San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
Supporters backing Price amid recall try
Living in Oakland, Keith Clark is well aware of the narrative that the city’s public safety problems are due to the progressive policies of Alameda County District Attorney Pamela Price. The longtime Oakland pastor is a respected voice in the community with a history of using his platform to support progressive politicians as well as challenge local officials to better address anti-Blackness.
But when Clark became a victim of a violent crime in Oakland — he was robbed at gunpoint in Montclair last year — he could have easily bought into the pessimism about Oakland’s future under the new district attorney.
There’s a reason he hasn’t.
Clark knows Alameda County’s history of having moderate district attorneys and, before those, Republicans. He knows decades of conservative public safety policies never made Oakland safer, and in many ways exacerbated the economic inequality that serves as the root cause of crime. He believes Price, the first Black woman elected to run an office with a history of over-incarcerating people of color, could be a changemaker — if she’s given a fair shot by the public to become one.
Many Price supporters feel this way.
“We go through this process, elect this lady and she hasn’t even really gotten a chance to make many primary changes and now people want her out,” he said. “It seems as though there is a hidden agenda to demolish the voice of Black and brown people in this county.”
As the criticism of Price has increased, her supporters have formed a tight-knit community, bound by a shared vision of a better future. These folks rally together, attend town hall meetings, and engage in grassroots efforts to protect and advance Price’s agenda. Instead of seeming worn down by a messy recall effort that has lasted as long as Price has been in office, they seem to be energized by the opposition.
But that doesn’t mean being a Price backer is easy.
Price often stumbles into silly, avoidable controversies that, more often than not, have nothing to do with her actual public safety policies. Last year, she barred a local journalist from a news conference, which was as wrong as it was foolish. Price has also deservedly faced accusations of nepotism after hiring her boyfriend as an employee, and she has been accused of engaging in discriminatory and retaliatory conduct against former employees.
Backing Price’s policing policies also means risking being called antipublic safety by her loudest, most misguided moderate and Republican opponents who have artfully manufactured a multimillion-dollar campaign against her work.
The Price recall petition was presented to election officials this month with 123,000 signatures. Price’s camp questioned the signaturegathering process and the registrar’s office is doing a manual count to see if enough valid signatures were gathered to trigger a recall election.
Oakland Rising Action, an influential community-led political organization that supports progressive candidates and issues, endorsed Price in 2022. In December, Oakland Rising issued a public statement condemning the recall. At a March 18 news conference organized by Price supporters, Pecolia Manigo, the political director of Oakland Rising, spoke of how her organization’s stance hasn’t, and will not, change.
“There’s always negativity around Madame Price’s work but never the good things that she’s doing that benefit Black and brown folks,” Manigo said before mentioning Price’s support of diversion programs and not charging juveniles as adults. “What we’re sad about at the moment is we’re wasting so much time … to deal with a recall that is unfounded.”
The folks behind the recall say Price’s liberal policies have fostered criminal activity. But people who have paid close attention to Price’s work have seen through the lies.
“We are fighting for the soul of this city right now,” said George Galvis, the executive director of the Oakland nonprofit Communities United for Restorative Youth Justice, and a supporter of Price. “It’s the same forces and philosophies that led a recall effort against a progressive district attorney in San Francisco. They’re now testing the ground here in Oakland.”
Price’s defenders argue that her administration has expanded services for crime victims, a group that Price’s critics say she cares little about.
According to Kristina Molina, the DA office’s Victim-Witness Services director, they’ve doubled the number of Black victim’s advocates from three to six, which is important because Black people are one of the office’s biggest client bases. The division also hired four Chinese American advocates when previous DA administrations had none. The processing time for crime victims’ claims for services under the office’s Victim-Witness Assistance program is down to two months. The average wait before Price took office was one year.
The people sticking beside Price aren’t blindly following her. These folks are critical thinkers who seek out information from reliable sources and actively question the narratives that are pushed by Price’s detractors. Some are being more vocal because of the criticism they see Price receiving.
Stewart Chen, the president of Oakland Chinatown Improvement Council tasked with revitalizing Oakland’s Chinatown area, spoke at the March 18 news conference. He said it was his first time publicly sharing his support for Price.
Chen said that her hiring multilingual people of Asian descent as crime victim advocates, and her engagement with the Chinatown community — including a recent town hall she held alongside members of the Oakland Police Department — shows her commitment to those residents. He also dove into the misconceptions about Price being soft on crime. He referenced the tragic killing of Jasper Wu to drive home his point.
Wu, a 23-month-old boy, was fatally shot on an Oakland freeway in November 2021. The people arrested in connection with the shooting are facing hundreds of years of prison time.
“I have seen for myself that criminals will face the full extent of the law under her administration,” Chen said, adding that Price needs to be allowed time to fulfill her campaign promises.
While there remain questions around Price’s charging record, as the Chronicle recently pointed out, I wrote in November about a sampling of data from January to August 2023 — provided to me by Price’s office — that showed Price is arguably tougher on crime than her moderate San Francisco counterpart District Attorney Brooke Jenkins.
Even in the most trying times, Price’s supporters are choosing to stay by her side. It’s up to Price to continue proving to them that they’re making the right choice.