Sam Dorf’s Collaboration with Activists for City Policies Included Proposed Ordinances That Would Stifle Free Speech

Oakwood City Council candidate Sam Dorf has a history of collaborating with outside, controversial activist groups for guidance on Oakwood City policies.

As noted in a recent letter to the Oakwood Register (posted here), in 2019 Mr. Dorf effectively accused Oakwood police of racial profiling based on a deeply flawed study by ABLE, an activist organization, including in the October and December 2019 City Council meetings. Mr. Dorf even stated that the study’s claims were consistent with his own observations of Oakwood police. Even after the study was thoroughly discredited by the City in both meetings for lacking numerous critical facts to justify the accusations, Mr. Dorf doubled down on the study in the December City Council meeting, claiming it was nonetheless important to follow the study’s recommendations to address the “perception of Oakwood”. This can all be seen in the minutes from those meetings here and here.

The traffic stop statistics of the ABLE study were also the basis for Mr. Dorf’s writing to City Council members to urge the police department to end the practice of stopping drivers based on random license plate checks, even though the City noted it is a nationwide best police practice to catch drivers with suspended or revoked licenses or who are under arrest warrants (accounting for nearly 25% of criminal suspects under arrest warrants apprehended by Oakwood police) (see here). Mr. Dorf’s stated reason was to reduce the racial disproportionality of racial minority drivers stopped by police as reported in that study, with no mention of the impact on public safety from ending that practice (see here). Records obtained from Oakwood police show a significant drop in traffic enforcement since then and resident complaints of increased speeding and reckless driving, as noted in that letter to the editor on that issue.

Mr. Dorf’s call for a policy of suspending without pay and publicly identifying, and thus effectively doxing, Oakwood police officers who discharge their weapon against unarmed suspects (regardless of the circumstances), also noted in that letter, came from the Dayton unit of the NAACP (see here). Again, that would put officers at risk and deter them from making difficult but possibly necessary decisions in extraordinary circumstances.

In July 2020, Mr. Dorf wrote City Council members to encourage them to participate in Bridging the Gap, an activist march demonstration whose message included that Oakwood and other Dayton suburbs and their police are unwelcoming and prejudicial to racial minorities (see here). He also wrote City Council members and Chief Hill to encourage them to participate in a book study of How To Be an Anti-Racist by Ibram X Kendi, and of Raising White Kids by Jennifer Harvey. Mr. Kendi’s book specifically rejects a colorblind, racially neutral standard of treatment and explicitly calls for racial discrimination (i.e., actual racism) across society to engineer equal racial outcomes. It commends Karl Marx, it denounces capitalism as inherently racist and born out of racism (racism’s “conjoined twin”), and advocates implementing unspecified “anti-capitalist policies” throughout society. What does any of that have to do with the operations of City Council? What sorts of radical policies does Mr. Dorf want the City Council to implement based on these beliefs?

More recently, in September 2024, Mr. Dorf wrote to City Council members to encourage the City to adopt model ordinances drafted by the Anti-Defamation League, through his collaboration with Dr. Kelly Fishman, a staffer at the ADL’s office in Cleveland. Dr. Fishman also wrote a recent letter to the Oakwood Register editor endorsing Mr. Dorf for City Council. These model ordinances would stifle and penalize a wide range of free speech, including speech having nothing to do with the ADL’s stated purpose of combatting demographic hatred. For example, under one the ordinances (Model Ordinance #4), someone who overlooks a “No Solicitations” sign on someone’s property or who is unfamiliar with the ordinance could be fined, or even criminally prosecuted, simply for leaving a flyer or pamphlet on the property to advertise their business or promote a candidate for office, or for ringing the doorbell to fundraise for their church or their child’s little league team.

It’s also easy to see how the enforcement of this ordinance could be susceptible to politicization and abuse. For example, someone who leaves a pamphlet or knocks on a door to promote a Republican candidate for office or fundraise for their church is fined, while someone who does so for a Democratic candidate or other reason is not, or vice-versa. In light of this and Mr. Dorf’s political orientation, what other sorts of overbearing regulations he would seek to impose on Oakwood if elected to City Council?

The City Council is not a platform for the sort of divisive political and social activism that has been the focus of Mr. Dorf’s extracurricular activity since moving to Oakwood. It is a non-political governing body entrusted with the stewardship of our community facilities, services, ordinances and fostering its economic development.

Oakwood needs City Council members who will focus on these nonpartisan tasks rather than activist causes and policies that could harm and divide the community.