Alameda County Board of Supervisors Special Meeting Retreat - August 7, 2026
Alameda County Board of Supervisors Special Meeting Retreat - August 7, 2026
The Board of Supervisors held a special meeting and retreat on August 7, 2026, continuing from the previous day. The meeting focused on team building, priority setting, operating procedures, and review of boards, commissions, and committee structures. Key decisions included eliminating joint committee meetings, sunsetting several ad hoc committees, creating a standing reparations committee, and identifying top board priorities for the next 12-18 months.
Public Comments & Testimony
- No members of the public submitted comments on closed session items or on any agenda items during the open session work retreat.
Discussion Items
- Boards and Commissions Review: The board reviewed a list of 116 boards, commissions, and committees (27 joint powers authorities, 27 outside boards, 8 board policy committees, and 54 other advisory boards). Supervisor Miley expressed frustration that the review has lingered for years. Facilitators led a discussion on the importance of reducing the number of inactive boards to free up staff time and resources. The board rated the importance of this reform at 4.5-5 on a 1-5 scale. It was agreed that Supervisors Halbert and Márquez will work with the County Administrator to identify low-hanging fruit (committees that have not met in two years) and bring a recommendation to the board by December 15, 2026.
- Board Policy Committees and Ad Hoc Committees: The eight standing policy committees were reaffirmed as valuable. The board discussed the frequency and overlap of joint committee meetings (e.g., Health and Social Services). A consensus was reached to eliminate all joint committee meetings and instead bring cross-cutting issues to the full board as informational items or work sessions. Several ad hoc committees were reviewed: the Public Safety Community Relations Ad Hoc Committee was sunset (it had not met in years); the Surplus Property Authority Ad Hoc was deemed necessary but meets infrequently; the Agricultural Fair Association Board was recognized as a standing committee with external members; the Reparations Ad Hoc Committee was sunset and replaced with a new standing committee on reparations (board president to appoint members by September 15, 2026); the Alameda County Together for All committee was continued with a plan to revisit its necessity after 2028; the Alameda Health System Ad Hoc Committee was extended through January 2027.
- Board Priorities and Initiatives: County Administrator Susan Muranishi presented a visual of ongoing board initiatives (over 20 items). Each supervisor identified their top 3-5 priorities. After a dot-voting exercise, the ranked top six board priorities were (in order): 1) Homelessness (including Measure W implementation and results-based contracts), 2) Office of Immigrant and Refugee Affairs, 3) EMS Redesign, 4) Improved Child Welfare (corrective action plan), 5) Office of Reparative Justice / Reparations, and 6) Alameda Health System (financial sustainability, governance, and reinstating labor and delivery at St. Rose Hospital). The board also discussed several lower-priority initiatives and assigned champions and next steps for each.
- Work Session and Communications Improvements: The board discussed the ineffectiveness of current work sessions and wished to have more discussion-oriented sessions with specific questions for board direction rather than lengthy presentations. There was also a consensus for a county-level public information officer (staff rather than consultant) to coordinate communications, and for enhanced metrics and dashboards for homelessness and ballot measure outcomes.
Key Outcomes
- Ad Hoc Committee Changes:
- Eliminated joint committee meetings; cross-cutting issues will now come to the full board as informational/set matters.
- Sunset Public Safety Community Relations Ad Hoc Committee.
- Sunset Reparations Ad Hoc Committee; created a new standing committee on reparations (board president to appoint members by September 15, 2026).
- Extended Alameda Health System Ad Hoc Committee through January 2027.
- Continued Alameda County Together for All committee, with intention to reevaluate after 2028.
- Boards and Commissions: Supervisors Halbert and Márquez will lead a review to eliminate inactive or non-mandated bodies, with a progress recommendation by December 15, 2026.
- Top Board Priorities Endorsed: The board agreed to focus staff resources on the six top-priority initiatives: homelessness, immigrant affairs, EMS redesign, child welfare, reparations, and AHS (including St. Rose birthing center). Lower-priority initiatives (food security, East County development, ballot communications, Coliseum negotiations, efficiency audit of environmental health, wildfire prevention, etc.) were assigned champions and next steps but are secondary.
- Proclamations/Commendations: The board confirmed its earlier decision to eliminate routine commendations (based on 2025 data showing 70 were issued) to save staff time.
- Future Retreat: The board agreed to hold a full-day retreat in January/February 2027 (date to be set by incoming board president).
Meeting Transcript
Everyone this meeting is being recorded. I'd like to call to order the special meeting of Thursday, August 6th. Alameda County Board of Supervisors. Will the clerk please call the roll? Supervisor Marquez present. Supervisor Tam, present. Supervisor Miley, Supervisor Fortunato Boss is excused, and President Halbert. Present. We do have a quorum. Thank you very much. I will recognize that Supervisor Fortunato Bass is on her way and will be here imminently. I will also um take public comment on closed session items because it is listed on the agenda. Do we have any speakers in person or online to make comment on closed session items? Showing no hands in Zoom. No speakers in person. Nobody on Zoom, nobody in person. Then we will close public comment on closed session items. We will then proceed with our open session items. And I will turn the meeting over to our facilitator, facilitators, Jen and Dan Kavanaugh. Great. Thank you so much. Welcome back, everyone. I know it was a long day, and I'm excited to be with you again on day two of our two-day retreat. As we come back, I just invite you to think about what stayed with you from yesterday from your conversations, what landed with you, what were you still thinking about, uh, what are you thinking about that you're hopeful for today that you want to bring in. And um, in your uh playbook for today, we're on page 26. So I invite you to think about that. And while you're doing that, I will just give you a run through of what we have planned for today, and then want to just do a pause to make sure that that's in line with how you all are hoping to spend your time as well. Okay, we'll work on that microphone while we do. Okay. Turns out it was user error. Surprising too much. All right. So here's what we have planned for today. So welcome back. What we have carrying over from yesterday is there were two items that we were going to touch on and provide you some information so that we are um probably agreeing not to do a deep dive today necessarily, but to think about what would a deep dive look like and what would it take to get that scheduled. So we're gonna touch on two items that are carrying over from yesterday, and then we're gonna move into a little bit of thinking about the future and the legacy of this body and what that might look like in the future and how we can co-create that. That will lead us into the current context, which is what is this board responsible for and what is the landscape of our leadership. And then we're moving into boards and board initiatives. Um your county administrator will share some information in terms of the broader context of what's already happening. If we don't do anything differently, these are the things that are still going to be happening that we need to tackle. And as leaders in this county, you likely have some things that you would like to push forward. What we want to do is get clarity around what those are, where you have overlaps and commonalities, where there's some things that are maybe differences that someone else might be able to support, but that you might lead on. So really trying to get some clarity between you of what are the things we're pushing forward, and then thinking about how do we prioritize that as we again we're gonna put it in the broader landscape of what's happening here. And from there we'll take a break for lunch. Our timing will be uh roughly around 12:30 for lunch for those of you who are planning that, and we have some give and take based on where we are. Um, and then as we move into the afternoon, what we're looking to do is think about how we prioritize those and what the next step and action item looks like so that it's very clear when we leave here who's doing what by when to move these forward and get these brought back to you. So that's what we have planned for you. The last thing I'll say we're gonna bring back is our blind spotting exercise from yesterday. So you have a summary in front of you of the feedback that you received. It was tucked into your binder.
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