Good afternoon and welcome to the Community and Economic Development Committee meeting
of Tuesday, June 23rd, 2026.
The time is now 1.35.
Before taking roll, I will provide instructions on how to submit speaker cards for access
and chamber and would like to submit a speaker card.
Please fill one out and turn one into myself or a clerk representative no later than 10
minutes after the start of this meeting or before the item is read into record, whichever
occurs first.
I want to speak via Zoom is now due 20.
Excused, Council Member Rama, members present one excuse.
Chair, before we begin,
do you have any announcements at this time?
Yes, so first off, thank you, everyone.
We have several important items for consideration today.
I did wanna begin by extending a warm welcome to my owner,
so I wanted to welcome Sanai from Stanford University,
as well as Jakari from Southern University,
which will be, they will be with us for the summer
and so hopefully everyone can greet them
and engage with them during their journey
in the at-large office.
You gotta raise your hand.
Excellent.
Council Member Ramachandran,
did you have an announcement as well?
I do, I also wanted to welcome the interns in my office,
Erin and Nalyn from Cal, thank you.
So welcome.
And so then also in addition,
to ensure that our meeting stays on schedule
with all of the committee meetings
to follow public comment to just one.
In addition, I wanted to make sure
that council member five is here for item number three.
So three, five, and then six.
Okay, thank you.
Thank you, noting the modifications
to the agenda to hear items.
One, two, four, with item one,
approval of the draft minutes in 26 and there excellent thank you so much
colleague so moved thank you we have a motion made by Councilmember Unger
seconded by Councilmember Ramachandran to approve the draft minutes from the
committee meeting of June 9th 2026 also noting the presence of Councilmember
five at 138 p.m. on rule to approve the draft minutes council members five aye
I'm a chandrin I hunger I and chair Brown I thank you item for sorry item number one nation of scheduled outstanding committee items and we have
excellent we can
Through to the administration any changes to the chair none
Excellent and we can hear from the public speakers and Blair Beekman. I
We're gonna have a discussion that will have some detail all around code enforcement and I want to remind you about the go ship fly
I think that we need to see.
Failure for failure for city to
take responsibility for your
drains the Coliseum connection.
Unit and almost over the
developer when the correct I
need to see a report on the
Lau family program motel see
what's going on when you go on
line.
I need to see and I'll go into
deeper discussion of the step.
In today I'm listening in on
my speaker cards as needed and I may or may not raise my hand but I'll be
listening and attending thanks for the meeting today thank you for your
comments chair that concludes all speakers on this item excellent thank
you so much second thank you we have a motion made by councilmember Unger
seconded by councilmember Ramachandran to accept the determination of scheduled
outstanding committee items as is on roll council members five aye
And chair Brown I asked you to accept the determination of
schedules of outstanding committee items as is excellent
as ins of councilmember five and in staff that potentially have
other conflicts will go ahead and pursue property and in all of
the agenda items as scheduled thank you number three adopted
resolution negotiate and execute an exclusive negotiation
agreement with Costco wholesale corporation for development
with Costco wholesale corporation for development of a Costco store on city
property located at 101 Admiral Robert Tony way and 2308 wake Avenue for a 24
month term condition on a $300,000 exclusive negotiation payment with two
additional six month administrative extensions each conditioned on payment
of an additional 25 bitting under Oakland municipal code chapter 2.42 and
adopting California Environmental Quality Act bindings and we have a couple handful of speakers that sign up
Excellent. Thank you so much
And so I'll go ahead and turn things over to councilmember five
Followed by comments from the office of the mayor and then a brief presentation from our EWD team
Thank You chair. Could you clarify?
What you meant by us not or potentially having to leave oh
I was waiting to have to hear this item until you arrived
And so I had switched the agenda, but we just switched it back. Okay. Thank you
Well, I appreciate the opportunity to speak. Honestly
I really don't have much to add on top of what the
Infrared reports in the packet have to say but I did want to first and foremost
say thank you to our real estate team who has worked tirelessly on the direction given by this body
several months ago to negotiate an ENA or an exclusive negotiating agreement with the
individuals from Costco. This is a major step forward in a process towards attracting this retail giant and
the money that Oakland loses to
Shoppers who live in oakland but go outside of the city to spend their dollars is
immense and a report done several years ago at that time estimated that it's upwards of one billion dollars a year that
People who live in oakland spend outside of the city. So not only will this project bring in desperately needed
Revenue to the city that we're spending as oaklanders in other places. Anyway, it's also slated to bring in hundreds of jobs
good paying jobs and retail that will attract other businesses to the city of Oakland who are
looking for that anchor that shows that Oakland is serious about its business and so again I'm
grateful for all of the individuals who attended the monthly town halls that my office sponsored
so Brendan Moriarty has been a treasure to work with I want to give a shout out to Chuck Johnson
who also was at Chuck Johnson who was also... Baker. Why am I thinking about
Soul Beat right now y'all? Chuck Baker, I apologize, who was on the panel and
answered lots of questions from the community to the mayor's office who's
also been really supportive and my colleagues who you know saw the the
benefit in moving this forward forward several months ago. This is the first
step so hopefully I can get unanimous support of it leaving committee and
going to the full City Council for our entire body to deliberate on but you
know I want you all to let the community know everybody doesn't agree that we
need a Costco or we should even have a Costco but the importance of this
process is to engage in the democratic process so I encourage all voices
whatever side that you fall on to let your voice be known to this body and the
full city council when it comes forward, and I am done talking. Thank you all.
Excellent. Thank you so much, and I believe the office of the mayor. Thank
you, Chair Brown, Preston Kilgore, W chief of staff to Mayor Barbara Lee. Thank you,
Councilmember Phy for your comments. So on behalf of Mayor Barbara Lee, I'm pleased
to be here today in support of this exclusive negotiation agreement with
Costco Wholesale Corporation. This ENA, as the speakers will share briefly,
is gives Oakland the opportunity to explore a transformative economic development project
that could, as the report mentions, create approximately $3 million in annual general
fund revenue, which is critical, create around potentially 400 high quality jobs with competitive
wages and benefits and provide Oakland residents with a locally accessible source of affordable
groceries, gas and other goods all aligned in the report.
The mayor would like to recognize and thank council member Fife for her leadership and
hosting multiple community meetings, I believe four specifically, and giving residents a
real voice in this progress and an ear as well.
Huge thank you also to the city administrator's office, the real estate team, economic and
workforce development, planning, building, finance, and the city attorney's office for
their work and bring this resolution for, or this ENA forward.
And again, this ENA is not a final approval.
It is the continued continuation of a serious structured conversation and the mayor looks
forward to that work, to that work continuing on behalf of Oakland residents.
So thank you all again and I'll hand it over to Kelly Khan, Assistant Director at EWD.
Thank you all.
Good afternoon Chair Brown and CED members.
I'm Kelly Khan.
I'm the Assistant Director of Economic and Workforce Development.
Thank you to Council Member Fife and Mayor Lee for your sponsorship of this item.
I'm pleased to be here just to open the item,
which is seeking approval of an ENA for Costco,
consistent with Council's direction last December.
And I wanted to first just provide some quick context
on where we are in the process,
and then I'm gonna hand it to my colleague, Brendan Moriarty,
to present the details of the item.
So before you today is the ENA,
Exclusive Negotiating Agreement,
which is the first step, as Council Member Fife said,
in the process to bring a new Costco to Oakland,
and with its significant economic and community benefit.
Today, though, is not the approval of a specific project
or a binding real estate transaction yet.
Rather, the ENA provides time, in this case up to 12 months,
for the city and Costco to commence focused negotiations
around the terms of a ground lease,
and for Costco to undertake community outreach,
and importantly, to start its planning approvals
and its CEQA review.
And then at the end of that ENA period,
staff must return to this body and to the full council
to seek authorization of a binding ground lease
and disposition agreement.
And assuming, that is assuming that all
we've reached terms with Costco
on those real estate transactions
and that they have completed their CEQA review
and their planning approvals.
So with that framing, I'm gonna hand it to Brendan Moriarty
to talk through the specifics of the ENA terms.
Thank you.
Thank you, good afternoon.
Brendan Moriarty, Director of Real Estate
and Special Projects.
So I have a brief PowerPoint presentation.
I'll try to move through this fairly quickly.
So the site in question is in the former
Oakland Army Base area.
The portion of it that's owned by the city of Oakland
and specifically the north gateway portion.
That's the red block you see in this map here.
It's west of 880.
And this map provides another point of view.
It's two parcels in question.
parcel one and parcel two, so the blue and the purple,
there's a little extension of the purple below parcel one.
That's actually an easement that the city holds
underneath the freeway structure.
So all of that would be included
in this negotiation with Costco.
And in total it's about 23 acres.
This, all of this, the land that the city received
from the federal government years ago,
that is the subject of discussion here today,
has restrictions on it that prohibits housing
due to the historical use of the site as a military base.
And there, the city council years ago
passed a couple of development frameworks here
that are irrelevant.
In 2000, the redevelopment plan, which basically
established that this should be redeveloped
into a productive economic asset.
And then a couple of years later with the OAB final reuse plan,
which emphasized employment and economic activity transforming
the site into a modern, commercial, maritime,
and industrial center.
The city council revised those plans in 2012 to include the idea of relocating two specific
recycling companies from the West Oakland neighborhood into this area, the North Gateway.
So that's specifically California Waste Solutions, or CWS, in Cass.
And so from that point forward, for a better part of about 15 years, those parties were
engaged in discussions and negotiations about that relocation.
This first was through an ENA and in the early years jointly with CWS and CAS.
That was in February 2012, we were there for four years in exclusive negotiations.
We had additionally an ENA with CAS in September 2021 that went for a year and a half.
We even got to the point of a lease disposition and development agreement with California Way Solutions in 2021.
So that would be the binding real estate transactional agreement that could lead to the construction of the facility.
And then none of those efforts actually resulted in a project outcome, no construction, so
the site is vacant today.
The final thing to say about this, City Council this month passed a resolution that directed
the city administrator to study and come up with a program in the planning code that would
set forth a process for moving those recycling companies out of the West Oakland neighborhood.
no longer as a transactional exercise, but rather a land use regulatory exercise.
And so the administration is working now through December of this year to come up with that
program and would be reporting back.
There's one interim use on the site today.
Parcel one, the eastern portion is leased to UCSF Benioff Children's Hospital for a
temporary helipad while the hospital in North Oakland is under construction.
The helipad will then move back to the hospital when the renovation is done.
And we don't anticipate any conflict with the Costco timeline.
This interim lease would be done before any Costco project would break ground.
Now, with respect to Costco, the city's actually been here once before.
In 2005, City Council authorized an ENA with Costco that obviously did not, for this very
specific site, that did not result in an agreement or the construction of a Costco store.
This past year in 2025, the city was approached with an unsolicited proposal to discuss bringing
a Costco store to the site.
And that resulted in city council passing a resolution in December of 2025 that directed
the city administrator's office and city staff to negotiate the terms of an exclusive negotiation
agreement or ENA.
So in other words, come back and with what we're doing today, the set of terms under
which the city and Costco would now just be working exclusively and in a focused way with
each other on the negotiations and the planning to actually make this happen.
These are the terms that we've worked out for that ENA.
It's a 24 month, I think Kelly might have said 12 months, she meant 24 months, initial
exclusive negotiation period for which Costco would pay the city $300,000 in non-refundable
revenue.
There would be two six month administrative extension options for which Costco would pay
additional $25,000 each if the parties needed that additional time. This would
be for, again, exclusive negotiation over two things. The terms of a lease
disposition and development agreement or LDDA and the ground lease itself. The
LDDA is kind of like having a purchase and sale agreement if you were selling
property. It's the binding real estate transactional document that says we're
going to sell you the property under these terms. The ground leases are the
thing that then emerges from that and then lives for years to come and is the
basis upon which Costco builds a project. During the ENA period is when
Costco would actually develop the specific plan for a store on the site.
Where would it be the where how big of a building, how much parking, where is all
of that, where is the traffic, where is the access. That specific plan would be
developed during the ENA period. It would undergo a CEQA analysis based on
that project plan. The Planning Department for the city would review
that and then that would come back to the City Council in the future once we
return for authorizing an actual LDDA and ground lease. Also during the ENA
period, Costco would get all the entitlements taken care of as well with
the planning department. There is an existing community benefits package that
is applied to all of the projects passed and contemplated in the Army base that
address things like jobs and labor union participation and environmental
considerations, hiring, all of these things. It's a consistent package and we
would intend to negotiate for that package here. The resolution from this
past December, as well as the municipal code, required us to also do an analysis
and come back with information on how is this in the best interest of the city.
That finding would need to be in the resolution authorizing a
transaction with Costco because of it emerging not from a not from a
competitive process so we've done that analysis the staff report has it in
detail it just some some we did find that it's in the best interest of them
is that we believe that the this store would generate 3 million in general fund
revenue just from taxes it would be least we don't estimate when did it's
below the lower end there would be we estimate 400 and then it's in new access
to affordable goods and services, both for Oakland residents as well as Oakland businesses.
With respect to community, councilmember Fife did host a series of workshops in late 25,
early 26, taken a lot of public comment.
Our observations is that they were overwhelmingly positive.
Costco looked forward to having better access to a store, cited Costco's reputation as a
good employer and corporate citizen.
they were less than the positive comments,
but they were generally related to traffic concerns,
number of years that they might move here,
and then what would be the impact on local businesses.
Almost done here, so alternatives.
Obviously, the alternative here is to not pursue an ENA
with received from time to time unsolicited expressions
of interest in the site,
it's obviously a large development site,
but none with the anticipated economic impact
that we foresee with the Costco store.
We do recommend approval.
It would fulfill the objective of the 2025 resolution.
We found it to be in the best interest of the city,
back again to city council and to this committee
with a recommended set of terms for an LD.
Excellent, thank you so much on this item.
And just so much intentionality input from community,
especially on page four of the report
where it lists the community benefits and job policies
and everything that kind of goes into that.
And then I also noticed how it says community benefits
As needed and feasible such as support for the West Oakland fund. So I think that there's just so many parameters of this
100% in support and so thank you so much councilmember fight for your leadership and in staff for your for that chair Brown
I just have one slight correction
But I could be wrong in the slideshow
It said that there was a community meeting hosted by Brahmachandran if you had a no, okay
I think it should say district three apologies for that. No, you hosted those community meetings. No worries. Thank you. Excellent
We're going to have a couple of
questions.
Any questions or comments.
We can go to the public
speakers.
Calling in the names that signed
up to speak on item number three.
In no particular order you can
come up to the podium.
Chris Neguan, Stephen Lebonge,
Lamar Bell and Christina Tostado.
I'm not from here but it amazes
me how y'all love trees and hate
coal but you are willing to
ignore that the simpler and it stated that the environmental conditions of the army base
are a time consumption and a cure regulatory approval contamination that's on that property.
And it was never brought up.
I'm having that fight at McClymon's to remediate.
Board is engaged in a project on their parking lot to build housing.
The first thing they're doing is mediating or mitigating the soil contamination issue.
he brought it up in the that this is and 400 jobs who's gonna get them jobs not
black people they're brown council members create a low McClellan's high
school and deep respect mr. sadder's comments as well I'm here am in for
Costco you know a lot of people in our city don't know what's Oakland is and
resource very poor in West Oakland there's not a single supermarket
there's a market right and West Oakland there's not a hospital visit and the
The credit union just moved just to Oakland
and Costco as a start is incredibly imperative,
not only as somebody who provides social services
and work, let's stop having our peoples go somewhere
versus here at home.
And the end of this West Oakland corridor, well, right?
So that's it, thank you.
And you wish to speak on this item,
please come up here at this time, all names have been called.
Here we are right with a few other people,
just wanna thank this administrator.
One of the things that we're
doing is we're gonna be here.
We're we're kind of at the
start line where there's still
long ways to go.
But we're over there with some
other colleagues if there are
any questions we can pop up and
answer anything you want.
Thank you very much thank you
so much.
Good afternoon first of all
thank you guys for your time.
And here to answer any
questions that you make you.
But I would like to get the
rest of the Mars time and
the public when it's a time and
say that.
You will have one minute.
Good afternoon everybody my
name is Christine at the town.
I'm currently in Oakland on
violence I'm also a board
member do so much work in the
city of Oakland actually got my
birthday July thirty eight
years.
One of the things I asked your
cost donated one point nine
million wages.
For one K.
They paid time and a half on
Sunday's they pay for new
parent comprehensive medical
being a part time supervisor at
Costco I would appreciate your
support to bring it into the
greatest thing in the world all
speakers on the side of.
Excellent thank you so much
councilmember five.
If we could bring.
Brendan if you're available to
come and speak to the issue.
Of I think was my first year in
office where I was record
homeless housing and I went
through.
A lot of conversation with the
homeless housing and I went through a lot of conversation with the Department
of Toxic Substance Control, the invited groups, and I fought and I fought a lot
of different people inside of the city to be able to utilize that space for
resident residential construction and the level of hours a day is different
than it has to be that that has to be done for retail use. There will be
remediation at that site but I wanted to speak a little bit about the type of
remediation the difference the difference between residential life and
commercial use yes through or maybe we should have a presentation by the
public since they know more than we do or order in the chamber order in the
chamber through the chair first of all just say this is it's not like a super
fun site this is not like the most toxic place right it just it does have a
history of military use there is known contamination in the soil it is
characterized the state and regional regulatory site because of that
contamination not be used for housing because to have people are people that
are uniquely vulnerable actually living 24 hours a day on a site as a you really
do need to have a much cleaner standard there you have to really limit the
human exposure that's a lot and in addition when a project a commercial
project such as Costco is designed for the site they would you would design the
project in a way that makes that you address the contamination for that use
it is safe for employees ability all of that all of that would be addressed
during the E&A period the city would share SCO Costco would then you know
design its project around the the unique characteristics of the site.
And then just while you're there just for clarity that it's actually during this negotiation
time frame that the CEQA-
Chair, we don't know what this project looks like yet.
I couldn't tell you how big the building is, where it is, et cetera, so it's impossible
to study its environmental impacts.
So yeah, during the ENA period, we'll actually get the project description from CEQA.
We do this, you know, day in and day out.
Working through a sequel environmental assessment during that E&A period and in those findings
We brought back to you as part of the whole in a package part of the whole correct
This is a standard operating procedure here. Yeah. Thank you councilmember five. I
wanted to
Just reiterate to the public that because of racial segregate segregation
Industrialization and all of the impacts that certain industries have had on the city
uh... west oakland is largely polluted
and i'm working with environmental organizations it's it's part of what i
been doing even before i was a council member is to mitigate those impacts
which is why
amortization that is not directly
related to this topic but tangentially
uh... related is something that i'm also pushing for at the same time
it's why i
maybe i should say this or not i oppose coal
in in the district it's something that i do in my leadership in in my role as an
elected official as stated by Mr. Moriarty these are things that will be
studied in this ENA process so we're not just moving forward haphazardly we are
studying it that is what the ENA is about so part of this process is also
about listening and learning and if we don't have the ability to do that then
we're going to be stuck where we are I would like to make a motion to move this
is to the next full city council meeting.
I believe it would be July 7th, is that significant?
I mean, for staff, is that feasible?
Is that July 7th to the full city council meeting?
Excellent, thank you so much, Council Member Fife.
Administrator, well Council Member Ramachandran
and then Administrator Baker.
Oh, I'll be brief.
I just wanna express my support for this project.
I think it's exciting the number of jobs
that can be created.
And I really hope Ms. Tina from the town's t-shirt logo
can be plastered on the side of the Costco.
That would be very cool.
So thank you to Councilmember Fyfe, Mayor Lee,
and everyone else who's brought this forward.
Thank you so much.
Administrator Baker?
Through the Chair, thank you.
I just wanted to address the additional
sort of discussion that's ongoing with remediation.
And the North Gateway parcel, which is under consideration
for the Costco store is part of a clean site
that several agencies have cleared,
including the California Water Board,
and that any development will require
site-specific environmental review.
CEQA will be required within the ENA period
to ensure that no residual soil or groundwater,
groundwater risk remain before construction begins.
and any soil disturbance from evacuation
for building utilities would require testing
and oversight under existing site controls,
specifically excavation requirements documented
in environmental documents.
And so we will be, as the Council Member Fife said,
as well as staff, be ongoing.
This will be an ongoing discussion with monitoring
and we'll get this right.
I appreciate that.
Excellent.
Thank you for everyone's work on this.
I'm happy to second the motion
and we can go ahead and call the vote, thank you.
Thank you, we have a motion made by Council Member Fife,
seconded by Chair Brown,
to approve the recommendations of staff
and to forward this item
to the July 7th City Council agenda
on roll, Council Member Fife?
Aye.
Ramachandran?
Aye.
Unger?
Aye.
And Chair Brown?
Aye.
Thank you, item number three passes with four ayes
to forward this item to the July 7, 2026,
City Council Agenda on Consent.
I will read in item four.
Adopt the following pieces of legislation.
One, a resolution approving the fiscal year 2025-26
annual reports of the Lakeshore
Lake Park Business Improvement Management District of 2022,
the Jack London Improvement District,
the Tomescale Telegraph Business Improvement District,
the Laurel Business Improvement District 2025,
the Koreatown Northgate Community, oh sorry,
Community Benefit District 2017,
the town, the Oakland Tourism Business Improvement District,
the Downtown Oakland Community Benefits,
Benefit District 2018,
the Lake Merritt Uptown Community Benefit District 2018,
and the Chinatown Community Benefit District 2021
Advisory Boards,
two confirming the continuing annual assessment
for each said district and levying said assessments,
three increasing the 2026-27 assessment by 5%
for the Jack Lennon District to Muscole District,
Lakeshore District, Lake Merritt Uptown District,
and Chinatown District by 3.2%
for the Downtown Oakland District,
and by 3% for the Laurel District
and the Koreatown District.
Authorizing payment of the City of Oakland
cumulative fiscal year 2026-27 fair share assessment
in an approximate amount of $509,669.34.
for city of Oakland owned properties in the Jack London district the Tomesco district the Korean town district the downtown Oakland district the
Lake Merritt uptown district and the Chinatown district sorry the Chinatown district and renewing agreements
with the districts for administration and disbursement of funds and
To a successor agency resolution authorizing payment of the Oakland redevelopment successor agencies
Sorry cumulative fiscal year twenty twenty six twenty seven fair share assessment in an approximate amount of three
three thousand three hundred seventy one dollars and thirty four cents for
One Oakland redevelopment successor agency owned property in downtown Oakland Community Benefit District 2018 and we have two speakers
I signed up to speak on this item. Thank you so much. Madam Clerk such a long title. Appreciate you
And so and then now we will hear from our EWD team for a brief presentation about five minutes, please. Thank you
Mini, my name is Eric's Munza with EWD
economic work force development the item before you would take those those following actions approving the annual reports confirming the assessments
Proving the assessment increases and authorizing the payment of assessments on city-owned properties
and an oyster-based property. The city resolution exhibit contains the annual reports submitted by each bid and in
2024 the annual report format was redesigned and migrated to an online platform.
Beyond the budgetary information required under the city's bid ordinance and state law,
the updated report captures a broader set of data points documenting the measurable impact of bid activities.
With three years of data now available, staff can identify trends and track changes over time.
This presentation highlights a key finding from the annual reports to illustrate the collective impact of Oakland's bids
And so we'll start. Let's see
Here we go
So Oakland has 11 bids in total eight property based bids one tourism bid and two business based bids
The Rock Ridge and Montclair business based bids were established under separate legislation and operate on a different reporting schedule
So they are not included in this council item or in the analysis here
So here are some key aggregate statistics from the 2025 self-reported annual data.
There's about 2,500 businesses supported, over 5,100 parcels covered, just under 1,900
occupied storefronts, and over 19,000 residents served.
So here we're going to look at staffing levels over time.
In 2025, Oakland's bids collectively employed the equivalent of 117 full-time staff members.
Cleaning ambassadors and workers accounted for 40 percent of those positions.
General admin was 25 percent.
Remaining staff consists of public safety officers, secured and hospitality ambassadors,
business outreach coordinators, and seasonal or part-time workers.
Staffing levels have increased over the past two years, particularly in the cleaning and
ambassador roles.
It's largely attributed to uptown and downtown bids transitioning to dedicated cleaning and
hospitality teams rather than cross-functional teams handling both
responsibilities however for most districts the bid ambassadors continue
to be cross-trained and they may be shifted to different roles as as needs
require and in in addition to paid staff bids engaged more than 300 volunteers in
2025 good strategy to strengthen community involvement in in the
improvement of business corridors. So Oakland's eight property based bids
provide four primary service categories, safety, cleaning, beautification, and marketing.
We'll start with cleaning.
Three of the cleaning metrics measured here have more than doubled since 2023.
I'll just chart in the next slides here for, you can see, trash collected, the rise over
that time period, and here for illegal dumping incidents addressed, and pressure washing
hours also increased over 100% in that time.
removal incidents by contrast have declined significantly. This can reflect a shift in
focus toward security as well as a reduction in graffiti incidents from the attention given
or a combination of both factors. In terms of safety, there's some safety metrics
that have been tracked since 2023 that includes 911 calls made by bid staff, patrol hours,
merchant check-ins and security cameras that are maintained.
The non-patrol hours increased significantly, while the patrol hours, merchant check-ins
and camera maintenance showed more modest growth.
Based on feedback gathered at a bid workshop, the definition of merchant check has been
refined to refer specifically to scheduled outreach visits or check-ins not initiated
by a service request.
We have a new metric now, service responses, which is added to capture visits made and
and direct responses to specific requests from business owners.
Bids continue to invest in beautification and streetscape enhancements, including planters,
tree wells, banners, lighting, trash cans, plazas and public art installations.
Bids also play a key role in marketing and promoting their districts.
Collectively, Oakland's bids gained nearly 21,000 new Instagram followers in 2025.
Visit Oakland alone maintains an audience of over 89,000 Instagram followers.
all bids, Outreach touched more than 39,000 email subscribers and over 20 million social
media accounts.
And as part of the annual reporting process, the bids can submit slides summarizing their
year's accomplishments, so some selected highlights are shown.
Lakeshore Bid invested significantly in sidewalk cleanliness through power washing, trash collection,
landscaping and gardening.
Temescale reported strong cleaning metrics shown here, 2100 graffiti removal incidents,
21,000 pounds of trash collected.
Laurel Bayard here, in addition to cleaning services,
hosted 20 public events and festivals,
drawing an estimated 25,000 visitors to the district.
Here for Koreatown, we see the completed planter cleanups,
you can see on the left.
On the right, the beautified all tree wells
along 25th Street between Telegraph and Broadway.
They also partnered with Yelp to celebrate
the one year anniversary of Black Forest Kitchen,
a restaurant that originated as a first Friday vendor,
seen in the middle.
The Chinatown Bid documented measurable reductions
in graffiti and litter through,
which you can see through the before and after photography
on the bottom left.
They also reported stronger attendance
and sponsorship levels for signature district events.
The Oakland Tourism Bid, or otherwise known as Visit Oakland,
reported 3.2 million visitors to Oakland in 2025.
They generated 554 million in spending.
This activity sustained 5,291 jobs,
produced 82 million in visitor-generated tax revenue,
and contributed, and collectively, $740 million
in total economic impact.
The downtown bid hosted the inaugural
Oakland Holiday Coffee Market at the Rotunda Building,
drawing over 1,000 attendees
and spotlighting local businesses.
The uptown and downtown bids, collectively,
their clean and safe program metrics included things like 6,000 linear feet of
medians planted, um, and maintained and 128 hanging planters installed and
maintained.
And you can see here a quote from a staff member from the Oakland School for the
Arts, uh, that's credits to the ambassador presence on the streets, uh,
with improving her sense of safety when walking home. Uh,
and then for the Jack London improvement district, uh, last one on leased, uh,
they have activated merchant participation through vintage clothing and vinyl
pop-ups and block parties and also commissioned local artists to paint
storefront windows for the holiday season. And here's the last slide speaks
more broadly to the corridor safety ambassador program. This continues to
fund many commercial corridors throughout the city, including those
that have bids and others that do not. Jacqueline improvement district was
awarded $300,000 to provide safety ambassador coverage to support multiple
surrounding districts that included Chinatown, the arts and garage district,
Uptown, Koreatown, and the Black Arts Movement District.
And that's the end of the presentation.
I'm here for questions.
Excellent.
Thank you so much for a very comprehensive presentation
and the slides that really showcase all of the amazing
work that the bids are doing in their various zones.
It was really nice to see.
We can go to if no questions or comments from my colleagues,
we can go to the public speakers, if any.
calling in the names that signed up to speak
on item number four, Daniel Swofford and Missus
Ado Olavala.
OK, Chair Brown, members of the committee,
Daniel Swofford for the record.
I'm here in the capacity of the administrator and executive
director of both the Temescal Business Abreuma District
and the Laurel District Association.
I would just like to extend my gratitude
to the collaboration over now 20 years for both of those two
organizations respectfully being renewed in the last two years with over 80 percent support
in the renewal of balloting and as you can see from the reports very proud and privileged
to be able to serve community in this way and just wanted to appreciate economic development
and their partnership of course all the city departments public works the OTM just to just
can really show what an organization on the ground can do in partnership with local government
appreciate that opportunity available if you have any questions. Thank you. And
while you're there Mr. Swofford, I did have a quick question. Some of the data
that was uplifted, both in the Timis, we'll take the two that you mentioned,
the Timis-Gout and the Laurel, how is that information communicated to
residents, like the impact of the bid in these areas? Yeah, of course. So, yeah,
actually holding, you know, the, I guess, the public version of the annual report,
as Eric mentioned, you know, the JOT form that we submit the data through is, you know,
very good at capturing data but not, doesn't have the images and some of the easy ways
to maybe ingest some of the, you know, some of the aggregations.
So we try to publish that in our newsletters, out to the general public,
which in Thames County have about over 5,000 subscribers and Laurel
over 3,000, post it on social.
It's always kind of cached on the website.
And then we tried to tell those stories over time as well.
So with spotlights throughout the year, just to be able
to call attention to the cleaning ambassadors
and the safety ambassadors, for example, of course, the events,
you know, we always want to, you know, take credit for our work
and sometimes people don't know the origin
of why these things are happening.
So hopefully our branding is able to tell some
of that story also.
When they can attribute it to the contributions
of the assessed property owners and to the collaborative work
of the district staff and the community that shows up
as you saw with the volunteer numbers in a big way.
Excellent, thank you.
Of course, thank you.
In its original form, this process only
assessed commercial property.
Some way along the line, some of these business improvements,
And I think all of these
uh... associations have started
to assess residential property
if you live within the certain
perimeter of the commercial
property.
I think that's grossly unfair
and I think that should be
reevaluated.
I looked at this item and I see
that the city of Oakland has to
pay for some of these
assessments.
So, in Chinatown, you have nine
the city. A certain amount of assessment ten in downtown. Three in Korea and I will go on. But you also pay for the Oakland ice rink. Thirty two thousand nine hundred and seventy dollars and nineteen cents a year. Y'all give a lot of money to that Oakland ice rink. And you also. Thank you for your comments chair that concludes all speakers on item number four. Excellent. Thank you. Thank you so much.
know, I don't necessarily have a question, but I just wanted to uplift that in the slide
deck, you were able to see the impact on social media of like, of the various bids. And I
think that some of this, in addition to the publicity around the different events that
are happening in the bids, I think it would also be amazing to showcase in spotlight just
the impact of like whether it's the graffiti removal,
trash pickup, and all of those things also to the public
so that everyone can really just see the impact.
And so I hope that all of the folks
that manage the various bids, if you all are listening,
I feel like the impact is so dynamic
and so hopefully we can showcase this impact to the public
so that, you know, community members
can really see the value add here.
Councilmember Ramachandran.
Thank you.
Just want to express my gratitude to all the bids,
but certainly the one in my district,
the Laurel bid does so much to improve the vibrancy
of the stretch of the Laurel, all of the events,
all of the work the ambassadors do.
I mean, there's been notable decreases of crime
during the holiday period over the years
when the first round-the-clock coverage ambassador pilot
was put in late 2023 compared to the year before,
crime decreased by 35%, which is significant.
I've seen these ambassadors in actions.
I've seen, not just during the holiday period,
but all the other folks that work with the bid,
really engaging with the community in an authentic way.
I think there's more foot traffic on the laurel now,
Certainly then it's been an a long time coming back post pandemic and I think the bid is
Well, we respected by a lot of community members and you should come to the Laurel Street Fair on
August 8th to see it in action
excellent
Any other additional questions or comments?
Anyone wants to move the item as well?
And so councilmember five say if I could just through the chair from Eric get some clarity around
the difference between commercial and
business
You know assessments because I think there's a maybe clarity needed
Explaining to the public the difference what why are residential what type of residential units are included in the assessment?
Sure, so let's see. There's
There are two different kinds of this there's the business-based bids where the
business owners are being assessed and then there are the property-based bids where the property owner is being assessed for the
For the property-based bids there are it is fairly standard for
Some residential property to be included there is a requirement by state law that
No land zoned residential zoned strictly residential can be assessed but
Apartment buildings as well as
Condos are very typically assessed for property-based bids throughout the state and throughout their country
And
Because of the the benefits that the that the accrue not just to the business owners, but to the
To the residents as well. So for the property-based bids
Like the ones that exist in the Laurel is it?
Specifically for any property owner or is it for rental housing?
property owners
rental and ownership
rental and condos
Okay
They're often
Some of the bids when the assessment rates are developed
There will will be can be some variation rates and sometimes there are specific rates for for common minions
And then my last question is what kind of oversight if any does the city have I have several bids
throughout district three
And there have been some questions that I've received from business owners around the responsibilities of the bids to perform certain activities
What type of oversight or inquiry can the city for the city council specifically?
Engage to ensure that the contracts are being met. Do we have any jurisdiction there?
To yeah, we we we have the through these
items every year to to renew or not renew the
Assessments, you know, we have they are required to report on an annual basis
And in order to then levy their assessments for the the following year, you know
The they they need to report and have their reports accepted by the City Council
But that's the only time line or that the City Council can engage is whether they renew or not to renew
if if there is a if there are findings of
save
financial mismanagement
malfeasance a
dissolution process can can be
that you are instituting by at
any time for it by the city.
That seems extreme.
The folks who have reached out to me are just asking if there
are things that have been promised to be done
contractually and they haven't been done.
What is the recourse?
Let's see.
I would I think as staff managing the program if those
are brought to our attention.
out with, try to address them with the bid staff.
But I think with that, and when we review our annual reports,
we do review to make sure that what the bid is spending
on is in line with the management district plans
that were set up for that bid.
So we do monitor them to make sure
that they are doing what they have or were formed to do.
So if there are complaints or anything
about those sorts of issues, the first step
would be going to the bid management itself,
but then they can involve staff as well.
Great.
I will definitely refer them to you.
OK.
And that said, I do want to say that in District 3
there are so many things that the bids do
that improve the quality of life for residents,
for shoppers, for businesses
that the city just can't do right now.
So I'm very appreciative of the extra hands
that they provide to ensure that Oakland is a clean
and safe place and look forward to moving this forward.
I'm not sure if there was emotion already.
I'd be happy to offer a second.
Sure.
Excellent and and then I guess also just for clarity during the bid renewal process
It's renewed by the input of the business owners and so ideally
Ensuring that they are you know doing all the things that are kind of map out mapped out
That is also the nexus to ensure that like it's renewed. Is that correct, right?
So, yeah, what would the the property based bids all have a defined term and in order to extend past that defined term
there is a
petition there needs to be a petition effort and a ballot initiative
once once they meet the petition threshold of 30% of the property owners
then we can form issue a resolution intention to form there to renew or form the bid and then
in the- in the- the set
boundary are then- sent ballots
with with that with that
management district plan to
vote on- the service to the
service plan that's been set
exactly awesome thank you so
much and so what who- do we
have a motion.
In a second okay perfect thank
you.
Thank you we have a motion made
by councilmember on which on
your second invite.
Councilmember five to approve
the recommendations of staff
and support this item.
To the July seventh city
council agenda.
I'm sorry.
I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry.
I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry.
All right.
Thank you.
On roll council members five five.
the city of Toronto. And the
and the entire city to prepare
and submit to the to the United
States Department of Housing and
Urban Development the annual
action plan for fiscal year
twenty twenty six twenty seven
appropriating any available
revolving loan program income.
For housing rehabilitation
activities authorizing the city
administrator to award
agreements for activities as set
forth in exhibit a and the list
of eligible backup activities to
under budgeted or under budget delayed or canceled attached here to inclusive of prior year funding availability subject to compliance with any
applicable competitive bidding requirements and authorizing the city administrator to
city administrator to designate certifying officials
official or designee of the certifying official for the purpose of title 24 part 58 of the code of federal regulation and
and then submit to the United States Department of Housing
and Urban Development and we have 25 speakers
that signed up to speak on this item.
Excellent, thank you so much and on this item
we will hear from our HCD team, thank you.
Thank you Chair and committee members.
Zugo Ramirez, Deputy Director, Oakland HCD.
Hannah Batash will be presenting today's presentation
but I'd like to introduce both her and our new leader
of Community Development and Engagement Unit,
Claudia Flores and Hannah Betes will be presenting.
Thank you.
Excellent, thank you so much.
All right, good afternoon.
I'm Hannah Betes.
I'm a Monitoring and Evaluation Supervisor
in the Department of Housing and Community Development.
I'm going to go through our department's annual action plan
to the US Department of Housing and Urban Development.
There we go, okay.
So I'm gonna walk through what this plan is
and why we do it.
We do it every year and then what activities
we're proposing to use our HUD funding for.
I'm gonna close with some context about the opportunities
and limitations of federal funding,
which represents, I just wanna say,
one part of how our department funds
safe and stable housing for our neighbors.
So this is a sliver of how we do what we do
and there are a lot of strings attached
so that informs what we do with the funding.
So this is the text of the resolution that we are asking Council to adopt at its July
7th meeting, essentially accepting the federal funds and giving us flexibility if we need
to make minor adjustments to how we use them.
So for example, if one project is delayed and another is moving faster, then we have
the option to fund the faster project at a higher level than planned.
So that's all that is.
So, a little about the city's HUD funding.
We're what's called an entitlement jurisdiction,
which means we get funding based on our population level
and demographics.
We have an ongoing cycle for planning
and reporting on that funding.
So, that's shown here.
And what we're doing today is the part in purple.
So, at the top, every five years,
we create a consolidated plan to HUD, the con plan.
That lays out what we're going to do
over the course of five years with our HUD funding.
That's an alignment with broader city and county goals
and planning around homelessness.
So again, this is just one piece of it.
Our current con plan goes through 2029
and as part of developing it last year,
we did a lot of community engagement around housing,
homelessness and economic development.
So that's the top part.
Today, what we're doing is the annual action plan.
So there's a one-year plan submitted each year
that maps to that con plan at the top.
It represents our annual commitment
to what we will do with our HUD funding
in the coming fiscal year
and that's what we're presenting for approval.
The last part of the cycle,
which I understand there's some interest in,
is that at the end of every fiscal year,
we submit a report about what we did
to achieve everything that we laid out
in last year's annual action plan.
So today's just about that middle part.
We will have a separate presentation
about what we did last year
separately for that other report.
In the interest of time, I'm not gonna go through
all of the highlights from our current five year con plan,
but these are the needs and goals
that we try to achieve every year
with the different activities that we fund
through our annual action plan.
And again, this is not a strategy setting document.
So for that, we look to local plans
like the department-wide strategic action plan,
as well as the city's Homelessness Strategic Action Plan
and the Anti-Displacement Strategic Action Plan.
So HUD funding is just one way
that we support broader strategic visions
that are laid out in other city plans.
So the HUD funding that we do get
is in these four grant streams.
The exact amounts are announced every spring,
and it's a congressional appropriation based on a formula
that's tied to our population size and demographics.
And so as you can see,
Most of the funding is for capital improvements
rather than for services.
So that's a limitation of the funding
that's important to name at the outset.
The first two grants are administered by our department.
The second two are administered
by Community Homeless Services Division
in the Human Services Department.
And the amounts that we received this year
are similar to what we got last year overall.
By grant streams, there might be some amounts
that are a little higher and a little lower,
but overall, the funding amount is very similar.
So a little about what we anticipate
using each of these four.
So for CDBG, you can see that these are examples
of both services that we have funded in the past
and services that we plan to fund again this year.
So we do this process every year.
They also fund fairly similar services.
And so these are some examples of what we plan to do
with our 26-27 allocation.
We also use those funds for other activities funded
through CDBG, so in addition to rehabilitation activities,
we also do a lot of anti-displacement
and tenant stabilization work,
like the programs that you see up here.
For the home funding stream,
we mostly aim to fund new construction like these projects.
Again, any reports on the progress of these projects
would be in a separate plan,
that's a separate presentation.
So that's not what we're doing today.
Today we're talking about
how we plan to use the funds moving forward.
And then we also have our HAPWA funding stream.
These are the kinds of services
that we've funded in years past
and we plan to fund these again.
And for ESG we have funded these services in years past
and we plan to do so again.
A little bit about the limitations of these funds
that I just wanna make sure to go through
as we're considering how we're planning
to use them moving forward is that there's a lot
of restrictions around how and when we spend it.
So we have to spend it by a certain date
and we also need to be really clear
about how we might reprogram
so that we don't find ourselves locked into
having to do a specific thing on a specific timeline
and not be able to move money around
if, for example, one project is moving faster than another,
we want the flexibility to pivot if we need to.
Another thing I wanna call out
is that there's also a lot of restrictions
on how we use them.
So again, we have to mainly use these for capital improvements.
It is much harder to use them for direct services
and administration.
So that's why you may see more capital improvement funding
than direct services and administration funding
is that that's a requirement of the funding source.
We also have limitations on what we can spend
on administration and we also have to be very careful
about not only how we use our federal funding overall
but how we combine those federal funds
because they all have a lot of different requirements
and when you layer them on top of each other
it can get fairly complicated.
All of this is to say this is why we are funding
a lot of projects that we have funded in the past
because we've already done the thinking around
how to do this in a way that gives us maximum flexibility
and doesn't lock us into doing things
in a particular way that doesn't give us
the flexibility to pivot.
And so that's also why we have historically included
broad authority in our resolution like the one today
to enter into agreements to execute activities
in our spending plan without having to go through
any additional processes if those change slightly.
So next steps for what we will do with the annual action
plan. It is available for 30 day public review on our website. A public hearing will take
place on July 7th at which point the council will consider adoption of the resolution to
accept the funds and appropriate them and submit the annual action plan to HUD. So this
is the same process that we do every year. We're just doing it again this year. And then
after that, we will have our consolidated annual performance and evaluation report for
last year, so that's when we will report on things that happened with the
projects that we funded last year and is in that separate report and that will
happen in September. So if there are questions about specific projects and
what is going on with them, the time to get those questions answered will
probably be in September when we present those findings. That is all. Thank you.
Excellent, thank you so much. We can hear from the public speakers. I'll go read
in the names of those that signed up to speak on this item, if you are ceding time or have
time ceded to you, the person must have a card filled out and they must be present to
acknowledge that they are ceding their time. If you need translation, the person speaking
will get one minute and then an additional minute for translation. In no particular order
you can line up. State your name before beginning. Asada Olabala, Buffalo Sojourn, Alberto Parra,
Richard Taylor, Christina Giusto, Janice Slaton, Taihua,
Isabel Ruiz, Linda Wade, LaVeta Montjoy,
Marcus Garcia, Teresa Salazar, Christine Sue Miller,
Jasmine Hurt, Sharon Greenpeace, Greg Slaughter,
Valerie Batchelor, Kathy Harris, Bruce Conte,
Lucretia Flemings, Ron Williams,
Janet Clintsoes, Samuel Ramey,
Eddie Izarte, Emily Wheeler, and Rochelle Miller.
Greetings friends, enemies, and political operatives.
Most of you weren't here when administration
of information gave us word, and we delivered.
said, uh, the truth is alike. Check yourself for you, wreck yourself. That's
why you have so many new City Council members. But on this item five, it's
kind of hard to separate five from six. I hear we got a public hearing and I
hear we have a time to get the draft of plan. But I'm just a homeless guy.
Where do I grow to get the draft of plan? And how will the public hearing
be held where it's nice to you when have a public hearing. Knowing the where and when
of it. Yes you. Are. Oakland. And his housing authority could not pass the section eight
inspection by hood on a bet. No less than 50. Thank you for your comments Mr. Sojourn.
How we doing chairman Queen Brown. And the other council people. Okay my name is Gregory
slaughter. I am a member of Ace Oakland. I live in Dixon 7. I've been in Oakland
all my life. On Sunday, I'll be 73 years old. When I first knew about rent, my
parents was paying $125 a month for a two-bedroom house. Okay, backyard, car, garage,
everything. Now for a two-bedroom house, you're paying down to $4,000 a month for a
place where you got rats, roaches, and everything else in there, okay. You have
been out to open stations, you know how it is out there for us, okay. We're gonna need you again, though, I'll
tell you about that later. But code enforcement need to step up and start
doing inspections every, I say at least once every year, get these landlords off
their behind so they can take care of their business the right way because
These houses are not being inspected, indeed.
Good afternoon.
Thank you for having us.
This is a difficult time.
I got a paper from the company saying.
Sorry, to the member of the public,
please state your name.
I paused your time.
Please state your name for the record.
LaVita Montjoy.
OK, thank you.
Your time will continue.
I got a paper saying that I hadn't paid my rent.
Getting still, I have a statement of it.
So I had to go back and tell them that I did pay my rent.
That's just one little thing that they do.
Say you're having a problem?
I got roaches.
Anybody come?
Oh, yeah, we got somebody come in and do something about it.
Next morning, they were still there.
This is how I live every day.
It's not a fun thing.
I don't know who to go to ask for support,
but I just live there.
Good afternoon, everyone on the chair.
My name is Richard Taylor.
I'm a resident of the previously Oakland senior station.
Now it's just open station.
I've been there since the beginning of this building.
And my opinion is that the building
is being mismanaged by CON-AM.
I don't know of any of those funds
about what went on last year.
I'd like to know were any of those funds
spent on management of our property.
Our property has deteriorated.
We have a gate that has been broken for at least eight months.
They have perpetuated the situation that's going on
in the open station, the management company, Con-Am.
They allow people to come in.
You don't need a pod to get up the elevator.
Anyone can walk in.
And we wonder why we're having crime there.
We wonder why we have people perpetrating on our seniors.
They stole my wife's walker.
They stole the fire extinguisher
in front of my apartment now.
I don't have fire extinguisher.
And we wonder why.
My name is Alberto Párras, I am the resident of the City of Cinco. I am here today to help you with your work and work in the city of Oakland.
I'm here to help you with the work of the crisis that we've been in this country.
We don't have any conditions or procedures that include more electronic records,
and the infractions of the avid, avid, avid, avid leader.
I introduce many people from the reputation,
who have been responsible for the project,
and have been covering the players in red-tail-coentas.
We are very thankful to the residents of Oakland,
who have been here for a long time.
Good afternoon. My name is Alberto Para and I'm a resident of district five and
member of ACE.
I'm here today with my neighbors and fellow ACE members of Oakland to
assert the urgent housing crisis that we're living through in our different
individual units in the entire city.
Tenants have a living with habitability issues,
including mold pest infestations and electrical issues.
Meanwhile, anytime we ask our landlord for request,
we're just ignored.
We, the residents of Oakland and Tennant's,
demand that the city invest
in the proactive rental inspection program
to ensure that landlords are maintaining their properties.
When I started, my number was Kristina Husto,
and I told her that I would go to the city
to ask her if she'd come to the house
because, of course, the inspectors are not able to see us when we don't know how to live.
We have to establish a stability for our own lives.
We have to live with our own lives, as we have been living.
And we have to act proactively to ignore those lives.
First say you guarantee separate external reales para los inculinos
Or closed del usi a slow infraction is
la mira verdad no
No, say Toma mucho en cuenta or los inspectors implement a no s en bien su trabajo
Hello everyone
My name is Christina and I'm here today to urge the City Council to implement the proactive rental inspections to ensure follow-up on
Violations as tenants we pay a lot of rent and we need to ensure that the city is making sure that all units are habitable
And safe places to live. Thank you
Good afternoon council members. My name is Marcus and I'm an organizer with ACE working with tenants across Oakland
I'm here because our current complaint basis complaint based system is failing too often tenants are forced to choose between staying silent unsafe housing
Or risking retaliation just for asking for basic repairs
I've seen families live with bold mold broken heaters leaks and other serious conditions for months or even years because they're afraid to report them
Or when they do their retaliated against a system that depends on tenants making complaints does not protect the people most at risk
Especially immigrants seniors and families with children when people fear harassment eviction threats or worse dangerous conditions go when addressed
That's why we need proactive rental inspections. The city should not wait until tenants suffer before acting
We need a system that identifies and fixes hazards before they arise they become crises
Safe housing is public safety. Oakland should ensure every resident has a healthy dignified place to live. Thank you
The honorable city council. I would like for you to discuss amongst yourself
Why is it that we are the person's sorry?
The public please state your name. Oh, I'm sorry. Let me start again
My name is Bruce Conte. I'm from the Oakland station
Apartments you already know what the problems are that we have I
Went and listened to the news one day and said that in the entire world. We are getting less
services for our money
The whole entire world for what is given to us through our tax paying money. I have nothing else to say
Hello, my name is Kathy Harris, and I am in District 7. I'm a resident of the Oakland Station, and I'm a member of ACE.
I am here with my neighbors and my fellow tenants calling for urgent action on housing crisis.
Across our city, renters are living with unsafe conditions, including mold pests, broken appliances, and seriously hellability violations.
while many repairs go unanswered and landlords continue collecting rent
without accountability. We the tenants of Oakland are calling for the city to
invest in proactive code enforcement, strengthening landlord accountability
and ensure real protection so tenants can report violations and stay safely
housed without fear of retaliation. Hello my name is Sharon Greenpeace. I live in
the Oakland Station. I have been there five years and in that time we've gone
from luxury to ghetto. We now have roaches, we have mice. Just a week ago we
had a dead dog in our garbage room for five days. That is unacceptable. All we
want to do is live our golden years golden, but we can't do that living in
this surrounding with the mice. The cabinets falling apart, appliances not
working, elevators that are used aren't working. We just want to live in peace.
We want to have a clean environment. I'm a 25 year breast cancer survivor. I
can't live in that building much longer without my health being jeopardized.
Thank you. My name is Lucretia Fleming and I've been standing in these
department. I just been a year. I just made a year and when I first got there
they try to cover up everything. The oven was dirty, the cabinet had bugs
in there all kinds of roaches and then and then and the bathroom they had some
some bugs in there and you know when you're supposed to be supposed to clean
the place up it wasn't clean at all and then now the places already don't have
no cleaning up in the whole of the place anyway good afternoon everyone my name is
Linda Wade and I have been attended at the open station for only about 14-15
months, the worst 15 months of my life. However I feel like I was betrayed as
nothing like it was presented to me. You know I always thought that human rights
housing was a human right for us but this this has become a fight. I'm
I'm having to fight for my human rights at the open stage
to form my safety, for my dignity, for my respect.
I refuse, I'm not for sale,
I refuse to be treated in this most inhumane manner.
We're finding more dead bodies in that building
than a cemetery has.
People just doing all sorts.
I don't feel safe there at all.
I'm afraid for my life.
I'm ready to go and get armed up.
because when I walk in my door, I don't know what's standing.
I cannot use none of the so-called benefits
entities that they have, such as the laundry room.
Thank you for your comments.
Your time is up.
Hello, my name is Jasmine.
I'm an organizer with the Oakland ACE office.
I grew up in Oakland.
I've been organizing all around Oakland.
I'm currently now in West Oakland,
and it's clear that the habitability
in these housing units and in our apartments
is just horrible.
we need more investment in
proactive code enforcement to
ensure that these conditions are
changed housing is not just
about affordability it's about
safety dignity and stability for
the people who are already living
here thank you.
Good afternoon city council
members my name is Valerie
bachelor and I'm a proud district
six resident as well as the
director of ace Oakland and as
you heard today.
From a city council member
they're very proud of them and
they're very proud of them and
From deep east all the way to West Oakland,
we have a housing crisis,
and that's really a habitability crisis.
When tenants have to deal with mold,
have to deal with pests,
have to deal with broken appliances,
and serious habitability violations,
students can't go to school.
Folks can't go to work.
Our elders are disrespected.
And again, we have some of the strongest
tenant protections here in Oakland.
We need a code enforcement department that is proactive,
that makes it so that landlords actually fix these units,
not just document these units.
And I'm glad that some of these resources
are gonna be used towards those types of programs
and that we're supporting that work,
but this is just a drop in the bucket.
We need more resources to support tenants.
We need more resources so that disasters do not happen.
Fires, floods, and famines are happening all over Oakland,
and we must stop this from happening,
and you have the ability to do so.
Good afternoon, my name's Eddie Ettorte,
and I am with Oakland Tenants Union.
You know, tenants are really the lifeblood of Oakland.
Would Oakland be without our tenants?
And I would like to recognize,
I do see that people from X-Ace are here,
and also folks from the Kids Rising are here.
So I think we should thank them for this appearance here.
And also especially the folks from the senior center
at 105th Street.
This is a fairly new project,
and ever since this project came into existence,
we've heard complaints about them over and over and over
again at the Oakland Tenants Union, and that's a scandal,
and I would want the city to clean that place up
to make it friendly to tenants that lived there because this is the disaster.
Thank you for your comments.
Okay so I okay sorry give me one moment Emily you're ceding your time to him okay.
Okay so one of the things that Oakland really needs and more of is we need adequate instruction
adequate education of our tenants that live in Oakland.
We have some fairly good laws, the rent control law, which could be improved on the state
level, and also just cause eviction law, and other good laws, like the Tenants Union, along
with ACE and other groups over the years have gradually made it better, but they have to
be enforced.
They have to be enforced, and hopefully some of the funds from this effort will go to that.
And also, we really need education of tenants, because tenants don't know what the rules
are what the laws are, and over and over and over again tenants come to us they
say hey I'm getting evicted just because my owner is the owner is selling the
building. No way that's not part of the eviction law. So it's stuff like this
they got really lying attorneys that somehow the city ought to find out who
these people are and then. Thank you for your comments your time is up. I do
do apologize we have speakers that are still waiting to speak your time is up
thank you good afternoon city Oakland my name is
semi or Amy I'm with the National Union of the homeless with mental health
outreach for independent living I'm over the housing of this country all
shelters from now I'm being my own dog come see me I have a direct man who'd be
about three or four weeks we're gonna leave LA.
I had him go to Little Rock.
I told him when he was lost and he coming up though.
We're from the clean house.
Y'all ain't right.
They shouldn't be like this.
Y'all wouldn't let me build a senior citizen home for them.
It's already paid for.
To house me, I ain't been planning to sleep in those streets.
I'm gonna see y'all down in the building.
What's she up to?
69 years old.
I got the funding to build a senior citizen.
Y'all won't let us, God dammit.
There's a lot of people living like this.
That's it, that's all.
Wrong.
It got clean, man, 5.8 billion.
I can give you any more of my kids.
We're going to finish straight in this country.
I wish we could clean this country
and get rid of this corruption, because it's tired.
I've been big.
Thank you for your comments, Mr. Ramey.
Hi, my name is Rochelle Miller.
There was a point of clarification.
My name was called for agenda item number 5
when I asked to speak on agenda item number 6.
OK, thank you.
We'll move it to item 6.
it was finished in November and it's still not open, 111 units
because the developer hasn't paid the contractor.
So stop putting in your reports false information.
We need to have an identification of a timeline once a complaint is made
by any tenant or individual related to code enforcement.
Within that time of the beginning of the complaint to the end,
what is that period it must be.
Resolved if it's not resolved within that time line you stop
paying rent until it is resolved.
Are you pay penalties.
But we can't continue to have people do this I've seen this
before with community members come and it goes on for months
and months and months and nothing is happening.
That's because you don't have a regulatory process that creates
a time line for resolving of the need to do this.
for resolving of the issue mandated.
And when it's not resolved and.
Thank you for your comments.
If your name was called and you still wish to speak
on this item, please come up to the podium
or raise your hand on Zoom to be easily identified.
At this time, all names have been called.
Excellent, thank you so much.
So first off, I just really wanna thank
the members of the public that showed up,
I have a little bit of a
conversation about the
leadership of ace.
Oakland's tenant union as
well and all of the
community members that came
from Oakland station as you
all know I myself council
president Jenkins council
member Houston we all as
well as our minute at city
administration all had a
visit to the property and
you know not to put you on
the spot administrator
follow up with some of the yeah with some of the items that we needed to
follow up under the code inspections and so I look forward to happy to have you
chime in but I look forward to further discussions I know that our former city
administration administrator Johnson also was trying to make a lot create
I'm sure that it's a great
momentum to ensure that this
con name I believe it is.
To ensure you know that they
address the ongoing issues that
have been taking place at this
residence not sure if you have
any updates or knowing that we
need to follow up.
Sure and thank you chairman
I want to begin by thanking all the tenants and ace who spoke tonight or today
What you're experiencing I personally witnessed a lot of it along with members of staff
Which included planning and building?
The fire department and other key officials
We saw dead animals. We saw soiled carpet
Doors left unlocked and unsanitary common areas
We took photos
This is completely unacceptable
And your outrage is absolutely justified
our staff
Has done the following obviously we walked the building we prioritize that
And we actually confirm these violations through our regulatory code
including pet infestations and the broken gate,
which is allowing anybody to come in there.
It's completely unsecure.
The mail room is unsecure.
The mail boxes have been broken into.
And so we found other conditions
that while deeply concerning based on the current code,
and that does not mean
that we aren't going to work on reforming it,
but it falls outside of some of what code enforcement
can do at this time in terms of the legal steps that we can take, but as
we've done with other code enforcement reforms as of a month ago, we can do
everything we can to ministerially, fines, pressure on Conam, etc. to accelerate
this issue and the biggest priority right now that we heard is that you got
You need to lock the gate and you need to lock the mail room.
And so we need to prioritize the most important fixes, okay?
And so that's what we've identified as one of the most important ones, is to secure the building, okay?
So we would encourage you to file police reports.
And it's not, you guys are already doing plenty, but this is going to help us.
If you file police reports, if you file 311 complaints and
you complain on your on your own on very specific issues specific to locking the
gate. We believe that locking the gate and securing the mailroom is the most
pressing security issue notwithstanding the health issues. Criminal activities
such as trespassing theft and solicitation which we know is happening
should be documented and addressed through OPD our police department
that we're going to be able to.
councilmember
how's that
the office is also here as well so following the meeting we look forward to further connecting
to walk a walk the next steps and so thank you so much for your for showing up and consistently
sharing with us what these issues are
so that it's top of mind for all of us and so that we can
seek to really make the changes that are that are needed so thank you
I've heard about the conditions that you all
are experiencing far too often sitting up here.
And I don't have to tell you that you deserve none of this,
none of this, but you exercising your rights.
I've seen y'all on the news.
I've heard some of the organizing that you're doing.
It is so important that you stay active because the power is
always with the people.
I was encouraged to hear that you have taken legal action, but don't just come to City
Council and don't just come to, you know, just work with an attorney.
You have to show up and thank you for speaking to me outside in the hallway.
Show up at their places of employment.
Take direct action.
I've supported individuals in your exact same situations towards real solutions.
Real solutions.
It can happen.
In the meantime, do not lose hope because it is possible.
And if you need me to come to some of your direct actions,
when you're chanting down these landlords
or you're going to their places where they are,
I will be with you because I've done it before.
I will do it again because you deserve
the right to live like human beings.
I've seen the deterioration of this space.
It's not my district.
It's not my district, but your pain is important to me.
I paid out of pocket for folks that were members
of your organization to be relocated to other spaces.
I worked with the folks at, in the other place,
Mrs. Sodden knows, the other place in East Oakland
when they flooded, so I've been through this.
And I got y'all back, just tell me where to show up
and I will be there when y'all get ready
to do some direct actions.
That's all I wanted to say.
Excellent, and so for the item before us,
Thank you so much to our amazing HCD team
for the presentation and the update.
I know that this is an annual report,
and so I'm happy to move the item
and just need a second.
Second.
Through the chair, to the chair,
is this requested to be forwarded
to the July 7th City Council agenda as a public hearing?
Yes, please, thank you.
Thank you.
We have a motion made by Chair Brown,
seconded by Council Member Fyfe,
public hearing to approve the
recommendations of staff and to
forward this item to the July
7th two thousand twenty six city
council agenda as a public
hearing on roll council members
five.
Rama Chandra excuse excuse
younger.
I and chair Brown I thank you
motion passes with three eyes
when excused Rama Chandra to
port this item to the July 7th
two thousand twenty six city
council agenda as a public
hearing.
adopted ordinance amending ordinance number one three one zero four CMS which
authorized the sale of a city-owned parcel at three one nine Chester Street
to the Alliance for West Oakland Development authorized seller financing
for the purchase price authorized a construction loan and author authorized
a disposition and development agreement with the developer to develop the parcel
with the two-family home for sale to one convert the project into into an
affordable rental project and consolidate the city purchase and
construction loan into a long-term affordable rental loan and we have five
speakers that signed up to speak on this item. Excellent thank you so much and
then we will hear from staff on this item. Good afternoon Chair Brown and
committee members my name is Tricia Gonzalez I'm a housing development
coordinator with the Housing and Community Development Department. Thank
Thank you for allowing me to have this time staff is requesting authorization to allow
the project at three nineteen Chester Street to move forward as an affordable rental project
rather than the originally approved two unit home ownership project.
This amendment would also consolidate the city's existing ninety four thousand seller
financing loan and a four hundred thousand construction loan with a new one million loan
resulting in a single long-term affordable rental loan totaling 1 million
four hundred ninety four thousand structured as a standard 55-year
residual receipts loan. The additional one million will be funded for measure
you resources already allocated to the acquisition and conversion to
affordable housing program which have sufficient available funds for this
purpose. The financing structure is both consistent with current city
practices and necessary to move the long delayed project into construction. The
project at 319 Chester Street was originally approved in 2011 as a two
unit affordable home ownership development supported by a city land
sale, a 94,000 seller financing loan, and a $400,000 construction loan to the
developer Alliance for West Oakland Development, also known as AWAD. However,
due to rising construction costs, organizational disruptions within AWAD, and the passing of their
founder, the project stalled and the site has remained undeveloped for more than a decade. In
early 2026, AWAD returned to the city with a revised proposal to convert the development into an
affordable rental project, which is now the more financially viable approach. The home ownership
model is no longer feasible because of increased rehab cost, limited subsidy
availability, and the lack of capacity to pursue mortgage subsidies for low
income buyers. Transitioning into a rental model aligns with current market
conditions and provides a more realistic path to completing the project. AWOT has
strengthened its development capacity by assembling a qualified project team,
Including a development consultant and technical assistance from the housing accelerator fund
With these partners in place the project is ready to proceed with permits and construction
The additional 1 million in city financing will address the significant increase in construction costs since 2011 and
support key construction activities
Such as drywall installation flooring kitchen cabinetry and countertops
bathroom fixtures and tile and exterior painting
to the city. To conclude the
to the city of Davis. And I'm
sure that the project is going to be affordable to households
earning up to 80% of area median income. The updated financing
terms and strength on strength and development team ensure the
project can move into construction after more than a
decade. Thank you and I'm available for questions along with
our deputy director fade our molly. Through the chair.
Excellent thank you so much I'm I know that this is located in
The questions I just I had I got clarity speaking with the director of HCD but I will ask for
the record so that everyone is clear.
This seems like a lot of money.
Can you speak to for a small development project can you speak to why it's why the department
is moving in this direction to complete this project
at this time?
Yep, through the chair.
This is in large part due to the economies of scale.
Our partnership with the Housing Accelerator Fund
has been beneficial.
They performed some research analysis
in our existing ACAA portfolio with COSTAR data.
And it's totally in line with our current underwriting terms,
one to nine units, we have set aside up to 500K per door.
And we've also engaged in a series of stakeholder meetings
with our developers since May 2024.
And a lot of our emerging developers
have a really hard time finishing these projects
under the 500K per door because of the lack of being
able to leverage any other state funds.
And this project, it started originally in 2011, I believe.
And over time, the costs also of equipment,
the cost of labor has gone up.
And they lost the original lead for the project, Mr. Cox.
I knew Mr. Cox fairly well.
We organized together back in the day.
But can you, with $500,000 per door,
with two units that equates to the million dollars.
And that's similar to new construction,
which is about a million, well, not similar,
but new construction is about a million dollars
per door, correct?
For new construction?
Through the chair, yes, that's correct.
And so this falls in line in terms of the amount
that is standard in the industry.
It falls inside of that kind of framework
for how much it costs for rehabilitation.
Through the chair, yes, that's development.
That's correct.
Some questions that I didn't get to ask
Director Weinstein earlier today
were about details on the actual contract.
So I wanted to know if you could provide information
around the construction company,
not the construction company,
but the developer's commitment
to securing strong property management.
How do we have kind of oversight over that process?
Yes, through the Chair, thanks for that question.
We've done our diligence with AWOD
in partnership with the Housing Accelerator Fund
to ensure that they do have,
AWOD has a property management plan in place.
They are going to procure an experienced property manager,
and they're also very eager to expand AWOD
and willing to take property management courses
and receive the necessary training
to be able to manage the project once it is stabilized.
I appreciate their desire to want to do that,
but is there anything that the city can do
to make sure that that happens?
Like what kind of accountability levers do we have?
Through the chair, we can ensure that we monitor
and just work closely with a developer.
As we do in our ACOT program,
we're often faced with challenges,
yet our goal is to support emerging developers
and actively seek the technical assistance they may need
or just ensuring they have the correct programs in place.
make sense okay and then my last question is what would be the repayment
schedule for this project including the amount in timeline just from my cursory
look into this project it looks like it might be about $2,500 a month over 55
years is that accurate or and then how do we ensure that the repayment
employment obligations
can actually happen with the cash flow from this project.
Through the chair, I may have to get back to you with the details of
the amount per month, however, it is structured as a 55-year residual receipts loan
and that's our standard practice
of our program.
And that goes back into the revolving loan fund when you get those resources.
Yes.
Yes.
Okay, thank you.
Of course.
Excellent, thank you so much.
And then we have a five year
repayment term term.
That's a standard process.
It is for all of our affordable housing projects actually it's set up as a fifty five year residual receipts loan.
Okay interesting. Excellent. Thank you so much. Councilmember Unger.
On those fifty five year loans do we generally get paid back on those or do we treat it as sort of a write off.
Through the chair I'll allow Deputy Director Faye Darmawi to answer that.
through the chair, council member Unger.
We structure all of our long-term residual receipt loans
as 55 years and we do sometimes get repaid on them
but it is residual receipts so it's on a cash flow,
extra cash flow basis after the primary debt is paid off.
So we should think of this as a gift rather than a loan?
No, it's a loan.
But we don't necessarily get paid back.
We don't necessarily get paid back, but it's the terms of the loan is that if there is
excess cash flow after we pay the hard debt on the first deed of trust, the waterfall
allows us to get repaid occasionally.
Occasionally.
But not regularly.
Not regularly.
Okay.
We were talking about the number 500,000 a door.
Have we already put some money in to this prior?
Yes, we put $494,000 in previously.
$94,000 when the city sold the land to AWOD.
We gave them the loan to buy the land.
We also lent $400,000 for them to initiate
developing a home ownership project in 2011.
So it's $500,000 a door in new money,
but we've already put money in.
So it's not cheaper than another project necessarily.
I mean, we're probably approaching $750 or $1 million a door.
Correct.
Correct.
Do we have other cases in the city with so much city money
into such a small project?
We do.
these ACAA projects have, on the smaller side,
half a million to $700,000 per unit development costs.
In terms of loans per project,
I think this is the outlier.
Okay.
And generally when we work on projects,
we have partners with other funders,
or are there other funders involved in this?
Okay, so the intent of the ACAA program is an anti-displacement strategy.
It's really not a production shop, and these projects are small and medium sized apartment
buildings that we take off the speculative market.
They are very challenged because it's very difficult to leverage other funding for these
a car projects we don't typically have other public subsidies and it doesn't and they do
not support private debt. However, the state of California recognizes the track record
of the housing accelerator fund in San Francisco and our emerging track record and they are
considering creating a huge fund statewide to attack this issue. So the
Housing Accelerator Fund is providing technical support but not money in this
instance? Okay so the ACAA program has two phases. The first phase is a bridge
loan during the construction or rehab phase and in that phase in the bridge
loan pool the housing accelerator fund fund raises over 75% of that pool so the
city of Oakland is 25% and half fund raises 75% that's during the bridge loan
phase then there's a second phase which is the permanent loan phase in the
permanent loan phase that's when we're a hundred percent of the financing most of
the time. And this is what you're considering today is during the permanent loan phase.
The city comes in and quote unquote takes out the bridge loan. So we come in during
the permanent loan phase which is what you're approving today with a fifty five year residual
receipts loan. And we are typically ninety percent to a hundred percent of that financing.
And the million dollar number, that's not the kind of number you normally see on a proforma.
Usually it's 996,324, like it's a pretty round number.
It was rounded up.
It was a very peculiar number, very close to it.
Just for ease of documentation, we rounded it up to a million.
Okay.
And so, you know, this project has languished for 10 years because the group didn't have
technical assistance we're confident that this is a better a better bet now
we are confident that with the housing accelerator fund and with new
management at AWOD that this project will get done okay I'll yield back to
the other council members excellent thank you so much I know that there was
some public speakers but councilmember five no I'd like to hear from the public
speakers okay reserve my comments excellent thank you so much take your
time Theresa I know it's just you thank you calling in the names of the speakers
that signed up to speak on item number six Rochelle Miller Amber Cox Assad
olibala buffalo sojourn and similar me amazing when anything comes up that has
to do with a black developer, y'all got a thousand and one questions. So, this is black
folks, they're going to be working on this project. It's been delayed, just like the
jazz museum has been delayed, just like the developer who was originally going to take
care of the 12th Street development and couldn't get the money together, you took it away from
from him, just like the Black Liberation Zone project is still up in the air, hasn't got
any movement, okay. So why all the questions? When I just told you over and over again,
the Phoenix Project has been completed and the East Asian Development Group owes money,
and you're not asking no questions about that. You got this Motel 6 transitional ...
you. Thank you for your comments miss the side of. Yeah but the little soldier and again.
I'm sort of kind of feel secretary for a. Group organized to address the issue of homeless
that got stomped to death by minions of the city sometime ago I know that's not your fault.
Oh congratulations city administrator I heard you say code enforcement you mean you're finally
going to try to be real about that do you know how many elevators are broken. In the
the senior citizen buildings that black people live in
and the rest of your millennial exchange.
These people started in 2012 and they got a million dollars,
you're gonna pay their salaries.
Hey, also I found out about this housing acceleration fund.
Can you apply that to Oak Knoll?
Who's responsible for the fact that the allocated money
for Oak Knoll's senior development has evaporated?
Do I have to press charges me?
Here's a nice phrase.
Thank you for your comments, Mr. Sojourn.
Once again, my name is Samuel Reagan.
I'm with the National Union of the Homeless
for Mental Health Outreach Program
for independent living out in Chicago
in the head of the Scotterdale North National Headquarters.
I'm running the chapter here in Oakland,
but it's sad.
Why are y'all gonna pay these people started
and they don't go do the work?
Just don't be, oh, they getting paid.
Why is the work being done when it comes to us?
It's like the same thing you see out there.
I mean, I had to make them fix the wall.
They were going to fix the wall.
It's sad.
And the money ain't there.
The U.N. said, you can't be dumb out of Top 10 cities.
Top 10 cities.
I mean, Top 10 College, five of them is in Bay Area.
So you ain't dumb.
He said, you remember, I said, we got,
y'all got $50 billion in there, you know.
You ain't poor, you being cheated.
You all cheating American people.
You all robbing, stealing from American people
the taxpayer, worked all his life.
Which y'all won't give him since since then.
I got the money.
Thank you for your comments Mr. Ramey.
Greetings.
My name is Rochelle Miller.
I'm the program director and Purple Heart veteran spouse
and AWAP member, board member since 2010.
And the 319 Chester Street Project traces its origins
back to city council file 10-0096,
which is adopted in 2012.
We've secured an experienced property management company
black holding diamonds for property management.
Over the course of the project,
we've navigated extraordinary circumstances,
including a force majeure with the loss
of our executive director, the COVID pandemic,
and a significant funding disparity.
In 2014, the available project funding equated
to a box of mainly $82 per square foot.
When the construction costs already approached $145
per square foot at that time,
showing that it was 50% underfunded
the start of the project. Furthermore, the affordable housing language was
amended from the final adoption and resolution, limiting both the
affordability mechanisms like agenda item number five and the CDBG funds, and
other opportunities that reduce the that has caused the project's tax balance.
Hi, I'm Amber Cox. I stand before you not only as a board member of AWOD, but also
also as a daughter of Bruce Cox.
He was my father.
He was the originator of this organization,
and this was his vision.
And so I've been around from the start of this project
in and out while I was in college,
now as official board member.
Some of the delays that you're seeing
aren't technical issues.
There were a lot of city delays,
and I have to put that out there.
We have worked volunteer time,
and I've been on the board for the past seven years.
endless time, standing communication
with the residential lending department,
getting no response during COVID.
It took me a year before it went after Lloyd Ware left.
It took a year before I was able to get in contact
with anyone to even see who was gonna assist us
with our project, who was overseeing,
who could we get in contact with.
We tried to raise additional funding for this project,
but like Rochelle stated, due to verbiage with it,
Go ahead, keep going.
I just want to hear,
did you have something additional to say?
Yeah, just, so we did try to get additional funding.
So it's not like we sat here and waited.
We have worked diligently and resiliently for seven,
at least for me, seven years and Rochelle longer.
Volunteer time to see this project through.
We've met several safety issues
where we've put ourselves in dangerous situations
to maintain that project,
which is located across the street from Bart.
We have worked extremely hard.
I can't tell you how many police reports
that I've had to make to evade squatters,
to evade people trying to take over our properties
by putting their pit bulls in our yard and locking the gate
so we don't have access to our own property
from even some of the neighbors
sending information to the city
to try to get that property taken from us.
And we've stood strong through it all.
We've worked really hard
And I'm thankful for half for working with us
to try to get to this point where we are now.
This is a big thing, not just for the city of Oakland,
just for the housing crisis.
But for me personally, this is my father's legacy.
So I've been a part of this and I stand strong
and I've continued to be resilient with this.
This means a lot.
And to the West Oakland community,
I also am a resident of West Oakland.
And I also want to see more housing get developed.
Our project is almost done.
It's not in the, you know, just shambles.
there were a lot of additional costs that came up,
but this project, it's near completion
and we wanna address that housing.
Excellent, and in this moment,
do you feel like you have all the tools
to see the project through?
Absolutely.
Excellent, thank you.
Thank you.
Excellent, okay, thank you so much to the public speakers.
Council Member Fyfe?
Yes, I was a part of the community individuals
that brought forward the ACAA program.
was named something different at the time, but it was myself as a director of ACE, Steve
from the Oakland Community Land Trust, and Justin as my staff, brought forward this program
because we knew that preventing displacement from low-income communities was difficult
to fund, and for units that are 25, buildings that are 25 units or less, it's extremely
difficult and extremely expensive because it's not something that can be
scaled I also know that the pipeline of projects that are similar to this to
this that the city has is dwindling and there aren't that many projects left
outstanding that fall into this particular category of needing bridge
loans or that started years and years ago that still have to be completed so
I do want to say that I'm I'm happy to move this forward. It is expensive housing in, California is expensive
They're not that many more projects like this that we need to get off the books
It will serve the need that we have with our regional housing needs allocation, and I trust the city staffs
Suggestions on the pros and cons of moving this particular aspect forward after having that conversation with
director Weinstein
So, I'll be happy to move this item forward, and I do want to end with that when I was
organizing for a jobs policy at the Oakland Army Base, it was through the organization
of Oakland Works, and Bruce Cox was a member of that organizing project.
I learned so much from him.
His vision is still alive, what he was trying to do for formerly incarcerated folks and
and ensuring that they had access to good paying jobs
through construction is something that I admire
and I want his vision and legacy to be fulfilled.
This is expensive and we've paid way more money
for way fewer benefits to our gentrifying district.
So I'm happy to move this forward.
Thank you so much Council Member Fife.
I also think that this is an important investment
that we need to make, so I'll second the motion.
thank you we have a motion made by councilmember five second by chair brown
to prove the recommendations of staff and support this item to the july seventh
two thousand twenty six city council agenda on role council members
from a child is excused under
and chair brown
thank you motion passes with three eyes when excused
uh... from a child and
and to the chairs is to go on consent or not
that completes our action items now moving on to open forum
Calling in the names that signed up to speak for open forum, Simeo Ramey, Buffalo Sojourn,
Asada Olavala, Blair Beekman, Ann McClain, and Robbie Ayala, if you're on Zoom, please
raise your hand to be easily identified.
Once again, my name is Simeo Ramey.
I'm with the National Union of the Homeless with a Million Health Outreach Program for
independent living.
We have a national program.
Well, how long?
They've been lying to us.
Hey, Tora.
They told us that the bases were contaminated.
All of them.
Now, you often put constables out there,
so it can't be contaminated.
What about the base housing?
I had that for one shelter.
Key costs, you know?
They stopped that program.
You got vets out of your homes.
I want to fix it up for them to live in it.
They're there.
They fought for that.
They earned that.
Now, I want you to give them the sense.
Move in.
Y'all ain't helping nobody.
There's a lot of people that don't need them.
This is what the problem is.
Read my writing.
Everybody getting something down to you.
Go on your knees, keep going to Brown-Harmon's
begging for something to go, something to do.
We can't get no service and none of that.
But it's sad.
The federal government says any base
government property has housing on it.
Thank you for your comments, Mr. Ramey.
This position that you're a sanctuary city is a joke.
because people who live in here, born in this city,
have to struggle to get things done,
particularly African Americans.
So the meeting coming up, the next meeting,
Oakland Fund for Children and You,
watch all of the, who gets the money?
Same people over and over.
Friends of Peralta Hacienda,
Friends of Lincoln Rec Center,
Spanish-speaking Unity Council, the Lau family,
family bridges, East Bay Asian Development Company,
all the time, same people getting money.
You get one group, come here, never been here before,
or you got questions for them.
You gotta have some accountability
because it's a million dollars.
And that seems quite high.
You are a sanctuary city, but you have no idea
who's in here who doesn't go through a process.
Well I know y'all are tired of my mouth, and I'm tired of y'all's...obfuscation?
Although I have to admit, it's nice to know that the city administrator has visited some of the substandard buildings.
Are you aware of the amount of dead elevators in the building supposedly for senior citizens?
In this year, this child has been making a living for ten years, going for the million
dollars.
All I got to say is, I know, oh no, was set aside for senior housing.
I know that money was allocated.
Now, who misappropriated the money?
You can't blame it all on Larry Reed.
you cannot continue the corruption of your predecessors and expect smiles. I'm embarrassed
for you. Item six. Thank you for your comments. Switching to zoom user Blair Beekman. You
can unmute your mic and begin your comment. Hi. Thank you. Blair Beekman with one minute.
for the meeting.
I'm concerned about strong mayor issues the election
coming up this November.
I like the democratic process involved.
There's choices to be made.
I'm trying to figure out a language how to better
talk about that.
I'm just concerned I've described in San Diego
that we have an IBA system already and it's not working.
We need a different organizational model at this point.
I don't know if Oakland can, they can work well,
possibly in the beginning stages of such a thing,
but I don't know if it'll be sustainable over time.
And I also wanted to offer that previous council person,
Lynn McElhaney, he suggested the ideas
of a small city manager with a small seat,
you know, back in 2016 and 17, it fell through,
it never came through, but it was obviously on the table.
The ordinance, thank you for your comments.
And you can unmute yourself.
It looks like we have you signed up for two.
I'm guessing the second Anne McLean is Robbie.
And I have your hand raised.
Sorry, you went to the wrong computer.
So my name is Robbie, I can go first.
Okay, go ahead Robbie.
Okay, hi, my name is Robbie Ayalam.
You will not be receiving a petition
for removal from the bid from Teodorote's.
He sold this property this year
due to excessive assessment on his property on 35th Avenue.
He was assessed by the lower obit in the amount of 1,434
in addition to all his other Oakland assessments.
He is Spanish speaking with limited English comprehension.
He was one of the residents who did not submit a ballot.
Early efforts to speak to him in English
about the importance of balloting were futile.
I was assigned to speak with him in Spanish,
although there was no language barrier.
He could not understand the importance of balloting
and its significance.
This year, I spoke with him about signing up a ticket
for removal from the bid, but was informed by him
that he sold his property early this year.
He said he wished he understood what I was talking about
because he was unable to understand the materials
that were sent to him by the Laurel Bid.
The 35th Avenue corridor is not a commercial district,
but rather a residential neighborhood,
and we are petitioning to be removed from the Laurel Bid.
Thank you for your comments.
Anne, you can unmute yourself and begin your comment.
I'm Anne McClain, one of many residential property owners
on 35th Avenue.
I'm submitting two more petitions for removal
from the Laurel Bid.
One from Mr. Wu, owner of a single family dwelling
and one from AFL Properties
on an eight unit apartment complex on Delaware,
approximately 40 yards away from 35th Avenue.
We are a diverse group.
We have communicated to property owners.
I have communicated in Spanish, Chinese and Vietnamese.
I've provided you with the face sheets of the two brochures
presented to 35th Avenue properties last year,
both in English, separately now.
Earlier this year, the treasurer of the bid proposed
a 5% increase in assessment.
RAP allows only less than 1% this year.
We are completely unlike the Laurel bid and we want out.
We do not want to pay over $30,000
to have the dust blown off our sidewalks.
Thank you for your comments, Chair.
That concludes all speakers.
Excellent.
Thank you so much, everyone.
This meeting is adjourned.