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Oakland Mayoral Race '14: Candidate Jean Quan

Flickr user Jill Karjian
Oakland Mayor Jean Quan is running for re-election

 

Mayor Jean Quan is the incumbent in the race, and she's been making the case for Oakland to give her a second term. But in the past four years, her leadership of the city has received mixed reviews. She has been criticized for her crackdown of the Occupy encampment. She has also been taken to task for troubles in the controversial Oakland Police Department, which has had a federal monitor and rapid turn-over at the top. But Quan says the city is better off than it was four years ago. She says violent crime is down and the city is finally on the right track.

"We are an amazingly resilient city, we are an amazingly progressive city, and we are willing to try new things... I've made a real attempt to be in every neighborhood, every church, every school, and that is a very tough think to do... If you are going to blame me for everything that's gone wrong for the last ten years, you have to give me some credit for what's gone well in the last three..."

Click the audio player above to listen to the entire interview.

Sandhya got her start as a reporting fellow at KALW, working on award winning radio documentaries about crime and justice and education in Oakland. She reported on the 2012 presidential election in Iowa, for Iowa Public Radio, where she also covered diversity and mental health issues.