The Port of Oakland, which owns Oakland International Airport, announced it’s considering a name change for the busy hub, the Bay Area’s second largest airport (after SFO). The Port didn’t spell out exactly why they want the change, other than referencing some “lack of awareness” among travelers concerning how close Oakland is to San Francisco. But it’s pretty obvious, to me at least, why they want to switch. The word “Oakland” is severely damaged in the public’s mind.
This is a topic our officials rarely discuss, but it’s real, and based on fact. Our city is widely perceived across America and internationally as a rat hole of crime, homelessness and filth, a sort of Skid Row spread over 78 square miles. Just as residents of Contra Costa County are reluctant to make Oakland their destination for shopping or dining out, so too are many Americans, who read the stories about tourists having their cars broken into moments after arriving here. Who wants to deal with that?
Nearly 30 years ago, I was visiting with my cousin, a wealthy woman who lives in the Malibu hills. She had some of her friends over, a married couple who worked in “the industry,” i.e. movies. When she introduced us and told the couple I lived in Oakland, the husband expressed shock, and said, “I didn’t know Oakland had decent people in it.” I was highly offended. But not surprised. Even 30 years ago, Oakland had that reputation.
It’s far, far worse now. Due to the governance of generations of progressive Democrats, Oakland has deteriorated to the condition in which we find it now. It’s the leper among California cities; nobody wants to come into contact. It’s hard for me to imagine that a stunt, like changing the airport’s name to Golden Gate International Airport or Tom Hanks International Airport, is going to change Oakland’s awful reputation. The move will be widely perceived for exactly what it is: an admission that the city is a dangerous trash heap, and a clumsy PR attempt to cover that reality up with word games.
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“APTP will continue to build power in Oakland to defund OPD”
Meanwhile, the group that is more responsible than any other for Oakland’s demise is still trying to crush our city into the gutter. The Anti Police-Terror Project (APTP), the brainchild of the notorious Black radical Cat Brooks, is proclaiming, “We need to make an even stronger case to Defund the Police.”
By this statement, Brooks concedes that she’s lost the battle for public opinion concerning defunding OPD. She tried her best to cripple the police department, and for a while it looked like she, and her allies such as Nikki Bas and Carroll Fife, would do so. But public opinion is a funny thing. It’s proven much harder to manipulate than Brooks thought. Reality intruded—the reality of murder, car theft and mugging—and an overwhelming majority of Oaklanders realized that the cops are not their enemy but their friend. The result was that even “progressive” politicians like Sheng Thao have called for modest increases to OPD’s budget. And this is something Brooks can’t stand. That’s why she thinks that APTP needs to make “an even stronger case” for defunding.
It’s hard for me to imagine what that “stronger case” could possibly be. The only way for voters to even consider lowering OPD’s budget would be if crime plummeted, resulting in citizens feeling much safer. But that’s as unlikely to happen as Cat Brooks’ getting elected mayor, a position she tried for in 2018 and failed to achieve, and would like to try for again. Crime would have to plummet, and not for just one cycle, but for years and years. While we all hope and pray for that to happen, it’s not going to. So what other “stronger case” does Brooks hope to offer the voters? There is none. All she can do is peddle the same lies, and hope that she can fool enough of the voters enough of the time to keep electing allies like Pamela Price and Carroll Fife, who will coddle criminals and continue their abortive attempts to “decarcerate” the jails and defund the police. Thank God, the public has seen through their propaganda.
If Oakland is to recover its reputation as a vital, interesting and safe big city, we’re going to have to fire Fife, Price and the others, and we’re going to have to relegate Cat Brooks to some back-row obscurity where she can scream and lie all she wants, with no significant impact on current events. We’re not there yet. Too many media outlets continue to offer her a sounding board to spread her lies; too few voters have realized the danger she poses to our safety and security. But with every murder, every carjacking, every brazen assault, more voters understand that woke left won’t stop until Oakland is broken and bleeding in the gutter.
Steve Heimoff