The main challenger to Oakland City Council President Rebecca Kaplan’s next term on the council has conceded the election, Kaplan’s office said this week.

Rebecca Kaplan

Derreck Johnson conceded the race Monday morning. In an interview Tuesday, Kaplan thanked her supporters and said she is honored to represent the people of Oakland. She also expressed excitement that two measures she authored appear to be passing.

“I think it’s a testament to the people of Oakland to see these great outcomes,” she said.

Measure S1 aims to bring greater police accountability to the city while Measure QQ will allow 16- and 17-year-olds to vote in elections of the Oakland Unified School District school board.

Kaplan said her agenda for her next term will include a focus on gun violence and housing people who are homeless.

Keith Burbank is currently a fulltime reporter covering Alameda County and Oakland news for Bay City News. He has also worked on the Data Points project for Local News Matters, finding trends and stories about the region through data. In 2019, he was a California Fellow at the USC Annenberg Center for Health Journalism, producing a series about homeless deaths in Santa Clara County. He worked as a swing shift editor for the newswire for several years as well. Outside of journalism, Keith enjoys computer programming, math, economics and music.