Strong-Mayor Charter Amendment — November 3, 2026
Barbara Lee's
Power Grab
They want to rewrite Oakland's rules so one person controls the budget, can kill neighborhood projects with a line-item veto, and politicians get a legal pathway to nearly double their pay — all buried in a ballot measure sold as "reform."
Vote NO on the Strong-Mayor Charter Amendment —
The Hidden Cost
The ballot language talks reform. The fine print opens the door to a massive pay raise — and they hoped you wouldn't notice.
Current Council Salary
$114,243
Per year, per councilmember
Legal Pathway To
~$245,000
Benchmarked against "comparable full-time officials"
The pay jump — at a glance
+125% potential increase
Provisions 7 and 8 force City Council into full-time roles and hand the Public Ethics Commission a blank check to benchmark salaries against "comparable full-time officials" in other cities — opening the door to compensation nearly double what councilmembers earn today.
Provision 7 reclassifies City Council positions as full-time employment, eliminating the part-time council model Oakland voters have relied on for decades.
Provision 8 directs the Public Ethics Commission to set council salaries by benchmarking against full-time elected officials in comparable California cities — cities that already pay their leaders far more.
The mechanism is deliberate: voters see "government reform" on the ballot. What they don't see is a compensation pipeline that could push council pay from $114,243 to approximately $245,000 — a raise of up to 125% — without a separate vote on salaries.
City Hall wrote themselves a pay raise into the charter — and tried to slip it past voters inside a "government reform" measure.
Your Neighborhood
This measure turns your elected district representative into a powerless punching bag.
If the council loses primacy over budgeting and legislation, members are relegated to the status of a "punching bag to absorb bad vibes" with no actual power to deliver constituent services.
The line-item veto — in plain English
Under this measure, the Mayor gains a line-item veto over the city budget. She can zero out funding for specific district projects — your potholes, your park, your public safety priorities — with a stroke of the pen.
To override her veto, Council needs a two-thirds supermajority. On an 8-member council, that's 6 votes. The Mayor only needs 3 allies to block anything. Your councilmember's vote becomes nearly meaningless.
What you lose
- Fighting for potholes in your neighborhood
- Directing police resources to your district
- Protecting local parks and community grants
- A councilmember who can actually deliver for you
Before — Current Hybrid System
City Council
Sets budget & policy with your district rep at the table
Mayor
Executes policy, shares power with Council
Checks and balances intact
After — Strong Mayor
Mayor
Controls budget, line-item veto, dominates legislation
City Council
"Punching bag" — absorbs blame, delivers nothing
Your neighborhood voice silenced
How It Got Here
They forced this onto the ballot by breaking their own rules.
The 4–4 tie — and the Mayor broke it for herself
When City Council voted on placing this measure on the ballot, the vote deadlocked 4 to 4. Four councilmembers voted NO:
Mayor Barbara Lee cast the tie-breaking vote — to give herself vastly more power. That's not reform. That's a power grab, decided by the person who benefits most.
The Suppressed Third Option
The Mayor's hand-picked working group blocked the Council-Manager alternative — a professional city manager accountable to the full elected Council, the model many governance experts preferred.
Voters weren't given a real choice. They were handed a false binary: keep the broken status quo, or hand one politician near-total control. The option that actually reforms government without concentrating power was taken off the table.
Public perception is one of a "pure power grab."
Under a Council-Manager system, a professionally trained city manager runs day-to-day operations and is accountable to the entire elected Council — not a single politician.
Power stays distributed. Your district councilmember retains real leverage over the budget and services. The Mayor doesn't get unilateral veto authority over your neighborhood's priorities.
That option was systematically excluded from the ballot. Ask yourself why.
The Warning
We've seen exactly where this road leads.
San Francisco's strong-mayor system consolidated contracting and budget authority in one office. The result wasn't efficiency — it was federal corruption convictions for pay-to-play schemes involving top city officials.
Public Works
Mohammed Nuru
Director — federal corruption conviction
Public Utilities Commission
Harlan Kelly
General Manager — federal corruption conviction
Consolidating contracting and budget power in one office removes the checks that prevent backroom deals. Oakland cannot afford to do the same.
Oakland Today
- → Shared budget authority between Mayor and Council
- → District reps with real legislative power
- → Multiple checks on contracting decisions
Strong-Mayor Path
- → One office controls budget and contracts
- → Council reduced to symbolic opposition
- → Fewer eyes on backroom deals — SF proved the cost
The Bottom Line
This isn't reform.
It's Barbara Lee's Power Grab.
One politician gets control of the budget, the power to kill your neighborhood's priorities, and a legal pathway to nearly double council pay — all packaged as reform. Oakland deserves real accountability, not concentrated power with a pay raise hidden in the fine print.