Brentwood City Council Votes to Give Itself a Warning on Policy Violations

On Tuesday, the Brentwood City Council voted 3-2 in an admonition of the entire city council as a way to ensure they follow city policy and meeting rules. This also applies to the public.

The move came after a lengthy discussion after Councilmember Jovita Mendoza requested consideration of a city policy violation against Councilmember Tony Oerlemans on an outburst at the April 25 and May 9 council meetings.

“You don’t understand anything. I am disgusted with the ability for you to push something forward to make it appear that it’s a fair and judicial way of handling an item on a council where we are supposed to be heard… you are going to sit here and look me in the face and tell me oh it was a mistake. That is garbage. That is garbage,” stated Councilmember Tony Oerlemans. “That is the stupidest thing I have ever heard. That is pathetic, that is the most pathetic thing I have ever heard in my entire life.”

The council had three options it could take which was an admonition, sanction, or censure.

However, after nearly a 90-minute discussion, rather than single out a lone member of the council, the council opted to call the entire council to ensure decorum for both the council and members of the public going forward.

Admonition – The least severe of the three actions, an admonition is typically a statement by the
Council reminding its members that a particular type of behavior could be found to violate a City policy, and further actions could result. Admonitions can be viewed as a warning or reminder to all members of the Council, and not just one member

3-2 Vote: Mayor Joel Bryant and Councilmembers PA’Tanisha Pierson and Tony Oerlemans were in support while Councilmembers Jovita Mendoza and Susannah Meyer dissented from supporting the motion.

Tuesdays City Council Recap

On Tuesday, Mendoza presented her allegations (per the agenda) to the council stating she was going to play the video but didn’t want to do that because it was “too crazy”. She said she didn’t feel safe that night and didn’t want to feel that way again while sitting at the dais.

Brentwood City Councilwoman Jovita Mendoza explains how she felt during the outburst.

“We all saw what happened,” said Mendoza. “You came in after the fact, the mayor slowly repeated the motion and you and councilwoman Pierson voted for it. We see what happens here, people attack me and I don’t yell at them, I don’t go off on them and you yelled at us, you called us stupid, you called us disgusting, you went on and on. It was violent, you hit the microphone, pushed your chair away. I’ve never been afraid sitting here, I was afraid that day. It wasn’t a good feeling and I don’t want to see that again.”

She then highlighted at the next meeting she wasn’t sure what was going to happen and then Oerlemans had an exchange with Rod Flohr, a planning commissioner, and asked when it was going to stop.

“It sucks when they are saying things about you, it 100% does. It sucks when you misunderstand a motion and vote for something you didn’t think it was. But we can’t have outbursts like that,” said Mendoza. “It was awful, I don’t ever want to feel like that again, its concerning to me because I don’t want to squash my voice because I am afraid of you, but now I am afraid of you now. We need to correct it. It was wrong.”

Mendoza also said that Oerlemans had something prepared at the next meeting but wasn’t going to say it.

“You walked up to me at the groundbreaking to shake my hand but I was scared,” said Mendoza. “I didn’t get an I’m sorry, there was nothing.”

During public comments, Denise Cosgrove shared while she was new to council meetings, she was tired of the direct and indirect personal attacks on councilmemebers through what one could “reasonably be concluded as surrogate regular public comment speakers. I’ve never seen anything like it.”

She called Oerlemans response not appropriate, but highlighted it was out of frustration and passion. She said it was no different than when Councilwoman Mendoza had outbursts and offered no apologies – explaining people mistook her passion for anger or attacks.

“I am paraphrasing, your response is I am who I am, you get what you get. People know me, I am transparent, this is it. Sorry,” stated Cosgrove. “I believe showing a little bit of grace in this arena would go a long way. I just watched you interrupt the mayor as he was speaking on the cultural events, you hijacked it, you interrupted him. I don’t know if that was part of the decorum allowed, you took over for him.”

Cosgrove called the request to censure Oerlemans is “overreaching and excessive” and called on the council to do better.

Olga Vidriales also spoke and stated how she was tired of the “tomfoolery” she sees at council meetings. She called this nonsense and a waste of time.

“You are from east Oakland councilwoman Mendoza, don’t think for a second we think you were scared. You are a tough lady, you tell us that all the time. You tell us I am from East Oakland, I am from East Oakland. What happened up there was not frightening at all, I am not afraid of councilman Oerlemans at all, come on, be real,” stated Vidriales. “I too was shocked, I am not making any excuses for him, but its understandable with his reaction… we want him here, he is not here to bow down to you two because you think you have been doing things great these last 3-4 years, he is here because we want him here, if he had one misstep, lets move forward. He is a former police officer, he is a former veteran and he is here with 54% of the vote.”

She called the community and council to get its act together and become less nasty.

On Zoom, there were 7 additional public commenters.

Linda Smith, speaking on behalf of the Marsh Creek Democratic Club, said she never witnessed this type of behavior from an elected official before.

“The city council is a non-partisan and we carefully considered if it was appropriate for us to get involved. In the end, it was decided that not to speak was tantamount to condoning this behavior and we would speak in opposition to this type of behavior no matter which councilmember exhibited it. Therefore, we passed a motion to support a admonition, sanction, or censure of councilmember Oerlemans for failing to follow the Brentwood ethics and conduct policy… its our hope that councilman Oerlemans is held accountable for his actions.”

Danny Dohrman stated Oerlemans disrespected the city council seat calling it a temporary spot while also disgraced the station and council honor. He urged the mayor not to give Oerlemans a pass because they were friends. He called this indefensible and should be a unanimous decision.

“If you allow these actions to go unchallenged, it would be a travesty, what will we accept next? Fist fighting because you had a sitting councilman leave and come back and challenge a member of the audience. If that is the case, what wont be accepted,” said Dohrman.

Carolina Villaseca said there should be some consequences for behavior, lack of accountability and failing to apologize for his actions. She said if action is not taken, then temper tantrums are allowed to happen if one doesn’t get their way.

“Why is this important? Because Councilman Oerlemans is a retired policeman and he has a conceal carry permit. If he cannot control his temper then this becomes and issue because it will tamper public participation in public comment and in chambers,” stated Villaseca. “Who wants to come to a city council meeting where a council person could or could not be armed and gets upset that easily.”

Rod Flohr said he was sad Mendoza didn’t play the video because people were trying to downplay what happened. He said Oerlemans was mad over nothing and the motion was clear a number of times.

“It demonstrated a shocking lack of self-control from a man who is licensed to carry a gun and by all accounts was carrying it that night and I think you are carrying it tonight,” said Flohr. “All Oerlemans accomplished by storming out of the room was disgrace himself and all the good people who supported his campaign for office.”

Flohr called Oerlemans the least civil person to ever occupy the office and said he should apologize to the mayor, the council, the police department and residents while getting down on his hands and knees begging for forgiveness. He called for Oerlemans to resign and has the impulse control of a child and urged Oerlemans to stay away from him.

“You better stay away from me. I have to be in the same room with you because we are co-workers at times, but other than that. I don’t want to see you, I don’t want to talk to you. Never touch my body again. I will put a restraining order on you so fast. You can kiss your gun goodbye,” said Flohr.

Marisol Valles urged the council to move forward with a censure of Oerlemans while calling him unsafe and others don’t feel safe around him.

Michael Pierson spoke about Oerlemans career as a police officer and in the military over 34-years and has never had a complaint about pulling out a gun while being in high stress situations.

“The narrative that’s being spun today and how dangerous you are, how we don’t trust you, you with the gun, that’s a bunch of crap. You have been at high stress situations with armed people and violence situation and you didn’t shoot anybody. This narrative now that you are going to shoot someone all of a sudden. This is political spin,” said Pierson who pointed out due process not being followed while reading the policy in the municipal code accusing this as a workaround to get it on the agenda.

He called on the council to respect due process which Mendoza did not follow when she brought it up.

During council discussion, Vice Mayor Susannah Meyer shared that this was not an easy job but this is not about a person, but a policy.

“It seems to be an easy thing to target councilmember Mendoza. She has been dealing with that since the very first day she was elected. I’ve witnessed it, I know the Mayor has witnessed it. The people who watch regularly have seen this. She speaks her mind, not everybody likes it and not everybody likes what I say and I don’t get as much target.” said Meyer.

She continued.

“There are a lot of things about this job that are not easy, but we do have to count on at least understanding that we are able to come here and have this discussion in a safe space and our public commenters can come to the podium and know we might hate what they are saying, we are frustrated, we might want to correct them live as they are speaking but we cannot do that,” said Meyer. “This kind of thing makes me incredibly uncomfortable, and I was the second on this because nothing had come up to discuss it. I was getting stopped at the grocery store and by neighbors about what is going on and who is doing what with this. I seconded it because I thought regardless of what happens tonight, we needed to have a public discussion about it and what it means to us. What needs to happen moving forward.”

Meyer said while at the mayors conference, several elected officials asked what Brentwood was going to do about this while a former representative from a state legislators office who reached out to her via text and said what are you going to do so you don’t turn into the City of Antioch.

“I would like to see the accountability,” said Meyer who said they haven’t seen that. “I as a fellow councilmember would like to see you be accountable for what happened. That doesn’t mean fall on the sword or anything, it means lets talk openly about this and see where we go from here and make sure it doesn’t happen again.”

She said while Mendoza has been a very easy target, she has not done with Oerlemans did.

Councilwoman PA’Tanisha Pierson highlighted that not only is Mendoza an easy target, she was an easy target, Oerlemans is an easy target by the public and fellow councilmembers.

“One of the things that has bothered me in looking at this is looking at the core values of the ethics code. My review and meeting with city staff are aspirational, they are not actual policy to follow because they are not measurable,” said Pierson—highlighting passion cannot be measured or quantified. “I don’t think we can measure sanction as to aspirational goals.”

She said she adores Oerlemans and did not hear him call the council stupid, but she understood him as to saying the process was stupid and she never felt threatened.

“I actually feel a lot safer that you and the chief are sitting over there,” said Pierson noting the chief and councilmember have worked in the same department.

She continued to explain that prior to the outburst, both she and Oerlemans had a conversation with the mayor on pulling items and they were explained the process. She said when the items were pulled, they were technically already pulled regardless of the motion of Mendoza and said they voted correctly.

“So can I understand why Councilmember Oerlemans got upset, you don’t need a motion or vote to pull an item from consent. If one member pulls an item from consent it is technically pulled. So feel like the process was changing… it feels like an attack. Could he have done it better, heck ya, I’ll be the first one to say he could have done it better. But did he excuse himself before he did something. Yes. I don’t see a policy that says we have to sit in our seats the whole time,” said Pierson. “I don’t see a policy that says I can’t get up and go to the bathroom, that I can’t get up to clam myself down. I think it was better he got up and left than to say anything else more damaging.”

She further highlighted while on the council, she has observed several violations with their decorum and actual administrative policy which states once a councilmember is recognized and speaking they are not to be interrupted by other councilmembers—yet no one ever thought about sanctioning, but when they did that to you they said one was a “passionate Latina” which was the remark given and that she felt muted and could not speak.

She also highlighted policy that all public comments are directed to the mayor and even tonight, Mr. Flohrs comments were not directed at the mayor but directed at Oerlemans.

“Where did Tony Oerlemans go wrong. Where did he make a mistake. At 3.8 where it says avoid debate and argument. This is the only thing that I can say once a member of the public violated our policy then Tony violated something in our policy.  If we are going to do anything, the only thing I can support is admonition,” said Pierson. “There was a mutual offense by the speaker at the podium of 5.2 and then a violation of 3.8.4 where a councilmember is to avoid debate and argument.”

Mayor Joel Bryant said while being apart of several councils he has been a part of several stressful situations says he is very familiar with how it feels to be attacked, familiar with vilified and accused of things that were not true and proven to be not true, but there was not an elected position where officials do not understand that they will be a target, its going to happen—let alone appointed positions where one is attacked because they make decision.

“You are going to have people who dislike you, that don’t know you,” said Bryant. “There is not a person up here that haven’t had people who have never spoken to us accuse us of things that are far from true.”

Bryant said he respects Oerlemans and trusts him while stating while people want to be judged at their best behavior, many judge people on their worst.

“What people do in error, or a mistake in a moment of passion or frustration that lives on forever. All the good seems to be buried with them at the moment the bad occurs. I don’t want that to happen to any of us sitting up here,” said Bryant. “I expect as a councilperson to feel safe here, and I expect our community to feel safe… we want our community to be involved and feel safe and not feel intimidated. I want everyone to feel free to speak their mind here. I will tell you the constant attack on councilmembers is getting really old. This is a business meeting and there has been behavior for some time and not just this council, in other councils that has detracted from the focus of what we are doing here, we are doing the business of the city, the business of our families and communities.”

Bryant further said he believed in the first amendment and it should be protected and it begins when people disagree with you.

At that point, Oerlemans spoke.

“First off, I am going to start off by saying the goal in my life is always been to make the people around me feel safe. So I truly apologize if anyone feels unsafe around me for any reason. I have self-control, that I know it didn’t show that night, my passion showed that night, my ability to ask for a recess before walking out of the room shows that I am in control as opposed to just storming away. If I was out of control, I wouldn’t have asked for a recess and I would have just stormed out of the room and had my temper tantrum and fit or whatever else has been said back in the dais by myself. I regret what happened. I regret that I felt like there were people on this dais that were trying to silence me. I am not the person you want to silence. I was elected by the citizens of Brentwood to speak for them. That is my goal. That night, I felt like I was shushed. I wont stand for that. I don’t think the citizens who elected me will stand for that. I am loud, I am very boisterous. I have recruit academy classes from three different cities that have heard me yell like you can’t believe in other counties. When I yell, I wont let that happen again. You asked for a promise, I guarantee that will not happen here ever again. I understand my role up here is to make decisions for the city of Brentwood and one of them is to make you all feel safe.”

He continued.

“I am truly offended by what other people have said that they feel fear for me that I have a concealed weapon. You should feel more comfortable from where you are sitting having me armed,” said Oerlemans. “Every single one of you I have vowed to protect with my life. I have been a policeman for 34-years and in the United States Army carrying guns for 4-years before that. I have never once shot a human being ever, and a few of them needed to be shot. Your fear is unfounded. I am sorry you feel it, but it’s extremely unfounded. I would, to this day, and I am a retired police officer, I no longer work for anybody other than the citizens of Brentwood on this dais. I will still lay my life down for any one of you to protect you. That is all I have to say, I guarantee you it won’t happen again.”

Mendoza said she didn’t want to censure Oerlemans noting she appreciated his apology and his words but did admit they both are loud, but what they saw that night was more than she could handle.

“I am fine with us being loud, talking with our hands, but it shouldn’t have come to that with us whether we agree or not,” said Mendoza who they always got along, and she never had to worry about him before. “I do think we need to do something, it wasn’t right and it needs consequences.”

Pierson moved that they admonish the city council to follow the administrative policy as it relates to decorum generally for city council members and decorum relating to the public.  Bryant made a second.

Mendoza clarified that they admonish the entire council.

Bryant said he believed what had been said tonight applies equally to all of them.

The council then voted 3-2  vote with Mendoza and Meyer dissenting.