UPDATE: Deborah Edgerly Protected By Oakland City Charter
UPDATE: Chip Johnson's Right About Favoritism in Oakland
UPDATE: Delums Fires Edgerly
UPDATE: Rumor: Oakland Police Wiretapped Deborah Edgerly
UPDATE: John Russo and Courtney Ruby present reform package
There's a bit too much desire to throw Oakland City Administrator Deborah Edgerly under the bus regarding her alledged interference with a police investigation of an Oakland Gang.
Knowing "Miss E" as I have since 1993, I'm going to come to her defense. In 15 years I'm never known Miss E to do anything but play by the book. Sometimes that's frustrated my efforts, particularly when I worked to bring the 2005 Super Bowl to Oakland, but even in my worst moments during that time between 1999 and 2001, I understood her position.
But I've always respected and regarded her as a custodian of the City's budget and procedures. So this new story sound like just that -- I don't believe for a moment she tried to block a police investigation. I also don't believe there was a police investigation she knew she was getting involved with. I think -- knowing her -- is that she asked a cop what happened and that police officer took offense to her involvement regarding a towed car.
To fire Miss E or call for her retirement is totally stupid, especially for this issue. But it would not be the first brain-dead manuever this City has taken on in recent history. Miss E's too valuable an employee for that.
This is a person who worked to steer the Coliseum financial picture into the clear after a terrible period of misreported funds in the late 80s and into the early 90s. Miss E lead the gathering and centralization of records kept for Coliseum Joint Powers Authority matters when no one -- save for myself when I was Economic Advisor to Elihu Harris, and five other people -- seemed to know what was going on, or even care. I could go on and on about the work she's done outside the view of the Mainstream Media, or for that matter most bloggers of today.
Miss E deserves a hearing and support. Yes, she's known to come to her family's defense; there are a lot of Edgerly's in Oakland, but never at the expense of a police investigation.
That's a lot of hogwash in my opinion, and I'll bet I'm right. It's clear that there are some at the OPD who've given -- or wanted to give Miss E a hard way to go, even giving her daughter Erin Breckenridge what Oakland Police Chief Wayne Tucker called a "hose job" when she tried to complete training for the OPD police officer job.
There's more to this than meet your SF Chronicle-reading eye.
Stay tuned.
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