Oakland Parking Enforcement Reform Initiative - a follow-up

It's good that Oaklanders are responding to the Oakland Parking Enforcement Reform Initiative, but it's not in any way my idea. There are aspects of the proposal I do not agree with, but that's not my role as I elected to participate in the process.

My desire is to see a policy-formation process started that leads to some meaningful change in our parking law and enforcement system. That process is starting.   It's easy to argue.  Anyone can do it and it takes little thought.  It takes less energy to destroy than to create. But it take a lot of thought and patience to work to bring disparate ideas of different people together.  

There are more people out there who want change than those who don't. And I have to laugh at the one's who say "I follow the laws.." because that's not the point. They really tend to be selfish and refuse to try and think beyond themselves.

This just in: it's not about you.

It's about protecting Oaklanders who have little of means against a system, the City of Oakland, that's just trying to raise money to make payroll. The Oakland Parking Problem is such that we have people who have four-figure and five-figure salaries who are forced via the fines process to pay to save the six-figure-salary jobs in the City of Oakland.

That's what this is really all about.  Otherwise, why not have a 15-percent across the board salary cut?  That would really make a difference, and everyone knows it.  Cut the City of Oakland salaries to reflect decreased property tax revenue.  Then, when property tax  revenue goes up, we can increase the City of Oakland salaries back to where they were.

We're in a very bad economy with what I predict will be a double-dip recession mid-year. We're not producing enough jobs for the people who need them. Oakland has a 17 percent unemployment rate.  To suddenly turn-up the pressure on car driving Oaklanders in the middle of this just to make payroll is abusing the government against the very people it's supposed to serve.

Enough is enough.

So there's a large group of good people - and getting larger - that want change.  I will not for a second tolerate massively sick people contacting me and being nasty because they have nothing better to do. Yeah, it does come with the territory, but I find in the 21st Century, one has to reestablish their territorial bounds.  That's what I'm doing.

(See, in the old media days, people were more respectful and less angry.  The letters-to-the-editor that were published were logical and to the point.  Crackpot letters were tossed into the trash can.  Now, I love New Media, but this idea of free-expression tends to allow nutcase behavior.)  

Here's my bottom-line; we put the idea of many out there to change it. If a person's got a problem with the idea, then share it, but don't attribute it to me. Get involved in changing this. Those few who see me in public and don't say anything to me (and I don't know what they look like), then try to bug me in a really sicko fashion online, are really not good people and have certain moral problems.  Don't be that person.

A good person can disagree and maintain composure in person, not via text message; by contrast, the people I'm referring to are really sick and express themselves only online and for all I know just want to do harm to me for being a black guy who has a platform.

Please.

I'm happy to help people get out the word about an issue, and talk about it. The bottom line is Oakland needs to change in this area, and it will. Sooner, not later.

Happy New Year!

Oakland Parking Enforcement Reform Initiative - a 2010 proposal

The Oakland Parking Enforcement Reform Initiative is gaining steam.  I've been asked to now make public our efforts, so this blog post is to get things rolling.

Which is a weird consideration because they've been rolling along already!

A group of concerned Oakland citizens have been meeting and communicating to fashion a comprehensive Oakland Parking Enforcement Reform Initiative for presentation to Oakland voters in 2010.

The diverse team consists of both Oakland business owners and residents and I'm really, frankly, surprised at how smooth and easy our meetings and communications have been. Oaklanders are used to disparate groups not being able to see eye-to-eye on even the smallest issues; not so here. Yes, there are disagreements, but they tend to come to a rapid end. It's really cool to be a part of.

Everyone involved has been energized to act - if even to just be kept 'in the loop' and provide informal feedback – because in some way large or small they've been harmed by the City of Oakland's aggressive parking enforcement process and outrageously high parking fees.

There are stories of cars booted and towed that were owned by working women with kids, while those persons were present.  But even more troubling is the rate of ticketing; many Oaklanders are being ticketed even between 2 AM and 5 AM!   If a person's car is just one-half-inch into the red zone at 4 AM, it gains a ticket.

Th result is a lot of Oaklanders that have more than five tickets, making them "tow" candidates.  The City of Oakland has spawned a level of political anger I've never seen before.

The general concern is the City of Oakland's balancing its budget on the backs of Oakland's poor in the middle of a bad economy with over 17 percent unemployed in Oakland. The group, to a person, has been determined to eliminate Oakland's ability to harm its poorest people in this way.

This is the structure of the initiative as it has been discussed to date. I stress that this is not singularly any one person's idea, and anyone who makes claims to the contrary is not informed of the truth. Moreover, the initiative is a work-in-progress, although we're rapidly approaching consensus. The objective has been to keep it simple.

Here it is as of this writing:

1.All parking meters will be taken out of service; time limits will be enforced by chalking tires.
2.Tickets for time violations will be capped at $20 and all late fees and penalties at $50.
3.The city will not tow vehicles for city parking enforcement rules other than in case of an emergency or blocking of access for emergency vehicles, or vehicle abandonment.
4.No vehicle will be ticketed or towed for blocking a driveway without the consent of the owner of the driveway.
5.Cars towed for DMV holds must have a city employee present to authorize the impoundments, and a good faith effort is required to have the owner of the vehicle present to get their personal property; personal property can't be removed by anyone other than the car's owner.
6.Towing and impoundment fees are capped at $300 per vehicle.
7.Proceeds from impounded vehicles that are sold at auction pay the DMV and City of Oakland fees first, the impound fees second, and remaining funds are kept by the owner of the vehicle.
8.After a vehicle has been impounded forfeited and sold, the original owner of the car has no more parking fine obligations to the City of Oakland.
9.The original owner of the car must be given the first option to buy back their car at the accepted minimum public auction price before the auction is held.
10.If any single provision of this initiative is found by the courts to be invalid for any reason, all other provisions are to remain in effect.

The next meeting of the Oakland Parking Initiative Group will be in January at a date to be determined. If you want to get involved drop me an email or Facebook or Twitter message (as this is also on Facebook and Twitter) and I'll put you on our mailing list.

Happy Kwanzaa! December 26th is the first day of Kwanzaa

Kwanzaa is a seven-day celebration of family, community, and culture. It's an African American holiday; born of the first harvest celebrations of Africa. In a custom similar to Hanukkah, Kwanzaa is marked by candle-lighting and gift giving.

This Kwanzaa opening ceremony was held at Youth Uprising in Oakland in 2009:



Greg Hodge, who ran for Oakland's District Three City Council seat in 2008, is also Minister Greg Hodge of Wo'se Church in Oakland. In this video, he talks about the importance of language and names in Kwanzaa. Greg, as usual, offers great words of wisdom:



If you're looking for a good guide for the preparation of Kwanzaa-related cuisine, check out the new website Cuisine Noir.

Stay tuned and Happy Kwanzaa!

Thomas McDonnell on law, racism - Oakland lawyer turns Oakland artist

Oakland lawyer turns Oakland artist - Thomas McDonnell

Just when Charlie Sheen, Umar Farouk Abdul Mutallab, and Michael Jackson's doctors need him, Thomas McDonnell, a well-known Oakland, California criminal defense attorney every bit as good as Gloria Allred, quit the practice.

Thomas McDonnell

Thomas is now a digital artist (and very happy) specializing in creating art using scanners. But why McDonnell - who comes from a family of lawyers, based in Oakland and the San Francisco Bay Area – quit practicing law is a fascinating story. I know a lot of lawyers - from Oakland City Attorney John Russo and Personal Injury Lawyer Robert G. Shock, to Alameda County Counsel Richard Winnie and Peralta Community College Chancellor Elihu Harris - and many talk about what they like and dislike about the practice. Quite a few quit. Some go into politics; others take a completely different turn. That's Thomas.

I met with my friend and fellow singer at The Alley on Grand Avenue, to talk about it on a lovely fall Wednesday at Lake Chalet Restaurant at Lake Merritt; the result is this 25 minute video (with one brief section a discussion with two other Oaklanders about the history of Lake Merritt).

We started our talk in the middle of a panic: Thomas was in search of an extension cord to power his scanner. Fortunately, Lake Chalet staff provided one, and we were off to the races. Thomas has a technique where he uses the scanner as a camera. The device produces fascinating images of ordinary scenes, like he and I sitting on the patio of the restaurant. Where did he get the idea?

"I was spending my nights processing autopsy autographs taken by some cop, of the burial, exhumation, and autopsy of Eddie Araujo, which was horrible. And it kind of got to me. It was the first time (working) after my mother had died. I found myself walking out in the middle of the night, just walking around. Just to clear my head of these horrible images."

(Eddie Araujo was the transgender Fremont woman killed because her attackers thought she was a woman and not a man. For legal reasons we could not talk at length about the case.)

Thomas went out with his best friend James Serwa and his wife Lisa, for an Oakland Open Studios Tour, and discovered the work of Jan Camp. She made images primarily by scanning flowers; Thomas saw his next practice, and started by "liberating flowers" for use in his newly-discovered passion for art work.

But with that, Thomas also felt overwhelmed in practicing criminal law in the East Bay.

"I never felt that I was doing a good job for my clients. Everyone told me I was a great lawyer. I was very successful." The problem was that Thomas didn't feel he was giving the client "what the case deserved". So he got out, but not just for reasons of workload or ugly images. Racism played a factor, too.

Thomas said that the racism that exists in the socioeconomic problems and in the lack of police officers and resources that come to play in cases was hard to deal with. "Crimes are committed by poor people," he said. "And it seems more poor people are people of color – black, Hispanic and elderly – are arrested and convicted of crimes than white people (or) Asian people. (They) Seem to not get as convicted or caught."

I pointed out that in San Francisco's Marina District I've attended parties of mostly white folks where at times there was cocaine (which I don't do). It occurred to me that cops aren't in that area; they patrol the poor black and Latino areas of San Francisco. Thomas said "The cops would be at the parties doing the drugs."

Thomas gave another example of racism in the way Oakland police treated a black person versus a white person today, 2009. A black man stopped by a police officer and arrested for a felony of any kind after dark would be given a curfew. But the idea of limiting that person's time out at night played into the overall racist question of what a black man was doing out late at night.

"So you get what happened with (Lovell) Mixon (who shot four Oakland officers in March) and the officers. And I knew all of them. It's tragedy all around. You get these kids who live their lives anticipating being arrested."

Thomas says that there are good and bad people in the law, law enforcement, and among the so-called criminals he's represented. The line between good people and bad people is far more blurred than many understand.

He told me a story of how the Alameda County District Attorney staffers would meet with lawyers in "the old days" at what was called The Courthouse Bar, and is known today as The Ruby Room on 14th Street near Lakeside Drive across from the Oakland Library. Thomas said they would decide cases over a bottle of scotch. "They got a lot of work done," he said. But Thomas says it had its limitations. The racism was different in that at the time the lawyers didn't know that what they were doing and how they did it was racist.

Thomas McDonnell's' advice for new lawyers

Thomas says that new lawyers should attend to how they spend their day and enjoy what they do. "The law is a wonderful career because it can lead you to, anywhere," he said. You can do anything you want to do.

Including becoming a digital artist.