Fellow Oaklanders,

Please join our Zoom video conference Town Hall on Thursday night at 6:00 p.m., where you’ll also hear from our special guest Congresswoman Barbara Lee. We’ll spend the first hour answering your questions on the city’s response and sharing helpful resources, and speak with experts on tenant’s rights and worker’s benefits, and share new grant opportunities for our small business owners. Congresswoman Lee will join us in the second hour to discuss the federal stimulus package and how it can help Oaklanders. To submit your questions now, please click on this link. To video in to Zoom click here. Meeting ID: 413 825 986 Click the following link to watch on Facebook Closed captioning available on YouTube To dial in by phone: (669) 900-6833, 413825986# Additional phone line: (346) 248-7799, 413825986#  To see my frequent video updates, be sure to follow my social channels on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.

On Tuesday we announced a new emergency grant program for low-income business owners and entrepreneurs in Oakland. Thanks to the generous donations to our Oakland COVID-19 Relief Fund, we are now able to disburse small grants to our small business owners immediately. Our outreach efforts are focusing on entrepreneurs in our immigrant community, people of color, and very low-income business owners who otherwise have a difficult time accessing traditional capital and debt relief. Applications are available in English, Spanish, Chinese, and Vietnamese. Please share with one of your local small business owner!

Yesterday our Alameda County Public Health Officer extended the shelter in place order to May 3 and added more restrictions including the closure of playgrounds and picnic areas, electronics and office supply stores, and shutting down most residential and commercial construction sites. The message clear: We need to stay at home to save lives. Social distancing is the only vaccine we’ve got right now. If we want to slow the spread of this deadly virus, all of us must stay home. Get outside to exercise and run to the grocery store – it’s essential for our mental health as well – but we must then return home immediately. 

Even in these uncertain and stressful times, I continue to see inspirational stories of Oaklanders taking care of each other. Like this one in East Oakland, about my friend Ali Albasiery, owner of Shop Rite, who’s helping out his neighbors. And this one in West Oakland about The Oakland Reach stepping up for families in need.  We’re seeing retired healthcare workers re-join the workforce and sign up through Gov. Newsom’s new California Health Corps. If you are able and want to help Oakland, please sign up to volunteer to assist our seniors and vulnerable populations (click link here). Our Oakland COVID-19 Relief Fund is approaching $5 million raised, much of it through generous donations by you via the online portal here. Donations have helped us stand up a testing site for our first responders and frontline workers, which we extended to first responders in our neighboring cities. We’ve tested 250 Oakland fire and police officers and counting so far, ensuring that Oakland takes care of those who take care of us. Let’s continue to do this with our world-famous resilience and grace, Oakland. Sincerely, Mayor Libby Schaaf  Mayor Libby Schaaf | 1 Frank Ogawa Plaza, Oakland, CA 94612

COVID-19 Update

Oakland,

Please join me on Twitter, Facebook or YouTube for our second online Town Hall this Thursday, March 26, at 6 p.m. I’ll be joined by Dr. Erica Pan, Interim Health Officer at the Alameda County Public Health Department. Dr. Pan will give an update on the county’s response, the challenges ahead, strategies to stay healthy, and answer your questions about the “do’s and don’ts” of the public health order.

We will also be joined by Alexandria McBride, Oakland’s Chief Resilience Officer to discuss our city’s overall planning and response to the pandemic. We’ll have experts on hand to speak about worker’s benefits, housing concerns, and our assistance to unsheltered residents.

You can start submitting questions by clicking on this link: www.bit.ly/oakonlinetownhall

Please share this info with a friend and tune in Thursday, 6 p.m. to 8 p.m., on my Twitter, Facebook, or YouTube pages. You can also follow me on Instagram here.

On Monday I held a Zoom call with 145 local business owners to share resources and put them in touch with our Oakland Business Assistance Center – a one-stop shop for employers and workers. (You can watch and listen to the meeting by clicking here.)

We want all our business owners to fill out the business impact survey to be well positioned for the recovery process. Click here to fill it out.

Last week, I also held a Zoom chat with close to 100 Oakland faith leaders and this week I’m scheduling a video conference with organizations who serve our immigrant and undocumented families as well as our LGBTQ communities.

We want to host more video events with Oakland community groups. If you are a member of a constituent group who wants to learn about the city’s resources that directly address your community’s specific concerns, please send suggestions and a contact to Yvonna Cazares, Director of Community Engagement, at ycazares@oaklandca.gov.

We want to organize and connect.

As Oaklanders, we love our open spaces – and a hike or jog is great for our mental health right now. But we are failing to properly socially distance in the parks – and residents are still using Lake Merritt to gather to meet up with friends.

If we don’t get this right, the parks will be the next space health officials direct us to shut down. Use the parks to personally exercise for a quick run or hike – please don’t use them to host gatherings.

We are all in this together – and we all need to do our part to keep everyone healthy.

On Tuesday I Skyped in to KTVU to make an announcement about the generous donations coming in to the Oakland COVID-19 Relief Fund. Since we launched the fund on Friday, we’ve already stood up two testing sites for our first responders.

The fund also helps us deliver food to our seniors, provide assistance to small local businesses, fight displacement of families, and care for our unsheltered residents. To learn more and donate to the fund, click here.

We’re also seeing a generous outpouring of volunteer support from Oaklanders – and you can sign up to join them right here.

These are the stories that bind us together, Oakland. I know this is an unprecedented and uncertain time. Yet I remain encouraged and grateful for the way our community works together in times like these.

Let’s keep at it.

With Oakland love,

Mayor Libby Schaaf 

Mayor Libby Schaaf | 1 Frank Ogawa Plaza, Oakland, CA 94612