RECENT ACTIVITY in OCO Issue Areas:

OCO Changes the Face of Education in Oakland
The New Small Autonomous School Movement is changing the face of education in Oakland. Fifteen new small schools have opened in the last three years because OCO organized parents and community leaders who worked to make it happen. New schools are making decisions about personnel, budget, and curriculum. The school district is reshaping itself to support this reform. It is our goal to create high quality small schools all across the city so that families can choose the best school for their child.

Our vision for school is simple. Every child needs to be known by name. They need to be safe. They need to be challenged to do their best. They need dedicated, well-prepared teachers. They need to be surrounded by a supportive community of caring adults. Parents, teachers and students are all essential partners. Thousands of parents along with hundreds of teachers have undertaken the hard work necessary at the school site and district level to make this vision a reality. Organizing provides the political will for this change. We are creating a public for public education. OCO is making a place for parents in the education of their children. We are rekindling hope in teachers and administrators. The Oakland Unified School District and the Bay Area Coalition for Equitable Schools (BayCES) have been unflagging partners in this effort.

We are proud of all we have done so far, but we have much more to do. Design teams wanting to start new schools are hard at work. Plans are developing for sites for new schools. The small schools movement is taking on a life of its own, and OCO is playing a crucial role to insure its success. We are organizing to make sure parents are fully engaged as partners in design teams so new small schools can be successful. OCO is working with parents and teachers to reconfigure large schools into small schools. We are taking our experience and assisting the district to re-engineer its central administration to serve this system of emerging new small schools. Finally, OCO is organizing wokshops so parents and teachers can work together on ways to be involved in their child's education. Through the PICO network, OCO is helping communities and funders understand that organizing is essential to sustainable change in public education. We invite you to be part of this exciting work.

Read more about the New Small Autonomous Schools (NSAS) operating and being developed under the New Small Autonomous Schools Policy with the support of Oakland Community Organizations (OCO).

To view OCO’s "History of Work" with Youth and Education, please click here.

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PICO CA Project: We’re Willing to Pay More for a Better California: Fair Share Budget Plan in Action
Nearly a year after 4,000 PICO California Project leaders brought the Fair Share Budget Plan to Sacramento, 8,000 leaders across the state pressed their local representatives for commitments to a budget balanced with new revenue sources in a series of 26 town hall meetings over the week of June 6-13, 2003.

In Oakland, 100 OCO leaders along with union and health care allies came together on June 6th in Frank Ogawa Plaza to ask Assembly members Wilma Chan and Loni Hancock as well as Glen Rosselli, legislative aide to Governor Gray Davis, for their support of the Fair Share Budget Plan. State Senator Don Perata sent a letter of support. The Fair Share Budget Plan asks all Californians to preserve the building blocks of our communities-health care, affordable housing, and education—by:

• reinstating a portion of the Vehicle License Fee
• reinstituting the upper income tax bracket for the state’s wealthiest earners
• closing corporate property tax loopholes.

These three revenue sources combined could put up to $9 billion into state coffers.

OCO co-chairs Sandra Frost and Bea Bernstine presented Mr. Rosselli with the "scales of justice", a graphic depiction of theFair Share Budget Plan, to takeback to the Governor. St. Elizabeth and Ascend leader Yadira Padilla testified to the effects that cuts to health care will have on herself and her family. Allies from the health care workers’ unions added their testimony about the cuts’ anticipated impact on the public health care system.

Ms. Chan, Ms. Hancock, Mr. Rosselli, Alameda County Supervisors Keith Carson and Alice Lai-Bitker spoke in support of the Plan, as did Darryl Stewart from Supervisor Nate Miley’s office and District 4 City Council member Jean Quan. Congress member Barbara Lee sent aide Pedro Toledo. Fr. Paul Vassar from the Oakland Diocese invoked the support of a higher power. State legislators not only committed to work for passage of Fair Share Budget Plan bills, but also to return to Oakland in the fall to report on their votes.

To view OCO’s "History of Work" in Health Care, please click here.

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OCO Committed to Affordable Housing Crisis in Oakland
With increasing prices and decreasing availability of housing, low-income Oakland residents have been forced to move out of Oakland or live in substandard conditions.Since the birth of OCOdecent and affordable housing has been a major priority of leaders and organizers. OCO was successfully in the 1980’s and early 90’s through our "Beat Health" campaign which revitalizing neighborhoods by closing over 1000 abandoned ‘crack houses.’ Over our twenty-five years of work in community organizing, OCO organized for 200 units of new housing, 400 units of rehab housing, and over $50 million in state, local and federal funds for new housing in Oakland. And yet the challenge today has grown even larger, with an estimated $1 billion needed to meet Oakland’s housing need. OCO leaders are not dismayed but the urgency to have Oakland officials take the necessary steps to provide decent affordable housing has intensified.

OCO Pushes Mayor Brown for More Affordable Housing
In February 2002, 400 OCO leaders gathered at First AME Church to hear from Mayor Brown about the progress of the commitments he made before 3,000 OCO leaders at our November action in 2001. Leaders were sorely disappointed that Mayor Brown had done little additional work to strengthen his commitment to issues raised in November. The mayor maintained his commitment to about 800 units in the coming year, but nothing beyond. He would not support any new funding mechanisms like commercial linkage fees or inclusionary zoning to provide money for additional housing. Commitments were maintained with few specific ideas for implementation that he would support efforts by the school district to find land for 13 new small schools and to review policies to expand after school programs. He did commit to attend meetings and monitor the progress of community policing efforts. OCO leaders determined that more work would have to be done with city council members to secure more concrete results in all of these areas.

Read more about New Housing Developments

Read more about OCO's Plan for Working Families.

To read OCO’s "History of Work" in achieving Decent Affordable Housing, click here.

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OCO Leaders Demand Clean and Safe Streets in Oakland; OCO Wins Return of Police Beat Health Unit
Every community member, resident, and visitor to Oakland can testify that safe streets in Oakland needs to be everyone’s top priority. With the murder rate reaching emergency status, the major concern of every OCO organizer and leader is how to achieve safe and clean streets. In reponse to these conerns OCO is determined to challenge city officials and the police to reduce crime in Oakland through implementing community policing, reinstating the Beat Health unit, and holding the police accountable to the community.

A major victory was won in the Fall of 2002, after years of work by local organizing committees across the city on crime and safety issues. Local actions across the city involving nearly 1000 people won commitments to reinstate a centralized Beat Health unit to close drug houses and nuisance properties from Mayor Brown, City Council President de la Fuente, City Manger Bobb and Police Chief Word . The Beat Health Unit of the police department was put in place through OCO’s efforts in the 1980's. Beat Health was a nationally recognized program that brought together city and county inspectors, attorneys, and police to attack problem properties on mulitple fronts.

There has been a resounding call from OCO leaders and residents to put Faith in Action, and achieve safe and clean streets for all families. On July 14, 2003, OCO clergy and leaders joined with over 300 marchers in the 'Prayer for Peace March' . Hundreds marched 60 blocks from St. Louis Bertrand Church to Cooper's Mortuary in Fruitvale in rememberence of the 60 men and women who had been killed in Oakland so far this year. Marchers carried white flags for peace and at each block every homicide victim was remembered and prayed for by all march participants. The message was a resounding call to city officials, and the Oakland Police Department to work with the community and find a way to stop all the killings.

Read more about recent OCO SAFTEY ACTIONS with Local Organizing Committees.

To view OCO’s "History of Work" with Crime, Safety, and Blight, please click here.

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Eastmont Town Center to Get New Supermarket
After more than five years without a supermarket , Eastmont Town Center - Oakland's largest shopping mall- is getting a food market. Family-run store, Gazzali's Supermarket will serve thousands of families in East Oakland. The market owners have promised to hire local residents and will open their doors to the public sometime early next year. We wish them success.

OCO Secures Food Sustainability in West Oakland
After 13 years of inadequate local food access, thousands of families now have daily access to fresh meat and produce instead of relying on expensive corner markets for groceries. In July of 2001, after a six-year struggle more than 1,000 residents came together to celebrate the success of Gateway Foods, the first full service grocery store in West Oakland. The grocery store has become a source of pride and sustainability in the community and has given a new vitality to the area. Westside Economic Development Corporation recruited 50 people for employment at Gateway Foods, enacting an agreement with owner Sean Loloee to hire from the neighborhood and provide well-paying jobs to West Oaklandresidents. OCO leaders helped secure a 10-year lease, 50 new jobs, and an $8.5 million investment in commercial revitalization for West Oakland residents. Over the years OCO leaders have worked hard to secure jobs for Oakland residents and seek state and local support to keep well-paying jobs in Oakland.

To view OCO’s "History of Work" in Jobs & Economic Development, please click here.