Housing, policing are focus of expensive race

Five candidates vie for incumbent’s District 3 seat with two spending combined $334,000

OAKLAND >> Housing and police reform have emerged as key issues in the District 3 Oakland City Council race, which has become the city’s most expensive contest.

Five candidates are trying to unseat Councilwoman Lynette Gibson McElhaney, among them

Carroll Fife, an Oakland activist who helped lead last year’s takeover of an empty West Oakland house by insecurely housed women and has advocated for increased tenant protections.

McElhaney and Fife’s campaigns have received all of the more than $334,000 raised for the Nov. 3 race so far. None of the other candidates reported contributions.

Fife has gotten $176,484 from labor unions and individuals, campaign finance records show. A committee sponsored by the Alameda Labor Council to elect Fife and reelect Rebecca Kaplan, the council’s president, has received more than $391,500 total in contributions from labor unions.

McElhaney’s campaign has collected $157,555 from a variety of individuals, small businesses and committees, including the Oakland Police Officers’ Association, according to campaign finance records.. A committee that has received money from PG&E, Comcast, real estate firms and other businesses has spent almost $40,000 on behalf of McElhaney’s campaign.

Backing Fife are many of the city’s progressives who are excited by her promise to support bold, systemic change when it comes to issues such as affordable housing and homelessness, as well as changes to public safety and policing.

“We’ve tried private incentives for building housing, which displaces families and benefits housing speculators and people who can afford luxury rents. We need a new model,” Fife said.

She wants the city to put more money into its Preservation of Affordable Housing Fund to help renters at risk of displacement buy their homes, and to pass measures giving tenants an opportunity to buy the homes they live in when they go up for sale.

She says requiring developers to pay impact fees that go toward building affordable housing — a move McElhaney has championed during her council tenure — isn’t enough. She points to reports last year that concluded those fees weren’t substantial and did not produce affordable units.

“Things aren’t going to get better for unsheltered people or for renters until we decommodify housing and work toward community land ownership through land trusts,” Fife said.

McElhaney also lists housing insecurity and homelessness as among her top priorities and said the city should invest in affordable housing, including through state funding and federal tax credits.

“I believe strongly that the region needs to demand job centers produce workforce housing in their own communities to stave off upward pressure on surrounding communities,” she said, adding that transportation funding should hinge on housing production.

McElhaney said the city has already enacted “an incredible number of rental protections but has failed to adequately enforce them.” She supports increasing funding for the city attorney’s office and the rent adjustment program to crack down on landlords who violate protection laws or defraud tenants.

Candidate Seneca Scott, a labor organizer who moved to District 3 in 2012, said he appreciates Oakland’s protections for renters — he’s one himself — but wants the city to focus on providing protections for homeowners, too.

“‘ House rich’ can still mean cash poor, which leaves these individuals vulnerable to homelessness as well if we don’t support them,” Scott said.

He also wants the city to invest more in incubating and growing small businesses and nonprofits that employ Oakland residents.

While this news organization could not reach candidates Alexus Taylor, Faye Taylor and Meron Semedar for comment, Semedar’s campaign website touts solutions to the affordability crisis by ensuring corporations and developers pay fines “or worse” if they do not meet quotas for income-based housing or create enough jobs for local residents. Faye Taylor does not offer specific solutions on her campaign website, but says she is running to address “issues of housing and homelessness,” among other things.

Public safety is also a key issue in Oakland, where calls to make deep cuts to the police department budget have been met with skepticism by political moderates.

McElhaney, who has lost both her son and grandson to gun violence, said that while she agrees “there is no dispute that our current system of public safety is not producing the desired results” and points to the trauma of over-policing in Oakland communities, she disagreed with what she called a “reckless” move by other council members to immediately cut police funding. She said she supports the new Reimagining Public Safety Task Force’s effort to examine the police budget first before making cuts.

Fife argues that Oakland has seen enough of what isn’t working when it comes to policing.

“We’ve tried over-policing, we’ve tried police reform and Oakland is still under a federal consent decree,” she said, adding that she wants to see the city move half of what it spends on policing to services that could help prevent crime.

Fife said she would start by having unarmed teams instead of police officers handle traffic stops and nonviolent crimes. Helping small businesses with security could be a job for specialized teams, not armed police officers, she said.

Scott agrees that the city spends t o o mu c h mone y on p ol ic e , s ayin g he doesn’t wa nt t o see Oa k la nd “c ont inue t o r e s p ond t o ment a l he a lt h a nd s ub s t a nc e abuse c a ses w ith inc r e a si n g ly m i l it a r i z e d p ol ic i n g ,” but he a l s o called for more enforcement against crimes such as drug dealing.