Brandon Harami, a gay man who’s Oakland interim Mayor Kevin Jenkins’ community resilience director, was one of several staffers placed on paid administrative leave Monday in a City Hall shake-up.
Meanwhile, the special election for a new mayor is just over a week away and some LGBTQ voters are questioning ties by candidate Loren Taylor to a man known for making homophobic statements.
City Hall shake-up
Harami told the Bay Area Reporter in a Facebook message Monday that he was placed on administrative leave that day and that his last day is Friday, April 11.
Jenkins said in a statement that it's always been his intention to allow the next mayor to choose their own staff. "In the meantime, my team and I are laser-focused on preparing the Mayor’s draft budget for on-time release on May 1,” he stated.
Harami disagreed.
“This is clearly retaliatory action in response to an inaccurate and misleading release from the leadership of the Oakland NAACP, who has reason to dislike me after I landed a settlement with one of their officers for harassment,” Harami stated. “I am pursuing next steps with both my union and other avenues.”
Harami was referring to his settling in February a restraining order filed by the city against Seneca Scott. Scott used to be on the executive board of the Oakland NAACP board; his name no longer appears to be listed among the branch’s leadership on its website.
As the B.A.R. previously reported, the settlement followed a cease and desist and a temporary restraining order that Scott made false and extremely homophobic accusations against Harami and his family "as well as posting my address and phone number while encouraging his supporters to harass me," Harami wrote in a previous statement about the settlement.
Harami had also worked for former mayor Sheng Thao, who was recalled by voters last November.
With Harami’s impending departure from City Hall, however, the settlement will end, he noted.
“I was in the middle of prepping to protect myself with a civil case against Seneca in anticipation of leaving, but this sudden firing means my settlement ends with him on Friday, which means he can go back to harassing me,” he wrote.
According to the San Francisco Chronicle, over the weekend Jenkins had fired his chief of staff Leigh Hanson, over a note she wrote last year that appeared to refer to Black people as “tokens.” Hanson, who had also served as Thao’s chief of staff, had written the note during an anti-recall meeting, the paper reported.
The news of the memo came after the city released about 1,000 pages of documents last week related to the FBI investigation of Thao. The former mayor has been charged with corruption by federal authorities and has pleaded not guilty. The Chronicle reported that the handwritten note by Hanson stated, “CM Fife can reach out to NAACP – use BP as tokens.” That was a reference to District 3 Councilmember Carroll Fife, a Thao ally, the Chronicle reported. Hanson confirmed to the paper that BP was an abbreviation for Black people.
Hanson told the paper that the note was taken out of context and that the meeting discussed Thao’s perceptions of the recall effort’s plans to recruit Black people to its cause.
On Monday, the Oakland NAACP sent out a news release calling for Hanson and Harami’s terminations.
“Worse, Harami, a former top aide to Thao who regularly trolled and insulted Black Oaklanders and leaders online, was caught including Thao’s now-indicted boyfriend Andre Jones on official city email threads, referring to him as ‘part of the team,’” the NAACP release stated. “This raises grave ethical questions about misuse of city resources and the involvement of unelected and now criminally-indicted individuals in public business.”
Jones, who has also been charged in relation to the Oakland corruption probe, has pleaded not guilty.
“It’s time for accountability at Oakland City Hall,” stated Cynthia Adams, president of the Oakland NAACP. “We’re not asking for apologies. We’re demanding justice. Our community has been vilified, disrespected, and used. Anyone who participated in a scheme to tokenize Black people or mock Black leadership has no place working for the people of Oakland.”
In a separate Facebook message, Harami accused the Oakland NAACP of “retaliation.”
“This never ends,” he wrote. “I didn’t even attend the meeting where that [Hanson’s note] was written so should I be fired for being a scheduler? This is clearly retaliation.”
Mayoral vote soon
The latest City Hall shake-up comes with just over a week until Oaklanders elect a new mayor. The two main candidates in the April 15 special election are former congressmember Barbara Lee and Taylor, a former city councilmember who ran against Thao in 2022.
Scott has a history of anti-LGBTQ statements, as the B.A.R. has noted. The Alameda County Democratic Party and the East Bay Stonewall Democratic Club in 2023 condemned Scott's homophobic social media posts, some of which were directed at Harami, who was then Thao's director of community resilience and her de facto LGBTQ liaison. In his posts, Scott used an old trope that equates gay men with pedophiles.
In the upcoming mayoral election, Scott has posted on social media supporting Taylor, Oaklandside reported.
For his part, Taylor promoted on social media and appeared at a rally that Scott organized in East Oakland, wearing a Pride-themed shirt, according to a video shared on social media.
That has led some Oakland LGBTQ leaders to question Taylor’s commitment to the community. At an LGBTQ mayoral forum held March 1, Taylor was asked by a member of the public about his connection to Scott and if he would directly condemn his anti-LGBTQ comments.
“I completely condemn any homophobic or transphobic comments from Mr. Scott or anyone else,” Taylor said, according to a video of the forum. “Absolutely, I stand with the LGBTQ community.”
In a recent phone interview with the B.A.R., Lee, long an ally to the LGBTQ community, decried hate speech leveled by Scott.
“Hate does not belong in any community,” Lee said. “You’re known by the company you keep. I’ve pushed back on hate anytime. It’s an indication of how my opponent will govern.”
Updated, 4/7/25: This article has been updated with a statement from interim Mayor Kevin Jenkins.
