The Oakland City Council approved a multi-million dollar contract for security guards Tuesday, though only after Mayor Sheng Thao sidestepped the issue in a vote complicated by her ties to an ongoing FBI public corruption probe.
The council’s unanimous vote ensures that guards with ABC Security Service will continue to patrol city-owned buildings on a month-to-month basis up to the end of next June while it searches for a permanent provider.
The company will be paid up to $6 million for that work, along with another $3.2 million in backpay that the city owed the company for its services earlier this year.
The city, meanwhile, will immediately begin seeking proposals for a contractor to take over security services on a longer term. A new contract expected to be presented for city approval in the early months of 2025 could lead Oakland to pay less than the maximum $6 million to ABC Security Service.
Tuesday’s vote on a new deal came after Thao managed to avoid being put in the uncomfortable position of greenlighting a multi-million contract with a company whose CEO has close ties to a target of the FBI’s ongoing corruption probe, which has upended the East Bay’s political scene for the last three months.
Thao was initially asked to cast a tie-breaking vote on the contract extension, after the council’s initial vote two months ago ended in a rare non-decision over a new one.
At a meeting in July, four councilmembers — Nikki Fortunado Bas, Noel Gallo, Kevin Jenkins and Dan Kalb — voted in favor of the contract extension, while Rebecca Kaplan, Janani Ramachandran and Treva Reid were either excused or not present for the vote. Councilmember Carroll Fife abstained, leaving the issue one vote short of passage.
In those situations, Oakland’s mayor must either personally decide the matter, or decline to weigh in and let the measure fail.
The original vote in mid-July called for an $8 million contract extension with ABC Security Service.
But in a last-minute change, city officials re-wrote the contract extension so that it would pay ABC Security Service nearly $3.2 million in expenses that ABC has accrued since early 2024, while clearing the way for the company to receive up to $6 million more to keep the company on board through the middle of 2025.
Mario Juarez is pictured in a video produced by the Vietnamese American Business Association, which highlights the work of Evolutionary Homes. Juarez is identified as a founder of the homebuilding company. (YouTube)
The company’s owner is Ana Chretien, an East Bay businesswoman who has had extensive business dealings with Mario Juarez, a two-time City Council candidate and a fixture in the FBI’s investigation.
The two appear to have done business as far back as seven years ago, when they bought and sold properties between each other in East Oakland. Often, those deals were done through little-known companies that each of them led.
As recently as 2021, Juarez claimed to represent one of Chretien’s companies while securing a lucrative loan that’s since come under investigation by the Alameda County District Attorney’s Office. In another instance, Chretien appeared to become CEO of a company that Juarez started — one closely involved in a land deal bordering one of Chretien’s properties in Napa County.
Talk of the investigation did not explicitly surface at Tuesday’s meeting, though Councilmember Treva Reid did ask about potential legal issues stemming from “public concerns” about the contractor. A deputy city attorney told her there aren’t any known liabilities.
City officials, meanwhile, will look into how much Oakland pays for its security services versus other neighboring cities. Oakland’s ongoing financial crisis forced the town earlier this year to cut $2.5 million from its security budget, forgoing some patrols and metal-detection equipment at public facilities.
In its next contract, Oakland could potentially add armed guards to its security arsenal — a concern for two council members, Dan Kalb and Carroll Fife, who worried it could lead to unintended dangers to the public.
Chretian was not present at Tuesday’s meeting, and nor was Thao. Oakland’s mayors have rarely attended council meetings — with one notable exception being when they step in to break a tie vote.
Little has been said publicly by the FBI since the series of June 20 raids at the homes belonging to Thao and the father-and-son duo of David and Any Duong, who own the city-contracted trash recycling company California Waste Solutions. Thao has repeatedly insisted she is innocent and not a target of the federal government. No arrests have been announced.
Before the raids, Alameda County prosecutors had charged Juarez in a felony case stemming from election mailers that Juarez allegedly orchestrated against Thao’s political rivals during the final days of the 2022 mayoral campaign. Juarez has since pleaded not guilty. His attorney, Ernie Castillo, has previously framed the charges by District Attorney Pamela Price’s office as “politically motivated and unfortunate.”
The Alameda County District Attorney’s Office also is investigating accusations that Juarez stiffed the influential Duong family out of a $1 million investment over a failed housing venture called Evolutionary Homes, court investigative records show. No charges have been announced in that case.
