Jean Quan car crash costs Oakland $25k

The Oakland City Council approved $25,500 in settlements Monday for a car crash that Mayor Jean Quan was involved in last year.

The settlements include $15,000 to Lakisha Renee Lovely, the other driver in the June 8, 2014, collision with Quan in West Oakland. The city will also pay $10,500 to Lovely’s insurance company for damage to her car.

The payments were approved during a closed session meeting of the City Council earlier this month and given final approval today.

Quan said after the accident that she was driving between two community events when another driver hit the left rear tire of her car as she passed through the intersection of 26th and Market streets at about 5:30 p.m.

Lovely, a nurse’s assistant in San Francisco, said in her suit that she suffered serious injuries as a result of the crash and that the mayor had been on her cellphone at the time.

Quan denied she was on her phone and said the night of the crash it appeared no one was hurt. The mayor said she turned her phone records over to police investigators but when the lawsuit was filed four months later police still could not confirm whether or not either driver was using the phone.

Photographs of Quan talking on a cellphone and driving were publicized in the weeks prior to the crash.

As the suit was filed in October, Quan was facing a contentious re-election bid that she ultimately lost to Mayor Libby Schaaf.

Bay City News

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