New Council Off to Cacophonous & Unsteady Start

On Tuesday, Oakland’s new City Council took impactful decisions. The Council– with three new members and a vacancy—elected its new President, and in essence, chose an interim Mayor who will preside over Oakland’s biggest budget challenges in years. The Council also elected a President Pro Tempore who will act in the role of President while the new Mayor, Kevin Jenkin, is in office until May. Usually, both of these decisions would be made using criteria based on the actual intent of the role–but this year because of charter-requirements with a recalled Mayor, Jenkins was elected with the intention of appointing him interim Mayor, and Noel Gallo for the purposes of being presiding over Council as interim President until some time in May.

That was not the end of major decisions made by a fledgling council on Tuesday—the interim role for District 2 was filled by Rebecca Kaplan as former Council President Nikki Fortunato Bas assumed her first day on the job at the ALCO Board of Supervisors. Bas had recommended outgoing at-large Council member Kaplan for the role. During the meeting, CM Carroll Fife requested that the vote on whether to appoint Kaplan happen before the votes for President and Pro Tempore, and thus Kaplan also participated in the election of both Jenkins and Gallo. The votes were unanimous in all three cases.

While the Council’s decisions on President and Pro Tempore on Tuesday may have seemed inscrutable to some, the decisions did hint at an inaugural sense of harmony by CMs old, new and re-elected. But by Thursday that sense was in short supply, replaced by cacophony and disquieting portends for future meetings. With only two substantive action items to clear, the Council fell into chaos several times, with CMs speaking out of order while new interim Council President Gallo often looked on. Council committee assignments, an item that often passes without comment or notice, became a quagmire for the new Council.

Murky Process of Creating Committee Assignments Leads to Three Amended Versions

The Council President is responsible for drafting committee assignments every two years through resolution*, but ultimately the entire Council is responsible for voting for the assignments with 5 affirmative votes. The assignments can be amended by the same process as any other legislation. Usually, there aren’t amendments on the dais for the assignment because a prospective President has a sense of whether they will be elected to the role, and has already spoken to CMs individually about their preferred assignments. That well-worn process broke down starting Tuesday.

On Tuesday, CM Carroll Fife had protested that, unlike other CMs, she had been given two chair-ships in the proposed assignments. One of those was in a newer Committee she has concerns about**, while she’d been removed from the CED committee, where she wanted to remain. With the elevation of Jenkins to the role of Mayor, it became unclear who was actually responsible for the committee assignments. By the time the assignments were deliberated, Jenkins, who presumably drafted them, had already abstained from Council processes with the charter-based ascension to Mayor. Ownership of the draft should have defaulted to Gallo. But Gallo called on CM Janani Ramachandran to read the list into record, bringing up questions about who'd drafted the assignments.

Because of Fife’s objection, the vote was continued to Thursday’s meeting, where the only other substantive matter was the .5% sales tax increase.

Gallo returned to the matter of assignments on Thursday with revisions he said he believed would solve the issues. But in Gallo’s new version, Fife was now on six committees and the changes made without her input now had her as the only CM on both the first committee of the morning, Finance, starting at 9:30 am; and the last, Public Safety, which often ends at 9 pm or later.

CMs Grapple Over Kaplan’s Modified Assignment List

In response to Fife’s complaints, Kaplan introduced amendments to Gallo’s list, which she said “maximized” the requests of the Council members. But the committee assignments legislation triggered a spiral the group never fully recovered from. Pro Tempore Gallo was often confused and misinformed about the processes he was supposedly directing and the process was punctuated with interruptions by CM Ramachandran, who strenuously objected to the new amendments.

Before Kaplan could make a motion to amend Gallo’s list, CM Janani Ramachandran introduced a motion to vote on Gallo’s amended assignments and Gallo seconded. CM Fife then made a substitute motion to consider Kaplan’s assignments, with CM Rowena Brown seconding Fife’s motion. Council’s rules require the substitute motion to be voted on first, but Ramachandran protested the vote on Kaplan’s amended assignments even before CMs could carry it out, claiming she would not be available for some committees if those amendments prevailed. She suggested pausing the vote again, but it proceeded. Despite Gallo and Ramachandran’s no vote, Kaplan’s list passed with 5 affirmative votes.

Ramachandran Resists Vote Outcome Amid Escalating Confusion & Interjection by City Clerk and City Attorney

Despite the passage of Kaplan's amended assignments, the problems had only really just begun. Ramachandran again interjected to request a motion to reconsider the vote or bring the vote back at another time—rebuffing D1 CM Zac Unger’s offer to take on one or two of her committee assignments. The continued argument prompted City Clerk Asha Reed to make an uncharacteristic intervention, reminding the CMs that the already continued assignments item would need to be passed that day to give the clerks a chance to draft the final agendas with Rule 28 additions.

But Ramachandran only expanded her complaints about the vote outcome—adding objections to Gallo having been removed from what she characterized as “two of the most critical committees”, CED and Finance and she reiterated her motion to reconsider. The City Attorney’s office interceded noting that the motion to reconsider would have to be introduced by someone who voted on the prevailing aye side of the vote, i.e, neither Gallo nor Ramachandran.

As the City Clerk tried to move on to the next item, Ramachandran began speaking over her, reiterating her issues with being unable to serve on two of the committees, and her new objection to committee roles assigned to Gallo. Ramachandran now asked President Pro Tempore Gallo to ask other CMs to make the motion to reconsider. Instead D7 CM Ken Houston asked Ramachandran which specific two committees she couldn’t serve on—she noted public safety, but also argued again that Gallo had to be on CED and Finance, despite the fact that Gallo had not claimed he wanted to be on those committees. To add to the confusion, Houston offered to take on any of the three committee assignments—but Houston was already on all three committees she’d mentioned, as Kaplan repeatedly reminded him.

Clerk Reed’s Unprecedented Urging of Council to Move Forward with Agenda

Clerk Reed then interceded with even stronger language, pleading with Council members to follow the rules and move on to the next item.

“The motion is done. The vote is complete. Unless you do a motion to reconsider, like the city attorney said, there is no way to change it. To do the motion to reconsider, it has to come from the prevailing side. So if they have not done that, we need to move on…I apologize if I'm being disrespectful, but I don't want my staff held up, because we cannot move forward with these agendas until you guys complete this business,” Reed told the body.

Gallo Appears Confused and Passive in Presiding Role

A member of the public then also interrupted and Gallo appeared to encourage and commiserate with them in an exchange. That prompted Fife to comment, “we need order.” Fife’s modest statement may have been made alluding to several failures by Gallo to follow rules of procedure or facilitate the meeting. Gallo interrupted Kaplan's introduction of amendments, mistakenly believing that he had followed a rubric that left assignments vacant in expectation of Jenkins' return. But he had followed the same rubric Kaplan followed, with all four roles in each committee assigned. Though it's the role of the President to open the voting process, Gallo was visibly confused during the roll call about which motion he was voting on during the substitute motion vote. When polled by the clerk, Gallo responded, “Am I voting on Rebecca’s motion?” before voting no.

Instead of facilitating the discussion on Ramachandran's plea for reconsidering the vote on the assignments, Gallo was visibly confused by the process and tried to second a motion to reconsider, despite having just heard from the City Attorney that Ramachandran could not make such a motion. Inexplicably, several minutes later, Gallo made the motion to reconsider the vote himself, despite the City Attorney's counsel.

Gallo passively allowed the process to spiral out of order—despite a vote having just been taken by a majority of CMs, he did not move the process along with either solution or call to order, prompting the City Clerk to attempt to do so twice instead.

Ramachandran Votes Against Her Own Requests

Eventually after several minutes of Ramachandran’s protests, Houston, who had voted aye, finally made the motion to reconsider. Kaplan voted for the reconsidering vote and then made a new motion removing Ramachandran from all 3 committees she’d complained about. Ramachandran tried to make a friendly amendment to Kaplan’s motion, placing Gallo on the Finance Committee, but Kaplan declined to accept. Importantly, Gallo himself never stated a desire to be on either committee and voted for Kaplan's changes. Ramachandran surprisingly voted against the legislation that granted the request she'd so vociferously argued for.

Council Moves on to Sales Tax Ballot Measure, but Disruptions Continue

After the committee debacle, the Council took up the second vote for the .5% tax increase ballot measure. Several CMs spoke expressed support for the legislation, which would place a ballot measure before voters in mid-April. CM Jenkins had introduced the legislation with co-sponsors, Kaplan, Reid and Bas.

Representatives of the City’s unions also spoke out in favor of the tax during public comment, including Seth Olyer Vice President of IAFF 55 and Julian Ware of IFTPE 21—Ware alluded to concerns about the 2023 ransomware attack and paired them with the potential of the firestorm that was averted in October, and the type which LA is currently experiencing.

“We're not going to be prepared for the next emergency, whether that's on the IT side or experiencing a fire worse than the Keller Fire that we just had a couple months ago. I've worked with the folks in the fire department since it helps functions throughout all of the city, and I know that seconds, not minutes, can make all the difference in saving a life in a medical emergency, the tragic LA fires at the forefront of my mind, we cannot allow Oaklanders to be harmed when we've slashed public services,” Ware said.

Unger, who transitions into the Council office from the leadership position now held by Olyer at IAFF 55, spoke passionately about the need to establish new revenues to keep all services, including fire, police and social services, in operation.

“So Los Angeles is on fire right now. There are entire business districts that existed yesterday that don't exist today. And why did this happen? Well, a big part of it is that the city of Los Angeles closed dozens of fire engines over the last 10 years due to budget cuts…I understand the reticence to enact a sales tax. I understand the concerns of our businesses, but I can't think of anything more damaging to a business than burning to the ground,”

Unger’s comments were interrupted by regular commenter, Gene Hazard, and the issue was exacerbated when CM Houston repeatedly responded to Hazard. As Unger was making his statement, Houston continued to argue with the commenter and rose to his feet, prompting Chair Gallo to demand Houston sit down.

Regardless, after Unger finished and with little more deliberation, the sales tax ballot measure passed with 7 votes.

Disputes Continue into Coliseum JPA Appointment

Even an issue that is generally completely overlooked and passes without commentary, the appointment to the Coliseum Joint Powers Authority [JPA], was bogged down with argument. Pro-Tempore President Gallo’s choice for the Coliseum JPA liaisons was himself and Houston, but Houston declined the appointment, to the visible annoyance of Gallo.

Houston suggested Kaplan be reappointed to the JPA for the remainder of her D2 interim appointment. Gallo resisted, but Interim Mayor Jenkins also appeared at the meeting to recommend Kaplan. Jenkins argued that with the apparent imminent closure of the Coliseum sale, Kaplan would be the most experienced member to guide the process of defeasement of the bonds. Kaplan and Gallo were elected to the role—Gallo will step down from it when Jenkins returns in May.

OPD Chief Mitchell: Police Vehicle Pursuit Policy Decision Lies with Chief of Police

At a hastily called Special Meeting of the Oakland Police Commission [OPC], both Chair of the OPC and Oakland’s Police Chief Floyd Mitchell confirmed that only Oakland’s Police Chief is capable of changing the pursuit policy for his department. The statement stands in clear opposition to comments made by Governor Gavin Newsom, who demanded the Oakland Police Commission hold a special session to adjudicate a policy that is not the body's to alter. This publication has reported for several months that the Oakland Police Commission does not have the charter power to alter the policy.

At his press conference, which included CM's Jenkins and Houston, Newsom read an entire list of entities and leaders he’d contacted in Oakland to alter the pursuit policy. But the list did not include Oakland's police chief.

Newsom’s claims about the OPC have been repeated by local corporate media for the last two weeks, despite visible evidence in the charter and in recent history that show OPD’s chief is responsible for the policy and the OPC has no role in the process.

OPC Chair Ricardo Garcia-Acosta started the meeting with a statement he and others would repeat throughout the night in one form or another—that much misinformation had been spreading, and that the OPC is not in charge of the policy. Garcia-Acosta noted that in response to many claims about the OPC’s role, the OPC had received a legal opinion, which confirmed that the Pursuit Policy is not included in the Charter-mandated list of subject areas inn the the OPC's jurisdiction.

“Since OPDs pursuit policy is not a policy which governs use of force; use of force review boards; profiling based on any of the protected characteristics identified by federal, state, local law; or First Amendment assemblies, that OPC does not actually have the power to vote to reject or approve OPDs changes to this pursuit policy,” Ricardo Garcia-Acosta noted.

Friday was the Commission’s second go at reviewing the pursuit policy. Earlier in the year, at the request of the Council in legislation originally drafted by CMs Kevin Jenkins and Treva Reid, the Council reviewed the policy. The stated intention of the review was toward making recommendations to the Council about whether to change the policy.

Commissioner Wilson Riles, who’d chaired the ad hoc committee that reviewed the policy, noted that the task had been given to them by the Council, which had never responded to the recommendations sent in September.

“These directions are not the responsibility of this commission, that's why we were recommending that the City Council Public Safety Committee take its responsibility to step up and to do that. Unfortunately, there was no response. So, it then comes back to this commission, and it's one of the reasons why we're here tonight. And this commission is going to step up to do what it can without the direct decision making about this policy to try and respond to the requests from the community for more action around burglaries and other acts,” Riles said.

Riles noted that the Commission had found that increasing pursuits was “harmful” and would only lead to “significant property damage, injuries, and deaths.”

By the end of the discussion on the policy, after several vague comments, Chief Mitchell stated in no uncertain terms that the Police Chief is the legal decision maker over the policy.

"I look forward to working with everyone on this commission, but the the authority lies within the Chief of Police of how we're going to move forward. So I am looking at this policy, I am going to make recommendations to this to this body. I am going to go through the process, because I do want to hear from my community. But in the end that decision will lie with the Chief of Police," Mitchell said.

*Adherence to the Council's Rules of Procedure is embedded in the charter.

**The Education Partnership functions as a liaison between the Council and OUSD Board, but it is not empowered to send legislation to Council; the composition of the Board members is not under the Council’s power nor delegated to the Board and its meetings are irregularly scheduled. CM Treva Reid sought to enshrine the committee under legislation late last year, but the legislation was indefinitely tabled.