Bryan Parker

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Bryan Parker is a current (2013) Port of Oakland Commissioner and was a candidate for Mayor in 2014.¹ He filed his papers on May 13th.³He is running against incumbent Jean Quan who appointed him to the position of Port Commissioner.

Parker was eliminated in the 11th round of voting.

See political positions here. Ballotpedia.

Bio

Parker is a Vice President of Fortune 500 company of DaVita Inc, a kidney care company. Physicians Capital Investments hired Parker as a Senior Vice President to manage a relationship with one of their clients: DaVita. He was a volunteer on Obama's campaign, serving on the finance committee. He graduated from UC Berkeley and has a JD from NYU. He attends Allen Temple Baptist Church.²

Note: DaVita is the tenant at the former Safeway building on Claremont Avenue at Clifton Street, just as you exit eastbound Highway 24 at Telegraph Avenue, by the Hardy Dog Park. Check out ScenicStreets and RCPC to see what's going on there. There is a new DaVita Clinic at the Foothill Square Shopping Center.⁸

Parker is a former Board Member and Chair of the Workforce Investment Board, a volunteer group that oversees federally funded employment, training programs and services in the city of Oakland.⁶ According to Tammerlin Drummond, although the WIB had some trouble in 2012 regarding having to return $600,000 for a federal training program, Parker laid the blame on the previous chair and he "left the WIB with a strategic plan and on track to receive $900,000 in federal funding."⁵

2014 Mayoral Campaign

Campaign Message

From a campaign mailer received in April 2014:
"Bryan Parker is not a political insider. He's not stuck in the narrow thinking that plagues City Hall. Oakland needs a fresh perspective."

Finances

In June 2013, Parker used Crowdtilt, a crowd funding platform, to launch his mayoral candidacy, making it the first time Crowdtilt had been used that way.⁴Does anyone know how this works, particularly in Oakland?

Crowdtilt limits donations to $700.⁵ Still researching via Crowdtilt how they manage to enforce this.

Via the crowd funding campaign, Parker raised $23,000 in 24 hours. He then raised his goal to $50K. By the end of his campaign Parker raised $59,727 from 197 individual donations.⁵

See campaign finances for more info. According to the EBX, as of the filings available in March, 2014, 65% of Parker's donors are from non-Oakland residents and 12% live in San Francisco.¹⁰

Advertising

Parker released the following pre-campaign video.

Groups Supporting:

So far two groups have shown support of Bryan Parker and have helped to launch is campaign. It seems that these two groups are interconnected, one is an extension of the other.

Oakland Forward hosted an "Introducing Bryan Parker" event in early April that had over 300 people say they were attending on the Facebook Event Page Oakland Forward is a group of young professionals trying to support the effort to make Oakland a safe and beautiful place to live.

Movement 50 is the official network of Oakland Forward movement "bridging community engagement with actionable policy." Movement 50 is fairly young. According to Drummond, the group is 4 months old and consists of mainly Uptown Residents.⁵

Endorsements

Oakland Firefighters Union Local 55 (source)
Oakland Chamber of Commerce (source)
San Francisco Chronicle (source)

Campaign Issues/Ideas:

To date (mid-2013), Bryan Parker hasn't shared what his campaign issues are, or what his platform will be. Via the introduction video seen above, we can glean from the one or two sentences he says that public safety, youth and education seem to be important to him.

In a July 1 article by Tammerlin Drummond, Parker says that he would like to bring "innovation and leadership" to Oakland and cites the crowd funding campaign as an example.⁵

On July 28, 2013, Parker participated in a "Meet and Greet" Private House Party. During the election, candidates will attend private house parties that will allow residents to have one-on-one time with them, and in some cases, is an opportunity for raising donations. At this particular house party, there was no fundraising going on, but select individuals who are frequent #oakmtg commentators were invited to get to know the candidate. One of the "Mayoral Election Team" members were invited. Responses under some key issues will be shared with date attached.

7/28/13 - Parker says issues that are of particular importance to him are 1. Public Safety and 2. Equity and 3. Growth (Jobs).

Public Safety

7/28/13 - He feels that police commissions currently don't have authority. (see Government Management)

Government Management (City Council, Mayors Office, City Management) Keep in mind, the Mayor's office can't manage City Council. However candidates will probably be asked to share opinions on how the city council behaves and how their behavior effects how the candidate will run the city.

7/28/13 -In general would like to see all of the commissions streamlined. Feels there are too many. Is interested in exploring how he can manage that. (House party participants don't feel the Mayor's office has that power.) He is confident he can study the City Charter and find a way to do it.

- If elected, Parker would meet with Council and try to get them to build a consensus on how they are going to 'operate', so that each Council member has an understanding of how decisions are being made, what is and isn't ethical behavior, managing city council meeting disputes etc. He has experience in building consensus from his work with the Port. There are 44 people on the Port of Oakland board and he has helped with building a working relationship between them all.

8/22/13 Parker published an op-ed in the Oakland Tribune. In the piece he said he believed Oakland needed to consider many tools to deal with violence, including "requesting the governor declare a state of emergency (and send additional police); potential use of anti-loitering laws and gang injunctions; resources to engage in a far-reaching gun buyback program; and creating a tighter alignment with the faith community."⁷

Sports Teams

Budget

Growth (Jobs)

7/28/13 -

Any growth plan means having a public safety agenda. He has talked with business owners and CEO's. Business is leaving because the cost of protecting their company is too high (insurance, security etc). (See Public Safety for specific plans).
We need to do a better job of telling our story. Others are doing it for us. Parker would like to sell Oakland as being gritty and edgy, but also smart and cool.
Thinks he needs to add a Chief Jobs Officer, whose only job is to stop the retail exodus, and attracting new business.
We need to streamline the regulatory office. Make it easier to start new businesses.
Attract specific business sectors: Healthcare IT, Tech, Digital Media and Green Jobs.
Retail, retail, retail! Between 2-4 Billion is being leaked out of city.
Port of Oakland: Bring manufacturing close to the ships by improving the rail system. Have state of the art manufacturing warehouses close to the port in order to improve product transport.
Put the A's near the Howard Terminal to bring traffic to Jack London and attract retail. (see Zennie Interview in August 2013 for details on his sports plan).

Read more on his growth plan on a blog post: "What the Price of Milk has to do with jobs in Oakland"

Equity

7/28/13 - To Parker, equity means several different things that contributes that everyone has a chance to succeed. He wants to work on maintaining the social safety net. He wants to work on improving schools, securing enough money to invest in social programs, and to ensure that every man, woman and child can get a job. (see Growth)

Health

Bryan Parker has a health agenda. He is particularly concerned with Mental Health services. There are a lot of providers in Oakland and a high amount of 5150s. Would like to integrate mental professionals with public safety practice. He also is interested in built environment improvements. Says that he has a health committee attached to his campaign.

Latest Updates:

7/21/13 "Oakland Takes Care of It's Own" Reaction to Oakland Trayvon Martin Protests: The week after the not-guilty verdict of George Zimmerman, there were many protests staged in Oakland. During one of them, a waiter, Drew Kribley, tried to protect the windows of the restaurant he worked in called Flora in Uptown, along Telegraph Avenue. Instead he got hit in the head with a hammer by one of the protesters. Bryan Parker started a another crowd-funding campaign to raise money to help pay Drew Kribley's medical bills and other costs. The goals was to raise $6,000 but the campaign has raised over $8, 300. Link to the Campaign --> https://www.crowdtilt.com/campaigns/help-oakland-waiter-cover-medical-bills-and-lost-wages-from-hammer-attack/description

7/25/13 Alaysha Carradine, an 8 year old girl who was attending a slumber party at her grandmother's was shot and killed when she answered a door to a stranger. Bryan Parker, along with Nyeisha DeWitt and Rob Bonta joined forces to support a crowdfunding campaign to pay for funeral and other expenses for the family. Link to the Campaign --> https://www.crowdtilt.com/campaigns/alaysha-carradine-needs-a-proper-funeral/description

8/7/13 Parker posted a very thoughtful piece on his facebook after the shooting that occurred on the night of National Night Out. He expressed his thoughts, mentioned his sister had been killed and quoted Dickens.

Zennie interviewed Parker in August, 2013

9/13/13 - Bryan Parker posted on Facebook that he is going to the Congressional Black Caucus this weekend! There he will meet with leaders on the topics of "justice/safety, transportation, health and economic development". AND they are hosting a special meet and greet for him! https://www.facebook.com/bryanparker2014?ref=stream&hc_location=stream#!/bryanparker2014?hc_location=timeline
10/30/13 - Bryan Parker Halloween Fundraiser -> http://bryanparkerhalloween.eventbrite.com/?ref=estw

1/24/14 - Zennie interviewed Parker in again, this time at Lakeshore Cafe - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=farwLv5HJPw

7/3/14 - In Zennie Abraham blog post, Bryan Parker said to be victim of smear campaign allegedly done by Quan supporters: http://www.zennie62blog.com/2014/07/03/bryan-parker-oakland-mayors-race-candidate-focus-of-unfair-hidden-attack-on/