Mayor Protects Corrupt Employees

City supervisors, protected by the mayor's city administrator, refuse to disclose names of relatives and partners who also work for the City of Oakland.

Oakland auditor Courtney Ruby is attempting to check compliance with a City ordinance requiring that "All current City officials and supervisors must disclose all known family relationships, consensual romantic relationships and cohabitant relationships with existing City employees, managers and officials."

The City's 800 or so supervisors must complete a simple one-page disclosure form. (See it here.) All responses to the auditor are confidential.

Lindheim refuses to cooperate. He's not providing the questionnaires to Ruby. Apparently, he is not even insisting that supervisors complete them.

Lindheim says he fears for the privacy of supervisors. The city attorney has confirmed that the city auditor has a right to the documents. It is Lindheim's legal duty to get the forms filled out and on to Ruby. The city auditor is, of course, bound to maintain confidentiality, but it is not Lindheim's privilege to decide in advance that she will not do that.

The previous city administrator, Deborah Edgerly, practiced blatant nepotism. She muscled the police department into enrolling her incompetent daughter in four successive police academies as she attempted to become a sworn officer. The daughter failed every time.

Edgerly also tried to protect William Lovan, whom she claimed as her nephew and who is a City parking meter maintenance man. Edgerly intervened late one Friday night when police discovered Lovan's gun-running connection with the Acorn drug gang. That intervention ultimately triggered her firing.

Lindheim is not stonewalling on his own. He has been mayor Dellums' fixit-man for many years, long before Dellums became mayor. Dellums was notoriously slow and reluctant to fire Edgerly. The roadblocks that Lindheim throws in front of auditor Ruby can only leave one suggestion in people's minds: Dellums is protecting City supervisors he knows who have favored relatives with jobs, promotions, and exemption from discipline.

The dustup over the anti-nepotism questionnaire goes to the heart of the City's budget problems as it faces deficits of tens of millions of dollars. A culture of entitlement and luxury prevails among top City employees. They send each other $70 bouquets of flowers. Department heads create lush new deputy and assistant chief positions and hire their buddies while cutting the number of librarians, gardeners, and other rank and file workers. Tolerance of corruption leads to inefficiencies that could be eliminated in order to save millions of dollars.

Today City auditor Ruby asked residents to let mayor Dellums know that they want him and Lindheim to obey the law. Some residents report that the mayor's office refuses to take telephone calls on the issue, so here are email and fax contacts:

officeofthemayor@oaklandnet.com
fax: (510) 238-4731

As a result of auditor Ruby's appeal to the public, Lindheim revealed that the City has already reassigned five people who were supervised by a relative. That's information we have only because the auditor takes her job seriously. Now Lindheim needs to cooperate fully so Ruby can complete a full audit.

Councilmember Quan Opposes Audit

Councilmember Jean Quan issued a statement about the controversy in her weekly newsletter. She sides with city administrator Lindheim, repeating his statement that he gave the auditor "over 500 surveys and the remaining 80 surveys known to be incomplete or inaccurate will be given to their office when they are complete and reviewed." (Quan newsletter #320, Feb. 28, 2009)

When numbers are involved, Quan often gets it wrong, as shown by her role in the school district bankruptcy when she was president of the school board and by her complicity last Spring with Deborah Edgerly's manipulation of City reserves and budgeting. In this case there are approximately 800 supervisors who need to complete the one-page disclosure form. Lindheim's statement as quoted by Quan amounts to an admission that a quarter of the supervisors – 200 not accounted for in his total of 580 – have apparently not returned the form.

Furthermore, the auditor has the right to see the original documents, not just revisions after the city administrator massages them for "accuracy."

City Administrator Finally Does the Right Thing

"Dear Oaklanders," writes city auditor Courtney Ruby, "Early this morning [March 5], the Administration fulfilled my request for hiring practices documentation."

Ruby continues, "Your voice, joined with scores of other concerned and committed Oakland citizens, triggered another key step toward establishing transparency and accountability at Oakland city hall."

The auditor graciously added, "I have fresh confidence that the new City Administrator shares the goals and aspirations demonstrated this past week by you, Oakland's concerned citizens."