19 Comments
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Ben Stiegler's avatar

Ms. Kaplan seems to have a perennial inside connection to Oakland’s treasury. After she lost the election to retain her council member-at-large seat, she was mysteriously asked by fellow council members to stay on after Sheng Tao’s indictment moved CM Jenkins to the mayoral role. That seemed irregular at the time. Now this non - posted job award smacks of cronyism or worse. Kaplan is decidedly brilliant, but has been part of crafting and advocating for policies that have brought Oakland to the brink. A deeper investigation into the legality and decision makers of the job award is warranted.

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Mark Lecker's avatar

How exactly is she brilliant? She gave Oakland the Duong family, and even illegally tried to give them the city business for all three curbside pickups. Sheng Thao and Andre Jones were her two chief of staff, and it was Kaplan that brought in the African-American Sports And Entertainment group to buy the Coliseum, which has been an utter disaster of a deal.

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Arlene Kock's avatar

Passing our tax money back and forth between them as Oakland sinks….

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Lorna Pearl's avatar

I would think Oakland would have had enough of Rebecca Kaplan. Handing her a job that never went through the normal hiring procedures is another example of Oakland corruption. Sadly it’s very much like something you would see from Trump

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Lorna Pearl's avatar

Email your opinions on this with the City Administrator and the Mayor That’s where the decision was made

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joey brite's avatar

To bring up Trump is a cheap shot, and it also cheapens the seriousness of this obvious corruption afoot. I'd like to see if anyone on this site can describe the steps needed for an investigation as soon as possible before more of our tax dollars go into Kaplan's pocket. What can we do and who would be the best, most effective agency and people to stop this?

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Lorna Pearl's avatar

The Trump comparison is not meant as a cheap shot, but to point out it is a similar pattern of not doing things according to procedure. Oakland has done these type of things for a long time

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evan morganstein's avatar

WTF. We have a huge budget deficit yet we give this corrupt, incompetent, negligent idiot a Cush job.

She has been one of the main architects of creating Oakland’s current problems.

Our CA who is unqualified (being CA of small town in AZ, population 4500) and hired by Sheng, should have been terminated long ago after he advocated for a 30+% raise for Sheng instead of filling out the state anti retail theft grant that cost the city over $15 million

Now he is engaging in corrupt hiring practices

Backlash against DEI is easy to understand when it results in outrages like this

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Irene Thomas's avatar

Vincent Williams with Urban Compassion Project is charged $2000 each for dumpsters. He has been cleaning up Oakland’s worst dumping spots for years with his team of volunteers. They are devoted to helping unhoused people. This means he has to fundraise $4000 every week for 2 dumpsters. Perhaps Ms. Kaplan will see fit to work with UCP.

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Nematode's avatar

Seems fitting--she truly embodies Oakland's problems 😞

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Gerald Cheney's avatar

Is Ms. Kaplan qualified for the task, or is it a reward for being part of the Oakland City Mob. ? I viewed her promotion of Measure W as a misdirection, something to bring in money and have little benefit to housing. I have asked the VPT Administration to provide a balance or financial statement, still waiting.

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Mark R.'s avatar

Cost of an average stake bed 8 yard dump truck debris haul away runs around $1,000. Her salary would cover 1490 loads.

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Mark R.'s avatar

Correction 149. Enough to clear West Oakland.

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Max's avatar

Rebecca has been on the city council since 2009 and, from the perspective of the average Oaklander, she did not achieve much to help residents and small businesses.

As for illegal dumping, she is the problem because she allowed the situation to accumulate to the incredible mess that it is today. Perhaps, this was intentional so she could land her current job?

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D Cohen's avatar

A lot of lather and innuendo about very little. Rebecca Kaplan is very smart, competent, experienced, dedicated in all the right ways. We're luck to have her in the Oakland government.

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evan morganstein's avatar

Please provide your rationale for such an absurd comment

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Ray's avatar

You’ve lost your mind. Rebecca is as

incompetent as they come. She’s been “bleeding” the City with her rhetoric for as long as she’s been there.

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Ben Stiegler's avatar

I meant brilliant in the strategic sense - able to imagine and articulate policy, craft legislation, and integrity in standing up for her values. Being courageous as the first openly LGBTQ+ councilmember. I'm in agreement that those abilities often didn't benefit Oakland in the long run -- perhaps she was not so great at evaluating risk/benefit. And interestingly, as of now, her LinkedIn profile has been completely wiped clean. No mention of (IIRC) MIT, Tufts, Stanford degrees, law school, etc. So that's an interesting move. Her tagline simply says "Here at city of Oakland". Wikipedia lives on for now, tho - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rebecca_Kaplan

I didn't realize she also lays claim to the title of Rabbi. And much of the Wiki (tho not all) sounds like it might have been self-authored.

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Arlene Kock's avatar

Whoo boy🤦🏻‍♀️💰💰💰💥

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