The Oakland City Council voted Tuesday to place a new parcel tax measure on the June ballot that would raise money for a wide range of city services, including police and fire.
The vote to put the “Oakland Public Safety, Cleanliness and Community Accountability Act of 2026” on the June 2 ballot was required by law after the Alameda County Registrar of Voters certified that proponents had gathered enough signatures.
“I just want to give a huge shout out and thank you to the near 30,000 registered Oakland voters that came out and chased us down on the street corners to say, ‘Yes, we want to keep Oakland firehouses open, we want core city services to be maintained, and we believe in Oakland,'” said Seth Olyer, president of the Oakland firefighter’s union, IAFF Local 55.
Firefighters and other city unions are backing the measure, which if passed by a majority of voters would raise $34 million a year for nine years for police and fire services, homelessness response programs and reducing illegal dumping, among other things.
Antoinette Blue, a 911 dispatcher and president of Service Employees International Union Local 1021, also told the City Council she supports the ballot measure. “Right now, given the fact that we are living in World War III, at the very minimum, we need to ensure that the Oakland community has its most basic needs met,” Blue said.
To raise the money, it would establish a new parcel tax of $192 a year for single family homes, $131 for each residential unit on properties with multiple units, and $224 for each “single-family residential unit equivalent” within a commercial property.
Some seniors and very low-income households would be exempt from the tax, which would be monitored by a citizen’s oversight committee.
SF will have a similar measure, more tax on land and home. The revenue will be used for Muni even if the Bay Area sale tax increase pass. It seem to me that it is a matter of time property tax will increase in other cities in the bay as well.
Oakland should be paying them to stay.
https://www.kqed.org/news/12074874/amid-bid-to-save-bay-area-transit-muni-gets-a-campaign-of-its-own
muni campaign
This wave of California tax increases EVERYWHERE should be an eye-opener for the people who have continually re-elected these politicians now for decades. While YOU have to cut YOUR expenses and stretch your budget WAY beyond breaking, these politicians just keep taking more of your money by scaring you to death. Start voting NO on this nonsense. Make them cut THEIR expenses instead of you cutting yours!
I work as a manager in a 9-1-1 center and interact with Oakland every so often. The politicians in Oakland have no idea what they’re doing. If you call 9-1-1 anywhere in the USA, the national standard is that your call will be answered by a dispatcher within 15 seconds . Oakland’s 9-1-1 queue can have wait times of 15 minutes, can you imagine being next to someone having a seizure or heart attack and you are on HOLD?
you couldn’t pay me to live in Oakland.
30,000 registered voters? The December 2025 154 day report of registration (by the state) cites Oakland has 250,003 registered voters (oddly over 165,000 are dem and just shy of 13,000 are republican, whodathunk?). 30,000 voters represent only 12%, hardly even whelming, let alone overwhelming. How many of that 12% are on the receiving on the end of the $34 MM taxpayer largesse? I don’t have a problem making sure our firemen and policemen are well compensated and cared for, but I have high doubts that all of this will be given to the actual fighters, and likely would go into the coffers of the unions for future political donations. Color me suspect of any grab at taxpayer money.
The democrat answer to each and every financial problem: Raise taxes.
I like the “… among other things” part of it. What’s that WWIII reference, is she saying that’s how bad it is in Oakland?
Oakland people are cheap to a fault. In the 80s, the police dept didn’t have enough money to hire new cops to keep up with rising crime. A choice was given to the property owners to pay an extra $100/yr as a parcel tax. Those short sighted Oakland cheapskates voted No. A year later, crime shot up and Oakland earned the label, “ The murder capitol of America”. Later, some neighborhoods such as Sequoyah got together and paid for private security to patrol their neighborhood for $100/mo, much higher than $100/yr. Sequoyah residents said their houses still got broken into. So Oakland will forever be the crime capitol and assault capitol of California for years to come because of bad decisions.