Okay, thank you so much everyone.
I am calling to order the Berkeley City Council meeting.
Today is Tuesday, March 24th, 2026.
It is 6 23 p.m.
Thank you all very much for your patience.
And oh, our clerk is on his way back.
So sorry about that.
I jumped the gun, Mark.
If you could please take the roll when you are settled.
Recording in progress
Taking the role for the regular meeting councilmember kiss or wani
Here tap one presents Bartlett here Trigga
O'Keeffe
Here black to be here in the para here Humbert present and mayor Ishi here
Okay, Korma's present. Okay
All right. I have a statement to read out first with respect to information item number 27 regarding the Senate
between Berkeley's People Alliance and the city in Alameda County Superior Court case number 24CV064980, California Court of Appeals case number A172245. The city council hereby commits consistent with the Court of Appeals ruling to no longer invoke government code section 54957.9 as it is currently drafted to recess a meeting and reconvene it in a different room or otherwise relocate the city.
otherwise relocate the meeting thank you okay okay and also to report out
language for the item number one the City Council met in closed session on
March 16th 2026 pursuant to government code section five four nine five six
point nine D and provided directions to outside council and approved a
settlement by compromise and release with open future medical care as to a
Workers' Compensation Matter, assigned claim number BER2300091, and WCAB case number ADJ17101925.
And item number two, the City Council met in closed session on March 16,
2026 pursuant to Government Code section 54956.9 subsection D and provided directions to outside
the council and approved a settlement by compromise and release for the release of future medical care or in the alternative by stipulations and with request for award with open future medical care as to a workers compensation matter assigned claim number B E R two four zero zero four four and WC a B case number a D J. One eight oh one eight three eight six zero three six. Okay.
Thank you very much everyone all right, we have two serial ceremonial matters this evening
And I am going to
Start with the Holocaust Remembrance Day proclamation
It was requested by councilmember Terry Taplin's office and they're leading at the coordination this year for the Holocaust Remembrance Day event
so thank you very much for that today of the
the proclamation will be received by Anna Raphkin.
Anna, are you here?
I think you're here somewhere.
There you are.
Yay.
Who was our city auditor for 17 years.
So thank you very much for your service.
The actual day of Holocaust Remembrance Day is April 12th.
And also, council will allocate 2013 funds
for the event at tonight's council meeting.
So thank you so much, Anna, for being here with us.
Berkeley's 23rd annual Holocaust Remembrance Day.
Whereas the Holocaust was the state-sponsored,
systematic persecution and annihilation
of European Jews by Nazi Germany
and its collaborators between 1933 and 1945,
six million Jews were murdered.
Roma, people with disabilities, Polish people, gay men,
Jehovah's Witnesses, Soviet prisoners of war,
and political dissidents were likewise subjected
to systematic persecution, oppression, and death
under Nazi tyranny, and whereas Holocaust Remembers' Day
stands as a solemn reminder of the dangers of hatred,
bigotry, and anti-Semitism, and underscores
the vital importance of education, vigilance, and action
to ensure such atrocities are never repeated.
And whereas the city of Berkeley reaffirms its commitment
to human dignity, tolerance, and mutual respect,
while standing firmly against anti-Semitism
and all forms of hatred and discrimination,
and whereas it is our shared responsibility
to preserve the truth about the Holocaust
as a cornerstone of our collective memory
and to honor the resilience and courage of survivors
who were able to rebuild their lives.
Now, therefore, be it resolved that I, Adina Ishii,
mayor of the city of Berkeley,
do hereby proclaim April 12th, 2026
as Holocaust Remembrance Day in the city of Berkeley,
in memory of those who were murdered
and in honor of those who have survived,
as well as the rescuers and liberators.
Be it further proclaimed that I call upon all residents
to join in remembrance of the victims of the Holocaust,
to educate themselves about the history of the Holocaust
and to recommit to building a more just, tolerant,
and compassionate society free from antisemitism
and hatred of any kind.
Thank you.
Did you want to say?
Thank you very much, Mayor Yeshi and council members
and council member Kaplan.
I'm very proud that Berkeley is the first,
I think, of any city to have a Holocaust
from a secular one.
So it's very important that we're doing this,
especially now.
And I also want to remember that it was
former Council Member Worthington, Chris Worthington,
who started and very generously started
contributing to this event in 2002.
So he was way ahead.
I don't have to tell all of you
how incredibly important it is right now
that we remember that history,
that we teach that history,
and that we make sure that it never happens again.
And unfortunately, we're living now
with very, very dark times,
and there are an awful lot of people
who are in tremendous danger.
And we have to come together as a community
to help those people and make sure that they're safe.
So thank you again.
And I hope all of you will participate on April 12th
and spread the word about it.
Thank you again.
Thank you, Anna.
And quick announcement, looks like there's
a blue Subaru Forester that is parked
in a driveway on Browning Street.
And the homeowner is calling the police.
So if your car is a blue Forester with a license plate
9UE227, you might want to attend to that.
OK, we have one more ceremonial item.
But folks, there are a lot of seats
that are kind of open in the middle.
And there are people who are standing or sitting
on the ground.
So if you could please move inward so that way more folks
can sit down, I would appreciate it.
And there are some seats up here.
It says reserve seating for those with disabilities.
So, you know, if you have a disability
and you want to come forward and sit,
please, I want to encourage you to do that.
I want folks to be comfortable.
Okay.
All right, so we have one more proclamation.
That's for Elaine Williams Bloom.
It was requested by Council Member Bartlett,
and it is a proclamation honoring the life of Elaine Bloom,
who passed away on February 24th, 2026.
Elaine's son, Russell, is here,
and we met a little bit earlier to receive the proclamation.
So I will read it to you now.
Honoring the life and legacy of Elaine Williams Bloom.
Whereas Elaine Williams Bloom was an educator and parent
who was a lifelong advocate for social justice
until she passed away on February 24th, 2026.
And whereas Elaine grew up in New Jersey
with her two brothers, Walker and Kenneth,
and her sister Diane, finding homes in New York City,
Greenwich Village, Pasadena, California,
St. Thomas, US Virgin Islands, and Berkeley, California,
where she embodied her strong will, sharp mind,
and sense of fairness everywhere.
And whereas founder of an innovative daycare
called Gingerbread in Greenwich Village
in the early 1970s, which provided a nurturing environment
for generations of young children to express
and develop their voices, and whereas Elaine
demonstrated her values by being involved
in civil rights protest, community organizing,
and citizen participation, and modeled that advocacy
for fairness and justice is a lifelong responsibility.
And whereas at Berkeley, Elaine participated
in tenet organizing with her neighbors
at the Harriet Tubman Apartments,
where their collaboration created a community
that received recognition from the city of Berkeley in 2018.
And whereas Elaine Williams Bloom will be remembered
by her sister Diane, her brother Kenneth,
her daughter-in-law Michelle,
her grandchildren Gianni and Marco,
and also the many friends, neighbors, and community members
who have been positively influenced by Lane's integrity,
strength, and lifetime commitment
to the pursuit of justice and dignity for all.
Now, therefore, be it resolved that I, Adina Ishii,
mayor of the city of Berkeley, do hereby honor
and celebrate the life and legacy of Elaine Williams Bloom
and express our deepest gratitude
for her lifelong commitment to advocacy.
If I may, just offer my appreciation, Mary, for your reading of this declaration.
My mother, as you mentioned, was a lifelong advocate and activist.
It would be important to her for me to say out loud here that she would encourage you
to remain committed to protecting the vulnerable, including the elderly, to remain focused on
accountability and justice and I know that she would have asked me to
appreciate your patience with her over the years as she was a frequent flyer
as they say and certainly was committed to moving forward issues of justice
particularly around the tenancy at the Tubman Apartments. Thank you all for your
support all these years. Apologies. Apologies. We also have an adjournment in
in memory from Marsha Poole,
which was requested by Council Member Trigab.
And so I will pass it over to him to share a few words.
Thank you so much.
This will be an excerpt of a proclamation
that will be presented at for celebration of life in April.
Marsha Poole was a community member
friend and advocate to many. In 1999, Marsha demonstrated extraordinary courage
when she intervened to prevent a Berkeley landlord from concealing the
death of a 13 year old girl caused by carbon monoxide poisoning. Alongside of
Dr. Diana Russell, they organized, documented, and pursued accountability
through the courts, persistently demanding just decisions.
Their efforts contributed to greater awareness
and helped create changes
in California's human trafficking laws.
In 2019, Marsh curated and directed Creativity Unhoused
at Expressions Gallery in Berkeley,
a landmark exhibition highlighting the artwork
of people experiencing homelessness,
reflecting her belief in the dignity
and potential of every person
and bringing together artists, advocates,
and the community in celebration and recognition.
Marsha was a tireless advocate for tenants
on housed individuals and disabled residents.
Consistently attending Berkeley City Council meetings,
supporting initiatives such as first they came
for the homeless, confronting injustice
and advancing tenant protections, including Measure Y,
which strengthened safeguards for seniors
and disabled residents.
And so we remember and we celebrate her,
and I know Louis is here to say a few words in a minute.
Rest in power, Marcia!
But three cheers from Marcia, thank you, thank you.
She really cared about Berkeley, honestly, honestly.
And what amazed me about this, my wife,
she never gave up.
I'm very proud this city was, came to agree to it.
And please come to the celebration of life.
It will be soon.
And it'll be a party with song, with poetry,
with conversation with everything.
So thank you, thank you, thank you very much
to the city of Berkeley, and thank you for the city council.
Thank you so much.
Thank you, everyone.
Okay, so we are now moving on to our city manager comments.
Thank you, Madam Mayor.
A couple of comments.
One, on the consent calendar, I need to remove item 13,
which is a pavement safety improvement project contracts.
There were a couple of proposals
that were inadvertently left off of this list.
So we'll bring that item back.
And then also a reminder
for the peace and justice commission item 16,
that as we talked about at agenda and rules,
that should be a budget referral.
That recommendation does have costs associated with it
that are not budgeted.
So asking that that item go to the budget process.
Thank you.
16. Thank you very much. And you're already here in time for our city auditor
comments, our city auditor is here right in the front. And then I think there are
still some empty seats so I just want to make sure folks are able to sit down. If
folks can make room, there's also some seats up here in the front. Okay. Okay.
thank you so much so tonight I'm going to we're going to do a short
presentation on item number 18 this is our first whistleblower report and let
me see here okay I have with me Erin Mullen whistleblower manager she's also
a certified fraud examiner and she will say more about our whistleblower program
and provide council and the public with this report.
So thank you, Erin.
All right.
So this is our first report that we're sharing publicly
from our whistleblower program,
and I'm glad to walk you through it today.
I'm gonna share a little bit about what we investigated,
what we found, and what we recommend
to ensure stronger controls.
But before we jump in to the report,
I would like to briefly introduce the program.
So this whistleblower program allows city employees
and officials to report concerns of fraud, waste,
and abuse of city resources.
Reports can be submitted anonymously
and are kept confidential with protections in place
to safeguard the identity of individuals who come forward
and also individuals who participate in our investigations.
We issue public reports when we identify
substantiated findings or issues that weren't transparency
broader awareness. This is our first public report, but we expect more in the future.
We also plan to expand the hotline to the public, but that expansion is currently paused due to
anticipated budget constraints and to ensure we have the capacity to review all reports
and prioritize high-risk investigations. Now let's turn to this specific investigation.
So we received a report in late 2024 alleging that an ambulance had been purchased without
prior City Council approval. Under the Berkeley Municipal Code, City Council approval is required
for purchases over $100,000 before the City can be committed to that expenditure. This requirement
exists to ensure oversight, transparency, and responsible use of public funds. So in response
to this allegation, we conducted an investigation to determine whether the allegation was substantiated
and to identify any breakdowns in the purchasing process. We found that the allegation was
substantiated. A former city employee committed the city to a $286,000 ambulance purchase
without the authority to do so and without completing required purchasing steps.
Snow will walk you through sort of the breakdown of our key findings and why they matter.
When the ambulance arrived,
the city could not pay the vendor immediately,
the vendor then withheld the title of the vehicle
and delayed its use.
Second, council approved the purchase retroactively,
but it wasn't clearly disclosed
that the city was already committed to the purchase.
This reduced transparency for council and the public.
This allowed the city to receive service
from the public on an annual basis.
This reduced transparency for council and the public.
Together, these issues show how bypassing purchasing controls
can lead to financial risk and limited oversight.
Folks, please, we have a presentation.
Don't interrupt her.
Based on what we found,
our recommendations focused in four key areas.
First, making the rules clear that no purchases
should move forward without a requisition
or a purchase order or the required council approval.
Second, creating clear escalation steps
so issues are raised earlier if those rules aren't followed.
Third, clarifying roles through targeted training
so staff understand who has authority
in the purchasing process.
And finally, improving transparency by notifying counsel
when standard purchasing steps are bypassed.
Together, these steps strengthen oversight
and prevent similar issues in the future.
And with that, I would like to thank city departments
for their assistance with this investigation.
and thank you all for listening.
Thank you very much.
I appreciate the presentation and thank you.
I wanna give some time to ask if my council colleagues
have any questions here or comments.
Go ahead, Vice Mayor.
Thank you, I don't have any questions.
I just really wanna thank you for your work
and your commitment to this, thanks.
Absolutely, thank you.
And Council Member Humbert?
Yes, likewise, I don't have any questions,
but I wanna thank you for this really important
and good work ferreting out this problem
and coming up with ways to avoid it in the future.
Thank you.
Absolutely.
Any other of my council colleagues?
I do thank you so much for the presentation,
for the report, also really important.
Obviously very disconcerting, this purchase.
But I am very confident that we're putting things
into place to prevent things like this happening
in the future and I think that this really shows
the benefit of having this whistleblower program so thank you very much for the
work that you're doing. I also want to see if the city manager wants to add
anything because I know you've also implemented some of these changes
already and so I want to make sure you have time to address that if you'd like.
I don't really need to. I appreciate the work of the auditor on this item and we've
agreed with the with the recommendation some of which as you say Mayor we have
implemented so creating a stronger system moving forward. That's great. Thank
you both so much thank you okay we will now take public comment on non-agenda
matters okay if you have public comment for anything that's not on this agenda
right so we'll draw five cards for the in-person speakers and then we will go
to the first five hands raised on the zoom and again this is for items that are
not on the agenda. Um, so, uh, when I announced the names, you can come up in
any order and it's too late to put in a card. So don't bother if you're
speaking about, you know, the police stuff or the fought cameras. This is not
time for that. So the five in-person speakers are Russell Bates, Caro Morassovic,
CKD, Durant and looks maybe like Paola D5. So you can come up in any order you'll have one
minute to speak. Hmm. Oh, okay. Folks, I know there's a lot of whispering going on. I know
there are a lot of people here. So even if you're speaking quietly, it's gonna reverberate.
So I want to hear from Carol, but also Mark, if there's a way that we can maybe open more
door or turn up the fan or something it's starting to get quite warm. Okay. If your
name was called feel free to come up a little bit closer so I can keep track of
whose whose name was called. Thank you.
Exportation of vulnerable homeowners. This recommendation from the
Commission on Status of Women went to land use a year after it was passed at
at the commission on June 10, 2025,
with a qualified positive recommendation
that council refer to another commission,
it never went back to council.
This is nine and a half months later.
And this was a qualified positive recommendation
from land use.
Second, well, I have been the author
of multiple recommendations from commissions
that are just lost in the process.
In fact, ironically, another one I'm gonna pass to you
was addressed at the agenda committee on August 2020,
almost six years ago, and that recommendation
was also a qualified positive recommendation,
and this recommendation was addressing
tracking commission recommendations by compiling them.
And the recommendation has qualified positive
to explore short-term solutions
and recommend that the Commission recognize it.
If I could just finish it, I'm sorry.
We introduced to comment.
Feel free to write us about it.
Thank you.
Yep, as soon as the person's finished,
you can come right up.
Mayor and the council, you speak tonight
on new zoning density rules.
Yeah, you actively enable criminal density fraud
at 2425 Durant.
A developer finishes 19 unit high density bonus
with wrong hand while claiming 15 units with the other
just to pocket the salaries of a mandate
on site manager per state law for 16 and more units.
You allow him to have his cake
while the tenants start for safety.
I exposed this fraud in front of mayor,
the zoning board and the council
on October 9th and February 23rd
and you wrote yes and uphold the permit anyway.
Ever since the city has stayed silent, this is not mistake.
It's a calculated administrative silence.
This permit is void under strict section 1090,
felony convict interest to the council
to prioritize greed over life safety.
For ministerial duties stay this void permit.
The public is watching, the record is clean.
Thank you.
Thank you. I've saved my time, Kaula. D5 to PJ.
Good evening, Mayor and Council members. My name is PJ Singh. I represent the Sikh American
community. I'm here to voice my opinion about a street that was named after a South Asian
woman, Kalabagai, who was a wealthy wife of a spy who came here to spy on the people that
organizing for India's freedom. One of them people were my own great-grandfather
who came here in 1907. The story that was presented here was a story of a woman
who was victim, who ran out of Berkeley. When we discovered, going back, we were
happy that someone from our community was represented, but what we discovered
was totally the opposite. A wealthy socialite wife of a colonial spy who was
to spy on his own people who were making dollar and 50 came here with over $25,000 when a home in Berkeley was under $1,000 in North Berkeley.
So we have the evidence, we have several authors that wrote about this.
Thank you. Thanks for your comment.
$286,000 on an ambulance person.
That is so pathetic that that could even happen.
And I hope you're gonna remember the Holocaust
that's going on in Gaza, the genocide.
It's 899 days, 899 days of the genocide.
People are still getting murdered every day.
A woman got murdered that was carrying twins
over the weekend.
Twins, they killed them all.
They're wiping out family members generations,
not only in Gaza, but now in Iran, Yemen,
and all these other countries.
And what have you done?
Absolutely nothing.
Say it again.
War, what is it good for?
Absolutely nothing.
and you all should be ashamed of yourselves.
A shame.
Free Palestine.
Free us all from the lawsuits.
Thank you for your comments.
Thank you, your time is up.
An evil of its world.
Thank you.
We're going to take our online comments.
We have it.
Russell, your name was called.
Hi, everybody.
I'm looking forward at some point
to see a Gaza genocide remembrance day.
Because it's so necessary to point it out
that seven billion dollars of weapons
just got sent to the Zionist subsidy.
This will enable them to keep on killing people
in every country around the area there.
And keep on killing the people in Iran.
Iran is fighting back.
It's doing a lot better than the mainstream media
will let people realize.
But Gaza needs to be remembered, it needs to be remembered.
There is a genocide going on there and it's not gonna stop
until the people of America make it stop.
Thank you very much.
Thank you, Russell.
Okay, so we'll go to the first five hands raised on the Zoom
and the first speaker is Whitney Sparks.
Hello, can you hear me?
I'm just calling to encourage you
to cancel the contract with Flock.
This is just for public comment on items
that are not on the agenda.
So you can come back and comment during that time.
Thank you.
Please now is done.
Okay.
Okay.
Next is a caller with a phone number ending in 211.
Good evening. Well, our sole manager again handy some paper read it in this form. Just
don't ignore it. What Donald Trump have done under Netanyahu has been dreaming for 30 years
to attack Iran is totally against American laws, international laws, and it is a genocide
of Iranian people after whenever things should have done. About half a billion Gazan men,
women and children were killed, murdered, burned, sliced,
and invigorated by American bombs.
Shame on all of us, and most not let it happen,
especially Jewish people, don't search through the Holocaust.
Why are we doing another Holocaust?
Religious will not be involved at all.
Peace on earth.
Thank you very much.
Okay, next is M. Jervis.
Hello, hello, can you hear me?
Yes.
This is Matthew Jervison with the Downtown Berkeley Association, and I'm here to invite all of Berkeley to join us for Make Music Day on June 21st. Thank you to council member Shoshana O'Keeffe for introducing us to the organization, and this is actually on the, yeah, it's on the agenda.
So, we're recording. Yes, apologies. So we're actually doing non agenda items right now or comments on things that are not on the agenda. It's on the consent calendar calendar.
So there's a separate time for that.
OK, so this is for non agenda comments.
Nothing on the agenda.
Dela Luna, next speaker.
Hi, yes, I wanted to say that it's been more than 30 days
or right around a month that the pedestrian crosswalk
by the Ashby Bart has not been repainted.
There's been construction there.
It's been allegedly improved, but the paint has not gone up.
So you can't actually see the walkway.
It's not painted across the street.
There's no indication that the pedestrian walkway is still there and I think people, there's elements where you all are making progress. And I mean, the city and with the improvements, but it also, there's a missing element to it.
Almost like, maybe you're using to plan the construction project, but you need to close those gaps and get the crosswalks or whatever you remake finish the project.
And if you can't finish it, then don't start it until you can make sure it's finished because people are being harmed in the crosswalks.
There's a yellow curb at Russell and MLK, and it's not painted. There's no reflectors on it. This is also, there's other curbs on MLK that do have reflectors. So why would there not be reflectors on the curb that was put in the middle of the roadway at Russell and MLK and lastly, I live in district 3.
Thanks. Next is East Shore, East Shore Alliance.
Hey, confirming everyone can hear me?
Yes.
Fantastic.
My name's Ted Steen.
I run eShore Alliance FC.
We're a Berkeley nonprofit youth soccer club,
serving over a thousand youth in and around the community.
I'm here to strongly support
the proposed $300 million go bond measure,
specifically to improve gay pitiful fields
at Harrison Park,
including turfing the fields and upgrading the bathrooms.
This is, should be a top priority
as it relates to the health and safety of our community.
Right now, access to safe and reliable field space
is a big challenge, not just for the youth,
but for all recreation goers in Berkeley.
Field is closed six months out of the year
and even longer due to the extreme conditions
with the fields being in a failing state,
as stated by the Berkeley Parks and Rec Division.
For many families, soccer isn't just a sport.
It's a consistent, positive space for physical activity,
mentorship, and community.
turf and gate could top would make a huge difference providing safe durable
surface that we can use year round upgrading the bathrooms is also
important. Thanks for your comments. I'm sorry, you're out of time.
Next is Mar should be allowed to talk.
There you go. As we go into this meeting tonight, I want people to remember
that our police accountability board is completely collapsed because this city
is entirely unwilling to listen to the accountability recommendations they
have put out time and time again. Thank you for your comments folks. The last
speaker is Jim. Jim you're the last speaker. Go ahead Jim you should be able
I'm not sure if it has been placed on an agenda yet, but I'm strongly opposed to the idea of.
Uh, we'll go to somebody else. Uh, let's go to Daniel brownson.
Hi, uh, we're on just non agenda public comment right now. Right? Yep. Right. Okay. So, um.
I'm strongly opposed to the idea of
re-legalizing the use of tear gas in Berkeley.
I have never seen an instance of tear gas used
in any way except on protests.
It's the only thing I've ever seen it used on.
And that's going to be what it's used on
if it's permitted to be used again by the Berkeley PD.
is banned for a reason um and we should trust our you know
prior judgment and keep it banned there's no reason to use chemical
weapons in Berkeley. Thank you okay great I love the
positive engagement it's just that is totally encouraged it's
just the booing that's not so it's totally fine if you want to clap for
things. I'm very supportive of it. Wow. Comedians out there tonight. All right, so we're now
moving on to our consent calendar, and there's an urgency item from Councilmember Keser-Wany,
so I will let her speak to that. Thank you very much, Madam Mayor. I am putting forward
an urgent item. It is posted online, and it's also available in hard copy in the supplemental
communications packet in the back. First, I want to thank my co-sponsors Terry
Taplin, Ben Bartlett, and Brent Blackaby. I'm the council representative for this
park, which is now named Cesar Chavez Park, so I felt it was important to take
urgent action to respond to the shocking investigation published by the New York
Times on March 18th about the substantiated accusations of sexual
violence committed by Cesar Chavez. This investigation was published after the deadline
to submit items for this meeting had passed. The reason why we feel this is urgent is because
a piece of this item directs the city manager to remove signage bearing Cesar Chavez's
name immediately, which is important to me and others in the community that I have heard
from. I also understand there's a desire, particularly among members of the commemorative
committee who were involved in the 1994 renaming of the park who wrote a
letter to the council today to engage in a process for arriving at a new name. I
had an opportunity to speak to one of the members of this committee, former
school board director Beatriz Leyva Cutler today, so I do have some
amendments that I would like to propose to this item to ensure that a community
discussion can take place and that this item doesn't dictate a particular name.
So I respectfully ask for your vote to accept this item
and I would suggest it be placed on action
just so that we can spend a few minutes
on the proposed amendments
because I would want to share screen
so everyone could see that.
Thank you very much.
Okay, so yeah, I think it would be helpful
to see some of the changes
because I know you mentioned
that you've gotten some feedback.
And I also do just want to comment
that council member or vice mayor Luna Parra
and council members Humbert and O'Keefe and I also submitted an item to refer to the city manager
and parks and recreation commission a community process to rename the park sites and the holiday.
There were a few different places that were mentioned in our item which will come to council
on April 14th and I'd also like to refer to the city manager outside of any of this to change the
holiday on the website to align with the state name which is now farm workers day at least for
this year and also I'd like to refer to the City Manager the covering or removal of any
signage related to Cesar Chavez so so I believe that we need a majority to two thirds to put
this onto our agenda onto an action item so I think it's probably easiest just to take
the roll. I need a motion and second. I'll make a motion to, just make a
motion to add the item to add the item to the action calendar. Yes. Second.
Seconded by Councilmember Bartlett calling the roll to add the item to the action
calendar for tonight's agenda. Councilmember Kessarwani? Yes. Tapplin? Yes. Bartlett? Yes.
yes dragon. Hi. Yes. Black. Yes. Yes. Humbert. Yes. And Mary. Yes. Okay. The items added to
the agenda for consideration. Okay. Very good. Thank you. All right. Is there any other
are there any comments from my council colleagues on the consent calendar or information items
with Councilmember Tracob. Thank you so much Madam Mayor. I would like to first
of all thank the Health Housing and Community Service Director Scott
Gilman and staff for item five as the representative from the Council to the
Mental Health Commission. Uh, I support this important adjustment to ensure
that, um, this commission continues to comply with new state law. Um, and also
helps, um, increase the efficiency and effectiveness of this very important
body with an important charge. I also, um, support item 15 re appointing Dr
Edward Upton to the mental health commission for a second term. He has
been a wonderful colleague. Um, look forward to continuing our work
together. I appreciate the peace and justice commission's leadership and
work on items 16 and 17.
On item 19, I would like to thank council member
Taplin for co-leading this very important event
of Holocaust Remembrance Day.
And we frequently request something from our fellow
elected and appointed officials,
but we don't always remember to thank them
when they do the right thing.
Item 21 is a way of thanking the MTC
for their full adoption and implementation
of a strong and enforceable transit oriented
community policies with strong tenant protections.
I would like to thank my co-sponsors
for being on that item.
I'm very happy to offer item 20
along with council member Taplan
and with support of council member Hamburg.
This is an item that would refer to the city manager
regulations, controlling and restricting
the use of glue traps.
I would like to read into the record
and I checked in with the city attorney
and the clerk on this.
It's a very narrow amendment
based on some feedback we received.
So it would add the language,
explore a narrow exemption for options of use
for in fortebrate pest control and scientific research
and potential implications thereof.
And that would be the only change.
I really love that amidst all the tough news and grief
that our community is experiencing,
We also find time and space for joy.
And that is why I'm proud to co-sponsor item 23,
Make Music Day.
And I'm looking forward to partaking
in this beautiful event.
Thank you to the author for that item.
Thank you also council member Key for sponsoring item 22,
the Berkeley High School National Society
of Black Engineers Junior Chapter
As a recovering engineer myself,
I recognize the importance of this item
and would like to contribute $150 for my D13 account.
And last but not least,
I would like to also contribute $150 to item 24,
Berkeley Public Schools Fund spring luncheon,
and thank Mayor Ishii and Council Member Blackaby
for their authorship of it.
Thank you.
Thank you very much, Council Member Blackaby.
Thank you, Madam Mayor.
I'll be brief.
I just wanted to thank you, Mayor,
and also Council Member Custer-Wany
for your work on the very quick action
to rename Cesar Chavez Park.
I know we're considering one tonight,
we'll be considering one in the future.
It's really important that we do this process
and respond as quickly as possible
and engage our community in the process
of what we want to name that facility going forward.
So I appreciate your leadership on this
and proud to co-sponsor that.
On item 18, I know we talked about it already,
but thank you to the city auditor
for her whistleblower report on the ambulance purchase.
Thank you for sharing that with us.
On item 19, thanks to Council Member Tapplin
and Council Member Tragob for authoring
the Holocaust Remembrance Day program item,
allowing me to co-sponsor.
I'd like to contribute $500 for my office account
towards that event.
On item 22, which is the Berkeley High School
National Society of Black Engineers junior chapter.
Again, thanks to Councilor O'Keeffe for her work on that.
We'd like to contribute $250 from our office account
towards that event.
On item 23, I think many of us were at a really wonderful
event earlier today where we celebrated music
in Brooklyn Public Schools.
I'd like to take any opportunity that we can do
to bring music to the community.
So item 23 on Make Music Day, again,
we'd like to contribute $250 from our office
towards that effort.
And finally on item 24,
I was pleased to be able to bring that forward
with the Mayor, the Berkeley Public Schools Fund luncheon.
I also wanted to add Council Member O'Keefe
as a co-sponsor to that item
and look forward to that event as well.
That's it, thank you.
Thank you very much.
Council Member Bartlett.
Thank you, Madam Mayor.
And also thank you Council Member Kesirwani
for your FS action represent your district
with your park and controversy there.
Good work, I think I'll be a part of that.
M13, I'm really happy about this to the city manager here.
Shout out to you, Paul.
Microstitchers need this badly.
You're funding some people to fix the pavement.
Thank you.
It's a constant, constant refrain.
On 19, Councilmember Trego,
I want to thank you for doing this.
I want to give you $200 for this event.
It's a wonderful event.
Holocaust Remembrance event.
We have item 22.
This is a wonderful group.
The Black Engineers, the National Society of Black Engineers
junior chapter at BUST.
I'm happy to contribute $200.
I was never good at math, but I've become good at it.
Item 23, again, Councilman O'Keefe, thank you for this.
Make Music Day.
Arts is so important to you and to all of us,
and happy to contribute $200 of that as well.
And then lastly, but not least, the spring luncheon.
I'd like to give $200 to the BUSD spring luncheon.
And thank you, Councillor Black would be,
for your work in bringing this forward.
Thank you.
Council Member O'Keefe?
Thank you, Mayor.
OK, I have six things.
I'll go in numerical order.
Item 19, Holocaust Remembrance Day,
I would like to be recorded as donating $250.
Thank you very much for bringing that.
Item 20, I just wanted to say thank you
to Council Member Trager,
but I think that's an important issue
and just really appreciate you.
Is there a co-sponsor spot or not?
I believe there is.
Can I have it?
Okay, great.
So, can I co-sponsor it?
You didn't say yes, actually.
Pardon me if we don't trap you into sponsoring, yes.
I did it voluntarily.
Excuse me.
Item 22, my item.
Thank you so much to those who contributed.
I really, it's very personal to me
that I teach computer science at Berkeley High School.
The class I teach is an entry level class
that's really mission oriented
to bringing in more racial and gender diversity
into programming.
So it's really, it shoots really close to my heart.
And Mr. Ben Moss, who is a counselor at Berkeley High,
one of my favorite colleagues,
he and I work closely together.
But you know, I recruit from NSBE,
he recruits for NSBE from my class,
And we just, we work together every year.
We both are really supportive of the mission
and he's just, he's an absolute gem.
And I really want to take another moment
because he was going to be here with some of the students
and they're not here tonight.
It's because they just went to their conference,
the National NSBE Conference in Baltimore.
And I heard they had a great time,
but they were supposed to come back on Sunday
and I don't know what happened,
but something upsetting happened
and they had a lot of trouble getting back
and they got back last night at 1.30 in the morning,
I think, so they asked to come to another meeting
and express their thanks.
But I think he asked me to express a thank you
to all of you on his behalf.
So anyway, Nezbe is great, Mr. Binlos is great,
and thank you so much.
Okay, I'm trying to go faster.
The other item that was mine, Make Music Day,
I just wanna say it sounds like we will have some commentary
on it during the consent calendar comments,
But just so everyone knows, it's an event
I'm really excited about.
It's actually a worldwide event.
Different cities participated, originated in Paris,
and it's always on the summer solstice.
And the idea is that there's free music
everywhere in the city.
And so if you are a musician,
even if you're not a good one, it doesn't matter,
amateur, professional, anything, go to the city website.
There's a website that the Dr. Berkeley Association
will publicize, or you can look for a venue
that can be open, it's like a matching website basically.
So if you have a venue,
which could even be just a sidewalk in front of your store
or a park or anything like that,
you can list your venues
and then if you are a musician,
you can sign up to perform at that venue.
And so the idea is on the Summer Solstice,
Berkeley will be filled with music and it's all free.
And it's just a really wonderful event.
They have a huge one in New York City
and we're bringing it to Berkeley.
And I'm really, really excited.
So thank you everyone who contributed.
And I'm almost done, and item 24, spring luncheon,
thank you for adding me as a co-sponsor.
Does that mean that I gave it money
or do I have to say that I'm giving it money?
I'm giving it $250 in addition to co-sponsoring it.
And that's all, thank you so much.
Thank you, Council Member.
Council Member Humbert.
Thank you, Madam Mayor.
Yeah, as to number 19,
the Holocaust Remembrance Day program,
I'd like to contribute $500 from the D8 discretionary account.
the city of downtown. I'm not.
and $150 to items 22, 23, and 24,
thanks to all the authors of those items.
I also would like to poll item seven,
the 2845 Wolsey Street-Milsack contract
from the consent calendar and move it to action
because the Landmark Preservation Commission
didn't have a definitive, they didn't vote on this at all.
They got stuck.
So I would like to have more discussion about that item.
to join you in pulling that item.
Me too.
Thank you.
OK.
OK.
Thank you very much.
Moving on to Councilmember Taplin.
Thank you.
On items 22, 23, and 24, I would think
Councilmember Zoakif Blackaby and re-inquish $250
see each item respectively.
Thank you.
OK.
Thank you very much.
All right.
So I just have a few comments myself.
I really want to, again, appreciate all of the grants
that our staff pursue to deliver quality
services to the community.
Item number four is to conduct public health promotion,
protection, and prevention services
for our school-based health services,
totaling $465,258 for FY27.
I've been really trying to highlight
for folks all of the grants that our city staff are applying
for, so you know that not only do we have tax money,
but also we're trying to leverage those funds
to be able to reach more people and provide more services.
So thank you very much to staff.
For item 15, I'd like to give a special thanks
to Edward Optin for his commitment to continue
to serve on the Mental Health Commission.
For our commissioners,
this is mostly an unpaid labor of love,
so I really wanna thank you all.
Lastly, I'd like to thank the council members
for their contributions
to the 2026 Holocaust Remembrance Day,
the Berkeley High National Society of Black Engineers,
Junior Chapter, Make Music Day,
and the Berkeley Public Schools Fund.
It's really a joy to see all of these community events
that we're supporting.
Thank you all.
Okay, so I will now take public comment
on consent calendar or information items only.
So come on up, oh, oh, I'm sorry.
Oh, council member, as you're coming up,
council member Kesner-Wani is gonna give
some comments as well.
Okay, thank you very much, Madam Mayor.
I pushed my parliamentarian button late,
so I didn't want to miss out on making my donations.
First, I just want to clarify for item 16,
we've made that clear that that will be referred
to the budget process.
Okay, folks, and so I'd like to be recorded
as donating $250 for Holocaust Remembrance Day,
as well as $100 for the National Society
of Black Engineers Junior Chapter,
$100 for Make Music Day,
and $100 for the Berkeley Public Schools Fund Luncheon.
Thank you very much.
Thank you.
Okay, come on up.
This is for public comment for consent
and information items only.
Folks, please, we wanna make sure we're hearing
all of our public comment.
If you're having a conversation,
especially here in the front row, Alana,
if you could please just take your conversations outside,
I would really appreciate it
because I wanna be able to hear everyone's comments.
I'm sorry, go ahead.
Thank you, I wanna appreciate Edward Optin
for continuing to serve on the Mental Health Commission.
That is a very thankless job
because there's not enough support for that commission.
We need y'all to get involved
in the state of mental health in Berkeley.
You want to reduce the police budget, but guess what?
If we can deal compassionately with people
with mental health disabilities
and going through a mental health crisis,
you'll save a ton of money
and we won't have overpriced cops
responding to mental health emergencies.
And of course, the mayor knows my passion
for wheelchair accessible vehicles
because the special care unit spent over a year
outfitting in great detail two vehicles at a huge expense.
Nobody in the city, can somebody please tell me
where they are?
Where's the whistleblower?
Where are those, they are vital for our city.
Can you tell me Mr. City Manager?
Thank you.
Thank you.
Hi, I wanna speak to item number 17
And this is from the Peace and Justice Commission,
and this reaffirms the City of Berkeley's commitment
to free speech and assembly in opposition
to the detainment and deportation of immigrants
without due process.
And it goes on and on in the text of this item
about what this time is and what it means.
Sorry, are you talking about something on consent calendar?
Yeah, it's item 17, the Peace and Justice Commission.
Okay, thank you.
So, you know, it talks about our commitment to free speech
and how we have to reaffirm that commitment right now
because of things that are happening right now.
And what I would like to know is,
has this commission commented on any other
very pertinent items on tonight's calendar,
like one that would completely upend what is in this text?
What would we be doing here?
Because we have an item later on
that is terrible for free speech with uphold deportation,
and I don't see their comments on this item,
but I see supplementals from six of you
that do the opposite.
I just wanted to say I'm really glad for Berkeley City Council for item number 20 for item
number 20 to consider a ban on glue traps hopefully will become legislation before too
long especially thank you for council members Tragov, Taplin and Humbert for introducing
it and O'Keefe joining as well. Berkeley has historically led the way on a lot of issues
and I hope can lead on care for animals
and in glue traps as an important part
of continuing that legacy.
Thank you all very much.
Thank you.
Good evening, Madam Mayor and the City Council members.
My name is Madiwala Anderson
and I'm here to support item number 20, the glue trap ban.
For anyone who isn't familiar with glue traps,
they are a cruel and sadistic method
of catching and killing animals.
by subjecting them to a slow and excruciating death.
After getting stuck to the glue,
songbirds, squirrels, lizards, mice,
and other small animals often suffer
for more than 24 hours before dying
from blood loss, dehydration, or starvation.
Some trapped animals even chew off their own limbs
in a desperate attempt to escape,
and others suffocate to death
after their nostrils and mouths become glue shut.
New traps have already been banned
in several of the cities in California,
it's time to ban in Berkeley.
Thank you for considering the ban, thank you.
Thank you.
Come on up.
Folks, I know a lot of people are standing,
I'm not sure if you're here for comment,
but go ahead and find a seat.
There are some more seats around.
And folks, please make room for everyone
so that people can sit down.
Good evening, Council.
My name is Jacob Shaw.
I live here in Berkeley walking distance from here,
which is very nice, coming from southern California,
where I previously lived and had to drive everywhere
hate it. I live in Berkeley and also work for people for the ethical treatment of
animals and one of the things I do there is research wildlife control
products like glue traps and as the previous speaker mentioned these traps
are already banned in England, Germany, Iceland, Ireland, New Zealand, Scotland and
Wales. They've been banned in three cities in California which is what I'm
used to saying but it's actually four after today because the city of Ventura
that just adopted their second reading of an ordinance today.
This is just a very simple, easy thing
that the council can do to reduce some of the suffering
that happens in the world.
There's so much of it, and a lot of it
feels like it's out of our control.
But this is just one small thing we
can do to make the world a slightly kind and more
compassionate place for the animals who
we get to share this at times awesome world with.
Thank you.
Thank you.
I'm gonna take a minute for my husband.
So I have two minutes.
So item number 14, this is like millions
and millions of dollars.
I couldn't count it.
I didn't have a calculator,
but I got to like 20 million
and this is on consent for consultants
when you're facing a deficit.
Like what the heck is everybody else doing
that's supposed to be working for the city of Berkeley
when you have this much in consultants?
That's kind of ridiculous.
And as stated previously,
today is 899 days of genocide.
And I hope you remember the genocide Holocaust
that is occurring currently.
We haven't left it.
There has been no pause in a ceasefire.
The bombing continues, the drones continue,
The airstrikes continue.
They stated that since the so-called ceasefire,
over 677 Palestinians have been killed.
1800 plus injured.
There was a sandstorm last week.
And so many people who are already
in a catastrophic situation,
no water, no food, starving,
were affected by the sand storms.
The air was orange in front of them.
That's what you saw if you looked outside.
So have some compassion.
You talked about having compassion
in your Holocaust remembrance, but it doesn't seem like,
you know, that was kind of a hypocritical things to say
because you were saying all these words,
but you don't apply it to Gaza.
So, you know, you're just being really pathetic and sad.
And, you know, millions of dollars shouldn't be on the consent calendar, free Palestine,
free Palestine, free yourselves from Zionism and AIPAC.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Speaking on behalf of item 16, Grace Marizar and I have been authorized by the Peace and
Justice Commission to speak on behalf of this issue.
The last time the Alien and Enemies Act was invoked was during World War II, where Japanese,
Italians, and German persons were placed in internment camps.
And this educational event is important.
We have reached out to the mayor's office so that perhaps where they're becoming lost
in the budget process, an item can come before council where there would be contributions
from council members accounts as we develop this through a community
organization. I want to reference the glue traps item before Grace speaks which
is just is this going to be another feel-good item that isn't enforced such
as the elevator ordinance, the no smoking ordinance near businesses and the source
of income ordinance etc. Good evening everybody I want to first thank you all
for putting this on the consent calendar I have to always speak free if it's an
item that speaks to about the Japanese American experience in my own family I
had relative arrested on December 7th disappeared for weeks almost a month
until we found him. I mean I wasn't thin but my family found him and subsequently
died without seeing his children afterwards. So just to tell you that
actually I want to be very practical. I want to say that for the Peace and
Justice Commission we had a panel and it was a panel of experts talk about the
Alien Enemies Act. So I hope when you consider this you will consider having a
the panel, because I think the interaction and discussion and the learning deeply about
how that affected us then and how it is, it really legitimizes –
Thanks, Grace.
Bye.
Thank you.
Okay.
My name is Jeanette McNeil, and I'm authorized to speak on behalf of the Peace and Justice
Commission on Item 17, the free speech and right to protest. We wrote this recommendation
about a year ago and I will just say now more than ever we must protect our rights to speech
and to protest. And yes, peace and justice is strongly speaking out on flock as well
as the rollback of police accountability and tactics and we passed resolutions on all three
of these issues last week thank you thank you good evening again madam mayor
and the council members since you are making the I'm all for item one you're
making the new zoning density rules but I want to ask what's the point if you're
actively enabling existing density flaw and I report this multiple times and the
city just draw me with a procedure suppression without any response thank
you thank you are you online to speak there are a lot of folks standing in
line sorry there's a there's a sign actually this has no standing alongside
this wall and partially it's because it's hard for me to keep track of who's
actually speaking or not there are there are seats up here I know there's some
seats sprinkled throughout if you've got a seat next to you can you raise your
hand. Thank you. Andrea, is that a seat next to you two? Okay, I just want to let
folks sit. I think there are seats spread throughout. Thank you for those of you
who are raising your hands. Okay, go ahead. Hi there. I just want you to
appreciate the city auditor's report and on that topic of auditing, I'm
wondering who audits the police reports because the I have data here and it was
contested but this was data that was taken from the transparency hub that our
police department a lot is that data sorry is about this is about the
auditor's report is an honor consent calendar you said about information
items away so go ahead so racial profiling continues in Berkeley I like
you know 10 seconds back or something please let her finish thank you give her
the time to speak you need to stop talking so that she can speak okay all
All right, you've got another minute.
There you go.
Give me two minutes.
A minute plus your 10 additional 10 seconds.
And I got three minutes.
Another minute.
It's important, because this data
was done by a man named Tarek Shaw, who will be here later,
who is with the Human Rights Data Analysis Group,
a serious data analyst who has a program that
runs and takes the data from the Transparency Hub.
I know you all don't want to hear this, Kesterwani and others.
But the reality is that racial profiling
is alive and well in Berkeley in 2025.
In fact, not only is racial profiling alive and well,
if you are a black person, you are six times more likely
than a white person to get stopped while driving.
You are nine times more likely to be stopped on foot
if you're black.
And some of these folks on the dais
were here in February, 2021 when you all directed
our police department to eliminate low-level offenses.
You said, do not do this anymore, people.
Some of you all were on the council then.
Well, guess what? They're still doing it.
They continue to make low-level stops.
But who do you think they target?
You all know black people.
Because we know in 2025,
there were 489 equipment violations.
489, that's more than one per day.
45 seatbelt violations and how did this affect black people?
Black people were stopped for equipment violations
11 times more than expected from their representation in the population.
Black people were pulled over for seatbelt violation
10 times more than expected from their representation in the population.
In short, the BPD stop data demonstrates
very strong statistically significant evidence of racial profiling.
And so whatever they say about the veil of darkness in the BPD report,
who's auditing their numbers?
Is the police accountability board?
Does the police accountability board, are they even checking it?
Is anyone besides Arlo telling you what this data is?
So I really want to encourage you.
We need the auditor to audit that because these numbers are real and we've got to stop.
Let's focus on stopping racial profiling.
We don't need to expand surveillance here.
We need to stop racial profiling.
Are there any more comments online for the consent calendar
or information items only?
Okay, so this is-
Do you have a comment for consent calendar
or information items only?
Are we counting item 27 as information item?
If it's on the information calendar.
Yes, I just have to scroll down to where, 27?
The settlement?
Yes.
The settlement agreement, yes, go ahead.
Yes, that's the time.
Thank you.
My name's Anthony Mizell.
I'll be brief.
I'll be talking about flocks shortly here.
I just want to talk about the settlement.
This is the case where I sued the city of Berkeley
for violating the Brown Act.
And we won.
We won the case because, sadly, this city,
and I won't acknowledge it was a different mayor at the time,
sometimes it breaks the law.
Sometimes the folks we contract with break the law.
And sometimes we have to reflect on the fact
that the public are the bosses of the people in this city.
Their voice is the voice we are responsible to.
Not not our personal aspirations, not listen,
that's not our misguided reading of law,
but the people.
And I think they're going to remind you of that throughout public comment
tonight. But again, I want to take our attorney, Jonathan Wiseglass.
I want to thank all people who are part of the lawsuit,
and I'm glad we won.
Thank you.
Okay.
So now it's time if you're on the Zoom,
this is public comment on consent calendar items
and information items.
So if you're on the Zoom,
you want to talk to an item that is on the consent calendar.
Go ahead and raise your hand.
We currently have 10 hands raised.
first speaker is Mar. Regarding item 16 about the aliens and enemies act and item 17 about free
speech and we'll get into this later of course with the flock discussion I am just once again
pointing out the hypocrisy of the Berkeley city council to talk about one thing and then act in
in a totally oppositional way when it comes to our own city.
We wanna talk about the history
and how we feel about defending people's right to speak,
but then you don't actually listen
to what we're saying when we speak.
Yeah, I'll talk more later.
Thank you.
Next is Seth Newman.
Hi there, I'm Seth.
I'm here to express my support and gratitude
for a council member Blackaby
for initiating consent item 24
on behalf of the Berkeley Public Schools Fund.
Additional thanks to the mayor and the entire council
for jumping in with their support.
I'll be brief.
The Berkeley Public Schools Fund is the singular nonprofit
that champions equitable public education
for all 19 schools across Berkeley
from preschool to adult school.
This spring, we're bringing back the spring luncheon,
which is a beloved Berkeley tradition
that unites public education advocates
from all across the city,
including elected officials, educators, families,
local businesses, and volunteers.
The event also raises vital funds
to support Berkeley schools and Berkeley students,
and celebrates educators and community members
who help ensure that Berkeley public schools
work well for all of our students.
The spring luncheon is gonna be on Friday, May 8th
at CL Creative Space in West Berkeley,
and information about ticket sales and sponsorships
can be found on our website.
We really appreciate the city support of our public schools
and we hope to see you all there.
Thanks so much.
Next is Allison.
Hi, yes, thank you.
Good evening and thank you for this opportunity.
I'm commenting on item number 20,
banning the sale and use of glue traps.
My name is Allison Hermans.
I have worked in wildlife rehabilitation
and wildlife advocacy for the past 23 years.
And in the wildlife hospital without a doubt,
the most heartbreaking cases we see
are those involving glue traps.
As has already been stated,
a glue trap doesn't immediately kill the animal.
Instead, the trapped animal must die slowly
of dehydration, stress, starvation and exposure.
Many of the animals brought to wildlife hospitals
are actually the intended targets, rats and mice.
Most people after they see the extreme stress
and suffering a glue-trapped animal undergoes
are horrified and they rush the animal
to a wildlife hospital.
But glue traps are indiscriminate killers
capturing small animals of all kinds, including lizards, snakes, baby opossums, other baby animals,
and a shocking number of songbirds. No animal should ever have to suffer the way a glue-trapped
animal does. I urge you to strongly vote in support. Thanks. Thanks so much. Next is Erin Deem.
Good evening, Council. Thank you for taking my comment. I'm speaking on item 20, in support
the referral to ban glue traps. Thank you to Council members Tragov and Caplan,
and the co-authors Humberd and O'Keefe, and to the 146 organizations who signed on to this very
important matter, and to all the people behind the scenes who worked on it. As you've heard already,
glue traps are just absolutely humane, suffering in all kinds of wildlife or impacted, lizards and
songbirds. And I'm letting I want to just say thank you for the reference in the item about
the significant declines in birds and songbirds, that we've lost one-third of all birds as three
billion birds since the 70s and especially this quote that we are preserving biodiversity
including the city's wildlife. Thank you for acknowledging the value of the wildlife in our
cities. Personally I've seen the photographs from these rehabilitation wildlife rehabilitation
centers and it is absolutely heartbreaking. So please um I thank you for this item and one request
I have sorry your time's up but thank you feel free to write us if you have more comments.
Next is a caller with a phone number ending in 211.
Hi, again, the Holocaust in 2019.
Six million innocent Jewish people, men, women, and children
were murdered by Hitler.
And the biggest genocide in history, actually,
most of you don't know what happened.
It happened in the 13th century by the army of King's hand.
He murdered 60 million people across the planet, 60 million, even more.
Eventually, he had conquered all the western northern Europe and Asia.
He was defeated in the Battle of Inselot in the year 1260 AD by Egypt.
Egypt has a lot of many thanks from us to Egypt.
The last thing, Netanyahu is a better criminal.
it was about to go to prison for,
and he used,
David Steen filed the Square Trump
to do the genocide heading now in Tehran, Lebanon.
Thank you, thank you for your comment.
Next is Kelly Hammerman.
Okay, I'll talk fast.
So on 13, I'm glad that was withdrawn,
but I hope that since this is FF funds,
that safe streets will meet
and actually be able to see the projects
before they go forward.
On 1434 contracts really is too many to be on consent.
On number 16 from the peace and justice
on the alien enemies act,
I hope this doesn't mean that it's going to get dumped
in the budget committee.
I hope that we actually go through with that.
On item 20, this is really just needs to be
high priority items so I hope that this doesn't get pushed to the bottom of
things to do and that we get it implemented as soon as possible and
considering what's on our the rest of the agenda for tonight I'm hoping that
all of you will re up thanks Kelly thanks for your comments next is a
caller with a number ending in four zero five. Press star six to unmute caller. Phone number ending in four zero five. Okay, well, on to the next.
We have Della Luna. Yes, thanks. First, I would like to say about item 20 with the glue traps. I wish this item came with.
Recommendations for what people should be using. I don't think it addresses why people buy glue traps is because they want something that can work.
And that is, so I just feel like without providing an alternative, it's just kind of an empty item and I would have liked it to be also like, I know vector control exists, but I don't really see a lot of activity with the rodents.
In the city outside of the left outbreak, so I just wish there was more proactive times instead of just banning a glue traps.
And then I wanted to speak also about the auditor's report I'm super grateful that this work is happening and we need to see more of this.
From the auditor and more robustness, but this is evidence that what's happening in the city and what's happening at the city council doesn't always jive. And if you're not going through and double checking and doing due diligence, then there's often instances where negligence can come about.
or things are happening where you all are not aware.
So thank you.
Last speaker is M. Jervis, downtown Berkeley.
Can you hear me?
Yes.
Hi, yeah, Matthew Jervis
from the Downtown Berkeley Association.
I'm calling in to speak on item 23,
Make Music Day, Make Music Day Berkeley.
Very excited to have this in our city.
and I also appreciate the council's support on this
and thank you everyone who's been able to donate some money
to this super fun event, making Berkeley a stage
for the afternoon of June 21st.
Anyone who would like to host or a music performance
or be a performer, sign in on online,
make music.org backslash Berkeley.
And if you have any questions,
Contact me at info at downtown Berkeley.com.
And I'd also like to thank Visit Berkeley
for their partnership in this.
We're gonna have a lot of fun.
Downtown Berkeley is administering
the registration process online.
And we're looking forward to seeing a bunch of folks
out on the streets making music.
Thank you.
Thanks so much.
And thanks for coming back to give your comments.
I have another speaker.
We have Mackay Freeman.
Makai should be able to unmute.
I'm going to go back to the scholar that you see.
I'm going to go back to me at the time, so my speech is different.
We can hear you.
I'm not going to hear you.
Yes, you have an extra minute.
Thank you. I'm happy to see my team stand to pay our staff,
Sidewalks and easier for those of us to
still to be able to navigate them.
I'm truly just amazed by the hypocrisy of
allowing chemical weapons to be used with the love of the Lord's County.
I want to talk about safe streets that are not safe for all.
It's to my friends that thought the consent calendar and
safe streets does not take into account the safety of
first of the still who have fewer access to the current and though we find you for blind those
are your diets in five ten years may see what we fight for and I hope to know what you look for
Thank you.
Thanks, Mackay.
Caller ending in 405 still has their hand raised, I guess.
Press caller ending in 405.
You should be able to unmute.
Press star six on your phone.
All right.
That's it.
No more speakers online.
Okay.
Thank you very much.
Is there a, oh, council member Taplin.
Thank you. Thanks everyone. On I-19, the Holocaust Memorial Day program, I would like
to thank my co-author, Council Member Tregoob and my co-sponsors, Mayor Ishi and Councilor
Blackaby, as well as all my colleagues for their support. As the Mayor mentioned, this
April marks the City's 23rd observance and I encourage all to attend and with that, I
move adoption of the consent calendar.
Second.
If there's no opposition to approving the consent calendar, then we will approve it.
Okay consent calendar is approved. Thank you very much. Okay so just to recap for folks we've just
finished the consent calendar. We are now moving on to the action calendar. We had a couple things
moved down to the action calendar. One is Councilmember Casarwani's urgent item the Cesar Chavez
renaming item and then also item number seven which was on the consent calendar that's the Mills Act
contract for 2845 Woolsey Street.
We have two other items which are adopting resolution
authorizing the temporary employment of retired
annuitant Kathy Lee as interim director of police
accountability.
And then item number 26, which is the public safety technology
item.
So I just want to give you all an accounting of where we're at.
And then I really would really like
to make it through these top three items
before we take a break.
I know it's already 750.
And it kind of depends on how much public comment
get on each of them so I'm just saying that out loud so you all know what to
expect we have a number of items to cover still so okay so what I'd like to
do is start with the Cesar Chavez item and councilmember Kessanwani I know
you've got some changes that you've made to it that you wanted to share with us
so I'm going to start with there and and let you present oh sure okay would you
like us to do the Mills Act contract item first okay let's do the Mills Act
contract item first. That's the 2845 Wolsey Street previously item number seven on the
consent calendar. Since you pulled the council member or vice-marinette of power would you
like to speak to this item? Yes I think we should continue this item to the next regular
meeting so I move to continue this item to the next regular meeting.
I second. And Mark let's just take the actually if there's no opposition I'm just going to
to have us continue that.
Do you have a question?
Anyone know whether the landmark.
So just clarify the landmarks failed to act on it or OK.
The landmarks commission heard it.
They took a vote and the vote failed.
About to approve it, the vote failed and it came to council.
OK, I see.
So actually also clarifying.
So if we continue it, will they have time to review it again
or what's your hope?
So I understand.
From my understanding, they chose not to move forward with it because the majority did not think that it was worthy of a Mills Act.
I think we should just continue this discussion.
Go and put your mic on so we can hear you.
I'm just curious if they didn't move forward with how did it reach us?
Because they took no action.
Yeah, it just comes to us first.
I see.
Thank you.
Okay, so I'm fine with continuing it.
I'm gonna see if there's any opposition
to continuing it until the next meeting.
Sorry, were you saying something, Mr. Ciddicock?
Yeah, and we'll take public comment on it.
Yeah, thank you.
Okay, I just wanna get a sense of where everyone's at.
Okay, so is there any public comment for item number seven,
the Mills Act contract for 2-8-4-5 Woolsey Street?
Who were the two people that took it off consent
besides Lunapara?
about this one. I don't know
if there was three because I
think we don't typically
respond to public comments. So
go ahead and give your comment
on it. Well, that's what needs
to happen. Are you changing the
rules? Or did I mean it that
you should just be transparent
because you mumble and nobody
can hear. There were three
council members that removed
that item onto action. Um, go
I'm the owner. That's not exactly what happened at Landmarks. A bunch of people actually decided
not to vote at all and that's why it ended up here. So there actually was quorum and then a
bunch of people said, oh, I don't want to touch this. So it got kicked up to you all. So to the
extent that there's an ability to have this conversation before all this stuff, that there's
some deadlines that have to be hit, that's great. But just want to make sure that that cadence is
kept and that the kind of the full totality of understanding like how we got here what happened
and the changes that have happened over the course of this like the law effectively was x but the
change that happened was y and i just want to make sure that like we can get through this i'm just
you know i'm trying to follow the steps and it feels like the steps keep changing so the steps
keep changing then like we should make some other amendments but that's all thank you thank you
very much for your public comment and certainly yeah if there's some confusion about what next
steps are we definitely can check back in and make sure that it's clear and can update you on
on when this would be heard next so it would be heard at the next city council meeting yeah
april 14th april 14th yes because this is right before our our spring recess unfortunately and
but feel free if you have other comments or you want to talk more feel free to reach out
to my office. Thank you. Is there any other public comment online for this item?
This is public comment only for item 7, Nilsack contract 2845 Woolsey Street.
There are two hands raised. The first is Jeff Baker.
Hello. Thank you very much for pulling this into the action items for more debate.
I do think it makes good sense to continue this since there doesn't seem to be a lot of clarity
on why this is on the council agenda. I believe if you gathered up the six members of the commission
who did not vote to approve this and asked them what they thought happened, they would say that
they thought they killed the item. So it was very surprising to me when it appeared on the council
agenda. Certainly, it is a stretch to say that if the Commission doesn't make findings specifically
to deny the contract, then it just arrives at Council. That really defies the meaning of
consent and approval of the Commission, which is what the local ordinance says.
Thank you. Thank you. Appreciate your comment. Actually, the other person lowered their hands,
So that that's it for public. Okay. Very good. Then we can move on to the Cesar Chavez items out of mayor. Oh, I just, I have a yes. I just have a question for staff. Is there, is there any trigger? Like, is there an exploration or anything? We need to worry about, um, if we continue it to April 14th.
Hey, council members, this is Jordan client, director planning development. Sorry, I'm not in the room with you. Uh,
for the contract to take effect during the 2027-28 fiscal year we would need to
take action on it by the end of the calendar year so April should be fine. Thank you.
Thank you very much okay so there didn't appear to be any opposition but just confirming there's
no opposition to moving this to our next meeting. Okay we will move that to our next meeting then
and move on to the Scissor Chavez item.
Council Member.
Thank you, Madam Mayor, for the changing of the order
so I could bring this on screen.
So, just to keep things simple,
we've just modified the recommendation.
First, I wanna acknowledge that I've added
the co-sponsors, Terry Taplin, Ben Bartlett,
and Brent Blackaby.
And with further discussion with community leaders,
I wanted to strike the renaming and simply refer this
to the Parks, Recreation and Waterfront Commission.
According to the Council Rules of Procedure, Appendix A,
the Parks Commission is granted this authority
to rename parks, so we do need to do this referral.
And what we did was strike the certainty
about naming it for Dolores Huerta and simply saying
that we wanna initiate a community process
which should incorporate feedback,
specifically from the commemorative committee
that we heard from today.
This was the committee that initiated
the first renaming process of the park in 1994,
as well as input from other community members
and stakeholders.
And what I did here is I just said that we recommend
that Dolores Huerta be among the options
considered for renaming.
And then in conversation with the city manager,
we have added removing or covering signage,
bearing the name Susser Chavez from Park Property
as soon as practicable and just making it clear
we wanna leave intact signage related to directions
and park rules.
So those are the changes.
So we will now take council questions,
which I have a couple if no one else has questions.
Okay, so I'm curious since we put forward an item
that addresses more than just the park,
it addresses anything, Bering Cesar Chavez's name,
including the site that's within the park.
I'm wondering then if that would move forward
just without the park, essentially.
I'm not sure, I'm asking.
I'm not aware of any other item.
This is the item before us tonight.
So I can only speak to this item.
So you're asking about some other.
I'm asking about an item that was submitted on Monday
that addressed a process for changing everything
with Cesar Chavez's name.
And so I'm curious if this would just essentially
make the part about the park specifically moot
and just, we could remove that part.
I just want to understand how to move for it practically.
I'm not sure I'm understanding your question.
I mean, are you wanting to add something to this item
to the effect that other Cesar Chavez names
get removed, for example, on the website or are you saying?
That might be simpler to do to include that in here.
I guess I'm just trying to figure out practically
how it looks, so, yeah.
Okay, so I'll just ask to make a friendly amendment
then to include the items that we included
within our item that we submitted on Monday,
which I don't have that list in front of me.
You should probably repeat, state out what those are, yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And I think this is just Madam Mayor, I'm not aware of your item, because I know we
had different brown acts, and so I don't know what it was requesting.
I don't think that item's been made public as far as I know.
Okay.
Right.
Sorry, I'm trying to get this, the other items on here.
Sorry, I just want to make sure my staff knows I'm trying, okay, thank you.
So that would be the items that were lists down here where Cesar Chavez Park, Cesar Chavez Day which is March 30th or 31st, and then Chavez Huerta tribute site and solar calendar, Cesar Chavez, Dolores Huerta commemorative period, and Cesar Chavez Park perimeter trail project.
the park. So I appreciate that.
actually the name of a park, right? That's fine. A holiday. So I don't think that this item is
equipped to handle that. I do appreciate how comprehensive your list is. So I
would just, just for simplicity's sake, because I know we have a heavy night
tonight in terms of other items and everyone is here for the the following
item, maybe just keep this one simple and just fine. Yeah. Get the park process going and
and the removal going. Yep. And then and then look at everything else, which I
I think we do need to put more time into how, you know, yes, community group or commission would look at that if that makes sense. Yes, that's fine. Okay. Okay. That's why I was asking. So, all right. So with that, I will see. Sorry.
Are you going to say something, Mark? No. Okay. With that, I will see if there's any public comments on the item.
Seeing no public comment in person. Is there any public comment online? There's two hands raised. This is for public comment on the urgent item regarding.
renaming cesar Chavez Park, the first hand raised is Lisa Teague. Go ahead.
Lisa, you should be able to you're unmuted. Sorry. Are you saying you know
Lisa, you're it shows that you've unmuted. You should be able to provide
comments. Lisa, are you there to give public comment? All right, we'll come
back to Lisa. Uh, de la Luna. I just wanted to note for the record that
I'm actually witnessing you all like move swiftly this happened. I believe last week, Wednesday or Thursday and here 4 or 5 days later, you already got something on the agenda and you're passing it.
So, this is evidence that you all actually can move quickly. Thank you. All right. Anyone else person lowered their hands. So, that's that's it.
Okay, thank you very much. Any council comment on this item.
We have a maker.
I can move the item as amended.
Second.
Okay.
Moved and seconded.
Okay.
Yeah, so no comments.
I will just say that we put together
this comprehensive list in having our conversations
with the community.
We went and visited the Berkeley Historical Society.
They had an exhibit on Latinos in Berkeley
throughout our history, which was really incredible.
So I'm sorry if you missed it.
Hopefully, they'll have it again.
But in those conversations,
they expressed extreme,
just extreme feelings of being very upset
at finding news out about these allegations
about Cesar Chavez.
So I do think it's important.
I know we have a long meeting tonight,
but I think it's important that we address that,
that that was incredibly disturbing to a lot of folks
and that they wanted time to kind of figure out
how they were feeling,
what process would be good to change the names
and to give the community time to address this
in a way that they felt comfortable doing so.
So I just wanted to explain why we also included
other items as well in our item.
And I'm looking forward to that and come forward later.
So thank you very much.
That's all I wanted to say about it.
Yeah, and Madam Mayor, I do wanna thank you
and I do appreciate how comprehensive that list is.
Like as I hadn't seen it and we do need to make sure
we are, you know, look at everything
and have the community process.
So I feel very good about not dictating a name right now
and making sure that we hear from
the commemorative committee as well as other stakeholders
and arrive at a new name, you know, as a community.
So thank you very much.
Yeah, thank you.
Okay, and with that, I will see if there's any opposition
to approving this item.
Okay.
We need to be careful in this
case.
Councilmember O'Keeffe will be
noted as absent.
Thank you.
Is there any opposition to
approving this item?
Great.
We will approve this item as
well.
Thank you very much, council
member.
To those who are cosponsoring.
Now we have item number 25,
which is adopt a resolution
authorizing temporary employee
of retired annuitant Kathy Lee
as interim director of police
anything so I will yes okay so I have some remarks to read on behalf of Kathy
she says honorable Mayor Ishii and members of the City Council I first want
to thank you for deciding to fill the director of police accountability
position temporarily while you search for a permanent director with that
decision you have signaled to this community the importance of ensuring that
the vital work of the ODPA
and the police accountability board continue.
Second, I thank you for putting your trust in me
to be the interim DPA.
You have my word that I will serve
with all due gravity and integrity.
A few friends and colleagues,
upon learning of my plan to unretire,
have wondered whether congratulations are in order,
and I have to confess that my immediate reaction
upon being asked to consider back was a hard no.
But the more I thought about it
and about my tenure as the police review commissioner,
a commission officer, and then as the interim director
of police accountability, the more I realized
how strongly I felt about making sure
that meaningful civilian oversight
of our police department lives on.
I had become a true believer in the value
of community members helping keep our police accountable
and ensuring that police policies,
practices, and procedures reflect this community's values.
Civilian oversight has a long history
in the city of Berkeley, starting in 1973
with the voter adopted ordinance
creating the police review commission.
I believe that this early institutionalization
of police accountability in Berkeley
has resulted in a police department
that has been relatively responsive
to the community's needs and concerns,
and one that is committed
to working with our diverse population.
As policing methods, patterns of crime,
and the makeup and needs of our residents
change over time, continued oversight
is needed to ensure that our police
remain accountable to the public.
Since 1973, more jurisdictions have adopted
some form of civilian oversight of their police departments.
Berkeley at some point was no longer the leader
but lagged behind other agencies
in its powers and independence.
Thus the Charter Amendment creating the ODPA and PAB
in 2020 was proposed and its easy passage
showed that a huge majority of Berkeley voters
favored a more robust system of police oversight.
The framework for an independent body
no longer under the city manager's office is in place.
But as we've seen it, the devil is in the details.
Just as the police department wants effective tools
to do its work, the ODPA and the PAV
need effective tools to perform meaningful oversight.
It's more than a little sad to me
that permanent regulations for handling complaints
against officers are still not in place,
although I understand we are close.
I read with great dismay about the resignation
of two PAV members, long-time PRC commissioners
with whom I had worked due to their frustration
with how PAV and ODPA did not seem to have
more real powers than under the old structure.
And I find no joy in the circumstances
resulting in my appointment today.
I guess I love a challenge, and I can invest
to being an eternal optimist, although that outlook
is being sorely tested by the current president.
I intend to work collaboratively with all stakeholders
while representing the voices of the community
as we navigate our work to find common ground
on so many significant issues, including
the use of emerging new technologies
and revisiting the use of forced policy.
I look forward to re-establishing relationships
with those whom I have worked previously,
and I'm eager to forge new relationships,
especially with the members of the Police Accountability Board
and with the staff of the ODPA.
Speaking of who, whom, I want to thank Jose Murillo
for holding everything together as acting director
and to chair Josh Cayetano and the other three PAB members
for their heavy lifting during this period of transition.
I regret the timing of my appointment
coincides with a long planned trip out of the country.
However, I look forward to seeing all of you
in the near future.
Last but not least, I understand that some of you
without current appointees to the PAB
have candidates in the pipeline.
For those of you who do not,
I respectfully urge you to make your appointment a priority.
Again, my thanks, Kathy Lee.
Okay, wow.
Well, okay, so I do also, yeah.
We can clap for that, yeah.
I wanna say that I have had numerous conversations now
with Kathy, that she has been incredibly supportive,
very excited to get to work,
has already reached out to both Chair Kayatano and Jose
and other staff has actually gone in person
that she continues her relationship with folks who are in
the police accountability sphere and attends conferences.
So I have a lot of confidence in her ability
and just her letter I think really shows
that she has been following what's going on,
really understands these issues and cares a lot about it.
So I am very excited to have her on board.
And so are there any questions from folks?
I do wanna mention as we have the opportunity
that we already have formed a subcommittee
with Vice Mayor Luna Parra and Council Member Humbert
in order to find a permanent replacement for the PAB.
And we've already had, oh, sorry,
for the ODPA, Director of Police Accountability,
and we've already had our first meeting,
and I'm very excited about that process moving forward.
So, Kathy, don't worry.
We are gonna find a permanent replacement.
I know that's something she's eager for us to do.
So, okay, as long as there are no questions,
is there any public comment on this item?
Yes, Kit, come on up.
I had some occasion to work with Kathy Lee
when she was in the role, both as the interim director
of police accountability.
And before that, with the police review board,
I guess it's called.
And she is really very good.
I'm very happy that she's accepted.
I'm very happy that you appointed her.
Thank you for reading that letter.
I hope we all sort of reread that letter several times.
there's a lot in there. Thank you. Thank you, Kate. Other public comment on this
item? Hi folks. Nathan Meisel. I served on the PRC and PAB with Kathy Lee. There
is no finer public servant than Kathy Lee. The issues with Police Assembly in
the city do not emerge from her or her service or her time as interim. They
emerged from this council's refusal to pay attention to police oversight. It
emerges from the city attorney's office refusal to enforce what the voters of
the city passed into law in 2020. It emerges from a city manager who has
seemingly falling asleep at the wheel as a police chief overwrites our city's use
of force policy that was passed by this council completely unlawfully. So Kathy
is a great public servant. I'm thankful she's here as interim. Y'all fired the
the last director as he tried to defend our charter.
Let's hope you find someone decent to do the job
and we'll be paying attention on who you decide to select.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Hi, good evening.
My name is George Perez-Vales,
long time oversight practitioner at the Berkeley.
I'm here actually on behalf of DACO,
the National Association on Civil and Oversight
of Law Enforcement, I'm the vice president organization
to say thank you very much
for your thorough and fast appointment of Cathy Lee.
We hold her in high respect.
She is an individual with high integrity
and her work is second to none.
So we congratulate you for this move, for her appointment.
We're confident that she will reach out to Nicole
for whatever work she needs in other support.
We're here to support the council as well.
On a side note, I would say that as you look
at the next candidate and I said to some council members,
please do your search for someone who works
in the state of California.
I think somebody who's from California will understand
the dynamics of oversight in California
as well as stakeholders.
Thank you so much.
Thank you.
Thanks, thanks George, good advice.
Hi, thank you.
I appreciate everything that can be done
to uphold police accountability,
and I wanna note the 85% mandate for police accountability,
independent police accountability in the city.
and we're seeing a trend of center-right city councils
undermining such independent oversight
in cities in the Bay Area, especially San Francisco
and Oakland and we're seeing that pattern here
with the two recent resignations of two members
of this police accountability board.
In the name of really supporting this board
for the four members left on the nine person board,
were they given enough time to evaluate
a very important item that's coming up next
on today's agenda and what did they say?
Because I saw some supplementals from some of you,
but I didn't say what the police accountability board
to say, had to say about something that is horrible
for sanctuary city policy and law right now.
Thank you.
Thank you.
I don't have a lot to say about the appointment,
but I do have some historic memory
of meeting Bobby Seale in a program
where before we had the police accountability board passed,
He was trying to make comments and make us aware of why it would fail.
And one of the reasons that he gave was that there is no power in it and that the city
council and different city authorities will strip it of its ability to do anything under
the way that it's constructed, which doesn't give it any power.
And now I see it taking place.
And Chip Moore was removed when he was trying to do a good job.
And as we see the flock thing went through
and it caused disintegration of whatever council,
whatever police accountability board we had,
and now we're trying to piece it back together.
So there's a lot of mismatch and disconnect with the city
and what the police accountability board should be
and the rights that it should have.
Thank you.
I do believe I have another minute.
I also, I'm a former police review commissioner.
I quit that body because it was so unable
to hold the police accountable.
I quit in great frustration.
Kathy Lee always, she has lots of integrity.
She's a wonderful person.
I feel bad because we jumped out of the pan
and into the fire
because the police association mangled the revisions.
We were trying to make the PRC stronger
had two years of meet and confer, two years,
so that they could write what they wanted.
Please remember that the police association
and the police department didn't even campaign
against the formation of the PAB,
because they knew how weak and declawed
and powerless it was.
This is a crisis in our city.
Look at the San, if you don't believe,
if you don't believe us about racial disparities,
look at the San Francisco Chronicle.
Their police reporting their RIPA data
is saying that 8.9% of police stops in the city of Berkeley
were of black people who were let go.
There was no basis for the stop.
There's no control in the police.
And to be honest, to sit here and watch you guys
compliment them, it looks like a Trumpian cabinet meeting.
Whoo!
Absolutely uncritical.
Absolutely unquestioning of the data that you are spoon fed.
There is no outside auditor, there's no outside agency.
So Kathy Lee may succeed if she is allowed to, if she's given independent counsel, if
she is given the opportunity, if she's given the support and the funding.
But right now the PAP is a total absolute waste of time and there's a crisis in this city. Thanks, Andrea
Speaking excuse me speaking to the subject of actually having an accountability board with power
I still think there's a lot of accountability that needs to happen around
The firing of the last director and maybe we need to have a policy set up where the directors and immediately fired
For doing their job too. Well, we would love to know why they were fired why it was
We won't know that because they were fired in a closed door meeting and it was acceptable because they were given 200 grand of severance
That's our money
This is a bad use of resources
To just take everything apart the way you are everyone speaking to it. Please do better. Thank you
Thank you. Is there any public comment online for?
Item 25 which is adopting resolution authorizing temporary employment of retired annuitant Kathy Lee is interim director of police accountability
We have John Lindsey, Poland.
Good evening, John Lindsey Poland of the American Friends Service Committee.
I worked with Cathy Lee when she was at the PRC.
She's highly competent, highly skilled, lots of integrity.
And as she noted, there are five vacancies.
And those vacancies are for the districts of Councilmember Taplin, Councilmember Bartlett,
Councilmember Tragub, Councilmember Blackaby, and Mayor Ishi.
And the reasons there's no other City Commission that has that many vacancies.
Why could that be?
The reason is because you have dissed them.
So when you approve Cathy Lee's appointment, which I am sure you do and I support you doing,
I want to hear you say that you're going to give more support and more attention to the
PAB's recommendations coming in the future and now, tonight.
That's what I want to hear you say when you approve Kathy Lee's appointment, because that's
going to weigh what make her job more effective.
Thanks.
Next is...
Sorry, I was just confused because Councilmember Blackaby had put his, but okay, go ahead,
were you going to respond?
I just wanted to state that my commissioner resigned because he had a baby and was a literary
leave.
And I have any person now.
Well, let me jump in too, then.
My commissioner moved away and I replaced him 2 months ago. He'll be on the board soon.
A great young man, I must say, by the way, sure. So yeah, go ahead.
Go ahead. Let's who's next. Okay. Next is Karen Shanoi.
Good evening, mayor and members of council parents right here. I just wanted to commend you mayor for bringing forward this resolution.
to appoint Cathy Lee as interim director
of police accountability.
I've had the unique opportunity to observe Cathy's work
from an earlier chapter
in Berkeley's police oversight system.
In 2013, when I was serving as chair
of the police review commission,
I sat on a panel to evaluate candidates
for the commission officer role.
At that time, the commission was in a difficult place.
We had gone through three officers in just two years
and operating in what I would describe
as a very charged and at times unstable environment.
During that panel process,
it became immediately clear to me
Kathy Lee was the right person for the job. What stood out was not just her qualifications,
but her demeanor. She brought a calm, steady presence into a room that needed exactly that.
Just as importantly, she projected an unmistakable sense of impartiality. In a role where credibility
depends on public trust, that quality is not just valuable, it is essential. She went on to
serve for nearly a decade in that and similar roles, providing continuity, professionalism,
and consistency in a space that had previously lacked it. I strongly support...
Thank you so much. Appreciate your comment. Next is Mar.
You said you have a lot of confidence in her abilities, so I really hope you do listen to Kathy's recommendations while she's working as the interim director.
And I hope that whoever you do select as the permanent director is not just going to tell you what you want to hear, say that everything in Berkeley is good and that we should just let Chief Jen Lewis do whatever she wants.
The PAB does need to be given independent council, especially if the city attorney is going to side with the police and choose to represent them over representing the police accountability board.
And if the city manager is going to keep siding with the police every time a complaint comes up.
And it's very frustrating that you guys keep choosing when you get to respond to public comment earlier.
You said you can't respond, but then when it comes to defending yourself or making yourself look better, you guys do respond.
do respond. So either you can respond to us or you can't. Either you'll ask our questions
and respond to our questions or you ignore us. Like why you're doing both ways, it's
really frustrating. Thanks. Thanks for your comment. And, and to clarify, it's typically
not our practice to respond. Sometimes folks choose to respond and I allow them to do that
when they want to, so continue on. Daniel Brownson. I hope that under Kathy Lee,
the Police County Ability Board will have some actual teeth and that you'll
actually take the PAB's recommendations and make policy based on them. That's all.
Okay, that's it. Okay. Oh, you have a comment on the side. Come on up. So, yeah, the police
accountability board did not get voted in for like, a lot of percentage so that people
could weigh in on what goes on. And look what's happened. So many people have resigned. And
I don't know this person, but, uh, Lee, but I've seen her in the meetings and she's conducted
herself well and let's hope that happens and I just also wanted to remind
people that Pamela Price is running for re-election and you can vote for her and
free Palestine thank you. Okay thank you. Council member Blackaby did you have
comments? Yeah very briefly thanks. Madam Mayor I just want to thank you for
moving so swiftly and bringing this appointment. It is really important that
we have someone in that chair so thank you for doing that.
I wanna thank Kathy Lee for being willing
to step into the breach.
As plenty of people have noticed and observed,
this is not an easy job in any circumstances,
particularly not an easy job right now,
so we just really appreciate that she's willing
to come out of retirement to do that.
I also wanna thank Chair Cayetano and Vice Chair Leah Wilson
and the current board members
for really stepping into this challenge.
Significantly reduced board that means more than twice as much work that they're bearing
So I just want to thank them for doing that and join the call to urge colleagues to make our appointments
I'll also say that you know, we've made our nomination. We talked to multiple candidates made our nomination. It's in the pipeline now
I'm confident that we're going to be filling the vacancies soon
the other thing that has never been done that I that I would like to do as a council is
Nominate a permanent alternate commissioner so that in the future again
It's sort of a unique feature of this particular body in the charter
Because it's a everything is council approved. We need a council approved
Alternate commissioner unlike other commissions or an alternate board member
So that we always have someone that can step up and serve when there is a vacancy
So I'll also be working on that component, but we can nominate that as a full full council
Anyway, thank you mayor and thank you to Kathy for agreeing to serve
Thank you. Councilmember Humbert
Yes, thank you, Madam Mayor, and I want to thank you for moving swiftly to a point
Kathy Lee, I fully support that she sounds like an incredible blue chip person to fill the role
and I look forward to working on the search committee with you and council member vice mayor
Luna para I want to commend my very excellent
Pab member Randy Wells who's been serving for some time now
Thank you.
Thank you, Council Member Bartlett.
Thank you, I want to say, Kathy Lee is a wonderful person.
I served with her on the PRC when I was on that board
many, many years ago, too many years ago.
She was really very astute, very fair.
She taught us all a lot.
She taught the system.
She was wonderful and so she'll be a good stand-in
and hopefully she can work with the new person
and kind of get them on track.
Thank you. Councilmember Tragem.
Thank you. I wish to add my voice to the chorus of voices praising Kathy Lee.
While I never had a chance to work with her directly for excellent reputation
proceeds for in a variety of different ways.
And I am looking forward to having the opportunity to work with her again.
I also wish to thank members of the PAB and Chair Cayetano.
And as for our appointment process, it has been extensive.
We are taking this extremely seriously.
It is an important board.
We're very close.
And as one component of the process,
there's the opportunity for the folks that we have met with
to connect with our previous PAB member,
former commissioner, Calavita.
So look forward to moving that forward
and helping make sure that the commission
is at full strength in short order.
Thank you, Vice Mayor Luna Parra.
Thank you. I haven't met Kathy Lee yet, but I've heard great things all around. So I'm really excited to work with her. I also really want to thank Chair Kaitano and Deputy Director Murillo for all of the work that they have done in the meantime, seriously, has been so amazing and impactful. So thank you.
Yes, I want to add my thanks to both as well.
It's really been a pleasure to work with both of you
as we've been moving this process forward.
And I do want to just address that at our council retreat,
we talked about coordinating
so that all of our appointees to PAP came forward
at the same time essentially.
So that way they wouldn't have to do as much onboarding
because we know with our smaller ODPA
that it's a lot of work to onboard multiple people.
so it's actually better if all of us
put our folks forward at the same time.
I see a lot of head nods, so I just want to make sure
folks understood why that was happening.
But just to say that certainly if anyone,
especially anyone here who's interested in applying
to be a PAP member, please feel free to write us.
There's a process online.
We're really, we are really looking,
so please feel free to send folks our way.
I know there are a lot of folks here
who are interested in their work, so thank you very much.
And I would like to make this motioned.
I'd like to make a motion.
Second.
And let's just take a vote on it.
I think it'd be better to take the roll.
Okay, to approve the resolution authorizing Cathy Lee
as the interim director of police accountability,
council member Kestarwani.
Yes.
Taplin.
Yes.
Bartlett.
Yes.
Tragum.
Aye.
O'Keeffe.
Yes.
Blackaby.
Yes.
Lunapara.
Yes.
Humber.
Yes.
And Mayor Ishi.
Yes.
You're serious.
Motion is approved.
Very exciting.
Thank you.
And thank you all for your public comments on that as well.
So it is 8.30.
Like I said, I knew it was going to be at least around 8 o'clock, so we are at 8.30.
We are going to take a 15-minute break before item 26, and we will come back after that.
And just as a reminder, just so folks know a little preview, how that will go is we'll
have our our our chief will present on this item and then we're going to have
the PAB present on their recommendations and then we have a number of different
supplements that are our supplementals that are coming so we do I think we're at
four we're at four supplemental so we all need to present our supplementals
and then we will take council questions and then we will do public comment and
And then we will have deliberations.
So just so folks are clear on what the process
is going to look like.
That's what it'll look like.
And we're gonna take a break from now.
Folks, please, can I finish?
All right, it's 8.34.
So we will be back in 15 minutes.
Thank you.
Recording stopped.
If you're tired of the city council
and you want some people different,
we've got a group telling called
Flip the Berkeley City Council 20 minutes ago.
Go to our website.
Get on board.
Join the organizations that are doing it.
Let's throw these bums out.
Recording in progress.
I have your attention, please.
I know you're eager to get started on this.
So please have a seat.
Settle down.
I need it to be quiet before we begin.
So if you see a neighbor speaking, okay, we're almost there.
I'm very sorry, I know it's really hot.
We've got some doors open here.
I've opened these doors.
We've got the fans on.
So it is really hot.
So please just like, let's make sure that there's seats
for anybody who needs a seat.
And also if you'd like water,
I believe there's a water fountain around the corner.
So I just want to make sure folks take care of themselves.
If you're getting really hot,
please feel free to step out and get some fresh air.
I don't want anyone passing out.
That would be horrible.
Okay folks, I need you to be quiet, please.
Okay, thank you.
All right, so as I said before the break,
the way that this is going to go,
we're gonna move on to item 26.
We are going to have a presentation from our city staff
and then we're gonna have a presentation from PAB
and ODPA and then we're gonna have a presentation
of all four supplements
and then we will take council questions
and then we'll open up for public comment.
So for folks who are standing up on the wall,
getting ready to speak, that's fine.
Just know you're gonna be standing for a little while
And then after that we will have council deliberation.
So that's the process of what we'll be doing
for the rest of this evening.
All right, I'm gonna pass it over to the chief.
Oh no, I'm passing it over to Paul first.
Thank you, mayor.
Thank you, mayor.
She and council.
Folks.
Thank you for the opportunity to be here tonight
to bring this package of contracts before you.
I understand and have heard a lot of concern
from folks about floc.
And particularly in this moment in time
and we have worked very hard collectively
between the police department, the city attorney's office,
my office, to draft language in the MSA
that is as protective of the city as possible,
knowing that this is a dangerous moment in time.
But we do feel, and I do feel,
that the balance of safety outweighs the risk
that presents itself in this MSA.
If things do go in a bad direction,
we have the ability to exit this contract in the MSA.
We also have a serious structural budget deficit.
We have an understaffed police department.
And having the ability to create better efficiencies
by bringing these services into the city
creates the opportunity for us to have a safer city.
And I'm very proud of the work
that the police department has done,
I'm proud of the work the city attorney's office has done
to get us to this point.
And I look forward to hearing some of the details
from the police department's office.
Look forward to hearing the presentation from the PAB
and then this discussion that we'll have as a community
and I hope it will all end with an approval.
So with that, I will turn it over to Chief Lewis.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you very much, thanks.
Please, I know you wanna speak
And I want to give you time to speak.
So please, let's hear from our city staff
and be respectful so they can present.
Go ahead.
Thank you.
Good evening.
We're here to talk through today
our proposed public safety technology package.
I want to be really clear from the start,
this is not about de-emphasizing
our service-focused public safety that we give to the city.
We continue to invest in and value
the community partnerships and the direct contact
that we have with our community.
This is a request to give our officers better information
so that they can be more effective
at the same time we leverage tools
that can help make the community a safer place.
We have worked on these items
with the City Attorney's Office, the PAB,
the Public Safety Policy Committee,
and community members over more than three years
and 25 public meetings to this point.
The item you see tonight reflects that input.
Earlier today we gave a presentation detailing
crime trends and public safety initiatives
over the past year.
While we have a lot to be proud of, we know we still have work to do in support to support
a thriving, vibrant community.
What we're presenting tonight is our best proposal on how we do that under very strained
budget and staffing circumstances.
So I want to start with the big picture.
This slide shows how all of the technology that we're discussing tonight fits together.
The model we're proposing is called a real-time information center or an Arctic.
On the left, you see the technology feeds, the LPRs, fixed cameras, community video streams,
drones. In the center you see the analysis. You see the investigative software used by
an analyst gathering that information that we receive and making actionable information
from it, situational awareness, case intelligence and trend analysis. That information then
can guide our patrol officers and our detectives so that they make more precise, informed decisions
in their work. I want to emphasize that in all of this, all these decisions remain human
driven. This provides us resources in a more efficient way, gathers and collates data in
a way that lets us make intelligent decisions, but it's all human based. I also want to
emphasize that an Arctic is not a novel concept. We routinely do this kind of work when we
activate our EOC in the city. That is, applying those same principles of centralizing information,
improving coordination, and getting the right resources to the right place faster. With
that I want on hand it briefly over to the fire chief to talk about that Arctic
model. Thank you chief, good evening all. I want to speak briefly to why the Arctic
matters to the fire department into our city's emergency operations center. When
the city activates the EOC for a major incident, an earthquake, a wildfire, a
large-scale planned event, one of our biggest challenges is getting real-time
information so we can have an understanding of what's happening in the
field. We're pulling information from multiple sources trying to coordinate
across, trying to coordinate across sources, across departments and making
resources, resource decisions under pressure. Many local jurisdictions have
built partnerships between their real-time information centers and their
emergency operation centers. When those cities activate for a critical incident,
the RTIC is one of the first resources they bring online.
For Berkeley, this means the investment the police department is describing
tonight doesn't just serve daily law enforcement operations. It builds
infrastructure that strengthens our citywide emergency management posture
and I see that as another significant benefit to this investment that should
be considered. Okay so I know this might seem like a lot but most of this
technology that we're talking about is in new to the city. The four technologies
on the screen here involve renewals or updates or tools that the department
already uses. Drones as first responder and community video streams are new but
only in that they are an expansion of the current way that we use those
technologies. So this slide gives you a quick reference for each of the
previously approved items that the department already uses. LPRs, these
These cross-referenced license plates against hotlists for stolen vehicles, missing persons,
felony warrants.
We already have 52 cameras, the ask tonight is to renew the contract.
Fixed PTZ cameras, we've had cameras for several years at the Marina and at San Pablo Park.
Council approved 16 solar-powered cameras at high-traffic pedestrian intersections last
year and we're asking for authority to sign that contract.
Field-deployed drones.
These are drones that officers carried incident scenes for aerial views and interior building
searches during high-risk warrants and emergencies.
Council approved use of these a few years ago in a mutual aid capacity and inside we're
proposing to purchase our own drones.
And the investigative software brings together databases that we already have access to.
So not adding anything new, just think our computer aided dispatch, records management,
and digital evidence just bringing all that into one searchable system.
And this is part of a grant to directly support our gun violence intervention and prevention
program.
Okay, so to turn to the two items that are new to council, community video streams and
drones as for responder, community video streams.
This is a proposal to allow businesses that already have cameras to give the police department
direct access to that footage.
So under this proposal, the police department.
Folks, come on.
You're being so respectful.
I really appreciated the quiet.
Let's let Arlo finish, please.
you the police department wouldn't install our own any cameras under this
program the cost to the city for hardware would be zero so we just be
utilizing privately owned cameras which is a concept that might sound familiar
because we have had a camera registry for several years and this kind of just
builds on that concept so before any camera is activated in this system our
proposed policy would require that we conduct a pre integration review with an
in-person site assessment we would require that there be signage that
that indicates that this program is in place
at each location and each integrated camera location
would be published on the city website.
And camera owners were trained full ownership
of their cameras and their data
and can revoke access at any time.
So the public safety benefit here
is the same as our fixed PTZ cameras.
Visual awareness of a scene before officers arrive,
which is critical during ongoing crimes,
directly support our investigative efforts.
After the fact, you know, right now,
officers go door-to-door canvassing for video footage,
and this would replace that slow manual process
with something immediate and coordinated.
And so this is a theme for all the technologies
that we're talking about tonight,
is swifter investigations with a higher likelihood
of solving the crime.
Privacy protections on this one,
access would be restricted to active investigations only,
facial recognition of course is strictly prohibited,
and all accesses are logged and audible.
And this would not be shared to outside agencies.
Thank you.
I'm gonna cover the drone as first responder on this slide.
So this is the second new item and here's how it works.
Drones launch theoretically from rooftop docking stations
at the public safety building
and fly directly to the scene of a call.
Real-time crime information center analysts
will view the live aerial video
and relay critical information to the responding officers.
and agencies across the country operating DFR programs,
drones routinely arrive on scene within minutes
and often faster than patrol officers.
And in some cases, it's only two minutes.
So operationally, this is a shift.
Before an officer arrives, we already have eyes on the scene.
We can assess whether there's an active threat,
a medical need, or if the report is unfounded.
That level of certainty allows for better tactical planning
and supports de-escalation when officers
don't know what they're walking into,
they prepare for the worst.
And when they know, they can respond proportionately
to what's actually happening.
Peer agencies using DFIR report that about 25% of calls
that drones respond to can actually be resolved
without sending a patrol unit at all.
So that's a meaningful resource multiplier,
freeing our officers to focus on higher priority needs
while still delivering service.
And on privacy, our draft policies are clear.
Drones are deployed only for specific calls for service,
never for random patrol or general surveillance.
And cameras face the horizon while they're in transit
and only orient downward once they're at an authorized scene.
So every flight path is logged and published
to a public transparency portal,
typically within about an hour of the drone landing.
And these drones will never be weaponized
and they will not carry facial recognition.
And this isn't just a police tool.
DFR also has significant value for fire and emergency medical response.
And I'd like to invite Chief Sprague from the Fire Department to speak about that.
When we get dispatched to a structure fire,
the first minutes on scene are about gathering information.
Where is the fire?
How far has it progressed?
Are there signs of people inside?
Where might the fire spread?
Right now, that assessment happens at a ground level.
when our first engine company arrives.
An aerial drone that's already overhead,
when we pull up, gives my incident commanders
a view from the roof, the rear of the building,
and adjacent structures that we simply cannot get
from the street.
For wildfire incidents, the value is even more direct.
We need to see how the fire is moving through terrain,
where spot fires are developing,
and which evacuation routes are still viable.
A drone gives us that picture in real time
without putting a helicopter in the air
or waiting for mutual aid air resources from the state.
On the emergency medical services side,
think about a mass casualty incident
or a major traffic collision on the freeway.
A drone overhead lets us do a rapid triage
before units arrive.
How many patients are there?
Where are they?
What access routes are clear for ambulances
and other responders?
help shape our entire response. Water rescue incidents where a drone can use
technology and search for heat signatures in the water much more rapidly
than manually deploying rescue swimmers in watercraft. And for hazmat incidents
we can assess the scene, read placards, and evaluate vapor spread from a safe
distance rather than sending personnel into a hazardous environment. I'll wrap
up with a real-life example of how this technology has been used. The video you are watching
demonstrates one example of how a mutual aid drone was used. During a four-alarm high-rise
fire on University, a drone was used to support early firefighting operations by guiding our
water stream application. It continued to assist as the building smoldered over the
following week. The structure had been so severely compromised by fire that officials
It was feared it would collapse, which led us to the decision that we could not send
firefighters inside the structure to extinguish the deep-seated fires.
Drone footage provided a bird's eye view, allowing crews to identify where the water
was needed without sending firefighters into the unstable structure.
The fire department is supportive of the DFR program and looks forward to the operational
partnership it represents.
I want to start with a real example that shows exactly why these tools matter.
Last September we investigated a six case home invasion and burglary series that were
targeting women who were home alone.
Three were home invasion robberies and three were residential burglaries.
ALPR cameras were critical to solving that case.
In the first incident the victim's vehicle was stolen and then later recovered.
identified a suspect vehicle and a floc ALPR data, the floc ALPR data showed that a vehicle
following the victim vehicle just three seconds behind directly linking it and the primary
suspect to the entire series. That suspect was ultimately charged with all six cases.
That outcome matters. Without ALPRs, it would have taken significantly longer to build that
case and that individual would have remained free to continue targeting
women in their homes. In 2025 alone, ALPRs generated more than 120 arrests
and investigative leads. That's the investigative impact. Now zooming out,
this is also about capacity. We're operating below authorized staffing
while the city is managing a structural deficit. An Arctic addresses both. Today
officers often respond to calls with limited information and with an Arctic
a single analyst can integrate multiple live data streams, drone footage, fixed cameras,
community video and ALPR data all in real time from one dashboard.
That's not surveillance, that's preparation.
It means faster response, better decisions and safer outcomes.
And in a department below authorized strength that makes every officer more effective on
every call.
data supports this, cases supported by real-time centers have shown up to
66 percent higher clearance rates. So this program delivers real public safety
value, which is victim closure, safer outcomes, stronger investigations, data
driven policing, and it pays for itself from existing departmental budget. I know
there have been some questions about our vendor selection, so let me address that
directly. When Council directed us to explore these technologies, we assembled
a team to evaluate best practices, capabilities, and vendors across all
categories. The review was comprehensive and included technology conferences, DFR
certification training, hands-on demonstrations, site visits to active
ARTICs, and direct engagement with agencies already using the systems. We
We evaluated multiple vendors, no other single vendor can deliver ALPR fixed cameras, drone
as first responder, analytics and community video integration on one unified platform.
Axon came closest, but their system currently lacks real-time alerts and hot list functionality
which are core to how we operate.
On drones, performance was decisive.
And side-by-side demonstrations, flocks, DJI drones, could clearly read license plates
at 400 feet while main competitors struggled at half that distance, and in one case, the
other product completely lost signal.
That level of clarity matters because DFR is about situational awareness and understanding
what's happening before the officers arrive.
It's in everyone's best interest for officers to have the ability to know what someone
is holding in their hands before an officer arrives on scene.
We also spoke with nearly 20 agencies, where Flock consistently received the strongest
feedback to include Richmond, which is currently operating the system and describes it as invaluable.
There's also a critical regional advantage.
Every city in Alameda County uses Flock for automated license plate readers.
That creates a network effect.
vehicle linked to a robbery in Berkeley crosses into Oakland, Fremont, or Hayward, the system
doesn't stop at the county line. Officers across jurisdictions are working from the same platform,
alerts, and data standards, and crime doesn't respect boundaries. The system reflects that
reality, and the ecosystem matters. One platform means one dashboard, one audit trail, and one
master services agreement. That simplifies compliance with the
surveillance technology ordinance and the police equipment ordinance strengthens
accountability and enables real-time data integration across all systems.
Something that simply isn't possible when stitching together multiple vendors.
Finally, because this is a leasing model, the city retains flexibility. If needed,
we can transition to another vendor at the end of the contract term without
being tied to owned infrastructure.
The other side of the why flock question is about our contractual protections and data
security, so I want to spend a minute there.
Folks, come on, please.
So many of you are being respectful.
Thank you.
On the technical side, every flock product line uses in-end encryption.
The cybersecurity infrastructure meets the same standards that all of our most sensitive
data is held under.
access across every technology is logged through a single dashboard with a
single audit trail and Flock is contractually required to promptly
notify the city of any data security incident that occurs. So more on the
contractual side that the city attorney's office reviewed the master
services agreement and every single red line that the city proposed was
accepted by Flock. So what does that mean in practice? The city owns all this
data. FLOC is prohibited from selling sharing or distributing our data. The
city's data ownership and control survives even if the contract terminates
and we have contractual financial penalties for data breaches or
unauthorized disclosures which mirrors the framework that Oakland's council
approved for their FLOC agreement in December. We know that there are multiple
supplemental reports tonight that we think will help strengthen the the MSA
and we are supportive of re-engaging FLOC to make sure that our MSA has every
protection that we need to feel confident in the agreement. I know
that there are concerns about federal access to data. Federal immigration
authorities cannot access our data with anything short of a court order signed
by a judge. In administrative success... Folks, hey, come on. I'm really looking forward to
hearing your public comments. I'm gonna sit there and I'm gonna listen to
everything you all are saying, I'd like you to be respectful.
You will be respectful of our city staff while they present.
So this is consistent with our sanctuary city ordinance
and with state privacy law.
And in the case that they do receive a warrant,
they're required to notify us,
which would give us time to assess its validity
and decide on how we want to respond.
And I also want to note that Flock
has made meaningful changes nationally
in response to the same concerns
communities like ours have raised.
Floc has added filters for impermissible search reasons,
restrictive by default permission controls,
and in California, has made it impossible
to share ALPR data outside of the state.
Outside of the state.
Outside of the state.
Follow the name.
OK, so I'm going to bring it all together
as we wrap up our presentation.
Tonight we're asking council to take three categories of action.
We try to lay that out for you.
First, under the STO, accept the acquisition reports and use
policies for UAS and community video streams and approve the updated use policy for fixed
cameras. Second, under the Police Equipment Ordinance, accept the impact statement and
use policy for Unmanned Aerial Systems Program. And finally, third, provide contract authority
to amend our existing floc contract to renew ALPRs and include DFR, fixed PTZ cameras,
and the NOVA investigative software. So thank you. And we're looking forward to hearing
both Pabbs presentation and answering questions. Thank you. Okay so we will now
hear from Pabb and ODPA they have a presentation so it'll probably take a
minute to switch over the mics and all that. Thank you chiefs both chiefs and
DC Tate and Arlo. All right whenever you're ready. Thank you honorable mayor
honorable council members.
Thank you for the opportunity to present to you today.
I'm here with acting director Jose Murillo
and my vice chair and colleague Leah Wilson.
I also would like to thank the community members
who have attended the community sessions
put together by the mayor and the council
and also BPD for discussing with us our recommendations.
But most of all, I'd also like to thank
the four PAB board members who have really risen
to the task in providing council
with our best set of recommendations
under very difficult circumstances.
Some of these recommendations,
we've reviewed within 24 hours
and I still would stand by every single one of them.
With that, I'm gonna pass to our vice chair, Leah Wilson,
to present on the first item.
Let me advance the slide.
All right, so our core recommendation this evening
is that the council defer action
all three of the surveillance items before you. Council is ultimately
being asked to approve four programs that's the ALPR, the fixed cameras, the
community video streams, and drones that will operate as one integrated
tracking system using acquisition reports that have never analyzed what
that combined system can do. In fact, two of the acquisition reports were submitted
to you prior to the department's move
to a consolidated surveillance environment.
That's ALPRs and fixed cameras.
The combined capability where one operator
can query a license plate, pull fixed camera
and community video footage and dispatch a drone
in real time creates a privacy impact
that is categorically different from the sum of its parts.
This development represents the largest surveillance expansion in this city's history, and it deserves
careful and deliberate consideration.
Unfortunately, speaking as your police accountability board, this has not occurred.
This decision is too important to be rushed.
It's me again.
I love the support.
I would support a quieter clock so that we can hear her speak.
I want to make sure I hear her, too,
to protect all of our rights to hear these presentations.
So thank you.
Is it OK for counsel?
Can you feel responsible in waiting?
The answer is yes.
The chief alluded to the presentation
of the department's annual report earlier today.
And you see on the slide some very impressive crime
statistics.
We see that crime has gone down in all categories,
significant categories, not only in the last year,
but over the last four years.
These trends mirror what we've seen nationally.
In fact, in 2024, the FBI reported
that violent and property crimes across the country
were at their lowest levels since 1969.
There is not a crisis in this city,
and that should compel you to feel, again,
like you have to rush a decision that
needs to be carefully made.
I'm going to bounce the slide.
So you don't have to rush
and to do to act today would be premature.
First of all, we have serious concerns
about the intention to partner with Froc Safety.
There are the concerns that obviously you will hear
this evening from our chair
and I'm sure from many of the community members
that are here today.
But what I wanna speak to is the fact
that we have not seen any documentation
of the vendor selection process at all.
In fact, tonight in slide seven
of the department's presentation,
that's the first time that I've seen
any of the metrics that were used
to base the decision to go with FLOC
versus a different vendor.
That is good procurement.
I've been told that the reason that the department
does not have an articulated list of requirements
for the surveillance vendor
is that this was not put out for bid.
However, those of us that are familiar with procurement
know that even when you don't put something out
for formal bid, you do need to document the requirements
for the system that you are trying to procure.
We've never seen it.
I don't know if you have, but this is good government
to have a very transparent and clear vendor selection
process and we don't think it's been done.
Another reason that action tonight would be premature.
There's been inadequate time to review these materials.
I don't wanna repeat what you did here briefly
from our chair.
We had 24 hours to review the Master of Services Agreement
and we are down to four members.
God, we were able to identify many material provisions
which several of you, and I appreciate that,
have reflected in your supplementals.
This is not reasonable to expect us to catch all of the MSA modifications that need to be made
as well as the compliance issues that are existing in the policies as the department has put them
forward. We simply haven't had time to do that work nor is it reasonable again to expect us
to be the catch-all auditor of what the department is putting before you.
The third reason action tonight would be premature.
There has been no combined assessment of
this entire surveillance architecture
that you were being asked to approve,
and I'm going to speak to that a little bit later.
The fourth reason is that as I mentioned,
with 24 hours to review,
we were able to yet and still advance to you over
30 instances of either MSA modifications that needed to be
made or material non-compliance issues
with the policies that were presented to you.
And when I say material, I mean that the policies
and the acquisition reports contain failures
to comply with the Berkeley Municipal Code,
as well as State Law AB 481.
You simply cannot approve these without first demanding
that they be legally compliant.
Okay, move forward.
I'm just gonna talk about the second question
about why flock safety.
And for us, the PAB really focused
on considering the unique benefits
that the department says Flock can provide
through a consolidated centralized surveillance system
and whether they outweigh the privacy risks
and community safety risks posed by the vendor
that BPD selected and that the contract that BPD
is asking the city to enter into.
And so when we analyze that risk
and we consider all the publicly available data,
we didn't see that analysis reflected
in the acquisition report.
The acquisition report that is before you, I believe on page 15 of the agenda, if I'm
understanding that correctly, does not, the BMC specifically enumerates specific things
that the department is required to put in there.
For example, the experience of other entities.
As we all know, the experience of other entities with Flock has been in the news for the last
six months and yet that is not mentioned in the acquisition report.
At the community meeting, different community members raised concerns of different police
chiefs, Mountain View Police Chief, the Ventura County Police Chief, who have publicly spoken
out and said that floc is not to be trusted, and yet that is not reflected in the acquisition
report.
And we think that that should have been, and that the risks of that should have been weighed
and publicly available for the community to understand.
Another example, Senator Ron Wyden said in a public oversight investigation that he conducted
further oversight and determined that Floc cannot live up to its commitment to protect
the privacy and security of Oregonians.
An abuse of Floc cameras is inevitable and Floc has made it clear that it takes no responsibility
to prevent or detect that.
That statement was not reflected in the acquisition report, the analysis of whether the risks
that are represented by the experience of other entities, which is reflected in Berkeley's
municipal code specifically the surveillance technology oversight ordinance ordinance
excuse me specifies that the experience of other entities is to be reflected in the acquisition
report and we don't think it was accurately reflected. Another issue is we see certain flaws
in the massive services agreement. I think that Vice Chair Leo Wilson will speak a little bit more
to that so I'm going to skip over that item. We also didn't see reflected in the acquisition
report the concentration risks. We saw an explanation of why consolidation under
a single vendor would be beneficial to the department but we didn't
see the flipside analysis of why concentration risk would actually pose a
threat to privacy. And then the lack of documented
vendor selection process, Vice Chair Wilson also talked about. The last thing
I wanted to mention is really this conflict with sanctuary city commitments.
That was not mentioned a single time in the acquisition report, and I think it
was important to note that even though Flock has publicly stated that they're
they're contractually bound to notify an incense, I think we have an example of
just two weeks ago where the Modesto Police Department discovered that their
nationwide look-up was turned on without their consent and they turned off their
cameras. This is five months after the first police department just notified
Flock that this was an issue and yet five months later, Modesto City
discovered it on their own through a public records request, not through an
audit. I think it's a concern. I also think it's a concern. You know the PAB was
really reflective that Berkeley has a sanctuary city commitment. What that
means is, is it okay for Berkeley to contract with a vendor, even if Berkeley's own data
is safe, if that vendor and their business model relies on the sharing of data and that
other police departments can then share their data, maybe not Berkeley's data, but other
data with ICE for immigration enforcement purposes and whether that's consistent with
Berkeley's sanctuary city commitments. I was reminded of another example talking
to one of our staff members who's you know a trans the trans man and he
reminded me that flock and thought well part of the contract with flock is to
allow Berkeley's data to become aggregated and anonymized and that will
be used to train its AI model and you know they are concerned that their
without consent that their data will be then used to train a model that
will be then employed by Kansas's police police department to under to then
prosecute crimes about entering bathrooms that they think that he
they should not enter into. I think it's a concern of the community and I
think it's a concern that was not addressed in the acquisition report to
think all these examples should have been in the acquisition report and they
weren't and the community was concerned at the last community meeting that there
There's no weighing of the balance of risk
with the operational benefit that Flock specifically provide,
that they say Flock provides.
Next slide.
All right, so we're asking you tonight to defer action,
and then we're also asking you to direct some action.
So the first affirmative ask is that you direct the department
to complete a consolidated BMC 299 report
and acquisition report for the entire surveillance ecosystem.
Our chair mentioned some of the risks of having such a consolidated system,
irrespective of who the vendor is, and the fact that the current acquisition report
only speaks to the benefits. There are significant risks. There's operational dependency. When you
consolidate all of these programs with one vendor, you're extremely dependent on that vendor.
That vendor has significant leverage over you, over time, in terms of cost, in terms of changes
to the system and in terms of their independent ability to make changes to policies and the
parameters for the operating system for their program. Once we have all four of our surveillance
programs running through one vendor, we are very unlikely to readily leave or feel that we can
leave and that is something that must be addressed in an updated acquisition report. And then I want
to speak to another element. I mentioned before that we have not had the opportunity to view the
entire surveillance architecture for what it truly is. You saw in BPD's slide, it was interesting,
the slides, they highlighted only two things as being new and kind of skipped over
the new investigative power software. I thought that was interesting because I think actually
Flock Nova is what is referenced there and I think it's quite new. And I think
that Flock Nova and its capabilities really do highlight some of the issues
that need to be addressed in this new consolidated acquisition report. So the
very purpose of Flock Nova is to aggregate data across all systems and
for that data to be accessible to Flock clients. That's the very purpose of Flock
NOVA. That's something new that we don't have the right to today that we will
under this proposal. Neither the MSA or any of the materials that we've reviewed
give Berkeley the right to consent before NOVA is activated or expanded. More
do they give us the right to control what kind of data is submitted to the
NOVA system. So this is vital information that should be included in an updated
consolidated acquisition report. Alright, if the City Council chooses to move
forward today and contract with Flock Safety, we believe you need to modify
direct modifications to the agreement with Flock. This is reflected in several
of your supplementals and I'm sorry Council Member Bartlett, I've not had the
time to analyze yours but I did have the time to take a look at the other two and
I do believe that all of these points on this particular slide are addressed in
one of the two supplementals directing further modification or amendment to the
Flock Master Services Agreement. I will say that some of what I heard in the
department's presentation this evening surprised me because there are some
assertions that suggest that some of these items have already been addressed
and agreed to by Flock. That is not information that has come to us
previously. Let's move on to the next slide. Even with the supplementals there
There are additional modifications to the MSA that I would encourage you to consider
if you do decide to go ahead with floc today.
I did see a suggestion, first of all, that the penalties for breach violations, the increase
from $75,000 to $150,000.
I reiterate here what was shared in our written material that Oakland has a penalty of $200,000
violation Richmond 290,000. It's unclear why the City of Berkeley would agree to
any less of a penalty provision. In addition, none of the supplementals
address the exemption in the penalty language for the lookup tool. Act data
violations that are done pursuant to flocks lookup tool. And this is a really
important feature which our chair just alluded to. I want to make it clear that
This is one, as my understanding,
is one of the central benefits of Flock.
This is a tool that allows participating jurisdictions,
and I believe the Deputy Chief spoke to that,
to actually look up and access data
for other jurisdictions that are on the Flock system,
and they can do that without getting
the affirmative permission of the other jurisdictions.
Right now, in your penalty provision in the MSA,
any data breach or data violation
that is done pursuant to a jurisdiction's use of the look up tool is entirely carved
out of the penalty. That needs to be amended. Last but not least, we made a recommendation
that the city preserve its full legal remedies when actual harm exceeds the penalty amount.
So right now, as the MSA has written, the entire remedy or recourse for data breach
violations is a monetary penalty. Currently 75,000 as several council
members have recommended 150,000. Imagine if a disclosure leads to an
immigration enforcement action against a Berkeley resident. They are detained,
deported, their family is separated. Do you feel that $150,000 is a sufficient
remedy for that violation? I think it most likely is not. Imagine if a data
breach exposes information about many thousands of your Berkeley citizens and
you are asked as a city to pay for the cost of remedying our credit or credit
monitoring services you would face potential civil liability from your
community you wouldn't be able to go after flock for any of that the way the
contract is currently written you need to pursue amendments that protect the
city's bottom line. If Flock's negligence is egregious or repeated, you may want to pursue
punitive damages or injunctive relief. You're not able to do that either as the MSA is currently
structured. So while I appreciate the amendments that have been put forward in the supplemental,
I strongly urge you to consider additional amendments really to protect the city from
in a fiscal perspective, if nothing else.
We have two more topics.
Sorry, can you give me a sense of how much?
Yeah, five minutes.
Okay, thank you.
We have two topics.
One of them is very brief to discuss.
Next slide please.
And then skip that slide too.
The first is about all the use policies
and our recommendations that are,
I didn't know they were called.
That cover all policies that have been submitted to you.
Our first recommendation is that you impose consistent audit requirements across all policies.
One of the issues that we've seen is that jurisdictions are not identifying non-compliant issues until months later,
because they are not consistently auditing their data.
And so our recommendation is at least monthly audits and then biannual reporting by the department to the PAB.
The second is inconsistent notification standards.
a few months ago or a month ago,
the Council asked the department to notify them,
said within 72 hours of a request by ICE
for any information from the department.
And that's only reflected in one policy right now.
We would like to see it reflected across all policies.
Next slide, please.
The last set of recommendations,
specifically concerns the drone use program
and the use policy that the department is presenting,
which was not touched on so far.
So I think I'm gonna spend my last few minutes
on this slide here.
The drone use program, as the use policy, as the department is proposing, does not limit it to specific authorized uses.
Instead it says that the drone may be used for specific authorized uses,
and then does not limit it to those specific issues, those specific authorized uses.
And I think that's a reason for an issue for a couple reasons.
The first is that the municipal code actually requires that BPD explicitly identify
authorized use for any surveillance technology ordinance. And so instead of
limiting and making transparent what each authorized use is, they decided to
make it permissive such that there's an unwritten authorized use that is
effectively whatever else the department says is permissible that is not
explicitly prohibited by the policy. We think that's an issue. It's an
issue for transparency sake, it's an issue for auditing sake, and it's an issue
because Berkeley residents deserve to know why and how they're being
surveilled. The second recommendation specifically ties to data retention
policy. BPD's data retention policy is proposed data retention policy of 60
days. We recommend tying the data retention policy, tailor it to each use.
Tailor it to the uses that BPD says and purposes that BPD says they're actually
deploying the drone for, for example. When they deploy a drone for vehicle
pursuits, the purpose is officer safety in order to understand the terrain.
None of that purpose requires achieving that purpose does not require
retaining the data and we think that the narrow retention data respects Berkeley
residents privacy rights and it also protects from warrants, requests from
immigration officials because the only protection when the data is when they
come with a judicial warrant is that the data doesn't exist. We also think that
there is there are concerns around the oversight and accountability mechanisms.
Right now the BPD use policy for drones does not require a supervisory approval
and it doesn't require BPD operators to actually specify the reason for the
drone deployment. We think those two things are common sense parameters to
to ensure oversight.
We also, I want to highlight what's in the second recommendation
in the bottom row about First Amendment concerns.
One of the authorized uses that BPD is proposing
is to respond to criminal activity in mass gatherings.
And the Police Department, or excuse me,
the Police Accountability Board was specifically
concerned about this because the client nature,
the client definition of criminal activity.
Criminal activity could encompass anything
from failing to adhere to an unlawful dispersal order
that's issued in the moment.
It could be responding to, for example,
someone who is in the crowd who's an instigator,
and that could be a pretext then to use
and to capture drone surveillance footage
of everyone who is in that area.
And if the data is retained for 60 days,
they would be able to look back at that policy, to look back at that footage and to see if there is any other potentially criminal,
if there is any actionable activity in that footage.
And I think, you know, for me this specifically was a concern because before joining the PAB,
I was working with the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights, specifically in litigation against the county of Sacramento Police Department.
and the police department ended up having to settle
for hundreds of thousands of dollars,
specifically because they were using their drones
to surveil protesters in a way
that chilled First Amendment rights.
And the drone use policy that BPD has presented
has essentially the same prohibitions
that Sacramento Police Department had,
and so they are inadequate.
I'm gonna leave the other ones on there
so that we can conclude our presentation,
but thank you for listening.
Thank you for your presentation.
We now have four supplementals that need to be presented.
I don't have a strong preference for order.
Is there anyone who would like to go first?
Don't we need to accept one of them first?
Do we need to vote to accept?
Set this up three.
Sorry, Mr. City Clerk, can you weigh in here, please?
So there was a, the revised agenda material from, um,
customer Bartlett, uh,
needs to be voted to be accepted for a consideration by two thirds vote.
That's this one. Yeah. So here's a, myself, a mental,
I saw these other submittals. I want to get involved as well.
I felt lonely out there. Uh, and so myself melt,
we just have to announce it.
No, no, I think it makes sense for him to say what's on there before we set it for accepting it.
So go ahead.
I've never seen it.
I've never done a supplemental before.
It's my first time.
I've got to learn the litany.
So this is, these are my efforts to enjoy the conversation and offer my edits to the
contract, the Master Service Agreement.
And I guess I can read the language inside this box on the page.
the purpose of the supplemental material
is to clearly define the legal boundaries
within which the city may utilize
automated license plate reader, ALPR technology,
and other surveillance services.
This supplemental will ensure that any vendors
who are contracted to provide ALPR
and surveillance technology services
operate within specific parameters
that will safeguard residents' privacy,
civil rights, and Berkeley's sanctuary city ordinance.
While maintaining city control of access
and usage of data generated from the technology.
The supplemental will incorporate good of the city
provisions to ensure full transparency, control,
and accountability in the deployment and operation
of the technology.
These provisions will include strict mutuality
of contractual obligations, material increased penalties
for unauthorized data access or disclosure,
and a clear private right of action
for affected individuals, including statutory damages
and injunctive relief.
Okay. Um, there are some council members who have marked their,
do you have a, something you'd like to say council member Humbert?
No, I just liked it. I would like to present my supplemental.
We're not, yeah, not quite yet. We're just voting to bring it.
I understand that. Yeah. Okay. So it's for later. Okay.
So council member O'Keefe, did you have something you wanted to say?
I have a question for council member Bartlett regarding a supplemental. Um,
has the city attorney's office reviewed this? No they have not. Okay thank you. Okay so you are
you making a motion? Yeah I'd like to include my supplemental. Second. Okay I'll call the roll this is to
accept uh the supplemental from councilman Bartlett for consideration uh council member Kester Wani. Yes.
Taplin. Yes Bartlett. Yes, Trigga. I abstain. Blackaby. Yes. Loonapara. Yes. Humbert. Yes.
And Maryishi. Yes. Okay, motion carries. Okay. Now, Council Member Humbert, would you like
to present your supplemental? Thank you Madam Mayor. Yes, I'd like to present the supplemental
that I and Council Member O'Keeffe and Council Member Taplin and Council Member Kessarwani
have brought. First I want to thank BPD Chief Lewis for all her work on these policies and
on the Master Services Agreement, and I especially want to thank our City Attorney and Stephen
Hylas in the City Attorney's Office for their suggestions and review of our supplemental
and also the city manager's office for their guidance.
And of course, I want to thank my co-authors, who I just
named.
Everyone was working over the weekend on this,
and I deeply appreciate folks taking time out
of their schedules and lives to address community concerns
and strengthen this agreement.
I also want to thank the PAB for its review
and for its thoughtful comments and for its presentation
here tonight.
I want to preface the rest of my comments
by saying that I deeply respect the positions
of all my colleagues and the concerns that I have heard,
and I'm sure that I will hear further tonight,
I want to be clear.
I agree that these concerns are justified.
We know the federal government is out to get people,
and we also know there's been inappropriate access
to ALPR data in other cities via Flock,
and then in some cases,
those cities have sought to exit their contracts.
At the same time, and as I discussed
at our special meeting some time ago,
I think there's good evidence that ALPRs and other technological tools are creating
true public safety benefits that have real weight.
We've heard that tonight in the prior meeting in detail and also through the BPD's presentation
earlier in this meeting.
The question that I have grappled it with is what tips the scales for me?
Can we get to a place where we have sufficient protections for our data and ability to get
out of this agreement that the risks are outweighed by the public safety benefits.
First, I think it is important to point out that in the context of a federal government
that is literally snatching people off the streets just for how they look, the marginal
risks from inappropriately accessed ALPR data are relatively small.
That said, I understand and can respect the argument that any marginal risk in this regard
is too much. That is a principled position that someone can take in fact. My view, please
don't interrupt me.
Folks, you are entitled to your positions, you're entitled to your opinions, but you
will let everyone speak so that we can hear them. It's okay if you disagree, it's just
not appropriate for you to yell at them. Go ahead.
My view though is that our residents face public safety risks every day. One of my constituents
who was a senior, was brutally mugged and thrown to the ground in 2023.
And she was not alone in being a senior who was targeted.
And I know that other parts of Berkeley, most notably West Berkeley, South Berkeley,
and District 2, face constant threats of gun violence.
Robberies and contests too, of course.
These are the real concrete everyday safety threats against which I'm weighing the more marginal impacts
of things like data leaks from ALPRs and a limited number of fixed surveillance cameras
and drones. I believe that with the right amendments and with the ability to swiftly
exit this agreement for any reason, and that's critical to me, the ability to walk away,
we can provide adequate protection to get these risks down to a level where they are
outweighed by the public safety benefits. Please don't interrupt me, and I'd ask Council
Councilmember Kesterwani to put the, put the, the, the supplemental up.
Anyway, as I, I'm going to repeat it.
I believe that with the right amendments and with the ability to swiftly exit this agreement for any reason,
we can provide adequate protection to get these risks down to a level where they are outweighed by the public safety benefits.
And that if changes we have made, and if that changes, we have the ability to get the heck
out of Dodge.
So with that, I'm going to listen the basic versions, off the basic versions of our group's
six recommendations, and there are more details in the supplemental itself, which will be
up on the screen.
One, increase the financial penalty for unauthorized data
sharing from $75,000 to $100,000, $150,000 for violation.
Two, establish a termination for convenience right
under which the city is not refunded for payments already
made, but is not obligated for the remaining contract value.
Can walk away, for whatever reason we want.
Limit FLOC's license to use anonymized data
to the term of the agreement rather than in perpetuity.
Four, require FLOC to obtain the city's prior written consent
before making any changes, that's any changes,
to the city's data sharing settings or configurations.
Five, revise the special term section to clarify
the MSA Master Services Agreement may not be modified
without City Council approval.
And six, remove the amendment and incorporate provisions
on restrictions on data sharing into the MSA and stipulate that such provisions shall
not be modified by subsequent flock amendments or attachments without further City Council
approval.
At this point I also want to say, and I've read this, Council Member Blackaby's supplemental,
I also want to say that I'm very open to all of his recommendations and would be delighted
if our supplemental and his could be integrated into a consolidated set of recommendations
that would go to our city manager and city attorney's offices. Now his
recommendations include serious monitoring efforts requirements. I think
that with our powers combined we would have a very strong master services
agreement that I think would go very far to address community concerns and ensure
that we can make use of these very helpful tools again with the option to
to get out if we want to and need to, thank you.
Thank you, council member.
So would you, council member Blackheavy,
like to present your supplemental?
Sure, thank you, Madam Mayor, if I can share.
Thanks to council member Humbert and team
for their supplemental.
It was interesting on Monday
to see all the supplementals together
and to reflect that there's a lot of commonality
in the points that they've made and the points I've made.
I will say that their six points are a superset
of what I've presented.
My three are basically a subset of what they've presented.
But the whole idea here is, you know,
the thought behind this is that,
as we've heard earlier tonight,
that public safety technology does play a critical role
in supporting the BPD's investigations,
clearing cases, enhancing officer safety,
and strengthening overall public safety.
However, Flock's previous unauthorized sharing
of surveillance data and promises
that they've fixed these problems,
that must be monitored, verified,
and ensured that they are actually following through
on those commitments constantly,
underscores the need for more robust safeguards
in the Master Services Agreement if we move forward,
in our use policies,
as well as enhanced program reporting and auditing
to ensure full transparency, informed oversight,
and accountability as we move forward,
especially I would say at the beginning
as we're getting a new program off the ground.
So my supplemental is similar in some respects
with what we've just seen from Council Member Humbert.
There's the penalty component,
which is doubling the penalty,
allowing the city to terminate the MSA for convenience,
ensuring that we are not paying.
If we cancel earlier, we're only on the hook
for what we've spent and what we've consumed,
but not future payments.
We want full flexibility to be able to exit the agreement,
which also gives, again, gives us more leverage
and also an incentive for Flock to actually perform
and maintain their commitments
because we can exit at any time.
In addition, again, there is an existing technology ordinance
that are existing reports, but I don't think that,
given the changes that are being asked for,
that just the biennial process is sufficient.
And so my recommendation here is more frequent reports
that are coming from BPD
through the city manager of the council.
even before the system is operational quarterly reports
about installation, what's the progress and timeline,
what are any early results for components
that may go live before the full system
and any issues or concerns that arise during installation.
Once the system's in use, we need monthly reports
for at least the first six months of operation,
I'd be open to extending that,
including but not limited to early results
and performance evaluation of each component,
issues and concerns, proposed solutions
or fixes by the department,
and also short case studies or synopses
of what the technology is actually supporting.
Can we actually see what it is doing
and get a better grasp of that?
And then three thereafter alignments existing practices
for auditing and reporting.
We do have these existing audits for the ALPR twice a year.
They get shared with PAB.
We also have an annual surveillance technology report
that comes to us.
So that's the component.
So there's a contract component, which is largely similar
and a subset of what Council Member Humbert
and Council Member Kesser-Wani and team have proposed
additional reporting and auditing requirements especially early in the
process to ensure that flock is adhering to the commitments they've made to the
city. Thank you very much councilmember. Councilmember Bartlett did you want to
also share so folks can see the more detailed version? Sure. I think you might
have to stop sharing councilmember Blackby. Thank you, thank you and thanks
for honoring me with your attention from my supplemental. My first
So, listen, we're here debating and kind of engaging in this classic tension between
security and liberty, and America has always had this, even from the very beginning with
the framers of the founding fathers, as they're called.
This issue was talked about a lot, and it still is, and it's something that we all negotiate
with ourselves and our families, our communities, our neighbors, in our states, our countries,
within our laws, all the time.
And so tonight, this is the latest sort of negotiation of a line of scrimmage between
liberty and security.
Now, I want to say this, regarding the Flock vendor, I can tell you, we worked in the privacy
policy for a long time, like three years we worked on it, so we tap and brought it in
response to crime in his district and I didn't love it at first we hammered out
and we do have the best privacy policy in the state probably the country as a
city and I told you when I'm what I make a joke you'll know
That was a joke. Come on folks come on let him finish speaking. Yeah. And so you know so here's
what I've seen one in front of the front of my predecessor's house a car drove
into and ran over a baby in a baby stroller across the street on Alcatraz
that caught the guy within the hour. Another time someone set off 12 shots
outside a playground in Malcolm X school. They caught him a little while later
busting the same technology. There was a rapist caught in a different district
that was caught through the technology. So I know I know it's effective and you
know so that that aspect of the security piece where I feel responsible for your
safety in my city is real. And once you put your socks in my shoes for a minute.
However, however, that effectiveness alone is not enough because we could
just have a soldier in our house all the time. Right. And on this issue,
policing works best when there's trust. And so many of our constituents and all
of my constituents, every single one I've talked to, I've talked to all of
them many, many, many, not one person supports it. They are fearful, fearful of
the company we're working with because because of what they've observed and
what they've heard and what they've seen. And the impacts are on TV and all
around us. People are living scared. People are getting abused. There's a
secret police force loose in the country, dragging people around and
people feel that. And so, you know, I want, I want stuff to work. I do this job to make
things work for people. And I want to say this and that in the, as we negotiate the
scrimmage line again between liberty and security, District 3 has chosen liberty. 100%. So, in
this instance, my notes here, my edits to the master service agreement, the MSA, I've
I've done my best to give it balance by that spurtly,
tipped it towards us a bit, and to make it have teeth,
and make it work, right?
And so I've included a million dollar violation provision.
And that's intentional, because it recognizes
that in the corporate world, only one thing matters,
and that is the bottom line.
So let's talk your language.
And I do this for a living, you know?
So basically, I'm treating you all as if you're my client.
And if you had hired me to do your MSA,
this would be the result.
How do you share this with you?
Where's James?
James?
Where is this thing?
How do I do this?
Just keep speaking.
I didn't share this.
please, ladies and gentlemen, James Chang.
Heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh
Heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh
No, the page is right, no, it's right there, no, we're already on the Zoom, the document's
right there, you just gotta make it.
Okay, yeah, okay, we're here, okay, so perfect, so, going through this here, um, it's not
moving.
Section 2.4, uh, this is, um, a section where essentially the original version wouldn't
a lot of control of things. So if they update the platform, we can't, we have no
saying it. And I use the larger word, which is change, because you can
typify an upgrade, but you can also just have a change. So I just say, I replace
it with, where is it, Aaron? Original language. It replaces platform changes. So not
implement, activate, or deploy any modification, enhancement, or new
functionality that affects data collection, analysis, sharing access, or
retention of the customer's prior written approval, which shall require approval by
the City Council. And this includes without limitation, fears involving predictive analysis,
pattern recognition, vehicle tracking, network sharing or integration with third party systems.
And it's important because some of the reports you heard about third parties accessing the
data on a basis that may not be so evident to others. And all data sharing settings shall
be disabled by default, any deviation must be expressly approved in writing by the customer,
which is us, and publicly disclosed.
All right, now we're going to section 4.1.
We are removing the revocable language.
Perfect.
And now, section 4.1, this is the irrevocable license requirement, just scratching that.
license. So let's see here, what's the good language here? This is a limited
non-sluice of royalty-free, non-transferable license. They also had to
transferably accessible, transferring language, which is not going to work for
us. To use customer data solely to provide
Flock services to customer during the term of this agreement. And this license
shall automatically terminate upon expiration or termination of this
agreement, and Flock shall have no right to retain, use, or access customer data
there after except as expressly required by law and only for the minimum period required, okay?
Now, 4.2. This new language at the bottom, there's a loophole in there, it was not shared things
and that are mentioning the agreement, right? So let's close it up here. It's just not withstanding
into the contrary, customer generated data shall not be used, shared or accessed for any purpose
other than providing services to customer and should not be subject to any broader rights
under section 4.3 or elsewhere in this agreement.
Now moving down to the perpetual rights, removing those again.
I have a different version of this actually, the anonymized data, okay.
Flock may create anonymized data solely for the purpose of providing services
to customer during the term.
And Flock should have no rights to use anonymized data for product development,
commercialization, or any purpose unrelated to services provided to customer, and all
rights granted under this section shall terminate upon expiration or termination of this agreement,
and Flux shall delete all anonymized data derived from customer data in accordance with
this section.
There's a new section that restricts the way they share the data.
So Fluxion at Disclose, provide access to or enable access to customer data to any third
party.
And again, third party's important because it keeps coming up in the reports that I read
about third party access to customer data by this organization, including any federal
agency, except pursuant to a specific written authorization issued by customer for each
individual request.
B, access by a federal personnel embedded within or assigned to any state or local agency
shall be prohibited unless expressly authorized and writing by customer for each instance
of access.
C, use of any shared lookup, query, or network-based access
tool that permits third-party querying of customer data
is prohibited unless explicitly approved
and writing by the customer.
D, indirect access, including access
facilitated through another agency,
shall be deemed a violation of this agreement.
And this, I think, is earlier a termination of convenience.
This is a standard one for customers that have wait.
Remember, too, when you do these things,
we're a valuable customer.
We have leverage in these agreements.
Yes, we do.
You just got to act like we do.
You know?
I know.
That's not a joke.
Again, that wasn't a joke.
That's like actual, real stuff.
You should know this.
Mark knows.
He's a lawyer.
OK.
Assignment.
This gives CLB controls, our controls, right?
So notwithstanding the foregoing,
Flock may not assign this agreement
to any affiliate, successor, or acquirer
without written consent of the customer,
which shall not be unreasonably withheld
and shall require city council approval."
Okay, and now there was this morality clause
that held that Flock could break the contract with Berkeley
if Berkeley all of a sudden did something bad.
I'm like, but not them.
So it's made it mutual.
Customers shall have the right to terminate this agreement
immediately upon written notice
if Flock or its officers or affiliates are indicted,
found liable for violations of law,
or determined by customer to have engaged
in unauthorized data access, sharing, or misuse.
And now the unauthorized sharing section down there
on the amendment, this really gets to the core of it here.
Any unauthorized access, disclosure,
sharing, or use of customer data
shall constitute a material breach of this agreement.
For each unauthorized access event,
Flock shall pay customer liquidated damages
in the amount of $1 million per violation,
or $10,000 per affected record, whichever is greater.
Each individual query, access event, or data retrieval
shall constitute a separate violation.
And the remedies set forth herein are cumulative
and shall not be deemed a sole or exclusive remedy.
Customer retains all rights at law and in equity,
including the right to seek injunctive relief.
FLOC acknowledges that the unauthorized access
to surveillance data creates irreparable harm.
Customers shall be entitled to immediate injunctive relief
without the requirement to postpone.
Private right of action, another important one.
Any individual whose data, image, likeness,
or identifying information is accessed, disclosed,
or used in violation of this agreement
shall have a direct right of action against FLOC.
Flock agrees that such individuals may bring claims
for statutory damages of not less than $5,000 per violation.
Actual damages, punitive damages were permitted,
and reasonable attorney's fees and costs, Mark.
He is an attorney.
It's a joke.
That was a joke, see?
That was a joke.
Flock expressly waves any argument
that is not a data controller or that individuals lack
privity under this agreement.
And then, of course, mandatory data deletion
Within 30 days of termination or expiration of this agreement, Fluxile permanently deletes
all customer data, customer-generated data, or any derivative data, including anonymized
data.
And Fluxile certifies such deletion and writing, signed by an officer of the company, and no
data may be retained for product development, machine learning, or any of the purpose.
So these are the elements I put in here because I could think of no other way to make my constituents
feel safe with this agreement.
I think we are now finally on the fourth supplemental and so I am going to present
our fourth supplemental.
Give me a second.
So this is a supplemental brought forward by myself, Vice Mayor Luna Parra and Council
member Trigab and as it says here in our supplemental item we offer amendments
to the policies balancing benefits and guardrails. What we've suggested here
overall is that we reject the contract specifically with FLOC and that we hold
on I want let me let me finish so that we can get to your public comments
right okay so and and also we make recommendations based on conversations
that we had both with the PAB, other members of the community, also and had
conversations with the chief and Arlo and our city attorney's office. So I'm
gonna go over these a bit more. Okay so this is a chart that just kind of goes
over some of the things that we're that we're suggesting so rejecting the
flop contract across the different items referring some things back to staff and
also approving and we're approving with amendments certain things because well
what we realize in these conversations is that we could approve a surveillance
use policy that doesn't include the contract with flocks so we could
separate those which is why it's written this way. So the first thing on here is
to refer the community safety excuse me let me just amend this okay refer the
community video stream acquisition report and surveillance use policy to
the public safety committee for further review request that the city manager
work at the committee level to address the paps concern and clarify
operational ambiguity.
So apologies the way this works on here. I have to kind of jump back between my
notes and the document. So there are some more details here about adding in
explicit prohibition on surveillance of First Amendment activity unless there's
clear, articulable, and imminent public safety threat that's
actively occurring, specify concrete data retention
periods with the four elements required by the BMC,
conduct disparate impact analysis addressing
whether camera coverage is concentrated in areas
with particular demographic characteristics,
supplement section 11 of the acquisitions report
to disclose adverse findings from comparable jurisdictions,
update immigration-related search reporting
to match the 72 hour standard and named recipients
in policy 351 section 351.6,
prior sanctuary city ordinance.
Consider developing a use policy
to address combined cross platform use
of all integrated technologies regardless of vendor,
regardless of the vendor used including AOPR,
fixed cameras, community video streams, and drones.
Institute semi-annual audits of CVS similar
council directive on fixed camera established in June 2025. You know I'm
sorry I think that I'm actually this is not lined up. Alright I'm gonna just keep
going. So for amending the surveillance use policy for the unmanned aerial
system to include the following provisions I'm gonna focus on the high
level here. So limiting the retention period for a non-evidentiary footage to
five days. As was mentioned in one of the recommendations, it makes sense to
tailor the amount of days that are kept based on the purposes for the
technology. Strengthening the oversiber requiring semi-annual audits,
supervisorial approval except for drones as first responders, and removing
ambiguity for when UAS can be deployed. There are a couple of minor edits that
we'd like to make to this as well, including to clarify language to our
supplemental. So for the supervisory approval it would say subsequent to
supervisory approval for all deployments with the sole exception that
supervisory approval is not required for drones as first responders and also edit
the language around clarifying the language for the audits. So the Office of
Strategic Planning and Accountability shall conduct monthly audits of UAS use
to check permission settings and ensure that data is not shared with out-of-state
agencies or federal law enforcement. A report of these audits shall be published
semi-annually and should be sent to the police accountability board. And we're
also referring to the city manager develop performance metrics, data
governance, policy development, and deeper research on alternative sailor
surveillance technology vendors capable of meeting Berkeley's safety and
surveillance needs while balancing the need for privacy and civil liberties
protections. Okay so that's that one. All right. Amending their surveillance use
policy for fixed cameras to include monthly audits with a semi-annual audit
report, same kind of edit there where it clarifies that it would be monthly
audits but then the actual report back would be published semi-annually. Okay
okay and this is for the police equipment ordinance which is amend the
UAS equipment use policy to include the same revisions as the recommendations
for the UAS surveillance use policy, which is above, and refer the following requests
for information to the city manager to quantify the need for UAS, something also mentioned
in the PAB presentation.
Okay, referring the UAS military equipment impact statement to the city manager for research
and analysis of alternative surveillance technology vendors capable of meeting the
city of Berkeley's safety and surveillance need while balancing privacy and civil liberties
protection. And then for the contract authority reject any renewal authorization approval or
execution of the flocks safety contracts. There's some information there. I refer to the city manager
to amend ordinance 2.99 to include a violation termination clause for surveillance technology
vendors and refer to the city manager and city attorney additional contractual language to require
a vendor to inform the city of any requests for information including but not limited to subpoenas
discovery requests or requests under any federal or state statute to the extent
permitted by law it receives it receives related to the city
controlled data and safeguarded to the fullest extent allowed by law. So these
are all of the different pieces what I really want to highlight for folks
because I understand this is incredibly wonky is really just this piece up here
at the top which is this chart and I think that that kind of more clearly
explains what it is that we're trying to do here. So I'm going to keep that up
for a little bit longer so that folks can take a look at it. Okay, Madam
Mayor. Do you need to make it bigger? Yes. Knowing that we've got a ways to go.
Just want to step in. I move we suspend the rules and extend the meeting time
until 1 a.m. I'd suggest 1 30. Okay, 1 30. Yeah, I want to make sure everyone
has the opportunity to speak. I'll second. Okay. All right. Is there any objection to
extending the meeting time to 1 30 a.m. Folks, I'm sorry you don't get to vote and we want
to hear you speak. Otherwise we're going to end early and then you're going to be sad
that we didn't get to hear from you. So all right. So all right. So is there any objection?
Okay. So we will extend the meeting time until 1 30 a.m. Okay. I'm hoping that we don't
go that long it's just so that we don't have to cut off that's the only reason
why we're doing it okay so now we have presented all four supplementals
typically this is where we get a chance to ask the questions but I want to get a
sense from folks about how many questions approximately they have so if
you could just take a quick poll and then let me know that would be really
helpful six that's one clip I guess mr. Chandler available okay yes I do have
I think some.
Flock representative will be, is available for.
Okay.
Yeah, in the Zoom for questions.
Five, eight, eight, sorry.
Seven, six, two?
Questions?
Okay, I have a couple.
Questions?
I don't have specific questions right now.
Okay, I'd like to ask because we have so many questions
that we take public comment first and we come back.
Otherwise we're gonna lose people.
rather. I think even if you have a couple of questions there are so many
other questions on the dais it'll take like a long time so can we just let's
let's take we're gonna take public comment first and we'll come back then
okay I don't want to lose too many people because it will take an hour to
ask our questions I think so okay okay thank you all right so if you have
public comments please come up to dais. Okay how this is going to work it's
totally fine if you want to clap I prefer the snap so that we can keep it
moving we have so many people here who are giving public comments so we really
want to hear from all of them. I ask that you all please be respectful whether you
agree or disagree with whoever speaking I ask that you respect them. Folks I know
you're discussing course trading over here but please I want to ask that you
all be respectful when folks are giving their public comments so we can hear from
everyone and and then as soon as someone's finished please come up and
speak so that we can keep the line moving. Okay go ahead Kit. Okay folks so
that means you have to be quiet now. Thank you. Go ahead Kit. Thank you.
Although I heard the the chief talk about the fact that I heard the chief
talk about the fact that the federal government could use a warrant to gain
access to this information and then that could be reported and we know I did not
not hear the chief acknowledge the fact that the federal government has the legal right
to get information without our knowing. They can do it through a FISA warrantless search,
they can do it through a FISA warrant, and they would not be, they would be legally obliged
not to tell us, so then we wouldn't know. So I think that fact is worth acknowledging.
And then I really want to ask all of you to talk to each other. I think the city attorney
and the City Manager may be wanting to rethink whether this is a good idea to do this right
away and I want to praise my own council member that I want to praise the supplemental from
the Mayor and to other council members and I really want to acknowledge the wonderful
work that the PAB has done.
Thank you.
Thank you PAB.
Okay, come on up.
And if you're getting a minute from someone, please try to organize that beforehand because
it'll be easier.
Go ahead.
I guess I am going to say several things to you.
One is I think this is the most inopportune time to bring something like this up.
People are dying.
People are being locked up in prison.
There is a war going on, and in a sanctuary city that has a history in this country and
in the world, to have this come up, I don't understand why it's so important right now.
I want to congratulate the members of PAB because they gave the most extraordinary explanation
of what is going on.
In my time on the city council, I would have been so grateful to have people like that
around me and our city attorney and our city manager would have said, well, I think it's
time that we put the brakes on this and we do a little more investigating because too
many questions have been raised.
I think another thing I want to say is, this is an assault on the psyche of this city.
Thank you.
Thank you so much.
Someone is giving you a minute.
You're giving me another minute?
Yeah, this person here is giving you a minute.
Thank you to whoever.
I started to say that, I started to say that this feels to me like a real assault on the
psyche of this city.
You know, it's not just the laws we put in.
and it's what we do to people's emotions.
And that's part of your job as politicians.
It's not just looking through all of the rules
and all of the amendments and everything else that you do.
I spoke with someone in the office of the Assembly Speaker
and they have put a hold on something with flock.
So that's another one added up to all the other cities.
I guess the last thing I want to say
is that Berkeley gets itself in the news many, many times.
I just hope that we are not in the news
because in this sanctuary city,
you have not heeded what has been said to you
and taken time to reconsider this.
And as I'm feeling it, not go with flock for sure.
Thank you.
Come on up, Betsy.
Come on, Betsy.
I think there's a minute for me but I'm going to try to be succinct. My name is
Betsy Morris I have the privilege of being the co-convener of East Bay
Berkeley Gray Panthers. Keith too. I would I would like to say I ask council or at
least four of you possibly five I guess we need five to reject the new contracts
on flocks just reject and and I ask councilmember Bartlett and O'Keeffe to
perhaps support that that that measure thank you for all your good work I want
to compliment the police accountability board my god the effort the detail that
thought they proved why so many of us voted to have that board and the fact
that they're carrying on with this detail
on such short notice was incredible, yeah.
And they have produced a series of recommendations
that I would very much like to be brought
into the conversation around the contract.
I was here last time I was here.
The city auditor spoke strongly about the consequences
of doing sole source non-bid,
non-competitive bid contracts,
that overall those have been detrimental
certainly to the budget and in this case,
to the spirit of so many people here in Berkeley.
So I, you lauded her tonight.
Let's listen to her.
We elect her along with you
to provide that kind of information.
And so I know I wanna thank the folks
who are already rejecting signing of contracts tonight.
Finally, I have eight minutes.
I need to say that Elaine Bloom and Marsha Poole
would've been much more fierce in their rejection of this.
Thank you.
Tonight.
Thanks Betsy.
So, come on.
Okay, a minute, okay.
Okay, so I'm a former Berkeley High student.
My brother is a current student.
It's nice to see you.
It's nice to see you, Ms. O'Keefe.
But today, he was discouraged from coming to this meeting,
actually, because he was told the vote already happened,
that there was a no, that we've dropped the contract already.
So he's not here tonight.
I don't think the vote already happened.
Has the vote already happened?
No.
The vote hasn't already happened.
So that's kind of embarrassing that he was told that.
He's your student.
thing Terry you're my representative sorry you can't speak directly to
council members but you can speak to us generally go ahead you're my
representative I like your suit but I think you need to we have a rule around
addressing the council as a whole so I think you need to read reevaluate your
stance on this you need to drop the contract entirely this is an opportunity
to do so, there's not an opportunity to renew it at all.
Everyone here is here because we do not support this in any way.
You guys are representing us.
And honestly, that's all I'm here to say.
I've used my minute, but fuck drones, fuck ice, fuck you guys.
Yeah.
Free Palestine.
I think I also have a minute.
Okay.
I'm taking it from the person with the baseball cap.
Sure.
integrated centralized surveillance system does anyone not wearing blue in a
badge think that's a good idea I don't think so the way the BPD has presented
this as the PAB pointed out has been dishonest on a number of fronts first of
all leaving out hey folks please people in line give some space okay everyone
space okay folks folks please back up thank you okay I'm just asking that
everyone give everyone give folks some space everyone gets folks some space so
we can hear from the public comment okay I'm sorry please continue your comment
Does anyone mind if I get five seconds added?
Yeah.
Okay.
Yeah, the way the BPD has presented this has been dishonest on multiple fronts, in particular
leaving out that the Flock Nova software, which is investigative, not simple surveillance,
is being added as a one-year contract, not highlighting that.
Also as one of our council members pointed out, the initial MSA only allowed Flock to
terminate easily, did not allow the city of Berkeley to do the same, not only is that
asymmetrical, that seems deliberate to me. I don't understand why that would be in
the contract and it or it's just severe negligence. This is reflective of a
larger national struggle against so many companies that are surveilling us all
the time. Palantir is most notable their AI system which is being built to
integrate all sorts of data but every single big tech company is implicated in
this. I also want to return to the justification of public safety. First of
If you are saying that drones are going to be used for firefighting, then propose drones for firefighting.
Do not pretend that drones being used for firefighting and policing are the same.
Second, the boundaries of what are going to be considered a crime are already expanding.
Trump just released a memorandum essentially announcing that he intends to criminalize left-wing organizing and protest under the guise of terrorism and violence.
Whether or not you consider yourself to be someone who is going to commit a crime,
I suggest you re-evaluate that because your status may change very soon.
I do not accept public safety as a justification for more surveillance,
and I do not accept the existence of some cameras or an existing contract as a justification
for furthering the contract or for more cameras and more surveillance. Thank you.
Thank you.
Come on, folks. Got to move.
Where's your another minute from someone? Okay, yeah. Go ahead.
My name is Siok Mikael and I'm a resident of Southside. I want to be clear the
supplemental from Mayor Ishii is already a compromise. It increases mass
surveillance. It puts Berkeley residents at risk when there is no concrete
evidence to show that surveillance technologies help reduce crime. However
we do have evidence that these technologies have been used to track
immigrants people seeking abortions and even ex-partners of police officers.
Still the mayor supplemental rejects floc which is the bare minimum. Floc
already violated the contract with the city by working directly with ICE but
nothing was done about it. How can you have any confidence at the fall of the
contract now? A $150,000 penalty is pennies for a
company worth 7.5 billion. A slap on the wrist is an understatement.
Lastly, our city is in a structural deficit and every dollar matters.
Using these technologies and especially working with a vendor as untrustworthy as floc opens
up the city to incredible legal liability.
Obviously the worst impacts of the misuse in these technologies are being unjustly detained
and are people being unjustly detained and brutalized.
But the financial risk is very real as well.
We have seen headline after headline about the dangers of this tech.
safety needs to be addressed through investing in community not mass
surveilling it with tools created by major Trump donors please reject mass
surveillance and reject floc also I want to highlight anybody who's talking
please talk to my friends at Berkeley cop watch they are organizing people to
be more aware of this stuff and yeah just want to get talk to you because I
know people are going this way so go that way thank you so much
come up please as soon as the person's finished can you please come up do you
Do you have public comment?
Hi, my name's Amla, and I'm a student at Berkeley High.
And on a daily basis, I think about ICE coming to my school.
I think about ICE kidnapping my friends and family.
I think about the innocent lives some younger than me
who have been shot, beaten, and disappeared by ICE.
I open my phone, and I see a woman and her daughter at SFO
in tears being kidnapped.
That was Sunday.
As a student who is terrified by the daily fascism
that has become a normal part of my growing up,
I'm begging you to use the power that you have
to avoid a contract with Flock, which works with ICE.
Flock, as a tool of ICE, stands against everything
this council and the city promises its constituents.
So please do your job and protect us to your fullest power.
If you choose to support that which supports ICE,
this council will go down as standing
on the wrong side of history.
Thank you.
I'm a technologist, Flock has a poor record of digital security and responses to security.
The real-time aggregation of the data is extremely difficult to not violate our privacy right.
And the safeguards mentioned about not connecting to third parties is actually difficult in
practice.
Just like the best way to protect our data is to have it expire and not keep it, the
best way to not have these kind of tools centered to mass surveillance is to not have it in
the first place and you know I'm an immigrant I've come to Berkeley I've
made it my home I want to be proud of part of this place I've made home thank
you thank you hi my name is Lisa Hoffman one of the co-executive directors at East
Bay sanctuary covenant an immigrant serving organization based in Berkeley
and we're turning 44 years old today it's our 44th anniversary I'm representing
here the Berkeley Immigration Collaborative, which is a group of five
Berkeley based organizations who have over 40 years of experience serving
immigrants. I want to share with you that yesterday I spent the day on the
phone with countless other organizations trying to find the woman and her U.S.
citizen daughter who were detained at SFO and get them legal help. This is what
we do day in and day out. This is my colleague Alina who's one of our
attorneys. We work tirelessly to help people who are being terrorized and
sometimes disappeared. This afternoon we found out that they were both deported
to Guatemala. The last time we were here this council unanimously voted to approve
the sanctuary ordinance codifying Berkeley's commitment to protecting
immigrants and declaring that cooperating with the federal
deportation machine is against our moral obligation as the first sanctuary
city. Continuing to spend Berkeley's taxpayer dollars on a company whose
technology is being used across the country to deport our neighbors is the
antithesis of sanctuary. We have met with most of you individually, have
participated in community listening sessions and have shared our
communities concerns and questions with you. We have strived to listen to your
perspectives while also not backing down on our core message. Flock is a company
whose investors are deeply tied to Trump's deportation machine and as a
result has broken contracts and lied repeatedly. Thank you. Yeah that was two
minutes. Okay you've got a minute here go ahead. As a result has broken contracts
and lied repeatedly about sharing data with the federal government.
This is not about creating an airtight contract that will somehow miraculously withstand the
pressure of a well-funded federal machine intent on ripping apart immigrant families
and sending them into danger.
I want to say to you very clearly, this is a moral decision in a unique political moment
of state-sponsored terror and government overreach.
We're grateful to Mayor Ishii, Vice Mayor Lunapara,
and Councilmember Trego for proposing a supplemental
which refuses to contract with Flock.
We urge you all to follow the excellent recommendations
that were made by the PAB.
And we urge all of you to join us
in taking a stand to protect our community.
Thank you.
Hi, good evening.
My name's Abigail L'Esperance.
I am a Berkeley native and resident,
and this is my husband and daughter.
Also district five, my father at his 91 years
had to leave early, district six.
I am also an immigration attorney
and a legal director at East Bay Community Law Center,
representing undocumented UC Berkeley students,
community college students,
and other Alameda County residents.
Recently, I wanna share with you a story of my client
who recently literally had her movements tracked
using ALPR cameras.
After an accident, she was pulled over
and exchanged information with the other driver
and then she left.
The other driver called in the accident as a hit and run.
The investigating officer had our client's address
and he went to her house but she wasn't home.
So what did he do?
He turned to Flock.
And using Flock's ALPR cameras,
were they giving you their minutes?
Yeah, sorry, I think they're minutes too.
But from both of you?
One first, and then if I need another, I'll take it.
OK, got it.
So you have another minute.
Go ahead.
So using the cameras and their warrantless and continuous
monitoring of every community member's movements,
the officer was instantly able to create a detailed record
of her location history and pinpoint down
to a 20-minute window where she would be driving
both to and from work.
Does anybody want that for themselves?
No.
The next day, he positioned himself
where he and when he knew she was going to be, and a danger.
And this is just one example of how
this type of surveillance impinges
on all of our constitutional rights
by enabling warrantless, large-scale data collection
that violates privacy.
Yours, mine, everybody's.
Moreover, this constant surveillance
also has been shown to chill free speech
and suppress free association.
Is this the type of Berkeley that we want to live in?
Is this representative of who we are
and how we treat the most vulnerable among us?
And those who are willing to speak truth to power,
I don't think so.
Thank you.
Okay, so when you come up, if you can tell me,
if someone's giving you minutes, so this is for everyone,
when you come up, please let me know
if someone's giving you minutes
so that I can keep track of that,
and then we'll give you the right time
and we won't interrupt your comments.
Okay, go ahead.
Thank you so much.
I have a minute.
Good evening, my name is Nina Cervantes
with the Multicultural Institute.
Berkeley's January, 2025th resolution
reaffirming Berkeley as a sanctuary city,
authored by Council Member Blackaby,
says sanctuary is fundamentally about public safety,
the need for everyone in the community to feel safe.
When all community members, documented or undocumented,
are able to attend school and after school programs,
hospitals and health centers, and places of worship
without the threat of deportation,
we are promoting a more educated, healthy,
and thriving community.
Sanctuary policies strengthen all of our lives.
This is the Berkeley we are fighting for.
One where our families, friends and neighbors
feel safe without fear that our location
is being tracked or shared with the federal government
by Flox Technology.
We at the Multicultural Institute
work directly with day laborers in Berkeley
who do not feel safe looking for work while Flox cameras
are watching them.
Safety for some at the expense of our most vulnerable
is not true safety.
We are also proud to train a dedicated group of allies
and community patrollers who take daily shifts to look out
for ice activity. We are deeply concerned that the current drone use
policy will result in surveillance surveillance of mass response to an ice
trade, which could put our community patrollers at risk of federal
prosecution and prevent them from conducting essential legal observation.
To actually promote public safety, the city couldn't consider investing in
violence prevention programs and mental health solutions actually prevent crime,
not just record it. We understand and agree with the need of safety and firmly believe
that contracting will flock will not contribute to public safety and instead will leave our
communities in fear. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah, Abby. Yeah, you haven't given your
minute yet, so. Great. So two minutes. Yeah, two minutes. Thank you. Hi Council, nice to
see you all. I've met most of you, worked with some of you. My name is Rebecca Gurney,
I work for East Bay Sanctuary Covenant continuing the Berkeley Immigration Collaborative comment
that effective policing involves building community trust through transparency and accountability.
In various presentations by BPD, not once has there been an honest discussion of the
completely unilateral access that Flock has had to our ALPR cameras through the contract
section 5.3, meaning that we have no idea how many times Berkeley's data has been shared
with federal agencies.
Given Flock's investors' financial stake in the deportation machine, it should be expected
that Flock will quickly fold to any pressure from the Trump Administration to share its
data at great cost to our communities.
This month alone, police departments in Mountain View, Ventura County, and last week Modesto
have explicitly accused Flock of manipulating settings and sharing data with immigration
agencies without the consent or knowledge of the department.
In Modesto, this breach was only discovered
through a public records request.
If the city of Berkeley believes that Flock is trustworthy,
why are we only discovering these violations
through public records requests?
Flock knew about these harms and only provided changes
to departments that explicitly accused them of misconduct.
Flock causes harm first and makes limited changes
to preserve their contracts.
They do not care about following sanctuary laws
or the harm that this technology is causing.
Over 50 jurisdictions, a list that is growing every week,
have decided that the risks of contracting with Flock
outweigh any purported safety benefits.
What calculus is Berkeley making that is somehow different
from all of these other jurisdictions
and city attorneys and police departments
who are saying that this technology is not worth the risk.
If you really care about public safety
and effective policing, it starts with accountability.
We urge you to implement the suggestions
of the Police Accountability Board,
Many of which are included in Mayor Eshoo's supplemental.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Good evening.
My name is Rachel Caffelli.
I'm from Oasis Legal Services.
We represent queer and trans asylum seekers
from our office in Berkeley.
I'm here to give you an example
of the type of harm we are talking about.
We have a trans client who applied for asylum
over 10 years ago.
She was pulled over while driving.
The officers could not verify
her California driver's license,
so she was turned over to ICE,
who arrested her and put her in detention,
despite the fact that she had been waiting over 10 years
for a chance to be heard.
She was held in a men's detention center
until our attorneys were able to fight for her release.
There are thousands more stories of people
in California and around the country
who are being detained and arrested by ICE,
separated from their families, loved ones, and community,
and placed in dangerous and harmful detention centers.
Please take a moment to consider how you would feel
if this was your family member,
or if your actions tonight were responsible
for the prolonged detention or deportation of a BUSD family.
That is the harm that FLOC's cameras are aiding
and the harm you will receive.
Thank you.
Thanks for your comment.
Two minutes.
Good evening council members.
Abigail Esquiveas with Social Justice Collaborative
rounding out BIC's comment,
and this is Lily, an attorney with SJC,
who's a resident of District 6.
At this point we hope it's unmistakably clear
that this community does not want FLOC.
As you have seen, Berkeley residents are strongly opposed
to this contract, so we have to ask,
for those of you voting to move forward with Flock,
who do you represent?
Because Berkeley has told you no.
We are not here to negotiate a stronger contract
and we're not asking for better assurances.
We're asking you to stand in solidarity
with the communities you pledge to protect
when you pass the sanctuary ordinance.
That ordinance was a promise,
and the thing about promises is that they're tested.
It's easy to say I stand with immigrants,
your actions must also reflect that.
Our teams work day in and day out to serve communities
that are targeted by this administration.
SJC provides removal defense for immigrants
who would otherwise not have access to legal aid.
And we have fought to protect individuals
who have been kidnapped from their homes,
from their cars, and from ICE check-ins.
Some days, our job feels impossible.
The last time we were here,
I asked you to help make the job
of the federal administration
and a federal immigration enforcement harder.
This contract does not do that.
When and not if Flock betrays your trust,
this council will be responsible for violations
and harm that follows.
Is a contract with Flock worth losing the trust
your constituents have placed with you?
This is a moral question.
We urge you to stand with us in this fight
rather than support a company whose goals and profits
are deeply connected to Trump and his administration.
The only way Berkeley can maintain its sanctuary values
is by refusing to contract with Flock.
Thank you.
George, come on up.
Yes, I have one minute from Grace,
and if possible, one from Serena.
Okay, thank you.
That's all.
Hi, my name's George Lippmann.
I'm of the Peace and Justice Commission.
This is the City-
You can sit down if you want to.
Go ahead.
Yeah, thank you.
This is the City's Social Justice Advisory Commission.
I'm speaking for the Chair, Pastor Duane Phillips,
on behalf of the Commission.
On March 9th, the Commission voted by 11 to one
with two abstentions to oppose any contracts
with flock safety.
We pass this recommendation.
Adopt a policy approving the following action
with regard to safeguards for Berkeley's
surveillance-derived images and footage.
Cancel Berkeley's flock safety contracts
for public surveillance images and video footage
due to flocked repeated sharing of such data
with immigration authorities.
And the inherent exposure of cloud-based storage
to access by the Trump administration.
Now I want to step back a second and people are saying,
well, where's the smoking gun?
Well, how is flock involved in any of this?
Well, I just want to mention that two years ago,
Brandon Upchurch, an African-American civilian,
was pulled over by the Toledo, Ohio police
due to a mistake by flock safety software.
The pullover resulted in the officer setting his dog
upon Mr. Brandon Upchurch, seriously mauling him.
Upchurch was completely innocent,
but the officer believed his faulty software
over the man's protests.
Now, back to my text.
One of the important messages from the commission
to the council is about the precautionary principle,
which I hope you're all familiar with,
council adopted it 20 years ago.
The principle requires that decisions rely upon science,
particularly social science and not solely on politics.
Most important, the burden of proof must be put
on those proposing a new program
rather than on those who are opposed.
It is time to apply the precautionary principle
also to the impact on social justice.
Now I wanna briefly touch on,
Oh, I got just five issues that none of the proposals
that support a flock relationship speak to.
No contract language will protect our data
from judicial warrants or FISA warrants.
Flock has already, too.
Flock has already broken its word to Berkeley,
notably by lying that they do not work with ICE
while maintaining a pilot program with that agency.
Former PAB member Kitty Calvita's letter
contain shocking information about Flock's letter to you.
She demonstrates that Flock's biggest investor,
Mr. Andreessen is a MAGA booster who considers DEI
and immigration to be two forms of discrimination.
TechCrunch has shown that Flock corruptly hired
a local mayor and city council members
in Moreno Valley, California to promote its business
and get contracts signed.
This is a swamp that Berkeley is preparing to dive into.
Yeah, but you've already spoken so you can't come back again.
Not like that.
You've already spoken.
I'm sorry.
Can we hit?
You can speak certainly.
Yeah, please.
Go ahead.
Yeah.
Which one?
This one.
For far less, well, I want to say what I want to say.
Thank you so much, Mayor and Igor and Cecilia.
And I just think Berkeley and Flock are absolutely so counter opposite camps, opposite camps.
Isn't there a California law, AB 54, that says data cannot be exchanged in data collection
with other jurisdictions outside the state of California?
I think so.
I just read something from the new police chief of Richmond who said,
Flock has not been honest at all.
And we are going to absolutely review and set aside any contracts with Flock.
Well, I wish I could be more articulate.
I was sort of pulled in.
You did great.
Thank you.
Thanks for your comment.
I'm sharing a testimony today from someone who didn't feel safe enough to be here.
My name is Johnny Silva, I'm from Honduras and I have lived in the US with my wife and
our two children for 27 years.
In 1999 I became beneficiary of a temporary status called TPS and I'm current member
of the National TPS Alliance.
I work for a company as a driver for over 27 years.
My wife and I have contributed to the economy of this country by working and paying our taxes.
For those of us with TPS, it would be devastating to lose the status that allows us to work legally and to renew our driver's license.
Unfortunately, in the current political situation, some people who have TPS, people who have followed all the rules,
and have given the US government all of our information are being racially profiled and deported.
the mass deportations taking place across the country and so a lot of fear into our families
do not approve this contract, vote no on floc.
Thank you.
Ben Franklin said those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.
As we give our police more and more control over our lives, we should remember the quote at the end of the movie Nuremberg.
and I'll paraphrase, the only clue to what police can do is what police have done.
So stop and think about that. The police brutality we've seen over the last decade,
think about the intrusion the NSA, CIA and ICE have done.
Do we really want to give them more surveillance control over our lives?
And I'll quote Orwell, war is peace, freedom is slavery, ignorance is strength.
I guess we can now add surveillance is safety.
As we give our police more and more control over our lives, we really want that.
And I'd like to think about what our council is.
Are we going to be the MAGA council?
Are we going to be the MAGA? Which council members are going to be the MAGA council members?
They're going to vote for more surveillance.
They're going to vote for a clear teal and follow-up here.
Thank you. Thanks for your comment. Thanks.
Sorry. You're a second. OK, go ahead. You've got two minutes.
Hey, I'm Stu Ralston, dad from down the street.
Just wanted to say a quick thanks for the smooth streets
and some great public schools, really wonderful council member Terry who I will not address
directly. Thanks for coming to our black party. Great to see you again. Okay, so the proposal
for Flock is I understand to keep us safe. The key question in that is, well, who's us?
Right? And the truth is, what we've learned is we keep us safe. We keep us safe. I lived
here in East Bay for 14 years and I'm proudly from Minneapolis, Minnesota. In January, I
back because I saw my community being torn apart by a ruthless federal onslaught. What I saw there
has direct impact on the legitimate concerns that are being raised here tonight. We've all seen the
footage, the murders, kidnaps, trauma, and economy cratering, and these are troubling times empowered
by surveillance technology and lawless law enforcement. Even the police, the police chiefs
of the 10 metro areas said that the federal enforcement was not making the citizens and the
the people safer was making even the police less safe. What we saw less of in
the news but what we what held the city together was the community. The
neighbors packing deliveries and groceries for their neighbors, the moms
delivering breast milk because other mothers were detained and kept away from
their children, the dads taking terrified neighbors, kids to schools and
I share these stories because it was these neighbors like everyone here who
kept the community safe. We keep us safe. These quiet heroes were called domestic
terrorists and agitators. Suddenly, because they supported their neighbors, they were
no longer the us. That law enforcement was there to protect. The idea that Berkeley would
be able to keep license plate data, video recordings, audio recordings from Flock cameras
safe from this federal government. Pretty laughable, sorry, respectfully. And the Supremacy
Clause of course gives the federal government rights to anything deemed related to immigration
enforcement and that's when they follow the Constitution. Flock won't keep us safe. We
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thanks much.
Hello, I'm Allison.
I'm live in District 4.
And I just want to say, not only do I oppose
Berkeley's partnership with Flock,
but any expansion of mass surveillance.
Mass surveillance plays right into the aims
of the Trump administration.
It also continues the legacy of Pointe & Telepro.
It continues the legacy of the Patriot Act.
And one thing that hasn't been discussed tonight
is that even when it's been cited,
some of the victories that Flock has caused
around like catching and solving crimes.
What about prevention of crime?
Surveillance does not keep us safer.
We need housing, we need funding, we need food,
we need to be, and then not only so when Flock,
not if, but when Flock is used by the government
to breach our privacy, the amount of money and time
and energy going into addressing that,
both as far as public trust, will be taken away
from preventing, investing in the services
actually prevent crime and actually promote safety. I don't care about one
action in mind but it's like safety for who? Thank you. Thank you.
Hi I'm David Allen I grew up here and I'm still here. Let's be very clear we're
talking tonight about contracting out an unprecedented expansion of mass
surveillance to a corporation that has acted in bad faith over and over again.
Many of you seem to think that we can that that can be okay as long as we try
to predict the problems, and write contracts and usage policies against them, that idea
is doomed to fail. Flock safety as a private corporation is vulnerable to federal subpoenas
in a way that we, a local municipality, a sanctuary city, are not. The very contracts
in this proposal have carve-out language to allow them to do that. Furthermore, as the
The PUB points out the proposal limits are insufficient.
Flock safety and BPD will find ways to stretch
and break the limits we try to place on them.
This also creates a centralized target for malicious actors
from a vendor with many documented security issues.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Hi, I have three friends who've seeded me time.
One, two, three.
So I have only four minutes if I use it.
My name's Leah.
I'm a Berkeley resident of District 3,
a parent of three Berkeley students or grads,
a pastor of a church called Haven Berkeley Faith Community.
And I had the opportunity, like Stuart spoke of,
to visit Minneapolis in January.
I was one of about 20 faith leaders from the Bay Area
that joined about 700 faith leaders across the country
to meet up with the faith community in Minneapolis,
learn from their experiences,
participate in the large day of action and general strike
that took place at the end of January.
and I witnessed firsthand the chilling way that the surveillance technology was being weaponized,
not only to terrorize immigrants and people of color, which it did,
but also whole swaths of the community who were standing up to protect their neighbors.
People like Renee Goode, people like Alex Pretty.
I met people who had to stop delivering groceries to their neighbors,
who were trapped inside their homes because they knew that law enforcement was using tools like
these to follow them and kidnap the people that they were going to try to
help. I saw something else though that besides the terror of an American
occupation when I was there that was truly inspiring because in Minneapolis
thousands of people have been taken to the streets to push back on this
authoritarianism and one of the ways they've been doing this is through
singing and the movement in show what your courage leave flock leave flock
but hi it's okay to change your mind and you can join us join us here any time
it's okay it's okay it's okay to change your mind show what your current leave
We flock, we flock behind.
Change your mind, and you can join us.
Join us here anytime.
It's okay.
Join us here anytime, and you can join.
And you can join us.
Join us here anytime.
Thank you, friends.
I hope you will.
Thank you.
Thank you for the lovely song.
Okay.
Thank you.
evening council I'm reading testimony on behalf of an immigrant community
member this is what she wrote. My name is Claudia, originally from Honduras. I've
lived in the US for 27 years with temporary protected status. I have two
sons, 129 and the other 21. I work as a caregiver for seniors and children with
disabilities. Although my job is hard, I love doing what I do. We are hardworking
people and don't rely on government assistance. Rather we contribute
economically to this country's economy and are active members of the community.
My family and I are desperately afraid.
We have been active in the TPS campaign for permanent residency.
In this political environment, I'm worried that we could be targeted and
that video camera data could be shared with federal immigration enforcement.
We have a mixed status family and
are worried that any one of us could be detained at any time for no reason and
sent back to a country where we have nothing and would face extortion or persecution.
For this reason, I ask that the Berkeley City Council
reject the contract with Frock and stand
with immigrant communities.
Thank you.
One minute.
You're giving your minute?
Or she's giving?
I have one minute for her.
OK, you're giving your minute.
Thank you.
Hi, my name is Sam.
I'm a resident of District 8.
The concept of data fatalism came up a few times
at Mary Sheeves Town Hall last week in South Berkeley,
once by a fellow attendee at our table session
and again by Chief Lewis, while answering questions.
Data fatalism is the idea that we already
have so much of our lives online and digitally accessible.
What's the worry about one more thing?
I understand that privacy exists on the spectrum
and everyone has different tolerances.
Meta-knowing your political leanings or Amazon
understanding your buying habits may
be worth it if those services provide enough relative value
to you.
But using these services is a personal choice
that you can regulate and opt in or out of.
With an artificial intelligence powered surveillance network,
compliance is automatic, and there's no choice or opt out.
Our freedom and liberty to exist as private citizens
in a public space, to remain free from searches and seizures,
and to freely voice views or protest
are greatly compromised when our personal lives and data
are saved, indexed, and used to power AI law enforcement
for profit and against our will.
Please say no to this flock contract.
Resist the slide into fascism.
Invest in addressing the root causes of crime.
Invest in the people and communities of Berkeley
and the East Bay.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Hi, my name's Adrian.
I live in District 3.
So I just wanted to read some quotes verbatim
from press releases from cities across California.
So from Ventura,
although BPD's settings were set to California-only access,
vendor-enabled nationwide query function allowed out-of-state agencies to query
Ventura's data. These queries were completed without the department's
knowledge or authorization. For Mountain View, federal law enforcement agencies
accessed Mountain View's flock safety ALPR system via nationwide search
setting that was turned on by flock safety. The setting was enabled without
MVPD's permission or knowledge. In Oxnard, even though OPD's flock safety
security settings had been set to California-only access, a vendor-enabled
nationwide query allowed agencies from outside California which also included
federal agencies to query OPD's data without OPD's knowledge or approval.
These are all from within the last three months. So this has happened in Santa
Cruz, Capitola, Richmond, El Cerrito, many other cities across California. Flock is
not trustworthy. Please cancel this. Thank you.
Hi council, I'm a community member in District 3. I do community organizing in
my neighborhood and I just want to say that I have never once heard any person
that I've interacted with in the neighborhood in the community garden, organizing against
surveillance, that they want to feel safer by having cameras in the neighborhood.
I feel the safest when I know who my neighbors are, when we know we're looking out for each
other, when we know we can feed each other, we can support each other, cameras have never
done any of that.
And I also resent the victims of crime section from the police board as someone who was a
the victim of a violent crime.
A camera didn't intervene, a community member did.
So I don't feel that these surveillance measures
will increase anybody's safety.
I really urge the council to cancel this contract
and to go further than that and to just decrease surveillance
across the city of Berkeley to increase safety
for community members, because we look out for each other.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Sorry, minute from?
I've got two minutes over there if you raise your hands.
Yeah.
Where's your second one?
Oh, okay, thank you.
Good evening, mayor and members of the city council.
My name is Solly Alpert.
I am chair of the Berkeley Rent Stabilization Board
speaking in my own individual capacity tonight.
There is disagreement in the community about surveillance,
whether the privacy and state oppression risks
is worth the security it is purported to bring.
I and many others believe it is not.
And I'm happy another time with any of you
to have the conversation about why I as the child
of lesbian unionist Jewish mothers opposed mass surveillance.
But even if we did all agree that surveillance
was the solution that these technologies were the way
to make us safe, Flock would not be an acceptable partner
for the city of Berkeley.
The council unanimously passed the Sanctuary City
Contracting Ordinance and the Sanctuary City Ordinance.
Flock violated that this summer when it came out
that they contracted with ICE.
It is easy to support these values in concept.
It does not demonstrate courage to do so.
The real test of your character comes when it is no longer
a theoretical question, but a question
of competing priorities.
Council Member Blackaby, you are the author
of at least one of those items, and it'll be your vote tonight
that determines the outcome here.
Thank you to the mayor, to Council Members
Luna Parra, Trega, and Bartlett for your supplementals.
I am extremely confident that the people of Berkeley
stand behind you, and for the rest of this council
and all council members, please, please,
follow the recommendations of the Police Accountability Board,
do not approve a contract with Flock.
Now, to the public, this council has repeatedly
failed to uphold the values that Berkeley holds dear
of sanctuary, justice, and accountability.
I, along with a number of other leaders,
are working on drafting a ballot measure that would undo
a number of the changes this council has brought.
And I will be in the back of the room with a QR code
that you can scan if you're interested in getting involved.
So find me if you'd like to join in our effort
to fix the harm that this council has caused.
Thank you very much.
Thank you.
Hi, my name is Moni.
I'm from District 1.
I did not compare to the speech,
but I have to say something about this.
It's shocking that in a city with such an educated
populace, a progressive populous, a sanctuary city,
the home of free speech, and the neighbor of the Black Panthers,
would we would even consider a contract with a surveillance company. It makes me
wonder if anyone on the City Council has read 1984. This proposal has
widespread opposition so I'm finding a little bit mind-boggling why we're even
you've been presented with this and why we're wasting the energy, resources, intelligence,
talent that this community has to even consider.
Thank you.
I hope you all do the right thing like make you Santa Cruz and Santa Clara.
Thanks.
I'll just finish that comment.
If Mountain View, Santa Clara, and Santa Cruz can do the right thing, Berkeley can too.
We can still save our soul.
So please, please do that.
You can always change your mind.
Thank you.
Sorry, woman with the choker, who were you pointing to that was giving the minute?
Oh, you were giving.
Okay.
Thank you.
Ready?
Good.
Yeah.
Hello.
I am Roberto.
I'm a resident of Berkeley.
Berkeley is my home.
I have lately the displeasure of writing software.
So I feel very strongly about how time has progressed, all the ample evidence of what
technology has done to our lives.
I think a lot of us can agree here, I have personal anecdotes that your data has been
uploaded, replicated, shared many times over arbitrary information, what you actually like
to buy.
You're at a crossroads here where it's no longer going to be arbitrary, it's going to
be video footage. It's going to be images. We've seen that buzzwords like
SOC 2 compliance, GDPR, end-to-end encryption, TOS, has any of that meaning
tamped down on tech companies. I don't feel like it. Thank you. Okay, that's all I got. Hi, my name is Kelsey. I live in District 1. I just wanted to come up here and remind you all that you're a public
servants, you work for us, the police are public servants also, they work for us. And
Berkeley has showed up here and all over the city to say, we don't want any part of this.
So it's ridiculous that we all have to stay here till 1am begging you not to pass this
when we have proven and said it over and over again that we do not want it.
SOC is aggressively incompetent and they've collaborated with fascists openly and have
have no accountability and there's endless examples and data about this that you've been
given.
So pushing this vote through just shows that you don't care about black, brown or any marginalized
community members and you should absolutely be ashamed if you push any part of this through.
And it will absolutely come back to haunt you because this whole country is sliding
into techno-fascism.
Thank you.
Thank you.
I am receiving one minute from my friend right here. Hi everybody my name is
Micah. I live in District six and I am a therapist and social worker who works
with immigrant communities with a lot of Latina communities namely kids and as
you already know stress has been an all-time high. One kid that I worked with
that I work with, was recently admitted to a hospital because of suicidality and
largely it was due to immigration stress. Every time his single mom went to work
he worried that that day would be the last day that he ever see his mom and
that was before the flock expansion that y'all are thinking about. So if you pass
the flock contract and if the kids that and if the kids learn that y'all the
the city put everyone in danger like that,
their mental health will plummet even lower than it is.
Mass flock surveillance will make our families stress
every time they just need to step outside the door.
The kid I mentioned has just barely been able
to pull himself up from the abyss.
And passing this would risk pushing him and many others
into the abyss past the point of my return.
So this decision would cause real mental health,
mental and physical harm to our communities.
If you really care about serving Berkeley residents,
former Berkeley residents, like y'all say you are,
I would love to see y'all cancel this contract.
Thank you.
Thank you.
You're getting a minute from someone?
Oh no, just one minute.
Just one minute, okay.
Go ahead.
Hello, I'm a resident of district three.
First, I want to applaud the audience
their patients earlier to sit through BPDs and some council members down playing, and
straight up dishonesty of the harms Flock does has done and continues to do.
Thank you to PAB, your research voices the reality that Flock is dangerous to our safety.
If the original report emits so many harmful truths of surveillance tech,
we have no reason to trust why or how Flock will be used.
Flock gives this data to federal agencies to commit violence on immigrants and all of us.
They do not care about contracts, laws, or promises.
The people of Berkeley oppose Flock every time it comes up.
we are here at this late hour unpaid to say it again and it is time for you to council to
represent our opposition to that. No flock, no surveillance, reject Berkeley's contract with
flock. Thank you. Thank you. Hi, my name is Marilyn. I'm a resident of district three. I work for the
state of California. That means that I serve the citizens of California. And in turn, that means
that you, our council members serve us. Literally everyone here is your boss. So that means you have
to listen to us and look at how many people showed up for us tonight and if you're not going to be
listening to us then I guess we'll be voting you guys out. Thanks. Thank you. Good evening and
thank you for this opportunity. I'm Omawali Fowls. I have a minute from someone back here who told me to
announce my minute. Anyway, sorry who has your, who's your minute from? Oh thank you. Thank you.
I'm the former Health Commissioner for the City of Berkeley.
I'm also a member of Berkeley Equity Summit Alliance,
and I'm also the Housing Director at Telegraph Community Ministry Center,
a roof over their heads, emergency to permanent housing.
We house homeless people and feed them also and have a pantry,
and if you need a flyer, I'll put the flyers in the back
so you guys can use them and hand them out to whomever you need.
But the thing that I'm concerned about today is consent
and compelling reasons. We do not have consent to do the contract with FLOC. And we should
not have done the contract with FLOC because even as a city, upholding California Constitution
Article 1 Section 1 guarantees an inevitable right to privacy against both government and
private entities. This protects against unwarranted sharing of personal information with third
and government enforced through strict laws requiring consent for data
disclosure. You are also, this contract with floc is in violation of government
code 11015.5 which says you cannot have personal information shared with
third-party persons, governments, businesses, etc. except that there is a
a legal consent of the user.
We don't have any of that.
I have not signed anything for Flock
to give my information to ICE.
That's ridiculous.
I don't know anybody else in this room
who has, you haven't either.
So apparently you are in violation
of the California Constitution,
which also shows that you're partially in violation
of the federal one.
Thank you.
Thanks for your comment.
Okay.
it is it is 1128 so I want to take two more public comments and then we're
gonna take another quick break I've got staff my staff have some numbers they're
gonna pass them out so that you can keep track of where you are in line and
we'll take a 10-minute break after this person and the next person okay go ahead
hi my name is Jen Phelps Quinn I am a nice agent that is not ice I've been
throwing a weekly dance party on the overpass that has a protest flavor.
Nice not ice.
I want to thank BPD.
First of all, we were possibly swatted last week.
BPD showed up and found that there was no man with a rifle on the overpass.
And they were very, very helpful and sweet and understanding.
I know that there are major concerns about police brutality across the country.
In my 30 plus years living here in Berkeley, the only experiences I've had with BPD have
been positive, including a time when I was attacked in my home.
So I really appreciate the thoughtful and very reasonable and empathic officers of the
BPD.
My concerns about this are not that BPD is going to let us down.
it is that frock is a treasure horse and all my neighbors and all the parents at Berkeley.
Thank you.
I'm sorry, your time is up.
Thank you.
I believe I have one minute over here.
One minute.
Yes.
Okay.
Thank you.
Adriana Bethe, Executive Director of RISE, also the Director of the Native Youth Group
in Berkeley, Kwatlimi Toutiani-Mashika.
I'm speaking to you as a First Nations woman also, and I want to talk about how drones
have impacted our Berkeley youth and how they could be impacting our youth. In the early
80s I protested apartheid. In 2016 I was at Standing Rock. While at Standing Rock I was
photographed, facial recognitions, license plates, all kinds of things like that. That
has impacted me and put me on a number of different supposedly dangerous lists for exercising
in my constitutional right.
Every year we travel internationally,
the Berkeley Youth Group.
Last year we were invited to the International Indigenous
Leadership Gathering as honored guests,
as well as a number of different other gatherings.
Due to security, I had to cancel
every single one of those trips.
I'm the only adult that travels with those young people.
If they detain me,
they detain every one of those young people.
We've crossed the international border before
when it wasn't as heightened as it is right now,
And they detained us, they actually took a kid away from me
one time and put him in a separate room.
So the rights that we get as Native people,
we all know they're not the same.
The injustice is the same.
And I know they're talking about deporting us
and a number of elders have been picked up.
Where do you deport us to?
I don't know.
So Berkeley Youth, for 2025,
all their trips were canceled into British Columbia.
For 2026, we have canceled all of our trips
into British Columbia.
Actually, we've canceled all our international trips.
We're still doing stuff inside the United States carefully.
The other thing, as a Berkeley grad and going to Berkeley,
we see that our kids are still protesting and exercising
their constitutional rights.
So as they do protest and say these cameras around,
who gets the advantage of having those cameras?
Does that mean these young people that
are expressing their right now, just like me and Standing Rock,
are now, that's two minutes.
Thank you, I know, two minutes is fast.
Okay, just thanks Miss Betty.
Add one thing, what if we have to start wearing masks?
Okay, someone else has given you a minute, go ahead.
So I just wanted to finish that thought, thank you so much.
So as these young people are trying to express their rights,
so that does that mean that our students now have to wear
masks at protest?
And then my question becomes,
as we start wearing masks at protest
to protect ourselves from these surveillance things,
what problem does that cause for our police department?
Thank you, Ms. Maddie.
So if you did not get a number, make
sure you get a number from Julie who's
back there talking to folks.
And otherwise, you'll end up at the back of the line.
So please make sure you get a number from Julie.
And then that way, you can move around.
So we're going to take 10 minutes.
OK.
The things we do for the people.
Recording stopped.
Recording in progress.
OK.
All right, thank you all so much for your patience.
Folks, please.
OK, if you can please get in line
based on your numbered pieces of paper.
Thank you so much to my staff for handing those out.
Thank you all for your patience.
OK, whoo, you OK?
OK, I needed to be quiet so that we can start a public comment
again.
If you're going to have a conversation,
please take it outside.
Thank you.
Okay. Come on up. I just need one minute.
I'm a resident of district eight and I am deeply concerned about mass
surveillance and the privatization and monetization of our personal data.
And I question whether license plate readers keep us safe.
Even if the city demands. I'm sorry. Hold on. Your mic went out. 42 seconds.
Go ahead. Try again. Even if the city demands. Hold on. Let's pause for a second.
OK, even if the city demands a contract with escape clauses
and punitive provisions for noncompliance,
a private company will hold to the demands
of a federal agency such as ICE.
As for public safety, Flock provides
a false sense of security.
Supporters cite anecdotal evidence
when Flock aided a criminal investigation,
but an analysis of a large set of license plate reader data
from 63 California law enforcement agencies found that only .05% of data collected was
relevant to a public safety concern. Berkeley's values and support of civil liberties as well as
our city's commitment to the safety of our immigrant neighbors is in direct opposition
to Flock Safety's corporate mission. Thank you. Thank you. Hi, my name is Emma. I just wanted to
say it's kind of insulting that you're having this meeting in front of you know a pride flag
And a black guy is matter flag while you're actively contributing to, you know, building an environment
That's taking myself and all the other trans people of color, you know, just completely terrified right now
I feel like multiple council members here under the pretty frankly childish
Understanding that if you put the right people in charge of these surveillance tools flock or otherwise
But if you put the right
Regulations in place for these tools that you can find good uses for them
But we have a federal government in a police department right now
that have shown time and time again that they have no interest in being regulated.
They will do whatever and whatever they want to get what to get access to the
people that they want. So I urge you that to please just don't do any of this
flock or say no to all of this surveillance technology. Thank you.
Thank you.
I have an extra minute.
Sorry. Oh, thank you. Over here.
Hello. My name is Valerie Sizemore. I moved to Berkeley back in 2012 to work on the risks
from artificial intelligence. I first want to say about this city that I feel safe enough.
We don't need more safety. The balance of safety and freedom is already great just as
it is. We do not need to expand surveillance. Second thing, I have watched my freedoms erode
as a millennial. I was born in 1989. As I grew up, the children a year or two years
ahead of me, they had more freedoms in almost every way, in school and in driving. And so
I have watched this country walk back our freedoms in the name of safety in all of these
little ways and I don't like it.
The second thing is that this council, many of these members here seem incredibly naive
about how tech companies work.
They are going to try to trap you in this contract.
They'll say they won't, but they are trying.
Right now they're scheming in whatever Zoom chat they're in about how to trap you in that
contract despite you thinking you've schemed your way out of it.
Once they have you, they will squeeze and squeeze and squeeze.
And we know that ICE is coming for more people.
They're coming for me next.
They're coming for the immigrants now, but I'm a trans person.
They're coming for me next.
And I see faces on this council that are also in the set of people they are coming for next.
And when Trump's Nazis come here to murder you, Flock will be right there helping them.
Thank you.
Hello. My name is Todd Darling. I'm in District 3. Technology is not neutral, and this is
not taking place in a vacuum. Big data has become the politically-aligned handmaiden
of the Trump regime. This contract will help them. Flock, Madad, Gogol, Palantir, Y Combinator
and Dries and Horowitz et al. decided that their growth potential resides with defense
fast contracts and surveillance. They're making – they've departed from making useful
gadgets to stuff that kills people, surveils the population, or murders them when they
get angry about it, as we've seen in Minneapolis and other places.
In 2026, the utility of this technology is far out – far – the dangers of this technology
far outweighs the marginal use of it. Drones are cheap enough that if the fire department
needs one, they can get one. Trump's surveillance, I'm almost done.
Thanks for your comment. Give me 30 seconds somebody.
Sorry, you were supposed to do this before. You're going to give comment, you're going
to give your time? Okay, go ahead. Thank you very much, I appreciate that.
surveillance state does not need any more help from us. The real perpetrators
are in Silicon Valley and Washington DC. As a counsel, we're asking you to defend
Berkeley, not join the perpetrators. Get rid of flock, do not sign this contract,
we do not need more surveillance. Thank you. Hello. Let's see, learning about the
the existence of BPD's real time information center
has been nothing but appalling.
Community video streams fed into the alleged
real time information center system,
yet there is no mention of any auditing policy
that will take place when data breaches take place
via third party platforms.
Despite this, Flock has historically proven
integration paths with quote unquote community streams
like Amazon Ring cameras, further stacking the layers
of this data sharing nightmare.
There are private, these are private corporations that have the provision to collaborate without explicit city approval.
Increased reliance on flock will make it easier for flock to deploy new technologies and collaborations without city, without council approval.
And frankly BPD knows this because of their flimsy plea to avoid door-to-door canvassing in order to obtain this footage.
Open data sharing. This is a slippery slope.
Thank you.
We don't only have eyes to worry about using these drones and surveillance.
In the beginning of the meeting, we had multiple commenters pointing out the issues with BPD
whose excessive brutality resulted in a well-known 2015 civil rights lawsuit and who are currently
engaging in well-documented racial profiling.
The Chief, without counsel approval, unilaterally struck out more than two-thirds of the current
use of force policy in December, including the requirement to attempt de-escalation before
employing force.
The so-called Public Safety Subcommittee wants to authorize BPD to use chemical weapons,
tear gas. Our P.A.B. is gutted and has no enforcement capability. The independent policy
review commissioned by the P.A.B. from the Berkley Criminal Justice and Law Center also
showed that P.P.D.'s claims about the efficacy of this technology are false. I'll quote,
claims that drones as first responding technologies improve safety, response time and staffing
efficiencies advanced by vendors and captured in the department's policies remain largely
unsubstantiated. Whose safety are you actually considering? Because it is not ours. This
Berkley exceptionalism of it can't happen here is why this is happening here and why
why it keeps happening everywhere.
Thank you.
You're giving your, okay, in a minute.
Okay, thanks.
Good evening, my name is Brenda Grisham.
I am the principal, one of the principal officers of SAFE,
the Recall of Pamela Price.
I'm here as a mother who has lost her son
to gun violence in Oakland.
I'm an advocate for public safety.
I have a daughter and three grandchildren
that live right here in Berkeley.
And I don't have any confidence
that any of you care about the lives
of my African-American family.
All I've heard is what flock has not done.
I haven't heard any of you tell the positive side of flock.
The young lady that was trafficked to another city
and flocked was there to save her life.
The families of people that have mental illnesses
that have been brought back home because of flock.
The guns that have been taken off the street because of flock.
And none of you can tell any of us
how many people has been deported because of flocks?
You can't tell us that.
All there is are the stories of what flock has done wrong.
I haven't heard anything that flock has done right.
And then to top it off, the men and women sitting right here
that come to work here every single day,
the fire department and the police officers,
their lives are being disrespected.
They have families that go home too, just like everybody else.
They know better than we do what they need to be safe.
there needs to be a balance. There needs to be a coming together to make sure
that all residents, not just the immigrants, the immigrants and the
residents, you serve all of them and you need to do just that. Don't make a
hasty decision because you have a room full of people that don't have anything
positive to say because there's a lot positive about flock and there's no
perfect system. Every system out there has a flaw. And if you move to another
system, somebody ain't gonna agree with that either. Thank you.
OK, folks, no booing.
She's entitled to her opinion.
Very entitled to express ours.
There's a minute for this person from here.
OK, go ahead.
I'm also with Brenda.
We did the recall of Pamela Price,
Sheng Tao, corrupt Sheng Tao, 95 years in prison she's facing.
And I've been fighting for public safety for years,
from San Jose and yes, last week I was at Richmond
when they made the decision to continue
to flop camera after they paused it.
And the reason is because there in Richmond,
there were 274 violent criminals
that were being taken off the streets.
And one of them actually was kidnapping a young lady.
They had her in a car, her phone was on, it was pinging,
and they needed a flock camera to rescue her.
But they had turned it off last November
so they could rescue her.
Many cases like this, violent criminals
were victimizing people.
So they decide to put safety guard rails in place
so that because we could be safe
and still have sanctuary policies.
No immigrants were deported.
No residents were deported out of Richmond
nor Berkeley, nor Oakland.
And that's why the city council and Oakland voted 71
to continue to Fox safety cameras.
And let me tell you,
Mountain View might have paused their program.
Other cities, Ventura might have paused their program.
Maybe 40, 50 cities that paused their program.
But 6,000 plus communities continue
to use the Fox camera system.
and for good reason.
So that's not in case you guys fail math.
99 plus percent of communities choose
to use FARC for public safety
because it provides a vital service,
it saves lives, it solves crimes, shootings,
homicides, violent crimes.
Thank you.
Don't boo him, he's entitled to speak to his opinions.
We don't allow booing.
Go ahead.
I have a minute from somebody in the audience.
Sorry, thank you.
Hi, Council people.
I would like to start with some quick rebuttals to what was just said.
I mean, it's almost not even worth my time to rebut these points because of the extreme
paucity of people who actually support sloth paucity, meaning lack.
There is a lack of them.
They have brought more signs than there are people.
It has been overwhelming that the community
does not support this flawed contract,
absolutely overwhelming.
I'd also like to take issue with this idea
that it's either the community or immigrants.
Immigrants are our community.
I'd also like to respond to something
that the police department said.
They said that these cameras pay for themselves
because they come out of the existing department budget.
Now, how is that paying for itself?
I think that's us paying them.
Is it not?
Is that not how tax dollars work?
Is this not on our dime?
I get that it's within their budget,
but the Berkeley Police Department has been
and continues to really dominate our city budget.
So the idea that these cameras aren't gonna cost us anything
because it's coming out of the police budget,
the police budget comes out of our pockets.
I would also like to respond to,
I believe it was the chief who said,
crime doesn't respect boundaries. We need these cameras because crime doesn't
respect boundaries. You know what else doesn't respect a boundary? A FISA
warrant. And if you collect this data you can't protect it. There is no way to
protect this data from a FISA warrant. Any data you collect can be used by the
federal government. It just can be. And this idea that we're speculating wildly
that no one has been deported because of flock. Look at what is going on in this
country, somebody was just snatched in SFO, ISIS roaming our streets and
Berkeley as a sanctuary city will be a target. So any data that we are
collecting on our community is data that will be accessed by the federal
government and we will not have recourse. Thank you. Thank you. Hi, you
know, you opened this meeting with the Holocaust Remembrance thing and it just
made me think about how the Nazis would have loved flock. Um, and I really
wonder what kind of commemoration we're going to have in 50 years after you do this. I want
to bring attention to this whistle on my key chain and let you know why I have it because
I know that at any moment armed mass thugs are going to come into our community with
impunity and kidnap and terrorize our neighbors and they are going to know exactly where to
go and when because of flock and because of if you pass it your support for this tonight.
So please do the right thing.
We are here to say overwhelmingly, do not stab us in the back so that ice can shoot
us in the face.
How clear do we have to make it for you?
Please do the right thing tonight.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Greetings.
My name is Ian Hart.
I live in District 3.
I would also like to shine some light
on the moral question and the moral stand
that we're asking you to take tonight.
I want you to use your imagination.
Imagine that it's the year 1935 or 1936
and your constituents have come here to say,
we don't want you to enter into a contract
with IBM or Kodak.
We know that they make great punch cards.
We know that they make great film.
Um, but they're also propping up the Nazi regime.
They're using those punch cards to enforce the Nuremberg laws.
They're using that film, um, which is made with forced labor and labor
camps to carry out their agenda.
And so I want you to imagine that maybe city councils across the country.
Divested from those companies and we didn't have to commemorate the holocaust.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Good evening.
My name is Ida, district three.
I'll quote Ben Franklin again.
Those who would give up essential liberty
to purchase a little temporary safety
deserve neither liberty nor safety.
Have we learned nothing in the past 25 years
since the Patriot Act unleashed the eroding
of our civil liberties?
Here in Berkeley, as you can see,
we should and do know better.
Now is absolutely not the time
to expand surveillance powers.
Some of the contractual muscle flexing suggestions
laid out in the supplementals
might sound reasonable in the world
where the rule of law is followed and respected,
but the past 14 months of terror inflicted on us
by the federal government have shown us
that we absolutely cannot rely on the rule of law
to protect us at this time.
I implore you to consider the dire nature
of current events.
Thank you.
Thanks so much.
Good evening, my name is Jason Martins.
I just want to talk about the idea of a budget
as a moral document, and we don't have choices.
We can't make every choice, and we are choosing this
instead of something else.
Live Free is a great example of an organization
that has proven to reduce violence in our community.
And they don't have funding right now.
But in a $30 million budget deficit scenario,
we're going to spend money on surveillance cameras.
What kind of morals and what kind of values
are we demonstrating?
Thank you.
Thank you.
Madam Mayor, Council, I'm conflicted.
I stood here as a student today, and I
hurt many people of opposite color talk about the plight of black people or
Latino people. Somebody even said black lives matter. Somebody just said 1935. I
could remember in 1935 or around that time are people being hung. I wouldn't
know that unless it was documented. Even in your chambers when I came to the aid
of a black woman to diffuse the situation, I was accused of being
threatened or a threat. Maybe I was. Maybe I wasn't. If it was not for
documentation for young black men as well today's society, we would be doing
25 to life to prove our innocence. I am a crisis responder. I respond to scenes
when people are dead. I say many different people, three grandkids and a
grandmother out of a fire. They would not know that they would think I'm a
threat because I'm a black man. Thank you. We need some type of documentation
to save lives. Thanks for your comment.
Good evening. My name is Jeanette and I'm a lifelong resident homeowner and
voter in Berkeley District two. Are those of you considering voting for
these cameras and this contract knowledgeable of history? Do you know
about the McCarthy era, COINTELPRO, how the information gathered is used to kill and destroy
people and destroy dissent and organizing efforts. Do you have historical amnesia? Did
you forget that when the government unlawfully rounded up Japanese Americans and put them
in concentration camps, that they used their intel to easily locate them? It's not possible
to be a sanctuary city while contracting with flock. That's an oxymoron. If you vote for
you are carrying out Trump's agenda. You say the flock cameras and contractors for safety,
not safety for immigrants, not safety for women seeking health care, not safety for trans people,
not safety for protesters or organizers. These cameras put us, the community, in danger.
Who wants these cameras? The police, outsiders. They don't live in Berkeley and they're not
going to vote for you. Thank you. Hello, council. You opened this meeting talking about Holocaust
to remember us. Do you realize that this tool is exactly what supports making a Holocaust
happen? The network of cameras tracking people that government wants to find. This is not
hypothetical. This is happening right now. And we kid ourselves that we are putting real
safeguards in place. 75,000, 1 million. It does not matter. FISA warrants. The government
can through a secret court get this information at any time.
We will not know those safeguards don't matter at all.
They do nothing.
Consider Marimar Martinez, a school teacher
I shot five times.
In her court case, DHS moved to suppress two things,
the agent's text bragging about shooting her
and drum roll, 30 days of floc surveillance footage on her.
She was targeted using floc.
Data sharing amendments like the one Berkeley added
have done nothing to prevent this.
Thank you.
Hello, my name is Benjamin.
I live in the Elmwood neighborhood of District 8.
I urge you to discontinue Berkeley's relationship
with these surveillance technologies
and certainly not expand their use.
I do not think that the loss of liberty and privacy
required by these systems are worth any potential benefit
that they may provide.
There are many ways to improve a community safety
that do not rely on surrendering fundamental freedoms.
I would also like to highlight that the best way
to avoid abuse or misuse of data,
intentional or not, is to simply not collect it
in the first place.
Thank you.
Thank you.
All right, council members, I just, you know,
so we've established that you're not in control
of, that we're not gonna be in control of the data.
Whether it's due to bad actors within the department,
outside the department, hackers, federal agents,
We're not gonna control this data.
So whatever penalties, you're looking at me funny,
but maybe you need to put your head in the articles.
That we, I can't believe you're looking at me like that.
Are you all clear about the concept that, I'm distracted.
Pause the time, pause the time.
Keep going, keep going.
He's just reading your sign here.
Go ahead.
He was mean to me.
He's not looking at you.
Andrea, go ahead, your time.
So, the fact is that you're also willingly entering into a contract with a company that's
ethically not credible.
And so, when the city council member says we can swiftly exit a contract, how many violations
will be enough?
How many people will have to suffer before you exit that contract?
You're walking in, it's like an abusive relationship.
You got beat up by him.
are you going back? I also want to tell you this I don't know if you know this
but a public safety I wish I wish that the police would actually ask us what
is the number one safety threat right now in a city with declining crime rates
that's not what's burning on our minds we're worried about the fascist we're
worried about the federal government and you stand there stone-faced like you
don't hear us, like you don't understand what we're saying. But what I'm trying to tell you
is that whether you like it or not, you are leaders in a city filled with the lunatic left,
filled with with domestic terrorists, people who are willing to give a meal to a hungry person,
somebody who maybe dresses all in black, you know, and I guess that makes that qualifies us
for Antifa. I'm joking but I'm serious. Can I have one more minute please? What I'm trying
to tell you is that... He gave a minute already, so okay. That was in the last one. Yeah, over here.
Go ahead. There's one over here. What I'm trying to tell you, I don't know if you guys are even aware
of what's happening in this town about people, networks of responders, people who are providing
support to undocumented people who are worrying about what's going on for day laborers,
for child care workers, that we care.
But by doing that, caring is gonna get us targeted.
That flop data will be tracking where we go to school,
where we go, who we met, who we talk to.
Oh, well, does that number connect with that number?
Connects with this number?
Oh, well, that must be Antifa.
That's what's happening here.
And we perceive that as a public safety threat.
And you sit there, stone face, like you don't understand.
And that, in my mind, it really sort of disqualifies you
for the jobs that you have if you're not able to understand
that this whole night and this whole movement
is about getting you to shift your understanding
of what the greatest threat to the public safety is.
Thanks, Andrew.
Thank you.
All right, so we had, you all voted and were,
there were lots of kudos to, I'm forgetting her name now,
who's going to be the interim director, Kathy.
Kathy Lee, thank you.
Of the Police Accountability Board.
So now you have an opportunity to show your support
for our Rockin' Police Accountability Board
who did such deep due diligence.
I don't know where the city manager,
the city attorneys were,
and they were just like waving this agreement through
When they, in 24 hours, identify 30 issues,
there's likely more because they didn't have time.
So this is an opportunity for you
to get behind your commitment, which all of you
said when you fired the director,
that you do believe in police accountability and police
oversight.
What we know is that poverty is criminogenic.
We need to get at the source of what causes crime, which
is poverty.
So invest in community well-being instead of over $95 million into the police department this year.
Thank you, thank you.
And any contract with Flock is inconsistent with our status as a sanctuary city.
We can't have it both ways.
If you house an abused woman but you give her abuser's friend a key to pass on to the abuser,
which gives him access, how have you protected her?
flock contracts have been canceled elsewhere because they violate these contracts. So what
good does it do to come up with all these amendments with safeguards in them if they
are likely to violate them? Would you go into business with someone who had a history of
embezzling from their previous business partners? Would you trust them? So why would we trust
flock? I mean the police do need public safety tools. They need the correct tools. Are these
the correct tools at this point in time? And I have another minute. Okay. Are these the
correct tools at this point in time? Safety is important. I don't think anyone disputes
that, but not at the cost of not our civil rights, not the cause of potentially doing
harm, and serious harm, and earlier the social worker mentioned there's also psychological
harm from all of this. There's also terror among people in the community who feel that
they are particularly at risk and vulnerable. And as we know from Alex Pretty and Rene Good,
anybody actually is at risk. Thank you.
Thank you.
I think I have two minutes.
Anyone else want to give me a minute if you're not speaking?
Okay, hold on a second.
Okay.
Do you need just two?
I'm going to take three if I need it.
Okay.
Hold on.
Hold on one second.
Let me keep track of it.
So this person in the back.
We have about four or five minutes.
And thank you.
Four or four seconds.
You already gave a minute in the front.
Okay.
So this person here and that person on the wall.
Okay.
Thank you.
So you'll have four.
Hello, Mayor and Council. My name is Nathan Mizell. I am a Ramport Commissioner. I'm
speaking in men's visual capacity. I am the former Vice Chair of the PAB. I was a member
of the Ramport Championship Policing Task Force and I was the Chair of the City's Reimagining
Public Safety Task Force. Today, as Vice Chair Wilson mentioned, this is the most significant
expansion of surveillance in our city's history.
And I won't bury the lead here.
I am supporting the mayor's supplemental, which while flawed,
I appreciate that it reflects on the inherent problem
with flock safety.
Here are the facts that I know them.
We have a department that ignores oversight at every turn,
undermines oversight actively.
We have a private company well known
for violating legal and contractual agreements.
And the federal government hell-bent on attacking
or immigrant community with any surveillance tool
we can get a hands on.
Originally, this stuff was supposed to be a pilot,
but I guess now it's permanent, advanced surveillance
that we must have all the time.
Again, this is a chief who ignores
PAB investigatory subpoenas.
This is the chief who unlawfully tried to weaken
the use of force policy just last week.
This is a chief who, excuse me, wasn't accused,
was found or violated by an outside law firm
to see sexual harassment policy, was accused by four BB officers of making advances on
younger officers, surely there is someone else we could have before we hand over a mass
surveillance tool.
Now, returning to Flock, Flock's own chief legal officer says that they admit the abuse.
They admit that their data has been accessed in ways that cities have witted into contracts
they shouldn't be able to access.
They just say, well, now our violations will be logged better.
That's the explanation we can have as a city.
Violations will be logged.
The truth of the matter is, if Flock was a person,
BPD would be sending out a Nixle alert warning the community
that a dangerous criminal was on the loose
and that committed crimes across the state
and that they were doing everything in their power
to keep us safe.
But since Flock is a mass surveillance company,
they're OK with it.
Apparently, the department is fine with criminality
when it serves them.
And the truth of the matter is this, as well.
I heard some of the lawyers talking earlier.
I'm a lowly 2L, but I can say this much.
Lawyers should know the limits of their powers.
No magical contractual terms are going
to prevent floc from taking our data and using it as they wish.
They've done it to dozens of cities.
What makes you think you're so special?
We have the perfect attorneys, the perfect contract?
We don't and will not protect us.
Let's go quickly to the data.
I got one minute.
This department says bringing this technology
will fix all the crime.
Actually, based on their own data,
it has solved about 0.59% of crime in Berkeley.
0.59%.
We are willing to sell out our immigrant community,
sell out our values as a sanctuary city,
sell out all the moral compass
that we used to have as a city for supposedly,
their own numbers, a 0.59% reduction in crime. Those are the facts, folks. And sadly, we
seem to be headed in that direction, despite the fact that we were the first city in this
nation to pass the sanctuary ordinance. We were the first city in this nation with a police
accountability board, with the powers to investigate police misconduct. We had many good firsts.
We were the first city to get daylighting on our streets done to protect folks as they
walk and bike on their streets. These are positive things. Let us not be. Let's remember
those first. Let's remember those first, because ultimately, whether it's now, next week, or
November, accountability will return to the city. I hope tonight is the night you make
the right vote. It's up to you guys. It's up to you.
My name is Gordon Gilmore. Can you hear me? I'm with the Berkeley Outreach Coalition,
I just, well, most of what I wanted to say tonight has already been said, but I wanted
to follow a theme that Verena brought up at the very beginning, and Carol just brought
up again recently.
Let me start by saying that recently it seemed like we've been playing a game of dystopian
bingo.
First, we got less lethal weapons and we got drones flying off from the cop shop, and now
we got AI surveillance accessible to ICE and military equipment added into the equation.
This all equals an assault on the psyche of the city. Choosing again and again to direct funds
from support of our community to bolstering a perpetual undercurrent of fear to coerce
compliance and dampen free speech. We as the public should not need to feel like we need to
to be on perpetual defense against decisions
of our city council.
Craft resolutions for community care.
Thank you.
Thanks for your comment.
Thanks.
Hi, folks.
The Israelization of the US includes what
happens inside the Zionist entity, which
is a very highly surveilled, many, many cameras everywhere,
cameras watching cameras.
Yet here in this country, anybody who supports Palestine is under surveillance, is under the gun.
People look at them, funny, there's something wrong with us.
We're terrorist supporters, we support what we support, and it's considered wrong.
And the Israelization of America enforces that with the reality of cameras everywhere,
watching people everywhere and flock just contributes to that and we don't need that.
We don't need any more of this realization of the US. We don't need any more flock. Thank you.
I think I have a few minutes from the crowd one. I see. Hold on wait for just a second. You
already have you already gave your minute. You can't give a minute again sir in the front.
I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm not.
to this grave matter, you know, I so my name's Aiden Hill. I live in District 7. If I was a council
member for District 7, I would simply say no. Why waste the people's time? Why not work on
something to help the community? I want to say thank you to the people who are taking the time
to stay here, even if it is till 1 a.m. We're all risking something and you should know what
that is we're all being recorded right now so we all have privilege. You
understand that the people that are here have the ability to be seen on that
screen to be watched by MAGA clones or whoever's watching. You're putting your
community at risk by even debating this topic. I hope you do sit with that. I hope
you do realize that Flock is already deployed across Berkeley in District 7.
it's right on Telegraph and Bancroft, a well-known major transportation hub that takes our sanctuary
students into campus. It's also on Durand Avenue which is a part of our economic corridor.
You know all of this seems to just be some type of way to justify predictive policing
is what I can think of it. You don't want to address the systems that place people in
in a form of crime bearing behavior.
You don't wanna give water fountains to everyone
to make sure that they're hydrated.
You don't wanna give morning coffees to people
so they're not angry.
You don't wanna give sleeping backs.
You don't wanna give affordable housing.
We only have 20% in each building.
But we can have a 22 story high rise at Anna Head Hall.
And are the people who are doing this crime
going to get the benefits of these resources?
You just want to watch them while they suffer,
because crime is a symptom of something that's wrong.
As first responders, as representatives,
recognize the duty to your people means the duty for them to feel safe.
The only way people can feel safe is if their bodies feel safe.
That means making sure that people get enough sleep.
That means making sure that people get enough food to eat.
All of our time, and I want to be clear, all of our time needs to be put towards something positive for this community.
Flock is not the answer. The police accountability board gave you a wonderful, you know, everyone here is saying the same thing.
Delay this opinion. If you must continue, delay it until another night.
Let us have ICE leave San Francisco first before you give them Flock security cameras.
At the very least, thank you.
Hello, um, he will be giving me his one minute, so I have two minutes.
Sorry, can you stand a little bit so I can, okay, thank you.
Alright, just start, okay, uh, hello, my name is Evelyn, I'm a Berkeley undergrad student,
an RA for the Berkeley Student Cooperative and a resident of District 7.
Um, I believe that we should not pass this order.
Flock is a company known for handing data to ICE, and puts our immigrant community in
in danger of the draconian policies ICE has been known to do.
While Flock has claimed that they will not give ICE
any info without a valid reason, I
find it hard to believe that ICE, an organization that
has conducted no-knock raids, arrested people
without habeas corpus, and is responsible for shooting
three unarmed individuals this year,
would follow such a provision.
ICE is not a law enforcement organization,
but a brown shirt-like group of thugs
that go around arresting people without any care
of our Constitution.
By passing this measure, we are not only violating
the privacy of everyone in the city,
but also putting our immigrant communities in danger
of getting brutalized and imprisoned indefinitely.
If you pass this, the blood of innocent people
will be shed by the people who are committing crimes
in Minneapolis, San Francisco, LA, and more.
We must make Berkeley a fortress against
the Trump administration and not allow this Trojan horse
to enter our community and destroy it from within.
Thank you.
thank you i have another minute show did didn't you speak already no i did not
yeah she did speak all right i did not on this subject get the hell out of here okay go ahead
you have a minute no i have two minutes and i haven't started yet where's my other minute
over there hold on mark's gonna check it mark's gonna check i feel like this because you don't
I don't think I know the goddamn rules.
So it's hard for me to keep track.
You are so disrespectful and annoying.
I'm just going to check.
There's nothing wrong with that.
We're going to just don't know.
There is something.
You didn't check anybody else in the fucking room.
God.
OK.
All right, so you've got one right there.
That is so racially profile and disgusting.
One comment.
I'm not going to apologize for double checking something.
All right.
I'm going to ask why.
You should.
I'm a porter.
Casue member.
You have two minutes.
Who knows the freaking rule?
You have two minutes.
Fight me.
Fight me.
You have two minutes to speak.
You pissed me off.
Start my time over, please.
Your time, you can use it as you'd like.
You're so disrespectful and rude.
I can't wait for you to be gone.
Data storing will not be controlled.
That's a god dang lie, and y'all know it.
Flock should not be in Berkeley.
It shouldn't be anywhere.
You know you can't control the data.
The feds can do anything they damn well please.
And I really am really, you really got to me right now
and I'm just like so sick of all the disrespect
in this fucking chambers.
You don't listen to the people ever.
Nobody in this room wants flock.
Black and brown people in the city of Berkeley
don't want floc.
It doesn't save lives.
It doesn't do any of the things that they're saying
and plus they lied to you about some of the things
that they said.
People have already pointed out the lies.
Put the money into voices against violence or live free.
Put the money into income for folks
so that they can live in Berkeley
and get the services that they need.
But I guess that was your point to throw me off
and piss me off.
And you've done it.
But let this be the last time
because I know the damn rules of the fucking city council.
You don't have to check because I know,
just because you don't know the damn rules.
And that's a damn shame
because you're supposed to be the mayor.
You're supposed to know these things.
You know, you're just being racist and disrespectful.
And that is really a shame.
Free Palestine.
Your time's up, and thank you.
Don't vote for flor.
OK, so we've got some comments online.
If you are online and you'd like to give public comment
on item number 26, which is the public safety technology
item, surveillance technology ordinance and police equipment
ordinance approvals, policy updates, and contract authority.
Please raise your hand.
And Mr. City Clerk, if you could please start us off.
Before I do, Madam Mayor, should we extend the meeting time?
We have 20.
There's 28 hands.
There's 28 hands.
That was so.
So you have, we have until 1.30.
So, OK.
OK.
The first commenter is Marr.
I'm here with my roommate who's ceding their minute to me.
Roommate, can you just verbally let us know?
Yeah, they can take my minute.
Okay, thank you.
Okay, so Keith, there's gonna be two minutes
for that person.
Okay, that's fine, thank you.
All right, thank you.
We cannot expect to be able to exit an agreement
with flock at any time because flock has proven
that they will lie.
Incidents in Evanston, Illinois, and Verona, Wisconsin,
saw cameras remain active after cities decided
to cancel their contracts.
Getting so bad that city officials had to issue
cease and desist orders and resort to covering up
the cameras with bags.
I heard the name Chandler mention,
I believe that was in reference to Trevor Chandler,
who is a representative of flock,
who has lied on Twitter earlier this month,
claiming that vehicle thefts increased by 33% in Richmond
after flock cameras were turned off.
When in reality, the highest number of vehicle thefts
was in November when cameras were on
and that's per Richmond crime statistics reports.
There's also mentions of the benefits of a network effect
and a one audit trail from flock.
That doesn't really mean shit in regards to ICE.
There's no way for an independent audit to know
if and when ICE has access mass surveillance data
because the DHS license plate reader policies
for any vendor says, quote,
ICE query data is not retained by the vendor
except to maintain logs for the use by ICE.
Any positive match results are tagged as ICE
and would not be retained in the vendor database.
Further, ICE does not share any query terms,
query results or uploaded images
with state or local law enforcement agency
or any other entity with access to the vendor's database.
So only ICE would be able to self audit
and are we really gonna trust them on that?
Like be so real.
Yeah, and just to get back to reality for a second,
as was mentioned multiple times,
last Sunday a woman was violently taken against her will
separated from her child at SFO airport
and ICE is being deployed to airports across the US,
Standing around TSA lines and this said, by the comment, your time's up next is Wendy. A. Wendy should be able to unmute.
I'm seeing my time to.
John Lindsay. Okay. Thank you. So also also.
Yes, thank you. Well, why don't we just go to?
Okay, now we have Wendy Elson.
So John, when your name comes up in the list, I think you're fourth, then you'll get an
extra minute.
Okay, go ahead.
Hello, this is Marilyn Cleveland, I think I showed up as Wendy Elson and I'm also ceding
my time.
Oh, wait.
Sorry, we can't.
Okay, another a second person is sitting there time to John Lizzie Poland. So John, you'll have 3 minutes. Okay.
Yes, okay, uh, Daniel Brownson.
Hi, so, well, I.
Like, um, um, council member Bartlett's idea of.
You know, charging in very large amount for violations of contract.
realistically no financial penalty is going to keep flock from choosing to divulge our data to
Homeland Security and ICE. They're in real tight with the Trump administration.
Their founders are huge donors. And it's not just going to be immigrants. It's going to be,
ICE have gone after protesters, too.
Realistically, we can't have our cake and eat it, too.
We have to choose our immigrant community.
Thanks, Daniel. Thanks for your comment.
Next is Beth Rossner.
Good evening, Mayor and Council.
This is Beth Rossner, CEO of the Berkeley Chamber of Commerce.
We recognize and share the community's concerns around privacy and data security,
especially in light of recent reports elsewhere. Berkeley has already put strong safeguards in
place through its existing ordinances and through the proposals put forward by some of the council
members tonight. We expect those protections to be rigorously upheld and enforced. For our business
community, public safety and economic vitality go hand in hand. Employers, employees and customers
all rely on a city where people feel safe to work, shop and invest. Tools like drone as first
responder, LPRs and camera systems can improve response times and make better use of limited
public safety resources. With that balance of safety and privacy, we ask you to move this
item forward. Thank you. Thank you, Beth. Next is John Lindsay Poland. You'll have three minutes.
Good evening. Can you hear me? Yes. We heard earlier that crime in Berkeley has dropped
20 to 40 percent without expanded surveillance. So it is not clear what problem this contract
is trying to solve, much less why a contract with Fluck must be approved tonight. If you
don't have an informed analysis of why crime has dropped so dramatically, you don't know what
effects on crime expanded surveillance will have. Fluck has repeatedly lied about security benefits
from its data. This is not a conflict between liberty and security, it is a conflict between
liberty and money. You are going in too deep with one vendor, and what a vendor. Flox investors are
deeply committed to the Trump agenda and can change its softwares and conditions, such as
what led to data access and violations in other cities. You also can't protect against FISA warrants
from the Trump government using Berkeley data, and retention policies are neither clear nor
consistent with the law. The Chief says this proposal has had many public meetings over three
years, yet the MSA was only presented to the PAB 24 hours before its meeting to consider it.
I was going to say that with four supplementals in front of you, it's clear that you cannot
integrate, amend, edit, review, and hear meaningful input to approve the FLOT contract tonight.
I was going to say that editing complex interlocking and conflicting proposals for a lengthy contract
and policies on the dais late at night is the worst kind of governance. But hearing our beautiful
community tonight provide diverse, compelling arguments for exing the contract, I'm convinced
that you should decide tonight to reject the FLOC contract. So please do not show contempt
for your people. Listen. Thanks. Thank you, John. Next is Neil Egbert. Good evening. I should have
another. Neil, you have a minute from someone else. Can you hear me? Oh yeah, we can hear you now.
Who's sorry, from Timothy when he should be logged in as well.
Timothy or Tim when.
Doesn't have his hand raised.
I don't see him either.
Okay, well, I'll get going then. Timothy on. Sorry. Okay. Good evening. I'm Neil. A very president of the Berkeley police association.
The is urging your support for this item because of its core. This is about Berkeley keeping pace with modern and effective public safety.
Technology is not optional. It's a core component of smart accountable policing. The tools discussed tonight give first responders the information. They need to respond faster, safer and more precisely.
Our staffing is dropping fast 3 officers have already left for another to a different department and more scheduled to leave this as soon as next month and a few weeks. We'll be policing the city with just 6 officers on night shift.
lowest in my 14-year career. That's barely more than Emeryville, a city of just barely our size.
At the same time, we're being asked to do more with fewer people. The city is facing a budget deficit
and this matters even more than ever. Public safety isn't just an expense, it's a foundation
for economic stability. A safe city attracts businesses, keeps storefronts occupied, and
drives revenue. Without that foundation, vacancies increase, investment slows, and the city's financial
challenges only grow. If you look around the city, such as San Pablo and University, where three out
out of the four corners are vacant businesses don't just need customers.
Neil I'm sorry your time's up thank you.
Next is Dylan Melowitz.
Hi my name is Dylan Melowitz I'm calling on behalf of the BPA Berkeley Police Association
I'm currently a robbery detective who's experienced firsthand the impact of flock ALPRs I'm not
calling on behalf of the department. Berkeley needs to follow San Francisco's lead in terms
of public safety. This isn't there isn't one documented instance of federal authorities
using Flock systems specifically in Berkeley to conduct immigration enforcement.
I have many examples of how the utilization of Flock technology not only solves serious
crimes but prevented entire region-wide sprees.
I can think of countless victims who cried tears of relief and I was able to tell them
that we caught whoever harmed them.
Please do not do what Richmond did.
We saw crime explode the second it was known their cameras were deactivated.
They had an astronomical increase in vehicle thefts in a remarkably short timeframe, victimizing
countless people unnecessarily, and that doesn't even include crimes committed
using those stolen vehicles. As crime goes up, police work gets more dangerous
and will be up to officers to react to incidents rather than cameras
deterring and preventing crime in the first place. Police staffing is
suffering more than ever and utilization.
There is no booing.
That's one of the rules of the procedure.
Next is Ben.
Good evening Mayor and City Council. My name is Ben. I'm a UC Berkeley student from D7 and I'm speaking today on behalf of the Cal Berkeley Democrats.
I urge you to reject the contract with FLOC. Immigrants make our community safer. It's ICE that endangers Berkeley.
We know that ICE uses FLOC cameras. They were found to have accessed San Francisco's 1.6 million dollars.
There is no direction you can give or policy you can make if you stop a judge's warrant.
I know you all do not intend to increase deportations, so please know that you can take actions to
keep this community safe without endangering our immigrant neighbours.
2026 has already been a year of too much danger and approval.
Please keep Berkeley stable and safe for our immigrant neighbours.
Do not underestimate the nationalization of local politics.
Thank you for your time.
Thanks, Ben.
All right next is Jim. Okay can you hear me? Go ahead. Yeah I'm Jim Best from District 3. I
live four doors down from Sylvia Mendez Elementary, a likely target of ICE
operations at some point. Parents, teachers, and neighbors are self-organizing safety
protocols and rapid response systems to protect our families and neighbors. That's
happening at Willard middle school, border towns, several toddler parks, and in other nearby
districts. My point is that even if City Council members are not yet getting a powerful message
from this growing body of recently activated folks, it is coming and it will persist long
after this moment. The community is responding to the sense of terror at having our own federal
forces weaponized in our neighborhoods with no accountability and no real protection from our
own Berkeley PD against these armed, masked, unidentified kidnappers. Flock is clearly
the wrong direction for our long-term safety. When these Berkeley neighbors look to you
now and in the future, they'll remember each council member's critical vote. Thank you.
Next is Laura Hill.
Good evening. My name is Laura, and I'm a Vice President of Public Policy for the Bay
Area Council. We represent nearly 400 of the region's largest employers across many sectors,
higher education and research institutions, nonprofit and community organizations,
utility and transportation providers, and private sector employers.
In 2023, at the request of a diverse group of 125 employers based in the East Bay,
our organization formed a coalition of employers who are committed to building a safer and more
vibrant region. The Bay Area Council on this coalition strongly supports the continued and
expanded use of Flock technology in Berkeley. Technology is a vital public safety tool and is
is particularly critical for cities like Berkeley
that are facing significant
law enforcement staffing challenges.
On the ground every day,
this technology has a proven effective tool
in recovering lost and stolen property,
identifying suspects and violent crimes,
preventing human trafficking and much more.
As we have seen in many cities in the East Bay
and throughout the region,
ALPR and related technology can absolutely be implemented
with appropriate safeguards in a way that balances
both the needs of the community
and community privacy and public safety.
Next is Daniel Marcus.
Thank you. Can you hear me?
Yes. I'm a Berkeley district 5 resident. I have an engineering PhD from Cal and I've worked for 3 decades in computer technology, implementation and governance.
And I'm asking the city council to terminate its relationship with flock as several other Bay Area cities have done.
Bay Area cities have done. Floc allows ICE access to local data. Floc has lied by
concealing its relationship with ICE. Floc has lied by claiming its technology
reduces crime. Floc's largest investor is a leading Trump supporter. How many dots
do we need to connect? Reliance on improved contractual guardrails is
naive and frankly disingenuous because we know that Floc lies. Floc is in bed
with ICE, and ICE is murdering people in the streets.
It is not plausible that Flock, given their relationship with ICE, will care about breach
of contract or nominal fines, 150 grand is pocket-lint to these people.
ICE will come to Berkeley, and if Flock is deployed, it will be used to support ICE in
the moral and inhumane manner.
Thanks so much.
Next is Paola Laverde.
Hi there.
Hi there from district 5. So the Oakland side yesterday reported that a Hayward nurse was hauled from her car after a watch plate alert near city hall in in Hayward.
So this woman got stopped animal or a white lady 62 years old who works at the nursing home because of there was a license plate reader system, which Max your car to a hot list.
Turns out that her back license plate had been switched,
and now the officers were stopping her
as if she were some sort of criminal.
We've just heard from BPOA
saying that they have to do faster work.
Well, these officers with Anne Nomura
didn't even bother to check that the license plate
that was supposedly stolen matched the car
that the plate was on, and that's my biggest fear,
because Berkeley PD, if they have shortage of staff,
of staff that means they're going to be doing things in a hurry and someone like Brenda
Grisham who might have her license plates stolen and thank you thanks Paula. Next is Lisa,
sorry one second next is Alok. Hello can you hear me? Yes yes I'm from district one as a technical
lead for more than 100 engineers at various big tech companies I am an expert not only that
I am an expert in online security space. I have led trust and safety teams
responsible for safeguarding the biggest online platforms, including Gmail, Instagram, Pinterest,
and Airbnb. I had a lot of things to say, but after sitting through the frankly amateurish
presentation by the BPD, I had to talk about one item in particular. They mentioned that the flock
data is end-to-end encrypted. Either they don't understand the meaning or they are like using a
completely bogus definition of end-to-end encrypted. If Flock, ICE and countless agencies
can access the video footage, ALPR data, then queries on it, I don't understand what that
means for the data to be end-to-end encrypted. It's as if it's open to anyone and they can see it.
And I have a big problem with that. Thank you. Thanks for your comment. Next is Lisa.
Riz, many of you have home security cameras,
and if not you, your neighbors and businesses do,
and they can be used to surveil you.
If you've ever been a crime victim,
you know why this matters.
Minutes can mean life or death, just ask some survivors.
I know because my dear friend's daughter was abducted,
tortured, and died a horrific death.
She ran out of time, her justice denied.
Berkeley is not a magical bubble.
Everyone's safety is right.
Please hear my pleas.
Council members, Blackaby and Bartlett,
and please vote yes.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Next is Rocky.
Hello, can you hear me?
Yes.
Hi, my name is Rocky with the Berkeley Animal Rights Center.
I oppose contracting with flock in other jurisdictions.
Flock makes a lot of false claims,
and to illustrate one in a different city,
Flock referenced a violent crime decrease of 22%
in the city of Los Angeles trail neighborhood
between January and August, 2021,
compared to the same period during 2019.
The reality is between 2021 and 2023,
when Flock cameras were operational,
crimes of aggravated assault and residential burglary
actually rose by 5% across the city.
Flock does not keep us safe.
Another consideration is Flock exploits workers.
Flock, like many other tech companies,
is currently using workers living
in poor global South countries like the Philippines
to review video footage being recorded on its cameras.
And that's shameful.
Do the right thing, do not contract with Flock.
Also end Zionism and free Palestine.
Thank you.
Next is Deb.
Hi.
We've been told that if there are serious concerns,
contract can be dropped. Data can't be retrieved once it's been released. There are serious
concerns now. Drop the contract now. Voting this down may appear to give less protection
and no one wants that but there are other ways to increase safety. You've been requesting
that people not laugh but it should be clear that the privacy requirements and the contracts
are so likely to be meaningless that they do become laughable.
It will be so disappointing if the council fails to follow the recommendations of the
PAP.
The supplementals are likely to be inadequate.
The council member appears poised to betray his constituents who preferred freedom, pretending
that a large enough penalty will protect them.
And again, there are serious concerns now.
Drop the contract now.
Thank you.
Next is Andy Kelly.
Andy, can you hear us?
Andy, you can unmute yourself.
Sorry. Thanks, Edina.
This is Rep Board Commissioner Andy Kelly calling to strongly oppose
re-contracting with flop tonight.
I was in City Hall still when we did
the last update of the surveillance ordinance during the Biden administration.
Even then, we knew it was only worth the paper it was written on if it was upheld by the courts.
There's not a day that goes by that the Trump administration doesn't ignore, not only the law, but judicial order after judicial order.
If they want to access this data, they're going to. And the nuanced policy conversation happening on the dais is great.
But that assumes a federal government that's going to follow the law. They aren't. Flock is actively coordinating with ICE.
They are. We need to stand up and we need to realize that we can be safer without Floc.
And just because Floc might have been used in solving a crime does not mean that crime would have not otherwise been solved.
The statistics are misleading.
Thanks, Andy.
Next is caller with a phone number ending in 211.
Hi. Good evening. While I do believe in surveillance, our business has surprised cameras that did save us
and even saved other people in Telegraph Avenue and Durant Avenue, I think in the current
government situation I disagree with this company because it is definitely this government have no
You don't obey the rule of law. The total law is when you come to that and also like to say immigrants build this country
made this country
and shame
on Donald trump
He's a monster the way he's going to come
education
Is shutting down education shutting down rs shutting down the whole government. This is a
Scandal, this is the government is scandal. Thank you. Have a good night
Thank you
Next is Kelly Hammergan.
Thank you, it's been a long evening.
I agree with and thank the many speakers tonight
who have tried to convince at least two of you
to change their mind, to change your mind
out of the six who believe you can write a contract
that will control flocks.
But you already told us that you made up your mind
and that you're going to approve a contract tonight
when you extended the meeting to 1 30 a.m.
I hope I'm wrong, but I don't think I am.
So I'm disappointed and that's all I have to say.
Thank you.
Thanks, Kelly.
All right, Brian Hoffer.
Good morning, Brian Hoffer with Secure Justice.
We oppose mass surveillance systems and urge a no vote.
That said, if this body is moving forward,
we support the mayor's supplemental rejecting floc
and returning the defective use policies to the PAB.
You're being played.
Floc's lawyers are running circles around you.
The contract is full of traps
and allows floc to leverage your data
in ways your lawyers don't understand.
Saying we own the data is not a safeguard.
It's a talking point floc relies on while drafting around it.
I didn't expect an agenda packet
that made your litigation exposure worse.
FlocNOVA is very invasive
and it is surveillance technology as defined by BMC 299
and thus requires ordinance vetting.
Consider this your right to cure and notice.
Flock is repeatedly concealed, altered
and mishandled data practices,
only changing course when exposed.
We appreciate the intent
behind Council Member Bartlett's supplemental,
but it misses a lot of red flags.
And like the other two supplementals,
it presupposes Flock is trustworthy.
50 cities have found otherwise and abandoned Flock.
Thank you for listening.
I move to extend time an additional half hour second that was you can take the
vote on that Mr. Wani to 2 a.m. okay councilmember kiss our wani yes tap is
for having me here.
motion. Okay motion. Okay so I'm sorry so we have so we have 7 hands raised still for public comment. And then we can talk about what happens next but go ahead.
Yes, thank you 1st, I wanted to commend the police accountability board for their work.
It was impressive presentation.
Like, up to the par what we would expect from.
Our city officials, even I know it came from you all.
Um, but hearing that the police accountability board only had 24 hours to review the proposal or the document this seems like this is dead in the water.
Also, because there's 4 other supplemental proposals, it also seems that's indicative that.
This is that the council is not ready to pass this and I wanted to say that reporting is not a sufficient form of oversight. So increasing the reporting from quarterly to monthly does nothing unless.
The reports are going to be fact checked and audited. So if you're going to the city's not putting the energy into actually reviewing.
The what's in the reports, you're just giving people creative writing assignments and that's what's happening quite a bit right now with the current reporting. Thanks. Stella. All right, next is a caller with a phone number ending in 4, 0, 5.
Hi, Berkeley was founded in 1878 and those hundred and forty eight years we have not
had police surveillance monitoring our citizens.
Let's hope we don't go for the next hundred and forty eight years.
Certainly our police have done a good job and they can continue to do a good job without
without a flock, say, no one's flock.
I'm Bill Nighthurt, and it's both based since 1952.
Now I'm on the director and the director
of four local corporations.
And to the best of my knowledge,
none of the fellow directors
or none of the consuls of these corporations
are going to be in favor of anybody
Move for 4 o'clock. Thank you. Thank you.
Next is JL.
Hello, I cede my minute to Brian Hoffer if he's still on zoom and is wanting to speak. Sorry, he's already spoken. Thank you. Did you want to speak for yourself?
No, thanks. Okay. Thank you. All right.
Next is Michael Solorio.
Michael, you should be able to unmute.
Michael Solorio.
Last call, Michael Solorio.
All right. Tyler Hall.
Hi. Can you hear me?
Yes.
Yeah. Locke is a perversion on our daily lives.
Um, regardless of how you behave out in the public for a city as small as
Berkeley really is in size and square mileage, it is preposterous.
How much funding goes into this militarized police and enforcement
of the law and what isn't even the law sometimes do not continue this contract.
Thank you.
Thank you. Next is Anna. Hello can you hear me? Yes. Okay, I am calling in because I am in opposition to extending the flock contract.
I find it incredibly important that we don't perpetuate these legislations and policies
that allow us and our communities to be in constant fear and in constant stress about
our wellbeing.
I think that we are not, if we're not representing our community and who we need, both the most
vulnerable people to be protected if we are to support floc. So please do not vote in favor
of extending a vote contract, a floc contract, because it is not...
Yeah, thank you Anna.
Thank you.
Okay, next is squash.
Hey.
Hello, I also like to urge you to vote now on this contract and end all contracts of flock.
When the argument is made that surveillance technology like this and increase policing is the future and that we need this technology. We're saying that the future that we want is increasingly alienated.
and not trust and love, something that we could be building by investing in our communities more. Thank you all right, thank you next is, um,
Heron Heron, you should be able to unmute hi, can you hear me?
Yes, I'm urging the city council to vote not to renew its flock contract.
There's no way around the fact that the data collected by flock is in place.
that the data collected by Flock is not safe from federal access. Even without direct access
from the federal government to the Flock data, it can still be accessed through side door access,
where police departments conduct the searches and informally share it with the federal government.
Berkeley's Flock data has already been accessed through searches using the keywords ICE and CBP.
There is also still at the moment backdoor access happening to flocks data that is currently
being reported. No matter how many edits are made to a flock contract in order to protect the data
or find flock for violating contract or withdrawal from a contract, flock has proven time and again
that they are sharing data with ICE and CBP directly and indirectly legally and legally and
And the only thank you.
Thanks for your comment.
Next is a remote.
Hi, I'm calling from Hong Kong, so I don't really have a say here, but all I
want to say is that you know what happened in Hong Kong and with the national
security law, and I want to suggest looking at what you want your council
and your, your lands to look like in the next few years and what's actually
going to shift that.
For the better or worse. Thank you. Next is.
WBC. Yes. Hi. Okay. It's clear. Some don't understand how insecure and easily accessible and hackable these cameras are.
As we speak, 1 of these cameras is live streaming a children's playground here in the Bay area to God knows who.
likely charging people for access to this live stream.
Please sit with that reality for a moment.
Footage of our children and ourselves for sale on the dark web.
Respectfully, it is very clear that the folks advocating for this tech
either do not understand or care how data is stored or secured.
Without proper, very expensive,
and continuous investment in cybersecurity,
the data will always be vulnerable and Flock has proven it is not taking those measures on its end.
I want everyone to consider how many companies we know of that have had data leaks. These are
companies that are incentivized to keep their customer data secure with massive budgets and
dedicated cybersecurity teams and they can't keep their data secure. Who is kidding themselves
that the city of Berkeley has the capability or the budget to do so? Next is Evan Flores.
Yes, go ahead. Hello. Yes, we can hear you.
Oh, hey, basically I am here to talk to disagree with the flock proposal. I agree. I think that it is something that will put a danger to our community that it will put a danger to our immigrant community and that basically this this this deal with flock will put
will basically endanger our entire communities. Yeah. I think that's it.
Okay, thank you. Still have seven hands raised. Next speaker is D.
Hi, can you guys hear me? Yes.
I'm calling in against Flock and there has been some discourse in City Council about crime and
what to do about crime specifically about small businesses and about those businesses being POC
owned. I'm here to tell you that a lot of these small businesses are also immigrant owned and we
at cop watch and we organizing like we have gone door to door to these businesses.
And I will tell you a lot of them are scared and are too scared to talk about floc even.
They do not want to get deported and I promise you they will rather have a broken window
over getting deported. Please do not continue this contract. Thank you. Okay next is Misha.
Hi, I would like to, uh, 1st, allow myself English to speak. Hi. I'm so English. I'm resident of district 2, and I'd like to yield my minute to Misha.
Okay, so I would like to implore the Berkeley City Council to please not renew their contract with flock and to not contract a flock or any surveillance companies in the future in particular over the fact that flock has repeatedly lied to municipalities about following local regulations.
only to then hand over information to DHS.
Empowering individuals in DHS and individuals
who would like to use DHS as their personal weapon
against people in vulnerable situations,
be it their partners, their friends,
their family, or their employees, as a form of abuse.
By allowing Flock to track civilians,
be they citizens or not,
you would be empowering more people
who wish to use their authority over others
in harmful ways to track them.
You would be empowering people to be tracked
as they go about their day-to-day lives,
you would be empowering people to be tracked
as they simply follow the law.
You would be empowering people to be tracked
as they want to be nice and law-abiding citizens,
and you would be empowering the Trump administration
to stalk us from our homes, to our schools,
to our restaurants, to our grocery stores, wherever else.
I implore you to think about the consequences of this vote,
to think about the fact that by allowing this surveillance,
you will be allowing for the stalking behavior
to be perpetuated amongst these officers
who we have seen abuse their power over and over.
We have seen municipalities be lied to over and over.
Do you think you are special?
Do you think the flock can guarantee you things
they have not been able to guarantee any other city?
Okay, thank you for your comments.
Next is Nikki P.
Okay, we're gonna let this person speak
and then we need to talk about what's happening next
because we-
Thank you. I'm Nikki P. I live in district one. I'm a retired librarian from the city
of Berkeley. The citizens of Berkeley do not want to be under surveillance and they've
been saying so for decades. The community has a long tradition of resisting trends and
technology that even have the possibility of violating your civil rights. When at the
Berkeley Public Library in the city of Berkeley when RFID radio frequency identification technology
was introduced in library materials. The people spoke and the city proved the library director
was fired. This could be you council members. Same concern that was shown for wildlife and I hope
that the same concern that was shown for wildlife today in glue traps is shown for the people of
Berkeley and the civil rights of the people of Berkeley. Thank you. So there are three different
dates that are being brought forward as dates to finish this conversation. They
are April 30th, which is a Thursday, May 7th, which is a Thursday, and June 2nd,
which is a Tuesday. So, yes, those would be special meeting dates to continue to,
and so I want to check in with my council colleagues to see if you can
check those dates. So I'm going to read them again. April 30th, which is a
the contract. We need to do it.
that.
I'll see if I can follow up
with that in July.
I see. Thank you.
I think those dates were
chosen specifically because
they were before the LPR
contract expired. I got them
from our city manager. So,
okay. So, um, sorry. So can
you just, it would be great to
know what days that you're
available and I'm just going
to go down the line 12345
because it'll be easier. So go
April 30th May 7th or June 2nd.
Yeah, I'm available any of those days
I would prefer April 30th.
Okay.
Sorry, I'm running this time.
Council member Tafton.
April 30th.
Is that the only day you're available?
Yes.
Okay.
Okay.
Council member Tragob.
June is still on the date.
I'm available.
Come on.
Okay, Councilmember O'Keefe. Okay, thank you. So Councilmember Black would be all three.
Okay, sorry. Okay, it's hard to write and I can do the May or June dates and I have
a preference for the June one but soft preference. Okay, Councilmember Humbert.
All three.
Okay, I am really only available in the May or June, so I think that puts us in June because
there's only two that can only do April 30th and the rest can do all or June.
So that leaves us with June.
So June 2nd, it is 1 26 right now and we have four minutes.
All right. So, okay. So, so we will continue this conversation. We have not yet finished
all the public comments, so, but we won't be able to do that. We only have three minutes
left. We also didn't get a chance to do questions or deliberation. So, this item will come back
for a special meeting on June 2nd. Is there a motion? Motion to continue this item to
the June 2nd special meeting. Second. Okay let's take a vote on that just so we have it. Councilmember Kiserwani? Yes. Tapplin? Yes. Bartlett? Yes. Tregab? Aye. O'Keefe? Yes. Blackaby? Yes. Unapara? Yes. Humber? Yes. And Maryishi? Yes. Okay so we're almost running out of time so I do. I'll move to suspend the rules and adjourn the meeting.
That's a motion to adjourn.
Second boy on it motion to
adjourn is always in order so
sorry say again it's a motion
to adjourn is always in order
so you don't have to suspend
the rules.
It's just because we didn't do
our off agenda public comment.
Yeah, but you can still OK.
Yeah, yeah.
OK.
All right.
So there is a motion to adjourn
on the on the floor.
So and I'm sorry.
Was there a second folks folks
Is there any is there any opposition to a journey? No. Okay meeting is adjourned.
Thank you everyone.
Recording stopped.