Giving back during the holidays

So the holiday season is here again, and for most of us (well, me anyway), that usually means a fun (if somewhat exhausting) month of too much socializing, celebrating, and drinking. And lots and lots of Christmas music. But it’s also important to take a breather from the revelry once in a while and try to remember those who don’t have quite as much to celebrate. I know everyone has their own charitable traditions, and feel free to share yours in the comments section below, but today I’d like to tell you about two of mine.

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Sean Sullivan: The Hope of West Oakland

In June 2008, I had the opportunity to blog about food security. The election happened. Despite its outcome, food insecurity in West Oakland persists. Until now and no, its not what you think.

What you’re probably thinking is that V Smoothe’s long ballyhooed Mandela Food Cooperative has finally opened. Longtime readers of this blog will remember this, this, and this.

Well, Mandela Foods, a food cooperative funded by large payout from the Councilmember as well as the citizen driven West Oakland Project Area Committee (WOPAC) had its “ground-breaking ceremony.” I was not in town that particular day. No, I wasn’t off in Jamaica looking for cocoa beans while Oakland businesses were robbed and the city needed leadership. I was in Los Angeles, working on the largest and most successful fundraiser for an LGBT organization in the history of California.

From what I understand from neighbors who attended, the ground-breaking ceremony included breaking down walls in the continuing construction of a store that is still, one month later and years after it was promised, still not actually operating. Don’t get me wrong, I have wanted this store to open but I, personally, don’t need this store to open. Many neighbors absolutely do need a grocery store to open. The average income of homes in West Oakland and the Prescott neighborhood is below the poverty line. With such a limiting income, maintaining a working vehicle can be a challenge as well and the two work against each other.

For me, living above subsistence and, not transit dependent, I do not face food insecurity, I face inconvenience when I need an ingredient or its late at night and I just want an apple. It’s a drive to Emeryville Pack and Save. What many West Oaklanders face is real food insecurity.

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Vivek B: Long term crime tracking by area and beat

Hi there. My name is Vivek B, and as I’m writing this guest post since VS is taking the week off but we still need our fix. First, a quick few sentences about who I am. I’m just a regular citizen who works in a totally unrelated field, and has lived in Rockridge for about 7 years. I got heavily involved in home security a few years ago when we had a big crime wave in 2006. We had a ton of armed robberies within 1-2 blocks of my house, so I taught myself how to replace & beef up my security system, and put in a security camera network. That helped a little, but I wanted to know how I should feel about whether crime was getting better or worse. I started monitoring the weekly OPD stats that are published. A year ago, I realized that although I knew what the weekly numbers were, I didn’t know whether to feel good or bad. Is 10 stolen cars in a month really bad? Is it good? How does this compare to how it was a few years ago?

And so began my descent into crime tracking madness. I started tracking & plotting everything in sight, weekly trends, monthly trends, across a variety of categories. Last month I realized that although now I knew how crime was trending in Rockridge vs Area 1 vs all of Oakland, if it moved a few blocks south, I wouldn’t know. I just added both neighboring beats and a few miscellaneous beats to see if there’s any knowledge I can glean there. Here’s what I’m finding so far. Let me know if you see any obvious logic or process errors, this is an ever-evolving process. Read more

Chris Kidd: Planning on the Estuary

ABO readers, do not adjust your computer screens. Chris Kidd here, that impertinent young scamp you often see shooting his mouth off in comments. I have to admit that I totally geeked out to V about the upcoming Estuary Specific Plan and she asked me to write up a post about it while she was taking the week off.

As mentioned above, I’m super psyched about the Estuary Specific Plan process. Most people give me blank stare when I mention the ESP, so I suppose I should give some background. It’d be best to start where all things start: the beginning.

This all started with the Estuary Policy Plan (EPP) (PDF), a project developed from 1997-1999. This was a update of the city’s General Plan designed to help transition land that was previously heavy industry into a mix of light industry, commercial, park land, residential, and mixed-use residential. The Plan was really forward-thinking in recognizing the value of Oakland’s waterfront areas, but the EPP sadly had no plan for implementation. It was only a suggestion for the city to follow.

The central area of the EPP is bound by 19th, 50th, the estuary and I-880. So far, the only sections in the central estuary closely resembling the EPP’s intent are Union Point Park and the Kennedy Tract neighborhood area (also known as Jingletown). Here’s the map (PDF) from the original project for the central estuary area.

Fast forward to 2005/2006. The EPP isn’t much closer to fruition than when its recommendations were first presented. I don’t know who thought of it first, but between developers and the city planner’s office, the concept of a specific plan for the central estuary region began to take shape. Carlos Plazola was part of a group that wanted to design a privately invested specific plan for this area in this time period. You can read his own words on the subject here. I don’t know what role Dan Lindheim had in killing the project (I won’t make those kinds of assumptions). I can tell you that when the proposal to initiate a specific plan went before the city council, staff recommended a city-run specific plan process over a developer run process. Read into that what you will.

This still brings us back to, “What the heck is a Specific Plan?” SPUR just had a great article in their July issue of The Urbanist which dealt with a similar specific plan process that took place in the Market/Van Ness/Octavia neighborhood from 2002-2007. It’s a great read (I <3 SPUR), and you can find it here. For those disinclined to click on the link, I’ll do a worse job explaining it right now:

A specific plan is broken up into two major purposes/points of involvement. The first purpose involves the creation of new zoning and building specifications for the area encompassed by the specific plan (in this instance, most likely zoned closer to the Estuary Policy Plan recommendations). The second purpose harnesses this change in zoning/specifications in order to secure fees from developers to improve the specific plan area.

To carry out a specific plan, the city completes an Environmental Impact Review (EIR) for the area the specific plan encompasses. The EIR explores the environmental ramifications of a range of building specifications and zoning changes. If a developer decides to build in this area, and the planned project falls within the guidelines of the zoning and EIR performed by the city, the city allows the developer to bypass the CEQA/EIR stage and streamline the project’s approach to the planning commission. This can sometimes remove a year or more from the pre-construction phase for a developer. For the right to cut costs, and especially for the right to shorten the time to get approval, the city will extract a fee from any developers building projects within the specific plan area. The fee is usually based on a dollar-per-square-foot amount for the property being developed. All of these funds extracted from new development go into a piggy bank that can only be used for purposes in the specific plan area.

In the central area of the estuary, these funds could be used to great effect. Improving waterfront access, roads and infrastructure, and sewer systems (some of which, I am told, still have wood-frame sections); putting Measure DD projects online; and increasing police presence–these potential improvements only scratch the surface of what could be accomplished in the area with funds gathered by the implementation of a specific plan.

What causes me to geek out about this specific plan is that the slate is almost currently blank. The decisions for what kind of buildings will be covered under the EIR is wide open; the uses of the funds generated from the specific plan are wide open. It’s all contingent upon the plans drawn up by the consulting company hired and the public input received. The city planner’s office is currently asking for RFP submissions (PDF) from consulting companies. The only current piece of direction is the old 1997 Estuary Policy Plan. It will need a serious updating, considering how the area has changed in eleven years.

The planning process is supposed to take 18-24 months. Hopefully we’ll be able to see concrete effects of this plan in the very near future. Personally, I would love to see the full implementation of the bay trail throughout the specific plan area (with the increase in waterfront access it would entail), encouragement of industry to develop towards biotech/greentech, creation of denser housing concentrations in an area in close proximity to a transportation hub, and the retention of high levels of work/live space (being that it is a zero-commute type of housing). But that’s the great thing about a specific plan at this stage: It can be almost anything.

I’d love to hear what everyone else thinks is possible. If you live in the specific area, I suggest you keep tabs on whomever wins the bidding for creating the specific plan. They will be required to hold at least eight public stakeholder meetings during the process. If you show up, you’ll probably have a great chance to create tangible change in your neighborhood. There’s a flip side to that, however: if you don’t show up, you can be sure there are a lot of other interests that will. This is a huge project that has the potential to generate substantial funds for a small area of the city. Myriad people will want to dip their fingers into that honey pot. It’s the responsibility of all of us to make sure that the type of buildings zoned in the EIR are acceptable and that the fees generated are spent in the best possible manner.

I’ll be out of town for the rest of the week, so don’t expect me to respond to any posts/questions. Corrections and scoldings are always welcome.

Kent Lewandowski: Good Jobs, Clean Air

I am one of the activists who participated in the the labor-environment rally and march on Tuesday, 7/22 from downtown Oakland to the Port. I asked V if she was planning to cover the event, and since even she can’t cover everything that goes on in Oakland, she invited me to submit a guest post. I figured I wouldn’t get this chance twice, so here goes.

If you didn’t catch it, there was a labor-environment rally on 7/22 from downtown Oakland to the Port. The rally was under the motto “Good Jobs, Clean Air” (or vice versa, depending on your point of view) and was organized by the Coalition for Clean and Safe Ports. This is a group of pro-labor, social justice, and environmental activist organizations that have joined together to demand a change in the current structure for goods movement at the major U.S. seaports. At issue is the freedom of truckers to organize.

There was a great deal of noise as we passed through “Old Oakland” on our way to the Port. Note to the organizers: the air was not particularly clean during this rally. Anyways, it was loud, noisy, and people were in a good mood. It was something new for me to walk alongside Teamsters, EBASE, ACORN, and other groups. But that probably captures the essence of the “Blue/Green Coalition” - the Labor/Environmental alliance. In this case, environmentalists like me (I volunteer with Sierra Club) are collaborating with activists who are louder and “dirtier” (like the Teamster trucks lining our march) than we generally are.

The coalition has have had some success in southern California getting the Ports there to agree to restructure the Port trucking model. Known as the Clean Trucks Program, the LA Harbor Commission has adopted a plan to reduce harmful diesel pollution by 80 percent over the next five years and give port drivers the right to form a union. It’s important to note that Mayor Villaraigosa was actively involved and supportive in L.A., and that the plan had the backing of 10+ years of community organizing behind it. We are hoping for the same thing in Oakland. It was encouraging to see Mayor Dellums join Mayor V. on a podium prior to the rally and voice his own support (I was not at the rally yet when he spoke, and thus cannot comment on Mayor Dellums’ remarks). At the Port afterwards, where I was standing behind the speakers, a number of speeches were made while we all stood in the sun and (most) shouted encouragement. I recall a lot of enthusiasm (and response) to Assembly member Sandre Swanson’s remarks in particular, saying that “street heat is sometimes necessary.” Others who spoke were Port Commissioners Margaret Gordon and Tony Iton, Sharon Cornu from the Alameda County Central Labor Council, Jerry Brown, Loni Hancock and Teamsters Vice President Chuck Mack, to name a few. The mayors V. and D. were conspicuously absent on this end of the rally.

So you may ask, what’s all the noise about? Aren’t we all dependent on the Port as an engine for the local economy? Well, yes, it’s true, there are a lot of jobs associated with our Port. If you take one of their free harbor tours, the docent will tell you that 25% of all jobs in Oakland depend either directly or indirectly on Port activity (it’s hard to verify this claim, but according to their own economic impact report (PDF), the Port’s jobs effect is significant). And it’s also true that impending environmental regulations do cost money and in some cases, can cause jobs in one particular sector to be lost. However, some activists, and I would include myself in this group, feel that we don’t need to be pitting jobs vs. environmental regulations to achieve a net benefit to the community.

Currently, on any given day, hundreds of truck drivers arrive at the Port to wait in long lines of idling trucks to pick up a load for delivery somewhere around the country. Many if not most of these drivers are classified as “independent owner/ operator,” and are at the bottom of the transportation food chain. They are not unionized, and cover all their own expenses, including health care and insurance. Estimates I have read from EBASE are between $8 and hour to $10 an hour (PDF) in take-home pay for these truckers after they subtract expenses. Meanwhile, the California Air Resources Board, is requiring that these owner/operators retire or replace (PDF) all pre-1994 engines, and additionally outfit their trucks with diesel emission control devices. The owner/operator is then faced with the decision to go deeper into debt, to get out of the business, or to break the law. We in the coalition fear that these choices are not acceptable, and that the situation is so bad, both for the community, and for the drivers, that a new solution that mandates an employee model for Port drivers is the best step. If this means that the drivers are “free to organize” - so be it. If it means our hairdryers (if you use one) cost $12 instead of $10 - then that’s good. In the new scenario, where truckers get paid a living wage plus benefits, we’d be paying some of the “externalized cost,” in terms of health care and environmental degradation, associated with the goods movement to bring us our hairdryers, radios, TVs, apples, T-shirts and washing machines. And, due to the increase in cost of labor, shippers will no longer have any incentive to hold so many drivers idling in a queue to pick up their containers. At least, that is the idea. Time will tell if this turns out to be true. I remain hopeful.

Chris Kidd: Finding “Flex Space”

Chris Kidd here, letting our beloved Vsmoothe take the day off from ABO. You should recognize me as the pragmatic, socialist-leaning planning enthusiast and Eucalyptus hater from comments. I’m going to take my first stab at writing for ABO, so take it easy on me, huh? I know the swan song of Deborah Edgerley is the topic du jour, but let’s take a break from all the doom ‘n’ gloom surrounding our fair city and throw on our thinking caps. Read more

Talking seriously about election reform

I particularly enjoyed the comment Len Raphael a while back on my post about term limits, so much so, that with his permission, I’m republishing it here as a post of its own.

I wouldn’t necessarily endorse every single thing he suggests, but overall, he successfully pinpoints what the most serious barriers for challengers in our municipal elections are and proposes measures that would ameliorate some of the problems. If people are serious about local electoral reform, these are the sort of things you need to be talking about. Such reforms would do a hell of a lot more to help people outside of the local political establishment than term limits. Enjoy: Read more