Ch-Ch-Changes
- Sara Langer Rowley
- Feb 25
- 2 min read
Updated: Mar 27
It's been a long time since we've posted a blog post. As you may know, a lot has happened politically in the past few months. We've been busy, too! Forgive the lapse in posting, it wasn't for lack of content!
Where we left off
So, where to begin? SASA had a really wonderful walking tour for Transit Month this September led by Mitchell Schwarzer, amazing Oakland historian, author of Hella Town and the nicest guy you could ever hope to meet. We learned about the fascinating history of the neighborhood- from the Peralta family to the development of BART.
After the tour, we spoke to Mitchell about further expanding our understanding of the history of Rancho San Antonio, and he was kind enough to offer some great advice. Stay tuned, we have big news coming up on this front!
Elections ain't over 'till they're over
So with Mayor Sheng Thao recalled and our former councilperson, Nikki Fortunato-Bas elected to County Supervisor D3, there are now two important seats open in Oakland: that of the District 2 City Councilperson, and the Oakland Mayor.
We're fortunate enough in getting to know D2 candidate Charlene Wang over the past several months, and we had her opponent Kara Murray-Badal come to our monthly meeting in February.
At a recent forum, all D2 candidates showed support for San Antonio Station, and both Kara and Charlene spoke specifically on it. SASA also was part of a transportation-focused forum held by our friends at Transbay Coalition. Streetsblog did a great write-up of it, and you can listen to the forum here.
As for the mayoral race- well, it's hard to look beyond Barbara Lee. She's a titan in politics, obviously, but it seems the only thing we can count on is unpredictability when it comes to politics. Loren Taylor is doing quite well in the polls, too. It will be an interesting special election!
In other politician sightings, we were happy to meet County Supervisor Lena Tam at the awesome Tet Festival at Clinton Park in January. Her work with Clinton Park and the communities of Little Saigon has been inspiring!
We also met former BART director and current Congressional Representative Lateefah Simon at Bella Vista Park for a park clean-up and President's day event. She was inspiring and interesting to talk to. (Yes, we discussed San Antonio Station!)
See you soon!
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