Monthly Archives: November 2014

http://www.businessinsider.com/best-private-high-schools-america-2014-11?op=1

The last time I checked Head Royce was higher and CPS was a lot lower.
What does this mean that so many schools are located in Oakland, SF and SJ? It seems that rising tides would lift all boats. In other words, the super capable kids and quality faculty that didn’t make it into these elite schools and are forced to attend the next level schools in Oakland should be raising the bar on these other schools…is that happening?

What does this mean to black families?

Are you afraid of sending your boys out on prom night?

http://www.yourblackworld.net/school-administrator%E2%80%99s-tweet-about-the-%E2%80%9Cnightmare%E2%80%9D-of-white-girls-dating-black-boys-sparks-protests/

http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/2014/11/18/arts-not-dead-15-new-projects-and-spaces-in-the-bay-area/

50% of the people in America live within 50 miles from where they grew up; I live one freeway exit from where I was born.  There is a certain sense of pride that locals have that newcomers don’t understand; it isn’t that you aren’t equal, it isn’t that you can’t lead; it isn’t that you couldn’t possibly care as much for my city as I do.  It’s three things: it is what I know from my very inception to the world and the basis for my identity, I didn’t come here to find something that was missing elsewhere for me, and I am not using my entry point in this space as a jumping off to somewhere else.  That can be said for half of the citizens all around this country.

Now how does it differ in the city; in this city of Oakland?  For reasons that cannot fully be explained in this post, much of the differentiation is the difference of Oakland on the national landscape.  SF ran out all its black people; SJ never really had any.  Of the 6 cities west of the Mississippi that have the 3 major sports teams, for now, Oakland is the only city on the west coast that can make that boast.  There are so many firsts here; the terminus for the Transcontinental Railroad, the Black Panthers, Amelia Earhart departing for the Pacific Ocean.  This is not a sister city to San Francisco; it is the step-sister middle child to San Jose and San Francisco.  Throw in the highest crime rates, devastating fires, earthquakes, military closures, school takeovers, and the fall of MC Hammer, and you have the makings of the armpit of the Bay Area.  But as bad as Oakland has stunk it up, it has been the base of janitors who come from the basement of the down trodden to spruce–no Oak it up.  At a time when the perception was that Oakland was a city filled with a bunch of minorities and deviants not worth saving , we always had a comeback.

Now, Oakland is becoming the place-to-be, slowly but surely, and the people who have paved the way are growing increasingly dispassionate about the folks who will be reaping those benefits.  Oakland is on the edge of its own Pygmalion, and we long timers want to make sure that we don’t miss the ball at the expense of an Alamedan via San Franciscan via Ivy League grad via Midwest transplant.  At the same time, nothing is better than watching your kids achieve greatness and prepare themselves to be responsible, capable adults.

At the national level, it is rare to get someone who represents this persona; the stage is just too big.  Presidents don’t represent the people; neither do Senators.  It is common to get people in the House of Representatives who do match the pulse of the constituency; but the Mayor should be the people.

With that, Libby Schaaf is my 2^nd choice for mayor.

There is something to be said for going through the traditional channels, and paying your dues.  There is something to be said for having Oakland leadership come out and support you.  If we want to address the argument about being there, working for Oakland at every level, and understanding how to govern, Schaaf is a front runner.

The first thing that turned heads in 2010 when she joined the City Council is that she began her tenure being objective and challenging her old boss in Ignacio De La Fuente over issues of fairness and governance.  Schaaf blew everyone away, because we figured that it would be business as usual, and she would be a rubber stamp to the De la Fuente-Perata machine.  She wasn’t.

Schaaf also represents a decidedly different direction in Oakland; the younger demographic that is weighing the balance between urban life, career development, and family obligation.  We haven’t seen a working woman; hell, a working person ever have to juggle that at the highest levels in Oakland—yes Quan has kids, but never a career, and a successful husband—gotta love the energy and the sense of urgency from a candidate that understands the people.

Schaaf is very clear in articulating her position: what she thinks, what she has done, what she will do.  http://libbyformayor.com/issues/government.pdf  What a novel notion; tell the people what you would like to do.  Again, we see Schaaf taking the time to treat the citizens as adults, and be specific about what her goal are.

Challenge:  Schaaf is going to need to do some fence mending.  Seriously.  Having a history in working for the first Latino City Council member as his Chief of Staff, working for the Port of Oakland, Governor Brown, former California State Senate leader Don Perata, one gets to be a political animal.  You know the community like no other, you cut deals with other councilmembers, you know the city at a fundamentally different level than your administrative counterparts.  Growing up in Oakland during the time that she and I did in the 70’s and 80’s, that was a magical time of integrated leadership, integrated neighborhoods.  Unlike today, if you were white in Oakland in 1980, you were hear BECAUSE of the diversity that was enriched largely through its black population; not because Oakland was cheaper than San Francisco, not because you want to create a viable, competing gay outpost to SF, not because you want your ethnicity to take over since it is your turn.  Yet, only one black group and no Hispanic community based groups endorsed her campaign in a major way.  For a lifelong resident, she should have many, many significant relationships with these groups.  If Schaaf had shown her real strengths as I know them and made an early attempt to engage these constituencies, this race wouldn’t even be close.

Finally, one thing that Schaaf is…..is HUNGRY.  You can tell that this is where she started but not where she plans to end; if she is seeking higher office—and she will—the one saving grace in all of that is she is prepared to perform at a high level, if for no other reason than to ensure she gets promoted.  Again, I like someone who understands the need to produce.

50% of the people in America live within 50 miles from where they grew up; I live one freeway exit from where I was born.  There is a certain sense of pride that locals have that newcomers don’t understand; it isn’t that you aren’t equal, it isn’t that you can’t lead; it isn’t that you couldn’t possibly care as much for my city as I do.  It’s three things: it is what I know from my very inception to the world and the basis for my identity, I didn’t come here to find something that was missing elsewhere for me, and I am not using my entry point in this space as a jumping off to somewhere else.  That can be said for half of the citizens all around this country.

Now how does it differ in the city; in this city of Oakland?  For reasons that cannot fully be explained in this post, much of the differentiation is the difference of Oakland on the national landscape.  SF ran out all its black people; SJ never really had any.  Of the 6 cities west of the Mississippi that have the 3 major sports teams, for now, Oakland is the only city on the west coast that can make that boast.  There are so many firsts here; the terminus for the Transcontinental Railroad, the Black Panthers, Amelia Earhart departing for the Pacific Ocean.  This is not a sister city to San Francisco; it is the step-sister middle child to San Jose and San Francisco.  Throw in the highest crime rates, devastating fires, earthquakes, military closures, school takeovers, and the fall of MC Hammer, and you have the makings of the armpit of the Bay Area.  But as bad as Oakland has stunk it up, it has been the base of janitors who come from the basement of the down trodden to spruce–no Oak it up.  At a time when the perception was that Oakland was a city filled with a bunch of minorities and deviants not worth saving , we always had a comeback.

Now, Oakland is becoming the place-to-be, slowly but surely, and the people who have paved the way are growing increasingly dispassionate about the folks who will be reaping those benefits.  Oakland is on the edge of its own Pygmalion, and we long timers want to make sure that we don’t miss the ball at the expense of an Alamedan via San Franciscan via Ivy League grad via Midwest transplant.  At the same time, nothing is better than watching your kids achieve greatness and prepare themselves to be responsible, capable adults.

At the national level, it is rare to get someone who represents this persona; the stage is just too big.  Presidents don’t represent the people; neither do Senators.  It is common to get people in the House of Representatives who do match the pulse of the constituency; but the Mayor should be the people.

With that, Libby Schaaf is my 2^nd choice for mayor.

There is something to be said for going through the traditional channels, and paying your dues.  There is something to be said for having Oakland leadership come out and support you.  If we want to address the argument about being there, working for Oakland at every level, and understanding how to govern, Schaaf is a front runner.

The first thing that turned heads in 2010 when she joined the City Council is that she began her tenure being objective and challenging her old boss in Ignacio De La Fuente over issues of fairness and governance.  Schaaf blew everyone away, because we figured that it would be business as usual, and she would be a rubber stamp to the De la Fuente-Perata machine.  She wasn’t.

Schaaf also represents a decidedly different direction in Oakland; the younger demographic that is weighing the balance between urban life, career development, and family obligation.  We haven’t seen a working woman; hell, a working person ever have to juggle that at the highest levels in Oakland—yes Quan has kids, but never a career, and a successful husband—gotta love the energy and the sense of urgency from a candidate that understands the people.

Schaaf is very clear in articulating her position: what she thinks, what she has done, what she will do.  http://libbyformayor.com/issues/government.pdf  What a novel notion; tell the people what you would like to do.  Again, we see Schaaf taking the time to treat the citizens as adults, and be specific about what her goal are.

Challenge:  Schaaf is going to need to do some fence mending.  Seriously.  Having a history in working for the first Latino City Council member as his Chief of Staff, working for the Port of Oakland, Governor Brown, former California State Senate leader Don Perata, one gets to be a political animal.  You know the community like no other, you cut deals with other councilmembers, you know the city at a fundamentally different level than your administrative counterparts.  Growing up in Oakland during the time that she and I did in the 70’s and 80’s, that was a magical time of integrated leadership, integrated neighborhoods.  Unlike today, if you were white in Oakland in 1980, you were hear BECAUSE of the diversity that was enriched largely through its black population; not because Oakland was cheaper than San Francisco, not because you want to create a viable, competing gay outpost to SF, not because you want your ethnicity to take over since it is your turn.  Yet, only one black group and no Hispanic community based groups endorsed her campaign in a major way.  For a lifelong resident, she should have many, many significant relationships with these groups.  If Schaaf had shown her real strengths as I know them and made an early attempt to engage these constituencies, this race wouldn’t even be close.

Finally, one thing that Schaaf is…..is HUNGRY.  You can tell that this is where she started but not where she plans to end; if she is seeking higher office—and she will—the one saving grace in all of that is she is prepared to perform at a high level, if for no other reason than to ensure she gets promoted.  Again, I like someone who understands the need to produce.

There is something beautiful about being in the most integrated community in America.  In some ways, it represents the best of what our country has to offer.  Hang out in front of Lake Merritt on a weekend and you’ll see hundreds of people enjoying themselves.

It doesn’t mean that everyone is some hyper mixed amalgam of each other; it does mean that its pretty difficult to go for a long distance and not find people from different backgrounds, living in the same environment.  It also suggests that your family, your friends, your work associates, and your places of community are likely to be ethnically from all over the place.

The more you are involved with other people, the more likely you are to make decisions based on the content of the character and less on the perceptions of others.  That’s because it will be harder to find individuals to place into a stereotypical box.  There are so many places in this country; heck, in this Bay Area, that you are more likely to catch Ebola than you are to catch a brotha.  There is something very calming about walking around and people not being surprised to see one of ‘you’ present.

Yet, there is an ugly side to diversity of this sort: it is the certainty of pissing someone off who is different from you.  It can be the saying of an outdated phrase, the introduction of a newcomer who doesn’t recognize the history or contributions of the people already there, the alienation of choice (like having a playdate or birthday party for your child and not inviting the only ‘other’ kid in class), or exercising your particular beliefs that are in direct conflict with someone else’s.  In politics, it is the ignoring of a particular group, and it is the inclusion of a group when they want to be left out.

In politics, if you hold a press conference and some ‘ism’ isn’t there, they are going to call you out for not welcoming them.  If you challenge someone from that same ism, someone is going to call you a bigot or a racist.  Unlike a monolithic, homogenous group—the great state of Vermont, the national Republican Party, the Nation of Islam—you can be insulated and survive if you make a mistake about an outsider, because the group doesn’t have the same visceral concern as the entity being singled out.  But try that in Oakland, and you are vilified.

What you do after you make the conflict occur is your measure of character in a pluralistic society.  If you chose to make the conflict happen on purpose, because you have the need to stir up change, it is not going to go well for you.  Yet there are times when you find out things that you cannot ignore any longer, and you have a moral obligation to address that fight, even if it costs you.  That is the sign of leadership.

With that, I am supporting Courtney Ruby as my 3^rd choice for Mayor.

Courtney gets the nod for a variety of reasons; she understands the issues, she has demonstrated an ability to work in a complex environment, she has a vision for funding her administration issues.  If for nothing else, she took the elected position of City Auditor seriously.  In a decidedly union controlled city government, she went after the elephant hiding in the corner of the room under a lampshade and turned on the light.  She has discovered millions of dollars being wasted in city government.  Ruby actually ran the numbers to find cost savings, $9 million in public works, $2.5 million in parking fees, $3 million in payroll: http://www.courtneyruby.com/do-the-math-oakland/, and has asked for whistleblowers to help expose mismanagement.

For the life of me, I cannot understand how you could be a candidate for Mayor and not try to find a comparative advantage in speaking to the numbers against a mayor that doesn’t understand numbers.  There were 20 Mayoral debates over the last 3 months, and very rarely was the issue of the actual financials of the city ever articulated by most of the top candidates.  Why?  Because the candidates never bothered to get the specifics from the city auditors office.  For all of the grandstanding the Mayor and other candidates have had, in the year head start these candidates had on Ruby by entering the race late, only Tuman went to her to ask about the city’s financials.

Far too often, much of the electeds take themselves and not the role of the position to heart.  Ruby practices what she preaches.  For years, she lived in a rough neighborhood in East Oakland; she joined local community based organizations, and as a single person, she adopted two biracial black boys, all without fanfare.

Challenge: the character she possesses in working behind the scenes, not tooting her own horn, and not defending herself when allegations of racism were levied against her has not served her well in the race for Mayor.  Her high road has been interpreted as soft or an admission of guilt.  Additionally, serving as the city’s accountant does not translate into serving as the city’s cheerleading chief officer.  Ruby needed to make her case to the community, and she needed to be out ahead of the pack; there simply may not be enough time for her to fully articulate herself, despite being elected twice in citywide elections as auditor.  Ruby showed her toughness by being the candidate with the most to lose in this race; if she loses, she’s out of office—unlike Libby Schaaf, would could conceivably run for City Council in the At-Large seat in the case of a Kaplan win for mayor (Kaplan would need to give up her seat prematurely, leaving the window for a special election), Ruby has no other place to go.  I admire someone who is willing to give up an easy incumbent win and take the chance to lead at a more visible level.

Paraphrasing the Bible verse Luke 12:48, John F. Kennedy once said  “To those whom much is given, much is expected.”  At 43, he became the youngest and the 1^st Catholic President of the United States.  He also became the 1^st President born in the 20^th Century, and his ascendancy represented the best and brightest taking center stage in leading America forward.  Kennedy was well aware of his elite, privileged position within his community and the moral obligation to service that his state required.

Martin Luther King Kennedy’s contemporary and a giant in the African American community, was hardly the financial elite in either black or white comparisons for the time.  Yet King was the third generation of black preachers, and he himself obtained a PhD from Boston University.

King and Kennedy, coming from different sides of the track were both able to prove their standing by articulating their positions on governance; they were deep thinkers, and understood that people wouldn’t follow them simply because they were rich or well educated.  Further, they matched the rhetorical by establishing themselves in their respective communities with credible records of years of public service before assuming the spotlight and higher organizational leadership, a tradition that continues today in the Democratic community as with Obama.  Finally, they showed a reverence to the giants of the past, and were able to be catapulted into the American consciousness because old school people believed in them, counseled them in the ways of the past, and remained an integral part of their advisory teams, even when they had transitioned leadership to the youth.

With that, I will not be voting for Bryan Parker.

Illustrating the promise of America, at age 43 Bryan Parker launched a candidacy that represents the potential of blacks when they work hard.  Parker is part of the new wave of educated African Americans, with a distinct difference that may or may not present an advantage: his management experiences and leadership development did not come from service.  Parker imagery plays off of the notion that professional achievement with the association that professional management, particularly in technology, will transform Oakland.  It is the moderate Republican election blueprint in a decidedly left of center Democratic city.

With the tactical plan of incorporating social media and online marketing to make for regular, cheap outreach to the younger voters, the Parker team jumped out ahead of everyone.  He was the 1^st candidate in the field of 15, and raised more money than all of the other candidates combined by June 2013.  He was able to show the power of organization, and pointed to his knack for innovation as singling himself out as a different kind of candidate.  Like many technology driven leaders, they try to show the efficacy of what technology can offer an organization.

Almost 18 months later, what Parker’s candidacy frequently represents instead is the ugly side of the dot com generation: uncontained ego, lack of truth, accept-a-disjointed-vision-because-I-say-so, the request for support because I personally have been successful (and therefore know what I’m doing), people don’t matter, winning by any means does.

This campaign illustrates they have a penchant of wanting to be first rather than wanting to be right.  He is the paparazzi among journalists in the 2014 campaign.

Take for example, last winter.  In an overnight maneuver, Parker placed hundreds of campaign signs around the city, months ahead of any other competitor.  Strategic, yet a campaign violation.  Because of the speed, clandestine nature and the manner in which the signs were posted, it was clear that it was a professional job and not the work of any grassroots, volunteer team.  It was a calculated move to garner name and face recognition.  The additional, most disturbing problem was that the signs were illegally placed.  All of the signs were on city, state, federal, county, and military property, and none were at businesses or the residences of voters.  They were placed in dangerous intersections and freeway onramps, places visible for safety thoroughfares, but targets to reach high traffic areas for commuters.

Of the top candidates, his platform is the most incomplete.  Two of his three major platform positions involve schools and education— a play to families, but limiting in real value when you realize that the governance of the school district and the management of the city are two distinct systems with different leadership in place.

The area that should be a position of strength for Parker—economic growth—suffers from a lack of vision, and a real awareness of what is happening in the area.  http://bryanparker.org/policy-platform/  In the Economic development platform, there is a goal of 20,000 jobs (last year it was 10,000) by 2020.  When we go through the plan, we discover that 16,000 of these jobs are directly attributed to the Port of Oakland, a place the Parker knows very well is most influenced by the Port Commission (to which he currently serves) and not the efforts of Oakland city government.  Moreover, over 21,000 jobs were created in the Oakland-Hayward-Fremont area just from September 2013 to September 2014.  Not a real ambitious goal of creating 6,000 jobs in 6 years for the largest city in the Eastbay for a job creator.

While serving on the Workforce Investment Board, and later becoming the Board Chair, he not only didn’t create jobs, but was on the watch when Oakland had to return $600,000 to the federal government because the WIB couldn’t create jobs as mandated by the federal grant.  If Parker wants to create the fastest jobs possible, he clearly isn’t speaking to the African American community or an unskilled labor force.  Fast jobs come in two ways: high tech and fast food; the former that can’t get, and the latter they don’t want.

Since graduating from college 20 years ago, Parker hasn’t held a position for more than 3 years in any company; perhaps a laudatory climb in technology, but a treacherous sign in leadership and governance.  People want you to show you can stick to something, and seeking a job that would be your longest commitment is not a good thing.

The 2000 pound gorilla in the room is the black political community.  Parker cannot escape the obvious; the old school doesn’t see him as loyal, and there doesn’t seem to be anything he won’t do to enrich himself.  There are several unanswered questions out there about Parker as a person, and his relationships, and his civic engagement, yet he won’t answer them.  The lack of social graces and lack of historical knowledge (and reverence) is adding to the narrative.  Mayor Jean Quan confidant Sandre Swanson convinced her to remove a progressive black female from the Port Commission and appoint Parker.  She did.  Two months later, she found out that Parker had lied to her about his political aspirations, and was running against her.  I don’t care about lying to Quan; that is a part of the game these folks play.  It is about the older, disappearing black generation giving him a shot to obtain experience, it’s about trust, and it’s about respect for someone that goes out on a limb to support you, particularly when you’ve done nothing to warrant that support.

Too much about this campaign speaks to outsider—not of the political system, but of Oakland altogether.  No Oakland roots; no Oakland family, no significant contributions to the community as a whole.  Over 2/3 of his contributions are from outside the area, and most of his endorsements come from outsiders.  Even when you look at the internal endorsements, they come from groups like the Oakland Chamber of Commerce, a group that until 6 months ago, had an Executive Director for 17 years that lived 2 counties away.  When the #1 cheerleader for Oakland business doesn’t even live in the county, or the next one, you don’t have to be a rocket scientist to see that they don’t really have Oakland in their veins.

The real credible nod comes from African American clergy—until you read between the lines and realize that he was not only selected as a distant 2^nd choice (nearly tied for 3^rd ), but the only African American candidate chosen by the clergy.  This was a mercy nod to Parker.  If he didn’t make the cut, it would have amounted to an unprecedented move for the black church not to select any black candidate; and would have sent ripples in the black community.  Thus, they were forced to make that vote.

Hours after the announcement, Parker’s campaign went public and stated that they were the black Pastor’s choice in Oakland.  By the afternoon, they had been called out by the clergy, and pulled the endorsement letter.

We expected more out of Parker; perhaps because the young elite black community knows him and anticipated he would understand our tenuous position in the 16^th largest black city in America; perhaps because he said he understood business, development, and job creation but provides no solutions; perhaps because he is more likely to cite the merits of Mitt Romney than he is MLK.  I think it’s because he is not a part of the 99%, and we are not accustomed to someone black without real passion for the traditional downtrodden in urban America.  For the last year, Parker has shown a penchant to ignore them; dozens of posts about Oakland, with no references to the disadvantaged; a facebook page that displayed pictures of Oakland, with no pictures of East Oakland, and a smattering of scenes that included blacks.  We expected him to be more black, and it ain’t happenin’.  This isn’t for the obvious reason that he is black; it is for the notion that someone who pledges an African American fraternity, is a returning member of 100 Black Men of America, attends an African American church, and is the Chair of the Workforce Investment Board, you’d expect him to relate to the critical challenges of education, crime, business development, gentrification, and political coalitions through osmosis.  There is a real reason why Parker saw no endorsements or political lift from his involvement in these institutions; they don’t trust him….and to represent my interests at a local level, neither do I.

There are three things central to your job if you are the Director of a nonprofit, educational institution, or government agency.  If you can perform well in all three, you will keep your position; if you can do two of the three, you are likely to keep your post; but if you can perform only one, others might be hired to perform the other two, but you have to be able to perform the remaining, specific aspect of this work very well.

First, you must be able to articulate the vision of the organization.  What is the 1 year plan?  5 year?  10 year?  How does the organization work with all its parts?  How does it work with people in the community?  Business? Outside agencies?  What is the organization trying to accomplish, and what does it need to make these goals a reality?

Second, you must be able to manage the organization.  Operations move smoothly, turnover is kept to a minimum; morale is good, organizational divisions work with each other for a common purpose, internal systems are always seeking to improve; budgets are balanced, costs are contained.  The organization is a business, and you need to manage the business aspects of the company.

Third, you have to bring in the money.  If you are a nonprofit, you must generate significant resources with your development plan.  If you are a school, you need to find donors from the business community, federal, state, foundation grants, and use of the parents and alumni.  If you are a government agency, you reallocate money from the budget, lobby more money from the head agency (i.e. the state, the feds), you must bring in more tax revenue through enhancements, or you may bring in more money with the addition to the tax base—luring more business to the city.

If you cannot do #1 and #2 successfully, the organization can hire someone to do those things and let you bring in the money–it makes your standing a little questionable, but you could survive.

With that, I will not be voting to reelect Jean Quan.

As Mayor, she deserves the harshest/longest critique, because she has the job and wants to keep it.

In my Public Administration graduate school program, a professor once told us that that if you are up for a vote for City Manager, and the City Council doesn’t give you a unanimous vote, don’t take the position.  The rationale is that you already have at least one person against you before you take the job, and it can only get worse from there.  In 2010, Quan had 77% of the people vote for someone else as their first choice.  When over ¾ of the voters don’t make you a first choice, you need to understand that it is in your best interest to listen and learn.  In the last year, she has not polled higher than 22%, and is currently under 20%. Quan’s favorable ratings went from 66% positive to 66% negative within six months, and the sentiment hasn’t changed in well over 2 years.   It has indeed, gotten worse for her.  Why?

There are a variety of factors; she is everywhere—gala dinners, ballet fundraisers, ringside at boxing matches, cease fire walks…but the more you see her, the less you like her.  Quan is abrupt, aloof, and rarely engages people eye to eye—or without a phone in hand, texting and playing with messages in the middle of conversations.  The Daily Kos reported two years ago that after the Blueford’s son was killed by the police, Quan said to the family “you’re probably going to sue me right?”  But if being rude was a job killer, the Department of Motor Vehicles would be a self sustaining unemployment office.  Oakland politics, in such a friendly city, often produces the rudest people you’d ever meet.  I for one am ready to oust all of the rude politicians just for turning on their constituents alone, but I do understand that people become jaded when being bullied behind those walls…so there has to be another reason why we don’t like what we’re seeing, when we see Quan.

Call it the Facebook Paradox: the more you are seen doing an activity, the less people think you’re working…at the same time, the more you stay away from that activity you are known to frequent, people start thinking you’re blowing them off.  Get on FB a lot and people think you’re playing all the time..get off FB because you have things to do and don’t respond with any regularity and people think you don’t want to talk to them.  There was a time before the Occupy events that Quan could be regularly seen at City Hall.  Her online calendar has places where her schedule hasn’t been updated in 3 years. Based on my Director criteria, she looks as if she cannot sit down long enough to work a project.

Item #1: There is no well articulated vision from this Mayor; four years ago she started off by stating that she wanted to take the city back, block by block….I don’t know who she was taking it from, but I know who she’s not giving it to.  What does Oakland look like in a decade?  Who is here?  What relationships are being fostered to manage this change?

Item #2: Strength—Quan gets smart people around her.  Weakness—most of these people leave quickly.  Her top administrators have turned over twice;  not including 4 City Administrators and 4 Police Chiefs, she couldn’t work with the outgoing City Auditor, or the previous City Attorney.  Sandre Swanson saved her administration.  The long term budget is in shambles, and the shell game is over.  We are going to be responsible for tens of millions in expenditures, and she has demonstrated no real plan to address this.  The restaurant boom and climate change are saving us; more people are eating out because we’ve had 150 days with a trace or two of rainfall, and we can’t sit in our homes when it’s more than 75 degrees in Oakland.  You cannot balance a budget on my sustainability at Pican.

Item #3: Money management.  Job #1 Oakland School Board.  Served for 12 years;  longest tenured person present at the Board level when she left.  2 months after she won a City Council seat, we find out the Oakland Unified School District is one the verge of bankruptcy.  Takes over as head of finance committee for Oakland; then we find we are in deep doo doo. Takes over as Mayor, blames Ron Dellums for the fiscal crisis.  Same pattern for working with middle managers….at one point, says that she is trying to talk with Police Chief Batts, but that he won’t return her calls.  Says City Attorney John Russo won’t talk with her.  Says that she cannot get the Warriors to sit down with her, and the Oakland A’s won’t meet with her either; none of these issues are her fault.  You cannot tell people that you are the only candidate that you know what to do andwill hit the ground running, yet you blame every fiscal and management problem on the previous administrations.  Right now, we are not getting the real truth about the fiscal bombs that are awaiting us in the next 3 years, and it is more than unfortunate that Quan continues to spin the successes; it boarders on the unethical.  There is either a crisis of will or skill in coming clean about our debt; the will comes in the form of doing the right thing and addressing the systemic problems (pensions, for example), and the skill—let’s face it—aptitude—of our impending meltdown.  One shouldn’t have to wonder if the Mayor is smart enough or engaged enough or not beholden to special interests enough to tackle this, but that is what we’re left with.

There is a flying off the handle diplomacy from this Mayor that is unsettling and uncomfortable; Quan has a tendency to say whatever is on her mind, which is absolutely, positively fine for me, I love the honesty that comes from unfiltered speech—but what comes from her are barbershop-like truisms.  The cops waited until she left town to strike at Occupy Wall Street folk and she was set up to look bad; the cops booted her car after the election not because she failed to pay over $1000 in parking fines but for some other reason; the 100 Block Theory, which she asserted that most of the crime in Oakland happened in these specific blocks was someone else’s fault;  the budget gaffes, the we-will-get-everything-that-we-want-because-he(the Crown Prince of Dubai)-is-loaded-and-people-from-two-nations (Saudi Arabia and Dubai)-that-hate-each-other-will-come-together-for-doing-business-in-Oakland-with-me; she simply says things that no one prompted her to say that end up sounding like the rantings of the unbalanced.

But the race baiting has been the worst; on many occasions, Quan has spoken highly of the histories of Asians—no, Chinese specifically—in Oakland and in general, talking about how much they contribute to the mosaic and how much they are the real drivers of the Oakland economy.  When asked by ‘someone’ about having 50% of the cops serving in Oakland come from the black community because Oakland is 50% black, she didn’t answer the cop question which was a real question that spoke to the issues of police brutality, insensitivity of the dominant culture to the multicultural community it serves, outreach efforts to make a police force look different that it currently does, representative enforcement, a police force that doesn’t engender credibility; job creation for Oaklanders, etc.; she went to the race card.  Quan remarked that she felt she needed to tell everyone that Oakland was only about 28% black, suggesting that they needed to know so that they could feel comfortable in coming to Oakland.  It was as if she was saying, ‘no, it’s not that bad,’ we are getting rid of the blacks as we speak.  And speaking of blacks, the only reason why her administration is not in a complete shambles is because of the black leadership.  There is no other way to say it than to state it: the black administrators of this city have saved it, and if we’re going to go racial, we should be singing the praises of the Sandre’s, Reggie’s and the Henry’s acting and performing like the adults in the room, instead of implying anything else.

There is a backhanded, disturbing message her supporters are sending when they defend Quan’s personality by itself; and disingenuousness when they spin her policies.  There is absolutely no reason to get nasty because someone doesn’t like what is happening—listen and change it; if you cannot or will not, accept the criticism, or accept the consequences.  But stop talking down to citizens as if they’re ignorant for not accepting the greatness that is the Quan.  It is not racism or sexism to ask the tough questions and to be very critical.  As an aside, I have been called a Chinese black since I was 2 years old. My City Council member has been a woman since I have been able to vote, my Congress representative has been female for 16 years, my Senators are female, my Alameda County Board representative has been female for the last couple of decades; most of the time my City Attorney, City Auditor, State Representatives and School Board members have been female.  They have been lesbian and straight, white, black, and Asian women…Oakland has had only one white man on City Council in 2 of the last 12 years.  Can we stop with the unfounded attacks of sexism or racism as they relate to Oakland’s governance?  We have a lot of underlying bigotry and outright racism going on, particularly within the business community and the introduction of our new residents (a topic I will discuss another day) but stop trying to push that as a reason for failure in this case; it cheapens the argument for everyone.

A seasoned veteran of nearly 25 years of elected office holding School Board, City Council and Mayoral posts doesn’t need anyone to speak for her personality.  In blogs, posts, letters to the editors, Democratic Club emails, you will hear people vehemently state that there is some underlying reason for Quan to react to people in the manner she does.  What her supporters don’t get is that two things are in play here: when Quan speaks to people in a manner that is offensive, by saying that Quan doesn’t understand what she is doing, they are saying that a grown woman isn’t smart enough to speak for herself, and they are.  When her administration does something wrong, it’s because Oakland is a big tent with lots of interests, and you really cannot please anyone in a liberal environment– that is someone else’s fault, and she doesn’t have the courage to tell the truth.  What stereotypes are these supporters playing from? Meanwhile, when Quan participates in something that works, even if it is a tangential role, it is working in its entirety because of her.

I don’t understand her vision, nor do I understand her accomplishments.   Moreover, like Dan Siegel, these core issues are sadly missing from her reelection platform: http://www.jeanquanforoakland.org/forward

No Plan for pension reform

No plan for budget reform

No Economic Development Plan

No Public Safety Plan

She says that she wants to focus on thriving business districts.  I always thought that to improve Oakland, you focus on the districts that are not thriving.

It is time we move to a direction that is planned, with a person that can create a sense of pride and optimism that we need.  It is more than difficult to follow a governor and a congressman in holding that post, and taking hold during the economic challenges that existed was brutal.  But the little secret is that we knew we were giving up competence versus bringing in a real threat to our way of life; it was Quan or Perata, and just like on the TV game of Survivor, we’d rather get rid of the snake instead of the sloth.  Now we have three others left in this race who are nicer and more competent than in 2010.  Just like on Survivor, most of the people who win combine that balance of cunning and care for their fellow man…if this was that game show, Quan would have been bounced after her team lost its first challenge.

In the end, we are not judged by the fires we fight, but by the plans we put in place to deal with the next fire season.  I’m tired of having leadership choose the wrong pick axe, I am tired of someone using a water faucet to put out a forest fire, and I am sick of seeing a smoldering pile in the foreground and being told by the chief that the fire is completely out.  But more than anything, I am tired of seeing the shiny new trucks being purchased by the cities to the east and west of us, and realizing that my chief is saying that we can’t get a new truck too, while someone is stealing ours.

The key to leadership in a city like Oakland is being able to play in the sandbox with others, having the ability to work on a vision through consensus, and understanding that as smart as you think you are, your success is going to be measured by achieving the goals and aspirations of the people around you. Oakland is not electing a dictator, a commander, a father-knows-best character. Oakland is a city filled with smart, in-your-face visionary policy-wonks, who could run intellectual circles around most residents in America‘s greatest cities. Everybody has a well thought out perception of what is wrong, and a limited belief of what can be right. Oakland is where the we-shall-overcome-liberal elite come to die.

With that, I will not be voting for Dan Siegel.

Siegel is the poster child of what the University of California Berkeley represented. Smart guy who goes to law school there, becomes Student Body President, gets his eyes further opened to a deplorable part of America which compels him to live the rest of his life seeking to change the world. Berkeley took in a thinker and helped send out a leader….45 years ago. Siegel’s challenge is that while he wants to serve as the Mayor of the future, most of his own rhetoric refers to the past. Two nights ago, I sat 5 feet from him when he made an opening statement to the crowd, and his 1st comment was that he marched in the South in the 1960’s. As he spoke, I couldn’t help but wonder if he got the social and political realities of the North, in the 2010’s, and did not try to rework them into something they are not. Nearly 70% of Oakland’s population wasn’t even alive in 1970, (only 11% is over 65) and the 40% unemployment rate for black men and the top ten murder rate involving black on black crime is occurring in our liberal West, at the same time that 14% of the businesses are black owned. Life is more complex than marching down a street playing the us versus them game. There is a do-as-I-say ethos that comes from the liberal elite persona that Siegel can’t shake, like having the ability to loan oneself $100k for a race you know you cannot win. Most people would see that as an opportunity to create a think tank, a small business, a loan. I don’t dislike anyone enough to parcel just one policy, or have the ego large enough to run against them to make a philosophical point about the tenets of real liberalism…that is a 1st world problem.

Siegel’s vision suggests that as mayor he will work on 13 distinct issues. Aside from the fact that I get dizzy when someone smart gives me a laundry list and pretends they can swallow the pachyderm of governance in a city, I become frightened when none of these issues focus on the real elephant in the room that this same activist makes a living at debating. He couldn’t manage the Oakland school’s budget, but now we are to trust he can build the political goodwill to navigate a baker’s dozen. Surprisingly, none of his topics speak in specifics to:

Pension reform in Oakland
Government accountability and budget reform in Oakland
Gentrification (though he does address renters rights)
Jobs creation for Oakland residents

Siegel’s approach has been that of the 1960’s statesman; that is, telling us what we need to do, but not providing an outline on how to get there. What comes from this is oration without narration, and this gets real old with the information based society that Oakland is morphing into. What we get is depth without width, and I expect more from a Mayor. Unlike Rebecca Kaplan, he is not trying to be all things to all people; he wants to be all things to some people. If you live in any city in America, you understand the balance of big and small; businesses, government, incomes, owners and renters. That is not going to fly in Seigel’s Oakland. His 7th issue, which is nearly everyone else’s 2nd in Oakland, is the 21st Century Economy.http://siegelforoakland.org/21st_century_economy.php

Siegel acts as if his is the moral consciousness of Oakland; indeed, he left the Mayor’s office in 2011 because he felt that she acted against the legitimate rights of the Occupy Wall Street protesters.

Here are some of the real problems he faces from the high chair:

Being outraged at the actions of your former friend presents an ill equipped rationale for seeking the office of Mayor.

In 2010, Seigel wanted people to be for Quan until he was against her. The same rhetoric that we were supposed to support Quan is the same reason he is giving why we need to back him; that ‘I am true a Lion of the Left of 50 years’ mantra. Almost everybody is on the left in Oakland; our Republicans would be considered Socialists in Texas.

If Quan is a failed leader, and he was her right hand guy, and only broke ranks with her over an encampment, and not say, budgets or infrastructure, how will he be any different?

Before Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated, he argued what good is it for a man to be able to sit at a lunch counter when he cannot afford to buy a hamburger? Siegel’s articulation cannot answer that rationally. How do you get a man a job in an underdeveloped market? On the backs of small business? He is opposes large business, and expects small business to pay the highest minimum wage in the Bay Area. Proposing a $15 per hour wage increase is real change; until you realize that the jobs that are grabbed up at almost twice the regular minimum wage rates will be snatched by out of city/hipster crowd.

Seigel served with Quan on the Oakland Unified School District Board during its darkest hours; he was part of the failed machine that sent the schools to state receivership. In his tenure, particularly in his time as Board Chair, they never seemed to address the bread and butter issue of fiscal management, either at the schools or later with the City. That leadership has put the schools in the state it is today, and it is hard to give him a pass.

Dan cannot even analyze his own data, in part due to his own bias. The first issue that he tackles, public safety, is misaligned with spin. He shows a 12 year period of crime statistics in a 160 year old city, says that the number of officers has made no effect on the crime rate, and that the crime rate is virtually constant over the decade in review. I remember when we had over 175 murders in Oakland in a year; crime is no constant. However, crime decreased as much as 50% during some of the periods in question, and every period after police officer enrollment increased, crime went down the following year. The next issue; home ownership, he states that 71% of residents rent their homes, when the US Census says that 41% of the residents are homeowners. But what he neglects to say is what rate is acceptable in our city? In San Francisco, less than 37% of the residents are homeowners, and in Berkeley, where he served as the Rent Control Board Executive Director 4 decades ago, even their ownership rate is just 43%. Protections for owners? Repeal of miscellaneous taxes? Credits? Nah, you don’t need it you rich 1%ers…

Most of Seigel’s work has been as a reformer; he would be better served if he ran for City Attorney.

If you are a trailblazer and you are unscathed, then you are a fraud.  No person paving the way for an entire group of underrepresented people gets a free pass.  Jackie Robinson: jeered, spat on, hated, abused—and this was by teammates—died at 50.  MLK: rebuked by his own religious congregation: assassinated at 39.

• If you have to TELL SOMEONE you are a trailblazer: you’re not.
• If you haven’t elevated others in your ascent; you are not a trailblazer.
• If you don’t have an ability to articulate your rise and what it means, you are not a trailblazer.
• If we see your ego more than your methods; you are not a trailblazer.
• If you haven’t taken a politically unpopular/legacy damaging stand, you are not a trailblazer.
• If your health hasn’t been impaired in any way, and/or you sleep well at night and you look the same coming into our consciousness as you do going out, you are not a trailblazer.  We should see the stress on you, because you are fighting for something larger than yourself, and that stuff hurts.
• With that in mind, let’s talk about the person today whom I am not voting for.

Rebecca Kaplan.

She has not demonstrated an ability to articulate a workable plan the she has envisions for the city.  She has run for office, every election cycle, for 7 of the last 8 cycles; including twice for Mayor, three times for City Council, twice for AC Transit, and flirted with running for the State Assembly.  I understand that as a Stanford Law grad, the most money she had ever made before being on City Council was $19k annually.  There is no one reading this that could go to Stanford and afford to come out of school and live off $19k before taxes—in Oakland—your student loans might equal that, and certainly your living expenses would.  Throw in Tufts and MIT, and you have someone who has been able to attend some of the most expensive schools in the nation without a financial care in the world.  It’s hard to find trust in a trust fund baby who says they’re one of the people.

Most important, she has misled us in three fundamentally disturbing ways:

• You cannot say that you are running for Mayor because Oakland needs new leadership, while serving as Vice Mayor. You ARE Oakland’s leadership.  Wanting to switch seats doesn’t change that.
• Being as smart as she is, and as experienced a politician, she has virtually no vision. http://kaplanforoakland.org/issues/ and even less of a means to getting there.  That is absolutely unacceptable for someone of her background.  How does this happen?  Because she doesn’t want to make a commitment and risk being challenged in her beliefs and alienate anyone, and in some cases, she doesn’t really believe in anything and cannot articulate it.
• In 2010 Kaplan made the decision to partner with Jean Quan to ask voters to select them as a 1^st choice/2^nd choice combination. We have Quan, in large measure, because Kaplan asked for us to do it.  Also, you have to ask yourself, if you don’t want Quan, why would you take someone who is Quan-light?  There is nothing that has distinguished Kaplan in her decision making that would make her leadership any different from Quan.  In truth, JEAN QUAN is a better leader than Kaplan.

In Summary

Whether it is missed key votes, broken promises to the black community, telling audiences that she is bisexual and not a lesbian, a Christian and not a Jew, that she is openly fighting the power structure but secretly cozies up with business and has used independent expenditures and funneled money from corporations and ballot initiatives to her campaign—no one knows who the real Kaplan is.  We know one thing: she is from Toronto, Canada—yet it shows up nowhere in bios in print or online.   By not taking the tough issues on the councilmember is doing is not being the Queen of Nice; she is saying and doing whatever it takes to become Mayor.  I shouldn’t have to guess about my mayor’s background, beliefs, values, and goals for the city….and you shouldn’t either.