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Group seeks to recall Oakland Mayor Jean Quan

on October 26, 2011

As police and Occupy Oakland protesters squared off in front of City Hall this week, organizers of a recall campaign took their first formal steps this week toward an effort to remove Mayor Jean Quan from office.

“The people of Oakland seek to recall Mayor Quan because she has willfully ignored the City’s most pressing issue: public safety,” reads the document, containing 71 signatures, called a “Notice of Intention to Circulate Recall Petition.”  Filing this form Monday with the City Clerk was the first official step in initiating the recall process.

Other grievances listed included Quan’s recent support for a “regressive” parcel tax, her “squandering” of an opportunity to shape the direction of development on the Oakland Army Base, and the city’s high unemployment rate.

“After nearly a year in office she has exhibited no leadership or insight to develop and implement a sustainable solution to our growing unemployment and depressed economic development,” the document states. “We have no confidence in her ability to lead, listen or collaborate.”

Accompanying forms filed with the clerk identify Gene Hazzard, a photographer with the Oakland Post newspaper, as the proponent of the recall. Reached on his cell phone, Hazzard said Monday’s filing was “merely the first stage in a long process” to recall Quan, who was in Washington Tuesday and did not return calls seeking comment on the recall effort.

Hazzard acknowledged the existence of an organized group of people leading the recall effort, but he was reluctant to name names. “Everyone is focused on the organizers, but the 71 signatures are the organizers,” he said.

Hazzard, who is African American, said he and the other organizers made a deliberate effort to include people from an array of neighborhoods in the Notice of Intent.  Many of the addresses associated with the signatures are in predominantly black areas of East and West Oakland, but others are in largely white or mixed areas such as the Laurel District, Downtown, and the Oakland Hills.

Some notable names in Oakland politics are also listed on the Notice of Intent, including Marlene Sacks, an attorney specializing in education law who has twice sued the city over its alleged misuse of public safety funds; and Nancy Sidebotham, who was a city council candidate in 2010 for District 6 in East Oakland.

“I signed it because this city is in dire straits,” Sidebotham said in a phone interview.  “We need someone who’s going to address the issue of crime and work towards bringing businesses to Oakland so we can have a tax base to support the services we need.”

Charles Pine, a frequent commentator on Oakland politics, also signed the petition. “Jean Quan has pushed the failed policies of City Hall to the point of collapse,” Pine wrote in an email.  “Public safety is collapsing all around the city, but Quan will not give police staffing the priority it desperately needs.”

Paul Fields, a retired logistics management specialist with FEMA and a native of West Oakland, said he signed the notice in part because of Quan’s failure to maintain a productive relationship with the recently departed Oakland Police Chief Anthony Batts in spite of their often troubled relationship. “I think the mayor should have been the bigger of the two people in that situation,” he said.  “She should have bridged the gap.”

In addition to working as a photographer for the Oakland Post, Hazzard is a member of the Oakland Black Caucus. On Tuesday, however, the caucus distanced itself from the recall push. “The caucus has not taken a position on the recall effort, and has no current plans to take a position on the recall effort,” the organization said in a statement.

Hazzard himself made it clear that his involvement in the recall effort is independent of the Post as well.

Since Oakland’s municipal code does not have any specific provisions for recalling city officials, the process defaults to state law in this matter.  Accordingly, Hazzard and the other recall proponents now have until April 1, 2012—160 days after the Notice of Intent was filed—to collect signatures from ten percent of the city’s 196,000 registered voters and file the petitions with the City Clerk’s office.

But Dave Macdonald, the registrar of voters for Alameda Country, said that simply meeting the ten percent mark would probably not be sufficient. “With any petition, you need many, many more signatures than are required,” he said.  “A lot of the signatures can be disqualified.”

Macdonald said that signatures often turn out to be redundant, false, or belonging to people who are not registered voters.

If by April 1, the organizers feel they have a sufficient number of signatures, the petitions will be submitted to the clerk, who will examine a random sample of five percent of the signatures to check their validity.  If a sufficient number of signatures are accepted, the clerk will submit the petition to the city council at its next meeting, which will then have 14 days to set a date for a recall election.

Whether or not the recall effort succeeds, the effort has brought negative attention to City Hall during an already tense month for the mayor. Chief Batts announced his resignation at a tense press conference on October 11, citing Quan’s lack of support as one of the reasons for his departure.  This Tuesday, the city forcibly evicted hundreds of protesters sympathetic with the Occupy Wall Street movement who were camping on Frank Ogawa Plaza, shortly after Quan had expressed tacit support for the protesters’ cause.

You can read Quan’s complete statement on the Occupy Oakland eviction here.

Text by Alex Park and Tasion Kwamilele.

17 Comments

  1. JHorner on October 26, 2011 at 12:10 pm

    Where was Gene Hazzard when Mayor Dellums wasn’t doing jack shit for four years? I call bullshit.



  2. Mary on October 26, 2011 at 2:19 pm

    A lot of people are mad at Jean Quan right now, but those people don’t have her job.
    They weren’t handed a global financial crisis, a rambunctious group of professional protesters who hate and regularly provoke the police yet seem unwilling to stand up to criminals who victimize the community’s most vulnerable residents, a divested education system (from the state level), and a generally segregated community with wickedly unequal distribution of health and wealth. That on top of devastated tax revenues due to the foreclosure crisis and property declines- So she really doesn’t have the resources at her disposal to do the job she’s being asked to do.

    There are structural issues here that go way beyond Oakland and Mayor Quan’s control. Maybe she could do some things better. I don’t agree with how she’s handled the Occupiers, but I also think what we need is more cooperation, not this. I’m really worried about Oakland. I don’t see how we move forward.



    • Elizabeth on October 26, 2011 at 7:51 pm

      It is just and fair to evaluate the Mayor based on her decisions and the consequences that result from same. This includes the extreme force used against the demonstrators that put an American vet in Highland Hospital.



  3. Mark B on October 26, 2011 at 3:22 pm

    Mary,
    Jean has been terrible on crime. She has routinely ignored calls to add more officers to OPD, even after Oakland residents gave more money for this specific need (Measure Y). We no longer trust her nor her ideas on controlling crime.



  4. Richard Friedman on October 26, 2011 at 8:46 pm

    Where do I sign?



    • Sue on January 12, 2012 at 2:29 pm

      Oakland Farmers Market and Monclair Market on Sunday



  5. William on October 26, 2011 at 11:35 pm

    So these “recall petitioners believe that putting the mayor under the stress of a-doomed to fail recall-will cause here to put on her super-woman costume and fix all of our problems post haste.
    I think it is this type of mental illness that got us in this pickle in the first place.



  6. nlbknitter on October 27, 2011 at 7:52 am

    Right, so where DO I sign? Please tell me where petitioners will be so I can go and sign up!



    • Leonard Raphael on October 27, 2011 at 9:05 am

      Quan never admits to screwing up anything. Always blame others and forces beyond her control for problems she contributed to.

      That was true after she left 9 years on OUSD board, 2 as President, and then OUSD went into fiscal meltdown. Her excuse “the new accounting software ate my homework”; “we were misled by the staff accountants”.

      Then we the voters promoted her to City Council where her fellow fiscal geniuses made her Chairperson of the Finance Committee for almost a decade.

      During the Dotcom and Real Estate Bubble boom years, when the real estate tax revenue was just rolling in, she approved 35% retroactive pension increases for every employee including herself, but did not set aside an additional penny to fund a failing old pension plan, PFRS, or any money to fund what the outside city auditors estimate to be a 700Mill totally UNfunded obligation for post retirement medical benefits for all employees.

      Nothing was set aside for a “rainy day fund”.

      Ok, if you prefer her version of the story, that Wall Street and the Great Recession “caused” Oakland’s fiscal problems, then you’ll also believe her story about the O/O raid decisions.

      from Oakland Local yesterday:
      http://oaklandlocal.com/article/quan-jordan-santana-answer-questions-demonstrato\
      rs-return-occupy-oakland-plaza-ongoing-analy
      (Wednesday 7:30 p.m.)

      …..

      During a Q&A session, Quan, who was out of town at the time, revealed that she
      didn’t know when the camp was going to be raided. She later admitted that she
      did not make the decision to raid the camp, which was the result of Jordan and
      Santana assessing….

      ———————————-
      ———————————-

      Last evening, I ask an OPD sergeant when planning for the raid started. The
      sergeant explained that it started mid last week because it was fairly complicated to coordinate all those different police depts.

      So much for Quan’s plausibility of her deniability.

      -len raphael, temescal
      Vote No on H,I,J (Quan endorsed all of them)
      Recall Quan and most of the City Council



  7. Robert Garcia on October 27, 2011 at 11:14 am

    I was born and raised here in Oakland and own a home in the Redwood Heights area. As an American Combat Veteran I found it extremely upsetting to see
    the brutal exhibition of unnecessary police violence used against my fellow American citizens in downtown Oakland with whom I now identify. Their constitutional rights to peacefully assemble, freedom of expression, freedom from oppression and the right of the Press to cover the heinous incident were repulsed by the Oakland police department, Oakland City Administration and the eighteen other police agencies assisting. The sight was shameful…truly vile! The Police State is alive and well here in Oakland! For that reason I have decided to vote NO on Measure I, the city’s attempt to increase my house tax, in part, to fortify the Oakland Police Department. The Tienen Square tactics used Tuesday, October 25, 2011 by the police agencies illustrated a total abuse of my tax money to impede the Constitutional Rights of American citizens here in Oakland and do not have my support.
    Measure I—-NO, NO, NO!!!!

    Robert Garcia



  8. James Cogan on October 29, 2011 at 3:48 pm

    The lack of success in the city of Oakland should lead to the recall of both the Mayor and the City Council. It appears to me, as a long time Oakland resident, that the same small group is focused on what is good for the group and not what is good for the people of Oakland.
    Recall! Recall! Recall!



  9. Eric on November 4, 2011 at 8:06 pm

    where do I sign. The encampment goes or quan and all the downtown businesses go — either broke or they will move first… I’m one of them. Tired of seeing this shit downtown everyday. Can’t wait to move my business back to the city if this is the support Oakland gives to the people trying to make a difference. How do I knock on doors to get rid of quan. Total and complete idiot!



    • Sue on January 12, 2012 at 2:32 pm

      I meet Jean Quan at the grocery store in September, as a resident and tax payer for 20 year I walked up to her telling her what I thought of her very poor job, her response, ‘Then move!’. She was not qualified and cost the city millions – we need to get her out!



  10. Donna Means-Taplin on November 7, 2011 at 4:03 pm

    Where do I sign? And I am ready to walk the streets for the 19,000 we need….



    • Sue on January 12, 2012 at 2:34 pm

      Check this site out for recall petitions.

      removejeanquan.com



  11. […] Mayor Jean Quan released an official statement Monday about the efforts of Oakland residents to recall her, saying that the city did not need a “divisive and expensive” recall election and listing her […]



  12. Ryan Stern on January 30, 2012 at 2:13 pm

    Recall Her Immediately!



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