OAKLAND — It’s proving trickier than anticipated for Oakland to maneuver on from its contracted non-public safety firm, which final 12 months discovered itself uncomfortably linked to a corruption scandal at Metropolis Corridor that led to legal expenses towards ex-Mayor Sheng Thao.
Metropolis leaders are torn between a pair of main suitors that, past their mutual curiosity in changing the present contractor, have wildly completely different aspirations: an immigrant-owned native enterprise with sturdy political connections in Oakland versus a mega-corporation with tons of of hundreds of workers.
Tensions are rising round Metropolis Corridor with days left to determine a plan.
Personal safety guards will not be significantly well-paid, however their employers rake in profitable income from public {dollars}. On this case, Oakland is providing $27 million over three years — with choices for a pair of one-year extensions — to offer safety guards at metropolis services.
The town’s indecision is rapidly descending right into a sort of politics that doesn’t contain accusations of corruption however appears to replicate different, acquainted tropes of metropolis authorities: aggressive lobbying, messy political maneuvering and complaints of bias amongst metropolis officers.
“There is no perfect system for this — there can be none,” mentioned Henry Gardner, a former metropolis supervisor, who added, “We all need to model a (certain) behavior so there is not even the appearance of favoritism or undue influence.”
Each corporations are vying to switch ABC Safety, an organization that has held the contract since 2018 and whose chief government was carefully tied to a central determine within the federal corruption case filed in January towards Thao, her romantic accomplice and the businessmen accused of bribing the previous mayor.
Ana Chretien, the corporate’s CEO, had intensive enterprise dealings with a possible co-conspirator within the bribery scheme, Mario Juarez — the 2 representing the identical real-estate firm and swapping a number of industrial properties between one another over the course of some years. Chretien couldn’t be reached for remark.
ABC Safety Service guard Sabira Hussein screens guests at Metropolis Corridor in downtown Oakland, Calif., on Wednesday, July 16, 2025. (Jane Tyska/Bay Space Information Group)
Final 12 months, Alameda County prosecutors accused ABC Safety of getting a monetary stake in Thao’s electoral victory, a part of a movement in a felony case involving Juarez that was later dismissed. Neither Chretien nor ABC Safety was ever charged by county prosecutors, and so they weren’t talked about within the federal indictments filed in January.
Months earlier, the town had prolonged ABC Safety’s deal, although council members agreed on the time to start a full seek for its subsequent contractor, with then-Councilmember Treva Reid noting that “public concerns” had surfaced concerning the incumbent agency.
Now, the town’s efforts to discover a new safety accomplice are rapidly turning into strained, leaving Oakland with the prospect of being caught with ABC Safety on a month-to-month foundation.
“There has been a lot of lobbying from all sides,” Councilmember Zac Unger mentioned.
Allied Common, the world’s largest non-public safety supplier, scored the very best in Oakland’s vetting course of, whereas the second-place finisher, Marina Safety Providers, has a CEO who has lived within the metropolis for many years and donated extensively in native political races.
ABC Safety completed final place amongst 5 candidates.
Some metropolis officers appeared to view the method as comparatively open-and-shut: Allied and Marina scored equally in evaluations of their written proposals, however the bigger vendor gained a crucial edge in interviews with a range panel of metropolis staffers.
Each have been ready to accomplice within the contract with a neighborhood, Black-owned small enterprise, Diligence Safety Group.
However when a committee of Metropolis Council members convened final week to debate advancing Allied to the stage of a remaining choice, three elected leaders — Ken Houston, Noel Gallo and Charlene Wang — as a substitute pushed via a vote for Marina.
Oakland metropolis council member district seven Ken Houston speaks in the course of the 2025 Inauguration Ceremony held at Oakland Metropolis Corridor in Oakland, Calif., on Monday, Jan. 6, 2025. (Jose Carlos Fajardo/Bay Space Information Group)
Per week later, the tentative choice stays in limbo on the committee stage; officers haven’t but scheduled it to be heard by the total council.
Houston, who clearly appeared to want Marina, grilled metropolis officers on the assembly about their vetting course of and whether or not Marina’s established native presence had acquired adequate weight.
Wang, in the meantime, pushed unsuccessfully for a full re-evaluation, citing a protracted checklist of lawsuits and allegations of misconduct towards Allied, one of many U.S.’s largest employers.
“I want to ensure, when we are about to award a major, major contract, that these controversies are surfaced,” mentioned Wang, who later added, “the smaller companies (that) have more skin in the game actually perform higher-quality services.”
It isn’t the primary time Allied has acquired scrutiny. A Time Journal exposé revealed in 2023 reported quite a few alleged failings in how Allied hires, pays and trains safety guards, in addition to the corporate’s widespread acquisition of smaller safety corporations, which has ballooned Allied’s market share.
Later that 12 months, the corporate agreed to pay $1.1 million in again wages to tons of of workers in response to a Labor Division violation, based on Bloomberg Legislation.
With an workplace on Hegenberger Street in Oakland, Allied supplies safety guards at over 130 industrial websites on the town. Almost 72% of the guards are Black, mentioned Courtney White, a consultant who described Allied as a “local employer” that prioritizes group outreach.
Unger, the council member who solid the lone vote towards Marina on the committee assembly, famous in an interview that safety corporations “get sued a lot — and the larger companies probably get sued proportionally more than the smaller companies.”
ABC Safety Service guard Sabira Hussein screens guests at Metropolis Corridor in downtown Oakland, Calif., on Wednesday, July 16, 2025. (Jane Tyska/Bay Space Information Group)
Certainly, Marina was equally hit in Might with a class-action lawsuit alleging the corporate did not pay minimal wages or extra time, or supply adequate breaks to its staff, amongst different alleged labor violations.
Attorneys for the lead plaintiff, Jasmine Monroy Cortez, didn’t reply to an interview request. The corporate’s staff unionized in 2024, becoming a member of the nation’s largest labor group for safety guards — an SEIU chapter named United Service Staff West, which additionally represents guards employed by Allied.
Marina seems to be having a tough summer season. Final month, it misplaced out on a brand new contract value almost $6 million yearly with the Peralta Group Faculty District, ending a five-year relationship offering safety to the district’s 4 campuses.
The corporate’s proposal completed in third place. However its CEO, Sam Tadesse, mentioned the method lacked “transparency, fairness and equity,” particularly due to a last-minute change to the contract expectations that Peralta officers blamed on an earlier clerical error.
Tadesse adopted an identical line of argument towards the town of Oakland’s choice of a safety contractor, saying “there are still many unanswered questions surrounding the interview process” that positioned Allied within the lead for the $27 million deal.
Later in his assertion, Tadesse extra immediately accused the town workers of being biased, as a result of his firm noticed the best variance in scores awarded by completely different members of the choice panel. “Were they trying to score Marina lower?” he requested.
FILE – The Peralta Group Faculty District headquarters is considered Sept. 14, 2017, in Oakland, Calif. Laney Faculty, one of many Peralta faculties, might be residence to a brand new unbiased league baseball staff known as the Oakland Ballers set to start play subsequent spring and embrace the loyal A’s followers who’re heartbroken about their membership’s deliberate departure to Las Vegas. (AP Picture/Ben Margot, File)
An immigrant of Ethiopia who has lived in Oakland for almost 4 a long time, Tadesse represents the sort of small-business success that metropolis officers tout when praising Oakland’s range. Marina has safety offers with the town and counties of San Francisco, in addition to at Los Angeles Worldwide Airport.
In flip, Tadesse is carefully allied with native politicians, having donated over $23,000 to candidates for numerous native elected places of work since 2019, together with $900 to the 2022 marketing campaign of first-term Councilmember Kevin Jenkins, who beforehand sat on the Peralta board.
It stays to be seen if Oakland’s leaders will finally buck from the recommendation of workers to push the contract towards Marina — a course of that, due to a deliberate summer season recess, may sit in limbo till the tip of September if the council doesn’t act within the coming days.
The fraught course of helps illuminate the ugly enterprise behind metropolis contracts, though it is usually nothing new. Amid Oakland’s seek for a contractor in 2011, the town auditor flagged some suspicious marketing campaign contributions to council members who would vote on the deal, questioning the legality of the political spending.
The donors in query: Chretian and her safety agency, ABC Safety, plus Tadesse and his firm, Marina Safety Providers.
Employees author Jakob Rodgers contributed reporting.
Initially Revealed: July 16, 2025 at 5:41 PM PDT
