but for the apathic, it was summed up for me the other day by 30 something professional whom I asked to sign a nominating petition and was told something to the effect that “i only vote on national issues. I’m a renter”

Let’s face it, there is an underclass in Oakland which costs the city millions of dollars just to keep up with their uncivil, destructive, and self-centered behavior. The upkeep for graffiti removal, cleaning the streets of litter, repairing destroyed property, is an expense which suburban cities like Walnut Creek for example, are largely spared . Anyone who drives around downtown Oakland sees the litter near the bus stops, the graffiti on just about every utility box, mail box, light standard, newspaper rack, door way etc. The new bus shelters on Berkley Way near Sears have already been vandalized and the bus shelters littered. The new parking meter boxes dowtown are already covered in graffiti. This is an expense caused not by the affects of weather and time, but an expense caused by an unproductive segment of society bent on uncivil and destructive behavior. No one is asking these individuals to contribute anything to society other than to just control their destructive impulses. Even conforming to that, seems a tall order. Unfortunately, the vast majority of residents who want to live in a clean and orderly society are forced to live by the standards of the uncivil.

Oakland is a city which tolerates this type of behavior. We have a police department which can’t, or wont, protect private property. We have a public works department which rewards the vandals by allowing their blight to fester for days, weeks, months, and in some cases, for years. These vandals know where to go in order to have their “work” memorialized.

This mediocrity permeates throughout Oakland city government. A city government with a 1 billion dollar budget which can’t even accomplish the straight forward task of keeping its downtown free of litter and graffiti. This mediocrity is allowed to fester because of the general disinterest of the well-to-do class in local government. As long as their immediate neighborhood needs can be addressed at some level from City Hall, then, downtown and the rest of the city can be ignored. We need professional people from Montclair, Rockridge, Piedmont Ave., Trestle Glenn, Ridgemont, Lake Shore/Grand, and throughout the city to become involved in local politics.

Many Montclair residents will tell friends and acquaintances that they live in “Montclair” before ever mentioning the dreaded “O’ word. Well-to-do Oaklanders, in large do not support their own city. They support SF, Walnut Creek, Emeryville etc. Go to Jack London Square on any weekend and the place is a ghost town. It’s a shame that a city of 400,000 residents can’t, or wont, support its own institutions or get involved in making the entire city better by participating in the civic process.

They are just as devoted to their neighborhoods as any other Oakland resident. N.’s saying that residents of those neighborhoods (which are an homogenous social/political constituency) don’t support local institutions or have no loyalty to Oakland only shows how little N. really knows about those areas and the residents.