The Alameda County Taxpayers’ Association is trying to build a legal case for removing Dave Brown from the Board of Supervisors, saying he wasOn Nov. 16, the Board of Supervisors voted 3-1 to appoint Brown to replace Wilma Chan, who was killed two weeks earlier when hit by a car while walking her dog in Alameda.
Brown said he wouldn’t run for Chan’s seat in the June primary, although he wouldn’t have been eligible anyway because Alameda County requires candidates to live in the districts they want to represent for at least a year. The lawsuit accuses the Board of Supervisors of violating the state’s open meetings law, known as the Brown Act. According to the suit, while the agenda for the Nov. 16 meeting included an item calling for creation of a process to fill Chan’s District 3 seat, the supervisors skipped that process and instead voted to appoint Brown that day without publicly vetting a pool of potential applicants or candidates.
In an emailed response to a request for comment, Brown said that as Chan’s chief of staff, “I worked diligently to implement her programs and initiatives. It is also why I worked to honor her wishes for completing her term on the Board and to ensure her initiatives will continue. As a longtime staffer and friend to the Supervisor, my appointment is what Supervisor Chan wanted, what her family wanted, and ultimately what the Board of Supervisors decided upon.
In addition to the transparency issue, Bezis said in an email that the taxpayers’ group also hopes to file another suit to remove Brown on the basis of not being qualified for the seat because of his previous residency. Brown was a registered Contra Costa County voter until just days before his appointment, which Brown and the other supervisors acknowledged and discussed publicly during the meeting.