I am a 12 year resident of West Oakland and a 16 year resident of Oakland. Through the years I have come to appreciate the work OaklandLocal does for our city. I am very disappointed to see this poorly researched and one-sided article being featured. Negative propaganda like this only helps divide us and marginalize further the disenfranchised.

WOGI became a 501c3 organization in 2002, however it was funded by the collaboration of West Oakland residents and local business over 10 years ago.

In addition, WOGI has planted thousands of street and park trees throughout our neighborhoods and has done this by employing local kids. Just last year with the help of West Oakland's Civic Corp school kids WOGI planted 517 street trees in the Hoover neighborhood. This was the largest environmental accomplishment of 2011 for the entire city of Oakland.

Lastly, WOGI's board is blessed to have the participation of West Oakland cornerstones Such as:

Ms. Ellen Parkinson, long time african american rights fighter and West Oakland advocate.

Mr. Ray Kidd, lifelong West Oakland resident and co-founder and Chair or West Oakland Neighbors.

Mr. Steve Lowe, lifelong West Oakland advocate and former city of Oakland commissioner.

This article is truly disappointing. A PHD ought to do better. Shame on you.

Alex Miller-Cole

Alex, appreciate you sharing your views, but this is not an article by Oakland Local. As the title hopefully made clear with the Opinion label, this is a community voices piece by a local resident. We welcome residents to post their views in a way that is respectful, honest, credible and non-commercial. You can see OL's terms of service for posts at oaklandlocal.com/tos

Why is it that whenever Afrikan or Afrikan-American people bring up discussions about disenfrachisement or equity, we are accused of dividing the people?  The arrogance of such statements is akin to when the red necks in the south referred to the Civil Rights workers as "trouble makers".  And why is it that people always state how long they have lived in West Oakland as if tenure gives them a right to not be questioned or that years served means they somehow are incapable of being on the wrong side of the dialogue. 

I am also trying to figure out which part of the article is not well researched.  It cant be the part about WOGI admitting that there is NO plan in their plan to hire West Oakland residents because I was there and heard him say it.  It can't be the fact that it will hobble Urban Releaf by forcing her to be a WOGI approved contractor because once again I was there and I heard that too.

And who is who determines the who the cornerstones of West Oakland are?  In my view Ms. Nzinga is an Oakland cornerstone as a LIFE-LONG resident who brings arts and theatre to our community.  The young brothers that Ms. Shakur employs and who  might otherwise be in body bags are the cornerstones of Oakland.  And to be clear - the state has long used Blacks to betray Blacks and Black empowerment agendas. It is a tactic that has worked for them over and over again. Blacks murdered Malcolm, Blacks were used in the state plan to execute Chairman Fred Hampton Sr. and on and on and on.  Titles and color, sir, do not dictate ethics and clarity.

I fear your response is an ill-begotten attempt to cover up the REAL issues that the OPINION (Not an Oakland Local article) piece brings up and is reflective of the same arrogance that existed in the room where the plan was presented.  How can you possibly justify not ONE Afrikan on that panel?  How can you possibly justify Ms. Shakur not on that panel?  How many lives has WOGI saved?  When do the residents of a community get to determine what and by who goes into THEIR community?  When will we have a conversation about equity v equality?  When will people stop trying to hide the blood running in West Oakland streets with development plans? WOGI (nor you apparently) is clearly not interested in empowering the MAJORITY of the residents in West Oakland and their plan and planning process demonstrates as much. They are not interested in using their multi-million dollar deal to save lives and employ young black men. 

ANY plan that comes into the community should have the residents OVERALL health and welfare front and center.  It should have majority approval by the majority who live there and most certainly should not be driven by backdoor deals made with the city.

Very dissapointing response Mr. Cole.  Shame on you. I would have expected more from a former City Council candidate.

The dialogue debate) between Dr. Nzinga and Alex Miller-Cole regarding Urban Releaf’s relegation to sub-contractual status to the West Oakland Green Initiative reveals the ugly, on-going American phenomena of moving Black people out of geographically desirable, though currently blighted urban areas. The case in question here of course is West Oakland, Oakland’s long neglected step-child, just beyond city hall’s back door. Since the Loma Prieta earthquake that knocked down the Cypress freeway that had segregated West Oakland from the main body of the city, real estate developers have had their eye on the area, a community that lies just six minutes from downtown San Francisco, by Bart.

Failed Oakland City Council candidate Alex-Miller-Cole, who has taken Dr. Nzingha to task or her criticisms of WOGI, is himself an aspiring real estate developer who supports that organizations dominant role in the greening efforts of West Oakland. He has obviously become a shill for the enemies of Black Oaklanders. What Miller-Cole and other WOGI supporters don’t tell us is that WOGI is a creation of the BBI constriction firm. BBI construction CEO Tom McCoy serves as WOGI board president.

Oakland hills resident (that’s shameless code for white) Gordon Piper and Sierra Club backed Arthur Boone (when the hell did the Sierra Club ever give a damn about West Oakland?) make up the executive board of WOGI.

The Oakland community activists Miller-Cole fraudulently passes off long time defenders of Black civil rights are Ellen Parkinson, a boarding house owner who didn’t become involved in West Oakland issues until after the Loma Prieta earthquake, Steve Lowe, another white real estate developer chiefly involved in Jack London Square development and possibly most legitimately Ray Kidd, a West Oakland air quality activist.

If you examine the scorecard the WOGI is a team of white activists lined up against Black activists.

Even Stevie Wonder (or maybe especially Stevie Wonder) can see that that WOGI’s greening project is about making money and continuing the process of moving Blacks out of Oakland.

Thank you, Jean, that adds more information to the mix. Are the boards really so racially segregated? That seems very troubling in an area like West Oakland with so many long-time African-American residents and leaders.

W.O.G.I.’s work is better oiled but no more commendable than the contested under funded and earnest work of Urban Releaf. 

"I ask that you critically engage the concept of equity … consider the term environmental in its broadest interpretation… all articulations of green—jobs, physical space, mental states… as we consider the best means to green West Oakland.”

Alex Miller-Cole is a developer who owns and operates Cypress One Properties, in addition to being a WOGI board member. Further, Tom Mc Coy, President of the Board of Directors of WOGI, is the principal of BBI Construction, a construction firm with many corporate clients, including the Port of Oakland and the City of Oakland – the same entities listed as primary funders for WOGI’s West Oakland Reforestation Plan.

I write about things that concern me.  It is my opinion that Urban Releaf should be at the table not under foot if there is to be a major reforestation plan in the area they have been greening since before the developers showed up to divide the spoils of the housing crash.            

Urban Releaf plants trees while training and employing youth. Their work attempts to address urban environments on multiple levels. It is primarily about quality of life on the broadest scale one can imagine. It is inclusive, mimics’ nature, and it is an enterprise that stands in contradiction to the narratives of rampant violence and chronic despair associated with West Oakland.

In a community meeting held December 10, 2012 at the Willie Keyes Recreation Center, WOGI publicly stated the WORP plan has no workforce development component. Thus, it is unclear how their plan to plant as many as 75 new varieties of trees in West Oakland will address economic inequity in a district which is 67% African American (source: 2010 US Census) and unemployment rates as high as 400% higher than for Alameda County overall (source: EBASE, “State of Work in the East Bay and Oakland 2012”).

In all the profit being reaped in West Oakland it seems there is still not enough being made to make change and there is where I find the shame in all this.

As a final note as regards Miller-Cole I suggest you consider saving trees by not sending me any more birthday cards.

http://anzinga.wordpress.com/2012/12/21/gentrification-no-resting-place-pt-1/

We are seeing this same thing in North Oakland.  Developers and realtors back and promote urban greening projects not to improve the neighborhood for the people living there, but to improve it for the people they want to attract to the neighborhood to push out those that were there.  It is called GENTRIFICATION, and urban greening, community gardens, and farmers markets play a huge role in driving gentrification when they are not initiated and lead by folks historically effected by the problems.

West Oakland around Hoover area where People's Grocery and City Slicker Farms have urban gardens is being called South Emeryville by developers and North Oakland Flats are being renamed NOBE (North Oakland Berkeley Emeryville) by relators as well to speed up the gentrification process.

You can see the narrative we are fighting in North Oakland at Phat Beets Produce http://www.phatbeetsproduce.org/the-beet-blog/

Big Up to Urban Releaf and Kemba, amazing work!