Op-Ed

On Tuesday, Oakland is poised to make history with AC Transit. Specifically, International Blvd. is in a position to gain over $150 million of investment, bring in over 300 new, full-time jobs, improve safety from traffic and crime, receive attractive new streetscape (including street re-paving from curb to curb) and become a healthier corridor overall. AC Transit’s proposed “Bus Rapid Transit” (BRT) project will go before the Oakland City Council this Tuesday, and we urge them to vote in support.

Besides obligating all of us to a big financial risk that a city as poor as Oakland cannot handle, it is not OK to burden younger and future residents and businesses with the huge retirement costs of city employees who never served those future and younger residents.

One of the largest banks on the planet, Goldman Sachs refuses to let the City of Oakland refinance the municipal bonds it owns. Holding onto these “toxic assets” has allowed the company to pocket almost $30 million of our money – and to keep profiting at a rate of $5 million a year.

The burden of $33 billion in federal assistance being shifted to a network of non-profits is nothing short of preposterous. That $33 billion is equal to the budget of nearly every food bank in America, six times over. This isn’t a cut — it’s an amputation.

It’s good to see Oakland in a positive light, and to get excited about new opportunities in our city, but do extreme media representations fuel change that is beneficial to the whole community or just for some?

Here, to me, is the best current illustration of Oakland’s fractious politics. The people who want to recall Mayor Jean Quan can’t even agree to run a single campaign. There are two separate campaigns collecting signatures for a recall measure.