is due to deliberate development actions going as far back as the 1940s that saw these homes be continually removed and turned into dead zones. This ranges from BART removing 600+ housing units in the Acorn neighborhood to how Oakland’s downtown was once a mixed-use neighborhood to now being primarily a commercial zone that is empty after 5pm. As a result, we now live in a city where affordable housing has become scarce and the housing that is developed is used for real estate profiting versus accommodation.
The issue with our existing system is tied to the history of white supremacy. Though many white families lived in public housing during and after WWII before being given mortgages, Black and Brown communities were excluded from these public goods and mortgages. Then in 1950, Californians voted to add Article 34 to the state constitution which made it even harder for non-white communities to access social housing. Article 34 prohibits the development of a low-income affordable housing project with state or local public financing or assistance unless and until a majority of the voters of the jurisdiction has approved it. Historically, many white voters have voted no on social housing and as a result we are building a lot fewer affordable homes than we were even at the beginning of the 1900s. You can read more about Article 34 and why affordable housing in private developments is not enough in this article.
My office will be taking on social housing as a way to address our affordability problem. From there we can build the necessary institutions to solve the housing crisis.
North Gateway Parcel
Until we can create a new social housing sector, we need to continue our ‘Accommodation Now’ strategy so we can support our unhoused constituents. Our first goal of opening the 3rd and Peralta Street Tiny Home Community before the end of the year has been achieved and a co-governance system is currently being established with the residents. However, we need bigger solutions for the many thousands who are in need. This year we will continue to push forward The North Gate Parcel project.
The North Gate Parcel is a twenty-two acre site with the potential to house hundreds of residents and we already have many vendors who wish to provide services on site including helping to build an affordable transportation system. This parcel was designated by city ordinance to be used as a homeless intervention in October 2020 yet no action had been taken until our office became involved with the planning. Community members reached out to city officials and that must continue.
We currently have some designs from architects and are now working with the city administrator's office to begin programming funding for the initial infrastructure work. We are also currently looking at creating neighborhoods to keep residents with their chosen community, and are working with residents who will be moving here to help with design and layout. Through this process we will need continued support of District 3 residents in order to make sure we get the city to move on this project sooner rather than later.
Art and Culture
Art is deeply critical to the preservation of culture. Oakland is rich in its contribution to world-changing movements that have been memorialized through the arts. The healing and restorative quality of creating and participating in art cannot be understated and must be supported.
I will be continuing to support art and culture preservation and growth in Oakland by making sure funds we allocated in last year's budget process are dispersed and implemented effectively. We allocated $250,000 for the Black Arts Movement and Business District (BAMBD) for program development for small business incubation, lease support, grants and signage as well as $500,000 in capital investments in the District beginning with a feasibility study for renovations of the Malonga Casquelourd Center for the Arts.
I recently toured the Malonga Center and saw first-hand the desperate need to invest in this cultural asset. The Malonga Center is a 100 year old space with residences, a theater, and performance and personal art studios. It is publicly owned and partially funded. With the capital funds we are now directing towards the center, we seek to expand its offerings to the community to re-energize the space to its former glory as a world-renowned cultural hub.
