Ignacio De La Fuente

Ignacio De La Fuente, born New Years Day, 1949, Mexico City, is an Oakland City Councilmember. He is also the President of Oakland's City Council.

Background

De La Fuente immigrated to California at the age of 21 and subsequently became an American citizen. De La Fuente settled in Oakland, California and began working in a foundry as a machinist.

Trade union representative

In 1977 when he was elected as a union representative. Today De La Fuente serves as an International Vice President for the Glass, Molders, Pottery, Plastics, and Allied Workers International Union, AFL-CIO, where he negotiates for members through the collective bargaining process.

Oakland City Council

First elected to the Oakland City Council in 1992, he served as the chair of the Council's Economic and Community Development Committee until January 1999. When Oakland adopted the Strong-Mayor form of government, that removed the Mayor from the City Council and created the position of Council President. De La Fuente became the first Council member to be elected by his peers to serve as President of the Oakland City Council in 1999. He has been re-elected to this position every two years since then.

Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum Joint Powers Authority

De La Fuente also co-chairs the Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum Joint Powers Authority, overseeing the City’s Coliseum-Arena complex and three professional sports franchises.

2006 Mayoral Campaign

De La Fuente ran unsucessfully for Mayor of Oakland in 2006, placing second of three major candidates, behind the winner, current mayor Ron Dellums, but ahead of challenger Nancy Nadel. On June 16, 2006, after a careful ballot recount, and a dispute over whether votes for unqualified write-in candidates such as George W. Bush and Homer Simpson counted towards the total, Dellums was declared the winner in the Oakland mayoral race. Dellums garnered the 50.18 percent majority he needed to win the election This was 155 votes more than needed to avoid a runoff. Dellums received 41,992 votes, while De La Fuente received 27,607 votes, and Nadel 10,928 votes.cite news
publisher=San Francisco Chronicle
title=De La Fuente offers support to Dellums as mayoral winner
author=Christopher Heredia, Janine DeFao
date=June 18, 2006
url=http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2006/06/18/BAGOVJG8KS1.DTL] [cite web|title=Election Summary Report, Direct Primary Election, June 6, 2006|publisher=Alameda County Registrar of Voters|date=27 June 2006|url=http://www.acgov.org/rov/v063/results.pdf|format=pdf|accessdate=2006-02-09]

References