When author Gertrude Stein uttered the words “There’s no there there” about her hometown of Oakland, she did not intend it to be an insult, but rather a lament about nostalgia. Nevertheless, the phrase has been used — and abused — for decades to describe the city that faces the much more celebrated city across the bay, and is forever destined to exist in its shadow.

Dan Walters

CalMatters

Opinion

Oakland and its 440,000 residents have fallen on particularly hard times of late. Just about everything bad that can happen to a city has plagued Oakland in recent years.

As Politico reported in a recent article chronicling the city’s woes, it spotlighted in painful detail, “Politicians facing recall votes. A crime surge that’s drawn Fox News fixation. Financial woes prompting the sale of the city’s baseball stadium. And that was before the FBI raided the mayor’s house.”

One could also add the loss of three major league sports teams and the city’s whopping budget deficit, born of irresponsible financial decisions, to Oakland’s list of issues.

Just a few years ago, the city seemed to be prospering as a less expensive alternative to San Francisco. But the COVID-19 pandemic took a toll and the city’s politics evolved into a loony left focused on identity politics and symbolism while good governance suffered.

Things got so bad, as Politico noted, that even two left-leaning officials, Gov. Gavin Newsom and Attorney General Rob Bonta, felt the need to intervene. They singled out Mayor Sheng Thao and Alameda County District Attorney Pamela Price, both of whom now face recall elections.

“Newsom, who has built a national profile ahead of a possible future presidential run, convened a meeting of business and community leaders earlier this year at which he repeatedly lamented Thao missing a state deadline to apply for state aid for fighting crime,” Politico reported. “He has also assailed Price for not accepting state assistance and pushed Thao to amend Oakland’s police chase policy, increasing the political pressure on two embattled officials.

“Oakland also has more direct implications for Bonta, a potential gubernatorial candidate who represented the city for years in the state Assembly, lives in neighboring Alameda and endorsed Thao early. Since then, he’s joined Newsom in dispatching more state law enforcement help to Oakland while seeking to distance himself from the family at the center of the FBI investigation.”

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Given the negativity engulfing Oakland, Californians may wonder what could be done to get it back into shape.

Politics as usual — awaiting the recall election and otherwise allowing traditional processes to continue — won’t cut it. Oakland needs adult supervision, something akin to an intervention or a receivership that would make fundamental changes in how the city operates.

That’s what happened in 2003 when state officials took control of Oakland’s school district, which had worked itself into a financial crisis for many of the same reasons that the city government is in crisis now.

A Bold Proposal: Bring Back Jerry Brown

Here’s an off-the-wall suggestion: Oakland’s civic leadership, if it exists, should persuade former mayor and two-time Gov. Jerry Brown to interrupt his retirement and offer himself as a benevolent czar. He could be labeled a city manager with authority to cut through red tape, reorganize the city government, fire those who need to be fired and fix its deficit-ridden budget.

Brown was a very good mayor of Oakland two decades ago and he demonstrated an ability to handle crisis when he returned to the governorship in 2011. He might be the only person who could save Oakland from itself.

About the Author

Dan Walters has been a journalist for nearly 60 years, spending all but a few of those years working for California newspapers. He began his professional career in 1960, at age 16, at the Humboldt Times.

CalMatters is a public interest journalism venture committed to explaining how California’s state Capitol works and why it matters. For more columns by Dan Walters, go to calmatters.org/commentary.

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