Interim Oakland Mayor Kevin Jenkins said on April 6 his former chief of staff is no longer employed by the city, after a handwritten note released in documents from the city amid an FBI investigation sparked outrage over the weekend.
In a statement provided to media outlets, Jenkins appointed Deputy Mayor Burt Jones to fill the void left by Leigh Hanson.
“Effective Sunday, Leigh Hanson is no longer an employee of the City of Oakland,” Jenkins said in the statement. “I thank Ms. Hanson for her service. Deputy Mayor Burt Jones will be serving as the Mayor’s Office chief of staff until further notice, and I thank him for stepping up to the role.”
Hanson wrote the note last year while she was working under former mayor Sheng Thao, in which she appeared to refer to black people as “tokens,” and it was recently released to the public.
The Epoch Times has reached out to Hanson, Jenkins, and Fife for comment but did not hear back by publication time.
Hanson confirmed in a statement provided to media outlets on April 6 that she wrote the note and said her comments were misinterpreted, and that the plan was to recruit black people. The comments, according to Hanson, were made at a meeting with supporters of Thao when she was mayor and facing a recall campaign.
“These handwritten meeting notes record a group discussion that included proposed messaging points that the anti-recall campaign wanted to provide to potential surrogates,” Hanson said in the statement.
“They are a specific reference to Seneca Scott, a paid African American political operative, who was hired by the wealthy white funders of the recall campaign to obscure the public’s understanding of the recall’s political origins.”
Hanson said that Thao and her political team viewed Scott’s involvement as tokenization by the recall’s financier.
“I regret that my short-hand note-taking has been taken out of context on social media and inadvertently harmed close friends, colleagues and members of my community who have been marginalized by our political system,” Hanson said.
Scott, a political activist, told The Epoch Times in a message on social media that he led the recall campaign against Thao.
“We have said many times, for years now, that Oakland’s ‘progressive’ movement has been captured by insidiously racist white people,” Scott said.
“This vindication is bitter sweet, the knowledge that so many Black Oaklanders have had to suffer under this corrupt administration is unforgivable. The City of Oakland owes the Oakland NAACP an apology.”
“The public deserves honesty and transparency from City Hall,” First Assistant United States Attorney Patrick D. Robbins said of the charges. “When elected officials agree to a pay-to-play system to benefit themselves rather than work for the best interests of their constituents, that breaches the public trust. “This indictment reaffirms the U.S. Attorney’s Office’s commitment to root out, investigate, and prosecute corruption in our local governments.”
Thao’s attorney Jeff Tsai told reporters in January that when the evidence is revealed, it will show his client committed no crimes.
