City Government

Mayor Jean Quan Leaves Rich Legacy for Oakland

Published

11 years ago

December 30, 2014

Jean Quan’s legacy as mayor of Oakland is marked by major improvements in public safety, economic advancement and environmental initiatives in the city.

Mayor Quan was the first mayor to work directly with the federal monitor who has been overseeing city’s police department.

Before her tenure, the city’s compliance with court-mandated police reforms languished. But under her leadership, the city and the police department have completed all but a handful of the 51 tasks ordered by Judge Thelton Henderson.

Mayor Quan went beyond these tasks to hire the most diverse police force in the city’s history – with over 55 percent people of color participating in the last six police academies, including 49 percent bilingual and a record number of women recruits.

Over the last four years, she has overseen efforts to require and implement the use of police body cameras – before Ferguson, MO made these cameras into a national priority.

For the first time in decades the city have gone over a year – almost 19 months – without an officer involved shooting.

She enlisted federal help to tackle gangs and implemented police department reorganization – holding officers responsible for specific geographic areas – and launched Ceasefire, credited with helping to bring down crime and violence.

“The police reforms are my greatest legacy,” said Mayor Quan.

More broadly, Mayor Quan raised a record amount funding to support the hiring of 2,000 youth in the Mayor’s Summer Jobs program and was involved in the partnership with the White House and League of Cities to launch My Brother’s Keeper and other programs to address the needs of young men of color.

After the project had been stalled for nearly a decade, she helped to kick-start the Oakland Army Base and Port of Oakland development, bringing in a quarter of a billion dollars in state funds.

She and the governor found a developer in China, who made the individual Chinese investment in the U.S. to build 3,100 units at Brooklyn Basin, which will start construction next year.

She has pushed for the city to build Coliseum City project, now in negotiations for sports complexes, hotels and housing.

Under her leadership, Oakland built or saved a record number of 1,700 affordable homes and set a goal of 25 percent of future housing as affordable.

Since 2010, Oakland has added 18,000 jobs. Sales tax revenues rose 9 percent last year.

Oakland is a model city that leads nationally in green, sustainable practices. The city’s Zero Waste contract with trash management companies will reduce landfill waste dramatically.

The garbage diversion from the landfill will be more than 80 percent. The new bike lanes and increased focus on new housing along major arteries are making Oakland a greener community.

The results that Mayor Quan has achieved in her four years as mayor provide a solid foundation on which the city and its residents can prosper and grow.

Conway Jones

Oakland Post

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The printed Weekly Edition of the Oakland Post: Week of – December 31, 2025 – January 6, 2026

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Alameda County

Oakland Council Expands Citywide Security Cameras Despite Major Opposition

In a 7-1 vote in favor of the contract, with only District 3 Councilmember Carroll Fife voting no, the Council agreed to maintain its existing network of 291 cameras and add 40 new “pan-tilt-zoom cameras.”

Published

4 weeks ago

December 21, 2025

Oakland Post

At the International Association of Chiefs of Police Conference, Flock Safety introduces new public safety technology – Amplified Intelligence, a suite of AI-powered tools designed to improve law enforcement investigations. Courtesy photo.

By Post Staff

The Oakland City Council this week approved a $2.25 million contract with Flock Safety for a mass surveillance network of hundreds of security cameras to track vehicles in the city.

In recent weeks hundreds of local residents have spoken against the camera system, raising concerns that data will be shared with immigration authorities and other federal agencies at a time when mass surveillance is growing across the country with little regard for individual rights.

The Flock network, supported by the Oakland Police Department, has the backing of residents and councilmembers who see it as an important tool to protect public safety.

“This system makes the Department more efficient as it allows for information related to disruptive/violent criminal activities to be captured … and allows for precise and focused enforcement,” OPD wrote in its proposal to City Council.

According to OPD, police made 232 arrests using data from Flock cameras between July 2024 and November of this year.

Based on the data, police say they recovered 68 guns, and utilizing the countywide system, they have found 1,100 stolen vehicles.

However, Flock’s cameras cast a wide net. The company’s cameras in Oakland last month captured license plate numbers and other information from about 1.4 million vehicles.

Speaking at Tuesday’s Council meeting, Fife was critical of her colleagues for signing a contract with a company that has been in the national spotlight for sharing data with federal agencies.

Flock’s cameras – which are automated license plate readers – have been used in tracking people who have had abortions, monitoring protesters, and aiding in deportation roundups.

“I don’t know how we get up and have several press conferences talking about how we are supportive of a sanctuary city status but then use a vendor that has been shown to have a direct relationship with (the U.S.) Border Control,” she said. “It doesn’t make sense to me.”

Several councilmembers who voted in favor of the contract said they supported the deal as long as some safeguards were written into the Council’s resolution.

“We’re not aiming for perfection,” said District 1 Councilmember Zac Unger. “This is not Orwellian facial recognition technology — that’s prohibited in Oakland. The road forward here is to add as many amendments as we can.”

Amendments passed by the Council prohibit OPD from sharing camera data with any other agencies for the purpose of “criminalizing reproductive or gender affirming healthcare” or for federal immigration enforcement. California state law also prohibits the sharing of license plate reader data with the federal government, and because Oakland’s sanctuary city status, OPD is not allowed to cooperate with immigration authorities.

A former member of Oakland’s Privacy Advisory Commission has sued OPD, alleging that it has violated its own rules around data sharing.

So far, OPD has shared Flock data with 50 other law enforcement agencies.