23rd Avenue Corridor Action Team
January 28, 2002
EBAYC
Attending: David Kakishiba, Isabel Toscano, Elena Serrano, Jennie Mollica, Mariano Jauco, Libby Schaaf, Wendy Simon, Kelley Kahn, Jessica Pitt
Agenda
I. Updates
CEDA is in the process of establishing a city-wide land trust. There is a lot of West Oakland presence at the meetings, but not much presence from the Lower San Antonio. Neighborhood residents will have to show strong support to be eligible for the program. If the 23rd Ave. organizing effort identifies people who are concerned about housing issues, could they be directed to the land trust effort? How do we education residents about this city-wide opportunity?
How can we get LSA residents involved in the development of the Cotton Mill building and the new Central City East Redevelopment Area PAC?
Franco is planning to open a café in the Bank of America annex. East Side Arts Alliance had been hoping to rent this space for their café. The Collaborative needs to be on top of opportunities so they don’t get away from us.
On January 17th, EBAYC held its first meeting of the Garfield Parent Action Committee in collaboration with the school administration. The following week they held a meeting at Franklin. At these meetings, discussion focused on three issue areas: 1) schools; 2) kids; 3) neighborhood. At Garfield, the main issue that surfaced was safety and cleanliness at the school and in the neighborhood. At Franklin, the main issue was parent support and after school programs. EBAYC will put responses into a report. All of the parents who attended agreed to talk to 2 other people. Next month EBAYC will lead an issue identification process. EBAYC’s strategy is to develop individual leadership capacity among the parents and to develop Parent Action Committees. They will identify an initial issue for an organizing campaign.
There was discussion about how to incorporate issues—like the Land Trust—that may not come-up in the Parent Action Committees. EBAYC believes that the most important thing at this point is to build parent capacity. If schools are the most important issue for parents, then the Collaborative should follow that lead. Others agreed that the 23rd Ave. Committee doesn’t want to impose issues on residents, but raised the question of how to bring issues to residents that aren’t part of the school agenda. There was a suggestion to hold meetings in other locations—such as housing meetings—in order to reach people who would attend Parent Action Committees. EBAYC believes that issues will come out in other venues outside the school meetings, such as small meetings and 1-on-1 meetings. Jennie raised a concern that it was her understanding that there would be more of a focus on 23rd Ave. with door-to-door outreach to people in the Corridor.
Libby suggested that tenant education is a critical issue. Tenant education will have more impact than the Land Trust, which will only benefit a handful of neighborhood residents.
Kelley Kahn from CEDA’s Planning Division and Libby Schaaf presented on the SDS Teams. SDS is the City’s attempt to have representatives from different City agencies focus on specific areas and deal with problems from a coordinated, inter-departmental approach. The team includes representatives from: Housing, Public Works, Police, Fire, Code Compliance, Parking, Mayor’s Office, Council Aides, Parks & Rec., Planning, etc.
Each team can focus on 2 major projects selected by the Council Member from that district. Ignacio DeLa Fuente has chosen the 23rd Ave. Corridor as a priority project.
The SDS Team would like to do a walkthrough of the 23rd Ave. Corridor on Friday, Feb. 8 from 10am-12pm. Meet in front of YEP. After the walk through the group will debrief and identify priority projects.
The schedule for 23rd Ave. Corridor Workgroup meetings was changed to the second and fourth Mondays of the Month. Next meetings: