On Primary Election Day, it was slow going at the Lakeside Park Garden Center near Lake Merritt. In the late afternoon, a trickle of people walked into the polling place where a group of volunteers waited. It grew busier as voters started coming in after work.

(Editor’s Note: The deadline to declare candidacy for Oakland’s next Mayor hasn't even passed, but just like Christmas decorations in October, the campaigns are already off to a running start.) 

If you can spare a couple of hours on a wintry evening in spring, why not go have a “conversation” with Don Perata who’s running for mayor in November? That’s what I did last week.

Tonight, Mayor Ron Dellums is expected to take an action he has only done once during his tenure—cast a tiebreaking vote.

The occasion that will draw such an unusual move from the mayor, who does not sit in City Council under Oakland’s charter, is a 4-4 deadlocked proposal to divert $100,000 toward voter education for the city’s new ranked-choice voting system while preserving $100,000 for public campaign financing.

Asked why she decided to start the process of moving toward a mayoral candidacy at this moment, Rebecca Kaplan has some explanations right at hand.

"Over the next few years, we are going to have incredible challenges in Oakland, particularly around the financial crisis, but at the same time there is a great opportunity to fix the functioning of City Hall," she says. "It seemed clear that we are going to not only have incredible challenges over the next few years, particularly around the financial crisis, but that we have a window of opportunity to fix city government--much of the city workforce will be retiring and we have a chance to reformulate how we align people and their jobs with the realities of the future."

The road to 'cleaner' electoral campaigns is reaching its final stretch.  Advocates of getting private money out of political campaigns met at Oakland City Hall Saturday afternoon for one of many planned kick-offs in support of the California Fair Elections Act.

On Tuesday, Oakland's City Council finally voted to start using Instant Runoff Voting (IRV).  This means that Oakland will no longer have June Primary Elections for local elected officials, but rather a ranked choice election of candidates, including Mayor, in November.  Various governmental and community groups will work together starting Spring 2010 to educate voters about the chang

Implementing instant runoff voting (IRV) this year may cost the City of Oakland nearly $1 million. This is according to a new report from City Attorney John Russo.

The $1 million would be Oakland's share of implementation costs if San Leandro and Berkeley also implement IRV, and if the three cities divide the cost based on the number of registered voters.