Features

Dellums Fires Edgerly’s Second in Command

By J. Douglas Allen-Taylor
Thursday July 10, 2008 - 09:38:00 AM

In a sign of a continuing shakeup in Oakland City Hall growing out of the Deborah Edgerly controversy, Oakland Mayor Ron Dellums has fired Assistant City Administrator Cheryl Thompson.  

The East Bay News Service reported that Thompson has been an Oakland city employee since 1998 and was hired by Edgerly as assistant administrator in 2003. 

Dellums’ press office confirmed the firing today. 

Dan Lindheim has been serving as acting city administrator since the firing last week of Thompson’s boss, Deborah Edgerly. Lindheim went from the position of Dellums’ budget director to interim director of the city’s Community and Economic Development Agency (CEDA) after Director Claudia Cappio’s resignation for health reasons. 

No reason was given for the Thompson firing. Because she serves in an at-will capacity, she can be fired without cause. 

Thompson’s firing comes less than a week after Dellums removed Edgerly from the city administrator’s post, growing out of a June 7 West Oakland incident in which Edgerly briefly intervened during the police towing of a vehicle that had been driven by her nephew. After it was revealed 10 days later that the vehicle towing was part of a police investigation of West Oakland’s Acorn gang, there appeared widespread allegations in the local press that Edgerly had interfered in the police investigation and possibly tipped off her nephew in advance of a June 17 police bust of the gang’s operations. 

The Oakland Police Department has never confirmed that it is investigating criminal charges against Edgerly.