11/3/2004:Measure Y appears to have passed, perhaps due to superior advertising by its proponents.
Education Not Incarceration and a number of community groups, unions, and local politicians spent months mobilizing to defeat Measure Y, the November ballot measure in Oakland that puts funding police and the fire department ahead of funding violence prevention programs. Measure Y will raise $19.9 million per year from a regressive property tax that will place the most burden on renters and small property owners. Education Not Incarceration believes that Measure Y includes no workable plan for “violence prevention,” and that Oakland needs a carefully designed initiative supporting social programs that are proven to work.

Events: Volunteers walked precincts, phone-banked and held up signs at major intersections, such as on November 2nd. The victory party will be held 11/2 at 8pm. A rally was held at the opening of the trial of the Oakland Riders on November 1st. On Friday, October 22nd, No on Measure Y screened the film Every Mother's Son as a fundraiser for the No on Measure Y campaign, from 8-10 at the Humanist Hall, 390 27th Street. On Saturday, October 23rd, Stop America's Other War: March for Social Justice and Against Measure Y, beginning at 11AM at Lake Merritt (Macarthur and Grand). On Monday, October 25th, No on Measure Y held a Rally Against Police Brutality, Racial Profiling and Harassment at the Oakland Police Headquarters, 7th St. and Washington St. Community Outreach continued on October 30th and 31st, and during rush hour on November 1st and 2nd. Former Councilmember Wilson Riles Jr. Debated Police Chief Richard Word on Tuesday, October 12th.

Partial List of Endorsers of No on Measure Y
Organizations: Oakland Education Association, ILWU 10, SEIU 24/7, San Francisco Bay Guardian, Global Exchange, Alameda County Green Party, Alameda County Taxpayers Association, Rental Housing Association, Bay Area Local Organizing Committee of the National, Hip-Hop Political Convention, Alameda County Peace and Freedom Party, Justice Now, Just Cause Oakland, Education Not Incarceration Coalition, Prison Activist Resource Center, Oakland Community Action Network, Bay Area Policewatch, Oakland ACORN (Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now), League of Pissed Off Voters, Youth Together, Poor Magazine/Poor News Network, Proyecto Common Touch, Out of Control Committee to Support Lesbian Political Prisoners, All of Us or None, Malcolm X Grassroots Movement, Data Center, Critical Resistance, Black August Organizing Committee, Copwatch, International Peoples Democratic Uhuru Movement, African People Solidarity Committee, Xicana Moratorium Committee, October 22nd Coalition to Stop Police Brutality and the Suppression of a Generation.
Individual endorsers (organizations are for identification purposes only): Wilson Riles; Greg Hodge, School Board Member; Patricia Loya, Centro Legal de la Raza; Councilmember Desley Brooks; Fannie Brown, state co-chair, ACORN; Dwayne Wiggins; Ricardo Barba; Jumoke Hinton Hodge; Jane Jackson, founder, Mayor's Commission on Persons with Disabilities, Imam Keith Muhammad; Eric Mar, San Francisco Board of Education, Commissioner; and Estria Miyashiro, owner of Tumi's Design.
No on Measure Y meetings were held Thursdays, 6 p.m. - 8 p.m. at the Eastside Art Alliance, 2587 International Blvd. in Oakland. It is accessible by AC Transit #81 and Fruitville BART. Weekend outreach times and locations. No on Measure Y flier (pdf)