Quan celebrates victory, fundraises to alleviate campaign debt
on November 13, 2010
A wave of applause and a flurry of camera flashes greeted Mayor-elect Jean Quan on Friday night at her celebratory dinner, marking the end of her campaign and the beginning of her transition to becoming Oakland’s first female and Asian American mayor. “Did we make history? We made history,” Quan said proudly to nearly 200 people who attended the dinner at King of King, a Chinese restaurant in East Oakland.
Supporters took turns sharing their excitement and praising Quan for her political achievements. The seven-course dinner also served as a fundraiser to alleviate some of the $150,000 campaign debt, said Quan’s daughter Leilan Huen.
Mayor-elect Jean Quan is the first female and Asian American mayor of Oakland.
Just two days before, and more than a week following Election Day, the Alameda County Registrar of Voters announced the results of the city’s first election using ranked-choice voting—voters had been allowed to choose their top three choices in the 10-person mayoral race. After the first round of ballots were counted on the night of the November 2 election, former state senator Don Perata led the race with 35.13 percent; Quan followed with 24.3 percent. But after the second- and third-place votes were distributed, Quan won by less than two percent, with 50.98 percent of the vote. “If you win by one vote, you win,” Quan said during a press conference immediately following the release of the results Wednesday night.
Quan will begin her term, replacing current Mayor Ron Dellums, on January 3, 2011. Until then, she said she is working on building a new administration to help her tackle her priority issues—crime, unemployment and at-risk youth in Oakland.
Check out all of our Oakland elections coverage on our Campaign 2010 page.
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This is a very nice slideshow. Thank you for doing that.
Sara
While “progressives” pat each other on the back, I hope that they’ll remember (tall order for anything past a week ago) that Quan, who drove the Oakland Schools into a 100,000,000 deficit, and voted yes to Eubonics, and whom your press it toting as a “woman” and not much else, will have to deal with Oakland’s charming history of accumulated problems:
“Many of the city’s more affluent residents, both black and white, left the city after the war, moving to neighboring Alameda, Berkeley, Albany and El Cerrito to the north; to San Leandro, Hayward, Castro Valley and Fremont in Southern Alameda County; and to the newly developing East Bay suburbs, Orinda, Pleasant Hill, Walnut Creek and Concord. Between 1950 and 1960, about 100,000 white property owners moved out of Oakland—part of a nationwide phenomenon called white flight.”
“During the 1980s, crack cocaine became a serious problem in Oakland. The drug culture that had gained a foothold during the 1970s became increasingly violent and socially disruptive. Poverty increased, and the free market conservative think tank Manhattan Institute for Policy Research reports that by the end of the 1980s, more than 20% of Oakland’s population was on welfare.”
“A record number of 175 homicides were committed in Oakland in 1992.[99] In 1993, Oakland’s murder rate was 40.8 per 100,000; the 13th worst ranking for US cities with population over 100,000.[100] Statistics published by Morgan Quitno (later CQ Press). put Oakland’s crime at the 18th worst US city (out of 207 of the largest cities) in 1997,[101] 16th worst in 1999,[102] 22nd worst in 2000,[103] 28th worst in 2002,[104] 21st worst in 2004,[105] and 21st worst in 2005.[106] The 94 murders in Oakland in 2005 and 145 murders in 2006 contributed to making the city’s ranking jump significantly worse, going to 8th most dangerous for 2006, and 4th for 2007, 5th for 2008, and 3rd for 2009.”
“A record number of 175 homicides were committed in Oakland in 1992.[99] In 1993, Oakland’s murder rate was 40.8 per 100,000; the 13th worst ranking for US cities with population over 100,000.[100] Statistics published by Morgan Quitno (later CQ Press). put Oakland’s crime at the 18th worst US city (out of 207 of the largest cities) in 1997,[101] 16th worst in 1999,[102] 22nd worst in 2000,[103] 28th worst in 2002,[104] 21st worst in 2004,[105] and 21st worst in 2005.[106] The 94 murders in Oakland in 2005 and 145 murders in 2006 contributed to making the city’s ranking jump significantly worse, going to 8th most dangerous for 2006, and 4th for 2007, 5th for 2008, and 3rd for 2009.[107] All rankings above are based on the crime stats from the previous calendar year, with the reports released in the fall. Oakland ranks high in California for most categories of crime. Rates of other violent crimes, such as assault and rape, are also far above the U.S. average.[108] 120 murders recorded in 2007 made Oakland’s murder rate third highest in California, behind Richmond and Compton; however, Oakland suffered rape and robbery rates per capita that were almost twice those of Richmond and Compton, making Oakland’s violent crime rate the highest overall.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oakland,_ca
Read this comment quick before the Communist Editors see and delete the “free speech” they don’t approve of.
Cheers!