San Francisco lawmakers are expected to approve the appointment of a new police commissioner and possibly the removal of another on Tuesday. These actions, together with a future appointment in the coming weeks, could shift the direction of the commission, which sets police policy and oversees officer discipline, and ease newly elected Mayor Daniel Lurie’s new initiatives on public safety.
W. S. Wilson Leung, a corporate compliance lawyer and former federal prosecutor whose nomination by Lurie was first announced on Feb. 3, is expected to be quickly confirmed by the Board of Supervisors at their meeting on Tuesday.
Leung has been director of investigations and integrity at the computer hardware giant Intel Corporation since 2020, having held similar positions at Uber and Hewlett-Packard. Before moving to corporate law, he worked for the U.S. Department of Justice for 14 years as an assistant United States attorney in the Southern District of New York and the Northern District of California, where he served as deputy chief of the Organized Crime Strike Force.
Leung was born in Hong Kong but grew up in San Francisco’s Richmond District. Starting his legal career in New York, he told the Supervisors’ Rules Committee on Feb. 10 that “the special gravity of home” drew him back to San Francisco in 2008.
Public commenters representing multiple communities supported Leung at that meeting, and the committee unanimously recommended his confirmation. Leung will replace attorney Jim Byrne, whose reappointment by outgoing Mayor London Breed was withdrawn after the Board of Supervisors rejected her appointments to two other commissions after she lost the recent election.
While it seems that Leung’s approval by the full Board of Supervisors on Tuesday will be smooth sailing, the lawmakers will then move on to a much thornier issue — the removal of the Police Commission’s controversial vice president, Max Carter-Oberstone, at Lurie’s request. Lurie’s office has asked Carter-Oberstone to resign from the commission, but he has refused, according to a report in Mission Local.
Carter-Oberstone, a 39-year-old appellate lawyer who worked at the prestigious Orrick law firm when appointed to the commission for a partial term by Mayor London Breed in 2021, recently joined Altshuler Berzon, a firm specializing in civil rights and criminal appellate work, in an of counsel position.
His trajectory at the Police Commission could be seen as a case study of what happens when an appointment goes wrong in San Francisco’s commission system, where so many bodies have multiple appointing authorities. Four of the commission’s seven members are nominated by the mayor and confirmed by the supervisors. The other three are nominated and also confirmed by the supervisors.
In 2023, Mission Local described Carter-Oberstone as “San Francisco’s Most Consequential Commissioner” who, after being reappointed by Breed for a full term in 2022, regularly defied her policy directives and instead sided with members appointed by the Board of Supervisors, including commission president Cindy Elias, and members Kevin Benedicto and Jesus Yañez, who many observers claim are rubber-stamps for the policy goals of the city’s criminal defense bar and criminal justice advocates.
Carter-Oberstone also prompted a scandal over the Breed Administration’s practice of demanding undated resignation letters from commission appointees. Having submitted one when nominated, he asked to rescind it, but Breed’s office refused, so he went public. That led to a Board of Supervisors hearing on the matter and legislation ending the practice.
Political veterans around the country know that voluntarily submitting an undated resignation letter when appointed to some commissions or other offices is a traditional practice — a demonstration to the appointing authority that the appointee won’t “go off the reservation.” The difference here is that Breed was requesting letters from some appointees, creating an appearance problem at the very least.
While it seems that Leung’s approval by the full Board of Supervisors on Tuesday will be smooth sailing, the lawmakers will then move on to a thornier issue — the removal of the Police Commission’s controversial vice president, Max Carter-Oberstone, at Lurie’s request.
As a commissioner, Carter-Oberstone regularly sought to gain greater control over drafting the police department’s general orders and policy directives. He initiated a particularly controversial move to ban officers from making specific kinds of traffic stops and restricting what questions could be asked during other stops. The goal was to cease the practice of “pretext stops,” or traffic stops made to look for signs of more serious criminal activity.
The move incensed police and public safety groups and the San Francisco Police Officers’ Association filed suit against the city, the commission, and Police Chief Bill Scott over the decision.
Carter-Oberstone has also been accused of leaking confidential documents to the press over disciplinary hearings.
According to sources inside City Hall, all of the above, plus what some describe politely as Carter-Oberstone’s “oppositional personality,” has led Lurie to see him as uncooperative and radioactive. But will supervisors oblige him?
Removing Carter-Oberston requires only a simple majority. Counting the votes on this one during the post-Breed era would normally result in a real squeaker, with five centrists voting in favor, four progressives voting against, and a couple of swing votes to be courted.
Progressives and their media organs are already calling for a “showdown” and a demonstration on the City Hall steps by the San Francisco Public Defender’s Office and allied groups was set for Monday afternoon. Nevertheless, one City Hall source The Voice spoke to on background said they would be “very surprised” if they didn’t get more than the required six votes to remove.
Tuesday will not be the only opportunity to change the makeup of the Police Commission. Supervisorial appointee Jesus Yañez’s term expires in late April.
In November, The Voice reported on a harassment campaign that Yañez and his spouse, Ilona Solomon Yañez, had been waging against a neighbor in their shared apartment complex over issues such as a cost estimate for a tree trim, and for the neighbor attempting to help police when another neighbor assaulted another person with a blowtorch. The harassment included multiple incidents of verbal abuse, assault, vexatious litigation, and theft of the neighbor’s security cameras. Last month, the neighbor, Kristen Guhde, obtained temporary restraining orders against both Yañez and Solomon Yañez.