Adoption of Resolution Declaring November 11 through 17 United Against Hate Week in the City of Alameda, in Conjunction with the Alameda Unified School Board and other Bay Area Cities. (City Manager 2110)
Adoption of resolution declaring November 11 through 17 United Against Hate Week in the City of Alameda in conjunction with the Alameda Unified School Board and other Bay Area cities. We have speakers. On that yet. I have the. For the survivors. I'm. Well, I sound like him. Good evening. Shalom. My name is Rashid Shabazz. It's good to see you all. I want to express my gratitude to the staff and you all for considering this resolution. And I think you're intent in doing so. I think in an era of alternative truth. Fake news, truth and lies. I think it's important to distinguish between the situation and our aspiration, the tales we have, the stories we tell, and our stories and true history. I wanted to address this resolution because I think there is a few there were a few myths that were in the material. The resolution in the background. And I know there's some consideration to this, but I wanted to share some of that. First, the resolution initially began saying the United States is a nation of immigrants. And so while that may be true for some people, that's not the story of my ancestors, for my African ancestors did not immigrate here on the Mayflower. They were kidnaped and stolen and brought to the shores of Georgia, Louisiana, Florida and a bunch of other places I can't even name, because they weren't even counted in official records for my indigenous ancestors. They were already here when the settlers and colonists came. And so I bring this up because the narrative a city saloon, the narrative a city tells about itself is very important, particularly as it relates to public policy. In the agenda item, there's also some background that states that Alameda has a century long tradition of embracing diversity and respecting civil and human rights of its residents. Back in July, I gave a presentation at the. Am I going to get all that 3 minutes? Sorry. Okay. I don't want no showdown tonight. At the Democratic Club, I gave a presentation where I talked about history, memory, and the legacy of white supremacy and how that informs public policy, and particularly here in the city of Alameda. Some of the things. I'll get to some of the things I share, but I just want to rename something I just said. I talked about white supremacy and this is a historically based system of exploitation and oppression. And it occurs to people of color, whole nations, entire continents have been oppressed. And it's in order to defend a system that privileges some and maintains power and wealth for them as well. And I wanted to define that as a system, because oftentimes it's not called out. We may talk about hate, but we won't call and condemn white supremacy. And so when I think of what happened a few years ago to the congregants of Mother Emanuel, when I think of what just recently happened to those folks, those worshipers at the Tree of Life, we can call out hate. And I also think it's important to call out white supremacy as an ideology. And so just to quickly share a few suggestions, I sent some correspondence that talks more about the history. And for those that have been so kind to share your time and come to my public presentations on history in Alameda, you're familiar with some of the stuff, but that's all in the correspondence as well as a link to the PowerPoint presentation I gave at the Democratic Club that talks about history and memory. One of the ways I think that this history can be addressed is first by learning and understanding it, but then to address the inequalities and move towards inclusivity. I think it's important to understand what the current state of Alameda is, and one of the ways we can do that is by proper collection and analysis of data. And sometimes that does not happen. And so I want to give three actually I think I got four. Yeah. Not three examples of of how this can occur. First is examining the ranks of the staff for the city of Alameda. Each department looking at race and gender by department. Rank and file as well as those in supervisory and managerial roles. Examining the pedestrian and traffic stop data that the Alameda Police Department has been collecting for a long time, and also examining current housing programs and including race as a variable. So that didn't happen in the housing element of 2014 or in that 2015 study that the Bay Economic, whatever that group did. And so anyway, I just share that. And lastly, next week, hopefully the students of elementary school will be uniting against hate in choosing a new school name. Thank you. Thank you. So I have a question on the proclamation. I didn't see where it refers to 100 year history. Supporting God O OC is not in the proclamation itself. So we are voting on the resolution itself this evening. So that language was not included here. There is the language. The first paragraph speaks to is a nation of immigrants whose strength comes from its diversity. And that was an issue that was raised a step. Would counsel like to strike that? We could strike that first line. Vice Mayor. Yeah, I'd be open to that. I think the intent here is really there has been a lot of attacks in recent weeks on immigrants and refugees that are coming to this country. And I think, you know, the intent was to address that and to address the diversity. But I also understand Rashid's point regarding both African-Americans who have been descendants from slaves and also from indigenous populations. So I think in light of that, in light of, you know, the other resolutions that we were proposing to do tonight, I think it's. It's fine if there's a concern. And this is not language that we wrote. I want to make sure this is we share this with other cities. It comes to us. We get requests to do this. We try to be cooperative and go along with it. If someone has, I'm fine backing it, but it does. The intent is, in fact to focus on being a nation of immigrants. Member matter, S.E.. I think it's important. I think it's worth striking that first line because it makes the fact that we have a constitution that is directed toward equality for all individuals, regardless. Then that's the sense it would lead with. I would I would like it. I think it reads better with that. So then the first sentence would be, whereas the Constitution enshrines equality on all individuals, regardless of race, gender orientation, religion or political views. And we're already. I'm fine with that. I also wonder if we could attach the presentation that Rasheed talked about as a correspondence item on the agenda item. So it's preserved in our archives. Mm hmm. Were there other was there other correspondents on the side of. Okay. And so then do we have a motion with those without change? I'll make the motion. I just want to say, I think what we're what we're really striving to do with this is to say that we are we are working towards these goals and. And trying to achieve better acceptance of diversity. And everyone in our community. So with that, I will make a motion to accept. All this in favor. I motion carries unanimously. Thank you. Then we go to five l. Final passage of ordinance amending the Alameda Municipal Code by amending Section 30 Dash ten cannabis to add cannabis retail businesses as conditionally permitted uses in the C one neighborhood business and CM commercial manufacturing zoning districts, and amend certain portions of the zoning code to enable cannabis retail businesses to dispense non-medical medicinal or adult. Use cannabis and amend certain portions of the zoning. Code to remove the expression requirement. Do you have any speakers? Two speakers. All right. And staff. Could you give us an update in regards to our city attorney? I should actually say, in regards to wasn't there a complaint of some form filed on this item?