Oakland Budget Town Hall for District 7 recap
- Sean Everhart
- May 22, 2023
- 2 min read
Hi all,
I attended the budget meeting. It was great to have multiple Villagers in attendance.
I thought I would put some data points down and share with the community.
Oakland’s 2 year budget
$4.1B
$360M deficit (this is largely due to the funding from the COVID relief being pulled)
⅔ of all city revenue comes from taxes (real estate taxes, sales, etc) - $2.7B in revenue from taxes
½ of Oakland’s budget is for personnel (Fire, OPD, city workers, etc)
District 7 stats
63K residents in District 7 (16K above 580, 47K below 580)
Largest density of unhoused encampments (300 total)
Challenges
Brookfield (Coliseum) area residents are extremely frustrated with feeling they bear the brunt of the unhoused
The level of accountability of city workers (multiple people who spoke mentioned this)
District 7 is the largest land area in Oakland (in square miles)
Police are responsible for a very large area and do not have the funding they need
It was very informative from a citizen standpoint and I am very happy I went. I feel both Treva and her team are fighting for us, but unfortunately they only have so much power to get big things done. We as citizens must engage with our leaders and our community members. I had no idea about the neighborhood council for the south hills and now I have a meeting set up with the person who runs it.
Oakland faces a lot of challenges, but like most times of difficulty, we must do what we can as a community to get involved. We all need to offer what we have from a time and expertise standpoint to make change happen. Please reach out if you have any questions. The more people are engaged, the more ideas we will have to put forth our own strategy for this city. I look forward to working with other Villagers to make this special place what we want for the next generation.
Sean
Thank you for taking notes and writing this up Sean. The only thing I can think of to add is the piece about the concentration of housing going in to address the unhoused issue in District 7. Residents point out there are already several buildings marked for the unhoused/ low income in East Oakland. Interestingly, due to mixed funding, the housing isn't necessarily for Oaklanders. Therefore, our tax dollars are not going directly to getting people off the streets in Oakland.
Yes thanks so much for Sean and other Villagers who attended the budget meeting. Are there future budget meetings we should attend?
Diane
Thank you Sean for attending and sum it up for us with easily understandable and straightforward bullet points. We understand the Council members power limitations and what they can do. Its up to us to make this community safer and keeping it special.