Coruscation

Commenters propose a succession from Oakland to form the city of "Piedmontclairidge" consisting of Piedmont, Montclair, and Rockridge. We suggest a Liz Krueger style campaign.

Staff from the City Attorney's office then reiterated that the Committee was not being asked to adopt ordinances the homeless advocates were objecting to as unconstitutional, but rather to allow an option of a reduced charge for existing ordinances, and emphasized the broad community support for the program. Jean Quan asked a bunch of clarifying questions, in response to which we learned, again, that adopting the item in question would not introduce a new ordinance, nor would it necessarily change the level of citation for violating the ordinance, but would simply give the prosecutors discretion to charge these crimes either as a misdemeanor (which they are currently) or now as an infraction, as they deem appropriate.

Up to this point, the discussion was fine. Sure, we heard the same thing over and over again, and sometimes after a long day, that can get pretty tiring. But in general, I don't mind. I much prefer that the Council be extremely clear on what they're voting on than they just push things through in a hurry.

Then, the whole thing just collapsed. Jean Quan, totally randomly, started talking about the County's alcohol detention center. She's bothered that the Oakland police don't take more people there, and doesn't see how approving this would do anything to get more Oakland residents into the center. You know, I don't see how the Committee approving the ordinance is going to do anything to make the sidewalks downtown less treacherous to my heels, but I didn't feel the need to march down to City Hall and protest it because of that.

She received a very polite response explaining that first, someone passed out in the street from alcohol needs to go to a hospital, not a detention center, and that two, the center is for people who want to go there willingly for treatment, and it's not something you can force people to do.

Jean Quan then asked if the proposal had been presented to Project Reconnect, and got yet another response from the attorney's office explaining that the proposal was not about homelessness at all. Quan responded that in order for the misdemeanor prosecutions to be successful, we need cooperation of homeless advocacy organizations to create restorative justice programs for them. She suggested delaying the item for a month, and said they should, in the meantime, meet with a coalition of homeless advocates to give their input about how to craft a restorative justice program for homeless people who can't pay their tickets.