Vote Rebecca Kaplan for Oakland City Council at-large.
There are three candidates:
-
the incumbent Rebecca Kaplan
-
the newcomer Derreck Johnson
-
the longtime candidate Nancy Sidebotham
I looked up Sidebotham; I gather she’s a longtime critic & political outsider who’s struggled to make inroads in elections. It’s helpful to have that critical pressure; gotta say though, she’s said weird things like calling Oakland a “welfare city with no services” (source: Sidebotham’s website, 2020-11-01).
I found an Oaklandside article from Sept 25 2020 interviewing the three candidates.
Sidebotham’s contribution for me is identifying Johnson as Schaaf’s candidate versus Kaplan who’s her rival. Here are some salient points from the interview:
Police reform
Neither Johnson nor Kaplan are in favor of “dismantling” the police department.
Kaplan is a more aggressive critic of the police than challengers; she is seeking “deep budget cuts and fundamental reforms”. In particular she targeted overtime & media relations.
I have observed the Oakland PD media relations department presenting fairly one-sided perspective on sites such as Next Door. So I’m inclined to agree they don’t need money to portray a narrative. They should focus on facts.
Tenant protections
Johnson opposes Oakland adopting stronger tenant protection laws than the State.
Kaplan says Oakland tenant protections are a good balance between landlords and tenants, but the State needs further renter protections: particularly a reform of California’s Costa Hawkins Rental Housing Act which exempts single-family homes & condos from rent control; as well as apartments built after 1995 (!!!).
Taxes
Johnson opposes a progressive tax on large businesses; Kaplan supports it.
Kaplan authored Measure W – a property tax on vacant units. I was happy to vote for it.
Johnson opposes giving workers laid off from COVID first right to those old jobs if the jobs come back. Johnson says that’s “dictating” who to bring back to work … In other words Johnson is saying he wants a freebie to replace workers because there happened to be a global pandemic.
This is in apparent contrast to his campaign flyers saying under his plan, there’s “nobody left behind”.
I gather Johnson has an interesting history (Oaklandside 2020-10-07) running his Oakland business.
Conclusion
I value a lot of what Johnson talks about. I take Kamala Harris’s endorsement seriously. I am skeptical of Lyft’s money spent on Johnson. I think it’s important for Schaaf to have Kaplan’s check. I support Kaplan’s progressive values. I hope to see more of Johnson soon.