The MOBN! Board endorses Ignacio De La Fuente for the Oakland City Council At-Large. We strongly encourage you to vote for Ignacio as your first choice for City Council At-Large in November. After careful consideration of all candidates, we based our endorsement upon the following points.
First, for several years Ignacio has shared our view that public safety must be a top priority for Oakland. But more than just talking about public safety, Ignacio has been willing to support and champion a variety of measures to public safety and attempt to reduce violent crime in the city. While he has not always had the support of other soon-to-be retiring members of the council, his leadership on this issue has been instructive of what he might accomplish, given the more influential post that comes with the At-Large seat.
Second, Ignacio believes (as do we) that there must be a comprehensive plan for public safety—one that incorporates and blends a variety of solutions that include a larger number of police officers and effective policies and social programs that get at the root causes of crime in our community. Like us, he too believes these policies and programs should be evidence-based, and measured by the standard of whether they actually result in decreasing violent crime.
Third, we are impressed by Ignacio’s commitment to our community. After all these years he continues to show real and enthusiastic passion for Oakland. We applaud this, and feel he may have a positive influence on the rest of the city council.
For all these reasons, we endorse Ignacio De La Fuente for City Council At-Large, and encourage you to vote for him in this election.
A major mistake by MOBN to endorse the SOURCE of the problems in Oakland’s public safety. All of your past good works are put in a poor context with such a blunder.
I agree with Jim Dexter. I have been impressed lately with MOBN’s leadership on issues and well thought-out endorsements. This one conversely is based on empty platitudes and zero analysis.
You say De La Fuente shares your view on the importance of crime without mentioning he voted to lay off police officers.
You talk about his commitment to Oakland without mentioning that he is giving up a safe council seat to go after the at-large one. Many people believe that he is seeking the council seat to position a run for Mayor in only two years. If he did become Mayor then we would need an expensive election to fill the at-large seat. Seems to me he is putting his own political fortunes ahead of the welfare of the city.
If you want to endorse De La Fuente, fine, but you should have some substance to your comments.
IDLF indeed has had a long, sorry Council history of being unfocused, inconsistent and ineffective. It’s interesting that he’s making a big deal about crime now. We cannot be certain that he can or will carry through on his threat actually to do something useful. He’s not intelligent nor is he articulate and he is unlikely to become a leader in his senility. Still, as an alternative to the mindless and egregious Kaplan, a vote for IDLF might indeed be a useful kick-in-the-pants to all the other useless fools on the Council and their college Queen Quan, if it’s nothing else.
A strikingly weak and generic set of arguments. This is a two-person race. If MOBN wanted to make an effective endorsement, it might have taken the trouble to contrast De La Fuente and Kaplan, inasmuch as everything said regarding the first can very well apply to the latter.
Name ONE concrete thing Rebecca has done on public safety. Not what she TALKS about, what she HAS DONE. Tell me what public safety measures she has actually proposed, I cant find a single one.
Frankly, after attending the LWVO/RCPC candidate debate on Sept. 20, I have decided to vote the “outcumbent” ticket for the at-large seat. I was not impressed by either of the current city council members who are running.
I am of a similar inclination. With IDLF and RK, it’s a very tough choice to determine a lesser evil. I think nearly anyone would be better then either.
I agree. This endorsement has drastically changed my opinion of the MOBN organization. I think more attention could have been paid to the records of the candidates and some analysis provided as backup for the conclusion. I am disappointed.
Thank you for your endorsement of Ignacio. We need a City Council member who shows for critical City Council votes.
Oakland has for decades now been run by venal, selfish, small time careerists. Weak, ignorant, naive, gullible cowards who would have no career or success outside the bubble of Oakland political life. The town is hicksville, USA; albeit with a world class collection of thugs, predators, leeches, dependent thieves who long ago perfected the art of political influence peddling and as a result Oakland has a tiny, discredited, demoralized, dysfunctional Police Department and a burgeoning, highly successful, efficient, organized, expanding and thriving criminal element and enterprise that soon will have a stranglehold on the entire city. This is a result of stupidity gone bananas, an electorate devoid of good sense, a political cabal of narrow minded ideologues who have no idea how to actually run things efficiently but are quite accomplished at fear mongering and “playing to the base”. Oakland is on the fast track to complete chaos, anarchy and lawlessness which will then precipitate an exodus of the middle class leaving the town to be a refuge for the poor, dependent and weak. I hope the Federal Government takes over the entire city administration. The sooner Oakland citizens see the back of Jean Quan, Rebecca Kaplan, Desley Brooks, Jane Brunner and Nancy Nadel the better. These horrid, moronic, evil, manipulating swine have done more to damage this city than the stupid, ignorant, savage gang banging brigade that has taken up residence in most of Oakland. And they don’t appear interested in leaving. De La Fuente is hardly ideal but to my mind getting rid of Rebecca Kaplan, most renowned for gratuitous and nonsensical declarations and beliefs, is the highest priority.
Ignacio de la Fuente is one of the few Oakland CC members who is actually serious about fighting crime. He introduced a series a common-sense crime fighting measures last October only to have them all rejected by Rebecca Kaplan. For more information about Rebecca Kaplan’s efforts at undermining law enforcement in Oakland, please read the following article: http://bit.ly/QQY0nK .
I couldn’t have put it better myself. Thank you Jonathan.
You want contrast? Ignacio shows up for the difficult votes and Kaplan offers reasons why she couldn’t be present for the difficult votes.
Yes, Ignacio voted to lay-off the police because there was no other way about it at the time. If City finances were better then, he definitely wouldn’t be laying off cops.
We must get rid of Kaplan to right the ship.