Jean Quan

Jean Quan 關麗珍
Mayor Jean Quan at Oakland's Lake Merritt
49th Mayor of Oakland
Incumbent
Assumed office January 3, 2011
Preceded by	Ron Dellums
Member of the Oakland City Council for the 4th District
In office January 2003 – January 2011
Member of the Oakland School Board
In office 1991–2003
Personal details
Born	(1949-10-21) October 21, 1949 Livermore, California
Nationality	American
Political party	Democratic Party
Spouse	Floyd Huen
Children	William Huen Lailan Huen
Website	Quan for Oakland

Jean Quan (Chinese: 關麗珍; pinyin: Guān Lìzhēn) is an American politician and a member of the Democratic Party. She is the mayor of Oakland, California, where she previously served as City Council member for Oakland's 4th District. Upon inauguration on January 3, 2011, she became Oakland's first female mayor, as well as Oakland's first Asian-American mayor and the first Asian-American woman to head a major city in the United States. She is currently board chair of the Chabot Space & Science Center and serves on the Board of the California League of Cities.

Oakland School Board and City Council

Quan was on the Oakland School Board for 12 years, starting in 1990 after organizing a citywide parent organization, Save Our Schools. As a parent leader she helped save the music program in the Oakland Schools. She served as chair of the California Urban Schools Association, the Asian Pacific Islanders School Board Members Association, and the Council of Urban Boards Association (the urban caucus of the National School Board Association representing the nation's 100 largest districts). She was appointed by the Clinton Administration to represent School Boards on the Title I Rules Making Committee. In these roles she advocated for more funding for urban and immigrant students, more inclusion of minority community history in text books, comprehensive school services and after school programs, and expansion of pre-school and adult education programs.

In 1996 with Quan as President, the school board instituted a program using Standard English Program strategies to teach standard English to African American students. The move created national news with the perception Oakland schools were teaching students Ebonics, while the board refuted the claim.

In 2002, Jean Quan was elected to her first term as Council Member for Oakland District 4 (Allendale, Brookdale, Crestmont, Dimond, Laurel, Maxwell Park, Melrose, Montclair and Redwood Heights). During her time on the Council she led several initiatives, including:

Measure Q: To prevent the closure of city libraries and increase funding for materials. Oakland Wildfire Prevention District: Funds annual programs of vegetation control, safety inspections and homeowner education, and green waste/composting programs. Oakland Cultural Arts Funding: Hotel Tax to fund the Oakland Zoo, Oakland Museum of California, Chabot Space & Science Center, Oakland Convention and Visitors Bureau, and the Fund for Arts. Measure Y for Public Safety and Measure BB: These initiatives fund Fire, Police and Violence Prevention Programs. The measure funds 63 police officers including geographically deployed "beat officers" and programs to prevent crimes and violence.

Quan was a past chair of StopWaste.org (the Alameda County Waste Management Authority) and the Alameda Recycling Board. She also authored legislation which banned the use of polystyrene containers for take out foods, now widely adopted in other parts of California.

In July 2010, Quan along with fellow City Council member and mayoral candidate Rebecca Kaplan were investigated by Oakland police for their actions during a protest following the manslaughter verdict of former BART Police officer Johannes Mehserle. Police claimed Quan and Kaplan joined a "human chain" which prevented officers from clearing a street, while the two countered they were acting as "peacekeepers". No charges were filed against the Councilwomen. Quan was the victim of a street robbery in September of the same year, in her Fruitvale Avenue neighborhood. Quan attributed the crime to lack of employment opportunities in Oakland.

2010 Oakland mayoral election

Oakland's 2010 election was held under the city's new instant-runoff voting or ranked choice voting ballot system, which allows voters to indicate their first, second, and third choices of candidate. More than 120,000 voters participated in the largest turnout for a Mayor's race in recent memory. Though ranked choice voting is promoted as a way to reduce mud-slinging between the candidates, Quan paid for several negative hit pieces on her closest rival. The top three finishers among a field of 10 candidates were Quan, Don Perata, and Rebecca Kaplan. In the initial tally on election night, Perata led Quan, 40,342 to 29,266 but did not have a majority of the 1st-place votes. The votes were then re-tallied by eliminating Kaplan, the third-place finisher, and allocating her votes among Perata and Quan. Three weeks later, the Alameda Registrar of voters declared Quan the winner with 53,897 votes from 119,607 voters (45.06% support).. Previous Mayors Jerry Brown and Ron Dellums were elected with more than majority support of the voters (Brown 58.93% and 63.54%) and Ron Dellums received 50.18% support. The use of Ranked Choice Voting has caused some concerns in the Bay Area, with studies that have shown low-income voters struggled with Ranked Choice Voting. On June 30, 2011, the U.S. Department of Justice Civil Rights Division filed a complaint in United States v. Alameda County (N.D. Cal.). The complaint alleges that the Alameda County Registrar of Voters (who administered Oakland's RCV Election) violated Sections 203 of the Voting Rights Act by having failed to provide effective access to the electoral process for Spanish and Chinese-speaking citizens who need language assistance and translated materials and information to cast an informed ballot. Earlier in 2011, the US Court of Appeals upheld Ranked Choice Voting as an accepted procedure comparing it to plurality.

Oakland Mayor

Initiatives

Within her first six months of office, Mayor Quan met with more than 3,000 residents in eight Town Hall meetings. The resulting priorities reportedly developed by residents at these sessions were to help focus the city’s and community’s agenda. Her election as the first woman and first Asian American woman mayor of a major US City resulted in high visibility nationally and internationally. Quan capitalized on this visibility by traveling to and meeting with potential trade and business partners for the City and Port of Oakland, including the city of Shenzhen, China.

Quan has increased collaboration with the Oakland Unified School District and the community, introducing a program offering late-night youth services in the East and West Oakland areas in attempts to decrease violence with school-age youth. After a surge in violence in one particular area of Oakland, Quan walked the beat with police in the neighborhood, encouraging residents to join a neighborhood crime prevention council.With gun violence up 30% from before her term, many residents and press see community policing with skepticism, "Even law-abiding citizens with good intentions aren't going to risk life and limb in areas of the city where the police don't feel safe." wrote one reporter. Despite the skepticism, the outreach is making a difference: calls to the police hotline went from 0 to more than 600 in the first six months; participation in the local Neighborhood Crime Prevention Council has gone from 5 neighbors to almost two dozen neighbors meeting with police each month and identifying hotspots and priorities; calls to the Public Works Agency for blight, streetlights and other infrastructure complaints increased by 53%, and the number of National Night Out events this past August more than doubled.

Quan announced she would taking a 25% pay cut on her salary, from $183,397 to $137,000 for 2011.

Criticism and Kudos

During the second week of Quan's tenure in January 2011, it was discovered Oakland Police chief Anthony Batts was a top-two candidate for the open position of San Jose Police chief. Two weeks later, Quan introduced a plan for the police department which included updating the technological staff and rehiring 10 of the 80 officers who were laid off the previous year. Batts announced his intention to remain in Oakland a few days later.

Quan has come under fire due a relationship with "unpaid legal adviser" Dan Siegel after Siegel represented the "mayor's office on various legal matters, from public records act requests to a private meeting with a judge overseeing a consent decree with the police department", according to the San Francisco Chronicle. The Oakland City Council issued a demand Siegel not represent the city as an attorney in any capacity, which by law falls under the jurisdiction of the City Attorney's office. Siegel had been considered a controversial figure at City Hall due to his supposed vocal criticism of Oakland Police, and his presence was reported to have exacerbated a feud between Quan and City Attorney John Russo. In June 2011, Russo left his post as Oakland City Attorney for the same position in Alameda.

A KPIX/CBS5 poll taken just before Mayor Quan's first 100 days revealed that her job performance "garners the approval of the city's residents by a 2-1 margin." The Capitol Weekly named Mayor Quan one of the top ten "Good" Mayors in the state.

External links

Mayor of Oakland Official Webpage

Jean Quan Personal Webpage

Jean Quan Facebook Page