Oakland Mayor Ron Dellums silent on budget hole

San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom made all the right moves in his budget proposal a couple of weeks ago, protecting key city initiatives while making sensible cuts across all departments to close a $483 million budget shortfall.

In San Jose, Mayor Chuck Reed is awaiting last-minute concessions from a half-dozen unions facing job cuts. Barring agreements, Reed has vowed to push through his budget, which closes a $118 million gap by week's end.

In Oakland, residents are still looking around for our guy, Mayor Ron Dellums, who has not been heard from for a while.

I've received a few e-mails from Oakland residents who've reported Dellums sightings at a grocery store in the Oakland Hills - in the middle of the day during the work week. But around Oakland City Hall, it would be a lot easier to find Waldo.

Other than pushing forth a sure-to-be-doomed parcel tax proposal to save police jobs, Oakland's Quiet Mayor has said nothing to the people of Oakland about how the city will close its $31 million budget shortfall, down from $42 million.

He has been absent from talks between members of the Oakland City Council and police union officials over how to avoid the probable layoffs of as many as 200 police officers. He has also remained silent on the layoffs, which must be recognized as a serious potential threat to public safety.

As the leader of a city that ranked No. 4 in violent crime among all U.S. cities in 2009, addressing such a drastic situation is a mandatory duty for Oakland's top elected official and highest officeholder.

But whether it's personal embarrassment from his latest gaffe - reneging on a public pledge to take a 10 percent pay cut - or his laissez-faire political style, Dellums appears to have left the building.

It's almost as if Oakland's mayor has officially called it quits six months before his term ends.

And speaking of calling it quits - the mayor's spokesman, Paul Rose, has resigned to take another job. It's ironic this mayor even had a spokesman.

In the four years since Dellums took office, an ever-dwindling cast of supporters has blamed his failure to launch initiatives on almost any issue affecting the city on the nation's economic woes.

But a dormant, absentee mayor who's done little to encourage business growth, spark redevelopment or job growth in such an economic climate should surely shoulder some of the blame.

The double whammy of a real-estate-based national economic decline and the lack of leadership or direction from elected officials has left Oakland even further behind than other California cities.

Already Oakland financial officials have provided the Oakland City Council with estimates of a $53 million deficit in fiscal year 2012 and $65 million in 2013.

What should be clear to Oakland residents - and a majority of the city's elected officials is that the city's financial model, like its mayor, is obsolete.

"The whole system is broken, and until it's fixed it doesn't matter how much money we spend," said District 5 council member Ignacio De La Fuente.

During the course of his 3.5 years in office, Dellums has said public safety was a top priority in his office and reaching a contract agreement with the Oakland Police Officer's Association and hiring a new police chief are positive proof of that agenda.

But now Oakland stands on the precipice of losing 200 officers and Dellums is as quiet as a fly on the wall.

Oakland's former Mayor Jerry Brown summed up the city's situation rather nicely last week when he spoke to KCBS reporter Doug Sovern as he made his way around Lake Merritt.

"Hi, I used to be your mayor. I was the last mayor of Oakland. Oakland could use a mayor, it hasn't had one since I left office," Brown said.

Chip Johnson's column appears in the Chronicle on Tuesdays and Fridays. E-mail him at chjohnson@sfchronicle.com.

This article appeared on page C - 1 of the San Francisco Chronicle