Bay Area
Kaplan Proposes Law to Protect Police Commissioners From Official ‘Intimidation and Harassment’
Reacting to reports that the City Administration secretly spent $50,000 to hire an outside contractor to investigate a member of the Oakland Police Commission, City President Rebecca Kaplan is proposing an ordinance that reaffirms that the City Charter gives investigative author-ity solely to the Police Commission and the City Council.
The proposed ordinance “reiterates the importance of an independent police commission and that neither the City Administrator nor the Chief of Police are authorized to engage in any action against commissioners, nor are they authorized to assume the powers granted to the Council, the Ethics Commission or the Police Commission.”
This conflict between the authority of the council and the administraor authority has been brewing for a while, focusing on repeated moves by the Chief of Police Anne Kirkpatrick and the City Administrator Sabrina Landreth against Oakland Police Commission Vice Chair Ginale Harris.
“Several meetings ago, I requested a copy of the contract between the City Administration and the outside project investigator who apparently was hired to investigate a police commissioner without notice to council, without a vote of council,” said Kaplan, speaking at Tuesday’s Public Safety Committee meeting.
This administrative action “was felt by police commission members as intimidating and harassment of them,” said Kaplan.
She never received the copy of the contract from the City Administrator but was eventually given a copy this week by a blogger, known as Hyphenated-Republic (hyphenatedrepublic.com), who had obtained it through a Public Records Act request to the city.
The contract confirms that the administrator in November 2018 hired a company to investigate “a specifically named member of the police commission,” Kaplan said.
“I believe that what was done was illegal,” she said.
“The charter of the City of Oakland states that it is the City Council that has the power to remove a commissioner for misconduct,” said Kaplan. “I don’t see any authority anywhere for the city administrator to independently decide to undertake an investigation.”
In a memo accompanying the proposed ordinance, Kaplan noted that Measure LL, which estab-lished the police commission, specifically quoted the National Association for Civilian Oversight of Law Enforcement about the key importance of creating a commission with “independence from the executive branch of government.”
According to the City Charter, as quoted in the memo, “The City Council may remove members of the commission for cause as provided in Section 601 of the charter, or members of the commission may be removed by a majority vote of the commission, only for conviction of a felony, conviction of a misdemeanor involving moral turpitude, a material act of dishonesty, fraud, or other act of moral turpitude, substantial neglect of duty (and) gross misconduct in office.”
A more recent incident involving an attempt to remove Harris took place in November 2019 when OPD Chief Anne Kirkpatrick complained about Harris to Police Commission Chair Regina Jackson by phone and email. In the email dated Nov. 19, Kirkpatrick mentioned an “anony-mous” call to internal Affairs concerning a verbal dispute between Harris and an administrator at her child’s school in San Francisco.
“While Harris’ style is more ‘sharp’ than some, her observations have often been proven to be accurate This sort of treatment feels like bullying,” said Jackson in an email to the Oakland Post.
“The Police Commission was voter approved by 83 percent of the citizens of Oakland,” Jackson continued. “We are volunteers seeking to understand and improve structures and policies in order to support OPD in being more emotionally intelligent and transparent in their accountability to communities they serve. We take our jobs seriously and have been resisted since we started.”
This latest incident, which led to coverage by the Bay Area media, predated the City Administrator’s hiring of the investigator by one year and involved different allegations.
The city administration also has filed two or three Public Ethics Commission complaints against Harris, and she was exonerated in all these cases, according to Commissioner Henry Gage.
“The question of who investigates the commission is an important one,” Gage said. “We don’t want someone who is too close to the police department to turn around and investigate the commission.”
“The administration should be on the side of increased police oversight,” he said.
The criticisms of Harris “seem very trivial,” said civil rights attorney Dan Siegel, who is repre-senting Harris.
“The city administration does not have the authority under the charter to be investigating members of the police commission,” said Siegel. “It does not seem like the City Administrator is justified in dealing with this like she is an employee.”
Representatives of the City Attorney and the City Administrator who attended the committee meeting said they didn’t have the information to be able to comment on the issue.
This conflict over the police commission reflects a broader problem: the city administration ignores, subverts or buries City Council decisions that the administration does not like, according to Rashidah Grinage of the Coalition for Police Accountability.
“Basically, Oakland is replicating Washington, D.C.,” said Grinage. “We have an administration that basically thumbs its nose at the City Council and decides what decisions it wants to implement.”
“Once something passes the City Council, it goes into a black hole. It is really quite astonishing,” she said.
The decision on Kaplan’s proposed ordinance was postponed to the Tuesday, Feb. 11 Public Safety Committee meeting, to give the City Attorney a chance to look at the proposal.
Kaplan Proposes Law to Protect Police Commissioners
From Official ‘Intimidation and Harassment’
Activism
Oakland Post: Week of April 24 – 30, 2024
The printed Weekly Edition of the Oakland Post: Week of April 24 – 30, 2024
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Alameda County
DA Pamela Price Stands by Mom Who Lost Son to Gun Violence in Oakland
Last week, The Post published a photo showing Alameda County District Attorney Pamela Price with Carol Jones, whose son, Patrick DeMarco Scott, was gunned down by an unknown assailant in 2018.
Publisher’s note: Last week, The Post published a photo showing Alameda County District Attorney Pamela Price with Carol Jones, whose son, Patrick DeMarco Scott, was gunned down by an unknown assailant in 2018. The photo was too small for readers to see where the women were and what they were doing. Here we show Price and Jones as they complete a walk in memory of Scott. For more information and to contribute, please contact Carol Jones at 510-978-5517 at morefoundation.help@gmail.com. Courtesy photo.
Bay Area
State Controller Malia Cohen Keynote Speaker at S.F. Wealth Conference
California State Controller Malia Cohen delivered the keynote speech to over 50 business women at the Black Wealth Brunch held on March 28 at the War Memorial and Performing Arts Center at 301 Van Ness Ave. in San Francisco. The Enterprising Women Networking SF Chapter of the American Business Women’s Association (ABWA) hosted the Green Room event to launch its platform designed to close the racial wealth gap in Black and Brown communities.
By Carla Thomas
California State Controller Malia Cohen delivered the keynote speech to over 50 business women at the Black Wealth Brunch held on March 28 at the War Memorial and Performing Arts Center at 301 Van Ness Ave. in San Francisco.
The Enterprising Women Networking SF Chapter of the American Business Women’s Association (ABWA) hosted the Green Room event to launch its platform designed to close the racial wealth gap in Black and Brown communities.
“Our goal is to educate Black and Brown families in the masses about financial wellness, wealth building, and how to protect and preserve wealth,” said ABWA San Francisco Chapter President LaRonda Smith.
ABWA’s mission is to bring together businesswomen of diverse occupations and provide opportunities for them to help themselves and others grow personally and professionally through leadership, education, networking support, and national recognition.
“This day is about recognizing influential women, hearing from an accomplished woman as our keynote speaker and allowing women to come together as powerful people,” said ABWA SF Chapter Vice President Velma Landers.
More than 60 attendees dined on the culinary delights of Chef Sharon Lee of The Spot catering, which included a full soul food brunch of skewered shrimp, chicken, blackened salmon, and mac and cheese.
Cohen discussed the many economic disparities women and people of color face. From pay equity to financial literacy, Cohen shared not only statistics, but was excited about a new solution in motion which entailed partnering with Californians for Financial Education.
“I want everyone to reach their full potential,” she said. “Just a few weeks ago in Sacramento, I partnered with an organization, Californians for Financial Education.
“We gathered 990 signatures and submitted it to the [California] Secretary of State to get an initiative on the ballot that guarantees personal finance courses for every public school kid in the state of California.
“Every California student deserves an equal opportunity to learn about filing taxes, interest rates, budgets, and understanding the impact of credit scores. The way we begin to do that is to teach it,” Cohen said.
By equipping students with information, Cohen hopes to close the financial wealth gap, and give everyone an opportunity to reach their full financial potential. “They have to first be equipped with the information and education is the key. Then all we need are opportunities to step into spaces and places of power.”
Cohen went on to share that in her own upbringing, she was not guided on financial principles that could jump start her finances. “Communities of color don’t have the same information and I don’t know about you, but I did not grow up listening to my parents discussing their assets, their investments, and diversifying their portfolio. This is the kind of nomenclature and language we are trying to introduce to our future generations so we can pivot from a life of poverty so we can pivot away and never return to poverty.”
Cohen urged audience members to pass the initiative on the November 2024 ballot.
“When we come together as women, uplift women, and support women, we all win. By networking and learning together, we can continue to build generational wealth,” said Landers. “Passing a powerful initiative will ensure the next generation of California students will be empowered to make more informed financial decisions, decisions that will last them a lifetime.”
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