Leaders with Integrity Needed in Berkeley
We need a city council that not only has vision, but also has the courage and backbone to follow through on that vision. Last week, the city council had this very opportunity, to provide accountability and to uphold a compassionate, progressive vision they set in motion several years ago. Unfortunately, the council refused to do this.
In 2019, in the midst of the Trump years, the city council passed a Sanctuary City Contracting Ordinance (SCCO), that prevents Berkeley from doing business with those who do business with the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). In the fall of 2021, an artificial crisis was created, which led to the council disregarding its very own SCCO.
Here’s the backstory: The Berkeley Police Department needed new radios because those radios purchased in 2011 were no longer supported by the manufacturer. It also needed encrypted radios to comply with the California Department of Justice privacy requirements, despite the fact that its current technology already meets these standards. These expenditures were included in the city’s 2022 budget.
In December 2020, the Berkeley city manager received a quote from Motorola Solutions for $6.4 million for public safety radios. This purchase would include a $1 million discount if signed before the expiration date of Sept. 30, 2021. However, the city did not put out a request for proposal and did not solicit even a single quote from a Motorola competitor.
The city council waited more than nine months — until two days before the quote expired — to railroad this purchase through and put it on the consent calendar. This left no room for discussion or debate and created its own set of problems. Most notably, the contract with Motorola Solutions violates the SCCO.
On Oct. 5, 2021, during a council meeting mired in theatrics and confusion, a waiver for the Motorola contract to the SCCO was approved. The day after the meeting, a representative from JVCKenwood — a company that does not do business with ICE — emailed the council and confirmed that their radios would meet the criteria that the city required and would be interoperable and compatible with Motorola radios used by neighboring jurisdictions.
The email from JVCKenwood was ignored by city leadership and not even mentioned in the city manager’s required report. That is, the final step required by the SCCO is for the city manager to present a report that details, with specificity, the steps taken to ensure that a waiver is only given when no reasonable alternative exists.
On Tuesday, Sept. 13, that report was an information item on the council’s agenda. It was a regurgitation of what was presented last fall and confirmed that no due diligence was done in 2021 to determine if public safety radios could be acquired by an entity that doesn’t do business with ICE. This made a mockery of the SCCO and yet no one on the council was willing to stand behind their visionary legislation and shine a light on the deceit.
But there is something we can do to prevent this from happening again: two council seats are being contested in November. Let’s elect council members who have the integrity and courage to champion their values all the way through the finish line!
This article first appeared in the Berkeley Times on September 22, 2022.
