East Oakland Residents Want Their Neighborhoods Cleaned Up

Evangelina Lara lives in the San Antonio neighborhood off International Avenue in East Oakland. There's a massive pile of trash that includes a stained mattress, a refrigerator and decayed Christmas trees right next to her apartment building where she's lived for the last 19 years.

"I'm tired of nobody caring," Lara says about the garbage people leave in her neighborhood. "It's unhealthy!"

She along with other East Oakland residents and community organizers believe that Mayor Libby Schaaf and the city have ignored requests to provide services like cleaning up the piles of illegally dumped trash around their areas. So they led a "reality tour" in East Oakland over the weekend to highlight neglected hotspots.

Their first stop was Mayor Libby Schaaf's home in the upscale Oakmore neighborhood in the Oakland Hills.

Angel Patino says he wanted to point out the disparities of affluent neighborhoods versus low-income neighborhoods so that's why he choose to stop in Schaaf's neighborhood. He lives near the Oakland Coliseum where there is a lot of illegal dumping.

"One of the things the mayor says is that she's the mayor for everybody, but as you can see, this area doesn't need certain services," says Patino as he points to the clean sidewalks and pruned shrubbery in Schaaf's neighborhood.

Patino and the thirty other residents waited ten minutes for the mayor to come out, but she didn't. So the group caravanned down to different parts of "flatlands" in East Oakland to look at the trash littered along the streets and alleys, potholes in the road and lack of streetlights.

Patino does acknowledge that the city has provided more clean-up crews in East Oakland, but the illegal dumping hasn't stopped. In 2016, the city purchased four cameras for $100,000 to catch dumpers. However, the city earlier this year admitted they're not working as hoped.

"One of the things we want is enforcement," Patino says.

Oakland City Councilmember Noel Gallo of District 2 agrees with Patino about enforcing consequences to dumpers. His district includes the Fruitvale and San Antonio neighborhoods in East Oakland where illegal dumping is also a major problem. He believes the city should start fining dumpers $1,000.

"We gotta send a strong message that it’s not okay for you to come to Oakland and just trash the city," says Gallo.