Brown the Mayor Rues Brown the Reformer

A generation or so ago, a well-intentioned, well-bred and well-positioned crusader sans peer pushed a bold new package of laws to cleanse the state’s electoral system of the nasty aftertaste of Watergate. As part of a statewide initiative to curb conflicts of interest, he crafted Proposition 9 to prevent, among other things, property owners from cashing in if they are elected to public office. Nearly 70% of California’s voters embraced what became, for better or worse, the incredibly expanding Political Reform Act of 1974.

With the best of intentions, the activist attempted to tamp down the temptations that are known to sneak up on the mover-shaker class. But he left too much of the law open to legal interpretation by courts, administrators and the watchdog commission that his ballot measure created. As the years passed, the act got fatter, thanks to reams of interpretive regulations.

Meanwhile, the activist grew up and acquired property of his own. He bought low and invested wisely in improvements. He cleared the land of blight and struck a balance of aesthetics and function in a “live-work” space in a waterfront warehouse.

It turns out that the political-ethics crusader was unable to resist for long the public eye. He reinvented himself as a visionary civic leader and got himself elected mayor. The bloom of activism never really faded from his cheeks, and, today, he is fighting the good fight from the opposite direction for developers, commercial interests and a broader tax base for his city. Mindful of the irony, he is attacking the very law he helped write a generation ago. Our reformer would now reform his outmoded reforms.

Oakland Mayor Jerry Brown, once a two-term governor of California, is today a thoroughly downscaled crusader caught in a bind of his own making.

It is Brown’s own Political Reform Act, born a lifetime ago of Proposition 9, that prevents the current incarnation of Governor Moonbeam from fulfilling his latest vision of a revitalized downtown Oakland, complete with hotels, retail and thriving tourist destinations. The act prevents officeholders from participating in decisions that might affect property values within 2,500 feet of their holdings. In Oakland, that’s 111 blocks, easily the bulk of the Lower Broadway redevelopment project that Brown has been trying to spearhead.

On Friday, an animated and sometimes funny Brown, ever passionate, argued his case for three hours before the state Fair Political Practices Commission, trying to persuade commissioners he deserved an exemption to the 1974 law. If not he, then who could infuse Oakland with new life, he pleaded. Leadership gridlock had left it a dead city, its streets so empty in the evening that “You can go out on Monday night at 6:30 and lie down in the middle of the street and go to sleep,” Brown said.

With a nod to his formidable foes in the neighborhood association, who were present to head-butt the mayor, Brown pleaded, “I feel as if I’m up against incredible odds here. This is either an incredibly sophisticated case of civic participation--or a case of recalcitrant, mindless NIMBYism. I’m talking about cheerleading and cajoling with developers to build hotels, and I end up arguing with the [neighborhood association] every step of the way.”

Once or twice, the ruling body of commissioners appeared sympathetic, ready to grant Brown the exemption he sought. But it didn’t happen. His request to allow his participation in decisions involving future development, landscaping, height restrictions, parking and housing density was denied. “There is something strange about having the mayor, of all people, not involved in these issues,” conceded FPPC Chairwoman Karen A. Getman. “I find it quite ironic that we could have a fuller discussion of these issues in our Sacramento hearing room than the mayor is now permitted in his city.”

Still, no one disputed that Brown did have a conflict of interest. The mayor sunk $1 million into his residence and is in a good position to profit from the once-gritty city’s gentrification. The corrugated metal warehouse he built and occupies is a short jaunt from the waterfront and ideally positioned near guidebook-perfect Jack London Square. Its first floor is devoted to work space, a community kitchen, an indoor garden and a conference area mainly for volunteers in We the People, the nonprofit group Brown founded. Upstairs are his living quarters. Overall, the interior, with its cavernous, open-space design, feels very flowing and new age as Brown does, still.

Ever boyish in his charm, Brown fumed after the commission turned him down, citing worries that every Tom, Dick and Harriet would come out of the woodwork with similar requests to pooh-pooh conflict-of-interest laws. “We’re talking about, ‘Don’t be mayor for 111 blocks.’ We’re talking about the mayor being told to get out of town. This is wrong,” Brown whined. “I’d like to have the option of withdrawing my request.” Then he threatened to sue.

“I have no doubt that we will see Mayor Brown back here again,” Getman said.

Oh, what a tangled web our reformers do sometimes weave. *