Update: Board of Supervisors President Rafael Mandelman said he will hold a hearing on Feb. 25 to hear the matter of Max Carter-Oberstone’s removal from the Police Commission.
Mayor Daniel Lurie today moved to oust outspoken police commissioner Max Carter-Oberstone as part of an attempted overhaul of the body that oversees the San Francisco Police Department.
In a letter to the Board of Supervisors, which must vote to approve Carter-Oberstoneโs removal, Lurie wrote today that he will seek a replacement โwho will work collaboratively to make our city safer.โ Carter-Oberstone, a progressive focused on police reform who frequently clashed with Mayor London Breed, could be removed with six votes, and Lurie enjoys a Board of Supervisors with six moderate votes.
A source close to the mayorโs office said Lurie did not believe Carter-Oberstone would cooperate with others on the mayorโs public-safety agenda.
Carter-Oberstone said he did not know why he was facing removal. But he said that Staci Slaughter, Lurieโs chief of staff, last week asked him about resigning.
โShe asked that if [Lurie] were to ask me to resign, what would I do?โ said Carter-Oberstone, who was twice appointed to the police commission by Mayor London Breed and whose term expires in 2026. โI said that I would decline.โ
Today, in an email to Carter-Oberstone, Slaughter wrote: โYou made clear that you would not resign at the Mayorโs request. The mayor appreciates your service over the last three years, but he hopes to appoint a new commissioner who will collaborate to make our city safer.โ
There is some degree of irony in the mayoral request for Carter-Oberstone to resign as, in 2022, he exposed then-Mayor Breedโs practice of asking her appointees to sign undated resignation letters to ostensibly maintain control over them.
โIโm proud of the work that Iโve done on the commission. I think Iโve served the public with integrity and always done what was right on the behalf of the public, without regard to politics,โ Carter-Oberstone said.
Breed appointed Carter-Oberstone to the commission in 2021, and again in 2022, but the two broke ties after he refused to back her pick for the commission president. He later won the James Madison Freedom of Information Award as a public official who exposed Breedโs now-banned practice, which the City Attorney’s Office deemed โinconsistentโ with the city charter.
Over the next couple years, Carter-Oberstone and three board-appointed commissioners voted as a bloc to pass through reform-minded policies, like curtailing pretext traffic stops, over Breedโs and the police unionโs objections. Carter-Oberstone vehemently opposed Breedโs Prop. E of 2024, which loosened restrictions on police vehicle chases and weakened Police Commission civilian oversight.
Lurie started his own independent-expenditure campaign to back that measure. It easily passed in the March 2024 election.
Lurieโs move comes a day after he appointed Wilson Leung, a former federal prosecutor, to the commission. The mayor appoints four seats on the seven-member commission.
The changes to the Police Commission could indicate the imminent departure of Police Chief Bill Scott, on the heels of the departures of Municipal Transit Agency director Jeffrey Tumlin and Department of Public Health director Dr. Grant Colfax.
The hiring process for a San Francisco police chief requires the Police Commission to advance a list of three names to the mayor, who hires his preferred candidate or rejects the list. It is paramount for the mayor to ensure an acceptable candidate is included on the commissionโs shortlist.
Lurie is counting on the Board of Supervisorsโ support to remove Carter-Oberstone and replace him with a more agreeable commissioner. Board president Rafael Mandelman defended Lurie’s move, and told Mission Local it is “important for the mayor to have confidence in his commissioners.”
Carter-Oberstone, meanwhile, appears poised to fight Lurieโs decision.
โItโs tough for me to react, not knowing what the basis for the decision is,โ Carter-Oberstone said. โI intend to make my case on why I deserve to finish my term.โ
Lurie shows his true colors. A Mark Farrell esque move.
Gee, Dan – got stuff y’ wanna get done without the bother of a few checks and balances? On your honor, of course.
Rather Orwellian of Lurie to say “work collaboratively” when he apparently means “roll over and do whatever I say without question”.
The new mayor is already proving to be a weak leader. Rather than rolling up his sleeves and working with the commission, heโs demanding loyalty over competence, surrounding himself with โyesโ people instead of tackling the real challenges. Itโs the same playbook as our new presidentโฆcontrol over collaboration, optics over outcomes.
The commission isnโt about public safety but a peanut gallery of police work which they know nothing about.
“There is some degree of irony in the mayoral request to resign as, in 2022, he exposed then-Mayor Breedโs practice of asking her appointees to sign undated resignation letters to ostensibly maintain control over them. ”
-Some degree of irony not unlike the surface of the Sun.
“deemed โinconsistentโ with the city charter by the city attorneyโs office.”
-Inconsistent like a criminal action is “inconsistent” with the law on the books.
And what did Chiu do? Nothing. PR cover for Breed deleting emails/texts…
which Chiu also did, illegally. One good fraud-smoothing deserves another?
Whatever Lurie wants he can have right now, though ominously lock-stepped and curiously afraid of both dissent and oversight as it might be… not great optics. Article notes Lurie has 6 “moderate” pocket votes in hand already. They don’t just all “collaborate” so much as they take marching orders and do exactly that.
Would a single dissenting hold-over from the previous administration be a threat to that effort, with a sole vote and somewhat differing point of view on how to handle issues? Or would he have been more useful as a strawman for comparison, rather than a first publicly self-inflicted thorn in side politically during the electoral honeymoon? Lurie could have waited for CO to take an unpopular opinion and then do exactly this with a hand-washing gesture. Yet now instead of 1 useless vote, CO’s got a pulpit and a PR reason to speak out. Strategy vs. tactics. Not that Breed had handled this exact problem particularly well herself…
Max Carter-Oberstone is a man of integrity and courage. He isn’t some crazy pro-crime radical or whatever… he is a highly intelligent man of color who pushed for some truly moderate reforms.
Crime rates have no relationship to police staffing numbers apparently, and SFPD’s numbers when it comes to racial disparities are atrocious… we are worse than Ferguson, Missouri.
Hang in there MCO! Don’t resign. Fight the power!
“man of color”?
Should only white people be fired?
Hold up. Newbie Mayor Lurie centered his entire campaign on fighting corruption at City Hall; day in and day out that was his message on the campaign trail. Max Carter Overstone is a champion of justice, accountability and transparency. HE IS AN ANTICORRUPTION WARRIOR.He was THE whistleblower against Breedโs corrupt and secret practice of making her appointees sign undated letters of resignation. Removing Oberstone is wrong, stupid and shameful.
Hmmm! Here here on Lurie running as an “anti corruption” person but now hes doing things that go against that it seems….
Heโs suppose to work on police, what he did was work on London which the voters ultimately got. Less police work, tolerate more crime, no. Rule of law only when itโs convenient for you? No
SFPD neither prevents nor solves crime and are a little more than a very expensive safety blanket for frightened conservatives.
SFPD staffing is at an all time low as is violent crime. Now, SFPOA is going to close ranks to keep the racketeering operation laundering money.
Shame on Mayor Lurie for making such a blatant, and stupid, move to oust an outspoken champion of the safety of our community. If your first move is to suppress opposition, silence your critics, and surround yourself with yes men, you are definitely not interested in bringing fairness and equality to your administration. It certainly didnโt take long to start missing London Breedโs own special brand of incompetent leadership.
So disappointed in Lurie. Maxโs only flaw is telling the truth and shining a light on SFPDโs deception, bad data, and horrific command staff whose mother tongue is gaslighting. They are entitled babies who canโt handle truthful criticism and betray the rank and file on the daily. Yep is just as weak. I will actively campaign against any supervisor or mayoral candidate who supports this move. Of course SFPD wants to get rid of him. No one likes to debate someone courageous and brilliant. Max for Mayor! Recall Lurie.
And I will be campaigning for the very people you oppose.
No doubt our mayor has retired Commander Yep and Super Dorsey (lawing) and ordering up this one on the KMA platter.
SF Mayor Daniel Lurie is a racist and a corrupt weak man.
Change is good .
Whoever is appointed should be held accoutable .
Also this city needs to improve all the cities employees oversight .
Emails and phonecalls need to be returned within 24 to 48 hrs ,
People need to come into work .
Hiding behind the layers and not being available to answer citizens needs , concerns and questions needs to be changed.
Cut and paste responses equates to no response.
What is the purpose of the police commission anyways? As far as my understanding of it goes, it’s comprised of people “appointed” by the mayor…how is that an effective police oversight committee? In my opinion, the whole police commission needs to be reimagined….But I hadn’t realized this Max Oberstone man was attempting to make some progressive reforms. That is good to see, and it’s’ a shame to hear Lurie and his team are trying to force him out
well my optimism that lurie wonโt be just another bootlicking cop loving mayor is gone.
MCO had called out one injustice, and now he can do no wrong. Hahahahah – no. He and other commissioners need to go.
What the police commission has done is not about ‘making SF safer’, it is about trying to eviscerate law enforcement’s ability to maintain order.
We’ve tried things the ‘progressive’ way for way too long. It’s time for the police commission itself to be ‘reformed’.
Bye bye
Buh-bye.
This guy stands for criminals. Good riddance.
Yeah. With this move, Lurie is siding with criminals and corruption.
“Progressive” is all I had to read. That ‘more liberal than you’ faction has brought down the city in the past 20 years.
Progressives have never had control of city government, what are you talking about?
David Campos, John Avalos and Eric Mar, Peskin, Daly.
Were you here in the early 2000’s?
It has been over 40 years since we have had a progressive mayor.
Bella!
We have had Democratic Mayors for the past 56 years and ‘progressives’ fall under that. Progressives seem to want to out-liberal each other to the point of not representing the overall liberal voting bloc.
^^^ this ^^^
started with Art Agnos, over 30 years ago.
Campers,
Cindy Elias will be next.
Keep in mind here that the new Moderate BOS can also remove the appointees of the recently departed Progressive Board.
On the ground nothing changes.
Eloquent as Carter-Oberstone has been, he hasn’t changed how the cops act when the bell rings.
Makes for fascinating theatre.
What did Hunter Thompson say ?
“You bought the ticket, now you take the ride.”
lol
Go Niners !!
h.