Background: Oakland has had a reputation for recalls and divisiveness since the 1990s. Much of the problem stems from different political factions trying to micro-manage the city police department. Oakland has since contracted with the Sutherlin Police Department for police services. The good news is there haven't been as many complaints since the Sutherlin Police took over. The bad news is the city is now paying well over $200,000 a year for police service, with NO minimum number of patrol hours written into the contract. The last year that Oakland had its own police force, taxpayers paid over $130,000 a year for a minimum of 80 hours of patrol service each week inside the Oakland city limits.
The following column was originally published July 25, 2007, in the Winston Reporter.
I can remember the movie Four Weddings And A Funeral. But sometimes it's difficult to keep track of the number in Oakland's political history. I think the current count is four recall efforts and two lawsuits (?) in 11 years.
The recent decision by the Oakland City Council to place Police Chief Norm Counts on paid administrative leave for three weeks, has triggered yet another recall effort in Oregon's second-oldest community.
Different issues have prompted the four recall efforts. But the city council's management of the police department has been cited as a primary factor in all four recall attempts.
I can trace the polarization over the police department back to the early 1990s, when the city council at that time was facing difficult decisions involving their police chief. Because the city council took no action to re-instate or terminate the police chief at that time, the growing unrest over months without a decision generated two political factions.
Remnants of those two political factions are still at play in the fourth recall effort more than a decade later.
RECALL 1
During the early 1990s, former Police Chief Dennis Denney had health complications, which prompted his being placed on medical leave. Days went by. Weeks went by. Months went by. Would the city council re-instate Denney to the job? Would the city council post the job opening for a new police chief? The council did neither.
Meanwhile, some critics were alleging a quorum of the council was conducting city business outside the regularly-scheduled meetings. Some residents heard former Mayor Steve Clyde and former City Councilors Tuffy Nelson and Jack Betza discussing city business on a regular basis at Medley Market. During at least one city council meeting, former City Councilor Roberta Carson expressed concern that other members of the council were leaving her and other city officials out of the loop.
During Denney's absence, the Oakland police department carried on under the direction of Acting Chief John Bjerkvig and officer Greg Spencer. Some citizens began to complain the officers were doing their jobs a little too well: Bjerkvig and Spencer were citing people for drug possession; they were issuing citations for vehicle infractions; and they were following minors home at night when teen-agers were out past curfew.
With no police chief to file a complaint with, after months of waiting, upset citizens began to lobby the city council to take action.
After months of impasse, the city council under the direction of newly-elected Mayor Jack Smith finally did take action. The council brought in an officer from outside of the department to become the new police chief: Norm Counts. Bjerkvig and Spencer were dismissed from their positions.
Residents loyal to Bjerkvig and Spencer, who supported their aggressive law enforcement tactics, felt Counts had been hand-picked by a select few citizens with no formal job search. From day one, critics portrayed Counts as "soft on crime," when compared to the previous interim administration.
Critics launched an unsuccessful recall drive against Mayor Jack Smith and others. Bjerkvig and Spencer filed lawsuits against the City of Oakland, over their dismissal from the police force.
RECALL 2
The recall against Mayor Jack Smith was unsuccessful, but during the next election, city planning commission member Paul Tamm defeated Smith at the polls in the race for mayor. Shortly after Tamm took office, Counts publicly criticized the new mayor for slashing the police department budget. In frustration, Counts resigned as police chief, but rescinded his resignation several days later. Tamm and the rest of the council did not accept Counts' rescinding his resignation.
The Oakland City Council conducted several job searches, but couldn't find a candidate for police chief who met their expectations. Some of Tamm's critics believed the council had set too high of a bar for any prospective police chief candidate in Oakland.
Interim Police Chief Lonny Johnson from Warrenton was Oakland's last police chief, before the city council contracted police services from the Douglas County Sheriff's Office. During the sheriff's office tenure, some Oakland residents complained about never seeing a police presence in town anymore (too much police presence before, now it was too little); vandalism, including damaged restrooms at Oakland City Park, increased substantially while the sheriff's office served Oakland.
Residents loyal to Chief Counts and a city-run Oakland police department launched their own unsuccessful recall effort against Mayor Tamm.
RECALL 3
Because of the poor service from the sheriff's office, the Oakland City Council, under the direction of Mayor Jim Baird, re-instated a city police department in 2004, and hired Dale Shaw to be their police chief. Shaw was hired at-will for one year; the city council decided to terminate Shaw's employment before the year was over. Shaw had demanded more money to hire an additional officer and to upgrade police equipment. (Sound familiar with Chief Counts' clash with Mayor Tamm before recall 2?)
Without giving any public reasons for their decision, the city council dismissed Shaw in September, 2005. The city council immediately hired Norm Counts to return as Oakland's "new" police chief.
Residents loyal to Shaw were upset with the council's decision, and even more appalled the council brought back a former controversial police chief, and launched a recall drive against Baird and two city councilors. (Sound familiar with the reasons for recalls 2 and 4?) But, unlike the first two recall elections, this recall drive was successful and all three officials were recalled from office.
Shaw filed a lawsuit against the city over the condition of his dismissal. (Sound familiar with the outcome of the acting police chief's dismissal before recall 1?) The two remaining city councilors, Myra Weber and Jackie McCarty, could not agree on whom to replace the ousted mayor and two councilors. Oakland city government continued with only a two-member council until the November, 2006 election.
RECALL 4
All four Oakland city councilors and the Oakland mayor were new to office in 2007. Within six months after taking office, the new council placed Police Chief Norm Counts on paid administrative leave. Among the degrading things that occurred, the council ordered Counts to remove his badge and uniform (NOT all of his clothes, as some people inferred when this column was originally written) at a public city council meeting.
Residents loyal to Counts said the newly-elected council had an agenda to get rid of Counts from day one. In July, 2007, critics began collecting signatures to place Oakland's fourth recall (in recent history) on the upcoming September ballot. The mayor and three of the four city councilors are named in the recall effort.
[2013 Note: This recall was unsuccessful. In an interesting twist, Mayor Nanci Staples was challenged by City Councilor Bette Keehley in a future election, and Keehley defeated Staples for mayor. The reasons for the clash in the new city council were never publicly reported. Although, at one council meeting I did witness Mayor Staples chiding Councilor Keehley, because Keehley had removed the FAX machine from the police department and given it to the public works department without obtaining permission or first consulting the rest of the council. Allies in Oakland are fluid; tomorrow, they can become adversaries.]
EPILOG
As a lifelong Oakland resident, the only opinion that I offer publicly is that I agree with the majority of Oakland residents who have previously said in a city-wide election poll on police services....they prefer the personalized service of having their own police department. Perhaps I've seen too many episodes of the Andy Griffith show.
The only time that I become concerned and voice an opinion, is when a city council does something that jeopardizes the stability of Oakland's city police department.
It doesn't matter if they're a "pro-Counts" or an "anti-Counts" council. The bottom line for me is that a city council should be responsible enough to have a contingency plan in place, before they dismiss their police chief and order the reserve officers to hand in their badges.
In other words, the city council should have a police chief who can supervise reserve police officers, and not jeopardize the citizens' safety by bringing in a chief who can not/will not supervise reserve officers. Such a decision can ring the death bell of a small-town police department.
The other random element in the current recall effort, is the city insurance carrier's attorney, who condoned the city council's discussion of proposed ordinances dealing with nepotism and other subjects in closed session. It's difficult to fault the current council for discussing public business in closed meetings, when they were only following their attorney's advice, while conducting meetings in violation of Oregon Public Meetings Laws.
But that's just my opinion and analysis, from someone who has lived in Oakland during all four recall efforts, and who has sat in on some of the past executive sessions. If I could only write about what I've heard in the executive sessions, Oakland's political history might have charted a different course! But unlike some elected officials, I take my ethical responsibilities as a journalist seriously, and I would never willingly violate Oregon's Public Meetings Laws.
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