Fil-Am makes history as interim mayor of Oakland, California

Nikki Fortunato Bas, the first Fil-Am interim mayor of Oakland, will serve until Jan. 6, 2025, then take her oath of office as the first Fil-Am Alameda County supervisor. CONTRIBUTED

OAKLAND, Calif. – A Filipino American has been making double history these past weeks and will continue to do so as 2025 unfolds.

Nikki Fortunato Bas, a lifelong community organizer and defender of worker rights, is leading the executive office as interim mayor of this most populous city on the eastern rim of San Francisco Bay.

The New York-born daughter of Filipino immigrants is the first Fil-Am woman to own the title in Oakland, a port city of some 440,000 residents.

Bas assumed mayorship Dec. 17 upon departure of Mayor Sheng Thao, who was recalled two years after being elected.

Not long after taking office, Thao, the first Hmong American elected to lead a major US city, drew heavy criticism for firing the police chief and persistent city problems.

The FBI raided her home in the summer but has not stated what they were investigating.  Sheng has denied any wrongdoing.

Bas, who did not support the ouster of her former fellow City Council member, reacted to the recall in a statement on X, noting Thao’s service and “unwavering commitment to advancing priorities that best meet the needs of our residents.”

Dear Oakland, on Wednesday, I was sworn in as Oakland’s Interim Mayor. I am grateful to Mayor Sheng Thao for her service to our City and unwavering commitment to advancing priorities that best meet the needs of our residents. I am proud of the work we’ve accomplished over these… pic.twitter.com/mOEdoz2fn7

— Nikki Fortunato Bas, Oakland Mayor (@Nikkiforallofus) December 20, 2024

“I am proud of the work we’ve accomplished over these past two years and feel immensely grateful for the entirety of Mayor Thao’s career in public service,” she said of her predecessor and ally.

As president of the Oakland City Council, Bas was next in line to the mayorship in case of a vacancy.  She will be acting mayor until the new City Council convenes Jan. 6 and votes among themselves on who will be the new Council president, who will then be acting mayor until a special election takes place on April 15.

“We believe in this city, and we will fight for this city, so we are working to ensure our leadership is strong and that we again are singularly focused on the issues before us,” Bas said at a news conference following her installation. “And those issues are making sure that we address both our current budget and our two-year budget.”

On Monday, Dec. 30, Bas and Police Chief Floyd Mitchell will preside over a news conference to announce the record lowest rate of homicide and other developments in their city.

Oakland is turning a page on crime, says Bas, in photo with 194th Academy of graduates under the leadership of Chief Floyd Mitchell (second from left). CONTRIBUTED

Oakland, where she and husband Brad Erickson and their daughter Balana have lived for 27 years, is beautiful, she says, with a “rich history in terms of activism for Blacks, Asians and Latinos, with a vibrant arts and culture communities.”

She can be found going on walks on Lake Merritt or, being a foodie, checking out new restaurants, like Thank Que Grill, a Filipino restaurant specializing in barbecue and that also serves banh mi.

Not to be missed, she offers, is Dragon’s Gate in Jack London Square, a Taiwanese restaurant and karaoke bar.  She recommends the food and entertainment in these new spots, but what’s significant about them is that the owners have invested (millions, in the latter’s case) to open in Oakland, evidence of positive outcomes from recent efforts by the city leadership.

Supervisor-elect Nikki Fortunato Bas with husband Brad Erickson and daughter Balana in their beloved home city. CONTRIBUTED

Her success is noteworthy for the University of Virginia economics graduate whose career plan was to fight for the “rights of the vulnerable” by standing up to power.  Until community partners encouraged her to take their cause to the local legislative level and address their needs from within.

‘Recruited’

On Jan. 6, Bas herself will be taking on yet another unprecedented role for a Filipino American in Alameda County or in any of the eight other Bay Area counties when she swears into the Board of Supervisors.

An avowed progressive, Bas gained 71,207 or 50.15 percent of total votes over opponent John J. Bauters’ 70,782 or 49.85 percent of votes to represent District 5.  The district covers Albany, Berkeley, Emeryville, Piedmont and parts of Oakland including West Oakland, North Oakland, and the North Hills areas.

The County Board of Supervisors is traditional trajectory for most City Council members, but Bas was not girding for another campaign late last year, having only begun her second term on the council.

In December 2023, however, Supervisor Keith Carson, who had represented District 5 for over 30 years, announced his retirement shortly after the deadline to file candidacy for the March 4 race.  Had he sought reelection, the three-decade incumbent would have run unopposed.

“While I am physically ready for another term, I believe it is time for new energy that reflects the evolving needs of District 5,” he told reporters after his surprise announcement, quelling speculation for the decision.

Service on the Board of Supervisors is “generational, there are no term limits,” Bas enlightened Inquirer.net USA on the longstanding service of county representatives.

“People had five days to decide to run,” the surprised Bas recalled.  “But again, I was ‘recruited’ by community organizations to take the opportunity for stronger representation.”

Nine candidates placed their names on the ballot, including three City Council members.  Bas was the newest elected to contest the position.

Despite the fact that Bauters, an Emeryville Council member, got Carson’s endorsement in the November finals, Bas triumphed.  She had also topped the primary with 34.05 percent over Bauter’s 20.7 percent.

Carson had touted “housing and homelessness, transportation, sustainability, health care and mental health, and re-entry support” as his priorities – issues Bas is known to support vigorously.

The campaign, though short, was “frustrating,” Bass referred to “negative political attacks” she blames on big tech and entities opposing her progressive policies but failed to sway voters.

Strength from adversity

Backing down from a challenge is not something Bas is known to do.

Five years ago she won in her first bid to represent District 2 of the Oakland City Council, becoming the first Filipino American to join the body governing the most populous city on the East Bay, the third largest in the nine Bay Area counties and the eighth in the state, according to most estimates.

That was 2019, months before the coronavirus outbreak would hit this country, leading to “one of the hardest periods in our lifetime,” Bas characterizes her freshman year. Hers was a baptism by fire with the consequences wrought by the pandemic and ensuing “racial reckoning,” a perfect storm that tested her commitment to serve.

For the past four years, she has been president of the City Council, drawing on her experience working with diverse philosophies and personalities to build consensus and be productive.

Summing up her accomplishments in her reelection appeal, Bas presented a list: “Expanded violence prevention and alternative crisis response programs; building tiny homes on public land, preventing evictions during COVID, helping tenants buy their homes with land trusts; increased hazard pay for frontline workers, and creation of a progressive corporate tax for greater economic equity.”

A recurring theme in her decision-making process is accountability and collaboration, which her first chief of staff Miya Saika-Chen has touted.

“You lead with love and compassion and street smarts,” Chen complimented her ex-boss at a campaign sortie.

“She brought together very siloed departments to work on budget and policy.  That level of organizing and collaboration is just so valuable,” Chen emphasized.

Fellow social justice champion Cynthia Bonta praises Bas’ “purity of heart and her clarity of journey along justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion, and her north star that’s her immigrant parents and ancestors through Philippine and Fil-Am History’s liberation struggles.”

Proud progressives, including Miya Saika-Chen (left) and Cynthia Bonta (in black), rally around incoming District 5 representative to Alameda County Board of Supervisors. CONTRIBUTED

“She will bring fresh unwavering energy to Alameda County starting with affordable housing for all as a human right,” Bonta shared her expectation of Bas’ impact on the County Board of Supervisors.

Intimates and associates alike are well aware of the root of Bas’ fortitude.  Her parents Mauricio and Fe Bas taught her resolve in their choice to further medical studies in this country, where she and her three brothers were born.

From her Dad, a retired doctor, she learned courage and determination as he successfully challenged his employer hospital’s faulty administration that had cost a patient’s life.

Even constituents are aware that Bas’ altruism was born of her experience as a survivor of sexual assault that happened when she was in college.  It is a lived experience she brings up in her self-introduction.

“The most unimaginable thing happened,” she says on her campaign video, disclosing what motivated her to “spend my life fighting for justice, fighting so no other woman could experience that type of sexual violence and exploitation.”

That commitment broadened to organizing for justice for “the rights of workers…of people on the frontline environmental justice communities, for the rights of women to have autonomy over our bodies.”

She takes a “holistic approach” to public safety, informed by her and others’ experience as violence survivors to “provide the core services that will allow our young people to have a quality education with health care, a home and a job,” basic needs that define quality of life.

She is more than ready to get started collaborating on the Board of Supervisors with its woman-majority board she envisions as a “game changer” in her quest for social justice.