Expanding the Vision: Cricket at the Oakland Alameda County Coliseum

in East Oakland, and how community-oriented revitalization of the Coliseum site can help remedy these problems. (Read the piece here: https://tinyurl.com/mjzcwuex ) Bringing cricket to the Coliseum expands this vision.

With 2.5 billion followers, cricket is the world’s second-most popular sport. Our Board has become aware of the cricket market and the need for the U.S. to expand venues for such a popular and growing sport. The Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum has the largest playing surface of all the Major League Baseball venues in the country. As such, it uniquely meets the field requirements to host cricket matches.

While California requires employers to provide time off for jury duty, they are not required to pay their workers while they serve on a jury. If a juror’s job does not cover their wages or salary, the court system compensates them nothing on their first day of service, then only $15 per day after that. The stipend hardly covers gas and parking, let alone lunch in many places.

It’s a dilemma many potential jurors face. They know serving on a jury is a meaningful opportunity for impactful participation in our democracy. But it doesn’t pay much, forcing many people to forgo their civic duty in favor of going to work where they can earn a full paycheck. This results in juries that lack diversity.

In order to address the disproportionate and inequitable jury composition, I have proposed AB 881, or “Be The Jury California.” It increases daily compensation in criminal cases for low-to-moderate income Californians to $100 a day, making jury duty more accessible to all Californians.

To qualify, a juror’s earnings for the past 12 months must be less than

• Eighty-one percent of participants say they could not have served without the $100 per day stipend.

• Program participants reflected the racial demographics of the broader San Francisco population. Sixty-three percent of participants self-identified as people of color.

I thank our San Francisco partners at the Public Defender’s Office, District Attorney’s Office, Treasurer’s Office, Superior Court, and Bar Association for working to diversify juries in our city. It’s now time to make similar strides statewide.

My hope is the higher pay will result in more diverse juries up and down the state, just like it did in San Francisco. Studies have shown diverse juries spend more time in deliberations and are less likely to presume guilt, thereby improving the legitimacy of the criminal justice system.

A fundamental aspect of democracy in the United States is the right to a fair trial and a jury of our peers, which means a jury of equals, drawing from different races, genders, and socioeconomic classes. But due to the steep financial hardship facing potential jurors, jury service, in its current form, is a luxury for people to participate in. It’s an incredible sacrifice to serve for workers who are surviving paycheck-to-paycheck.

AB 881 is a crucial reform to our criminal legal system. It’ll make our juries more illustrative of California’s diversity by establishing a greater incentive for working-class and lowincome Californians to serve on juries.

Phil Ting represents the 19th Assembly District, which includes the Westside of San Francisco and portions of South San Francisco along with the communities of Broadmoor, Colma, and Daly City.

Oakland City Councilmember At-Large, Rebecca Kaplan

As the City of Oakland Councilmember At-Large who also serves on the Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum Authority (OACCA) Board, I with pleasure share our interest to host cricket games at the Oakland Coliseum. The coliseum is a large and welllocated venue, in the heart of a region with a strong and growing cricket fan base. The Coliseum Complex site is on the verge of a renaissance. The African American Sports and Entertainment Group recently entered into an Exclusive Negotiating Agreement with the City of Oakland to develop the site, which will include affordable housing, and business development including life sciences, public services, and a potential home to a new WNBA team.

Three years ago, in an op-ed for The Oakland Post, I wrote of the existing concerns about the loss of jobs, lack of affordable housing, and the further erosion of the Black community

Our venue has a proud history of hosting several different types of sporting events over the years. It is set up for broadcasting, and has a capacity of over 50,000. Additionally, it is centrally located in the Northern California Bay Area, near hotels and transportation options including the Oakland International Airport, trains and subway and bus transit, and a major freeway, with ample onsite parking, making it the ideal venue for games. In addition, we are located in Alameda County, which is home to a large and growing cricket fan base, including significant Indian and other South Asian communities.

As the range of sports played in the U.S. continues to expand—with WNBA, soccer, and more growing in popularity—these, along with cricket, can provide for a positive, interactive, diverse future.

Councilmember At-Large and Council

President Rebecca Kaplan, who is the Vice Mayor of Oakland, was elected in 2008 to serve as Oakland’s citywide Councilmember; she was re-elected in 2016 and 2020. She also serves on the Alameda County Transportation Commission (ACTC).

Follow Councilmember Kaplan on Twitter @Kaplan4Oakland ( https://twitter.com/Kaplan4Oakland ) and Facebook ( https://www.facebook.com/Kaplan4Oakland/ ).

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