Letters to the Editor - November 17, 2025
Payouts attract more lawsuits; commissioners need better screening; angling for tax distracts from governing; the superb value of uncertainty; and more letters from our readers
Letters is a curated selection of the thoughts, ideas, observations and questions we receive from Oakland Report readers. The selections are ones that we, the editors, find interesting, noteworthy, or otherwise worth elevating in a formal letters column.
The views expressed in the Letters column do not necessarily reflect the views of Oakland Report or its contributing authors. Letters may be edited for clarity, length, and conciseness.
Once you pay, they never go away
Re: Oakland has hella lawsuits, Oct. 20
I love the Oakland Report. May it live long and prosper. I wish there were one like it for Alameda. However, I was amused by this quote:
“The reality is that lawyers are expensive, trial outcomes are unpredictable, and it’s often cheaper and safer in the financial sense to pay a settlement and make the problem go away.”
Except it doesn’t go away. From a time not too long ago, and a place not too far away, some unfashionable words of wisdom:
“If once you have paid him the Dane-geld, you never get rid of the Dane.”
Bill Meakin
Alameda
Bill, thank you for your note. We love the Rudyard Kipling quote – very apropos.1 And who knows? Maybe someone will create an Alameda Report. In the meantime, let us know if there’s an issue in Alameda city governance that you think needs a closer look.
Angling for more taxes distracts from governing
Re: “Death and taxes” - Oakland City Council is the one who knocks, October 27
I just read your October 27 report on death and taxes. It’s a real eye-opener. I’ve been an Oakland resident and home owner since 1977. I also was a small business owner from 1973 until I retired in 2023 here in Oakland.
Over the course of those years, I have held my nose and voted for a number of the property tax increases, hoping that the money would be wisely spent. Disappointment is a polite description of what I really feel.
If the city council used as much analysis actually trying to provide services rather than figuring out ways to “market” yet again more tax increases to the voters of Oakland, we might actually have improved services. I’m not holding my breath.
I really appreciate the clarity of your work.
George Dedekian
Oakland
Little coverage of OUSD out there
Re: Oakland schools budgeting 101: a primer on OUSD’s budget process, October 30
Wanted to reach out and say thank you for your thorough reporting on Oakland Unified School District. We are at such a pivotal point in OUSD and there’s very little coverage happening or information readily available to the public (without tuning into hours of painful meetings). Appreciate your work on this!
Emily Wasserman
Oakland
Left Oakland but still care about it
Re: History repeating itself at OUSD, November 1
Fun to see my letter in print today – in good company with Claire Lomax with whom I collaborated for many years. Correction though – I live in Concord now. Similar to letter-writer RJ Phillips, I had an opportunity to leave Oakland. After 29 years of trying to impact the course of city and county politics, with the fiscal structural deficits both in school and city spending and the criminal activity that just wouldn’t quit, I felt like it would be prudent to migrate.
Ben Stiegler
Concord
Ben, thank you for the clarification. One doesn’t need to reside in Oakland to care about (and be affected by) the city’s and school district’s governance. We appreciate you sharing your perspective.
City website shows wrong building
Re: $91 million for permanent supportive housing, Agenda Watch November 4
Great reporting as always!
I’ve been trying to get the mayor’s team and Oaklandside’s attention that they are using a misleading image for the Mark Twain Homes project at 35th and Lyon. The image used (that you used too) is from a building in Berkeley from the same developer.
Fun fact, I live across the street from the Mark Twain location!
Kim Ayers
Empower Oakland
Thanks, Kim, for alerting us. We originally captioned the rendering as the Mark Twain Homes project based on how the image is portrayed on the City of Oakland’s website. But as you point out, the image actually is a rendering of the 26FIFTY development at 2650 Telegraph Ave. in Berkeley.
Oakland Report alerted the City of Oakland about this, and we asked if there is a rendering of the Mark Twain Homes project. As of this update, the city hasn’t responded to our inquiry, and the 26FIFTY rendering is still being portrayed on the city’s website as if it is a rendering of the Mark Twain Homes project.
City council needs to do better job picking commissioners
Re: Outgoing police commissioners accuse police chief and blame city for “anti-commission harassment”, Nov. 11
If Oakland is going to have a redundant Police Commission, then the elected officials who select the commissioners are going to have to do a better job of recruiting and selecting the commissioners, and not just defaulting to whatever half-bright ideological cronies looking to make a name for themselves in progressive circles happen to be around. The departing commissioners’ proposed submission to the court is proof enough that they were not suitable for the job.
John BC
via Substack comment
OPD screwed up, but selection committee missed the mark, too
Re: Outgoing police commissioners accuse police chief and blame city for “anti-commission harassment”, Nov. 11
I watched the videos of the police commission’s initial selection committee and came away with this impression: payback. The selection committee seemed only to want ex-cons and others who felt they’d been abused in dealings with law enforcement. There was no talk about knowledge or experience in policy development, interpretation, and implementation needed for a role like this. It was painful to watch, given the level of control commission members would have.
Some who were selected refused to submit to background investigations, yet they wanted access to sensitive and confidential information. Some resisted going on the one police ride-along required of commissioners, which is intended to give commissioners a sense of the challenges of the work the police they were to oversee do.
However, it’s important to keep in mind that some officers in OPD have screwed up big time over the years. Not long before the vote on Measure LL, there was the disgusting Celeste Guap scandal and the resulting attempt by command staff to cover it up.2 Officers I spoke with at the time were just sickened by those actions and knew that the public would hold all of them responsible. They said it was not a great time to be on patrol.
At this point, with so much uncertainty and so many departures, OPD’s future seems bleak.
Claire Lomax
Oakland
Thank you, Claire, for your comments. In the next installment of our series on citizen-run commissions, Oakland Report will take a closer look at the citizen-run Oakland Public Safety Planning and Oversight Commission (OPSPOC), which now controls the allocation of $45 million annually in public safety tax revenue.
Fed up and taxed enough
Re: “Death and taxes” - Oakland City Council is the one who knocks, October 27
I never vote for new taxes in Oakland or Alameda County. Why? I am taxed enough already, although I’ve never been nor am I currently a member of what used to be called the Tea Party.
I am 67, own a small home and it’s really too much. I’m retired and live on Social Security. It is the property taxes that take such a gigantic toll on my life and perpetually cause anxiety. I finally figured out how to pay my property taxes monthly but I pay over $6,000 a year. Who can afford to basically pay what is nearly 50% of my income every month? I can’t. Some time ago I borrowed money from someone (not a bank) to make my life a little easier and to pay my taxes.
Yeah, I’ve had to tighten my belt. Long gone are the trips to Costco for stuff. Long gone are the mini-shopping trips in my neighborhood for more stuff I can live without. My basics are taken care of. I have (SNAP) food in the fridge and freezer, pay my exorbitant PG&E bills, cable and phone.
I don’t know how the city prioritizes. I pay my taxes for what was a new pothole agenda. There are still streets in my immediate area that remain untouched. A few of the largest and worst have been dealt with, thank you. But much of it remains untouched. I know it used to cost a million dollars per mile to pave streets, it can only be more now.
There are stop lights and stop signs all over the city that are hidden by overgrown trees and bushes. I pay to have that removed, so why are the leaves still occluding the signs? It is a hazard, city-wide.
So, city council, just how are you spending my money? I don’t go to city council meetings any longer and I read what I can, but it’s tough to get around and I never go out in the dark.
Phil Tagami is going to win his lawsuit? Good for him. I’m footing the bill? Great. It would be a sight to see if any of our local public employees cut a hundred thousand from their own paychecks. That would go a long way.
Fed up and taxed enough already, thanks.
Erica Gleason
Oakland
Piedmont Ave. neighborhood
See this related article:
Quantum wave of despair
Re: The Infinite Unknown, November 8
Great piece. But for those of us incapable of grasping the quantum wave equation, this fifty-year Oakland resident offers a lifetime of observation in one simple truth: Oakland is hopeless. Absolutely nothing will ever change this. Not even Jerry Brown could do it. Certainly our Ron-Dellums-reboot new mayor cannot,3 and her election alone demonstrates the depth of Oakland’s problems. So live here if you want. I do. But stop dreaming that anyone can make a difference.
Robert Polevoi
Oakland
Robert, thank you for your comment, and for reading Oakland Report. We certainly can relate to your doubt that Oakland will ever solve its problems.
We think of it this way. Doubt is an essential part of the human condition. It sparks our curiosity, which leads us to seek the truth. Seeking the truth, no matter where it may take us, leads to growth. This, in turn opens a path for things to change, in understanding if no more, and perhaps to change in fact — that is, to make a difference.
With respect to the willingness of Oakland’s elected officials to plumb the depths of Oakland’s problems, much less to solve them — we will continue to reserve, as you do, a healthy dose of doubt.
Surely superb
Re: The Infinite Unknown, November 8
Superb (I think but am not totally sure)!
Steven Falk
Oakland
Editors’ note: To fully appreciate Steven’s joke, see our transcription of Tim Gardner’s address to the Rotary Club of Oakland on November 6.
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Editors’ note
We recognize and love that Oakland is a complex city of nearly half a million people with so many unique lived experiences and perspectives. It’s what makes Oakland so beautiful. In that spirit, we don’t need to agree with every viewpoint we share in Letters. However, we also don’t have the time, space, or inclination to publish letters that are not helpful or that don’t meet our standards.
We appreciate readers’ comments on the topics we cover in Oakland Report, and observations about Oakland politics and governance in general. We welcome letters that are grounded in reason and evidence that can be rationally examined. We may respond to some letters. We may reject some letters. We may fact-check some letters. Other letters we may let speak for themselves.
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Wikipedia contributors. “Dane-geld (poem).” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Accessed Nov. 16, 2025. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dane-geld_(poem)
CBS San Francisco contributors. “Oakland Agrees To $989,000 Settlement In Police Sex Scandal Case.” CBS News, May 31, 2017. https://www.cbsnews.com/sanfrancisco/news/oakland-police-sex-scandal/
Gardiner, Dustin. “The shadow looming over Barbara Lee’s Oakland mayoral run.” Politico, Mar., 16, 2025. https://www.politico.com/news/2025/03/16/barbara-lee-ron-dellums-oakland-mayor-00232049