>"The city of Oakland aims for Measure E tax funds to pay for services already funded by Measure NN, the tax voters approved in 2024. It also diverts Measure NN funds to fire equipment."
>"I am in the middle of analyzing all of this... I am trying to figure out if it will decrease next year."
— Alameda County Treasurer Henry "Hank" Levy, after the guide was already mailed to voters.
>"New audit finds the city let business taxes go uncollected. Meanwhile the city sits on hundreds of vacant positions, claims “extreme fiscal necessity,” and aims to increase taxes on homeowners."
>"Oakland keeps asking voters for new parcel taxes — and keeps failing to deliver what those taxes promised. What voters should weigh in deciding Measure E (June 2026)."
>"The City of Oakland’s public employee unions are spending heavily on a political campaign to increase taxes on Oakland residents, again. Yet most of those employees do not live in Oakland, and won’t have to pay the tax themselves."
>The lawsuit alleges the city is using its largest municipal union, SEIU 1021, as a shell organization to skirt elections law and has violated the California Public Records Act to cover its tracks.
>"This case concerns a coordinated and deeply troubling effort by the City of Oakland to evade California's constitutional and statutory requirements governing both public records access as well as the enactment of parcel taxes by what appears to be outsourcing what is inherently a governmental function -- the drafting, framing, and qualification of a tax measure -- to a public employee union," according to the suit, filed by Oakland-based attorney Marleen Sacks.
>At issue is Measure E, a proposed $192 annual parcel tax increase that would raise $34 million a year for nine years to support the city's 911 system, police and fire services, homelessness solutions and anti-illegal dumping efforts.
>Despite being a tax proposal, however, Measure E only requires a simple majority vote to pass since it was placed on the ballot by a privately financed "citizen" signature gathering effort, rather than by the Oakland City Council.
👉 https://www.sfgate.com/news/bayarea/article/oakland-taxpayers-assn-suit-alleges-city-22235352.php
"Oakland Unified School District (OUSD) is sliding back toward receivership, less than 12 months after exiting two decades of state control. Despite widespread media coverage and public discussion about OUSD’s crisis, few observers seem willing to name the political force that helped drive it to the brink: Oakland Education Association (OEA), the teachers union that has spent years donating to and campaigning for school board members friendly to its financial interests.
"These same school board members — some of whom hail from union ranks and leadership themselves — now oversee OUSD’s labor contract negotiations with OEA, then approve the resulting contracts.
"Reason dictates that this arrangement presents a clear conflict of interest, but OUSD and OEA are by no means outliers. This practice is routine among elected officials and the public unions that donate to their campaigns.
"Notably, public employee unions get much of their funding from union dues paid by public employees through automatic deductions from those employees’ paychecks — meaning that a primary source of OEA’s income is public money provided by taxpayers.
"Much has been said and written by media outlets, politicians, unions, district staff, and political commentators about the alarmingly dire state of OUSD’s finances. Some have recognized the school board’s apparent unwillingness to do the hard but necessary work of digging Oakland’s schools out of the deep budget hole they now are in.
"Yet virtually all of these influential voices have declined to directly acknowledge the elephant in the room: OEA’s outsized political and financial influence on the school board, and its direct connection to the board’s reckless financial decision-making. Instead there are carefully-worded allusions that hint at, but ultimately obscure this connection, even as it sits in plain sight.
"We can only speculate as to why virtually no one in a position of influence directly calls out this connection. However, it seems likely that several factors are in play:
"Here we pause to make one point absolutely clear: we believe unions are important and valuable organizations for protecting workers’ interests.
"Collective bargaining empowers workers to negotiate for fair compensation and safe, supportive working conditions. The list of workplace improvements labor unions have created throughout history is long, and worthy of gratitude and respect.
"We also believe that teachers are part of a noble profession, held in very high regard that is well-earned through centuries of education and enlightenment to which they have dedicated their professional lives.
"These are all good things that we agree with.
"However, it also is a fact that no organization — indeed, no person — is immune from the corrosive effects of outsized power, disproportionate wealth, and overwhelming influence over public affairs.
"Numerous studies provide examples of powerful and influential organizations — including corporations,1 local governments,2 and public employee unions3 — that abuse their power to the detriment of others, and sometimes ultimately themselves and the ideals they once held.
"Proven antidotes to these corrosive effects include public scrutiny, strong and responsible oversight, sound leadership, regulatory checks, and an unwavering commitment to the highest ethical standards throughout the organization and every person involved in it.
"Many organizations do have these guardrails in place, which serve to rein in the innate tendency for power to corrupt an organization.
"Unfortunately, some do not.
"One tactic such organizations employ is to use their outsized power and influence to remove or render meaningless the guardrails that otherwise might check their worst tendencies.
"In an attempt to better understand how this situation came to pass in OUSD — and its profound effect on Oakland’s schools — we will take a closer look at the elephant in the room."
👇️ Full article: https://www.oaklandreport.org/p/the-elephant-in-the-classroom
>"The City of Oakland just can’t seem to quit Rebecca Kaplan. After she left elected office, the city gave her a publicly-funded $149,000 per year job – plus benefits...
"Oakland city administrator Jestin D. Johnson awarded her the job as an ‘illegal dumping project manager.’ Johnson hired Kaplan with no public recruitment, no job description, and no public announcement.
"Illegal dumping has been a signature issue for Kaplan since the early days of her political career. City officials have lauded Kaplan for her expertise and work in this area. Yet Oakland’s illegal dumping problems became measurably worse during Kaplan’s 16-year tenure on city council, and today have escalated to become among the city’s most visible, vexing, and expensive crises
"Now the city of Oakland is paying Kaplan handsomely to work as a city employee — out of the public’s view — to ‘project manage’ the consequences of the illegal dumping policies and waste removal contracts she played an outsized role in shaping during her time on the council.
"Before she got her new city job, Kaplan frequently appeared and spoke about her achievements in public, having run for office a dozen times over the past two decades. But since she signed her new city employment contract in September 2025, she has remained remarkably silent in public, and the city has provided no information about Kaplan’s new role and activities.
"This report draws from public records, city documents, independent audits, and media reports to help Oakland Report readers piece together what Kaplan has been doing in her new job — and the path she took to land her new publicly funded employment."