Alameda County Reparations Commission asks supervisors to implement action plan

After nearly three years of research, public testimony, and community listening sessions, the Alameda County Reparations Commission is asking the Board of Supervisors to do more than accept its final report.

Commissioners want county leaders to begin implementing it.

On June 30, supervisors will receive the commission’s final Action Plan, formally conclude the commission’s work, and consider making repairing harm to Black residents a permanent part of Alameda County operations. 

The Board of Supervisors created the Reparations Commission in 2023 to study the legacy of slavery and anti-Black discrimination in Alameda County and recommend ways to repair those harms.

The report contains 44 recommendations across 12 policy areas, including housing, economic opportunity, education, criminal justice, and health. Rather than voting on each recommendation individually, supervisors are expected to consider how the county should organize and oversee implementation.

Commission Chair Debra Gore said she hopes the vote will continue Alameda County’s reparations effort, not conclude it.

“I think of this first phase as the Reparations Commission,” Gore said. “The next phase is the implementation commission.”

Gore, who chaired the commission from its inception, said commissioners spent nearly three years studying the county’s history, gathering community testimony, and developing a roadmap to reparations. 

Supervisor Nate Miley, who chaired the Board’s reparations ad hoc committee, said the report should become the starting point for future county action.

“If the commission were to go out of existence with the presentation of the report, and the ad hoc committee goes out of existence with the presentation of the report, where does it go?” Miley said. “It goes on some shelf somewhere. It disappears into thin air.”