Next Thursday (June 18), the Oakland City Council Rules Committee will hear a request from Councilmember Nancy Nadel to agendize a discussion of the proposed Oakland Airport Connector project. Ms. Nadel will request the connector be discussed at the Public Works Committee, which she chairs, and that the project then be forwarded to the full Council. The project is being sold to the region as a great investment in Oakland, yet Oakland’s elected officials have not had an opportunity to examine it in eight years, and the project has changed substantially since then. Nevertheless, transit advocates expect a fight over whether Oakland should even have a discussion.

A lot is at stake for Oakland. On one hand, project supporters claim that it will improve the Oakland Airport area, attracting more airline passengers and perhaps more businesses to Airport and surrounding area. For the reality-based community, however, there are enormous costs to the City of Oakland to moving ahead with the project. ACTIA funds that would otherwise go to East Oakland bike/ped/transit improvements, such as a mooted transit village at the Coliseum BART station, would be lost. The Port of Oakland will have to use funds that would otherwise go to airport renovation and expansion. Regional stimulus funds would go to this instead of to shoring up AC Transit and BART service. And the City of Oakland will lose the opportunity to improve transit service that would serve the workers and businesses in the Hegenberger Corridor, since the RFP for the Airport Connector does not include any intermediate stops. Many of these problems are a result of changes to the project, and many former supporters are now opponents.

A half-billion-dollar regional investment in Oakland should clearly merit some review by the Oakland City Council. However, transit advocates expect Councilmember Larry Reid, who represents the Airport and is on the Rules Committee, to resist allowing a public hearing on the project. He has claimed several times, most recently this morning at the Metropolitan Transportation Commission committee hearing, that six of the eight councilmembers support the project. If that’s true, why wouldn’t he welcome a public hearing and the opportunity for the Council as a body to weigh in? Supporters of the Oakland Airport Connector, mainly BART and MTC staff, have been resisting any review of alternatives to the project (today MTC Director Steve Heminger said it was “too late” to look at alternatives, even though they’ve been mooted for years). BART staff have repeatedly lied to decision-makers about the specifics of the project, for example telling the Port Commission about local hire and project labor agreements that are mysteriously missing from the RFP, or providing outdated ridership projections to the MTC. A well-placed City Hall source tells me that when Council staff contacted BART about having a public hearing on the project, BART said they would rather meet privately with each councilmember. Clearly Airport Connector supporters don’t think they have the truth on their side.

So, what do you think? If you agree that Oakland’s elected official should weigh in on the project, with public comment, please send an email to the members of the Rules Committee, especially Council President Jane Brunner (addresses below). If you think projects should be decided without the input of relevant elected officials, well, then you are probably quite thrilled with the direction of Bay Area transportation spending, and you don’t need to do anything. Without Oakland’s elected officials having a public hearing, the citizens of Oakland have no formal voice in the process. The Oakland City Council needs to step up to plate and make the decisions they were elected to, on behalf of the city. Please advocate for your chance to have a voice.

Rules Committee (meeting on Thursday, June 18)

Council President Jane Brunner, North Oakland: jbrunner at oaklandnet dot com

Jean Quan, Montclair-Laurel: jquan at oaklandnet dot com

Ignacio de la Fuente, Fruitvale-Glenview-Jingletown: idelafuente at oaklandnet dot com

Of course, because of the legal difference between taxes and set-aside laws, Kids First 2 passed and Measure NN, to increase cops, did not, despite receiving thousands more votes. Though, as a set-aside, the threshold for passage was lower for OO (an option that anti-crime activists had considered in the Spring), nonetheless the difference in votes, about 3000, shows that cops are indeed more popular than kids’ programs. The difference in campaigns only reinforces this point.

NN met with far stiffer opposition than OO. Opposition came from those influential over potential Yes votes: the anti-police argument was strangely missing from this election, even from its most strident proponents, Councilmember Nancy Nadel (who sat the entire election out, as the only Councilmember not to endorse either Council candidate) and PUEBLO. The Safety First funding mandate’s leaders opposed NN, as did anti-crime advocates like Charles Pine and Ignacio de la Fuente (PDF). Support from Mayor Dellums and the Chamber of Commerce consisted of weak mailers sent only to poll voters. Despite this, the measure won 54% of Oakland votes. The consensus for cops, even without the support of activists, is clear.

In October, No on OO campaigners including Sharon Cornu of the Alameda Central Labor Council and Susan Montauk of the Parks and Recreation Advisory Board begged the City Council at Open Forum to campaign against the measure. They didn’t. No on OO only had the funds to send a mailer to absentee voters (Yes on OO sent a mailer to poll voters), and I never saw Councilmembers do more than a make brief mention in their newsletters. The old and new media fell in against OO but their influence is limited, and the largest, the Chronicle, didn’t do Oakland endorsements. Overall, OO was a low-information campaign that most voters probably decided just by looking at the ballot question.

OO was packaged, deceptively, as a costless means of keeping existing youth-serving programs. NN was a tax increase to expand policing resources. Three thousand more Oaklanders voted to tax themselves for more police than to keep existing children’s programs for free. In November’s election, Oakland voters were more supportive of cops than kids.

This afternoon, our unpopular Mayor Ron Dellums held a press conference is an overcrowded city hearing room usually reserved for small committee meetings. Flanked by t-shirt-wearing city employee union activists, the police and fire chiefs, and interim City Administrator Dan Lindheim, Dellums announced that the budget “that was presented” (by him) and ratified by the City Council is fundamentally flawed and that a deficit “in the tens of millions of dollars” is likely. He gave no indications of how he’ll close the budget gap, but the presence of the city employees’ unions and a brief aside about the futility of growing the city without new infrastructure funded by the federal government reveal that he doesn’t know how to balance the city budget.

The main problem with Oakland’s budget is the large number of public employees and the poor quality of their work.* When discussing Kids First yesterday, Councilmember Pat Kernighan said that nonprofits provide more service for fewer dollars than the city. That is undoubtedly true. Perhaps a more research-oriented blogger may look at how many employees we have per-capita, but since 75% of the city’s budget is spent on salaries, and city services are widely acknowledged to be poor (as a recent poll confirms), major changes in the union contract will be the only way to solve a fiscal crisis in this town.

Except, of course, a revenue increase. While a retail revitalization plan may be long-term and even require city investment up-front, there are much shorter-term ways to raise revenue. One is to allow more real estate development. With more than 55% of city’s budget coming from real estate, and city finances structurally dependent on property taxes, real estate development is the only way to increase city revenues. Condo maps literally create new property, and other kinds of development transform underutilized properties into “higher and better uses” that generate sharply higher tax revenues. Businesses, on the other hand, are mostly helpful to tax receipts because of the property demands they create: less than 2% of city revenues come from business taxes.

So when Dellums cast aspersions on ABAG’s demand that Oakland increase its population by noting the poor-quality infrastructure (that developers pay to upgrade), he was dismissing the most immediate way that Oakland can substantially raise revenues. He killed an enormous project in West Oakland that would have produced tens of millions in immediate tax benefits, and his Planning Commission and CEDA appointments have given developers the impression that they are no longer welcome. The mayor is thus far doing everything he can to prevent Oakland from increasing its tax base.

Dellums’ press conference, to announce a review of the flawed budget he submitted two weeks late, was a stark reminder that just as he failed to properly oversee the mid-cycle budget, he is unable to grasp the causes of or solutions to Oakland’s budget problems. The phalanx of city employee union leaders standing behind him, the same people who recruited him into the race and bitterly opposed Ignacio de la Fuente’s reelection, are the barriers to solving the city’s problems. Until our city leaders start expecting efficient delivery of services from the city employees, and stop acting as if city jobs are there to help ease our unemployment problem, Oakland’s budget deficit will never close.

* I don’t mean that individual city employees are bad workers. But the overall level of service delivery is poor compared to the budget and size of the workforce. Much of this reflects poor policy choices by the City Council. Reducing the size or cost of the city bureaucracy until revenues increase is the only way to significantly reduce expenditures.

Last week, on the parcel tax, the same city councilmembers who called for this special meeting addressed concerns raised by the public over the city’s wasteful spending. The parcel tax proposal was a response to a community initiative that sought an increase in the police force without additional taxes. Speakers on the parcel tax proposal told the Council last week that police services could be funded by eliminating wasteful spending. This view was supported by Council President Ignacio de la Fuente who voted against placing the tax on the ballot. Ms. Quan in response said that there was on perhaps a million dollars in the budget that could be reallocated. Now, however, she’s proposing spending an additional $13m on grants to youth programs without an accompanying tax hike.

So which is it? Can we only spend an extra $1m on new officers, or $13m, without raising taxes? Or are youth programs more important than police officers? Mayor Dellums also called for the parcel tax publicly while taking a dim view of spending more money without raising taxes.

Tomorrow morning’s vote is a major test of the Council majority’s fiscal responsibility and honesty. They told the public last week that there was no way to spend more than a million more dollars on police services without raising taxes, now they are to vote on spending up to $13m without raising taxes. Ms. Quan claims that the Council is over a barrel because the Kids First! nonprofits have collected enough signatures to place their spending mandate on the ballot. A recent poll shared with the media by the mayor’s office shows that 20% of Oaklanders will vote no on the police tax mainly because of concerns over government waste and inefficiency, and 69% of those polled say “the amount of taxes people have to pay for city services” is a very, somewhat or extremely serious problem. A compromise measure placed on the ballot by the Council would not only be more likely to pass than KF2’s more extreme measure, but will also confirm the worst fears of the voters who are wary of supporting the police tax, severely hurting its already-iffy chances of passing. Oaklanders will see tomorrow whether a majority of the Council values police services or a program that hands out grants to nonprofits without accountability.

“We’re aware of the allegations. We take them very seriously. They’re very serious allegations, and as we speak, we’re looking into them,” said Mayor Dellums. When asked if Edgerly still had her job, the mayor replied “That is to be determined.”

Ms. Edgerly revealed that she wrote a Request For Proposal to executive search firms for her replacement. She made herself available to stay on after July 31st to ease the transition, though “there are some cruises” she wants to take. Her resignation letter, whose “integrity” Mayor Dellums “agreed to maintain,” discussed a “90 – 120 day employment period” to ensure a “seamless transition.”

The City Administrator runs the entire city, including the police department (though the chief will now report directly to Mayor Dellums). The City Council is mandated by the charter to go through her if they want to do anything. The administrator “shall serve at the pleasure of the mayor,” meaning that he can fire her without cause but the City Council cannot even with cause. Alongside writing ordinances and spending money, the City Council’s authority rests in ordering the Administrator (or the department heads that report to her) to implement motions. The administrator and department heads are then in turn dependent on lower-level bureaucrats to perform the work.

It is therefore integral to the functioning of Oakland’s government that the City Administrator have the full confidence of her 5000-person staff and all elected officials. Deborah Edgerly does not, and Dellums has done a terrible job communicating the situation with city employees. The Council should be frustrated, and the public should question whether the Mayor values their faith and confidence in local government. Not only did he decline to remove Ms. Edgerly from office, but he is allowing her to guide the search for her replacement. Ms. Edgerly issued RFPs for a search team Monday Friday, she said, though she did not instruct the assembled press and onlookers how to find the documents.

This week, everyone but the Trib is making endorsements in the many competitive elections in Oakland and the East Bay. So, like Robert Kennedy, I thought Why not? Here are my endorsements for who will make decision affecting the future of Oakland, from a transit and Smart Growth perspective.

City Council District One: Jane Brunner

I have a lot of problems with Ms. Brunner, so this endorsement comes with serious caveats. I think that she is often illprepared for meetings, as V-Smoothe pointed out, and seems to vote however the last person who got to her wants her to vote, but her staff is not as scattered as she is. I’ve already decried using Inclusionary Zoning, a rare ideological split on the Council, as a litmus test, so I’ll forgive her decade-long quest to impose price caps on condos. The real housing issue is that District One builds no affordable housing, and very little entry-level housing. I grew up in Rockridge and I’ve been forced out by the lack of development! There are fewer apartments now than there were in 1987, when Market Hall opened, and no newly-built condos. Ms. Brunner has offered little leadership on development in Temescal, instead exacerbating the neighborhood’s battles by meddling in projects (with the full consent of the rest of the Council). However, Mr. McCullough has no position on development.

The hot issue is crime, but Ms. Brunner hasn’t been particularly worse than anyone else on the Council; unlike Jean Quan and Nancy Nadel, she’s not a ringleader of the anti-cops brigade. Her shameful refusal to condemn Black Uhuru’s slander of Mr. McCullough is disturbing, but she does listen to crime concerns and is belatedly pushing for the high-tech crime-reduction strategies championed by Sean Sullivan. Honestly, I don’t see Mr. McCullough offering much in the way of crime but attention. Unlike Sean Sullivan, he doesn’t have detailed plans or a clear policy direction. I think Mr. Pine has the same problem except that he talks about the number of police relentlessly. Mr. McCullough also has no support from other councilmembers or institutions so he would probably be an ineffective councilmember.

And effectiveness is exactly what Jane Brunner offers. IZ wouldn’t have a chance if it were pushed by Nancy Nadel, but Jane Brunner knows how to work the system. For her constituents she’s delivered bicycle lanes and bike parking, the only successful Measure DD project (Studio One), and a dog park at Mosswood (which Ms. Nadel took credit for). Her staff is involved in the negotiations with CalTrans over the Caldecott Tunnel, which is entirely appropriate. She makes noises about Smart Growth and will deliver the MacArthur BART project, even if has taken fifteen years. Without an experienced opponent with a clear alternative vision, Jane Brunner deserves reelection.

City Council District Three: Sean Sullivan

This is easy. V-Smoothe wrote an excellent essay entitled Nancy Nadel Has to Go. Now., and I have little to add. Sean Sullivan has impressed many people with his well-organized, aggressive campaign and positive, detailed vision for the future of the District (I’m part of his campaign). Greg Hodge barely got on the ballot, and has run an invisible campaign that is short on specifics. Sean Sullivan offers energetic, hands-on leadership at exactly the time Oakland needs it most, and his record delivering a multimillion-dollar youth center and effective violence prevention programs is the experience City Hall needs. He is endorsed by Desley Brooks and Pat Kernighan, the two swing votes on the Council who are also the most junior. The ranks of newer councilmembers, not beholden to the old power structure, deserve more members.

City Council District Five: Ignacio de la Fuente

Ignacio is the best member of the Oakland City Council. He is the most respectful and attentive to public speakers, his staff are the most open to new ideas and new activists, and he has been there for public transit and Smart Growth every time. He attempted to lobby the MTC for an East Bay HSR alignment (but was thwarted by Nadel), which is perhaps the biggest single transit issue of the decade. Under his leadership, Fruitvale has become a charming, thriving district. In the mid-nineties, when I lived in Rockridge, nobody thought of going to Fruitvale for dinner or shopping. Now many people do, and the Transit Village is a model for the entire region. Jingletown exists because of Ignacio’s vision of reclaiming industrial land and creating access to the waterfront. Even if his leading opponent wasn’t an inexperienced businessman with a checkered past, Ignacio de la Fuente would deserve reelection.

City Council Seven: Larry Reid

Larry Reid is good. He stands up for what’s right, not what’s politically correct, like with plastic bags or industrial zoning. He does a great job attracting retail and residential development to his economically depressed district. I hear his constituent services aren’t very good, but I don’t see Clifford Gilmore offering anything better. Running a terrible campaign doesn’t help matters. This is a great example of the Guardian’s endorsements revealing themselves to be utterly irrational.

City Council At-large: Clinton Killian

This is a crowded field but honestly the choice wasn’t that hard. Charles Pine is one-note and wouldn’t be effective on the Council. Frank Rose is awesome but he gives so much to the community without being on the Council, so I don’t think he really brings much to this particular role. Kerry Hamill doesn’t bother to campaign downtown at all, is nowhere on transportation and development (though the big developers love her for some reason), has no credibility on the crime issue that she’s pushing, and says annoying things that are obviously political, like we need fewer political staff, even though she is political staff (she was Don Perata’s Chief of Staff and is now a Policy Analyst for BART). Rebecca Kaplan is appealingly energetic, and says a lot of the right things, but she doesn’t really have a track record of clear positions. I need to know more about her.

Clinton Killian, despite some minor business troubles years back, offers a great mix of experience for the City Council. He’s been on the AC Transit Board, the Planning Commission, and serves on the Paramount Board. His commitment to downtown, smart growth, transportation and the arts is unquestionable, and those are my priorities. I also appreciate how he brings together two often-squabbling sectors of the business community, the mainstream businesses and the ethnic businesses. His campaign has a clear message and is well-targeted, and he has a great shot at the runoff despite being outspent. That’s a good sign.

School Board District One: Brian Rogers

Who cares that he’s a Republican? At least he has something to say about education that’s relevant. Jody London, who just oozes politician, managed to squeeze green-collar jobs, energy independence and Save The Bay into the School Board debate, and said that she had no position on charter schools but is against them. Her entire campaign appears to be based around the fact that Mr. Rogers is a Republican. I think the race is pretty clear-cut: Rogers represents reform, London the status quo. She’s endorsed by the outgoing Boardmember, the Teachers’ Union and all the usual suspects. Brian Rogers supports educational innovation and charters, involvement from business, and continuing the Expect Success reforms opposed by Jody London and the Teachers’ Union.

AD 14: Tony Thurmond

I agree with the Express, the Chronicle and the Trib that the Richmond Councilmember is best to represent the district, rather than a Berkeley politician. His resume, running a successful nonprofit serving at-risk youth, reminds me of Sean Sullivan. Kris Worthington and Nancy Skinner are awful, the perfect embodiment of everything that’s wrong with the Berkeley City Council (NIMBYism meets Communism). I worry that Phil Polakoff will take too many moderate North Oakland / Berkeley votes and hand the race to Nancy Skinner, unfortunately. No runoffs in a partisan primary! But if you live in this district, which I don’t, please vote Tony Thurmond.

State Senate: Wilma Chan

Since we’re all getting two pieces of mail a day about Loni Hancock and Wilma Chan, many people may have made up their minds. I think the mail itself is a pretty good way to judge the candidates: Ms. Chan has a clear argument, that she accomplished more when she was in the Assembly than Ms. Hancock did (that’s true). Ms. Hancock, on the other hand, is all over the place, bragging about big-time endorsements one day and then bashing Wilma Chan for not having enough endorsements the next. Her mailers are full of stupid quotes like “the courage to lead” and dumb photos of her staring over the Berkeley Marina or talking to college students. Anyway, this one is easy: Wilma Chan represented Oakland and Alameda, Loni Hancock Berkeley and points north. Gotta go with the home team.

Predictions:

City Council: all the incumbents win outright except Nancy Nadel. Nadel may be bested by Sean Sullivan, who has reached out to people his opponents haven’t contacted, and seems to have the momentum heading into the final weekend when the undecideds are making up their minds. As for the at-large, Rebecca Kaplan will make the runoff with either Hamill or Killian in second place.

School Board: Incumbents in D5 and D7, Olu in D3 (Jumoke Hodge will do as poorly as her husband, because they didn’t campaign very much). There will probably be a runoff in D1, since Tennessee Reed has some name recognition and Rogers and London seem to be dueling it out pretty evenly. Rogers has a clear message so he could win, though I may be overestimating the voters’ willingness to overlook party registration.

Assembly: Thurmond could make it, otherwise Skinner. Polakoff’s base is too narrow but he’s probably done lots of mailers. Thurmond’s mailers contain typos but the demographics are on his side (everyone else is from Berkeley, he’s from the other half of the district).

State Senate: Wilma Chan will pull it off. The endorsements Hancock’s touting aren’t going to matter all that much, since Ms. Chan has great name recognition. Ms. Hancock is a divisive figure in her own Assembly district, so she can’t count on her half of the Senate district serving as a base. Chan’s mailers have a clearer message, as I said before, and so are more effective. I guess we’ll see on June Third!

As the elections come closer, voters are deluged with mailers and get many calls from politicians and volunteers seeking their support. Candidates and their literature trumpet endorsements, which the organizations issuing find very important. Endorsements are thought to be representative of the various interests that make up the endorsing groups. Curiously, the County Central Democrat Committee, Alameda County Sierra Club, San Francisco Bay Guardian, Central Labor Council had strikingly similar endorsements: Rebecca Kaplan for at-large, Jane Brunner and Nancy Nadel for reelection, and against Ignacio de la Fuente and Reid for their own reelections. Given the supposed influence of incumbents, particularly the Council President, it’s unexpected that supposedly establishment organizations are joining many issue-oriented or simply rebellious voices to produce what can be termed a slate.

All of these endorsements are contradictory. Let’s look at blogger bete noire Nancy Nadel and her endorsements, which she trumpeted in a recent colorful mailer. She has the endorsement of the Bay Guardian, which looked like she wrote it (no journalist could be out-of-it enough to believe she’s a hard worker). The Guardian, as a supposedly youthful voice, consistently stands up for artists and musicians. Yet Nancy Nadel called the cops on the Art Murmur, shut down a dancehall concert and attempted to kick artists out of live/work in industrial West Oakland. Without mentioning her Gen X competitor, homeless shelter director Sean Sullivan, the Guardian stood on the wrong side of their carefully-cultivated generation gap. This also goes for the East Bay Young Democrats.

The Sierra Club’s endorsements were also bizarre, and not just regarding District 3. Nadel is attempting to limit transit-oriented development in the DTO, held up the City Council’s endorsement of the more environmentally-friendly Altamont Pass bullet-train route, and is nowhere on Bus Rapid Transit (and stood by idly as the Broadway Shopper Shuttle was ended in 2003). She did author the plastic bag ordinance but it was struck down in court, which isn’t very impressive. Ignacio de la Fuente has been an outspoken voice on transit and transit-oriented development, and he and Larry Reid have been the city’s most successful creators of new urban open space. Jane Brunner is also nowhere on transit, considers Transit-Oriented Development to be only government-sponsored mid-rise developments immediately adjacent to BART stations, and I can’t think of anything she’s done that seems very green.

The Central Labor Council endorsed Nadel for the first time, and declined to endorse Ignacio even though he is vice-president of a union, author of Oakland’s Living Wage and Local Hire ordinances, and reportedly did very well in their interview. The Alameda County Democratic Party declined to endorse incumbent de la Fuente, and gave Green-turned-Democrat Rebecca Kaplan the endorsement over longtime elected Democrats Clinton Killian and Kerry Hammill. The teachers’ union, Green Party, and ACORN also followed the slate, though without an interview process.

The Central Democratic Committee endorsements can be partly explained because the current committeemembers were elected when Dellums was elected mayor, so were part of his slate and therefore enemies of Ignacio. But Nadel has always voted for Ignacio for Council President, and Sean Sullivan had an early endorser in Desley Brooks (and is endorsed by Kathy Neal of the DCCC and Mario Juarez’s campaign). The Sierra Club didn’t give Sullivan an interview, explaining that they routinely endorse incumbents they’ve worked with before. But they had an interview in D5. Many of the Guardian’s endorsements were entirely out-to-lunch, but they certainly got the memo Brunner and Nadel should be reelected, Ignacio and Reid unseated, and Kaplan elected. If internal Council President politics don’t explain it, and it doesn’t fit with the agendas of the endorsing groups, what else is left?

Misplaced ideology is the common thread that links this slate. Though most Council business is conducted unanimously, and there is a strong consensus in Oakland over the general outlines of the future of the city, there have been a few policies that have split the Council and possibly the electorate. The main issue is Inclusionary Zoning, which the Council deadlocked on way back in October 2006. Mario Juarez, despite being a realtor and former ally of Ignacio de la Fuente, now supports a 25% mandatory set-aside. Nancy Nadel (and Jean Quan who is campaigning for her) keeps trying to bring up IZ, to little apparent success, and she also said last week people should vote for Rebecca Kaplan because she supports IZ (though I don’t really get that impression).

Beyond IZ, many of these groups are made up of non-Oaklanders (like the DCCC, East Bay Young Democrats, the Guardian, and the Sierra Club) or are dominated by the public-employee unions (the OEA teachers’ union, the County Central Labor Council, and arguably ACORN because they get a lot of help from EBASE). The unions want compliant councilmembers, and out-of-towners are easily swayed by ideology and abstract issues like IZ and don’t know anything about blight and food access.

I agree with the “slate” choices regarding the reelection of the four sitting Councilmembers. At least, I agree that Ignacio de la Fuente and Larry Reid stand for something different than Jane Brunner and Nancy Nadel. I outlined above how many of the endorsements, particularly the East Bay Young Democrats and Sierra Club, are counter to what the groups ostensibly represent. This election is a particularly good example of why it’s important for voters to make informed judgments for themselves. An environmentalist could mistakenly think that the Sierra Club’s endorsements have something to do with a politician’s ideas and track record on the environment, or a hipster could assume the East Bay Young Democrats are a proxy for forward-thinking and youth-friendly leadership. That would be entirely wrong.

At the Community and Economic Development Committee, the Council was treated to the unpleasant spectacle of sharp disagreements over the city’s proposal to construct affordable housing next to Raimondi Park. The city staff and West Oakland residents supported the family-sized homeownership units aimed at households making around 60% of the Area Median Income. Several One non-profit housing developers strenuously objected, arguing that the city should somehow force the Central Station master developer to transfer a plot of land for free, and that more of the units be aimed at 100% AMI households (making up to $82k/yr), since that’s easier for them to develop.

Chair Jane Brunner told the nonprofits that if they wanted to set-aside land for subsidized housing, that should have happened years ago when the master plan was approved. She then speculated that subsidized housing units should be sprinkled within market-rate developments, “so you couldn’t tell which was which.” While I love her socialist idealism, it’s incredibly inefficient to do that. First, subsidized developers should take advantage of cost-saving measures that may not be available to market-rate developers, like low-quality finishes or less parking, since that helps lower the cost of housing. Second, land costs are a huge factor in housing prices. It makes sense to use lower-value sites for subsidized housing, and to allow more density for subsidized units. Both of these measures lower the relative cost of land as a portion of housing costs. Third, the press has reported a lot recently on how owners of BMR units can face steep condo fees since their incomes don’t match those of their neighbors. Luxury buildings should be able to have luxury amenities, and it doesn’t make sense to place people in those buildings if they can’t afford the upkeep. However, I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s another attempt to socialize the housing market early next year.

Because of the overly-long meeting, a periodic report (PDF) on the progress of the city’s redevelopment areas (it did not include the largest RDA, Central City East) was put off until the Council meeting next week. Overall, while the report provided valuable information on the collection and disposition of revenues, there were not detailed charts on affordable housing production or spending for every redevelopment area. While large amounts of money are being generated for housing subsidies, there’s not a direct explanation of where all of that money is going. However, it’s clear that downtown is doing very well, and almost every redevelopment area is meeting its goals and exceeding its revenue projections. While many say the city having some problems meeting its debt obligations, that was not clear from the charts, which showed all of the areas in the black.

The standout redevelopment areas included the Coliseum RDA (which is lower East Oakland from Fruitvale to San Leandro), which strongly outperformed in affordable housing production, with the vast majority of the units aimed at “Very Low Income” households. On the other hand, the Broadway / MacArthur / San Pablo RDA has not produced any affordable housing in its seven years of existence, despite being the pet agency of supposed affordable-housing champion Jane Brunner. The only planned subsidized housing is in the MacArthur BART transit village, which is taking forever and consuming huge amounts of money. The RDA is also cash-poor, so even though 52% of the Conley Report proposal area is in that RDA, Ms. Brunner is very unhappy about contributing to the Specific Plan for retail development.

Downtown (Central District), of course, had the most projects and programs ongoing. $29.7m was set-aside for affordable housing in the last three fiscal years, 568 affordable units were constructed, and $4m was transferred to schools and other agencies (also, the state stole $5.1m to balance the budget). Even though downtown has experienced recent losses of parking spaces, revenue for the city-owned parking garage in the UCOP fell 13%. Of $66.5m spent on projects, $51.9m went to the Uptown district, primarily to Forest City and the Fox Theater. Though the majority of the Tax Increment Funds (TIF) was spent on debt service, there was more than that amount available from bond funds. More stats on downtown at The DTO.

The Stanford-Adeline RDA is winding down, and Oak Center will expire next year, with no more TIF. Some folks, like the ORPN, want to see a rollback of redevelopment areas. It seems that many of the RDA boundaries are arbitrary, and that perhaps the last remaining inner West Oakland RDA could expire along with its neighbor Oak Center. But it is important to have the ability to capture and set-aside revenues from development for specific purposes, which could include public safety. And it’s not like the problem with the police is a lack of General Fund revenue! Without clear priorities and set-asides, the bureaucracy will just eat it all up. Of the redevelopment funds reported in the last three fiscal years, $29.2m went to personnel.

In his September District Five newsletter (so far only available by email), City Council President Ignacio de la Fuente today at 4:30 announced a long-term, comprehensive public safety plan. It has three points:

1. Adding more community police on the streets by shifting sworn officers away from desk jobs, and setting-aside 10% of the redevelopment tax increment for public safety officers (and looking for more creative hiring bonuses). This is a sustainable source of tax revenue that will grow faster than the General Fund. It is similar to other set-asides, such as the primary source of local low- and moderate-income housing funds (25%) and the 10% OUSD pass-through.

2. “Install GPS capabilities in every police and city vehicle” to more efficiently manage the city’s fleet, saving time and fuel. He touts the benefits to public safety in neighborhoods and during times of natural disasters.

3. Aggressively promote economic development! He talks about the importance of jobs to providing for families and keeping kids off the street, and points to many trendy industries. But fundamentally, he advocates for an open, welcoming approach to business and development.

We must stop fear of economic growth in its tracks and instead welcome growth and development as a powerful tool to improve the quality of life for all Oaklanders. We stand at the cross roads; now is the time to act boldly and courageously. I ask the business community to stay committed to Oakland, and to continue to believe! This will be the ultimate path to winning peace on our streets. With a balanced approach to governance, accountability and policy making that values the role of private innovation, capital and partnerships, Oakland will be a strong vibrant, safe, and livable city.

I couldn’t have written it better myself! With Mayor Dellums asleep at the wheel, Ignacio is tackling the real issues by providing real solutions. Let’s see how his agenda is received by the administration and the rest of the Council.

**As I was writing this, I realized that it was getting insanely long, so I’m going to break this down into a series of posts focusing on specific areas of concern. See previous posts for my reflections on endorsements involving education, public safety, business, and labor**

Neighborhood Leaders

This one will be short. Ignacio De La Fuente has a slew of endorsements from neighborhood and community leaders – presidents of community planning councils, neighborhood associations, homeowners associations, ministers, and the like. You can go to Ignacio De La Fuente’s endorsement page and read them yourself. Ron Dellums and Nancy Nadel, as usual, have none.

The community endorsement I particularly want to highlight is that of both co-founders of Bordertown Skate Park. These are two young people who took action and provided something healthy for the community – a place for young people to spend time and engage in activities that aren’t tied to the criminality or drugs that plague so many of our neighborhoods. When Caltrans tried to demolish the park, Ignacio De La Fuente stood up for them to help save it.

In Oakland, we have many dedicated and caring people who work hard to make our community better. These people have been here for years and have seen firsthand that Ignacio De La Fuente has been around to help them and offer his support. In turn, they are offering him their support in hopes that our next Mayor will be someone who has a proven track record of helping our citizens in their efforts to make Oakland a better place to live.

Technorati Tags: de la fuente, dellums, endorsements, ignacio de la fuente, nadel, nancy nadel, neighborhoods, oakland, oakland mayor, oakland politics, politics, ron dellums