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Oakland City Council members Jean Quan and Rebecca Kaplan, candidates in the mayoral race, were unable Thursday to prompt amendments to the city’s campaign finance laws before the November 2 election. The proposed changes targeted fellow candidate Don Perata, whose campaign has already exceeded the $379,000 spending cap.
Don Perata, one of 10 candidates for Oakland mayor, has had a long history of public service, having spent 16 years teaching in Alameda County and 12 years as a Sacramento politician. But his record has also been marred with controversy over issues such as campaign finances.
Many Oaklanders have heard mayoral candidate Joe Tuman talk about politics, but they might not know it. Before he declared himself a candidate in Oakland’s most hotly contested race, he spent over twenty years as a political analyst and a talking head on TV, making him a familiar yet nameless voice in the region’s politics.
With one candidate refusing to participate, nine of the ten contenders for the job of Oakland mayor addressed a room packed beyond capacity Thursday night, stating their positions on public safety, the city budget, and local ballot measures.
This November, Oakland voters won’t just be choosing the city’s next mayor—they’ll be changing the balance of power in the city’s legislature as well, as Jean Quan steps down from her city council position of eight years in order to run for mayor. Quan currently represents the wildly diverse swath of Oakland marked as District 4, and with seven new faces contending for her position, voters in that area face a range of candidates not seen in over a decade.
Mayoral candidate Joe Tuman opened a new campaign office at 3219 Grand Avenue only a few weeks ago—not entirely because he wanted one, but because his participation in an upcoming mayoral forum depended upon it.
Five of the ten candidates for Oakland mayor stood on the steps of Oakland City Hall Tuesday afternoon to reaffirm their commitment to campaign expenditure limits while slamming fellow candidate Don Perata, accusing him of attempting to raise the spending ceiling agreed upon by all candidates.
Meg Whitman’s Oakland campaign office is a modest white building, tucked between a Subway restaurant and an unrented space on Lakeshore Avenue, distinguished only by the “Meg 2010” signs in every window. The Republican gubernatorial candidate’s office has turned heads and raised questions about the strategy of establishing a campaign headquarters in Oakland, opponent Jerry Brown’s home turf.
Oakland City Attorney John Russo joined other law enforcement officials in front of Oakland City Hall today to declare support for the marijuana legalization initiative Proposition 19, which Russo argued would give Californians “a chance to take drugs off the street corners and out of the hands of children.”