Tucker out = good. Lindheim in = ?

Mayor Ron Dellums appointed Dan Lindheim to the long-vacant city administrator post. The Oakland blogosphere is generally unhappy with it:

• Lindheim Choice as Administrator Result of Cronyism, Hypocrisy, and Low Expectations at City Hall
• Take Action: Ensure Top-Rate Management for Oakland
• Appointment puts Oakland on the brink
• Op-Ed: Mayor Appoints Crony, City Suffers

I don't know much about Lindheim, but there seem like some serious warning signs. The first being that Lindheim is a "longtime confidant". There was supposed to be a nationwide search to fill the post, with former city manager Robert Bobb being a favorite. When he opted to take a job with the Detroit school system, the job quickly went to a friend of Dellums. There's been no list of who else was considered or what the process for the search actually was.

Another warning sign is that "Lindheim also tried hard to keep outgoing police Chief Wayne Tucker on board". Tucker's classless departure erased any doubts that he wasn't the right man for the job, if the list of problems under his command wasn't enough.

Lindheim may be the most qualified person willing to take the job, but he doesn't meet the Mayor's listed qualifications ("12 to 15 years of senior level executive management experience preferably in a large sophisticated diverse urban governmental organization").

The charges of cronyism don't seem far off the mark given the lack of information and Lindheim's lack of qualifications.

Regardless of whether he is the best person for the job, there needs to be more transparency about how he was selected. If there's not, Dellums' already low approval ratings are likely to go even lower. And if he's not the best qualified, then the council shouldn't approve his appointment.

OPD Chief Tucker resigns before being fired

The Tribune is reporting that Chief Tucker has resigned. According to the Trib:

...the memo states in the past three months Tucker has met with the Mayor four times and discussed his desire to resign. But, Kozicki adds, "The mayor (and others in city government) on each occasion dissuaded him from resigning. The Mayor still maintains strong support for the Chief."

According to the email sent on behalf of Tucker, "the primary reason behind the chief's decision is his lack of faith in the City Council. The chief stated the council is unable/unwilling to properly staff, fund and equip OPD."

Hmm...they're properly funded, and according to Mayor Dellums' address last night, properly staffed, so it seems more likely this was a case of quitting before being fired. Given the list of problems associated with his tenure, he probably decided it was time to get out of Dodge.

In any event, I have high hopes that someone else can do a better job. If nothing else, they can find someone who the rank and file of the department actually trusts and has confidence in.

state of the city address tonight

Tonight is Mayor Dellums' state of the city address (it'll be on KTOP, starting at either 5:30 or 6:00pm). Will he acknowledge the problems, and implement the ideas in the Bobb report? Or will it degenerate into a list of "look what I accomplished (even if I didn't do it) in 2008" as V Smoothe suggests on A Better Oakland? It would be funny if it didn't have so much truth to it based on past addresses.

Meanwhile, the whole coutry (and world, for that matter) continues to settle into the recession, with more job cuts announced. Few, if any, of those listed are in Oakland, but I imagine the Home Depot Expo store in Emeryville employs some Oakland residents, and bad news for the world economy is bad news for all of us.

The economic upheaval will bring more changes to Oakland than just job changes. Oakland Streets has a nice write-up on Creative Reuse of buildings. When the economy begins to improve, it'd be nice to see some of these things happen.

something's rotten

Something's rotten in the Oakland PD, and it appears to be the leadership ("Oakland suspends chief of Internal Affairs amid FBI probe", from today's Tribune.) The vast majority of Oakland police are hard-working folks doing a job most of us never would except maybe in Mayberry. But the FBI probe suggests there are some serious problems, and those emanate from the top. There's a good post about the problems over at A Better Oakland. Will this finally cause Mayor Dellums to do something, and fire Chief Tucker? To be fair, the incident in the first article happened under the previous chief, but things don't seem to be getting any better, and the article has a long list of problems that have happened under Chief Tucker.

(For those of you from elsewhere, the Oakland PD had nothing to do with the Oscar Grant killing; that was the BART PD.)

food: Pizza Plaza

The Oakland blogosphere seems to be on a food kick this week. Today in Montclair gives a rundown of food options on Thornhill. Living in the O has reviews of the various Thai restaurants in downtown (with the promise of more reviews to come!) And OaklandGoods has a preview of the Jack London Market, which sounds amazing, as well as a review of Ozumo.

So in that vein, I offer a brief review of Pizza Plaza. I tend away from restaurant reviews because I'm a vegetarian and most reviews don't cover that aspect. But Pizza Plaza was highly recommended by the owner of Micio Mambo (a vegan products store near the Grand Lake Theater), and has a 4-star rating on Yelp.

Pizza Plaza is at 6211 Shattuck, just south of Alcatraz. In short, I liked it. Not for the ambiance (limited), or the web site (weren't unwarranted sounds on websites outlawed along with the 'blink' tag?), but the vegan pizza we ordered was very good. Not Zachary's good (nothing else is), but a lot less guilt and not-so-good-for-you stuff as it was not only vegetarian but vegan (i.e., no animal products.) We had one of the menu combos, but you can also design your own, either vegetarian or fully vegan. They have limited beverage options, with no alcohol. In the future we'll probably just call ahead and pick one up to eat at home. I give it 3.5 out of 5 stars.