I want to share with readers why Seneca Scott should be the next Mayor of Oakland—a belief shared by my colleagues at the Coalition for a Better Oakland.
The two most pressing issues facing Oakland (and the reasons why we started the Coalition) are homelessness and an underfunded, harassed Oakland Police Department. The current city government (including the Mayor and City Council) have failed us miserably on both counts.
For too many years, so-called “progressives” in Oakland have been obsessed with reducing the size and efficacy of OPD. With an irrational hatred of police, they have advanced spurious arguments that Oakland would be better off having no police department at all, or, at least, the smallest possible department. They have attempted to strip OPD of its funding, and to otherwise hamper or hobble cops from doing their jobs. And for some reason, this irresponsible notion has been supported by far too many credulous voters.
The result has been entirely predictable. Oakland was already a city with a bad crime problem, but things have now grown infinitely worse. This City Council, and the sketchy non-profit groups with which it works, persistently put forth the message that Oakland is a welcoming place for criminals to do their dirty work. In most cases, the police will not arrest, and district attorneys will not prosecute criminals; and even in the rare cases where criminals are briefly jailed, lenient judges allow them back out on the streets. As my colleague Jack Saunders says, Oakland’s message to criminals is, “Don’t worry! We love you and won’t do anything to harm you!”
Same with homeless people. Libby Schaaf invited them to come to Oakland years ago and—surprise, surprise, they came! By the hundreds and thousands, clotting our streets and parks, fouling our neighborhoods, and with them they brought their drugs, mental illness, crime, and a significant drain on our meager resources. Again, the result was entirely predictable: We’re now overwhelmed with homeless slums and garbage, and yet this City Council refuses to do anything about it. They’re more concerned with pandering to homeless people than they are with the rest of us who want a safe, clean city.
If you vote for Nikki Bas or Sheng Thao (or Rebecca Kaplan, for that matter), you’re voting for a continuation of our current situation. It’s like that old question, “Are you better off today in Oakland than you were four years ago?” I don’t think anyone could answer “yes” to that. So don’t vote for Bas, Thao or Kaplan: it’s that simple.
Seneca will bring common sense back to our city. As a Black man, he’s acutely aware of the complexities of the issue of race in our culture and politics. He’s smart, with a penetrating intellect: he doesn’t instinctively embrace “woke” politics simply because he’s Black. He has the ability to see beyond the platitudes and damaging nonsense that woke politicians spout. Seneca knows that no one in Oakland is better off when criminals have the upper hand. He knows that no one in Oakland is better off with homeless slums everywhere. He is offended by the blather of Bas, Thao, Kaplan, Fife and the rest, because he knows it’s nonsense. He has vowed to find the money to hire 900 sworn police officers (compared to the 685 OPD now has). For this, some people have accused Seneca of being a reactionary, when the truth is that he’s anything but. When it comes to public safety and doing the right thing, Seneca is far more progressive than any politician Oakland has had in years, because he’s working for a future in which we citizens are safe and serene.
Seneca stands for a lot more. His dream of creating a Department of Agriculture and of having community gardens across Oakland is lovely. Imagine having fields of fruit trees, vegetables and flowers, tended by talented gardeners, in your neighborhood instead of homeless shanties and grunge! Don’t forget, Seneca founded Community Gardens, in the Bottoms Up neighborhood of West Oakland. He knows what he’s talking about.
There’s another reason I’d love to see Seneca elected Mayor. He’s real. I look at Sheng Thao and see a plastic, scripted wind-up toy, beholden to the unions, mouthing banalities, who repeatedly voted to defund the police. Seneca is cool the way Oakland is cool. He’s funny and fun to be around. It will be a pleasure to watch this impressive, inspiring and charismatic young man be sworn in as Mayor and get to work. It will also bring a ton of positive media attention to Oakland, instead of the negative reporting we now get, of murder and filth and mayhem. The national media will be lining up to report on this dreadlocked guy who got himself elected Mayor in an audacious, grass roots campaign. In fact, I have a feeling that Mayor Scott’s election will be viewed by History as the beginning of the turnaround in Oakland we’ve been waiting for.
So please, vote for Seneca Scott for Mayor! Contribute to his campaign. He’s having a fundraiser tonight, and you can also donate through his website. Every dollar counts in this upcoming election, the most important Oakland’s had in decades. Please also vote for and contribute if you can to Harold Lowe, in District 2, who is running to replace the notorious police defunder, Nikki Bas who, in her own way, has been as destructive to our way of life as has been Sheng Thao.
P.S. If you can, take a minute to read this statement from Alameda County Supervisor and former Oakland City Council member Nate Miley, who like Seneca is a Black man. Everything he says could have come from Seneca.
Thank you.
Steve Heimoff