THE CITY THAT CAN'T DECIDE
Payton, Brenda
THE CITY THAT CANT DECIDE Will Oakland choose baseball over basics? BY BRENDA PAYTON What's a city to do? Should a city concentrate on attracting and aiding business, or on providing basic...
...But can a city afford to invest money if it can't pay for basic services such as police and fire protection...
...At City Hall, they call it "creative financing...
...The population is 55 per cent nonwhite, 47 per cent of it black, according to the 1980 census, and estimates of actual figures are higher...
...In a televised press conference, the mayor admitted that only one-third of the 6,000 jobs created by downtown development have gone to Oakland residents...
...The police positions were saved by a loan from the city's prosperous port...
...As the city's downtown becomes more of a reality, the community-based criticism of its downtown-development strategy has become more organized and vocal...
...Although the city was in negotiations with the Haas family for the $ 15 million loan, officials said they could not afford to lend the school district the $5 million it needed to resolve the strike and open the schools...
...Residents simply saw that the city had a total of $45 million—nine times what the schools needed—earmarked for privately owned sports franchises...
...The city council has delayed action on the balanced-development proposal, but David Glover, one of the coalition organizers, says the group is more determined than ever to force the issue: "The coalition has grown as more people have recognized the inequity of the city's plans...
...The document went on to outline a plan for the various communities and minorities to participate in development...
...It's a precursor of California's future: The white "majority" is in the minority...
...In 1983, Oakland was named the most integrated city in the country, not just statistically, but block by block: Fewer people live on racially homogenous blocks than in any other city...
...To support its generosity to developers, the city devised complex schemes to sell city buildings and lease them back...
...In a move that has come to symbolize the city's priorities, it reduced fire services in two neighborhoods to make up a $ 15 million deficit at the same time that it proceeded with a $ 15 million loan to the the Oakland A's baseball team...
...The Oakland school district suffers from the whole range of problems associated with schools in poor urban areas, and its teachers were the lowest-paid in California...
...Residents of the neighborhoods whose fire services were cut at the time the city was negotiating the baseball team's loan have organized and restored the service, but the city also cut its budget in every department and increased the fees it charges for other services...
...These numbers have translated into political representation...
...Officials have consistently defended the loan to the A's as a solid investment that secures future financing for the city...
...During the heated debate over the loan to the schools, it came out that the city had a reserve fund of $30 million that could be used to purchase the Raiders football team in the unlikely event that the city won its lawsuit to force the Raiders to return to Oakland...
...In one case it even issued a $51 million bond sale touted as financing for police and fire department vehicles—only to use the money instead to leverage the $ 15 million loan to the A's...
...In the early 1970s, Oakland officials responded to a dying downtown with a multifaceted renovation plan based primarily on the construction of tall office buildings...
...A few months later, a coalition of community organizations attracted more than 2,000 residents to a meeting to discuss city financing with the mayor, after officials proposed to cut the number of officers in the police force...
...Engaged in an arduous fifteen-year effort to develop the downtown area, Oakland, California, sees structures rising from the holes excavated a decade ago...
...One of the community organizers says the plan was presented to the council before the elections, "during a time when members are particularly sensitive to community concerns...
...In one district, a pro-developer incumbent barely squeaked by, winning by only 137 votes even though she spent twice as much on her campaign as her community-based challenger...
...It lost the case...
...Oakland's clumsy priority-setting led eventually to an organized protest...
...City officials have not been shy about what seems important to them...
...And they took on an anything-for-the-developer mentality...
...Starting with land sales at well-below-market rates and loan-backing agreements, the city graduated to outright gifts of land to prospective developers and loans of public funds, raised through bond sales, to private business...
...Under this proposal, developers receiving public assistance would contribute to a community equity fund extending resources to low- and moderate-income neighborhoods for housing, human services, and commercial development...
...The capital base for most city subsidies is achieved through the taxes paid by Oakland citizens," their document read, and "minimal impact has been realized in the neighborhoods as a result of downtown development to date, and no plan exists to formally link developer and neighborhood progress...
...While city officials said the fund was not really set aside for the Raiders, even though it could be used for that purpose, most people didn't buy their convoluted explanation...
...Should a city concentrate on attracting and aiding business, or on providing basic services to its residents...
...This isn't the first time the A's have come out ahead of public service in the city's book...
...Oakland residents, who have too often been oblivious to such matters, are beginning to question the wisdom of the development strategy being pursued in their behalf...
...In 1986, the city endured a devastating month-long school strike over the issue of teachers' salaries...
...Oakland is a working-class city of about 345,000 across the bay from San Francisco...
...Also rising is the frustration level in the neighborhoods that have been neglected in the process...
...But the problems plaguing most minority communities have persisted...
...Characteristically, the city of Oakland has removed the gray areas from the argument...
...So what benefit do Oaklanders, especially the chronically unemployed, derive from a fancy downtown...
...So people here can look forward to dirtier streets, untidy parks, and higher parking fines and business-license fees...
...The A's are owned by the wealthy Haas family, founders of Levi Strauss...
...If development does not lead to jobs or commercial re-vitalization throughout the city, why should residents sacrifice basic services so the developers can receive public assistance...
...the mayor and the majorities of both the school board and the city council are black...
...In fact, the city's development priorities were a central issue in the campaign for the first time...
...At the last minute the mayor backed out of the meeting, claiming he and the group could not agree on a format...
...Who is served by downtown development...
...District administrators and teachers, finding themselves at an impasse, turned to the city for a $5 million loan...
...Brenda Payton is a columnist for the Oakland Tribune...
...Oakland suffers from the consequences of limited opportunity-chronic unemployment, especially among black men, an unusually high infant-mortality rate, poverty, illiteracy, and crime...
...Before the last city council, a group of sixty community organizations came together and drew up a strategy for balanced development...
Vol. 52 • January 1988 • No. 1
