-  Excerpt from a 1931 election brochure, which asked voters to change the San Diego City Charter and elect an independent City Attorney.

On July 19^th, Council Members Nadel and Kernighan plan to submit for Council approval, a resolution to present to the voters, a charter amendment entitled, “Returning the Elected City Attorney Position to an Appointed Position.” They acknowledge that the City Attorney serves as legal counsel to the City Council, the Mayor and each department of the City of Oakland (City). They cite that a City Attorney who gains the position through election by the public is subject to all political pressures experienced by any other politician. In addition, in the measure to be submitted to the public, they further cite as reasons for this change the following (PDF): the uniqueness of an elected City Attorney in California (2.5% elected) and the city attorney chooses his or her own boundaries ranging from legal to policy to politics.

For the reasons enumerated below, I respectfully ask that the residents of Oakland reject this blatant attempt to usurp power from other departments and people and eliminate this integral check and balance on the power of our elected officials.

Legal Counsel to City Council, Mayor and Each Department of the City

A City Attorney appointed by City Council and the Mayor cannot effectively serve each department of the City. When the City Council and Mayor appoint the City Attorney, the City Attorney works for and serves at the pleasure of the City Council and the Mayor. Thus, appointing a City Attorney does not eliminate the political pressures that our Council Members worry about with an elected City Attorney. If anything, these pressures are more pronounced and exacerbated when the Council and Mayor appoint a City Attorney, who serves at their will.

The City Attorney must feel free to offer independent advice, free of the pressure exerted by the City Council and Mayor, to the department heads he or she represents. When City Council and the Mayor have the ability to hire and fire the City Attorney, will the City Attorney provide counsel that is best for the department and the City or will it represent the interest of City Council and the Mayor, even if the position has no legal merit? An appointed City Attorney is subject to the political pressures of the individuals who appoint him. When the City Attorney is appointed there is a conflict of interest and invites the potential for abuse and retribution from the Council and Mayor.

The following is part of the discourse that occurred in the early 20^th century when the City of San Diego debated these same issues.

“Ray Mathewson, the San Diego labor union representative on the Freeholder Board, described the role of the independent city attorney in a proposal he submitted to the Freeholder Board in which he recommended a “Strong Mayor –Council” form of government:

The duty of the city attorney is to give legal advice to every department and official of the city government on municipal matters. He also must act as the representative of the various departments before the courts. He should occupy an independent position so that his opinions would not be influenced by any appointive power. For this reason, he should be elected by the people. If elected, the city attorney is in a position of complete independance (sic) and may exercise such check upon the actions of the legislative and executive branches of the local government as the law and his conscience dictate.”

Only 2.5% of California cities elect their City Attorney

This is true but misleading. Five of the ten largest cities in California, including Oakland, elect their City Attorney. These five cities represent over 18% of California residents. In total, elected City Attorneys represent over 20% of California residents. To understand what can go wrong when the City Council and Mayor appoint the City Attorney, one need not look any further than the City of Bell. As the former administrator and other officials paid themselves high salaries, former City Attorney Edward Lee did little to restrain allegedly lawless behavior.  That 97.5% of the cities have an appointed City Attorney does not mean that it is a better structure.

Legal Advice versus Policy Making

According to the Ethical Principles for City Attorneys adopted by the League of California Cities, “The city attorney should be willing to give unpopular legal advice that meets the law’s purpose and intent even when the advice is not sought but the legal problem is evident to the attorney.

An elected City Attorney is the people’s last check to ensure that our elected executive and legislative branches do not embark on an action that is either legally incorrect or ill-advised. This will not happen when the City Attorney serves at the will of City Council and the Mayor. When the City Attorney is appointed, the electorate does not know if it is the best legal advice or the advice that will ensure that the appointed individual is retained by City Council and the Mayor. The public trust is critical to a functioning and thriving democracy; this trust is eroded when City Council and the mayor seek to wrest the power from the people.

Conclusion

The proposed ballot measure seeking a return to an appointed City Attorney is designed for one purpose and one purpose only — to wrest power from the people and consolidate power in the hands of the few. We deserve a City government that works for all residents of Oakland. We do not have this when City Council and the mayor collude to appoint a City Attorney who primarily serves their needs.  I urge you to contact your council member to voice your displeasure with this ballot measure and join me at the July 19 city council meeting to speak against the proposed ballot measure to return to an appointed City Attorney.

• District 1: Jane Brunner, jbrunner@oaklandnet.com, 510-238-7001
• District 2: Pat Kernighan, pkernighan@oaklandnet.com, 510-238-7002
• District 3: Nancy Nadel, nnadel@oaklandnet.com, 510-238-7003
• District 4: Libby Schaaf, lschaaf@oaklandnet.com, 510-238-7004
• District 5: Ignacio De La Fuente, idelafuente@oaklandnet.com, 510-238-7005
• District 6: Desley Brooks, dbrooks@oaklandnet.com, 510-238-7006
• District 7: Larry Reid, lreid@oaklandnet.com, 510-238-7007
• At-large: Rebecca Kaplan, atlarge@oaklandnet.com, 510-238-7008

This guest post was written by Ralph Cooke, an Oakland resident and advocate for transparent government.

So when they get to the consent calendar at the Council meeting, District 2 Councilmember Pat Kernighan is like “Okay. Let me see if I have this right. ”

• This lot is worth $100,00.
• We are giving the lot to the developer at no cost.
• We are also providing the developer as much as $375,000 to build the house.
• The total investment is therefore $475,000.
• Then the house will be sold to someone who qualifies for affordable housing assistance.
• Then the house will have affordability restrictions for 45 years.

Which is, well, a pretty good recap of the situation. Then she added that the idea of any house in that neighborhood selling for $475,000 seems unlikely, and that although the job training aspect of the proposal was appealing, the Council had not been given any quantifiable information about said training program, like how many people would be trained or how many hours they would work or anything like that.

So then District 3 Councilmember Nancy Nadel was like, “Well, I don’t know about the cost of the land, but I’ve been trying to make this happen for like five years. Sure, it’s possible that we won’t get all our money back, but if we’re going to take public property and put it in private hands, there has to be some public benefit, which is the reasoning behind the job training and affordable housing aspects to the plan.

So the first thing that popped into my mind when she was talking is that if it is taking you five years to figure out how to build one house on one City owned vacant lot, maybe that should be a sign that it isn’t meant to be. Right? Also, if we were to just sell the lot at a market price, it seems like there would be a public benefit to the transaction because we would get money from it that can be used to pay for services.

So then Pat Kernighan comes back and is like “Well, that’s all very admirable, but I’m concerned that we’re not going to be able to sell this house. Even if it wasn’t required to be affordable, $475,000 seems like a stretch. And why would anyone buy a house with affordability restrictions that limit their ability to benefit from appreciation when they can just get a normal house without all that for less money?”

Then she asked if staff was aware of any affordable housing anywhere in the city that had sold for $475,000, to which staff responded that there are non-affordable condos like half a mile away that have been listed for $400,000, and that since this house is going to be bigger than most of the other houses in the area, and because the neighborhood is so “centrally located” to downtown and various highways, that they expected to get a pretty good price for it.

And Pat Kernighan is all “Um…you do know that the way people normally figure out what property is worth is by looking at selling prices, not asking prices, right?” And staff was like “Oh, sorry. We don’t have any information about that.”

Nice.

So then, at-large Councilmember Rebecca Kaplan was like “Look, maybe you can sell this house for $475,000. Or you can sell it as affordable housing. But obviously not both. What is the price affordable to someone at 60% AMI anyway?”

And nobody knew!

I was pretty pleased with the conversation up to that point. But then District 6 Councilmember Desley Brooks is like “What am I missing? We own this property and we’re not doing anything with it right now. This seems like a great idea, why are we even discussing this?” And Rebecca Kaplan is all “Oh, I’m fine with us doing it for the job training if we remove the affordability requirement.” Which seemed odd to me, since nobody seemed to have any information about this training program.

Then District 5 Councilmember Ignacio De La Fuente is like “Look, this doesn’t make any sense. If we want affordable housing, then give the lot to someone who’s going to build some affordable units that will actually be affordable and stop pretending we’re going to get the money back. If we want job training, why don’t we just invest more in our existing job training programs like the Cypress Mandela training center or whatever.” I completely agree with that. I have never understand why Oakland seems to feel the need to constantly reinvent the wheel.

So then Mayor-elect Jean Quan is all “Well, there’s a lot of gentrification going on in West Oakland, so it’s important that this stay affordable. I walked West Oakland during my campaign and I’m really concerned about keeping some affordable housing there. Plus, this isn’t General Fund money anyway.”

And then Nancy Nadel is like “Oh, actually, there’s plenty of affordable housing there, so really what I want is the job training. The Cypress Mandela program is too long and lots of people can’t afford to do their 13 (actually, it’s 16 – V) week all day training program, so this is better because they can just come at night after they get off work and get trained.”

And you know what? Maybe that is the case. I have no idea. Because nowhere, in any of these discussions or reports (PDF), has anyone provided any kind of information about what this job training entails, how many people will be trained, and what the end outcomes for the trainees is supposed to be. And without that information, approving the project for job training purposes just seems totally insane to me. How can you evaluate whether a program is worth spending all this money on when you don’t even know what the program is? At the very least, you’d think the City should be providing some kind of tangible, measurable criteria for the program before doling out money.

So then Council President Jane Brunner is like “Well, I liked it when it was affordable housing and job training, but if it’s only training, then it seems silly, since we have all these other training programs already.” And then Rebecca Kaplan said she would support it if we removed the affordable housing component, although that seemed even more problematic to me, since most of the money they were proposing to use for the project was from affordable housing funds.

And then they decided that they’d go back and try to figure things out a little more and have it come back at a future meeting. And that was that.

You can watch a video of the discussion below.

I was working on my recap of last week’s big Mayoral debate, and when I got to the lightning round question about eminent domain, I got partway through writing it and realized I had written enough for a whole post. And then someone brought it up out of nowhere for a second time in the comments, so I decided it was actually pretty post-worthy.

So. Eminent domain is a touchy subject. And it’s a particularly touchy subject in West Oakland, where there is a long history, still fresh in the minds of many residents, of eminent domain being used aggresively and for reasons that…well, let’s just say that in retrospect, most people agree it did not end up being a good thing for the area or for the people who lived there.

Existing eminent domain rules in West Oakland

Okay, here are some things you should know. (I am trying to put this as simply as possible, so forgive me if some of the nuances are lost. We can discuss those in the comments.)

• In California, you can use eminent domain in Redevelopment Areas.
• When you set up a Redevelopment Area, you make a Redevelopment Plan.
• In the Redevelopment Plan, you get to decide whether or not this Redevelopment Area will have the power of eminent domain.
• The West Oakland Redevelopment Area was established in 2003.
• In the West Oakland Redevelopment Area, eminent domain is allowed by the West Oakland Redevelopment Plan (PDF).
• The Redevelopment Plan for West Oakland allows for eminent domain to be used only under cetain conditions (PDF). Briefly, those conditions are:
  • The property is located in the Clawson/MMcClymonds/Bunche subarea of the West Oakland Redevelopment Area. (There are a total of three subareas.)
  • The property is commercial, not residential.
  • The whole project the property is being acquired for does not exceed three acres total.
  • The property is located along one of four streets that have been designated as commercial corridors: West Grand, Mandela, San Pablo, and Market. The corridors are marked on this map (PDF).

Got all that? Good.

Proposed changes to West Oakland eminent domain rules

So now, the City wants to amend the West Oakland Redevelopment Plan (PDF) to modify the aforementioned eminent domain rules.

Why would they do that? Well, as explained in a recent San Francisco Business Times article:

Eager to attract a grocery store to West Oakland, the city redevelopment agency is preparing to broaden its eminent domain rules so it could acquire the final piece of a five-acre parcel desired by Foods Co.

The retailer has approached three property owners along West Grand Avenue between Filbert and Market streets. Two have agreed to sell but one, who controls just under an acre, is asking for more than Foods Co. has been willing to pay.

So, what changes exactly is the Redevelopment Agency asking for? Read the staff report (PDF) for the full story. Again, I’ll put it as simply as I can:

• Change the total size of a project that eminent domain can be used for to 5 acres rather than 3 acres. However, you would still only be able to use eminent domain to acquire 3 acres of the land to be used in the project.
• Add to the areas designated as commercial corridors that eminent domain would be allowed to include spaces at 24th and Filbert and Myrtle Street between 24th and West Grand.

That’s all. It would not change the rules about not being able to use eminent domain on residential property.

If you’re having a hard time envisioning the areas discussed, perhaps these maps will help. Click on them for a bigger version.

This map shows in green where in West Oakland eminent domain is currently allowed to be used on commercial property.

This map shows in yellow the new locations where eminent domain would be allowed if the amendment passed. Again, it would only be allowed to be used on commercial property, as laid out in the West Oakland Redevelopment Plan (PDF) on pages 7-9.

So, this proposal to amend the plan was brought to the West Oakland Project Area Committee in July. They voted on whether to approve the amendment (PDF), but the vote tied (5 yes, 5 no, 2 abstentions). Now the proposal is being brought to the City Council. The City Council is able to overrule the WOPAC and change the plan without their approval, but this will require a 2/3 vote.

The reason for this is because the Redevelopment Agency is trying to get a grocery store to locate in West Oakland. The national grocery chain Foods Co. wants to open a store in West Oakland. You probably read about the two stores they are opening in East Oakland. Foods Co. has found a site to locate a 70,000sf store in West Oakland, but had to acquire several properties to put together the land. One property owner in the area has not been willing to sell to Foods Co.

In order to aid Foods Co. in their quest to acquire the property, the Redevelopment Agency wants to amend the plan so they would have the power of eminent domain if they should ultimately need it. This isn’t a vote on whether to use eminent domain on the property now — that would have to be voted on separately later. I mean, obviously if the amendment to the Redevelopment Plan passes and the property owner remains obstinate and it does come to the point where they need to use that tool, then they’re going to. I’m just pointing out that we’re not actually there yet.

Anyway, the public hearing on the issue is scheduled for the City Council meeting on Tuesday, October 5th (PDF).

Proposed eminent domain rule changes at CED

So before items come to the City Council for a vote, almost everything goes through a hearing at one of the Council’s committees. And so, on September 14th, the proposed changes to the West Oakland Redevelopment Plan were heard by the Council’s Community and Economic Development Committee (PDF). If you are so inclined, you can watch video of the whole discussion below.

So. There were a number of speakers at the meeting. Several were adamantly opposed to amending the Redevelopment Plan. These people were all just totally against the use of eminent domain at all for anything.

I sympathize with that. I understand why a lot of people flip out the instant they hear the phrase “eminent domain.” That’s valid.

But the thing will all these people who came and spoke against it is that none of them seemed to understand what the proposal was at all. I mean, they all kept using this slippery slope type argument and saying that if you start allowing it for one thing, then as soon as it’s established eminent domain is allowed in West Oakland at all, the City is going to start gobbling up people’s houses. But, of course, they don’t appear to realize that it is already allowed.

The people who spoke in favor of the amendment, including District 3 (West Oakland) Councilmember Nancy Nadel, basicaly all said that yes, we know the history of eminent domain in West Oakland, and we’re cautious about using this as a tool, but the fact is that West Oakland really needs a grocery store and this is what it’s going to take to do it.

When she spoke, Nancy Nadel also mentioned that bringing in a grocery store was part of her platform when she first ran for Council in 1996, so it’s really important to her that we get one. Ha.

Anyway, the Committee elected not to delay the public hearing, as had been requested by some of the anti-eminent domain speakers.

They didn’t talk about it for very long. Jane Brunner asked a couple of questions, and after listening to the exact same explanation for the third time in half an hour suddenly acted like the fact that there is already language about eminent domain in the existing Redevelopment Plan was complete news to her, and I guess she decided that trying to wrap her mind around all that would like, make her head explode or something, so she concluded by saying that she’ll just do whatever Nancy Nadel wants because she knows how much Nancy hates eminent domain, so if even she is willing to use it in this case, it must be necessary. I don’t know where the hell she came up with that idea. Nancy Nadel is constantly talking in Council meetings about how she wants to seize people’s property. They’ll be talking about the budget or whatever, and she’ll contribute nothing for most of the meeting, and then chime in and be like “I wish we could use eminent domain to take all these properties as punishment for being vacant for more than six months. That would solve our retail problem!” Or something similarly crazy. Well, anyway. I’m getting a little off topic.

Pat Kernighan essentially said that she would support it, but that they sure as hell better turn out a massive amount of people at the Council meeting to cry about how bad they want a grocery store. Normally, I’m not much of a fan of Pat Kernighan’s do-whatever-looks-most-popular approach to governance, but in this case, I kind of agree with her. This is such an emotionally charged issue, you need to be able to demonstrate that you’ve got strong community support.

Should the Council amend the plan as requested?

I think so.

I mean, it’s a tough question. Some people just hate eminent domain and don’t think it should ever be used for anything, or maybe only for a road or whatever, and I respect that. It’s legitimate. And if you’re against all eminent domain, then of course you’re going to be against it in this case.

But the fact is that the question of whether this Redevelopment Area would allow eminent domain was really hotly debated and decided already. The people who are against using eminent domain in all case lost that debate. And it’s not like we’re talking about some ancient history from like 40 years ago or something. We’re talking about 2003. And after a lot of heated discussion and passionate debate, we made a decision that we would allow for the use of eminent domain in a specific area, and also only on non-residential properties. Now they want to change the language to allow for something that, from my perspective, is very clearly in the spirit of the way the rule was written, but outside the letter of it. I think that’s fair.

And really, it is an issue that there’s nowhere to buy groceries in West Oakland.

I was house sitting out there for like a week not too long ago, and I gotta say, the lack of places to buy groceries makes cooking out there a serious pain in the ass. I walked down to that Mandela Foods Co-Op one day, but the store was empty and they did not have any food. I mean, the loose lettuce was like, starting to cross the border between wilting and liquified, then avocados were so rock hard I honestly don’t know how you could have eaten them even if you wanted to, the tomatoes did not even smell like anything. They didn’t have any bread or meat that day, although they assured me that this was an anomaly. I mean, it’s nice they sell Clover Stornetta milk, and if it was on my normal way home I would probably stop in for a quart or something from time to time, but the fact it that this is simply not sufficient to meet people’s food shopping needs. I ended up taking BART to San Francisco and buying my groceries at that store in the bottom of the Bloomingdale’s mall. Which, BTW, was better priced than Mandela Foods.

Another day, I had nothing in the fridge and it was during this big heat wave and just the whole prospect of the ordeal of going to the store was just too much for me to handle. Forced to make do with what I could buy at the neighborhood convenience store, I ended up having a dinner of a couple of bottles of Anchor Steam, a bag of microwave popcorn, and canned peaches. Yum!

Anyway. I don’t mean to make light of the situation with my little stories. The fact is that the lack of access to groceries in West Oakland is a public health issue.

Where the Mayoral candidates stand

So, during the “lightning round” of questions at last week’s Mayoral debate, the candidates were all asked whether they supported the use of eminent domain to get a grocery store in West Oakland and instructed to answer either yes, no, or undecided.

Don Perata, Jean Quan, Rebecca Kaplan, Don Macleay, Larry Lionel Young, Marcie Hodge, and Greg Harland all said yes.

Arnie Fields said no, because “This is America.” And Joe Tuman, who, just like with most issues, clearly had absolutely no idea that this controversy is going on, had to ask to hear the question again. Then he said that he absolutely wouldn’t support it.

One more thing

So I complained a little bit earlier in the post about how the people speaking against the amendment were all uninformed and whatever. And that is true. But I don’t think it’s their fault at all that they’re clueless. It’s the City’s.

The City did a predictably wretched job of letting people living in the impacted area know what was going on. You know, they send out their required legal notice and act like that’s some kind achievement. What did they expect to happen? I mean, a bunch of people open their mailboxes and all they’re going to see is a date and the words “eminent domain” which of course is going to scare the shit out of them.

And then people want to try to figure out what’s going on and maybe they try to read this staff report that’s all in bureaucratese, and they’re scared and confused and probably feel like someone is trying to trick them or something, because hey, that’s usually they reason people are not forthcoming with clear information. Who can blame them for flipping out?

I mean, I’m sure that no matter how good a job of outreach the City did to inform people, you would still end up with several people vigorously opposing the amendment. There’s nothing you can do about that. Some people just hate eminent domain. But that’s not an excuse to act like it’s not worth it to invite comment from everybody else.

I’ll write more about the forum next week, but for those who wanted to attend but couldn’t, I don’t want to make you wait to see what happened. Please enjoy the full video of the event below. I apologize for the somewhat uneven quality.

I’m still digesting the forum from last Wednesday (9 candidates is a lot to process!), so today, I’m going to talk instead about a different Mayoral forum I watched recently. Totally randomly, while working on a project unrelated to this blog, I stumbled across this video of a 2006 Oakland Mayor debate sponsored by the Alameda County Democratic Lawyers Club. Of course, I had to watch it. For those find themselves similarly compelled, I have reposted all the video below.

It was kind of strange watching it and being reminded of how different things were just four years ago. Questions covered building the economy, how Oakland should address development on the waterfront (the Oak to Ninth project was a super hot issue at the time), crime reduction, the poverty problem, mitigating the fallout of the Raiders deal, improving opportunities for young people in Oakland, disaster preparedness, and how to better brand the City.

Ignacio De La Fuente went first with the opening remarks, and started off by complaining about the format — apparently, the candidates were all given the questions in advance — and how that leads to scripted answers.

That got me thinking about debate formats. I’m not sure how I feel about giving people questions in advance. I mean, I understand the concern about scripted answers. You want candidates to demonstrate the knowledge they have, and thinking on your feet is of course an important skill. But on the other hand, I don’t really like the idea that the point of a candidate forum is to like, catch people by surprise. Ooh! Gotcha! You don’t know anything about subject X and now you look stupid.

I mean, nobody’s going to be an expert on everything, so if you actually want to know where a candidate stands on something, you might as well give them the time to make sure they have a position and can answer your question coherently.

It’s like how two years ago at the City Council debates the League of Women Voters hosted, they asked everybody if they would support a comprehensive records management program for the City and the hiring of a certified records manager to be in charge of it, and everyone was like “Um, yeah. Sure, I support that.” But it was totally obvious that nobody had any idea what the hell the question was even about. And then of course Jane Brunner spends like two years throwing a temper tantrum about the League’s efforts to get the City to actually create a records management program (this was finally approved in July). And Rebecca Kaplan at a Council meeting in January displayed a distressing amount of contempt for the concept of putting a well-trained professional in the position, going went on about how she doesn’t see any reason why we would need to recruit a certified records manager instead of just picking anyone from the City’s existing employee pool to do the job.

Anyway, I see why people might think that giving questions in advance might result in a situation where statements are crafted to be as inoffensive as possible, but the fact is that if a candidate just wants to dissemble about everything, they’re gonna do it whether they got to see the question beforehand or not. I just don’t really think the goal of a debate should be to find out who is the best off the cuff speaker. Of course, it’s possible I just think that because I am terrible at answering any question without having plenty of time to think about it, and tend to sound like a babbling idiot when people ask me things.

When it was Ron Dellums’s turn to open, he informed the audience that despite apparently having received all the questions in advance, he was “going off the cuff.” Because that’s exactly what everyone wants in a Mayor, right? Someone who has an opportunity to prepare for something, and doesn’t because they think they’re too good for it. I mean, apparently that is what people want, since everyone laughed hysterically and clapped at that line. Oh, and also I guess cause he won.

But really, this is something that has always bothered me about Dellums, and I don’t think I’ve actually ever complained about it here. Crazy, I know. But people are always talking about how impressive it is that he speaks so well without notes, and I have always thought that’s kind of a bunch of bullshit. I mean, yes, he does sound eloquent, but when he does that he just spews all these words and never actually says anything. It’s just pretty sounding jibberish. I mean, this was the beginning of his statement:

Master of ceremonies, my distinguished colleagues, and ladies and gentlemen, it’s both an honor and a privilege to be before you, and I am proud to be before you as a candidate for the Mayor of Oakland at a very significant time in the evolution of life in this City, in this Country, in this world and secondly because this is a significant moment in the civic life of this coummunity.

What the hell is that? It is so many words for saying absolutely nothing. And I know what you’re all thinking. Gee V, you’re one to talk. But while I readily admit that parsimony is not my strong suit, I’d like to think that if I had only had three minutes to make a pitch for something, I could be a little more careful.

Oh, and then at the end, after saying nothing, he complained that that he couldn’t possibly talk about everything he was going to do in only three minutes. So there you go.

But what struck me most about the debate, especially in contrast to the Sierra Club one from the other night, was how dramatically different all the candidates were. Like I said, I’ll get into Wednesday’s forum next week and look in some detail at the way different candidates answered different questions. And some people clearly performed better than others. But overall, at both this forum and the public safety one I went to last month, you were hearing pretty similar answers to most of the questions from all of the candidates.

This one wasn’t like that at all. I mean, Ignacio De La Fuente kept hammering on growing the City’s tax base and economic development in response to like, every question, while Nancy Nadel was all about affordable housing and raising the minimum wage and inclusionary zoning and providing health care for the uninsured and all those sorts of things and how the City has been too focused on improving things for property owners and if she was Mayor, her focus would be on the 60% of Oaklanders who do not own property. Dellums, for the most part, just didn’t say anything. Model city, model city. Oh, and that we’re going to be terrorized by bird flu any day now and that the Golden State Warriors should be renamed the Oakland Warriors and that gas is going to be $10 a gallon soon and therefore nobody will want to live in the suburbs.

On the question about crime, Ignacio De La Fuente was all about how we have to admit we have a problem and need more police and crime has to go down and how the Neighborhood Law Corps is so great. And Nancy Nadel went on this long thing about how the first thing we have to do is figure out how to separate all the different types of crime and then get the State to reform the prison system.

And then there with the question about branding, Nancy Nadel complained that it’s Jerry Brown’s fault Oakland has a bad reputation because he was trying to make Oakland look bad on purpose and that the media is really mean and we need to change our logo to something that has people on it instead of a tree. And then Ignacio De La Fuente was just like, we can improve Oakland’s image by actually dealing with our problems and improving the quality of life here. Dellums, of course was just like, model city.

I don’t know if it’s better or worse to have a bunch of candidates who seem to broadly agree about most things, and then you get to pick the one you think would best be able to implement them versus a few choices with clear ideological differences. I suppose that if you disagree with what pretty much all the candidates we have now are saying, then that definitely sucks for you. One thing I’m definitely sure of. Debates are a lot more interesting to watch when there are clear ideological differences between candidates.

I don’t know. I suppose I don’t really have any grand conclusion about what I learned from watching the debate. I did make me remember why I used to like Ignacio De La Fuente so much, which was nice since I have found him recently to be kind of one-note and whiny. Mostly I just thought it was kind of a fun little break from our depressing current situation to go back and kind of think of how things could have been.

Now, I have never owned a car since I’ve lived in Oakland. In fact, I have never once even driven a car in Oakland. So where you are and are not allowed to park isn’t something I spend a whole lot of time thinking about. I actually only learned that you weren’t allowed to park on that part of Lakeshore on the weekends like nine months ago, when someone brought it up during a conversation that I think was about silly outdated laws or something. Or maybe it was about sideshows. I can’t remember. Anyway.

Apparently, there used to be this big problem with people cruising around the Lake on weekends. People used to come to Oakland from all over the place to drive around Lake Merritt and cause trouble. Or something like that. The friend who was telling me about this had a more colorful description of the situation, but since my memory isn’t what it used to be, I’m afraid I can’t recall the whole thing, and you’ll have to settle for just sharing the drier version from the staff report (PDF):

In 1985, traffic congestion, drug dealing, panhandling and cruising along Lakeshore Avenue were concerns of the residents and the Oakland Police Department (OPD). Today, these concerns no longer exist, and several community members have contacted the City requesting modification of the parking restrictions currently in place. OPD agrees that these limits are no longer necessary.

A few months ago, Councilmembers Pat Kernighan and Nancy Nadel sent out requests in their e-mail newsletters for people to share their thoughts on whether we should remove the no parking restriction on Lakeshore or not. Not having strong feelings on the subject either way, I did not respond. 390 other people did, and 79% of them said that they thought parking should be allowed. If I had bothered to respond, I probably would have said that I thought it should be allowed also, because, you know, why not? Cruising isn’t a problem anymore. But really, I didn’t give the issue a whole lot of thought.

But as it turns out, some other people did, and two of them felt strongly enough about the subject to come to the Public Works Committee on Tuesday morning and speak against the removal of the no parking restriction. When the first of them came up and started talking about how he was against it, I totally rolled my eyes. Like, get over it dude, I don’t like cars either, but learn to pick your battles because this is just not that big a deal. Who cares if a few more people can park by the Lake?

But then as I listened to him, and the other speaker that followed, I found myself thinking that they actually had some pretty solid points. And by the end, I was not so sure that allowing the new parking around the Lake on weekends was such a good idea after all, and was definitely persuaded that at the very least, we should not be so cavalier about making decisions like this. Then I started feeling totally guilty for just assuming the City should allow the parking in the first place.

You guys should watch them. I showed the video to a friend the other night, one who is also generally not inclined to side with the cars, and he had the exact same reaction as I first had when I brought up the subject. But I was like “No, no, just watch this. It will only take a few minutes.” And he begrudgingly consented, and by the end, he was like “Hey. They actually have a good point.”

Maybe it’s okay to let people park on Lakeshore on weekends, maybe it’s not such a great idea. But it really is the sort of decision that deserves more thought than “A bunch of people told us they want more parking. I guess we should do it.” Of course if you ask people if they want more free parking, they are going to say that they do. That’s not a rational basis for transportation decision making.

The staff report (PDF) about this is like, two pages. And basically all it says is that they banned parking on the weekend in the 80s and now people want it so we should do it. But how does this fit into our other goals? Will there be an increased risk to bicyclists due to doorings, as the speaker said? How does this relate to the reduced auto usage goals that will be mandated in the energy and climate action plan?

But the point they made that got me the most was about how it may impact the experience of visiting the Lake. This is being sold as a way to allow more people to enjoy the Lake. But is surrounding a park with cars really the best way to make Lake Merritt’s natural beauty more enjoyable? I mean, look at this picture.

This is what we’ve got going on over on my side of the Lake, and every single time I walk by it, I get all stressed out and angry and completely grossed out. I mean, it’s disgusting. And it completely takes you out of the experience of enjoying the grass and the trees and the water that you’ve been walking past.

I’m not saying that it’s exactly the same thing. I understand that what they want to do on Lakeshore is allow parking on the street, not two rows of cars on the freaking sidewalk, but I do think that this decision is a good example of how the City really needs to put more thought into the choices and rules we make about parking in general, and also about how we want to encourage people to use open space.

The Committee passed the proposal, and At-large Councilmember Rebecca Kaplan suggested (in response to other comments people had been making about the three hour time limit) that maybe the best solution for parking around the Lake would be to have no time limits and just meter it, which would encourage turnover but also allow people if who so desire to come and park and stay at the Lake for a long time without having to worry about getting a ticket. So now staff is going to look into this area and the idea of metering there as part of the Citywide parking study.

The full video of the discussion is above, if you’re interested.

Measure DD was a nearly $200 million bond measure meant to finance improvements to Oakland’s creeks and waterways, public recreation facilities, waterfront parks, and of course, Lake Merritt. It’s Measure DD we have to thank for Lake Chalet at the Boathouse and the reconfiguration of El Embarcadero.

Now, if you were one of the 70,000 people who voted yes on Measure DD, it’s possible you did so because you love Studio One or Children’s Fairyland and you wanted to see them improved. Maybe you were really excited about the East Oakland Sports Center. Or maybe you voted for it because you’re just super concerned about Lake Merritt’s water quality. But if you’re like most Oaklanders, chances are you said yes because of this:

Click to enlarge

That would the the transformation of the world’s shortest freeway between Lake Merritt and the Kaiser Convention Center into a pleasant, walkable, tree-lined, 6 lane boulevard. The 12th Street reconfiguration was Measure DD’s marquee project. When you hear people complain about how they voted for DD and nothing’s happened on it in 8 years and they’re never going to vote for a bond measure in Oakland again because of it’s been such a waste, they’re often referring to their frustration over seeing no progress on this particular project.

So I’m sure you guys will all be absolutely delighted to learn that the 12st Street reconstruction actually is about to finally happen. Well, maybe. Maybe not.

The City put the project out for bid and had hoped to award a contract for the reconstruction project a few years ago, but they only got one response, which came in at about $10 million more than the City had to spend. So it was back to the drawing board.

Or more accurately, back to the computer, to look for new funding sources. And lo and behold, they found one (PDF) – $13.3 million from the Federal Highway Bridge Program. Two years later, the funds were finally secured, the project went back out to bid, came back with more responses, and on February 9th, the City Council’s Public Works Committee was asked to award a contract (PDF) so we can finally build the damn thing. Simple, right?

As it turns out, not so much. You see, in Oakland, we do this thing called local hire for businesses contracting with the City, where we require 50% of the work on contracted projects to be performed by Oakland residents. The idea is that when we spend money that we get from Oakland taxpayers, we should make sure it helps create jobs for Oakland residents. The merits of any specific local hire policy are, of course, debatable, but conceptually, it isn’t unreasonable, especially in a City with such a frighteningly high unemployment rate.

Problem is, when you’re using Federal money, you don’t get to use your own rules about hiring on projects, you have to use theirs. Federal guidelines require that 30% of the work performed on a project be completed by minority employees (on a craft by craft basis), and they also specifically say that you aren’t allowed to mandate local hire.

Do you see where this is going? That’s right, this contract (PDF) the City wanted to award for the 12th Street reconstruction would have no local hire requirements. And as I’m sure you can imagine, some Councilmembers were none to pleased to hear that.

Specifically, District 6 Councilmember Desley Brooks and District 3 Councilmember Nancy Nadel extremely displeased to hear about the lack of local hire. Desley Brooks asked about a dozen times why the City couldn’t just unbundle the project so that there would be one contract for part of the project to be funded with City money and a different contract for part of the project to be funded with Federal money, and even though staff said every single time that doing so not possible at this point, she just kept asking. Calling the idea of spending tens of millions of City dollars on a project that doesn’t guarantee jobs for Oakland residents “unconscionable,” she insisted she would not vote for the contract, and that was that.

Nadel, out to lunch as usual, said that she had no idea there was federal money being used on the project and wanted to know when that decision had been made. (Hello! When you voted for it (PDF), lady!) Although she expressed strong concerns about the lack of local hire, she took a somewhat more pragmatic approach than Brooks, saying she wanted more information about what would kind of time and costs we’d be looking at if we decided to unbundle the project and restart the Federal funding application process, and that she’d make a decision once she had more information.

District 2 Councilmember Pat Kernighan, no doubt thinking about how desperately she’d like to be able to point construction work on the bridge while campaigning for re-election this year, was adamant that the project can’t wait a minute longer than it already has, local hire or no. And At-large Councilmember Rebecca Kaplan, ever the pragmatist, noted that the issue of local hire being limited by Federal dollars isn’t unique to this one project, and should be addressed on a broader policy level instead of quibbled over on individual projects. She pointed out that other some jurisdictions substitute local hiring requirements with something called “impact area hiring” when dealing with Federally funded projects, which does not violate Federal guidelines, and suggested that the Council explore a similar policy so we don’t have this problem in the future.

In the end, they decided to have the question return to Committee, and it will be back on Tuesday morning (PDF). The supplemental report (PDF) on the item basically reiterates the point made repeatedly at the previous meeting that there’s no way to unbundle the project to allow for local hire without starting the whole process completely over.

So what will happen? Will the Committee, and later, the Council, move this long-awaited project forward? Or will they decide that it’s not worth doing without the local jobs guarantee? Whatever the outcome on Tuesday, we can be relatively sure that this won’t be the last we hear about the issue. Darrel Carey of the East Bay Small Business Council made that abundantly clear at the last meeting:

The Public Works Committee will take up the issue again this Tuesday, February 23rd (PDF). The meeting starts at 10:30, although the 12th Street project is last on the agenda. If you can’t make it down to City Hall, you can always catch the fireworks on KTOP.

The League of Women Voters can attest that Oakland City government lacks the tools to ensure that its records are easy for City staff and citizens to access and use. The Public Ethics Commission fields numerous complaints that have to do with missing records or failure to produce records. Last year this pattern of complaints led the PEC to propose to the City Council revisions to the Sunshine Ordinance (PDF) designed to set uniform records standards for the city. Despite strong support by the City Attorney and City Auditor, the Council’s Finance and Management Committee deferred the issue pending more study.

The proposal is finally coming back (PDF) to the Finance and Management Committee on December 15 (12 noon, City Hall Hearing Room 1). The League will be there to urge the adoption of the PEC’s recommendations (PDF). Oakland needs a framework for city policies and procedures, a systematic process for dealing with records that will be used throughout city government.

Basic records management is required by the California Public Records Act (CPRA), which requires that all public agencies make all their records, with some very few exceptions, accessible to the public. In order for records to be accessible, the city staff needs to be able to find them. The citizens of Oakland have a right to expect that their city government can and will comply with the requirements of the CPRA.

While there may be costs for putting a comprehensive records management system in place, having records in an efficient, easily accessible order will save the city money in the long run. Staff will spend less time searching for records and responding to complaints, and more time serving the public.

We can also expect savings from timely collection of records necessary to defend the city against lawsuits which now result all too often in unnecessarily long proceedings and/or unfavorable judgments and settlements.

In order to enact strong records management the city needs a strong policy – the records management ordinance changes to the Sunshine Ordinance – from the City Council and a strong commitment from the administration that it will enforce the policy. The City Clerk has made her statement of commitment by hiring a professional records manager to oversee the program. However, the records manager does not operate in a vacuum. Without full cooperation from all city departments, the records manager will not be able to do his or her job. The City Administrator must make a strong statement that records management has his full backing, and make it a high priority for everyone who does work for the city.

The proposal before the Finance and Management Committee on December 15

• streamlines and clarifies the definition of a city record to be “ all recorded information, regardless of media format or physical characteristics, that are produced, received, owned or used” by the city in connection with its affairs or legal obligations;
• adds the City Attorney and City Auditor to the Records Management Committee;
• provides for a review of the records management program by the Public Ethics Commission, with a public hearing;
• clarifies the roles of the City Clerk (development and implementation of records management program for all city elected officials), agency and department heads, and the Public Ethics Commission (authorized to investigate and report on specific allegations of non-compliance with records management program);
• clarifies that all city records are to be transferred to the City Clerk’s office upon termination of a contract or of an elected official’s term of office.

We need to let the City Council and City Administrator know that we expect them to follow up on this sane piece of legislation. We’re hoping for a good showing at the Finance and Management Committee next Tuesday, but everyone can send an email to or call the members of the committee:

• Jean Quan, committee chair (jquan@oaklandnet.com, 238-7004)
• Ignacio De La Fuente (idelafuente@oaklandnet.com, 238-7005)
• Pat Kernighan (pkernighan@oaklandnet.com, 238-7002)
• Nancy Nadel (nnadel@oaklandnet.com, 238-7003)

Let the committee members — and the entire Council — know that you want Oakland to operate in a transparent, professional manner, and that the enactment of a strong records management ordinance is a crucial first step.

Condo conversions were a big controversy a few years ago, but since then, have pretty much faded off the radar of everyone but professional affordable housing activists and developers. Now the issue is back, sort of.

Councilmembers Pat Kernighan and Rebecca Kaplan have introduced a proposal to make some changes to Oakland’s condo conversion rules (PDF), which will be considered at today’s Community and Economic Development Committee meeting (PDF).

Basically, sometimes apartment building owners decide they don’t want to own an apartment anymore and would like to turn their building into condominiums and sell the units off individually. In Oakland, however, this is not the easiest thing to do for most buildings. A 1981 law, designed to ensure a robust supply of rental housing, prohibits the conversion of an apartment building greater than four units into condominiums unless you have something called “conversion rights.”

In practice, conversion rights are a little silly. Basically, when someone builds a new apartment building, each unit gives them one conversion right. Then if someone else wants to convert their apartment building into condos, they go and buy the conversion rights needed to do so. So if I have a 20 unit apartment building I want to turn into condos, I have to go find someone who built at least 20 rental units and buy the conversion rights from him. In certain parts of the City, you can only buy conversion rights from buildings that are in the same area. The idea is, again, to guarantee that we preserve an adequate supply of rental housing, and to protect tenants from displacement if their apartments are converted.

The proposal (PDF) introduced by Councilmembers Kernighan and Kaplan would create a “Pilot Program” that allows up to 300 units in “higher rent” apartment buildings (buildings where the average rent for new tenants in the past two years has been over $2100 a month) to be converted over a period of two years without purchasing conversion rights. Instead, the building owner would pay the City a $15,000 per-unit fee for the conversions. Then after two years, it would be over.

Existing tenants in the buildings that want to convert would all have to be offered a rent controlled lifetime lease and units where tenants choose to take the lifetime lease could not be sold. If tenants choose to move instead of taking the lifetime lease, they wouldn’t get any money to help pay re-location costs. If tenants want to buy their apartment as a condo, they would get a 10% discount.

The fees paid to the City for the conversion rights would go to rehab of existing affordable housing. Additionally, the proposal would create more money for the City by creating a bunch of new condos, which will each be paying property taxes, transfer tax when they are sold, and parcel taxes.

There are two other features of the proposal, which I won’t get into that much right now. One would make it easier to convert some Tenant-in-Common properties to condos, and the other would clarify existing law to make it clear that if you build a new rental apartment building and then decide you want to convert it to condos, you’re allowed to use your own conversion rights to do so.

Anyway, Councilmembers Jane Brunner, Nancy Nadel, and Jean Quan do not like the proposal, and have introduced one of their own. Unlike Councilmembers Kernighan and Kaplan, they do not offer any explanation their rationale or analysis of the impacts of their proposed legislation. Instead, they submitted a simple chart outlining the highlights of some plan they want staff to turn into legislation. You can read the whole thing here (PDF). The key points are:

• Expand existing condo conversion ordinance so that it applies to buildings of 4 units or less, which it currently does not
• Cap conversions at 150 units per year and 150 units per Council district over 5 years
• 6 months notification, 15% discount, lifetime leases and first right of refusal for purchase for existing tenants in buildings to be converted
• The same inclusionary zoning proposal that keeps coming up before the Council and failing

The plan proposed by Councilmembers Brunner, Nadel, and Quan is not really worth commenting on now. I have written extensively in the past about inclusionary zoning, which is a tired, counterproductive, and failed concept (and appears to now be illegal for rental housing, although rental IZ is not part of their current proposal), and also totally irrelevant to the condo conversion issue currently on the table.

As for the limited conversion proposal from Councilmembers Kernighan and Kaplan, I find little to complain about. A supplemental report from CEDA staff (PDF) raises some legitimate questions about the proposed definition of “higher rent buildings” and potential obstacles to assessing the proposed impact fee, and those issues certainly deserve further discussion at Committee.

The report further criticizes the proposal for acting in isolation, instead of being part of a “comprehensive housing strategy,” which I think is just ridiculous. No, this isn’t a comprehensive housing strategy, it’s limited legislation intended to address limited issues, which is just fine. Not every single thing the City does has to be part of some overarching, long-term plan to address some giant issue. When you insist on doing things that way, nothing ever gets done.

Sure, I think it might be a little silly to go to all this trouble basically so one luxury apartment building can be converted into condos, but that’s really the fault of the people trying to tack all these other issues onto something limited and very specific. Like six people forwarded me this “action alert” from EBHO yesterday that hysterically claims:

The Oakland People’s Housing Coalition (OPHC) opposes Councilmember Kernighan’s condo conversion proposal as a bad deal for the city and a bad deal for tenants and affordable housing. Their proposal, if adopted, would create no new housing and would threaten displacement for low-income seniors and people with disabilities.

It doesn’t explain how, of course. The purpose of the condo conversion ordinance is to protect the supply of rental housing that is within the means of most people, and whether you agree with that goal or not, it’s hard to see how the poor renter in Oakland are going to be harmed by having ultra-expensive apartment buildings on the Lake become ultra-expensive condo buildings on the Lake. The protections for building’s existing tenants seem sufficient to me, although some form of relocation assistance would be nice and I don’t think too burdensome for the building owner.

The deplorable condition of much of Oakland’s affordable rental housing is as serious an issue as the supply, and to the extent that this proposal can supply some funds for rehabilitation, I think it’s a good thing. Additionally, the City’s revenue problems are not going away anytime in the near future, and this also provides a way to bring in more money for the City (PDF) (I think the estimates in that document are probably a little inflated, but the point remains that it’s a significant amount of money).

The Community and Economic Development Committee meets at 2 PM this afternoon. If you can’t make it down to City Hall, you can always catch it on KTOP, Comcast cable Channel 10 and available streaming online. I will be tweeting the meeting, so for real-time updates, you can always check out twitter.com/vsmoothe or follow the #oakmtg hashtag to get updates from others as well. (If anyone else tweets it, that is. Sometimes I’m the only one.)

I love the Layover. It’s been great to watch downtown transform over the past several years, and have all this wonderful new nightlife. But it has always bothered me a little bit that every new place that opens is so fancy. Penelope is very nice, and their spicy cocktails are delicious, but I’ve always just felt more comfortable hanging out somewhere a little more low key. The Layover is exactly the type of place I’ve been wishing would open downtown for years, and if you haven’t been yet, I strongly encourage you to go check it out. (It’s at 15th and Franklin. There is also a very flattering article in today’s Trib about it.)

Anyway, the reason I mention the Layover not just because I love it, but because this picture I snapped last night provides a nice example of a very common style of bar these days, where a DJ provides background music, but there is no dance floor.

This sort of bar currently exists in a legal grey area. The issue is whether or not such an establishment should be required to obtain a cabaret license if they are going to have DJs. Some do, others don’t. Some apply for one, only to find themselves sucked into an expensive and seemingly endless bureaucratic nightmare. Others send the City letters quoting the code governing cabarets and arguing that they should be exempt, and just cross their fingers that nobody will try to bother them about it. Others are simply told straight up by the City that they don’t need one. Still others do nothing and hope to fly under the radar. (I have not asked the owners of the Layover what route they choose, so I don’t know if they have a cabaret license or not, although I don’t remember seeing anything about a hearing.)

For the most part, the City has agreed that if all you’re doing is letting DJs play background music without a dance floor, then you don’t need a cabaret license. After all, the City already has regulatory power over bars through permitting alcohol sales, so there’s really no need to add another layer of hassle. But as we all know, the City can be infuriatingly inconsistent, and every so often, the fun police will do a little run around town issuing warnings (and sometimes tickets) to such businesses for acting as an unlicensed cabaret. (In one case last year, a bartender was threatened with a cabaret ticket after an office saw him changing a CD behind the bar.)

DJ bars are not the only type of business unfairly impacted by the City’s confusing cabaret law. Coffee shops that want to offer low key live entertainment may also find themselves subject to the annoying and expensive cabaret permitting process. Requiring a cabaret permit for any live music leads to ridiculous situations like the one Piedmont Avenue’s Caffe Trieste found themselves in a few years ago, where they wanted to have people occasionally sing opera music, but didn’t qualify for a permit because they were located too close to the library. The situation was eventually resolved by an amendment to the law (PDF) that allows the City Administrator’s office to overrule the 300 feet from a school or library requirement at their discretion, but the underlying absurdity of the law remained unchanged.

Anyway, the good news is that the City Council is finally talking about cabaret reform. A revision to the cabaret ordinance (PDF) proposed by Councilmembers Nancy Nadel and Rebecca Kaplan will be discussed by the Council’s Public Safety Committee on Tuesday. The bad news is that the proposed reforms are stupid.

Here is our current definition of a cabaret:

A cabaret shall be construed to include any place where the general public is admitted where entertainment is furnished by or for any patron or guest present upon the premises including but not limited to singing vaudeville and dancing and where liquid refreshments or foods are sold, provided however that any place where entertainment is furnished by the mechanical or electronic reproduction or pre-recorded music or radio broadcasts or by motion picture shall not be construed to be a cabaret within the meaning of this section unless dancing privileges are afforded in connection therewith.

Clearly, the law is antiquated. You might think that now that we’re finally getting around to revising the ordinance, it might be a good opportunity to strike references to, oh, I don’t know, vaudeville from our municipal code. As if.

What is need is a fairly simple revision of the law to clarify what is and what is not a cabaret. Special cabaret restrictions and regulation makes sense for the City, since the large crowds generated by live entertainment can lead to special problems. The easiest way to address the inconsistent enforcement of cabaret rules would to amend the definition so that it only applies to large venues with dance floors or amplified live music.

Nadel and Kaplan’s recommendation is twofold. One, that businesses with an occupancy rate of 50 people or fewer and whose primary zoning is not “entertainment,” will not have to get a cabaret permit. That part makes sense.

The second half doesn’t. Instead, these businesses will now have to obtain something called a “small cabaret exemption.” The proposed cost to apply for the exemption is $600, with an annual $250 renewal fee.

So basically, this proposal takes a group of businesses that were not required to get a cabaret license under most interpretations of existing law, and imposes on them a brand new regulation and annual cost. The staff report estimates that between 50 and 100 businesses would be forced to apply for the new “exemption.”

Cabaret reform should be an opportunity to make it easier for nightlife businesses to operate. Instead, we are talking about making it even more difficult. I just don’t get it. The Council is always talking about how they want to make Oakland more friendly to small businesses. Any small business owner will tell you that the best thing the City can do to make life better for them is to just leave them alone. I doubt you could find a single one willing to say that the City can help them by demanding a couple hundred extra dollars per year.

Will the Public Safety Committee care? I don’t know, probably not. After all, the last time cabaret licenses came up, when there was a proposal to double the permit fee from $300 to $600, Committee member Jean Quan’s response was:

They can afford it. Cabarets make a lot of money.

The Public Safety Committee meets at 4 PM on Tuesday (PDF). At the same time, they will discuss a proposal to allow certain cabarets to obtain permits that would allow them to stay open past two (read about it in the Oakbook). That idea also came up a few years ago, and back then, the Committee wasn’t having it. Jean Quan said then that she would rather see the law changed to force them to close earlier. Sigh.

In case you haven’t visited lately, right now it looks like this:

It’s a nice enough park, I guess. I enjoy sitting on the lawn there and reading sometimes. But it is rather run down. It’s got this kind of awful abandoned storage building that looks like it’s about to collapse, which certainly does not help the overall feeling of disrepair at the park.

And then there’s this really depressing (and cheap) looking “play structure”.

But all that is going to change soon (PDF)! They’ll be demolishing the storage building, installing a new (and hopefully less pathetic) play structure, moving the basketball court, and creating a dog park for both large and small dogs. A dog park! Exactly what Old Oakland needs!

I know what you’re thinking. Didn’t the City just gut public works funding to the point where we’re basically no longer taking care of our parks? The answer is yes. But the shortfall that caused those cuts was in the LLAD and the General Fund. The park improvements will be paid out of redevelopment money. This, of course, highlights one of the frustrating things about redevelopment, which is that it provides money you can use to build stuff, but leaves you with nothing to maintain it. But that’s an issue for another day.

Anyway, it’s not just Jefferson Park getting lucky this year. Improvements are on the way for Chinatown’s Lincoln Square Park as well. Lincoln Park, in case you haven’t been, is basically just a giant block of asphalt with a play structure and some swings scattered around the edges.

Don’t get me wrong – the play structure is actually pretty cool.

And with all the kids in that neighborhood, it’s crowded pretty much all the time. But it’s hard to deny the park could use some help. Which it will be receiving (PDF) in the form of new lighting, ball courts, a multipurpose synthetic tufts field, and game tables!

I thought of all this, well, actually because some small funding allocations for these park improvements on next week’s agendas (FYI, the Malonga Casquelourd Center for the Arts (PDF) and the Chinese Gardens (PDF) are also getting help) reminded me that I’ve been meaning to mention them. But I’m writing about it because it gives me the perfect excuse to pimp a cool exhibit going on at the Oakland Art Gallery right now.

ProArts and 10,000 Steps have put together a multimedia installation showcasing the history of downtown’s four historic parks (Madison, Lincoln, Jefferson, and Lafayette), which you can check out at the Oakland Art Gallery (150 Frank H. Ogawa Plaza) between now and October 9th.

I could go on about it, but Tina Tamale actually has a really sweet blog up about it right now, so instead, I’m just going to encourage you to head over there and read her pitch for visiting.

click to enlarge