Post #469786 by AquaZombie on Fri, Jul 17, 2009 4:33 PM

UPDATE, JULY 17: BAD NEWS/GOOD NEWS!

Below is email correspondence between myself and Andre Jones, who has been working very hard to make this happen. Apparently we've hit a predictable but sobering snag which will delay the resolution at least until September (so we're going to miss the 65th anniversary next month, what a shame.) Good news is the SF Chronicle article is still slated for next week, hopefully that can help the cause. We need the press now more than ever! I'll keep you posted - aloha, Will the Thrill

On Jul 17, 2009, at 4:00 PM, Jones, Andre wrote:

Hi Team-

We have some problems.

This item was not agendized for the July 28th Council Meeting because the Rules Committee did not meet yesterday because they did not have a quorum. What this means is that the soonest that it could happen would be mid September because the Council is on summer recess following the July 28th Council meeting.

Also, a couple of members have expressed some concerns about the idea, specifically that they don’t want the city in the business of promoting alcohol. I have been in touch with these Councilmembers’ staff to educate them about the issue and I am going to meet with the Councilmembers next week. However, if I am unable to convince them I am going to need you guys to reach out to them from the community/business arena to educate them that this is about promoting what is good about Oakland not detracting from it and that other cities, like New Orleans has done this, etc.

Finally, I have received a couple of constituent emails regarding the “Oakland home of the mai tai not drive-by” slogan and they were not happy to say the least. If we are going to move forward, we are going to need to rethink that approach because I don’t want to do anything, here, that will make our Oakland constituents feel like they are being ridiculed in any way plus if the other councilmembers start getting that kind of feedback we are dead.

I will be in touch next week with an update.

Andre Jones
Chief of Staff
Councilmember Rebecca Kaplan
Oakland City Council

MY RESPONSE:

Andre

first off, the "drive-by" slogan is totally unofficial, it's just my private saying, it is not the campaign platform - we can remove it from our web site, etc, not a big deal. The point of that slogan was not to ridicule anything Oakcentric, but quite the opposite: to colorfully but concisely illustrate how the Mai Tai proclamation can counter that kind of negative - and lopsided - media coverage of Oakland. Not everyone shares my ironic sense of humor so I am not going to force feed it to anyone (though every citizen I've said it to has LOVED it, but then that's only within my unique social circles). We can easily make our point without this.

I am very open to meeting with or emailing anybody with any power to make this happen. The info we've given you should help. This is not about promoting booze, it's about promoting Oakland, as you know. Hopefully Carolyn's article next week can help convince the nay-sayers that this is all good - and free - PR. Oakland has an image problem. This is a simple, and slam dunk, solution.

Thanks for the update, and for the effort - let us know what else we can do. Damn, so close! And we're going to miss the 65th anniversary next month, what a drag!
aloha, Will

[ Edited by: AquaZombie 2009-07-17 16:58 ]

[ Edited by: AquaZombie 2009-07-17 16:59 ]