This week City Council President Nikki Fortunato Bas and Councilmembers Carroll Fife, Noel Gallo, and Dan Kalb presented their amendments to the Mayor’s proposed budget. Working closely together, Councilmembers and community organizations reprioritized budget areas that will bring more funding and resources to create vibrant jobs and worker protections, affordable housing and vital services for our unhoused neighbors, library and park maintenance, violence prevention and public safety to Oakland. As CM Carroll Fife noted, “What is radical is doing what is rational in 2021.” Our partner and ally organizations, East Bay Alliance for a Sustainable Economy (EBASE) and Faith Alliance for a Moral Economy (FAME), Asian Pacific Environmental Network (APEN), IFPTE 21, SEIU 1021, and BAMBD CDC joined the press conference to share their support of the councilmembers’ amendments.
The proposed amendments to the Mayor’s budget will modernize our town and reinvest in much needed community services we have been demanding since the start of the pandemic. It’s time to refocus funding towards city resources to create a Just Recovery plan that centers our people for the next two years. We must pass a budget that invests more than just a token 2% of the general fund towards arts and culture, libraries and recreational programs, and violence prevention. We reject the Mayor’s business-as-usual budget without the inclusion of the Councilmembers’ community-led amendments which will reallocate resources from OPD’s bloated funding to our neighborhoods and services that actually keep us safe.
The amendments prioritize:
1. Affordable housing and homelessness solutions,
2. Public safety and violence prevention,
3. Good jobs and a vibrant economy, and
4. Clean, healthy and sustainable neighborhoods.
These amendments from our Councilmembers are an important step towards securing a People’s Just Recovery Budget. We now need you to let city councilmembers and the mayor know you support these amendments. Call and email your city councilmembers and show up to the upcoming City Council meetings this month to demand Councilmembers approve the proposed amendments to the Mayor’s budget.