Add The California Post on Google A city is under fire for the unforgivable crime of actually working.
This tiny town of 11,000 inhabitants is stuck like a stubborn raisin literally inside the geographic boundaries of Oakland. Piedmont has spent literal generations doing the stuff people across America claim they want from government: strong schools, clean streets, safe parks, working cops and neighbors who show up to meetings instead of just yelling on social media.
Naturally, activists just outside Piedmont’s city limit have decided this intolerable. “It must be stopped,” they protest.
The latest crusade comes courtesy of Oakland’s Jesse Rosemoore. He’s a professional transit planner who’s been hawking “CANCEL PIEDMONT” stickers and $10 T-shirts for over a year like some kind of vengeful street vendor.
His big idea? Piedmont is too successful, too orderly, too prosperous, and — horror of horrors — too independent.
Attractive homes, high property values, engaged parents and schools that don’t make parents weep? Clearly this is a crisis that demands the nuclear option.
Piedmont has been a charter city since 1923. That’s local democracy, folks: residents elect their own leaders, vote on their own taxes and hold their own officials accountable. Residents of Piedmont have the same right to self-determination as residents of Oakland, Berkeley, San Francisco or any other California city.
But to the cancel crowd, democracy only counts when the voters pick the “correct” outcome. Outsiders know better, apparently.
Why let the people of Piedmont live their comfy lives when you can just declare the whole place illegitimate from the armchairs of a neighboring city with its own set of challenges?
Let’s be clear: Piedmont didn’t get this way by magic or secret hedge-trimming cabals. Families, teachers, taxpayers and volunteers put in the time and money. The schools perform. The streets stay clean and safe. People pay attention.
High home prices? That’s what happens when demand builds for a place that works.
Same story in Atherton, Hillsborough and Beverly Hills. Success is contagious.
Rosemoore and company admit Oakland has zero realistic shot at annexing the place. That would require Piedmont voters to agree to it. So the whole “cancel” routine is pure theater — stickers, slogans and moral superiority without the messy business of actual governance.
Piedmont already has to meet California’s housing targets (587 units this cycle, including lower-income ones). Judge it on whether it follows the law, not on whether its existence offends the sensitivity of people who prefer tearing down to building up.
The cancel campaign confuses resentment with reform. A city that delivers results isn’t a problem to be erased. It’s proof that local democracy can still produce something better than Oakland’s chaos and excuses.
Piedmont isn’t perfect. It just works better than the alternative the stickers are selling.
So hands off. Let the people who live there keep running their town. And maybe, just maybe, take a few notes instead of trying to burn the model.
Richie Greenberg is a political commentator based on San Francisco.
