By Tyrese Johnson

OAKLAND, CA – “West Oakland residents need resources that are free,” asserted Liz Derias, formerly of  the youth advocacy group Leadership Excellence. In 2008, the City of Oakland enlisted Derias’ help. She led a team of young people in a year-long campaign to develop a place that serves West Oakland’s teens.

Many area residents agree strongly with Derias, and City Councilmember Nancy Nadel has resurrected West Oakland’s push to have the facility built.

The West Oakland Teen Center, as it is tentatively referred, has been in the making since 2003, when West Oakland community members expressed their neighborhood’s need for a place dedicated to young people.

In 2005, the city purchased what was once housed Olivet Institutional Missionary Baptist Church at the intersection of Brockhurst and Market Streets, that.

Despite a process that has taken seven years, many community members do not know about plans for the WOTC.

“The city has to figure out a planning team and put money toward outreach,” Derias argued.

According to Carletta Starks, Community Liaison and Political Analyst to Councilmember Nadel, Oakland applied last March to receive $5.3 million from Prop 84, which allocates state funds for the improvement of parks and forests.

Starks is cautiously optimistic that the WOTC will get this key financial boost. “The Prop 84 money is not promised. We won’t know until the fall,” She explained.

Many of the youth who brainstormed and contributed ideas to shape the WOTC’s design and list of services don’t know if they’ll get the center anytime soon.

“I was a part of the architecture work group,” said Mike Brown, 18, who expressed no knowledge of what has become of his input. “We decided what the building would look like. Nobody’s told me anything about what’s going on with the teen center.”

“We have no idea how long it will take before the design is complete, “ Starks said. “Money is the biggest issue. We cannot plan for something we don’t have money for.” The Prop 84 money would be just enough to meet the needs of the teen center’s design and construction.

Starks assures that once the WOTC is operational, the city will work to implement all recommendations made by the youth of Leadership Excellence.

She said the City of Oakland needs the community’s help to make this happen. “We need people to clean [the building], we need ideas for fundraisers, and we need people with experience writing grants.”

Derias believes that West Oakland can meet the challenge. “I see a spirit in West Oakland youth that I don’t see in other places. Young people really want to change their condition. City officials really have to step up to make it better for young people.”

By Oakland Voices Contributor Cameron Wilson

OAKLAND, CA – The bus ride from downtown Oakland to Oak Center is never monotonous.  There is always something different to see, from the changing seasons to people going about their daily routines.  Amongst the usual things found in a residential neighborhood; single and multi-family homes, trees and parks, something that stands out is the Ebony Museum of Art, Inc. a private house museum located on the corner of 14th and Linden Streets.

Aissatoui A. Vernita is the founder of the Ebony Museum of Art.  Vernita’s personal private collection of African and African American art expands over three floors in her home.   Vernita’s collection is a lifelong expression of her fervor for cultural expression and history. “I’ve been collecting since the age of 9,” said Vernita, who is now in her early 80s.

An Arkansas native, Vernita has lived in Europe and the Middle East as the wife of a career soldier.  Living abroad expanded Vernita’s cultural perspectives.  “When you travel you get more in your brains.”

Back in the states, Vernita and her family endured the humiliation of segregation and blatant inequalities. Those experiences throughout the 1950s and 60s instilled a positive spirit within her. Vernita channeled much of that energy into founding EMA and creating her own art.

The museum thrived over the last two decades, welcoming school field trips and visitors. At one point, it split into two locations – one in West Oakland, and the other in Jack London Square.

EMA was famous in Oakland for its public events, which brought together African American artists to exhibit their work.  These events acknowledged artists’ integral contributions to the cultural expression.

In 1989, the museum hosted an exhibition titled “In Celebration of the African-American Artist.”  The exhibition featured 100 contemporary artists.  Vernita’s work was also on display. She also helped write a brochure that explained her vision for the event. “The forum will not attempt to speak with one monolithic voice,” it reads, “but with many voices, reflecting the myriad of colors, mediums, styles, and thoughts that are ‘Black Art,’ a cultural spectrum.”

As an artist, Vernita has contributed thought-provoking sculptures and jewelry, using soul food – including collard greens, beans, and chicken bones – as expressive media. One prevalent piece is on display in the  EMA’s front yard. It is a wooden boat covered in bones with sails of newspaper.

Vernita is committed to displaying a diversity of African and African American art.  She views the collection as a whole – each piece an integral part of the story of black culture. “All of them are my favorite.” She said.

Vernita views her home as “a place where black people are recognized,” and the pieces in the tremendous collection as “things that our people can be proud of.”

Today, the Ebony Museum keeps uneven hours. Vernita encourages patrons to call ahead to view her personal collection.

By Oakland Voices contributor Sultanah Corbett

OAKLAND, CA – Pot, purple, cheeba, iz – Oakland’s recreational users have lots of names for marijuana. If Proposition 19 – or, as some advocates call it, The Regulate – passes in California’s November election, there will be one more name to add to that list: legal.

In three weeks, Californians will vote on the Regulate, Control and Tax Cannabis Act of 2010, or Prop 19. If passed, the statewide initiative would legalize marijuana for recreational use, and bring the drug under state regulation.

Several of Oakland’s small cannabis growers are suspicious of Prop 19, which they see as the state government’s wish to control yet another natural resource.

Robert is a licensed grower in the city. He believes that Prop 19 will ultimately eliminate a profitable and reliable source of income for business people like himself.

He worries that it will bring an economic hardship to the communities of small cannabis growers in Oakland. “Once the government begins to control cannabis, then it won’t be about the people anymore,” he complained.

For a decade, Robert has been growing marijuana – a trade he began teaching himself as a hobby. Raising pot, he insisted, is “a skill that is not as easy as some might think it is.”

“The set-up cost of growing marijuana,” Robert said, is the most expensive part of the business. “It takes five to ten thousand dollars to arrange a grow area. The operational cost of growing it is minimal once you’ve begun.”

Robert said it’s a worthwhile investment, because a healthy crop can yield great profits – sometimes double or triple the investment costs. Looking a those figures, Robert was motivated to expand his grow areas and market his cash crop.

Robert said he makes about $60,000 a year from his marijuana crop. That’s a big boost to what he earns from his scooter repair shop in downtown Oakland.

Robert relies on the money from growing to pay his bills. He also uses it to look after his family. As if punctuating his commitment, Robert eagerly showed off a black and white image of his daughter tattooed on his left forearm.

The Compassionate Use Act of 1996 permits Robert the freedom to grow marijuana. Also known as Prop 215, that act allows users to grow and possess marijuana for medicinal purposes.

If Prop 19 passes, the City of Oakland plans to allow only four major cannabis growers to distribute. Small growers are concerned that the plan will only create a monopoly, finally affecting the livelihood of small crop businesses across the city.

James Rigdon insisted that the City Council’s decision to support only four large grow houses has “nothing to do with Prop 19.” Even if those large growers do offer competition, Rigdon said he’s confident the smaller companies will survive. “Just like you have Budweiser, and you have [Anheuser-Busch],” Rigdon explained. “You have all the major beer producers, but you also have micro-brewers across the country who produce their own beer, and they thrive.”

Enforcement of Prop 19, if it passes, will be left up to local governments throughout the state. “[It] sets up the ability for each city and county to allow or not allow as they see fit people to grow for commercial use,” Rigdon said.

Robert said he’s also concerned about criminalization if Prop 19 succeeds. “There are going to be more people getting in more trouble, because the laws are going to be even more stringent on them, especially if there is only to be four major growers.”

Robert said he’s not the only little guy in his business who will feel the pinch if Prop 19 passes. “Street dealers,” he explained, will also get pushed “out of this profitable market. It’s going to be the major players – the major grower and the major distributors – that will legally benefit from the legalization of marijuana.”

(From The Oakland Tribune - Posted: 10/03/2010)

By Brian Beveridge

Oakland Voices Correspondent

OAKLAND, CA – Eminent domain: Two words that strike fear in the hearts of property owners.

The legal tool allows cities and government agencies to buy property even if the owner does not want to sell — sometimes below the price the owner thinks is fair. In Oakland, this broad government power helped bring about the West Oakland BART station, the U.S. Postal Service Regional Distribution Center and the relocation of the Cypress Freeway.

In the course of those projects, hundreds of homes and dozens of small businesses were eliminated — all with the intention of serving the public good.

Now, despite objections from both businesses and some residents, Oakland Community and Economic Development Agency staff will recommend Tuesday night that the City Council expand its eminent domain powers to accelerate redevelopment in West Oakland.

At the July meeting of the West Oakland Project Area Committee, known as WOPAC, which represents the community in redevelopment decisions, city staff openly discussed the use of eminent domain to help the Kroger grocery chain acquire property for a proposed 72,000-square-foot Foods Co. supermarket project near West Grand Avenue.

Property owner Sunny Hahn said at that time that no one from City Hall had spoken with him. In fact, he said, Kroger had not even attempted to negotiate with him.

Hahn said a Walnut Creek real estate

broker working for Kroger called in “March or April” and offered him $1.4 million for his land, but that is less than he said he has invested. Hahn said he made a counter offer of about twice that price, and that was the last he heard from Kroger.

Hahn knows about eminent domain. The Korean business man and one-time grocery store operator owned a parking lot in the uptown area near the Sears department store. When the Uptown housing project and Fox Theater redevelopment became realities, the city wanted Hahn’s parking lot as a new home for the Sears auto service center.

Hahn liked his parking lot business and thought the city’s offer for his property was too low. He took the city to court and — after two years and tens of thousands of dollars in legal fees on both sides — a deal was made that satisfied Hahn. He thinks everyone could have saved lots of money if the city had been willing to pay a fair price in the first place.

Strangely enough, Hahn is in the same situation again.

Hahn’s new concern is the recent announcement that Kroger wants to build at least three warehouse-style, full-service grocery stores in Oakland under its Food Co. brand.

Progress — at a price?

According to the city, Kroger has purchased the old cold storage warehouse and related buildings at West Grand Avenue and Myrtle Street. The company plans a 72,000-square-foot store with parking for more than 250 cars.

Hahn owns about an acre of commercial land in the project area.

“When I buy the property,” he said, “I have my own dream for a little shopping center.”

No eminent domain proceedings have been started on Hahn’s West Oakland property.

“The city is not between the buyer and seller,” said Patrick Lane of the city’s development agency.

WOPAC has a long-standing policy limiting the amount of property that can be taken by force as part of any redevelopment project in West Oakland.

The policy forbids the taking of any residential property and limits the taking of commercial property to projects of three acres or less. The Foods Co. project is about five acres.

The development agency wants to amend the existing eminent domain rule to make its use more flexible, but a common opinion by some inside and outside city government is that the amendment is very technical and has been a cause for confusion.

In July, WOPAC members asked city staff why the changes to eminent domain could not just apply to the one property in question. Gregory Hunter, director of the agency, said that type of “spot zoning” was against policy.

Councilmember Nancy Nadel (West Oakland-Downtown) said via e-mail, “The expansion of eminent domain is only for this grocery store project and that is why I support it.”

The full council will vote Tuesday on whether to amend the eminent domain rule to apply specifically to the two blocks around West Grand Avenue and Myrtle Street.

At the same July meeting, city staff pressed for the need of eminent domain in the Foods Co. project, but by August they appeared to back away from that position.

Larry Rice, co-chairman of WOPAC, said a development agency staffer “alluded to the fact that eminent domain would not be needed on the property because a deal was in negotiations.”

That was news to Hahn.

“No negotiations are going on, not at all,” he said during a Sept. 10 interview for this story. “(The development agency) never contact me at all.”

After that interview, Hahn and his attorney contacted the city and met with Hunter and a city attorney regarding the project. Kroger representatives did not attend.

Hahn said he’s not looking to block a valuable project. He said he is, “willing to, happy to, want(s) to do something good for (the) community.”

According to city staff, a forced purchase would be a last resort.

“There is generally an offer higher than market, so that eminent domain isn’t required,” wrote Patrick Lane, who works on West Oakland redevelopment for the city of Oakland. “There are high costs for attorneys and expert witnesses if eminent domain is used.”

Hahn said the price offered by the city does not fairly represent his total investment.

Hahn says he paid $1.35 million in 2005, spent more money in court to get the previous owners to vacate the land and spent tens of thousands more rehabbing the warehouse and three other buildings. Now he has five steady tenants — including an auto repair shop, tire store, truck repair operator and a Clear Channel billboard lease.

“I have good tenants and I’m happy right now,” he said.

Painful memories

West Oakland’s longtime residents are very familiar with the impact of eminent domain.

The vibrant African-American commercial district along Seventh Street was decimated by two projects in the 1960s and 1970s. Hundreds of homes and at least two popular black-owned nightclubs, Slim Jenkins Club and Ester’s Orbit Room, were destroyed or relocated when the Postal Service used eminent domain to acquire the land at Seventh and Willow streets.

Slim Jenkins Club was offered a land trade in Jack London Square, but due to discrimination in the ’60s, African-Americans often did not frequent the square in those days and the new club soon went bankrupt. Ester’s Orbit Room was moved across Seventh Street, but never reclaimed its former popularity as a premier blues club.

The ACORN housing area between Market and Union streets is another painful scar for many West Oakland families. Thousands of old Victorian houses were razed and replaced with new townhouses, but in the process many extended families had to move and never reunited as a community.

Eminent domain, a power held by many local, state and federal agencies — including the city, BART, Caltrans, and the Postal Service — is seen by many in West Oakland as a legal hammer to smash what people outside the community consider blight, and to deliver what those same outsiders consider progress.

How will Hahn respond if the city steps in to acquire his property with eminent domain power?

“I have to fight back,” he said. “This is a hostile takeover of private property.”