Oakland councilwoman’s vanishing act
Where is Desley Brooks? That’s the question I began asking last week because the Oakland city councilwoman, who is trying to retain the District Six seat she’s held since 2002, has missed consecutive council meetings and candidate forums over the past month. Brooks was absent from council meetings on Sept. 17, Oct. 2 and Oct. 16.
She’s the chairwoman of the Public Safety Committee, but the last two public safety meetings — Sept. 25 and Oct. 9 — were canceled.
And she missed four candidate forums, including the last one on Oct. 10.
When a public official misses that many meetings in a row without a public statement, people begin speculating. And sure enough, whispers have floated through City Hall’s corridors about where Brooks has been.
I heard that a law firm had been trying to serve Brooks papers related to a monetary judgment stemming from her assault of a former Black Panther leader at an Oakland restaurant.
Last Monday, I went to the council office in City Hall, where I ran into Brooks’ aide. The councilwoman had missed city meetings because she was busy campaigning, I was told.
Let me get this straight: Brooks is too busy campaigning for a job she’s not even showing up for? And if she’s
campaigning, why wasn’t she at the forums where candidates pitched their worthiness to replace her?
The aide told me there were scheduling conflicts.
The next day, I sent Brooks an email to confirm what her aide told me. She didn’t respond. On Wednesday, I sent Brooks another email. In it, I listed her absences and requested a comment. She told me in a return email that she’s been taking care of a family member who had major surgery.
Brooks blamed the cancellation of the Oct. 9 public safety meeting on colleagues.
Councilman “Larry (Reid) doesn’t attend Public Safety, hasn’t for since we came back from break and didn’t before break, and (Councilman) Abel (Guillén) was sick,” she wrote.
Guillén disputed Brooks’ statement.
“I was not sick,” he told me Friday. “I was prepared to attend that meeting, and she canceled it.”
Reid didn’t respond to my request for comment Friday.
I made it clear that District Six voters should give Brooks the boot in my endorsement of Loren Taylor. Brooks’ public spats have already cost the city too much. The district and Oakland simply can’t afford another four years of contentious and unproductive council meetings.
The city has to pay $2 million to settle a lawsuit after a fight in 2015 between Brooks and ex-Black Panther leader Elaine Brown in a Jack London Square restaurant. Jurors in that case ordered Brooks to personally pay $75,000 in punitive damages. The judge in the case found that Brooks repeatedly lied under oath.
That didn’t stop Brooks from filing a complaint two weeks ago against Oakland and the city attorney in which she said the city failed to adequately defend her.
I wondered if Brooks was telling me the truth about caring for a sick family member, which my sources in City Hall said was her sister. Dan Siegel, an attorney representing Brooks, confirmed what sources told me.
“I just know from my experiences with Desley and her sister that her sister has been ill, and I know she’s been hospitalized,” Siegel told me. “Beyond that, I don’t feel free to say any more. I feel like I shouldn’t be intruding on someone’s health privacy.”
There’s more speculation on why Brooks has been a no-show at city meetings and candidate forums. Bonner & Bonner, the law firm that represents Brown, has been trying to serve Brooks papers for an order of examination hearing since July. An order of examination is part of the court process to enforce a monetary judgment, and the party being examined must provide financial information regarding personal assets.
“There’s nothing about this process that is having her go through an order of examination, at least in my opinion, that would rise to the level of someone becoming not available for campaign events,” Siegel said. “I don’t see there’s a motivation for Desley to make changes in her schedule or go underground to avoid that.”
But an employee at Bonner & Bonner told me that the firm has used two process servers to try to serve Brooks. They’ve gone to her house and attended City Council meetings.
The firm said it served Brooks at her home on July 25 for an Aug. 31 order of examination hearing. According to the firm, the process server said the person they believed was Brooks slammed the door while threatening to call the police.
“There was a date that was set in August, and they had not served Ms. Brooks, and they represented incorrectly to the court that they had, and I showed the court that, in fact, they were wrong,” Siegel told me.
According to Siegel, the judge vacated the Aug. 31 date and continued the matter until a case management conference this Wednesday.
“I think one of the things the judge is gonna want to know is why she hasn’t been served,” Siegel said.
I asked Siegel whether Brooks would attend the conference.
“There’s no reason for her to be there,” he said.