I come on behalf of a hardworking, creative, and resilient people, but above all a deeply generous people-a people that has learned to resist without hatred, to defend its rights without ceasing to respect others.
"This was never just about numbers in a budget. It was about maintaining opportunities for our children, supporting the people who dedicate their lives to educating them, and preserving the strength and pride of our schools," Tracie Kennedy stated, highlighting the emotional and social implications of the budget cuts on the community.
"We're all over the place here - this meeting should be suspended. We should get our ducks in a row and come back here and do this properly. I mean it's like a circus - you're saying one thing, and then you're going back. You're kind of changing your answers."
City Hall reporters Eli Wolfe and Natalie Orenstein tracked every Oakland City Council vote in 2025 - all 138 of them at full council meetings, plus 519 more at committee meetings - to find out how your representative is doing the most basic part of the job.
Campaigner Aysha Hawcutt stated that residents were 'not anti-homes', but believed the Adlington plan was 'the wrong proposal in the wrong place'. She expressed pride in the community's resilience against the development threats.
Fourteen Angelenos have qualified to run for mayor, including incumbent Karen Bass, City Councilmember Nithya Raman and former reality TV star Spencer Pratt. Seven City Council incumbents face at least one challenger, while Councilmember Monica Rodriguez is running unopposed to represent her northeast San Fernando Valley district.
The understanding that we have reached when we've talked about it, to the extent we've talked about it at all, is that The Distraction should try to be a good hang even in bad times. This is dependent, of course, on the extent to which Drew and I are capable of managing that, and also relative to how bad the times in question are.
When you have people sleepwalking into an authoritarian regime, it's up to us to sound the alarm. People feel isolated, helpless and hopeless. And when you hear about other people who are just like you taking a stand and representing something that you believe, that gives you not only hope, but it gives you power.
Portland's transition to a new form of government last January brought new practices and procedures for the City Council. Among the largest changes, impacting both the Council and members of the public, was the introduction of eight policy committees. The committees, which considered topics including transportation, climate, finance, homelessness, and public safety, were intended to provide a focused venue for councilors to introduce legislation and hold conversations on specific topics, as well as to hear public testimony.
The three charter reform measures Lurie and Mandelman have proposed are 1) giving the mayor powers currently held by independent City Hall commissions, 2) making it harder to put ballot measures on San Francisco election ballots, and 3) making the City Administrator's term ten years instead of five years, and giving the Administrator more authority over contracts.
It's been a pleasure working with you for the past three years you've shown compassion, you've shown an effort to make our community a little bit better, said Sunnyvale Mayor Larry Klein to Mehlinger at Tuesday's meeting. I look forward to the partnership.
The current system 'locks in bureaucracy, diffuses accountability, and protects the status quo.' Lurie and Mandelman wrote that voters find it 'difficult' to know 'who is accountable when services fall short.' Giving more power to the mayor, they continued, would create more 'accountability.'
(AP Photo/Matt Rourke) A Kansas mayor who has supported President Donald Trump for years is now facing years behind bars after state prosecutors said he voted as an illegal immigrant. The New York Times ran a feature on Joe Ceballos this week, who is currently facing multiple charges of voter fraud just months after being re-elected mayor of Coldwater, Kansas, which has a population of 687. The 55-year-old Ceballos is now battling three counts of election perjury and three counts of voting without being qualified.
