The more we learn of Madame D.A.’s stunts at the recent Montclair meeting on public safety, the worse she appears. She deliberately packed the room with her supporters, thereby preventing true neighborhood residents from attending. She was surrounded by bodyguard thugs, like a Mafia chieftain. She lectured and bloviated, instead of answering questions. The end result was that Montclair voters will decisively vote against her in the Recall.
As resentment of Price mounts, not just in Montclair but throughout Alameda County, she’s increasingly dependent on her base of Black voters. But, as I pointed out yesterday, Price’s Black support is eroding. The steady drip-drip-drip of revelations about her soft-on-crime approach and arrogant personality is alienating Black people, who after all are inordinately exposed to criminal activity and are therefore more concerned with public safety. Black voters have a real dilemma coming up in the Recall: whether to support “one of their own,” a Black woman, or to fire her due to dereliction of duty. There will be many discussions around kitchen tables in the coming weeks.
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Kudos to the city of San Diego, which had the courage to do something Oakland wouldn’t dare under its current leadership. The city just passed an Unsafe Camping Ordinance (UCO), among the toughest anti-encampment laws in California. With carefully-delineated prohibitions against tents in most parts of the city (including in parks or near transportation hubs), the UCO allows cops to arrest and detain violators. San Diego’s city attorney, Mara Elliott, was careful to establish a delicate balance with Martin v. Boise, which most cities (including Oakland) use as an excuse for not clearing encampments. “The Martin decision,” she wrote, “does not prevent governments from regulating other behavior, such as blocking the sidewalk or prohibiting erection of certain structures. Additionally, the Martin decision does not prevent governments from prohibiting camping at particular times or in particular locations.”
I’ve been waiting for years for a responsible government official to point out the inconsistencies of Martin v. Boise, and finally, someone’s done it. Martin v. Boise does not prohibit Oakland from clearing tent encampments along roadsides, in parking lots and on sidewalks. Martin v. Boise does not prevent Oakland from prohibiting campers from erecting the sprawling slums of shopping carts and mattresses that litter so much of the city. Martin v. Boise is in fact ripe for challenge—but our local leaders (if such they can be called) refuse to challenge it, because they tacitly support the right of homeless people to squat any place they want. Martin v. Boise is the gift that keeps on giving for people like Carroll Fife, Nikki Bas and Dan Kalb. It lets them disregard public order and safety so that they don’t have to make decisions that would bring the wrath of the pro-homeless crowd down on their heads. There’s nothing worse, in the mind of woke politicians, than a screaming hoard of social progressives interrupting your City Council meeting or picketing outside your house.
Here’s the key statement of the San Diego city attorney: “[Martin v. Boise] stated its holding was narrow and did not dictate to the City that it must provide sufficient shelter for the homeless, or allow anyone who wishes to sit, lie, or sleep on the streets…at any time and at any place.” Can someone please send this to every member of the Oakland City Council?
Steve Heimoff