Oakland Has a Transparency Problem
Numerous boards and commissions in Oakland — and elsewhere in the East Bay — routinely violate local and state open meeting laws
Oakland has a transparency problem. Numerous city boards and commissions do not comply with California's Ralph M. Brown Act and the Oakland Sunshine Ordinance, which require that government agencies inform the public about public meetings in advance. The Brown Act requires that the public be notified 72 hours before a meeting.
The Sunshine Ordinance requires ten days notice for city council, planning commission, and port commission meetings, and 72 hours for other boards and commissions. State and city laws also require government agencies to post the agendas in a public place that is accessible 24 hours a day.
However, the city is part of a public joint powers authority (JPA) that receives taxpayer funds and has no functioning website and hasn't posted meeting agendas or minutes in years, despite the fact that the JPA's board is holding frequent meetings and spending public money. And that's not the only board or commission that has failed to inform the public about what it's doing. "Telling people when a public meeting is and what's on the agenda is one of the most basic functions of government," said Joshua Daniels, a good government gadfly who closely watches Oakland City Hall.
On Thursday, April 7, Daniels was hoping to attend a meeting of the city's Housing Residential Rent-Relocation Board. The Rent Board typically meets on the second and fourth Thursdays of each month to mediate disputes between landlords and tenants. Daniels went on the board's website, and looked for an agenda for that night's session. It wasn't there. Frustrated, he tweeted: "No agenda is posted for tonight's mtg of the #Oakland Rent Board, in violation of Brown Act & Sunshine Ord." The tweet circulated widely, and at 5:42 p.m. the Oakland Public Ethics Commission, using its Twitter account, replied that it had contacted the City Attorney's Office, and that the Rent Board meeting had been cancelled.
"There's all this open government cheerleading in Oakland — like we're transparent," said Daniels. "But that's not the case at all."
I called the Rent Board about the incident. "The meeting was cancelled," said Rent Adjustment Program Manager Connie Taylor. "We didn't realize it had to be cancelled until the last minute." Taylor didn't say why the meeting was cancelled, or why the agenda hadn't been posted online, and then said she would have to get permission from the City Administrator's Office before answering any more questions. She didn't call back.
For example, the website for Oakland's Workforce Investment Board (WIB) is missing agendas and meeting minutes for every meeting held since December 2, 2010. Links to many of the WIB's subcommittee pages don't work. The City/Port Liaison Committee has no webpage. It's unclear if or when this committee has met in recent months. Its staff liaison didn't return a phone call. I called the contact number on the Emergency Management and Disaster Preparedness Council's website. "The council's meetings are not open to the public," said the person who answered the phone.
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