You might still be digesting your Thanksgiving leftovers, but have you started to think about next year\u2019s local elections?<\/p>\n
Some candidates and interest groups have.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Yesterday, Pamela Price \u2014 yes, the recently recalled district attorney \u2014 announced she\u2019s running for office again<\/a>. And today, SEIU Local 1021, the labor union representing roughly 2,000 city workers, reported setting aside a massive amount of money to support a city parcel tax measure that isn\u2019t yet guaranteed a spot on a ballot next year.<\/p>\n Oakland officials are strongly considering placing a new tax measure<\/a> on the June primary ballot to make up for a $40 million shortfall. The idea dates back to the budget proposed by then-Interim Mayor Kevin Jenkins earlier this year and approved by the City Council in the spring.<\/p>\n According to city calculations, this entire missing amount could be raised by boosting taxes on property owners by $150 to $220 a year, depending on the type of property. In April, Oakland voters also approved a sales tax increase to help tackle the city\u2019s deficit.<\/p>\n But asking property owners \u2014 who already pay other taxes for public safety, libraries, and more \u2014\u00a0to raise their taxes again could be a political risk.\u00a0<\/p>\n The City Council has discussed a number of other options, including combining a parcel tax with other ways to raise revenue.<\/p>\n Even without the measure finalized or named, the SEIU 1021 committee, called Oaklanders for a Safe, Clean and Healthy City, made the $200,000 contribution in support of it.<\/p>\n A spokesperson for the union didn\u2019t immediately respond to a request for comment.<\/p>\n Members of the labor union stand to lose big when Oakland faces financial strife. The administration initially considered making 100 layoffs this year, though ended up cutting only vacant jobs in the final budget. SEIU 1021 and three other city unions reached contract agreements<\/a> with Oakland in September.<\/p>\n The City Council is considering a number of other ballot measures for 2026, including one that would reform the city charter<\/a> to change the roles of mayor and councilmembers; a measure to give temporary tax breaks to small and new businesses<\/a>; and one that would make small changes to a police and fire pension fund<\/a>.<\/p>\n “*” indicates required fields<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"You might still be digesting your Thanksgiving leftovers, but have you started to think about next year\u2019s local…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":83387,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[845,143,145,144,47311,1747],"class_list":{"0":"post-83386","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-oakland","8":"tag-labor","9":"tag-oakland","10":"tag-oakland-headlines","11":"tag-oakland-news","12":"tag-seiu-1021","13":"tag-tax"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83386","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=83386"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83386\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/83387"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=83386"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=83386"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=83386"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}