We’re pleased to publish a guest post from Bruce Nye, our concerned neighbor who initiated Make Oakland Better Now!   This grassroots, city-wide effort seeks to “shine a light on mayoral and city council candidates’ positions” in the coming year.  Take it away, Bruce…

Make Oakland Better Now! Announces Its 90-Day Plan And February 21, 2010 General Assembly

by Bruce Nye

Last August, more than 100 Oaklanders met at St. Theresa’s Church to form Make Oakland Better Now!, a grassroots issues and advocacy organization devoted to improving public safety, public works, transparency and accountability in the City of Oakland.

Make Oakland Better Now! was formed by Oakland residents, many of whom hadn’t been activists for a long time and many of whom admitted they hadn’t paid as much attention to Oakland politics as they should have.  But they believed Oakland was a wonderful city that urgently needed to change.  And they were determined to build an organization that would be a force in these three critical areas in the 2010 mayor’s race and beyond.  More specifically, Make Oakland Better Now! is determined to shine a light on mayoral and city council candidates’ positions in these three areas and to monitor improvement after the election.

At our kick-off meeting and in the months afterward, Make Oakland Better Now! assembled a leadership group determined to move this city forward.  This group has been asking questions, listening, reading and developing a sense of Oakland’s recent political history.  They’ve met with this city’s opinion leaders, city officials and knowledgeable people outside of government, trying to cast as wide a net as they can.  The process isn’t over yet, and will, we anticipate, be an ongoing one.  But we are finally ready to move.

The most important thing for you to know right now is this:  our next general assembly will be on Sunday, February 21, 2010 at 3:00 p.m. Please mark your calendars now, and do everything you can to hold the date.  This will be the meeting when our membership adopts positions and sets priorities in the three areas most important to Oakland:  public safety; government transparency/accountability; and public works.  We are working on selecting a centrally located, easily accessible venue, and will be announcing the “where” information very soon.

The leaders of the three committees are in the process of finishing a list of proposed MOBNow! positions and priorities in their areas of interest. That process will be finished by December 28th.  In January, each committee will hold a study group meeting and a committee meeting; we’ll also be announcing the dates, times and places for those meetings before year’s end.  At the study group meetings, we’ll have experts prepared to answer the committee’s questions.  At the committee meeting, we’ll make the final decision on the positions and priorities to recommend to the general assembly.

The next ninety days are going to be important, busy and exciting.  We need as many folks as possible to pitch in and help.  If you’d like to be more involved in any of the three areas (public safety, government transparency/accountability or public works), or in support (events, outreach, publicity, etc.), then e-mail: Oaklanders@makeoaklandbetternow.org.  And there’s always more information available at www.makeoaklandbetternow.org.  Please join us – Oakland needs you.

This guest post from Bruce Nye, one of the founders of Make Oakland Better Now! has been cross-posted at A Better Oakland, our city’s government and politics blog of record.

December 4th Update:  Positions are now getting posted at MOBN! and Oakland Local, and your comments are most welcome there.  (To commune with Montclarions, you may join our social network anytime.)