Nancy Nadel is in her third term as an Oakland City Councilmember. She has been a West Oakland resident for 28 years.
Nancy chairs the Public Works Committee on the City Council. She is a member of the Association of Bay Area Governments Executive Committee, Regional Planning Committee, and chairs the Earthquake Hazards Outreach Review Committee. She chairs the Re-entry Steering Committee, a project funded to help re-integrate previously incarcerated people after release from prison. She is an Executive Board member of the Oakland Community Action Agency whose charge is to help lift Oaklanders out of poverty. Nancy serves on the advisory committee for Restorative Justice for Oakland Youth, a non-profit formed to introduce restorative justice practices into the schools, juvenile justice system and community.
Nancy works extensively on violence prevention and obstacles to employment. She spearheaded the effort to get a measure on the ballot to fund violence prevention and enforcement programs. In addition to Restorative Justice, Nancy is working on two other major efforts to address public safety and opportunities for the disenfranchised: expanding Adult Literacy services, opening a new teen center in West Oakland. She is a consistent advocate for women, particularly in the area of access to reproductive healthcare. Nancy has been a leader on environmental issues in Oakland addressing air pollution related to the port affecting children with asthma in West Oakland, creating green jobs, reducing oil use, and exploring alternative energy policies for the city.
Nancy has a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from Alfred University, a Bachelor of Science in Geology from SF State University and an MS from UC Berkeley in Engineering Geoscience where she was a full fellowship student. Prior to joining the council she worked as a teacher, an artist, a geophysicist, a small business owner and an environmental engineer with the US EPA. Nancy was the first woman chair of the Bay Area Geophysical Society. She began her political career as an elected director of the East Bay Municipal Utility District Board where she served two terms and was their first woman Board President. During that period, she was a founding director of a water policy non-profit that is still in existence called POWER. Nancy has also taught at many grade levels from elementary school to university. She has been published in several journals with articles about water policy, affirmative action, environmental justice and sustainable development.
Nancy has recently started a small business, The Oakland Chocolate Company, an economic development project for Oakland as well as for cocoa farmers in Jamaica. She is an avid gardener, artist, tricyclist, and kayaker. Nancy is a widow and has one daughter, Sele Nadel-Hayes, 28, who has a Masters degree in Education Policy from UC Berkeley, Goldman School of Public Policy and works for the Oakland Unified School District.