These are exciting times for the Coalition for a Better Oakland. Our lawyer just sent us our official Articles of Incorporation and ByLaws, so pretty soon, we’ll be an official 501C(4) nonprofit organization. This means, among other things, that we can begin raising money—or trying to, anyway.
Since last winter, when we launched CBO, it’s been funded by just a handful of us. We’ve accomplished a lot, considering our humble beginnings and even more humble budget: 157 members so far, a number I hope to double, treble, quadruple and quintuple before long, and to be honest I’d like to see our membership in the thousands.
I’m meeting on Friday with a professional political campaign consultant. His firm handles individuals who are running for office as well as ballot propositions. Currently, he’s involved in a No on the Recall effort. I want his help because we need to grow our Coalition in the same way that a political candidate needs to achieve greater name recognition, and then to win voters over to her side. We’re not political candidates, but we’re playing a political game, and the rules seem the same to me. The campaign consultant asked me what my chief goals are (we had a preliminary phone conversation), and I told him that the Coalition wants (a) to be a player in Oakland politics, (b) to be able to call a rally and have hundreds of people show up, and (c) to garner more media attention. All of these things are interconnected. The more media attention we get, the more people hear about us, like us, and join. The more members we have, the more people we can gather in a rally, and the more seriously Oakland politicians have to take us. That will make us a player.
But for what? Not power for its own sake, but because we have a heartfelt belief in our two causes, support for OPD and implementation of the Encampment Management Policy. If I didn’t believe in these things, I wouldn’t have co-founded CBO and I wouldn’t be working as hard as I do to achieve (a), (b) and (c), above. The political consultant listened to what I had to say, and when I grew excited and told him I was sure that there are a lot more people in Oakland who agree with CBO than is commonly thought, this man, who has his finger on the pulse of Oakland politics, said, “There are a lot of Steves out there.”
I know exactly what he meant. Yes, it’s been our hunch all along that many Oaklanders think the way we do, but they’ve been siloed off from each other. They live in Temescal or Crocker Highlands or Fruitvale or Adams Point or Chinatown or Rockridge or the Lower Bottoms or Maxwell Park, and they feel isolated and disrespected by their council members. They feel the frustration of the powerless, and sometimes they wonder if they’re the only ones who think the way they do. The Coalition is here to tell them—to tell you—you’re not alone. We may be, in fact, the majority. We are everywhere! But we haven’t had the opportunity to find each other, to band together and act in a coordinated way. I sincerely believe the Coalition gives all of us that opportunity—and that is the essence of democracy.
Some people have asked me why we don’t have meetings. Good question. During the winter and spring, I didn’t want to call a meeting because of the pandemic. Then, when things eased up in June, I thought about it, but all of a sudden, the Delta variant hit, and that didn’t seem a good time either. Maybe we could do a Zoom, I don’t know. I’d like to hear from readers. Would you attend a Zoom? If we can grow this Coalition, all of you will have jobs to do. You’ll be part of something big.
We’re starting to think about 2022 and the important political races that will be happening in that election year, including City Council, Mayor and District Attorney. We’d like to endorse candidates at every level and have our endorsements sought. The whole point is to overthrow the existing political order, which has done so much damage, and replace it with common sense, humane politicians who are in touch with the great mass of ordinary Oaklanders, which sadly this current City Council, with very few exceptions, is not.
Steve Heimoff