City Government

Accusations Against Brooks Are a “Witch Hunt,” Say Community Members

Published

12 years ago

July 23, 2013

Community members are responding angrily as news has began to spread that City Council President Pat Kernighan has called a special City Council meeting to reprimand District 6 Councilmember Desley Brooks for violating the City Charter for interfering with staff.

The meeting will be held Thursday, July 25 in the Council Chambers at 6:30 p.m. Though the motion to censure Brooks carries no formal penalties, it could potentially impact next year’s District 6 council race.

“I think this is a political witch hunt – it has bigger political implications in terms of the mayoral election and future political races – because it is much to do about nothing,” said Ron Muhammad, West Oakland community activist.

He said the council should not be considering censure because “there’s not a process in place to judge her, but propaganda has created the momentum.”

The move to censure Brooks originally started out because she was able to build a teen center in District 6 utilizing significant support of volunteers and donations before former Councilmember Nancy Nadel could complete one in West Oakland, and Nadel resented Brooks for “leapfrogging the process,” he said.

Brooks’ center was built for $157,000 and in “45 days as opposed to three years” for Nadel’s West Oakland project at a cost of over $3 million, said Muhammad.

In addition, the East Oakland center has state-of-art programs serving young people, while the West Oakland center has until now lacked funds to open its doors.

Underscoring concern over staff’s lack of accountability to the community, Rev. Daniel Buford of Allen Temple Baptist Church argues that responsible council members must make staff accountable to the public.

Rev. Daniel Buford of Allen Temple Baptist Church

“Far from keeping council people from talking to city staff, I think they need to be meddled with, they need to be monitored and they need to be censured for encumbering the city in million-dollar schemes that are bilking taxpayers,” Buford said.

“It was the city staff that years ago encumbered the city for millions of dollars to Goldman Sachs,” he said. “ It is that same city staff that is now dragging their feet in resolving the issue,” and is attempting to keep the city from debarring that organization from future dealings with Oakland.

In addition, he said, it was staff that agreed to a contract with Neptune Society to build a crematorium in East Oakland that would burn and pollute the air with the dust of 3,000 corpses a year.

“Once again, staff has gotten the city into something without proper citizen review or environmental quality review,” he said.

While the main charge against Brooks is that she violated the City Charter by interfering with staff, the bigger issue in city government is that “staff interferes and sabotages the decisions of the council,” said Rashidah Grinage, executive director of PUEBLO, which, along with other organizations, has worked for years for police accountability to local residents.

Staff does not carry out city decisions and are even guilty of saying, “they have done things that they have not done,” Grinage said. “This is the far more serious problem about city accountability to its residents.”

As an example, she cited the failure of city staff, including the City Administrator, to properly oversee the Oakland Workforce Investment Board, which has led to failure to fund non-profit job programs in a timely way and to the return of $600,000 in on-job-training funds to the state.

She said the City Administrator also failed to adequately oversee small businesses located at the site of the Oakland Army Base development project. As a result, the city has had to scramble at the last minute to find temporary locations for these local companies, trying to keep them from closing down and laying off hundreds of workers.

“It was entirely foreseeable that they would have to get out of where they were,” Grinage

Rashidah Grinage, Executive Director of Pueblo

said.

Further, Grinage said that actions of city staff and the City Administrator have cost city $10-$15 million in court fees, lawsuits and consultants for failing for over 10 years to reform the Oakland Police Department as required by the Negotiated Settlement Agreement, overseen by federal Judge Thelton Henderson.

Grinage is currently contending with City Administrator Deanna Santana for stalling the implementation of the transfer of intake of complaints against police from Internal Affairs to and independent review board.

“She’s supposed to have it done by Oct. 15,” Grinage said. “But it’s already been delayed two years.”

Kitty Kelly Epstein, an Oakland educator and former staffer for the previous mayor, also opposed the motion to reprimand Brooks.

“Censure is a political weapon. It isn’t any prettier in Oakland than it is in the U.S. Congress,” she said. “ Desley Brooks is the only council member who has actually succeeded in getting a teen center operating in her district.

“Instead of considering a censure of her, maybe the president of the council would want to figure out how to get city administration to work in such a way that the other badly needed teen centers are actually built and operating.

“And while she’s at it, Ms. Kernighan could look at how to get some other city policies carried out – like jobs for the residents of East and West Oakland and a reformed police department.”

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Activism

Teachers’ Union Thanks Supt. Johnson-Trammell for Service to Schools and Community

“I speak for our Oakland community and the families OEA serves in thanking Supt. Johnson-Trammell for her service. With public schools and immigrant families under attack nationally from Trump and with budget challenges affecting many California school districts, these are tough times demanding the best of what we all have to offer,” said OEA President Kampala Taiz-Rancifer in a statement released Thursday.

Published

5 hours ago

April 27, 2025

Oakland Post

OEA President Kampala Taiz-Rancifer. Courtesy photo.

The union calls for a community-involvement in search for new superintendent

By Post Staff

While pointing out that Supt. Kayla Johnson-Trammell has been planning to resign for a while, the Oakland Education Association (OEA) thanked her for years of service to the schools and called for community involvement in the search for a new superintendent.

“While we disagreed strongly on a number of issues,” said Taiz-Rancifer, “Dr. Johnson-Trammell is a daughter of Oakland and a product of our public schools. We thank her for her service and wish her the best moving forward.”

She said the schools’ community was aware that the superintendent had been planning to leave well before this week’s announcement.

“The superintendent has spoken publicly throughout the year about her planned departure. In August 2024, the previous school board approved a renewed contract raising her compensation to over $600,000 per year and allowing her to step back from daily responsibilities beginning in the 2025-2026 school year,” said Taiz-Rancifer.

She said the teachers’ union has been raising concerns about the need for stability and financial transparency in the district. “For three of the last four years, the district projected major deficits, only to end with millions in reserve.” This year, she said, the district added $90 million to central office overhead expenses.

“Just last month, a majority of school board directors took action to cap expensive consultant costs and develop alternative budget proposals that align spending with community priorities to keep funding in classrooms,” she said.

Taiz-Rancifer said the union stands behind the leadership of Board President Jennifer Brouhard and Boardmembers Valarie Bachelor, Rachel Latta, and VanCedric Williams.

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Alameda County

OUSD Supt. Chief Kyla Johnson-Trammell to Step Down on July 1

The district’s progress under Johnson-Trammell’s leadership “provides a strong foundation for the transition and work ahead,” according to the joint statement. “The plan has always prioritized a smooth and thoughtful transition. A formal search for a permanent superintendent was (originally) scheduled to begin in fall 2025,” but now the board is “initiating this process focusing on transparency and deep community involvement.”

Published

5 hours ago

April 27, 2025

Oakland Post

Kyla Johnson-Trammell. File photo.

By Post Staff

The Oakland Unified School District announced this week that Supt. Kyla Johnson-Trammell will leave her position on July 1 after serving for eight years.

In closed session on Wednesday evening, the school board approved a voluntary separation agreement by a 4-3 vote, said Board President Jennifer Brouhard.

The board will begin searching immediately for an interim superintendent who will start on July 1. Johnson-Trammell will continue as superintendent emeritus from July 1 to Jan. 15, 2026, to help with the transition, according to a joint statement released by Johnson-Trammell and the Board.

In a personal statement to the community, Johnson-Trammell said:

“As I prepare to step away from my role as your superintendent on June 30, I do so with immense pride in what we’ve accomplished together. The last eight years have brought some of the most challenging — and most defining — moments in our district’s history. Through it all, Oakland has shown what’s possible when we stay grounded in our mission and vision and work in partnership for our students.”

The joint statement from Johnson-Trammell and the Board modifies her existing contract. According to the joint statement: “in August 2024, the OUSD Board of Education approved a three-year transitional contract for Superintendent Johnson-Trammell, with the next school year (2025-2026) allowing for a shift in responsibilities to support the transition to a permanent superintendent at the start of the 2026-2027 school year.”

Praising Johnson-Trammell’s accomplishments, the joint statement said, “(She) has done an extraordinary job over the past eight years, a historic tenure marked by stability, strong fiscal oversight, and improvements in student achievement.”

According to the statement, her achievements include:

increased graduation rates
improved literacy
increased student attendance rates,
“exemplary” COVID pandemic leadership,
“historic” pay raises to educators,
Improvement in OUSD’s facilities bond program,
ensuring strong fiscal systems and budgeting

As Johnson-Trammell’s years of service are coming to an end, there remain significant unresolved challenges facing the district, including a $95 million budget deficit and the threat of school closings and employee layoffs, as well as contract negotiations with the Oakland Education Association (OEA), the teachers’ union.

Another ongoing controversy has been the superintendent’s extremely high salary, which was negotiated less than a year ago under the leadership of Boardmember Mike Hutchinson and former Boardmember Sam Davis.

Johnson-Trammell is one of the highest-paid superintendents in California and the country, earning a total compensation package of $637,036.42 a year.

The contract had granted her a pay raise and a final three-year contract extension through the 2027 school year.

Under that contract, she would only continue as superintendent during the current school year, and then for two additional years she would work on research projects and prepare the district for a new superintendent, at the same rate of pay she now earns, plus raises.

During those two years, a temporary superintendent would be hired to handle the responsibilities of running the school district.