Rebecca Kaplan for Oakland City Council: At Large District

I am delighted to get to strongly recommend someone I know so well. Rebecca Kaplan has been a smart and enthusiastic member of the AC Transit Board of Directors for several years. She has succeeded there because she is smart, politically savvy, and because she knows how to get things done with people she doesn't agree with. She has strong ethics, she is smart and insightful, and she is really good at connecting with people. These are also the same reasons my organization, the Transportation and Land Use Coalition, hired her as a policy advocate for a campaign back in 2001. She was incredibly effective for us.

She also has background as a civil-rights attorney, legislative aide, and an outreach consultant protecting Oakland residents from predatory loans and foreclosures. She will be a great policy-maker, and she has the potential to become a bridge-builder on the Oakland City Council.

For the rest of the field, I'll quote a friend (Nathan Landau) who knows Oakland politics better than I:

Clint Killian was also an AC Transit Boardmember, but I hear no fondness for him. Kerry Hamill's qualifications are good--she's on the Oakland School Board and works for BART community affairs. Charles Pine is a nasty piece of work who can't talk about anything but more police. Frank Rose is a surprisingly forceful and lucid senior citizen and community activist--unlikely to be elected but an asset to Oakland's civic life.

For more info on Rebecca's campaign, see her website.