Gibbs: The first question I'd like to ask is, how long have you been an Alameda County Supervisor?

King: When I complete my term in January it will have been twelve years, three terms.

Gibbs: And what is the base salary of a County Supervisor, then and now?

King: I don't know if I remember the base when I started, but I remember that I had to take a cut in pay. It was described as a part-time job and it probably paid about thirty-three thousand dollars a year. [With a smile and a soft laugh] I'm leaving at an inopportune time because now the salary is being raised to eighty percent of that of a Superior Court Judge. And by January I think it should be about one hundred thousand. It's the appropriate pay for the work though.

Gibbs: My next question is, do County Board members typically hold other jobs?

King: In the old days they did-- many were attorneys and had private practices. At this present time though, I don't think any of the sitting board members has another job. I think it would be really hard since we serve on so many regional bodies which we chair, and because of the complexity of the organization to serve as administrative and legislatively responsible, I think it's nearly impossible to hold down another job. That's unless you have a spouse or significant other who you can trust to run things for you.

Gibbs: What was it like when you first came into office and how do you feel that things have changed?

King: When I first came to office, I was the only woman on the board. There had been one woman elected to the board, but she served only one term before being defeated. So, it was myself and four men. There was very little money in the budget, we were feeling the results of the passage of Proposition Thirteen, and it was a time of cut, cut, cut everything. The budget was a huge problem at the time I took office in 1989. That, and the fact that the State of California had gone into a recession and continued in that recession for a while, so there were more people on public assistance than there currently are, largely as a result of the economy and not just other social issues which we still face today that still need a lot of work. There are now three female Board Members, so it's not so much of a surprise when you show up and you're a woman. I suppose that those are some of the major differences. The budget is still an issue, but a little easier. The economy overall is better, there are more dollars and fewer cuts, but there are still really poor people whose issues are not being addressed through the appropriate systems. One good thing about then was that sports entertainment was not a concern of County Board Supervisors and refinancing of the Coliseum had not occurred, now it has become a dominant discussion. I didn't run for office to promote sports entertainment. [Smiles broadly] I don't even like sports! So, there are some of the differences.

Gibbs: Do you feel that you can attribute any of these changes to your efforts while in office?

King: I think a lot of my efforts are the kind that had and will continue to have some institutional long-term effects on county government. One is the way the County budget is now done. That came largely out of necessity. When I got there I saw that whoever came in yelling the loudest, got the money. If that was the unions, they got the money, if that was some other special interest group, they got the money. By statute obviously, we are a franchise of the state, and so much of it was out of our control. I instituted a process called the Values Based Budget, where we looked at our entire budget from a perspective of what was most important, having to do with the collective values of the people of the county, And we set our spending priorities based upon the priorities set forth, as the people articulated them. The Sheriff, the District Attorney and some others at that time thought that it was a "soft process" and that it would never work. Yet, it has survived through difficult times to this day. Currently, both the Sheriff and the D.A. stand by the process, and it has helped institutionalize a different way of doing business. And it can be used in the same way that it was used to cut, to back-fill into the process when additional money comes, based upon the values articulated at the time. And it can be updated, because sometimes values change, based upon needs and times. But it's a vehicle that I think has served the County well.

There's also a land-use program that I put in place that was about creating an urban limit line in order to protect open space, but inside the line, developing in densities that are close to currently existing infrastructures. We now call it "Smart Growth" in the state of California. It was a bit ahead of its time, but in Alameda County we started working on developing in those directions and as a result have been able to develop our surplus property in the Dublin Valley area to where we have almost two hundred million dollars in the bank in order to meet some of the needs of the County.

One of the things I worked on which I don't know if it's going to turn out to be as effective as I had hoped, was the change of governance of the County hospital system to a hospital authority model that would have its own separate governing body, rather than a Board of Supervisors, who are largely generalists. These people could focus more specifically on health care in a competing new environment of managed care. I still think the model makes sense but the implementation of it has been very difficult. Difficult with a board that may not share the same community values that elected officials do in this community, in trying to find people who share the values that we have for diversity, but have a sense of business and how to run a hospital, in order to help us survive, as an institution, not as a medical center.

So that's something I put in place that I'm still questioning whether it will work out. The other two worked out well as I had anticipated. I think that the independence of the Board, in terms of not being beholding to outside political interests, is largely a result of the standards that I set on the board, and that is why I'm so concerned about whoever will succeed me. That means that when we come to the board with an idea, a vision, a new plan, an ordinance, or how we're going to spend the money, there's no block voting. I can't just walk in and say I know these two supervisors are going to vote with me and that's how I know it's going to get done. Each one of us brings whatever it is we'd like to bring, then we have to be able to convince the others based upon the merits of whatever that issue is. And I think that's important to the people.

So that when people come before the Board of Supervisors, they know they're dealing with the Board that's standing, talking with them, rather than some outside influence who has elected a block vote on the Board. So if that person or outside interest likes you, you've got three votes and if they don't, you've only got two. So each issue is decided independently, and I have always stressed that as being important and hope that it will continue.

Gibbs: This next question may simply be an add-on to the previous question but what, among your accomplishments, are you most proud of?

King: I guess the land use and budget programs I spoke of are accomplishments I'm proud of, but I'm also proud for having set a tone for being uncompromising in this job, and it's been painful as a result. But I think I developed a certain respect that you don't get when you compromise or sell out. So while people may get mad at you or make it hard on you at times, there is in their minds, a kind of long-standing respect for you. I also think of a particularly difficult project; there was a BART station in Castro Valley which was the unincorporated portion of my district, and there was room for affordable housing near that station. Trying to put affordable housing in a community that sees itself as insulated in many ways became very difficult. Some of the large associations there almost caused people to want to recall me.

But the project was finally done with the support of Bridge Housing and our planning department. It was a senior housing project where we were also able to maintain an historical structure and presently there are seniors and families residing there, in what is probably one of the nicest, safest housing developments in that community.

What may have been scary to the people of the community was that these people were different from them. When in fact, many of the people moving in worked as secretaries or in other professions and were simply working people, raising their families just like them and shared the same values as them. It is now a housing development in that area that people speak of with pride, when I'm not around.

Gibbs: What are some of the things that disturb you most about what is going on in the county presently?

King: The whole issue of affordable housing is one that I'm very much concerned about in our county. We're in a place where were having jobs being developed and the opportunity for people to have those jobs. We're at a time where things are happening in Oakland that hadn't happened in the past and the people who have been here for the long haul, many of whom are people of color, are being displaced due to the escalating costs of housing and the inability to provide that housing in other communities.

The Sierra Club, which I see myself as an ally with has an initiative that says that north Livermore can't be developed. I feel north Livermore should be developed, it's exactly where development should occur and it should be mixed development with affordable, high-end housing, jobs, and all the other components of developing an active community. When the Sierra Club says we can't develop in this area, the costs of housing in East Oakland goes up, the people out there in the job market go out and buy it up, and people in my community are displaced. And I think this whole issue of how we're going to deal regionally with the issue of jobs and housing, superimposing on the discussion about the environment versus the economy, the social equity part needs to be at the table. So, that's something I see as a major crisis in Alameda County that must be addressed.

Another thing is that since our job is to assist people on public assistance and move people from welfare to work, are we going to be able to place people in jobs that they will actually be able to survive on? Jobs that have upward mobility, jobs that have built-in educational components that will allow them to get off of welfare with some dignity and real opportunities to grow. And then, the whole issue of political gentrification.

How the money flows is often influenced by regional bodies like the Metropolitan Transportation Commission, which I serve on. It's where all the transportation dollars flow through from the federal and state governments. I'm the last African-American on that body.

When you start to discuss the distribution of the wealth that comes into our region, the fact is that since Byron Rumford and the Fair Housing Act, it has been considered a Black seat. It no longer receives that consideration. What I notice when I go into meetings to represent my constituency, which is obviously diverse, what I notice increasingly is that I'm the only person of color and bringing that perspective to the table has been really tough. On the Oakland City Council there are only two African-Americans left, a city where we actually should be able to elect Black people. And our problems, and our concerns are still the most difficult ones for any government to face.

We've looked at the people who are trying to move toward becoming self-sustaining, people on Cal-Works, which is the " Welfare-To-Work" program; fifty percent of them are African-American, fifty-seven percent of them live in Oakland, eighty-five percent are women. This says to me that there's still a lot of ground work that needs to be done.

What scares me most is that people of color, Black people specifically, who opened the doors to Affirmative Action, who kicked down the doors to say that equality was important, are being displaced from decision-making bodies or they're leaving voluntarily, like myself because there are no paths for promotions since "The Machine" has taken over Oakland.

Gibbs: Can you tell me why you have chosen to no longer run for the Board?

King: Well, the reason I chose not to run initially was because the job pays about fifty-four thousand dollars a year, you work seven days a week, you can't make any outside income without it being one kind of conflict or another, and the job can be very, very, trying. I had to start thinking about retiring, as a single parent who had sent my kids through school and all the other stuff; I had to think, "How am I going to take care of myself and take my skills and transfer them into something that is going to be more professionally lucrative"?

So I decided not to run for office again, and then the salaries were raised. But I still would have left because I believe an elected official shouldn't stay in the same job too long because I think they tend to grow stale. And I think that bringing in new ideas is important, even critical, to the functioning of that role.

Another thing is, I have watched with a certain degree of frustration as I have attempted to "break out", (I've run for mayor of Oakland twice), that if you are outspoken, and try to get things done, it's real easy for there to be a backlash against you. And I'm tired of having to fight the backlash. I'll find another way to do it. I felt as though, I too often had become the topic of discussion, taking away from the real issues. So sometimes you have to remove yourself and create a new dialogue.

Gibbs: You've already answered my next question in part, but have you ever considered running for other offices, such as the State Assembly or Congress?

King: Early in my career I worked for the State Assembly for almost nine years. I find that county government is so incremental and I'm a very impatient person. Sometimes it feels like you take three steps forward, then four steps back and it takes a disproportionate amount of time to get the job done.

The Legislature is worse than that. There's this constant deal-making and trade-offs to get something done, that being right, or having a just cause, has very little to do with the outcome. It has to do with special interests, who gave the government the most money. So that whole morass is one that I'd already decided that I wouldn't do well in.

If there were term limits, I could possibly get in and get something done. I think the Congress might be fun but not as much as the U.S. Senate. I like to work with the smallest possible group of people directly related to getting the job done. And I don't see anyone who isn't independently wealthy being able to get into the U.S. Senate from the state of California. You have to have your own money and be willing to be a total whore and sell out to all the interests that give money to politicians. And even then, the average person can come along and defeat you. In the Congress I think they have a line of ascension that I'm probably not in.

Gibbs: Officially, when is your last day as a County Supervisor?

King: The first Tuesday of January the new person will be sworn in and that will be my last day.

Gibbs: And of the candidates vying for the position, who if anyone, do you endorse?

King: I am supporting Audrey Rice-Oliver and I've talked about it a lot. When you're in elected office, you're a symbol, whether you want to be or not. I'm the first African-American woman elected to the County Board of Supervisors and I think that if there is a woman who is qualified and would bring to the Board a real sense of business and a sense of understanding that the majority of the population we serve is poor people, women and children, and she has sensitivity to these issues, then that symbolism needs to be carried on.

Audrey Rice-Oliver is a Black woman who has raised her children on her own after getting out of an abusive relationship. She, like myself, has experienced being on welfare at one point, before developing herself into a successful entrepreneur. So she understands this job and looks at it not only from the perspective of accountability, but with compassion. I'm not saying that a man couldn't do that, but I think that the symbol for a system that's so dominated by the issues that face Black women and children so disproportionately, would best be represented by someone who shares that experience. Another reason is that she is independent, she's not beholden to anybody. I think her opponent, unfortunately, is a part of "The Machine" that has come into Oakland seeking to upset the existing structure.

Gibbs: I think you may have answered this question in part also, but I'll ask the question anyway . What plans do you have for the future?

King: Did we discuss it, because I don't know what they are. [Laughs] If I said something, I hope it comes back to me.

Gibbs: I'm referring to when you discussed the possibilities of other political offices.

King: Oh, but those are not plans or anything I'm thinking about doing. What I should say is that at this time, my plans do not include running for elected office. I'm ready to live a simple life; pay my mortgage and do work that gives me satisfaction and is contributing, maybe consulting.

Gibbs: I guess we've come to the end of my questions, is there anything I didn't ask you that you'd like to discuss?

King: I want to try to somehow encourage young people to be involved in the political process. Not just through voting, that's expected of you, based upon the hardships that our ancestors suffered for us to be here. Now our best and our brightest go out in the world to make money. And that's a good thing, but you can do that later or you can do it for a while, come into public service and help make some changes, and then you can go back and make some more.

We frequently don't have anyone who is a natural to turn the position over to. And it's amazing how many people think the job is just dressing nice and going to the Raiders games and luncheons. They have not seen the real work that goes into this. There almost needs to be some kind of training academy where people are made to see it as a duty and be made aware of all the grunt work that goes into making things happen; the canvassing, the phone calls, and all the not so glamorous aspects that go along with it. We need to be aware that people in other communities really do train their young people to know that it is such a social power and influence, that they are willing to go off and become interns and volunteers, knowing that it will give them the experience to get in.

(This interview took place at Mary King's office and was conducted by Gibbs's reporter, James Kellybrew.)

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