THE PIONEER Covering the East Bay community since 1961
California State University, East Bay
News, Art, & Culture for the East Bay
THURSDAY FEBRUARY 18, 2016
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CFA prepares to strike SEE OPINION PAGE 2
BEYONCE'S RESISTANCE SERVES AS INSPIRATION
SEE NEWS PAGE 6
MARSHAWN LYNCH HANGS EM' UP
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Police brutality exposed at forum
NEWS AND SPORTS EDITOR For Cal State University students at the system’s 23 campuses, things are going to change, at least for a week. The California Faculty Association held a conference call on Feb. 12 for the media to ask questions about the impending system-wide strike set for April 13 to 15, 18 and 19. CFA President and philosophy professor at Cal State East Bay, Jennifer Eagan and Communications Director, Alice Sunshine answered a variety questions from student reporters and editors from throughout the CSU system. The CFA is waiting for the report from an independent third party fact-finding panel led by professional mediator Bonnie Castrey. Legally, the CFA can’t authorize a strike until a 10day blackout period has passed after the findings are issued, which they expect to happen the second week of April and is why the dates have been scheduled for roughly 10 days later. CSU Associate Vice Chancellor of Business and Finance Brad Wells and Chair of the CFA Bargaining Team Kevin Weir are also a part of the panel. If both sides are unable to come to an agreement after the strike ends on Apr. 19, the entire staff and faculty will return to work on Apr. 20. However, the CFA will likely ask for further strike dates if a deal has not been reached. “Chancellor White and the CSU Board of Trustees have left us with no choice,” Eagan said. “This is about our salaries but it is also about the way that CSU is being mismanaged in such a way that it not only disadvantages faculty in terms of salaries but also students in terms of instruction.” According to Eagan, faculty members had no raises from 2008 to 2012, and in 2013 received an $80 per month raise. She said that most but not all fac-
PHOTO COURTESY OF ZENSMOM1/ FLICKR
By Karina Salgado CONTRIBUTOR
ulty members received a 1.6 percent increase in 2014, the first year of their three-year contract. CSU Director of Public Affairs Toni Molle disagreed with Eagan. “Employee salaries were held constant from 2007-12 due to declining state support during the recession,” Molle said. “CSU faculty were the
only group that received any general salary increase during this time — a 2 percent increase in 2008. During this time, the CSU continued to pay for increases in health/welfare benefits and retirement contributions.” The majority of lecture faculty are far less paid than tenure track professors and they
SEE NEWS PAGE 4
PHOTO BY YOUSUF FAHIMUDDIN/ CONTRIBUTOR
By Yousuf Fahimuddin CONTRIBUTOR
SEE NEWS PAGE 10
San Carlos fights over dog park
By Louis LaVenture
Mollie Costello of the Alan Blueford Commission speaks at First African Methodist Episcopal Church in Oakland last Thursday.
A forum focused on police brutality drew citizens who shared testimonies of their personal experiences at the First African Methodist Episcopal Church in Oakland on Feb 11. The Coalition for Police Accountability hosted the forum to invite the community to speak on their experiences with police brutality at the hands of the Oakland Police Department. Amongst those that shared their experiences was Ana Biocini, sister of Hernan Jaramillo. Jaramillo, 51, was killed by Oakland Police after they suffocated him to death while detaining him in July 2013, on East 21st Street, Biocini said. An Oakland city official, who asked to remain anonymous, tearfully said she had received death threats recently on her phone. When she reported the incident to the OPD, she said they laughed. Bobby Cephus, Oscar Grant’s uncle, as well as members from the Alan Blueford Commission spoke at the event. Grant was killed by BART police in 2009, which led to widespread protests and condemnation of police violence. Alan Blueford was shot to
Winter 2016 Issue 7
PHOTO ILLUSTRATION BY TAM DUONG JR. AND LOUIS LAVENTURE/THE PIONEER
By Elizabeth Avalos STAFF WRITER
The push to eliminate the state sales tax on menstrual products in the state of California is stronger than ever. In late January, the California State Board of Equalization, which oversees state taxes, endorsed a newly introduced bill that will exempt menstrual sanitary products from the state sales tax. Assemblywoman Cristina Garcia (D) and her Republican colleague, Ling Ling Chang introduced AB 1561 on the basis that these products are necessary
health items, rather than luxuries and thus a sales tax should not be imposed on them. “AB 1561 is about social justice, gender equity in our tax code, it’s an opportunity to end an outdated tax that uniquely targets women for a function of their body, a function we don’t control and can’t ignore every month of our adult life,” Garcia stated in a press release. In January, writer and activist Jennifer Weiss-Wolf highlighted how poor menstrual hygiene is affecting low-income and homeless women on a global scale. In an article for the Huffington Post, she explained how a woman’s
health, productivity and dignity becomes dangerously compromised when she is unable to afford menstrual sanitary products or lacks access to hygiene facilities. Weiss-Wolf emphasized that in developing and third world countries, the consequences of poor menstrual hygiene are so horrific they can even prove deadly and many low-income women in the United States, especially those experiencing homelessness, share a similar struggle. While it varies from state to state in the United States, California is one of 40 states that presently imposes a sales tax on these products. The only states that do not impose
SEE FEATURES PAGE 4
The city of San Carlos opened a new off-leash dog park that had some residents bark complaints and others howl support at bi-monthly city council meetings. The facility has caused a big debate between San Carlos residents, since some believe it is in a bad location. It is surrounded by apartment complexes and disrupts what used to be a peaceful neighborhood, according to residents. The dog park is located in the downtown area on the corner of Elm Street and San Carlos Avenue next door to City Hall, the library and police department. The park is a 1.3 acre unpaved fenced piece of land, with a few benches, picnic tables and original trees that date back as far as 40 years. Since the grand opening on Sept. 14, the park has been discussed in every city council meeting, which occurs twice a month. Residents have proposed for the dog park to be relocated to one of the four original areas, first proposed by the city: Lower Vista Park, Arguello Park, North Crestview Park and Chilton Park. There haven’t been reports on which location is most favorable. “It’s the owner’s responsibility to keep control and not allow a dog to bark for 15 minutes straight at 7 a.m. on a Saturday morning,” said Ivan Rodriguez, who lives in the apartment complex next door to the park. Other complaints include owners not cleaning up after their dogs, the lack of security in the early mornings and late evenings, poor lighting and the lack of parking spaces for local residents. Supporters of the park show up to every city council meeting to make sure their opinions are heard and have city officials know how important the park is to them since there are so few in the area where dogs can roam free offleash. “Complaints were based on the barking primarily,” said Parks and Recreation Director Christine Boland. Noise complaints were made at the city hall meeting and to accommodate local residents, Boland put restrictions to the hours of operation of the park. The dog park is now open from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday through Saturday and closed on Sundays. Before complaints were made, there were no enforced restrictions on the dog park. Reports from the San Mateo Daily Journal say the council approved spending up to $80,000 to enclose about 75 percent of the City Hall Park for a temporary off-leash program, however the status of the program approval is pending. “The city council has the power to make changes to any of the city’s infrastructure at any time, but I imagine they are going to leave this a permanent dog park,” said Boland.