City Government
The Next First 100 Days
Building a Healthier Future for Oakland

In 2022, the voters of Oakland will have an opportunity to elect the next Mayor for our city. The Mayor of Oakland is the head of the executive branch, in charge of implementing actions and laws that have been passed by City Council and community.
The Mayor also selects and hires the City Administrator, appoints members of key Boards and Commissions, and sets the direction for the Administrative branch of government, thus having a major impact on what actions get taken.
In recent years, the City Council has adopted numerous laws and funded positions and projects – many of which have not been implemented, such as providing gun tracing and cracking down on illegal guns, civilianizing special events, providing pro-active illegal dumping remediation, a public lands policy to prioritize affordable housing, direction to provide healthier alternative locations to respond to homelessness, and many more.
In order to ensure that we build a safer and healthier future for Oakland, is it vitally important to ensure that we elect leadership for the executive branch with the dedication and commitment to take the actions needed to fulfill the needs of our communities.
With serious struggles facing our communities, it is vital that the next mayor take immediate action in their first 100 days – and so, I am undertaking to provide proposals regarding what the next mayor can, and should, do in their first 100 days in office.
These efforts will need to include recruitment and retention for the workforce; effective relationships with County government and neighboring cities to solve common problems; working with stakeholders including to expand equitable economic development and housing for all income levels; presenting and passing proposals at Council and bringing in and properly stewarding the finances needed.
Even within the first 100 days, a mayor can accomplish a great deal – including taking action to implement vitally needed services that already have Council authorization, and thus, can be brought about more quickly.
This is the first installment, a listing of some of the first items that the next mayor can, and should, do to build a healthier Oakland, and which should be factors in our decision-making in the year ahead.
- Ensure implementation of the directive to prioritize stopping the flow of illegal guns and stopping gun violence, including implementing gun tracing, tracking and shutting down sources of illegal guns, and providing immediate response to shooting notifications.
- Remove blight and illegal dumping, implement pro-active removal of blight rather than waiting for complaints, incorporate blight removal throughout city efforts (rewards program, summer jobs program, etc), to clear up backlog and establish a new normal that it is not OK to dump in Oakland.
- Provide healthier alternatives for homeless solutions, including safe parking/managed RV sites, and sanitation/dump sites, to reduce public health risks, including by partnering with the County and others.
- Implement previously approved Council direction to switch to the use of civilians (rather than sworn police) to manage parades and special events. Help ensure community and cultural events can go forward without excess costs undermining them, strengthen the arts and economy and equity of event permitting system, and ensure that expensive police resources are directed where they are needed, rather than wasted on watching parades.
- Implement previously approved public lands policy to ensure using public lands for public needs, with a priority for affordable housing.
- Make it easier for local residents and small businesses to grow, build, and expand by providing coherent and simplified permitting, and by implementing the Council-funded direction to provide evening and weekend hours and easy online access to allow people to do projects like adding Accessory Dwelling Units (ADUs) and make other renovations and construction projects more timely.
- Work with stakeholders and community to advance effective and equitable revitalization of the large public properties at and around the Oakland Coliseum, including with housing for all income levels, jobs and business development, sports and entertainment, convention and hotels and more.
- Work to speed up vacancies in needed city staff positions, and improve recruitment and retention, and local hiring, to help provide vitally needed services, including for cleanup, parks upkeep, gun tracing, and other community needs.
- Fire prevention and climate resiliency. Our region is facing growing dangers from climate change and fire risk, and we must take action to reduce and remedy risk and protect our communities with a more resilient future, including by planning for and starting fire prevention and brush remediation activities earlier in the year, improving brush removal on public land as well as private, fully staffing the fire department, and improving public infrastructure to protect cleaner air and reduce risks.
- Job training and pathways. Some industries face challenges finding enough prepared workers while many in our community also need access to quality jobs. Support and connect job training programs and quality job policies with growing sectors, and ensure that Oaklanders are prepared for vital openings in needed jobs while allowing our community to thrive.
The Oakland Post’s coverage of local news in Alameda County is supported by the Ethnic Media Sustainability Initiative, a program created by California Black Media and Ethnic Media Services to support community newspapers across California.
Activism
Oakland Post: Week of April 30 – May 6, 2025
The printed Weekly Edition of the Oakland Post: Week of April 30 – May 6, 2025

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Activism
Barbara Lee Accepts Victory With “Responsibility, Humility and Love”
“I accept your choice with a deep sense of responsibility, humility, and love. Oakland is a deeply divided City,” Lee said in an April 19 statement. “I answered the call to run to unite our community, so that I can represent every voter, and we can all work together as One Oakland to solve our most pressing problems.”

By Antonio Ray Harvey,
California Black Media
As a candidate for mayor, former U.S. Representative Barbara Lee released a “10-point plan” last week to reassure residents that she will tackle Oakland’s most pressing challenges.
Now that she has edged out her competitors in the ranked-choice special election with 50% or more of the vote, the former Congresswoman, who represented parts of the Bay Area in the U.S. House of Representatives, can put her vision in motion as the city’s first Black woman mayor.
“I accept your choice with a deep sense of responsibility, humility, and love. Oakland is a deeply divided City,” Lee said in an April 19 statement. “I answered the call to run to unite our community, so that I can represent every voter, and we can all work together as One Oakland to solve our most pressing problems.”
On Saturday evening, Taylor conceded to Lee. There are still about 300 Vote-by-Mail ballots left to be verified, according to county election officials. The ballots will be processed on April 21 and April 22.
“This morning, I called Congresswoman Barbara Lee to congratulate her on becoming the next Mayor of Oakland,” Taylor said in a statement.
“I pray that Mayor-Elect Lee fulfills her commitment to unify Oakland by authentically engaging the 47% of Oaklanders who voted for me and who want pragmatic, results-driven leadership.”
The influential Oakland Post endorsed Lee’s campaign, commending her leadership on the local, state, and federal levels.
Paul Cobb, The Post’s publisher, told California Black Media that Lee will bring back “respect and accountability” to the mayor’s office.
“She is going to be a collegial leader drawing on the advice of community nonprofit organizations and those who have experience in dealing with various issues,” Cobb said. “She’s going to try to do a consensus-building thing among those who know the present problems that face the city.”
Born in El Paso, Texas, Lee’s family moved to California while she was in high school. At 20 years old, Lee divorced her husband after the birth of her first child. After the split, Lee went through a tough period, becoming homeless and having to apply for public assistance to make ends meet.
But destitution did not deter the young woman.
Lee groomed herself to become an activist and advocate in Oakland and committed to standing up for the most vulnerable citizens in her community.
Lee traveled to Washington, D.C. to work for then U.S. Congressman Ron Dellums after receiving a Bachelor of Arts degree from Mills College in Oakland in 1973. Lee later won a U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) fellowship to attend the School of Social Welfare, and she earned a Master of Social Work from the University of California-Berkeley in 1975.
Lee later served in the California State Assembly and State Senate before she was elected to Congress in 1998.
After serving in the U.S. Congress for more than 25 years, Lee ran unsuccessfully for California’s U.S. Senate in the 2024 primary election.
Lee joins current Los Angeles mayor Karen Bass and former San Francisco Mayor London Breed as Black women serving as chief executives of major cities in California over the last few years.
Activism
Teachers’ Union Thanks Supt. Johnson-Trammell for Service to Schools and Community
“I speak for our Oakland community and the families OEA serves in thanking Supt. Johnson-Trammell for her service. With public schools and immigrant families under attack nationally from Trump and with budget challenges affecting many California school districts, these are tough times demanding the best of what we all have to offer,” said OEA President Kampala Taiz-Rancifer in a statement released Thursday.

The union calls for a community-involvement in search for new superintendent
By Post Staff
While pointing out that Supt. Kayla Johnson-Trammell has been planning to resign for a while, the Oakland Education Association (OEA) thanked her for years of service to the schools and called for community involvement in the search for a new superintendent.
“I speak for our Oakland community and the families OEA serves in thanking Supt. Johnson-Trammell for her service. With public schools and immigrant families under attack nationally from Trump and with budget challenges affecting many California school districts, these are tough times demanding the best of what we all have to offer,” said OEA President Kampala Taiz-Rancifer in a statement released Thursday.
“While we disagreed strongly on a number of issues,” said Taiz-Rancifer, “Dr. Johnson-Trammell is a daughter of Oakland and a product of our public schools. We thank her for her service and wish her the best moving forward.”
She said the schools’ community was aware that the superintendent had been planning to leave well before this week’s announcement.
“The superintendent has spoken publicly throughout the year about her planned departure. In August 2024, the previous school board approved a renewed contract raising her compensation to over $600,000 per year and allowing her to step back from daily responsibilities beginning in the 2025-2026 school year,” said Taiz-Rancifer.
She said the teachers’ union has been raising concerns about the need for stability and financial transparency in the district. “For three of the last four years, the district projected major deficits, only to end with millions in reserve.” This year, she said, the district added $90 million to central office overhead expenses.
“Just last month, a majority of school board directors took action to cap expensive consultant costs and develop alternative budget proposals that align spending with community priorities to keep funding in classrooms,” she said.
Taiz-Rancifer said the union stands behind the leadership of Board President Jennifer Brouhard and Boardmembers Valarie Bachelor, Rachel Latta, and VanCedric Williams.
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