OAKLAND | Oakland City Administrator Deanna Santana never looks happy. If the sheer weight of Oakland’s problems perpetually on her shoulders wasn’t enough, her own job security now seems perilous.
Matthew Artz’s article Friday shows the discontent from labor and various other groups in the city has reached Mayor Jean Quan’s office. “Deanna is part of a very broad team that I have, and I think the team is doing a very good job,” Quan told the Oakland Tribune.
She didn’t bother to praise Santana in the fashion a professional sports team owner might drop the perfunctory phony declaration of full support for the head coach, but sidestepped the actually boss of the City Administrator’s Office and her job performance.
This is notable and portends for yet another shakeup at City Hall following the embarrassing turn of events last May when three different police chiefs took control of the department within a span of 72 hours.
When asked specifically about Santana’s job security, she declined to “speculate” on the matter. Technically, as the person who hires and fires the city administrator, Quan is the only person able to speculate on Santana’s future.
To be sure, Santana has committed quite a few unforced errors in just the past year. She has interfered on numerous occasions with the implementation of reforms at the police department, low-balled union negotiators and infuriated labor leaders by summoning police officers to one bargaining meeting.
Don’t forget she created an embarrassing incident earlier this year when she asserted Oakland A’s co-owner Lew Wolff had never sent the city a proposal for a new five-year contract at the Coliseum. Turns out she did. It was just in a stack of papers left over from Christmas break.
In hindsight, it seems Santana, herself, knows her time in Oakland is nearing an end. In this week’s East Bay Express, Santana sent a lengthy letter to the paper claiming its spate of articles describing her meddling in police reforms were personal in nature.
Whether it be angry occupiers, residents pushing to clean up the police department, business owners with broken windows, irate union members or concerned sports fans hoping to keep Oakland’s team, Santana could withstand the storm. Without Quan in her corner, she’s a goner. Maybe she’ll be happy somewhere else?
ebcitizen.com 
Santana will be gone very soon!
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By MW:
Concerning the comment of 11:47PM and how it might possibly relate to some of the things that Jean Quan has been blamed for, Bay area politics contains so many clowns, crooks, charlatans, demagogues, scoundrels, parasites, pathological liars, and extreme incompetents, that therefore anytime one of those jokers gets in power and/or wants to pull something over on the public, “fortunately” there is a deep bench of “talent” available to provide “help” and “assistance.”
For instance when Bill Lockyer wanted to increase his power and influence in Alameda County, but did not want to run for the AC Board of Supervisors himself, therefore he dipped deep into the “talent” pool and recruited his wife, in other words extreme drug addict and world class nitwit Nadia Lockyer, to get elected and become the Supervisor of record, in other words to be his stooge and front. And he got considerable help in “proving” and “establishing” her “credibility,” “qualifications,” “intelligence” and “fitness” for office by getting such people as California Governor Jerry Brown to endorse her.
And previous to Nadia Lockyer, there was a character on the Alameda County Board of Supervisors who for her first few years in office was nothing but a figurehead, and whose chief of staff actually made at least virtually all of the decisions. More specifically, during her first few years in office she knew about as much about government as the average five year old child knows about to perform brain surgery, so therefore her chief of staff, and who was a longtime veteran of government, and also a sleazeball and pathological liar, was actually the real and actual Supervisor.
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SANTANA has shown some dishonest tendencies that show she needs to move on. Her attempt to rewrite and whitewash the report on Occupy and endless interference with police reform have not served the city well. Many of the problems attributed to Quan emanated from Santana. We need an administrator who can bring people together and lead. Santana does neither.
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I bet Santana wishes she would have stayed in San Jose instead of working for Moon face.
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The above comment describes it well! Jean Quan is clueless. No leadership whatsoever!
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By MW:
Rather than discussing Deanna Santana, let's instead discuss her boss, in other words Oakland Mayor Jean Quan.
If any candidate running for office were required to have placed on the ballot right next to his (or her) name a quick and fairly accurate description of his political philosophy, and such as for instance “Democrat” or “Republican” or “Liberal” or “Conservative,” etc, Jean Quan's description on the ballot would not be Democrat or Liberal but instead would be “Vague and Wishy Washy Idiot.”
Quan has no real political philosophy and absolutely no idea whatsoever what she wants and nor what she is wants to accomplish, and except possibly for wandering around aimlessly and changing direction every five minutes or so. In fact if Quan was a ship in the middle of the ocean, rather then clearly and definitely aiming to get to this particular shore or that particular shore, instead she would just pretty much bob aimlessly on the waves, and then, and for a little while, sort of lean in the direction of going to the continent on the east, and then, and after a little while, sort of aim toward going to the continent on the west, and then, and after a little while, just go in aimless and time wasting circles, and while not really aiming east, west, north, or south, and basically making observers wonder whether she was the first ship in the entire history of oceangoing vessels to get into a drunken stupor.
In fact, is it possible that Jean Quan and her brain actually died years ago, but rather than burying her someone then placed very weak motors in her arms, legs, and mouth, and so that now her body can slowly and aimlessly wander around and her lips and mouth can move, but with no real actual sense of thinking and reasoning!!
In fact if I ever decide to do a movie on zombies, I will get Jean Quan to play the main character.
And if she should ever be accused of corruption, I would be happy to be a character witness for her and testify that in order to be guilty of committing a crime, a person would need to understand that the activity was wrong, and obviously no one who was totally brain dead would be able to comprehend anything at all.
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