OAKLAND — Three of the city’s eight incumbent council members will not run for re-election in November, leaving wide open the races for public office that could reshape Oakland’s political landscape.
Treva Reid, the councilmember representing East Oakland’s District 7, did not file paperwork by the late Friday afternoon deadline at City Hall — a last-minute revelation that caught two of her would-be challengers by surprise when they learned of Reid’s decision.
Reid joins two fellow council members who similarly are foregoing a re-election bid: at-large member Rebecca Kaplan, a tenured Oakland politician, and District 1’s Dan Kalb, who unsuccessfully ran earlier this year for an East Bay state senate seat.
Reid, the daughter of former longtime councilmember Larry Reid, did not immediately respond to a message asking why she would not seek to retain her seat.
Two other incumbents, Carroll Fife and Noel Gallo, did file papers to run for their seats again. The council added two new faces — Janani Ramachandran and Kevin Jenkins — in the 2022 election.
With council President Nikki Fortunato Bas the frontrunner to win election to the Alameda County Board of Supervisors and Mayor Sheng Thao facing a recall effort, the stage is set for November to have a monumental impact on how Oakland is governed.
The two other incumbents departing City Hall had both forecasted their exits — Kalb did so in his campaign for the state senate, while Kaplan outright endorsed another candidate, Tonya Love, in an announcement earlier on Friday.
But the revelation that Reid would not run to retain office sent shockwaves through City Hall late Friday afternoon. Two of her would-be opponents, Marcie Hodge and Merika Goolsby, had not heard about Reid’s decision when they arrived to drop off their paperwork.
Soon after, they learned that Reid’s dropping out of the race would buy them five additional days to file — which is also the case for anyone running to fill Kalb and Kaplan’s seats.
Although it is no stranger to dramatic politics, Oakland City Hall has fallen under a particularly troubling cloud in recent weeks amid a sprawling FBI criminal inquiry that saw the mayor’s home raided on June 20 by federal investigators.
FBI agents also raided three other addresses that are tied to the Duong family, which owns the city’s recycling contractor, California Waste Solutions.
Reid, who hasn’t spoken publicly about the federal investigation, formerly worked as a lobbyist for the waste company. Her father, former councilmember Larry Reid, is known to be a close associate of the Duong family.
Kaplan and Kalb also hold ties to the Duongs: In 2019, the Public Ethics Commission opened an investigation into the family’s use of “straw donors,” or obscure third-party entities, to contribute to various politicians, including those two councilmembers.
Shomik Mukherjee is a reporter covering Oakland. Call or text him at 510-905-5495 or email him at smukherjee@bayareanewsgroup.com.
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