1) A New Public Ethics Complaint Alleges CM Houston Retaliated Against a District Resident with Intimidation and Disparagement Over Traffic Safety Advocacy
A D7 resident has filed a public ethics complaint against D7 Council Member Ken Houston, alleging that the council member reacted with hostility and tried to intimidate him during official interactions this year, then publicly disparaged him to a wide e-mail distribution list that included city officials, residents and media.
The complainant, Sean Everhart*, who lives in D7’s Sheffield Village neighborhood, alleges that Houston phoned and yelled at him in an aggressive tone after Everhart reached out to him about dangerous driving conditions at an intersection in his neighborhood. Then, in a follow up to an email chain Everhart had started to communicate the safety issues to City officials, Houston called Everhart a “fabricator” and belittled his attempts to have the issue solved. The thread included the offices of the Mayor, City Attorney, City Administrator, OPD, Council President Kevin Jenkins, various members of the media and members of community groups Everhart is involved with.
Everhart’s ethics complaint, filed on April 1, 2026, is one of several complaints against Houston received through a City of Oakland records request by this publication. The request, for all ethics complaints against Houston from the start of his term in January 2025 to mid-April 2026, also contains the complaint from OakDOT Director Josh Rowan, as well as a complaint about potential conflicts of interest with the Beautification Council, a contracting company Houston founded that has significant contracts with the Department of Public Works. The PEC withheld a fourth complaint against Houston due to concerns that public release “could prejudice a forthcoming investigation”. Like Rowan’s complaint, which made news at the time, Everhart’s is a response to Houston’s demeanor, actions and statements during official interactions in his role as D7 council member.
Initially Open-Minded
In comments to this publication, Everhart says he was at first open-minded when Houston assumed the D7 seat and was optimistic that he would be able to champion the changes at the intersection, where multiple collisions have taken place.
“I knew his reputation and honestly thought his passion might be the catalyst we needed to get things done,” Everhart said.
Everhart and the community organizations he’s involved with, the Sheffield Home Owners Association [HOA] and Sheffield Villagers Oppose Reckless Driving [SVORD], have been bringing the dangerous intersection to the attention of City leaders for years. The intersection, at Marlow Blvd and Foothill Way, is one of few surface street routes to and from the D7 neighborhood, which is blocked off on one side by the 580 freeway and the other by the San Leandro City limits.**
Drivers not familiar with the neighborhood arrive at the intersection in search of an onramp to Interstate 580 West after following freeway signage posted at Macarthur Blvd. Freeway-bound drivers transiting beneath the 580 underpass emerge at the intersection of Marlow and Foothill Way expecting to turn on to an onramp, and are often already accelerating in anticipation—unaware that the onramp is still blocks away and that the turn is in an uncontrolled two-way intersection. That causes collisions and regular near-misses between residents and hurried travelers.
“The goal was straightforward—to get the City to acknowledge and address a longstanding safety issue at the intersection of Marlow and Foothill Way,” Everhart said, noting that he works with and represents the HOA and SVORD, two organizations that overlap significantly and that represent hundreds of families in his community.
CHP Collision Triggered Renewed Worries About Dangers
The March 2026 email interaction at the center of the complaint was the most recent attempt by the HOA and SVORD to try to get a concrete plan in place to address the intersection. Getting attention for the traffic problems was an ongoing challenge for the groups that went back, by some accounts, decades. Everhart says that the City has been difficult to pin down on solutions and resisted the idea that it is a collision-prone intersection. Everhart has personally provided substantial evidence to the City [and to this publication] that the intersection gateway to the heavily used onramp is problematic, with numerous near-misses and crashes. He and his organizational partners have sent video, documentation of incidents, and community input to the City on the safety issues.
As an example, Everhart sent this publication one of those video clips from 2025. In the clip, a CHP cruiser headed toward the onramp emerges from the underpass, turns into the intersection and collides with a neighbor's vehicle, a compelling illustration of the dangers that made the problem feel all the more urgent for members of the community. After the CHP incident, SVORD had tried to get the City again to do something about the intersection in the fall of 2025, but were unsuccessful.
A CHP cruiser t-boned this vehicle at the intersection last April.
Then, in March, a staffer for At-Large Council Member Rowena Brown contacted the Sheffield HOA seeking to sit in on one of their meetings. Everhart, a former Vice President and long-time member of the HOA who had access to the email, saw it as an opportunity to re-agendize the intersection to City leaders. Everhart responded with an email about the traffic safety issues, requesting a meeting between the community groups and OakDOT Director Josh Rowan, Brown, and Houston. Everhart cc'd the offices of the Mayor, City Attorney, OakDOT, Council President Kevin Jenkins, various members of the media, community members, and Houston and his staff members. In the email, Everhart noted that Houston hadn't responded to multiple attempts from neighbors to engage him on the issue.
A senior OPD commander copied on the thread committed to attend the HOA meeting and Brown replied that her office was open to scheduling the requested meeting as well. But though Brown herself specifically highlighted Houston’s office as a Council partner in the thread, Houston had not responded. Frustrated at the silence from his district representative, Everhart, who had Houston’s number from a brief interaction at a community forum in 2025, texted Houston, asking him if he’d been receiving the emails.
Houston then called Everhart directly and responded aggressively, “yelling and using a hostile tone”, according to the complaint. Everhart was so concerned about Houston’s demeanor that he notified Houston he intended to begin recording the exchange. At that point Houston hung up—Everhart sees that hang-up on a constituent as evidence that Houston knew his comments and tone were an abuse of his authority and could be construed as harassment.
The experience with Houston left Everhart feeling deeply troubled.
“My perception [about Houston] shifted completely. The interaction felt dismissive, unprofessional, and at times, threatening. According to Councilmember Houston, I was being 'disrespectful' simply for advocating for my community,” Everhart told this publication.
After the call, according to the complaint, Houston texted Everhart, demanding he not contact him again, calling Everhart “disrespectful”, and saying he would show “receipts” to other members of the Sheffield community in communications.
“Please keep going down the path you’re on, and I will show the others, not you, with receipts what I’ve been doing [for Sheffield Village]…” Houston wrote, according to a screen capture in the complaint.
Houston now took to the same email thread started by Everhart, labelling the complaints about the intersection “false” and "fabricated” and belittling his concerns. Houston claimed that Everhart had made up data about collisions in the area, posting as evidence an apparently flawed OakDOT statement made last year about area collisions over the past decade. Everhart says he’s shown evidence that OakDOT’s data is not updated—noting the information only goes back five years and does not include incidents that occurred in 2025, such as the CHP collision. Houston’s intent seemed to be to undermine Everhart’s credibility with as many people as possible, including all the city officials, media and other members of the Sheffield community copied on the email, as he had threatened in text.
But that wasn’t the end of Houston’s messaging. Everhart also showed this publication a parallel email exchange to a SVORD member on the same e-mail chain. That email was brought to his attention after he'd already filed the initial complaint. In the e-mail response, Houston bad-mouthed Everhart to the other SVORD member, cc'ing several Oakland officials, including the Council President, the Mayor’s office, the OPD, and the City Attorney, but leaving Everhart off of the recipient list. Houston wrote that Everhart was playing “childish games…for his own individual selfish purposes” and referred to Everhart as “manipulative and self-serving”. Everhart has sent the additional e-mail exchange to the Public Ethics Commission to be added to the complaint.
Everhart views all of these responses as retaliatory and has become concerned about Houston’s effect on the district.
“Once I saw his written correspondence referring to me as 'this guy Sean', I realized he was not interested in a professional partnership.” Everhart says, pointing to other by now well-known instances of Houston’s over-the-top behavior, such as calling Oakland residents aiding the homeless “Portland people” and his now infamous offensive gesture during a City Council meeting last December, which Houston admitted to and doubled down on.
“His demeanor is toxic for District 7,” Everhart added, noting he's felt obligated to pursue the complaint to hold Houston accountable to constituents.
Public Ethics complaints can take months and even years to process and adjudicate, and it’s not clear whether there is an open investigation against Houston over the complaint yet. CM Houston was contacted for this article at his office email account on April 28, but had not responded by publication time on May 3.
In the meantime, Everhart says he’s focused his efforts on At-Large CM Brown and to City officials like OakDOT Director Josh Rowan, and has had positive interactions and outcomes with them.
2) Mayor's Office Pulls Alternate Commissioner Appointment Following Questions Over Understanding of Constitutional Policing
Last week, Mayor Barbara Lee’s Chief of Staff Preston Kilgore pulled the appointment legislation for Lee’s Police Commission alternate pick, Doug Wong, at the 4/30 Rules Committee meeting. Kilgore referred only to the agenda number designation for the upcoming 5/5 meeting, which is attached to the Rules agenda only by link and not readily visible. No one mentioned Wong or the appointment by name during the brief deliberation, but the meeting minutes show that it was the alternate commission appointment that was withdrawn with no new date.
The move apparently ends a drawn out process for Wong’s appointment that began last year. Wong was at first put forth for the alternate role alongside Evelio Grillo, who was subsequently confirmed as a Commissioner. But for several reasons, including the City's failure to complete a charter-mandated background check for Commission appointments, Wong's appointment was withdrawn. Wong's background check was completed by late January, but his appointment was not resubmitted to Rules until mid-April. CMs Janani Ramachandran and Charlene Wang added themselves as co-sponsors to the appointment legislation.
But during a mandatory Rules committee interview on the dais on April 23, Wong's lack of preparation for the role became difficult to ignore. Struggling to respond to direct questions by CM Carroll Fife. Wong appeared unable to give his own explanation of constitutional policing after repeated questions, though assuring constitutional policing is one of the primary foci of the OPC. Wong finally admitted that he would have to study the issue more. CM Kevin Jenkins said the response motivated him to put the item on non-consent for the May 5 meeting, where it would be discussed, and Wong would likely again have to speak before the public on the issue.
It's not clear what the next steps are for the alternate role now that Lee has pulled the alternate commissioner appointment after a process that's lasted 4 months. The Commission currently has 6 Commissioners and no alternates, after the mandatory elevation of former alternate Commissioner Omar Farmer to full Commissioner to replace former Commissioner Wilson Riles. Commissioner Samuel Dawitt also resigned abruptly several weeks ago. The Commission is required to have 7 seats and two alternates. The seat currently held by Farmer and the vacant seat formerly held by Dawitt must now be filled by October, when the terms would have expired. The alternate seat Farmer left, and the current seat of Chair Ricardo Garcia-Acosta must also be filled—altogether four seats. Farmer and Garcia-Acosta have reapplied for their roles.
3) Jenkins Hits Pause on Anti-Iran War Resolution
Council President Jenkins diverted a resolution condemning the war in Iran put forward for scheduling by CM Zack Unger Thursday to a "pending, no date specific" list at the April 30 Rules meeting. Jenkins explained that he would first want to consult state-level elected leaders in the federal legislature, which he referred to as “federal offices”, before putting forth a Council position on the war. Jenkins asked if anyone objected to the move, and neither Unger’s office, nor any Rules member did. Later in the meeting, CM Carroll Fife, also on the Rules committee, asked Jenkins how CMs would know when and if Jenkins had had these high level conversations. Jenkins appeared to say that he would contact Fife and Unger off line to discuss the issue with them. A request to Unger's office for more information on the substance of his proposed legislation was not responded to by publication time.
Here's Jenkins' entire comments pulling Unger's Anti-Iran War legislation at Rules. He said "federal offices" in context of the way Unger's staffer described state reps at federal level. It's noteworthy for what it says about Oakland's current political climate pic.twitter.com/CTQ8uDy19C
— The Oakland Observer (@Oak_Observer) May 1, 2026
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*Everhart was a Privacy Advisory Commissioner from 2023 to November 2025, when he resigned a few months ahead of the end of his term around the same time as its longtime chair Brian Hofer. Both complained of an environment in which it was difficult to carry out the work the PAC was intended to do. His former role as a Commissioner doesn’t appear to have had any bearing on the incident and is not substantively mentioned in the exchanges, so it’s been left out of the main reporting and is noted here for transparency.
**Like many parts of Oakland, the neighborhood was founded with exclusionary housing policies nearly a century ago. Though it's now demographically diverse, it's physically cut off from other areas of Oakland.
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