Oakland News: CAO Deanna Santana Resigns, Fred Blackwell In; State Of The City

This Oakland News installment reports on the anatomy of the resignation of Deanna Santana as Oakland’s City Administrator and the installation of City of Oakland Economic Development Director Fred Blackwell as her replacement. Let’s get to the kind comments about Fred before we dive down into really what’s going on:

“I am excited to make this appointment and continue my work with Fred in a new role,” Oakland Mayor Jean Quan said. “Anyone who works with Fred immediately recognizes that his reputation as a brilliant, dedicated, get-it-done leader is well deserved. These skills, together with his deep roots as an Oakland native and his passion for our city, make him the perfect choice to help carry forward our priorities of public safety and economic development.”

“I am honored and eager to get to work,” Fred Blackwell said. “As an Oakland native, I’ve seen what this great city can be and I’m excited about this point in my hometown’s history. We’re experiencing a great rebirth in our economy and seizing opportunities with more success than ever before, Mayor Quan and I are focused sharply on making sure everyone in Oakland takes part in that success.”

Here’s Fred talking about the Oakland Coliseum City Exclusive Negotiating Agreement Process:

Oakland City Council President Patricia Kernighan said, “Fred has done outstanding work already in his two years with the City. He’s been a dynamic and engaging partner to the City Council as we work to make Oakland safer and create jobs and opportunities for our residents and businesses. His leadership is a great win for the City and I’m looking forward to what’s next.”

Oh, Mayor Quan did take time to describe Santana as a tireless worker, but it must be reported there was no press release about Deanna’s resignation. The simple fact that Deanna’s departure isn’t met with kind words from a number of people, and the City’s spotlight is on Fred, should tell you something.

Why Deanna Santana Resigned

In a nutshell, Deanna Santana’s resignation was a combination of Mayor Quan’s unsupportive management style, Santanta’s too-bossy, too-cloistered, and too-ham-handed approach, their rather prickly relationship, and the overall view that Mayor Quan’s not going to win reelection this year that caused Deanna’s departure. Santana paves the way for Fred Blackwell, who’s expected to focus on finding a new police chief to replace the Interim Chief Sean Whent.

Deanna’s Not Digging Oakland Or Mayor Quan

Ms. Santana’s decision to leave the City of Oakland comes just before she would have been replaced by Oakland Mayor Jean Quan, but it was also Santana’s doing. Early polls last year showing that Quan was on her way out, as she would not survive a reelection fight, was the straw that broke the camel’s back and caused both Santana, and Quan’s Chief of Staff Anne Campbell Washington to start seeking new employment.

That, on top of Quan’s annoying “I know better than you even without experience” management style, and the very real fiscal sword that hangs over the City’s collective head, sought both Washington and Santana to seek a way out, and away from Quan. For Santana, that new place looked like Dallas, but not any more as that city did not hire her; for Washington, signs point to a stint with California Governor Jerry Brown after he wins reelection (the two talked last weekend and she’s worked for him when he was Mayor of Oakland).

The main problem for Santana was and to date is simply that Mayor Quan does not allow the people she works for to flurish and consistently fails to take advice, particularly from anyone who’s not a friend or family member.

While Quan herself is sensitive to her own problem, insiders are concerned that Economic Development and Redevelopment Director Fred Blackwell, set to take Santana’s place today, will be stifled by Mayor Quan. However, they also both hope and believe that Blackwell can overcome Quan’s habit of throwing her CAO under the bus, and is the best person to point Oakland in the right direction before it’s too late.

Indeed, Mayor Quan has a deep respect for Blackwell, but should she start to “act up” in her treatment of him, Fred has no shortage of backers who will keep her in line – yes, I wrote that. Mr. Blackwell is popular because of a style that’s personable and professional, but not overbearing. He’s truly a man of the people, and never acts as if he’s above the people. It’s that way which has built, for him, a giant and powerful constituency. To the extent Mayor Quan isn’t threatened by this, and I personally know she’s not, both will work well with each other.

There is a BUT…

Occupy Oakland Started Santana’s Less-Than-Fun Time With Mayor Quan

My friends in City Hall have communicated numerous events were Mayor Quan did not back or support the desires of either her Chief Administrative OFficer, or her Chief of Staff. For Deanna, who I remember (as I worked in the Mayor’s Office at the time) as an intelligent and attractive intern under then-Interim City Administrator Lamont Ewell, and who was dating an Oakland Police Officer at the time, the handwriting on the wall was written, first, when she angrily insisted that the persons who set up the Occupy Oakland Tent Encampment in 2011 not be allowed to do so.

Mayor Quan asserted that the Occupy Oakland people had the right of “free speech” and should be allowed to use Frank Ogawa Plaza to express it, thus failing to back her then-new Chief Administrative Officer. But what Deanna didn’t like was how Quan threw her under the bus before the media when it came time to explain who’s idea it was to eventually remove the Occupy Oakland people in the way that led to the violence that took place on the evening of Tuesday October 25th, 2011, and once again put Oakland on the media map for the wrong reasons.

But Deanna Also Caused Her Own Problems…

Deanna Santana’s departure time was also assembled by her own at-times troubling actions. She arguably covered up consultant Thomas Frazier’s report pointing to the Oakland Police’s brutal treatment of Occupy Oakland members. And Deanna’s presided over what is the most terrible relationship any Oakland city manager or administrator has had with the Oakland Police, Fire, and workers unions in recent history and one that came to a head in the Oakland Workers Strike of 2013. You would have to go back to the years before Oakland’s City Manager David Self in the early 80s to find an equivalent example of a city manager or city administrator who was so universally disliked by the City of Oakland’s workers unions. (Oakland City Manager Henry Gardner is still the gold standard, and Blackwell comes closest to Gardner in style and temperment.)

This interview I conducted with Jeff Levine and Paul Schiesser, two Oakland workers involved in last July’s strike, focused on Santana and Quan’s lousy negotiating tactics and their failure to share Oakland’s economic growth revenues with its workers, and Santana’s $292,000 salary, which is beyond the city service pay grade guidelines, and is partly funded from a source not known to the unions:

All of that became a liability for Mayor Quan as she entered a reelection year, but to reiterate, Santana wasn’t looking to stick around, either. Still, Santana and Quan’s handling of the Oakland Workers issue also caused a decline in their relationship. Deanna’s problem, as one friend in City Hall communicated to me, is that she “compensates for being new to Oakland all over again by being too heavy-handed with power. She wants to show you she’s in charge.”

It must be added that Mayor Quan has exactly the same problem, and it was Santana and Quan’s mutual personality tick that not only put them at odds with each other, but also came to bear in their mishandling of the Oakland Workers matter. Quan and Santana’s ham-handed negotiating style with the Oakland workers came to hurt Mayor Quan – who’s union backing coming into the 2010 Mayor’s Race, and particularly with the Oakland SEIU, who came out in force for her, was a major factor in why she was able to gain enough Rank Choice Voting second place votes to overcome front-runner Don Perata, win, and become Mayor of Oakland – now she can’t get any credible union support to save her already poor reelection efforts.

And now, Dan Siegel, famed Oakland Civil Rights lawyer and former legal assistant to Quan who quit after the Occupy Oakland disaster, has come along as a candidate for Mayor, and has already started to suck whatever union support Quan had away from her. Fred Blackwell, and Quan’s new Chief Of Staff Ron Cowan, are welcome additions (Ron was hired a month ago), but from the perspective of Mayor Quan’s reelection chances, it may be too little to late.

Fred Blackwell’s Expected Focus: A New Police Chief

As stated, Interim Chief Sean Whent may not be the next Oakland Police Chief. A number of City Hall friends say that he doesn’t have the respect of the rank-and-file officers, but that’s been publicly reported on many occasions. What’s not public until now is that Blackwell, once he gets the job of Chief Administrative Officer, is expected to go about making a list of the top, upcoming police executives that Oakland should consider, make a short list, and then fly around the country to meet those persons, face-to-face.

Fred Blackwell Expected To Focus On Economic Development

One other focus of Mr. Blackwell will be in the area of Oakland’s economic development bureaucracy and what will be major personnel changes. Some may be on the hot seat.

By contrast, Fred Blackwell is expected to find a great role for Gregory D. Hunter, the Deputy Director of The Community and Economic Development Agency. Greg’s a smart, even-tempered, and more than able Oakland economic development executive who has been, to put it frankly as one City Hall staffer said, “been shit on by the City of Oakland, and on more than one occasion.” City Hall insiders say that Mayor Quan, who reportedly dislikes Greg for reasons that boil down to style, has been his chief tormentor, just by failing to pay attention to him in meetings, to name one example.

(At times, Jean can be very annoyingly dismissive of people who know more about something than she does. It’s like she can’t stand you if you’re obviously more intellectually aggressive than she is. That should not stand in the way of going to the best source for the resolution of a problem, but it does and that’s why it’s called an insecurity.)

In my view the best way to remedy these slights and mistreatments is to make Greg Hunter Fred Blackwell’s replacement.

Fred Blackwell’s Appointment Good News For Oakland Sports Teams

As Fred Blackwell has been the unofficial lead negotiator and economic development point-person on a number of projects related to the maintenance of Oakland’s major sports teams and its sports infrastructure, news of his elevation to City Administrator status should come as a welcome relief to the Oakland Raiders, Oakland A’s, and also The Golden State Warriors.

Deanna Santana basically gave the role of handling sports issues up to Fred and stayed far in the background – and so far back that it was unusual, considering that she was CAO. Now, Fred’s in charge of a greater array of civic resources to bear on the problem of maintaining sports in Oakland. The next immediate step: setting a date for an update by the Coliseum City Group to the Oakland City Council.

But I take time to say congratulations to Fred Blackwell, and add this…

Fred Blackwell’s Big Problem: Oakland’s Debt

One City Hall friend said “Fred’s got to deal with the fact that Oakland’s leveraged to the hilt. We have leveraged the entire city, making bets on the hope that these investments will pay off. But we’re kicking the can down the road,” my friend said. “It’s cost? In the hundreds of millions.”

Other Oakland News: State Of The City; 13 Candidates For Mayor Of Oakland

On this Thursday at 7 PM in Oakland City Hall, Oakland Mayor Jean Quan will give what is going to be her last State of The City Address as things look right now. The media advisory reports that she plans “to center her highest priorities: public safety and economic development. She will take stock of the City’s progress in 2013 and set strong goals for the coming year.”

Given that this is an election year, and Mayor Quan has developed a penchant for showing the rosy crime statistics, and not the real picture, Thursday’s State Of The City Speech should be quite a hoot! I’m looking forward to Mayor Quan saying something about maintaining our sports teams, which is the real economic development challenge. One word of commitment in this area is what the Raiders, A’s, and Warriors need to hear now.

13 Candidates For Mayor Of Oakland

As of this writing, there are 13 candidates for Mayor of Oakland and the truth is that with this many people running, a record for Oakland, anything can happen. Here’s my video listing the candidates:

Who are: Jason Anderson, Peter Liu, Pat McCullough, Bryan Parker, current Mayor Jean Quan, City Auditor Courney Ruby, District Four Councilmember Libby Schaaf, Nancy Sidebotham, Dan Siegel, Joe Tuman, Gregory Wade, Charles Williams, and Margaret Wrigley-Larson.

Of the candidates, Peter Liu and Margaret Wrigley-Larson act as if they don’t want to be found, even though I’ve managed to track down their phone numbers. Some people think that the candidates they’ve never heard of are plants by some other candidate. After giving that thought, I can’t openly see how that would work in practice, as it could easily operate against the candidate who launched it. I think some people are just lazy campaigners. If you’re going to run for Mayor, and to the extent of filing papers, at least let us be able to know about you and how to contact you. Prove you care about the City of Oakland, please.

On the note of the Oakland Mayor’s Race, many have taken time to contact me and express support for my release of my opinion that Courtney Ruby, our City Auditor, is a terrible choice for Mayor. What I’ve found is that Ruby has attracted an enemies list that’s a mile long, and consists overwhelmingly of people of color.

If Courtney Ruby became Mayor of Oakland, many people in City Hall would be plotting against her on a weekly basis. That explains the depth of hatred a number of folks have for her. I’m not making this up. Courtney has used her office to conduct attacks that are personal but it seems she believes these high-profile excursions into political suicide were actually going to propel her into the Mayor’s Office!

A City Hall friend of mine said “Courtney is a pyromaniac! She like to start fires, then go across the street and watch them burn.” Whoever talked her into running obviously doesn’t have her best interests in mind. If it was Courtney herself, then my friend was really right about her being a pyromaniac because she’s going to set something on fire alright: herself.

While Ruby’s campaign goes up in smoke, Libby Schaaf’s had a successful kickoff last Saturday at Penrose Restaurant. Meanwhile, Bryan Parker’s campaign just sent an email about their town hall at 6 PM Wednesday at Bella Ultra Lounge, March 5, 6-9pm, 561 11th St., in Downtown Oakland, and an exciting initiative called The Oakland Tech Competition.

“Oakland has the emerging talent and infrastructure to become a major spoke in the tech hub and needs the right leadership to support that ecosystem, which can become an economic driver for the city. Economic development is a major component in our battle for a safer Oakland, and I am starting that engagement today” says Bryan Parker. To that end, he’s teamed up with Vator to have this startup competition, the first of its kind held in Oakland.

The winners receives sit-down meetings with at least five VCs, including Javelin Venture Partners, plus $30,000 in-kind prizes, such as an Apple iPad Mini for two team members, one-year subscription to Rackspace, a two-hour consultation with KPMG, $10,000 worth of free processing fees, courtesy of Braintree, a video of their 3-minute presentation on stage, a profile on VatorNews, and much more.

The deadline for applications is April 1. It is free to enter and free for the top five finalists to present. Interested parties can apply online here: http://vator.tv/competition/oaktown-tech-startup-competition

And here’s Bryan’s education video he released two weeks ago:

Meanwhile, Dan Siegel’s been out there campaigning to raise the minimum wage, and effectively integrating his Oakland Mayor’s Race efforts with his activism.

Joe Tuman has been rather silent of late, and after releasing his first and only video so far. As for the other candidates things, in terms of events and meetings, will start heating up within the next month.

At this point, can the campaign sustain a 14th candidate, or a 15th one? Actually, I think it can. In fact, the more people running for Mayor of Oakland, the more visibility the overall campaign gets, and thus, the more who will turn out to vote. But the fact is, the more candidates we have, the harder it is for any one of them to snag a majority of first place votes so great that the front-runner wins. The trouble is that the “names” now focus too much on polls – folks, I’m here to tell you that with this number of people, polls don’t matter at all.

Look at the Oakland District One City Council Race. Amy Lemly was the clear polling front-runner in 2012, but Rank Choice Voting put her in the loss category, and put her challenger Dan Kalb into that area’s office. Libby has to have that fact at the back of her mind, but the one thing she can’t afford to do is to pick the wrong person to tag-team with. If Libby happens to team with Courtney Ruby, which I do hope she would not be stupid enough to do, it would kill her campaign. Period.

Will The Oakland Council District Two Race Get Able Guillen?

Able Guillen says he’s going to run for that city council seat, but he’s still not filed papers, and Michael Colbruno, who has, shows no signs of dropping out as of this writing. Whatever the case, I consider the real front runners to be Sokhom Mao and Andrew Park, and because they spend a lot of time working at the grass roots level, and have obvious support entourages. Sokhom Mao, in particular, has taken up the taks of getting a private security firm to work around the Cascades area, and near where the Cleveland Cascades Steps are located.

Still, anything can happen. But the fact is, if you want to ensure a crazy set of Oakland elections this fall, just sign up to run for Mayor of Oakland or for Oakland District 2 City Council; District Four has just two candidates, and I’m sure the well-known Jill Broadhurst likes it that way.

Oakland Public Ethics Commission Releases Report

In January, the Oakland Public Ethics Commission released a report on efforts to improve transparency in Oakland Government. You can read it here:

Oakland Public Ethics Commission Report On Transparency

Stay tuned.