Oakland website.

Oh yeah, y'all.

If all council members can return to their seats, we're getting ready to begin.

Okay.

Good afternoon and welcome to the City Council meeting of Tuesday, October seventh, twenty twenty five.

Before I call roll.

If we can have quiet in the chambers.

Before I call roll, I will go over speaker card instructions.

If you would like to speak on any agenda item on this agenda, you must fill out a speaker's card before the item is called for discussion, or one hour and thirty minutes after the start of this meeting, making that five oh three p.m.

again.

If you would like to speak on any agenda item on this agenda, you must fill out a speaker's card before the item is called, or an hour and a half from the start of this meeting, which would be five.

Showing six members.

One excuse at this time.

Councilmember Houston.

Before I go to the first item, Council President, do you have any announcements?

Yes, we will have item 3.2 first.

Everybody, our great state senator is here, and we will hear from him first.

Then we will uh hear the consent calendar and then the mayor's state of the city will come after that.

We're first, followed by the consent calendar, and after that will be the mayor's state of the city.

Going to item 3.2, receive a presentation by California State Senator Jesse Ruin on legislative priorities, recent accomplishments, and opportunities for collaboration with the city of Oakland.

You do have speakers on this item.

Welcome, Senator Argon.

Well, good afternoon, uh President Jenkins and members of the Oakland City Council.

I stand before you not as your state senator, but as a new resident of the city of Oakland.

And Councilor Unger is my council representative.

I'm proud to live in Council District One.

And I'm here today to provide an update about the work I've done this past year in the California State Senate.

I know many people are here to hear from our great mayor, Barbara Lee.

So I will do my best to get through the presentation quickly.

But just want to thank the council president, members of the council, including Council Member Fife, um and Councillor Ramachandran that have supported the work we've done this past year, including coming to Sacramento to testify in support of important legislation.

I want to thank the city staff for their partnership, as well as Nicola DeLuca from Townsend Public Affairs, your legislative advocate who's doing a really great job on behalf of the city of Oakland.

This is my first year in the California State Senate, but I've been honored to been selected to chair two committees, the Senate Standing Committee on Public Safety and the Senate Committee on Human Services.

Both of these issues are extremely important, not just to our fellow Oaklanders, but also to people throughout the East Bay, as well as serving on eight standing committees as well.

And this has been honestly one of the most challenging years we faced as a state.

From the catastrophic wildfires in Los Angeles County to the Trump administration and the attacks on not just our immigrant communities but on our our state.

We had to defend our immigrant communities against violent raids, as well as stand for our California values.

But I'm proud to report that we have been able to accomplish a lot over the past nine months.

I want to just touch upon um the partnership with the city of Oakland.

I want to reiterate that uh work has already been um achieved in delivering results to improve public safety with crime rates in Oakland decreasing.

The partnership between the City of Oakland and the California Highway Patrol has been an effective one.

If we can I'm gonna go to slide two, uh with thousands of vehicles recovered and scores of illegal firearms removed from our streets.

I believe that this partnership, the work the city is doing, including its ceasefire program and public safety reforms, have contributed to these improvements in public safety.

More recently, I was very happy to help secure one million dollars from the state budget, even though we face very challenging budget times to help support Oakland's macro program, which provides expert care for uh individuals with mental health or or substance abuse issues, deploying trained social workers rather than our police officers, and that program I think is a really great example of a comprehensive public safety strategy that we can take to cities throughout California.

Um, in addition, we work to advance several pieces of legislation important to Oakland, including Senate Bill 304, which authorizes the port of Oakland to be able to better lease property at Jacqueline and Square.

If we go to Jacqueline and Square and we see the vacant waterfront hotel, we see all these vacant storefronts, it's a very sad situation.

But we know that Jacqueline and Square, like many of our commercial districts in Oakland, are um really incredible places of community and economic and economic prosperity, but they need help.

And so, because of some of the restrictions, because this is state land, state state trust land, um, it's been difficult for the Port of Oakland to lease those properties more expeditiously.

So this bill, Senate Bill 304, which is on the governor's desk.

It's gonna allow the port and the city of Oakland to better maximize um the opportunity at Jacqueline and Square to lease properties to bring new businesses in, to bring more economic development to Jacqueline and Square and to help support Oakland's economy.

In addition, nearly $139 million was secured in home key funding since 2020, including uh creating 599 deeply affordable units for people experiencing homelessness.

Um, and that includes a 33 million dollar award to the city of Oakland just last month to rehabilitate 109 units.

Um, and so these are just some examples of how we are able to support the important work that Oakland's engaged in around public safety as well as addressing um unsheltered homelessness and the behavioral health crisis on the streets.

Just briefly on the next slide.

Obviously, issues around immigration are extremely important to our Oakland community.

I was proud to author a bill, Senate Bill 81, which the governor signed a few weeks ago, to ensure that our hospitals and health facilities in California are safe spaces and to restrict ICE from coming into hospitals and health facilities to ensure that health care is a basic human right.

Nobody regardless of their immigration status should be denied health care in California.

In addition, um the state of California took immediate action right after Trump was elected to allocate $50 million, 25 million to allow our attorney general Rob Bonta to take legal action against the unjust and unconstitutional actions of the Trump administration.

To date, we filed over 30 lawsuits unfreezing billions of dollars that Trump tried to take away from California and cities like Oakland.

Funding for health, health care, funding for education, funding for nutrition assistance, as well as fighting things like his attack on birthright citizenship, on reproductive choice, on trans rights, and so many things that are central to the safety and well-being of people in Oakland and throughout California.

And $25 million that we've been using to provide resources for organizations like Central Legal that does work to defend our immigrant communities from deportation.

We know that if somebody has a lawyer, they're more likely to be able to fight deportation.

And so this is an initial investment that we hope to build on to make sure we can protect our immigrant communities that are that are under attack by this administration.

On public safety, as I as I mentioned, we have done a lot of work, including 100 million dollars to implement Prop 36 to make sure we can expand behavioral health services in California, as well as several bills that I was proud to author, including SB 524, which ensures that police reports that use AI that we have guardrails to make sure that there's transparency and accountability around the use of that technology.

SB 627, the no secret police act, to make sure that federal agents, ICE agents, and law enforcement cannot cover their face and hide their identity in the course of carrying out their policing operations in California.

We should have no secret police in California.

And SB 704, which regulates the sale of firearm barrels, which are increasingly being used to create illegal ghost guns, which are inflicting gun violence in communities throughout California, including in the city of Oakland.

On health and human services, we have done a lot of work to not just help increase funding for nutrition assistance at a time when deep cuts to essential services are being put forward through the passage of HR 1 and the Trump administration.

We passed several bills for child care and for providing support for workers who've been impacted by layoffs.

On transportation, just briefly, we were able to secure $750 million in the budget act to provide an ongoing bridge for BART, AC Transit, Muni, and other transit operators in the Bay Area who are facing a fiscal cliff.

If we don't act, AC Transit BART and MUNI, they will have to reduce service, close stations that will disproportionately impact working families and so many people that rely on public transit.

And SB 63, and I see Director Rayburn's here from BART, will allow the Bay Area to consider a sales tax measure to provide ongoing operating assistance to help keep our major transit operators going in the Bay Area.

On climate, billions of dollars of funding we were able to secure for fuel reduction and mitigation to make our communities more wildfire safe, and this is an issue.

Look forward to working with Chief Covington and firefighters, and in the coming months and months and years to make sure that Oakland and the East Bay gets its fair share of those billions of dollars to make sure we can make our Oakland community safe.

On housing and homelessness, these are honestly some of my top prayers as somebody who's faced housing insecurity and homelessness myself.

And we were able to advance not just legislation to help get more housing built, but to protect critical dollars for homelessness and to build affordable housing in California.

And like I said, Prop 1, 6.4 billion behavioral and homelessness services, 21 million of that initial allocation is going for the development of a treatment facility right here in Oakland, which will open in the spring of 2027.

That's a bit of a run through it's an honor to represent you in the California State Senate.

I welcome your ideas and not just legislation but how we can get more money from the budget for Oakland and know you have a committed partner to work with you to help make Oakland rise and make it an incredible community that I'm honored to live in and represent.

Thank you very much.

With that I'll open it up to questions from the council members first I want to say I'll take chair's privilege thank you so much for representing us in the state senate you're doing a lot of work.

You're on seven committees is that true eight and we gotta change that next year but please continue doing the work that you do representing Oakland and welcome to Oakland.

We appreciate you being a resident now thank you so much Senator Ergin and congratulations on a first uh successful legislative session um as we can see you were very busy representing um us and um just wanted to offer those thanks thank you I have to say uh Senator that um while you're presenting your PowerPoint I received a text that said Senator Aragon is stepping up his presentation game I've never seen a PowerPoint for a state of the state address and I said have you not seen him at ABAC or in Berkeley like of course he's stepping it up because he is just that type of perfectionist that puts everything into the work that he does so I wanted to also congratulate you on your first term um and say that I miss you from ABAG and that I appreciate your leadership in this time where it is so critical that we have your type of voice at the state level advocating for us.

Welcome to Oakland as an Oakland resident thank you Senator Iagin for your advocacy and I think it's a testament to your hard work that you are able to lean on public safety as well as wildfire safety something important to not only my constituents but a lot of Oakland just enough to say I really appreciate your leadership and it was a pleasure getting to see you in action in the Capitol and wish you the best in the next year of continued strong leadership for public safety and beyond.

Thank you.

Thank you thank you Senator for for the information and again it's not about what we say but what we do.

And certainly when it comes to Oakland we're facing some real serious challenges I mean we just went through balancing a budget of 265 million dollars and there's still some questions reservation are we balanced or not for the coming year because certainly the coming year is going to be a greater challenge for the city of Oakland not just for Oakland but for Berkeley where you're from and throughout California but so the question that I have since you raised public safety all right certainly you know you know the numbers about the the needs of whether it comes to robberies assaults murders and I'm not quite sure I'm in a full agreement with with them the numbers that are given that I'm giving that our crime is going down because in my area in East Oakland they're not going down.

Down my street they're not going down.

So the bottom line what I'm here I'm gonna ask you specifically because I'm working with the California Highway Patrol and I've been a big fan because some of the streets in Oakland are state highways international is the state highway the majority of it 42nd Avenue is the state highway where growing up in Oakland I would always see the highway patrol present to assist our police department with public safety, whether it's speeding, the robberies, the shooting, and so forth.

So the question that I have for you, I would like to see the California highway patrol continue, continue to be more engaged in a city like Oakland because right now your highway patrol has assigned six officers, but then you have a crime prevention group that has 16 of 20 officers.

They were in Oakland, but they got moved to other cities to deal with other crime issues.

So the question that I have for you and is how do I get the California Highway Patrol to be more assistance to a city like Oakland beyond the six officers that I have here in Oakland, and I'm we're recognizing them, and we're gonna have a big celebration to recognize the officers in East Oakland because they're pressing.

But so I guess for me, it's what I need what we need assistance through your public safety leadership at the state level.

How do I maintain those officers that were under violence prevention from being assigned to Frisco, Richmond, and make sure that some of them maintain their presence in Oakland to assist us with the crime reductions that we uh had and have and would like to get your support to make sure that Oakland with the highway patrol continues to be um served because I as a taxpayer I'm paying all their salaries, but I want the the state highway patrol involved in the city of Oakland?

That's what I'm saying.

Senator and I'm sure you're glad you don't have to follow the Brown Act anymore now that you're in Sacramento Bay.

If we can keep this as broad as possible, and then you make sure that you meet up with our Pro Tim as well.

Yeah, through the president.

Um, well, Councillor Guy, you practice what you preach.

You're out there every weekend cleaning at the streets of Oakland.

I appreciate your leadership.

Um you'll be happy to know that one of the first things I did when I took office at the request of the council president, who was the interim mayor at the time, was to ask the governor to continue the CHP deployment um in Oakland, and then um, and then subsequently within the last month at the request of Mayor Lee was direct conversation with the governor requesting that they continue the deployment, and I will continue to advocate for the deployment in Oakland.

And uh they have moved some resources to help support other communities in the Bay Area focusing more regionally, but we're gonna continue to fight to make sure we're not just maintain but increase that investment because it's actually making a real difference in helping support the work of OPD and making our community safer.

I also want to lift up that we are working with Mayor Lee and Supervisor Miley and President Jenkins to lift up the East Bay Public Safety Corridor, which will be a regional partnership that will work to bring law enforcement and elective leaders together about how we can work to address crime regionally in the East Bay community.

Yeah, because our police numbers by July 2026 are to go down from uh 600 plus now to 601 certified officers, and every month I have five officers retiring and leaving.

So I need your help.

Thank you.

Um agreed.

Um I have a question, and thank you again for your service.

It's been um obvious.

I feel like your policy accomplishments are pragmatic, the right blend of pragmatic uh pragmatism and social justice that reflects our values here in Oakland.

Um my question is just around sex trafficking.

Um, my district is the hotspot of sex trafficking the other day.

The administrator and I were there, and I swear to God, there was a girl, probably no older than 15, who was on the streets.

And when I talked to DVP, our council member, can you make it broader and keep it to the presentation?

So that would not violate the brown acts.

Um, but um, what uh thoughts do you have on sex trafficking?

I keep on hearing the state laws being an impediment to doing something about it.

There is a bill that we moved through the legislature, and I I talked to the council president about this on a number of occasions, uh uh 80 379, which would amend the law to ensure that 16 and 17-year-olds who are being trafficked, that there is accountability for perpetrators of trafficking.

Because they were exempt from state law, um, and so it only applied to um people are under the age of 16, and so we have fixed that, and that's gonna provide prosecutors and law enforcement more tools to hold Johns accountable.

In addition, part of what that what that law does is provide some some funding to help support the work of um victim support groups, it creates a vertical prosecution unit.

Um, and so I I think this is a really comprehensive strategy that we we that we have passed it's not a law in California, the governor signed the bill, and that's gonna really help ensure uh that we can protect our kids um and we can actually ensure um that there's some accountability for the serious issue.

I mean, it's an issue in Oakland, it's an issue in communities throughout the state of california including in sacramento where we are um every single week absolutely thank you that completes the council members will go to public comment thank you senator as a cariname please approach the podium in any order we only have one speaker for this item is asada on I just want to reference how every bill doesn't necessarily get consensus AB 495 the Family Repairness Plan Act is intended to help parents who are taken away from their children who are immigrant parents but there's opposition to this the opposition to this are parents are saying that they don't have prevental authority that the bill lacks sufficient safeguards such as notification the California Family Council is saying that it opposes it even though amendments have been uh have taken place the governor has until October the 12th to sign or veto the bill but the bill who helps immigrants other parents who are not immigrants are saying it doesn't help them and that's what I'm I'm you have to realize that everything you do for the immigrant community doesn't necessarily help other people so what is going to happen with AB 495 when you don't have support across the board and parents are saying that this will lead to open the door for ill treatment by people who want to take advantage of their children.

So I don't know what his position is but my position is I haven't heard anything about what's supporting African Americans.

Nothing on reparation for African Americans nothing for African Americans period but we always have a way to accommodate people who are immigrants say do whatever you want for immigrants but when are we going to see the 8.7% unemployment the gentrification that's going on how we are not getting accommodation in our schools for African Americans and we did have one more speaker for this item Mr.

Hazard thank you Senator for moving to Oakland so Oakland's not that bad after all um maybe because you're in Oakland now you could help with the crisis of fentanyl team is sentenced for drug sales.

His attorney says he pedal fit now only to help his grandmother who had cancer so you turn the same one and then a lot of other folks die this I won't say his name uh the young man started selling fentanyl on the streets as a boy by 18 he was a drug uh pusher and going back in front forth to Honduras so to the Senator how critical is fentanyl in the state and can you put pressure on this city council who in June of 24 indicated that it was a public health crisis but you never have it on the agenda he is one uh he's no pawn but instead directed co-conspirators who were older than him.

He lives in Oakland.

And you failed to make it a public health crisis.

I gave you the article teen is sitting for drug sales.

So, Senator, can you ask what the state is doing and how critical is fitting all?

And if you could put pressure on these folks who sit around this diet who refuse to make fentanyl a public health crisis.

Thank you.

Thank you.

I'll entertain a motion to accept the presentation.

Guile and Brown.

On item three, I'm sorry, three point two.

Move by Councilmember Guile, seconded by Councilmember Brown.

To accept the item.

Councilmember Brown.

Aye.

Councilmember 5.

Aye.

Councilmember Gaio.

Councilmember Houston is excused.

Councilmember Ramachandran.

Aye.

Councilmember Unger.

Aye.

Councilmember Wong.

Aye.

Chair Jenkins.

All right.

Motion passes with a vote of seven ayes, one excuse Houston.

And going to item four, which is modifications to the agenda.

I'm going to poll item number eight.

We will still hear public comment, but item number eight will be polled.

Is there any opposition on the council?

See none.

Is there a second?

So we will hear the consent calendar.

Public comment.

After that, the mayor will be giving her state of the city.

And then after that, we will hear public comment on item number eight, which will now be heard by the city council.

And after that, we'll be an open forum.

Any other modifications?

Thank you.

Noting the new order of the agenda.

Now moving to the consent calendar.

Item 5.1 approval of the draft minutes from the meeting of July 15th and September 15, 2025.

Item 5.2, a resolution regarding the declaration of a local emergency due to the AIDS epidemic.

Item 5.3, a resolution regarding a declaration of a medical cannabis health emergency.

Item 5.4 resolution regarding the declaration of a local emergency due to homelessness.

Item 5.5, a resolution for appointments to the budget advisory commission.

Item 5.6, a resolution for the appointments to the children's initiative oversight commission.

Adam 5.7, a resolution confirming appointments to the Cultural Affairs Commission.

Adam 5.8, a resolution confirming appointments for the mayor's commission on persons with disabilities.

Item 5.9, a resolution, a resolution for mayor's appointments to the Library Commission.

Item 5.10, a resolution for appointments to the public art advisory commission.

Item 5.11, a resolution for appointments to the civil service board.

Item 5.12, a resolution for appointments to the Privacy Advisory Commission.

Item 5.13, a resolution for appointments to the Oakland Housing Authority.

Item 5.14, a resolution regarding the executive committee appointments of the East Bay Economic Development Alliance.

Item 5.15, a resolution for the council president's appointments to Association of Bay Area Governments Executive Board.

A resolution appointing appointments to the League of Cities, voting and alternate delegates.

Item 5.18, a resolution in celebration of Oakland Pride honoring LGBTQ plus leaders.

Item 5.19, a resolution for reactive reimbursement for Councilmember Gaio.

Item 5.20, a resolution honoring National Hispanic Heritage Month.

Item 5.22.

A resolution for a settlement for Whitehead versus the City of Oakland.

Item 5.23, a resolution for a settlement for Santa Bello versus the City of Oakland.

Item 5.24, a resolution for a settlement for the city of Oakland versus Pacific Gas and Electric Company.

Item 5.25, a resolution authorizing settlement for the national prescription opioid litigation.

Item 5.26 is a resolution for ratifying the mayor's actions during council recess.

Item 5.27 does need an urgency finding as it was added after the 10-day noticing of this agenda.

So you do need uh urgency motion for this item to be considered on the consent calendar.

And you can take that up separately before you vote on the consent calendar.

Item 5.28, a resolution regarding the city of Oakland Investment Policy for fiscal years 25 through 26.

Item 5.29, a resolution for Oracle Business Intelligence and Analytics Consulting Services.

Item 5.30, a resolution recognizing ecosystems concepts.

Item 5.31, a resolution for the three-year professional services agreement with Doppler Inc.

Item 5.32, a resolution for the three-year maintenance services agreement with Yes Construction Group.

Item 5.33, a resolution for CFD 215-1 gateway industrial landscape maintenance.

Item 5.20, excuse me, 5.34, a resolution for amending and expanding the civic court's contract agreement.

Item 5.35, a resolution for maintenance agreements between the city and Caltrans.

Item 5.36 includes multiple pieces of legislation for ensure compliance with the sewer consent decree.

Excuse me, degree.

Item 5.37, a resolution for permit ready express program.

Item 5.38, an ordinance for middle income JPA bond financing program.

Item 5.39, a resolution for affordable housing funding program and fiscal year 25 through 26 HCD capital funds.

Item 5.40, an ordinance for the sale of 1226 73rd Avenue.

Item 5.41 was an information report for 25 through 29 Economic Development Action Plan.

Item 5.42, a resolution honoring Creative Growth Arts Center.

Item 5.43, a resolution honoring Ziamano Cora West African Dance Company.

Item 5.44, a resolution to amend resolution 90767, OFCY fiscal year 25 through 26, grant renewals and programmatic changes.

Item 5.45, a resolution for CHS fiscal year 25 through 26 contracts.

Item 5.46, a resolution for Medicaid administration administrative activities, MOU.

Item 5.47, a resolution for Oakland Paratransit for Elderly and Disabled Program.

Measure BB funds for fiscal year 25 through 26.

Item 5.48, a resolution for OPD Everhart Consulting Contract.

Item 5.49, a resolution for agreement with Green Light Fund and Urban Peace Institute for Community Violence Intervention Academy.

Item 5.50, a resolution for adjustments to DBP grants with community-based organizations for grant year 25 through 26.

And your final item, item 5.51, a resolution for reappointments to the city planning commission.

And you do have a number of speakers on this item.

I wouldn't return our urgency motion.

Second.

On the urgency motion moved by council member guile, second by council.

The state urgency.

Okay.

We did that when you scheduledule.

Move by councilmember.

Excuse me, Councilmember Guile.

Second by Council Member Unger.

Councilmember Brown.

Aye.

Councilmember Fife.

Aye.

Councilmember Gaio.

Councilmember Houston is excused.

Councilmember Ramachandran.

Aye.

Councilmember Unger.

Aye.

Councilmember Wong.

Aye.

And Chair Jenkins.

All right.

Motion passes the vote of seven ayes.

One excuse Houston.

Because of the amount of speakers and trying to get to the state of the city, the public comment today will be one minute.

As I call your name, please approach the podium in any order.

Please state your name for the record before beginning your comments.

Ann Griffith.

Mr.

Hazard, I have you with multiple cards.

Maria Henderson, Jennifer Finley.

I have you with multiple cards.

Derek Barnes, I have you with multiple cards.

Chris Moore, I have you with multiple cards.

Angelina Cornejo.

Jeff Levin, I have you with two items.

Mr.

Sada, I also have you with multiple items.

Stephanie Trans.

Joanne Lamb.

Devian Jefferson.

Jasmine Patterson.

Ralph Cannes, Jessica Tiffany Jackson.

I'm sorry, Ralph Cairns, Jessica.

You did sign up for the state of the city, so we're not there yet.

Everybody else have to call your name, please approach the podium in any order.

If you're on Zoom, please raise your hand.

So I can easily identify you as with practice.

Persons in chambers will be taken first, and we will take Zoom speakers immediately after.

Thank you, Madam Clerk.

Starting with S um 5.4, where the city of Oakland has declared a homeless emergency.

That's not true.

Because if you look at S 5.45, you are reducing 18 homeless resources and services.

You're reducing because you lack funds.

You lack funds because you did not appropriate in your budget for 2527.

No money for homelessness.

With their measure W, and the state, you're applying for over 23 million dollars that you will find out in December if you're gonna get that money.

But you have not seriously looked at financing homelessness.

You do not have a leader for homelessness, you don't you don't have a department of homelessness, and you got a person you just uh appointed to uh human services who's been historically over economic and works for development, has no experience in homelessness or human services, who's come up with these reductions, so what you're gonna do for six months, you're gonna fund some programs, other programs for a year, and you state in S545 that you are gonna possibly drop resources, services, and housing for homeless people.

Next item is uh Oakland Housing Authority 5.13.

You have never had the housing authority to come before this body to say what they're doing about public housing and what they are doing related to what was known as section eight.

We don't know what's going on with that form of housing, but you're supposed to be concentrating on housing.

The next item is item s 40, 1226 73 Avenue.

You want to sell it.

1226 73rd Avenue was purchased by the city to provide homelessness and disabled senior members' housing.

You have neglected the property to the point that it is uninhabitable because you refused during the course of years you possess the property to maintain the property.

Now it's so dilapidated you want to sell it.

That's what's happening with 1226, 73rd that was purchased by the city for homelessness and for it for disabled and senior citizens to have housing.

You didn't take care of your property.

Slum Lords.

So these people are losing housing.

7.41 Economic Development Plan.

You have no plan for the African American members of this community.

You have no plan for housing.

You have no plan.

Thank you, Ms.

Olabala.

Your time is up.

Good afternoon, Ann Griffith, speaking on item 5.13.

Honorable Mayor and members of the city council.

Thank you for the opportunity to speak with you today.

As chair of the Board of Commissioners for the Oakland Housing Authority, it is my honor to speak on behalf of four of my fellow commissioners.

Two extraordinary women, two remarkable men, who are before you today for reappointment.

These individuals have served the authority and the people of Oakland with unwavering dedication.

They are all volunteers, offering their time, energy, and talents, not for recognition, but out of a deep commitment to housing justice and community service.

Each of them brings a unique perspective, but they are united by a shared passion for Oakland and a steadfast belief in the mission of the housing authority.

They have been thoughtful stewards of public trust, consistently showing up with compassion, integrity, and an unshakable commitment to the work.

Thank you.

Maria Henderson, legislative affairs and community relations with AC Transit.

I just wanted to thank uh Council President Jenkins and all of the council here today for the appointments to the Oakland AC Transit Interagency Liaison Committee and restarting that committee.

We look forward to our continuing our strong partnership with the City of Oakland.

And you know, just so you know, most of our AC transit writers do travel to and from Oakland.

About 75% of our writers are people of color, and nearly half of our writers are transit dependent.

We look forward to continuing our strong partnership to deliver safe, reliable, and equitable bus service for all of Oakland's communities.

Thank you again for your partnership and commitment to AC Transit Writers.

Thank you so much.

Good afternoon, Council members.

My name is Stephanie Trant.

I'm the president of the Oakland Chinatown Chamber of Commerce.

I am here to express our support for the mayor's appointment of Isaac Chang to the Privacy Advisory Commission.

And we'd like to thank Mayor Lee for nominating him.

Since 2019, Isaac has served on the Chinatown Chamber's Public Safety Committee, helping to build and oversee the chamber's network of over 50 cameras with compliance, auditing, and accountability.

He also serves on the downtown corridor safety team, collaborating with merchants, the bid alliance, city staff, and community partners.

With his legal background, Isaac brings the balanced judgment that the commission needs carefully weighing several liberties, public safety, and economic impacts on small businesses, seniors, and immigrant families in Oakland.

We see the PAC as ensuring technology is used responsibly with clear policies, transparency, and accountability.

So privacy and safety can coexist.

Safety is our community's top concern.

Safety is the foundation of a thriving economy.

Again, we thank the mayor.

Good afternoon.

My name is Chuen Lam.

I'm here on behalf of my elderly parents.

They have owned property in Oakland since the 1980s.

They've worked hard to provide stable, affordable housing to tenants, and right now they live in fear that something will happen to their tenants because of unresolved safety hazards.

At 678 17th Street in District 3, an overgrown tree has been a hazard since 2023, dropping branches every single time it rains.

Abandoned cars have been parked in front of the building for weeks and has become sites for dangerous activity.

We've reported both to 311 multiple times, called numerous hotlines, and nothing is ever done.

Instead of addressing hazards early, the city of Oakland waits until harm occurs.

Item 5.22 is a $7 million settlement, which is a stark reminder of the cost of inaction.

Oakland must be held accountable to its residents and transparent about how 311 requests are being handled.

Please, please have some urgency and follow through and real solutions.

Thank you.

Hello, my name is Jessica Jackson.

Um I'm a property manager here in Oakland.

I'm reaching out over some frustrations I have with not only my building, but what's going on in the functioning of our city across multiple departments.

One example is recently my property was put on fire watch, and I understand the necessity for safety, but the cited issues were fixed the same day, and yet 48 hours later, we are still on fire watch and haven't received follow-up or clearance from the fire prevention bureau.

Um I've contacted the inspector endless times, emailed the office, called the office with no response, visited the office um here at City Hall, and was denied access.

On top of that, the website doesn't offer any way to schedule appointments, upload documents, or move the process along in any way.

This delay is literally costing us.

Fire watch can go from 35 to $55 per hour and climb up to 60 to 150 dollars an hour, depending on the building and coverage requirements.

That's literally a thousand dollars a day for firewatch for small business.

Thank you.

Your time is up.

And during the time at Civil Corps, I've earned tools, certifications, obtain my driver's license, and I'm currently on a road to getting our diploma with Civil Corps.

Civil Corps is here to make sure our youth has the support they need to get on their feet.

And while working with civil corps, I have learned the importance of managing fuel reduction and reducing fire risk in our open spaces and also conserving natural resources.

With that being said, I ask if the city council will be willing to invest in civil corps and keep us working for the city of Oakland and making sure everybody's safe.

Thank you.

Good afternoon, council members.

My name is Jasmine Patterson, and I am also here from Civic Corps.

I am a crew leader at um SilverCore, and I have also obtained my driver's license from there and multiple certifications from them as well.

Um I am also here to urge City Council to invest in a contract with Civic Corps so that youth like myself and others can continue to preserve the natural resources as well as fire reduction and um making sure that we can keep the city safe.

Um I'm also a resident in Oakland, so I live around the area, and I will also like to continue doing the work I do.

Thank you.

You could go to CleanOakland.com and find a lot of things of which I speak before this body about.

I'm shocked at the fact that the senator refused to comment uh regarding what the state is doing with regards to fitnol when our children are dying on the street.

And y'all sit up there and like you don't even care.

You could have a public health crisis for cannabis and do a cannabis cafe, but you can't do public health crisis for fit now.

Shame on you.

So uh you can't approve the minutes from September 15th, because that was an illegal urgency finding.

I, on September 22nd, I gave you the legal special city council meeting held on September 15th at 9:30, constitutes violation of the government's statute.

I made a demand for cure and correct.

So you have 20 days, 30 days from the September 22nd to October to cure and correct.

Otherwise, I'm gonna go to the next level of litigation.

You got four items on the agenda that you've weighed the SLBE.

Why do you even have SLBE on the agenda on contracts when you're gonna waive it?

You waive to individuals who are not residents and local businesses in the city of Oakland.

I thought that's why you have SLBE.

And then you rationalize why you're waiving the contract as though there are not any local contractors here in the city.

Uh uh S5.32, S5.31, S5.45, you are waving the contract, SLBE.

Shame on you.

Shame on all of you.

You talk out of both sides of your mouth.

Whether it's homelessness, and you don't do anything for black folks.

And yes, the city administrator and the city attorney should release the uh disparity study in uh 2020 by Dr.

Ramsey that showed between 2010 and 2017, black folks only got one percent of the contracts, and none of you say a damn thing about it.

But you could do everything for immigrants, but nothing for black folks.

70% of the folks and homeless shelters look like me.

But you want to do everything for everybody else but black folks.

And I'm gonna come and elevate my voice until either the court intervenes, the federal government intervenes.

Thank you, Mr.

Hazard.

Your time is up.

Moving to the Zoom speakers, Chris Moore, have you with multiple cards?

You will have the maximum amount of time, which is three minutes.

Please unmute yourself and begin your comments.

Thank you.

Thanks for letting me speak.

Um I haven't spoken a long time.

I I think the council's uh been running great and doing a great job uh this this year.

Um I had to comment on a couple points.

One is uh 5.12.

The mayor made an excellent recommendation for Isaac Chang for the privacy commission.

Somebody mentioned before, he's a lawyer, he's been involved in uh in the police uh uh commission and many other uh areas in the safety of our community.

That group privacy commission desperately needs somebody like Isaac on there.

Um as to f S5.48 and S550 OPD contract and DVP grants.

You know, I think in this community of Oakland, we need to change the tone and support the people that provide safety uh from the violent criminals in our community.

Uh it's unfortunate that they are here.

Uh there's a small group, but we need to really support uh OPD.

I wanted to hit on uh Councilmember Gaio mentioned uh some numbers.

Uh the numbers are even worse.

Um today, after you you look at how many are filled, the attrition, uh, the recruiting.

We have 507 officers that are actually operational.

One year from today, after having three uh academy graduates, we'll have 33 less to 474 OPD officers.

This is critical.

It's gonna continue to drop from there.

Every other community is supporting the police.

Uh Berkeley, San Francisco's gonna hire 500 officers.

They're gonna come from Oakland, and we're just gonna have more trouble.

Uh, last item I wanted to talk about is relating to the uh housing authority and that uh proposal by the mayor.

Also love the proposal.

Thank you.

Um I think uh Derek Barnes has also been speaking to you about uh the ERAP policy and how critical that is for our community, and something East Bay Rental Housing Association can offer.

The problem is uh one of the unintended consequences uh during uh some uh legislation passed right after the eviction moratorium, it prevents housing providers from notifying their renters in in many cases for up to three months before they can say, hey, your rent is late, and they just get into more trouble because they're not saving that money, and then they get into a situation where they have to leave, they can't, they they they can't afford it.

It it it hurts everybody involved.

The ERAP program can help that immediately, and uh that's something Derek's working on in the county, and uh would love the city support as well.

Um and lastly, there's a support there's a proposal by RAP to bring uh section eight under uh rental control.

OHA hates it.

Uh it will deter housing providers from talking uh from taking section eight.

Um, and uh just please vote no when that comes up.

Thank you for your comments.

Moving to the next speaker, Jennifer Finley.

You also have multiple cards, you have the maximum amount of time.

Please unmute yourself and begin your comments.

Hi, Jennifer Findley District 2.

What happened to community involvement and transparency with city council?

We've got 50 items on the consent agenda today.

Means people get one minute to speak on these 50 items.

Other times uh speaking is still speaking time is still cut in half.

Why are we continually dodging public comment?

Why is the next public safety committee safety committee meeting moved to 9 30 a.m.

instead of 6 p.m.

again?

Rule 24, rule 28, cutting speaking time, special meetings, rescheduling, agendas released later, no acknowledgement of the public by the council president, no in-depth discussion.

What happened to community involvement and transparency in City Council?

Why were Oakland Police Commissioners Garcia Acosta and Farmers reappointments remote removed from the previous agenda?

In addition to how well they've navigated this weird PR stunt from Governor Newson about the pursuit policy, losing members of the commission and screwing the edges of quorum would the last time it happened, it was effectively a coup where the uh some of the staff held uh some of the commissioners held them held uh them hostage by denying quorum for multiple meetings and impacting the list of candidates that were uh given out for the police chief.

Um is there any reason that y'all continue to doubt OPD's data and efforts?

I'm no fan of policing, but um is there any data that from Chip to back up their claims?

I I'd be insulted if I was OPD.

Um this is really weird messaging about things getting better and things getting worse and trying to straddle who's getting credit and what's getting believed.

Um, regarding that, who is having the do more with fewer officers conversation?

I'm gonna keep asking about this.

All the data, all of the math, all signs point to staffing numbers decreasing for scoring staff as they had for years.

It's not a matter of funding, it's a matter of physical bodies wanting to join OPD.

Please consider that in any decide decisions you make with regard to funding for OPD, GDP, and any other public safety functions.

Thank you.

Thank you for your comments.

Moving to the next speaker, Angelina Cornejo.

I have you with one card.

We have you in one minute.

You can unmute yourself and begin your comments.

Hello, Angelina Cortejo from East Bay Housing Organization speaking on item 5.39.

Thank you, CED, for moving this as well as two other HCD items on consent.

We really think that these will deliver affordable housing opportunities.

Not that the council has moved to release the second tranche of Measure U funds.

This item is programming those funds, allowing HCD to support new construction of affordable housing units and homeless exits into permanent housing, as well as supporting rehab of existing affordable housing and preservation and conversion of affordable housing.

The city has seen affordable housing development accelerate, but it's only because of the level of investment that our voters supported through Measure U and other local sources like impact fees.

These investments have enabled the projects to move in the pipeline faster, and we have to ensure that HCD in partnership with affordable housing developers deliver quickly on affordable homes for our most vulnerable communities.

This item to program Measure U is supportive of that.

Thank you.

Thank you for your comments.

The next speaker is under Ebra, which I believe is Jeff Levin.

I have you with two cards.

Please unmute yourself and begin your comments.

Hi, Madam Clerk.

Oh, this is Derek Barnes, so I have you with three cards.

Thank you.

Uh good afternoon, uh, City Council and uh city staff, Derek Barnes, State Rental Housing Association.

Just speaking on uh a few um items today, and congratulations uh Senator Arguen uh on your uh welcome to Oakland and so look forward to working with you uh on housing related matters.

Uh for 5.13 housing uh authority appointments um Eberh supports uh the recent slate of appointments and looks looks forward to working with our continued work with the housing authority uh on all the challenges that um we're up against and so um I realize that the partnership is one of the ways that um we can actively come together to help uh resolve some of the affordability uh issues uh within the city of Oakland and uh especially now with the um uh the lack of uh Fed funds and the threat of lower Fed funds um being tossed around and so um looking forward to continue to work with the housing authority to uh make sure that owner operators are um welcomed into the program and they have the support that they need uh to continue offering section based and voucher programs uh to the people that need it the most.

Uh 5.37, the permit ready express.

I just want to you know say thank you.

Um this is sort of near and dear to our hearts uh any time that you can streamline the process and cut the red tape and encourage the city to do uh more in terms of making it easier for um developers uh and uh and owners, property owners to move quickly through the permitting and housing um process.

I think that's that that's a win-win for everyone.

So keep up the good work and uh always uh welcome working with the city staff and analysts on this front.

5.39 and 5.38.

Uh I just want to urge um the council uh to consider that um with the money coming down from Measure Wond funding, affordable housing uh funding that comes down, not to forget about some of the low lower hanging fruit, which I expressed in a recent uh county meeting um that's looking at the uh unoccupied units and vacancy units across the county and specifically in uh the city of Oakland uh as sort of a uh a very quick way to deal with our unhoused situation where we have those units available, coming up with a matching program for uh housing people quickly or rapid rehousing.

I think that's uh a good use of uh resources and time and uh and intellect so that we can solve uh that problem.

So looking forward to continuing those conversations um with the city staff and city council.

Thank you so much for the time.

Thank you for your comments.

Is Jeff Levin on Zoom or in chambers?

If not, at this time all names have been called seeing no more speakers I'll entertain a motion noting the urgency finding for item five point two seven council member guy thank you all I can actually no cussing so just just a reminder you have to get in the queue for your mic for the council president to allow you to speak so you have to press the speak button so it will put you in order thank you green okay takes a while to turn green but anyways I just want to I want to make a motion to approve uh uh approve the the consent calendar but I want to recognize take a couple of seconds to rec recognize our public works uh uh administration and workers for the work they do certainly uh expanding the sewer operations and doing fixing our potholes in streets and so forth um and also there's a great need to provide vehicles trucks and equipment to get for our current staff members and but I just want to publicly commend the work that they're doing with what the support that we're giving them at the city level uh but I'll make a motion to approve the consent.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Second.

We have a motion and a second on the consent calendar moved by council member guy seconded by council member Ramachandran Councilmember Brown.

Aye council member Fife aye council member guy council member heuston is excused council member Ramachandran council member ungar aye councilmember wong aye chair jenkins motion passes with a vote of seven ayes as our items were taken out of order we will go back to item three point one which was the mayor's state of the city I will read it into record receive an oral report from mayor barber lee regarding state of the city and you do have speakers on this item.

Nice we're going to see if the mayor is ready see our fabulous congresswoman here we clap it up for our fabulous congresswoman we uh we also have our longtime former supervisor who gave me my first job Supervisor Carson say hello.

Can we have everybody in here because I don't want anyone saying that I forgot them is the mayor ready that's why I said everybody I'll leave from shop right make sure you shop by shop right here comes the mayor mayor mayor barberly please proceed okay well first um let me thank you uh council president my mentor kevin jenkins right and I want to thank him for his tremendous leadership and uh I want to thank city council members and also, let me tell you, I was listening to all of you who were speaking during the public comment section of this meeting.

And I just want to thank you for your remarks.

We hear you very loudly and clearly, and I sincerely appreciate your voices and your participation.

So good afternoon, everyone.

Let me take a minute to salute our woman warrior, Congresswoman, who is holding it down for us in Washington, D.C.

with Tita Simon.

Not only is she a brilliant legislature, but she embodies the voice and the spirit of Oakland.

And she is doing a tremendous job.

So, y'all, we gotta circle the wagons and really acknowledge and be present with her because you know I was there during four years of Trump won.

So I know what it's like.

This is Trump 2.0.

And so thank you, Latifa, so much.

Give her another round of applause and a lot of love.

A lot of love.

Now, you know, I was sworn in 140 days ago, and when I was sworn in, I promised you inclusive hands-on leadership, accountability, and results, and we are doing just that.

We aren't be prouder to serve the town as mayor, and as the first black woman to hold this office in our city's history, we're living through a time of transition, and you know the stakes are very, very high.

That's why I came into this office with a 100 days of action 10 point plan.

Public safety, I want to thank our police chief, Mitchell, our fire chief, Mr.

Coverton, for being here for your support, your leadership, public safety, clean streets, homelessness, illegal dumping, accountability, transparency, and effective governance.

Also, jobs and economic development, permit reform, transparency.

This is a plan of action.

It's comprehensive, yes, it's a lot.

Oaklanders do a lot.

We work.

So our plan to begin the hard work of restoring trust and making the city work better for all Oaklanders started 140 days ago.

I'd like to think that when it comes to our city, Oakland is on the move, and we are moving forward with purpose, with urgency, and we are seeing results.

So today I am proud to report that yes, Oakland is cleaner and safer and open for business.

Our city is not defined by its challenges.

We recognize them and handle them and deal with them straight up.

Our city, though, is defined by its people, by their courage, by their creativity, and by their relentless hope.

And it's time for Oakland's government government, excuse me, to reflect those characteristics, and that's courage, creativity, hope, and unity and results.

Now, essential to our progress as a city is collaboration.

So let me take a moment to thank the city council for their service, all of our city council members.

Give them a round of applause because it's remarkable.

We've done a lot of hard work together.

The city faced a 130 million dollar deficit.

We worked to pass a balanced budget under extraordinary pressure, really extraordinary pressure.

Together, we made a tough but necessary choices to protect Oakland's long-term stability.

And we'll face more tough choices in the near future.

And there will be more tough decisions that we will have to make together.

We may not agree on everything, but we agree on this.

We serve the people of Oakland.

We need to ensure that we keep open our lines of communication and also work together to get the results that Oaklanders that you deserve.

We don't hide our challenges, as I said, but we also don't let them define us.

Because for every single struggle that this city faces, there's a story waiting to be told of recovery and opportunity.

Let me take a moment to acknowledge my team headed by a brilliant and experienced chief of staff.

Where is Mia Psychic Chen?

Where's Mia?

And team Lee.

Thank you, Mia.

She's doing 24-7, y'all.

We are doing this together, and she is phenomenal.

And also, our assistant city administrator Justin Jenkins in your attend.

Justin, interesting seeing you sitting back there.

Again, we're trying to break down these silos in this city where the city council, our city administrator, our department heads, and your mayor work together.

As elected leaders, we understand that everyone should be and feel safe in our city.

Now, when a mother tells me that she is afraid to walk her child to school, I carry that with me.

When a small business owner boards up a window for the second or third time, or when I learn that ice is looming in our immigrant community and Trump is threatening to send the National Guard in.

I know we must double down on the efforts to protect our residents and our businesses.

And we're working with our city council, Oakland Police Department, and the Department of Violence Prevention to strengthen our public safety efforts as directed by Measure N.

And some of the work that we have done includes the city-funded five police academies.

We also are investing in new technologies to make Oakland safer.

And for the first time in two years, we funded side-show special operations with 1.4 million in this budget.

Not enough.

Also, we uh dedicated $700,000 for human trafficking operations.

We're working with Oakland organizations to help recruit members of the community for the police department.

Community policing is essential, and we're recruiting people who understand the values and safety needs of Oaklanders and also understand that safety and accountability go hand in hand.

And I want to thank Councilmember Charlene Wong.

She has been a great leader and partner in these efforts.

Now, my office in partnership with the National Institute for Criminal Justice Reform and the Brady Center, as well as seven cities in our region, we're leading this effort in convening a regional day-long roundtable and conference and set of working meetings for 100 participants across eight cities in the Bay Area to catalyze a new level of cooperation to address and prevent gun violence and to address this from a regional perspective.

We know that crime does not stop at one's borders.

So this will take place very shortly, a regional approach to gun safety.

And the results though are showing in terms of just the work that has already been done.

And I want to thank uh Senator Aragon.

Where is Jesse still?

Jesse, thank you very much.

He is our chair of the Senate Public Safety Committee.

And I just want to say thank you for your leadership and your help and moving to Oakland.

As I said, these results are beginning to show the public what we're talking about.

Just this weekend, for example, we had activities all over Oakland, mind you, and I was at all of them.

Showcasing the beauty.

I know what I'm talking about.

We were showcating the showcasing the beauty and diversity of our city.

We had the Black Cowboys parade.

We also had an afternoon long celebration of the Oakland Ballers, winning a championship, right?

Winning a champion after 36 years.

We had First Friday and Oakland Fest.

All of these celebrations and more took place without incident.

It was Oaklanders enjoying Oakland and our public safety leaders prioritizing public safety.

So I encourage our media covering the positive news stories like these from weekend this past weekend to please, please, please continue to be part of this change of the narrative about our amazing city.

We're not out of the woods yet, right?

We know that.

We're not out of the woods yet.

But we have a lot of beauty, a lot of uh celebration, and we have a lot of hope.

Uh we've had many and much positive results that you know I'd like to just mention right now in terms of our crime numbers compared to last year, and these are factual, you know.

Some of us know data systems, sometimes don't tell the truth, so we check, double-check, and triple check.

Uh, homicides are down 27 percent, robberies are down 40 percent, burglaries are down 28 percent, motor vehicle thefts are down 43 percent.

This is the work of Chief Mitchell and the OPD officers, dispatchers, community ambassadors, and violence prevention staff who put themselves on the line every single day.

And let me give them a round of applause, because they do.

But we know it's not enough.

We have to keep going.

We also know that interventions by mental health workers for those with mental health issues allow police to focus on policing.

Working with our committed and bold state legislator, Senator Aragane, Assemblymember Buffy Wicks, and Assembly Member Mia Bonta, we were able, even when it with the tight budget crisis in Sacramento, we were able to get one million dollars in our budget to fund macro.

Another million dollars.

Pacro is a community response program operated by the Oakland Fire Department for nonviolent, non-emergency, non-crime related requests for service.

This funding gives us an opportunity to work with our fire department to develop efficiencies, and I know that's one of the issues we've talked about.

We must do to develop efficiencies to strengthen macro to better respond to these cases.

But we know that addressing crime requires consistency, partnership, and deep investment in our people, and that's the road that we're on.

Public safety, it doesn't stop at crime prevention, it extends to the cleanliness and livability of neighborhoods.

A safe city is also a clean city where families can walk down the street with dignity and with pride.

So together we have fought and secured Oakland's fair share of resources to address the homelessness crisis through Measure W, and also state housing investments.

So I want to thank uh President Halbert, Vice President Tam, Supervisor Marquez, Supervisor Miley, and Supervisor Bass, members of the Alameda County Board of Supervisors for their support and their help to make sure that 80% of Measure W funds are targeted for homelessness, homelessness.

Okay.

And we launched an Office of Homelessness Solutions, Oakland's first ever centralized office coordinating services across departments and with our community partners.

The Department of Public Works has stepped up and so has our community.

Together, we launched the mayor's Keep the Town Clean Initiative, partnering with each city council member across seven districts.

Now we have removed over 30 tons of trash around schools.

We cleared trash in 30 miles of streets across our business districts.

We're partnering with the DA's office, OPD, and public works to prosecute illegal dumpers.

So to every Oaklander who joined and continues to join our neighborhood cleanups, I want to thank you because you're leading by example.

But let me tell you, we're gonna make it clear, and I mean clear, that illegal dumping has no place in our city, and that it brings real consequences.

You know, I would kind of have teased the chief and others and said, I think we need some billboards that have maybe his picture or my picture on it, and say don't jump in Oakland.

What do y'all think about that?

I mean, you know, because we know that uh trash also keeps people from coming to Oakland to patronize our businesses.

So keeping the town clean is an all-hands-on-deck pursuit, tackling gateways into Oakland and the blocks we all call home.

And that's why we work with the city council to budget specific funds for illegal dumping, towing, and other coordinated measures with the Office of Public Works, Department of Transportation, and Oakland police on these efforts.

We also know clean, safe streets lay the foundation for economic growth, but we also need to remove the barriers that hold our businesses back.

And you know, addressing trash here in Oakland, uh, people sometimes around country call me and say, are you really the trash mayor?

I said, look, this is a big deal.

Uh we've got to clean the city up, and and we're doing that, but we need to do a lot more.

So I almost want to thank our department and our community organizations and all of you once again for helping us because you all know what we're dealing with.

It's not easy, but we're heads all hands on deck, and we're forging ahead.

And you, we're forging ahead.

And yeah, we need to move the repairs, remove the barriers that hold our businesses back.

And many of you know that uh key to our economic development is our permitting process.

Oh boy, as a resident, I know this very deeply.

Oakland's permitting system has been slow and inefficient.

A small business owner could wait months, sometimes years for approval.

This year, our planning and building department turned that around, created same-day permits for six categories, right?

Cut digital permit, cut digital permit wait time from seven days to one to one day, extended permit center hours, streamlined residential approvals, and secured three million to modernize software.

Projects that took 10 months can now move forward in weeks.

And so I thank council member Zach Onger for your steady and your focused uh leadership in achieving these important milestones.

And of course, we're not finished.

We haven't stopped, we're just beginning.

Next, we will expand by right permitting across commercial corridors so opportunity is not really strangled by red tape.

Oakland has always been a city of builders and creators.

Now we're ensuring that our government moves at the speed of innovation.

And you know, and Congresswoman Latifa Simon knows that sometimes I think things move too slow here, right?

You know, I'm still, you know, that East Coast fast pace.

Well, well, I was there 27 years, here, three days a week, there, four days a week, and so I'm still kind of like, let's move a little faster, right?

So we're we want to move uh expeditiously on so many of these initiatives.

Uh and so, under my administration, of course, we've launched the Economic Development Action Plan with five goals, and we don't want this just to be a plan on paper.

We want this act action oriented and implemented, attracting new industries, and I'm on the phones daily, calling companies and calling businesses and organizations around from around the country, tell them come visit Oakland.

Thank you, Peter, very much for visiting Oakland.

Yes, we're making some progress.

Phone banking now, support businesses of all sizes.

We're building Oakland's workforce, revitalize the neighborhoods and celebrate Oakland arts and culture.

That's five of our goals of the economic development action plan.

Because Oakland's economy must be both global and local, and our plans reflect that work.

Neighborhood economic development is as important as downtown economic development.

We are working, yes, just as important.

And we're working with the Port of Oakland to develop a green economic development hub, building off of the port's commitment to reduce airports' greenhouse gas emissions by 50% by 2030 and 100% by 2040 to attract the clean energy and green infrastructure business that will make Oakland the greenest city in America.

And I want to thank our Bloomberg Foundation.

We have an investment from Bloomberg here in Oakland, who are working with the port on this.

That's a major investment that our city is benefiting from.

Now, with new uh tariff, these policies really do uh present many, many challenges.

But there are many opportunities for the port to help Oakland businesses enter global markets and expand trading opportunities.

We also recognize that cultural activations and our artists also create economic activity and our directing funding in that direction.

We have supported and helped activate more than, yes, this has been more than a dozen in 140 days, more than a dozen cultural events and public art activations across the city, including in Jack London Square, Frank Ogawa Plaza, and Latham Square.

And we proudly supported the uptown stroll and the grand opening of Oakland School for the Arts, Angus Cloud Park, a new creative space, and it's really wonderful for uh Oakland's youth.

We're also partnering with council member Rowena uh Brown, Roena and Carol Feit.

Uh, thank you very much on Economic Development Workforce, the Office of Finance and City Administrator to introduce legislation to restore the Cultural Affairs Manager, which was eliminated in the budget process.

This is a heavy lift.

We're working on it.

And so thank you to Carol and to Rowena for their creative and bold leadership in these and many more efforts.

The cultural affairs position will manage the city's cultural funding programs, providing grants to artists, cultural organizations, community festivals and events, and oversee the city's critical public arts program.

Now I met with a representative from the Commission on Aging to discuss a public safety strategy and funding for seniors because seniors deserve to have their voices heard and their safety needs addressed in all of our most vital conversations and in all of our city departments.

Given the beauty of diversity in Oakland, with many populations connected through families and countries abroad, we're working to reinstate our sister city program to rebuild lasting partnerships abroad.

We look forward to making further announcements on this effort in January.

But those of you who are interested in our sister city initiative, please uh sign up for it.

The sister city program will bring more people and more activations to our neighborhoods, which is something we need as too many of our buildings in Oakland have vacancies.

And I have met with our Jack London tenants to develop approaches to enhance public safety, create more foot traffic and activation in their neighborhoods, and also to look at how we and why we don't have tenants in our Jack London, formerly Jack London uh village.

So we're working on that.

And it's very complicated, though, let me tell you, due to a variety of factors.

But working with the port and with merchants, I have to just say we are making progress.

It's slowly coming, but we're making a lot of progress.

We've connected our small business community with GoBiz, which is the governor's office of business and economic development, which serves the state of California for job growth, economic development, and business assistance efforts.

The event brought together California's entrepreneurial ecosystem, technical assistance, providers, mission-driven lenders, and community-based organizations, and focused on ensuring that all entrepreneurs here in Oakland, especially those from underserved communities, have the resources and access to the major uh investments that uh Go Biz out of the governor's office provides.

Economic growth means nothing if we can't protect, mind you, what we build, including from fires.

So let me just mention this.

Oakland knows this truth better than most.

I was in the California legislature during the 91 fire, and it was something that I will never forget being here with, I think Ellie, who was mayor then, and I initiated and was the point person in the legislature for the state response.

And so I just want to thank the city council and our fire department because this year we achieved something historic for the first time in more than 20 years.

Every fire station is open and fully staffed.

Thank you.

Thank you, guys.

We have restored coverage to 50,000 residents and cut response times by 15%.

This is really about resilience, it's about being ready, and it's about never letting history repeat itself.

Just as we protect Oakland from physical threats, we must also protect the people who make Oakland home, including our immigrant families who enrich our city each and every day.

We know that Oakland is and we remain a city that welcomes immigrants, and the Oakland Police Department understands and agrees very clearly that they do not cooperate with ICE, but their role is to keep the peace, keep the peace.

We have launched efforts to support our immigrant families, including a groundbreaking Bay Area partnership with the San Francisco Foundation.

Together, we're raising money, about 10 million, to support immigrants throughout the Bay Area, including Oakland.

During these, yeah, and we're doing this Bay Area-wide.

And Oakland will benefit from this.

During these tumultuous political times and increasing political violence against elected officials, including myself, including our council members, including Congresswoman Latifa Simon, we know this very well, but we stand strong, but it's important also for all of us to stand together.

That's why I've worked with our city leaders to develop a protocol in the instance that the federal government deploys the National Guard into Oakland, as he has done in other primarily black-led cities across the country.

The work ahead, balancing budgets, advancing charter reform, supporting small businesses through permit and tax reform, addressing homelessness.

It really demands partnerships.

So let me be clear.

No, our congresswoman won't either.

Our council members won't either.

As your mayor, my top priority is to protect our community from the militarization of our streets and from discriminatory raids that tear families apart.

Oh, yeah.

I was on the appropriations committee and traveled to a variety of detention centers during Trump one and saw children separated from their parents living sleeping under mylar blankets.

This was the most immoral act that I have seen recently and know how that touches everybody in our city.

And so we know that Oakland is not going to let these raids tear our families apart, but also we're not going to be provoked into any action that gives Trump an excuse to occupy our streets.

No excuse.

Yeah, we believe in peace for protests and exercising our First Amendment rights here in Oakland.

Always we will stand on the side of justice, compassion, and community, but we will not be provoked by any outside forces trying to divide and conquer us.

Now I've been to Sacramento and Washington DC, working with our state and federal representatives to make sure that Oakland's agenda is on everyone's radar with our state and federal reps and also to build partnerships and advocacy in such a competitive and I mean it is a very competitive environment.

It's absolutely necessary to work with our own elected officials as well as leadership on a variety of committees.

I was recently with council member uh Ramachand in Washington, D.C., and we worked hard, didn't we?

For three days.

And she was phenomenal in how we provided the information about our wildfire prevention initiatives and all of the strategies we're working on here on our environmental initiatives before committee chairs and members of key committees in Oakland.

So thank you for your leadership, John and E.

It was very effective.

And along with our very effective Congresswoman uh Latifa Simon, we're still working to get funding released that I appropriated last year as a member of Congress.

So thank you, Latifa, for being vigilant and for leaving no stone unturned.

This is tough stuff in this environment, so thank you.

Thank you all.

Partnerships require us to identify private and philanthropic support for our city.

And so I hired a team member who is doing just that.

We're partnering with our school district on important ways and initiatives.

We centered keep the town clean around school sites, ensuring that our schools are clean and safe for when our young people return to school this year.

So I'm deeply grateful to council members Noel Guillo and Ken Houston.

Where is Ken?

Son of Oakland is not here, right?

Well, you tell him I said thank you, please.

He's out cleaning up trash, I know because let me tell you, they are just uh phenomenal, Noelle and Ken for their sustained efforts to keep Oakland uh clean and to clean up trash in Oakland.

It's been a pleasure, and we'll continue to do this until it's done.

My youth advisory council, led by our amazing student, director Maximus Simmons.

Where is Maximus?

Maximus, where are you?

Wherever, where's Maximus somewhere around here?

Uh he's let me tell you, he ran a teacher supply drive at Oakland Unified School District headquarters called Help a Teacher Out to get Classroom Essentials.

Can you imagine young people did this into the hands of educators who need them the most?

Our young people work on our volunteer efforts.

They're part of everything I do, and our office continues to benefit from the brilliance and the insights of student interns.

We're also tackling homelessness.

We established a centralized office of homelessness solutions within the city administrator's office, led by a chief homelessness solution officer to lead the effective delivery of homelessness services and housing to the city of Oakland.

Now, the office would serve as the lead entity coordinating services across departments, community partners, and levels of government.

In addition to the Office of Homelessness, along with Alameda County Mayor's Association, I successfully advocated, as I said earlier, to the Alameda County Board of Supervisors to commit 80% of Measure W funding toward homelessness solutions.

We brought back the Mayor's Summer Youth Jobs Program and launched it with former, yeah, yeah, that's a big deal here.

We'll be raising money for that.

Barb, thank you for the Oakland Chamber of Commerce helping us do that.

And we kicked it off with our former vice president, a daughter of Oakland, Kamala Harris.

We were at Prescott Market with our young people in West Oakland a couple of months ago.

But to truly serve our people, we need more than good intentional, strong partnership and a lot of work, but we need also a government structure that works.

So in my 140 days of action as mayor, I have seen firsthand how Oakland's government often struggles to serve its people.

Not from a lack of will, but from a structure that quite frankly is outdated and unclear.

Too often urgent decisions stall in process, and I know Justin and departments are sick of me calling them, saying, What's going on?

Where are we on?

Oh my lord, you just don't know, but it's structural though.

Too often responsibility is unclear.

Much too often, our 311 system, you know it doesn't deliver results.

Delivering core services to residents is extremely important to me as a psychiatric clinical social worker by profession, and there are many long-standing systemic issues that must be addressed.

But guess what?

We're doing that, and this is not the fault of our employees who are some of the hardest working public servants anywhere.

It's not the fault of any one official, because it is a systemic and structural issue.

Our city document, which is the document that governs how Oakland is run, it's outdated.

It leaves unclear who is responsible for what.

It makes fiscal discipline harder to enforce, and it allows finger pointing when we need accountability.

I said I would make it real, okay, and breaking it down to y'all.

I know how this works and have for years.

But Oakland is on the move.

We're transforming our systems that once held us back.

We're transforming them into the energy engines of progress that we need them to be.

That's why I launched my charter reform working group with the League of Women Voters, Spur, and good government leaders.

Again, thank you to Councilmember and our President Jenkins and Councilmember Ramachandran.

I want to thank them for their very astute insights into effective governance and for partnering with my office to launch this process and for each and every single city council members for contributing.

Because we need a charter, and a lot of people don't know what a charter is, so what it means for their daily lives.

So we're trying to educate the public also.

We need a charter that clearly defines the roles of elected officials.

We need a charter that establishes responsible financial planning.

We need a charter that strengthens accountability and transparency.

Now, the responsibility of this working group is to seek input on the various forms of governing throughout the country that could work in Oakland and provide for public input and engagement because we want to hear from the public.

This is a very transparent process.

And in November 2026, voters will decide whether Oakland modernizes its government to meet the demands of this century.

That choice will shape Oakland's future for generations.

Effective government requires good people, and Oakland is blessed with dedicated public servants who show up every single day for this city.

And let me take a moment again to recognize and mention how my team, hardworking staff in my office, day and day they show up, day and day our departments show up, our employees show up with dedication and with creativity and with an unwavering commitment to serve Oakland.

To our city workforce, your service matters.

Our civilian workers ratified a strong one-year contract extension with over 90% support despite tough economic conditions, tough negotiation.

We will continue to bargain in good faith.

We will modernize roles, and we will ask our labor allies to keep working with us to find solutions that preserve services and that protect workers.

A city that values its workers must also ensure that those workers and all of our residents have a place, yes, to call home.

And so we want more people to call Oakland home.

Affordable housing, as you know, is a huge issue that touches everyone.

We're a city that builds housing.

Oakland, and I don't know if you know this, but it is leading in the region in the scale of affordable housing under construction.

Today, nearly 1,000 affordable homes are actively under construction.

More than 60% of these are for people exiting homelessness.

Six home key sites in Oakland have received recognition from the state for their impact.

Again, housing is key to adding supportive transitional and permanent housing for our unsheltered residents and key to restructuring our encampment policies where the dignity of the unhoused is considered and preserved, as well as residents who deserve to live in clean and safe neighborhoods and not where drugs and fires and unsafe conditions create unsustainable living conditions.

This is a challenge that we're working on to meet along with council member Houston and our council members.

It's not easy, but it's all hands on deck.

All hands on deck.

This is an important movement forward.

And really, I'm proud to share that another 700 affordable homes will break ground over the next six months, and 32% of those homes will be for people exiting homelessness.

Okay, that sounds like a lot, but believe you me, it's just a drop in the bucket.

Not enough.

We have 5800 people approximately living on the streets of Oakland.

We are 21, 22 percent of Alameda County, and over 74% of those people in Oakland living on the streets are black, and so we have a racial equity issue in this that we have to address it.

We can't sweep it under the rug.

We can't sweep it under the rug.

And we're not.

We're not.

So where do we go from here?

We built, this has been 140 days, mind you.

We've done a lot more.

We don't have a lot of time left.

We built on a foundation that we've laid these past 140 days.

As we continue to move forward, we intend to build upon what we have begun.

Of course, that's more officers through better recruitment, stronger prevention, youth jobs, and addressing the root cause of crime.

With regard to clean and safe streets, we have to have our rapid, and we're working on this rapid response cleanups, tougher dumping enforcement, community campaigns, of course, downtown revitalization, neighborhood revitalization, economic development, housing, homelessness solutions, accountability, fiscal stability, all of this.

But we're seeing progress, but we can't stop now.

By no means in 140 days have we accomplished all of our goals, but we every day we are making our streets safer, even though crime still occurs, and victims and families deserve justice.

Our streets are cleaner, but trash and illegal dumping continue to be a major challenge that we are meeting head on.

Now, because even we tackle these challenges, we also have to celebrate what makes Oakland extraordinary.

So, a couple of things.

We have stronger partnerships with the governor's office as well as our county, state, and federal officials.

We have more affordable housing under construction, of course, the iconic reopening of the Henry J.

Geyser Center for Art.

Yeah.

Finally, we we pushed that ball forward.

And I don't know if any of you were down in Chinatown, but this was the second successful Chinatown night market.

Probably 15,000 people were there, and it was a lot of fun.

A lot of fun.

I want to thank our community ambassadors and police officers and all those who made sure that it was safe and fun.

Oakland Roots playing their first season at the Coliseum, right?

Rise East Collecting and Secure Collective, securing a hundred million housing and wellness in East Oakland.

We have to do a lot more, but I want to thank CJ and all of our unbelievable developers and organizations in East Oakland.

Of course, Children's Fairyland celebrated its 75th birthday.

When I was a student at Mills in UC Berkeley, I remember taking my little boys to Fairyland so I could study.

They were my because I didn't have any money for child care.

And they ran around Maryland while I find a bench to do my homework.

So it was really remarkable to be there for that.

Also, 70,000 people.

Right.

Now Monster Trucks and the Roots match, all in East Oakland.

Major League Crickets, first West Coast matches right here at the Coliseum.

And conventions, concerts, championships, and cultural events from the ballers and Ariana Grande, who I got a chance to meet.

I'm a fangirl, and she came to meet me and took pictures.

She's kicking off her world tour at the Oakland Coliseum next June to ensure Oakland benefits, which is what we're doing from the upcoming economic impacts.

And there will be enormous economic impacts and job opportunities as business opportunities from the Super Bowl and World Cup events.

And we're working with all of the appropriate committees on that to keep Oakland right center fold in these two major events.

And Samuel Merritt nursing school, Samuel Merrick University, bringing 2500 nursing students downtown starting this January, bringing energy, right?

2500 students.

That's energy, jobs, and visitors back to Oakland.

And of course, as I said, the Oakland Ballers baseball game just this baseball team just this weekend showed up and yes, showed out with a celebration that spanned from City Hall to West Oakland.

Thank you, Councilmember Fife, for a great event.

It was wonderful.

It was fun.

The team won a championship and proved something that we've always known, and that Oakland just doesn't quit.

Oakland just doesn't quit.

And now, did I say that we have been voted the number one best food city in the USA by a traveler's readers' choice award?

I don't know if you know that, but we have been.

We are known for our vibrant, diverse culinary scene and unique neighborhoods populated with local hot spots.

And it gets even better.

Now, check this.

Just today, we were recognized as one of the best overall cities in the United States, cities that are less than one million people.

We were in the top 10.

Okay, that's good news.

That's a tough publication and rating system.

Less than one million people.

So we need to elevate our successes.

And as mayor, you all know, or you may know, I was a cheerleader in high school.

So I'm getting my cheerleader picture from my office.

I'm gonna be Oakland's, and am Oakland's cheerleader, but I'm gonna champion everything Oakland, and we're gonna do this together.

So I'm gonna continue.

You rag, we're gonna keep doing it.

Because I love cheerleading.

Uh, and I'm gonna continue to work with Visit Oakland, our Chamber of Commerce, our ethnic chambers, to attract meetings and businesses and conferences to our city, showcasing our culture and our potential to the world.

We just successfully landed a pair of major conferences next year, and we'll announce that soon, and other investments are coming.

But let me tell you, I mentioned call time.

Y'all give me all these calls to me.

It's just like I'm sitting there doing call time for a campaign, right?

But it takes this hands-on approach to talk to organizations, businesses, conference leaders, to talk about Oakland to give them the true picture, the challenges, what we're dealing with, but also, as I say, the glass half full.

So these accomplishments, they didn't just happen by accident.

They happened because Oakland showed up.

So let's be clear and let's be united.

I ask Oaklanders, now, honest to God, because I read this all the time, people tell me stop reading it, to reject these fair false narratives that tear us down, that dismiss our progress, and that divide our city.

I've heard your frustration, and I share it.

Remember, I'm a resident of Oakland and have been.

These challenges are decades in the making, and we must be vigilant.

It's on our watch now, and we must be focused on the task at hand, executing on our plan to move our city forward.

The path that we've laid out will put Oakland on the right course.

We've held listening sessions and teach fire uh ceasefire teach-ins throughout the city to bring city government closer to people to listen to new ideas and what residents want to see their city address and provide input into our agenda.

That's how democracy is supposed to work.

Some say listening doesn't do much to make life better, but I challenge that.

I challenge that because listening is about putting policies into action that are driven by people.

I do believe in the power of the people, and I will continue to do so.

Real solutions have resulted from our engagement and are on the table.

We're cleaning streets, reducing crime, building housing, and balancing budget.

This is what people want from their city government, and our residents have very creative solutions, out of the box solutions for our challenges.

So there's progress happening, and it's happening every single day.

Just last week, we convened our state and federal delegation to Oakland to collaborate on ways that they can support our economic recovery.

And one of the places we visited, of course, was Samuel Merritt University's soon-to-be new campus, which is a public-private development on land that the city owns.

It belongs to the city.

Right here in Oakland.

It will open, yeah.

Give yourselves a round of applause.

It'll open in January.

So Oakland needs builders, we need partners, we need neighbors and people who care enough to roll up their sleeves and get to work.

Now I won't let cynicism get in my way.

Y'all know I'm battle tested.

Right?

Right?

Some of you know I'm really battle-tested.

And many of you know, and I don't talk about it a lot, but I've had many, many challenges and threats, and by the grace of God, I continue to move forward.

Okay.

Continue to move forward.

So to our public servants who serve Oakland, our police officers, our firefighters, our emergency dispatchers who keep us safe, our librarians who open doors to opportunity, our head start teachers who nurture the next generation, our public work team, worker team, who keep our city and neighborhoods safe and clean.

I want to thank our nonprofits, our activists.

Thank you for showing up every day for this city we love.

As your mayor, I'm going to continue to fight for Oakland.

And let me tell you, I hold myself and my team accountable.

And of course, I will always ask more of myself than I ask of anyone else.

That's what those sisters of Loretta taught me as a child at St.

Joseph's School in El Paso, Texas.

Just as a side note, uh, reminder of something uh from my younger days.

When I applied for entrance into Mills College, I was required to write an essay.

By their deeds shall ye know them.

That was my essay in the day when I tried to get into Mills.

Maybe that's why they admitted me.

But that principle has guided me throughout life.

That we are measured not by what we say, but by what we do.

Not by promises, but by results, not by intentions, but by our actions.

Oakland is a city of genius, grit, and grace.

We are defined not by decline, but by resilience, by artists and activists, by entrepreneurs and educators, by movements for peace and justice, and by every resident who refuses to give up on our town and will stand up for what's right, including holding the line against bullies like Trump.

Okay, that's Oaklanders for I ask you to stay engaged, support a local business, join a cleanup, take care of your block.

Because together, as business and labor and city council and staff, our nonprofits, our faith communities, our young people, our elders, and so many more, we are writing Oakland's next chapter and believe that.

As I've said before, Oakland is on the move, and we need all of us moving together.

So in closing, I am reminded of what my late beautiful and brilliant mother, many of whom you many of you who knew my mother, Mildred Parrishmaster.

She reminded me with her tough love.

Okay, she said, can't is not in the dictionary.

She made me go to that dictionary and look it up, and it was never there.

And she reminded me that where there's a will, there is a way.

So thank you.

Let's do this together.

It's really great to see everybody.

Thank you.

So we'll go to public comment.

Moving to public comment, as I call your name, please approach your the podium in any order.

If your name is called, Mr.

Hazard, Miss Asada Olabala, Ralph Kent.

If you could exit the chambers quietly.

If your name was called, please approach the podium to get public comment.

If you're on Zoom, please raise your hand so I can easily identify you.

Seeing no more comments.

Seeing no more comments.

There goes Mrs.

Sada.

If we can clear out the chambers quietly, as we still have a meeting to run.

And if some through the chair, if someone could please close the chamber doors, it interfew, I mean it interferes with the sound for the broadcasts, again, through the chair, we do still have a meeting to move through.

If you can exit the chambers quietly and have conversation outside the chambers.

20% being African Americans, uh, 59% uh uh is the population, but 59% is the number of homeless.

Now at Alameda County, she brought this up, but she didn't give the right numbers.

Alamina County for 2024, African American community of Alameda County is anywhere from 9.5 to 9.9, and we make up 41.3% of the homelessness.

She didn't mention that we have a gentrification issue going on in Oakland, and nothing is being done to resolve it, but African Americans bear the negative brunt of gentrification.

She didn't mention the eviction numbers because African Americans are the largest number of evictions in Oakland.

She didn't mention this the uh the fact that we have our children at the highest rate, African Americans being suspended at the highest rate being exposed at the highest rate.

We are unable to get contracts because the unions, the labor unions will not hire African Americans, so thank you, Ms.

Olabala.

Your time is up.

I think you better not have to say before that the evening.

Mr.

Hazard and Ralph Kants, if you would like to speak.

Oh, thank you.

Good afternoon, Ralph Cannes.

Uh these house flippers are just ripping the city to shreds, and this city council is talking about raising property taxes.

I'm not gonna pay to raise property taxes to subsidize out of town house flippers who are ripping this city off senseless.

Point Green Home Solutions LLC just flipped 2440 Monticello, did a big full remodel on it, never pulled a permit.

The city did nothing about it.

We tell what we're telling the city what's going on.

We told all you, you've all gotten emails from me.

The mayor's office has gotten emails for me and other people, and we get crickets.

The mayor's office won't even respond when we're saying there's millions of dollars here.

The city's being ripped off for their shoddy work being done, and you're all silent.

You go, we'll raise your property taxes.

What's a hundred thousand dollars worth of remodeling costs for a permit?

What's it fifteen thousand dollars, something like that?

This is going on repeatedly around the city.

I sent you the list.

You've seen the list, I can send them again of what some of these people have done.

I mean, awesome products LC, who's from Fresno?

Why did they come from Fresno to flip houses in Oakland?

They do almost all their flipping in Oakland.

Why is that?

It's because they get away with it, and they keep getting away with it, and nobody in the city seems to care.

And you're getting shoddy workmanship, leaky pipes, all kinds of I I have a neighbor who had a rat infestation because the water pipes leaked on the what the flipper did, and because it never had a final inspection, and they undervalue the amount of work they do.

We just caught 4076 Santa Rita is an architect, and he couldn't even put the proper value on the work he was doing and didn't pull permits when he started the work.

Thank you, Mr.

Cance.

Your time is up.

Go to CleanOakland.com.

Well, I like the uh what the mayor said, you're known not by your words, but by your actions, and so when you consistently deny anything regarding black folk, and when council person said it was racist to put the homeless there at the courtyard marriage, and you went along with it.

And when we look at 70% of the unshelter are black.

She said it because black folks were going there at the edge of Chinatown.

So you got an empty courtyard building, 146 unions, and you got the proliferation of black folks on the street.

They need to be there.

What's happening to those 146 unions?

Who's going in there?

You're known not by your words, but by your actions, and every time you start talking about immigrants, you leave black folks out of the equation.

It's just like the contracts, one percent of black.

When are you going to release Mr.

President?

And to the city attorney's office, the uh the disparity study.

Five years later, that needs to be released.

Go to CleanOakland.com.

That was over a million dollars.

And that study has not been released.

So to the parliamentarian, when you're gonna have that release, to the president, when you're gonna have that release.

To the city administrator, when are you gonna have that release?

That was completed in 2020, and it gives the exact data that we've been talking about.

But you don't seem to care because it's black folks.

Black folks are being done contracts.

Black folks are being thank you, Mr.

Hazard.

Your time is up.

All names have been called.

So this is for item 3.1.

And I read all the names for that item.

We do still have open forum.

I'm gonna turn a motion.

Guile.

Five.

On item 3.1 moved by council member guy, segmented by council member Fife.

Council Member Brown.

Aye.

Councilmember Fife.

All right.

Councilmember Guido.

Councilmember Houston is excused.

Councilmember Ramachandrin.

Aye.

Councilmember Unger.

Aye.

Council Member Wong.

I.

And Chair Jenkins.

Motion passes with a vote of seven ayes.

One excuse Houston.

Item eight was pulled from this agenda.

There are no speakers for this item.

The motion, the minutes will reflect withdrawn with no new date.

So adjournments.

Councilmember Fife.

I would like to item eight.

I don't have any cards for item eight.

Through the chair.

There are no cards for item eight.

Please continue, Councilmember Fife.

I would like to adjourn today's meeting in memory of the illustrious social justice minister, J.

Alfred Smith.

Um, I know our city clerk was a member of Allen Temple Baptist Church, as many of the individuals here as well as our mayor, and it is a true loss.

Although he lived uh an extended life 94 years, it is a major loss for progressive ministers throughout the country and the world, and I want to make sure that we honor him uh today.

One second, one second, Mr.

Sada.

Can somebody give Mrs.

Addis a card, please?

Through the chair to Mr.

Sada, I apologize.

It looked like item 5.8.

We do have a card for you.

No, we weren't on a different item, Mr.

Sada.

Please proceed.

Sorry about that.

S8 is supposed to deal with the I the item that's okay, baby, that's supposed to be of importance because it's asphalt uh materials, so we can continue the work of paving, but the issue is not the materials, the issue is the company uh refusing to sign the document that says they will not do any work with uh ice.

But my question is this on September the 10th, 2024, at an Oakland Public Works, you had asphalt material supplies on the agenda for two million dollars per year for two years.

You're saying you don't have any other company you can do business with, but that company, uh whoever it was asked for, who's been doing providing you with the asphalt all these years?

Who's been giving you that?

So if you've been doing business with this company in the past, and you're saying this is the only company, but in September of 2024, you approved at your committee meeting asphalt material supplies for paving.

I don't understand what's going on here, but something's going on, and why you took it off the agenda, and you need to not give a waiver to any company that doesn't do baby.

You are so strong about protecting your immigrants.

Stick what you believe in because you don't believe in black people, don't waver away from this.

Just like you don't believe in citizens being important, it's important to have residents, and not recognize the importance of citizenship in this city.

Everything takes a back seat, including black people, to your need to be supportive of immigrants, and I'm gonna keep saying that.

Do whatever you want for you, anybody.

Thank you, Ms.

Asada.

Moving to open forum speakers, as I call your name, please approach the podium.

Or if you're on Zoom, please raise your hand so I can easily identify you.

Brenda Johnson, Dina Chara Collins, Mr.

Hazard, Miss Asada Olabala, Jennifer Finley, Sean Brooks, Joanne Lamb, Stephen Kenyon Spencer, Zach Thayer or Thor, Mr.

Donald Lacey.

In any order, please approach the podium.

I want to give a shout out to Colin Kaepernick.

There was a young man in Mississippi attending college, his freshman year.

He was found hung on the campus.

The Mississippi uh autopsy revealed that he committed suicide.

The family wanted an independent autopsy, and Colin Kapan paid for that.

And it's being said that that young man had bruises to the back of head, his head, he had injuries to his body.

It was not a suicide.

And I want to bring up the fact that you had a black man who was found hanging in Diamond Park.

The public was not made aware of it for a whole month.

It was only through the social media that the community became aware of it.

Even if it was suicide, why did you hide it for a month from the public?

Why do you have the police department participating and revealing and showing pictures all the time of Africa?

Thank you, Mr.

Sada.

Your time is up.

Council President Jenkins, can I request two minutes?

We haven't had a chance to have a public comment period since July 15th, and it's a deep issue in District 7 that we really want to address regarding 2407.

Can we agree?

Two minutes for uh the three families here that would like to speak for that item, please.

So according to the Brown Arts, we have to give everybody an equal amount of time, it being that Miss Hasada just got one minute.

Everyone has to be given one minute.

Okay, I'll speak quickly.

Greetings, District president Jenkins, also city council.

I want to talk about the deplorable conditions in the 2400 Black 66th Avenue, 2407.

There's been a legal squatters there, trespassing for well over four months.

We contacted the police department.

Immediately.

They were told that they could do nothing because it's property law and so forth.

We finally were able to work with the uh mortgage company carrying after numerous calls, calling calling the CEO, finally got a notice to file, lawful detainer.

Now it's in the court system.

However, through this process, even if we work expeditiously, it's all it's five months.

Typically, 12 to 18 months.

What I'm asking for a counselor to do is really adopt emergency injunction procedures to rid ourselves of trespassers who are causing criminal activity at this particular hour.

At this particular hour, just prostitution, drug dealing, um, loitering.

It's just a variety of things happening, and the city has no rights against this.

Meanwhile, you got to go to Alameda County Sheriff's Department, and the collaboration with that could be a little bit stronger.

We're allowing people to literally and figurally defecate on our city and leave their latrine behind, and there's really no actions to be taken place.

There's SB 448 that's in the Senate uh right now in Sacramento.

Mr.

Brooks, is there something else you would like to say?

Can we take action to really get tougher and give the police force um the ability to abate and remove trespassers like they've done in Illinois, like they've done in Texas, like it done in New York and other parts.

So I'm asking the council to really get stiff and firm about really allowing the police the tools needed to rid our community of this uh devious and these debilitating conditions.

I have people, seniors here who have been in this neighborhood 40, 50, 60 years who are afraid.

They feel unsafe.

They do not want to be here anymore, and property tax we may obey.

Meanwhile, it's costing us well over eight figures a year to clean up this mess.

We already got a thin budget, right?

And this is getting worse.

And so we can get to the root of this problem.

We know we attack a snake, we attack about a head, right?

So we got to start at the beginning.

Instead of uh using sticks, I mean carrots, you use sticks.

Instead of using sand, use rock.

Instead of using wood, use concrete.

We need to stabilize the committee and be tougher on these crimes, and let's move forward with a baking community of unlawful uh trespassers because it's just a detriment, and these folks are just gonna move from one place to another if we don't have stiffer um rules regarding trespassing.

I'm 75 years old, so give me a pass.

I can't read or talk that fast.

But good evening, um, my Congressperson I'm sorry, my city council.

Don't give me a promotion.

My city council person.

Um, my name is Brenda.

I have I am born and I have been raised in Oakland.

Uh I live at my current address for 45 years, and my concern right now is the illegal squatters.

Uh, they've been there since June the 16th, and we have done everything we possibly can to get rid of them, and we have no protection.

The squatters have more protection than taxpayers, and that is it's terrible.

We have a violation of theft, illegal dumping, drugs, um, prostitution, that's correct.

And uh the the mortgage company has no responsibility.

We have called, we tried to reach out to them, and they keep giving us, they keep giving us the run around.

I just, wait, Ms.

Johnson, do you have anything else to say?

Okay, after you roll your eyes, trespassing by two females.

So if I ask you a question, you can continue talking.

That's why I asked you questions.

I appreciate that, sir.

Okay, trespassing by two females on June the 16th.

The neighbors witnessed this, and we called the police, and there was nothing that could be done on June the 20th.

They posted us uh that the property had been sold.

On July 20th, the I the person from the squatters facility, they actually stole a furniture truck, called the police.

The police could not or would not do anything because they would not they did not witness the theft.

On July 21st, the squatters were tweaking in the yard.

We know what tweaking is on August the 5th, which is very serious.

We had national night out in our community, and they broke through the barrier and nearly hit uh people who were participating in national night out.

Thank you.

The police was called, but again, nothing was done.

Uh another incident, the squatters threw tennis shoes over the telephone wire.

What is that?

That's claiming property.

Drug addict uh uh drug addiction.

It's it's not a good sign for 66th Avenue.

On September the 27th, we had the city officials come and do a tour of 66th Avenue.

Four o'clock in the morning, we had the squatters from 2407 take a four-foot pile of garbage and moved it from 2407 towards 68th Avenue.

As they were pushing the cart that was full of trash with a caution tape around it, the police passed them.

They never stopped.

And all of this is on video.

Um, what can we do?

What can we do for protection?

Uh I know that there's a lot going on in Oakland, but all I ask for is protection.

Uh, 45 years in the community, I ask that my tax, my tax dollars speak for itself.

Thank you so much.

Thank you, Miss Johnson.

Do I just start talking?

Yeah.

Oh, sorry.

State your name for the record, please.

Uh, my name is Tara.

Good afternoon.

No, it's evening now.

Um, City Council members.

I'm also a resident of the 2400 block at 66th Avenue.

Um, all right.

Have a baby and I feel unsafe in my own neighborhood.

Um the people that have inhabited inhabited 2407 are on drugs constantly.

They're wreaking havoc in our neighborhood.

And I'm away from the home as much as I possibly can be.

I'm staying at families' houses, I'm staying at friends' houses.

I feel unsafe raising my child there.

I um I'm just hoping that there's something the city can do in instances like this where the people that have taken over are not just having tenants' rights, they're they're dangerous, they're criminals, they're professionals at doing this.

I'm just hoping that there's something the city can do.

Is there something else you'd like to say?

Yes.

Expedite the removal of these types of people so that we can restore safety in our neighborhood.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Good evening.

My name is Donald Lacey.

I am the executive director and founder of the Love Life Foundation.

By the way, Councilmember Guile, thank you for voting to make Love Life the official model of the City of Oakland.

But more importantly, I'm Luishe Lacey's father.

Um of you have I feel disrespected by record speaks for itself.

I'm not a paid full-time employee, but I worked three times jobs to keep this organization going, and when I cannot even get a return phone call or email, I just I just find that uh disrespectful.

Are you gonna ask me?

Because I do have something else to say.

Oh, sorry, I thought that was the time.

Um, so I sent you information, Love Life Week.

This was my daughter's idea.

We do it every year.

By the way, the city of Oakland per the charter.

Can you tell me more about Love Life Week?

Yes, I can.

The City Charter states that the city is complicit with us to help elevate Love Life Week and the vibration of love in the planet.

By the way, thank you for your support.

I appreciate you getting back to me.

Uh, I've emailed all of you.

Most of the events six of the seven events are free.

You're all invited to participate.

Spread the information to um your fellow constituents to help raise the vibration of love on the planet.

Love life is the official motto.

And again, I want to salute my daughter for having the vision as a 16-year-old child who was how you doing, sis, who was brutally murdered in the city.

I could have walked away, I could have done a lot of things, but please just show me the respect of getting back to me.

And last thing, somehow on the books it says that every city council meeting should begin with the love life acknowledgement.

Hmm.

What happened to that?

I suggest that we revisit that.

And because it is on the books.

Am I correct, council member?

It's on the books that every city council meeting should begin with the love life acknowledgement.

So please, if I reach out to you, just do me the decency of 28 years of blood, sweat, and tears.

I got blood in these streets.

Not just my daughter's subway youngsters.

And we send in them to college.

Just support the work.

You don't have to support me.

Support the work.

God bless you all.

Thank you.

Hi, my name is Steven Spencer.

I don't really know how to say this, but there's something going underneath the surface in our government as well as on the streets that needs to be mentioned.

Because I'm referring to 653.2 PC, electronic cyber harassment, California SB 178 Electronics Communication Privacy Act, Penal Code 631, PC Wiretapping, AB 1215 Facial Recognition, AB 481 Military Equipment, 18 USC, 2510 Against Federal Electronic Surveillance and Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.

What I don't like is I clearly see it's been employed on African Americans every day, especially the homeless.

I see the covert passive actions of some police factions, and I will speak about Oakland PD and Alabama County Sheriffs who harass me religiously, who seem like they're doing the job out there.

But if you watch those lights carefully where they're beaming them 24-7, whether you have those kind of lights on your eyes, whether you're on drugs or not, will cause you to be paranoid and just go out of your mind.

And they just sit there like that.

Thank you, sir.

Thank you for your comments.

We appreciate it.

The mayor ended her comments.

You're known by your actions, not by your words.

All of you are so hypocritical.

The model of the city, it's supposed to be at every council meeting.

Love life.

As though it never existed.

All of you are shameful.

Shameful.

Yes.

Go to CleanOakland.com.

And if you supported the minutes of September 15th, that was an illegal meeting.

Parliamentarian city attorney.

Cure incorrect.

Nothing shall be approved.

And release the there are no more in chamber speakers moving to our Zoom speaker.

Come on.

How are you doing?

Hey, what's up?

So, got a couple of things.

What's your name?

My name is Zach there.

Um, you might call me Patrick Anderson, you might uh Brian Reeves.

Uh Zach Thinker.

Um I don't know, James Huntsman, Bo Kim.

Um, I guess this is just Rome.

Uh I don't know.

That's we did take care of that.

Um this just might be a little bit more like, hey Scotland, how are you doing?

Um, uh Bismuth isn't graphite, or tungsten isn't how to uh make the arc.

Uh Venice Jules.

Um forgot about this.

DNS IMS IMI uh scrambler.

Uh so that way IP addresses don't.

Oh my bad.

Um I forgot.

I got I got a new tool.

Uh these are illegal in America.

Um, validates every uh superior compared to district court.

Um, there's this nice little executive order called 12.

Thank you, sir.

Thank you for your comments.

I appreciate it.

Thank you, sir.

Moving to our Zoom public speaker, Jennifer Finley.

Please unmute yourself and begin your comments.

Jennifer Finley.

Jennifer Findley, District 2.

I am calling with a repeat question uh through the chair.

Um, what is OPD's uh policy or directive on um addressing masked individuals that are unidentified that are attacking residents of Oakland?

Um my understanding from the police commission meeting and his statement there was that we should presume that these are ICE agents and comply um so that we don't get charged with resisting arrests and we can sort it out in the morning.

In 2024, that would have been an easy question to answer, and that um the police would intervene in that situation.

Um, if these thugs were thank you for your comments.

That was the last speaker.

All right, and we'll adjourn in.

Oh, do you clerk?

We adjourn this meeting in honor of J.

Alfred Smith Sr.

Thank you.

This meeting is adjourned.

Good afternoon, folks, and welcome to the City of Oakland's Cape Top Studios.

I'm Christy Johnson Limon.

I'm happy to welcome you.

I'm the deputy director of economic and workforce development here at the city of Oakland.

And I oversee the business development division along with a team of amazing colleagues who are here today to bring you an opportunity we're calling Oak Talks.

Oak Talks is kind of a TED Talk style approach to really centering the voice of Oakland's small business community.

As you all know, the city of Oakland's heart and soul is based on the success of our 30,000 or so businesses here in Oakland.

And today you're going to hear from two of our beloved businesses who are going to share not just their heartbreaks and challenges, but also ways that they want to partner with you all as members of our city staff and community and partners.

And so it's my pleasure to welcome you to this today.

This partnership is made possible through the Oakland Fund for Public Innovation.

They have this amazing program called the Um Cultural Strategist and Government.

And what they do is they work with community partners who apply to then be embedded in city departments and bring in arts and culture and networks and a certain way of thinking and doing business that helps to again innovate and create and be creative in city departments.

At EWD, we're super super lucky to have an amazing cultural strategist.

I've known Yvette Holtz for a long time, working for arts and cultural organizations in Oakland and in the Bay Area.

And it is my distinct pleasure to welcome Yvette Holtz to the stage as our cultural strategist.

Please give her a warm welcome.

Thanks, Christy.

So awesome to be working with you in the Office of Economic and Workforce Development.

I could not have asked for a better colleague, a more responsive and open-minded and positive, proactive partner, to take on ideas and ideas that kind of are really outside of the box and probably thinks that as staff members it's harder to do than it is when you have someone who's just like, hey, how about this?

Hey, what about that?

You know, we could try this that way.

So it's been really wonderful, also for me as a business owner in the East Bay to feel like I'm being heard too.

As a cultural strategist, I'm also feeling like I'm being heard.

So what we did, um, well, let me first just back up a second.

Um, my organization is called the Bay Area Organization of Black Owned Businesses, and we are emergency association working toward um the betterment and improvement of quality of life throughout the East Bay by focusing on black-owned businesses first.

Um, and with that, it's been a great pleasure to open up this opportunity to create this opportunity and open it up to all small um business owners in Oakland.

And we had probably 200 times more applicants than we had room for in this Oak Talk series.

So it was a very, very difficult decision on who and how folks would come and how we would organize it.

But I'm so pleased with how things have come together.

And our first speaker today is um someone whose business I have had the pleasure of watch watching grow over the last several months that we've been in contact, and I'm so pleased and honored that she's um here to tell her story uh and share some insights about what she believes will be impactful and helpful in growing her business in Oakland.

If y'all will join me in welcoming LaTora Monk from Oaklandia Cafe and Bakery to the stage.

Afternoon, everyone.

Good afternoon.

As you heard, I'm LaTora, owner of Oaklandia Cafe and Bakery.

This is actually our second location.

Um we first started off on 30th Street back in 2020, um, right off of 30 and broad 30th and Broadway.

Um we were husband and wife and still are that started a concept where initially a cafe was an investment, it was a secondary form of income, it wasn't primary, it wasn't supposed to be.

Um, but due to the pandemic, it became something of where our investment and all that we had was poured into this one place that was destined to fail if we did not go back and literally keep it afloat.

And what that required was basically for me to want, I had a kid right before we opened the cafe to actually take somewhat of a maternity leave because the whole county state world had shut down, and I was at home with my infant of three months at the time.

And so it took a lot to go back into a business of uncertainty, and I feel like we're still kind of in that place of uncertainty, even though that was probably about now looking back almost five years ago, four years ago.

So I wanted to share with you not only my experience in business and the hurdles that I had to go through in order to still be around in 2024, but also to tell you what goes on behind the scenes.

You know, what is happening when you see a small business close in the city of Oakland, a place where there was community built, a place where people knew each other's names, a place where you looked forward to that was a part of your neighborhood, or that represented this very city when outsiders came, that they really got a great impression of who we are as Oaklanders.

So I'm gonna take you on a little bit of a journey of the headaches that I've experienced and the growing, the growth, and the beautiful community that has kept me here today.

So, go along with my ride as we talk about this a little bit more.

So, back to 2020 reopening of 30th and Broadway and Pill Hill.

At that point in time, all kitchens that were used were closed down.

We had no choice but to bake from home, and there was like this phenomenon going around where home baking became the way of life because people that had these talents and needed to make an income started baking from home, which is what my kitchen turned into for two years while we were off of 30th and Broadway, which meant we had no access to our kitchen.

Baking from scratch is a lot of ours.

You know, we had kids on online doing online school.

My fifth grader was online, my third grade nephew was online, my infant was being picked up by the babysitter while I woke up six in the morning to open my cafe.

My husband, his shift would start from let's say, he had two jobs.

So 1 a.m.

from 1 a.m.

to basically 8 a.m.

He was at his actual primary job, and then from there he'd come home and deal with all the things going on with the kids, and in the late evening, he'd begin baking for the next day for our cafe.

So, with all that hard work and sacrifice, here I am right next to hospitals, hearing all these stories, you know, of what is really happening in the world, and the community that was there is all gone.

And so we had to do pivoting, we did a lot of pivoting.

The main thing was making a website that people could order from so that I could get product to them.

But with that, that was there was a caveat.

I had to pay additional fees.

There goes an additional cost that I wasn't expecting as a business owner because it was localized, it was word of mouth.

Walk in the door, you order what you need.

Now I'm now doing online web services and supplying people with lunchboxes, so that one, if they're working from home, they had something to eat.

Um, two, also just try to get our name out there and keep us afloat.

Um, and that required not only myself working there, but I got the luxury of having two amazing young ladies that were at home because they couldn't go away to school for college, and it kind of set the foundation of my community involvement of taking care of one another, and they stayed with me for two years.

They learned work skills, they learned how to interact with customers with the mask on and PPEP, um, but they were dedicated, and so I was able to keep going because I had that part-time support, although not much, but enough for me to keep my doors open.

Um, and so as we go along and we're in this new era of business, we see this huge wave of people supporting small businesses, and for the first time I was no longer invisible, and there were literally two other cafes within a hundred feet of my location.

I had I remember seeing the bikers from Berkeley coming down to my cafe when the Oakland side article hit of the fundraiser that one of the mailmen started to do on my behalf.

And I was in shock because you know what?

As an entrepreneur, we don't ask for help.

I've never been someone that's ever asked for help.

I've always been independent, find a way, you find the resources, you do it, but I was in a new era of not having a community yet because I just got started.

So for that mailman, for those students, for the bikers in Berkeley, for the article to hit, was able to open people up to seeing me and for me realizing that there is a community here.

And so, as I said before, we have the students, we have my husband working at home, we have children online, we're still not making enough money.

Because the time frame that we closed, bills have piled up.

I no longer had a primary job anymore either because I was trying to save our investment.

So I did what any other business owner would do.

I started looking for someone that believed in my mission, someone that believed that we're good enough to keep going to grow us.

And I'll be honest with you, I never thought that I would allow investors to invest in my business because that was the whole point.

I'd worked for corporations, I'd worked in startup companies.

I learned a lot of my managerial skills coming up, doing those things.

And so it took a lot out of me to again ask for help and sell myself.

You know, you always wonder, am I good enough?

Are they gonna are they gonna really really invest in me?

Well, they decided, yeah, we're gonna do it.

And I keep those people synonymous because they're they're in the background.

They're not they're not on the day-to-day operations.

Um they were a source of one-time pump into the business, and from there on I'm on my own, essentially.

So here we are on 12th Street.

Finally, my husband doesn't have to bake from home anymore.

I get my kitchen back.

And we come here 2022, still pretty quiet on the office level.

We kept hearing inglings and rumors.

Oh, the state buildings coming back, oh, the city of Oakland's gonna bring their employees back three days a week, two days a week.

Oh, the federal people are coming back, they're gonna be back once a month.

I'm like, what?

What is this?

All right, okay, guess what?

I still have my community, I'm gonna continue to pour into my community.

So what I did was when I got the opportunity to partner with the book vending machine, which was Sister Sci-Fi, another black woman with an amazing concept of bringing literature to where book bins are really the thing these days, I was like, this is amazing.

I'm going to support you a thousand percent because I believe in the future of our people of literacy, financial literacy, of all the things that make Oaklandia Oaklandia.

We hosted, we hosted local authors, we hosted, you know, the grand opening of the book machine.

It was a national story, but in that national story, of course, the struggle going on in the background.

People still aren't back.

You can host an event, it's great, you can fill a room, you make some money that day, but what about the rest of the four days?

The bills still exist, right?

So, as you can see, um, we have art in our cafe.

We partnered with a local artist that was off of San Pablo, and their art was amazing.

It was everything that I wanted to represent in my cafe, and unfortunately, the pandemic and people suffering financially hit them too.

They said, We're closing our gallery.

Would you like to purchase these paintings that we've done?

And I was like, I looked at my husband and I said, Yes, I mean, we gotta work out a payment plan, but yeah, because having to switch my art in the art gallery, they're giant pieces, it's really hard to find pieces for that space.

So I said, Absolutely, you are a part of Oaklandia.

So that was our other gift back.

We're like, we want to support local artists, we want to have that work within our gallery.

We've done everything from partnering with local local youth organizations.

Um, one of them we did was EOYDC this past July, another one was with um Oakland Public Fund of Innovations.

They hosted a financial literacy event, and we were there as the source of food as well as the space, and um as you can see, the person who uh sponsored the event was IC Baby Foundation, which is uh a Bay Area artist, Sweetie's Foundation, and it talked about financial literacy, all things that are near and dear to me to make a better future for our children.

Um, and so again, we do these things, we're a part of the community, but there's still things going on in the background because we're not back to normal.

We're in this gray area of normalcy, and I feel that it's important that the city understands that within the time that I was there for the last two years, at least seven businesses that were there when I got there are no longer there.

No one's asking, what do you need help with?

What what costs can we take off your hands to keep you here?

Because you are a p a pillar of our community, you know.

We partner with high schools, it goes back to where I started.

Internships.

This employee is now my employee.

He started off as a high school intern.

He's going off to the UC, literally next week.

And with that, I hope to be able to give him a scholarship because that's what I believe in giving back.

Um, so that being said, what I asked for the city is get on the ground floor, ask your local businesses that are still here that are brick and mortars.

What do they need?

Create grants.

If if businesses are partnering with the community, create grants to where that money can be invested in the next generation because the work that we're doing right now is not for us, it's for what's going to come later on.

I'm a business owner, I'm a property owner here, and every day when you walk in my business, I'm not twiddling thumbs.

My hand is in every part of my business.

I'm a fourth generation Oaklander.

I had to leave here in order to come back and be better because my family was impacted with the things that exist this very day drugs, you know, poor community, uh, you know, poor health, quality of life.

I've poured everything I have at this point, and so me, for me, it was really important to be here to speak out and say that.

So thank you for your time today.

Uh amazing.

Yeah, I want to invite anyone with um questions for the tour.

This is a great opportunity if you wouldn't mind to just come up to the mic so that we can get it on the recording.

Um, but I I also just want to take a moment and thank you.

Cause I know even right now as we're speaking, your your uh business is a open and operating with the interns and the high school students and the folks that you've been able to employ and and just keeping that in balance as well.

And giving people second chances because I have people that did not have the best um make the best choices and um helping them stay a member of society, a positive member of one.

I do that as well.

And can I just um offer one question for you and then maybe that'll that'll give others a feeling of freedom to be able to ask as well, but I'm curious about um your experience in going from from your your original location to your expanded location and what was the process as far as you know getting your permits and planning and all of that kind of stuff going on.

You know, I'll be honest with you, a lot of it is kind of a blur.

Because here's the thing: I was oh excuse me, I was operating the small location at the same time as the larger one.

So the larger one was under construction, and I was in between both places, you know, letting my staff run the smaller location.

And I just remember when I the first time I'd get permits, I had to sit like for two hours.

I remember when I got my first set of permits for the first location, it was like two hours I was sitting in the permit department, and it was kind of amazed because honestly, I had never really been downtown to do the process of anything.

So I had to like ask questions, be point it here, be point it there.

The second time of round, I think I was more a little bit and more ept uh than the first.

Um yeah.

Any other questions?

Thank you so much for being here.

I heard you say loud and clear, you know, you don't have people coming to you and asking you what you need.

Um I assume that's you're saying that on behalf of other businesses as well.

And we want to be asking what you need.

I'm curious what you think the best forum is for it.

If it's coming to the business or surveys or invitations to come meet with us or what's the best way to work with you.

Honestly thank you for bringing that up I didn't mention that.

I think a survey would be good and I think if you hit the main top line items on anyone's PL like the overhead costs like PGE is one of the biggest ones PG and E even rent because like even though I'm here I'm still paying my old landlord I'm still paying him back because I broke my lease and that impacts me financially today because it's not funds that I'm able to operate with.

Awesome.

Well thank you all again but I want to um give Latora another glowing fabulous round of applause and appreciation for sharing with us and um we'll take a break after this is just give her a hand was good babe thank you.

You're welcome dishes are yours.

Those don't go in there babe.

They go in that green compost bin I just got that's what that is.

So all the food strips go in there even the bones yep even if we didn't have that green pail we can use a paper bag as composting and we can throw the whole thing out in the green composting bin outside.

What else can go in there mom?

Most of these things over here like coffee grounds and filters tea bags soiled paper like this pizza box even our shredded paper can go in there.

Oh really I thought the green bin outside was just for your trimmings.

Learn something new every day.

Wow that's pretty cool hey we can compost just apple that's right composting is like nature's way of recycling all food is rich in nutrients the stuff that makes life grow unfortunately a lot of it ends up in the landfill.

But if we compost that food instead of throwing it away we get to reuse all those nutrients the compost is used as fertilizer in gardens and farms and helps grow more food.

The entire process creates a closed food cycle.

Well that's pretty cool and not only is it good for the planet it's the law if we don't compost right we can get a contamination surcharge.

Well aren't you the expert?

Gotta keep up with the times and we just dump our compost in the green bin outside right?

That's right.

Composting I got this to learn more about composting and Oakland's commitment to zero waste go to Oaklandrecycles.com wheel.

Hello, Oaklanders.

There's a new law in Oakland that's all about reducing plastic pollution and protecting your health.

It's called the Reusable Foodwear Ordinance.

It applies to food vendors like restaurants, cafes, and food trucks in Oakland.

And you.

There are three main requirements for Oaklanders to know about.

Number one.

For to go orders.

If you want single-use foodwear accessories, like straws, utensils, and condiment packets.

Ask for them.

Food vendors can only provide these items upon customer request or at self-service stations.

And say goodbye to those bundled utensils, napkins, and condiments.

The law bans food vendors from distributing them.

That way you can take only what you need.

2.

For to go orders, you can now use your own reusable containers so long as the containers are clean and can safely hold orders.

This includes using your own reusable mug for to-go coffee and your own reusable containers for to-go meals or leftovers.

3.

When you go out to eat at your favorite spot, you can enjoy your food on reusable foodware.

Starting July 2025, food vendors are required to use reusable foodware like glass cups, steel utensils, and ceramic plates for dine in service.

How can you help?

Remember to bring your reusable container when getting your morning coffee out.

Only take disposable items you will actually use, and make it clear if you plan to dine in so that your food is served on reusable dishware.

You can learn more about the new law by checking out Oaklandrecycle.com slash reusables.