APPROVED AS TO FORM AND LEGALITY
________________________
CITY ATTORNEY’S OFFICE
OAKLAND CITY COUNCIL
RESOLUTION NO. ______________ C.M.S.
INTRODUCED BY COUNCIL PRESIDENT NIKKI FORTUNATO BAS
RESOLUTION COMMEMORATIVELY RENAMING ALICE STREET
BETWEEN NINTH AND TENTH STREET AS “SHERRY HIROTA WAY”
PURSUANT TO THE POLICY AND CRITERIA ESTABLISHED BY
RESOLUTION NO. 77967 C.M.S.
WHEREAS, an application has been submitted by the Office of Council President Nikki Fortunato Bas requesting the commemorative street naming of Alice Street between 9th Street and 10th Street as Sherry Hirota Way; and
WHEREAS, California Government Code Section 34091.1 allows a jurisdiction by resolution to name a new public street or to rename an existing public street; and WHEREAS, the naming of a new public street or the renaming of an existing public street is exempt from the California Environmental Quality Act of 1970; and WHEREAS, the City Council will occasionally honor the contributions of an outstanding individual with commemorative street names or by the renaming of a public street such as with Joe Morgan Way, Herbert Guice Way, Peter Van Kleef Way, Dr. Huey P. Newton Way, Deontae Bush Way, Dorothy King Way, and Too Short Way; and
WHEREAS, in 2003, the City Council established procedures for commemorative street naming through Resolution No. 77967 C.M.S. under which the City Council may, by its own motion, consider the renaming of a public street as a tribute to an individual, or as a result of a significant event or activity if one of the following conditions is met:
The individual has positively impacted the lives of a nation or the world; or The name change is related to an economic development or redevelopment activity; or The renaming commemorates a significant historical event; and
2 WHEREAS, the City Council may commemorate a nominee by either: 1) retaining the existing street name and installing commemorative plaques or signs; or 2) renaming the existing street for the individual and installing new street signs; and
WHEREAS, the City Council finds that Ms. Sherry Hirota’s contributions to the Bay Area community eminently merit commemoration:
Sherry Hirota began at Asian Health Services (AHS) in 1976, when it was a storefront in Oakland Chinatown with nine staff. Over the past 47 years, Ms. Hirota led the small clinic to its current stature as a nationally ranked Federally Qualified Health Center with 12 main sites, employing 450 community members, and serving 50,000 patients in 12 languages.
Beyond a high-quality community health center, Sherry Hirota built a powerhouse of advocacy and health care equity for Asians and Pacific Islander Americans (AAPI), recognized on a local, state, and national level. For more than 40 years, Ms. Hirota has developed strategies, multicultural coalitions, and legions of leaders and followers in service to the vision that AAPIs matter and have a right to care and compassion in language and in culture. She was a founder of two of the nation’s first Asian Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander health organizations: The Asian Pacific Islander American Health Forum (APIAHF) and the Association of Asian Pacific Community Health Organizations (AAPCHO). Pioneering awareness and legislation of AAPI health needs, she has strengthened the agenda, practice, and alliances for Minority Health and the nation’s attention to health disparities for all people of color and the underserved. On the State level, Ms. Hirota along with the Latino Coalition negotiated the first-ever CA State Managed Care Standards for Linguistic and Cultural Competence. With a focus on the continuity of the organization’s stability, impact, and its high caliber performance, Ms. Hirota will continue on with Asian Health Services as Chief Strategy Officer and Founding Executive.
Sherry Hirota’s understanding that a community’s ability to thrive and promote wellness is not driven by health care alone. In the City of Oakland, she orchestrated the efforts to install the City’s first scramble system to promote pedestrian safety where numerous elderlies in Chinatown had been run over and killed. She was instrumental in bringing to BART’s attention the environmental impact and community development needs in their Lake Merritt BART Station plans.
Coalition leadership and solidarity have been a major contribution of Sherry Hirota to the unity of the Bay Area’s diverse communities. In the wake of Proposition 13 cuts and budget devastation, Ms. Hirota formed the Labor Community Coalition for Jobs and Services. Every sector of the city and county community-based organizations and labor banded together like-minded forces from activists for disability rights to mental health advocates, and more, to stand united against the divisive cuts through sit-ins, testimonies, rallies, and education to bolster one another and declare that no one organization was more important than the others. 3 She was a leader in the Alameda Health Consortium building on the mutual support and joint advocacy of Native American, LatinX, African American, LGBTQ, serving health centers.
Sherry Hirota Co-Chairs the One Nation Commission and is the Founder of One Nation AAPI and helped galvanize the AAPI community and turn around the threat of the public charge rule. Together with 266,077 people, 23,000 of whom were AAPI, spoke out and shared their stories. These powerful testimonies shed light on threatening issues presented by the proposed rule that would impact families, the economy, and our health care system.
Sherry Hirota advises Congressional leaders on health issues ranging from eligibility criteria for indigent care population-based medically underserved designations, strategies for urban health policy, language access standards, and stabilization of core infrastructure funding for community-based organizations. She also intentionally forges coalitions and partnerships with multi-ethnic, multi-racial, disabled, and LGBTQ advocates to build unity around each other’s common agendas and strengthen impact for the greater good.
Sherry Hirota has served on the Boards and Advisory Councils of numerous influential philanthropic, advocacy, health care policy, and governmental organizations, including The California Endowment, Edible School Yard, and served as Chair of the East Bay Community Foundation. Among many awards, she has been inducted into the Community Health Center Network’s Hall of Fame and the SF State University Hall of Fame, has received the Health Equity Champion award from Centers of Disease Control, the California State Legislature Martin Luther King Legacy Award, Outstanding Woman of the Year in Health-Alameda County Women’s Hall of Fame award, Robert Wood Johnson Community Health Leadership Award, and was Woman of the Year for the 16th Assembly District of California.
Sherry Hirota is a third-generation Japanese-American living in Oakland, CA, whose grandparents came to the U.S. in 1908, speaking no English, working in the railroads as laborers. Her grandparents Konoye and Masajiro Hirota worked a laundry at 1424 14th Street in West Oakland while raising five children. By the 1920s, Oakland’s Japantown (between Chinatown/Downtown and West Oakland) included 5 churches, 4 Japanese halls, 3 Japanese schools, 7 associations, 5 bathhouses, 5 hotels, 4 barbers, 5 beauty salons, 8 Japanese goods stores, a Jodo Dojo and several doctors and dentists serving a population of 2,709 Japanese Americans (see map). In 1935, her grandfather, Masajiro Hirota, was a Board member and a founder of the Oakland Buddhist Church. Despite World War II incarceration, freeway forced relocation, and racial/religious hostility, the Church operates and stands to this day at 835 Jackson Street.
4 WHEREAS, the City Council intends to honor Sherry Hirota’s contribution to Oakland and the Bay Area by retaining the existing street name, adding an additional honorary street name
5 and installing commemorative plaques or signs and intends that the costs associated with such a commemorative act will be borne by Councilmember Nikki Fortunato Bas’ Office and Asian Health Services; now, therefore, be it
RESOLVED: That the Council of the City of Oakland hereby approves the commemorative renaming of Alice Street between 9th Street and 10th Street as “Sherry Hirota Way”; and be it
FURTHER RESOLVED: That the City Council directs the City Administrator to proceed with the commemorative designation of “Sherry Hirota Way” and placement of sign(s) or plaque(s) to that effect on Alice Street between 9th Street and 10th Street.
IN COUNCIL, OAKLAND, CALIFORNIA, PASSED BY THE FOLLOWING VOTE: AYES - FIFE, GALLO, JENKINS, KALB, KAPLAN, RAMACHANDRAN, REID, AND PRESIDENT FORTUNATO BAS NOES – ABSENT – ABSTENTION – ATTEST: ASHA REED City Clerk and Clerk of the Council of the City of Oakland, California 3267192v1 / SW