[ East Bay | Metroactive ]

Oakland Unwrapped The Men Who Weren't There By J. Douglas Allen-Taylor Two men failed to show for votes at the Oakland City Council this fall, and hardly anyone took notice. And that, as much as anything else, shows why Wilson Riles, Jr.'s campaign for Oakland mayor is floundering. A few weeks ago, Riles came out to City Council apparently to voice his support for Jane Brunner's affordable housing linkage fee legislation. It was a perfect issue for Riles. Support for affordable housing is high in many Oakland neighborhoods, and Mayor Brown has often said on the record that he didn't think developers could be forced to pay for it. A large group of demonstrators came out to speak in favor of Brunner's bill, but as a former Councilmember and a Mayoral candidate, Riles' presentation would have probably dominated the news. Instead, it never happened. Halfway through the Council meeting, before he got the chance to speak, Riles ducked out. A campaign worker later said that the meeting went longer than he'd thought it would, and he had another engagement. He should have stayed. A challenger with little money running against a well-financed incumbent needs to take all the free publicity he can get. Rebecca Kaplan, a Riles supporter and a former Council candidate, stayed for the whole Council meeting, and spoke near the end in favor of another proposal. Two days later, a Tribune story on the issue put Kaplan's name in the headline, even though several other people spoke on the issue as well. But as far as the public was concerned, Wilson Riles was never there. As for Mayor Brown, he didn't even show at all for his vote on another matter. Early in November, City Council tied 4-4 on how to deal with the backlog of tree-trimming in Oakland. It's not just an issue of esthetics. Untrimmed trees cause havoc with power lines, and limbs can break off in winter rainstorms and damage homes, autos, and, sometimes, people. Council had already set aside money in this year's budget for a one-year emergency program to catch up with the work. But now, half the Council wanted to contract it out to a private company, while half wanted to hire temporary city workers to do the job. Under Brown's self-written Strong Mayor law, whenever there's a tie in Council, it's the Mayor's job to come the next week and cast the deciding vote. He didn't bother to come, and didn't bother to pro-vide an explanation. This was one of those issues where you could make a good argument either way -- for contracting out or for temporary hiring -- but the most important thing was to get the backed-up tree-trimming done. Because the Mayor failed to vote one way or the other, the whole program was set back for weeks at least, and possibly for the entire winter storm season. And if the budget goes as bad as everybody says, the money could disappear for good. Last weekend, the first big storm of the season hit the Bay Area. Oakland police reported a dozen downed trees or power lines. Would the emergency tree-trimming program have pre-vented any of that? No, because it wouldn't have been up and running in time. But it was a reminder -- as if we needed one -- that maintenance of trees is not a luxury. It's a safety necessity. Still, the Mayor's absence from duty got little, if any, mention in the press, and so he'll probably get away with it. Wilson Riles, Jr. had four tasks in front of him when he decided to run for Mayor: 1.Make sure that no other progressive or liberal candidate entered the race; 2. Overcome his image as a nice guy with poor administra-tive and leadership skills; 3. Poke holes in Mayor Brown's image as someone who can turn Oakland's economy around; and 4. Mobilize the under-current of anti-Brown sentiment in this city. So far, Riles has only managed to accomplish the first, keeping Nancy Nadel from running. With the holiday break, it's too late to do much about the second and third. Now, his campaign seems to rest solely on how many Oakland citizens are really, really mad at Jerry Brown. J. Douglas Allen-Taylor is an author, a journalist, and a graduate of Castlemont High School. He can be reached at www.safero.org and [email protected]. [ East Bay | Metroactive | Archives ]