Oakland Council: Dissent Not Welcome, Press Release

For Immediate Release—May 16, 2012
Oakland Council Sends a Message to City Volunteers: Dissent Not Welcome 

In a meeting going to nearly midnight last night, the Oakland City Council voted to not reappoint Michael Siegel to his volunteer position on the city’s Civil Service Board.  Siegel, an outspoken supporter of the Occupy movement and one of a handful of lawyers who worked to defend Oakland residents against controversial gang injunctions in East Oakland, had served on the board since 2009.  Established in part to combat cronyism, nepotism, and corruption in City employment, the Civil Service Board was ineffective for decades, with insufficient participation to even conduct meetings at some points.  Siegel, appointed by former mayor, Ron Dellums, has been part of a new group of board members that provided a consistent presence, heard worker appeals, reviewed City policies, and provided oversight. The staff of the Board unanimously supported all the members up for reappointment last night.

Community members that spoke on behalf of Siegel’s reappointment at last night’s meeting consistently questioned whether resistance to his reappointment was retaliation for his political views and activism. Councilmember Libby Schaaf spearheaded the opposition to Siegel’s reappointment, although refused to state any reasons for her opposition.  Councilmember Pat Kernighan joined Schaaf in blocking the reappointment but offered only vague reasoning for doing so, citing “one incident” that caused her to question Siegel’s judgment, without elaborating.  Councilmembers Desley Brooks and Jane Brunner strongly condemned Schaaf and Kernighan and joined members of the public in questioning their motivations. 

“I can’t help but feel that this vote was ‘pay-back’ for all the great work of the Stop the Injunctions Coalition over the last two years.  We, as a coalition, won various battles with the Council — putting pressure on the policy in general, preventing new injunctions, raising awareness about the waste of public funds and the ongoing, intractable problem of police abuse — I guess some of these folks felt the need to make an example of me,” said Siegel of the Council’s decision.  “Never mind the work of the CSB or the need for volunteer Board members to hear worker appeals.  Schaaf,et al. were out for some sort of vengeance, perhaps wanting to teach a lesson to other folks who might challenge the status quo.”

“Oakland is sending louder and louder messages to its residents that political dissent is not welcome in our city,” noted Rachel Herzing of Stop the Injunctions Coalition. “Flying directly in the face of the struggles for free speech and self-determination that have made Oakland what it is today, a chill is being placed on activists and advocates through injunctions, stay away orders, increased police presence and violence during demonstrations, and creation of barriers to civic participation. While each incident taken separately may be easily explained away, taken together, a true pattern of silencing dissent is emerging.”

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Isaac Ontiveros
Communications Director

Critical Resistance
Office: 510.444.0484
Cell:  510.517.6612

 

Take Action! Sign STIC’s “New Activities for Youth” Letter

Hey allies and supporters!  This week an inflammatory column in the San Francisco Chronicle called for Oakland to put youth under a curfew this summer.

Please join STIC and sign this letter to City Council, urging them to immediately seek new activities and opportunities for youth this summer, not curfews.  We know that criminalizing youth will never make our neighborhoods or our youth safer.  We know that justifying police surveillance of teens and young people never leads to increased opportunities.

Remember last fall? City Council members proposed a youth curfew, and we mobilized hundreds of people and defeated that measure, along with a proposed anti-loitering law and new injunctions.  We need to stand by this action and remind City Council that we are watching!

Send the letter to all of your allies and ask them to endorse it too.  We will deliver it to City Council and send it to the Chronicle next week.  Imagine how powerful the list will be if we all put our voices together!

STIC on “Law & Justice” Panel tomorrow with former OPD Chief Batts

WHEN: 4:00pm – 6:00pm; Thursday, May 10, 2012
WHERE: Engineering Room 189, San Jose State University

STIC organizer Aurora Lopez (M.P.H.) will speak on a panel at San Jose State University’s Department of Justice Studies and discuss the impacts of gang injunctions and other criminalizing policies on Oakland.  The panel is organized around Dr. Katherine Beckett’s new book Banished: The New Social Control in Urban America, which explores how new policing tactics “dramatically enhance the power of the police to monitor and arrest thousands of city dwellers.”  The book studies Seattle, where authors “demonstrate that, although the practice allows police and public officials to appear responsive to concerns about urban disorder, it is a highly questionable policy: it is expensive, does not reduce crime, and does not address the underlying conditions that generate urban poverty.” Also on the panel is a San Jose State faculty member and former OPD Chief Batts, whose destructive legacy in Oakland includes two lingering gang injunctions that have not reduced crime or harm and continue to drain the city’s coffers.

FLYER: Beckett May 10

STIC’s Ally, the Anti-Repression Crew, Serves the OPD on May Day

 The Occupy Anti-Repression crew gave a stay-away order to the OPD on May 1, 2012.  They mocked the use of stay-away orders, gang injunctions and other tools of police repression and charged OPD for its “attack on Occupy and its routine brutality and harassment of communities of color across this city.”  They continue, “OPD has shown itself to have a message to destroy the community fabric of Oakland through the use of  violence.  It is a threat to public safety and for that reason, OPD must stay at least 300 yards away from the city of Oakland.”

Join us May 1st!

STIC is excited to be with our allies in the streets tomorrow, May 1 for International Workers’ Day!  Join us!

1pm: No Borders! No Stay Away Orders!  Occupy Oakland Anti-Repression Committee is sponsoring a street theater picket around City Hall to protest Stay Away Orders against activists, gang Injunctions and all anti-Immigration laws. 

and then

join the Oakland Sin Fronteras’ contingent in the March for Migrant Rights!

3:00pm:  GATHER AT FRUITVALE BART PLAZA
3:30pm:  ASSEMBLE ON INTERNATIONAL for opening rally & program
4:00pm:  MARCH DOWN INTERNATIONAL BOULEVARD **we may stop and gather at San Antonio Park, instead of heading all the way downtown**
5:30pm:  ARRIVE 14TH & BROADWAY for a community rally with speakers and performers!

OPD Strategic Plan Summary

At City Hall this week (April 2012), Oakland Police Department presented an update to their Strategic Plan. As usual, they played deep into a fear-mongering campaign about serious violence and long-standing crime in Oakland. They claim that frequent violent assaults stop them from being able to “proactively problem solve,” something that the OPD has never demonstrated they can do. Since we know that the choices OPD makes greatly impact our communities, we’re providing this summary in hopes of continuing to resist the violence of policing together.

Download it here: STIC summary of OPD strategic plan, April 2012

Garden underway

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We’ve been hard at work.  We cleared a lot of weeds in the lot and took out five huge bags of trash.   We got the soil tests back today and there are no heavy metals, which means we can plant into the ground.  There was so much growing in the soil: chard, poppies and a cherry tree!

Gardening today!

We’ll be out in the new garden space today (28th and Foothill) from 4:30pm-6:30pm.  Come join!  

Donations needed: soil, redwood/non-chemically treated wood for raised beds, and nails!  Email stoptheinjunction@gmail.com to donate supplies or funds.

Come garden on Thursday!

Stop the Injunctions Coalition is continuing to build stronger ties and political awareness in Oakland.  Over the last couple weeks, we’ve been in the community with Phat Beets at the Cesar Chavez Celebration in Dover Park (North Oakland), at the Occupy Oakland/Black Panther Reunion BBQ in Lil Bobby Hutton Park (West Oakland), and getting our hands dirty pulling out weeds for a fantastic garden project on Foothill Avenue (East Oakland).  All over the city, we are excited by the steady building momentum as people come together to create the neighborhoods they want to live in.

GET INVOLVED! The community garden project is underway!  Neighbors and organizers are meeting in the plot next to Mi Carnal market at 28th and Foothill on Thursdays at 4:30 pm.  Come!  Bring a trowel/shovel and workgloves.

This week we’ll be pulling out the overgrowth of poppies, stinging nettles and grasses to make room for a wood chip delivery.  Last week we made a huge compost pile of weeds, picked up 5 bags of trash, and took soil samples to check for heavy metals in the ground.  With work and enthusiasm, we look forward to building a real community safe space: a place to gather, to grow healthy food and to display/host art.  We are still in the ‘building’ phase, but neighbors are already excited about a seed swap and planting party.

The garden project is looking for donations!  Needed: good soil, redwoods planks for raised beds, and– for future– seeds, starts and perhaps a simple tool shed.

Come on Thursdays if you are interested or email us.

César Chávez Celebration in Dover Park and California Gang Injunction Updates

Join STIC at the César Chávez Youth Day Celebration this Sunday!

*Music*Art*Aztec Ceremony*Free Food*Garden*

Sunday April 1, 11am-3pm
@ Healthy Hearts Garden, Dover Park (57th ‘n Dover, North Oakland)

Hosted by Phat Beets and featuring rad community groups like Xicana Moratorium Coalition

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In the news:

Santa Barbara Gang Injunction May Hinge Disclosure of Juvenile Records: The City of Santa Barbara is facing opposition to the injunction they sought a year ago because, as we’ve seen in Oakland also, the injunction case in court (and “gang identification”) relies on “juvenile court and arrest records, which are confidential under Welfare and Institutions Code 827.”  Jammed up in court now, the judge is deciding “which rules apply to the police information from “contacts” and run-ins with the defendants that didn’t result in an arrest.”  Read about it more here.  As you read, something to think about: how are youth criminalized?  How does law enforcement (police, juvenile hall, the legal system) target youth and then increasingly inflict further harm as people get older, justifying it with cop-activity from years earlier?

Also, the Central Valley town of Sanger, outside of Fresno, is targeting 21 people in their second gang injunction since 2003.  The Fresno District Attorney is pursuing the case, which will be funneling more money into Sanger’s fledgling 2-officer  Multi-Agency Gang Enforcement Consortium (MAGEC).  Read more about it here; note: heavy police and legal system-biased reporting.  Where’s any discussion of real solutions that serve communities, come out of community activity (self-determination), or address people’s needs?  As with any news of police and lawyers using gang injunctions as tools, STIC asks where are the resources for programs and services that address the roots of harm and violence?!  Injunctions steal limited resources and energy from solutions that work.