Golden Gate Village in Marin City. (Robert Tong/Marin Independent Journal)

A recent sewage spill in a Marin City apartment was enough to show that Golden Gate Village residents should be able to rely on response from county environmental health officers.

Over the past decade, oversight of such matters had to go to the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development, a giant bureaucracy with offices in San Francisco.

The Marin Housing Authority, which manages and governs Golden Gate Village and other public housing in Marin, opted out for HUD to review health-related inspections.

The recent spill prompted a change back.

It makes sense, in terms of the promise of a fast and local response to any problems or complaints and independent oversight to make sure they’ve been remediated properly.

The housing authority says the sewage backup occurred because a tenant had flushed paper towels down a toilet and caused a blockage. The authority called in a plumbing contractor and the line was cleared.

Clean-up and sanitation crews were also called in.

The incident is one of the reasons the authority is replacing sewer pipes as part of the rehabilitation plan for the 60-year-old public housing complex.

Golden Gate Village, with nearly 300 apartments, is the largest and oldest low-rent public housing complex in the county.

The county’s involvement will be to provide oversight of the authority-hired contractor that is the front line when it comes to handling those inspections.

HUD, which funds the public housing, also performs its own inspections.

County and authority officials say that it is unclear why the authority shifted primary oversight to HUD. It may have been because it seemed bureaucratically redundant.

In recent years, the county and the Golden Gate Village Residents Council have had a rocky relationship, with the council filing complaints about rat problems, mold and wiring problems. The council also advanced its own proposal for a multi-million dollar overhaul of the complex, including creating a trust that would enable tenants to own their units.

The primary objective of shifting inspection oversight should be that public housing residents receive the same level of public-health inspection response as anyone else in the county.

If those inspectors come up with a finding with which the housing authority disagrees, that’s part of the process. Protecting the health of the tenants should be the overriding  focus.

The shift to HUD long predates the arrival of Sarah Jones, who took over as head of the county Community Development Agency in April. The county Environmental Health Division is part of her agency.

She told the IJ that the county and the housing authority decided to put the county back in charge of supervisor inspections to add an “extra layer of accountability and objectivity” in the performance of that important job.

It’s the right thing to do.

It is a responsive action and strategy that set a strong standard for local protection of public housing conditions and its tenants in Marin, today and as the authority moves forward with its plans to renovate and repair the Golden Gate Village complex.

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But Wechter and other board-appointed members balked, noting that the standard civil oversight hiring process is to conduct a nationwide search with a published job posting, typically through the National Association of Civilian Oversight of Law Enforcement.

Some members were in favor of considering Henderson’s selection, including board member Julie Soo, who was appointed by the mayor.

But Wechter said Henderson’s attempt to bypass that process seemed inappropriate.

“This is in complete contradiction to supervisory best practice, which is to conduct a nationwide comprehensive search,” he said. “I think almost every other regulator in the country has done that. The people in the supervisory area are moving. So you don’t just want to look at your garden. So I was more concerned that he might do that.”

Henderson defended the move, saying he just wanted to expedite the process.

“I didn’t even give out my list, I didn’t even tell them who it was, but I was surprised they got it as I’m trying to put my person there and check on it,” he said. “What are you talking about? I’m telling you there are good leaders that I know are available across the country.”

The board finally voted for a statewide search in January 2023, but the hiring process was further delayed when the city’s human resources department encountered logistical problems as it does not typically hire department heads.

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OAKLAND (KPIX 5) – A federal judge is set to ease decades of federal oversight of the Oakland Police Department. While even one of the department’s harshest critics says progress has been made, others are skeptical of the possible move.

For nearly 20 years, a federal monitor has been overseeing the department. “The Riders” police scandal in the early 2000s led to the arranged federal oversight agreement, and the city paying out millions to plaintiffs because of police misconduct.

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Bishop Bob Jackson has been leading a church congregation in East Oakland for nearly 40 years. He’s seen how street violence has torn the community apart.

“The bullets are flying everywhere. Innocent people being hit a lot of times. I mean, it’s almost like Ukraine right about now,” said Jackson.

He believes recent changes within the Oakland Police Department are making a difference.

“It’s better now because they’ve added a new district and added more police officers so they’re able to do more with fighting crime,” said Jackson.

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Bishop supports the removal of the federal oversight and thinks that money can be better spent to support communities like East Oakland.

But Kat Brooks, who founded the Anti-Police Terror Project after the killing of Oscar Grant at the Fruitvale BART Station in 2009, is wary of the move.

“They’re not capable of stopping their officers from brutalizing our community members, and I have concerns,” Brooks told KPIX 5. “There’s a whole global movement around policing in America and the brutality of it.”

Civil rights attorney John Burris, whose work helped set up the federal oversight arrangement, told KPIX 5, “I think the department is on the right track. It’s a department with a lot of different moving parts. It’s not perfect and it probably never will be perfect.”

Burris said OPD has addressed issues like racial profiling, unnecessary use of force, and other requirements under the federal agreement.

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When asked how the department is today compared to the 10, 20 years ago, Burris said, “It’s a different department in that sense. They have policies and procedures in place to hold people accountable, when in fact they don’t follow the basic rules.”

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Building on concerns raised during the social justice movement that summer, South San Francisco expressed an interest in establishing a monitoring committee to review the local law enforcement agency.

Members of the Mayors’ Commission on Social and Racial Justice examined possible roles and responsibilities of the proposed advisory committee during a meeting on Wednesday March 17.

Understanding that the committee’s powers are limited by collective agreements with the police union, hopes were shared that it could be an independent body that would ensure police accountability.

No decision was made at the meeting, but officials said the feedback provided would help formulate a program proposal that would ultimately require approval from the South San Francisco City Council.

Discussions about the idea follow a summer social justice movement in South City in which Black and Latin American residents, as well as others, regularly claimed to be victims of unequal treatment and enforcement by the police.

To address these concerns and a host of other people raised nationally after the Minneapolis police murder of George Floyd, South San Francisco officials hoped the proposed committee would be a place to go affected residents would feel safe to file complaints against law enforcement.

Although the specific responsibilities are still being examined, some suggested that it might be appropriate for the Advisory Board to be able to examine specific complaints against the police department. The committee would not have access to confidential information held in officers’ personal files, nor would it have the power to discipline the police.

However, the committee would have the opportunity to make policy recommendations to council members and to keep a close eye on enforcement trends and other specific data about the department.

The committee would be composed of appointed members and would focus solely on matters related to the police. The Mayors’ Commission, also formed following the Summer Social Justice Movement, is set to address a wide variety of justice issues, including housing, economic opportunities and other issues facing disenfranchised communities.

As guests from Portland, Oregon, and National City pondered how the South San Francisco committee should work, they shared their experiences on similar programs.

According to the guests, it is of the utmost importance to ensure that those who ultimately serve on the committee accurately reflect the diversity of the community. In addition, they suggested making the committee meetings open to the public, as with any other advisory council, to ensure transparency and build community trust.

Members of similar committees in other cities added that the programs can be effective tools for building and improving relationships between residents and police departments as ongoing discussions provide a better understanding of priorities and values.

For his part, Commissioner Norm Faria said he appreciated the insights of committee members from other cities, adding that it would be useful for him to get a feel for how the South San Francisco version should work.

“It was very useful to get an overview of how other cities are doing this,” he said.

Bobby Vaughn

Meanwhile, Commissioner Bobby Vaughn proposed the work of the committee along with the Chief Diversity Officer, whom South San Francisco officials also discussed recruitment at an earlier Equity Committee meeting.

“I think the chief diversity officer would play a role in setting up the advisory board,” he said.

City Manager Mike Futrell praised the proposal and called it an excellent idea. He said it will be taken into account alongside the various recommendations made by the commissioners, which will ultimately determine the format and responsibilities of the committee.

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