I'll be voting for Jean Quan for Mayor of Oakland this year, 2010. She has represented the district I live in, District 4, in the Oakland City Council for years, much of it in leadership roles on the Council. During the most recent period of Ron Dellums' mayoralty, which might be characterized as an absence of formal leadership, she has often served as Vice Mayor and been a crucial constructive force for moving toward a solution to the city's seemingly intractable budgetary problems.
Jean Quan is an extremely hard worker, an attender to her constituents' retail details as well as to the city's big picture, that is to say its future and its long-term well-being. Though a reliable liberal and Obama supporter, her approach to the affairs of the city has always been problem by problem, with full disclosure of the potential impacts of both budgetary and tax proposals on the people of the city.
As a moderate Republican, I feel no hesitation in supporting her nonideological liberalism, which occupies an area of potential agreement and problem solution that might unite people with diverse perspectives. And Oakland is after all one of the most liberal cities in the country; I have no desire to see someone who matches all of my own opinions elected to the city's highest office, because I don't believe such a person could get the city's varied interests to work together.
Years ago, I wrote a generic letter to Councilmember Quan, opining about this or that local issue, I don't remember exactly what, as part of some e-mail list's letter-writing campaign. It might have had to do with our continuing need for more traffic controls on the nearby main road, but whatever it was, I do remember that Jean Quan wrote me back with a full explanation of why she wasn't able to follow "my" advice, and that she had no hesitation about explaining why her views differed from mine. I really liked that forthrightness, and I've seen that continue throughout her term of service to the district. I've only met her once, in passing at a Montclair Christmas shopping event, and while she seemed likeable, and not at all egotistical or sanctimonious, she wasn't what I would call charismatic. But charismatic is not what I want in leadership of the city during this period of hardship.
Nor do I think the kind of attempts at large-scale deal-making that Quan's main competitor, Don Perata, would probably bring to the mayoralty are the ways in which I see our problems being gradually resolved. We've now got "ranked choice voting" in our local races, so I will put Perata down as my second choice in spite of his less preferred approach; I do think he'd do a better job than Dellums has done, at least. But Jean Quan offers a mode of big city government that actually does give neighborhoods the power to work on their problems, and taxpayers a say in whether they'll pay more, and for what. She is a terrific exemplar and practitioner of democratic (small d) politics.
Quan is "an attender to her constituents' retail details" - not!
ReplyDeleteI too live in her district. She tried to push through a height-busting development at High St. and MacArthur Blvd. despite the overwhelming opposition of the merchants and residents of the area.
She tried to locate a sort of shopping center of services for parolees (services like erasing your convictions) in a residential neighborhood. She didn't tell the neighbors about it, word slipped out, and even the city attorney got into squelching the proposal.
Quan told the Dimond residents they were imagining crime.
Quan has traded favors with a few residents (she throws a bone, you praise her to the skies). It's more Tammany Hall politics than serving the community.
Meanwhile, on the big problems, she could not or would not heed warnings of bankruptcy when she was prez of the school board. You know what happened. In 2008 she as council finance chair and now-disgraced city administrator Edgerly drained the City reserve fund from $60 million to $10 million. That was to keep serving the pork when the need for prudent retreat to basic services was already an obvious economic necessity.
Thanks for providing a counter to my post, though you haven't changed my opinion. Your examples of projects Quan tried to "push through" sound more like examples of her trying to make constructive things happen. There are always people who feel their views have been shorted when such attempts are made, and sometimes the community gets riled up enough to stop things from happening. That's just local politics -- I wouldn't want it any other way, because we're not living in utopia here. The "imagining crime" allegation clearly seems true to you, but I've never experienced any statement of that sort coming out of Jean Quan or her people, ever. She's never traded a favor with me personally -- but calling that Tammany Hall, whatever kinds of favors you mean by that, sounds like you're turning dissatisfaction into character assassination -- Tammany Hall means machine corruption to me, not (subjectively) perceived preferential treatment, and "political machine" is the opposite of the kind of political process I've seen Jean Quan engage in.
ReplyDeleteAs for your final point, my recollection is that Jean has been sending out information about the fiscal state of the city, making hard budgetary choices, and pointing us to the "Budget Challenge" that allows us to see the hard choices for ourselves, since before 2008. My recollection may be wrong, but that's what I believe.