Government

Berkeley’s Mayor lays groundwork for reelection bid

February 3, 2012 12:00 pm by Lance Knobel

Bates: "I will make an announcement in the next couple of weeks." Photo: Lance Knobel

Mayor Tom Bates this week filed the necessary campaign finance forms that would enable him to run for reelection this November.

“I had to file the report, but I’m not officially running for reelection,” Bates told Berkeleyside. “I will make an announcement in the next couple of weeks.”

Bates, who is 73, has been mayor for ten years, serving one two-year term, followed by two four-year terms.

According to Acting City Clerk Mark Numainville, there is an important distinction between required campaign finance forms and the paperwork necessary to become a qualified candidate. The form Bates filed allows him to raise or spend money, but nothing else.

“It doesn’t commit you to run and it doesn’t qualify you as a candidate,” Numainville said.

Bates’ wife, State Senator Loni Hancock, preceded him in the Berkeley mayor’s office where she served for two terms. No other names have yet emerged as candidates for mayor.

The nomination period for candidates is July 16 to August 10. In addition to the mayoral race, there will be elections will be contested in the November general election for council districts 2, 3, 5 and 6, four rent board seats and two school board seats.

Related:
Mayor Bates’ new chief of staff brings startup experience to City Hall [01.11.12]
Berkeleyside interview: Mayor Tom Bates [07.19.10]

49 Comments

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  • Anonymous

    Please say it ain’t so…we have had enough from the Bates Motel (Handcock/Bates) We need fresh ideas in City Hall Nothing ever changes around here! why don’t these old politicians ever retire? Go out and get a hobby!

  • Anonymous

    Expect an announcement from RunningWolf soon as well.

  • Completely Serious

    “Go out and get a hobby!”

    What do you think Bates thinks being Mayor is?  A job?  It’s a job walking everywhere in Berkeley.  It’s a hobby presiding over the Council and a staff of 14.

  • Guest#1

    Hint:

    I just read that 94% of the time, the candidate who raises and spends the most money wins the election.  Get busy somebody!

  • http://caviarcommunism.us West Bezerkeley

    Another mayoral election between the far left and the radical left. Can anybody convince another couple of curmudgeons — one from the middle of the political spectrum, and one leaning to the right of the political spectrum — to run in the election so we at least have something new and interesting to pay attention to?

  • jjohannson

    Makes me wonder whether he’ll hire someone to hack the Daily Californian’s website?

    Gotta roll with the times, Tom.

  • Anonymous

    it sucks that Berkeley elected someone who stoops to levels master bates did to get elected… stealing newspapers really? it’s also crazy that all the people keep drinking the Kool-aid. We need change downtown REAL change!

  • Guest

    Unfortunately, most of the alternatives to Bates are usually much, much worse.

  • Matt Parker

    Nooooooooooooooooooooo! I was having a nice day too and here comes Bates padding his bloated pension again. Plus, Lady MacBeth Hancock is back in her usual world class inefficiency. The City Manager left with his silly 200 year pension- it would be great if the mole for the development people( Patrick Kennedy) would just…go…away…please.Oh yeah, and then there’s the rampant crime surge from Oakland Into Berkeley which he is also clueless on.

  • Anonymous

    but why?…I recently read somewhere that Berkeley was one of the most educated cities in our Nation, is that the problem everyone is too smart to get involved in Berkeley politics? I just find it hard to believe that Loni & Tom are the best we can do…in fact i know it’s not! I couldn’t do it because i would have a heart attack or a nervous breakdown during the first city council meeting i couldn’t deal with the shenanigans!

  • julie

    If one read the Daily Planet, Ms. O’Malley states that Bates could run, win, and not finish out his term by choosing some one to fill his place. No one has as much money as Bates, and his pockets are filled with favors. If they made a horror movie of the next Master Bates mayoral election, I wonder what is would be called? Maybe Berkeleyside ( if Bates doesn’t hack it ), could run a contest for the best horror flick name. BTW, if you go back to his promises in 2008 of what he promised he would accomplished by 2012, he failed miserably.

  • Anonymous

    he will probably insert his son…to keep the master bates legacy going!

  • Anonymous

    Master Bates had all those years in the assembly to practice getting paid while doing absolutely nothing!

  • Berkeley Resident

    If you don’t like how he runs the city don’t vote for him.  I don’t plan to vote fo him.  But if most Berkeley residents are happy with him then he will win.  That is how it is supposed to work.

  • Gz

    If these people are no good, why do people vote for them?!

  • Lhasa7

    Can we please have someone on the ballot who is not a demoralizing schmuck?

  • Guest13

    Most people don’t have a clue how he runs the city and NEVER attend a City Council meeting to see what a tyrant he is.  He is good at one thing, campaigning – getting the right endorsements and the money (from developers) for multiple mailings.  People vote for him because they don’t know what’s going on and they receive several glossy mailers showing all the (pseudo) environmental groups that endorse him.  Then he wins.

    And now, I fear that this time no one will even bother to run against him because he’s got it all sewed up.

    That is NOT how it is supposed to work.

  • Guest13

    Machine politics is very effective at getting corrupt politicians elected.

  • Anonymous

    The people of Berkeley are afraid of change…i know it sounds ironic but they (we) are no different than the people of the Midwest just different political views

  • Anonymous

    that is the $10,000 question…they serve great Kool-aid i guess.

  • South Berkeleyan

    Maybe he will get a bounce from all the Bates fans watching Downton Abbey? 

  • Mike Farrell

    He’s colorless and old, like so much of Berkeley’s electorate.
    The comment about the midwest is so revealing of Berkeley’s main conceit, but truly unfair to the Midwest.

  • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_TERWG67RSVXGWBUECWQSXF4LFU I know I have one

    re”But why?”    When I was a child, there was ( as now)  an incredible diversity among the kinds of folks who served as  members of the city council and the school board. Many of these were folks were professionals ( even several professors) and business folks who had full time jobs  (and  included Republicans!) . While the electoral population of the city has changed, one reason  of several for the change in the kinds of people attracted to public service in Berkeley is that after many years of  elected officials being “Mau-Maued” at council meetings, etc.  the population of those willing to serve the public in these capacities has been reduced, as many talented people of quite varied backgrounds simply decide that service to the city is not worth the personal commitment (and the personal conflict and grief it brings) it takes to do a good job.

  • Bruce Love

    A big factor that has changed is the shift from at-large to district elections.   That made it much harder for large minorities to gain representation.  It also made it much easier for incumbents to be re-elected.   Arguably that was exactly the effect intended when the off-cycle, students-out-of-town ballot measure was submitted.

  • Robin Gal

    For the last 30 years, we have had the Galloping Gus, Tom Bates Eras. We need younger people, with better ideas. Bates, Hancock, and Skinner have failed to deliver any agenda other than more pot holes, more people in poverty, and more red tape. In the meantime, Emeryville has raised itself from vacant lots to a viable place to live, work, and shop. Come on Berkeley, we must do better.

  • Robin Gal

    For the last 30 years, we have had the Galloping Gus, Tom Bates Eras. We need younger people, with better ideas. Bates, Hancock, and Skinner have failed to deliver any agenda other than more pot holes, more people in poverty, and more red tape. In the meantime, Emeryville has raised itself from vacant lots to a viable place to live, work, and shop. Come on Berkeley, we must do better.

  • Robin Gal

    For the last 30 years, we have had the Galloping Gus, Tom Bates Eras. We need younger people, with better ideas. Bates, Hancock, and Skinner have failed to deliver any agenda other than more pot holes, more people in poverty, and more red tape. In the meantime, Emeryville has raised itself from vacant lots to a viable place to live, work, and shop. Come on Berkeley, we must do better.

  • http://twitter.com/captfuzzbucket CaptFuzz

    I miss Shirley Dean.  Anyone give her a call?

  • Toni Mester

    Bruce, you are right about the 1986 creation of the districts, which were gerrymandered to split the student vote and ensure dominance of the hills. Districts in a small university city were bad enough, but with no term limits, the Council has enjoyed de facto tenure. District elections were supposed to promote democratic participation but have instead created voter apathy and fear because few citizens want to oppose the incumbent and become orphan constituents. Thus the Council gets older, collecting their salaries ($29K + benefits) and the Mayor gets crankier by the meeting. If Tom runs again, his motto should be “Berkeley at its best rendition of King Lear.”

  • libraterian

    As mentioned, Berkeley has a highly educated citizenry. Those with talent and education have compelling careers, passionate interests and goals to achieve. This is completely opposite to the nature of Berkeley politics. Why, when with a little effort you can avoid the stinking mess, would you step in it? Unfortunately, those few who would try to change things are stricken with ‘Prince Charles disease,’ waiting a lifetime for the old guard to die.  

  • Heather W.

    The guy has already gotten his eponymous sports field, among other self-congratulatory items that he’s bullied through… can’t he just retire now with his pension????

  • Bruce Love

    Let’s point out, while were here, how districting interferes with change in the mayor’s office:    Plausible mayoral candidates are likely to be people with CoB government experience and whose social networks include plenty of  city staff and plenty of the more politically active residents.  The most likely ladder is therefore via appointments to commissions, councilmember staff positions, and election to seats on council.   Locked-in council seats (“Council gets older,” as you say) not only freeze progress while incumbents remain but it also helps to limit next-generation electoral choices.

  • Charles_Siegel

     Creation of districts was the result of a citizen initiative and was opposed by the powers that were at the time. 

    At that time, the city government was dominated by Berkeley Citizen’s Action (BCA), who were very good at running city-wide campaigns. 

    The BCA council made the mistake of voting for public housing on school sites, which stirred up so much neighborhood opposition that the neighborhoods put an initiative on the ballot shifting to district elections.  BCA opposed the initiative, but it passed anyway.

    Since then, BCA has had little or no influence.  Many of the old BCA people are still in government, but the BCA organization could not campaign effectively in district election, as it had in city-wide elections, so it withered away.

  • Charles_Siegel

    Though I don’t always agree with him, I think Bates has generally done well. 

    He was certainly a refreshing change after the Shirley Dean years.  She was really nasty in the way she treated city staff and citizens who disagreed with her.

  • Charles_Siegel

    If you don’t like the entrenched councilmembers, you have to do the work of putting a term-limit initiative on the ballot.  I expect it would pass, since similar measures have virtually always passed.

    Complaining about it isn’t going to do any good.  No matter how much people complain, they are not going to vote term limits on themselves.

  • Bruce Love

    Mathematically, at least, district elections can easily prevent a majority-favored candidate from being elected.  Thus BCA may have been “good at” getting candidates elected city-wide simply because they represented a majority view (until they didn’t).

  • Bruce Love

    Term limits don’t change which “machines” dominate, just what faces front them.

  • Charles_Siegel

     My experience is that the main factor in winning Berkeley elections is name recognition.  Incumbent almost always wins, because no challenger has equal name recognition. 

    With term limits, when an incumbent is termed out, there will be roughly equal name recognition between the two candidates, so challengers will have a chance.  When I say roughly equal, I mean the the great majority never heard of either before the election, since most Berkeley residents don’t follow local politics and never heard of anyone except the mayor and their councilmember.

    We saw this happen after Dona Spring died.  There were two candidates with simlarly negligible name recognition, Jesse was not the “machine” candidate, and Jesse won. 

    Incidentally, I am not as paranoid about political machines as most, but however paranoid you are, you should recognize that the name recognition of the incumbent is the biggest factor in Berkeley elections.

  • Guest13

    You must be fond of big ugly (and often bank-owned) buildings if you think he has done well, because that is his major accomplishment.  Also he, too, can be really nasty to citizens who disagree with him.

  • Anonymous

    without complaining the conversation never gets started, i agree with the term limit initiative…get it started and i will get involved. i also promise to get others involved.

  • Anonymous

    I have said hi to tom many times around town and not only has he ignored me at times but he was really rude at others, he has never stopped or taken the time to greet me. he seems like he has the personality of a cardboard box.

  • Charles_Siegel

    Like most environmentalists, I am fond of traditional urban-scale buildings (as everyone knows who has read my comments on this site). 

    Bates has gotten a number of them built.  His main opposition comes from NIMBYs who are against all development.

  • Charles_Siegel

    I myself don’t have time to get this initiative started, since I have a full-time job and a business on the side.   If anyone does get the initiative started, I think they will be successful.

    The complainers have gotten the conversation started.  Let’s see one of them take the next step.

  • resident

    West Berzerkeley, I’d vote for you!

  • http://radar.oreilly.com/2007/09/local-recycle-reuse-hits-a-bur.html The Sharkey

     

    …Master Bates…

    Pathetically childish, and probably a violation of Berkeleyside’s posting guidelines.

    Grow up.

  • http://radar.oreilly.com/2007/09/local-recycle-reuse-hits-a-bur.html The Sharkey

    Term limits for councilmembers sounds like a great idea.
    I would happily vote in favor of any such initiative.

  • deirdre

    hey south berkeleyan, glad I wasn’t drinking any milk when I read that or it would have all come out my nose.

  • http://caviarcommunism.us West Bezerkeley

    Well, I guess I’d have a vote of at least one.

    Seriously though, these guys get hammered 24/7 and (at least the politicians) aren’t paid a living wage, which means that you either (1) have to be retired to do this job, (2) be independently wealthy, (3) have a spouse support you, (4) do this job when you have time after you come home from your day job.

    I don’t qualify under points 1-3 and I would never consider point 4 because I want a life, so count me out.

  • Berkeley Resident

    People need to get a clue if they care about their community.  If they don’t, then that is not something this mayor is responsible for.

    The whole point of voting is to choose what you want but you can’t choose if you aren’t informed and in a small city like Berkeley you can stay informed without too much effort.

    So, as I said if he wins, it is because people who live in Berkeley picked him.  You can’t blame someone for runnin a campaign and winning if the voters choose to stay uninformed.