Charlene Wang brings a unique combination of passion and policy expertise that will be an incredible asset to the Oakland City Council. We were initially impressed last November when she came on the scene as a first-time candidate running for the At-Large city council seat. Despite having no institutional backing or name recognition, her campaign was full of fresh ideas and made the race better and more competitive.
Since then, she has only elevated her candidacy in the District 2 race and has demonstrated a strong command of Oakland’s challenges and strengths. Her experience at local, state, and federal levels of government are evident in her detailed responses to our questionnaire, which is linked below and deserves to be read in full. She consistently pairs thoughtful analysis of Oakland’s problems with innovative, practical policy fixes. She identifies crime as “the top issue facing District 2 and Oakland as a whole” and lists the budget crisis as her second most important issue.
On crime… Her proposed solutions include the use of bait cars and revising the chase policy. She also advocates for better use of police technology, such as speed cameras, Flock cameras, drones, and more use of voice-to-text transcription for police reports. Additionally, she proposes better use of OPD civilian employees, data-driven reform of Mobile Assistance Community Responders of Oakland (MACRO), and stronger enforcement of anti-sex trafficking laws (especially relevant to District 2).
To reduce recidivism, she supports a “program that hire[s] formerly incarcerated people to repair potholes.” Finally, she calls for a target of 900 officers, partly achieved through improving the police academy applicant pipeline. This is exactly the kind of common-sense, multi-pronged approach that is likely to improve public safety.
On the budget… Wang’s proposals include reducing management salaries, performance-based budgeting, “making [police] internal affairs at least partially civilian,” and growing revenue through simplified permitting, pursuit of renewable manufacturing, and hiring full-time grant writers.
On housing and urbanism… Her solutions are well-nuanced: she knows that Oakland needs to build more affordable housing for low-income households, and also understands that many working families make too much to qualify for affordable housing, but still struggle with housing costs. For those households, she supports streamlined permitting so we can build more housing overall.
Finally, Wang is strong on community engagement. She is the most responsive of all the candidates we interviewed this election cycle. Her persistence in getting in front of District 2 voters has earned her wide support from numerous community leaders and shows she will do the work to truly listen to neighbors’ concerns as an elected official.
We believe she could dramatically improve the ailing relationship between city council and District 2 residents and is exceptionally well-prepared to be an effective councilmember and civic leader.
We encourage you to watch Charlene Wang’s in-person interview and read her responses to our questionnaire.
We urge all District 2 voters to rank Charlene Wang as #1 on their ballot.
