The Oakland City Council will decide Tuesday, Oct. 20, whether former Mayor Jean Quan and attorney Nicholas O'Brien-Kovari join the Oakland Police Commission. The council meets at 3:30 p.m. and has two options before it, according to the city's agenda report: a resolution accepting the Police Commission Selection Panel's slate of the two nominees, or one rejecting it. Under the City Charter the slate is taken up as a single item, so the council cannot approve one nominee and turn down the other, the Oakland Observer notes.

The two would fill commission seats previously held by Wilson Riles and Samuel Dawit, the report says.

Who the nominees are

Jean Quan was mayor of Oakland from 2011 to 2015 and earlier served on the City Council and the school board, including as board president. The agenda report says that as mayor she worked with the Oakland Police Department and the federal monitor on reforms including community policing, reducing use of force and rolling out body-worn cameras. She would be the most senior former elected official to sit on the commission, the Oakland Observer writes.

Nicholas O'Brien-Kovari is an attorney with more than a decade of experience in criminal defense and civil litigation, including more than seven years as a deputy public defender in Merced and San Joaquin counties, according to the report. He now practices civil litigation and has worked on bail reform, racial justice reform and criminal justice policy.

A third try after two rejections

The council rejected the selection panel's slates twice in 2025, in votes on Oct. 21 and Dec. 22. After that, the panel reworked its process, the report says: it collected or confirmed 45 applications, had each panelist rank a top 10, interviewed 10 finalists at a public meeting and scored them with a standard evaluation tool.

The panel then split its four picks into two slates, the Oakland Observer reports, out of concern that the council would reject all four if any one was controversial. The first pair was seated last month. Councilmember Ken Houston has objected to Quan's appointment and told the Rules Committee he did not support it, according to the Observer, which reports that his criticism centers on her handling of the Occupy Oakland protests and her relationship with the police department while she was mayor. East Bay Insiders also flagged the vote as a possible comeback for Quan.

The commission, created by Measure LL in 2016 and amended by Measure S1 in 2020, has seven regular and two alternate members serving three-year terms. Civilian oversight bodies like the commission now carry more of the load after a federal judge ended the long-running monitorship of the Police Department; see our story on the end of federal oversight.

Also on Tuesday's agenda

  • Bigger nuisance fines: An ordinance from Councilmember Zac Unger would let the city raise daily fines for uncorrected private-property nuisances from $1,000 to $2,500, and then to as much as $10,000 a day for repeat offenders, using the power voters gave the city when Measure RR removed the old fine cap, the Observer reports.
  • Oakland Roots payout: A report on the hotel tax sharing deal tied to the Roots hosting a World Cup team shows July 2026 hotel tax came in about $1.7 million, roughly 16% above a year earlier, enough that the club would receive about $300,000 above the $1.35 million baseline.
  • Contracts: An extension of the city's parking citation contract with Modaxo, which lets the company keep 30% of collected scofflaw tickets, and a concrete purchase that requires waiving the city's rules barring contracts with companies tied to immigration enforcement, according to the Observer.