Judge Brenda Harbin-Forte joined Cat Oriel on “Forbes Newsroom” to discuss the reasons she believes Oakland Mayor Sheng Thao must resign and whether there is someone she supports replacing her.
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NewsTranscript
00:00So if she is to be recalled in November or resigned before then, do you have someone that you support replacing her?
00:07Well, under the law, under the Constitution, we do not elect a replacement for this local recall.
00:15Unless the governor's recalled, should he be recalled, and then you also have people who are on the ballot to replace it.
00:25It's not permitted for a local recall. So we have not, we did not start this recall with the idea that there was one candidate that we were going to get out.
00:35We expect there to be a number of good candidates in the race to replace her.
00:42So we don't, you know, we're not fishing, and we have stayed away from it because we don't want this to be about one person or one successor.
00:54We also know, for example, that in terms of the mayor herself, that she's an illegitimate mayor.
01:01She filed her papers late. She was seen leaving her office after the 5 p.m. deadline.
01:07She goes over to the city clerk's office, her signatures are there, paperwork is done.
01:12She should never have been on the ballot. And had the law been obeyed, and had the city clerk, for example, not let her file her papers late,
01:25we would not be in this mess that we're in now. She would never have been on the ballot.
01:31With ranked-choice voting, there were about 3,000 ballots that were thrown out for various reasons.
01:38The city didn't do enough education about this five-ranked-choice voting.
01:44Now, when it used to be three, it had always been three.
01:47And even a couple of days before the election, the mayor was told, people, you have three choices.
01:53Well, that was not true. There was so much confusion in the ranked-choice voting in the election.
02:00She just needs two weeks to go. She should never have been elected in the first place.
02:05And she has been a disaster for it.
02:07So it sounds like there were also systemic factors that led to her election that you also don't agree with.
02:13Absolutely. Absolutely. And then there was the issue with respect to the way she was having staff.
02:22She had staff work on campaigns on city time.
02:27Well, that's a no-no. Our taxpayer money isn't supposed to be going to her campaigns, either for city council or for mayor.
02:36And so she has done, she did those kinds of things.
02:40And so it's just that there were a lot of things.
02:45It's systemic. And then just the way she does business and the way she feels.
02:51Apparently, no obligation to be of people.
02:58She holds a press conference today. She doesn't take any questions from the media.
03:04We held a press conference after. We took questions from the media.
03:08It's got like, ask us whatever you want. We believe in transparency.
03:13And she wants to say, I'm not guilty. I'm not guilty. Well, guilty of what?
03:17First of all, you haven't even been charged. So what do you mean you're not guilty of anything?
03:22And second, saying that you're not guilty of anything doesn't reassure people.
03:29They raided your house. It's removed a lot of materials.
03:33We knew that there were allegations, for example, that her boyfriend was selling seats on various boards and commissions.
03:41And so somebody was getting some money for that, according to people who used to work for her, including her former chief of staff.
03:49So it's just, it's just, it's just too much.
03:54Well, thank you so much for taking the time to talk to me about this today and lay anything out.
03:59Is there anything we didn't get to touch on that you'd like to add?
04:02No, I just hope people understand that this recall movement is not some vast right wing Republican led recall effort where we have all decided that we are going to victimize the mayor.
04:23These are common everyday people, and as I said, you know, our movement, and indeed is a movement, is a movement of common everyday citizens in Oakland.
04:35Not these millionaires. By the way, she has plenty of millionaires supporting her, but not these right wing Republican millionaires.
04:46I just want people to understand that Oakland deserves better.
04:50And we hope too that if it does have to come to an election in November, they will vote to recall.
05:00But we're hoping that she will save the city some money, she can step up right now and save the city some money by recalling in a fashion so that we can get this on the November ballot and the November election will be to elect a new mayor to do that.