Oakland Mayor Barbara Lee cast a rare tie-breaking vote at the Oakland City Council on Tuesday night to place a charter reform measure on the November ballot.
Lee, who attended the meeting to lobby the council for approval, cast the vote that pushed the measure over the line.
“I championed placing this measure on the November ballot as the best way to reform the status quo and increase accountability,” Lee said after the vote. “At its core, this is about letting the people of Oakland decide whether they want more accountability and a clearer system of governance”
If approved by voters in November, Oakland’s governing charter would change from a hybrid governance model to a strong-mayor system. The mayor would become chief executive of the city, with increased responsibility for city operations and delivering services, among other things.
In addition, the measure would provide the mayor with line-item veto power over the city’s budget and legislation, while giving council approval authority over mayoral nominations to four key city posts. Councilmembers also would be required to work full time on the council and not pursue outside work.
The charter reform process, launched in August 2025 as part of Lee’s 100-day plan, consisted of a 750-person working group, led by the League of Women Voters and San Francisco Planning and Urban Research Association.
The recommendations were developed over a five-month period of deliberations between residents, experts, community stakeholders, and citizen survey responses. Review sessions were then conducted with every city council member, according to the charter proposal.
After the final recommendations were released on Jan. 30, SPUR held community information sessions between February and May to clarify points and address community questions, according to SPUR’s website.
“I respectfully ask the council to not preserve the status quo,” said Lee. “This is about whether Oakland residents should have the opportunity to decide if they want a system with clear lines of responsibility and greater accountability.”
Divide over expanding mayoral powers
Councilmembers Zac Unger, Noel Gallo, Ken Houston, and Janani Ramachandran voted against putting the measure on the ballot. Councilmembers Rowena Brown, Carroll Fife, Kevin Jenkins and Charlene Wang, voted in favor of placing the measure on the ballot.
Fife and Houston expressed concerns around the proposed line-item veto powers, suggesting that it gave the mayor too much power over decisions by the council.
“I’m just concerned about who comes after Barbara Lee,” said Fife. “We’re seeing massive changes to billionaires being able to buy elections and to put people in office that they want to run… I’m concerned about what comes next.”
Noting the charter’s focus on transparency, Wang proposed an amendment to increase council oversight of mayoral appointees through optional public hearings if the council feels there may be issues with their qualifications.
“In our current processes, department heads don’t get any vetting before this legislative body. The amendments that I’ve added change that,” said Wang.
While several of the councilmembers, including Fife and Houston, disagreed with Wang that optional public hearings would have the desired effect of putting political pressure on the mayor, the amendment was ultimately added to the proposal.
Unger, along with Houston and Gallo, voiced their desire for a “strong council-manager” system, which would establish the council as head of the city’s government and use a council-appointed city manager that would execute policies passed by the council.
In this system, the mayor would take on more ceremonial duties and have less oversight of the day-to-day workings of government.
Unger said he had been working on a proposal of this nature but abandoned it after he determined there wasn’t enough support among councilmembers for this approach and determined that putting two different forms of government on the ballot could yield a situation where both were voted down and no clear choice would be articulated.
Public comment highlighted support from unions and activist groups, such as Alameda Labor Council and Black Women Organized for Political Action, among others, who argued that the proposal reflected months of community input.
Many members of the public urged the council to vote against the proposal, expressing concern that the mayor would be given too much power. There were also concerns about provisions in the measure that would align mayoral and councilmembers’ salaries with comparable full-time public officials.
