Letter: Oakland should stand with the Occupy movement - Laura Wells, GPCA spokesperson and Oakland resident

"Mayor Quan must know Oakland has been harmed tremendously by the same 1 percent the occupiers are fighting" - Laura Wells

Maintain and control?

In the Occupy Oakland article, Mayor Jean Quan focused on maintaining safe and sanitary conditions, and controlling vandalism.

Maintain and control? After years in city government, Mayor Quan must know the city has been harmed tremendously by the same 1 percent the occupiers are fighting. City Hall is both strapped for cash and handcuffed by restrictions on the ability to create good budgets.

Rather than shut the occupiers down, I wish Quan and every other city official would stand with the 99 percent and let everyone know that voters alone have the power to pass state propositions to keep the good parts of the old Proposition 13 -- passed in 1978 to keep people from losing their homes due to rising property taxes -- and fix the rotten parts. Prop 13 has enabled billionaires to pay state and local taxes at a lower rate than the lowest income families, and enabled majority Democrats and minority Republicans to blame each other while California sinks.

The mayor could provide portable toilets and Dumpsters -- they will cost far less than helicopters and police. Then stand with the 99 percent and stop Prop. 13's terrible effects: upside-down taxes, centralization of decision-making, and gridlocked and excuse-ridden governments.

- Letter to the Editor by Green Party of California state spokesperson Laura Wells, published  in the Oakland Tribune, October 28, 2011. Wells is pictured above in front of Oakland City Hall at Occupy Oakland,  right after Michael Moore spoke on October 28, 2011