Oakland Mayor: Councilmember Loren Taylor campaigns on holding crime 'perpetrators accountable'

As November 8 Election Day approaches, KPIX 5 offers a series of reports highlighting the candidates as well as measures and issues affecting voters. 

OAKLAND -- With residents wary of a recent rise in violent crime, homelessness, and continuing struggles with blighted streets, Oakland is about to elect a new mayor.

 Libby Schaaf will be termed out after eight years in office and her successor will take the job as many see Oakland at a crossroads. 

"I've been here since 1970," explained Everardo Rodrigues. "Family-owned business, as you can see. We have been here a long time. We are longtime Oaklanders."

As the owner of Bay Restorators, Rodriguez has spent decades helping people clean up after disasters. And 'disaster' is how he would describe his neighborhood.

"This is what we deal with,"  Rodriguez said, pointing to a sidewalk covered with litter and actual piles of trash lining both sides.  "This is what kids have to go through to go to school."

Rodriguez was asked if Oakland is headed in the right direction.

"All the citizens, the businesses, they're flowing out of here," he answered. "They want out. And that's a shame."

That is a sentiment shared across the city, that Oakland is heading in the wrong direction. And it is in that climate that voters will choose the city's next mayor.

"You know, folks are furious about the state of public safety," said  Oakland mayoral candidate Loren Taylor. "The illegal dumping. The state and condition of things. I'm angry and frustrated, too."

"I'm a kid from Oakland," Taylor said, introducing himself to a group of workers in East Oakland. "So, my background is not typical of a politician or an elected official. I'm a biomedical engineer, that's what I went to school for."

The District 6 Councilmember, Taylor, speaking at a job training and diversity inclusion event. He said his perspective is not the status quo.

"When we look at what it actually takes to move forward," he said, "it's going to take someone who has been an outsider. Like, I just came into government four years ago."

One area he would like to see changes is the clearance rates for violent crime.

"We've gotta increase our solve rate on these crimes," Taylor said. "We've gotta show folks that if something happens here that there is someone who's going to hold the perpetrators accountable."

Tayor is one of two council members running from East Oakland.

"We have never had a mayor who has represented East Oakland,"  Taylor said. "There's a reason half the city looks the way it does, and has gotten limited investment."

Frustration with housing, homelessness, crime and cleanliness covers the entire city, and a lot of Oaklanders are worried that solutions are needed soon.

"You oughta see the letters I've sent to them about all this crime and everything else,"  Rodriguez said of his complaints to City Hall. 

"It's not for me about proving an ideology regardless of all else,"  Taylor said of his candidacy. "For me, it is about making sure that Oakland gets what we need to realize our full potential."