Good morning and welcome to the finance and management committee meeting of
Tuesday June 9th, 2026. The time is now 9 30 a.m. and this meeting may come to
order. Before taking roll I will provide instructions on how to submit speaker
cards for items on this agenda. If you're here with us in chamber and would like
to submit a speaker card please fill one out and turn one into myself or a clerk
representative. No later than 10 minutes after the start of this meeting or
the motion that the council
councilmembers chime in.
Or before the item is read into
record registering to speak
via zoom is now do twenty four
hours prior to the start of this
meeting.
This meeting came to order at
nine thirty AM and speaker cards
will no longer be accepted ten
minutes after making that time
nine fifty AM.
Will now proceed with taking
roll council members Brown.
Councilmember hunger.
Okay we have four members present,
Chair before we begin do you have any announcements
at this time?
No announcements we can begin, thank you.
Thank you reading in item one approval of the draft minutes
from the committee meetings, committee meeting of May 26,
2026 and we have no speakers on this item.
All right I will entertain a motion.
I move approval of the meeting minutes.
Second.
Thank you that's a motion made by Council Member Brown,
council member to accept committee meetings of May twenty six twenty
twenty six. On roll council members Brown I hunger I long I and chair
Ramachandran I thank you I don't one passes with four eyes to accept the
committee meeting committee draft minute meetings minute meeting minutes for May
twenty six twenty twenty six reading an item to determination of get of schedule
about standing committee items
and we do have two speakers on this item.
Okay, anything from the staff?
Nothing at this time, thank you.
Okay, we can move in a minute to public speakers.
Calling in the names that sign up
to speak on item number two,
Mrs. Soto-Ola Bala and Blair Beekman.
According to your schedule,
you have the annual report listing all purchases
in contracts authorized by the city administrator
or designee within the city administration's
control authority.
That's on your schedule.
You haven't had a report since 2023,
and on your agenda you have the next report scheduled
for March of 2027.
What is the issue here?
I brought it to your attention several times.
As it relates to some of the properties that you own,
like the ice rink, you need to have a report
on what are the revenues that you receive.
I understand that you had a contract that was approved
with shark management in 2026
without any fees being paid by them,
but it takes, they take 70% of all revenue
in excess of $73,000.
What is the revenue you receive, if any,
And where's the report from any of the other ferry land,
Federal River Camp, the zoo?
Do we get any revenue or are we paying
without getting any revenue from these nonprofits
or these organizations or the property that we own?
Sharks agreed to pay for field trips
for at least 1,000 school students,
as well as offer every student enrolled
a after school program free trip.
Now here's the one that I found out about,
that you give free parking validation
at the ice rink.
Monday through Friday from four to one o'clock in the morning,
validated free parking for anybody going to the ice rink.
How much money are we losing
because you give this free parking
And you have on Saturday from eight.
Thank you for your comments, Ms. Ollivallert.
Thank you for your comments.
Zach there, you can come up to the podium
to speak on item two.
Good morning.
I know I'm gorgeous.
Donald, or I mean Hans Alexander,
a Gorenlett and Bergevin, a Red and Trump.
Sir Keir Starmer, you know there's a thing called
the tusk, Trump and tusk.
You can, you know, that a little bit.
I have a little bit of an issue and a view of the state.
Determining the Outstanding Committee notes.
And a view of HR 1096 Senate Bill 5896.
A challenge in Measure Q, Measure O,
Measure N, N, and the view of Senate Bill 81.
in 1996 shows a term differences based on the application.
Michigan be the EPA,
Colorado River basin be the U.S.,
Dovey, Rubinstein, Hensley, I be the NRDC.
I, Zachary John Thayer and Doe
and view a procedural application in GV Australia.
And quantifiable review of standard of deviation.
I, his gorgeous Mr. Slade, am a New York pistol and rifle,
and am challenging the right of review
under the Complanary Review of the NEA IEA hearings tied
to the NRC and view a delegation of authority of command.
I, his impeachment agent, the interim president
under the 46th administration, am requesting
That a state sponsored measure be identified in view of an LBR reactor as an improvement
to economic development and in view of private wealth management.
I wish to challenge that and this committee and these draft orders.
Thank you.
Thank you for your comments, Chair.
That concludes all speakers on item two.
We just need a motion.
All right, I will entertain a motion with approval.
we have a motion made by Councilmember Brown seconded by Councilmember Unger to accept the determination of schedule about standing committee items as is
Enroll council members Brown. Hi Unger. Hi Wong
Hi and chair Ramachandran. Hi
Thank you item two passes with four eyes to accept the determination of schedule about standing committee items
Now reading in item three receive an informational report on the implementation and performance of the city of Oakland prompt payment policy
And we have three speakers that sign up to speak on this item
Good morning, council members and members of the public.
Pooja Shrestha, I'm the controller here, and I have a brief report for you today on the
implementation and performance of the city's prom payment ordinance.
Under the Oakland's Municipal Code 2.06, prom payment penalty interest is owed to Oakland
vendors and grantees who submit a valid invoice but are not paid within 20 business days.
These penalties are calculated automatically in the city's financial system and are administered
by the accounts payable unit in the controllers bureau within the finance department.
As shown in Table 1 of the report before you, over the past five fiscal years, approximately
96% of all payments subject to the ordinance were issued within the required timeline.
This indicates that prompt payment penalties are relatively a rare occurrence.
While the overall compliance rate is high, performance does vary across different departments.
And Table 2 in the report provides a summary of departmental compliance rates.
As you can see in the table, departments with larger complex or construction related contracting
activity tend to have lower compliance because they are managing complex contracts, multiple
funding sources and high-invoiced volumes, but even so, most departments maintain compliance
rates above 90%.
We see a parallel pattern in the dollar impacts of prom payment penalties as well.
Over the past five years, the city has issued nearly 1.8 billion in total payments, and
the prom payment interest totaled only approximately $394,000, which is about 0.02% of the total
payments. Additional detail on prompt payment penalties by department and
vendor over the last five years is included as an attachment to the report.
While reviewing the data we identified several common causes of payment delays
including incomplete or incorrect invoices that are submitted by vendors,
departmental approval bottlenecks, contract compliance reviews, and funding
or budget issues. The report also outlines several opportunities to strengthen the prompt
payment performance, which include expanding vendor participation in the city's centralized
invoice submission portal, which will improve efficiency and enhance departmental accountability
for timely approvals, and also continuing on the city's ongoing implementation of the
virtual pay system which will reduce and accelerate payment issuance. In
conclusion the city maintains a strong overall compliance rate with the prompt
payment ordinance and continues to implement improvements that support
efficiency accountability and vendor service. That concludes my presentation
for today but I'm happy to answer any questions. Thank you. I had brought this
item forward firstly because of the experiences of city vendors that we hear
in the community certainly for contracts issued to organizations and that I work
with including in my district this does not reflect the experiences you know
folks wait seven eight nine plus months to get payment on their contracts
executed. So I'm a little confused with the discrepancy and we have people
coming into City Council not at a 930 a.m. finance meeting but to council
meetings regularly talking about they've been waiting six months nine months a
whole year for payment. And so can you explain the differences because the vast
and then we also heard in the equity report in the racial and the racial
disparities study a couple of months ago that failure to pay promptly
specifically minority and small businesses,
was one of the biggest concerns that harmed our commitment
to equity in contracting.
So can you explain the differences between what's here
versus what the experiences of the majority
of city contractors face?
Right, so what is presented here is just data
based on the numbers we were able to pull from our system,
and I'm assuming that the experiences we hear here
are individual experiences of people.
But what is presented in the report here
is just looks at the overall total payments
that are being made by the entire city.
And so it just seems like maybe
when you look at the overall picture,
it doesn't look like the impact is that big
as it looks like at the compliance rate is still 96%.
But the individual experiences of the 4%,
that's where the invoice delays are,
are probably what we've been hearing in the meetings
and I don't know Brad if you want to add something.
Sure, I'll dive in a little bit more.
Many of the payment problems experienced
relates to the fact that non-valid invoices are submitted.
Prompt pay only applies when we receive a valid invoice.
And I'm just gonna give you a specific kind of example.
If a department has agreed and let a vendor start working
and we do not have a contract with them,
we cannot pay the invoice.
We've seen a number of circumstances
that we were trying to remedy with that,
but until there is a contract,
we do not have a valid invoice or ability to pay.
And so that would be an example
of where you might see a vendor working still
through the contract process after having performed work
and they may be waiting a long time
because our contracting process will take that time.
It would not be subject to prompt pay because, again, no work should be performed by the
city through a contract or grant agreement until a valid agreement or contract document
is signed.
And so that's part of what we're working on, not so much in Pooja's shop, but through our
contract and procurement unit about ensuring that we do not have work done on the city's
behalf prior to execution of a contract agreement. Prompt pay would then apply to the valid
invoices submitted from that point onward. And I know a lot of what I have heard anecdotally
and I don't want to downplay that because it's real from our vendors relates to that
prior issue. They are still getting into contract with the city. They don't have a contract
yet and that is why we cannot pay an invoice.
Thank you.
And just to follow up on that, the contracting procurement units, is that within finance
or various?
Well, I will pass it to my colleagues in a minute, but I think I have a number of follow-up
questions.
So my interest would be to hold this in committee until after the August recess.
So we can pull together a little more information, perhaps including some specified questions
to other departments, but I will pass it to my colleagues.
Councilmember Brown, then Wong.
Excellent.
Well, thank you so much for the report.
And so I guess I'll start off with the positive.
I did a compare compare in contrast
to when this report was brought in twenty twenty four.
And I found that this time around, there were more specifics
because in the 2020-2024 report,
it just lists number of interest payments paid
from 2022 to 2026,
and it didn't really go into as much detail,
well, it was from 2020 to 2024,
and it didn't really go into as much detail,
and then it just listed out a handful of departments
that were, I guess, had the highest percentage
of not meeting this prop payment,
falling into this prop payment penalty.
So I would start first there.
But I guess I am curious,
I guess through the chair to Bradley.
In answering Council Member Ramachandran's question,
I just wanna clarify that the information in this report
is actually reflective of,
it's not, this isn't a situation where
there was an issue with the invoice like the data here in the current report is not a situation where
The invoice that was provided had an error. Is that correct? Right?
This is prompt pay only occurs when we have received a valid invoice
Against a valid contract instrument and we have not paid within 20 business days
So it's like these are the spaces where we have had all the valid instrumentation and on the back end it
We have not paid in time. Sometimes there are issues with the invoice, but not typically
I would say they're not typically vendor issues most of the delays that we're seeing often will happen with
Sort of receipt mail processing type issues. It's really really common
If an invoice sits on someone's desk when they're on vacation as opposed to being received centrally through our portal
Which is why our controller mentioned the fact that solutions to this process are about
actualizing the intake through our accounts payable portal and getting online our e check systems that we can
Reduce the one or two days to issue a paper check on the back end
And in in this data, are we able to really figure out where the accountability lies?
Because when you look at like the various departments, I think I just heard that the compliance rate
being in compliance for this is if you are over 90% and so there are
Well, not many but there are handful of departments that are under that 90% threshold and I guess I'm curious
Have we've been able to really drill down like is it actually?
departmental or is it actually
The the issue maybe lies somewhere else within the city. It's a
combination of issues, so I
Think what you're seeing the lowest compliance rate is easily with our CIP program
Like very very clearly is with our CIP program. Those are complicated construction contracts
They often involve draws of trustee funds in order to make the payment. They are more complicated
Transactions and they typically involve split funding and so those are spaces where you see a delay in payment
They often also require a different kind of certification for work done.
So before we pay an invoice against a contract, we want to actually make sure that we have
received the good, had the work done, et cetera.
And so construction projects often have a little bit more of a check in them, and so
that's part of the reason why they tend to be more delayed.
Related to the other departments where you see the delays or the impacts, those candidly
departments have a high volume.
What I would note there is part of what you're seeing is some departments are processing
a greater number of invoices from vendors and grantees than the others are.
And so that element is also at play here.
I do think centralized intake and processing is the answer here because that allows us
to, with proper technology, have greater accountability for where the problem lies, because we would
actually be able to track things in the system by it coming in but we are while
we have an AP portal right now it is not as robust as we'd like it to be and it
doesn't integrate as sort of seamlessly with our financial system as we would
like it to. I see and so I just have two more questions. I was reading the 2014
resolution and it states that each department should have this business
liaison to ensure the prompt payment. Is that do we have that within each of the
departments? I do not think we have the equivalent of business liaison. We have a
fiscal manager for each department and that is normally the person who would be
responsible for this sort of activity but I will happily look back at the
ordinance to ensure that our fiscal managers are aware of their
responsibilities under that ordinance as well. Okay excellent and then I guess
And I guess lastly, as I was digging into that resolution
and just some of the specifics, given that I was from 2014,
do we have an awareness of if there,
and then I was comparing it
to the California Prompt Payment Law.
And so I guess, and updates have been made
at the state level around compliance
and what those standards are.
And then I think I heard you say
We have one point that we have
that our current come compliance
for this is above 90% I guess I
would be curious I mean since
this know the the the the in the
increase pay the interest
payments that we have to pay no
matter what these are tax
dollars and so I think it could
be most appropriate that we.
My question is, do we have an awareness
of if any local cities have moved that threshold
to like 95%?
I'm not aware.
Pooja, have you seen anything where you've seen changes
in local, the assumed compliance rate
for other local jurisdictions?
No, I have not.
And the 90% that was presented in the report
is just what we see now based on the data.
There is no, I'm not aware of any requirement
of the 90%.
OK, excellent.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Before moving to Council Member Wong, just also
a note of gratitude for bringing this report forward with,
again, like Council Member Brown mentioned,
quite a bit of detail compared to before.
I think I would like a little more and a little time
to flush out some follow ups that,
including some of Council Member Brown's questions
and that of others.
But I do appreciate what you have collected
from the data that's there.
Council Member Wong.
Thanks and thanks to the chair for agendizing this item.
I think maybe the disconnect that I'm seeing
with this report is that even though the financial impact
of the city is insignificant, right,
but for the experience of the individual
where you have a small business,
it's significant for the delay.
I think one thing I just have a question around
is it does seem like we're actually sliding backwards
according to the report because 2026 year to date,
we have 231 interest payments
and this is payments processed through May 11th.
So, you know, back of the envelope math,
we'd be at 400 plus by the end of the year.
Is there a reason for that?
It's just challenges that we've had
but it just looks like we're on track to hit a higher number
compared to 2023 in Table 1.
I think most of what we see, as you can see in the table,
is that the interest penalties and the number of interest
penalties do go up and down from year to year.
And that has to do a lot to do with timing as well.
It depends a lot on when the grant is supposed to be,
like, when the grant is supposed to be approved,
It depends a lot on when the grant agreement was signed,
when the actual payment was made.
So some years might not be so heavy based
on when the grant agreement aligns with the timing
or when the construction actually happens
versus another year.
So there's a lot of different factors that goes into play.
OK.
The other thing I'm wondering about on a good note
is planning and building seems to be doing a good job of driving
down their late payments.
They, in prior years, had been in 12,000, 26,000.
Were there process improvements that they pursued
that there's lessons to be learned across the departments?
That's a great question.
I think we can bring this back up to and kind of figure
out if they have implemented anything
in the last couple of years.
As of now, we're not aware of anything specific
that they have done.
So I think we can go back and see if it just has to do with again the variation of timing
or if they specifically implemented something system-wise or something like that
that the other departments may be able to learn from.
Okay. And I will say since you all have noted the capital improvements,
it just strikes me as like the number is much higher this year compared to the prior years.
We were at 3,000 last year, but year to date this year,
we're at 17,000.
So I hear you all on the need for more checks
in the capital improvement side of things.
But why are we seeing such a substantial increase this year?
I do think that some of this, as Pooja mentioned,
varies year to year to year.
There is just some sort of inherent variation in it.
I knew CIP more recently has done,
there's been more work being happening,
I think over the past CIP year,
especially due to bond draw funds,
so I think that may be an element of it
if you just have more work happening.
One of the things that I think is really important
that is sort of underlying all this data
is the variances that different departments have
at various times with the amount of fiscal staff
they have on hand.
If you are short staffed in your fiscal unit,
your compliance rate will fall typically.
you have fewer people trying to process invoices,
they're gonna be less timely at doing that.
And so one of the things that I know happened
in the case of like planning and building,
or Deputy Attorney's Minister mentioned is,
one thing that's happened is planning building
has gotten a more full fiscal staff in that time span.
And so just the number of people that you have able to work
and available in processing invoices
does make a difference in terms of your timeliness,
especially when you're talking about
a 20-day business day turnaround.
Okay, got it, that's helpful.
I think there was a motion on the floor by the chair.
I'll second that.
Thank you.
I'll restate my motion and that is to continue this item
to this September 22nd Finance Committee meeting.
And if there are questions that you would like answers to,
please direct them to the Finance Department or my team.
Thank you.
And it's a public comment.
Thank you.
Calling in the names that sign up to speak on item three.
In no particular order, you can come up to the podium,
state your name for the record, and make your comment.
If you're on Zoom, please raise your hand
to be easily identified.
Zach Thayer, Asada Olavala, Kevin Dally, and Blair Beekman.
Here, Donna, do you know what this means?
I am in view of prisoner war designation
as the impeachment agent of Donald John Trump.
the 47th and Merkleby the Articles of Impreachment have been taken in view of
bankruptcy and view a private enterprise as the chairman of Lehman
International Lotus Capital operations analyst and Janice Capital and Royce
Investments as the principal and TSO Capital and division head and Main Street
and the foundational and controller of that as an entity.
In the view of the division, the 10.92 mitigated
and removed out of the bus estate,
or out of the Dolan estate, and the 6.97 moved out
of the bus estate, liquidates through Kepper Capital,
Ronald Jeffrey Rockefeller,
and Mr. Eisenhower, Kemper Kennedy, Rothschild,
as my contractor controller.
I was 16 and a half billion liquid
as the chair principal in Lidere Capital v. the United
States, Lidere v. the state of California,
and as boatyard insurance through Chicago title.
In the view of the state, I am mitigating cost recommendation
and emitting as the chairman as well of Ocean Technology,
revion and
Regeneration I princess six of England the next monarch of England. I
Patrick Hannibal Xavier ruling Volanovich melanin cuff Elden Anderson Cromwell
Challenges the right of the state and the view of fiduciary responsibility. I
Will be liquidating that for procedures of active combat under the Department of War help
Kevin Dally I
I appreciate the report from the finance department
in council member Ramachandran for requesting the report.
And the questions from council member Brown and Wong
as well, but in my interest is to see more local businesses
bidding and receiving contracts.
And I'm wondering why, you know,
obviously an oak dot for me, public works and elsewhere.
So if we see that this record for prompt payment
looks pretty good, but the council members
are still receiving complaints about a lot of payments
that aren't prompt, is it possible we're looking
at the wrong metrics here?
That finance department's doing a great job
Once the contract is valid and everything's submitted,
a paying, and that's good.
At least we know the fault is mostly not there.
But it would be good to track down a few examples
that the council members have received
of contractors complaining about payments that aren't prompt.
Why is this happening?
If it isn't, because if it doesn't fall under the prompt,
payment policy, where does it fall and what can we do to get the vendors receiving correct
good payment? And probably it isn't just the prompt payment policy, there's probably a
whole lot else that we need to help the vendors submit the correct invoices and receive correct
contracts. Now why are people working on contracts that aren't valid yet? I mean it's great for
but not necessarily for them.
Thanks.
So I'm still in a quandary about.
The payment that is due for the 37.
Police vehicles.
2025 Ford vehicles that are currently
sitting on the lot at San Leandro doing
due to an ongoing dispute of agreement,
and it says that the funds are being
And I think that's why I'm so.
Held up because the city finance director stated that the Oakland.
Can Oakland cannot tap into its equipment service fund to pay for the cars due to federal regulations.
So.
What situations are you not able to pay.
Because you're not in compliance with some area of regulation rules whatever.
and it's not happening not because you don't have the money it's because of some other
issue so did the report validate that every situation of non-payment had to do with lack
of funds or did it have to do with some other issue why payment was not being made so so
I don't know if you are also interested in the fact that since we don't have the ability
to pay promptly, what is the interrupting factor related to services or programs or
whatever because we can't pay our vendors or pay on these contracts?
It's a more in-depth conversation besides, oh, we just didn't give them the money, but
because we didn't pay we have loss services staff whatever so in the future
maybe we could have a more in-depth report when we're not able to pay
promptly thank you for your comments chair all names have been called at this
time and we do have a motion made by chair Ramachandran seconded by council
member Wong to continue this item to the September 22nd finance and management
management committee meeting.
May I just add a quick comment?
Thank you.
And I think what we will submit questions on will be related to, outside of the payment
policy, what are related bottlenecks in contracting and procurement.
I completely hear that sometimes organizations begin to execute contracts before they get
the money.
But speaking from experience of organizations that I know, sometimes it is time sensitive
that the project starts when it comes to public safety
in certain timelines, that the community has been informed,
certain tasks will begin.
I speak from experience of certain organizations
that have felt compelled to do this because
of various reasons and frustration again that yes,
probably the issue is the contract not being executed,
but a little more clarity on that.
It's not just organizations are going ahead
and starting their projects, knowing a,
I'm sure that's some of the case,
but I know in a lot of other cases,
there are organizations that want the contract executed,
so where the bottlenecks are for that,
but are otherwise because of reasons related to them
getting this money in a very public way,
needing to expend that at certain times,
meaning to start the project at certain times.
So we will follow up with questions
when it comes to that contracting and procurement piece.
and this is Emily McPherson from the City Attorney's office.
So the scope of the current information report
is on the performance of the prompt payment policy.
Would you like to request through scheduling
a second information report
that's more related to the contracting information
or are your questions going to be limited
to the prompt payment policy itself?
I think it's relevant to the prompt payment policy
and identification of related factors.
Okay, I just want to make sure that we're scoping this appropriately for the information report and through it through the chair
The administration could provide a more comprehensive
Report if you were to bring a separate scheduling item that articulated some of those other components of contracting
If that's preferred, yeah
Well, maybe let's continue this for now and if we we have a little time
So if we want to bring another scheduling item to replace this I'd be happy to
after thinking it through.
Council Member Wong.
I have a question.
Just based off of the discussion that we've had as colleagues,
I'm wondering if just, I think the report is helpful,
but we need to dig in one more layer,
which is what is the compliance as it relates
to small and local businesses
and see if the compliance rate is much lower for that set,
that subset, and it might uncover specific challenges
that these small, local, either businesses or non-profits
that are encountering, it's possible to carve out that data.
Through the chair, I'll just note
that the payment policy doesn't apply
to the subcontractor component, right?
So we pay the prime contractor.
Sure.
So in terms of data availability.
Yeah, I'm talking about the prime contractor
being a small, local business,
if it's possible to carve that out.
And that's one aspect of the small local business enterprise
program, but certainly another component
is when we have larger contractors who then
engage small subcontractors to comply
with the small local business enterprise.
And so if you're trying to understand that,
I just will advise that the report may end up also then
showing a gap of information that you are interested in,
but that our prompt payment policy
doesn't specifically address.
Okay, that's okay.
I think that that layer is actually an important thing
for us to understand.
Thank you.
Okay, we have a motion made by Chair Ramachandran,
seconded by Council Member Wong
to continue this item to the September 22nd
Finance and Management Committee agenda,
with direction to the committee
to provide their questions to staff.
on rural council members, Brown?
Aye.
Unger?
Aye.
Wong?
Aye.
And chair Ramachandran?
Aye.
Thank you, item three passes with four ayes
to continue this item to the September 22nd
Finance and Management Committee meeting.
Reading in item number four,
adopt a resolution authorizing the city administrator
to waive the competitive solicitation process
and enter into an indefeasible rights of use, sorry.
rights of use agreement with Sonic Net LLC,
a wire line internet service provider
in an amount not to exceed $720,000
for a term of 15 years to lease dark fibers
to complete the city-owned network Oakland Connect,
to enter into a memorandum of understanding
to connect to the city-owned network
at no charge for a term not to exceed 10 years
with the following housing providers
or affiliated entities to A, Oakland Housing Authority,
Fruitvale Development Corporation,
and Bridge Housing Corporation,
and three, waiving the competitive solicitation process
and entering into a fiber lease agreement
with another corporate ISP, LLC, DBA, Monkey Brains,
a local internet service provider to access
and integrate city fibers into a service network
to enhance broadband and availability for Oakland residents
at a rate of zero dollars for a term of 10 years,
and we have two speakers that signed up
to speak on this item.
Is there a staff presentation?
Good morning everyone.
We do have a presentation, I believe.
I'm Tony Vitale, I'm the Director
of the Information Technology Department,
and I'll be presenting the item today.
So this actually represents a major step
in the Oakland Connect project.
If we could go to the next slide.
Oh, I have a clicker right here.
Nice.
Okay.
So a little bit of background on this project.
It is, as I said, this is a major step
in years in the making.
So starting around 2023,
my department led an application
for what was called a technical readiness grant program.
And we were awarded $500,000
from the California Public Utilities Commission
to develop broadband plans.
in anticipation of them releasing
what was called the Last Mile Grant in the future.
So we started planning for that in 2023
and we made our application, our grant submission
in late 2023 and in 2024 in July,
the CPUC awarded the city of Oakland $14 million,
$14.1 million through the application
that our department submitted.
The project is called Oakland Connect.
The city has a $2 million measure you match.
So it's a total of $16 million for this project
with the goal of building a fiber optic network
that will connect into multiple affordable housing locations
throughout the city, as well as provide a backbone
to provide free or low cost internet service
throughout East Oakland, West Oakland,
downtown and Fruitvale.
Those are the primary areas that we're looking to serve.
So in 2025, we completed our broadband master plan,
which really brings all of the thinking
behind these projects together
and outlines a roadmap for it, which we're now executing.
And we also executed a contract with Kimley Horn
for the design and engineering of the construction.
We are currently in the middle of negotiations
with the state of California to access their middle mile,
which is a separate project that was funded by the state.
And that our design and engineering for construction
is around 60%.
When we reach 90%, we'll be going out to bid for that.
That'll be a 10 or 11 million dollar construction project
that'll build the fiber network.
That is a separate item that we will be bringing forward
after the recess when we are ready to award that contract.
And presently, what is in front of you,
so that's all the background, the context.
Presently, what's in front of you today
is several pieces of legislation
which all connect to this and tie together.
These are agreements that would allow us
to access our nonprofit partners' locations,
to construct on their private property,
would grant them access to our fiber network,
would name an internet service provider, Monkey Brains,
who would provide the internet service.
We, the city, are not going to be
the internet service provider.
We're going to have a company do that on our behalf.
And we're also working with Sonic,
which is a separate internet company,
but they have a lot of fiber in the city
that they've already built.
And rather than construct some fiber
in certain locations in East Oakland,
we determined it would be better to get the IRU with them,
which would give us access to that right away
without having to go through the construction.
So that would complete our segment.
Our broadband master plan is available online.
Our design and engineering plans will be published
when we go out to bid.
So you can see these construction plans
and what the full network looks like.
don't have that available now I'm going to talk specifically about the
legislation in front of you so as I said we're recommending actually there is no
less than five agreements that this resolution will authorize the first one
I'm going to talk about is the sonic indefeasible rights unit which you don't
see that too often but it's used in the fiber optic world it's just a legal
agreement that gives us access to their fiber for a period of time. They will fully maintain
it's you know they take care of the fiber they maintain it but we have access and we
can use it in any way that we want to to connect into our network. That is the first agreement
we are recommending that that be moved for the authorization for the city administrator
to execute that agreement and it is in the amount of I think seven hundred twenty thousand
dollars again this is all grant funded this is funded through the grant that I
just discussed and we are seeking a waiver on the competitive bidding we did
do informal bidding it is not very easy to do bidding for fiber dark fiber in a
certain location only so many people have it we did talk to we did get
information from AT&T and Zayo and we did cost comparisons not just cost but
but also terms, access, the type of usage we would have,
the locations that they would connect us into.
And we determined through that process that Zayo,
the agreement with Zayo for $720,000 for 15 years
was by far the best plan for us.
So we're recommending to move forward with that
and waive the formal competitive bidding on that.
And again, that completes a critical segment
in East Oakland of the Oakland Connect Network.
The second, we put these together
as affordable housing provider MOUs,
or memorandums of agreement.
These are actually three separate agreements
with three separate affordable housing providers in Oakland.
The largest of which of course is Oakland Housing Authority
who has been a number one partner of ours throughout this.
They were our partner when we submitted our grant in 2023.
They were committed and all in with us
and they remain committed
and this is the culmination of that work.
So here we are two plus years later,
two and a half years later,
seeking authorization to enter into a formal agreement
with Oakland Housing Authority
to make this partnership official.
They are doing the same thing with their board
to get authorization to enter into this memorandum
of understanding with us.
And so in short, it does a couple of key things.
It allows us an easement to go onto their property
to do construction, you know, because it's private property,
we have to pull our fiber into their buildings
to deliver service to the residents.
And it will also allow us to do
some in-building wiring upgrades.
We identified some affordable housing units
that the actual wiring in the building
is not really suitable for fiber internet,
so we're gonna upgrade that as well.
And we are going to commit to provide sufficient fiber
to Oakland Housing Authority for the future
at no cost to connect additional housing units
as they become available.
So it's a commitment on the city to ensure
that Oakland Housing Authority has access
to this fiber network for the future at no cost.
So that's really a substantive agreement.
That's with Oakland Housing Authority.
We're doing very similar agreements with bridge housing
on a couple of sites that they have.
And Unity Council, which is their official title
is Fruitvale Development Corporation.
They all have locations that will be on the network
when it is constructed, I wanna say there are
something like 16, Patrick could tell me,
15 or 16 different affordable housing unit sites
that will be connected through these agreements
and thousands of actual units will be connected
with this free internet service,
which Monkey Brains will deliver.
And so, of course, Monkey Brains is the final agreement.
So this is an agreement with Monkey Brains
that would give them access to the fiber network
So they can use this to connect into their service
as a service provider.
And then they would actually deliver
the free internet service through this agreement.
They would commit to delivering free fiber internet service
into all of these affordable housing units.
And they would provide wireless internet service
on top of that capped at no more than,
I believe it is $50 a month.
It might even be $40 a month.
But they would commit to that for the foreseeable future
to have a affordable internet option anywhere
this service is available and our backbone network
would make that expansion possible.
So it's a very strong public-private partnership agreement
and again we're seeking a waiver
of the competitive bidding here.
We did do a request for information in late 2022
in anticipation of all this happening
and we asked internet service providers
to propose ideas to us about how they might connect
and serve the city of Oakland and the community.
and monkey brains was by far the strongest
and they have verbally agreed to commit
to low free internet service for the affordable housing units,
low cost wireless service in the surrounding areas
so they really can expand deep into the community with that
and in exchange we'll give them access
to our fiber network at no cost.
You know, that has a value and so it's an exchange
which makes it a public private partnership.
So those are all the agreements, it's a little complex.
It's a resolution with five separate agreements,
but it represents multiple years of work
and the culmination of a lot of people
that want to recognize Patrick Messick and all his work.
And Louisa Kalampong, who couldn't be here today,
she's out of town, the broadband manager in ITD.
They really have spearheaded and led so much of this work
in our partners, OHA, Bridge, Unity Council, Monkey Brains,
and Sonic, they've all been all in with us all the way.
So we are recommending that these be moved
to the full council for consideration
at an upcoming meeting.
I can stop here.
Oh, we should have been going through the slides.
Sorry, you can go through the next.
That's okay, we're actually past time.
We lost that.
We are past time, but thank you for the presentation.
Colleagues, questions, Council Member Brown,
Unger, then Wong.
Excellent.
thank you so much for the report. I had the opportunity to be very supportive
of the letter of support when I was working at the state level for Assembly
Member Bonta and then Patrick's here in the in the space and so just always so
grateful for your advocacy and just really delighted to see this project
moving forward. So just wanted to start there. I did have a couple questions
because I you know I was also working for the city during 2020-2020 when there
was a major investment that was made in broadband infrastructure around like
oak Wi-Fi and I just wanted to ask this question of you know I think the
comparable difference is is that I guess maybe the investment for oak Wi-Fi was
you know maybe around four million dollars this project is about 16 million
and so wanted to ask the question of like how can we ensure that some of the I
Guess obstacles that were presented or some of the the impacts of the oak Wi-Fi and how like I believe
Oak Wi-Fi isn't even being utilized because some of those fibers were cut and so how can we ensure that with this state?
Investment that we're not having the same
Impact of what happened prior yeah through the chair to councilmember Brown
It's a very important question. The Oak Wi-Fi project, you know, I was not here for that personally
But I'm very familiar with it and certainly worked on it when I
Came into this role in 2022
And I think it is not
Operational right now it is not for a lack of effort or a lack of trying is for a lack of sufficient
infrastructure to power the system and as you
Had alluded to there were several fiber cuts over the years that rendered the backbone system
Inoperable and that backbone system was the bus rapid transit BRT
System so when the BRT network was built there was fiber installed along International Boulevard, which would have been a pretty great
Backbone unfortunately, it was very vulnerable and it was installed very shallow in some places just a few inches deep
and thus susceptible to those types of cuts.
So despite our best efforts to try to repair it in 2023
and 2024 to bring the system back up,
we were unsuccessful.
And we actually have amended our CPUC grant
to not utilize the BRT network at all,
precisely to your point to avoid this type of situation
in the future.
That's also one of the reasons why in East Oakland,
We're recommending to do the IRU with Sonic
to get those key locations that are
around International Boulevard,
rather than rely on the BRT system.
It is unfortunate, but we have made plans around that
to ensure that the Oakland Connect network is sustainable.
And one of the key pieces of that is building rings
and loops and making sure
that there's interconnectivity through those.
And in a design standpoint, if you have a ring,
If you get cut somewhere,
the traffic just goes in the other direction
and it can still get to where it needs to go,
which is why fiber networks are built in,
rings like that, when they're designed for broadband.
So I think the difference is that Oakland Connect
is purposely built for broadband service,
whereas other fiber that the city has was not.
And so when we try to use it for broadband,
we run into situations like that.
So we were also working with the Department of Transportation,
which I should have mentioned to ensure that, you know,
we're doing construction methods that are suitable
for broadband, you know, the conduit is deep in the ground.
It's gonna be protected, it's gonna be monitored,
things like that, so.
I see, and but the agreements that we have in front
of us right now is not the construction, correct?
No, no, the IRU is a critical segment
and Sonic will maintain that fiber
throughout the agreement, but no,
the construction project itself is still underway.
Okay, sounds good, and then the reports,
and so is that the International Boulevard
from 66th Avenue to 98th then, that is specifically?
That sounds about right.
Okay. Yeah, that's it.
Yeah, that's the sonic link from there.
So we're gonna have fiber come around the top
down MacArthur and 98th to connect there,
and then we'll use that sonic piece
as the interconnect between 66 where the city fiber will end
and 98 where the city fiber will end.
Okay, and then in the report, there is a sentence,
I'm not finding it right now,
but it basically made the statement that
other locations, like as determined,
who would determine additional locations?
Like it was in the sentence around like,
you know, Oakland Housing Authority,
And it was actually naming out various locations,
the town center, et cetera,
and then there is a sentence that said in other locations.
Who would determine additional locations?
No, that's a great question again, through the chair.
I think that language is intentional
to leave open the future possibility of future locations,
say a location that doesn't exist today
gets constructed in five years.
We would want the ability to bring that online
if it were near the network.
You know, so all the sites that are named
are going to be on the network.
They're on the streets and intersections
and thoroughfares where the network will be constructed.
But we wanted to leave open that possibility
that there could be future things.
And so as we learn about those through either
our housing department who's working on projects,
or if we learn about those two partners
who are building projects, any kind of new developments,
or any other kind of opportunities,
I would really call it more opportunistic
in the sense that you leave open that opportunity
because we don't know what might happen
in five years or 10 years,
and if something comes along,
you wanna be able to connect it.
Yeah, absolutely, and there's an amazing project
being built, a partnership with the Black Cultural Zone
in Oakland Housing Authority,
right on Bancroft and 73rd, I believe that is,
and so, you know, that could be a possibility, right?
Yes.
As far as another location, given that OHA is a partner.
Through the chair, so we are working,
We have already worked with the housing and community development department to get a
list of upcoming projects and we're aware of that and we're going to install conduit
in those locations to make future connections available.
So they're already considered in the project.
Awesome.
I like it.
And I feel like I have one more question.
Oh, it's just more of a statement just for my colleagues.
Well, first off, thank you so much for I know we don't consistently always see an attachment
that includes like all of the providers that applied.
And so I'm always grateful to see like,
okay, what was this lay of the land?
And I've been a customer of Monkey Brain since 2020.
And I would say that the service is just really reliable
and no hiccups.
And so I think that Oaklanders or whether it's East,
West Oakland, or wherever they will be providing service,
they're very reliable.
So I just wanted to make that plug.
Thank you.
Yeah.
Thank you.
Councilman Brown.
I may have misheard.
So just to clarify.
I think you said the agreement to provide free and low cost service was a verbal agreement.
Oh, yes.
No.
And it's where this will make it a formal agreement.
So what we have is talked to monkey brains and discussed what a partnership would look
like.
So I don't mean to use it like legal term verbal agreement.
I just mean that we've presented some ideas
of what a partnership would look like,
and they are very eager to work with us and very committed.
So that would be a subsequent resolution
if we agreed to do that with them?
No, no, this agreement-
We don't have anything in writing?
Or do we have something in writing now?
Yeah, no, we don't, we need the authorization
from the council to execute the agreement.
So the agreement with this monkey brains fiber agreement
would include that.
Okay, thank you.
It would formalize it.
Thank you, Council Member Wong.
Thank you.
This is fantastic work, so thank you for doing
this incredibly important initiative.
One question I just have is, or actually a comment.
I just wanted to know when we talk about the downtown area
being underserved, it's actually really Chinatown,
and I don't want that neighborhood to be rendered
invisible in this because one in five households
in that neighborhood does not have internet access.
I see it matches up with your own data
the highest need and I think it's just important to call that out since many
people do not know the the extent of lack of internet access in that
neighborhood. The other question I just have is how are people going to sign up
for the actual internet service? How can we support you as council office since
the traditional means of outreach through the internet are obviously not
going to work with the intended recipients of this service. To the chair
Thank you for the awareness of Chinatown.
We can certainly talk to monkey brains about how they can, you know, continue to serve
and expand in that area.
And I think with their addition of wireless internet on top of the fiber internet, it
really does allow that kind of expansion cost to fit effectively.
So we can certainly talk to them.
So the second point about how we kind of communicate and help, I think the housing providers will
be the number one partner as we get into the affordable housing units so they'll work with
the residents of those locations to ensure that when we roll those services out in those
locations that the residents become aware, they know how to connect, it's free and monkey
brains will play a large part in that too.
I think there's a larger opportunity in that expansion service, that wireless low cost
service that they'll be able to provide on top of the free fiber at affordable housing
units, and that's where we can probably play a role in making this more visible and more
aware where Monkey Brains has a presence and can connect to small businesses or to any
kind of housing affordably, there could potentially be a role for us to help raise the awareness
of that in the community.
That there is this alternative and it's low cost and it's reliable.
viable. Yeah, I would love to be helpful. So if you need any support and outreach to district two communities, I am here to partner. And then final question is just is any of this going to require just digging up like trenching the wires and digging up some of the roads is the coordination happening with Oak dot? And this isn't just to you, but I've noticed just around the district of the neighborhood that there isn't that coordination happening between.
uh... utilities being dug up
and and the paving and
neighbors expect over gonna have a roads paid not so it's we're just digging up
the road and that's it
uh... nowhere were coordinated very closely with the department transportation
and public works uh... on the plans and
we have modified our plans
further feedback to ensure that our methods as i said construction methods
are compliant with what they're recommending
And we're also going to follow their procedures very closely.
So what we have also done with them is coordinate across what their road pavement plans are
so that in many locations we're able to go in before where we know they're going to do
paving, we'll go in before and we'll do our work and then they'll come in and pave later
and in the areas where they're not doing that, we're going to do the pavement as part of
our project.
So we're trying to, you know, be as efficient as possible and realize a lot of efficiencies.
Again, I don't have that data in front of me,
but I know there's been a lot of route modifications
to say, hey, we're doing paving over here.
Why don't you move over one block,
and then you can do your construction,
and then a year later, we can do a fresh repave over it.
So that type of coordination has been very beneficial,
and I'd say we've done a lot of collaboration
with DOT through this to make the project
as efficient as possible.
In terms of the second part of your question
about kind of the impact of the community,
I think that's something that I hear
I would want to track as we move through this to make sure that residents kind of understand what the impacts are
You know small businesses understand if there's going to be construction. It's not intended to be like deep trenching
Okay, it's more micro trenching and underground construction, right? Okay. Great. Thank you so much. I'll move the item
Great and I will second that I do have
Two quick questions. So as far as well firstly, thank you for working on this. I think it's a very exciting initiative
What is the timeline for it to be ready to be used by residents?
Thank You councilman Ramachandran. The timeline so we are looking to bring the
construction project for consideration later this year. The construction projects anticipated to take about a year to complete
with service plan to come live as locations come live so we would be
constructing and as soon as the location is connected we could turn on service there.
So service would be turned up as the project is happening so that by the time the project
is done all the service would be live.
So we're probably looking at late 2027 for our final completion of the entire project.
Thank you.
And approximately how many housing units would this serve?
In our total plans, there are 2,500 units, 1,400 of which are going to get direct internet
service from this project.
The other ones will be what we call fiber-ready, meaning that there's fiber at the building
for future connection.
Got it.
And so the proposal is a 10-year plan after that.
Would we need to re-up payments?
Would there be another CPUC contract, or how does that work as far as—I mean, the fibers
are in place but I imagine there's maintenance costs and all that yeah no
that's a great question and so I think there would we would need to leave open
the ability to you know do an extension of the agreement with monkey brains and
also the monkey brains will need to have agreements with the housing of
providers themselves which we will the city will not be part of but yeah there's
But that's something that we
have to think about.
After 15 years when the IRU ends
and we need to continue that
there could be a need to
consider then how to maintain
that connectivity.
So that's something we have to
think about.
Okay, thank you.
Yeah, public comment.
Calling the names I sign up to
speak on item number four,
see that the matching funds of $2 million is coming from Measure U. When was that agreed
upon? Was that in the budget for 26, 27? I don't know, but when was that approved? You
have to really pay attention to, and I think Ms. Brown alluded to this, actually, when
When you have groups like the Fruitvale Development Corporation and Bridge Housing Corporation,
where they're producing developments and who's going to be impacted, so Fruitvale, 3357 International
is the development, 2700 International, 2610 International, and East 12th Street, two developments.
being developed by them in deep East Oakland.
But the statement is made that they have developments in East Oakland.
You also have the Bridge Housing Corporation, their developments is in West Oakland.
So nothing in the Housing Authority, when y'all had that informational report, you alluded
to receive and report it. But you're not going into that report. They deal with 18,000 families.
But they are part of – I don't understand all of this, and y'all need to get to the
bottom of it. The city of Oakland Housing Authority has connection with the federal
Government HUD voucher program also with the state of California and you're creating financial
support for them coming from us but they get money from other sources other than the city
of Oakland.
Thank you for your comments chair all names have been called and we have a motion made
by councilmember Wong second by chair Ramachandran to approve the recommendations of staff and
to forward this item to the June 16th City Council agenda on roll council
members Brown aye Unger aye Wong aye and chair Ramachandran aye thank you item
for passes with four ayes to forward this item to the June 16th City
Council agenda on consent moving on to open forum calling in the names that
sign up to speak on open forum missus sada olivala Kevin Dalley and Blair
Buechman? Kevin Dalley, it looks like Measure U is failing which means we need to take a look at
whether there's any other way we can increase revenue. There aren't a whole lot of possible
taxes on the potential agenda right now. Now I know there's one coming up in rules but we need
need to look, what are the odds of it passing?
Well, counsel first, but what are the odds of it passing
the city in the vote afterwards?
I always like the transportation network company tax
to tax Lyft, Uber, and Waymo,
especially as Waymo's coming in.
The vehicles make the streets more crowded,
even while they do provide useful services.
council member Kaplan introduced TNC taxes quite a few times so it could be
yanked out probably not in time for November unfortunately but maybe for the
next round so I asked you if you get any revenue from the ice rink you do you
supposed to at least you get base rent the city collects an annual base rent of
three hundred and thirty five thousand dollars offset by required $100,000
annual capital contribution from the City towards facility maintenance.
Percentage rent. Oakland earned 7% on all annual gross revenues generated by the
facility that exceeds 4.3 million. Appretisement revenue sharing. The City
receives 50% of all net advertising revenue generated at the rink after
to the operator.
Retains the first hundred thousand.
When you are going to give a report on this.
When you're going to give a report on this.
So, again, I say you are not fiscally responsible
until we get a picture of all revenue.
Thank you for your comments.
Sure, that concludes all speakers on open forum.
All right, thank you, this meeting's adjourned.