Who We Are

Make Oakland Better Now! is a grass-roots group of voters, volunteers, and policy advocates working together to make Oakland a safer, more prosperous home for everyone. Founded in 2009, we’ve researched, lobbied, and successfully campaigned for a number of new, impactful policies, including the city’s Rainy Day Fund, Measure Z and Operation Ceasefire.

Like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter.
Email us at makeoaklandbetter@gmail.com.

Our Board Members

Carrie Crespo
Carrie Crespo-Dixon has been an Oakland resident since 2012 moving to the Bay Area from NYC in 2009.  She’s a communication professional with over two decades of experience working both in house and on the agency side.  Carrie is particularly passionate about public safety, tech equity and civic engagement on both locally and nationally.  She helped launch the first ever Technology Field Office in San Francisco during the Obama 2012 campaign in addition to working on local government elections in 2014 and 2016.

Paula Hawthorn
Paula Hawthorn, after obtaining her PhD in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from UC Berkeley, worked for most of her professional life as the vice-president of software development for startups. After retiring she became active in gun violence prevention, and is now the co-chair of the Oakland/Alameda County Brady Campaign, a member of the board of Soldiers Against Violence Everywhere, and a member of the Coalition for Police Accountability. She serves on the Oakland Services and Safety Oversight Commission and has served on the Community Policing Advisory Board. She has lived in Oakland for 25 years.

Michael Ubell
Michael Ubell has retired from a career in development of database and transaction management systems.  A 25 year resident of Oakland, he volunteers with groups working to reduce gun violence and crime and to provide access to city data and services through the use of information technology.  He is a member of the board of The S.A.V.E. Center for Community Empowerment and Change, Active member and previous chair of the steering committee of OpenOakland and Chair of the Greater Rockridge Neighborhood Crime Prevention Council.

Robert Oglivie
Robert Ogilvie is the Founder of Ogilvie Labs. Robert has a Ph.D. in Political Science from Columbia University and throughout his career, he has helped local and regional government and their corporate and non-profit partners do the following:

• build more effective institutional capacity to act in the public good
• engage and mobilize local leaders to advocate for policies to make for healthier and more economically vibrant places
• draft innovative public policies
• develop the resources necessary to implement these policies

Prior to founding Ogilvie Labs Robert was the founder of SPUR’s Oakland office where he brought people from across the political spectrum together to develop solutions to the big problems that Oakland faced.  Robert is a passionate advocate for an Oakland where all can live healthy and prosperous lives. 

Jim Pugh
Jim Pugh is a co-director of the Universal Income Project, a nonprofit devoted to the expansion of economic security and human dignity through the implementation of a universal basic income in the United States. He is also a co-founder of The Access Lab, the founder and CEO of ShareProgress, and previously served as the Director of Analytics and Development for President Obama’s Organizing for America. Jim has a Ph.D. in distributed robotics from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne, Switzerland.

Ben Gould
Ben is a policy consultant, political organizer, and East Bay native. He authored and organized the campaign for Berkeley’s 2024 Measure FF, which passed with 60% of the vote and will raise over $250 million for smoother, safer streets. As President of EcoDataLab, he prepares consumption-based greenhouse gas emissions analyses for cities across the US and Canada, helping local governments more fully understand community-wide emissions from local consumption. Born and raised in Berkeley, he holds a MS in Environmental Engineering and MPP from UC Berkeley. Ben moved to Oakland in 2023 and currently serves on the Oakland Budget Advisory Commission and is an elected Assembly District 18 delegate to the California Democratic Party.

Savlan Hauser

Derreck Johnson

Past Board Members

Bruce Nye
Bruce Nye, a life-long resident of the Bay Area and a more than 40 year resident of Oakland, was one of the founders of Make Oakland Better Now! As such, he has been a member since 2003. He and his wife raised his three children in Oakland, where all attended Oakland Public Schools. 

Mariana Gamez
Mariana has been part of MOBN! since 2018. She loves to give back to the community by helping with what she can and also decided to join MOBN to inform our Latin Community. She owns and operates her own business in the city of Oakland as an insurance agent. 

Amanda Gallo
Amanda Gallo is a lifetime resident of Oakland. She has served as a Senior Policy Analyst at the Santa Clara County Housing Authority, where she formulated policies and procedures for Section 8 and affordable housing programs, and in 2018, joined the City of Fremont, City Manager’s Office, where she leads legislative affairs activities, business operations and procedures, oversees three departmental budgets, the City’s redistricting process, and is a liaison for Fremont Library Advisory Committee. In 2021, Amanda was elected to serve a two- year term as an Assembly District 18 Delegate to the California Democratic Party.

Scott Hugo
Scott Hugo is the Housing Justice Attorney an attorney in the Affirmative Litigation, Innovation & Enforcement Division of the Oakland City Attorney’s Office. 

Stephanie Walton 
Stephanie is the Director of Major Gifts at Planned Parenthood Mar Monte and an appointed board member of the Port of Oakland. 

Sean Maher
Sean Maher is a Bay Area native and has previously served as both reporter for the former Oakland Tribune and staffer to the Oakland mayor’s office.  He is proud of Make Oakland Better Now! because of its fight for effective and accountable police practices that restore trust and build bridges with historically abused communities, its support for equitable opportunities that reach every neighborhood, and its laser focus on governmental accountability to ensure Oaklanders can enjoy responsible and transparent public services.

In Memoriam

Ed Gerber
Ed Gerber was been involved in numerous volunteer activities in Oakland over the last 10 years. He served as Chair of the Oakland Budget Advisory Commission. He was a member of the MOBN! Board, the Local School Action group that presents the annual Volunteer Fair and been a member of other volunteer groups. He volunteers in numerous political campaigns. Ed lived in Montclair and regularly hiked the Oakland hills. Prior to retiring, Ed was the CEO of an Association Management and Lobbying firm in Sacramento. His clients included numerous counties, cities and the California Transit Association (CTA). He served as the Executive Director of the CTA. In Sacramento he was involved in numerous civic activities including a City County Consolidation Commission. He also was a Deputy Administrative Officer for the County of San Diego.