Oakland – Barry Donelan, the President Of The Oakland Police Officers Association, blasted the call for cannabis tax breaks in a letter to Rebecca Kaplan, the President Of The Oakland City Council.
Oakland City Council Council President Kaplan has been a proponent of cannabis tax breaks, and took on Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf’s opposition to them in a post here at Oakland News Now.
Here’s Mr. Donelan’s letter; an online copy is posted as an embed below it.
Dear Council President Kaplan,
I am writing to you as President of the Oakland Police Officers’ Association (OPOA) to advise you that Oakland’s Police Officers oppose the (Oakland) City Council’s plan to provide tax breaks to the cannabis industry because its fiscally irresponsible.
Oakland Police Officers partnered with the City to address the financial crisis of under funded employee benefits. Leading the calls for action was the Alameda County Grand Jury that raised the alarm on the imminent financial danger. The actions of your Police Officers tackled the problem, protected city services, and ensured the City Council was able to unanimously pass a balanced budget. Now. you have abandoned that prudence and decided to use residents’ tax dollars to subside cannabis entrepreneurs. This is outrageous and irresponsible.
The City Council’s cannabis tax break plan harkens back to the Congress and President’s huge corporate tax cuts that ignored the plight of working Americans and fueled outrageous corporate profits. I am perplexed by the fact that a “progressive” Oakland City Council would cut services to Oakland residents and lay off City employees to provide tax cuts to already rich cannabis entrepreneurs. Moving forward, I would expect big tobacco and the likes of Uber to show up at Oakland City Hall seeking their subsides too.
Yours sincerely.
Barry Donelan
President
Oakland Police Officers Association
Barry Donelan Ltr to Council Re Cannabis Tax Reduction_Dec 2019 by Zenophon Zennie Abraham on Scribd