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The news spotlight has moved elsewhere, but Oakland continues to shell out hundreds of thousands of dollars a month for the Occupy protests. Every week for the past month, more than 100 cops, or roughly one-fifth of the city's patrol force, are called in to work the Saturday night Occupy demonstration held downtown. Estimated cost: about $50,000 a week. City officials now estimate their overall Occupy tab is up to $3 million and counting - this at a time when up to 400 city workers will likely be laid off Feb. 1 for lack of money.

Oakland Mayor Jean Quan can’t catch a break. Quan was visiting Washington, D.C., for the U.S. Conference of Mayors meeting when she was spotted riding in a cab by Occupy DC protesters and surrounded. Quan sat in the cab and shielded her face while roughly a dozen protesters surrounded the car and chanted, “Shame! Shame! Shame! Shame!” “We were busy talking away, and I looked up and there were all these protesters there,” Quan said in a interview with the Oakland Tribune. “I think they freaked out the taxi driver.” Police moved in and pushed the protesters out of the...

In her first year in office, Oakland Mayor Jean Quan lost two top aides, watched a well-regarded police chief resign, saw a parcel tax she had pushed get crushed at the ballot box and became the subject of two recall campaigns. And much of that was even before the city's Oct. 25 raid on the Occupy Oakland encampment, a violent clash between police and protesters on the City Hall lawn that made Quan a national lightning rod for criticism, particularly after she allowed the protesters to re-establish their camp the next day. "It was very tough," Quan said of her...

When Gov. Jerry Brown re-entered political life via the Oakland mayor's office in 1998, everyone expected the return of the ultra-liberal policies that had defined his political career and earned him the nickname he never liked. But his actions as a mayor, from promoting downtown development to opening a military school to pushing law and order were hardly the trademarks of Gov. Moonbeam. Brown made the transition from political visionary to pragmatic politician in Oakland because idealism didn't help the city address its crime, education and fiscal challenges. Oakland's current mayor, Jean Quan, could borrow a few pages from his...

Gov. Jerry Brown on Tuesday said Oakland city officials can - and should - keep the port open in the event of future demonstrations. The governor, speaking to reporters in a wide-ranging news conference at his office in the Capitol, was asked to comment on Oakland Mayor Jean Quan's assertion last week during a meeting with Chronicle editors that the city may be unable to prevent further shutdowns of the port. "There are the resources under mutual aid, there are resources in Oakland - with some leadership and some imagination not only can they keep the port open but they...

Here's what we know about the Port of Oakland:It's the fifth-biggest container port in the United States.It supports an estimated 73,000 regional jobs. It indirectly provides millions in tax revenue to the city of Oakland.The mayor of that city has essentially washed her hands of any responsibility for its well-being.The last fact we learn from Oakland Mayor Jean Quan, who told The Chronicle this week that: (A) It's "absolutely" impossible to prevent shutdowns like those organized by the Occupy movement; and (B) Should the port want the Oakland police to give it a genuine college try anyway - "if the...

Oakland Mayor Jean Quan said Wednesday that the city probably would be unable to stop future Occupy demonstrations from shutting down the Port of Oakland and that attempting to do so would require at least 500 police officers, which the city would deploy if the port paid the $1.5 million cost. In a meeting with Chronicle editors, Quan said that even with that many officers, a handful of protesters could sneak around police lines and shut down the port. "I don't know what you know about the port, but with the longshoremen it only takes one person with a bike...

OAKLAND -- If Oakland police are ordered to stop any future port blockades by Occupy activists, they are probably capable of doing it. It would go over badly with core activists, however, and the two sides already have a history of violent confrontations. But after last week's Occupy protests resulted in a port shutdown that police did little to prevent, several City Council members have concluded that the economic consequences of blockades outweigh the risks of confrontation. The council will consider a resolution tonight directing City Administrator Deanna Santana, who oversees the Police Department, to "use whatever lawful tools we...

An unruly Occupy camp. Violent protests that attracted national condemnation. A 1-year-old child shot to death on the street. Two sports teams looking to leave town. A recall campaign. No wonder Oakland Mayor Jean Quan is going to delete her Facebook page, which her staff says has attracted threats, bigoted rants and all-round angry emotions. “Mayor Quan will be disabling this Facebook fan page. If you would like to contact the mayor’s office, please use (her website),” her staff posted on the page late Thursday. And as you might expect, that post attracted more than 160 comments in just 12...

The petitions to recall embattled Oakland Mayor Jean Quan have been all but cleared for takeoff and could be on the streets by next week. Once Quan's opponents make a few minor wording changes, they'll have 160 days to collect the 19,800 signatures needed to qualify the measure for the ballot, said City Clerk LaTonda Simmons. Gene Hazzard, the legally designated head of the recall effort, said his forces could be gathering signatures by next week. "I'm very methodical, surgical and lethal," Hazzard said. Being Oakland, however, things are never that cut and dried. There's already a split within the...

Nepotism is nothing new in Oakland City Hall - or anywhere else, for that matter. But Mayor Jean Quan has added a new twist to an old game. The traditional system involved pulling strings and using influence to get jobs for friends and relatives. That's happened in Oakland City Hall for eons and is a custom that has been followed by the last three mayors. . . . It explains the emergence of Quan's husband, Floyd Huen, and her daughter, Lailan Huen, as unofficial city "negotiators" in a monthlong standoff with Occupy Oakland protesters. Quan's daughter engaged with demonstrators in...

Oakland voters on Tuesday overwhelmingly defeated three ballot measures that would have given more power and $60 million in parcel taxes to City Hall. Sixty-two percent of voters defeated Measure I, a parcel tax that Mayor Jean Quan and some council members said was essential to stabilizing the city budget. Seventy-three percent of voters defeated Measure H, which would have given the City Council, rather than voters, power to choose a city attorney. Fifty-three percent of voters defeated Measure J, which would have allowed the city to change the deadline for fully funding a police and fire retirement plan for...

For Quan, things started sliding downhill in late September, when she was outed for keeping her property in shabby conditions with overgrown shrubbery and a broken deck - while at the same time the city was unfairly slamming property owners for having blighted properties. Then a couple of weeks later, she ran out one of the city's strongest leaders, Anthony Batts, the former police chief. That same week, Occupy Oakland was setting up tents outside City Hall. Now, she's facing a possible recall election, national ridicule over the city's handling of the Occupy encampment, the loss of many of her...

Mayor Jean Quan's chief legal adviser resigned early this morning after what he called a "tragically unnecessary" police raid of the Occupy Oakland camp. Dan Siegel, a civil rights attorney and one of Oakland's most active and vocal police critics, said the city should have done more to work with campers before sending in police. Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/11/14/BAGA1LURQ7.DTL#ixzz1dhXlWoo0

As veterans and their supporters march in downtown, police are distributing eviction notices to campers at Occupy Oakland. The move comes just one day after a man -- whose name has not been released by police -- was shot and killed after an apparent fight near the Occupy Oakland tent city. The mayor and other city leaders are also stepping up calls for the camp to disband. 6 p.m. Mayor releases statement about Occupy Oakland, says 'risk are too great' Mayor Jean Quan has issued a statement following the police distribution of eviction notices to campers at Occupy Oakland. "Last...

Oakland City Councilman Ignacio De La Fuente said Thursday that he intends to seek a no-confidence vote in Mayor Jean Quan for her handling of the Occupy Oakland camp. The vote would be largely symbolic, but De La Fuente said it was one of the few ways the council could apply pressure on Quan. "She has screwed up this situation so bad, the city is suffering the consequences," said De La Fuente, Quan's most frequent critic on the council. "There is no confidence in this mayor to take action, because she can't." De La Fuente said he had wanted a...

Even after the bandanna-wearing, rock-throwing, fire-starting fringe demonstrators took over a downtown Oakland building and blocked off a street late Wednesday, Mayor Jean Quan did not want police to intervene. Instead, Quan asked that police hold off on any confrontation until daylight - or, barring that, send in negotiators to try to work out a peaceful resolution. "She didn't want to incite the anarchists any more than they already were," said one source who was in the city's emergency operations center when Quan stunned the assembled staffers with her comments. Finally, interim Police Chief Howard Jordan, with the backing of...

OAKLAND -- Oakland Mayor Jean Quan says the Occupy Oakland protesters camped outside City Hall need to move to a "less disruptive" location if they can't learn to behave themselves. "They have to take some responsibility, they have to step up," she told KCBS-AM in an interview. .. ... At a lengthy meeting Thursday night, several members of the City Council hinted that they would like the camp to go away. That might be easier said than done, Quan told KCBS. "It is a no-win situation because I would guess a majority of people in the city support the movement...

OAKLAND -- After a massive and mostly peaceful demonstration against large corporations Wednesday eroded into late night clashes with police and 80 arrests, people on both sides of the fence were in damage control mode, with Occupy Oakland organizers and city officials trying to figure out what to do next. And in a press briefing Thursday afternoon, it appears that as far as Mayor Jean Quan is concerned the city will maintain its hands-off status quo. She blamed the destruction on a small group and said the larger Occupy group was not the problem. ... She also said that because...

<p>OAKLAND -- Protesters have effectively shut down maritime operations at the Port, Director Omar Benjamin said at a media briefing Tuesday, as more than 4,000 people are at the gates.</p> <p>The crowd stretched several blocks down Middle Harbor Road leading into the port as they begin their attempt to shut down the port for start of the 7 p.m. night shift.</p>