The US Supreme Court ruling that corporate bodies are entitled to free speech rights jeopardizes state and local regulations since the First Amendment applies to states. In Oakland, a judge ruled in 2006 that Political Action Committees could directly advocate for and against candidates, a ruling that was exploited by supporters of both Aimee Allison and Pat Kernighan during that year’s Council runoff. Between the likelihood of high independent expenditures and the consolidated elections in November, the Council may consider lifting donation and expenditure limits for local elections. There’s also talk of eliminating matching funds, for several reasons including the expense, that they’re not available for at-large elections, and a feeling that these funds mostly help incumbents who are more adept at exploiting campaign rules they wrote themselves. Lifting donation and expenditure limits would certainly be a boon for challengers, who compared to incumbents tend to have fewer but more passionate supporters, and who need to spend more to overcome an incumbent’s name recognition. One City Council seat up for election this November will have no incumbent, and so may be a test of a new campaign atmosphere in Oakland.

Having established herself as a serious mayoral contender, Councilmember Jean Quan cannot run for reelection, creating this rare open seat. The Montclair-Laurel District 4 seat has the highest voter turnout in the city, making it likely the most expensive of the three Council elections this November. Now that candidates are talking to potential supporters, many wonder who Ms. Quan will choose as her successor. According to several sources, Ms. Quan has introduced her husband, Alameda County Medical Center Trustree Dr. Floyd Huen, to some influential players as a Council candidate for District 4. With her husband perhaps running, Ms. Quan has motive to make things difficult for those seeking her seat. Other possible contenders include: Jill Broadhurst, an active volunteer in Montclair; Melanie Shelby, a former at-large Council candidate who recently returned to Oakland from Washington DC; Scott Jackson, an Assistant District Attorney who had considered running for Mayor; Libby Schaaf, a personal friend of mine who is a life-long civic leader native to D4; and Clinton Killian, the former at-large Council candidate and Paramount Boardmember. Though the filing period isn’t until August, Ms. Broadhurst has already announced she’s running and it’s likely others will announce by mid-Spring. Oakland may be in for a long, hot election.

Jean Quan is now Vice Mayor Quan, as of January 19th. Last year, when Jane Brunner upset Ignacio de la Fuente’s plans to remain Council President, Mr. de la Fuente was given the Vice Mayor position as a consolation prize. This wasn’t merely a title, though – at the time there was speculation that Dellums would resign as Mayor to take a position in DC or even as an ambassador, elevating Mr. de la Fuente to Mayor. Since Ms. Quan’s mayoral ambitions do not enjoy the support of Ms. Brunner or Mr. de la Fuente, her ascension to Vice Mayor is a clear signal that they do not expect Mayor Dellums to go anywhere. Recently joined by Green Party member and free-parking advocate Don Macleay, Vice Mayor Quan and former State Senator Don Perata are running active if low-key campaigns ten months in advance of election day. The campaign won’t get going in full force until Mayor Dellums formally announces he’s not running for reelection, freeing his loyalists and others who hold him in esteem to escape the sidelines. If the Mayor has any sympathy for overextended activists, he will wait until the summer.

Three years ago today, V Smoothe and I started this blog, FutureOakland (then on blogspot). We were disappointed by media coverage of the mayor’s race, and felt the minority of Oaklanders opposed to growth and revitalizing the city were completely dominating the public discussion of Oakland’s future. Under the reactionary handle of OaklandNative, I hoped to help move public discussion in favor of a more informed and more hopeful vision for this beautiful city’s success. Three years later, that goal has been largely realized.

It was not long ago that any discussion of redeveloping downtown was clouded by the angst of those wishing to preserve the failed past. Now, Oakland and East Bay residents take justifiable pride in the rebirth of Uptown as an entertainment destination, and countless neighborhoods have rediscovered their identities and are demanding their rightful share of city attention. Three years ago city government was regarded as problematic because of the influence of “greedy” developers; now the public is aware of the timidity of our elected officials and the enormous self-imposed barriers to economic success. Wednesday night’s meeting of the Planning Commission on the downtown zoning update feature a much younger and more hopeful crowd than perhaps the commission has seen in its history. While I may not agree with everyone who was there, I agree that they should offer their practical and optimistic vision to public officials. I am sure that this blog helped drive the ever-higher public meeting attendance that Oakland has experienced for the last year or so.

I don’t necessarily mean to take credit for the dozens of committed activists who have shaken up a complacent City Hall in the last few years, or for the New Media explosion allowing Oaklanders to understand the context and impact of city policy and cultural change for the first time in perhaps decades. Maybe I was just a little ahead of the curve. Of the three major Oakland blogs that predate mine, one is still kicking. But, as I am often reminded by longtime politicos, Oakland’s public discussion is light-years ahead of where it was when Ron Dellums was elected Mayor on a platform of nonsense.

Real change, whether you call it shaping the future of Oakland or creating a better Oakland, does not come from reporting alone. Since starting this blog I have become not only more informed, but more engaged. I have joined several civic organizations, taken leadership roles, and found my political niche. I have learned that, while full-throated advocacy (always nuanced and well-founded, to be sure) may make for exciting blogging, making a positive impact in the community means working with others. We Oaklanders are a clever and mostly well-meaning lot; civic engagement has been rewarding and thought-provoking.

So while I am thrilled that so many bloggers are lighting up cyberspace with a wealth of thought and information about every facet of life in this complicated city, and of course everyone should totally follow my Twitter, I ask the reader to do more than just read these brilliant blogs, but to take a more active role in the future of our great city. Volunteering, attending public meetings, starting a neighborhood organization, cleaning a local park on Earth Day, and emailing city councilmembers are the tools with which we make a stronger, healthier Oakland. Individually, we each only have so much time and so many issues that excite our attention, but together, we contribute to creating a thriving community.

Yesterday, deeply unpopular Mayor Ron Dellums named his long-time aide, Interim City Administrator Dan Lindheim, permanent City Administrator. Nevermind that the interim appointment of Mr. Lindheim was illegal, or that Mr. Lindheim has no experience as a city manager, or that his seven months as interim administration have been among the city’s worst. His appointment must be confirmed by five members of the City Council, and it is up to them whether Oakland continues its deeply frightening downward spiral or demands professional, competent, and qualified management instead of cronyism.

The City Administrator is the single most powerful official in the City of Oakland. He has power over all 5000 city employees and every department’s budget. The Chief of Police, the CEDA Director, and the Budget Director are among the top administrators that report to him. It was former City Administrator Deborah Edgerly’s intimate involvement in the Police Department that allowed her to allegedly tip off a relative that he was under surveillance. Oakland simply cannot afford a subpar City Administrator in charge of everything from parking tickets to gang investigations.

Dan Lindheim, Dellums’ longtime Congressional aide who later worked for the World Bank, does not meet the most basic qualifications to be the top official of this troubled 420,000-person city. He has been the Interim City Administrator for almost seven months, during which time he has overseen the complete meltdown of city functions from policing to labor relations to parking, including several public-safety scandals that contributed to Chief Tucker’s resignation. Appointing Mr. Lindheim City Administrator is entirely unacceptable, and activists are asking citizens to write their Councilmembers in opposition.

Mayor Dellums claims he used public funds to conduct a nationwide search for City Administrator. How did Dan Lindheim, who has no relevant experience, win that competition? The public deserves a real City Administrator with a successful record, and our representatives need to know. Oakland’s only hope is for a public outcry to prevent the Council from approving Dellums’ unqualified crony to run the city including its police department. Please email your Councilmembers asking for them to oppose the appointment of Dan Lindheim as City Administrator because he is utterly unqualified, and Oakland deserves better.

UPDATE: Becks at Living in the O also calls for citizens to urge their representatives to oppose Lindheim’s appointment, and A Better Oakland agrees.

District One (Rockridge – Piedmont – North Hills – Golden Gate): Jane Brunner, jbrunner at oaklandnet dot com

District Two (Grand Lake – Chinatown – San Antonio): Pat Kernighan, pkernighan at oaklandnet dot com

District Three (West Oakland – Downtown – Adams Point): Nancy Nadel, nnadel at oaklandnet dot com

District Four (Montclair – Dimond – Laurel): Jean Quan, jquan at oaklandnet dot com

District Five (Fruitvale – Glenview – Jingletown): Ignacio de la Fuente, idelafuente at oaklandnet dot com

District Six (Millsmont – Seminary – East Oakland): Desley Brooks, dbrooks at oaklandnet dot com

District Seven (Outer East Oakland – Airport – Coliseum): Larry Reid, lreid at oaklandnet dot com

Yesterday, Mayor Dellums announced that the Oakland Police Department would investigate the killing of Oscar Grant III by a BART police officer on a BART platform. There is no reason the Oakland PD should undertake such an investigation. Mr. Grant, a resident of Hayward, was arrested because of his involvement in a fight that began in San Francisco. A regional police officer unjustifiably killed him. Though the arrest and killing happened at the Fruitvale BART station, within the boundaries of the City of Oakland, the Oakland police department is not involved and has no jurisdiction over the BART system. Alameda County District Attorney Tom Orloff is responsible for prosecuting the responsible officer, Johannes Mehserle. Mr. Orloff works not for Oakland, but for the entire County, and is uninterested in prosecuting Oakland homicides. Many are angry at the Bay Area Rapid Transit System, but Oakland is only one of many cities in the four-county BART district, and a glance at the ward map will reveal that it is not well-represented on the board.

Just as vandalizing Creative African Braids and the charming shops along 17th Street is not justice, holding Oakland responsible for the actions of a regional body that happens to be headquartered in a Lake Merritt high-rise is unfair. Mayor Dellums has proposed using scarce Oakland Police Department resources to investigate the incident, yet their most recent high-profile projects have been scandalous, including the Chauncey Bailey and Acorn Gang investigations. And what is there to investigate? We all know that Mr. Mehserle killed Mr. Grant. With what to charge him is the prosecutor’s decision. Instead of investigating the BART Police, the OPD should investigate their own response to Wednesday night’s riots, especially how fewer than one hundred vandals were able to terrorize a large residential neighborhood.

Within the dense Lake Merritt Apartment District, at least one car was set afire, dozens of cars were damaged, and residents were prevented by police from returning to their homes. An officer gave extraordinarily unsafe directions to Uptown to a friend, who wisely took refuge in a bar until past midnight. The Oakland Police, as Fox Theater developer Phil Tagami implied, were poorly prepared for the riot and handled the situation badly. The Oakland Police Department, far from acting as an independent investigator of the BART Police, should investigate its own handling of a protest that may not have needed to become so destructive.

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.

At the beginning of the summer, in response to criticisms of his productivity and his bumbling of the Deborah Edgerly affair, Mayor Ron Dellums announced a “top-to-bottom review” of the city budget, the mayor’s office, and candidates for City Administrator. Since then, he has once again turned in a late budget, produced no reports or initiatives, and failed to appoint officials crucial to the operation of the city.

It’s been 148 days since Oakland has had a permanent City Administrator, the most important job in the city (longer if you believe Dellums’ claim that Eagerly in fact agreed to resign in January), and most managers have “Interim” in their title. The Oakland Planning Commission has lacked its seventh member since May 6. This absence of leadership has made City Hall even more dysfunctional than usual. The reader need only watch one major public meeting to see how poorly staff is performing without direction or any authority.

I used to oppose a recall, but it is now clear that Dellums cannot even fulfill the most basic function of the mayor’s job, to appoint the powerful officials who run the city. Without a permanent City Administrator or a full Planning Commission, the business of city government is not accomplished. The situation is intolerable, inexcusable, and illegal – there is no provision in the Charter for a permanent Interim City Administrator! It’s time for a new mayor, because we don’t currently have one.

However, a recall campaign would take about five months from filing to an election (assuming signatures would be gathered quickly). Even if nicely timed to fit the very probable special election next June, a new mayor would get only a year-and-a-half jump on running the city, and since mayoral campaigns will begin in a year, it’s only six months before Dellums becomes an even lamer duck. Is it worth expending $100,000 or more only to move the next mayoral election up by less than a year? With every passing hour, a recall is less valuable.

Thoughts around City Hall are already turning to 2010, as Chip Johnson points out today. In the meantime, politicians, whether newly-elected or turning their eyes to a bigger prize, need to attend to the business of governing. If no-one starts a recall by the end of the year, the City Council will be the only body with any authority in 2009. Though we’re all looking forward to a future with a capable Mayor, some decisions need to be made in the present.

While library cuts and management perks dominate headlines about Oakland’s budget, the vast majority of city spending is currently being negotiated behind closed doors: employee compensation. City staff, who have been working without a contract since the summer, have complained to their ally Mayor Dellums as well as to the Council and the public that talks aren’t going well for them. Last week, the largest city employees’ union* turned up the heat by setting a strike authorization vote for October 14th.

To set the stage, a union organizer penned an op-ed for BeyondChron, asking for a “bailout for the needy of Oakland” – the coddled city workforce. The piece highlights the union’s strongest complaint, that librarians do not have adequate security, but largely focuses on outside vendors that city and Port workers blame for cost-cutting pressures. The mainstream media, which has totally ignored the labor strife that threatens to consume City Hall, is helping the unions by focusing on management travel perks that are small potatoes compared to the legions of city workers who are overpaid by many measures.

Though the union has repeatedly offered to help the city find efficiencies, many City Hall watchers blame the union itself for much of Oakland’s inefficiency. After all, front-line workers are often rude to citizens, and overall the city workforce is clearly underperforming. The unions oppose productivity measures such as a 311 system or GPS on city-owned vehicles. Union support helped secure reelection for Councilmembers who reward the unions with lax oversight. Most damagingly, Oakland’s combination of labor and civil service rules make it impossible to manage employees who can be neither fired nor transferred even for egregiously bad job performance.

From at least one perspective, the autonomy given to city staff has been abused. Union organizers who are also city employees, like IFTE 21’s Jeff Levin, appear to be attending to union business on the city’s time. City staff serving policymaking bodies often ignore and thwart the commissioners they are supposed to serve. The performance of city staff during the Downtown Zoning Update is deplorable: from repeatedly providing false and misleading information to outright refusing to follow Commission direction that conflicts with their recommendations, city staff is playing the role of policymaker rather than policy staff. Because they are not accountable to the commissions they serve or really to anyone at all, they can engage in unprofessional behavior without consequences.

The unions have already engaged in hardball tactics, including at least one “sick out” that nobody noticed (and participants were paid during their absence). The unions are in a bad position in negotiations not only because they are clearly overpaid and the city simply cannot afford them, but also because their job performance is so poor that the public doesn’t notice when they leave their posts. That conclusion may be put the test if city workers vote to strike next Tuesday.

*The city does not have detailed information or current contact information about union representation even on its internal website. However, SEIU 1021 is certainly the most visible union and appears to be the biggest.

The City Council declined to confirm Ada Chan’s controversial appointment to the Planning Commission. One episode from San Francisco, her opposition to a restaurant in a commercial district before the SF Planning Commission and Board of Appeals, probably struck many of our City Councilmembers as beyond the pale. Restaurants are popular, you know.

The Nomad Café brings Park(ing) Day to the DTO – finally!

In a video interview over at Oakland Focus, SKS principal Paul Stein says, “we studied crime maps and statistics, and downtown Oakland is safer than downtown San Francisco.”

Famed New Urbanist planner Peter Calthorpe formally proposes a Personal Rapid Transit system for Alameda Point connecting to downtown Oakland. The cost estimates are to be submitted today. He compares the system to the one debuting soon at Heathrow Airport, though that is twice as expensive as his PRT projections and didn’t need to overcome messy right-of-way issues. When it opens, it may be the first successful example of this decades-old technology.

A teenage TV star pays Rockridge a visit.

Mayor Dellums, under criticism for his poor safety plan and his lack of time at his office, is refusing to release his estimate of the budget deficit, which he claims was completed September First. Here’s what Ignacio had to say about it:

“Every council member is not happy with the fact that we have not received the information yet,” he said. “It’s definitely going to make it more difficult. “… It’s going to be tougher. Every month that passes obviously is more future deficit.”

That’s much nicer than I would have been.

It’s unlikely that the budget deficit numbers can be complete as negotiations with the city employees’ unions are not finished. The city employees don’t think that negotiations are going well (for them), and have complained to their allied elected officials, presumably with the hope that they’ll interfere with the professional negotiating team.

Councilmember Desley Brooks, on the receiving end of a MediaNews editorial today, persuaded her fellow councilmembers to adopt an emergency moratorium on tattoo parlors until health inspections can be required. My heavily tattooed peers think that’s reasonable, as long as the ordinance can be prepared before the moratorium expires in 45 days.

Rebecca Kaplan and Kerry Hamill had one of their first face-offs in Jack London Square. Observers I spoke to agreed that Ms. Hamill came across as kind and capable, but Ms. Kaplan had an impressively thorough grasp of problems and solutions for Oakland. Both open their Uptown campaign headquarters on Broadway this week, but Ms. Kaplan’s is in the DTO proper while Ms. Hamill’s is above Grand Ave, technically in Auto Row, opening her up to unflattering comparisons to a car salesman.

Last year, two Planning Commissioners sparked a stir when they attempted to hold up Trader Joe’s liquor licenses in an attempt to bully the store into accepting unionization. Recently, Inclusionary Zoning representatives told the Zoning Update Committee that they “demand” their pet policy as part of citywide zoning updates. This has led businesses to fear that political groups want to use the Planning Commission to force developers to implement policies they can’t get through the City Council, greatly complicating the already difficult zoning update. Tonight, the City Council will debate an appointment that crystallizes these fears: Mayor Dellums’ nomination of SF “anti-gentrification” activist Ada Chan to the Oakland Planning Commission (pdf).

The battle lines are starkly drawn. Ideological organizations have scheduled an evening rally outside City Hall, with anti-development group ONWRD joining with labor unions to press for Ms. Chan’s confirmation, and the top anti-development lobbyist, Margaretta Lin of the East Bay Community Law Center, working overtime for Ms. Chan. Jean Quan’s staff, Ms. Chan herself, and Joel Tena of East Bay Housing Organizations are promoting her appointment on District 4’s neighborhood listserves, leading some insiders to speculate that she is being groomed to replace Ms. Quan in 2010. With large and controversial projects moving through the pipeline (including four buildings that would be the tallest in Oakland), the stakes are high and developers are scared.

It doesn’t help that Ms. Chan, emphasizing her devotion to anti-development policies she worked on with Supervisor Chris Daly in the Mission and SOMA, won her nomination over a West Oakland resident who stressed the need for Planning Commissioners to live in areas impacted by development so they have a better understanding of the importance of design and context (Ms. Chan lives in the Laurel District). The Oakland Builders’ Alliance and the ethnic Chambers of Commerce, worried by Ms. Chan’s policy record as well as her refusal to meet with them to discuss her nomination, are explicitly opposing her appointment in an unusual and risky move. The scuttlebutt is that the Council is split along familiar lines, with Jane Brunner, Nancy Nadel and Jean Quan supporting the nomination, and Ignacio de la Fuente, Larry Reid and Henry Chang opposed, leaving Pat Kernighan and Desley Brooks as the deciding votes.

With the players aligned as in other controversial development issues, the fight over Ada Chan’s nomination increasingly appears to be a proxy fight over Inclusionary Zoning and other expensive policies that developers oppose as unduly burdensome. But that is not how Planning Commission appointments should be made. Planning Commissioners are not supposed to create de-facto development policy using the heavy hammer of planning permission, but to interpret the existing policy and apply it to specific projects. The groups pushing for anti-development policy along with this nomination clearly expect Ms. Chan to behave differently if confirmed to the Planning Commission.

Once again, the heat is unbearable, and the Interweb is cool. Links for this holiday Friday follow.

Nationally-focused but Oakland-based blogger Impetuous Young Whippersnapper tells you “how (to) know your elected officials are incompetent.” Hint: it has something to do with handling crime.

Jesse Douglas Allen Taylor of the Berkeley Weekly Planet suggests Mayor Dellums convene a task force to get a handle on crime (it’s at the very end of his 1666-word column).

The OakBook reports that Estaban Sabar Gallery, the first high-end art gallery in Uptown, is closing so that Mr. Sabar and his husband, painter Marty McCorkle, can escape to tropics to focus on making art instead of running a business. Mr. Sabar promises to come back, but First Friday will never be same.

The Alameda Sun reports on a community meeting about the Naval Base redevelopment. Both proposals presented would require repealing Measure A, which limits housing density on The Island to duplexes (!). What’s in it for Oakland, you ask? Well, having jettisoned the ski lift to BART proposal from years ago, developer SunCal wants to build a Personal Rapid Transit system, also advocated by one of the leading proposals for the Oakland Army Base reuse. The Sun brings up several problems with this “monorail,” besides that, you know, there isn’t a single successful example of this technology in the entire world.

CBS5’s Eye on Blogs take a break from vacation to post a hilarious error from SFGate.com.

Opinion-Maker In Chief Chip Johnson indulges in the “royal we” while being the first to report that Mayor Dellums is actually, officially, formally, admittedly, on indefinite vacation.

Ballot arguments have been filed for local propositions. Call the City Clerk and ask for them if you don’t want to wait a month. Four local ballot questions impact Oakland. OUSD’s school tax, opposed by both anti-tax types as well as the teachers’ union (because it dares to share the proceeds with fast-growing charter schools), is Measure N. In Berkeley, a proposal that would complicate the regional Bus Rapid Transit plan centered in downtown Oakland is Measure KK. Back in Oakland, the police parcel tax is Measure NN, and Kids First 2 is Measure OO. What do NN and OO spell, when presented vertically as on the ballot?

N N

O O

Happy Labor Day!