We sat down with Lee this week to ask what she’s doing about crime, illegal dumping, Trump’s threats, and how to unify the city.
by Eli Wolfe and Natalie Orenstein Aug. 28, 2025 (Oaklandside.org)
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Oakland Mayor Barbara Lee faces a city with sky-high expectations.
Residents demand immediate solutions to crime, illegal dumping, homelessness, and a struggling local economy. They also want their new leader to make local government more transparent and accountable. And many hope to see the mayor unify a city that became deeply polarized during the 2024 recall elections.
Lee unveiled her political strategy right after the election. It was a 10-point plan for her first 100 days.
Lee’s list was light on metrics and milestones. Instead, it emphasized listening to local stakeholders, advocating for more resources, and stabilizing the city’s finances.
Her roadmap also didn’t account for all of the challenges that would emerge. Within weeks of Lee taking office, President Donald Trump deployed National Guard troops to Los Angeles as part of an aggressive immigration crackdown. Trump took a swipe at Oakland and hinted that it and other cities may face similar treatment in the future. Lee has increasingly pushed back on Trump’s threats.
When we sat down with Lee on Wednesday at City Hall, the mayor shared a lot of the same points she’s been making since she launched her campaign back in January. She is laser-focused on the meat-and-potatoes work of government, including maintaining funding for public safety programs and keeping streets clean. And she is optimistic that her many community listening sessions are helping heal a divided city.
But there are a lot of unanswered questions about how she will spend the next year in office, including whether she plans to run for a second term.
We’ve edited the following interview for clarity and length.
During your campaign and after your election, you hit on a theme of unity. We know from the election results that there’s a really stark divide in Oakland. What have you done so far to try to bridge this longstanding divide?
In Congress and the state legislature, I represented areas I did not win in the mayoral election, so people know me there — they just decided not to vote for me.
We’ve held Ceasefire teaching and listening sessions and have been present at events. One of our first listening sessions was at Italian Colors restaurant, and it was really good. Several people came up to me later. And they said, “We didn’t vote for you. But thank you for being here, and we’re glad you won.”
We’re doing our teach-ins because a lot of people don’t know how our public safety system works. We’ve been holding meetings above 580 and below 580. We’ve been to the Cypress Mandela Training Center and different churches — Montclair Presbyterian Church; we went up to the church off of Skyline. We’ve just been everywhere in the city to try to bring this city together — by my presence, listening, and taking advice and input from everybody.
What I said during the campaign has been validated: people have the same concerns wherever they are. I talked to one pastor after one of our sessions, and she says, “I’m just trying to figure out how we can get people here to understand what’s taking place in deep East Oakland, because they’re the same concerns that are being raised.” Everywhere I go, it’s the same issues.
Editor’s note: A 2025 survey conducted by the Oakland Budget Advisory Commission found that across almost all demographic groups, the biggest priorities for residents are safety, housing, and cleanliness. More specifically, many people asked for timely response by fire and police and the cleaning of graffiti and trash.
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Another big topic on people’s minds is Trump deploying National Guard troops to major cities in recent months, for immigration enforcement and to fight crime. He’s hinted that Oakland could be another target. What are you and Police Chief Floyd Mitchell and other public safety leaders doing to prepare?
We have our plans. They just have not been rolled out yet for obvious reasons.
Part of our plan is to make sure that we have suggested spaces for peaceful protests. We know that this federal intervention, if this happens, is to provoke chaos. And we’re trying with the police force, and also with our violence interrupters and others, to make sure that if this happens, the peace is kept, and to not let Donald Trump provoke a lot of chaos. That’s the big piece.
The other piece is making sure our immigrants [are supported]. This is really hard. I was talking to someone today about how some children need heart surgery, and they’re afraid to take the kids for the surgery, because they think that ICE might pick them up. They’re not going to work, they’re losing income, and they have no money for services. And so part of our strategy is protecting our immigrants and supporting our immigrant community. We’re raising money to do that, to help with legal services. But we’re setting out ways to operate and what the safety plan should be if, in fact, this happens.
So there are different legs of this, which require our City Attorney Ryan Richardson, he’s doing the legal strategy, what we can do with the attorney general — how we would respond legally, what we would do to make sure we keep the peace.
In some cities, there have been reports of masked ICE agents who sometimes don’t show identification while they’re detaining people. Have you talked to the police chief or other public safety leaders about how you would deal with a scenario where masked men started taking people off the street in Oakland?
We’re working on that. That’s one of the things we can’t talk about right now, because we don’t want them to know what our plans are. But we’re going to have to be able to protect immigrants from being unfairly snatched from their homes. We’re going to have to have people watching, witnesses, and a legal record. You know, a couple of people have already been arrested. So we kind of know how they’re operating and will operate based on other jurisdictions. It’s terrible what’s taking place, and it’s wrong.
You mentioned Ceasefire earlier, which you’ve emphasized is a proven way to reduce violent crime. You also promised to convene public safety and business leaders to develop other initiatives to address crime. Are there other concrete plans you’ve developed that you want to highlight?
One of the biggest pieces is trying to make sure that we get to 700 police officers, because we’re short-staffed. We funded five academies. We need more, but the budget crisis makes that difficult. And recruitment and retention are very difficult, so we’re layering on new ways to recruit police officers from Oakland.
There’s some organizations that want to help us recruit. I’ve talked with members of the NAACP. I’ve talked with members in the LGBTQ+ community, people who really believe that there are other people who would want to be police officers who we haven’t recruited.
Also, when you look at our non-sworn ambassadors, for example, they’re people who have that experience in public safety, who are eager to be recruited to go into policing. So I think one of the big pieces of public safety is recruiting and retention.
Editor’s note: According to the mayor’s office, the city plans to increase nighttime and weekend police and community safety ambassador presence downtown. Oakland is also building a seven-city regional partnership to prevent gun and gang violence, but officials did not immediately identify which cities will be a part of this strategy. A July 2025 OPD staffing report laid out some of the steps taken by city officials to recruit new police officers.
Why do you think historically Oakland has had trouble recruiting and retaining police? What do you think is the root problem? Also, are you taking any steps to improve the performance of the academies once you do get those folks in?
It’s multi-faceted. First of all, some cities or jurisdictions offer bonuses. For example, one offers a $75,000 signing bonus. The Oakland budget, you know, we balanced it. We still had to do a lot of cutting, but we increased funding for police, which OPOA won’t acknowledge, but we did increase funding.
Secondly, the cost of living. A lot of police officers have to commute from long distances. Many of them say they can’t afford to live in Oakland. Thirdly, we have a lot of overtime, and a lot of the police officers would like to not work overtime so much. So if there’s another jurisdiction that creates a better work schedule, then that looks more appealing.
Editor’s note: According to a July 2025 OPD staffing report, only 22% of Oakland police live in the city. Oakland’s new biennial budget allocates $72 million for police overtime. OPD routinely exceeds its overtime budget, which OPOA claims is a result of understaffing and high crime. But a recent analysis by some of the city’s unions found that when OPD’s sworn staffing levels increased, overtime spending continued to rise, and that overtime spending grew in years when crime dropped.
When you hold a police academy, you expect a percentage of cadets to drop out. Some have dropped out, but they weren’t for any reason that had to do with the police department or Oakland. But still, you have to take that into account.
So it’s a multi-faceted challenge that we have to address. And of course, when I was in Congress, I brought in a lot of money from the feds for community policing, for the Department of Violence Prevention. We still have some funding pending that I got appropriated from last year, that so far is still there. It hasn’t been clawed back.
OPD staffing appears to be at a record low. But as you’ve noted, the city’s crime rate has been dropping significantly for more than a year. Does that raise any questions for you about how much money Oakland should invest in the police department?
Yes, the crime rate is coming down, but we have to sustain that. Doing so requires resources, but it also requires us to address the comprehensive public safety strategy and keep this trajectory going. And that means we have to get to 700 police officers, which is going to take a couple of years. We have to fully fund the Department of Violence Prevention and Ceasefire and anti-human trafficking. All of that has to stay on track.
When you look at the cities that Donald Trump trashed, like Baltimore, the strategy they’re using is very similar. We have the same technical assistance organization helping us here in Oakland that’s helping Baltimore.
Crime is coming down, but people don’t feel it. I mean, you look at what’s taking place. The sideshows – sideshow prevention had not been funded in the prior year, but I made sure in this budget that we put back in resources for sideshow patrols. People don’t feel safe because we have all of this taking place in Oakland, like every other city has. So it’s a challenge, but we’re working every single day.
Even infrastructure is part of crime prevention. You know, in terms of making sure that cars can’t come in and out and do sideshows. It’s sort of like a whole-of-government approach.
Our colleague Jose Fermoso has really enlightened all of us on how sometimes, literally, just where the curve is in the road completely changes the level of activity that happens in one place versus another.
Right. Infrastructure is something that we’re putting forth as an additional add-on to policing.
Part of your 100-day plan was staffing blight reduction crews. You’ve mentioned partnering with the district attorney to prosecute illegal dumping. Under your administration, has the city yet referred any illegal dumping cases to the DA. If so, how many?
We established a working group with the DA. We’ve had a couple of meetings, and we’re developing that protocol now. But the DA’s office has to staff up now to address this problem. So we are working on it, but I don’t believe we’ve seen any real prosecutions.
But we are doing code enforcement and more camera monitoring, trying to identify the people in the vehicles doing illegal dumping.
Editor’s note: We asked Alameda County District Attorney Ursula Jones Dickson whether her office has prosecuted any cases for illegal dumping. In a statement, Dickson said her office shares community concerns about illegal dumping and will review all cases brought by local police agencies and “vigorously prosecute” the ones that can be proved beyond a reasonable doubt. According to Lee’s office, the city removed 30 tons of waste from areas by schools in Oakland over the past 100 days and cleared an unspecified amount of trash from 30 miles of Oakland streets. Oakland’s new budget includes $1 million in additional funding to pay for illegal dumping enforcement technology and officers. According to recent media reports, Oakland has issued nearly 3,000 illegal dumping citations totaling roughly $1.3 million since 2021, but only collected about $109,000 in penalties.
Another topic that was part of your 10-point plan was making sure the city audits contracts to ensure that public funds are being spent effectively by contractors and nonprofits. Have you asked the auditor to launch an investigation?
We’re in the process of organizing this forensic audit, which is going to tell us a lot about contracts.
Secondly, the data system here is really complicated, to just identify contracts and what their scope of work is. On my staff, I have a person [Erica Joy Astrella] who is doing data and technology transformation, who’s digging deep. So we’re getting there, but we haven’t done that yet. We’re in the process of it, but we have looked at the audit reports, and we’re looking at how to prioritize enacting recommendations of the past. Some of those haven’t even been addressed.
The data and tech role is a new one for this office. What else will that person be looking into?
The 311 system, for one. Systems aren’t communicating with each other.
Our data and technology leader, Erica, has identified our strengths and weaknesses and how we need to upgrade our technology and systems. They found that some spreadsheets are still being done by hand. They have identified a lot, and it’s gonna cost a lot of money. But we’re about ready to start talking to some companies to see if they can help us in terms of contributions, upgrades, and training. This is a big part of our public-private partnership, also — the data piece for the city.
We wanted to ask about homelessness, too. That was an interesting announcement this week on the new Office of Homelessness Solutions. We’re curious to see how that unfolds.
In the past, the homeless strategies have been disjointed, and people have come and gone. It hasn’t been a priority. So the bottom line is, we’re working to make sure that we have this office now that will be integrated into our overall housing construction. But we’re going to have a separate strategy, and that really is a big deal, because people have felt like it hasn’t been a priority for the city. It is. And it sends the message that these silos are being broken down.
What I know about the city — and I know this because I’ve worked with the city being a federal official — is that you have the city departments, you have the council, you have the mayor. There’s no alignment at all. And so we’ve been able to begin to break down these silos. That’s a big piece, like working with the council on the budget, working with the council on homeless solutions, we have to work consistently together.
On that note, one councilmember, Ken Houston, is going to propose a policy to more aggressively clear encampments and tow vehicle homes. Are you in favor of that sort of aggressive approach?
Whatever the council decides, I want to make sure we are aligned with what the county requires for funding. That’s the big piece that I’m focused on, making sure it’s aligned with Measure W funding and HHAP funding, and all of our state funding. That’s been my concern. So whatever happens in that context, we just have to make sure we’re eligible for the funding.
Editor’s note: County officials recently solidified a plan for Measure W, a nearly $2 billion sales tax. Most of the money will go toward homelessness services and housing, with Oakland receiving a significant chunk for projects and programs in the city that comply with the county’s plan. HHAP is the Homeless Housing Assistance Grant program, another source of funds the city receives.
More broadly, whether the policy complies with the funding requirements or not, there’s this existential question in homelessness right now: Do cities need to offer shelter to folks before clearing encampments? Two years ago, the Supreme Court said no.
Yeah, and that’s part of Measure W. We have to have transitional housing and supportive housing until we get to permanent housing. Even now, when encampments are closed, we don’t have enough places for people to go to. We’re looking at how to do that. So part of this — the global piece — is making sure that when encampments are closed, there are alternatives for people.
What was harder to achieve in 100 days than you expected, and did any new priorities emerge for you?
The data systems, because I’m really into truth-telling. I’ve always been like that. I will compare numbers and drill down on numbers until I believe they’re accurate, because I believe people deserve the truth. So that’s why I hired Erica. But I had to drill down, way down, on that.
You’ve surrounded yourself with so many different advisors and people, both in and outside of your office. Is there one person, or maybe one piece of advice they gave you, that’s really helped guide you in this new job, if you had to pick one?
My mother passed away 10 years ago. I hear her voice every single day. She’s my best advisor.
I grew up in El Paso, Texas. Segregation was very difficult, being a Black girl. And she always said, in spite of all the challenges, “Can’t isn’t in the dictionary. Look it up.”
I would whine about it. “I can’t, because I’m the only Black person in the school, and they’re looking at me” — that kind of stuff. So that’s my mom. She’s an angel.
The mayoral election is only a year away. Do you plan to run in 2026?
The voters and residents of Oakland, that’s their decision. This is all-hands-on-deck for me right now, and we’re working hard, and we are delivering, and need to deliver more, and we’ll continue to do that.
Editor’s note: Lee has created a committee to raise money for a 2026 reelection campaign.
ELI WOLFE
Eli Wolfe reports on City Hall for The Oaklandside. He was previously a senior reporter for San José Spotlight, where he had a beat covering Santa Clara County’s government and transportation. He also worked as an investigative reporter for the Pasadena-based newsroom FairWarning, where he covered labor, consumer protection and transportation issues. He started his journalism career as a freelancer based out of Berkeley. Eli’s stories have appeared in The Atlantic, NBCNews.com, Salon, the San Francisco Chronicle, and elsewhere. Eli graduated from UC Santa Cruz and grew up in San Francisco.More by Eli Wolfe
NATALIE ORENSTEIN
Natalie Orenstein is a senior reporter covering City Hall, housing and homelessness for The Oaklandside. Her reporting on a flood of eviction cases following the end of the Alameda County pandemic moratorium won recognition from the Society of Professional Reporters NorCal in 2024. Natalie was previously on staff at Berkeleyside, where she covered education, including extensive, award-winning reporting on the legacy of school desegregation in Berkeley Unified. Natalie lives in Oakland, grew up in Berkeley, and has only left her beloved East Bay once, to attend Pomona College.More by Natalie Orenstein
