Rally to Oppose Injection of Toxic Money into the Mayor’s Race

Come Join No Coal in Oakland Tomorrow as Oakland Community Leaders Rally to Oppose Injection of Toxic Money into the Mayor’s Race Two Weeks Before Election

When: Thursday, October 27 at 4:00 PM

Where: Rotunda Building, 300 Frank H. Ogawa Plaza, Oakland, CA 94612

Speakers: Ms. Margaret Gordon, No Coal in Oakland and West Oakland Environmental Indicators Project; Igor Tregub, Sierra Club; Julia Dowell, SF Baykeeper; Georgia Wallace, Marlay’ja, Youth vs. Apocalypse; and representatives from 350 Bay Area, Communities for a Better Environment, and Service Employees International Union, Local 1021

On Thursday, October 27, No Coal in Oakland and our grassroots coalition of community, faith, labor, and environmental justice groups will hold a rally to denounce an attempt by would-be coal terminal developers to influence the Oakland mayor’s race with half a million dollars of out-of-town, toxic money.

Our coalition reaffirms our commitment to resist any effort to build a coal terminal in West Oakland and to support the City’s ordinance that bans storage and handling of coal and petroleum coke within city limits.

This summer, only a few months after City Attorney Barbara Parker’s announcement that a deal was in the works to end the lawsuit over the West Gateway terminal and ensure a no coal future, the developers backed out of settlement negotiations.

In recent weeks over $600,000 has been donated to an Independent Expenditure Committee supporting Ignacio de la Fuente, a mayoral candidate who has gone on record (Oaklandside, Oct 3, 2022) as being “in favor of the coal plan.” Most of that money comes from the Los Angeles-based hedge fund operator Jonathan Brooks.

Brooks is the CEO of JMB Capital, the big hedge fund behind Autumn Wind LLC. Autumn Wind, headed by Vikas Tandon, currently has the sublease on the property and threatens to develop and operate a coal terminal if local developer Phil Tagami wins his multi-million-dollar lawsuit against the City of Oakland.

It should alarm all voters that a total of $600,000 of coal-related money has been donated by would-be coal developers — Jonathan Brooks and Phil Tagami through his shell-company OBOT — in a seeming attempt to buy Oakland’s mayoral election.

Oakland residents will elect our next mayor in just two weeks and the public must be aware of any effort by out-of-town, would-be polluters to influence local elections and ongoing litigation with the City. With the future of our city’s air quality and the West Oakland community once again at stake, No Coal in Oakland will rally to maintain that Oakland’s public health can’t be bought off – no coal, not now, not ever.