Good afternoon and welcome to the special council meeting of the City Council of Friday
June 12
2026
Good afternoon
Good afternoon
Is it better? I?
Mean I don't control the volume
Is it better? Yeah, good afternoon and welcome to the special City Council meeting of Friday
June 12 2026
Before I call roll, I will allow the translator
to give instructions in Spanish.
As this meeting will be translated in Spanish,
you can access translation through Zoom.
So if...
Yes, buenas tardes.
L'Arnion, especial de hoy del ayuntamiento de Oakland,
vat en el serviciers interpretacion simultaneously en Espanol.
Para accedera al canal en Espanol,
usde despueden identificar el y cono de el globo terraquio que están la parte de abajo
de subantaya de son, hagán clique en ese cono y despuede el yjan el idiomada de subreferentia
Spanish o español, sí están usde desen su televo no mobile o en una tableta localiz en
los tres puntitos que están generamente en a parte inferior o superior de decha de subantaya
de son, hagán clique ai y de nuevo clique en los servitios de interpretacion y otro
back to you.
Thank you so much.
I will give speaker card instructions.
I'm sorry.
I will call roll before I give speaker card instructions.
Council member Brown.
Thank you.
I have one more.
I'm sorry.
I'm sorry.
I have one more.
Okay.
I'm sorry, I will call roll before I give speaker card instructions.
Councilmember Brown?
Present.
Councilmember Fyfe?
Present.
Councilmember Gallo?
Present.
Councilmember Houston is excused.
Councilmember Unger?
Present.
Councilmember Wong?
Present.
Council, President Jenkins?
Present.
And Councilmember Ramachandran, who will be chairing this meeting?
Present.
Showing seven members present at this time, I will now give speaker card instructions.
if you like to speak on any item on this agenda,
you must fill out a speaker's card.
You can do so by getting a card from the front table
before the item is called
or two hours after the start of this meeting.
This meeting was called to order at 1209.
So the last opportunity to turn into a speaker card
will be at 209
or if the item is called, whichever comes first.
If you're looking to turn in an online speaker card,
that time has passed as they would do 24 hours
before the start of this meeting.
And to chair Ramachandran do you have any announcements before we begin? Thank you. Yes
We will be taking items four and five together
Which means if you signed up for both items you will get to speak on both of those items at the same time and given the volume
Of speaker cards today and our need to maintain quorum. We'll be limiting public comment on each item to one minute. Thank you
Thank you so much
Going to item 3 which is modifications to the agenda. I
Don't believe there are any as you've already announced
items for madam clerk the only
Clarification to the parliamentarian is needing to vote on item 5 before item 4 correct
Through the chair. Yes, that's correct. The council will the items will be as the
Presiding officer said the items will be heard together and discuss together public comment will be taken together
But our recommendation is for the council to still adopt the items with two separate motions and to adopt the resolution
Regarding extreme fiscal necessity first before adopting the budget resolution
Thank you
To the agenda items reading item four and five together I will read item four first
adopted resolution adopting the mid cycle budget for fiscal year twenty six to twenty seven and
Appropriating funds and revenues to cover expenditures approved by said budget and authorizing the city administrator to transfer funds between departments
Programs and funds as necessary to support operations as set forth and the adopted
policy budget for fiscal years 26 through 27 and
Authorizing all actions necessary to apply for accept and appropriate additional funds
Required to advance and complete the projects identified in the capital improvement program provided that such
Acceptance is consistent with and does not otherwise negatively impact the city's capital improvement program and
authorizing the city administrator to accept an appropriate future settlement proceeds received by the city and
Authorizing the city administrator to accept and appropriate future
insurance in
Assurance recoveries proceeded. I'm sorry proceeds received by the city for repair of the replacement of
of damaged assets and authorizing the city administrator to appropriate funds as necessary
to satisfy legally required payments or payments related to unfunded liability and declaring
a state of extreme fiscal necessity in the existence of a severe excuse me severe and
unanticipated financial event and suspending the fiscal years 26 to 27 the charter mandated
minimum staffing budget set aside for a public ethics commission and suspending the minimum
budget set aside for democracy dollars fund and for non-staff costs related to
the public ethics Commission's administration of the Oakland fair
elections action democracy dollars program that is item for reading in item
five as well adopt a resolution authorizing the use of one-time
revenues to balance the fiscal year 26 through 27 mid cycle budget pursuant to
section 1 part D of the city of Oakland consolidated fiscal policy declaring the
the state of extreme fiscal necessity
and the existence of severe and unanticipated financial event
that has adversely impacted the general purpose funds
such that the city is unable to budget
at the requirement of a number of 700 sworn police personnel
pursuant to the Oakland Community Violence
and Emergency Response Act of 2024,
declaring the state of extreme fiscal necessity
to provide for the temporary suspension
of the park maintenance of efforts requirement
pursuant to the 2020 Oakland Parks
and Recreation Preservation
Blitter Reduction Homelessness Support Act,
declaring a state of extreme fiscal necessity
for the mid-cycle budget,
allowing for the minimum budget set aside
for public campaign financing to be suspended,
pursuant to the Oakland Fair Elections Act,
declaring a state of extreme fiscal necessity
for the mid-cycle budget
and temporarily suspending the requirement
to consider advisory board recommendations
prior to appropriating sugar, sweet and beverage tax revenue.
Declaring the state of extreme fiscal necessity
for the mid-cycle budget authorizing the use of funds
deposited into the affordable housing trust fund
to balance the fiscal year 26 through 27.
Mid-cycle budget establishing the attention
of the city council to prioritize restoration of services
to meet the maintenance of effort requirements.
And you have a number of speakers across both items.
Thank you, we will start today with a presentation
of item five, sorry, of item four.
We will first go over the budget team PowerPoint
and discussion of our amendments.
And then we will pass it to all other council members
who have amendments that they would like to share as well.
Then we'll move to public comment
and then begin with council discussion.
Thank you.
could kindly pull up the budget team PowerPoint.
Alright, thank you so much everyone for being here today.
We are here to discuss and amendments to the fiscal year 2026-27 mid-cycle budget amendments.
On behalf of the budget team, which is myself, council president Jenkins, council member
Brown and council member Unger, we are proud to put forward a set of amendments today that
really prioritize two core things.
Our first priority continues to remain the delivery
of basic fundamental city services.
This includes not limited to public safety,
police fire violence prevention,
illegal dumping in clean streets,
reducing homelessness, revitalizing our economy,
and improving our parks.
Now we are a city that has many incredible
number of strengths, as well as an incredible number of challenges. These
challenges did not arise overnight over the course of the years, but we are here
today to do what we can to prioritize these services with limited resources.
And on that note, we want to accomplish these goals with a sense of fiscal
responsibility. Now there's a couple of key things that our amendments do to
make sure that we are staying the course and in some ways reversing some of the
actions of past years in City Hall by making improvements to the way we
conduct our business and one of the core elements of that is not using
anticipated one-time money to fund recurring expenses and that is precisely
what this our set of budget amendments proposes to do. So in our general purpose
fund. We have extremely limited dollars and we do not have stable recurring
sources of extra money that we can fund new positions and new programs. So what
you will see in our amendments are a series of creative, we will call it,
one-time expenditures that use existing funds to fund resources in a one-time
way. By that I mean in the course of this one year, the current fiscal year, the
budget we're trying to pass is only FY26-27. We are using one-time revenues
to fund one-time expenses that addresses our core issues of public safety, parks,
reducing homelessness, among other things. I'll talk about this a little
later, but so in one of the items that's presented you will see a number of
declarations of fiscal necessity. Six of them are for voter-approved ballot
measures. I am very proud to say that between the mayor's proposed budget and
the amendments we've made, we are now in compliance with four out of six of those
voter-approved measures. Measures C, D, X, and Q. What we have, what we are not yet
in compliance with as far as voter-approved measures go, are measures N,
N and W and we will get to that in a second.
So point number three on why our amendments
portray a sense of fiscal responsibility
while maintaining a commitment of core services.
We're keeping reserves.
We know that in the current federal climate
that we're in, anything can happen at any time
and our city relies quite heavily
in many different funding sources
on federal and state money.
So we've set aside some dollars
in case some of this federal and state money
go on a whim which we know in this climate
can happen at any time.
We've also set aside funds and our fund balance
in case our revenues projected don't necessarily always
match up.
Our economy is a little unpredictable these days
and volatile.
And as much as our finance department
has done an incredible job in thinking about ways
to accurately predict our revenues and expenditures,
anything can happen at any time and we wanna be prepared
with a little bit of reserves in case our revenues
don't quite match up to what we had anticipated.
And finally, we have a new line item
in our general fund expenditures
for beginning the process of paying down
some of our long-term liabilities
that we have for post-employment benefits.
So I wanna express deep gratitude,
firstly to the mayor, the mayor's office,
the city administrator, the finance department,
the city attorney, the city clerk,
everyone who put their blood, sweat, and tears
into putting forward an initial proposal
that council had the opportunity to read.
It's no easy task balancing a budget,
and I want to be very clear that the proposed budget
that the mayor put forward did not include
a single penny of measure E anticipated revenue.
So this budget, both the budget that Mayor Lee
had put forward to council as well as these set of amendments we're going to be looking
at today does not utilize a single dollar of a Measure E money or any anticipated future
ballot measure money. This is working quite frankly with what we have right now, which
is not a lot, but what we have, we're trying to spend in an efficient way to deliver services
for the residents. And by that I mean not every service. We don't have the money to
fund every service, but on top of this budget I just want to be clear that we are working
very hard to figure out ways to partner with philanthropy,
with corporations, with the county,
with the state and federal government
to deliver dollars to the city of Oakland,
which is often missed out on a critical share
of that economic pie.
We're grateful to the mayor's office
and all of our residents that participated
in community budget education forums,
folks that submitted their feedback,
we've taken countless meetings
and engaged with stakeholders
to get a sense of priorities,
priorities with the understanding of limited dollars.
And we're grateful for everyone
who's taken part of this process.
So again, starting off with the Mayor's proposed budget,
just a couple of points on the things we really appreciated
with the starting point that we were presented on.
First and foremost, like I mentioned,
it was a balanced budget proposal
that in many ways was a stay the same budget.
Pretty much everything that was funded
in the biennial cycle budget last year
continues to remain funded, and there
were the addition of a few extra services
that we're grateful for.
The proposed budget did not proffer any layoffs
and included an improved commitment
to actually go after and capture revenue.
That is and continues to be owed to the city.
So I want to note a couple of things,
because we're only talking about amendments to about $72
million of our budget, which is funds
we're putting forward in our council budget team amendments. Our entire budget is a lot more than
that so the various things that the mayor put forward I just want to take a moment to acknowledge
her investments into constitutional policing, the creation of a new fire department ambulance
program, improved recruitment efforts for sworn officers, the funding of an OPD cadet program,
slightly increased funding for both ceasefire and macro,
increased funding for illegal dumping.
This includes environmental enforcement officers,
more funds for Keep Oakland Beautiful,
overtime for public works employees who address dumping,
as well as enforcement related operation
for those who try to make our city dirty.
We appreciate the investments of a couple of extra auditors,
extra code enforcement officers,
additional funds for IT services,
the reopening of an extra day of senior centers,
more funding for staff that work
in our Oakland Animal Services,
additional funding for libraries,
and the very exciting reinstatement
of our summer youth program.
So now moving to our amendments,
which have been published and are in front of you today.
Where do we get this $72 million of money
from that we're talking about?
Firstly, $50 million of that is a bond sale.
And that's Measure U dollars going towards affordable housing
that we'll talk about later.
The rest of the approximately $22 million
come from a predicted increased revenue collections,
particularly in parking enforcement,
and increased revenue in the form of salary savings.
Now, we have to admit the very uncomfortable truth
that the city of Oakland has over 700 positions that
are fully funded and not yet hired.
And we have policy directives, and it
continues to be a focus of, I think, everyone on this council
and on this dais to address hiring efforts.
But the status quo of where we are now
is that we have over 700 funded vacant positions
where we are able to collect a little bit of additional salary
savings from, on top of what's already been put forward
in the budget.
Final source of funding is fund balances.
Again, a fund balance is not a recurring source
of revenue it is typically one-time money so we are spending it in a one-time
manner. So I want to briefly talk about how we are addressing some of the most
critical elements of Measure E in this budget. Measure E didn't pass and there
were several elements of Measure E that went towards one-time capital
expenditures and our budget is not able to include all of those capital
one-time expenditures, but we were able to incorporate about 2.4 million for new
fire trucks, 2.4 million for emergency temporary shelter beds, and 900,000 for
improved vehicles to address illegal dumping. And now moving to the rest of
our amendments topic by topic. And as a note, each of these items are in our
budget memo and in the budget spreadsheet that has been posted on
They all come from different funding sources.
We have a very complicated maze of funding sources.
10-10 is our general purpose fund,
which council has often a little more leeway over compared to the others.
There are other funding sources that are specifically earmarked for certain purposes.
So a lot of these things come from different measures,
and you can see all the details of that in our amendment spreadsheet.
So, again, these are all of what we are adding to
to on top of what the mayor already put forward in our biennial budget. First
half a million dollars for interdepartmental downtown and Lake
Merit public safety programs. Two, two hundred and fifty thousand dollars of
additional funding for our community safety ambassadors program which already
had a historic investment of two point something million in the biennial
budget last year. We are also transferring one civilian position to be
released back to the streets and therefore continuing our process of
civilianization as a sworn officer need not necessarily do public information
roles and may better have a use of their time being returned to the streets as a
sworn officer. More public safety like I mentioned we're adding 2.36 million to
replace two fire engines and gross disrepair. This is addressing some of the
concerns that has been talked about before with all of our fire stations are
funded and open but some of the equipment is so bad that it risks the
efficiency and ability for fire departments to continue if we don't
start replacing some of the most some of the engines in the most disrepair. We're
adding $300,000 for community wildfire risk assessments working with workforce
development nonprofits in Oakland. Funding clean streets. We're adding
$900,000. Again this was a line item from Measure E that we pulled to replace
outdated equipment to support illegal dumping crews. We're adding half a
million dollars for graffiti removal efforts. We are unfreezing one project
manager related to these efforts. We are addressing towing vehicles, towing with
$300,000 investment for towing blitz. Safe streets. We're adding half a million
dollars to implement a solar street lighting program that helps with public
safety efforts as well and as well as adding three electricians to work on
critical street light maintenance. We're also addressing traffic calming by
adding half a million dollars to speed up implementation of existing
neighborhood traffic safety projects, adding a DOT project manager, and
funding a million dollars for speed camera program management across
departments. When it comes to homelessness services we know that our
homelessness crisis cannot be fixed overnight. And we do also know that in
the course of the last few years of funding cuts there have been some
critical safety net programs that have gone away. So we're reinstating and
restoring 2.4 million for emergency temporary shelter beds, which would go
out to an RFQ process to determine specific vendors and all that, but
reinstating that funding that was previously lost. We're also adding half
a million dollars for emergency hotel vouchers for unhoused residents with a
priority for families in need and we're also adding 1.2 million for safe parking
programs for those who might live in their vehicles and need a safe place to
park. We are also funding affordable housing by moving 50 million dollars of
Measure U bonds in what was considered Tranche 3. We're moving that up forward
to be able to improve funding for affordable housing this year itself. Parks
and public spaces and most of these line items address our spending in Measure Q
which I had mentioned earlier we are we once if these measures are approved we
would be in compliance with measure Q this year and no longer need a
declaration of fiscal necessity. So again through primarily measure Q dollars
we're funding almost a million for bathroom upgrades and parks almost a
million dollars for a park tree pruning and vegetation management, about a
million dollars for trash and illegal dumping removal at parks, about $300,000
for park fencing upgrades, $250 for stormwater management, $250 for new
public bathroom facilities, and $50,000 for a Measure Q evaluation. Funding
health and accessibility. We have heard from the community how our water
fountains in many of our OUSD public schools are failing and that no child deserves to
be drinking water that's completely unsafe in a safe environment, which should be their
schools.
So we're giving a quarter million dollar grant to OUSD to help replace safe and hygienic
water drinking facilities.
And we're also funding about quarter million dollars for Wi-Fi improvements in senior centers
and rec centers that are in desperate need of some upgrades.
arts and culture, we are restoring and adding $150,000 to the cultural affairs division
as well as $250,000 for the film incentive program and this doubles what the mayor had
previously put in, originally put into the budget, so now our film incentive program
is half a million dollars.
And understanding this program, this is a drop in the bucket for what we need to have
a real thriving film incentive program understandably, but we hope that this is one of many steps
that can really help our incredible talent here in Oakland be able to use film and the
arts as an economic engine.
Hiring efforts.
We just talked about, we have in our budget over 700 funded vacant positions and we want
to add some funding to help HR be able to adequately hire.
Now the mayor's budget already proffers some of these additions and improvements to HR
and the funding of certain positions focusing on the streamlining.
We're adding on top of that by funding money for a staff compensation survey, like comparing
what folks make in Oakland versus comparable cities to make sure we stay competitive, as
well as adding a quarter million dollars for a vacancy strike force that was previously
budgeted a couple of years ago but removed due to funding cuts.
Going back to fiscal responsibility, we're not just talking about it, we're putting money
towards it as well.
adding a million dollars for reserves instead of in case of federal or state
grant cuts we're also adding a million dollars to pay down post-employment
pension liabilities. Miscellaneous there's a hundred thousand dollars for council
administration and then there's a few recommendations that came from our
finance departments largely as errata and they can detail that if needed and
they come from other fund balances not the general funds. Again just restating
that if these amendments are approved on top of the Mayor's budget, we will be in compliance
with four measures that we were not in compliance with last year, C, D, Q, and X, measure N,
N, and W. We are not yet N, N. The largest reason we are not in compliance yet is because
it's not necessarily due to just a funding issue, but our inability to hire. We currently
have almost 75 officers, I believe, that are funded, but not yet hired. We need to get
those numbers through the academies that we've funded before we're able to fund
even more to actually be on the streets. And Measure W is democracy dollars. We
have not been able to identify yet an ongoing five million ish dollar source
of revenue to be able to fund that program, but as part of the city's
efforts to address our long-term fiscal health, our finance department last year
as well, along with some external consultants, have presented a very
thorough roadmap to be able to address all of our voter approved measures and
council authorized measures in the next few years and we look forward to
engaging in that process as well and I will pass it to council president to
talk about policy directives. Thank you councilmember Ramachandran and if
everybody has this sheet it should be available on the desk these are policy
directives and what we try to do was combine policy directives that were
published in the agenda but first I would be remissed if we're talking about
film incentives if I don't credit councilmember 5 for being a pioneer and
championing film incentives and so I want to say publicly thank you for
leading the way on that and it speaks because of you that you are the
inspiration behind this so I just want to publicly say thank you for that. So on
the mid-cycle policy directives we have been broken down into a couple of
that's why we have to look at
the idea behind the city of one
city administration to develop
and coordinate a plan for
housing resource centers.
It's inhumane how we deal with
our unhoused relatives in the
city of Oakland in the Alameda
county and poor coordination
between city and county shouldn't
be a reason as to why folks don't
have resources in one of the
wealthier counties and alum in
the state of California and so
And so I know the city administrator is going to have some.
Proposed changes to language and interested in seeing that.
Implementation and transparency for the NCAM in abatement policy.
This is a huge policy that took a lot of time that's going to need to be worked on and redefined.
And council is going to need consistent updates from the office of housing solution, homelessness solutions.
and the administration and so we want consistent updates.
Financial and personnel management.
So the finance department,
structural deficit analysts in budgeting, right?
So we wanna know how Oakland is gonna fare 50 years from now.
How the structural deficit will,
how we are addressing the structural deficit, right?
So without getting too nuanced,
we wanna ensure that there's transparency with the public
in that we have a plan to ensure that Oakland
is physically solvent now in 50 years in the future.
We do not want to pass on debt to future generations.
Human resources, hiring, modernization,
and compensation, compensation survey.
So we understand that our workers here in Oakland
work very diligently and hard,
and I know they take a lot of hits in the media,
and we have to acknowledge some might be underpaid,
and the survey will help us get to what is the correct pay.
Eligibility lists, so the city attorney
directs the city administrator to coordinate
with human resources to explore a process
that allows for departments the ability to seek
and reactivate an eligibility list no longer than 45 days
After a list has expired.
So we want to ensure that we're hiring faster.
There's been too many reports on Oakland
has this many positions available
and we know that people are desperately in need.
The mayor did a job there outside
and I was just amazed with the amount of people
that attended and so we have to get better with that.
Communications, public communications of city services.
So I think I think our teams do a great job but we have to get to the next generation of folks and getting information to different generations and then my mom uses Facebook I use Instagram.
There's other people that use tiktok tiktok and so we need to modernize the way that we are communicating with the residents and so that we can residents can be informed of what's going on and I want to specifically read that.
one of the areas that we have
to go. The plan shall include.
Ensuring every department has a
dedicated public information
officer. And so we really want
to make sure that our public is
informed of everything that is
going on and we have to try our
hardest. To get to them. City
marketing plan. I know there's
been council members talking
about this for some time. Our
city is a market it very well or
fight back against that negativity. All right. New York is marketed well, Las Vegas is marketed
well, LA is marketed well and so we have to work with outside consultants to ensure that
we market this crown jewel of the East Bay like it is.
Council Office Communications. So the city administrator shall also develop a standard
communication protocol for departments to update council offices on major projects and
and initiatives in their respective district.
I talked to somebody from the administration today.
Hey, there was something major that went on in my district
and I expect updates.
And so this is so that we can get the information out
to our constituents and we can have a firm understanding
of what's going on.
So restoring morale and pride
and creating an Oakland Walk of Fame.
I think this is absolutely excellent.
have so many people that have done amazing things that come from Oakland and we have to figure out
a way to honor them without beyond street renaming's beyond accommodation from council and I think a
walk of fame will ensure that the work that they've done and the pride that they brought back to
Oakland will live on forever public safety and cleanliness so the office of the inspector general
to make sure that we're in the
office of the inspector general.
Staffing compliance so we want to make sure that we're in
compliance with Oakland.
In this typical two dot four five dot one hundred regarding the office of the inspector general when it comes to staffing requirements and so we want the city administration to bring back.
A report on how.
We can.
Get in compliance with the funding allocations.
Civilianization of OPD staff.
So we've been talking
civilianization for a long time, long time.
And there are roles that officers are
doing that we can have a civilian doing them.
And so this is directing the city council and
informing the city on the progress on
implementing transfer for increased accountability.
So improved training and
preparedness for a legal dumping operation.
So, we want to make sure that EEOCs are trained properly, and this is a policy directive that
has been going back.
We want to make sure that they have hazmat training.
We want to make sure that they can document these PALS, and some of them are asbestos,
and making sure that they're documenting them correctly so that we can work with the district
attorney to prosecute not only at a misdemeanor level, but when it's a felony, we want to
make sure it's documented properly.
with that I am completely thank you councilmember Brown then younger
excellent well thank you so much colleagues I you know want to first just
start by thanking the finance department and also my budget council
colleagues I know we all worked down very collectively on these specific
amendments and so there's just a couple that I do want to highlight that you
I was really focused on ensuring that we made these investments and as councilmember Ramachandra mentioned
All of these all of this information is in the agenda packet
So specifically if you're looking at attachment six you can actually see
Where all of the funds are coming from of course?
We know that fun
1010 is our general fund and you'll see that the majority of the other investments that we're making into some of these programs
coming from various other funds and then in addition when you look at our
memo which is attachment number five you'll be able to see everything listed
out in the various categories and so you know what was really important to me
was of course listening to my council colleagues as well as community members
around some of the investments that we really needed to make and so I was
really grateful that everyone was in support of supporting the public safety
safety initiatives around our downtown and Lake Merritt corridors, as well as adding
more funds for safety ambassadors.
And then, as was mentioned already, the mayor's office and the mayor really helped lay the
groundwork for a lot of these key investments.
But another thing that we were able to add by direct employee feedback as well was more
electricians to ensure that we are actually you know fixing our our street
lights in a timely manner as well as a solar street lighting project which we're
excited to bring online. And then in addition the also direct community
feedback around the O&M for the cultural affairs department to support the arts.
We know that this was a major topic of discussion and we need to continue to
to find ongoing support for our artists in our community.
So those were just a couple of the things,
and then as far as in the policy directives,
we received a lot of feedback around the eligibility list,
and so we were able to draft some language
that provides a little bit more flexibility
for the departments, providing a 45-day grace period,
and then as Council President Jenkins mentioned
around the public information officer,
And just how we all know that the city of Oakland
has many resources available for community,
but if community members have no idea what those are,
then they can go untapped into.
And so one of the thoughts that I had
was around ensuring that each department
actually has a public information officer.
So really looking forward to that implementation
so that more of the things that are,
more of the positive things that are happening in our city
and the resources that we have available
are really getting out to community members
that need it most.
So I'll stop there.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Councilman Langer.
Thanks a lot.
I appreciate all of the work that everyone
on the entire council did,
and everyone in the community, our finance team,
our city administration was incredibly helpful.
You know, I sat here a year ago
and talked about the nobody's happy budget.
You know, today, I think I'm happy to sit here
and say that our council amendments
constitute the nobody's crazy budget.
Our amendments from the budget team are a model
that is reasonable, accountable, and sane.
And, you know, I'm not gonna belabor the details here
because I think my colleagues have done a great job
with highlighting all of the council amendments,
but a couple of things that I do wanna focus on
are the two and a half million dollars
in safe parking and hotel vouchers
for our unhoused neighbors,
which I think is an incredibly important thing,
the $50 million in already approved bond money
that we accelerated towards affordable housing production.
And of course, I also love that new fire engine smell.
So adding two fire rigs is crucial.
But I think that the values that we led with
as a council budget team are key here.
We're doing things in a way
that we haven't always done in the past.
We added no new employees to the general fund
in our council amendments.
We funded no recurring expenses out of one time revenues.
We brought four voter approved measures
out of fiscal emergency and into full compliance
with voter mandates.
And our single biggest line item expenditure
in the council amendments was an investment
in paying down our long term pension obligations.
And while I am hopeful that we can pass a budget here today,
I wanna emphasize that we are by no means done.
Despite what you may have been told by some reports
about Oakland, our non-sworn employees
did not receive a raise last year, 0%.
We are losing valuable, talented workers because of this.
And speaking for myself here, I commit to working
to make sure that we can offer a compensation package
to all of our employees, both sworn and non-sworn,
that like our council budget amendments,
is reasonable, accountable, and sane.
So I thank you all for everybody's work on this.
I thank you for your participation.
Thank you.
Opening it up to other council members
to present any amendments or thoughts?
If you wanna raise your hand.
Council Member Gallo, please go ahead.
Opportunity.
Certainly having been part of the political process
for many, many years,
I still have some questions regarding the budget
that we have, because when I look at the reports,
how many vacancies do we have?
We have 839 vacancy positions
that we budgeted the previous year.
So we budgeted the previous year.
Where's the money for those 839 positions we never filled?
They went from public works, police department,
the fire and so forth.
And I think those of you in the finance department,
you did see a report from the administration
in terms of the vacancies that we have.
So for me, it's very clear what are the priorities
of the city of Oakland today,
and I'll be real brief on these.
First of all, it's public safety.
Allocate an addition of $50 million annually
to strengthening our public safety,
supporting the following positions and related needs,
included but not limited to increasing the sworn staffing
beyond the current budgeted 678 officers
towards the required 700 with a long-term goal of 750.
Because when I managed Public Safety Committee,
we had 750.
But when I got here several years ago,
we had 805 officers.
But now we're down to, I don't know, 600.
Then they tell me, well, we only have 478.
And so the numbers keep changing.
And secondly, restoring the officers assigned for our neighborhoods to support the EMT-EMAT
functions, restoring at least two community resource officers, CROs, per district.
And also reinstating neighborhood services coordinators with the NCs, increasing the
number of traffic enforcement officers dedicated to addressing speeding in each district, increasing
fire department staffing to ensure that fire safety operations by filling 121 vacant positions
and reducing the current 19% vacancy rate. Secondly, allocate an additional $40 million
annually to strengthen public works. To strengthen public works that cleans our
neighborhoods, that cleans in front of your house, that cleans your street, and
most of all now we're cleaning around our schools because the schools don't
have the personnel to do that and so maintaining an adequate number of fully
functioning vehicles to ensure daily street cleaning by field staff.
Historically, the city procured 50 to 100 replacement vehicles annually through 2023.
Since the funding and the centralizing fleet replacement,
only five vehicles have been procured outside of the 3100 sewer fund,
and an estimated 25 million per year is required to maintain
the current age and condition of the fleet.
The average fleet age is 13 years, nearly double the industry standard of 6.7 years.
Purchasing seven illegal dumping abatement trucks, one for each council district,
or an estimated cost of $1.1 million.
Seven trucks, $150,000.
Adding an illegal dumping crew at approximately $750,000 annually for salary and benefits,
increasing public works field staffing to improve street and neighborhood
cleanliness by filling a hundred and four vacant positions and reducing the
current seventeen point four five vacancy rate and then allocating 30
million annually to strengthen our Department of Transportation and
certainly increasing the funding for traffic calming measures equipment and
support resources, increase funding to repair and maintain city traffic signals, increasing
Department of Transportation staffing levels to ensure timely maintenance and safety improvements
by filling 119 vacant positions and reducing the current 28% vacancy rate within the Department
of transportation, and of course allocate an additional $50 million annually to strengthen
our housing and homeless services, and increasing the Department of Housing to fill the 13 vacant
positions that we currently have because we currently have 16.25 vacancy rate, and allocate
an additional $10 million annually to strengthen human resources department so we can be able
to fill the vacancies that we've had for year after year that we keep budgeting saying
we have the money to fill those positions, but we never fill them.
We never fill them.
So I want to be very clear with the administrator and the finance director, when we approve
budget to fill these positions that you know one is that we have the money and
with previous vacancies that we currently have today we had the money to
fill the positions but we never did and for me my advice to this city council
really the priorities are very clear public safety in a clean city and we
need to take care of the individuals that are homeless on our streets to make
sure because I get calls daily, well Mr. Galio, someone broke into my home,
someone broke into my business, somebody stole my car and we're now responding to
those immediate requests that the taxpayer is paying their taxes to make
sure that the money that they've provided us is allocated to take care of
these immediate needs within the city of Oakland. Thank you for your time. Thank
you. Thank you so much. Before I continue, I just want to mention one note on the
policy directives that these have been,
the published policy directives
that council members put out there
has been consolidated into this one document.
So what we have shared today publicly is a consolidation.
We inadvertently forgot two of the items
from council member Fife's directives
and we will be printing that out as well shortly.
Thank you.
Other council members who will wish to speak,
And those are number policy directives
published from Council Member Fife's directives,
number three and four.
Everything else was consolidated with hours
as well as the published ones from Council Member Houston.
I think Council Member Fife was first.
Go ahead, Council Member Fife.
Thank you, Council Member.
Thank you.
There's so much paper up here.
This is it.
Deborah, if you could hand out my additional amendments.
I was pleased to see that a lot of the work
that I've done over the last few years
was included in the budget team's proposals
as well as the policy directors.
So thank you Council President Jenkins for listing
and including my policy directives in this document.
I would like to add for future transparency
and report out of the structural deficit
in analysis and budgeting for an addition to be made
about the process for the finance department,
purchasing or investigating the software necessary
for broader forecasting of our budgets.
So right now we have a two year budget
and I think it would be, and we've discussed this
in other meetings and other spaces,
to look beyond the biennial longer than the two years
so that we can have a broader perspective
versus working in these two-year chunks
about the financial health of the city of Oakland.
So I think there should be some additional language around,
and through the chair,
do we have our finance director here?
I know you're ready to answer all of the questions.
We've discussed how some municipalities
do longer forecasting for their budget,
and in the past, you've stated that
in order for the city of Oakland to do that,
and we are interested in doing that,
than there are other things that are needed.
Could you help me clarify what language would be needed
in a directive so that we can make sure
that we're keeping track of where we are
in the process of moving in that direction?
I think appropriate language might be
to direct the city administrator
to explore the technology requirements
for budgeting beyond the two-year cycle
and to bring BRAC recommendations
with the biennial budget.
I didn't write that down, but I'm hoping some of it.
I did, so I will incorporate that into our amended budget
in addition to items three and four, which we inadvertently
forgot from.
Three and four for my policy outstanding.
And I also had some, thank you, thank you, Director Johnson.
I also had an addition, I believe my staff handed it out to you all because I also have
to thank, thank you again Council President Jenkins for the information about the film
initiative.
I brought that forward two years ago and we weren't able to fund it at that time because
of fiscal emergencies which we're going to address moving forward with some of these
policy directives.
But in order for the incentives to work, which are listed in the mayor's budget and
the budget team's amendments as well, we need a facilitator.
And it looks like the city administrator also mentioned that in a document that was just
presented to us today, that we need to add O and M for the film incentive funding.
And understanding how the City of Oakland moves when it comes to hiring, it will take
us unfortunately a lot of time to find someone to do this work, to staff up, and then to
get these film incentives out of the door.
And I'm going to do a plug for Jamal True Love, who's in the audience, who was in the
last black man in San Francisco shout out to our local actor who's right here in the
the chambers with us.
And I also have to give a shout out to Boots Riley, who
has a film in studios right now.
I love boosters.
Oakland grown, Oakland made.
Samantha Bempong, who's been a champion of this program
since day one, who I've worked with for the last several years
to try to get this forward.
And Rafael Casal, who I've also asked,
why aren't you filming here?
In order to get our filmmakers these incentives out
of the door, I'm recommending that we add an additional position or a contract.
It's not, it's one-time funding, it is not a staff position, so it's not going to take
us the time to try to ramp up internally, but it is a contract with Make It Bay, so
I'm requesting a vacancy savings to be utilized towards a contract for the film administration
program, and the contract would go to Make It Bay or their fiscal sponsor to administer
the dollars that the budget team and the mayor have put in this budget.
So that's an amendment that I am bringing to the floor.
And there's also, you know, a budget amendment that I have that addresses the community garden
and food pilot program.
is an in my initial position there is an individual that's slated to do this
work to manage all of the community gardens that the city has starting with
a pilot program and in one particular geography but there are hundreds of beds
that could be utilized to feed Oakland residents and I'm making amendment on
the floor to add an additional position to administer the program. So what you
saw in my previous published amendments were the individual that would operate
the gardens to get their hands in the dirt and to manage the volunteers and
the staff that would be working there but there's also now this amendment to
help gather emails to have events programmed and to do the administrative
work of this garden pilot program.
And so if I could just share a little bit about my reasoning behind this funding is
that as a result of the big, beautiful bill, Donald Trump is, and his, whatever you want
to call him, his government, his administration are requiring individuals throughout the country
who are currently qualified to receive SNAP or EBT benefits
to have this new welfare to work type of program.
With this program, there are an increased number of hours
that people are going to have to either work or volunteer
or else they will lose all of their food benefits.
And I cannot stress how much that food is essential
to quality of life for residents.
It's a public safety issue because when people are hungry,
we know what happens, and it's also a work issue.
So if we're able to provide this program, this pilot program,
then we can help all of the residents in the city of Oakland
who are potentially going to lose benefits by providing
an outlet for them to get their hours towards their welfare
to work criteria to get food.
There are millions of people that
are going to be thrown off benefits
if you know, if there's not some kind of program
and I think the city of Oakland should do
and can do a part by this program.
Those are the two floor amendments I wanted to make.
It looks like my policy directive was already included
and I yield the floor.
Thank you.
I wanna use my discretion to clarify the 250
in the 1010 spreadsheet that you would like to amend
for the film program.
Is your intention behind this?
in addition to the 250 that we have,
in addition to the 250 that the mayor has, so total 750?
Because the initial program that we brought forth in 2024
was for 600,000.
And so even with this 500,000, it's less.
And with inflation, the cost of a program
would have gone up in these two years.
So that's part of it.
I'm hoping that the 500,000 that's currently allocated
will be for the incentives, and the additional
will be for the contract to administrative those incentives.
Thank you, Claire.
Council Member Hughes.
Through the chair, I know my colleagues
are going to be shocked that I'm not too much to say.
Because of my recommendations, I'm like, wow.
I really appreciate it.
Listening to what I said about for the homeless,
for the beautification efforts, and for the walk of fame,
for the EEOs to prosecute these individuals
that are committing crimes against our community.
I don't have too much to say, I'm happy.
But I do have something to say to Mr. Bradley.
I have one clarification,
because my seniors are,
and my children are the most important.
So Mr., through the chair, Mr. Bradley, can you come up?
I have a question on this, my number three,
which is policy directive three,
prioritize senior support through keeping the senior
centers fully open and accessible.
And they had had it only four days a week.
Yeah, they only had it four days a week,
and I spoke to them, so we made it five days a week
from 10 a.m. to four p.m., so they could be open
five days a week, but it says something here.
It says, and I want you Mrs. Lake to,
You said suggest revised language.
I don't understand that part.
Expand hours of the senior centers should be prioritized
based on available funding and staffing.
Does that, what does that mean?
Does that mean that, let me finish.
Does that mean, because I gotta understand it.
Does that mean that if we have more funding
we can open it from nine to five?
So, through the chair to council member Gayo,
the first one- Houston, Houston, Houston.
council member Houston I'm sorry. Long day for me already I apologize council member Houston
sorry the budget provides the funding for four days full day should this body wish to go to five
days full day you need to appropriate additional dollars which means you need to find additional
revenue source or reduction to go there the amount of that increase is just under eight hundred
seventy-five thousand dollars
to go to the fifth day from what the mayor's proposed.
So, because yours was framed as a policy directive rather than a budget amendment,
we provided revised language to a policy directive which would be to us to go explore.
If you wanted to propose a budget amendment, you would need to identify resources,
and in this case, primarily in the general purpose fund, to add it back.
So it's clear, it's clear.
So through the chair, if you guys want to make me extra,
extra happy, Council, do that.
And I'm happy, I'll yield the floor,
but I do want to say one thing I really appreciate,
you know, the hard work that this team, they did.
Because I know it's hard, you have to balance,
we got all the emails from our constituents
saying they need this, we need this,
and I feel that you did the best interest
of our constituents, especially with addressing the crime
and the safety and the homeless situation and our seniors.
I really appreciate it, thank you.
Thank you.
To Council Member Houston, could you clarify
whether you want to pursue this directive
to the city administrator to explore sources of funding
to increase the?
Yes, that's what I want.
Okay, we will craft that directive and send it out along,
including what we just mentioned
with Council Member Fives as well shortly.
Greatly appreciate that.
Makes me happy, see?
Council Member Wong.
Thank you colleagues.
Overall just, I think you guys did a fantastic job really.
So thank you, I know it took a lot of late nights
and I think you guys also did a great job of finding
where we had positive fund balances
to fund so many of the things that we need.
So that's at work.
In particular, I wanna call out homelessness services,
we really need it.
In spite of the pit count, to me it's become very visible
that we have more folks sleeping on the streets,
not even in RVs, and it's just unacceptable.
I also wanna call out the funding for Lake Merritt.
I know my community has been asking for this.
I also wanna thank you for the graffiti abatement,
although I will say that one thing that's really critical
to me is that we don't just keep on cleaning up
after the graffiti, same thing with the illegal dumping.
We've sent millions and millions of dollars
on cleaning up, cleaning up.
We also do need to move to actually penalizing the taggers.
This can be civil penalties,
doesn't need to be a criminal approach,
but right now it is the businesses that are being driven out
because they bear the cost right now
with the ordinances that penalize essentially the victim
for being the target of graffiti,
and that is unacceptable.
I also wanna call out the HR strike task force,
which is really important since,
to Council Member Guyer's points,
we have unacceptable levels of vacancies
across each of our departments.
So thank you for that.
That being said, I have a couple of,
after I reviewed all the amendments that you all presented,
I have a couple of relatively minor amendments
to the amendments, so to speak,
that I just wanna offer up
that will fill some of the gaps that I see.
And I'm gonna present my screen for the public.
Councilmember, do you have a handout?
Yes, and there's a handout that should be
on each of your desks,
and also for the members of the public.
This is the one that is.
I don't believe the clerk received it to pass it out.
I think she did, she distributed it out.
It's the one in gray, black and white.
through the chair, we passed it out before the meeting.
I did fine, fine.
OK, I know.
It's just a lot of paper on everybody's desk, so.
If we could just pause for a second while all council members
can unmute.
Yeah, absolutely.
And I also need to get this up on the,
how do we get it to display on the.
And through the chair, there should
be copies for the public on the front desk as well.
Okay, I'm gonna go ahead and present the amendments.
So the very first thing, what are we funding?
This is really, you all know that really combating
the sex trade in particular in District Two,
but this is a citywide issue,
is something that is one of my top priorities.
And even as Measure NN is going to include funding
for more enforcement operations,
The issue that we have right now is the ordinance
that we all passed that ensures that fines against the johns
and traffickers and the businesses go to exit services
for the women and girls on the blade,
that is not being enforced right now.
And that's a problem, right?
Because we can continue doing this enforcement,
but at the end of the day, we need to ensure
that there are exit services for the women and girls.
I've been talking to a city attorney Richardson,
The Neighborhood Law Services Corps is ready and interested
in helping the city enforce
this human trafficking ordinance for the year
while we develop a more long-term solution.
And just to let you all know,
in the 111 days since that ordinance has passed,
there have been 94 arrests of Johns.
If that was coupled with that $4,000 civil fine
that we all passed, that would have represented
$1.2 million a year for these providers,
for the exit services, and this team is also poised
to help support the operationalization
of other administrative fines,
such as Council Member Gayo,
your sideshow ordinance has not been enforced.
And so this is arguably a revenue-generating need
that we have in the city, right?
We just have challenges with enforcement.
What I've identified is that there is both
a little bit more in the parking,
The projections from parking revenues, 133,000 and $749,
as well as a slight reduction in O&M
from the city administrator's office
that could fund this need through the city attorney's office.
That's the first thing.
Second amendment that I have here,
if you wanna turn the page,
is in the state gas tax, which by the way,
there's $15 million remaining in that state gas fund,
so there's plenty there.
I am adding an amendment just for $500,000
on for quick build,
specifically quick build pilot projects.
I know that you all had included some funding,
but I just don't think it's enough.
We need more traffic coming.
We continue to have too much reckless driving out there
and quick build projects in particular,
allow us to roll out projects quickly, affordably,
in ways that address the crisis of traffic collisions
happening on these streets,
as well as this method around crime prevention
through environmental design that we all need,
again, this is around basic public safety for our city.
Final thing that I'm just adding here is under Fund 2416,
This is the traffic and the safety fund.
This is where I am recommending
that we have a red light camera program pilot.
This is for the startup costs for this type of program,
which again would be revenue generating.
We have rampant running of red lights.
We all know that across the city.
We have 192, 200 severe and fatal crashes each year
in Oakland, mostly in equity communities.
And I will say we essentially ended that program
back in 2014.
And there were actually issues with the program
in its former iteration.
But the thing that it was doing right
is that that former program did cut down collisions
by over half.
That is an important metric.
And right now I'll say that since 2014,
that technology has evolved and has improved.
So the issues that were present back over a decade ago
have made strides.
Some of the issues, right,
where that people were getting ticketed
for like a slow right turn,
the technology has evolved not to ticket people like that
or people who just made it across,
who ran a red light just microseconds,
the technology has evolved.
I also wanna point out that New York City
is actually quadrupling their red light program.
So this is something that other cities
are looking to invest into.
Again, it's revenue generating, it can sustain itself,
but we need to make, we need to direct
and ensure that the Department of Transportation
makes this a priority.
So that's all my amendments.
Thank you.
Colleagues, we will move to public comment
before engaging in Council Member Fife.
I have a question to the city administrator what are what is the intention of us?
Deliberating on the inner office memo that was shared at the top of the meeting. Thank you. You guys are moving fast
I want to appreciate the budget team and all the council members for the work on the budget
we pulled together our department heads to review the last versions of the budget amendments as well as
The policy directives we're gonna
I'm gonna ask Bradley to give those comments if that's okay
And we're amending them based on the amendments that were brought forward this morning. Thank you
And before you start director Johnson through the chair if I may I talked about the floor amendments that I made
But I didn't talk about
Get ready council president. I didn't talk about the amendments that were in the budget. So
I wanted to list those these were already
Noticed in the packet, but the amendments that I made include adding back one full-time complaint investigator two in
the community police review agency
We are discussing using vacancy savings within the city administrator's office to help maintain cipras
investigative capacity and I'm doing this because residents voted overwhelmingly to pass measure LL an
established cipra to investigate police misconduct and freezing investigator positions is going against
the will of the voters and will potentially move us away from oversight.
So I wanted to state that for the record.
The mayor's budget included the following equity statement, adequate investigator staffing
is essential to uphold SIPRA's mandate, maintain public trust and ensure that all communities,
particularly those most impacted by police interactions, which are black folks in Oakland,
receive fair, timely and thorough investigations.
So adding back at least one investigator is important for us to allow the agency to meet
its mandate.
So I wanted to make sure that was listed on the record.
And the initial position that I added to with my floor amendments were to add one full-time
limited duration employee within Public Works to build this food resiliency program focused
on community gardens in the city of Oakland.
The city's community gardens program is understaffed and it lacks the leadership and planning
to fully execute its objectives and it was originally started by city council in 1963
and through this position council would not only address this service gap but we'd also
be able to create a focus pilot program that will help foster cultivation of fresh produce
at the neighborhood level to eventually establish a free food program throughout the city of
of the city of Oakland.
And in a time where government benefits are being cut
and most families are struggling to put food on the table,
I think it's important for the city to think long-term
about how we advance sustainability and food security.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Before moving to Director Johnson,
Council President Jenkins has had his hand raised.
Please go ahead.
Yeah, so I appreciate the council member
when it comes to the amendments that you made.
I think a couple of challenges with the vacancy savings,
because we're gonna run into a
position in which next year we're going to have to find money to fund that
position. I think secondarily CIPRA has never hired all the positions that
they've been budgeted for. So I think it might be incumbent upon us to figure
out how we can, excuse me, I can't roll anyone out of order. It might be
that we're going to be able to
do that in order. It might be
incumbent upon us to work
together as a strong- supporter
of civilian oversight might be
incumbent on us to work
together. To ensure or see where
the challenges are. For cipra
getting fully stabbed up with
the positions that they do have
budgeted already. Thank you.
Director Johnson did you have.
to go over very, and I will do this quickly and briefly as I possibly can.
As the city of Minnesota mentioned, the directors have a coordinated opportunity,
or providing you a coordinated document that reacts to their responses to the items that were noticed in the agenda packet.
I know some of these items have changed.
There's been clarification since they were noticed, so some of these may be moot, and they may not even be under consideration.
but in an effort to be fully transparent,
we wanted to provide you the best coordinated reaction
from the directors.
I'm gonna start with the budget amendment items.
Some of these are additional clarifications
and suggestions to you.
Some of these are questions from staff
whose clarification might help us
in the implementation of your items,
should they be adopted.
And I will start simply walk through them.
The first one from Council Member Fyfe
is regarding the community garden pilot program.
I should note that we've resolved this
after the fact provided that the ELD in 2244
is dedicated to the maintenance and operations
of the community gardens.
At the time we were struggling to find that,
OPW was struggling to find that nexus.
However, if it's tied to the garden maintenance
and operation, which I think is the intent
that you've described, that is fine.
Regarding Councilman Ruggio,
there are a number of priorities identified.
We would just note that we did not have
a funding source identified for those.
Related to Council Member Ramachandran,
and Jenkins amendments and I'll go through these one line and I'll try to
be as quick as I can. Staff and EWD noted that there needs to be funding for the
administration of this program. I know council member Fife proposed an
alternative to that through a contract but they're noting the staff response
notes that the equivalent position would be program analyst two should it be done
in-house. OPW notes that as it relates to the proposed public bathroom facility
that the Portland Liu was roughly $400,000 so there's questions as to what
the operation will be to fund that proper bathroom whether or not it's
enough. There is some feedback from our CHS team in the Office of Homeless
Solutions regarding the shelter bled allocation and what it could restore.
Regarding the transfer of public information officer from OIG to OPD, I'll
I'll invite the chief up to speak to this,
but as the, the administrator's office
believes that that PIO position would be better serviced
in CAO to work on a centralized model
in support of all departments for public information
and if the chief has any more information
on the civilianization effort,
I would invite him up to speak to that
if he'd like to come up to that.
I can also keep going if you want to hear from him later,
but as you want to.
Excuse me, Chair Ramanjandra.
So this seems actually undermining,
we checked in with the city administration
regarding this item and they checked in with the chief
and for the city administration to come back
and say this would be better served somewhere else.
On the day of the budget, seems absolutely undermining.
To the council president, I will note,
the concern is an operational concern
which might not have been a concern at the time of costing.
I'll invite the chief to talk about the civilian ization concern he has
Council president it's definitely feasible from the OPD side as far as we view it. We assessed it
We could definitely
civilianize that position
We have other sworn staff that are
Assigned to the chief's office
So in the event that and I know some of the concerns that were listed from the city administrator's office were related to responding to
active shooters
safety issues in that event, you know, we'll manage those resources the
professional staff members that will be assigned as a PIO to the Oakland Police Department will
Coordinate with the area captains and the reality of it is they wouldn't be responding to a scene of an active shooter
Unless the the area was secured in the first place
as as regards to accessing police that like database is necessary to kind of vet through that information
We do have a sworn member that's the chief of staff who could actually do that and
track it in real time and provide the information that we legally can provide.
So I think this is actually feasible from our end.
Thank you, Chief.
That seems absolutely contrary to what's in this document that we received today.
And it seems absolutely undermining from the administration on the day that the budget is coming out
to print something that is contrary to what the chief says.
And it's really a challenge for me.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Council President, if I could just comment on that.
Those were previously issues that were identified under the last Chief of Administration, but
reassessing it and looking at where we're at right now and knowing that we have to spreadload
the responsibilities just for staffing shortages in the meantime.
Anyways, as we build back up, it is capable to manage those resources to support those
positions and that's my stance.
Thank you.
Thank you, and I will also just add before director Johnson continues restating what the council president said the city administrators office was present for all of our
Regular weekly budget team check-ins to those members of the council and public that were not in those conversations
There was a representative from the city administrators office in each of those meetings
There was a near daily communication between the budget team or members of us and and the department's
Pretty much every single light item that was in our original amendments was discussed in some capacity with the actual department's
administering them or
An assistant city administrator responsible for those departments. Thank you
Thank you. So seeing this the chief has withdrawn that any conversation around that particular item
moving to fund
2244
Opw notes the mechanism by which they would accomplish the park bathroom blitz as more of just information for the council members
regarding 2270. The, I believe this is the Office of Homeless Solutions notes
just the scale and scope of where what would be done with emergency hotel
vouchers and information as well on the state parking pilot program from Office
of Homeless Solutions around the sort of the concept there. We're getting fund 2416.
DOT notes that the position the O&M provided for the operation of this
program would be better converted into a project manager, ELDE position. I would
note that we that can actually be done after the fact administratively with
this but they note that that is their intent. Regarding the in front 40 I think
this is actually fun 4510. Apologies my error. Regarding the HR vacancy
strike force, HR is providing some clarification on how they would, again, because it's not
a defined term, operationalize this resource to improve our hiring capacity. And similar,
provide some additional context regarding the classification study and IT regarding
the Wi-Fi structure, it notes how it will operate on that. I will pause there. Those
are mostly just commentary regarding the budget amendments for clarification
and I think they're presented in this context so that the council understands
how staff is interpreting those amendment items in advance of
implementation so that if there's any discussion or additional clarification
from the council members at the time of amendments your directors can hear from
you and provide additional guidance to us incorporate that into the legislation
as necessary and I'll pause there before getting to the policy directives.
councilmember Brown.
Excellent thank you so much for the feedback I did did just want to note that with many
of these amendments and allocations most of them have to come back by resolution correct
and so I guess I just want to say out loud that for some of the allocations I know for
myself I have some some feedback that I would like to share as far as the intent and so
I just want to say that publicly for the record
because one of the items that has to do
with the Wi-Fi improvement at recreations
and senior centers, direct community feedback
is that that infrastructure is not adequate
and we also know that the Oak Wi-Fi system,
the city's investment in Oak Wi-Fi is also not sufficient
because of the wires that were cut and I can hold on that
and so this particular recommendation,
I'm just not sure where it came from.
Understood.
If our IT department wants to provide additional feedback
on their commentary here,
it's understood that this item
would have to be prioritized specifically coming back,
although Vericent, sorry.
I think we're fine.
In the interest of time in making comment,
we are happy to move forward.
Are there other council member question?
Council member Wong, please.
Yes, and I did want to just mention too,
I do think we need a policy directive
around having a real staffing plan for OPD,
not only sworn officer staff,
so we meet the measure and then mandate,
but also the dispatch staff and other civilian staff.
It needs to be a priority.
We have dispatchers that are literally going
into miscarriage because of the amount of trauma
that they are experiencing on the job,
amount of stress that they're experiencing, they're incredibly understaffed, we have to
make this a priority. And we continue to, I've said this before, but I recently just
called into 911 two weeks ago, was on hold for five minutes. It is that sort of basic
city service that it's not, that's not acceptable, so we need to make that a priority. And then
I just had a couple of questions either to the budget team as well as Bradley on some
of the 10-10 funds in, since I know that, you know,
we're trying to preserve our 10-10 funds,
was there just some due diligence just to confirm,
since there's things like the DOT towing blitz,
the public bathroom facilities, let's see the equipment
to support illegal dumping crews, all incredibly important,
was there due diligence just to make sure
that there were no other funds, non-10-10,
that could support these?
In my conversations previously with the President's budget team, yes the allocations in the general
purpose fund were assessed to see if there were other alternate funding sources that
were available and should an item remain in 1010 it is safe to indicate that there is
no alternate funding source that is eligible for that purpose.
Okay, all right, thank you.
Okay, to Madam City Clerk if we can move to public comment.
I'm going to call all the names of you signed up for item four and five. I've pulled your card
So you can have the appropriate amount of time if you have time seated to you
Please state the names of the people who are seating to you as they must be
Present in chambers or on zoom for you to get that
Seated time and again, if you are seating time
You are giving up your right to speak because you are giving your time to somebody else as
With standard practice all folks in chambers will be taken first
Those taking on zoom will be taken immediately after and those on zoom
Please raise your hand so I can easily identify you if you wish to speak and you submitted a card
Millie Cleveland I have you with seated time from Kathy Tran. So as miss Tran is in the chamber
Been Gould I have you with item four and five Kevin Dally. I have you with item four and five
Miss Assata Ola Bala, I also have you for items four and five.
Fatima Yousaf, I have you for four and five.
Blair Beekman, I have you for items four and five.
Jennifer Finley, I also have you for items four and five.
And I'm going to call all the names at this time
and you can approach the podium in any order
and again state your name before beginning.
Just give me a second to get through all the names
so there is no confusion.
Pamela Drake, Charles Delson or I-Delson,
Catherine Stervak, Faith Kirkpatrick,
Ms. Barbara Tangieri, Amber Kennedy,
Jennifer Foswe, Damien Scott, Madeleine Stacy,
Charlie Dederlein, Christopher Powell,
Pamela Hawthorne, Andrea Ramirez,
Elliot Goodrich, Refelwe,
Eliza Refilwe,
Eliza Dennis,
Steve Kanofsky,
Celia Buello,
Stephanie Tran,
Karen Royce,
Mina Kushi,
Jamal Trulove,
Carolyn McCormick,
Jason Tubbs maybe,
Keon or Keegan,
Michelle Aisha Mayes, Edwin Lewis,
Borgen, Omar Rivera, Faith Kirkpatrick,
Susan A. Hammer, and Janks Janice Roberts,
Stephanie Tran, Wilma Okanofua,
Don Saria, Lorraine Saria, Nakia Powalee,
Marcia Smith, Celeste Neal, Dagmore Sirota, Janice Roberts,
Natish, Naticia, or Natish Leon, Charles Berthier, Mary
Ferran, Paul Schroeder, Carla Guerrero, Bryant Duong
with LISC, Millie Cleveland, Ann Jenks,
Wendy Peterson, Lenore Gunst, Kim Olson, Blake Spears,
Nina Bridges, Debra Brits, Amaka Watson,
Leslie Plattow Smith,
Abra Levine, Colin Prieth,
and Pamela Drake, I have you for twice,
I have you for item four.
please approach the podium in any order.
I have you with two cards and ceded time by Kathy.
Kathy, are you in the chamber?
Thank you, so I believe you have three minutes.
How many?
Three minutes.
Okay, Millie Cleveland with a coalition
for police accountability.
In 2024, Timothy Dolan, a 26 year veteran
who led the traffic unit and served
was paid $493,247 in over time combined with his salary and other pay, this netted him
$711,000 paycheck making OPD's highest paid employee that year.
What has our council done?
Have they demanded that the recommendations from the city auditor be implemented?
No.
Have you given the time of day to the in-depth research conducted by the labor groups that
exposed a variety of ways to oversee and control OPDs over time?
It was called Smarter Public Safety.
They sent it to you.
While the community is facing the loss of shelter beds, violence interrupters, and cuts
When it comes to the
senator's office to senior
centers, what does his counsel
do?
They propose a budget that's
designed to protect the police
union.
Our electeds are committed to
undermining independent police
oversight.
It violates both the charter and
the municipal code by not
funding mandated positions for
the inspector general.
It supports a non-mandated
position within the city
others duplicating the work of the underfunded, independent, charter mandated inspector general.
Our council refuses to promote civilianization of police jobs that will save money and put
more officers on the street.
You move one PIO out of the inspector office, inspector general's office when there are
at least 50 positions that could be civilianized.
program that could speed up discipline so they're shorter
paid administrative leads of officers that are sitting at
home making their full salary waiting on disciplinary hearing.
The question I have is who are you serving the people of Oakland
or the Oakland police department. I want to challenge
your concept of fiscal emergency when in fact you refuse to look
I refuse to look at the biggest elephant in the room, which is OPD's overtime, which has
yet to even been put on the agenda of a public safety committee meeting for discussion.
You cannot call it an emergency when you refuse to look at OPD's overtime.
My name is Steve Konofsky, I'm a frequent visitor and participation in Oakland's vibrant
cultural life.
I'm also a member of showing up for racial justice Bay area,
which works in partnership with people of color,
that organizations,
including APTP and the Oakland people's budget commission.
I'm here today to demand that you each vote no on any mid-year budget proposal
that does not one restore funding and frozen staff positions for Oakland's
police commission to fund the community police review agency to hire seven
investigators as the law requires, three, fully fund the inspector general for all eight
positions.
Civilian oversight of policing in Oakland has been a popular voter-driven response to
a police department that has failed for over two decades to reliably investigate itself,
causing excessive fear and mistrust of police, whether among many communities of color or
those of us who are white who feel pained and outraged by Oakland's long history of
inequitable policing.
It's time for the City Council to have the moral clarity.
My name is Celia Buub, I'm a 24 year resident of District 5 and I demand that, I'm also
a member of Serge Bay Area, I demand that the Mayor and City Council make these four
changes to the mid-cycle budget, one fully fund the Inspector General to charter mandated
8 full-time workers to to restore CPRA staffing to its charter minimums, which is seven investigators.
Three, lift the freeze on police commission, commission staffing.
Four, restore the money for lawyers who help watch the police.
And the reason for all of this is because civilian oversight of OPD is a voter driven response to a police department.
that a federal court has not trusted
to watch itself since 2023.
The police commission was built by Oakland voters
because the city could not be trusted
to hold OPD accountable on its own.
Paula Hawthorne, I've been trying to find the money
to restore the violence interrupter groups
that were dropped from the budget
for the Department of Violence Prevention.
that are now dropped.
Where is the money going to come from to fund them?
Well, I spent all of yesterday looking at y'all's budget.
There are 32 additional FTEs above what they currently have
that the finance department is asking for.
I point that out again, 32 additional ones.
Public works wants six more.
City administrator wants eight more.
more city administrator wants eight more half that just half that and you get the
money to restore the people we need on the streets it's a moral obligation to
do that thank you. Hi good afternoon council members my name is Brian Duong
and I'm a housing program officer at local initiative support corporation
also known as LISC our office is right next to the Fox theater so LISC directly
supports affordable housing development across Oakland through project financing
and capacity building for nonprofit and faith and community-based housing partners in our
Oakland Faith and Housing Program portfolio loan.
We're supporting more than 15 Oakland-based projects representing over 750 affordable
homes.
More than 500 of those projects are not yet complete and still depend on pre-development,
entitlements, partnerships, and funding to move forward.
LISK also has provided a quarter million in interest-free loans to two Oakland projects
representing 180 homes. So you know we know from direct experience local housing dollars are often
what determine whether affordable homes keep moving or stall. The 50 million Measure U restoration
won't close every gap but it can preserve momentum leverage outside resources and bring
much-needed housing closer to reality. For those reasons, LISKs. Madeline Stacy,
for decades Oakland residents as people have already spoken to fought for independent
its civilian oversight for OPD. Now as federal oversight is coming to an end, our city leaders
are proposing cuts and staffing freezes that threaten the future of police accountability
in Oakland. Our communities deserve transparency. Our communities deserve accountability. Our
communities deserve oversight bodies that are fully staffed and fully funded. You may
claim that these positions are simply frozen, but let's be clear, a frozen position is one
that cannot be filled as effectively an unfunded position.
And so I support Councilmember Fife's amendments
on police oversight, and I also support her amendments
on affordable housing and the Community Garden Pilot Program.
These are very important endeavors for our town.
So please make these corrections before approving a budget.
Good afternoon, Damien Scott
with East Bay Housing Organizations.
We strongly support Councilmember Fife
and the Council Budget Team's amendment
that includes $50 million of Measure U funding dedicated to affordable housing.
This $50 million will help Oakland HCD acquisition and conversion of affordable housing programs
and the Rapid Response Homeless Housing funding program.
This would also allow HCD to launch a new construction NOFA with $30 million in fall
2026 in time for tax credit rounds in 2027.
Oakland has a robust pipeline of shovel-ready projects that can produce over a thousand
units of affordable housing, so thank you for your support in ensuring Oakland funds
the affordable housing pipeline to keep it moving.
Thank you.
Good afternoon.
My name is Celeste Neal.
Marsha Smith and Ikea Powley wish to cede their time to me.
Are you two Marsha Smith and Ikea, next to you?
Yes.
Thank you.
You have three minutes.
Thank you.
Good afternoon council members and city staff. My name is Celeste Neal and I'm a member of the
East Oakland Senior Center and I'm not only representing the East Oakland Senior Center,
but all the senior centers and all older adults in our community who rely on our senior centers
as a vital source of connection, support, wellness, and belonging. First, I would like to sincerely
thank you for your budgetary consideration of increasing our hours of operation by adding
an additional two hours. We also urge you to find a way to open the senior
centers full-time without cutting asset programs, senior aides, or other senior
services. To add additional hours to the senior centers, the mayor's budget cuts
10 halftime senior aides in the assets program, a cut of $174,245.
These are part-time jobs that contribute to senior centers and other city
programs and that benefit other older adults who need gainful employment or need to work
to be eligible for Medi-Cal CalFresh. We urge you to oppose this cut. Our senior population
continues to grow and with that growth comes an increased demand for services and programs.
Expanding access is not simply a convenience, it is an investment in healthy aging, preventative
care and community well-being. The benefits extend beyond the seniors
themselves, helping families, caregivers, and the community as a whole. We often
speak about honoring those who have spent their lives building and
strengthening our city. One meaningful way to do that is by ensuring they have
access to programs, services that support them in their later years. For many
seniors, the center is much more than a building. It's a lifeline. It's a
place where friendships are formed, meals are shared, exercise classes, improve
health and educational programs, help people remain active and independent.
Expanded hours and days would allow greater access for seniors who have
medical appointments, caregiving responsibilities, transportation
challenges, or other commitments during current operating hours. In addition to
extending the days of operation would help address one of the greatest
challenges facing older adults. Social isolation. Loneliness and isolation can
negatively affect both physical and mental health. By opening the center more
days each week, we can provide additional opportunities for engagement, recreation,
wellness programs, supportive services that improve the quality of life. I joined
the East Oakland Senior Center after the loss of my husband and subsequently
retiring after 40 years of federal service. I was a widow living alone and
I'm retired.
I joined the East Oakland Senior Center three days after I retired and have been there ever
since.
For me, I found socialization, friendships, community.
I'm engaged in various activities such as excursions, sip and paint, chair exercise.
The center also offers games.
We also have an herb garden, quilting, and sewing group.
Good afternoon, Council Members.
Stephanie Tran, speaking on item four and five.
And the budget team that has
Worked develop worked developing these amendments during a challenging fiscal period
We appreciate the investment proposed in public safety clean streets homelessness
Services parks youth programs and infrastructure improvements. These are all important priorities that contribute to a cleaner safer and more welcoming, Oakland
communities. And so I think we
need to make the cleaner safer
and more welcoming Oakland. And
as the council continues to
deliberate today we encourage
you to place a greater emphasis
on economic recovery business
investment and commercial
corridor revitalization. While
these amendments address many of
the critical community needs we
believe there is an opportunity
to more intentionally invest.
In economic activity that
creates jobs. Generate tax
that reduce vacant storefronts, attract and retain businesses, support entrepreneurs, and market Oakland's commercial corridors and activate neighborhood businesses.
These investments not only strengthen our local economy, but also increase foot traffic, encourage private investment, improve public perception, and contribute to a more vibrant neighborhood.
And we also appreciate the investment in graffiti abatement, but we also encourage the city to focus on prevention and accountability.
clean up is important but abatement alone doesn't address the symptom only addresses the symptom and not the root causes small businesses again should not have to burn should not bear the financial burden of vandalism through cleanup costs.
We also encourage the city to recognize the economic value of community events cultural programming and neighborhood activations long standing events like the china towns lunar new year bazaar street fest.
Oakland Pride, Dia de Los Muertos, Black Joy Parade, and many others helped bring visitors
to Oakland and generate economic activity and showcases the diversity of our community.
So we encourage you to make these...
Anne Jenks, some of the highlights in the summaries are not actually reflected in the
budget.
PIO for every department, you cut the PIO for independent oversight.
responsibility the budget does not touch efficiencies and controls for the
massive OPD budget charter mandated staffing for oversight you say nope you
cut independent oversight staff and funding you say civilianization there
are dozens and dozens of OPD jobs that could be filled by civilians freeing up
officers the only position civilianized in your department is taken from
independent oversight. You say fund constitutional policing? You're not
funding independent oversight staff. You instead funded a position controlled by
the city administrator. That's not what independence means. My mother says that
when you have to tell tales about what you do, you are doing wrong. I also
wanted to share with you, several years ago a lady called me, her 16-year-old
granddaughter was being sex trafficked. Her phone would ping. There were sightings.
OPD said, she's not being held against her will. What do you want us to do? A 16 year
old cannot consent. I told her to come to the next police commission meeting. The
police chief would be there. I also connected her with a good friend of mine.
I called her the day before the commission meeting. She said, I'm sorry I
didn't call you. My granddaughter is home safe and we're getting help.
Derral Adams and Adamika Village had her back in 48 hours.
Please don't permit unchecked OPD overtime.
Don't leave officers in administrative jobs instead of doing important public safety work.
We need a real analysis of the OPD budget and how to deliver effective public safety.
We can't give blank checks to the police union while you starve out the community networks
and services that keep us safe like Derral Adams and Adamika Village.
Good afternoon council members my name is Caroline McCormack and I am here on behalf
of the Housing Accelerator Fund.
I want to thank you and strongly support your recent inclusion of 50 million dollars for
affordable housing in the proposed budget.
A portion of this housing investment will go to fund the city's acquisition and conversion
to affordable housing program or a CAH which is one of Oakland's most effective tools for
preserving affordable housing and preventing displacement before it happens.
support. By acquiring existing
housing and converting it into
permanent affordable housing
we're keeping Oakland residents
in their homes. And with a new
public private partnership that
the city launched in December
twenty twenty five in partnership
with stakeholders. Community
organizations philanthropy and
financing partners like the half
to more effectively leverage the
city's investment to move more
quickly at the seat of at the
you know there's an idea we
are nearly fully subscribed-
and there's an urgent need to
continue investing in this.
Hello everybody- my name is
Jamal true love and I
represent Bay Area film night-
first of all I'd like to thank
Mary Barbara Lee councilmember
five and councilmember brown
for the leadership and- for the
initiative- the- it's in a
program the film center program
as well as budget team
President Jenkins, I would also like to acknowledge
Liz Luke from the Cultural Affairs Division
who spoke at our Oscars and Oakland event
and Iris Moranis, Council Member Ramachandran,
Chief of Staff for Lieutenant R. I love boosters
screening at the Grand Lake Theater.
Mayor Barbalee said that she wants to make Oakland
the hub of Northern California for filmmaking.
In order for us to do that, not only we need to have
center program for Hollywood to come and produce movies here, but also we need to incentivize
the filmmakers that are here.
When you think about Ryan Coogler, when you think about Boots Riley, they did not have
the support of Oakland.
Good afternoon council members.
My name is Michelle Montarosa.
I'm an organizer with APTP.
I'm here to urge you to fully fund Oakland's civilian police oversight on the will of Oakland
voters.
This is a critical moment for the city of Oakland with federal oversight of the Oakland
police department potentially ending as early as September it is important that
now more than ever accountability measures are in place if the
federal monarch leaves Oakland civilian oversight bodies will become the primary
mechanisms available to ensure transparency accountability and public
trust as someone who's been directly impacted and knows the loss of losing a
lot of loved ones to the police violence the message is clear from Oakland
residents and community members accountability cannot be frozen we are
We're asking for this council to take four actions before approving this budget.
One, fully fund the office of inspector general to chart a mandated staffing level for eight
full-time employees.
Restore CPRA staffing to its charted minimum.
Lift the staffing freeze on police commission, and restore funding for the attorneys who
help oversee police misconduct and ensure compliance.
Good afternoon, council.
My name is Lenoir Gunst.
I'm the policy fellow with the senior services coalition of Alameda County and a past chair
of the mayor's commission on aging.
I'm also a senior who live in District 4.
I want to acknowledge and add our thanks to Mayor Lee
and the budget team for funding our senior centers
for four full days a week, improving Wi-Fi,
as well as funding the critical food and meal programs
and information and referral programs
that our Oakland seniors rely so heavily upon.
We ask that the assets older adult workforce development
and job placement program receive
approximately $175,000 from the General Fund.
It's my understanding that, regrettably,
the extension of operating hours was at the cost
of 10 part-time asset program positions,
which had been vacant due to the city's hiring freeze.
The senior centers, in truth, are really struggling
mightily to deliver the programs
and operate the centers safely without the aids.
And as Councilmember-
Good afternoon, Council and community.
My name is Riefiloui and I'm also with
the Anti-Police Terror Project.
I'm here to raise concerns about the current
mid-cycle budget proposal, which has cuts backs
on funds for the Oakland Police Commission,
the Community Police Review Agency,
and the Officer of the Inspector General.
These are all civilian oversight bodies
that are already operating at 60% below
their previous budgets and below their charter
mandated staffing minimums.
Civilian oversight of police is a voter driven response
to a police department that a federal court
has not trusted to watch itself for over 20 years.
The police commission was built by Oakland voters precisely
because our city could not hold OPD accountable on its own.
So I am calling on council to fully fund
the Office of the Inspector General
to charter mandated staffing levels,
restore CIPRA staffing to its charter minimum,
lift the freeze on the police commission staffing,
and also like to uplift the investments
that were named into arts and culture,
housing, and our senior services.
Thank you.
you for the public opinion of
the city of Oakland. Good
afternoon my name is the michael
Watson I'm environmental
enforcement officer in public
works I have worked for the city
of Oakland for twenty four
years and I'm also the chief
stop Stewart. For S. C. I. U.
ten twenty one. The budget
provides a good start to
addressing the crisis of
illegal dumping in Oakland. As
an E. E. O. we have been
demanding a more proactive
approach to stopping illegal
dumping before it starts. The
budget allocation for more over
did not have to address the
the our jobs but it does not
address the chronic under under
staffing in our program if we
want to get serious about
curbing legal dumping the city
needs to rethink how the eel
deliver service turnover in the
eel classification has been
very high and we often have to
spend most of our time on
administrative work rather than
working in the field. As a
recent audit confirmed
and that is why it's so important
so we can find and site bad
actors who continue to dump
trash in our streets.
Thank you.
Hi, I'm Jennifer Foster and I
have time seated to me from
Amber Kennedy.
Amber, thank you.
As you may know, I am president
of Local 21's A&W chapter and a
District 6 resident.
Thank you for the budget, however
it needs to do more.
Workers received no cost of
it to help the city dig out of a financial creation.
Crisis created by administration.
The city's caffer says pension liabilities are down 100 million dollars.
Yet the city negotiators seek to send more of us below the poverty line by making us pay for
healthcare and pension which are already funded in this budget all without wage increases.
Council cannot leave 700 vacant positions instead of paying the workers that are already doing the work.
For example, the city has twenty five continuous recruitments because Oakland pays substandard wages and HR refuses to address this proactively.
The city cannot blame a service deficit crisis on telework.
The problem is unwillingness to hire, pay, and retain city workers.
It's beyond time to chop from the top, less suits, more boots, hire more front line workers.
process in place by the biennial.
Hire an expert to develop a retention plan for critical departments that have failed
to do so themselves.
Rehire beacon economics to get a factual revenue projection and recommendations instead
of relying on volunteers with no governmental service.
And some with conservative goals.
We're trying to work with the public.
to be a part of the community.
through the planning and building department,
I'm a planner, I am here to just kind of remind people
that we are doing a lot of work without a lot of resources.
I'm an Oakland resident, I've been here for 17 years,
starting out at ELDE, not really knowing my future
with the city of Oakland for a really long time
until just last year I became a regular full-time employee.
And now we're running into another issue
where I might not be able to like make the cost of living
that it takes to stay in Oakland.
I have issues with the fact that,
sorry, I have issues with the fact that like,
you're trying to take away our health care as it is,
even though you are considering these cuts,
they are a cut from my paycheck,
they do affect me long-term,
they affect how I like participate in the city
and as a resident and.
Good afternoon, Elliot Goodrich.
I'm here to make it very clear why 200 of your local 21 workforce showed up on Tuesday
to express our anger.
The reason is that 40% of our members make less than what it takes to live comfortably
in Oakland, and 1 in 10 of our members live below the poverty line.
We showed up for those of our members receiving poverty wages whose needs are not being met.
And we know that the long-term fiscal health of our city does not require paying poverty
wages or setting the compensation of Oakland workers behind our peers when we should be
hiring the best and brightest to fill our hundreds of vacancies.
Not when $360 million bought just 7,000 moving violations issued by OPD last year.
For reference, Oakland's speed camera program, administered by local 21 staff, issued 80,000
means for egregious speeding in its first 40 days.
Thank you.
Will counsel Colin Pithi, local 21, city employee.
So what your presentation failed to mention
is that this balanced budget comes at the cost
of multiple pay cuts for our employees.
No COLA, and additional cost for healthcare,
and additional cost out of retirement.
That's unacceptable.
It's a slap in the face of city workers
who have been working overtime
to try to deliver the services you guys want to provide.
We need to staff up.
You know deliver the city services our residents deserve and how do we do that?
Well, if I were gonna balance my family's budget, I'll look at the basic biggest expense opd. It's always been opd
We urgently need you to stand up to opo a and get back the overtime money and additional
Money that comes from overtime fraud and ineffective policing give it to your staff hire more people. Thank you
Good afternoon. My name is Jason tubs and I'm a garden crew leader in the in the parks department in the city of Oakland
I'm also a 10 21 SEIU member and officer
The budget includes funding for some services that will help us maintain and beautify the city parks
And we appreciate the amendments that use measure Q fund balance for staffing blitzes in the parks
However, there needs to be a greater investment in hiring and recruiting to fill critical positions in parks
management can only hire ELDs and temporary workers because of the because they lack an
H.R. Analysts to process and screen for permanent positions. There are currently 12 vacant positions in the parks department
Without filling permanent positions and increasing wages many dedicated employees are leaving a department worsening the staffing crisis
We urge the council to prioritize permanent staffing so that the park workers can safely and effectively serve the public and maintain
Oakland parks at the level our community expects. Thank you
Good afternoon council Janice Roberts executive director for Mercy Brown bag program
I'm actually here. I have to tell you I think you have a very tough job and
I'd like to thank you for supporting Mercy Brown bag in this budget and
Senior services specifically we have been serving low-income
Seniors in Oakland with healthy groceries for over four days
But for over six decades now we
served over five thousand
extremely low income seniors
here in our city out of forty
five distribution centers.
Food is essential for the
quality of life.
Thank you council woman fight.
We appreciate that support from
sugar sweetened beverage funds
needed to be involved in this
vulnerable generation. As you
consider expanding senior
center services I would really
urge you to not rob Peter to
pay Paul do not go after other
senior services in order to
fund and support senior centers
that are actually open for these
I want to know how much.
I bow to you in this tough job you've got.
I have an extra minute from Keon.
Keon.
Just raise your hand, Keon.
Thank you.
OK.
And what's your name?
Minakuchi.
So my name is Minakuchi, and I'm a resident of District 6
for the last four years, and prior to that,
Oakland for 10 years.
I reiterate all the points that have been made here today
anti-police terror project and our local union workers.
Additionally, to point out that OPD spent 31 million
in overtime above last year's OPT overtime budget.
Financially, that is absolutely irresponsible and unacceptable,
but let's consider the human side of that, right?
That means that our police officers
that are in a public facing role that requires a human
to be constantly on high alert, observing their environment
in being called to situations with unknowns,
which can be mentally and physically exhausting,
all while carrying a deadly weapon.
This level of overtime OPD is currently accruing
does not allow them to get the adequate time off
to rejuvenate and rest, to have work-life balance
and be their mind, body and souls for their family.
And it's just incredibly irresponsible to put someone
that's at that state of exhaustion on the front lines,
dealing with our community.
And so for that reason, I call that,
That money should be going to our local workers
and other community service programs
and allowing our police force to be at their best
and not working to pure exhaustion.
Thank you.
Good afternoon council members.
My name is Dr. Aisha Mays and I'm the CEO and founder
of the Dream Youth Clinic right here in Oakland.
Over 50% of the youth that we serve at Dream
are directly impacted by sex trafficking.
And this January we opened the first mobile clinic
for sex trafficking youth in Oakland and in the country
directly serving young people impacted by sex trafficking.
We're right on International Boulevard.
We are wholeheartedly in favor
of Council Member Wong's critical budget amendment
to hire dedicated administrative staff
to collect the sex trafficking fines
from the Human Trafficking Survivor Support Fund ordinance
that the city council already passed.
I've been working with young people impacted by trafficking
for my entire career, and this is the first time
I've seen perpetrators being held accountable
for the trafficking of young people.
These funds can also directly support the DVP applicants
who did not receive funding on this first round
to support their critical work as well.
This is how we end human trafficking.
Paul Schroeder, I'm going to defer my time to Carla Quetta.
Thank you, good afternoon council members.
My name is Carla Guerra, I'm here on behalf
Council.
And affordable housing developer
in Oakland this is my
colleague Paul from a real
state development team.
First of all we want to thank
council member five- and the
members of the council budget
team council members under
ramachandran brown and Jenkins
for your leadership in
proposing amendments to include
fifteen million dollars in
measure you funding for
affordable housing this year.
I also want to thank all of you and Mayor Lee
for your support to the Oakland Fruitvale San Antonio Senior
Center in Oakland's LatinX Cultural Arts District,
where low income and monolingual seniors face unique social
and language challenges every day.
Years ago, when the city partnered with the Unity Council
to develop the Fruitvale Transit Village,
there was an agreement that the site will include a senior
Center to serve the diverse monolingual and bilingual seniors living in the
Fertile neighborhood. Your continued support, it is a reflection of that
initial agreement. So we are in support as well of opening all senior centers
full-time without impacting the other ones. Thank you so much. Good afternoon I
am having time seated by Wilma Okonofua and Don Soria. I'm Lorraine Soria and on
On behalf of the members of the Downtown Oakland Senior Center, I urge you to find
a way to open the Senior Center's full-time without cutting the asset program senior aids
and other senior services.
Senior Centers are vital community hubs.
They provide multiple services that support a vulnerable portion of Oakland's population.
Almost 40% of Oakland seniors are economically insecure and nearly 40% are food insecure.
Our centers provide free or low-cost resources such as tax preparation, housing assistance
and programs such as Mercy Brown Bag and Spectrum Hot Meals.
Just as importantly, they provide a safe place for exercise, socialization and connection.
seniors live alone. Loneliness and isolation lead to increased rates of
dementia, depression, high blood pressure, stroke, and stress. Having a safe place
to spend time with friends, have a meal, exercise, and or get help with vital
services matters. We are grateful that our centers remained open this past year
but hours were cut and the limited staffing and hours aren't safe or
sustainable. I'm grateful that there's funding for four days. Reduced hours
created a lot of stress. Members were forced to choose between classes and
services, jammed into the morning hours, and reduced hours made it difficult for
some seniors to get to the center and made parking more difficult. If seniors
can't park, they won't come. New bike lanes around our center also reduced
street parking and removed the bus stop in front of the center forcing members
to cross a busy thoroughfare to access the closest bus stop creating an unsafe
situation for the mobility challenged. While our centers must be open full-time
five days a week to support our senior population that cannot come at the
expense of other senior services, the mayor's budget unacceptably cuts 10
and part-time senior aides in the assets program.
These positions benefit seniors who need gainful employment to keep a roof over their heads,
food on their tables, and get Medi-Cal and SNAP benefits.
These positions provide critical support to our centers and other city programs and help
seniors remain productive.
Funding for other contracted senior services like Meals on Wheels, Mercy Brown Bag and
and Spectrum Lunch Services must also be protected and preserved.
These services serve the most vulnerable among us.
Please restore our full Senior Center hours, maintain the contracted Senior Services,
and fund the Senior AIDS program.
Seniors matter.
Thank you.
Good afternoon, Council members.
Thank you.
My name is Dagmar Sirota, and I'm a member of the Advisory Board for Mercy Brownback,
provides healthy groceries to some of Oakland's most vulnerable seniors.
85% of our clients tell us that the groceries they receive from us keep them housed because
the money they save can go to paying for rent and for utilities.
I'm here to support the budget item that uses money raised by the sugar sweetened beverage
tax to support Mercy Brown Bag in its efforts to fight hunger and by extension, homelessness.
Thank you for including seniors and senior services in your budget.
Good afternoon council members.
My name is Blake Spears.
I'm president of the Board of SOS Meals and Wheels and vice chair of the mayor's commission
on aging and a 48 year resident of the city of Oakland.
I'm here today to urge you to find a way to use dollars from the general fund to open
senior centers full time five days a week without cutting the asset programs, senior
AIDS or other senior services.
Social isolation and loneliness in older adults are critical health risks.
The Center for Disease Control indicates that isolation increases dementia risk by 50%,
30% increase in the risk of heart disease or stroke, and an elevated risk of premature
death.
The senior centers are a community hub
to provide a place for seniors to socialize,
learn about resources, and develop
life enriching relationships.
Thank you all for your support of Meals on Wheels,
where we do live.
Good afternoon.
Charlie Dederlein is on Zoom,
and he would like to cede his time to me.
Charlie, are you ceding your time?
I certainly am, thank you.
Thank you.
Thanks, Charlie.
Kim Olson, SOS Meals on Wheels.
On behalf of our volunteers, staff, and the nearly 1,400 seniors that we serve each year
in Oakland, we want to thank the mayor for continuing to fund senior services for CBOs
like ours in the proposed budget.
To be clear, SOS holds two contracts with three funding streams through the city.
That's through Measure BB, the general fund for the meals and sugar sweetened beverage
tax.
It's a bit of a patchwork, but altogether, those make sure that we're able to provide
the 260,000 meals that we will deliver to seniors for a year.
And those of you who have, I've had the honor of taking on ride along as you know that what we bring is so much more than a meal.
It's a vital wellness check and a connection for our neighbors who are not able to get out.
The seniors that we serve are in Oakland, 91% of them are classified as extreme property levels.
That's 30% below the area average.
They mostly live, about half of them live alone and they're not able to get out to the grocery store or
when times are tight, get to a food pantry
and get extra food for themselves.
With these contract funds, we're gonna be able to make sure
that we'll continue our services through next year
without having to consider dropping
any of those folks off of our program.
But we don't do this alone,
and that's really the reason that we're here.
We rely on a strong network of senior support services
in Oakland, and senior centers
are the heart of those services.
They keep our seniors strong and healthy and thriving,
so they don't need our services, you know,
till further on down the road.
So with the Senior Coalition partners,
we're here to ask for funding to continue
to open senior centers for five days a week,
reinstate the assets program,
but please don't do that at the cost
of any of the other senior services.
Thank you.
Good afternoon, my name is Susan Hammer,
and I've been a resident of District 1 since 1983.
First, I would like to thank the mayor and the council
for keeping the senior centers open
and also attempting to extend the hours.
This is something we need.
My primary reason for speaking
is to urge you to provide funding
to open the senior dinners five days a week,
like they used to be.
But this should not come at the expense
of the proposed $174,000 cut to funding and staffing
for the senior aides and the assets program,
and our staff to make this city
work the senior centers you
know that's all we're going to
be limited to four days a week
the nine to one that's not
working for us please at least
extend the hours the senior
centers are a valuable asset
whether it's for exercise craft
classes and all the other
educational up presentations
which you might not get
otherwise and I know I'm running
out of time.
Thank you and welcome to the
west Oakland senior center.
Good afternoon council members
and thank you for this
opportunity to speak on behalf
of the west Oakland senior
center as we all know.
The center has been closed
longer than expected and I'm
here begging that you open our
center soon.
They could come and socialize, exercise,
and show their creativity.
Please, please, consider opening the West Oakland Senior
Center.
Thank you.
Hi, my name is Nina Bridges.
I am 82 years old.
I want to talk about West Oakland Senior Center.
Really, I want to talk about all the centers.
We need to have a place that we can feel safe to go to do all the types of exercise
to maintain our health and keep us looking young.
To receive information on resource services and a place to go
where we can talk to other seniors.
The seniors have worked half of their lives raising their children
working and paying taxes and we now need a safe place to go. Thank you.
I'm Charles Bethea and I'm from the West Oakland C.U. Citizen Center and I just want to mention that we like to keep our four
four center directors for all the centers, west Oakland, north Oakland and downtown center.
And also four administrative assistants, we like to keep them on.
And then also four labor custodian in order for the, to have the center open.
So thank you very much.
Hi, good afternoon.
Alyssa Dennis.
I'm here to encourage you to support the amendments for the 5050 million of the bill bond funds
for affordable housing, as it's presented in the budget team
and Council Member Fyfe's amendment recommendations.
You know, the long pipeline of projects
that need to get funded right now,
last month was affordable housing month.
And I don't know if other of it might have attended events,
but I know that Council Member Gayot was there
at the grand opening of Flickerboard Homes
from National on 30th,
and it underintended the hardhat tour
of Longfellow Commons in the west of MacArthur-Bart area.
And those properties just came online
and they're offering housing that serves
with both low-income levels up to families
with low-income levels of support.
We have, I know, about at least four projects
that are also coming online,
districts two and three and six in the next few months.
It's critical that we continue the pipeline.
There's gonna be new state funds, I should say,
coming out this year.
The only way you'll get a share of those state funds
is by investing in the money in the project right now,
that we leverage 521 or so, so please post it.
Hi, my name is Natissia Leon,
and I am here on behalf of Love Never Fails.
I was, I am a survivor of sex trafficking myself.
I have been in recovery for the past 11 years,
and part of those past 11 years,
I have worked as a network engineer in a major tech company.
I've been rebuilding my life and trying to claim it back.
And so I,
as it was mentioned that the 94 arrest
could have accumulated some funding for these resources,
such as Love Never Fails, to help survivors like myself
gain back our lives into the community and be present.
So I'm just asking for that one person to make a difference
for that paralegal position and to help us
and get our voices back instead
of keeping the duct tapes on our mouths.
Thank you.
Good afternoon, my name is Karen Roy
and I am an Oakland resident for over 35 years.
I support the council budget team's emphasis
on ongoing analysis of structural deficit,
transparency and accountability.
Oakland's fiscal challenges did not develop overnight
and they will not be solved in a single budget cycle.
As the city makes difficult decisions,
I encourage continued focus on measurable outcomes,
regular public reporting,
and oversight of taxpayer investments.
Residents deserve to know not only what we spend,
but what results we achieve.
Fiscal responsibility, transparency,
and public trust must go hand in hand,
and I would like to thank the chair and the members
for your fine work, thank you.
Good afternoon council members,
my name is Ben Gould and today I'm speaking as an individual.
I really appreciate the efforts by the budget working group
to incorporate the budget advisory commissions,
recommendations, and these proposed amendments.
However, as noted by the chair,
these amendments still rely on some creative interpretations
to achieve their goals.
In particular, I'm concerned about the proposed approach
to meet Measure Q's maintenance of effort requirements.
These amendments do not use general purpose fund money
to maintain parks funding as intended in the measure.
Instead they use existing unspent measure cue dollars
from previous years to meet the maintenance
of effort requirements.
While we absolutely need to spend down
the measure cue fund balance,
doing so to meet the maintenance of effort requirement
clearly was not the intent of the voters.
And there may be a technical loophole here to qualify it
but I would not recommend claiming
that we truly honor the intent of the measure in this case.
In addition, these proposed amendments
do include one-time use of fund balances
from restricted funds to fund ongoing new positions.
I think that should be communicated
clearly and transparently.
As the council president noted,
these positions will be a continuous draw on the budget,
requiring over a million dollars annually
in either new revenues or other ongoing cuts.
Unless these are identified specifically
as temporary, term-limited positions,
this practice should not be considered in compliance
with the city's consolidated fiscal policy.
I would recommend you either identify ongoing revenues
to support these new staff positions
or clearly develop them as term-limited temporary positions.
Thank you.
My name is Barbara Tingiri.
My deceased mother, Esmeralda Avelina Grant,
a registered nurse from Bellevue Hospital
and a Kaiser Hospital nurse practitioner when she was alive.
We both are members of the Grand Avenue Senior Center.
We love it.
My mother spent over 20 years volunteering.
She paid for all her meals, volunteer,
rather than accept money for her services.
She loved serving coffee, tea, and et cetera
on the ground floor of the senior center.
She paid for all her lunches.
She would be sad to learn the center is serving financial,
suffering financial hardship. Thank you very much. Hi my name is Elma Zitego I'm
the executive director of global communication education and art in the
African Resource Center. Thank you for council members. I'm sorry I don't have a card for you for this item maybe
you signed up for open forum this is items four and five. Yeah so we we're not
I'm going to have a chance to speak.
We're on the, I believe you're on open forum.
This is items four and five.
I don't have a card for you for this item.
So again, we're on items four and five.
If we don't have a card for you for this item,
you may have signed up for open forum.
If you sign up for items four and five,
please approach the podium.
After that, we'll be going to the Zoom speakers.
I didn't see anybody addressing five.
For the fourth year in a row, you are participating in an anticipated financial emergency issue.
This means you are suspending multiple voter-approved mandated items in order to divert that money
to the general purpose fund.
We're talking about 33.9 million dollars and restricted funding would be diverted for other
purposes other than the purposes for measure NN, measure W, measure Q, measure HH.
You're also diverting money from the affordable housing trust fund.
Nobody got up here and talked about that.
That's serious.
Now, I'm not going to tell you where to spend money, but I know I'm here on a regular basis
is to say the way you manage your money is an issue.
I'm looking at the parking that is free at the ice rink
that they say they're paying for.
I have never seen you produce a document
that shows we're getting revenue from the ice rink.
You're saying that you have the Feather River Camp situation
and I'm worried about how much money we invested in that.
The Friends of the Lincoln Park Rec Center.
paying for the whole rec center would measure you money when they came to you
to ask to pay for it themselves but you now paying for giving money to the
Lincoln rec center instead you spent four hundred thousand dollars to
renovate the roots facility from our money for the city when Allen the city
of Alameda and the city of Berkeley were supposed to contribute as well you did
not only are you here but you
are at all of the spending.
You have no reports that have
been given since 2023 on the
city administrator's ability to
spend up to $250,000.
The next report is march 2027.
You're giving property away,
that property that you gave to
the art center, they have turned
that into their own property.
You said when you gave the
property to them temporarily
27 it's not going to happen
Thank You miss Ola Bala if your name was called for items four and five, please approach the podium
We have not gotten to open forum. It will be after the discussion so we can allow this
The folks who signed up for four and five to approach the podium those of you who signed up for open forum
It will be called after the items four and five four discussion
Come on up if your name was called I still
Okay
Good evening council members and others and all
My name is Edwin Bergen. I am from North Oakland senior center
We wish to thank you for keeping the Center open
The Center is very important to me because I have learned new things and receive information about
services
Services and health and I need to stay alive to help me stay alive and
Be healthy such as exercise classes playing bid with mingling with other people
physical health physical health and
Socializing with other people. Thank you very much
If your name was called for item four or five, please excuse me, please approach the podium if you can
Otherwise, we do have a portable mic
we will move to the Zoom speaker starting with Kevin Dalley. I have you for two cards. You
do have two minutes. Please unmute yourself and begin your comments. All right, this is Kevin Dalley.
I want to start with a simple fix. Parking meter repair is being cut while the budget is projecting
increased parking revenue. Parking revenue is a three-legged stool. You need enforcement,
collection, and meter maintenance. Without working meters, we won't meet the target for
parking revenue. Meter repair pays for itself. Let's restore meter repair to the budget.
We also need to increase the parking dispatch positions to include evenings and weekends.
otherwise we risk violating the ADA consent decree. Parking dispatch allows anyone to report
cars blocking sidewalk, crosswalk, by-path, etc. And quickly the enforcement will be sent out but
only if parking dispatch positions are fully funded. Illegal parking happens on evenings and
weekends in addition to weekdays. To slightly address item 5, let civilianize crash reporting
with its current massive overtime. Crash reporting has the biggest police overtime
cost that can be done very well by Oak Dot rather than sworn officers. Thanks to Councilmember Wong
for encouraging funding for quick build and red light cameras and thanks to council member five
for suggesting the use of bun proceeds to increase housing. Thank you. Thank you for your comments.
Moving to the next speaker for excuse me Fatima you saw please unmute yourself and begin your
comments. I have you with two cards for two minutes. Hi my name is Fatima. I'm a resident
of district one and a member of OPL Advocates. This year for the first time in several years,
the mayor's proposed budget would fully fund the Oakland Public Library including the 14.5
million dollar maintenance of effort written into the most recent library revenue measure
Measure C. This represents a funding increase from last year which if enacted will help pay
for key service enhancements like more library staff to deliver services, $150,000 more for
for library materials budget and a new safety pilot program
for the main and MLK locations.
And we are grateful to the mayor
for supporting robust library services
for all Oakland residents.
Thank you.
Thank you for your comments.
Moving to Omar Rivera, I have you with one card.
Please unmute yourself and begin your comments.
Good afternoon, council members.
My name is Omar Rivera.
I speak on behalf of East Bay's
and local development corporation.
in strong support of Councilmember Feist's budget amendment
to include $50 million in Measure U funding
for affordable housing.
At a time when housing costs continue to rise
and state and federal housing resources remain uncertain,
local funding like Measure U is more important than ever.
A balltee just completed construction
on one of the first Measure U funded projects
at 121 East 12th Street,
and we're close to completing
our Lake Mary Bart station development,
which is also funded by Measure U.
Every local dollar invested in affordable housing
leverages additional public and private funding,
So including these measure your dollars in the next launch of affordable housing funding will ensure that the projects currently in the city's pipeline can move forward.
And that future opportunities are not lost a volunteer remains committed to partnering with the city to address Oakland's housing needs. And we are excited to support the city as it develops its next housing measure.
Given the higher pipeline demand and available measure your dollars.
Thank you, thank you for your comments. Moving to.
Blaire Beekman I have you with two cards.
Please unmute yourself and begin your comments.
Hi thank you Blaire Beekman.
Thanks a lot for this item and for the public comment today.
It's nice here on a Friday afternoon.
Interestingly for these type of meetings in the future
maybe it could be better schedules for the early
evening and get more people I would guess it's certainly
a more regular time that more people could arrive.
and make their case.
But good to hear people today.
You know with me being from San Diego we are finally
at the end of our budget issues.
I spoke every day every public meeting on the importance
of the work that you do here in Oakland towards managing
and balancing the budget with the needs of social services
and how it's so important in Oakland to work
social services first. We were practicing austerity in San Diego and ready to make
very severe budget cuts to basic programs that were just vital to you know health and human
services. We are working through that and I think we're learning important lessons from Oakland
so thank you. I hope what you're doing at this time continues the efforts of our previous city
council who I think we have to always give a great
respect to and what they were striving and working towards.
And even former Mayor Towne who I think coordinated
their efforts very well that we have a budget plan
that although as Miss Ollabahla mentioned can be difficult
and has issues we are in a place to definitely
address our social services first and that we continue
those efforts and that from that we address
the the budget deficit concerns and how you navigate
that with this new council a real good luck to yourselves.
It's a really important task you're trying to do it.
Thank you.
That's all I can say at this time. Just thank you.
Thank you Bill Ehrbeekman.
Moving to Jennifer Finley.
Please unmute yourself and begin your comments.
Hi. Good afternoon.
I will keep this brief.
I just wanted to say that there are two things going
right now that are at historic lows. We have historically low level of sworn officers and we
have historic historic low levels of crime. This has been going on for the last couple of years.
It's been ever decreasing both numbers. You know what isn't decreasing? Police oversight.
What's new right now is that they're talking about getting out of the NSA and no longer having
the federal monitor. Then we need to fund the police commission. We need you to stop trying to
conspire and take the police commission apart. We need to have them fully funded. We need to have
them with positions filled so that we can continue to have some oversight of police and not have
things fall apart if we get out of the NSA with somehow, you know, police commission.
Also just thank you Councilmember Fife for bringing forward the films and gardens initiatives. I'm
happy to hear both of them. I actually volunteer over at one of the libraries for the gardens and
absolutely love it there. It's always happy to see somebody come through and find a strawberry
or something there to eat it's uh they're absolutely delighted um anyway two very different
parts of my comment thanks very much thank you miss finley for your comments elizabeth madrigal
did you submit a card if so under what name yes have submitted a card under my name i do not have
a card for you for this item or open forum it should be i submitted one and got confirmation
yesterday did you submit a card if so under what name hello yes did you submit
a speakers card if so under what name Charles Adelson I do have a card for
you I have one card for one minute please begin your comments thank you
when the council members are running for office you said you would support
independent oversight of the police it stops corruption and saves money or did
you think we wouldn't notice the details every cut every interference every
attack we see you, your budget proposal show your agenda. You want to cut 200,000, you want to cut
200,000 dollars that gets police officers a paid administrative leave sooner. You want to cut a
position in the inspector general's office while you complain he's not doing enough even though
you only give 30% of the funding. You fund a position under the control of the city administrator
instead of genuine independent oversight. Examine the OPD budget with the same energy
You used to wage war on independent police oversight.
That's not acceptable.
Attacks on transparency and oversight
feed a low public trust in Oakland politicians.
Thank you for your time.
Thank you for your comments at this time all names have been called.
Thank you. Thank you, Madam Clerk.
If we could grant an exception to any individuals that signed up for Open Forum,
Mistakenly, but meant to comment on item four or five if they could be given their time here
What's your name? Yes, have you with one card for one minute?
Good afternoon council members. I'm Wendy Peterson with the senior services coalition
We appreciate the mayor's and the council's support for a budget that protects funding for
Contracted senior services and aging services in general. We appreciate that the mayor's budget
increases the number of hours that senior centers are open four days a week
but we really need five, five days a week. I think you've heard that. Worse, the
budget accomplishes these extra hours by robbing Peter to pay Paul by eliminating
vacant positions for two recreation specialists and ten part-time senior
aides in the senior assets program. Jobs that are sorely needed now by older
adults who need gainful employment and they also need to fulfill new job
requirements for CalFresh and Medi-Cal. We urge you to find a way to open the
senior centers five days a week, to unfreeze the senior age positions, and
to keep your obligations for contracted CBOs who are helping to keep older
Oaklanders safe and healthy. I urge you to fully fund aging services. Thank you.
So again if you sign up for open forum the chair has allowed you to speak on
the budget. Please approach the podium if you submitted a card.
I have a minute for public comment that I'd like to give them. They do excellent work. It's really important.
You don't want to hear me again. We can hear you again. You can advocate for us.
So because I signed up for open forum there is no seating of time. The chair has
I've always been gracious enough to allow you this time.
So you do have one minute to address the council.
Thank you, council members.
My name is Alma Sidego.
I'm the, you know, GCA Executive Director.
I'm from the African Resource Center.
I've been fighting for the African community for 11 years,
and then you never seen any African person come here
and asking for funding.
So the center is our senior center.
The center is our immigrant center.
The center is our housing space
that we get everything on that center.
So we have 23 houses under our organization
that is transitional housing.
So we need support.
We did it with our community, with African communities.
You don't see any Africans come here, ask for funding.
But now we're going to ask for funding
because it's been difficult for us
dealing with our community,
with all this criminal activities happening in the city.
with our housing problems, like, you know,
we have to come with our own initiative
to have transitional housing under our organization,
20 Siri houses.
So now we asking you to support our initiative.
You know, we asking help, we asking help.
You don't see any African person coming here.
And good afternoon, my name is Dr. Veronica Fuebene,
Here for the African immigrants community stabilization
and healing initiative supportive,
I am here with GCEA,
which is the Global Communication, Education and Arts
African Resource Center.
We continue to serve Auckland's African immigrants
population and we are asking the city to work with GCEA
ARC to secure, protect and heal its community
by establishing a three year African immigrant community
stabilization and healing initiative
the amount of five point seven million dollars today African immigrant
communities are one of the fastest growing segments of Oakland's black
population yet Oakland's contracting and procurement history shows that
African-American firms have received less than 1% of professional services
contracting dollars while African owned firms appear to be completely invisible
in the city's procurement data this pattern raises a serious equity question
communities are not seen, how can they be meaningfully invested in.
Council members, my name is Desmond Jeffries, also advocating for GCA, also known as African
Resource Center.
African immigrant families are navigating through violence, trauma, housing instability,
language barriers, immigration challenges, and growing uncertainty around access to health
care, food assistance, and employment authorizations.
These pressures affect the community safety and family stability.
The African Resource Center responds to these needs every day through legal navigation,
medical enrollment, CalFresh assistance, workforce support, civic engagement, housing stabilization
services.
Last year alone, the African Resource Center served more than 1,700 individuals, reached
over 25,000 community members and housed 84 individuals and helped more than 900 people
access, medical enrollment, and re-enrollment.
Please help the African Resource Center.
Ute, I'm here to oblige GCEA because African immigrant
families need trusted cultural responsive healing
supports in Oakland.
Many families carry trauma from war,
displacement, prosecution, family separation, racism,
and community violence.
But mental health services are often
hard to assess because of language barriers, stigma, and lack of cultural
family providers. GCEA already has the trust of the
community. That is why I support GCEA's request for a cultural responsive
therapist, lega, negative, and community case managers. Investing in GCEA means
investing in healing prevention and safety for Oakland's African immigrant
community thank you. Hello how are you this time and I hope you are I wish you
the best we are here all of us for something God are here for something so
we can improve Oakland at large our community African we live in the east
east, deep east, we live in the west, we live in northern and central downtown.
Today I am speaking from the deepest of my heart. I have lived in Oakland 30
years. In North Oakland 25 years. I do not drive, I see Oakland in its beauty.
cultural over 40 years have developed into multicultural that we are part of
this open the philosophy of open to from South Africa simply mean I am because
we are we embody thank you ma'am your time is up thank you ma'am your time is
expired. Good afternoon my name is Dr. Joy, I am here to uplift GCEA because it
is one of the trusted organizations African immigrants, immigrant families
turned to when our communities experience crisis, loss and fear. The
death of Aaron Ayo deeply impacted the Eritrean and broader East African
community. His hanging created grief, fear and unanswered questions. Many
community members felt there was no meaningful public response from city
leadership, no visible outreach and no coordinated supports.
Except from council members, Jannani's office, that silence showed why GCEA matters.
Violence prevents more—
Thank you, ma'am. Your time has expired.
My name is Dr. Jeffrey Nyakatuku Añeine.
I am here to support the GCEA
because many families are struggling with housing, medical, renewals,
health fresh assets, immigration fees, unemployment barriers, and changing federal policies.
GCEA helps families navigate these systems to trust their relationships, language access, legal navigation,
benefits support, and housing stabilization.
The work, that work is violence prevention.
That is what we do here.
Where families can stay housed, assess healthcare,
feed their children, understand their rights,
communities become safer.
We ask you, the city, as a city to invest in GCEA
as part of Oakland's Violence Prevention Infrastructure.
Thank you, God bless.
Thank you for the gift of time, counsel.
I'm not going to read this.
I come before you as a servant who appreciates anyone who exercises due diligence to serve
with a greater good.
And this organization beyond a shadow or doubt is exemplary of being due diligent and manifesting.
When we deal with domestic violence, domestic violence is inequities.
It is disparities.
It is a lack of funding to provide fundamental things that we deserve as human beings.
Right now, if you guys do not render funding to support this organization, you would have
unintentionally perpetrated domestic violence that creates the emotional turbulence that
seeks the overall trajectory of Oakland that we do not want to manifest and want to circumvent.
That can be circumvented by partnering and collaborating with this phenomenal organization
that helps citizens navigate the terrain and become stable
and complementary contributory citizens
who dwell here for the greater good.
Please support this organization.
Thank you so.
Thank you for your comments.
Moving back to Elizabeth Madrigal, we found your card.
Please unmute yourself and begin your comments.
Elizabeth Madrigal, please unmute yourself
and begin your comments.
Good afternoon, my name is Elizabeth Madrigal and I'm a policy manager with MIT Pen Housing.
We're a non-profit developer, manager, and fighter of affordable housing and onsite residence
services throughout the northern part of the state.
In the city of Oakland, we have 469 homes and five properties, along with 88 more in
the pipeline of 1707 Wood Street and Councilmember Fife's district.
We applaud the amendments that have been put forth
by Council President Jenkins,
as well as council members Ramachandran, Unger, Brown,
and Fife to add 50 million measure you bond funds
for affordable housing.
Our team greatly appreciates and wavering support
this council has demonstrated
and continues to demonstrate for affordable housing.
Thank you.
Thank you for your comments.
Crystal for Powell, please unmute yourself
and begin your comments.
Crystal. Good afternoon.
Thank you.
Chris Powell and I represent Outfront Foster Interstate. Today you are balancing a budget
shortfall, including cutting services that will impact communities served by the Native American
Health Center, Asian Health Services, La Clinica de la Raza, and Baywell Health. Yet next Tuesday
you will be asked to allow Becker Boards, an Arizona-based company, to renegotiate its
billboard deal in a way that cuts guaranteed funding to those same clinics by two-thirds.
you cannot cut services today and then pull funds from the nonprofits that fill the gap next week.
This has direct budget consequences for Oakland and it deserves a full committee hearing,
an independent audit and financial review, not a rush consent vote next week that shields an
out-of-state company's profit margins from public scrutiny. Further, it is publicly known that Becker
may be selling its Oakland assets at some point, so all of Becker's empty promises and goodwill
are likely worth less than they appear. So please keep that in mind next week on June 16th.
Thank you for your comments Leslie Smith. Please unmute yourself and begin your comments.
Hi my name is Leslie Smith. I'm a commissioner with the mayor's commission of aging.
I urge you to find a way to open senior centers fully and without affecting the assets programs
for seniors aged and other senior services making older adults a priority for Oakland.
Social connections are a heartbeat of human existence when we don't provide an opportunity for social connections
We have loneliness leading to more illness and dying younger
How tragic it would be to spend millions on health emergencies social crises mental breakdowns and necessarily when we have the solution before us
I urge you to find a way to open the senior centers full-time without cutting the
Senior AIDS or the other senior services. Thank you very much
Thank you for your comments just so there's no one miss I'm going to read the names of the
Remaining cards who have not approached the podium if you're on zoom raise your hand if you are in chambers
And you wish to speak please
approach the podium
Pamela Drake
Katherine Sternbeck
Abra Levine Mary Ferron
Faith Kirkpatrick if your name was called if you're in the room or in one zone
Please approach the podium or raise your hand. Otherwise at this time all names have been called all speakers have spoken
Thank you
Okay. Thank you. I
Would like to proceed first with the vote of item five, which is the declaration of fiscal necessity before
Returning to item four, which are the amendments if council colleagues are open to that. I will make a motion some moves
with the friendly amendment to remove measure any reference to measure you as our
Amendment all amendment proposals on the table fulfill the requirements for measure you for this fiscal year
Q sorry. Yes
Bring the amendment except it
And there was for item number five
There was a motion by Council President Jenkins seconded by council member fight to approve item five as amended as stated
By the chair Ramachandran removing any reference to measure Q on roll council member Brown
I council member fight. I council member guy. Oh, no
Perhaps we'll have six unions that we have to negotiate with and also we haven't addressed the issue
Why do I have eight hundred and thirty eight vacancies today when I approved those a year ago?
Thank you. So my vote is no
With the no vote from councilmember Gayle councilmember Houston. Yes councilmember
Unger
Yes
councilmember
Wong
yes, and
Councilmember council president Jenkins. I and chair Ramachandran
to you.
Item number five is approved
with seven ayes and one no.
That as amended that now takes
us to item back to item number
four.
Thank you council president
Jenkins yeah so this is my
fourth year on council on
senior member of city council
and just absolutely embarrassed
that our seniors have to come
here and do the song and dance
that we can support our seniors
in their golden years and
councilmember Houston I want to
just absolutely apply to you for.
Wanting to extend the hours.
Every single year they come here.
Every single year and we do this
again and again and again and I
think it's time for us to put our
heads together and figure out how
we can support our seniors going
forward.
So with that I want to change the
allocation the sugar sweetened
beverage and the food and the
the sugar sweetened beverage from two hundred and fifty thousand dollars to
owe USD to fifty thousand dollars going to owe USD and two hundred thousand
dollars going to support our seniors and we need to continue to work to support
our seniors. Oh secondarily secondarily secondarily secondarily please for those
speaking out of turn you're out of order please respect the speaker yeah when
the seniors were here it was clap clap clap clap clap but secondarily we need
to take care of democracy dollars and we need to figure out what we're gonna do
with it because every year the fiscal necessity is going to be a challenge and
we need to figure out are we gonna fund the four million dollars a year or we
gonna go back to the voters and figure out a long-term funding source so it's
imperative for us to work on that thank you chair thank you
Yes, Council Member Calderon.
Through the Chair, this is a real difficult situation or just, it's hard work, it's hard
work what we have to do, we have to make decisions.
Council Member Fife said something to me that she cares about the seniors, I care about
the seniors and you care about the seniors, we care about our children, right?
And Council Member Brown, they worked hard on this and you have Council Member Janani
and Unger.
You guys worked hard on this, right?
And it's a balance.
It's a balance.
And it's like, school should not be our problem.
But it is, right?
And I went to Castle Mine, and I'm
saying that it might be because I went there,
and I graduated from there.
And I see the roads in front of my school.
It's just horrible, right?
It's horrible.
It's embarrassing to say that I went to that school,
but I'm going to stand 10 toes down and continue
to say I went there.
I'm Purple Knight all day long, East Oakland.
So when I say that, when I say that,
it's very, very difficult.
When I'm a take your lead, you know,
cause we all, we're working together.
We're working together like Council Member Fyfe said,
we should be doing this for the seniors, is she right?
And it's $50,000 enough to do that, that water fountain.
I guess that, you know, but being a plumber by trade,
I'm gonna have to get over there and help
and solder some pipe and put some stuff in
and I will do that too, just like I'll remove cars
and stuff off the streets, right?
I ain't scared.
So I thank everyone, and I thank you, Councilmember Brown,
for working so hard on everything.
Janani, Councilmember Unger, and Councilmember Fife,
thank you for just putting that in my ear.
I appreciate it,
because we gotta protect our seniors to the max, right?
So thank you for giving me that opportunity to speak.
Thank you, Councilmember Fife and Wong.
I do wanna follow up through the chair
to Director Johnson because I asked you a little while earlier I wanted to find out
if you got the information about the assets program because I did challenge Council Member
Houston and I recognize the complicated nature of managing city finances and I pushed him
by saying the Oakland Unified School District has a budget, they pass a facilities bond
And they, I don't know how they're managing those facilities.
McClymonds just today is breaking ground.
I miss their brown-breaking ceremony
for their facilities project that has been stalled for years.
So I don't know, 2020, I don't know what is happening
with OUSD, but it is unconscionable
that our babies are drinking lead
and we wonder why they're fighting at first Friday, right?
And, at the same time, we need to hold OUSD accountable
for what they're doing with their budget.
Councilmember Gayle talks about it all the time,
so while we're in a budget crisis,
I find it very difficult to support financially what other
public agencies are doing if they're,
if they're mismanaging their budgets.
I'm troubled by that.
And I know, I heard our seniors,
I had two senior centers here.
I am the elected representative of the Downtown Oakland Senior Center and the West Oakland
Senior Center.
West Oakland has not been opened.
It's so behind schedule.
And they're talking about not being able to feed seniors.
I'm concerned about the senior food program.
And hopefully the program I'm putting together today, the pilot program will be able to help
assist with getting food out to these seniors.
It's the fastest growing population in the city of Oakland, and we are not serving them.
So even though 250,000, 200,000 is a drop in the bucket, it's more than they anticipated
getting today.
And so I want to see what we can do to support those seniors.
And then we need to go back to the school board.
And we might need to be going to some school board meetings and meeting with our counterparts
for District 3 and District 7 about how our babies are being served.
Thank you, council member Wong, then council member Houston.
I apologize.
Thank you.
One small but substantive amendment I also wanted to make just looking through the full
pack.
I'm sorry.
That was my fault.
Please raise your hand again.
So for, this is for page 14 on measure U, the bond proceeds going to affordable housing,
which I'm totally on board with.
I just want to add a small amendment
to say affordable housing
in addition to interim shelter
because these are the rapidly deployable projects.
You know, this is, these are the motel conversions.
These are the things that can get people indoors quickly.
And I just want to ensure that Measure U
has interim shelters and the capital
for interim shelters and eligible expense.
I just want to make sure that our amendments reflect that
and leave that open as a possibility.
Councilmember Houston.
Through the chair, mine's just a comment,
and I'm gonna say this,
I like working with all you guys.
I really do, ladies and gentlemen,
I really like and enjoy it,
and I like when Councilmember President push me,
I like being challenged, Councilmember Fife,
because it helps me grow, no, it helps me grow.
I appreciate everybody, that's what I like to say then.
Thank you, Councilmember Houston.
Councilmember Brown.
Excellent, I did have an inquiry
the finance director about the public speakers mentioning the reduction in I
think it was ten senior aides I think under the assets assets program can we
get some more clarity on that one I believe maybe it's a federally funded
program but if you just wanted to state on the record yes so there's the asset
program is a federally funded program and it's in some sense being impacted by
that there was an ad delete proposed I got the full details on this and this is
also to Councilmember Feif's question which I know she asked me I think a
chance to there was a proposal by Human Services to add delete some of those
positions for an admin assistant position and that was done in the budget
so there's no net reduction from that however adding back the assets program
should you wish to do it would be at a cost of $175,000 okay excellent thank you
so much and then I think also just wanted to say out loud that as we were
working so diligently on the budget.
One of the things that was really identified
when looking for ongoing sources of revenue,
we found gaps in providing ongoing revenue
to our senior centers, recreational centers,
and also technology.
So through the chair to Bradley,
did I hit that spot on where those gaps were?
Yes.
Right, and so then on that note,
then those things continue to come from the general fund.
And so if we wanna try to really holistically solve
this shortfall that we continue to have
with recreational centers, senior centers,
and we all know that we need improved technology,
that that is our kind of our charge in the next year,
so to figure out how to create an ongoing funding source
for those things.
Thank you council member.
I would like to put forward a motion that combines several
of the directives and amendments that today,
I will first start with the policy directives
to include all of Council Member Fife's,
the two that was previously not included as well.
The amendment from Council Member Houston
regarding senior centers and exploring funding.
two minor amendments from the city administrator's office request for the report on cultural
facilities bond measure to come back in October, 2027 rather than May, 2027, an amendment for
the report on updates to the public safety committee on the side of civilianization
to be at the very least twice a year and those are the part
of my motion that references policy directive amendments.
The second part of my motion are amendments
to the budget spreadsheet and I'll start with 1010.
We would like to include, and actually K-Top,
are you able to put up the spreadsheet please?
Or we will take a second to get that done.
Okay, so these, if we can go, oh, do I have the quicker?
Yes, okay, so starting with the amendments to 10-10.
We have a total of five changes
from the published set of amendments on the budget team.
First and foremost, to amendment one.
Okay, I can't scroll down some,
I guess you can scroll on that screen for me.
It is the addition of Council Member Wong's position
regarding human trafficking, an ELDE for human trafficking
and other penalties for enforcement,
a one year position to assist with that enforcement.
That's the first amendment.
The second amendment in Fund 1010 as well
is the increased funding for the film incentive funding,
program that would go towards administering a contract to an outside
agency that is that is left at that for now the third amendment is on the
sugar sweet beverage tax page if we can switch tabs please there the third
amendment comes from council member five's recommendation of the community
garden food pilot for an ELD program analyst as well. The next amendment is to
it's I apologize that's that is there's a second amendment to the sugar sweet
and beverage tax page and that is rephrasing what council president just
said moving $50,000 for a grant for OUSD for safe water accessed and in and
And adding $200,000 for senior wellness programs and other senior center related funding.
So that $250,000 that was originally to OUSD is being split up into $50,000 and $200,000
for seniors.
The last, the Fifth Amendment, if we can go to measure Q page, 2444, thank you.
And that is for also the recommendation from Council Member Fife for the garden program
if we can scroll down a little. Thank you, and that's the Garden Food
Pilot Program, ELDE, and because of the way Measure Q funding works, there is a
complementary increase in some of the other line items to stay in accordance
with the mandate of Measure Q. So those are the five amendments to the
spreadsheet and policy directives and I will make that motion second
No worries I would like to if we can and I know this meeting has gone on for quite some time I
Would like to understand
what the body's
Desire is around civilian oversight
because I think we have to have a public conversation about whether we want it or we don't and
And if we do, then the narrative needs to be clarified
for the community because it appears
that we are trying to eliminate it.
So my addition of the item that is not included
in the amendments is of deep concern to me.
And I wanna say that I'm deeply grateful
for all of the additions that were made,
especially my on the floor amendments that were made today.
but this really, this is really difficult for me to accept
this SIPRA item when I'm just adding back,
attempting to add back one position that was funded.
So I, if we could, if I could get an understanding
of how this body is thinking
about fulfilling the mandated requirements of Measure LL
and the will of the voters, I would really appreciate that.
That could, that's gonna help me understand
how i should vote on this budget today
so i i i guess through the chair
council president jim so absolutely and i i have deep appreciation for what you
were saying and civilian oversight as we are on the
cusp of
getting out of
the uh...
in a second
and i went to court and councilmember houston was there
and the judge was ranting a raving about the mayor the job chief beer is doing
the job the our uh... constitutional policing administrator is doing
just absolutely ranting and raving.
And you're right, Oakland residents overwhelmingly
support civilian oversight.
I think, paramount to that, we have
to be fiscal stewards with the taxpayer dollars
in adding a position to SIPRA that with one time funding
would be a real challenge for me.
I voted for a budget.
I included the Coliseum sale at one point in time.
And that was one time money that never materialized.
So if we're going to fund CIPRA, we should fund them.
We should find the funding source to absolutely fund CIPRA.
I absolutely agree with you.
But as I said before, the challenge is,
CIPRA has never hired as many positions
as they're budgeted for, never.
So we add this position and there's still
going to be vacancies there.
So there is some deep searching that we need to do
with the CIPRA director to figure out how we better,
they're independent, how we can better aid them
in getting these positions hired.
And so I agree with you, we need to find positions,
but if we're going to find out a one-time cost
and maybe the position might be filled,
maybe it won't, we're gonna be at this next year
because it's one-time cost.
I hear you and I don't wanna have this huge back and forth
because I see where you're coming from.
I see where you're coming from.
I don't agree with where you're coming from
because we have over 800 vacancies
and we don't apply that same logic
to the vacancies in other departments,
particularly the Oakland Police Department.
So if we're going to,
if we apply that same logic to say open spaces
for our training programs,
then, you know, we wouldn't allow these vacancies
to continue or we would do more
to ensure that academies were full.
And if not, then we wouldn't apply.
If we know that we're gonna have 10, 15, 17 cadets
that actually graduate out of the police academies,
then maybe we wouldn't budget as much
for the police academies.
And we could use those salary savings
or those budgetary savings in other places.
So if we're gonna, and maybe the position is
that some logic doesn't apply to other places
that it does with some places.
I'm not exactly sure but it seems like it fluctuates depending on which department we're
talking about.
We have a civilian population that is from their words not mine on the verge of striking
because we're not looking at all of the dollars equitably and one department and I'm greatly
appreciative of the leadership of Chief Beer because things have happened for vulnerable
populations in my district that I haven't seen happen the entire time I've been in office.
I've had area captains lie.
I've had them spread misinformation about council being responsible for certain things
and others and under Chief Beers' leadership.
Those things have changed.
So I recognize the importance of the roles that leadership in OPD plays and the roles
that they play in Oakland.
And at the same time, the scrutiny
is not there in the same way that it is for other departments.
And so while that is in question,
I think we still need to hold space for a civilian oversight.
And maybe this needs to be agendized for a public safety
committee meeting.
Happy to do that.
But if we're going to not do this in the budget today,
then I need the assurances of this body
that we are going to dig into
what civilian oversight means for the city of Oakland.
And the few, like moving forward, this is a mid-cycle.
I was conservative about my mid-cycle budget amendments
because it's a mid-cycle, it's not the biennial.
So I didn't go crazy, but you best believe,
I swear to God, if y'all want my vote today,
then I need a commitment from everyone around this dais
that we're going to dive deep
into the Oakland Police Department budget
to figure out what we need to do differently.
So council member absolutely I would open would love the chance to work on
that with you. I look deeply into our civilian oversight and consider myself
knowledgeable about it and want to continue gaining knowledge on it and so
you have my commitment that I will work with you on looking at efficiencies
within our biggest budget is OPD and as long as we have ongoing revenue sources
I'm right there with you. Can I get that commitment then from the chair of Public
Safety and the vice chair of Public Safety as well? You want that in writing? I do want that in writing. In blood.
Thank you councilmember Wong. Yeah I mean absolutely you have my commitment. I just I want to do it
responsibly. I want to do it in ways that are not also going to drive away, you know,
some of our, you know, just our current staffing challenges, right? And I want to make sure
that we're able to do this in a way that is just responsible. But you have my commitment
absolutely to do this. And, yeah, I'll say that. So let's talk after this. I also just
have some questions. I appreciate the budget team for the inclusion of the Human Trafficking
Amendment, but I do have questions around why my amendments around 2230 and 2416 are
not included. These are revenue sources that there is revenue that remains in those sources,
and so I need an explanation in order to earn my yes vote. I really do, because I think
traffic safety is absolutely public safety. We cannot pretend like what's
happening on our streets the number of traffic collisions that are happening
are not a crisis and I need to understand why the funding allocations
that are really around slowing down the driving right with quick and urgent with
quick and urgent ways to slow that down are not going to be included so I need a
response to that.
Thank you.
Are there any other speakers?
Councilmember Houston.
Yes, I'm through the chair.
I want to speak about what Councilmember Fyfe said as vice chair of public safety.
Educate me a little bit more.
Just I needed more education on civilian oversight.
I'm going to talk to talk to you, talk to Rowena, talk to everyone about it, even my
city attorney because he always gives me the good advice.
So yes, I work with you.
We're here this evening.
Are we done voting on the four and five?
Because I mean, if we can talk odd, I remember, I have six unions we've got to settle with,
and it's going to cost us millions.
And also, I have 800 and some vacancies that we approved last year, but we never filled
them.
I can't get my streets cleaned, man.
I can't buy my trucks.
I can't take care of law enforcement to help me on the street, but we're going to sit here
and do a lot more talking.
And so I need to have a management budget that's clear
before I start approving all these other things.
I'm gonna do this, do that over here,
and then I wind up once again with the public,
well, I can't take care of your street
because I don't have the money.
And I just don't wanna make the mistake
that other cities, they go bankrupt.
And we're right now discussing, making agreements,
But you don't know what you have in terms of money.
Because we haven't settled the biggest challenge,
and that's gonna be settling your union contracts,
fire department, police department,
and all the other unions that we gotta settle,
and that's not gonna be a 25 cents deal
that we gotta come up with.
We're gonna have to find out what can I do additionally
for a service once I take care of my employees.
Call the question.
And so anyway, so I'm ready.
There was a motion by Council Member Ramachandran,
seconded by Council Member Jenkins
with the amendments read into record.
Council Member Brown?
Aye.
Council Member Fife?
Aye.
Council Member Gallo?
Council Member Houston?
Aye.
Council Member Unger?
Aye.
Council Member Wong?
Council Member Wong?
She keeps pressing the button so I can't unmute her.
Councilmember Wong.
I didn't get a response to my question
and I just think that that is required
for a truly inclusive process, so no.
Councilmember, Council President Jenkins.
Aye.
And Councilmember Ramachandran.
Aye.
Motion passes with a vote of six ayes,
two nos, Gayo and Wong.
Moving to, I apologize a note to the parliamentarian.
Please go ahead.
Okay, so just to clarify for the public,
The way this final legislation will appear
is that the amended budget spreadsheet
that was displayed will show up as exhibit one
to the resolution.
The mid-cycle policy directives that were printed up
and circulated will show up as exhibit two
and my office will make some technical edits
to the resolutions to make sure
that those exhibits are reflected.
Thank you.
Thank you, we're on to council member announcements
and then after that open forum.
And again, if you took your open forum comments
during item four and five, your card has been removed.
Thank you.
No announcements?
Are there any comments or announcements?
If not, we can move to public speakers.
Movements to open forum.
As I call your name, please approach the podium
in any order.
Please state your name for the record before beginning.
If you are on Zoom, please raise your hand
so I can easily identify you.
Blair Beekman,
Jennifer Finley,
Barbara Tangeri Kevin Dally, missus, I don't love ala Millie Cleveland and janks
Pamela Drake
Meenakuchi
John Jones the third Carlos Soto
And Michael Muscadine in any order again Desmond and the lady behind you
You've already had your opportunity to speak if you can allow those who signed up for open forum to give public comment
we're just a few minutes.
We have a member actually that
we want to clear up something
that we spoke on regarding
council member Janani Jum
Ramahandran and that was a miss
it was unclear.
So I really wanted to get a
chance to clarify that statement
and also I also want to take
Dende Yame he submitted a card
in open forum and you've already had your opportunity to speak so we don't
get two times we could only speak once that's not that's incorrect if you allow
the speakers who signed up to speak to open forum to give public comment as I
stated when you gave comment before the chair was generous and allowed you to
speak during open forum when you did not submit a card for items four or five so
So if you can allow the names who signed up to speak for open forum to give public comment,
please.
I apologize.
Mr. Desmond, you are out of order.
There are public speakers waiting to speak kindly, allow them to.
Thank you.
I'll call the names again, Blair Beekman, Jennifer Finley, Ms. Barbara Tangieri, Kevin
the third. I'm going to start
and I'm not the only one back
here.
So what that means for me is I'm
always willing to extend that
grace because there is a real
learning curve that has to take
place here.
And I just want to admit it's
frustrating as a community
member to hear all the important
things that need to be funded,
go through a level of scrutiny
that never happens with OPD.
And I'm not here to debate the
merits of the department as much
as for you all.
I think it's crucial that this
body works with the city
really real in how they exceed the overtime. Thirty one million dollars and
we're talking about two hundred thousand here, fifty thousand there. So I want to
encourage you all really have the courage, I understand it's difficult but
we need you, the city needs you all to hold that piece accountable in order to
make sure these other services can receive these other programs can receive
the funding that they need. So I just want to encourage you on your leadership
and we're standing behind you, but please take care of that. Because that's been a historic problem. So it's not your fault, but now you're tasked with dealing with that reality. So again, thank you for your leadership.
Through the chair, Ms. Jenks, before you begin, Teresa, I need you to take over the chair so the clock shows. Go ahead, Ms. Jenks.
So, you just decided to take money away from clean water for kids to give it to the seniors.
You know, I've got to say, the seniors care about kids.
I'm not sure that they wanted that money to come from clean water for the kids, but this
is what happens when you don't address your big budget items.
You don't look at the OPD budget.
You leave everybody scrambling over scraps and you have seniors begging to take money
from clean water for kids.
what you do. People aren't confused about your positions on independent civilian oversight.
We watch what you do and that what you do is ongoing attacks on independent civilian
oversight. You cut $200,000 from SIPRA that would shorten paid administrative leave for
OPD officers. You cut a position in the IG, gave it to the OPD, but you can't find money
for a SIPRA position. It's too late for there to be fiscal responsibility in terms of the
No PD budget, because you're passing a budget.
The time to be fiscally responsible was any time before.
Me and Akuchi, they weren't able to,
they want to speak against and make a correction.
So I'm gonna do that for them and do my own statement.
So I'm here to uplift GCAA,
because GCAA is one of the trusted organizations
African immigrant families turn to
when our communities experience crisis, loss, and fear.
The death of Aaron Ayo, deeply impacted the atrian
and broader East African community.
his hanging created grief, fear, and unanswered questions.
Many community members felt there was no meaningful
public response from city leadership,
no visible outreach, and no coordinated support
except from council member Janani's office.
That was their statement, thank you.
I just want to say as well that it is ridiculous
that we are choosing between clean water for our children
and services for our seniors.
When we are talking about an overtime budget
of thirty one million dollars with the opd
that is just ridiculous and i also last point that i want to make it
is the amount of investment the city has made into tech contracts
millions of dollars
thank you for your comments your time is that
uh... milly cleveland i'm just encouraging you to be more responsible
in the future for example
twenty two of thirty eight positions could be
civilian eyes out of internal affairs the reason why this
I don't think the police department was in NSA for twenty years is because everybody
and their mother knows that the police can investigate themselves and the plan is to
move internal affairs into SIPRA.
But what did this council do?
It waited a whole year before they even asked the city administrator for status on the work
group that was supposed to be established for that transition.
I strongly encourage you to start asking the city administrator for status reports on stuff
that you pass and not wait years later only to find out it's too late.
The water issue at OUSD, they have three measures, measures J, B and Y. It is not water bottles
being given to those kids. They have to change the pipes, the letters in the pipes. I want
We give a shout out to the three black-owned nail businesses in Oakland, Lee's Nails,
Gland House Nails, and Saunders and James Nail Care.
We got one beauty store here in Oakland, Essence Beauty Stores.
Support them.
Lastly, what's going on in South Africa?
Find out what's going on in South Africa.
They're claiming the people who are from South Africa that illegal immigrants are taking
their jobs.
It's all a whole lot of chaos going on.
They're beating up people.
I don't wanna beat up nobody in Oakland,
but it is a problem when people come in your community
and take the jobs and you are 10% of the unemployed.
My time's almost up.
I'm gonna give y'all five minutes of free time.
Thank you, Ms. Olavala.
Moving to the Zoom speaker, Blair Beekman,
please unmute yourself and begin your comments.
All right, thank you, Blair Beekman.
I've been working towards tech accountability,
best practices in San Jose and Oakland since 2014.
12 years now.
I've also lived my past four years in San Diego
doing the same work.
San Diego and its own strong mayor system
is in a similar situation as Oakland.
My previous public comments here have tried to report
San Diego already has a well established
and well liked IBA system,
but it's not helping to better organize
the city services at this point.
And why San Diego is also looking to improve
its current strong mayor system.
But interestingly, I feel that this is Oakland's
time in trying to develop an IVA accountant and fiscal facilitator. Maybe a new IVA office can
actually be enough to create the organization and good governance Oakland needs at this time.
Overall, I'm simply not in favor of the current Oakland Strong Mayor voter initiative,
but I hope both Oakland and San Diego current strong mayor questions are a work in progress
and our communities can work together to figure out better bureaucratic organization and governance.
Thanks for the meeting today and good luck what we can be doing in Oakland. Thank you.
Thank you Mr. Beekman. Jennifer, you are next. Please unmute yourself and begin your comments.
Hi, Jennifer Finley. Absolutely yes, interrogate OPD spending. Make sure there's some discussion
about who is in charge of that and who manages that conversation. Something similar recently
went to committee and rather than going to public safety like it was initially intended, it went to
to the Finance Committee and that was the Chair of the Public Safety Committee Wang,
who wanted to be able to avoid, so that she could avoid pushing back on the OPA, in order
to avoid having to push back on OPD and their union, Chair of Public Safety Committee, had
the item deliberately scheduled to finance committee
where it would be dismissed by council president.
Thank you, Ms. Stanley for your comments.
Your time was up at this time.
All names have been called.
Okay, since there were no announcements,
this meeting is adjourned.