Tag: mayor

Former San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown addressed his past extramarital relationship with U.S. Sen. Kamala Harris in his weekly column Saturday, saying he may have boosted the presidential hopeful's career. "Yes, we dated. It was more than 20 years ago," Brown wrote in the San Francisco Chronicle. Gavin Newsom and U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein. "That's politics for ya." "The difference is that Harris is the only one who, after I helped her, sent word that I would be indicted if I 'so much as jaywalked' while she was D.A.” — Willie Brown, former mayor of San Francisco Brown appointed Harris -- about 30 years younger than Brown and just a few years out of law school – to two well-paid state commission assignments on the Unemployment Insurance Appeals Board and the California Medical Assistance Commission, the Washington Free Beacon reported. "Whether you agree or disagree with the system, I did the work," Harris said in a 2003 interview with SF Weekly. "I brought a level of life knowledge and common sense to the jobs." Brown's involvement in her election raised questions as to how Harris would remain impartial, given his enormous political clout. During his two terms as mayor of San Francisco, Brown was known for his charm, arrogance and ego, according to a 1996 profile in People magazine.

In New Orleans, Cantrell faces the twin challenges of tackling a high violent crime rate and complying with the 2012 federal consent decree, a broad slate of reforms the city agreed to implement after a scathing federal report detailed corruption, brutality and bias across the police force. Whoever Cantrell picks will be tasked with extending a decline in homicides that reached a 47-year low in 2018, while convincing a federal judge that the department has met the bar for implementing lasting reforms. He must still be approved by the Baltimore City Council for the permanent job. Her selection will be a highly personal one, said former Mayor Mitch Landrieu, who plucked Harrison from his post as commander of the sprawling 7th District in New Orleans East in August 2014, after Ronal Serpas resigned as chief. "It is really an important decision, but it’s very personal to a mayor. However, insiders are already ticking off a short list of names stocked with local candidates, most from within the department. Harrison named Thomas to lead the department’s investigations bureau last year. “You want to find that person that’s best for the department at this moment in time, and it may very well be that there’s somebody that she feels that can do it within the department,” Landrieu said. Cantrell may also need to please a constituency of one: U.S. District Judge Susie Morgan, who oversees the department’s reform agreement with the federal government. “The department is way better than it’s been,” Scharf said.

The deputy mayor of Lynbrook and two residents who were vocal opponents of a recent development proposal in the village announced on Wednesday that they have formed a new political party and will run for three village board positions up for election in March. Village residents Antoniella Tavella and Steven Liguori said they will run for trustee seats on the village board, challenging trustees Robert Boccio and Ann Marie Reardon. In a statement provided by a spokesman, Beach confirmed the three incumbents are running for re-election. "I ... believe our past record of success and future vision for our Village will be well received by voters," Beach said. “I will do everything in my power to prevent this project from moving forward,” Becker said, backed by about 30 supporters who stood on the steps of Village Hall waving signs bearing the candidates’ names. The village board in November unanimously rejected the proposal for the six-story, 200-unit apartment complex called the Cornerstone at Lynbrook, saying the project was too big for the community. Anthony Bartone, the developer behind the project, said Wednesday that “there are no new plans” for the project. But the candidates said the village board had not in fact rejected the project, and instead voted only to cancel a public hearing on it. Becker, whose father was Lynbrook's mayor, also has a real estate business in the village. Neither Liguori nor Tavella have previously held elected office, they said.

Mayor London Breed picked the right time and the right governor to ask for clemency for her imprisoned brother. The San Francisco mayor said the attorney for brother Napoleon Brown suggested that “Jerry Brown would probably be more open” to the request because it was his last year in office. In his first stint as governor, Brown issued 400 pardons and just one commutation. This time around, he has pardoned 1,100 and commuted 152 sentences. So Breed would never have a better opportunity to make the case that her brother, who has served about half his 42-year sentence for a 2000 robbery and involuntary manslaughter, received an excessive sentence and deserves another chance at freedom. She has received legitimate criticism over the way she highlighted her title — “MAYOR LONDON BREED” in block letters at the top of her correspondence to the governor — as well as disclosures that she testified as an alibi witness, claiming she saw her brother sleeping on a couch on the night the robbery went down. We thought about it, we discussed it, we even weighed it: Should we do this because this could be problematic?” The decision was that attaching the prefix “Mayor” to her name did not really matter, in her view. The reason I got into politics and the first place, and doing the work that I’ve done even before I was an elected official, had everything to do with what happened to my family growing up in the city, and the challenges we experienced.” I can’t begrudge Breed for wanting to free her brother, and I respect her putting herself on the line to assure the state that she would help provide the support to allow him to succeed outside the prison walls. These are among the questions a governor must consider. The easy way out — see: Gray Davis — is to pretend the justice system always gets it right, and that every inmate who remains in prison, however unfairly, is one less potential Willie Horton to crop up at election time.

Former mayoral candidate and Durham City Council member Farad Ali, chairman of the Raleigh-Durham International Airport Authority, is heading to New York City. Ali, who was born in New York, is taking a job at the National Minority Supplier Development Council. He has been CEO and president of the nonprofit Institute, formerly the Institute for Minority Economic Development, in downtown Durham. Ali and The Institute completed a report this fall surveying minority-owned businesses in downtown Durham for Downtown Durham Inc., but that report has yet to be made public. #ReadLocal Ali said in a recent interview that he ran for mayor last year because “there is no government economic development on black Durham.” Farad Ali, president of The Institute, previously The Institute of Minority Economic Development, believes minorities in Durham have the potential to overcome a wealth gap to achieve "shared prosperity" if the city has a shared vision of the future. Or decreasing their wealth?” Ali moved to Durham from Brooklyn as a kid for his dad’s job at IBM, which is in Research Triangle Park. Lew Myers, board chair of The Institute, will serve as interim CEO while a national search is conducted. Other Durham leaders leaving Ali isn’t the only downtown Durham player on the move this month. Matt Gladdek, Downtown Durham Inc.’s director of policy and planning, is leaving to take a job next door in Chapel Hill. Related stories from Raleigh News & Observer durham-county African-American leaders want to see new Black Wall Street rise in Durham June 21, 2018 05:19 PM local Gentrification in Durham: The ‘it’ city’s downtown rise hasn’t led to a black-owned boom October 30, 2018 11:30 AM

“The vote was surprising, but I knew the town wanted change. They have four children and three grandchildren, all in the Troy area. “The requirements were more than some families could handle,” she said. With its high poverty rate the town receives funds from the state for development. “In Troy, you can tell where all the money is going,” she said. But there are other grants for development that could have been used in other areas.” One area Allgood is particularly concerned about is Southside, known colloquially as “The Bottom” and populated primarily by blacks. “That will allow for more of the economic development piece we all agree on,” she said, adding that properly developing all the town “will cause Troy to BE the county seat, an example for other towns in the county. She has been meeting with Peabody Concerned Citizens of Southside, who are asking what can be done for that side of town. She would like to see workforce development “connect the dots to have a pool of resources available to pull people out of poverty.” Allgood said Southside has a GED program but she wants to see more funds for training in trades. “I’ve been known as Pastor Sherri in the community,” Allgood said.

One of the few well-known Indianapolis Republicans who has been flirting with a run against Democratic Mayor Joe Hogsett in 2019 took a step back from city politics Friday. Merritt, who for months has talked about challenging Hogsett, said in a prepared statement that he is busy at "work on over 34 pieces of legislation" that will occupy his time. Yet, Merritt did not explicitly address the mayoral race and left his options open in a text message to IndyStar. "I'm going to take my time and make a decision," Merritt said. Merritt is among a small handful of Republicans who have held elected office to be openly considering it. Two others are Jose Evans, a Democrat-turned-Republican who served on the City-County Council, and state Rep. Cindy Kirchhofer. They have not yet announced their decisions. "One can surmise what it may mean. Merritt held the dual role of state senator and county party chairman for nearly two years. McQuillen, who served as county party chairman before Merritt, said vice chairman Bryce Carpenter automatically assumes that role upon Merritt's resignation.

Breaking News Alert (Henrietta Wildsmith/The Times) A disgruntled former city employee wearing a shirt with a mayoral candidate's name told Shreveport sanitation workers to call in sick to disrupt trash pickup, perhaps to hurt Mayor Ollie Tyler's chances in the coming runoff election, the mayor said Wednesday. Tyler said the former employee was wearing a campaign shirt for Adrian Perkins, the mayor's opponent in Saturday's election, and told sanitation workers that he soon would be their boss when instructing them not to appear for work on Monday and Tuesday — apparently suggesting that Perkins had tapped him to become city public works director. Sanitation and streets and drainage employees all work in the city Public Works Department. Tyler said the former employee's action appeared planned to affect the outcome of Saturday's election, although she said she couldn't be certain. "It's unfortunate if it was politically motivated." "I wouldn't have authorized this at all," Perkins said. Tyler and other city managers said 15 sanitation workers earlier this week called in sick and did not show up for work Monday and Tuesday, idling 10 to 12 collection trucks. Sheila Johnson, the union president for city employees, said the employees calling in sick were not politically motivated to do so. Crawford said the employees who called in sick attended a weekly safety meeting Wednesday morning with other employees but refused to stay when asked to assist in trash pickups. "We will not stand for employees playing politics with the daily operations of this city," Crawford said.

Over the past six weeks, Wheeler has tried to end the alarmingly violent street protests sparked by out-of-state Trump supporters. "I'm willing to take criticism all day long from Fox News, but I am not willing to accept criticism from Fox News of the men and women of the Portland Police Bureau," he said. On Oct. 18, civil liberties advocates met with the mayor to propose a series of fixes to the city's street brawls between right-wing extremists and Antifa, rather than the measure he was supporting (which ended up failing for lack of support from city commissioners who were worried Wheeler's proposal was unconstitutional). And yet it is very clear Wheeler never had the support needed for his ordinance to control violent protests but decided to bring it to a vote anyway. The mayor knew he didn't have the votes, but his staffers say they wanted to show supporters of law and order that the mayor wouldn't cave. At the same time, say City Hall observers, not compromising looks a lot like giving up. When Wheeler announced his ordinance, it wasn't difficult for reporters to find legal experts critical of the measure and its constraints on free speech. When the measure failed to get enough votes at City Hall, Wheeler turned on the news media and blamed them. The week ended on a much stronger note for Wheeler—because his police force learned from its mistakes and tried new tactics. Now Wheeler finds himself much where he started—Fox News again did a segment decrying violence at Portland protests, but this time without mentioning the mayor.

We hurtle toward next week’s big election in a hurricane of anger and insult, with some mailers you can barely hold in your hands without burning your fingers. In some cases, it’s less impassioned politicking, more all-out dumpster fire. Or a state race in which your choices are, if you believe what the ads say, a candidate who’s against teachers and school kids or a tax cheat, depending. There’s even an ugly smear attempt in a normally dignified race for judge, and another judicial candidate using his more generic middle name because he doesn’t want the "ethnicity" of his first name to hurt him with voters. Sigh. Then, there’s this quiet pocket of politics in the city of Tampa. I know it’s early to talk about the race to replace term-limited Mayor Bob Buckhorn since the city election isn’t until March. Refreshing is not a word you hear much in politics. City Council member and mayoral candidate Harry Cohen regularly names civility in politics as a priority, and the others in the race seem to agree. Or maybe in one local election, we get the novelty of civility in politics.