There was no riot in Oakland last night

There was no riot in Oakland last night 

Because a police officer was found guilty 

The boards on my local stores will stay up 

Because we have unfinished business 

Now people are claiming that they are going to start 

What should have been finished long before we were born 

The boards will stay up 

And a black man will stay dead  

When I heard the words of the verdict 

I came close to tears  

I grieve for the man who will not benefit 

From the small victory that carries his name 

He will not take that lover back into his arms

No child’s eyes will look at him with adoration 

A friend of mine was murdered by our country 

Long ago his name was known by everyone 

He too never got to grow old 

Frozen in time as a hero 

The story gets retold 

Because it is mostly forgotten 

Pilgrims leave flowers at his grave 

As do I, in solitude 

Every day three of us are shot by police 

How many are bombed?  

Our soldiers and our cops are not changing much 

Three generations have learned something from them 

Fear  

Yes Stadium

That is YES to the stadium that we already have. 

And NO to the Jack London Square deal.  

When Jean Quan was Mayor of Oakland she told me that she wanted nothing to do with a stadium deal involving a team owner who was also a developer.  

Is that still the case?  

If so something is missing in the news coverage of the proposed ballpark. 

Considering that there is this guy who is probably on Libby’s speed dial. 

Letter: A’s owner could sell team, develop Coliseum property for profit – The Mercury News 

There is probably a big difference between what the rich people involved say that we need and the full story of how they will benefit.  

But that is not why I am opposed to the new park.  

I just want us to invest in fixing the old one.  

The Oakland Coliseum complex is two large venues linked to BART, with a freeway off ramp and a direct link to Oakland Airport.  There is really nothing structurally wrong with the building and not so much upgrade needed that the A’s have stopped playing their games there.  Former councilman Larry Reid used to point out that the site could be modified to include an Amtrack station.  

So, is Oakland so rich that we can throw a couple stadiums away because the sports press whines about Mt. Davis?  How about some better comfort for the people who attend?  More efficient and cleaning food services?  Clean and modern bathrooms?  Better child centers from which on could see the game while the kid played on a slide?  A moving walk to BART would be nice too.  The sum total of these things will not cost anything like what the new ballpark at Jack London will run us.  

And we are so rich we can throw away some of our port?  

The port needs some help.  A land grab is not the help it needs.  

And Jack London Square?  Will that put the stadium under the authority of the Port Commission?  What kind of transit do we offer there?  The ferry to San Francisco?  Is this our N-th gimmick to profit off of Jack London Square after spending so much time driving the main draws out of business?  A new stadium is supposed to help the vacancy rate?  The public has already paid for two white elephants in the area; is three the charm?  What does the place look like on days without a game?  If we are talking about setting up some kind of full time local business and services there, then why not do it at the Coliseum complex that we have now? 

So, there are some very practical reasons to upgrade the stadium that we have and invest in our port area in ways that run 7 days a week. 

So, why is this unwise and expensive project probably going to happen?

Money.  Developer money.  

If you are looking for elected officials who are willing to stand up to the developers, do not look at Oakland or anyone who represents Oakland at the county or state.  

And now the games being played have a long history at our stadium.  Most recently a group of A’s owning developers bought out the Alameda County share in a move so bold that even Libby could not put up with it without a fight. 

City of Oakland sues county over sale of Coliseum to A's (ktvu.com) 

And the monied interests howled, threatened and got their way. 

Oakland Drops Lawsuit vs. County Over Coliseum Sale – NBC Bay Area 
(I suggest that you watch the video) 

Also note the price, 85 million dollars for half? 

Who set that price?  

This act of welfare for the rich and professional sport blackmail has a long history in Oakland and in professional sports altogether.  About 10 years back Desley Brooks, who was then council member for District 6 was kicked off the Coliseum joint operations group to be replaced by Rebecca Kaplan in a move that was never explained.  Now Brooks was voted out by a Libby backed candidate.  I wonder how he will vote on the stadium “deal”?  Before that we had the Al Davis extortion, where Oakland bent over backwards to his list of demands and now the Raiders are in Las Vegas.  

A few years ago The Onion published a satirical piece where the US Congress threatened the city of Washington DC that they would move the government unless the district paid for a new capitol building.  新华网 The New China News Service repeated the story thinking that it was true.  It certainly was no less bizarre than professional sports stadium deals. 

The Coliseum free ride for big real-estate is attention grabbing and happens in the context of all kinds of development deals helped along by friendly public officials at city, county and state.  The often involve public property getting sold to private hands at low cost and with little to no public benefit.  This is also an aspect of the state control of our public schools as we are forced to close some of our schools and developers and/or charters pick up properties for pennies on the dollar. If you want to find the ugly side of Oakland government and politics, follow the money going to construction firms, investment companies and banks and of course in the purchase and sale of land.  

What I wish we had was some kind of independent review process that would investigate all sales of public land to private interests before it is authorized and had the power to stop the loss of public property.

KPFA and the vast conspiracy

KPFA and the vast conspiracy

It has been one of my firm beliefs that people accuse others of the crimes that they themselves are willing to commit. 

A prime example is the national Republican party’s complaints about voting rights. 

Republicans accuse the Democrats of wanting to create a permanent majority for themselves.  This coming from the folk who have voter suppression laws in a majority of states, most of which are so gerrymandered that the Republicans hold overwhelming majorities in their state and federal delegations despite only having a slim majority of the votes, if that. 

Yet Republicans accuse the Democrats of gaming the system.
They should, they have gaming the system on their minds. 

I have found it hard to focus on any one subject trying to describe the far-fetched arguments and proposals made by the local KPFA board majority.  So, for this bit of writing, let’s talk about conspiracy. 

At this last KPFA meeting we went through the looking glass to a world where being a local leader of the Green Party was equated to being an elected official. 

 My friend James McFadden sits on the KPFA station board.  He is also elected to the Alameda County Green Party Council.  Greens do this by county.  Democrats elect their delegates by Assembly District.  Who knows how, or if, Republicans, Peace and Freedom or Libertarians elect their internal leadership? When they do, the internal party election is usually tacked onto that party’s specific ballot at Primary time. 

[my friend Stan at Peace and Freedom assures me that they do hold democratic, internal elections]

KPFA has a very good rule that those on the payroll or who hold any leadership or elected position inside KPFA or Pacifica Radio cannot be an elected official or a candidate for elected office at the same time.  My own election to the KPFA board left me as the runner up.  One of the members of the station board ran for office in Richmond and I was asked to step up. 

Many of us in Oakland know of Cat Brooks.  She is on the air during the morning show on KPFA weekdays.  When she ran for Oakland Mayor, she suspended her employment at KPFA until the election was won by Libby Schaff. 

When I was on a nonprofit board, I voluntarily did not attend those board meetings when I ran for City Counsel and picked back up after that election was won by Dan Kalb.

This is all very normal. 

At the last station board meeting a member of the faction formally known as “Save KPFA” accused James McFadden of breaking this rule, demanding that he resign based on a highly contrived argument that conflates an internal Green Party election with being a government official. 

Then the accusations became bizarre.  It included the idea that the Greens have some kind of KPFA board candidate training program and together with the Worker’s World Party they (we) are plotting to take over the station and only promote radical programming because we want to wreck the station.

It sounded a lot like Republicans calling Joe Biden a “socialist”.

At that point, I had to say something about this vast-Green-conspiracy theory.  I pointed out that my recruitment to the KPFA board was because of my friend Tom Voorhees asking me to do it.  I have known Tom since we met in Nicaragua in the 1980’s and he helped us with our radios there. This is long before the US Green Party or Save KPFA even existed. 

And who the hell is the Worker’s World Party? 
If “Save KPFA” hates them, they must be doing something good.

And why does the faction formally known as “Save KPFA” have conspiracy on the brain?
Surprise! They have a very real conspiracy of their own they are working on.

It is a bylaws scam.  It is the second try at a bylaws scam. 

So, before I explain, hear this.

VOTE NO ON THE BYLAWS AMENDMENT, IT IS A SCAM

“Save KPFA” got some of their former opponents to join them and now call themselves something like United for Independent Radio. They now have a front group or sub group called New Day Pacifica.  That groups seems to have some serious cash for on-line promotion.  They have gotten enough signatures to put their bylaws change on the ballot.

 Again. 

This is the second time that a bylaws change is being attempted by the same faction.

The idea is simple.  Make sure that they, and only they, are in charge.  The bylaws change is to eliminate the Pacifica Nation Board that we now have, elected by all 5 station boards in the Pacifica Network.  Voting yes will appoint a 4-person junta to run things during the transition.  The local station boards will be stripped of all authority.  New elections under their new rules will take place sometime. 

So KPFA will become a province of Myanmar?

One of the people behind this new takeover attempt also explained why they have good reasons not to hold on-air debates about these bylaws for the listener members. Instead, we will hold obscure discussions out of the limelight and broadcast on-air announcements worthy of George Orwell. 

Your will find that statement on the front page of the kpfa.org website.

The New Day Pacifica slick email has a long list of notable endorsers.  (So do the opponents.) Where does the money come from for such a media campaign?  How did they get the membership list? Will equal time be given to the other views?  Can they send an email to that same list? 

“Save KPFA” sounds like the Republicans, and many Democrats, when they talk about how the sky will fall if they are not put in total charge.  They throw around language where they are the only competent ones, and everyone else involved in KPFA and Pacifica does not know what they are doing; thus, disaster is always just around the corner. 

The last time they tried a bylaws change it got overwhelmingly voted down.

And now the accusation out of their mouth is “conspiracy”.

I do not doubt their expertise on the subject. 

No shame

No shame

There are times that one knows what one thinks, but has no idea what to say. 

Between our November KPFA Station Board meeting and the one we had on a Saturday in late December a group of board members from the majority setup some shell non-profit and then filed a lawsuit to put KPFA into receivership.

The reason I do not know what to say is because I am at a loss for words to describe how outrageous a thing that was to do.

First and foremost, this was outrageous because it boiled down to attempted theft of a member owned radio station by a number of board members acting on their own to get their hands on the considerable value of the station, the building, and above all it’s license.  They had a non profit all set up to sweep the wealth into; a non profit controlled only by them. 

It was also outrageous because this lawsuit was a surprise to the rest of the board, the rest of the KPFA community and the Pacifica Foundation to which KPFA and the other stations belong. If they had gotten away with it, a narrow majority at one station, KPFA, would have had control of all five Pacifica stations. 

It was outrageous because they acted in the dark and struck by surprise. 

Last meeting ended with us wondering if there was even going to be a December meeting.  The only reason to hold one would be if the bylaws said that we had to re-elect board officers before the end of the calendar year.  There was no mention of an impending lawsuit wanting to take control. 

So, this meeting had an extra item added to the agenda.  The motion was to censure and remove the three board members who had sued the organization that they claim to represent.

The meeting degraded into a shouting match. When people were not shouting, they were making harsh accusations.  A few people dominated the Zoom chat with nasty comments and attacks on each other’s personal histories on all sorts of subjects not related to the problem at hand. 

I have not seen such dogmatic, sectarian infighting since I was a young leftist in Montreal in the 1970’s.

If you have not seen Monty Python, The Life of Brian, watch it. 

Friends warned me about the so-called Save KPFA faction and I should have listened. That clique added some new members and now has a new name or two, but does not seem to change much.  Before I just disagreed with their proposals.  Now I question their sense of ethics. 

At the December Local Station Board meeting we heard a lot of why they think that they are the only ones to hold the right views, but as they went on, we got nothing about why they feel that their lack of respect for the process was helping anything, or what justified them acting unilaterally like that. 

So, what do I think?  For me, filing that lawsuit is sort of like suing for custody of the kid and then thinking that you can still sleep in my bed.  How could such a thing not wreck the relationship? 

In the course of the discussion, we were given all kinds of interesting arguments that if addressed differently would have been valuable.  Worthwhile discussion should have been held BEFORE throwing such a bomb.  There were also some strong accusations made by the majority that needed more support than Trump style belligerence. 

Among other things, we were told:

·        Pacifica’s board is not democratic, so it can be ignored
·        Only their faction is doing anything for the station
·        That everyone else has “never done jack shit” for KPFA
·        That people who oppose them are part of the Workers World Party (that I don’t even know)
·        That “somebody” had to stand up for the station because nothing is being done
·        The financial crisis risks losing the whole network (if so, show us the numbers)

 
What did not get an answer to, was the question “what gave them the right to unilaterally do this”?
 
Had the situation that they consider so dire been brought to the board with supporting documentation and then the board have been asked to back such a legal action, we would be talking a different story.
 
Somewhere in there would have been the step where the local KPFA board would file a well-documented complaint to the national Pacifica board, who actually manage the network. 
 
By the way, the judge seemed to think the same thing about these guys lack of standing and lack of support for their accusations, and then summarily threw the whole receivership request out. 
 
The December meeting then took a long time electing board officers because discussion of the lawsuit was all over the public comments period and the election comments period.  In the end, the majority faction fell into line like Republicans and voted in officers who included a lawsuit plaintiff.
 
A plaintiff in the receivership suit now leads the local board of the foundation that she just sued.
 
We had this in Oakland for many years on the school board, where the public schools were being run with a pro privatization majority backed by a billionaire’s movement.  It is only so analogous, but it feels like we are down a similar rabbit hole. 
 
And now we will have to finish discussing the motion to remove the 3 board members involved next month.  I asked for a written abstract from both sides with links to supporting documentation WELL BEFORE the next meeting.  I have no idea if we will get that.  I will write the board secretary. 
 
So what do I say? 
 
I have no idea because I don’t know how to talk to people who have done a thing like that. 
What will they do next?  Who will they do it to?
 
We have another week to find a way to talk to each other. 
 
Next meeting, Jan 9^th, 11 AM
https://zoom.us/j/98653918465?pwd=UkpqZjZQdkNLNmhtU3JPbEJCNzRWUT09
Meeting ID: 986 5391 8465
Passcode:
320657
 

A stressful meeting

 A stressful meeting

The weekend before Thanksgiving I attended one of the most bizarre meetings in my short 30 years living in the East Bay and being somewhat active in local politics.  

It was the KPFA radio station’s Local Station Board. 

Most of this year I focused on the Oakland school board race, so I ask to be forgiven for not keeping the fact that I was first runner up on the KPFA board election the year prior at the front of my mind.  

The fact that one can not serve at KPFA in any function and also run for office or be an elected official slipped the mind of one of the KPFA board members as he ran for Richmond City Council. 

I got a call; he was off the board, and I was on, if I was still willing to serve.  

Of course I am willing to serve.  I feel that it is important to have at least one media outlet that is not corporate or non-profit corporate and really belongs to the community.  That might sound abstract, but in practice, it is not.  This is the one radio station in our area that the private sector has no influence over.  No ads, no donations, no underwriting.  That also means that the station does not have a lot of money.  The only cash it does have is the dues we members pay.  My own contribution is something like $10 a month on automatic payments.  That makes me a member and my spot on the board is as a member representative.  Staff is also represented.  

There are some things I would like to see us do better: 

• Local news. 

• Investigative reporting. 

• Recruitment of youth. 

• Renewal of the on-air cast. 

• Volunteer reporters. 

And in all these things, I think we need to expand the listener base and the membership. 

As far as I am concerned, every show currently on the air should be actively doing each and every one of these things or at least actively working to help them happen.  

Well, we certainly did not talk about any of this during our November meeting.  

What did we talk about?  A good half hour was spent discussing if the public question and comment period would be the first half hour of the meeting or the last.  Finally, I proposed that we do it the way the public was expecting that day, and TRY the other way at the upcoming meetings and then discuss how it goes.  People went along and we got back to business.  

That was unnecessarily stressful.  

There was a part of the meeting that I am not allowed to divulge.  Let’s just say that emotionally when it was over that discussion reminded me of a couple’s quarrel where both kept circling back around to where they took offense, with the original molehill built into a mountain based on “how could you” and “this obviously means” type of talk as we all ran around like Asterix and Obilix covering our heads because the sky is about to fall.  

The offended harped on for a long time but yet did not seem to feel the need to moderate their own language as they decried a member’s language in the light of what they thought it implied.  

By the time we went back to regular session, it felt like a relief.  

And then we got to the big item of the day.  The report back from the Pacifica National Board.  

Each local station board elects members to the national board, where most of the administration of the network takes place.  I think KPFA had three, but hey, this was my first meeting.  

My friend, who talked me into running for KPFA board, reported back saying that he works on keeping the antennas working and such stuff, so did not have much to say about the financial crisis affecting the network. It felt as if his work was off topic.  Infighting was on topic, but broadcasting was not.  

Then what we got was not a report; it was an editorial.  If the harsh language from before was not enough, we got dismissive descriptions of national board business saying that the national board does not know what it is doing, has no plans and we got several repeats of how KPFA is the only station to raise any money and the other 4 stations are just riding along.  

By the time the meeting was over, all I really know about the National Board is that the majority of the Local Board really does not go along with the program. 

Over the past years I had heard a lot of different things about the local board majority at KPFA, most of which I did not pay much attention to.  Now I got to see it in person and was really disappointed.  There are a couple of people in there that I have known for years and once valued as positive assets to the local progressive community.  

I do not see how any of this dynamic helps us build unity around dealing with the financial issues or gets us on the track of building a renewed, 21st century radio station that means something to the youth of the San Francisco Bay Area.  

My 70 year old buddy who talked me into getting involved has told us all, several times, that when he was growing up in the Berkeley Area, KPFA was what people tuned into in order to know what was really going on. 

KPFA is still sort of that, but we could get off our high horses and do a better job. 

Next meeting this weekend.  

New tenant on Piedmont Ave

There is a new tenant on Piedmont Ave

He has taken over the now vacant Starbucks on the corner of 41^st.

I guess that there was not that enough money to be made there

By the hour, by the square foot, per barista

Selling coffee

For Starbucks

Across the side street

Gaylord’s coffee eeks out a living

Selling coffee that Russ roasts himself

And has very young people serve to us

Behind his censored mural

Along the wall

Where some guests sit outside and smoke

When it is raining,

There are no tables on 41^st street

And the new tenant in the old Starbucks

Finds his shelter almost dry

With room for his bag and bicycle

His blonde hair

Half beard

Youthful face

And obvious distress

Are all familiar to me

I’ve seen him around

He has lived on Piedmont Ave. for a while

Just not at Starbucks

On a rainy day

850 words about our fires that the Chronicle did not print

We should be outraged to live in a state that alternates between fires and floods and yet does so little to prevent either. 

So, now it is fire.  Again.  

My former mother in law needs to be evacuated for her health because she needs to breath air without smoke and has health concerns that she uses electricity to cope with. People died in her town in their last fire. 

Last time I wrote on this it was about a flood.  

A town where I like to catch dinner was under a few feet of water.  Many businesses were damaged, some residences too. That town has been flooded several times. 

Both the fires and the floods are made worse by bad land management coupled with ineffective building codes.  Our state’s response to these long-understood problems of fire ecology and watershed protection is the same as our nation’s response to climate change: insufficient.  

We blame climate change, we blame Trumpian budget cuts, we blame PG&E, all with some justification.  

But the bigger picture is formed with long standing inconvenient truths.  

We need to set little controlled fires to avoid larger blazes that get totally out of hand.  

The native peoples have been saying this, the forestry people have been saying this and environmental biologists have been saying this since before I was born, and I am not young.  

We need to reforest and replant a buffer distance out from all of our rivers and streams. 

When it rains it should be an opportunity, not an emergency.  Water needs to slow down in forested land as it runs off.  When you see high water that is brown with dirt, that is our topsoil washing away out of an unhealthy watershed.  We need strategically placed reforestation and wetlands to keep the water and land both healthy, let water seep back into the depleted aquifers, give us fish runs and become natural fire brakes.  And sometimes water just needs to rise, so don’t build there. 

Why do these two simple fixes not happen? 

My guess is because it requires that two powerful economic groups be regulated and pay a good share of the cost of change.  

They are the agricultural sector and the building sector.  

On the one hand, the kinds of land use zoning and building code upgrades that would turn our regular fire and flood seasons into non-emergency events will cut into profits. 

And on the other hand, those with large amounts of private property have a habit of resisting any and all kinds of regulation.  They keep us all asking why they should not be allowed to do what they want with their own land and real estate projects.  

The question deserves an answer because nobody should be regulated or restricted without due cause.  

In this case, they should not be allowed to manage lands or build buildings that easily burn, and there are places where we never should build, farm or graze cows.  In many parts of the state we have developments that were permitted directly in harms way, or in ways that make harm.  

The reason the rest of us should have a right to keep business from repetitively burning down our state is part of the same thinking that does not allow anyone near a school to build a dynamite factory. 

To be fair, if one thinks about it, a lot of us have benefited from the housing business and the farm production and have participated in the lifestyles they afford us. The fixes are simple to understand, but will have all kinds of complex local issues to deal with when put into effect. 

We will all have to help pay for the change.  

Now that the state is on fire again, let’s take a moment to think about how bad it really is.  We need to get out of denial and do as much as we can, the same way we have prepared for earthquakes.  

Of course, the technical and political part is in no way easy. We will end up moving whole communities, retrofitting homes, setting aside land and finding better use for our waste waters as we manage other difficult changes. Our old water and fire problems exist in a time of other challenges. 

In many ways climate change, fire ecology and seasonal rain patterns along with everything we need to do to get off fossil fuels add up to a serious, statewide rebuild. 

That rebuild is also a great opportunity, but we have hardly even started.  

Don Macleay,
Oakland

The author has written more extensively on this subject
http://donmacleay.blogspot.com/2019/03/california-at-waters-edge.html