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Buenas días La Runión de Huy de la Ciudad de Oakland
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And I thank you so much for
having us.
Thank you for joining us.
Back to you.
Thank you so much.
I will go ahead and give speaker
card instructions if you would
like to speak on any agenda item
please fill out the speaker's
card before the item is called
for a discussion or two hours
after the start of the meeting.
This meeting was called to order
at 9, 10 a.m.
So your last opportunity to turn
out the speaker's card will be
at 11, 10 or before the item is
called whichever comes first.
started this meeting on roll Councilmember Brown present
Councilmember Fife present Councilmember Gallo present
Councilmember Houston excuse Councilmember Ramachandran
present Councilmember Unger excuse Councilmember Wong
present and Chair Jenkins showing six members present
at this time do you have any announcements before we begin?
No announcements.
Going to item three modifications to the agenda.
Any questions?
No modifications.
Going to item four, receive an information report
on the fiscal year 26 through 27,
Mayor's proposed mid-cycle budget.
You have 21 speakers on this item.
Good morning, everyone.
We are going to kick off this meeting with a presentation.
I will introduce the mayor in a second.
But K-top, could we bring up the first PowerPoint?
Thank you.
My name is Brad Johnson.
I'm your Director of Finance.
Today's agenda, we'll go have some framing remarks
by Mayor Lee. I will then provide some context and background regarding our fiscal situation
and I'll hand it over to our Acting City Administrator to talk more about the budget and its major
service impacts. And without further ado I would like to welcome Mayor Lee to the podium
to provide you some opening remarks. Well good morning members of Oakland City Council,
of the public. I am very proud to present my very first budget as mayor of Oakland.
I have always said and believe that a budget is a moral document that reflects the values
and priorities of those who rely on our government services, the city government, to help make
life better for everyone. And as a former member of the House of Representatives, Appropriations
and budget committee, that was the framework upon which I viewed federal budgets, now our
city budget.
And let me just commend our finance team.
I want to thank Bradley, our department heads, for assembling a fiscally sound budget that
is balanced, built only on revenue that we can reliably project and that delivers our
our core services to our residents.
Now let me be clear.
It does not include parcel tax revenue because Measure E has not been approved by voters.
The amount of one-time money used for ongoing services has fallen dramatically in this budget,
and this budget does not include any layoffs of our city staff.
Oakland's rightfully want better and more efficient services, and we need staff to deliver
core services to Oaklanders.
At a time when many local governments are laying off staff, this budget recognizes that
Oakland's workforce is essential to maintaining public safety, responding to homelessness,
keeping neighborhoods clean, and delivering the services that our residents rely on every
day.
These budget items, line items, are foundational for economic development and for creating
jobs here in our city, but the foundational issues must be addressed.
Public safety will continue to be my top priority and is heading, quite frankly, in the right
direction.
This is a result of coordinated, community-wide strategies, and this budget is built to protect
the momentum.
Now, we certainly are not taking a victory lap, but the trajectory is going in the right
direction.
Through this mid-cycle budget, we are making some minor adjustments to increase impact
and effectiveness of every city dollar on providing the essential services that Oakland
residents deserve.
Here's what the budget does in summary for Oakland residents.
safety. We're addressing addressing and investing in violence prevention and
emergency response and I've asked the acting city administrative to create a
dedicated HR team focused on one thing and that's hiring more police
firefighters and violence prevention workers faster. We can't keep the city
safe if we can't fill these jobs so we have to move at a faster and more
efficient pace. Regarding clean streets, we're restoring illegal dumping cleanup,
bringing back street sweeping, and putting more enforcement staff on the
ground. People want and deserve clean neighborhoods. This budget moves in that
direction. We're expanding the mayor's summer jobs program for our youth. More
Oakland youth need more summer opportunities. Senior centers get an
an extra day per week. Libraries get their staff and their books back. And we're adding
peer navigators at the main library and the MLK branch, real people helping patrons connect
to services and keeping those spaces safe and welcoming. We're also restoring animal
services staffing. Now we have to confront the challenges as leaders in this city. We
must confront them head on. Federal and state money is drying up. Now over the
last two years Oakland has absorbed at least, mind you, this is at least 24
million in lost or delayed federal funding and we're facing a five million
dollar state gap in homelessness funding, meaning 190 shelter beds go offline
this summer and mental health wellness centers will close. That's real harm to
real people who are our most vulnerable. Now, costs keep growing faster than our
revenue. Think of it like a household. Everyone's working hard, picking up
extra shifts, but rent and gas keep going up faster than paychecks. Every
month you're forced to cut something and that's Oakland's reality this budget is
balanced and reduces the structural deficit but it doesn't solve the
underlying problems our equipment is failing our fire engines and trucks are
past their useful lives and are at risk of breaking down if they fail we end up
closing fire houses this means slower 911 response levels and in a disaster it
could be catastrophic. Our dumping crews are hampered by broken down equipment that can't
get the job done. This is unacceptable. And I hear every day from residents and small
business owners who are frustrated, they're not asking for miracles. They want trash big
tub, 911 answered quickly, and streets they can walk safely on. And so we do have to earn
trust back. So I'm not satisfied with what this budget alone can deliver but
it is balanced and it does begin to reduce the structural deficit, but you
shouldn't be satisfied either. You have the Measure E spending plan before
you. If residents in Oakland approve Measure E, those funds will go directly
to some of the issues that I just mentioned, replacing failing fire
equipment so no fire house excuse me fire houses close and 9-1-1 we need to
increase our response time with 9-1-1 sustaining the crime prevention programs
that are actually working getting people off of the streets and into shelter
housing and mental health services fixing the dumping crews machines and
equipment and cleaning up our parks and streets and more but this budget is a
solid step forward. But getting Oakland where it needs to be requires more local resources
and continued fiscal discipline. We owe it to every single resident who shows up, pays
taxes, and believes that this city can do better. Oakland's strength comes from the
people who love the city and refuse to give up on it. So let's build a safer, cleaner,
we've had a lot of time and
thank you again members of the
council.
Thank you merely.
I'm gonna provide you a little
bit of context as to how we get
he got here and then I will
hand it over to our acting city
administrator to go through
some more details regarding this
As the Mayor mentioned, our revenues have not grown as fast as our expenditures, primarily
driven by rising personnel costs like Medicare medical benefits and pension contributions.
While revenues continue to grow, again, our expenses grow faster.
And this data up on the screen, which came from a report not developed by your finance
staff but by SPUR, shows that detail.
In the past years, prior to the end of the 20 teens, the city had numerous operating
deficits.
Toward the end of that time sparing, a strong economy, fiscally prudent policies brought
us back above the line.
COVID took its toll, but then the presence of the ARPA funds helped the city make strides
toward a structurally balanced budget.
However, we need to return back to those practices in many of our years the city did not comply with its own policies regarding
paying down its liabilities establishing reserves
ensuring that one-time resources were only used to support one-time activities as
A consequence of this the city took many actions to balance its budget
You can see going back to the 28 financial crisis many of these found on
Expenditure reductions impacting services to residents from the layoff of 80 police officers to using one-time ARPA funds
To using our rainy day fund to freezing to increasing parking rates, etc
City also had many efforts that increased our revenue side again to deal with this ballot. This is imbalances
Clusing measures Oh why?
AA q etc
We are in a fiscal landscape that is moving quickly with the
circumstances changing gradually.
As we began developing this budget,
we were not in a war in the Middle East.
There are many things coming out of D.C.
and happening with a broader economy that are not knowable.
We don't know the impact of AI
in terms of both what it will do to our workforce
in the local Bay Area context,
what the boom in AI will do to our local economy,
what a potential pullback of AI might do
in the AI investment might do to our economy.
We don't know what the long-term impacts
of higher gas prices or long-term tariff policies may be.
And again, monetary policy at the federal level
is also there, Inc.
But this budget is balanced and it does sustain investments
in our core key local services,
maintaining them under our control.
Oakland is not just facing a structural deficit financially.
It's also facing a deficit of services.
It's the facing a deficit of deferred maintenance,
seen in the poor quality of our infrastructure,
our public facilities.
And it's facing a deficit related to our equipment
and technological systems, which are many times old,
outdated, and inefficient,
and unhelpful for providing services.
As it relates to that service deficit,
the city has often not been able to, in recent years,
make the matching funds required
for our locally adopted ballot measures.
measures Q and N, measures C and D,
which support the library, et cetera.
Again, these measures often had valid, badly adopted
provisions by which the council could waive
these requirements through its findings.
But nonetheless, our roadmap to fiscal health,
which I'll discuss next, mandates that we look at coming
back into compliance with these matching requirements.
And again, that's an expensive proposition.
This budget builds on past progress.
It sustains the fiscally disciplined practices
that resulted from our balancing actions
during fiscal 2024-25,
including expenditure controls
and improved revenue collections.
It builds on the current year budget
where we successfully issued a bond,
including front loading both biennials years
worth of affordable housing money
in terms to the tune of $180 million
in the years to come.
To ensure that we continued our
work to reducing homelessness
providing for housing.
Our current year projections
sore shore spending and revenue
in the general purpose fund are
balanced that we have a small
but healthy fund balance and
that we have recovered from
prior actions.
Our roadmap to physical health
is our long term window to
ensuring that the city.
that.
As the mayor mentioned earlier, it is balanced, it dramatically reduces our structural deficit.
And those are the first two key things that you're seeing in that road map to health.
Again, physical health executive team, regular progress, and a structurally balanced budget.
We are working on long term plans regarding pension and
other benefit costs on implementing fiscal policies which will come back to you.
We provided a report to you on voter mandated staffing levels that was delivered to
to finance and management this February.
And we are working on plans on investments
in minstructure, fleet, and equipment and technology.
I'm gonna turn it over to Acting City Minister Betsy Lake
to talk more about the details of what is in this balanced
and more structurally balanced budget proposal.
Thank you, Bradley.
All right.
So for our budget overview, we have a total of 2.27 billion
across all funds.
The important one for us to be thinking about is our general purpose fund.
And you'll see from this chart we have an expenditure amount of 812.9 million.
This is actually about $44 million less than we anticipated in our initial two-year budget.
But as you can see from the chart, it is more than we had in this current fiscal year.
So what does this budget do for our various services?
We have our core emergency services and community safety operations and this is generally a
budget of preservation and restoration.
So we're preserving all the sworn staffing.
We're maintaining all the fire engines and stations.
We are establishing a constitutional policing administrator and that is to continue the
the good work of our OPD under our NSA.
And it maintains violence prevention
and ceasefire related staffing and coordinating.
For homelessness and neighborhood cleanliness,
we are maintaining our homelessness outreach efforts.
I think people have seen that the point in time count
had a 20% reduction of homelessness in the city of Oakland.
We are restoring our illegal dumping cleanup.
a lot of focus on that and time to move to implementation.
We are restoring environmental enforcement
for quality of life.
We are continuing special activities permitting enforcement.
We are extending the senior center open hours.
I think the mayor mentioned that in her remarks.
She also mentioned that we're restoring
the mayor's summer jobs program and just in time.
We are maintaining staffing at our rec centers,
libraries, housing, and rental assistant program.
And we are restoring branch staffing
and funding at our libraries,
as well as restoring funding
at our Oakland Animal Services.
The budget also includes capital investments.
It increases our Measure U capital improvement budget.
It allocates Measure U funding towards street paving,
invests in our complete street projects
and maintains existing KK funded investments.
It's funds facility improvement projects
and supports our safety and security projects.
So where are we now in our mid cycle process?
The budget was submitted by the mayor May 15th.
We are in the first of the special council budget meetings.
There are two more, one on June 12th and one on June 17th
and by June 30th, this council is tasked
with adopting a budget.
So what can all of you do?
Please stay engaged, be engaged,
volunteer on a commission or a board
like our budget advisory commission.
Make sure you tune in to our finance
and management committee meetings
and stay engaged with your council members
with.
And as we go through.
This mid cycle budget thank you.
Thank you so much anymore.
All right thank you so I want to get to the public speakers unless somebody from
council has something to say but if the housing staff can come up I think it's
very important to clarify the affordable housing bonds and where we are know
there's been some emails that have gone out.
hundred million dollars that's
pretty athletic.
Can you clarify where we are
with the affordable housing
balance.
Yes absolutely I'm like one
sign director of housing and
community development and this
was part of the biannual budget
in the first year the budget
included a hundred million
dollars of measure you the
second year included eighty
million dollars of measure you
that tranche of of funding
the budget has been awarded to projects. So or programs so we have no more funding at this point as part of our budget proposal we proposed to include the third tranche in the this year's in the mid cycle budget. That is not included in the budget that's before you. So unless additional funding is added we would not be able to award any more funding to projects until probably late 2027 or early 2028.
We want to make sure that we
make sure that we have the
money.
Okay so it's a good thing that
we got the money out the door
to help people as soon as
possible correct that is a great
thing and then we'll be waiting
to do that again for another
couple years okay thank you.
Council member Houston.
Yes do the chair I heard restore
restore restore animal services
restore I heard in nothing about
But none of my seniors.
And also restructure environmental enforcement and that's through the chair to Betsy.
How are we restructuring the enforcement for the EEOs?
Because that was supposed to be done prior.
Thank you.
I'm going to ask Director Garland to come to speak to that.
Good morning.
Liam Garland, Public Works Director.
What the proposed budget does is it unfreezes an environmental officer position and so we'd
move from seven authorized positions to eight which would help us with the essentially the
implementation of the new citation amounts and making sure that we are citing folks who
are illegally dumping in our streets and sidewalks.
Okay one more question through the chair.
me and my council member Rowena Brown are working on it
because the enforcement officers,
they were supposed to be trained for
and hazardous and contaminated so we can prosecute.
And let me share this one more time.
Instead of just finding that goes straight
to the city attorney, we need to prosecute
and collect the data so we can send it
to the district attorney's office for full prosecution
to the full extent of the law, right?
So where is that at?
Where they're training not only for, hold on a second,
not only training them to collect the data
to actually protect them from the issues
and the conditions that are out there
because the things that are being dumped on our streets,
waste management won't even allow to come to the dump.
So I wanna find out how is that training,
because that was supposed to be done 12 months ago
when I first got in office, that was one of my main ones.
So I'm really stern about that.
Councilmember Houston, thank you for your focus on this.
And I believe you and your council colleagues
did allocate dollars for that training
of our environmental enforcement officers.
We've been trying to rebuild or re-staff that unit.
We've got a couple vacancies in it now.
We'll have another if this proposed budget is approved.
And we're saving that training
for when we've got those EEOs all on staff.
So it's important to us.
We wish we could have done it faster.
And we think there is a route with these hires
the next several months that we will get that training conducted and we'll we'll
head the direction you're you're sharing okay and it wasn't towards you
mr. Garland you're doing a great job I'm just saying that when I first got in
office I had three major things as my seniors homelessness illegal dumping
when it comes to the crime against our community that the mayor knows about she
wants to say something to I think thank you councilman Houston I just wanted to
respond to the senior centers because they are extremely important to our
communities to all of us currently senior centers are open three days a week I want to restore them to five days a week this budget restores them to four days a week.
Thank you okay and one more.
So the four days a week is good but can we do it from nine to five because now they're they close at one.
right now this budget is only adding the additional day. I'd like to see how we
could extend those hours but we have to you know and when you look at the budget
the council has the chance to scrub it. I would say I'd like to do that but I'd
like to get them to five days also given the current hours. I think and I
would have to talk to them about would they prefer five days with the current
hours or the current hours, you know, and expanded hours for four days.
So thank you.
We're working on that.
Okay.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you, Council Member.
Oh.
And then through the chair, I was just going to let Council Member Houston know that we
do have a strike force right now with OPD, OPW, and the mayor's office and the city administrator's
office to pursue illegal dumping prosecutions with the DA.
so that is underway.
So it's clear, due to Chair, so it's clear,
we need to have them trained so they can collect the data
to show hazardous contaminated, so when it's documented
and it goes to the district attorney's office,
the district attorney can actually prosecute
and not throw it out because I've seen it happen
many times where the data's not collected properly,
so it's just thrown out and these people are able
to keep committing this crime against our community.
So what I might suggest as part of the budget process,
maybe a policy directive to staff might be appropriate
so you could get in exactly what you want, Mayor.
Yeah, no, I just wanted to comment on that,
Council Member Houston.
In order to increase penalties from a misdemeanor
to a felony, we need to be able to ensure
that these environmental specialists
can identify the pollutants as being toxic.
Thank you, Council Member Gaglio.
Yes, thank you, and thank you for the information.
And for some of us we've been through this process
for many, many years, many times.
And it comes down, it's not about what we say,
it's what we do.
I can sit here and write all kinds of budgets,
give you all kinds of reasons,
but the reality is that I wanna, Mr. Bradley,
I need to be very clear in terms of the funding
that's available that the citizens provided the city
that we need to take a second look.
One for me, the issues that are a priority
my neighborhood, having grown up in East Oakland, certainly it's public safety in a clean city.
So for me to have a clean city, I need to invest in the vehicles and the staffing to
get the streets clean, like we used to have. I used to have people at Lake Merritt, cleaning
Lake Merritt. I used to have people assigned to our parks, cleaning our parks. But the
The reality, what I'm asking for, where is the money?
It's an example of the $36 million that we're collecting
as a franchise fee from the taxpayer as an extra fee
to support us with the environment,
with the cleaning of the city, cleaning of our parks.
And I don't see that happening
because I have five of my employees in my city.
I'm not making more policies.
I don't need more policy and more laws.
I have plenty of those.
I have to be able to enforce them.
So what I'm asking for, where is that money
that the franchise fees collecting for me
is a taxpayer on my garbage bill?
Where is that money going?
Is it in being invested to make sure
that I have the vehicles, the trucks?
Just go to a Coliseum way.
How many trucks are sitting there?
They could be on the street.
If it's not 50, it's more than that
because I drive your city trucks every weekend
and my five employees drive city vehicles.
So we see it hands on what is happening
in our local neighborhood.
Then the other one that I'm asking for is
so where I'm collecting that extra fee with waste management.
Where is that money going to?
And secondly, when it comes to public safety,
I see now that I'm gonna go hire someone
to another administrator to oversee constitutional policing.
Why do I have the police chief there for?
Why do I have all his student lieutenants
and captains there for?
I don't need more administrators.
Because if you look at it, what is the staffing level
at the mayor's office right now?
I've never seen that many employees at the city council
or at the mayor's office working.
So we need, for me it's I need,
we need people on the neighborhood
doing what the taxpayers being paid,
the police chief to do, the fire department.
Because the reality is what is the number of officers,
they don't even live in Oakland.
They just come here and then they go home
and I worked eight years, 10 years in San Jose
and I remember doing that, ran in San Jose, ran back,
come to all of special things, well, I'm not there.
So for me, I need to have some very clear numbers.
City administrator, you've been here for many, many years.
All right, and I have never seen Oakland
the way it is today.
And I cannot sit here and make excuses for it,
and I'm not gonna ask the voters for more money
when I can't prove what I did with the money I have.
So the other one that I have for the mayor and the city,
When are we going to return back to work Monday through Friday because I'm paying your salaries
to be here in Oakland providing a service for my business community, for my libraries
and all that other services that I'm asking, when are we returning back to work?
Five days a week.
And secondly, I think that we talk about human trafficking, violating women, violating young
women and here we're making excuses because I remember removing them from
District 5 and the chief was here and I needed the FBI to come help me do that
and other federal agencies from the sheriff to the fire department to be
able to help us with the public safety and not just sit here talking about it
making more excuses that we need more money we don't have this we don't have
that and that it goes for Department of Transportation so anyway so for me I
I want to be very clear on the numbers that I have with a budget and where is that money
going to and secondly within each department I want to know how many attorneys do I need?
Do I need 35 city attorneys or do I need 35 people helping me clean the streets?
Do I need six employees at the city council level or do I need them in the streets doing
to clean it. So we don't sit here talking about it. But, and so that's what with all
due respect, having been through this process before, I want to stay balanced, but at the
same time, I want to demonstrate to my neighbors that the money they're investing is going
directly back into the neighborhood and not sitting here at City Hall making more policies
and more laws and more rules and so at the end of the day, for me, it's not about what
we say, it's what we do and so I'm asking my council people that we need to make some
serious decisions within our council as well, including all the administration, what we're
doing, because I'll leave you at this, I have people doing illegal dumping but I never see
about the picking up trash but they're telling me how to do it and when to do it and and so we
need to be very clear on the investment of the dollars that I have to support my children and
my families and anyways with all due respect thank you. Thank you councilman Murgayo and I took
parsed a few things from there one the franchise fee all right and where is that going is it going
or we don't have the time to
move back into a legal dumping
and there's also always the
opportunity you're right there's
always opportunity for policy
directed to say hey I want all
of this funding going towards
illegal dumping or cleaning the
streets- second I heard
constitutional policing officer
third I heard mayor staffing
fourth I heard city attorney
fifth I heard. Return to work
To be very clear. Where's the cannabis money that we used to get a millions of dollars? Where's that going?
I mean I could smoke we
Needer to go back into the neighborhood
Anyways, thank you. Thank you. Okay Bradley to what you can get from
Thank You council president
I will try to answer a couple of those questions and if I have any of my colleagues behind me who should chime in please
Do regarding your waste management franchise the largest allocation of that is to your fund the 1720
as well as the development of
the city which is your
comprehensive cleanup fund.
That fund supports illegal
dumping operations environmental
enforcement and street sweeping.
And so when you look at the
was mentioned franchise the vast
majority of it comes back into
that fund and again it funds the
operations which include the
staffing and the equipment and
any related services for clean
I'm sorry for that yeah.
I'm sorry for that yeah.
I can get you and I can get you the specific details and breakdown of how that is broken
down absolutely.
The yes another question around that right the in their do revenue allocation first on
your cannabis resources your cannabis business tax is a type of business tax it accrues to
your general purpose fund and your general purpose fund.
primarily about three-quarters of it is public safety spending so the largest
users of that amount would be proportionally your police and fire
departments for their public safety 911 responses function so it's primarily
goes to police and fire again your cannabis tax is a business license tax
and so it's a general fund revenue source to the cost of constitutional
policing administrator chief James here of the Oakland Police Department so just
And I know customer guy Oh, thanks for asking the question
But the counts the constitutional policing advisor is not an additional supervisor to the chief of police. It's actually a
position that's very
Described into the submission as someone that's helping with policy the best practices in policing to ensure that the police department
Is working with all city departments and they've actually kind of helped the communication piece
and it's a huge help with actually coordinating
other city departments so we can, you know,
respond more holistically as a city
and they also help with the communication
with the mayor's office.
Thank you.
Mayor's office.
Yes, let me just comment on a couple of things,
Council Member Gayo.
One is with regard to the constitutional policing.
You know we've been under the negotiated settlement agreement
for 23 years.
And that for a lot of reasons we have not been able to exit it,
which of course costs the city quite a bit of money.
And so in order to be able to complete the tasks,
the 51 tasks which we have completed this year,
we did completed the three toughest ones.
We had to have a strategy from the city
and with the police department working with the monitor
to be able to move forward based on the court's requirements
to exit the NSA.
That required a constitutional policing staff person
to help us develop the strategy,
which has not happened in the past,
and so the city could be coordinated.
So hopefully in September,
if we continue to move forward and not revert backwards,
we'll be able to exit the oversight
of the police department.
We need to make sure that we don't revert back,
and the judge has been very clear
that we have to move forward and not see
any backsliding because we're not the police department
23 years ago, but we have to make sure
that the structural changes that have been made remain.
And so that's an important position to have
so that we can move forward and make sure,
and we've seen progress this year.
I hope you believe that, and we're almost completed
with this process if in fact we continue
on the track that we're on.
Secondly with regard to human trafficking and that's a priority of mine. It's it's horrendous. It's immoral
It's wrong and I want to thank councilmember Wong. We established into the last year's budget a
$750,000 budget item to establish the task force. She works with the DA and
prosecutions arrests and and
Finding the services that these young girls need and coordinating with the city and with councilmember Wong is working
But we have to do a lot more, but this is the first time we've had a strategy a public health public safety strategy
Which addressed the human trafficking and we need to do more
But we at least begun that and whether you believe it or not
It's something that the work is taking place
But we have a lot more to do and finally just with regard to my staff we have a very
Expert efficient staff that's helping this city reduce and break down these silos in this city
They're delivering core services. They're augmenting a lot of what's the city administration is engaged in and also
Bringing in millions of dollars in public and private partnerships. There's no way we could have had our event for example
Celebrating a Lisa Leo had it not been for my staff
There's no way we could have been designated as the only watch party city for the NFL
During the Super Bowl if it weren't for my staff
So we do a heck of a lot to help this city move forward and I'm very proud of the work that they do
Thank you. Thank you, man. Yes
Can you turn this Michael?
Can you turn one second when you turn your Michael?
Let's turn your Michael one second
It's green. Yeah, we got you. All right. So look
We've been at this for a number of years chief here you understand that all right the federal monitor of mayor
Though we've had has been costing us millions of dollars, but you know what five other cities in the US fired him
He should have been fired a long time ago
But we keep making excuses while we this while we that and the judge because I met with the US marshal in
San Francisco to get rid of the monitor
And he said well, it's up to the judge
But the reality is we keep just talking and investing and giving money police chief
You're hired to do manage the department
Why do I need someone to tell me what?
Constitutionally I need to do because that's all just a political
social
excuses that we're making
Mayor and we've been through this many times where all you got enough you got one more item to do
Oh, no, you got two more issues to do the next year comes about one. Oh, you got five
So the bottom line is, you know, we need to really move forward and get people on the streets.
There is no excuse. Mayor, you want to go by her area, the 16 girls that are underage out there
prostituting every day, every night. Police chief, you see them, and we need to be able to address
that and we're just sitting here doing more talking politically as opposed to
dealing with it. We can smile and laugh at it but then I'm at the other end
complaining about how I'm treating young ladies and we're allowing that to
happen in this city. Do you see that in Alameda, Mayor? You see that in San
Leandro? Nope, so it's not about what we say, it's what we do and the dollars that
you have from, that we're investing in, we need to make it clear it's about safety and
it's about cleanliness. And I'll leave you with one example from yours being here when
Robert Bob was the city manager. Every administrator, I manage parks, but he said, well, I'm going
to put you where the neighbors are at Lake Merritt. I don't want you sitting at City
Hall talking and I'm going to give you a pickup truck, because every day you got to have a
truckload of stuff you picked up to show an example to the other workers that
that's your task. But you know I don't want to sit here with my suit and I
don't wear my suit and ties no more because I'm out there cleaning the
streets every day. So I think that that's what we need to be able to communicate
that if you're an administrator no I want you on the street so you can see
what's really happening. Police chief you drive down you see 15 girls every day.
Right? Oh, that's, is that a norm? Is that an excuse? But yet, you know I can sit
here complaining about how we treat ladies. Anyway, so I hope that we
take more of a proactive, include the fire department, they're sitting right
across where the girls are going. So we're all into public safety and we
need to protect Oakland. And for those of us that don't live in Oakland, need to
to make sure we contribute and respect
because we're paying your salary.
Thank you.
As a member of GAIO, for the first time
in the history of the life of the NSA,
Chief Warshaw and the monitoring team
actually placed the Oakland Police Department
in full compliance.
That's never happened before.
Also at the same time, the plaintiff's attorneys
had a joint statement with the city
saying that they're confident with us going forward.
But for us to keep going forward,
it's not about getting out of the NSA.
it's getting, it's, if the judge deems
that we're out of court oversight,
the NSA is never gonna go away.
Chief Warsaw and his team, if we're out of court oversight,
they'll go away, but we need the constitutional advisor
to ensure that we continue to uphold to the standards
that the NSA is, and it's the best policing practices
in the country.
But regards to the human trafficking, yes, it's an issue.
I live in Oakland, you know that,
and I've taken my kids to St. Anthony's
throughout their lives growing up,
and it has been for generations.
Human trafficking is a problem.
It's a problem in major cities.
Oakland's highly affected by it for sure.
San Francisco, LA have the same type of issues and problems,
and what happened during the pandemic
just really exasperated it, right?
And then you had certain tools
that were taken away from law enforcement
where they pretty much legalized certain activities
that went alongside with prostitution.
There is a current shift.
I do say, you know, with the mayor's leadership, you know, partnership with other law enforcement
agencies, the Federal Bureau of Investigations on board, we have long-term investigations.
We're starting to be able to hold people accountable again, which is what needed to be done.
But that is a long road ahead, and there's always going to be people out there to exploit
our young children.
But with the DA and the federal government, we're actually charging people on a federal
level that we haven't done in years.
and so it's gonna be a long road ahead and I agree with you,
it's gonna take the whole city as one team to address it.
And again, we're not gonna arrest our way out of it,
that's just one piece, but it is also the education,
outreach, but ultimately, it's holding the people
accountable that come from other communities in our city
to exploit our children and then leaving.
They need to be held accountable, they need to go to jail,
there needs to be stay away orders,
and if you're here to pick up a child
if you're if you're if you're
if you're an underage person
then you need to be you need to
actually be held to the fullest
extent of the law I'm locked up
with you on that and we're
seeing some a lot of progress
that we haven't seen in in in
quite some time I think there's
the legislative change is going
to help us with that as well.
Thank you councilmember guy on I
respectfully beg to differ with
you in terms of political
We are doing the work.
We put the money in just on human trafficking, which is a moral disgrace.
And we have a strategy, and we're working.
Before last year, it was piecemeal.
Now there's a full public safety strategy on human trafficking.
And secondly, let me just say that we have many, many people on our staff who are out
working every weekend helping to keep the town clean.
And so people are doing the work.
And so, yeah, people talk, but I want you to be assured that I see, and I'm doing the
work, people are doing the work.
We're just not talking.
I wouldn't be here if it were about just talking, because I believe we have to have action in
this city, and we have to do what we say we're going to do, and we have to be accountable.
Thank you.
Thank you, Mayor.
And then we'll get to some other council members, but Bradley and the Hopper, are we, to council
in a way that's as much as we
would like to do.
Councilmember guy was point are
we still counting the monitors
fees in the budget going forward
and how does that if not how
does that offset with the
constitutional policing
administrator.
We have for.
Purpose of being a conservative
responsible continue to include
the payments in the monitor
should we be able to exit the
NSA and exit the monitor's
contract more rapidly those
don't need to go to law enforcement.
Or brown then one.
Excellent thank you so much.
So first off just want to really start by thinking on the
finance team and of course the mayor's team as well.
And you know I personally found the online portal to be very
user friendly and outlining all of the shifts and changes that
will be taking place across various departments so I just
So I'm going to start first with I guess the statement that was made around the senior centers
The language online says restores full-time operating hours four days a week
For the senior centers as well as reopens the West Oakland senior center
So I wanted to just get some clarification because I know I heard hours 9 to 9 a.m
To 1 I mean not yet 9 a.m
So I wanted to get some clarity around how we are defining full time operating hours
four days a week so that's the first question that I have.
And then the second question outlined in the budget it says some of the reductions so myself
and the council budget team last year we had set aside two million dollars of reserves
for federal and state grant loss.
in this budget the two million dollars was reallocated and so I wanted some
specifics around how how that funding was reallocated so whoever can answer
that question and then also in the prior budget we set aside I believe it was
about two million dollars to help support ITD with advancing various
in innovation and technology within the department.
However, in this budget,
it does eliminate various roles within ITD.
And so I'm curious about potential service impacts
to technology that we may be trying to move forward.
I think we're all aware that we need to focus
all of our energies on improving technology
within the city of Oakland.
So was curious about that.
And then lastly, the budget also outlines
I was really excited to see
the transfer of.
Various positions in oak dot to
finance also in this budget and
so one is some clarity around
that as well thank you.
Thank you through the council
president got some ground-
please if I forget one of those
questions let me know I'm gonna
have our information technology-
director come up to speak to his
positions- taking the last one
first regarding trans transition
This budget does include a reorganization of the city's parking functions to remove to take the collection
Functions to finance leaving the enforcement and operations functions within DOT
So things related to the parking mobility assistance center PMAC
Parking meter collections and the back in collection processes will move to the Revenue Bureau within finance for enhanced collection
Practices whereas on street enforcement and vehicle enforcement will remain purviews of the Department of Transportation
Regarding your question regarding the reallocation of the $2 million in contingency funds for
federal grants, as the Mayor mentioned earlier, we've seen numerous withdrawals on the federal
level in terms of grant funding.
This particular allocation was used to support the ongoing resources needed for our urban
search and rescue and urban area security initiative program.
Those are USAR and UWASI if you want the acronyms.
Those fundings heavily operate within our fire department to ensure that we have the
for the ability to respond as a part of,
I think it's task force nine, if I remember correctly,
Urban Search and Rescue Program,
and the Urban Area Security Initiative
is heavily tied into our EOC,
Urban Energy Operations Center funding.
Those were more, those funding sources were more in jeopardy
as they are through the Department of Homeland Security,
which is a more vulnerable funding source
for the city of Oakland,
given policies at the national level than many others.
I wanna be clear, we may see further cutbacks
in federal funding.
This is not, I don't, in my mind is not over,
but those were sustained at their current level
in that particular way.
I'm gonna have our IT director come up
and speak to the IT questions and I'll get back to you.
Thanks.
Through the chair to Council Member Brown
for the question on ITD.
The budget as is does provide ongoing maintenance,
ongoing support, so there isn't a direct reduction
in our existing services.
There's not funding there for really new initiatives,
but overall I do think that the department is,
the budget provides a very healthy baseline
for the department.
That said, there is a frozen position in the budget
that we'll have to absorb.
This is an information systems specialist three,
which is really a senior level, a journey level class.
And those were cyber security and infrastructure positions.
So we had two vacancies that we were trying to fill
for really high level cyber security
and infrastructure roles.
And one of those is proposed to be frozen.
That will have a direct impact on our ability
to grow and maintain and continue
to mature our cyber security operations.
So I do want to be transparent about that.
And to Councilmember Brown's question on the senior centers,
I'm just making sure that we're, I've just reconfirmed it.
It is a four day, full day operation.
So it's roughly nine to five.
There's a little bit of a flexibility
around the closing hour time on that.
If that makes sense, like I think it maybe ended up being
like four or 30-ish in terms of closing hour,
but it's effectively a nine to five operation
four days a week is what we have funded.
Okay, you're complete.
Councilman Moore.
Thanks.
I do wanna talk about the issue of homelessness
since in the budget, if Measure E doesn't pass,
190 shelter beds are slated to close, correct?
Can someone who's been following the county's
Measure W spending and just in general,
the approach to homelessness approach the podium?
Because I've been finding it very challenging
to see that, like the county I don't think
has been transparent enough.
It's not clear to me whether, like the funding
for Measure W seems to be coming out very slowly.
I know that with federal cuts,
if someone can speak more to that,
whether we anticipate them to actually be expanding
their interim capacity.
Since one of the presentations I saw
is they were only anticipated
to bring on 300 shelter beds online over two years,
is that correct?
Because I know they're also increasing the funding
to, you know, for the current shelter bed.
But I just, in spite of the pit count,
in my district at least,
the homelessness is not getting better.
It's gotten way worse actually.
I have a park in my district that I swear to God
is gonna become the people's park of Oakland,
the same way that we saw in Oakland
unless we have an intervention.
And we don't have enough,
we really don't have enough open shelter beds.
And so I would love to hear from someone
who has been following closely
what is happening at the county
and whether we need to look at more of our,
at our own budget to ensure that
we're not gonna move backwards,
especially with this anticipated closure.
Hello, through the chair,
Emily Weinsman, Director of Housing and Community Development.
I can't speak specifically to our transitional bed strategy
that falls into the Community Homelessness Services Unit,
but I can speak a little bit to Measure W
and then how would that impact our homeless strategy.
So Measure W is rolling out in different kind of tranches.
My understanding right now is that most of this next wave
of money is going to be going to existing shelter beds
to increase county funded shelter beds
and increasing the daily bed rate.
What that does is it may not increase the number of beds
those beds and so people
ideally will be cycling through
those those shelters more
quickly into the permanent
housing. So right it's all
about like the flow of people
from interim to permanent.
Which is why that balance is
really important- there will be
some money my understanding
from measure W. that goes
towards capital. And that will
include both transitional and-
maybe another touch of
permanent. But there are
looking at. People who are
And that's one of the things
that we've done with Toronto
permanent but there are looking
at kind of mimicking a little
bit of the way we've done R2H2
which is our local version of
home key so the potential to
transition hotels or motels or
existing facilities in as
quickly as possible although it
depends into transitional
facilities is something that
will be coming with measure W
I think that's a good understanding.
And so what we'd need to do is have actually matching funding
or some amount of money in our coffers
to attach to expand the number of transitional beds.
Have the county put any, I have not been able to see anything
around like a unit, like their projected units,
or how many beds, or how many spots they anticipate
to bring online.
So it's totally unclear to me if we're actually going to make inroads and reducing homelessness
at this rate with your own anti-displacement policy highlights how many people are falling
into homelessness every year.
And it just, I am getting increasingly frustrated, I'll just say that.
And from your perspective, is there a need to identify some, like, is there more room
I'm trying to see if there's
anything that we can do to push
the county, especially given,
you know, HR1 cuts and all of
that, or do we need to look at
our own funds?
I'm just trying to understand
the dynamics between the county
and the city as it relates to
homelessness specifically.
I mean, I would say all of the
above.
Okay.
Definitely, we're continuing to
work with the county.
The county will be rolling out
the next sort of version of the
the county to make sure that.
we have more funding towards
prevention which hasn't rolled
out yet across the county.
We need to have more funding
towards transitional and shelter
services and we need to have
also the permanent housing so
that the whole flow and system
can function.
Thanks very much.
Just a couple of things.
We established the new office of
homelessness solutions and we
have our director here who will
speak to this in specifics but
let me just mention a couple of
things.
The county, I'm a member of the
and we fought for 80% of the Measure W funding as a county.
Our formula here in Oakland for Measure W money is this.
We're about 22% of the county,
about 58% of the unsheltered population in the county
reside on the streets in Oakland,
and over 70% are black,
and so there's a racial inequity issue also.
And so the formula that we have developed,
we have raised with the county, so that we have projected
that it's approximately 64% based on the formula
and based on equity with the other cities in the county,
that Oakland should be in line for approximately 64%,
that's our formula, and so we're in the process now
of negotiating what that overall would be.
Also, we have HAP funding at the state level,
and we're at risk now of losing HAP funding.
And we look at maybe a $5 million gap in homelessness funding from the state, which is again why
it's so important that we raise new revenue, if in fact we don't pass Measure E, we're
at risk of losing about 190 shelter beds.
And so we're right there at the brink of being able to move forward or backwards.
the county to the county has
been slow with the county but
the county and we have a very
good we have good allies with
the county who are helping us
the R. F. P. process has to be
adhered to the criteria in the
R. F. P. has to be. Such that
it's fair for all cities and so
it's been a slow process but
remember we're just now gearing
up with that and so I just want
count had us reducing homelessness by 20%. We need more resources because we need more
interim shelter, we need more supportive shelter, and we need more permanent housing for people.
And that's what we have to do, is build more permanent housing. But we have to have the
shelters and the interim and the supportive until we can get to making sure that we have
the permanent housing, but it is a funding problem.
P. U. P., do you want to come respond to this?
Can we restate the question?
So in general, since this budget,
if Measure E doesn't pass,
actually takes 190 shelter beds online,
I was just commenting in general,
in spite of the pit count showing a reduction,
visually I don't see that in my district.
If anything, I've had a couple of incidents
at Lincoln Elementary, actually.
and Wilma Chan Park looks like it's gonna become
the new people's park.
And what I know is that in spite of what people think,
it's not that we don't have enough,
it's not that people don't wanna come indoors.
A subset, sure, but actually we have very few
open interim beds right now, and that's where
we have to place people when we close down an encampment.
And so I am trying to, I found it incredibly challenging
to follow the county.
The measure W money seems to be coming out very slowly.
And the other thing is they haven't put out
Any, as far as I can tell, any numbers around,
this is the projected number of units
they expect to put online.
This is how much they expect to decrease.
By my own modeling, they're not going to actually
make as much progress as we'd like,
but I'm just making my own assumptions
based off of the 40 to $50,000 for the,
what is it, per year for an interim bed,
some of the standard models that are out there per cost,
but I haven't seen it.
And so it then becomes very difficult
as a policymaker in the city of Oakland
where we have the biggest challenge with homelessness
to say, do we need to identify more funding here at the city
or do we have room to fight for money at the county?
And how to, what is our strategy around homelessness?
Sure, yes.
Yes, and so to the mayor's point previously
in the point in time count,
it showed that reduction was in the city of Oakland,
but to the mayor's other point,
is that a majority of the unhoused
and unsheltered population
is still within the city of Oakland.
So that's going to be that 58 to 54%.
And of that, of the total unhoused population
that happened to be African American,
75% is going to be in the city of Oakland.
So when we're looking at how we're going to advocate
with the county, there have been a lot of conversations.
And we have had that similar conversation
where not only how much is it going to cost
on one of the things that we
have is our homeless strategic
action plan that actually puts
numbers to what we're
advocating for but to the
mayor's other point one of the
things that we're pushing for
is a very clear association
between city of Oakland's needs
and the available resources so
that is an ongoing conversation
I will say that in the city of
Oakland we do have our numbers
in the homelessness strategic
action plan and the cost
associated with housing that
and the cost associated with how much we believe it is going to be to respond to the needs
right now.
So we do have very clear data and that data is supported by a report and that report breaks
down how much it costs for long-term and interim sheltering to make that dent that we're looking
for.
Just one more point, one thing again with regard to my staff, you know we're working
on outside investments from philanthropy and the business community because that's been
a big part of what we do. Council Member Guy on my office has tried to identify public
and private resources, and we do have some resources online. Hopefully we'll be able
to make some announcements with regard to that much later in the fall probably, but
just know that we're not just waiting on the county and we're not just waiting on the state.
looking at philanthropy and also private sector investments to address homelessness.
Thank you. Just one more question, and this is actually unrelated to homelessness. This
is directed to Bradley. This is just around the administrative citations. I have found
through my own work in the human trafficking and passing that ordinance that across the
board we have challenges related to enforcing administrative citations not
just human trafficking citations and so I've seen that in other cities they have
you know either it's technological investments or they have the processes
in place like we are not enforcing as I understand it drunk driving citations
we're not enforcing sideshow citations there's just a whole series of
of ordinances where we have administrative fines
or civil penalties on the books.
We don't actually enforce them
and we see it with the legal dumping.
So I think it's part of a systemic issue
and I'm trying to understand do we need
an investment in some technology?
What would make a difference?
And I know that right now the processes,
the departments are the ones that submit the invoices.
I don't know if that's what is actually the right thing
to do versus centralizing it within your department, frankly.
So to the Council President, Council Member Wong,
one of the things that has happened since the Great
Recession, I would say, is in an effort
to preserve services, successive budgets
have eliminated most of the administrative capacity
of most departments.
That is the first place that many of our departments
have looked at over the last 20 years in terms of reducing costs
and expenditures in order to balance.
And it is those administrative staff
that have the capacity to do things
like administrative enforcement of citations.
I know OPD is particularly heavily hit
in terms of its fiscal unit,
in terms of being able to do that.
Regardless of whether or not it was rebuilt centrally
or rebuilt within the OPD,
it requires significant new additional resources
to have a team dedicated toward
focusing on administrative citations.
Again, we used to have within many of our departments
this administrative capacity,
but when it often, and you see an OPD,
I think you'll see it in many of our department spaces,
when push comes to shove,
the decisions have been over time
to preserve the on the street ability
for those departments to perform direct services
as opposed to often that administrative capacity.
And so that's part of that sort of technical hole
we're dealing with.
And I mentioned that technical deficit,
you brought that up as well.
We do have outdated technology and systems,
we haven't invested in them.
And the ones we do have aren't integrated,
they don't talk to each other well,
and so that is another challenge
that we have to move forward with as well.
And so all of that would require significant new resources
and needs to be part of our roadmap
in terms of bringing things back to a level of capacity
to be able to do that enforcement action.
Council Member Houston.
Yeah, so through the Chair,
and this is to my Council Member Wang Wong,
the county's willing to work, they're ready to go
with Measure W.
And we have friends there,
and the mayor was correct about the percentages.
This message is, this question is to Mr. Cubitt
and Mrs. Lake about the 77th that's in district six
that say parking space, they're waiting on us
to bring that operational so they can do what they have
to do, where are we at with that?
Yeah, so after our analysis,
I think all we need to do is meet with the county
because one of the things that we looked at
was the infrastructure for those
out there in the county.
One of the things that some who
might not be familiar seventy
first was the demobilize safe
parking safe parking space we
also are looking at prioritizing
it we're going for an E. R. five
application I think the critical
deliverable here is where's the
funding going to come from so
we're more than willing we're
happy to have that conversation
with the county- and so we can
get to that this week one of the
other things is that we just
want to be sure that the county
I spoke to him you know we got friends at the county the county is willing to
work with us they love the city of Oakland and they're willing to roll on
that so I just want to make sure because I'll sit down I have the meeting with
them they ready to go with that they just needed operational again and then
they can use to measure W moneys for that I already spoke to him perfect
Houston thank you for sure giving us some options in terms of locations and
And we're working very closely with the county and what I want to mention also is that we have this alliance now between the governor's office my office
Caltrans and the county and we meet
periodically every couple of months to develop our plan with regard to all of the partners who have a
responsibility to not only
Keep the city clean but also to move forward with our housing assistance and our
Strategic plan on homelessness and so that alliance is there and we're working together to try to move forward to do this
Thank you. Thank you councilmember
five I
Think about 12 hours ago. We said we'd hear from the public. That's what I'm really interested in doing. I
Do have questions, but I'll wait till the public speakers are complete have questions as well, but I'll wait as well
Alright, let's get to the public
As I call your name, please approach the podium in any order
Please state your name for the record before you begin if you're on zoom
Please raise your hand so I can easily identify you will have a minute and 30 seconds to
address the council
And you can approach the podium in any order as with standard practice
We will take the speakers in the room first and then move on to the zoom speakers immediately after
missus Ida, Olavala
Alex rugala
Jeff Levin
Karla Guerra, Liam Donovan, Kevin Dally, Matt Schreiber,
Tano Trachenberg, Tim Dunn, Millie Cleveland,
Shieya Azuma, Ali Kashani, Jack Woodruff, Colin P-Pipe,
Treva Haddon, Noel Pond-Donchuck,
Chase Fowler, Elliott Goodrich, David Amaro,
Paul Shorter, Darren Lounds,
Mari Cain Simon, Cody Meshburger,
Kelsey Caldwell.
Also, if you have time seated to you,
please let me know before you begin.
Also, the person must be present
I thank you for your time it's
up to us to get the time and if
you do see your time you're
giving up your time to speak.
Thank you.
Good morning tree the hat local
twenty one member and member of
the bargaining team.
Last week the city proposed
changes to local twenty one's
contract that would deny the
city's essential workers any
cost of living adjustment.
Increase our contributions for
The city waited until the very last day to give us these proposals which effectively
reduce our pay while cost of living soars.
This bad faith bargaining shows that the city does not respect its workers or the services
we provide to residents.
We are the ones who keep the city running.
Local 21 members have been highlighting simple actions that the administration can take to
save the city millions of dollars such as making common sense changes to OPOA's contract
that have long been recommended by the city auditor
and civilianizing desk jobs in OPD.
A reduction in pay for my position in safety and training
with the city of Oakland Public Works
and Oakland Department of Transportation
would have a direct impact on my ability to continue
providing high quality service to Oakland residents.
My role supports the safety, compliance,
and training needs of employees responsible
for maintaining Oakland's infrastructure,
streets, facilities, parks, and public spaces.
compensation fails to keep pace with the demands of the position or decreases it
creates financial strain that can affect employee retention morale and the city's
ability to attract and retain experienced staff. Local 21 we're angry
we're disappointed and we're mobilizing to fight for a fair contract.
Morning my name is Chase Fowler. My name is Chase Fowler I'm a proud member of
IPTU local 21. I'm here today to comment on the proposed budget. I and many others
Officers have stood up here on multiple occasions to speak to the importance of civilianization.
Despite the administration's and council's claims that they are seriously pursuing civilianization,
this budget seriously undercuts that claim.
It freezes three positions within CPRA that are crucial to moving civilianization forward.
As Treva mentioned, civilianization is a common sense effort that will help put officers out
in the street and save the city money.
And if this council is serious about moving forward with civilianization, we need to remove
those restore those positions in the budget last in last year's budget council
provided a budget policy directive that directed the administration to form a
task force and produce a timeline and plan for civilization by June 30th of
this year and we have not heard anything about who is on that task force if
they've even met show that you're serious about civilization and restore
those positions within CPRA the mayor finance director Johnson CM guy Oh spoke
We need to be able to pay them
to live here.
Right?
The budget includes no cost of
living adjustments at a time
when inflation is higher than
ever.
And in addition to that, it also
forces additional health care
costs and...
Hello, City Council.
My name is Colin Petey.
I'm a proud Local 21 member.
I want to tell you about my
coworker, who recently left to
the city of San Ramon, because
he's underpaid here, he left
the city of San Ramon.
he's underpaid here, he left to receive a higher salary, he commutes from
Pittsburgh, you know, he's electing for a worse commute to get more money and
what is already like a very not great commute. So I want you all to
focus on paying us enough to actually live in the city that we work in and to
pay us enough that competes with other cities, you know, we're continually
losing people to this churn and we can't provide city services because people are
doing multiple people's jobs you know and then also to speaking to OPD you
know we're looking at our budget like oh we're paying 200 for groceries like 200
for transportation and three thousand dollars for artisanal candles like what
are we doing with OPD's but like overtime budget you know it's 55 million
is what they spent which is more than our paving budget so we really need to
look at the elephant in the room when it comes to our budget thank you hello
Good morning council members. My name is Noelle. I'm a proud IFPT local 21 member
and a member of our bargaining team. I'm here today to talk about Oakland's
budget and fair compensation for Oakland workers. But really this is more about
it's about more than city employees. It's about Oakland residents. Every day as
city employees we show up to provide the essential services and infrastructure
that Oaklanders rely on. Many of us are already stretched thin. We're covering
vacancies, we're taking on additional responsibilities, and we're working
through burnout to keep the city running. If we want responsive, effective public
services, we need to be able to retain experienced staff, and we need to be
able to support workers who deliver them. When the city invests in its workforce,
it invests in Oakland. Many of you have described yourselves as labor-friendly
leaders, and labor organizations have worked really hard to help elect many of
the people sitting around in this room. We're asking you to demonstrate that
commitment by standing with the workers who keep this city functioning every
single day. I'm asking council to direct the city's bargaining team back to the
table with a serious commitment to retaining workers and reaching a fair
agreement. Oakland can't afford to keep losing experienced staff. A strong
contract is an investment in the workforce that keeps the city running
and the residents who depend on our services every day. Thank you for your
time. Good morning, Elliot Goodrich, local 21. So let's talk about the
structural deficit that Director Johnson referenced. We keep coming to Council
with solutions for fixing structural overspending in OPD, reducing overtime,
fixing the OPOA contract, and reducing and civilianizing desk jobs. And yet
there's a reduction in three SIPRA positions in this budget that Chase
referred to, and I would encourage everybody to read the equity
consideration descriptions for freezing these positions on the budget page.
And yet, last year, OPD overtime spending was the equivalent of, to Councilmember Gallo's
point, 300 public works staff that could be cleaning up the streets.
I believe that you all are running from these structural problems.
These are dark times, and what we're seeing across the country is that the only ethic
that will get us through this is by putting workers first.
The ethic is facing these structural problems head-on and using the windfalls to invest
in the city's workforce.
Mayor Lee, Councilmember Wong, Councilmember Ramachandran, I stood in a photo with you
before I knocked doors for Measure E on Saturday.
Will you stand in actual solidarity with us now, with your workforce?
To the other council members who have received support and endorsement from the city's unions,
will you stand in solidarity with us?
Our actions are what matter now.
Thank you.
My name is Cody Meschkerer.
I'm an engineer with the Construction Management Division and DOT.
I'm a proud local 21 member.
As of late last week, the City Administration's bargaining team has requested that Oakland
City workers not only receive no cost of living adjustment as well as reduced health care
pension and other benefits.
They have rejected our telework proposal, which is a no-cost proposal, but at the very
at least they should be able to accept something that's no cost. We're asked to
work for less and with less. The administration has offered these
takeaways to most bargaining units and people are so upset all I've heard is
whispers of the s-word strike. This is not a threat. The strike does not benefit
anyone especially the citizens of Oakland. Citizens I have spoken to want
their city workers to be fairly compensated and respected just as they
wanted to be well taken care of and respected local twenty one positions are
twenty five percent bacon please respect your city workers support our work the
mayor has put across a balanced budget with no cuts or takeaways there's no
reason to show this disrespect the workers as as we make the city run it
makes it harder to hire and harder to retain workers request that you show
your support and investment in the city workers thank you if your name was called
come forward there's people behind you all who would like to speak as well
please come forward approach the podium please thank you good morning council
members my name is David Amaral and I'm the director of research for all home
regional nonprofit focused on disrupting the cycles of poverty and
homelessness in the Bay Area for several years all home has worked closely with
city staff in the housing and community development department and the new
Office of Homelessness Solutions our analysis is part of what guides the
investment priorities and the new Homelessness Strategic Action Plan, a plan which emphasizes
the need to continue expanding affordable housing in the city.
The 2026 points in time count results, mentioned earlier, indicated a 20% reduction in Oakland,
and so we're moving in the right direction, and in large part because of the affordable
housing made possible by Measure U, essential housing that does not get built without a
funding source, like Measure U.
homelessness remains the most pressing humanitarian crisis we face and so now
it's not the time to pull back, it's the time to double down. We urge the Council
to allocate the third tranche of funding for Measure U to HCD's budget so we can
continue making progress on this most vital issue. Thank you.
Good morning, Council. My name is Jack Woodruff. I'm representing RUDED, an affordable
housing program of the Oakland Fund. We recently closed on an Educator Housing
acquisition are first and the nation's first of its kind I think we know that
the issues showing up on Oakland streets that you're all talking about today are
downstream from what we're doing for our kids in our schools I don't just want to
offer support and urging for including affordable housing funds in the next
measure you tranche I want to offer a little data I wouldn't speak against the
other priorities for measure you funds they're high priorities I think what's
unique about housing in this time is that there's a unique market opportunity for affordable
housing organizations in Oakland that we have not seen in decades and are unlikely to see
for decades to come. According to CoStar, a real estate data broker, the cost per unit
for multifamily housing in Oakland is now $100,000. That is down from $400,000, just
pre pandemic and into the first year of the pandemic.
This is not going to last.
Vacancy is trending downward.
It is now at 7% from its crest at nine.
Rents are starting to pick up.
This is an opportunity right now for Oakland to own Oakland.
Your affordable housing dollar goes much, much further
at this moment and I urge you not to miss the moment.
Thank you.
Good morning.
Thank you for your time today.
My name is Paul Schroeder.
I work on behalf of the Unity Council.
I'm voicing my concerns regarding the current state
of the budget.
I understand that this council and city
has many competing priorities and problems it needs
to address, especially now with funding landscape
and state and federal governments.
However, as Mayor Lee pointed out,
our budget is a moral document and reflects our values
and priorities for the city.
It currently includes zero dollars, zero dollars
for the construction and preservation
of affordable housing units, which is crazy.
for $2.7 billion budget zero dollars.
Our city and our HCD department work tirelessly
to build and maintain affordable housing units of the city
and we are working tirelessly to build new units
in Oakland as nonprofit organizations and private citizens.
My question to you all is,
are you committed to affordable housing still?
The current answer is no.
Please listen and heed the advice
of your Housing and Community Development Office
and ensure that at least $50 million
of that third tranche is in the city budget.
Needed for upcoming ACOT and R2H2 funding programs.
It's crucial to ensure that the city leverages funds
for upcoming opportunities
for the new state HCD funds for 2027.
Every dollar we spend this year
can be used for additional funds.
Allocating $0 in affordable housing
is not only a missed opportunity,
but digs deeper, a deeper hole for us to dig ourself.
Good morning, my name is Alika Shani.
I want to remind the council that Oakland secured
$140 million in home key funds in the last four years,
which created 600 housing units,
permanent supportive housing units.
We have participated and acquired hotels
and created 220 of those units.
The mayor's own strategic plan for addressing homelessness
projects 3,650 housing units needed in the next five years
and to do a 50% reduction.
So it's really imperative that you consider
doing the third tranche of the bonds
at least $50 million towards producing
more permanent supportive housing.
Proposition 1 that created about a billion dollars
for housing and homelessness.
The Home Key Program still has unused funds.
So the Oakland, we have an opportunity to apply
and get those monies.
And your money is leveraged three to four times.
Whatever dollar you put in, we leverage it
with the state funds three to four times
to create housing.
That money is available right now
on the first serve basis.
and if we don't allocate funds,
the Oakland will lose the opportunity
to create more affordable housing in the next two years.
Thank you.
My name is Millie Cleveland.
I'm here with a Coalition for Police Accountability.
I have to object to the budget as it currently stands.
Chief Bearer is correct, the NSA doesn't go away,
but those tasks are to become standardized
within the operation of the police department.
What the judge is saying is if the monitor goes away,
the responsibility is transferred to the inspector general.
But what this budget is doing is allocating $450,000
for a full-time constitutional administrator
When that work should go to the community independent
inspector general, which is not fully funded.
So while it's correct Council Member Wong
is concerned about losing shelter beds,
you are duplicating the work of the inspector general
into a position in the city administrator's office
with no guarantee for transparency,
only accountable to the mayor only accountable to the city manager
this is not a reflection
of the values of the city
that voted for an independent police commission
that needs to be funded
if the monitor is not being funded
good morning
i'm marie king time and i'm a member of your open library commission
i just want to congratulate you merely and thank you for restoring the funding
a full measure of funding to the libraries and I just want to add the
libraries are more than just books and librarians they are hard-working
multitasking employees who do so much for a community and just to give you a
few examples from what I've seen in the last year children going into the
library a safe happy clean perfectly free open space where they can play and
and they can learn and be safe and find knowledge
that the librarians help bring to them in a way
that they can understand.
Put a value, put a price tag on that.
Students can find a clean, safe, practical place
to go and learn how to fix their bikes.
Madam Mayor, did you know you can go
to an Oakland Public Library and learn bicycle mechanics?
They do that for people.
Put a price tag on that.
one accident saved, you know, the whole budget is justified there.
Adults, in the past year, I saw a skilled trade, job fair.
If just one or two people came out of that with a skilled trade,
career that can support and sustain a family, put a value on that.
Adults get language support.
They can, it is a place where you can go to find knowledge
and information on how to fix your house.
Some people can't use the internet.
They don't know how to access the services.
You can go to an Oakland Public Library.
Thank you, ma'am, your time is up.
Get help, thank you.
Good morning, Chia Zuma, district six resident
and chair of the Library Commission.
I'm here today to express my appreciation
for the mayor's proposed mid-year budget adjustment,
especially as it relates to restoring the library's
full allocation of the general fund.
This is the first time since 2013 that the library's been fully funded with the $14.5
million in general funds that was committed to us in Measure C. And just briefly, this
will enable us to hire more library staff to deliver services to the public.
We have more money now for library materials
and we also are now able to pay for a new safety pilot
for the main and the MLK library locations.
And most importantly, this saves us
from reaching into our scant reserves
and we've been making do with the limited funding
that we've had.
So again, thank you to our council members
for your continuing support for the libraries.
I assure you dollar for dollar,
money spent on libraries is one of the most
cost effective ways in which to support the well-being
and safety of our neighborhood and our communities.
Thank you.
Kevin Dalley, first.
No, city council is not actually my senior center.
It just seems like it.
I'm concerned about parking policy.
I really thank the city administrator and the mayor
for keeping parking policy with Oak Dot,
including enforcement.
It'll make the streets safer from traffic collisions.
I want to make sure that parking enforcement dispatch
positions are restored and expanded.
Before COVID, if I saw a car on a sidewalk
or blocking curb cut,
I could call a phone number within an hour.
There was usually a ticket placed on the car.
The ADA consent decree requires that the city
prevent blocking of sidewalks.
So not only do I want to restore the two positions
that have been frozen for ages,
but bring evening and weekend enforcement as well.
I'm also looking forward to working with the fire department
to choose new firetrucks that can maximize emergency response
as well as traffic safety.
There is some amazing new tech out there
that I think will be really interesting to use.
Hoping we have money for that.
And let's sell more Measure U bonds.
Thanks.
Good morning, City Council.
My name is Matt Shriver
and I'm representing Eden Housing,
a local nonprofit housing developer.
I'm here today to urge you all to release the third tranche
of Measure U monies for affordable housing development.
As Director Weinstein mentioned,
the city has committed nearly $200 million
in Measure U funds over the past two years,
including $63 million last year.
The city's prior approach has created
large meaningful awards for many projects,
including Eden's partnership with the Black Cultural Zone
at Liberation Park, and our ask today
is to keep that momentum going.
If adopted as proposed without any allocation
for affordable housing, many pipeline projects,
including our partnership with Williams Chapel
to bring 67 units of affordable housing
for seniors in district two
that includes a set aside for previously homeless residents
will be further delayed and forced to forego
any county or state funding opportunities
until a local award is attained.
Local funding from cities is a prerequisite
for 100% affordable housing,
projects to receive county and state awards.
And without a Measure U funding allocation from the city,
we cannot move these important developments forward.
Just to put a finer point on it,
Eden and Williams Chapel have already been forced
to return $1.5 million to the regional center
of the East Bay, and we were ineligible
for Measure W funding at the county
since our project had no local funding commitment.
These consequences are real, these delays are real,
and Oakland needs to provide more affordable housing
in this current budget cycle.
I urge council to consider this allocation,
and thank you for your time.
Good morning chairperson Jenkins and city council members. My name is Darren Lowndes executive director of HCB
I urge you to continue to fund emergency and interim beds
Due to city budget cuts in the current fiscal year interim and emergency shelter programs have already been closed and further closures will exacerbate
The problem and the data is clear
reductions in funding shelters interim housing and permanent supportive housing lead to spikes in the number of un-housed living and encampments throughout the community in
subsequent years any recent reductions in unsheltered homelessness will be
reversed in the next couple of years without necessary program capacity and
any further cuts to emergency and interim housing programs will have a
devastating effect on our neighbors currently unsheltered and living on the
streets in addition the city must find ways to fund permanent supportive housing
permanent supportive housing creates exits from the emergency and shelter
system as well as allowing people with extremely low incomes and disabilities
at the city and they come out
and the city is becoming lease
holding tenants directly from
the streets.
City investment will allow
Oakland to continue to leverage
state capital such as the home
key program as mentioned
earlier.
While it is still available
adding critical deeply
affordable permanent support of
housing.
Please commit 50 million in
funds in this budget from the
third tranche of measure U
towards permanent supportive
housing and please fund
emergency and interim shelter
beds.
Thank you very much.
Carla, please unmute yourself and begin your comments.
Mrs. Asada, I see you're unmuted, but we cannot hear you.
I will come back to you.
Going to Carla Guerra,
please unmute yourself and begin your comments.
Thank you.
Good morning, City Council.
My name is Carla Guerra.
I am the Policy and Advocacy Senior Manager
at the Unity Council,
a local affordable housing developer.
We wanna raise our concern
regarding the mid-cycle proposed budget
and its housing investment policies.
We urge you to ensure that at least 50 million
in measure U is allocated in the city's budget
to support new construction, the acquisition, conversion
and rehab of affordable housing programs.
This budget currently includes $0
for the construction of our preservation
of affordable housing units, again, $0.
This is not a reflection of the values of the city.
Allocating funding now will allow HCD
to launch a 30 million NOFA this fall,
positioning projects to compete for 2027 tax credits
and state funding opportunities.
We cannot afford to lose momentum.
We urge you to prioritize at least 50 million
in measure youth funding for housing.
Please listen to your HCD department,
housing developers, advocates and Oakland residents.
Thank you for your time.
Alex Vergola, you are next.
Good morning, my name is Alex Vergola
and I'm a senior policy manager with MidPen Housing.
MidPen is a nonprofit developer, manager,
and provider of affordable housing
and onsite resident services throughout Northern California.
And in the city of Oakland,
we have 469 homes across five different properties,
along with 88 more units in the pipeline.
These 88 units are part of our 1.707 Wood Street Project
in West Oakland,
which will create deeply affordable rental homes
and home ownership opportunities
partnership with Habitat for Humanity. The project has received immense support from the community
and city staff as we prepare to submit for entitlements in the coming months. However,
the project is in need of local funds in order to compete for state and federal resources in
2027 and move towards construction. We've been closely tracking efforts at the state level to
reform the affordable housing system to be more streamlined and efficient. And in this new financing
system, local funds will play a critical leveraging role in setting up projects to
compete successfully statewide. Similarly, as has been mentioned, we also know that Measure U funds
will allow projects to be eligible for county Measure W funds for permanent supportive housing.
So therefore, to advance projects like Wood Street and the city's affordable housing pipeline,
we urge the council to allocate a minimum of 50 million Measure U funding to new construction
programs. Thank you. Thank you. Trying miss all about again, please unmute yourself and begin your
comments. Can you hear me? Yes. Thank you. Good morning. I have some concerns about the following
issues. It stated that no new initiatives will be a part of the budget, but you're implementing
a pilot ambulance program, and you're establishing a constitutional police administration position.
The limited funding for homelessness, services lost of homeless programs, state homeless funding
cut in half next year after July 31st, 2026, two programs at risk of closing. You can't speak to
Measure W without specific numbers because a lot of the advocacy around Measure W was to prevent
homelessness the spending of that money would be around that initiative.
The statement that you make in the presentation that the budget will
improve racing for race that equity that's not true.
Oakland police administration building safety issues not being addressed.
You have issues of over 30 police.
Cars that you bought that you have been unable to pay for you using measure
You money that could be used for homelessness and for affordable housing for as well as kk funds from the Lincoln Lincoln rec center
Uh, you also have over 5 000 waiting lists in the oakland housing authority
identified
Moving to the next speaker tano traction bird, please unmute yourself and begin your comments
Good morning council. My name is Tano Trachtenberg and I'm the senior policy manager at the
nonprofit housing association of Northern California. I want to urge the council to allocate
funding from the third tranche of Measure U dollars in amount of at least 50 million to HCD.
This morning you've already heard from many of our members including Midpen, Unity Council,
Eden and others. They've all made clear how critical local match funding is to be able to
to compete for regional dollars like Measure W,
as well as state and federal resources.
And I hope the council will take those concerns
and comments seriously.
Oakland is genuinely well positioned right now.
The city has a robust pipeline of shovel ready projects
that could produce over a thousand units
of affordable housing.
And with these local dollars,
it has a competitive advantage with state funding
and within the region where other cities,
local funds have dried up.
But both of those assets depend on these local dollars
and without the allocation, the edge at Oakland has erodes.
So I wanna acknowledge that the council
and staff worked really hard last year
to accelerate bond sales.
We were here advocating for that.
That was the right call, but the value of those resources
depends on putting them to work
and it would be unfortunate to wait a year to do that.
So voters delivered this funding to build housing
and allocating funding this year to HCD
is how we make good on that.
Thank you so much for your time.
Jeff Levin, you are next.
Please unmute yourself and begin your comments.
Thank you, good morning, Jeff Levin,
Senior Director of Policy with East Bay Housing Organizations.
We urge the City Council to ensure
that the next branch of Measure U bond sales
includes a minimum of $50 million
of the remaining housing funds.
The city already has a pipeline
of unfunded new construction projects
requesting nearly $250 million in city funding.
That pipeline will remain frozen without new funding
and delaying funding to future years
will increase the cost of these projects
and reduce the number of homes that can be made available.
Inclusion of housing funding in Tranche 3
of Measure U bond sales would make possible the following.
Funding for new construction, acquisition and conversion
of existing housing to permanently affordable housing
and rapid response homeless housing.
positioning the city to leverage tax credit funding in 2027
and new funds that would become available
if the proposed $10 billion state housing bond is approved,
ensuring that the city has local matching funds
for Measure W for both interim
and permanent supportive housing.
Taking advantage of the current softness
of Oakland's real estate market,
which presents a unique and unparalleled opportunity
to pursue acquisition and conversion opportunities
while prices are low,
Continued progress in carrying out the city's affordable housing and homelessness plans depends on an ongoing stream of local funding
We urge the council to make sure that those
Funds are available this year. Thank
If your name was calling me you wish to address the council
Please raise your hand or step to the podium at this time all names have been called. Okay, we have one more
two more
Tim done, please unmute yourself and begin your comments
Hi, good. Good morning council. My name is Tim Dunn. I'm with Mercy housing
the largest nonprofit housing organization in in the country we are currently developing building
96 units of affordable senior housing
Fully subsidized with HUD subsidies in uptown neighborhood of Oakland
We are urging you to release the 50 million dollars for measure you
funds. It's really critical. We're only able to build the housing that we're building now
because there was money available last year. Had the money not been available last year,
we would have missed this opportunity to receive these HUD funds. It's essential that the funds
are available when the NOFA's come out from other sources like the state, et cetera. So
please support affordable housing. Thank you.
Kelsey, please unmute yourself and begin your comments.
Good morning, mayor Lee and council members.
My name is Kelsey Caldwell and I am a former
Oakland Animal Services volunteer and longtime dog advocate.
I'm sure this room holds many dog lovers.
I am here in support of the staff and volunteers
at OAS, Oakland Animal Services.
For years, they have done everything they can
with too few resources, too little space,
building falling apart and way too much responsibility. Taxpayers, volunteers,
fosters, and donors have been forced to subsidize what should be an adequately
funded public service. The recent tragedy involving Miranda's rescue in
Fortuna, California exposed a crisis many of us have warned about for years.
Miranda's rescue was a transfer partner that OAS sent more dogs to than any
other shelter in the state of California. This rescue was a scam and was telling
OAS dogs were adopted out when instead these dogs were actually being shot in their faces.
I believe this investigation in Humboldt County will bring to light thousands of dogs were killed
this way. It has been crushing for our community. It was the result of a system stretched beyond
its limit. The city plays a direct role in that. OAS has struggled with overcrowding and a lack of
safe placement options for years. It has been it must be adequately funded. What are you doing to
to prevent odor surrenders.
What investments are being made in spay and neuter services?
The animals, taxpayers, and volunteers deserve better.
I urge you to fund OAS for the reality it faces.
That was the last speaker at this time.
All names have been called.
Thank you to everybody who came out
and spoke about varying issues that our city is facing
thanks to the city workers that came out and spoke as well.
Colleagues, I'm gonna lay out a timeline that we have
for passing the budget, amendments and such.
So the first opportunity to pass the budget
will be the 12th.
For that meeting, your amendments would need to be in
by Friday, what time is it?
They need to be in Thursday by four.
So amendments to this budget,
if the budget is to be passed on the 12th,
need to be in by this Thursday at four.
The second opportunity to pass the budget will be the 17th.
And when would amendments need to be in by the...
Preferably.
Friday, by noon, the latest we could probably accept
is Monday, the 15th.
You guys don't have to write this down.
Misha will send this out to everyone.
So the first date to pass budget is 12th.
And for that, you need your amendments in
by Thursday at 4 p.m.
The second opportunity to pass the budget
will be the 17th and the clerks want that in on Friday the what I apologize for your
Friday the 12th meeting year but your amendments need to be in by Monday the 8th by noon Monday
the 8th by noon yeah and so we'll send this all out in the email the final opportunity
to pass a budget without like an extension will be the 30th and hopefully we will be
done by then.
If I could share my screen.
So where, this is the one that I respond and react to, right?
Right here.
Yes.
I mean, I've seen four or five different.
Yeah, and it's online as well.
Okay, so this is the one.
Okay, all right, all right.
So a number of the speakers came in
and talked about civilianization, the NSA.
I had the pleasure of going to court
with Councilmember Houston and the mayor was there
not only been in compliance but
that we can keep up
constitutional policing in our
city and the constitutional
policing officer administrator
is the judge raved about that
position and the city's
commitment.
If I could share my screen,
Madam Clerk.
So I want to point my
colleagues to Oakland
Municipal Code 245,
the OIG and this is one of the
point my colleagues to open
municipal code two four five
that one hundred.
And this talks about here we go.
Right there and so this talks
about how the council needs to
staff the OIG this is our
municipal code this is what
we're supposed to be governed
for the OIG to perform its functions and duties
set forth in section budgeting one full-time staff position
comparable to the position of police program
and audit supervisor.
And then in section D, within 30 days
after the first inspector general is hired,
the policy analyst position and funding then budgeted
to the agency shall be reallocated to OIG.
Bradley, are we funding those positions right now?
those positions are not included in this budget.
What positions do the OIG have funded?
Is that OIG, Office of the OIG have funded?
There is a Project Manager 2 position that is funded,
if I'm gonna get to 2 position, maybe a 3,
in the OIG budget.
There is also an Administrative Assistant
and a Public Information Officer.
Thank you.
As Ms. Milley said, it's important for the OIG
And this is what we need to
conduct audits as we're getting
out of the NSA and not have to
contract out to do the audits.
And so I think it's something
that we should look at in this
budget, making sure that the OIG
has what is mandated by Oakland
municipal code and also
positions that are necessary to
perform the functions of
complying with the NSA after
we're out of NSA.
Thank you.
You'd like to share like to say yes we went over to the federal building of me and Council President Jenkins caught the the board over we had a good conversation and I really appreciate what the mayor said everything there that was said was positive just total positive energy appreciate it I appreciate the mayor appreciate Chief Beard hopefully he can be our permanent chief I'm so I appreciate what they say so which is positive and I appreciate the mayor where she had thank you mayor thank you president.
Okay if that's all councilmember five just regarding the statement that you made are you suggesting that the
Office of Inspector General be funded through this
through budget amendments
In addition to the four hundred fifty thousand dollars for the position in the city administrators office
so
Not suggesting anything just alerting council to the fact that OMC is there and these are the positions that it says
we shall budget also to my good friends at the Coalition for Police Accountability stating
that the auditor needs to be able to do his job. And I agree. He shouldn't contract out
to do the audits. He should do the audits and he should have somebody on staff that
should do the audits. So just alerting the council to that fact. Council Member Cahill,
I mean we have we have so many can you hear me okay testing one two it's
regarding the public safety discussion we're having can you also share what we
have so many public safety advisory committees and commissions we
specifically created the police commission to move forward and have that
evaluation take place but you know we keep hiring staff more staff and more
staff, when I need people on the street doing the work and just let me, we have one advisory
commission after another after another trying to give oversight, given information and just
share that with my council people here how many we have and what are their responsibilities
and so we don't keep adding and adding and adding and come up with the same result and
We need people on the street getting the work done and we don't need more administration
to be involved and certainly I've been to all the federal court hearings from the past
and certainly, you know, the judge comes up, well, you know, you've got to wait till September
this time.
Well, no, you've got two left.
Well, no, you had one last time and it keeps going on and on, but just invite the council
how many advisory committees and commissions
that our police department has to go through.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Definitely.
If there's nothing else, nothing else.
Oh, one more thing.
Two more things.
20.
20 more things, all right.
Yeah, I'm just gonna run through a couple questions,
not all of the questions.
Several were answered by some of the presentations
that we have, but I do have a couple specific questions
about positions that are added and deleted
through the chair to our finance director.
Hopefully you can help.
Regarding the deletion of, well, addition in operations
in the city administrator's office,
we recently discussed a disparity study.
And there's 782,000 being added to address O&M
and implement policy and programmatic changes.
What study is that related to?
There is some ongoing work regarding
improving the procurement process,
which would be tied to your disparity study,
so it's the broader procurement process in general.
And how much of that allocation is specifically
for that disparity study work, do you know?
It's all sort of, I would say it's a related project in order to address the disparities they have to also address the other concerns we have with procurement and the procurement cycle.
So it's being looked at sort of in a holistic basis.
So it's the outcomes in terms of disparity, but it's also the, if one's going to address those,
one has to look at the input processes that flow into it, not just the results, but what does the bidding process look like?
with the approval process looks like,
how do we get more competitive veterans
and how we ensure compliance
with our other code elements, et cetera.
And so it's a part of a broader look
at the full lifecycle of procurement.
And so, but it will address the findings
from the disparity study, that is the goal to address.
Yes.
And then, specifically, maybe this is something
Director Weinstein can support with.
I'm deeply concerned about the lack of funding
for affordable housing as well.
We're not seeing resources in California right now
for market rate housing.
As many of the speakers said,
we have a unique opportunity to take advantage
of this moment and without measure you funding.
I don't know how we're gonna have the match.
So how do we balance out,
well, I'm gonna make an amendment just so we're clear.
I'm gonna make an amendment
around the affordable housing dollars
because we do need that in order to continue
to even address homelessness, right?
But I wanna be clear about the $400,000
of miscellaneous personnel for outreach and homelessness,
like how do we, what are we doing outreach for
if our budget was reduced for homelessness?
What are we actually communicating?
What is that 400,000 for?
I will direct that to our office of homeless solutions
administrator regarding the outreach budget
and I can speak to some of the housing allocations
if Director Weinstein's not here.
Yeah, with so many shelter beds closing,
is it to, I think I saw something about letting
the public know that we're closing them.
So if you could just explain.
Yes, thanks Councilmember for the question.
So this is specifically in regards
to the new encampment abatement policy,
high visibility, low vulnerability areas.
I see, on another note, are the updated maps available
and who is creating those updated maps?
So it's an internal, thank you for the question,
council member, it's an internal process.
We are currently undertaking that
because of the influx of the amount of emails
we're receiving from all over Oakland.
We're going to be very intentional.
I can respond at a later date with that timeline.
Right now, we're meeting this week
to have that internal conversation about
the mapping and the vulnerability areas.
Thank you.
I'm going to move to ITD because I was here
when we had the ransomware attack.
So through the chair, I don't see our IT director.
But I will say that does the position that, I think there
were two frozen positions and one is still being frozen.
So does a position being frozen mean that we don't actually
need the work?
I'm very concerned about the vulnerabilities
of the city of Oakland, specifically
because all of our information is on the dark web.
We had lawsuits as a result of that happening.
So I want to, the director said that there are impacts.
And I want to be clear about how serious those impacts are,
If he's around I do not see him here and council were happy to get back to you with a written response to that question
to make sure we address the security concerns of those impacts are related to the
security architecture of the city's IT systems, okay, and then with
the Department of Violence Prevention I
See that we're adding one full-time
violence prevention
services super first of all
The DVP has been smashing it. I don't know if anybody's seen it in the news. I want to just give a shout out to you, Dr.
Josie
For the work that you've done with the Department of Violence Prevention
I just was curious about the repurposing of 539,000 and O&M for ceasefire lifeline positions
Because of I believe there was a decrease in the budget from
Some other sources that you had anticipated is this or will these be one-time funds from this particular budget allocation?
And is that sufficient for you to continue the the work that you're doing?
Yes, ma'am. Thank you for the question Holly Joshi chief of the Department of violence prevention
we did decrease our O&M budget in order to
piecemeal
The budget that we anticipated having from the state grant calvit
Which we did not receive this year and so in order to safeguard those direct practice positions. That is what you're seeing
It's is it one time funding that you're moving from O&M
And do you anticipate getting Calvit in the future? Will it continue?
We can apply for Calvit again in two and a half years
So over the next two and a half years we will be doing what we do which is fundraising and writing other grants in order to keep
The work moving forward, you know, we do have Kaiser still at this point
We still have a federal investment. Of course that is always up in the air and extremely nerve-wracking
considering we just received word last week that
One of the federal grants that we have to support the school VIP program
was slated to end September 30th of this year but the feds are canceling it four
months early because it no longer meets the federal guidelines and is no longer
within the purview of this administration's beliefs about how to
keep schools safe. So we were flagged during a review of federal grants and so
So, I say that to say that grant is ending four months early.
The other grant that we have that supports Department of Violence Prevention staff is
slated to go through the summer 2027, but I do think that we should be braced and ready
to get a call about that one as well.
Wow.
Is there a list, and perhaps Director Johnson, you can help, is there some database of all
All of the funds that we are potentially losing from the federal government and the departments
that it impacts.
I believe so.
I believe that's part of the citywide grant coordinator's role.
And I see city administrator Betsy Lake saying yes.
Administrator Lake, thank you for that.
Yes.
Do we have access to that?
And if not, when will we or when could we?
I'm happy to work with our grant coordinator to get that to you.
Do you think it will be before we're done with this process?
I would assume they know what we're.
Okay.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
And director, director Johnson through the chair.
There are positions that are currently in parks and rec.
There's one.
Oh, IT.
Sorry.
Through the chair to council member Fife, I believe there was a question about the frozen
position in the department.
Correct.
like that was a really critical senior level position that is intended to address cyber
security. If you could just expand on that. Yeah, sure. Tell me the impacts because you
said it could potentially have impacts. What are those? Yeah, again, through the chair.
So the position is an information system specialist three, which is the highest level non-management
position in the department. So it's the highest classification in the IT kind of hierarchy.
And it's focused on cyber security and infrastructure.
It's very high skill level.
This is a position that would be overseeing duties like remediating threats, responding
to threats, scanning for threats, staying abreast of the changes in the landscape, in
the industry, coordinating with vendors, leading projects, leading initiatives around cyber
security, such as improving, you know, systems and tools to respond and monitor the network,
monitor accounts, also filling in gaps where we may have gaps in our current services,
identifying those gaps and then proposing projects and solutions to fill them.
So it's really a key position that would help grow the team.
The team is still pretty small right now as we're talking about maybe three or four people
who are directly responsible, although those duties do disperse out into the larger department,
there are really only the team, the information security team is really only three people.
And so these two roles, which have been vacant in the department for quite some time, and
we've been trying to fill them, we're going to come directly into that team and kind of
grow it. So the loss of that position would result in the reduction of our ability to
do those that kind of growth.
We would really be keeping what we have now stable and secure,
but not really growing and expanding the way that we could.
When was the cyber attack?
What year was that?
The ransomware attack?
That was February 9th, 2023, a date that I'll never forget.
Wow, I will say that that is significant for me
because when I was first elected in the orientation
that we had in January of 2021,
the then ITD director warned of a pending cyber attack,
and that he said that the city of Oakland
was extremely vulnerable,
and that we didn't have the resources
to adequately address what we were up against.
And so that's why experiencing this attack
was very impactful for us.
It was a really scary time in the city,
And I don't want us to, you know,
continue down that pathway, if possible.
So I just appreciate you sharing this information,
and we'll take that into account.
Appreciate that.
Thank you.
Thank you.
So through the chair to Director Johnson,
if there are staff positions currently in one department,
that I'm looking at moving into potentially
another department, there's a position in public works
that takes care of all of the community gardens
in the city of Oakland, and it's a part-time position.
But because they're in Parks and Rec,
and Parks and Rec is one of the most under-resourced
departments in the entire city,
they often end up not being able to maintain
our community gardens, and we lose the capacity
to feed our neighborhoods if they were maintained.
Is it possible to move positions?
know this is not necessarily inside of the budget but I'm wondering if there
would need to be a budget reallocation in order to make this person full time
in another department perhaps public works that would be that actually is a
budget amendment like to be clear that is absolutely dream from the budget as
it relates to people there is often a need for meet and confer depending on
the bargaining the bargaining unit for that particular individual and what's
that's going on with them individually.
So there may be requirements based on the MOU
that we have to then do administratively,
but reallocating positions between departments
is the purview of the council
within the budget amendment process.
And I hear you saying that it is germane
to the conversation, but is it Tito?
Nevermind, excuse me.
So positions are currently,
positions currently vacant doesn't necessarily mean
there aren't service impacts so I'm gonna move to head start because as a
life enrichment share I have to you know scrutinize that a little bit more. Do the
service impacts or the deletions and is there anyone here from Human Services?
And this is particularly sensitive because there have been so many changes
in the department. I'm the interim director for HSD. Have we met? Not yet.
I've been here four days four days, and what is your name, sir? I'm Greg Elliot
It's a pleasure to meet you, mr. Elliot, but I can you answer these questions I can get back to you with the answer
There you go. That's a great answer. That's a great answer. I just want I just wanted to know if
reductions of vacant positions in HSD are gonna have an impact on Head Start
they've been vacant so
and I'm sure Bradley's back there saying some things.
Thank you and thank you to interim director Elliott.
We're working to get him up to speed on all the details
with his budget in this cycle.
We do not believe we'll see any on the ground impacts
from the freezing of the vacant positions within Head Start.
There are some also changes of positions within Head Start.
When we got our last Head Start grant allocation,
we often had a number of placeholder job classifications
and our human resources department has been working
of creating permanent job classifications and so some of the deletes and ads in this
budget are actually us going from a placeholder job classification to a real job classification
so that it can then be filled on a permanent civil service basis which is part of the processing.
When we did this most recent round for Head Start, there were a number of new roles of
the federal government through its process that we needed to create and so some of that
is that continuing ongoing process.
Understood, thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Elliott.
What he said.
Absolutely.
I have a lot of questions.
I think what I will do is because I feel like I'm talking too long, I will summarize the
questions that I have.
I'm deeply concerned about the impacts to our workers and some of the public comments
that I heard today about not being able to afford to live in Oakland and then also having
to do the jobs of multiple people.
I don't know how we get our arms around
the increased costs of health care and all of the things.
But I'm not sure what's being proposed is the answer,
but I also don't know what the answers are.
So that's something that we have to wrestle with as a body.
But I'm also, I guess I should say that I'm very happy
with the mayor's work on this budget.
I would not wanna be the mayor of a small big city
like Oakland ever.
So I want to just congratulate the mayor for her work on this
and
One of the things that stands out to me is something I'm happy about is restoring part of the film rebate program that I
worked on a few years ago. It's a
minor
addition to the initial allocation that we budgeted, but
I just want to make sure that the staffing is there to support this program
We just saw if you haven't seen I love boosters definitely go check it out
It's a local filmmaker in the city of Oakland, Boots Riley, who has a commentary on a lot
of things in Oakland, and we want to produce more Boots Riley's, right?
The Film Rebate program will allow us to do that, but we also on our end have to make
sure that we have the staff to monitor this program.
And for all of the other questions that I have and the concerns that I have, I will
work through your office, Director Johnson, to make sure that we have answers to the questions
that I have.
will be bringing budget amendments
that will not be available Thursday.
So I just wanna state that for the record.
You'll get it from me a little later.
Thank you.
Hi, thank you.
I did, if Cupid could come up to the daisy
and I wanted to follow up on the comment
that my fellow council member made Houston
on the fact that the county is willing to step in
on some of the shelter beds that are poised to close.
I want to make sure it's not just lip service for the if measure e does not pass
And we do need to close the 190 shelter beds
It is the county going to magically step in is there a plan or actually are we going to see 190 people out on the streets?
Thanks councilmember. So one of the things that we've done with the county is to talk about the gap
Funding that would be available. We're having a similar conversation about the federal funding that might not be available
this.
And you know I don't know if
we're actually going to do this
also so a part of our
conversation is if there is a
lack of resources would the
county be able and willing to
step up and what is the
methodology that they're going
to use to determine how much
they're going to assist.
So that is actively a
conversation that we're
having.
Okay I'm not hearing that this
is a hundred percent though
that the the beds that we would
have to close it measure he
doesn't pass.
It's a guarantee that yeah it's
not a guarantee so this is an
higher than my level, but a conversation with their electives also because we have continuously
said how is a measure W going to be allocated and if there is any gaps, what is the methodology
that you're going to use to make a decision on if you're going to support making sure
that these beds stay available?
Okay.
Thank you.
I have a question for Bradley on, I noticed in the budget to that, because I'm pretty
I'm pretty sure in public works and transportation,
we had held up or paused the transfer
of the parking positions from transportation to finance,
but I see that within this budget,
there's that transfer of 17 positions.
I just have not heard the justification
why this is going to somehow improve
our parking citation collection.
So why is that in this budget?
Sorry, and I will note that there will be a report back
the full council coming I believe on the ninth the details all that the
proposal is to move the collection functions from the Department of
Transportation the finance department where they did reside more recently if
it's not it's one of the more recent moves to DOT and the goal is to enhance
and the collection and enforcement practices on that side of it so it's to
ensure that we have better compliance and better utilization of our DMV
intercept program of our tax intercept programs in terms of ensuring that we
have a better collection rate on citations outstanding and those in now
would include the speeding camera citations so there's a collection
process back in process and we think that that those would be better housed
within finance we'd have better compliance we were able to ensure that
people who violate our local muni code or the state laws regarding them
appropriately and timely pay their citations and what not.
Okay, I think just in this report,
as I had noted in the last one,
it was not robust enough.
Like I've seen your work,
you do incredible thorough reports in that report
that we had before public works and transportation.
It was not, to me, it did not really justify the transfer,
and I think that is incredibly important
for this council to move forward with that.
So, okay.
Then I have a question actually to OPD.
So, Chief Beare.
So, I also want to note to this body
that tomorrow we are voting on measure,
we are also voting on the measure and end spending plan,
right, and one of the things that was noteworthy
in that measure and end spending plan
is that 30 to 34% is dedicated to measure and end.
Is there no general fund allocated
to the ceasefire staffing?
And the reason I bring this up
is because I think there's more and more scrutiny
by the general public on each of our parcel measures
and whether we're spending the money in ways
that reflect their wants and their desires.
And the number one thing that came out of the MeasureNN
advocacy was bring down the 911 response time.
I don't see that reflected enough
in the MeasureNN spending plan.
I do see a lot of ceasefire.
And don't get me wrong,
I think ceasefire is incredibly important.
I want to maintain that.
I just wonder if, are we not funding that
with our general funds,
or are we solely relying on Measure NN
to maintain our ceasefire staffing within OPD?
No, ceasefire is not completely dependent on Measure NN.
However, ceasefire greatly assists
with all of our violence reduction,
which is contributing to the highest reduction
of homicides since the late 60s.
So it is a very important arm in our ceasefire strategy,
and that's one of the reasons why we leverage them,
not just when it comes to organizing.
It's also used for anywhere from human trafficking
operations for long-term investigations
and a firearms reduction.
The staffing for the officers assigned to the ceasefire
are funded by Measure NN, but the overtime isn't.
So overtime is coming from the general fund?
Yes.
Okay.
All right, thank you for that clarification.
Are you complete?
Okay.
Council Member Gayle, then Houston.
For the violence prevention director,
if you can please join us.
I have a specific question that I,
considering the challenge of public safety
when it comes to human trafficking, prostitution,
And you and I, when I started, we worked together,
and you were on the street helping us out
and making sure that Oakland did not experience that.
And right now is the Violence Prevention Department
involved with the human trafficking prostitution?
Because, I mean, 20 girls, anybody who'd drive
down the street, and you'll see the young ladies
20 years and younger on the street.
And some of these are, and I work with you directly
with when we cleared prostitution out of my area.
And so the question that I have is violence prevention
involved with that effort?
Because through your leadership we were able to connect
with the Catholic Church that housed a lot of the young girls
and in different locations through your leadership,
but also I still remember flying them back home, right?
You know, if my friend here was doing that,
Well, I flew you back home to wherever you're from.
And you were a very instrumental in doing that,
and I was just wondering or asking for the public,
are you involved with that?
Because the one, the complaint that I'm getting now
on a weekly daily basis,
we have prostitution going on the abandoned boats
that I have on the estuary.
Jack London Square and throughout,
by the Coast Guard where prostitution is happening
nighttime and the police cannot address it because they don't have the police
that used to help me with the abandoned boats right or the stolen boats that are
out there underwater and just so the question is our is your department
involved with that directly? Yes Mr. Guile through the chair thank you for
that question as you mentioned my involvement in this city in the issue of
sex trafficking goes back to 2004 and so many things have changed in the
and more specifically in terms
of the landscape of the city
since two thousand and four-
both in terms of the ways in
which- exploiters move girls
around the city- both in terms
of the laws and- can speak to
that a bit more. But in terms
of the department of violence
prevention current role we
definitely currently play a
significant role although it's
much different than the one
about intervention, and so one of the things that we fund
is a hotline, 24-hour hotline, that anyone experiencing
sex trafficking, domestic violence, or sexual assault
can call to get supports, and that is picked up
by a live person who can immediately begin to triage
that survivor's needs.
The other thing we do have is crisis intervention
and crisis navigation.
The community-based organization that we're currently
funding to provide that crisis navigation support
family violence law center and they most oftentimes are working directly with the Oakland Police
Department during operations or if OPD patrol officers happen across a survivor, particularly
a juvenile in the middle of the night who needs supports, who needs to be reunited with
their family or unfortunately, you know, put into the child protective services system.
So we have that crisis navigation in 24-hour response available, which we did not have
in 2024.
So we pivoted back to fund that really important support crisis navigation and intervention.
We also have relocation funding, which you're speaking about, which we used to do very well,
which is making sure that the adults, if they need a quick relocation into a hotel, we can
do that.
We can't do that with juveniles and minors.
They need to be reunited with a safe adult,
or placed in CPS custody.
But we also have a travel fund,
so if people do have a family to get back to,
or a family that's willing to support them
and getting out of the life, we can pay for buses,
all of that.
And then, of course, the longer term care
that is necessary for survivors
to continue making healthy choices,
and to heal includes therapeutic supports
that we pay for one on one talk therapy
and then group and peer supports,
long term case management,
pathways to employment, et cetera.
So again, I say all of that to say,
the Department of Violence Prevention is involved
and up to and including some street outreach,
but it is a very different role than I was playing
when we were working together.
Yeah, no, thank you for that information.
I am back involved with Victory Outreach now again
and been having lunch with some of the young ladies
that are on the street and they're not from Oakland.
Well, like before, they were being bused in,
flown in through the airport and but anyways,
I'd like to continue to work with you
to address that issue.
Yes, of course.
Because they're under the age,
some of them were 15, 16 years old.
But anyways, thank you and I'll reach out to you.
Thank you.
Thank you, Council Member Gallo.
Then we'll go to Houston and I'll entertain a motion
I'm sure we'll have to do that.
about this graffiti vandalism that we spend millions
and multi-millions of dollars a year that's a visual cue
of deterioration from our businesses.
I'm not talking about the business owners
that saying they're going to leave because they can't rid it
because of that visual cue.
When back in the day, it was like nine individuals
that worked under Bradley.
Now it's only two that does the abatement and two
and the queue waiting to get hired.
I didn't see anything about that
because that's a real huge piece
and it should be handled just like illegal dumping
and the same, not just a bait, a bait, a bait.
It should deter it where we can use these millions
and multi-millions of dollars that we spend every year.
I mean, multi-millions, it can go to our seniors,
it can go to our children, it can go to our libraries, right?
So we only have two individuals
that are actually doing that across the city.
And we have two individuals that are in the queue.
What's happening with that through the chair?
I'll defer to our Public Works Director
on anything more directly related
to the graffiti abrainment program,
but the budget does not reduce the graffiti abrainment.
It does not enhance it from its current level.
And Director Garland, would you like to speak more
to what our current status of those positions is?
Thank you, Liam Garland, Oakland Public Works Director.
Yes, Council Member Houston, the proposed budget
essentially continues our existing level of service.
There are vacancies in our painters,
especially the ones working in the right-of-way
and working hard to fill those.
The hiring requisitions have been submitted.
We anticipate over the next couple months
to get those hires made.
But those positions, the total number of positions
from this current fiscal year to next would stay the same.
it's just my hope is we fill those painter positions
so we can abate more graffiti.
Does that make sense?
It does through the chair.
But like I said, we need to do it
like we do the legal dumping.
We need to prosecute or deter it
because spending millions and millions of dollars
which can go other places, what's the strategy for this?
Are we just gonna go paint the tracks and traces
and not go after these individuals
because many of them are coming from out of town
and out of the state, right?
It's called graffiti tourism.
So I'm gonna present that to Charlene.
So we need to do more to that
so we can use those funds, something else,
because we only have two across the whole city.
That's doing it.
Thank you, thank you.
Any other motion to file and report this?
So moved.
Report in file, receive in file.
Call the motion by Council Member Ramachandran,
second by Council Member Brown
to receive and file item four.
Councilmember Brown?
Aye.
Councilmember Fai?
Aye.
Councilmember Gallo?
Aye.
Councilmember Houston?
Aye.
Councilmember Ramachandran?
Aye.
Councilmember Unger is excused.
Councilmember Wong?
Aye.
Chair Jenkins?
Aye.
Motion passes with a vote of seven ayes, one excused.
Unger and just before we go to the next item,
let me clarify the due dates for your materials
for the June 12th meeting,
the materials are due June 8th at noon.
For the June 17th meeting,
your materials are due June 12th at 4 p.m.
I know that there's a meeting that day,
so they will be due when they're due.
June 30th, your materials are due June 25th at 4 p.m.
One more time, in June 12th,
that's the first opportunity to pass the budget.
the budget. And I'm happy to be
able to receive the budget. And
I'm happy to receive the budget.
And I'm happy to receive the
budget. And I'm happy to receive
the budget. And I'm happy to
receive the budget. And I'm
happy to receive the budget.
And I'm happy to receive the
budget. And I'm happy to receive
the budget. And I'm happy to
receive the budget. And I'm
happy to receive the budget.
And I'm happy to receive the
budget. And I'm happy to receive
the budget. And I'm happy to
receive the budget. And I'm
happy to receive the budget.
And I'm happy to receive the
budget. And I'm happy to receive
the budget. And I'm happy to receive
the budget. And I'm happy to receive
the budget. And I'm happy to receive
So if you want to take a look
at this if you have any other
questions.
Mike and then go ahead.
Thank you I'll do some
introductions and then we'll
jump in.
My name is Mike I'm the vice
chair of the budget advisory
commission I also chair the
working group on public safety
and economic development.
I'll be returning in a moment
to talk about some of the
issues we've talked about today
related to structural deficit
and the long term- roadmap to
fiscal health.
Commissioner Google will be
talking about some of the
this is a report from the whole back.
Karen Roy, who was also part of that ad hoc group,
could not join us today, but Ben and I will be presenting on those topics.
So I'll return a moment to talk about long-term recommendations
for reducing the structural deficit, and now here's Commissioner Gould.
Thank you, Commissioner Petohoff, and good morning, Council members.
Can K-TOP pull up our presentation, please?
Great. My name is Ben Gould.
I serve as the FMC liaison, the Finance and Management Committee liaison
from the Budget Advisory Commission.
I'm here to present our short and long-term budget recommendations while Commissioner
Petohoff will present other additional long-term recommendations.
So just for a brief context, our commission had about, our ad hoc had about five days
to put together these recommendations so please forgive us if we couldn't cover everything.
We tried to be as comprehensive as possible but due to limited time we can only do so
much.
I will give a brief overview that the proposed budget is generally healthy and largely consistent
with the city's adopted fiscal policies.
We didn't find any major discrepancies or changes or unusual behaviors, so we think
this is generally a pretty good budget overall.
Most of our feedback is in the nitty-gritty details where we think the city could improve
some of its decisions and possible processes around maintenance of effort requirements,
revenue assumptions, things like that, as well as some long-term forward-looking approaches
to help make sure we're prioritizing the roadmap to fiscal health and improving transparency
and performance metrics as well.
Our budget advisory commission has these guiding principles we use to help guide our recommendations.
The first one is to ensure adherence to the consolidated fiscal policy.
That's been largely met.
We'll have one recommendation on that note.
And the next one is to focus spending on community priorities, and our BAC last did a community
survey I think it was last year, 2025, for the previous two-year budget cycle.
And so those priorities found that the community priorities are public safety, cleanliness,
and housing.
we're looking at recommending priorities around those.
And we think part of those community priorities
also includes adhering to the requirements
of voter approved measures.
So we hear about measure C and D,
the city auditor's office, measure Q,
measure N and so forth.
We also wanna ensure the budget follows
best practices from other cities,
as well as keeping equity considerations
in the forefront of the decision making.
So our first short term recommendation
focuses on the voter approved measures.
I wanted to highlight the success
that this budget fully funds the requirements
for libraries in the city auditor
under measure C and D and the city charter.
So we meet the full 14.5 million
general purpose fund requirements for the libraries
plus the full 14 FTE for the city auditor.
We do not meet the budget requirement
for the full 700 sworn police officers for measure NN.
We are currently budgeting for only 678.
However, it's also worth noting
that the police department staffing report
from January 31st said that current staffing
was only 607 sworn officers with 80 odd of those out
for long-term leave, so only 520 available for active duty.
So we think that this number is low,
and even if we can't budget for more officers,
we hope council will look at ways
to either increase the number of officers
we actually have on staff, have deployable,
or have out in the field and not doing civilian desk jobs.
Another issue is there's no funding for democracy dollars,
but I did want to highlight that this budget
includes funding to develop the software
to make democracy dollars possible.
So even if there was money available for the program,
it wouldn't be usable because there's no way
for people to submit the requests
for a Demoxido allocation.
So this budget does help move that program towards reality.
And the last issue is a $1.9 million shortfall
for Measure Q, that's parks required funding.
There's, I think about $20 million
in unfrozen staff position, new contracts,
new other programs initiatives,
another $97 million worth of vacant
but fully funded staff positions.
So we think there's opportunities here
for council to look into the details of these items
and potentially find at least 1.9 million
to fully fund measure Q, if not other ways
to improve compliance with the other voter approved measures.
The next recommendations are on contracts and grants.
We noticed this issue last year in the two year budget
and it still persists.
We have about $37 million in proposed contracts and grants
for which the actual use is not identified.
Specifically, it says not identified as a proposed use.
Most of this is in human services.
we understand there is a new Interim Human Services Director
who's been here for four days,
so no, no blame goes to him,
but hopefully this is something that can be looked into
and staff can provide additional details
on these unidentified contracts and grants
prior to adopting the budget.
We wanted to highlight another success around revenue.
There's no Coliseum sale in here
waiting to fund the whole budget.
We have pretty conservative revenue projections
for many of the largest sources of funding,
including property tax, business license tax,
and real estate transfer tax.
However, we did notice that some revenue streams
may be overestimated.
Specifically, sales tax is projected to grow 12%
year over year, or about $10 million.
And the utility exemption tax is projected to grow
about 7% year over year, or about $5 million.
This is worth noting because a few things here.
First of all, in our last recommendations last year,
the BAC noted that some overestimates in property tax,
which have now been realized,
because property tax projections were based
on previous years of growth, but we haven't seen
to sign a kind of real estate development we used to see
or transaction values to lead to higher reassessments.
So our previous recommendations led to sort of the current,
along with the current reality of property tax revenue.
With sales tax, we currently see that in the second half
of 2025, after we adopted the measure a sales tax increase,
our sales tax revenue was actually lower
than before we adopted the sales tax increase.
We don't know if this is because the sales tax increase
or because businesses have left Oakland
due to potentially crime concerns
for residents just spending less on economic concerns
or what is it, but it's worth noting
that sales tax revenue was down in the first half
of this fiscal year compared to the year prior,
so we're concerned about overly ambitious projections
for sales tax revenue.
Similarly, this current fiscal year projected
75 million in UCT, utility consumption tax,
but only saw 70 million.
That's because we heard from FMC last week
that utility rates are not increasing
as much as they have been.
This budget still maintains a $75 million projection
from previously that has not been realized this year.
So we're concerned that that may also be overestimated.
So we'd encourage council to look carefully
at these revenue projections,
ask staff for additional details,
and potentially identify contingency plans
in case about 15, maybe 20 million revenues
do not actually materialize.
We had a couple of short-term findings
on restricted and one-time funds.
There is about one million of MeasureNN dollars
for post views for equipment in the fire department
rather than services.
MeasureNN's text is pretty clear
I don't believe the intent of the voters
is that it be spent on direct services and programs
rather than equipment.
The contracts identified in the budget
actually don't identify the full 1 million proposed
for fire contracts, only about 725,000 in total contracts
of which 650 is equipment.
However, the fire department does have some positions
in firefighter positions and 9-1-1 dispatch positions
being added to general fund expenditures.
So our recommendation is to,
rather than moving those existing filled staff positions
to the general purpose fund, move them to measure NN,
use general purpose fund money for the one-time equipment
expenditures to make sure that you can prove compliance
with the measure.
It should be relatively straightforward.
Another issue we saw was that the budget stated
there was use of one-time funds
for ongoing expenses, but we did not hear what that was.
We just heard this morning some of that
is Department of Violence Prevention,
up the back-filling grants that are missing,
but it'd be great to hear from staff a full list
of use of one-time funds for ongoing expenses
in this current year budget,
and the proposed plan to restore the vital services
stabilization policy, which is the policy
to have enough reserve funding
that if there is a shortfall,
such as in sales tax revenue, for instance,
there's money available to backfill that gap
without having to cut services mid-year.
We have some long-term recommendations as well,
looking forward into this in the next fiscal year.
We wanted to first and foremost,
re-emphasize the importance of the city's
long-term roadmap to fiscal health,
which I think Bradley spoke to a little bit earlier.
The key to actions listed for the Roma fiscal health
in this current budget cycle is to review
and update the city's governing financial policies.
It's a consolidated fiscal policy.
The BAC has one recommendation outstanding on that.
We should be hearing about that, I believe,
later this year, maybe October timeframe-ish.
There's already recommendations
to develop long-term investment plans
for the city's infrastructure, fleet, and systems,
looking at additional revenue collection
maximization approaches, so business license tax.
We heard a little bit about parking revenue
and citations there, and then strengthen
the city's revenue base through economic development efforts,
which Commissioner Petohoff will speak to additionally as well.
I also want to flag that in the next fiscal year, FY27-28,
the Roadmap to Fiscal Health highlights
structures needed for city and
contractor service delivery and accountability,
including around contracting, procurement,
prompt payments, and all that kind of stuff.
We really wanted to emphasize
the importance of this long-term maintenance planning.
As we heard from some of the conversations around Measure E,
The city has numerous decrepit and aging equipment vehicles.
We also know about IT is underfunded and out of date.
And so we really want to make sure
that this fiscal year council and staff work together
to put together a long term needs assessment
and maintenance and replacement plan for all city assets,
including vehicles, non-vehicle equipment,
like lawn mowers, that kind of stuff,
facilities, infrastructure like our roads and storm drains
and software and IT services.
We think this is really important
because we keep hearing time and time again
about Oracle's out of date, so we can't manage police over time.
Our vehicles are breaking down, so we can't pick up litter, or dumping, dumping, you know,
and so it's really important to have a long-term plan for this, and then when possible, figure
out how to budget for it, or go back to the voters for additional funding to implement
that long-term plan.
We also wanted to see better transparency and tracking of voter-approved measures.
Right now, there's one spot in the budget report that sort of highlights where you're
meeting or failing, but it's not really a clear overview of how we're doing, how we've
been doing what's planned and what the performance of those measures is and the voters understandably
are concerned that the money isn't being spent appropriately and effectively and so we think
that having some sort of dashboard and very focused transparency through an approach to
making sure that those expenditures, the performance metrics are very clearly inedifiable will
be really helpful for improving voter trust.
We also suggested improving data collection on the populations served by the city by adding
in age metrics. So right now the city collects data on race and gender of who's getting served.
We recommended also adding age metrics because we have, you know, the Head Start program
and children's services. We have senior centers and those services. We have transitional-aged
youth who are looking for violence prevention or community college programming. And so better
identifying who the city is currently serving across departments would help better identify
where there might be shortfalls or additional needs and what funding supports the services
is and how that can be expanded if necessary.
And our last long-term recommendation
around the budget specifically
is to improve the use of performance metrics in the budget.
The city has started to use performance metrics,
but we think they could use some improvement.
We think that a dedicated effort by staff
to review department-level performance metrics
and improving transparency and alignment
between performance targets and budget decisions
and what those metrics really are.
So for example, right now the police department's metric
the number of a thousand
and one that's the number of
911 calls. Not responded to a
percentage is just like they
want a number of 911 calls to
respond to those have number of
homicides. Public works is a
number of creek permits to
respond to respond it to so
these aren't a silly regarding
service quality or timeliness
or efficiency it's just a
volume of service and so we
think a careful look at these
points metrics over the next
year. It helped make sure that
And we also noticed that proposals for service expansions,
staffing changes, and contracts
are not linked to the performance metrics.
So we don't know why they're being proposed
in terms of if our goal is to reduce
number one response times or reduce homicides.
How is this proposed staffing change or contract
going to help achieve that outcome?
What's the expectation?
And then if we do it in the past,
if we're renewing a contract,
what has the outcome been for that past contract?
And we think that the lack of clarity
around departmental goals
what they are trying to achieve
and can contribute to poor
service delivery.
If no one's sure what their job
exactly is, you're going to
have things going all over the
place, and so it's best to have
a clear direction from Council
and from senior leadership in
the city departments to make
sure that the departments know
what they're trying to achieve
and how they're going to achieve
it, and it's going to be
accounted for every single year
with the budget.
And with that, I'll pass it off
to Commissioner Peddihoff to
cover the last additional long
term recommendations.
Thank you, Commissioner Gould.
So let me first speak to the
we are looking at. What we
think are some important
issues. We have this persistent
question of. Budget shortfall
so what do we do about that we
think it's not good to wait
until next budget cycle. Let's
start now because some of these
need staff collaboration. Some
of these may need some public
that we might be able to do it
at midyear- the comments I'm
making are certainly on the
slide they're also in our
narrative report- starting on
on. At page fifteen there's an
addendum which is a package
that would be able to be put
forward. We'd like to really do
is reconvene as soon as the
mid cycle- measures are are
completed. The election is done
and begin thinking now- in in
the summer about long term
measures- that we can adopt
eventually in the next budget
on page fifteen you can do
that and that requires that
advanced planning so in the in
the report in the addendum and
the links on page fifteen
provide more information on
these so let me start with on
this page the bottom one which
is probably the most
substantial so it's really the
idea of looking at two of our
biggest issues which are
economic development and public
safety together and seeing the
synergy between them rather than
So we're seeing our revenue budget comes from the economic
vibrancy of the city and our ability to tax that we're seeing
Oakland significantly behind California and California
significantly behind the rest of the United States in covid
recovery. We are still having post covid recovery economics
reports from the Chamber of Commerce and many others show
our area to be behind. Yet we've cut our economic
development budget by 60% in the last few years.
that's what we've been able to
do in the past 60% in the last
few years so if we want to
change that circumstance we
need to invest in economic
development.
One interesting measure is
retail leakage- sort of a
measure of trade imbalance
between cities.
Our retail leakage is about
one point five billion dollars
us that's true and one of the
things that we see here is
content as magazine readers
rated Oakland as the number one
foodie destination in the United
States two years in a row not
the editorial staff but the
readers. Yet our own residents
go elsewhere. And so what would
motivate our residents and
visitors to come to Oakland we
think public safety is part of
that. So these problems need to
be to be addressed in tandem a
Thank you very much.
I'm with the University of
Chicago crime lab our own own
auditors office actually cannot
our our our development
director and and the chamber of
commerce to really pull together
some good recommendations one is
focused workforce development
that can reduce crime research
from from the school public
policy shows vice professor
Stephen Raphael what would
common sense would tell us is
the unemployment in Oakland by police patrol. How much apologies how much more time do you need?
Or three minutes? Three minutes? Yeah, maybe five minutes. We're gonna run out of
we're going to hit quorum issues pretty soon so if you could wrap it up in two
minutes. Okay. We do appreciate you coming. So we would like to reconvene and talk more deeply
about these issues extending public safety ambassadors focused economic
workforce development. Four other recommendations. One is a trenching standard. We congratulate the
we're trying to make sure the
we have a trenching standard
and the ability to make
contractors pay if they don't
do it right.
We coordinated with director
Rowan, he's in support of this
but they need council
authorization.
We can bring back a brief
actionable report on that.
We also have the ability to
coordinate with Oakland Fire to
since we've had some
opportunities. And you know
in revenue from from that
cities have have- in counties
that have done is have gained
tens of millions dollars in
revenue. And that could be
another place of path part on
our path to fiscal- solvency.
Over time management is been
talked about we can talk about
that before. And also
contracting management all all
issues that we think we can.
Focus on over time to increase
our long term. By ability and
and we'll build for any questions if needed.
Thank you.
Let's go to the public speakers first.
Thank you.
As I call your name, please approach the podium
in any order.
Please state your name for the record.
If you are participating here via Zoom,
please raise your hand so we can easily identify you.
As usual, we'll take those who are participating here
in chambers first and those who are participating online
following that.
We have Millie Cleveland, Matt Sherber,
Asada Ola Bala, Kevin Dally, Taino,
Tretchenberg, Shae Azuma,
Ali Kashny, Jack Wofford,
Chance Fowler, Mary Kane-Simon,
Jamaica Moon,
Teslem Icaro,
in any order, if I called your name,
please approach the podium.
If you are having time seated to you,
please state that first.
Thank you. Hi everybody. Good afternoon now. My name is Jamaica Moon. I'm a public works supervisor too and keep Oakland clean and beautiful division. I've been here 13 years and plan on being here for the rest of my career.
last year's budget advisory committee report spoke to the need to establish
real overtime controls for opd
as a way to stabilize
as a way to stabilize the city's budget
this was in response to the survey results direct from the residents calling
on the city to put more civilians into these desk jobs
and put more sworn officers back on the streets
and yet
opd overtime spending has actually increased since last year
this year's report acknowledges
the importance of proper vehicle maintenance
in order to provide basic city services
such as clearing illegal dumping and sweeping of our streets.
How can we meet these goals if we don't follow through
on what we know needs to be improved?
If we don't control the police overtime overspending
and put in controls to maintain in the long term,
there will be no ability to invest in vehicle maintenance.
Council Member Gallo said it.
where's the money and I think we all know
where the money is, so thank you.
Thank you, next speaker.
Millie Cleveland with Coalition for Police Accountability.
I too wanna stand with labor on the issue
of the elephant in the room, which is OPD's overtime.
I see the recommendations reference labor's white paper
called Smarter Public Safety,
but none of the recommendations are included.
I would strongly recommend that perhaps
in the public safety subcommittee
that you actually agendize Labor's smarter public safety
and allow the unions to make the presentations
that they can make based on the research
that they have done to show how you can curtail
OPDs over time.
So I strongly recommend that you do that, as well as the auditor's recommendations.
So please, the elephant in the room is OPD's overtime, and since OPOA is in negotiations
right now, it seems to me that it would be wise for you to be more on top of the recommendations
so that you could advise the city administrator on how to negotiate those issues.
Kevin Dalley, like to thank the commission
for pointing out that performance metrics
for parking enforcement need to be improved.
Number of tickets and revenue is not enough,
but these metrics that are being planned
is still an improvement over the no metrics of today.
Sometimes you have to start small
and slowly work the way up to better metrics.
It'd be great to have people just not parking illegally,
and we don't give out very many tickets anymore,
that would be a success.
It'd be good to be able to track how many vehicles
are actually blocking sidewalks, curb cuts,
bike lanes, et cetera.
Last week, coming home from a council meeting,
I was threatened by a driver who was fully blocking
a 14th Street protected bike lane and printed the library.
I'd like to just not have that happen anymore.
Thanks again for the report.
Thank you for your comments.
Next speaker.
Mary Kane Simon again.
And Chia Zoom, I'm ceding my time to Mary Kane Simon.
We just wanted to talk with you a little bit more about the,
and thank you again for restoring the full maintenance
of effort to the public libraries
and wanted to talk with you a little bit more
about just the concept of maintenance.
When you maintain something,
it's cheaper than buying new, right?
You want to maintain the libraries which are great civic buildings of Oakland.
There are great meeting places where people can go for free.
Hot, thirsty people in the middle of summer can go into the public library, sit down and
cool off.
So you want to make sure that the air conditioning works in those buildings and that there is
clean, filtered water for people to drink.
That only happens with proper maintenance.
You don't wanna have the library's air conditioning
break down in the middle of summer.
Please spend money to maintain our buildings.
In terms of planning for the future also,
it's cheaper, we all know,
it's cheaper to clean out your gutters
so that water doesn't back up onto your roof.
You know, a new roof is really expensive.
Cleaning gutters is cheap.
So why do we have weeds growing out of the roof gutters
and half of the libraries of Oakland,
nobody's cleaning the gutters.
I asked why that wasn't happening
and there hasn't been a clear answer
why the city is not doing this basic maintenance
that should be performed by people
you already have working with you,
you have trucks and ladders.
It's a lot cheaper than buying a new roof
and by replacing water-damaged books.
You wanna have secure, safe places
where people can go in to use the bathroom.
Clean, sanitary toilets.
This is where a lot of our unhoused population go.
They spend their days, they read,
they recharge their devices.
There is no excuse to not have clean, safe, sanitary
bathrooms, in the words of a little girl
who filled out a suggestion sheet in the main library.
Please put the soap where the little children can reach it.
You know, have a place where children can step up
and wash their hands.
You, there's been a lot of talk about sustainability,
having a budget where you plan for the future,
maintaining what you already have
and what you have in the Oakland Public Library is,
it's really.
Thank you, Mary, your time has ended.
Thank you so much for speaking.
All names have been called.
if you signed up in here in person,
please approach the podium.
Otherwise we will move to our Zoom speakers.
All right, we will now go to Zoom speakers.
Ms. Olavala, you've been unmuted, you may begin.
Can you hear me?
Yes.
Thank you, Madam Clerk.
Some issues, proposed grants of $37 million in contracts
lack detail.
Measure in and amount inconsistent.
2018 Oakland Equity, I'm sorry 2018 Oakland Equity Indicator Report is used for data.
The 2024 unemployment US Census in Oakland black men 20 to 24 years of age, roughly 23% of them
are unemployed in this city. Violence prevention programs should be further developed. Unemployment
has shown to be highly related to crime, especially property
crime.
17% of police officers on payroll are unavailable for deployment.
You need to improve the micro program.
Because Oakland faces structural deficits,
shortfalls, you are doing something
that relates to the expansion of services and staff.
I don't know what that means.
I'm sorry.
The next thing is trying to pay each other a measure in and requires that the
city budget have 700 sworn officers.
You don't have that, uh, unclear of expenditures of nonprofits.
That's for sure.
$37 million of grants and constitutional lacks details.
And my time, thank you for your comments.
Ms.
Ola Bala, it all names would have been called.
If you are participating in chambers, we actually approach the podium.
if you participate in a Zoom, all names have been called.
Thank you to the public speakers, Council Member Houston,
Council Member Gayle, Council Member Fyfe.
Through the Chair, thank you for the recommendations.
I'd like to make a recommendation to you.
You said something about the second year in a row was what?
Can you share that again, please, Ben?
I believe that we said that our recommendations last year
highlighted two things that are repeated this year.
So one of them was that proposed contracts and grants
lacked detail.
We highlighted about $70 million worth of contracts
and grants last year, which is a two year budget.
30 million still remain,
which is about half of the two year budget.
So it doesn't look like there's been a fix there.
The other area we recommended,
how the recommendations that were sort of consistent
was that last year recommended
that some revenue projections were overestimated
around property tax revenue.
This year we're looking at utility consumption tax
and sales tax revenue pension being overestimated again.
I think those are the issues you're looking at.
got it, and through the chair, and the gentleman,
I'm sorry to remember your name, I'm sorry, I apologize.
Mike Pedelhoek.
Mike, so you said something about Oakland
for the second year, was foodie the best for food,
would you say?
Yes, content asked magazine, sort of a travel magazine,
has voted Oakland as the number one foodie destination
in the United States, in other words,
our cultural diversity, our interesting food,
is a great place to come visit, according to those people,
but our own residents are going elsewhere,
And people may be afraid to come here
because of the reputation of crime.
So let me share this to my members.
It's marketing.
We're trying to market within ourselves
and do it on Facebook, Instagram, or whatever.
We need to hire somebody that's inside,
but outside of the city to market these great things
in the change of public safety,
because it's getting safer.
We got the best food.
We have the best weather.
We need to have someone that is from Oakland,
but outside of the city to do the marketing.
This is a great time to do that,
so I'll make that recommendation.
Maybe that seems like a policy directive that you'll put
and turn it into the clerk's by next Thursday.
Thank you, president.
If I might add through the chair,
one avenue is also collaborating with the chamber.
The chamber does have some pretty good efforts.
that's probably the case for
the strategic plan we're hoping
to find out why people may be
reluctant we think public
safety is one issue it could be
parking other issues also say
in your comment about repeat
recommendations the overtime
was also a repeat recommendation
in the links at the page fifteen
of the report is report done by
S. S. E. I. U. there's two
sort of landmark studies the
auditor did a twenty nineteen
study of police overtime and
then more recently S. E. I. U.
councilmember
Go ahead councilmember five I just have a couple questions. Thank you for this presentation. I think it was very informative
How does the city rank on incorporating your?
Recommendations into our processes over time. I don't know if we have a specific ranking
But we do and there's a link on page 15 is a brief PowerPoint deck that talks about other cities for example
Boston has had a great experience with hiring youth in the summer similar to the mayor's program and it's had
statistically significant reduction in crime
Detroit has had a intervention a program
They've kind of come back from the brink a city that was not having good economic outcomes
So there's many others we can compare to other cities that have done similar things a notable comparison is
city of San Jose who has less officers per capita and less officers per square
mile, but markedly less crime. This is in the deck that's at the link. Not only do
they have less crime than us by not 10 or 20 percent by several fold, they were
voted the safest large city in the United States with less officers per
capita and per square mile. We think it's not just the number of officers.
Certainly Mayor N's important. That gap is 3 percent. Those not hired is 9
those those on payroll but not deployable is seventeen percent by the
chief's own report as of February so we think the deployment needs to be looked
at in terms of so we have to compare with those cities I don't know if I can
give you a numerical numerical ranking but San Jose actually our city auditor
pointed us there because he came from there and said look there at number not
just that he calls it pop per cop it's not just the number of headcount of
sworn officers but how effectively you're deploying them he's also observed
we compare to other cities, our bureau structure is somewhat self-limiting, so the 911 response
times are very important, but the bureau structures are sort of a self-imposed limitation. We
could, through meet and confer, address that issue and improve our 911 response time to
make them more equitable before we consider more resources. So there's several comparisons
to other cities without necessarily ranking that are in that report. If we reconvene,
we can bring many more of those as well.
I wanted to understand is if the recommendations that you all bring on a regular basis to counsel
have been implemented from what you've tracked or perhaps they haven't been tracked because
the they seem to be common sense recommendations and so I don't I don't know if Director Johnson
is still over there but I would like to figure out how maybe you can answer the question.
do we incorporate some of these budget recommendations and if not, do they need to come through
a council process because a needs assessment is just seems common sense to me.
We talked about potentially adding software so that there could be a longer runway of
budgeting so it's not just we're operating in these two-year chunks, it's something we
we discussed in the past.
But how would we bring forward some of these recommendations
that just seem like they make sense?
I'm happy to talk with you about any of them in specific.
Most of them would require some kind of funding allocation
and a project plan to implement.
So, and would need to be dovetailed with other efforts.
So, happy to talk to you about them specifically.
I do think some of them are in progress.
I'll note that our fiscal roadmap has a number
of these items already lined out in it.
and that kind of details our sort of order of plan.
So the 10-year capital plan,
the idea of an equipment plan and a technology plan
are already in that roadmap space.
So it's a combination of we might need resources for them
and then it's a capacity question as to
which one of these things do we want to bite off first?
I would love to see a dashboard
that's available to the public
so they can see how we're tracking our ballot measures,
or especially voter approved measures
that when we've changed some of the allocations
because of fiscal emergencies and things like that.
Just a dashboard would be really good.
And I know we, again, talked about potentially
looking more long term, so we're not doing
all of these piecemeal kind of policies.
So they said, sir, and you both have glasses.
Yeah, the last speaker, I know Ben.
What's your name?
Mike Petahoff.
Mike.
Petahoff?
Petahoff.
correctly like a dog okay got it you said that if we if you come back after
June after the ballot measures pass and things like that then we can discuss
maybe a pathway for some recommendations we may have on the city's roadmap to
fiscal solvency certainly there are many things going on but we have some some
input to that some which we think we want to do early because they may
require staff collaboration, it may require public education that would help
you to be able to adopt these measures in the budget next year. For example, if
you said workforce development is a crime-finding measure, people may not
think of that. They may, when they think of crime, think of number of sworn
officers, which is certainly an important variable, but helping people understand
these other variables, we actually have research that shows the importance of
libraries in reducing crime. I would like to get that calendar. I think that's
that resonates with me.
I do believe that jobs can be a crime fighting measure
and I wanted to understand more about the map
that you said where you can overlay unemployment data
with crime data, do you have that now?
Yeah, in our report that is on the agenda,
on page 15 are several links and after that is an addendum
and it's got two maps in it.
One is the mapping of unemployment to police beats.
The other is the coverage of public safety ambassadors
currently and where we think they might be extended.
We recommended and counsel approved extending
the two public safety ambassador programs last year
to broader, we've mapped out where crime actually is
and suggest looking at that further.
Okay, I'll look at the.
It's in the addendum after page 15.
Thank you.
And then I think the $1.5 billion in retail leakage
You mentioned, came from a 2008 study
that was commissioned by then Council Member Jane Bruner
from the consultant that said that Oakland loses
approximately 10 point, I mean 1.5 billion retail leakage.
I do wanna just put in a little footnote
to my council members that I look forward
to the support of Costco because I think that will help
with that retail leakage
and bringing additional tax revenue to the city.
So I look forward to your unanimous support on that item when it comes forward, but I would assume that it has
It has increased since 2008. That's when the study was initially done
There are several studies but using that one as a reference if you take the dollar escalation from 2008 to now
It's about 1.56 billion
General estimates run from 1.4 to 1.6, but it's a large number and if because you mentioned safety people feeling safe
Yes, how do you deal with facts over feelings or feelings over facts because if Oakland is getting safer and people still don't feel safe
What do legislators do?
To address feelings that might not be based on reality good question. I think reducing actually reducing crime
We've had great progress, but since our crime is so much higher. It's not 20 30% higher
We have a ways to go. I also think the way we market it and articulate
communicated is important but also public safety ambassadors we've seen
not only quantifiably reduced crime but give a greater sense of comfort.
And I think Commissioner Wold, you may have a... Yeah. Sure, yeah. So Oakland is absolutely
getting safer. I think we're seeing improvements in that area. I think the challenge is that
looking at the data in 2024, the most recent data we had available,
Oakland's per capita crime rate was between 5 and 10 times
higher than other comparable California cities like Fremont and San Jose.
over the next few months.
We're at a 20 or a 40% reduction in crime still means we're 2 to 3 times higher crime
than those cities were 2 years ago.
They've likely improved since then as well.
So perception is one thing, reality is a second thing,
and some of it is also just cleanliness and appearance, right?
Like I think that's an important part of it too.
People, there may not be crime, but if it looks dirty and grimy
and it looks unsafe, that's a factor as well.
So I think sort of everything Commissioner Pedels was talking about,
And the city to support and I want to just co-sign what councilmember Houston said about that marketing piece
I think that's exactly right
Particularly when you have the Oakland Police Officers Association that are intentionally putting out information
That contradicts what the stats are what that contradicts what the truth are they have a public information officer. That is consistently
Undermining the movement of the city and if we don't have a communications team that's doing the same thing
are putting out what is actually happening in Oakland,
we're going to consistently see a situation
where we're fighting ourselves.
This is not about what you all are talking about,
but we have to have an intentional
and proactive marketing strategy for the city of Oakland
that uplifts that we are the best food city in the world,
we have the best weather in the region, in the country,
and all of the amazing things.
And yes, we do have to address crime,
and we have to do the upstream strategies
to address those things, like jobs and housing,
and making the city, make sure the city is clean.
So I am complete.
If I may respond to the chair,
I think this is a public education issue.
When people think of crime,
the first reaction is number of sworn officers.
That's an important variable.
There's a report, staff report done by Chief Kirkpatrick,
that shows Oakland burying anywhere from 600
to over 800 officers.
In 2009 to 2018, and we've actually looked
at the variance in crime for that, there is some.
But I think the conclusion is we can't,
as Commissioner Gould pointed out,
the numbers are so much different,
we can't solve it by policing alone.
We need to do some of these other things.
It's a natural human response when you're threatened
to reach out for safety.
And so people say, give me more officers.
I wanna honor our men and women in uniform.
three years ago. I spent years
in uniform myself. I'm a member
of the VFW post here in here in
Oakland- so I honor our are
sworn officers. But I think we
need to have a more comprehensive
approach. That's what ringing
with other cities the cities
have done well have a more
comprehensive approach it's not
the only thing. And let me just
say you mentioned we're in in
negotiations. If we look at one
of the links talks about. The
report said there's a deficit. We added up the numbers and said the revenue shortfalls
are only 40%. There was actually a cost increase and we realized that there were negotiations,
MOU negotiations, conducted exactly in the window where it now, between men's cycle and
elections. And if you have negotiations then, there could be a lot of influence. And that
influence is on the Fair Political Practices Commission website. You can see it. But we
We may want to think about the timing, in that case, those MOUs were not due for expiration
were not disclosed in the budget report, yet they made commitments sort of a one-time funding
but actually wasn't one-time funding because the one-time funding for the COVID grants
had expired, and those agreements can change today.
So I think we need to think about with all of our MOUs being open, do we have the funds
to do that, otherwise in the next budget cycle you'll already be spent.
Personally, it felt disingenuous to me to ask all the residents for their input on what
should do with the budget when we'd already spent it. And so we want to be thoughtful about that
and about that timing of MOU negotiations relative to elections and funding cycles.
It's hard as council members know to raise money. It's easy to write a check if you're
in a different position. So I just say that as a political reality that we should think about. I
think it's probably one of the most persistent dynamics that affect Oakland over many council
cycles over many, many decades. Thank you. So I'm going to take chair's privilege. I want to have a
special welcome to mama houston councilmember houston's mother
who came to join us for the meeting everyone say hello to mama houston
yeah you could be anywhere else but you came here with us oh we appreciate you
councilmember guile yes thank you and thank you for that information
that you provided us um but what i what i'm going to be asking you for is to
also provide present the business perspective
and the management of the city of oakland where we are today
And one specifically, there are many properties that we're leasing.
For example, the public works yard on Coliseum, we're paying what?
Three to five million dollars to lease a property.
Then we have a parking lot behind us that's been sitting empty for years
that we could, under business, be able to lease it, manage it,
do something with it, as opposed to being vacant.
Right? And another example when it comes to business,
You talk about the library, right?
The Fruitvale Library, they're charging you,
or at least they were trying to get the library
out of the Fruitvale Village,
because we weren't paying our monthly or annual fee
of a million-plus dollars,
because that property is owned by BART
and the Unity Council managed it.
But if we can identify properties that we have,
from the Army Base all the way to East Oakland,
that we need to do a better job managing to earn, you know,
a revenue from those.
And as an example, I have prolongs in my area this building,
a site that's been dead for many years.
But they're going to create 300 plus jobs.
They're going to create revenue for the city.
But we're growing the city and we're just not focused
on the city government, ba-ba-ba, talk, talk, talk, talk.
We need to create the revenue at the same time,
and we have the facilities, the properties
that if we utilize them well,
that there would be a positive for what you're saying
in terms of job creation, public use,
and a revenue source for the city.
And that's what's missing.
If I may, through the chair,
it's not an area we're currently examining,
but we could certainly look into it.
I think we would need the data that we've come from staff.
So I might suggest we would,
We planned to have discussions, collaboration discussions with staff to bring that to their
attention.
I think we certainly wouldn't have the database to know all the property, but it's certainly
an area that we could explore and bring to your attention.
Thank you.
And that would include the Port of Oakland as well.
It's within the city of Oakland.
They're part of our effort in the future.
How do we work together?
We talk about the county.
The counties neglected Oakland more recently with the stadium, the Coliseum property.
We own half they own half, but we do a lot of talking, right, and as opposed to the city
taking control, that's a great investment, not just job generation, but an opportunity
for Oakland to grow, and why aren't we doing that together within the politicals, and it's
been a challenge.
Anyways, thank you for that, government.
Definitely has been a challenge.
I'm going to go to Obama, Chandra, and then Wong.
I think it's rapid fire as we are,
when it's issues we're gonna start losing people.
Thank you.
Just wanna express my appreciation for your work.
You are all volunteers, you pour your blood, sweat, and tears.
You did this in an incredibly rapid turnaround in time.
This is now my fourth budget cycle
and I know that council has not always listened to
and respected your recommendations,
but I know last year and this year,
certainly the budget team looks forward
to really diving deep, including into the appendices,
which I know there's some very interesting information there.
You know, not only in this budget cycle,
but as part of our long-term fiscal planning as well,
because none of these things are gonna be fixed overnight.
But over the years, I know we've worked closely
on issues like thinking about holistic public safety efforts,
including safety ambassadors.
Immense appreciation, not only for that recommendation here,
but over the past few budget cycles,
whether or not they've been funded,
you've continuously pushed creative solutions
to our public safety crisis in a holistic manner,
as well as authentic reasons,
ways in which we can promote fiscal responsibility.
Again, I know your recommendations
have not always been heated,
but currently I know that we are grateful for your work
and we'll do what we can not only in this cycle,
but as far as long-term planning goes.
There were some very interesting points
about some of our projections,
and other things that I'll note as well
and very much excited to look forward
to diving a little deeper before we pass the budget.
Thank you for your efforts.
Thank you, Councilmember Sunter and Councilmember Wong.
And then you can make a motion.
Okay, sounds good.
I just have a quick question.
Since you guys have been digging into economic development,
have you seen a relationship?
Because when I go into my business corridor,
is the feedback I get is crime is coming down,
but traffic continues to be an issue,
especially because of some of our parking policies.
And I'm wondering if you see a relationship
where since we are pursuing, you know,
for example, paid parking on Sundays,
if there's a relationship with an inverse relationship
with parking and in sales tax
where we could actually recoup more from our sales tax.
Have you done any analysis on that?
I can address it this way
and make sure we have other thoughts too.
We have an action that's proposed, not yet adopted,
that in this year's survey, resident survey,
we would ask them what makes you dine and shop in Oakland,
what makes you dine and shop elsewhere?
We think that we've heard from merchants
is certainly the public safety issue.
Are their customers gonna get mugged?
That sort of thing.
We've heard shoplifting is a concern.
Is parking a concern?
You go to Walnut Creek, there's a nice parking garage.
So we're trying to get more tangible data
and has not been adopted as a separate committee
that's working on that, but we think it's an opportunity
And we gather more information about what makes customers
like Oakland or go elsewhere.
So we're working on that to understand.
Okay, great.
Thank you.
I'll make a motion.
So we'll get a motion to receive and file in a second.
Thank you for that.
And that was a motion by Council Member Wong,
seconded by Council Member Ramachandran
to receive and file item five.
Apologies, one moment while I pull up the right screen.
On roll for this item, Council Member Brown.
Aye.
councilmember. I councilmember guy oh councilmember Houston I Rama Chandra I
councilmember ughers excuse councilmember Wong I and chair chickens I I don't
remember five is approved with seven eyes one excused councilmember ugher that
now takes us to open forum as I call your name please approach the podium in
any order I will take those who are in person first please again state your
for the record before you begin.
For those who are participating in the Zoom,
please raise your hand so I can easily identify you.
Ms. Asada Ola Bala, Kevin Dally, Millie Cleveland,
Faith Kirkpatrick, and Cameron Salazar.
In any order, please.
Flooded Coalition for Police Accountability.
I wanted to make a suggestion.
It appears that since the city administrator
the one that hired the consultant for the police chief search and seems to be telling
the police commission how to handle that search, that maybe they want to reconsider not having
a candidates form for police chief. A decision was initially made that they wouldn't disclose
I know it's been a while now
and I know he has the names
because some people may not
want their employer to know
about it but since chief beer.
Announced his candidacy for the
job the process is tainted.
So maybe you could talk to the
city administrator about the
importance of.
Community engagement and
transparency with this process.
And reconsider the idea that
and thank you very much.
Thank you so much.
And do you need translation?
Yes.
We do have those.
We do have translators participating via Zoom.
So we're going to take them off of Zoom so they can translate.
Do you want Maria to do it?
I volunteer Maria.
All right.
You hear that, translators?
We have an in-person translator.
Thank you so much.
Hello.
Good morning. My name is Carmen Salazar. Good morning, everybody.
everybody. A few items bring me here. The
number one is in regards to the budget. I'm not agreeing with it. I'm not happy
with the way it's being spent and that's one of the items.
an employer.
Another thing is that there are services that are not being taken care of like having an
interpreter here that's not a service that the city council provides.
Yeah, offer more services as public safety housing allow people or for people to learn
I'm sure that we will be able to
turn hard to come here to council meetings.
Look at your state. So I'm the key is can one a channel up over the heart of the case is the same event though.
It's almost a chance that.
Me them both go and the overall case on come with the rest of the race can look at when the left of the sea on.
You said me small upon a high on the back end of the in a lot of sobering homeless.
You saw that.
I know that thing is parking fees nothing is below eighty dollars and also is not the
three dollars that they say per hour when they come and speak to homelessness and items
like that they need more services to be provided so they can come and speak to it.
Thank you so much we give two minutes for translation well one minute for the person
of speaking one minute for translation in open form
so your time has seated and it last.
So we would need to move on if I could.
Go.
No.
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the council to address is for people to be able to come and express themselves about
how they feel and given more opportunities to be known of every changes in the council.
Thank you so much for your comments and just to note for the record there is information
on the back of the agendas to how to request for translation they're usually available,
and they're usually available on,
you have to reach out five days in advance of the meeting,
so you can do that by looking at the back of the agenda
and calling five days in advance,
and then we will have translators available via Zooms.
Thank you so much.
Thank you, thank you so much.
Thank you so much.
You can chat with our afterwards.
Anybody else?
Yes, we do have, sorry, your time has lapsed,
and we have Ms. Asada Olabala and Faith and Kevin Dalley.
Thank you so much.
Miss Asada, you've been unmuted, you may begin.
Thank you, Madam Clerk. Can you hear me?
Yes, ma'am.
I just want to make it clear.
The negotiated settlement agreement has nothing to do with constitutional policing.
The settlement agreement has to do with police brutality, excessive force,
racial profiling, uh, fraudulent reporting of investigations.
Keep it in that spectrum. Also,
32% of your employees, uh, city employees live in Oakland.
That means 67 do not live in Oakland.
This E initiative by the union has mostly presented
by people that don't live in Oakland, your union employees.
The false way you represent this
to be a citizen's initiative, I hope it fails tomorrow.
Continue to go forward with integrity.
Stop trying to manipulate the spending
and creation of funding for this city
and stop not addressing your sanctuary city status,
how it is budgetarily affecting
particularly African Americans economically.
All named have been called for open forum.
Thank you, this meeting is adjourned.