Vote For Best Qualified Oakland Auditor: Len Raphael.
Oakland politics are not what they seem on the surface. A cross between peeling an onion and a mini Game of Thrones. So it goes with celebrity political endorsements and muni union financial support.
The police union supports Brenda Roberts with their endorsement and their money because they hate me for publicly advocating for a totally civilian run police review system, aka Police Safety Oversight Commission. Brenda is clueless and silent on this, which is just how OPOA union likes their Auditor to be.
The OPOA never got around to hating on me for my long time position that we have to tackle our 2.4 billion of retirement obligations now instead of when we’re on the verge of insolvency.
But the other unions zeroed in on my pledge to use the Auditor role as independent budget analyst as a platform to push the Council to face those obligations now and not at the last minute. (Or just give the Council political cover so they can do so. As in blame the messenger.)
During one endorsement interview Brenda was asked which of Courtney Ruby’s audits she thought were good and which not so good. Brenda stated that the only Oakland audit report she had ever read was the one Ruby did on Council Members Reid and Brooks. Brenda had not even read the recent report by Ruby on the serious insolvency risk from our retirement obligations.
At the same interview, Brenda guessed 1 billion too low on the amount of retirement obligations. Auditing 1A requires you to read the prior year audit reports before you audit anything. Brenda has lived here 25 years and never looked at a single audit report until she looked at the one report for which someone at almost every forum had a question about.
The other union leaders are endorsed and arranged celebrity politician endorsements for Brenda Roberts because she is clueless and silent on the retirement obligation issues. And she will stay that way as long as possible because she is depending on those political celebrity endorsements to get elected. Brenda doesn’t even bother to campaign.
For an excellent discussion of the political endorsement game see http://sanleandrotalk.voxpublica.org/2012/03/15/endorsements-do-they-matter/
Len Raphael, CPA
for Oakland City Auditor
www.LensForChange.com
