Until his enormous ego got in the way – again – OaklandMayorRon Dellums was out of the woods, unencumbered of his mayoral responsibilities and free to look for his next professional challenge.
With only six weeks remaining until Oakland swears in Mayor-elect Jean Quan, Dellums, a one-term mayor, was doing just that – exploring the job market and looking for ways to parlay a 27-year career as a crusading, liberal congressman into annual income that would help pay off the $252,000 in back taxes that he and his wife owe to the Internal Revenue Service.
But instead of just fading away, the Quiet Mayor’s irrepressible ego got the better of him. This is the same ego that compels him to wear designer suits, ride in chauffeur-driven limousines and encourage people to feel his abdominal muscles at every opportunity.
It’s the same ego that has both overshadowed and largely defined his term in office.
Have you ever heard of a major political address where the politician doesn’t show up? Where, instead of a live public servant, a “virtual” audience is treated to a ten-minute online testimonial of his accomplishments, by a video in which he doesn’t even appear? And the video is only available on his “mayor page” on the City’s website?
Well, that was the situation in Oakland yesterday. On Monday, a mere two days before the scheduled date of the speech at the 1,200-seat Oakland Marriott, which was then rescheduled at the less-than-300-seat Oakland City Council chambers, Mayor Ron Dellums’ office abruptly cancelled the event, supposedly due to a low RSVP count at either venue. Doesn’t anyone care about the state of our city?
Instead, the Mayor has released a video, produced at City expense, and a 68-page report outlining his accomplishments from 2007-2010. At the time of this writing, the pdf seems to have been removed from the website, but OaklandSeen has posted the report as a Google document here.
As we stated, the nine minute, twenty-eight second video does not include Mayor Dellums speaking in any of the scenes. Instead, speaking on his behalf are: Dorothy Duggan, BART Board Member (who oversaw the official BART response to the Oscar Grant shooting), Margaret Lin, Deputy City Administrator (an employee), Michelle Bryson, Program Assistant, Workforce Development Collaborative, Angel Fabian, Supervisor of HIV Education, La Clinica de la Raza, Deborah Wafer, Board member, AIDS Project East Bay, James Freeman, CEO of Blue Bottle Company, Carl Chan, Oakland Chinatown Chamber of Commerce, and others in the community.
Nowhere is the Mayor visible, except in a musical video montage at the opening. OaklandSeen has made the video available on YouTube.
When Ron Dellums isn’t hiding behind his wife’s skirt, he has her doing his job! – ed
Oakland’s job creation efforts are embroiled in a power struggle over how to dole out millions of dollars in federal job training funds, a fight that comes five months after a state auditor found a number of problems with how the city was using some of the money.
How the issue is ultimately decided could have wide-ranging effects on how the valuable funds are spent in a city where unemployment is an astounding 17.7 percent – nearly double the nationwide rate. It could also be a major challenge for whoever becomes Oakland’s next mayor.
History shows that the city has been slow to act on problems with its federally funded jobs program. For years the city repeatedly ignored state recommendations on how to manage the programs, a Chronicle review of state documents found.
If you follow the complete article, it’s funny how Dellums hides behind his wife’s skirt and won’t answer reporters questions. -ed
The way outgoing Oakland Mayor Ron Dellums’ revealed Wednesday that he is leaving public life this year is a textbook example of his actions for most of his term.
He announced his decision not to seek re-election at an exclusive, invitation-only affair held for city department heads and a few selected supporters. It was staged to affirm Dellums’ worldview – and to block the disquieting reality swirling around him.
Dellums’ closest and few remaining supporters filmed his teary goodbye. The only people allowed inside, beyond the key city staffers whom the mayor required to attend, were the people who drank the Kool-Aid long ago.
That’s right. It is my hope that on Friday, Oakland MayorRon Dellums will announce he’s seeking re-election.
I know what you’re thinking. You think I want Dellums to receive the electoral thrashing that many Oakland residents believes he so richly deserves. But revenge is not my motivation.
I favor a Dellums re-election run for purely democratic reasons: His entry into the Oakland mayor’s race virtually assures a high voter turnout.
There are citizens who might not care whether the Oakland Athletics leave town and others who prefer the monthly Art Murmur in downtown Oakland to a Raiders home game, but hardly anyone in this city is apathetic about Dellums’ performance as mayor.
Notice how there has been not a peep out of Mayor Dellums concerning this issue? The city is about to receive some serious damage. This might be a good time for Dellums to step up and try to find a peaceful alternative. I guess his reputation as a ‘peaceful civil rights advocate’ is a fabricated sham and undeserved.
Predictably, Dellums will either be out of town if theres trouble in Oakland or he’ll be hiding out in his Oakland Hills mansion.-ed.
For scores of people in the Bay Area, the videotaped beating of Grant is the Bay Area equivalent of the 1991 Rodney King beating in Los Angeles. To them, the Grant video is the latest in a pattern of African American residents being abused by government authorities who are sworn to protect them.
Still, while there will almost surely be some public reaction to the Mehserle verdict on the streets of Oakland, about the only thing more discouraging to some than absolving the former officer of blame and responsibility would be to vent that anger at the struggling city of Oakland and its residents.
OAKLAND, Calif. — Gunmen opened fire on a group of mourners at a candlelight vigil for a shooting victim late Tuesday night, killing a teenage girl and wounding five others.
The woman, Rachael Green, was fatally shot just after midnight in the 1100 block of Eighth Street, police Officer Jeff Thomason said.
Green was with a group of about 20 to 30 people who had set up a makeshift memorial for Damon Williams, 17, who was shot to death Monday evening in the parking lot of the Eastmont Mall in the 2600 block of 73rd Avenue, Thomason said.
Two armed suspects approached the group and opened fire. Thomason said a patrol officer had conducted a security check of the area where the vigil was happening just minutes before the shooting.
You think a real leader would show up and have at least some kind of comment about this horrible, violet incident. A real leader would step-up and speak to the community about this serious situation. Could be a long, hot and violent summer in Oakland.
Oakland Mayor Ron Dellums’ 11th-hour news conference to unveil his plan to lay off cops to help eliminate the city’s $30.5 million deficit was a study in dysfunctional family values.
“For weeks, we do all the heavy lifting to put together a budget – meeting with all sides and coming up with compromises without one word from him,” City Councilwoman Pat Kernighan said. “Then he comes in the day before, takes 90 percent of what we recommended and holds a press conference.”
Watch this KTVU report where Dellums has the time to make an appearance at a local boxing match, but hardly ever shows up at city hall. He also isn’t involved with negotiations with the police officers union in order to avoid impending layoffs. Dellums gets angry when he finds out a reporter dared to show up at his office to see if he was actually there during business hours. Dellums points to his horribly staged videos which make it look like he actually works. Mayoral candidate Perata points out that how can the Dellums ask for concessions from the police union when he said he would make concessions to his own salary then back away from them.
Pretty painful to be caught in a lie and not have the integrity to do what you say!
Oakland’s Mayor Dellums to KTVU’s Shandobil: “Who the (blank) are you to decide my role?
Oakland Mayor Ron Dellums doesn’t seem to do much on the job these days — but he went into meltdown Monday when veteran KTVU political reporter Randy Shandobil had the temerity to ask why he’s been missing in action as one of the most crime-challenged cities in the nation faces a devastating layoff of a quarter of its police force.
“Who the (blank) are you to decide what my role is?” a raging Dellums told Shandobil in a phone call Monday, after the Oakland-based reporter showed up at City Hall to ask why Dellums has been seen at high profile boxing matches lately while being a no-show at major budget meetings and city council sessions where Oakland’s fiscal crisis is Topic A.
Dellums not only bridled at that question — he apparently thinks he’s too important to take part in such lowly matters as keeping cops walking the beat. He angrily told Shandobil in the phone call that — don’t you know? — “I am the CEO of the city.”
