On a tip now of researching the background of current Port of Oakland Commissioners, proposed by Libby Schaaf and appointed by City Council. Check back on this thread now and again
Let's start with Joan H. Story
Story is a real estate attorney and partner at the extremely powerful and influential Sheppard Mullin, where she was also an E-board member. Story has been a consistent donor to Schaaf, both before and after her appointment in 2015. She gives to Schaaf in off-election years.
Notably, Story also gives to Schaaf-associated candidates. She donated to Peggy Moore, former staffer for Schaaf, when she ran against Kaplan and Abel Guillen, a Schaaf ally. She gave to the anti-Desley Brooks PAC & a Schaaf-associated PAC
At Sheppard, Story has represented Macarthur Transit Partners, developers of BART property at Macarthur station. Sheppard is experiencing tremendous profit growth, but laid off substantial non-legal office staff during Covid, regardless.
Sheppard is Tesla's anti-union lawyer and Tesla/Sheppard's tactics and rhetoric appear a bit dirty
I'll have more on another Port Commissioner tomorrow.
One last thing on Story: as @OHglass1 pointed out that recently appointed Planning Commissioner Jennifer Renk is also a real estate lawyer at Sheppard Mullin. Renk is also a board member at a prominent Yimby org sheppardmullin.com/jrenk
@OHglass1 On to Barbara Leslie. Leslie was appointed to the Commission in 2018 and is also the CEO of the Oakland Chamber of Commerce. She was formerly ATT&T gov affairs liaison, and has worked in Oakland City Administration.
@OHglass1 Leslie is a founder of the Chamber's "oakpac", the influential independent expenditure committee that takes in large amounts of money from some of the most toxic presences in the City. Leslie has been a "principal officer" of the PAC since 2017.
@OHglass1 Leslie was the principal officer of OakPac when it spent tens of thousands of dollars to unseat Desley Brooks.
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Starting Privacy Advisory Commission reporting for 8/05/21. They'll be discussing DPW's proposed ALPR/video surveillance project on illegal dumping, and OPD will be submitting 2 years of ALPR reports its behind on, as well as proposed usage policy--all late.
They're having a lot of technical issues so far, and taking a few minutes to get on top of that and establish quorum.
The meeting begins with open forum, Asata Olugbala only commenter, talking about the lack of provision of same programs and protections for Black residents as undocumented residents.
The legislative recommendation it produces could add $30-40 MM/FY to City's business tax revenue, but the Blue Ribbon Business Tax Task Force is more than halfway through its mandated meetings & not a single news story has been written about it
Apropos, so far TF has few docs that give insight into process. Having taskforce meetings when standing commissions have theirs on Thursdays isn't helping. But the last two documents discussed have been from pro-biz orgs with obvious conflicts of interest arguing AGAINST increase
TRI Commercial makes a large part of its income off business property sales, lease and management, as well as consulting. No surprise at all they don't think prog biz tax is a good idea. And obvious why their opinion needs to be taken with an entire salt shaker
@OHglass1 Under Leslie's guidance, OakPAC will literally take money from anyone and raised 265K in 2020. High level donors to OakPAC include OPOA, PG&E, Comcast, east bay polluter AB&I. OakPAC notably took 50k from the Lyft anti-worker pac & 20k Ca Real Estate PAC
@OHglass1 Notably, lots of $$ confluence with other members of the Commission/key figures in the Howard Terminal deal. Fellow Commissioner Cestra Butner gave 10k to OakPAC. Zach Wasserman, Chair of BCDC, and also high level campaign figure for McElhaney gave 5k.
@OHglass1 The links between Commission appointees, each other, OakPAC and big business/development never seem to end. We'll get to Butner and Colbruno--Colbruno for his part oversaw OakPAC at one point, and even sued the City on their behalf to end-run city laws on bundling.
Community and Economic Development Committee meeting starts now 7/7/2021. Chair Kalb announces that all of the Council members will be present on the meeting, despite not being in committee. He also says Dave Kaval will present for about ten minutes.
Kalb announces public comment, then presentation by A's, followed by staff presentation, then questions from CMs
Live reporting on City Council meeting thread, as per usual, 7/6/202.
Fife is moving the MOU's for the ALCO taskforces OPD wants approval for off consent. They are items 2.11 and 2.12. The OPD has been participating in these TF's, but they didn't have actual council approval to do so
In toto, 4 consent items were moved to non consent, and will be heard at top of non consent, 2.11, .12, .13 and .14
Though this isn't at all news, it's also not surprising the Labor Council supports Howard Terminal. Building Trades obviously want HT because of the enormous construction money it will give it's non-Oakland base of workers. ALCO Building Trades Treasurer is a Port Commissioner
If it was just the workers unions who work low wage jobs at Coliseum, union support would count for not very much. It's the extremely sleazy building trades--who support environmental cataclysms throughout California, whose support matters her
I've been writing about the alarming effect of the extremely powerful building trades councils throughout CA for years. They partnered with Valero in Benicia in a gigantic money blitz in 2018 to dash the candidacy of a moderate environmentalist to City Council there.