Features

In the Sept. 10 story “Swanson Withdraws BART Oversight Bill,” the story indicates that Assemblymember Sandré Swanson’s AB 1586 BART Police Oversight bill is being carried over by Swanson to next year’s legislative session. The word “withdraws” only referred to withdrawal from consideration this year. However, because the Planet story also referred to several community groups and individuals who were withdrawing their support for the BART Police Oversight bill, the story may have given the mistaken impression that Assemblymember Swanson was withdrawing his support for the bill as well. Assemblymember Swanson continues to support the BART Police Oversight bill. 

In addition, the “Swanson Withdraws BART Oversight Bill” story contained references to two statements during an Aug. 27 BART Board meeting which the story reported were made by BART General Manager Dorothy Dugger, but were actually made by BART Government and Community Relations Department Manager Kerry Hamill. 

The first mistakenly attributed statement in the story was that a provision in the legislation about BART Board involvement in the police review process “had been struck by Swanson.” 

A later portion of the story read that “In a prepared statement, Dugger told board members that BART representatives were told the day before the Aug. 27 meeting ‘by members of Swanson’s staff that he will eliminate one sentence from the amendments given to him by BART in order to quiet some opposition from [the statewide police lobbying group, the Police Officers Research Association of California (PORAC)].’” Dugger said that Swanson believed that PORAC “would oppose our bill and successfully kill it this year ... unless it is amended to eliminate the authority given to the BART Board for disciplinary action against police officers.” 

All of the statements in the above two paragraphs were made by Hamill and not by Dugger.