CITY OF OAKLAND MEMORANDUM
Date: October 13, 2022
To: City Council and Members of the Public
From: Councilmember Treva Reid
Re: ADOPT A RESOLUTION DECLARING THE WEEK OF OCTOBER 20TH AS “LOVE LIFE” WEEK IN THE CITY OF OAKLAND, BEGINNING OCTOBER 2022,
AND CONTINUING EACH YEAR THEREAFTER
Dear City Council Colleagues and Members of the Public,
On April 5, 2016, the City Council passed Resolution No. 86088 C.M.S. adopting “Love Life" as the City of Oakland’s official motto. We now seek a resolution to declare the week of October 20th as " Love Life" Week.
The "Love Life" motto responds to our communal desire to build an inclusive, equitable, and authentic Oakland. It demonstrates a united care and concern to inform and guide our practices in our quest to make Oakland a safe, just, sustainable, equitable, creative, vibrant, and loving city.
We seek to denounce violence and all the conditions that create violence. This motto is a commitment to vehemently working against these conditions to create a safe space for all to operate in love and peace in our communities, as well as modeling love as we do this work in every department of government.
We seek to honor and uplift the spirit of every life lost to any act of violence in Oakland; past and present. Now more than ever, the residents of this beautiful and diverse city need to embrace “Love Life.” With this in mind, my office is bringing a new resolution to declare the week of October 20th as “Love Life ” Week in the City of Oakland to continue to engage and activate our City’s motto.
Donald Lacy championed the task of making “Love Life” the City’s official motto. He also is the founder of the LoveLife Foundation which was created to honor the work and vi sion of his 16 - year-old daughter LoEshe' Lacy, a successful conflict resolution mediator who was an innocent victim of a shooting in West Oakland on October 20, 1997 in Oakland. The name LoEshe' is Ibo/Nigerian and means "Love life" in English.
Building on the initial mantra, Citywide Communications has worked to identify ways to embody the motto through messaging and communication. To activate the “Love Life” motto and more
prominently uplift it to be ultimately embraced by the community, the City is working to connect it to the implementation of some of the City’s core strategies related to violence prevention and cultural arts. More specifically, the City is engaging the dual themes of family and belonging that underpin existing work in these two departments—leveraging existing programs and initiatives— to expand the community’s awareness of and engagement with “Love Life” as a citywide mantra against violence. To do this Citywide Communications brought on Cultural Strategist, Kev Choice, an Oakland-based educator, activist, and advocate for young people and artistry as a vehicle for social justice. Choice is partnering with the Citywide Communications Team to expand understanding of the City’s motto, to ensure that the motto is grounded in the community s o that it is embraced and carries meaning.
During “Love Life” Week, the City will host a community event on October 20th, that underpins the message of valuing life, uplifting love in our arts, honoring those uplifting love in their work in our city, and helping stop violence in our communities.
This resolution is in alignment with the City’s commitment to uplift a model of Love Life through its action plan to implement the City’s motto with public agency partners, incorporate its use of the motto in all official communication and being firmly committed to adopting a comprehensive and holistic approach to addressing the conditions that lead to violence and toward creating a climate of restoration for the individuals and communities impacted by violence. Therefore, I ask you to join me in supporting this resolution.
Yours in Service,
Treva Reid
Councilmember, District 7