Getting your
Trinity Audioplayer ready...A rural Livermore resident’s fight over trash bills has become a flashpoint in a widening battle over how Alameda County supervisors spend discretionary taxpayer funds, after she accused a top aide to Board President David Haubert of offering to steer money to a nonprofit if she stopped publicly criticizing the county.
Kiersten Skov, a resident in an unincorporated part of the county in Livermore along the rural Mines Road, said at a news conference Thursday that Shawn Wilson, Haubert’s chief of staff, made the offer when she met with him Feb. 2 at Haubert’s Pleasanton office.
“He then made me an offer that any reasonable person would consider a bribe,” Skov said.
When asked about Skov’s account, Wilson denied offering a bribe.
“I didn’t try to bribe her in any way, shape or form at all,” Wilson said Thursday afternoon. “I wouldn’t be in this position for 24 years if I bribed people.”
Haubert also denied that Wilson offered Skov a bribe in an interview with this news organization Thursday.
“It certainly was not a hard and fast offer,” Haubert said. “It was in no way a bribe. It should never be considered a bribe.”
The allegation comes as Alameda County supervisors are fighting SB 1193, a state bill by Sen. Aisha Wahab that would require more public disclosure and board approval before supervisors award discretionary funds to nonprofits and community groups.” That makes the story feel immediately bigger than one billing dispute
The meeting stemmed from a message Haubert’s office sent to some unincorporated residents in July 2024 that said that they were required to pay for mandatory waste management services. Skov started paying Livermore Sanitation Inc., a local waste management company, for trash services starting in August 2024, she said. It is unclear how many residents received the message.
But in December of that year, Skov said, her neighbor discovered that the mandatory trash services did not apply to her or many other residents in the area because their homes were zoned in areas that were exempt from the mandated trash services. Skov said that she and her husband personally haul their own garbage out of their home themselves, as many rural residents do in unincorporated areas of the county.
Skov said she complained about the charges to LSI in January. The trash company then reached out to her to say that she was not required to have mandatory trash services and that her trash hauling would be canceled. As LSI did not reimburse her for the services she believed she should not have had to pay for, she met with Wilson.
LSI did not immediately respond to a request for comment
Skov said Wilson offered her a $1,500 donation to a nonprofit of her choice if she would stop posting on social media about the trash dispute. She said Wilson also asked her what amount, between $5,000 and $10,000, would resolve the issue.
The county on June 10 sent her a proposed settlement, offering her a payment of more than $1,150 to clear its liability on the matter. In exchange, Skov would have to agree to not sue the county over the issue. She said Wilson told her that the money would come from discretionary funds the county regularly pays out to nonprofit organizations. The settlement does not specify where the money would come from.
Wilson denied offering to make a charitable donation to a nonprofit on her behalf. He described it instead as a “joint donation,” saying the county could match a charitable contribution from Skov as a way to resolve the issue.
“I was just simply spit-balling with her,” Wilson said. “I was trying to think out of the box to make her feel better about a mistake that was made by our office.”
State Sen. Aisha Wahab, who hosted the press conference with Skov Thursday, said Haubert’s office should be held accountable for not only Skov’s situation, but for any other residents who were misled about the LSI services.
“They have not been able to investigate how many people have been harmed by this error,” Wahab told this news organization. “They knew about the error as Kiersten has stated since 2024 and did nothing.”
After reaching out to Wahab’s office, Skov later agreed to testify in support of Wahab’s SB 1193 — a Senate bill she introduced this year focusing on transparency behind Alameda County’s nonprofit financial support through discretionary funds, or public money set aside to help nonprofits.
The bill — which Wahab said will provide transparency to the use of public funds that are intended to protect the county’s most vulnerable residents, such as homeless and at-risk youth and foster children — passed the Senate 37-0 on May 19 with bi-partisan support, and heads to the Committee on Local Government on Wednesday. If approved by the committee, it will head to the Assembly for a vote in August.
The supervisors, however, voted unanimously to oppose Wahab’s bill at an April board meeting. Haubert told this news organization that the bill would put the county “under attack.”
“This is about retribution for our board endorsing Melissa Hernandez and not her,” Haubert said, referencing BART Board President Melissa Hernandez, who works for Haubert’s office and is locked in a head-to-head fight against Wahab in two races to replace former disgraced Rep. Eric Swalwell. The former congressman abandoned the East Bay’s 14th Congressional District and a gubernatorial campaign this year after multiple women accused him of sexual misconduct.
Three members of the board endorsed Hernandez, according to her campaign website.
Wahab secured over a third of the vote in both primary elections this month, far out-performing Hernandez, who secured about 17% of the vote in both elections. They head into an August special runoff to fill Swalwell’s temporary term through the rest of the year, and a November runoff to fill the full term starting next year.
Skov said she will soon testify to the state legislature that Wilson tried to bribe her. The Livermore resident said the encounter, as she described it, “underscores the critical importance of SB 1193.” She also said she is weighing her legal options.