Most of this information is gleaned from the Oakland Wiki page about Mr. Anderson, the Green Party candidate for Oakland Mayor. I actually saw him staffing the Green Party table at the Grand Lake farmers' market last weekend. I didn't notice if he had any campaign literature, but I did overhear a Courtney Ruby volunteer a few feet away tell a passerby that he didn't actually live in Oakland, so that might have distracted me. Mr. Anderson's responsibilities in the Navy including printing promotional materials, so I am going to assume the oversight is mine, and not his.
In addition to his service (and thank you, Mr. Anderson, for your service, should you find yourself reading this), Mr. Anderson has been a state employee for the Department of Motor Vehicles (one of the better run departments I have encountered) and an avid participant in Occupy Oakland and First Friday. He also has some role in Bitcoin. This is my favorite Bitcoin Venn Diagram.
In addition to supporting the Green Party platform, Mr. Anderson promises "20 hours a week garbage pick up. This may be carried out by the mayor or volunteers acting on his behalf. Clean up will occur throughout Oakland in areas blighted with neglect."
I get what he's doing there. He's demonstrating that he intends to be hands' on in a visible way. But I think there's a problem with making this your first promise. Even if you think that the mayor is a figurehead, a figurehead is not going to have 20 free hours to do garbage collection, by hand. Second, having your volunteers do it is just going to anger the unions that represent the parks and streets and sanitation employees. Plus, your volunteers are not recognizable to your constituents as "the mayor", so your visibility is not aided by their actions. Maybe having mayor's volunteer groups that are sponsored to beautify our neighborhoods would be a good idea, but he needs to tighten this up a bit.
Mr. Anderson intends to draw his salary in Bitcoin, and wants to move Oakland to a Bitcoin economy. I don't know what this means, or why we would want to do this.
I will let you find some of his other gems yourself, but I do want to say that there are some good ideas in the platform. Addressing PTSD in the Police Department probably isn't a bad idea, if it isn't happening yet. Expanding First Friday and creatively using city assets to address city issues are both good ideas. So is addressing homelessness in Oakland.
I'm not a Green Party member. Mr. Anderson has not been endorsed by the Green Party. His ideas are not in line with the majority of Oakland residents, or with me. Interesting addition to the campaign though.
(Sorry about the line spacing issue in this post; I can't seem to get it fixed)
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