Comment from Ronald Light, Executive Director, West State Alliance, with attachments, via email to Roxanne Johnson

Considering the Board's deliberations on this issue, we find it deeply offensive that our own state would enact policy that privileges large trucking companies over independent owner operators/small business, disregards the best interests of the Port of Oakland, and subjects the workers of a severely economically depressed community to still further hardship by adding punitive costs to the already high cost of doing business in an economic downturn. The testimony, discussion and comments we heard during the December 17 proceedings fly in the face of the known facts and serve to disregard the plight of many independent owner operators who are the lifeblood of goods movement at the Port. Thus, we are both saddened and outraged by the Board's decision not to support a sound goods movement strategy reflective of the economic realities of the State, the Port and the City of Oakland, nor one based on a fair and balanced position respecting the interests of all parties concerned.