Oakland Measure G1: More of the Same

Long time no post.

I had no idea that the Oakland School Board was back up to its old tricks. I picked up a copy of the East Bay Express and was surprised to see that the board has put another $120/parcel tax on the ballot.

A quick web search indicated that there wasn't even an argument submitted against the tax. I wonder how many Oakland residents realize that this is a duplicate of another $120/parcel tax the district is already levying which passed in November, 2014. And that's in addition to a longstanding $195/parcel tax that's already on people's bills.

I actually support these taxes because they're regressive and they promote gentrification. But, I suspect most Oaklanders should not support them. That's why I returned to my long-dormant blog to at least say something about it.

If Measure G1 passes, the school district will be levying $435 per year per parcel on homeowners, many of whom can't afford it or have fled the still-floundering school district.

Sure, the duplicate $120/parcel taxes have low-income protections to make sure the truly poor don't pay them. But, the vast majority of Oaklanders don't qualify (and it sort of has to be that way, otherwise they wouldn't raise any money).

I'm not up on rent control, but my vague recollection is commercial properties can pass this tax along to renters. I guess $10/month of additional rent isn't that much, but it does add up.

Anyway, I support the tax because, like most liberal policies, it pushes out the poor and encourages gentrification. But, most Oaklanders should probably not support it.

Can Oakland Copy Detroit?

Here's a like to an interesting news story: Detroit Looks To Health Law To Ease Costs

Can Oakland do this too?

Restorative Justice: More Of The Same

Today's NY Times article about restorative justice programs in schools pushes the agenda that schools should be trying to "fix" kids with severe social or discipline problems.

I'll be honest that the Measure Y poster in the background of the photo accompanying the article didn't improve my mood on reading it. What a con job that was. Pretending to hire more cops so they could funnel more money to terrible social programs.



I don't really care what Oakland does with problem kids in the schools.

My reading suggests the only thing that has any real chance of working is to take them totally out of their environment by putting them in some kind of boot camp program. I assume that's why the most successful inner-city charter schools keep the kids in school 10+ hours a day.

These programs are a shame because there are smart kids in these schools. But when the funding comes, they're overlooked in favor of trying to "fix" the problem kids.

That's the wrong approach. Most problem kids will never amount to anything no matter what you do.

Stop wasting money on them. And, if you're going to spend money on them, take them out of schools and make them break rocks or cut trails in the Sierras or something. Get them out of that inner city environment.

But don't do this. Open a magnet school to empower the smart kids.

OUSD Continues Its Demographic Transformation

The face of Oakland is continuing its rapid transformation as gentrification draws new families to the area and displaces others.

I crunched the numbers for the past 20 years and came up with a pretty interesting chart showing how Oakland Unified's enrollment has changed. I suspect this is a common theme across all big California cities. But still, I'm not sure people in the Bay Area realize the extent of the transformation.



Here is a chart of OUSD enrollment by ethnicity since 1993 (click to enlarge):

Since the year 2000, the change is striking. Total enrollment is down about 15 percent, while black enrollment has dropped almost in half. Meanwhile, Hispanic enrollment is up about 23 percent, and white enrollment has climbed 40 percent.

This is not a step-function change. It's ongoing. In just the last year, Hispanic enrollment went up 2 percent, while black enrollment dropped 5 percent. In fact, pretty much every year OUSD's black enrollment drops by about 500 students. White enrollment increased almost 5 percent in the past year.

I'm not sure what all these changes mean. I do know that large areas of Oakland suffer from reduced residential values almost completely because of the school system (crime plays a role as well, but schools are the controlling factor).

Scores are improving, and that is probably causing more upper-income families to consider sending their kids to public schools. Meanwhile this huge demographic shift is underway.

One other thing I'd note is that some of the top-API schools in Oakland are charters, including the very successful KIPP school, which has almost 100 percent minority students. Point being, looking at ethnicity doesn't tell the whole story by any means.

Given this backdrop of improving conditions, it would be great to see Oakland open magnet middle and high schools.

Oakland Housing Bubble Back?

Amid the constant reports of burglaries, murders and other crime problems in Oakland, it's surprising to see Oakland in the middle of housing bidding wars.



Here's an article you should check out. I'm not sure it's particularly actionable, but it's interesting nonetheless.

A couple key quotes:

Buyers looking at homes priced at $1 million and above in the Oakland area are bidding 20 percent to 40 percent above list price, Garner said.

To drum up sellers for her buyers, Garner's getting in touch with the owners of last year's expired listings. She also advises buyers to talk to their friends, and at community gatherings like farmer's markets she puts out the word that it's a sellers' market.

and

The buyer had made an offer on a home but lost out when the home sold for $400,000 more than the list price. Her client could have afforded to purchase at that price, but got cold feet about paying so much above the list price -- about 30 percent -- and dropped out.

I believe a key background to all of this is the rapid progress of gentrification in the area.

34 Oakland Black Kids With Perfect Scores; Why No Magnet School For Them?

I was really heartened to see an article today about 34 black Oakland Unified kids who got perfect scores on their STAR tests.

Here's a link to the article. It looks like they're mostly on the younger side, but old enough for the tests to be meaningful.



The article also doesn't say which schools all the kids attend, but I'm sure it's safe to assume not all go to the nicer hills schools.

Everything I've read on the topic indicates that a big change tends to happen around middle school, when the problems of Oakland take their toll on kids, making it impossible for them to progress further in school.

Why won't the district put in place a magnet school? For the sake of these 34 kids, along with the countless kids of other races who do well at OUSD, you'd think it would be worth it. Here we have crystal clear evidence that such a school wouldn't just be for the privileged white hills dwellers.

And, when these kids continue to excel, they'd serve as role models to other young kids. A magnet school would maximize the probability of each kid succeeding.

The truth is, OUSD is run for the teachers' unions and for the sake of political expediency. If not, they'd be setting up a magnet school right now.

More Gentrification in West Oakland

I enjoyed reading this interview with Rick Holliday, who is now finding more success selling units at his Pacific Cannery Lofts project.

Of particular interest is his description of a potential future for West Oakland. He talks about biotech maybe moving in as Emeryville becomes saturated.At a minimum, the fact that he's managed to sell all those condos indicates people see the logic in living near the East Bay's best BART station.

I park at West Oakland BART occasionally, and I've noticed a dramatic change in the demographics of the folks heading out into the neighborhood after their train ride.

No question West Oakland has a number of strikes against it, including the proximity of the pollution from the port and all the permanent low-income housing around. Still, I think there are enough brave souls around willing to move in.

Hopefully, 10 or 20 years from now, the only truly bad areas of Oakland remaining will be to the southeast of Lake Merritt.

NY Times On Oakland Gentrification

The Times published an article a few days ago ostensibly about all the protests in Oakland. Here it is.

The article correctly points out that the protests are mostly the last gasp of an old mode of thinking about Oakland. In fact, the protests are largely a reaction to Oakland's continuing gentrification. The process has begun in earnest, and it will not stop.



Here's another article by a blogger who disagrees. He makes some reasonable points, but the thrust of his argument is wrongheaded.

That's not to say that Oakland will lose its seedier neighborhoods. I expect East Oakland to remain a disaster zone more or less forever.

But that's not the point. No one cares about East Oakland, just as no one really cares about the Tenderloin in San Francisco. Areas like those are meant to be avoided.

The reason people care about gentrification in the first place is it increases property values in the reasonable parts of a city, providing above-normal returns to those who purchase in those areas.

This, I believe, is what is beginning to happen throughout several neighborhoods in Oakland. Sure, the schools will remain terrible as they do in nearly all Democrat-controlled big cities. But people will pay up to live in those neighborhoods because of the cool factor and the proximity to employment.

Oakland Moves Ever Closer To Bankruptcy

Interesting article today in the SF Chronicle about Oakland's PFRS pension obligation.

My opinion is that Oakland should essentially go bankrupt as soon as possible. At this point, only a couple cities in California have taken this step. That mean's there is still an opportunity to get a fairly good deal out of a bankruptcy.



Later, that's going to change. You can be sure that unions will do their level best to prevent cities from right-sizing their expenses for things like benefits and pensions.

One thing I really enjoyed about the article was that it quoted someone -- Nita Balousek -- who is 55 and whose husband retired as a cop something like 17 years ago, after working 27 years.

That's preposterous! That means this lady was 38 years old when her husband retired. And I guess she was 11 when he started working as a cop?

So let's say she lives to age 88. We have to pay her for 50 years of retirement for a guy who worked here for 27 years? How is that sustainable.

Time to declare bankruptcy and move on.

Oakland's Shocking Demographic Shift

I know it's not as exciting and seemingly timely a topic as budget chest thumping by the city council, but the most important article to come out in months is right here.

I assume no one has talked about this article either because they're not sure what to say or because of political correctness.



For those of you who chose not to read it, the census reported that the population of black youth in Oakland dropped by 42.3 percent from 2000 to 2010. This mirrors the trends we've seen in enrollments at Oakland Unified, where something like 25 percent of the black population is gone, replaced largely by hispanics and others.

But it does more than mirror it. 42.3 percent is an enormous number. It's unprecedented, really. Oakland's decline mirrors that in New Orleans, according to the article, where Katrina literally forced thousands of people to leave the city.

As always, I'm not a big fan of how our media sorts everything by race, but the data is here. As everyone knows, young blacks commit a hugely disproportionate share of crimes in Oakland, and their scores on standardized tests tend to be substantially lower.

All of this makes me very curious as to what the next 10 years hold for Oakland. We already know that much of the traditional black political base has eroded. But that goes along with the much more moderate decline in overall black population.

This huge drop in the child population could mean much more rapid gentrification for the city. The reason is that the next demographic up in terms of age (early 20s) is really the sweet spot for criminality. Reducing that demographic substantially can't help but  reduce crime in the coming years.

I don't know what role this plays in the current battles over police staffing. I do know that no one will discuss it in this context, for obvious reasons. The only feedback you will see in the popular media is people like Jean Quan describing the shift as a "problem."

For me, it's kind of hard to see it as a problem. I own property here, and I know that its value will increase if crime decreases. And frankly I suspect a lot of the people of all races still living here feel exactly the same way, even if political correctness prevents them from saying it out loud.

My prediction is a steep drop in crime over then next five to 10 years, followed by pronouncements from the cops about how they became "more efficient and effective." The truth will be far simpler -- demographics is destiny. Don't believe me? Take a drive through our local segregated enclave, Piedmont.

Murder on East 14th Street

Yesterday morning (April 8, 2011) Jesus Campos went to work at Otaez Mexicatessen for the last time. Until yesterday I didn’t know his name. I just called him and his wife “Boss Man” and “Boss Lady.”

I had a business a block down the street for 16 years. I remember when the Camposes bought the place from the Galindos. It was a crummy hole in the wall. I advised them to make a “super” burrito… kind of like La Fortuna on Fruitvale. They took my advice.

Then they started to expand. They took over the hooker bar (The Barcelona) and East Oakland Auto Parts. Otaez became a “Mexicatessen,” restaurant and grocery store combined. Eventually they phased out the groceries and got deeper into check cashing.

Hard work is an understatement. It seemed that “Boss Man” and “Boss Lady” were always there. In the afternoon their daughters, still wearing their St. Elizabeth’s uniforms, would come in to help out. Years later I think I could still recognize the family resemblance in at least one waitress.

You may notice that I don’t use the politically correct street name: International Boulevard. I sold my business just before that took effect. I still consider the whole name change to be a fatuous gesture of obscene impotence on the part of the Oakland City Council.

Serious crime was a serious problem along that corridor. Rather than making it more dangerous and difficult to be a criminal… they changed the name of the street. As if history would also change as a result.

As this is written, the police are saying that Boss Man’s murder may have been part of a planned robbery. He had very regular habits… and did a lot of check cashing.

Meanwhile, Oakland remains a magnet for villains. Section 8, rent control, overwhelmed law enforcement and criminal hugging politicians and non-profits make it so. What does it take to recognize the obvious? How many more hard working extremely decent people are going to be sacrificed on the altar of political correctness?

The Great "Job Training" Hoax

What do you do with an unemployed sociology grad? Make him/her a job training counselor. Just as good as any other do-gooder scam. But, let’s focus on job training.

First, a really serious flaw in the way the American economy works is that there is an insufficiency of entry-level opportunities. Why? Mostly because of totally moronic minimum wage legislation… perpetrated by economically ignorant tyrants… who will continue to demagogue their “mine don’t stink” point of view into the grave. The balance is due to a complete lack of real world skills as part of the union thug government run educational curriculum.

I was a general partner in an Oakland based printing company for twenty-two years. I trained countless individuals in various aspects of graphic arts. Hence my point: Employers should do the training… at their own expense. But they can’t… because minimum wage laws have scrubbed entry level jobs from the menu.

What do we do with all the “at risk” kids in the public schools? In a more perfect world I would allow them to work part time in local businesses. They’d get paid a minor stipend and they’d get class credit. But, most of all they’d learn something extremely valuable: they’d learn how to be dependable. They’d learn how to show up at work on time… for every day they were scheduled to work. They’d learn how to tell the boss that they weren’t completely sure of the meaning of the instructions they were given… when necessary.

After sufficient experience these individuals would have the opportunity of enhancing their skills at local community colleges, and private technical schools. It’s OK to have a degree in sociology. But it doesn’t come with an entitlement to a remunerative career.

In my personal experience, I hired a guy from a local job training center. His task was extremely simple, requiring minimum skills. Right off the bat he essentially murdered most of his family… meaning he was always missing work to attend funerals of various relatives. One day his case worker called, wanting to know how he was doing. “We don’t know” was the answer because he hardly ever showed up. The case worker called his home. He was in his jamies watching TV.

One other case: This guy was a good worker. But his mother made him miss work all the time to do errands for her… like pick up her welfare check. He eventually joined the army to get away from the anchor chained to his ankles.

The pervasive dishonesty expressed among our political “luminaries” in describing economic disadvantage is breath taking. Career advancement is often and aptly described as a ladder. One rung at a time. Because of minimum wage laws and other punative employer mandates (viz. health care) the bottom rungs have been stripped off the ladder. It’s not as easy to climb a ladder when there’s no way to start.

Oakland To Lose Federal Funding For Poor?

Let's hope so.

One thing that more or less guarantees that you'll wind up with lots of poor people is when you construct programs that pay them to be poor.



Apparently both the Chronicle and Mayor Qunt are worried about these cuts reducing Oakland's ability to continue all its handouts to the folks who are unwilling or unable to work.

One program that appears to be of particular concern to Qunt is Head Start. I guess she's never read the research which demonstrates pretty conclusively that Head Start does nothing to improve children's later prospects. Same goes, by the way, for poor kids bussed to nicer parts of town.

The irony of all of this is that these folks are ignoring the real story this week, which is the census data indicating Oakland continues to gentrify rapidly in spite of the recession and housing crash.

Maybe instead of trying to keep its poor, Oakland should welcome this reduction in funding as an opportunity to try and attract people who actually add something to the local economy.

OUSD Graph By Ethnicity

Take a look at this: http://tinyurl.com/5s9x6me

You can switch it around to see different ethnicities. As you can see, every year whites and latinos tick up, and blacks tick down. OUSD has lost 40% of its black population in the last decade. That's a huge decline, and sort of oddly worrying.

There must be a story here. Anyone in the mainstream media care to comment?

Another Oakland Pension Update

Apparently Mayor Jean Qunt (pronounced as it's spelt) disagrees with the actuaries who say that Oakland's 1976 crop of retirees will live for some time yet.

Now, far be it for me to argue with a Qunt, but I suspect the actuaries are actually fairly good at their task. Yes, it's amazing that so much money is owed to a set of people who are all in their 70s and above. But, that's the obligation Oakland undertook.

More Oakland Pension Nonsense

I noticed none of the local bloggers seemed to care about this story in the Chroncle about Oakland's legacy pension issue.

To refresh your memory, these pensions apply only to workers hired before 1976, so all but one of thousand or so people are just collecting nowadays. So, as usual, the taxpayers are the bagholders for a former liberal scheme.

This particular pension balloon is notable in that:

1. it is the reason why Oakland homeowners are bilked a 1.4 percent property tax charge instead of the more normal 1.2 percent.


2. It is probably the thing that will make Oakland go bankrupt in the end.

Stay tuned. This pension is just part of the overall shell game. The bigger part is the 3-and-50 game that our current employees and their union squeezed out of the system.

If only there were some people in California willing to move in the direction Wisconsin and Indiana are headed.

Why Oakland Measure L Failed

By now it is pretty clear that Measure L has fallen around 3,500 "yes" votes short of passage.

The measure would have taxed each property in Oakland $195 to pay for schools. The teachers' union took no position on its passage, because it would have allowed some of the money to go to charter schools.

The simple answer for why the measure failed is that Oakland's public schools are terrible. But this explanation is not quite as true as it once was. In fact, Oakland's API scores have improved pretty dramatically over the last decade.

Most of this improvement is a consequence of gentrification. Nowadays, we see groups of parents all enrolling their kids at a public school, which pushes out the lower-income kids bussed from the ghetto, improving the school dramatically.

Still, running a school district does cost money, and successful school district in the region typically require some type of parcel tax assistance to be successful.

To increase the odds of passage, I would suggest that the school district make the following changes the next time they place a parcel tax on the ballot:

1. Make the tax charge residents on a per-house and per-unit basis, not per-parcel. This better matches the revenue to the number of residents, and it doesn't punish people and entities that own vacant land. One of the reasons there was opposition to Measure L is that some folks would pay far more than $195/year because they own additional lots. Asking for money from these additional lots risks strong opposition for relatively little increase in revenue.


2. The union needs to accept that the measure will fund both regular schools and charters. Most likely, the future of educating inner-city kids lies in charter schools. Certain charter methodologies appear to significantly improve urban kids' performance. And, as these are adopted nationwide, unions will have to accept a smaller role.


3. Focus on the schools' improved performance. Don't just complain about being underfunded.

That third point is extremely important. Oakland's school district should actively publicize the fact that the schools are improving.

And, the district should encourage parents to give public schools another shot. The simplest way to increase funding in the school district is to attract additional pupils.

Several local elementary schools have already experienced significantly higher parent adoption because of efforts by parents' groups to increase enrollment. The district should actively encourage neighborhood enrollment at such schools as Montera and Skyline, both of which would improve dramatically if more local kids attended them.

The bottom line is that Oakland residents will reward success, so long as the payment bears some relationship to the services offered.

First, We Kill All The Public Employee Unions

By Mark Ross, Contributing Writer

[Disclaimer: the objects of the verb “kill” in the above title are corporate entities and not living organisms.]

Meg Whitman has been buying copious amounts of media time extolling her agenda for a revitalized California. She wants to make the schools good, the government frugal and the future bright. Some of us are getting just a little too adapted to living with elephants in the living room.



Meanwhile, the mysterious villain who paved the way for many of the public sector pathologies that plague our state today is a likely nominee for the other side in the upcoming gubernatorial contest. Jerry the Moonbeam Brown, in his previous tenure as governor, oversaw the unionization of teachers and most other state and local government workers.

And herein lies the rub. Government worker unions, such as the CTA and SEIU, run the state, the counties and the cities. Any attempt by the Legislature, or a city council to adopt a policy contrary to the interests of government employee unions has been thus far slapped down like a drunken bug.

Vallejo is the test case for a new reality that may bring some sense to this mess. The town council had the outrageous temerity to identify union contracts as the agents of their impending bankruptcy. Sorting out and negotiation continues. At a recent town council meeting, city retirees were pitted against local taxpayers. This conflict will likely continue well into the future… taxes will go up (despite a shrinking economy) and benefits will decline.

The “B” word was used earlier this year concerning Oakland’s financial crisis. Here, in Liberalism’s favorite city, bankruptcy is considered a last resort. First, the thugs who run this town want to bankrupt the tax payers… then they’ll look at tinkering with the union contracts.

Lynndee Kemmet of the American Institute for Economic Research, writing in the Chronicle mentioned that the public employee unions have gotten their toadies in the legislature to ram AB155 through the Assembly. Should this pass the Senate, then California cities will be constrained from altering union contracts as a result of bankruptcy. Again, let’s bankrupt the tax payers instead.

This writer is old enough to have lived through several serious recessions. Never before has the public sector (a.k.a. the government) been in such vicious competition with the citizens over money. Why? It is perhaps because of the cumulative effects of union dominance over public policy -- especially fiscal policy.

Some examples of how the public employee unions have a strangle hold on most, if not all, aspects of public policy in California, and many other states, are:

1) Restrictions on hiring police (and other emergency personnel) in order to pump up overtime.

2) Dispatch of both ambulance and fire engine to medical emergencies… in the olden days this would be called “featherbedding”… forcing the “employer” to commit excessive manpower to a task in order to increase the labor cost… and, thus, union member benefit.

3) Reduced classroom size as a benefit to K-12 education. This is my favorite… because Scientific American ran an article declaring that no educational benefit of reduced class size has been demonstrated. This from a graduate student at the right wing, knuckle-dragging bastion of Oakland’s very own Mills College. The proffered explanation is that teachers working in classrooms that have had the number of students reduced, have changed nothing about the way they do their job. There’s just a lot more of them doing things the same way they were done before the latest union thug edict was implemented.

4) In the Los Angeles Unified School District they’ve had to adopt a policy of refusing to accept donated books. It seems that mandated union rules cost the district hundreds of dollars for each “free” book, for cataloging. This in the age of the computer. Readers are most welcome to add to this list.

All along my theory and opinion has been that public employee unions are, ahem, illogical. No competitive pressures exist to moderate excesses of demand. Government is a monopoly. No stockholders or discretionary consumers are available to influence otherwise suicidal financial decisions. In practice, struggling private sector unions have striven to make their industries de facto monopolies as well. The American automobile industry is a prime example of that. Union actions have simultaneously targeted all three corporate entities in order to side step market realities. Too bad Americans are allowed to import automobiles from “unstrangled” foreign economies.

Ms Whitman and any other wannabe candidate for governor of the doomed state of California would be well advised to acknowledge the elephant in the living room. “Let’s make California a right-to-work state” should be the battle cry. We are victims of cowardice as well as union thuggery.

Joe Tuman For Oakland Mayor

Joe Tuman is the only candidate for mayor of Oakland who seems to actually understand or care about the city's problem with public-employee pay and pensions.

For this reason, combined with the enormous sums of money you can expect the corrupt unions to pour into the election, he has little chance of winning the election. Still, if voters want to see any sort of improvement in Oakland's governance, they should vote for him.


I strongly urge my readers to take a look at Tuman's blog, where he answers a host of questions about the future of the city. You'll notice that he appears to have a grip on our problems, and he's offering to do a set of things that seem like those a reasonable person would undertake.

Voters should immediately reject Jean Quan and Rebecca Kaplan as candidates. Both candidates are part of the existing liberal power structure within the city. Quan, in particular, has presided over the city's fiscal destruction.

While Kaplan is a relative newcomer, she has failed to take on the public-employee unions to any significant degree. The one positive about Kaplan appears to be that she is favored by the city's lesbian community. I am all for Oakland becoming a gay-friendly city, as the average per-capita income of gays significantly exceeds that of Oakland's current average resident. So, to the extent gays and lesbians displace our existing poor residents, this is a good thing.

Some conservatives might consider voting for Don Perata because of his pro-development stances. The key thing to understand with Perata is that he received the endorsement of the police officers' union.

This union is pure evil, as should be obvious to anyone familiar with Oakland's ongoing flirtation with bankruptcy. So, anyone they endorse should immediately be eliminated as a viable candidate.

This year, Oakland is using ranked-choice voting. I recommend the following choices. I suggest not ranking any more than two candidates, because all other candidates would be a disaster, so it is best not even to offer them the illusion of a mandate:

1. Joe Tuman

2. Rebecca Kaplan

No On Measure BB Site

Just a quick post to point visitors to the site created by Marleen Sacks against Measure BB.

I'm somewhat conflicted about this measure. While I appreciate the notion of "starving the beast" by preventing the city from collecting property taxes, I do generally like the idea of parcel taxes because they are regressive.

Of course, there's always the question of whether a parcel tax can be passed along to renters (most of Oakland's undesirable inhabitants are renters). I'm not sure about Measures Y and BB.

And, parcel taxes do lower property values for homeowners, since they raise the total cost of ownership. So, that's a definite negative.

Still, I generally like them, because their impact on a million dollar house is more or less negligible, but it is significant to those on a limited income -- those we'd like to see leave Oakland for good.

The story of Measures Y and BB is so sordid that it does seem like people should vote against it. I would probably vote no if I hadn't moved my legal residence to Nevada several years ago because of my hatred of liberals.

So, take a look at that site and make up your mind. Remember that it needs a 2/3 vote to pass. So, if you vote no, it's like getting two votes for the price of one.

As for me, I'll be in Nevada this weekend early voting against Harry Reid.