Oakland residents should come first when any government subsidized projects exist in our city
Mayor Jerry Brown ran for Mayoir on slogan of "Oakland First." I am a strong believer in this concept. For years too many emploers in the city of Oakland did not hire Oakland residents. Residents of our city had to sit idly and watch jobs go to nonresidents even when many of these opportunities were created with Oakland tax money. Some obvious examples are the facts that only 17% of the jobs on the Cypress Replacement freeway Project went to Oakland residents; only 15% of the jobs with the tenants of the Port of Oakland are filled with Oakland residents and the rennovation of the Coliseum and the Arena only emplyed 15% Oakland residents. This is totally unacceptable. As a member of the City Council I will not vote for any government funded or subsidized project which does not contain provisions for employment opportunities for the residents of the City of Oakland.
We also need to increase the availability of training opportunities for those residents of Oakland who do not have the necessay skills to become a productive member of the work force. Many training programs currently exist but we still need more. There is a direct correlation between crime and employment. No matter where you go in the world if there is an employment problem than there is a corresponding crime problem. They are two sides of the same coin. In we expect to decrease the amount of street crime within our city then we have to make employment opportunities availbe to our citizens.
Oakland has to begin to look out after Oakland. We cannot pass that responsibility on to the state or the federal governments. We have enough available resources right her in our city to provide a decent life four our residents. The responsibility is that of our elected public officials and if they cannot do the job then we must look to others who can. Just as the song says, "Mama may have and Pappa may have but God bless the child that has its own."
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