League of Women Voters of California Education Fund
	Alameda County, CA November 6, 2012 Election
	Candidates Answer Questions on the Issues Council Member; City of Oakland; Council District 3

The questions were prepared by the League of Women Voters of Oakland and asked of all candidates for this office.     See below for questions on , , , Click on a name for candidate information.   See also more information about this contest. 1. (Foreclosure challenges) Many Oaklanders have lost their homes because of the economic recession; how can the city help homeowners, and how can the city help neighborhoods experiencing high rates of foreclosures and vacancies? Answer from Alex Miller-Cole: Real Estate is one of the foundational elements of a community. People need homes to live in, places to house their businesses in, and public space to share and enjoy communally. While there are many "causes" of our current economic downturn, the rapid fall of housing prices was key. For Oakland, this has led to a drastic decrease in tax revenue based on property values, and a corresponding crisis in funding essential government functions. We must do a better job at protecting our residents when it come to foreclosures. I support a court-based mediation protocol. At the moment all we do is file notices with the county which are not properly reviewed and that give the banks the ability to move forward. I see my role in this matter as the legislator who is to leverage all possible legal tools to protect our residents. I am very interested in exploring how eminent domain might be used as a tool to buy back foreclosed properties and then make them available again at a fair market value to those who lost them. A land trust could also be an excellent tool. We have done it before and we should do it again. If we are serious about preventing gentrification and protecting our communities we must become doers and stop being just talkers. Home ownership is one of the strongest tools in preventing the displacement of our residents. It is up to us to make a difference. If this continues is only because we have not done our jobs. While I am a landlord, I strongly support tenants' rights. I have been a property owner in Oakland for the past 16 years. My tenants are my neighbors and my friends. Some of my best endorsements come from our tenants. I feel that the main way to deal with foreclosures is to promote and grow a healthy economy. Our City needs the introduction of economic development with a strong focus on workforce development. We can achieve this by ensuring that our training centers produce workers with high quality training and enough journeymen hours to be able to join Oakland's workforce. We can do this if we get the Oakland Port and the community to work together. We can do this through business retention and business attraction. I have done all of this. We just need to work together and be smart about how we connect the dots and achieve our common goals. Answer from Derrick H. Muhammad: Promote intensive outreach and education to victims and potential victims to direct them to existing resources. Recruit trained financial counselors. Ensure enforcement of policies to address vacant foreclosed properties. Engage the lending industry and policy makers to negotiate their role in both addressing the current crisis and developing long term solutions. Answer from Larry Lionel Young, Jr.: We can ensure banks are registering their notice of default properties and forclosures and charge blight fees at $2000 a day after proper notification. In some cases it was a bad investment to refinance a home or purchase a property at a high price point. Utilize some of our dilapatdated buildings and turn them into transistional homes on a trial basis to our affected District 3 Oakland citizens. Answer from Lynette (Gibson) McElhaney: The City of Oakland must take a leadership role to address the foreclosure crisis because our economic stability is very much dependent upon keeping our residents housed. As the CEO of Neighborhood Housing Services East Bay, I have dedicated my professional career to preventing foreclosures, helping families build credit, developing mixed-use properties, and providing low-income housing. I am a certified financial counselor. I know that we must change policy so that we can allow individuals to rebuild their credit in order to re-stabilize after foreclosure. The City must prevent price gouging by property owners while families are resettling from foreclosure in rental properties. The City must also take leadership to hold banks accountable for re-sales of foreclosed properties and prevent developers from exploiting this crisis. We must promote first-time home ownership to qualified buyers and incentivize residents to put down roots in Oakland. The City of Oakland must hold banks accountable for maintaining their properties so that our foreclosed properties do not become blighted or centers of dangerous activity in our neighborhoods. 2. (Public Safety) Improving public safety is about more than just increasing the police force. What should be done for violence prevention? Answer from Larry Lionel Young, Jr.: Encourage and have more neighborhood block parties (quarterly) along with opening McClymonds pool (which has been closed for almost 15 years). Provide more community outreach and job training for all intersted parties consistently. Carrer day monthly (possibly bi weekly) at elementary schools, middle schools and high schools . Also offer programs to adults Answer from Derrick H. Muhammad: I see public safety as a combination of law enforcement, preventative programs and employment opportunity. I will work to better connect youth and adults to existing programs. I will work to help create jobs by attracting business investment and pushing the unions to open up their apprenticeship programs to give people an opportunity to learn a trade and become gainfully employed. Through strenghthening the neighborhood crime prevention councils I will increase the communitys vigilence to combat crime. Answer from Alex Miller-Cole: It is imperative that we keep improving public safety and rebuilding the trust and cooperation between our community and the OPD. I have done this in my neighborhood, and I know it works. I did this without relying on a new tax or line in our City budget. I know we can do this City-wide. We don't need to reinvent the wheel, but we do need to refocus on community policing strategies. I serve as Commissioner of the Community Policing Advisory Advisory Board, the Co-Chair of my local Neighborhood Crime Prevention Council (NCPC), and the Chair of the San Pablo Corridor Coalition, on of the most active community groups dedicated to improving public safety through progressive strategies. My work as member of these groups, as well as my years of community activism around public safety issues, have given me a broader perspective on the public safety crisis we face today. There is no question that for as long as the status quo is maintained, we will need more and more police. This is a vicious cycle; I believe there is a better way. We can create the positive change we need by using innovative, on the ground strategies and dealing with problems at the root. It doesn't matter how many times we incarcerate, criminalize, or punish someone if we are not able to offer them a viable alternative to live a better life. In addition, as a City Councilmember, I will fight for funding to be allocated to support programs that will address the root of the issues and I will oppose measures that promote the cycle of brutality, dehumanization, and alienation that result from seeking quick fixes. I support Restorative Justice programs. I feel that the City's involvement should go hand-in-hand with the programs to create increased opportunities for healing and advancement. Answer from Lynette (Gibson) McElhaney: Violence prevention requires a multi-pronged approach. I will work hard to evaluate the root causes of crime. I am committed to ensuring that Oaklanders see a return on the significant investment that we make - with our tax dollars - on public safety. Over the last three years, I have served as a partner in Richmond's for Ceasefire/Lifelines to Healing coalition. Ceasefire is an evidenced-based intervention model has been successful in drastic reductions in gun-related homicides and injuries. The success of this model requires breaking down the silos between community, police, faith leaders and service providers to hold each institution accountable for the unacceptably high rates of gun-related violence and homicides. This strategy, when properly implemented, not only serves to reduce shootings and homicides, it improves community/police and police/government relationships + both desperately needed in order to remove the stigma and costs associated with the Consent decree. As your Councilmember, I will increase community policing and neighborhood watch programs so that our residents work together to promote safety and thus work collectively to strengthen our communities. I would improve infrastructure projects that would increase safety, such as more streetlights, and I would encourage residents to ensure that their properties are well protected through "defensive landscaping." I believe that some crime is done out of economic disparity, thus I am committed to bringing jobs to Oakland and expanding workforce development programs. One example would be expanding our CiviCorps programs, which has been proven to successfully decrease crime by individuals reentering society in cities such as Oxnard, CA. Our City's safety and economy suffers is suffering due to our dropout crisis. We must partner with our schools to improve academic performance, to renew workforce development, and to ensure that our young people have support systems and mentors who deter them from dropping out of high school. A lower dropout rate will lead to a decrease in crime and an increase in our economic stability. 3. (Bringing businesses and jobs) Oakland needs more neighborhood serving businesses. What can the City Council do to bring more businesses and jobs to the city? Answer from Alex Miller-Cole: As your next District 3 City Councilmember, I will be the tireless ambassador that we have not had in decades. I will do this because I am fully invested in the future of the City. Shipping and warehousing, import/export, and rail are all essential to the growth of our our port. If our port is to become the economic engine for the entire region, we must prioritize these key sectors. I want to work with the rest of the City Council to bring banking, medical, food, and other basic businesses and services to Oakland's "flatlands." There is a tremendous sales and revenue leak that funnels potential growth out of our City on a daily basis. As the next Councilmember, I will personally reach out and welcome every single business venture that comes into our City and District 3. I will assist and help develop a business center dedicated to actually guiding entrepreneurs, investors, and businesses who want to do business in Oakland. Answer from Lynette (Gibson) McElhaney: I will foster the creation of 10,000 or more good-paying jobs in the City of Oakland. This involves supporting existing pipeline projects, removing regulatory barriers to business start-ups and working to strengthen our fledgling green-tech and high-tech sectors. Many business owners claim that bureaucracy from the City of Oakland has deterred them from doing business here. I will be a champion to recruit new business here to come to Oakland by reducing this bureaucracy. Our City particularly lacks retail and grocery stores. We need to bring those businesses to Oakland so that our residents can spend their money within Oakland and thus return their tax dollars to our community. Beyond traditional W-2 employment, I am also committed to helping create an environment for entrepreneurship and worker-owned cooperatives as a means to significantly reducing the unacceptably high unemployment rate in District #3. Jerry Brown's 10k program focused on housing starts which helped stimulate increased economic activity in the uptown and Jack London Districts. While narrow in scope, the plan helped revitalize a decaying urban core. My 10k2 plan seeks to build upon the real and perceived success of 10k by attracting capital investment and private sector participation in creating good-paying jobs and in this way, expand the positive economic impact among the City's workers. I lead on the economy because I believe you have to have a robust economy in order to effectively deal with crime, improve schools, expand libraries and parks. We must lead with growing the economy as our #1 priority. Quality housing must be supported by an economic infrastructure that improves the quality of life for all. Answer from Larry Lionel Young, Jr.: Adopt a Hire Oakland first policy. Streamline the busines permit process . Go paperless save money. For example a owner started the permit process for a winery in both Emeryville and Oakland at the same time. Emeryville process took under 30 days and Oakland's process was 6months. Offer incentives on a trial basis. Offer local currency. Answer from Derrick H. Muhammad: There are 3 major projects that promise to boost Oaklands economy. The Army base project, the Bus Rapid Transit Project and the Airport connector project. I will work to facilitate the success of all these projects. Additionally, west Oakland is ripe for technology manufacturing. I will study cities like San Jose to learn what works and find a way to duplicate it here. 18% of the jobs in San Jose are in the manufacturing of widgets. Ditrict 3's West Oakland can accomodate this kind of industry. I will promote Oakland as a destination for tech firms. 4. (Your Council Legacy) In 20 years what do you want to look back on as having been your legacy in the City of Oakland? Answer from Lynette (Gibson) McElhaney: In twenty years, I hope that I would be known for leading Oakland to economic prosperity and dramatically improving the quality of life of all residents. I want to lead our City to become highly regarded for its professionalism and civility. I want to work with the fellow councilmembers and our City staff to make Oakland as safe as cities like Walnut Creek who endure zero homicides per year. I want to be known for championing innovation and for recruiting high tech, green tech, and entrepreneurial development in Oakland. I want to be known as a passionate advocate for our children, through my work to strengthen the eleven schools in my District. I will work to align resources between our schools and our City in order to maximize outcomes that improve the lives of our families and our kids. I want to be known for "greening" our city so that our environmental and environmental health indicators drastically improve. I want to be known for working zealously to shrink the life expectancy and health gap between low and high-income residents. I want to be known as a City Councilmember who ensured investments in our essential services, such as parks and libraries, so that our beauty is restored and our access to resources is abundant. Answer from Alex Miller-Cole: In 20 years, I'd like to see my City Council legacy as the following: 1. A significant increase in home ownership for low-to-middle income families in the district. 2. The creation of good jobs and economic opportunities such as the Oakland Army Base, and the Port of Oakland. A vibrant economy for all of Oakland. 3. A safer Oakland for our children through increased public safety. Answer from Larry Lionel Young, Jr.: My legacy will be for making Oakland the Best place to live, the best place to work and the best place to vacation. Answer from Derrick H. Muhammad: To have achieved a community of peace, sustainability and fluent opportunity for the most marginalized groups in the city. Responses to questions asked of each candidate are reproduced as submitted to the League.  Candidates' responses are presented as submitted. Direct references to opponents are not permitted. The order of the candidates is random and changes daily. Candidates who did not respond are not listed on this page.