News from Oakland City Attorney
Barbara J. Parker
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- City Attorney Wins Key Appeal Protecting Widespread Traffic Signal Design
- Superior Court Upholds City Decision to Deny Permit to Long-Term Nuisance Business
- Oakland’s Mayor and City Attorney Provide Federal Government with Input on First-Ever Proposed "Ghost Gun" Regulations
- Oakland Successfully Recovers Majority of Investment in Bookmobile to Serve Underprivileged Youth
- City Attorney Provided Key Amicus Support to Decision Striking Down Prop 22 as Unconstitutional
Dear Friends and Fellow Oaklanders:
I hope you are staying healthy and safe during these unsettling times.
As always, I invite your comments and thoughts about the newsletter and our Office’s work.
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City Attorney Wins Key Appeal Protecting Widespread Traffic Signal Design
On July 28, the First Appellate District of the California Court of Appeal upheld the lower court’s ruling protecting an Oakland design of intersections and traffic signals. The case, Forman v. Oakland, concerned a pedestrian who was injured by a car when crossing College Avenue. Although responding law enforcement and the driver of the vehicle involved agreed initially that the accident resulted from the actions or negligence of the driver, the injured pedestrian nonetheless sued the city, based on various claims about the city’s traffic signal design being inherently dangerous.
The trial court agreed with the city that the traffic signal design was not dangerous. Yet the plaintiff appealed. Had their argument succeeded, it would have required the city to make changes to numerous intersections based on an inaccurate view of the safety of the city’s design choices. Thankfully, the appellate court recognized that the challenged designs are not inherently dangerous, saving the city significant resources while still protecting public safety.
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Superior Court Upholds City Decision to Deny Permit to Long-Term Nuisance Business
On May 21, the Alameda County Superior Court denied an effort by Suprema, a local meat distribution company, to overturn the decision of the Oakland Planning Commission, which had refused to give the company the use permit it sought. This is a victory because, for many years, Suprema’s neighbors raised concerns about the company’s noise, blight, and unpermitted building alterations. Although the city tried for a long time to work with the business, including by entering into a compliance plan to help them make the necessary changes to obey the law, those efforts failed. Indeed, at the administrative hearing Suprema unsuccessfully challenged in its writ, the company suggested that, even after knowing of its obligations for years on end, it might fail to comply with those obligations because they were expensive.
The Commission listened to the neighbors, thought through the elicited evidence, and decided to put a halt to the nuisance activity by refusing to provide the company with its requested permit. Unhappy with the decision, the company took the city to court. But the court failed to see merit in Suprema’s efforts to overturn the Commission, and so upheld the city’s decision that will halt the company’s nuisance activity going forward.
Although my office, and other city offices, always prefer to work with local businesses, landlords, and others who are regulated by our local laws, sometimes that cooperation is unfeasible, and when it is, we are grateful that courts like this one uphold the city’s reasoned determinations about stopping nuisance activity that harms our neighbors and communities.
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Oakland’s Mayor and City Attorney Provide Federal Government with Input on First-Ever Proposed "Ghost Gun" Regulations
On August 19, Mayor Schaaf and I filed a comment with the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) about ATF’s new proposed “ghost gun” regulation. “Ghost guns,” which include unserialized firearms assembled from kits and unfinished or precursor parts of firearms, pose a significant danger to public safety and public health. Yet until now, the federal government has not proposed regulating these weapons appropriately, and even now, the proposed rule fails to adequately take into account the impacts of ghost guns and ghost gun regulations on Black and Brown communities that disproportionately suffer the scourge of gun violence.
Oakland’s comment explains how the impacts of gun violence have been disproportionately felt by underserved Black and Brown neighborhoods, places also disproportionately harmed by intergenerational poverty, redlining and other forms of historical and systemic racism, and traditionally strained relationships with law enforcement. It also walks the ATF through the many efforts Oakland has undertaken in recent years, particularly through the Ceasefire program and partnerships with important community stakeholders, to reduce gun violence.
Yet, as the comment points out, gun violence remains a major public safety and public health concern. The increase in numbers of ghost guns across the country and in Oakland creates more opportunities for gun violence to occur, and the rise of untraceable guns harms Oakland’s ability to maintain its successes in reducing gun violence. The comment therefore provides the ATF with half a dozen practical and crucial suggestions to improve its proposed rule to take the racial impact of ghost guns and gun violence fully into account.
I am proud to have partnered with Mayor Schaaf on lifting up Oakland’s voice in this important conversation about gun violence. We hope the ATF listens to what Oakland has learned.
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Oakland Successfully Recovers Majority of Investment in Bookmobile to Serve Underprivileged Youth
My office recently settled an important matter about failures by city contractors to deliver on a worthy project to provide mobile access to the Oakland Public Library’s educational services, books, and technology. In 2016, the city sought to expand access to the Library through building a mobile library vehicle. Although the contractors who bid on and created the initial version of the vehicle went through the city’s ordinary competitive selection process, they unfortunately failed to build a usable bookmobile.
The city attempted to work with these businesses to fix the structural and operational issues with the product, but to no end. This unfortunate situation required us to file a lawsuit to salvage funds the Library wanted to spend bringing literacy tools to children and adults in historically marginalized communities. My office managed to recover much of the funding that can now again go to serve children and families in Oakland.
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City Attorney Provided Key Amicus Support to Decision Striking Down Prop 22 as Unconstitutional
Earlier this year, a group of app-based drivers and labor unions sued to overturn Prop 22, a ballot measure passed in November 2020 that, among other things, allowed gig economy companies like Uber and Lyft to continue to treat workers as contractors rather than employees. The lawsuit came after the gig economy companies spent over $200 million in the statewide campaign to pass Prop 22. In August, the Alameda County Superior Court struck down the law as unconstitutional, holding, among other things, that it places impermissible limits on the legislature’s authority.
The trial court’s decision cites the work of various amici, or individuals, groups, or entities that filed “friend of the court” briefs to support the plaintiff workers. Oakland partnered on one of the amicus briefs in the case, filing with the City and County of San Francisco and the City of Los Angeles to support the plaintiffs. The local government amicus brief explained that municipalities provide for the health and welfare of residents and workers within their jurisdictions, and that local governments also protect workers by passing and enforcing municipal laws such as minimum wage floors and sick leave ordinances, which protect workers’ livelihoods and contribute to the overall health of local economies. Prop 22 harmed governments’ abilities to protect workers via local laws, and materially harmed cities’ and counties’ efforts to protect all of their residents’ rights. Oakland is pleased to have been one of the stakeholders speaking out in defense of workers’ rights in this critical case.
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