City of Oakland is coordinating with public employee unions to increase property-based taxes
Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Local 1021 appears to be leading the campaign committee — and donated $200,000 for paid signature-gatherers to put the tax on the June 2026 ballot.
Oakland City Council is aiming to collect $40 million from a new tax increase on Oakland properties.
The city council is already spending the money.
The city council has included the revenue in its operating budget for the current fiscal year, even though the new tax has not been put on the ballot for a vote yet.
As Oakland Report reported last week, the city’s public employee unions now are funding paid signature-gatherers to collect signatures to put a new parcel tax on the June 2026 ballot. Their proposed new tax would raise up to $40 million — the exact amount the city council budgeted.
Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Local 1021 appears to be leading the campaign committee — called “Oaklanders For A Safe, Clean & Healthy City, Sponsored By Labor Organizations” — to put the tax increase on the 2026 ballot.
SEIU has already contributed $200,000 to the campaign.
The campaign committee’s donors also include the International Association of Fire Fighters (IAFF) Local 55 which contributed $150,000, and the International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers (IFPTE) Local 21 which contributed $50,500. PG&E contributed $50,000.
Notably, with a “citizen-sponsored” ballot initiative such as the one the public unions are leading — even a parcel tax — the threshold for voter approval is a simple majority (50% plus 1). If the new tax is placed on the ballot by the city council, the approval threshold would be much higher at two-thirds (66.67%).
Based on the evidence in city documents, it is clear that the city council is aware of and has committed to placing a tax increase on the 2026 ballot to “generate an additional $40 million in ongoing revenues to maintain operations and support key systems such as 911 dispatch, IT infrastructure, and public safety.”
This is the exact same criteria, and the exact same dollar amount the public employee unions are now proposing in the parcel tax measure for which they are currently gathering signatures.
By all appearances, the city council and the public employee unions are coordinating in plain sight to increase taxes on Oaklanders by shifting the planned ballot measure from a city council-sponsored measure that requires a two-thirds vote to pass, to a “citizen-sponsored” initiative that only requires a simple majority.
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