Our Impaired Mayor:
A Difficult But Necessary Discussion

By Charles Pine

Being a City Hall outsider has its advantages. It ensures that I advocate measures for making Oakland better on the basis of public facts, public interests, and public proposals.

None of us should care about the private weaknesses or vices of someone in office as long as there is no effect on how Oakland is governed. Stick to the issues: public safety, basic services, and clean government. There's plenty of fodder without getting personal.

So it makes me unhappy and uneasy to say that we must recognize a tragic personal but public fact: the mayor's capacities have diminished to the point that they can no longer be ignored. There are simply too many credible reports from different sources that the mayor and his family are dealing with one of the bitter ironies of modern longevity – Alzheimer's or a functional equivalent.

It is time for the mayor to resign. Events do not allow a mayor to wait for lucid moments. It is urgent for Oakland, and it is the most honorable path for the man. He deserves to conclude 42 years of elected public service with the maximum possible dignity.

No one can say exactly what would happen in the next 19 months if the mayor is propped up in office, but we can be sure of two things. One, horrible events will happen that no one would dream up, and two, they will tear down our City and the legacy of the man. Did anyone predict two years ago that Oakland would lose four police officers in one day – and that their sealed last instructions would request that the mayor not speak at a memorial service?

In light of the illness apparently creeping in on the mayor, there is no meanness in stating that he cannot address Oakland's twin crises of the moment: the extreme budget crunch and the near-chaotic breakdown of public safety. Nor can those around him substitute for one top executive who makes the call. The stasis is all too real.

No one gains by letting this private drama play out in public.

The mayor and those who love and care for him the most can arrange a speedy but calm withdrawal from office. I think I am like most critics of the mayor's public performance in wanting to cooperate in a dignified resignation. Politics in the good sense is about making our community better.

The mayor often uses the phrase, "I choose to ..." It has a ring of assertiveness. One can and should assert himself in affairs among men. Nonetheless, nature asserts itself over mere mortals. Wisdom lies in choosing to bring down the curtain now.