Shoshana Walter/The Bay Citizen

Police in riot gear at Occupy Oakland protest on November 3, 2011.

Labor organizers and community activists -- including the husband of Mayor Jean Quan -- are engaged in a desperate behind-the-scenes effort to prevent a violent showdown between police and protesters at the Occupy Oakland encampment.

As the city issued a “cease and desist” order Saturday demanding protesters leave the area surrounding City Hall, community leaders implored Quan to call off an anticipated raid while trying to agree on a strategy to stave off a confrontation.

Many protesters abandoned the encampment after a man was shot dead near the tent city Thursday afternoon. But supporters from neighboring counties poured in to Oakland Saturday; hundreds of others signed an online petition to join the protest. Protesters cancelled plans to occupy a foreclosed building to keep more people on the plaza for what they believe is an imminent eviction.

Quan’s husband, the physician and community organizer Floyd Huen, answered a call from a reporter Saturday by saying: “Yes, we’re in the middle of a crisis. How can I help you?”

Quan, a target of withering criticism for her handling of the affair, has receded from view in recent days, making her supporters -- and supporters of Occupy Oakland -- more concerned about a potentially violent showdown.

A last-minute assembly of 30 labor organizers Saturday called on the Alameda Labor Council -- led by Quan supporter Josie Camacho -- to form a picket line around Occupy Oakland. A group of nearly 50 labor activists met separately at the Alameda headquarters of the California Federation of Teachers and also voted to defend the camp.

“It’s just an idea to try to deter the confrontation, maybe convince the police to stand down,” said one organizer familiar with the conversations. “If the union did in fact staff a picket line, it would make it politically difficult for City Hall to move on the encampment.”

At an emergency meeting early Saturday evening, protesters denounced emails that surfaced showing Quan supporters – including Huen – desperately searching for a solution, even as they sought to distance themselves from the mayor.

The emails appeared on a public list serve that could be accessed through the website of Huen’s Block-by-Block Organizing Network, a neighborhood group that served as the cornerstone of Quan’s mayoral campaign last year. The emails were later taken down.

In one email, a frustrated Huen wrote that the city needed to convince the protesters to move to another location immediately rather than opposing Oakland’s City Council, which has called for dismantling the encampment.

“Wake up everybody,” Huen wrote. “I actually feel that the (City) Council does indeed represent the majority sentiment in Oakland. So comments about the importance of the movement AT THIS POINT will only be important IF we can get the encampment to move elsewhere and continue the movement at another site in Oakland.”

Huen wrote that the “bottom line is that Oakland wants the camp gone. What (Quan) is trying to do is get the encampment to leave voluntarily and in a way that can continue the process elsewhere away from city center.”

Dan Siegel, a longtime friend of Huen and Quan who serves as the mayor’s unpaid legal advisor, said the various groups working on alternatives to the raid were disorganized and fragmented. He said he had no idea what the mayor would ultimately decide.

“I think people are all acting in good faith; I don’t contest that by any means. But I’m not sure it’s very developed or solidified,” Siegel said. “I’d like to see someone come up with a plan to empty the park that guarantees no one will be killed. And then, if police are able to take it down, then what? What’s the reaction going to be? And what’s going to prevent people from putting the campsite back up again?”

Among other things, the emails also showed that Allan Brill, a longtime Quan supporter and member of Occupy Oakland’s media committee, was responsible for an anti-violence proposal that was tabled at a heated general assembly meeting last Wednesday. The discovery of Brill’s involvement in the controversial resolution led to accusations by protesters that he had been planted by the mayor.

As they debated potential solutions on the list serve, Quan’s allies emphasized the need to avoid associating themselves with the mayor and her supporters.

Nick Vigilante, of the Neighborhood Watch Council, urged people speaking at Occupy Oakland to blend in with the other protesters and not identify themselves as members of Huen’s Block-by-Block Organizing Network.

“Those of us who speak in the Open Forum have to be extremely careful,” he wrote. “We should not say we are BBBON if we speak in OF or to any OO participants; we should not say we support Jean Quan even though we want to say that.”

Seeing mounting pressure from council members to close down the camp, many members of the email group began brainstorming ways to avoid a raid.

“The looming collision between the City and Occupy Oakland has me very discouraged,” wrote Jose Dorado, the chair of the Measure Y Oversight Committee. He described a plan to organize the “major players in the community” to converge at the plaza and attempt to relocate the camp before the eviction. 

“In my opinion, Jean has no other choice than this to avoid an even more violent scenario in a second raid by OPD,” he said. “It offers a real, though incredibly difficult, opportunity to show her leadership by putting out this call for collaboration amongst all interested in a truly humane solution to the problem of the camp in the Plaza, while maintaining the message of Occupy Oakland."