Jean Quan
Encyclopedia
Jean Quan is the Democratic
mayor of Oakland, California
. She previously served as City Council member for Oakland's 4th District. Upon inauguration on January 3, 2011, she became Oakland's first female mayor.
Mayor Quan received national criticism for her handling of the Occupy Oakland protests in late October 2011.
School Board for 12 years, starting in 1990 after organizing a citywide parent organization, Save Our Schools. As a parent leader she helped save the music program in the Oakland Schools. She served as chair of the California Urban Schools Association, the Asian Pacific Islanders School Board Members Association (APISBMA), and the Council of Urban Boards Association (the urban caucus of the National School Board Association representing the nation's 100 largest districts). She was appointed by the Clinton Administration to represent School Boards on the Title I Rules Making Committee. In these roles she advocated for more funding for urban and immigrant students, more inclusion of minority community history in textbooks, comprehensive school services and after school programs, and expansion of pre-school and adult education programs.
In 1996 with Quan as president, the school board instituted a program using Standard English Program strategies to teach standard English to African American students. The move created national news
with the perception Oakland schools were teaching students Ebonics
because there was discussion about Ebonics being used as a teaching tool.
In 2002, Jean Quan was elected to her first term as Council Member for Oakland District 4 (Allendale
, Brookdale, Crestmont, Dimond
, Laurel
, Maxwell Park
, Melrose
, Montclair
, and Redwood Heights
). During her time on the Council she led several initiatives, including:
“Measure Q”: To prevent the closure of city libraries and increase funding for materials.
“Oakland Wildfire Prevention District”: Funds annual programs of vegetation control, safety inspections and homeowner education, and green waste/composting programs.
“Oakland Cultural Arts Funding”: Hotel Tax to fund the Oakland Zoo, Oakland Museum of California, Chabot Space & Science Center, Oakland Convention and Visitors Bureau, and the Fund for Arts.
“Measure Y for Public Safety and Measure BB”: These initiatives fund Fire, Police and Violence Prevention Programs. The measure funds 63 police officers including geographically deployed "beat officers" and programs to prevent crimes and violence.
Quan was a past chair of the Alameda County Waste Management Authority (StopWaste.org) and the Alameda Recycling Board. She also authored and voted for legislation which banned the use of polystyrene containers for take out foods, now widely adopted in other parts of California.
In July 2010, Quan along with fellow City Council member and mayoral candidate Rebecca Kaplan
were investigated by Oakland police for their actions during a protest following the manslaughter verdict of former BART Police officer Johannes Mehserle
. Police claimed Quan and Kaplan joined a "human chain" which prevented officers from clearing a street, while the two countered they were acting as "peacekeepers". No charges were filed against the Councilwomen.
Quan was the victim of a street robbery in September of the same year, in her Fruitvale Avenue neighborhood. Quan attributed the crime to lack of employment opportunities in Oakland.
or ranked choice voting ballot system, which allows voters to indicate their first, second, and third choices of candidate. More than 120,000 voters participated in the largest turnout for a Mayor's race in recent memory. Though ranked choice voting is promoted as a way to reduce mud-slinging between the candidates, Quan paid for several negative hit pieces on her closest rival. The top three finishers among a field of 10 candidates were Quan, Don Perata
, and Rebecca Kaplan
. In the initial tally on election night, Perata led Quan, 40,342 to 29,266 but did not have a majority of the 1st-place votes. The votes were then re-tallied by eliminating Kaplan, the third-place finisher, and allocating her votes among Perata and Quan. Three weeks later, the Alameda Registrar of voters declared Quan the winner with 53,897 votes from 119,607 voters (45.06% support). Previous Mayors Jerry Brown and Ron Dellums were elected with majority support of the voters—Brown with 58.93% and 63.54% of the vote; Dellums with 50.18%. The use of Ranked Choice Voting has caused some concerns in the Bay Area, with studies that have shown low-income voters struggled with Ranked Choice Voting. On June 30, 2011, the U.S. Department of Justice Civil Rights Division filed a complaint in United States v. Alameda County (N.D. Cal.). The complaint alleges that the Alameda County Registrar of Voters (who administered Oakland's RCV Election) violated Sections 203 of the Voting Rights Act by having failed to provide effective access to the electoral process for Spanish and Chinese-speaking citizens who need language assistance and translated materials and information to cast an informed ballot. Only six weeks prior, the US Court of Appeals upheld Ranked Choice Voting as an accepted procedure comparing it to plurality.
Her election as Oakland's first woman mayor, and the first Asian-American woman mayor of a major U.S. city, resulted in high visibility nationally and internationally. Quan capitalized on this visibility by traveling to and meeting with potential trade and business partners for the City and Port of Oakland
, including the city of Shenzhen, China.
Quan has increased collaboration with the Oakland Unified School District and the community, introducing a program offering late-night youth services in the East and West Oakland areas in attempts to decrease violence with school-age youth.
After a surge in violence in one particular area of Oakland, Quan walked the beat with police in the neighborhood, encouraging residents to join a neighborhood crime prevention council. With gun violence up 30% from before her term, many residents and press see community policing with skepticism; "Even law-abiding citizens with good intentions aren't going to risk life and limb in areas of the city where the police don't feel safe." wrote one reporter. Despite the skepticism, the outreach is making a difference: calls to the drug hotline went from 0 to 103 in the first six months; participation in the local Neighborhood Crime Prevention Council has gone from 5 neighbors to almost two dozen neighbors meeting with police each month and identifying hotspots and priorities; calls to the Public Works Agency for blight, streetlights and other infrastructure complaints increased by 53%, and the number of National Night Out events this past August more than doubled.
chief Anthony Batts
was a top-two candidate for the open position of San Jose Police
chief. Two weeks later, Quan introduced a plan for the police department which included updating the technological staff and rehiring 10 of the 80 officers who were laid off the previous year. Batts announced his intention to remain in Oakland a few days later, but eventually resigned in October of the same year.
Quan has come under fire due to a relationship with "unpaid legal adviser" Dan Siegel
after Siegel represented the "mayor's office on various legal matters, from public records act requests to a private meeting with a judge overseeing a consent decree with the police department", according to the San Francisco Chronicle
. The Oakland City Council issued a demand Siegel not represent the city as an attorney in any capacity, which by law falls under the jurisdiction of the City Attorney's office.
Siegel had been considered a controversial figure at City Hall due to his supposed vocal criticism of Oakland Police, and his presence was reported to have exacerbated a feud between Quan and City Attorney John Russo
.
In June 2011, Russo left his post as Oakland City Attorney to become City Manager for Alameda
.
A KPIX/CBS5 poll taken just before Mayor Quan's first 100 days revealed that her job performance "garners the approval of the city's residents by a 2-1 margin." The Capitol Weekly named Mayor Quan one of the top ten "Good" Mayors in the state. A KPIX poll six months later, taken shortly after the resignation of Chief Batts, listed an approval rating of 28 percent, with 69 percent responding with "little or no confidence" the mayor's ability to reduce the city’s crime problem.
On October 26, 2011 it was reported Quan responded to a recall petition by saying she believed the signatories were frustrated with her lack of progress in creating jobs. She went on to KGO radio claiming "I'm too busy. ... I haven't even had a chance to look at the petitions."
to subdue and arrest over 100 protesters, though denied the use of rubber bullets and flashbang grenades during the press release. The mayor's office was flooded with demands that protesters be released and her legal adviser opposed the police action and threatened to resign.
One protester, named Scott Olsen, was hospitalized with a fractured skull after being struck by police projectiles. It has been noted by another veteran trained in crowd control that police fired on protesters in ways that are prohibited under US rules of engagements in Iraq and Afghanistan. On November 2 , a second protester-veteran, Kayvan Sabehgi, suffered a ruptured spleen when he was hit and tackled by Oakland Police in an area away from the protests' center.
Jean Quan Personal Webpage
Jean Quan Facebook Page
Democratic Party (United States)
The Democratic Party is one of two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Republican Party. The party's socially liberal and progressive platform is largely considered center-left in the U.S. political spectrum. The party has the lengthiest record of continuous...
mayor of Oakland, California
Oakland, California
Oakland is a major West Coast port city on San Francisco Bay in the U.S. state of California. It is the eighth-largest city in the state with a 2010 population of 390,724...
. She previously served as City Council member for Oakland's 4th District. Upon inauguration on January 3, 2011, she became Oakland's first female mayor.
Mayor Quan received national criticism for her handling of the Occupy Oakland protests in late October 2011.
Personal life
Her husband is a doctor of internal medicine for Alameda County. They met at UC Berkeley as activists on Asian-American issues.Oakland School Board and City Council
Quan was on the OaklandOakland Unified School District
Oakland Unified School District is a public education school district which operates elementary schools , middle schools , and high schools in Oakland, California.-History:...
School Board for 12 years, starting in 1990 after organizing a citywide parent organization, Save Our Schools. As a parent leader she helped save the music program in the Oakland Schools. She served as chair of the California Urban Schools Association, the Asian Pacific Islanders School Board Members Association (APISBMA), and the Council of Urban Boards Association (the urban caucus of the National School Board Association representing the nation's 100 largest districts). She was appointed by the Clinton Administration to represent School Boards on the Title I Rules Making Committee. In these roles she advocated for more funding for urban and immigrant students, more inclusion of minority community history in textbooks, comprehensive school services and after school programs, and expansion of pre-school and adult education programs.
In 1996 with Quan as president, the school board instituted a program using Standard English Program strategies to teach standard English to African American students. The move created national news
Oakland Ebonics controversy
On December 18, 1996, the Oakland, California school board passed a controversial resolution recognizing the legitimacy of "Ebonics"—what mainstream linguists more often term African American Vernacular English—as a language...
with the perception Oakland schools were teaching students Ebonics
Ebonics
Ebonics is a term that was originally intended to refer to the language of all people descended from enslaved Africans, particularly in West Africa, the Caribbean, and North America...
because there was discussion about Ebonics being used as a teaching tool.
In 2002, Jean Quan was elected to her first term as Council Member for Oakland District 4 (Allendale
Allendale, Oakland, California
Allendale is a former settlement in Alameda County, California now annexed to Oakland. It was located northeast of Fruitvale. A post office opened in 1903 and by 1908 was a branch of the Oakland post office. Allendale was named for Charles E...
, Brookdale, Crestmont, Dimond
Dimond District, Oakland, California
The Dimond District is a neighborhood centered on the intersection of MacArthur Boulevard and Fruitvale Avenue in East Oakland, Oakland, California, in the United States. It is located about two miles east of Lake Merritt, north of the Fruitvale District, and west of the Laurel District. It lies...
, Laurel
Laurel, Oakland, California
Laurel is one of the many culturally diverse neighborhoods in Oakland, California. It is situated between the foot of the Oakland hills and Mills College. It lies at an elevation of 226 feet . At the heart of the neighborhood lies MacArthur Boulevard, a bustling shopping area with annual festivals...
, Maxwell Park
Maxwell Park, Oakland, California
Maxwell Park is a neighborhood in Oakland, California located in the foothills of Oakland and is known for its close knit community and relatively low crime rate...
, Melrose
Melrose, Oakland, California
Melrose is a neighborhood in Oakland in Alameda County, California. It lies at an elevation of 39 feet ....
, Montclair
Montclair, Oakland, California
Montclair is a neighborhood of Oakland, California. Montclair is located in the hills east of Piedmont in a valley formed by the Hayward Fault...
, and Redwood Heights
Redwood Heights, Oakland, California
Redwood Heights is a mostly middle-class, integrated residential neighborhood in the hills of Oakland, California. It is centered around Redwood Road, which was once a logging road. Currently, Redwood Road is the designation for 35th Avenue starting about a mile or so north of MacArthur Boulevard...
). During her time on the Council she led several initiatives, including:
“Measure Q”: To prevent the closure of city libraries and increase funding for materials.
“Oakland Wildfire Prevention District”: Funds annual programs of vegetation control, safety inspections and homeowner education, and green waste/composting programs.
“Oakland Cultural Arts Funding”: Hotel Tax to fund the Oakland Zoo, Oakland Museum of California, Chabot Space & Science Center, Oakland Convention and Visitors Bureau, and the Fund for Arts.
“Measure Y for Public Safety and Measure BB”: These initiatives fund Fire, Police and Violence Prevention Programs. The measure funds 63 police officers including geographically deployed "beat officers" and programs to prevent crimes and violence.
Quan was a past chair of the Alameda County Waste Management Authority (StopWaste.org) and the Alameda Recycling Board. She also authored and voted for legislation which banned the use of polystyrene containers for take out foods, now widely adopted in other parts of California.
In July 2010, Quan along with fellow City Council member and mayoral candidate Rebecca Kaplan
Rebecca Kaplan
Rebecca Kaplan is an American politician and a member of the Democratic Party. She currently serves as City Councilmember At-Large for Oakland, California.She ran for Oakland mayor in 2010 and placed third...
were investigated by Oakland police for their actions during a protest following the manslaughter verdict of former BART Police officer Johannes Mehserle
BART Police shooting of Oscar Grant
Oscar Grant was fatally shot by BART police officer Johannes Mehserle in Oakland, California, United States, in the early morning hours of New Year's Day 2009. Responding to reports of a fight on a crowded Bay Area Rapid Transit train returning from San Francisco, BART Police officers detained...
. Police claimed Quan and Kaplan joined a "human chain" which prevented officers from clearing a street, while the two countered they were acting as "peacekeepers". No charges were filed against the Councilwomen.
Quan was the victim of a street robbery in September of the same year, in her Fruitvale Avenue neighborhood. Quan attributed the crime to lack of employment opportunities in Oakland.
2010 Oakland mayoral election
Oakland's 2010 election was held under the city's new instant-runoff votingInstant-runoff voting
Instant-runoff voting , also known as preferential voting, the alternative vote and ranked choice voting, is a voting system used to elect one winner. Voters rank candidates in order of preference, and their ballots are counted as one vote for their first choice candidate. If a candidate secures a...
or ranked choice voting ballot system, which allows voters to indicate their first, second, and third choices of candidate. More than 120,000 voters participated in the largest turnout for a Mayor's race in recent memory. Though ranked choice voting is promoted as a way to reduce mud-slinging between the candidates, Quan paid for several negative hit pieces on her closest rival. The top three finishers among a field of 10 candidates were Quan, Don Perata
Don Perata
Don Richard Perata is a California Democratic politician, who was President pro tempore of the California State Senate from 2004 to 2008. He came in second place in the November 2010 ballot for Mayor of Oakland...
, and Rebecca Kaplan
Rebecca Kaplan
Rebecca Kaplan is an American politician and a member of the Democratic Party. She currently serves as City Councilmember At-Large for Oakland, California.She ran for Oakland mayor in 2010 and placed third...
. In the initial tally on election night, Perata led Quan, 40,342 to 29,266 but did not have a majority of the 1st-place votes. The votes were then re-tallied by eliminating Kaplan, the third-place finisher, and allocating her votes among Perata and Quan. Three weeks later, the Alameda Registrar of voters declared Quan the winner with 53,897 votes from 119,607 voters (45.06% support). Previous Mayors Jerry Brown and Ron Dellums were elected with majority support of the voters—Brown with 58.93% and 63.54% of the vote; Dellums with 50.18%. The use of Ranked Choice Voting has caused some concerns in the Bay Area, with studies that have shown low-income voters struggled with Ranked Choice Voting. On June 30, 2011, the U.S. Department of Justice Civil Rights Division filed a complaint in United States v. Alameda County (N.D. Cal.). The complaint alleges that the Alameda County Registrar of Voters (who administered Oakland's RCV Election) violated Sections 203 of the Voting Rights Act by having failed to provide effective access to the electoral process for Spanish and Chinese-speaking citizens who need language assistance and translated materials and information to cast an informed ballot. Only six weeks prior, the US Court of Appeals upheld Ranked Choice Voting as an accepted procedure comparing it to plurality.
Initiatives
Within her first six months of office, Mayor Quan met with more than 3,000 residents in eight town hall meetings. The resulting priorities reportedly developed by residents at these sessions were to help focus the city’s and community’s agenda.Her election as Oakland's first woman mayor, and the first Asian-American woman mayor of a major U.S. city, resulted in high visibility nationally and internationally. Quan capitalized on this visibility by traveling to and meeting with potential trade and business partners for the City and Port of Oakland
Port of Oakland
The Port of Oakland was the first major port on the Pacific Coast of the United States to build terminals for container ships. It is now the fifth busiest container port in the United States, behind Long Beach, Los Angeles, Newark, and Savannah...
, including the city of Shenzhen, China.
Quan has increased collaboration with the Oakland Unified School District and the community, introducing a program offering late-night youth services in the East and West Oakland areas in attempts to decrease violence with school-age youth.
After a surge in violence in one particular area of Oakland, Quan walked the beat with police in the neighborhood, encouraging residents to join a neighborhood crime prevention council. With gun violence up 30% from before her term, many residents and press see community policing with skepticism; "Even law-abiding citizens with good intentions aren't going to risk life and limb in areas of the city where the police don't feel safe." wrote one reporter. Despite the skepticism, the outreach is making a difference: calls to the drug hotline went from 0 to 103 in the first six months; participation in the local Neighborhood Crime Prevention Council has gone from 5 neighbors to almost two dozen neighbors meeting with police each month and identifying hotspots and priorities; calls to the Public Works Agency for blight, streetlights and other infrastructure complaints increased by 53%, and the number of National Night Out events this past August more than doubled.
Board memberships
She is currently board chair of the Chabot Space & Science Center and serves on the Board of the California League of Cities.Criticism and praise
During the second week of Quan's tenure in January 2011, it was discovered Oakland PoliceOakland Police Department (California)
The Oakland Police Department is the law enforcement agency responsible for the city of Oakland, California.-Ranking structure:-Officers killed in the line of duty:...
chief Anthony Batts
Anthony Batts
Anthony W. Batts is the former chief of police for Oakland, California, United States and previously was the chief of police for Long Beach, California. He announced his resignation on October 11, 2011, without specifying an effective date, and Mayor Jean Quan appointed Howard Jordan as a...
was a top-two candidate for the open position of San Jose Police
San Jose Police Department (California)
The San Jose Police Department protects the streets of San Jose, California, and keeps San Jose one of the safest large cities in the United States...
chief. Two weeks later, Quan introduced a plan for the police department which included updating the technological staff and rehiring 10 of the 80 officers who were laid off the previous year. Batts announced his intention to remain in Oakland a few days later, but eventually resigned in October of the same year.
Quan has come under fire due to a relationship with "unpaid legal adviser" Dan Siegel
Daniel Mark Siegel
Daniel Mark Siegel, or Dan Siegel, is a civil-rights attorney at the Oakland-based law firm, Siegel & Yee.Siegel was born and raised in New York City and on Long Island. He attended high school in New York, graduating second in his class. He attended Hamilton College in 1963-1967 majoring in...
after Siegel represented the "mayor's office on various legal matters, from public records act requests to a private meeting with a judge overseeing a consent decree with the police department", according to the San Francisco Chronicle
San Francisco Chronicle
thumb|right|upright|The Chronicle Building following the [[1906 San Francisco earthquake|1906 earthquake]] and fireThe San Francisco Chronicle is a newspaper serving primarily the San Francisco Bay Area of the U.S. state of California, but distributed throughout Northern and Central California,...
. The Oakland City Council issued a demand Siegel not represent the city as an attorney in any capacity, which by law falls under the jurisdiction of the City Attorney's office.
Siegel had been considered a controversial figure at City Hall due to his supposed vocal criticism of Oakland Police, and his presence was reported to have exacerbated a feud between Quan and City Attorney John Russo
John A. Russo (politician)
John A. Russo is a U.S. politician and a member of the Democratic Party. In September 2000, he became the first elected city attorney of Oakland, California after a little-debated aspect of Jerry Brown's strong-mayor initiative, Measure X, changed the city attorney post from an appointed to an...
.
In June 2011, Russo left his post as Oakland City Attorney to become City Manager for Alameda
Alameda, California
Alameda is a city in Alameda County, California, United States. It is located on Alameda Island and Bay Farm Island, and is adjacent to Oakland in the San Francisco Bay. The Bay Farm Island portion of the city is adjacent to the Oakland International Airport. At the 2010 census, the city had a...
.
A KPIX/CBS5 poll taken just before Mayor Quan's first 100 days revealed that her job performance "garners the approval of the city's residents by a 2-1 margin." The Capitol Weekly named Mayor Quan one of the top ten "Good" Mayors in the state. A KPIX poll six months later, taken shortly after the resignation of Chief Batts, listed an approval rating of 28 percent, with 69 percent responding with "little or no confidence" the mayor's ability to reduce the city’s crime problem.
On October 26, 2011 it was reported Quan responded to a recall petition by saying she believed the signatories were frustrated with her lack of progress in creating jobs. She went on to KGO radio claiming "I'm too busy. ... I haven't even had a chance to look at the petitions."
2011 Occupy Oakland Protest
Mayor Quan received widespread national criticism in October 2011 for her handling of the Occupy Oakland protest. On October 11, Mayor Quan visited the protest site. Thirteen days later more than 500 police officers from Oakland, other area police departments, and the State of California were directed to use tear gas and batons to clear the plaza where the protests were being held. Mayor Quan was in Washington, D.C. at the time on city business. Quan issued a statement the next morning commending the police chief "for a generally peaceful resolution to a situation". That night, hundreds of police used tear gas, rubber bullets, and flashbang grenadesStun grenade
A stun grenade, also known as a flash grenade or a flashbang, is a non-lethal weapon. The first devices like this were created in the 1960s at the order of the British Special Air Service as an incapacitant....
to subdue and arrest over 100 protesters, though denied the use of rubber bullets and flashbang grenades during the press release. The mayor's office was flooded with demands that protesters be released and her legal adviser opposed the police action and threatened to resign.
One protester, named Scott Olsen, was hospitalized with a fractured skull after being struck by police projectiles. It has been noted by another veteran trained in crowd control that police fired on protesters in ways that are prohibited under US rules of engagements in Iraq and Afghanistan. On November 2 , a second protester-veteran, Kayvan Sabehgi, suffered a ruptured spleen when he was hit and tackled by Oakland Police in an area away from the protests' center.
External links
Mayor of Oakland Official WebpageJean Quan Personal Webpage
Jean Quan Facebook Page