A change in how Oakland City Hall functions could go before voters. Mayor Barbara Lee convened a working group to identify ways to reform the city’s governmental structure, and it recommends amending the city charter to broaden the powers of the mayor and the City Council.
Santiago Mejia/S.F. Chronicle
In response to an independent report issued in 2021 that recommended changes to Oakland’s governing structure, Mayor Barbara Lee convened a working group to identify ways to make the city’s political system more efficient, accountable and transparent.
The working group’s final report also advocated for the city to amend its charter, “strengthening the mayor’s powers to establish clear executive authority” while also “empowering the City Council in ways that support rigorous legislative and budget analysis and oversight.”
Those recommendations could soon take the form of a 2026 ballot measure and would alter the way Oakland is governed. Some critics of what is known as a “strong mayor” approach are advocating for a different ballot measure that would enact a council-manager model of government that would install the mayor on the City Council while retaining a professional city manager to oversee operations.
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We asked two notable Oakland politicos — former Mayor Libby Schaaf and former interim City Administrator Steven Falk — to weigh in on whether the strong mayor or the council manager proposals make sense for Oakland. After reading both takes, please vote in our informal poll.
Reject the power grab
Oakland’s broken organizational chart has been at the center of the East Bay political debate for more than a year. Mayor Barbara Lee’s hand-picked working group recently released recommendations that, not surprisingly, propose to dramatically expand the mayor’s authority and simultaneously make Oakland’s City Council among the weakest in California.
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The City Council thus has a choice: put a strong-mayor measure on the ballot or choose a different, better system.
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If the council places the strong-mayor measure on the ballot — and voters approve it — the result would be a remarkable act of self-sabotage. It would rank among the most consequential own goals in Northern California political history, with council members affirmatively choosing to erode their own authority and weaken their already-tenuous connection to city operations.
Worse yet, the proposed strong-mayor system won’t fix Oakland’s organizational flaws. Under the proposed system, the mayor will still not be required to attend council meetings. The City Council will still be weak, with no oversight over city operations. The elected city attorney will still have multiple clients with conflicting interests. And the city administrator will still likely turn over with each new mayor — and department heads will likely do the same if they are appointed by the mayor.
The result? Residents — who rely on council members to get potholes filled, trash collected and graffiti removed — will be more frustrated than they already are.
“But wait!” some argue. “People want and expect the leadership of a strong mayor!”
That’s not what the data say. In the working group’s survey of 433 Oaklanders, 83% of respondents said they want to make the City Council stronger by giving it more direct ways to hold city administration accountable for performance. And 82% want the mayor to have a role on the City Council to help shape policies and laws.
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None of this is surprising. Californians have repeatedly rejected strong-mayor proposals, and no California city has successfully transitioned to a strong-mayor system in 20 years. Sacramento voters turned down strong-mayor schemes in 2014 and in 2020. San Jose backed off its 2020 attempt amid public outrage about concentrating power. And Oakland has rejected a pure strong-mayor system three times: twice before 1998 and again in 2002.
Furthermore, former Mayor Sheng Thao is scheduled to stand trial on corruption charges this fall — just when people are casting their votes. Against that backdrop, it is impossible to imagine Oaklanders giving unchecked authority to a single elected official. A failed strong-mayor proposal would effectively lock Oakland into its disastrous status quo for years to come.
To use a technical term, that would be a damned shame.
Fortunately, there is a better option for improving Oakland’s charter that blends the mayor’s working group recommendations with the Model City Charter. This approach delivers a powerful mayor and a powerful Oakland City Council by embedding a citywide mayor inside a council-manager system. It would put the City Council in the driver’s seat while investing a city-wide elected mayor with significant leadership authority — including veto power. It also features a professionally trained city manager.
Why do cities overwhelmingly choose professional management? Because it delivers a more transparent, responsive, effective and efficient government. Studies show that municipalities with professional city managers experience 57% fewer corruption convictions than strong-mayor cities. Governments with city managers boast better budget solvency, higher bond ratings and lower borrowing costs — operating nearly 10% more efficiently than their strong-mayor counterparts.
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It is no mystery why 97% of California cities — and 99 of the Bay Area’s 100 cities (excluding San Francisco, a dual city/county) — use the professional manager model.
Steven Falk twice served as Oakland’s interim city administrator. He is the co-founder of the Oakland Charter Reform Project.
City needs a strong mayor
I spent 24 years working for the city of Oakland — as a political staffer, a port director, a council member and eight years as mayor. I know this government and community from the inside out. And I can tell you with complete confidence: The current system is broken, and Mayor Barbara Lee’s working group has finally given Oakland a path to fix it.
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Here is the core problem: Oakland’s charter gives the mayor responsibility without authority. Voters elect a mayor expecting her to run the city, reduce crime, fix the streets and address homelessness. But the mayor cannot veto a single ordinance. She cannot veto a budget line. When the council has cut police staffing in budget after budget — even as 67% of Oaklanders support increased staffing — the mayor has had no recourse. She gets blamed for outcomes she cannot control. That is not accountability. That is theater.
The working group’s recommendation is straightforward: Give the mayor real executive authority, give the council real oversight tools and let each branch do its job.
Under this proposal, the mayor becomes the clear chief executive, with veto power that can be overridden with 5 of 7 council votes — the same structure used by Seattle, Boston and San Diego. The council, meanwhile, gains powers it doesn’t have: an independent budget and legislative analyst office and explicit subpoena authority to compel testimony. The council does not lose power; it gains the tools it needs to do the legislative and oversight work voters expect.
A council-manager alternative sounds appealing in theory. It is widely used because most cities are small with part-time or volunteer elected officials. But SPUR — the Bay Area’s leading good-government organization — spent three years studying Oakland governance and concluded explicitly that returning to council-manager government is “not appropriate or desirable” for a city of Oakland’s size and complexity. Then Mayor Lee convened the working group: 750 residents in public meetings, more than 60 interviews with current and former city officials, 48 academic studies reviewed and months of deliberation facilitated by SPUR and the League of Women Voters. They reached the same conclusion. When Oakland’s two most rigorous, independent governance studies — conducted years apart, by different teams — arrive at identical answers, that is not a coincidence. That is the evidence speaking.
There is also the political reality. Recent polls confirm overwhelming support for moving Oakland to a strong-mayor form of government. Most recently, a February poll by the East Bay Polling Institute found that 64% of voters support “amending the city charter to adopt a strong-mayor system where the mayor serves as chief executive with veto power over the budget and legislation, and allows the city council to override vetoes with a two-thirds vote.” Similarly, the 2025 Pulse of Oakland Poll found that 61% of likely voters support a strong-mayor system. Half actively oppose a council-manager government. Only 13% named it their top choice.
Pursuing a council-manager measure would almost certainly fail at the ballot — squandering election costs and a once-in-a-generation opportunity to fix Oakland’s charter and the public trust that comes with it.
Guest opinions in Open Forum and Insight are produced by writers with expertise, personal experience or original insights on a subject of interest to our readers. Their views do not necessarily reflect the opinion of The Chronicle editorial board, which is committed to providing a diversity of ideas to our readership.
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Oakland deserves a government aligned with residents’ expectations — where someone is genuinely in charge, accountable and empowered to deliver results. For the first time in a generation, we have a clear path to that government — the product of eight years of independent research, thousands of community voices and rigorous deliberation facilitated by SPUR and the League of Women Voters.
The City Council should honor that process by placing the working group’s recommendations on the ballot as written and letting Oakland voters make the call.
Libby Schaaf served as mayor of Oakland from 2015 to 2023.