The City Council was to have met yesterday to discuss Member Houston’s new encampment policy, which I wrote about favorably a few days ago. It was a meeting I and many others were looking forward to monitoring. But instead, just before the meeting was to have started, they put up this message on their website:
CANCELLATION NOTICE The regularly scheduled meeting of the Rules And Legislation Committee has been cancelled. The next regularly scheduled meeting of the Rules And Legislation Committee will be held on Thursday, September 17, 2020 at 11:00 a.m.
No reason given. No minutes available. So much for your “transparency,” Madame Mayor.
Well, since the city won’t tell us why, we can only speculate. Which I’m happy to do!
Word was already out yesterday morning that Houston’s proposed legislation was facing major blowback, by the usual pro-homeless activists. Nikki F. Bas—who’s opposed every single effort to control encampments for years—led the charge from the Board of Supervisors. She was joined by Alameda County’s Director of Health, Housing and Human Services, Jonathan Russell, and by Assemblywoman Mia Bonta, who represents Oakland in the Legislature.
All of them are activists on the progressive side who deplore any efforts to manage homelessness, although none of them has ever offered any solution remotely capable of solving the problem.
So we put two and two together: Houston faced huge pressure from the county as well as from the California Legislature: two formidable opponents an ambitious politician doesn’t want to alienate. He also had internal opposition from within the City Council, notably from (who else?) Carroll Fife, Miss Dirty Encampment herself. With such powerful forces lined up against him, Houston caved, and agreed to the postponement. Normally such stalling is because a politician wishes to line up votes for his bill. In this case, I suspect Houston is simply trying to salvage from the wreckage what he can of his influence and reputation. He fought the power structure. The power structure won, and the rest of us lost. But maybe I’m wrong. We’ll see next Wednesday.
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By the way, regarding the Charlie Kirk shooting: All these Republicans are saying, “This [killing] is not who we are.” But violence is who we are, or should I say who MAGA is. Homophobia is who MAGA is. Transphobia is who MAGA is. Donald Trump started this war with his vicious attack on millions of LGBTQ Americans, and his foot soldier, Kirk, was a vicious homophobe, transphobe and—by the way—a big 2A guy who adamantly opposed gun control. So I ask: is his death karma? Or just plain irony?
I won’t insult your intelligence, readers, by telling you that I condemn violence in all its forms. Obviously, I do. My work here in Oakland testifies to that.
But look, Donald Trump launched this latest round of violence by his own violent, vengeful rhetoric. He has supported and pardoned violent radicals, including the J6 maniacs who attacked the police. He has opposed every sort of gun control. He has stirred up hatred of trans and gay people by impugning and maligning them and using them to deflect from his own policies that give massive tax breaks to the one percent while the rest of us are crushed by taxes and Trump-flation. He thought he could ignite violence only against Democrats and Gays, but now he sees that when the violence genie is let out of the bottle, she can strike anyone, including his own gun-loving MAGA cult. For Donald Trump—as well as for the late Mr. Kirk—the lesson is: Be careful what you wish for, because you might get it. As Mr. Kirk just did.
Steve Heimoff