Alameda County sheriff challengers begin their quest to unseat Ahern
State Senate progressive drops out, endorses Wahab
—FIRST LOOK: ALCO SHERIFF—In boxing, you can’t just beat the champ, you have to decisively defeat them to take their belt. It’s exactly like that when it comes to beating an incumbent. Specifically, it’s a two-pronged process. A winning candidate must explicitly convey to voters why the incumbent must go and then tell them why they will be better.
The first step was not fleshed out Sunday afternoon as challengers to Alameda County Sheriff Gregory Ahern’s incumbency—Yesenia Sanchez and JoAnn Walker—met their opponent at the first candidate forum of the June primary election cycle. The pair of law enforcement veterans, though, showed they have the mettle to give Ahern a run for his money throughout the first half of this year.
The challengers agreed that new blood was needed at the sheriff’s office, but all three also agreed that laws on the books needed to be enforced and the wave of violent crimes and property crimes must be fought aggressively.
Here’s some highlights from Sunday’s virtual candidate forum:
AHERN
—Perhaps the biggest surprise of the forum was Ahern’s demeanor. He kept it together after Walker leveled strong professional and personal comment toward him. Only once did Ahern respond after Walker said the Alameda County Sheriff’s Office is corrupt. Ahern took umbrage with the comment and demanded Walker provide specifics. However, Walker’s comment was not posed as her own words, but a perception held by some who have lost loved ones at Santa Rita Jail in Dublin.
—Later in response to a question about identifying one mistake each candidate wished they could take back as a law enforcement officer, Ahern was refreshingly honest. Ahern said he wished he would have fought harder to procure more funding for staffing earlier this decade. The issue was a major finding in an audit of Santa Rita Jail. He added the extra staffing might have helped with some of the problems that later arose at the jail. The exchange was a stunning admission that seemed to humanize a sheriff many progressives paint as excessively immune to accountability.
—Ahern has been sheriff since 2007, but he’s a rookie when it comes to campaigning. This is his first competitive election. This lack of experience is probably why some of his answers sounded too much like HR job descriptions for the role of sheriff-coroner.
SANCHEZ
—She came across as polished and well-prepared, no small feat for a political newcomer. Her credentials for the job are a positive, but perhaps, too much so, and its was highlighted several times on Sunday. Sanchez works the Alameda County Sheriff’s Office as a commander at Santa Rita Jail. On Sunday, she painstakingly praised the work being done at the jail. That’s a problem for Sanchez’s campaign since one of Ahern’s biggest negatives is the large number of inmate deaths at the jail in recent years.
—For most of the lengthy forum, Sanchez positioned herself as an alternative to Ahern, the person, not his current menu of law enforcement policies. On this point, the boxing analogy above comes into play. If Ahern and Sanchez have the same general policies, then more likely than not, voters will keep Ahern in office.
—But Sanchez also offered the fleshing out of a new idea to the mix. You often hear in Alameda County a common gripe about Ahern’s lack of collaboration with city officials. Sanchez repeatedly vowed to better include city officials with additional law enforcement and funding. “It's a team effort that needs to happen,” Sanchez said. The idea is music to local cities ear, especially after Ahern’s decision in May 2020 to unilaterally enact a curfew in the aftermath of George Floyd protests. The abrupt move angered many local elected officials.
WALKER
—Walker was by far the most aggressive toward Ahern’s record on Sunday afternoon. Put aside for the one dustup, Ahern did not fight back. His response on a few occasions was to merely correct something Walker had previously said. Walker suggested that Ahern lacked integrity and raised questions about investigations by his office of officer’s alleged acts of misconduct.
—Regarding the 50 inmate deaths that have occurred at Santa Rita Jail in recent years, it is where Walker shined. She hammered Ahern after he suggested the deaths were mostly related to suicides. Walker refuted it, citing an audit that showed only 19 of the 50 death were the result of suicide. Walker was later skeptical about Ahern cooperating with a consent decree over the deaths. “Why did it take so long to display the empathy that he learned from his family? If people matter to you, why did it take so long?" Walker said.
—But it didn’t take long to notice that Walker has a trouble with some facts. One in particular was troubling. Walker asserted that mental issues at the jail are unsurprising since inmates are allowed outside their cells for one hour per week. She punctuated the comment by immediately repeating it. Sanchez corrected her, saying it was one hour per day. Walker also said FBI should investigate suspicious officer-involved shootings instead of the sheriff-coroner’s office. Ahern quickly corrected Walker, saying it would be the jurisdiction of the State Department of Justice, not the FBI.
—Problems with basic facts and whether they are being purposefully used to deceive voters is going to be a problem for Walker and ultimately undermine what looked on Sunday like the type of constant attack on Ahern’s record that will be needed to get this race to a decisive winner-take-all November election.
ELECTION 2022 UPDATE
—ENDORSEMENT—Embedded in Sunday’s forum was some big campaign news. Yesenia Sanchez announced that Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf has endorsed her campaign. It’s a high-profile get for Sanchez, but what it means for the campaign is unclear. The Schaaf endorsement is probably more devastating to Walker’s campaign than it is to Ahern. There isn’t a political consultant in Alameda County who will tell you that Ahern has any chance in Oakland, and Berkeley, for that matter. Incidentally, Berkeley Mayor Jesse Arreguin has also endorsed Sanchez. Ahern’s roadmap to victory borrows from Alameda County District Attorney Nancy O’Malley’s 2018 win over Pamela Price—essentially win everywhere else in the county. But Schaaf’s endorsement is notable since it comes after Ahern allowed his deputies to aid Oakland Police to fight rising crime, especially in Chinatown.
—MINUS ONE IN SD10—Jaime Raul Zepeda is dropping out of the 10th State Senate District race and the California Redistricting Commission is the reason why. Zepeda, who positioned himself as a Berniecrat, joined the race last year. But the commission’s late decision to excise unincorporated Alameda County from the new district, including his residence in Castro Valley, signaled the end of his campaign. Castro Valley will be part of a sprawling state senate district dominated by Contra Costa County.
—Zepeda’s exit is challenger Aisha Wahab’s gain. Zepeda immediately endorsed Wahab’s state senate campaign on Monday.
“I am proud to have run a campaign that was squarely focused on putting our people and our planet first. That is also why I am very excited to endorse Hayward Councilmember Aisha Wahab for State Senate District 10,” Zepeda said in a press release.
Councilmember Wahab is a fighter who cares about giving everyone a voice in Sacramento. She is focused on solving our biggest challenges around education, climate change, and building healthy and thriving communities. We need a real Democrat who will fight for working families as our next State Senator.”
—Zepeda ran as a corporate-free candidate and shared many of Wahab’s platform policies. In what is likely to be a competitive June primary, there was some worry among progressives that Zepeda would have siphoned a few precious points away from Wahab. The theory being that Zepeda supporters would be far less likely to cannibalize support from Fremont Mayor Lily Mei.
—View the current list of June primary and November general election candidates for East Bay elected offices HERE.
ON THE AGENDA
—OAKLAND—The Oakland City Council Public Safety Committee is the lone committee meeting this week in The Town. A proposed ban on the possession, sale, and transfer of untraceable “ghost guns,” first proposed in committee last month, returns for further vetting. The proposed ordinance includes penalties of up to $5,000 for a third violation, and a misdemeanor conviction including six months in jail. The ordinance is proposed by Councilmembers Dan Kalb, Noel Gallo, and Rebecca Kaplan… The committee will also receive a city administrator’s report on the status of 27 policy directives regarding public safety issued by the city council last June.
—ALCO BOARD OF SUPERVISORS—The board will authorized on Tuesday morning the reimbursement of up to $187,000 in telephone fees incurred by juveniles who were detained at the Juvenile Justice Center and Camp Wilmot Sweeney during the pandemic. The fees are typically high and the move to reimburse the fees follows a new telephone vendor approved by the board last August. Around 475 juveniles were housed during the pandemic, according to the county probation department…. The Alameda County Public Health Department will give its often very informative Covid-19 update.