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Members of the Pleasanton Police Department and City Council discussed the latest on local policing practices and activities Tuesday as part of the city’s efforts to increase accountability, transparency and oversight in the wake of criticism from the public that reached a fever pitch in 2020.
Overall, the biannual update from Police Chief David Swing was received favorably from the council members, who commended the department for working toward practices and an overall culture that fosters increased connections with, and accountability to, the people of Pleasanton.
“In 2020, the council in place at that time unanimously said that they want more oversight, and three of you here were part of that, more oversight by the City Council,” Vice Mayor Valerie Arkin said. “We made that promise to the public, and two of us ran on that platform, and we said it as well.”
Swing presented the department’s first biannual update this year, a practice that was first instituted in 2020 to facilitate communication and transparency between police and local officials.
In particular, council members lauded the police department on a re-envisioned school resource officer program that correlated with a 64% drop in juvenile arrests over the past year, according to police data.
The new setup allows first-time offenders to work with an SRO to develop and implement a plan for rehabilitation, as an alternative to conviction in the formal justice system, via a diversion program that was reinstituted last March, which is aimed at ensuring “only the most serious cases” enter the justice system.
While Councilmember Julie Testa said she was happy to see the results of the SRO program, she expressed concern about two cases in which it wasn’t initially applied, which Swing said was because they were deemed to be felonies. While one case was ultimately sent to the diversion program, another vandalism case did not qualify according to Swing’s presentation.
“That surprises me,” Testa said. “When we discussed how diversion would resolve all but the most serious, sneakers and vandalism is not what I was thinking of.”
Other major topics of questions and comments in the hour-plus discussion that followed Swing’s presentation were the impacts of two new State Assembly bills aimed at increased police accountability.
Assembly Bill 481, which was signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom last September, requires law enforcement to keep a running list of what is defined as military equipment for oversight by local governing bodies. It also gives local municipal bodies the authority to approve or reject the use of military equipment by local law enforcement.
“It includes things that may or may not be considered traditional military equipment,” Swing said. “It’s not equipment provided only by the military, it’s militaristic-style or -type equipment. ”
While the new legislation will mean a shift going forward, the discussion of the bill also led to questions about PPD’s current and past ownership and use of military equipment.
“AB 481 has legally enforceable safeguards such as transparency, oversight and accountability, but given Chief Swing’s comments that there’s already an expansive list of military equipment possessed by the Pleasanton Police Department, I would have hoped that there’d be some standards in place in the past, and it doesn’t sound like there is unfortunately, and that does cause me some pause,” resident Ward Kanowsky said in a public comment.
Kanowsky also pointed out that the impetus for AB 481’s passage was an implied presumption that the use of military equipment by local law enforcement isn’t necessarily desirable, and that it requires additional justifications and oversight under the new bill.
“I do want to point out that once this … process takes place, it is a requisite that the police department does need to show that the military equipment is necessary because there is no reasonable alternative that can achieve the same objective of officer and civilian safety,” he said. “So very high standards to meet if the Pleasanton Police Department wants to continue to keep this military equipment.”
Despite commending the department for taking steps in the right direction towards accountability and oversight, Arkin and Testa expressed disappointment in the council’s limited access to information surrounding investigations into the department, particularly in the fatal shooting of Cody Chavez by Pleasanton police following a standoff on Feb. 17.
“I think there’s an elephant in the room, that we’re having a report out from our department, there was a major incident. And I know that I’m going to have questions of why that isn’t and wasn’t discussed, and I know what the answer is,” Testa said, before requesting an explanation from city attorney Dan Sodergren.
Sodergren said that given changes to the public records act surrounding police records, which include AB 48, also passed last September, which requires additional public reporting on use of force incidents.
“When we are involved in a major incident, all of those records including the investigation materials and the disc any findings need to be made public, but usually when there’s a major incident, especially if a death occurs, there’s both a crime investigation by the Alameda County District Attorney’s Office and an administrative investigation internally,” Sodergren said. “So under the law, because we want to make sure that process is untainted, we withhold those records until those investigations are over, and then we release them.”
Testa emphasized that the overall picture in this case was that the council has limited information on the recent shooting and other investigations into incidents involving PPD officers.
“Although we had identified that the City Council would be PPD oversight, we have received the same information the public has received,” Testa said. “Just wanted to clarify that.”
Arkin and Testa both said that while they were pleased with what they saw as steps in the right direction by PPD over the past two years, there was still work to be done to ensure that the Council was fulfilling the oversight role it had committed to.
“The word oversight tends to sound like a four-letter word, and it really should not be,” Arkin said. “The definition of oversight is regulatory supervision or management. I don’t think we’re quite doing the role we should be doing, and I think it warrants a conversation to be explored further.”
“In our report it talks about the sustained findings … the council has no idea what they are, what they’re about,” Arkin continued. “That is something I think the council should be privy to.”
Councilmember Jack Balch noted that despite the relatively steady crime rates reflected in last year’s data, community members had been shaken locally by recent violent incidents, and forced to think about their public safety needs and relationship with local police.
“While each of these topics we’ve discussed today deserves appropriate times and attention, we should be very cognizant of the other good work our police department is doing, in the face of continued crimes,” Balch said.
“I was going to say crime trends, but the trend doesn’t seem to support what I feel,” he added. “Just recently, on Friday we had gunfire reported in our community, and a stabbing. In Livermore the same day they had a homicide. We have freeways shutting down because of senseless violence.”
Mayor Karla Brown emphasized the council’s desire to serve a more substantial oversight role, and the need for an independent body for PPD to be accountable to. However, she said she was pleased with the past two years of progress, and wanted the department to continue to evolve based on community needs and input.
“What I see before me is a police department for Pleasanton that is more open and transparent than ever before,” Brown said. “The folks that were officers 20 years ago must look at this going ‘wow, this is not the way we did it.’ But this is what we’re asking you to do, this is what your community is asking, for you to participate, be open, available and listen to feedback.”
