I had a nightmare last night, a real terror that left me sweaty and fearful. It was a vision of Oakland, placed somewhere in the not-very-distant future.
The City Council was made up exclusively of politicians on the far Left of the spectrum. At a time when even San Francisco had moved in a more moderate direction, the same could not be said of Oakland, where “progressives” presided. Carroll Fife was the dominant figure on the Council, supported nearly always by Nikki Bas and the newly elected Janani Ramachandran. There was a Mayor—I suppose it was Loren Taylor—but he was barely in my dream, and not a factor.
The Council had adopted an official policy of imposing more parcel taxes in order to pay for their redistributionist schemes. And since Oakland is a town of renters and rent control, these parcel taxes always passed. The result was that homeowners and businesses were leaving Oakland in droves. The number of homes for sale in the Hills reached historic proportions; prices fell accordingly. In the flatlands, an exodus of middle-class residents resulted in an explosion of rental properties, with the predictable result that rents plummeted to all-time lows. The cascading effects of these phenomena led to taxes of all kinds—property and business—falling to levels not seen since the 1960s. Oakland was thus forced to lay half of its employees, including police and fire.
Crime soared, as you might expect. Robberies, muggings, carjackings, home invasions, assaults all went up by double-digits each year. The number of murders surpassed 150 early during this period, then notched up steadily before hitting 250 during Ramachandran’s second term. Nights were particularly dangerous: no one ventured out of doors after dark, except predators and rats. Restaurants closed, one by one in quick succession: Broadway and Telegraph became miles-long stretches of boarded-up shops. What little business there was, was comprised of nail parlors, dispensaries, convenience markets and clothing stores that all sold the same repeddled junk.
My own neighborhood, Adams Point, found itself at a low ebb. I remember, in the nightmare, endless nights of screeching tires, car audio systems blasting at 120 decibels, and human screams. When one awoke in the morning and ventured outside, one saw all the garbage and recycling containers overturned onto the sidewalks. Strange, disturbed and scary individuals wandered the streets; there was no one to call, because 9-1-1 had long since shut down, and the famous MACRO system was still “rolling out” ten years after its formal start, according to Councilmember Fife, who added that she was proposing a new parcel tax, of $500 a year per property, to help fund it. She said also that there was “intense interest” among her colleagues to craft another parcel tax to fund “affordable housing”; although this tax was projected to be $800 a year per parcel, Fife did not say where the money would go, or how it would be monitored, but she did say it would help “people of color.”
The total amount of money Oakland was spending on homelessness, from all sources, was now approaching $2 billion a year. And yet the numbers were still proliferating. The most recent point-in-time count was 26,000 unsheltered people in the city. Most of the parks—Lakeshore, Mosswood, Snow, San Antonio—had long since ceased to be usable by the public and were now covered with tents, Porta-Potties and rubbish heaps. Councilmember Bas now proposed an additional parcel tax of $1,000 per unit in order to “tidy up our parks.”
Rebecca Kaplan, who had retired briefly from politics before realizing it was the only way she could make money, re-entered the City Council, and became its president. She now proposed a $1,200 per year parcel tax in order to fund anti-violence programs. When a journalist pointed out that Oakland was already spending $300,000,000 a year on anti-violence programs, yet still had record-high crime, Kaplan responded, “Well, that’s because we’re not investing enough to address the root causes of crime.”
I awakened when, in the nightmare, I was outside one morning, getting my newspaper. A fire overnight had destroyed an apartment complex down the block. As I bent to pick up my paper, a hoard of zombies came out of nowhere toward me. With my back against the wall, I was ready to confront them. Instead, I woke up, the pillow drenched in sweat, my hands shaking. I was back in my familiar room, safe for the moment. Then I realized I had to go downstairs and outside to get the paper.
Steve Heimoff