Jean Quan | |||||||||||
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49th Mayor of Oakland | |||||||||||
In office January 3, 2011 [1] –January 5, 2015 | |||||||||||
Preceded by | Ron Dellums | ||||||||||
Succeeded by | Libby Schaaf | ||||||||||
Member of the Oakland City Council District 4 | |||||||||||
In office January 2003 –January 2011 | |||||||||||
Preceded by | Dick Spees [2] | ||||||||||
Succeeded by | Libby Schaaf | ||||||||||
Member of the Oakland School Board | |||||||||||
In office 1991–2003 | |||||||||||
Personal details | |||||||||||
Born | Lai Jean Quan October 21,1949 [3] Livermore,California,U.S. [3] | ||||||||||
Political party | Democratic | ||||||||||
Spouse | Floyd Huen | ||||||||||
Children | 2 | ||||||||||
Website | Quan for Oakland | ||||||||||
Chinese name | |||||||||||
Traditional Chinese | 關麗珍 | ||||||||||
Simplified Chinese | 关丽珍 | ||||||||||
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Lai Jean Quan (born October 21,1949) is an American politician who was the 49th mayor of Oakland,California from 2011 to 2015. She previously served as City Council member for Oakland's 4th District. [4] Upon inauguration on January 3,2011, [5] she became Oakland's first female mayor. [6] Quan ran an unsuccessful campaign for reelection in 2014,losing the mayoral race to Libby Schaaf,a member of the Oakland City Council. [7]
Quan was born in Livermore,California. Her family ties in the Bay Area date back to the 1870s,when her great-grandfather immigrated to San Francisco from Kaiping,Sze Yup. [3] Quan's husband,Dr. Floyd Huen,is a doctor of internal medicine for Alameda County. [8]
Quan was on the Oakland School Board for 12 years, [8] 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. [9] [10] She served as chair of the California Urban Schools Association,the Asian Pacific Islanders School Board Members Association (APISBMA),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.[ citation needed ] In these roles she advocated for more funding for urban and immigrant students,more inclusion of minority community history in textbooks,comprehensive school services and after school programs,and expansion of pre-school and adult education programs. [10]
In 1996 with Quan as president, [11] 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" because there was discussion about Ebonics being used as a teaching tool. [11]
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).[ citation needed ]
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". [12] No charges were filed against the Councilwomen. Quan was the victim of a street robbery in September of the same year,in front of the Dimond neighborhood Safeway supermarket. Quan attributed the crime to lack of employment opportunities in Oakland. [13]
In Oakland's 2010 election,was Quan the winner with 53,897 votes from 105,769 valid votes (50.96% of the valid votes). [14] [15]
Within her first six months in 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. [16] Her election as Oakland's first female mayor,and the first Chinese-American female mayor of a major U.S. city,resulted in high visibility nationally and internationally. [17] Quan capitalized on this visibility by traveling to and meeting with potential trade and business partners for the City and Port of Oakland. [18]
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. [19] 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. [20] Batts announced his intention to remain in Oakland a few days later,but eventually resigned in October of the same year. [21]
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." [22] The Capitol Weekly named Mayor Quan one of the top ten "Good" Mayors in the state. [23] A KPIX poll six months later,taken shortly after the resignation of Chief Batts,listed an approval rating of 28 percent,with 69 percent responding with "little or no confidence" the mayor's ability to reduce the city's crime problem. [24]
Quan remained unpopular in the city of Oakland. A 2013 SurveyUSA poll found 60 percent of residents disapproved of her job performance and 65 percent said the city was on the wrong track,with crime the voters' primary concern. The Asian-American community gave her the lowest marks,with 67 percent disapproving of her performance. [25]
Mayor Quan received widespread national criticism in October 2011 for her handling of the Occupy Oakland protest. [26] On October 11, Mayor Quan visited the protest site. [27] Thirteen days later more than 500 police officers from Oakland, other area police departments, and the State of California were directed to use tear gas and batons to clear the plaza where the protests were being held. Mayor Quan was in Washington, D.C. at the time on city business. [28] Quan issued a statement the next morning commending the police chief "for a generally peaceful resolution to a situation". [29] That night, hundreds of police used tear gas, rubber bullets, and flashbang grenades to subdue and arrest over 100 protesters, though denied the use of rubber bullets and flashbang grenades during the press release. The mayor's office was flooded with demands that protesters be released [30] and her legal adviser opposed the police action and threatened to resign. [31]
By November 14, two of Mayor Quan's top advisors, legal advisor Dan Siegel and Deputy Mayor Sharon Cornu, had resigned. [32]
Quan was criticized for apparent insensitivity at an Oakland City Council meeting on March 6, 2013. In a conversation with war veteran Scott Olsen, she accused him of having a "chip on his shoulder". Later, Olsen tweeted, "J. Quan told me she realizes I have a chip on my shoulder. Insulting, more like a broken skull and brain trauma." [33]
On December 7, 2011, the Oakland City Clerk's office approved the request by the Committee to Recall Jean Quan to begin collecting signatures to qualify a recall measure for a future ballot. [34] The committee failed to collect enough signatures to qualify for a measure on the November 2012 ballot. [35]
Quan ran for reelection in 2014 but lost. [7] [36] Schaaf was sworn in on January 5, 2015. [37]
Ronald Vernie Dellums was an American politician who served as Mayor of Oakland from 2007 to 2011. He had previously served thirteen terms as a Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from California's 9th congressional district, in office from 1971 to 1998, after which he worked as a lobbyist in Washington, D.C.
The Oakland Seaport is a major container ship facility located in Oakland, California, in the San Francisco Bay. It is operated by the Port of Oakland port authority along with the San Francisco Bay Oakland International Airport. It was the first major port on the Pacific Coast of the United States to build terminals for container ships. As of 2022, it was the eighth busiest container port in the United States, behind the ports of Los Angeles, New York/New Jersey, Long Beach, Savannah, Houston, Virginia, and Seattle/Tacoma. Development of an intermodal container handling system in 2002 after over a decade of planning and construction positions the Oakland Seaport for further expansion of the West Coast freight market share. In 2019 it ranked 8th in the United States in the category of containers.
Daniel Mark Siegel is a civil-rights attorney at the Oakland-based law firm Siegel, Yee, Brunner & Mehta, former legal adviser to Oakland Mayor Jean Quan, and candidate in the 2014 Oakland mayoral race. He specializes in employment and labor law.
Ignacio De La Fuente is a former Oakland City Councilmember. He was also the President of Oakland's City Council until January 2009, when he became vice mayor of Oakland. De La Fuente was an unsuccessful candidate for mayor of Oakland in 1998, 2006, and 2022.
Oscar Grant III was a 22-year-old Black man who was killed in the early morning hours of New Year's Day 2009 by BART Police Officer Johannes Mehserle in Oakland, California. Responding to reports of a fight on a crowded Bay Area Rapid Transit train returning from San Francisco, BART Police officers detained Grant and several other passengers on the platform at the Fruitvale BART Station. BART officer Anthony Pirone kneed Grant in the head and forced Grant to lie face down on the platform. Mehserle drew his pistol and shot Grant. Grant was rushed to Highland Hospital in Oakland and pronounced dead later that day. The events were captured on bystanders’ mobile phones. Owners disseminated their footage to media outlets and to various websites where it went viral. Both protests and riots took place in the following days.
Novella Carpenter is the author of the 2009 memoir Farm City: The Education of an Urban Farmer. The book describes her extensive garden in Ghost Town, a run-down neighborhood about a mile from downtown Oakland, California. Farm City was listed by some reviewers as one of the top books of 2009, and it was the 2014 selection of the Marin County Free Library, City Public Libraries of Marin County and Dominican University of California "One Book One Marin" reading program.
Occupy Oakland refers to a collaboration and series of demonstrations in Oakland, California, that started in October 2011. As part of the Occupy movement, protesters have staged occupations, most notably at Frank H. Ogawa Plaza in front of Oakland City Hall.
The following is a timeline of Occupy Oakland which began on Monday, October 10, 2011, as an occupation of Frank H. Ogawa Plaza located in front of Oakland City Hall in downtown Oakland, and is an ongoing demonstration. It is allied with Occupy Wall Street, which began in New York City on September 17, 2011, and is one of several "Occupy" protest sites in the San Francisco Bay Area. Other sites include Occupy San Francisco and Occupy San Jose.
The 2011 Oakland general strike was a demonstration held in Oakland, California on November 2, 2011 as part of the larger Occupy Oakland movement.
Since September 2011, the Occupy movement has spread to over 80 countries and 2,700 towns and cities, including in over 90 cities in the United States alone. The movement has generated reactions from the media, the general public, the United States government, and from international governments.
Elizabeth Beckman Schaaf is an American politician who served as the 50th Mayor of Oakland, California from 2015 to 2023. A member of the Democratic Party, she previously served on the Oakland City Council.
Timothy Scott Campbell, et al. v. City of Oakland, et al. is an ongoing civil rights lawsuit in the US District Court of Northern California.
The Oakland City Council is an elected governing body representing the City of Oakland, California.
The Chief of the Oakland Police Department is an office held by the executive head and highest-ranking officer of the Oakland Police Department. The chief was first established in 1853. The chief manages and oversees the planning, development and implementation of all law enforcement and crime prevention programs for the City. They provide leadership, vision and direction to the Department and its command staff and promotes collaboration, communication and coordination with other city agencies and community organizations.
Nathan Ballard is a U.S. Democratic strategist and attorney. He was the communications director for the governor of California, Gavin Newsom, when Newsom was the 42nd mayor of San Francisco. He is a longtime friend and advisor to Newsom. He sat on the board of directors of The Representation Project, Jennifer Siebel Newsom's nonprofit organization. Ballard had close ties with the 43rd mayor of San Francisco, Ed Lee. He was an advisor to Mark Farrell, the 44th mayor of San Francisco.
In 2010, due to escalating gang activity and high crime rates in Oakland, California, the Oakland city attorney's office under John Russo sought gang injunctions in Oakland against multiple gangs, with the first coming into effect in May of that year. A second injunction was sought from 2010 to 2012, with a preliminary injunction approved in June 2011 and the full injunction approved in February 2012. A gang injunction is a court-issued restraining order that prohibits named gang members from participating in a variety of specified activities. The injunctions were controversial, with opponents citing concerns about their high costs and the possibility of civil rights violations, while proponents felt that the city had not adequately supported the injunctions. In 2015, city attorney Barbara Parker dismissed both injunctions.
The history of Oakland, a city in the county of Alameda, California, can be traced back to the founding of a settlement by Horace Carpentier, Edson Adams, and Andrew Moon in the 19th century. The area now known as Oakland had seen human occupation for thousands of years, but significant growth in the settlements that are now incorporated into the city did not occur until the Industrial Revolution. Oakland was first incorporated as a town in 1852.
The 2014 Oakland mayoral election was held on November 4, 2014 to elect the mayor of Oakland, California. It saw the election of Libby Schaaf, who unseated incumbent mayor Jean Quan.
The 2010 Oakland mayoral election was held on November 2, 2010 to elect the mayor of Oakland, California, electing Jean Quan to be their mayor. In early August 2010, incumbent mayor Ron Dellums announced that he would not be seeking reelection to a second term. In November 2010, Oakland also instant-runoff voting to elect its mayor, three city council races and four other local offices, with the elections for the mayor and Oakland council district four requiring multiple rounds of counting. Oakland used instant-runoff voting in the city's remaining elected offices in 2012. IRV was again used in 2014 and 2016, including in the 2014 mayoral election in which incumbent Jean Quan was defeated by Libby Schaaf.
The East Bay within the San Francisco Bay Area has historically had a significant Black population, in comparison to the other counties and cities nearby. Culture of the area has been shaped by the Black population. Most notably the 1960s formation of the Black Panther Party happened in city of Oakland, which also served as the headquarters.