Switching Oakland City Council races backfires on candidate, leaving her off the ballot

OAKLAND – An 11th-hour effort by an Oakland City Council candidate to switch races before the campaign filing deadline has backfired, leaving her entirely off the November ballot.

Tonya Love, the chief of staff to Councilmember Carroll Fife, had qualified for the at-large race to replace Councilmember Rebecca Kaplan. Her campaign got off to a strong start after she became one of two candidates in the packed race to receive an endorsement from Kaplan.

But Love withdrew from that contest with the goal of instead running for the city’s District 7 seat, after Councilperson Treva Reid abruptly announced she would not seek re-election.

Because Reid wasn’t running, the deadline for candidates to file and qualify was pushed to last week, causing a flurry of last-minute maneuvers by Love and others.

On Friday, the city clerk’s office said Love did not have enough signatures to qualify. Now, she’s among a dozen candidates who filed papers but won’t appear on the Nov. 5 ballot when Oakland voters elect five council members, a new city attorney and decide whether or not to recall Mayor Sheng Thao.

Local realtor David Newton, the nephew of Black Panther Party leader co-founder Huey P. Newton, also failed to submit enough signatures to vie for the District 7 seat.

The D7 race is now between Merida Goolsby, a member of the city’s rent board and Oakland Community Land Trust staffer; Marcie Hodge, a former Peralta Community College District board member; Ken Houston, who has long run a nonprofit to beautify and cleanup East Oakland and Iris Merriouns, Councilmember Janani Ramachandran’s chief of staff who previously worked for Treva Reid and before that Treva’s father, former D7 Councilmember Larry Reid.

Fife is running for re-election in the District 3 race against Baba Afolabi who ran a recently shuttered downtown sports lounge; landlord Michelle Hailey, Shan Hirsch a homeless and public safety advocate, Warren Logan, a transportation policy expert who worked for Mayor Libby Schaaf and Meron Semedar, a refugee plight advocate and educator.

District 3’s boundaries include West Oakland, Adams Point and parts of downtown.

The race for District 5, a slice of East Oakland which includes Fruitvale, Jingletown and Allendale, is between incumbent Noel Gallo, Erin Armstrong, a policy advisor for Alameda County Supervisor Nate Miley and restaurant owner Dominic Prado.

District 1 Councilmember Dan Kalb is not seeking re-election. Vying to replace him are Edward C. Frank; Len Raphael, a certified public accountant and Zac Unger, a firefighter and president of the fire union.

The at-large race to replace Kaplan has 10 candidates: former Oakland police Chief LeRonne Armstrong; Rowena Brown, who works for Assemblymember Mia Bonta; urban planner and housing advocate Shawn Danino; Kanitha Matoury, who owns Howden Market in downtown; Mindy Pechenuk, a Donald Trump supporter and political activist; Fabian Robinson, a pastor; tax preparer and perennial candidate Nancy Sidebotham; Selika Thomas, a victim advocate and hairdresser; Cristina Tostado, a library commissioner and Charlene Wang, an environmental justice and civil rights advocate at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

For the first time in more than a decade, Oakland will elect a new city attorney, following Barbara Parker’s retirement. Parker has endorsed Chief Assistant City Attorney Ryan Richardson, who is facing retired Alameda County Judge Brenda Harbin-Forte.