On Juneteenth last Friday, our Board Treasurer Mandolin Kadera-Redmond sent the letter below to Mayor Schaaf. We believe her message is helpful to all who are engaged with standing for and loving our parks. In this spirit, we share her letter with you and invite you to join us in recognizing that caring for Oakland’s parks is inseparable from caring for Oakland’s diverse communities.
In solidarity,
Ken Lupoff
Executive Director
June 19th 2020
Mayor Schaaf,
I am writing in response to the horrific act of terror that has rippled through Oakland yesterday. Lake Merritt and Lakeside Park have lost their way and I need your help to ensure this public space finds its way back into public governance. You and I have a passion in common and I appreciate your advocacy for park programming and maintenance of parkland in the past. I previously served as Chair for the Oakland Parks & Recreation Commission (PRAC) and am now Treasurer with the Oakland Parks & Recreation Foundation (OPRF). It is from this common place I am commanding we act.
Our Black and Brown neighbors are scared to be in our parks. I will not spend this time listing out the numerous harms that have impacted this trauma, but I will propose some solutions that can begin the healing process.
- Today is Juneteenth. Display Red, Black & Green at City hall as your commitment to make Juneteenth a Municipal Holiday.
- Invest in Youth Development, Mental Health and unarmed Park Rangers.
- Support OPRF in naming Oakland parks and the benches at Lake Merritt to represent our rich cultural diversity and history in social justice.
- Eliminate barriers for African American contractors, vendors and food trucks to do business at the parks by guaranteeing them permits.
- Urge Council to support PRAC Recommendations for updates to park rules and regulations that was tabled more than a year ago. These new rules and regulations were generated with extensive contribution from community members who believed their voices would be heard.
I then ask you to support implementation of these new park rules and regulations with a genuine community engagement process so that they continue to be supported by the community and upheld by city staff. I understand that my last request is not an easy ask. But I am hopeful because of the good work of myself and my colleagues; we have brought it this far and you have our commitment to see it through.
I’ll close by saying I understand we have a budget to finalize and I’ll remind you to consider that the drastic defunding of parks will only exacerbate the current unsafe climate for Black residents and other communities of color. Perhaps you can imagine shifting our resources to departments and organizations that are in line with solutions of restorative environmental justice.
Respectfully,
Mandolin Kadera-Redmond
Legislative history:
Recommendations were brought back to the Life Enrichment Committee on January 15, 2019.
“Parks and Recreation Advisory Commission 2018 Annual Report.” City of Oakland Parks and Recreation Advisory Commission, August 1, 2019, pages 18-40.