One morning in November, an East Oakland business owner alerted the police that someone was dumping debris onto the road at 100th Avenue and Pearmain Street. The intersection, where there’s a mix of industrial and residential properties, has long been targeted by illegal dumpers.
Two OPD officers arrived and, sure enough, spotted a man with a large dumpster attached to a tractor-trailer truck, and piles of waste on the ground, according to a police report obtained by The Oaklandside. The police handcuffed the man on suspicion of unlawful waste disposal, a misdemeanor that can carry hefty fines and jail time.
Just then, one of the officers received a call on his cellphone. It was from Councilmember Ken Houston.
Houston represents deep East Oakland, and illegal dumping is his bugbear. Before he was elected to the City Council in 2024, he headed the Beautification Council, a nonprofit that’s received substantial contracts from the city and county to clean up the streets. In Facebook posts going back a decade, and more recently from the council dais and in interviews, Houston has repeatedly called for the prosecution of people and companies that violate the law by trashing Oakland neighborhoods.
So why, then, did Houston ask the officer on 100th Avenue to release the suspect?
According to the police report, it was all a big misunderstanding. Houston told the officer he’d actually asked the man to empty the dumpster’s contents and remove the container from the intersection. Houston had told him he’d arrange for the city’s Public Works Department to clean up the trash later.
“Based on the information provided” by Houston, the officer wrote, the man who’d driven the truck was “released from handcuffs without further incident.”
The episode is a good example of Houston’s hands-on and in-your-face brand of leadership, which has been a source of amusement and controversy since his swearing-in last January. Not content to simply pass policies and let city staff execute on them, Houston has maintained his practice of going out into the streets and trying to get things done himself.
But the dumping incident raises questions about whether or not Houston crossed the line in interactions with city staff. The city charter gives councilmembers the power to create new laws and determine the city’s budget, but it strictly says the councilmembers “shall have no administrative powers,” meaning they can’t direct city workers in their day-to-day activities.
Specifically, a city rule commonly known as Section 218 prohibits councilmembers from “dealing” with city employees other than the city administrator, mayor, or other high-ranking officers responsible for city affairs, and from giving orders to city employees, including police officers and public works employees. Elected officials who are convicted of violating this rule can face criminal prosecution for a misdemeanor and must forfeit their seat.
In an interview with The Oaklandside, Houston said he didn’t break this rule.
“I wasn’t directing staff at all,” Houston said. “I inquired.”
We asked the city administrator if Houston’s conduct ran afoul of this rule, but didn’t receive a response.
Whether or not his interactions with city staff were a violation, the dumpster incident highlights the fine line councilmembers must walk if they choose to be directly involved in city services in their district.
Houston acknowledged that as a councilmember his job is to focus on legislation and policy.
“I’m really not supposed to be cleaning up the streets,” Houston said. But he added he needs to let his constituents know that he’s on top of their problems, like dealing with a dumpster that has been sitting on a street for months attracting trash.
And he said his office’s diligent efforts to crack down on illegal dumping and abandoned vehicles is making his constituents happy.
“Do you know how many emails and texts I get from constituents who say, ‘Ken, we appreciate it, we see the improvement’?” Houston said.
Houston says he spent months trying to get rid of the troublesome dumpster
Garbage piled up at an illegal dumping site on E. 12th Street near High Street on Oct. 2, 2025. Credit: Darwin BondGraham / The Oaklandside.
Houston said he and the man who was going to be arrested were trying to remove the dumpster from its location because it had been attracting illegal dumping to the area for many months. He said the dumpster had been appearing repeatedly at the intersection, aggravating business owners and residents, but nobody knew who was putting it there.
“I had asked the city, ‘Can you get it out of there?’” Houston recalled. “They said, ‘Ken, we just don’t have the manpower to remove that dumpster.’ They said, ‘If you can remove it, Ken, remove it — we’ll help you clean it up.’”
Houston’s aide, Lidit Awoke, also met the officers at the scene of the arrest and explained that they were trying to remove the dumpster for these reasons.
Houston said he called on a friend for the favor, though he declined to say whom. The friend sent someone to do the job. The Oaklandside isn’t naming the man who was detained because he wasn’t ultimately arrested. According to Houston, the container and the mass of trash inside it were too heavy to haul away; the chains on the tractor-trailer broke.
Houston said he called a person he knows at the city and got permission to leave some of the trash on the street for city workers to clean it up later — which they did, he added.
The man working on the dumpster removal “started unloading it to make it lighter,” Houston said. That’s when a neighbor spotted the man and thought she’d caught the person who had been leaving the dumpster on their street, according to him.
He phoned the police to tell them about the misunderstanding, so they wouldn’t arrest the hauler.
Houston said the dumpster, which still has some waste in it, is now in his possession, and when it’s emptied, he plans to donate it or give it to the city.
Houston initially told us he spoke to an Oakland Public Works staffer. But a department spokesperson said no one from Public Works had communicated with Houston, and that it wouldn’t “be consistent with OPW policy or practice to advise any individual to dump materials in the public right of way for OPW crews to pick up later.”
When we followed up with Houston, he clarified that he spoke with Ivan Satterfield, an assistant to the city administrator. Satterfield previously worked for Public Works as a supervisor. City officials did not respond to requests to interview Satterfield.
The Oaklandside reached out to OPD about this incident and asked if the department has any policies that address how employees should respond when elected officials contact them about work. A spokesperson told us that councilmembers do not have the authority to direct police officers.
Awoke, Houston’s aide, did not respond to an interview request.
An employee at a construction company near the intersection told The Oaklandside in December that the area has been a magnet for illegal dumping.
“It’s just an extreme, crazy area,” said the employee, who didn’t provide their name. “We were reporting it all the time. It was really bad. It’s clean right now, thank god.”
‘Son of Oakland’ flouts norms but also wins praise from some
When Houston took office a little over a year ago, he announced in the brazen fashion he’s known for, “I am going to fight for this city. And let me tell you something. I have no filter. None.”
To the delight of his supporters, Houston has been as good as his word, especially when it comes to policing the cleanliness of city streets. In a video posted last fall, Houston recorded himself verbally sparring with several people providing support to a homeless encampment in his district. Houston told the group, “You in the wrong place, fucking with me,” prompting one person to express — in disbelief — that Houston is a councilmember.
“I don’t give a fuck!” Houston shouted back. In another incident that went viral last December, Houston, who grew up in Oakland and frequently refers to himself as the “Son of Oakland,” appeared to give the middle finger to residents protesting the council’s decision to award a contract to a controversial surveillance company.
These exchanges won Houston praise from some supporters, who believe he’s channeling the frustration of constituents in East Oakland who are upset with the city’s response to homelessness, crime, and illegal dumping.
“East Oakland NEEDS a go-getter to go get it done,” a woman named Leatha McGirt said in a comment under a Dec. 4 post on Houston’s Facebook page. “Who else, other than Ken Houston is stepping up to the plate?”
But his combative, hands-on approach to policy has also landed Houston in hot water with city staff. Last November, Josh Rowan, then the head of Public Works, accused Houston of committing a Section 218 violation by allegedly interfering with several public contracts. He also accused the councilmember of “abusive” conduct, which included an incident where Houston announced to the council that he had filed a public ethics complaint against Rowan.
Houston’s complaint against Rowan was quickly dismissed. Rowan’s complaint is still pending. Houston has denied any wrongdoing.
Darwin BondGraham contributed reporting to this story.
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