You may have heard by now, if you follow East Bay headlines, that Oakland Mayor Ron Dellums has decided not to seek re-election. This comes as a great surprise, and disappointment to CityBrights blogger Zennie Abraham. " This blogger predicted he would run and this blogger was way wrong... It's too bad and really sad to see a man I've admired over my life go out this way."

Dellums broke the news in an emotional private meeting with supporters at the Oakland Marriott yesterday, amidst the brouhaha elsewhere in the Bay Area over the Prop 8 decision. Zennie in particular sees his quiet bowing out as "stick[ing] his head in the sand" and admitting failure.

Though Dellums was initially credited with lowering crime rates in Oakland and beefing up the police force, he's recently criticized for being a mostly absentee leader who allowed others to run City Hall day to day and rack up multi-million-dollar deficits while he renegged on a promise to take a pay cut, and failed to pay some $250,000 in back taxes for 2005-2007. He also was largely absent during recent negotiations to lay off a large piece of the police force he helped to beef up when his tenure began.