On Tuesday, the Richmond City Council rejected the idea of placing a ballot initiative on the November ballot that would establish an independent ethics commission.
The item was rejected in a 3-4 vote with Cesar Zepeda, Soheila Bana and Jamelia Brown in favor. Meanwhile Mayor Eduardo Martinez, Vice Mayor Doria Robinson and councilmembers Sue Wilson and Claudia Jimenez all opposed going to the voters.
The proposed Richmond Gate Act ballot measure would have asked the City of Richmond voters if they wanted to support the GATE Act. If approved, the Commission would be armed with a dedicated Investigator, subpoena power, an absolute minimum budget floor, and jurisdiction over elected officials, appointed officials, commissioners, lobbyists, contractors, and nonprofits doing business with the City – with a floor of spending $1 million annually.
Richmond is looking to follow Los Angeles who established a commission back in 1990 – followed by San Francisco (1993) and Oakland (1996), while San Diego, San Jose, Long Beach and San Jose have all created commissions with investigative authority, lobbyist registration requirements, and conflict of interest enforcement.
According to the staff report, this was about best practices, not creating new bureaucracy because it gives Richmond residents an independent, adequately funded body that can receive complaints, investigate alleged violations, and issue findings without being subject to political interference from the officials it oversees.
A total of 12 public speakers occurred, including Mayoral Candidate Ahmad Anderson who called transparency is essential to good government.
“I am here tonight to support and express strong support that Government Accountability, Transparency and Ethics Act before voters. Ethics is the practice of doing what is right and not simply what is legal,” said Anderson. “An independent ethics commission is not about pointing fingers or assuming misconduct, it’s about building confidence in our institution.”
Several other residents spoke about supporting the measure and raising the standards on ethics and strengthening public trust. Some called it “long overdue”.
After public comments, Councilmember Sue Wilson questioned the report and coming short of calling the report “dishonest” and that it was building a case while pointing out factual inaccuracies.
“It has more factual errors in it, you are building a case,” said Wilson who then proceeded to read a list of cities without a commission, including no cities with an independent ethics commission. “There is one way you an look at California and say oh this is where its normal to have an ethics committee, and that is for the 10 largest cities… one of your arguments that I just want to take immediately off the table and see if you agree with me and that you are claiming that this would be a normal thing for Richmond to do and that somehow Richmond is somehow an outlier or insufficient or weird that we don’t have one of these independent ethics committee.”
She asked Zepeda if he would walk back certain statements in the presentation/staff report.
Zepeda replied, “maybe there is a different want I could have worded it, but overall doesn’t matter who hasn’t done it, but overall, are we Richmond, wanting to hold ourselves accountable. It doesn’t matter what our neighbors are doing.”
He said the question stood if Richmond wanted to have higher standards.
Wilson pushed back stating Zepeda ”misinformed the public” and it’s not a normal thing to do while saying of course they wanted to root out corruption and investigate it, but there are a list of agencies/organizations who are already tasked with this.
Zepeda responded he didn’t need the list, but rather when a concern came up, which agencies/organizations came and helped Richmond.
Wilson cited the Fair Political Practices Commission (FPPC), Secretary of State, IRS, County District Attorney, Federal DOJ and a half dozen more.
“I am not going to take your word that none of these things were investigated by outside agencies because you kind of blew your credibility with me in the first paragraph on this issue,” said Wilson suspecting some cases of public corruption have been investigated. “Rather than try and spend $3 million a year to make an internal city department that investigating ethics is less robust than say taking our ethics issues to appropriate county, state federal, legal.”
She said she was more comfortable allowing outside agencies do the investigation versus something internal. She said she would vote “no” on the item.
Vice Mayor Doria Robinson agreed with many of the points by Wilson and said out of the 483 cities in California, 4 have commission and 3 have ethics boards.
She also argued this proposal would spend 1% of the general fund on ethics while they are spending just 3% on youth programs – she would rather spend this money on more youth programs. She also was in favor of letting the FPPC handle their investigations.
“I really think this is an effort by folks in a particular political persuasion to create their own means to undermine the electoral process,” said Robinson.
Councilmember Claudia Jimenez agreed with Robinson and Wilson.
“For me, I was just thinking about the debate that we had around services that we want. We had a budget that we had to balance, and I think there are so many other pressing issues that our community is asking for. I haven’t heard a lot of people say spend 1% of the general fund on an ethics commission,” said Jimenez noting people wanted parks and infrastructure. “There is already these spaces that if we really reach out, they can do that. Out of all these 400 plus cities, only four have that.”
She also said the facts are not there to enable them to place it on the ballot. She also said it would compete with the Bond Measure for the fire district. She said she would rather than 1% go to fixing the fire stations.
Councilmember Jamelia Brown said the council only finds money for things they want to have – such as Black Resiliency, Immigration Services, ROCK – which other agencies provide services.
“I don’t think it’s our job to determine what voters want if we haven’t heard from the voters,” said Brown. “This is an opportunity for the voters to tell us what they want. If we have this general fund money, this settlement money and we’re talking about what we want to do with it, what the public wants to do with the money… we should give them the opportunity to make that decision. If they say no, the answer is no. But we have a responsibility to give them that opportunity. We can’t say a majority of Richmond doesn’t want this.”
She said the staff report could be read and determined anyway people wanted because of perception but questioned what it would hurt to place it on the ballot.
“This misconception is this is not our money because we find money for things we want to support and then the things we don’t agree with, we find every barrier to put in place and I don’t like it,” said Brown. “Let Richmond decide and lets get out of our own way. If they decide they want to put money into investigating and having these measures in place… no one is getting information or where they are, what status, or whatever so for this to be implemented and put in place, I think Richmond needs to speak, I don’t think the council should stand in the way.”
Zepeda said this measure would be looking at “us” and by voting no, they were saying don’t look at the council. He said this was something he had wanted for 20-years and had been working to address public corruption—he also reiterated that there were other agencies to look at corruption but none of those outside agencies had come to help Richmond.
“We need a commission that is far away from everyone that can come in and hold us all accountable,” said Zepeda.
Robinson again reiterated there were bodies in place who were “absolutely” investigating complaints and this was politically motivated – noting several elected officials who have been arrested and removed from office.
“This is a political witch hunt and has nothing to do with actually getting the business ethical or holding people accountable, or responsible or holding ethical standards” said Robinson. “This is about people not liking the results of independent investigations and wanting to come up with their own means and enforcing what they think is right.”
Mayor Eduardo Martinez asked the city staff how many public records request they get a year.
The interim city attorney Shannon Moore responded its approximately 900 but its increasing with the use of AI – majority of records for the police department for publicly disclosable information.
Martinez wanted to know of these requests, would potentially be sent to the commission.
Moore said this would be a completely different process because it would be complaint driven—not requesting records from the city.
Martinez shared he believed this commission needed to be considered with more insight and comparison before taking it to the voters – sighting costs and effectiveness.
The item did not pass in a 3-4 vote with Martinez, Jimenez, Robinson and Wilson voting against.
Background:
Per the staff report: Why It Is Needed
Richmond’s current structure has no independent mechanism to investigate alleged violations by elected officials; appointed commissioners, board members and task force members; lobbyists, or contractors; staff members, nor by unelected City management, including the City Manager and City Attorney. Currently, complaints must be routed through the City Attorney’s Office or Human Resources (HR). HR reports into the City Manager. The City Manager and City Attorney both report directly to the City Council, the same body whose members may be the subject of a complaint. Alternatively, complainants may file with the state FPPC or District Attorney’s office, which have limited local jurisdiction and significant case backlogs. This layered reporting structure creates an inherent conflict of interest that cannot be resolved from within the existing system. The only solution is a fully independent body structurally untethered from the City Council, City Manager, and City Attorney alike, akin to the Richmond Rent Program and Rent Board, which operates independently of City Hall to administer and enforce the City’s Rent Control Ordinances. This measure applies the same principle of structural independence to government ethics oversight.
Richmond also lacks enforceable lobbyist registration requirements, contractor contribution disclosure rules, behested payment tracking, and any formal whistleblower intake function. All of these are standard features of ethics commissions in comparable California cities and are included in this proposal.
It is also worth noting that an independent ethics commission protects elected officials and City management as much as it holds them accountable. A credible, independent body that reviews a complaint and clears an official carry far more weight than any Council vote or internal determination could. For those who serve the public, this Commission is a fair, impartial process that puts findings beyond political dispute.
Per Staff Report: What the Proposed Ordinance Would Do
The Richmond Government Accountability, Transparency, and Ethics Act (Richmond GATE Act) is intended to be an voter-adopted ordinance that would:
- Establish a seven-member independent Ethics Commission, operational by June 1, 2027, with staggered terms, term limits, and automatic removal triggers for conflicts of interest, nepotism, or absences
- Appoint Commissioners through a distributed model:
- Mayor with Council confirmation (1),
- Personnel Board (1),
- General Employee Unions (1),
- Public Safety Unions (1),
- The remaining three appointed unanimously by the first four — ensuring no single official controls the Commission.
- Create a full-time, at-will Investigator position, who is a licensed California attorney in good standing with the State Bar. Who reports solely to the Commission, is exempt from civil service and collective bargaining (as with all other commissions around the state), and has sole discretion to retain outside counsel when the City Attorney has a conflict.
- Provide the Commission with subpoena power enforceable through court contempt proceedings, authority to self-initiate investigations, and exclusive administrative enforcement authority over ethics, campaign finance, and lobbying violations.
- Establish a $1,000,000 absolute budget floor in Year 1; indexed in Year 2 to 0.5% of General Fund revenues; and in Year 3 and beyond to between 0.5% and 1.0% of General Fund revenues, with any reduction from the indexed amount requiring a 5-of-7 Council supermajority, a public hearing, and written findings; the $1,000,000 floor may never be reduced under any circumstances.
- Cover elected officials, appointed officials, board and commission members, candidates, lobbyists, City contractors, staff members, and nonprofits and NGOs doing business with the City.
- Enforce campaign finance disclosure, lobbyist registration, conflict of interest rules, gift limits, behested payment disclosure, post-employment restrictions, Sunshine Ordinance compliance, Brown Act violations, and whistleblower protections.
- Require a dedicated Ethics Helpline and publicly accessible complaint log, with all decisions to review or decline complaints made at public Commission meetings.
- Prohibit use of personal email, disappearing message applications, or any non-City- issued communications platform for City business — with a seven-year records retention requirement after leaving office.
Richmond says cities with credible, independent ethics oversight attract more grant funding, stronger state investment, and greater business confidence. An independent ethics commission signals to outside partners and investors that Richmond is a city that takes good governance seriously, making Richmond more competitive with other Bay Area cities that have had these independent oversight and accountability measures in place for decades
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