Port of Oakland appointment process shakes up West Oakland (Community Voices)
Back in the 1990s, the Port of Oakland was considered the third busiest port in the country - but other ports stepped up their activity while Oakland was working on dredging out its inner harbor. Today, it is ranked as the fifth largest containerized port in the U.S.
Now with the addition of the Oakland Army Base at the foot of the Bay Bridge, our port is in a position to maintain - and possibly expand - its role as the economic engine for the entire East Bay.
Whether it really works for Oakland or not - given all our city’s needs - has always been a hotly debated question. The conversation has usually centered around whether the local business elite should have the power to chart the port’s course or if the wisdom of local residents should be considered, especially those residents and small businesses, which are most impacted by the port.
Even in these days of reining in government, Oakland seems to have redefined the conversation. Starting with former Mayor Lionel Wilson, the governing board began to be diversified in terms of ethnicity, profession and gender - no longer appointing the usual cast of white men with corporate or legal credentials representing big business.
Under Mayor Jerry Brown that trend reversed itself a bit; but even the business and development folks he appointed came from diverse and entrepreneurial backgrounds.
As it stands now, Oakland has one of the larger commissions at seven members and almost all of them come from the nonprofit world. Recent Mayor Jean Quan appointee, Alan Yee, is somewhat of an exception as he is an attorney who has represented businesses trading with Asian countries; but this is not your usual line-up of PG&E reps, financiers, developers and their real estate lawyers (see commissioners, portofoakland.com).
Throughout the country there are many models for port governance. For instance, the huge New York-New Jersey Port Authority’s members are appointed by the governors of those states. Most ports have a commission picked by mayoral appointment with the exception being the Port of Seattle where the voters of King County directly elect their commissioners.
In Oakland, the mayor nominates the commissioners and the City Council approves the appointments. Quan has made one appointment so far in Yee. The overall response to that choice has been positive.
Now comes the hard part.
When Quan ran for mayor, she sought Margaret Gordon’s support as someone with deep roots in Oakland and a history of standing up for West Oakland, in particular. But as a mayor who seeks a fresh start, it’s not surprising that Quan might want to handpick her port representatives as mayors have traditionally done.
At a meeting last summer of the Block by Block Organizing Network - the grassroots organization that helped elect Quan - and the San Pablo Corridor Coalition, the mayor arrived and took questions.
One of the coalition members, long-time West Oakland resident and activist, Ray Kidd, asked Quan point blank if she was going to reappoint Gordon to the port commission when her four year term was up in the fall. The mayor said that she hadn’t yet made a decision on her appointments.
Shortly after that Kidd, Steve Lowe and other local activists met with Gordon at the West Oakland offices of the Environmental Indicators Project - a group she was one of the founding members of - to discuss their concerns about the port appointment process. Some members of the group decided to develop and promote a petition demanding that Gordon be reappointed to carry on the work she started.
The petition is now on Gordon’s Facebook page and at scribd.com. A diverse mix of community members have been seen collecting signatures around town, most notably at the recent Art & Soul Festival in downtown Oakland.
Gordon made history as the first resident of West Oakland and the first environmental health advocate to ever be appointed to the port board. She has long waged war against air pollution in this part of the city where, according to the West Oakland Environmental Indicators’ Project and the Pacific Institute’s study, “In 1998, West Oakland children were seven times more likely to be hospitalized for asthma than the average child in the state of California.”
When environmental racism was a new term which was understood by few and heeded by almost no one, much less government agencies, Margaret had become a nationally-recognized figure who brought attention along with realistic solutions to the problems of air pollution and overall environmental racism.
Her neighborhood still suffers from industrial pollution, but the culprits today are more likely to be the diesel trucks that rumble through neighborhood streets on their way to deliver or receive goods from the port.
That may be why, District 3 Councilwoman Nancy Nadel who represents downtown and West Oakland - told me that she supported Gordon and that a lot of the energy against her reappointment is coming from the Teamsters Union, which believes that the drivers must be employed by the big trucking companies in order to be able to afford the costly mitigations that will make their trucks less polluting.
Gordon and Nadel say they believe there is a place for small independent truckers to operate and are working to design a compromise, which will include these entrepreneurs.
Retired postal worker and co-chair of the West Oakland Neighbors Kidd said that there are still funds - more than $2 million - remaining in the settlement won over the Port’s Vision 2000 expansion plan. The money was required to be paid into a mitigation fund.
Kidd said he believes the two sides of the trucking debate have become needlessly polarized and that Gordon has the ability to bring them together. He contends that some of the remaining funds could be used to help the small truckers. Asked why he was circulating the petition, he said that Margaret, “represents the community that sits right next to the Port ... several elements that port staff needs to hear from … on air quality issues, health effects, jobs.”
The East Bay Alliance for a Sustainable Economy, EBASE, a well respected community organization, has developed a coalition called “Revive Oakland” and is working with job and labor groups that see the expansion of the port into the former Oakland Army Base as “a once in a lifetime opportunity to put up to 8,000 Oaklanders to work over the next two decades; provide business with a local skilled workforce; and transform our city into an economic engine for the region.”
EBASE goes on to declare that jobs developed by the port should “ensure family-supporting jobs, affordable health insurance and respect on the job, not just dead-end, minimum-wage jobs.”
To that end, labor leaders and local nonprofits have joined with EBASE to promote a strong relationship between the port and the city. One of them is the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights - founded by Van Jones, now run by Jakada Imani. It has encompassed a wide range of projects such as “Books not Bars, “Silence the Violence,” and the “Green Collar Jobs” campaigns.
Imani grew up in West Oakland near the Emeryville border and raised the consciousness of educational institutions with the “Books not Bars” campaign he led. When Quan approached him about the port commission, he said that he had been hearing about port issues from colleagues and considering what role he could play to create a “hub for innovation, technology and job creation” at the port.
According to Imani, the controversy on the small truckers versus
the trucking companies who hire union labor is really about “workers
being exploited.
"I know truck drivers sleeping in their trucks," he added. "This is
not the American dream.”
But Imani says that it’s “up to the mayor to make that decision.” He said he believes he could “hold down” the place that Gordon has made for environmental justice and that she would be able to “look back on his tenure” as carrying on her work.
Imani has also heard other names being discussed for the port positions, among them, Joe Brooks of Policy Link who has a long history of economic justice work. Asked how we would feel about displacing Gordon, Brooks said, “I would support Margaret on the board ... no criticisms.”
Quan’s communications manager, Sue Piper, was out of the country and unable to provide comment regarding Gordon’s reappointment.
I also talked to two other local activists who are circulating petitions in favor of Gordon’s reappointment. Saleem Shakir, who is a youth advocate and heads up the new chapter of “Concerned Black Men of Oakland,” a national organization, said, “Margaret’s doing the work, leading the way. You couldn’t find a stronger advocate for West Oakland.”
Steve Lowe who is a long-time advocate for the West Oakland Commerce Organization, WOCA, and a resident of the Jack London area, said that he is “in complete accord with her reappointment … and (her concern with) small business.” He also said the port has maintained its detachment from the public so that “Margaret’s accessibility is a boon for the community.” He gives her a good deal of the credit for preventing the rebuilding of the Cypress Freeway that had cut across and divided West Oakland before its collapse in the 1989 Loma Prieta Earthquake.
Lowe said he would like to see the ideas of the Port/City Task Force commissioned under Mayor Ron Dellums implemented - one of which posits the formation of a community advisory group with the port and city in order to offer Oaklanders some way to connect with it. He claims that the City-Port Liaison Committee meets sporadically and even then only allows the public a minute to address officials.
Many local activists expressed dismay off the record over what seems to be a struggle between trail blazer Gordon and up-and-coming local activists to carry the torch for community benefits and neighborhood health concerns.
The crux may be in the different approaches to finding ways to both retrofit the diesel engines while increasing the truckers’ abilities to make a living whether in independent companies or union jobs; and, most importantly, who is able to bring the stakeholders together to adopt those solutions.
The mayor has to make that call and it’s a newspaper cliché that one
issue or another might be the turning point for a politician’s
popularity in any given community. But for West Oakland, how this
appointment is handled by the mayor will mark a moment that is not
likely to be forgotten there.
Note: Having reached the Mayor shortly after posting this piece,
I learned that her office had asked for applications for the Port
Commission posts as early as February through her newsletter and
received numerous responses (among them was Jakada Imani’s), but none
from Gordon until recently.
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Kinda like visiting a salami factory: i'm not sure i want to know this much about the infighting in the local non-profit / community organization world that goes around important City appointments.
Interesting Quan is showing signs of reducing her very public embrace of non profits to solve our problems by appointing Yee. She should follow that with an appointment of someone else who is not from the nonprofit or community sector but actually has expertise and experience in world trade.
That doesn't mean going back to the bad old days of white man's club of real estate developers and their attorneys. Since she has to avoid showing a pro business bias (heavens forbid the Port actually thrived financially), why not appoint someone from UC Berkeley to serve? Tons of talented international trade profs running around there.
Reviving the success of the Port would give substance to her title as official US League of City's international trade chairperson. (not to mention we residents wouldn't get po'd at how much the port spends on her junkets abroad, or how often she's traveling)
Where else but Oakland, would the majority of appointees to a Port that we are all depending on to be an economic growth engine, come from non-profits whose sole economic activity was figuring out how to get bigger grants from businesses, governments, other non profits, and wealthy individuals?
But then this is the same city where Quan's top economic development aide also comes from the non-profit/corporate community relations world. Bizzaro anywhere else but here.
-len raphael, cpa
temescal
Len--this is a fascinating point: "Where else but Oakland, would the majority of appointees to a Port that we are all depending on to be an economic growth engine, come from non-profits whose sole economic activity was figuring out how to get bigger grants from businesses, governments, other non profits, and wealthy individuals?"
And yet, going from the abstract to the specific, it seems as though local resident and activist Gordon has been effective in her role at the Port, so how does her specific performance--and relevance--jibe with your very astute point?
There is no no question that in the bad old days Oakland government and related entities like the Port were controlled by a good old white boy coalitition of the larger businessess and developers for the benefit of their organizations and themselves. Call that capitalism meets democracy or power elites in action, or human nature depending on your ideologicial point of view.
The health of people in West Oakland wasn't even a blip on the radar screen for the city leaders of the time.
Margaret Gordon and Nadel and many others reversed that prior total disregard of the health of the residents.
Now we've gone from that extreme of total disregard to the extreme of making the resident's health a primary consideration for evaluating Port business decisions.
i don't see that Nadel, Gordon, EBASE came up with a magical way to cut thru the inherent envoirmental conflicts between the residents and the Port. Much the way there is a conflict in the Valley between industrial agriculture and residential , in many parts of Oakland between industrial and residential, there are conflicts here that will not have "win win" solutions for everyone.
in a different context, where the class conflicts are reversed, would be the beach zones of the East Coast where well to do people get to live in areas that should not be inhabited, but the Feds pay for trucking in sand, building barriers, subsidizing flood insurance etc. New Orleans also comes to mind.
Maybe we collectively put a higher priority on the health of West Oakland residents than on the jobs that the Port could create if that health priority were lowered. Then you can get into tradeoffs about whether the economic benefits of the Port for all residents, offsets the harm from the Port.
2 Million dollars seems like a lot of money to a non profit activist, but nowwhere close to the cost of retrofitting a bunch of independent's older trucks plus maintaining them plus upgrading them as the technology improves.
i depend on small business for my livihood, but in this situation big well capitalized trucking companies that can afford the latest greatest air pollution technology and pay union wages are the only way to support a thriving Port and protect the drivers.
-len raphael, cpa
temescal
Im not impressed by the positions taken by The East Bay Alliance for a Sustainable Economy, EBASE, on its website.
We have a plethora of energetic people in Oakland eager to work on "economic justice" but a shortage of people able to start up and succeed in businesses. Without the successful businesses to squeeze, the EBASE's of Oakland are beached whales.
As for their plans to create 8,000 good paying benefited jobs at the Army Base, I say lol to that. The last thirty years of city and federal and state economic development efforts have a dismal record except for the DOD's promotion of the Internet, and the interstate highway system. The incentives for home ownership led to an economy heavy on construction and weak on industry. In Oakland we have an economy heavy on non profits, real estate development, restaurants and nail salons. Almost forgot medical mj.
You only have to look at the Solyndra collapse to see the extremely high risks of government or even private (there was a billion $ of private money in Solyndra) economic development.
When you consider that EBASE and similar non profits and social justice groups have even less business experience than Nancy Nadel with her chocolate factory, there is a 0 probability of success for their 8,000 job program.
-len raphael, cpa
temescal
Now that Obamba is considered a turncoat by many of his local supporters, it wouldn't surprise those ex supporters to hear that our president wants to delay strenghtening certain EPA rules. The rest of us respect his obligation to weigh the real health costs of increasesd unemployment that would occur in the short to mid run by raising those standards vs the long term health benefits of raising and enforcing those standards.
Similar but much more direct interactions exist at the local Port level. EBASE, Gordon and Nadel's solutions are not solutions but politically correct band-aids.
The article also touched on the third rail of Oakland style economic development that inevitably pits unions against unemployed residents. Regardless of whether it's short term construction trade jobs or long term warehouse/distribution work, the guiding union principle is hiring out union halls based on seniority, time unemployed and other factors.
I'm guessing that the very few of the unemployed skilled and semi skilled construction tradespeople in West Oakland, or even greater Oakland, are union members. Some for potention warehouse workers.
Unions have danced around that in the past with apprenticeship programs and local hiring mandates, but with the job market in such desparate shape, that's going to be a hard one for both the unions and the local unemployed residents to find common ground. Political leadership will be needed, so maybe our Mayor can fit us into her travel schedule to be in town for those negotiations.
-len raphael, cpa
temescal
There are a lot of assumptions thrown around in Len's many comments but the general assumption that there has to be an impenatrable divide between non-profits and business in goals and strategies, I believe is a false one.
If our system is to work-I say if-then we have to work this stuff out and design a balanced approach. I don't believe we have to sacrifice the health of our most marginalized neighbors for jobs for them or others. There are many groups like EBASE and Oakland Works which are trying to work together to make sure the overall economic benefits go to a larger segment of the population than they have previously.
We have staff at the Port who are business oriented and that is their job. I hopre they are good at it. The Port Commission is obviously a political job as it is a political appointment. They are required to represent various segments of the surrounding communities and many interests.
As for economic development as a result of government influence, many of our most successful businesses arose from government funds, like the pharmaceutical industry in which government-backed universities performed the research that those companies have often depended on. The military has designed many systems we now use for consumer products and which provide private companies with huge profits.
We coudn't have become a super power without a public education system which lifted masses of the population out of illiteracy; and the great work ahead of us- if we choose to remain a civilized society-is to rebuild our infrastructure with an ever better educated populace. That infrastructure is not just about roads and bridges but hosptials, clinics, disaster resistant housing stock, energy systems, wireless services for all, and public art, among others.
I have become a bit discouraged that those of us who seek employment in promoting human potential-generally for lower wages and less stability-are so regularly disparaged. I'm not blaming you, Len, for that, but I wish we all would look at the bigger picture.
Could someone please fix the large picture issue?
Mr. Raphael makes a number of good points. A Port Commission led by non-profit executives who have no concept of the role of capitalism in our society and only seek to demonize it is a recipe for disaster. I do not have a problem with someone representing the issues and concerns of West Oakland residents. But I do have a problem with a mayor who will only appoint her non-profit cronies to Boards that have a significant economic impact on our city.
Pam, we don't disagree about the public good that's come from government spending on higher education, basic r&d, the space program, national institute of health grants, roads and bridges, even many (but not all) of the dams. etc.
The Dept of Defense provided initial funding for the internet and then (i think) the National Science Foundation paid for several years until it was self supporting.
But a city the size of ours is not in any financial position to take the risks of chosing winning and losing technologies and industries the way the Federal government once was. We have some one time grants from the Feds assumedly to convert the army base to civilian use, and maybe some other grants, and we have one shot at getting it right. When that money is gone in the forseeable Federal and State budget situations and political climate, the big govt grant days are coming to an end.
Which is to say we can't afford even a mini Solyndra.
In that situation we should take the low risk approach that gives us the most options for future changes, while employing some residents and generating some tax revenue now.
It's not a conflict between profits and social goals I was referring to, but a conflict between maximizing local employment vs maximizing envoirmental protection and small truckers.
i wish I had your faith in the professional management of the Port. My impression is that the Port is staggering and not entirely because of the recession.
Without a majority of Board members with related and substantial business experince, the professional staff will not get proper oversight. That's why the board of director's of pubilcly held companies are now picked for their expertise post Enron.
-len raphael, cpa
temescal
(ps good to see that the attack of the 30 foot Jennifer has been fixed)
Yeah, we like our voices big...pictures, not so much,