Oakland is one of the few California cities where Councilmembers can run for reelection indefinitely. Of the ten largest cities in California, only Oakland and Sacramento are without term limits for the City Council. In the other eight cities, incumbency is not an issue. But in Oakland, the advantages of incumbency are overwhelming: the last time a full-term Councilmember was defeated for reelection was in 1996, and half of our City Council has been elected to serve sixteen years or more. Oakland’s notable lack of term limits and the built-in advantages of incumbency aren’t the only factors producing stagnant leadership. Strict campaign-finance regulations also favor incumbents because incumbents have more access to loopholes than challengers, while challengers have passionate supporters who are more likely to give the maximum contribution.

The most significant loophole enjoyed by incumbents under Oakland’s campaign-finance rules is the ability to roll over debt from one campaign to the next without triggering self-financing penalties, which is very unfair. Incumbents also tend to do better securing matching funds than their challengers, and it is a rare day when a City Council challenger has access to ballot measure committees or other funds that are allowed to sidestep City regulation. But there is another key reason why incumbents benefit more from campaign donation limits than challengers: passion.

It takes a lot of passion to challenge a sitting City Councilmember. As much as people are dissatisfied with the City Council and City leadership in general, it is an uphill climb to unseat an incumbent. Councilmembers can punish their political enemies with unfavorable legislation, and though Councilmembers are not supposed to decide the character of individual development projects, the recipients of public contracts, where parking meters are located, or which parks get renovated, the fact is that they usually do decide these matters. Any community member with interests before the City is taking a huge risk when challenging an incumbent, and recent history bears this out. Nancy Nadel’s tight reelection campaign in 2008 featured a mailer attacking her opponents as real-estate speculators, yet property developers gave her more money than they gave her challengers, because most of them couldn’t risk her wrath. Those who are willing to jeopardize their interests to help Oakland achieve better leadership must be very passionate, and are therefore more likely to contribute the maximum amount of resources allowed.

The report prepared by Ethics Commission staff is flawed (PDF) but contains the information necessary to prove this point. Dan Purnell, Executive Director of the Ethics Commission, was quietly criticized on Monday for making errors of omission on an ethics matter that appear to favor Councilmember Jean Quan. For the Commission’s discussion of campaign-finance changes (which are opposed by Ms. Quan), Mr. Purnell, in his reports of past campaign donations and spending, wrongly includes City-provided matching funds in donation totals without noting so, making it appear that maximum-contribution donations are a much lower percentage of overall contributions than in reality. However, one can still see that Sean Sullivan received a higher percentage of his overall contributions in maximum increments than did Ms. Nadel. With incumbents enjoying a stranglehold over their seats, it makes sense to give challengers more of an opportunity to make their voices heard, and since raising donation limits benefits challengers more than incumbents, this aids the democratic process.

But that’s only one side of the equation. Low donation limits disproportionately benefit incumbents because their supporters tend to be less passionate, and because they have loopholes they can exploit that challengers cannot. But Oakland also has spending limits, and there are good reasons to think that IRV will increase campaign budgets. If those budgets are unduly constrained, rather than limiting the money in politics, money will just go around the candidates, weakening democracy and leaving candidates more beholden to special interests.

City Attorney John Russo makes a good case that Instant Runoff Voting should trigger an increase to campaign limits. Consolidating two elections into one necessarily lengthens the election season, increasing campaign expenses. More importantly, holding elections in November instead of June means that there are many more voters to capture (higher turnout is of course the main selling point of IRV). Ms. Quan said publicly that “you don’t need twice as many mailers” in a November election, but you have to send mailers to twice as many people. Failing to increase expenditure limits when campaign costs go up doesn’t take money out of politics, it takes control away from candidates.

Because, of course, money won’t leave politics. California cities are constrained in their ability to impose taxes, so there is less money in local campaigns because there is less at stake, compared to other states where many millions of dollars are spent on middling mayoral elections. But since there are still dollars at stake in election results, from businesses seeking permits to nonprofits seeking public funding, interests will spend money on campaigns regardless of what the Public Ethics Commission declares. If candidates cannot collect and spend these dollars, they will go to unregulated independent efforts. Thus spending limits don’t decrease money in politics, and can reduce candidates’ control over campaigns, encouraging negative campaigning.

Whatever high-minded goals avowed by campaign reform advocates are undermined by unseemly politicking over these decisions, with mayoral candidate Jean Quan exhorting her supporters to oppose raising campaign limits with the explicit goal of helping her campaign vis-a-vis Don Perata. But Mr. Perata controls an unregulated campaign account, and if there is money on his side, it will find a way into the election through independent expenditures. Mayoral campaign aside, Oakland desperately needs to level the playing field for challengers to our unusually entrenched City Council. Because of loopholes more available to incumbents, because of the real need for more spending due to higher turnout, and because of the passion of challengers’ supporters, loosening campaign-finance limits will aid grassroots democracy more than strict limits.

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 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.

With New York State rejecting $354m of federal matching funds for congestion pricing and transit upgrades, other cities are getting into the mix. Chicago has proposed an amibitious BRT network, and Los Angeles is angling for more money to supplement their record-breaking public investments in transit. Meanwhile, Berkeley residents seek to put all traffic and transit improvements to public vote, to block a regional project that goes only about a mile into Berkeley.

Finally, someone who is already on the City Council (besides Ignacio, of course) talks about the need to implement policing strategies and technologies now commonplace in other large cities! SF’s new crime czar is singing the same tune. It seems like elections bring out the best in politicians, except when they don’t.

Nancy Nadel revealed at the HarriOak / Adam’s Point / WOBO candidates’ forum that Fresh & Easy, contrary to her assertion late last year, will not be coming to West Oakland’s Acorn Shopping Center (they will open a store in the Eastmont Mall). She noted approvingly that Fresh & Easy was rejected by EBALDC, their putative landlord, over wages. “Do we want a grocery store that won’t pay a living wage?” she asked rhetorically. A Better Oakland cites the wage difference that torpedoed the grocery store, which focuses on low-priced but organic goods, at $0.39/hour.

A local blogger invents a pro-Dellums argument out of thin air: because the mayor was in Capetown, South Africa roughly around the same time as a shipment of arms bound for Zimbabwe was turned away from a Durban, South Africa, port, he must have been instrumental in keeping those arms out of Mugabe’s hands! I often piece together superficially unrelated news stories to create a narrative, but I hope they’re a bit more persuasive.

Los Angeles is paying attention to what transit users and pedestrians desire and installing eye-catching, well-located and comfortable street furniture as part of a “Community Living Room” initiative. Apparently the idea started in Oakland, but I certainly haven’t seen anything like that here. Maybe it’s because I live in D3.

Washington, DC became the first US city to implement a citywide bike-sharing program, funded by advertisers (in this case, Clear Channel Outdoor, headquartered in Oakland). Too bad Oakland’s proposed downtown zoning precludes billboards. The proposed zoning would also ban storage, which has been making a comeback lately as an asset class in the form of develop-and-hold REITs, for reasons including the Smart Growth trend toward real-estate downsizing, which creates new storage needs.

Beserkeley announced the results of a city-funded study. It confirmed that, yes, Virginia, there are many artists in West Berkeley, at least according to what they consider art. Though computer-based design doesn’t count according to Berkeley’s strict zoning, yoga studios do, so clearly nothing should be developed in order to protect valuable artists of the “expressive” variety.

San Francisco is relaxing height limits in the lower-rise parts of their city center. A marked contrast to proposals presented by Oakland’s city staff under the direction of Dan Lindheim. Not all of Oakland’s planners seem to be on-message, though.

Sacramento leaders including Governor Schwarzenegger and President Pro-Tem Perata are suggesting expanding the state’s sales tax to services. This could be a great boon to Oakland, because competitive goods are often sold outside the city but services are usually consumed nearby. For example, a woman might buy a pair of fashionable stiletto sandals in San Francisco, but will get her pedicures in Oakland (and the heels will be repaired here as well).

Scraperbikes are cool.

And everyone’s favorite rag the Berkeley Daily Planet goes weekly, starting tomorrow. I will endeavor to be somewhat more constant in my own writing, as well. Thanks for the encouragement!

First, let’s look at the main selling point of the zoning: that it would maximize density on Broadway while keeping skyscrapers away from the lake. The justification is that BART is on Broadway (and that it’s popular).

There are several problems with this. Foremost, people do not need to be within one block of BART to use it – the highest-height area clings very closely to Broadway. Also, as people who actually use transit often point out to our allegedly pro-transit leaders, more people ride the bus than take BART. Walking, bicycling, the bus and other transit opportunities like the ferry and train station in JLS are all options for downtown residents and workers. All of downtown is appropriate for highest-density development, from a transportation perspective, and if anything, we should prioritize bus commuters over BART commuters because they’re more likely to be Oaklanders.

Furthermore, the zoning’s tower-and-base form restrictions and the lot-size and setback minimums make development on Broadway more difficult because it’s largely built-up. Most available lots are small and wedged between other structures. And, as V-Smoothe pointed out, the office skyscrapers we just approved with great fanfare would not be allowed.

Finally, restricting high-rise development to Broadway goes against two immutable forces: the market and the earth. The residential market doesn’t like Broadway. The two condo projects having the most trouble are both right on Broadway. A high-rise has been entitled at 17th and Broadway for four years, and no residential construction firm will buy the rights (there is one drool-inducing condo on Broadway as well) And in terms of geology and construction, developers have been saying recently that building right on the BART tracks is difficult and expensive, and impossible directly on top of stations.

The second problem with the zoning is that it brings back the 1960s use restrictions. While concentrating retail on selected corridors and requiring appropriate height and depth minimums for storefronts is great, restricting the use of those storefronts is not. V-Smoothe has already written that the proposal would ban sandwich shops, large restaurants, and arcades (and nightclubs would have to get a CUP on top of the cabaret permitting process). Additionally, banning the “General Assembly” use category would rule out Oaksterdam University and cosmetology schools, the Rock Papers Scissors Collective and union halls. Internet cafes, convenience stores, and other downtown-serving businesses would be discouraged. This is not the way to promote downtown’s economy.

The third problem is that Nancy Nadel’s zoning proposal doesn’t actually respect areas where high-rises should be limited. She said at last night’s debate that any high-rise application already submitted would be grandfathered in, so her effort to rezone downtown won’t actually help the anti-skyscraper activists currently battling two proposals. The area around the lake above 19th would be allowed to build even taller than what’s there now. Old Oakland and historic parts of Chinatown wouldn’t be restricted. I don’t approve of height limits anywhere downtown outside the historic districts, but I don’t see the logic in these height limits at all.

Downtown residents should certainly evaluate the zoning proposal at it moves through the city’s process, with one last public input meeting (the first inside the downtown planning area) scheduled for Monday April 7 at 6p at Restaurant Peony in Chinatown, and the Zoning Update Committee meeting April 16 to make recommendations.

* I so totally have an economic interest in this zoning update. So does everybody else downtown.

I am disappointed that Councilmember Nadel devotes time and energy to Schilling Garden while the Bordertown Skatepark, in an under-parked, teen-heavy part of West Oakland, merely limps along. Naomi Schiff and other Grand Lake residents at the Guardian argue that public monies are needed to, one, preserve this piece of the city’s history, and two, stop the planned skyscraper (which is 16 feet taller than the neighboring Ordway Building). Concerns about public access voiced by my blogging partners have been ignored, and the meeting reveals why.

Virtually every speaker who wanted the city to buy the garden (for $8m) lived in the adjoining Regillus condos or Bechtel Building (the building whose property once included the garden), a 13-story, 22-unit exclusive apartment building. They are asking the city to use public money to maintain their private garden. One speaker asked, “unless the use of the garden is truly public, it should not receive public funds.” He was hissed for his pro-public-access comments, demonstrating that the residents of the apartments have no interest in the garden being anything but their own private backyard. One neighbor spoke against buying the garden for this reason (she didn’t want public access right outside her window).

The city staff outlined problems with semipublic (“high-end corporate events”) use of the garden that went beyond the cost and accessibility concerns discussed before. One staffer noted that there is no parking, no structural facilities (precluding a wedding, for example), and that events would be restricted to before 5pm to avoid upsetting the immediate residents. Councilmember Quan noted that the city is cutting gardener positions even as the amount of parkland has grown substantially. The infeasibility, and undesirability, of making this garden even semipublic was presented quite clearly.

The speakers’ comments revealed more than just an attempt to grab public money for the enjoyment of a handful of residents. One speaker thanked the council for this “opportunity to say ‘no.’” Another asserted that “it’s time for Oakland to restrict buildings on Lake Merritt. Buildings over four stories block our views.” (emphasis mine) Basically, the residents are saying, “we have our luxury lakeside apartment home. We don’t want anyone else to have that opportunity.”

The agenda of the speakers is selfish in the extreme. They want public money to pay for their private garden, even hissing a speaker who suggested making the use more public. They are opposed to any lakeside development, even though it means more housing and more tax revenue for the city (tax revenue that could be used for public safety, low-income housing, and Lake Merritt maintenance). There is no intention of enabling the public to enjoy this garden (which one speaker pointed out “could be replanted elsewhere”). Instead, the residents of these luxury lakeside apartments want to exclude new neighbors and the public from their huge backyard, and use public money and city staff time to do it.

UPDATE: The Trib and the Chronicle have articles in which they completely ignore the three neighbors who spoke against the city buying the garden. Naomi Schiff has her own take on the meeting.

**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.

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While I thought the portrayals of the candidates were accurate, I was slightly confused by the overarching theme of the article – the notion that Ignacio De La Fuente is waging a nearly impossible battle. Will Harper claims that “many political insiders consider [Ignacio's campaign] an exercise in futility.” I am far from being a political insider (and admit to having an absolutely abysmal record at predicting election outcomes – I doubt I will ever live down my insistence on opening bottles of champagne around 6 PM on November 2, 2004), but this just seems wrong to me. I have no access to any kind of special information, but I’ve spent a lot of time talking to people around town about this, and I’ve seen the reactions of attendees at multiple debates. My observations have given me a fair amount of confidence that the concensus among concerned and informed Oaklanders is strongly in favor of Ignacio De La Fuente, and that he is going to win outright in June (although I think Ron Dellums’s newest stunt with the voter information packets will definitely hurt Ignacio’s chances).

So I have to wonder what political insiders know that I don’t. Or am I just completely out of touch? I’m not living in a vacuum. My optimism stems from my observations. For example, at the Rockridge NCPC debate, when the candidates were asked about road maintenance, Nancy Nadel insisted that we needed more money from the state, proposed a state bond, invoked the disaster of Hurricane Katrina, and proposed more fee increases to augment our city budget. Ron Dellums said that we need to find ways to bring in other resources, and insisted that the state and federal governments should be contributing more money towards our infrastructure. Ron Oz started talking about how he invests in the stock market and how we need more police. And Ignacio De La Fuente got slightly flustered while plowing through a diatribe about how the source of our problem is resource management, the need to allocate our money towards resources rather than salaries, his proposed 311 call center to monitor the effectiveness of city services and ensure accountability from City Hall, and the necessity of focusing on a “back to basics” approach to city government. The crowd went wild! Most of his responses were far and away the most well recieved. I left the debate confident that an overwhelming majority of attendees were firmly in Ignacio’s corner.

And I see unexpected, yet fervent, support coming from so many of the people I talk to. I see the Ignacio signs proudly displayed all over downtown. This morning, while walking down to the lake, I decided to count the signs I saw just on one street. On 14th Street downtown, from Broadway to Lakeside, there are 15 proudly displayed Ignacio De La Fuente signs in shops and restaurants, and only 4 for Ron Dellums. And I look at the candidates’ endorsements (see my series of blogs), and see Ignacio winning to endorsement battle in every single area.

So what am I missing? What makes him such an underdog and tough sell? Is it because he swears? Is that something anyone in Oakland really actually cares about? Or is all the speculation based on the one poll, the one taken in January, before Ron Dellums launched his non-existant campaign and before voters started paying attention to the race? What evidence is there that Ron Dellums is gaining support? I just don’t see it – it seems to me that he bleeds voters at every debate (which I think he knows, and is why he refuses to attend very many and rails about their uselessness at every opportunity). While I see more Ignacio signs downtown all the time, I’ve noticed that three shops I walk past every morning have recently removed the Ron Dellums signs they had been displaying for months.

In the end, I’m not sure if this image will end up helping or hurting De La Fuente’s campaign. On the one hand, it could be seen as positive in that it helps to counteract the idea many people have of him as a “machine” candidate. On the other, it (I think mistakenly) implies that there is some kind of broad-based consensus for Ron Dellums. Will people who read the article decide that they want “Mr. Law and Order” running City Hall and be more motivated to vote for him? Or will they feel that this is such an uphill battle that their vote is worthless? I really don’t know.

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