Oakland council shifts control of center to city OAKLAND

FILE - In this Feb. 2, 2011 file photo, Oakland City council member Desley Brooks, center, speaks at a City Council meeting at City Hall in Oakland, Calif. Also pictured are ouncilmembers Rebecca Kaplan, left, and Ignacio De La Fuente. Oakland's city administrator is investigating a teen center that is funded by the cash-strapped city, but being run by Brooks, whose aides have been paid to staff it. An average of 10 teens a day use the center, which the city paid almost $1 million to acquire and refurbish. (AP Photo/Jeff Chiu, File) less FILE - In this Feb. 2, 2011 file photo, Oakland City council member Desley Brooks, center, speaks at a City Council meeting at City Hall in Oakland, Calif. Also pictured are ouncilmembers Rebecca Kaplan, left, ... more Photo: Jeff Chiu, Associated Press Photo: Jeff Chiu, Associated Press Image 1 of / 5 Caption Close Oakland council shifts control of center to city 1 / 5 Back to Gallery

The Oakland City Council voted late Tuesday to keep open a teen center established by Councilwoman Desley Brooks, while ending an unusual arrangement in which Brooks controlled her pet project and staffed it with seven of her office aides.

The Digital Arts and Culinary Academy attracted the scrutiny of city officials and the FBI in recent weeks because of the way it was built, funded and staffed.

City Administrator Deanna Santana told the council in a report that Brooks and city workers repeatedly violated contracting rules and other city policies while developing the center.

But Santana said the result was a "premier facility" that was badly needed in Brooks' East Oakland district - and the council agreed Tuesday.

Santana also asked the council to decide whether to commission an independent investigation into potential wrongdoing. Councilwomen Libby Schaaf and Pat Kernighan said at the meeting that they supported such a probe, but several of their colleagues did not want to spend the money. The council did not vote on the investigation.

Keeping center running

The council followed Santana's recommendation to shift control of the center from Brooks to the Office of Parks and Recreation and spend $67,000 to keep it running at least through the end of the fiscal year on June 30.

The vote came after a long hearing in which Brooks gave a full-throated defense of her work on the teen center and criticized Santana for questioning her. Brooks had a staffer display before-and-after photographs of the once-blighted building that houses the center, eliciting cheers from supporters.

"This is the horrible facility that I should be so ashamed of," Brooks said sarcastically.

City staff blamed

Brooks blamed city staff for policy violations, saying, "This isn't about me. ... This is a management issue. Every single thing I did, I asked for direction."

Santana said many questions about the teen center remained unanswered, in part because she had heard "multiple and conflicting perspectives" during her inquiry. She put heavy blame on city staff for the problems with the project.

Santana also revealed for the first time that documents on the teen center were missing from city files.

"Many people should have done better," Santana said.

Brooks' decision last year to tap her office budget to staff the teen center made her the only Oakland council member with control over such a program. Santana's report said that breached city labor agreements.

The academy offers classes in audio and video production, cooking and agriculture for youths ages 13 to 16, but it is struggling to attract participants.

From the beginning, Brooks has been the point person in developing the center. She persuaded the City Council to use $800,000 in redevelopment funds to buy the building that houses the center in 2007, then oversaw a major renovation in 2010.

Contracting laws broken

The renovation by prime contractor Pulte Homes violated a number of city contracting laws, including those that require competitive bidding and the payment of union-level wages to workers, Santana's report said.

The Chronicle reported that the FBI was looking into the renovation, with an agent interviewing officials at two East Bay construction firms. Records show the city Redevelopment Agency, in an effort to justify paying Pulte Homes, solicited bids from the two firms after the renovation work had already been completed. One of the bids was back-dated, records show.

Payment to contractor

The council approved on Tuesday a belated payment of $152,000 to Pulte Homes, an amount that was increased from $121,000 to accommodate the union-level wages.

Santana also took issue with the way Brooks and city workers outfitted the teen center with keyboards, microphones and other high-end music studio equipment.

The Chronicle reported this week that Brooks personally approved payment of more than $18,000 in redevelopment funds to buy the equipment, even though she is authorized to sign payment approvals only for items involving her office budget.

A city staffer who is authorized to approve payments, such as the one for the studio equipment, had refused to do so, citing a concern that the purchase had not gone through a proper bid process, two high-ranking sources in city government told The Chronicle.

'Amazing experience'

Among the people who spoke in support of Brooks was Jasmine Johnson, a 15-year-old girl who said she had attended the teen center since last summer.

"It's been an extreme, amazing experience for me," Johnson said. "I've made beats. I write songs. I've been able to express myself through music. ... My school doesn't offer things like that."

Kernighan said the issue at stake was not whether the teen center was doing good work, but whether the city should follow policies designed to ward off the potential for waste, corruption and favoritism.

"Sometimes it's a hassle to follow all those rules, but there's a reason why all those rules are there," Kernighan said. "The ends don't always justify the means."