Dear Friends,
The District Attorney is aggressively prosecuting four Land Action organizers for their involvement in a recent adverse possession project. There are seven criminal charges, including three felony counts and four misdemeanors. Contrary to established precedent from similar cases in Oakland in recent years, the District Attorney (DA) has deliberately, and in violation of the law, pushed this civil dispute into criminal court.
Why?
The case was brought to the DA’s attention because the property’s owner of record was personally connected to the DA’s office. By taking advantage of this backdoor connection, the owner persuaded the DA to drastically overreach its jurisdiction and intervene on the owner’s behalf.
What’s more, the DA’s keen interest in Land Action is politically motivated. The DA is aware of Land Action’s significant victories in recent years around squat law and adverse possession. By dragging Land Action through the mud, the DA intends to discourage the practice of adverse possession. Adverse possession, enshrined in the legal code of all 50 States, is a time-honored legal mechanism as old as property law itself. It allows people with very little capital to acquire full ownership of real property, which makes it antithetical to the ruling-class agenda of keeping working people enmeshed in the cycle of rent-wage-exploitation.
In short, the DA is defending the commonly held belief that home ownership should be very, extremely, prohibitively expensive—a perception that plays right into the interests of capital.
The DA’s aggressive prosecution of Land Action’s organizers is occurring at a time when local government has developed exceedingly cozy relations with gentrifying forces. Last year, Oakland City Council came under fire for offering a luxury housing developer the acre-sized 12th Street Remainder Parcel for much less than its market value. In a confidential memo, the City Attorney informed the Council that state law requires them to first offer surplus land to low-income housing agencies, park agencies, school districts, and other entities that serve the public interest. But against the advice of their own attorney, the Council proceeded with their illegal plan, which was already underway when the City Attorney’s memo was leaked to the East Bay Express. Only then did public scrutiny force the Council to bring their actions into compliance with state law.
Local government is all too willing to disregard the law in the service of Capital and at the expense of the poor. The DA has aligned itself with this agenda, using public funding to defend the property interests of the land-holding class. The DA has chosen to flout the very laws it is charged with upholding, for the sake of consolidating property rights and maintaining access barriers to home ownership. IT IS TIME TO HOLD THEM ACCOUNTABLE!!!
We are writing to ask for your support in the upcoming legal battle. Please come pack the courthouse with us for our initial hearing!
Time:
April 1st, 9 a.m. (no foolin!)
Place:
Department 115, Wiley W. Manuel Courthouse
661 Washington St (at the intersection with 7th St.)
Oakland 94607
Free parking:
There is plenty of 4-hour parking available, south of the 880 Freeway on 4th, 3rd, and 2nd Streets, within walking distance of th
e Courthouse.
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