@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.
@OHglass1 Leslie & her org ran offense against a proposed progressive business tax in 2020, even as OakPAC took money from PG&E, Blue Shield & others resistant to the tax, Leslie also personally waged war on it. The chamber continues to oppose it in any form sfchronicle.com/opinion/openfo…
@OHglass1 That might wrap it up for Leslie, although with decades in this dirty game, I'm sure there's more and followers are welcome to add. Another Commissioner tomorrow.
I made an error on a previous tweet about Leslie, deleted and rewriting here. In fact, Leslie's OakPAC spent the entire amount for digital advertising for McElhaney and against Fife, almost 130k.
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
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.
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.