$334 million in bonds<\/a> that will fund street paving, public facilities and affordable housing.<\/p>\nArticle continues below this ad<\/p>\n
The sale came three years after voters had authorized the bonds, as concerns about Oakland\u2019s finances had increased its borrowing costs. Credit rating agencies had downgraded the city amid a persistent structural deficit, rising pension costs and the city\u2019s reliance on one-time revenues, including money tied to the proposed sale of the Oakland Coliseum.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Lee said she focused on providing stability \u201cwithout shaking things all the way up,\u201d so that business, philanthropic organizations and investors would restore their trust in the city.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Lee has also been a stabilizing force with the City Council. Though the progressive mayor is not always ideologically aligned with the council\u2019s more moderate members, she has avoided publicly weighing in on council disputes and has positioned herself instead as a behind-the-scenes negotiator.<\/p>\n
![\"Mayor]()
<\/p>\n
Mayor Barbara Lee during a news conference at Oakland City Hall.<\/p>\n
Santiago Mejia\/S.F. Chronicle<\/p>\n
\u201cSome people want me to always condemn certain policies publicly, and I don\u2019t think that\u2019s very useful as mayor,\u201d she said. \u201cI try to work with everybody, even if I disagree.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
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Lee, for example, was quiet when Council Member Ken Houston proposed a new encampment abatement policy last summer that would have allowed Oakland to clear encampments even if the city couldn\u2019t offer shelter, reversing a previous policy. Lee worked in the background alongside Houston, and when the policy eventually passed in April, it had been significantly narrowed.<\/p>\n
Few want to be seen going against a mayor who\u2019s as widely respected as Lee, said Jason Overman, an Oakland-based political consultant and lobbyist.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt felt like members of this City Council trampled over themselves to endorse her. They showed her that they wanted to be on her team, because she\u2019s a leader,\u201d Overman said. \u201cThe perception of strength carries a lot of weight in politics.\u201d<\/p>\n
Lee also said that she tries to avoid breaking ties on council. \u201cPeople see that as interfering, as chaotic, as causing more division,\u201d Lee said. \u201cI know how Wall Street and the markets look at that too.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cResidents deserve debate and different points of view\u2026 but they don\u2019t deserve a mayor that is going to constantly fight against them,\u201d she said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
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Still, some say what\u2019s important is not whether the council and Lee are cooperating, but whether they\u2019re producing outcomes.<\/p>\n
\u201cBarbara Lee has helped lower the political temperature at City Hall. But Oaklanders are not giving City Hall a standing ovation because councilmembers are getting along,\u201d said Trishala Vinnakota, who served as campaign manager for Lee\u2019s opponent in last April\u2019s election, Loren Taylor. \u201cWhat matters to them is whether their families can walk their neighborhoods safely, whether the streets are clean and whether hitting a pothole will blow out a tire.\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"Oakland]()
<\/p>\n
Oakland Mayor Barbara Lee speaks to the media ahead of her 365th day in office at Oakland City Hall in Oakland, Calif. Tuesday, May 19, 2026.<\/p>\n
Jessica Christian\/S.F. Chronicle<\/p>\n
Asked whether it was harder to get things done in Congress or in Oakland, Lee laughed.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a different kind of hard here,\u201d Lee said. \u201cThis is hard work, but you can see the results of your work quicker here in Oakland.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Lee recalled working with former President George W. Bush to pass a law called the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, which increased funding to fight AIDS and Malaria around the world.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf I can do it with George Bush,\u201d she said, \u201cI hope I can do it here.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"One year after becoming mayor of Oakland, Barbara Lee said that she has restored trust with the city’s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":324804,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[184,7,332,143,145,144,13],"class_list":["post-324803","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-oakland","tag-bay-area","tag-california","tag-east-bay","tag-oakland","tag-oakland-headlines","tag-oakland-news","tag-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/324803","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=324803"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/324803\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/324804"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=324803"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=324803"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=324803"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}