City Government

Incumbent Lynette Gibson McElhaney Seeks Re-Election for D3 Oakland City Council

Published

6 years ago

September 18, 2020

Kiki

Lynette McElhaney

With six candidates running to represent District 3 for the Oakland City Council, McElhaney has her work cut out as an incumbent already in her second term. The other five candidates running are Carroll Fife, Seneca Scott, Meron Semedar, Alexus Taylor, and Faye Taylor. District 3 includes West Oakland, Downtown/Uptown, Jack London, Pill Hill/KONO, the Lake and the Port of Oakland.

Lynette was born in San Diego and self describes as “a child of Southern immigrants.” She is married and currently lives in West Oakland. She attended UC Berkeley for her undergraduate work.

McElhaney was the first Black woman to be elected President of the Oakland City Council in 2015 during her first term.

She is the Chair of Oakland’s Finance Committee; sits on the East Bay Economic Development Alliance Board, the Association of Bay Area Governments is on the executive committees for the Youth Ventures JPA, and Coliseum Authority, and the Alameda County and Oakland Community Action Program.

Housing and homelessness are central issues for District 3. On this issue, McElhaney touts her housing work and the “creation of a Proactive Rental Inspection service to ensure safe dwellings for families and their children and protect them for predatory landlords.”

She is on record as being in favor of “trailers, not tiny homes.”

On racial injustice and the effectiveness of policing she states that the city of Oakland is ten years behind in systems and IT development and needs to invest in that structure to better audit and allocate funding.

She wants the “best value for taxpayers, communities, and workers.”

McElhaney has worked for affordable housing for 20 years. She authored Measure JJ in 2016 that expanded “just cause eviction” among other benefits.

In 2015 she was named by the San Francisco Business Times’ as one of the “most influential women in Bay Area business.”

Recently, The Oaklandside reported five current councilmembers are alleged to have accepted laundered money on a land deal, McElhaney being one of them along with Sheng Thao (not up for re-election), Rebecca Kaplan, Larry Reid (not seeking re-election) and Dan Kalb.

Previously McElhaney got a reduced fine from the Oakland Commission in 2018 from $8,625 to $2,550 for receiving a gift from a restricted source because of free services she got from an architect involving a government decision in which she had a financial interest.

McElhaney has faced severe family loss during her time in the city council. In December of 2015, she lost her 17-year-old grandson to non-police related gun violence near West Oakland Bart. In 2019 she lost her son in Los Angeles to non-police related gun violence.

During her tenure as city council member McElhaney has helped create the Department of Violence Prevention, “which seeks to implement community-focused and community lead strategies to drastically reduce homicides, domestic violence, and the sexual exploitation of children”.

McElhaney is responsible along with Donald Lacy for the adoption of “Love Life” as Oakland’s Motto in 2017 in honor of Lacy’s 16-year-old daughter LoEshe (translation from Nigerian dialect is “love life” Lacy and others who were the victims of violence.

The hope was that by adopting the motto it would “send a clear message that honors residents who have lost their lives to gun violence and speak hope and healing to the communities of residents who are dedicated to living robust lives.”

The motto was added to “Welcome to Oakland” signs.

For more on McElhaney’s campaign, her website is www.lynetteforoakland.com

Kiki

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Activism

Oakland Post: Week of July 15 – 21, 2026

The printed Weekly Edition of the Oakland Post: Week of July 15 – 21, 2026

Published

1 week ago

July 18, 2026

Oakland Post

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Activism

From Disparity Study to Solutions: Oakland Coalition and Mayor Barbara Lee Renew Commitment to Reform City Contracting

She committed to ensuring the coalition has direct access to City leadership by designating Assistant Deputy City Administrator Chuck Baker the primary liaison. Working alongside Deputy City Administrator Sofia Navarro, DWES Director Emylene Aspilla, Race and Equity Director Darlene Flynn, and other City departments, the coalition will continue advancing these priorities while maintaining regular communication with City leadership.

Published

2 weeks ago

July 15, 2026

Oakland Post

Present at the recent meeting on implementing recommendations on Oakland’s Disparity Study on city work contracts were (first row, l. to r.): Chuck Baker, Oakland Mayor Barbara Lee and Darlene Flynn. Second row, l. to r.) Samuel Adams, Erica Astrella, Chadwick Spell, Cathy Adams, Stanley Cooper, Maria Wagner, Len Turner, Derek Barnes, Paul Cobb. Photo courtesy of Oakland Mayor’s Office.

Special to The Post

On June 30, a coalition of minority business leaders, contractors and others met with Oakland Mayor Barbara Lee to discuss the City’s commitment to implement recommendations outlined in Oakland’s Disparity Study and eliminate barriers that have historically prevented Black and minority-owned businesses from fully participating in public contracting opportunities.

Representatives of the Oakland African American Chamber of Commerce (OAACC), National Association of Minority Contractors Northern California (NAMC NorCal), Construction Resource Center (CRC), and the East Bay Rental Housing Association (EBRHA) said the meeting represented an important milestone in a process that has been underway for several months.

On April 21, the Oakland City Council’s Life Enrichment Committee received a progress report from the Department of Workplace and Employment Standards (DWES), where Director Emylene Aspilla presented the coalition’s working document and outlined a collaborative implementation plan between the coalition and the City. That report established 30-, 60-, and 90-day objectives focused on five key priorities:

Reforming Local and Small Local Business Enterprise (L/SLBE) waiver practices
Strengthening prompt payment compliance
Improving procurement forecasting and transparency
Expanding contractor capacity building and business development
Increasing oversight, accountability, and public reporting

A series of working sessions was scheduled between coalition representatives, DWES, and the City Administrator’s Office to begin implementing those priorities but were temporarily delayed by the resignation of former City Administrator Jestin Johnson.

Rather than allowing that momentum to stall, OAACC President and CEO Cathy Adams requested a meeting with Lee to gain clarity on the City’s direction and reaffirm its commitment to implementing the recommendations contained within the Disparity Study.

Coalition leaders described the meeting as productive, candid, collaborative, and encouraging.

During the meeting, Lee spoke not only from her role as mayor but also from her experience as an 8(a) contractor and business owner, sharing that she understands firsthand what it takes to build and grow a successful company, employ a substantial workforce, compete for public work, and navigate the complexities of municipal contracting.

Mayor Lee also expressed her commitment to personally participate in future working meetings with the coalition.

“This meeting represents a renewed commitment to partnership,” said Adams. “Mayor Lee listened, engaged, and demonstrated that she wants to move beyond conversation and into implementation.”

CRC’s Len Turner said the roadmap is already in place. ““The City already has the evidence. What’s been missing is execution. …Now it’s time to deliver results.”

Mario Wagner, president of NAMC NorCal agreed that the next phase must focus on implementation, funding, and accountability.

“The coalition is ready to get to work. …The next step is ensuring these initiatives receive meaningful funding in the upcoming fiscal budget cycle. Just as important, the City must establish transparent reporting mechanisms that keep the public informed through regular progress reports, measurable benchmarks, and accountability.”

Coalition leaders also acknowledged that while City leadership has indicated it is reviewing Local and Small Local Business Enterprise waiver practices, the community continues to seek a formal response regarding existing long-term waivers, including waivers extending 10 and 25 years. The coalition believes those waivers should be comprehensively reviewed and, where appropriate, rolled back as part of the City’s broader contracting reforms.

The coalition is also calling on the City to include meaningful funding in the upcoming fiscal budget cycle to support implementation of the Disparity Study recommendations and establish better methods and mechanisms to keep the public informed through regular progress reports, measurable benchmarks, and transparent accountability.

The coalition’s immediate next step is to schedule a working meeting with Baker, Aspilla, Lee, and the appropriate City staff to review what has already been accomplished under the implementation framework.