League of Women Voters of California Education Fund
Alameda County, CA November 6, 2012 Election
	Gordon "Don" Link Answers Questions Candidate for Council Member; City of Oakland; Council District 1

The questions were prepared by the League of Women Voters of Oakland and asked of all candidates for this office.
Read the answers from all candidates (who have responded).

Questions & Answers

1. (Foreclosure challenges) Many Oaklanders have lost their homes because of the economic recession; how can the city help homeowners, and how can the city help neighborhoods experiencing high rates of foreclosures and vacancies?

The City Council was slow to respond to Oakland's foreclosure situation. Unlike nearby cities, the foreclosures in Oakland were concentrated in small, older homes located in low income neighborhoods, the result of predatory cash-out lending and variable interest rate loans. This made the real estate less valuable for resale and requiring more rehabilitation than newer homes in the suburbs.

Mayor Dellums responded to the foreclosure problem and turned to non-profit community based organizations instead of city government for solutions. One CBO, Urban Strategies, devised a Community Land Trust to purchase foreclosed properties in Oakland and to help families purchase them. It was awarded $ 5 million of $ 8,250,000 awarded to Oakland by the Neighborhood Stabilization Program. Urban Strategies had a goal of purchasing, fixing up, and selling 200 homes, but ran into obstacles associated with mortgages suitable for Land Trust properties, and not being as nimble in the scramble to purchase foreclosed properties as the investors with cash in hand who were also buying them up. In the end, it managed to purchase and sell 66 properties.

This attempt to deal with the foreclosure crisis constructively was laudable, but not commensurate to the scale of the problem in Oakland. More than 10,500 homes have been foreclosed in Oakland. Many sit empty and deteriorating because the banks that own them are not properly maintaining them. Those that are sold are going largely to cash investors who do minimal rehabilitation and rent them out at market rate for hefty profits. The result is overnight gentrification in Council Districts 3, 6, and 7 where the bulk of the foreclosed properties are located.

Oakland has attempted to intervene with banks to modify loans and keep homeowners in their homes, but that effort has not been successful.

Recently, Oakland passed an ordinance requiring banks to register foreclosed homes with the city so that it has knowledge about which properties are affected, and also to maintain those properties or face $ 1000.00 per day fines for non-maintenance. Both requirements make sense.

The punitive measures aimed at bank-owners make sense, but it is important that they be enforced rigorously so that the banks do maintain the properties or pay hefty fines. The ordinance should include a provision that the city can provide the minimal maintenance required and lien the property for the cost of providing this service. If it does not, that stipulation needs to be added. The goal is to prevent neighborhood deterioration once the bank has repossessed it.

A second measure would be identifying an agency with experience in purchasing foreclosed properties and selling them to moderate income home buyers. Overnight gentrification of large districts of Oakland is not desirable. Gentrification should happen only in an evolutionary way, where new owners upgrade and the neighborhood experiences gradual change. If the original owners of foreclosed properties can be reunited with their homes, that would be the best outcome, but it should be contingent on the ability to own and maintain the property consistent with the standards and conditions of the neighborhood where it is located.

Oakland should always be looking for a win-win situation, but ready to settle for a win-for-the-city situation when conditions do not permit the optimal outcome. If the banks are intransigent and allow their properties to deteriorate and to damage the surrounding neighborhood, I would advocate maximum penalties for them and no quarter given in the process.

2. (Public Safety) Improving public safety is about more than just increasing the police force. What should be done for violence prevention?

For Oakland to one day realize its full potential and become the safe, vibrant, economically prosperous city we all know it can be, we need to address the major impediments our city's growth: violence and crime. There are many potential solutions and we ought not focus solely on increasing the police force. It should be a part of the plan, but there are other innovative options as well.

As chair of the Oakland Community Policing Advisory Board, I have been focused on creating a safer Oakland for many years. I have partnered with communities and neighborhoods for two decades, connecting the dots and uniting communities to combat these issues.

I've learned that you need to think about public safety both in the short and long-term to provide immediate security with an eye towards sustainable policies and systems that ensure our children grow up in a safe Oakland.

The short-term solution is immediate and full implementation of David Kennedy's Ceasefire Ceasefire program which is described in detail in his book "Don't Shoot " and has been successful in dozens of America's most violent cities. His formula curbs the shootings, but does not address the underlying dynamic that places the shooters on the path to vio­lent criminal lives in the first place.

The long­-term solution is about preventing the young men from ever embarking on the path to crime and violence. It be­gins with Oakland's children and whether they start their lives with a fair chance of succeeding. The large majority does, but a significant minority does not, and there lies the challenge. How do we, the voters and elected decision-­makers, change the dynamic to keep kids in school learning what is needed to succeed in life, whether that is a college track or preparation for a good job? Oakland must serve all of its children to thrive as a city.

3. (Bringing businesses and jobs) Oakland needs more neighborhood serving businesses. What can the City Council do to bring more businesses and jobs to the city?

With its high rate of unemployment, the city needs more businesses large and small to revitalize its downtown and other commercial districts. Businesses bring jobs and revenue to Oakland, and we have seen how vibrant some areas of the city have become--Temescal and Uptown to name two outstanding examples. Downtown needs the same vitality and vibrancy. Unfortunately, one of the obstacles to economic development is the violent crime reputation of the city and its unwelcome sibling, the reality of crime, even downtown.

Oakland needs to do several important things simultaneously, because the problems it faces, like the solutions, are holis­tic. Keeping kids in school and successful affects the crime and jobless problems. Economic vitality produces both reve­nue and jobs and alleviates both budget problems and the jobless situation, and by way of extension the crime problem. Better staffing and policing of Oakland reduces crime and the fear of crime and helps attract business to Oakland, which in turn produces both revenue to pay for city services and jobs for the graduating students and the jobless. And this process goes on and on, one deficiency causing another.

4. (Your Council Legacy) In 20 years what do you want to look back on as having been your legacy in the City of Oakland?

Three things:

1. A vibrant, successful city regarded as one of the best places to live and work in the U.S. without qualifications.

To achieve this, Oakland must assure that 95% of its children are in school every day and that they are successful in their studies. Absenteeism and truancy can be addressed successfully as has been demonstrated in cities nearby. In addition, tutoring and mentoring can help those children who do not have families to provide the assistance needed for school success. My 3 years working with the Oakland Think Tank on truancy, and my 4 years tutoring a young foster child through the 3rd to 7th grades convinced me of the efficacy of these interventions.

Youth staying in school removes one of the main pathways to crime in Oakland. Moreover, it minimizes the pool of unemployable young adults who see no other choice but crime as a way to support themselves.

One of my legacies will be a robust partnership between the city and the school district based on citizen participation in the schools tutoring and mentoring Oakland's youth in need to assistance to succeed. The goal is success. Successful children will not drop out of school and make the wrong choices.

Prevention of criminal choices rather than reforming criminals after the fact is more direct and more humane and far less expensive than the minimally effective alternatives.

An employable youth population also fosters economic development in Oakland. Everything is connected: Oakland's youth, Oakland's future, Oakland's economy.

2. Probably more of a stretch than youth success (which is not expensive and has many of the components in place) is a city-wide program to retrofit Oakland's older homes for earthquake survival. This will take bank and insurance funding plus any non-profit funds available to create a pool of funds to start the process. The city needs to spearhead this process.

Next is identifying licensed contractors who specialize in earthquake foundation and bracing work to hire and train Oakland youth to perform the work. This is hard physical work suited to late teens and young adults.

Finally, there is the payment mechanism. Loans will be advanced for doing the earthquake retrofit, and they will be paid off either by payment through the property tax structure, or through one of the utilities, EBMUD or PG&E. The retrofit will be tied to the property, not the original owner, until it is paid off. Most earthquake retrofit projects are not that expensive allowing them to be paid off in several years.

The program will be geographical, targeting whole blocks of residences, encouraging them to participate. A single house on fire after an earthquake, can level a whole block as fire races from one to the one next door, and to those behind on the next street.

The goal is to retrofit homes block-by-block so that whole sections of the city are earthquake safe and not prone to burning down and taking neighboring houses with them after a major earthquake.

Major improvements to city safety and job training and living wages for young workers are achieved at the same time.

This is a win-win for Oakland.

3. Most achievable and short-term: a better and more functional City Council.

First, I will not bring ego to any discussion or any issue. Results, outcomes have always been my goal in civic activities; it's why I engage. I don't need to win; we do. Goals need to be achieved, not victories. I have stated in my candidate forums that I could walk hand-in-hand with Jesus on one side and Adolph Hitler on the other, and continue forward as long as we were in agreement about the goal. Effectiveness requires focusing on the goal and not the personalities.

Second, I will limit myself to much less time-consuming comments about public statements to the City Council during the open forum preceding each issue. City Council Members should have studied the issue in detail beforehand and come to the meeting with an informed position. If public comments modified or changed that position, that should be stated along with the conclusion. Going back and forth, "on the one hand, on the other hand" and then announcing a predetermined position is not useful and respectful to the public or other elected officials. Political correctness and pandering for public approval will not be part of my service to Oakland or constituents if I am elected. There are too many urgent needs to be addressed to waste the city's time with these self-serving antics.

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Responses to questions asked of each candidate are reproduced as submitted to the League.  Candidates' responses are presented as submitted. Direct references to opponents are not permitted.

Read the answers from all candidates (who have responded).

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Created from information supplied by the candidate: October 15, 2012 13:49
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