It was great seeing Athol Plaza Tennis Courts reopened and being used for the purpose the taxpayers funded it for: playing tennis, instead of the sprawling, messy homeless encampment it had been for years. I give full credit to Seneca Scott and his Neighbors Together Oakland for making this happen, despite the City Council throwing every obstacle they could against cleaning it up. Of course, when it happened, some City Council people tried to take the credit–Nikki Bas made it seem like she single-handedly rescued Athol Plaza. She didn’t, but she gave good press conference.
I don’t know about you, but to me, the most offensive thing about Oakland’s failed policy on homelessness is the encampments in our public parks. What is a “public park”? “An area of land for the enjoyment of the public, having facilities for rest and/or recreation…owned and/or managed by a city, county, state, federal government, or metropolitan park district.”
This may make it sound like anyone can do anything they want to in a park, under the excuse of “rest and/or recreation.” But the truth is that municipal ordinances carefully proscribe what is legal and what is not in parks. In the case of Oakland, the Municipal Code contains ordinances that prohibit overnight camping, dumping, littering, the use of illegal drugs, disturbing birds, weapons, fires, and other bad behaviors. All or most of these behaviors, of course, are exhibited by homeless people living in our parks.
The City Council took cognizance of this in October, 2020, when they unanimously passed the Encampment Management Policy, which ruled that homeless people wouldn’t be allowed to set up camp within 50 feet of “high-sensitivity” areas, including playgrounds, public parks, soccer fields, tennis courts, basketball courts and other restricted places. One supposes that the Council meant what it said at the time. But two weeks after this sensible policy passed, Oakland had an election; the City Council changed, most notoriously with the arrival of Carroll Fife from District 3. Fife, whose campaign was based largely on two issues—defunding the police and protecting homeless encampments—seems to have had an immediate negative influence on the Council, and particularly on her fellow progressives, Rebecca Kaplan and Bas. The Encampment Management Policy, which Mayor Schaaf promised the people of Oakland would go into effect on Jan. 1, 2021, was shelved. No explanation was ever offered by any responsible public official. It was as if the Encampment Management Policy had disappeared down into a 1984-style Memory Hole, its prior existence wiped from the public record.
This travesty of justice is why Scott’s Neighbors Together Oakland sued the City of Oakland: the failure to implement the EMP is a violation of the very essence of the rule of law. We’ll have to see how this plays out, but the near-term lesson is clear: If we could reclaim Athol Plaza, we can do it in parks across the city, starting with Oakland’s Crown Jewel, Lakeside Park.
Steve Heimoff