Blast from the Past, Don Perata

I made a quick ‘garden talk’ about Don Perata's legacy after reading his complaints and the many ways he disparaged Oakland in The East Bay Insiders a day or two ago.

There are a couple things I need to expand upon. For one, going live which I do while recording, I don't rehearse or rewrite my comments. They're extemporaneous.

So, as I recall, an economic development advisor to Mayor Harris and Don Perata disagreed over how to use a plot of redevopment land along the estuary. It had been sought by a car dealership who wanted to expand out of its smallish lot on Broadway in Uptown Oakland. The dealer gave up trying to get that much larger parcel and took its business to Hayward instead. That parcel stayed empty for years and so did that huge accrual of sales tax which went to Hayward also. Funny thing, the city turned around and gave Perata a contract to revitalize the uptown car dealerships as a result. Perata was the paid political consultant for multiple individuals and businesses on both sides of every deal in Oakland for years.

When the city administrator and architect of the scheme to sell Personal Seat Licenses, PSLs (that generation's version of NFTs) to pay for the Raiders return (and the defacing of our coliseum,) was hired away from the city administration by the Don to work for him in his new position in the state legislature, it became clear to all who had engineered that deal for Oakland. That deal drained millions from our coffers for years.

[“$350 million overall. Local government had to continue paying off this municipal bond debt until the final installment in 2025.”]

It's possible to postulate one of the reasons we lost the As was because the team owners knew we would never again be a party to even a ‘good deal’ with another team. Also, word on the street was that Perata was working the shipping company's side of the Howard Terminal project-to kill it. Like trump, Perata never cared which side of the issue he made his money on, so long as he got to cash the check.

I have more examples wriggling around in my aging brain on this guy and I'll leave them there-for now.

But, his nonsensical comments about Ranked Choice Voting, RCV, are both vile and silly. “Nobody knows how it works.” For voters, it works like this-if you know how to pick your favorite ice cream flavor-you can vote using RCV. If you can't get your favorite, opt for your 2nd favorite until you get to the last flavor you're willing to eat.

The difference between Perata's understanding of RCV and the ultimate winner is that like trump, Perata had a percentage of dedicated voters who supported him. But the rest of the voters couldn't even stomach him as their number 2 or number 3 choice. Jean Quan had more voters who considered her as either their 1st, 2nd and some even their 3rd choice than he did. His favorability was not very wide or deep but very expensive, kinda like “American flag blue” sprayed on. He had run an expensive, consultant heavy campaign. He took money from anybody and everybody including the prison guards’ union.

Enough about the Don—and I will end this without mentioning those of you known then as Peratistas.—you know who you are.

Here's my running but brief commentary on the “successes” of our own Don:

Have a good weekend and try to put the Dons out of your thoughts.