Three candidates running to replace the recalled Oakland Mayor Sheng Thao had a mayoral forum Tuesday night, as that April 15 special election is starting to heat up between Barbara Lee, Loren Taylor, and Renia Webb.

Oakland Mayor Sheng Thao was recalled in November, federally indicted for bribery in January, and is now stuck making her case in federal court. The City of Oakland, meanwhile, moves on, and will hold a special election to replace Thao on April 15.

In the running to be the new mayor of Oakland are longtime congressional rep Barbara Lee, former Oakland Councilmember Loren Taylor (who lost by a hair to Thao in the 2022 mayoral election), and Thao’s former chief of staff turned whistleblower Renia Webb. Those three squared off in a Tuesday night forum in Oakland (which was not a debate), hosted by Greenbelt Alliance, Housing Action Coalition, and East Bay for Everyone.  

There is no full video of the entire event, but KGO has bits and pieces of the forum in their coverage, as well as a few exclusive quotes from the candidates in interviews.

For her part, Webb used her KGO airtime to say that she resigned from Thao’s staff when she saw hints of corruption. "When people try to associate me with Sheng I say great, go ahead. because I'm the one that stood up to her and said, 'I'm not going to be corrupt and I'm not going to sell out Oakland,'" she told the station.

KTVU has a few highlights from the forum itself.

Barbara Lee said, "I have focused on local issues in terms of bringing home billions of dollars to make sure that my community benefits from my work on the national and state level." Her 26 years in Congress would lend credence to this claim, though we’re skeptical Oakland would get a ton of federal funding under a Trump administration.

Taylor laid out his vision, saying, "Oakland has to be clean. It has to be safe. We have to be full of opportunities. That is the core."  

Admittedly, this does not provide voters much to go on for that April 15 special election. But there will be additional forums this Tuesday, February 26, Tuesday, May 4, and Saturday, March 8, with more likely to be scheduled.

Related: No Time to Retire, Barbara Lee Makes Her Bid For Oakland Mayor Official [SFist]

Images: (Left) @BarbaraLee_CA via Twitter, (Right) Lorren Taylor via Facebook