Oakland city official may be hit with fine over conflicts
Oakland’s Public Ethics Commission will meet next week to consider a fine of $5,750 or more against Councilwoman Lynette Gibson McElhaney, accused of conflicts of interest and other violations for pressuring the city Planning Commission to stop construction of five town house units next to her West Oakland home.
An ethics commission staff report found that McElhaney, a City Council member since 2013, successfully sought free professional help from an architectural firm, JRDV Urban International, to oppose the town house project while JRDV was doing business with the city. McElhaney failed to report the assistance as a gift to a public official, and meanwhile took part in council votes to extend and expand JRDV’s city contracts, the staff report said.
The commission began its investigation at the recommendation of an Alameda County
civil grand jury. The grand jury found in June 2016 that McElhaney, then the City Council president, had a “material financial interest” in the planned town houses because of their location and potential effect on her privacy and property value, and thus had violated city and state ethics rules by using her influence with city planners. The town house development, proposed by a developer in January 2014 on a vacant lot alongside McElhaney’s home, was never built.
The ethics commission staff report, issued on Friday, quoted McElhaney as saying she had been trying to help her neighborhood, not herself, and had not known that the assistance she received amounted to reportable campaign contributions. She has also said she consulted with City Attorney Barbara Parker before approaching the city planning director with concerns about the project.
But the staff said McElhaney had violated Oakland’s rules on conflicts of interest, on reporting donations and on accepting excessive donations. The standard penalty for those violations is $5,750, and the maximum is $15,000, the staff report said. It said commission staff has tried to negotiate a settlement with the councilwoman since March.
McElhaney denied wrongdoing Tuesday and said she had simply tried to work with the developer and the city “to approve a design of the project to complement the neighborhood and address public safety concerns.”
“I am pleased that the only matter at issue is whether asking an architect for help on behalf of a community effort constitutes a gift,” she said in a statement. “Important public policy questions such as this should be answered by the full (ethics) commission in a public forum.”
The ethics commission sued McElhaney in October for failing to turn over documents in the case, and won a ruling from a judge in November ordering her to produce the records. The commission is scheduled to meet Monday evening at City Hall.
Oakland’s Planning Department initially approved the rezoning application by the townhouse developer, Robert Brecht, in April 2014. McElhaney’s husband filed an appeal to the Planning Commission, and McElhaney asked managers of JRDV Urban Development to testify against the project, according to the Ethics Commission staff.
The Planning Commission denied the appeal and approved the project. JRDV’s owner and principal architect then approached Brecht, offered to redesign the town houses for free, and gained support for the alternative design from the city’s planning director, Rachel Flynn, the staff report said.
The report estimated the value of JRDV’s professional services to McElhaney at $800. The maximum gift that a council member can accept from someone doing business with the city is $50 per year, the report said.
The day before the Planning Commission hearing in December 2014, the staff report said, McElhaney voted as a member of a City Council committee to extend one of JRDV’s architectural contracts with the city and increase it from $115,000 to $125,000. She had also voted in December 2013 to extend an agreement with JRDV for work on the Coliseum City project near the Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum, for which the firm has received about $1.6 million, the report said.
“Making a government decision in which the public servant has a disqualifying financial interest is a very serious violation because it creates the appearance that the city’s decision was a product of that conflict of interest,” the commission staff said.
In a separate case, the commission will take another look at a proposed $700 fine against Councilwoman Desley Brooks for accepting $28,100 in contributions to her successful 2014 re-election campaign without following the city’s rules. The contributions, over an 11month period, would have been legal if Brooks had filed papers agreeing to abide by campaign spending limits, but she failed to do so, apparently inadvertently, the commission staff said.
Brooks had agreed to pay the $700 penalty in 2015, but the Ethics Commission rejected it as inadequate and told its staff to resume negotiations. Those talks were unproductive, and the commission indicated in January that it was willing to accept a $700 fine, the staff report said.