City Government

Oakland Allocated $2.2 Million to Prevent Evictions, But Mayor’s Staff Failed to Spend the Money

Published

6 years ago

May 31, 2018

As part of the budget adopted 11 months ago, the Oakland City Council directed $2.2 million in state funding to anti-displacement and homeless prevention services – particularly legal representation for tenants facing eviction. But the money so far has not been spent.

First, the money was “mistakenly allocated” to the wrong city department, the Public Works Department, rather than the Housing and Community Development Department, which is supposed to disperse the funds, according to a report to the council prepared by Michele Byrd, director of Housing and Community Development.

Then, the Housing and Community Development has been so short staffed that it has not been able to set up the funding and hire nonprofits to implement the program, Byrd told councilmembers at this week’s Community and Economic Development (CED) Committee meeting.

The implementation of the program is supposed to be back on track by the time the council takes its summer break at the end of July. The money is intended to be used for counseling for homeowners facing foreclosure, arrange for attorneys to represent tenants facing eviction, and to provide outreach to educate renters of their rights.

“I certainly have sympathy for Ms. Byrd’s department, which has been severely hit by work overloads and staff reductions,” said James Vann of the Oakland Tenants’ Union, speaking to councilmembers.

“But almost a year has past since the council approved $2.2 million for putting into place an effective anti-displacement program,” he said.

“It has been shown that people who have legal representation have a 95 percent success rate (in opposing) an unfair eviction,” he said, adding that in the months since the funds were approved but not dispersed, an estimated 5,000 to 7,000 families were displaced.

“We are losing our city, the way people are getting displaced,” he said. “We need to put an urgency on this and get this out the door immediately.”

Councilmember Rebecca Kaplan said these anti-displacement funds are another way of fighting homelessness.

More people are becoming homeless, she said, “because people whose evictions could have been prevented are not being prevented.”

“This also happened in 2015 when there was a budget authorization for anti-displacement services, but it was not (implemented) for about nine months after the council authorized it,” she said.

Kaplan also questioned how $2.2 million could be misplaced.

“I read the report that says the money was lost for some period of time,” she said. “That was certainly concerning.”

Miss Sherry, a member of Oakland Community Organizations (OCO) said:

“Let’s be expedient making sure these funds are rolled out as soon as possible. We’re losing residents, and they are becoming the unhoused.

“We want to show the people of Oakland that we love them, that we care about what happens to do them, so that when they go to court, they have adequate representation. The Post asked the Mayor how the money could be “lost,” but her office referred the questions to Michele Byrd.

According to Post Publisher Paul Cobb, “Mayor Schaaf has a pattern and practice of diverting, failing to spend or returning funds that would have helped the Black community.”

Itemizing some of these practices, Cobb said, “She had to return $600,000 in job training funds to the state. She left $2 million for youth jobs on the table, and she significantly reduced job-training funds for Neighborhood Career Centers.

“And she instructed her staff not to seek community benefits for foreclosure and displacment funds while placing $2-plus billion of public money annually in the bank the city uses.”

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Oakland Post: Week of October 30 – November 5, 2024

The printed Weekly Edition of the Oakland Post: Week of October 30 – November 5, 2024

Published

18 hours ago

November 1, 2024

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Evidence Appears to Show Cover-Up of Previous Charges of Discrimination Against Jewish and Black Jurors, D.A. Says

Today, District Attorney Pamela Price announced that attorneys assigned to review the office’s death penalty cases found evidence revealing that instead of investigating claims of prosecutorial misconduct—excluding Jewish and Black residents from juries — a former senior Alameda County District Attorney’s Office prosecutor who is now a sitting judge in Alameda County, Morris Jacobson, and a team of investigators appeared to have taken part in covering it up.

Published

5 days ago

October 28, 2024

Oakland Post

A handwritten note by an employee under a previous administration appears to show plans for a cover-up of jury discrimination in a death penalty case. Courtesy image.

Special to The Post

During a press conference, Price presented a copy of a handwritten note by a former DA office employee who attended a meeting with employees from the office.

Jacobson, a deputy district attorney at the time, led the meeting in preparation for an evidentiary hearing ordered in the Fred Freeman case.

That hearing was ordered after former capital trial prosecutor Jack Quatman, the prosecutor in People v. Freeman, signed a declaration revealing that he and other capital case prosecutors routinely struck Black women and Jewish jurors in death penalty cases.

Jacobson was assigned by former district attorneys Tom Orloff and Nancy O’Malley to coordinate the ACDAO’s response during the evidentiary hearing.

In that capacity, he and others assigned to the capital case team went to great lengths to distract the courts from the substantive legal allegations by besmirching the whistleblower Quatman’s character and credibility—a strategy that succeeded.

Key sections of the note include, “left it w/ Morris saying he would give us direction. Wants to find dirt on Quatman,” and “How good are your memories? His point was he doesn’t want any documentation of what we do unless it is agreed upon???”

“This note provides the public some of the missing clues regarding who appeared to be involved during previous administrations in covering up prosecutorial misconduct at the Alameda County District Attorney’s Office,” said Price. “The note from this meeting in 2004 gives insight into why prosecutors’ notes containing evidence of discrimination against potential Jewish and Black jurors may not have been subjected to a comprehensive review and were not disclosed to the Court in most of the cases until my office was ordered by Honorable Judge Vince Chhabria to review death penalty cases.

“What the public should know is that prosecutors have special duties as ministers of justice to uphold the Constitution, which guarantees the right to a fair trial and to be judged by a jury of one’s peers, regardless of race, religion, or sexual orientation,” she said.

United States District Court Judge Chhabria determined earlier this year that there was “strong evidence that, in prior decades, prosecutors from the office were … excluding Jewish and African American jurors in death penalty cases.”

He subsequently issued an order directing ACDAO to disclose jury selection files in all Alameda County cases which resulted in a death sentence.

The Alameda County District Attorney’s Office is the source of this story.

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In the City Attorney Race, Ryan Richardson Is Better for Oakland

It’s been two years since negotiations broke down between the City of Oakland and a developer who wants to build a coal terminal here, and the issue has reappeared, quietly, in the upcoming race for Oakland City attorney. Two candidates are running for the position of Oakland City Attorney in November: current Assistant Chief City Attorney Ryan Richardson and retired judge Brenda Harbin-Forte.

Published

5 days ago

October 28, 2024

Oakland Post

Members of Oaklanders Defending Democracy political action committee with Oakland Mayor Sheng Thao, center. Courtesy photo.

By Margaret Rossoff

Special to The Post

OPINION

Two candidates are running for the position of Oakland City Attorney in November: current Assistant Chief City Attorney Ryan Richardson and retired judge Brenda Harbin-Forte.

Richardson has worked in the Office of the City Attorney since 2014 and is likely to continue current City Attorney Barbara Parker’s policies managing the department. He has committed not to accept campaign contributions from developers who want to store and handle coal at a proposed marine terminal in Oakland.

Retired Judge Harbin-Forte launched and has played a leading role in the campaign to recall Mayor Sheng Thao, which is also on the November ballot. She has stepped back from the recall campaign to focus on her candidacy. The East Bay Times noted, “Harbin-Forte’s decision to lead the recall campaign against a potential future client is … troubling — and is likely to undermine her ability, if she were to win, to work effectively.”

Harbin-Forte has refused to rule out accepting campaign support from coal terminal interests or their agents. Coal terminal lobbyist Greg McConnell’s Independent Expenditure Committee “SOS Oakland” is backing her campaign.

In the 2022 mayor’s race, parties hoping to build a coal terminal made $600,000 in contributions to another of McConnell’s Independent Expenditure Committees.

In a recent interview, Harbin-Forte said she is open to “listening to both sides” and will be “fair.” However, the City Attorney’s job is not to judge fairly between the City and its legal opponents – it is to represent the City against its opponents.

She thought that the 2022 settlement negotiations ended because the City “rejected a ‘no coal’ settlement.” This is lobbyist McConnell’s narrative, in contrast to the report by City Attorney Barbara Parker. Parker has explained that the City continued to negotiate in good faith for a settlement with no “loopholes” that could have allowed coal to ship through Oakland – until would-be coal developer Phil Tagami broke off negotiations.

One of Harbin-Forte’s main priorities, listed on her website, is “reducing reliance on outside law firms,” and instead use the lawyers working in the City Attorney’s office.

However, sometimes this office doesn’t have the extensive expertise available that outside firms can provide in major litigation. In the ongoing, high stakes coal litigation, the City has benefited from collaborating with experienced, specialized attorneys who could take on the nationally prominent firms representing the City’s opponents.

The City will continue to need this expertise as it pursues an appeal of the judge’s decision that restored the developer’s lease and defends against a billion-dollar lawsuit brought by the hedge fund operator who holds the sublease on the property.

Harbin-Forte’s unwillingness to refuse campaign contributions from coal terminal interests, her opposition to using outside resources when needed, as well as her uncritical repetition of coal lobbyist McConnell’s claim that the City sabotaged the settlement talks of 2022 all raise serious concerns about how well she would represent the best interests of Oakland and Oaklanders if she is elected City Attorney.