Carroll’s 2020 Platform For Oakland D3
Thank you for taking the time to read my platform on how to build a better Oakland for all. My theory of governance is that when we address the experiences of the most marginalized, we can improve conditions for everyone. For example, if we find solutions for Black unhoused people living on the streets of Oakland, we will have addressed 70 percent of our city’s homelessness problem. A primary function of government should be to care for society, particularly in the face of unregulated market forces. Our movement-based campaign and administration will do just that.
This platform was developed based on the outcomes of the 2018 Oakland Equity Indicators report, published by the City of Oakland’s Department of Race and Equity and City University of New York’s (CUNY) Institute for State and Local Governance. Out of all the cities in the U.S. where equity reports were conducted, Oakland had the worst outcomes: we scored a 33.5 out of 100. The report highlighted that “almost every indicator of well-being shows troubling disparities by race.”
One of the primary goals of this campaign is to eliminate racial disparities in Oakland in order to improve the overall health and resiliency of the entire city. We seek to make the hashtags #PeopleOverProfit and #HousingIsAHumanRight reality. We believe that this approach of targeting resources to the most marginalized members of our community will address the crisis of homelessness on our streets, improve services delivered to residents by City workers, increase the quality of living and standard of life in the district for ALL residents and create a healthy and safe Oakland for generations to come.
— Carroll Fife, candidate for City Council in Oakland D3
Housing is a Human Right
In Oakland there are more vacant homes than unsheltered people. That’s because Oakland‘s elected leaders have allowed the “free market” to make our housing policy decisions for us, rather than ensuring the human right to housing. As long as there is a profit motive to deprive people of shelter, this housing crisis will continue. We must de-commodify housing, which, like health care, never should have been commodified in the first place.
As councilmember in D3, Carroll would protect the human right to housing by:
➔ Creating publicly-funded programs to employ Oakland residents to convert abandoned and dilapidated homes to affordable housing for low income/no income people;
➔ Rezoning to encourage mixed-income (50/50) development in high-income areas;
➔ Passing measures like the Moms for Housing Act that would allow tenants to purchase the homes they live in for market value when they are for sale;
➔ Creating temporary, transitional safe spaces for people without housing, particularly working mothers with children
➔ Protecting tenants from unfair evictions and unjustified rent hikes by working to repeal Costa-Hawkins and expanding rent control protections to cover more tenants;
➔ Funding and expanding land trusts with public resources;
➔ Using Measure Q dollars to improve conditions at encampments as a temporary solution to getting people who want to be housed into transitional housing;
➔ Recapitalizing the Permanent Affordability Fund through the CARES Act, FEMA funding and a progressive tax on gross receipts;
➔ Establishing a Right to Return for displaced Oakland residents, based on the Portland model;
➔ Passing a local speculation tax that would prevent house flipping giants like Wedgewood from driving up housing costs;
➔ Advocating for statewide legislative action like amending the California constitution to make Housing a Human Right through ACA 10.
Economic Justice and a Black New Deal
Black Americans, especially frontline workers and small business owners, deserve a new deal. Grocery store and fast food workers are being forced into life-threatening situations while struggling to pay inflated rents. The pandemic is killing Black people at double the rate of white people. A huge wave of forced evictions looms over our community. The only thing that can stop it is a New Deal - but this time around, it will be a Black-led New Deal, benefiting everyone, with the people most impacted by this crisis leading the solutions.
As councilmember in D3, Carroll will fight against the policies and practices that create and sustain poverty by:
➔ Investing in public programs to train Oakland residents for green tech and hospitality jobs so that people born and raised in Oakland can benefit from the tech and real estate booms driving our housing crisis;
➔ End discrimination in employment by supporting Prop 16;
➔ Raise the minimum wage along the path to legislating a Universal Basic Income for all Oaklanders;
➔ Develop a local progressive tax structure which requires wealthier businesses to contribute their fair share;
➔ Pending the outcome of Prop 15, a tax on existing single-family, owner-occupied homes over a certain dollar value, focusing on luxury housing occupied by the top one percent of earners, modeled on New York’s “mansion tax”;
➔ Make permanent legislation passed by Nikki Fortunato Bas and Sheng Thao to ensure paid sick leave, maternity leave and fair scheduling for all Oakland workers during the pandemic;
➔ Pass legislation to institute a Black New Deal
Climate and Environmental Justice for All
Everyone in Oakland should be able to breathe, free of environmental and police terrorism. Kids who grow up in West Oakland have a life expectancy 15 years less than kids born in the Oakland hills and much of that difference comes down to air quality.
With our air quality already so poor, West Oakland cannot afford a coal terminal. Our City Council signed a contract with developer Phil Tagami that failed to prohibit coal, despite the fact that community members were already speaking out about the possibility, and now we’re tied up in court with huge costs trying to defend our coal ban. All so we can maintain a status quo of poor air quality that is killing people, especially now during the pandemic.
As councilmember for D3, Carroll would work to improve air quality and protect our shared global climate by:
➔ Supporting efforts by the Port of Oakland to end diesel pollution in West Oakland by upgrading trucks to electric vehicles;
➔ Fighting illegal dumping by hiring workers to fill empty positions;
➔ Cleaning and repairing Oakland streets by investing more resources in under-served neighborhoods like West Oakland;
➔ Using all legal means to block the proposed coal terminal in West Oakland;
➔ Investing in the Oakland Climate Justice Plan, developed in partnership with community service and environmental groups.
Re-Engineering Public Safety
Public safety is a huge challenge in Oakland because it is defined narrowly. We believe that being safe means access to safe housing, stellar education, healthcare and living wage work. It's clear that a reduction in Oakland homicides must happen. The homicides, gun violence and robberies that occur in Oakland are a direct result of disinvestment in our communities and youth. The violence, particularly gun violence, in Oakland is a direct result of this disinvestment. In Oakland we spend more of our general fund on militarized policing than any other city in America — but this approach is not working.
As people across the nation rise up to demand an end to racist police violence, and as our unfunded liabilities put the City of Oakland on a trajectory toward insolvency, it is time to relocate our public resources to preventing violence and avoiding bankruptcy, instead of reacting to it with more violence and throwing our tax dollars away. By moving just half of the public funding we spend on policing in Oakland into programs that are actually proven to prevent violence, we can build a safer community for everyone. As councilmember in D3, Carroll Fife will divest from militarized policing to invest in community-based violence prevention programs.
Carroll would save hundreds of millions in public dollars by:
➔ Reassigning traffic stops to civilian staff, as the City of Berkeley recently moved to do.
➔ Responding to 911 calls regarding non-violent crimes with community-based services including mental health crisis intervention, as in Albuquerque, NM