{"id":295510,"date":"2026-05-01T20:41:16","date_gmt":"2026-05-01T20:41:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/295510\/"},"modified":"2026-05-01T20:41:16","modified_gmt":"2026-05-01T20:41:16","slug":"oakland-leaders-push-to-strip-police-commission-powers-setting-up-voter-showdown","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/295510\/","title":{"rendered":"Oakland leaders push to strip police commission powers, setting up voter showdown"},"content":{"rendered":"

OAKLAND \u2014 The city\u2019s leaders may ask voters this November to scale back the wide-ranging powers of the Oakland Police Commission, throwing one of the country\u2019s strongest law-enforcement oversight bodies<\/a> back into the political fray.\n<\/p>\n

Under a new proposal, the commission would no longer have the ability to help hire the police chief or appoint the city\u2019s inspector general, while its own members would get more direct supervision from the Oakland City Council.\n<\/p>\n

Supporters of the proposed measure say it will provide more stability for Oakland\u2019s police chief position by having the role be accountable directly to the mayor alone. The city is once again grappling with an extended vacancy<\/a> in the chief job, following the departure last fall of Floyd Mitchell, who openly bristled about needing to answer to the citizen volunteers who are appointed to the police commission.\n<\/p>\n

Councilmember Ken Houston, a police-union ally who authored the new initiative, said the process of replacing Mitchell with a permanent hire has taken too long.\n<\/p>\n

\u201cThey have gotten too comfortable with those seats,\u201d Houston said of the commission. \u201cThey should be more of an advisory board.\u201d<\/p>\n

The city council next month will consider placing the proposal on the November ballot. Houston said he expects the measure to win popular support.\n<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019ll be easy \u2014 I\u2019ll talk to the voters,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\"OaklandOakland city council member district seven Ken Houston speaks during the 2025 Inauguration Ceremony held at Oakland City Hall in Oakland, Calif., on Monday, Jan. 6, 2025. (Jose Carlos Fajardo\/Bay Area News Group)\u00a0<\/p>\n

But voters overwhelmingly approved<\/a> establishing the commission in 2016 under the promise that a local oversight body would keep a close eye on the scandal-ridden Oakland Police Department, which is separately under the oversight<\/a> of a federal judge.<\/p>\n

The commission and mayor are the only two local entities that can fire the chief, though the mayor can do so without cause. That power would remain in the commission\u2019s purview if voters approve the new initiative, but the volunteer body would be stripped of its ability to lead the recruitment of a new police chief.<\/p>\n

Currently, the commission narrows the field of candidates to a shortlist it presents to the mayor, who decides the final hire. Under the new rules, the mayor would be solely in charge of those duties \u2014 aligning the process with that of hiring other department heads.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere certainly are structural issues that need to be addressed in the city charter section about the police commission,\u201d said Councilmember Kevin Jenkins, the council\u2019s president, who along with Houston has led a tidal shift in Oakland\u2019s policy direction<\/a>.\n<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is definitely a role for civil oversight,\u201d Jenkins added. \u201cIf you look at the last police chief hires, I don\u2019t want to critique the police commission but we need a little more expedience in doing our due diligence in the hiring process.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the years since its formation, the commission has found itself rife with infighting<\/a> and embroiled in conflicts<\/a> with elected leaders, including ex-Mayor Sheng Thao, who briefly sought to pursue a similar ballot measure in 2024 to challenge the commission\u2019s powers<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Thao\u2019s efforts never got off the ground, and the conventional\u00a0wisdom in Oakland\u2019s political circles is that taking on the commission is a tall task, given that a 2020 measure to strengthen the commission\u2019s authority received 81% voter approval.<\/p>\n

The commission\u2019s members are currently appointed by an independent selection panel, which itself is staffed by a combination of the mayor and council.<\/p>\n

\"OaklandOakland interim police Chief James Beere at police headquarters in downtown Oakland, Calif., on Tuesday, March 24, 2026. Beere has applied for the permanent chief\u2019s position. (Jane Tyska\/Bay Area News Group)\u00a0<\/p>\n

It is a delicate power structure, the foundation of which began to wobble when Jenkins and Houston orchestrated the ouster<\/a> earlier this year of two commissioners, Ricardo Garcia-Acosta and Omar Farmer, after the commission\u2019s critics accused Farmer of overstepping his authority. The two commissioners continue to fill their seats, though in a holdover capacity.<\/p>\n

The chair of the selection panel, Rickisha Herron, compared the council\u2019s actions to \u201cbullying\u201d before Jenkins dismissed her in February.<\/p>\n

Now, under Houston\u2019s proposed initiative, the selection panel would go away altogether, allowing the council to appoint and supervise commissioners directly.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe reason why the voters made the panel an independent body is because they did not want politics involved in the selection of an oversight body,\u201d Herron said in an interview. \u201cHaving the city council make the decisions around oversight in the past (before the commission formed) was ineffective.\u201d<\/p>\n

Among the commission\u2019s most prominent opponents is the Oakland police officers\u2019 union. Its president, Sgt. Huy Nguyen, acknowledged in an interview during the commission\u2019s staffing standoff that he had conferred with council members about his criticisms.\n<\/p>\n

OPD is arguably as close as ever to exiting the oversight of a federal judge, where the department has remained for over two decades following the infamous Riders brutality scandal. A monitor appointed by the judge oversees OPD\u2019s affairs, submitting reports on the departments progress.\n<\/p>\n

Earlier this year, Judge William Orrick praised Mayor Barbara Lee<\/a> and Interim Police Chief James Beere \u2014 who has submitted his name for consideration<\/a> in the permanent chief search \u2014 for department reforms, hinting that Oakland may be nearing the finish line.<\/p>\n

In light of that possibility, police accountability advocates are confident voters will again support the commission, which intends to take the reins from the federal monitor as OPD\u2019s primary watchdog.<\/p>\n

\u201cOtherwise,\u201d said one of those advocates, Rashidah Grinage, \u201cwe run the risk of backsliding into the behaviors that got us into (federal oversight) to begin with.\u201d<\/p>\n

Shomik Mukherjee is a reporter covering Oakland. Call or text him at 510-905-5495 or email him at\u00a0shomik@bayareanewsgroup.com.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"OAKLAND \u2014 The city\u2019s leaders may ask voters this November to scale back the wide-ranging powers of the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":295511,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[37945,389,184,861,7,8,409,138,332,1529,405,181,100,143,145,144,407,408,13,385],"class_list":["post-295510","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-oakland","tag-2026-election","tag-alameda-county","tag-bay-area","tag-bay-area-crime","tag-california","tag-california-news","tag-city-politics","tag-crime-and-public-safety","tag-east-bay","tag-east-bay-crime","tag-government","tag-latest-headlines","tag-news","tag-oakland","tag-oakland-headlines","tag-oakland-news","tag-oakland-police-department","tag-police-accountability","tag-politics","tag-regional"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/295510","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=295510"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/295510\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/295511"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=295510"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=295510"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=295510"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}