Ex-Mayor, Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce Are Not Disputing Findings of Violations

By Ken Epstein

Former Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf, currently a candidate for state treasurer, faces thousands of dollars in penalties from the City of Oakland Public Ethics Commission for a “pattern” of   serious campaign violations in 2018 and 2020 city elections

According to the proposed settlement agreements, which are on the agenda for the Monday, Sept. 16 Public Ethics Commission (PEC), Schaaf and many of those with whom she was working, have cooperated with the investigation and have accepted the commission’s findings and penalties.

“Respondents knowingly and voluntarily waive all procedural rights under the Oakland City Charter, Oakland Municipal Code, the Public Ethics Commission Complaint Procedures, and all other sources of (applicable) procedural rights,” the settlement agreement said.

“If respondents fail to comply with the terms of this stipulation, then the commission may reopen this matter and prosecute respondents to the full extent permitted by law,” according to the agreement.

Schaff and co-respondents were involved in three related cases investigated by the PEC:

In the first case, Schaaf in 2018, without publicly revealing her involvement as required by law, working with the Oakland Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce and others, created, lead, and raised funds for a campaign committee called “Oaklanders for Responsible Leadership, Opposing Desley Brooks for Oakland City Council.”

The “respondents,” who were responsible for the violations in this case were: the campaign committee called Oaklanders for Responsible Leadership; Mayor Schaaf; the Oakland Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce;  OAKPAC;  which is the chamber’s political action committee; Barbara Leslie and Robert Zachary Wasserman, both leaders of the Oakland chamber; and Doug Linney,  a campaign consultant who was brought on by Schaaf to organize and lead the campaign to defeat Desley Brooks in her 2018 campaign for reelection.

Linney reported in his interview with the PEC that Schaaf had approached him and said, “Let’s do an Independent Expenditure (IE) campaign against Desley and let me see if I can get some other folks involved to make it happen.”

Linney developed a plan, which hired staff to organize field canvassing and phone banking. He said Schaaf told him the budget should be more than $200,000 because “I think raising $200K shouldn’t be hard and could shoot for more.”

None of the original group, which met weekly, included anyone who lived in District 6, the section of the city that Brooks represented. They waited to start the committee until they could find a District 6 resident willing to be the face of their campaign.

During her tenure, Brooks was instrumental in establishing the city’s Department of Race and Equity.

Among the violations reported by the PEC:

• Respondents reported contributions as being received from the chamber’s political action committee, OAKPAC, “rather than the true source of the contributions,” in order to hide the identities of contributors.
• Failure to disclose “controlling candidate,” Libby Schaaf, on a mass mailer.
• Failing to disclose the controlling candidate, Libby Schaaf, on official campaign filings.
• Receiving contributions in amounts over the legal limit. For example, the State Building and Construction Trade Council of California PAC donated $10,000, which is $8,400 over the limit; and Libby Schaaf donated $999, which is $199 over the limit.

Total contributions were $108,435, of which $82,035 was over the limit.

“In this case, Mayor Schaaf and her associates’ action were negligent. All of them were fully aware that Mayor Schaaf and significant participation in the IE campaign against Brooks, including its creation, strategy, and budgeting decisions, and selection of personnel.”

Further, the PEC said, “The respondents’ violations in this case are serious. The strict rules applying to candidate-controlled committees go directly to the very purpose of campaign finance law.”

In her interview with the PEC, Schaaf, who is an attorney, had received incorrect legal advice from Linney, her campaign consultant, that her activities were legally permissible, because she was not the “final decision-maker.”

Total recommended penalties for all those involved in this case were $148,523.

The PEC also found violations and is recommending penalties in two other cases.

The second case involves the Oakland Fund for Measure AA in 2018, which established a parcel tax to fund early childhood initiatives in Oakland.  Looking into this case, PEC investigators found that Schaaf used her position as mayor to benefit the campaign, though without revealing her involvement.

A contractor who made a large contribution was Julian Orton of Orton Development, which was in negotiations with the city to redevelop the Henry J. Kaiser Convention Center.  Orton donated $100,000

Schaaf, for failing to disclose that the campaign committee was “candidate controlled,” may face a $4,500 penalty.  For violating the rule against contractor contributions, the campaign committee and Schaaf face a possible $5,000 penalty.

Orton has agreed to pay a $5,000 penalty.

The third case involved a campaign in 2020, the Committee for an Affordable East Bay, which raised thousands of dollars to support Derrick Johnson’s campaign for Councilmember-at-Large position and to attack the incumbent, Councilmember-at-Large Rebecca Kaplan.

Investigators found that Schaaf was extensively and secretly involved in the work of this committee.

She received a $100,000 donation from Lyft, which had a contract with the city at the time and was therefore legally prohibited.  Lyft recently agreed to pay a $50,000 fine.

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By Ken Epstein

District 3 City Council incumbent Carroll Fife recently kicked off her campaign for reelection, speaking to an enthusiastic, standing-room-only crowd at ForTheCulture Oak, 701 Clay St. in West Oakland.

Since she took office in 2021, Fife has been working to move Oakland City Council in a progressive direction, spearheading efforts and working with others on the council and in the community to enact strengthened protections for poor and working people.

Her track record has earned her enthusiastic support from some quarters and stirred the enmity of others, including developers, large landlords, and hedge fund executives, who are already financing campaigns to unseat Fife and other local progressives.

“We are in a moment that they have written history books about,” said Fife at her campaign launch. “Our opposition is in fear because we are winning. We are winning, not because of me personally, but (because we are) lifting up the necessity of working cooperatively and thinking about the people who have the least.”

While on the council, Fife has worked for humane policies to reduce homelessness, strengthen public safety, build affordable housing, and foster small business and economic development.

She helped to pilot community-initiated traffic safety solutions, improve Oakland’s 911 dispatch system, finance safe parking sites for unhoused residents, establish a Lakeshore LGBTQ Cultural District, and put Oakland on record in support of a ceasefire in Gaza.

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She has also backed the African American Sports and Entertainment Group (ASSEG)-sponsored development of the Oakland Coliseum, which potentially can lead to the historic economic development to benefit Oakland residents and especially residents of East Oakland.

Her work also included popular ballot measures that authorized low-rent housing, expanded tenant protections, created a progressive tax structure on big business, established public banking in Oakland, capped allowable rent increases for tenants, and expanded opportunities for young people through the Summer Jobs program.

Five candidates are running against Fife. One of them, Warren Logan, transportation planner and former policy advisor of ex-Mayor Libby Schaaf, has already raised over $100,000 in donations from Schaaf and others, many of them involved in tech and real estate development.

Formerly, Fife served as executive director of ACCE Oakland, helped found Moms for Housing and passed legislation at the state and local level to build collective power for tenants. She worked to develop a network of Black organizations and was a 2016 and 2020 delegate for Bernie Sanders and has been a member of the 2020 Platform Committee for the Democratic National Committee.

One of Fife’s major opponents will not appear on the ballot. He is Sam Singer, a longtime public relations operative, with deep connections to corporate media organizations, who has represented Chevron for years in its fight to demonize environmentalists.

Singer was also employed by Wedgewood Properties, a billion-dollar corporation, helping the company vilify Moms for Housing, which in 2020 received international attention in their fight to purchase a vacant home in Oakland. Fife, a community activist at the time, worked closely with Moms for Housing.

Currently, Singer works with officers in the Oakland Police Department and writes frequently on social media denouncing progressive elected officials. Local observers say Singer’s PR efforts promote racial divisions and encourage support for authoritarian solutions by promoting MAGA-type hysteria of rampant crime.

“We’ve got to be united,” said Fife.  “We’ve got to organize like we’ve never organized before,” she said. “Information is easy to come by, but truth is not.”

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