Oakland (Special to ZennieReport.com) – As this is written, a small group of people, some who live in Oakland and others who do not, are about to embark on yet another effort to alter Oakland’s government structure with the assumed objective of catalyzing actions that will cause greater business investment in our city and actions that make it safer and more enjoyable (as it once was). Former Lafayette City Manager Steven Falk, who’s an Oakland resident, believes that the current form of government that was installed after the passage of Measure X in 1998, and the election of then-former California Governor Jerry Brown as Mayor, and called “strong mayor” needs a change. Perhaps back to some form of council-manager government.
Steven Falk Is New Oakland Resident As Of 2023 Having Moved From Lafayette
And just who is Steven Falk, the man behind this new proposed change in the Oakland City Charter? Steven Falk was Lafayette City Manager for two decades, but got into a policy disagreement that led to his resignation from the job he held for 28 years. Basically, newly gained information about global warming caused him to attack land use decisions in his city. The point of quitting was when his City Council asked him to go and speak against the new BART plan to build housing on BART Station land. “it has become increasingly difficult for me to support, advocate for, or implement policies that would thwart transit density. My conscience won’t allow it,” Steven told NPR in 2018. And that’s when he stepped down.
But records show Steven Falk still lived at 1008 Windsor Drive in Lafayette, and was there when he served Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf as Interim City Administrator. It was not until 2023 that Steven Falk and his wife bought a new home in Oakland, in the Hiller Highlands. The unanswered questions are why did he choose Oakland, and what is the corporation he owns called Mira Mar Holdings LLC?
Also, why does he try to present himself as an old Oaklander, rather than tell the truth and admit he’s a newcomer? Moreover, why did he take the position he did in Lafayette because of global warming and not because of the need for affordable housing? And why did the white-owned media let Steven Falk skate by without the scrutiny it would have applied to him if Steven were black? The answers to those and related questions will come, but the 30,000 foot view is that clearly Steven came to Oakland with a plan to change it, but for what real reason is the ultimate question. The timing of his move and his new-found love for Oakland Government is one that can’t be ignored. But, for now, let’s focus on his argument.
Steven Falk says “Oakland’s charter is bad because it imposes a Federal-style government on the City, with three separately elected branches (executive, legislative, and judicial) that compete with each other and, in so doing, make Oakland less effective and more dysfunctional than other cities with more efficient forms of government.” Now, Steven Falk claims to have talked to 200 people, some who worked in Oakland Government under the old system. But Steven Falk never tried to reach out to the one person who’s been a critic of his approach, and who’s experience with Oakland Government goes back to 1987, me, Oakland’s first blogger and vlogger.
And the reason Steven Falk has not, is that I openly objected to Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf hiring Falk (who quit his long-held Lafayette City Manager job in protest to the City’s luke-warm interest in climate-friendly high density development) when there were plenty of well-qualified black candidates, most notably then-City Clerk LaTonda Simmons (who this year, was recently fired by still relatively-new Chief Administrative Officer Jestin Johnson). Here’s my vlog outlining the philosphical reasons behind my objection to Libby hiring Mr. Falk 6 years ago:
It was in working for Mayor Schaaf that Falk gained his view that the Mayor of Oakland had little power. But Steven did not understand where Oakland had come from, and even though he might talk to people who had some experience with the old system, the start of this entire effort was with SPUR, which stands for “San Francisco Planning and Urban Research”. For much of its time SPUR’s focus has been on San Francisco, and what we get in the case of Steven Falk and SPUR, is the overall take that says “no one thought of this before us”. That’s a load of horse crap. But what Steven substantively misses is that before he came along I pointed out the problem of the “revolving door” where we have had City Administrators pass through Oakland just over every two-years on average since Measure X was voted into law.
But I also wrote about the problem with the Council-Manager Form of Government back in 1996. Then, I was both Columnist for the Montclarion and Economic Advisor to Oakland Mayor Elihu Harris. Elihu’s version of “strong-mayor” for Oakland lost at the 1996 ballot box; Brown took Mayor Harris’ idea and tweaked it by removing one of two at-large council seats, and taking the mayor out of the need to preside over city council meetings. It was a system designed more for Jerry Brown than for Oakland, and that alone explains the problems we have today.
But what everyone forgets is that Oakland residents have also worked over the decades to give more power to the people in the say of the direction of Oakland. Residents did not like that a well-moneyed candidate could automatically win an election in Oakland. That’s how we got ranked choice voting. They did not like that councilmembers who were big business representatives had seats on the city council, that’s how we got district elections. But the residents then also want a mayor who’s “accountable”. Here’s my 1996 Montclarion column on the need for a new Oakland government approach.
A Time For Change In Oakland By Zennie Abraham
A Time For Change In Oakland Imagine a corporation where the chairman of the board canąt hire or fire anyone except her secretary. A firm where she has only one voice vote and must lobby for support from eight other vice presidents, who can be replaced only by a vote of the firmąs shareholders. A business where the controller makes not only personnel choices, but policy decisions too, and can be fired only after a majority vote of the chairman and the eight vice presidents. Impossible, you say? Well, friends, welcome to Oakland.
Last year I was a newspaper columnist with an economic development background that was fast gaining a reputation for beating up on the Oakland bureaucracy. This year, I ąm working as an economic consultant to Elihu Harris, the Mayor of Oakland, and the view from inside is no better than the one I had looking in.
The simple fact is that Mayor Harris is in a systemic straight jacket. In this council-manager form of government, he not only has but one voice vote, he canąt hire or fire any department head and if the city manager wants to block an program or policy,all Harris can do is cry fowl.
Every day our office is the target of letters asking the Mayor to do something about one matter or another. The trouble is, he can only yell into a telephone.
Lets pick one example of what Iąm talking about: the legislation I drafted to alter the Oakland redevelopment system by calling for, first, a study area as large as the flatlands of Oakland. This agenda item was pulled by a member of the city managerąs staff. Passage of this resolution would not have cost the city a single penny, yet ignited the fires of reform. Now, we sit with a downtown redevelopment operating deficit that will only get worse as time marches on. In a Mayor-Council system of government, this would not have happened.
The need for accountablity In November, Oakland voters will have the opportunity to change this by voting for the Mayor-Council form of government. In this system, the Mayor is responsible for the selection of all department heads with council approval (something the council can’t do now), and is able to pick a chief executive to run the city. The Mayor can also direct the council to reconsider legislation and vote on it again. For the first time, Oaklanders will know who is running their city.
The new system offers other changes as well: the council, not the mayor, will be able to select the audit firm and, (contrary to the assertions of opponents of this measure) the Mayor will not be able to pick anyone for contract work with the city. Contract oversight will rest with the city council. The mayor-council system obviously establishes clear lines of authority, but in doing so, it takes power away from those who seem to have a vested interest in maintaining a lethargic government system. That’s why youąll hear them crying and whining during the next few months, saying stupid things like łthe new system will over-politicize economic development.˛ Look, itąs too late for that; itąs already over-politicized.
Between the city manager and the nine elected officials, there is no one person to turn to for direction, and no voting bloc. In the current system, getting Oakland councilmembers to vote as a bloc is like herding cats. It takes months and months of collaboration, and a truckload of catnip. That’s why even most of the councilmembers favor a change to the mayor-council system.
Steve Falk And Others Are Wrong About Oakland’s Current System: It Is Strong Mayor
What Steve Falk misses is that the Mayor of Oakland can do what Elihu Harris was not able to do: fire department heads. Elihu was not able to hire and terminate the Chief of Police; Jerry Brown, Ron Dellums, Jean Quan, Libby Schaaf, and Sheng Thao all were able to do that. The way the current system works, the Chief Administrative Officer serves at the pleasure of the Mayor of Oakland. So, if the Mayor wants to reach down to terminate the economic development department head, that’s possible. And here’s one press conference I covered that demonstrated the power of the Mayor as used by Mayor Schaaf:
Note that Mayor Schaaf elected to conduct the press conference alongside her hand-picked CAO Sabrina Landreith, and send the message that the CAO took Chief Wendt’s resignation, thus working as the Oakland City Charter would have it. This is a scene never played out in all of the years of Oakland’s council-manager form of government. This is the mayor being accountable. So, from the perspective of what Oakland historically had, this is a strong mayor system. The mayor can even control the City Budget in this way, working through the CAO. Falk may want the Mayor to have even more power, but Oakland’s history has shown that the residents don’t really want that, at all. They want levers of power to be available for them to use, including, ultimately, the power to recall the mayor.
Changing Oakland’s Government Will Not Solve The Problem
It’s because of my experience with both council-manager, and this modified “strong mayor” system, and the first recall of a mayor of Oakland, that I’ve come to the conclusion that changing government is not the problem: Oakland leaders not listening to Oaklanders and taking real action, is. We have tools that will help Oakland get our of fiscal problems, like tax increment financing, yet we never have used it in the 21st Century post 2011. Governor Brown revived it, in the form of SB628 Beale in 2014, but Oakland has not worked to use the new enhanced infrastructure financing district laws. What Oakland needs is Oakland: Sharing The Vision. Again.
Oakland: Sharing The Vision Brought Oakland Together
We talk about Oakland and America being “divided” but we do nothing to fuse either together. In 1991, Oakland started the non-profit Oakland Sharing The Vision organization with an all-day “visioning” event that drew 500 people to the Downtown Oakland Marriott Convention Center. Out of that two-weekend event came the Oakland Strategic Plan, and of equal importance, a new group of Oaklanders who, in ways large and small, would come to shape Oakland’s future for the next generation.
Another Oakland Charter change will only bring more expectations and more frustration because it places responsibility in the hands of a few in a city that wants change by the hands of the many. But an effort to bring all of Oakland together in the way Oakland Sharing The Vision did, will make lasting change and set a new start for a city that’s hungry to move forward.
Oakland Must Stop Naval-Gazing And Do The Hard Work Of Real Economic Development
All of this talk and work on reforming Oakland Government Structure is just another way of avoiding the hard truth: Oakland needs economic development investment, but the people in charge do not know how to make it happen. Many say that Oakland has to stop the crime first, but the problem is Oakland does not think systemically about how to do that. The reason why Oakland has so much crime is there’s no job-producing new structures being built. High-rise-housing alone is not a great economic development generator. Oakland needs to copy the model established by Detroit.
Detroit’s largest land-owner is Bedrock, the real estate company owned by Dan Gilbert, who also owns the Cleveland Cavaliers. Kofi Bonner is the CEO of Bedrock, and my friend since we went to UC Berkeley City Planning Grad School, where he dual-degreed with archtecture, and I earned my Masters of City Planning degree in 1987.
Anyway, over lunch while I was in Detroit to cover the 2024 NFL Draft, Kofi said that Mr. Gilbert had an idea of working to cause a large number of building development and redevelopment projects and events to happen almost at once within a three year time frame. Thus, the Detroit I saw last year was vastly different from the 2006 Detroit I visited for the Super Bowl XL that year. Then, large parts of land and abandoned structures were near Downtown Detroit. Now, those areas are covered with new multi-family housing and even repaved sidewalks.
Oakland needs that kind of “Manhattan Project” effort.
An Oakland: Sharing The Vision gathering can form a new plan, and a beefed-up and focused, tax increment financing-powered economic development organization can make it happen.
Stay tuned.