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:

When Barbara Lee was interviewed on KQED the other morning, the first question she was asked was why Oakland is so dirty.

I am so impressed by Ken Houston. The District 7 City Councilmember is the only one, in my memory, who has the guts and integrity to speak the truth, which is that Oakland doesn’t want and shouldn’t have any encampments, anywhere anymore.

I don’t mean to pick on Barbara Lee, I really don’t, but she keeps saying dumb stuff, and it needs to be pointed out. This time it was in a profile in the Oakland Tribune. Lee was patting herself on the back for her “accomplishments” in her first hundred days in office. Since she’s done nothing of substance, all she had was clichés. I’m okay with politicians uttering clichés—they all do it. But what Barbara Lee says isn’t just dumb and false, it’s dangerous.

As you might have heard, the Mexican Men’s National Soccer Team, visiting Oakland for a match at the Coliseum, had their van broken into on Tuesday, and were robbed of $4,000 worth of equipment.