Quan's travel tab tops among big 3 Bay Area mayors

Image 1 of / 3 Caption Close Quan's travel tab tops among big 3 Bay Area mayors 1 / 3 Back to Gallery

Ever on the go, Oakland Mayor Jean Quan is off to China with a Bay Area business delegation, marking her 34th out-of-town trip - and her fifth one overseas - since taking office in January 2011.

Records show that Quan billed the city for 21 of her 33 previous trips, at a cost of more than $34,000. She also was entitled to more than $4,600 in meal per diems for 83 days on the road.

Besides the city-funded trips, the Port of Oakland picked up the $4,495 tab for a China trade mission that took Quan to a resort hotel early in her term.

Of Quan's 33 trips:

-- Four were out of the country - two to China, one to Ireland and one to a conference in Rio de Janeiro.

-- Twenty-one were to government conferences in cities from Las Vegas to Philadelphia.

-- Eight were to in-state conferences where she stayed overnight, including in Los Angeles, Palo Alto and Yosemite National Park.

Quan wouldn't comment directly. But through her spokesman, Sean Maher, she said her travels "have been pretty directly tied to a whole lot of money coming in" to Oakland.

Maher cited the pledge of a $1.5 billion Chinese investment in Oakland's planned Brooklyn Basin development, which he said came about as a result of "connections she had in China."

Maher also pointed to "tens of millions" in federal grants Oakland has received for both the port and crime-fighting efforts, which he says the mayor helped secure during her travels.

One other thing, Maher said: "She always flies coach."

Quan's trips haven't always been well-timed. She was making the rounds in Washington, D.C., in October 2011 when the Occupy protests blew up, leading to street confrontations with police.

When the Golden State Warriors dropped the bomb that they wanted to move to San Francisco, Quan was in Las Vegas at a shopping center trade show.

And when The Chronicle reported a nonprofit's findings that her "100-block" crime-stopper plan was based on faulty statistics, Quan was mixing a bit of business and pleasure at a weeklong U.N. conference on sustainable cities in Rio that cost Oakland taxpayers $2,529.

Still, Quan's travels are no match for the high-flying ways of her predecessor, Ron Dellums. He racked up more than $60,000 in travel expenses in one year, including thousands on limousine services and a $3,900 stay at the Ritz-Carlton in Washington.

On the other hand, Quan is far outpacing San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee, who has billed the city for 11 of his 24 trips since being sworn as interim mayor in January 2011, a week after Quan took office. The total cost to San Francisco taxpayers: $15,050, or less than half of what Quan has spent.

Then there's San Jose's Mayor Chuck Reed, who has taken 21 trips since 2011 - a dozen fewer than Quan. Of those, 19 were billed to the city at a total cost of $24,434.

Reed has traveled aboard once since he became mayor in 2007 - a jaunt to Tokyo costing $1,826 to meet with ANA airline executives about new service to San Jose.

As for Lee, barring a BART strike, he plans to head off to Asia on Monday on a privately funded trip. He's going to do some sister-city schmoozing in Shanghai and Seoul, and he'll catch the Golden State Warriors in exhibition games against the Los Angeles Lakers in Beijing and Shanghai.

Quan's planned Asia journey is a separate, weeklong Bay Area Council trade and tech trip funded by taxpayers. She'll also attend the Warriors-Lakers game in Shanghai.

In fact, Quan jetted off Friday afternoon - with a possible BART strike still up in the air - accompanied by the Warriors cheerleaders.

Wage war: Not everyone in organized labor celebrated Gov. Jerry Brown's decision to sign a bill raising the minium wage to $10 an hour by 2016.

We're told that David Kieffer, in charge of government relations for the United Healthcare Workers West, waged a vigorous campaign to keep the governor from signing AB10.

According to Sacramento sources, the idea was to use the minimum wage issue as a rallying call for Democrats in next year's elections, including Brown's re-election. It's said that Kieffer had polling numbers showing that an alternative to the plan Brown signed - a minimum wage boost tied to the inflation index - would be a big draw for the party if it was put on the ballot during what otherwise could be a snoozer election.

"I don't have a comment," Kieffer said when asked about the ballot play.

Alas, Brown opted to sign the bill boosting the $8-an-hour minimum wage by $1 in 2014 and another dollar in 2016.

"I have it on high authority that the governor's signature nuked their ballot strategy," says one consultant who followed the moves.