Association slams proposed ‘declaration of emergency’
The city’s dispute with the Vallejo Police Officers Association over the declaration of a local public emergency over the crime and lawsuits facing the city is headed to the Vallejo City Council for a Tuesday showdown.
On Monday the VPOA issued a statement slamming the proposed “declaration of emergency” by the City of Vallejo and its Chief of Police, Shawny Williams, calling it “illegal and dangerous to citizens, public safety, police and the rule of law.”
The “declaration of emergency” — on Tuesday’s council agenda — seeks to give unprecedented powers to City Manager Greg Nyhoff to circumvent state and local laws and regulations. Vallejo claims the declaration is necessary to deal with the current crime wave, which necessarily concedes that the city’s neglect and mismanagement has resulted in conditions of disaster or extreme peril to the safety of all residents.
“The city does not need to de
clare an emergency to hire more police officers to protect citizens and businesses. It just needs to hire more cops, which it has been unable to do for years because it refuses to provide competitive wages and benefits to attract candidates — either entry level or laterals,” said members of the VPOA in the news release.
Vallejo Mayor Bob Sampayan took exception to the VPOA’s assessment.
“They say in their statement that we have failed to hire new police officers. Well, that’s untrue as we have just hired a bunch of new officers but they are in the academy,” Sampayan said. “I think they are very angry about having civilians in some positions and seem to be most angry with the Public Information Officer position. Frankly, I
think Brittany K. Jackson is doing a fine job. This is her calling. She’s been a PIO before and she’s doing an outstanding job here.”
Sampayan went on to say that the biggest problem with the VPOA is its perception with who is in charge.
“My position is ‘ Who runs the police department?’ Well, the chief of police ( Williams) runs it,” Sampayan said. “It’s just that the VPOA has become so strong lately that they feel they run it, which is completely inappropriate.”
The city’s statement released last week Vallejo states that the city “now faces a serious increase in local crime and a challenge to the Vallejo Police Department legitimacy and trust within parts of the community because of numerous officer-involved shootings, investigation of internal scandals such as badge bending, a perception that officers are not held accountable and an unprece
dented increase in the number of use-of-force lawsuits.”
Vallejo has seen 22 homicides in 2020 so far (the city doesn’t count the June 2 Sean Monterrosa shooting) and has dealt with 358 shootings this year as of Monday. The 22 homicides are the most in a year in Vallejo since 2013, when 25 were killed. The record for the city is 30 homicides in 1994.
“It’s a reaction to the crime rates we have,” said Councilmember Robert McConnell, who is running for mayor. “It’s probably a true emergency situation. We have three drug lords, three drug gangs fighting for control of the drug turf in this city and citizens are getting caught in the crossfire.”
The VPOA acknowledged the crime in Vallejo, but gave a different reason for the cause of it.
“The reason Vallejo is awash in crime is that the city has starved the department of necessary funds to hire patrol officers to protect citizens,” said members of the VPOA. “The city can’t declare an emergency when they are the one that caused the emergency. The city’s incompetent leadership has mismanaged Vallejo for the past decade. Now their solution is to declare an emergency and give unprece
dented powers and authority to themselves, the people that created the situation.”
The VPOA said it will challenge its declaration in court and pursue all legal and administrative remedies. The proposed declaration “would allow it to bypass all civil service rules and other regulations to give the City Manager authoritarian powers until the city itself declares that the so-called emergency is over,” members added.
“This so-called declaration of emergency should cause everyone grave concern,” members of the VPOA said. “The city effectively seeks to set aside due process, Civil Service Rules, and established law to create a dictatorship in response to its own administrative failures. This is a dangerous, illegal power grab concocted by the city’s administration that violates laws, public safety and everyone’s rights as citizens and employees of the City of Vallejo.”
The VPOA pointed out in the news release that Nyhoff has been with the Vallejo for three years and Williams has been onboard for a year.
“They are trying to pass this ‘emergency’ as being necessary due to past administrations’ decisions. The reality is that Nyhoff and Williams have been, and are at, the helm, and should be held
accountable. Accountability does not mean that we cast aside the checks and balances that are required of democracy,” VPOA members said.
The VPOA says the city’s and Williams’ admitted mismanagement, neglect, and incompetence for the past decade are to blame for Vallejo’s current condition. The VPOA also says the city “has failed to prioritize the police department. Instead of taking funds away from budgeted police officer positions to hire a $500,000 a year assistant police chief to sit behind a desk, the city should be focusing their efforts on hiring highly qualified officers and developing actual strategies for a sustainable police force.”
The VPOA says the socalled state of emergency “opens the door to cronyism and is an excuse to hire more unaccountable administrative bureaucrats that will do nothing to help citizens impacted by crime.” The declaration itself says that the city wants to hire more administrators, even noting that there “is a vacant assistant chief position” which the city created in July without increasing the police department’s budget.