Good morning and welcome to the Rules and Legislation Committee of Thursday, January 22, 2026.
I will go over speaker card instructions before calling roll.
If you would like to speak on any item on this agenda, please fill out a speaker's card before the item is called,
or 10 minutes after the start of this meeting. This meeting was called to order at 10.30 a.m.
So your last opportunity to turn into speaker's card will be 10.40 a.m. or before the item is called.
you're looking to turn in an online speaker card that time has passed as
they were due 24 hours before the start of this meeting on roll our council
members Brown present councilmember 5 is excused councilmember Rama Chandra
present and chair Jenkins present only three members present one excuse 5 do
you have any announcements before we move on with the agenda no let's follow
process. Calling item to approve the draft minutes from the committee meeting
of January 8th, 2026. Move approval. Second. There was a motion by Councilmember Brown,
seconded by Councilmember Fyfe to accept the minutes. Councilmember Brown, aye. Councilmember Fyfe is
excused. Councilmember Ramachandran, aye. And Chair Jenkins, aye. Motion passes with a vote. I'm sorry, you do. You do have
speakers on this item miss assada alabala and blare beakman
so on on the occasion of january the eighth in rules
you had the mou for cal tran uh i think when items come to you for approval to
committee there needs to be a digesting of if
sufficient uh information is being pursued
In order to make a final decision. So with this item
There was no information about what pacific areas are being targeted
There was no information about what staff would be used. Uh, they they said it would be over time
Staff being used and so forth. So I think this body needs to look into whether or not the reports
Allow for where's the clock?
Okay, thank you. Okay, the item that had the delinquent business tax. I think that item cannot
be pursued unless you look at the number of items, a number of businesses that are closing monthly,
and there is a report that does exist from the city on that before you make any decision.
The selection panel nomination for police commission, that item should have gone to
committee. It is such an intense item to send it straight to council with all the time-consuming
issues that were presented. It needed to go to committee. Early care that was on the agenda,
that item for funding, the funding would have started in June of 2025 and someone should have
questioned how that was possible. Lastly, the community police and advisory board annual report
should include the $50,000 that is being contributed to them from PG&E with no indication on how
the advisory neighborhood committees can spend that money.
That each neighborhood committee is getting $1,000 and with no direction on how the money
is being spent.
Thank you, Ms. Ollabala, I do not see Mr. Beekman in the Zoom queue.
I'll entertain a motion.
So moved.
Second.
all those in favor say aye.
All those in favor say aye.
Aye.
On the minutes there was a motion by Councilmember
Rama Chandra and second by Councilmember Brown to approve
the minutes from January 8th, 2026.
Councilmember Brown.
Aye.
Councilmember Fife is excused.
Councilmember Rama Chandra.
Aye.
And Chair Jenkins.
Aye.
Motion passes with a vote of three ayes, one excuse to Fife.
I don't 3.1 adopt the resolution affirming the appointment of Jen Oakley to the Commission on homelessness on the February 3rd
City Council agenda on consent
and we'll need a rule 24 for this going straight to
Council and just knowing this is also coming from the mayor's office and not the city administrator's office
okay, so
customarily these
appointments go straight to
council
Going to item 3.2. Also from the office of the mayor a resolution affirming the mayor's appointment of
Jati Singh and solemn Sharif for the Cultural Affairs Commission
This is asked to go before the February 3rd City Council agenda on consent
These items typically go straight to consent
Going to item 3.3 a resolution affirming the mayor's appointment of Kevin Beacham Sharon Tipton
Gwendolyn not Gwendolyn Thomas Knight
Carlette Garrett Leslie Smith and Ronda Ramirez as members of the Commission on Aging
This is asked to go before the February 3rd City Council agenda on consent these items typically go straight to consent
thank you going to item 3.4 a
Resolution authorizing the city administrator to appropriate funds levied from the Paramedic Services Act of 1997
Measure in and measure in in in an amount not to exceed three million three hundred ninety eight dollars
I'm sorry three hundred ninety eight thousand one hundred and fourteen dollars and twenty six cents
Enter to a cooperative agreement with strike or sales LLC for the purchase of maintenance lease and repair of advanced life support equipment
for a total amount not to exceed
six hundred seventy nine thousand six hundred twenty two dollars in eighty five cents in waving the advertising and
competitive bidding process requirements and local business small business enterprise program provisions
for proposed cooperative agreement. This is asked to go before the
February 3rd City Council agenda on consent. Oh
This is we knew from the city administrators office staff is requesting that this item be withdrawn
So noted. Thank you going to item 3.5 a resolution authorizing and directing the city count
Excuse me the city attorney to compromise and settle the case of Tiffany nalt
versus milk the Malcolm and and plant
Superior case court number two four cv zero six nine one three four by payment in the amount of seventy five thousand dollars
This was for a dangerous condition
Asoka before the February 3rd City Council agenda on consent
And council decisions regarding settlement are customarily sent directly to council
Going to item 3.6 sub resolution authorizing directing the city attorney to settle the case of State Farm insurance
Versus the city of Oakland Alameda County Superior Court case number 2 4 CV 0 7 1 2 4 6
Any amount of $30,000 and 0 cents for a dangerous condition is also asked to go before this
February 3rd City Council agenda on consent
And the same rent rule 24 statement. It's customary for council decisions on settlements to go directly to Council
item 3.7 a resolution author authorizing and directing the city attorney to settle the case of
Gasvani Marquez and here I'm Hernandez versus the city of Oakland
timing win
Alameda County Superior Court case number 2 to CV 0 to 4 1 4 6 in the amount of
$25,000 in no sense for Oakland Police Department negligence
This is also asked to go before the February 3rd City Council agenda on consent
And this is also a settlement decision that customarily goes directly to council. That's the rule 24 statement
Thank you. I don't 3.8 a resolution in support of California Assembly bill
1537 which would prohibit California peace officers from working or volunteering for any entity that engages in immigration
enforcement established failure to comply with that restriction as grounds
for decertification as a peace officer require peace officers to report any
secondary employment related to immigration enforcement and require that
records related to secondary employment of peace officers be public records this
is asked to go before the February 3rd City Council agenda on consent we also
need a rule 24 for this item going directly to council and so for any
advisory resolutions those can be scheduled straight to council per rules
of procedure going to item 3.9 a resolution authorizing the city
administrator to enter into a professional services agreement with
image trend LLC to replace the Oakland Fire Department's record management
system with a national emergency response information
system, compliant artificial intelligence powered fire and
EMS RMS software for a total amount of $1,06,659 for the
term beginning January 1, 2026 through December 31, 2028, and
extend the agreement for up to two years and an amount not to
exceed three hundred and sixty two thousand five hundred eighty four
dollars without return returning to City Council for a total contract amount not
to exceed one million three hundred and sixty nine thousand two hundred and
forty three dollars on the February 10th Public Safety Committee agenda and that
concludes all of your items for new scheduling and you do have two speakers
on this item public speakers as I call your name please approach the podium in
If I could do any order.
Through the chair to Miss Oliver, I was waiting for him to tell me to call the public speakers as per the process.
Mrs. Oliver and Blair Beekman.
Okay, thank you Madam Clerk.
The appointment to the homeless commission has to deal,
somebody has to deal with the process of how the appointments
or come to a conclusion.
So the mayor, it's been changed that the mayor
appoints these persons based on what qualifications.
Based on what qualifications has to be presented.
A resume has to be presented to you to conclude
because you're very concerned about the process.
You also have to delve into the issue of
that body hasn't met since September of 2025.
You also have to delve into, at that point in time, I'm going to bring it up, survey that's going on today is not an accurate count.
It's a count that undercounts who is out here homeless, and we need to have some form of an accurate count in place.
So, the process that you have for the item that is identified as items 3.8 support of
this resolution, now you're looking at immigration and having said that related to your officers,
why didn't you take up the issue of your officers who are being assigned to Santa Clara as off
duty officers and off duties officers are considered civilians and you won't take up
that mandate of the general order of the Oakland Police Department.
You also have item 39 which states a very important item about equipment in place for
our fire department, but you keep avoiding there is no process for
evacuating the children from Skyline High School. So at the meeting the other
day of OUSD, they spoke, Mr. Jenkins, how you were at the meeting very concerned
about the gun violence and wanting to do something. What about the evacuation of
the children in case there is a fire? That doesn't exist. Let's have a process
that's consistent for every level of public safety
at Skyline High School, okay?
Lastly, having to do with immigration
that was identified in item 3.3 of concern,
you have to understand that you have many,
you are a sanctuary state, but they have many counties
and cities that are not sanctuary cities.
So you have to look at that,
and in the case of Fremont, Haywood, Richmond,
I'm sorry, not Richmond, Piedmont,
Livermore, and Dublin, they're not sanctuary cities.
And so if you are in Alameda, Dublin is in Alameda.
So what is your position on cities that are not?
Sanctuary cities or sanctuary counties.
They have counties.
Huntington Beach, Oroville, Riverside, Orange County,
not sanctuary.
Thank you, Ms. Olivelle, for your comments
moving to Mr. Beekman.
Mr. Beekman, please unmute yourself
and begin your comments.
Hi, Mr. Beekman.
I mainly wanted to speak only on one item today, 3.8,
so I will not be taking the whole three minutes.
I just wanted to simply offer a thank you
for your work on this item.
any ways that we can work at the local level
to address and limit federal overreach
on these ICE issues right now at this time
is incredibly important and decent and human.
Thank you.
Good luck in your continued good work.
I know at the county level,
Supervisor Nicky Fortunato-Bass is working on ways
that ICE agents cannot enter into public spaces if possible.
words to that effect. San Jose and Santa Clara County have been doing some awesome
work in that way also. I wanted to quickly offer with my remaining 24
seconds that anyways that we can be creating better oversight to fully make
sure that when agents come in they are practicing de-escalation and
demilitarization in their process. That has to be key if they're going to be
working in our cities you know how we work. It's hopeful they won't work at
all but if they do let's make good ass thank you thank you mr. Beekman and
that concludes your speakers for item 3 okay so noting 3.1 will be changed from
the city administrators office to the mayor's office and 3.4 being
withdrawn I'll entertain a motion so moved second on the motion by council
member Rama Chandra and second by councilmember Brown to adopt item 3 as
amended councilmember Brown aye councilmember Ramachandran aye chair
Jenkins aye motion passes with a vote of three ayes and one excuse five going to
item for a review of the draft agendas pending with City Council and committee
meetings before you rather agendas for the meetings for the week of January 27th
including the counts canceled CED and public safety noting a special public
safety meeting in the place of the cancellation as well as your draft city
council enrolls agenda. Anything from the administration? Nothing from the
administration at this time. Wow, beautiful. All right. Let's go to
public speakers. As I call your name please approach the podium in any order.
Miss Asada Olabala and Mr. Beekman. And Rajni Mandal. I'm asking that the item of
sanctuary city be reconsidered that you state that you are a city you are not a
sanctuary city for criminals okay that Oakland is a non sanctuary city for
criminals ethics Commission you need to put into scheduling that this ethic
permissions and ad hoc meetings are not being publicly noticed that the charter
reform working group is meeting in secret some kind of explanation if that's true or not the
city administrator's annual report on his spending up to two hundred and fifty thousand dollars has
not been reported on since 2023 that report should come forward housing authorities report
on public housing including the number of section eight vouchers that have been converted to mortgage
payments. A report on the 2025 business closure, a report on mutual aid in cities that are
not sanctuary cities like Dublin, Pleasanton, and Livermore. A report on what grand, what
off-duty police officers are working in jurisdictions where they do not have sanctuary status.
From 2027 to 2019, you had 35,000 homes lost to foreclosure.
We need a report of the number of homes lost to foreclosure from 2020 to 2025.
Report on the impact of gentrification and sanctuary city status on African Americans'
economic and housing concerns.
A report on city funding for outreach for applying for police and other commissions.
How much money you're willing to spend for outreach.
A report on why Oakland was not included in the state grant of $419 million for homelessness.
A report on outstanding invoices.
Thank you, Mr. Olibala.
Your time is up.
Rajne Mundell, District 4.
I'll wait for the timer.
I'm speaking on MACRO to raise a procedural request, not a position on the program itself.
MACRO is subject to biannual reporting to Council and the last formal report to the
Public Safety Committee was in May of 2025.
Since then, the program has continued to operate and expand, but Council has not received a
scheduled comprehensive update.
Regular reporting is especially important for programs that operate across departments
and involve public safety response, staffing models, and service handoffs.
Without timely reports, Council doesn't have a consistent opportunity to review performance,
capacity, outcomes, or implementation challenges.
So therefore requesting that Council formally agendize the overdue biannual macro report
for the Public Safety Committee so there is a clear public record and an opportunity for
structured oversight.
The request is not about approving or opposing macros, it's just about ensuring that existing
reporting commitments are met and that Council oversight keeps pace with program operations.
And so this is why role clarity and sequencing matter.
program reporting like macro and for the oversight structures created to monitor
how public safety funds are planned allocated and evaluated thank you thank
you for your comments moving to the zoom speaker Blair Beekman please unmute
yourself and begin your comments. Thank you, Blair Beekman. I wanted to comment on the
upcoming special public safety committee meeting at the end of January you have a
really interesting item on the future of neighborhood community policing. Good
luck with the subject matter. It's kind of new to me. I reviewed the layout how
you want to be working. It's an awesome chart process where you have different
neighborhood community groups working I guess on neighborhood issues. The place
that you can bring your neighborhood concerns and thank you for that. You even
have something akin to block parent program. So the 50s and 60s it sounds like, you know,
where people can go and talk to someone in the neighborhood if they need some sort of
help. So good luck with this program. It sounds really interesting and hopeful. I was really
hopeful that our previous police review board commission persons could be a good lead and
a good example of best practices, how to develop our future of policing and community. And
And I hope they can still be viable a candidate in your list of upcoming 13 nominations.
I hope they can still be considered.
Good luck in those efforts.
Thanks a lot for this side.
Thank you.
Thank you.
That was the last speaker.
Thank you all.
Letting a motion.
Move approval.
Second.
On the motion by councilmember Brown, seconded by councilmember Ramachandran, to approve item
four.
Councilmember Brown.
Aye.
The motion passes with a vote of three ayes one excuse councilmember five going to open forum as a car your name
Please approach the podium in any order please state your name for the record before beginning mrs. Ida ola Bala Blair Beekman and
Rajni my dog
One of the reports we need to have is the seven hundred thousand dollars that were supposed to come from several cities to support Oakland
support Oakland roots with the F.I.F.A. and you ended up paying the whole $700,000.
So we need to find out why that happened.
I want to report last night that the ethics commission appointed two members to their
commission.
The charter allows them to self-select their members, self-select, and they had a pool
of eight candidates who applied.
In the second round, five were chosen to move on.
One was eliminated as an appointee by the mayor.
So four people were there last night to be considered
for appointment to the Ethics Commission.
And they did a good job of interviewing.
They did all the candidates who were extremely qualified.
Nothing against that.
But the process that allows them to self-appoint,
The process of a very limited candidate pool is what you're saying you need to say.
See, you need to see a more open process with more diversity of candidates, blah, blah, blah, blah.
So that didn't happen last night.
And so are you going to change the charter?
No. You're not going to change the charter.
So the process that you have now says that the Oakland Police Commission needs
to have a broader look at and that means that the two candidates, Mr. Farmer and Mr. Costa,
it's not because of them, it's because you didn't have a greater pool of candidates.
So no matter who was brought to the council last Tuesday, it could have been Jane and
Mackey. You would have said no because the process wasn't what you wanted to be. So I'm
I'm gonna go and tell them tonight, it's not about you.
And I'm gonna explain to them what happened
with the ethics commission
so they can feel good about themselves,
knowing that we have this diversity.
The Mayor.
Rajni Mandal, District 4.
I'm speaking on the OFD agenda item
to raise a procedural issue under Measure NN,
not a policy position.
Measure NN establishes the Oakland Public Safety Planning
and Oversight Commission, OPSPOC,
as a planning, monitoring, and advisory body,
while reserving appropriation and authorization of funds
the City Council. At the last OpSpock meeting, the Chair stated that City
Attorney guidance indicates measure and expenditures for the next few fiscal
years were already set, and that OpSpock's four-year strategic plan will take
effect later. If that's the case, it raises an importance governance question.
What role OpSpock is intended to play with respect to near-term funding
decisions that are already before Council. In recent OpSpock materials, some
strategic planning documents go beyond high level goals and metrics, and instead describes
specific service approaches, operational concepts, and resource assumptions.
When those materials are not tied to department-initiated proposals and cannot take effect for several
years, it becomes unclear whether OSPOC is reviewing implementation or shaping programs
without authority.
This is not a comment on OSPOC's intent or value.
It's a request for process clarity.
For Measure NN to function as designed, Council should clarify on the record how OSFOC planning,
departmental program origination, and Council appropriations are meant to interact, particularly
during this interim period before the first four-year plan takes effect.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Moving to our Zoom speaker, Mr. Blair Beekman.
Please unmute yourself and begin your comments.
Hi, Blair Beekman.
Thanks a lot for this item.
Well, open forum so thank you for our open forum. Thank you.
Um, yeah, I, I wanted to continue just a few words that I feel that the previous police commissioners, they, they made a very much of a commitment to be listening more to all voices of the community.
The same as many have, and I know you've been a big push that you feel there needs to be a more equal process of dialogue of the community.
man, I've been hoping this past year has been enough and you guys are still pushing it and I wish you could
pull back a bit and
Good luck in those efforts to try to and realize that these are two really good commissioners who have good ideas
I think for the most part and I'm hopeful what they can be
What they can accomplish and I think they head us toward a good direction and understanding best practices
So I hope they can be considered still
Good luck in our efforts with that.
Good luck that we can be really addressing the Trump administration.
We have just been developing really good practices here in Oakland and the Bay Area to address
crime.
It's a lot more than technology.
I mean, we're applying really good practices.
We got to share that with other cities around the country and with the federal administration
and they have to begin to really listen and offer dialogue and conversation towards those
good goals, and the end is how to solve our issues. Their federal ice things are
just abhorrent, and we have to be clear on that, and I'm really hoping that they
don't get this continual free pass to do this stuff, and we have to really make a
stand, and I think we can. Good luck how we can do that in the coming year. Thank
you. Thank you. This meeting's adjourned.