Democrats: what they think of their subjects

Oakland unlikely to 'get over' mismanagement
Chip Johnson
Tuesday, April 27, 2010
It's inappropriate for any elected official, and certainly a big-city mayor, to tell constituents that the way their tax dollars are spent is of no importance.
But that's what Oakland Mayor Ron Dellums appeared to be saying last week when he told a Chronicle reporter that a state audit about how the city had handled $3 million in federal job training stimulus funds was "much ado about nothing, man."
"It's an accounting matter," the mayor said.
He went even further, criticizing the news media for highlighting field trips to the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk and a Concord water park that were paid for with federal stimulus funds intended for job training. Oakland claims the field trips were allowable expenses; the state says the money was misspent.
"Get over it," the mayor said after a news conference in which he announced yet another $3 million grant of federal stimulus dollars to help clean up Lake Merritt.
In the middle of the nation's worst economic depression in the last 70 years? Not likely, Mr. Mayor.
If anything, Dellums' comments are more a reflection of his own failure to connect with the needs of his constituents at a time of public and private financial crises. Oakland is a city with an 18.3 percent unemployment rate, which is nearly twice the national average. It's completely reasonable that citizens would raise concerns about how tax dollars are being used, especially in the wake of a government agency report that raises questions about such spending.
Interestingly enough, "get over it" wasn't the mayor's reaction on April 19, when he first learned of state Inspector General Laura Chick's intention to release the audit findings.
"I got a call from his office saying he wanted to meet, and I directed staff to set up a phone call," Chick said. "The next thing I knew his office was back on the phone saying the meeting had to be in person, and he would be driving here."
Chick would not disclose the gist of the meeting, but it's safe to say Dellums was not there to encourage her to publicly release the bad news.
Dellums' response to the state audit findings is eerily similar to his public reaction when it was revealed in November that the Internal Revenue Service had slapped a $239,000 lien on his property due to unpaid tax bills in 2005, 2006 and 2007. Dellums issued a statement saying, "The matter is being dealt with and will be resolved in short order." A month later, the IRS added a $13,000 lien for unpaid taxes in 2008.
Now, most people would not allow anyone with a financial track record like that to manage the cookie jar account in their home, let alone place fiduciary responsibility for a multimillion-dollar job training program in his office, but that's the arrangement here in Oakland.
The expenditure of federal funds provided to Oakland by the Workforce Investment Act and the performance those programs yielded have been a point of contention in Oakland since the program began in 1998.
In the past year, the Oakland City Council appointed District Two's Pat Kernighan to the Oakland WIB board to serve as its eyes and ears. Some council members have complained that performance reports have not been consistently generated.
There is no guarantee that a regime change in Oakland City Hall will create efficient programs, policies and rules, or that funding will always be expended for its intended use, but it's the logical place to start.
And if there is one thing Oakland residents, business owners and elected officials concerned about the adequate use of federal funds need to "get over," it would be one of the most lackluster, shoddy and inconsistent leadership efforts in recent city history.
And whether Dellums seeks re-election or stands idly by on the sidelines, mirroring much of his four-year term, the people of Oakland are about seven months away from getting over the city's single biggest obstacle of the past four years.