Good morning. Good afternoon
For those who are here to participate in the council meeting the council members. We need you to your seat as we're about to begin
all right
Good afternoon and welcome to the city council meeting on this Tuesday
September 15th, the time is now
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With that.
I will call roll.
councilmember gio rison councilmember Houston is not in his seat counsel
member Rama Chandra hunger here Wong present and council president Jenkins
president so we have seven members present and one excused with that I would
like to make an announcement for those who are participating here in chambers
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before I go to the first item.
Forgot how to use this.
No announce, who?
Rusty, no announcements, welcome back.
Thank you so much.
Oh, and one more announcement, I apologize.
We are having some issues,
some technical issues with the closed captioning,
so if you are on the broadcast
and trying to get closed captioning,
it wasn't working properly,
you can sign up via Zoom
and you should be able to access it there,
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And I'm going to do one more
item number three and I'm going
to move on to item number three
once the medium is played back.
And one moment.
Because of the amount of
speakers speaker time will be
limited to ninety seconds.
Thank you for that for that
announcement and we will now
move on to the first item on
the agenda item number three
which is modifications to the
agenda and the procedural items.
So I would.
Proposed to council to move
and then here 4.1 after that hearing no opposition so noted we will take the
agenda out of order as called by the chair item 5.1 will be heard first
followed by item 5.2 then 5.4 and the remaining balance of the agenda so we
are now going into the order as changed under item 3 and that will take us to
item 5.1 one moment item 5.1 consists of several pieces of legislation adopt one
of the following pieces of legislation one a resolution accepting the police
Commission selection panel slate of two commissioners Ricardo Garcia Costa and
Joey Harrison to serve on the Oakland Police Commission or to a resolution
rejecting the police Commission selection panel slate of two
committee and that's what's
happening here at the open
commission and there are
there are two commissioners
Ricardo Garcia. A constant and
Joey Harrison to serve on the
Oakland police. Commission and
there are several speakers for
this item. Thank you. Will five
minutes of ice for the both of
you. Yeah okay. Madam clerk
please put five minutes on the
clock please. Hello council my
name is bird Jones I'm a part of
the city administration I'm a
And thank you very much.
Pursuant to Oakland City
Charter 604C3, which states the
selection panel with the
assistance of the city
administrator will solicit
applications from those willing
to serve on the commission.
The selection panel will review
the application and interview
applicants to serve as members
of the commission.
In February of 2026, the city
administrator assigned me to
staff the police commission
application solicitation process. That support included expanding and
diversifying the application pool, which updated the recruitment flyer and
created a brochure in four languages to increase accessibility and outreach
across every council district. The recruitment was promoted through the
city of Oakland and members of the city council social media, nonprofit and
public meetings and forums, senior sitters in Oakland libraries, Maine,
Rock Ridge, West Oakland, Diamond, Frouvel, and Eastmont. Materials
those materials were distributed at neighborhood businesses throughout Oakland, including Chipotle on Lakeshore, High Wire Coffee, Hudson Bay Cafe, Prescott Market,
It's a Grind Coffee House, and Sauna Cafe, along with other community gathering places. Those efforts ultimately resulted in 45 submitted applications.
I'm sorry if I didn't.
During March nineteen twenty
twenty six the selection panel
established an evaluation
process agreeing that each
panelist would independently
review the application using
the panels approved rubric and
submit their top ten to city
admin staff establishing the
first round of the two round
selection process.
During the April twenty the
April sixteenth twenty twenty
six meeting the selection panel
established the remaining
to.
But it was the August twenty
four thirty of deadline were
provided.
To all panelists for independent
review evaluation and ranking.
The panelists evaluations were
then compiled.
And the results were.
Agenda is for this tip for
discussion and action at the
May thirteenth special meeting.
At the May thirteenth special
meeting the panel reviewed the
results.
And agreed to advance the
candidates who receive the
strongest collective support.
The remaining kids did not
the panel voted to resolve the
tie and finalize ten candidates
who would advance to the
interview round.
The panel also approved the
interview question and
structured for the next phase of
the process.
The candidates receiving the
strongest collective support were
Jean Kwan, Cynthia Munes, Ann
Welles, Michael Johnson,
Nicholas O'Brien-Cavari, Joy
Harrison, Katie Fahey, Tyron
Jordan, and Douglas Wong, with
Ricardo Garcia Costa, David
Newton, and Mari McPherson.
with Ricardo Garcia-Costa, David Newton, and Mari McFadden tied for their final spot.
The three-way tie that involved Ricardo Garcia-Costa, David Newton, and Mari McFadden, the panel conducted
an additional vote to determine the final interview position. Ricardo Garcia-Costa received
the most votes in advance, while David Newton and Mari McFadden remained tied. The panel
also considered what would happen if a selected candidate drew before the interviews. Rather
than returning to the full application pool, David Newton and Martin McFadden were retained
at the next candidates eligible to advance. That decision became important almost immediately
before the interviews began. Two selected candidates withdrew, resulting in David Newton
and Martin McFadden being elevated to the interview pool. The interviews were conducted
over two meetings on May 28th. The panel interviewed Jean Kwan, Cynthia Munoz, Douglas Wong, and Ricardo Garcia-Casta. On June 4th, the panel
scheduled to interview Katie Fahey, Joy Harrison, Michael Johnson, Nicholas O'Brien Cavari,
Mari McFadden, and David Newton.
On the day of the second round, one of the candidates withdrew after being selected to
serve as an Alameda County judge, reducing the interview pool from 10 candidates to nine.
The panel then had to decide whether to elevate another applicant into the interview pool
or continue with the nine candidates already in the process.
The panel decided not to elevate another applicant
and to proceed with the nine.
The panel also agreed that it would first
determine whether it could identify four finalists
from the nine candidates.
If the four finalists could not be identified,
the recruitment process would remain open.
Mr. Sato, welcome back.
You're out of order.
At the end of June 10th meeting,
the selection panel moved into final stage
of the selection process.
Following the interview, the panel reviewed
the remaining candidates, considered the interview results,
and discuss the results of the reference checks.
The panel determined that it had a sufficient candidate pool
and identified as Final Four, Nicholas O'Brien Cavari,
Gene Kwan, Ricardo Garcia-Costa, and Joy Harrison.
The remaining candidates, Cynthia Munoz, David Newton,
Katie Fahey, Mari McFadden, and Douglas Wong
were retained in the reserve pool.
From February through June, the process progressed
from recruitment and application review
to independent panelists scoring, top 10 selection,
to the public. And the top ten
selection interviews reference
checks and deliberation
ultimately resounding in the
panel's final four candidates.
For the two slides. Is that it.
That's it. That was thorough.
If there are no. Councilmember
guy. You got it. Yes it's on.
Thank you. With that information
I'll make a motion to approve
the police commission. Beautiful if there are no question. Councilmember Houston. But I have a question. The chair Alex. If you can come up please. So so on the next selection and these are coming together and I approve both of them too I'm a second that both of them. But on the next one why couldn't we separate them instead of say say for instance that one of the council members didn't.
approve of one of the selections, right?
You would have to say yes or no against them,
not like this one, this one I'm good with both of them.
Why couldn't we separate the next one
and when is that coming up?
No, that's a good question.
So originally we tried to do that
and with further legal counsel, apparently in the OMC,
you're just not allowed to have them separate.
So through the chair, I wanna ask the city attorney,
what would be the reason why we could not separate
them for the next one?
Because this one, we may all agree
and that seems like we all agree.
Yes, through the chair to Council Member Houston,
Charter section 604, I think it's 604C3 specifically,
provides that the appointments shall be submitted
to the council as a slate of names
and the city council can either accept
those the entire slate so it depends on the term dates of the appointees how
they come to the council but the charter does require those that align to be
submitted as a slate thank you one more step question chair through the chair
Alex so what if we turn down the next to that comes up what's that process and
how long would that take on that disrupt the police commission yeah I mean it
It would be a little disruptive honestly, but we have a reserve pool for that reason.
So we change things around a little bit and just wanted to make sure in case it happened again, we have a reserve pool that we can pick from.
So last question to the chair, how would it disrupt?
I need to know before, because I don't want to disrupt the police commission.
We meet monthly, and so it just takes a while for us to all come back together.
Right, as opposed to having everything already done, we'd have to set further appointments and
but it would just put us back a
little bit okay so through the
charge want to make sure that
all my colleagues understand
that you do have a pool in case
we don't select the next one
right okay. Is is Ricardo here.
Oh he's got it in the back all
right no more questions. All
right let's go to let's go to
public comment and then I'll
tell some of our- ramachandran.
Joey did you want to come up
and have something to say about
that right yeah I'm going to
the city. And I'm sure you're a
beautiful. I love brevity. All right, Ricardo, you there? You are muted. You may begin.
Good evening council members. Thank you for having me today, considering my application
to serve on the Oakland Police Commission. This last two and a half, roughly two and a half years
that I've been serving, it has been a great honor. One of the greatest things that I've personally
done within my hometown city of Oakland. It's been an extremely challenging position. I think I've
been real just proud of the hard work of all of the commission, our city leadership, the police
department. I can truly say that over the course of these nearly three years that I've been serving
on this oversight body, truly seen a shift within the department, within the leadership. And I just
want to you know have an opportunity to continue to build on that. Serving as
chair for the last 2 years and being unanimously elected by my peers has also
been a great honor to have their trust to be able to have conversations
meetings and be able to move the work along has been a great responsibility
and with that I'm really proud of the work that we've done but the work isn't
over yet. We know as you all know we're going to be heading in front of the
judge, the federal judge soon. We're very close to finally achieving the goal of getting
off of federal oversight. And we have, you know, not only the commission, but myself
as chair, just an individual that's extremely dedicated and is going to do anything against
to get us across that finish line and bring oversight home to the city of Oakland and
have something that the whole city could be proud of. So thank you all for the opportunity
and for your consideration and happy to answer any questions as well.
Thank you chair Councilmember Fife thank you president Jenkins y'all ready for this it's
a new season I have two questions only two questions for for both Ricardo and Joey and
if we could have mr. Harrison come back to the microphone I would appreciate that and
while he's approaching the microphone I will begin with Ricardo I just have two questions
regarding this new iteration, this new season
of the police commission, what do you think is the number one priority of the commission?
I heard you just speak to getting out of the NSA, but I want to know from both of you what
is the immediate goal of the police commission and can those, can that goal or number of
goals be accomplished with the existing structure of the Commission anyone mr.
I will agree getting out of NSA and like I said I you know I want to get in and
see exactly where I can what I can bring best to them some number one is we're
we're getting us out of NSA and then working getting us to work closely together and working
with um you know PD and building trust for the community with the community and can those
the goals that you just listed be accomplished with the existing structure and funding for
the police commission as far as now I believe it can okay Ricardo yes thank you uh council
number five, hopefully you all can hear me okay. So a few things I think well you
know I alluded to some of the incredible strides that we've made and you know it's
not just blowing smoke. I truly see every day the work that command staff and and
some of the beat patrol officers and and division level you know folks are doing
to lead the department and there's a few things that are really important. At this
point we've made some good strides we need to continue when it comes to
standardizing discipline.
When I first came on board,
the commission and the department and CPRA
were in total different opposite directions
in terms of how we saw discipline
and how we're implementing discipline,
and that led to a lot of conflict,
it led to a lot of cases in arbitration,
just a lot of loose cases.
And so over the time, we've been doing a lot of work
in whether it's been through the discipline metrics ad hoc,
whether it's been through certain working groups with CPRA,
the department, the commission itself,
to really work hard on standardizing discipline,
updating the manual rule session so that it's up to date so that we get all this old verbiage
of like typewriters and stuff. There's some policies and some stuff that hasn't been updated
in 20 years. And so really modernizing that work and then getting everybody on the same page around
what discipline looks like, what are violations and what do we sustain on things. And the proof
is in the pudding. Over the last few months, the CPRA and the chief has been agreeing on discipline.
And there hasn't been a need to pull in the commission to arbitrate and to do final rulings
on disciplinary hearings.
Contrary, when I first started,
we're doing disciplinary hearings almost every month
because they couldn't agree.
And so I think when we're all as a city looking at these
issues and to come through a common lens,
and we could get to a place
where we're giving our officers clear instructions,
they know what the understanding,
what the consequences are for break-insurance rules,
and then we can really determine what the difference is
between mistakes and misconduct,
and make sure that we're smart when mistakes happen
and that we utilize teachable moments.
And then when there's misconduct that we weed that out
and we make sure that the leadership at the top
is taking the bull by the horns
and is weeding that stuff out of the department.
I think the IAB transition is incredibly important.
Building capacity of OIG is also important as well too.
And then also looking at a bunch of policies
that we've been looking at.
We've done the J4 pursuit policy.
We're currently looking at the immigration policy.
We're gonna be looking at the sexual harassment policy,
looking at community policing.
And so there's a number of things that are like key
indicators in terms of how the department is operating
and how everyday Oaklanders feel in their experiences
with their police department.
And to answer your question, Council Member Fife,
around the resources, you know, it's been quite
controversial over the last three months
compared to possibly the federal oversight.
We've heard a lot of pressure from the community
from both ends of the aisle.
You know, folks saying that we shouldn't exit federal
without the proper funding for the commission.
And then we've also had folks say, no,
we have the structure, the city's making the strides
and doing the things they need to do,
investment to oversight.
We need to bring those million dollars home
that we're farming out to the federal judge
and bring them home back
to our localized civilian structure here.
Let's go.
I agree.
I agree, Chair Ricardo.
I think that gets to Council Member Fife's question, does it?
No, not at all.
No, no, no.
So, just to wrap things up,
then we'll go ahead and land this plane, sorry about that.
So, essentially what we have now is,
I wanna say we're operating off of maybe 60, 70% capacity.
We took some mid-year budget cycle cuts,
you know, about a year and a half ago.
And then we were able to restore some positions,
restore some funding.
So, I like to use the analogy that,
we're driving a Toyota Camry right now, right?
Would we like a Lexus or a Cadillac and fully be funded
and have the full resources to be able to maximize
our efficiency and maximize our oversight, of course.
Do we have the resources to do what we need to do now
to ensure long term compliance?
Yes, kinda, right?
We do need bodies more than anything.
We need commissioners so that we don't have
multiple commissioners on multiple ad hocs
so we can spread the work out more.
You know, and when it comes to resource.
Yes, ma'am.
We have to move the agenda.
I was looking for a concise answer about your goals
for the Police Commission as well as
can you achieve those goals with existing resources?
The answer is yes, but slower.
If we had more resources, we would achieve them
more efficient in a faster manner.
Thank you for that, thank you for that.
I appreciate it.
So I know there's a motion and a second
on the floor, two seconds.
I just wanted to let the public know
that I believe this entire process
for the selection panel was extremely problematic
and extremely politicized.
And even Alex, I know you initially interviewed Omar Farmer and saw that he
had an exemplary resume and background resources so I'm perplexed as to why it
came back with all of the extensive review about who he was after you
interviewed him and found he was exemplary. That tells me that something
else was happening and I'm deeply disappointed with this process. If it's
the city's office. And I think
that's a good question. It's
about questions we should be
able to question not only the
police department and the police
commission but every single
director department head staff
for council in this city to
ensure we're getting the very
best of what the city has to
offer I don't believe this
process yielded that and for
that reason I will not be
voting to support the motion on
the floor. Thank you. Thank you
call your name please approach the podium in any order if you're
participating via zoom and I call your name please your raise your hand so I
can easily identify you and as stated by the chair the time has been adjusted for
to 90 seconds yes 90 seconds all right Mitra Zurba apologize
mispronounce the name Jean Hazard missus outa olobala Madeline Stacey and
for item five point one we've
taken the agenda out of order
and I've called your name.
And you're in the room please
step to the podium.
If not we will.
Move on.
It's sorry.
Apologize the risk of your name
is Brenda.
Good afternoon to council my
name is Brenda Grisham and I am
here.
For item five point one- I
agree with councilman Houston
the process- the process of
I don't think it's going to be
to be graded on their merit but
I'm asking today that you guys
approve the slate that's before
you I think it's going to work
out fine and it's going to
benefit the police commission
thank you.
Thank you for your comments miss
Good afternoon. Where's my time?
Give it a second. It should be up.
Okay. Thank you, ma'am.
Uh-huh.
So let's go through what happened.
Twice, the former selection panel recommended Omar Farmer.
Twice, y'all rejected him.
So know what you did?
You got a new selection panel
to make sure that Omar Orfama would not be selected.
45 applications, the members of the new selection panel,
not one of them saw fit to put him
on the list of 10 from the 45, not one.
But they did put on the list a person that you rejected
from the mayor because they didn't feel
that they were competent enough to handle the job.
But this new selection panel put Doug Wong up there.
This man accomplishments, I'm not going to go last time I went into it, but you can see that you
have targeted Omar former for whatever reason, a black man who's been very efficient. Last night he
ran the ad hoc committee on the NSA. The NSA being done correctly is under the leadership of
of Omar Fong. He also led the commission of the body that had to do with the money that
was the money that we used for the violence prevention. What is wrong with you people?
Thank you Mrs. Sada. Your time is up. Thank you for your comments. Next speaker. Madeline
Stacy, keep it brief. I just want to say that Alex did interview Omar and as Spike has pointed
found him exemplary and Alex was actually appointed by Councilmember
Brown yet she voted down the recommendation made by the person that
she appointed so to 5th point councilmember 5th point this whole this
whole process has been questionable and concerning and we really do need to have
I have a full robust police commission.
Thank you for your comments.
Good afternoon, Mr. Hazard.
Mr. Farmer has all the requisite qualifications.
And all of you sit there, reject him,
just like the panel did.
What's wrong with you?
You want mediocre folks sitting on these panels,
ones who go along to get along.
It's OK if somebody disagrees with you.
We all can't agree on something.
Isn't that right, Ramachandra?
You can look up.
I'll get to you and the president later on.
Omar Farmer is eminently qualified.
What would you do if I was a candidate?
What reason would you give to reject me?
And all my farmers far more qualified than I.
I have some modest qualification.
Now, I can speak to the issues.
Mr. Farmer speaks to the issues.
Y'all don't speak to the issues.
You get into these politics.
I don't like the way you wear your hat.
And, guile, you always say, it's not what you say.
It's what you do.
that's gonna come back to bite you.
Thank you, Mr. Hazard.
Your time is up.
We have one last speaker who signed up going once,
going twice, and we have Mitra Mitra.
Oh, she is waving her opportunity to speak.
Thank you so much.
That concludes your open,
there's speakers for item 5.1.
So thank you to everybody that came out for this.
I have a question for this election panel.
How many applicants did we get the previous time
And how many do we get now?
How many applicants did we get the first time around
versus how many applicants did we get for this last process?
I don't know off the top of my head.
I think the first time was something around like 11,
like nine to 11 or something really small.
And we only actually interviewed, I think,
four or five people of that.
Okay, I think it was stated that people don't apply
there's incumbents, but it seemed like there was a robust process in which we went to almost every
district. Did we use billboards? We didn't use billboards. We did try to use billboards,
but the process was a little cumbersome for the time frame, but we did go to every district and
we tried to go to libraries in every district. We tried to go to community stores in every district
and just regular like coffee shops in every district.
Okay, thank you for that.
And then I have a question for the chair.
Is he still online?
If you can raise your hand.
And a brief answer would be great.
Yes sir, sorry.
Multitasking over here at work, so.
No, it's all good.
It's all good.
So question, and I've asked you this before,
when it comes to the ad hoc committees
of the police commission.
Ad hoc committees per the Brown Act
are supposed to be temporary in nature
and some have been going on for years.
If reappointed, would you address this issue
and bring any standing committee to city council?
Yeah, I think, yeah,
there's been some extensive discussion around this
and certainly if it warranted a standing committee,
we would definitely bring it to city council.
Part of the problem with the ad hocs
is that we have very limited amount of commissioners.
And so meetings get canceled,
folks are worn out and pulled in different directions.
And so often ad hoc drag out a little longer
than they actually should be dragging out
just because the issues are so complex
and we only have an hour to discuss very complex issues.
So they kind of just go on for a minute.
But we've been, we've recently brought our discipline matrix
ad hoc to a close where we'll be bringing
our immigration ad hoc to a close as well.
And yeah, we're really trying to keep some eyes
I'm keeping them temporary,
not only for the sake of commissioners,
but also oftentimes we have professional staff
and members of the police department that are joining us.
And we want to be very sensitive of their time
and over time that they may be using.
And so of course, yeah,
we want to limit those as much as possible.
And if there's an absolute need
to have an extensive, more standing meeting,
then certainly open or bring that to council.
Thank you.
And then a question for you and Joey.
Joey, thumbs up will be good.
Will you guys pledge to ensure
that there's no interference from council
or any other stakeholder in your decision making.
You're out of order, you're out of order.
And Omar, I mean, I'm sorry.
Ricardo?
Yes, absolutely.
I think independence is a key thing
that we need to always have as a commission.
Thank you, looking forward to supporting the two of you.
Councilmember Houston.
Independence does not mean working,
not working in coordination with the city as well too.
There's oftentimes I think it's conflated
that need to be adversaries, and I think that there is
a balance that we could keep our independence
and how we operate, but also have good communication
with all city stakeholders.
Thank you, so Council Member Houston and Wong,
and then we'll call the vote.
President, this selection panel is only recommendations,
and that's why I had mentioned that they should be
separated because it'll make it a lot easier for council
to a point or to say yes or no on it.
So it's only recommendations, President.
Yes, absolutely.
If you want to accept that section of 604,
you'd have to go to the voters.
Council Member Wong.
Thank you.
Recently became the chair,
and so I want to commend how thorough and just proactive
as well as thinking through some of the contingencies
around this, so thank you for doing that.
One question I just had for Chair Garcia Acosta is,
can you provide some updates to the council
on how the ICE policy, the revisions to that are going?
So that's, can you make it germane to this process?
The ICE policy is not germane to the selection panel
appointing police commissioners.
Well, I have an interest in hearing from the chair,
potentially who is being recommended
is part of this process, from how he's handling
the updates to the department's ICE policy,
considering that is a top of mind
for many members of the public.
Through the Chair, the Council President
already stated the principle that the topic
needs to be germane to the item before us,
so as long as the question and the response
can be tied back to this appointment, then I think.
Well, part of my vote I suppose is contingent on hearing
how the chair has been approaching this question
around updates to the ICE policy,
considering members of the public,
including myself as the chair of public safety,
want to ensure that this policy is done.
The updates to this policy are done thoughtfully, so.
Chair, 15 seconds.
Ricardo, are you answering that?
Yes, great, just got unmuted.
Thank you. Appreciate that question.
Let me tie it back to this process here
because leadership absolutely matters
and relationships matter.
This has been a hot topic and we were treading very lightly
in how we want to approach this.
Because of relationships, we got OPD to agree
to even stand up on ad hoc and hear from community members.
And it was really great that we did
because it was some good foresight
because we had to align the policy with the city of refuge.
We took comment from city council public safety
and from community and we've been trying to work
with the department to include as much of that input
as possible and that's realistically what is gonna get
through city attorney and through the meet and confer
process as well and so it's almost time up.
We have about a couple more meetings left
but I think we're gonna end up with a good policy
that's up to date and aligned with the rest of the city
ordinance and the mayor's executive orders.
Thank you.
Madam Clerk, can you call the roll?
Thank you and there was a motion by Councilmember Gallo,
seconded by councilmember Houston to approve item five point one option number one with that on roll councilmember Brown aye
Councilmember fight no councilmember guy. Oh, I
Houston I
Rama Chandra
Unger I
Wong I and chair Jenkins. I
item five point one option one was approved with seven eyes one note and
that concludes item 5.1 we will continue on to 5.2 as requested item 5.2
consists of several pieces of legislation adopt the following pieces
of legislation one a resolution approving the tentative agreement for
the MOU between the city of Oakland and the Oakland police officers and p
the city of Oakland and the
Oakland police officers
association representing
employees and representation
units p p one and p p p t one
covering the period of July 1st
2026 through June 30th 2031 and
to a resolution approving the
tentative agreement for the M.
O. U. Between the city of
Oakland and the Oakland police
officers association representing
employees and representation unit
you in to covering the period of
twenty thirty one and three in ordinance amending the salary schedule of ordinance number one two one eight seven CMS to provide a
wage increase for employees pursuant to the M.O.U. between the city of Oakland and the Oakland Police Officers Association
representing employees in representation units P.P. one and P.T. one the Oakland Police Officers Association representing
employees two and for the unrepresented police sworn public safety employees and
Classifications in unit you in one and I have 18 speakers for this item
Good afternoon
Council president Jenkins and members of the council. My name is Mary how and I'm the human resources director
I am pleased to bring before you this new tentative agreement that we just reached with the two units
represented by the Oakland Police Officers Association,
the Rank and File Unit and the Manager's Unit.
Before diving in, I do want to thank our partners
at the OPOA, particularly OPOA President, WeWin,
and other members of the bargaining team,
including Omar Daza Quiros, Tim DeLaVega, Cesar Leyva,
Wendy Farofino, Anthony Tedesco, and Alan Yu.
We also want to thank their Chief Negotiator,
Rocky Luccia from the Raines Luccia firm.
So we have a five-year agreement as the clerk just read
from July 1st, 2026 through June 30th, 2031.
During the term of this five-year agreement,
employees will receive a 14% base wage increase,
incremental contributions to health
and additional contributions to pension.
They'll pay for some of the improvements
that they will enjoy in longevity pay,
which is greatly needed to retain our officers
all levels of tenure and in in addition we have negotiated clarifying language
regarding the process for using non sworn employees as well as a re-opener of
the contract when when the OPD reaches the end end staffing levels to discuss
how overtime is calculated under the Fair Labor Standards Act. And finally one
of the features of this agreement is a me too clause. Generally speaking parties
enter into a me to clause for groups that settle their contracts first so that there
is no disadvantage for coming in first and so the Finance Director Bradley Johnson can
definitely speak to this better than I but effectively we look at the cost overall for
these agreements including any contributions or to various programs such as health and
Pension in addition to their wages and other benefits that are negotiated and we take that net difference and compare it
And if if any of the other outstanding tables come in in excess of that then the OPOA will also enjoy that difference
so
I've kept it brief because I know you have a heavy calendar and happy to answer any questions. Thank you any questions from my colleagues
Council member Kyle
Amayan, yes, thank you and thank you for that information and certainly I will support the
recommendation by staff, but the question that I have, you know, it's been in front
of the public for a long time, that's the issue of overtime, and you know, we do have
the Fair Labor Standards Act that's very clear about minimum wage, about overtime expenditure,
is in terms of their public funds.
And again, the overtime can be defined
as an illegal public fund use.
And it's been on the limelight for on and on
with the police department in terms of the overtime
that we're allowing to take place
where people make, what, $600,000 a year?
And have we corrected the process and the approval
for the overtime process to our public officials specifically the police department.
So through the chair to Councilmember Gallo, I think certainly overtime has been a hot
topic for OPD in general, but I will say that under the leadership of Chief Beer that overtime
spending has significantly decreased.
And also I think that the other sort of challenge here that the OPD faces is the staffing level
of the police officers, and I think that there is an all out effort right now to increase
that staffing. We heard loud and clear from members of the OPOA at the bargaining table
that if given the choice, they would not take the overtime because they would like to spend
time with their families as well. But I think given the staffing shortage and the need to
respond to critical safety matters within the city, they do have to work those overtime
shifts. Thank you. Thank you. And with that, Mr. President, I'll make a motion to approve
That's the item.
Thank you, Council Member Gallo.
Council Member Fife.
I understand that this is a resolution
and it doesn't require two readings,
but this is a very significant resolution.
And it's been so much time in negotiations.
So I wanna respect the time that our staff
as well as everyone that's been at the bargaining table
has put in, I'm a little concerned
about the ongoing impacts to the budget
with this level of increase, it's five years?
It's 14% and I know it's technically considered
a win that there will be contributions
to medical and pension but I'm concerned
about the Me Too clause so I was wondering
if you could explain a little bit more
detail how that will work with the me too clause and what differences will be
enjoyed from that and if if officers want to spend more time with their
families and we're going to rely on overtime to continue to fill the gap
while we wait for the staffing levels to improve I just wonder why we couldn't
include some safeguards to what council member Guy was saying about overtime. I
don't see staffing increasing any time soon. Staffing levels across the country
for police departments are at all-time lows, like with military, every branch of
the United States military, so I don't see how we're ever gonna bridge that gap.
So bear with me as I have several questions inside this question. I don't
understand how the staffing levels are going to change. I understand that our
recent academy had a severe difference in the number of people that applied
versus the number of people who washed out, so I'm concerned about that. The cost
of those academies, the resource drain because of those academies, but also
reopening an MOU if our civilian if our civilian units receive increases to
their weight I need you to explain that reopening the MOU if something changes
with our civilian staff so the two questions I want clarified are the the
me to clause how that will work in real life the impacts to our budget and how
would want to do is figure out
how the the m.o. you will be
reopened. If it changes with
our civilian units. Thank you
in the council president brad
Johnson director of finance so
speaking in total regarding
your budgetary item. When we're
doing a budget allocation we are
looking at the total outlay from
the city of Oakland to provide a
service and as I think I have
out for a dollar worked in benefit costs than we do in salary. It's actually a
higher amount over $1 of benefits for every dollar in salary. We care in the
context of assessing the viability of any contractual arrangement and whether
or not it's affordable about the total outlay from the city. And so as it relates
to the particular item before you, the additional savings and ongoing savings
that the city has regarding those benefit costs,
specifically the 3% pickup in retirement costs
and the rolled in 10% pickup of health care costs
more than offset the additional increases
that are seen in some of the other cost items,
leading to a total package
that over the course of the five years is affordable
within a reasonable estimation of the city's budget.
So the total package sits within an element
that is affordable, that we can manage, not easily.
You all know me, I would love to save every single penny
we possibly can.
But it is a realistic and fair award
and it's something that we could manage in total.
And managing the total number
is really what we have to figure out.
As it relates to, so I do think that this is affordable
on a budgetary basis, on an ongoing basis.
again, primarily because of those benefit cost pickups.
As it relates to how we calculate,
and I'll mention overtime specifically,
there are two significant elements of this agreement
that I think are really important as it relates to overtime.
One, there is a cap that we've arranged something
that's similar called compensation time,
which will actually provide some cost savings
and is a recommendation from your city auditor
that we've made progress on in this agreement.
to some of those limitations on compensation time
are real progress for the city
in terms of managing ongoing costs.
I will note that the particular details
of the OPOA MOU put some of the additional savings
from this benefit cost into longevity,
and that actually is a major mechanism
toward us increasing our staffing level.
I'll be direct.
An officer that sits with the Oakland Police Department
often will look to leave the department typically
within four to six years.
That is a really, really high space
where we see departures from the department.
By moving more of our compensation
into a longevity premium where if you decide
to leave our department and come back later,
you start back at zero, we create a major disincentive
for officers to leave Oakland, go to another department,
maybe work over there for a while and then come back.
And without being too direct,
that is a dynamic that we have seen before
and we thought we would be seeing going further.
The most cheap officer for us to employ
is the officer we have on the force.
And so it allows then those academies
to do work on increasing number
versus back-filling vacant positions that have come
from officers leaving for other departments.
So adding the longevity component,
Again, within the total costs that were allowed
is a really key mechanism for retention of officers
and reducing the likelihood of us needing
to retrain officers through a new academy
and use those academy classes to replace.
And again, it's really expensive to get new officers in.
Council Member Five, I think by missing one other question
you had, I think you had one other question.
It might have been around civilianization,
I think was your last question, right?
That was not what I would love,
an explanation on civilianization.
Oh, sorry, I apologize.
I'll happily go there too.
The re-opener, when we achieve
the measurement and staffing levels,
we do have the ability to reopen our agreement
and negotiate around the paradigm
of how we determine overtime calculations
and to come closer to the Fair Labor Standard Act floor.
The city's labor agreements for OPD
and all of our other bargaining units
are more generous than the federal standard,
And that's allowed, that's a legal paradigm
that can be negotiated.
We have retained the ability to discuss with OPOA
and they have agreed that once we hit
a reasonable number of officers
to the point where our overtime is under control
and they're basically not being mandatory
to provide basic patrol services,
that we can have a conversation about the recalculation
of that overtime number to something closer
to that FLSA floor.
And that is a major win for us to be able to have
and trigger that discussion at a later point.
Again, negotiation, as I think our human resources director
mentioned, is a two-way space.
There is major progress we've made on all these fronts,
again, many of them recommended by the auditor.
The last one I'll note for you is
we've clarified the process for civilianization
of roles in this MOU.
And we have a clear paradigm by which we can move forward
with the civilianization of roles.
It is a process.
It does require steps.
But that clarity of roles and procedures
that we would go through in order to civilianize roles
is also key relief, what we've been looking forward to
as an organization.
So as this body looks to allocate resources
towards civilianized roles, we can engage in that process
and move forward those roles that make sense
to have non-sborn staff reform.
So if I'm understanding you, in this,
and I misspoke earlier, I said resolutions,
I was not referring to amending the existing salary ordinance, so I just want to clarify
that.
But, are you saying that in this MOU, the framework for having non-sworn officers perform
the work of existing officers is laid out?
The procedure for us to move forward that is very clearly laid out now in this MOU.
It's clear what steps the city would need to take in order to put that in place.
So if we were to wanting to move forward with civilian organization of roles, the procedure
and pathway to do that is clear.
Again, it's not, we can do it whenever we want, there is a process and a procedure we
need to engage in, but that procedure is clear and direct.
And so in the key spaces that are most important for this, that this body is communicated are
important for us to move forward on, we as staff now have the ability to move forward
in that direction and accomplish those,
accomplish that task under a clear procedure and framework.
And is that tied to the Me Too Clause?
That is not tied to the Me Too Clause.
That was my other question.
Got it.
Civilianization is not tied to the Me Too Clause.
With the Me Too Clause's director,
Hal mentioned earlier, really says,
and it's fairly standard in contractual arrangements,
when one bargaining unit settles first,
there can be a temptation to hold out,
Well, I want to wait and see what everyone else gets.
In order to not penalize someone from coming in first
and saying we have an agreement that I'm comfortable with,
there's often an agreed me too clause,
such that if there is a later agreement sign
that provides better collective compensation
or whatever it may be,
that that bargaining unit can enjoy
the benefits of that too.
So it's not to create a disincentive
of settling an agreement.
And so what the MOU with OPOA has
is a MeToo clause that basically means
if we were to agree during this cycle
to compensation in total, so that's the net of
wages and benefits minus any contributions
to things like healthcare retirement,
that is better than what OPOA was able to garner
based on a formula that is articulated
in the specifics of that MeToo clause,
then that would also be enjoyed at the appropriate time
by OPOA members, again, as not to create
a dense incentive for them to have agreed to an MOU.
Educate me.
Yeah, no, let me...
This feels like apples and oranges
because some of our highest paid staff
are in the Oakland Police Department.
So how do we compare that with someone in SEIU
who is working at a library
that's a temporary part-time worker?
I don't understand how we can open up an MOU.
$70,000 a year is a lot different than $200,000 a year.
So I'm not understanding, help me understand.
Absolutely, so it's on, easy way to think about it
and it's actually articulating the MO and the Me Too
language, it's percentage basis.
What we do is we convert the compensation
in each of the packages into a percentage,
what would effectively be a cola equivalent.
And so if one imagines, if one were to look,
if one were to ignore all the contributions,
if I were to simplify this arrangement very, very,
very simply, and so this is not the model before you,
but I'm gonna use a very simple example.
If OPOA's benefit is 14% over five years,
their five year contract that provided 15% over five years,
then that additional 1% would be what OPOA would agree to,
would be allowed.
So it's all percent, yep, I'll say it again.
Staying strictly with, again, like that coal line
to make it really simple,
because we have ins and outs
and we're converting dollars into percentages,
but if you just state with a simple percentage example,
if the OPOA contract was simply 14% over five years
and we were to settle a different contract
for 15% over five years.
OPOA would then be awarded the 1% differential
between the 14% and the 15%,
to not disincentivize them
for being able to agree now to the 14.
So if we agree during this negotiation cycle
to agree to another union's award that is more generous,
they will see the award for that agreement.
And the way that that's done,
again, I use those percentages,
the total compensation of all the packages
is computed and turned into a percentage,
and then those percentages are compared.
So it all turns into sort of the collective cost
if it were just a straight
and that's the additional amount that's garnered.
Yeah, I get it, I get it.
I appreciate the explanation because I just ad nauseum
that there are certain groups in the city of Oakland
that never have to come to council, petition, leadership
of raises, of consideration, of anything in the city.
I have a family member who is a police officer that was killed in the line of duty.
So this is not about who do I hate, who do I like.
What I know is that we have a deficit in employees in the city of Oakland and lights on on Mandela
Parkway.
Why is there, why have we passed all of these pieces of legislation around homelessness
and it's increasing?
Why is there a legal dumping continuously occurring?
And the people who do that have to beg us and are out of contract right now because
we cannot figure out how to make them whole.
And that is deeply concerning to me.
And now if there's a me too clause that says that the OPOA, if our other unions that are
still bargaining, still trying to get their basic needs met, who did not receive a COLA
in our last budget cycle are saying, you know,
if OPOA is like, okay, well,
if the public works trash workers get something additional,
if it's a 1%, 2% or whatever, we want that too,
but they're the highest paid employees in the city.
I don't understand what is the cost benefit analysis
of why, how is this going to pan out over time?
because I'm looking at, and I've asked you
for this several times,
the long-term financial health of the city.
And if our pension obligations are going up,
if the cost of healthcare is going up,
then it's gonna go up higher for our higher paid employees.
And I'm pleased that they are going to pay
into this in the future.
That said, how are we requiring the same thing
for people who don't make as much?
And what is the financial benefit to the city long-term
if we are, at the end of the day,
gonna do the same thing,
which is increase the benefits for everybody
with this Me Too clause.
Help me understand the long-term financial benefit
because I hear oftentimes that the reason
that the city is in a financial deficit,
consistently having to deal with financial problems is,
and I apologize, Council President,
this is my last question,
but this is a significant piece of legislation
that we're discussing today.
It's literally the foundation of everything
that the city does because the bulk of the cost
that we outlay are employee costs, right?
For any business endeavor, it's the cost of employees.
So if the cost of employees is going up,
but people are consistently saying it's poor management
at the city of Oakland about how we do our budgets,
I want to make sure that the decision I make today
regarding one of the most expensive departments
in the city of Oakland is a prudent decision.
So how does this benefit us long term
and how will this not cause those future budget gaps
where we have to do all these emergency measures,
pull from ballot initiatives to cover salaries
if we're giving this type of increase
and we haven't even gone over the other units yet.
we still have fire, 10 to one, 21,
all the other units, this is significant.
I would 100% agree this is significant,
and as I'm sure told this entire body,
the most important financial decisions you make
are regarding the largest single cost in the city of Oakland,
which is the cost of our staff.
That is the most important thing
in terms of driving the long-term trajectory.
I've never said I've said that to you repeatedly.
Speaking specifically to the terms of this deal
that's before you, which again is a negotiated deal,
I will always caveat, as your finance director,
I will always look for a way for us
to pay less to get the same service.
That's kind of my job.
It's the element of doing it.
This is a negotiated agreement that both parties agreed to.
I will say the most important elements on this
from my perspective, the ongoing 10% contribution
to healthcare is huge for the city of Oakland.
Our healthcare costs are probably the primary,
ongoing, outstanding driver of additional costs increase.
Healthcare inflation is huge.
In a space where we are moving, again,
just even to a 90-10 pickup model,
that is in an average year,
that could result in a half percent
or three quarters of a print savings to the city of Oakland.
and that doesn't sound like very much,
but half a percent or three quarters of a percent
across the entirety of our police personnel
is significant money, especially when you compound
that year after year after year.
And that'll be an ongoing savings amount
that we can count on.
How much?
So a half percent, I will come back
with a specifically costed number,
because I do have it, so I will get that to you in a second.
But if one were to simply do a half percent of a one percent increase over 200 million
dollars of police personnel costs, if I'm doing some round numbers right, that could
be in itself a million dollars a year just in a delta that we don't have to absorb.
Otherwise based on our prior trajectory, we would just be absorbing year to year.
So that kind of change in our dynamic
is really, really, really important.
The additional 3% pickup on our retirement contribution
is also super important as we shift those costs over,
those are costs the city will not have to endure
on an ongoing basis.
And again, so that spreading of that cost increase
is really important.
But as I said earlier,
when you're looking at this or any other MOU consideration,
I would say the most important thing
is to look at the bottom line number.
What's the net between the outlay,
any contribution you receive?
And again, this results in an ongoing expenditure trend
that, sure, it's higher than I would like to see.
I would like to see the number be zero or negative.
But again, you're a finance director, that's my job.
This is, yeah.
With the increase, they can afford to contribute
to their retirement and-
That's actually the dynamic that you're seeing played out.
net increase, if you were to look at the sort of the wage amount, right, that
14% is in part being paid for by the contribution. That is actually that is
exactly that dynamic that you're seeing in this contract. That COLA amount is
being paid for within the contract by the contributions to health care and
retirement. That's the dynamic you're seeing within it. And again, for your
budgeting purposes, that bottom line number, the overall increase between one
you're going to get on top of
that the one to five I would
love that for that to be lower
but this negotiated amount
again between both parties is
something that is within the
realm of what you would see it's
aligns with the cost of
inflation that you would see
across the economy it's in that
range of the kind of increase
that the city again hoping for
reasonable economic growth and
reasonable circumstances can
budget for and maintain and are
I, I will be careful about, and Mary will caution me to not speak too much about our
other negotiating tables other than the fact that we're in continue to be in active negotiations.
Scratch that.
Scratch that.
Is there, is this a model that you think is beneficial for the entire city as a whole?
As your finance director, I would love to see a model like this replicated across the
rest of the city.
I'm complete.
Thank you.
councilmember let's go to what councilmember long then wow okay thank you so you've expounded
upon the benefits of in particular the pay for is for health care benefits my understanding
is because many of our officers are dropping off at around the five-year mark is that the
health care pay for may not actually be saving the city as much as we would like is that
is at one million dollars per year
that you just expounded upon.
That is based off of our current personnel
as well as the current attrition rate
that we're experiencing at OPD.
Yeah, our healthcare benefit should be experienced
regardless of an officer's tenure.
The city plays currently for the full value of a Kaiser plan,
either for a single person, a couple, or a family,
regardless of that element.
The 10% pickup as it phases in would apply,
The benefit applies to officers no matter what their tenure is and so the pickup contribution
is the same for all officers no matter their tenure, whether or not they were hired 20
years ago or yesterday.
So that benefit should, and it should continue for future officers in perpetuity, so that
particular benefit should not actually vary on the tenure.
That should be the same across the entirety of the union.
Okay.
All right.
One other thing that I've been getting a lot of questions around is this longevity pay
and I know that the rationale is really,
it's around preventing attrition, right,
and we talked about the expenses associated
with the police academies.
Have you actually modeled, first of all,
how much the longevity pay is going to cost us as a city?
I think one of the things that was discussed
is that there's not that many officers that,
for example, have reached the 20 or more years of service,
or the 15 to 19 years of service,
but I would love some numbers because those premiums
do look significant and so what it looks like
as an impact to the budget.
Absolutely, so we, in order to come up with a total
bottom line cost on your contract,
we absolutely modeled what we thought longevity
would look like.
That is exactly how we costed it as it is a new benefit.
So that is not just, we didn't just assume
that that was to be there, that's a real cost.
And again, it's a significant,
it's not an insignificant cost of this agreement.
It's a real cost.
It is being borne in large part by the value
of, again, those contributions to healthcare and pension,
absent the longevity amount.
I would say that the longevity amount is smaller
than the combination of those two things,
but it's a significant increase,
but again, it's being effectively fully paid for
by those contributions.
And again, it strategically moves your compensation
as opposed to it showing up sort of broadly
across all tenures of officers to structured in such a way
where it rewards officers staying with the department.
So it moves from sort of blanket across the board
compensation which you might otherwise see
in the context of exchanging a benefit for a wage package
into specific targeted compensation for officers
that in agreement to stay, and again I'll note that longevity is not just your
term with the department, it's your continuous term with the department. So
it discourages officers from leaving trying their hand at another agency and
then trying to come back later, hopefully meaning that we can maintain our current
officer for workforce and again reduce the cost to us of running additional
academies for the purpose of trying to replace officers recurrently have on so
that there's academies do the work of increasing staffing
or eventually when we get there maintaining it.
And other cities have found that the longevity pay
actually makes a difference in reducing attrition
because I don't want to approve this
and three years from now we're still seeing
the same rate of attrition of losing six officers per month.
I think longevity is a really common way
that you see for addressing a retention issue.
It's probably the standard practice.
I'm looking at our human resources director.
in the industry, when you have a retention problem,
this is the normal tool one would look at
for trying to address a retention problem.
I would note that our friends across the bay
have agreed to an MOU that has similar dynamics to ours
in terms of its term and duration,
and it also has significant elements of longevity
for the same reason.
So as it relates to our local dynamic,
longevity's a really, really important way
to stop employees that are vulnerable from being poached
to maintain them for the duration within an organization.
Okay, thank you.
Thank you Council Member Wong, Council Member Brown.
Excellent, well thank you all so much.
The only question that I had,
I know that we discussed at great length
about what it would take to ensure, you know,
some of the, you know, positions within OPD
could potentially be transitioned
that are going on and- I was
curious if you or Brad- could
share you know especially for
the public what was the
specific language that needed
to change in the M. O. U. that
was kind of like- preventing-
us from taking action action-
in the past.
Certainly I the- I will say
that through the chair to
The language for using non sworn staff
already existed in the labor agreement with OPOA.
However, there was some confusion possibly based on
how it was written or introduced as language in there.
So we added a couple of sentences in the beginning
to specify when we want to pursue this process.
These are the steps that we will do.
So it was really just an introductory
and carefully worded sentence to say that this is,
to point directly at the provision.
Excellent, and so now in this MLU
that we will vote on this evening,
now that specific language is there outlined.
Correct, but the process already existed,
but there seemed to have been some confusion
about its utilization, so.
All right, thank you.
Thank you.
Councilmember Houston, do you want to go to the public?
Deep in thought.
Okay.
Councilmember Fyfe, I did want
to answer your specific question,
and by year five of the contract,
there's a $2.1 million savings from the health care amount.
So by year five, that should be our savings amount
and that will continue to grow
as the cost of health care grows.
Thank you, let's go to the public.
Thank you.
As I call your name, please approach the podium
and state your name for the record.
If you have time seated to you, please state that as well.
If you are participating via Zoom,
I ask you to raise your hand so we can easily identify you.
Jennifer Foster, Ari Gonzalez, Jean Hazard,
Grace Marion, Joshua Estes, Mitra, Millie Cleveland,
Anne Janks, John Jones III, Noel Lily Pond, Maxine Vesaya,
Glenn P. A show chill or teas Mitch put shake off.
Miss Asada Ola Bala Nate Adams math is Jean locks and Madeline
Stacey again in any order and please state your name for the
record and if you have time seated please state that as well.
Good afternoon.
Hi, my name is Mike pet off.
I'm actually chairman of the Oakland budget Advisory
Commission and I'm actually vice commander of the
and we also have a VFW post of
the city of Oakland. I'm
wearing my hat my funny hat
today in respect for our our
sworn uniformed officers. Let
me comment and say our officers
are vital to our public safety
structure. And it's important
they be well compensated. And I
applaud the modest cost of
living kind of increase in the
health care contribution that's
really great. But I'd also say
that typically the compensation
that they should be able to
be serious about meet and
confer city of Austin decided
to defer their M. O. U.
approval for a full year to
enter into serious M. O. U. so
whether we do it in parallel or
or other other ways we need to
be serious about meet and
confer if we approve this in
November we could still have
the first pay raise take effect
in January. Yes we should talk
about civilian positions it's
not just a billion I think
this thing positions we have
sworn officers in defined
We've had overtime overruns regardless of crime rates or staffing levels but two other issues are super important one is the 17%
Non-deployable that are on payroll. We need to have an earnest discussion about the causes for that
Some of those are workman's comp and other issues someone's parallel discussion and also patrol draw the command staff cannot
Assign the officers where they're needed most they assign themselves by seniority
We need to have visibility on what impact that has to the efficiency of officers
Thank you.
Thank you for your comments, Mr. Mike.
Your time is up.
Thank you.
Good afternoon.
Good afternoon, Madam City Clerk.
Through the chair, John Jones III, for the record, I just want to say this again.
The issue for me is always overtime, and I just want to lay a quick framework, and I'll
be as quick as possible.
I remember being before you all in June during the mid-cycle budget, and you were deliberating
on the use of $200,000, right?
The choice was, do you fund our much needed senior centers here in Oakland, or do you
use that funding for let abatement policies in OUSD?
In 2024, at least 27 OPD officers earned more than $200,000, just an overtime alone, 27.
We heard about one of those who made nearly half a million dollars.
If he would have just made less than that, we could have funded both programs.
So I think it's very important that we understand
the severity of this and why it's so crucial
to hold the overtime spending accountable.
And I wanna add something real quickly.
Just this notion of accountability
by some people being used as seemingly hatred
to a department just utterly ridiculous.
Stop that narrative.
It's not about hate.
It's about we gotta make sure
we're doing what's best for the city.
And I know what's best for my soon to be 12 year old son.
It's not just throwing tons of money at OPD
the day and it's an honor to
be here today and it's a
pleasure to welcome you here
because there's other needs
that our children need as well
in this city.
So I want to thank you for your
service and please hold them
accountable in this.
Thank you.
Here are the facts.
60, 70% of your police officers
live outside of Oakland.
But let me tell you what
happened during the Delham's
administration and half of you
won't sit on that council.
Half of you won't even look at
historical record indicates a very substantial reduction, approximately 50 percent between
the high point 2007 to 2010. 2007-2008 spent approximately 25 million on overtime, about
twice the amount budgeted. 2009, please overtime, was approximately 14 million, more precisely
elsewhere as about 13 million.
That represents a reduction of over roughly $11 million, 44%.
So don't vote for this until Mr. Johnson or the city
order brings back to you a report that
states why was there such a reduction doing
the Delaware's administration,
all this stuff he's talking about,
it was reduced by 50%.
Get a report.
If you don't, you're negligence.
Here are the facts.
Thank you for your comments, Mr. Hazard.
Your time is up.
Hi, Joshua Estes, for the record.
I quit a job two weeks ago
after going three months without pay.
My previous employer now owes me over $7,000,
and the only recourse I have
file a claim with the DLSE. After filing that claim two weeks ago, I learned that
there is an 18-month backlog for cases to open by law that's supposed to take 30 days.
In the meantime, how am I supposed to get by? If it weren't for one generous grandparent
and his kindness, I could be facing eviction. I could end up living on the street. I can't
call the cops on an employer who won't pay me. He's breaking the law but I'm praying
price. This is how people end up on the streets. Underfunded and understaffed city services
drop the ball. And then you all pay cops to bully people who are already at rock bottom.
I am asking the City Council to get more creative in how they spend the limited money in our
city's budget. The police don't need more money. They already have generous salaries.
Please vote against item 5.2. Bargain with the police union as aggressively as you bargain
with the people who get underpaid to keep the city running the people of
Oakland need you to fund support systems not police overtime thank you
thank you for your comments I am grace for the record I urge the council to
pause approval of the police contract and reject it as currently written one
point worth highlighting that something y'all were talking about is that there
are no controls on overtime until we meet the measure and in staffing levels
like Carol Fife said that's simply not gonna happen staffing is low and it will
will continue to be because people aren't interested
in becoming police officers.
The department acknowledges there's a problem
but claims it cannot fix it
while we don't have enough officers.
Isn't the time to conserve resources
precisely when we have a deficit?
Or was fiscal responsibility an empty gesture
from all of you and the police department
to pretend something was being done?
Historical data suggests increasing police staffing
has not reduced overtime spending in Oakland,
even when it was going up.
OPD spent 55 million in overtime in fiscal year 2025,
31 million over the budget while OUSD gets cuts.
Staffing will always be down.
This contract also fails to recognize the distinction
between necessary overtime, which again,
OPOA claims is all overtime
because there aren't enough officers.
That is not a staffing shortage.
There is a spending problem and it deserves scrutiny
before we lock in a contract.
We deserve a contract that reflects actual priorities
of the people in Oakland.
So while other city workers suffer and you wait on them,
you only bargain fairly for police officers,
our highest paid people.
We need to civilianize roles now
and you need to reject this.
Thank you so much.
Hello, my name is Mitra.
I'm a member of East Bay DSA and Stop Cop Nation.
We actually held a press conference earlier
before this meeting and we saw two city council members
walk by wall. We were talking about OPD over time in this contract and I wish
that they sat down to listen for what we thought for a little bit. From my
perspective there's just simply no need to pass this right now like at all. We
have two other city worker unions that are without a contract and we need to
focus on the priorities of who is actually working Oakland. Do we forget
that OPD spent $55 million in overtime last year? Do we forget the increase that
increased staffing does not fix over time do we forget what actually solves
crime which is supporting healthy neighborhoods well-funded schools having
affordable housing having a living well living income we something else that you
can do right now instead of passing this is to civilianize the role the roles
that OPD currently partakes in it's so easy just do it there are other
community. And we've also
heard a lot of other employees
that deserve this type of pay
I deserve the type of support
like librarians transportation
workers macro social workers
that's who runs our city it's
not the police. If you pass us
today it will be a betrayal for
the working class people of
Oakland I urge you to pause and
reflect and think about the
other workers on the line and
our community members thank you.
I'm really clean from coalition
discussion tonight is how uneducated the council members are about what they
plan to vote on. People have been asking for public discussion about the OPOA
contract for months. It could have been on the agenda for the Public Safety
Committee. You don't have to be at the negotiating table to hear from the
community what we think are key issues that need to be negotiated. I also want
to clarify what meet and confer is.
Meet and confer is negotiations.
There is no reason why you couldn't have resolved the GPS issue during negotiations.
There is no reason why you couldn't have negotiated the civilianization.
There is no reason why you couldn't negotiate any of the 21 recommendations
that city auditors have made on how to control OPD over time.
The only reason that you're not taking these issues up is because the police union doesn't
want to talk about it and this council always conciliates to whatever the goddamn police
union wants.
And the last thing that you have not even asked a question about is how does longevity
affect the city's liability for the increase in pension costs?
You are not asking intelligent questions.
thank you for your comments mr. Jank's your time is up Cleveland sorry good
evening council my name is Sochi I'm a proud local 21 member and a resident of
district six this proposal is egregious and unacceptable for many reasons it is
financially irresponsible for council to accept an agreement with OPOA that
ignores concerns highlighted by city audit audits particularly OPD unlimited
overtime in 2019 alone auditors found approximately 14 million per year over
budget just do police overtime. The one-third of officers worked over four
five hundred OT hours per year. This the new contract still sets no overtime cap.
San Jose's police department is over twice the size of Oakland's yet OPD has
nearly five times more officers on an administrative leave as misconduct
charges are being investigated. Across years police spending has gone over
budget and it is council's responsibility to sign a contract that
addresses this issue. This proposal is unfair to city workers and the public.
local 21 is forced to fight for tiny increases at the bargaining table and
told time and time and time and time again there is no money for us not to
mention stop working in conditions with little money available to do the
important work necessary to improve and maintain our city such as funding
affordable housing regarding the me to clause if civilians win better terms
OPOA automatically gets a different suit this is not equality it is a one way
ratchet that guarantees OPOA always comes out ahead the city forecast 120
million per year shortfalls through 2030.
This contract is five year cost is $29 million,
which is a quarter of that gap.
This is ridiculous, considering the staff vacancies
that exist and necessary projects that go unfunded.
Thank you for your comments, Ms. O'Shea.
Good evening, Council members.
My name's Noelle.
I'm a D3 resident, a proud member
of the local 21 bargaining team,
and I'm asking you tonight to pause
before ratifying the OPOA contract tonight.
As you know, the city auditor first flagged
OPD's overtime practices as the main driver
of our city's budget shortfalls back in 2015.
And these auditor report recommended changes
have not been addressed in this agreement.
I'm happy that these issues are being looked at,
but ultimately tonight's agreement does not fix any of this.
It doesn't set a hard cap on overtime hours.
It doesn't change the cap on comp time hours,
and it's silent on the practice of selling back comp time.
Meanwhile, last year one officer worked an average
of 64 hours of overtime per week.
That's not a negotiated oversight.
It's a decade of the same recommendation
being ignored contract after contract.
As a Local 21 member on our own bargaining team,
I've watched this play out in real time.
We've been at the bargaining table twice a week
since March, told time and time again
that the city cannot afford to pay us
any cost of living adjustments,
cannot pay for things like a bus pass.
Meanwhile, you're here where you're seeing
OPD officers set to get a 14% base pay raise over five years
and longevity pay up to 15%.
Plus this me too clause that says
where if SEIU or IFPTE or the other non sworn units
or firefighters win better terms,
OPA automatically gets the difference.
This is not a floor to keep police pay comparable.
It's a ratchet that guarantees that OPA OA.
Thank you for your comments, your time is up.
Hello Council, my name is Colin.
We're talking about a police department that continually spends nearly $14 million over
its budget every year, a police department whose overtime budget alone was more than
our paving budget, $55 million last year.
Why do we continue to literally rewarding them for bad behavior?
This contract here has no cap on overtime, there's no meaningful tools to prevent the
dysfunction we continue to see and I want to thank you councilmember Fife for
pointing out the hypocrisy of this contract compared to other bargaining
units you know we need to lift up our workers who are earning nearly poverty
wages for important work that keeps city services running so I strongly urge you
to reject this proposal thank you hi my name is Maxine I'm a city employee a
resident of district six and I'm here to ask you to also not approve this
proposal you know I think about the me too clause that's in there and I'd like
to know if it's seen you know this model is supposed to be seen as I'd like to
see it across the city so local 21 has a vacancy rate of 21% where Oakland's
sitting at like six percent and you have these longevity clauses to incentivize
people to stay but I have yet to see in my time in the city and offer of
longevity to stay and do the work that our people need so I'd like you to
consider that thank you thank you for your comments I'm Jennifer Foster I am
president of local 21s a and w chapter a longtime district 6 resident 25 years
city employee clearly we are in unprecedented times for the first time
ever council is allowing a me to for police to benefit from wages and benefit
improvements of all other unions without having to feel the pain. I want to know
do they have to give back lost wages if we have to strike because we're forced
to do so by admin who won't give us a contract. It is really really interesting
to see that admin is burying police colas in premium pay, longevity is moving from a
flat rate to ongoing percentage of base salary raising from 2% to 15% which is all pensionable
increases on top of the annual colas.
I hope my workers get cola plus 10% to year after year for five years.
that home to me my workers need it I'm thankful councils prioritizing retaining
and onboarding staff it encourages me that you realize the sacrifice and
loyalty of workers we need this incentive like longevity plus cola
formula brought to our tables all we get thank you for your comments your time is
up. Anne Jenks, District 3. So, the longevity bonuses in this agreement are being explained
as necessary for retaining police officers. If officers are most likely to leave OPD in
the five years of service range, how does it strengthen retention to give the largest
longevity bonuses to 20 plus year veteran officers? What's the anticipated impact of
senior officers receiving these massive longevity bonuses.
This will increase their pension,
which is based on their most recent salaries,
and the longevity bonuses are included if they retire.
Is there an analysis that the bonus will encourage them
to stay longer than they otherwise would have,
even though they'll lose the pension bump
they would have gotten from the bonuses?
It does not appear the staff report reflects
the increased city pension obligations at all.
Although the staff report says unrepresented employees
in UN1 unit will receive the same provisions,
the staff report does not reflect these costs.
Every time there's a public outcry about unmanaged overtime,
OPD brings it down temporarily.
There are no changes to the substantive concerns
raised by the city auditor on managing overtime
or lowering caps on comp time.
The city council's been more focused and committed
to undermining independent police oversight
than that leads to accountable and effective policing
than understanding or managing OPD and the finances.
Thank you for your comments, Mr. Banks, your time is up.
Madeline Stacy.
So Mr. Johnson, excuse me, Mr. Johnson mentioned
that the police provide a service.
What do we think that the unions
with outstanding contracts do, the city workers of Oakland?
They've been negotiating for months
and the IFPTE specifically has been out of contract
for two months.
The prioritization of finalizing the MOU with the OPOA
shows just that, who this council prioritizes.
And it's not the city workers
and it's not those who write real on the ground services
to the people of Oakland.
OPD does not need greater pay packages.
Oakland needs community services, housing.
We need to fill the gap of food
since the federal government's taking that away
so that benefits.
we need well-funded schools,
things that other people have mentioned.
So my question is this, who do you serve?
The people of Oakland or the OPOA?
Matias Luke's yields his time to me.
Is Matias still in the building?
Okay, thank you.
Good evening.
My name is Nate Adams.
I'm an Oakland District 2 resident.
I want to make very clear that all city workers
deserve a fair contract.
So why is OPOA being rushed through
while our city workers are being blocked?
The council says it wants a clear, balanced budget.
But this MOU does exactly the opposite.
On top of a 14% raise,
longevity pay quietly layers in another 2 to 15%.
For some officers, that's 15%
on top of the 14% COLA-adjusted increase.
seventy two million dollars answer
your earlier question
what does longevity
expand into the into this budget seventy two million dollars is the
additional spending
this contract commits us to over five years
well we still can't even fix our own potholes or pick up our city's trash
the need to close
is irresponsible budgeting
if city workers when real demands
and so in order to keep real
raises through their own
negotiation, OPOA gets even
more automatically.
Our city council is fast
tracking one negotiation while
stalling the negotiation for the
workers who pave our roads, who
manage our parks.
Make that make sense.
Oakland deserves effective
governance, not whatever this
is.
Stay accountable to our
thank you
Thank you for your comments next speaker, please
So if this process had been well vetted
The proper way would have been it would have gone to finance committee
It would have gone to public safety committee
It would have been reviewed by the budget finance committee with recommendations
None of that happened. This is a rule 28 item. That means it wasn't done correctly
so you rubber stamping it.
So when I had a job for 31 years,
I didn't automatically get a pay raise.
A part of my raise was job performance evaluation.
Job performance of this police department
is best represented in the genderized item for tonight,
item 6.9.
Lawsuit against the Oakland Police Department,
where you are rewarding 17 million dollars.
When you read the document of what happened
when there was unauthorized chase of police officers,
the document says two officers made inappropriate remarks
and left the scene, returned later and attempted
to obscure their involvement in the events
leading to the crash.
Job performance, 23 years of the NSA job performance,
you're currently dealing with a lawsuit
for which a NFL player was killed by the police.
Job prof...
Thank you for your comments, Ms. Asada.
Your time is up.
All names have been called.
There's an Ari, Glenn, and Jennifer.
If you are not in the room, we can move on.
All speakers have been called for action.
Thank you for everybody that came out to speak.
Public comment has commenced.
Any more comments from my colleagues?
There's a motion.
Is there a second on the floor?
Second from Houston.
Roll call.
All those in favor say aye.
Thank you for that there was a
motion by councilmember guy
oh seconded by councilmember
Houston and if I may and the
parliamentarian may chime in I
did just to reiterate in
regards to these three pieces of
legislation the third piece
will be to reading so I just
wanted to make sure that that
was clear that it will be the
second reading will occur on
my apologies let me just pull up my roll okay on roll motion by councilmember
guile seconded by councilmember Houston to approve councilmember Brown I fight
no guile I Houston I ramachandran hunger I Wong I and chair jinkin item 5.2 in
And all three pieces of legislation were approved
with seven ayes, one no.
Council Member Fyfe, again as I stated part three
will be approved on second reading on October 6th.
That now takes us again out of order
as requested at the beginning of the meeting.
One moment as we move to item 4.1, our one public hearing.
All right.
Moving to item number 4.1, our only public hearing.
And if I may, get a motion to open the public hearing.
Gaio.
Five.
That was a motion by Council Member Gaio,
seconded by Council Member Fife to open the public hearing.
And with that motion, Council Member Brown.
Aye.
Fife.
Aye.
Gaio.
Aye.
Houston.
Aye.
Wabachandran.
Aye.
Unger.
Aye.
Wong.
the public hearing. And upon the-
Any other questions?
All right, five minutes, seven o'clock, please.
May I have the slides, please?
Good afternoon, council members.
Claudia Flores, Housing and Community Development Unit Manager.
I'm joined here by Hugo Ramirez,
Deputy Director of Community Development.
So every year we hold a public hearing
as required by the U.S. Department of Housing
and Urban Development, or HUD,
for the Consolidated Annual Performance and Evaluation Report.
A brief reminder about HUD's funding cycle.
Represented in this slide,
The year the city gets formula grants
as an entitlement jurisdiction,
which means we do not have to apply for the funding.
We're entitled to it based on our population level
and other factors.
HUD cycle for planning and reporting on this funding
is that starting with the first box at the top,
every five years we create a consolidated plan.
It lays out a five-year approach for HUD funding
in alignment with broader city and county goals
and needs around homelessness,
housing and community development.
Our current complaint covers 25 to 2029,
so this capers the evaluation
of that first year of the complaint.
The second box is the annual action plan,
which is a one-year funding plan submitted annually
that maps to the complaint and represents what we will do
with our HUD grants in the coming fiscal years.
So we were here this past summer for the plan
for the current fiscal year.
And then the last part of the cycle, the purple box,
is that 90 days after each fiscal year ends,
we submit the caper which reviews how we did in achieving the outcomes we laid
out in the prior fiscal year's annual action plan so that's what we're
presenting to you today for receipts so we can submit to HUD in two weeks. As a
reminder the comp plan and the annual action plans reflect the city's housing
and other strategic priorities of the three piece of production of new
affordable housing, preservation of existing affordable housing stock, and
protection of Oaklanders from displacement. These HUD grants and plans
also cover homelessness solutions
and economic development support.
Just a little bit more about this caper.
As a HUD compliance document,
it reports on the progress towards the commitments
and the planning documents and the city's impact
and activities carried out with our four annual grants
during fiscal year 25-26,
which total a little over 14 million.
In 2025, US Council accepted and appropriated
at the following funds, approximately $8.1 million
of community development block grant,
which includes reinvestment of our loan repayments
from our revolving loan program.
And I'll say a little bit more about the breakdown
of this in the next slide.
And the next grant is close to $2.3 million
in home investment partnerships,
used exclusively for affordable housing construction.
Also $3.7 million for housing opportunities
for persons with AIDS, which is used for a variety
housing and supportive services and administered by the Human Services
Department's community homelessness services unit on behalf of the eligible
metropolitan statistical area which includes Alameda and Contra Costa County
and the split is approximately close to 80% per Alameda County based on HIV
prevalence. Finally six hundred and fifty seven thousand dollars in emergency
solutions grants which is also administered by CHS for a variety of
of homeless services.
Just a little bit more about CDBG funding breakdown,
it is restricted to capital uses primarily,
which is why we allocate the majority
to production and preservation activities,
including our new construction NOFAs
and our homeowner-occupied rehabilitation grant
and loan programs.
In fiscal year 2526, we allocate about 1.2 million
to homelessness solutions,
primarily capital improvement of homeless facilities.
About two million was allocated
to anti-displacement activities,
which includes keepable house for housing,
legal services, and code compliance relocation.
Lastly, 600,000 towards economic development,
small business support administered
by the economic and workforce development department.
This slide switch I won't read in the interest of time,
it just includes some of the highlights
were included in your agenda report,
but it's some specifics on actual projects,
jobs, households served.
next steps this capers available for review
until the end of this week.
Comments from members of the public will be included
in the submission to HUD in two weeks.
In early summer, back to that cycle slide I went over,
we will return with the annual action plan
for next fiscal year.
And to that end, HUD requires that we allow the public
to comment on community housing
and economic development priorities
for next year's formula grants.
And as a reminder that the use of the grants,
as I said earlier, is primarily restricted to capital
and there are strict caps on direct services
and admin costs.
So there are only some kinds of activities
that are eligible, but we'd like to hear community priorities
to inform the development of the next annual action plan.
That concludes my presentation
and I'm available for questions.
Thank you so much for your presentation.
Council Member Fyfe.
Just briefly, when I first got to office,
I drafted with my staff legislation
for a social housing pilot.
I was wanting to utilize CDBG funds.
And I just wonder if all of the funds
that are in this particular presentation are allotted for,
we'll go, maybe you can help.
Is that something?
And it was subsequently added to our general plan
as something the city is interested in pursuing.
So in terms of creating some type of social housing pilot,
I know we need a development authority
like we're working on with the BAFA process right now,
but is there something that the city can do
on a smaller scale to pilot a particular program
or location perhaps in district three
that perhaps could be used for artists,
perhaps maybe the Malanga Center
as a social housing pilot with these funds?
Oogo Ramirez, Deputy Director of Oakland HCD.
Through the chair, thank you for that question,
Council Member Fyfe.
As Claudia mentioned earlier, generally,
these federal sources really pale in comparison
to our local sources, for example,
our bond and other local sources,
and generally align with these other city
strategic priorities.
So, for example, we have our new construction, NOFA,
Notice of Funding Availability,
And that's the competitive process
through which we deploy all of our dollars,
federal and otherwise.
So I would say in response to your question,
to the extent that social housing
becomes part of the city's overall strategy,
CDBG, home, even HOPWA could be potential sources.
But again, it's just one source, or three sources,
in this case, of federal sources,
for the city's broader strategies of our three Ps,
or new construction, NOFA, et cetera.
So, and this is also a retrospective.
So this is an end of your report for last fiscal year.
Certainly for our next annual action plan,
to the extent that there are kind of modifications
to our production and preservation strategy,
then these would be sources available for that end.
Thank you.
Seeing no more questions,
let's go to the public commenters thank you for that and as i call your name
please approach the podium in any order and state your name for the record if
you're participating on zoom and you signed up for item 4.1 please raise your
hands so i can easily identify you i have miss asada olobala uh christie
davis and derek barnes for item 4.1 okay are you clear
If this process requires a verification procedure when
administrating the funds, if that is the case that you have
that procedure in place, what is it?
There have been new guidelines from the federal government
related to the home investment partnership program that
requires verification of immigration status under these
guidelines.
You also have the same thing is required with the O H O P W. A. There is no verification
requirements related to their immigration status on the emergency solution grant. Now
I know y'all are proud sanctuary city people. So let me say this again. Your sanctuary city
status may have because you never will have the discussion impact on particularly african
Americans and I got to use that term now we are what do we call ourselves now
foundational black Americans I'm going with that term foundational black
Americans is there a waiting list where foundational black Americans are denied
opportunities based on these grants and people who are non-citizens get use of
we don't have the funds and we
don't.
Thank you for your comments
miss a side of your time is up.
Next speaker please.
You signed up for item four
point one I have Derek Barnes.
And a day this year but not.
We will move on that is
concludes our speakers of four
point one.
Public comment is commenced.
Councilmember five.
I will make a motion to close
the public public hearing and
the public hearing. And I'm
looking forward to hearing from
the public hearing and the
informational. Consolidated
performance evaluation report.
I'll second. Five kyle. Thank
you for your patience and add
there was a motion for item four
point one by councilmember five
second by councilmember guile to
close the public hearing. And
approve item four point one on
roll. Councilmember brown. I
I think the motion is approved.
And that now takes us to the regular order of the agenda which is our consent calendar moment.
I will read in the consent calendar and I will read in the short titles for these items item six point one is approval of the draft minutes for the committee meetings of July 13th 2026 to July 21st 2026.
Item six point two is direct declaration of a local emergency due to AIDS epidemic item six point three a declaration of medical cannabis
Health emergency item six point four a declaration of a local emergency on homelessness
item six point five an amendment of the cultural affairs Commission's enabling ordinance and
That is it will be
approved on final passage item six point six is a
twelve point
Seminary point debt in rent forgiveness and this two will be proved on final passage
items six point seven and six point eight the six point excuse me six point seven regarding the
professional services agreement with Rata Crow for
Signage this item was removed from this agenda via rule 28
Item six point eight is celebrating Oakland Pride and honoring LGBTQ plus
I'm six point nine a state of a low low Lamoni socaya at all versus wall the
albedoise my apologies for mispronouncing it I'm at all item six ten
is honoring the lovely item 611 is people at all versus one Rose unity LLC
at all items 612 is one million dollar grant for workforce development and
Interim Housing and Pilot Project from Kaiser Permanente
Permanente National Community Benefit Fund at EBCF.
Item 613 is Transformative Climate Communities
round six funds.
Item 614 is recognizing September 2026
as Hunger Action Month.
Item 615 is proclaiming October 2026
as Domestic Violence Awareness Month.
Item 616 is district six appointment
to the community policing advisory board.
Item 617 is reappointment to children's fairy land board.
Item 618 regarding appointment
to the Head Start Advisory Board.
This item was removed from this agenda via rule 28.
Item 619 regarding OPDTF, excuse me,
ATF MOU renewal has also been removed
from this agenda via rule 28.
item 6.20 regarding the OPDDA Task Force,
MOU has also been removed from this agenda via rule 28.
Item 6.21 is the OPD-US Marshall MOU.
And item 6.22 is the reappointment
to League of City, Delegate and Alternate.
And that concludes your consent calendar.
Thank you.
Colleagues, any comments on the consent calendar?
Councilmember Fife.
Just want to register a no vote on item 6.9,
the estate of Lomania, Sakai, et al.
And I believe in the state of gross negligence and malice
on behalf of any department of the city,
that taxpayer should not be on the hook
for the liability to pay for that type of misconduct.
So I'm voting no.
Thank you, Councilmember Fife.
Anybody else?
Councilmember Ramachandra.
Thank you, I want to take a moment to honor the life of Nisha de Lovely and I know we'll
have some speakers sharing a little bit about her powerful work in Oakland as a poet, performer,
playwright, author, healer and community leader in many ways.
She used her voice as a survivor to uplift countless others in need through her art,
through her service as a case manager with local non-profits and her work in faith and healing and art communities.
Nisha found in poetry parlors, performed in countless works of social justice theater on a national and international
stage, and was a compassionate giver. One of the things that really struck me learning about her story was out of her own pocket
Every week she'd go into the streets and provide women in need with
Menstrual supplies and hygiene supplies and that really exemplifies the kind of person that she was and what she did for many of our communities
I'm excited to I'm honored to be able to share the small token of appreciation to her family and
Community of loved ones and declare a September 21st
Anisha the lovely week. Thank you. Thank you
Councilmember Brown-Dangayo.
Excellent, thank you so much.
So I wanted to first comment on item, yes,
item 6.8 first.
Thank you to all of my colleagues for showing up
as we honored LGBTQ leaders from across the city of Oakland
yesterday evening.
It was a beautiful celebration.
That also included the mayor as well.
So just wanted to comment on that.
And then in addition, you will eventually,
you will also hear some public comment
for item 6.14,
recognizing September 2026 as hunger action month.
And yeah, as hunger action month
and raising awareness of the growing challenges
of food insecurity facing Oakland residents.
And so you'll hear from Maria,
who is just an outstanding individual
Who is really leading the charge with so many others to help provide you know food for those who are in need in our communities?
Thank you councilmember
Move the consent count the motion to approve the consent calendar noting councilmember five six point nine
Which should not vote on six point nine seconded by Houston
Yes
Let's go to the public comment first
Thank you, and as I call your name, please approach the podium in any order state your name for the record
If you are participating via zoom, please raise your hand so I can easily identify you
Henry Simon's Maria heart
Jean Hazard I have you signed up for several cards
Mrs. Sada. Have you signed up for the entire consent calendar? I
Have a canned land with ski
Derek Barnes
Have you signed up for three items Madeline Stacy?
Venus Morris Harry Williams?
Lejon Loggins Rashid Rashid Norton
Sitia
Frank sure north
Ron Muhammad
Ethan
Gunk and Sarah Amir in any order if I called your name, please state your name for the record. Thank you
on August gene hazard and go to clean Oakland.com on August 13,
2026 Oakland operation involving the five arrests and more than
3.8 kilograms of Fentanyl.
The underlying incident is confirmed on August 13,
Alameda County Sheriff's office narcotics tech task force detected
executed warrants at two locate residents at the residence in the
2400 block of 13, uh, 13th Avenue of five people were arrested at approximately 15,000
and bundle cash was found.
And the second location in the 2700 block of 78th Avenue investigators found what
authorities describe as sophisticated fit.
Now processing operation sees more than 30, uh, 3800 grams of fit.
There is no official city of Oakland announcement identifying specific 2026 date for city-sponsored
events called Fentanyl Awareness.
There are no single publicly reported figures for the total number of Fentanyl-related arrests.
And so you don't have Fentanyl as a public health crisis?
What's wrong with you, Guyle?
They confiscated on the border of your district and Wong's district, five arrests.
They got a hub for fitness.
It ain't coming from Mexico.
It's coming from right here in Oakland, and you don't make it a public health crisis,
and the police department here doesn't even report it, and people are dying.
What's wrong with you?
You always say it's not what you say, it's what you do, okay?
And do something, make this a public health crisis.
The city needs to sponsor a health awareness on Fentanyl,
just like San Jose, just like Santa Rosa, and all these folks.
But you don't even recognize it as a public health issue.
I gave you the fact, also gave you this item here.
So Kevin Jenkins will be in Chang Tao's trial right here.
Also, last year when the president had me removed
from the council unlawful suspension of Rule 29
by Council President Kevin Jenkins and City Council
member Janani Ramachandra.
That was illegal.
And you went for it.
They couldn't do it.
And the people listening, they could go to my website.
I got this all there.
Also, with regards to that special election last year,
I'm on my way to the appeals court, OK?
My paralegal is doing this right now.
And you got to copy it.
Thank you, Mr. Hazzard, for your comments.
Your time is up.
Yes, you are.
Thank you, Mr. Hazard. Okay. I will see you then. Thank you so much. Next speaker, please. Good evening, Council members. My name is Henry Simons. I'm a principal government community relations representative for BART for where I cover Oakland. Today, BART would like to express our support for the two transformative climate communities grant applications being co led by the city of Oakland. These grants would fund work to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, strengthen the local economy and improve public health.
Oakland is the heart of the BART system
with nine stations more than any other cities.
And when areas around our station thrives, BART thrives.
We look forward to working with the city of Oakland,
Seventh Street Funds, the Black Cultural Zone,
and West Oakland and East Oakland communities
to plan for a resilient and inclusive future
around our West Oakland and Coliseum stations.
And as we work to grow ridership,
we're committed to partnering with the city
to improve access to transit,
expand affordable housing,
support local businesses thank you thank you for your comments next speaker hi
my name is Ethan and I'd like to see my time to my friend Sarah yes there's no
seating time during consent calendar my apologies thank you so much okay hello
my name is Sarah I'm here to talk about item six point four declaring of a local
and more emergency on homelessness I find it kind of crazy that y'all are
willing to declare it as an emergency but also as a criminal offense at the
same time is a crazy concept you criminalize the most vulnerable raid
safe spaces and whole communities you call them beautification sweeps as if our
people are ugly like they need to be erased and in the same breath call in an
emergency calling homelessness an emergency and passing the EAP the
encampment abatement abatement program is contradictory the
The Kamen abatement policy, you have shrunk the geographical area of where unhoused people
can live, cracked down on people who live in vehicles without the obligations of providing
resources or shelters.
The people of Oakland are way tired of your empty declarations.
The city of Oakland is directly complicit in the displacement of its citizens, of whom
are majority black people as well, since y'all like politics damage.
The people of...
Apologies, Ms. Sarah, your time is up.
you for your comments. Next speaker please. Good evening my name is Marie
Elder Eddy and I'm the founder of Community Kitchens a food justice
organization feeding those not supported by traditional food security programs.
Over the past year I've been a part of Supervisor Bass's Alameda County Food
Sovereignty roundtable which includes a coalition of over 40 food security
organizations in Alameda County working to address the growing need in our
community. I'm here today to ask for your support for agenda item 6.14
designating September as hunger action month for the city of Oakland. The
history of redlining and institutionalized racism continues to
create disparities in hunger, housing, and health care in our community. Furthermore,
recent federal snap cuts will disproportionately impact black and brown
I want to thank all of you for
the work you do.
Thank you so much.
Thank you for your comments.
Next speaker.
Madeline Stacy, also speaking on 6.4.
I know it's a recurring declaration that is included
in the agenda for city council and I just wanted to ensure
that the declaration of the emergency due to the existence
light that needs to be solved because these are people human beings they don't
need to be swept they're not trash they're our neighbors our relatives but
also when we talk about money and I came to my mind we talked about you know the
OPOA contract and all this money you have to take that money from somewhere
and the encampment abatement and management team cost a lot of money per
the performance audit of the City of Oakland's Homelessness Encampment
housing, housing, housing and
housing management interventions
and activity presented by the
city auditor, Courtney Ruby,
Oakland was spending and 2021
was presented $1,500 an hour
doing sweeps with all the
different staff, both on the
ground and administratively.
Thank you for your comments.
Next speaker.
Hello, my name is Harry Williams.
Honor and respect to my district
and all the members of the Oakland City Council.
Oakland is a most unique city.
In its streets, I have met legends,
giants who have loved on the disinherited and the abandoned.
Nisha the Lovely was such a luminary.
I remember standing on the corner of 83rd Avenue
on an international boulevard on a chilly winter's day.
Nisha had set up a clothing rack right on the block
so that she could offer people garments with dignity.
Nisha was an award-winning poet.
She was a playwright.
She was an advocate and a Harriet Tubman figure
for the victims of human trafficking
and domestic violence here in Oakland.
One of her greatest gifts was her brilliant smile
and delightful laugh.
I am grateful for this daughter of Oakland who loved us so.
Thank you.
Thank you for your comments.
So I wanna start by thanking the council
for understanding I'm gonna go very fast.
I'm sorry, can you just state your name before you begin?
Yes.
I want to start by thanking this council for understanding fairly quickly who our sister
was.
Nisha received her flowers while she was here.
We made sure of that.
But she is still ever deserving, ever deserving of flowers, of space, of time.
And I wish she had more.
Ever deserving of peace in her own terms.
Ever deserving to dance, celebrate, to give love, and be loved back.
I asked a question in my own work, who's keeping our recipes?
Nisha was a recipe keeper, artist, poet, painter, griot.
She kept the recipes of this city and gave them back to us.
She was a wild child, a soul searcher, a revolutionary.
She loved Oakland fiercely, so much she's embedded in its soil.
She loves her people, and she loved them passionately.
I didn't know Nisha as long as many people in this room, but I knew her knew her.
And I know she carries so much for so many for so long.
She did a lifetime of work, the kind that lasts multiple lifetimes.
She needed rest.
She's needed rest for a long time.
She's earned it.
She didn't leave instructions.
She just knew.
her mother, those who love me, will show up for me,
will celebrate me the way they want to.
They need to.
Apologies, Ms. Satia, her time is up.
Thank you so much.
Thank you for your comments.
What's up with it, y'all?
My name is Venus Morris.
I'm from Oakland, California.
I'll be speaking on behalf of 6.10, my sister.
Nisha the Lovely was a beautiful spirit.
She did so much work in Oakland
to really change the narrative.
She helped people, she healed people, she helped save lives.
I helped save lives with her as a human trafficking advocate
against children and commercially, sexually exploited minors
and people all creeds.
She stood 10 toes on that and she wasn't even from here.
She came here and she brought Oakland
and her whole heart here.
So I just wanted to acknowledge that
and I also wanna speak on behalf of Mama Regina Evans.
She's not here at the moment.
She lives in New York.
And her statement is, the beautiful thing
that I will always remember about Queen POTUS Nisha
is that she instilled within us the notion of being fully
cherished, fully loved, and fully nourished.
She taught us how to thrive with joy.
Apologies, Ms. Venus.
Your time is up.
Thank you so much.
Next speaker.
Thank you for this opportunity.
My name is Lijon Loggins.
And I am.
Last time I addressed you, I was talking about the legacy that I would like to leave here
after a lot of deaths that I've been going through.
I'm so honored that Janani Ramachandran took this time to honor Nisha de Lovely for all
of us.
She was a mentor to me and many others in a space as an artivist.
I'm going to truly miss her because of the many lessons, the sacrifices, even in her
And so I have to say I have a
personal illness of her giving
her time to many victims sex
traffic domestic violence in.
I'm just lost for words and
she's going to be someone
really missed in this community
and I hope that the city really
understands that that's a bar I
would like to aim for- in her
trauma you she lost her voice.
And when she regained her voice
I'm happy to speak with you.
Thank you.
You're welcome, Alisha.
Thank you for your comments.
If you signed up for the consent calendar
and I called your name, please approach the podium.
So I found in item 6.6 that I thoroughly
support some language that I want to share.
This item is dealt with because there's
a need to take immediate action to avoid
occur if actions were deferred.
Now that language applies to the funnel foundational black Americans in your city.
You need to take some immediate actions on economy, jobs, police brutality,
housing, and so forth, but you haven't been doing it.
The next item is item, uh, 6.11 public nuisance and tenant harassment.
It appears in this item that the city attorney filed a lawsuit
in violation of numerous housing laws.
That's great, but why didn't you do it
for the Oakland Station people that came here?
Why didn't you do it for the Coliseum connection people
that came to you?
Why didn't you hold the housing consortium of the East Bay
that screwed up the Lake Merritt Lodge and steward
screwed up the 12th Street tiny homes, the people called Boss Management that screwed
up Wood Street and their management.
Due for others as well, I'm glad you're doing this, but you could have did that for many
other people, 4.12, a $1 million grant.
Now that grant is only going to involve 20 homeless people, 20 homeless people.
And then you're talking about we're going to have housing subsidy, payment for part-time
jobs, case management, job training, but you really need another $2 million for this initiative
to be complete, but you don't have the $2 million.
So don't bring stuff to the table incomplete.
If you really need another $2 million, when you get the $2 million, bring it here because
you're going to have to stop something in the middle, perhaps.
And you don't identify where you say you're going to get it from donors.
I don't know.
It's my time.
No, okay.
I still have a little time.
Let me turn my page here.
See, I'm old school.
I write down everything.
I don't do that AI, put it in the computer, okay.
So item 6.13 is a Rule 28, a grant that involves West Oakland and East Oakland.
appreciate that large sum of money but the differentiation in the amount going
to West Oakland and going to East Oakland some kind of discussion should
have been had how that was determined that thank you so much for your comments
Mrs. Sada if I called your name for item 6 the consent counter I still have a few
cards in my hand Ron Mohammed if you're still in the building Derek Barnes if
If not, we have concluded our public commenters
for consent calendar.
Thank you to everybody that commented on the consent calendar
and my fellow foundational black American, Mrs. Asada.
We got a motion.
Is there a second?
Noting council member Fives, 6.9.
6.9, yeah. Okay.
I had a motion by council member Gail seconded
by council member Houston on the consent calendar.
with that on roll
and with the amendment of the no, I'm sorry,
with the no vote for 6.9 from council member Fyfe.
With that council member Brown.
Aye.
Council member Fyfe.
Aye.
Council member Gallo.
Aye.
Houston.
Aye.
Ramachandran.
Aye.
Unger.
Aye.
Wong.
Aye.
And chair Jenkins.
Aye.
The consent calendar has been approved with eight ayes
and noting the one no vote on item 6.9
council member five that now takes us to I believe its announcements item number
seven which is council acknowledgments in announcements and just noting that
we have 71 speakers for open forum you're not ready anybody else have
announcements foundational please councilmember pie yes I want to just make
announcement about two public town halls that I will be hosting one this Sunday
at first Presbyterian and District 3 on AI and and data centers it's a
conversation that has been percolating and in the public space and I just want
to make sure that people know about this forum that I'm having as well as give an
intro to the legislation that I'll be bringing forward shortly. The following
On Monday I will also be holding a town hall here around homelessness and the impacts of
the encampment abatement policy on district three.
And so I just welcome folks to attend both of those events.
Thank you.
Thank you.
So as part of Oakland Tech Week in collaboration with Northeastern, not Mills, sorry Councilman
Brown, Oakland will be having an idea-thon, right?
where people can come in and have their ideas heard about how they would address a legal
dumping.
So that would be Tuesday, September 29th, 1 to 5 at Northeastern.
Councilmember Brown.
Excellent.
Thank you so much.
Likewise, I am working closely with the organizers of Oakland Tech Week to bring three events,
And also with Mills at Northeastern, as well as a conversation on AI and the responsible
use of it with all of our three partners at Laney Community College, Mills at Northeastern,
as well as the Unity Council.
And all of the events for Oakland Tech Week can be found online.
The calendar is there.
There's over 80 events taking place in the city of Oakland during the week of September
28 through October the 2nd.
And if anyone in the audience has any additional questions,
anyone from myself or my team
can continue to answer any questions
because there will be a lot of robust conversation
around this subject.
Thank you.
Thank you.
I have no more comments.
We can go to public.
Oh, council member, council member Wong.
Just for my colleagues as well as the members
of the public, just as a friendly reminder,
this Saturday is actually Oakland's
31st annual Creek to Bay Day.
That is a major environmental cleanup day,
and so there are six events happening in District Two alone,
but many more happening across the city.
So if you're frustrated by illegal dumping
by the state of blight across our city,
please contribute and help us out.
So you can find more information online.
Thank you, Council Member Wong.
Seeing no more Council Member announcements,
I think we can read them out.
All right.
As I call your name again in advance, please forgive me if I mispronounce your name.
As I call your name, please state your name for the record.
And if you're participating via Zoom, please raise your hand so I can easily identify you.
I have a Lee Cal, Do He Kim, Warren, Sari, Nate Adams, Mrs. Asada Olibala, David Boatwright,
Nina Khushi, Audrey Luna,
Kahad Hudson, Khalid McKay,
Julian McKenna,
Jean Hazard,
Ken Parker,
Madeline Stacy,
Constance Yans,
sorry, Andreas Anderson,
Issa Al Shama,
Ellie French,
Jessica Alejandra Bierno,
Matthew Pinky, Ash Hurtado,
Victoria Beckley, Eric Leakland,
Angela Matches, Mimi Chan,
Alejandrina, I believe that's his second card.
Ellie Noyes, Melissa Lewis-Wong, Matthew Polk,
Priya Amman, Megan Montani, Tongan Tran,
Shanice Whitley, Shelby Supreme, Michael Seldin,
Nita Leifta,
Hayden Jared, Margarita D'Amina,
Ka Hamman Calvin,
Danny Saint Arlett,
Jake Lang, Pradeep Keshi,
Renee Cole, Eric Jay,
Ethan Gurd, Jason Zoh,
Rabinah Joy,
Sarah Amir,
Hashim Huston,
Emily Gu,
Lima Wichner,
Megan Phillips,
Michaela Joyce,
Hilary Chin,
Vail W,
Almost there, guys, one moment.
Anna Rabia, Kristin Riccello, Sandra Ira, Jeanette James,
Grace Aguirre, Victoria Parra, Mitra Lex, Angela Roberts, Don Roberts, Imani Dawson,
Sarah O'Connell, Kanal Kale, Angelica Guerrero, and look at that, a car with no name.
make sure you say the last card
I'm sorry yes support it doesn't
have a name just says council
so thank you so much and to
remind them of our rules of
procedure.
I was a procedure says open form
is one minute.
One minute thank you for that
clarification at chair Jenkins
thank you guys so much again
please state your name for the
record.
Good evening so I don't know I
just want to remind these young
people in the room.
That on June the twenty third at
is a section for scheduling and I ask that the scheduling of the impact of data centers
be put on the agenda. Y'all late. Now I want to tell you while from now on I'll be using
the term foundational black Americans. We have people who have come to this country
who look like me in skin color, and have determined that African-Americans are lazy, African-Americans
don't work hard, blah, blah, whatever, but now we have decided that we are the people
who came here as enslaved people, and the reason why the word is foundational, because
we are the foundation for the infrastructure of this country, for the economy.
Thank you for your comments, Ms. Asada.
And that's why I'm wearing We Made America Great Already.
That's what this mega is.
We made America great already.
Black folks are the foundation for this global economy.
Also no on the data center.
Written law has meaning only when those entrusted to administer it faithfully represent the
truth and faithfully apply the law as written.
That's for the court.
It's also for this body here.
Administer the law.
Stop shocking us.
And that's what you continue to do.
I will be in court on my opening brief for the appeals court.
On that crap you did last May 15, May 19.
also make Vietnam a public health crisis.
Who's coming up for this hub on manufacturing?
Thank you Mr. Hazard, your time is up.
Next speaker please.
Can I start?
Yes. Okay.
Good evening, my name is Comstanza.
I'd like to start by first saying that we are grateful
to Council Member Fife for introducing the moratorium
on building a data center right here in Oakland.
This is a matter of asking ourselves,
who is gonna be in control of the future of Oakland,
whether that's gonna be billionaires or its residents.
We do not want billionaires running our city.
Oakland is not a testing ground for data centers
that drain our water, strain our power,
and drive up costs for residents
who are clearly already struggling.
All for what, so that a handful of techs
can profit off of us?
It is clear already that these facilities
bring very few local jobs.
They consume massive amounts of energy and water
that our communities need,
and they lock cities into contracts
that serve just corporate interest and not the publics.
We urgently demand that the rest of the council
follow the will of the people
and vote no on AI data centers in Oakland permanently.
This moratorium is a good first step,
but we are asking that you put your community first
and not the billionaire.
Thank you so much for your comments.
Yeah, my name is Khaled Mecky, Khali Perkali.
I was writing a candidate for governor of California.
And to get on the ballot, I had to get a petition signed.
And I went everywhere.
I couldn't get nobody to sign my petition
because most of the people in the Bay Area
got them funny visas.
So you guys here in Oakland,
only where I got anything signed.
What that showed me is that Oakland is the thin blue line
for democracy, for anything that counts
because everyone else who works in the tech industry
do not really feel the right to have anything
to say about anything.
So that's why the AI companies are
ran by these white supremacists, but all the engineers
are brown people.
It's really funny.
But the point I'm trying to make is this,
is that when they said that AI is going to kill all of us,
that means the unit is actually thin blue lines to protect us
and the whole humanity, because here in Oakland,
in Silicon Valley, which then puts you in a book.
Apologies, Mr. McHugh, your time is up.
Thank you so much for your comments.
Hello, this is Mitra again.
We come to you about block, you don't listen.
We come to you about the Israeli software,
Celebrite, you don't listen.
We come to you about the EAP, you won't listen.
So tell us, what will make you listen to us?
If you keep acting this way,
more and more Oaklanders are going to feel the betrayal.
As we're criminalized, ticketed, surveilled, swept,
facing eviction, dealing with exploitative jobs,
what will you do?
You know we're the majority.
You know how I know that?
It's because your ears are glued to the hip
with several powerful figures behind the police union,
real estate lobbyists, and Power Oakland.
It's likely that the number who spoke tonight
outnumber the people who stash money in your pockets.
If you're not going to treat public safety seriously,
we will.
So here's my message.
We'll be back, and we, as voters and as organizers,
will do whatever we can for you to listen
and actually do something.
Madeline Stacy, most of you tout yourself as progressives
and speak to progressive values,
especially when on the campaign trail,
but seven out of eight of you consistently vote
against those very values, against what Oaklanders want.
As she already mentioned, you voted for the EAP,
for a floc expansion, for a peregrine, for a celebrite.
you continually vote in opposition
to what the people of Oakland want.
And the people of Oakland are educated.
They're coming here with facts, with knowledge.
We have experts.
We're not talking out of nothing.
People are talking real serious,
knowledgeable, informed information.
And the people continually speak,
and you continually vote in opposition
of what Oaklanders wants.
So I want everyone to remember
that we vote these people into office.
We are the constituents.
D2, Wong, D4, Ramachandran, and D6.
Jenkins are all up for reelection this November.
You don't have to vote for him if there's not.
Thank you so much, Miss Stacy.
Good evening to all of you honorable
city council members and ministers.
My name is Reverend Dr. Jeff Rem Parker,
senior pastor here in the city of Oakland.
And I'm here this evening because I'm deeply concerned
about the proposal to bring large-scale AI data centers,
operations here in our city.
Let me be clear, I'm not against technology,
I'm not against innovation,
and I'm not against economic development.
However, I am against Oakland becoming a place
where powerful technology companies
can come into our community,
consume enormous amounts of resources,
and potentially leave Oakland residents
to deal with the consequences.
what we must ask ourselves is what does Oakland
actually gain from this?
And in my conclusion, I just want to say that
innovation should serve communities,
communities should not have to serve innovation.
Thank you.
Thank you for your comments.
Oh yeah, I'm just making sure this thing's on.
My name is Hashim, and I would like to say,
starting off Oakland is resilient, Oakland is strong,
it would be a disservice to the legacy of those who came before us to give in to the billionaires
and continue allowing working class people to be displaced as if they didn't matter. So the people
who built this city, who worked here, raised families here, fought for Oakland, deserved to
have a voice in what happens next, and that includes everybody in this room. And you know,
This is where we are going to
close with this so tech
billionaires who want to bring
the AI industry to our city
trying to determine our future.
They shouldn't.
It should be we should be the
ones that decide what happens to
Oakland what it becomes we get
to decide.
So thank you.
Good evening council members my
name is asa I'm a resident of
Oakland district one.
I was a teacher for three years
before I left the profession
six years. And that's why they need a raise. 50 percent of teachers in Oakland
Unified leave every single year. Our city spends too much on police and not
enough on schools. And now we're witnessing tech billionaires make moves
to build AI manufacturing plants and data centers in our city. It seems to me
like the funding of police budgets is meant to clear the streets literally for
billionaires to raise the prices in our city and develop at the cost of
residents. We don't need more money for police. We need money for public workers.
We need money for teachers and public services.
I commend Councilmember Fife for standing up against increased police budgets and I
urge the City Council to follow her lead and to pass the data center moratorium.
Now is the time for all of you to stand up for Oaklanders.
Please, this is our fight together and we're asking you to join us.
Thank you.
We'll be back here next week to join Councilmember Fife in calling for this moratorium legislation.
the state of Illinois. As an
We know that AI destroys jobs.
It will do exactly what the tech bubble did by displacing all of us working class people.
And it doesn't matter what size the data center is.
It will fuel the climate center that is killing our earth.
I support passing a moratorium on data centers in Oakland.
The people of Oakland demand it. Listen to Council ...
Thank you for your comments.
Can you please state your name for the record?
My name is Free Palestine.
Fuck block and fuck ice.
Next speaker, thank you so much.
My name is Melissa and I'm here as an Oakland resident but also as an artist and arts worker.
I am in strong support of the 45-day urgency moratorium on data center approvals in Oakland
and urge all city council members to approve it.
personally talked with so many residents and business owners in a range of Oakland neighborhoods
these last few weeks, it is strikingly clear that the people of Oakland see the question
of an AI data center in the heart of the city, not only as a threat to the already sharp
challenges of day-to-day life in Oakland, cost of living, affordability, increasing
utility rates, gentrification, housing scarcity, lack of spaces that normal people, artists,
families, children, benefit from, but also as an existential threat to the agency and
self-determination of Oaklanders to shape the city into a place for their thriving.
So as an arts worker, I'm here to urge the city council to remember their responsibility
to think and work creatively beyond the boring, uncreative narrative.
Thank you for your comments, Ms. Melissa, your time is up.
Next speaker.
Hi, Ellie French.
Hi, Ellie French, I'm an Oakland resident and substitute teacher, and I'm here to talk
about the data center in support for Carroll 5's moratorium on building the one in downtown
Oakland because I believe that it speaks to the opening up of this industry in our city
and the dangers of it. Data centers have been shown to significantly reduce the quality
of life for nearby residents. They put pressure on electricity and water supplies, and as
our city government you are responsible for keeping us protected from these
things. You are responsible for the livability of this city and not pricing
out low-income families and black and brown families. We pose the introduction
of such a dangerous and unprecedented sector into our city. It's a really good
way to make it miserable, unlivable and drained of culture. We've seen the
effects of this in San Francisco. We've seen the effects on the wealth gap. Not
Not only this, but AI is literally engineered to replace jobs.
Thank you for your comments, Ms. Elly.
Your time is up.
Hello.
My name is Alec, and I'm a resident of District 6.
I am asking that you pass a moratorium on the data centers in Oakland.
They solely benefit tech billionaires, specifically Elon Musk, and real estate developers.
Once we have a few data centers, they don't stop coming.
which may sound good for some of y'all, but it's not great for us as Oaklanders.
This will lead to our displacement overwhelmingly affecting poor black and brown residents,
and in this situation affecting residents of Chinatown, which will be a five-minute drive from
here. Data centers push massive demands on local power grids and local water supply. The average
20 milliwatt data center consumes enough electricity to power 16,500 average US
homes and their cooling systems consume up to a hundred and ten billion gallons
of water per year which is 14 times the average consumption of a large
commercial buildings. Meter rates will skyrocket and noise pollution will have
time for a spoken. Thank you for your comments, Ms. Alec, your time is up. Hi, my name is
is Ash Hurtado, and I work in theater,
so I've experienced with infrasound.
Infrasound is a low frequency sound
that is too low for humans to hear, but we can feel it.
And it is used in theater to make you feel
a sense of dread and anxiety,
and sometimes nausea during scary scenes.
Data centers are known to emit this frequency,
and it can span several blocks,
which would certainly include my home
where I live with my family.
and I really don't want us to feel a sense of dread
and anxiety and nausea all the time.
I love my community, I love my local cafe,
I love Oakland School of the Arts.
I want you, I urge you, I ask you,
I plead that you protect us from this mental
and physical health hazard
by not allowing data centers, please.
Thank you.
Thank you so much for your comments.
Hi, my name is Ivaraj.
I'm an Oakland resident, this is my first time
at any kind of city council meeting,
there is a lot of technology that has made my life better.
I should love all of the AI stuff,
but the life of every single person I know,
including me, has been made worse because of this industry.
The leaders of this industry tell me
that they will do everything in their enormous amount
of power to continue making all of our lives worse.
And I believe them.
Every single new data center, no matter how small,
in service of this industry, will make my life worse.
I support the moratorium on the data centers
and I would like to see a complete ban as well.
Thank you.
Good afternoon.
My name is Nate Adams.
I'm an Oakland district two resident.
We know from other cities that the jobs
that are created by AI data centers
are temporary and few and far between
but the jobs that they displace are permanent.
Teachers who grade with care, triage nurses
who listen to their patients replaced by systems
that are error prone, biased and unaccountable
except to corporate billionaires.
Right now, they are guzzling water,
skyrocketing our PG&E bills,
and increasing noise and air pollution.
And I do not want to see the same happen in Oakland.
We already pay too much in rent, gas, and groceries,
and we don't need our utility bills
in our region going up too.
So a handful of tech companies can build a server farm
that employs almost no one.
Oakland deserves better than this.
Thank you Councilmember Fyfe for starting this conversation.
I look forward to each council member voting for a moratorium on data centers with no size
exemption.
Thank you.
Hi, my name is Andres Anderson, I'm an Oakland resident in District 2, and I'm a social worker.
I'm here today to ask for support for the moratorium of the data center development
in Oakland.
It's clear that most people across the political spectrum oppose data center development.
We see the way unregulated tech companies ravage communities, we don't have to look far to
to see what happened when government prioritizes corporations and billionaires over people.
Whether this is hyperscale or not, we know that all data centers are linked the same
way that all communities are linked.
We know that data centers are speeding up climate change and polluting the environment.
We know that climate catastrophe does not care about zip codes.
I stand with all communities in their fight against data center development and I urge
City Council to pass councilmember five's moratorium proposal.
Oakland is not for sale, this is home, not for billionaires and their corporations, but
for us, the people of Oakland.
Thank you.
Good evening, councilmembers.
My name is Alejandra Romeo-Simón.
I live and work in Oakland and I am here on behalf of the Local Clean Energy Alliance
as well.
And I'm here to support councilmember five's proposed moratorium on data centers.
I am deeply concerned about the enormous energy demands that data centers would place on our
city and our communities and as someone who lives here I already see how
increasingly expensive it is to live in Oakland and keep up with utility costs.
The last thing Oakland needs is another industry bringing enormous resource
demands into our city while those costs and impacts are ultimately going to be
passed down to residents and ratepayers. I also don't want to see Oakland become
another place where tech billionaires just come to set up shop, profit from our
resources and then leave working people like us to deal with the consequences. I
urge the council to please support a moratorium without exemptions and to
move toward permanently banning AI data centers in Oakland. Please listen to the
people who live and work here and put our communities before the profits of
big tech. Thank you. Hello, my name is Shelby. I'm here to talk about the data
centers and I'm young, I'm new in politics and being here this is my first
City Council meeting and I don't have much more data points or personal
stories that I think will just add to even more of what people are bringing up.
But I will say that coming here and seeing the amount of people that have dedicated their
time to come here and talk about this is very touching to me.
And also I hope that I don't know if you guys have seen this a lot, but I hope this isn't
jaded and something that you see and just kind of put away.
This is very impressive and I'm proud to be a part of a coalition of people who want something
and want to be here and make part of the change.
So I plead with you to appreciate this and listen to us and no data centers.
Thank you.
Hello, my name is Megan Phillips.
I'm a District 3 resident and a student at Laney College.
I commend Councilmember Fife for drafting an emergency moratorium, and I urge all other
council members to follow Fife's lead and pass the urgency moratorium on data centers.
This is the first step towards a citywide permanent ban on data centers of all sizes.
are trying to buy Oakland's future and turn it into a playground for Big Tech.
We know that private developers and tech billionaires don't care about us everyday people.
They care about profit.
So no, this is not about opposition to technology.
This is about opposition to the capitalist development of AI.
This is about community control of community resources.
It's about putting the future of Oakland into the hands of the people, because we should
be the ones deciding the future of our city, not big tech. Hello my name is Priyami and
I live in downtown Oakland in District 3 and I'm here and speaking in support of Council
Member Fife's proposal for a 45-day moratorium on all data center development of any size.
I urge all council members to support this proposal as well and to expand it into an
immediate and permanent ban on all data centers in Oakland. I'm a process engineer. I formerly
worked in climate technology so I know firsthand that under a capitalist system workers often
like workers like me who develop technology don't get a say in how that technology is
used and we're seeing that exemplified perfectly in the rapid unregulated development of AI
at the whim of billionaires and solely for billionaire profit.
These billionaires who are coming in treating Oakland like a playground they have no regard
for the people of Oakland who are going to have to suffer the consequences that many
it was a long time ago but
we've heard many have already
spoken about job loss
electricity hikes rent hikes
etcetera and other potential
long-term effects that are not
even known there's a clear
popular demand popular demand
for a ban on the Oakland
datacenters and if we lived in
a true democracy there'd be no
doubt that we'd have one.
Apologies your time is up thank
you so much for your comments.
Good evening members of the
council my name is Jason and I
live in district two.
I'd like to talk a little bit
and other tech industry staples, despite looking on paper to be the exact type of person who
should be for these data centers, I'm standing here as a staunch opponent of the proposed
data centers and capitalist development of AI.
I learned very well firsthand the patterns the U.S. tech industry follows, so let me
echo what this is all really about, the consolidation of power through amassing more profits.
Running private companies is profitable, renting infrastructure as a service is profitable,
and cutting jobs is profitable.
Booneers and the ruling class know
the people are ready to fight for a change.
Why else would they be selling us a false narrative
and a false solution?
But we, the people of Oakland, are done with all that.
We are ready to fight for the future we deserve,
and we urge you to stand with us.
Thank you, Carol Fife,
for introducing the critical 45-day moratorium,
and I urge other council members to support it.
Good evening, my name is Ethan.
Like many others here, I want to urge all of you
to pass a moratorium on data centers in Oakland
because I don't want tech billionaires
and real estate developers to be enriched
at the expense of the Oakland people.
Investment in AI strips thousands of people
of their jobs and their livelihoods
for the benefit of the ultra-wildly few.
In addition, data centers, regardless of their size,
are deleterious to the environment.
Even if the proposed bearing facility is not of hyper scale,
it still requires the training of AI models
at other data centers in order to operate.
This means that the environmental destruction
caused by other data centers is the price
that other communities pay in order for models
to be run at smaller facilities like bearing.
Furthermore, the United Nations Environment Program
recently published a report stating
that global temperature rise is well on track
to cross the 1.5 degrees Celsius threshold.
This will have unfathomable consequences
worsening natural disasters,
causing more severe droughts and heat waves,
diminishing biodiversity,
and directly jeopardizing human health.
In fact, millions of people throughout the global south
are already suffering the brunt of these impacts,
and creating more data centers will only make things worse.
With this in mind, I would like to commend Councilmember Fyfe
for introducing a citywide moratorium on data.
Thank you so much for your comments.
Hello, council, my name is Matthew.
I'm a resident of Oakland,
and I'm speaking in favor of Councilmember Fife's
urgency moratorium for the proposed data center downtown.
Before I moved to Oakland, I lived in Seattle,
a city I hold near and dear to my heart,
and a city that has similar problems to Oakland,
which is widespread housing insecurity,
unaffordable cost of living, a struggling downtown,
rapid gentrification of the central district,
which is the city's last remaining
historically black neighborhood.
Seattle is also a city whose development
has been directed by the likes of Amazon,
Meta, Microsoft, Google, and Salesforce
for the better part of this century.
And the reason why I bring this up is that
allowing development in Oakland to be directed
by the likes of Tesla, Prometheus,
or whatever tech corporation happens to be
in the neighborhood, will not solve Oakland's
housing insecurity, our cost of living,
the state of our downtown,
or the displacement of black and brown families from Oakland.
We can clearly see from Seattle
this is this is not a recipe for solving these these issues and that and I urge
that thank you so much for your comments Matthew. Hello my name is Mimi Chan and I
live in District 5. I am an organizer with the party for socialism and
liberation and first I want to thank Councilmember Frey for her leadership on
on the 45 day moratorium and as a resident of Oakland,
I do want our public services fully funded.
I want our city workers paid well.
And I also don't want the data centers to be paying for it.
I don't want the property, you know,
the raising the property taxes.
I want all these things and I don't want to sell out
our long-term futures for these short-term gains.
Same with the AI facilities in West Oakland as well, for researching robotics.
If they succeed, workers in Oakland will suffer.
And so I support the moratorium and I hope we can expand to a total ban on data centers
in Oakland.
Hello.
My name is Jack.
I live in Oakland and I'm a tech worker.
That's given me a front row seat to how giddy billionaire venture capitalists are about AI
super profits.
The thing is, the data center proposed by Bering is not a problem of technology.
It's a real estate play to jack up property values in one of the most unaffordable cities
in the world.
People in Oakland actually want innovation, and tech workers, they want to work on technology
that helps society, but there's nothing innovative about displacing people.
There's nothing innovative about destroying jobs with no plan for meeting our community's
needs.
development of AI is a dead end for society and the planet. It's workers who
should control how tech is developed. So I urge City Council to listen to us and
ban data centers permanently beginning with the moratorium. Thank you. Hi, my
name is Emily. I live and work in Oakland and I strongly urge City Council to
pass Councilmember Fife's 45-day moratorium on data centers. The people
of Oakland overwhelmingly do not want a data center of any size. This is part of
a larger nationwide fight against the tech industry to exploit our land, homes, water,
and electricity to make profit without benefit to us, the everyday people.
AI will not bring jobs and development to Oakland.
AI destroys jobs.
The autonomous fleet of vehicles proposed as part of the stack development will put
Uber and Lyft drivers out of a job.
Any tech jobs brought in by the AI startups will be temporary until they code themselves
out of existence.
I know of many tech workers who have been laid off because of AI.
show your loyalty to the people of Oakland by banning all data centers. Hello city council
let me introduce myself. Death to data center. I am an Oakland resident in district three
I'm also a public health nurse for the last 16 years. I am requesting a moratorium and
supporting Carol Fife's requests. 45 days is not enough time for review. We need a permanent
ban to data centers. We also need this information up front not finding out
public health impacts a decade later. This is not how we revitalize downtown
Oakland. We do not need big tech. They need us. This deal will not fix the
deficit looming. AI CEOs are warning us now. This goes beyond data centers in our
backyard. This is an environmental issue. This is a war issue. This is a labor
Is this a moral issue?
As a public health nurse, we directly see the environmental conditions, shape a patient
and patient population health, look at the COVID.
Your time is up, can you please state your name for the record?
Death to data centers, thank you.
Good evening council members, my name is Ravina.
I work as a math educator at Laney College.
I'm here with No Data Center in Oakland to reject the proposed contract with Varing
Company.
Everyday, I work with students who embody the soul of Oakland, their working-class people
fighting to survive the housing crisis, support their families, and build a life for themselves
by earning their associate's degree at Laney.
This past June, the majority of Oakland approved Measure A to renew community college funding
from our own pockets, but funding this data center will hurt Oakland's working residents
to benefit wealthy outsiders.
Corporate tax breaks for data centers will eat up public funds that our community colleges,
K-12 schools and city infrastructure rely on every day.
Oakland belongs to its people, not to any real estate developer.
I urge you all to reject this contract and follow Council Member Fife introducing a permanent
data center ban.
Thank you.
Good afternoon.
My name is Matthew.
I live in Oakland.
I'm originally from Louisiana, and I want to support the 45-day moratorium on data centers.
I also want to push forward a full ban on data centers.
I want to start by saying a lot of the issues I've noticed in Oakland are similar to back
home in the state of Louisiana, where the needs of corporations are put over the needs
of the working class people.
And these data centers, this data center that would come to Oakland isn't going to benefit
people who look like me.
In fact, it's going to hurt people who look like me the most.
It's going to drive up energy costs and it's going to drive up the cost of rent, which
is going to push people out of Oakland.
Back at home, a lot of the time, the corporations were put first.
And that just led to people just, like I said before, just being hurt.
And I came all the way out here for a better opportunity at life, and I don't want to see
the same issues affecting the Bay, you know, just persisting, like how they did back at
home.
And if you want to be better than those politicians back in Louisiana, please vote against this.
Hi, my name is Elena, and I live in District 2, and I'm here to show my support for passing
a moratorium on data centers, as well as a call for a permanent ban due to my concerns
over economic development and impact to local businesses.
When it comes to economic development to our city,
AI is not answered.
AI will not support the job group that we need
and will only raise the cost of living
and operating businesses.
Our priority must not be with tech billionaires,
but investing into our locally owned businesses
that support our community development.
Our small business community has been suffering
for way too long, and the priority of our city
must be on supporting these locally owned spaces,
rather than pricing them out.
What does it say about Oakland if we welcome in big tech before we can fill
the 3,500 storefront vacancies and lots that are in our community.
These are 3,500 opportunities for culture, food, art, community spaces,
and locally owned wealth by Oakland for the people of Oakland.
And that must, our focus must be here and not for billionaires,
which is why we must, um, oppose these data centers.
How you doing?
My name is Shanice and I'm from the deep East part of Oakland.
and I damn well know we don't need no data centers at all.
Oakland has suffered so much, I have sat back and watched it.
And many of you don't understand, it's very simple.
Your morality, your compassion, it's gone.
You have no more.
You don't realize that you breach your fiduciary obligation
to the American.
And I'm an indigenous American, an indigenous black American,
A foundational American.
My mother was a sharecropper.
And it's a shame to see what you guys are doing with the money
and how you're doing Oakland.
And I want to remind you, like I said,
you breach your fiduciary obligation.
You perform malice, harm, and oppression on the people.
You do malice, fraud, and oppression on the people.
It's treacherous.
And it's considered treason.
We all know how severe the consequences are.
Thank you for your comments.
Your time is up.
Good afternoon, council members.
My name is Hillary, and I'm a resident
of District 3 in Oakland, and I want to thank, like many others,
council member Fife for drafting an urgency moratorium
in opposition to the proposed data center in downtown.
And I implore the entire city council to support Fife
in passing this temporary moratorium,
leading to a permanent ban of AI data centers
of all sizes. The city of Oakland should not be surveying big tech and real estate's greedy
capitalistic agenda, especially when in doing so, it will harm the physical and financial
health of its citizens. I lost my job in tech due to AI six months ago, so I can speak on
a personal level to AI development, destroying jobs and displacing working people. And having
been working within the tech industry, I can also confirm firsthand how tech executives
leaders are soulless and hollow beings who do not care about anything except the
money in their pockets. I love Oakland because of the city for the people not
for these tech millionaires so let's keep it that way. I'm Kristen Ricatello
from District 1 in Oakland. The proposed data center is a way for others to
profit off of our city with no benefits to its residents while
causing financial, environmental, and health problems for the residents of
to Oakland. Please listen to your residents. Do not put Bering Companies' proposed data
center in downtown Oakland. Please pass Councilmember Fife's 45-day moratorium on data centers
so we can work towards a full ban on all data centers in Oakland. Let's give Oakland the
future it deserves and continue to support its residents towards a healthier and more
survivable future. Thank you.
Hello. Hi, Council. My name is Teague Tran, and I moved to Oakland in 2020, 24, and every
day I learned about how the city was built by hard-working people and the
resilient people of this city. However, AI data centers and the tech billionaires
threaten our communities all for profit. Time and time again it has been shown
that data centers are environmentally damaging. Use power that can be
utilized by families. Take a space that can be better used for the community.
And additionally, this unneeded invasion of tech into Oakland threatens to
to increase rent and local community members
and displaced hardworking people.
I am for this moratorium and this 45 day moratorium
and I hope to permanently ban all data centers in Oakland.
You should be able to just give it a second
and we'll turn on the handheld mic, go ahead.
Hi, I'm Angel and I'm here to support the moratorium of Carol Pfeiff and urge a permanent
van for data centers.
The repercussion of having data centers be implemented and imposed in disenfranchised
neighborhoods especially is evident across the country.
is evidence that it's not helping, it's not procuring any type of health benefit,
it's not, in actuality it's doing the exact opposite. Toxifying the
regions that they're put in, they're causing sickness, they're causing so much
more complication and restriction of vital resources such as fresh water that
our future constituents will be deprived of.
And so my question is like for your.
My apologies, Angel, your time is up.
Thank you so much for your comments.
Hi everybody, I'm Don, I'm a teacher here in Oakland.
This is like seven years I've been teacher teaching here
and I'm tired, I'm right after work, but I'm here showing
up cause I care about my students, I care about my community.
I wanna show them that showing up, hopefully maybe works.
And we could show that we care about them
by protecting the environment for them
and the planet for them.
These data centers are not a long-term feasible plan.
I mean, it's like 15,000 households worth of energy
that these data centers are using up.
And what could that space be used for?
What's the opportunity cost?
Well, we could have housing for some of our kids,
some of our families and instead of kind of harming
their future environment for them, all right.
So let's protect our futures, show that we care, please.
Thank you.
Hello, my name is Pradeep, I'm an Oakland resident,
a software engineer, and a student at Laney.
I'm opposed to any data center of any size
being built in Oakland, but I do support
Caro Fife's 45-day moratorium, thank you, Councilwoman.
I want to be clear, I am not opposed to innovation.
As a software engineer, it is my livelihood.
We need modernization across every sector,
like healthcare, civil services, all of it.
What I am opposed to is what innovation
becomes under this economic system.
A tool to line the pockets of billionaires
not to serve the people who make the city run.
Under capitalism, innovation doesn't mean
better lives for working people.
It means that their jobs are made redundant
and they have no safety net.
Tech all guards are using Oakland
as a testing ground for AI systems.
We never consented to so they can be perfected
and the technology will be used against us.
You know what I don't see billionaires proposing downtown?
I don't see them proposing to build schools,
to build grocery stores with food we can afford.
Thank you so much, Perdi, for your comments.
Your time is up.
Next speaker.
Thank you.
Hi, I'm Sandia.
This is my first ever council anywhere in the world.
So the first thing is I work in the AI.
I am an AI executive for one of the consulting firms.
And I think it is very, very important for me
to speak here tonight, just because, I mean,
I'm not opposed to the technology,
but it needs to be used and also built
in a very safe and responsible manner.
And the question is, do we actually
need a data center here in Oakland
to take up all our resources exactly?
Although they say that this is a smaller facility,
It only covers about 1.5% of the overall campus.
That's actually the problem, because being smaller
is what lets them skip through all of the reviews
that they need to go through.
And if we let one small facility come in,
then we're going to have next and the next pile up.
And they call this, in fact, my colleagues
call this Democrat time.
Thank you so much for your comments.
Your time is up.
Next speaker.
Council members, the time is now to act with your Oaklanders.
My name is Do He Kim,
Energy Democracy Campaign Organizer with
the Local Clean Energy Alliance fighting alongside Oaklanders,
who are powering their own clean energy,
green economy, and just futures.
I wholeheartedly commend and strongly support Council Member Carol Fife for her critical leadership,
foresight, and timing with this 45-day data center moratorium that would provide
practical tools and protection for our beloved city and community.
She has heard our demands and transformed them
into real people's policy and action.
The cost of electricity in Oakland is 97% higher
than the whole nation.
The proposed data center, a 20 megawatt proposal,
could instead power 16,500 affordable social housing homes
rather than disrupting our environment.
I'm a West Oakland tenant that experiences how pollution
and history of redlining and gentrification
have affected generations of our neighbors here.
We are here with people of conscience.
Look at the victory at Gilroy.
Look at our.
Thank you so much for your comments.
Your time is up.
Thank you.
Hello council members.
I'm Khalid.
Thank you for staying and listening to our voices.
I live a 10 minute walk from the data center
that's being planned.
I'm really worried about it.
I'm worried about my PG&E bill rising for the 11th time.
I'm worried about the birds and Lake Merritt.
I'm worried about the people I love being displaced
when rent raises yet again.
Because of this, I deeply appreciate
council members five introducing this forty five day moratorium and I strongly urge the
council to expediently support this but to me it's not just about a permitting process
it's about the quality of investment and who has power to decide things in Oakland.
This is being framed as an investment in Oakland that will benefit its people but this is a
high risk investment.
I currently work in tech on AI stuff and I used to work on global financial markets.
Let me be clear there is a large consensus outside the Bay Area that AI is a financial
and that's what we're doing.
What's going on with the bubble bubble?
Who's affected when the bubble burst?
It's not the CEO.
They already made their money.
No, it's the community that stuck with the useless asset.
It's the council members that got tricked.
So please, no data centers, no billionaires.
Thank you for allowing us to speak at this hearing.
A data center is an enterprise of centralized hyperscale
low-latency compute.
As an industry, it is racing on money
that doesn't exist to build information infrastructure that
is capable of surveilling and arguing against neighboring
citizens on its own behalf.
to acquire affordable RAM to run their projects
and businesses on their own terms.
A data center benefits being located in a big city
because it can access much needed public infrastructure
to generate local information leverage
and access to the most aggressive business models
and highest bidders.
Data centers being a private instead of public resource
means that instead of a more functional city,
we get a more viable city.
Big Tech has openly discussed aspirations
to replace public institutions that give them flack
with the technocracy.
so the wealthy can watch and control their world
without friction.
Most jobs created would be temporary construction jobs,
and most taxes would be dodged.
Let's be smart and remember that there is nothing
more fundamental to democratic societies than trust.
Thank you.
Thank you, can I have your name?
Excuse me, can I have your name?
Your name?
Thank you.
Hello, my name is Renee Ko,
and I live in Oakland, District Two.
The last time I was here was when this council
past council member of five ceasefire resolution
in the middle of the night
after hundreds of public comments.
I was so proud to be an Oaklander that night,
to be surrounded by organizers and activists
and elected officials.
Many of those people are here or have been here today
who wanted Oakland to stand on the right side of history
and who were ready to join together
to fight against Israel's genocide
and the global war profiteering industry.
And I'm grateful to be here again today to support Councilmember Fife's
urgency moratorium and to urge every member of this council to stand against
the same tech billionaire class that is arming Israel with AI killing technology
to carry out the genocide of Palestinians. The people profiting from
AI don't care how many people. Apologies, thank you. Hi, my name is Val, I'm an
Oakland resident in District 1, and I work in District 3 a few blocks south of a warehouse
that was recently bought by an AI business that is a subsidiary of Amazon. So you can
understand why I am in particular very concerned about this. I work in produce distribution,
a nonprofit that provides free produce to some of the most vulnerable members of our
community, including expecting mothers as well as the elderly. So I'm sure you know
this, you have to refrigerate your produce. You also likely know about the energy draw
that data centers cause. I'm originally from Reno. A lot of my friends and
family still live there and they've complained about these sudden blackouts.
In one situation, a friend of mine, his mom, has cancer and was left at home
during a heat wave with no air conditioning. So I'm worried about this
not only happening to the produce I'm trying to deliver to our neighbors but
also to the folks that we deliver to. I know of an elderly woman in particular
who lives very close to us and I'm worried about her. I don't want anything
to happen to the members of our community. Now is a really good time to
to step up with the bill. Thank you so much for your comments. I'm a first generation immigrant also a resident of Alameda County for the past 20 years. I love Oakland defended with my life but it gets harder to when I hear about how we're putting up lock cameras and majority black and brown neighborhoods and also increasing police budgets to harass street vendors and other immigrants that now somehow have questionable legal status.
I am in support of Councilmember Fife's moratorium on the AI data centers.
I do believe that the real estate agency bearing has a lot of questionable practices going
back to their 2020 to 2024 construction of a luxury condo where they were sued for $20
million for not paying their workers.
So their promises to fund the workers or the jobs that will come from this are not that
relevant to me.
Energy grade, all that fun stuff.
Thank you so much for your comments, Kanal.
Hello, my name is Angela Maddox of Oakland.
I'm here to support the Momentarium on data centers.
Well, the tech industry likes to say to move fast and break things.
things would be humanity. We are not things, we are people. They don't care
about us. They laugh about AI maybe killing us, and the idea that we are
perpetuating this is just insane to me. We share our water resources, strained
water resources, with the nation's bread basket, and we need to protect that. We
can't be extracting more. Above anything else, we need food and water to survive.
The government is supposed to serve the people, not the billionaires and the tech
overlords. They can do better with the data centers if you make them. We should not
let them come in and we should say no to this. Thank you. Hello, my name is Daniel
St. Arnold. I'm a resident of Oakland and I work at an elementary school here in
our city. I am here to express my support for a moratorium on data centers
in Oakland because data centers do not provide any benefits for working people.
It just puts money in the pockets of tech billionaires and real estate
developers. The people of Oakland are here today united in our stance against
billionaire development of AI and so City Council members I am here to
implore you please hear your constituents voices and follow Council
Fife's lead and support this urgency moratorium on data centers in our town
and thank you so much for taking the time to hear us. Hello my name is Kevin
Simon I'm operations manager in a nonprofit solar based in Oakland given
free solar to the people that need it the most.
I'm here to speak on the motion of a moratorium for the data center.
I know it feels like AI integration is inevitable, but that doesn't mean we can't control it
or mitigate its impact in our community and our planet through democracy, which is why
we're here.
It starts with us, us the people, we the people.
It starts with your vote on this motion.
It starts with the leadership hearing the words of its constituents.
you all to move forward for the moratorium and order to for both we the
people and you all the council to gain more information on all items in
question items such as items like environmental impacts such as proposed
water usage noise pollution and taxpayer utility rate increases we deserve clear
transparent changes from its original use to this upgrade that bearing proposes
please vote for this moratorium to allow us we the people the transparency we do
we deserve. Thank you. Hi my name is Lex. I'm a resident of West Oakland and I'm
seeking in support of the moratorium on all data centers in Oakland. Oakland is
a city built by the people that care about it and the construction of data
centers with disproportionately and negatively impact the working-class
black-and-brown community members that make Oakland the city that it is with
increasing rent prices and negative health impacts and environmental
destruction. I work in experimental science and I believe in the power of
innovation but every day I see the people who once loved the creativity and
opportunity that science has offered who's touch with what they love because
they are constantly urged to give in to AI agents in the name of profits. The
advertisement of innovation and opportunity remains purposely vague
because it's not going to Oakland residents but instead cycles back to the
wealthy tech minority who are ignorant to the communities they are destroying.
My hope is that the city of Oakland would choose to invest in the people that
love it rather than the technology that actively works to drain it of the life
that makes it keep Oakland human. Thank you. Hi, I had the blank card. My name is Casey.
I'm a friend and supporter of Oakland residents. I'm in support of Carroll Fipes Moratorium
and a permanent ban on data centers in Oakland. I'm concerned about the potential health impacts
of surrounding residents, including lung damage and asthma attacks, especially when those
very residents overwhelmingly oppose the construction of these data centers. I'm also concerned
about data centers contribution to the climate crisis. All data centers, including data centers
on a smaller scale use thousands of gallons of water for cooling and to contribute to
greenhouse gas emissions. Every one of you will feel the effects of climate crisis just
like all of us if we don't fight for a livable planet. The people of Oakland deserve a public
review and a voice over the fate of their own community's land and health. Thank you.
Hey there. I'm Haider Jarrell from District 3 Oakland. I oppose any data center being
built in Oakland, big or small. I appreciate and support Councilmember Fives' moratorium.
I'm not opposed to innovation, but we need to be in control of this technology that has the potential to change the whole world as we know it.
We need to be in control of our lives. We need to rein in the oligarchy that's destroying our country. We need to pump the brakes. Thanks. Bye.
Hello, my name is Eric. I'm from District 2.
I'm here
because I'm worried about data centers and I'm worried about the unaccountable
Powers behind them. I'm here as a father a father in Oakland
I'm worried about the future of AI and what it means for the safety of my children
I'm here as a researcher in AI safety and a former strategist a civil servant at the Pentagon and the Department of Defense
Who's committed his career to this mission?
I'm worried for those reasons, too
Lastly, I'm worried as a citizen of Oakland. I
I want democracy to work in due time, on pace,
and that's why I support a moratorium.
Thank you.
My name is Sarah and I'm a teacher, an OUSD middle school teacher.
And in my day to day, thank you, thank you, in my day to day,
I see the way AI is limiting the processing and capability of our students.
It demotivates the effort and the productive struggle of learning,
because you could just find everything easy.
Speedrunning the gentrification of Oakland
and contributing our resources and energy
to harmful technology is a problem.
Councilmember Fife, I imagine you don't remember me
in the friendliest way, but I commend you
for your introducing of a moratorium and willingness
to actually hear us out and like hold these faces.
This is true praxis.
The only thing I'll push back on is the idea
that council members or community leaders
are the only ones who get things done in Oakland
because look at us, we're here, and we're loud.
I urge the council to take notes
and respond to the will of the people,
unlike your continuous efforts to not to,
since y'all only follow the menu.
Stop selling Oakland out, please.
Thank you.
Good evening.
I come to you as a city of Oakland.
See, I'm a little nervous, first time ever.
I'm a resident of city of Oakland.
I'm a community activist, I'm a student, I'm an instructor,
I'm a lover, and unfortunately, I'm a fighter,
because I do not want to see AI data centers
being built in my hometown.
What I think about when it comes to AI
is you guys are sacrificing our natural resources
for convenience, and as other states that I've toured,
other states that I went to go visit, family and friends,
for example, I've been to Detroit, I've been to Flint,
I've seen Gary, Indiana, and do we want Oakland
to be just like that, we have the opportunity
to not fall in those same patterns.
So in order to not be just like Flint or Gary, Indiana,
I think we should look into other things
outside of supporting these AI data centers.
That's what I gotta say so far.
Fuck AI.
Thank you.
Can I get your name?
Excuse me.
Can I get your name, sir?
Can I get your name?
Fuck AI.
Hello, my name is Ursula.
And when I saw that the data centers were coming,
it was like what that person said about anxiety and all that.
I've heard nothing but bad stuff about data centers.
And I'm glad that council member Fife
did the 45 days moratorium.
I've heard a lot of great speakers today
with a lot of great points.
I hope that you guys listen and take it into effect because I don't see any good.
There was a movie on last night, Channel 9, Independent Lens, and it was about AI and it's
called Ghost in the Machine. So they repeated a couple times. It's very interesting. I think
everybody should check it out just because it's what we're talking about. Thank you for listening.
thank you for the eye contact. Thank you so much for your comments. Hello my name is Sarah. I'm a
resident of District 2. I stand behind the moratorium in a permanent ban on data centers
in Oakland. We don't want any data centers extracting and draining our people or our
resources to serve billionaires and developers. It's techno colonialism. Three generations of my
family have lived in Oakland before me my great-grandparents came to Oakland
from Ireland because it was under colonial rule today Ireland is living a
new version of it data centers consume a quarter of the country's electricity
land and people treated it as infrastructure for someone else's profit
same extraction different Empire I'm a therapist here in Oakland every week I
sit with people who are already stretched thin gentrification is not an
abstraction to the people I work with my community or myself. I got other stuff
but you know what who profits from it. Hi my name is Juliana and I'm a
resident of Marin County. I support passing a moratorium in data centers in
Oakland because I don't want a data center of any size in our communities. I
don't believe they belong anywhere based off of their environmental consequences
that leave our communities uninhabitable for all life.
This is a gross safety concern and the technology qualities itself do not
justify its cost. I say this because of its noise pollution which would raise
mental health issues with all Bay Area citizens as well as harm wildlife who
will be disoriented with this technology. Another concern is water. We've seen the
quality of drinkable water turn gray and smelly in communities that have data
centers. These data centers intend to expand into every community and this is
predatory by design to every American. This is a money grab from people who
don't want to be regulated to do their work safely. That ill intent has no place
in the Bay Area or anywhere. Lastly, in the words of Hayao Miyazaki, AI is an
insult to humanity. The quality of AI is poor and will low. Thank you so much for
your comments. Hi, my name is Nessa Niemer. I'm third generation born in
Oakland, my family originally came from Lebanon and ended up here. I also am in
favor of the moratorium and a permanent ban on data centers. Don't let Oakland
be a microcosm of our country because you guys work for us. We pay your
salaries and overwhelmingly across the country people are vehemently opposed to
these data centers. AI is being forced down our throats and for what? For a tiny
group of oligarchs to profit while the rest of us our life keeps getting harder
and harder, we're losing our jobs, our environment is being destroyed, this is unacceptable.
Half of you don't even look up when people are talking. You're not listening. You're
on your phones. Wake up. Pay attention to us. Listen to the people. We don't want this.
Nobody wants this. Americans on both sides of the aisle don't want these here in our
community or any other communities.
And if you guys don't start listening to us, we will make sure you're all voted out.
Thank you to all the speakers who came before me.
My name is...
Can we start her time over?
Can you speak closer to the mic so we can hear you?
Sure.
Yes.
My name is Grace and I use computational resources for my research in biology and healthcare.
And I think that I can use any computer server, any stack anywhere in the country, specifically
in Texas.
It doesn't have to be in Oakland.
I work for the federal government.
I do life saving research on Google servers.
It doesn't have to be a data center in Oakland in beautiful Oakland.
It's a wonderful city.
I'm a member of the community of this Oakland city.
So I am in favor of the moratorium to pause it and a permanent ban on data
centers in Oakland. Thank you.
Hi, we're back at the invitation of council member five.
She invited my son to wave at the camera and my son also just whispered
something in my ear, do you want to say something for the future?
He's worried about artificial super intelligence and the arrival of artificial general intelligence
and those risks as well.
Thank you.
Hello, my name is Michaela and I'm an Oakland resident of District 3.
Thank you Council Member Fife for hearing the people of Oakland and proposing an emergency
temporary moratorium.
We urge the rest of the City Council to approve of this moratorium and continue to deliberate
the impact that new data centers will have on Oakland and do right by the
people and pass a permanent ban. The harm of big tech and billionaires to
Oakland's working-class people is only going to become more undeniable and the
number of your constituents rallying behind this movement is only going to
grow. The bottom line is that Oakland is not and will not be another plaything,
sacrifice zone or tech company campus for the billionaire class.
The people of Oakland refuse to accept the billionaire's agenda for our city.
Oakland's future should be prescribed by and for the people because when a data center
comes to the town, what do we do?
Oh hey y'all, I'm a little nervous.
This is my first city council meeting and I didn't come to speak.
I came to listen and learn.
Oh, my name, ooh, where's my guy?
Fuck AI, that's my name, for the record.
But no, I saw-
I'm sorry, what's your name, ma'am?
I saw, I said, my name is No Data Centers.
Because I learned today-
We need to know your name so we can make sure
we record it, it's for the record, for the public.
But I learned today that you can do that.
I also learned today, it's my first meeting.
I also learned today that I'm in Mr. Unger's district.
I didn't know that either.
And I didn't know any of this because I'm busy
and I'm doing stuff.
And you guys are busy and you're doing stuff.
But 71 people came out, they're flyers everywhere.
This is really important.
I learned first edition books are being destroyed,
it's anti-art, there's issues with electrical power
and water, anti-environment, the sound,
one with the sound frequency, anti-health.
And lately, AI employees are saying,
y'all gonna be dead in less than 10 years.
So even if you're getting money,
you can't spend it if you're dead.
So it's a no-brainer.
Bortorium, no-
Thank you for your comments, your time is up.
If you're next...
Good evening, Mr. Bowright.
David Bowright, District 4.
I've sent a detailed email to all of y'all about MeasureMM.
If you haven't seen it, I hope you ask your staff for a copy of it to look at it.
And after almost two years now, we need some oversight of MeasureMM.
I implore you all to look into it in more detail.
It deserves your time.
Thank you.
Thank you for your comments.
All names have been called for open form.
If I've called your name and you haven't come up to speak, please do so now.
If not, we will end open forum.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Since there's no discussion on open forum items.
Thank you all for speaking.
This meeting is adjourned.
There's no discussion on open forum items, but if there's no discussion,
there's nothing, there's nothing agenda.
So you can be acknowledged, but I just said the meeting's adjourned.
So it's adjourned.