Oakland’s Interim Mayor Shakes Up City Hall With Move to Fire Thao Staffers

Most of the Oakland mayor’s office staff will be let go at the end of the week, interim Mayor Kevin Jenkins said Monday, a day after he fired his chief of staff following the release of a note in which she appeared to refer to Black people as “tokens.”

Jenkins, Deputy Mayor Burt Jones, Deputy Mayor LaNiece Jones and the office’s executive assistant and scheduler will remain in the office, with Burt Jones serving as chief of staff, the mayor’s office said in a statement on Monday.

“I want to thank everyone who is leaving the office for their service,” Jenkins said in the statement. “It has always been our intention to allow our next Mayor to choose their own staff after the April 15 special election.”

The handwritten note by chief of staff Leigh Hanson was included among records the city made public last week related to the FBI’s probe of former Oakland Mayor Sheng Thao, whose recall in November led to this month’s special mayoral election. Hanson was chief of staff for Thao and stayed on after her recall.

In the note, which KQED obtained last week, the word “Recall” appears at the top with people and groups known to have financially backed or opposed the recall campaign against Thao jotted down below.

In the upper right-hand corner, “CM Fife can outreach to NAACP” is written, seemingly referring to Oakland City Councilmember Carroll Fife.

Underneath that, the words “use BP as tokens” appear, set off by dashes. Hanson told the San Francisco Chronicle, which first reported her firing, that “BP” referred to Black people.

In a text message to KQED on Monday, Hanson said the note was taken out of context.

“These handwritten meeting notes record a group discussion that included proposed messaging points that the anti-recall campaign wanted to provide to potential surrogates,” Hanson said.

Hanson said the notes were a reference to recall organizer Seneca Scott, who she said was hired by wealthy white funders of the effort to obscure the public’s understanding of the campaign’s political origins. According to Hanson, Thao and her political team believed that the paid involvement of Scott, who is Black, in the recall campaign constituted tokenization — when a member of an underrepresented group is used to create the appearance of diversity.

“I regret that my short-hand note-taking has been taken out of context on social media and inadvertently harmed close friends, colleagues and members of my community who have been marginalized by our political system,” Hanson said.

At a press conference on Monday morning, the Oakland chapter of the NAACP thanked Jenkins.

“I never dreamed in Oakland, California, that we would be called a token,” said Cynthia Adams, president of the chapter. “I just want to thank our interim mayor Kevin Jenkins for having courage to do what he did, to make a stand for the people of Oakland and for his Black community.”

Standing behind Adams at the press conference were Scott and fellow Thao recall organizer Brenda Harbin-Forte; Brenda Grisham and Carl Chan, organizers of the recall of former Alameda County District Attorney Pamela Price; and Oakland mayoral candidate Loren Taylor.

Asked about the note’s reference to Fife reaching out to the NAACP, Adams said the chapter had not heard from the councilmember for years.

“It’s darkness what’s in that City Hall. I was wondering why it was so dark over there. It was dark because it was a lot of darkness going on. But now, it’s light,” Adams said.

Fife did not respond to a request for comment Monday.

Brandon Harami, another staffer in the mayor’s office who served under Thao, told KQED he was informed in a meeting on Monday morning that he was being placed on leave and would be terminated Friday. Deputy Mayor Burt Jones and City Administrator Jestin Johnson were both in the meeting, he said.

“This is clearly retaliatory action in response to an inaccurate and misleading release from the leadership of the Oakland NAACP, who has reason to dislike me after I landed a settlement with one of their officers for harassment,” Harami said in a statement, referring to Scott. “I am pursuing next steps with both my Union and other avenues.”

In December, the city filed a petition for a workplace violence restraining order against Scott after he posted Harami’s address and cellphone number on social media and accused Harami of being a pedophile, according to court records. Scott agreed in a Feb. 6 settlement not to post Harami’s contact information or location, or accuse him of being a pedophile or of being abused by his parents. Harami also agreed not to post Scott’s contact information or home address, although the settlement notes he had not previously done so.

Adams declined to comment on Harami’s claim of retaliation, saying that she didn’t know anything about that. A city spokesperson also declined, saying the city does not comment on personnel matters.

Oakland City Councilmember Janani Ramachandran said she was glad to see Hanson go, criticizing her involvement in and defense of the decision to tie the city’s budget to the sale of the Coliseum.

“I do think that the office led by Leigh Hanson as a whole was responsible for some very destructive decisions in the city, and I’m glad she is gone,” Ramachandran said. “I fully stand by the mayor and his decisions to fire many of these people associated with two years of some really horrible decisions for the city – on many fronts.”

Other council members did not respond to KQED’s requests for comment.

Hanson’s note appeared in a trove of documents released last week after the city produced them in response to Department of Justice subpoenas last year following the FBI’s raid of Thao’s home and addresses tied to the Duong family, which owns California Waste Solutions, Oakland’s recycling contractor.

Thao was indicted in January on bribery and fraud charges, alongside her boyfriend, Andre Jones, California Waste Solutions CEO David Duong and his son, Andy Duong. All four have pleaded not guilty.