Former Oakland Mayor Jean Quan came within one committee vote of returning to city government this week, but her bid for a seat on the Police Commission collapsed when the City Council rejected the nominee slate pairing her with attorney Nicholas O'Brien-Kovari. The council's decision on Tuesday means Quan's appointment is tied up with lingering questions about whether O'Brien-Kovari's work at a private law firm, including active litigation against the city, makes him ineligible to serve.
The rejection, confirmed by KQED, came after Oakland's Police Commission Selection Panel forwarded the two names in June to fill seats left vacant by the late Wilson Riles and former Commissioner Samuel Dawit, according to Oaklandside. Quan, who served as mayor from 2011 to 2015, was nominated for one of the commission's seven seats, the outlet reports. Oakland's charter requires the council to accept or reject nominees as a single package rather than voting on them individually, a structural quirk that the Oakland Observer flagged ahead of Tuesday's meeting, noting there was no way to separate the two appointments via vote.
City Attorney Ryan Richardson advised the council to reject the slate as a way to reset the selection process, per the seed reporting. Richardson said he lacked time to determine whether O'Brien-Kovari's job posed a genuine problem, and his office had not taken a position on a potential conflict without a more thorough analysis. The sourcing diverges on what happens next: Oaklandside's account states that O'Brien-Kovari withdrew his name from consideration, while KQED reports he will keep his name in consideration for the commission but will not serve unless the city confirms whether his legal work creates a conflict. O'Brien-Kovari told KQED he was offered the opportunity to move forward and, per a letter the outlet reviewed, had asked the city attorney's office for clarification about his eligibility. Richardson had not confirmed whether O'Brien-Kovari could rescind a withdrawal, the station reported.
Quan's Past and the Commission's Growing Reach
O'Brien-Kovari said he is passionate about police reform, according to KQED. Quan, for her part, volunteered to join the commission after current Mayor Barbara Lee, her successor, asked her to step up, and she said the role is a serious one that takes more time than most city commissions. Quan's own record with Oakland police drew scrutiny during the Selection Panel process: she was in Washington, D.C., lobbying for more police funding during the 2011 Occupy Wall Street protests, and Ken Houston was reportedly unsatisfied with her response to those demonstrations at the time, per KQED's reporting.
The stakes attached to the commission have grown sharply. It now holds authority to fire the police chief without cause, issue subpoenas in misconduct investigations, help hire future chiefs, shape use-of-force policy and investigate allegations against officers, per Oaklandside. That expanded mandate follows roughly two decades of federal oversight of the Oakland Police Department, and the commission is expected to take over full responsibility for holding the department accountable now that court supervision has ended, as The Mercury News has reported. KTVU notes the transition has unfolded amid concerns from some community members that the commission remains underfunded, and that during the first three months of 2026, OPD completed just 83% of its most serious Internal Affairs investigations within the required six-month window, below the 85% benchmark.
A Pattern of Rejected Slates
Tuesday's vote was not an isolated clash. The council had previously rejected two Police Commission slates before this one, and the Mercury News reports that before 2025 the council had never rejected a nominee slate for any reason. In October 2025, the council voted 7-0, with Councilmember Carroll Fife excused, to reject the reappointments of Commission Chair Ricardo Garcia-Acosta and alternate commissioner Omar Farmer, according to Local News Matters. The council declined to reappoint the pair again at a Jan. 20 meeting, with only Fife and Noel Gallo dissenting, Oaklandside reported separately. Days later, in a January 2026 session, the council rejected two Selection Panel nominees once more but unanimously approved two other commissioners nominated directly by Mayor Lee, Local News Matters reported at the time.
Oakland has since revamped its selection process to expand and diversify the candidate pool, and the Selection Panel split four candidates into two separate slates for this round, worried the council might reject all four if just one candidate proved controversial, per the Oakland Observer. With O'Brien-Kovari's status unresolved, the Police Commission now has more time to decide whether he can serve, and it may ultimately designate a replacement nominee from its existing candidate pool instead. Neither the Oakland City Attorney's Office nor the city itself immediately responded to requests for comment, and the Police Commission likewise did not immediately respond, according to KQED.
