On Thursday, the Oakland Police Commission Selection Panel* had its first meeting since the City Council rejected their latest appointments for the Oakland Police Commission and voted by a majority of seated panelists to re-submit the same appointments of Omar Farmer as alternate, and Chair Ricardo Garcia Acosta as full Commissioner. The Council had rejected the appointments during a contentious and unusual public process in October, the first of its kind in the near decade of the Panel and Commission’s existence.
In their first meeting since that Council vote, the Selection Panel that selects applicants for 4 of the 7 Police Commission seats [and 1 alternate] voted to send the same slate that Council rejected in October back for consideration—of the six panelists present, five voted for the move, one panelist abstained [the body has two vacancies, and another panelist was absent]. In deliberation, several panelists specifically cited the rhetoric in the council decision and the process itself as part of their decision making on the resubmittal. Panelist Monique Rivera, who presented on the Panel’s process at Council during the October meeting, said that the process and “ridicule” involved in it had personally made her want to quit the body, but she had been talked out of it by the Chair.
“...Actually, I don't know if I want to do this work anymore if I spent this many hours as a volunteer...we are giving up quite a bit, and the ridicule that we're receiving...So Rickisha [Herron] has talked me down, but I don't know if I could do this again with the amount of hours we spent on it,” Rivera said.
The body’s chair, Rickisha Herron, complained at length about the treatment and process, and its impact on the potential to recruit Police Commissioners.
“And now this situation where our work is being disrespected, people are being publicly ridiculed, it's all a turn off, and it does decrease the interest to want to be a part of the police commission,” Herron said.
Herron also said she suspects the Oakland police union, which she believes opposed the appointments, significantly influenced council actions.
“Also, it's come to my attention from a trusted and direct source…that the City Council may be pandering to the Oakland Police Department union [Oakland Police Officer’s Association] for who they would like to see on the police commission,” Herron said.
The body also took up claims made in a letter from the Coalition for Police Accountability [CPA], which argues a key action in the appointment process was not carried out, rendering the Council decision moot. CPA also argues that the Charter requires the Selection Panel to submit the slate directly to City Council—the two claims taken together would mean that the clock for the 60 day timeline to approve or deny the appointments would begin as soon as the CAO completes the background checks for appointees, not when the CAO submits the appointments to Council for scheduling.
At the meeting, Felicia Verdin, the CAO liaison to the body whose role it is to oversee the background checking process confirmed that she had not carried out the background checks, believing they were not required for for reappointments of sitting Commissioners. The body’s Office of the City Attorney [OCA] representative, however, clarified that the background check requirement would necessarily apply as well. An Oakland Observer request for the date that the checks were completed was finally fulfilled by the City Administrator’s office this week, showing that no such information exists. A similar inquiry by the CPA reveals that they were not initiated. During the meeting, Verdin committed to ensure the background checks are undertaken.
The City Attorney’s representative told Panelists that she could not verify the standing of the procedure the SP have been following—of sending the appointments only the CAO, which then schedules it to Council. Members of the CPA during public comment, urged the body to send the appointment slate to the Council, with a CC to the CAO, to observe the intended process, rather than solely to the CAO.
Though panelists were largely unanimous about sending the appointments back and in their criticism of Council behavior and treatment, there was some question about how to structure their accompanying report—several panelists wanted to include the issues of disrespect of process and of an all-volunteer board.
“[Chair Herron] and panelist Rivera spoke to the concerns on a lot of issues around the kind of disrespect and lots of attendant concerns, feelings about this. Is there a way that we can attach a message that goes along with this recommendation? So, diplomatically, we make some points that we feel need to be made?” asked Panelist Charlie Eddy.
Others cautioned that a strident letter could undermine the intention of getting the slate nominated.
“I don't even think we need a letter at all, but if we want to do that, I mean, it needs to be really basic and simple. Because if we just try to go to war with them, or try to piss them off the way they pissed us off, we're never going to win. We're all just volunteers. So we need to find a way to work with them,” said Panelist Alex Clewis.
The move will bring the troubled process back into the public view again after Council unceremoniously, and with no stated complaints about the candidacies themselves, denied the appointments of Farmer and Garcia Acosta in an unusual public meeting in October. Regardless of whether the CPA's reading of the Charter is accepted by the OCA, the City and Council does appear to be required to undertake the same appointment process for Farmer and Garcia Acosta because nothing in the charter prevents the Panel from reintroducing the same slate that was rejected, as confirmed by the OCA representative at the meeting.
Problems in the Council process began to surface even before the official hearing of the appointments, when Council President Kevin Jenkins publicly stated he was sending the appointments back to the Selection Panel for further deliberation. Jenkins appeared to be reacting to an email sent by Montclair resident Rajni Mandal, a consistent opponent of police oversight, listing grievances against the two that were largely debunked by the Commission’s attorney in a later document. Jenkins had no legal authority for his action under the charter and the item was brought back to Rules by the CAO; when the item returned to Rules, Jenkins argued that more notice was required to schedule the item to Rules as a subject matter focus of the committee, pushing the date back again. When the appointments finally came back to rules for substantive review, however, neither Jenkins or any other member of the Rules Committee discussed them and instead simply voted to schedule them to Council. During the meeting, Houston urged the body from the dais to schedule the appointments, despite not being a member of the body.
Some CMs criticized the SP’s recruitment and outreach process, arguing they were not informed the process was ongoing and that the SP did not do enough outreach, given the low number of applicants. At the meeting Chair Herron noted that the CMs knew the process was ongoing and that the SP had reached out to them to include the application process in their newsletters. Former Panelist Lorelei Bosserman, in public comment, argued that many potential appointees didn't submit applications because Farmer and Garcia Acosta had performed well and would likely be reappointed.
The Council process, however, as a unique event, had few guardrails. Council did not set time aside to hear from the panelists or the appointees, who they had requested attend the meeting. As a result, panelists were initially cut off in the middle of their presentations. At one point, Jenkins sharply rebuked Chair Garcia-Acosta for making comments before he’d given him permission to do so. After the meeting, CM Kevin Houston, who reserved for himself an outsized role in the process, mocked the police commission, individual commissioners and selection panel on social media.
More on this story as Council and CAO undertake their process.
*The Oakland Police Commission was created by ballot measure to be independent, but 4 of its members are initially chosen by the Panel, and the Mayor chooses three—both Mayor and Panel each submit an alternate appointee as well. The appointments must then be ratified by Council vote. The Panel’s own members are appointed by the 8 Council people and the Mayor. The Panelists meet only to perform the duties of creating and supervising the application process, and then by vote winnow down the applicants to send to the City and Council. Unlike the Police Commission, the members can be removed by the individual officials who chose them and be replaced.
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