With two decades of experience in elected office, Rebecca Kaplan is the best choice to lead our county on issues of housing and homelessness, mental health services, and community safety. As a member-at-large for the AC Transit board before her current role on Oakland City Council, she has shown that she is effective and experienced in working at the county level. She has a history of supporting movement-building on issues such as community benefits agreements, police reform, immigration, rights of working people, housing justice, environmental justice, and more.
There’s a big opportunity on the Board of Supervisors to change how we distribute our public money: right now, the county supervisors give vast amounts of money to the sheriff to lock people up and criminalize our communities. Rebecca Kaplan is interested in changing that and she has the policy chops to get things done. Kaplan could deepen her commitment to community engagement and we look forward to working with her on that. That said, Kaplan is our top choice. Given the current makeup of the Board of Supervisors, we need to ensure that this seat goes to someone who won’t be afraid to be the lone progressive voice. Rebecca Kaplan is that person; she’s unafraid to make the changes that we need in Alameda County.