Oakland is “high sensitivity” — Letters to the editor
Homeless industrial complex; pay raises for city council and unions; who’s actually in charge of the city; you get what you pay for — and more letters from Oakland Report readers.
The views expressed in our Letters column do not necessarily reflect the views of Oakland Report or its contributing authors. Letters may be edited for clarity, length, and conciseness.
The homeless industrial complex
Re: Oakland is beautiful, but encampments – and the city’s inequitable response – are holding it back, May 27, 2026
As long as the homelessness industrial complex is funded by millions and billions of taxpayer dollars, the problem will only get worse. I hate seeing this portrayed as a race and equity issue — it is not.
The perverse incentive of paying growing bureaucratic non-governmental organizations to “solve” the problem just means the staff get six-figure paychecks while enabling the substance abuse practiced by a large majority of the homeless.
Humans respond to incentives. The current incentives are malignant. Allowing people to wallow in filth — which breeds diseases — while encouraging their addictions is corrupt.
Not all homeless people are in this category, but the ones who aren’t would be much better served if the addicts were put in rehab or jail if they refuse treatment.
Boedicca (via Substack)
Oakland
Video clip 1: Encampment on 26th and Wood Street on May 15, 2026. (Source: Oakland Report)
The entire city is “high sensitivity” to homelessness
Re: Oakland is beautiful, but encampments – and the city’s inequitable response – are holding it back, May 27
When I first started working for the city, I thought, “This is easy. Just move folks to ‘low sensitivity’ areas.”
Then I had trouble determining “low sensitivity” from “high sensitivity.” So, I asked my team to map it. I’m a visual person and needed to see a map.
My conclusion after first seeing the map was that the entire city is “high sensitivity.” When everything is high sensitivity, nothing is high sensitivity. This is not a statement of city policy or position. It’s just something I’ve observed and struggled with.
We have human beings living on our streets in deplorable conditions. How do we get these folks some help? I don’t have an answer.
One of my favorite books about Oakland is American Babylon. I agree with the author that the East Bay’s post-World War II era was focused on “containing” the problems of poverty in Oakland — code for redlining. The inequity isn’t just an Oakland thing; it’s an Alameda County thing.
What is the best help, support, treatment we can provide to the humans living on the street? I don’t know, but I do know that Alameda County has the space for it. The days of dumping issues — literal and figurative — in Oakland need to come to an end.
Josh Rowan
Oakland
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The city government exists to serve Oaklanders, not the other way around
Re: Oakland is beautiful, but encampments – and the city’s inequitable response – are holding it back, May 27
It’s wildly disappointing to see the city’s map of “high sensitivity” areas that covers 95% of the city and largely constitutes a race/income map trace. If everything’s “high sensitivity,” you’re really labeling the remaining areas as “who cares.”
My problem with the article is the lack of solutions and solution evaluation. It lists one program that was effective, but not the scale, cost, or scalability of the program. Its criticism of the programs comes with loose references to crime and the Oakland Police Department — is the answer simply criminalizing homeless people so they’re in jail instead of on the street?
Its criticism of “housing first” also discounts clear examples of it working, and encourages scrapping programs in lieu of running them more intentionally and effectively, as modeled elsewhere.
Kyle (via Substack)
Oakland
Kyle — Thank you for your comment. It’s not our job to come up with solutions for the city’s (often self-inflicted) problems. That’s the city’s job. The city government exists to serve Oaklanders, not the other way around. And as this article’s author asserts — with receipts — the city is failing to do its job, again.
The city shouldn’t be in the sports business
Re: Alameda County is back in the Oakland Coliseum business — set to buy back from A’s, sell to developer, May. 28
Unless the local government has an ownership stake in the teams, they shouldn’t be in the sports business.
I look at that huge chunk of land that already has a BART stop and all I can think is that development would solve the Oakland housing shortage.
We could put a park, a school, and shopping there. Put the shopping closet to the freeway to help with the noise. It could be fabulous.
Elizabeth (via Substack)
Oakland
Oakland Coliseum ground contamination was well-known
Re: ‘Oakland deserves better’ — Alameda County approves Coliseum buyback term sheet, May. 29
Anyone familiar with the Oakland Coliseum knows that ground contamination was always one of the elephants in the living room. Why is it just coming up now publicly?
Len Raphael
Oakland
Economics don’t matter to ideologues
Re: ‘Oakland deserves better’ — Alameda County approves Coliseum buyback term sheet, May. 29
I appreciate that District 7 council member Ken Houston wants to transform the Hegenberger Road corridor into a world-class destination. Former council member Larry Reid spent decades attracting businesses to the area only to see the Sheng Thao bloc (Rebecca Kaplan, Carroll Fife, Nikki Fortunato Bas) trash it by not voting for more resources to the area.
Later, Reid’s daughter, Treva pleaded with the council to vote in favor when she was District 7 council member because crime was pervasive and the businesses were starting to suffer.
When the In-N-Out Burger off Hegenberger decided to close, Rebecca Kaplan tweeted of an Oakland cafe (in another neighborhood) that served good burgers — as if she didn’t give a fig about In-N-Out.
That location had at least 95 employees, was profitable, and paid tons in taxes to the city. I guess the economics didn’t matter to Rebecca because her ideology doesn’t accept businesses like In-N-Out.
County supervisor Nate Miley mentions the return of the Raiders to Oakland but he doesn’t elaborate further.
While the return of the Raiders was a boost for the fans and city pride, the deal was terrible because it kept Oakland on the hook, to the Raider’s advantage. That is one reason why former mayor Libby Schaaf made sure to not accept another bad deal for Oakland when Mark Davis wanted a new stadium.
Pissed off Oaklander (via Substack)
Oakland
The next round of pay raises
Re: ‘Death and taxes’: Oakland City Council is the one who knocks. (Flashback), May 30
At the council finance committee this week, council members noted that several departments were over budget, and finance director Bradley Johnson said that this was due to a one time unbudgeted expense of $3,000 raises for city employees that came out of the general fund.
With regards to the next cost-of-living adjustment (COLA) pay raises tied to revenue:
“The next opportunity is at the end of the closing of the current fiscal year. And so should we between now and then find that either our projections are off, or that we receive unanticipated revenue in one of the eligible categories at the end of the fiscal year, we would see COLAs triggered in January at the beginning of the next calendar year for that same period.”
— Bradley Johnson, city of Oakland finance director
At the council public safety committee meeting, Johnson described how the council passed the “extreme fiscal necessity and unanticipated financial event” waiver which allowed access to Measure NN funds without meeting the requirement to maintain 700 police officers. There was a discussion at this meeting about the need to reach 700 officers and current budget, attrition and staffing issues.
Rajni Mandal
Oakland
Rajni — Thank you for your comments and for providing your excellent updates from council and committee meetings.
Video Clip 2. “I stood in a photo with you before I knocked doors for Measure E.” IFPTE Local 21 reminds council members that the union “worked really hard to help elect” them. (Source: City of Oakland)
Who’s actually in charge of the city
Re: Oakland city union warns of a strike if city council does not approve pay raises, other demands, Jun. 1
Wow! That’s quite a statement. I guess we know who’s actually in charge of the city and it isn’t anyone we elected.
I don’t know why the union thinks it deserves better benefits and pay than the private sector. Lots of people don’t get raises. Why does the union deserve a pension?
As for a strike, what do any of these people actually do? Trash is everywhere, graffiti is everywhere, apparently taxes don’t get collected. I see cars in my neighborhood that have piles of tickets on them that never get towed.
I want to be pro-labor. Workers deserve to be protected and paid decent wages and benefits. But workers do not deserve extravagant salaries and benefits.
Elizabeth (via Substack)
Oakland
Almost pure thuggery
Re: Oakland city union warns of a strike if city council does not approve pay raises, other demands, Jun. 1
Amazing how this guy said the quiet part out loud. Technically elected officials are supposed to vote for what is in the public’s best interest — not for the special interests that spread money and resources around for the purpose of influence.
It’s almost pure thuggery. Quite unbelievable really.
Solomon Ets-Hokin
Clayton
Adding staff to a system that isn’t working is not a solution
Re: Oakland city union warns of a strike if city council does not approve pay raises, other demands, Jun. 1
Union members have advocated for “civilianizing” certain sworn officer positions, including transferring Internal Affairs functions to the Community Police Review Agency (CPRA).
I wrote about this nearly a year ago.
Read this related article:
Since then, CPRA has acknowledged significant infrastructure challenges, including the lack of written operating procedures, training manuals, and modern case-management systems.
The Police Commission, which oversees CPRA, also has not publicly released performance evaluations of the agency’s leadership.
Before transferring additional responsibilities, Oakland should first ensure the underlying oversight infrastructure is functioning effectively and sustainably. Council should step in and have more of an oversight role over both CPRA and OIG (Office of Inspector General), because right now, adding staff to a system that isn’t working is not a solution.
Rajni Mandal
Oakland
Forever emergency
Re: Oakland’s ‘unanticipated’ financial emergency set to enter its fourth year, Jun. 2
Thank you for educating voters on how the city manages the funds it collects from them. Maybe outcomes will change when more voters become cognizant of the rip-off.
A perennial state of unanticipated emergency is a sign of willful mismanagement of collected tax revenue. The problem is that Oaklanders keep electing an abusive government.
Ilya (via Substack)
Oakland
Ilya — Thank you for your excellent comment. Voters are not to blame when they cast their votes based on misdirection and lies, as has happened in Oakland multiple times. Thank you again for your comment; the discussion is appreciated.
Oakland needs leadership, not incompetency
Re: Oakland’s ‘unanticipated’ financial emergency set to enter its fourth year, Jun. 2
Oakland needs leadership that is ready to roll up their sleeves and face these issues head on.
Mayor Barbara Lee had no business promising “no layoffs” at a time of fiscal crisis. Her approach shows her incompetency in managing a city government. The mayor seems to have forgotten that her constituents are the focus — not the union members, most of whom may not even live in Oakland.
We need an audit of all departments badly, but for now, rolling furloughs should be on the table to shore up the budget gap.
Malla Hadley
Oakland
Chapter 9 might make it easier to re-engineer City Hall
Even assuming the council was willing and able to find the multi-million bucks to hire, say, McKinsey to perform an audit of the city’s operations, there isn’t the political will at City Hall to carry out the recommendations against the opposition of the unions that helped them get elected. And even if there were, almost every City employee, including lower management, is covered by multi-year labor contracts that govern work conditions as well as compensation.
It will take years to resolve this issue, even under the best of conditions. Chapter 9 bankruptcy proceedings might make re-engineering City Hall processes easier. Or it might not. I’d rather avoid Chapter 9, change to a strong-mayor system, and elect a competent mayor who isn’t beholden to special interests, be they labor or real estate or whomever.
I’m a hopeless optimist about Oakland’s government. That’s what motivated me as a serial candidate for office.
Len Raphael
Oakland
Scope of work to reform the Oakland city charter
Re: Oakland’s charter reform process: the questions it was built not to ask, Jun. 2
Today’s article borders on the irresponsible. Of course there had to be a scope of work to review the Oakland charter. Have you not seen the charter in its entirety? It’s like the Grand Canyon. Adopting these charter reforms only helps improve the structure by which everyone understands the rules of engagement. There is much work ahead unrelated to the charter. Thanks for your attention.
Viola Gonzales
Oakland
Viola — Thank you for your comment. The article’s point is that the working group’s scope did not include key reforms that Oaklanders have asked and voted for — reforms that reasonably can and should have been considered in the scope of the process — and that the process was structured in such as way as to avoid the formal public scrutiny and participation required of other city advisory bodies. Thank you again for your comment; the discussion is appreciated.
Nothing nefarious here
Re: Hand-picked: the political and personal ties between mayor Barbara Lee and her Oakland “charter reform working group”, Jun. 16
While I don’t personally support the proposed strong-mayor initiative (I’m a council-manager kinda guy), I think it’s not exactly surprising that a mayor who campaigned on looking into strong-mayor reforms would assemble a group to do so that she feels confident in.
Honestly, I think the outrage here is a little feigned. I mean, when was the last time you made a decision by asking a bunch of people you don’t have confidence in? And then, of course, the council is the ultimate decision-maker about what goes on the ballot, and despite laudable attempts by council member Zac Unger and others to go the better way, the council went with this one.
I don’t like the policy, but I don’t see anything nefarious here.
It personally doesn’t bother me that the group wasn’t a formal advisory body subject to the Brown Act. I’m not of the opinion that every meeting to discuss public business needs to be noticed and open to public observation. But I can understand why some people would in this case.
Justin Horner
Oakland
Justin — Thank you for your comment. The article simply lays out the connections, and does not state that anything nefarious is happening.
As we reported earlier this month, the mayor’s decision to use a hand-selected “working group” instead of a more formal advisory body (which would be subject to open-meeting laws) is worthy of scrutiny. Here’s a relevant excerpt from our June 2 article:
“The mayor’s decision to appoint a ‘working group’ instead of an official city advisory body was a critical component of the overall process — one that almost inevitably would lead to a recommendation favored by and largely benefiting the mayor.
“Most public bodies in California are required by law to conduct their business in the open. The state’s open-meetings government ‘sunshine’ law — the Ralph M. Brown Act — forces city councils, their committees, and advisory bodies to post agendas in advance, let the public watch them deliberate, post official minutes of proceedings, and keep no decisions hidden.
“But the law has a well-known gap. It generally does not cover a body that a single official creates on their own, as opposed to one a city council establishes by formal vote.
“The mayor’s political charter reform ‘working group’ exploited that gap. Mayor Lee convened it herself, as part of her 100-day plan; the city council never created it by resolution, and the council neither appointed nor confirmed a single member.”
— From Oakland Report, “Oakland’s charter reform process: the questions it was built not to ask”
Thank you again for your comment; the discussion is appreciated.
Video clip 3: Warning: graphic content. Compilation of unsanctioned after-hours party scenes in the streets near the official First Friday event. (Source: Instagram / various accounts)
Oakland’s leaders allow a small number of people to terrorize the city
Re: Late-night crime spikes 44% on First Fridays. The city says it has a new plan to curb it, Jun. 5
Once again, Oakland’s leaders continue to allow a very small number of people to terrorize a city of at least 400,000 people.
Oakland Police Department and city leaders know who the people causing the problems are, but because of ideology, these leaders keep offering carrot after carrot to the criminals while residents and small businesses are negatively impacted.
Former police chief Howard Jordan wanted to implement gang injunctions against a very small number of people because residents and small businesses along the 35th Avenue corridor were being terrorized (for example, new parents too frightened to go out in the dark to get milk for their newborns).
Instead, former mayor Jean Quan directed chief Jordan to not implement the injunctions. Also, Quan invited the gang members causing the problems to her office to meet with her, and of course, she bought into their bullshit that there weren’t any jobs for them.
Think about that: the mayor invited the gang members to her office, but not the residents and new parents and small businesses who were victimized.
The altruism of city “leaders” keeps criminals out of jail and as a result, residents are essentially jailed in their homes out of fear, and small businesses suffer because customers are too afraid to walk the streets to their stores.
Pissed off Oaklander (via Substack)
Oakland
For reasons that need no explanation
Re: Late-night crime spikes 44% on First Fridays. The city says it has a new plan to curb it, Jun. 5
Another story you won’t see in the Oaklandside, for reasons that should not need explanation.
Roland De Wolk
Oakland
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City councils refuse to do what must be done
Re: ‘Our babies are drinking lead and we wonder why they’re fighting at First Friday’, Jun. 13
Oakland’s and Berkeley’s city councils and city managers simply refuse to do what must be done.
I don’t know how many employees Oakland has, but Berkeley has in the neighborhood of 1,300 — known to be among the highest number of employees per capita in the state and possibly the country. They’re telling us that they can’t meaningfully identify where cuts need to be made in headcounts in both cities?
Berkeley’s list of positions to cut is laughably meager. It seems like no one is willing to do the hard work in Oakland, either. The corrupt union-to-council pipeline where the council members are indebted to the unions for their own employment is a huge part of the problem for both cities when it comes to meaningfully balancing their budgets.
I commend Oakland Report for keeping the heat on these inept and corrupt politicians and the SEIU union machine. Heaven knows our local online media such as Oaklandside and Berkeleyside don’t have the guts or the skill to put their finger on the problem and call it out.
Leaping Lemur (via Substack)
Oakland
Guardrails on city council pay raises
Re: Oakland city council pay raises: the charter reform provision no one is discussing, Jun. 15
There is a simple amendment to the proposed city council pay raises that would demonstrate the council’s intent:
No council member shall be eligible, in the present or future term, for any compensation increase that is approved or effected by the council or city administration while they are serving as a member of council.
During a declared fiscal necessity or fiscal emergency, the council, mayor and mayor staff salaries shall be reduced by 50% and benefit calculations shall use this reduced salary as the basis.
This provision may be revoked or suspended only by 2/3 supermajority of the vote in a general or special election.
Tim Gardner
Oakland
Tim — Thank you for your comment. Unfortunately, the city council opted not to include any such guardrails on their pay raises when they voted to place the charter reform measure on the November ballot.
Inviting stronger competition for council seats
Re: Oakland city council pay raises: the charter reform provision no one is discussing, Jun. 15
Just think: council members might think they are approving pay raises for themselves when they are actually inviting stronger competition for their seats. I think that is a good thing.
Josh Rowan
Oakland
Josh — Thank you for your comment. The charter reform measure would expressly prohibit council members from having “outside employment.” That could actually inhibit potential candidates who are gainfully employed and financially successful in their day jobs — precisely the type of accomplished people who might be more qualified and competitive for council seats.
You get what you pay for
Re: Oakland city council pay raises: the charter reform provision no one is discussing, Jun. 15
I look at it the other way. The goal isn’t to give raises to incumbents. The goal is to attract more qualified, competitive candidates.
Let’s say I am an active member of the community, have a real job, have real experience, and would like to challenge my district council member who is not doing (in my opinion) a good job — but I can’t afford the pay cut.
What’s the saying? “You get what you pay for.” Maybe some term limits should be attached to this proposal too. After a maximum of two terms, it’s time to move on.
Josh Rowan
Oakland
Josh — Thank you for your follow-up comment. Regardless of the goal, the practical effect of the charter reform measure is to give city council incumbents substantial pay raises.
Notably, if the goal is to “attract more qualified, competitive candidates,” the implication is that the incumbent council members are neither competitive nor qualified enough.
So far, no council member has commented or offered any justification for or against the raises, despite the raises being a main component of the overall charter reform measure.
Thank you, all, for your comments; the discussion is appreciated.
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Thank you.
Oaklandside would NEVER do such a thing….because they are sloppy propaganda for a failing, corrupt and incompetent administration.
Many of these letters are very strong and on point.
But the essential Conflict of Interest remains buried under a heap of ideological misdirection.
Oakland public employee union leadership and Oakland citizens/voters have conflicting primary interests:
Public unions want to maximize their compensation AND maximize their membership (number of City employees!) Government efficiency is not a plus. It's a problem!
Citizens and voters want to pay employees fairly but get efficiency and performance and accountability from their employees. And by efficiency, we all understand that to mean the fewest employees needed to get the work accomplished.
Does anyone NOT see the conflict?
Look at the letters regarding budget problems, lack of accountability, demands to raise pay and hire more employees and to create departments and shift outside work to City departments?
The City government is not sloppy and not incompetent. They are doing exactly what their campaign contributors paid them to do. Raise pay to the sky and increase numbers of employees.
What is so shocking about Oakland is that this corruption in most cities is better hidden to a greater or lesser degree. In Oakland it is open and notorious, much like the current Washington corruption.
Our money is being stolen and they thumb their noses at us and laugh in our faces.
Teddy Roosevelt was one of founders of the American Progressive movement in the early 1900s. He built his party and reputation successfully defeating Boss Tweed and the New York City Hall corruption of Tammany Hall. Real Progressives don't destroy their cities with greed and corruption!