The candidates forum is this Thursday. The candidates all confirmed but Don Perata unexpectedly pulled out Monday. He’ll wait for Ron Dellums to make up his mind about running again before participating in public mayoral forums.
This mayoral forum will be the first gathering of candidates and will focus on economic development, the budget, and education.
The event will be videotaped and live tweeted at @oakmayorsforum.
Forum attendees will have the opportunity to submit questions to ask the candidates.
Read more from the candidates themselves. OaklandSeen asked each to provide a statement about their priorities: here is Jean Quan’s, Terrence Candell’s, and Rebecca Kaplan’s statements.
Senator Perata’s statement on his participation in all mayoral forums can be found at: http://bit.ly/cYvm5c
Has Rebecca Kaplan even said if she is running or not?
So Perata had absolutely no interest in participating.
Was there ever a period in our history when politicians laid out 3 or 4 goals/objectives and their plans to achieve those goals? Can we go back to those days?
Perata is an experienced politician. He knows Dellums isn’t running. When incumbents quit, they always wait till the last minute to say so, because who wants to be a lame duck for longer than they have to be?
Perata is afraid to debate because he doesn’t know as much about Oakland issues as the other candidates. His experience is all about Sacramento.
Perata is also trying to win this race with money and mailers. If he doesn’t debate, he gets to control his message for longer. In a debate, somebody might ask him a tough question about his long and shady past, and he’d be stuck on video taking a lot of heat.
Perata is also probably trying to pander to the last of Dellum’s die hard fans.
And he’s probably skipping this debate because he thinks Oaklandseen is biased against him. Oaklandseen has published a few unfavorable articles about Perata, but this isn’t evidence of bias in the forum tonight.
Cowardice. Manipulation. Lies. Chicken Don won’t debate.
There was a lot of passion for Oakland on the panel last night, but Jean Quan was the bright spot! Most accomplished. Hardest working. Best ideas. Readiest to lead.
I was honestly surprised by JQ.
I loved the candidate who quoted average police salaries from jurisdictions no less than 400 miles from Oakland. Yes, we may overpay a bit but it isn’t like the OPD is going to giveback $30K – $50K in salaries. So tell me how you plan to make it work with what we have.
Perata isn’t the only one who’s full of it. Jean Quan wrote and promoted Measure Y, a badly written tax measure that was destined to be abused. Then, later, she voted to illegally use measure Y funds. The City Attorney warned her and other councilmembers that the city would get sued and lose, but nobody listened. Now, thanks to Jean Quan, Oakland is about to lose $40 million at a time when we’re already broke.
Neither Quan nor Perata is fit to lead this city.
To “Stop Distorting the Truth” – I think the candidate you’re talking about is Greg Harland. He quoted the starting police salaries from New York and Los Angeles. You should take a look at his web site http://www.harland4mayor.com . He has a lot more information, including salaries for the top earning city employees.
Candell is clearly the guy. He laid out his platform, his plans for getting there and was well received by the crowd. No other candidate did or was. In the process, he laid out Quan and Kaplan. He is the one Perata is trying to avoid. I don’t blame him. Terence Candell is tough.