Governor race: Jerry Brown's lessons from Oakland
- October 8, 2010
This isn't the first time Jerry Brown finds himself drawn to the challenge of a messed-up government.
Twelve years before his current campaign to govern a state some say verges on ungovernable, the Democrat set his sites on running the troubled city of Oakland. The municipality regularly ranks with the nation's most crime-ridden, poorly educated, and underemployed cities.
Brown aimed high, vowing to improve schools, reduce crime and revitalize downtown. His plan for a redevelopment renaissance promised new stores, restaurants, arts venues, homes, and 10,000 new residents. Instead of the liberal he's often stereotyped as, Brown became a tough-on-crime, pro-development mayor, according to Kim Geron, a political science professor at CSU East Bay.
"He really acted as a centrist, and was friendly to the business community," Geron said. "He got flak from the progressive community."
But Brown's big promises ran into some hard realities. While he brought dramatic development to downtown, he was less successful on other fronts. Now, in his run for governor, the campaign pitch is more tempered.
"He's not promising so much this time," Geron said. "He's being more realistic. He understands how immense the state's problems are."
Tackling Oakland
Brown, 72, learned some lessons and honed some skills in Oakland, and his tenure from 1999 to 2007 is more telling of how he would govern the state now than his stint three decades ago as governor, said Oakland Councilman Ignacio de la Fuente. But Brown's prior political notoriety was key to launching his efforts in the East Bay city of 400,000.
"There aren't too many people who can bring that kind of star power, who can bring that many connections, who can pick up the phone and call the biggest developers in San Francisco and get them involved in Oakland," said de la Fuente, who ran against Brown in 1998 but later became an ally.
His reputation helped him get in the door, but Brown's downtown redevelopment successes came from hands-on attention, according to Phil Tagami, a longtime Oakland developer.
"He created accountability," said Tagami, who built the city's $50 million Rotunda Building and helped renovate its historic Fox Theater. "He took responsibility. He basically worked on it seven days a week. It was a different approach than a lot of people who take an executive position and then delegate everything."
Tagami supported de la Fuente in the 1998 election, but said Brown quickly recruited him to help transform downtown.
"We didn't always agree, but he'd always listen," Tagami said. "And he'd be flexible. If he didn't know something but had preconceived notions, he could set those aside and use logic to determine the best path."
By Tagami's accounting, $2 billion in private capital was invested in downtown Oakland during Brown's two terms and 11,000 new people moved there, many seeking more affordable housing than was available across the Bay. The efforts helped boost the city's tax base, although the economic downturn since Brown left office has contributed to vacancies and halted projects.
Republican opponent Meg Whitman has attacked Brown for increasing taxes in Oakland, but the $500 million in new taxes -- to be assessed over several decades -- were approved by two-thirds of city voters for education and libraries in a series of ballot measures. Whitman's attacks on Brown for Oakland's crime and schools have also been criticized as exaggerations, but they are nonetheless key areas Brown fell short of his promises.
He once said he'd make Oakland as safe as the neighboring Walnut Creek, where the median family income is $113,000. He instituted a crime database and increased the police force by 25 percent. Total crimes in 1998 were 37,182 and fell to 31,943 by his last full year in office, according to FBI statistics. But the number of murders his last year was twice that in 1998.
He led the charge to change city government to a strong-mayor structure, but failed in his effort to gain control of the school board. A majority of board members resisted his proposals and rejected his pick for superintendent. Brown ally Don Perata, then president pro tem of the state Senate, engineered a state takeover of the school system in 2004 and helped cover a $100 million deficit, while Brown himself withdrew from the larger reform effort to focus on the two successful charter schools he helped establish.
Overhauling the school system was probably the first goal Brown gave up on, said Fulbright scholar Frederick Douzet, whose book on Oakland, "The Changing Colors of Power," was first published in French and is soon to be published here.
"Overall, Oakland did better under Jerry Brown's administration until he seemed to lose interest in the city while preparing to run for state attorney," Douzet said. "(But) despite his achievements, it will be hard for Jerry Brown to use Oakland as a success story."
Geron was a bit more generous.
"I give him credit for coming in and trying to help Oakland, which has had serious problems for a long time," Geron said. "The things he could have an influence on, he did."
The challenge ahead
While Brown has evolved since he was governor three decades ago, Tagami said some of the old qualities remain -- including sensibilities that led him to twice veto public employee pay hikes and to embrace Proposition 13 once it passed, even though he campaigned against it.
"There's a long history of Jerry having conflicts with organized labor and he has a history of compromise," Tagami said. "On all counts, everyone is in for some surprises. It's not going to be business as usual."
That's doesn't mean he's going to be able to win over many conservative Republican legislators, Douzet said.
"He's very liberal socially, but has become more conservative economically so he might be able to get some support among moderate Republicans," she said.
Brown's Oakland experience may tell us as much about the nature of government as about Brown's abilities, Geron said. Some troubles are beyond the reach of a single leader.
"Nobody can fix the economy or create jobs," he said. "Those are bigger problems than the governor can deal with. But maybe he'll be able to broker some deals between labor and management and maybe he'll be able to rally Republican votes in the Legislature."
Tagami agreed that the state needs more than a good governor.
"I see Jerry as a very capable reformer," the builder said. "The question is whether we the people are willing to make the sacrifices to restore underlying values of thrift and efficiency and personal accountability. We're at a very interesting crossroads."
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