Oakland Mayor Ron Dellums to decide on 2nd run

(08-01) 17:27 PDT OAKLAND -- This is decision week for Oakland Mayor Ron Dellums, who has promised to let everyone know on Friday, the last day possible, whether he'll run for a second term.

Critics might see Dellums' long silence on a possible re-election campaign as a symbol of his four years in office, during which, in their eyes, he has been missing in action for extended stretches. In this case, however, the lack of communication has been a sign to his most ardent supporters that they should move on.

"I worked for him for 25 years," said Assemblyman Sandré R. Swanson, D-Alameda, who served as an aide to Dellums before running for office himself. "I would assume that if he were planning to run, that he would call me."

Swanson is now co-chair of the mayoral campaign of City Councilwoman Jean Quan.

Others have moved to other candidates - with contingencies.

"I've communicated to Ms. Kaplan, 'If Ron Dellums declares, I would support Mayor Dellums,' " said Geoffrey Pete, a local business owner and activist who has endorsed City Councilwoman Rebecca Kaplan for mayor.

Mixed views at best

Six other candidates have declared their intention to run Nov. 2, including former state Senate President Pro Tem Don Perata. Even if the 74-year-old Dellums pulls a major surprise and declares for re-election before the Friday deadline, he would probably be considered a longshot.

In a four-year-period, Dellums has gone from being a dream candidate of a progressive coalition to, at best, the recipient of mixed reviews.

His supporters point out that in a city with a high crime rate, Dellums in 2008 spearheaded the effort to raise the police force to 837 officers, the most in city history.

As the economy soured, they say, Dellums leaned on his connections from 27 years in Congress and his lobbyist skills to bring in $80 million in federal stimulus money directly controlled by the city.

"The only game in town is federal money, and he's the best person suited for that approach," Pete said.

Helped end lockout

In 2007, his first year in office, Dellums took the lead in negotiating a settlement in a monthlong lockout of garbage workers that crippled trash collections in Oakland and other cities where Waste Management Inc. and its workers were at war. Ultimately, both union leaders and the company credited Dellums with solving the impasse.

"We wondered, 'Would he be willing to get his hands dirty with the grimy issues mayors have to deal with?,' " said Teamsters President Chuck Mack, whose union endorsed a rival candidate in the 2006 mayoral election. "He answered that for me in these negotiations."

But that active involvement was an exception - Dellums has left day-to-day management at City Hall mostly to others.

As the city racked up multimillion-dollar deficits and the record police staffing levels became unsustainable, Dellums stayed away until the last minute from negotiations with the police union intended to avoid layoffs, describing himself as the "master strategist."

Dellums also was battered by revelations that he owed $252,000 in federal taxes from 2005 through 2007, and by breaking a promise in 2009 to take a 10 percent cut in his $183,000 salary.

Fans on left remain

Dellums is still revered by many on the left for his political stands in Congress: criticizing ballooning military spending, fighting for AIDS research, and, most famously, demanding economic sanctions on South Africa during its apartheid regime.

Without Dellums' leadership, "I don't think apartheid would have ended as fast," Perata said. But the former state senator suggested Dellums wasn't prepared for the bare-knuckle politics he found at City Hall.

"Local government is a league where they throw at your head," Perata said.

Opportunity missed

It was Dellums' legacy on the national front that inspired Aimee Allison to join the effort to encourage him to run in 2006. The "Draft Dellums for Mayor" movement gathered more than 8,000 signatures on petitions.

"I thought there was a moment to strengthen progressive, multicultural politics in Oakland, to nurture a new generation of leadership in the city," Allison said.

She was energized by Dellums' efforts to engage the community in producing plans for solving endemic city problems.

"Where they fell down was not following up on that," said Allison, 40, who had volunteered for Dellums' congressional campaigns since 1992. "You set high expectations for citizen engagement. When that didn't continue, that led to people losing faith in their ability to impact the administration."

Now, the coalition that elected Dellums has been scattered among the various candidates.

"It's very fractured," Allison said. "We didn't build a movement that could hold our local elected officials accountable."

E-mail Matthai Kuruvila at mkuruvila@sfchronicle.com. This story has been corrected from the version that ran in The Chronicle on Aug. 1.

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