VALLEJO – In a nearly empty Vallejo City Council chambers in November, the city council approved a new contract with the Vallejo Police Officers Association. Members of the council complained bitterly about the process and wondered at the lack of public interest. The meeting had been called at the last minute, and may have even been illegal under the city charter. But it capped a year and a half of contentious negotiations and the councilmembers were eager to move on. 

If the vote were delayed, “I think the consequences are unbearable for the citizens of this city,” Mayor Robert McConnell said during the meeting.

Just a year earlier, Vallejo police Chief Shawny Williams, who was popular with the council, suddenly resigned after months of pressure from the VPOA. A Vallejo Sun investigation revealed that the VPOA had interfered with the work of two recruiters hired by Williams, then blamed Williams for a staffing shortage.

Even as Williams left, officers he sought to fire returned, including the head of the police union, Lt. Michael Nichelini. The officer who killed Sean Monterrosa in 2020, Detective Jarrett Tonn, was ordered to be reinstated with back pay in August after Williams repeatedly attempted to fire him. Williams was hired to help reform the department, but in the end the officers he identified as the problems survived him.

The council declared an emergency over the department’s staffing levels in July in a bid to receive help from outside agencies. But the Solano County Sheriff’s Office and other area police agencies said they would not bolster police staffing in Vallejo without a contract in place, ratcheting up the pressure for the city to conclude its negotiations.

Meanwhile, as McConnell said, Vallejo residents paid the price.

Local businesses complained of little response to repeated break-ins. A veterinarian said she would leave town after a former customer attacked her outside a salon and Vallejo police did not respond. A mother complained that her son’s murder was not being adequately investigated because the police department had diverted resources elsewhere.

Police blamed the lack of resources, but some incidents led residents to question how police were allocating those resources. Weeks after the city council declared its staffing emergency, seven police officers helped tow vehicles from a homeless encampment, including taking a trailer housing a mother, grandmother and four young children. Six officers responded to a traffic stop in June and violently arrested a woman on the sidewalk who was never charged with a crime.

And despite having fewer officers, use of force by officers exploded in 2023. Vallejo police reported a fivefold increase in use of force incidents, though they later said that their data tracking had changed and there was no basis for comparing 2023 to previous years. Still, the department reported six use of force incidents that caused severe injury in 2023, up from no incidents the previous year.

The department also broke a three-year streak of officers not shooting people in 2023. In June, an officer shot a burglary suspect who was pulling out of a gas station as police arrived. The shooting would have likely been out of policy with a reform that took effect three days later. In November, an officer shot a robbery suspect who was running away with a gun in his hand, according to video played in court that the city has refused to release.

Officers engaged in more pursuits in 2023, with deadly results. Two bystanders were killed when suspects fleeing police officers crashed this year and others were injured. A Vallejo Sun investigation found that Vallejo police engage in pursuits at higher rates than other California agencies. Despite that experts recommend police abstain from pursuits except for suspects in a violent crime or who pose an immediate danger, Vallejo’s pursuit policies are not subject to reforms like its use of force policies.

And the department’s reform efforts have floundered. A year after the Vallejo City Council finally approved a new citizens’ oversight model, it has yet to be implemented because of negotiations with the VPOA. The VPOA had previously blocked a stop gap measure that would have put a police auditor in place. 

The citizens oversight model is one of 45 reforms that were required to be completed in June by the state Department of Justice. As numerous reforms remain unfinished, the DOJ sought court oversight for the remaining reforms. But as the assigned judge has indicated unwillingness to execute a proposed stipulated judgment between the DOJ and the city, it could be subject to a lengthy court fight. 

The turnabout for the VPOA was reminiscent of the city’s 2008 bankruptcy, when the City Council sought to reign in spending on police contracts and were subjected to an intense pressure campaign by the VPOA.

City struggles to contend with homelessness

Vallejo sought to make strides on providing more resources for unhoused people this year, but persistent delays and problems have continued, and several of the city’s goals for the year remain unmet. 

In March, Vallejo sought funds from the Solano County Board of Supervisors for a 47-unit permanent supportive housing project under construction in North Vallejo and $2 million for construction of a 125-bed navigation center. 

At the time, the city told the supervisors that the North Vallejo project was anticipated to open in May, but as of the end of the year it remains incomplete. The city still has not set a specific timeline for the navigation center, which has been a quagmire for years with a bloated budget and the discovery that the initial planned site was contaminated and unfit for human habitation.

Still, one bright spot for the city was the opening of Blue Oak Landing, which finally opened in May after months of delays. The 74-unit building on Sacramento Street was reserved for people either experiencing homelessness or at risk of homelessness, with some of the units set aside for people suffering from behavioral health conditions. 

But Blue Oak Landing has faced its own issues. Since residents have moved in, they have complained about constant malfunctioning fire alarms, no mail delivery, and a lack of security, which remained unresolved as of the end of the year. 

Meanwhile, the city has been under increasing pressure to remove people camping in the White Slough area. The San Francisco Bay Regional Water Quality Control Board has been urging city officials to remove the encampments, leading to evictions of people on public property in the area and lawsuits against land owners who have allowed people to stay on their property.

The city completed its housing element, a plan required by the state to be completed every eight years, months behind schedule in October. But the plan showed that the city had fallen short of its affordable housing goals and had no clear plan to build enough affordable units to keep pace with demand in the next eight years. 

Challenges continue for Vallejo schools amid leadership turnover

The Vallejo City Unified School District started the year facing $5 million in budget cuts as the district contended with a budget deficit of $13 million and a projected $7 million shortfall for the 2024-25 school year.

The budget deficit was mostly attributed to declining enrollment, which has plagued the district for years but grew increasingly pronounced following the COVID-19 pandemic. Meanwhile, the first data since the pandemic showed that students in Vallejo schools struggled to perform. 

The district has also continued selling off its empty properties to raise revenue, selling two schools to the city. But its future will largely depend on whether it can boost attendance, leading the district to announce a variety of strategies in September aimed at keeping students in Vallejo schools.

But those strategies will have to be implemented without Superintendent William Spalding, who announced he will retire at the end of the current school year. Spalding was credited with helping to keep the district’s finances stable amid the issues with enrollment and a requirement to pay back a state loan from a fiscal crisis nearly 20 years ago.