Lai Jean Quan (born October 21, 1949) is an American politician that served as the 49th mayor of
Oakland, California
Oakland is the largest city and the county seat of Alameda County, California, United States. A major West Coast port, Oakland is the largest city in the East Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area, the third largest city overall in the ...
from 2011 to 2015. 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. Quan ran an unsuccessful campaign for reelection in 2014, losing the mayoral race to
Libby Schaaf
Elizabeth Beckman Schaaf (born November 12, 1965) is an American politician who has been Mayor of Oakland, California since 2015. A member of the Democratic Party, she previously served on the Oakland City Council.
Schaaf won the November 4, 2 ...
, a member of the Oakland City Council.
Personal life
Quan was born in
Livermore, California
Livermore (formerly Livermorès, Livermore Ranch, and Nottingham) is a city in Alameda County, California. With a 2020 population of 87,955, Livermore is the most populous city in the Tri-Valley. It is located on the eastern edge of Californi ...
. Her family ties in the
Bay Area
The San Francisco Bay Area, often referred to as simply the Bay Area, is a populous region surrounding the San Francisco, San Pablo, and Suisun Bay estuaries in Northern California. The Bay Area is defined by the Association of Bay Area Gov ...
date back to the 1870s, when her great-grandfather immigrated to
San Francisco
San Francisco (; Spanish for " Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the fourth most populous in California and 17t ...
from
Kaiping
Kaiping (), alternately romanized in Cantonese as Hoiping, is a county-level city in Guangdong Province, China. It is located ín the western section of the Pearl River Delta and administered as part of the prefecture-level city of Jiangmen. ...
Alameda County
Alameda County ( ) is a county located in the U.S. state of California. As of the 2020 census, the population was 1,682,353, making it the 7th-most populous county in the state and 21st most populous nationally. The county seat is Oakland. Alam ...
. They met at
UC Berkeley
The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant uni ...
as activists on Asian-American issues.
Oakland School Board and City Council
Quan was on the
Oakland
Oakland is the largest city and the county seat of Alameda County, California, United States. A major West Coast port, Oakland is the largest city in the East Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area, the third largest city overall in the Bay ...
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, th 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
Bill Clinton's tenure as the 42nd president of the United States began with his first inauguration on January 20, 1993, and ended on January 20, 2001. Clinton, a Democrat from Arkansas, took office following a decisive election victory over ...
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 textbooks, 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
National may refer to:
Common uses
* Nation or country
** Nationality – a ''national'' is a person who is subject to a nation, regardless of whether the person has full rights as a citizen
Places in the United States
* National, Maryland, c ...
with the perception Oakland schools were teaching students " Ebonics" because there was discussion about Ebonics being used as a teaching tool.
In 2002, Jean Quan was elected to her first term as Council Member for Oakland District 4 ( Allendale,
Brookdale Brookdale is the name of many settlements, institutions, and businesses in English-speaking countries.
Cities and towns
* Brookdale, California, an unincorporated town in Santa Cruz County
* Brookdale, Kansas
* Brookdale, Manitoba, an unincorporate ...
Maxwell Park
Maxwell Park is a neighborhood in Oakland, California located in the foothills of the city. It is geographically bordered by MacArthur Boulevard, High Street, Trask Street, Foothill Boulevard, and 55th Avenue and is adjacent to Mills College, I- ...
,
Melrose Melrose may refer to:
Places
United Kingdom
* Melrose, Scottish Borders, a town in the Scottish Borders, Scotland
** Melrose Abbey, ruined monastery
** Melrose RFC, rugby club
Australia
* Melrose, Queensland, a locality in the South Burnett R ...
, 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" which would funds annual programs of vegetation control, safety inspections and homeowner education, and green waste/composting programs, "Oakland Cultural Arts Funding" which would add 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" which would 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 the Alameda County Waste Management Authority (StopWaste.org) and the Alameda Recycling Board. She also authored and voted for legislation which banned the use of
polystyrene
Polystyrene (PS) is a synthetic polymer made from monomers of the Aromatic hydrocarbon, aromatic hydrocarbon styrene. Polystyrene can be solid or foamed. General-purpose polystyrene is clear, hard, and brittle. It is an inexpensive resin pe ...
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 front of the Dimond neighborhood
Safeway
Safeway is an American supermarket chain founded by Marion Barton Skaggs in April 1915 in American Falls, Idaho. The chain provides grocery items, food and general merchandise and features a variety of specialty departments, such as bakery, del ...
supermarket. 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
Instant-runoff voting (IRV) is a type of Ranked voting, ranked preferential Electoral system, voting method. It uses a Majority rule, majority voting rule in single-winner elections where there are more than two candidates. It is commonly referr ...
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. The top three finishers among a field of 10 candidates were Quan,
Don Perata
Don Richard Perata (born April 30, 1945) is a California lobbyist and former 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 first-place votes. The votes were then re-tallied by eliminating each candidate at the bottom, until one candidate obtained a majority. After several rounds of candidate elimination, the last candidate to be eliminated was Kaplan, the third-place candidate. Her votes were then allocated according to each voter's wishes to the remaining two candidates, Perata and Quan. The Alameda Registrar of voters then declared Quan the winner with 53,897 votes from 105,769 valid votes (50.96% of the valid votes).
Oakland Mayor
Initiatives
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.
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. Quan capitalized on this visibility by traveling to and meeting with potential trade and business partners for the City and Port of Oakland.
Education
Quan 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. In 2011, she also formed th Oakland Education Cabinet with the OUSD Superintendent and the Dean of the Mills College School of Education.
Crime
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 view 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 drug hotline went from 0 to 103 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. She has also begun helping rebuild the Oakland Police Department's workforce, by hiring more officers. In October 2011, Quan introduce Oakland's 100 Block Plan under the claim "90% of shootings and homicides occurred"in 5% of the City—or approximately 100 city blocks.". The premise for these statistics would be disproved by the Urban Strategies Council and disavowed by Quan and officials from Oakland's city government. The plan was overseen by Chief of Police Howard Jordan, but would prove to be underwhelming. Quan proposed the hiring of
Bill Bratton
William Joseph Bratton CBE (born October 6, 1947) is an American law enforcement officer and businessman who served two terms as the New York City Police Commissioner (1994–1996 and 2014–2016). He previously served as the Commissioner of th ...
, a former Chief of Police in Boston and Los Angeles, as a consultant on the departmental issues, which was later approved by the city council. Combined with the underwhelming results of the 100 Blocks Plan and Bratton's report on widespread issues within the Oakland Police Department led to Howard Jordan's eventual resignation in May 2013. Anthony Toribio would fill in the interim for two days until Quan appointed Deputy Chief Sean Whent. Under Chief Whent, the city implemented the Operation Ceasefire program, which emphasized components of restorative justice. In May 2014, Quan promoted Whent to the permanent position after a major drop in violent crime during his tenure, according to police statistics.
During the second week of Quan's tenure in January 2011, it was discovered
Oakland Police
The Oakland Police Department (OPD) is a law enforcement agency responsible for policing the city of Oakland, California, United States. As of May 2021, the department employed 709 sworn officers and 371 civilian employees. The department is div ...
chief
Anthony Batts
Anthony W. Batts (born 1960) is an American law enforcement officer who served as the chief of three different police departments in the United States: The Long Beach, California Police Department, the Oakland, California Police Department, and ...
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, but eventually resigned in October of the same year.
Quan has come under fire due to 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 ''San Francisco Chronicle'' is a newspaper serving primarily the San Francisco Bay Area of Northern California. It was founded in 1865 as ''The Daily Dramatic Chronicle'' by teenage brothers Charles de Young and Michael H. de Young. The pa ...
''. 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 to become City Manager for
Alameda
An alameda is a street or path lined with trees () and may refer to:
Places Canada
* Alameda, Saskatchewan, town in Saskatchewan
** Grant Devine Dam, formerly ''Alameda Dam'', a dam and reservoir in southern Saskatchewan
Chile
* Alameda (Santia ...
.
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. 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.
On October 26, 2011 it was reported Quan responded to a recall petition by saying she believed the signatories were frustrated with her lack of progress in creating jobs. She went on to KGO radio claiming "I'm too busy. ... I haven't even had a chance to look at the petitions."
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.
2011 Occupy Oakland protest
Mayor Quan received widespread national criticism in October 2011 for her handling of the Occupy Oakland protest. On October 11, Mayor Quan visited the protest site. 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. Quan issued a statement the next morning commending the police chief "for a generally peaceful resolution to a situation". 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 and her legal adviser opposed the police action and threatened to resign.
One protester, war veteran Scott Olsen, was hospitalized with a fractured skull after being struck in the forehead by police projectiles. On November 2, a second protester-veteran, Kayvan Sabehgi, suffered a ruptured spleen when he was hit and tackled by Oakland Police in an area away from the protests' center.
By November 14, two of Mayor Quan's top advisors, legal advisor Dan Siegel and Deputy Mayor Sharon Cornu, had resigned.
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."
Recall petition
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. The committee failed to collect enough signatures to qualify for a measure on the November 2012 ballot.
Cellphone use while operating a motor vehicle
Quan has been spotted using her cellular telephone numerous times by various San Francisco media, including "People Behaving Badly" Creator Stanley Roberts. On June 8, 2014, Quan was involved in a collision with a car in front of hers and it is alleged that she was again using her cellular telephone while operating a motor vehicle.
Coliseum City and the Prince of Dubai
On March 7, 2012, Quan unveiled an ambitious project to the media that was designed to improve the sports facilities of all three major league sports teams in the city (the
Oakland Raiders
The Oakland Raiders were a professional American football team that played in Oakland from its founding in 1960 to 1981 and again from 1995 to 2019 before relocating to the Las Vegas metropolitan area where they now play as the Las Vegas Ra ...
, the
Oakland Athletics
The Oakland Athletics (often referred to as the A's) are an American professional baseball team based in Oakland, California. The Athletics compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the American League (AL) West division. The t ...
, and the
Golden State Warriors
The Golden State Warriors are an American professional basketball team based in San Francisco. The Warriors compete in the National Basketball Association (NBA), as a member of the league's Western Conference Pacific Division. Founded in 194 ...
) and keep them from relocating to other markets, as well as attract new businesses to the city. The project, dubbed Coliseum City, had entailed the redevelopment of the existing Oakland–Alameda County Coliseum complex. The redevelopment would have seen the construction of two new stadiums on the present location, a baseball-only stadium and a football-only stadium, while
Oracle Arena
An oracle is a person or agency considered to provide wise and insightful counsel or prophetic predictions, most notably including precognition of the future, inspired by deities. As such, it is a form of divination.
Description
The word ''o ...
, home of the Warriors, would have been either rebuilt or undergone extensive renovations. A sum of $3.5 million was committed to preliminary planning on the project. However, no officials from any of Oakland's major league teams were present at the media conference.
In April 2014, after funding was thought to had dried up for the project, Quan gave an interview to KGMZ-FM where she announced that developers working on Coliseum City "are partnered literally with the prince of Dubai, who is next in line to lead Dubai. And they have capital."' The statement was immediately walked back by her spokesperson who said no actual partnership was in place, and Quan was criticized by members of city council for this.
2014 election
Quan ran for reelection in 2014. The leading candidates were Quan,
Libby Schaaf
Elizabeth Beckman Schaaf (born November 12, 1965) is an American politician who has been Mayor of Oakland, California since 2015. A member of the Democratic Party, she previously served on the Oakland City Council.
Schaaf won the November 4, 2 ...
, a member of the Oakland City Council, and Rebecca Kaplan, also a member of the city council. Though Kaplan was the early favorite, Schaaf finished first with 49 percent of the vote. Since no candidate received a majority and Quan finished third, she was eliminated in the subsequent ranked choice round. When Quan's ballots were redistributed, Schaaf was the second choice on more ballots than Kaplan, enabling Schaaf to win with 63 percent to Kaplan's 37. Schaaf was sworn in on January 5, 2015.