On Monday night the Oakland City Council approved the addition of four initiatives to the city’s November ballot, all geared towards bringing revenue into the cash-strapped city.

The process of deciding which initiatives to accept for the ballot required so much public comment and council debate that it lasted two full evenings. After dismissing its meeting last Thursday night without taking a vote, on Monday the council voted to put three taxes on the November ballot: one for marijuana cultivation and distribution, one for telephone access and trunk lines, and a parcel tax for each residence. Voters will also be allowed to vote on an amendment to Measure Y, the 2004 ordinance that allowed the city to receive $20 million for police, fire, and violence prevention programs if it employed 739 police officers.

The council voted 5 to 0 to place a measure on the November ballot to tax marijuana dispensaries and cultivation at 5 percent across the board. Councilmembers Jane Brunner, Desley Brooks, Ignacio De La Fuente, Patricia Kernighan, and Larry Reid all voted in favor of the tax; Councilmembers Rebecca Kaplan, Nancy Nadel, and Jean Quan abstained. Should Proposition 19 — the statewide initiative that would legalize recreational marijuana — pass, the council placed a provision in the measure asking Oakland voters to approve a 10 percent tax on all non-medical marijuana sales in the city.

Oakland currently taxes medical marijuana dispensaries at 1.8 percent. This morning the city council will take a final vote on an ordinance that would permit four large-scale marijuana growers to operate within city limits. The ordinance passed last week on first read. These large-scale grow operations would subject to the 5 percent tax if voters pass it.

“[Oakland will] be the first one to set the tone,” said De La Fuente on why both cannabis cultivation and dispensaries should be taxed at 5 percent. “And we’ll get the benefit of revenue that we desperately, desperately need.”

The council voted down a compromise offered by Quan, which would have taxed medical marijuana dispensaries at 2.5 percent rather than 5 percent. “I just think we don’t need to set the [dispensary] tax twice as high as the city next door,” Quan said, referring to Berkeley, whose voters will also go to the polls in the fall and face a 2.5 percent dispensary tax on their ballot.

Councilmembers Kaplan, Kernighan, Nadel, and Quan voted in favor of the amendment, with councilmembers Brooks, De La Fuente, and Reed voting against, arguing that the dispensaries are established taxpaying businesses and could afford the tax. Council president Brunner abstained from the vote.

The council unanimously voted to place a Measure Y amendment on the November ballot. If voters approve the measure, the city will retain the $20 million it received in taxes without being required to maintain a predetermined number of police officers. If a Measure Y amendment doesn’t pass, the city will be forced to lay off another 122 police officers in January, bringing the number of police officers below 600. The city already laid of 80 officers this July.

Councilmember Rebecca Kaplan placed a provision in the measure that will ensure the return of problem solving officers to the neighborhood community policing beats. Councilmember Quan noted they “are the officers the voters know the best.”

A monthly telephone access line tax of $1.99 per phone and $13 per business trunk line will also be on the ballot in November; cell phones will be included in the assessment. Taxes raised would be allocated to the city’s General Fund and could be used to rehire laid off police officers. The measure passed 7 to 1, with De La Fuente voting against it.

But the greatest controversy and debate amongst the council Monday came in discussing the proposed parcel tax. The council voted 5 to 3 to put a four-year, $360 parcel tax per residential property on the ballot, designed to help raise money to fund police department staffing. The council announced it had reached an agreement with the Oakland Police Officers’ Association (OPOA) for officers to gradually contribute 9 percent to their pensions in exchange for the promise of no more layoffs for three years. Supporters of the ballot measure said that only way the city can fulfill the promise is with the additional revenue raised by the parcel tax.

If the parcel tax were to pass, Oakland police officers would start contributing 4 percent to their pension funds as early as January 2011. Their contributions would increase to 7 percent for fiscal year 2011-12 and would hit 9 percent in fiscal year 2012-13. Oakland police officers currently contribute nothing to their pensions, but were slated to start contributing 2 percent by the year 2012.

Councilmembers Kaplan, Brooks, and De La Fuente voted against the parcel tax, with De La Fuente promising the council to actively campaign against it. He argues that the parcel tax doesn’t address the city’s fundamental budget deficit or structural spending problems.  “I think $360, especially in a single family home and no matter the value of the home, is really going to push even more people over the edge,” he said. “We are not doing anything else except raising taxes. We are not looking at any other structural changes. We are not looking at modifying what we do. I think that at some point the train will derail and I don’t think it is going to take that long.”

Councilmember Brooks agreed. “I think we need to look at a different way to do this, but I’m not willing to burden the residents of Oakland with extra [taxes] when they said they are not going to do this,” she said.

It was widely acknowledged by the council that the parcel tax is unlikely to pass in the fall, but many councilmembers voted for it to let Oakland voters decide what they will and will not pay for. “This gives the public the opportunity to make that evaluation rather than us making it for them,” said Nadel.

As Brunner pointed out, putting the tax on the ballot was the only way to reach the long-awaited compromise with the police union. “If we do not do anything, if the revenue doesn’t pass and the amendments don’t pass, we are laying off [an additional] 122 police officers,” she said. “We will have laid 200 police officers when crime has gone down and the chief is really changing things. Public safety is parks and recreation, but public safety is also the police department.”

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In the shade of large, leafy lettuce and kale and tall stalks of beans, approximately 150 Bay Area residents met Saturday at the Saint Martin de Porres Elementary School garden to show their support for the nonprofit organization that planted it to give Oakland students a chance to learn about nutrition. The Oakland Based Urban Gardens organization kicked off their third-annual art and garden tour and main fundraiser by showing off just what their students have accomplished in North Oakland.

Oakland Based Urban Gardens, or OBUGS, provides in-school and after-school programs and summer camps for children ages 2 to 16 in eight different Oakland schools or day care centers. Seven of the program’s nine gardens are in West Oakland; the Saint Martin de Porres campus hosts the only OBUGS garden that serves students in North Oakland. The program serves about 700 youth a year, giving them a chance to learn proper nutrition habits and to grow and cook their own food. “We’re another [after-school program] option,” said Erin-Kate Escobar, OBUGS’ volunteer and internship program coordinator. “Like you can do football or band or basketball, you can do OBUGS.”

The organization funds itself primarily through grants, but uses the annual garden tour as its main fundraiser and to get community members involved. Attendees paid $65 before the event or $75 at the door (bicyclists paid a discounted rate of $40), which admitted them into the Saint Martin de Porres student garden in Oakland and three private home gardens in Lafayette. Many garden aficionados attended, as did friends and family of the founders and staff; all were encouraged to stop by the Oakland student garden first before driving or taking BART to Lafayette.

The Saint Martin de Poores school garden boasts an overflowing herb section.

The Saint Martin de Porres garden sits in a tiny lot in front of the school on 40^th Street, and served as the first stop on Saturday’s tour.  The students and OBUGS staff and volunteers have transformed what used to be an empty, concrete lot into a green haven, blanketed with mulch below. A purple chain-link fence protects the vegetables, which are planted in raised beds. Fruit trees, including cherry, persimmon, apple, fig and pear, line the inside edge of the fence, and a butterfly garden graces the front of the garden nearest 40^th Street.

Brightly colored signs stood out amidst the plants to identify what is currently planted, including strawberries, tomatoes, winter squash, zucchini, lettuce, cucumber, eggplant, carrots, beans, kale, spinach, and corn. An herb garden sits near the entrance; students are harvesting parsley, chives, tarragon, thyme, sage, lemon verbena, cilantro, oregano, sorrel, and mint. A bin with other colorful signs was placed near the gate, a reminder of other vegetables that had been planted in the past or in another season.

OBUGS staff members had placed colorful signs with children’s faces around the garden to show attendees who they were supporting and how the organization helps them. Students had written out answers to questions, such as “What is your favorite thing about OBUGS?” (“When we get to have pet snails,” wrote second-grader Haley) and “What has OBUGS taught you about growing food?” (“About plants and how plants have babies,” wrote third-grader Kelly.)

“We’re mainly emphasizing healthy eating,” Escobar said. “We’re not here to emphasize vegetarianism or veganism or anything like that. It’s more like, are you getting fruits and vegetables? Are you able to eat a balanced meal? A lot of [our students] don’t have that much access to this sort of knowledge or this plethora of fruits and vegetables surrounding them. So that’s really what we’re stressing with kids: Try everything, try to get a balance, try to eat a rainbow of colors in every meal. You’ve got to have as many colors as you can in every meal that you’re eating. And we talk about what those colors do for our bodies, how they affect us in different ways.”

Colorful signs help students and visitors alike navigate around the Saint Martin de Porres school garden, a project of the Oakland Based Urban Gardens.

OBUGS was founded in 1998 by longtime friends Margaret Majua of Lafayette and Dorothy Noyon of San Francisco after a discussion they had about how they could help other families. “We were talking about how the plight of single moms and how hard it was to be a single mom. From that conversation we started thinking, ‘Well, maybe we should try to do something to help families that aren’t as fortunate as our families,’” said Majua. “Since we’re both gardeners, and we met gardening, we’re passionate about gardening. We decided to do some kind of program in a garden setting.”

“We knew that a garden is an extraordinary place where many things can happen,” said Noyon. “Not just gardening, but peace and happiness to the children and the adults. It can be used for many, many purposes.”

They chose West Oakland as a starting place quite by accident—not knowing much about the differences in Oakland neighborhoods, they put their roots in the neighborhood closest to Majua’s office in Jack London Square. Their first garden opened in 1998 at the Lafayette Elementary School on 18^th Street and Market, with Majua and Noyon teaching the after school classes themselves.

Students take a hands-on approach in the gardens in all of the programs OBUGS offers; in fact, staff and volunteers consider the gardens to be the students’. The program works with the host schools to provide a science-based curriculum that focuses on nutrition. The after-school and summer camp programs also focus on nutrition, but allow students more time to spend in the garden planting, harvesting, and cooking their own food.

“At first we didn’t realize the importance of nutrition,” said Noyon. “Very quickly we realized we needed to focus on the importance of nutrition in a neighborhood that is very poor, that has very few stores and very bad food habits. So little by little we have put much more emphasis on nutrition.”

Regular OBUGS volunteers, like Debbie Lindemann of Oakland, were on hand to guide visitors through the garden and then on to the day’s next events, which included viewing professional architects’ gardens at their homes in Lafayette. She and her family got involved two years ago as a service project affiliated with her daughter’s Oakland high school.

“We got involved because we like eating healthy. The programs that they offer through the elementary schools, the community gardens, and the school gardens we thought [were] in line with how we think people should think,” Lindemann said. “And we liked the school programs, where it’s not just having the gardens, it’s teaching the children about the gardens.”

Visitors who had never seen an OBUGS garden before Saturday strolled slowly through the plots, and some, like gardener Paula Delehanty of Fairfax, took notes for their own home gardens. “I’m just really impressed, not only with what they’re doing for the kids but with how beautiful this garden is,” she said. “Not only is it that the plants look beautiful but the place looks beautiful. They created a space that looks very pretty and aesthetically pleasing, too.”

For Majua, that pretty garden is the first step in making a difference for the children who come into her gardens each day. She hopes that they will take the knowledge they’ve gained about the Earth and the food they eat—as well as the food itself—to their families and friends.

“You know, it’s very corny and very simple, but the goal of OBUGS is just to change the life of one person who might change the life of another person who might change the life of another person,” she said.

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Residents at last Wednesday night’s Golden Gate neighborhood community policing meeting noticed one glaring absence: For the first time they could remember, there was not a police officer in attendance.

“We have been informed that there are no [problem-solving officers] anymore,” Golden Gate NCPC chair Larry Benson told the 20 residents who attended the meeting. “But I thought an officer was supposed to be here.”

Since the layoff of 80 police officers on July 13 due to Oakland’s $30.5 million budget shortfall, the city’s policing strategy has changed. With fewer officers, the Oakland Police Department plans to focus more on emergencies and less on community problem-solving and the investigation of non-violent crimes.

“With less resources and personnel, we can handle less,” said Holly Joshi, public information officer for the Oakland Police Department.

Not only will that mean fewer officers at community meetings, but the OPD can’t send officers out to take reports and investigate non-violent crimes as often as they used to. The department is now requiring victims of non-violent and non-emergency crimes—typically referred to as “priority three” or “priority four” crimes—to report them online, via a system called Coplogic.

“Any calls where people’s lives are in danger we’ll still be responding to,” Joshi said. But crimes like theft, vandalism and car thefts and break-ins must now be reported online. The police department says other crimes, such as residential burglaries and identity theft, will soon be added to the list. While an officer will be assigned to review the online report, unless there is a hard lead on a suspect, the city will not send out an officer to investigate the crime.

Joshi says that these service cutbacks mean that the need for community policing in neighborhoods will rise, even as the level of coordination and help each NCPC receives from the city will certainly diminish.

After the passage of Measure Y in 2004, which required the city to maintain a specific number of officers in order to retain funding for the police and fire departments and violence prevention programs, the city’s 57 neighborhood beats were each assigned a problem-solving officer (PSO), in addition to regular patrol officers. The problem-solving officers would attend community policing meetings to determine which problems local residents would like to solve, like fighting graffiti and other forms of blight, and then help community members work toward their goal.

But with 80 fewer officers to patrol the streets, problem-solving officers are now a luxury. Some were laid off, and others, like the officer stationed in Golden Gate, have been moved to a regular patrol beat.

The police department currently has 694 officers on staff and expects to lose three to four each month due to attrition as officers retire or move away. If voters don’t pass an amendment to Measure Y this fall that will allow the city to retain its funding without having to maintain a specific number of police officers, another round of severe cuts will be made to the force in January.

Golden Gate residents spoke of their safety concerns at Wednesday night’s meeting as they grappled with the fact that they would be largely on their own in solving their neighborhood’s problems. When Benson asked attendees if anyone had a neighborhood problem they wanted to share with the group, nearly every hand in the room went up. Of the greatest concern to residents at the meeting were issues of prostitution, graffiti, and drugs.

“They’re coming from out of the area and prostituting on San Pablo Avenue,” one woman who lives on that street told the group. “It’s becoming a destination.”

Several people in the room said they had noticed police officers from neighboring Emeryville and Berkeley responding to calls in the Golden Gate neighborhood, and one woman went further. “In an emergency, I call [the] Berkeley, Oakland, and Emeryville [police departments],” she said, to laughter and the nodding of heads. “I see who comes first.”

Benson and other NCPC leaders listened to concerns and wrote down suggestions to present at a city-wide NCPC meeting this Monday, at which there will be a discussion of community policing’s role in Oakland. They encouraged attendees to lock their doors and windows and suggested starting a phone tree for each block so that neighbors can keep an eye out for each other and make multiple calls to the police when a crime occurs, theoretically ensuring a police response.

But Benson was frustrated Wednesday night, unsure of how community policing will look in the future without the physical presence of officers in his neighborhood. “The community will get restless with the lack of police help,” he said. “It’s not a crime-solving meeting unless the police are here.”

Joshi said the OPD remains committed to the Golden Gate group and its counterparts around the city as well as to the broader concept behind them. “The Oakland Police Department is operating off of community policing,” she said. “That’s our philosophy. That’s going to continue.”

Joshi urged residents to get involved in their neighborhoods, and promised that the OPD will continue to respond to emergencies. “We’re going to be there if there’s anything in progress that’s threatening someone’s life. There’s no panic needed that OPD won’t be there,” Joshi continued. “Overall advice: Get more involved in crime prevention yourself. Lock your doors and windows, report suspicious people casing someone’s house, and look out for your neighbors. Be aware of your surroundings.”

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In a lively, standing room only meeting, the Oakland city council voted Tuesday night to approve on first reading a city-wide plan for the cultivation of medical marijuana in four new large-scale factories.

After three hours of debate, which included 125 speakers during the public comment session, the council voted 5 to 2 in favor of the plan, with North Oakland’s councilmember, Council President Jane Brunner, abstaining. Councilmembers Jean Quan and Nancy Nadel voted against the plan. If the ordinance passes next week, requests for proposals would be submitted to the city this fall, with marijuana production permits being issued next January.

Under the plan, which was co-written by Councilmembers Rebecca Kaplan and Larry Reid, the city would issue cultivation, manufacturing and processing permits for large-scale facilities that grow cannabis for medical purposes. The ordinance, if passed next week, would make Oakland the first city in the country to authorize wholesale pot cultivation, ahead of other California cities currently debating similar measures, including neighbors Berkeley and Richmond.

“I support this. It’s a growing industry,” said councilmember and mayoral candidate Jean Quan, who later voted against the ordinance because specific eligibility criteria for the facilities was not included in a resolution to be voted on by the council. Referring to Proposition 19, which will appear on the November statewide ballot and if passed would legalize the recreational use of marijuana, Quan said, “If you’re going to have a growing use in the state, even if the state proposition doesn’t pass, the volume of medical marijuana and high-quality marijuana that is regulated is going to grow. Oakland has been a pioneer in this area.”

Facilities that apply for and receive the city’s cannabis permits would not be limited in square footage—meaning they could grow as much cannabis as their facility would hold. City staff estimate approximately 6,000 pounds of cannabis were produced in the city last year in approximately 45,000 square feet of cultivation space.

Jeff Wilcox, a local businessman, plans to open a 7.4 acre complex near the Oakland airport that could produce as many as 21,000 pounds of cannabis annually. He argued the large-scale factories would provide jobs and income for the city, but only if the city acted quickly.

“Do you want to be the Silicon Valley of cannabis?” Wilcox asked the council. “The issue is, you’re late. If Oakland wants to do this, you’ve got to do it. Berkeley is starting. Other cities are looking into it. If you don’t start this, other people are going to.”

People who spoke in support of the ordinance spoke to the city’s growing debt as a reason to vote to pass the measure, saying that taxes on the new businesses would raise city revenues. The cultivation, manufacturing and processing permits would cost $5,000 per year. In addition, each facility that received a permit would be charged a regulatory fee of $211,000 and be required to carry at least $2 million in liability insurance. Oakland currently receives 1.8 percent in sales tax from the sale of medical marijuana.

Oakland’s four permitted dispensaries generated $28 million in profits in 2009. The dispensaries paid local growers $18 million for the marijuana they then distributed throughout the state.

“This issue is about jobs and taxes,” said Dan Rush, a statewide director for the United Food and Commercial Workers Union Local #5. “The city has the opportunity to put 80 police officers back to work, to reopen libraries, to put city workers back to work, to do a real good job to put debt to bed. We should do everything to create those jobs.”

But residents who support small- and medium-sized cannabis farming spoke against the plan, saying the ordinance would put them out of business.

“I speak for the small and medium-sized growers who have faithfully provided medical marijuana even in the face of prosecution,” said Steve DeAngelo, the executive director of Harborside Health Center, the largest medical marijuana dispensary in the world. “They’ve done the best they could to grow marijuana in responsible ways. They are decent people with families to support. They need to pay their rent. They’ve been coming to me terrified, asking me to do something to stand up for their interests so that legislation is not passed that will take their livelihoods from them.”

Other small cannabis growers told the council they would be “excited” to participate in the permit process. “This absolutely needs to be regulated,” said Jesse Lyons, a residential farmer. Small cannabis growers, he said, are “excited to come out of the closet.”

Small cannabis farms would be eligible to apply for the permits if they formed collectives with other small farms; nevertheless, they can still remain in business, as long as their grow operation is no bigger than 96 square feet. But medium-sized cannabis farms, which are often for-profit entities, would have a harder time becoming eligible to apply. Another ordinance will be introduced to the Public Safety Committee this fall to address providing permits for medium-sized growers.

Stricter enforcement for cannabis farmers is also included in the ordinance. Much of Oakland’s cannabis is currently grown in private homes or large factories, oftentimes illegally. City officials estimate that a rise in electrical fires in Oakland, from 133 in 2006 to 276 in 2009, is directly related to indoor residential cannabis cultivation. Increased robberies, burglaries and homicides related to cannabis cultivation were also stated in the ordinance as concerns of city safety officials.

People who apply for the facility permits would be subjected to many of the same requirements as the marijuana dispensaries have been: background checks, tests of legal knowledge, a business plan review and a site and planning review. The applicants will be ranked by a point system; the city plans to issue four facility permits during the first year the ordinance is in effect and would reevaluate the program and potentially distribute more permits after the first year.

A major point of contention, both in public comment and during the council debate, concerned taxing the facilities. The city council will deliberate in a special session Thursday night whether to increase the business tax rate for cannabis businesses, which is currently $18 per $1,000, or 1.8 percent. An initiative will likely be put on the November ballot to raise the tax rate, which Oakland voters would have to approve. The new rate to be placed on the ballot will be debated by the council and determined Thursday night, but speakers on Tuesday warned the city council not to consider raising the tax too high.

“If you want to start the Silicon Valley of cannabis, don’t set tax rates so high that you kill the baby before its born,” said James Anthony, of Harborside Health Center. “You’ll need to maintain some level of regional tax parity or Oakland will lose business to surrounding cities.”

The criteria for determining who would receive a permit was also a source of debate in the meeting, with councilmembers Brunner, Quan and Nadel asking council staff to draft a resolution stating specific criteria for eligibility. Other councilmembers declined to do so, saying that getting too specific in a resolution would force the council to open the matter again in a council meeting if they needed to change anything at a later date. Quan and Nadel ended up voting against the plan, largely because of the absence of such criteria, while Brunner abstained from the final vote.

The council will hear the second reading next Tuesday morning, July 27, and officially vote on the plan before they recess for the summer.

California voters passed Proposition 215, the California Compassionate Use Act, in November 1996, which allowed patients and their primary caregivers to cultivate cannabis for their own medical use. In January 2004, state senate bill SB 240 allowed medical cannabis collectives or cooperatives to be established and provided the guidelines for how much cannabis a person can cultivate. The city of Oakland allowed four city-wide dispensaries to begin distributing cannabis to patients in February 2004. Three of those dispensaries are still selling medical marijuana.

In 2005, Oakland voters passed Measure Z by over 60 percent, which allows for the licensing, taxation and regulation of medical marijuana within the city. Oakland voters also passed Measure F in June 2009, which allows the city to tax its medical marijuana dispensaries.

This summer, Oakland became the first city in California to institute a pot tax.

Thursday’s  special session of the Oakland City Council will begin at 5:30 p.m. in the council chambers.

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As the fog burned away into sunshine Saturday morning, campaign volunteers manned a table on the Lakeview Branch Library lawn and gathered signatures to officially put Rebecca Kaplan on the ballot for this fall’s mayoral election.

“I’m Rebecca Kaplan, and yes it’s true, I will be the next mayor of Oakland!” Kaplan announced to a crowd of about 35 people.

Even though Kaplan officially declared her candidacy two weeks ago, in order to be put on the November ballot each mayoral candidate must collect the signatures of 150 registered Oakland voters by the August 6 filing deadline. Voters are only allowed to sign one candidate’s petition.

Purple and green “Rebecca Kaplan for Mayor” yard signs roped off a meeting place for nearby farmer’s market shoppers and Lake Merritt passersby to come talk to campaign volunteers, who wore purple shirts with the campaign’s crest on the front and the words “Kaplan ‘10” on the back. Purple and green helium-filled balloons surrounded the perimeter and guided curious bystanders toward the event. A large campaign banner hung on stilts behind a purple box, upon which Kaplan stood to address the crowd.

“We know the campaign to build a better Oakland is a job for all of us,” Kaplan told the crowd. “I’m so grateful for all the people who have stepped up.”

Kaplan served on the AC Transit Board of Directors from 2002 until 2008 and has held the Oakland city council at-large seat since her election in November, 2008. If elected as mayor, she has promised to support community policing, attract business investment and local jobs, and plan for transit-oriented developments.

Kaplan faces a field of seven other declared contenders, including fellow City Councilmember Jean Quan and former State Senator Don Perata.

Concord resident Helena Larks signed up to walk precincts for Kaplan's mayoral campaign.

In addition to signing the petition to put Kaplan on the ballot, new volunteers could sign up to phone bank or canvass neighborhoods for the campaign. “I don’t think she has a chance if it’s just a money race,” said volunteer Peter Lavoie, who lives near Lake Merritt. “But it’s a David and Goliath thing. We need people standing with her.”

Community activist Max Allstadt of Artists for Oakland said he supports Kaplan because of her ability to bring people together and get things done for the city. “There are all sorts of technical issues that go with being in city politics, but if you don’t understand that the technical issues are emotional issues for people, you won’t work well in city politics. Rebecca gets it,” said Allstadt.

Allstadt said he has been to nearly every campaign event of Kaplan’s and has contributed the maximum amount of money allowed by campaign financing rules toward her campaign.

Other volunteers present on Saturday, like Lavoie, had been with the campaign only a short time. “She’s someone I could get behind,” Lavoie said, noting this was the first time he had volunteered for a political campaign. “And she is someone who can get behind me.”

Helena Larks drove from her home in Concord to the event, even though she can’t vote for Kaplan in November. “I know her a little bit personally and read her agenda on Facebook,” Larks said. “I think it would be great if she was the next Oakland mayor. I like her ideas. I think it’s worth it [to volunteer].”

Kaplan’s campaign staff said that she is gaining traction with voters on Facebook. She currently has more than 1,500 fans, which her campaign staff said is more than any other mayoral candidate.

Not everyone who came to the event was happy with Kaplan. One woman complained to Lavoie that she would never again vote for Kaplan—she did so in the at-large election for city council two years ago—after noting that Kaplan “obstructed the police” during the aftermath of the Johannes Mehserle verdict two weeks ago. Kaplan and fellow councilmember and mayoral candidate Jean Quan have come under criticism for standing between protestors and the police during Thursday night’s events, but Kaplan has maintained in interviews this week that she and Quan were promoting peace and her actions prevented further unrest from occurring.

“She better signal she supports the police,” the woman angrily told Lavoie, who reminded her that Kaplan was one of three councilmembers who voted last month not to lay off 80 police officers due to budget cuts. Kaplan spoke to the woman in private before she left the event, and noted that last month a statewide prison lobby circulated a mailer to Oakland voters which inaccurately states that Kaplan supported laying off the police officers to balance the budget.

Kaplan and six other candidates participated in a community forum on public safety on Thursday. Other candidates may still declare before the Aug. 6 cutoff; it’s unknown if current mayor Ron Dellums intends to bid for re-election.

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At a time when Oakland is strapped for cash and seems to have no clear plan for economic revitalization, one Stanford University junior says he has the answer: a streetcar system.

Jacobson, a junior at Stanford University, spent nine months creating a streetcar plan for Oakland. (Photo courtesy Karsten Lemm)

To prove his point, Daniel Jacobson, a 20-year old Urban Studies student from Richmond, spent the last nine months studying Oakland’s transportation and development patterns, as well as those of Seattle and Portland, two West Coast cities that have benefitted from implementing streetcar plans. After consulting with urban development and transportation experts, including officials from Oakland’s Community and Economic Development Agency (CEDA), AC Transit and BART, Jacobson created a 140-page streetcar plan intended to revitalize Oakland and provide an environmentally-friendly transportation option to the city.

“I just wondered, what could Oakland do to turn things around?” Jacobson said. “What kind of project could Oakland have that would create economic development, that would reduce oil consumption, that would breathe new life into the city?”

City officials and members of CEDA agree that a streetcar system is of interest, having commissioned a $300,000 feasibility study in 2003 to determine the best way to connect Jack London Square with the rest of the city in a way that revitalizes the Broadway Corridor.  The study concluded that a streetcar system would be a benefit to the city. This year the city reapplied to the California Department of Transportation (Caltrans) for another $250,000 to continue the study, and officials like City Councilmember Rebecca Kaplan have shown interest in Jacobson’s version of a streetcar plan.

Later this summer, the city is planning to start service on a shuttle along Broadway from Jack London Square to Grand Avenue as the first step in implementing streetcar service.

“Streetcars have the potential to enhance commercial districts because of their wide appeal,” said Zach Seal, CEDA’s project manager of the Broadway shuttle. “People enjoy riding streetcars. The ride is very smooth and the experience is generally pleasant. And historic Oakland key system streetcars would reflect Oakland’s identity and heritage.”

An historic Oakland Key System streetcar. (Photo courtesy Zach Seal.)

Before AC Transit and BART were Oakland’s main forms of public transportation, a privately-owned mass transit company started the Key System in 1903, which linked ten East Bay cities and San Francisco by electric railcars, ferries, and streetcars. While the Key System was sold and became AC Transit in 1960, a streetcar system still exists in San Francisco—most famously in the form of the classic trolleys that are seen around the city on a daily basis.

After Oakland’s 2003 study was completed, the streetcar plan was put aside because the Bush administration provided little federal funding for developing a streetcar project. When President Obama took office last year, Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood changed the criteria for receiving a federal transportation grant, making streetcar plans more competitive. The city council unanimously voted to pick the 2003 plan back up, but with some additions. The city plans to expand the streetcar route from the 12^th Street BART station, as was recommended in 2003, up to the Kaiser and Alta Bates medical centers and over to the MacArthur BART station.

The city’s version of a working streetcar plan could be a reality within the next five years, as long as federal grant money is secured and environmental and engineering studies are completed.

“The proposed streetcar route includes several heavily-used transit stations—including the 20th Street AC Transit hub, the Jack London Amtrak station, the waterfront ferry terminal, and three prominent BART stations—but connections from these stations to final destinations is problematic,” said Seal, referring to the transit needs that a streetcar plan would fulfill. “No single transit line travels from the waterfront to Grand Avenue and northward, and no transit line links MacArthur BART to Upper Broadway. The proposed streetcar would solve the lack of continuity between these districts by establishing connections with all of the transit modes along the route and linking the neighborhoods between them.”

Establishing this connection would start with the new Broadway shuttle. “We really see the transit shuttle, which is being launched with vehicles that don’t require tracks, as a first step toward weaving together this important social corridor,” said Oakland City Councilmember and mayoral candidate Rebecca Kaplan. “And then the streetcar would essentially be phase two of the same vision.”

Jacobson was inspired to find a way to bring streetcars to Oakland by watching the now-failed BART to Oakland airport connector project unfold; the project was scrapped because BART could not comply with federal guidelines that would have provided federal grant money to build the connector. He also knew of the city’s 2003 streetcar study and the attempt to fund it again this year.

“I thought, what if I tried to revive this [streetcar] idea?” he said. “I felt like being at Stanford, I had and the resources and network to create a plan that Oakland had been talking about doing but hadn’t been able to execute.”

To do so, Jacobson received a $1,275 grant from the Stanford Vice Provost of Undergraduate Education, of which he spent $987, mainly on a research trip to Portland and Seattle to study how to transfer those cities’ successes to Oakland.

Jacobson's streetcar plan would run from Jack London Square to the Alta Bates and Kaiser medical centers. (Map courtesy Daniel Jacobson)

Jacobson’s plan calls for a two and a half mile streetcar line that would run the length of Broadway, from Jack London Square up to Piedmont Avenue. The track would connect the waterfront and the Amtrak/Capital Corridor station to Chinatown and Old Oakland, as well as the downtown, uptown, the planned upper Broadway retail district, and the Kaiser and Alta Bates medical centers. According to his plan, the project would cost between $87 and $92 million to implement and about $3 million a year to operate.

There are some differences between Jacobson’s plan and the city’s ideas—for instance, the city plans to connect the MacArthur BART station to the streetcar as well. And there are some parts of Jacobson’s plan, like his cost figures, that officials aren’t ready to commit to, saying the final costs could be fine-tuned after the current feasibility study is completed. City officials expect the system to cost  $80 – $100 million to install. Still, Seal called Jacobson’s plan “impressive” and said city officials will take it very seriously as they move ahead with the next steps of the feasibility study.

Before any federal grant money can be secured to build the streetcar system, the city must fulfill a federal requirement by conducting an alternative analysis to make sure streetcars are the right choice for Oakland. State and federal requirements also state that the city must conduct both an environmental study and a technical engineering study to determine what, if any, challenges would be found underneath Oakland’s streets. The studies could cost upwards of $1 million by the time the city is finished with them, Seal said, but the cost would save time and money when building the rail system.

Seal said no money would be used from the city’s general fund to pay for the project; any city funding would come from the redevelopment districts in which the streetcar system would run—the Broadway/MacArthur/San Pablo and Central districts. The city would also apply for a federal streetcar grant, which could pay for up to $75 million of the project.

Regional transportation grants could cover portions of the cost, but the city may also explore the creation of a Transportation Business Improvement District (TBID) in which property owners along the streetcar route could vote to self-impose a property tax assessment to help fund the project if they agreed that a streetcar system would be a good investment for their neighborhood. Portland, Seattle, Los Angeles and other cities have created or are considering the formation of such districts to help pay for their streetcar systems.

Kaplan said she was “pleased” by Jacobson’s plan and his desire to improve the city. “[The plan] does a lot to help highlight the importance of this project,” she said.

Jacobson began thinking about how to revitalize Oakland through serving as an “attorney” at the Donald P. McCullum Youth Court, which provides intervention services for first-time juvenile offenders from Oakland and provides opportunities for local youth to volunteer. He hopes a development project like the streetcar system will help bring new jobs to the city and reverse the trends of unemployment, crime, and lack of opportunity.

“This shows you the amount of potential that’s in downtown Oakland,” Jacobson said, pointing to a picture in the plan of a vacant parking lot. “Where you have these new developments that are fairly successful and are really doing a lot to bring people downtown, you also still have big slabs of concrete that do little to contribute to the economic health of the city. There’s been a lot of success in redeveloping the Fox Theater, but there’s still a lot that can be done. It’s only the tip of the iceberg.”

Jacobson takes heart from how Portland has been revitalized in the last 15 years thanks to its streetcar system. The city transformed an abandoned rail yard and industrial district into 10,000 new housing units as well as office and retail space, bringing in jobs and residents. “Most of all, [the streetcar] made an attractive urban environment where people really want to live,” he said. “It’s covered in sidewalk cafes and small retail shops and these great parks.”

Jacobson also said that streetcar-oriented development in Portland now boasts a 31 percent housing affordability rate, which he called “amazing,”and noted that Oakland’s rate is only 15 percent in the downtown area and 20 percent in the uptown development. “This neighborhood [in Portland], this is what you talk about when you talk about livable, sustainable, equitable, and prosperous,” Jacobson said. “I tried to show in my plan that that type of neighborhood is possible in Oakland.”

Seal and other officials at CEDA see a future streetcar system as a positive step not only for providing additional transportation to underutilized parts of the city, but also as a deterrent for blight issues. “A streetcar system would motivate developers to make significant investments in their property because they know the streetcar line is going to be there for a long time,” said Seal. He noted that developers will see the streetcar tracks laid in the street and understand that the streetcar won’t be re-routed, the way bus lines or other forms of transit often are. “Because the streetcars are so popular, it helps to brand all of the districts along the routes and makes living in the area and visiting areas served by streetcars a lot more appealing,” Seal said.

Now that he’s shared it with city officials, Jacobson plans to step away from his Oakland streetcar plan, saying a “true professional” would need to come in to help the city implement the idea. Still, he calls the plan a comprehensive roadmap for city leaders and planners to follow should they decide to, and says he wants to continue drawing up plans like these after he graduates from Stanford in 2012.

“I’m very much a realist. I’m not saying this is going to solve all of Oakland’s issues and it’s not going to transform downtown and upper Broadway by itself,” Jacobson said. “With certain policies that would encourage transit-oriented development and really work with developers to create more affordable housing and make the upper Broadway retail district happen—the Oakland streetcar can really be a catalyst for all of that. It would really provide the structure and stimulus to start to turn things around. It’d be a great first step.”

City officials say the first part of the streetcar plan, the new shuttle connecting Grand Avenue to Jack London Square, will open later this summer and will be free to the public. The full version of Jacobson’s plan can be read on his website.

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“I hope people keep the peace and nobody starts any trouble,” said Mel Scott, a West Oakland resident. “The family of Oscar Grant wants peace. Out of respect for Oscar Grant and the family, we need to keep the peace.”

Overall, people in the BART station late Thursday afternoon said they still hadn’t processed the verdict. Many knew that Mehersle had been convicted of involuntary manslaughter shortly after 4 p.m., and those who hadn’t heard the verdict were at least familiar with the case.

“I’m not shocked,” said San Francisco resident Ian Slattery. “The whole case has been really troubling. I think communities of color in the East Bay in particular, and understandably, are upset. Not because of this one instance but because of how the police interact with communities as a whole.”

“This [verdict] makes it difficult to have any trust between the community and the police,” Slattery continued. “This matters to all Californians. Not just in our communities here but around the state.”

San Francisco resident Ryan Worf said he was disappointed in the verdict, but was “happy” Mehserle received some sort of sentence for the crime. “I don’t think a police officer in this state has ever gone to prison for wrongly killing a person before,” he said. “It’s not exactly justice, but at least [the crime] was on camera and he was punished. This will follow him around for the rest of his life.”

Worf, who was raised in Oakland, also expressed his hopes for peace in Oakland following the verdict announcement. “I hope there aren’t riots,” he said. “There’s no point in that.”

“I hope that people don’t use this [verdict] as an excuse for civil unrest,” said Montclair resident Tom C., who said he has noticed that several businesses in the downtown Oakland area have boarded their windows in the last few days in case there are riots. “This is what the jurors deliberated, and I hope people will respect their decision.”

Many residents said that, while they felt the verdict was unfair, they felt the jury process had worked. “We have to believe in the system,” said Thien Truong of Piedmont. “And I hope things are peaceful now.”

Scott said he was disappointed in the verdict, and anticipated that Mehserle would have a difficult time in prison because he is a former police officer. “Maybe he should have gotten second degree murder, but a cop being in jail is bad enough anyway,” he said. “There’s nothing like having your freedom taken away.”

While people did not express sympathy for Mehserle Thursday afternoon, some did say they felt that the incident was probably nothing more than a horrible mistake—one for which they said Mehserle should be held responsible.

“I think it’s an important verdict, and I think a lot of people see it as injustice,” said Heidi, a Rockridge resident who declined to give her last name. “From what I’ve seen of the case, I think he made a mistake, I think he thought he was doing something else. But I’m not on the jury.”

“I’ve seen the Twitter feeds today,” she continued. “There’s a lot of anger [at the verdict]. I think for people who were close to Oscar Grant, it is unjust—I can imagine they would feel that someone should pay just as much as they did. But I can also see how it could have been an awful mistake.”

In a plea for peace, Scott said Oakland residents should honor Grant’s memory by volunteering for the causes he loved. “Maybe people should find out Oscar’s twenty favorite things about Oakland—burger joints, libraries,” said Scott. “And then they can help out at a place he liked instead of breaking stuff or causing mayhem. Or maybe they can give some money to help out his daughter.”

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In a short meeting Tuesday night, the Oakland city council upheld a recommendation from the Community and Economic Development Agency (CEDA) to approve a development project for the Alta Bates Summit Medical Center facility, located at the intersection of Hawthorne Avenue and Webster Street near the 580 freeway.

The city’s planning commission had previously passed a plan May 19 that will allow Alta Bates to go ahead with a plan to build a new pavilion that will house new hospital rooms and an emergency center. The facility will also be seismically retrofitted during the construction.

But the California Nurses Association filed an appeal on June 1, stating that the development plan passed by CEDA doesn’t acknowledge the group’s traffic and safety concerns, especially on Webster Street, where they say it is unsafe for cyclists and pedestrians around the hospital.

The group also feels as though the new plan does not give those who are handicapped or dependent on ambulatory services an easily-accessible layout; the hospital is a 21-acre facility and has three drop-off sites for patients on the campus.

Nine of the 11 speakers who spoke for the item encouraged the council to deny the nurses’ union’s appeal and accept CEDA’s recommendation, stating the new pavilion will provide a safer, larger facility to continue treating Oakland patients. “It will be a safer hospital for workers and for our patients,” said Rebecca Rice, who has worked on the Summit campus for over 20 years. “It will be safer in the event of an emergency. The existing position is not sound. It’s dangerous in event of a major earthquake.”

Employees also spoke of community members’ need to be treated in a safe, comforting environment. “It’s routine for people who work in our departments to save lives every day,” said Chris Colton, the manager of the radiation department. “But for people walking in the door, nothing about coming to Summit is routine. A beautiful new hospital will provide a safe, comforting environment for people in our community.”

Warren Kirk, the CEO of Alta Bates Summit Medical Center, said the medical center and Sutter Health, its parent company, are committed to spend $350 million, effective immediately, to upgrade the facility. “We do not intend to close service or limit service,” he said. “This plan will help to enhance services.”

The project will also create about 500 jobs, mainly in construction.

The nurses’ union’s appeal was denied by a 7-0 vote on the grounds that the basis for the appeal was too narrow. Councilmember Ignacio de la Fuente was not present at the meeting.

Once the appeal was denied, Councilmember Larry Reid asked Kirk if he had considered hiring local subcontractors to build the new pavilion. Kirk said he was unsure of where any potential subcontractor is currently located, but would return to the council with recommendations that included Oakland subcontractors. Reid thanked him, noting it is important in these economic times to support local business.

In other council news, the council unanimously passed an ordinance that will allow the city to collect fees in the event of a motor vehicle accident if an at-fault driver is a non-Oakland resident, or if the accident is caused by a criminally negligent driver, regardless of residence. The city expects to receive about $400,000 in income from the new ordinance each year.

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We started at the beginning.

As Kevin Harrigan tells it, he arrived at an apartment building in Noe Valley one Sunday night in March 1987 to pick up his blind date—who wouldn’t answer the door.

“I rang the bell and he didn’t answer,” Harrigan said. “And I was like, OK, maybe he’s not home. And you know what’s it like to find a place to park in Noe Valley on a Sunday? Plus I was a struggling young teacher, I’m thinking, ‘I hope this guy at least is going to take me out to dinner.’” Harrigan laughed. “So anyway, I rang the doorbell again and he didn’t answer. I’m like, gosh, maybe he looked out the window and didn’t like what he saw. Maybe he’s just not decided to open the door. “

But luckily for Joel Preston, Harrigan didn’t let a broken doorbell stop him from that free dinner.

“My parents had given me one of those big college rings with the stone, so I knocked on the glass,” Harrigan said. “I’m tenacious, you know. My Irish was up. And Joel came down the stairs, and he opened the door and he looked very handsome and he was friendly. You know, plus we were both younger, thinner—and blonder.“

“It was March 21^st,” continued Harrigan. “That’s the date that we use as our anniversary.”

“One of two dates now that we use as our anniversary,” Preston said, correcting Harrigan in a wry tone.

“Because now we have our wedding anniversary,” Harrigan said, which prompted an amused snort from Preston.

“Yes,” Preston said.

“Which I think is great,” Harrigan continued.

“I think we should only have one date to remember,” Preston admitted, rolling his eyes. “Kevin’s convinced we need to remember both.”

“You know, if it means a lovely dinner or a nice little remembrance…” Harrigan said as Preston laughed loudly, shaking his head.

Kevin Harrigan (l) and Joel Preston during their wedding ceremony on Oct. 11, 2008. (Photo courtesy Joel Preston; Photo by Norm Levin)

After 21 years together, Harrigan, now 53, and Preston, 58, were married on October 11, 2008 in Monte Rio, California, a ceremony only made possible by the California Supreme Court’s May, 2008, ruling that same-sex couples could get married. A month later, on November 4, California voters passed Proposition 8 by a margin of 52 to 48 percent, voting to amend the state’s constitution to read that “only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California.” California’s ban on gay marriage began again on November 5, 2008. Same-sex marriage had been legal in the state for only six months.

The couple, who now live in Oakland’s Montclair hills, are among the 18,000 same-sex couples who remain legally married in California, at a time when gay couples and their supporters are eagerly awaiting the outcome of Perry v. Schwarzenegger, one of the lawsuits filed in the aftermath of the Proposition 8 victory.

Two same-sex couples filed Perry shortly after the election, claiming the constitutional amendment violates their rights to equal protection under the state constitution. Lawyers Theodore Olsen and David Boies, who argued opposite sides in the landmark case Bush v. Gore in front of the United States Supreme Court in 2000, teamed up to argue that Proposition 8 should be overturned. The trial started on January 11, 2010, and Judge Vaughn Walker heard closing arguments June 16. A ruling is expected this month.

One of the other post-Proposition 8 lawsuits had a more immediate impact on Preston, Harrigan and the 18,000 couples who’d already married. A consolidated case called Strauss v. Horton made its way back to the California Supreme Court. On May 26, 2009, the court upheld Proposition 8, but said the couples who were married in California during the six-month window when same-sex marriage was legal would stay married and enjoy the same benefits under the law as a heterosexual married couple.

Even though Preston and Harrigan’s marriage will remain legal no matter what the judge rules this July, the Proposition 8 trial is meaningful for them. The experience of being legally married for the last two years has changed their lives — sometimes in unexpected ways — and hints at the profound impact that a Perry ruling legalizing same-sex marriage could have for thousands of other Californians. The couple has been involved in the No on 8 campaign, giving both money and time to the cause — it is important to them for others to have the opportunity to experience the happiness and legal rights they share.

***

Harrigan is now the superintendent of schools for the Newark Unified School District, and Preston is a self-employed entrepreneur who recently retired from a 30-year career in the philanthropy sector. They invited me up to their summer home near the Russian River in Guerneville, about an hour and a half away from the home they have shared for 19 years in Oakland’s hills. They sat across from each other in their light, airy living room and, as they discussed what the last two years of legal marriage have meant to them, bantered with the ease that comes from knowing and living with someone for over two decades. Preston, the quieter of the two and the self-proclaimed introvert, would thoughtfully ponder a question before deliberately answering—although he usually answered first. Harrigan, meanwhile, expressively punctuated his points, eagerly adding his own thoughts to Preston’s.

That blind date in March 1987 happened within weeks of Preston’s moving to San Francisco as part of a job transfer from Austin, Texas. Originally from Illinois, Preston laughed as he said he didn’t think anyone in San Francisco was actually from San Francisco—until he met Harrigan, a fifth-generation San Franciscan, whose large group of family and friends (his “elephant train,” as he described them, referencing the elephant exhibit at the San Francisco Zoo) quickly adopted the introverted Preston as one of their own.

They moved in together in 1988 and bought their home together right after the Oakland hills fire in 1991. But while they were busy building their lives around the other, marriage never crossed their minds. “It’s just like any other two people meeting and [who] little by little, go from the first date to knowing more and more about each other and figuring out how it all fits together,” Preston explained. “And at some point in the relationship, in the straight world, it’s time for somebody to pop the question. Well, in the gay world that really wasn’t an option in terms of officially popping the question. So you kind of end up in a committed relationship without ever really declaring it in a way. You just kind of end up there.”

While they sat down with their lawyer to create trusts and powers of attorney to protect their rights on the off chance something happened to one of them (a process that is expensive and they said many of their less-wealthy friends couldn’t afford), they never considered having a commitment ceremony prior to the May 2008 ruling. In fact, they said one reason they rejected the thought of having a ceremony was because they saw the institution of marriage as being “screwed up.”

“The concept was, in order to be a legitimate couple, I don’t have to be sanctioned by the traditions of the straight culture,” Harrigan said. “Part of that was a push back to say, ‘I am legitimate in my relationship, I am legitimate in my commitment. I don’t need a social sanction to determine its legitimacy. I can be legitimate in my daily witness of living my life. I can be legitimate by having my partner be an integral part of my life with my family, my friends, and in my professional practice.’ And that’s what legitimizes my relationship, not an institutionalized sanction like marriage. Of course I think also, some of that politically was a response of thinking, ‘Our society is so archaic. We’ll never get to that point.’”

When San Francisco mayor Gavin Newsom announced in 2004 that San Francisco’s City Hall would issue marriage certificates, the couple admired Newsom’s decision, but something about it didn’t add up for Preston. “For me, there was a sense that, oh, this is not real,” he said. “Not that it was a stunt or anything, but it’s like, this isn’t going to stand the test of time. It’s fine for San Francisco, but outside the city of San Francisco it’s not really real. It didn’t resonate to me at the time as being legal.”

Preston and Harrigan were not among the 4,000 couples who received marriage licenses between February 12 and March 11, 2004, when the state Supreme Court halted the weddings. In August, 2004, the state Supreme Court nullified the same-sex marriages that had taken place in San Francisco.

But Preston’s thinking about marriage—and about getting married—changed after he heard of the state Supreme Court’s ruling in May 2008 and read the decision online.

“It seemed to suddenly make a big difference,” he said. “I think it’s the first time I’d seen it laid out in black and white why marriage was more than just a right that you might want to have, but that it was an important civil right that was essential to have—whether you decided to exercise it or not. I was just moved by the eloquence of the argument.”

That night, Preston proposed to Harrigan when the busy superintendent returned home from work.

“I said, ‘Did you hear what happened with the Supreme Court?’” Preston said. “He said, ‘Yeah, I heard.’ And I said, ‘So, do you want to get married?’”

“Yeah. I do,” Harrigan replied.

“It was the right thing in that very moment,” Harrigan recalled. “It was 21 years of committed relationship. It was just on a, I don’t know, Tuesday night or Wednesday night coming in from work, hearing about this historical ruling by the court, and simply saying, ‘We now have this right. Let’s exercise it.’”

Preston and Harrigan (center) with their families on their wedding day, Oct. 11, 2008. (Photo courtesy Joel Preston; Photo by Norm Levin)

They planned their ceremony carefully, choosing who would attend—the owners of The Village Inn and Restaurant in Monte Rio graciously kept allowing the couple to expand the guest list beyond the facility’s capacity to accommodate the nearly 120 people who attended the wedding—and who would participate in the service. Harrigan and Preston said their friends and family were excited about them finally being able to get married. Harrigan’s mother helped them plan the ceremony and gave them both away, and the couple’s straight and gay friends traveled from all over the world to share the day with them. Harrigan’s brother and sister and one of Preston’s brothers stood as their witnesses, and Harrigan’s niece Milena, then eight, was the flower girl. Special friends read poetry and excerpts from pieces about marriage, and their friend Heidi gave a homily about the responsibilities and gifts of marriage, centered around a single verse from the gospel of Luke in the New Testament.  

“If you were at our ceremony, it was a phenomenal day. It was an affirmation of our love,” Harrigan said. “We weren’t 25 year-olds hoping it would work. We weren’t young people saying, ‘Let’s give this a try.’”

“We very purposefully planned a thoughtful day, but we didn’t know how inspiring, how moving, how deeply loving the experience of that day would be,” he continued. “People who have attended have told us it was the most beautiful wedding they’ve ever been to.”

The couple has been surprised by how being married has been very different experience for them than just living together as a couple.

“I woke up on the next day and it felt different,” Preston said. “Now I was married. I didn’t expect to feel that different, that changed. Part of it dealt with other people. I could say I was married, or ‘Here is my husband,’ and they knew what that meant. People get that meaning. And there was something affirming about the state of California saying this relationship—it is. It exists. It’s real. I was not expecting the sense of validation.”

Harrigan interrupted him thoughtfully. “It acknowledges that two consenting adults can enter into this level of civil contract with its level of responsibilities, who are willing to hold themselves responsible and believe the other will hold that responsibility.”

“I knew Kevin was with me hell or high water before,” Preston said. “It wasn’t like I was more secure in the relationship with Kevin, but if such a thing can be true, the bond that was there became even firmer, more solid, more unbreakable.”

***

After a lunch of chicken salad with walnuts and apples on their deck high in the trees, our talk turns to Proposition 8 and the civil rights issues it raises, and the conversation becomes more somber. Both Preston and Harrigan leaned back in their chairs, nearly slumping. Their voices lowered and their pauses lengthened between answers as they struggled to explain how the decision had affected their lives.

Preston first got involved in the No-on-8 campaign as a volunteer during the summer of 2008, after he had proposed to Harrigan but before the two were married. When the proposition passed, Preston said he felt a “gut punch.” “I remember just sitting and sobbing, just crying,” he said.

“My first question is really simple: Why are people so afraid?” Harrigan asked quietly. “What is the fear? Why would someone be afraid of Joel and I? I don’t really understand that.”

“I was glad our marriage continued to exist [after the 2009 court ruling],” Preston said. “I don’t know how I would have felt if our marriage had been nullified. But there’s almost a sense of being like a freed slave. I had the right to get married. Lucky me. I happened to make the choice during the short window of time when it was legal, but my brothers and sisters don’t have that right. That hurts. Does it affect me on a day-to-day basis? No. The state of California, the Supreme Court says I am married. But it’s tinged somehow by the fact that other people can’t exercise that same right.”

While Preston said he feels his views have been well-represented in the pro-marriage testimony and lawyers’ arguments offered during the Proposition 8 trial, he knows that, no matter how the judge rules in Perry v. Schwarzenegger, the fight will continue, most likely up to the United States Supreme Court. He’s ready to continue the fight, volunteering for the San Francisco LGBT Community Center and the Horizons Foundation.

“I am firmly convinced now that marriage is a civil right. My right to marry whom I choose is a right,” he said. “And it is one of those fundamental natural rights that the state can’t take away.”

“I spent 50-some years not having the right to get married to a man,” Preston continued. “I just didn’t have it. And yet in 2008, I did. And then it was taken away. And that becomes a much bigger deal. To not have a right I never had? Don’t miss it. To not have a right that I once had? That’s a big deal, and it’s wrong.”

The couple says, unequivocally, that they are glad they got married, and they will continue fighting until every other member of the LGBT community has the right to get married, too. “Our lower-case “m” marriage grew stronger when we upper-case “M” got Married,” Preston said.

“And now we have two anniversaries,” Harrigan offered, lightening the mood.

Preston groaned. “And now we have two anniversaries.”

“We have two reasons for special dinners,” Harrigan said. “And two more special days to recognize all the people who have supported us.”

A quick look at a few of the numbers you should know before the city council deliberates the budget Thursday night, June 24.