Oakland councilmember Lynette Gibson McElhaney comes out against oversight commissions

McElhaney's online statement today, despite being stream-of-consciousness and rambling, is highly likely to be a response to last Tuesday's order by US District Judge Thelton Henderson, who has been overseeing OPD for over a decade now in a seemingly Sisyphean effort to push the department towards what might be considered constitutional policing. The order has given new hope to those who support a fully independent police commission, and set fear into the hearts of those opposed to real police accountability.

Henderson declared that the city of Oakland's continued failure to institute meaningful discipline of police officers who violate the rights of local residents requires him to appoint an investigator to get to the bottom of why the worst cops go unpunished. When he raises concerns as to "what will happen when the court and plaintiffs' counsel (in the Riders case) are no longer holding them accountable," he lends major credence to those fighting for a new police oversight commission with the power to discipline and fire crooked cops.

And McElhaney's initial public response? Apart from her wandering and self-serving interpretation of history, she offers a litany of excuses as to why a commission such as a police commission would be a bad idea. She asserts that not trusting government started as a backlash to the civil rights movement, and seems to be saying that all good government groups are white supremacist, namechecking Lee Atwater. Why would the city need a citizen commission when elected officials such as herself are already citizens providing oversight? She mentions an unnamed "colleague" who is on-board with the assessment that councilmembers are citizens. Without a hint of irony, she declares that "citizen bodies" are unaccountable, as if the Oakland police department has ever been transparent or accountable to the public without court orders held over their heads.

Trust her and "elected" government officials, she implies, not shady commissions. Don't have faith in citizen commissions. Put that blind faith in her instead. But why should anyone respect or trust someone like her who used a supposed non-profit for the personal gain of her family and associates? It's widely known she used her position at Richmond Neighborhood Housing Services to flip houses for profit, while she publicly railed against gentrification and displacement in Oakland, campaigning against real estate speculators buying up the town, in fact.

Even while she was burying her non-profit under the debt of her extravagant salary, receiving payment of nearly $600,000 between 2008 and 2012, with her non-profit reporting financial losses of over $300,000 in that time, McElhaney wasn't paying her taxes. She owed over $150,000, no small sum, especially considering that a large percentage of her salary from RNHS was raised through federal and state grants.

Furthering her reputation as corrupt, McElhaney exploited her power as a council member to stymie a proposed housing development next to her house on 32nd Street, using her staff and accepting free services from government contractors, both illegal.

For reasons not 100% clear, other council members refuse to hold her accountable for her legal and ethical violations. They elected her Council President, knowing full well about the shenanigans listed above. But, coming from a city council that knowingly violates the law by supporting luxury apartments on public land, this is not terribly surprising.

The words "conflict of interest" mean nothing to McElhaney. She is not shy about using non-profits and the levers of government she controls for her own personal benefit. She doesn't bother to pay her own taxes nor file campaign disclosures on political contributions and expenditures in a timely manner. On top of all that, she is well aware of the corrupt, racist, and violent history of the Oakland Police Department, and that neither she nor countless other city council members or mayors have ever seriously stepped up to address the issue.

And yet, this morning, she had the gall to write the following on Facebook, to tell us that we should trust elected officials, and that governmental oversight bodies such as a possible police commission in Oakland do not deserve our trust. To avoid McElhaney or any of her followers claiming her words were taken out of context, here is exactly what she wrote this morning:

Lynette Gibson McElhaney

I should be at church but couldn't pull it together so my mind muses at what it means to be an elected leader....

I am reflecting this morning on what it will really take to have an effective government. Honestly, as a person new to elected office I find that the system is overly complicated and the efforts at reform seem to only add layers of complexity and therefore actually work against the desired outcome.

A colleague and I were talking about efforts to establish more citizen-oversight commissions and boards. Sounds good in theory, right? But we both wondered at what point did we, the citizens elected to provide oversight cease being citizens?

The prevailing mantra is "you can't trust government" but few people realize that this anti-government marketing campaign starts as a backlash to the civil rights gains that ushered in an era where more people of color and poor people would become elected. Citizens councils - unelected - are over represented by people of privilege who have the time and money that afford them to opportunity to volunteer.

What is further a concern is that these citizen bodies often operate without the transparency citizens desire and have far less accountability than those who are directly elected by the people.

Our fundamental distrust of government is actually working to empower a growing shadow government where it is difficult to determine what relationships exist, who is being paid or what ideological leaning the members of these powerful groups hold.

I believe in citizen boards and commissions but I do not think that they are adequate to fully ensure fairness in the system. I am deeply concerned for example, about the citizens board that will be responsible for drawing political boundaries in our next census cycle. The law we passed will likely lead to a commission largely made up with people who have little knowledge of the political and social history and sensitivities of Oakland (the commission must be populated with people who have not been active in politics but can come from a "good government" group). There will be no way for the Administration to determine whether or not the members are receiving money from any particular special interest group and the commission itself is not beholden to the people or to the Council which is the body elected by the people to represent the people.

What would Oakland become if the independent body decides to redraw the lines in such a way that you concentrate poverty into a few districts and draw the rest as affluential? This was one of the proposed maps we considered in 2013 submitted by citizens. What if the independent commission decides that Oakland needs more strident diversity of political thought and creates a district that is largely Republican? Will the people feel better served?

My read of history demonstrates that the good government movement was born of white citizen councils that sought to curtail the opportunity of the new leadership from wielding the same types of power they enjoyed in conferring wealth and privilege of a minority of white citizens. These councils and movements were missing when government supported white supremacy in thought and practice but emerged quickly to cast doubt on any public sector institution that sought to move the country away from past discriminatory practices. Under the careful language master of people like Lee Atwater, the country would begin to use coded language to resurrect and reinforce Jim Crow practices. And yet, without careful examination, we adopt wholesale the notion that these movements are "good" because they say so in their name.

Ahhh, I have so much running through my mind but I believe I better get myself up for the day. Hate that I missed church. FB is the devil. LOL.

~~~~~~
Distraction: a response of the mind attempting to manage grief.

‪#‎Month2‬

Sure, the statement is not absolute. She didn't specifically call out a police commission. And there's wiggle room for her to come around and support a police commission at some point, but that she felt the need to publicly ramble on against one is not encouraging, to say the least. In the meantime, OPD continues to kill and abuse Oaklanders of color, and officers are not held accountable. LOL.