In the Details: Week Ending Wrapup, 10/4/2026 (2)

1) Police Oversight Figures Share Recollections of OPD’s Troubling Past as They Look Toward a Post-NSA Future

Read Oakland Observer’s reporting on what is quite likely to be the last NSA case management conference for OPD has details and context missed by other outlets. As far as context goes, OPD is involved in so many concerning situations that OO couldn’t fit them all in the reporting, and left out the fact that just weeks before the meeting, Oakland paid out its highest ever police settlement to the family of Lolomania Soakai. Read OO's reporting on the apparent exit from NSA oversight, here.

2) Oakland Divest Cleared Procedural Hurdles for Community Introduced Legislation at Council, but Its Ethical Investment Legislation Faces Less Direct Ones On the Way to the Dais

Several weeks ago, Oakland Divest, a local grassroots coalition seeking to introduce a City of Oakland ethical investment policy, cleared a high bar to place the legislation on the Rules agenda for scheduling. As the 10/1 Rules Committee agenda was published on Wednesday, it appeared that the coalition had made a significant step to getting the policy considered for scheduling to a committee—the Oakland Divest Ethical Investment Policy appears as the first item for scheduling on the final published agenda. Oakland Divest’s policy would ban Oakland investments in Israel’s genocide and apartheid, and the prison and arms industrial complexes, legislation that remains controversial due to efforts of influential proponents of all three areas of investment.

Oakland's public legislative scheduling process was once far easier. For years, members of the public could propose legislation directly to the Rules committee for consideration, but amendments to Council rules of procedure in 2023 has made that far more difficult. Current rules of procedure require members of the public to ask every Council Member to consider sponsoring their legislation to Rules, and only after every CM has declined [or failed to respond w/in 48 hours], can members of the public then seek to post directly to the Rules agenda. This created both a much higher bar for members of the public to both get CMs to sponsor community-based legislation, and for members of the public to introduce it on their own. It would only take one CM's claim to be looking at the legislation to hold the legislation in limbo indefinitely.

Several weeks ago Oakland Divest appeared to have managed to clear the hurdle to place the legislation on the agenda, however, offering every CM the chance to decline sponsoring the policy. Apparently all declined or did not respond, although some reportedly took longer to decline than others. But since Oakland Divest cleared that bar, in late summer, every Rules meeting opportunity to schedule the legislation has been cancelled. The city’s Legistar site shows that the Rules meetings of 9/17 and 9/24 were cancelled in advance, both due to ostensible lack of quorum.

Thursday’s Rules meeting was the first since Council came back where the body’s intended meeting was even held—and Oakland Divest's proposed policy finally appeared as Item number 1 on the published final agenda's scheduling calendar.

But even so, challenges for the group’s efforts continued. In a statement published after the meeting, members of Oakland Divest say they were not even informed that their policy was on the Rules agenda for scheduling and found out only the day before the meeting. Still, the group had brought dozens of members of their coalition to the meeting to advocate that the policy be scheduled to an appropriate committee meeting.

About fifteen minutes past the start time of 10:30 am only CM Rowena Brown and Rules Chair Kevin Jenkins appeared to be in their seats at the Council dais. Jenkins abruptly cancelled the meeting due to lack of quorum after a brief inscrutable exchange with a City Clerk that was partially recorded on the sound system. The Clerk’s statement that “some staff are still confused…” triggered the exchange. It's not clear if the conversation contributed to the cancellation, but Jenkins cancelled the meeting due to lack of quorum.

The next step for the ethical investment policy is not clear. Oakland Divest’s statement says that members of the group had a c conversation with Chair Jenkins after the meeting, and they expect the legislation to be brought to Rules in October or November. But regardless, the meeting now puts the legislation into a public space as an officially considered policy even if more scheduling failures occur.

Here is Oakland Divest's full statement:

"October 1st is the third Rules Committee meeting in a row that was canceled and notably our coalition planned to make our demands known at two of them. For this meeting, we were not even notified that we were on the agenda and only saw that we were on the day before. Despite this, our coalition of over 15 organizations- which includes unions, faith groups, and local and national organizations- mobilized over 30 residents in less then 15 hours in support of our legislation. We wanted to take this opportunity to move our ethical investment legislation forward and are disappointed that city council continues to delay this effort. We are demanding that city council acknowledges our right to introduce legislation as members of the public through Rule 24.4, which exists to allow residents to engage in our city's governance when councilmembers do not take action on our behalf.

Particularly in a climate of increasing fascism nationally and locally, we have to collectively take a stand in every arena of our lives that we can influence in order to support all oppressed people of the world, whether they are being exploited as forced labor in national prisons at home, or are being targeted by genocidal, colonial projects abroad. We had a conversation with CM Jenkins immediately after the canceled Rules meeting and expect that our legislation will be heard in October or early November. We continue to push city council to schedule and adopt our urgently needed Ethical Investment Policy.”