Barbara Lee and Katie Porter flash progressive cred
Alameda County's funding gap isn't so bad; Alameda sets stage for moratorium on landlord-initiated capital improvement pass-throughs; Howard Terminal ENA ends
ELECTION 2024
U.S. SENATE
—PROGRESSIVE LOVEFEST—California U.S. Senate candidates Reps. Barbara Lee and Katie Porter made their bids for state’s progressives in the race’s first public candidate forum. Well, sort of.
—The forum, hosted by the California Working Families Party, did not feature Lee and Porter speaking face-to-face, and omitted the third major Democrat in the race, Rep. Adam Schiff (Psst. They don’t believe he’s progressive enough).
—Here’s highlights from Thursday evening’s forum:
BARBARA LEE
—Economy: “The U.S. Senate has no agenda that highlights the poor.” Lee said she will be a “champion for their efforts and have the economy work for them.” She added, “The lens that I want to bring is the lens that is not in the senate.”
—Taxation: “It’s important to understand the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer.” “The wealthy are running away with our tax dollars,” Lee said. She advocated for taxing the rich and giving tax credits to working class and poor Americans. “We got to have a tax system that is fair.”
—Health care: Lee said, as a member of the California Legislature in the 1990s, she introduced the state’s first single-payer bill . Lee lived in England for a time, she said, so she understands the benefits of single-payer health care. “We can’t allow profits and corporations to make medical decisions for us.”
—Poverty: On the issues in President Biden’s Build Back Better plan left on the cutting room floor, Lee said, “It’s hard to prioritize because I want to reintroduce all of them.”
—Child care: Lee said she would bring her two young kids with her to the classroom because she couldn’t afford child care. “Here we are in 2023 and nothing has changed.” There’s resources for child care, she said, in the nation’s bloated defense budget. “We shouldn’t have 1 million people a paycheck away from poverty in the Golden State.”
KATIE PORTER
—Her strategy: On winning a purple Orange County congressional seat: “You can do both: Win tough races and be progressive.” She added, “I’m a strong and though campaigner.”
—On corporate money: “I’m the only candidate who can say they have never taken corporate PAC money.” Porter boasted being the strongest fundraiser in House last session. The canard is candidates have to take corporate PAC money to succeed, she said, “but I’ve shown that is false.”
—Big Pharma: “I have no problem calling out Big Pharma’s B.S.” It is false that pharmaceutical companies need to charge “astronomical prices” in order develop new drugs, she said. More money is spent on buybacks from shareholders than on research and development. Porter said she wants to expand the list of drugs covered by Medicare and put an end to Big Pharma’s misuse of patents and paying competitors to skip entering the market.
—Immigration: “How do you get in line? What do I do?” Porter said she asked officials at California’s southern border. “The answer to that question is silence. There is no line for people who need to seek refuge in this country. There is no process and that is what is driving the chaos.” She called the immigration problem a “congressional failure.”
—Green New Deal: “It’s really important to understand that the premise of a Green New Deal is not just to do energy transformation, but it also to do workforce transformation at the same time.” On labor and energy corporations: “I know the special interests’ playbook on this. Big corporations wait until the industry goes through a revolution, or a change, and that’s when they attack workers and attack wages.”
COUNTY NEWS
BUDGET
—WATCH THE GAP—Alameda County’s budget shortfall is $54 million, the county announced on Thursday. The shortfall is roughly the same as the past two fiscal years, and provides welcoming budgetary news as ominous fiscal clouds are forecast ahead. The budget estimate does not include Covid-19 impacts, county staff said.
—A detailed strategy for balancing the county’s budget will be offered in early June following another budget workshop. The Fiscal Year 2023-24 budget must be balanced and approved by the Board of Supervisors by June 30.
—Last year’s fiscal year budget shortfall was $49.1 million.
—Uncertainly about the health of the county’s finances remains. Federal tax receipts for April were low, county staff said on Thursday, which is a bad sign for the state’s expected revenues.
—Gov. Gavin Newsom’s May Revise announcement later today could also tweak the county’s budget projection, county staff said.
CITY NEWS
ALAMEDA
—NEW MORATORIUM—A moratorium on Alameda landlords’ ability to pass-through the costs of Capital Improvement Projects (CIP) to their tenants was approved by the Alameda City Council on Thursday night. The moratorium could go into effect in early July, if approved for a second reading next month.
—At the urging of Alameda Mayor Marilyn Ezzy Ashcraft, the moratorium includes tenants at the 451-unit South Shore Apartments. A proposed $20 million capital improvement project by the building’s landlord was the impetus for the council’s moratorium. City staff had recommended against including the South Shore Apartment application in the moratorium.
—The inclusion of the South Shore Apartments, however, comes with legal risks, the city council was advised. ”Several legal theories could be employed by the applicants, Michael Roush, special counsel to the city attorney, told city officials. “It’s a council call, but understand that it’s not dead-solid perfect that it could be upheld in all cases.”
—Undaunted, Ashcraft strongly advocated for an emergency moratorium and questioned the future of CIP in Alameda. But because an urgency ordinance needed four of five votes, and Councilmember Malia Vella was absent, the motion was blocked by Councilmember Trish Herrera Spencer’s no vote. “I don’t want to take away the CIP,” Spencer said. “I want to just tweak it.”
—It was learned Thursday night that the council’s backs were up against the wall in terms of a moratorium that could protect South Shore Apartment tenants. That’s because the city’s Rent Program was poised to approve the landlord’s CIP application this Friday.
—The late disclosure added urgency to the council’s actions. Subsequently, a moratorium on CIP applications was crafted to be retroactive in order to cover the South Shore Apartments’ application. The action was approved by the council, 3-1, with Spencer again voting no.
PORT OF OAKLAND
—ENA ENDS—The Howard Terminal exclusive negotiating agreement between the Oakland Athletics and Port of Oakland expired without a whimper. The four-year ENA expired at midnight. The ENA was on the Port of Oakland Board of Commissioners closed session agenda on Thursday. Port staff issued no report out of closed session. The inference being the ENA’s future is DOA.
