Margarita Lacabe

Sierra Club to Candidates: Not in Our Name

Sierra Club to Candidates: Not in Our Name Politics No Responses »

Oct 312014

City Council candidates in Oakland and San Leandro try to usurp the Sierra Club endorsement

The Sierra Club is not happy. In particular, the Northern Alameda County Group of the Sierra Club seems quite angry. Political candidates are usurping its good name and in return weakening its political power.

It started with Oakland City Council District 4 candidate Jill Broadhurst. Broadhurst, the Executive Director of the East Bay Rental Housing Association did not get the Sierra Club endorsement. Indeed, it was her opponent, Annie Campbell Washington, who got it. Campbell is a pro-environment progressive. Broadhurst is not.

If you look at political candidate mailers, you will probably notice that many of them depict the logos of the organizations that have endorsed such candidate. Indeed, on one of her mailers Broadhurst included the logo for the Oakland Chamber of Commerce PAC above the caption “Proudly endorsed by the Oakland Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce.” Right next to it, she placed the Sierra Club logo. The caption, written in smaller print, reads “Proud supporting member of the Sierra Club.” Another mailer contained the phrase “For Jill” in large print next to the logo of the Sierra Club. Again, the caption saying that she is a member was written in very small print. The intent is pretty clear: to suggest to voters that Broadhurst has been endorsed by the Sierra Club.

The Sierra Club was not amused. It sent Broadhurst a cease and desist letter, stating that Broadhurst’s use of their logo infringed the Club’s trademark and that it falsely implied that she had been endorsed by them. It threatened to sue her.

Broadhurst said she wouldn’t do it again but, of course, the damage had already been done.

Deborah Cox, who is running for San Leandro City Council District 1, was more brazen. Rather than use the Sierra Club logo on her own literature, she spent $1,000 to buy space in the “Californians Vote Green” slate mailer and outright claimed that she had been “[e]ndorsed by Sierra Club.”

The “Californians Vote Green” mailer is a commercial enterprise not associated to any environmental organizations. However, it’s name and the fact that it lists candidates as endorsed by the Sierra Club, misleads voters into thinking it’s an actual Sierra Club endorsement list. When Cox’s false claim came to the attention of the Sierra Club, it may have been the proverbial stroke that broke the camel’s back.

I don’t know if Cox got a letter from the Sierra Club admonishing her, but the Chair of the Sierra Club’s Northern Alameda County Group wrote a letter to the San Leandro Times clarifying that Pauline Cutter and Corina Lopez were the only endorsed candidates in San Leandro. The Club can hope that voters who pay attention to slate mailers, also read the local newspaper. To make sure voters did get the message that Cox was not endorsed by the Sierra Club, the Club also sent out their own mailer with its logo and the heading “OFFICIAL VOTER GUIDE,” listing the candidates it actually endorsed.

This is an important matter for the Sierra Club. It wants to make sure that its name is not associated with politicians that push anti-environmental policies, as this would tarnish their own reputation with the community. But it also wants to reward with its endorsement candidates that commit to support sound environmental practice , thus encouraging more candidates to make such commitments.

The Sierra Club can only hope that Broadhust’s and Cox’s actions will not encourage candidates in future races to also rip off its name. How successful Broadhurst and Cox are in the election, may very well determine how likely that is.

San Leandro Candidates Position on COPS Grant

San Leandro Candidates Position on COPS Grant Police, Politics, Schools No Responses »

Oct 302014

sro The San Leandro Police Department applied for a $500,000 COPS grant to fund a total of four school resource officers (SRO’s). The SLPD, however, neglected to let the City Council and the School Board know that they would be on the hook for $1.69 million in matching funds. Any money spent on the SROs would have to be diverted from other uses. In the case of the school district, it might mean further cutting educational programs and not being able to restore counselors and nurses.

I contacted candidates for Mayor, City Council and School Board to ascertain how they would vote on this grant.

SCHOOL BOARD

At-Large Seat

Candidates Jeanne Kinkella and Peter Oshinski are both in favor of accepting the COPS grant and having the school district pay the whole $1.69 million.

Candidate Evelyn Gonzalez believes that the the City should continue to pay for the two current SROs, and that the District should not spend money on the officers.

Candidate Monique Tate did not respond to my request for her position on this issue.

Area 4 Seat

Candidate Leo Sheridan said he did not support the District paying the full $1.69 million but he did not specify how it should be split. He does support keeping just two SROs at the district.

Candidates Chike Udemezue and Latrina Dumas did not respond to my request for their positions on this issue.

MAYOR

Diana Souza favors accepting the grant and splitting he $1.69 million costs between the City and the school district. She did not specify on what ratio. She is endorsed by the Police union.

Dan Dillman opposes the school district accepting the grant, but believes that if it does, it should pay the full amount.

Pauline Cutter supports maintaining the status quo, with the City funding two SROs. If the School District wants more than two, Cutter believes the District should pay for the additional officers.

Gregg Daly opposes accepting the grant.

CITY COUNCIL

District 1

David Anderson favors accepting the grant and splitting the costs between the City Council and the School District.

Mike Katz-Lacabe opposes accepting the grant and notes that research has found SROs do not make schools safer

Deborah Cox and Ken Pon would not take a public stance on this issue. Cox is endorsed by the Police union.

District 3

Lee Thomas favors accepting the grant and splitting the costs between the City Council and the School District. He is endorsed by the Police union.

Allen Schoenfeld and Victor Aguilar favor maintaining the status quo, with the City continuing to pay for the two existing SROs.

District 5

Corina Lopez believes it’s the responsibility of the City, not the school district, to pay for law enforcement. She did not specify whether the City should continue paying for the two existing SROs or accept the grant and pay the whole $1.69 million to bring them up to four.

Mia Ousley opposes accepting the grant.

Leah Hall would not take a public stance on this issue.

San Leandro City Council Meeting Notes: Homelessness & COPS Grant

San Leandro City Council Meeting Notes: Homelessness & COPS Grant City Hall, Police, Schools No Responses »

Oct 302014

Notes The San Leandro City Council eliminated full minutes of Council meetings several years ago. To make up for this, and keep San Leandrans informed of what the Council is up to, Mike Katz-Lacabe tweets from the meetings. I’ve started compiling his tweets on this blog. You can follow Mike’s tweets at @slbytes.

These are the meetings from the 10/20/14 meeting. The Council voted on whether to accept the COPS grant. This provides $500K to fund four school resource officers, but requires the San Leandro School district to pay $1.7 million in matching funds. The following day, the School Board tabled the vote on whether to accept the grant until November 18th. Mike Katz-Lacabe spoke both at the City Council and School Board meeting against accepting the grant.

According to presentation at San Leandro City Council, San Leandro Hospital had positive revenue in June and July 2014.

Cleophus Quealy joins the San Leandro brewery cluster (soft opening Nov. 1)

Proposed updates to San Leandro’s Casa Peralta: $75k for interior and $225k for exterior – inc. broken tile repair at front wall/fountain
The proposal for the kitchen was along the lines of authentic for the era – not a modern restaurant-grade kitchen

San Leandro History Walk videos now available at http://www.sanleandro.org/about/hwv/default.asp Videos done by Arroyo High student Jordan Schultz.

Homeless

San Leandro’s Homeless Task Force has met 4 times so far. Liz Varela (Bldg Futures) & Rose Johnson (Davis Street) are co-chairs.

San Leandro Homeless Task Force recommends $62k to homeless services from $150k allocated to Building Futures, which got state funding.

Liz Varela of Building Futures estimates that there are 50 chronically homeless people in San Leandro.

COPS Grant

Item 10B on COPS grant for 4 additional school resource officers has been moved up the schedule for the San Leandro City Council meeting.

San Leandro’s COPS grant calls for experienced officer for the positions – this means non-entry-level officers.

Current school resource officers assigned to San Leandro Unified are Cathy Pickard and Tom Rogers.

The proposal is for four total officers – not six. As for why four? Haven’t heard the reasoning about that yet.

SLUSD Deputy Sup. Rosanna Mucetti note that paying for San Leandro police officers takes money away from classroom.

San Leandro Teachers Association President Jon Sherr says COPS grant subsidizes police department & could be spent in students.

San Leandro Board member Corina Lopez asks City Council to table vote on COPS grant until School Board considers the matter.

Parent of San Leandro kindergarten student doesn’t want funds vital to schools being spent on police officers.

Mayor Cassidy notes that the staff report on COPS grant isn’t quite accurate – but still results in zero net cost to San Leandro.

Mayor Cassidy recommends that City Council conditionally accept the COPS grant, but consider a more fair division of costs.

In response to City Council member Ursula Reed, San Leandro PD notes that previous grant for 5 officers expires Dec. 2014. City has to pay full cost for 4th year.

San Leandro City Council member Cutter expresses concern that school resource officers would be eliminated. SLPD Chief says yes, because of grant expiration.

San Leandro City Manager Zapata says there are currently 90 officers – grant would add 4. Says no officers cut when budgets previously cut.

San Leandro City Council member Prola will vote in favor of the resolution and let City Manager Zapata figure out the financial terms.

SLPD Chief says there are 90,000 calls annually. Says 40% of crime is related to juveniles.

San Leandro City Council member Souza says school district has received more money while City has not. Asks if school district has previously paid for police

San Leandro Mayor Cassidy making strong case for City paying most of cost of officers and suddenly ending city paying for school officers.

Notes from General Plan Update Meeting

Notes from General Plan Update Meeting City Hall No Responses »

Oct 302014

Notes The following are the tweets sent by Mike Katz-Lacabe from the General Plan Update meeting that took place on 10/28/14 at the Marina Community Center. Though this took place merely a week before the City Council elections, the only candidate in attendance other than Mike was Allen Schoenfeld. Follow Mike at @slbytes

San Leandro General Plan update meeting now at Marina Community Center – about 20 attendees. 25 attendees at previous meeting.

ABAG projections for San Leandro growth 2010 to 2040: 84,950 to 107,600 residents; 39,980 to 52,920 jobs, 30,717 to 38,290 households.

Many people highlight transportation as one of San Leandro’s weaknesses at General Plan Update meeting: Buses, bikes, road conditions.

Trader Joes and Whole Foods mentioned in resident’s complaint about lack of variety of grocery stores in San Leandro.

Former City Councilmember Surlene Grant among those leading the discussion of the San Leandro General Plan update meeting.

Grant is part of the Center for Collaborative Policy at Sacramento State

San Leandro General Plan update meeting discussing whether 1999 vision for San Leandro is still valid. Most seem to think it is.

But for some, that means the vision from 1999 hasn’t been achieved. Resident says San Leandro hasn’t improved since 1999.

FYI: One of the “new” businesses in the downtown San Leandro Village Marketplace development: Great Clips

San Leandro resident says City needs to move quickly because of future competition from Oakland’s Coliseum City.

Nine of 22 people at General Plan update meeting think San Leandro has improved since 1999. No specifics though.

Fact Checking Candidate’s Mailers

Fact Checking Candidate’s Mailers Politics No Responses »

Oct 262014

For the last few weeks, we’ve been inundated with mailers from all sorts of candidates. Those running for City Council don’t make too many claims, limiting themselves to listing their resume, saying a few platitudes and maybe having a banal quote or two from some elected official, often one voters have never heard of. The candidates for Mayor who’ve served in the City Council, however, need to make the case of what they’ve been doing for the last four to eight years. But are they being honest with their claims? I decided to check it out.

Diana Souza

False Claims:

In her mailer, Souza claims that several buildings were “approved and accomplished under Diana’s leadership.” Most of these are discussed under “questionable claims” below, but it’s patently false that the 9th grade campus and Grocery Outlet were “approved and accomplished” under her leadership. The 9th grade campus was built entirely with School District funds. The City demanded that some aesthetic changes be made to the outside of the building and paid for these changes. The City also partnered with the District to build the school’s gymnasium, paing part of the cost and in return having the district make it available for City purposes. The City Council voted against having Grocery Outlet move into the downtown property which is being developed as “The Village”. Grocery Outlet then found another property that was zoned for grocery stores and opened there.

In the “Parents for Progress” paid slate mailer, Souza claims to have provided money to complete the new health clinic, championed after-school programs, safe routes to schools, school resource officers and crossing guards.” However, the The City Council did not provide any money to complete the new health clinic. Rather, they provided a loan to the School District, at a higher interest that they were receiving from investing those funds, so that the District could buy the building. Souza has never championed after-school programs and these, indeed, were cut while she was in the Council. At the last City Council meeting, Souza argued that the School District, and not the City, should pay for school resource officers; she has also voted to cut crossing guards.

Questionable Claims:

In the “Parents for Progress” paid slate mailer, Souza claims to have “been good for both our school districts, funding joint projects.” However, Souza has often spoken out against the City providing any funds to the School District, even to maintain facilities used exclusively for the City. Indeed, her animosity to the school has been so great that the San Leandro Teachers Association, who supported Corina Lopez when she ran against Pauline Cutter due to their own animosity to Cutter, has endorsed Cutter for Mayor.

In her mailer, Souza claims that under her leadership several buildings were approved and accomplished. However, while she approved them by voting for them, she did nothing to “accomplish” them.

Souza also takes credit for many “accomplishments” that are questionable at best. The Council “added resource officers” but Souza now favors making the School District pay for them. The Council might have increased city programs for youth, but only to cut them later. The Council may have expanded shuttle programs, but she has voted and/or spoken against the Links shuttle since she was elected. The Council had historically funded crossing guards, only to cut them in 2010, and then restore them but only after the School District agreed to share the costs. As far as I know, there are no neighborhood police beats – at least not any visible ones around here -, but if there are, they would be because of the Police Chief, not anything that Souza has done. She might have voted to adopt transit oriented development plans, the same ones which the Council used to block Grocery Outlet form using the former Albertson’s site, but these have fallen apart, which is why “The Village” was able to be constructed.

Souza has not brought new shopping and dining opportunities to town, unless she means she did so by approving Village Marketplace, which will feature a fast food burger joint. And if she brought back the Cherry Festival and the Tree lighting (Sausage & Suds is not funded by the City) before Cutter joined the Council, it was only to cut them again, as neither took place in 2010.

Her only role in the other accomplishments she lists was to vote for them.

Empty Promises: Souza has a long list of things we need to do. However, she’s been in the Council for 8 years without fulfilling them.

I e-mailed Diana Souza to ask for clarification on these claims, but did not hear back.

Pauline Cutter:

Questionable Claims: In one of her mailers, Cutter claims to have “lobbied Justice Department officials in Washington, DC for additional public safety resources.” However, the law enforcement funds that the City has obtained came in the form of competitive grants based on objective criteria. Cutter also claims that San Leandro just received federal funding for four more officers, however the COPS grant is only for $500K, which will cover less than the cost of one police officer for four years. The City wants the School District to pay the $1.7 million needed for the three other officers.

Under “Record of Accomplishments,” Cutter claims to have hired new police officers; however, the funds came from the COPS grant the City obtained before Cutter was in the Council. When I e-mailed her about it, Cutter said she found the funds to continue funding the police officers after the grant expired. Her claim to have opened Kaiser Hospital seems also unfounded, as the hospital was well under way to being built before Cutter joined the Council. Upon e-mailing her, Cutter responded that the Council fast-tracked Kaiser and it opened before it was originally scheduled to.

Empty Promises: Cutter promises she “will continue to enhance our quality of life by attracting quality retail and dining options to San Leandro.” However, she has not been able to accomplish that in the last four years, and she has not outlined a plan as to how she will do this. She also voted to sell the former Albertson’s property to developer David Irmer, assuring that only chain stores would be present in the new “Village Marketplace”.

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