Courtney Ruby: Oakland Auditor Quit Running For Mayor After Racism Claims, Back In

Courtney Ruby, the Oakland Auditor, likes punishment; that’s the only logical reason available for why she elected (no pun intended) to announce that she’s back in the Oakland Mayor’s Race, after having backed out of it due to claims that she was being racist – including from this blogger.

Maybe Courtney Ruby thinks memories are short, but they’re not.

Courtney Ruby is the author of the Oakland City Auditor Report that alleged that Councilmembers Larry Reid (District 7) and Desley Brooks (District 6) were acting in violation of the City Charter.

The trouble is, the claims of tampering with City Staff can and do apply to all Oakland City Councilmembers, not just Reid and Brooks; we resolved that last year, and during a 2013 that saw a sad and rare decline in race relations in Oakland Politics. Witness:

All of that was started by Oakland Auditor Courtney Ruby, who then took the coward’s way out, and did two things:

1) She had the report, which was to come to Oakland City Council, blocked from an appearance before the entire body, after a really bad City Council committee hearing, where Councilmember Pat Kernighan also came off looking like a racist – sorry to say, but that’s a fact. Ruby could have put an end to all of this by directly addressing not just the claims of racism, but also worked to heel the bad feeling that were so efficiently distributed around town. Guess what? She didn’t do that.

2) After in-effectively handling rumors that she was running for Mayor, Ruby then went to make it officially known that she withdrew her idea of running for Mayor. Remember, all of this was talk, because Ruby didn’t file then, and she hasn’t filed now.

Ruby Needs To Handle Her Paperwork

As far as I’m concerned Courtney Ruby needs to handle her paperwork. If she’s going to run for the Mayor’s Race, she needs to file papers. If she’s going to run for re-election as Oakland’s City Auditor, she needs to file her papers. If Courtney Ruby wants to send out the right message that she can be a real, honest to goodness candidate for the Mayor’s Office, she’s got to prove it.

That means Courtney Ruby has to give a press conference and a speech about Oakland and about race. After all, regardless of who at the City Administrator’s Office and the Oakland City Attorney’s Office talked her into writing the report, the fact is she didn’t back away from writing it, but she did hide from talking about it as City Hall was threatening to degenerate and divide into sides of black vs white, and all because of her actions.

A real leader doesn’t hide. A real leader comes out of the shadows and fixes problems – especially problems they started. Courtney Ruby is not being a real leader, and therefore she should not even waist our time with her talk of running for Mayor of Oakland.

Stop talking Courtney, if you’re not serious. If you’re serious, start working, not talking. Be a leader. Fix your mess.

Stay tuned.