Okay, hello everyone, good evening.
I'm calling to order the Berkeley City Council meeting.
Today is Tuesday, June 30th, June 30th, 2026.
It is 6.05 p.m.
Can we please start off with a roll?
Okay, Council Member Castor Wanting is currently absent.
Council Member Tapplin?
Present.
Present.
Bartlett is absent.
Vice Mayor Tratum, present.
Council Member O'Keefe, here.
Blackaby, here.
Lunapara, here.
Humbert, present.
And Mayor Ishi, here.
Okay, quorum is present.
All right, for our ceremonial matters this evening,
I want to start us off with our adjournment in memory.
And tonight I want to recognize and honor
the life of Flora Russ, longtime educator, leader, and mentor.
Her family is with us this evening.
Flora served our Berkeley community for 50 years.
Since coming to work for Berkeley Unified in 1968,
she taught thousands of students
in subjects of math, science, and computer arts.
During her tenure,
she taught at King Middle School and Berkeley High.
She made it her mission not only to teach her students,
but to mentor and support the many new teachers
she worked with over the years,
fostering a strong sense of belonging
amongst the BUSD community.
Her philosophy was, everyone graduates.
Students know Ms. Russ as a person
who would go to the ends of the earth
to support each child and reaching their potential.
Flora founded the Computer Academy,
the first California partnership academy
at Berkeley High School,
which later became Community Partnerships Academy
and is now known as AMPS,
Academy of Medicine and Public Service in 1991.
She led and taught in the small school program
for many years and touched the lives
of multitudes of students who went on to access
higher education, only to return to give back
by entering community service professions.
She also was a workability coordinator at Berkeley High,
where she worked with students with disabilities
to find shadowing internships
and paid employment opportunities while in high school.
She tracked the transition plans
of current and former special education students
throughout their four years of high school and beyond,
managing the transition partnership program grant
in collaboration with the US Department
of Vocational Rehabilitation.
She leaves behind a legacy.
Her students are now community organizers, teachers,
professors, detectives, artists, firefighters, legislators,
medical professionals, and so much more.
They share the value of stewardship
and strive to repair the world because of Flora's influence.
Flora is survived by her five nieces and nephews
and by her late partner's two children, Stacey Wagner,
who was like a daughter to her,
and John Grisby, Stacey's two sons, Jordan and Jaron,
and five beautiful, great granddaughters.
Flora's Celebration of Life will be on August 9th at 1 p.m.
at Berkeley High School, Donahue Gym.
And tonight we are joined by Stacey Wagner,
representing the family and also family members
who are here this evening.
Thank you so much for joining us this evening.
We're adjourning tonight in Flora's honor.
Thank you for being here.
Tonight we are also honoring Berkeley lab director Mike Witherill on his
retirement and I will have councilmember Blackaby read the proclamation.
Great thank you. We'll read the proclamation and then have you come up
and take a photo. Dr. Witherill is the eighth director of the Lawrence Berkeley
National Lab. He's also a district six resident. He served as director of the lab
for the last ten years and is retiring this month and we wanted to take this
moment to honor him for his service. So here's the text of the proclamation.
Whereas for more than five decades, Dr. Michael Stuart Witherrell has combined
the curiosity of a pioneering physicist with the vision of an exceptional
scientific leader, helping shape some of America's most important advances in
particle physics, computing and energy research, and I should note also serving
as inspiration of a West Wing character. That's a story for another time.
Whereas, as a scientist, he made landmark contributions to our understanding of the
fundamental structure of matter, including a groundbreaking Fermilab experiment that
isolated particles containing the charm quark, and earned him the prestigious Panofsky Prize
in Experimental Particle Physics.
And whereas, never content to stop exploring, he later turned his attention to one of science's
greatest mysteries, dark matter, contributing to the LUX collaboration and helping design
next generation LUX Zeppelin experiment, a quest worthy of someone who has spent a career
chasing the universe's best kept secrets. And, whereas after serving as director of
Fermilab and vice chancellor of research at UC Santa Barbara, Dr. Witherell became director
of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.
From 2016 to 2026, he led more than 4,000 employees
and a billion dollar annual budget
through a decade of remarkable achievement
during which Berkeley Lab scientists
earned four Nobel Prizes, two national medals,
and dozens of national academy elections.
And whereas Dr. Witherill's leadership
modernized Berkeley Lab for the future
through major investments
in world-class scientific infrastructure,
including the advanced light source upgrade, the Pearl Mudder supercomputer, the Dudena Project,
BioEpic, and other transformative facilities, while also positioning the laboratory at the
forefront of quantum information science and artificial intelligence for discovery.
Now therefore be it resolved that Adina Ishii, mayor of the city of Berkeley, does hereby
commend Dr. Michael Witherall for his exceptional contributions, dedicated service, collaborative
leadership and enduring stewardship and congratulate him on his retirement. Thank
you. Did you want to say a few words? Yeah. So here. So thank you. Yes I'm a proud
resident at 640 Euclid. Since I came with my wife and daughter since they
called me for this job 10 years ago and besides all those other great things the
Laboratory. We're also leading the fight to be resilient against wildfire for the
city and the area and we're very proud of and we also have developed a really
great K to 12 STEM program over the last several years to help our students and
and teachers in East Bay and I'm very proud of and I couldn't be prouder to be
resident of the city of Berkeley. So thank you so much. So this evening we are
recognizing National Breastfeeding Month and I believe that Ruth Kohnoff is here.
Hi welcome you can feel free to come up if you'd like. 2026 National
Breastfeeding Month whereas the American Academy of Pediatrics and World Health
Organization recommend exclusive breastfeeding for the first six months
of life with continued breastfeeding for two years or beyond, as mutually desired by the
mother and child. And whereas the consistent and well-documented health, economic and environmental
benefits of human milk feeding show that this investment will continue to produce measurable
outcomes for families and communities alike, and whereas many families face barriers to
achieving their infant feeding intentions due to longstanding policy gaps and underfunding
of public health initiatives that address the needs of lactating parents and the providers
that serve them, which disproportionately affect black, indigenous, and people of color BIPOC
populations, resulting in reduced breastfeeding rates and an associated increase in the risk
for a variety of negative health outcomes, and whereas protecting and supporting human
milk feeding is essential to ensuring infant nutrition security and immunologic protection
for Berkeley's youngest people, and whereas National Breastfeeding Month and World Breastfeeding
week, provide important opportunities to increase awareness of and address barriers to human
milk feeding faced by families. Now, therefore, be it resolved that I, Adina Ishii, Mayor
of the City of Berkeley, do hereby recognize August 2026 as breastfeeding slash chest
feeding month in the City of Berkeley.
So I'd love to get a picture with you in a few minutes, but anyone who's known me for
more than five minutes knows that I could speak at length about the wonders
of breastfeeding and human milk but I promise I'll keep my remarks shorter
than that. Council members, mayor, staff, thank you for the proclamation
recognizing the importance of breastfeeding, chest feeding, and human
milk feeding for our community. The substantial benefits to the health of
of both the child and the lactating parent
and to society as a whole are widely recognized
and the vast majority of expectant parents,
over 94% in our county, intend to breastfeed,
they plan to breastfeed, they initiate breastfeeding.
Things go downhill often from there.
This year, World Breastfeeding Week,
the first week in August, has the theme,
breastfeeding for a sustainable start in life,
strengthen what works.
While there's still a lot we have to learn,
we do know a fair amount about what works
to help families achieve their infant feeding intentions.
And I don't just mean equitable access
to skilled lactation care.
That's just the tip of the iceberg.
I want to talk about how the community can support people who choose to breastfeed their babies.
First, we know that support from a trusted peer, both before and after baby is born,
has a significant impact on their success.
At Berkeley WIC, and I'm realizing I forgot to introduce myself, but I'll do that in a moment,
At Berkeley WIC, we're able to provide breastfeeding peer counselor support to many of our participants,
and we see the difference it makes.
Another predictor of success is support provided by dads, partners, other family members.
Too often, they're waiting in the waiting room, while the mom-to-be gets the breastfeeding prenatal education.
That's not helpful.
the broader family is the breastfeeding team,
even if the parents are not in the same household.
And finally, what I really want to stress
is out in the wider community, all of you, all of us,
employers, coworkers, educational institutions,
childcare providers, too often, nursing mothers
who are returning to work or school,
and we know that most of them do,
face barriers that make it more difficult
to continue providing their own milk to their child.
They may face challenges accessing adequate parental leave,
appropriate and legally mandated lactation accommodations
that work or at school, and a special interest of mine.
Whoever is caring for that child when the parent is away,
whether that's grandma, a large child care center,
the family child care hundred on this block,
they may not be supportive
of feeding the baby expressed milk.
Too often I see ads for child care centers that proclaim,
we provide free formula.
Nothing about we welcome your expressed milk.
We know how to feed it to your baby.
We have a refrigerator to keep it safe.
Too often what happens is that parents
believe that the start of childcare means the end of breastfeeding and it really doesn't
need to be that way. So I think I'll leave it at that, but just point out that tonight's
declaration of National Breastfeeding Month in Berkeley represents an opportunity to promote,
protect, and support breastfeeding, chest feeding, and human milk feeding for everyone
in the Berkeley community.
And finally, before I leave, I just want to invite everyone here to the Berkeley WIC Annual
WIC NIC, which is a very fun picnic.
You do not have to be breastfeeding.
You don't have to ever have been breastfeeding to come and have fun, have food, dance, and
enjoy the music.
Would it be okay if I leave those on the back table?
I know what I should have done at the very beginning, I'm Ruth Conoff, I'm the Breastfeeding
Peer Council Coordinator at the City of Berkeley WIC, and I'm also an active member of the
Alameda County Breastfeeding Coalition, and thank you for paying attention for so long.
Thank you so much, and thank you for the invitation to the event as well.
Okay, so finally, for our ceremonial items, I will pass it over to Councilmember Lunapara.
Thank you. This isn't an official ceremonial item, but I want to take a moment to acknowledge
a truly bittersweet milestone. Tonight is the final City Council meeting for my co-chief
of staff, Sarah Serami, and I want to acknowledge everything she has given to the city. Sarah
was born and raised in Berkeley and has given so much of her time, energy, and talent to
our community in her time in City Hall over the past few years, first in the District
four office and then in the district seven office. Sarah has been the driving force behind
countless transformative policies and projects, including car free telegraph, police oversight,
missing middle housing, the residential vacancy tax, responsible budgeting,
micro mobility fees, and so much more. She's a fierce advocate for renters, workers,
pedestrians, small businesses, and all who call district seven home.
Sarah has the incredible and unique ability to go about everything in her life with kindness,
empathy, and curiosity. She's able to think big picture and stay focused on a long-term
theory of change while still diving into each and every detail of day-to-day public service.
Proving to the city and the world that democratic socialism and progressive and young energy
can be just as pragmatic as it is visionary. Sarah is thoughtful, committed, tenacious,
and innovative. Her creative and compassionate approach to policy development ensures that new
ideas are brought to the forefront and that those most impacted by our work are centered in every
decision we make. She's been an incredible mentor to our interns, a culture setter on the fifth floor,
and an amazing partner in our efforts to create a local government that truly supports all of
Berkeley. Sarah treats each and every colleague and member of the public with utmost respect.
She is hilarious, brilliant, generous, and endlessly caring, and will not have been able
to get through the past two years without her and her friendship. And I am so incredibly grateful
for the opportunity to work and spent so much time thinking scheming working and laughing with Sarah.
Sarah on behalf of myself, Jonah, our interns, all of your colleagues in our entire city,
thank you so much for all you have given us and wish you the very best in your future endeavors.
Thank you so much mayor. Thank you council member and yes we are going to miss you very much Sarah.
Okay thank you all so much for the ceremonial items. I really appreciate everyone coming
and representing their organizations or their families it is really special that we get a chance
to do this and I just want to thank you all for being here. We are now moving on to city manager
comments. Mr. City Manager, do you have any comments this evening? I don't. Thank you,
Madam Mayor. Thank you very much. All right we will now take public comment on non-agenda matters.
Sorry, I'm so sorry. Yes, Madam City Auditor, did you have comments for us this evening?
Great. Thank you so much. Good evening. First, I just wanted to echo a thank you to Sarah
for your contributions. Something that I've really appreciated about you is you ask very,
very good questions, and you really embody what I call my ABCs, which is always be curious.
So best wishes, Sarah. We're going to miss you. Good evening. I'm here to talk about items
50 and 51. This is to share my office's audit plan for the upcoming year and to share our
first annual whistleblower program report. As you're all aware the city had to make some
very difficult decisions to close the 30 million dollar structural deficit and will need to raise
additional revenue to avoid further cuts. Given the city's fiscal challenges, my office's audit
plan this year focuses on enhancing revenue and evaluating expenses. This
includes ongoing audits of the rent stabilization board and of the city's
business license tax program as well as new audits on the public health and
measure FF on safe streets. My goal is to ensure that city dollars are spent
responsibly and aligned with Berkeley values. Our purpose as an independent
office is to evaluate the city's operations and compliance
with local laws and regulations
by conducting independent audits.
Berkeley City Charter establishes authority
to carry out this work and gives my office unrestricted
access to city employees, officials, records, and reports.
Our role as an independent oversight body
is even more important during periods of fiscal uncertainty
as taxpayers and residents expect timely information
on how the city's using the limited public resources.
Audits can also lead to new revenue opportunities,
cost recovery and savings.
This fiscal year my office will also continue
working with city departments to report
on the implementation status of audit recommendations
through their submission of council reports.
We'll also continue implementation
of the whistleblower program,
which provides a confidential way for city employees
or officials to report concerns related to fraud, waste,
and abuse of city resources.
By providing an independent and confidential
reporting channel, the program helps identify risks,
improve accountability and strengthen public trust
in city operations.
I'd wanted to thank the city manager
for helping us with some of the outreach.
As mentioned earlier, we just released
our first annual whistleblower program report
during this first calendar year.
In 2025, the program received 42 new reports
and close 41 cases.
Cases may be closed for several reasons,
including completion of an investigation,
referral to another department or entity,
insufficient information to proceed,
or because the allegation was outside
the program's authority.
Looking forward, the program will continue
to enhance intake and investigation procedures
and work closely with departments
to address fraud, waste, and abuse.
I wanna thank HR and the city attorney's office
for their partnership on this program.
For more information, you can see tonight's information item
on our audit plan and whistleblower report.
And please don't hesitate to reach out to my office
with any questions, thank you.
Thank you so much, Madam City Auditor,
and thank you so much for your presentation to us as well.
It is so important that we have these audits
and I really wanna thank your office's role
in helping us determine where we can do a better job
as a city, especially during times of financial difficulty.
And I did just want to particularly reinforce my support
for the audit around the Public Health Division.
I think it's important for us to understand,
you know, what that brings to our city
and also the expense.
So thank you very much for looking into it.
Yeah.
Oh, yes.
Did you have comments?
Yeah.
Thank you, Madam Mayor.
I wanna thank Otter Wong and her team
for all their hard work on past and ongoing audits.
I'm especially pleased to see the audit
of our business license tax, since that is a major source
of revenue for our city and of the rent board,
given our earlier discussion.
And all of the other audits are important too.
I also look forward to Auditor Wong's work
to ensure that we're spending our safe streets
measure FF funds wisely in a way that is consistent
with what voters envisioned.
I'm so pleased and grateful that we
have such a dogged and fearless City Auditor and I look forward to learning
more about these topics as Auditor Wong and her staff bring forward into the
individual complete reports. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much. Okay very
good. I love it. I love the support for the audits. Okay we will now take public
comment on non-agenda matter. Okay so there'll be five cards chosen for in
person non-agenda public comment and then we will go to the first five hands
raised on the zoom so if you're on the zoom now it's time to raise your hand for
non-agenda public comment. Each speaker will have one minute and see we got okay
we have five cards they come up in any order we have Russell Bates Celeste
Marx Steven Alpert Gina Rieger and Steve Tracy and this is for items that are not
on the agenda so come up in any order hi everybody nothing new the murders
in Lebanon, Gaza, elsewhere in the Luisa is continuing. The largest bomb that's been
dropped in peacetime history was dropped in Lebanon today. You don't see a lot of this
stuff in the news. It's not on mainstream because it's not mainstream and the mainstream
doesn't know enough to not support this. And I would urge the city council to do what I've
When I have found myself leaving something that I no longer believe and realize I was
foolish to believe in it and need to change my mind about it, I do it.
So I think without condemning yourselves too much admit you made a mistake by not going
of a ceasefire in Gaza, not called a genocide, and Kuchev.
Thank you.
Good evening.
Steve Tracy.
I'm a cyclist.
I have the silly shirt on.
I'm also a driver.
I'm a month early.
What am I going to talk about?
Paving Hopkins.
I have choices.
I can ride Marin.
I can ride Rose.
I would never ride Hopkins in the condition it's in.
I don't even want to drive it.
But I know after cycling for 50 years
that cyclists are much safer with fresher pavement.
I saw a group comment that it would be less safe
with fresher pavement without a cycle track.
Wrong, please.
No cycle track.
Repave Hopkins and use that extra money
of repair of other streets.
Very good.
Thank you.
Good evening.
I'm Gina Rieger, and I live on La Loma Avenue.
Last year I spent a good amount of time
trying to reason with the city to keep my plants and trees
regard under the EMBA program.
But now I find myself worried about the risk
to the safety of my house and my own life
because of the possibility of the closing
of the fire station number four.
I found the city manager's comments on page 23
of the proposed budget of 114 pages
that was presented to you in May.
Response time standards were not consistently met.
Closure of fire station four will force responses
from more distant stations, further degrading performance.
Those are the words of your city manager.
The city gate consultants in December of 23 wrote
that the department is struggling to meet current demand
much less future growth and city in the city
and the university.
Thank you.
Thanks for your comment.
I'm seeing one minute.
Okay, thank you.
Good evening.
I'm Dr. Steven Alpert.
On May 19, Mayor Yishi interrupted
my public comment remarks.
The First Amendment Coalition advises this was a violation of both the Brown Act and
the First Amendment right to free speech.
Per Government Code 54960, I forwarded a formal cease and desist letter requesting that henceforth
the city not interrupt public comment remarks by a speaker addressing statements or positions
publicly made by individual council members.
The city has until July 8th to provide this commitment, which must be approved by the
council in an open session during a regular or special meeting as a separate agenda item,
or I can and I will file legal actions against the city as recommended by the First Amendment
Coalition. That said, this council needs to stop pushing the false narrative that building more
market rate housing will readily produce affordable units. Real world data contradict this.
The Buckholt study, reviewed and published by the prestigious Lemmon School of Economics,
demonstrated that in our area, it takes decades for newly built market rate housing to eventually
filter down and become affordable. Council members also assert that building more market rate housing
invariably will drive down rents. Housing data from the New York area will refute this.
Despite a massive building boom between 2020 and 2024,
Emeryville had a 16.3 year-over-year increase
in one-bedroom rents, the largest in the Bay Area.
As reported in April, the Emeryville Channeler,
Emeryville went the yimby way.
Now it has the most expensive rent in the East Bay.
The more apartments we build,
the more expensive it is to rent, is the rent here.
Building more is supposed to bring cheaper rent.
What happened?
Our Council's further to build my market rate housing
may produce a similar outcome in Berkeley.
Thank you.
Okay, moving to the speakers on Zoom.
The first speaker is a caller with a phone number
ending in 211.
Hi, good evening.
See, so our members still have a calendar
could not give you some favor today,
but I'd like to talk about three very historical issues
in Berkeley especially with the health of the great speaker
nuclear that. I'd like to bring the great Egyptian nuclear scientist. Her name was
Samira Moussa. Samira Moussa. And she was kidnapped. Actually part of Oppenheimer
group. She was also at Cal. She also was Lawrence nuclear laboratory.
was nicknamed August 5th, 1952 by Mossad under phony donor invitation. She was driven to
Pacifica Mountain. Her car was thrown over to the ocean and she was killed. Lawrence
lab have a 10 minutes tribute to Lawrence, to Samira Moussa. Please watch us. Just Google
Sir, the Egyptian mother of nuclear physics. Israel has no limit.
Thanks for your comment.
Next up is Ashley Perez. Ashley should be able to unmute. Oh, it looks like you're unmuted.
But we can't hear you all right maybe we can come back to Ashley last hand is Cheryl
dabble a former councilmember I'm here in a row okay so Gaza people are still
bombing every day. People are still being martyred. Doctors, children, women, seniors.
And it's not okay that you haven't done anything about it. I don't understand how you can sit
there and pretend like you don't hear me and you're not listening. That's really rude and
And that's not your job.
Your job is to listen to your constituents.
And you should do something more than what you're doing.
We don't need more market rate housing.
We don't need streets that you just have to go up
and down like this every time you drive down them.
Curtis hasn't been paved before I was elected.
So y'all need to do a better job
Thank you.
Go back to Ashley Perez.
Ashley should be able to, you're unmuted.
We still can't hear you.
Okay, we have one more.
Speaker, Rammelt.
Hey, I'm just saying that I don't think it makes sense
to expedite the process with, yeah,
basically with all this stuff that we're dealing with,
the drones, drone usage, ARPR, PTZ cameras,
private camera integrations.
Sorry, I didn't make a comment on an item on consent.
Yeah.
And we're actually on public comment
on non-agenda matters at the moment,
but you're welcome to give that comment.
Sorry about that.
No worries, thank you.
Yeah, I'll do that.
Okay, there's no more hands raised.
Okay, thank you very much to everyone for their comments.
We are now moving on to our consent calendar.
All right, council members.
Anyone have any comments?
I think this is not working,
but council member Blackaby, go ahead.
My finger is furiously banging on the button.
So just a few comments on items.
I want to thank colleagues for the office relinquishment items.
I wanted to contribute on item 37 for the Replenishing Business Damage Mitigation Fund.
$250 from our office account.
Thanks to Councilmember Trago for that item.
On the Berkeley Nikkei Senior Center, I wanted to relinquish $250.
Thanks to the mayor for that item.
On the Little Free Store, item 39, thanks to Councilmember Bartlett,
wanted to contribute $250.
And on item 41, Zero Empty Spaces in Downtown Berkeley,
thanks again to Council Member Tapplin and the Mayor.
We wanted to contribute 250.
I wanted to thank my partner in crime,
Council Member O'Keeffe on item 42
on the Solano Stroll funding.
It's kind of a key time as we transition funding
for that event to more private sources.
Just wanted to appreciate Council Member O'Keeffe's
leadership on that item, as well as the Mayor
for helping figure out a plan both within the city budget
but also within our personal office budgets
to make sure that we could support that event
for another year while that funding transitions.
So just wanted to note that Council Member O'Keefe
is leading the charge but we're also proud
to contribute 15K from our district six budget
towards that event.
Then lastly you wanted to comment on item 19
which is the RFP for public safety tech tools.
I just want to note for folks that this is a follow up
from the May 7th meeting that we had about technology,
public safety technology, had a very spirited debate,
long discussion, lots of questions,
and sort of where we ended on that was not to move forward
with the flop contract as written,
but rather to issue an RFP for all the components.
And that's what this item is.
It's the next step in what council directed
the department to do.
and it is an interim step.
We still have many more steps in the process
as we look at proposals from many different vendors,
we hope, and then there's a whole decision-making process
around what may or may not happen at that point.
But anyway, I just want to indicate this is not a new item.
This is a continuation on something that we agreed to
together as a body on May 7th.
I also want to thank the department
for convening a working group of PAB board members
as well as BPD staff to formulate the RFP and review it.
I know that work is ongoing and the process will continue.
So I'm proud to support that item.
It is an extension of what council's previously directed,
no more nor less.
So thank you.
Thank you very much.
Councilmember Humbert.
Yes, thank you, Madam Mayor.
And I want to associate myself with the very accurate
comments made by Councilmember Blackaby about the RFP.
As to item 37, which is replenishing the business damage mitigation fund.
I'd like to contribute 250 from our office discretionary account.
Item 38, which is the Berkley Nikke Senior Center,
relinquishment of funds to that center.
I'd like to contribute $100, please.
And I think that's it, thank you.
Thank you very much.
All right, moving on to Council Member O'Keefe.
Thank you.
I'll start with the items that aren't mine.
I would like to donate $500 to the item 37,
the Business Damage Mitigation Fund.
I think that's a really, really important one.
So I want to thank the zeroes, right?
Yeah, Council Member Trego for bringing that in the mayor.
Yes, anyway, thank you to the authors
and I'm happy to donate.
I'd like to donate $200 to item 38,
the Nikkei Senior Center and of your party.
And item, $200 to item 39 for the little three store item.
That sounds fun.
And $200 to item 41, the zero empty spaces.
So thank you all those seem like great items,
happy to donate.
And I really, Council Member Blackaby,
already teed me up here to talk about
my salon of stroll item.
I want to say, first of all,
thank you so much to Council Member Blackaby,
to mayor and Council Member Kesserwani
for your really generous contributions.
I'll let Council Member Kesserwani say the number,
but all three have been extremely generous
and I'm so grateful.
this is, I already talked about this item
when we gave it some funding last week,
but I just wanna say again,
it's the biggest street event,
not just in Berkeley, but in the East Bay,
and it's a huge deal.
It's really important for the community
in lots of different dimensions.
It's an event people look forward to every year.
It generates a huge amount of economic activity
for the area, and not just for the Solano businesses,
but so many nonprofits and other businesses
and community organizations go there every year.
It's a big recruiting event,
a good place to showcase what they're doing.
And so it's really,
it's just such an invaluable, beautiful event.
And I'm so proud to have it in my district.
And just really happy that we were able to figure out a way
to keep it going, even with the funding challenges.
And so this is a really important part of that.
And I just want to say thank you again
for the extreme generosity from my co-sponsors.
Thank you very much.
Council member Luna Parra.
Thank you.
I am really excited about item number one,
which is adjusting the parking permit fees.
I really want to thank the city manager
and public work staff, especially Elliot Schwimmer,
who worked extremely hard on this
and presented an extremely convincing
thoroughly researched proposal a few weeks ago.
I also, I want to give $200 to each 37, 38, 39, 41 and 42 to all of the items,
all of the relinquishment items, and I have communicated concerns with the,
and questions on the RFP language, and I'm currently satisfied with the response.
I want to make sure that the PAB has time to review the RFP before it goes public.
I just wanted to say that. Thanks.
Thank you very much. Vice Mayor Tracob.
Thank you, Madam Mayor.
So first of all,
I want to recognize our city manager and his team for doing incredible work,
especially under some very strenuous circumstances with many unpredictable
changes. Thank you. As I've been looking through this and many other consent
calendars, I just can't help but see and recognize all the work that staff has
been doing. I see staff applying for and receiving grants, continuing to do
important work to support our seniors and the most vulnerable amongst us,
creating affordable housing, expanding access to wellness programs, tending to
our parks, and addressing the city's financial stability, and many more
processes that go on within the city every day, whether we see them or not. We truly
have an exceptional team in the city of Berkeley, and I want to just take a moment to acknowledge
and recognize all the amazing people selflessly serving our community. With respect to the
items, on item 37, which is replenishing the Business Damage Mitigation Fund, I want to
think Mayor Ishii for the partnership on this item over the past two years as the downtown
representative. I visited and spoken to several business owners who unfortunately have experienced
burglaries, break-ins, vandalism and other property damage and this program provides
practical assistance when they need it most to get their business back up. Importantly,
these funds can be utilized by businesses throughout Berkeley regardless of the district.
So I think my colleagues who have already generously contributed to this important fund
and invite others to do so as well. I am also happy to donate $150 to items 38 which is the
Berkeley Niki Senior Center, $150 to item 39 little free store and $150 to item 42,
the Solano Avenue 12. And I want to thank the community partner, staff and fellow council
member members of the council who've helped bring these proposals forward. On item 40,
I am very proud to put forward a position of support for Senate Bill 1833 by our former
mayor and current state senator Jesse Arreguin that in my mind corrects the unintended consequences
and makes sure that our housing is built by and not on the backs of people who are properly
trained and skilled in their craft. It ensures that our hard-working people in the labor movement
are getting fair wages and health benefits and are able to participate in this shared economy.
With respect to item 41, which is our zero empty spaces in downtown Berkeley item,
I am so excited that Zero Empty Spaces is coming to Berkeley and this is just the start
of helping us finding creative ways to bring artists, entrepreneurs and community organizations
into underutilized spaces. I'm grateful to our Downtown Berkeley Association and our Economic
Development Department for making this happen. This is a type of innovative partnership that
that can create more vibrant streets
while supporting both economic and cultural vitality.
And lastly, on item 19, which is the RFP solicitation,
I would like to associate my comments
with those of council member Luna Parra
and the questions that I had have been answered
to my satisfaction and I think we will maybe hear more
about it and other comments, thank you.
Thank you very much.
Councilmember Casarwani.
Thank you very much, Madam Mayor.
So I want to be the first to really appreciate item 29.
This is the item that is acknowledging the change
in ownership for the North Berkeley BART development.
We have the East Bay Asian Local Development Corporation,
Ibalzi, taking over for BRIDGE.
I think we have some representatives in the back.
Oh, oh, quite a few.
So thank you for being here.
This was something we did not anticipate
because BRIDGE was one of the key partners
in this incredible development
that we are gonna see at North Berkeley BART,
but when they made the decision to step away,
Balzi stepped in and I want to acknowledge the work of our city staff, Andy Balzi, to
secure the state funding that had been awarded to Bridge. That wasn't a guarantee and it
took a lot of work and everyone appreciating the vision of this site to get that done.
I think I heard Liz Probst say that this project was too big to fail. It continues to be too
big to fail, so I just want to acknowledge this incredible item. And then we are also
advancing some pre-development funds to make sure that that work can happen, and we hope
to break ground very soon on this project, so thank you for that. And then in terms of
All of these items for relinquishment of funds.
So item 37, the damage mitigation fund for businesses.
I'd like to be recorded as donating $250 for item 38,
the Berkeley Nikkei Senior Center.
I'd like to donate $100.
Item 39 is the Little Free Store and Community Services
United Cleanup and Mural Painting Community Party.
I'd like to do $100 and the item 41,
zero empty spaces in Berkeley.
I'd like to donate $100.
And then as council member O'Keeffe had talked about
the Solano Stroll item, which I'm grateful that
we can support this incredible community event this year
and help the event be self-sustaining in the future.
And so I'd like to be recorded as donating $4,000
for my office budget to that item.
And then finally on item 40,
I wanna thank Council Member Trague
for bringing the letter of support forward.
I do have a difference of opinion on this
that I'd like to put into the record.
I'm concerned that this bill, as I understand it,
does not consider any equivalent reduction
in construction costs to compensate
for the inability of a developer to use the density bonus
for labor standards, which while laudable,
do increase the cost of construction fairly significantly.
Sometimes, as we know, to the point of financial infeasibility
for the entire project,
which does not help construction workers
and it definitely doesn't help the people
who are struggling with the cost of housing in our community.
For this reason, I would like to be recorded
as abstaining from item number 40.
Thank you very much.
Thank you, Council Member.
Seeing no more hands, I will just briefly add my comments
to item number 19.
I know a number of my council members
have helped the public, helped to make sure that it was clear
that this is simply allowing the RFP to be issued.
And whether to enter into contract negotiations
with any vendor will come back to the City Council
for deliberation.
Additionally, the City Manager assured me
that the Berkeley Police Department will continue
work with the police accountability board. They've already been doing that to reach alignment
on this RFP. And I want to just plus one to item number 29. Thank you council member
Koeserwani for your comments. We're very excited about the North Berkeley Bart station and that
project moving forward on item 37 for replenishing the damage mitigation fund. I just want to clarify
that there is a typo in the background which doesn't affect the actual recommendation they were
The FY 2021 budget allocation was $100,000, not 100 comma 00, it was just missing a 0 at the end,
to provide one time only grants for the damage mitigation fund. And then for item 39, we will
relinquish $250 to my office. So thank you all very much. And I will now open us up to public
comment. So again, this is public comment for the consent calendar or information items only.
So, was it one minute?
I have a one minute from Russell.
Okay, thank you.
George Litman, Peace and Justice Commission
on Human Welfare and Community Action.
Commission was speaking only on behalf on item 19.
Understand that this is just a follow-up to the May 7th,
but still want to speak out against the issuing of the RFP.
And I hope that folks who were concerned
and didn't vote for that at least
we'll abstain on that part of the agenda.
And I don't have an expectation
that it will not pass today, I understand that.
But in studying the landscape,
on May 7th and before Flock was completely discredited
and impeached.
And I don't have to go all over everything that was said,
but they've lied to this council,
they've lied to the staff.
They're like a Swiss cheese operation.
They don't have a relationship with ICE, they say,
I believe it, but the data gets out anyway.
And when you look at the other candidates,
we've studied a number of them,
Motorola's Vigilant Solutions is a key one.
They have strategic partnerships with DHS.
Axon, a strategic partnership with ICE.
Vigilant has sent University of California's ALPR data
to Customs and Border Patrol.
Record Systems, which is similar to Flock,
has a large ALPR database that ICE and CBP frequently
access through a side door, that is,
state and local departments as is the case with Flock, famously.
In fact, these non-Flock agencies may be even worse than Flock.
You're going to wind up with a bad situation, with a bad partner, and you can put an end
to it now, or you're going to be not looking that good.
Thanks.
Thanks, George.
John Caner, Dandham Berkeley Association.
I want to thank you for the replenishment of the damage fund.
We administer it free of cost, no overhead, but we're pleased to do it as a citywide benefit.
Zero Empty Spaces, thank you for your support.
This is really exciting.
Ril Cook found this opportunity.
We've driven with it.
The mayor announced in our annual meeting, they're opening up, they have an open house
on August 8th, up to 25 artists, highly modular.
Gordon Properties is offering the space for free for six month, month to month.
If and when they get it leased, we have other vacant spaces in the downtown and throughout
the city where this can go. So this is going to be really, really fun and exciting. I have
flyers. If you can pass it around, that would be great. I just want to say on the security
camera thing, make sure you look at Safe City Connect out of San Francisco. Incredible,
high integrity, local company. They have over 1,000 cameras in San Francisco, 500 in Oakland,
and make sure that they're included in the evaluation. Thank you so much.
Thank you, John.
Good evening, Councilman Mayer.
My name is Jason Martins, I live in District 3.
I want to talk about item 19.
First of all, I think it's a little embarrassing, honestly,
that you don't put the name of what this is about
in the title.
I would love for more transparency
about what this item is, it doesn't even say,
it just says an RFP.
Second, I want to say, I strongly encourage you
to not proceed with this RFP process.
Council Member Trigab reported that 95%
of the calls he got in his office were opposed to Flock.
And the reason is Flock is a terrible company.
And the alternatives that you have, Axon, Motorola,
they are similarly terrible companies.
They have active contracts with ICE
that also go against our sanctuary policies.
So I strongly encourage you to not proceed
with this RFP process because ultimately what the city,
where the people of Berkeley are saying
is we don't want surveillance.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Hi, I'm Terri Garrett and I'm the owner of the Golden Duplex.
And I'm very upset about this initiative.
If you want number 45.
Sorry, this is actually something
that's on the action calendar,
not on the consent calendar.
It's number 45.
Yes, it's on a later time to comment.
So right now we're just commenting on consent calendar.
Oh, okay, I missed something.
No worries, so just come back a little bit later.
Thank you.
Good evening, Mayor Ishi and evening council members.
I am Janelle Chan.
I'm the CEO of East Bay Asian Local Development Corporation
or E-Vulsi, and I'm commenting on item number 29.
E-Vulsi is a nonprofit affordable housing provider
and community developer.
Quite frankly, we build vibrant, safe,
and healthy neighborhoods and places of belonging.
And we've been in the East Bay for 50 years
and just finishing up a senior project
on Lake Merritt Bar station, excited about that.
And I'm excited to be here with our partners
coding and insight housing team.
Thank you for your continued support
of North Berkeley Bar station,
the master plan housing that's going to be in there.
It's been a long time coming
and it's essential to keeping it on the track this boat today.
Berkeley families are under enormous housing pressure.
North Berkeley Bar station is really truly a rare opportunity
for us to provide housing in a place
that has an amazing community.
So thank you.
I urge the council members to vote, yes.
Thank you.
Good evening, Mayor, council members, city manager.
I'm Colleen Egan with Insight Housing,
your local service provider and developer.
Thank you so much for your continued partnership
with the North Berkeley BART development.
I respectfully ask for your support
with agenda item number 29.
Inside Housing is excited to welcome Abolzi to step in
as the lead developer.
Their expertise combined with our experience
providing permanent supportive housing and services
creates a strong partnership
to help bring this vision to life.
Approval of the requested pre-dev funds
is critical to keeping this project on schedule
as we move toward construction financing
and ultimately groundbreaking and moving people
into much needed housing.
So thank you again for your support on this agenda item
and looking forward to seeing how it goes.
Thank you.
On item 19, you directed that the PAB would have a role,
strong role in reviewing this,
but has not been reviewed by the PAB.
It has not been on their agenda.
They are a Brown Act.
They can't review things without doing it in public
on their agenda.
I don't know if you're expecting them to somehow
have a meeting over the holiday weekend,
between now and July 8, you really should stop because right now, the Supreme Court
decision in Shatri versus U.S. has really changed what you might be able to expect from
how the surveillance data collected in this way could be used legally. You need to look
at that. Why don't you have the actual draft of the RFP accompanying this and other documentation
available in tonight's agenda? I don't see how you can have a group discussion about
whether it's actually going to be compliant would result
in a contract that's compliant with Berkeley's policies
and appropriate for the city's needs.
And finally, to commit this much money
with the possibility of millions more in lawsuits
at a time when we are in dire financial straits
does not seem responsible.
Good evening, Mayor and council members and staff.
I'm Angela Abschel, CRO with Inside Housing.
And I'd like to express my appreciation to each of you
for your consideration of item number 29
for the pre-development funding approval
for the North Berkeley BART project.
Also, when they expressed my gratitude
and unwavering partnership for the city and housing staff,
they've stood alongside Inside Housing since 2022
in the part of the developer selection,
advocating for the first 100% PSH development
at the North Berkeley BART station.
Also, when they expressed my gratitude for our partners
at Baltzy, grateful for their continued partnership
and their instrumental role
when making sure this project stays on track.
And the funding momentum is real.
Home Key Plus application has already been submitted
to HCD in partnership with the city
with the tax credit application coming soon
and this approval keeps that momentum moving.
And this vote unlocks construction.
Approving the pre-development funding advances
and lets the project move toward construction
with the finance closing.
So thank you so much for your support.
Thanks, Angela, thanks.
Hello, I'm here to comment on item number 19.
I just want to highlight,
I'm sure you've heard this before,
but I just wanna highlight that ARPR cameras
are essentially creating databases
for law enforcement and others to search
and be able to have access to all of our habits,
our movements and our associations on a daily basis
without the need for a warrant,
have hot lists so that they can track our movement
without the need for a warrant.
This is something ACLU is suing San Jose for at the moment.
And these kinds of things have been
shown to share and have partnerships with DHS.
ICE have complete insecure and inadequate security
be vulnerable to hacking and irresponsibly use third party
data brokers for other kinds of data
that they package with things.
So thank you for, I hope you consider it carefully.
Hello, I'm gonna need another minute.
If somebody offer me another minute, thank you.
Okay.
Greetings council member and mayor Xi.
Thank you for listening to our comments.
I am Sally Nelson in Berkeley for 49 years.
I challenge the assumption,
oh, I am concerned about the fascination with surveillance
and today about agenda items 19 and 46.
I challenge the assumption that surveillance
creates greater public safety.
A safe situation is preventative,
and it is rare to document what injury or crime
did not happen.
Surveillance notifies as during and after
an injury or crime occurs.
It does not necessarily make us more safe.
Clearly, it is making us all anxious
about our privacy and our personal agency.
The cost of proposed surveillance tools
is $2,408,500,
while Berkeley city budget is already $30 million in debt.
The city proposes to lay off employees
and eliminate the funding of programs
that truly are making us all more safe.
Live Free is one excellent program
that deserves more funding.
We should be supporting programs
that provide measurable benefits
in building community which enhances safety.
We should not be blanketing our city
with multiple electronic surveillance devices.
Move both agenda items off of the consent calendar
and onto the action calendar.
Thank you very much.
Thank you.
Of course, this is on item 19.
First of all, look at the specifications on that sheet, okay?
There are several vendors out there, if possible, but one and only one fits those specifications
really well, I think you know who I'm talking about.
Secondly, don't we have better unions for 2.4 million bucks than spying on Berkeley citizens?
Thank you. Kelly Hammergren, I don't have a speech written. I've already sent you two emails,
the second one asking you to withdraw number 19. I think this is a poor decision and watching how
console acts and how things go forward. You might say that the train has left the station
and you are just going to all go forward. I am concerned at each step of the way that the
train of surveillance just keeps moving faster and faster and faster and I think it is time
to stop, to pull the emergency brake, and to really consider what you're doing and the
impact on the public and what kind of risks you are taking for this city. Thank you.
Thank you, Kelly.
Hi, I strongly encourage you to reject this item 19 RFP and all mass surveillance in general.
Many AI surveillance technologies are relevant to our topics tonight, so I offer you this warning.
Americans overwhelmingly hate forced AI, we hate forced data centers, and we hate state surveillance because they're all anathema to American values.
I talk to people all over this country, Democrats, Republicans, I even have some bag of friends who hate this.
I'm gonna ask you, like, please do not make the mistake of ending your political career by enabling the suppressive state surveillance.
Coming up on America's 250th I really I have to demand that our freedom from
surveillance do the right thing for America's birthday thank you thank you
hello my name is Alan Cain and the executive director of the Solano Avenue
Association I would just like to again thank you for supporting the Solano
Avenue stroll I know that the council both considered it and supported it so
I'd actually like to thank you by name of course Mayor Ishii Vice Mayor Trago
Thank you so much, Councilperson Blackaby, Councilperson Lenapara, Councilperson Kasawany,
and of course Councilperson O'Keeffe.
Thank you so much.
And I know that Ben Bartlett and Terry Taplin are out there in the universe as well.
Thank you to them as well.
Thank you.
Thank you, Alan.
Hi, my name's Jason Bellaview.
I am actually the president of the Solano Avenue Association.
I've been on that board 20 years now.
I'm a Berkeley resident and I can't thank you enough for at least helping us get to
a point where we can work on different stuff for next year because that means the world
to us and this is a very special event.
So thank you so much.
Thank you.
Cara Merasovic.
So as to item 19, you've already made the decision that you want to do with the RFP.
However, there's been additional information that has come in about San Francisco since
then if you didn't already have enough information. But regardless of that, if
you move ahead with this, it should be delayed until the PAB reviews the RFP.
It just should be because when you don't do that, it diminishes your credibility
that you respect the input of the Police Accountability Board. There should at
least be that input from them before this proceeds thank you thank you I have
a minute from this person and from over here that's three minutes total if you
can't count sorry your hands one more time I missed should be paying attention
who um thank you sometimes it's hard to see behind and who was the second person
thank you public safety technology tools for item number 19 up to four-year procurement issued
for a single rfp with divisible awards each of the six components below may bid and be awarded
it separately on a combination drone at first responder drones and docking stations unmanned
aircraft systems, UAS field deployed,
automated license plate readers, pan tilt zoom, PTZ,
fixed cameras, investigate software and platform,
privately owned camera interrogation system.
We don't need any of this.
This is surveillance in a fascist world that we live in.
I guess you all know that except for maybe one,
you kind of act a little fascist a lot of times, sadly. Pay attention, I'm talking, thank you.
We don't need this surveillance, especially when BPD has a problem with racial profiling
and all the things that are going on in this country. And in the world that we're living in
with 47 and all the fascism that they're doing and the and ICE and all these things people are
getting killed all the time. We have a genocide going on and you want to bring more surveillance
to Berkeley to spy on your citizens. You should be ashamed of yourself. You should take this and
it should not be on the consent calendar. So three of you all need to pull it off consent
and you should have listened to the three or four hundred people that were here on May 7th
that all opposed surveillance. Not only like one person was for the surveillance. Who's here
opposed to surveillance tonight? Most of the people here, can I say no flock for Berkeley?
No and all the axion or any of those people because they're all bad companies that all
follow the same MO. They give their information to ICE or Homeland Security.
We're bombing all these countries killing all these people and you want to
come have this crap happen in Berkeley when you know who knows if we're going
to go into a civil war in this country with all the chaos that's going on. We
don't need this. We need to feel safe. We need to protect ourselves. That's not
going to protect us. It's going to really mess this up. Do better. Free Palestine.
Okay. Online public art? Yes, it's now the time. On the Zoom, if you want to provide comments on
consent calendar items or information calendar items, now it's time to raise your hand.
Currently have nine hands raised. First speaker is Tim Frank. You have one minute.
Yes, thank you very much. And can you hear me now? Yes. Thank you. And I'm Tim Frank,
and I'm representing the Alameda County Building and Construction Trades Council.
And I wanted to first speak in support of progress for the North Berkeley Bar. It's a project that
we've been following for a long time and are very excited about and appreciate the work that you're
doing to help make sure that it comes to reality. And then the second thing I wanted to comment on
was our active support obviously for item number 40. And we appreciate the leadership of council
members Tree Grub and Bartlett and Taplin in bringing this measure, this motion to you in
support of a state Senate Bill 1383 by our esteemed local state senator Jesse Oregon,
which would provide corrective improvement of the local density bonus to override locally.
Thanks for your comments. Sorry, your time is up.
Next is Musa Tariq.
Hi, can you hear me?
Yes.
Perfect. Good evening, Mayor Yixi and Council members.
My name is Musa Whitcare, the Council on American Islamic Relations, speaking on item 19.
We urge you to reject the surveillance vendor request for proposal.
Last month, Berkeley residents overwhelmingly showed up and stopped the Flock expansion.
This RFP aims to bring back Flock. The narrow criteria and short timeline of this proposal
favors Flock, despite being framed as a neutral procurement. ALPR systems like Flock collect data
and build detailed location histories that can be accessed by thousands of law enforcement agencies
nationwide and shared with ICE, all without any warrants. There have been documented cases of
abuse across jurisdictions, including tracking people seeking reproductive health care
and officer stalking and harassing partners. These abuses are only discovered when victims
come forward, meaning the true skill is vastly underreported. Mass surveillance is antithetical
to public safety. Please uphold the voice of Berkeley residents and pull this RFP from the
consent calendar. Thank you so much. Thank you. Okay, next next speaker is Jordan and Avi.
Hi, my name is Jordan Parker. I am calling to voice my opposition to any contracting with
flock. As many others because of already said, you overwhelmingly heard from your constituents
that we do not want the surveillance technology in our communities. It has already been fed into
ice. It has already been used by officers stalking their girlfriends. And none of this is news to
any of you. What might be news to you is the fact that I've never seen Berkeley as organized as we
are against floc. I've never seen people as activated as we are against floc and I've
never seen people as unified. So understand that we are tracking your votes very closely
and we are prepared to run candidates in every district that kowtows, hedges or allows floc
to proliferate in our communities. Thank you.
Next is a caller of the phone number ending in 211.
I totally agree with the last caller.
Totally agree with that.
My point about two is first, our business contributed more than $1 million to business
finance through business lighting and self-tax.
Second thing what I like to say is how do we deal with the current situation right now
that affect everybody, you and everybody else, as far as safety and all of that.
Well, there is a beautiful place parking and the parking situation as well. Very quickly. I'll say very quickly
New place on Kittredge and Shattack that took over beats
Beautiful place a lot of beautiful employees beautiful coffee beautiful tea
It is empty most time because the parking meter maze running around and people go to get cup of coffee for four or five bucks
You got a six-door ticket in the car and they never come back
Let us take care of the parking situation.
You are making it a milking cow.
Thank you.
For the comfort of people.
Thanks for your public comment.
Next speaker is Joaquin Martillo.
Joaquin.
I'm very skeptical of Flock's contractual terms.
As far as I can tell,
Flock represents that the contracting customer
owns the customer data generated by its Flock devices when Flock retains contractual license
rights to process and use that data for the service and product improvement. And not every
related record in the Flock platform necessarily falls within the agency-owned customer data
category and that's a real problem as well.
Thank you. I just want to clarify to folks online.
There is no contract with floc on the agenda this evening.
So just in case folks are confused about that,
I just want to make sure that that's clear.
Next speaker. It just says virtual meetings,
but you should be able.
Hi, my.
Wendy, I'm off, Wendy.
Go ahead and I want to.
You want me to go back on? Yes.
Okay, my name is Wendy.
No, Wendy, you're, you're cutting in and out. We can't quite hear you. You're muted now.
I apologize. I'm leaving. You stay on. I apologize. My name is Wendy Allison. I live in District 4, speaking on behalf of Berkeley friends meeting with residents throughout the city asking you to remove item 19 from the consent calendar so there can be a fuller discussion regarding the proposal to spend 2.4
plus million dollars on various mass surveillance technology, data integration, et cetera.
The RFP, we would like to have a public engagement process. If there is to be one, we're personally
opposed to it. But if you are going to proceed, the content of the RFP is really critical
to this process. It needs carefully monitored and supervised by the council, not just assigned to
the department and or the city manager and finance's. Thank you. Critical provisions.
Next is Rocky Chow.
Hi, good evening. My name is Rocky Chow. I'm with the Berkeley Animal Rights Center.
And I'd like to state my opposition to renewing of any contract with Flock or any surveillance
state companies. These technologies are already and will continue to cost taxpayers millions of
dollars that could easily be invested in building vibrant and resource communities like libraries,
healthcare, and schools and whatnot in our communities. ALPRs are always on surveillance
systems that collect and store information on everyone who drives. Far fewer than one percent
of scanned cars are connected to any sort of wrongdoing. So like 99% of scanned cars have not
committed any offenses that the law enforcement know of. But ALPRs still store everyone's detailed
travel history. This infringes on our Fourth Amendment privacy rights and breaks other laws
that are supposed to protect us from police overreach. The ACLU and the Electronic Frontier
Foundation suit to see if San Jose over to ALPR cameras. Thank you Rocky. Thanks. Your time is up.
Next is Marilyn. Marilyn, you should be able to unmute. Hello, my name is Marilyn Cleveland.
I'm here on behalf of the Berkeley Society of Friends Quakers with members in every council
district. As stated in the prior written comments we provided with regard to items 19 and 46.
We support the Police Accountability Board and Public Safety Policy Committee findings that
the proposed policies the Surveillance Acquisition Report and the RFP and proposed contract
provisions are insufficient for the City Council to adopt as is and proceed with the RFP process.
Therefore, we ask that the RFP be pulled from the consent calendar and not be approved this evening.
We also ask the City Council to consider the unintended consequences of
proceeding with these surveillance measures and the impacts of
these surveillance tools on our free speech and other protected rights.
With the actions by our federal government to curtail these rights,
we ask that the City of Berkeley continue to be a safe haven for all our people.
Thank you for your attention.
Thank you.
Next is James McFadden.
Thank you. Please, Paul.
off the consent calendar. When I thought when I see something like this, I wonder why the
Democrats are always trying to turn our country into some kind of a surveillance state. This is
not a Republican thing. This is a Democrat thing because all of you on the board are Democrats.
Makes me wonder why anybody would want to be in that party. Are you ignorant of what's going on
that Palantir has been doing in Israel, in the West Bank, and in Gaza. Are you trying to create
a world that's similar here? Are you going to put in place the same kind of surveillance state to
control us here? I also wonder if any of you have even read any books on the subject? Have you read
Surveillance Valley or techno-feudalism? Have you educated yourself on this or are you just voting
blind on this issue. You guys need to educate yourself on what this world is being changed
into by the tech grows in Silicon Valley. Thanks. Thank you. Thanks for your comment.
Next is Dew Shine. Hi, this is Daria Ruble,
resident of District 1 and City Council candidate in District 1 as well. I would also like to
request that Item 19 be pulled from consent calendar. After our discussion on May 7th,
it's very clear to me that it's time to reconsider whether this technology is something the City of
Berkeley needs at all and whether it could be, is it appropriate for us to put out an RFP if
it would be better suited for us to just not request this technology in the first place?
Thank you for your consideration. Thank you Daria. And the last speaker is
giraffe opens one more but giraffe you're up. Thank you so much. My name is Susan Hobart. I'm
a long time Bay Area resident currently in Oakland and in case it's not obvious I'll just be brief.
What they all said let's remove whatever it is number 19 from the consent process.
Flock is a horrible idea and hopefully we've all figured that out. Thank you.
Thank you. Okay one more speaker is JL. Hello, can you hear me? Yes. Thank you. I agree with all
of the others who are calling for item 19 to be pulled from the consent calendar. I'm a longtime
Berkeley resident. We do not want this technology here at all and I encourage everyone to work up
the reasons that other city councils have canceled their flop contracts because they've
learned things that either put the city at risk or show that flop is lying about how it uses data.
All of these things are out there, including ways that police agencies themselves can misuse the
data with looking it up, looking things up for personal reasons, looking up people that they
want to stock for personal reasons. So there's just a whole host of issues with this and I concur
with everyone else who wants to pull it from the consent calendar. Thank you.
There's one more speaker here. We have Kelsey Jackson. Hi, thank you so much. This is K.J.
Jackson calling and representing District 1 future city council member. I firstly just
want to elevate the voices of everyone that I've heard today in the earlier FLOC meeting that was
had in the three or four hundred people that did show up who elevated their voices and concerns.
The response that I saw was not ideal and definitely not representative of the majority
of the people in that room. I really want to challenge the current City Council members to
listen to your constituents and understand that flock originated from if originated from Israel
with red wolf and blue wolf as it as it still currently is watching the people of both
Palestine and Israel. We're on a similar track just as the previous people at today's meeting
have communicated. So again, I just want to challenge y'all to listen to your constituents.
It's terribly important. This was the first sanctuary city of the country. This this city,
Berkeley is sending a very important president that we need to thank for your time is up.
One more speaker, Sasha.
Oh word Sasha, here's Sasha.
Hi, yes, this is Sasha Feutrend district one. You know, I'm not going to speak about it,
but I actually have this on in the background to speak to another item on your action calendar.
However, I am reminded of the May 5th meeting that many spoke about and well over a hundred people spoke and not one person was in favor of flock.
There were all voices against it, and yet those voices were entirely ignored.
And I'm really wondering, do you all have anything to say about why you hear people speak?
The public what's the point of having a comments action if you pay no attention to the public. And I'd really love to hear one of you at least address that. Thank you.
Thank you. I think that that is the remainder of our public comments.
that's it. That's all. Okay. All right. I do just want to, again, reiterate for folks
that this is an RFP that's on the consent calendar, which was the request by the Council
at the previous meeting about this topic of surveillance, but there is no flop contract
on the calendar this evening. So I just want to make sure folks understand that. And then
the other thing I wanted to say, I think there was a point brought up earlier, Kit, about
the PAB, and I just want to make sure folks understand
that there have been PAB members
on the review committee for this RFP.
So they've been involved throughout the process
and they will continue to be involved
as the RFP language gets wrapped up.
So I just want to make sure folks understand that.
And I do thank everyone for their comments.
Okay, and I think that, oh yes,
council member Taplin is online, has his hand raised.
Go ahead, council member.
Yes, excuse me, and thank you, Madam Mayor,
and thank you, everybody.
And good evening, everyone, the mayor has captured.
Part of what I wanted to see already I did want to say that at the May meeting. Oh, also, sorry, I just kind of have to say this, but.
1 person spoke representing themselves as a representative of district 1, but district 1 has the representative who is selected to counsel currently.
And I do want to not erase the leaders that we do have representing our districts who were duly elected by the voters.
That being said, at the May meeting.
The action that council took in response to the community was to issue an RFP and that's what's before us.
So, therefore, I move adoption of the action of the considering calendar. Thank you.
second.
Okay. Thank you very much. Can we take the role on this, please?
Okay. To approve the consent calendar, Councilmember kiss or wanting. Yes.
Tapplin. Yes. Bartlett is absent. Traga. Hi. O'Keeffe. Yes. Lackey. Yes.
Little Parra. Yes. Humber. Yes. And Mary. She Yes. Okay. Motion carries. All
All right, thank you all very much.
We are, let's see.
I'm just scrolling through the consent calendar.
Okay, for the action items this evening,
we are gonna start off with,
actually, I'm sorry, is Henry online?
Yeah, but I can take it off.
I can take this if you wanna start.
Are you moving to this next?
Sure, yes, I was gonna move us onto action calendar.
Yep, so if we could go to item number 43,
which is the borrowing of funds
and the sale of issuance of FY2026, 2027,
tax and revenue anticipation notes, thank you.
Thank you, Madam Mayor.
This is an annual item that we bring before council
to help us bridge a funding gap
between when we receive the revenues
we need to run the city.
And so basically we're just asking you for your approval
to borrow these funds as a bridge
until we get property tax in it,
then we used to pay the bills that we have before us.
So it's a straightforward item that we do every year.
That's all.
Thank you.
Okay.
Any questions from council members?
Public comments?
Oh, hi.
Henry, are you trying to talk to us?
No, I'm good.
think the City Manager did a perfect job. Okay. Thank you very much. All right. Yes. All right.
Is there any public comment on item number 43, which is the borrowing of funds and the sale of
issuance of FY26-27, tax and revenue anticipation notes? Anybody online? No. No speakers online.
Okay. All right. Is there any public comment? Oh, yes. Moving on to Vice Mayor Trago.
Thank you, Madam Mayor. I really appreciate the level of detail in this item. I actually
read 84 pages and I wanted to thank the Finance Director, Henry, for conforming on the bottom
of page 2 that S&P Global Ratings has in fact given the notes a rating of SB1 plus. And
that I would like to move the item. Thank you very much. A second. Yeah. Second from
Councilmember Humbert. Can we take the roll now please clerk. Okay. To approve the
borrowing of tax and revenue anticipation notes. Councilmember Kesserwani. Yes.
Taplan. Yes. Tragob. Aye. O'Keeffe. Yes. Blackaby. Yes. Unapara. Yes. Humbert. Yes. And
and Mayor Ishi. Yes. Okay, motion carries. Thank you very much to the City Manager and team.
We will move on to item number 44, which is the issuance of $20 million in general
obligation bonds Series C for the 2016 election, infrastructure and facilities improvements,
measure T1. Thank you, Madam Mayor. We're requesting authority for the sale of the final
tranche of Measure T1 bonds. So that was a $100 million bond and we've used all of it
but this last 20 million and we have a bunch of projects that are in the pipeline to get
done. And what I'd actually like to do is just, it's not going to be a very long presentation
but I think it would be helpful if we had our parks director Scott Ferris who has been
here from the beginning of Measure T1 and helped to both create the programs, work with
with the public to identify them.
Do a little bit of a history on what has been funded
by T1 as a way to show you what the final $20 million
tranche of T1 is slated to be funded for.
So, Director Farris, if you are online
and can share your screen and walk folks through that,
it would be appreciated.
I am, can you guys hear me?
Yes, and to you.
Right, thanks so much mayor and city council.
just got a brief presentation about what we've accomplished in T1 and what is kind of remaining
and how we're going to spend the remaining $20 million. Okay, I'm going to try and share my screen.
Okay. I'm hoping everybody can see my screen.
Yes, we can.
Okay. So, just as a reminder, T1 was an infrastructure bond measure of $100 million
that passed in 2016, 10 years ago.
And with interest, we've, that's given us about $104.5 million to spend
to improve the city's aging structure, infrastructure.
It was done in two phases with lots of public process around each phase.
The first phase, we completed 39 projects.
And in phase two, we're on the final stages of completing 37 projects. So, 66 projects in all.
And the great news is over, you know, this $104.5 million has produced an additional
$83 million in leverage funds that we were able to, you know, use in addition to the $104.5 million.
So, just a really quick recap of both phases.
Phase 1, actually, we had about 20 community meetings to decide what the projects would be.
Phase 2 was about twice that. We had 54 community meetings.
Both phases, the process was led by the Parks and Waterfront and the Public Works Commissions
with the final list adopted by Council.
Oh, Scott. Yes. Are you talking? Oh, good. Okay. Sorry. I'm sorry about that. There.
It's been an interesting 10 years.
As we initially we were, we had started preparing for the passing of the bond measure a year a year in advance.
And we have tried to figure out how, how this bond measure was going to be run. What was going to be the most transparent?
way that we were going to be able to communicate to the community about what was going on,
communicate to council. And so where we landed was that the oversight was going to be at the
city council level to determine the projects, but it had a lot of input from the Parks, Recreation,
and Waterfront, and the Transportation and Infrastructure Commissions, or the Public
Works Commission, and that we would do audits every two years and that any change in the project list
needed to go to both commissions and to council. That happened, there were changes in the list
five or six times, I think six times over the last 10 years. The staffing for T1
included five FTEs, an associate management analyst, and then four project managers,
a combination of assistant civil engineers and associate civil engineers.
And then we had a joint team which still meets every two weeks today even on Wednesdays and
talks about all the projects, talks about issues related to T1 projects, and kind of figures out
how we're going to move forward. And it's been a really good collaboration between PRW and PW
capital units and our administration. In terms of communication to the public,
we do quarterly updates. We do .gov releases. We do updates to the T1 website.
Occasionally, we do council items, and we have a master list of about 2,500 people that are on
the T1 mailing list to get those quarterly updates besides the people that are on the .gov list.
We've had a lot of ribbon cutting
and groundbreaking ceremonies.
There are just some of them in the last 10 years.
I talked about this earlier.
There have been six T1 project changes
and that's all this information is on the T1 website.
A detailed list of each change and what happened and why.
And then just to review some of the T1 phase one projects,
You see photos here of the Marina Streets Project,
which included University Avenue below the freeway,
the North Berkeley Senior Center, Strawberry Creek Park,
the Adult Mental Health Center, San Pablo Park.
At San Pablo Park, we did the two to five,
the five to 12 place structure and the tennis courts.
Here you see Adeline, John Hinkle Park improvements,
Corporation Yard improvements,
the backup generator at the corporation yard,
the Rose Garden Pergola,
Tom Bates Field turf replacements,
Aquatic Park tide tubes, clean outs,
George Florence Park,
a lot of green infrastructure and bioswales.
And phase two,
we've also done playgrounds.
You see here playgrounds are two to five
and five to 12 at Grove Park.
the Loney Park upgrades, Grove Park upgrades,
but also a fair amount of pathways and sidewalks in phase two.
One of the bigger ticket items
is the Willard Clubhouse in phase two,
a series of new restrooms,
Civic Center Park, King Pool tile and plaster replacements,
timber piling replacement in the waterfront,
a variety of storm drain replacements throughout the city.
And I said, like I said, a lot of sidewalks and pathways.
So additionally, projects that are nearing completion
that are T1 projects.
There's a list of nine projects here.
Some of them we've cut a ribbon for some of these projects.
But these projects are nearing completion.
The KDOC restroom in the waterfront,
the D&E dock replacement,
which we're hoping to cut ribbons
for both those projects soon.
We have cut ribbons for the projects in the corporate,
two projects in the corporation yard.
The telegraph chanting garage restrooms
are also in closeout.
Fire station two and six improvements are in construction
along with the Santa Fe right away, phase one,
and Adeline landscape improvements
we have cut a ribbon for and completed.
but the project still in closeout.
Phase two projects that are nearing completion
and here's kind of a look at some of them,
some of the photos.
Projects that we're gonna do with the remaining 20 million.
MLK use services center,
which is under construction right now.
South Berkeley senior center,
which is also on the potential bond measure
the bond measure in November.
So we're gonna combine the money from T1
with if that bond measure passes to do a much larger renovation at South Berkeley Senior Center,
the African American Holistic Resource Center, which is the bulk of it. It's over $10 million
of T1, Tom Bates Restroom and Community Space, and 1947 Center Window replacement.
So, these are the five projects, and that's how we'll spend this remaining $20 million.
Okay, that's the end of my presentation, and I can take questions and talk about any of the existing projects, if there are any questions.
Scott, the only thing I love more about more than these projects is the joy on your face when you talk about these projects. Thank you for the presentation. I'm glad you got to pull out all of those incredible photos for us.
really amazing work. I mean just between the leveraging and you know just the
breadth and depth of these projects is just so impressive and I really want to
thank you and the team. Our city staff are awesome so thank you very much for
the presentation. Are there any questions? Oh starting with Councilmember
Blackaby. Thanks Madam Mayor I just had one brief question I think this might be
for the city manager and I just note in the rationale for recommendation that
the anticipation of staff is that this 20 million dollars in bond proceeds is
going to carry us through fiscal 28-29. And so just to kind of put this together
in the context of the bigger picture you know we recently just voted to put
another bond measure on the ballot this fall. So is the anticipation that sort of
this will be the end of T1 and that sort of winds down and any perspective bond
measure like the ones on the ballot would basically be kind of picking up
where that one leaves off.
It's sort of T1 runs its course.
A potential future ballot, sorry, bond measure if passed
would sort of pick up on T1 and continue.
Is that kind of the right way to think about it?
Yes, that's exactly the right way to think about it
is that we will have spent $100 million plus the leverage
on T1 by the end of June.
You know, that might not even be actually fully expended,
but it'll sort of blend into fiscal year 29
when the bond hopefully the ballot measure hopefully passes in November of 28 um and then
when we complete the uh the work of T1 on the projects that the parks director just just talked
through then we would sell the next tranche of bond uh trench of bonds from the next measure
great thank you thank you so much councilmember humbert yes thank you madam mayor i just have
comments, no questions? Is that okay at this point? And there are very short comments.
Are there other questions before? If we could take the comments during the comment,
if you don't mind. Yeah, thank you. Okay, seems like we have no questions. Is there any public
comment on this item? And then maybe you'll just get to ask your comments or anyone online.
someone is running to make public comment thank you public comment for
item number 44 he's gonna say that bathroom up on Telegraph is amazing I
thought it's very well designed for public health for people from all walks
of life can use that I thought it's been woven well-maintained I also love that
it corresponds to the mural on the wall across from it we should have more
public bathrooms like that. I know we've been contracting with throne here on
Strawberry Creek Park. I'm curious where we're going with that because I actually
think the telegraph design is the strongest design of a public bathroom
available in Berkeley. Sorry, I'm nervous. Thank you. Thank you so much for your
comments. Appreciate it. I'm sorry, I wasn't intended comment but now that
I've heard the comment about the bathroom on telegraph, it is really good
And it is unfortunate that we did not follow through with the hard work staff put in with
the T1 monies to put the bathrooms at University in San Pablo and at Alcatraz and Adlang.
It's really unfortunate because I looked at the 99 cent store parking lot there at University
in San Pablo.
There's about 30 people staying there, homeless people in their vehicles went out of any bathroom.
that this bathroom was meant for the entire community.
And people could have only seen this excellent bathroom
and seen the model and how it's working over there
and telegraph.
Maybe eventually their fears would have gone away
because this isn't even in the community
and it was there for everyone.
And the consultant study was so well done
and took so much stakeholder input.
Thank you.
Okay thanks everyone. All right moving on to back to councilmember Humbert. Thanks
for your patience. Yeah thank you Madam Mayor. I really want to thank Scott for
that great presentation and reminding us of all the wonderful projects that T1
built and is building. It's a great success story and in large part that's
That's due to Scott Ferris, and I want to really thank him.
And I'm particularly fond of the Willard Clubhouse,
which I think is spectacular.
But having heard these comments about the beautiful bathroom
on Telegraph, I have to add my comments.
I agree with the public comment.
The public comments so far.
It is a gorgeous combination of form, function, and art.
I mean, it really is just, it's just wonderful.
It's not quite as good as the Willard Clubhouse,
but it's pretty wonderful, so thank you.
Thank you.
I love what infrastructure nerds we are here.
Go ahead, Vice Mayor.
Yeah, well, I just wanted to jump on the bandwagon
at the risk of everyone jumping on the bandwagon,
but I really wanted to echo the mayors
and Councilmember Humbert's comments
just commanding you, Director Ferris,
and all of the hardworking staff
that have made this possible every day,
as well as the voters of Berkeley that passed T1.
And I am, my heart is filled with gratitude
about its passage and its implementation.
Every time I come to work
and I walk through the beautiful Civic Center Park,
which has been redone over the past year
with the help of T1.
And I'm looking forward to more exciting projects
and hopefully in combination with the infrastructure bond,
should that pass in November on the ballot,
including clearing the 50-50 sidewalk sharing backlog
and many other important projects,
trying to put a dent in our $2.1 billion
of unfunded infrastructure needs.
With that, I would like to move this item.
Second.
Very good, can we take the roll on that please?
OK, to adopt item 44, the issuance of general obligation
bonds, Councilmember Kesserwani?
Yes.
Tapplin?
Yes.
Bartlett is absent.
Traga?
Aye.
O'Keefe?
Yes.
Blackaby?
Yes.
Unapara?
Yes.
Humber?
Yes.
And Mayor Ishi?
Yes.
OK, motion carries.
Thank you very much.
Thanks, Scott, for the presentation.
We are going to take a 10-minute break.
It is 7.59 right now, so 8.10.
Thank you.
Recording stopped.
Recording in progress.
Hello, oh, there we go.
All right.
Okay, thank you very much.
So we are moving on to item number 45,
placing an initiative ordinance
amending the rent stabilization ordinance
on the November 3rd, 2026 ballot.
I'm gonna pass it over to Council Member Little-Para.
Thank you.
Many apologies, but because this is a ballot measure item
and we need to triple check that all of our ducks
I do think we are in order.
I am going to ask respectfully
that we move this to next
week's agenda.
So yeah, that's why I'm
Okay, can we take the role?
I'm sorry.
No, we can't.
Can we any objections?
Yes.
No.
Okay.
I can still take up a comment.
Can we take it now?
Yes.
Yes.
If there is anybody who wants to.
Okay, so we are moving this item to next week.
But if you have public comment on it,
since it was already agendized,
please feel free to come forward.
Thank you, good evening.
I'm Debbie Woods and a Berkeley resident
and small housing provider.
I urge you to reject yet another attempt
to chip away at Berkeley's Golden Duplex exemption.
It is frustrating that a small group of housing providers
is expected to return every two years,
wondering what new restrictions will be imposed upon them.
I hope that when 2028 arrives,
we are not once again debating new limitations
on golden duplex owners.
As a reminder, golden duplex owners are homeowners
who live next door to our tenants.
We maintain our properties, respond personally
when something goes wrong and have every incentive
to build respectful, long-term relationships
with the people who rent from us.
We are the city's partners in providing
and preserving Berkeley's housing.
Thank you.
So it's only one minute, not two?
Okay.
My name is Celia Carion.
I'm a small housing provider.
I live in Berkeley.
I pay Berkeley property taxes.
I'm opposed to putting another ordinance
on the November ballot amending the rent board ordinance.
It's so frustrating that just two years
after Measure BB was passed,
Council wants to add more regulations and requirements
to owners who are already burdened by regulations.
Regulations have become so onerous.
My job as a housing provider used to be
about attending to tenants and maintaining buildings.
Now it's increasingly about managing processes,
making sure I'm in compliance with all the codes
and ordinance protecting myself from a mistake.
Our leases have grown to over 70 pages.
The basic lease takes just 24 pages.
The other 46 pages are required disclosures and informations.
I'm just embarrassed to give a prospective tenant.
Thank you very much.
Hello.
I'm Roger Halston.
I own exactly one rental, the duplex, that I live in.
I rent out downstairs.
And the only reason I'm a renter, renting out,
is because that was the only way I
could afford to buy a home to raise my children in.
And it's very difficult to keep up with the constant changes.
It's frightening that I can't trust my government
to look after my interests.
It's insulting to be treated as if I'm the enemy.
I've always tried to play by the rules.
I work in public schools locally.
But it's obvious to me that the rules are biased against me
For example, if I was one day late
paying my registration fee, the fees double.
And even the big banks aren't that unreasonable.
So I respectfully urge that you not
keep modifying the ordinance.
Thank you so much.
Hi, I'm Terri Garrett and I'm a gold and duplex owner.
And a lot of what I would say has been said.
But to me, it is a very sneaky way
of getting into going away with golden duplex,
pushing limits to see what you can get away with
when we have a real problem with housing.
And as part of that philosophy,
I think of seeing as housing providers as enemies
rather than working together to solve a problem.
There's so much that I can do for my tenants
being a golden duplex.
I could reduce rent when somebody lost a job.
When a tenant moved out and college kids
for sharing, she's spending a sharp PhD,
I could again do a rent reduction temporarily.
If I was under your rent control laws, I couldn't do that.
So I hope you will realize this is,
anytime you put anything on the ballot, it costs money,
it causes dissension,
and let's work on the real housing issues we have.
Thank you.
Good evening, City Council.
I'm Courtney Powell.
I'm the policy manager with Resources
for Community Development,
And we're here in strong support of the proposal
to place cleanup amendments to the stabilization ordinance
on the November, 2026 ballot.
And particularly the amendment that would allow
the rent board to establish a fee waiver program
for nonprofit affordable housing providers.
The increased rent board registration fees under measure BB
created a really substantial financial burden
for many nonprofits in the community.
Nonprofit providers operate
under strict affordability covenants.
And as a result,
we can't raise rents upon vacancy
to offset these types of rising costs.
The proposed amendment offers a thoughtful
and balanced solution.
It allows the city to move forward promptly
while also reducing legal and administrative risk.
We're just really grateful for the partnership
with the rent board, with the four by four committee
and bringing this language forward.
And we will see you back here next week
for the continued conversation.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Hello, my name is Angela Cavanaugh
and I'm with Satellite Affordable Housing Associates.
been with them for 31 years serving low-income residents of Berkeley and I'm
also here to let you guys know I'm in support of the amendment and appreciate
the consideration. We serve seniors and other special needs populations and
And just echoing what Courtney said, it is very helpful for us to have a fee waiver on
the stabilization fees so that we can provide needed services for our residents.
Thank you.
Thank you so much.
I was actually happy to see the attacks on the Golden Duplex exemption stopping, because
I don't believe that that's where the focus should be, to protect tenants.
I thought that the notice provision seems fairly innocuous by comparison to the previous
attacks.
I do want to say, well, I can appreciate the wanting to expand rent control by providing
in financial or other incentives,
such as double density bonus.
That's for new people coming in the community.
And we need to look at how we're gonna prevent
displacement of current people in the community
and people that are the most vulnerable.
Currently, the affordable housing preference policy
is being discussed, has changing.
And I'm really concerned that we're not focusing
on our own most vulnerable persons in the community
here and preserving them in affordable housing,
which is really, really scarce.
Thank you.
Thanks, Carol.
I think there are a couple of folks online.
Yes, this is public comment
on the rent stabilization ordinance amendments.
However, this item is not gonna be decided upon tonight.
It's gonna be moved to the July 7th meeting.
But now it's time to raise your hand
if you do wanna talk tonight.
First speaker is Karen Chenoy.
Good evening, Mayor and City Council, Caron Snow at the Bridge Association of Realtors.
This item needed to have gone to the Land Use Committee before being brought here to
be placed on the ballot.
The revisions to the Golden Duplex Exemption and the addition of Paragraph D are substantive
policy changes, and it is obvious from the fact that this item is now being pulled that
there is much work to be done on this item, and that is exactly what Standing Policy Committees
are for.
The 4x4 Joint Task Force is not a Standing Policy Committee.
that exist to coordinate between the council
and the rent stabilization board,
not to replace the council's committee process
or serve as the primary venue
for vetting controversial housing policy.
Whether you support these changes or not,
they deserve the transparency and public deliberation
that only the land use committee could have provided.
We respectfully ask that you either refer this item
to committee rather than bring it back
to the next council meeting, thank you.
Okay. Next is Sophia Dewitt.
Good evening, mayor and council members, Sophia Dewitt with East Bay Housing Organizations.
I strongly support the proposal to place the cleanup amendments to the rent stabilization ordinance on the November 2026 ballot.
That and particularly the amendments that would allow the rent board to establish a fee waiver program for nonprofit affordable housing providers as you've heard the increased fees adopted under measure, B, B created a serious financial situation.
For many affordable housing providers in Berkeley, and that financial situation directly.
dug into the ability of those providers to provide resident services, since they couldn't raise
rents to cover the increased fees. This proposal provides a balanced approach.
Thank you, Sophia. Thank you.
Okay. Next speaker is Sasha.
Yes, Sasha Putrin, and to be very clear, I live in District One.
I do not own a duplex, but I do own a triplex that I have owned and lived in for 42 years.
And I have to say that what I call the packet that has to be added with every lease
goes on and on and on. And it has some things that really are incomprehensible, like bed bug
information for an unfurnished apartment. We have to spend a lot of our time, as has been mentioned
before, on a lot of onerous administrative bookkeeping kinds of things. Not really bookkeeping,
but administrative tasks. And what the rent board has done is really set up a hostile environment
between the tenants and the owner of the property who lives there and I can assure you as somebody
who lives there I want a pleasant place to live. Thank you. Thanks Sasha. Okay that's all the online.
I'm sorry there's actually one more comment here in person. Good evening mayor members of the City
Council. I'll keep it short since we'll be coming back next week. Thank you for considering these
revisions. There are many things in the ordinance packet other than the just two you've heard quite
bit about it this evening. I'd be happy to answer any questions. The front board staff will also be
here next week to answer questions. Also just to correct one bit of misinformation from public
comment, the 4x4 is a standing policy committee. It has in fact existed long before the committee
system existed, but that is neither here nor there. So thank you very much. Thank you very much. Okay,
very good. So we've done our public comment. Okay, so the motion is to continue item 45
regarding the rent stabilization ordinance to the July 7th meeting. Councilmember Kesterwani?
Yes. Tapwin. Just a point of privilege. I am prepared to vote, but I was wondering whether
there would be an opportunity to like comment now on for us or... No, I think we're moving it to the
next week, so we won't have comments right now for council members. Okay, well on the motion yes.
Okay, Councilmember Bartlett is absent. Tragem? Aye. O'Keeffe? Yes. Blackaby? Yes.
Lunapara? Yes. Humber? Yes. And Mary Sheehan? Yes. Okay, motion carries. Thank you, thank
you all for your comments. Okay, so we are moving on to item number 46 which is
surveillance technology ordinance submissions for community video streams
and investigative software pursuant to Council direction of May 7th, 2026. And I
I really want to thank Mr. Momburg
for being here this evening.
We received a letter in May from Brian Hofer
of secure justice with concerns around
the investigative software's compliance
with our surveillance technology ordinance process,
so this item addresses that concern
by developing a use policy and acquisitions report,
and I want to thank you so much, BPD,
for addressing the public safety committee's concerns
and making changes within these policies.
Just briefly, I just wanted to highlight for folks
case they didn't see there. These changes included improvements to data security and privacy,
clarification around policy language, strengthening audit provisions, and inclusion of notification
within 72 hours to the city manager, city attorney, and city council in the event that a federal
agency has given BPD-owned data from community video streams. And this evening, again, just so
folks understand where we're sort of at in the process, we're voting on the use policy and
Acquisitions report today, but this does not approve a contract for these tools.
So the language of these documents will come before this council again before, excuse me,
again after the RFP process is completed.
And I'm sure you can address that as well, but I just wanted to set expectations for
folks because I understand that this stuff is very complex.
So I will pass it over to you.
Thank you, Ms. Mayer.
Good evening Mayor and Council.
This item before you this evening addresses community video streams and investigative
software.
Both were part of the broader technology package referenced earlier that went to full council
on May 7th.
At that meeting, Council directed the Department to return to the Public Safety Policy Committee
to present additional information on community video streams and respond to several items
raised in the Mayor's supplemental referral.
On June 2nd, the department presented that material to the PSPC along with supporting
documentation related to the investigative software technology.
Following that meeting, the department incorporated feedback from the committee into the council
item now before you.
We are returning tonight to give council members and the community an opportunity to hear more
about these technologies, ask questions, and provide guidance before the department begins
the RFP process.
This is an important step in ensuring that any future RFPs align with Council expectations
before considering any contract recommendations.
It also allows the Department to thoroughly and thoughtfully evaluate available options
and return with recommendations through the appropriate process.
Before we discuss the outcomes of the June 2nd PSPC meeting and the changes incorporated
in the proposal, Arla Malnberg will provide a brief overview into each of the two technologies.
Carla?
Thank you, Captain Oguys.
OK, so the first of the two technologies I'll talk about
is investigative software.
And the most important thing to understand
about investigative software is it's
not a new camera or a new sensor.
It doesn't collect anything new.
It's essentially just a search tool
that sits on top of records that the department already maintains
or has access to.
And just lets an investigator search
and connect those records in one place
instead of logging into each system separately.
So the connected sources would be things like dispatch records
and report data and digital evidence,
license plate reader data, fixed camera, and drone data,
ballistics data, opt-in case information voluntarily shared
by other agencies, and publicly available information,
and any future technology that the council would approve.
So every one of those sources keeps its own existing rules,
its own use policy that it currently has.
And so this software would loosen nothing.
Wherever there's a stricter provision
in the individual use policy, that's what it would control.
But there are safeguards in this use policy
on top of all of those,
and they're independent of any vendor.
So facial recognition is prohibited.
Every search must be tied to a specific case or incident.
It can be used for immigration enforcement
or for out-of-state cases targeting
reproductive or gender-affirming care.
No data can be sourced from data breaches or the dark web.
And anything that tools surfaces is treated as a lead only
and needs to be independently corroborated
by a detective or an officer before it's acted upon.
So again, as we laid out, this is just the beginning
of a council director process to do an RFP.
And so we're just talking about the technology
and the proposed rules around it
and not a chosen vendor or a specific product.
Okay, the second technology is community video streams.
And so for this program,
the city is not buying or installing any cameras.
It's just a software capability
that lets a private camera owner like a business,
for example, to voluntarily register
and share their existing camera stream
with the police department.
So the owner stays in control.
They keep ownership of the camera and the footage,
and they can revoke access at any time.
So the department doesn't own or install
or maintain any of these cameras.
The only footage BPD keeps is a specific clip
that has evidentiary value in a specific case.
And then that would just be retained
according to our current evidence retention policy.
So the point here is to let officers virtually canvas
an area for evidence or get real-time awareness
during an in-progress incident without the cost
of standing up additional city-owned cameras.
Access would be limited to active criminal investigations,
serious traffic investigations,
police misconduct investigations,
and critical incidents or disasters.
And it wouldn't be used for continuous monitoring.
It would just be in response to a specific identified case
or call for service.
So again, the use policy builds in safeguards,
a pre-integration review,
where a staff member physically confirms
that a camera isn't pointed anywhere private
before it's even connected,
a prohibition on facial recognition,
a log of every access, so who's accessing, when, which camera, and for what reason.
There will be signage near the camera itself and a public map on our website of every camera
that's been connected to the department, and of course no sharing for federal immigration
enforcement.
Okay, so, Captain Okey's will now talk about some of the updates we made since the June
2 PSVC meeting.
Thank you, Arlo.
So at the June 2nd meeting, there was a discussion.
And in the course of that discussion,
the PSBC identified 11 additional areas
for revision and consideration and clarification.
Those revisions included topics such as address verification,
notification processes, access authorization,
and clarifying language related to retention periods.
The details of those changes are included in the agenda item
and the memorandum, as well as reflected in red line edits
to the attachments in the Acquisition Surveillance
Use Reports.
That work brings us to today's resolution
where we are asking the Council to accept
the Surveillance Acquisition Report
and approve the Surveillance Use Policy
for community video streams and investigated software.
This will allow us to begin the RFP process once completed.
The department will return to council
with our recommendations.
With that, I'll hand it off for questions.
Thank you so much.
All right, do we have any questions
from the council members?
Starting with Councilmember Blackaby.
Thanks, Madam Mayor.
I just wanna thank Mr. Malmberg and Captain Oakes
for being here tonight and also throughout this process.
As Captain Oakes mentioned,
we did have a robust discussion
at the Public Safety Policy Committee.
A lot of public feedback and engagement
as well as committee questions.
You know, the 11 items that we kind of identified,
appreciate the fact that you've sort of made those updates,
made those changes, incorporated that feedback
and I see that through the documents.
So I just wanted to appreciate the work there.
I had a couple of just further clarifying questions,
kind of upon further review of this.
In particular, and I think it's in the document,
but just it didn't come up yet.
So just to give us a chance to discuss it.
In terms of the community video streams,
kind of focus areas, it's clear in the use policy
where this is intended for commercial districts.
Can you talk a little bit about, you know,
residential, non-residential and just kind of
where that technology would be used if we move forward.
Yeah, absolutely.
It would be used in business districts,
commercial areas, the idea is not to use them in a residential neighborhood. Yeah,
that's absolutely the intent. There's room in the policy to connect to a
campus or an area where there's a risk of an active shooter incident where
having live access to those cameras would be life-saving, but otherwise the
policy and intent in the program is to connect to cameras owned by a business
in a commercial district.
And then the locations, all those cameras
would be publicly viewable on the website.
You'd know where all those cameras are.
Exactly.
You could check the website to know where those locations were.
And while you were physically there,
you would be aware that a camera is connected
because there would be a sign up somewhere.
OK.
And then how does this differ from the fact
that they're in some cases with a crime and residential area?
You might ask for access to a ring camera or other footage.
How is what we're talking about here different from that?
Would you still be doing that?
Kind of compare contrast how those two things work,
maybe similarly or differently?
Yeah, so in areas where we have cameras connected,
investigators would be able to collect that footage
in a much more systematic and quick way
and speed and I'll let Captain Okey speak to
kind of the process of an investigation after a case occurs.
but to be able to do a quick and thorough investigation
often greatly affects the outcome
and how we're able to identify a subject and follow up.
It also would add the capability
to bring real-time awareness to an ongoing incident.
So if there is, you know,
use the example of an active shooter or a robbery,
and we get that call of an in-progress incident,
then our investigators and analysts
would be able to watch that incident unfold
and provide the information to responding officers on scene.
Do you mind if I dig into that just a little bit further?
So can you just walk us through so someone gets,
calls dispatch, just walk us through
what the workflow looks like there?
So somebody calls dispatch, they say I'm witnessing
an armed robbery in this store that I'm in
or just walked by, and we happen to have a camera there
at the entrance, what have you.
And so our officers in our working patrol
would be on their way, right?
They'd be responding to the scene.
And what happens now is all they have
is the information that the caller has provided.
And that could be very incomplete information.
It could be stale information.
And the officers are going in somewhat blind, right?
And so having somebody relaying live information
about what's happening on that scene as officers are arriving
can play a big role in the type of response
that the officers bring to the incident
or locating a subject that's left the scene.
I think Garlo covered the material pretty well.
Just say that the automated process
of the ability to access the camera through this system.
Obviously it's registered in response to a crime
would allow for much faster turnaround time.
So in the example, we recently had a call
of a suspected kidnapping case involving a car
and a vehicle description and officers had responded,
obviously responded to the scene
and through canvassing the area,
we're able to get information from local cameras
and then through that slowly pieced together
some information about the suspect vehicle.
Having a camera in place and this system up and running
would allow someone to do that from the department
as officers are responding, tightening our turnaround time,
and the ability to correctly identify a suspect vehicle
and better respond to the crime quickly
and bring the situation safely to resolution.
And then the piggyback back on the piggybacker.
The, yeah, so I'm also interested too
in like how does the approval process work to say,
okay, turn on the live feed at one, two, three Shattuck.
You know, like who makes that decision?
Because again, you're not monitoring everything explicitly
by design, you are not monitoring things,
you know, in real time across the board.
You're saying, here's something that needs to be looked at.
Who kind of approves that request
to basically turn on a live feed at that location.
Yeah, so there would be a limited number of people
who are trained and authorized to use the system at all.
And part of that training and authorization
is identifying cameras and their angles
and which would be relevant to a certain call.
Obviously, when we're talking about a real time response,
having, making a quick judgment call
is what makes it useful or not,
and so we kind of pre-identified the people
who will be able to access and train them appropriately
on how to identify a relevant camera,
and then of course, each of those accesses
would be logged and audited and reviewed
for it being an appropriate use of the camera.
Yeah, because I think that our main thing
is making sure it's like,
we're not just sort of turning cameras on for small,
but like, because I think the threshold
for when you should activate a Live Feed should be of some significance.
I think that's what folks would assume, and so I think as long as we can capture that
in the audit, that like what's the rationale at this moment for turning on that camera
would be important to be able to just keep an eye out, especially I think at the beginning.
Go ahead.
Sorry.
I was going to say, well, and they will require there to be a case number, so that would be
included information as well if you want to speak to that.
Exactly.
One of the updates that we've made since June 2nd is to specify that part of the audit
will be to identify that that case number matches, you know, the circumstances of that
access and that use and that everything aligns properly as it should.
Okay.
A couple more things.
Just to close out on the ring camera part.
So the difference is, in large part, the ring camera is sort of after action to capture
video that's recorded of an event that happened previously. Part of what the CVS piece is
yes you get the historical data but you also get live data that you can turn on in response
to an incident in a commercial district. So what's different is in a commercial district
you get a live feed at that particular location. In a residential district on a ring camera
you're not getting live data, you're getting historical data. Is that fair?
fair and accurate. The other piece of that is that with the video stream process in the
investigative stage, officers would be able to access that more quickly in investigating
the case after the fact, as opposed to now where we physically send officers to the scene.
They go and knock on doors. They contact community members and ask if they have video that they'd
be willing to share.
Okay. Two last things. I appreciate it. One is there was a good amount of discussion,
you did address it in here that one question was to people who to business
that does own a camera some notification that hey we accessed your feed at some
point in time just so there's some sort of feedback loop to the camera owner
you sort of indicated here that it's it's kind of you're gonna add it to
kind of the vendor evaluation not as a required element but it's something you
be looking for just want to know if you could speak to that because I think
regardless even if a vendor couldn't do it I think there's some interest in
in figuring out how as an apartment
we would notify someone after the fact.
Yeah, I mean, without getting into the details
of the not yet released RFP,
we will uncover that information through that process
and identify how we can then relay that information
to the camera owner.
Okay.
Then one last, just the bigger kind of process point.
So if we move forward and approve these,
these aren't in concrete, never to be looked at again.
Part of this is to start your process with the RFPs,
you have a basis for the RFP.
It's possible that, again, if we decide to move forward
and if there's a vendor selection
and they may have an approach that changes
the way we might use the technology,
we would update the acquisition report
and potentially the use policy at a later point
and re-ratify it at a later point.
Like these are not, we need this to start,
but this may not be the last time we look at it.
Is that fair to say?
That's exactly correct.
We think that these are our policies
that stand on their own with the technology
that we're aware of, but understand
that RFP might uncover additional functionality
that we need to account for in the policy.
And at that point, we would update these documents,
resubmit them to PAB,
and resubmit them to counsel as well.
Okay.
Again, I just wanna thank you for being thorough
and responding to our thorough questions
and bringing this forward.
So thank you.
Thank you very much for your questions
for letting me piggyback off them.
Can we go to Council Member Humber, please?
Thank you, Madam Mayor.
I have one sort of broad follow-up question,
and that's whether or not this system
could contribute to the safety of the arriving officers.
Absolutely.
Having live information for officer
that somebody from the department
can broadcast to officers as they're arriving on scene
gives them better situational awareness and not only leads to greater safety on the part of the officer,
but also gives them a better picture of what's happening which allows them to make better decisions which create better outcomes for everybody.
Yeah, thank you very much and thank you for explaining the difference between sort of the how the ring cameras are used
and how this system would be used because just on my block just yesterday,
One of my neighbors, an elder, probably in his late 80s, left with his golf clubs at
7.30 in the morning and immediately thereafter somebody broke into his front door and encountered
his wife coming down the stairs.
Thank God she fled.
But then officers were canvassing our street looking at ring cameras.
They looked at ours, nothing very useful.
but it was kind of after the fact and not quite as useful.
So thank you.
Thank you very much.
Other questions from council members?
I have a couple of follow-up questions.
I think that we've had some conversations about this
around which personnel will be authorized
to access the investigative software.
And it seems like there's maybe still some figuring out there.
Could you just speak to that, please?
Yeah, so there's a couple layers to it,
because the investigative software will sit on top of,
will integrate with other pieces of technology
that we have that have their own use policies, right?
And other, in their own training requirements.
And so those will all still hold, right?
Nobody will be able to access a piece of technology
through this software
that they don't already have access to
via that separate policy.
And so this policy is, doesn't grant that additional access to somebody else and requires
that personnel who have been trained and previously authorized are the only ones that can access
it.
In practice that it looks like our investigators, our detectives, our crime analysts who are
working up these cases to pass on to our detectives and so that's a relatively small
group. Yeah, I think that was the piece that wasn't included from the questions
from the follow-up from that by the way that acronym you use PSP. I forgot what it's, yeah but it's the
Public Safety Policy Committee just so for folks who didn't know what that acronym was and I think that
was the only piece that wasn't quite addressed that piece you said in practice it's these folks
And so I just wanted to make sure that that was clear because I think that that piece of it is is important. Like, of course, you want to have enough folks who have access to it. So it's useful. And also, you don't want to have too many people have access to it because that, of course, creates risks.
And then similarly, so those people, would they have.
the ability to determine when to utilize the CVS systems?
Or would there need to be a supervisor or something
that would say, okay, you can use these tools
to access the footage?
Just so I understand that sort of chain of command piece.
The training and authorization piece
would enable that detective or analyst to use the system.
it and we would follow-up on the uses via the audits.
Okay, so when that call comes in and someone is searching, whoever it is that is able to
use the investigative system would be able to just, they would have authorization to
use that system?
Correct, because part of the value of this is providing that real-time information.
Got it, okay.
I just want to make sure I understand that, thank you.
And then if, I know that we've said that this is focused on commercial areas, commercial
cameras, if there were ever a desire to expand the CVS to residential, what would the process
be for that?
Well, I mean, A, I can't imagine a scenario where we'd be looking to do that.
be it would be you know we'd have the same pre integration process and review
process that would include public notification and so there would be no
way to do it without council knowing and the public knowing. Thank you and then
when defining residential areas how would an area with dense multi-family
housing on a commercial corridor be classified I think there's some overlap
and commercial and residential areas there?
Yeah, I mean, that is part of the difficulty of saying
strictly incorporated business improvement districts
would be the only ones because that doesn't cover
necessarily every commercial corridor
that might be interested, right?
And then similarly, there's not always a bright line
between those two areas.
So the part of the way we resolve that
is by public notification and giving the public
and council an opportunity to see exactly
how this process is unfolding.
And by the way, the pre-integration review process
will be slow.
It'll necessarily slow us down.
And so it's not going to be that there will be
10, 50 cameras popping up overnight.
It's gonna be one by one.
It's gonna roll out slowly.
Thank you.
I appreciate your answers to my questions.
Councilmember Luna Parra, did you have questions?
Yeah, thank you.
I have two questions.
On the investigative technology, if open source data queries
are allowed, can you talk a little bit more
about how this could apply during protests
or political activity, given the First Amendment carve out
only restricts intentional monitoring?
So, excuse me, are you asking, like,
if there's a First Amendment activity or speech happening online and we happen to
collect that and use that somehow or? Yeah so that that can still be used in those situations.
The system will be oh in the situation of a First Amendment assembly. Yeah that use would be
prohibited because we wouldn't be using the software to monitor those protests or anything
Like that is expressly prohibited, yeah.
Thank you.
And on the CVS, is the integration vendor proprietary?
Or if the city were to switch vendors,
could BPD swatch camera providers
without reintegrating every participating camera?
I would imagine that it would, if we switched vendors
for that software integration process,
we would go back and reintegrate those cameras.
it will likely depend on the specific capabilities
of the vendor that we're switching from into.
And so, as we haven't identified that yet,
I can't say for sure, but just in my understanding
of how these technologies tend to work,
yeah, we would likely need to re-enroll the cameras
that are interested in participating.
Thank you.
Thank you very much.
Vice Mayor Triggeb.
Thank you so much.
Does BPD use investigation software and platforms now?
And if, well, yes or no, and then I have a follow-up.
No, no, we access these different types of records
that we already have access to separately
in their own systems and then do our best
to line things up as we can as we're investigating cases.
Okay, I just wanted to confirm since there are,
I'm aware of, I think this came up in committee discussion
that there is at least one residential neighborhood
that has a private contract with Flock
and I just want it to confront,
like there would be no relationship
but like it would be completely carved out,
we're only looking at commercial applications for this.
For the community video streams.
For the media.
So for the community video streams, yeah,
Those would be privately owned surveillance cameras
that businesses own, and that we would connect to.
Okay.
How could we ensure, I mean,
so there's strong language around disabling
facial recognition and other such technologies,
but they are, or they may be available
depending on whatever vendor the city may choose to go with.
What is the department doing to ensure
that to the extent that those capabilities exist,
they continue to be switched off?
Yeah, so again, without getting into the details of the RFP,
our policies clearly state that we should not be able
to access those facial recognition tools
or we should be able to turn them off and disable them.
And any vendor that we would contract with
would need to be able to accommodate that policy.
Okay, thank you.
And then last question, AI is developing so fast
and these technologies are often reliant
on AI, and it is hard to keep up with all the technical capabilities.
How do you plan to foresee these kinds of technological changes, and can you speak to
the application of a precautionary principle around that?
Yeah, well, thank you for that, because it's an important question, and it came up at our
June 2nd Public Safety Policy Committee.
One of the takeaways that we've implemented into our policies
and our approach to procuring these technologies
is making sure that there is able to be a human in the loop
at every step in the investigative process.
So there will be no investigation
that continues aided by AI without an investigator
collaborating each step and moving the investigation forward.
So I think that's a clear principle
that we're able to articulate and follow through on.
That it'll be officers confirming and following up
on each piece of information as an investigation unfolds.
Thank you.
Okay, thank you much.
Can we take public comment on this item please?
We are working on item number 46,
surveillance technology ordinance submissions
for community video streams and investigative software
pursuant to council direction of May 7th, 2026.
So if you have public comment on this item,
please come on up.
Hey, so I find it really funny in 2026,
people will trust tech companies at all.
These tech companies have shown time and time again
they will flip rules, have separate access,
they forget to mention.
Any rule you put on these can be circumvented and abused
once the data is recorded,
it's right for all kinds of abuse.
I can take your video and apply facial recognition after.
I have to say I've noticed a trend.
Whenever some mass breach or improper access happens,
the one happens and at least the ones that we know about,
Like the recent SFPD breach, it's always, whoops,
we violated your constitutional rights.
Some officer gets a memo, your fourth amendment rights
are gone, dad, just forget about it.
I really gotta say, this type of government stalking
would make the Stasi blush, and it really just,
it makes me very angry, you can't tell.
So, and it reminds me of one of my favorite
really American phrases,
please just mind your own damn business.
Thanks.
Thank you.
Hi there, I think I have one more minute from the audience.
Thank you.
I have a couple of comments about the policy.
One phrase that I've heard a lot is that
businesses can opt in to sharing their data, which is true,
but the rest of us do not get a choice to opt out.
Whatever camera we walk by that a business has opted in,
we have no choice in the fact that our information
is gonna be collected from that feed.
Another comment is about continuous monitoring.
I've heard various people say, well, this is not Orwellian
because no cop is just sitting there watching every feed.
And while it's true, the fact that all of this data
is recorded and kept means that somebody could go and watch
that feed at any point.
Every second of every stream is available to them
and searchable.
So the distinction that they're not actively watching it,
I think, makes very little difference in this case.
and the privacy harms are real either way.
I've heard a lot about facial recognition
and it's gonna be turned off in AI
and I think it's good that we turn off facial recognition
but we've also seen that these systems
can use other things to search for individuals
so you don't actually need facial recognition
to find people in this pile of video footage
that's available and there is the very real threat
that other organizations outside of our police department
can use facial recognition on the exact same data
by getting access to it.
And that goes along with the federal sharing concern.
Yes, we will not actively share this with the federal agencies,
but we know that they can still get access to that data
through other means.
And lastly, I just want to say the fact
that in the case of somebody's individual camera system,
the fact that somebody has to go out and ask for access
is an important safeguard.
It limits the harm that could be done by video collection.
And this really undoes that in every way
by making it incredibly easy to collect
massive amounts of data,
which is really just too unsafe to collect in any way.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Hi.
I really can't wait until all those cameras are installed
and there's signs up everywhere.
You're being watched here.
You're being watched there.
We're being watched everywhere, folks.
And it's only going to get worse and worse and worse.
If they can turn things off, that
means they can also turn them on again.
It's like the long range acoustic device, LRAD.
They said, well, you know, it can't be weaponized.
We're not going to use it.
We'll turn that off.
Well, if you can turn it off, you can turn it on again.
And I find that disconcerting, I think,
when it comes down to it thinking beyond,
because you're obviously going to fall for this
and get some kind of cameras around,
the cameras won't work if they're broken,
if they're painted over, if they're taken down,
if something happens to them along the way,
that's going to be what's necessary, thank you.
Thank you.
Well, first of all, my understanding
of the current state of the technology is that a PTZ camera can search for a target
based on a general description, then follow that target and link up with a plate reader
and actually identify the person.
And you don't need facial recognition
because it's already been, that's already obsolete.
Second is, we're going down the wrong road, really.
Thank you.
Hi, I'm Julie Dickey.
I've lived in Berkeley for 26 years.
Welcome to Berkeley.
I thought May 7th or whenever that May meeting was,
we had scored a victory.
I was so proud and so many citizens of Berkeley
shared their pride in Berkeley doing away
with discussions of flock and surveillance.
I thought, hip, hip, hooray.
So I'm back here today to say
That was a very, very slowly, short-term victory.
I just have three issues, four.
One is the stress that this whole country
is going through right now about this regime.
Thank you.
I have a minute.
Oh, a minute from this person over here.
This is a regime of fascism that we're under, it's just no time, it seems to me, to add
these cameras for their benefit.
And secondly, there was a letter out that was reportedly a warning about lawsuits that
Berkeley could face if it continued on this path.
And thirdly, our deficit, our budget, we talk about, we can hardly say programs that are
working, we may have to lay off firefighters, and the fourth and final, the community has
said over and over and over, we do not want to be surveilled, and I don't care if it's
called by flock or any other name, it's all the same.
Thank you.
I'm Kelly Hammagrin.
Didn't the presentation sound so reassuring?
I thought it sounded reassuring.
Didn't I feel reassured by all these rules and how everybody's going to follow the rules
and the contracts?
Aren't we all reassured?
We're going to notify someone when we find out within ten days, and we're going to only audit, what, twice a year.
We're going to get an audit, and then we'll find out what actually happened to the information and who accessed it.
I have to say, I'm not terribly reassured, and I thought that at the June 2nd meeting,
We talked a lot more about how AI was going to be used to do the screening.
So I guess my time is up.
Thank you.
Yeah, I think it does come down to the question of trust.
As other people have said, the trust that written policies or even local laws
are going to stand up to the designs of the feds on our data.
I don't know how we can still be in a position of trusting that.
Other people have spoken to this, but I mean, do we understand the owner of FLOC, for example,
is Mark Andresen, who attacks DEI and immigrants?
immigration policies, describing them together as politically lethal forms of
discrimination. That's who we're getting in bed with, or the other companies who
are even worse as I said before. I wish you would try a little harder to listen.
There's a wealth of information coming to you that you're not using. Just
discounting. Thanks George. Greetings mayor, city council, staff, community members. My
name is Aiden Hill. I'm speaking as a resident of Southside, a member of CERT, a medical
aid first clinician, and a candidate from City Council District 7 who values good governance.
To put this item simply, this would authorize software
that can search across police data,
license plate reader data, drone data,
fixed cameras, open source information,
and future surveillance capabilities,
as well as procedures enabling police access
to share private camera feeds.
I can see why this seems helpful.
Quick information is critical in an emergency.
However, the first question is about the budget.
How do we find 1,400,000 of a year for surveillance when underfunded homeless programs, mental
health response, maintenance, lighting, restrooms, and secure public spaces are not funded?
This could aid in post-harm activity and investigations, but neighborhood stability is not achieved
by this measure.
Second, there's a data issue.
Either the software nor the independent public hardware are being developed by Berkeley.
Bad data can turn into leads that appear official if vendor systems, private cameras, or metadata
is exploited, like many of the community members have said already.
Lastly, there is a governance issue.
This idea generates a key, essentially, for the city.
This key may not be used in the same way by future councils.
The Supreme Court reminded us this week in Trump v. Slaughter
that institutional protections are important
because power shifts hands.
The city bears the burden of evidence
because City Hall promises to exercise caution,
residents shouldn't have to put up with increased surveillance.
Council should not approve this without further proof.
It makes people safer than the prevention first investments
listed above.
Thank you.
My mayor and council members, I'm a Berkeley resident.
I just wanna say that I understand sort of,
we live in Silicon Valley.
Everything is about AI right now.
I work in a healthcare system
and everything is about how do we apply AI?
And our risk and compliance department are like,
no, you are not using this.
And we're sitting there going like, but why not?
It can really accelerate the way we do work.
It can make it more effective, faster.
But I also understand that, like,
if you think about the way we as a society
jumped into the last digital revolution called social media,
how has that turned out for us, right?
Like the decision that we make today
has impacted generations behind us,
and I would say social media really effed
some of the younger generations.
And how this is all gonna play out
isn't really known to us right now.
So I just impress upon you
that the decision you're making today
has implications for future generations,
and also every other city in this country
because they're gonna point to Berkeley
and say they did it, why not?
Thank you.
AI scares me.
It scares me because it's so often frequently inaccurate
and it's so far reaching.
Do we really want to do this?
I am someone in the past who has supported cameras
For public safety reasons, I am someone
who has supported our police department,
who I think is an excellent police department,
but this is far beyond this.
This is about letting control and relinquishing
our control to what's going on right now
in our country that's being so engineered.
All these jurisdictions around the country can't be wrong,
that have decided this is not the tack we want to take right now at this particular
point in time. Maybe we can evaluate in the future, we evaluate but not right now. I also
think it would be good for Brian Hoffer of Secure Justice to appear before Council and
answer questions.
Thank you, Carol.
Okay, I think we have a couple of comments online.
Yes, okay, first speaker is.
Listed as virtual meetings should be able to unmute.
Uh, should be able to unmute.
Hello, my name is Wendy option.
With Berkeley friends meeting speaking again and.
Opposition to adoption of the policies tonight.
Some changes, we're told are made, but in reviewing the policy that's in the Council agenda packet compared with what was presented to the Police Accountability Board,
I don't see any changes from what the Public Safety Policy Committee has recommended that have any specificity.
We're talking about from your referral,
require the department to tighten a whole bunch
of different things and make them specific and enforceable.
And this language, it just doesn't do it.
No, I really, I really request that the current.
Thanks, Wendy.
Okay, next is Dushine.
Thank you. Yes, this is Daria Ruble again, the resident of District 1 and Council candidate in District 1.
I want to thank Mayor Ishii for her previous question about commercial districts that are combined with residential districts, like much of downtown.
I'm concerned about the impact that this technology, the surveillance could have on people going
about living their lives without an expectation of privacy that is guaranteed by the Constitution.
I also, that expectation of privacy, that right to live our lives without constant surveillance,
I think is an important right.
And as a previous speaker spoke about the impacts
of social media on younger generations,
I am a child and a young adult therapist,
you're going to see the impacts.
Next speaker, please.
Next speaker is Jordan.
Hi, my name is Jordan,
and I'm very concerned about the idea
of any kind of collation
of individual security cameras streams.
I think that it is so direly Orwellian
that if it weren't terrifying, it would be hilarious
because it actually is an absurd level of surveillance
and such an intense web of surveillance.
And I think that we're forgetting the fact
that there is inherent value in being able to exist
in public spaces without being constantly watched.
I really feel that we're losing track
of a really fundamental right that's,
It's a constitutional right, but it's also just
a right that bolsters our own humanity.
If we're really gonna make it so that
there's no more privacy,
there's no more waiting for some public without
being on camera and those cameras being integrated
into a giant web, come on, that's crazy.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Next is Maria Soule.
Yeah, thank you so much.
And this whole conversation presumes distrust in our inherent goodness and capacity to keep ourselves safe by preventing the causes of what we deem as criminal or potentially criminal activity.
just heard Trump today say any of us community activists are a greater threat than all the world war.
So you know I would rather cultivate and spend our time and attention on taking care of us
and helping each other than wasting this in this ocean of fear and threat. It's just inhumane.
Please, no, no, no, let's believe in us again, and come together and help ourselves and each other. Thank you.
Thanks Maria. Next is JL.
Hi, can you hear me? Yes. Thank you.
I also oppose adopting the policies described. I'm very concerned with the fact that facial recognition technology can be applied after the fact to the data that's being collected.
I echo the concerns of others that state that we don't have a choice to opt out of this as members of the public, even if individual.
You know, owners of their data do we don't, as a member of the public, we don't have choice just walking around.
And the fact that this data is recorded and kept means it can be searched later on.
The community has said over and over, we don't want to be surveilled.
And I'm not reassured by the so called safeguards that have been described.
And I am worried to think about what one of the other commenters said about the implications of this for future generations and our current generation and our current state of being in this country. Thank you.
Thank you.
And last speaker is a caller with a phone number ending in 211.
I definitely agree with many of the callers.
were in very sliding slope with this monstrosity in the White House.
What is your aim?
You know, the TVA, but you actually, you're going after everybody.
I talked about everybody.
About one and a half million Americans died from COVID-19.
Excuse me, COVID-19 in his first administration, but he denied it, you know.
And most of the countries had only about 10,000.
We're dealing with monstrosity.
Do not trust anybody.
So not we are in really dark time and the whole idea look at the global warming. It's getting so hot in Europe now
Those hundreds of people are dying every day. We are in a very very dark time. What can we do?
Is your intelligence?
I'll call you again
Thank you. Thanks. Thanks the public comment. Is that that's the last speaker. Okay. Thank you very much
All right. Are there any comments from council members starting with council member Humber, please?
Thank you, Madam Mayor. Wow, I didn't expect to be first. I want to thank Chief Lewis Arlo and
Captain Oakes in the Public Safety Subcommittee for all their really good work on this. I think
the recommendations of the Subcommittee were right on point and BPD has substantively addressed those
recommendations. That's clear to me. I feel that streamlining the process by which BPD can access
private video streams on a voluntary and regulated basis makes all the sense
in the world. This is a this is fundamentally what is already happening
with investigations taking place just in a less efficient way and in my view
this simplifies the process while also ensuring transparency and tightening the
audit process so we will be able to see how this works and we can correct any
issues over time. Thank you. Thank you very much. Any other comments from
council members. Yes. Okay. Council, sorry. Starting with Council Member Blackaby.
Something else is going to go first and then dropped out but that's fine. Yeah, I was ready.
Again, thanks to the colleagues. I also want to thank the public commenters. I've been
listening to everyone who's here tonight, everyone at the previous meeting because I think we're all
all trying to figure out how to balance, if we can, the feedback that we're hearing.
We understand that there are real privacy concerns here. I get it. I've spent some
time working in digital privacy myself, but balancing that against some of the real interests
and some of the benefits that do come from technology that helps scale a police department
where we can't hire enough officers to do the public safety that we want. Anyway, so
we're trying to navigate that balance, so I just want to be realistic about that. But
I appreciate the feedback and I know there are drawbacks and there are things that we
to consider and it's always very helpful to be reminded of that, to center that in
these discussions. So I just, again, you know, I want folks to know we are listening and
trying to process this alongside of the other responsibilities that I think we all feel here
to the community. I do want to thank Arlo, I want to thank Captain Oakes for being here tonight,
thank the staff, and again thank my colleagues on the Public Safety Policy Committee and the team
for being very responsive to all of the concerns that we've raised and the questions that we've
raised. I'm comfortable that, you know, we're in a good enough position to move the process
forward. We know this is not the last step, but it's an important next step in the process,
both for the RFP as well as for future consideration. And so with that, I'd like to
move that we adopt the resolution in the staff report.
Second.
Thank you very much.
Okay, moving on to,
I'm gonna have to skip council member Kisser-Wyant
until she comes back, but council member Leno Parra.
Thank you.
I'd like to thank BPD for putting this together.
I recognize the amount of work that has gone into it,
but I'm fundamentally unconvinced that these tools
are what our constituency wants and are without risk.
both of these technologies sell speed and convenience
as safety and I do not believe in them
as a way to improve our lives
and I seriously worry about further encroachment
on our civil liberties.
And I have no interest in aiding a fascist government
by expanding surveillance in our city.
So I oppose this item.
Thank you very much.
Council Member Keith.
I think I want to mostly join
with Council Member Humbert's comments.
So I won't go over that.
I just, I actually want to say
I was quiet during the questioning period,
but I do wanna say I was the third member
of the Public Safety Committee,
along with Council Member Blackaby and the Mayor.
And I just wanna say, thanks again,
we spent a lot of time with this item,
and I just wanna thank you again
for being responsive to our really extensive comments.
And I was very satisfied.
And one of the things that I was really concerned about
at that meeting was the restrictions around when
and how the live stream was gonna be viewable.
To me, that was a big distinction
because to me, and I can't remember,
Humbert already said this well, but there's nothing really new here.
There's no new surveillance. This surveillance exists.
It's existed for decades. We're just talking about giving our police
officers a faster and easier way to access it so they don't have to walk up
and down the street and go into every building while they're trying to solve
crime where there's minutes and hours count. I mean, this is the simplest, easiest, most
obvious technological benefit here. And I just can't emphasize the stuff. There is no
new surveillance here. So there's really nothing to be concerned about. I mean, you can be
concerned about the existing surveillance state. I get that. I understand people don't
like that, but that's not what we're talking about right now.
what we're doing here, we're
doing something different
than that. So that's why I'm
happy to support this motion.
I just want to say that the
live stream thing that that is
different. That's why I really
wanted to flesh that out and
make sure we understood very
clearly when and how officers
would be allowed to actually
tap into the live stream
because that is that's the one
thing that does not apply. What
I just said does not apply to
that is a new to capability
that we're giving the officers
I think that's, you know, I'm okay with it,
but there needs to be some really good restrictions
and safeguards.
And I think what was described here today satisfies me.
And that brings me to the last point I want to make,
which is a lot of the commenters talked about how they don't,
the safeguards aren't enough.
I heard that over and over again.
And, you know, we're talking,
we're not talking about federal government here.
We're talking about our own police
and how they're going to use this data
and whether or not they're going to obey the rules.
And, you know, we, well, I won't say we,
I trust our police to follow their own rules.
And you know, I have to because they,
we let them have guns and they, I mean,
if our police didn't follow their own rules,
we'd have a much bigger problem, but they do.
And we have, of course, very extensive police oversight
and there's auditing and all of that stuff is in place
because, you know, blind trust
maybe isn't the right thing here, but in general,
they do follow the rules.
We're making the rules here,
and I'm gonna assume that they're going to follow them,
and if they don't, we'll find out,
and there'll be consequences.
And that's the best any of us can do here.
And I think this is a very well-constructed proposal,
and I'm very happy to support it.
Thank you.
Council Member Casarwani.
Thank you very much, Madam Mayor.
Thank you for the presentation tonight.
I support this item.
Both the community video streams
and investigative software policies
were thoroughly vetted by the Public Safety Policy Committee
process.
I want to thank my colleagues for the important amendments
that were added through that process, which
I think strengthened this item even further.
And I also want to talk about the budget last week.
We heard somebody talk about the budget in public comment.
In that budget, we made some very hard decisions.
And we voted to eliminate 17 police positions.
They were vacant and if the sales tax measure doesn't pass in November, we could be looking at the loss of more public safety positions and that staffing situation that we're in, that is a big part of why I believe in equipping our police department with modern crime fighting tools.
I respect the opinions of others about desiring privacy.
I respect that view,
but I also have to consider the rights of victims
of violent crime.
And I believe strongly in accountability for victims.
When someone in our community is harmed,
I believe they deserve a police department
with the tools to solve the case.
And we've already seen how automated license plate reader
technology has helped solve crimes
that would have otherwise gone unsolved.
And I also wanna recognize the real guardrails
that you talked about, right?
The ban on facial recognition,
the stronger audit requirements,
and clear restrictions on immigration
and out-of-state enforcement.
So I'm confident that we have reached a balance
of enabling us to use technology
while balancing the importance of the liberties
that we all care about.
So I'm prepared to vote on this item.
Thank you very much.
Thank you, Vice President Trejo.
Thank you, Madam Mayor.
I want to provide a glimpse into
and walk you through the decision making that I end.
I think all of my colleagues are weighing
when issues like this come before us.
On the one hand, we hear from constituents
who are legitimately concerned with being watched
and have fears associated with surveillance.
And I can certainly understand those fears
on a very personal level.
As my family and I fled a former country that, at the time,
was part of a system that watched its citizens
and there were consequences for any real
or perceived deviation from the state.
Those concerns are real
and they're exactly why any technology we consider
must come with strong guardrails, transparency,
oversight and accountability.
On the other hand, I continuously hear stories
Like the one I have heard from several of my constituents
who unfortunately were attacked and beaten on the street
and without cameras on the houses in their neighborhood,
they would not have had any recourse at all.
Several times now I've also visited
and talked to business owners after their small business
have been, businesses have been burglarized.
I had to do that with five businesses in my district after a string of burglaries.
I was on the scene later that day with information about damage mitigation relief, which I'm
so glad we funded, but there is, you know, even that few hundred bucks is serious money
for them and their employees, not to mention the emotional toll that it takes to see your
things broken and stolen and have to invest time and money, your hard-earned time and
money and find the energy to rebuild sometimes over and over again.
And many of these owners are immigrants themselves and might not want to testify publicly.
I also think about our city's police leadership.
We are fortunate to have leaders who understand that public safety and accountability must
go hand in hand, and that any use of technology must be accompanied by transparency, oversight,
and respect for civil liberties.
Having worked with the mayor and others of my colleagues on a strong set of guardrails
for surveillance technologies,
which were approved by the council in May.
I believe the item before us is responsive
to everything that, at least at the time,
we directed staff to look at.
With that said, a few new questions have come up for me,
and I'm working closely with staff to track them down.
While I won't be able to get those answers tonight,
should the site and move forward,
that collaboration will continue.
Whatever the outcome is tonight and whatever my vote ends up being, in no way reflects
any feelings other than deep appreciation and respect to BPD leadership and staff.
I've been nothing but impressed and appreciative of the professionalism, thoroughness and transparency
that RPD is approaching this process with.
We still have several decision points ahead of us before any contract is voted on and
implemented.
I will continue to do my research.
I will continue to listen to District 4 neighbors whom I have the privilege to serve.
Thank you for keeping me informed, providing me with a multitude of perspectives, and sharing
your lived experiences with me.
Thank you.
Thank you, Council Members.
I already made comments essentially at the beginning,
but I do wanna thank you all so much.
I know there was a comment made earlier,
but you did a lot of work.
And so there were 11 points here
from the Public Safety Policy Committee.
I think like 10 of those were from my comments and questions.
So I know our staff did an analysis and looked through,
which is why we asked that follow-up question.
And then just in the future,
we'd love to see more information,
like more clearly about that.
I think that would be helpful for folks.
But I do really appreciate all the work that you did put into this and your patience and
answering my millions and millions of questions.
And so I do want to move us forward.
I think we actually have already someone make the motion.
So.
Can you make it?
That's what I thought.
Okay.
All right, so let's take the role, please.
to approve to adopt the resolution accepting the surveillance acquisition
report and surveillance use policy for community video streams and surveillance
acquisition report and surveillance use policy for investigative software on the
motion councilmember Kester wanting yes tap one yes or it is absent regab path
the motion carries. Thank you.
Yes. Mayor Yishii? Yes. Vice Mayor Trigum? Abstain. Motion carries. Thank you very much. Okay so we next. Is there any public comment for items not listed on the agenda? So four months ago Amber
Woodson who I believe most of you are familiar with was told if you find
housing will make it happen. And I'm sure the person who told her that the
worker had the best of intentions. Amber has been homeless on the streets
living in RV or otherwise homeless for 28 years since she was 16 years old. She
She took this literally, she actually went out and secured housing, has a landlord who
wants her, thinking that she would get a subsidy.
Both that landlord and her have relentlessly trying to identify something.
This landlord wants her, she knows her as a person who has been reliable and seeing
that another tenant pays rent, she hasn't been able to get anything.
and she even went out and had an offer for a job to take on part-time thinking she was going to
be in an apartment. This is four months ago. She's now. Thank you. Thank you, Carol. Anyone
online for public comment for items not listed on the agenda? Two hands raised. First item,
first caller, phone number ending in 211. With the subject you're talking about, I'd like to
bring a great memory of our great police chief, Dutch Butler. He was a great man. He was a great
one of the best police chief in Berkeley. He lived my life, my favorite life, after he had
two of our two million dollar measurement from our San Francisco store. The other thing I like to say
we really are living in very dark time and I also like everybody please look online for
Lawrence Hollow Museum, Lawrence Hollow Museum about that video review. It's about 10 minutes
we to mother of nuclear physics Samira Musa the Egyptian mother of nuclear physics and if they
did that to her they also did that to hundreds of nuclear scientists and that's why you see Lawrence
lab offices only have one person because they're afraid that they would be assassinated have a
good night look forward to better Berkeley and do give me a call please do and do it we're definitely
Moving to new place very soon help us do that.
Have a good night. Thank you. Next is JL.
Hi, can you hear me? Yes.
Thank you. I don't know if this was on the agenda. I don't think I saw it, but I'd read recently that
there's that the city is looking to increase parking fees or days and moving and move to a
cashless parking system. I oppose increasing the fees and the days, but I vehemently propose
switching to some kind of cashless system where you need an app in order to park.
That's not easy for a lot of people to navigate and a lot of people may not be able to have that
capability and to take that away from them for the simple act of wanting to park on the street
somewhere. I think we should keep the whatever machines are in place that allow people to pay
with cash or credit cards and we should not be moving to a solely app-based payment system.
Thank you. Just to be clear, we did vote on that and you can still pay with a credit card.
They're also trying to increase the ability to pay with other types of cards in case people can't
have bank accounts. So just to address that. Okay, I know we have another comment from Maria.
Maria Sol. Yes and thank you again because you know I just adored Berkeley. I moved myself
from across the country to come here because it's such a beacon of light and love and equity and
peace and justice and equality and creativity minds brilliant with hearts. I just want to start
at the basic hope, which is if we value ourselves in each other, if we participate as a community,
we can create things that prevent harm and create solutions without being dominated,
controlled and buried please remember who we are we can do this thank you thanks Maria
that's it okay is there a motion to adjourn
second can we take the role in that please okay to adjourn the meeting councilmember kesser
yes. Taplin yes. Tregga. Aye. O'Keeffe. Yes. Wackabee. Yes. Unapara. Yes. Humber. Yes. And
Mayor Ichi. Yes. Okay meeting is adjourned. Meeting adjourned. Thanks everyone.