use the money to invest in Black and immigrant schools and healthcare.

Invest in our People and communities

Create more opportunities

Over the next 10 years, medical services, pharma, medtech and related industries are going to become increasingly important and lucrative. Act now to put Oakland on the map as a major bio / medical operations and research zone.

Utah and Ohio found the Housing First models to be successful with case management to help people navigate addiction, health, employment, etc.

More taxes is not a solution, vote for creative out of the box solutions. Reallocate funds to be used to get people immediately housed. It’s a win-win.

Community Cabins and Shelters are bandages, but it doesn’t get people directly into housing. We can’t keep throwing money at bandages and the problem is still there and growing!

At this point even subsidizing market rate rental places is an option, make a deal with the developers that have empty units and/or empty buildings! Doesn’t benefit the developer or the city to have empty units sitting around.

For every 1 unit available you can house 2-4 people at a cost of 30-60M a year if it’s fully subsidized. If a person has some income or is employed the cost can quickly go down.

MONEY can be spent talking about how to get people housed or MONEY can be spent getting them directly housed!

“Infrastructure is the platform that can slow us down and get us stuck, or speed us on our way.” -Rosabeth Moss Kanter, Move: putting America's infrastructure back in the lead

Here we are in the heart of an economic boom spurred by technology, yet we have fewer local transportation choices in downtown Oakland than we did in the 1940s when there were trains on Broadway and there were no freeways dissecting the city. Jack London Square sits cut off from the rest of Oakland by the noisy ugly wall that is Interstate 880. We need to re-connect downtown Oakland with the rest of Oakland with surface streets, greenways, and local trains: http://gs-horizons.blogspot.com/2015/11/imagine-train.html

Artists, Creatives and Spiritual Communities of all sorts have made Oakland their home. With the rapid gentrification of the city and the buying up of Oakland's buildings by out of town opportunists, the culture and livelihood of countless people that give Oakland it's appeal as a destination for the arts, are being threatened. Those that are still holding on to their living and working spaces are barely doing so. The communities we have built are going to vanish all together, the art and culture along with them, if a housing solution is not found. There are many ways to provide an array of affordable housing options at different levels, so that people do not have to leave their homes and their lives. Grant programs, incentives for new owners or landlords to include lower-cost rent for artists and government subsidized housing are a few of these options. The insured inclusion of artists voices and priorities through the creation of an Oakland Arts Commission is another necessity. It is also within the power of the local government to limit the amount of city property that can be owned and\or managed by outside investors. The residents and communities of Oakland's creative communities should have priority when it comes to ownership of property in Oakland's commercial and residential zones. A way that this could become a more feasible option for more artistic folks in the city of Oakland, is through grants and incentive programs for local banks and credit unions, encouraging them to loan to creative entrepreneurs.

We are a community built on a working-class foundation, trying to build new models for our consumer world. The Makers of Oakland are determined to build a better world, and we want to do it here! The skyrocketing rents and cost of living are driving us away. Too many brilliant artists, makers and creatives have already been driven out, and we need to act fast to save what we have, giving us a platform to grow.

We need publicy-funded Artist/Maker spaces, run by the community, but sponsored by the local government. We just need the space, build out and management can come from us.

We need space to make and sell our goods, and of course to live; a cooperative community with studio space, retail space and living space would put Oakland back on the map for so many who have ruled it out due to its high cost of living. The Bay Area has the capital to support our creative community, but we just need some support from local government to make it happen.

The City of Oakland should devote more money to funding grants and/or loans for artists living and working in Oakland. I know of no existing, operational grants sponsored by the City of Oakland that offer Musicians like me an opportunity to fund projects.

Streets above McArthur Blvd lack sidewalks. The path from Oakland Zoo to Foothill Square is a walkable distance, but the lack of sidewalks make it difficult to move locally. People use their cars because walking is not an option.

I see new commercial, residential and mixed use developments going up all over downtown, but I don't see very many new public trash enclosures being installed in the downtown area. I don't know what the City currently requires developers to do, but it seems like additional trash cans should be required, just like street trees, new sidewalks and bike racks. The existing trash cans are getting overwhelmed, and worse yet, littering increases and pollutes our waterways. New developments bring new workers and residents, so more trash capacity just makes sense.

Oakland is becoming the home to products of gentrification complaining of the heritage and culture of Blacks and people of color in Oakland.

City officials must not allow transplants to come in and silence the voices that have been Oakland for as many years as most of them have been alive.

Dialogue must begin between ALL who are concerned!

Education is Key, Ignorance is Bliss!

Image: Drummers of the SambaFunk! Funkquarians perform with members of the public at Lake Merritt in resistance. Photo by Tulio Ospina.

My fiance and I just bought a condo in Old Oakland and we love it. The new stores and restaurants have made the area so lively and give it a great neighborhood feel. We cannot wait to have and raise kids here. However, I think in order to make downtown more livable, it's necessary to add a grocery store like Trader Joe's or Safeway. Smart n' Final is great for some simple items but doesn't really bring people to the neighborhood. A store like Trader Joe's or Safeway would offer a wider variety of food and would therefore bring more people to shop in the area.

I want east Oakland especially MacArthur blvd area to get revitalize. There is no coffee shop or small restaurants I can just go enjoy to have a cup of coffee around here. There are many empty lots and small businesses are having hard time to keep their business.

Require that all labor come from people who reside in Oakland.

To the absolute maximum levy fines for all the illegal dumping in Oakland. It is heartbreaking to see piles and piles of garbage dumped on our streets. Can we increase surveillance on our hotspots by using one of the many wireless cameras now on the market?

Dear Oakland City officials, you'd like your citizens to deposit litter into receptacles, yet you fail in the worst way to pick up that garbage. Case in point at the corner of Vernon and Lee Street overflowing with poop bags. Disgusting, please do your part!