Police Commission Measure Gets Political: The Oakland Police Officers Association made a maximum $1,400 campaign contribution to Viola Gonzales last week, according to a disclosure form filed with the city clerk. Gonzales is running against incumbent Noel Gallo for the Oakland City Council District Five seat and now has OPOA’s endorsement, as well as Mayor Libby Schaaf’s.
Gallo first ran for city council in 2012 on a law-and-order platform that included strengthening the city’s police force. At a public forum last week, Gallo said hiring more cops is still a major priority for him. He wants to increase the number of sworn police officers from the current 744 to as many as 850.
But the police officers’ union appears to be upset with Gallo because of his support for a sweeping police reform measure.
Gallo is co-author of Measure LL, which would establish an independent civilian police oversight commission. If approved by voters in November, the new commission would be able to investigate police misconduct and impose discipline on officers.
The Oakland Police Officers Association strongly opposed the police commission ballot measure when it was being considered by the city council earlier this year. The union successfully lobbied to have some features gutted. Even so, if voters approve creation of the commission, it would be one of the strongest civilian oversight bodies in the nation.
OPOA has spent large sums in previous elections in attempts to unseat city officials who cross swords with them. In 2012 OPOA spent tens of thousands in an unsuccessful effort to topple Rebecca Kaplan from her at-large council seat, and to prevent Barbara Parker from remaining in the city attorney’s office.
More recently, OPOA spent $17,583 to help Annie Campbell Washington win her District 4 council seat.
City of Oakland defeats ‘Big Soda’ in Court: Attorneys working for the American Beverage Association filed a lawsuit against the City of Oakland last week. It alleged that supporters of a proposed soda tax, or Measure HH, lied in ballot materials by claiming that small grocers won’t have to pay the tax. The soda industry lawyers were seeking a court order to force Oakland City Clerk LaTonda Simmons to delete the claim from voter pamphlets.
But, on Friday, an Alameda County Court commissioner ruled against the soda companies, writing that the soda tax is in fact only a tax on soda.
“A court just declared what I’ve been saying — that soda’s entire $10 million campaign is a lie,” Oakland Councilmember Annie Campbell Washington said after the ruling. She explained that the beverage companies have reportedly made millions of dollars of ad buys in the Bay Area to fight Oakland’s tax, and similar proposed taxes in San Francisco and Albany.
The lawsuit was part of the soda industry’s strategy to brand the sugar-sweetened beverage tax a “grocery tax” that will affect the price of milk, bread, vegetables, and other foods.
“The court finds that the sentence ‘the tax is not paid by your local grocer’ is not false,” Commissioner Thomas Rasch wrote in his ruling.
Rasch also didn’t agree with the soda attorney’s concept of economics. For instance, “Big Soda” lawyers argued that distributors would pass the levy on to grocers, thereby transforming the soda tax into a tax on retailers. But Rasch wrote that the grocery stores would likely pass the same tax onto consumers.
“If the local grocers act as a pass through entity, then they will suffer no economic harm from the soda tax,” Rasch concluded.
The soda-company attorneys also tried to have language from the ballot measure deleted. They specifically wanted wording that stated that there is a soda-tax exemption for small businesses.
According to the lawsuit, the soda-tax ordinance exempts distributors who have less than $100,000 a year in gross receipts. The soda industry lawyers cited a federal definition of small grocery businesses as having up to $32.5 million in gross receipts.
But Rasch ruled that there are a multitude of different definitions of a small business, so the language in the voter pamphlet isn’t misleading.
“Today’s ruling may affect the ballot arguments, but it doesn’t change the facts,” said Joe Arellano, a spokesman for the No On HH campaign. “Once voters do their own research and read the fine print, they’ll see that they’re actually voting on a grocery tax that affects distributors like local grocery stores and mom and pop corner stores, not on a soda tax.”
In another setback for the soda companies, former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg contributed $440,955 to the committee supporting Oakland’s soda tax last week. The American Beverage Association has spent $747,267 so far against Oakland’s sugar-sweetened tax ballot measure.
