Activists show how to take on City Hall

Activists show how to take on City Hall

ARE YOU fed up with government? Do you think you can't fight City Hall? Do you refuse to sign petitions to save this or that because what good would it do? Do you think the schools are too far gone so why give a damn?

If so, you're not alone. There are thousands of people in Oakland just like you who have given up and checked out.

But as an eternal optimist, I want you to reconsider your hard-earned position. Maybe you'll decide getting involved is worth the effort.

For the past two weeks I've been involved with Oakland activists whose mission was to save their libraries. I've been going to meetings, talking on the phone, writing about their concerns, getting a bunch of e-mails every day alerting me to more meetings, more facts, more ideas and, sad to say, more anger and outrage that City Hall would try to hurt Oakland libraries.

Well, guess what? All this brought City Hall to its knees. At least for a while. The onslaught of letters, petitions, pleadings and rational arguments saved the branch libraries from closure and severe cuts.

But wouldn't you know? City Hall re-positioned quickly, issuing a new budget cut list that would take away 15 positions from the Main Library to save $865,000. The proposal whacks big hunks of Main Library staff: five adult reference staff, the senior librarian for the Children's Room, five technical service (computer-related) staffers and one each in the teen program, community relations, volunteer services coordinator and African American Library staff.

Not only that, the plan is to freeze all material and book purchases higher than $630,000. That's like saying you can have a car but no gasoline to make it work. Itsounds like a scheme to let the libraries starve.

Are you getting angry again? Well, so did those activists who saved the branch libraries from cuts and closure. What did they do? They organized and descended on City Hall in such numbers that City Hall officials were kneeling again. As they should.

Granted, you have a lot to be angry about for the way City Hall goes about its business, as if the citizenry were secondary to the preservation of the bureaucracy.

Why can't they get things straight about who is to be served? It's not a lot to ask.

An analysis of the new plan for cutting the budget still rests heavily on taking services away from the citizenry. Major reductions are proposed for the Oakland Museum, parks and recreation, Feather River camp, Alice Arts Center. Those are take-aways.

But look at where the city hopes to get more money: by raising parking meter rates; increasing parking citation fines and towing fees; and striping the City Auditor's Office, an independent watchdog for the city, of money that pays for auditing city functions. There's nothing in the plan to fix the meters so all are operative.

This new plan prompted many of the hordes of speakers at a recent budget session to question the costs of maintaining the habits of City Council and managerial staff in City Hall. Like the costs of their car allowances, lunches and dinners, trips to China for pandas, and pensions. And their penchant for making bad loans to developers and at-risk businesses while libraries are cut back.

Many of the activists have been studying the budget proposals as if they were taking a final exam. They are questioning why the city with a total budget of $830 million budget for one year and $1.6 billion for two years, would stoop to pick at the library and parks and recreation for a few million bucks.

It's instructive to look at a pie chart of the budget which shows how those huge sums are allocated. Not a lot goes to people services. It's sad but true that this year the people of Oakland are paying $23 million for the Coliseum debt.

The General Fund constitutes 46 percent (less than half) of that $830 million, and from that they wanted to take away a meager $1.7 million from the libraries, almost a minuscule sum when stacked against that total.

I may not sound like an optimist but really I am. When I saw all those library supporters fighting for the cause these few weeks and at the council meeting, it lightened my heart.

We were seeing the real Oakland rise up and take charge. There were people from all walks of life, cutting across all the lines of income, race and education, all together and clear on what's good for their city.

And as they rose, they brought along a whole city with them. Even the worst cynic would have to admit they got the job done.

E-mail Peggy Stinnett at pstinnett [at] angnewspapers.com .