A Green Vision for Oakland

A Green Vision for Oakland City Politics
In Oakland we need to face some facts.  The facts are that we have many crisis to face in our city.

There is as three prong crisis facing our youth of education, crime and employment. 
We need schools up, crime down and jobs in. 

There is a crisis that is our city budget.  We need to hold a budget convention and issue a new, comprehensive budget. On the one hand we need to deal with the pension’s entitlement problems and have a stable, reliable budget for basic operations from parks to police stations and on the other hand we need to incorporate all the measures, such as Measure Y (or BB) into the body of our budget and law.  We need a budget that has a clear plan for up and down times in the economy. 

There is a crisin our democracy.   Council districts should look like neighborhoods, (not gerrymandered districts that cut them up)  All Oaklanders need to be represented in our government. We need the money out of our local election process and; we need to formalize the relationship with our grass roots neighborhood groups devolving part of the city authority and budget to the local communities.

We propose to make these and other changes only with the citizens of Oakland stepping up and becoming producers, not consumers,  of the politics in our own communities. That means we have to get involved with voting, even when we all know the system is rigged in favor of paid political advertizing and the status quo. 

The public is the solution.  The running of money free grass roots campaigns, the energy behind a reform of the City Charter and budget, the will to deal with our most intractable social problems all can find their solution in an active public.  There are thousands of local registered Greens on the Oakland Voter roles.  It is time for us to say NO MORE.  We need to say NO to money politics by not voting for it, helping spread the work without the media and paid advertizing and VOTING FOR REAL ALTERNATIVES. 

Now in the Oakland Green Party,  a group of known local progressives with a long track record dedicated to real change, are putting together a slate of candidates to be your voice for your and the cities real needs such as:  Schools with vocational training. Schools with arts and sports a top priority, with healthy food for our children a top priority. Safe public services.  Community Policing. Restorative Justice. Local employment.  Stable economic environment.  Environmental retrofitting. And many, many other basic practical things that our city should be doing, but is currently only doing for show, if at all. 

We signatories are stepping forward to be three of those candidates, committed to a reform of our city from top to bottom, from police practices to budget policies with our faith in democracy that includes all of us. 

Please help us by registering to vote those who have rightly been put off by the voting process.
We encourage other progressives to put up candidates and join us.  We plan a public forum in February.  

Don Macleay,                    Dist 1, planning to run for City Council,
Randy Menjivar                 Dist 7, planning to run for City Council,
Vicente Cruz II                   Dist 3, planning to run for school board

Oakland Green Party
contact@oaklandgreens.org (510) 866-7488  P.O. Box 20299, Oakland, CA 94620

OPA Press Statement

         Friends, Family, Brothers and sisters, today we are here to discuss 2012, and in greater detail the forthcoming elections. Oakland is currently at a crux, mass unemployment, increase in violence and crime, home foreclosures, and poverty which is strangling the life out of the working-class communities. meanwhile, the simultaneous tyrannical oppressive regimes that continue unleashing militarized police in our communities to implement and ensure that the gap between the rich and the poor continues to exist and expand. Our schools and libraries are being shutdown at alarming rates, increasing the disparity in education for people of color – yet when these same people protest they are incarcerated or gunned-down.

This year 2012, seems to be a decisive year, where we have to re-consider the ballot or the bullet. We as people can no longer support Democrats and Republicans; they consistently continue to make false promises to the populace, also believing that it is alright to lie to our communities. These politicians blame each other, falsely portraying the image that they are not at fault for any of the wrong-doing of the crimes that have been perpetrated upon the residents of Oakland. We have unmasked these hypocrites and recognized that ‘Progressive, Democrat and Republican’ leasers serve as an arm for the ruling elite.

We have attentively witnessed the masses of people awaken to social, economic, and political injustices committed by many of the nation’s leaders. Singing, ‘We Shall Overcome,’ in 2012 is outdated and will no longer suffice. Begging and pleading for just wages, better education, and equality, has reached its limits. Today we are here to continue on our quest of building a better, more promising future for our elders and the children.

If you believe in our plan of action, please stand with us in solidarity, align yourself as our allies in pursuing freedom and liberation from the oligarchs and capitalistic structures that have devastated our lives for far too long.

Don Macleay,                    Dist 1, planning to run for City Council,
Randy Menjivar                 Dist 7, planning to run for City Council,
Vicente Cruz II                   Dist 3, planning to run for school board

Theresa Anderson            At Large Council Seat

Oakland Green Party
contact@oaklandgreens.org (510) 866-7488  P.O. Box 20299, Oakland, CA 94620

Vicente R. Cruz II Candidate Bio

Vicente R. Cruz II
Candidate for OUSD Board
District 3

BIOGRAPHY

Vicente Rafael Cruz II was born Vicente Rafael Cruz Junior at the Philadelphia Naval Hospital February 4 1964. Rose in his early years by a working single mother with the United Airlines Employees union Vicente comes from a long labor history even back to the civil war. 

Vicente received his education from books on/from teachers such as John Brown, W.E.B. Dubois, Malcolm X, Harriet Tubman, Sister Souljah, Rosa Clemente, and many others.

He received his formal GED from the OUSD Adult Program as well as completing theatrical lighting programs from Diablo Valley College and Santa Rosa junior College. Vicente has a desire to retrieve the Spanish he lost from childhood and will be attending college to read, write and speak the language.

Vicente has worked in education for 16 years first as Youth/Adult Sports Program Director for the Pleasant Hill/Concord Clayton YMCA and 4 years in the Oakland Unified School District with Playworks formerly Sports 4 Kids. He is well known for connecting social justice education into his lesson plans. Also in Vicente’s background is 10 years with Kinko’s where starting as the overnight Shift Supervisor finished being a Production Manager, leaving the company after a severe back injury leaving him disabled.

Vicente has no biological children but has assisted in parenting of five children. Daughters aged 30, and 29 from Maryland, two aged 28 and a son aged 21 from the bay area. Vicente has lived in Oakland since 2006 but has been a bay area resident since 1979.

Since 2000 Vicente has taken a Speak UP Speak Out attitude in the social political community. Doing Legal Observing, Agitator/De-escalate, citizen journalist he has experience with a broad spectrum of the community and has always believed that folks that get elected have to be the people’s voice as well as their own.

Oakland Greens propose an Oakland Progressive Alliance

The Oakland Greens propose an Oakland Progressive Alliance
to offer our communities an alternative in the November 2012 local elections

We invite the public to come and discuss our city’s future in open forum on Friday February 24, 2012
6-8 PM forum discussion, 8-9 Pot luck dinner at Humanist Hall, 411 28^th Street, Oakland, CA, 94609

Oakland is in crisis in our youth, in our schools, in our government. We need active, progressive leadership. 

We are proposing a platform based on personal ethics and independence of the individual candidates coupled with a commitment to reform of our institutions, especially our budget, our council and our law enforcement. 

The panel will consist of Don Macleay City Council Candidate Dist. 1, Randy Menjivar City Council Candidate Dist. 7, Theresa Anderson – Downs At Large Candidate, Vicente Cruz OUSD Board candidate Dist. 3, Andrea Pritchett CopWatch, Wilson Riles OCAN, Laura Wells, California Greens Party, Larry Shoup, Shawn McDougal CDP.

We offer our efforts to the community and we make this proposal to the community.  It is the strongly held view of the Oakland Greens that full slate of candidates, a program that covers the issues well and a political alternative that can guide our city in a much needed new direction will come from the whole community. 

This is an invitation to join, to lead, to mold and to run for office.  All individuals and organizations welcome.

Oakland Green Party contact@oaklandgreens.org (510) 866-7488  P.O. Box 20299, Oakland, CA 94620

(If you would like to have a speaker and/or want to set up a table, please RSVP, also let us know if you can help with the pot-luck food)