In the Details, Week Ending Wrap Up, 10/24/2026 (2)

1) OPC Appointments on Hold as City Explores Eligibility Rules, but Council Chair Says He is “Looking Forward” to a Potential OPC Charter Change

The Selection Panel’s proposed appointment of Jean Quan to the Oakland Police Commission was expected to be contentious going into Tuesday’s Council meeting, but it was instead the appointment of relatively unknown applicant O’Brien Kovari that ultimately led to Council's rejection of the Selection Panel slate on technical grounds. Questions about eligibility posed in an abundance of caution by O'brien Kovari himself prompted Oakland City Attorney Ryan Richardson to recommend that the Council decline the slate and give the Selection Panel a chance to reintroduce it.

O’brien Kovari is an attorney at Boxer and Gerson and originally withdrew his name for consideration after the Selection Panel made its determination, concerned that his firm’s representation in litigation with the City of Oakland might create conflicts that would make him ineligible. The City of Oakland had begun researching his eligibility but stopped after O’brien-Kovari withdrew, according to Richardson. But then O'brien-Kovari expressed his desire to continue to be considered for the position while the City determines his eligibility, a request too late into the process to produce a determination. Thus, OCA recommended that the Council reject the slate entirely, so that the City and Selection Panel can confirm whether O’brien Kovari is able and willing to be on the Commission.

The back and forth on the issue ultimately explained by Richardson yielded several brief platforms for erstwhile Council opponents of the OPC, Kevin Jenkins and Ken Houston. Jenkins characterized the slate structure in the appointment process as an example that the charter language is “poorly written”.

“Because [the OPC charter language] is so poorly written that we have to have a slate. It's the same issue that we've been going through. I think it was well intentioned when it was written that they wanted to take politics out of it,” Jenkins said.

The ballot measure that created the OPC requires that the Council accept or reject appointments from the Selection Panel as an entire slate that can include two or more OPC candidates forwarded from the process.

Later, Jenkins appeared to state his intention of creating a new ballot measure on the OPC. When Richardson explained to CM Houston that to propose the appointments in any other way but a slate would require a charter amendment, Jenkins interjected, “looking forward to it” into the exchange.

Commission supporters contend that the indivisible slate was created to prevent Council barriers to OPC independence. Jenkins himself has sidestepped the charter in the past to tank a slate, a potential preview of what kind of OPC charter amendments he envisions. Last year, Jenkins ignored the charter completely and improperly returned the slate containing Omar Farmer to the Selection Panel in the Council’s main scheduling body that he chairs, the Rules Committee. The item was then discussed as a scheduling subject matter item, even though the Council's own rules do not allow that—Rules committee has no oversight or subject matter role on the appointments and is required to forward them to Council. The City Administrator has since posted direction that the Rules Committee is barred from such actions by the Charter whenever such legislation is forwarded from the Selection Panel to scheduling for the full Council as required by the Charter. The OPOA opposed the appointment of Farmer and lobbied Council members to prevent him from being reappointed, according to the East Bay Times.

Houston, whose own hastily-conceived OPC-undermining ballot measure floundered on the dais on roll-out earlier this year has in the past publicly stated his opposition to the existence of the OPC as well as Quan’s appointment, focused his questions to Quan on OPD's pursuit policy. Houston suggested that last year's pursuit policy revision had lowered crime in District 7 and asked Quan if she supported it. Quan said she generally supported it, but would need data to see if it was an effective change. Later, Houston asked if Quan would oppose the pursuit policy if data showed that the pursuit policy both injured his constituents and led to more apprehensions. Quan said that injuries would certainly make her consider changing the pursuit policy as the safety of the community is paramount. Houston did not follow up.

Crime across the city as well as D7 began its precipitous fall in mid-2024, long before the late 2025 pursuit policy change, and had already been reduced to historically low levels by the time the policy was passed in September 2025, according to OPD data.

KQED reported on Wednesday that O’Brien Kovari had sent a letter to the City Attorney inquiring about the potential for a conflict of interest, but the controversy came too late in the process to delay the already agendized appointment legislation.

2) Remote Surveillance Drones as First Responders on Way to Council

After a use policy approval at both the Privacy Advisory Commission earlier this month and the Oakland Police Commission on Thursday, a new OPD drone program will likely be considered by the City Council for approval in the coming weeks. The new drone platform “Drones as First Responders” [DFR] would anchor several drones on permanent launch pads on rooftops across the city. Stationary drone operators would pilot the drones from a single remote location, likely the OPD Real Time Operations Center. The new program would be a significant shift from the current OPD drone platform, where a certified drone officer stores a drone in the trunk of their vehicle and is usually deployed to a scene after officers have already arrived and requested additional drone surveillance.

Per OPD’s drone specialist, Omar Daza Quiroz, the primary rationale for the DFR is solo deployment in situations where a physical police officer may never actually be deployed, to assess calls for service via remote surveillance. But the use policy allows the drones to assist in most active police actions. The DFR use policy also allow more ambiguously defined deployments, including supporting “active investigations”.

The drones use policy includes a limit of 5 days for recorded information if the footage is not needed for a criminal investigation, and recording in most situations only at the site of a call for service, not during flight travel—but most of those directions appear discretionary and open to interpretation. The DFR would not record during travel, though they would stream—operators are urged in the use policy to point cameras at the horizon and avoid pointing cameras in areas where residents would have an expectation of privacy. First responder drones are also barred from conducting broad surveillance in the use policy, but its unclear given the multiple uses, need to travel and use in public areas how any of these directions will be maintained.

Other issues on how the drones may interact with public and/or surveil them in more complex public dynamics haven’t been fleshed out, as represented by exchanges between Commissioners and Daza-Quiroz. While the use policy bars the deployment of the drones to surveil protests, for example, an exchange between Commissioner Evelio Grillo highlighted the reality that such protections would be contingent on a commanders’ perceptions of the protest.

“[Protests can range from] peaceful assembly to civil disobedience, some of which is tolerated under the First Amendment, to crossing the line to criminal activity. Who makes the call?”

Daza-Quiroz suggested that such use of the remote operation drones would be made on the fly under no specific rubric.

“Obviously, it would be the incident commander, or it would be someone in the real-time operating center who would be a lieutenant saying yes, we can deploy or not deploy,” Daza-Quiroz replied.

The OPC also authorized the purchase of new equipment in the existing arsenal to replace and augment the existing drone fleet.

Also:

—New Nuisance Fines Structure Authorized

The Council unanimously passed the new fines structure after little real debate, but significant pontification.

—Third Planning Commission Appointment for Smith While Links to Harmeet Dhillon Go Unexplored by Council

Very few questions were asked, but Fife was not on the dais when the vote occurred.