Unusual deal for Oakland teen center probed OAKLAND Normal procedures not followed to open, operate teen center

Desley Brooks (center), who sits on the Oakland City Council, stopped to talk with a member of the Occupy movement during a rally by Occupy and anti-Occupy forces in front of Oakland City Hall Monday February 6, 2012. less Desley Brooks (center), who sits on the Oakland City Council, stopped to talk with a member of the Occupy movement during a rally by Occupy and anti-Occupy forces in front of Oakland City Hall Monday February ... more Photo: Brant Ward, The Chronicle Photo: Brant Ward, The Chronicle Image 1 of / 5 Caption Close Unusual deal for Oakland teen center probed 1 / 5 Back to Gallery

Oakland City Administrator Deanna Santana is trying to determine what to do about a city-funded teen center that is run by aides to City Councilwoman Desley Brooks, city records and e-mails show.

At issue is Brooks' pet project: the Digital Arts and Culinary Academy, which began offering free after-school classes in summer 2011 in a city building on International Boulevard in Brooks' East Oakland district.

Other teen programs are run by Oakland's Office of Parks and Recreation. Santana's realization that Brooks is the lone council member with control over a city program has sparked tense exchanges between the two.

"It is not clear to me how this happened," Santana told Brooks in a Jan. 5 e-mail obtained by The Chronicle in a public records request, "but I need to understand how this public facility is being used and why the city has no access to it."

A day later, Brooks wrote to Santana, "The information you have is, as usual, incomplete and not totally accurate."

The dispute arose after Brooks renewed an effort to get Oakland to pay $152,000 to a developer that rehabilitated the teen center building after the city purchased it for $800,000 in 2007.

The 2010 renovation has officials in a quandary because, records show, the city did not put the work up for competitive bidding or take other steps required under city law for public projects.

Brooks said in an interview that she had overseen the renovation with city Redevelopment Agency officials. She said she had tapped her office account to hire employees for the center because she had seen no alternative.

"I try to be creative in bringing resources to a community that desperately needs them," Brooks said.

She said top city staffers had approved her development of the center every step of the way - an assertion that is largely supported by city records and e-mails.

Santana's probe

But Santana, who took over as city administrator in August, has spent much of her time in recent weeks gathering information about the project, records show, and even visited a neighboring city building to ask questions about the teen center.

Santana is due to make public a report on the teen center today before presenting it to the City Council's Public Works Committee on Feb. 28. At issue is how to pay the developer and what to do with the after-school program.

"I don't want to run a teen center," Brooks said. "I would love for the city to take it over ... if they can figure out a way to keep it funded."

Some of Brooks' colleagues on the council said they had learned only recently that she ran a youth program.

Councilwoman Libby Schaaf said she had heard good things about the teen center, but said, "I believe in separation of power and that council members should not interfere in the regular operations of the city."

Public policy experts said Brooks' moves, even if well-intentioned, risked removing the checks and balances at the heart of governing. Council members, they said, should stick to legislating.

"That's a city asset, and its use must be decided by the administrator, if they've been delegated, or by a majority of the council," said Phil Batchelor, who was Contra Costa County's administrator for 17 years. "Just because you get irritated with the bureaucracy, you can't circumvent it."

If the council provides oversight of a program, and one of its members runs it, "then you have the fox proverbially guarding the henhouse," said Larry Rosenthal, a professor at UC Berkeley's Goldman School of Public Policy.

Different approach

Brooks, who joined the council in 2002, is known for an unorthodox approach to her office staffing. While other council members paid two or three aides last year, Brooks divided a similar pot of money among 19 staffers, records show.

"They choose to have staff in the office," Brooks, who has one full-time legislative aide, said of her council colleagues. "I try to find ways to get things done in the community."

Seven of Brooks' aides made from $3,000 to $20,000 apiece last year at the teen center. They taught audio and video production, cooking and agriculture to youths 13 to 16 years old, from 4 to 7 p.m. on weekdays.

A Chronicle reporter who visited the center last month found the staffers working with half a dozen teens and planning a meal. Co-Director Claytoven Richardson, a Brooks aide who was paid $16,000 last year, said the program served about 10 youths a day, but had room for more than 25.

He said the academy's location in a high-crime area made it difficult to attract youths, but that he and his colleagues were trying by reaching out to nearby schools.

"This is the first program I've seen in Oakland where we are truly trying to give kids confidence and self-worth, letting them know there are other things they can do in this neighborhood," Richardson said.

Brooks said the project was the culmination of a long effort to turn a blighted building "in the heart of the killing fields" into an asset.

$800,000 purchase

The program began to take shape in mid-2007, when Brooks persuaded the City Council to approve the use of $800,000 in redevelopment funds to buy the building at 5818 International Blvd.

A staff report at the time said the Office of Parks and Recreation would control the site, but city e-mails show the agency deferred to Brooks when it came to making decisions about the building and the program.

By early 2010, records show, the council had earmarked at least $140,000 more in redevelopment money to rehabilitate the building to make it suitable for use as a teen center.

The overhaul was done in spring 2010, with 12 firms working under prime contractor Pulte Homes. They built a kitchen for cooking classes and sound and video studios. Brooks spent additional city funds on supplies such as computers and microphones, records show.

At the time, Brooks said she hoped the center would open within weeks and be run by a nonprofit group with which she was negotiating.

But that plan stalled, she said. She began hiring staffers to run it in February 2011.

Contracting laws

One of the questions Santana is trying to resolve is why the renovation didn't follow city contracting laws for public works projects, which require competitive bidding, the payment of union-level wages, an acceptance of liability by a contractor, and city inspectors' sign-off on the completed work.

Brooks and a Pulte spokeswoman, Jacque Petroulakis, said the job was unique because it was organized through a nonprofit group and was largely charitable. Pulte billed $121,000 for work that it estimated was worth $325,000.

Top Redevelopment Agency officials approved the arrangement, Brooks and Petroulakis said. Several of those officials didn't return telephone calls or declined to comment.

Then-City Administrator Dan Lindheim also knew the city was working with Pulte, according to e-mails from March 2010. In an interview, Lindheim said he believed all of the work was being donated.

Brooks said contracting rules were the city staff's responsibility.

"It wasn't until Pulte completed the work that staff said, 'We made a mistake,' " she said. "You've got someone who's done you a favor, and now they're getting jerked around."

Brooks has sought to pay Pulte Homes ever since the job was finished. In January 2011, the council voted to waive bidding requirements and pay $121,000, but city officials put the deal on hold as they studied whether Pulte Homes had paid union-level wages.

The Community Economic and Redevelopment Agency recommended recently that the city increase the payment, from $121,000 to $152,000, to cover those wages.

Issues remain

But at a Jan. 19 meeting of the City Council's Rules and Legislation Committee, Santana - who declined to be interviewed for this story - told Brooks that the building and the after-school program still needed an "inventory of corrective action."

Parts of the renovated building, for example, might not meet the requirements of the Americans With Disabilities Act, said Santana.

She also questioned whether all the staffers there had gone through background checks necessary for work with youths. Brooks said they had.

"There are issues regarding the appropriateness of how services were procured, due diligence to ensure that the use of public funds are in order," Santana said.

She added, "I don't understand the staffing configuration."