Oakland Ca Government Officials

At the end of a long meeting and an even longer day, Elihu Harris looks around the table at a Chinese restaurant. The man who will be mayor of Oakland for the next four years asks a question that none of the experts who have been talking about the drug crisis can answer. "Politics is perception," Harris says, referring to that most difficult of problems in his city. "How do you get people to think that things are getting better?"

Mayor Jerry Brown made it official Friday, filing his candidate intention statement for next year's mayoral election. The former two-term California governor, who was elected Oakland mayor in June 1998, read a statement as his official notice of candidacy was filed at City Hall. He said he will continue to focus on jobs, crime reduction, education and civic creativity. "Oakland is a city where many visions have their home," he said.

The FBI and federal prosecutors on Wednesday called Oakland Mayor Lionel Wilson's son Stephen "an associate" of a cocaine trafficking operation but refused to say whether he will be charged in the case. "Based on our investigation, Mr. (Stephen) Wilson is an associate," Barry Mawm, the FBI's assistant special agent in charge of criminal operations, said at a news conference.

Jerry Brown has never failed to surprise. This is the erstwhile California governor who ran for president, then spent a stint with Mother Teresa, who studied with Japanese monks, then became state Democratic Party chairman. Now, newly reborn as mayor of this multiethnic city, Brown is at it again: California's inveterate cosmic thinker has gone mainstream. He has emerged as a wildly popular mayor whose approval rating tops 80% at the close of his first year in office.

Oakland Deputy Police Chief Fred Sanchez will become Pomona's police chief Sept. 14, the city manager said Tuesday. Sanchez, 47, became the Oakland department's first Latino deputy chief in April. In Pomona, he will succeed Chief Richard Shaurette, who is retiring. City Manager Severo Esquivel said he chose Sanchez from more than 40 applicants, with the aid of a selection panel.

Mayor Jerry Brown made it official Friday, filing his candidate intention statement for next year's mayoral election. The former two-term California governor, who was elected Oakland mayor in June 1998, read a statement as his official notice of candidacy was filed at City Hall. He said he will continue to focus on jobs, crime reduction, education and civic creativity. "Oakland is a city where many visions have their home," he said.

Supporters of Mayor-elect Edmund G. "Jerry" Brown Jr. collected more than 52,000 signatures--nearly twice as many as needed--in an effort to put a strong-mayor proposal on the November ballot. On Thursday, Brown's supporters turned in the petition signatures, which must be verified by Alameda County election officials. Oakland's mayor currently serves as a member of the City Council, with the appointed city manager wielding much of the day-to-day authority.

Democratic Assemblyman Elihu Harris of Oakland has filed papers declaring his intention to run for mayor of Oakland. The six-term Oakland legislator filed statements in Oakland and Sacramento last week that he had established a campaign fund-raising committee for the 1990 race, in which he may end up challenging his longtime friend Mayor Lionel Wilson. Harris, 41, had said previously he would not run if Wilson decided to run for a fourth term.

Jerry Brown is a pretty lucky guy. Once his $40,000, bargain-basement inauguration ends late Monday--when the pillow-sitting lovingkindness meditation is over and the final bar of Oakland blues has faded into the darkness--he can look up and survey the city he has inherited. And heave a huge sigh of relief that he's becoming mayor in 1999 and not a moment sooner. Yes, there is still poverty and drug abuse, and the school district faces great difficulties.

Jerry Brown has never failed to surprise. This is the erstwhile California governor who ran for president, then spent a stint with Mother Teresa, who studied with Japanese monks, then became state Democratic Party chairman. Now, newly reborn as mayor of this multiethnic city, Brown is at it again: California's inveterate cosmic thinker has gone mainstream. He has emerged as a wildly popular mayor whose approval rating tops 80% at the close of his first year in office.

In the first phase of a city government shake-up promised by new Mayor Edmund G. "Jerry" Brown Jr., Oakland's popular police chief and two other department heads were forced out Thursday, one more was demoted, and the remaining six were put on notice. Sixty additional employees were issued "performance deficiency notices" by Brown and City Manager Robert Bobb, warning them to improve their work or be fired.

This, then, was the "other" inauguration, a sort of anti-swearing in of little pomp and everyday circumstance. On this bright Monday afternoon, 69 miles from the Sacramento Big Top, the 34th governor of the Golden State became the 48th mayor of this hard-knock city. Just before 1 p.m., Edmund G. "Jerry" Brown Jr.

Jerry Brown is a pretty lucky guy. Once his $40,000, bargain-basement inauguration ends late Monday--when the pillow-sitting lovingkindness meditation is over and the final bar of Oakland blues has faded into the darkness--he can look up and survey the city he has inherited. And heave a huge sigh of relief that he's becoming mayor in 1999 and not a moment sooner. Yes, there is still poverty and drug abuse, and the school district faces great difficulties.

Say this for Jerry Brown, who's been pilloried and parodied, sneered at and scorned to a fare-thee-well: He's enjoying the last laugh. Enjoy is a relative term, of course, for the famously ascetic Edmund G. Brown Jr. What with the elevation of Gray Davis, his former right hand, to his old job as governor, Brown allows as how his days as a political punch line may have finally passed.

Oakland Deputy Police Chief Fred Sanchez will become Pomona's police chief Sept. 14, the city manager said Tuesday. Sanchez, 47, became the Oakland department's first Latino deputy chief in April. In Pomona, he will succeed Chief Richard Shaurette, who is retiring. City Manager Severo Esquivel said he chose Sanchez from more than 40 applicants, with the aid of a selection panel.

Supporters of Mayor-elect Edmund G. "Jerry" Brown Jr. collected more than 52,000 signatures--nearly twice as many as needed--in an effort to put a strong-mayor proposal on the November ballot. On Thursday, Brown's supporters turned in the petition signatures, which must be verified by Alameda County election officials. Oakland's mayor currently serves as a member of the City Council, with the appointed city manager wielding much of the day-to-day authority.

If Oakland authorities thought they could force Los Angeles Raiders owner Al Davis to meet a 5 p.m. Friday deadline for giving an answer on whether his football team would move back to Oakland, they had another think coming. Two hours before the deadline, and nearly three years after he first started talking about the possibility of moving his team from Los Angeles, Davis got a postponement until noon on Monday.

Elihu M. Harris, Oakland's new mayor, said Monday that he is not "a man with all the answers," but that he plans to help reshape the city's ailing educational system and fight crime. "We must reshape our community, and to this end I will be the point guard," Harris told the crowd of about 1,000 at his swearing-in ceremony. "I will ask you to take responsibility for your city."

Poverty is on the rise and murders hit an all-time high in 1990. But through it all, Oakland's middle class, black and white, has remained to fight for a city they believe can still attain greatness. If the decay of rusting industrial cities can be reversed anywhere, it is here, they say.