I’m watching this situation down in Santa Ana (Orange County), as it mirrors so many of the issues we confront here in Oakland and Alameda County. Briefly, there’s this city council member in Santa Ana, Jessie Lopez, an extremely woke progressive, a Carroll Fife or Rebecca Kaplan type; she earned the wrath of the local police union, the Santa Ana Police Officers Association (SAPOA) for voting against a pay raise for cops last December. (Lopez also has been criticized by property and landlord groups for her strong support of rent control which mainly hurts small landlords.)
SAPOA launched a recall movement against Lopez and has spent more than $660,000 to fund it. A local Santa Ana resident petitioned the court to stop the recall, based on alleged irregularities in the process, but a Superior Court judge rejected that call to stop the recall special election, which now is scheduled to take place today, Nov. 14.
This isn’t the first time the Santa Ana police union has tried to recall a sitting council member. The first instance was in 2020, when a Republican was successfully recalled after he repeatedly criticized the union for having too much control over the city’s budget.
To me, it’s refreshing to see a police union engage in such bare-knuckled fighting to protect its members. This isn’t to criticize our own Oakland Police Officer’s Association (OPOA). Oakland is a much more politicized city than Santa Ana, and OPOA wisely chooses which battles to fight and which to avoid. Besides, I think the feeling in OPOA is that any recall supported by the union would be bound to fail, given the anti-police sentiment in Oakland fomented by progressive politicians; therefore, why bother? SAPOA appears considerably more willing to engage in raw politics than is OPOA; for instance, they got their candidate elected mayor, and now this knock-down, drag-out fight over Lopez. SAPOA president John Kachirisky justified his backing of the recall with these words: "The Santa Ana Police Officers Association endorses the recall of City of Santa Ana Councilwoman Jessie Lopez because her policy positions put community safety and quality of life concerns in the City at risk.” Kachirisky’s criticisms of Lopez include her efforts “to defund major police enforcement efforts,” and for refusing to “support stricter penalties” on sideshows. The landlord and property-owning groups that back the recall have also focused on “crime [which] has certainly been a major issue that has only continued to get worse with Councilmember Lopez representing Ward 3," according to the head of a property-owners group.
Couldn’t the same be said about Carroll Fife, Rebecca Kaplan and Nikki Bas? There are plenty of Oakland voters who would love to see the three of them removed from power, but organizing a recall election is an uphill battle, as we’re seeing in the case of Price, and even if a recall qualifies for the ballot, there’s no guarantee it will actually succeed in attracting a majority of voters.
Personally, I’d love to see OPOA get involved in a recall, but for the time being, someone else is going to have to spearhead it; OPOA might then come along as an eager (and well-heeled) junior partner. As a resident of District 4, I respectfully suggest that a Recall Fife movement would find fertile ground in my neighborhood. On the other hand, she’s up for re-election next year, so maybe we should focus on finding someone to run against her. Some names are emerging; I’ll explore them at a later date.
Steve Heimoff