In this installment of The Oakland Mayor's Race Chronicles, this blogger just received a call from Oakland Mayoral Candidate Greg Harland, and boy did he have a lot to say on the record.
First, Harland was really pissed with something
he thinks was written by Bob Gammon of The East Bay Express, but appears on the The Anybody But Perata Website, which is
written and managed by J. Douglas Allen-Taylor. This is it:
Greg Harland Reverses Field, Now Says Perata Is His Second Choice For Mayor Of Oakland
Oakland mayoral candidate Greg Harland has suddenly changed his position on Don Perata, telling voters at a Thursday night candidates forum at Holy Names College that Perata is now his second choice for mayor of Oakland.
Harland said he felt Perata had the experience and was "well-qualified" to become Oakland's next mayor.
With all Oakland voters getting second and third choices for mayor this year in the city's new "ranked choice" voting format, candidates at the forum were asked who their second and third choices would be on the ballot.
Harland's position on Perata is a marked change from his position only a month ago. At the September 14 Oakland Climate Action Coalition mayoral debate at the Oakland Museum, Harland said that Perata was "not the candidate for Oakland," adding that Perata's front-runner status in the campaign was only due to "name recognition," which Harland implied was a poor way to pick a city leader. "If Charles Manson came to Oakland and ran for mayor, he'd beat us all out," Harland said.
Earlier in the campaign, Harland was one of the few mayoral candidates to offer specific criticism of Perata...
Harland has offered no explanation as to his abrupt change of opinion of Perata, or his change of tactics in now repeatedly attacking Perata's closest competitors in the mayor's race.
Ok, fine. Frankly, what appeared above is much ado about nothing to this blogger's view. But Harland wants you to know he's not altered his position and says that his ranked choice is Harland, Don Perata, and then Councilmember Rebecca Kaplan (At-Large). And in fairness to Greg, Perata was always his second choice, even with the criticism of him.
But again, so what. The big deal is Greg Harland just goes off about Councilmember Jean Quan (District 4 - Oakland Hills, Montclair) in his conversation with me.
Greg said I could quote him on the record, so here it is and there's more: Harland thinks openly that Quan would be a disaster as Mayor of Oakland. He characterizes her as mean and vindictive, and uses an episode at the Oakland Rotary Club as one example.
About a month ago, Greg claims he was invited to The Rotary Club to speak, but as he said to me "there's Jean walking around with Sue Piper (her very good assistant) and placing things on the tables. Then a person representing The Oakland Rotary Club comes to me and says 'Jean Quan's here so we are going to give her a few minutes to speak.'" Harland said he was going to leave, but was encouraged to stay. Quan talked for over her given time and into his, so he quietly protested and The Oakland Rotary tapped Quan on the shoulder to get her to give up the podium. She did so.
Then Greg tells the story of how Jean, he claims, threatened to "come after him" if he failed to tell the truth about her impact on the Oakland Unified School District.
Harland writes this on his website:
I’ve been asked many times whom I would recommend for my second choice on the ballot. Jean Quan has said this is a contest only between her and Don Perata, and the other eight candidates are not even in the race. That might be true but for over thirty forums, I’ve listened to Jean Quan present her twenty years of service to the city, 12 on the OUSD School Board and 8 on the Oakland City Council. She says while on the OUSD School Board, she raised teachers’ salaries and hired more teachers to reduce class sizes. When I checked the records, I found that was true: she did raise teachers’ salaries, almost 24%, in addition to hiring more teachers to reduce class sizes.
And all of that would be laudable, except for the fact that it took the school district into such a deep bankruptcy that they couldn’t actually find the bottom. The result was they had to lay off 330 teachers and counselors, and 260 staff. To this day she refuses to accept responsibility for this and blames it on the state, which came in and rescued the district with a 100 million dollar loan. Jean then went on to greener pastures, and ran for City Council.
During her tenure on the City Council, in 2004 and 2005, she voted for the police and fire salaries and pensions that we’re choking on today. Now she demonizes them, saying the police should pay their pensions just like all the other unions. In addition, she showed up at the second Oscar Grant protest and participated in obstructing the police when they tried to disperse the crowd. In light of all of that, how could she possibly sit across the table in negotiations with the police, and ask them to do the right thing? Negotiations take credibility and good will.
The simple fact Harland spent that much time on Quan gives you a good idea of how he feels. At one point in our talk this morning, I said "Greg, you're being mean to Jean." Greg said, "Me? What about her? F-her."
This little feud has gone on for a while. One time, Greg says that Jean came up and threatened to take down his lawn signs. (Frankly, it's hard to write that without laughing.) Harland says Quan bullies him, or at least tries to from his perspective.
Wild. But lest you think Quan's not the only mayoral candidate he's got an issue with, he also mentions that Joe Tuman "steals the ideas of other candidates," and that's a claim which first came from Terrance Candell months ago. Joe does have a habit of not attributing ideas to a source, but he's smart enough to at least adopt the right ideas.
For example,
in my video interview, Joe says he wants to go back to chalking tires to mark parked cars, rather than the electronic crap we've got now and the predatory parking practice the city established. That's awesome. But the idea was Grand Lake Theater Owner Allan Michaan's, not Joe's. What I said to Greg on the phone is that as long as Joe's listening to the right ideas, who cares? But that's me, not Greg or Terrance. Heck, they can't take some of his ideas.
But he goes on.
Harland claims that Tuman's idea for police early retirement was originally Rebecca Kaplan's. What's interesting is that some of Rebecca's supporters have massively hammered Joe for what was Kaplan's idea!
Too funny.
But guess who escapes this mayoral candidate infighting without a mark in Greg's view? Don Perata. Harland says that of all the candidates, Perata is the one who's not changed his position. Now, Harland may not have paid attention to the whole Public Ethics Commission issue, where Perata first said he would abolish it, then said he would retain it. But that's a little detail there of little importance, right?
Closing on the matter of Harland and Quan, the after the campaign is over, the two of them should tell their significant others to go on vacations, then get together and have great post-campaign sex. Considering the way they've screwed each other before the election, it's a great way to finish after it.
Stay tuned.
