Open Government Commission Meeting - October 6, 2025
Open Government Commission Meeting - October 6, 2025
The Open Government Commission conducted a brief meeting focused on routine approvals and planning for its annual report on public records requests and transparency activities.
Consent Calendar
- Commissioners unanimously approved the minutes from the March 3, 2025, meeting via a roll call vote (Harris: Yes, Bowling: Yes, Schwartz: Yes, Tilios: Yes, Chair Miley: Yes).
Public Comments & Testimony
- Rita Lark (in-person): Described unsafe and unsanitary living conditions, including theft, drug activity, and alleged misconduct by staff at the Esperanza apartment building. She expressed frustration that her complaints to management and city housing officials had not been addressed and stated a need for safer housing.
- Jake R. Finkel (remote): Criticized the perceived erosion of the commission's authority and the city's transparency. He argued that the commission's role in evaluating complaints had been diminished and urged the body to find ways to enhance governmental openness, specifically citing the removal of non-agenda public comment at city council meetings as a concern.
Discussion Items
- 2025 Annual Report Direction: The City Clerk presented data on public records requests, noting 449 requests had been submitted through the NextRequest portal in 2025 (compared to 505 in 2024). Commissioners discussed potential data to include in the annual report, such as:
- Breakdown of requests involving legal representation.
- Geographic origin of requesters (Alameda vs. non-Alameda).
- Volume of documents produced per request.
- General responsiveness timelines (e.g., requests filled in 1-5 days).
- Potential tracking of staff hours spent fulfilling requests (though noted as difficult to implement).
- Commissioners collectively favored having staff draft the report rather than forming a subcommittee, citing efficiency.
Key Outcomes
- A motion was made and seconded to direct staff to draft the 2025 Annual Report based on the discussion from the meeting. The motion passed unanimously via roll call vote (Bowling: Yes, Harris: Yes, Schwartz: Yes, Tilios: Yes, Chair Miley: Yes).
- Staff Communication: The Clerk reported that a recent Sunshine Ordinance complaint was deemed incomplete and insufficient to schedule a hearing, as the complainant was unwilling to amend it. No further action was taken.
Meeting Transcript
Madam City Clerk, can we get a roll call? Yes. Commissioners Harris. Bowling. Present. T. Chair Miley. Present. Uh, for present, and hopefully, um, Commissioner Schwartz will be able, he's joining remotely and hopefully he'll get on momentarily, and we'll be able to add him when he's ready. All right, thank you. Um, see you here, so that's item one. Item two on our agenda is non-agenda public comment. So if there's any members of the public who would like to speak in person or online, uh, I believe they either need to raise their hand or fill out a speaker slide. Yes. Uh, the first one is in person, Rita Lark. Good evening. My name is Rita Lark. And the reason that I'm here tonight, I came to tell you a story. My story starts with I came to Alameda four months ago, and I was living in uh Village of Love shelter. Okay, I was lucky to get an apartment at the uh Esperanza. Since I've been there, keys have been stolen out of the keybox from the uh maintenance supervisor and the co-worker. And the drugs they keep escalating, and we have sex traffic and marine that keeps coming up in there. All these terrible things have been documented with the police department here. And my question is: why should a person like me that came out of homelessness? I'm 66 years old. I have a service animal. Every time I come home, I find more damages in my house, like it's been pissed out from my couch to my love seat in my bedroom use where the maintenance supervisor, he likes to have sex with underage children. Both of these men have been locked up and they released them and they let them come back to work. I have talked with the management there, and nobody wants to control it. Then I went through the latter. I went from the unbudsman to the um manager, supposed to be the manager over this, and then uh I went to the even the director of Alameda Housing. And I'm not getting through to what's really going on. And so I went to a church yesterday and I spoke with this lady that donates clothes, and so she told me that she knows a lawyer that does free work, but I just wanted to let the city know that these are beautiful apartments, and it shouldn't be going like it is. People are moving in and out of this place, and it should be a safe place for everyone. Thank you. Ms. Lark, thank you for sharing. Thank you. But uh I appreciate you sharing and uh, you know, wish you the best in getting the support you need through the city or other service providers. Have a good evening. Thank you. And we have one remote, uh Jake R. Finkel. Good evening. Uh I assume you can hear me? Yes. Yes. Yep. Yeah, oh good, okay. Um what I want to discuss tonight is um what the OGC's um uh tasks is, what you're supposed to be doing.
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