-  Excerpt from a 1931 election brochure, which asked voters to change the San Diego City Charter and elect an independent City Attorney.

On July 19^th, Council Members Nadel and Kernighan plan to submit for Council approval, a resolution to present to the voters, a charter amendment entitled, “Returning the Elected City Attorney Position to an Appointed Position.” They acknowledge that the City Attorney serves as legal counsel to the City Council, the Mayor and each department of the City of Oakland (City). They cite that a City Attorney who gains the position through election by the public is subject to all political pressures experienced by any other politician. In addition, in the measure to be submitted to the public, they further cite as reasons for this change the following (PDF): the uniqueness of an elected City Attorney in California (2.5% elected) and the city attorney chooses his or her own boundaries ranging from legal to policy to politics.

For the reasons enumerated below, I respectfully ask that the residents of Oakland reject this blatant attempt to usurp power from other departments and people and eliminate this integral check and balance on the power of our elected officials.

Legal Counsel to City Council, Mayor and Each Department of the City

A City Attorney appointed by City Council and the Mayor cannot effectively serve each department of the City. When the City Council and Mayor appoint the City Attorney, the City Attorney works for and serves at the pleasure of the City Council and the Mayor. Thus, appointing a City Attorney does not eliminate the political pressures that our Council Members worry about with an elected City Attorney. If anything, these pressures are more pronounced and exacerbated when the Council and Mayor appoint a City Attorney, who serves at their will.

The City Attorney must feel free to offer independent advice, free of the pressure exerted by the City Council and Mayor, to the department heads he or she represents. When City Council and the Mayor have the ability to hire and fire the City Attorney, will the City Attorney provide counsel that is best for the department and the City or will it represent the interest of City Council and the Mayor, even if the position has no legal merit? An appointed City Attorney is subject to the political pressures of the individuals who appoint him. When the City Attorney is appointed there is a conflict of interest and invites the potential for abuse and retribution from the Council and Mayor.

The following is part of the discourse that occurred in the early 20^th century when the City of San Diego debated these same issues.

“Ray Mathewson, the San Diego labor union representative on the Freeholder Board, described the role of the independent city attorney in a proposal he submitted to the Freeholder Board in which he recommended a “Strong Mayor –Council” form of government:

The duty of the city attorney is to give legal advice to every department and official of the city government on municipal matters. He also must act as the representative of the various departments before the courts. He should occupy an independent position so that his opinions would not be influenced by any appointive power. For this reason, he should be elected by the people. If elected, the city attorney is in a position of complete independance (sic) and may exercise such check upon the actions of the legislative and executive branches of the local government as the law and his conscience dictate.”

Only 2.5% of California cities elect their City Attorney

This is true but misleading. Five of the ten largest cities in California, including Oakland, elect their City Attorney. These five cities represent over 18% of California residents. In total, elected City Attorneys represent over 20% of California residents. To understand what can go wrong when the City Council and Mayor appoint the City Attorney, one need not look any further than the City of Bell. As the former administrator and other officials paid themselves high salaries, former City Attorney Edward Lee did little to restrain allegedly lawless behavior.  That 97.5% of the cities have an appointed City Attorney does not mean that it is a better structure.

Legal Advice versus Policy Making

According to the Ethical Principles for City Attorneys adopted by the League of California Cities, “The city attorney should be willing to give unpopular legal advice that meets the law’s purpose and intent even when the advice is not sought but the legal problem is evident to the attorney.

An elected City Attorney is the people’s last check to ensure that our elected executive and legislative branches do not embark on an action that is either legally incorrect or ill-advised. This will not happen when the City Attorney serves at the will of City Council and the Mayor. When the City Attorney is appointed, the electorate does not know if it is the best legal advice or the advice that will ensure that the appointed individual is retained by City Council and the Mayor. The public trust is critical to a functioning and thriving democracy; this trust is eroded when City Council and the mayor seek to wrest the power from the people.

Conclusion

The proposed ballot measure seeking a return to an appointed City Attorney is designed for one purpose and one purpose only — to wrest power from the people and consolidate power in the hands of the few. We deserve a City government that works for all residents of Oakland. We do not have this when City Council and the mayor collude to appoint a City Attorney who primarily serves their needs.  I urge you to contact your council member to voice your displeasure with this ballot measure and join me at the July 19 city council meeting to speak against the proposed ballot measure to return to an appointed City Attorney.

• District 1: Jane Brunner, jbrunner@oaklandnet.com, 510-238-7001
• District 2: Pat Kernighan, pkernighan@oaklandnet.com, 510-238-7002
• District 3: Nancy Nadel, nnadel@oaklandnet.com, 510-238-7003
• District 4: Libby Schaaf, lschaaf@oaklandnet.com, 510-238-7004
• District 5: Ignacio De La Fuente, idelafuente@oaklandnet.com, 510-238-7005
• District 6: Desley Brooks, dbrooks@oaklandnet.com, 510-238-7006
• District 7: Larry Reid, lreid@oaklandnet.com, 510-238-7007
• At-large: Rebecca Kaplan, atlarge@oaklandnet.com, 510-238-7008

This guest post was written by Ralph Cooke, an Oakland resident and advocate for transparent government.

I mean, I wrote about this last week, right? What more is there to say? It hurts when your candidate doesn’t win. But also, it isn’t the end of the world either. And I do think all volunteers should feel good about the work they did, no matter the outcome of the campaign.

I will try to update this post tomorrow with more of my thoughts on the election. Try is the key word there. No promises. This is one of the funny things about having a blog. Everyone expects you to have something to say about everything. But sometimes, you don’t know what to say. I mean, I really do wish her luck. I hope she will do a good job. But it’s not like I can pretend that I was all in favor of her all along or anything. The fact is that I disagree with a lot of the things she advocates for.

So…I will write about this. But I may need a little bit of time. And for now, well, congratulations to new Oakland Mayor Jean Quan. Winning elections is hard. And hey — running the City is even harder. So you’ve got a very tough road ahead of you. I wish you the very best of luck in the next four years.

One thing I can say right now is that I am very happy that we’re going to have someone in that office who is a very hard worker. Oakland needs someone who will put in a more than full work week, and I have no doubt in my mind that Jean Quan will do that.

Also, I am exceedingly happy that this is all finally over.

So, there were no new results posted today, and I don’t know when there will be. I mean, they’ll do it when they finish counting them, but there is no firm date for that. But since I never got around to updating the results list on my last election returns post, I thought I might as well just do it now. These are the figures that were released on Friday afternoon from the Alameda County Registrar of Voters.

Oh, and for those who are irritated about the time this is taking. Look, I am not some big fan of Ranked Choice Voting. In fact, I don’t like it at all. I didn’t vote for Measure O. I tried to get people to vote against it. But it is what it is, and the voters passed it, and that’s the election system we’re stuck with. So there’s no use bitching about it now.

And just for the record, the returns taking so long to be final has nothing whatsoever to do with Ranked Choice Voting. In 2006, it took nearly two weeks to find out whether we were going to have a runoff for Mayor or not also. I remember vividly sitting there at my cubicle and constantly reloading the Registrar’s website every afternoon. So, yeah. The long wait to get a final answer on who will be Mayor is annoying. But it’s nothing new, and it is not something you can blame on RCV.

Oakland City Races

Oakland Mayor

Preliminary ranked choice votes (Round 10):

• Jean Quan: 51.09%, 42,825 votes
• Don Perata: 48.91%, 41,949 votes

View the ranked choice votes breakdown here.

First choice votes:

• Don Perata: 33.97%, 32,730 votes
• Jean Quan: 24.62%, 23,724 votes
• Rebecca Kaplan: 21.49%, 20,706 votes
• Joe Tuman: 12.40%,11,945 votes
• Marcie Hodge: 2.28%, 2,197 votes
• Terence Candell: 1.73%, 1,667 votes
• Don Macleay: 1.37%, 1,322 votes
• Greg Harland: 0.82%, 787 votes
• Larry Lionel Young, Jr.: 0.67%, 646 votes
• Arnold Fields: 0.57%, 545 votes

Oakland City Council, District 2

• Patricia Kernighan: 67.37%, 7,450 votes
• Jennifer S. Pae: 32.38%, 3,581 votes

Oakland City Council, District 4

Preliminary ranked choice votes (Round 6):

• Libby Schaaf: 52.31%, 8,401 votes
• Jill Broadhurst: 30.44%, 4,889 votes
• Daniel Swafford: 17.24%, 2,769 votes

View the ranked choice votes breakdown here.

First choice votes:

• Libby Schaaf: 42.65%, 7,428 votes
• Jill Broadhurst: 22.68%, 3,951 votes
• Daniel Swafford: 11.35%, 1,976 votes
• Melanie Shelby: 11.23%, 1,956 votes
• Clinton Killian: 5.42%, 944 votes
• Ralph Kanz: 4.13%, 720 votes
• Jason Gillen: 2.41%, 420 votes

Oakland City Council, District 6

• Desley Brooks: 64.37%, 6,747 votes
• Jose Dorado: 21.12%, 2,214 votes
• Nancy Sidebotham: 14.09%, 1,477 votes

Oakland City Auditor

• Courtney Ruby: 68.12%, 52,983 votes
• Michael Kilian: 31.32%, 24,362 votes

School Races

Oakland School Board, District 4

• Gary D. Yee: 69.48%, 10,885 votes
• Benjamin Visnick: 30.08%, 4,713 votes

Peralta Trustee, Area 3

• Linda L. Handy: 53.86%, 4,152 votes
• Mónica Tell: 44.58%, 3,437 votes

Peralta Trustee, Area 5

• William “Bill” Riley: 68.73%, 12,508 votes
• William J. Mattox: 30.29%, 5,512 votes

Ballot Measures

Alameda County Measure F

• Yes: 62.61%
• No: 37.39%

Oakland Measure L

• Yes: 65.05%, 51,390 votes
• No: 34.95%, 27,614 votes

Oakland Measure V

• Yes: 70.00%, 54,676 votes
• No: 30.00%, 23,432 votes

Oakland Measure W

• No: 56.66%, 43,660 votes
• Yes: 43.34%, 33,393 votes

Oakland Measure X

• No: 72.06%, 53,037 votes
• Yes: 27.94%, 20,562 votes

Oakland Measure BB

• Yes: 70.36%, 53,764 votes
• No: 29.64%, 22,650 votes

Special District

BART Director – District 4

• Robert Raburn: 46.23%, 24,971 votes
• Carole Ward Allen: 35.24%, 19,034 votes
• Monique Rivera: 17.49%, 9,446 votes

AC Transit Director: At-large

• Joel B. Young: 71.16%, 133,864 votes
• Ellis Jerry Powell: 27.78%, 52,271 votes

AC Transit Director: Ward 4

• Elsa Ortiz: 47.23%, 20,397 votes
• Dollene C. Jones: 30.51%, 13,177 votes
• Nancy M. Skowbo: 21.31%, 9,203 votes

Judicial

Superior Court Judge, Seat 9

• Victoria S. Kolakowski: 50.46%, 121,431 votes
• John Creighton: 48.54%, 116,820 votes

My election scandal

Please indulge me and let me tell you a little story about my own personal experience that I hope will help you understand where I’m coming from on this.

My senior year in college, I was appointed to run our student government elections. I did a pretty kick-ass job, I don’t mind saying, managing to turn out more than double the number of votes that had been cast in any school election in recent memory.

As part of their campaign, two candidates running for office engaged in some behavior that I believed was in clear violation of our school’s prized Honor Code. Because part of my charge as Elections Czar involved ensuring the election remained clean and ethical, it fell upon me to deal with their behavior.

I met with both students privately to discuss the problem, and was able to reach what I felt was a satisfactory resolution with one of them. The other student exhibited no contrition and was obstinate in his unwillingness to take any corrective action. I was then forced to take the issue to the next level, and we began mediation sessions with the school’s Honor Board.

After my attempts to resolve the problem this way proved unncessful, the student then proceeded to use a public candidate forum I had organized to make things even worse. At that point, I felt that I had no choice but to file an official complaint about his behavior, which led to a formal hearing before the body charged with enforcing violations of the Honor Code. I didn’t want to do it, but also felt that I had exhausted all other options. It was not a decision I made lightly. Bringing a case before this body was extremely serious business — the most dire possible consequence of a finding against someone was expulsion from the school.

He retaliated with a complaint against me with the same body, accusing me of trying to use my position to rig the election in favor of a friend, who had been running for the same seat. (My friend lost, and this student won.)

More than ten years later, the details of the whole situation have escaped my memory. I don’t even recall now exactly what he did, or what he said I did. And of course, a student government election at a school with like 1,000 students now seems like a ridiculously unimportant thing to get worked up over.

But at the time, this hearing felt like the most important thing in the world. And what I do recall, as vividly as if it happened yesterday, is what it felt like to be sitting there for hours in this basement room, listening to my entire life and my relationships be picked apart and judged, and hearing testimony where people twisted all my actions around to make me sound like some horrible monster. I felt like I had bent over backwards trying to ensure I had done everything right during this process, taking all sorts of additional steps to make things transparent and beyond reproach. But somehow, all of a sudden, none of that seemed to matter to anyone. I tried so hard to hold myself together, but that lasted maybe ten minutes, and I spent most of the hearing shaking and sobbing uncontrollably. I still cannot write or talk about it without crying. It was terrifying, and painful, and…I don’t know, I really just can’t think of words to describe how awful it was.

Ultimately, I was absolved of all charges, and the other student was forced to, as I had requested, write a 1,000 word essay to be published in the student newspaper and posted in prominent locations around campus, explaining why what he did was wrong.

But the experience stuck with me. It was a really rough way to learn the lesson, but I did learn firsthand what a terrible thing it is to do to attack someone’s character like that. All I could think about afterwards was how I had taken on this tremendous amount of extra work because I just wanted to do something good for the school. And I couldn’t get out of my head for weeks the thought that if this is what happens to you when you try to help, then why should I or anyone ever even bother.

Accusations of lawbreaking are extremely serious, and the cavalier way people often seem to feel entitled to throw them around when they’ve decided they don’t like someone — it’s not okay.

Politicians are people too

It is so easy, when you only read about someone in the newspaper, or maybe see the occasional brief clip of them talking on TV, to forget that politicians and lobbyists and developers and the dreaded “insiders” are also people. They are real people with feelings and friends and families and, yes, flaws.

It is fair — in fact, it is your responsibility, as an engaged citizen, to hold your elected and appointed officials accountable for the decisions they make. When you disagree, when you think they’re wrong, you should say so. And you should say why.

Actions and words are absolutely fair game for criticism. But you don’t know, and you can’t know, what is in someone’s mind or in their heart. And it is not okay to attack them for what you imagine to be there. It is wrong.

I’ve had to deal with it. I’ve watched friends have to deal with it. And I can tell you that if someone decides they want to find something in your life or your relationships they can twist into something evil sounding, they can do it. To anyone. And it really is terrible. Sometimes, when I watch what people in or running for public office have to go through, and listen to the awful things people say about them, it amazes me that anyone is willing to do it at all.

When people feel strongly about something, and decide that they are right, they can do and say horrible things. It is so tempting to dismiss differences in opinion with elaborate theories about complex webs of influence or motivation. It is much easier to do that than to accept that someone else simply doesn’t see the world in the same way as you do, particularly when what’s right seems so incredibly clear in your head. But that doesn’t make it okay.

We all make mistakes

I took a lot of shit this election season for supporting a candidate that many people viewed as unethical. But these moral failings that many people acted so certain of, grounded in innuendo and assumption, were not so clear to me.

On the other hand, there were many actual actions on the part of others that I did not feel were ethical things to do. I do not think it is ethical to tell a group of voters that someone has been indicted for crimes when they have not been. I do not think it is ethical to tell lies about someone else’s record. I do not think it is ethical to tell a group of people that one of your opponents isn’t at an event because he doesn’t care about them, when you know perfectly well that it’s because he’s sick and can barely speak. I do not think it is ethical to make serious accusations of illegal activity when you have no evidence whatsoever that any has occurred. I do not think it is ethical to respond to a question you are unequipped to answer by impugning the integrity of someone you don’t know, and saying untrue things about their history.

But that does not mean the people who did these things are bad people. It means that they, just like you and I, are flawed. They make mistakes. We all do. Sometimes, when we do things we shouldn’t, it’s because our baser instincts get the better of us. Sometimes, it’s because we just, even with the best of intentions, made a bad call. It happens. It’s okay. All we can do is learn from them and try to do better next time.

When someone puts themselves out in public, and when they make decisions that impact people’s lives, part of the bargain is that they are opening those decisions up for criticism. But it is really important to remember, when we discuss these things, that just because we believe they are wrong, that doesn’t mean they are evil or soulless or corrupt. Records are fair game in public discourse. Character is not. And I hope that we can all put the nastiness of this election season behind us, remember that we are talking about real people, and that our words have consequences, and resolve to keep our debates grounded in things we know, rather than things we can’t, in the future.

National losses are, of course, terribly disappointing, but it’s a relief that sanity prevailed in California at least, with wins for Jerry Brown and Barbara Boxer. All the local races I felt really invested in — Libby Schaaf for City Council, Measure BB, Victoria Kolakowski for Judge, Robert Raburn for BART, and Don Perata for Mayor — turned out the way I wanted. The only race I did any volunteer work for that didn’t go my way was in another state, and it’s not like I spent a ton of time on it or anything. So it feels nice to be on the winning side of things for once.

But whatever side you were on, if you did any volunteer work for any campaign, I have something I want to say to you.

Thank you all so much

Whether you gave one hour or one hundred to a campaign this season, I want to extend my most heartfelt gratitude to you. Thank you so much for being part of this process.

And for those who volunteered for a campaign that lost, I am so sorry. I know very well from experience just how badly it hurts when an election that you have put your time and energy into doesn’t go the way you want. I have cried myself to sleep on more than one election night. I wish I knew something comforting to say to those who were crushed by their candidates or their ballot measures losing. I don’t. I’ve been there many times, and it just plain sucks. It can make you feel like all that time you invested was for nothing, and that all your work didn’t matter, and you should have just spent the last few months playing pinball or something instead. But it wasn’t for nothing.

Believing in something so much that you’re willing to give up your time and go out there to harass people who don’t want to talk to you and try to convince them to believe in it too — that is a beautiful thing. And even if you didn’t manage to sway as many votes as you wanted, well, you swayed some. At that does matter.

You are what makes our system work. And sadly, it doesn’t always work the way we hope it will. And when it doesn’t? Well, it might not seem like it right now, but life does go on. Oakland will move forward. There will be more elections.

So no matter how disappointed you might be feeling today, please remember that what you did was a wonderful thing, and please do not let a discouraging result this time keep you away from doing it again in the future. Eventually, you will win one.

And really. Thank you for your participation in this process, from the bottom of my heart.

Staying involved

I am especially grateful to those people who had not volunteered for elections in the past, and did it for the first time this year. I hope so much that you will stay involved in Oakland government. Democracy only works when people are engaged.

If you’re not sure how to get started, you should know that there are a number of organizations out there that do very work to advocate for good government in Oakland. Here are just a few options.

• Of course, there is the venerable League of Women Voters. And I urge everyone who cares about good and transparent government in Oakland to become a member. The League offers many different opportunities for getting involved in local government, but there’s one that is particularly close to my heart, and that is the League’s Observer Corps. This is a coordinated effort to send members to watch City Council, Council Committee, and Boards & Commissions meetings. Observers wear a neat pin to show everyone they are there on behalf of the League, and they report back to the League after the meeting about whether there were any issues raised that the League’s Action Committee should be monitoring, as well as whether the meeting was conducted in conformance with State and local sunshine laws. This kind of monitoring may not be very sexy sounding, but it such important work, and it can only happen when many people join together in pursuit of a common goal. Plus, I think that most people find that once they actually go to a meeting, it’s a lot more interesting than they expected. And then they want to go back! If the cost of a membership is a problem for you, that does not need to stop you from joining. The League maintains a fund to help people who can’t afford their fees, and is happy to offer dues assisted memberships. Call the League office at 510 834-7640 or e-mail league@lwvoakland.org for more information.

• If education is more your thing, I recommend getting involved with Great Oakland Public Schools. I have been so impressed with what I’ve seen of this organization, and they have many opportunities for you to help improve our schools in Oakland.
• Make Oakland Better Now! does excellent work advocating for sound decision making in Oakland’s budget process. Studying budget documents and making sense of them is a tremendous amount of work, and I am sure that they would welcome any assistance you have to offer.

These are just a few of the groups out there doing excellent work to make Oakland’s government work for you. If you have one that I didn’t mention and you really like, I invite you to share it in the comments here, and tell people how they can get involved. Or if you work with an organization that does great work in Oakland and needs volunteers for things that have nothing to do with government, please feel free to share that too. There are so many different ways you can help to make our city a better place, and the important thing is not which one you pick, but that you pick one at all.

And once again, thank you.

FRIDAY AFTERNOON UPDATE: The preliminary RCV results are up. Jean Quan wins. Numbers here. More updates soon.

FRIDAY UPDATE: Here are the results for all the local races as of Friday morning. If you want to see the old results that I had posted on Wednesday, you can view them here (PDF). The Registrar is planning on running the ranked choice algorithim today so we can see what the results look like with that in place. However, since not all votes will have been counted yet, whatever we see today is not a final result, and it is important to keep in mind that it could change.

Here are the results for all the local races as of Wednesday morning at 9 AM. 100% of precincts have been reported, but the results will continue to change slightly as provisional ballots and late absentees are counted and so on. See updates on the returns on the Registrar of Voters website. Find results for statewide races at the Secretary of State website.

And, hey! Big congratulations to Robert Raburn! We are getting ourselves an awesome new BART Director. I am so excited!

Oakland City Races

Oakland Mayor

• Don Perata: 35.13%, 27,610 votes
• Jean Quan: 24.30%, 19,099 votes
• Rebecca Kaplan: 20.82%, 16,365 votes
• Joe Tuman: 11.95%, 9,390 votes
• Marcie Hodge: 2.41%, 1,891 votes
• Terence Candell: 1.79%, 1,405 votes
• Don Macleay: 1.33%, 1,043 votes
• Greg Harland: 0.88%, 689 votes
• Larry Lionel Young, Jr.: 0.72%, 567 votes
• Arnold Fields: 0.60%, 468 votes

Oakland City Council, District 2

• Patricia Kernighan: 67.09%, 5,915 votes
• Jennifer S. Pae: 32.69%, 2,882 votes

Oakland City Council, District 4

• Libby Schaaf: 42.23%, 5,909 votes
• Jill Broadhurst: 22.45%, 3,141 votes
• Melanie Shelby: 11.39%, 1,594 votes
• Daniel Swafford: 11.31%, 1,583 votes
• Clinton Killian: 5.79%, 810 votes
• Ralph Kanz: 4.15%, 581 votes
• Jason Gillen: 2.59%, 362 votes

Oakland City Council, District 6

• Desley Brooks: 65.39%, 5,396 votes
• Jose Dorado: 20.89%, 1,724 votes
• Nancy Sidebotham: 13.39%, 1,105 votes

Oakland City Auditor

• Courtney Ruby: 67.49%, 42,838 votes
• Michael Kilian: 32.03%, 20,328 votes

School Races

Oakland School Board, District 4

• Gary D. Yee: 69.18%, 8,692 votes
• Benjamin Visnick: 30.46%, 3,827 votes

Peralta Trustee, Area 3

• Linda L. Handy: 53.83%, 4,068 votes
• Mónica Tell: 44.62%, 3,372 votes

Peralta Trustee, Area 5

• William “Bill” Riley: 68.81%, 11,929 votes
• William J. Mattox: 30.21%, 5,237 votes

Ballot Measures

Alameda County Measure F

• Yes: 62.61%
• No: 37.39%

Oakland Measure L

• Yes: 65.06%, 49,183 votes
• No: 34.94%, 26,415 votes

Oakland Measure V

• Yes: 69.80%, 52,166 votes
• No: 30.20%, 22,571 votes

Oakland Measure W

• No: 56.68%, 41,788 votes
• Yes: 43.32%, 31,932 votes

Oakland Measure X

• No: 72.06%, 53,037 votes
• Yes: 27.94%, 20,562 votes

Oakland Measure BB

• Yes: 70.35%, 51,456 votes
• No: 29.65%, 21,689 votes

Special District

BART Director – District 4

• Robert Raburn: 46.27%, 24,327 votes
• Carole Ward Allen: 35.15%, 18,478 votes
• Monique Rivera: 17.53%, 9,216 votes

AC Transit Director: At-large

• Joel B. Young: 71.01%, 131,176 votes
• Ellis Jerry Powell: 27.92%, 51,584 votes

AC Transit Director: Ward 4

• Elsa Ortiz: 47.27%, 19,919 votes
• Dollene C. Jones: 30.41%, 12,816 votes
• Nancy M. Skowbo: 21.36%, 9,003 votes

Judicial

Superior Court Judge, Seat 9

• Victoria S. Kolakowski: 50.28%, 119,148 votes
• John Creighton: 48.71%, 115,428 votes

If you still have questions about the various ballot measures, you can find good explanations of what each would do, as well as arguments both for and against in the League of Women Voters Easy Voter Guides. Here is the local version (PDF), and here is the State version (PDF). Additionally, you can find more detailed explanations of what each ballot measure would do on the League of Women Voters California Education Fund website. You can find information about candidates for office, what exactly will be on your ballot in case you want to make a cheat sheet to bring with you (it is crazy long, folks), and where your polling place is on the League of Women Voters SmartVoter website, which is an amazing resource.

So make sure to get out and vote, and then think about how nice it will be to finally have a break from the constant barrage of election-related mail, phone calls, and TV ads! And if you’re not busy tonight, Becks has helpfully compiled a list of election night parties where you are welcome to come and watch the returns.

Have a great day, folks!

What is Measure BB?

For those who aren’t aware, Measure BB would amend Measure Y, which voters passed in 2004. It collects an $88 per year parcel tax on single family homes, as well as an 8.5% tax on parking space rentals. The money goes to fund community policing, the fire department, and violence prevention programs.

In order to collect this tax, Measure Y mandated that the City funded 739 police officers from the General Fund. Due to budget shortfalls, the City had to lay off 80 police officers earlier this year, and because the number of police officers funded out of the General Fund was reduced to below the minimum required level, it is no longer collecting the Measure Y tax.

Measure BB would amend Measure Y so that the City can restart collecting the tax that had been in place over the last five years, providing desperately needed funding to public safety and violence prevention services, without funding 739 police officers from the General Fund.

Changing my mind about Measure BB

So, getting back to my little debate about Measure BB. Their argument boiled down to the fact that the consequences to the City of losing this money were simply too drastic, and that even if it was unpleasant, we had to support it.

I said that I was well aware of the City’s dire financial situation, and that I was not unsympathetic to the need for revenue, nor to the negative impacts of the loss of violence prevention, police department, and fire department funding that would inevitably happen should Measure BB fail. I said that I did not think the City had handled Measure Y well, or as promised, and I felt that a yes vote on Measure BB would be rewarding the City for not following their commitments to taxpayers.

And they were basically like “Yeah, it’s true. The City has not done a good job with Measure Y. But we can’t just blame them for it. We didn’t do anything to stop that. For good government to work, we have to be doing our job too. And we haven’t.”

And although I wasn’t persuaded on that day, I thought a lot about what they said over the next couple of weeks. And I decided that they were right. No, I don’t think the Council has handled Measure Y well. But I also don’t think that I did as much as I should have to make sure they did. And unless your name is Marleen Sacks, well, chances are pretty good that you haven’t either.

Citizen engagement is what makes democracy work. That is the responsibility of every citizen who cares about good government. And when the Council voted to use all the Measure Y reserves to fund a hiring program that we knew at the time was a bad idea, well, they did so under intense pressure from the public and the media to vote yes. They faced mockery and derision from local columnists for daring to even question whether it was a good idea. And while there were a small number of courageous people saying don’t do it, they were vastly outnumbered by the other side.

So I blame the public for the broken promises of Measure Y just as much as I blame the Council. And I acknowledge my own culpability for not speaking up to try to stop these mistakes from happening. And since I didn’t do my part, I am in no position to punish them, and myself, and everyone else in Oakland for their failure.

Oakland needs Measure BB

The fact is, the City’s financial situation is dire. And if Measure BB does not pass, we are going to either lose more police officers, or we are going to see what’s left of public services like libraries and parks and recreation completely decimated. Probably, both will happen.

It’s all well and good to say the Council should have done better, that there should have been more oversight, and so on. And I do think that people have legitimate reason to be angry. But no matter how angry you are, it is important to remember that your vote has consequences. And the consequences of a no vote on Measure BB will be a less safe city.

We can’t afford that. This is a city where sixty-nine people have been killed this year alone. This is a city where teenage children are being murdered. This is a city where nine people were shot across the street from my apartment on Saturday. This is a city that needs police officers, and it needs violence prevention programing for kids, and it needs money to pay for them.

Measure BB preserves this money, and if you care about making this city a safe place to live, I urge you to join me in voting Yes on Measure BB.

Still, I often get the sense that many of the people I talk to are voting for her because they feel like they should, but don’t really care that much about the race or have a particularly strong sense of why this election matters so much. But you should care. Because it is important.

Diversity on the bench

When you read newspaper articles about this race, it’s easy to get the sense (although she is always quoted in them saying otherwise), that the main thing Kolakowski has to offer is that she is transgendered. In their endorsement of her opponent John Creighton, and in a very frustrating article they ran about the race, the Oakland Tribune seemed to imply that her main qualification for office was that there are currently no LGBT judges in Alameda County. Stories tend to emphasize Creighton’s work prosecuting gang, domestic violence, sexual assault, and murder cases, while glossing over Kolakowski’s legal background and focusing on the fact that she would be the first transgendered judge.

And while she does talk about that on her website and at fundraisers, I have never gotten the sense that she believes it is her primary qualification for the job, nor is it what drives her to want to position.

And I can’t hold it against her for bringing it up when asking for money. I mean, obviously she has to address it, because other people certainly will, and also, the fact is that it does help with fundraising, and you need money to win elections, and it is hard to raise money for low profile races. So you use whatever you’ve got.

Mostly as a favor to a friend who was hosting it, I attended a fundraiser for Victoria Kolakowski last May. I was planning on making a very modest donation. And she got up and made her pitch, and she talked about how less than 30% of Alameda County Judges are women, and how there are no transgendered judges in the entire country, and she read out loud from this awful editorial, which had been recently published in the Washington Times all about employers should be allowed to discriminate against “she-male[s]” and “psychologically troubled persons.”

And yeah, I was moved. Call me a bleeding heart or whatever. Identity politics is not how I make decisions about which candidates I am going to support, but I totally get why some people do.

For a long time, I didn’t understand that. I would listen to women my mother’s age get all worked up about supporting female candidates, or talk about how important it is to get more women in public office, and I would just think “This does not matter to me at all.” I hated the idea that anyone could think my breasts were more of a qualification for anything than my mind. Growing up, it never occurred to me that there was a job I wouldn’t be able to have because I was female. As an adult, the only things I ever encountered sentiments like that about were professional cooking and pinball, where I was never locked out, but compliments always came with irritating disclaimers. You know, like “Wow, V. You’re really good at this, for a girl.” And while that is irritating, if it’s the worst thing you have to deal with — well, things aren’t really that bad.

But now, when I look at the passion gay rights advocates put into electing LGBT candidates, I finally understand. I think the reason I never did before was because the women of my parents’ generation did such a good job that I always had role models I could look at who made me think I could do anything I wanted. They were so successful about their own identity politics that I couldn’t even see why it was necessary. (Nice work, ladies!)

And while there has been much progress on that front in recent years, it is still not the case today for gay people, and it is certainly not the case for transgendered people. And although I am not gay, I remember growing up, having close friends who were, and (especially in Texas) that is a very hard thing for a kid to have to deal with. The immense pain of being an outsider, of just wanting to be normal and thinking they never would be, of having to hear all the time that it is okay for people to hate you for who you are — I wanted so badly to be able to say something that would take their pain away, even just a little bit. And I couldn’t.

And it’s great to have public figures people can point to — celebrities or whatever, but I think that only goes so far. Celebrities, are, almost by definition, not normal. And when the world makes you feel like there must be something wrong with you at your very core, all you want is to be normal.

There’s something very different about being elected. I mean, if you are elected to public office, it means that the most people had to actually vote for you. They had to actively make a decision affirming that they are not bothered by your identity, and they don’t think it makes you less qualified to be represent them, and that they are okay with who you are. In that sense, it’s the most normal possible thing. I think that means a great deal for kids, or adults even, struggling with coming to grips with who they are.

And being a judge is very much the same, as Kolakowski explains in this Bay Area Reporter article from when she was sworn into her current job as an Administrative Law Judge:

As transgender people, often we are perceived by people as being…well, honestly, crazy or delusional. So to be the first transgender person in this position is significant…In a society where people question our judgment, to be affirmed as someone capable of making good decisions based upon sound reasoning and application of the law — that’s a big deal.

So, yeah. I totally get it. And so I do think that it matters. And the second I got home, I went to her website, and I donated five times the amount of money I had been planning to.

Diversity of legal experience and interest

But I wouldn’t have given her any money at all if I didn’t already think that it is important we elect Victoria Kolakowski for Superior Court Judge for other reasons.

John Creighton seems like a very good person. And I have no reason to believe that he is not a very good prosecutor. But another judge whose interest lies solely in criminal law is simply not what the Alameda County Superior Court needs.

Most judges are former prosecutors. Part of the reason is that this is a very appealing title on the ballot, and a lot of people make decisions on low profile races based on the job description next to the candidate’s name. Another part of the reason is that usually when there is an open judge seat, it gets appointed by the Governor. And Governors tend to appoint prosecutors.

This creates an imbalance in the courts, where most judges do not have a background in civil law. Many judges also are not particularly interested in civil cases, and end up getting just assigned to them because they lack the seniority to score the types of cases they request. But these types of cases are precisely the reason Victoria Kolakowski wants to be a judge.

A few months ago, I attended another fundraiser for Victoria Kolakowski. This time, it was Oakland City Attorney John Russo who made the pitch. I wish I had written down what he said, or thought to record him with my phone or something, because he put it so much better than I can. But his speech was just as powerful as the one Kolakowski herself had made a few months ago, although focused on a completely different topic.

He talked about the complexity of the civil cases he works on, and how much more difficult the process can be due to the lack of judges with expertise in these areas of law, and how desperately judges with this type of experience are needed on the bench. Kolakowski has worked in many of these more obscure areas, including patents and intellectual property, bankruptcy and divorce, corporate and contract law, land use and zoning, and environmental law. As an Administrative Law Judge, she has to deal with complicated cases involving utility regulation and CEQA. We need judges who are properly equipped to handle these matters.

Access to the courts

Aside from her extensive legal background in areas that differ from that of most judges, the other reason I feel so strongly that it is important to elect Victoria Kolakowski is her passion for increasing access to the courts.

In criminal cases, you are guaranteed a lawyer. But in civil cases, you are not. And anyone who has had to go through that knows firsthand just how unbelievably and prohibitively expensive that can be. The legal system is often, to say the least, obtuse, and without representation, it can prove nearly impossible to navigate.

In the video below, Kolakowski speaks movingly about her ideas for making the process more understandable, and how taking time at the beginning to explain it to people can save immense amounts of time and money, on both sides, in the long run. It’s not a long video. If you are at all undecided in this race, please watch it.

To have someone who wants to make that a priority, who cares specifically about doing this, about making the legal system work for everyone — that’s huge. That will make a tangible difference in people’s lives.

In her endorsement of Kolakowski, Becks wrote about her temperament and compassion, and while I have not worked closely with Vicky like she has, I do think that her even-tempered mindset and commitment to fairness and the law comes through very clearly in the few conversations I have had with her, as well as in this interview for change.org

And that’s why I am voting for Victoria Kolakowski for Superior Court Judge. And why I hope you will too.

You can help elect Victoria Kolakowski for Judge

While Victoria Kolakowski enjoys broad support here in Oakland, and so it might seem like this is a lock, it’s important to remember that we live in a very large County, and John Creighton’s endorsements of police organizations, prosecutors, and local newspapers carry a lot of weight in other parts of it, particularly in a race that gets as little attention as this. So if you believe, as I do, that Kolakowski is the right candidate, and that her experience and priorities are important to the bench, please, call your friends who live in Hayward of Livermore or Fremont or Pleasanton or wherever, and ask them to cast their vote for Victoria Kolakowski for Superior Court Judge on Tuesday. You can make a difference in this race.

But it is true, as some commenters have noted, that I do not live in District 4, and I may not be entirely familiar with all the issues residents of that District have to deal with. So today, I want to share with you another plea for a vote for Libby Schaaf for Oakland City Council from someone who knows District 4 more intimately than just about anyone — 24 year District 4 City Councilmember Dick Spees. Here you go.

Dear District 4 Voters,

As your Councilmember of 24 years, I care deeply about our community, which is why I’m supporting Libby Schaaf as District 4’s next Councilmember.

I’ve witnessed Libby’s dedication firsthand for more than thirty years. She has lived in Oakland her entire life (including in Piedmont Pines, Merriewood and Oakmore neighborhoods), and she has volunteered in every corner of our diverse District. She has worked on habitat preservation in Redwood Park, offered free legal counseling at Dimond Library, run a Redwood Heights haunted house for foster kids, tutored at Horace Mann Elementary, and served as a Block Watch Captain in Oakmore, as just a few examples.

Libby left her career as an attorney at Oakland’s prestigious Crosby, Heafey, Roach & May law firm to pursue public service. As a Chief Aide to Councilman De La Fuente and Mayor Jerry Brown, Libby helped reduce crime and revitalize neighborhood commercial districts.

As a Port of Oakland executive, Libby brought millions of dollars to our city, to build infrastructure, reduce pollution, and grow our economy.

Considering our dire financial challenges, Oakland needs a representative with the drive and savvy to reduce City Hall’s budget, while increasing services to neighborhoods.

Libby is the only candidate with the experience to make these changes that Oakland needs. Please vote Libby Schaaf for City Council on November 2nd!

- Dick Spees
Oakland City Council Member, District 4, 1979–2003

P.S. I encourage you to visit www.LibbyForOakland.com to read more about Libby and her specific plans.