Oakland (Special to ZennieReport.com updated May 4th, 2025, 3:16 PM PDT) – Oakland City Administrator and friend Deborah Edgerly’s name has resurfaced since Oakland Mayor Elect Barbara Lee won the 2025 Oakland Mayoral Special Election and inherited the woman affectionately named “Ms. E” that was hired by Oakland City Administrator Jestin Johnson two months ago to be his consultant on the formation of Oakland’s Budget.
But, while a good source says ‘she’s a well-regarded consultant on municipal budgets”, Ms. Deborah Edgerly’s Oakland history is clouded by the sad and typical racist media accounts that only point to the desires of some back in 2008 to paint a bad picture of her as a black woman in the executive branch of government in Oakland.
That’s where Zennie62Media, Inc’s Oakland Focus Blog at OaklandFocus.Blogspot.com comes in. It’s Oakland’s first blog, and has the only complete and unvarnished set of accounts about Oakland CAO Deborah Edgerly from back when it was all, as they say, going down in 2007-2009. What follows is the best summary account of how Oaklanders regarded “Ms. E” at the time (with some corrections not in the original post, but sorely needed).
Edgerly To Retire July 31st But The Story Is Not Over – June 25th, 2008, Oakland Focus Blog
According to various friends and news sources, Oakland City Administrator Deborah Edgerly will retire July 31st 2008. But from what I hear, the embattled CAO’s (Chief Administrative Officer) situation is such that it’s Civil War (in capital letters) and folks have chosen sides. I personally stand by this view: that Miss E’s phone call to help out her nephew set in motion a perfect storm of events and a clash between the following “Oakland Agenda Groups”
1) Professional / executive class African American female City of Oakland Employees
This group is paced by the CAO, and is a loosely formed set of tight relationships, that one friend once described as “The Black Female Mafia”.
2) City of Oakland Employees who are not part of group one and specifically don’t like the CAO.
This includes people in the Oakland Police Department, but also other City of Oakland departments and personnel who I can’t mention. This includes African Americans, male and female. It’s not a personal issue between them and the CAO, they just don’t like the way she operates or manages the City.
3) City of Oakland Employees who are just trying to stay out of the way.
These are long time employees who don’t get involved in office politics, except to mind their own turf. They tend not to be high-level management executives, but low to mid range workers. Just make sure their check is ready; they’ll do the job because their kids future depends on them.
4) Oakland “Insiders” with political connections who don’t like Edgerly and want to see the City “work”.
Many of these people don’t work for the City of Oakland, and some have in the past, and may be part of the media. In any case, they’re active bloggers, people who oppose large development projects, and are in many cases “Oakland political junkies” who have as a whole a “caracatured” image (basically, racist) of the City of Oakland.
5) The Oakland African American Professional Class (and sympathizers), which consists mostly of those who feel Edgerly was railroaded.
They tend to be heads of the many small and medium-sized Black owned firms in Oakland, from accounting firms to law firms and other business services. Some with City of Oakland contracts.
Now, like any group, there are people who are more in one than the other. Perhaps a Venn Diagram is needed?
Also, just because I may write that one group is Black does not mean it’s 100 percent African American. In perfect Oakland fashion, each group is racially mixed to an extent – but it’s safe to say that Group 4 is mostly not Black and largely White. It’s a group that wanted Sean Sullivan to beat Oakland District Three Councilmember Nancy Nadel, and didn’t get their wish. They want the CAO’s head.
Deborah Edgerly’s Large Family In Oakland
When I first got involved in Oakland Politics, Jim Edgerly, a good man, an energetic man, and a friend whom I’ve not talked to in some time, once told me the Edgerly’s were probably the largest family in Oakland. “There are over 200 of us in Oakland”, Jim said to me in 1994. Indeed, even then, it was hard to argue with him. Jim himself knew everyone in Oakland and all of the politicians. Jenette Edgerly, his daughter, worked as the secretary to Oakland City Manager Robert Bobb, and Interim City Manager Kofi Bonner before Bobb, and then City Manager Craig Kocian, and then the legendary City Manager Henry Gardner before Kocian. There were Edgerlys and relatives of them working in the City of Oakland, even in the 80s.
So the idea that Deborah Edgerly used her position to help her folks get jobs is not exactly true. It’s more complicated than that because there were relatives in the City before Deborah became CAO. They’ve always taken care of each other. In this case, Miss E was looking out for one of her own. But in pissing off the police officer who was towing her nephew’s car, she set off a Oakland City Hall Civil War that could take on massive — and by that I mean lawsuit — proportions.
What’s unfortunate is that the truth will be overtaken by prejudice and character assassination. Already we have bloggers (who, let’s face the facts, are white) calling Oakland “corrupt” because of this, when in point of fact, this is nothing. (They’re the type who would call Oakland “corrupt” whenever someone black promotes another person who’s black, but applaud when Jerry Brown promotes white folks who are his friends, like his right hand man Jacques Barzaghi. Just stating facts.). Corrupt is a police officer or department taking drugs and reselling them for their own revenue while jailing the drug dealers. Corrupt is knowingly using voting machines that don’t accurately count votes.
Those are real problems. The legacy of the Edgerly Family in Oakland is not one of them. What many people just either forget or don’t get is that the ability of African Americans to gain employment on merit alone is still new in American Society. In the 60s, and up to the early 90s, government was seen as one of the few areas of work where Blacks could get a fair shot at a job. It’s only logical and natural to expect a family — a large African American family — in Oakland to help their own.
Deborah Edgerly may have had her faults, but she was not corrupt.
Deborah Edgerly The Target Of Disrespect From Day One
Since 2003, when she was appointed by Oakland Mayor Jerry Brown as Interim City Manager after City Manager Robert Bobb was fired by him just for wanting to build an Oakland A’s Ballpark in the Uptown District, Deborah Edgerly has been the target of much disrespect. When Edgerly was selected as permanent in 2004, the word was that Jerry Brown picked someone he “could control” — who would not try to build a downtown baseball stadium or generally “show up” Mayor Brown’s desire to be the most powerful person in Oakland. By contrast, there were many that saw Robert Bobb as much the mayor as Jerry Brown, a fact that in practice rankled Jerry.
Enter Deborah Edgerly. Someone who’s been around long enough to know where the bodies are buried, but not so ambitious that she would promote her own initiatives over Oakland Mayor Jerry Brown’s own objectives. But in this, or because of it, and her style and physical appearance, and sex, Edgerly has — very sadly — not gotten the respect she deserves. I remind you that this is a job she really didn’t want for herself, saying “I like comfort. But I’ll do the job if I’m asked.”
She did. What’s sad is that her legacy of service is being tarnished in this way. In the past, when Oakland City Manager Henry Gardner ran the City — we had a Council-manager form of government — and there wasn’t The Internet and the flow of ad dollars away from newspapers, the City Manager was profiled, followed, and respected, ..and male.
Now, the City Administrator is not profiled, seldom followed, mostly disrepected, ..and female.
A big mess.
Deborah Edgerly Finally Sues The City of Oakland – July 8th, 2009
According to Matier and Ross in the SF Chronicle, former Oakland City Administrator Deborah Edgerly’s suing the City of Oakland for unlawful termination (They used the term “unfair” but it’s “unlawful”). At any rate, it was an expected action given the way she was let go and the kind of statements made about her before the action took place. I wrote then that a defamation of character lawsuit would have been appropriate, but Edgerly apparently feels she was wrongfully terminated.
Again, Edgerly’s way of protecting family and favorites caught up to her, that’s certain. But, and I state this again, Edgerly was put on the chopping block for actions that are common in the City of Oakland. I wrote a while back – stating that SF Chronicle Columnist Chip Johnson was right about Oakland favoritism – and will continue to assert this:
Don’t think that favoritism starts with Deborah Edgerly. It’s part of the organizational DNA of Oakland and has been practiced by everyone from then-Mayor Jerry Brown on down. In fact, it was widely known that Jerry didn’t want Deborah Edgerly as his first choice for Chief Administrative Officer; he wanted the stiletto and ankle-bracelet-wearing Dolores Blanchard (who was White, not Black as an FYI) to be the one, but she lived in Danville, not Oakland.
In fact, if Ms. E focuses on Ron Dellums wife Cynthia in the lawsuit (where she claims Mrs. Dellums asked her to pay Dellums personal bills with taxpayer money), it could be another major credibility problem for a Mayor’s Office that already suffers from the low regard the community has for its performance.
That’s sad.
The whole tale is a terrible story of a period in Oakland’s history where its citizens need effective, professional government, but are getting ineffective, unprofessonal government. It’s not enough to point to a bright spot here in the City Attorney’s Office, or anywhere else; the whole government should work well. That’s not too much to ask for.
In Fairness To Another Complaint About Ms. E That Should Be Addressed, There’s This
The complicated history of Miss E does come with a complaint issued by Larae Brown, and goes like this, according to CourtHouse News:
The City of Oakland fired its controller to retaliate for her reports of City Administrator Deborah Edgerly’s illegal payroll practices, including double dipping, paying ghost workers and nepotism, Larae Brown claims in San Francisco Federal Court.
Brown says she found out in 2006 that the city’s cash balance had been overstated by $172 million, that 77 of 111 funds were in the red, and that the city was spending restricted bond money illegally.
She says she reported this to city Treasurer Bill Noland, who told her “that he had taken up her concerns to Edgerly and that Edgerly would neither act to correct the matters reported by Brown, nor would she permit the Oakland City Council to be so informed. The City Budget Director confirmed that the report of Edgerly’s response to Noland was accurate.”
Brown says she also complained that city police officers were being paid for days they didn’t work, paid for vacation and work on the same days, and that officers on workers comp were also getting holiday pay.
In response, she says, Police Chief Wayne Tucker told her that Edgerly would not allow her to send out a memo correcting this, and would not correct the illegal double dipping.
She claims she was not allowed to stop the overpayment of more than 22,000 hours of unearned overtime to city workers who also collected vacation pay for those hours.
She claims Edgerly approved $10,000 bonus checks to herself and Noland without approval from the mayor or City Council. And she claims that Edgerly had relatives on the payroll who were paid though they did not show up for work.
After that complaint, Brown says, “access to the payroll system was taken from Brown and her staff, preventing Brown from investigating and reconciling anomalies in City’s payroll accounts.”
Brown says she presented these complaints to City Auditor Courtney Ruby, who hired an outside auditor to investigate. Two days later, she says, Edgerly fired her, through Noland. She says she was fired “in reprisal for her complaint to the city auditor about Edgerly’s malfeasance.”
She demands $5 million in compensatory damages, and punitive damages. She is represented by John Burris of Oakland.
I tried to get Ms. E to respond to the complaint some time ago but she refused. So I had nothing to post in her defense. Eventually, Dellums fired Deborah Edgerly over the entire set of affairs because she became a political liability at the time. Since then, she’s been hired as an Oakland consultant three times. Everyone deserves a second chance and a third when they’re good. For all of her complications as Oakland CAO, the one talent no one could or can question is her ability to form a good, balanced, budget. Oakland City Administrator Johnson hired Ms. E to do just that, she has 22 years of experience under her belt.
Stay tuned for updates.
UPDATE: Reached by phone, Oakland Criminal Defense Lawyer John Burris told Zennie62Media, Inc. that the his client Larae Brown lost her lawsuit, and that “there was no incident of impropriety on the part of Deborah Edgerly. She’s an excellent municipal government consultant.”
Former Oakland City Council District One Candidate Len Raphael Wrong About Deborah Edgerly
On Twitter, my friend Former 2024 Oakland City Council District One Candidate Len Raphael tweeted:
Deborah Edgerly was one of the two consultants hired. She worked for Jerry Brown and then Ron Dellums until Dellums fired her. Edgerly wrote the book on how to juggle the city’s books legally. She makes former Mayor Thao and CM Kaplan look like newbies at kicking fiscal cans into the future. If they were going to hire anyone (and it’s a waste of money), it should have been Dan Lindheim, Edgerlie’s successor and now a professor at UCB Goldman School.
Len is so busy playing Oakland’s unfortunate version of the left / right political views that have damaged government policy making and weakened Oakland’s ability to cure its economic development and service delivery problems, he forgets history. Unlike Deborah Edgerly, Dan Lindheim is not a municipal budget expert, his specialty is not even municipal government management!
Dan Lindheim had only one job in that area of municipal government management and that was as Oakland’s City Administrator for then-Oakland Mayor Ron Dellums, and for just one term, at that. By contrast, Jerry Brown asked Deborah Edgerly to be his City Administrator, but she was already the City’s Chief Financial Officer, and before that Director Of Revenue. Deborah Edgerly has 22 years with the City of Oakland, alone, and that’s not including her years as a consultant; Dan has four years with Oakland, and no where else in municipal government in America. Dan is more of a public intellectual than a specialist, and there’s certainly high value in that, but to compare him to Deborah Edgerly as a municipal budget expert is just plain ridiculous.
Len Raphael obviously did not get the memo that the claims against Ms. E described in the John Burris / Larae Brown were dismissed in court – she lost.
Stay tuned.