With probe over, Perata primed to lead Oakland

On the East Bay

Published 4:00 am, Friday, May 29, 2009

With the dark cloud of a lingering federal probe behind him, there is nothing standing between former state Sen. Don Perata and the Oakland mayor's office but time, opportunity and blue skies.

On Wednesday, the FBI closed the books on a five-year investigation into whether Perata's business dealings drove his legislative decisions.

Perata announced his plans in March to run for mayor of Oakland in 2010. So far, his toughest competition, former City Manager Robert Bobb, is currently the state-appointed director of the Detroit public schools and lives in the Washington, D.C., area.

The federal investigation was the darkest hour in what has otherwise been a soaring political career for Perata, 64, formerly an Alameda schoolteacher and member of the Alameda County Board of Supervisors.

"You haven't lived until federal authorities raid your house and the homes of your children," Perata quipped earlier this year. "We were cooperating with them, but they conducted those raids like they were going after John Dillinger."

Perata was elected to the state Legislature in 1996 and served as Senate leader from 2004 to 2008, when term limits forced him to retire. In Sacramento he proved a tough, effective lawmaker and a prodigious political fund-raiser, and for a time he was the most powerful Democrat in California.

He is a present politician who understands the ins and outs of both state and local government. He's succeeded at every level of politics and is respected for his abilities as a negotiator and dealmaker. While there are some Oakland voters who believe that all politicians are scoundrels at heart, Perata's vindication after five years under a federal lens provides him with a pretty strong rebuke to all critics.

"For anyone who doubted that this was over, I think we can close the book on it," Perata said in a phone interview Thursday. "It's unlikely to follow me around, and if someone wants to attack me using this, I don't think it has too many legs."

Had the federal probe lingered into Perata's 2010 mayoral campaign, it would have remained a source of controversy and a useful tool for all opponents. With that political dart now gone, opponents will have to hold up their record in office, accomplishments and rock-solid pragmatic proposals to hold the line on basic city services in a time of economic uncertainty against Perata's.

That would pretty much rule out the entire Oakland City Council, including District 4 Councilmember Jean Quan and District 5 Councilmember Ignacio De La Fuente, who lost a close race to Oakland Mayor Ron Dellums in 2006. Any mayoral candidate from the city council should be asked to explain what they did personally to stop the Dellums administration from skirting the rules, ignoring council-approved policies and leading the city into a political and policy desert.

Unfortunately, when it comes to sharing the sense of outrage at the lack of leadership expressed by scores of Oakland residents, most council members have acted like the monkey statue that speaks, hears and sees no evil. Because of their collective failure to act even as the system began to fall apart in front of them - there are none among them who've displayed the mettle or resolve to lead a marching band, let alone a city of 400,000 people.

Consider the actions in Kansas City, Mo., where recall organizers submitted the last batch of 20,000 signatures this week needed to force a recall vote against Mayor Mark Funkhouser, who was elected in 2007. Funkhouser ran into trouble immediately when he hired his wife, Gloria Squitiro, as an unpaid volunteer and gave her a desk right outside his office.

Her presence in City Hall was such a hindrance that the City Council passed a voluntary ordinance last year banning the relatives of elected officials from frequently working in any city office. The mayor countered that action by shifting his weekly Wednesday meetings with his staff to a public library.

In Oakland, where first lady Cynthia Dellums has attended department head meetings and weighed in at her leisure - including having good employees fired - there has not been one peep from anyone on the city council, except for De La Fuente.

That's probably why there hasn't been a successful mayoral candidate from the Oakland City Council since 1973, when John Reading, an incumbent-appointed mayor, defeated Black Panther leader Bobby Seale by a nearly 2-1 margin. In 1977, Lionel Wilson, a former Superior Court judge, was elected, and every Oakland mayor since then has been elected from outside local government. Barring any major changes in the candidates' field or circumstance, history is about to repeat itself again.

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