1. Christopher Rodriguez: 2008 got off to a decidedly inauspicious start when a 10 year old boy was hit by a stray bullet during his piano lesson on normally-safe Piedmont Avenue. Oakland residents rallied to raise funds for the now-paralyzed boy, while State Senate President Don Perata responded with a highly publicized gun buyback, which turned out to be a total fiasco, leaving organizers on the hook for $170,000.

2. City Council re-elected: Oakland residents eager for change staked their hopes on the June primaries, when four long-term Councilmembers came up for re-election. After running unopposed in 2004, Nancy Nadel, Jane Brunner, and Ignacio De La Fuente all faced energetic challengers.

   Despite being totally despised by both anti-development and pro-growth advocates, and getting hammered on crime by Bushrod activist Pat McCullough, District 1 Councilmember Jane Brunner coasted to re-election with 76% of the vote. District 3 Councilmember Nancy Nadel battled strident criticism from Covenant House director Sean Sullivan and School Board member Greg Hodge, but managed to escape a run-off fight by 114 votes. Things got especially nasty in District 5, where Council President Ignacio De La Fuente and challenger Mario Juarez both had campaign offices vandalized. Despite his disturbing personal problems, Juarez won strong support from longtime De La Fuente detractors, but even an election day blanketing of District 5 with Juarez propaganda wasn’t enough to keep the 16 year veteran from winning 53% of the vote. OCC Director Clifford Gilmore attacked Councilmember Larry Reid for neglecting District 7′s poor neighborhoods and failing to address the crime problem, but just like with everything else in East Oakland, nobody cared, and Reid walked away with 62% of the vote.

3. Deborah Edgerly: After allegations surfaced that City Administrator Deborah Edgerly had tipped off a nephew about an upcoming bust of a gang he belonged to, Oakland citizens got temporarily obsessed with corruption in City Hall while Oakland Mayor Ron Dellums spent two weeks dithering over what to do with her, issuing a new announcement about her status virtually every day, and finally firing her when there really weren’t any other options left. The next month, he hired popular former City Manager Robert Bobb to lead the search for her replacement, promising he would announce someone within three months. By December, the Mayor still hadn’t picked a replacement, and City Attorney John Russo finally stepped in and pointed out he’s obligated to do so by the City Charter. Dellums pushed back, indicating that he has no intention of doing so anytime soon. The Mayor claims that the Charter gives no specific timeframe for him to appoint a permanent Administrator, so he can keep Lindheim in an acting position as long as he feels is necessary. Too bad the appointment of Lindheim in the first place, as dto510 pointed out at the time, was totally illegal.

4. Restaurant robberies: In August, Oakland experienced a wave of restaurant robberies for the second time this year. Furious and frightened citizens demanded the Mayor do something about Oakland’s crime crisis, and Dellums responded by blaming the problem on the bad economy and calling in the Guardian Angels to patrol Oakland’s streets. Eventually, three suspects were arrested, and the robberies stopped. Everyone seemed pretty much satisfied with that and stopped worrying about crime, conveniently forgetting about all the teenagers getting shot in East Oakland at an ever increasing rate.

5. Financial meltdown: The Council managed to close a $15 million deficit during June budget deliberations, only to learn a month later that they were still short $40+ million and had spent all their reserves. The fiscal crisis dominated October’s City Hall news, and the Council eventually managed to close the hole with a combination of layoffs, one time fund transfers, and monthly city shutdowns, making just about everyone angry in the process. Frustrated by the service cuts and the general complete mess at City Hall, people started condemning the Council for letting salaries and benefit costs get so out of control and wondering how this bunch of clowns managed to stay in office for so long, conveniently forgetting that they were the ones who re-elected them all only a few months ago. After a two month rest, we get to start the process all over again in January.

6. Search warrants challenged: Fall brought more scandal for the Oakland Police Department, after news came out that a number of officers had been lying to judges for the last four years in order to obtain search warrants. The department defended the sworn affidavits which claimed that confiscated substances had returned positive test results when in fact the substances had never been tested at all by saying they were simply misstatements due to deficiencies in training, but that wasn’t enough enough to keep convictions from being overturned or the City from being sued over the scandal. Finally, a judge ordered the department to prove that some of their confidential informants actually existed. Turns out they did, although in at least one case they had lied about the informant’s previous work in order to establish credibility. The Department waved off the issue, saying it was enough that that officers did not exhibit “evilness” when they made the false statements.

7. Chauncey Bailey project: It’s been a year and a half since the Oakland Post editor was murdered in broad daylight in downtown Oakland. After a kind of rough start last year, the Chauncey Bailey project released a slew of scandalous stories revealing, at best, total ineptitude and at worst, outright malfeasance in the handling of the investigation by OPD. Dellums eventually caught on that this was a serious problem, and asked the State to look into it. Unfortunately, the articles, while incredibly informative and disturbing, were generally just way too long and dryly written for anyone but the most devoted media junkies to sit down and read all the way through, and most people were left with a nothing but a vague sense that things had probably been somewhat mishandled, but what else is new.

8. Oaklanders totally screw their budget: In response to citizen cries for more police, Oakland Mayor Ron Dellums asked the Council to place a parcel tax on November’s ballot that would add 75 new officers to the force over three years, and they agreed. Then nobody bothered to campaign for the tax, and it went down in flames, leaving nobody with any idea how to even pay to maintain our existing force. Meanwhile, voters easily approved Measure OO, agreeing to take millions of dollars per year away from their parks and libraries and give them to youth-oriented non-profits instead.

   In other election news, the much anticipated showdown between Kerry Hamill and Rebecca Kaplan never materialized. Frantic rumors about Don Perata spending millions of dollars to install his puppet on the Council and a planned series of nasty attack mailers flew around town for months, but in the end, all Hamill was able to muster was a bunch of ugly and unpersuasive signs ineptly posted on fences around town. Endorsements from OakPac and the Oakland Builder’s Alliance undermined arguments that the former Green Party member would be bad for business, and Kaplan coasted to an easy and predictable victory.

9. OPD hits 803: After promising to bring the police force to full staffing by year’s end in his State of the City address, Oakland Mayor Ron Dellums decided the best way to accomplish the goal was to spend a bunch of money we didn’t have. The Council agreed, we spent the cash, and the department victoriously announced a whopping 837 officers in November. The triumph was short-lived, however. With all the money gone, the Mayor, without consulting anyone, abruptly cancelled the next Police Academy, and now we’ll be back under 803 either by the summer or before all those new officers from November even finish their field training, depending on who you believe.

10. People finally started hating Ron Dellums: Although many who had opposed his Mayoral candidacy were critical of Dellums from the beginning of his tenure, most residents elected to take a wait-and-see approach. During his first year in office, people were generally content to believe the line that Dellums was working feverishly behind the scenes, but after two years of no visibility, no progress, no ability to make a decision amid rising violent crime, budget crises, and corruption scandals, almost everyone stopped buying it. The Mayor’s reputation wasn’t helped by media reports of a scandalously light work schedule and wasteful personal spending. A fall poll pegged Dellums’s approval rating at a depressing 27%, while his disapproval rating had risen to 55%. Organizers of the draft Dellums movement started apologizing, and talk of a Dellums recall gained steam, even though it’s pretty much too late at this point.

Well, that was depressing. Here’s hoping 2009 will bring better news.

Um…I’m not. And I wasn’t then. But national events meant absolutely nothing to me that day. I had poured my heart and soul and, of course, all my available time, into campaigning for Oakland’s library bond, Measure N. At my election night parties, the national returns on the TV were nothing more than a vague blur in the background as I huddled next to a laptop obsessively reloading results from the Alameda County ROV, only able to tear myself away for the occasional cigarette. It took my co-worker’s sweet expression of sympathy to jolt me out of my selfish pouting and realize that something more important than my little library bond had happened.

Never one to learn my lessons, I found myself in a similar mood tonight. Early evening elation shifted to cautious apprehension around nine o’clock or so, and of course, as the night wore on, it became increasingly difficult to remember why I’d been so happy just a few hours earlier. And of course, I, in turn, became increasingly unpleasant company. Usually when elections don’t go my way, I turn to my beloved Herodotus for affirmation, and who knows, I just may break out the lexicon and the grammar and Book III if I don’t feel any better when I wake up. But mostly, right now, I just feel like a jerk, and I don’t think Megabyzos has much chance of changing that. I gave some money, more money than I could afford really, to No on 8 efforts, and I did some phoning. But not that much phoning, and I knew all along I should have done more volunteering this time around, but I just felt so wiped from the spring, like, even after a summer to rest, I just didn’t have anything left in me to give. Last week, I went to the movies (the movies!!) and as we were walking to the theater, I sheepishly acknowledged to my friend that I should have been phone banking instead, and I said (in reference to another race, not 8.) that it was okay, they didn’t really need me, but of course, I’d feel like a total asshole for not spending my time phoning instead of watching a freaking movie if the election didn’t go my way. So, there you go. It didn’t go my way. And I was right, I do feel like a total asshole. Not that that makes any difference now.

Anyway, here you go, bar closing time election results. Some good, some bad. Hooray for Rebecca Kaplan, and, you know, that other thing that happened tonight:

Oakland Councilmember At-large: Rebecca Kaplan 61.95%, Kerry Hamill 37.16%

Measure N: Teacher Pay Parcel Tax: Yes 61.46%, 38.54%

Measure NN: Police Parcel Tax: Yes 54.95%, No 45.05%

Measure OO:Kids First Set-aside: Yes 52.99%, No 47.01%

Measure VV: AC Transit Parcel Tax: Yes 71.6%, No 28.4%

Measure WW: East Bay Regional Parks Bond Extension: Yes 71.4%, No 28.6%

AC Transit Director, At-large: Chris Peeples 64.1%, Joyce Roy 35.0% (Seriously?)

AC Transit Director, Ward 2: Greg Harper 73.23%, James Muhammad 25.63 (Just more proof that people vote at random)

BART Director, District 7: Lynette Sweet 67.3%, Marshall Walker 31.9%

East Bay MUD, Ward 5: Doug Linney 64.73%, Susi Ostlund 34.21%

East Bay MUD, Ward 6: Bill Patterson 54.91%, Bob Feinbaum 43.69%

East Bay Regional Park District Director, Ward 1: Whitney Dotson 56.1%, Norman La Force 43.1%

Peralta Community College District Trustee, Area 2: Marcie Hodge 61.08%, Marlon McWilson 37.91% (That’s disappointing.)

Fremont Mayor: Bob Wasserman 42.67%, Steve Cho 32.26%, Gus Morrison 20.65%, Paul Reeder 4.08%

Santa Clara County Measure B: BART Extension: Yes 65.96%, No 34.04%

Proposition 1A: High-Speed Rail Bond: Yes 52.0%, No 48.0%

Proposition 2: Standards for Confining Farm Animals: Yes 62.9%, No 37.1%

Proposition 3: Children’s Hospital Bond: Yes 53.9%, No 46.1%

Proposition 4: Parental Notification:Yes 47.2%, No 52.8%

Proposition 5: Nonviolent Drug Offense Sentencing: Yes 40.0%, No 60.0%

Proposition 6: Police, Law Enforcement Funding: Yes 30.1%, No 69.9%

Proposition 7: Renewable Energy: Yes 34.6%, No 65.4%

Proposition 8: Eliminates Right of Same-Sex Couples to Marry: Yes 51.8%, No 48.2%

Proposition 9: Criminal Justice System Victims’ Rights: Yes 53.1%, No 46.9%

Proposition 10: Renewable Energy Bonds: Yes 39.4%, No 60.6%

Proposition 11: Redistricting:Yes 50.8%, No 49.2%

Proposition 12: Veterans’ Bond: Yes 63.1%, No 36.9%

I have to admit, I’m a little happy right now just thinking I won’t have to worry about any more elections for a while.

I figure that at this point this is somewhat of an academic exercise, since everyone has already decided how they’re voting, but what the hell. Here are my hastily written election-day endorsements for the November 4, 2008 election:

Oakland City Council, At-large: Rebecca Kaplan

This is just a complete no-brainer. I had been kind of looking forward to this race. Kerry Hamill is easily the best school board member, and I figured that as a Councilmember, she could bring some of the refreshing rationality she displays in that venue to a City Hall often desperately lacking it. And if she were to win, maybe she still would. But she certainly doesn’t appear to have plans to bring anything else. At multiple candidate forums, in multiple recorded interviews, and during our personal conversation, Hamill never managed to establish for me that she has any ideas about what Oakland needs, what she wants to do as Councilmember, or that she’s put any effort into even learning what types of issues our neighborhoods are facing. I don’t have the faintest idea why she even wants to be on the Council, whereas, with Kaplan, I get like, an unstoppable river of wonky policy talk and ideas about how to deal with this issue or that every time I bump into her at an event. (Which happens a lot, BTW, all over the City, and I appreciate that visibility.)

And that’s pretty much what it comes down to for me. Rebecca Kaplan has ideas about what she wants to do for Oakland – well-researched, specific, detailed ideas, and Kerry Hamill, as far as I can tell, has none beyond a skeletal “public safety” plan and a “walkable cities initiative” that she keeps referencing, but I have been unable to get any details on whatsoever, despite several attempts to contact the campaign about it. It’s like at that League of Women Voters debate, Hamill just kept giving these total non-answers. It was so bizarre. For a question about how she would deal with certain community/development disputes, she was all like “If there was disagreement between the two sides, I would work to negotiate an agreement.” Helpful. Informative. Not! These questions are about your priorities. And it was the same thing over and over again. When asked about keeping the A’s in Oakland, she’s like “Maybe there’s another way to structure the deal.” Gee, you think? You can’t just say things like that, you have to actually have ideas for what that other way is. I didn’t understand Kaplan’s answer to that question at all (she’s since elaborated on her position for me), but at least she had one. And that’s pretty much what it comes down to for me. Hamill might bring sound judgment to the Council, but we need energy and ideas too, and Kaplan can bring all three.

Also, to the extent that Hamill has articulated any kind of position related to growth and development, it is one that favors very large projects and is dismissive of smaller urban infill. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with big planned developments like Forest City, Oak to Ninth, or the MacArthur BART Transit Village, but I also don’t think that those types of projects are all we need, and I would prefer to see us making policy decisions that favor more organic types of growth. So that’s a very real policy area where I agree with Kaplan and not Hamill (I add this part only because I keep hearing people say things like “They’re the same, but Kaplan will work much harder.” They aren’t the same, especially not when it comes to development.) Anyway, Kaplan’s the clear choice for me here.

Measure N: NO

It seems like the only person in town who supports Measure N is Vince Matthews. We just passed a parcel tax for the schools in February, and the State Administrator threw this onto the ballot at the last minute with no public discussion and basically no warning. It’s a $120 per year parcel tax, 85% of which would go to teacher pay and the 15% of which would go to charter schools. I agree that our teachers should be paid better, but this isn’t the way to do it. For one, raising pay only for teachers ignores other school employees who make vital contributions to education, like librarians. Also, the district, even after years of state receivership, still has not managed to get their finances under control. Until they get their house in order, they don’t deserve any more money.

Measure NN: NO

I went back and forth one this one for months. I’d tell myself that the police department is poorly managed, and that they shouldn’t get any more money until they can demonstrate that they’re serious about reform and increasing efficiency. Also, Measure Y funds have not been spent as promised and the concerns of the Measure Y Oversight Committee are routinely ignored by the Council. Then I’d tell myself that the City’s financial situation is so dire that they really do need the funds, and we can work out the reforms later. In the end, I went with no, and didn’t feel at all conflicted about it. The Department is a mess, the Council’s oversight is lax to non-existent, and this is not an agency that deserves to be rewarded with more money without substantial reform.

Measure OO: NO!!!

Ugh, Measure OO is so awful. It would decimate city services.

Measure VV: YES

Unlike OUSD or OPD, AC Transit is a well-managed agency, and over the last 10 years, they’ve finally managed to reverse a decades of deterioration and mismanagement. Unlike those other agencies, they also aren’t currently receiving large amounts of revenue from parcel taxes. The combination of rising gas costs and the $15 million the State is stealing from AC Transit spells doom for service levels if this $48/year parcel tax doesn’t pass.

Measure WW: YES

This measure does not increase taxes and brings enormous benefits to Oakland.

AC Transit Director At-large: Chris Peeples

I find Chris Peeples more pompous than even the average politician, but he’s a good transit director and has the right priorities. His opponent, Joyce Roy, is crazy and had to have like half her ballot statement stricken for being untrue. This is a no-brainer.

AC Transit Director, Ward 2: Greg Harper

Harper isn’t one of my favorites on AC Transit’s Board, but he does a pretty solid job as well, and the guy running against him doesn’t live in the district and is facing perjury charges. Another easy choice.

East Bay MUD, Ward 5: Doug Linney

I was bothered during the League of Women Voters candidate forum by challenger Susi Ostlund’s answers on a variety of questions. She does not appear to be taking the drought seriously enough and is not interested in emphasizing conservation of resources to the degree we need to. Linney’s commitment to conservation and efficient use of resources is important for the district.

East Bay MUD, Ward 6: Bob Feinbaum

Incumbent Bill Patterson is a fine, but Feinbaum’s commitment to rate equity, conservation incentives, and improved service delivery with the aid of modern technology make him the better choice for this seat.

Peralta Community College District Trustee, Area 2: Marlon McWilson

Incumbent Marcie Hodge had to be censured by her peers on the Board for frequent absences, tardiness, and childish behavior. Change is needed on the Board, and McWilson is the right person to bring it.

BART, Area 7: Lynette Sweet

Sweet’s challenger, Marshall Walker, wants BART to ring the Bay and then extend to Sacramento. No! BART is insanely expensive, and while I do support better rail service to areas not covered by BART, that would be like, the worst possible way to do it. What a freaking nightmare. And something that someone representing urban areas that are already unfairly subsidizing service to low-density suburbs every time they ride BART has absolutely no business supporting.

East Bay Regional Park District, Ward 1: Whitney Dotson

Both candidates in this race would be quality additions to the Board. Dotson wins my endorsement because of his focus on improving access to our regional parks. La Force prioritizes expansion, which is all well and good, but transportation options are limited for many of the District’s residents, and it’s really important not just that we have regional parks, but also that people can get to them.

I think that’s everything.

I missed my bus, causing me to arrive late (I think it was during opening statements), then an urgent personal matter forced me to leave for a while in the middle. Since I missed large chunks of the forum, I won’t attempt a detailed recap, but I will share my impressions about the parts of what I caught that I found the most interesting.

Okay, let’s get started. The first question I saw was about how they could show leadership that’s currently lacking in the City. Kerry Hamill said that leadership in the City appears to be lacking because the Mayor is a “thinker, not an actor” and has no visibility. She said that to fill the void, the Council need to start speaking collectively with one voice by passing unanimous resolutions saying what they want, and that if all 8 members of the Council give directives they agree on, the Mayor will go along. I think she’s seriously overestimating the Mayor’s ability to be a team player.

Rebecca Kaplan said that she sees the at-large seat on the Council as an opportunity for crafting policy and working on citywide issues. Then – and I swear, I got, like, stars in my eyes at this point – she started talking about the Housing Rescue Package, and what an incredible opportunity it is for Oakland and how it’s being squandered because nobody in the City is speaking up to make sure we get what we deserve out of it. (This is true! After I read this article in the Christian Science Monitor about how cities all over the country are busy lobbying HUD to make sure they get their share and to write rules for use that will be favorable to what they would like to do with it, I tried to find out what Oakland was doing. The Mayor’s office, CEDA, City Councilmembers – none of them seem aware of or interested in this huge opportunity, and certainly made no indication that they were trying to represent our needs to HUD or that they had any idea of how to spend the money.) Anyway, so Kaplan, I guess, had the same experience, but instead of just sitting there all frustrated like I did, she dealt with it by reaching out to HUD herself, getting a copy of the draft rules, and calling up Barbara Lee to get her to stand up and make sure Oakland got its share of the pie.

She stole my heart. Seriously. I was already planning to vote for Kaplan before this event, but if I hadn’t been, that would have been all I needed to hear.

Later in the debate, Kerry Hamill came back to the Housing Rescue Package issue, tacking onto the end of her answer to some other question that if there’s $4 billion available from the Federal goverment (um, there is), then making sure we get it is something we need to rely on our Federal representatives to do, and that people can’t expect everything from the City.

Kaplan responded to that by noting that other cities are asking HUD for what they want, so it isn’t like what she did was unique to Oakland, and said that people should expect more from their local government. She said that she saw it as part of the at-large Councilmember’s job to stay on top of State and Federal opportunities, and to work with those representatives to get what we need (and pointed out that until she contacted the Congresswoman about it, Lee had not been advocating for Oakland with respect to the Housing Rescue Package). More than anything else in this forum, I felt like this issue really crystalized the difference between these two candidates. One isn’t even elected yet and is showing initiative to get Oakland what we deserve and says we deserve better than we’re getting. The other warns that we shouldn’t expect so much from the City. Who do you want on the Council?

The next question was about attracting retail, and Rebecca Kaplan gave a long and wonky answer about how awesome the Conley reports are (and she’s so right!), and how Oaklanders have so much spending power that’s just bleeding to other cities. “Revitalizing our economy is central to everything else we want to do.” The problem of retail sales leakage is a “huge and solveable problem.”

Kerry Hamill responded that “it isn’t a question of what any report says, it’s a question of safety” and that she knows that from talking to people all the time and then she went on and on about crime. Of course, if Hamill had read the Conley report, she would know that they do identify public safety as a major barrier to retail. Her answer wasn’t terrible, but that line really just rubbed me the wrong way, indicating an almost Bush-like hostility to evidence and study. Of course there’s value in talking to people, and no public official should make decisions without soliciting direct input from the people they represent, but you need to look at research and data too. And it’s so dismissive of the complexities of the issue to say crime is the only problem with retail in Oakland. For example, as the Conley report points out, one of the major barriers is the lack of quality space. So you can make the City as safe as you want, but if there’s nowhere for retailers to put their stores, then we still won’t have shopping. You have to attack the problem from all angles, or at the very least be able to recognize that there is more than one part to the issue.

The candidates were then asked to provide a detailed, strategy and policy based answer to how they would address Oakland’s crime problem.

Kerry Hamill was vague once again. She started out by saying that the she wants to hold the line on police funding and thinks that the money we’re spending could be used more efficiently. I don’t disagree with that, but found the example she provided bizarre. She said that if the top brass in the department is spending a lot of money going to conferences, then we should stop that, and she doesn’t know if that’s the case, but we should find out. Huh? This really bugged, and it seemed to be a consistent theme over the course of the debate. Why doesn’t Kerry Hamill know anything? I mean, I’ll admit that I don’t know whether the “top brass” are spending a lot of money going to conferences either. I don’t really feel that bad about not knowing that since I’m not the one using it as an example how why you should vote for me. But if I had to take a wild guess, I think I’d venture that maybe they aren’t going to enough conferences, because they don’t seem to be aware of what any other city is doing. Maybe some more conferences would be good for them.

Anyway, then she said we need to have strategic deployment and to renegotiate the NSA because it costs too much and keeps us from getting officers because police don’t want to feel like they’re being watched.

Rebecca Kaplan said we need to challenge orthodoxies, look at what works and do more of it, have more evidence gathering and evidence analysis, hire more PSTs and so on.

When asked what transit-oriented development means to them, Kerry Hamill said that it’s any development within a mile of some kind of central hub like a BART station or other heavy rail. She said she saw the benefit of this as being that you can pour a lot of resources into an area right around a BART station, and it allows you to bring in outside dollars and get grants for amenities like lighting and such.

Kaplan said that development near transit was only the first ingredient of transit oriented development, and that we shouldn’t limit our idea of transit only to BART, and that other elements include transit passes for residents, lighting, and safety. She said that Jack London Square should have better connectivity to BART stations and that she’d like to restore the Broadway shopper shuttle and light to freeway underpass so people are comfortable walking under it.

Another example of how Kerry Hamill’s thinking is just so incredibly limited and, I don’t know, dated? Transit oriented means a mile from transit? That seems like kind of a lot. Also, heavy rail? An urban area shouldn’t just be a collection of little hubs around BART stations. It should be a continuous organism, with life and liveliness throughout. I don’t know, I just found the emphasis on BART so weird. I mean, I don’t have a car, and mostly I get around by walking. I end up using the bus maybe three or four times a week (I mean, it varies). I probably get on BART once a month.

Anyway, those were the parts that stuck with me the most. The overall impression I left with is that Hamill seems like a really nice, sweet, and genuinely caring person, but is far from detail oriented, hasn’t put much effort into learning about the City, and is just incredibly unprepared for the job. It would be hard for me to imagine anyone who watched the debate voting for Hamill over Kaplan, the contrast was just so stark. But then again, I don’t know what everyone else bases their voting decisions on, so who knows. And I know I sound like I’m being super harsh on Hamill, and I guess I am, but that’s just a factor of who she’s being compared to. Rebecca Kaplan is just exactly what we need in City Hall right now. I don’t think Hamill would be any worse on the Council than say, Jane Brunner or somebody.

Anyway, if you want to help out Kaplan’s campaign, you should stop by her office at 19th and Broadway and offer to volunteer. Also, they need money! The Oakland Builders Alliance is throwing a fundraised for Rebecca Kaplan next Tuesday, September 23rd. The address is 155 Grand Avenue, Suite 100. It’s at the Bank of Alameda. The event lasts from 5:30 to 7:30 PM.

Watch below as Hamill explains the differences she sees between herself and Kaplan and shares her thoughts on the current City Council’s performance, Oakland’s crime problems, police deployment, youth services, gun control, former Mayor Elihu Harris, former Mayor Jerry Brown, and current Mayor Ron Dellums.

Kerry Hamill said that the school district provides free breakfast and lunch to students who meet a certain threshold, and that every spring, the district tries to ensure that churches and other groups provide summer food programs. Frank Rose talked about the existing food programs at the East Oakland Boxing Association – they provide one meal a day to the kids they serve during the school year and three meals a day during the summer, they have a community food giveaway every two weeks for parents, they have an organic garden, they have a certified farmer’s market, and they bring the produce from the market to homebound seniors. He said that we need to publicize existing programs to get people to take advantage of them.

Clinton Killion said he would work with existing programs, and that there are many groups, like Covenant House, currently doing a good job, and that we need to ensure they have support. Charles Pine said that we need more officers to deal with truancy, and that if kids are in school, they’ll get a good meal instead of eating junk food. He also said that it’s not realistic to talk about nice programs when we don’t have clean government at City Hall, then complained about the delays in getting the 81st Avenue branch library built, and that we should do what we say we’re going to do before we talk about “all the nice little things.” Rebecca Kaplan said that nutrition impacts every aspect of our lives and that it is the responsbility of government to ensure healthy food is available. She said we need to work to bring grocery stores, farmer’s markets, and community gardens to neighborhoods that don’t have them, and that part of the reason Oakland has a high youth obesity rate is the lack of recreation programs and facilities, like ballparks and swimming pools.

V: Winner: Frank Rose. This was one of two questions where my viewing partners and I all picked the same winner. The whole time he was talking, I kept asking “Do they really do all that?.” It appears that they do. Good for them! That’s awesome. Rebecca Kaplan was also awesome.

Charles Pine made me angry. As Rebecca Kaplan correctly pointed out, nutrition is not a “nice little thing.” It impacts people’s entire lives, and is especially important in children. I guess you wouldn’t know it from reading this blog, but my two primary causes in terms of advocacy and charity are food security and libraries. I wish I had more opportunities to write about these, and I always hope that I’ll get to it someday. Right now I can barely keep up with chasing the Council. Something that really upsets me about this Council is that it lacks any advocate for food security. One of several reasons I’m supporting Sean Sullivan is that he is the only candidate who has even tried to make this issue part of his campaign. Malnutrition, even mild malnutrition or undernutrition, in childhood has been extensively documented to impair cognitive development. By ignoring the very basic need for healthy food in our children’s lives, we are raising a generation that will be burdened by long-term developmental disadvantages and we will have to face the social costs of that. The results of poor nutrition – diminished brain growth, impaired social skills, and decreased attention spans – all lead to behavioral problems and poor educational achievement.

Kerry Hamill barely used half her allotted time to answer this question. Boo! Her answer was also very poor. She simply listed what the schools doing currently, and displayed no interest in improving the situation. This is not enough and it is unnacceptable to be content with the status quo on the issue of food insecurity in Oakland. I am happy that the Oakland School District has a free breakfast program, but nutrition problems are not limited to schools, or even the school age. The developmental disadvantages of poor nutrition begin in pregnancy and are especially pronounced in early development. I can’t even remember now what Clinton Killian said. Oh yeah, it was about programs for youth generally. He ignored the issue of nutrition and just talked about violence prevention. Boo!

Frank Rose said that he would work with the rest of the Council to ensure that people are getting what they’re paying for with their taxes, and that safety is the number one issue for the whole community. He said he would be a watchdog to make sure the Council is giving residents a return on their investment in the city. Clinton Killian said that we need to rebuild our neighborhoods with city services, a diverse supply of housing, and basic retail, like grocery stores and basic services. He said we have to provide the basic safety that will let people enjoy their lives. Charles Pine said that he would give Oakland their neighborhoods back. He said that when we have 1100 officers, we will have enough officers to provide timely response, street presence, and community policing. He said that he would tell us the truth about services.

Rebecca Kaplan talked about the foreclosure crisis caused by predatory lending. She said that this harms everyone because the vacant properties are magnets for crime and depress property values. She said that as Councilmember she will sue banks engaging in illegal activity, educate the public about homebuying, and provide downpayment assistance people need to refinance and keep their homes. Kerry Hamill said that everyone in Oakland, owners and renters, wants safe neighborhoods. She said that when she worked for Elihu Harris, we didn’t have a fully staffed department, and wonders why it has taken so long for Oakland to feel urgency on the issue. She said that people should feel like they have a partner at City Hall and that all neighborhoods need better schools and community centers.

V: Winner: Charles Pine. Almost everyone talked about safety, but it is the heart of his campaign and message. Kaplan was weird. She answered the most specifically, but everyone else was on the same theme and she was just on a different page. I don’t know where we’re going to get all that money to help people refinance their bad loans, but I do agree that the City should be educating people about financial literacy and stopping predatory lending. If she wants to sue banks, though, maybe she should run for City Attorney. Okay, I don’t really think that, I just wanted an excuse to complain about how Russo is running unopposed. I like Russo a lot, actually, but I hate any race without a challenger to the incumbent. It encourages complacency. Everyone else was pretty good.

Clinton Killian said that Lake Merritt is a jewel, and that it should be more of a pedestrian zone and be everyone’s front park. He said that we should reroute the streets to be further from the Lake, do traffic calming measures, and close the streets during certain times. He also said we need to do something with the Kaiser Convention Center. Charles Pine said this is an issue of clean government, and that we can’t talk about getting beyond Measure DD when the City hasn’t fulfilled the promises of DD. He said that what is being delivered is not what was promised, and that it was outrageous that the citizens of Oakland were denied the right to express themselves on Oak to Ninth.

Rebecca Kaplan told everyone they should go paddle boating on the Lake, and that we need to make sure the promises of DD are implemented, because some of the promises have not been. She said that we need to protect the Lake’s water quality in a long-term way, maintain a greenbelt around the Lake, and that we should use a machine to clean up the goose poop. Frank Rose said that we need to make it safe around the Lake, and that he’s spent 13 years pushing increased police staffing, and that he was the first person to present the police staffing comparisons to other cities to City Hall 8 years ago. He said that there are plans on the table for DD, and that Larry Reid just got a bunch of DD money for a Sports Center in East Oakland. He said that we’re doing what were supposed to do with DD, that the City is doing what it said it would, and that people would know that if they got involved instead of criticizing from the outside.

Kerry Hamill said that DD included many good projects, but that it was held up in court for a couple years. She said that was an example of the City needing to better negotiate and get it resolved because we need to be working on the channel and restore the storm drain system. She said that we need to get access to the bond funds immediately and start the preventive maintenance included in the measure.

V: Winner: Rebecca Kaplan, although I found her squeezing in the thing about the geese at the end irritating. I am convinced that the only reason people talk about this so much is because they all derive a juvenile thrill from using the phrase “goose poop.” Feel free to disagree. Most people seem to.

Personally, I liked Frank Rose the best. Regular readers of this blog might find this hard to believe, but when I’m talking to people who aren’t huge policy geeks, I usually find myself in the position of defending the City and the Council. I have limited time to blog, so I try to use this space to raise issues that concern me and provide detailed analysis of policies I don’t think are right for Oakland. When something good comes along, I figure it will be covered in the traditional media and that I’ll have nothing productive to add. Anyway, good for Frank Rose for standing up for some of the progress the City is making. I couldn’t give him the win because his response was so disjointed. He just tried to fit too much information into his minute, and it came off as scattered.

Hamill really blew this one. She tried to bring up the DD lawsuit, but she didn’t seem to really know anything about it. The lawsuit has not prevented us from accessing all the DD funds, as she implied, and many water quality improvements have been made. In fact, that’s the aspect that is most on track! Pine lost me. DD is not the failure most people seem to think it is. I wrote a story about DD progress for the last Oakbook, which you should pick up if you see it around, but you can also download a DD project progress report here (PDF!). Yes, progress has been slow, and not everything has been implemented, and I’m just as upset about the 12th Street Bridge project as the next person, but DD is a long term measure, and results don’t happen overnight. I really didn’t follow Clinton Killian at all. He wants to get rid of Lakeshore? I don’t know what to say about his answer. I found it really confusing.

Charles Pine said he co-founded Oakland Residents for Peaceful Neighborhoods, and that they discovered that we have half a police department during the Measure Y campaign. He said they decided to publicize it, and that when they started, you would be laughed at in City Hall if you said we didn’t have enough police, but that now everyone realizes our force is too small. Rebecca Kaplan said that she’s been an elected policymaker for 6 years, and before that was a staffer and policy advocate. She said that after missing the last BART train from San Francisco once, she came up with the idea of using buses to cover the BART routes after midnight. She said that she began a project to do that, found funding for it, and built a partnership of 6 different agencies to provide all nighter service throughout the Bay Area so that workers and others can get home after BART closes. She said that she brought the nation’s leading sustainable fuel development project to Alameda County.

Kerry Hamill said that when she first joined the school board, she learned that we had 27 different reading programs, and was able to bring people together to consolidate into a new program that she got training money for from the State, and that since then, reading scores have improved consistently. Frank Rose said that he was chair of the City’s best NCPC in 34x in Elmhurst, and that he made their neighborhood family friendly by working with the schools and working with students. He said that he’s served on 9 different commissions, and that people would be shocked if they knew everything they were doing. Clinton Killian said that he served five years on the Planning Commission, and helped usher in Oakland’s largest building boom. He said that he worked with Shorenstein when they bought City Center to build the Ask Jeeves building, which brought 2200 jobs downtown. He said that during his 6 years on the AC Transit board, he began when the system was in its worst financial crisis and huge deficits, and left the board with a surplus. He said that when he started on the Paramount Board, the City cut the Paramount’s subsidy to nothing, and that they have made it self-sufficient.

V: Clinton Killian rocked this one. This was the other answer where we all agreed. I used to have one of those jobs at 555! I think the improvement in AC Transit’s fortunes had more to do with fluctuations in the economy than in anything the Board did, but I do think that the agency made some very wise shifts in policy and long term planning during his tenure, and that he should be proud of the work he did there.

Until this question, I had forgotten why I had initially disliked Rebecca Kaplan. When she started talking about missing the bus, I remembered, and started furiously scrawling angry things in my notebook in all caps. I remember when I read about the new All-Nighter launch. I had been working as a cook in San Francisco and would rarely get off work before 1. Often it was 2 or even 3 in the morning when I left the restaurant. I finished in time for BART maybe once in six months. I would drag my tired self every night down to the creepy Transbay Terminal and sit there waiting for the all night bus, which ran every hour, and I would ride it home across the bridge and to my apartment in downtown Oakland. From the stop at 12th and Broadway you could connect immediately to the 51, 40, 43, 72, and 82 all night long. So you can imagine my surprise when I read this story in the Tribune one morning, about the brand new all night bus service across the Bay:

“It seems to me, people have been concerned about this problem since time immemorial,” said Rebecca Kaplan, a member of the AC Transit Board of Directors and former TALC staffer who thought up the all-night bus network after staying out too late with friends in San Francisco and missing her BART train back to Oakland.

Even Cinderella had to cut her party short lest she miss her ride, Kaplan said.

“In the Bay Area, we can do better than having our carriage turn into a pumpkin at midnight,” Kaplan said.

Yes we can, and we were already doing it! I was infuriated that all the media coverage of the new service implied, no – said straight up, that there was previously no all night bus service. And how could the AC Transit board member not have known about the bus I depended on every night or pretend it didn’t exist? I remain resentful two years later!

This is not to say that Kaplan should not be proud of her achievement. The new all night service is better than the old service. The all night schedules are now coordinated between MUNI, SamTrans, AC Transit, CCCTA and Wheels. Muni, SamTrans, and AC Transit all had all night service running already, but the bus schedules had no relation to one another. And the addition of CCCTA and Wheels all night service means that more people can get home after midnight. It is also nice that you can pick it up at the BART stops instead of going to the transbay terminal, which, like I said, is creepy in the middle of the night, although I wish that it would start at Mission instead of Civic Center, just because that would make my life easier. Still, that doesn’t make it okay to say there wasn’t a bus running back to Oakland when there was.

Charles Pine didn’t have much to say compared to the other candidates. Of course he’s at a disadvantage, having not been involved in policymaking ever before. It is to his credit that he made it his mission to raise awareness about police staffing, and he was successful at totally changing the debate. That’s a serious accomplishment. So kudos. Still, I have a website, too. It isn’t that big of an accomplishment. Isn’t he involved with his NCPC? I think I’ve read that before. He should have talked about some of the things they have done in their neighborhood. Frank Rose was fine and Kerry Hamill was good.

Rebecca Kaplan said that one example of our lack of preparedness is that we don’t have a fireboat. She said that often people only ever think about the fireboat it terms of how it impacts Jack London Square and other waterfront areas, but that we also need one because it can reverse pump water. She said that in an earthquake, water might not come from other sources, and we will need the fireboat to fight fires. She said we need more neighborhood based preparedness and we can’t expect FEMA to be coming. Kerry Hamill said that she had just finished reading The Great Deluge, and that it’s really all about transportation, and that you have to be able to move people in an emergency. She said that transportation agencies are getting better at being aware and communicating, but that we can do more. She said there needs to be a comprehensive plan for response.

Frank Rose gave us a 2, saying that we’ve started a number of programs, including a 411 register and putting addresses on people’s curbs, but they have not been finished. He said we need more emergency personnel living in Oakland and that we should provide a housing subsidy to police and firemen, and that we need to update our firefighting equipment. Clinton Killian said that the office of emergency services needs to be accountable, and that we can’t prevent disasters, but we can be prepared. He said that he lived through the 1989 earthquake and the Oakland hills fire, and that we need ensure we’re ready, and pray we survive. Charles Pine said that a park ranger saved the city in the last earthquakeby restoring emergency communications that had been knocked out, and that we used to have 20 park rangers, but now we have 6. He said that the police and firemen have had staffing cuts, and poor equipment.

Winner: Draw. Nobody bombed this question, but nobody really stood out either. They all had good things to say. Maybe Frank Rose won since he’s actually working on preparedness issues right now.

Rebecca Kaplan said that she would be honored to have everyone’s vote, and that this is about our future. She said a lot of the same things as she said in her opening – in five years will we have a better economy and walking officers? She said that downtown Oakland should be a retail and entertainment destination to generate jobs and tax revenue. She said we need to improve the City’s website to improve access to public information and have equitable resource use.

Charles Pine that he will not be politics as usual, won’t be tied to “the bosses behind City Hall”, and that he’s not looking for higher office. He said that his focus would be peaceful neighborhoods, basic services, and clean government. He said he would be a full time Councilmember and have no conflicts of interest.

Clinton Killian said that he will work to make a better city. He repeated the familiar Robert Kennedy quote “Some men see things as they are and ask why. And I dream of things that never were and ask why not?” He said we can and should have better, safer neighborhoods, quality housing, more jobs, and better schools. “We can have a better Oakland. We deserve a better city.”

Frank Rose said he wished there was more time for the debate, and that he’s running on his record as a volunteer. He said that he would bring supermarkets to neighborhoods that need them, and bring full police staffing. He listed many awards he’s received for his contributions, and said he’s fighting for seniors, youth, and safety.

Kerry Hamill said that her children’s elementary school in Oakland flew 27 flags, and that Oakland is an international city with vitality and the best food on earth (“which I eat a little bit too much of”), and that we have new neighborhoods cropping up everywhere. She said that City Hall needs to echo the vitality in Oakland and stop talking about the same problems.

V: Winner: Clinton Killian. In case you hadn’t noticed by now, I’m a total sap. My viewing partners rolled their eyes at the Kennedy line, but I’ve always found it moving. I also really believe that we can have a better Oakland – hence the name of this blog. (BTW, the first time I met Clinton, he joked about coming after me for copyright infringement for stealing his campaign slogan. I said that I had it first, but I was wrong – he used it for his last campaign too. I’m glad we’re on the same page.) They were all good, though. Kerry Hamill looks great, BTW. She is enjoying exactly the right amount of our wonderful food. I appreciated Rebecca Kaplan’s desire to improve transparency and accessibility with a better web presence.

Deciding who to support in this race was an incredibly difficult decision. I’m glad we don’t have an incumbent running. It allows everyone to focus on the future, instead of trying to explain away the past. Having said that, even though I don’t think he did a great job in the debate, I am supporting Clinton Killian for at-large City Council. It’s sad that Killian doesn’t have the magnetic stage presence of Kaplan or Rose. Every so often, you could catch glimpses of the amazing charm he demonstrates in person, but this isn’t just wasn’t the right platform to showcase his awesomeness. While I don’t agree with any of the candidates on every issue, Killian, more than anyone else, shares my goals and priorities for Oakland – accountability, transparency, transportation, economic development, growth, and a commitment to downtown. He is engaged in the community, has demonstrated his ability to lead, and has a thorough understanding of the barriers to progress in City Hall. I’ll devote a whole post at some point in the future to the case for Killian, so I’ll leave it at that for now.

Related posts:

• 05.05.08 HarriOak All Candidates Forum video and recap
• 05.04.08 Ignacio De La Fuente v. Mario Juarez v. Beverly Blythe: LWV District 5 Oakland City Council Forum Recap
• 04.13.08 Clinton Killian v. Kerry Hamill v. Rebecca Kaplan v. Frank Rose v. Charles Pine: LWV At-large Oakland City Council Forum Recap, Part 1
• 04.07.08 Larry Reid v. Clifford Gilmore: LWV District 7 Forum Recap
• 04.04.08 Nancy Nadel v. Sean Sullivan: LWV District 3 Forum Recap

Kerry Hamill went first. She said that during her 8 years serving on the school board, “I’ve had this wonderful opportunity to see people in Oakland partner with government and really transform their lives when they were willing, when government was friendly and accessible.” She said that she’s been working in government for 20 years, first for John Burton in the legislature, then later for former Oakland Mayor Elihu Harris, and for the past four years as a manager at BART.

Next, Frank Rose spoke, saying that he’s running because he cares about Oakland. He’s been in Oakland for 40 years, and worked as a volunteer for the last 13 years, working with NCPCs, home alert, weed & seed programs, the faith community, and other community organizations. He said that he’s worked in every area of Oakland, and that he’s the director of one non-profit and member of several others. “With a fully staffed office, doing what I’ve been doing as a volunteer for the past 13 years, I could really give you a great opportunity to have a first class Councilmember at-large.”

Clinton Killian said that we can use the resources we have to make Oakland a better city. He said he’s an attorney in downtown Oakland, and has previously served on the AC Transit board and the Planning Commission. “I want to see our city grow and reach the potential that everyone talks about but we’ve never fully achieved.”

Charles Pine said that Oakland is ranked the fourth most dangerous city in the country, and that Oakland has far too much crime (including “boom cars”). “All the major cities have 35 to 45 police for every 10,000 residents. Oakland has 18. 35 to 45. 18. We deserve the relative safety of an average American city.” He said we need at least 1100 officers, and that he will bring peaceful neighborhoods, basic services, and clean government.

Rebecca Kaplan said that we’re making a decision not just about June 3rd, but about what Oakland will look like 5 years from now. She said we need to move beyond having our city divided into people who think we are unsafe because we don’t have enough police, and people who feel unsafe because of the police, and that we should be able to hire trustworthy police and heal the rift. “I’m not only the youngest candidate, I’m also the one who spent the most time making public policy, but I’m also a bible teacher. And when asked to explain the entire scripture in one line, a great sage once said ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ And this too we can do in Oakland.”

V: Okay, this debate was so hard to judge. They were all really impressive. We’re lucky to have five strong candidates running for this seat, all of whom have demonstrated a wonderful level of dedication to this community. But since I’m picking winners, winner: Rebecca Kaplan. Her message was so hopeful and sweet! She was posed, assertive, and confident. In terms of stage presence, she was head and shoulders above everyone else in the room.

Frank Rose said we need to look at unfilled positions and untapped revenue streams, like the telephone tax. He said that he would deal with vacant positions and not make any cuts to public service or public safety positions. Clinton Killian said that we need to increase revenues. He said that our sales tax revenues are low, making us too dependent on property tax. He said that half our budget is paid to outside vendors, many of whom are not from Oakland. He said that if people are going to be getting money from the city, they need an office in Oakland and need to be paying Oakland business tax. Charles Pine said that the budget is enough to guarantee basic services. He said that we went from 82 gardeners to 63 since 1989, although the city has added 557 positions, asking “What are all those other people doing?”. He said we need to look at the positions at the top, and that we need to consider scaling back on redevelopment districts.

Rebecca Kaplan said that both Oakland and California have revenue problems, and that we should advocate for reinstating the vehicle license fee. She said that the Oakland Coliseum loses $20-$25 million every year, and that it doesn’t have to be that way. She said by bringing programming that is consistently profitable, like soccer, concerts, and women sports, we can turn that negative into a new revenue source. Kerry Hamill said that administrative costs are higher than they were 10 years ago, and that we need to cut from the top, specifically administrative and consulting staff. She said we should be more careful with our overtime spending, and that we should roll back staff for the Council and the Mayor.

V: Winner: Rebecca Kaplan. My viewing partner wasn’t a fan of her response, saying “She sounded good, but we’re not going to solve the city’s budget problem with soccer.”" Obviously not entirely. But her response really reminded me of what I’ve found so impressive about Kaplan during this campaign. Last year when I heard she was running, I was inclined to oppose her (more on that later). But after reading the public safety solutions paper that she’s been circulating (I can’t find the document on her website, but she’s passed it out to audience members at Public Safety Committee meetings), I was really impressed. I don’t agree with all her ideas, but I love that she’s obviously spent a lot of time thinking about Oakland’s problems and trying to come up with fresh ways to address them. Her suggestion of changing Coliseum programming is just one example of that. Here’s something that’s been steadily costing us money for years and that people are constantly complaining about, but seem to have resigned themselves to accepting as something we just have to deal with. But instead of viewing it as yet another burden, Kaplan looks at it as an opportunity. I love that. When you’re throwing out new idea after new idea, you’re going to have some duds (I recall her talking about putting officers on Segways at one meeting), but I’d rather see some silly ideas get floated if that’s what it takes to get the gems out there as well than watch a government with a near total lack of initiative (except occasionally to copy some dumb hippy thing San Francisco did). I’m not sold on this don’t-ask-don’t-tell discharged military recruitment strategy she keeps pushing, but at least it’s a new idea. Get the new ideas out there, then we can talk about whether they’re good or bad.

Clinton Killian really turned me off. I support efforts to hire local businesses, but saying that we should hire only Oakland companies goes too far. It would do the residents of Oakland a disservice to hire an inferior contractor simply because they have an office in Oakland. I also fail to see how this initiative would increase revenue. Does Killian really think that lots of businesses are going to relocate to Oakland just so they can get City Hall contracts? I find that highly unrealistic. We really don’t get much money from the business tax at all. I think Frank Rose was talking about Measure J (PDF!), which I haven’t written about yet, and based on a quick search, it doesn’t look like anyone else has either. Anyway, he had a point about untapped or undertapped revenue streams, and I agree with him that we should eliminate many of our currently vacant positions, but his response came off as disjointed, and I found my mind wandering as he spoke. This was probably his weakest response during the forum. Charles Pine was impressive (my viewing partner picked him as the winner of this one), demonstrated knowledge of the city’s budget, and spoke clearly. But as we’ve discussed in the comments on this site, I’d like to see him identify specific positions to be cut if he thinks we have too many. Scaling back redevelopment areas also isn’t as easy as some people seem to think it is. They’re a contract with the State. You can’t just get rid of them because you changed your mind. Kerry Hamill said pretty much the same thing as Charles Pine, but with less detail. She also completely obliterated any chance of my support. I wholeheartedly disagree that Councilmembers should have less staff. They should have more staff. The Mayor, on the other hand – well, I frankly have no idea what all the people in that office do all day.

Clinton Killian said that the bi-weekly Council meetings limit public participation, that the experiment has not worked, and it needs to change. He said that he would hold weekly public forums to discuss upcoming agenda items, and that he would hold open houses throughout the city. He said that he wants to educate people on how the public process works, and get them involved at the beginning of an issue, not at the end when we’re about to make a decision. Charles Pine said that we have a lot of public input, but that it breeds cynicism because when people go to meetings, they’re talked at by the officials for most of the time, and only get a minute to speak. He said that the the Measure Y Oversight Committee is appointed by the Councilmembers, and that we need to find a way to get people involved that will not make them beholden to the Council.

Rebecca Kaplan said that we need to restore public trust, because nothing will work if people can’t trust their government. She said that we need to keep our promises to Oaklanders, using the failure to implement Measure Y as an example. Kerry Hamill said that when she was first running for school board, people told her that Oakland parents were not interested in their children’s education. She started family reading nights in North Oakland, and they were enormously popular with local parents, and that they have since spent citywide. She said that people live in their neighborhoods, not downtown, and that we need to hold forums in the neighborhoods and do it regularly. Frank Rose said that we need to publicize the need to be involved. He said he’s currently trying to get seniors involved and prepare them for a coming earthquake. He said that you get people involved by showing them something that matters to their lives.

V: Winner: Kerry Hamill. Her story was really sweet, but more important, she made an excellent point about how we need to give people the opportunity to be involved in a way that matters to them. It’s hard to get your average downtowner excited about the zoning update (of course, it would be nice if we had been given an opportunity for input), but lots of people are willing to be engaged with things like neighborhood clean-ups. Many of the current City Councilmembers seem to have lost sight of the little things that government can do to improve people’s lives in a small, but real way. (Although some all of a sudden seem to be remembering now that they’re seeking reelection.) Most of the candidates echoed this sentiment, so this question was really hard to judge, but Hamill wins for pointing to something specific she’d done.

Clinton Killian was probably a close second. Those are some major promises he’s making – weekly public forums about upcoming agenda items? I think that would be awesome, although I wonder if you’d really be able to get many people besides the usual City Hall observers to attend. Regular open houses throughout the city seem more likely to get people involved. I really resisted the idea of returning to weekly meetings for a long time, mostly because I find following the meetings we have already exhausting, but I’ve finally come around. It isn’t about public comment, though – I think we provide ample time for that already. But the heavy agendas do not provide adequate time for the Council to properly consider the issues before them. They are forced to rush through most items, and rarely ask probing questions of staff. I agree with most of what everyone else said, although I don’t see how Charles Pine thinks we should staff committees other than by Council appointment. I don’t see this as an issue at all – the real issue with Boards and Commissions, as Sean Sullivan pointed out during the District 3 forum, is that the Council doesn’t treat them with respect and refuses to listen to their input. Why on earth would anyone want to join one?

Charles Pine said that it is only a small part of the youth population causing problems, and that kids can’t walk to school without passing drug dealers and can’t study without being mocked. He said we have programs, but that we need to get more people into them. He said that we need a better anti-truancy program. Rebecca Kaplan said that the lack of after school programs and crumbling school buildings denies our young people opportunities. She said we need to expand violence prevention programming, partner with schools to increase after school programming, and expand job training programs. Kerry Hamill talked about the Field of Dreams behind the Carter School in North Oakland, which had been a large green space that the school district had planned to close. She said that she spent 3 years working to subdivide the land and rehab the space and raised the money, and now the local sports teams are using it. She said that this cost the city nothing, and there are plenty of non-profits that want to contribute, and that we need to be more partner more and leverage resources better.

Frank Rose said that we have existing programs, and that he’s the Chairman of the Board at the East Oakland Boxing Association Smart Moves program, and on the Board of Students Run Oakland, both of which work with kids from 5 to 20. He said that at the boxing association, they force the kids to study for a period of time before they’re allowed to go to the gym. The Students Run Oakland program trains kids to run the LA marathon, providing discipline. He said we need more family centers and need to control truancy, but there’s a lot of things kids can do, and that the information needs to be made more available. Clinton Killian said we need to restore respect for quality education. He said we need to expand the partnership between the city and school district, and to ensure kids have the opportunity to volunteer and be exposed to career fields that interest them.

V: Winner: Kerry Hamill. Again, she gets points for pointing to something concrete that she accomplished, but mostly I was excited by her talking about the ability to provide opportunities at low or no cost to us through partnering. The only thing that’s stopping us from doing this now is a lack of energy on the Council. Frank Rose works with some awesome programs, so mad props to him. Everyone else’s answer was pretty much the same, and also bland and forgettable.

A: Rebecca Kaplan said that she supports continuing the LLAD, and that we have to do this because of unconscionable decisions at the State level. She said it is a stopgap measure, but that without doing it, it’s a threat to the our safety. She said that she will work to increase Oakland’s sales tax revenue and work to make changes at the State. Kerry Hamill said that she supports the LLAD, and that it’s an essential city service. She said that she sees a great deal of mistrust and misunderstanding about the LLAD, and that we need more transparency with how we’re using our money, and that we need to work with other agencies to maximize our resources. Frank Rose said that he supports the LLAD, and has always voted for it, but that he’s noticed that people in the hills only want landscaping, not lighting. He said that we should take the lighting funds from the hills “where people want to remain in the dark,” and use them to light the flats.

Clinton Killian said that people’s cynicism about the funding is legitimate because people have not seen the results of taxes they have voted for. He said that on a tour of East Oakland, he saw that the streets are very dark, and that people are wondering where the money went. He said we need better accountability and that he will hold the city accountable to use money as it was intended to be used. Charles Pine said that 80 cents of every new dollar will not go to parks, and it will instead simply free up money to go to other uses. He complained that we have fewer police than when Measure Y was written and that the LLAD needs to be defeated.

V: Winner: Clinton Killian. Everyone seemed to understand that Oakland taxpayers are questioning whether funds are going to be used as promised, but Killian did the best job saying it. I appreciated his insistence that he would demand accountability for where the money goes. Nobody on the current Council seems concerned with this. Frank Rose was funny, and even made the League’s moderator laugh with his line about letting people in the hills stay in the dark. I totally disagree with Charles Pine’s assessment of the LLAD, but it would take way too long to go into it now. If you want to read more about his position, you can do so at ORPN. Kaplan annoyed me with her talk of the State. If she wants to change the State’s budget, she should run for Assembly, not City Council.

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Anyway, that leaves Oakland Globe columnist, former AC Transit director, and former Planning Commissioner Clinton Killian, AC Transit director Rebecca Kaplan, and police staffing advocate Charles Pine as the contenders for the at-large Council seat.

Update: How handy. The Chronicle confirmed it for me. Although I heard there was a fifth person in the District 3 race, who isn’t mentioned in the Chronicle. Someone named Alan Brown?

Update again: She filed.