DEI & Criminal Justice Teams To Discuss the Future of Berkeley’s Police Accountability Board: Strategic Planning, Public Safety, and Resignations.

Two senior members of the Berkeley Police Accountability Board (PAB), Kitty Calavita and Julie Leftwich, resigned from their positions last Friday – representing a locally reported problem that Criminal Justice System and DEI Team members will discuss this week. The resignations happened just two short weeks following the PAB’s annual strategic planning meeting, held on January 17th.

The goal of the strategic planning meeting was to review the goals, achievements, and challenges of the PAB during 2025. They also outlined performance metrics, discussed the facilitation of community outreach, as well as establishing the board’s goals for 2026. The first half of this meeting began with an honest assessment of the hurdles that the board overcame, in addition to their successes. Board member Calavita highlighted the need for the submission of some sort of overview of all of the PAB’s recommendations—or simply a full list of said recommendations—that would be sent to the Berkeley City Council. She articulated fear that the council was either ignoring their recommendations, or simply not reviewing the most important ones. Although, she questioned whether or not such an overview would have made any difference, stating, “I do not feel that the council was ready to hear our recommendations.” After this, the board discussed several other crucial topics: the expanded surveillance camera program, data protection and encrypting radio communications, staffing challenges, and the struggles that they faced throughout last year. The PAB reviewed the fixed surveillance camera program, highlighting public controversy that had originally delayed the installation of said cameras. These new solar-powered Condor cameras were installed in key locations, like bus stops and busy streets such as San Pablo, University, and Ashby Avenues. However, several concerns originated from the Berkeley community about potential camera data shared with federal agencies like ICE. These concerns led to careful examinations of the program’s oversight and privacy protocols.

Another topic of discussion during this meeting revolved around BPD’s data protection policies, especially the decision to encrypt radio communications. Advocates and the public raised significant privacy concerns, worrying about transparency. The PAB has had a difficult time accessing timely crucial data, including body camera footage and other records, leading to large public push back against the city’s allowance of the BPD encryption. This tension between the PAB and the BPD was enhanced in a lawsuit in December of 2025, where the PAB accused the Berkeley Police Department chief of illegally withholding records related to a June 2025 homeless encampment sweep, emphasizing the ongoing battle for data access and transparency.

The board also acknowledged issues with staffing resulting from a forcibly imposed hiring freeze by the city manager. They stated that they had clearly explained to the city manager that such a freeze would be a large problem for the board, considering their need for more staffing at the Office of the Director of Police Accountability (ODPA), and that they recommended using the manager’s own framework of placing exemptions of certain positions deemed “critical to the mission.” However, there was not a clear response to the proposed workaround. Afterwards, the board reviewed major successes in increasing public outreach, including the construction of a UC Berkeley program where students could assess public outreach policy for the board as well as other opportunities for increasing community engagement. A possible public survey was also mentioned by the PAB, in addition to them discussing the occurrence of several community events across 2025 to celebrate various holidays. There was also a brief discussion of a collaborative effort between the PAB and BPD on the new Vehicle Pursuit Policy, where both groups were working to raise the standards for forcible interventions, focusing on safer outcomes for the public and officers.

While they had many successes in terms of policy and community engagement, they detailed an array of structural challenges that they faced, both resulting from the council and from the BPD. Firstly, it was mentioned that the council had been meeting regarding issues that the PAB wanted to review, without giving them appropriate time to do so. Both the police chief and city manager had also overwhelmingly reversed many of the PAB’s conclusions on submitted complaints. Furthermore, they highlighted that they struggled to receive records from the BPD, with them submitting records later than required without signaling a need for more time for procurement.

The PAB has been facing even more structural challenges with the city council, though. They emphasized feeling that there has been a distinct lack of recognition for the work they do, and the tremendous value that it holds. More specifically, the board feels that they struggle with a lack of relevancy in relation to personnel investigations. The most strength the PAB has had lies within policy recommendations, both those that are mandated by the charter and explicitly requested by council to be reviewed.

However, this lack of recognition and support is the direct reason why both Kitty Calavita and Juliet Leftwich resigned from their positions on the PAB. They felt “ignored” by city leaders, stating that “they largely discounted the PAB’s feedback on a wide assortment of other matters.”​​ These resignations came as a shock. Both Leftwich and Calavita were important figures for the board, with extensive experience in public policy and the police department, and both of them had served on the Police Review Commission. Their dedication and tremendously impactful work over the years has been crucial for the facilitation of police accountability; their resignations signal an enormous loss for the PAB.

PAB was jilted again at the January 29th Public Safety Committee meeting. The purpose of the meeting was to take public comment, then vote on the Resolutions on their Agenda.  The first, which would cut the paperwork for police when there is use of pepper spray was met with all speakers giving reasons for not cutting the paperwork. At least three people adamantly questioned why it hadn’t been run by the PAB.  With nary a mention of including PAB guidance, the PSC commenced to vote yes to recommend the cutting of police paperwork for use of pepper spray to the Berkeley City Council.

The League’s Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion team, alongside the criminal justice team, will be meeting on Wednesday, February 4th, to discuss these resignations and the serious implications for the future of the PAB.

–Brayden Livingston and JoJo Sutton