While the term “people power” might conjure images of protests, Paul Freedman — a local activist, inventor, and entrepreneur — uses the term in a more literal sense. To him, “people power” refers to what activates his bike-powered sound systems at events: sheer human strength.

With the help of colleagues, Freedman engineered his first bike-powered sound system in 2006. And though he doesn’t claim to be the originator of the technology, his Oakland company, Rock the Bike, is arguably the nation’s most prolific producer of bike-powered concerts.

Many of Freedman’s events are environmentally focused, but his bike-powered sound systems aren’t just a gimmick to promote the ethos of a green lifestyle. Indeed, they are actually more fuel-efficient than their traditional, generator-powered counterparts, Freedman said in a recent interview. Thanks to a feature on his bikes that lets riders know whether they’re pedaling too slowly (generating too little power) or too fast (overloading the system), each individual is able to adjust his or her pedaling rate so that the system uses only as much fuel as needed.

Compare that to typical sound systems at outdoor festivals, which waste diesel to ensure that there are no outages, Freedman explained. “We’re tapping into twenty or thirty brains at once and getting them to use their supercomputing powers to keep our system running stable,” he said. “So we actually have a really smart, distributed computer that runs the power grid at our pedal-powered stage, which is pretty much the opposite of what the industry standard is. … The only way they’re going to guarantee a show like Outside Lands is going to stay up is if the power system is way too big.”

Rock the Bike’s pedal-powered sound systems are also designed so that transporting one doesn’t require a car. Their parts can be broken down to small loads that are easy to take on a bike, and Freedman and his team will typically bike up to five miles to an event with their equipment in tow — with the exception of the stage, which is typically too heavy to move without a truck. They only rely on motor vehicles when absolutely necessary.

In 2007, Freedman teamed up with fellow cyclist and musician Gabe Dominguez to organize the first Bicycle Music Festival in San Francisco, and it has since grown into a popular annual event. The September 2015 BMF was the first East Bay edition and one of Rock the Bike’s most ambitious fests yet: The event coincided with the City of Oakland-sponsored neighborhood celebration, Love Our Lake Day, and doubled as a climate justice rally and traveling concert.

The event began at the Lake Merritt Amphitheater and featured an eclectic lineup that included the popular, local New Orleans-style jazz band MJ’s Brass Boppers and the roots reggae group Black Nature Band. Then, it went mobile, with art rockers Major Powers & the Lo-Fi Symphony rolling across town on a stage that cyclists towed behind them, with the audience biking alongside the band. Finally, the show landed at the anti-capitalist community center Omni Commons, where it continued with another set by acclaimed local indie rock act Waterstrider, among other performers.

Freedman said that not only are bike-powered sound systems greener: They also encourage audience participation and provide more ways for people to have fun. A sound system at a Rock the Bike event typically has around thirty bikes powering it, and is designed so that it can accommodate riders of varying skill levels — including kids, elders, and folks with disabilities. Each rider, Freedman said, usually pedals for about two songs (though there’s no official time limit), and participants often tell him that they gain a sense of satisfaction from knowing that they helped contribute to the collective experience.

“We set up a system that is rewarding,” he enthused. “You feel like, ‘Wow, my pedaling did something. Only ten or twenty of us made that much sound? My body is awesome.'”

While Rock the Bike certainly has a captive audience in environmentalist circles, Freedman said that his goal is to compete with other local production companies for doing sound at mainstream events. Indeed, Rock the Bike already has some major happenings on its schedule: Next, they’ll be at the technology festival Maker Faire in San Mateo, where they’ll be powering the main music stage on May 21 and 22.

Largely thanks to Freedman’s efforts, pedal-powered stages seem to be catching on with the general public, which bodes for a greener future for festivals in the Bay Area and beyond.

In 1997, when the ongoing civil war in his native Burma made it impossible for him to continue working, Sein Win knew it was time to leave. Following other refugees to Thailand, Win said he thought the move would only be temporary, that he, his wife, and their three daughters would be able to return when the war ended. Instead, they lived in a refugee camp for fourteen years.

One day in 2010, Thai government officials told Win his family could apply to live in the United States. Win was eager to leave the camp, hopeful that he could receive medical treatment for several chronic health problems, and optimistic that his children would have better opportunities in America. After a year of waiting and three days in transit, Win’s family landed at the Oakland International Airport and settled in Oakland. Without knowing any English, Win said it was difficult to navigate the city or to connect with any of his new neighbors. But when his daughter, Paw Ku Tee, told him about a new gardening and cooking program at her high school that pairs refugee elders with youth, he jumped at the chance to participate. A farmer in his former life in Burma, Win had spent years on the land, growing wheat, rice, and vegetables to sell.

“I was glad to be able to plant the vegetables I normally used to eat,” Win said, speaking through his daughter Tee, who translated for him. “And, I wanted the new generation to learn about how their parents worked hard to make food to put on the table.”

The Intergenerational Food Justice Internship teaches high school-aged refugees how to grow vegetables, how to prepare healthy foods (often through storytelling and with recipes from the elders’ home countries), and about food justice, said Deepa Iyer, a program manager for the International Rescue Committee (IRC), which runs the program.

Founded in 1933, the IRC assists newly arrived refugees with resettlement, operating 26 offices across the country, including one in Oakland. The internship is an offshoot of the IRC’s New Roots program, an urban farming initiative that got its start in 2007 in San Diego after several Somali refugees approached the IRC about establishing a community garden, according to IRC program coordinator Zack Reidman. Reidman helped establish the IRC’s first community garden in the East Bay in 2012.

Reidman said the IRC was able to secure space behind Laney College in Oakland, where a cohort of roughly two dozen refugees succeeded in turning a dumping ground for woodchips into neat rows of vegetables and leafy greens. Unlike many city-sponsored community gardens, where gardeners are mostly hobbyists, Reidman said many of the women and men who work the land through the New Roots program come with years of experience in subsistence farming. They need little assistance in establishing or maintaining the space.

In San Diego, the urban farms are large enough to produce food that the refugees can then sell to augment their income, but land is much more limited in the East Bay, Reidman said. Instead, the New Roots program in Oakland — which now includes a second garden at the Glenn Daniel King Estates Park, a city-owned open space in East Oakland — has been able to provide spaces where refugees can both connect with other people of similar ethnic or cultural backgrounds and carry on the agricultural traditions of their cultures.

“Almost all of the people we work with are used to farming at some sort of scale that’s larger than your typical community garden in Oakland,” Reidman said, adding that it’s a bit of a compromise to ask them to garden on a smaller scale. “It’s a reason for them to get out of their homes and a safe space for them to come, and it’s also a way to provide food for their families.”

Tee was sixteen when she arrived in the Bay Area, and it was the first time she had ever seen a city. Living most of her life in a refugee camp that had been carved out of a jungle, Tee said her family maintained a garden to subsidize their monthly allotments of rice, yellow beans, oil, and salt. When she arrived in the United States, Tee said it was difficult to complete even seemingly simple tasks, such as grocery shopping in American supermarkets. The idea that foods could contain added sugars, sodium, and other preservatives was also foreign.

“When we came here, we didn’t know whether food was healthy or not,” Tee recalled. “We didn’t really eat (processed food). We only ate vegetables.”

It’s a common experience for many refugees the IRC resettles, Iyer said. So, in addition to offering space to grow food, Reidman said the New Roots program also strives to educate refugees about the complex corporate structure of the American food system, including how to read labels on food packaging, and how to source culturally appropriate, healthy food within a limited budget.

As the New Roots program has grown, so too has its mission, Iyer said. While it began as a way to reconnect refugees with the land, the program has taken on new roles, including deepening its focus on food security and nutritional education.

When the IRC first hired Iyer in 2014 as program manager, she immediately began thinking about how to integrate youth into the work the IRC was already doing. It seemed only natural to establish a formal partnership with the Oakland International High School, which already has a community garden and was already serving refugee youth. It didn’t hurt that Reidman, who had for several years been helping to coordinate the New Roots program, also taught a community gardening and cooking program at the school.

Within their first five years in the United States, immigrants are statistically more likely to suffer from high blood pressure and diabetes than non-immigrants, Iyer said. It was with this phenomenon in mind, and with the knowledge that the most experienced farmers are often recent migrants, that she and Reidman developed the youth internship program.

The six-week summer course has now grown into a three-season program, which students can participate in for one semester or for consecutive semesters throughout the year. Youth in the program interview family members and relatives about their relationships to food and agriculture. They cook with elders and visit urban farms in the Bay Area. And recently, Iyer said they have been experimenting with the idea of having participants carry out community-based projects, which may include growing and delivering fresh produce to newcomers in need or augmenting their high school’s lunch offerings.

Although Tee graduated last year from Oakland International, she and her dad continue to participate in New Roots. Tee said she just likes working in the garden, and it’s a good opportunity to practice speaking English. For Win, it reminds him of when he was farming in Burma.

“Not only am I able to garden again,” Win said, “but I’m able to spread the knowledge about working in a garden and pass it on to future generations.”

In last year’s Sustainable Living issue, the Express published a story about Planting Justice, a local nonprofit that advances food sovereignty and combats the prison industrial complex. Since 2009, Planting Justice has been running a program called Transform Your Yard, which employs formerly incarcerated individuals at a living wage to build gardens in backyards all over the Bay Area. The profits from this blooming business are then used to build free gardens around the homes of people who have limited access to fresh, healthy produce. Planting Justice also has an educational branch that operates in schools and jails all over the region — many of which also have urban gardens at their sites. The programs — which also employ formerly incarcerated individuals — teach gardening skills through a curriculum focused on food sovereignty and emphasizes the ways that food has played a role in social justice movements (i.e. The Black Panthers’ Free Breakfast Program).

At the time of our first story, Planting Justice had just secured a ten-acre plot of land in El Sobrante, an unincorporated community in Contra Costa County east of Richmond. The land was to be used as a working farm to grow organic produce, some of which would be sold through a CSA program, and some of which would be freely distributed or sold at a sliding scale to low-income neighbors. The El Sobrante farm would also host educational programs for youth and community members to learn permaculture farming skills. It was a massive undertaking, but now, after just one season of cultivation, the farm is flush with greenery. Some of the newly planted trees will even bear fruit this season, although it will still be a few years until all of the crops are producing at full capacity. Now, the fast-growing organization is adding yet another branch to its business model: a nursery.

Because Planting Justice follows permaculture farming practices, which rely on growing a diversity of plants together, they had until recently been purchasing plants from Rolling River Nursery in Humboldt — which Planting Justice director Gavin Raders claims has the largest and most diverse collection of certified organic tree cultivars in North America. The collection includes a whopping 1,100 varieties of fruit and nut trees — largely rare, drought-resistant, and nutrient dense — bred by farmers from all over the world. Last fall, the owners decided to retire, and they gave Planting Justice the first opportunity to buy the nursery.

The organization had already planned to buy a large number of trees from Rolling River, so Raders decided to seize the opportunity. But because it is geographically isolated from the communities they serve, Planting Justice couldn’t keep operating the nursery in Humboldt. So, earlier this year, they decided to buy a two-acre lot on 105th Avenue in East Oakland’s Sobrante Park — a neighborhood known for having the highest unemployment and crime rates in Oakland. There, they’ll set up four greenhouses, a retail site for selling trees, along with a market for affordable, fresh produce.

Planting Justice’s El Sobrante farm will become the “mother farm” for the East Oakland nursery, meaning that it will be the home to the adult plants that will be used for grafting and propagating new plants to be sold at the nursery.

Planting Justice looked all over the East Bay for a piece of land that was large enough and also close to communities that they work with. The two acres in East Oakland, which had been deserted for years, turned out to be perfect.

“It’s big enough that we can continue to grow the business, and it’s centered in a neighborhood that has long been disenfranchised by government, funding institutions, and even community-based organizations in some ways, too,” said Raders in a recent interview. “There’s hardly any access to fresh produce, to open space, to jobs — so to have it right there is really critical.” In addition, many of the Planting Justice staff members either grew up in the area or live there currently.

Because Rolling River was so far out in the boonies of Northern California, the original owners developed a savvy online ordering service through which their clientele could order plants to be shipped all across the country. So, uprooting and moving the nursery to the East Bay won’t harm its existing customer base. But Planting Justice still plans to expand that base by offering in-person retail in Oakland. Raders pointed out that for each full-grown tree, scions (small clippings of new growth) can create approximately one hundred more every season, so the possibilities for growth are wildly exponential if there’s enough demand. Planting Justice has already hired around eight workers in the past few months, and they plan to hire more as soon as the nursery opens this summer.

To pay for the East Oakland plot, Planting Justice took out loans that the organization needs help paying back, Raders said. So they recently started a fundraising campaign on KickStarter to raise $100,000 toward their $150,000 down-payment. It’s a huge amount to raise in one month, Raders admitted, but he and the rest of the Planting Justice team are optimistic that people will see the value in the work that they do — and its potential if replicated across the country.

And, of course, they’ve already started planning their next step. A portion of the property will be used as an aquaponics farm and business incubator. Aquaponics is a farming science that mimics natural ecosystems to recycle nutrients. On one end of the system, tubs of water will host fish whose feces will be circulated to the roots of aquatic plants growing out of the other end of the tub. The plants act as a water filter for the fish, so the water never has to be changed. According to Raders, the system uses 90 percent less water than in-ground planting, and because it’s all above ground, it’s a perfect setup for city gardens.

“Aquaponics is really important for hyper-urban areas that don’t have access to healthy soil any longer,” said Raders. “It’s a great technology for empty lots that are paved, or are former gas stations, or have heavy metals or other toxins, because it’s not actually using the native soil to grow food.”

Raders’ plan is to use the site as a place to train people in aquaponics so they can eventually start their own worker-owned urban farms in empty lots all around Oakland. After people train at the onsite garden, Planting Justice will help them acquire an empty lot (by finding investors) and support the business side of the operation while they’re mastering the farming side, then pass it off once the workers are ready to run it on their own. Planting Justice will also connect farming collectives with grocery stores and other buyers looking for local, organic produce. Meanwhile, the produce from the incubator at the nursery and the farm in El Sobrante will be sold in a small market onsite, offered at a sliding-scale, accepting EBT or SNAP, or distributed to local schools, churches, and community centers in the area.

The Planting Justice vision is to transform thousands of other empty urban lots that go decades without being used by anyone into resources that advance the health and economic resiliency of the community. “It really opens up a new landscape for economic justice and food justice work,” said Raders.

Planting Justice aims to undo decades of harm caused by the criminalization and mass incarceration of communities of color by offering valuable training opportunities and jobs to formerly incarcerated individuals — along with living wages and health benefits, of course. “I’m hoping that we can use this project and the success we’ve already had to help influence a more national conversation about how to stop recidivism and mass incarceration through good jobs and meaningful work,” said Nicole Deane, the media and communications coordinator at Planting Justice. In contrast with a state average of 65 percent for all people released from state and local prisons and jails, the recidivism rate for employees of Planting Justice is zero.

When we visited the Planting Justice farm last year, the Express spoke to Maurice Bell. Bell had just been released from San Quentin prison four months before, and got a job with Planting Justice immediately. Since then, Morris has gained experience in almost every branch of the operation, and is now training with Deane to take on the role of communications coordinator. When he’s ready, she’ll pass the job on to him. Bell said the educational aspect of his job is the most rewarding and meaningful thing.

“I’m quite sure I’m not the only person who feels that way,” he said. “I’m quite sure there’s a bunch of guys out there who are just getting out of prison who have never done this work before and who have the same smile on their face that I have every day — and it’s not just about being around a great group of guys, it’s the learning aspect of it.”

Erik Johansen, a policy assistant in the Washington State Department of Agriculture, gives lots of public talks to farmers about pesticide use, and he usually expects a mute shrug, or maybe one or two questions. But this is not the case with cannabis growers.

“The enthusiasm for me to be there is just — they line up afterward to shake my hand, and they thank me,” said Johansen. “Cannabis growers have as many questions as you have time to answer. If you have handouts, every last one will be gone. They’re hungry for information.”

America’s amateur and professional cannabis gardeners are getting more state guidance than ever before about how to control pests and weeds and maintain a safe and healthy environment. Medical and recreational pot laws in thirty-five states have prompted officials to weigh in on what types of chemicals should be allowed on pot crops to control for bugs, fungi, bacteria and other diseases. Marijuana can easily be tainted with dangerous chemical sprays, so as the cannabis economy grows, state agencies are responding with an unprecedented effort to educate farmers about how to apply pesticides, fungicides, herbicides, and other compounds that help weed thrive. The guidelines are rudimentary, but they’re a historic start. In California, Colorado, Washington, and Oregon state regulators are now routinely posting and updating lists of approved pesticides with pot farmers in mind.

For example, California’s Water Board recently released a modest, one-page list of appropriate weed sprays. Other states have much more robust efforts. Colorado’s allowable pesticides list is twenty-six pages long, and Washington’s list is twenty-two pages long. Oregon released a list of 257 allowed pesticides this past February. New England states, meanwhile, are mandating that their medical marijuana cultivators follow a completely organic regime. Altogether this is creating a patchwork of cannabis pesticide laws, with some conflicts between states, and no federal-level regulations yet to build national standards for what could one day be a national industry.

Here’s what California’s regulators have deemed to be allowable pesticides for keeping pot plants healthy and happy and not endangering the customers who will end up smoking, vaping, eating, or rubbing on the finished bud products. For mite, flea, and beetle infestations, a farmer can use spray-on sulfur solutions. For mites and outbreaks of powdery mildew there’s neem oil. Predatory nematodes can be introduced to attack root diseases. Potassium bicarbonate and sodium bicarbonate are useful for treating powdery mildew. And azadirachtin, a chemical compound extracted from the neem plant, can deter aphids, whiteflies, gnats, leafminers, cutworms and more.

The state water board is distributing its pest management guide on its web site in hopes that cannabis farmers will grow healthier buds and not harm waterways and ecosystems near their grow sites.

All of this guidance is the first minor step in cleaning up America’s cannabis supply. Thousands of growers and consumers will likely sicken themselves or others either by improperly applying pesticides, or by consuming toxic residues on pot. Significant amounts of black market pot, as well as medical and recreational supplies are tainted, experts say. Under total prohibition, cultivators face few consequences for spraying harsh chemicals to control pests and save their crops. Unfortunately, some farmers will do anything to prevent valuable crop from being damaged by bugs.

The first medical marijuana law in 1996, and the first adult use law in 2012 have helped ignite efforts to clean up legal supplies. Since pot is still federally outlawed, no pesticide is federally approved for use on cannabis. So states are guiding growers to the most benign active ingredients already allowed for use on analogous crops like tobacco or herbaceous herbs that are meanted to be smoked or eaten. States are adapting US Environmentla Protection Agency guidelines of ‘minimal risk’ natural pesticides that are exempt from the mandatory approval process. These include essential oils, beneficial molds, fungi, insects and other animals.

“Until things change federally, it’s kind of tough,” said Johansen, who developed Washington’s allowed list. “It’s not a perfect system, but it’s a system that at least tried to address [the issue] by allowing things that are fairly low in toxicity.”

State legalization regimes also now mandate the testing of cannabis products which has helped reveal commonly banned pesticides in use. Colorado’s pesticide screening program has resulted in nineteen product recalls in nineteen weeks as of early February, affecting hundreds of thousands of items in circulation, from vaporizer cartridges to edibles.

In January, an Oregon lab caught the pesticide abamectin, a toxic chemical, in supposedly organic “Guardian Mite Spray,” which has been used in pot grows. Washington state regulators verified the finding, leading to a national advisory and the recall of Guardian from store shelves.

Washington has fined two commercial cultivators over the last year, but the state’s guidelines will arguably have the most effect on home growers who now have a concise list of safe products to use, Johansen said.

The operators of the world’s largest cannabis competition, The Emerald Cup, also recently announced they would be testing for pesticides in competition-grade weed for their 2016 event. A significant percentage of 2015 entrants failed lab tests for pesticides and bacteria, they said.

Washington cannabis farmers now have about eighty allowed active pesticide ingredients they can use. By contrast, there are about one thousand allowed pesticides for apple farmers. The state is under pressure to add more allowed chemicals to give pot growers more options.

“I think we’re being fairly conservative and there’s a reason for that. We just don’t have data to go any further,” Johansen said about the slow pace of approving pot pesticides.

Consumers who want to ensure they are inhaling clean products must either grow their own according to new guidelines, or buy products that come with an independent, third party certification for organic-grade cleanliness. In Washington there are already two companies, Certified Dank and Clean Green, that provide such certifications.

Clean Green Certified weed is also already available in the East Bay. Consumers can and should double-check a farm or retailer’s certification on the Clean Green Certified website at CleanGreenCert.com.

Unfortunately, as certification gains traction, false advertising is proliferating. “It’s tough right now, to be honest with you,” said Johansen. “I think we’re beginning to get a handle on it. The industry by and large has been very supportive.”

Jay Feldman at the non-profit Washington DC advocacy group Beyond Pesticides said America has a golden opportunity to ensure the next major legal crop is fully organic.

Colorado’s pesticide program is already too lax, Feldman said. States are giving users a false sense of security when regulators should be enforcing federal law that no pesticide has been evaluated, let alone approved, for use on cannabis. Copying EPA recommendations from tobacco “is really un-protective of public health and the environment,” Feldman said. “I would say it’s worse than nothing.”

Beyond Pesticides advocates banning all pesticides on cannabis, except organic ingredients listed by the Organic Materials Review Institute as OMRI-certified and the EPA’s minimum risk list of pesticides.

“There’s no reason at this point to open this industry to chemical dependency,” Feldman said. “That’s where the states should be right now. It’s a huge opportunity. I wish we had these opportunities in some other crops that don’t need pesticides.”

Last month the Oakland Planning and Building Department gave final approval for the Patel family, operators of two East Bay hotels, to build a new seven-story, 114-room hotel in downtown Oakland, despite the fact that city investigators recently concluded that the Patels violated Oakland’s minimum wage law at one of their existing hotels, Holiday Inn Express by the Oakland Airport. Employees of the Holiday Inn Express (which isn’t unionized) and a labor union representing workers at other Oakland hotels, asked city planning staff to deny the application for the hotel on the grounds that the Patels at the time were under investigation by the city, and also because the new hotel is unlikely to provide living wage jobs with health insurance based on job conditions at the other hotels they run. But city planning officials contend that they weren’t allowed to consider labor practices and job quality when deciding on the project. And even after city investigators sustained allegations of minimum wage law violations, planning officials still approved the new hotel.

The Patels deny violating Measure FF, Oakland’s minimum wage law that was approved by voters in 2014. City records obtained by the Express through a Public Records Act request show that the Patels hired attorney Zack Wasserman — who is also a major fundraiser for several city councilmembers — to pressure city staff and elected officials to withdraw the final report concluding that the Patels had violated the minimum wage law at the Holiday Inn Express.

On the other side, hotel workers and the union UNITE HERE 2850 are pressuring the city to block the new hotel. The union has filed a formal appeal to the Planning Commission that will be heard next month.

The controversy began last year when employees of the Holiday Inn Express, located near the Oakland Airport, complained to city investigators that the Patels were failing to pay the minimum wage, unreasonably interfering with workers’ use of sick leave, removing unused vacation days in retaliation, and failing to provide adequate time for breaks. Deborah Barnes, the director of contracts and compliance for the City of Oakland — the office responsible for enforcing Oakland’s minimum wage law — issued a report in February sustaining the allegations and requiring the Patels to pay $6,999 in restitution to 37 employees.

Former employees of another hotel owned by the Patels have made similar accusations. Francisco Coronado worked at the Hampton Inn & Suites Oakland Airport, which is located in the City of Alameda, for nine months before he was laid off in 2010. Coronado said in an interview that while he was employed there he noticed discrepancies in his pay stubs. Coronado said he kept a notebook to keep track of the precise times he clocked in and out. When he compared his log to what appeared on his pay stubs, he said the differences showed he was being under-paid. After he was laid off, he got an attorney who requested payroll records, but the hotel never responded, said Coronado.

Coronado also said he was not provided with a health insurance plan and was offered no vacation days. “I have worked in restaurants, a warehouse for shoes, a food services company at the Oakland Airport, and other places,” said Coronado, who moved to Oakland in 1985 from Mexico. “I never had such a bad experience with an employer.”

“We were never asked for these records by Mr. Coronado or his attorney,” said Dan Cohen, a spokesman for the Patels. “Mr. Coronado worked for us and left his employment with us many years ago. We are confident that he was paid fully for his time on the job.”

Teresa Cheng, an organizer with UNITE HERE 2850, said that other former Patel employees have complained to the union. Cheng and Cohen both said that the Patel’s hotels are not unionized, and that UNITE HERE 2850 is not currently trying to organize them. Nevertheless, the union has gotten deeply involved in the matter of whether or not the Patels will be allowed to build a new hotel downtown.

In August of last year, Taylor Hudson, a research analyst with UNITE HERE 2850, wrote to Oakland city planner Peterson Vollman that the Patel’s proposed hotel “failed” in several ways to uphold the city’s development policies. Hudson cited a specific section of Oakland’s Planning Code that states that approval for hotels should depend upon whether “the proposal considers the impact of the employees of the hotel or motel on the demand in the City for housing, public transit, and social services.” Hudson wrote that wages paid by the Patels at their other hotels are “nowhere near what would be required to meet a family’s basic needs,” and that the new hotel’s workers would be unable to afford housing and health insurance, putting burdens on Oakland and Alameda County’s social services.

“All of the hotels want to bring in low wages, no benefits,” said Aida Gonzalez, an employee of the Oakland Marriott City Center, where UNITE HERE 2850 represents the workers. Gonzalez said she currently lives in Oakland, but might become displaced if her income drops and rents keep rising.

“I’m concerned approval of this hotel would give other hotels a reason not to accept our union, or give us a bad contract,” said Sylvia Stollger, another worker at the Marriott City Center.

Despite these protests, and despite the findings of the city’s minimum wage investigation, officials in the Oakland Planning and Building Department approved the new downtown hotel on March 15. The approval letter stated, “the proposal will create new jobs that would be available to existing Oakland residents,” and that these jobs “can help to reduce the unemployment rate within Oakland that is still higher than the California state average.”

In an email to the Express, Oakland Zoning Manager Scott Miller said that planning department staff weren’t allowed to take into account the issues that were raised about job quality and Measure FF violations at the Patel’s other hotels when making a decision. Miller did not respond to a follow-up phone call and email seeking further clarification.

The hotel workers and their union disagree. On March 24, UNITE HERE 2850 filed an appeal with the Planning and Building Department seeking to overturn approval for the new hotel, again on the grounds that the approval runs against the city’s interests in creating living wage jobs. The appeal will be heard at the May 4 meeting of the Oakland Planning Commission.

In the meantime, the Patels have hired Wasserman, the politically-connected attorney, to try to get the minimum wage investigation report concerning the Holiday Inn Express withdrawn.

Wasserman is political fundraiser with close ties to Oakland’s elected officials. According to city records, Wasserman has contributed $2,650 to sitting members of the city council since 2013, including $500 to Abel Guillen, $500 to Rebecca Kaplan, $700 to Annie Campbell Washington, $250 to Dan Kalb, and $450 to Lynette Gibson McElhaney. Wasserman was the finance chair of council President Gibson McElhaney’s 2014 campaign.

The Patels are also major political contributors. Since 2012, Pravin and Sima Patel, their son Dhruv, and companies they control, have contributed at least $7,320 to current members of the city council. Sima and Pravin Patel also made a $700 contribution to Mayor Libby Schaaf’s 2014 mayoral campaign.

In comparison, the union UNITE HERE 2850 and its employees have contributed $2,500 to current members of the city council since 2014, including a $100 contribution to Abel Guillen by research analyst Taylor Hudson. UNITE HERE 2850 also spent $5,218 supporting Measure FF in 2014.

According to city email records, Wasserman contacted Deborah Barnes of Contracts and Compliance on February 16, shortly after Barnes released her office’s report. Wasserman requested a meeting at which he and the Patels could review the city’s investigative records and offer their own evidence. But Wasserman wrote that the meeting could only happen after “the Report your office issued on February 3 is withdrawn.”

In a letter attached to his email, Wasserman wrote that the city’s investigation “had not been conducted in a manner that was adequate or fair.” Wasserman added that the city’s investigators relied on “distorted facts.”

Wasserman attached a second letter written by the Patel’s other attorney, Robert Jones of Ogletree Deakins. Jones, who was previously a deputy secretary in the California Department of Labor, wrote that the city’s minimum wage investigation and report overreached by considering legal issues outside of the city’s jurisdiction such as whether the biometric time clock used by the Patels at the Holiday Inn Express improperly rounds off minutes when employees clock in and out, thereby reducing their take home pay. Jones said the rounding method is legal under state and federal law, and that the city has no authority to investigate it.

Jones called the city’s investigation and report biased, and wrote that the Patels are very disappointed in the city for not allowing them an opportunity to respond to the allegations of former employees.

In his email to Barnes, Wasserman copied every member of the Oakland City Council and Mayor Libby Schaaf, but it’s unclear why. Wasserman did not respond to an email seeking comment.

Erica Derryck, spokeswoman for Mayor Libby Schaaf, said the mayor’s office has not made any attempt to influence the minimum wage investigation. “The City Administrator provides staff with freedom to exercise objectivity in investigations in order to reach a conclusion that is [fairest] and equitable regardless of interest groups or politics,” wrote Derryck. “Furthermore, no elected officials have attempted to influence the outcome or direction of the investigation.”