The former longtime democrat deputy Barbara Lee took the lead to become the next mayor of Oakland, according to the results of the vote published on Friday evening.
The latest count has shown that Lee has advanced its main challenger in the race, the former member of the municipal council Loren Taylor, with 53% of the votes against 47% of Taylor. His advance was sufficiently commander for the chronicle of San Francisco called the race, declaring that Lee “was elected the next mayor of Oakland”.
Oakland, a city of 436,000 inhabitants, uses classified choice elections, which allows voters to select several candidates in order of preference. The method complicates the number of votes, and it could be weeks before Alameda County electoral officials announced a final count for this week’s special elections.
Lee’s campaign made it possible to declare the victory on Friday evening, although the campaign officials published a statement calling for the latest “encouraging” results. Taylor, who represented East Oakland on the municipal council for four years, could not be joined to comment.
If the results hold, Lee, 78, a progressive icon which represented Oakland and its surroundings in the congress for almost three decades, would replace the mayor Évanoui Sheng Thao, a progressive elected in 2022. Thao was Recalled from the office in November In the midst of the deep frustrations of voters concerning crime, homelessness and the omnipresent feeling that Oakland is in crisis. Thao was accused of having smothered the city’s finances, contributing to a budget deficit which will almost certainly require scanning reductions between the ministries.
The efforts to remember Thao of the Office were already underway when, in June, FBI agents made a descent as part of an investigation into an alleged corruption program involving the boyfriend of Thao and a father-son team who directs the company who provides recycling services from Oakland. This probe has energized the recall, which easily passed with more than 60% of the votes. Thao, his boyfriend, Andre Jones, and Andy and David Duong by California Waste Solutions were charged with the federal corruption charges in January. The four pleaded not guilty.
“I decided to introduce myself to which mayor knowing that Oakland is a deeply divided city – and I ran to unite our community,” Lee said in his Friday statement.
The election created an unexpected career opportunity for Lee, who left Washington in January after lose your offer for the Senate In the primary last year to his Democratic colleague, Adam Schiff, who won the headquarters in November.
With Oakland in the sudden need for a new mayor, a large coalition of groups of companies, labor organizations and elected leaders spent last fall to call Lee to stand in the special elections of April 15 and save their city from the collapse.
Although nine people finally participated in the race, Taylor, a business management consultant who is 30 years old, Lee junior, has become her main opponent. He painted the city as “broken” and desperately needed a managing director with the field experience at the Town Hall who could make difficult decisions without fear of long -standing political supporters.
Taylor received a financial boost from Technology and business manager who channeled tens of thousands of dollars in independent expenditure committees supporting his candidacy.
Lee ran on her file as an experienced politician with decades of experience by forging links between various interest groups. She praised the hundreds of millions of dollars which she brought back to the East Bay during her stay at the Congress, where she pleaded for anti-war policies and promoted legislation that targeted racism, sexism, poverty and exploitation of labor. These values come from its roots as a militant of Black Panther and her training in education at Mills College and UC Berkeley.
She promised to “make life better to all” in Oakland, while producing the fight against crime and encouraging the 5,400 homeless estimated in Oakland in the shelter and housing. She is committed to hiring more police, limiting public spending and increasing transparency in the decisions taken at the Town Hall.
California Daily Newspapers
