Activists should leave self-governing Piedmont – Latest News
A metropolis is underneath fire for the unforgivable crime of really working.
This tiny city of 11,000 inhabitants is caught like a cussed raisin actually inside the geographic boundaries of Oakland. Piedmont has spent literal generations doing the stuff people throughout America declare they need from authorities: robust faculties, clean streets, secure parks, working cops and neighbors who show up to conferences as an alternative of simply yelling on social media.
Naturally, activists simply outdoors Piedmont’s metropolis restrict have determined this insupportable. “It must be stopped,” they protest.
Jesse Rosemoore is a skilled transit planner who’s been hawking “CANCEL PIEDMONT” stickers and shirts. Instagram/@jesseseriousdude
The newest campaign comes courtesy of Oakland’s Jesse Rosemoore. He’s a skilled transit planner who’s been hawking “CANCEL PIEDMONT” stickers and $10 T-shirts for over a yr like some sort of vengeful avenue vendor.
His massive concept? Piedmont is simply too profitable, too orderly, too affluent, and — horror of horrors — too impartial.
Attractive houses, high property values, engaged mother and father and faculties that don’t make mother and father weep? Clearly that is a disaster that calls for the nuclear option.
Piedmont has been a constitution metropolis since 1923. That’s native democracy, of us: residents elect their own leaders, vote on their own taxes and maintain their own officers accountable. Residents of Piedmont have the identical proper to self-determination as residents of Oakland, Berkeley, San Francisco or another California metropolis.
A big pile of particles from a homeless encampment in Oakland. MediaNews Group by way of Getty Images
But to the cancel crowd, democracy solely counts when the voters choose the “correct” consequence. Outsiders know higher, apparently.
Why let the people of Piedmont dwell their cozy lives when you’ll be able to simply declare the entire place illegitimate from the armchairs of a neighboring metropolis with its own set of challenges?
Let’s be clear: Piedmont didn’t get this fashion by magic or secret hedge-trimming cabals. Families, lecturers, taxpayers and volunteers put within the time and money. The faculties carry out. The streets keep clean and secure. People concentrate.
High home costs? That’s what occurs when demand builds for a place that works.
Piedmont has spent literal generations doing the stuff people throughout America declare they need from authorities. Nathan Weyland
Same story in Atherton, Hillsborough and Beverly Hills. Success is contagious.
Rosemoore and company admit Oakland has zero life like shot at annexing the place. That would require Piedmont voters to conform to it. So the entire “cancel” routine is pure theater — stickers, slogans and ethical superiority with out the messy business of precise governance.
Piedmont already has to satisfy California’s housing targets (587 models this cycle, together with lower-income ones). Judge it on whether or not it follows the law, not on whether or not its existence offends the sensitivity of people preferring tearing down to building up.
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The cancel marketing campaign confuses resentment with reform. A metropolis that delivers outcomes isn’t a downside to be erased. It’s proof that native democracy can nonetheless produce one thing higher than Oakland’s chaos and excuses.
Piedmont isn’t excellent. It simply works higher than the choice the stickers are promoting.
So arms off. Let the people who dwell there keep working their city. And possibly, simply possibly, take a few notes as an alternative of making an attempt to burn the model.
Richie Greenberg is a political commentator based mostly on San Francisco.
