David Silver Of Oakland Promise Not Double Dipping Says Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf
ONN – David Silver Of Oakland Promise Not Double Dipping Says Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf
Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf called me, Zennie Abraham of Zennie62Media to come to the defense of David Silver, her Director of Education and builder of the Oakland Promise program. During our talk, Mayor Schaaf made three points, which are presented below.
The center-point of Mayor Schaaf’s concern were the charges of “double-dipping” issued in the Oakland News Now post called “David Silver Of The Oakland Promise Rakes In The Dough”. In that blog entry, Oakland activist Gene Hazzard asserted that Mr. Silver managed to get double the salary of his station (in Mr. Hazzard’s view) in 2016 by drawing from two fiscal sources. Gene’s information and passionate work was compelling enough to present, and so that was done.
Before we get to the Mayor’s counterpoints, and contrary to the assertion of critics like Gene Hazzard, I will personally say that Oakland Promise wasn’t an idea that started with Mayor Schaaf’s run for Mayor of Oakland in 2014, but it really has its origins in fundraising programs she has been involved in most of her adult life. Libby said that my identification of “Oakland Cares” in the previous David Silver post was a perfect example of that work on her part. I called Oakland Promise the modern variant of Oakland Cares.
Mayor Schaaf’s Counterpoints To Gene Hazzard About David Silver’s Pay
Now, here are the Mayor’s points, as written to me.
First, David Silver never “double-dipped” – his total annual salary in 2016 was $155K (not $292K). In 2016, his salary was originally funded entirely by philanthropy: he received $137K from Ed Fund (fiscal agent for Director of Education role) for working 10.5 months Jan-mid-Nov), and after the City Council passed a resolution to accept a grant that would allow the Director of Education to be a city employee in November 2016, he received the rest of his salary, $17,884.75, from the city for working 1.5 months (mid-Nov-Dec, which is the difference between $155K-$137K).
Second, in addition, his 2018 salary was not $261K, thanks for correcting that, (which was his total compensation that includes benefits at a % typical of all city employees) when the actual salary received was $161,097,96 (Note: Transparent California + W-2s from the City of Oakland Payroll confirms the corrected numbers)
Third, David Silver’s actual annual salary is significantly lower than that of the City Administrator Sabrina Landreth, or the Oakland Unified School District Superintendent Dr. Kyla Johnson.
Additionally, Mayor Schaaf informed this vlogger that Oakland Promise has raised a total of $61 million to date. There are 1,400 scholarship student and they’re working to add more.
Will Oakland Promise Spawn “California Promise”?
For the future of Oakland Promise, Mayor Schaaf says it will last long beyond her final term as Mayor of Oakland. And also she believes the next step should be a state-wide initiative to establish “California Promise”.
Stay tuned.
Oakland News Now Note: this video-blog post demonstrates the full and live operation of the latest version of an experimental Zennie62Media mobile media video-blogging system network. This is a major part of our new approach to the production of news media. The uploaded video is from a vlogger with the Zennie62 on YouTube Partner Channel, then uploaded to and formatted automatically at the Oakland News Now site and Zennie62-owned social media pages. The overall objective is smartphone-enabled, real-time, on the scene reporting of news, interviews, observations, and happenings anywhere in the World and within seconds and not hours. The secondary objective is faster, and very inexpensive media production and distribution. We have found there is a disconnect between post length and time to product and revenue generated. With this, the problem is far less, though by no means solved. Zennie62Media is constantly working to improve the system network coding and also seek interested content and media technology partners.
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Zennie Abraham is Zennie62Media, Inc. CEO and Zenophon Abraham Zennie62 YouTube Channel vlogger, and pioneer African-American creator of Oakland News Now Blog and Zennie62Media’s 100-blog network. He’s covered the NFL, San Diego Comic Con, The Night of 100 Stars Oscars Party, The NFL Draft, and CES Las Vegas annually , and for more than 10 years. Zennie created Oakland’s first true blog, Oakland Focus, and Oakland’s first YouTube Partner Channel Zennie62, and now Oakland’s only news blog aggregator, OaklandNewsOnline.com . Zennie also holds the distinction of forming Oakland’s only bid to host the NFL’s Super Bowl Game, in 2000 for the 2005 game that Jacksonville won the right to host. He’s also the founder of Sports Business Simulations and the creator of The Oakland Baseball Simworld and XFL Simworld. Zennie was born in Chicago on August 4th, 1962. A proud graduate of Bret Harte Jr. High, and Skyline High School, He’s lived in Oakland since April 8th of 1974. He has an undergraduate degree from Texas-Arlington and a Masters Degree from U.C. Berkeley, both in City Planning with a focus on urban economics and public finance. Zennie is an expert in system dynamics modeling.