Mayor Dellums Hit with Second Federal Tax Lien

The IRS filed a second income tax lien on Oakland mayor Ron Dellums and his wife Cynthia. The lien, recorded Dec. 23, 2009, brings their total unpaid taxes to more than a quarter of a million dollars.

In November 2009 ORPN discovered the first IRS lien on the Dellums couple. After promising an explanation, the mayor and his staff said nothing. Worse, all other Oakland elected officials let the mayor get away with arrogant silence.

It was left to a curious Oakland resident to check public records again. To his astonishment he found a second lien. It updates the interest and penalties on the Dellums' unpaid taxes for 2005, 2006, and 2007.

While Dellums continues to fly first class, stay at luxury hotels, and dine at the most expensive restaurants in the country, all at the expense of the City of Oakland, he ignores repeated IRS demands to settle his tax obligations.

As mayor Dellums has been absent during the City's budget crunch. He has done nothing to work out a comprehensive solution. He patched over the public safety crisis by begging a three-year grant from Washington. How will Oakland retain the police officers paid by those funds when the grant expires? Dellums does not care.

Dellums left now-disgraced city administrator Deborah Edgerly and city council finance chair Jean Quan to make a mess of City finances. In 2008 the two of them, knowing the country had entered a serious recession, refused to begin sensible retrenchment and restructuring. They ignored unsupervised grants to private agencies, top-heavy bureaucracy in city government, and the disastrous over-expansion of redevelopment districts.

Instead, Edgerly and Quan drained the City reserve fund from $70 million down to $10 million just to keep the pork flowing.

Councilmember Quan has done nothing to demand minimum performance, competence, and accountability from the mayor. In her eyes, such a demand might set a bad precedent for all elected officials.

Dellums' disdainful attitude is toxic for Oakland. When the highest official breaks the law, he sets exactly the wrong example for everyone.

Ron Dellums is either incapable of being a mayor or supremely arrogant about the standards he should honor in public office.