Oakland Mayor's Race: Sierra Club Opens Forum To All Candidates

This is a quick supplemental and update to this blogger's last Oakland Mayor's Race blog post on Councilmember Rebecca Kaplan's call to the Oakland Sierra Club Chapter's Volunteer Chairman Kent Lewandowski, asking if he and the organization would open the scheduled Wednesday, August 25th Oakland Green Mayoral Forum (from 5:30 PM to 7:30 PM) at East Bay Community Foundation 353 Frank Ogawa Plaza Oakland, CA) to all candidates.

Well, after all of that, The Sierra Club cleaned it's own air and made it fresh-smelling again , well, to everyone except the Oakland Climate Action Coalition. (Geez, how many non-profits do we have!?)

A email was just received from Kent Lewandowski, which reads as follows:

Zennie,

We are proceeding with the forum and are inviting all the candidates.

I have the following candidates listed on the registrar of voters
filing report (see page 22):

1. ARNOLD FIELDS
2. DON MACLEAY
3. DON PERATA
4. GREG HARLAND
5. JEAN QUAN
6. JOE TUMAN
7. LARRY LIONEL "LL" YOUNG JR.
8. MARCIE HODGE
9. REBECCA KAPLAN
10. TERENCE CANDELL

Please see the attached report.

If you know this is incorrect information, please let me know.

Thanks,

Kent

Kaplan Scores!

This email officially clears what would have been a really bad error on the part of The Sierra Club, and really shows that the League of Women Voters was correct in telling the Oakland Chamber of Commerce that Oaklanders would protest over an exclusionary mayoral forum.

And kudos to Councilmember Kaplan, who cared enough to make a call on behalf of all of the candidates and ask for the process to be opened-up. It was.

And in case you're wondering, Kent did apologize to the candidates for his first email, although I still hold that Terrance Candell came down on Kent too hard. At any rate, both are good people; I think they're going to be fine. Here's the email that Kent sent to the candidates:

Subject: Green Oakland Mayoral Forum - Aug. 25th
From: Kent
Date: Thu, August 19, 2010 9:58 pm
To: candell1@yahoo.com, candidate@macleay4mayor.org,
info@harland4mayor.com, mhodge@peralta.edu, LL.Young@prurealty.com,
dave@perata4mayor.com, sgpiper@sbcglobal.net, j@jonathanbair.com

Dear Candidates & Campaign Managers,

After consideration and listening to community voices, the Sierra Club
have decided to open our "Green Mayoral" forum on August 25th to all
registered candidates for mayor (as of August 16, 2010). Please see
the attached document from the Registrar of Voters listing all
candidates who filed by August 16th, 2010 (starting page 22). There
are 10 registered candidates listed there. If there are other
candidates that have registered (in other words, if our information is
not correct and somebody is missing from the list), and it can be
verified, those candidates will also be invited.

We are going to modify the format of this forum to have fewer
questions so that we can hear from all the candidates. A moderator
will be appointed and we will attempt to stick to a limited time per
speaker and question. The event takes place next Wednesday, August
25th from 5:30 - 7:30 at the East Bay Community Foundation, 353 Frank
Ogawa Plaza, next to City Hall. Please be there no later than 5:15.
Doors open at 5.

Please rsvp with an email to me (kentlewan@gmail.com). We need your
rsvp so that we can develop a program for the event and get some
biographical information from all the participants. If you could
develop a *brief* statement / bio (no more than 3-4 sentences), we
appreciate it. We will have a very simple program and try to squeeze
some information about each participating candidate on it.

We appreciate your coming and participating in a discussion about
issues concerning the environment, affecting all the people of
Oakland. Please ask your supporters to attend, as well.

We look forward to an informative and enlightening discussion,
hopefully the first of a series on green issues.

Kent Lewandowski
Chair, Northern Alameda County Group
Sierra Club, S.F. Bay Chapter

p.s. I apologize for any bitterness my previous email caused. I am a
volunteer and not skilled at public relations.

Now Senator Don Perata, who had said he would not participate in any forum that excluded candidates, can participate in his first Oakland Mayor's Race Forum.

But, as written, this will be without the Oakland Climate Action Coalition as of this writing. They backed out because of the exclusionary nature of the original forum plan and announced they were going to do their own mayoral forum in September.

Perhaps they will want back in?

Stay tuned.