![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/BCN-20260108-LITERACY-02-oakland-reads-literacy-771x544.jpeg\")
Oakland Mayor Barbara Lee speaks at a press conference at City Hall in Oakland, Calif., to announce the launch of a new literacy program on Thursday, Jan 8., 2026. (Andres Jimenez Larios\/ Bay City News)<\/p>\nOaklanders are being asked to dramatically change how their municipal government works by approving a charter amendment on the Nov. 3 ballot that would increase the mayor\u2019s responsibilities for running the city.<\/p>\n
Measure EE would do away with Oakland\u2019s current hybrid system and create a strong-mayor model of governance, in which the mayor would have more authority and control over the city administration.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis hybrid structure has created confusion about who is in charge, who is accountable, and how decisions actually get implemented,\u201d according to a news release from Mayor Barbara Lee\u2019s office from January, when her \u201cCharter Reform Working Group\u201d released the recommendations that eventually became Measure EE.<\/p>\n
Oakland Mayor Barbara Lee speaks at a press conference at City Hall in Oakland, Calif., to announce the launch of a new literacy program on Thursday, Jan 8., 2026. (Andres Jimenez Larios\/ Bay City News)<\/p>\n
In California, cities are typically run either as a \u201cstrong mayor\u201d or \u201ccouncil-manager\u201d system.<\/p>\n
In strong mayor cities, the mayor is elected to be the chief executive, with responsibility to hire and fire top city officials, run day-to-day operations, propose budgets and wield veto power over legislation and budget decisions made by the city council.<\/p>\n
In such a system, the city council serves as the legislative branch, primarily responsible for developing new ordinances, reviewing and modifying the mayor\u2019s budget proposals and, ideally, acting as a check to the mayor\u2019s power.<\/p>\n
Under council-manager systems, the city council still holds legislative authority, but appoints a city manager who is responsible for running municipal operations, including hiring top department heads.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/LNM-20260929-MEASUREEE-02.jpg\")
AI ILLUSTRATION: A graphic explaining the key differences between a strong-mayor and council-manager forms of government. (AI graphic by Local News Matters via ChatGPT)<\/p>\n
A question of authority<\/p>\n
Currently, Oakland\u2019s system is run by a mayor who is elected by a citywide vote but can\u2019t hire or fire department heads, veto City Council decisions or, with the exception of acting as a tie-breaker, vote on items before the Council.<\/p>\n
\u201cResidents expect the Mayor to lead, but the Mayor lacks clear authority. Councilmembers are responsible for passing laws and budgets, but the current structure makes implementation and accountability unclear,\u201d according to Lee\u2019s January news release. \u201cThe result is frustration, inefficiency, and declining public trust.\u201d<\/p>\n
To correct this, Measure EE would allow Oakland\u2019s mayor to appoint a city manager or administrator, subject to the approval of the City Council. The administrator would retain control over the finance and human resources departments but the mayor would be responsible for managing the other departments.<\/p>\n
The council would have the power to conduct legislative hearings and issue subpoenas to compel witness testimony or the delivery of documents and could create an \u201cOffice of the Independent Budget and Legislative Analyst\u201d to advise it on such matters.<\/p>\n
\u201cResidents expect the Mayor to lead, but the Mayor lacks clear authority. \u2026 The result is frustration, inefficiency, and declining public trust.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mayor Barbara Lee, in January news release<\/p>\n
Measure EE would also require councilmembers to serve on a \u201cfull-time\u201d capacity and prohibit them from holding a job or running a business that \u201cinterferes or conflicts\u201d with their duties.<\/p>\n
The measure would also remove a mayor\u2019s ability to break a tie vote on the council but would grant them veto power over most legislation and budget line-items. The council could override vetoes with a 6-2 vote.<\/p>\n
Measure EE requires a simple majority vote to pass and was placed on the ballot by the Oakland City Council in June, with a deciding vote from Lee.<\/p>\n
Lee, who has championed the measure that would do away with this mayoral ability, cast a tie-breaking vote to get past \u201cno\u201d votes from councilmembers Zac Unger, Noel Gallo, Ken Houston and Janani Ramachandran. Councilmembers Rowena Brown, Carroll Fife, Kevin Jenkins and Charlene Wang voted in favor of placing the measure on the ballot.<\/p>\n
\u201cAt its core, this is about letting the people of Oakland decide whether they want more accountability and a clearer system of governance,\u201d Lee said at the time.<\/p>\n
Concerns mayor would have too much power<\/p>\n
Fife and Houston expressed concerns around the proposed line-item veto powers, suggesting that it gave the mayor too much power over decisions by the council.<\/p>\n
Unger, Houston and Gallo said they\u2019d prefer a strong council-city manager system.<\/p>\n
The proposal was born out of a five-month process in 2025 that included Lee\u2019s working group and that was led by the League of Women Voters and the San Francisco Planning and Urban Research Association.<\/p>\n
Fifteen public meetings on the topic included residents, experts, community stakeholders and citizen survey responses. Review sessions were then conducted with every City Council member, according to the charter proposal.<\/p>\n
An analysis by the Oakland city auditor estimates that it would cost between $2 million to $2.6 million to implement Measure EE.<\/p>\n
Supporters include Lee, former mayor Libby Schaaf, former city attorney Barbara Parker and Ernestine Nettles, president of the League of Women Voters Oakland.<\/p>\n
So far, campaign finance documents filed with the city show that the \u201cCommittee for A Strong, Accountable Oakland: Yes on EE\u201d has raised $65,000 in contributions this year.<\/p>\n
No financial disclosure documents have been filed by the opposition.<\/p>\n
Opponents include Alameda County Supervisor Nate Miley, former Oakland city councilmember Loren Taylor and former chair of the Oakland Public Ethics Commission Ralph Kanz.<\/p>\n
The post Measure EE would give Oakland mayor more power in sweeping city charter overhaul<\/a> appeared first on Local News Matters<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Oaklanders are being asked to dramatically change how their municipal government works by approving a charter amendment on…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":483460,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[143,145,144],"class_list":["post-483459","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-oakland","tag-oakland","tag-oakland-headlines","tag-oakland-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/483459","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=483459"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/483459\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/483460"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=483459"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=483459"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=483459"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}