Oakland City Council District 1: Raya #1, Lemley #2, Kalb #3

This is an interesting race. North Oakland's District 1 has been Jane Brunner's seat for 16 years. She's stepping down to run for City Attorney, so it is an open seat. There are seven candidates, no obvious front-runner, and a lot of good ideas from good people. I don't get to vote in this race, but if I did, here's the three I would vote for, using the ranked-choice voting to the limit. I think any of these candidates would be a good councilmember and I'd look forward to working with them. See the bottom of this post for a summary of some links about the whole race.

#1 Richard Raya: Richard is a smart guy with a long track record in North Oakland and in pushing for effective change. He's got great background as a budget analyst, working both in local government and within public interest groups influencing local and state governments. He has a compelling personal story: parents were farmworkers, he got his life on track through California schools, and he's raised two sons (partially as a single dad). He is my kind of environmentalist: he wants to protect the environment and make sure that low-income families and people of color, who often are hurt the most by environmental problems, benefit from the solutions. He has good ideas and expertise on crime-prevention ("Operation Ceasefire" has been effective in other cities -- he wants to bring it to Oakland). He was a PTA President. And his spouse (Marisa Raya) is a smart urban planner. Full disclosure: Richard sits on the Board of TransForm, the organization where I've worked for 14 years. He brings a great combination of that green eyeshade budget-watching mentality as well as sound analysis and a great heart for the political decisions.

#2 Amy Lemley: Amy is another smart candidate, the only woman in the race (what's up with that!), and has a very strong background on youth and schools. She started First Place for Youth, a nonprofit that finds affordable housing for youth out of foster care. She brings a keen analytical eye to a wide variety of policy issues and she's got strong training in policy analysis. Like Richard, she's got a smart spouse (Justin Horner), Brunner's former chief of staff and a savvy environmental advocate. Full disclosure: I have lots of friends and colleagues who are backing Amy.

#3 Dan Kalb: yet another really smart candidate (3 for 3!). Dan is an experienced public interest and environmental advocate, a policy analyst, community service volunteer, and a progressive reformer. Most of his professional experience is on environmental issues (Union of Concerned Scientists, Sierra Club), and a lot of that was at the state level. But he also has experience bringing those concerns down to the local level, and he wants to make Oakland a hub for clean tech. Full disclosure: I have served on the Board of the League of Conservation Voters of the East Bay for the past few years (Dan stepped down when he began his run for this seat), and I've known him as a committed environmentalist through that.

If you want more info, here's a few other resources:

• East Bay Express article (of course it simplifies some of the candidates, but whaddya expect!).
• District 1 City Council candidates take questions from Oakland residents -- short blurbs from all 7 candidates' responses
• Okay Contra Costa Times article (not as much info as East Bay Express)