A disagreement whether the city should paint “Black Lives Matter” on the street in front of City Hall turned acrimonious at Tuesday’s council meeting between Mayor Bob Sampayan and Councilmember Hakeem Brown as the two continued to criticize each other Thursday.
Minutes before the 5-2 vote — with Brown and Rozzana Verder-Aliga dissenting — Sampayan suggested a subcommittee on designing the sign, hoping Brown and Verder-Aliga would participate.
“I don’t want to be part of a subcommittee to talk about designs for a mural,” Brown said. “If you want to actually get something done and show some courage, let’s have a subcommittee addressing systemic racism and I would love to serve on that. I refuse to waste one second of my life on whether we should paint something.”
Sampayan interrupted Brown.
“I think that’s a direct insult,” the mayor said.
“No disrespect … it’s insulting to me,” Brown replied. “You don’t know what it’s like to be a Black man in American. Your suggestion was very insulting mayor, whether you know it or not and just you suggesting that shows where you’re truly at. If you can’t truly see that, I’ll be looking forward to the end of this year. That’s ridiculous.”
On Thursday, Sampayan said Brown’s response “was hurtful, embarrassing, and insulting to the position of mayor. It absolutely violates the decorum that people expect and is required of our councilmembers and mayor. In my years as mayor, as well as having been on council, I have never seen this kind of anger expressed by councilmembers or a mayor. It’s sad that anyone has to resort to comments that inflame everyone’s good conscience. It’s called ‘mayoral temperament.'”
“I was very displeased with Councilmember Brown’s demeanor,” added Sampayan.
“What really is concerning is that if Councilmember Brown wishes to be mayor, he’s going to need to develop ‘mayoral temperament.’ If he’s elected and represents the city in that fashion of anger, we will be judged that we have absolutely no control how our meetings are run, that we no longer share values that are expected of the city council and mayor. And my bigger concern would be that if he is elected, he will be on different commissions and boards throughout the county. How is he going to interact with some of the members of the board of supervisors?”
Sampayan acknowledged that he “totally agrees with Hakeem’s passion and his desire to better serve the African American community. I absolutely applaud that. However, when he expresses his passion angrily and chastises people openly, it takes away from that credible notion that he is doing this for the community; that it ends up sounding like he’s doing it for himself based on his anger.”
Brown said Thursday said he was “clear about what I felt. The fact painting ‘Black Lives Matter’ without taking substantial steps, without showing that Black lives matter, was an insult to the community.”
Brown said he “lost respect” for Sampayan “as a human being” when the mayor admitted knowledge of the alleged “badge-bending” by Vallejo police officers after an officer-involved shooting death.
“When he knew of badge-bending by the police force and never spoke up shows a lack of character to me,” Brown said. “I lost respect for him as mayor. To say he knew about it and never said a word, I do have to question his character.”
Sampayan responded: “I was approached by an individual from the police department who had indicated to me there was a ‘ritual’ done by officers after they were involved in a shooting; that they would bend the tip of their badge. This was probably maybe a year ago.”
“Yes, I knew about this 20 years ago. I asked the officer why his badge was bent..He said he did it in a scuffle. That was a reasonable explanation,” said Sampayan, a former VPD sergeant. “That was the only time I had seen a bent badge. I knew nothing about this idea of ‘celebration of shooting somebody. I had no idea. Now that it’s become an issue it is being taken care of. I’m appalled any officer would celebrate the shooting of another human being.”
The “bent-badge” ritual “is being investigated,” Sampayan said. “If it’s proven anyone deemed guilty of this should be terminated.”
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Councilman Hakeem Brown, Mayor Bob Sampayan in bitter exchange - Vallejo Times-Herald
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