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Leaked Document Reveals Big Money PAC is Controlled by the Price-Recall Campaign; OPC Sends Chief Candidates to Mayor; OPD Releases Video of Shooting; Council Preview

Leaked DA Recall Document Reveals Mega-Donor Committee “Reviving the Bay Area” is Subordinate “Team” of SAFE Recall Campaign

A leaked SAFE campaign strategy document was made public Friday by “Protect the Win”, the campaign opposing the recall of District Attorney Pamela Price. Brenda Grisham, the ostensible principal officer of the Price recall campaign, SAFE [Save Alameda for Everyone], has confirmed to media sources that the document is authentic and its contents accurate. The document appears to confirm several issues which until now have been a matter of speculation. Among the revelations:

Reviving the Bay Area, the ostensibly independent campaign finance committee responsible for contributing the bulk of SAFE’s funds, is a SAFE-Controlled Finance Committee. Reviving the Bay Area [RBA], a separate finance committee formed and led by financier/real estate speculator Philip Dreyfuss, is apparently controlled by SAFE, according to the document. Dreyfuss is a former financial supporter of the campaign to recall SF DA Chesa Boudin and was one of the founders of the SAFE finance committee when it was registered in July.

Dreyfuss' name was removed as a principal officer on the SAFE committee in late August. Less than two weeks later in September, Dreyfuss filed paperwork as the principal officer in RBA. Dreyfuss registered the committee as "general purpose", and listed its area of focus "to oppose and support state and local California ballot measures and recall committees". RBA has brought in the majority of the funds for the recall, consistently contributing large donations to SAFE that make up over 3/4 of the recall's $742K bank.

Soon after the creation of RBA, Grisham contended that Dreyfuss remained a principal in SAFE, despite his removal as a principal officer in the committee.

Though the committee is intended to appear as a separate organization focusing funding efforts on its own gamut of state wide issues, the SAFE document refers to RBA as one of its "three teams” and "the PAC Team" and describes it as a SAFE-run finance committee. The "team's" role in the campaign is to pursue “affluent” donors for large contributions for SAFE's recall effort, according to the document.

It's unclear why RBA wasn't established as a primary focused recall committee, despite having as its only goal the recall of Pamela Price, and thus, required to do so by law. Primary recall committees must post quarterly reports about spending and revenue—but general committees that aren't recall-focused are only required to post semi-annual reports in a non-election year. In late October, SAFE filed its quarterly report showing the identity of its donors, but RBA did not.

The Oakland Observer asked SAFE Treasurer Carl Chan via email about SAFE’s apparent control over RBA, and why the committee failed to file reports about its donors. No response has been received by press time.

Whatever the intention, one outcome of RBA's mis-identifying itself as a general committee is that the late filing will serve to hide where the majority of the funds for the recall have come from until after there is an outcome on signature gathering. True general committees don't have to post any reports until late January for the latter half of this year.

This month, Protect the Win asked the Fair Political Practices Commission [FPPC] to investigate RBA's practices. The Protect the Win's letter claims that RBA's use of general purpose designation and failing to file reports quarterly are "illegal". The SAFE campaign documents bolster Protect the Win's contention that RBA is a primary committee, and suggest that the general designation may have been a way to hide its activity with higher end donors.

This month, RBA changed its name to Supporters of Recall Pamela Price and its designation to primary, an admission, though late, that the committee has no other purpose but to fund the recall [the committee retains its distinct filing number, 1462844]. It's not clear if the committee must also now file its quarterly report from the third quarter of 2023 or if the FPPC is investigating RBA/Supporters[...] over its reporting.

Organizers of the recall have known any successful signature gathering will likely result in a Special Election recall at a cost of $20 MM to the public. The document states clearly that SAFE expects any successful signature gathering to result in a special election.

"based on our analysis, we don't believe a general election scenario is likely," the document notes. A non-scheduled special election will cost up to $20 MM—an amount SAFE was aware of, according to the documents. Though the document claims that the Board of Supervisors "may have methods" to set a potential recall for a general election, neither of the two most likely scenarios observed in the document put the date of an election close enough to a general do so. The $20 MM is not currently in the budget and it is unclear where the County would find the funds for a recall, should it occur.

SAFE plans to raise and spend over $5 MM on the recall. In the strategy document, SAFE projects spending $1.5 MM on signature gathering alone, then $4-5 MM on advertising should the signature gathering be successful. Recent events indicate SAFE will likely spend even more on signature gathering than initially predicted.

SAFE was not aware of the legal issues around signature gathering brought by Price. The document brings up several issues and risks throughout the document, mostly focused on the potential for lawsuits from Price in each potential election period after signature gathering. But the document did not consider the possibility of a legal challenge to the signature gathering itself. Price’s attorney brought the issues to the attention of the Registrar of Voters months ago.

Oakland Police Commission Votes to Send 3 Candidate Slate for Mayoral Final Decision on Police Chief

In a closed session meeting Thursday, Oakland’s Police Commission voted 5-1 to send a slate of 3 Police Chief candidates to Mayor Sheng Thao for final decision. According to the Charter, Thao now has two options: she can choose one of the candidates to be Police Chief; or reject the slate and have the OPC return with a new one. Thao has also said she would declare a state of emergency to supersede the charter and choose her own pick should the OPC fail to bring a slate by the end of the year. In comments to the SF Chronicle Friday, Thao said she had not received the slate yet.

A hiring ad hoc committee chosen by incoming Commission President Marsha Peterson created the slate voted on by the OPC Thursday. Peterson, Vice Chair Karely Ordaz and Commissioner Regina Jackson were responsible for a stated campaign intended to deny quorum to the Commission for about a month that coincided with the end of the previous hiring ad hoc’s final decision making process—upon assuming the chair in October, Peterson named her two allies to the hiring committee. The former ad hoc was composed of Tyfahra Milele, David Jordan and Rudy Howell.

As a result of the denial of quorum, and other factors, however, the former ad hoc were never able to deliver their slate to the full Commission for a vote. The City Administrator intruded into the hiring process to extend the period of the chief search with the third party candidate search company, according to several comments made by former Commissioners—the City Administrator holds the contract and can direct the company, despite the fact that the company effectively works for the Commission. Milele and Jordan's terms ended in October, and Howell resigned days later, likely in protest of actions from Peterson, Jackson and Ordaz.

Speculation about the candidates has swirled since the vote, especially about the possibility that former Chief Leronne Armstrong may be one of the candidates in the slate. Armstrong was included in the unofficial slate created by Milele's hiring committee, along with six other candidates.

A source has told OO that former SF Deputy Chief Mikail Ali, Los Altos’ current Chief Angela Averiett and former Antioch Chief Steven Ford—who retired from the Antioch PD under the cloud of an extensive racist texting and corruption scandal—are some of the candidates that could likely to be on the new slate. But Armstrong could be one of the candidates, as well.

Despite ostensible public disagreements, support for Armstrong was a unifying thread in the former Commission membership that included Peterson, Jackson, Jordan, Mielele, Howell, Ordaz, and Angela Jackson-Castain, [who were alternates]. Jackson is a friend and ally of Armstrong who more than once protected him on the dais from inquiry. Ordaz told the selection panel in the summer that she would choose Armstrong for police chief if she could, an answer also given by Jackson-Castain when she interviewed for the role on the same day.

Video Released from November Fatal Shooting by IAD Sgt

On Friday, the OPD released video of a controversial November 7 police shooting that ended in the death of 52 year old Oakland resident Lloyd Dillard at the hands of IAD sgt Sven Hamilton. The videos from several different sources piece together what was likely a chance encounter between the two men that ended with Hamilton shooting and killing Dillard after the latter pulled out his handgun and pointed it at Hamilton.

The videos show that Dillard was walking aimlessly across the street in the area of 16th and San Pablo as Hamilton's unmarked vehicle began to pull up, with the paths of the two eventually intersecting. Hamilton pulls in front of a red-marked curb, slowing as Dillard continues in the same trajectory; Hamilton stops short and backs up slightly, apparently parking against the red-marked curb in the area of OPD's internal affairs office at the instant Dillard was making his way on to the sidewalk from the street. Dillard clearly never alters his trajectory, the encounter appears random.

As the slightly backing car nearly strikes Dillard, Dillard slams the trunk with one hand. Another angle of video shows Dillard continue on to the sidewalk and put his hand into his coat pocket and apparently waits to see if Hamilton will emerge from his vehicle. As Hamilton's driver's side door opens, Dillard pulls a handgun out of his coat pocket; Dillard is standing at the rear side of the vehicle on the sidewalk.

Dillard points the gun at Hamilton; Hamilton ducks back into the car. As Dillard walks around the the vehicle's back-side passenger window, Hamilton fires several times at Dillard through the window, then emerges again after Dillard falls to the ground on to his back wounded. Dillard points the gun at Hamilton, and Hamilton shoots him several more times in the volley that kills Dillard. It's unclear from the clips if Dillard ever fired his weapon .

At Council Tuesday

A resolution that will significantly alter Council’s rules of procedure will be deliberated at Tuesday’s meeting. The legislation was introduced at Rules by Council President Nikki Fortunato Bas several months ago, then further elaborated in discussion with community groups and members of the Rules committee. The stated intention of the changes is to create more efficient, shorter meetings and to promote transparency, diminish disruption. A previous version of the rules put the consent calendar ahead of the non consent calendar, but that has been removed in the most recent version. Some of the significant proposed changes:

—meetings start at 3:30pm, votes must be held to continue meeting past 9:30 pm, ceremonial items limited to 2 per meeting, for a total of 20 minutes. Longer ceremonials will be held as separate events that will have to be coordinated by the CMs bringing them.

—moving a 2nd reading of an ordinance to non consent for renewed discussion would now require a majority vote, not just a motion and second.

—the number of e-comments received on any item as well as the ratios of support/opposition would be read into the record by the clerk for every non consent item

—Members of the public speaking on more than one non-consent item may be instructed to speak consecutively on all items, with two minutes on each item, 8 minutes total. Speakers on consent would have one minute to speak on each item, with a maximum of three minutes to speak on all items they wish to speak on. This could effectively diminish speaking time depending on the number of non consent items on the agenda

—The Council President could rule a member of the public out of order if they are disruptive, and can cut off their speaking time if their subject isn’t related to the agenda for legislative items. Importantly during open forum, the Council President can cut speakers off if the matter isn’t related to any matter in the city’s jurisdiction. Disorderly conduct would also include yelling at or speaking over other members of the public trying to speak or speaking over time. Disorderly conduct can lead to removal at the direction of the Council President.

—The rules would still allow a member of the public to submit an item for scheduling, but they would be required to prove they contacted each member of council and either received no response or were declined in requesting a sponsor.

The legislation suggests that Council will eventually consider removing public comment for the Consent calendar, with the rationale that the items would be discussed more robustly during committee times, which occur mostly throughout working day hours.

During budget deliberations, Council gave direction to the City Administrator to come back with a report on various issues, including: the proposal of a possible lateral academy, a walking beat officer plan, 911 improvement and a Ceasefire expansion. The lateral academy report finds what such reports have found for nearly a decade—lateral academies don’t work and are a drain on resources.

The report also contains stats for an ultimately unknown period for the 3 car, 7 officer CHP detail that has been aiding OPD. The lack of information in the report about the time frame makes it impossible to evaluate the efficacy.

The Ceasefire report back refers to the Ceasefire audit that will be presented by the Thao administration at some point in the coming weeks. On MACRO, the report rebuts claims that MACRO performs poorly compared to similar programs in other cities, showing evidence that it mostly outperforms those programs in Portland, Atlanta and San Francisco. There's also quite a lot of consideration on 911 operator retention and improvement.

The staffing report has some data—which hasn’t varied wildly over the past few years—but little analysis of OPD’s staffing issues. The data is only accurate to September. A recent academy brought OPD’s staffing level back to about where it was before the academy began–around 724 officers—after staffing fell to fewer than 705 officers in December. But retirements over the next several months and a historically low beginning academy of 21 trainees could see OPD’s staffing level reach sub-700 levels again in the coming year.

Appeal Of PLN20124 Commercial Project At 1431 Franklin Street [Public Hearing]

This is an appeal against a large proposed office and 90% market rate residential project proposed for 1431 Franklin St., filed by Tidewater Capital. 1431 Franklin is currently a parking lot behind the Black community landmark club, Geoffrey’s Inner Circle and Geoffrey Pete, the owner of the club, is the appellant against the project.

Overall, Pete argues that the construction will leave the Black Arts Movement and Business District [BAMBD] area, of which his business is a part, in shadow and that the construction will disrupt the activity of the BAMBD, a city-recognized cultural area. Much of the City’s responses and rebuttals to the BAMBD-specific elements of Pete’s appeal show that the designation carries no real powers to protect the district. The City rebuts all of Pete’s arguments, and recommends that the Council reject the appeal. In addition to being able to accept or deny the appeal, the city can also schedule a future motion that would accept the appeal with conditions specified. The City has increasingly relied on the latter formulation on developments with significant community push-back.

CM’s Rebecca Kaplan, Carroll Fife and Nikki Fortunato Bas are bringing forward a request to allocate $450K from Measure Q funds for a grant to Interfaith Council of Alameda County to run a safe parking program that would begin in January. The funds would support the third party organization to run safe parking sites where homeless residents living in vehicles can get off city streets at night—notably there is no statement about the number of homeless individuals the program will serve or where it will be located. The legislation was placed as an urgent item, skipping over committees and going directly to the consent calendar in Rules to allocate the fund balance in Measure Q.

An accompanying resolution is required whenever Measure Q funds are allocated outside of their required proportional allocations. The $450K represent the last of the Q funds for the fiscal year. The City warns against the allocation given upcoming budget imbalances, and noting the lack of parameters or evidence of efficacy for the grant.

Accepting, Appropriating, And Allocating Grant To Public Ethics Commission For Democracy Dollars

The PEC’s Democracy Dollars received a grant gift to fund the roles necessary to get Democracy Dollars up and running by December 26.

Committee Items:

Most of the items from last week's committee meetings are going to Tuesday's consent calendar. You can read about those here.

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