Activism

Post Salon Speakers Say Oakland Can Mobilize to End State Overseers’ Control of Schools

“We will not give up on the demand to protect majority Black schools from closures or on the demand that school closures is not a justified action at all for this board to be taking.”

Published

2 years ago

April 22, 2021

Ken Epstein

The Oakland Post Community Assembly held a Post Salon last weekend on the role of the nearly. 20-year reign of the Oakland school district’s state overseers and their devastating impact the education of students and families

Frankie Ramos, doctoral candidate at UC Berkeley and OUSD parent, hosted the meeting, laying out the goals of looking at who the state-imposed trustee and the Fiscal Crisis Management and Assistance Team are and what can be done to get rid of them.

“One of the challenges we are facing is trying to understand who really is in control, who really has power in our school district; there are forces behind the scenes that are definitely exerting power,” she said, and our communities need a “plan for getting out of their control so we can get back on track so Oakland students can thrive.”

Dr. Nirali Jani, professor at Holy Names University and a former Oakland teacher, said efforts to seize control of the school district began in 1988, a year after the first Black majority school board was elected in Oakland. The takeover was not accomplished until 2003, stripping the school board of its power and replacing the superintendent with a state receiver

“State takeover is a targeted attempt for corporate penetration and privatization of public land,” she said, and is part of a “business plan” utilized to take over schools and other public institutions across the country.

In Oakland, the state gave billionaire Eli Broad and his Broad Foundation free hand to implement corporate strategies in the school district.

Post Publisher Paul Cobb was a school board member at the time of the takeover. He said the state was supposedly coming in to help the district achieve financial stability.

But state control was marked by “unbalanced budgets” and “no audits” of how they spent district money, he said. “OUSD partially emerged from state receivership in 2009, but it was $89 million in debt, much more than the original $37 million (in 2003).”

He said the state overseers, are pushing a “replacement strategy” to close schools. “We are witnessing the removal of Black and Brown populations from the schools” and the city, he said.

He said the community should call on Gov. Gavin Newsom, who is facing a recall and “is available to be pressured by all of us” to audit FCMAT.

The community can make similar demands of Rob Bonta when he becomes state attorney general and also ask candidates for Bonta’s soon to be vacated Assembly seat to step up and fight for the independence of the local school district, he said.

Pecolia Manigo, OUSD parent, executive director of the Parent Leadership Action Network (PLAN) and an organizer for the Justice for Oakland Students coalition, explained that the coalition has been working for several years for “Reparations for Black Students” to reduce and end the harm OUSD has caused Black students for generations.

The coalition won 15 of its 16 demands, but the school board backed down when threatened by state Trustee Chris Learned, dropping the demand to stop closing mostly Black schools.

“One of the biggest demands was ensuring that majority Black schools were not targeted for closure,” she said. “This is a board that chose not to take a courageous stand, (instead) choosing to put (Black schools) on the chopping block to balance the budget.”

“We will not give up on the demand to protect majority Black schools from closures or on the demand that school closures is not a justified action at all for this board to be taking.”

School Board Member VanCedric Williams said, “We have to challenge the status quo. The status quo is just not acceptable anymore…we must force the district to pivot toward racial and social justice. We are a social justice city, and we have to call on our elected leaders” to join with us.

Jackie Goldberg, member of the Los Angeles school board and a formerly in the state Assembly, said state takeover districts are targeted racially and “an entirely undemocratic method of solving a problem,” putting people in charge who nobody elected and “nobody decided should here.”

She said, “These people are not committed to the districts, they are not from the districts, they don’t care about the district, they are getting paid very large amounts of money, and they are political appointees.”

“This is a political issue, not a fiscal issue. It will be framed by the state as an economic fight but it is not.”

She suggested Oakland could start a statewide coalition to demand an end to FCMAT and state trusteeship as a way to solve districts’ financial problems.

School Board Member Mike Hutchinson said the district is under state control because of the terms of 2003 state loan and of AB 1840, a recent law that gives the district some money but with strings attached

“We are actively working on that plan to pay off the loan early” and can refuse to take the AB1840 money. “We can be free of (both) AB1840 and the state loan in the next four to six months,” he said.

Up Next

California Elected Officials, Civic Leaders React to George Floyd Verdict

Don't Miss

Chauvin Trial Shows Need for Broad Focus on Systemic Racism

Ken Epstein

Click to comment

Activism

Oakland Post: Week of September 27 – October 3, 2023

The printed Weekly Edition of the Oakland Post: Week of September 27 – October 3, 2023

Published

1 day ago

September 29, 2023

Oakland Post

The printed Weekly Edition of the Oakland Post: Week of September 27 - October 3, 2023

To enlarge your view of this issue, use the slider, magnifying glass icon or full page icon in the lower right corner of the browser window.

Activism

Officer Fired for Shooting and Killing Sean Monterrosa Has Termination Overturned

Michael Rains, attorney for the Vallejo Police Officers’ Association, said that “several credible sources” have told him that Detective Jarrett Tonn’s termination has been overturned in arbitration.

Published

3 days ago

September 27, 2023

Oakland Post

A billboard near Vallejo Police Department with a sketch of Sean Monterrosa and a message “Justice for Sean Monterrosa” unveiled on Sept. 27, 2020, in Solano County, Calif. (Harika Maddala/ Bay City News)

By Katy St. Clair
Bay City News

The officer who was fired for shooting and killing a man during George Floyd protests in Vallejo in 2020 could be getting his job back after prevailing in arbitration.

Tonn was dismissed from the Vallejo force after he shot Sean Monterrosa, 22, of San Francisco, outside of a Walgreens store on Redwood Street during the early morning hours of June 2, 2020.

The Vallejo Police Department has not commented on whether Tonn will return.

Tonn and two other officers were responding to alleged reports of looting at the store in an unmarked pickup truck. Body camera footage shows Tonn, who is seated in the backseat of the vehicle, stick an AR-15-style assault rifle in between the two officers and fire five times through the windshield at Monterrosa as the police vehicle approached the store.

Monterrosa died a short time later.

Vallejo police have alleged that Tonn fired at Monterrosa because he mistook a hammer in Monterrosa’s sweatshirt pocket for the butt of a gun.

The office of California Attorney General Rob Bonta in May 2021 opened an investigation into the shooting, but there have been no updates in that case and Bonta’s office will not comment on open cases.

Tonn was at first placed on administrative leave for the shooting death, but was fired in 2021 by then-Chief Shawny Williams, who determined that Monterrosa was on his knees with his hands raised when he was shot.

Rains, who has represented two other officers fired by Williams — and prevailed — said the reinstatement of Tonn was the right decision. Rains said Sunday that Tonn applied a reasonable and lawful use of force in the Monterrosa case, and that Williams was wrong to terminate him.

“This is just three for three now with Williams,” he said, referring to the now three officers that have gotten their jobs back. “It demonstrates what a colossal failure he was as a chief in every respect. I’m delighted for Tonn, it’s deserved.”

Rains did not represent Tonn in this case.

But others see Monterrosa’s shooting death as a dark stain on a department known for years of shootings by officers.

The law office of John Burris filed a civil rights suit against the city of Vallejo and its Police Department for Monterrosa’s death, citing alleged tampering with evidence and acting negligently by not reprimanding or re-training Tonn previously despite a “shocking history of shooting his gun at civilians.”

Burris’ office is no longer representing the case and the family is now represented by new counsel, John Coyle, with a jury trial scheduled for January 2025, according to court records.

Nevertheless, Burris commented Sunday on Tonn’s reinstatement, saying he was disappointed but not surprised at the move, because arbitrators in these cases are “biased” toward the police.

“Even though police may have committed in this case an outrageous act, it’s not surprising that that has happened, and it happens more times than not,” he said.

When asked if he was confident that Bonta would file charges against Tonn, Burris chuckled and said that he would wait and see.

“I would not hold my breath,” he said.

Tonn had previously shot three people over five years in Vallejo while on duty, none of which were found to have had firearms, a tenth of the 32 total shootings by the department in one decade, according to attorney Ben Nisenbaum.

Vallejo civil rights attorney Melissa Nold, who represents families of people killed by Vallejo police, said the decision to bring back Tonn had been in the works the minute he was terminated by Williams.

“Unfortunately, I am not surprised at this troubling turn of events because a whistleblower notified me last year via email that Tonn was working a deal to get his job back once they threatened and ran off Chief Williams,” Nold said.

Williams resigned abruptly last November. Williams was repeatedly criticized by the Vallejo Police Officers’ Association, the offices’ union, which had previously voted “no confidence” in him and blamed him for everything from attrition to high crime in the city. But advocates for the families of those killed by police said Williams had been making progress in cleaning up a department that had gained international attention for being violent. During Williams’ tenure, there were no police shootings after the Monterrosa death.

Nold places part of the blame on Tonn’s return on the city, which she said “made no effort” to support his termination. Nold said they are still expecting Bonta to file criminal charges against Tonn and there will be a push to get him decertified as an officer as well.

“He cannot ever go back out onto the streets of Vallejo,” she said. “The liability he would create by being here is astronomical, but sadly no one in the city attorney’s office is smart enough to understand and/or are too corrupt and rotten to care.”

In May, a Solano County judge found that the Vallejo City Attorney’s Office broke the law by deliberately destroying evidence in cases related to police shootings.

The city of Vallejo did not respond to a request for comment.

Members of the family of Monterrosa and their advocates are planning on showing up to the Vallejo City Council meeting on Sept. 12 to protest the return of Tonn, Nold said.

The family will also be holding a “Justice 4 Sean Monterrosa” press conference on Thursday at 11 a.m. at Vallejo City Hall, 555 Santa Clara St., Vallejo.