Green Party Urges Rejection of Measure I

Green Party Position on Measure Parcel Tax:

This is not a time to play games. This parcel tax
is a carefully crafted political game. Many if not most
of the participants in this game have little awareness
about how unreal and cruel the elements of the
game are, actually. To start with, if this parcel tax is
passed, residents of Oakland will be paying for five years but
the budget benefit to the City would end after about a
year. At that point all the departments and
programs that are supposed to be “restored” will
fall back into jeopardy – but residents will be
paying for one year’s service for four more
years. It goes without saying, that those with the least –
both in terms of resources and political voice -
will pay the most in either direct tax payments,
and/or increased prices and fees, and/or increased rent.
After the year of “restoration,” all residents
would be presented with service cuts since it is
unlikely that enough people could be fooled twice. What
the Mayor and most of the City Council is asking us to do
is not a solution that is worth the pain.

This tax emerges out of the divisions in
Oakland’s politics. The Council was not, even,
unanimous in its vote to put this on the ballot. The most
controversial Council Member, Ignacio De La
Fuente, objected to this being put on the ballot. If the
money from this tax could have been directed at police
services without any loss to OPD of resources
from the rest of the General Fund, he would have been the
leader of putting this on the ballot. This is another
wrinkle in the political debate that more
recently intensified over Mayor Brown’s Measure
FF-GG-HH-II, then again in Council Member Nadel’s
Measure R, and then again in Nadel’s and De La
Fuentes’ Measure Y. The lesson of the series being that
residents from the loudest communities want more cops but
they are unable to convince a minority of
residents to pay for more cops without a light sprinkling of
youth and, nominally, crime prevention programs. That is
why this parcel tax measure describes the
expenditures “restored” so generally.

For those who believe that we must do something
rather than nothing, let us tell you that that is not the
choice. Undeniable the City’s budget needs major
restructuring. When a majority of Oaklanders
simply want to hold on to what (they consider to be)
critical City services, those resources should be
internally available. That is the meaning of standing on your
own; what we expect of all Oakland residents so that we
do not pull each other down. Our livelihood
should be dependent on the efforts and policies of those
who love Oakland, not on what corporation we could entice
here, what stadium we can build, or on pushing
residents out of Oakland through gentrification. The
Mayor and the majority of the City Council lack the
boldness of leadership required to restructure
the City budget to meet the priority needs of Oakland
residents. They do not know how to do it and they will
not learn to do it in a year.

The Green Party believes that the Mayor and the
Council leadership deserve no further chances. Oakland
residents will have to make this happen the difficult
way. Vote NO on Measure I, the Parcel
Tax.

(From local Green Party web site: http://www.macleay4mayor.org/html/oakland_greens_meeting.html)