January 2022
Dear friends, family and constituents,
With all of the ups and downs of 2021, it truly felt like ten years in one. It’s incredible that my first 12 months in office started with a riot at the nation's Capitol is ending with a quickly spreading new COVID variant with so much in between. There has been so much to respond to in each moment and it’s only through reflection that I realize that there has also been a lot of light, hope and reasons to celebrate what we have collectively accomplished this year.
In this newsletter, I want to share some of the work my office has done. I will follow up with a newsletter later this month to share what we are building in 2022.
Thank you for your continued support and trust,
Councilmember Carroll Fife
Refunding Community
For decades we have seen racial capitalism ravage city resources, mining them for value, through real estate land grabs or development projects benefiting investors and leaving communities with scarce resources to run vital services such as public education, accessible transportation and stable housing. Many, many aspects of our public spaces are severely underfunded and as a result, systemically create crime.
Throughout the year my office has asked, how can we fund communities and address the root causes of crime, poverty, and urban hardship? Our first response was the Reimagining Resolution, which you can find more information on here and here. I introduced this piece of legislation in partnership with Council President and Task Force Chair Nikki Fortunato Bas in order to direct funding as recommended by the Reimaging Task Force towards restorative justice and violence prevention efforts, the Oakland Youth Commission, affordable housing and homeless programs, arts and culture, and other initiatives that develop safety solutions at the root layer of why crime occurs in the first place Though the backlash to this endeavor has been intense, I remain committed to investing in people on the front end so that we don’t create an environment where anti-social behavior is feasible on the back end.
We continued this work through the People’s Budget which I’ve also discussed here. Not only did I advocate for allocating funds for the Mobile Assistance Community Responders of Oakland (MACRO) program and for the Dept. of Violence Prevention to increase and employ more violence interrupters and community ambassadors, I also advocated for funding sanitation services at encampments, facade and street improvements for businesses, cultural affairs programming and staffing for artists and festivals, workforce development, reinstating crossing guards at schools, and so many other vital city services. There are so many quality of life functions in the City of Oakland that are underfunded or have not been implemented that I find myself constantly asking, how were communities ever left without these services to begin with? How can we repair our city if we don't have infrastructure and systems of care? When I talk about refunding communities, this is what I mean. It’s actually quite simple. But the internal obstructions are real! I will continue to tell the truth about what’s happening inside and be vocal about these challenges so people are informed about the challenges in City Hall so that we can have real change. You deserve nothing less.
Towards the end of the year, my office continued its collaboration with Pastors 4 Peace in order to organize and launch the 4 Peace Community Coalition. 4 Peace is based on the idea that as residents, we know best what peace looks like in our communities. Our collective effort is a valuable resource. It is a component of what will move our communities to a peaceful state of being. This work is ramping up and I welcome hearing from constituents about what peace looks like to them, how they see it manifesting in their neighborhoods, and what they need to get there. Please get signed up to get involved.
Housing
Before I was an elected official, I experienced homelessness and understand the necessity of having a space to live, a door to lock and the peace to grow. People need the ability to rest, recover, and regenerate. This is primarily possible with safe and secure housing. It is through that lens that I am able to have compassion and commitment to push for urgent solutions and accommodations now.
The Reimagining Resolution and the People’s Budget began the process of allocating funding to immediate housing solutions, including, but not limited to, purchasing motels and/or hotels for housing, providing rental assistance, and expanding supportive services to include the needs of the extremely-low income, moderate-income and our unhoused populations. From there, we were able to advocate for initiatives such as using the Lake Merritt Lodge to provide temporary housing for unhoused seniors in order to decrease their vulnerability to COVID and developing sites such as Third and Peralta.
I am proud of my office for pushing to get the co-governed encampment at Third and Peralta open with residents moving in before Christmas. Before the move-in, my office met weekly with the residents and we continue to do so in order to address improvements to the site and programs for residents. We are also bringing in Oakland artists to breathe beauty into the space, Refa Senay and the Black Artists Guild have begun to paint the tiny homes and we are planning a community art build day that connects local residents and neighbors in and outside of the housing site. We coordinated with Community Seva to secure their donation of art supplies for the site, Bikes for Life for bike donations for each resident, and City Slicker Farms build raised beds for vegetable gardens. While there is a lot more work to be done, we were able to get this site moving in my first year of office and I am excited to think about what we can accomplish in three more.
Black Arts and Culture
Through arts and culture, our communities find joy, celebration, healing and new north stars.
As part of the Council President budget’s team, I pushed to secure $250,000 in the Black Arts Movement and Business District (BAMBD) for program development for small business incubation, lease support, grants and signage. Capital investments in the District also include $500,000 for a feasibility study for renovations of the Malonga Center and $30,000 for a property condition survey for the Fire Alarm Building (proposed site for the Museum of Jazz and Art). 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.
This year also saw the 55th Anniversary of the Black Panther Party and 32 years since we lost Dr. Huey P. Newton. While we still continue to live under the contradictions of white supremacist capitalism, we celebrate the legacy of those who gave their lives in the fight for black liberation and also recognize we must continue to carry the torch. We are still in the fight for freedom and liberty and to make the Ten-Point Program and Platform a reality. I was honored to speak at the unveiling of the sculpture at Mandela and 9th in West Oakland due to the work of the Dr. Huey P. Newton Foundation. You can watch my speech here and a few images are below.
Left to Right, Top to Bottom
Id: Image of the Newton family and supporters at the unveiling of the Dr. Newton bust. Center figure in the leather hat is Akua Njeri, formerly Deborah Johnson, of the Illinois Black Panther Party and the Black Panther Party Cubs. Widow of Chairman Fred Hampton, Sr.
Id: Dr. Newton Bust unveiling. Pictured L to R: Kieron Slaughter, Carroll Fife, Tur-Ha Ak, Fredrika Newton.
Id: Image of the Community Ready Corps (CRC) with Chairman Fred Hampton Jr. of the Black Panther Party Cubs.
Id: Dr. Newton Bust unveiling. Pictured L to R: Chairman Fred Hampton, Jr., Fantastic Negrito, Fredrika Newton, Carroll Fife, Tur-Ha Ak.
My office also introduced resolutions honoring Michael Morgan, Dorothy King, and Paul Mooney.
Michael Morgan was the Director and Conductor of the Oakland Symphony for 30 years and during this time he led the Symphony to not only implement creative, inclusive, and engaging programming, but to also be a leader in music education for young people, regardless of their economic situation. September 17th is now known as Michael Morgan Day in the City of Oakland. You can watch this clip for my remarks at his tribute.
Dorothy King was the activist, community leader and barbeque restaurateur of Everett & Jones, King’s restaurants pierced the glass ceiling for black and female run businesses in the 1970s, contributed to community healing by hiring formerly incarcerated people, feeding unhoused individuals and one restaurant revilitazing Jack London Square. Her advocacy for unhoused community members included organizing with Oakland Union of the Homeless and Dignity Housing West to build a movement challenging the federal government to convert vacant houses into residences for the homeless. One escalation included occupying a vacant house until Housing and Urban Development (HUD) agreed to give the houses to the homeless for one dollar. I was honored to work with the King family and bring forward a Resolution to designate 2nd Street between Broadway and Franklin Street is Dorothy King Way.
Paul Mooney was a trailblazing comedian, writer, producer, film and television actor with a career spanning four decades. He was, and remains, the definition of living in full, unapologetic
Blackness - an original in his genre, he broke ground as one of the first Black television and film
writers during the early 1970s with unique commentary and critique of America’s power imbalances. May 19th is now known as Paul Mooney Day in the City of Oakland.
These are all black stories of achievement that I want to celebrate, uplift and have people encounter daily. I will soon be adding these resolutions along with others I’ve authored this year to my website so you can read more about the legacy of these incredible black artists.
