\u201cI think community members are still learning how to really engage with the at-large councilmember,\u201d Brown told us. To do her part, she went on an \u201cengagement tour\u201d after she took office in early 2025.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Last month, we decided to follow Brown around for a couple of days to learn more about how she starts and ends a typical week. And to show the public what, exactly, one of their most powerful representatives does in her quest to work for them.<\/p>\n
Divide and conquer<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/oaklandside.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/large-20260504_RowenaBrown_EG_07.jpg\")
At-Large City Councilmember Rowena Brown, center left, and District 2 Councilmember Charlene Wang, right, speak to students from Crocker Highlands Elementary School at Oakland City Hall on Monday, May 4, 2026. Credit: Estefany Gonzalez for The Oaklandside. <\/p>\n
Brown has found ways to streamline the inundation of messages from her 441,000 constituents. At this Monday morning meeting, she tells her staff she\u2019s getting emails about the Feather River Camp, the summery Sierra retreat run by the city and a nonprofit for the benefit of adventurous residents. Brown instructs them to respond to all of the missives with the same message: she fully supports legislation that would provide funding to replace the camp\u2019s septic and water filtration systems.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Brown has two email accounts that she uses for official city business. According to her, each of them receives at least 15 emails per day from constituents. This might not sound like a lot, but many are complicated or urgent requests for help. Brown previously worked as a constituent liaison for former Councilmember Loren Taylor, so she knows how important it is to stay on top of these.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s obvious if you\u2019re not checking your emails,\u201d Brown says.\u00a0<\/p>\n
She often gets looped into communications between constituents and their district representative.\u00a0<\/p>\n
She likes collaboration, so it suits her to float around and offer assistance.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s really how we divide and conquer,\u201d Brown says.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Brown\u2019s colleagues often work with her on community events. Like this Monday morning, when she teams up with Charlene Wang to chat with a gaggle of second graders on a field trip to City Hall. Brown encourages the shy students and congratulates them on good questions.\u00a0<\/p>\n
To teach the kids about the painful choices legislators have to make, Brown and Wang ask them to stand on different sides of the council chamber if they want to build more housing or protect the environment. All of the children march over to the environment side.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIf we don\u2019t protect our environment, we won\u2019t have a bunch of space, and probably we\u2019ll go extinct,\u201d one kid says matter-of-factly.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Later, the kids ask how the councilmembers plan to fix some of Oakland\u2019s bigger problems. Brown, wearing a blazer over a city of Oakland polo, leans on the dais with a hand in the pocket of her slacks. She puts on a somber face as several students ask her what the city is doing to reduce trash in public spaces.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a great question,\u201d Brown says, before giving the kids a quick recap of the city\u2019s enforcement and preventative measures to stop illegal dumping. \u201cWe\u2019re working double-time, overtime to make sure our streets are clean and beautiful.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Brown is a former middle school civics teacher, so this is familiar territory for her. But she has a tougher time answering a question about why housing is so expensive. After explaining that this issue is tied to income, she pivots to say that numerous elected officials are working on it.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWe can\u2019t just do it at the local level,\u201d she says, adding that it will take a team of officials on the state and federal level, too.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Housing, trash, and the environment, coincidentally, will be the themes of the rest of Brown\u2019s day. But she\u2019ll spend it talking to grown-ups, most of whom want something more from her than encouragement and a quick civics lesson.<\/p>\n
Eat, meet, repeat<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/oaklandside.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/large-20260504_RowenaBrown_EG_20.jpg\")
At-Large City Councilmember Rowena Brown enters Oakland City Hall while on a phone call on Monday, May 4, 2026. Credit: Estefany Gonzalez for The Oaklandside. <\/p>\n
Brown is a product of the Bay Area. She lived in Pinole as a child and graduated from Mills College in the Oakland hills. Her master\u2019s of legal studies is from UC Law in San Francisco<\/a>. She taught middle school in Fruitvale.<\/p>\n Before entering politics, Brown worked in retail management for several years. Her first gigs in the public sector were in Taylor\u2019s council office and as campaign manager for Mia Bonta, who ran for the California Assembly in 2021. Bonta won, and Brown joined her staff, where she became the district director and worked until her 2024 city election.<\/p>\n She\u2019s a busy person. Brown has a gym in her apartment so she\u2019ll try to squeeze in a workout when she can. Sometimes she\u2019ll arrange walking meetings so she can move her body. The 39-year-old says an underappreciated burden of being a councilmember is how much time is spent sitting.\u00a0<\/p>\n Finding time to eat is also tricky. Brown jokes that she doesn\u2019t eat, even though she orders food \u201ca lot,\u201d often salads from Ladle and Leaf or a sandwich combo from Farley\u2019s East. It\u2019s tough to find time to cook.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m also very simple, so I can eat the same thing over and over,\u201d Brown says.\u00a0<\/p>\n On her desk this Monday are two teas \u2014 one hot, one iced \u2014 and a mug that possibly contained a third at some point.<\/p>\n The iced tea is from the downtown Highwire Coffee, where she had plans to meet with the new director of the West Oakland Environmental Indicators Project, a prominent environmental justice group fighting for a neighborhood disproportionately polluted by diesel trucks and metal shredders.<\/p>\n Oops. It turns out the plan was for a different Highwire. Brown has a call with Carroll Fife in mere minutes, but she tells Veronica Eady to come anyway. They end up having a rapid-fire meet-and-greet, standing in an outdoor courtyard. Eady lists off her priorities: air quality monitors in schools, electrifying the Port of Oakland, getting the community more involved in their work.<\/p>\n \u201cWe have so many newcomers in West Oakland who are young, who are Gen Z, so I\u2019m like, how do we channel that energy and combine it with the people who have been through the many decades of ebbs and flows?\u201d she says.<\/p>\n Brown talks on her cellphone with Fife as she dashes back to City Hall for a meeting with Waste Management. Two of her staffers trail behind, carrying their teas and hers.<\/p>\n Talking trash with the experts<\/p>\n Brown\u2019s next meeting is with one of Oakland\u2019s biggest contractors.\u00a0<\/p>\n It\u2019s early afternoon now, and two men from Waste Management \u2014 Alex Oseguera and Warren Chu \u2014 along with their lobbyist, Isaac Kos-Read, take seats at the round table.<\/p>\n Brown and Chu go way back. He tells her he wants to chat with her because \u201cyour concern is always with the big picture.\u201d<\/p>\n But what they really seem to want to discuss are specifics \u2014 namely, Waste Management\u2019s contract for curbside garbage and compost collection in Oakland, which expires in 2030 \u2014 and what they think the city could be doing differently to stop illegal dumping.\u00a0<\/p>\n A recent city audit<\/a> found that Oakland residents pay a lot more for trash services than people in other cities, even those that contract with Waste Management. Auditor Michael Houston urged the city to renegotiate the contract to make disposal more affordable for residents \u2014 or to consider using a different contractor.\u00a0<\/p>\n But it also found Oakland neglects to use all its resources, like dumpsters provided by Waste Management, and that everyone from city staff to the district attorney falls short on catching dumpers.\u00a0<\/p>\n Oseguera says small changes can make a big difference. The company had a pilot where they placed larger bins (64 gallons) in front of every customer in a given area.<\/p>\n \u201cJust immediately, you see no more overfilling containers, that trash on the street that\u2019s causing blight,\u201d he says. Waste Management is talking with the city about how to upgrade those residential containers and charge customers less for the even bigger, 96-gallon ones.<\/p>\n Another issue is businesses piling their waste on the street. The audit found that at least 2,500 businesses aren\u2019t signed up for pickup service. With residential customers, if they stop paying their trash fees, Waste Management\u2019s trucks will still come by to collect their bins. The city will pay for that service and collect the customer\u2019s debt. But when commercial customers don\u2019t pay, their service simply stops.<\/p>\n \u201cI think that\u2019s the gap,\u201d Brown says. The men agree in excitement.\u00a0<\/p>\n This should have been in their long-standing contract with Oakland, they say, arguing that their company has been working in the city for decades, yet illegal dumping is a relatively new problem. There must be issues with the contract structure or city enforcement, not their work, they posit.<\/p>\n Brown assures them the city is ramping up enforcement. The council recently increased fines<\/a> for dumpers and spent $150,000 on AI-powered drones<\/a> to catch violations. She touts her own investment in the last budget cycle in the Oaktown PROUD<\/a> anti-dumping campaign.<\/p>\n \u201cI think we\u2019re doing all the good work to let the folks who are the bad actors know, hey, we\u2019re not going for it anymore,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n On their way out, the men compliment staffer Rachel Holmstrom\u2019s tie \u2014 \u201cthe green of sustainability.\u201d<\/p>\n A check-in with an important department<\/p>\n Housing \u2014 one of the top issues Oaklanders care about \u2014 unsurprisingly occupies some of Brown\u2019s Monday.\u00a0<\/p>\n She has a call with the Oakland Housing Authority, the city\u2019s public housing provider.<\/p>\n Then she chats on video with leadership from the city\u2019s Housing and Community Development Department, which funds affordable building in Oakland and oversees renter protections. It\u2019s a regular check-in, since Brown chairs the council\u2019s Community and Economic Development Committee, where most housing legislation comes before it\u2019s ready for a full council hearing.<\/p>\n Director Emily Weinstein gives Brown a \u201csneak peek\u201d at data she\u2019ll soon share publicly.<\/p>\n They consider the progress on Measure U<\/a>, a voter-approved bond which, at $350 million, injected Oakland with its largest affordable housing investment ever.\u00a0<\/p>\n So far it\u2019s funded 2,300 new homes, and there\u2019s $100 million left. \u201cWe\u2019re outpacing our projections,\u201d Weinstein says. The city is also ahead on creating homeless housing, thanks in large part to a state program called Homekey<\/a>.<\/p>\n She displays a map of affordable housing across Oakland. Aside from a concentration in District 3 \u2014 West Oakland and downtown \u2014 the buildings are pretty spread out, despite frequent complaints of disparities.\u00a0<\/p>\n Brown doesn\u2019t have many questions, but she has a lot of encouragement.<\/p>\n \u201cI like it!\u201d she comments, and, \u201cVery, very good!\u201d<\/p>\n There\u2019s another positive update for the city: A hearing officer agreed with Oakland that the landlord of a building that caught fire<\/a> in January owes his tenants money to relocate. But that landlord still isn\u2019t paying out.<\/p>\n \u201cSo we are stepping in and cutting those checks, and then we will be liening the property for the money that we are putting out,\u201d Weinstein reports.\u00a0<\/p>\n Brown\u2019s glad they\u2019ve budgeted for that.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThose residents would just be out of luck.\u201d<\/p>\n A night at the gala with allies<\/p>\n In most interactions, Brown is friendly but fairly reserved.<\/p>\n That changes at her Friday afternoon meeting with the K. Stewart Foundation.<\/p>\n The nonprofit supports Black and brown LGBTQ community members \u2014 especially queer women and parents.\u00a0<\/p>\n Brown is one of three out queer members of the Oakland City Council. The foundation representatives tell her they\u2019d like to honor her at their gala<\/a> this year.<\/p>\n \u201cAre you kidding?\u201d Brown asks.<\/p>\n \u201cYou\u2019re really in the streets getting it done at the local level,\u201d says COO Kira Lee. \u201cSomething as simple as trash cans, you know, like the everyday impact\u2026You get that piece in a really cool way.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n The invitation sets the tone for an effusive brainstorming session where offers and requests fly on both sides, largely around a series of events related to Pride celebrations in Oakland. Brown and her Richmond-based visitors agree: San Francisco should no longer be the default destination for LGBTQ activities.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re gonna go big,\u201d says Brown of Oakland\u2019s August Pride events. She invites K. Stewart Foundation to help out with a queer film screening<\/a> (\u201cWe\u2019ll happily co-promote; think of us as your second marketing outlet,\u201d Lee responds) and a queer job fair she\u2019s hosting in June.<\/p>\n The foundation offers to donate legal consultations. \u201cThrow our logo on there,\u201d adds Lee.\u00a0<\/p>\n K. Stewart Foundation also wants the councilmember to speak on a panel and support their Pride events, like a parade.<\/p>\n \u201cThis will be an all-eyes-on-us moment, nationally, and you\u2019re our girl,\u201d Lee says.\u00a0<\/p>\n For the upcoming gala, \u201cIs there any capacity for the city to help us with the fundraising for this year?\u201d Lee asks. \u201cIf you guys know donors or small businesses that support this type of work.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ll see who I can introduce you to,\u201d Brown says.<\/p>\n \u201cIf we could list the city as an official partner for both events, that would be helpful,\u201d Lee adds.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s a little wonky with the entire city,\u201d Brown hedges, \u201cbut you can always use my logo.\u201d<\/p>\n While the councilmember is happy to help the foundation \u2014 and get help from it \u2014 the K. Stewart pleas are just some of the many requests for funding, presence, or policy support that Brown receives in a given week.\u00a0<\/p>\n Asked if she feels pressure in the job, she says yes. \u201cI often say, \u2018I need to think about that,\u2019 because not every request should get an immediate answer.\u201d<\/p>\n Goodbye to a busy week and to interns<\/p>\n As Brown\u2019s week draws to a close, she has to bid her two interns, Tristan and Michelle, farewell.<\/p>\n Michelle and Tristan have prepared presentations about what they learned and did. Their work varied from managing Brown\u2019s social media accounts to doing graphic design work and research on policies and legislation.\u00a0<\/p>\n Michelle says she spent time attending council meetings, which made her appreciate the array of views on policy issues. As an example, she points to one of the most contentious meetings of 2026: a hearing where Brown and other councilmembers weighed whether to impose a nearly $1 million fine<\/a> on a couple who illegally chopped down a hillside of trees. The meeting turned into an impassioned fight about the rule of law, allegations of racism, and Oakland\u2019s tree canopy.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cI thought that was a really interesting meeting,\u201d Michelle says.\u00a0<\/p>\n The interns had a good time working at the center of Oakland\u2019s government. Tristan, a freshman at Northeastern University, says it was fun and a little surreal going to City Hall. It was also challenging managing his workdays with a college schedule, and sometimes he struggled to figure out how to get transportation to work.\u00a0<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/oaklandside.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/large-20260504_RowenaBrown_EG_30.jpg\")
At-Large City Councilmember Rowena Brown meets with representatives Waste Management to discuss illegal dumping on Monday, May 4, 2026. Credit: Estefany Gonzalez for The Oaklandside. <\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/oaklandside.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/large-20260504_RowenaBrown_EG_21.jpg\")
Rowena Brown\u2019s office at Oakland City Hall on Monday, May 4, 2026. Credit: Estefany Gonzalez for The Oaklandside. <\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/oaklandside.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/large-20260504_RowenaBrown_EG_13.jpg\")
At-Large City Councilmember Rowena Brown, left, meets for coffee with Veronica Eady of the West Oakland Environmental Indicators Project near Highwire Coffee Roasters on Broadway on Monday, May 4, 2026. Credit: Estefany Gonzalez for The Oaklandside. <\/p>\n