The Port of Oakland Commission has voted to hire former City
Council member Danny Wan as the port’s new attorney, the port announced Nov.
21.
Wan is a former member of the Oakland City Council; he was
appointed to a seat in 2000, and ran unopposed in 2002. He resigned from the
Council in January 2005, saying he needed to find a higher paying job in order
to care for his aging parents. At the time, he earned $63,000 a year.
After leaving the Council, he was a deputy attorney at the
Port of Oakland, with his responsibilities primarily being in land use,
environmental regulatory compliance, city charter compliance and inter-agency
agreements. He left that role in 2008 to become city attorney and risk manager
for the City of Morgan Hill, California.
“Mr. Wan brings to this position the ideal background – as
public agency legal counsel and executive manager, as a public servant and as a
former Deputy Port Attorney,” port Board President Gilda Gonzales said.
Wan, whose appointment is effective Dec. 17, was selected
after a six month competitive recruitment process conducted by a global
executive search firm that led to a pool of about 50 applicants, according to
the port.
His hiring comes as the port is in the midst of an
investigation into multiple unauthorized expenditures of public money,
including $4,500 spent while entertaining shipping executives at a Houston,
Texas strip club during a 2008 business conference and more than $500 in 2011
at a private karaoke bar that local media reports say is a haven for
prostitution.
The scandal has led to the port retaining international law
firm Arnold & Porter to serve as independent outside counsel in the
on-going investigation and to the retirement of the port’s executive director,
Omar Benjamin, last month.