Dana King sets sights on Oakland City Council

Former KPIX news anchor Dana King is a resident in Oakland's San Antonio neighborhood. Former KPIX news anchor Dana King is a resident in Oakland's San Antonio neighborhood. Photo: Russell Yip, The Chronicle Photo: Russell Yip, The Chronicle Image 1 of / 12 Caption Close Dana King sets sights on Oakland City Council 1 / 12 Back to Gallery

Former TV news anchor Dana King has taken out papers to run in November for the Oakland City Council seat being vacated by Pat Kernighan.

"I'd been working on issues in the neighborhood for a while," King, 53, said Tuesday. "When I heard Pat was retiring, it just came in a flash: 'I can do this.' "

Since leaving KPIX-TV in 2012, King has moved from a houseboat in Sausalito to a shared artists building in Oakland's San Antonio neighborhood. She has been pursuing her sculpture art, teaching journalism at Dominican University in San Rafael and volunteering with the Alameda County Probation Department.

Like a lot of Oakland neighborhoods, the San Antonio area has its problems: crime, graffiti, illegal dumping and the like.

But at the same time, King said, "it is about to explode with development in the next five years. You can't stop it, but you can argue that it be equitable so that the people here don't get pushed out."

San Antonio is in Oakland's Second District, which is about as diverse as they come - stretching from the upper-end Trestle Glen area to the Lake Merritt business district to Chinatown and the heavily Latino neighborhood where King lives.

Kernighan, 64, is retiring after nine years on the council.

"My bet is that a lot of people are going to jump into this race," said East Bay political consultant Larry Tramutola.

And, indeed, Sokhom Mao of the Alameda County Juvenile Justice Commission and the Oakland Citizens' Police Review Board has announced for the race. Abel Guillen, president of the Peralta Community College District governing board, is also mulling a run.

Church confession: On the same day a lawsuit was filed over an alleged sex scandal at North Beach's National Shrine of St. Francis of Assisi, San Francisco's Roman Catholic Archdiocese revealed it was transferring its top administrator, Monsignor James Tarantino.

The archdiocese said Tarantino would be taking over as pastor at St. Mark's Church in Belmont, effective July 1.

The news falls on the heels of sex and embezzlement claims involving Tarantino's longtime friend and Marin County developer William McLaughlin.

McLaughlin was recently stripped of his duties as volunteer chairman of the shrine after it was revealed he had an affair with a female office assistant whom police are investigating for possibly embezzling church funds.

The former assistant, Jhona Mathews, 33, filed suit in San Francisco Superior Court last week against the archdiocese and McLaughlin, accusing him of sexual harassment and sexual battery. The suit detailed allegations of a sordid affair with McLaughlin that included spanking sessions inside a church sanctuary in which he supposedly used a paddle inscribed "B.N.O" (Boys Night Out).

Mathews said the paddle was given to McLaughlin by Tarantino.

The suit - filed on Mathews' behalf by attorney Sandra Ribera, daughter of former Police Chief Tony Ribera - also puts Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone much closer to the story.

According to the suit, McLaughlin and Cordileone were "fast friends" who drank wine together. McLaughlin had an office next to the bishop at archdiocese headquarters near St. Mary's Cathedral, the suit says.

Larry Kamer, spokesman for the archdiocese and the National Shrine of St. Francis of Assisi, confirmed that Tarantino was being transferred but declined to go into details, calling it a personnel matter.

As for the lawsuit, Kamer said it was "full of lurid accusations" but "devoid of the truth."

"Ms. Mathews was let go for financial improprieties that are the subject of an ongoing police investigation," Kamer said, "and for no other reason."

The crowd: There was one face largely overlooked among the 2,000 mourners at last week's funeral in Castro Valley for BART police Sgt. Tom Smith - Johannes Mehserle, the former BART officer convicted in the 2009 New Year's shooting of Oscar Grant.

Mehserle, who served half of a two-year sentence for involuntary manslaughter, has been working in sales in an undisclosed California city.

"He knew Tom Smith quite well and wanted to pay his respects, and tell those who were still at BART that he still thinks about them as a family," said Mehserle's attorney, Michael Rains.

"He's tried obviously to move on emotionally and physically," Rains said, "and yet these things bring back those experiences."

Moving up: Finally, some good news for Oakland on the crime front - it's dropped from the second-most-dangerous city in the nation to the fourth-most-dangerous, according to the annual CNNMoney survey.

Camden, N.J., was the most perilous place last year, the online site said, followed by Flint, Mich., and bankrupt Detroit. Then came Oakland.

"That is progress and it shows that we are on the right track, but it's not 'mission accomplished,' " said Mayor Jean Quan's spokesman, Sean Maher.