Good morning and welcome to the Public Works
and Transportation Committee meeting of today.
Today's March 24th on Tuesday.
The time is now 11.34 AM and this meeting has come to order.
Before taking roll, I will provide instructions
on how to submit a speaker's card for items on this agenda.
If you are here with us in chambers
and you would like to submit a speaker's card,
please fill one out and turn it to a clerk representative,
my left, your right, before the item is read into record.
online speaker requests were due 24 hours
prior to this meeting.
This meeting came to order at 11.34 a.m.
Speaker requests will no longer be accepted
10 minutes after the meeting has began
making that time 11.44 a.m.
With that, we will now proceed to take roll.
Council Member Gallo.
Present.
Thank you, Council Member Houston.
Present.
Thank you, Council Member Wong.
Present.
Chair Unger?
Here.
We do have four members present,
and before we begin, Chair,
do you have any announcements for us today?
Thank you, thanks to everyone for being here.
We got a bunch of different items.
We're gonna take things out of order.
We're gonna go four, five, seven, eight, six, three.
There's gonna be a lot of trash talk today,
so I appreciate everyone being here for that,
And it's a good thing.
Thank you for your announcements.
Please noting that the agenda will go in order.
Item four, item five, item seven,
item eight, item six and item three
will proceed after item two.
Moving to our first item of the day is approval
of the draft minutes for the committee on March 10th, 2026.
And you do not have any speakers for this item.
All right, do we have a motion?
There is a motion made by Council Member Gallo,
seconded by Council Member Houston
to accept the draft minutes of the committee meeting
on March 10th, 2026, as is on roll.
Council Member Gallo.
Aye.
Thank you, Council Member Houston.
Aye.
Council Member Wong.
Aye.
And Chair Unger.
Aye.
This motion passes with four ayes
to accept the draft minutes of the committee meeting
held on March 10th, 2026, as is moving to item two.
Determination is schedule of outstanding committee items also known as your pending list and you do not have any speakers
Okay, do we have a motion for the pending list or anything from anything from staff first or council members?
Okay
Yeah, okay. What I'd like to do is request that there are public works department
Bring back to this council
Not only the staffing level but also the vehicles that are available to do the job on the streets
Staffing levels, I'm not talking about just those that pick up the trash, but those that
service our trucks.
Right now, if you go to a Coliseum way or you go to the other public works yard, you're
going to see vehicle after vehicle, 30, 40, 60 vehicles that should be working are not
in operation because we're sure it's still 10 mechanics within our service area.
So I'd like to get our administration to come back and provide a vehicle report and staffing
report for public works at the next City Council meeting.
And we can talk all about illegal dumping, but if I don't have the people to do the job
it's not going to get done.
So anyway, so I want to make sure that we get that information back from administration.
Okay, do we have a motion for the pending list?
move. Thank you have a motion made by Councilmember Gallo seconded by Councilmember Wong to accept
determination of outstanding committee items as is on roll. Councilmember Gallo aye. Councilmember
Houston aye. Councilmember Wong aye. And Chair Unger aye. This motion does pass with four ayes to
accept determination to schedule outstanding committee items as is. Moving to our first item
the day is item four. Okay, item four. And at 1138 due to the presence of
councilmember Brown, a quorum of the full council has been noted. I just need a
motion. I would like to adjourn into a full council meeting with councilmember
Brown on Zoom. Do we have a second? Thank you. We have a motion made by Chair
Unger, seconded by councilmember Houston, to adjourn the meeting of the Public
works in transportation meeting and to convene into a special
meeting on the full council at 11 39 a.m. on roll council
member Gallo, aye council member Houston, aye council member
Wong, aye.
And chair Unger, aye.
All right the motion passes with four ayes.
Item four let me read the item into record please.
Receive information report for the bicycle list
and pedestrian advisory commission 25 activities
and you do have one speaker.
All right, let's hear from our BPAC, please.
Go for it.
Testing, all right.
Let me start my clock here.
Good morning, Council members, Chair Unger,
and committee members.
My name is David Ralston.
I am the immediate past chair
of the bicyclist and pedestrian advisory commission.
I'm very pleased to be able to present
our annual report to the city council
as per our role on our commission.
I'm also accompanied here by several
of our other BPAC commissioners, Commissioner Schmidt,
and co-chair of one of our committees, Kevin Daley,
want to acknowledge them.
I'll try to be as succinct as possible,
because I know you have many other items.
For this report, I will give you a quick overview
of the BPAC, our year's work and successes,
and then focus on our seven key recommendations,
highlighting takeaways on how you all,
in your leadership role can help support this work.
First I wish to acknowledge with gratitude and appreciation
the tremendous work and dedication of Oak Dot staff.
I think we've got to see most of the staff over the year.
And I see Director Rowan and Assistant Director Weir,
as well as Jason Patton and Noel and Pierre,
thank you very much for your support
in facilitating our meetings.
I cannot reiterate enough how happy the BPAC
is to see Oak Dot continuing to build their staff
of talented transportation professionals.
Thank you, guys.
We also want to acknowledge the work
that you as council members have done in your district
and the policy decisions which have
made a difference for a safer, more accessible, and more
connected future to Oakland.
And finally, I also want to especially thank and acknowledge
to support and tireless work of our advocacy community,
such as Bike East Bay,
Traffic and Violence Rapid Response,
Walk Oakland, Bike Oakland,
and Scraper Bikes and others
who have shown up and participated as volunteers
in many of our committees.
We've had a productive and successful 2025,
but we couldn't have done it without you.
Okay, first of all, real quickly, who we are,
the BPAC has just completed its 11th year
as a city commission,
and 2025 marked the 30th anniversary
of the very first BPAC meeting.
Our nine-member commission, we meet in person
on the third Thursday of each month.
Unfortunately, we cannot do hybrid,
though we would love to get hybrid
so we can get more people involved.
As City Council members, you are always invited
to come to our meetings and Chair Unger has been
and is the official liaison to this committee.
For those who don't know, the BPAC has formally established
to provide input to the Department of Transportation
regarding bicyclists and pedestrian policies and projects.
We serve as a two-way conduit of information
between the community and interested public
and city staff and decision-makers.
We work as a bridge of sorts between the often nuanced
and technical wonky infrastructure policy details
and impacts that they may have on the lived experience
of people on the ground, especially those living
in high injury and historically underserved areas.
We strive to be strong advocates for cycling,
pedestrian safety to not only hold the city accountable, but also to hold all of us accountable
to a shared goal of accessible, interconnected, walkable and bike friendly city.
So let me highlight briefly some of our collective successes for 2025, which have been really
quite remarkable and a testament to our collective power.
Not on this list, I would like to highlight our expanding community engagement efforts.
We expanded our footprint in Oakland holding regular meetings at the 81st Branch Library
in Deep East and the Josie de la Cruz Carmen del Flores Rec Center in Fruitvale in addition
to participating in several neighborhood general plan walkabouts in the San Antonio District,
West Oakland, excuse me, and Melrose District.
All told in our meetings, we received 53 open forum comments made by 20 different individuals,
which is the growth of engagement over the last several years.
We supported Oak Dot by writing advocacy letters on seven infrastructure grant proposals, helping
to develop stronger plans for equity-driven transportation planning major street redesign
projects.
We support and celebrate the lifesaving, quick-build interventions, such as the dramatic improvements
On International Boulevard, we supported and celebrate the completion of the long-awaited
San Diego Creek Greenway in East Oakland.
We actively worked to make key bike-ped recommendations to the city general plan update.
And we led productive interagency discussions with Caltrans, AC Transit, MTC, and Oakland
Fire Department.
And finally, we celebrated the coordinated actions on street speed reduction enforcement
technologies that do not require police intervention,
which can often cause unintended reactions, chases,
and so forth, and the speed limit policy work of Oak Dot,
including better data collection.
OK, next, let me get into the meat of this report.
I want to summarize our seven key recommendations for you
all and ask that you carefully consider
as part of your legislative policy and budget oversight
capacity.
Number one
advocate a citywide greenway network in the city general plan update
This map that you see before you boldly shows
a robust
Interconnected dedicated network or protected bike ped greenway pass what this can look like where every neighborhood in the flatlands
It's within one-half mile of these often naturalized tree line linear park like
corridors that can incentivize
comfortable, restorative, active transit, walking,
connectivity to transit, jobs, and open space resources.
Oakland likes to emphasize our great sustainability
achievements, but in truth, we lag
behind other cities such as Minneapolis, New York City,
or even San Francisco in these regards.
And planning and implementing this type
of game changing comprehensive green infrastructure.
The BPAC has been working with the city planning staff, who
I also must truly commend for their forward thinking openness
and effort to pull in our environmental justice
element, our equity and climate action plan,
and neighborhood plans into the general update
as part of the loot, Oscar, and infrastructure element.
This right here gives you some ideas
of what this vision can look like.
Perhaps some would say it's a little bit grandiose,
raises questions of viability,
but this is really about a 20 year vision
to help achieve a meaningful mode shift,
reduced vehicle mile traveled in our city.
And already many of these segments that I show on this map
are already being realized in part
with active neighborhood organizations
where reflect goals that have been thoroughly
and consistently advocated in prior general plans.
So here is visually what this can look like,
connecting topographical features of our creeks,
flowing from the hills to the bay,
and opportunities for cross-town parkways,
bike boulevards, bike highways, and trails.
So I just want to shout out here,
you see here San D'Angelo Creek Greenway,
which just completed on the left.
You see the Sossel Creek,
You see the Cortland Creek Park, which was just completed,
Bancroft Avenue median, the Laurel-Maxwell Park to Mills
project, and we even have opportunities for perhaps using
gondolas as they do in Columbia and elsewhere.
Imagine getting access from Northeastern Mills and the 580
up to Merritt College and Campus Drive.
Recommendation number two, stopping fatal injurious traffic
crashes, especially along the high injury corridors.
For the people who died on Oakland streets
walking or biking last year,
they are not simply to be seen
as collateral damage to our car culture.
Each meeting, we explicitly call out the names of those
who suffered fatal injuries the prior month.
We recognize and often discuss the circumstances
of these often preventable tragedies
that have deep and lasting impacts
on Oakland family and communities
and keeps us anchored in why we do this.
And thankfully, again, to all of our work,
these numbers have been going down.
We saw an amazing heartening reduction from 2024
down to a near five year low of 11 fatalities in 2025.
Eight pedestrians and three bicyclists.
But of course we must do more
and keep moving this trend line downward.
As you all know, in the statistics,
we know black Oaklanders are two to three times likely
to be victims of traffic violence.
30% of streets in the majority of Asian census tracks
are city high injury networked,
the highest percentage of any ethnicity.
Older Oaklanders are two times likely to be killed in crash
and most occur while walking, like trying to cross streets.
Traffic violence is widespread
for those who wish to bike in the hills,
to the flatlands, trying to cross busy streets,
to get to bus stop or just get home,
or those wishing to take the children on a Sunday ride
around the lake to the park.
Dangerous streets not only threaten our community's health
safety and undermined our quality of life but they also ultimately lead people to less frequently
try to walk or bike causing anxiety in many people simply using public spaces.
And there's a map of the City High Injury Network which you all should be familiar with.
Am I doing on time? Let's see. Okay. Number four, number three, implementing immediate
Traffic calming interventions
About how much more time do you need? Oh five minutes. Okay. Let's try to keep it to that. All right. Thank you
here we
Highlight efforts to create slow streets and the ongoing efforts to provide a safe Oakland Street framework
Facilitating traffic calming in a shorter quick-build timeline than larger streetscape projects interventions include high visibility crosswalks flex posts speed humps
Raise crosswalks center line hardening and traffic circles
Along with the proposed city Greenway slow slow streets from a neighborhood based network for human power movement and play and the BPAC has been
Advocating that such slow streets and quick build interventions be community driven initiated and supported in Oakland's neighborhoods most in need
For example slow street designs can be part of reinvigorated neighborhood level planning work with existing entities like neighborhood councils
And we also want to emphasize
speaks to need for city
a bench of pre-approved local small contractors
to help install such neighborhood initiated
quick build projects.
Number four, prioritize building complete streets.
This is pretty self-evident in what we really see
very visibly transforming much of our key streets,
make them equally accessible, attractive,
and comfortable for pedestrians, bicyclists,
children, seniors, as well as transit riders
and slow automobile traffic.
You see Lake Merritt and you see Fruitvale Live gap closure projects.
Number five, we want to recognize both traffic safety and emergency response safety.
This is an active policy area for the BPAC that has come to the council.
And I want to thank the efforts of Kevin Daly, our policy and legislative co-chair,
and the members of the Traffic Violence Rapid Response.
We need to find ways to balance traffic and emergency response with safety concerns.
and we've been working proactively with the fire marshal and the BPAC, strongly advocate
the Oaklands Fire Code be more in line with the international fire code when it comes
to road with minimums and road access for fire equipment.
Wider roads may be needed in specific circumstances for fire trucks, operations, but in general
have negative impact in enabling faster car traffic.
And we are doing a tour, members at Oakdot are doing a tour tomorrow with the fire department.
Number six established fast track waterfront connections to East Oakland.
This has been a recommendation we've been vocal about for many years.
And the reality is there's still no safe direct access to the waterfront East Oakland where
people walking or biking must contend with burials of railroad freeways and freeway on
ramps, truck infrastructure, lack of sidewalks, dangerous, poor, lit trash, debris filled
under crossings and so forth.
inequity, historical lack of attention,
applies to the whole East Oakland five to seven miles
from the estuary to the San Leandro border.
We need to make these connections as equity
for all East Oaklanders.
And here are some just venues so you get an idea
of what people have to contend with,
as you all know, trying to go down 66 Avenue
to the Martin Luther King shoreline,
overlooking the Tidewater Park at 15th Avenue
where there's no connection,
and the card design bridge at 16th Avenue,
which is not hospitable to walking or biking.
So we need to make these connections.
And finally, this all speaks to the need
for coordinating interagency with folks like Caltrans,
Union Pacific, AC Transit to make this happen.
We must advocate fearlessly
when it comes to such regional, state,
and federal interventions,
and we are here to help support this process with you all.
In addition to Caltrans and UPRR,
we also recommend working with
East Bay Regional Park District
and our business improvement districts
and business communities.
You all as legislative leaders are, of course,
key in promoting and setting expectations
for the health, well-being,
and mobility equity of our city.
This concludes this report.
You have a full copy and the slides in your packet.
I'm happy to answer any questions
or direct them to staff as need be.
As a key takeaway, we need and ask
for your bold visionary leadership
and innovative thinking to help keep the momentum
and move us forward on these recommendations
that you've heard in this report.
Please help us work together to achieve a connected
and safe Oakland for all.
Thank you very much.
And don't forget, we look forward to writing with you all
and the next bike to wherever day
we're biked with a council member last time,
that'll be May 14th.
And also for everybody out there,
please visit the Oakland B-Pack blog,
oaklandbpack.org, and a special thanks here goes
to our former commissioner, Diane Yee,
for building and keeping the B-Pack blog for numerous years.
Thank you again on behalf of all of us in our commission.
Thank you, sir, and thank you to the entire B-Pack.
I appreciate all the work and all the ideas.
Council members, we have questions.
Council member Wong.
First of all, thank you so much.
I'm lucky that you are both a district to appointee
and you're also the chair.
So thank you so much for your service, David.
I think one question I just have is around,
I know sometimes there is community resistance at times
around bike lanes, things like that.
I think it's noteworthy that, by the way, for my colleagues,
how many of the high-injury network streets
are in Chinatown, which is an area that I represent.
And do you have recommendations for how the department can,
how can there be improvements to bring communities along
on that front?
To bring, sorry, to hear it.
On both complete streets, right?
That's a really important thing that we need to have
as well as movement on Vision Zero at the same time.
I think there can be resistance to those ideas
because unfortunately we live
in a very car dependent society.
So any ideas on improvements or resourcing
that the department needs in order to bring folks along?
Yeah, wow, this is a tough question.
I mean, that's essential to our work and engagement
because we often hear from folks
that this bike and walking infrastructure
is hurting business districts,
It's making car drivers frustrated
and actually makes the streets safer.
And this is like a culture change.
You really wanna help people understand
that this is gonna improve our quality of life
across the board.
But to get to there, we're really looking
to the kind of engagement such as our walking tours,
getting people out on the street.
I think when we did our general plan walking tours,
it's really good just to get staff out there,
get business people, get community residents together
and think how these can be win-win solutions
and not just pit it against each other.
And I really think that's the way forward.
I've really been impressed with some of the engagement work
that Oak Dot has done on this front
and want to continue that.
And it's an acculturation process
that we're just gonna keep pushing.
I think as people see these infrastructure in real life
and get out on the bikes or walking around
and feeling safe, that will speak for itself.
But yes, there's no easy way forward
just to keep the engagement.
Council Member Gallo.
Yes, thank you David.
I haven't seen you in a while, man.
Thank you for that information.
I know this guy's a young guy out on the street
help getting involved and so forth.
It looks so, so just for the public's information.
who is, what department is ultimately responsible
when it comes to biking, bike lanes, and curbs?
Just the Department of Transportation.
Who's responsible for the coordination with AC Transit,
BART, Caltrans, Bay Trails,
because they're out there developing
and there's bike lanes that could be there,
should be there, but when I go to San Francisco,
Santa Cruz I see the bike lanes in those areas is that the Department of
Transportation that needs to follow up and coordinate that activity with those
those governmental bodies I mean I think you raised an excellent point
Councilmember Gallo and I don't know those interagency coordination that I
think I don't know that's something that we need to find out because it's not
just a coordination with these other entities it's also things like
stewardship and maintenance of bike lanes and trees and all these things
that come in so we don't have the trash and debris and I'm looking kind of
there we do have the opportunity with our general plan and our
implementation element to really find out how these can be better coordinated
as we go forward so it's not you know siloed and then then also the question
about that I get you know reservations from the neighborhood is about the
rental bikes that are being located throughout the city. Some are taking your
parking spaces, some are you're in in the way of the business community. Who
authorizes the rental bikes and who generates that money directly so I can
see in my budget directly where's that rental bike location and who's getting
the money and city administrator what is that money being used for that's
is generated from that activity.
Besides riding my bike, that's a business decision
that we need to make and understand
that if I'm gonna continue to grow and expand
and maintain the safety, you know,
where is that money going to from the rental bikes
that we have throughout the city?
And that keeps growing and growing,
and I keep getting reservations from some of the people
that are there.
And because they, we took their parking spaces.
So, who's that?
Through the Chair on Council Member Gallo,
I would love to extend an invitation for you
to come to the BPAC and raise these questions
and let's have that discussion and invite staff in
and let's dig into that, I think it's an excellent question.
So I'd like to see where the money's being generated
but where's it going to?
And that's up to the administrator
that if it has to do with generating money
regarding biking rentals, it should go back
to help us maintain the safety
of the bike pedestrian avenues that we do have.
And the last one that I'll recommend to you,
since you're on the commission,
it used to be I graduated here
from Oakland Public Schools in high school,
but I always remember that I couldn't graduate
on my senior year unless we took
the driver education class that the high schools offered.
And that taught me all the rules and regulations
about driving and getting your driver's license,
but also the safety in the streets.
And this would be a good special, good discussion
on our information from our schools in high school
because we're biking.
We're biking all over the place
and sometimes we follow the rules
and most of the time we don't know what the rules are.
And I would advise you that working with Oakland Unified
to provide an informational class or time
where we can share with our student body
these are the rules about, you know, biking
and take us all through that process as ones.
And not just about driving your vehicle,
but also at this point about the safety
having your helmet and all that other stuff on.
I would also invite you to, or welcome that,
and I'd like to join you in that effort
to make sure that our young people
have the information and the knowledge
When it comes to safety on biking and so forth, but thank you for this information. So thank you
Councilmember Houston
Hello David with a chair, how you doing? Can you go back to slide two?
Waiting I just want to flag for everyone that we're 35 minutes into a two-hour meeting and we're on item one of six
I'm just gonna say something real quick is it's really important to me councilmember
I know myself included that's a good one to me and and it's about the item that says black Oaklanders are two times
Killed I mean, I'm very very got my eye jumper right now. I'm very troubled by
things like that we get the most
Trash dumped in our community
We we get the less contracts in the city of Oakland as being black and then we died a most on
not just this
Violence, right? So
What's the ages? Do you have the statistics on how old they are what districts they are?
Are the children because our culture is a little bit different we ride to get somewhere and we ride to have fun others ride for
health and to get out the places but what's the code what what's the ages of
these people two times two times black dying yeah I mean that's disturbing I
mean we don't get no contracts we we get the trash dumps in our neighborhood and
then we dying from violence and now we dying from this yeah through the chair
council member Houston yes I apologize I don't have the citations but I will
and I'm sure you'll be able to
help me out and hopefully we'll
happily track those down and get
you that information.
Okay thank you do I'm through the
council chair thank you.
Councilmember I got it just
disturbed me and got my eye jump
and when I see that.
Absolutely thank you for that
comment.
Do we have both speakers.
Call in our public speaker Kevin
Dali.
Thanks Kevin Dali.
committee though as a community member. And another goal of course is to nag the
Public Works and Transportation Committee to encourage safer pedestrian
cycling and to forward information that the BPAC has. I'm going to mention
something council member Guy oment said on the coordination between trying trying
to make it brief coordination between various other agencies. Three of the four
members of this committee are also members of the AC Transit Interagency Liaison Committee
and as part of that we at least, you know, as an attender you can bring up issues on
coordination and one of those items was drastically decreasing the death rate on International
Boulevard where Oakland's temple line runs.
And I'm going to briefly mention, Councilmember Gallego mentioned bike rental bikes and parking.
It actually might save parking because each slot that has six or eight bicycles for rent
reduces the number of cars that are traveling there, so you might actually have a net win
for parking spaces.
Definitely we can get you together on some biking classes with bike east bay to do safe biking anyway
Let's continue to work together
public works and transportation VPAC and other interested people to make
the streets of Oakland safer
Thank you. I would like to make a motion to receive this in committee and file it there a second
There is a motion made by councilmember Giyo seconded by councilmember Houston to receive and file this in a public works and transportation committee
Unrolled councilmember Giyo. I don't remember Houston councilmember Wong. I and chair anger
I this motion does pass with four eyes to receive and file this in the public works transportation
committee moving to item 5
Council and thank you and share hunger for accommodating this report
Item 5 adopt a resolution in support of Senate bill SB 1218 to amend the California vehicle code to require payment a
resolution of illegal dumping fines
Before vehicle registrations can be completed and there is one speaker for this item
Thank you for this. I will briefly
Introduce item 1218 our attention our intention is once this makes it out of committee and we are not worried about
Quorum or majority issues to be able to add councilmember Houston at the full council meeting
Because we can't do it here in and have a quorum of the members here, but we will do it at the full council meeting
So as as we all know
Going after illegal dumpers is incredibly difficult at the moment. We have to not only identify the vehicle
We have to also identify the person and then come after them
Criminally what we want to do is be able to come after folks civilly through the DMV
If any of you have ever gotten a parking ticket as I know I certainly have you know that
You end up paying them because if you don't you can't re-register your vehicle
so we are today supporting the great work of
State senator Jesse Arreguin who has brought this bill forward in consultation with many of my colleagues here on the council
to allow the DMV to
Collect these fines it will make enforcement quite a bit easier
So we are proud to support this and we hope that our friends in Sacramento will pass it quickly
Councilmember guyo
for the public's information
For those that are caught doing illegal dumping today
Who at the city collects the fines?
Because we know what I've heard from the previous budget. We have many fines, but we never collect them
with different activities, negative activities that are happening throughout the city.
And so who is doing the current collection of the fine?
Because my experience has been that I turn in the video or the picture to my direct give it to the city attorney.
The city attorney gives it to the county attorney.
The county attorney gives it to the judge.
I got to stand in front of the judge to say, yeah, that's him.
saw him doing, that's the illegal dumping guy, and a lot of our residents don't want
to show up to court to point the finger at anybody. So who is doing the collection, first
of all, in the city, that we clearly have told the public that we're not collecting
the fines and the fees like we should be that we have done in the past?
Do we have somebody from, do we have anyone from staff who can answer that about current
questions. I think that I'm sorry are you that okay good afternoon members of
the Public Works Committee Rebecca Kaplan project manager for legal dumping
in the city administrators office the current practice is that the Oakland
Public Works environmental enforcement unit issues the citation some number of
people pay them at that point if people do not pay them at that point after that
it goes to the collections team in the finance department to collect. As has
been noted, some significant number of people still do not pay at that point. We
have multiple solutions we are proposing to solve that, including better tracking
of the data. This bill that you are discussing right now under item 5 would
significantly help that process, because if people do not pay when the city seeks
to collect, it would then go to the Department of Motor Vehicles to collect,
and when that is done for other things, like parking tickets,
it more than triples the rate of people paying initially.
So if people know that the DMV could collect,
more of them will just pay it to the city immediately,
and most of those won't even have to be sent to the DMV.
So this bill is designed to help with that very problem.
Thank you.
But who gets the money that's collected by DMV?
If the action happened in Oakland,
Does that money from DMV go back to the city
or it just stays with the state?
Comes back to the city.
You sure about that?
Minus the processing fee.
Okay.
I'm just.
Thank you.
Councilmember Brown on Zoom please.
Councilmember Brown you may unmute yourself.
Excellent, thank you so much.
Hopefully you all can hear me very well.
I'm super just grateful for this legislation and SB 1218.
I think that you know the question that councilmember Guile has is an important one around like hey
We're where do these funds go?
But I believe it would be similar to when a parking ticket is issued
And if you don't pay that parking ticket once it is collected by the DMV that rolls back to the city
and so one thing that I really like about state legislation is that when we set like a tone and a precedent in this manner of
You know, this is what we need for our look in our local cities, especially around accountability for a legal dumping
it also creates that same wave of accountability because we know that
so many community members both in West and East Oakland have been gravely impacted by a legal dumping it affects and
Impacts your mental health and just your ability to take pride in the community to which you are from and also on that note
We know that there are other communities
Here in the East Bay also in Southern California that are
Experiencing these same impacts of illegal dumping and so that is one of the one of many reasons why I'm supporting
1218 and and just to note
Given my past kind of working in the legislature. I hope that you know the letter of support that the City of Oakland provides for this
Legislation it's going to be important and also
Let's make sure that we reach out to you know
Just the different folks that we know in other cities and even across the state of California to really push on this item
because I believe that it's going to
Need all of the support as possible in order to ensure that it passes through the legislature
So just wanted to say that and thank you councilmember
Unger and the leadership of the mayor's office for supporting council supporting senator air gain on this as well
So, thank you so much
Councilmember Houston, please
Thank you to the chair. Just like a statement is that being?
Doing this illegal dumping for 12 13 years
My district is a little bit different district 7. I'm gonna support this because you know, Jesse
I'm Senator Jesse. I'm gonna support it. But in my district we know
that the people that dump
Don't have a license plate
We know that they cover it up
We know that they take it off.
We know that they use stolen vehicles.
So it's really not gonna, it's gonna work and we have to do something.
We have to do things.
But in my district and other districts, the ones that's really doing the major
illegal dumping that's hazardous, contaminated, and a crime against our community.
This is not gonna affect them.
but it will catch some individuals that are slipping
and don't even understand what this is about
and just maybe dump something just small,
maybe a couch or something like that,
but the people that affect my community,
the illegal dumpers that affect my community,
this won't have that much of an impact
and I have more to say on the next ones that we talk about.
So I do support it, we have to do something,
but I want to just thank Supervisor Nate Miley
for spearhead in this this this years and years and years with the illegal dumping task force that went county now state and I have more to say about that but I do support this because we have to do something that I do support Senator Jesse council member Wong please thank you so I fully support this the state legislation.
want to thank the Senator Erdogan for pushing for this. I do think that the
devils are in the details in terms of implementation just to add on to
actually Councilmember Houston's comments. First, just on the front end I
think one thing I want to ask the city staff is, is there a need because I know
one thing that we've been deliberating or my office has been deliberating is
is whether we need ALPR, like license plate readers,
tied to these illegal dumping situations
where if we don't currently connect the vehicle information,
like do we need to ensure that that is happening?
Or are our systems actually built
to tie an illegal dumper to the vehicles?
And then on the back end, the other thing
that I would want to just make sure is that
whether having an unregistered vehicle in the city matters.
We disbanded our traffic enforcement unit at OPD
due to the lack of staffing.
And I wanna make sure that,
whether it's our parking division or something that,
I mean, we will have CHP helping to enforce
against unregistered vehicles,
but there are actually consequences
because the inadvertent consequence
if we don't have our enforcement up and running
is that we just have people running around
with unregistered vehicles and there's no consequence there.
So these are just the things I wanna figure out.
So this piece of legislation does the thing
that we want it to do.
Okay, are you looking for a response from staff?
Yeah, I'm looking for a response,
especially on the front end,
which is do we need any additional investments
or changes to our use policies to ensure
that when we have an illegal dumping fine,
that it is easily connected to the vehicle registration
or systems already equipped
to actually run with this legislation?
Good afternoon, Kristin Hathaway,
Assistant Director of Public Works.
In our illegal dumping cameras that Public Works has,
we do have LPRs, so that helps us identify
the license plate of a vehicle
that is caught on the camera dumping.
In terms of not catching vehicles
that don't have license plates.
That is something that perhaps Council Member Angar
will speak to in the next item
because there is an amendment in the next ordinance
that addresses us being able to more easily catch people
who are dumping without a license plate.
Okay, that's good.
How many cameras do we have anyways right now?
We currently have 36 cameras.
Okay.
Thank you.
Council Member Gayle.
Yes, just for the record then, so the recording,
so the information that the city of Oakland gets
or has regarding illegal dumpers,
that information will go straight
to the state of California, DMV.
Can you answer that?
So you're gonna provide that to DMV, state of California.
Under the proposed legislation, 1218,
if someone does not pay their bill to the city of Oakland,
it would then go to the DMV, much like parking tickets.
So parking tickets don't first go to DMV,
they first go to the person to pay.
Only if the person does not pay, then it goes to DMV.
But the fact that people would know
that it would go to DMV to collect if they don't pay it
would increase the rate of people
directly paying the city.
As it is significantly higher for parking tickets already.
Thank you.
What effort does the city make to collect the fee?
The city-
Yes, at just one time and move on if you don't pay it.
I mean, this is a process we're going through
with other challenges that we have in Oakland.
We're not paying our fees
because we're not making a second effort to collect it.
Correct.
Typically the collections team
within the finance department
makes the second effort to collect,
and if the collection's effort by the city is not successful,
then it goes to the outside body.
And then the state will reimburse the city
for the collection.
Correct.
So this will make it stronger,
and it will make people more likely
to pay the city right away,
because they'll know that there's an additional process.
And of course, in the other legislation later today,
there's further steps being taken to strengthen that effort.
Okay, seeing no more questions from my colleagues,
I'd like to go to public comment, please.
When I call your name, please approach the podium.
If you're participating via Zoom,
please raise your hand so you're easily identified.
Ms. Mary Forte.
And Ms. Mary, you may unmute yourself
and begin your comment.
Yes, thank you.
Can you hear me?
Yes, ma'am, we can.
Yes, my name is Mary Forte.
I'm a lifelong East Oakland native over 75 years.
All of you know me on the committee.
My pleasure to be here today.
I do support SB 1218.
I attended the press conference a couple of weeks ago,
representing the illegal dumping organizing committee
along with block by block organizing committee.
I feel this SB 1218 offers a practical
and equitable enforcement mechanism
by connecting unpaid illegal dumping citations
to vehicle registration renewal.
I agree 200% with council member Houston.
The problem that's not being addressed here
is that there are vehicles that drive up and down the street
and have not been registered for years, trucks, whatever.
So again, because we don't have,
what is it that traffic unit in OPD enforcing
and giving tickets for people that don't have that,
their license, it's how do you get those people?
That is my concern.
but I do feel, this is also a statewide initiative,
and so I do think it's necessary, thank you.
Okay, thank you, are there other comments?
That concludes your public comment.
All right, I would like to make a motion
that we forward this to the April 14th,
3.30 p.m. meeting on consent.
We do have a motion made by Chair Unger,
councilmember Hueso. And to the-
second it by councilmember Houston to approve the
at three thirty p.m. on roll
councilmember guy oh.
Councilmember Houston.
I thank you councilmember one.
I and your younger I this motion does pass with four eyes to
approve the recommendations of staff of the for this item to
the April fourteenth special city council agenda at three
thirty p.m.
On consent thank you.
Moving to item 7, adopt an ordinance amending Oakland Municipal Code Chapter 811,
illegal dumping to one, increase penalties for illegal dumping, two, make transporting waste
in the vehicle without a license plate as an offense, and three,
increase enforcement against legal dumping.
And you do have three speakers for this item.
Great. Thank you.
If you could pull up our presentation, please, I would appreciate that, thank you.
So I just want to introduce this item briefly, this is a whole day of items on trash.
We all understand that Oakland has a problem with illegal dumping and we need to begin
to get our hands around it even more than we already have.
This item here is just one piece of the puzzle and I want to be really clear about that.
I do not expect that this item is gonna solve
all of our problems, but it's gonna begin to chip away
at some of the problems with illegal dumping enforcement,
and I am excited by the work we've all done
to try to hold people accountable for the illegal dumping.
So I can begin with the presentation,
I've got the clicker here.
So I'm gonna gloss over this part pretty quickly.
I don't think I need to tell anybody
that we have an illegal dumping problem
Oakland, you've all seen it, you all live here. We are picking up two or three
times as much trash per capita as our neighboring cities, however we never make
any headway because the pace of illegal dumping absolutely overwhelms us and we
struggle to hold illegal dumpers accountable. That's a graph, there's a lot
of dumping. What this ordinance does is we are going to double the existing fine
we're going to make it a violation to transport waste without a license plate. You're right.
Councilmember Houston, people take their plates off, they use somebody else's plates, they
tape over their plates. It is now going to be a violation without a license plate. So,
I'm going to take the plates off, I'm going to take the plates off, I'm going to take
the plates off, I'm going to take the plates off, I'm going to take the plates off, and
their plates, it is now going to be a violation to transport waste without a license plate.
Importantly, we are tying enforcement to the vehicle, not the driver, right?
We have a problem with people who get caught saying, oh yeah, that might have been my truck,
but I wasn't driving it, you know, that's not going to fly anymore.
It's going to be more like a parking ticket.
I don't care who is driving your car, you got the ticket, you're going to pay it.
This dovetails incredibly well with Senator Arreguines, Bill 1218, so that we will be
able to actually collect those fines through the DMV.
There is an appeal option in the ordinance that we're putting together, and then there
is also an ability to do community service rather than fines.
It's going to have to be hefty community service to make up for $5,000 worth of fines, so be
prepared to be wearing that orange vest for a while. Um, we are targeting illegal dumping,
not incidental littering. This is not, um, for, you know, folks who throw, uh, candy
wrapper out the window of their car, although don't do that either. Your grandmother would
not approve. So, um, but we are, we are going after the illegal dumpers first and foremost.
Um, again, this is just one piece of the puzzle. Um, the next item we'll also talk about another
a piece of the puzzle, and I want to,
there's some pictures of all of us picking up trash,
as we all do in our districts,
and I want to just finish by thanking everyone
who worked on this.
Office of the Mayor was instrumental.
Supervisor Nate Miley and Aaron Armstrong from his office,
the City Attorney's Office,
the City Administrator's Office, our finance staff,
in particular, I want to highlight Matt Mollison,
Rebecca Kaplan, Patrick Behrs, Nicole Welch,
Liam Garland, Kristin Hathaway, and Wanda Redditch.
I am certain that I am leaving somebody out,
and I apologize, but I thank everyone who worked on this.
And I believe that there is someone here
from the mayor's office who would like
to speak about this item.
Thank you, Chair Unger, Preston Kilgore,
Deputy Chief of Staff to Mayor Barbara Lee.
I'll be very brief, but thanks for your comments,
Chair Unger.
So I'm here on behalf of the Mayor Lee
share her strong support for the amended illegal dumping enforcement
ordinance that chair Unger just described in detail and the broader
package before you today as well as all of you know this ordinance is a
critical step forward in strengthening Oakland's ability to hold bad actors
accountable as under as chair Unger mentioned increase penalties close
loopholes like vehicles close loopholes like vehicles without license plates and
gives the city stronger tools to deter illegal dumping that harm our
neighborhoods importantly the amendments included by director Flynn which we're
grateful for with the office of the race and equity and the privacy advisory
commission for the air bits item that you'll get to in a little bit make the
legislation even stronger they reinforce an equity center data driven approach
by requiring the use of the geographic equity toolkit that some of you already
mentioned and also ensure that enforcement is paired with a root cause
analysis so that we're not just reaching reacting to dumping but addressing why
It's happening in the first place
The legislative package before you say also lifts up the urgency issue
But also the importance of lining enforcement with smarter deployment of resources and long-term solutions
And that's exactly what the the package before you all represents
So in summary this ordinance works hand in with air bits pilot that you're gonna get to which will help the city move
To proactive detention. I think it's important to understand that
I think those two items are really connected in a lot of ways with the amendment that requires the city administrator to
develop a more comprehensive strategy in addition to the enforcement piece.
At the same time, as many of you mentioned, SB 1218, sponsored by Senator Arignan and
Mayor Lee, will help ensure that repeat vendors face real estate-wide consequences.
I'll close with this, as all of you know, and it was brought in the presentation, legal
dumping is not just a quality of life issue, it's an equity issue, it's a public health
issue, and a matter of dignity for our communities.
And once again, thank you, Chair Unger, for your office's coordination, particularly Matthew,
who's to my right, our state administrative team,
Public Works, all of you,
Public Works and Transportation Committee members,
and Rosanna Brown, who's Council Member Brown,
who's tuning in virtually.
But then lastly, with the item next,
thank you to Airbits and Faith in Action East Bay
for all of their coordination as well
and really pushing the city to be responsive.
So with that, thank you all so much.
Thank you, sir.
Let's go to Council Member Commins.
Councilmember Gayo, please.
Thank you for the opportunity.
Certainly, we've been at this for many, many years,
specifically in certain neighborhoods.
And I think we need to recognize
that we also have a homeless encampment management policy.
This is greatly challenged.
Because what I've done, I mean,
having done this for 12 years,
it all comes down to enforcement.
At one time, the city of Oakland,
We had the cameras, but we would locate them whether it was regarding graffiti, the dumping,
another crime in the neighborhood, especially in East Oakland and other parts, West Oakland.
The reality was that those cameras that the police department were responsible in their
enforcing the law.
Not just recording the video, no.
We forget about it.
And that's what's happening throughout the city, and secondly, is we don't have the personnel
within public works that we used to have, that would use to clean Lake Merritt, clean
the park, clean the streets.
And I still remember that because we didn't have people just sitting in the city hall
making more laws and more rules, but we need people to enforce them.
And that's an area that this city of Oakland is lacking is the enforcement.
Because starting out with the homeless encampment, I used to bring the huge dumpsters that were
allocated.
But on Monday, waste management would call me and said, Mr. Guy, we need to help you
come unload the dumpster because we can't take it overloading.
So we will be out there helping unload.
That's when I don't use the dumpsters anymore.
Because now I have my five individuals in my office Monday through Sunday. All we do is pick up trash
Six in the morning you get to see what happened the night before
You get to see it early in the morning who's doing it and we have a direction
their direction
That you know, the city has to follow when I submit it, but that's not being done
So I can turn in the video from this weekend
I can give you the pictures, but we in government needs to follow up, to be able to prosecute
and challenge those that are doing it, but then, Jen, I'll leave you with this last thought.
It used to be, because I used to manage parks and recreation, but at that time, people didn't
sit at City Hall just talking, making more policies.
They were on the neighborhood streets.
My city manager, Robert Bob, he was with me every month.
out in the neighborhood. He saw it, didn't make stories about it. He was helping keep
the streets clean. But then I'll give you this last hour, Ken. He said, well, I'm going
to hire you, but we're going to give you a pickup truck, a city truck, and every day
you got to have that truck come back loaded with stuff from Lake Merritt. Because we want
Lake Merritt to be the jewel of the city, the cleanest, the safest, but it will take
our city employees, including our administration,
be out on the street to really see what's going on
and who's doing it, and how we can make that correction.
And that's the advice that I would give you.
We can talk about it making more laws,
but we can't enforce them.
And the last one I heard this week,
the police officer that would help me with the encampments,
that would be pressing to deal with encampment,
they removed them.
Now, who is going to end the police department?
They're going to help us enforce that.
You don't have an officer I can call to help me deal with that
because they're no longer, that's not their job.
And so within the city government here in Oakland,
we need to really consider, you know, what we need to do.
But those that are involved in writing the laws and the policies,
you got to be on the street picking it up so you see it.
Show up early in the morning, show up at night,
and that's what we used to do in the past.
But thank you for that information.
Thank you.
Council member Wong.
I I do have an amendment to offer,
so I'll actually let my colleague go first and then I can explain.
Council member Houston through the chair.
So what I like to do is just piggyback on council member Gayle.
We've been suffering way too long and we need to pull back and know the history of this. Right.
Council member Cobb, me and council member Cobb
passed a policy back in 2020, Measure RR, that
allowed this to happen, right?
Because in 1968, they had a policy
that it couldn't go over $1,000.
It could not go over $1,000, right?
So that was passed.
Now this can happen.
I've seen something here that it said the level of fines
is way too low.
I believe that a person that puts a bag of trash
on the streets should be $2,500 and a person that put,
I mean $5,000 and a person that puts contaminated
should be 10,000 and a person that puts hazardous
be 20,000 in jail time.
So it's easy to say these things about
these price levels right here if you haven't been affected.
My community has been underserved for so long.
It's so, so sad.
It's so sad that they have to live amongst the trash.
I got a couple of pictures back here
that that my mother had to deal with.
Here is in front of my mother's house.
My mother.
This is before I was elected.
In front of my mother's house.
Our children, our seniors.
We've been underserved for so, so long.
It hurts me.
It hurts me, Council Member Onder.
It hurts me.
I feel that if we slap them on the hand,
which we've been doing, it's gonna stay the same way.
We need to prosecute them $5,000
that could throw a bag into my neighborhood.
$10,000 for contaminated and for anything hazardous
because they drop it.
They drop it, they drop the best of batteries,
all types of things.
should be twenty thousand dollars and go to jail. We should we got to put down the hammer.
We have a new council that have the power for legislation and take the lead of supervisor
Nate Miley. He'll say it's a crime against our community and that we have a DA right
now that's willing to prosecute because our city attorney can only do fines Councilmember
the state of councilmember on.
shooting, which happens all the time.
What they do is they'll pick up the bullets, mark them,
they data collect.
They don't just pick it up and throw it away.
They data collect.
So I feel that the individuals that drop off one bag,
my community just suffer way, way,
your community just suffer way, way too long.
Way too long.
That they need to be harsh penalties.
and when I say harsh, we have a DA willing to prosecute right now if we bring the proper data.
I'll pass it to my council member Wayne to see what she wants to say about some amendments
because I might have to piggyback on that with these penalties because I feel that that penalty
is too low. We're just slapping people on the hand for doing bad deeds against my community.
It's a crime against my community and you saw what my mother had to live with
my mother
My mother eighty nine years old and this is just her what about the other seniors other children? So I'm gonna pass it to way
councilmember Wong
Thank you and yeah, I mean I first of all, thank you to the chair for
And everyone who worked on this for putting forward this legislation
we really need to
Come more in line with our peer seat cities in terms of these fines and I will say that
What I had experience with the human trafficking legislation is we're not
We're not allowed to set penal code as city councilors
What we can do is set these municipal fines and that is what I see. This is an effort
It's not a replacement for holding someone accountable with jail time, but it allows the city
To have another tool in its tool belt
Now I will say that one of the things as I was reading through the details of this legislation,
if you look on page six, this is the section on the civil penalties in the prior ordinance
or the current ordinance that has not yet been amended.
There's a provision around there that allows for daily civil penalties and I think this
This speaks to some of your concerns Councilmember Houston
on ensuring that we have the highest level
of consequences available on these fine amounts.
But there is a provision that allows
for daily civil penalties of up to $1,000 per day.
And this is really important
because this is where we really need to tamp down
on the legal dumping is where legal dumping
is a constitutes a commercial quantity
or contains harmful waste.
I mean, this is the corporate pollution,
people who are making profit from doing the stumping
that we need to address.
Now, I understand it from the staff
that part of removing this is because
there was the inability to measure that daily rate,
and so it was preventing us
from holding people accountable in general.
Myself and my team have spoken with the staff,
as well as the city attorney,
to find a way where we can restore that tool,
so that way we retain this tool so it will be added
to the fines that you have authored, Chair Ugger.
So if we can put it up on the screen
and you guys have it in front of you.
Essentially, this is under section five,
there's a section on a time calculation
for an assessment of penalties.
In the current amendment, we had removed that
because again there was issues with actually measuring
the daily amount that one needed to be held accountable for.
So it's a pretty simple amendment.
It just adds a section A to this time calculation
for assessment of penalties.
Where the dumping constitutes a commercial quantity
contains harmful waste matter is a mattress,
upholds, upholstered furniture, appliance furniture,
electronic waste, additional daily additional.
This is the change from what it was before.
Additional daily civil penalties
of up to $1,000 per day may be assessed.
And so this just gives the option for our staff
to go ahead and pursue those daily fines
in addition to the ones that Councilmember Unger
and Chair Unger, you have proposed in this legislation.
So we're not removing that tool
because we don't have the adequate enforcement tools.
And then I think we need to work on ensuring
that we have the right enforcement tools.
So, you know, we put in these fines,
but we have to be able to actually enforce.
We're trying to locate where, what page was this on?
For this amendment would be on page seven of the ordinance.
Okay.
I'll accept this amendment as friendly.
Okay.
Thank you.
Council Member Gallo.
Yeah, thank you just for the public's information
from the council and all the staff members that are here
that don't do this on a regular basis.
One of the things that I do wanna share with you
since we're out there Monday through Sunday,
I get, not volunteers, I get people assigned to me
on weekends from the Sheriff Department.
They're coming in from the city of Fremont,
Castro Valley, San Leandro, Alameda,
were cited in those cities for illegal dumping. They were arrested for those illegal dumpings
in those cities, and then the sheriff, Simpson Morgan-Nuel, they've got to work out, volunteer
with you for 25 hours to work off their parking ticket or their citation. But there's other
neighboring cities, they do, it's about enforcement. And many of us growing up here in East Oakland,
The only thing we understood was pushback.
You can feel sorry for me, make excuses,
but until I had the pushback,
it wouldn't change my discipline.
So I think just for you to know
is the enforcement's extremely key,
because coming with me any weekend
or even during the week now,
I get through the sheriff's department
and some even come out of,
they came out because they were doing graffiti.
They got caught.
Mr. Guy, I'll help you with anything,
but I won't touch the graffiti,
because that's what I got arrested for.
And then I do get people through a program
Public Works used to have working with San Arete,
the San Arete County Jail, where we would get individuals
to help us clean the neighborhood.
And some of these individuals were being arrested,
cited for what they were creating in their cities.
But that's another opportunity that we ought to pursue
and work directly with the Sheriff Department
and the county to be able to get that assistance
to make sure that we have additional support.
Because when you look at Public Works today
at the employee numbers and the numbers have reduced
tremendously than what it was in the past, Ken,
when you and I started.
There are vehicles that need to be repaired.
There's vehicles sitting all over the yards
They need to be serviced and we can't pick up the trash
because we don't have the vehicle.
So that's another challenge, Chairperson,
that we need to look at.
I saw your financial report.
What?
You laid off 800 and some people?
I mean, a lot of those have to do with making sure
our cities are maintained.
But anyways, thank you for that, and hopefully we
do more than just talking and more policy writing.
and for those that did it, come out and volunteer with me.
You'll really see what's going on and who's doing it
to get a better sense of how do we correct this in Oakland.
Thank you.
Council Member Houston.
Yeah, last thing through the chair.
K. Topp, I sent you an email.
Just like we passed that in 2020
that measure our ordinance
that actually allowed this to happen,
this is just information I just like to put on the record.
I have to put this on a record being a subject matter expert on illegal dumping.
We have individuals that actually know that this information is going to be dumped on
the street and they take advantage of certain individuals and say, hey, come and pick this
up.
And they know it's going to cost more than $50 to dump it on the street.
I sent this email back in 2019.
I redacted some things because I don't want to put people on blast.
It says hello, as discussed a few weeks ago,
and this was in 2019 at 846 PM, and I'll speak to this.
I just want this on the record.
Back from my walk-in visit,
can you please give me a few dates
where we can meet with Director Blank?
This meeting will be discussed to add a process
that we feel would be beneficial
to the Code Compliance Department.
And I was working with Council Member,
I mean, not Council Member, but Nate Miley at that time,
code compliance and the legal dumping issues
Oakland faces today.
Can you please give me three dates to choose from
so I can coordinate with Alameda County DA,
Environmental Department that will be accompanying me
in this meeting.
I apologize for the delay with the meeting request
because I did a request number, a public request number
and never got a response back and never got a meeting.
And let me explain to you what's happening here.
what happens is this department will,
if somebody make a complaint,
just say for instance, council member Unger,
you make a complaint about council member Noel Gallo
has trash in his front yard.
What'll happen is, is that cold compliance will go out
and look at it, take a visual and just say,
okay, it's closed out and the person can say it's closed out.
However, where did that trash go?
Where did that trash go?
Do they have a receipt?
Do they have how much they dumped,
where they dumped it, or who they hired?
And I followed many of these complaints,
many of these complaints that ended up on the streets,
and people take advantage of the individuals
that may be AOD'd or alcohol or the drugs
or in a bad situation and say here go ahead and dump this,
here's $50 and it ends up on our streets.
This is happening a lot.
So this is a cold compliance piece
that we are missing since 2019.
See that date?
2019, this is before I was a council member,
and this is before we pushed Measure RR.
So I wanna say this, and it came from me
with through the Legal Dumping Task Force of Nate Miley,
and I'm gonna say this.
Supervisor Nate Miley is a soldier at this.
He's been spearheading this,
and we should give him all his praise, for sure,
because many of these things,
And another one that's coming up came out of his off,
came out of this illegal dumping task force.
So this piece that I just put on the record
is critical for individuals that are moving out,
individuals that are cleaning out their garages
or council member Unger or get a violation, right?
So they do not have to show a receipt.
They don't show where it went from, what came from or went
or who actually they hired and it ends up on our street.
All it is is a visual drive by and it's closed.
2019 council member, 2019.
Thank you for that.
Do we have public speakers?
When I call your name, please approach the podium.
If you are participating via Zoom,
please raise your hand so you're easily identified.
As practice, we will take in-person speakers
before Zoom speakers.
Mary Forte, Kevin Dalley, and David Boatwright.
David Boatwright, District 4.
We talk about this all day long,
but I haven't heard a word said about
who's gonna enforce this and whether they've got the time
and the money to do so.
In addition to that, I've called the DMV locally
and in Sacramento, and I've even called the city about this
when I walk around a lot.
And I see, I used to see even more,
but there's still a lot of cars out there
that don't have registration.
Nobody cares.
We gotta get people to care about this subject
and we gotta get somebody that has the time
and the money to enforce it,
as you've said several times today.
Or this is just a bunch of air in the wind.
Kevin Dalley, thanks for all the work
the council members have put into these resolutions.
Want to call out one point,
The progressive violations where you raise the price
of each subsequent violation is a good idea.
And I think this will work with council member Houston's
concerns about it not being high enough.
And if it doesn't work the first round,
you come back to council and raise it again.
I'm hoping we can do similar things
with some of the parking violations
where you raise the violation rate
with each subsequent violation.
Some, we have some of the same problems in that area,
but definitely I'm looking forward to a cleaner Oakland.
Moving to our Zoom speakers, Ms. Mary Forte,
please unmute yourself and begin your comment.
Yes, thank you very much.
I really appreciate this discussion.
I have wondered why this committee has not had
illegal dumping discussions in the last year.
First of all, I'd like to give credit
to the January 12th public action
held at Allen Temple Church
because we brought that ordinance to the public.
That there were close to 1000 people there,
that they heard about this ordinance
and credit needs to be done for that work as well.
Even though we did ask to have a part
in writing the ordinance, it never came about.
I am concerned also to another point on the fee schedule.
The fee schedule that came from this county
that Supervisor Nate Miley proposed
were administrative penalty fees.
First offense, 2,500, second offense, 5,000,
third offense, 10,000.
So the city of Oakland is less than that.
I do believe I heard from Rebecca Kaplan
that the city had a max or something like that,
but I don't know.
So it does need to be re-looked at.
The last thing in terms of funding,
I'm concerned about the number of enforcement officers.
My understanding there's currently seven positions.
Five of them are field two vacancies.
How long is it gonna take to fill them?
How long is it gonna get them up to speed?
And I have been picking up trash.
No Elgio knows this since the nineties
when there used to be like 18.
Thank you for your comment.
Council member Wong, would you have a comment?
Yeah, I was going to offer, first of all,
Just on the public comment, I completely agree
that we do need to ramp up our actual enforcement capacity.
We just heard from Kristin Hathaway at Public Works
that we only have 30 cameras across the city.
I mean, we have way more illegal dumping hotspots
than 30 spots that are linked to the LPRs
that are necessary to link individuals
to that vehicle registration.
but I do think that this is a step in the right direction.
And so I will make a motion to advance this
to the full council with the daily fines
with the amendments.
That will be the regular meeting on the afternoon
of April 14th, whatever we're calling that meeting,
on consent, if that's amenable, if you're amenable to that.
Yeah, that's amenable to that.
I'll second it.
We do have a motion made by Council Member Wong,
seconded by Chair Unger to approve as amended
the recommendations of staff
and to forward this to the April 14th
special city council agenda
with the amendment made by Council Member Wong
on page seven of the ordinance
under assessment of penalties, section five.
Number four, time calculation for assessment of penalties,
adding a section A,
Where the dumping constitute a commercial quantity contains harmful waste matter is a mattress, upholstered, furniture appliance, furniture or electronic waste, additional daily, civil penalties of up to $1,000 per day, may be assessed, Section B.
Penalty of citation days for the purposes of calculating
the number of days for assessment of the civil code,
civil penalty the days start to run
when the illegal dumping is first discovered by a witness
subject to the evidentiary presumption below
and the end when the cleanup is complete
and section C burden of the producing evidence
when it went as to when illegal dumping occurred
if the city does not direct evidence
as to when the illegal dumping occurred
and assessing penalties,
the act of illegal dumping shall be presumed
to have occurred five days prior to its discovery
and the burden of the producing evidence
as to when the occurred shall be on the dumping violator,
the presumption may be rebutied by contrary evidence.
On roll, Council Member Gallo.
Aye.
Thank you.
Council Member Houston.
Aye.
Council Member Wong.
Aye.
And Chair Unger.
Aye.
This motion passes with four ayes
to approve as amended the recommendations of staff
and the forward this item to the April 14th,
2026 special city council agenda at 3.30 p.m.
And that will be to the body on consent.
Yes, please.
Thank you.
Moving to our next item.
Item eight, adopt the resolution,
approve one approving the surveillance impact report
and amended surveillance use policy,
incorporating recommendations
of the privacy advisory commission
for their orbits system.
Two, authorizing the city administrator
to negotiate and enter into agreement
with the orbits, Inc. for a pilot program
to detect and report illegal dumping.
Three, waiving the local and local,
small local business enterprise program
and competitive multi-step acquisition requirements.
And four, directing the city administrator to return
within one year of adoption of the resolution
to provide information report.
that you do have four speakers for the item.
Thank you, let's hear from staff
and I'd like to ask everyone, myself included,
to keep it brief.
Thank you.
Okay, I promise we're gonna be short here.
All right, greetings, Chair Ungar and members of the committee.
I'm Kristin Hathaway, assistant director with Public Works.
We're requesting that you approve the surveillance impact
report and amended surveillance use policy
and authorize us to enter into an agreement
with AirBits Inc., an aerial photography company
It has the technology to identify the exact locations of the legal dumping piles.
The air bits system can also estimate the size and volume of the piles with a high degree
of accuracy and characterize the waste in the pile to determine the nature of the materials
such as tires, mattresses, et cetera.
Public Works believes this technology will be incredibly helpful for deploying our Keep
Oakland clean and beautiful crews to collect the waste.
We believe it will make it easier for us to send the appropriate size of crew and equipment
for the job and route the crew on the most efficient path for collection.
KOCB currently relies primarily on reports from the public to locate debris piles.
In many cases our staff have to perform site reconnaissance before we can collect the debris
to ensure we have accurate information on what's there.
This leads to inefficiencies in deployment.
While we are grateful for all the reports that we received through our call center,
the report-based system inherently misses debris piles when they are either not seen
or when residents may not have the time or resources to report the information.
The AirBits cameras will spot every debris pile on its flight path, ensuring that all
the illegal dumping in that area is reported.
It is a more equitable system for collecting debris location information.
The AirBits technology can also verify if there is no longer a debris pile where one
was reported, which sometimes happens when multiple reports come in for the same location,
and our crews have already retrieved the debris.
This over-reporting contributes to a backlog of service requests, which take time to clear
and slows our overall response time by removing duplicates from our system and clearing missed
reports our crews can focus on the debris that is still on the streets.
As will be described in more detail in a moment, this technology is designed to protect privacy
by making masking out images of private property and not collecting any personal identifying
information.
This proposal was reviewed by the Privacy Advisory Commission on March 5th, and the
recommended use policy for the technology was adopted by the PAC with minor changes
as shown in the red line version of the use policy attached with the PAC it.
So I also want to mention, since Nate Miley was mentioned, we learned of this technology
at Nate Miley's illegal dumping conference, and the inventor of the technology, Brian
Johnson, has a very short five-minute presentation to further describe the technology.
Thank you.
Thank you, council members.
My name is Brian Johnson, and I'm the founder of Airbits.
I'm a resident of the Bay Area.
I live in San Francisco.
And I started this in response to illegal dumping in my neighborhood.
So Airbit is a privacy first technology designed to measure and report abandoned waste.
What I discovered when I was in, when I was, we have a pretty bad dumping problem in my
neighborhood as well.
What I discovered is that a lot of the dump sites on our streets are not reported.
I did a couple of experiments and I found that if I reported the dump sites, the public
works department would come and clean it up within their SLA and so I built this system
in order to provide equitable but also accurate data about the dumping in a large area because
driving around or even riding my bike around takes a long time and it's not very efficient.
So you can't manage what you can't see and you can't clean up the things that you don't
know about.
The way the technology works is that it's one pilot can use one drone to cover one square
mile in 30 minutes.
You can use AI to detect all of the dump sites in that area.
You can classify what's in each pile and measure the approximate size of the pile.
You get precise GPS locations that are centimeter grade accurate.
It's privacy first, so we have no facial recognition technology, no license plate readers, we
mask out all private property and only save data that covers the roadway and the sidewalk.
That's what it looks like.
As you can see, there's a person in the second photo.
You cannot make out the identity of that person.
The resolution just isn't high enough to be able to get any facial information.
In addition, the drone is approximately 120-150 feet in the air and is aimed directly down,
as you can see in these photos, and then we use AI technology to mask out all vehicles
and all private property.
What I found in my experiment in my neighborhood is that consistent reporting resulted in cleaner
streets with a 97% reduction in the amount of garbage on the streets within a month.
to do this that kept the number of garbage piles down and this was with one person, one
drone, and this software. The air additionally finds what the eyes miss because it can see
behind parked vehicles on the sidewalk. It's also covering a comprehensive area every single
spot in that geographic region. And this is some data from a period of about 26 days where
the dump sites. On the first day we're 118, on the last day there were five. The way it
works is there's a, it's very fast and efficient, it's a pre-programmed flight
path that can be repeated so we can get really consistent data over the course
of the pilot. The pilot will cover 1,440 linear miles, which would be really
difficult to cover in a vehicle and be quite expensive. Regular monitoring
catches recurrence so we can find when a pile is growing. The hope is that we
actually clean these piles up, and so when new dumping comes we can see that
it's new dumping. In addition, if it were follow-on dumping we'd be able to
measure that day over day. The pilot is $150,000, it's 0.6% of Oakland's 24
million dumping spend, and it would be a massive data upgrade. It's a six-month
pilot with 72 flights covering 1,440 miles, linear miles worth of
rows. And this is a photo showing some of the hot spots in Oakland where illegal
dumping is reported to be the worst and we hope to to bolster that data with
with the high-quality aerial data. And this is our ask is to approve the
amended use policy which includes additional privacy protections where we
would only hold the original images for one week and then the redacted images
which include no personal information, no private property,
and just the streets and sidewalks for six months,
and then the actual pictures
of the garbage themselves for six months.
Thank you, council members.
Excellent.
Questions, council members to either of the speakers.
Council Member Houston.
Again, through the chair, thank you, Mr. Johnson.
This came through the Legal Dumping Task Force
Supervisor Nate Miley.
Legendary on blight.
legal dumping
It came through there and I was there when you did that presentation. So I'm good with it
I'm good
Thank you
councilmember guy
You're you started in San Francisco. I live in the Bayview neighborhood in San Francisco and I started in my neighborhood
Beyond San Francisco. Is there other cities that you've presented this program? So I did present it at the illegal dumping conference and there were
I believe 10, about a dozen cities there.
Yeah.
I have not, this would be the first city.
Yeah, because I know recycling waste solutions
in San Francisco well.
I mean, one time we tried to bring them here,
but didn't work out.
So the other question or comment I have
for members of the council,
you gotta recognize that the city of Oakland
has the most expensive garbage bill
beyond the state of California.
The bill that I pay at my home to pick up my trash is super expensive.
If I go to dump my trash at waste management, dump is hell of expenses.
It'll cost me $300 plus to take my mattress and couch, but I go in other cities
like I did clearing my grandmother's in Tucson.
It was $30, but here I have to pay $300.
So therefore, a lot of people are choosing
to throw their trash out on the street
because waste management who does,
we had a monthly, remember the monthly program?
Well, we cut it because we were paying too much,
what is it, 350 a month?
That we were paying for the city workers to be on overtime
and bring the trash and go to waste management.
So, and that picked up more dumping on the streets
because the reality is this, that we have to recognize
since we're working on the contract with waste management
that one, waste management not only pay charges a higher fee
but they also collect what, 35, $40 million a year
franchise fee to give back to the city.
The voters never approved that
but waste management is collecting that within their system
to give back to the city to use that money
and however you want to use it.
And so, you know, it's just in Oakland, the garbage,
the waste management, we got to review that
so we can eliminate some of the dumping
that's going on in our streets.
And we did have cameras before.
And we can have more cameras now,
but it's the enforcement afterwards.
If I catch Ken doing the dumping,
besides just telling them to be good, don't do it again,
we have to be able to follow through to make sure that
through your documentation, the rules get enforced.
So I'm looking forward to working with you on that,
but I know San Francisco well,
and you still have some of the dumping,
because I see it, but anyway,
so I look forward to you making the difference
in the city of Oakland, thank you.
Thank you, Council Member Wong.
Through the Chair, and I just, I am encouraged to see this.
I have definitely seen for myself just how inequitable our current systems are by relying
on Oak 311.
I've seen how in the San Antonio area, in the little Saigon area where there's by far
the worst illegal dumping in my district, there's like five reports.
again because our 311 app is not available in any other language but
English. And then I look at the wealthier parts of my district and there's like
400 reports for something that is much less problematic. So I think this is
really tackling that equity issue and so I'm encouraged to see this. I do have a
couple of questions just to to ensure how much coverage we would get since
slide. The map says Oakland wide scale, but there's a couple of like areas that are highlighted,
so I just want to make sure it says 1,440 road miles covered. Is that basically the whole city,
or what portion of the city is being covered through this pilot?
Yeah, so for the pilot, we're really focusing on a small area to prove out the working relationship
relationship and also like to prove to Okum the technology and it would cover approximately five to ten square miles for that
But the technology is designed to cover to be able to cover the entire city of Oakland
and at scale the cost would actually be
favorable compared to what the pilot programs costing so
the
city of Oakland has approximately 1500 square miles total of linear roads and that's something that we could
With with the appropriately designed deployment plan, we can cover that on a continuous basis throughout the year
Okay, and it says so we have 72 scheduled flights over a six-month pilot. That's around
2.7 flights per week
Just did the back of the map envelope. And so is that going to ensure?
Citywide monitoring every or what what would what does that mean actually? Yeah
So again, it's this is a pilot test so we will pick a couple of
Areas in the city to to test this out with looking at the hottest hotspot areas. And so those will be our test areas
and if approved then we will develop a study design for the pilot test that
Specifically focuses in on the areas where we want to we want to do the testing
So the pilot test will not cover the entire area of the city
But if it does prove to be a successful technology that the city wants to use then we will look at how we might expand it
Okay, and I assume we're not going to be using oak 311 data to pick those priority spots since that would be
You know
We will it's not going to be service requests. It's going to be a work order requests, which are a mix of
reported and proactive work
Okay, okay
That works. Thank you
We'll make a motion to adopt staff recommendation.
All right.
I will second that, and then we'll go to Councilmember Houston and then public comment.
I just have one question through the chair.
Can you pull that map up?
Where is it at?
Where are you going to do the pilot at?
We have not picked the exact location yet.
So how does that get decided?
Well, we can have further conversations with any council member who's interested, and we're
going to really be looking at where we have the worst areas of dumping yeah I
like to know where that's going to be at it's going to be in my district and
and council member fights district or Wayne's district Noel's district I want
to know where that's going to be and I got one question for mr. Johnson and in
you said you was in Hunter's point yes more in the industrial area in Bayview
between 3rd Street and Candlestick. Have you did any drones get shot down? Never.
Okay. I've never had a drone shot at. Okay. Most people don't actually even notice the
drone. You said how far are they up? They're approximately 150 feet in the air.
100 to 100 sometimes 200 feet in the air depends on the time. Okay. But I'd like to
know where that pilot is going to be before it's launched and I know probably
than other council members would too.
Moving to our Zoom speakers, David Boatwright,
Mary Forte, and Kevin Dali.
David Boatwright, District Four, Second Verse,
the same as the first.
Nobody's talking about enforcement here.
Not even the famous idea of how we're gonna enforce this.
Technology's not the answer.
We got cameras coming out the wazoo.
We got people calling in, even if they don't call in
from every place with the same level of numbers.
When are we gonna wake up and realize
that this is an enforcement problem
and dedicate some money from this city to get it done?
The other recommendation is we go back
and look since 2019 at all the new organizations,
entities, and people we've hired in this city
and find out those that are not really contributing
to the bottom line, I mean coming up with good ideas
that make this city better and take that money
and put it into enforcement.
Whether it's in the police department or a separate entity,
we need to do something different
and not the same thing over and over again.
Move it to our Zoom speaker, Miss Mary Forte.
You may unmute yourself and begin your comment.
Yes, thank you.
I support this.
I was at the illegal dumping conference in 2023
when Brian presented this.
I think it is good.
It is not about, this is not about enforcement.
This is about cleanup.
Proactive cleanup of illegal dumping.
We can't even get our hands on picking up enough.
We can't pick it up fast enough, it comes back.
And Brian, I don't know if you remember me,
but at the end when we were walking out,
I did kind of say to you at the side,
I said, I really like this idea of the technology.
I would like to know has the city of San Francisco
public works, why haven't they used this or whatever?
And my other question would be,
is that when it, it will be identifying illegal dumping
at encampments, I believe.
And, you know, we don't just go,
we being public works just doesn't go in and clean that up.
They send certain crews.
So I just, I'm not quite sure what my question is
around the encampments, but that would need to be addressed.
but thank you, I at least support a demo
and please pick something in district six or seven
or care or five area, thank you.
Thank you for your comment.
We do have a motion made by council member Wong,
seconded by chair Unger to approve
the recommendations of staff
and the board decide them to the April 14th,
2026 special city council agenda at 3.30 on roll.
Councillor Dela Cruz.
Aye.
Thank you, Council Member Wong.
Aye.
And Chair Onger.
Aye.
This motion does pass with four ayes
to approve the recommendations of staff
and afford this item to the April 14th.
Special City Council agenda
and do the body that at 3.30, that will be all consent.
Thank you.
Moving to our next item, item six.
All right, item six, where the trash talk is over,
we're on to good stuff.
I will now read the item into record.
Dr. Resolution 1 honoring Bishop Chaney Charlie Hanes Jr. for his distinguished service for the
66th Bishop of the Christian Methodist Episcopal Church and his transformational leadership as a
senior pastor of the VB Memorial, CME in Oakland, and his lifelong commitment to faith, community
services, social justice, commemoratively renaming this intersection of 39th and Telegraph Avenue
the council. And I would like to
I am the deputy policy analyst with Council Member Zach Unger's office.
I also am here with the senior pastor of BB Memorial, and I will give him a moment to
speak a little bit about the church and about who we will be honoring.
I just wanted to come before you quickly and say that we came to public works in transportation
because we will be having to work closely with the Department of Transportation, as
as well as potentially AC Transit seeing as how BB Memorial sits directly on a bus line.
So we did want to come and let you all know that.
We know that honoring Oakland's legacy and culture is really important, hence why we
are doing a commemorative street renaming.
We want to be able to recognize the community impact of those individuals who have played
significant roles within our communities.
We also want to ensure that we're advancing equity and representation in a visible way
throughout the city of Oakland.
And finally, we want to have pride in a place of belonging within our communities.
We know that it is a lot of work and a lot of cross-departmental collaboration in order
to do collaborative and commemorative street renaming, but it is also a sense of pride
and community building.
So with that being said, I will hand the mic over to the senior pastor of B.B. Memorial
Church, Pastor Miller.
you actually thank you all for this time to be able to speak on Bishop Charlie Haynes as you know
as she stated I am the senior pastor of even more have been there a little over a year and a half
I have restored I have basically inherited one of the historical churches in Oakland
has been around for 101 years it is one of the pilot churches that that is focused on social
justice it has persons like Ted Kennedy, Shirley Chisholm, Kamala Harris has come through this
church. Bishop Haines was basically one of the ones who was instrumental in
having some of those leaders to come to the church. Like I said he served there
over 20 years. He was in great partnership with our current mayor
Barbara Lee. He also was in partnership with Steph Curry where he launched his
first The Christmas with the Curries at BB Memorial Cathedral under his
leadership. For him to be elected as a bishop in the CMU church is a great
this is why you have to have
a big milestone and so this is
one of the reasons why we want
to represent, we want to
basically have this community
placard in his honor for him
being the 66th bishop of the
Christian Methodist Episcopal
Church.
He's also one of the first ones
to be elected out of the state
of California and so this is one
of the reasons why we're pushing
for this initiative because of
the impact he had on the city
So thank you so much, Pastor.
So we are hoping that you all will forward this
to the special, our special city council meeting
that will be happening on, I believe, April the 14th.
On consent, we will have to be working again,
like I said, very closely with the Department
of Transportation and potentially AC Transit
to be able to pull this off in a relatively short timeline.
And we are now open for questions.
Thank you so much for your time.
It's one twenty four we might just make it questions council members
All right, I have made the motion for April 14th for the 330 meeting
Thank you
That is a motion made by chair under seconded by councilmember guyo to approve the recommendations of staff and the fourth this item to the April
14th special City Council agenda at 3 30 p.m. On roll councilmember guyo
comes over Houston
Councilmember Wong I and chair on gear I emotion does pass with four I's to improve the recommendations of staff before this item to the
April 14th special City Council agenda at 3 30 p.m. On consent
Thank you moving to our next item and very quickly before everyone leaves the room just one point of personal privilege
Ashley Jamaat who's standing up there
Has worked with me since I took office. She is moving on to bigger and better things in the city of Oakland
She's not going far, she's gonna be working
in the human services department
and she's promised that she will continue
to take my phone calls and I'm gonna hold you to that.
So I just wanna thank you for all of your work
and all of your service to our city.
Thank you very much, sir, I appreciate it.
Congratulations, Ashley.
Thank you.
Moving to item three,
receive an informational report regarding progress
in 2023 through 25 on implementing
the 2030 Equitable Climate Action Plan
and you do have one speaker.
All right, staff, I'm sorry to rush you,
but we have a little bit of time
that Council Member Brown has given us into her committee.
Go ahead.
Good afternoon, I think,
Chair and members of the committee.
Quick primer, very quick,
on Oakland's equitable climate action plan, or ECAP.
The ECAP was adopted by Council in July 2020
with two overriding goals set on a backdrop
of racial and economic equity.
First, do everything within our control
to stop the climate crisis,
reducing greenhouse gas emissions 60%
relative to 2005 levels by 2030.
And second, use all legal and regulatory mechanisms
available to adapt to the effects of the climate crisis,
effects that are already here
and accelerating as we speak.
It's an ambitious plan and also practical.
It came out of two years of analysis
that looked at current technologies, local supply chains,
our legal and regulatory spheres of control,
available resources, and more.
The result is a set of 40 actions spread across seven themes,
transportation and land use, buildings,
material consumption and waste, adaptation,
carbon removal, which includes urban greening and trees,
and then city leadership and port leadership.
So turning to the report, if you look at the very last page,
the last attachment, you'll see a graphic breakdown
of where we are at this midpoint of implementation.
Again, it's a 10-year plan,
and this report covers the three-year, calendar year period
ending at the end of 2005.
So that graphic shows that we're progressing well,
especially well given our budget limitations
and the ongoing COVID recovery
that really covered the first,
colored the first few years of ECAP implementation.
Back to the beginning of the report,
table one starting on page three is a summary of progress
over that three year reporting period
of each of the 40 ECAP actions.
New in this report,
different from the last progress report
are summaries from two plans
that really emanated from the ECAP,
that's the zero-emission vehicle action plan,
and the environmental justice element
of the general plan update.
And then finally, there's a narrative look ahead
at our implementation focus for the next two to three years.
That will be focused really on leveraging
and building more public-private partnerships,
bringing in more funding to the city,
and doubling down on the linkage between climate action
and local economic development.
The innovation team or I-team that is housed in the mayor's office is emblematic of that focus
as the ECAP really was the crux of our application in securing the I-team and the related resources.
In closing, a few highlights of progress from the last three years of ECAP implementation.
So first, a shout out to the port.
The port of Oakland has reduced black carbon and particulate matter pollution more than 50%
since 2017 with more than 300 million dollars
in new investments still to come.
And there's no better example of how climate action
and health equity are intertwined than that.
Second example, new construction in Oakland
has been all electric really since the ECAP was adopted.
And that's thanks in part to our strong building codes
which were adopted again last fall.
and the obvious business case where it is cheaper
as well as healthier to build all electric
compared to building with electricity and gas.
And now, thanks to our permitting reform
and permit streamlining through the Building Bureau,
it's actually easier than it ever has been before
to renovate existing buildings
to switch out gas for clean electricity.
Our Measure MM is producing $2.7 million a year
to add more vegetation management in high fire areas.
We replaced more than 110 gas water heaters
with high efficiency heat pumps at city buildings
thanks to partnership between the Sustainability
and Resilience Division and the City Administrator's Office
and Oakland Public Works.
And then lastly, a transportation highlight
because transportation accounts for two-thirds
of our local greenhouse gas emissions.
The ECAT makes it clear that to reduce
our transportation emissions,
we need to first make it easier
for as many people in activities
to get out of vehicles as possible.
And that's by making it easier and safer to walk by,
can use transit, and then secondly,
electrifying all remaining vehicles on the road.
Today we have over 200 miles of bikeways in Oakland,
and over 12,000 bike parking spaces.
And we're seeing public electric vehicle charging stations
approved at a record pace.
So, again, we need more resources.
We're working on that, but we're moving forward.
I thank you for the opportunity to present,
and I'm happy to ask questions, or answer questions.
You can ask questions, too.
I don't have any further.
Council members, questions, comments.
Council member Wong.
Yeah, thank you so much for your work on this.
I think my only comment slash question is just around the importance of the energy transition
as a job creator.
I noticed that in some of the status updates, it seems like that's more early stage rather
than, you know, some of the other items where we made more progress.
And I know with the Inflation Reduction Act funding drying up, that that can absolutely
be a huge impediment, but I was encouraged to see that that is your top priority that
you listed, and I would love to hear more about how we go about doing it, how council
can support, because I think it's really important that we bring along communities,
especially those who don't have college degrees as part of this energy transition, and we're
well positioned given our location with the port and just, you know, the environmental
investments coming from across the Bay to take advantage of this excellent do
we have speakers moving to our public speakers Kevin Dali
hi Kevin Dali thanks this is a really impressive document there's a couple
things I want to point out Oakland stuck with state laws and incentives be be to
than moving existing buildings to natural gas,
it's still somewhat painful, especially for low income.
I'm not low income myself, but my renter is,
so I get an 8,000 rebate and a $13,000 expense.
But if you're a low income homeowner,
you have to put up $8,000 and wait for months
for the incentives to come back.
Permits are still a pain.
Unfortunately, I'm stuck with a passing on the permit
and I can't figure out what's wrong.
Another thing Oakland should look at is the California PUC
has now made it not financially advantageous
to have solar panels on multi-unit buildings.
But if you put panels on a single meter,
you get paid only for avoidable costs.
That's next to nothing.
The next unit over has to pay full price
to use energy at the same time.
That's something the PUC could change
and maybe Oakland could push to have it done.
And thanks for pointing out all the transportation issues.
That was great.
I was going to do it if you didn't.
Thank you.
I would like to make a motion
that we receive this in committee and file it here.
to allow on highway 580, the huge Packard trucks
that are Port of Oakland bound on a 880.
I see what position has the city taken
on allowing that behavior to happen.
I'll check in with you, thank you.
But I'll second the motion.
We do have a motion made by Chair Ongers,
seconded by Councilmember Ragu,
to receive and file this to the Public Works
and Transportation Committee on Rural Councilmember Ragu.
Thank you, Councilmember Houston.
bless you. Council member Wong? Aye. Thank you and chair Unger? Aye. The motion does
pass with four ayes to receive and file this in the Public Works and
Transportation Committee. Moving to open forum. Want to call your name please
approach the podium. If you're participating via Zoom please raise your
hand. Kevin Dahle, Mary Forte and David Vote Right. Kevin Dahle passes. David Vote
Wright also passes.
Moving to Zill speakers.
Mrs. Forte please unmute yourself and begin your comment.
Yes, just quickly.
For the six council people,
if you do not have April 20th on your calendar at 6.30,
there will be a follow-up meeting
from the public action on January 12th.
And we hope that there will be,
will be a progress update so it's we are making progress but please put that on
your calendars. Again that's Monday April 20th location to be determined. One of
the things that we did ask for for the ordinance was a formal oversight
committee so that has not been addressed and we would like that formal oversight
Committee to be in place to see and ensure that the ordinance is implemented
properly. Question, where is the funding coming from for the Arabic pilot? And
lastly, I saw that the mayor and two council people were in DC last week and
one thing they said they were there asking for money and one of the things
they were asking for money for was illegal dumping. Can we get a report back
on that? And I do feel it's very important that this committee have
illegal dumping on their agenda on a regular basis. Thank you. That concludes
your public speaker's open forum. All right thank you everybody for hanging in
there. This meeting is adjourned.