Are all Peralta officials disclosing conflicts of interests? We don’t know — Peralta’s public records office couldn’t find all of the documents we asked for.

Each year, elected officials and public employees who make decisions that impact public finances are required by California law to disclose potential conflicts of interest through a form called the Form 700, or Statement of Economic Interest.

Conflicts of interest could include gifts, investments, loans, business positions, or properties that could be affected by any decision the employee makes in public office.

By disclosing these financial interests, public officials are reminded to step away from decisions that could pose a conflict of interest, according to the California Fair Political Practices Commission (FPPC), the state agency that administers the form.

The form also provides information to the public that’s necessary for ensuring accountability, the FPPC states online.

“The main reason is to ensure that you’re not using your public position to in any way benefit family, friends, and those who at one time you had an economic interest,” said John Pelissero, the Director for Government Ethics at the Markkula Center for Applied Ethics in Santa Clara University.

However, the Peralta Community College District (PCCD) hasn’t been keeping a consistent record of these forms, an investigation by The Citizen found.

According to district policy, employees that are required to file the Form 700 — called “designated employees” — include trustees, chancellors, college presidents, vice chancellors, vice presidents, deans, and more.

The Citizen requested Form 700s for many designated employees who have served the district within the past six years. California law requires that these forms are accessible to the public upon request.

PCCD turned over heaps of documents. Although we originally requested disclosures covering 2019 to 2023, we also received forms for 2018.

However, about half of the records we asked for were missing.

While most officials had at least one Form 700 on record, a small number of officials, including two former Vice Chancellors of General Services, had no record of disclosing their conflicts of interest in the past five years.

What was missing

The results of our public records request revealed gaps in the district’s collection and keeping of the Form 700s each year.

Under California law and district policy, “designated” employees are required to declare their conflicts of interest annually, upon assuming office, and upon leaving office.

Half of the Form 700s we requested were missing from the documents PCCD provided. That’s a total of 58 missing forms, out of the 113 we requested for current and former district employees.

That “raises some ethical questions about transparency,” according to Pelissero, the government ethics expert.

“The fact that they either don’t have the Form 700s on file or they can’t locate them suggests to somebody looking at this that these forms aren’t taken all that seriously by the community college district,” Pelissero said.

The “very foundation” of the forms, he said, is to allow the public to view this information.

It is unclear why PCCD could not locate all of the conflict of interest disclosures that we requested.

According to PCCD’s Executive Director for Marketing, Communication, and Public Relations, Mark Johnson, the district is “in the process of” improving the policies procedures around the form, and plans to introduce new training.

“While compliance with the Form 700 requirements is the responsibility of the individuals in designated positions, the District wants to create a strong culture of compliance, and we will be striving for 100 percent compliance going forward,” Johnson stated via email.

Spotty recordkeeping for most employees

For many employees holding “designated” positions, the district provided us with a Form 700 from at least one, but not all of the years the individual held that office.

For example, former PCCD Interim Chancellor Jannett Jackson served in her role from April 16, 2021 to December 2023. However, The Citizen only received a Form 700 filed by Jackson covering the year 2022. We didn’t receive a form filed by her upon assuming office in 2021 or leaving office in 2023.

Jackson did not respond to requests for comment.

We received Form 700s filed by Trustee Cindi Napoli-Abella Reiss when she assumed office in December 2018, and for 2019 and 2020. We didn’t receive her forms for 2021, 2022, or 2023.

In an email to The Citizen, Reiss confirmed that she “missed” 2021 and 2022 and stated that she had “contacted FPPC, recently, to file those years.”

Former Berkeley City College President, Angélica Garcia, served from May 1, 2020 to June 30, 2023, but we only received a Form 700 covering the year 2022. Asked why the district had no other Form 700s on record for her, Garcia stated via email that she completed her Form 700 “when the District calls for that information to meet the filing deadlines.”

The records we received also indicated that the district may not be consistently collecting Form 700s for employees assuming or leaving a designated position.

For example, former PCCD Trustee Linda Handy consistently filed Form 700s covering 2018 to 2021. However, we didn’t receive record of a Form 700 filed by Handy when she left office in December 2022.

Handy stated in an email to The Citizen, “ALL required documents, filings and closings were completed and submitted to the appropriate agencies,” but did not provide a copy of the form.

According to Johnson, the district does not currently ask designated employees for their Form 700 upon leaving office.

“It is possible that many do not know about the requirement,” he stated.

Moving forward, the district will start asking designated employees who leave the district to file a Form 700, Johnson stated.

For some high-ranking employees, no records at all

A few employees had no Form 700s on file for any year that we requested.

No Form 700s could be located for Atheria Smith, PCCD’s former Interim Vice Chancellor of General Services, who retired earlier this year. Smith also previously served as PCCD’s Director of Facilities Planning and Development. Both positions are listed as “designated” in the district’s conflict of interest disclosure policy.

We also did not receive a Form 700 filed by PCCD’s previous Vice Chancellor of General Services, Sadiq Ikharo, who was placed on leave in March 2019.

A spreadsheet attached to a compilation of all Form 700s received by district employees for the 2018-19 school year indicates that PCCD was aware that it did not receive a Form 700 from Smith or Ikharo.

The duties of the Vice Chancellor of General Services, a position which has since been eliminated, included developing, negotiating, and administering contracts for construction projects, among other responsibilities.

“Anytime you have somebody who’s involved in potentially executing contracts for services from outside parties, you want to make sure they don’t have a conflict of interest,” Pelissero, the government ethics expert, said.

“If they’re not even filing the forms for several years, that should be a big red flag to the chancellor and to the board,” he added.

Public records obtained by The Citizen indicate that in July 2021, the district awarded a no-bid $75,000 consultant agreement to a company owned by an individual that Smith had a business connection to in the past.

The company, Kneal Resource System, is owned by Kathy Neal, the ex-wife of former Oakland mayor Elihu Harris, who is also a previous PCCD chancellor.

A statement of information filed with the California Secretary of State on July 25, 2006 lists Smith as a “manager” or “member” alongside Neal of a Limited Liability Company called Construction Management Consortium.

The statement lists Kelle McMahon as the company’s Chief Executive Officer. McMahon is a current Construction Management Instructor at Laney College and PCCD’s former Interim Director of Capital Projects and Facilities.

The company was formally dissolved in 2008. The Certificate of Dissolution, signed by McMahon and Smith as “Principals,” states that the LLC “did not conduct any business” and that “no business activities have occurred since the company was formed in 2006.”

PCCD’s Conflict of Interest Code prohibits designated employees from making decisions on business entities in which they currently hold a management position or have an investment worth at least $2,000. The policy doesn’t place any explicit restrictions on businesses owned by someone they used to do business with.

Ikharo, Smith and Neal did not respond to The Citizen’s repeated requests for comment.

Smith is not the only person with missing Form 700s.

Diana Bajrami had no Form 700 on record, despite having served in positions such as Vice President of Instruction and Acting College President at the College of Alameda. She stepped down earlier this year to return to teaching.

“Per my knowledge and recollection, during my time as an administrator I was not notified of this form,” Bajrami told The Citizen via email.

Trustee Sheweet Yohannes, who has served on the PCCD Board of Trustees since November 2022, did not have a Form 700 on record. Yohannes did not respond to requests for comment.

Lack of forms from construction consultants

District policy states that “construction consultants” are also required to file a Form 700 and disclose their conflicts of interest.

We requested Form 700s filed by Michael Terry and Jaime Ortiz, Partner and Principal of High Performance Learning Environments (HPLE), a construction consulting firm that has received over $3 million in contracts with PCCD, but didn’t receive any.

According to Johnson, PCCD’s communications director, the district “has not informed nor asked HPLE or any of our vendors to complete a Form 700.”

“I am not aware of a standard current practice related to Form 700s for construction consultants,” Johnson stated via email. “We are going to review the administrative procedure and then develop a practice in this area.”

A peek inside what’s been disclosed

Peralta officials reported a range of investments, gifts, and business positions on their Form 700s. The Citizen uploaded all of the records we received online.

PCCD Trustee Louis Quindlen has disclosed owning between $10,001 and $100,000 of stocks in Oracle, the software company behind PeopleSoft. The district uses PeopleSoft for human resources, managing contracts, student records and more.

Quindlen often abstains from votes related to PCCD’s contracts with Oracle, including district warrant reports that name the company. Warrant reports are monthly documentations of all district payments.

In his Form 700s, PCCD Trustee Bill Withrow has reported the possession of between $10,001 and $1,000,000 worth of stock in Wells Fargo, as well as a salary between $10,001 and $100,000 as a retiree of the company.

During a Sep. 28, 2021 board meeting, Withrow voted “yea” on PCCD opening up a Wells Fargo bank account that would be used to pay insurance claims.

In an interview with The Citizen, Withrow said he had “no memory whatsoever” of the agenda item being related to Wells Fargo, but that he would have abstained had he known.

“I should not, to the best of my knowledge, vote yea or nay on anything having to do with Wells Fargo,” Withrow said. “If you have a significant amount of stock in a company […] you should abstain.”

He added that he has walked out of the boardroom three times during closed session meetings due to conflicts of interest.

Some employees stated that they had no “reportable interests” to disclose. According to Pelissero, the government ethics expert, this isn’t unusual.

“It’s quite possible and I would say it’s probably more common for organizations to have officials who don’t have anything to report on the Form 700,” Pelissero said. “It depends a lot just on the position that they hold and what they might do in their personal and private lives.”

What gifts were disclosed

Several employees reported gifts in their Form 700s. PCCD’s conflict of interest policies contain contradictory language surrounding gifts, making it unclear which policy takes precedence.

Administrative Procedure 2710, “Conflict of Interest Disclosure,” and Administrative Procedure 2712, “Conflict of Interest Code,” place different caps on the amount that designated employees can receive in gifts from a single source in a calendar year.

Depending on which policy applies, the limit could be $50, $470, or $590, which is the FPPC’s gift limit as of Jan. 1, 2023.

Garcia, the former President of Berkeley City College, has reported receiving $190 in gifts from the Campaign for College Opportunity and a $100 “wine gift set” from Marina Security Services, which provides unarmed security to PCCD districtwide.

Garcia recalled in an email to The Citizen that the wine gift set “was left in my office during the December holiday period.” The gift is dated Dec. 13, 2022.

She stated that she donated the gift after estimating its cost.

Marina’s CEO, Sam Tadesse, stated in an email that it’s “customary to celebrate the holiday spirit with gifts to our friends and clients.”

When provided with a short list of designated PCCD positions and asked to name specific individuals, Tadesse wrote, “I don’t recall who specifically we sent these customary holiday gifts.”

The Citizen also reached out to the Campaign for College Opportunity and received a response from Amber Román, Director of Strategic Communications. The nonprofit organization sent cookies to its partners “as a token of appreciation for their efforts in advancing college opportunity,” and provided a fruit gift basket to sponsors of their 2022 “Champions of Higher Education” event.

Asked if the organization provided any other gifts to Peralta employees, Román stated that they “do not have records,” but it’s “possible” if they have participated in an event.

Trustee Dyana Delfín Polk and former Trustee Kevin Jenkins each reported receiving Golden State Warriors tickets, valued at $100 each, from the Peralta Colleges Foundation, a nonprofit organization auxiliary to PCCD that raises funds for scholarships.

Jenkins has not responded to requests for comment. Polk told The Citizen via email that she received the ticket through her role on the foundation’s Board of Directors.

“I reported the ticket […] because it was over the gift threshold for my role as a Trustee and I wish to be transparent about any gifts received,” Polk stated.

Trustee Nicky González Yuen has disclosed receiving travel payments from the Asian Pacific American American Leadership Foundation, a nonprofit 501(c)(3) organization, for attending their annual leadership retreats. The value of the payments range from $586 to $994.

Yuen also noted that travel payments from 501(c)(3) nonprofits are exempt from the gift limit, according to California law.

Royl Roberts, a former administrator who held multiple positions during his time at the district, reported receiving a “​​Wine Walk @ Consortium” valued at $91.61 on Jan. 16, 2019, from the company Arthur J. Gallagher & Co., an insurance, risk management, and consulting firm.

Roberts also disclosed a gift valued at $52.52 with the description “Celadon Restaurant,” on Jan. 17, 2019 from insurance company Brit Global Specialty. The restaurant is located in Napa, CA.

At the time he received the gifts, Roberts was serving as Interim Director of Employee Relations and Diversity Programs, which is listed as a “designated” position in the district’s conflict of interest disclosure policy. Roberts also held the permanent position of Risk and Safety Programs Manager.

District records show that PCCD has a financial relationship with Arthur J. Gallagher & Co. dating back to at least 2013, with payments of about $5,000 per year.

In an email to The Citizen, Roberts provided a copy of the agenda for the Community College Risk Management Consortium, held July 17-19, 2019. The consortium, hosted by Arthur J. Gallagher & Co., included workshops and seminars on topics such as the campus safety, Title IX regulations, and the Clery Act, according to the agenda.

“I can assure you unequivocally that this dinner overage in the amount of approximately $41.61 in no way directly or indirectly affected my ability to manage a wide variety of insurance programs or my ability to negotiate insurance programs with insurance brokers on behalf of the District,” Roberts stated.

When conflicts of interest go awry

Not reporting conflicts of interest on Form 700s — or not submitting them at all — can have consequences.

For example, Ron Galatolo, the former chancellor for the San Mateo Community College District, is facing 23 felony charges for allegedly “directing district construction project contracts to people from whom he received valuable gifts and shared financial interests,” according to the San Mateo Daily Journal.

The charges include nine counts of perjury for failing to disclose the gifts on his Form 700, the Daily Journal reported. Galatolo has maintained that he has done nothing wrong, according to the Daily Journal.

Peralta has also faced repercussions in the past for conflicts of interest.

A former PCCD chancellor, Elihu Harris, awarded a former business partner a facilities contract without disclosing their past relationship until after the contract was given, SFGate reported in 2011. The contract, which totalled over $940,000 after being amended three times, led to an eventual FBI investigation in 2011.

Pelissero, the government ethics expert, said conflict of interest disclosures should be “as comprehensive as possible.” Public officials should err on the side of caution if they’re feeling unsure about an item, he said.

“The more they disclose, the more openness there is because of the transparency, and that helps to reinforce a trust in public officials,” Pelissero added.

Sam O’Neil contributed reporting.