MAYORAL CANDIDATE QUESTIONNAIRE

Please complete, sign and e-mail to

Oaklanders@MakeOaklandBetterNow.org

Candidate Name: Rebecca Kaplan

1773 Broadway
510 452 4527
www.KaplanForMayor.org
Campaign@KaplanForMayor.org

City Budget

1. Please state your position on the following November ballot measures:

Measure V (increased medical cannabis tax and new non-medical cannabis tax).
Answer: Support

Measure W (telephone trunk line and access line taxes). Answer: Support

Measure X ($360 parcel tax). Answer: Oppose

Measure Y (suspends police staffing appropriation requirements for collection of

2004 Measure Y parcel tax). Answer: Support

2. In June, the City Budget director reported that Oakland faced a five-year
general purpose fund structural deficit of $589 million. (See page 19 of City
Administrator’s report at http://tiny.cc/5jytp and a spread sheet adding the numbers at
http://tiny.cc/9sowf). After the City Council’s recent budget amendments, much of that
structural deficit remains. As mayor, what steps will you take to eliminate that deficit?
Answer:

Oakland’s budget deficit is the result both of the current economic downturn,
and also the result of many years of expensive decisions that have not been paid for.
Our financial crisis must be addressed, as it negatively impacts all of our other goals.
This means planning for the long-term, and ending the practice of making long-
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term fiscal promises that are paid for by putting future generations deeper into debt.
Balancing next year’s budget and laying the groundwork for eliminating the
structural deficit will be a core responsibility of the next administration, and will
require devoted leadership. I will work immediately to resolve the impasse regarding
police pension contributions, seeking a 9% pension contribution as part of a
strategy to eliminate police layoffs, to address that component of the structural
deficit. I will also work immediately to refinance outside debt payments to lower
interest rates, and reduce total outside debt, and switch to lower-cost sources, in
order to reduce the component of the structural deficit made up of debt payments.
In the short-term, the City can take immediate revenue-raising measures including
repositioning City assets that are currently losing money, and personnel
management actions such as retirement incentives to lower personnel costs. I will
also work to strongly enforce blight laws, particularly regarding vacant blighted
foreclosed properties which are being neglected by the foreclosing banks and are
becoming crime magnets in our neighborhoods. Enforcing blight fines will serve to
bring in revenue from the fines themselves, will help reinvigorate our
neighborhoods by eliminating sources of crime and blight, and will help return
properties to real use as homes in our community, which will help stabilize our
revenue base with property taxes and transfer taxes.

We must also aggressively seek outside funding for planning efforts and
infrastructure repair, such as the funds for local street, road, and sidewalk repair I
successfully advocated to be included in the Alameda County Vehicle Registration
Fee, and the new free Broadway Shuttle for which I helped land grant funding. In
addition, I will effectively obtain outside grants for projects such as transit-oriented
development in key locations, which will add to local employment and business,
and therefore to the tax base. In the medium term the City must encourage organic
tax-base growth by cutting red tape and other barriers to businesses, rewrite the
business tax code and zoning code to encourage job growth and economic
revitalization, and adopt best management practices, including contemporary
technology, to make our systems more responsive, efficient and effective.
Civilianizing certain roles in the police department, and changing the relationship
between the City and the Port, are part of this effort. In the long term, Oakland must
significantly increase the tax base by attracting new industries and new investment,
and lower infrastructure maintenance costs by taking action now that will pay off in
the future. Such steps include implementing a clear plan for retail growth; changing
zoning, identifying infrastructure needs and revamping recruitment and marketing
programs to attract growth industries; and increasing City road and sewer repair
efforts (including seeking outside funding) so these infrastructure costs decrease,
rather than increase, over the long term. We cannot continue patchwork, short-
term budgeting, but must budget for today with an eye to tomorrow, instead of
passing costs into the future.

3. Budgeted expenditures reflect a city’s priorities. When you present your

first budget to the City Council for consideration, what current city functions will you give

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the highest priority, and how will your proposed budget reflect that prioritization? For
what city functions will you reduce or eliminate expenditures? Answer:

In hiring a City Administrator and budgeting with an eye for the long-term I will
implement the kind of responsive leadership and long-term planning needed to
make the right choices. My first task after being elected Mayor will be to launch a
genuine, unbiased, nationwide recruitment process for the new City Administrator
and other key management posts (e.g. Budget Director), with the goal of hiring the
best and brightest to be the next generation of City leadership. Many of the specific
budget proposals I will bring are outlined in Question 2 above, and include
civilianizing some police positions, expanding revenue through business attraction
and better handling of our housing and foreclosure issues, and by closing the deal
to have police pension contributions as a strategy to end layoffs. While I recognize
that there are many spending mandates, unique revenue sources, and collective
bargaining agreements that reduce budgetary flexibility, one of my goals for my first
budget is to reverse the downward spiral of cuts to park and road maintenance,
because performing maintenance early saves costs for the long run. I will restore
information technology funding, and use that technology to implement systems
(such as an online business permit and tax system) to reduce internal delays and
help businesses open. I will better leverage outside funds for local projects,
including parks and transit-oriented development. In addition, Oakland is currently
subsidizing several buildings which are not being put to productive use, and I will
work to shift those assets in ways to make them revenue-generating.

I will change the budget process to create methods for considered public
input and real opportunity to adopt effective proposals. I will publish a draft budget
well in advance of the adoption deadline, in order to gather more ideas to ensure
the document reflects Oakland’s priorities and explores all solutions and
efficiencies. I will include evaluation of the Redevelopment budget, and debt
financing issues, into the budget considerations so we bring all tools to the table for
comprehensive budgetary discussions.

4. Each of the city’s labor agreements will open during your term as mayor,
which means that wages and benefits will be up for negotiation. As mayor, what will be
your plan for balancing the city’s interests in maximizing taxpayer services per tax dollar
and retaining and attracting skilled and motivated employees?

Answer:

It is essential that the next Mayor work effectively to resolve labor negotiations. This
includes working with the community and city workers to improve service to the
public in these tough economic times. This includes, as mentioned above, the
pension imbalance, and also using more cost-effective strategies to end layoffs,
such as retirement incentives. (Since senior workers are more highly paid than junior
workers, when there are reductions in workforce size, it is more cost-effective to
use retirement incentives rather than using the “last hired, first fired” approach). This

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includes also reviewing the needed number of managers, and seeking other
strategies, such as making permits available online, to save money and improve
service for the public.

Public Safety

5. Under recent adjustments to the 2010-11 budget, 120 police officers are
scheduled to be laid off in January 2011 (in addition to the 80 laid off in July 2010) if
Measure V, W, X and Y do not pass. If you are elected in November and these
measures are not enacted, will these layoffs take place? If not, what specific budgetary
steps will you take to prevent them? Answer:

I oppose the police layoffs, I voted against them this past Spring, and I continue to
believe that the right answer is to negotiate a solution which involves police pension
contributions and averting layoffs. My plan, when elected Mayor, is NOT to engage
in police layoffs, but rather, to avert the layoffs through a combination of pension
reform and the use of retirement incentives as the backup plan if force reduction is
necessary. Layoffs are an inefficient way to reduce costs because the lowest-paid
officers, whose training has been a significant investment by the City, are the first to
be let go. Therefore retirement incentives allow us to keep more cost-effective
officers on the payroll. There is also significant room for negotiation with the Police
Officers’ Association on the pension issue - as I have publicly stated, it was a huge
mistake for the City negotiating team to premise pension payments on the passage
of a tax – especially one that is polling so poorly. In numerous cities, including San
Francisco and San Jose, the police force pays a significant percentage of their
pensions and this can reasonably be accomplished in Oakland. In addition Oakland
is currently seeking additional Federal assistance for policing and I will support
those efforts, including working to include public safety as a component to other
funds. I will be able to negotiate from a position of strength with an unbiased
perspective, and so I see many other options than layoffs next year if the revenue
measures on the November ballot fail to pass.

6. Several citizens groups have advocated “civilianizing” police functions that

do not require the use of sworn officers, arguing that using civilians for such functions
as police misconduct complaint intake, press relations and property crime investigations
can substantially cut personnel costs and maximize the availability and effectiveness of
sworn officers. Chief Garcon of San Francisco implemented civilianization in Mesa,
Arizona and has begun doing so in San Francisco. Do you support civilianization, and if
so, for what functions? Answer:

Yes, I support civilianizing these types of police functions, so the City of Oakland
can provide vital public safety services at a lower cost, and ensure that we are using
our police officers in the most effective way possible. I support the above examples
of civilianization, and further, I support civilianizing certain roles in evidence
processing, clerical functions, and gaining efficiency by management through the

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use of a “CompStat”-style deployment system. As Mayor I will work with the Police
Chief to implement this process of civilianization.

7. At the end of your first term as mayor, how many sworn police officers do
you believe Oakland should have, and what steps will you take to accomplish that goal?
Answer:

We have recently seen an example of success when Oakland reached a police force
strength of 850 officers, crime went down. With effective and consistent
deployment of community policing “beat” officers we can continue to reduce crime,
prevent it through visible police patrols, and build the kind of community-police
relations which help solve crime and strengthen public safety for the long term. It
appears that 850 officers is about the minimum needed for these goals (the current
size of the Long Beach Police force, a City that shares many traits with Oakland and
is regarded as a crime-reduction success, is 850 officers) and I will work to get our
force back up to this number as soon as possible. In addition, I will work with the
Chief to develop ongoing plans as well, including incorporating his
recommendation of 950 officers, while also working to identify which new positions
must be with sworn officers, and which duties could best be handled by civilians. In
other words, I envision during my four year term seeking to add more than 100
personnel, but some of these personnel will be civilians, which will free up existing
officers for other work. We will need to improve recruitment and academies, and
continue to strengthen the “grow our own” programs to recruit Oakland residents
to become our future police officers.

8. In recent years, key components of community policing in Oakland have

been the interactions between the Measure Y Neighborhood Beat Officers,
Neighborhood Safety Coordinators, community members and Neighborhood Crime
Prevention Councils. The Neighborhood Beat Officers have now been eliminated, and
the functions of the NSC’s have been consolidated. To what extent do you believe
community policing is important, and if you believe it is important, how can it be
accomplished in Oakland? Answer:

I fully and strongly support community policing, specifically the importance of

assigning officers to regular beats so that they get to know a specific area, and are
better able to solve crimes and improve community police relations. I oppose the
cuts to “problem solving officers”, also known as neighborhood beat officers. Not
only have Neighborhood Beat Officers been eliminated and NSCs cut (and there are
proposals for entirely eliminating the NSCs), but the budgets of the Neighborhood
Crime Prevention Councils have been cut, so it is no longer possible for NCPCs to
communicate with their neighbors without raising funds to cover postage and
copying, a significant challenge in many neighborhoods. I strongly believe in
community policing and I do not think that eliminating these community policing
functions is the right way to proceed. Neighborhood beat officers are a small
percentage of the overall force and have been proven effective, and NSCs are a
great example of how civilians working for the police department can have a

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significant impact on crime. We must strengthen the bonds of the community and
police department, and beat officers are an important part of this.

Public Works

9. In its April, 2009 performance audit of the Oakland Public Works

department (http://tiny.cc/afihq), Matrix Consulting Group, which conducted the audit,
recommended that:
a. The City should be replacing or rehabilitating an average of 1% to 2% of
its sanitary sewer mains each year” at a cost of about $7.5 million; and
b. The City should be spending approximately $30 million annually for the
repair and replacement of the City’s streets (at the time of the audit, the
annual expenditure was $7.2 million).

Matrix also noted that the General Purpose Fund contribution to the Public Works
budget was far less than that of comparable California cities, and made a series of
recommendations (at pages 24-25) for adequate funding of the city’s public works
needs. Which of these recommendations do you support, and how will Oakland meet
its obligations to repair and replace sanitary sewers, streets and infrastructure if you are
mayor?

Answer:

I strongly support the need to increase Public Works maintenance work in order to
stop the cycle of ever-increasing expenses for road repair. This is a key part of
budgeting for the long-term, because engaging in repairs early in the cycle costs
less than waiting for a road (or other public infrastructure) to get into worse
condition. As Mayor I will aggressively seek new sources of funding for these vital
needs, from working with AC Transit and the Metropolitan and County
Transportation Commissions to identify funding for road repair in regional
transportation funds, to working with EBMUD and others on sewer repairs and
upgrades. I support many of the recommendations in the Matrix audit, though I
would seek significant public input before proposing new taxes. I will immediately
implement some of the recommendations, including through the use of new funds I
helped obtain from the County vehicle registration fee, and implementing coherent
and effective maintenance and planning so our funds go further, and ensuring the
Redevelopment Agency is budgeting adequately for infrastructure needs in
connection with those projects. In addition I will work to adopt innovative cost-
saving strategies such as use of recycled asphalt and having our asphalt locally
obtained (to avoid wasted time of repair crews driving out of town to obtain
materials), and incorporating local plants and drought-resistant plants to reduce
costs of that maintenance for the long-term as well.

Management, Leadership, Accountability and Transparency

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10. Oakland is a large and very complex entity with a $1.1+ billion budget and
thousands of employees. Please describe:

a. Your specific experience that qualifies you to oversee an enterprise

of this size and complexity;
b. Your theory of management, with examples of how you have
applied that theory;
c. Your philosophy of executive leadership, with examples of when
and where you have shown that philosophy.

Answer:

As an at-large elected Member of the AC Transit Board and the City Council, I have
participated in balancing large and complex budgets. I have played key roles at both
agencies in creating new revenue and negotiating with tax-payers and labor to
realize both service-provision and fiscal goals. When I joined the AC Transit Board
the Agency had a string of tax revenue losses at the ballot box, and since I came on
and revamped the process by which AC Transit developed revenue measures, all
have passed. I co-authored and led the campaign for all four revenue measures on
the July 2009 Oakland City ballot, all of which passed overwhelmingly without
over-burdening residents. Public agency budgeting is, by design, split among
multiple actors, in a way that is very different from private enterprises, but we can
also learn from best practices both from government agencies and private sector
innovators, including use of retirement incentives as a more cost-effective
alternative to layoffs, and use of contemporary technology to deliver services more
effectively. I have experience and training in multiple aspects of policy and planning.
My educational background is a Bachelors from MIT, a Masters in Urban and
Environmental Policy from Tufts University, and a law degree from Stanford. In
addition to my elected leadership roles, I have worked as a transportation advocate
for TransForm, as a policy aide to the California State Legislature, as a housing rights
lawyer, and in the Oakland City Attorney’s office. My record of reaching consensus
and forming compromises while keeping a sharp eye on the desired outcomes and
goals of public services will serve Oakland well.

As the leader of our large and vibrant City, I will take a firm lead in setting the
vision of the City - for economic revitalization, for healthy and livable
neighborhoods, for smart investments in transportation and infrastructure, and for a
balanced budget that can sustainably provide basic services including police and
fire. I will ensure through my appointments and my work coordinating the
department heads that barriers to business are removed at every level of the
bureaucracy, and that every agency is prioritizing community health and public
access. I seek to find the best and most talented leaders for our City Departments,
but I also will raise the morale of City workers by inspiring and empowering them to
perform their jobs for the benefit of the community.

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11. The City Administrator is the day-to-day head of city government. What
criteria will you employ and what qualifications will you look for in appointing the City
Administrator? Answer:

Choosing the next City Administrator is one of the most important tasks the new
Mayor will face immediately. The day after the election I will begin a nationwide
search for the most talented and accomplished City Administrator for Oakland. I
have not promised the position of City Administrator to anyone and I anticipate the
nationwide search would identify excellent applicants in an unbiased manner. I will
look for an accomplished and experienced administrator who understands my
vision for Oakland as a thriving, business-friendly City that delivers services
efficiently and is an environmental and cultural leader.

In addition, I will employ an administrator who understands the importance of chain

of command, and maintains both accountability and respect. Hiring and
employment decisions must be made on the basis of merit and avoid nepotism or
backroom deals, and ensure that employees are fairly evaluated and that the public
can have faith in the decisions of governmental hiring.

12. What will you do as mayor to ensure that your agenda is being
executed? Answer:

As Mayor I will actively monitor the progress of the City administration. I will create
a 311 system to take and track citizen complaints and service requests. I will meet
regularly with my City Administrator and department heads to examine progress to
our goals. I will be actively out in the community, and plugged in to the community
through my staff, non-government institutions, and regular public engagements. I
will generate specific goals to provide for the revitalization of our city, hire the best
and brightest for vital roles, expect and require accountability, and hold scheduled
updates from key staff/leaders to ensure that progress is being made, and that
changes are implemented as needed.

13. What metrics or benchmarks will you establish for your performance and
the performance of City department heads? How will Oaklanders know whether
benchmarks are being met? Answer:

I agree that benchmarks should be established and the public should be informed of
progress meeting these benchmarks. Some of the benchmarks are obvious, such as
miles of roads repaired or bike lanes striped, and others are yet to be developed. As
Mayor I will work with the City Administrator to develop clear expectations for
department heads and to share these expectations with the public. These will
include measurements for business attraction, permit simplification, blight
enforcement, and treating the public with respect. In addition to performance
benchmarks, I will implement accountability measures and deadlines for City staff,
such as a time limit to respond to permit applications and questions from the public.

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14. How can Oakland’s television station, its web site and other media be
used to more effectively inform and engage Oaklanders concerning city government
activities and issues? Answer:

Oakland’s media assets are not doing enough to inform and engage citizens in the
government. As Mayor I would completely revamp the City’s website to be easier to
use, easier to search, and easier for City documents and data to be available to the
public. I do not think the current website redesign is meeting the public’s needs or
our open-government goals. Oakland should make its data as open as possible so
that citizens can use it, like how Crimespotting.org creates an interactive map of
crime data. As Mayor I would reinvigorate KTOP to provide more public benefit.
Without spending City money, we can produce educational programming for
citizens and businesses about the government and about the local economy. For
example, other cities create videos explaining how merchants can take advantage of
City assets or grow their businesses. I would be the first Mayor to be of the
generation that has grown up with new media, and extending and expanding our
City’s media presence would be a priority of mine.

15. Should the City be taking other steps to more effectively engage the
citizenry in city issues, and if so, what steps? Answer:

Yes, the City should revamp its Boards and Commissions system to give these
citizen bodies more decision-making power and to enable the City Council to tap
into the knowledge of the community. Currently recommendations from Boards
and Commissions are often ignored. A rethinking of the Boards and Commissions as
they exist now, and a look at how other cities give their commissions decision-
making authority (such as Los Angeles’ very strong system of Commissions) would
be an initiative of mine as Mayor. In addition, I would work with the City Council,
and go to the ballot if necessary, to ensure that meetings are effective and
responsive to the public.

Economic Development

16. Many Oakland candidates and office-holders express the opinion that
Oakland city government systemically business-unfriendly. Do you agree or disagree?
If you disagree, explain how the city has established a favorable climate for business
development. If you agree, describe what you see as the systemic problems and
explain how you, as mayor, would fix them. Answer:

I agree that Oakland’s government has not done enough to be supportive of

economic revitalization, and that we must do more to retain and attract jobs and
investment in our city. Some good actions have been taken, and I have been leading
actions on the City Council to ameliorate this situation, from cutting red tape for
downtown retailers to assisting several businesses through the bureaucracy. As you
say, the problems are systemic and the result of an entire generation of lack of
attention to fundamentally improving business attraction and retention: Oakland’s

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business tax on very small home-based businesses is a barrier to business expansion
yet does not raise a significant amount of revenues; zoning and planning codes put
desirable businesses through an unacceptable number of fees and public hearings;
business attraction efforts are overly politicized and uncoordinated; and there has
not been a clear message sent from our elected leaders to the professional staff that
businesses are an important part of building Oakland’s future success. As Mayor I
will hire pro-revitalization leaders, revise Oakland’s zoning codes to encourage
business and cut red tape, revise the business tax, aggressively recruit business, and
expand and coordinate business attraction efforts and resources.

In addition, I will target and fix some specific barriers to business, including
our zoning code which prohibits businesses such as boutique hotels and urban
agriculture, and I will make sure we are working to support and attract key growth
economic sectors, including arts, food production, recycling, trade/logistics, and
health care. I will work to ensure that we don’t let indecisiveness impede business
development, by moving forward the process for a new recycling center and other
key industrial uses on the Army base property, and harnessing the growing interest
in local food to help revitalize Oakland’s historic role as a center for food
production. I will make transportation investments that help businesses, like the
grant-funded Broadway Shuttle I worked for, which helps downtown businesses by
creating a better link to customers and to workers.

17. What, if anything, does Oakland have to learn from Emeryville, Berkeley
or other cities about how to effectively use Enterprise Zones and redevelopment funding
to attract and retain businesses? What, if anything, have other cities done that Oakland
will start doing if you are mayor? Answer:

Oakland’s Enterprise Zone creates an opportunity to substantially improve our

business attraction, as it offers significant State tax breaks to employers for hiring
local workers and workers from other target groups, but we must dramatically
improve our public outreach and promotion of this program as part of a substantial
improvement to our public outreach efforts more generally. We must make this
information more readily available, and promote it to business considering locating
here. Other cities have done a better job of outreach and promotion (though we
have the same tax credits), and thus, we can focus on improving those strategies.
Berkeley and Emeryville have worked effectively to use the Oakland Enterprise Zone
to attract business, and we must do no less. In addition, we can learn from other
best practices, such as Portland, Oregon, which has a collaborative team of City
officials and local business leaders who work together on targeted business
attraction efforts.

We must focus our efforts, including those using redevelopment funding, on sectors
that are viable and able to produce jobs and revenue. And we must combine these
strategies with efforts to improve our infrastructure, fix roads and sidewalks and
provide effective signage, good lighting, pedestrian safety improvements, and more
to create an atmosphere conducive to business attraction and retention. In addition,

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we must strengthen our use of our own local businesses on City/Agency contracts
and projects, so that local dollars recirculate in our community, are spent locally,
and so spur further local economic opportunity. Strong local hire requirements have
been successful throughout California and can be successful in Oakland.

Other

18. What, if anything, can Oakland city government learn from other cities
about how to maximize its ability to provide quality services to its citizens in difficult
economic times? Answer:

Oakland can learn a lot from other cities about how to provide services during
tough budgetary times. As Mayor I will work closely with the League of California
Cities and my peer mayors to adopt the best practices of other cities. Something
that many successful cities do is budget over a much longer time-horizon than
Oakland does (we redo the budget every few months currently). We need to identify
budget shortfalls well ahead of the fiscal year, look for all revenue opportunities in
advance and not simply within the context of fixing one year’s shortfall, and we
must budget for the long-term. This means not delaying pension payments for a
decade, not allowing our streets to fall into such disrepair that maintenance costs
skyrocket, and taking the time needed to craft revenue measures in such a way that
they can succeed at the ballot box.

We can also adopt best practices from other cities in a range of areas, such as those
who have effective blight reporting (e.g. Boston area, which even has an iPhone
blight reporting application) and blight enforcement (e.g. Richmond, CA), stronger
local hiring procedures (e.g. East Palo Alto), better use of strategic infrastructure
investments to attract economic revitalization (e.g. Portland Oregon’s streetcar),
innovative programs to improve the environmental and economic health of their
Ports (Los Angeles and Long Beach), and strategies to provide smart growth and
urban density in an attractive and livable manner (e.g. Toronto, Vancouver, Seattle).

19. The majority of Oaklanders love their city, and believe it has unparalleled
positive elements that are simply not recognized in the rest of the state and country,
including history, diversity, and vibrant activity in its culture, arts, restaurants, etc. Does
the mayor have a role in getting this message out there, and how should the city send
this message? Answer:

Yes, the Mayor both as Chief Executive Officer and as Chief Advocate for Oakland
has a role to play in improving the public perception of Oakland. I love our City and
am always pleased to have an opportunity to share the amazing things happening
here, from cutting edge arts and fabulous new dining, to green technology and
cultural revitalization. I will be a very active and engaged Mayor, promoting Oakland
to businesses and tourism boards as a lively City that’s experiencing a Renaissance. I
will be present, dedicated, and actively engaged in outreach and I will use
opportunities to highlight our cultural assets and environmental leadership. I will

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personally tell the positive stories of our city, and make sure the public and the press
are aware of them. And I will help improve Oakland’s image by improving Oakland -
creating a City with public safety, a thriving economy, and beautiful and healthy
neighborhoods for everyone to enjoy.

Dated: Sept 20, 2010 By: (s) Rebecca Kaplan

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