Episode 5 out now!

Episode 5 now streaming!

In the Season 1 finale of Town Politics, hosts Pecolia Manigo and Chaney Turner of Oakland Rising Action sit down with Kimi Lee, Executive Director of Bay Rising Action and Bay Area Representative for the Working Families Party, for a wide-ranging conversation about the state of progressive politics in the Bay Area.

Together, they unpack the current political reality facing progressives—from working families and grassroots organizers to progressive voters and elected officials who are truly for the people. Against the backdrop of a escalating right-wing federal government and an increasingly moderate climate in local politics, this episode explores how hard-won victories are under constant threat. Policies like rent control, worker protections, and basic social safety nets are no longer guaranteed, and its falling to progressives to actively defend them.

Pecolia, Chaney, and Kimi discuss what it means to hold the line against political rollbacks while also pushing beyond the bare minimum. The conversation digs into the tension between progressive values and moderate governance, the risks of compromise in moments that demand bold action, and the responsibility of movement organizations to create political space for deeply progressive solutions. At its core, this episode asks: how do progressives not only survive this moment, but organize to shape what comes next?

Please note: This episode was filmed in August 2025, and some political context may have shifted since then.

We're not over this episode! Our guest, Valarie Batchelor, was speaking facts on evictions!

In Episode 4, hosts Pecolia Manigo and Chaney Turner of Oakland Rising Action bring together two brilliant powerhouse organizers Vanessa Riles and Valarie Bachelor, for a raw, real, and grounded conversation. 

Affordable, stable, dignified housing is becoming harder and harder to access for working families, people with disabilities, and long-time Oaklanders. For too many, it’s already out of reach. In this episode, we break down why that is, and what it will take to build a future where everyone has a home.

We get into all of it:

• The history of disinvestment that shaped today’s housing landscape

• How political decisions fuel displacement

• The real drivers of homelessness—not the myths

• Why Black and Brown communities hold the deepest impacts

• And most importantly: what real solutions look like

We name the problems—the systems that create and exacerbate the problems—but also the solutions that our elected leaders could and should invest in. Through organizing, city accountability, and prioritizing people over profit, we can dig ourselves out of this affordability hole and have a community where everyone is housed. All we need is the political will and the investments our community deserves. 

About Our Guests 

Vanessa Riles

Campaign Coordinator at the East Bay Alliance for a Sustainable Economy. Vanessa is looking forward to ensuring that there is visionary, equitable development in Oakland that ensures that people have a say in what happens in their own neighborhoods. Vanessa is also a generational Oakland resident and was born and raised in the Town.

Valarie Bachelor, Director of ACCE Oakland, a non-profit that works and organizes with low-income people of color throughout Oakland's diverse communities. Valarie was born in Bolivia and immigrated to the US East Coast in the 90s. She was a union organizer for the California Federation of Teachers and has been active in the labor movement for 15 years. Valarie is a passionate activist and community organizer who gives her all to the people of Oakland. 

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If you made it to the end of this description, drop a comment and tell us about your relationship with housing in Oakland!

About Oakland Rising Action

Established in 2010, Oakland Rising Action (ORA) forwards a vision of Oakland that realizes our shared dreams of health, happiness, safety, and opportunity for all.

ORA engages in voter education and GOTV operations that encourage Oakland’s working-class, immigrant, and communities of color to think critically about voting for or against issues, policies and candidates based on our shared vision and values for an Oakland for all.

Oakland Rising Action is a community-led political organization focused on supporting candidates and issues that drive a progressive agenda for Oakland’s working-class, immigrant and communities of color living in the flatlands of Oakland. 

What is real public safety—and who gets left out of the conversation?

In Episode 3 of Town Politics, hosts Pecolia Manigo and Chaney Turner of Oakland Rising Action dive headfirst into one of the most charged and misunderstood topics shaping our communities today: public safety.

Joining them is longtime East Oakland resident Alvina Wong 黃曉茵, the Base Building Director at the Asian Pacific Environmental Network (APEN). With over a decade of on the ground organizing experience, Alvina brings clarity, honesty, and vision to a conversation often clouded by fear and misinformation.

Together, they pull back the curtain on the narratives we’re sold—and the truths we rarely hear.Safety for whom? Implemented by whom? Defined by whom?And when you imagine your ideal neighborhood—what does safety feel like? Does our current system reflect that?

This episode challenges everything we think we know.Come ready to question. Come ready to imagine. Come ready to expand your definition of what safety could be, and what it should be.

About Our Guest:

Alvina Wong, Base Building Director of APEN - Asian Pacific Environmental Network (APEN). In her role, she supports strategy and capacity development for the local organizing projects in Oakland, Richmond and South Bay/Harbor Gateway Region of Los Angeles. Alvina builds member-led fights against pollution and displacement of low-income and working-class Asian immigrants and refugees while building their leadership within the environmental justice movement. They lead the teams in intergenerational organizing with somatic tools towards community governance and power at the neighborhood, city, and regional levels, and have led campaigns to stop evictions of SRO tenants and win major community benefits. Alvina began organizing in the Chinese immigrant community as an Eva Lowe Fellow at Chinese Progressive Association, San Francisco before starting as APEN Oakland’s community organizer in 2012. Prior to this, she spent eight years in youth development around education access and youth incarceration issues. Alvina loves baking, the Pacific Ocean and reading graphic novels.

What is the “doomloop narrative”? What actually keeps us safe? Who is Sam Singer? Who is behind the narrative that Oakland is going in the “wrong direction” due to progressive policies?

For our second episode of Town Politics, "What We're Up Against - The Conservative Plot," our hosts Pecolia Manigo and Chaney Turner of Oakland Rising Action speak with Jeremy Mack, Executive Director of the Phoenix Project, an organization shedding light on right wing money in politics by “combining research and analysis with advocacy to build power and cohesion in progressive campaigns to win a just and radically redistributive society.”

Tune in to this month’s episode to learn about the dark money in Oakland politics and the corporate funding of right wing politics in the Bay Area leading to the overcriminalization, redevelopment and gentrification of historically Black and brown communities with longtime roots in the Town.

What is the “doomloop narrative”? What actually keeps us safe? Who is Sam Singer? Who is behind the narrative that Oakland is going in the "wrong direction" due to progressive policies?

For our second episode of Town Politics, our hosts Pecolia Manigo and Chaney Turner of Oakland Rising Action speak with Jeremy Mack, Executive Director of the Phoenix Project, an organization shedding light on right wing money in politics by “combining research and analysis with advocacy to build power and cohesion in progressive campaigns to win a just and radically redistributive society.”

Tune in to this month’s episode to learn about the dark money in Oakland politics, the corporate funding of right wing politics in the Bay Area leading to the overcriminalization, redevelopment and gentrification of historically Black and brown communities with longtime roots in the Town.

Guest Speakers: 

• Jeremy Mack, Executive Director of the Phoenix Project –  a dedicated advocate for transformative public policy, specializing in Restorative Justice and ethical urban development. Jeremy’s work spans policy research, community organizing and impactful academic work on the Better Neighborhoods, Same Neighbors Initiative in East Oakland.

  
  

What do we do? Stand up, fight back! For our first episode of Town Politics, our hosts Pecolia Manigo and Chaney Turner of Oakland Rising Action speak with longtime Oakland and Bay Area community members on what it means to be progressive in Oakland. Tune in to hear about the history of Oakland residents fighting back against the bullies, billionaires and their racist agendas.

Guest speakers: 

• Jennifer Esteen is a registered nurse, a mom, and has run for state assembly and county supervisor, representing East Oakland and the Oakland hills.

• Allyssa Victory is a lifelong Oaklander now residing in East Oakland. She is a mother, educator, organizer, and civil rights attorney. She ran for Oakland Mayor in 2022.

• Kitty Epstein is an educator and radio show host for KPFA called Education Today. Epstein has published multiple books on Oakland and the state of education.

For more, follow us on Instagram: @oaklandrisingaction

What comes to mind when you think of the history of Oakland politics? Is it the Black Panthers, the Riders, the gentrification of West and East Oakland? Oakland Rising Action is releasing a five-part podcast series on Oakland politics, from the 90s to today, called Town Politics.