Oakland to mull firing of police chief.Byline: Karen McCowan The Register-Guard OAKLAND - Three weeks after assuming office, the all-new City Council will meet in a special session Friday to consider firing Police Chief Norm Counts. The embattled chief originally had asked the council to deliberate on his fate in a public meeting. But he changed his mind this week and asked for an nonpublic session. The meeting is set for 10 a.m. at City Hall, 637 N.E. Locust locust, in botany locust, in botany, any species of the genus Robinia, deciduous trees or shrubs of the family Leguminosae (pulse family) native to the United States and Mexico. St. A special public session will follow if the council decides to take immediate action. In a Jan. 10 letter notifying Counts of the termination hearing, City Recorder Barb Mock told him that the council does not plan a "for cause" dismissal. Such procedures are reserved for cases involving gross negligence An indifference to, and a blatant violation of, a legal duty with respect to the rights of others. Gross negligence is a conscious and voluntary disregard of the need to use reasonable care, which is likely to cause foreseeable grave injury or harm to persons, property, or , insubordination in·sub·or·di·nate adj. Not submissive to authority: has a history of insubordinate behavior. in , incompetence or gross misconduct, and automatically trigger a state license revocation The recall of some power or authority that has been granted. Revocation by the act of a party is intentional and voluntary, such as when a person cancels a Power of Attorney that he has given or a will that he has written. . If the council votes to fire Counts, it will be a repeat of the council's 2005 firing of his predecessor, Dale Shaw. That council fired Shaw days before his first anniversary as a city employee, calling the action a "no cause" termination because Shaw was still a probationary employee. Oakland later paid Shaw and his attorney $50,000 to settle his wrongful discharge An at-will employee's Cause of Action against his former employer, alleging that his discharge was in violation of state or federal antidiscrimination statutes, public policy, an implied contract, or an implied Covenant of Good Faith and fair dealing. lawsuit. His firing also served as a catalyst for a successful recall campaign against Oakland's then-mayor and two councilors who voted for his termination. City residents who supported Shaw booed that vote, with one former councilor coun·cil·or also coun·cil·lor n. A member of a council, as one convened to advise a governor. See Usage Note at council. coun denouncing it as "a preconceived pre·con·ceive tr.v. pre·con·ceived, pre·con·ceiv·ing, pre·con·ceives To form (an opinion, for example) before possessing full or adequate knowledge or experience. railroad job." Now some Counts supporters are leveling the same charge at the new council for scheduling his termination hearing without any public discussion of such a move. In what a media lawyer called a violation of Oregon's Public Meetings Law, new Mayor Nanci Staples reported building a council consensus for the hearing in a series of one-on-one conversations with council members. Council President Andrea Botwinick, a vocal supporter of Counts, said she was the last councilor Staples called on the termination hearing, with the mayor presenting it as a done deal. "She told me that it would have been 4-to-1 and it didn't matter if I disagreed, " said Botwinick, who said she was afraid that the non-public process would throw the city right back into the political feud that has consumed Oakland for two years. Counts was hired by Oakland - for the second time - in October 2005. But his contract renewal has hung in limbo ever since Oakland's warring, two-member council deadlocked over his performance evaluation Performance evaluation The assessment of a manager's results, which involves, first, determining whether the money manager added value by outperforming the established benchmark (performance measurement) and, second, determining how the money manager achieved the calculated return this fall. He was previously hired for the post in 1995, but resigned in 1997, citing political pressure and budget policies. At the time of his re-hire, Counts had let lapse his basic certification with the state Department of Public Safety Standards Safety standards are standards designed to ensure the safety of products, activities or processes, etc. They may be advisory or compulsory and are normally laid down by an advisory or regulatory body that may be either voluntary or statutory. and Training. The agency last year began proceedings to permanently revoke his certification as a police officer after the Warm Springs Tribal Police Department reported firing him "for cause" in summer 2005. But DPSST DPSST Department of Public Safety, Standards, and Training DPSST Data Product Screening Software Team withdrew its complaint in November, after Counts' attorney disputed tribal officials' claims that Counts had been fired for insubordination after repeatedly ignoring orders to "get in shape" and attend police academy training. The attorney said Counts actually had resigned from Warm Springs after he got caught in political infighting in·fight·ing n. 1. Contentious rivalry or disagreement among members of a group or organization: infighting on the President's staff. 2. Fighting or boxing at close range. during the removal of a police chief there. During her campaign for mayor, Staples said she had "an open mind" about Counts, provided he got his state certification issues resolved. He applied to do so, DPSST certification supervisor Marilyn Lorrance said , but the agency was unable to accept his application because it lacked the required "signature of the hiring authority" - something impossible for Counts to obtain during the stand-off between members of Oakland's two-woman 2006 City Council. POLICE CHIEF DOCUMENTS Copies of documents from the Department of Public Safety Standards and Training's scrapped effort to revoke the Oakland police chief's certification are available at www.registerguard.com/oakland_documents |
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