{"id":357136,"date":"2026-06-12T01:38:57","date_gmt":"2026-06-12T01:38:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/357136\/"},"modified":"2026-06-12T01:38:57","modified_gmt":"2026-06-12T01:38:57","slug":"will-oakland-council-cede-power-to-mayor-a-ballot-measure-hangs-in-balance-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/357136\/","title":{"rendered":"Will Oakland council cede power to mayor? A ballot measure hangs in balance."},"content":{"rendered":"

OAKLAND \u2014 City leaders here are already questioning the wisdom behind their recent decision to advance a proposal by Mayor Barbara Lee<\/a> that would strengthen the powers of her own office<\/a> and transform how Oakland is run<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Lee secured last week a 5-3 vote by the Oakland City Council in support of her plan. Following another possible vote next week, the council would place the sweeping changes to the city\u2019s governance structure on the November ballot.<\/p>\n

Even some on the council who sided with Lee have expressed wariness about ceding much of their own power to the mayor.<\/p>\n

Growing skepticism may shift loyalties ahead of what was supposed to be a procedural second vote next week, or possibly deprive Lee of crucial support needed to persuade voters in the fall election.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019d just be babysitters under her plan, with no ability to do anything,\u201d said Councilmember Ken Houston, who voted last week in favor of Lee\u2019s proposed measure but now seeks heavy revisions ahead of the next vote.<\/p>\n

If approved by voters, the proposal would grant Lee \u2014 and future mayors \u2014 the power to veto any city legislation, or even specific language in a city policy or budget plan. The mayor would have absolute legislative authority, despite not being required to attend public council meetings.<\/p>\n

Lee, who is separately pursuing reelection in November, would also absorb many day-to-day responsibilities from the city administrator, gaining authority to hire and fire most of the city government\u2019s department heads.<\/p>\n

If the mayor does not fundamentally alter the plan, Houston warned, then \u201cI might still vote for it, but I\u2019ll definitely campaign against it before the election \u2014 and it won\u2019t pass.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"OaklandOakland city council member district seven Ken Houston speaks during the 2025 Inauguration Ceremony held at Oakland City Hall in Oakland, Calif., on Monday, Jan. 6, 2025. (Jose Carlos Fajardo\/Bay Area News Group)\u00a0<\/p>\n

Houston\u2019s desired revisions are so extensive that they may not be received positively by the mayor\u2019s office, which declined an interview request.<\/p>\n

He wants the mayor to sit on the dais with the rest of the council, bringing the top elected leader into regular view of the public. Houston also wants the council to hold direct authority over the city administrator, who is hired by the mayor to run Oakland\u2019s daily operations<\/a> and oversee staff.<\/p>\n

Under Lee\u2019s proposal, the council could override a mayoral veto by a two-thirds decision, equivalent to six out of eight council votes. Houston wants that threshold lowered to five votes.<\/p>\n

What Houston seeks would bring Oakland closer to a traditional council-manager system, which exists in most California cities. Only very large cities, including San Francisco and New York, have strong-mayor models like the one Lee is pitching in Oakland.<\/p>\n

Councilmember Zac Unger had sought to bring a competing council-manager proposal before voters, but failed to secure enough support from his colleagues. He dissented from last week\u2019s vote, making clear his support for Lee as mayor while worrying aloud about the longer-term consequences.<\/p>\n

Councilmember Carroll Fife, meanwhile, shares Houston\u2019s rationale that voters should be allowed a say despite her own misgivings about centralizing power in a single individual.<\/p>\n

Fife has another concern. The ballot measure, she said, could jeopardize Lee\u2019s reelection bid, providing ample ammunition to her opponents in Oakland\u2019s more fiscally moderate political ranks.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is going to be another opportunity for (the mayor\u2019s) opponents to spread misinformation about her being corrupt,\u201d Fife suggested.<\/p>\n

\"CityCity Councilmember Carroll Fire listens during an Oakland City Council meeting at City Hall in Oakland, Calif., on Tuesday, Dec. 16, 2025. The Oakland City Council voted 7-1 to award Flock Safety a new contract to maintain an existing network of 300 cameras in the city. (Jane Tyska\/Bay Area News Group)\u00a0<\/p>\n

Lee already absorbed a political loss in this month\u2019s election, when 55% of Oakland voters rejected a parcel tax measure<\/a> for which the mayor and her labor allies had campaigned aggressively<\/a>. It was the first time that voters in this city shot down a new tax in 15 years.<\/p>\n

The mayor has successfully built strong relationships with business executives and labor leaders alike, and so far no opponent has emerged as a credible threat to her reelection chances. But even some of her most ardent supporters appear silent on her proposed governance reforms.<\/p>\n

Pamela Drake, a longtime activist in Oakland, called the mayor\u2019s proposal to veto specific legislative line items the \u201cmost undemocratic process I\u2019ve ever seen.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhether the mayor wants to or not, you\u2019re supposed to seek a compromise,\u201d said Drake, the politics chair of the Wellstone Club, a local progressive bastion. \u201cWith a line-item veto, you might as well throw up your hands and go home.\u201d<\/p>\n

The reform measure could not be more ironically timed.<\/p>\n

In addition to running for reelection on the same ballot, Lee will also campaign to absorb more power a month after her immediate predecessor, former Mayor Sheng Thao, stands trial for charges of bribery and corruption.<\/p>\n

Thao, who is accused by federal prosecutors of being bribed to handpick department heads in a scheme to funnel public money to a pair of businessmen, would likely have had an easier path to carrying out the plot were she a strong mayor.<\/p>\n

\"FormerFormer Oakland Mayor Sheng Thao leaves the Federal Building after appearing at the Federal Courthouse in Oakland, Calif., for her indictment on bribery and conspiracy charges by federal prosecutors on Friday, Jan. 17, 2025. Also, her boyfriend, Andre Jones, California Waste Solutions owners, Andy Duong, and his father, David Duong, were indicted. (Ray Chavez\/Bay Area News Group)\u00a0<\/p>\n

In a concession to the council, Lee\u2019s proposal would repeal a local law that disallows council members from superseding the administrator and giving orders to city staff. It is a restriction that Oakland\u2019s elected leaders have long bemoaned.<\/p>\n

This, along with Lee\u2019s overall vision to have \u201cthe buck stop with the mayor\u201d in Oakland, was enough to win a vote last week from Councilmember Charlene Wang, who offered a rare source of full-throated support for a strong-mayor system.<\/p>\n

\u201cEveryone knows and has observed that the issues we have in this city are not legislative,\u201d Wang said. \u201cA lot of it falls on implementation. If the mayor is essentially the city administrator, she will feel that sense of urgency and accountability and dissatisfaction with city services.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lee has publicly chafed against the notion that her proposal amounts to a \u201cpower grab.\u201d She has spoken adamantly about her intention to centralize accountability in a city where responsibilities are currently shared awkwardly between the mayor, council and administrator.<\/p>\n

One former Oakland administrator, Steve Falk, had long called for Oakland to adopt the more traditional council-manager system. He briefly stood down last month and endorsed the council placing Lee\u2019s measure on the election ballot so voters could decide on it.<\/p>\n

But after gauging the reluctance among the council to support Lee\u2019s plan, Falk is back to pushing in the opposite direction.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re urging the council at this point to go with their instinct, to vote with their conscience and to reject the strong-mayor system,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Shomik Mukherjee is a reporter covering Oakland. Call or text him at 510-905-5495 or email him at shomik@bayareanewsgroup.com.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"OAKLAND \u2014 City leaders here are already questioning the wisdom behind their recent decision to advance a proposal…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":171845,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[1400,389,184,7,409,332,204,405,1533,181,23,205,100,143,145,406,144,182,13,385],"class_list":["post-357136","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-oakland","tag-2026-elections","tag-alameda-county","tag-bay-area","tag-california","tag-city-politics","tag-east-bay","tag-election","tag-government","tag-keywee","tag-latest-headlines","tag-local-news","tag-local-politics","tag-news","tag-oakland","tag-oakland-headlines","tag-oakland-mayor","tag-oakland-news","tag-pm-report","tag-politics","tag-regional"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/357136","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=357136"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/357136\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/171845"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=357136"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=357136"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=357136"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}