Defining a Civic Identity in Oakland Mayor’s Race

Most anyone placing bets last year would have wagered that this former bastion of black political leadership was headed for a milestone: its first Latino mayor.

City Council President Ignacio De La Fuente had locked up endorsements from leaders as far afield as Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa. The Mexican-born labor chief had battled his way into Oakland politics 14 years ago with a get-it-done attitude, literally sweeping every street in his district.

Although De La Fuente, 57, is disliked by some for his developer-friendly deal-making, his ability to force Oakland’s wheels of bureaucracy to turn -- and his enthusiasm for the unglamorous details of governance -- had few doubting he was next in line.

Then, former Rep. Ronald V. Dellums came home.

A political novice in 1967 when elected to Berkeley’s City Council, four years later he became the first African American congressman to represent a largely white district. He then shook his Beltway typecast as an “Afro-topped, bell-bottomed radical” to preside as chairman of the Armed Services Committee. He would breezily win reelection, again and again, before leaving Congress in 1998 to become a lobbyist.

Then, with retirement looming, the lanky septuagenarian with the halo of white hair turned the mayoral contest upside down. Lured back by supporters who implored him to run, last fall Dellums reluctantly agreed.

As the prodigal son who can claim mentorship of many black politicians still in office here, Dellums was expected to leave De La Fuente in the dust.

It has not been that simple: Many analysts now believe that Dellums will be forced into a runoff with De La Fuente. Councilwoman Nancy Nadel, whose politics are more aligned with those of Dellums, is also running in the June 6 election.

Dellums’ candidacy has underscored the city’s shifting racial landscape. A multi-ethnic coalition recruited Dellums, seeking a unifier. But among those backers were key African American leaders who view him as “their last best hope to keep some kind of visible black power in the East Bay,” said Robert Smith, a professor of political science at San Francisco State University.

More than a statement on race, the heated contest has become a referendum on Oakland’s civic identity.

On the one hand, residents crave a visionary who can guide a splintered city of rich and poor with no ethnic majority. On the other, they need a pragmatist to contend with rising violence, a school district in state receivership and city departments that struggle to keep streets and parks clean.

Dellums, with his trademark inspirational oratory, invites the community to “find the passion to stand up and engage.”

“Oakland can become a 21st century model city,” he said in a recent debate. “We can become a global trade center, global multicultural art center, a world-class center for sustainable energy and technology.”

Yet Dellums’ lofty words have in some ways enhanced appreciation of De La Fuente, who takes a nuts-and-bolts approach: “I will be the mayor who will make the city work.”

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After his father died, De La Fuente went to work at the age of 10 in the town of Tlanepantla, shining shoes, making fire logs from sawdust and kerosene, and eventually supervising truck loading at a cooking oil plant.

In his 20s, he came north. He landed a job at a Berkeley foundry and became active in union organizing after seeing minorities passed over for promotion.

He says he entered politics to try to keep good-paying jobs in Oakland, as manufacturing plants were closing. He lost once, then won a council seat in 1992.

Activist Agnes Ramirez-Grace said city officials ignored her Fruitvale neighborhood for decades. “They even ignored the poor blacks,” she said. “But Ignacio went to everybody.”

He gave them trees to plant and forced the city to pick up dumped goods, she said. He fought for a dozen years to develop a housing and shopping complex near the commuter rail station. Detractors view De La Fuente’s negotiating tactics as hardball and see him as too closely allied with Mayor Jerry Brown on development policies.

Brown, now running for attorney general, persuaded black leaders to back him eight years ago after two decades of African American mayors yielded little progress for the city’s poor.

Yet in a move that critics felt betrayed his progressive roots, Brown threw open the city to developers. The investment that followed cleaned up downtown, enhanced the tax base and attracted thousands of largely white residents while prompting an exodus of poorer African Americans.

When Brown fired a black police chief, then pushed through a strong-mayor form of government, the alienation intensified.

“There is pent-up feeling within the African American community of lack of access and lack of political power,” said Wilson Riles Jr., a councilman from 1979 to 1992. “Some of that pent-up feeling is pushing Dellums forward.” Dellums, to be sure, has never represented a narrow ethnic interest. He was propelled to Congress by the antiwar movement.

In Washington, his politics were mostly not local: He fought the B2 bomber program and helped stop the MX missile system.

But there were Oakland accomplishments: securing money for a science center, dredging the port and winning a federal building that now bears his name. Still, at 70, he never intended to wage a local political campaign.

Although Dellums’ support crosses ethnic lines, his candidacy carries symbolic weight for many African Americans.

Unlike in Los Angeles, Oakland’s growing Latino population has not yet built up its political muscle. Yet with changing demographics -- 36% black, 31% white, 22% Latino and 15% Asian in the last city census -- an identity crisis is undeniable. (The black population dropped 8 percentage points from a decade earlier.)

“I was talking to a group of young black professionals about seven years ago and they were saying, ‘We can’t lose Oakland.’ But of course, Oakland is lost,” said Smith, noting that for years the city had a black mayor and majority on the City Council.

At a recent West Oakland event, where Dellums spoke about his uncle, C.L. Dellums, who founded the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, one resident spoke to that loss. Dellums’ return “put the pride back in Oakland,” Cheryl Moore said. “It had left me. I didn’t want to be in Oakland any longer.”

De La Fuente backers, meanwhile, have seen the underside of that pride. “One woman who I called said, ‘I am black and I am going to vote for Dellums so don’t call anyone else in my neighborhood,’ ” said Ramirez-Grace.

“People slammed the door on us.”

Larry Reid, one of two African Americans on the City Council, was threatened with a campaign to unseat him after backing De La Fuente.

But perhaps most striking since Dellums’ return is the extent to which many voters have moved beyond race.

Looming large on the list of concerns is whether more demands should be placed on developers to provide community benefits, such as affordable housing, or whether such strings will scare them off.

De La Fuente gives Brown an A for his development strategy, while Dellums insists that more community payback is essential.

Both acknowledge the crises of rising homicides and failing schools. De La Fuente focuses on ways to improve one school at a time and vows to rid the streets of loiterers, dealers and nuisance criminals.

Dellums, meanwhile, speaks of listening to youths to give them hope for the future, providing more social services through the schools, and recruiting police officers from the community.

Most important to Dellums backers, however, is his pledge that problems won’t be addressed from the top down. “Ron is the only one who is saying let’s bring in the citizens to make a living, breathing community,” said Dedoceo Habi, a filmmaker.

Some Oakland residents, however, wonder whether Dellums, who has talked of universal healthcare, can put his mind to street sweeping and garbage collecting. The suggestion offends him.

“I mastered the $300-billion armed services budget,” he said mockingly at a recent gathering. “Then someone walks up and says, ‘Can you handle a $1-billion budget of the city of Oakland?’ Give me a break!”

The contrast has nonetheless been useful to De La Fuente, who casts himself as industrious technocrat.

“I will deliver for you,” he said recently, “not with airy ideas of promises like ‘universal healthcare for all’ but with concrete results.”

De La Fuente has attended nearly 200 house meetings, met with the principals of all Oakland schools and held nearly 50 forums.

In living rooms, he details plans to implement a municipal efficiency tracking system. He vows a Rudolph Giuliani-style assault on nuisance crime. And he pledges to appoint a deputy mayor of education to help raise funds for computers and extra teachers.

The no-nonsense ideas have appeal.

“When he talks to people, he can come off as very coarse -- like sandpaper,” said Vincent Williams, who attended a house party undecided but left a supporter. “But the most important thing is getting things done. We want results.”