Good morning and welcome to the special concurrent meeting of the Oakland City Council.

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

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

This meeting was called at nine AM.

So that would be 10 30 AM this morning.

You can fill out a speaker's card by going to the table at the front where the clerk representative is seated.

If you're looking to fill out a card online, that time has passed as they were due 24 hours from the start of this meeting.

Councilmember Fife.

Councilmember Unger.

Councilmember Wong.

And Councilmember Ramachandron, who will be sharing this meeting?

Showing five members present and three members excused.

Your first item on this agenda is item three.

I'm sorry, did you have any announcements today?

No, happy election day after this meeting.

If we haven't voted yet, that is an option to you.

And starting with item three on special orders of the day.

And correction we do have one speaker on this item.

To the city administrator, should we wait for a speaker or we can come back to this?

Okay, then in the next item we'll uh change the order and come back to this.

Thank you.

Noting we will come back to item 3.1 to item 4 modifications to the agenda procedural items.

Thank you to the administration.

I believe there's a change that you all would like to make.

Through the chair.

Uh yes, that we would request that the item be uh pulled for uh further consideration and vetting um at this time.

Which which item item number 27 street.

Yeah, the 27th Street.

Uh item number eight, 27th Street, complete street uh construction award contract.

Thank you.

And I believe we need a full vote of council to officially pull this off.

Um I will uh make the motion.

And to the administration, is this to pull it off and put it on the pending list with no dates specific or move it to a future council meeting?

Through the chair, we would request we move to a future council uh meeting, um, likely the next meeting um that you all have scheduled is at the 20th.

So through the chair, the next city council meeting would be December 2nd.

Second, thank you.

So the vote would be to poll the item, and then there'd also be a scheduling motion for the full council would be scheduling this item to the December 2nd meeting on consent, yes.

Through the chair to the city attorney, is there motion to pull the it to withdraw and reschedule to December 2nd?

On consent.

On consent.

There was a motion to remove item eight on this agenda and schedule to December 2nd.

I will read item eight.

Item eight is the 27th Street Complete Streets Construction Contract Award.

It was adopted resolution awarding a construction contract to regret construction for the 27th Street Complete Streets Project, project number 1003978, the lowest responsive responsible and responsive bidder in accordance with project plans, specifications and state requirements, with contractors bid in the amount of 10 million four hundred and eighteen thousand dollars.

I'm sorry, eighteen thousand five hundred seventy-three dollars and fifty cents, and as opting appropriate sequel findings.

There was a motion by council member Ramachandran, seconded by councilmember Brown to withdraw this item, reschedule it to December 2nd.

Council and Madam Clerk.

Um consent, I'm sorry.

The body will still hear the speakers when we get to the I was gonna say that, yes.

And just with with uh regular practice, as this item was removed in this meeting, we will still hear speakers on that item.

Council member Brown.

Councilmember five.

No, council member guillo.

Councilmember Houston is excused.

Councilmember Unger.

Can we get some clarification on why this is being pulled?

Uh through the chair to uh council member ungar.

We have a representative from the Department of Transportation here that can speak to that particular request.

Why can't you?

Uh Josh Rowan, director of department of transportation through the chair.

There was a uh inappropriate um effort to bid protest through committee last week.

Um we have addressed this with Dwiss, we have addressed this with the law department.

Right now we're asking for time so that we can address this this request properly and bring it back.

So there's no rush on this item.

Um we need to thoroughly address the the items that were put before us, council number five.

Thank you.

Uh I would like to uh change my vote.

I was um concerned about not hearing the totality of information on this item.

There was a lot of confusion surrounding it.

Understanding the explanation that we were given, I would like to change my vote through the chair to the city attorney.

Can I restart the vote over in its entirety?

Yes, the vote was not complete, so you can recall the motion.

So there was a motion by council member Ramachandra and second by council member Brown to withdraw item eight from this agenda and reschedule it to December 2nd.

Councilmember Brown.

Aye.

Council by Councilmember Gayel.

Councilmember Unger.

Aye.

Councilmember Wong.

And um Chair Ramachandran.

I have motion passes with a vote of six sides.

I'll um to the clerk since item 3.1 is was passed over.

Can we hear that item at the end of the non-consent calendar under item four?

Thank you.

To the city administrator, is that sufficient time to hear that item?

Okay, thank you.

And I believe that dispenses with item four.

There were two modifications.

One to um pull item nine, um, to reschedule to a future meeting, and the second was to hear item 3.1 after the non-consent calendar, and that dispenses with it.

Thank you.

With that, we'll go to item five, which is the consent calendar.

Starting with item 5.1, a resolution regarding the declaration of a local emergency due to the AIDS epidemic.

Item 5.2, a resolution, um declaring a medical cannabis health emergency.

Item 5.3, a resolution declaring a local emergency on homelessness.

Item 5.4, a resolution regarding the Rockridge bid annual report and intention to levy fiscal year 26 through 27.

Item 5.5, a resolution for Montclair bid annual report and intention to levy for fiscal years 26 through 27.

Item 5.6, a resolution for a lease of airport warehouse for urban search and rescue program.

Item 5.7, a resolution in support of California Assembly Bill AB 1243.

Item 5.8, a resolution for OPD 2025 DNA Backlog Reduction Program.

Item 5.9, a resolution regarding IMIX technology professional services contract.

Item 5.10, a resolution regarding the corridor safety ambassador grants.

Item 5.11, a resolution proclaiming October as domestic violence awareness month.

Item 5.12, a resolution for OPD Concord Police Association's fire range agreement.

Item 5.13 appointments to the advice.

I'm sorry, the privacy commission.

Item 5.14 includes multiple pieces of legislation regarding the purchase of asphalt paving materials for in-house paving and sidewalk operations.

Item 5.15, a resolution to approve Oakland Fire Department Fire Staff Premium Side Letter Agreements to the IAFF Local 55, MOU.

Item 5.16 Information Report on Equal Access to Services Ordinance Annual Compliance Report.

Item 5.17, a resolution for the 42nd and High Street I 880 access improvements.

Item 5.18, a resolution to establish the right-of-way repair fund.

Item 5.19, a resolution extending no parking restriction at Lake Sore, excuse me, Lakeshore Cold de SAC.

Item 5.20, a resolution for a feasibility study for a potential San Antonio BART station.

Item 5.21 includes multiple pieces of legislation regarding the 2025.

California Department of Housing and Community Development Home Key Resolutions.

Item 5.22, a resolution regarding Bonterra Tech LLC contract amendment.

Item 5.23, a resolution for amendment to PSA with the Urban Institute for Grant Evaluation Services.

Item 5.24 is an ordinance for amendments to the city's conflicts of interest code.

If approved, it will be approved for introduction.

Item 5.25, a resolution for community champions game time grant 2025 for San Antonio Park.

Item 5.26, a resolution for OPG Enterprise Renter car contract amendment.

Item 5.27 is a settlement agreement for George Segura versus the City of Oakland.

And your final consent calendar item is a resolution for a claim of Cyber Grocers Initiative.

And you do have multiple speakers on this item.

Thank you.

Can we go first to the public speakers?

Also noting the arrival of council member Houston at 9 12.

Going to the consent calendar speakers.

This is for item all of the item fives.

If your name is called, please approach the podium in any order.

Please state your name for the record before beginning.

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

Starting with Miss Asada Olabala, you have multiple items on consent.

Dave Kurtz, Barbara Pine or Fine, Emily Wheeler, Sarah Rowley, Derek Barnes, Jennifer Finlay, Stephanie Warren, Quinn Edy, Pastor Joe Smith, Ali Obad, Zoe Janet or Johnick.

Sorry if I said that incorrectly.

Sarah Rowley.

Oops.

That's got multiple cards in here.

Mr.

Hazard and Rod Fujita.

Joan Lahman.

And Diana Correll.

In any order, please approach the podium.

Again, if you are participating via Zoom, please raise your hand so I can easily identify you.

Oh, you don't have your clock up yet.

It's not up.

It'll see BB.

I don't know why it's not showing there, but I can see it.

I don't know how to pace myself, baby.

Okay, we're working out.

I'll do it.

Go ahead.

Ready?

All right.

Appointment to the privacy commission of Brian White.

If you look at his resume, he has expertise in technology.

He has no reference to how he has expertise in handling the police officers' non-association with ICE or the Department of Justice.

The next item is uh 5.16, the equal access to service ordinance every year.

This uh annual report to the finance committee never gives any financial costs related to translation and interpretation uh documents and so forth.

It's supposed to be a financial report, but you do not report on how much money is spent on the equal access to service ordinance.

Uh the other item is 5.21, a need to report on what's going on with the Oakland Housing Authority.

You are responsible for public housing and you're responsible for section eight.

You never hear from the Oakland Housing Authority what's going on, and you need to have a report out.

You re you appoint members to the board, but you never have a report.

Uh the last thing is that uh that besides these other ones, the city grant for $500,000 dollars uh with 5.28.

You never executed the grant and the matching funds.

Okay, let's go to 12 of the 28 consent items did not go to committee.

That means you approving them and you have no dialogue or interaction with staff, anything publicly about these items.

So information report on the vision for 980 and 580.

Now you approving this, and then you're gonna give the report after you approve it.

You can't do that.

You need to pull that item and then vote on it after you have the report.

Annual report on Montclair business improvement.

You've never seen it.

Lease of warehouse for the airport, over 355,000.

So you're gonna rubber stamp that for six years.

OPD backlog reduction for DNA.

That's 34,000.

You're gonna rubber stamp that you never looked into if it's done right.

OPD technology, $300,000.

You never went to committee on that, you're gonna rubber stamp it.

Uh Carter Safety Ambassador Grant, $2 million.

Who's getting the grant?

Never discussed it.

You're gonna rub rubber stamp that OB OPD agreement for $250,000.

You're not identifying the source of funding in that one.

$4 million.

Now this one is the one you're gonna have the wave.

Thank you, Ms.

Olabala.

Your time is up.

Good morning.

My name is Barbara Ryan, R H I N E, and I'm here on behalf of a thousand grandmothers for future generations, along with a broad coalition of a lot of other organizations that are supporting item 5.7 on the consent calendar.

We're deeply grateful to city council members Zach Unger and Carol Fife for bringing this forward, and we very much hope it passes.

Oakland has it creates a superfund, which eight major oil companies pay into to pay part of the cost of all the pollution caused during the decades of their lying about the seriousness of the climate crisis.

17 other cities in California have already approved similar resolutions supporting it.

It comes before the California legislature in January, and we definitely need uh to know that there's a great deal of Oakland support.

I'm from Zach Ungar's district.

Every time I talk to someone, good morning.

My name is Zoe Johnick.

Um I am here representing myself as a lifelong Oaklander, third generation Oaklander, and on behalf of 350 Bay Area Action, which is a climate justice group here in the Bay Area, and our youth mobilizing team, which is in strong support of item 5.7 on the consent calendar, uh the resolution in support of the polluters pay climate superfund.

Um this is a wonderful measure to take, and thank you, Council Members Fife and Unger, and thank you to the rest of the uh city council for hopefully supporting this resolution as it will support an important um bill that will make a huge difference in uh saving Californians hundreds of billions of dollars and putting the onus on the companies where that have caused the damage as it belongs.

Thank you.

Good morning, council members.

I'm Rod Fujita.

I'm a climate scientist uh and an activist with Indivisible East Bay.

You know, 40 years ago when I started my career, I documented the effects of climate change on the coral reefs around the world, saw them dying in mass, and I looked on it with outrage as the polluters who caused this massive environmental problem, lied about them, profited handsomely.

And now the effects are affecting us all.

All Oaklanders, all Californians are suffering from the effects of intensified wildfires, sea level rise, infrastructure damage due to these pollutions.

It's high time that we stop paying the full cost of these things and impose equitable fees on the polluters who cause this problem.

That's what the make polluters pay bill does, and I urge you to support the resolution.

Thank you.

Hello, my name is Quinn Id, and I'm also here in support of the Make Polluters Pay item on the agenda number 5.7.

And would really like to add that we've already seen a measure like this pass in Richmond, with Richmond being owed now money from Chevron as a res as a result of their impacts on the Richmond residents.

And it's really important, especially in this moment of rising climate change, that California's budget doesn't directly get impacted by the rising costs of protecting us from the climate destruction.

So I urge you to support this resolution and help make sure that it's the fossil fuel companies that are held responsible for these costs.

Thank you.

Hello, my name is Diana Curiel, and I'm here in favor of item 5.7, the polluters pay climate superfund act.

And Joni Loman is also here in favor.

And we're both citizens of Oakland.

Thank you.

I am here to uh speak in support of resolution 5.0, which is a feasibility study for a infill uh BART station at 14th Avenue.

Uh I represent San Antonio Station Alliance, which uh has a petition with 1,500 signatures in support of the station.

Um we have support from uh local organizations like Tribe and Ebasey uh as well as several businesses and um broad political support.

Uh we're uh in support of this feasibility study because this is the first step to uh bring such a thing to fruition.

Um not only will it be a station, it will be transit-oriented development, uh hopefully a uh green bridge that will connect our community to the waterfront and address the disinvestment uh that has been in our community for a very long time uh since the inception of BART.

Um this will be of no cost to the city.

Uh Bart.

Thank you.

Greetings, hope all is well to my council person and the rest of the council, Noelle, Mr.

Houston, and whatnot.

Um I'm here speaking about the West Oakland Senior Center.

It was supposed to be open over a year and a half ago uh for whatever reason is constantly getting pushed back, and we keep telling them the longer it goes push back, the more it's gonna create blight.

People are gonna go in in climate weather, people are gonna use the building.

We have 25 million dollars worth of insurance.

We can move them.

We have trucks and trailers.

Uh we have the manpower, we're willing to pay for it.

We just want our seniors to be able to have a place.

And our senior director who's been moved to North Oakland where we've displaced and misplaced our seniors.

We want to be able to come back home.

And please keep your hands, your staff keep your hands off of our senior director.

Thank you.

Sorry, and to the member of the public, can I get your name for the record, sir?

Yours.

Sorry, thank you.

Teresa, thank you.

Good morning, city councils.

Before you saw my time, can I can I find out if every one of you guys got their packet?

Before you start the time, please.

To the member of the public, there's no seating time during consent.

Good morning, City Council members.

My name is Ali Obad.

So Dear Mayor Lee, President Jenkins, member of the City Council, City Attorney Richardson.

As a corporate owner of multiple stores participate in the Saba Groceries Initiative, I respectfully request the agenda item 5.28 file number 26-02.9 claim of Sabah Groceries initiative be removed from this from the November 4th, 2025 council agenda postponed pending further review.

It is both perduent and necessary that no council action be taken until the city auditor finding of fraud waste and financial mismanagement related to sub up uh funded programs.

Thoroughly investigated the city auditor, July 1st, 2024 report and related past statements, uh documents, serious deficiencies, including unauthorized payments, misuse of debt debit cards, and undocumented expenditures.

These findings indicate systemic control failures and raise credible concerns that the program remains at risk of continuous misuse of public funds.

Mr.

Obadger, time is up.

If there's anybody left in the chambers who would like to speak on consent, please step to the podium.

Otherwise, we'll be moving to the Zoom speakers.

Can you just elaborate a little bit more on it?

And I wanted to say through the chair to the city attorney, can I speak to this now that is in um open form because it was in closed session?

Can I speak to this and ask him a question and elaborate on some because I got eight minutes on anything I want to speak on?

I want to make that clear.

So can I speak to can I speak to this because it was in closed session?

And it's out of closed session now.

Correct.

This item um, this is a settlement that the city council approved in closed session on Thursday, October 23rd.

So the what would be appropriate to speak to is what is in the public documents in the agenda, the report and the resolution.

This was a final action that was reported out of closed session.

Right, not voted, no one.

I just want to make sure.

So through the chair again.

So you're saying I got two minutes.

After public comment finishes.

Okay.

We all do.

Okay.

All right, thank you.

Go ahead, Alice today.

I'll talk to you tomorrow.

Gene has it.

Go to CleanOakland.com and look at that.

Go to my blog, and you'll see the disparity study from Dr.

Ramsey on the fact that black folks don't get contracts in this town.

One percent.

And you're also, those who have disabled individuals, you will see all that also that disparity study.

Let me say this.

I don't even know why this meeting is called this morning on election day.

Where's the urgency?

See, you keep violating your own rules.

This meeting is a bogus meeting.

And you knew it was gonna be sparse attendance.

Also, the January 15th meeting wasn't in legal meeting, madam chair.

Because you said an urgency, you didn't describe an urgency.

The council was going to be held the next day, and you went through the entire agenda.

And I noticed you on September 22nd to cure and correct.

You didn't do that.

So I'm going to file the next legal action, which is a writ, because everything that you did on that date is void.

And also, you've been properly served, Madam City Attorney, with the rent I filed on May 19th, and on August 22nd, this uh 25th, the supplemental on Measure A, that you said was a sales tax.

You are illegally collecting a sales tax that went into effect on October 1.

And you sit there with grins on your face, as though you don't know what I'm talking about.

But you have 30 days from October 29th to answer that what you've been properly served on Measure A, the transaction and use tax.

It's not a sales tax, Councilmember Ungar.

And when uh councilmember Jenkins on December 16th in an agenda report, talked about a sales tax.

Well, why didn't he talk about that on January 9th when you approved the ordinance 1383?

It wasn't.

So that wasn't a sales tax.

It wasn't a sales tax when you approve uh resolution 90740 on June 3rd with the state to administer the tax.

Go to, and this should be pulled.

This is real clear.

Saber has fraud.

Read the auditor's report.

And you're doing this service disservice.

If you thank you, Mr.

Hazard, your time is up.

Again, if your name was called and you're in chambers and you wish to speak, please approach the podium.

Please state your name for the record.

We again we again are sitting here working with the city, doing the work of the city.

But when it comes time for funds to go out, it looks like everybody forget about us.

They remember us at election time.

They remember us at every other time, but the churches are the ones that do the work.

And Bay City represents 85 churches in the Bay Area.

And so all we're saying is that you need to consider us and what you're doing when you had a closed door meeting.

We actually not do it today and do it later.

My church is in uh West Oakland.

I hope you receive that.

Thank you for your comments.

Good morning, council members.

My name is Stephanie Warren.

I'm a licensed general contractor and lifelong Oakland resident.

I come from a proud legacy of builders, of builders in this city.

My father, John T.

Warren, founded John T.

Warren and Associates and contributed to major public works projects, including the BART Extension Projects.

During his era, the City of Oakland and its agencies made intentional efforts to contract with black-owned and local businesses.

Those policies didn't just build roads and rail lines.

They built generational opportunity.

Today, however, those pathways, those pathways have narrowed.

Too many contractors contracts go to large outside firms.

Thank you.

Your time is up.

Moving to the Zoom speakers, if your name was called and you were online, please raise your hand so I can easily identify you at this time.

If you still wish to speak, please raise your hand.

Jennifer Finley, I have you with multiple items.

You have three minutes.

Please unmute yourself and begin your comments.

Good morning.

It is really unfortunate to say the least that this meeting is being held at 9 a.m., and I'm grateful to Mr.

Sada for bringing up that there were 12 items that were moved to the consent calendar on Rule 24.

They did not go to committee.

We've got 12 items now that are have not been reviewed by the council, we're not reviewed by committee, or not being presented to the public, and were given a short time on the agenda that was available to the public before today's meeting.

Um this is part of a long-standing um if there's going to be a um a history of the the uh Oakland City Council for 2025, it's this lack of transparency and this clear intent to avoid the uh scrutiny and input from the public by moving public safety meetings from 6 p.m.

to 9 a.m.

from changing meeting dates from making meetings early from deciding that the public can only have one minute to comment for different things to um the more things go on to consent, people have less time per item.

Um there are any number of reasons as transparency is an ongoing issue.

I'll talk about it more at this time.

I don't see any other hands on the zoom raise in the zoom queue again.

If your name was called on Zoom or you are in chambers and you still wish to speak, please approach the podium or raise your hand on Zoom.

Um, otherwise, we will be closing public comment at this time, Madam Chair.

I don't see any other hands raised, and there is no one in the chambers at the moment.

Thank you, colleagues.

Colleagues' questions, comments on the consent calendar.

Councilmember Houston, I know you wanted to say something after Councilmember Brown.

Um, go ahead.

Excellent.

Um, so just want to start off.

Thank you so much to the members of the public that came and spoke on various items.

Um, thanks to the leadership of Councilmember Unger and Councilmember Fife for the polluters pay climate bill and being in support of that.

Um, I definitely am.

Also, thank you.

Um, Councilmember Wong and the coalition from San San Antonio Street Station.

I'm very um looking forward to that feasibility study, as I've been supporting so much of the efforts that you all have been making for some time now.

Um, and then in addition, I just wanted to uh believe that any of the items that you see on the consent calendar, be it uh especially ones that are regularly scheduled for community and economic development.

Um, given um on average, we've been averaging about seven to eight items per agenda meeting.

Um, the corridor safety ambassador grant, uh, that was an item that we we wanted to ensure we move forward with, as so many of these uh community groups um have been um waiting on this funding.

So that was a priority, and then in addition, there is item 5.6.

Um, as with all items that are here, every council member has the opportunity to be briefed by staff to ask any questions, any questions, and so um just wanted to share those things out, and so I'll happily make a motion on the consent calendar.

Thank you.

Thank you, and I will second that.

Um council member comments, council member Houston.

Make sure through the chair, I want to make sure that 5.14 and 5.28.

I say no on.

And I did want to speak to uh appreciate that item number eight, 27th Street completes reconstruction contract was pulled.

I appreciate that because of the things that were said, um, Patricia.

I want him to hear the things that was said about me last week, which I made a complaint to the public ethics commission, and I just passed it around to you guys because I don't appreciate um things being said about me that's not true.

So I appreciate that being um pulled.

Um, and if I like I am, I'm a new council member.

If I say something that is um not right or a little bit harsh, teach me, show me, right?

Um, but I don't appreciate people saying things that are true to my staff.

Um so I wanted to share that with you, um, and I appreciate that being pulled.

Yeah, the public will find out very, very soon what I'm talking about.

Thank you, Councilmember Houston.

Any other comments or questions?

I want to um just thank the individuals who came out from make polluters pay.

Um, Barbara Ryan, thank you for working with your neighbors to organize this.

I'm um proud to support this in conjunction with council member Unger, and I also think it's important that in this moment where we see incidents that are happening in um Kingston, Jamaica, flooding, uh heat uh fires, wildfires, all of the things that I've been trying to figure out how to work with community to hold these some of these big polluters accountable for that we're moving in support of the state legislation.

So I wanted to say thank you to everyone who came out for that, and I also want to register a no vote for um item 5.14.

Uh, there's some potential legislation coming forward that contradicts this, and I wanted to my voice to be very clear um uh on what's happening that's underlying this this item through the chair.

Can you repeat what your no item is, please?

Item 5.14.

Thank you.

Okay, um, if there's no more comments, madam clerk, I think we can call them.

On the consent calendar moved by council member brown, seconded by council member Ramachandron, noting a no vote for council member Houston on item 5.28 and 5.14, and a no vote for council member five on item 5.14.

Councilmember Brown, aye council member five aye, council member Gaio, aye, council member Houston.

Aye.

Council member Ramach.

I'm sorry, Councilmember Ramachandra.

Council Member Unger, aye.

Councilmember Wong.

Aye.

And Chair Ramachandran.

Aye.

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

Going to item 6.1.

We need a motion to open the public hearing.

There is a motion by Councilmember Houston, seconded by Councilmember Guile to open the public hearing.

Councilmember Brown.

Councilmember Five.

Aye.

Councilmember Guile.

Aye.

Councilmember Houston.

Aye.

Councilmember Unger.

Aye.

Councilmember Wong.

Aye.

And Chair.

Oops, Chair Ramachandran.

Aye.

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

I'll read the title.

Conduct the public hearing and upon conclusion, adopt a resolution requesting that the California Governor's Office of Land Use and Climate Innovation.

Grant a two-year extension for the adoption of the updated open space conservation and recreation element of the Oakland General Plan.

Person with the government code section 65361.

You do have one speaker on this item.

Okay, to the staff.

Good morning, Chair Ram Chandran and members of the City Council.

I have a brief report for this item.

My name is Lakshmi Raja Kopalan, and I'm a planner for with the strategic planning division in planning and building.

And our staff are here to request that the city council adopt a resolution requesting this California Office of Land Use and Climate Innovation grant a two-year extension for the adoption of the updated open space conservation and recreation or the Oscar element of the Oakland General Plan.

As the council is aware, the city is currently engaged in a comprehensive update of its general plan in two phases.

And phase one was completed in 2023 and included adoption of the housing element, the safety element, and a new environmental justice element.

Phase two of the general plan includes comprehensive updates to the land use and transportation element or the loot, the open space conservation and recreation element or the Oscar element, as well as creation of a new infrastructure and capital facilities element and updates to the noise element.

Senate Bill 1425, which was passed in 2022, codified as government code section 655.5 uh requires all cities to update their to review and update their open space elements by January 1st, 2026, in correlation with the city's uh safety element and the environmental justice element.

And um cities can uh request that the state um the governor's office of land use and climate innovation can um grant a two-year extension.

Uh the city's current EJ element and the safety element already includes several action items that provide a strong uh foundation for demonstrating compliance with SB 1425 and attachment A in your agenda packet provides the list of current goals, policies, and action items that are in these EJN safety elements and also address equitable access to open space climate resilience.

Uh requesting this extension will ensure that uh phase two elements are updated in a coordinated manner, and this avoids piecemeal compliance or omissions across these uh critically integrated elements, so this is why staff is requesting a two-year extension from the state LCI.

Uh in conclusion, again, uh we recommend that the city council adopt a resolution pursuant to government code section 65361 requesting that the California Office of Land Use and Climate Innovation grant a two-year extension for adoption of the Oscar element of the open space.

I mean Oakland general plan.

Uh, this concludes my report, and I'm happy to answer any questions.

Thank you so much.

Colleagues, any questions or comments?

Councilmember Guy.

That information is certainly enjoyed uh speaking with you and getting more clear clarity on it.

But for the public's information, what is the financial?

What is the financial obligation or for the financial concern with the city of Oakland to make sure we carry through with this?

Sure.

So this general plan update process kicked off in 2021.

And as part of this process, staff did bring forward to council in 2021 a contract, a resolution to adopt to approve two contracts as part of this.

So we have we are working with two consultant teams, a technical consultant team and a community consultant team, and uh it's all within the budget that's approved as part of that resolution.

But for 2026, what is the number that we're looking at?

Because right now we're making many investments, many concerns, but then I want to make sure we stay balanced and the public understands the money that we are receiving, whether it's from the county, the state, uh, you know, where is that money gonna be invested and how and when?

And now I don't want to show up after the fact like we did last year, and I've never seen the council at this level.

Well, we find out after the fact what we're doing or didn't do with the money that we were committed to use in Oakland.

Yeah, through the chat to Councilmember McGayo.

Uh, we are not requesting any additional funds or uh anything.

So this is uh a resolution to request the state to grant an extension of the update that's already currently underway, which is already included as part of our budget.

All right, thank you.

Thank you.

Councilmember Wong.

Thank you through the chair.

Um, this is really important work.

Um, can you just clarify for um who are interested in land use updates or just as city council members?

I I look at ways in my district where I want to see zoning changes, maybe opportunities for mixed use development, more housing.

How do we weigh in?

What is our opportunity as city council members to help shape this plan?

Yeah, through the chair to council member Wong.

Uh so the general plan update process includes an extensive community engagement process.

But to uh your question on how can we involve community uh city council members, staff will uh continue to hold study sessions with council at key milestones in the process, but uh independently we can also work and uh hold community engagement meetings in your district, which we are doing, and uh the general plan update uh website does include all the events that have been conducted to date across the city, and that's a priority.

Okay, and just to confirm, this is the process by which if we wanted to make zoning changes, this would be one tool to do that.

So the general plan update includes updates to the land use elements.

So we will uh we are looking at changes to land use designations or any updates to the land use designations as part of this process.

We will also be updating the zoning codes, so yes, okay, great.

Thank you.

Councilmember Brown.

Excellent.

Um, and so I just wanted to say thank you to the planning and building team um for your due diligence on this item.

We know that it's related to the Senate bill 1425, and so um basically we're just you know granting that two-year extension to ensure that everything we can we can fall in line with everything as planned, and so um I'm happy to make a motion to um close the public hearing.

We have to ask public comments.

Thank you.

Councilmember Houston, and real quick, and and adopt the resolution.

Oh, sorry, that wasn't that was a motion.

Okay, um, yeah, through the chair, I just got one question.

Um, between what's the difference between Oakland's what is it?

A I mean OSACR plan and the state um local open space.

What's the difference between those two?

So cities are by state law, cities are required to adopt and update their general plans, and they have specific topic requirements.

So open space, land use, conservation, recreation, and the city's general plan.

Uh we decided to include open space conservation and recreation or Oscar as one element, and the state law requires us to update the open space portion of that uh area.

So we are since we are already working on a general plan update, we are uh we are going to be updating the Oscar element as part of this process.

So that that requires a two year extension.

So if you look at your staff agenda packet, figure one provides a timeline of when we are hoping to bring these elements forward to council for adoption, but we are also underway and we are undergoing an extensive community engagement process, and we've held several events in across the city.

So requesting this extension from the state will make sure that we are able to adopt all the elements in a coordinated manner.

I got it.

Yeah, I got it, I got it.

Thank you.

Thank you.

If there's no more comments, we will take public speakers.

So, issue of preservation?

The issue of protection of natural resources, I'm sure is going to be in the plan.

When you address funding, the source of funding, is there any obligation from the city of Oakland, or all of this coming from the state, coming from grants?

If there's an obligation for funding from the city, what is that source that should be identified in this discussion right now?

That's important.

So when you talk about Oakland's uh spaces, you're talking about Leon Canyon region open space, king of estate open space, now no land park open space.

So you got a Tim Simmons Hell Park, and then are we all doing the exact same thing for all of these spaces?

Are there some differences?

What are the differences?

So I live close to the Leon Canyon region.

My concern about that space, there is a lot of animals who are considered potential threats.

There's coyotes, there's mountain lines, bobcats, snakes of different varieties.

And I've been in there and I've had to leave because I've encountered some of these animals.

Who is the enforcement authority in these open spaces?

Who is the maintenance?

If any, you have to have some form of maintenance in these spaces.

How does that happen?

Personnel-wise, staff-wise, if any, how what kind of staff exists in open space?

Any other public speakers?

Okay.

Thank you to our public speaker.

Um, colleagues, I will undertain a motion or additional questions, comments if you have them.

Do the chair, you just need a second.

Apologies.

Um, I will understand a second.

I'll second that.

Another motion by Councilmember Brown to close the public hearing and adopt a resolution second by council member anger, council member Brown.

Aye.

Councilmember Five.

Aye.

Council Member Gaio.

Aye.

Councilmember Houston.

One more time.

Councilmember Anger.

Councilmember Wang.

Hi.

And Chair Ramashandran.

Aye.

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

Madam Clerk, before moving to the next item, because of some technical speaker issues, I would like to um make a motion for a five-minute recess.

Moved by Councilmember Houston.

Councilmember Brown.

Councilmember.

Councilmember Five.

Councilmember Guy.

Councilmember Houston.

Councilmember Unger.

Councilmember Wong.

And Chair Ramachandron.

Is council members of presentation we are quite starting the meeting.

I'm sorry.

Convene.

The recess is over.

It looks like we have a quorum on the dais.

Through the chair to the city attorney.

We will take a vote to reconvene, starting with council member Brown.

Aye.

Councilmember Five.

Aye.

Councilmember Guyo.

Aye.

Councilmember Houston.

Aye.

Councilmember Unger.

Aye.

Councilmember Wong.

Aye.

And Chair Ramachandran.

Aye.

Motion passes with a vote of seven eyes, one excuse, showing seven members present.

Going to your regular non-consent items starting with item eight, which was pulled, but I will read it, and we do have speakers on this item.

A resolution awarding a construction contract to register construction for the 27th Street Complete Streets Project Number 1003978, the lowest responsible and responsive bidder in accordance with project plan, specification state requirements, and the contractor's bid and the amount of ten million four hundred and eighteen thousand five hundred and seventy-three dollars and fifty cents and adopting appropriate sequel findings.

We do have two speakers on this item.

Sorry, one speaker on this item, Miss Asada Olabala.

And accessibility for making streets calmer.

And we can't eliminate the illegal dumping.

Improve the crosswalks and curve ramps.

10.4 million dollars.

Why you're pulling it?

And why when you pull it, I thought she said you're gonna put it on the consent agenda when it comes back.

Madam Clerk, is that correct?

Just shake your head.

Yes.

It means you're gonna do something to cover up whatever reason you were bringing it to non-consent.

This is you you do so much stuff that doesn't allow for the trust that should be existing for the opportunity to say we're going in the right direction.

Somebody needs to stop this agenda of bicycle lanes.

Look, look outside the door here with that mess that was created with these protected bicycle lanes, and we got the majority of the city being one lane, one lane.

God help you people if y'all got to evacuate folks out of this city with one lane in all the major corridors, created so you can have your number one priority related to transportation is bicycle length.

Thank you, Ms.

Olabala.

That was our only speaker on item eight.

Thank you.

We do not make a motion, correct?

Because we pulled this item off.

Okay, thank you.

Going to item nine, a resolution amending and restating the council rules of procedure in their entirety in order to assure council meetings run in an orderly and efficient manner, allow for non-consent items to be heard earlier in the meeting, create an additional presiding officer position to serve as presiding officer in the absence of the council president and make non-substantive technical edits.

And you have about six speakers on this item.

Thank you.

If KTAP can pull up the presentation, please.

Okay, great.

In Council President Jenkins' absence, I will run through this briefly just for a little history and context.

These amendments, the process to draft these amendments started about 18 months ago.

Much gratitude to the city attorney's office, the city clerk's office, and city administration for really trying to do a thorough job of seeing how we can bring these council meetings in a post-COVID era in a way that's efficient and effective for the entire city council, members of the public, and our staff.

These are unprecedented times still, and I'm grateful that as a city we have made an active choice to continue hybrid meetings.

Not all cities do this, and I think that's important.

That being said, there are things we have to do to adapt given having these hybrid meetings continue and changes to rules of procedure are natural, they're normal, and it's running through the timeline.

Then was in December 2023, which was myself, then council president Nikki Voss, Council former Councilmember Treva Reed, former council member Rebecca Kaplan and myself that authored the next set of amendments, and then from that time onward, in the December 2023 resolution, there are a few were as clauses that directed city council within six months to contemplate a second set of changes, and that is what we basically started about 18 months ago, myself and Council President Jenkins.

So, all that to say this has been a very detailed process.

These amendments were first released in September of this year.

We went through two different rules committee meetings to flesh out more details and and receive feedback, and so the final version is in front of you today.

Again, I've already stated the goals, I'll run through it quickly.

We want to have reasonable time for input from the public and also input from our fellow council members and staff that have effective meeting agendas and some predictability in which key items requiring active votes will be discussed.

And that being said, the first major, so this the set of amendments have both substantive and non-substantive changes.

The non-substantive changes were proposed by our city attorney's office and our minor are minor details that will not affect the course of meetings effectively, but they are present and happy to explain the non-substantium amendments or elaborate on these substantive changes.

The biggest proposed change is changing the order of consent and non-consent.

Um basically this means that once the meeting begins, we will go straight to the items that require an active vote from council.

Why?

Because everyone's energy is brightest right at the start of a meeting, and the public will have a better sense of predictability to be able to make comment on items that require an active vote.

When a public makes vote on an item on a consent calendar, that's already on the consent calendar.

And the most council members can do is register a no vote, but typically they pass, versus non-consent items being at the start of the meeting, expedites the process for having constructive debate and dialogue with the public rather than at the tail end of the meeting when we're voting on important items where our in where our ideas can in fact be influenced by um uh very much so by public commenters who are present.

Um, that being said, because the meeting start time is not, the meeting start time is not changing.

It remains uh 3 30 p.m.

Um, but the requirement to have non-consent items start at 5 p.m.

will be eliminated so that all the consent items can start as close to 3 30 as possible.

Um, moving items off of consent.

Now, this is um this was a proposal to require a majority of council members to move an item off consent rather than just a motion and a second.

We have received feedback that some council members would prefer to keep it the status quo, and I will make a friendly amendment to remove this portion of the amendment and keep the status quo as is, that pulling an item off of consent only requires a motion and a second.

Ceremonial items, this has already been our practice for the last several months of this year, that we are not going to have ceremonial items during the course of the meeting.

Ceremonial items are still can still be voted on.

They would just be via advisory resolutions on the consent calendar.

This does not take away from the ability of council members to be able to have ceremonies, either in committee when individuals might be on or groups might be honored, or in standalone ceremonies that will be noticed to take place in these chambers.

They are just no longer a standalone item at the start of the council meeting, which has been our practice for the past few months unofficially already.

This is a change to the unanimity requirement for non-consent.

This is really just a clarification.

Right now, the rules committee has say in whether an item is scheduled to consent or non-consent.

This is not change.

The only difference is that the recommendation that goes to rules is currently the chair making a recommendation whether an item goes to consent or non-consent, whether or not the vote was unanimous.

This would change the recommendation being the entire committee would make a recommendation to send an item to consent or non-consent.

But the ultimate decision making body is continues to be the rules committee, and of course, all council members who are not on rules committee are welcome to come to rules committee to make their voice heard on whether or not they want to hear items on consent and non-consent.

And just so just to paraphrase the flow of how items are heard.

Items are brought to rules first, then they go to a committee most of the time, and that's what we encourage to happen, not to go straight to council.

At that committee, there's a vote made.

If it's whether it's unanimous or not unanimous, as long as it passes with at least three votes, it goes back to rules committee.

And it's that rules committee that decides whether or not that item goes to the consent calendar or non-consent calendar when it's heard by council.

So that is remaining the same.

It's the recommendation that's taking that's not just the chairs, but the entire committees that's gonna be the recommendation now.

This is an addition for an additional vice chair for committees.

Um this proposal will give committees the opportunity but not requirement to vote to designate having a vice chair for committees that members of the committee will choose, will vote on, not full council.

This is especially in cases of absences of chairs to be able to maintain quorum and keep meetings flowing.

So just to recap, based on the proposed changes, this is how the order of business would go.

Meeting would start, regular meeting would start at 3:30, there would be a roll call.

We'd hear modifications to the agenda.

That means that's the opportunity where council members or staff can pull an item, can change an item from, can request to change an item from consent to non-consent, and we can modify the order of agendas too.

That remains the same.

Next, we'd hear public hearings on non-consent, then we would hear other non-consent items, then we'd hear the consent calendar, then council member acknowledgements, announcements, followed by open form and adjournment of the meeting.

There's no change to the start and end time of the meeting.

There's no change to speaker card processes, there's no change on the ability to hear items on emergency basis and ability to hear ceremonials in committees and other celebrations and chambers, um, no amendments to the discretion of the rules committee.

Um, there are non-substance changes as well that do not impact the flow of meetings whatsoever that the city attorneys have proposed and can explain if if there's any questions, but just clean up language, and happy to take questions and comments.

Councilmember Houston.

Through the chair, I just want to make sure you said we're pulling the one that the set we just have to have a second and then okay, that's pulled, right?

So let's make get the one um number bullet point number six real clear.

I want to understand about removing the requirement that committee recommends recommendations that are not anonymous must go to the non-consent calendar.

So it goes to rules, then it goes to committee, and then if it's three votes that says yes and one vote that says no, it goes to non-consent, correct?

Not automatically, it goes back to rules committee.

So I have been part of votes, for example, where it is the vote on a specific committee, and this was last year.

I have a very specific example in mind.

Three of us, but three of the committee members voted yes.

I voted no.

The chair of that committee, which was not me, said we would still like to forward this to the consent calendar, even though I was a sole no vote.

We still chose the the chair of the committee recommended to rules to move that to the consent calendar.

At rules committee, we discussed that item again, and the rules committee said, you know what?

In the interest of the public, this should actually be moved to non-consent.

So the item was moved to non-consent, and at the next meeting we heard it at non-consent.

So basically, the process is to change it from rules committee to um is it's the opportunity to change whether an item is at consent or non-consent remains at the discretion of the rules committee, and sometimes council members, I was part of the rules committee, so I'm I mentioned it in rules committee, you can anyone can come in and say that item that got three votes, but um that was got a unanimous vote, that should still go to non-consent for such and such reasons, being in the interest of the public, blah blah blah, and that that part remains out.

Okay, so so when it goes to full council, that means me and okay.

Say, for instance, I say I wanted to move it to non-consent, and onger um council member unger says second it.

Then it goes back to non-consent.

So we just going around in a circle with that one.

That's what that means to me.

It's like, because if I wanted to start it off with non-consent, then it goes to consent, then I go back to council for non-consent.

It was just going in a circle.

Um, can I through the chair?

Can I have the city attorney address that?

Sure.

This is Michael Branson, uh, deputy city attorney.

Essentially, there's an order of precedence for setting things on consent versus non-consent that moves from the standing committee, the substantive standing committees to rules, and then the council as a whole.

So when the item is heard at standing committee, uh the current language reads that the chair may designate an item as consent only if the standing committee's recommendation was unanimous.

But so let me take that section first.

So there's discussion at standing committee as to whether it should go on consent or non-consent that then is actually made by the chair, but can only be done if there's a unanimous vote on it.

The next section of that, the next clause says, provided that the rules and legislation committee has authority to make a final determination of consent or non-consent.

So after a substance after the item has gone to the standing committee, it then goes to rules on that Thursday to finalize the agendas, and during that section of the rules meeting, the rules committee can revise any of the recommendations of the standing committees to move something from consent to non-consent or non-consent to consent.

And then if I may, Councilmember Houston, last thought.

Then there's the final jurisdiction of the council as a whole.

So when the council meeting occurs during the agenda discussion, there's an opportunity, and this is the subject of the friendly amendment.

There's an opportunity for the council, a council member to request that an item that is on the consent agenda be pulled off and moved as a non-consent item, and the current rules provide that that is done based on a motion and a second, regardless of the uh council president's uh opinion on that topic.

Got it.

So through the chair, so it's exactly what I just said.

It just went around a circle.

So, but you said something through the chair, you said final, it's not final because final means that if it went to committee, it couldn't be changed.

That's what that means to me.

You said final.

Uh uh through the chair.

I said final with regard to the rules committee.

Right.

That's it's final in terms of what's agendized.

Okay.

What's printed on the agenda, but then at the actual meeting, there remains that prerogative for a council member with a motion of another council member to remove that.

So those two go hand in hand.

So I I I that's just going to serve us a waste of time in my opinion.

And like I said, I'm new, I'm new.

Teach me, teach me.

Because what I hear is totally going around in a circle.

To council member Houston, this is something that came up that's come up a lot in my now three years on this body.

The public's opinion changes on what is considered an item of interest.

So sometimes things pass through committees where they're seemingly non-controversial, and then someone groups decide, wait, actually, this we didn't realize that at committee.

We want to we want to have discussion and debate on or we want to pull it.

So it's not linear, it's not where if something comes to committee, that's automatically.

If there's four votes, it goes to consent.

If it's three votes, it's going to non-consent.

Because these processes take time, people's and even council members' opinions change on a lot of items.

So I think having this process with multiple checks to be able for council members to decide, you know what, we can change our mind now.

We can change our mind again.

It is important because we're we're trying to make this a deliberative process where it's not like we're deciding on the first time it ever comes to council.

That's just my perspective.

Do the chair, I hear you.

I hear I like that.

Um, but my main point is transparency.

If if one council member uh agrees to actually want it to be transparent to the public, and another one agrees with them, then I want the public to hear it to be transparent.

So I hear what you're saying, but that first one that's first and second, just pull that one off, like you say.

So I'm good, I'm good.

Councilmember Brown.

Okay, councilmember.

Um, do we need to make a formal amendment to change back to the status quo, or you can you can just pull it?

Um, since I'm the author, I can verbally delete that portion and it would restate to the status quo.

Okay, but please parliamentary and that's correct.

The whoever makes the motion can include that we'll be removing that proposed change, so it will revert back to the existing language, which requires a motion and a second to remove things from consent to non-consent.

Great.

Thank you for doing that.

And to the chair, if I may, just can I read in specifically what sections you're proposing to uh retain?

So it's I think it's in rule seven.

Uh there's a change that um currently says for modifications of the agenda, a request with a motion and second from council members to pull an item from the consent calendar and reschedule as non-consent item on the same city council meeting agenda pursuant to rule eight six, and then so then there's a corresponding revision in rule eight six.

Um that says that any council it currently reads the rule, reads any council member is entitled to pull a consent item from the consent calendar and place the item on the non-consent calendar as a non-consent item.

If another council member seconds the motion, it is not necessary that the council vote on or pass the motion, and it is not necessary that the presiding officer consents.

So that would be the language that's retained.

Thank you.

Councilmember Wong.

Uh thank you for working on this, Councilmember Ramatron.

Um, few questions.

So just to confirm on the non-consent piece.

So it sounds like now the chair has the discretion to make an item on the consent calendar, even if it's not unanimous, that's a key change.

The rules committee maintains that discretion.

Yes, they have the final decision, but now the chair has this next lever of discretion.

I will let the city attorneys explain the nuances again.

It is at the discretion of the committee.

So the committee would include in their motion uh whether to place it to recommend to place it on consent or non-consent.

And if that motion passes with a majority of the votes then that would be the recommendation.

So currently you would need four votes of the committee to place it on consent under the change you could have three votes to if that's what the motion says to place it on consent that would be the recommendation that goes to rules and then it would be up to rules committee as to whether to um proceed with that recommendation.

Okay.

Thank you.

And then I'm hearing from some members of the public to just concerns around the ability to hear the non-consent items earlier than 5 p.m.

Can you just explain the rationale behind that amendment council member Roman?

Yeah so last week the last council meeting we had we had to take a 50 minute recess in the middle of the meeting because our meeting time is remaining the same 330 but then you can only hear non-consent items at 5.

So we'd effectively start the meeting and have to wait around and tell the public to wait around before 5 p.m otherwise so it's just at the start of the meeting we're having business in the order that it happens.

Okay.

Which could very well be 5 pm in instances.

And our staff are waiting around essentially all during that time.

Okay.

I think I had one other one other question but I'm forgetting it so I'll get back to you.

Okay we will move to public comments then if we did we do that already yes thank you I um thank you chair I appreciate this item being heard uh at a time where I could be present I did have some concerns when it came to the rules committee um with several of the amendments being proposed but I think overall what I'm hearing from the public is a concern about diminishing democracy and access to counsel and so the fact that our meeting we are having far more special meetings than we've had in the past the meetings are being scheduled for earlier in the day um one of the things that really stands out to me is the the item that council member wong just talked about which is waiting to begin the meetings at um or waiting to have the non-consent items until after five I I do want us to consider the fact that we move the start time earlier before people get off work and my interest is having more public participation and not less and and if we're hearing consent items I'm sorry non-consent items earlier in the day we run into potentially having less public participation than than we should have so I I would like to uh have this body consider changing that so we can have the the items that people really care about happen after the traditional get off work period at around five six so I I wanted to to talk to debate that with this body uh to see if there was um room for amendments in in that particular area thank you um neither myself or my co-author council president jenkins are interested in that primarily because our flow of meetings is we typically have a lot of items especially in our busy months which is around the budget which is around the end of the year items are going to be heard way after 5 p.m even with this the same 330 p.m start time when we have a lot of items in an impacted calendar our meetings are still going to go past 9 p.m.

And so starting the meeting a little earlier does not necessarily change that.

Also, we still have public hearings first.

Typically, there's fewer public comments on our public hearing items, and that's still gonna have to be first anyway.

So realistically, by the time the items that people really want to comment on come in, it's gonna be later in the it's gonna be later, as well as the consent calendar, actually, even more than non-consent items as the last several years of meetings have shown.

We have the most number of public speakers on the consent item.

So in fact, we're moving, we're increasing the ability of people to be able to comment on the item that most people come to comment on, which is the consent calendar.

From moving it from 3 30, which is typically right when it's heard, to later in the evening after non-consent items are heard, we're actually increasing the ability of the public to participate without having them have to stick around and wait for the period of time and have to recess and all of that.

So there's always going to be multiple different interpretations, and I understand that, and there's gonna be people in different sections of viewpoints on this that are going to be frustrated, and that is part of the process.

How, again, not all cities even have hybrid meetings.

We're making intentional choices to keep our meetings as open to the public as possible while maintaining our ability to debate voting on key items.

I remember so vividly we had to vote on a general plan update that had a series of amendments two years ago.

That's that discussion started at 11 p.m.

at night.

And that's the kind of thing that we are trying to avoid on items that are non-consent items.

We want to be able to have maximum particip meaningful participation first.

And again, the people that will be that historically comment the most do come to the consent calendar, which will be way later than 5 p.m.

and their ability to make that comment.

So this does increase that ability.

But I understand there will be lots of viewpoints on this, and we are always a city in progress, and our rules of procedure is always a live document.

So if we take this as an experiment to improve democracy and improve creative output, maybe we like the results.

Maybe six months from now we say, you know what, that was a good experiment and innovative, an innovative democracy and good government, but maybe we want to go back to the way it was.

This is a live document, and as we've already had amendments since this um since COVID, we can continue to have amendments.

Councilmember Wong.

Thank you, Chair.

Um, so I remembered first just my question on the vice chair for the standing committees.

Um can you elaborate more on the process?

Like, would it be initiated by the chair, or can any member of the committee make a motion?

How would that play out in reality?

Um to the parliamentarian, um, if you want to explain the process.

Um, yes.

Uh so it would occur during the standing committee meeting, but it would still be agendized the same way any other item would be.

So there would be an item that would go to rules similar to the resolution that comes for um nominating a chair of the council as a whole, where it basically says an item uh to nominate, and then there's a blank certain member to be vice chair, and then that would be scheduled on a certain standing committee meeting.

Uh the significant difference is that the standing committee would be the final actor on that.

So I believe it would be taken by a motion, not a resolution.

Um it would be agendized as a motion.

Um and it's at the standing committee's authority to choose their vice chair.

It would not then go through the process of getting sent back to rules or or going to the city council as a whole.

Okay.

I think that's helpful.

Um my other question is back to this uh debate on the non-consent piece and the timing of it.

Um I think some of it for me matters on the logistics of public comments, so can someone only submit their speaker comment at the start of our so at around 3 30, that's when they have the time to submit their speaker comment.

And so even if we have this now only at 5 p.m., someone cannot, after work at 5 p.m., submit a speaker card at that point in time.

This nothing changes the speaker card process to the city attorney and/or clerk, if you want to clarify.

What's this?

Speaker card process is.

Yes, so it's in rule 12 that covers the submittal time for speaker cards.

There is a perhaps minor adjustment to extend the time for submitting speaker cards to be within the first two hours after the meeting is called to order rather than the first hour and a half.

Um, just a we felt was an appropriate adjustment based on the change of order.

But otherwise, yes, you would need to submit a speaker card for a non-consent item within the first two hours after the meeting is called to order, or before the clerk begins reading in that item, whichever occurs earlier, and for the consent calendar again within the first two hours after the meeting is called to order, or before the city clerk begins reading the first consent item because we treat the consent calendar as a whole.

Okay, I see.

So and just through the chair to council member Wong, just to clarify, and none of this would change the online speaker requirement because that is a different system, so that portion would still be 24 hours before the start of the meeting.

Okay, okay.

Thank you.

Okay, we can move to I call another one.

Move into public comment as I call your name, please approach the podium in any did Council Member Fife want to speak before public comment.

Yes, thank you.

I'm sorry, I'm trying to work out another agenda item.

Um I appreciate the conversation about you know the the um two makers or bringers of this this item forward not wanting to change the consent start time, but I I'm really I'm really concerned about the public being able to participate fully, especially for working class people.

That the reality is a lot of times folks get off late, and the reason why I that I've observed why so many people comment during um during the the beginning of the the meeting, is because so many items from committees get moved to consent that you have to have a number of individuals speaking on consent because that's where that's where the items are, um, because you know things are moving from committee straight to council, and there are a lot of changes that have been made that are limiting the ability of the public to participate as fully as I think is is necessary, and that's what I'm hearing from people as well.

So I am gonna make a friendly amendment to um to change that so that we are hearing our non-consent items, and I I understand that there are two members of the council that don't want to do that.

I'm asking for us to think deeply around who actually gets to participate um and how and why there are so many commenters on on public comment right now.

So I'm gonna make that as an amendment.

There are also other items.

I think having a vice chair for committees.

I I have not heard from any of my colleagues.

We're having this debate right now, so perhaps we can hear it.

Um, we can have some more debate around is that necessary to me.

It sounds like um, well, I just I would like to hear from from you all around the need for a vice chair for committees because right now, as it stands, we can call each other and say, Hey, I'm out sick, can you chair this meeting?

I don't I don't I I would need to understand why it's being memorialized in this way.

My colleague to my left just left, he's saying that this feels very political.

Um, and I unfortunately council member Guy isn't here to express his full perspective on what that meant, um, but that is what I'm trying to understand.

Um, so I I wanted to state that before we go to the public speakers because again, I I think that is a deep concern for me.

It's just the the ability for the public to to participate, particularly working class people who are not retired, who are not wealthy, the people who are working jobs that find it difficult to participate in the public process, despite all of the rules and the barriers that make it challenging sometimes.

I'm complete.

Thank you.

Before going to council member Houston, um, just to note, I think the real question is we're always trying to figure out what's the best way for people to participate.

There's if you want to come to council to make comment on a consent item that's already on the consent calendar, you know you're making a public comment to show to make a statement, not change a vote, which is important.

I've done it, I've done it plenty of times before being on council to make bold statements, which is part of our democratic process.

But the people who want to come to make public comment on items that we are actively debating, whether that's a contract or a general plan, those are the people who want to influence this council's vote, and to make them have to wait till 11 p.m.

at night to make working class people have to work wait till middle the very late at night to do that is inherently unfair.

To make the people who want to come to this council to change our minds, not just make a statement is absolutely critical.

Once we hit that consent calendar, the most someone can do is register a no vote.

You can't pull it off of consent anymore.

That is how it is.

Expressly says we want to limit the number of items being ruled 24 to council in the whereas clauses of this very resolution.

We encourage council members and staff members from various departments to move everything through committees.

When I'm in the community every single week, I talk to people about attend committee meetings, participate in that.

This is something that is the important about how legislation is really baked and debated.

So there's a lot of debate about coming to council meetings and when people can, but when you have a lot of us have been here, a room full of children and young people and youth and elders waiting till late at night to have to comment on an item that will actively influence our active vote on a non-consent item, that is undemocratic and unfair, versus having it at the start of the meeting with a sense of predictability is in my perspective and the perspective of a lot of people that we've discussed over the course of these 18 months of this amendment, is something that is important to give people who are coming to sway council's vote a chance to be heard in a timely fashion that's not super late at night.

Um council member Houston.

Mine is just a comment through the chairs that this relates to the encampment abatement policy uh on the street, walking down the street, phone calls and people are just saying, um, the people that came to speak against it, don't speak for us.

And they were business owners, they was residents, they said why do we have it so early?

And you know, her my council member Brown said, Kim, why are we having this so early?

I should have listened.

Um, should have been a little bit later, because they're saying that it was too early for business people, residents and people that are working.

It's just a comment from what my constituents are, matter of fact, across the board, I'm crossing about across the city of Oakland, not just my constituents.

Um, but that Zoom does make it really easier for people to speak because a bunch of um the business owners had called me up and said, Hey, we're gonna use the Zoom link so we don't have to come down.

That does make it um pretty good, but that 24 hour um before sometimes people are waiting till the last minute to do it, then they can't speak, and I've heard that a bunch.

So mine is just a comment on um that process, because I thought 9 30 was pretty good until my council member Brown said nope.

So um, so I understand it, so mine was just a comment.

Council member, did you have any comments on the vice chair item?

Oh no, I really like that.

I mean, no, I really I really do, because just in case um it's like like if the council member's not there, you are d or not comfortable or maybe be feeling good not good, and they that person could take that person's place or it might not even be that person's skill set, right?

It might be the other council members, like say, for instance, is um like with me and um council member Wang.

If it's about side shows, she might say, Hey, you know, you might have a little more experience on the side shows for safety, maybe.

I don't know, but I really like that vice chair.

It's almost like being a vice chair of um pro Tim you know you have somebody pro Tim at um uh um um council right so why not have a vice I really like that so I'm I'll approve that one council member Fife I I'm happy to hear from the public speakers if you want to move on to the public speaker's chair I do I I will re reiterate my amendment after we hear from the public.

Thank you to the one just moving to public comment as I call your name please uh push the podium or raise your hand if you're participating via Zoom please raise your hand so I can easily identify you Brooke Levin Missisada Olabala Mr.

Hazard and Ali Abad whenever you're ready Mr.

Hazard these are kangaroo proceedings this matter should be kicked you don't even follow your own rules this meeting is illegal two section two eight of the Oakland City Charter outlines the rules of Oakland City Council's meetings special meetings calling special meetings can be called by the mayor city administrator or three members of the council emergency the charter also addresses holding meetings and an emergency outside the place you can only talk about one agenda item you're talking about multiple agenda you don't even follow your own rules madam chair and council member heuston when you talk about transparency and you got the unmitigated nerve to say that you and President Jenkins are not interested in what the public says council member five indicated what the public's sentiment is but you're not interested in it.

You violate your own rules and I get tired of that and you sit up here you talk for 25 minutes on some BS and the rules are real clear this meeting is illegal on its face an urgency meeting plus you called for a multiple item and you should reconsider 5.28 you could do that when Mr Obad showed you the auditor's report on Saba they violated and committed malfeasance and you went along with it pull that item reconsider that item it's illegal and you're complicit thank you Mr.

Hazard your time is up I just don't understand why uh city council members can't do a more get in a motion and try to re pull out the items from 5.28 when it's right here with the city auditor report that shows there's so much fraudulence going on with this organization and you guys are still insisting of giving them another 5000 where they already there's another million or two million that's already they're approved to them again so right here in front of you guys and you have it the city auditors right here you can call your city auditor himself and it's right there in front of the public so much fraudulence was going on with this organization and you're telling us telling the public that you cannot pull it out of the uh to get a motion and pull it out of the consent calendar.

This doesn't make sense.

And if the city uh if the city council keeps giving away money like this to these fraudulent organizations, the churches are here doing so much for the city of Oakland, they don't give you one single dollar.

Where you got these nonprofits that come in front of you, lobbying and the the people, Nikki Bass and Kaplan were the ones that were pushing so much with this organization because they were working for their uh under their campaigns.

So if this thing keeps going on, it keeps giving up to this organization.

I think we should get the Department of Justice to investigate the city council to investigate the city of Oakland and to investigate these organizations.

Thank you.

It's quite insulting to hear the statement we're hearing from the public.

When I come to just about every meeting and speak, and you never respond, but you respond to some hearsay public that's telling you what they need to have done, and you acting upon it.

But the people that actually come to the meetings and participate, you ignore them.

That's insulting.

So you should have rules that say, under certain conditions only, items will not be allowed to go forward without returning to council, unless there is a valid explanation.

You should have a rule that says every item that is funded by the city has to identify the source of funding.

You should have a rule that once an item is approved, it has to be followed up within a certain time limit.

I'm talking about art shanks, renaming of the street art sanks junior has never happened.

You should have a rule that once you have a grant, you must all identify all of the possibilities for which that grant be can be used.

That's because your staff is picking certain ways the grant can be used, but there are multiple ways that the grant can be used, and you need to understand that to follow up if you have another recommendation other than what staff is recommending.

You should have a rule that all items that are under Rule 24 and Rule 28 has to go to the non-consent item.

Okay, you should have a move.

All amendments that you make has to be presented before public comment.

You should have a rule that states that requires that the mayor and the council make appointments to all boards and commissions within a timely manner because sometimes you go years without appointing people.

You should have a rule that you should uh notify.

Thank you, Ms.

Olabala.

Your time is up.

Last welcome.

So the meeting is classic, thank you, colleagues.

I will make a hold on.

You have your Zoom speakers.

Moving to your Zoom speaker, starting with Brick Levin.

Please unmute yourself.

Please put two minutes on the clock for her.

Please unmute yourself and begin your comments.

Thank you very much.

Um, Chairperson Ramashandra, members of the council, um, Burke Levin, and I only really have one comment, and that is about Rule 12, the 24-hour requirement for e-comment and for Zoom speakers to sign up.

Um, it wasn't possible last week in the case of the published rules committee agenda on Wednesday at about one in the afternoon, and the meeting the next morning at 10 30, it would have been impossible to actually sign up for that meeting or make any comment on anything on that agenda.

I was very thankful that the city clerk's office was willing to sign me up a speaker's card for that, but other than that, you could not sign up online.

And I don't understand it why there has to be that 24 hour rule.

I think it's an impediment, especially in light of the fact that there are many, many special meetings that are extremely last minute.

Um, today's meeting, for example, the agenda was published on Friday, and that was the first time we saw the item 10, which is the next item on the grand jury report's response from the administration.

So that was Friday, and we had the weekend, and then we have early today to address that item.

It's hard to get people to sign up, it's hard to organize for people.

And additionally, I do agree with some of the other speakers and council members that having these special meetings popping up with uh irregular times is very difficult for the public to track.

So thank you for considering changing that 24 hour for e-comment and signing up, and also you know, making an effort to have less special meetings unless there is something extremely urgent happening because it is a burden on the public.

Thank you.

Thank you for your comments.

Moving to Jennifer Finley, please unmute yourself and begin your comments.

Hi, Jennifer Findley, District 2.

Um, I've got a few things.

Um, we really need to make sure that things are accessible.

Of course, this means we need consistency, and we need the opportunity to speak later meetings, consistent meetings at the times that they are scheduled.

Um it's key, the public needs the information.

Right now we've got 12 things that went to the consent calendar that uh came through in Rule 24.

The consent calendar is meant for things that are came unanimously through committee and were non-controversial.

But rule 24 is they are urgent, so urgent that they're bypassing committee.

That's the obvious of unanimous.

Nobody has had a chance to discuss it, let alone vote for it by putting it on consent.

Um, listening to Chair Ramachandra, which is saying this is effectively a yes vote before um, you know, you somebody can wage a lodge a no vote, but um, that's not going to change the turn of the tide, it's basically considered passed at that point.

Um I think with rule 24 needs to go on non-consent.

Um also what um there's some confusion about what things are going to which committees, it's very confusing to me still that the um EMP or the EAP was assigned to public safety versus the um LEC or public works to frame it in that way as a public safety commission.

Um there are just too many things going to consent right now.

The more things that go on consent, public still only has a very limited number of time.

We don't get more time per item that gets cut.

We get um less public conversation.

Oftentimes we will get time cut.

Um thank you, Ms.

Finley, for your comments, madam chair.

That was the last speaker.

Thank you.

I fully agree with everyone that's talking about A, have fewer special meetings, and B, um don't send as many items to committee.

And these rules of procedure don't change any of that.

That has to be practice, that has to be decisions that we're making on rules committee predominantly to decide whether or not we hold special meetings and when items are sent to committees with urgency.

I would strongly prefer that we have no items sent by rule 24, but like last week we had two uh committee meetings that were canceled due to lack of form.

Departments requested to hear that item today on the consent calendar so that they can be approved, so grant money can be received, so contracts can be executed, but that also means that as council members we have to do our best to make sure that we have quorum for meetings, that um items we bring forward go through committee first, um, but that has nothing to do with these rules of procedures, nor is bringing emergency um, sorry, not emergency special meetings.

That is something that is the choice of council and the rules committee, and we can all work on having fewer special meetings and also fewer items assent to rule 24, including departments.

So I fully agree with all those commenters.

That just has nothing to do with these rules of procedures.

Council Member Brown.

Thank you.

Thank you, Madam City Clerk.

Rule 7s the change to ceremonials.

I want to make sure that the consent calendar is heard after modifications of the agenda.

And I also want to request to retain the non-consent item be heard no sooner than 5 p.m.

I um have been an elected official now in this body for a little over five years, but I've been coming to this body consistently for 11 years.

Sometimes we were here, and not this is not the model of how things should be, but it would be until 2 p.m.

2 a.m.

in the morning sometimes, 1 a.m.

midnight.

That does provide a burden on staff, and it allows people who no longer get to comment as one of our public speakers said on every single item, but it allows the public to um know that they can get off work and be here and speak to an item versus not being able to speak to it because they can't get here in time.

And I also I'm in community all of the time.

We just heard public speakers who I have no relationship with express their concern with how all of these issues come together and limit the abil ability for the public to engage fully in this process.

So I again want to reiterate that amendment to um rule seven.

Uh I believe that that will help facilitate what the public speakers who spoke today and the countless public speakers that I've heard over the last year do when it comes to being able to fully participate in these meetings.

So I would like to make that amendment and make that as a motion.

Councilmember Brown.

Okay, well, thank you so much, um, Council um Member Ramachandran and also Councilman President Jenkins for bringing forth these amendments.

And I do think that a lot of the feedback that we heard from the public um is definitely important.

Um and also um just I think even in in rules committee, we've consistently just kind of uplifted the fact of um, you know, ensuring that we're not having so many special meetings at times like at an earlier time.

And so I think what my hope would be is that um as we are making some of these changes, if we can ensure that our meeting time stays consistent um with our rules of procedure of us starting at 3 30 p.m.

and and being as close as possible to um you know hearing some of the key items after five, um, and also at the same time um we have been operating in this manner for s for some time, and so I am interested to see how some of these proposed changes would um impact the the flow of the meeting.

Um, and so you know, with that said, um, I don't have any um amendments that I I want to um propose, but I I do appreciate the amendment that was made to the to the item that council member Unger had mentioned.

Um, but overall um I think that the changes that have been made, um, I'm interested to see how uh they will um kind of impact the flow of of our meetings.

Thank you.

Thank you, Councilmember Wonk.

Um yeah, just going back to rule seven.

Um I hear the challenges that you know the the tax that we have on uh staff time, but I do think about just rereading the logistics around doing the the speaker comment that, you know, especially someone who is say working like a job at a coffee shop or something where they're standing, they're not able to make like a virtual comment, like someone who does an office job that I think about, um, you know, I I would say that either I I second uh councilmember Pfeiff's amendment or uh if we want to compromise to to make the limit so it's 4 30.

That way someone who has um like submitted a speaker card.

I don't want them to come to the meeting only for the item to already have passed and for them to have to have made that time to come all the way to City Hall or to submit a virtual speaker card, and um unless there's an ability for them to make a retroactive comment, then that person loses the ability to say their piece.

To Councilmember Wong, I think I'm trying I'm understanding your motive, but not the actual solution.

So if someone who is working a full-time job wants to make public comment on an item for non-consent that we're voting on, that's something that um currently they're gonna have to wait a long time with no sense of predictability when it would be heard and they leave.

I've talked to people from all over Oakland, not just constituents, about this.

So one of the motivating factors for this were groups of communities who said we need predictability on when items are heard, and typically the items that are up for the most contentious debate, where council members are making up their mind, are aspects of the non-consent calendar that's not public hearings.

So if we adopt these rules, we give people the greatest amount of flexibility after 5 p.m.

but not as late as 9 p.m.

for people that want to make public comment because right now the issues that are really affecting people from all over Oakland, they're held at the later ends of meetings, and especially when things get when our calendar gets impacted, that can be as late as 10, 11 and beyond p.m.

So when we have people of all ages coming here to talk about renewing violence prevention contracts, which is an example that I remember very clearly where we had youth here, a packed room of youth who had to wait five hours to be able to be heard.

Many of them have to leave, but many of but if that was moved to earlier in the evening after the not after the public hearings items, that's gonna be after 5 p.m.

But it's the most predictable way to say, hey, between the hours that make most sense for people, 5 to 7 p.m., that's only two hours of time where you would have to predict being able to sit at a council meeting, not come at 3 30 and maybe your item will be heard by 10.

So I think this is in response to basically people who want to comment to influence our vote.

The consent calendar, that takes up some of the most amount of time on our calendar for items that have no ability for us to change our vote on because it's on the consent calendar, which is to make a statement, and that's a powerful part of our democracy.

I'm not again, I've done that for years, but that the people coming here who really want to come, the people who come for their first time to council meetings because they want to help influence our perspective, those are on non-consent items, and now we're gonna give people a sense of predictability between 5 and 7 p.m., your items gonna be heard versus between 3:30 and 10, you might have to wait.

So I think if your objective is listening to the greatest number of people who want to impact votes that have active consideration from council, these amendments are the way that we get there.

So and again, it is also an experiment, and we like taking so I I am newer to council, only been here for a few months.

I haven't yet seen one of our full council meetings go that late in part because I think we've been doing a good job of through the rule.

You know, the rules committee has been doing a good job of putting many of uh just saving only the most important items for the non-consent calendar.

So I haven't seen that yet.

I'll just say that these sort of late night meetings.

Um, I hear you.

We I I don't want people who show up are frustrated and leaving, but I haven't seen that layout yet.

Um, and I do worry that this change may, I'm fine with everything else that's laid out, but I think this one piece, I'm worried that it could, it would do the reverse.

Counselor Marker.

Um I think there are no perfect solutions here, right?

If we if we hear the substance if we hear the substantive stuff early, there are people who are going to be at work and not going to be able to make it.

If we hear the substantive stuff later, there are people who are dealing with child care or have to go to bed so they can get up early the next morning.

There are no perfect ways to capture everyone who wants to speak.

I do know that we, or let me speak for myself, that I am not at my best at midnight when and if we try to debate the substantive items very late and make complicated amendments, I would rather do that when my energy is fresh earlier in the evening.

Um I think that that is an important consideration for me.

But I do acknowledge that that whatever we do, we are going to leave some people out, and that's unfortunate, but we have to we have to pick a time and I also um appreciate the the comments about predictability.

We I I like being able people being able to come here at a predictable time for what are generally the most contentious and most important issues.

Through the chair, um Brooke Levin had mentioned and I had mentioned too about the 24 hour um to register for the Zoom.

Um is it any way we could change that as a as a council to make it longer or um through through the chair, as I've stated before multiple times.

We use a system that is outside of the city of Oakland.

Say that again.

I'm sorry.

We use a system that is outside of the city of Oakland to for people to sign up to speak.

When the council has regular meetings that start at 3 30 that are noticed via sunshine, the members of the public have approximately 13 days to sign up to speak and provide e-comment.

When you all shift into special meetings depending on when you call the meeting, and when we have the materials to notice, we'll determine when the public can sign up.

It may be only a day or two before the start of that meeting, depending on when we receive the materials.

There's nothing else that can be done to for it to correct that.

If people are having trouble signing up, there are directions directions on the agenda for them to reach out for my office to my office.

We will sign people up to speak if they are having trouble with the system.

But there's nothing that can be done about that.

Okay, see, that's what I need.

Clarity.

I'm good.

Thank you.

Appreciate that.

Uh through the chair um to council member Wong, was that a second or is a friendly amendment to my amendment to change the time to have a second?

It's a yes, it's a friendly amendment to your friendly amendment.

And uh if it gets turned down, then it's a second.

Understood.

I I I do want to say I wanted to also ask the clerk because you were here on many of those evenings where we were here until 12 o'clock, one o'clock in the morning.

From if to the clerk, do you recall any times in the last maybe year or two where we've gone until two o'clock in the morning, one o'clock in the morning?

Or had these late meetings, intensely late meetings?

No.

Through the chair, you've had um many different iterations of your rules of procedure.

Um, as you guys have been in this 3 30 start period, you have not had meetings that have gone into the wee hours of the night most of the time in the past where your meetings went into the 2 a.m.

time period, your meetings did start at 5 30 at a time, and that is when you tended to have later items going into the wee hours of the night or the morning.

Thank you for that clarity because I I don't recall having those those meetings, um, not in recent history.

And again, I don't understand, and maybe I I just need more conversation, but I I would definitely um like to move the amendment that I I passed and and see where the the body stands on this.

I don't see how this offers any additional predictability in that we don't know how long um certain items will go.

Uh and I do agree with Councilmember Unger that you know someone is not going to be happy.

I would just err on the side of giving more folks the opportunity to participate in during the later hours after, as councilmember Wong stated, if they have an office job or some other things.

Um the consent calendar has been re-extremely overburdened, so it forces people to condense their conversations on substantive items to the consent calendar because of the things moving from the rules committee to or uh bypassing committee to come to the full city council.

I would also argue that um we can agendas can be modified at the top of the agenda.

So if we need to make changes because if there's an item, uh, say the youth vote that's on the agenda and young people come to speak at the top of the meeting.

The chair has the the ability to move that item up on the agenda so people don't have to wait um very long.

So there's already we already have the capacity to do the things in here, and um that the the scheduling is one of those items, and the the better we are at rules, the better we are at our our our uh full city council meeting.

So I feel like we're going around in circles.

There's been a uh an amendment.

I I I could point out every single thing that's concerning with these rules of procedure, but um it is a living document, they can be amended at a later date.

I'm just asking for the specific amendment on rule seven that I made today.

Sorry, our council.

Uh Councilmember Brown.

And then I just had a quick question because I thought that council member wong.

Um I know you said that you're supportive of Councilmember Fife's um motion, but I did you change it actually?

So can you just please restate things?

The um substitute amendment or whatever it's called is to change it.

Sorry, just uh to clarify before you go on.

Councilmember.

Yeah, um, there's a motion on the floor from council member five.

Does that mo and and council member five perhaps you can restate it and the clerk can correct me, but I haven't heard is there a second to that motion?

I like okay.

So you're just seconding the motion without not making a substitute motion.

Yeah, I said let's do this vote.

I would recommend, and then if that gets then I would like to advance the substitute amendment as a compromise.

Right.

Okay.

If council member five can restate her motion and then council member wang can um state on the record whether there's a second and whether and or if there's a friendly amendment, whether it's accepted by the maker of the motion.

I am um making an amendment to retain the existing order of business in rule seven so that the consent calendar is heard after modifications of the agenda, and additionally, requesting to retain the non-consent items be heard no sooner than 5 p.m.

or 4 30 p.m., sir.

Oh no, no ma'am.

Can I?

Uh to the chair.

Just to get clarification on the motion.

The 5 p.m.

rule is written into rule seven.

There's also a line in rule eight that restates the 5 p.m.

rule.

So I'm assuming that your motion includes modifying rule eight as well to say 4 30.

And I'm seeing a yes to that uh from from council member five.

So it's a uh a motion to amend the current proposal with amend amendments to rule seven and rule eight.

So second, I need to.

And I would now like to make a substitute motion.

Oh, council member Houston.

Yeah, what I'm just saying that um council member guillo is not here because I don't know if you guys is counting because the six of us here, and I'm just hoping the mayor's available because um I see a split here.

This is what I see right now.

So I'm saying this.

I wish Councilmember Noel didn't say that this this meeting was political.

Um so um that's what I wanted to say.

We better see if the mayor is available.

Thank you.

I would like to make a substitute motion to adopt these rules as is with a friendly amendment that I think gets a little to a compromise of starting the meeting at 4 p.m., which would basically given all the things that happen in the first hour, including public hearings, start public, start non-consent items by 5 p.m.

In order to try to compromise between the two.

Is there a second?

I'm making a substitute motion to go back to the way it was written, with the one exception of changing the meeting start time from 3 30 to 4, so we get closer to that 4 30.

We're basically compromising between 3 30 and 4 30 by starting at 4.

4.

Seging it.

My substitute motion is adopting as is the originally submitted proposal with two amendments.

The first one that was discussed earlier, which is canceling the part about requiring majority to take the um an item to pull an item off of consent to non-consent, keeping it as is for uh a motion and a second, and the second amendment would be to change the meeting start time from 3 30 to 4.

So that's a compromise between 3 30 as it is now and 4 30, which was the proposal.

Starting with the substitute motion moved by council member, does anyone need does the body need clarity on on either of the motions?

If not, yes, you'd vote on the substitute motion first.

Starting with the substitute motion that was made by council member Ramachandra and seconded by council member Brown.

So adopt these rules as is with the amendment of starting at four and keeping the motion second requirement to remove an item from consent, starting with council member brown, aye.

Councilmember five, no councilmember gu is absent.

Councilmember Houston.

Before I say aye, this is just 30 minute difference from what council member five said.

That's all this is 30 minutes difference.

If I maybe perhaps I need clarity on the I think the substitute motion on the floor is to change the start time of the meeting, which is currently 3 30 and move the start time to 4 30.

Oh four.

Four.

Councilmember 5's motion was um changing the time for the non-consent calendar, or were you also changing the start time?

Yeah, so can so I think council member five your motion was changing the time to start the non-consent portion of the meeting, not the meeting, not the start time of the meeting, if that makes sense.

To council member Houston.

So it's 30 minutes, that's all.

Ask them first.

Councilmember Ramachandran's substitute motion was to have the start time of the meeting, the full meeting start at 4.

So, the reason I'm saying half an hour is because council member five's proposal was to not to still have the consent calendar first and not have the non-consent calendar first, which is which is the biggest change of these amendments, in order to give people a sense of when you can anticipate your item being heard, having non-consent items moved up.

The real issue that was is being brought up is when can people start to speak on the calendar?

And that as was discussed by councilmember Wong and Fife was we want people to be able to start speaking on non-consent at 5 p.m., which is what we currently have.

If we change the meeting start time to four, by the time we go through the first few items of the meeting, as well as public hearings, the earliest, anyone who's gonna be able to comment on the non-consent items is 5 p.m.

So it's basically the same start time for non-consent items, given that the first hour is all sorts of other stuff that start our meeting, so it's so it's really getting to that same start time by pushing our meet our meeting start by an hour.

Otherwise, people are gonna have to come in and we're gonna have to recess and they're gonna have to wait to be able for it to be heard.

Councilmember Houston.

I said move it.

I want to wait, let them vote first.

You have to state.

Yes.

Councilmember Wong.

Not to be a pain, but I okay.

So the 40 is can I do a substitute to the substitute motion for 4 15 p.m.?

Because I think that is at least what I've seen with these meetings play out is what is needed for the start time.

Yeah.

At this point, there's a motion and a second on the floor, so that's what we're voting on.

If the substitute motion fails, um we'll reverse if the substitute motion passes, then that's the vote, and the original motion is moot.

If the substitute motion fails, we'll go back to the main motion.

No, our meetings don't start till 15 minutes after, anyway.

But yeah, I'll let the vote continue.

I think for for now, I get where you're getting at, Councilmember Ramachandra.

I don't think it's enough for me to feel I I like the solution only if it's slightly it is more delayed so we can ensure that people who get off at uh work can make comments.

So for this, I have to vote uh nay, Ramachanjan.

Aye.

Motion fails with a vote of three ayes, two no's, one abstention, one absent, one excused.

So can we make a substitute now at this point?

So we're back to the main motion, which had a second.

Is there are you asking if someone can make another substitute motion?

Yeah, yes.

If it has a second, I'd like to make a substitute motion to move the start time of meetings to 4 15.

No, do we have a substitute?

Come on.

Correct.

The substitute failed.

But now a council.

That's what I'm saying.

So I couldn't get you asked for.

If I may, through the chair to the parliamentarian, ask for clarity on what exactly is happening right now.

We had a substitute motion fail.

We should be going on to the main motion.

Is there another substitute substitute squared motion being made right now?

If so, I need that restated on the record.

I'm I'm deeply confused about what is happening right now.

That was to you, I believe.

It sounds like there's another substitute motion on the floor.

I have not heard a second.

This would be to the 415th.

I'll I will second this one.

Okay, thank you.

With another substitute motion on the floor, moved by council member Ramachandran, saying by council member Wong to have the start time of the meeting at 4:15 p.m.

Council Member.

Are we having debate on any of these things?

What is happening?

So we want consistency, but now we're talking about moving the start time of a city council meeting from 3 30 to 4 30 to 4 15, but what advocating for what we want is more consistency.

I'm asking my motion was to maintain the existing order, period.

If we if we really want consistency, that is consistency.

But these games we're playing right now are ridiculous.

We had parliamentary procedure, and we are allowed to make substitute motions, something you have done many times before.

So this time I'm doing it.

You can vote no.

Okay, relax.

All I'm just asking is for clarity and for things to be restated on the record because this is abnormal to have a substitute fail and then ask for another one for 15 minutes to change from a 3 30 start time to a 4.15 start time to me is odd.

So I am ready to vote no on this substitute squared motion.

Councilmember Brown.

No council member Houston.

Councilmember Unger.

No.

Councilmember Wong.

You don't have to press the button.

Let me unmute you myself.

I'll just do it.

I.

Councilmember Ramachandran.

Okay, aye.

Motion fails with a vote of three ayes, three no's, one absent, one excuse.

I will I have confirmed I can do this.

I will make another substitute motion to vote on the original proposal.

The original proposal, as is written here, with the one change being the request to change the taking items off of the consent calendar.

Requiring a second.

Say, I'm sorry, please restate your motion.

My motion will my substitute motion is voting on the original item that is on our agenda with the one amendment of changing the ability to take something off of consent requiring majority vote.

So what was discussed earlier?

So the one the one amendment you read as you were giving your report.

The second one amendment.

Okay.

On the substitute motion moved by council member Ramachandran.

This is the original item that was before us with the only change was what I had verbally stated, which was taking out the ability to move something from consent to non-consent requiring majority vote.

That's the only change.

Council member five's main motion with a second is still on the floor.

So if the substitute motions fail, we go back to council member five's main motion.

For this item, we will go back.

So she seconded it.

Sorry, I forgot to press it.

Can you state your second?

So you're seconded to the mic.

Yeah, I'd second council member five's amendment.

Rule seven and rule eight.

So you're not seconding the substitute motion that is on the floor.

I thought we already voted on that.

There's a new one.

The motion on the floor is to keep what is noticed in the packet and keeping the amendment that council member Ramachandran read into the record about keeping the language in your current rules of procedure that allows the item to be removed from consent.

I'm from consent with the motion and a second.

That is what is on the floor.

Yeah, I'm I'm not seconding that I'm seconding.

You don't have the second thing.

Okay.

So is there a second for council member Ramachandran's motion?

Seeing as there's no second for that.

Council Member.

Uh council councilmember Houston and Unger are on the speaker list if either of you want to speak.

I'm I'm in favor of council member Ramachandran's motion, but I want us to vote on Councilmember Fife's amendment.

Okay, then I will remove my substitute motion and we vote on that first.

Just for clarity, since we keep going back and forth for myself and my staff.

Council member five, can you restate your motion one more time?

Her motion was she stated her motion.

This is what council member Wong seconded for clarity for the public so there's no confusion.

Can you please state restate your motion?

I'm not confused, either.

It was keeping the status quo with rule seven retain existing rules, including the removal of ceremonial items with the current language of non-consent starting no sooner than 5 p.m.

That motion was made by council member five, seconded by council member wong.

Councilmember Brown.

Madam Chair, sorry, to Councilmember Ungar to your comment.

This is the main motion on the floor.

So if this passes, then this is the final action of the council.

Council member.

Councilmember Brown.

I am in favor of council member Ramachandran's measure as she stated it, but I think out of courtesy to Councilmember Five who put an amendment on the floor that we haven't voted on.

I would like to give the option to for us to consider Council Member Fife's amendment.

Another council member, I mean, that's that's the main motion.

So if you vote on that, it's gonna be final action there.

There's councilmember I'm trying to propose a substitute mo substitute.

The motion, doesn't have a second.

Another council member can find another, you know, motion that they want to propose, and if that one gets a second, you know, you can vote on that first if you're trying to go to do it.

Yeah, that's cool.

We do need quorum for the rest of the meeting if council members want to hear the grand very item which we need to submit by November seventh.

Council members, if we could return to our seat.

Thank you.

Madam City Clerk.

Attorney, if you could just restate what motion we're voting on right now.

So I understand that the last substitute motion on the floor has been withdrawn.

So we're back to the main motion, which was Councilmember Fife's motion.

And if anyone needs that motion to be clarified again, please let the maker of the motion know.

I want to pass this over.

The motion passes its final action and that version will be adopted.

If the motion fails, um someone else could make an alternative motion or some other motion to dispense with the item.

It's your motion.

Thank you.

On the main motion moved by council member five, seconded by council member Wong.

Councilmember Brown.

No.

Councilmember Fife.

Aye.

Council Member Gayo is absent.

Councilmember Houston.

Councilmember Houston.

Abstained last time, standing again.

Councilmember Unger.

No.

Council Member Wong.

Aye.

Councilmember Ramachandran.

No.

Motion fails with a vote of two ayes, three no's, one absent, one abstention, one excused.

And now I will make a motion to go back to the originally noticed proposal, with the only change being any council member can going back to the status quo with pulling an item off consent.

No changes to that.

I'll second that.

Motion by Councilmember Ramachandra to go back to the main motion with the removal of a majority vote for the I mean keeping the current language in the current rules of procedure.

Removing from consent.

No.

Councilmember Guillo is absent.

Council Member Houston.

Aye.

Councilmember Unger.

Aye.

Councilmember Wong.

As I stated before, I'm fine with most of the revisions, but I continue to have concerns around the non-consent piece, so no.

Councilmember Ramachandran.

Aye.

Motion fails with a vote of three eyes, two no's, one absent, one excused.

Four eyes.

Still fails.

Four ayes, one no, one excused.

We've contacted the mayor's office for tie breaking, however, and we're gonna see if they're I'm sorry about the abstention, yes.

It has to be a motion for reconsider right.

Through the chair to the body.

So your council rules of procedure, rule 29, provide for a tie-breaking vote by the mayor.

Um in the event that council members are evenly divided in their vote on an item, the item will automatically be continued to the next regular meeting solely for the purpose of allowing the mayor to cast a vote, provided that if the mayor so chooses, the mayor may cast a vote at the meeting at which the tie vote occurs.

This meeting.

Thank you.

And to the parliamentarian, what happens if the mayor opts not to?

Will there be a reconsidered vote or what happens then?

If the mayor does not break the tie, the um item will fail.

Moving to item 10.

Adopt a resolution authorizing the council president to submit a response on behalf of the city council to the 24-25 Alameda County Civil Grand Jury report.

You have five speakers on this item.

Good afternoon, madam chair and members of the city council.

Um my name is Rose Rubel, and I'm an assistant to the city administrator in the city administrator's office.

Before you today is the city's proposed response to the 2024-25 Alameda County Civil Grand Jury final report, which is included with this item as attachment A, which was issued June 20th, 2025.

Each year, the civil grand jury conducts investigations based on citizen complaints regarding local government and presents opportunities and recommendations for agencies to function more efficiently.

This year's grand jury report included five sections which detail investigations concerning the city of Oakland.

And those are bad roads and no building.

Oakland's budget problems mean no bonds for the city's needs.

And I'll just note that uh this section um did not include any findings or recommendations from the grand jury, so did not require a response from the city.

Uh the next is Oakland's potholes, a bumpy road and inadequate oversight.

Oakland's poor stewardship of measure Q funds jeopardizes its effectiveness, adding insult to injury, Oakland issues parking tickets to stolen vehicles, and lastly, Oakland's wildfire preparedness, good vegetation management, but emergency access needs improvement.

Responses to each of these investigations were requested from multiple city departments and agencies, including Oakland Public Works, Finance and Management, the Oakland Department of Transportation, Oakland Fire Department, the Office of the City Auditor, and the City Council.

Attachment B to this item contains proposed responses to each report section prepared by city staff.

By default, formal responses to the grand jury report are due 90 days after the report's public release.

However, the city requested and received an extension of the time to respond from the grand jury's representative.

In accordance with the extension, the city's responses are due by Friday, November 7th, 2025.

Adoption of the proposed resolution will authorize the council president to submit the responses on behalf of the city council to the Alameda County Civil Grand Jury.

Which contained findings and recommendations that were directed specifically to the city auditor, and so in response, the Office of the City Auditor issued a separate uh response to the grand jury report on August 7th of this year, and we have included that separately as attachment C to this item.

And with that, concludes my presentation and myself and uh department representatives are available to answer your questions.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Questions from council members on the grand jury report.

If not, I have a list.

Councilmember Houston.

I want to move it.

I don't have no questions.

Okay.

Um, if there's not questions, I will ask a few.

Um is the city auditor available as well.

Thank you.

So this is really, um, I have two questions on two items, um, the pothole one and the measure q item.

Starting with measure q.

Do we I'm not sure if this is for the audit administration.

Do we have a clear definition of extreme fiscal necessity at the moment?

Because I know that was a hotly debated topic, and I know it came to the finance committee last year, but there was not a final vote.

It's my maturation.

Okay.

Sorry, there was a different question for the auditor.

Count uh council members brought also with the finance department.

Uh we have via your adopted budget resolution a definition that you adopted for extreme fiscal necessity.

It was in your budget resolution.

However, we have not formally adopted a we have not formally adopted, and that was resolution uh 90327 CMS.

We have not done through our consolidated fiscal policy adopted a definition for that outside of the context of your budget cycle.

Thank you.

Um were meetings with measure Q stakeholders conducted to define this item, and is the resolution just to come at the next budget, or will there be others in between?

There are ongoing conversations with the stakeholders of Measure Q and our other ballot measures.

I'm not gonna uh prejudge the outcome of those conversations, but there's ongoing conversations around the different elements related to uh compliance with their local measures, and it's a part of and it's a component part of your fiscal roadmap that we have those conversations and that we engage in a plan to come into compliance with them.

Okay, thank you.

And then next question is to the auditor on um both potholes and measure q being part of the work plan for next year.

There was discussion back and forth of whether or not KK or U even had an audit done.

So some kind of clarity on whether an audit actually happened and whether or whether we'll be done in the future for both the potholes and um sorry, measure KK and U and also measure Q.

Michael C.

Houston, the city auditor.

Um in my response, I clarified that I had, you know, I was unaware of any um audits on measure KK and measure U ever being conducted, um, and it was not that's not necessarily on our work plan either.

Um measure Q.

It is one of those recurring audits that should be done on a predictable cadence.

Um we've done one.

It is an ARC 2526 audit work plan.

Sorry, to clarify that measure KK and U was not done.

And I will say that that is not an audit that is the it doesn't require the city auditor's office to conduct it's it's vague as far as who should conduct it, but it is clear to me that it is to be conducted.

Thank you.

And I guess to the administration, is it under the plan to conduct an audit of KK or you now after this report?

Uh through the chair uh to the members of the council, so yes, um, certainly want to consider you know the auditing uh of measure KK, and we can certainly you know convey that with not just our finance team but also our external auditors that do our broad citywide audits uh of our financials, okay.

Thank you.

And last question, um what is the specific um administration back to the potholes item?

What is the holdup with the I bond meetings?

There was a note of, you know, there's issues with staff and vacancies.

Is the issue finding quorum because there's too many vacancies that need to be approved?

Is it that there's not staff ability to get the meetings organized?

What's the biggest issue with not having those meetings be thorough and uh attended?

Again, Brad Johnson of the Finance Department.

We are actively working to schedule the next Ibond committee meeting.

Uh we were trying to hold the meeting at their regular scheduled time, which is in the second or third Monday of the quarter, which would have been October at that time.

The we found that we were not able to make quorum of the commission members.

We have conducted a poll of all the commission members for dates through the remainder of this calendar year and into the uh and in and around their what would be their January meeting to try to find a date where we can get quorum for the IVON commission to meet, and we are actively trying to pursue that with the commissioners to ensure that we have a date where that can happen.

Okay, thank you.

And just a comment on the wildfire item um I know the grand jury noted a number of issues with public education and you need to inform the public more about evacuation routes and red flag days and all of that.

Um, I I do was want to recognize that the our fire department and administration um has been doing quite a bit but there's always more to do so th those aspects of the report are noted and I think that goes for all emergency preparedness that there's a lot more to do but I do want to acknowledge how much has been done over the last um specifically 30 years since the 91 fires on that regard of community education.

Um other and last question for administration sorry I'm jumping around back to the potholes.

25-7 recommendation talks about or the issue talks about prioritizing hiring for DOT.

I did look at the website this morning and there's only one DOT position currently there.

What is being done specifically to h help with hiring for DOT the only one I see is transportation engineer which I know there's a lot more positions needed to actually prioritize paving because our city we re we repeatedly state lots of priorities but there's only there's very few positions that are actually ended up being prioritized on our website.

So I just want to get clarity on what the action plan is for hiring.

Through the chair and I apologize there may be someone from human resources uh step into the mic but I do know that the um human resources department did move forward with hiring existing uh recruitment staff to backfill some of those positions so that we can move forward with expediting hiring as uh this body has certainly directed and what we would like to do and so um I'll need to get you know further clarity with respect to the timing of when the priority hires hires will be coming forward and we can certainly report back to um to to this body that would be great um council members comments questions or someone from public works I think for item 258 do we have anybody from public works here?

Yeah, I think uh yeah I have a question about item twenty five eight uh director roan um this was about the small business requirements and how I believe in uh the grand jury mentioned in 2021 we had to reject 10 bids for because none of them met our requirements is that is that still an ongoing issue uh through the chair to the to the council member we we continue just in general to struggle with getting high turnout for our our projects we put out to bid and so we're looking at ways to increase competition and and as this body knows we have had several opportunities to to seek SLBE waivers on on project awards even looking at waiving the program for our ADA consent decree also for our sewer consent decree.

Thank you.

Council member Wong uh thanks through the chair um to the C city administrator so there's a lot of uh findings many of which that we agree with are there certain findings like the implementation of these findings that you think we can prioritize or that would be easiest to address in the near term.

So I appreciate the question I think some of the ones with respect to um wildfire preparedness I think there's you know quite a bit of allocation of funding and staffing and contracts that are in place.

So I certainly appreciate that work.

Moving forward pretty pretty quickly um I would certainly say with respect to items around you know the potholes and sort of our public infrastructure.

I think you all approved an item to procure requisite materials so that we can address some of those issues on the front end, but also as we move forward with our bonding process, that will certainly help us um down the line so um I was you know, certainly say all the items, there is a a space and cadence by which we can accomplish um delivery on these.

So it's really just a matter of time.

Yeah.

That's always time and resources.

Um then one question to uh Director Rowan, you're you're here.

Um this is related to finding 25 9 around um the so the jury found that we lack adequate control over change orders on our paving and street projects, um and I think there is another finding later in this thing related to change orders again, and we disagreed with that finding.

I am noticed as a member of the public works and transportation committee.

We often wind up approving, you know, amendments, um, uh added dollars to our contract.

So how would you disagree with this with this finding?

Through through the chair to to through count to council member wong.

That that's actually a mostly accurate assessment.

Um I I would I would give a big shout out to the some of the folks on the public works team about a year ago.

We re-implemented the department's 2019 construction management plan, which actually has a decision making matrix for how they get approved.

Um there are still a few issues in implementation, but we we have actually um gone so far as to self-report ourselves to the city auditor and are undergoing an audit right now of our internal audit of our change order control process.

So you you will likely see more from us as we seek to daylight those and bring transparency to the change order issue.

Okay, I see.

So you're saying we're actually gonna see more of those coming before the committee, but it's only because of more transparency rather than more change orders.

So so you know, projects have change, and and we we we don't want to shy away from that.

And in construction, there are really two ways that you can approach it.

You can have big contingencies and no changes, but you just pay a premium for your work.

We're trying to be pretty pretty fiscally responsible with our budgets, which means when things change, we we have to do change orders.

And so when they're of a large enough um dollar amount, we we will be seeking to be as code requires be bringing those back to council for approval and daylight those.

And so we feel that we we don't want to be afraid of change, but we need to be providing explanations for for what is happening.

And so um you'll you'll see you'll you will see more change coming from us just because on many of these projects, once we dig into the ground, is when we really learn what what's actually there.

There, even when a project goes to bed, there are still a fair number of unknown unknowns that we then have to address during, especially during the construction phase.

Okay, that makes sense.

Thank you.

Okay, we can move to public cum.

Is there anyone else on the queue?

Oh, sorry.

Uh Councilmember Houston and five.

I'm sorry, is it my turn to speak?

I just called your name, so yes.

I I whoa.

Um, okay.

Um through the chair to um to uh our city attorney.

Um, if I could ask a couple questions about the grand jury before my questions about the DOT items.

Um, I who's or maybe staff, yes.

Can you give me your name again, please?

Rose Ruble.

Rose, and you're with the city auditors, city administration, city administration.

Awesome.

Can you just tell me a little bit about who makes up the Alameda County Civil Grand Jury and how are they chosen?

How where does this body come from?

Sure, I can speak to that a little bit and might need to get a little help from the city attorney on that.

But um, my understanding is it's a citizen body, um, and it's uh organized through Alameda County.

It is um, it's an opt-in type of process, so folks are solicited for their participation, and if they choose to then participate, it's about a six to eight month investigation process where they work with the county to um they they review complaints that are submitted by Oakland citizens or or Alameda County citizens, I should say, um, and then select which investigations they would like to conduct based on the complaints that are received, and then spend a period of time, you know, doing those investigations, gathering the information, conducting interviews, and then ultimately release um their final report and do they report on other cities other than Oakland it feels like we take up a lot of their attention this year was a bit unusual in that five of the six sections of the report were all specific to the city of Oakland that is in years past not been as common.

Well I know they spend a lot of time talking about city of Oakland dysfunction and I think that was on full display today but that's neither here there nor there I will ask for um director Rowan to um come to the podium I just have one question about item 2518 because this has been in uh debated for quite some time around the SLBE and our uh LBE program being a hindrance to being able to timely get the uh paving projects done in a timely manner and I know there's been a lot of accusations about why I would just ask um understanding the um recommendations and then the the feedback that the city gave that the city of Oakland has mandated equity tools to ensure that our minority contractors are able to bid on contracts how what is how do we ensure this moving forward if they are stating that trying for the city of Oakland trying to make sure that black contractors brown minority contractors women um get access to contracts if that's a liability I want to hear more about what we are doing to address it because I personally don't feel it's a liability I think it's the city's asset and I think we should be doing more of it but want to hear how that jives with the grand jury findings.

Through the chair to council number five those are those are excellent comments and if I could kind of bifurcate my response a bit on the on asphalt paving it's oftentimes very difficult to achieve any meaningful SLB participation because the cost of the asphalt mix is so high there there if if you start doing the math just on how our program works it's it's almost impossible numerically to make it make that happen on paving on concrete projects we believe that we should be procuring more projects smaller projects and creating an environment where where more smaller businesses can participate we took the step last year of issuing an RFQ for an on-call contract for small businesses and and we probably need to do address that again because we only got four responsive bidders I I was surprised at the low number but I think we have we have project types that fit more with what those who are are smaller contractors trying to get in to do the work with the city of Oakland those are mostly going to be the the the you know some of our some of our sewer work some of our storm branch work sidewalks and and more of your your concrete flat work the the asphalt actually pencils out where we we can't comply with those numbers because of just how the the costs are distributed in a typical paving job okay if there's no one else we will move to public speakers as I call your name please approach the podium in any order please state your name for the record before beginning.

If you are participating via Zoom please raise your hand so I could easily identify you.

Miss Asada Olabala Brook Levin Jennifer Finlay David vote right and Mark Barak or Barack David Boatride District 4.

The City Council recess extension aside given the grand jury report was issued June 20th with a 90 day response time.

I believe the council owes its constituents an explanation as to why the important grand jury points are just now on the council agenda.

This report has too many important issues that the city constituents need to know about, whether a response by the city was ready or not.

This report was issued on June 30th of this year, and you were supposed to reply in 90 days.

That meant that this report was due on September, the end of September.

This is November the 4th.

So I don't know why it wasn't done.

You got some issues with public works, and you have an interim public works director.

You have the person who's over transportation meet interim.

And if you're going to do anything, you need to have a public works director put in place.

As it relates to the item that the report identifies failure to achieve wildfire prevention goals, such as enforcing parking restrictions and communic and communicating plan and evaluation routes to residents, and nobody asked how they were going to deal with those specific identified problems in the report.

It said that the audit, it said that you have a how housing and infrastructure oversight committee.

How are you going to deal with that was not dealt with today?

It says that in the report that you have inadequate controls over construction change orders.

What does it mean inadequate controls?

It says that you have difficulty with getting approval to hire workers.

I don't know specifically how that is dealt with.

There's a clear date in the report of the uh audit that says I'm sorry, not the audit, the grand jury findings that says there's a specific date with my history.

Thank you, Ms.

Olabala.

Moving to the Zoom speaker, starting with Mark Barak.

Sorry if I said that incorrectly.

Please unmute yourself and begin your comments.

Okay.

Uh thank you very much.

Um hello, Madam Chair and Council members.

Good afternoon.

Uh, my name is Mark Barrish.

Very close on the pronunciation, thank you.

And I uh serve as um chair of the parks and recreation advisory commission, which as you know has been granted oversight uh of measure Q.

And I'm just gonna focus my comments just on that section uh in my remaining time.

Um, the city's response to the grand jury report just came out this past Friday after its extension, and and it's really caused this process to be very very rushed.

And there's a lot of material here, and many people are unavailable to comment or even study it in this short couple of days.

So, due to that, um, what uh we would request is that the measure Q portion of the report be scheduled through the rules committee to be placed on an upcoming public works agenda so that we can have a more comprehensive discussion that would be really beneficial, I think.

Um, in the remaining time, it's there's so many line items.

I'm I'm not gonna attempt to go through them.

I'll just highlight one or two key ones, which is you know, 2517.

The city disagrees about there being no public discussion about the extreme fiscal necessity.

The truth is is that that this thing was sort of jammed in at the last second to the budget resolution in June of 2023.

A definition was created to meet the needs after the fact.

Um, it really never went to a proper public discussion, and indeed, there is a group working on the financial roadmap and the rules definition.

Uh, that progress has been slow, even though we have an upcoming meeting, which is mostly focused on the financial roadmap.

Um, lastly, I'll just say the audits are super important for public trust and for fiscal management, and I ask that the efforts be properly funded and that the results be shared transparently to the entire community.

Thank you.

Brooke Lemon.

Please unmute yourself and begin your comments.

Thank you.

Thank you, Councilmember Ramashandra, members of the council city administration.

I echo um commissioner uh commissioner chair's comments.

I agree completely 100% with all of them.

Getting this agenda item with the administrators' response on Friday for this morning meeting has made it very difficult for us to spend time with our community for comment, and we would request that even though we know you're going to push this forward to submit to the grand jury by the Friday deadline that you now have, we would like to have full discussion of the measure Q public works portion at the public works committee meeting.

Um the extreme fiscal necessity is still a very very important item.

Yes, we have had several meetings, and we have another one, but the fact that it was in a budget resolution that was published on a Friday for a Monday special council meeting that no one had ever seen.

It was never in any definition in the any ballot measure, including the two library measures, measure Q, Measure N, which is the most recent measure passed that has it.

Um, and it wasn't in the charter change that affected the auditor's office, it wasn't in um democracy dollars, and it was created after the fact when the city had a financial challenge uh to fit that need to not meet the maintenance of efforts in all of those other ballot measures, which are all put in place by the voters who have a trust in the city, and I know the city wants to put another ballot measure forward potentially for about 40 million dollars, and what is there gonna be that will endear the the community's trust if you're not you know aligning with the requirements in all of these existing ballot measures that have parcel taxes?

So there's lots of other things as Mark said, and we would like to have this heard at public works committee for discussion.

Thank you, Jennifer Finley.

Are you on Zoom or in chambers?

Otherwise, at this time, all names have been called.

Okay, thank you, colleagues.

Any questions or a motion?

The motions is already made by council member Houston.

I'll second it.

Um, and just to clarify what the motion is to the parliamentary, our approval of this item will empower the council president to jointly author a response along with city administration, correct?

That's correct.

There's a resolution in the packet that authorizes the council president to submit a response on behalf of the full council to the grand jury.

That response would be the response that the city administration drafted, and that's in your packet as attachment B to the report.

Okay, thank you.

Okay, Councilmember Houston.

Councilmember Fife, then Councilmember Houston.

I didn't turn this on.

I just wanted to make a comment.

Um about our LBE and SLBE in 2001.

That was adopted by city council.

What's that 24 years ago?

Twenty-four years ago, we're talking about the same thing that we don't have the workforce.

We don't have the companies.

Twenty-four years ago, we're talking about the same thing.

I remember this, right?

And I'm reading here.

Let me pull this up real quick.

I'm reading here.

One city official estimated that Oakland could save 10 to 15 percent on projects if reforms were implemented.

And then we're talking about saving money by not using and building our local SLB and LBE.

I spoke up about a contractor just recently.

Why one was pulled, and my voice was trying to be squashed because I'm fighting for the community that I represent in District 7, and Oakland as a whole has been underserved for so many years, 21 years.

My folks have been suffering.

My contractors have not been, it's always wave this, wave that, wave this, that SLB 21 years.

Councilmember Unger, 21 years.

I'm gonna speak to each one of you.

Councilmember Ramachana, 21 years before any of us was on here.

Brown, Councilmember, 21 years.

Councilmember Fife, you brought it up 21 years.

This is a crime not to implement and embrace companies that want to help very, very, very small businesses to be competitors and hire individuals within our community while my youngsters, men and women, brown and black are dying on the street because they don't have opportunity.

But why?

Because we waive the SLBE.

Twenty-one years.

I remember my cousin Daryl Carey used to say this, and I'm gonna close it with this.

If you're not mad now, when will you get mad?

And I'm gonna say this I'm not mad, I'm angry.

Thank you.

Are there other speakers?

Council Member Long.

I just wanted to make a comment actually about the grand jury.

I am on page 11 of this report.

I gotta say that um look, I don't know everybody's racial identity, but it looks like there's one Asian lady and everybody else is white on this grand jury report.

I think the grand jury also needs to have some improvements to get more diversity.

And I think, and that would change some of the viewpoints here in this report.

So that's it.

Okay, no more comments.

We have a motion that I vote that already begun, right?

So do we have to start from the beginning?

I'll start from the beginning.

Um item 10 moved by council member Houston, seconded by council member Brown.

Councilmember Brown, Councilmember Fife, Councilmember Houston, Councilmember Unger.

Aye, Councilmember Wong.

Aye, and Chair Ramachandran.

I noting that council member guy was absent, Councilmember Jenkins is excused.

Motion passes with a vote of six ayes.

Are we going back to 3.1?

Going back to item 3.1 through the chair.

Through the chair, uh members of the council.

Uh, this particular item we do have a representative uh Cameron Oaks from Caltrans who will be uh presenting this particular item.

You can come up with some I'll go ahead and read the item into record once again.

Item 3.1 receiving information report on Caltrans Vision 980 and interstate 580 truck access studies in the city of Oakland.

Mrs.

Right.

Right.

Thank you, uh Oakland City Council members for giving us the opportunity to present uh today.

Uh my name is Cameron Oaks, and I serve as the Deputy District Director for Transportation Planning and Local Assistance for Caltrans District 4.

So today I would like to provide an overview of two transportation planning study efforts that we are conducting in partnership with the city of Oakland and other stakeholders.

The first effort is the Vision 980 study, phase one, and the second effort is the I 580 truck access study.

There we go.

Okay, so the objective of the Vision 980 study is to define a new and collective transportation and land use vision of the Interstate 980 freeway in West Oakland.

Going back to the 1930s, West Oakland was redlined by the federal government and considered a bad investment for federal loans.

However, despite that, the community was still managing to do very well.

But then, as happened with many communities of color across the country, the community was selected for a new freeway alignment.

The freeway in place today is a barrier to local travel as well as that as well as opportunity between West Oakland and downtown Oakland.

And the Vision 980 study is looking at reconnecting the West Oakland community with downtown Oakland and is considering all options.

So the Vision 980 study is divided into two phases.

As mentioned previously, the phase one effort seeks to identify a new concept and vision for transportation and land use along the entire I 980 corridor.

Phase two, in partnership with the City of Oakland, Caltrans will perform a more detailed feasibility and technical analysis of the concept or vision initially identified in phase one.

Development of an evaluation framework to ensure the vision meets equity performance measures or benchmarks, and an equity assessment conducted in phase one will be carried forward into phase two and then future phases of this effort.

In terms of Vision 980 study goals, these were the goals that were developed by the study.

I apologize, we have to pause.

We've lost quorum.

If any of the council members who have left the room could come back so we can finish this presentation.

Or if their staff are present, if you can ask any of them to turn the road.

Okay, great.

So these are the study goals that were developed by the studies technical advisory committee, community-based organizations, as well as the public.

So the Vision 980 study project is bounded by West MacArthur Boulevard to the north, Broadway to the east, 3rd Street to the south, and Interstate 880 to the west.

So given the large geographic size and varied characteristics of communities within the project area, two sectors have been identified to create manageable planning areas.

So the first sector, west of San Pablo Avenue, is where Interstate 980 is primarily a depressed or below grade freeway.

The second sector, east of San Pablo Avenue, where Interstate 980 is primarily an elevated or above grade freeway.

In terms of the Vision 980 study phase one schedule, here's the timeline.

Existing conditions were developed, and the first round of public engagement was held or conducted between April 2024 and December 2024.

Through that process, three potential scenarios were developed, and additional public comment was gathered to either enhance, cover, or remove the freeway.

And that was conducted between December 2024 and July 2025.

And these three corridor scenarios were then evaluated based on previously mentioned grant goals as well as the equity performance measures, as well as public comments between July and this month of 2025.

And again, a quarter concept or vision will be presented in the phase one final report later this month and will be carried forward into the Vision 980 phase two.

In terms of uh we we continue to encourage everybody to visit our project website and sign up to receive ongoing information on the Vision 980 study.

You can feel free to contact us at this uh email address that's presented here.

So now I'd like to oh, sorry.

Now I'd like to transition to the 580 uh truck access study briefly.

Um how many minutes will you need?

Maybe like four minutes.

Okay.

So uh in 2029 uh 2019, the West Oakland Community Action Plan, known as the WOCAP, identified the need to look at the I 580 truck ban.

So the WOCAP identified numerous strategies, almost 90 in total, including one to examine the effects of removing the truck weight restriction on I-580.

Based on conclusions in the WOCAP as well as a few uh local news articles at the time, the I 580 truck access will be studying the question how will removal of the I-580 truck ban affect traffic safety, reliability, and throughput along the I 880 and I 580 corridors, and achieve equitable public health for nearby populations.

So the study's been divided into four components, uh first being traffic studies, then an air quality and noise impact assessment, a racial equity assessment, and a comprehensive community engagement strategy.

The study also represents a working partnership between Caltrans, the Bay Area Air District, and the City of Oakland and other cities and stakeholders.

And the study's air quality analysis will be completed by the Bay Area Air District, and the racial equity assessment is modeled after the city of Oakland's equity evaluation framework tool.

And both the air and noise assessment along with the racial equity assessment will help ensure that this study looks beyond mere traffic analysis and forecasting.

So the map you see here, this is the truck access study area.

The area the study includes uh the limits of the current I 580 truck ban, which begins at Foothill Boulevard in San Leandro and ends at Grand Avenue in Oakland.

The study limits also include parallel segments of the 880 corridor, other state highways, and major arterials connecting 580 with 880, and additional areas of Piedmont, San Leandro, Alameda, as well as unincorporated areas in Alameda County such as San Lorenzo, Ashland, and Cherryland are also included in the study area.

This is our study schedule.

We kicked off in late spring of 2025 and we plan to end the study in uh late 2026 or early 2027.

On November 12th at 6 30 p.m., we'll be hosting our first virtual open house, which will be on a which will be uh through a Zoom webinar.

For those who cannot attend, we plan to record the webinar and post it on our study website.

The main goal of the phase one engagement is to introduce the study to members of the public that live within the study area.

The second goal of phase one engagement is to communicate the study's purpose.

The meeting will go over over the various study components that I mentioned, the timeline, and then dive into existing conditions data that we've collected so far.

Afterwards, we'll have a facilitated question and answer period.

Uh to promote the open house, the project team has sent out meeting information on our listservs to in English, Spanish, and Chinese.

We've also begun posting media uh information on Instagram, Facebook, and X, as well as in the languages that I just previously mentioned.

And the project team will continue to send out reminders about the meeting through our communication channels.

We've also notified elected officials within the study area about the upcoming meeting.

And lastly, we've been doing pop-ins to advertise for the November 12th public meeting uh through various city councils committees and commissions within the study area.

Uh so this is just the last slide of my presentation that lists the constant contact address where you can find uh information about the study and sign up to uh receive information about the study.

We've also established a study website and a GIS story map, and you can also contact us by email.

But this concludes my presentation.

Thank you.

Thank you, COP.

We've lost quorum again.

Um is Council Member.

Oh no, we've moved on.

Councilmember Houston is here.

Um, colleagues, questions?

Comments, okay.

Well, uh Councilmember Brown.

Excellent.

Um, no questions at this time.

Um, just um grateful for the last slide that showcase um the community engagement um good to see that there's one date that is lined up um i am curious if um there is a continued um community engagement plan that extends outside of the virtual space yes so we are planning to conduct three rounds of public engagement so in the beginning uh midway and then towards the conclusion of the I 580 truck access study so we will be doing uh both virtual and uh we'd like to do open house events as well in person events we uh are very open we're also gonna be doing uh surveys as well during the process so yes very open to having uh sit down uh discussion with that the first one is just gonna be virtual to introduce the study and understand what people are looking for in the study and so they understand what we're looking to conduct in the study perfect thank you so much um also just wanted to say thank you so much for sending the supplemental information so that we could read through um some of those items I hope that also members of the public can also who who must be on the listserv um but just want to make sure that um members of the public can also read through those materials as well absolutely we should post them on our website okay uh is there public comment public comment as I call your name please approach the podium in any order missada and Mr Hazard so you just went through rules of procedure and you violated your own rule of procedure related to this item this item was on the uh consent and you you didn't have it was rule 24 so you've never had it presented and you voted to approve it and after you approve it then you hear the report confusion confusion so this is supposed to have related to 580 a racial equity assessment there's never been a racial uh assessment equity assessment that has produced anything of change related to racial equity for African Americans so why is this gonna be different in this case because it's never happened as it relates to uh 580 and the issue of evacuation that that is a main source of the Oakland Hills fire evacuation adding more traffic to that uh 580 is going to hinder the need to accommodate evacuation appropriately also related to the West Oakland situation where you say uh you want to deal with more sustained West Oakland West Oakland has been devastated by gentrification it's already been upheavaled by gentrification blacks have been pushed out McClyman's high school is in devastation uh with related to gentrification and we have a council who has never dealt with any form of gentrification it's in the report that gentrification is the issue the city of Oakland has never dealt with gentrification's impact on the city so just like racial equity gentrification they ignore it if this is the component of the I'm gonna speak to the procedural and council member Houston.

I'm angry.

I'm angry.

Because even on the consent calendar.

And you use rule twenty four so the matter is never discussed.

And you had the audacity to come in at the end to have Caltrad to present this.

The city attorney has set on the Mason Tillman report.

For five years, but you go to CleanOaken.com and Gene's blog.

I got it up there.

And it'll go to Councilmember Houston's comments about waiving contracts.

Goes to the issue of why blacks only get one percent of the contract.

And you sit up here with your pompous behind.

Yeah, I'm angry.

Look over your glasses.

And you claim to be from law school and you let all these violations go down.

How dare you?

Insulting to the public.

Every single last one of you.

And Mr.

Unger.

You don't even know what you're talking about.

And Wayne, you want to use all the makeup of the grand jury.

And you want to keep black folks who are entitled to housing in Chinatown.

How dare you try to?

Come on, come back.

Thank you, Mr.

Hazard.

Your time is up.

Okay.

We do not need a motion on this card.

You um will need a motion to receive the report if if that's the will of the body.

Sure, I will make that motion.

I'll second it.

With a motion and second.

Motion by Councilmember Ramachandra and seconded by Councilmember Brown to accept this report.

Council Member, can we uh just some additional questions?

Thank you.

We're about to lose quorum.

Can you ask them offline?

Since this is not an item we have to make an act of vote on.

Are we is Councilmember Houston about to step away?

I I'm just requesting if you're if it's not pressing, if you can make your questions offline.

So thank you.

Okay.

Councilmember Brown.

Hi.

Councilmember Houston.

Aye.

Councilmember Unger.

Councilmember Wong.

And Chair Ramachandran.

Aye.

Motion passes with a vote of five ayes.

Two excused and one absent.

Your final item.

You have council member announcements in open forum.

Colleagues, any announcements or adjournments?

If not, we will move to open form.

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

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

Curtis Fleming, Jennifer Finley, Stephanie Warren, Miss Asada Olabala, David Boatwright, Mr.

Hazard, Ron Mohammed, and Tony Cooper, Nick.

Maybe I can't see the last name that well.

And for our rules of procedure, we have one minute on the bone, right?

Thank you.

I'm gonna ask you to stop using that comp that thing called people of color.

Okay.

And you gotta stop using it.

It's precisely the same thing as colored people, which is an insult.

So if you're not willing to say colored people, you shouldn't be willing to say people of color.

And besides to me, the whole idea of color seems a bit specious, really.

I mean, what should we call white people?

People of no color.

Isn't pink a color?

And in fact, white people are not really white at all.

They're different shades of pink and olive and beige.

In other words, they're colored.

And black people are rarely black.

I see mostly various shades of brown and tan, and in fact, some light-skinned black people are a little darker than the darkest white people.

I'm sorry, lighter than the darkest white people.

Look how dark the people in India are.

They're dark brown, but they're considered white.

May I see the color chart, please?

People of color is an awkward phrase that obscures meaning rather than enhancing it.

What should we call fat people?

People of size.

All right, stop using that term.

Thank you, Ms.

Olabala.

Your time is up.

My name is Reverend Dr.

Curtis Flemingham, Bay City's Minister Executive, also a former commissioner and chair of the Safety Services Oversight Commission for the City of Oakland here.

Also uh SSC chair for Prescott Elementary School and a local housing provider.

I would like to speak in reference to the initiatives that uh audits have indicated uh their ineffectiveness.

Um I want to also extend our gratitude to the city for its empathy toward uh the needs of the neighbors, uh, but there's a couple of things that uh I would like to also say if you're looking at design thinking, uh there's a couple of steps that are being missed when you first of all have empathy for those in food deserts, but you forgot a couple of things, and one of them is I appreciate your empathy.

I appreciate the fact that you defined the problem, but you didn't prototype it.

Okay, and you didn't test it, you just went right to implementation.

You need to make those steps available.

You need to do a motion for reconsideration on the 5.28, the Saba contract.

The city attorney lied to you.

You haven't seen any uh evidence of how much money Sabah has spent.

Yes, there was an initial agreement, but Sabah ain't spent no $500,000.

Have the city attorney to show you.

The city auditors already indicated that Saba has fraudulently misuse the money, even from the federal government.

They have not spent any million dollars.

You need to do your due diligence and ask the city attorney to show you uh evidence where Saba has gone into their pockets for $500,000.

There's no evidence of that.

Go to CleanOaken.com, Jean's blog, and you can see uh Melton Dillman report on disparity step.

Thank you.

Um I have a feeling you're gonna say something.

I just want to clarify that council does have the power to reconsider motions, and we are in open form and we can't do it at this time, but we can in a future council meeting.

Do the chair, the parliamentarian, because can I can I speak to the chair real quick?

Um, the city auditor works very, very hard, and this was passed in July 2024.

And you know, like I always contend, I always say this to the public.

I say this to my my co my counsel that that uh I'm new, 200 and what, 92 days in, and I'm learning, and and this right here is is like ignoring what the the hard work that the city auditor put in place, and I'd I would like to reconsider, but I couldn't do it could I do it after this?

Can we consider um the the consent calendar to pull that item?

So your council rules provide that um uh a member of the body that voted on the prevailing side of the motion can make a motion to reconsider that can happen at this meeting or the very next meeting.

So it can happen.

I'm sorry, I didn't mean to cut you off.

Uh it can happen now or it can happen later.

It can happen at the next meeting.

You can.

So the council rules say a council member vote on the prevailing side of a motion or action taken at the immediately preceding meeting.

Okay.

So it could be the night your very next council meeting, or you could do it uh no.

I want to know that because I don't want to hold up you know, council members have other things, and I want to be able to read this thoroughly and then digest with um the city auditor to make sure the things that I'm saying is is correct and accurate.

So I'm not no so it's clear because I like to be clear.

My next meeting, I can reconsider this.

It has to be um the motion to reconsider must be made by someone who voted on the prevailing side of the original motion.

So someone who voted aye on the original motion in close session.

No, in um today's meeting at the um the consent calendar 5.28 on the consent calendar.

Okay, okay.

All right, got it, got it.

And so I believe you registered a no vote, but everyone else here we can talk offline, but there are options to get it uh reconsidered at the end.

Okay, and that's what I like to do on the record.

Okay, um, is there more public comment?

Apologies.

I voted aye, but I will be honest in that closed session.

I felt rushed in that vote.

When would the reconsideration need to be moved?

It needs to um happen at the very at your very next council meeting.

Or today, okay, not today, but we have it can happen today or at the next council meeting.

Okay, I'll do that.

Consider that for the next council meeting.

Thank you.

Mr.

Boat Wright, David Boatright, District 4.

In addition to AIDS, cannabis, homelessness, I recommend adding city finances, road maintenance, public education, and the need for audits of city operations as local emergencies.

These additional issues affect a lot more city constituents than AIDS, cannabis, homeless combined.

At this time, all names have been called, I don't see any hand raised in the Zoom queue.

Thank you, everyone.

The meetings adjourned.