You could have knocked me over with Trump’s wig when I saw the new flyers posted at Lakeside Park.
7-DAY NOTICE TO VACATE
ILLEGAL ENCAMPMENT
ALL PERSONS AND VEHICLES MUST VACATE
Location: Lake Merritt – All Parks, City Assets, and Walkways
The flyers were put up on March 19. They were in four languages. They also said, “The Public Works Department will begin clearing this site between the hours of 9 a.m. and 1 p.m. on the above date.” There was a detailed schedule of when Public Works would begin taking down tents, starting on April 2 and continuing, two days a week, through April 28.
Can this really be happening? Can Oakland, which under Libby Schaaf invited “our homeless brothers and sisters” to move here, a city that for years resisted evicting encampments in the name of “social equity” and “compassion,” finally be acting responsibly?
Halleleujah!
I’ve monitored Lakeside Park for a long time (I live only two blocks away) and it’s been horrifying to see what homeless people have done to that beautiful public space. And it’s been infuriating that the city absolutely refused to do anything about it. I know for a fact that hundreds of people called whoever they could—their City Council member, the Park Department, the Oakland Police Department, 311—and begged them to please clean up Lakeside Park, only to have this city ignore them. We had a City Council that prioritized homeless people over legitimate, tax-paying citizens of Oakland. In essence, Schaaf and the Council gave homeless people carte blanche to live in the parks and along the walkways of the estuary, and they gave the rest of us the middle finger.
So what happened to cause this apparent change of heart?
Well, partly it was City of Grants Pass v. Johnson, the historic U.S. Supreme Court decision that gave municipalities the right to shut down encampments, even if there was no alternative shelter for the evicted people. I doubt that Sheng Thao, who was then mayor, or the then-City Council were very pleased with that. But they eventually read the handwriting on the wall: sooner or later, they were going to have to get real about encampments, even if they didn’t want to.
Partly, too, I think Oakland took its sweet time in arriving at this decision because, like fantasts everywhere, they hoped to avoid compliance and that no one would notice. Now, I have no idea what ultimately forced Oakland’s hand in this matter. Something went down and it scared the hell out of the city. Probably it involved the threat of litigation. But someone, at some very high level, told Public Works to go ahead and start cracking down. Hence the flyers at the park.
But color me skeptical. We all know there’s a big difference between saying you’re going to do something, and actually doing it. Will Public Works really disassemble those encampments around Lake Merritt? Will they do it according to their own schedule, i.e., by April 28? What if the inhabitants of the tents refuse to leave? Public Works can’t arrest them. Will they call in OPD? Is OPD prepared to arrest recalcitrants? Is the D.A. prepared to indict? What if Public Works actually does take down the encampments and, a day or two later, the homeless people come back? What if there are pro-homeless protests, led by anarchist radicals like Cat Brooks?
Like so many other things nowadays, we’ll just have to wait and see how this plays out. I’ll be watching very closely and will let you know.
Have a pleasant and safe weekend! Back Monday.
Steve Heimoff