Vallejo City Council rejects changes to police commission, challenging police union

VALLEJO – The Vallejo City Council voted unanimously Tuesday to reject proposed changes to the Police Oversight and Accountability Ordinance that came out of a settlement with the Vallejo Police Officers Association and instead opted to begin the process of considering amendments to strengthen the ordinance.  

The council’s decision may trigger further actions by the California Public Employee Relations Board that could result in extended litigation and potentially, a two-year delay before an oversight ordinance can be implemented, according to the city attorney’s office. Enacting a police oversight commission is one of 45 reforms that the city was required to complete by 2023 under an agreement with the state Department of Justice.

The amendments that the council rejected include a change in the language throughout the ordinance so that the findings of the commission would be called an “opinion” rather than a “recommendation.” 

The amendments also would have made video recording of interviews with witnesses or officers involved in a serious incident voluntary depending on the consent of the investigator and the officer or witness rather than mandatory. Audio recording of interviews remained mandatory under the proposed amendments.

Another rejected amendment would have extended the time period that the police department must forward any complaints from the public to the commission from two to 10 days.

“I do believe that words do matter,” Councilmember Peter Bregenzer said. “And so I think we've already waited two years for this to come, and I think that we are willing to wait longer, as long as we get what we want.” 

Vallejo City Attorney Veronica Nebb had recommended that the council approve the amendments because she said that the changes do not substantively impact the powers of the commission. 

Nebb said that a rejection of the settlement agreement would also mean that city officials would have to revisit the mediation process to see if the VPOA is willing to forgo any of the proposed changes. If the city cannot come to an agreement with the VPOA, she said, the dispute would go back to the state employment board for a decision. 

Chief Assistant City Attorney Randy Risner said that the employment board ruled in favor of the Sonoma County Sheriffs’ Office on a similar issue. Nebb noted that the city could appeal the employment board’s decision, but that could lead to a protracted legal battle that would delay implementation of the ordinance for up to two years. 

Nebb said that if the council were to approve the ordinance with the amendments, the commissioner training could be completed by the end of May and the commissioners could then start working. Despite the commissioners being selected last February, they did not begin their required training until November, which is expected to take up to six months.  

Nebb also noted that the council could go back and change the ordinance once the commission was up and running. But if those changes affect salaries or working conditions of city employees, the city is required to engage in a meet and confer process with the union, which is considered a confidential personnel matter.

Councilmember Tonia Lediju suggested several amendments drawn from oversight ordinances in San Francisco, Oakland and New York, including strengthening the investigatory power of the commission and giving final authority to the City Council to order the police chief to follow the commission’s recommendations.

Under the current ordinance, the police chief can choose not to follow the recommendation of the commission, but the chief must provide a written justification to the commission and the city council. If the commission is not satisfied with the justification they can appeal to the city manager, who can order the chief to follow the recommendation.

Other councilmembers suggested providing nominal payment to commissioners and changing training and qualification requirements. 

On Monday, one of the appointed commissioners, attorney Mike Nisperos, resigned. Nisperos said in an interview that he still plans to participate in community efforts to reform the police department, but he has decided that the continued delays demonstrate that the City Attorney’s Office is not serious about moving the commission forward. 

Nisperos is a retired trial attorney who served as chief counsel for the State Bar, was a member of the City of Oakland’s Police Commission and was involved in drafting Vallejo’s police oversight ordinance.  

Nisperos said that video recording of witness and officer interviews is important because it can capture body language, facial expressions and eye movements that provide important information about the credibility of the testimony.

But VPOA President Michael Nichelini disagreed.“Police officers are human,” he said in an email. “Being involved in [a shooting] or other high profile, traumatic event is taxing and often emotional on officers. We find no evidentiary value in their video images being used and it only subjects our members to unnecessary exposure.”

Nearly all of the community members who spoke during public comment advocated for rejecting the changes. The council had previously considered the amendments at a meeting in November, when the Vallejo Chapter of the NAACP and the American Civil Liberties Union both sent letters to the City Council expressing concerns that the amendments weakened the ordinance.

On Tuesday, representatives of both organizations reiterated their opposition to the proposed changes. 

ACLU Senior Staff Attorney Allyssa Victory, said, “we do advocate for the strongest and most effective oversight possible for your city, and that includes things that go beyond what the original language included, like subpoena power and subject matter experts on the commission that might include someone who has a background in civil rights enforcement.”

Mayor Andrea Sorce pointed out that the first paragraph of the ordinance states that the goal is to improve relations between law enforcement and the community. 

“If you don't have the community on board, I don't think we're going to get there,” Sorce said. “I think about our young good officers on the streets, they're the ones that are interacting with the community every single day and being victim to that mistrust because somebody that wore that same uniform as them and that same badge as them abused their power and was never held accountable, and now they're suffering as a result.”

The City’s Police Oversight and Accountability Ordinance was adopted in December 2022 with the condition that the ordinance could not be implemented until after the mandatory meet and confer process with the police union.

In January 2023, the police union filed a charge with the employment board, claiming that the city adopted the ordinance prior to completing the meet and confer process and requested that the ordinance be invalidated.

The employment board, a state agency with the authority to adjudicate public employment labor disputes, ordered the City and the VPOA to engage in a mediation process. After a series of meetings, the city and the VPOA reached a settlement agreement that VPOA would withdraw the charge if the City Council approved amendments to the police commission ordinance.

The city staff brought the amended oversight ordinance to the council for approval in November, but the council members chose to delay the decision until after four newly-elected councilmembers could be seated.