I'll be voting for Libby Schaaf

I'll be voting for Libby Schaaf for our open City Council seat in Oakland's District 4 this year.  District 4 is where I've lived since 2002, and covers a large geographical area and population, large enough that apparently we're as big just by ourselves as the city of Santa Clara.  So providing us proper representation on the Council is definitely bound to be very hard work as well as big city politics.  Jean Quan was our councilmember before this; now she's running for Mayor of Oakland, and an opportunity has opened up for the next generation of political leaders to take a place at the table. 

Out of the large group of candidates who've put themselves forward (which is in itself an honorable thing), I choose Libby because I know from having worked with her (briefly, maybe fifteen years ago, at a volunteer agency called the Marcus Foster Institute that she was managing) that she's smart and works hard, and because she offers that magical combination we Americans look for in our political leaders: she has a vision of what she thinks Oakland should be and at the same time she listens to her constituents' own visions (which sometimes contradict hers or each others) and is committed to somehow representing them as well.  Also, she knows the ins and outs of the city's political structures (which tend toward the byzantine, because of the overlay of city organizations with transit agencies, school districts, and the Port of Oakland), and has the capability of working with them in working for our district's interests.