Unclear Path for IAD-CPRA Transition After Transition Feasibility Report
A previously promising proposal to transfer a majority of the Internal Affairs Bureau [IAB] responsibilities to the quasi-independent Community Police Review Agency [CPRA], once budgeted to occur within FY 23-25, received a complicated response at a Public Safety Committee meeting. The Committee, chaired by Charlene Wang, reviewed a long over-due feasibility study on a proposed transition that reveals that the shift would be ultimately beneficial for the OPD and city, reducing costs and relieving work burdens for police supervisors. But the report also suggests the transition would have to be gradual—and most importantly, the City and Council would have to provide a sustained commitment to funding and stabilizing the CPRA.
New Council Ambivalent About Transition
The Committee now consists of a majority of freshman council members, and only CM Carroll Fife has remained adamant about the need for the transition and to civilianize roles in general. Fife pointed out that the City has been trying for nearly two decades to civilianize more roles to reduce police spending and optimize patrols.
“[there have been] many efforts to move sworn officers out of positions that can be done by civilians that have passed through this council, not just this existing body, but for years in the past,” Fife said, also wondering if its appropriate to “have officers investigate their coworkers and their colleagues”
Previously, the center-right administration of Mayor Libby Schaaf had embraced exploring the IAB to CPRA transition as well as some level of civilianization, and had initially provided resources to complete a feasibility study on the transition. When former Mayor Sheng Thao proposed the idea as part of her budget in 2023 with a significant increase to CPRA funding to hire the necessary staff, it met little resistance on the merits, though there were doubts about whether the transition would happen in the biennial.
After long delays, the issue has returned to Council, but the Council members considering it are not the same ones that enthusiastically embraced the possibility years ago, both before and after problems IAB performance became visible after the Chung scandal. And the City Administrator’s Office, previously visibly open to the idea, also struck more negative tones. Joe Devries called the process of transitioning a costly one that would duplicate resources, akin to building the new span of the Bay Bridge, while maintaining the old one.
”And I think what we're what we're challenged with right now as a city in that we can't even have a police department staffed at the 700 level...there is no cost savings in the short term. There's a cost outlay to doing this, and that, of course, the budget is in your authority as the council, but I think that's going to be the biggest hump,” Devries said.
During the meeting, only Fife who'd also agendized a separate report on civilianization, appeared visibly committed to the transition. Wang and CM Rowena Brown raised concerns about the CPRA’s current capacities to keep up with the 180 day deadline under the NSA, as did Rowena Brown. CM Ken Houston seemed to oppose not only the transition, but almost any oversight in general, complaining that the police's hands are somehow "tied".
Instability Caused by Up and Down Budgeting of CPRA
Wang initially brought up the capacity issues examined in the report, which are clearly described as funding issues, and asked Interim CPRA Director Antonio Lawson about them. Lawson put the onus on funding cuts from both Council and the City.
“CPRA can meet the deadlines, but requires funding. I mean, deadlines were a problem…of course, with the new budget, we can meet our requirements. So we can assign cases out more freely, and can complete investigations in a more timely manner. But as I understand it, in the prior administration, staffing was a significant problem. In fact, I think in the last layoff process we lost an investigator. When I started in November of last year, I think CPRA may have had five investigators, and now we're down to three. And so now what I'm doing is trying to rebuild and stabilize the organization,” Lawson said.
The obstacles described by Lawson for the transition are captured in the report’s critical observations about CPRA staffing, acknowledging the catch 22 situation he described at the meeting—despite being an independent oversight body, the City and Council control CPRA's budgeting, with the power to defund the CPRA by slashing staff and freezing positions.
Over the two years since the initial budgeting of an IAB-infused CPRA, Council at first froze the potential staffing expansion that would have prepared for IAB transitioning—then during the contingency budget period in 2024 froze more positions. Late last year, departing CPRA Director Muir made some dire warnings about the City’s commitment to civilian oversight on the dais in his last address to the Commission. The initial FY 25-27 budget had more cuts for CPRA, cuts that were reversed after requests by the Commission and CPRA, according to Interim Director Antonio Lawson, bringing the CPRA back up to its minimum requirements in the charter for investigations.
Given the report’s recommendations that the City must get serious about bringing stability of funding to CPRA, it remains now an open question if the funding can be counted on, a question that had not previously come up during periods of City commitment to civilian oversight.
Mitchell's Negative Views About the Potential Move Obviate Study
After sidestepping Lawson's comments about funding, Wang redirected to Mitchell and asked him directly if he believed the CPRA would be capable of taking on the work of the IAB.
“If were we to the Council or the as a body were to follow the recommendations outlined in the report, do you think that CPRA would be able to meet those 180 day disciplinary deadlines?”
In his response to Wang, Mitchell said he didn’t believe that the CPRA could meet the requirements even with the more robust staffing suggested in the report.
“Currently no. Based on the staffing recommendations in this report, I would again say no,” Mitchell said.
Mitchell then seemed to contradict the main short-term recommendation of the report. The report suggests that the CPRA beging to take on Division Level Investigations [DLI], the investigations that are conducted in conjunction with IAB, but by supervisors in the field over their subordinates.
“I think it's important for this body to understand that our Division Level Investigations…where we farm a large majority of the lower level class, the class two complaints out to field sergeants. They're not handled by internal affairs… So you don't have, you know, a large number of worker bees or officers doing the work,” Mitchell said.
The division level investigations are where the report suggests IAB can begin to off load the work to CPRA, however.
Open Question About Capacity, and OPD's Own Ability to Meet Deadlines, Police Itself in Court Monitoring
OPD recently claimed in its NSA reporting that delays that have caused the IAB to miss court-mandate investigation deadlines are due to inefficiency in the CPRA. But while the OPD’s narrative suggests some conflict with CPRA, an after action report by IAB in the aftermath of the catastrophic failure to properly investigate the Phong Tran bribery and perjury case suggests that such cases should be investigated by CPRA instead of IAB to prevent favoritism and bias. Despite being mostly neutral about the potential for the shift, and the fact that his own IAB seems to think some form of it would be a good idea, Mitchell at one point said he did not believe the CPRA would be able to keep up with an IAD workload even with the necessary compliment of investigators and support staff.
CMs asked whether the NSA specifically requires the OPD to complete the internal investigations—a common refrain among center-right police advocates has been that the CPRA would not be able to fulfill NSA requirements. The Oakland City Attorney’s office was not prepared to answer the question during the meeting. Wang asked that the item be brought back every four months for status reports.
Next Steps Unclear
The feasibility report suggests that the City form a taskforce of stakeholders in the administration, CPRA, OPD, the Police Commission, and the City Attorney among others, but its not clear if the taskforce will be formed as a result of city council action, or independent action among some or all of the stakeholders—no action to form the group was taken formally at the committee meeting and the report was received and filed, meaning it will not be forwarded to City Council. The committee voted to have progress reports return to Council every four months.
NSA Conference Muted on Transition, Pursuit Policy
During the subsequent NSA conference held Thursday, Judge William Orrick voiced muted support about such a transition, saying only that he had confidence in the Police Commission and that such a change would remain a City decision. Orrick called it a commendable “paradigm shift”, and left up to city leaders about “how best to proceed”. Orrick had similar comments about the Pursuit Policy, most strikingly stating clearly that he does not believe the pursuit policy is an NSA issue.
“There are always going to be significant issues that OPD has to face, but that doesn't mean that the court has a role in them, unless it's mandated by the NSA. And for that reason, issues regarding high speed pursuits, as important as they are, are not part of the NSA, and I'm not going to weigh in on them,” he said.
The Oakland City Attorney in March opined that the Oakland Police Commission has a charter-mandated role to play in the pursuit policy, due to previous focuses of NSA on pursuit under rubric of use of force monitoring. The question was meant to satisfy downward pressure from Governor Gavin Newsom who demanded that the OPC agendize the policy and change it—but Orrick’s comments may provoke some questions about that role.
Overall, Orrick was skeptical about the rationales used by the OPD to beard its failure to meet the 180 day investigation requirements of the NSA, one of which was that the CPRA’s timelines interfered. Orrick said the OPD’s narrative of the 180 day failure were a “staggering number of excuses for not being in compliance…” a comment worth noting in terms of the IAB to CPRA transition discussion, in which CPRA was blamed for delays.
You can read more about the NSA case management conference in the live reporting thread here, or Oaklandside’s coverage of it.
Security Guard Contract in the Weeds Again, May Give ABC Additional Months of Work
At Public Works, DPW brought the product of its nearly year long Request for Proposals [RFP] process for a new city-wide security contract to the Public Works Committee for consideration. The process for renewing the contract for the City’s security services, guards who have taken the place of police at City Hall, libraries, senior centers and other city-owned and managed facilities, has been inordinately long and visibly fraught.
As ABC’s three year contract sunset and began to use up allowable one year extensions, the new RFP process, which included candidate ABC Security as well, began to experience significant delays in 2022. First, the process shifted to consider armed guards, which changed the scope of the contract, according to City officials, which led to delays exacerbated by intra-administration continuity between the Thao administration and Schaaf’s. The ransomware attack also exacerbated the delay. ABC's contract used up its legislatively allowed extensions, and then began to be extended by legislation beyond the maximum 5 year contract as the City continued to struggle with the RFP in late 2023. Council authorized month to month payments to ABC in late 2024.
The delay has ended up giving ABC an additional almost two years and counting of work at the City worth millions at this point, while the company again registered low bid scores for re-securing the contract in the both recent RFP processes. ABC lost out to both Marina and Allied in 2023, but that RFP process floundered. ABC has been linked to Mario Juarez, the apparent key witness in the Thao prosecution. Reporting from the East Bay Times and Oaklandside suggested that ABC may have influenced the delay in the process through unregistered lobbying, though there is no solid evidence it was involved in the delay.
ABC may receive continued month to month work as the contract process stalls again. This time, the issues have different players involved: Marina, a local Black-owned contractor, lost out to Allied, a global behemoth security company with a controversial profile in the Public Works-run RFP process. Marina initially had tied Allied in its overall application and project package, but scored much lower in an interview process led by a taskforce of City agency subject-matter experts.
Gallo Attempts to Award Contract to ABC Amid General Dissatisfaction with Allied
At the meeting, opposition to Allied came along various vectors. CM Kevin Houston questioned the process—ensuring that contracts go to local businesses, especially owned by Black and minority contractors, has been one of Houston’s emerging marquee issues at meetings. CM Charlene Wang for her part said she was disturbed by the controversies surrounding Allied. Wang did not name any specifically, but in 2023, an Allied guard shot a tourist to death and a local Allied sub-contractor employed guard killed Banko Brown, both in San Francisco.
CM Noel Gallo attempted to make a substitute motion to give the contract to both Marina and ABC.
"I'm going to make a motion...in this contract to include Marina security and ABC security services," Gallo said.
Other CMs along with the City Attorney's representative however reminded the body that they could not do so without creating a material change to the contract that would have to come back at another time.
Both Marina and Allied brought advocates for their own contract. Allied, which argued it has had offices in Oakland and employs Oakland residents, brought several of its guards and administrators to attest. Marina, also did, but had local organizations to speak on behalf of the company, as well as its lobbyist, Isaac Kos-Read. Kos-Read also represented Becker Boards, a company that successfully won legal permission to run new billboards in Oakland several weeks ago in an also fraught process.
CMs Opt for Marina Through Scheduling Motion
Several council members had seemingly already made up their minds, although Zac Unger remained circumscribed on his comments. After some back and forth with city staff CMs were assured by the City Attorney Ryan Richardson that they could only decline to move the Allied contact forward, and could not amend the existing legislation to name Marina as the contract awardee. Among City officials who spoke was Josh Rowan, the interim director for DPW, who seemed visibly irritated by the complaints and insisted that the agency would not stand down from its process-borne recommendation for Allied. Instead, the committee was advised to let the current legislation die, and propose a scheduling motion to the Rules committee to award the contract to Marina instead—Unger voted against the scheduling motion, while the other three CMs voted for it.
More Issues at Rules Postpone Contract to 7/17 Rules Scheduling
The scheduling motion created a placeholder legislation to award the security services contract to Marina and was placed on the Rules committee agenda for July 10. But the legislation was withdrawn, apparently by Rules Chair and Council President Kevin Jenkins at the start of the meeting who stated only that it had been withdrawn—but not clearly by who. The City Administrator’s Office later in the same meeting attempted to introduce a new item for scheduling that would propose the two firms as A/B options for the Council to be scheduled for a September meeting. CM Janani Ramachandran said she was confused about the process, and seemed to advocate instead for a Council resolution that would bypass the RFP process to award the contract directly to Marina. In the confusion, Rowan said he hadn't even seen the binary choice legislation and once again stated that he viewed Allied as the only company legitimately chosen by the RFP process. He said he’d only seen the legislation positing the contract award as an option between the two companies that morning. The item was pulled to be introduced again at this week’s Rules meeting.
Armed Component of Contract Untouched
Unspoken throughout the entire process, however, is a new contract feature that apparently triggered the City’s delays in the first place in 2022—an option, at the City Administrator’s discretion, to allow for armed security guards. No CM broached the contract stipulation during deliberations, which would potentially introduce armed non-sworn security guards to Oakland-owned sites and facilities for the first time and it remains in either contracting option.
The item likely won’t be heard until September by the Public Works Committee, meaning any new security contractor won’t be in service before the calendar year’s end. That would mean ABC Security could come close to having spanned an entire new three year period in extra-contractual month to month work, despite having technically lost the bid for continued work in 2022 and in 2025.
Contracting Policy Changes Forwarded to Council Tuesday, Will Change the Way City Hires Curb and Sidewalk Contractors for Decades
Also at Public Works, committee members voted to forward a raft of contracting policies specifically geared at meeting a settlement consent decree from curb and sidewalk class action lawsuit Curran vs. City of Oakland, a settlement that will be put before Council for approval on Tuesday also. The legislations authorize the CAO to approve contracts up to $7.5 MM for sidewalk and curb projects; remove local and small business requirements and eliminating any cap on low-income sidewalk rehabilitation assistance to aid homeowners in meeting their legal requirements for their own sidewalk areas.
CM Ken Houston opposed the legislations in general and offered a substitute motion that obviated the legislative intent of the contract authorization item, number 6, to forward authorize specific contracts.
“I want to make a substitute motion to return to council…and I will go with everything else.”
Houston’s substitute received no second. Houston subsequently was the only member of the committee that voted no on all the legislation, which means it should have been scheduled to non consent for discussion. At Rules, however, Chair Jenkins instead scheduled all of the legislation to consent.
Animal Rescue Advocates Oppose Changes in City’s Animal Control Ordinance Limiting OAS Animal Surrender
Over a dozen animal rescue volunteers objected to the City Administrator’s proposed changes to Oakland’s animal control ordinance that would give the OAS discretion about when and how animals are surrendered to the agency. Assistant City Administrator Joe Devries, who is also, in an unusual arrangement, the part-time Director of the OAS, said the changes were needed to give OAS discretion about how to accept animals, given budgetary constraints. Devries said Oakland has the only animal control agency that will accept any animal on surrender—leading some in other cities to drop off animals and burdening Oakland’s already challenged animal control center. Devries also said that others bring in cats, for example, that are not in harm’s way and cared for by communities–with a strong implication that animal rescue advocates might be doing so.
Advocates pushed back strongly, noting that the OAS already turns down surrenders, and that often surrenders are denied to those who are homeless, or forced to move due to eviction or loss of income.
City Quietly Terminates California Waste Solutions Army Base Development Agreement
In an unannounced move in late May, the Oakland Observer learned, the City quietly moved to end the Development Agreement with California Waste Solutions at the Army Base. Initially, the news was inadvertently shared at a Rules committee meeting, when a City staffer revealed that a mandatory report on army base construction air quality had to be revised at the last minute to remove California Waste Solutions from the title and text.
The Oakland Observer received a copy of the letter sent from the City Administrator’s office terminating the DA this week. Issues leading to the termination revolve around CWS’s unpreparedness to begin construction, including having no proof of financing for the project, necessary approvals, a project labor agreement and a construction agreement. CWS had a grace period to correct the failures, but failed to. The Oaklandside has more here.
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