by the SF Green Party
OAKLAND – Political remedies to hold police more accountable for outrageous acts such as the shooting death of an African-American youth here on New Day have been blocked by even by supposedly “sympathetic” Democratic Party politicians, charged Green Party of California spokespeople Friday.
Greens said the killing of 22-year-old Oscar Grant by Oakland police should spark a renewed interest in police misconduct, transparency and accountability.
“Elected offi cials, including lawmakers representing the Bay Area such as Democrat Assemblywoman Fiona Ma (D-SF), have been blocking police accountability for years in Sacramento, She helped kill police accountability legislation in 2007,” said Erika McDonald, a spokesperson for the San Francisco Green Party.
Ma was a member of the 2007 Assembly Public Safety Committee which refused to even bring to a vote two pieces of legislation, SB 1019 and AB 1648, which would have given the public access to police records about misconduct and discipline involving police officers, including excessive force, -involved shootings and dishonesty.
“Another young man of color is dead. So much for change we can believe in,and an end to a practice of allowing law enforcement offi cials to act as a class.Supposedly “progressive”Oakland Mayor Ron , and the District Attorney, both Democrats, have not done what needs to be done,”added McDonald.
“Public access to police records about sustained police misconduct not only protects the public by helping deter police misconduct,but it generates confi dence in the police by holding police accountable,” said Cres Vellucci, Green Party spokesperson and member of the ACLU Board of Directors in Sacramento.
Prior to a relatively recent court decision,there was access to some discipline records of police with virtually no problems regarding the rights of police officers. Now police are protected from any real disclosure of problems.
News from the Unified School District
This week, after testimony from SFUSD and other educators and parents across California, the State Board of Education unanimously adopted its firstever content standards for teaching world languages.Margaret Peterson, SFUSD Program Administrator for Multilingual Education, was brought into the committee for her 16 years of experience teaching Japanese as a world language and developing the Foreign Language in Elementary Schools (FLES)curriculum.
U.S. Group asks Europe not to cut aid ton Nicaragua
The US-based Nicaragua Network has joined the Grupo Sur of European non-governmental organizations to plead with the European Union and Nicaragua donor countries not to cut or suspend their aid to Nicaragua based on concerns about fraud during the Nov. 9 municipal elections in Nicaragua.
“Cuts or suspension of aid is collective punishment that will only hurt the poor in Nicaragua,” said Chuck Kaufman, Nicaragua Network national co-coordinator. The Nicaragua Network is a US grassroots network of local committees that has worked for three decades to improve US-Nicaragua relations and to support social and economic justice in the Western Hemisphere’s second poorest country.
The Nicaragua Network letter cited efforts by the government of President Daniel Ortega to reduce poverty and increase social welfare in the areas of education, health, peasant agriculture, housing, and child labor. The group said cuts in aid by European countries will only harm the poor Nicaraguans who benefi t from those programs.
He letter was sent on Dec. 31 to the ambas sadors to the US from the European Union, The Netherlands, Finland, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom.
