And our three doors, right?

Or sand for Cisco Airport and three visits.

Daily city.

It's probably all.

Well, I think that's what I think.

No, it's the last time.

I like the light training.

That's not the other one.

And then it goes to the last year.

I don't know what I got on it.

All right, guys, take care.

Well, this take us to the other part.

Yes, right up here.

I think.

Actually, no.

Maybe it works for the window.

Oh, I thought it was over.

No, hold on.

That's what that's just like a break through.

Oh, it's just the elephant.

You guys know me.

Next stop is international terminal.

Exit here for all international flights.

I thought I didn't know if it wasn't that.

I thought it was hitting that cell phone.

I've got a picture.

Please make sure you have all your personal belongings.

And once you're saying that, is this ours?

We don't say terminal one.

Where is terminal B?

I'm gonna go all the way around.

I want to that go.

No, it's Internet of the Right.

Okay, that's good.

No, no, no, no.

Yeah, we didn't have a next stop.

Please hold on.

You go on one on the other end, but there is one on the other end.

Next stop is Terminal Two.

Approaching terminal two.

Please make sure you have all your personal belongings and watch your step as you exit the train.

In Canada, Alaska, free and jumped up.

Hello, everyone, and welcome to this edition of Oak Talks, our very own opportunity to create a platform for Oakland small business community to talk about their hopes, their dreams, their challenges and aspirations for running businesses here in the city of Oakland.

I'm your host today.

I'm Christy Johnson Limone.

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

So today we're going to be hearing from three locally owned independent businesses in Oakland.

Why does that matter?

Well, because businesses are the heart and soul of our city.

Here in Oakland, we are a small business town in the town.

Almost a hundred percent, I would say about ninety-three percent of businesses here in Oakland are run by families, by independent business owners, and so they are a core part of why we call Oakland Oakland.

And so I'm glad you're here with us today.

What they've done is they have embedded what are calling cultural strategists into city government.

And so today's Oak Talks series was brought to you by our cultural strategist, um, who is uh the owner of the Bay Area Organization of Black Owned Businesses, Bayo Bob.

And with that, I want to welcome you Vet Holtz over here to give you a little bit more information about our cultural strategists and what you're gonna hear today.

Please welcome you, Bet Holtz.

Thank you, Christy.

It is amazing to see all these beautiful faces in the audience today.

I'm so happy y'all are here.

And I also just really honor the opportunity to work with the EWD and your team, Chrissy.

It's been amazing.

And if it hadn't been, we wouldn't be able to have birthed this amazing program.

Oak Talks is really the response to the question how do we get qualitative information about the life and experience of small business in Oakland?

And in my opinion, the best way to do that was to ask them directly.

And to give them the opportunity to really speak and be heard and not just listened to, but heard.

And that's what Oak Talks is.

And today, as Christie said, we have three speakers.

Our first is a business owner who's rooted in Deep East Oakland, a homeowner, a business owner, and a community engaged person who is doing work with youth.

And also with retail that is bringing a message to Oakland.

Shanti Jackson is the founder owner of Oakland Don't Play.

And if you would please join me in uh welcoming her to the stage.

Good morning.

Thanks.

Thank you guys for coming today.

As you've had said, I'm Shanti Jackson.

Uh Oakland don't play is actually in my backyard.

We are a short walk from the Coliseum.

So I started Oakland Don't Play in 2020.

Oakland don't play was a rise to a lot of ginger gentrification and discrimination that we have started to see in Oakland.

Uh 2020, we had the barbecue Becky incident and a lot of other things like that with the Proud Boys walking around Oakland.

And we said Oakland don't play that.

Stuff like that doesn't happen here.

Nationally, we're used to seeing things like that, but not here.

So Oakland Don't Play was my way of putting out a message on clothing to let people know this is this is not how we rock.

We put out some pretty controversial, in your face designs, denouncing white supremacy and also highlighting our blackness.

But the city said they wanted more.

And our storefront also doubles as an event space.

So we host parties and do a lot of different things for our community.

Some of the events that we do are backpack giveaways, where we're able to provide over a hundred backpacks and free haircuts for children.

We also do Halloween parties, Easter egg hunts, and things like that.

As you can see, we have the firefighters and we have other community groups come in so that the people in our community can build bridges with the people that are serving us, right?

We believe that Oakland Don't Play.

If we invest in the youth and our community that eventually those kids are gonna grow up, and those kids are gonna be a part of the change, and then if our community knows each other, then if something's happening outside, I can call my neighbor.

I know the guy across the street, I know our store man, right?

So our events help cultivate that community.

Despite all the great things that we do at Oakland Don't Play, there will be people who never get to experience it.

There will be people who never see Oakland the way that I see Oakland.

Why?

Because we're in Deep East Oakland, and this is what it looks like around the corner.

All these pictures I took on my walk.

I walk my dogs every morning.

We walk up 85th, past the 81st Library, make it right on San Langel Boulevard, make it right at the Coliseum, and we head home.

It's scary for somebody who's not from Oakland.

But I'm from here, and I know what Oakland is, and I know what Oakland can be.

But when people are coming for these different events at the Coliseum, they don't they don't know our background.

They've only heard the things on social media or the news, the negative things about Oakland, and when they see this trash, it's a confirmation.

Obviously, would you want to walk with your kids down this street after a ball game?

Would you?

No.

Right?

So the people who are all this foot traffic that's coming to the Coliseum, coming through the bar station, we'll never see it.

Right?

Yeah, obviously, this is a deterrent for sales and things like that.

But it's also unfair to the people who live in these communities.

I shouldn't have to pack my dogs up and go to Alameda.

Or go to San Leandro Marina for a clean, peaceful walk.

Most people go for a jog in their neighborhoods.

I do.

But most won't.

In addition to the trash, we have the abandoned cars.

Those abandoned cars attract crime.

People with mental health and substance abuse issues are coming scavenging for parts.

Do you think they're stopping at that vehicle?

Once they're in our neighborhoods, they're not.

So for the people who are in the community, we are affected by this.

But if I was a tourist, I wouldn't park my rental car on this street either.

So as I spoke about these are some of the things that are impacting us, right?

And when you see things like that, it gives us an additional, a loss of confidence in our city.

We're paying taxes, we're paying waste management, but yet this is happening.

Dumping is an issue, it's preventing tourism, it's preventing our economy from growing, and we have a great opportunity with the Coliseum Corridor.

But what can we do about it?

I do want to say, I'm sure there are people in this room who are a part of initiatives and have tried things, and I want to say thank you.

And today I just want to propose a couple ideas, right?

There are amazing things that the city already offers, like free dumping once a month, you go to the dump, it's free.

I want you guys to think outside the box to consider even an initiative like that, that's great.

But that's assuming that people have vehicles to get to the dump.

What about the people who can't get there?

And I'm not talking about the unhoused population.

There are people without vehicles, um, in addition to that, there could be a situation where a family of five is in a one-bedroom apartment, and there's very small can.

If they have any celebration or engagement, their trash can is overflow when your trash is overflown, waste management will not pick up the trash.

They just skip on past it.

So I just want you guys to think outside the box when we're thinking about the people who are dumping and the initiatives that can be put in place, and I would like to say, um, on these walks with my dogs, there is a lot of this trash that is construction related.

Unhoused people aren't painting houses.

They're not coming with these couches.

So I don't know if, you know.

I know when we plan parties and we request permits, we have to provide a plan to say, hey, this is what we're gonna do with our recycles, this is what we're gonna do with our trash.

Is there something like that in place for developers?

I'm not sure.

My apologies for not doing my research if it is, but these are the things we have to consider.

311 is another amazing initiative that the city has.

Next day it's gone.

I mean it's kudos to anybody who's a part of that initiative.

It works great.

But can we be proactive?

We have the data from the high dumping areas.

Can we add dumpsters to those areas?

Can we maybe take one of the drivers from the route and just have them just dump those?

Can't maybe oversimplifying it, but I don't really think we have much to lose.

Some may say it's gonna welcome more trash.

It can get any worse than that.

So today, I want to encourage you all to think outside the box.

If there is a way for us to be proactive in some of these situations, let's try it.

There are people who live in these communities.

There are people who walk their dogs.

I've met a lot of my neighbors on morning walks.

I see a lot of people walking their children.

Walking past trash or walking in the street.

And we know walking in a crosswalk in Oakland is not safe.

So thank you guys.

I appreciate it.

If there are any questions, I'll be happy to take questions.

The real reason why I even decided to stand up, because I just wanted to say shout out to you.

You went through whatever you didn't been through in town, like everything.

And you still dreaming.

You still think in transformation.

What what what makes you tick?

What makes you continue to believe?

Man, uh that's a good question.

Um I love Oakland.

I love Oakland a lot.

Oh goodness, don't start.

Um, but I really love my city, and I know what it I'm 34 years old, and I knew what it was.

And I have an older sister who's in the audience, and she talks about like the lake when the lake used to have it the big concerts, and I remember going to Anne One, you know, when Anne One used to come to the Coliseum and the the silver bowl being at the Coliseum, and it was safe.

Like it was always Oakland, but it was safe enough for us to be able to ride our bikes or walk to parties.

We used to walk from seminary to like 85th.

I think about that now, and it's like I have a son that's six years old, and I don't I want him to be able to experience the Oakland that I experience.

I have family that's migrating out of the state because, you know, they want to get banged for their buck and they don't want to have to fight with the crime.

And I'm invested.

I don't want to move out and later on, years later, they're talking about Metropolitan Oakland, you know, and and we you know, and and I'm on the outside now.

I'm it's worth it, and I'm willing to thug it out and taking opportunities like this to speak, you know, and come up with ideas.

I mean, literally, we talk about this stuff all the time.

So, which you hear everything you say, and I hear about your business, homework.

We got a lot of great stuff going on.

Congrats to you.

Have you ever thought about politics in Oakland?

Uh, yes.

I mean, I've I thought about the idea.

I met some amazing people in politics.

Uh, Truva Reed was a council person, but my my council person who showed up and showed up to our backpack giveaways and showed me the politicians are real people.

Um I feel like Oakland is a real place, and it needs real people to be making decisions for us.

So at some point, maybe.

And I also want folks to know how much work the the speakers really have put in to being present today.

I mean, we put out a call.

Who would like to speak to an audience of city staffers, department directors, and electeds on issues related to your business.

And we got a great response.

And we really help to um identify the the message and the point that's that's attempting to be made.

And in this case, not just attempting, but actually being made.

So I share is for real.

Thank you so much.

Okay.

Okay, folks.

Um, I'm just waiting for K-top to share my screen on this screen, so you have that available as well.

Uh, we have fancy transcription also available.

Uh, there's that.

Let me try to go into presentation mode.

So this is a little bit bigger.

Screen mode.

Uh, okay.

That is not that very not too large.

Okay.

Um, so we are at quorum, so I just want to get us started.

Welcome to our new commissioners.

This is our first meeting.

Um, as our two point oh uh commission.

Um, and the last meeting we had was June of twenty twenty five.

So it's been quite a while.

Um, happy to have you all here.

What I would note is that we do have one of our commissioners uh who is using AB two four four nine, just cause, um, to participate, and so that's Marcy Whitebook.

Marcy, see if you can wave to us really quickly.

Awesome.

Thank you so much.

Oh, that is just going fast.

Okay.

I'm gonna do an overview of the agenda really quickly.

Um, to get us going.

Our uh presenters will be going first.

Normally I would have had the Children's Initiative Oversight, and then our presenters, but in the interest of time and the number of staff that we have here today.

I just want to be mindful and courteous of that.

So we do have our welcome, which we are just going through a roll call.

So I'm gonna do that so everyone online.

We have a few uh about 10 attend no 10 attendees at this moment in time.

So let them know who's in the room.

We'll have a review the values.

We'll we'll do more in the children's initiative overview, but they'll normally be done in the beginning.

Open forum presentations from our implementation partners first five and Oakland Promise.

Uh, and then we'll do an overview of the children's initiative as a whole to get you sort of grounded, get any initial questions that you have about the work, and then get us into the new year, because there'll be lots of information that we'll be sharing at this particular point in time.

Does anybody have any questions at this point?

Okay.

What I'm going to do is just call the role at this particular.

I may not do that.

I'm going to stop sharing for just a second.

Um, and so I'm gonna call the role.

Uh, first up is Commissioner Edgar Rodriguez Ramirez.

President, and my apologies.

I will have to step away uh for a little bit, but I will be back.

Thank you, Edgar.

Uh Commissioner Emma Battenbowen.

Present.

Thank you.

Commissioner Kim Johnson.

Present.

Thank you, Commissioner Lisa Trong.

Present.

Thank you.

Commissioner Marcy Whitebook.

If you can unmute Marcy, that would be great.

No, not yet.

Okay.

We see her online, so we will take that as a present.

Yeah.

Thank you.

Commissioner Maria Suho.

Thank you.

Commissioner Michelle New Ringinson.

Thank you.

Commissioner Natalia Rios.

Thank you.

Commissioner Peter Habaland Edwa.

Present.

Thank you.

Commissioner Priya Jagannathan.

Present.

Thank you, Commissioner Ricky Jackson.

Not here.

Commissioner Sam Davis.

Present.

Thank you.

And Commissioner Sesson Perrot, please.

Uh, thank you so much.

Okay, awesome.

Get back to sharing this, even though you saw that already.

Okay, um, so as I mentioned, uh, we're gonna do a presentation of each one of our implementation partners.

So, as you might have read through the charter, we are required to have um outside entities who actually manage the funds, one for early education uh and the other one for college access supports.

Um they've been doing a tremendous job uh in this initial um development of the initiative, um, and so let them um present a little bit about who they are as an organization and a little bit of the highlights of the work that has been happening with the initiative.

Um I ask that you write down your questions uh at this particular point in time because I'm gonna try to manage our time as best as possible, and we'll wait to the finish and allow about 15 minutes for each one of our implementation partners to field some questions for you as a whole.

Okay, any questions?

All right, without further ado, our early education fund implementation partner is First Five Alameda County.

Um, and I will have you bring up your team and uh get us going.

Thank you.

Hi, everyone, nice to see you.

I'm Kristen Spanos.

I'm the CEO for First Five Alameda County.

Um, I want to start by appreciating your participation and leadership on the OCI Commission.

It's a fantastic investment for our kids and young people and families in Oakland, and I look forward to partnering with each of you, and I know staff does in making sure that we make the mess the best and most use of the funding.

So we're going to provide an overview.

So on the next slide, I don't know if I'm controlling it.

Just to give you a brief highlight.

So we're going to cover a bit about who we are, a little bit more about what we do on a high level as it relates to there are two ballot initiatives, both what's measure AA or the Oakland Children's Initiative and Measure C, and then close with an overview related to specifically the OCI early education fund.

I'm going to be accompanied by Chief Program Officer Ayano Ogawa, and then our Oakland Children's Initiative Officer, Kaviagai.

Next slide.

So on the next one, just to highlight, I've we've been beginning our presentations, noting kind of since the origin of Prop 10, and it feels particularly poignant at this moment given the tragic news that happened over the weekend with the loss of Rob Reiner and his wife Michelle.

And really, I lift this up both in terms of recognizing what the intent of first fives were from the beginning, but within the context of it was his vision and his legacy as it relates to the intention around an early childhood.

We have a really fragmented, woefully underfunded system in this country, and that's true for California, and that's true for Alameda County.

And there was this vision of creating a more coordinated network and system as it relates to this really important time, both in a child's development and a family's development, and also the great work that's done across systems.

And so this is actually the original language in the legislation as it relates to first fives.

Next slide.

So within Alameda County, we've had the good fortune, one of having a really high performing first five.

I've been with the organization for 10 years, and I inherited really the great work that's been done since 1998.

I often talk about our work within the context of a place people policy framework, and that when you think about an early childhood system, the elements of investments are both within the context of place, because we know that community well-being is directly tied to child well-being.

Within the context of parent partnership, so we do things like fatherhood initiative and lactation support, the idea of health and well-being.

So there's been expansion as it relates to care coordination and then early learning, where we're going to spend a lot of the conversation today talking about the expansion of early care and education.

And all of this is done within the context of both racial and economic equity, with the centerfold being are the investments that we're doing are supporting readiness for kindergarten.

Next slide.

So within the context, oftentimes, as we're talking about building out and evolving the early childhood system, there's been lots of conversation around the ECE landscape, including kind of what are the conditions currently for children and families within Alameda County.

One of the hallmark kind of stats is since 2008, we've been ready, we've been measuring school readiness, of which it hovered around 40% or 60% of the kids, if you go in the uh, you know, kind of the adverse side of things, are not ready for kindergarten.

Us, much like the rest of the country, we saw a dip with COVID where it dropped to about 33%.

And the reason why this is important is when you think about think through the longitudinal impacts as we think about writing for school is within the context of when you look at the children and third grade and at sixth grade, those who are not entering ready, four out of the five, are not at grade level for third grade and for sixth grade for reading and numeracy.

And that's held true with our local data.

We looked, because this has been happening, the assessments have been going on since 2008.

When we looked at the local data for Oakland children and for Hayward children, we saw the same pattern, four out of the five were not ready.

And so what we know when we look at the data related to third grade and to sixth grade, they're predictors of lifelong educational achievement and earnings and well-being.

So we all know this is to kind of wrap it up that these investments are incredibly crucial.

Um, that we yes, investments throughout the context of you know, the life course is important, but early investments are critical.

And the idea of catch-up just simply doesn't happen without really intentional, well-resourced systems and strategies of which we struggle to support throughout the whole course of our public system.

So with that, I'm gonna turn it over to I Ano, who's gonna talk a little bit specifically about our programming, and then we'll focus on OCI.

Thanks, Kristen.

Hi Commissioner Zayano Gawa Chief of Programs.

It's great to see you all.

So if we could go to the next slide, or I can also transition.

As Kristen shared, our programming and systems building really spans across a few areas.

It's health and well-being, family neighborhoods, and early learning and care.

And so the next few slides, I'm gonna go through each of these pillars.

So starting with health and well-being, um, since pediatric clinics are families' earliest and most consistent touch point, they are powerful entry into reaching and supporting families with young children.

So we have this pediatric care coordination strategy that connects families to pediatric preventive care, medically necessary services, community supports, and we do this through two nationally recognized models, help me grow and project Dulce, and they really allow families in the county to develop developmentals to receive developmental screenings, navigation, and concrete supports.

All this work is embedded in the county's health care county health care safety net through strong partnerships with the local managed care plan, Alameda Alliance for Health.

In fact, this year we did transition to become a Medi-Cal contractor for our help me grow work, and so that really allows us to ensure financial stability and sustainability of our services.

Some of the areas of connection with the OCI partners around this pillars include First Five actually sits on the head starts quarterly advisory committees for health and well-being in terms of with connections around OUSD.

We support the ASQ, the ages and stages questionnaire online account that OUSD families use.

We also engage with their navigators to encourage referrals, and then we do have a long-standing relationship and partnership with Oakland Promise.

We were in the actually in the strategic plan process and the inception of Brilliant Baby, which I'm sure you'll hear more about.

And so that was you know several years ago, and that partnership has evolved.

We've worked closely on Brilliant Baby and Dulce, as well as ensuring that brilliant baby referrals go to help me grow too.

So there are some connections around there.

If we go to the next slide, family.

We know children thrive when parents are supported, they're stable, they have opportunities to lead, and so we have this parent partnership strategy, and as Kristen mentioned, this includes lactation supports, doula supports.

We have a long-standing fatherhood initiative.

In this initiative, we've partnered directly actually with Head Start and OUSD over the years to conduct trainings for staff to support family engagement or fatherhood engagement activities.

Um, and also Kevin Bramond, who is the co-founder of Fatherhood.

Um, at first five, he does serve on the Head Start Advisory Board.

Um, I also wanted to mention we also meet families' concrete needs.

For example, we have invested in county partners on diapers, including HAMO and Supply Bank, and as part of this effort, again, First Five has connected uh Brilliant Baby and Oakland Promise to become a distributor just recently, for 25 cases per month of four diapers and wipes, and so we're very excited for that partnership as well.

Moving on to neighborhoods, um, we know children's outcomes are really shaped by where they grow up, where they live, where they get access to services and trusted relationships, community leadership.

So over the past seven years, we have invested in a place-based initiative called Neighborhoods Ready for School, and across four sites you see on the slide there, three of which are in Oakland.

Um, and this work really enhances families' connections through navigation, play groups, parent leadership, parent-child supports.

And did want to know that some of these sites also encourage and have supported families in TK and kindergarten enrollment at OUSD schools.

And then finally, early learning and care.

We know that this is a cornerstone of the early childhood system.

Our work has included quality counts, which provides quality improvement supports for early care and education providers.

This really leverages both state and local funding.

We also have an ECE apprenticeship pilot program.

This has been through braided funding with Philanthropy, Social Services, Prop 10, and then of course the administration and oversight of Oakland Children's Initiative, which we're here for for the education early education account, and then for Measure C, which you'll hear a little bit more from Kristen.

So really as an implementer for OCI, first five, we have been using multiple fiscal levers to maximize our impact, whether it's leveraging state or local or public or private funds.

So really excited to be in this position to deliver impact for the community.

So I will pass it back to Kristen.

So on the next slide, and then I will just note in terms of as Ayana was giving the overview, and I felt well while I indicated that we have a place people policy framework.

Oftentimes I find it it's challenging, and I welcome the feedback to describe the work that we do really succinctly because sometimes we can be a funder, sometimes we're doing direct program administration, other times we're a convener, and many times we're a policy advocate.

So there's many different roles and hats that first five can play.

And then in this case, we're the contractor of the county, then working with the two public institutions to get the funding out the door.

So just to name it, in terms of an Alameda County in Oakland is positioned very uniquely right now in the nation.

That there are two ballot initiatives.

The Oakland Children's Initiative was passed in 2018, and as you know, immediately faced litigation but came out successful.

We also have Measure C, which is which was an initiative that was voted on in 2020, it also faced litigation and came out successful.

But I often talk in the prior slide, just to set the expectations because it sounds like a lot of money.

So there's 150 million annually as it relates to measure C, and roughly about 30 million for Oakland specifically.

But when you dimension the needs in early childhood, because it's been woefully underfunded and has a level of fragmentation and scarcity.

If you go to the prior slide, Jen.

We took time ahead of time because we wanted to really set the expectations for the community and for leadership and dimensioned what we thought were the costs if you looked at kind of the annual needs in a county within the context of this new money coming in.

So if you think about access in terms of subsidies for care, if you think about wages and pulling wages up in the early care and education system, if you think about the workforce needs, the average age for the early educator is 55.

So we have both a recruitment and a retention issue, and then you think look at the facilities needs, it's roughly about a billion dollars annually is what it would take to fully fund early care and education in Alameda County.

And we have roughly 150 million countywide and third and additional 30 million specifically to Oakland.

So it's substantial and it can have incredible impacts, but it is not going to meet all the needs, but it's a step forward as we think about kind of how we fully fund it.

So on the next slide is just to highlight oftentimes people are wondering like what's the difference between AA and C.

AA is a local city measure, C is a county measure, AA is a parcel tax, and that's one for the city of Oakland.

It's 30 years, measure C is 20 years, and a half it's a half percent sales tax.

First five is the named administrator in measure C, and AA, we are a contractor with the city.

So on the next slide.

So just to highlight in terms of some of the, you know, the role the first five plays as it relates to OCI, you know, as I indicated in terms of serving largely as a fiscal intermediary, so supporting the reporting and budgeting, um, certainly working to align with the ordinance and align with Oakland promise, and then also to support standards within the initiative and the program development itself, and then really looking around system building.

So things like data sharing agreements, the contracting, really kind of thinking beyond programmatic, but how do we institutionalize and create the longstanding infrastructure for these funds, both in the current year but also in the many years to come.

So with that, I'm gonna turn it over to Javier, who's gonna speak specifically as it relates to investments that have been made and also with a look ahead as we think about the vision and next steps.

Thank you, Kristen, and good evening, Commissioners.

Next slide, please.

Thank you.

As part of our role in systems convening, we we have engaged national consultants and school readiness consulting, and through this process, have brought together OCI leadership from the City of Oakland, OUSD as well as First Five over a series of four facilitated meetings to strengthen alignment as well as implementation.

At Mayor Lee's request, first five developed a vision and strategic roadmap with input from all partners, and in uh, as part of this process, we have buy-in and commitment from mayor from the mayor and city leadership on the vision to address our challenges as well as streamline city processes to be more supportive of OCI.

The mayor has also requested to review recommendations on major capital investments in coordination with the OUSD superintendent.

First five will be using the results of this process to guide our work moving forward, such as convening uh quarterly meetings of the system's leaders as well as supporting uptakes for the recommendations that SRC shared.

Next slide, please.

So, as the room is well aware, while there has been significant investment in early childhood education, there is a deep unmet need that still exists.

We estimate that there are over 2700 eligible three and four-year-olds that still do not have access to the high-quality affordable care that they need.

Families are navigating a landscape where the cost of child care is now exceeding the cost of housing.

Educators are struggling to earn, are aging and struggling to earn a living wage.

Um, and we know that the that under is underinvestment in the early education system has led to a siloed and fragmented system.

Next slide, please.

OCI systems leaders have articulated a vision grounded in the legislation to meet this very moment.

The vision is one where all three and four-year-olds in Oakland have access to affordable high-quality preschool and prior, which starts with prioritizing those in families with low incomes.

Next slide, please.

To achieve this vision, we are advancing four interconnected goals.

The first is around expanding access to meet the enrollment gap.

The second is improving the quality of early learning environments, the third is elevating the early childhood workforce, and the fourth is strengthening the system overall.

Next slide, please.

In our role, first five is looking closely at fiscal as well as programmatic data to conduct our analysis and make recommendations for OCI.

We're looking at things like budget to actuals, enrollment data, cost per child that we look forward to sharing with you at future meetings.

Here we can see that in the first three years of implementation, not only have budgets for the early education fund increased, but also budget utilization, which signals growing system capacity as well as the ability to spend.

We're also seeing in tandem an uptick in enrollments with the potential to reach universal preschool access for three and four year olds if investments and enrollments continue at this pace.

Next slide, please.

In terms of some of the investment highlights across these goals, just wanted to share a few and preview that these will be coming up in future presentations as well.

For access, we have invested in ECE facilities expansion citywide through new and proposed ECE centers that when total together add capacity for over 400 children in the city.

In terms of quality, we are seeing things like OUSD upgrading their ECE facilities for all sites with things like new roofs, play yards, air filters, school fences, etc.

We're also seeing investments in inclusion and family support that's strengthened comprehensive services as well as special education needs in classrooms.

Next slide, please.

So in terms of where children are enrolled, we are looking at how our enrollments are spread by geography, how this correlates to need as as measured by poverty levels, and are also refining methods so that we can see where the investments are being mapped by geography.

Next slide, please.

In addition to not only looking at the number of enrollments, and how these are split up by system, we're also have a good understanding of who these children's uh who these children are.

So on the next slide, you can see we have cuts for the data across age, race, priority population, gender that we look forward to sharing with you in our February presentation.

Next slide.

So moving on to our next two goals.

In terms of workforce, we have made significant investments towards new staffing, targeted professional development, enhanced curriculum, and materials.

To elevate some of our systems highlights that my colleagues have spoken about, we are building and we have built and continue to build robust infrastructure, which includes things like multi-year contracts, data sharing agreements, enhanced reporting processes that allow us to do the analysis we need to inform OCI recommendations.

We are also leveraging existing ECE funding through investments that First Five is making across quality fatherhood neighborhoods, as well as what our partners are doing, so that every additional dollar that OCI brings has maximized impact.

And as my colleagues mentioned, we have an ongoing collaboration with OP and looking at closely how we are integrating our programs further.

Last slide, thank you.

So as we mentioned before, the recommendations from the school readiness facility, school readiness consulting facilitated process are informing several of our next steps in OCI.

I won't go through each of these, but a few highlights over here are one that the system's leaders are committed to now meeting quarterly to strengthen alignment, implementation, and problem solved together.

The second is the vision and the implementation roadmap that I just shared, will be used for guiding our next steps, including things like funding decisions by developing a rubric, implementation priorities, as well as systems level coordination.

As a collective, we are committed to ensuring that OCI remains responsive and grounded in the shared vision and goals that we have articulated.

With that, our presentation on behalf of first five comes to a close, but we will open it up for questions.

Thank you.

It's a lot of information, which is why we ask that you review prior to coming here because it'll the time will go fast.

Deep appreciation again to first five and the team for putting this together and sharing this information.

I want to open it up for a few minutes to ask some questions.

We can only have three mics on at a time.

I will remind you to make sure that you press the button in front of you that it is green, and then to turn it off once you are done.

That would be great.

Commissioner Kim, I feel like you are I feel like it's like family feud.

Ready to.

Do you have a question?

I do.

Commissioner Johnson, I have a question about um the systems leader table, the systems leader table.

And so is that made up of City of Oakland, OUSD, and First Five only, or are there other participants in that on that table?

I also participate in those meetings, and in the facilitated discussion with SRC, we also had representation from the city administrators' office and the mayor's office for that session.

And that is where the planning is happening in terms of what services will be.

No, we we had a and I'll I'll welcome first five to also provide some insights, but the discussion was I mean, these are huge system partners that we're talking about, and so there has been just like um lots to consider and build in that framework, and so that was an opportunity to do some alignment and get some agreements across the board to better more efficiently and effectively move this work forward.

Um we still need to debrief the recommendations from SRC, so there's still more work at that particular table.

I I uh Kim the Jen said it well, Commissioner Johnson.

Uh the so the ordinance prioritizes the two public systems and their how and the early implementation partner is to negotiate capacity with those two system partners.

And one of the things in terms of as you're going through kind of formal presentation, I can't emphasize enough how fluid, which I think you all know, the local policy landscape has been within the context of the rollout of both with OUSD and with the city of Oakland.

We've had newsworthy um changes that have been underway, and so you have massive, not just a couple hundred thousand, not just a couple million, but tens of millions of dollars of new funding coming forward and an incredibly woefully underfunded um landscape.

And so I think that there's been remarkable investments that have been made, including the increased enrollment as it relates to three and four year olds, that was that caveat noted, as well as investments in training and teachers and even capital infrastructure.

But as and I think of both um OCI and Measure C as a multi-year decade kind of system build, there's a need for those big complex systems to be in conversation with each other.

So um, and and we've gotten to the point where there needed to be a facilitated conversation with a new mayor around, you know, how how the city is envisioning kind of the use of these new new resources, and then with a new superintendent, um, and new um kind of city administration um body, as well as changes that are happening within HESAR because of what's happening on the federal level.

So it was intended to have structural convert, you know, real structured facilitated conversations around the public system building of this, but all of this is intended to be informed by community, this you know, commission and and other bodies, hence the four listening sessions that happened at the end of last year, as well as continuing to think of how to leverage the input that both Oakland Head Star and OUSD have in their own systems and how they're engaging parents and providers to inform the investments going forward.

Go for it.

Um I have three questions.

I want to first, you know, thank the first five staff.

This is a really complex body of work that you summarize really succinctly, and it gives indication of the depth and breadth of what you do, so thank you for that.

Um my first question is when you're talking about the you know the one billion dollar need and then the measure C and OCI amounts.

Is there a sense of how much of the hundred and fifty million for measure C is coming to Oakland, or is that something that will come later?

So that was my maybe I'll go through all of my questions and then you can determine how to answer them.

That's my first question.

My second one is looking at the the numbers of children served.

See that there is a big jump in the Oakland Head Start numbers, so good to see that, but wanted to know kind of the explanation for that.

It's a big jump from 16 to 185.

Um, and so just wanted to uplift that that I know was concerning in the past, and it's seems to be an improvement.

So wanted to uplift that and see if you had anything to share about those numbers.

And then I think this is similar to the question that Kim asked, but the um co-creation of a strategic vision and roadmap.

Is there opportunity for ongoing community input into that process?

I'll start in reverse and then I'll have um colleagues join.

So as I indicated, there's the intention is that there's continued build out and evolution as it relates to input.

Um I think that that's the expectation both for first five.

I hope that measure C is an example of how um that can be done, and that we've demonstrated as an entity, um, our interest and capacity in doing so, and I think that that's a priority of um the accountability officer as well.

Um, with regard to the numbers, do you were asking specifically related to that, sir?

Did I hear that correctly?

Um I will answer a little bit and then I'm actually gonna ask Laura Schrader, who's the head of data and evaluation to speak.

So the first two years, those were numbers reported tied to the three locations that were funded 100% with OCI funding.

So if you recall when we came into rolling out OCI, there had been three sites that have been slated for closure.

Council voted to keep three sites open.

That was Arroyo, Franklin, and Tasafaranga.

So the numbers that you're seeing in the first two years were the numbers of Head Start reported specifically just for those sites because those sites were funded 100% with OCI funding since then as a you know as part of the system building that there's been work around um gathering all of the kids that were impacted as it relates to OCI investment, and so that increased number extends beyond as I understand it, not just the sites, those three sites, but um kids and other entities.

I had that right.

Laura?

I mean, I don't know if there's any other context you'd like to provide.

Great.

Hello, Commissioners.

Great to see you.

I'm Laura Schrader.

I'm the director of data and evaluation at first five Alameda, and one of the questions was around the impact to Oakland of some of the recent funding.

Uh, and so with that, we are estimating about 27 million impact for FY2526 for Oakland as it relates to the emergency grants that were recently um put out to the community.

The change from the Head Start numbers, the increase.

Oh, yes, thank you.

So I was looking for those numbers.

Yeah, this slide is oh, thank you.

Yes, so what you are seeing here, um, just as Kristen was saying, part of the increased number is because of the work that we've been doing in partnership with City of Oakland Head Start to improve data sharing.

Um, so in the first year, we were looking at three sites uh that were funded completely um by OCI funds, uh but really the money that we're investing is a systems-wide support for City of Oakland Head Start, and so in more recent years, you're seeing the uh system-wide across the um the system um enrollment.

So there's something like that.

Yeah.

One more important data nugget.

I'm a Gili Menezes.

Good afternoon, commissioners.

I'm the EC director here for First Five.

Um, as we picture this data story about um increase of numbers of City of Oakland Head Start, it's also important to note that the increase of number of children served across the system has to do with also expansion of services, like number of family child care providers you're serving through a head starting partnership with uh Bananas Childcare Resource and Referral Agency has to do with the number of FFNs that they are serving now through home visitation.

And also, so that's you know implicates an increase of number of children served.

Okay.

Okay, I want to do two things.

One acknowledge we are getting uh limited on time because we have to get to our next presentation.

Um so maybe another two, maybe three questions.

And okay, so um commissioner uh Batten Bowman, Commissioner Davis, and Commissioner Newringinson, we'll take those questions and then we'll get to the next presentation.

If we have time, we might sort of come back if that's okay.

And also, uh, if you have any questions that are not answered during this time, please send them to me.

We'll get a supplemental document uh to get your questions answered.

Thank you.

And if I may, just to close out and term.

So again, this this was tied to different types of reporting and now it's expanded, so you're gonna see bigger numbers.

The second is the very last question that was asked, was around the impact in Oakland.

So Measure C has multiple investments.

So it started with emergency grants to family child care providers and centers.

That's what you heard Laura speak of in terms of as it relates to just that one line item investment.

So for measure C in the first year, because the tax was imposed four years ago.

We have money and trust.

There's a budget of 190 million that we're in the process of getting out the door.

So in addition to emergency grants for providers, there's stipends for family friend and neighbor providers that are actually hitting um, I shouldn't say hitting, that are actually gonna be um out into community uh starting this past week of $4,000 stipends that's coupled with health and safety, um, uh of cards, gift cards to help people purchase things like cribs and baby gates, but there's also investments in uh family serving shelters, there's investments in family resource centers.

We're about to award that funding.

There's also a 10 million emergency um revolving fund for providers who are at the risk of closure.

So there's a number of different other investments.

There isn't an allocation by city that isn't how um it was uh developed, but the good news is in terms of where you in Oakland where you have this measure that prioritizes OUSD and Oakland Head Start as the two public entities.

We have measure C that is there that is actually investing in the full mixed delivery system.

So family child care providers, family friend and neighbor, family resource centers, um, are benefiting from the countywide measure to the tune of tens of millions of dollars within the city of Oakland alone.

Thank you.

Um quick question.

I'm unclear what the I am very familiar with OUSD, but what is the C O O E C FS?

What would be an example of one of those?

That is the City of Oakland Head Start.

They just changed their name to uh early education and family services.

Um so there's just been a name change.

So you'll see like a little bit of the transition since it's what we used previously versus now, and I also want to acknowledge Sophia Navarro, who's supporting both uh our new uh ECFS and also the work of the initiative uh at this time.

Thank you.

And then my second question on the map, um, with the need of enrollment on slide 22.

Um you zipped by it quickly, so I'm not sure I totally understood, but it looks to me like the darker parts are in East Oakland, but the new facilities are in North Oakland and West Oakland.

Maybe I'm reading that map wrong, but I was wondering what that why.

Yes, yeah.

So there's um a couple of points over here.

So one is that these um these children are living in the zip codes that are um in uh you know higher need uh as it relates to poverty.

We they uh, you know, with the OUSD preschool system, um they uh take enrollments based on need.

So uh children from these zip codes could be attending other schools um that are out of these zip codes, and that's not necessarily reflected here.

So for example, like some of the facilities uh investments, for example, the some Sancofa one that we are discussing, which is in North Oakland, serves children in district one, but there's also um a wide swath of children that are coming from other districts to to that facility.

Um, and uh as per OUSD's facilities plan, they're looking at things like which um areas have uh the highest wait list, which are the schools that um uh families are most interested in attending.

Um so that's that's also sort of factored um into here.

So in the and just in terms of by way of visuals, so this is showing so the where um the concentration of families and children living under the federal poverty on the left hand side, and then on the right hand side shows the concentration of families and children benefiting from OCI investments.

So it's trying to show the correlation of um that the money is being invested in the families benefiting from this investment are tied and consistent with the intention of the legislation, which centered socioeconomics.

That makes sense.

Okay, Commissioner, are you whole with your questions?

Okay, awesome.

Uh Commissioner Davis.

Thanks, and thanks for great presentation.

My knowledge is more on the high school access, so I'm really excited to be learning all about the early childhood piece.

And I had the same question about the acronyms, so that was one of my questions.

Um another well, I wanted to also just celebrate, actually, because um I've been a bit a big advocate for both the Garfield campus and the St.

Kofa campus, so seeing those investments.

So my first question was is that all of those two investments from Oakland Childers initiative or some of it from measure C?

Should I just say all my questions?

Yeah.

Bless you, laundry lift us questions.

Yeah, yeah.

So the first question is um, is that all measured OCI money, or is some of that measure C?

Um the second question just well, I think the other two questions are more towards Jen for like future presentations.

Um, I think it would be really great to get that map of where do the underserved children live like distributed across the city just to get a sense to Commissioner Battenbauman's question like how is that population distributed?

Um, another question was the OUSD numbers.

Is that basically just the uh CDC students plus the TK students or there are other students in there?

And then the last question was also directed at Jen, just in terms of Head Start, because I also have some of those questions that were raised um just when I see I think it said 43 staff and only serving 200 students.

That makes me just wonder, you know, is is there an expansion plan that's kind of being rolled out where that number is going to keep on going up and up over the next few years, or is that like we're we're trying to maintain centers open in across the city, or just to understand kind of the the strategy and vision for the future of that.

Sure.

So I'll start.

So with the Oakland Head Start question, I think um, so.

We're serving as the intermediary, the decision to keep so Head Start has more sites than just the three sites that are funded solely by OCI.

And that decision was made by council and by city administration.

And I know through conversation and even part of the facilitated conversation was really thinking through what's the vision and the strategy as you have this new money to then enhance and grow some of what Ajili was mentioning as you think about the partnership with early Head Start and the work with a family friend and neighbor.

And the good news is that we have additional resources to then do the investment, build the infrastructure to be able to grow it.

So to name where we're a partner, but that vision is being set um really kind of outside of uh, because I'm not over Head Start, so I just want to acknowledge that.

Um the question around uh Sancofa and Garfield, so those investments have been under review and part of the conversation with OUSD, and it was quite frankly part of the facilitated conversation with school readiness consulting because they're sizable investments, and so an understanding of what does it mean to infuse tens of millions of dollars into a school site that potentially creates a pipeline that has a broader impact than just um expanding uh early care and education.

One could argue it's neighborhood revitalization, it's tied to economic development, it's tied to workforce pathway, and um, that we should take those decisions very seriously and continue to kind of understand the elements related to them as well as the financing structure.

So there's a question of do you pay it all at once or do you amortize it?

I think is under consideration.

Um, and then the last question related to the data, so largely I would say it's tied to the CDCs.

I wanna I'm gonna look at Laura to see if it included some TK.

Thank you.

Yep.

And just quickly on the demographics, you'll get a lot of that in our presentations in January and February on RBA results-based accountability measures and our investments for fiscal year 2526.

Okay, wrap us up.

And if succinct with the answers would be great.

Thank you.

I'll be succinct with the question too.

Hi, everyone, Michelle New Ringizen.

I'm really happy to be here.

Uh, also echo the gratitude for the work and the presentation, all your time.

Um, my question is on slide 12, or I'm sorry, slide 13 is relates to the budget.

I understand that the funding formula is complex that results in 30 million approximately coming to the city of Oakland, but um curious to know from your sense if that amount is uh proportionate to the amount of children that need served in Oakland versus the rest of Alameda County, or whether there's ever been any discussion of the funding allocation or the formula.

So the slide that you're referring to and Jen, I think that you're looking at it to put it up, it's it's actually showing the 150 is for measure C, and the 30 million is the Oakland Children's Initiative, which is a separate ballot.

So the 150 is measure C.

Okay, 30 million is OCI.

Got it.

Thank you.

Yeah, and so again, depending upon the investment, and happy to share the five-year plan for Measure C, but dependent upon the investment, the allocation uh methodology shifts.

And this was done in partnership with a community advisory council that is written into the ordinance of Measure C through a participatory process, um, and adopted by the first five commission the board of soups.

But uh we are tracking everything by city and by board of supervisor district with an eye, again, that is measure C is an ordinance, much like OCI that was written from an equity lens and is trying to center uh the needs and the and where concentrated needs and trying to address, you know, bring in public uh funding to support uh addressing the conditions.

Thank you.

I'm sure there's lots more.

Again, write your questions and submit them to me.

We'll get them uh responded to my good um folks uh who support our college access uh funding for the Oakland Children's Initiative.

I will shut up and let you take it away, please.

Hi everyone, I'm happy to be here with you, and I want to echo what uh Kristen said before.

That uh I want to thank you for your public service.

I'm sure there are many other places you could be right now but here, but you are here.

So we want to take this opportunity to tell you about Oakland Promise.

Um, Sandra Ernst and in the audience is our leadership team from Oakland Promise, and the way that we are seeing this presentation today is slightly different from what you just saw from first five.

We want to give you an opportunity to really understand who we are and what we do, and uh use the January meeting when you are going to hear more about our data, our numbers, our how much money we spend and uh what we deliver in terms of OCI specifically.

You're gonna hear a lot more in January, but today I wanted to take some time to tell you more about Oakland Promise.

Next.

So there are three things that I would like to accomplish.

I want to briefly ground ground you on who we are and why we exist.

Second, I want to share how we are delivering on our role or as the college access implementation partner, and third, give you a sense of where we are headed and how we are strengthening our systems so that we can deliver on the work over the full uh time of the initiative.

The vision of this uh of the our vision and our mission back in 2016, this was the idea that was actually born inside this building.

How Oakland Promise was the vision was to create an organization that would have a thriving community where the children will not have any barriers to education.

And the reason that that started then the data that the office of the mayor at the time was using was that 10% of a ninth 10% of ninth graders in Oakland were likely to finish post-secondary.

So that meant 90% were not.

So that was the impetus on why this initiative started back then.

And this work is not being done alone.

Oakland Promise does not see themselves as the one who knows how to do everything when it comes to college access, but we work with the community to make sure that the children in Oakland, all of Oakland's children have access to post-secondary education because we believe through education there's economic mobility.

Next.

And the brief history, I started in 2016.

Uh, this we are approaching our 10 year in January, and so the goal was to engage the community.

And in 2018, the children's initiative was passed as uh and uh it went to the courts as you heard uh Kristen say a little bit before.

And in 2019, Oakland Promise merged with an organization called Easy College Fund.

Easy College Fund from 2016 was doing the post-secondary college success programming for Oakland Promise, and at the time, and Oakland Promise was not an organization, it was not a nonprofit, it was a project of the Ed Fund.

So in 2019, merging with Easebay College Fund, it became a nonprofit.

And in 2022, Oakland Promise was selected as the college access implementation partner by City Council, and since then we have been implementing on the work of the initiative.

And uh in 2023, Oakland, uh Oakland Promise was the first to receive uh federal funds when it came to for a full service community uh school, and we launched East Oakland, the full service community school specifically in an area in East Oakland.

And in 2024, Oakland Promise was the first organization to receive federal funding for Promise neighborhood.

So currently Oakland Promise is delivering on a promise neighborhood uh implement it's early, it's team help me.

Planning grant, yes.

It's a planning grant, and hopefully to receive the full grant if it becomes available again in uh we hope in 2026.

Next.

So our North Star is that by 2035, Oakland Promise aim to improve cradle to career outcomes for children in zero to 25 in specific uh the most underresourced, the most underrepresented specifically, to provide high quality educational pathways that promote economic and social mobility.

OCI is not a side project for us.

OCI is how we deliver on outcomes for this North Star.

OCI is how that allows us to scale.

So Oakland Promise does not exist to do uh OCI on one side and other cradle to career programming.

We exist to ensure that all of Oakland students have access to opportunities towards postsecondary completion.

And we have engaged national partners to help us to create a vision of what that looks like for the organization.

Many of you probably know Oakland Promise as a scholarship organization or brilliant baby.

We hear that a lot, the college savings account.

However, we went through a in the last years more specifically, we went through a visioning process to really determine how best can we steward these funds, such as the Promise Neighborhood, the Full Service Community School, OCI to deliver on outcomes.

And the way what we have discovered for our what we are putting the stake on the ground that we are putting on what we are doing now with this work is that Oakland Promise is a direct service organization, which is mainly what you were you thought of us before.

We are a coordinator and a convener as well as a grantmaker.

If you may have seen not too long ago, maybe last week or earlier this week, we have an RFP on how to give the Oakland Children's Initiative to other nonprofits in Oakland because we believe the people closest to the work, other nonprofits who are rooted in Oakland, understand best the needs of the community, and we work with them to allow that to happen.

So I just talked about the core functions, and OCI is allowing us to scale with quality.

We are expanding our infrastructure, understanding what it takes.

You heard a lot about data sharing agreements before.

You heard a lot about like different delivery modes of delivery that First Five is talking about.

Thought partnership that we do not only with our co-implementation partners, but also with other organizations in Oakland delivering on cradle to career work.

We are using proven cradle to career outcomes that are that already have specific strategies that are related or with specific outcomes that are already indicated to measure our work.

So we are not doing the work in uh in asilo.

Our work is we we have a playbook of how the work is accomplished.

And then we do have to evaluate those C2CR outcome?

And ultimately, we want this work to be sustainable.

And when we talk about systems change, this is what the ultimate outcome of the OCI is.

And we are using a lot of partners to do that.

That not only educational partners, but systems partners, city, state, federal, as well as corporate partnerships, to manage the work.

And now I'm going to pass it on to Vina, our chief program officer.

She's going to talk a little bit more about what critical to career outcomes specifically that we are working on.

Thank you, Sandra.

Good to see everybody.

And I'm excited to share a little bit more meat around how we're thinking about our cradle to career work.

Since Oakland Promise started, we've believed that college is still the best way out of poverty, and that still guides a lot of the work that you see that you're going to see here today.

And again, you'll hear a lot more in January.

But when we think about how we want our students to grow up and experience a path towards economic mobility, you see that rooted in preparing them for academic success, helping them build wealth.

Navigate the journey to college, unlocking financial aid, as well as the financial education needed to navigate all the life choices along the way and ultimately set them up for college success.

Like Sandra said, a lot of this is rooted in how we think about cradle to career work and proven models that we've drawn from across the country to understand how do we best deliver on this promise to have our kids growing up in Oakland complete from college, sorry, complete college.

And so what you see there are three priority cradle to career.

So C to C is just cradle to career outcomes and how we are delivering on this work.

So the first one that you see there is strengthened financial literacy and asset building.

So to give you some examples of what is included in that, that's really the work around helping families to sign up for college savings account, the work of promoting all of the scholarships that we give throughout from zero all the way to college, thinking about how we stack all of these resources available to our families, so Cal Kids that's available to our families and other public funds.

And then thinking about how what is the financial education that we're going to marry with that, so that again families and students know how to navigate the choices on the way to college.

So those are a couple examples within that first priority area.

Second priority area is expand access to high quality educational and workforce development pathways.

So what's included in there are things like providing college access services.

So we fund a number of positions and partners to provide those college access services at the high school level.

Included in that is also academic supports that we fund, and then also the coordinating work that we're working to continue to build out as the first five team has mentioned, working with them closely to think about how do we support in that early education lane and how do we work together.

And then in the last one, you see deep in student and family navigational support for post-secondary success.

What's included in that are things like one-on-one coaching for our college students, all of our post-secondary students, which is about 4,000 that we have and support enrolled in right now, our mentoring services, and then family engagement programming.

So those are just a couple examples to help put some meat around those outcome and priorities of how we're delivering on the work.

And then next slide.

Yep.

So it's kind of a little bit hard to see, but I'll kind of point out a couple things on here.

We really wanted to ground us in what are some key accomplishments that as a result of the children's initiative fund, we've been able to accomplish and do.

So a couple of highlights you see there, we've been able to award a lot of uh 12 million dollars to a lot of different partners and community organizations across Oakland helping us to deliver on the work.

So, for example, this year, I think it we uh our partner 34 different partners to deliver on the work.

Yes.

Um, and then uh seven uh a little over seven million distributed in scholarships to our students who are persisting in college right now.

Uh, one point a little over 1 million in college savings account money distributed to our families, and then three and a half million that we've been able to unlock in federal funding as a result of this work.

And then on the right, I really wanted to point out, you know, within when we think about what our role is in direct service, coordinating, convening, and grant making, which we've been a lot thinking a lot about how we as Oakland Promise are uniquely positioned to make an impact, is thinking about is really showing that we've been able to serve more people over time and students and families from Oakland as a result of the children's initiative.

So you see highlights there right around increase in number of scholarship, scholarship funding that we've been able to give, increase in number of CSA enrollments, um, and then you also see us speaking to the infrastructure and the systems building that we've intentionally built across our organization to both support our partners to support us in the grant making process, to support us in the data collection process.

This term has worked really, really hard to think about and implement um best in class services for how do we support those partners and really coordinate well across Oakland.

And yeah, and deeper investments in in how we think about our collaborative work.

So we've been really investing time in how do we really bring folks together and how do we resource each other?

And I think you heard that similar theme in first five too of how do we continue to build upon that work.

Um, so with that, this is the last slide.

Um and again, in January, you're gonna hear a lot more about um our our data and fit both fiscal and um programmatic data of of what we are seeing so far.

So more to come.

With that, I'll turn it over to you all for QA.

Thank you.

Deep appreciation to Oakland Promise for their presentation and serving as the implementation partner.

This work is vast on both sides of the spectrum.

There's just lots of deep information, and so this was the light version, uh, if you will.

Um, so I want to open up the floor for questions related to Oakland Promise's presentation.

Yes.

Thank you again uh so much for the work that you're doing.

Um, I just had a question um regarding particularly the piece around uh uh credit career outcomes and um college access.

I am curious because um I know our state's been doing a lot in terms of uh connecting uh dual enrollment opportunities, particularly with Vision 2030 and the governor's roadmap.

I'm just curious like are there any opportunities that you see uh through lines to connect to um maybe some of the grant deliverables or how uh you're providing college access that the connected uh dual enrollment opportunities for the students in Oakland.

I'll start with that.

Thank you for the question.

Because this is something that's actually very real for us right now, and we are working with Pro Alta and OUSD specifically on dual enrollment and how it we are we were part of another collaborative, a college complex post-secondary collaborative, and it was mostly looking at opportunity youth, which not necessarily students who are going opportunity youth uh like 16 to 25 kids who don't normally end up in post-secondary, however, we are changing that table to be more about career and workforce through dual enrollment, basically, and I learned also because I was telling Chris in my dream of we we want our students in OUSZ to leave OUSD with certificates, and Kristen is like that exists already at Skyline.

So, I was like, okay, so we were we are doing a lot of learning about it right now, specifically in the CE for the particular program at Skyline.

However, how can we also bring industry and not just the school system the post-secondary and uh high school together, but bring other folks at the table to talk about that because other places in the country are doing a really good job on upskilling students so when they finish high school, they can actually go and earn a livable wage.

So that is a priority for us in FY27, and FY27 starts in June 2026.

I'll just quickly add on.

Thank you for that question.

Um just quickly add on that because we know and we've been seeing that like two-thirds of our students don't matriculate into college, and we know that that's the population we want to continue to serve better.

That's what did I think?

Oh, sorry, two-thirds matriculate, one third that doesn't matriculate.

Um, that's one of the reasons why we we're continuing to understand how we're gonna better support the students who don't matriculate.

So thank you for the question.

Other questions, Commissioner Zaganov.

Um, yeah, thank you for the great presentation.

And I have three questions.

Um is you mentioned proven models, and that's what you fund with your partners.

Is there room for innovation or you know, grassroots organizations to access some of this funding?

That's one question.

And then if you could talk a little bit about corporate partnerships, you mentioned that, and I'd like to know more about that.

And then the third question is just um you mentioned unlocking federal funding, and I don't I'm not quite sure what that means.

And if you could explain how OCI funding has helped unlock federal funding.

So when we talk about proven models, it's more proven outcomes, not necessarily on how it is delivered.

We expect the partners to have the subject matter expertise to on delivery.

However, there are outcomes that we hold them responsible for.

And that's what we meant by proof.

For example, if we say that uh the students have to read in third grade and the milestone that you look at is XYZ.

We are going to hold the partner accountable to that XYZ or in the delivery, not necessarily how they deliver it.

Does that uh, and I forgot the other two questions.

Oh, yes, corporate partnership has different approaches to corporate partnerships.

One of them is when we talk about uh, for example, workforce.

We have corporate partners who give our students uh internships, we have corporate partners who fund us.

We have corporate partners who we are exploring on how they deliver on certain programming as well.

So if we want, for example, financial literacy banks do that, for example, in certain schools in school.

So how can so those are the ways that we use our corporate partners?

But a lot of our corporate partners primarily now is funding, but uh there are also workforce is a huge thing.

I think there was a third question.

Yes, that's the unlocking federal funding, yeah.

Well, that was actually really huge because the first time we applied for a promised neighborhood was in 2022, and we did not get it.

And uh our accountability officer, also known as Jen, allowed us to uh do almost a test, a pilot, and with the pilot, we were able to show the federal government when we applied again that it works.

So we were able to use data from the pilot, and so that money allowed us to get additional money unlocked, and a lot of every time you apply for federal funding, you also need to show match.

So being able to show match also is a is another way, but it was very we were told actually that having shown that success using OCI fund is actually what allowed us to have the funding the second time around.

Yes, Commissioner.

Uh hello Edgar or hi, I'm Edgar.

Not how to myself, although sometimes I do say that.

Um I'm curious.

Uh, this came up last time.

I don't know when we saw each other, but um last.

But the one hundred and twenty seven six percent increase in college college savings account enrollment.

Curious the uh what that means in relation to like the number of kids, and then more specifically the number of kids in OUSD or in charter management organizations or other kind of groups of kiddos that we um that that we serve through through OCI and the Oakland Promise.

Um, and I don't if you don't have them right now, it's fine, but we can talk about it more in January.

But I was like really excited to see that percentage increase.

Yeah, you can cut up.

But but just to start off the question, the um CSAs are the college savings accounts are the brilliant baby CSAs, not our K through twelve uh our K through nine scholarship.

So that's specifically through um the Brilliant Baby.

Yeah, let's talk about that first, and then maybe we can move on to the K-12.

Sounds good.

Yeah.

Hi everybody, my name is Lauren Reed.

I'm the director of impact and evaluation at Oakland Promise.

Um thank you to the returning commissioners who heard a lot from me last year.

Um and you all will hear a lot more from me next month.

Um but to answer your question about the numbers for the Brilliant Baby CSAs, so we consider FY23 to be our baseline data um kind of before OCI funds hit our account.

And so in that year in FY23, we only enrolled, well, not only, but compared to now, it was a huge accomplishment.

445 brilliant babies were enrolled in FY23 compared to FY25, where we enrolled 1,007 babies.

So since receiving um uh OCI funds, we have enrolled over 3,000 babies, or is that all time since 2016?

Since 2016 or yes, so there has been a huge jump from what we consider baseline in FY23 um until now.

So, um, and a large part of that is OCI funding.

Thank you.

Thank you.

And then with the K-12 scholarships, um, I think in the last one in one of the last um commissioner meetings, we were discussing, I think we had the actual numbers and I can pull it up right now, but um curious about if there's an update on capture uh rate or increase in that as well.

Yeah, and we can I think we can we're just seeing if we have that information right now, but we don't.

So we can can definitely get you that information in January.

Thanks.

And I appreciate the work just to see the increase in the number of families that we've been able to impact in this way and at a such a young age, I just appreciate and come out into the work that you all are doing before 2023 and then with the funding that you received after the fact.

Thank you, folks.

Thank you for those questions.

And you will get all of the numbers uh in the January presentation and we'll separate them.

So we'll just have OP in January and first five in February to get you that detailed uh information.

Other questions for our implementation partner?

Yes, Commissioner Johnson.

Yes, hi.

As an oversight look back body, one of the things that'd be really helpful is when we talk about the impact that we've made and um to be able to for us to be able to verbalize when we're talking to the community about what's new and new and improved or m new and expanded, because uh the whole premise behind um measure well Oakland Children's Initiative is that we weren't gonna be supplanting existing funds.

So to be able to articulate when people talk to us about um what's new and expanded versus what was so and when you're doing I don't need that now, but as you guys present, if if it's done in that way, that's really helpful for us.

I'll see for me, but you know, when I'm talking to community about what's new and different, that OCI funding is is funding.

Well, sure to keep that in mind, we'll be sure.

And I will note for the whole group, we've only done one year of uh results-based accountability measures, so a baseline and year one, um, we are about to uh roll out the year two, and so you'll start to see the trend data.

Uh and one of the goals that you saw as a draft is how do we collectively put those numbers together so we get a whole of the initiative versus just the um in-depth presentations that we get from our um implementation partners.

So a lots to grow in this upcoming year.

Yeah, I wanted to add one thing actually, uh, in that vein, in addition to the data that you are seeing and what has been able to expand, I also want to talk about kind of the quality as well, not just the quality of the work, but the way that we are talking about the data, the way that we are building system to track our students.

I believe that is a very important aspect that sometimes gets lost in just reporting on the numbers, because like building a system is extremely difficult in the beginning.

So because you have to set up all your system to be able to get the scale that you want.

So, and I'm sure you know first five has been around a long time and had to do a lot of system building for their new measures.

So I also would like the opportunity as well for to get oops, get your support as well to also push that narrative with uh the community that it requires of the systems partners to really deliver on a lot more than just increasing the numbers.

Totally, yes.

And that that's my kind of ask that there's a lot more that goes to it than just seeing the people aspect to the uh work.

Other questions?

We do have another minute on the yes, Commissioner Suho.

Commissioner Suho.

Um, thank you so much for your presentation.

I'm a little bit less familiar with college access than I am with early childhood, so I really appreciate it.

Um, and uh also congratulations on almost 10 years of supporting the Oakland community.

Um I am wondering how this isn't the first time that you all supported OUSD through its many um unfortunate budget cuts.

So now with the looming budget cuts that are gonna have to be made, I'm wondering if there's any strategies that y'all are thinking about on how to continue to support college access and her sites, maybe through your grant making or any other um opportunities for schools.

I'll call Vina up here, but I think I should call Commissioner I know the first name, Edgar, because we were in the meeting yesterday, actually talking about exactly that and the need and how we can support through grant making.

Uh so but I'll how have been that talk more.

Yeah, I mean, we've been we'll definitely talk more in January and hopefully I'll be able to share more of an update and explain it better.

But we've been really thinking about, you know, a lot of our work has been around college band identity and how does a student see themselves as somebody who goes to college.

And what we know is that if students aren't learning or you don't feel proficient, then that is one big reason that you don't feel like you can go to college.

And so we've been thinking about what is our lane and supporting for proficiency levels.

So when we talked about like proven outcomes, um, one of those is around like you know, third, all the proficiency levels you all know, eighth grade and third grade proficiency, and so thinking about where can we best support through grant making to support those efforts, for example.

Um, so that's one of the ways in which we're thinking about supporting.

But like Sandra said, we're doing a lot of learning and listening to best understand where we can support, and then to kind of what Kristen had said before, like the landscape is changing, and so we're constantly trying to keep a pulse and make sure we're staying updated with our thinking as we're putting forward the planning going forward.

So that's a little bit, I guess a little preview, and then I don't know if that you would add anything, but uh, you'll we'll definitely share any updates and more thinking to that in January.

I would just add that we believe the school the folks in the schools are the experts in their needs.

So that is our the first place that we go to is actually talking to the experts in the schools, the folks on the ground and not necessarily from management level, but both, you know, management and folks on the ground.

Okay, hopefully, we are whole on those questions for our implementation partner Oakland Promise on the college access piece.

Again, if there are any outstanding questions, feel free to share them with me, and we'll get you a supplemental answering those questions.

Um, can we take again a quick round of applause for the tremendous amount of work that our implementation partners have had?

This work is not easy, people, um, not by any means.

Our implementation partners are welcome to stay for the remainder of the presentation, but not necessary otherwise.

So I just wanted to acknowledge that.

Thank you so much.

Okay.

Okay Top, if you can.

Thank you, thank you.

If you can share my screen, that would be great.

Thank you.

So I'm gonna try to do a quick run of the initiative, some of the elements you have already heard of.

So hopefully this will provide some deeper insights or reminder related to what is in our charter and in our charge as a commission.

Alright, sometimes the arrow wants to work and sometimes it doesn't.

This has been reviewed quite a number of times.

So I won't uh belabor this, but uh essentially voted on in November of 2018, caught in litigation for close to um uh three full years, exited December of 21, and we effectively started collecting taxes July of 2022.

No implementation partner, no staff, just collection of the tax.

Okay, um, our structure is super unique, it is not traditional to the city, and so there's been lots that we've been working on in terms of how to best support this work.

Um, and so you'll just note uh my role serving as the accountability officer.

I report to you all, and I sit in the city administrator's office.

Um, so just to be clear, typically, like uh our Oakland Fund for Children and Youth, usually does all their presentations to city council.

They will get their approvals there.

That is not quite how this works.

Um, so I am not required to go to our city council in terms of presentations, except for any contracts that are over $50,000.

So unless the city council requests a presentation, there's not a formal structure that goes there.

The things that do go there are your appointments because they are on behalf of the mayor.

Again, the contracts, and that would include the implementation partner.

Uh, right.

So when we got approvals in December of 2022, that went to our um got your approval as a commission first, uh, and then over to our city council uh for final approval uh and implementation.

The program plans and budgets do not go to city council, just to be clear uh on that particular front.

Uh, and then again, I report to the assistant city administrator here in the city of Oakland.

Um, and so that's the connection in terms of like how that triangulates and where I sit within the city.

Uh, my role uh based on charter is to oversee our program plans and budgets, and so the implementation partner and contracting elements, and we'll go through that in a second.

Uh, you met who our implementation partners are.

Um, so there's that piece, uh, and then they're required to do subcontracts.

We'll go in through the nuances about what those contracts uh look like in that particular place, but at this particular point in time, it is uh requirement with the early education fund with our head start program and OUSD specifically, uh, and then there's small local business and community partners that are subcontracted in that particular space.

Um, and this will continue to evolve over time.

This is language that is essentially in our city's charter in terms of uh our two funds.

There are three funds in total.

One is an accountability fund, it is administrative, it is 7% of the budget.

Um the remainder is split up between these two funds.

So one is the early education fund, which receives 62% of what is appropriated annually by city council.

That is another sort of entry point because the city council affirms the budget.

The implementation partner in this particular space has to be a public agency.

No other kind of agency can serve as an implementation partner for the early education fund.

Um their priorities are interesting because they are in priority order.

So it asks you to expand access for four-year-olds, then three-year-olds, then quality, professional development, and then everyone else once you get to that.

And that was what first five had referenced in terms of capacity, right?

So building that particular piece.

On the college access supports, this is 31% of the funding that is allocated to college access.

They do not have priority order in terms of their five-year guidelines.

This implementation partner can be a nonprofit or public agency.

So that's a big difference, and you notice that in the types of agencies that presented this evening, the requirement there is actually public school students.

So no private children, it can only be public or charter.

So that's OUSC in our charter system.

Okay.

This is the exact language that is in the charter.

And so if you wanted to see how it is prioritized, it is in your packet for reference.

And you can actually see how they're even structured.

These five-year guidelines iterate every five years, and so that's part of my role as well is to iterate those guidelines.

We're about to enter that phase, which would include some of your input to iterate that.

Again, these were developed in 2017.

We had a very different landscape in terms of what the need was.

Okay, so one of the things that we are the second city in the state of California to have local funds, particularly for early childhood.

We added college access because we want to set the tone for everywhere else with our unique structure and investment.

There's not another necessarily city or state that we can say, oh, that is a great framework.

So when we talked about modeling earlier, normally you look at what are the best practices so we can build on that.

We don't necessarily have those.

We know what in the field is trending and sort of what we should invest in, but how that is structured is not there.

And so we've worked a great deal to sort of build that.

I want to give you a sense of like what my visioning has been.

So we invest in early childhood, we invest in college access, and for me, when we think about sort of government investments, we normally work in silos, it's like we'll do that pot over here, and we'll do that part over here.

What my vision is essentially a child born in the city of Oakland, how do we support them to and through college, right?

How do we build bridges across our organizations or fund implementation partners?

Both FIRS Five and OP have noted sort of some initial ways they've started to do that partnership.

But that is my vision, right?

Like, so how do we connect the dots on both sides, but being really intentional in those sort of investments?

And then if we can do that, we can connect to the broader sort of ecosystem of safety net support, so health and housing and food security, etc.

So that's the hope.

And the the thing that I also want to kind of uplift is that while our investments have intentional intentional sort of uh North Star how we invest those dollars, we can't do this without partnership.

Every entity does something really great and contributes to that, but we can't do it alone.

Um, and so with that, um, it is not in the five-year guidelines, but it is a priority that we work on our partnerships and support one another and build bridges, right?

So less about our egos, but more how we are protect uh prioritizing our children, youth, and families here in the city of Oakland.

Also finding opportunities to have community inform what these investments look like.

Often, I don't know if you've seen a city council meeting, but those are quite eventful, and so we want to make sure that we're starting from that frame, not waiting until something has not gone right to then get their input and feedback, right?

So that is iterative.

Um building partnerships requires trust and relational governance.

That is not an easy sort of venture, but is something that I firmly believe in and really kind of uh aim to have that in the foundation of the work.

Um this is a little bit of a jump, but you know, I noted in the questions that you were all asking data and infrastructure.

We had like a whole roadmap of building of like what does it mean to build data infrastructure.

There's been a lot of systems building internally by each one of the implementation partners to collect really meaningful data.

So not collecting data for the purposes of just collecting some information, but how do we collect it thoughtfully and then use that to guide our investments?

Um this was a very initial intempt.

So last September of what year is it?

2024, uh, we had our first year of uh data that came in.

Um so in that presentation, there were number and data elements that were shared.

This is the collective of those numbers in one slide.

Um, I will blame my doctoral program uh for forcing me to do uh one of these data dashboards.

Uh so this is elementary sort of version of it, but I think it makes sense for you to see the holistic investment, not just the individual fund investments uh in a way.

So this is by no means final, but a conversation piece that we can have over the upcoming months next year, of like how can we get this to be really robust, and to Commissioner Johnson's point of like a talking point for you all to utilize out in the field to support the efforts and investments of the initiative.

Um, so I'll go back to investments, uh, right.

So our implementation partners have contracts that are five years.

Our city council makes appropriations on an annual basis.

Well, they have a biannual budget, but they don't affirm that until like the yeah, really around August, July uh time frame.

So for this fiscal year, the total amount that has been appropriated is just over 47 million dollars.

Uh this gives you a breakdown of um and my 7% of the 7% is there.

Um, and so this is a breakout of what those investments are not investments, appropriated amounts, and the maximum that our implementation partners budget for for the year.

There is carry over availability, but those are approved on an annual basis.

Each one of our implementation partners provides an annual program plan and budget that we review, and again, you'll see some of those executive summary in terms of those investments in January and February of next year.

Yeah, um on the 47 million, does that include uh like what was in escrow while we were waiting?

No, this is just for the year.

So one of the uh additional challenges on the fiscal side um has having uh uh an actual full-time person to support the work.

I just recently got an approval to add uh someone that literally just came in today.

Um so I'm excited about that.

Um so right now what we are doing internally with our fiscal department, have worked closely with our implementation partners is doing fund balances.

So that money accrues interest while it's sort of sitting in the account.

There is also a transfer.

So if you read the charter, um, every two years my fund, the accountability administrative fund gets reallocated.

So whatever balance is in there, it gets split up by uh 25% remains in there.

Um, and then I think it's like 50% goes to uh early education and 25 to our college access piece.

So there's a a balancing that we're doing in the midst of doing, and we'll have that by the end of January.

Okay.

So this, yes, this is just for fiscal year 25-26.

It's not include carryover at the moment.

Okay.

OP mentioned some of this, and you know, our partnership with um uh OUSD and ECFS.

This is a visual of some of the logos of our partners in the past fiscal year to get a sense of who's being funded in that particular space.

One thing that I want to make sure that I go over quickly and won't take too much time on this particular front, but you all represent one of these categories at minimum.

We always have to maintain this ratio for the commission.

We do have two vacancies at this particular point in time.

One can be broader and the other one has to relate to a parent who or a caregiver who has been on a child care wait list or has recently received a child care subsidy.

Those are not the applications that we received when we were doing the run of asking folks to apply.

So that will be forthcoming.

But note that we have to maintain these categories.

So every so often I will be checking in with you, doing a survey to see where you fall in the category to maintain ratios.

Okay, roles and responsibilities.

This is as they are outlined in the city charter.

And so one thing for you to be cognizant of in terms of your responsibilities in the Oversight Commission is that you approve the five-year guidelines.

So I noted that they will iterate.

My role is to create that next iteration in partnership with community or implementation partners and you all, but your job is to approve those for the following uh five years.

That is coming up.

So contracts end with our implementation partners in June of 2027, which is right around the corner, and then we'll start the next iteration July of 2027.

So there's two things that will happen this upcoming year.

One is that process to collect the feedback.

We will need to have the five-year guidelines approved by this fall, coming up, so that our implementation partners, if they are approved for their next five years, can do the proper planning and get launched for July 1st of 2027.

So we won't get deep into that, but the five-year approval is under your domain.

You approve or reject recommendations of selection terms, extensions, and terminations of the IPs.

So this contract is for five years, and we uh this body can extend that for an additional five years.

If not, we would have to go out to RFP, do that whole rigor moral process.

Um, you approve uh annual financial audits uh that will come before you, and then uh review performance appraisals and external evaluations.

That will also happen next year that we will start in March.

We have an evaluation partner.

So we're required to do a two-year evaluation for this first iteration.

Um American Institutes for Research in partnership with RDA Consulting is doing the evaluation.

They are doing an economic impact study and overall evaluation of the initiative, and we'll provide some supports on the next iteration of five-year guidelines.

That's forthcoming roles and responsibilities, mentioned uh oversight in terms of programs, five-year guidelines, the uh selection process of our implementation partners, audits, all the other duties as assigned.

I am the only staff person at this particular point in time for the initiative, so any of and all of those things falls on my shoulders at this moment in the process of working on a hire for program analyst to support the work in the very near future management assistant that will do the financial portion related to the initiative.

Okay.

I want to go over this briefly.

What time is it?

47.

Okay, we got 13 minutes.

Um, these are community agreements.

So annually we've done a retreat uh with our commissioners.

So we'll talk about that and see when's a good time.

There's a lot of um probably background information or questions that you're like, hey, like what is this?

How do we support, etc.

Um, these uh meetings go by really quickly.

So please let me know what I can do, support your knowledge building, and then as you start hearing information where we can workshop some time, uh, usually they're about half day.

Um so these community agreements came out of the last version of our retreat, uh, which the commission voted on.

Uh, and so they will always be in your packet as a reminder of what we agreed to um as a body.

And the same thing with values.

Uh so we had a facilitator that gave us lots of value cards, uh, went through several iteration, and these were the values that um uh we sort of came to a conclusion on that we would hold uh in terms of the work as a commission.

Okay, and then the final elements um this is not we don't have to um unvet all of this here, but these are the approved bylaws, these are the governing um uh regulations related to us as a commission.

They can be amended, and so I put this before you these are basically your roles and responsibilities and commitments uh to this commission.

Uh and so I want to make sure that you have these in your packet.

Um soon you will have a binder and fancy placards uh that you'll have in front of you.

Uh but until then you have this um in front of you.

And I think those were like the key elements.

Yes.

All right.

I'm parched.

I will stop talking because I ran through that really fast.

Um questions that you may have.

You've got a lot today.

Yes, Commissioner.

Uh, thank you.

Um I I think I want to connect back just to something that that you had mentioned in this last portion of the meeting here, um, and connect to something that in the first five uh presentation.

Particularly around facilities.

Um it seems like there is a massive amount of investment that we need to to close the gap for what we need in terms of just where we can uh implement this care.

Um so is there is there an opportunity for us as a commission to work with other boards in the city because it seems like there's a really good opportunity to partner with real estate folks or even public safety folks to help sort of raise the uh awareness, if you will, of what we're doing here, and maybe tap into their budgets.

Thank you for that question.

I think there's certainly opportunity.

Um there's not a specific path on how that gets done at this particular moment in time.

Um I will flag though, internally, I've been working with um Oakland Fund for Children and Youth.

I've reached out to the library, um uh the violence prevention program and our workforce development program um to find opportunities and understand where they're investing dollars uh and also opportunities to align for support.

So, like for instance, uh with the workforce development board and OFCY, the summer youth employment program had suffered a good loss based on the general purpose fund.

Um, and so together we invested uh from the administrative fund, um, OFCY and uh workforce development to support uh investments in youth.

So that um sort of pathway sort of linkages, it's just for the summer, but it's finding those particular opportunities.

So we don't have specific linkages to the commissions or boards at this particular time, but I have been thinking about how do we work internally because we're making uh multi-million dollar investments in children, youth, and families here in the city of Oakland, and we want to make sure we're uplifting that.

So I feel like that's a a little bit of a long road, but um, I think there's opportunity there.

Thank you.

Sure.

Yes, Commissioner Davis.

Yeah.

First, first just want to appreciate you for all of your messages and assembling this great packet and just organizing this meeting really well.

It's like you're the only person on this, it must be like you're alone in your office, you know, with all these ideas and then all these people are showing up and you and so I just appreciate all the work you did.

Um, I mean, just because we're new, there's a lot of information coming at this.

So I really appreciate the budget numbers and the five-year implementation timeline.

Um I guess and I think you probably said this, but it's just I'm having trouble understanding it.

Um so you're the only staff person, we as a commission don't decide where like how the money gets subgranted once it gets sent out to the implementation partners.

So is it just basically their they are the deciders for who are the um I mean sounds like for first five it's really it's OUSD and and whatever the new name is for Head Start, that will take a while to sink in.

Um but then on the um on the OP side, is it just basically their decision making in terms of how to prioritize and and who the subgrantees should be?

Sure.

Thank you for that question.

That has been a challenge over the few years.

So the way that it goes is that um our implementation partners build the program plans and budgets.

There's a very extensive document uh that they put in and how they align to their strategies, um uh the funds that they leverage, um essentially if we have staff related to it, or is it just programmatic investment?

If this is ongoing or if this is one-time funding, there are justification columns in there.

Um so there's a a thorough analysis.

I essentially use the five-year guidelines as my vetting point to approve I'm approving the program plans and budgets.

Um, but as you see, there are some significant investments that need additional sort of uh input and support to make that happen.

That has um started to happen a little bit with the SRC dialogue, and the intent in the upcoming year is to develop a rubric that um is um an indicator for the community, this commission of what are the elements that are being leveraged.

So regardless of who's in the role of accountability officer or implementation partner, it is more clear and transparent on how those decisions are being made at the end of the day.

Um that did not come as part of the package.

So even the program plan um yeah document wasn't part of the process.

And so we've been developing um and then we're seeing some significant need at this particular point in time.

So I make sure that that's very clear at the end of the day for everyone who's um wants to see where our public dollars are going.

Thanks.

And my other question, and Commissioner Johnson referred to this, but the escrow, is there a sense of how large that is?

Because I know it was for three years that it was just getting collected, but how the Nescrow is that already been spent or is that?

No, there's still money in the funds.

Uh again, we're in the reconciliation.

There uh is a more significant fund balance in the early education fund because we focused on our OUSD um ECFS.

I'm also working on this new acronym for Head Start.

Um, and then for Oakland Promise, uh, they've been closer to their full appropriation amount, so there's a smaller balance on that particular front.

Um and I'll share those numbers in January so that you have a full um account for those numbers.

Thank you so much.

Yes, sir.

I have a question.

Yes, also thanks for all your work.

This has been very clear.

So appreciate it.

When you said the contracts for the implementation partners are up um June 2027, is that first five and Oakland Promise?

Yes.

So it's possible that other people other implementation partners could step up and ask for a contract, or the request for you next fall will be to extend um likely the uh contracts for first five Alameda County uh and Oakland Promise, um, and then you will make that decision.

And if necessary, we will run an RFP.

At the 10 year mark, we will absolutely be required to run one, but next year the decision will lie with you all to extend or not.

And then my other question, just kind of what I think Commissioner Johnson and Commissioner Pete.

I don't know what you're like.

Uh brought up.

What like without spending too much time on all these bylaws.

What can we talk to, you know, when we find out that people are wanting to open a center or are interested in supporting ECE?

Like, can we talk about this commission and talk about the OCI and that there's money available?

Like, are we allowed to do that or?

Or, um, I mean, there there are RFP processes, and so there's always opportunity to say, like, hey, what is the process for this and get connected to our implementation partners or other entities to make that sort of possible?

Um, and Oakland Promise, because of their requirements of subcontract to SLBE has a formal sort of um broader um process.

We we did have last year um one of our commissioners um participate in the RFB process over at Oakland Promise.

Um didn't have the opportunity since we didn't have the commission this particular year, but they're just getting that out the door.

So the the role of the commission is not uh to approve the investments per se, but there's absolutely opportunity to make connections in terms of the work.

Advocate, make connections, absolutely.

Yes, thank you.

And you'll risk be receiving information along the way, right?

For um, basically the how much how well uh and is anyone better off doing and also the summary of the investments, and that's also an opportunity to kind of inquire where investments are going and advocate uh to see more in certain areas.

Um, so that's also a leverage point on your behalf.

Are there questions?

Okay, we have two.

I have one more question.

I have a question.

Hi.

Yes, hi.

Um I'm looking at the organizational structure in your presentations, and thank you so much for all of the preparation that you did.

Um I just had a clarifying question.

Um, I'm looking at ECFS Oakland at least uh Oakland Head Start.

Yes.

How it how does the money flow through the implementation partners?

Like I my understanding is that there's city sites, so are these just for the discrete OCI funded sites or so, yeah.

So this we don't mix funding, so there uh Commissioner Johnson mentioned this.

There is a supplantation um clause within the charter that says we can't um infuse dollars uh or mix dollars when it comes to city funding in particular, but also state and federal.

Um and so this we learned early on uh that we essentially with our contracted implementation partner first five Alameda County, we have to send the money to first five, and then they hold the contract with uh ECFS, and then based on that contract, we'll send the money back to the city.

We can't internally swap the funds.

That is a little bit of a complicated sort of structure, but it's required and and city attorney sat quite a bit with that.

Thank you.

Absolutely.

Other questions?

I should probably know the answer to this.

So is indirect taken out both times when it goes from the city to first five, and then back to the city.

Uh what do you mean?

Like a overhead.

No.

There's an o there's there's administrative costs uh related to the implementation partner so that they oversee, and then there are um uh administrative dollars that go to um head start uh ECFS uh and OUSD uh in relationship to the funds.

Hopefully that's clear.

Okay.

And so um uh just to flag for you all, I did want to include sort of a timeline uh that did get in print, didn't get printed in time, but essentially the January meeting will be RBA's results-based accountability measures and fisc for fiscal year 24 25 and an overview of fiscal year 2526 investments.

Oakland promise will present in January.

Uh February will be first five, March, you will receive evaluation, uh, and hopefully our fiscal audit uh information from there, and hopefully there will be an additional staff member that you'll be able to meet uh one of those months.

Um without further ado.

If there's any questions outstanding that you didn't get to ask in this particular time, uh don't hesitate to reach out to me uh and you'll hear more from me a little less frequently than I did uh sort of getting you in the training and all that stuff.

But thank you so much.

So excited to have you on board uh and more to come uh in the future.

Have a great evening.

Do you have to take public comment?

Um there was a portion in that piece in the beginning, but we don't do them online.

We only do them in the room, and everyone was staff.

Just curious, is it brown act?

Yes.

So that it's in the beginning of the meeting.

And if we have action items, we will have discussion on those items as well.

Again, for folks in the room, and then a comments for everyone else who joins us from home, because there's so much facilitation that I could do in one sitting.

Okay, thank you for the questions.

Have a good night, folks.

My name is Selena Wilson.

I'm the CEO here at the East Oakland Youth Development Center, and I'm also an alumni.

The East Oakland Youth Development Center is truly an organization that has been made for the community and shaped by the community.

Way back in the early 1970s when the organization was being established, community members were included then, and we've kept that tradition to date and include young people, parents, and other community members in focus groups, in leading and designing programs.

A lot of our programs here at EOYDC are actually youth led.

For EOYDC, myself, the young people that we serve and our entire team, when we think about built locally, we think about that both literally and figuratively.

Everything from the conceptions and the dreams and the visions as we continue to renovate and add murals and other features throughout the year.

We look towards local vendors to come in and help support us.

And the same goes for our program design, our instruction, having folks from the community who have been raised by the community come in and co-create with us.

I know for myself as a young person who grew up 10 blocks away from EOYDC.

AC transit was literally how I got to and from the center every day.

It's how I got to and from school every day.

In my family, we didn't have a car.

And for a lot of our folks, they either have limited access to cars, a lot of our young people aren't old enough to drive, and so this really gives them the freedom.

For young people, families, and other community members that want to come visit us here at EOYDC.

You can just hop on the tempo line one T, get off on eighty-second and East 14th AK International Boulevard, and come on over to the big beautiful building with all the colorful murals.

That's us right here, EOYDC.

And with my skills as a photographer and as a publisher, I thought an ideal thing to do is to take the old photographs and re-shoot new photographs that would correspond to the old images.

And I figured nobody else would really do it because it would be a big project to encounter.

And so I just pursued, and the more I started doing it, the more I realized that you can take an old photograph and you look at that old photograph, if it's a corner from a hundred and twenty years ago, and that means something.

And then if you would re-go back and shoot that same corner today, that might not mean too much.

It would just be a photograph of a corner.

But what really would mean something, and would give it a new image, would give it a new perspective is to take those two images and put them side by side by putting them side by side, what that ends up doing is um creating something brand new.

It's creating the imagination.

It's bringing two images together.

So one plus another one equals something totally different.

Um was an extremely difficult challenge.

So the original draft was one photograph on each page.

I thought that's sufficient, I'll be able to do this in a short period of time, get it print it inexpensively, and you know, have a have an okay book.

That was the the origin, the the original concept.

As I started to talk to people and I met people who were influential, it took on a new life.

Getting letters of introduction from Mayor Brown gave me the opportunity to have total access to the all the images at the public library history room.

And that changed the whole way I did the book because at that point I was able to sit down and look at every photograph they had.

By looking at every photograph, I did look at thousands of photographs, and I and I realized that this was not a book that I could take lightly.

Yeah.

Yeah.

The juxtaposition of the imagery um gives it a whole new life and and it changes everything.

When I look at the images now that I have after working for a year, after looking at thousands of photographs, after taking thousands of photographs, uh bringing them all together, um surprises me.

As I started to flip through the first gachet of book and some of the early pictures that he showed me, I immediately began to realize how much that I didn't know about a place that I was raised in.

He'll have the O photograph.

Um we'll sit down and discuss the O photograph.

First he'll ask me a question like, do you know what this is?

And I must say about seven out of ten times I've been wrong on everything, he would look at the photograph, we spend time examining to determine what time of day to photograph was taken.

Um based on that, then we would determine what time of day we have to take it now.

And based on Bill going out himself or me going out and determining the position of the sun in relationship to the architecture in the buildings today, um how the sun is shining or reflecting on certain buildings.

The photograph of it's an illustration of downtown Oakland from sort of a bird's eye view looking up Broadway, where that was the heart of Oakland at that time, it was a very small town, and today the image is it's an aerial image from to show that shows the freeway that shows the downtown from close to the same location, probably seven hundred feet higher, but it's close to the same location.

The um the image of of Twelfth and Broadway looking north on, looking north up Broadway.

Again, this was a a really incredible image, and there were two images from this exactly same location.

So it must have been the same photographer in the eighteen sixties, because there's an image that's not in the book from 1868, that showed Oakland.

Um just a couple buildings on the right hand side of the street, and the image I chose to use was eighteen seventy-three, and this was four years after the railroads came to Oakland, the Transcontinental Railroad arrived in Oakland.

Um then we have street cars in 1911.

We have automobiles in 1911.

People, of course, still walking, and then today a lot of you know, the shapes of the cars are different.

What that that always fascinates me when it when it comes to looking at something that we're familiar with.

They advertise that you can get from Berkeley from University Berkeley to Embarcadero in San Francisco in 30 minutes.

And that's basically the time you can make it today if you're lucky.

And that's they were just uh they made things differently and then they still work.

They had an electric book train going almost to Yerba Buena Island.

Which today, when when you see it, nobody knows about it.

It's it's just the information that's lost.

We tend to think about the past uh as primitive, you know, as these people didn't you know.

It probably took a whole day to get to San Francisco.

No, it didn't.

It took one train and one transfer, and you went there just like here today.

It's it's not a not much different than it was.

This photograph was one of my favorites out of all of them, and it was the only image I found that was a man on a horse.

And we're talking about 1860 in California, which is a main way of transportation.

Besides a buggy, um, it was a horse or um a wagon train or a train, a local train.

But this was dirt streets in Oakland in 1860 at sixth and Broadway, a man sitting in the middle of the road on a horse, that that rod of brought a big smile on my face because I knew exactly when I saw that what I was gonna do because I knew that today there was a freeway going overhead.

The modern day picture, there's this uh rather garish in the way uh bridge.

It's a is the uh the uh uh 880 bridge which crosses Broadway right about where that where that guy is sitting.

And so it really shows the change and I guess the kind of changes we're f we were forced into.

If we want to have a transportation system, then um horses on one side and then uh the freeway on the other is one way to look at this photo because there's two transportation systems, but then in order to have the the quick and the ease of getting around, we are forced into building these uh bridges.

For me, that is a very dramatic um change in imagery when we're looking at the same location.

And this is what started to really spark my enthusiasm for the project, and the U.S.

and big surprise is the panoramic of downtown Oakland.

It it's a seven-panel and it starts from Washington and thirteenth, and just moves all the way up so that it it moves all the way around to um uh Grove Street at that time.

So it'd be Martin Luther King Jr.

way today.

And Oakland was an all-wooden city, and the buildings were two stories high.

And with that image in the book, it's one of the first images in the book uh for me to shoot from the fourth floor, what's called the flag landing of City Hall today, and of course, the landscape has changed dramatically with the structures of the buildings, the height of the buildings, and no, there is not a structure left in downtown that's in that photograph.

There are no more those those buildings are not there anymore.

So that that was a document in two thousand in 1879, that document of the wooden Oakland.

Um that's not the same anymore.

Brooklyn Presbyterian Church, one of the older churches in Oakland, one of the older buildings, and as as we can see again, that the building is exactly the same.

We photographed that from exactly the same angle.

And it was some of the unchanging things of Oakland from uh from a long time ago to today, where a lot of it has changed dramatically.

Some of Oakland has not changed at all over a hundred year period of time.

It has stayed relatively the same.

And we can see the uh first Baptist church built in nineteen, I think it was nineteen oh eight that it opened, and this picture was probably from nineteen fifteen or nineteen twenty, and it has a a neon sign on the side of the building, and today that neon sign isn't there, but the the image is the same.

The the building is the same.

So that the sometimes the more it changes the more it stays the same.

The Piemont baths in the early 1900s, at that point, uh people would go out and take their bath.

They didn't have a shower, they didn't have that kind of running water where they would have hot running water.

So they would go once a week, twice a week, whatever, probably once a meet once a week, and take a bath.

The Piedmont Springs, when I seen a picture of the building, I just I knew that that wasn't an open, and I thought maybe it was a picture that Bill had on his table that was for something else.

And then when he briefly explained to me the location of the building and the history and um how I ran a steam engine provided by natural steam, um I immediately went to go out and figure out where these places was.

And Piedmont Baths grew into had a large swimming pool that was renowned for the ocean water that they they shipped in from the ocean and uh heated from the turbos that were next door in the streetcar, uh, the house that that ran the streetcars that made the power that the steam heated the water, and it was as you can see a very elaborate structure on the outside.

Piedmont baths was very popular place, and it was not a spa, it wasn't it wasn't something for the the elite for people to go and get a massage and as we think today, but it w it was for function, um, to get yourself clean.

Rados, uh International Grocery, G B Rado, which was on 6th in Washington uh in 1898, I believe.

And uh we have GB and um I don't know who was next to him standing in front of their store, and then today we have the fourth generation great-granddaughter, Elena.

Uh she's standing out in front in the in the uh middle, and she's standing away from the the her three of her workers, and again, she has carried on the tradition and keeps her international grocery, her great great grandfather's international groceries, still in business, and that I found fascinating, and and uh for something that old to still be in business, that was a must to be in the book.

Um this other image of Jack London in a bar on uh twelfth east twelfth uh street at Thirteenth Avenue.

Uh he frequented this bar, and the owner was behind the bar at that time, and that building is still there.

Um, the two incredible images of Fairyland, which is the shoe, the old lady who lives in the shoe.

I have the original skeleton of uh the shoe before it was covered.

And then I reshot today of of course the the shoe uncovered and with my research with the person at Fairyland.

She said no one has ever seen this photograph.

So I sat down for fifteen minutes with her and went through photographs and chose that one and then chose another image of um a group of puppeteers from thirty seven years ago, and the one of the puppeteers in their pictures thirty seven years ago is still doing it today.

So there of course we see him thirty seven years ago and then him today as uh uh, you know, someone who loves what he's doing and still makes puppets and still um creates the show on a consistent basis, which I thought was was pretty amazing, that he still would be doing this.

I have I have learned more about Oakland than I ever thought I wanted to know, and I think it will enrich people's lives, particularly children.

I th I think the the um the children that will have this book and have access to this book through the Oakland Unified School District, uh, will know about Oakland and it could inspire them to, you know, be a part of the city when they grow up, you know.

A a six-year-old who might read this book in two years might think, Well, I want to be the mayor of Oakland, and in thirty-five years that person may be the mayor of Oakland.

While we're in Oakland, Oakland is the same place um that it was in eighteen sixty.

Th the children will are able to look at um the modern day pictures and relate them to the to the old pictures and see and see the way things have changed.

And talk to the children and remind them of th there were times when when um you had to get permission to turn the light on in the house because there was uh gas in the house and to tell the children there were so there are so many things that we take for granted that we just don't have.

How many times can you show the kids the pictures now, for example, and it's downtown Oakland and there's there are nothing on on the street but cars.

I do think there's something particularly for young people in this project, and that is the sense of immediate history that surrounds you on a daily basis.

And it's truly is hard to move forward and have pride and the place you live without knowing what existed there before.

That's how people get inspired.

They get inspired as uh when they're young to uh unconsciously make a decision on what they want to be when they grow up.

And it does inspire you to grow out for yourself and to see what's actually around you and you know the history that the place holds that you now live in there, and um, there's so many things here in Oakland that you never would have thought existed and started here, buildings that were here and people and everything.

And when you go see the immediate changes that's taking place through earthquake or natural disasters or just a natural period of time and people rebuilding stuff is amazing.

I really think that not just the kids in school, but the the kids that are in the adults are all everyone will stop in the library and want to look and see what we're doing, and and there's not a kid in the room.

But they're all very interested in stopping and seeing here's sixth and Broadway now, here's sixth and Broadway then.

And we have the what are the pictures on the table and everybody's gathering around to look.

You get a bit or two bit of information.

Uh you didn't feel like you were preached to or talked to, or or experienced uh learning history, but still you walk away and you're a little bit smarter about the place you live than than you were before.

This is something that will give everybody a new perspective on Oakland.

Um, uh, uh, I think that's a good one.

Um, I'm not sure.

Um, I'm sorry.

The story of change and progress that took this rough dirt runway and turned it into one of the fastest growing airports in the country begins in the nineteen twenties when the Oakland Airfield captured the imaginations of its East Bay neighbors.

At that time there were five children, and my father my father had or the family had a nineteen twenty-seven or nineteen twenty-eight Studio Baker Sudan.

And I do remember our all piling into it and going down to the airport.

It was Sunday after church.

We went down to see the planes take off and come in.

Those visits to the airport inspired Maggie G to become a pilot herself.

She joined the women's air force in World War Two.

Every time a plane came down, I think people clapped.

This person from up in the air soaring with the birds in the clouds.

The Oakland Airport had not been there and I had not seen planes fly.

Who knows what I would have done during the war.

It was really uh uh the only airport around San Francisco, uh, wasn't uh as big.

Leo Brunning was a teenager when he and his friends came to watch the airplanes.

On the weekends.

It was pretty crowded out there too.

People would just walk out there, and a lot of them wanted to go up for a ride.

Yeah, these uh operators would take you up for a ride for five dollars, you know, fly you around for about a half hour and bring you back.

The airport at the time was little more than a runway, but it was the first in the Bay Area, and it's always had good weather, been easy to get to, and convenient for pilots and passengers alike.

Oakland had less wind, less fog, and fewer hills close at hand.

It just took off, so it quickly became the major airfield of the West Coast at that time.

The federal government gave Oakland just the boost it needed, establishing a west coast airmail center here in 1927.

The secret for dominance for airports at that time was to um be the base of operations for an airline that had an airmail contract.

Once they knew that they uh were the western terminus for the Transcontinental Air Route, then they knew they had uh guaranteed uh amount of business.

Oh, what a flying fool was he.

Lindbergh, his name will live in history.

And soon after Charles Lindbergh crossed the Atlantic in 1927, the Army announced that two of its pilots, Lester Maitland and Albert Hegenberger, would attempt to fly to Hawaii in June of that year, and they'd take off from Oakland.

Pacific was more of a challenge, and in those years, 1927, it was doubtful if you could make it.

So it was really precarious and uh bold and daring of anyone to even imagine they could fly to Hawaii.

The first thing they needed was a better runway.

Twenty-seven days, working day and night around the clock with mule teams.

The port commissioners uh had an airfield with 7,000 some odd feet long, allowing the army to make that takeoff.

The two army pilots reached Hawaii in a plane called the Bird of Paradise in 25 hours and 50 minutes.

Two weeks later, two civilians, Emory Bronte and Ernest Smith, took off in their monoplane, the city of Oakland, and made it to Hawaii 14 minutes faster.

The two flights were the first in a series of historic events in Oakland during the summer of 1927.

The amazing thing about Oakland Airport is that even before the first building was built, and they laid out this emergency uh quickly built long runway.

They had like three famous flights that made world history.

It's just extraordinary that uh Oakland got off, as I say, to a flying start.

But the excitement around the Oakland airport was just beginning.

In August of 1927, James Dole of the Hawaiian Pineapple family celebrated the anniversary of the U.S.

annexation of Hawaii by sponsoring a race to those islands.

There was a 25,000 dollar reward for the first people who could fly from Oakland to Hawaii.

Les Thomason went with his father to watch the Dole race begin.

There was so many uh people out there.

I remember this girl.

She seemed, she had this great smile, and she just was so excited about this trip.

Going to Hawaii.

That girl was a school teacher named Mildred Duran, a passenger on one of the 15 planes that entered the race.

But it was chaos from the beginning.

Three planes crashed on their way to Oakland.

Only eight planes actually lined up for the race.

Two of them crashed on takeoff, one was disqualified, three others were lost at sea, including the one carrying Mildred Duran.

I think there was only two planes that made it.

And uh the girl, too, was lost.

That has gone down in history as one of the great air race disasters, but but full of drama.

It gives you pride and it gives you sadness about uh the the crazy heroic, wonderful and silly things and dangerous things that people do.

It's just part of who we are.

But the fallout from the Dole Race was not all bad.

The victories overwhelmed the defeats and uh just demonstrated the potential for uh air traffic worldwide over the great expanses of the ocean.

Oakland was suddenly the principal gateway to the Pacific.

This is, after all, the airport described by Charles Lindbergh as the finest, most modern airport in the country.

Shortly after he conquered the Atlantic, he came to Oakland for the official opening of the airport in September 1927.

You couldn't get close to him.

There's so many people and they just kept you at a distance, but you could see him, you know, uh there he was, you know, getting out of this airplane.

And uh it was quite a quite an eventful day for Oakland.

I was lucky enough to meet him at the Oakland Airport.

It was uh when he was one of his trips there, and at the grand opening of the airport.

Jack Walker was just five years old when the airport opened, but already an aviation prodigy, a protege of the well-known flyboys at Oakland.

I was called the air ambassador of the Oakland Airport, and I used to greet uh a lot of the uh dignitaries that flew in.

Charles Lindbergh gave me a model of the uh spirit of St.

Louis because I was the youngest pilot, I guess you'd call it, and the air ambassador of the Oakland Airport.

While he was here, which was just a period of hours during the day with the spirit of St.

Louis, we uh recognized and commented that uh Oakland uh had the potential to become the center of air commerce uh in in the nation.

And he really was correct to have Hagenberger and Maitland in June of 1927.

You have Brocky and his partner going over in July, you have the Dole Race in August, you have Lindbergh in September.

I mean, that's like uh a grand slam, you know, and Oakland was just known at that point.

Lindbergh's visit put the fledgling airfield on the national aviation map, blessed by geography and climate.

Oakland was soon one of the most important airports in the country.

Boeing, Pacific Air Transport, and soon United Airlines were flying mail, cargo and passengers in and out of Oakland.

A rotating beacon and well-lit runways meant pilots could land safely at night.

And Oakland had the first airport hotel and restaurant in the country right next to the terminal.

By then, this was the airport of choice for many famous pilots, among them two Australians, Charles Kingsford Smith and Charles Ulm, along with two Americans, radio man James Warner and navigator Harry Lyon Jr.

They made the first flight all the way across the Pacific to Australia, leaving from Oakland.

These were men with a vision, these were pioneers.

They did it in the open cockpit of their aircraft, the Southern Cross.

The trip with stops in Hawaii and Fiji took over 83 hours.

Today it would take just 14.

My father was born in 1891.

He was uh involved in the history with the the first flight across the Pacific Ocean.

So he was still alive when man landed on the moon.

Tom Warner's father was the radio man on the Southern Cross.

By today's standards, he says, those conditions were primitive.

There's no insulation.

There's no, there was floorboards.

And there's and that's it.

You know, there's just floorboards.

Well, they hung the radio gear on the sides of the aircraft with rubber bands, and uh and they put a couple of chairs in there.

They knew it was risky, uh, great challenge.

Uh, I think that they uh you know were prepared to uh lose it all if they didn't achieve it.

They were daring dashing guys, the mystique of the Oakland airport increased in 1931 when Emilia Earhart first arrived here in an unusual aircraft called an auto gyro.

And she chose to land here again at the end of the very first solo flight between Hawaii and the mainland in 1935.

On this flight, really no bad weather at all except a few little rain squalls.

I saw the moon and stars lost for the night.

Of course, in both flights, I was very glad to see Lance.

She was dressed in men's clothes, you know.

I mean, she had slacks on and a leather jacket, and her hair was tussled, and there wasn't many women flying in those days.

So it was quite an experience to see her.

Amelia Earhart, who is this to me, has as much mystique, probably as any personality in 20th century history.

That first solo flight from Hawaii to North America ended here at Oakland to great cheering crowds.

Then, of course, in her famous and mysterious last flight that she never returned from, she left from Oakland.

She left Oakland in May of 1937 with her navigator Fred Noonan.

They start out and they got as far as Lay New Guinea, again, destination Holland Island, mid-Pacific, and uh never uh have been seen since air travel was beginning to take hold in the 1930s.

In 1936, Pan Am's China Clipper began carrying passengers across the Pacific to the Philippines.

4,000 passengers passed through Oakland in 1929.

Ten years later, more than 70,000 people were using the airport as planes became bigger, faster, and more comfortable.

But for most people, flying was still a novelty.

Les Thomason had grown into a teenager with a pension for photography.

This is the camera he used to shoot the air races in Oakland in 1938.

It was a big event.

They had uh bleachers up, and there was hundreds and hundreds of people there.

And Oakland was a going uh it was the airport.

Oakland was indeed in the late 1930s, the aviation capital of the West Coast, but those carefree days were coming to an end.

The Bay Area was becoming a staging area for military planes, and by 1943, passenger flights had ceased.

Army and Navy planes crowded the runways, and the Navy took over the airport.

You had uh Navy reservists here, you had Army Reservists here, uh, and so there was a connection uh with Oakland and the military going back to the late 1920s.

By the end of the war in 1945, Oakland was no longer the major commercial air center on the West Coast.

That title now belonged to San Francisco, but the huge numbers of pilots returning from the war needed jobs, and many started flying for charter airlines out of Oakland.

Three great ones, the largest in the world in their time, developed here.

That was initially Trans Ocean Airlines under Ervis Nelson, which became a huge operation headquartered here at Oakland, followed by World Airways under Ed Daly, which did the same thing, and uh then the third one, Trans-America Airlines, those were huge operations, all of which were innovators.

Oakland Airport uh was preferred by most pilots that flew in and out of either San Francisco or Oakland.

They preferred Oakland because it wasn't as crowded, and uh the terrain around Oakland Airport was certainly more favorably uh favorable for flying.

Bill Keating flew in and out of Oakland for nearly 40 years, first for Trans Ocean, the largest airline of its kind, pioneering low-cost charters to Europe and Hawaii, training thousands of pilots and flight attendants, but Trans Ocean's finances were always precarious.

We were always on the verge of bankruptcy, and sometimes the paychecks didn't come through on time.

And in 1960, Transocean went bankrupt.

Its facilities were taken over by World Airways, and its daring and dynamic president Edward Daly.

He grew his airline from scratch into a huge airline, a non-scheduled airline as we mentioned, one of the three that had headquarters here at successive times at Oakland.

Daly made his name and headlines through innovation, offering soldiers cheap flights home for R and RR from Vietnam and carrying refugees on a daring last flight out of Danang at the end of the war.

CBS News reported that story.

Julie Antonelli was a World Airways stewardess who cared for the babies on the way to Oakland.

We succeeded once again in bringing some kids home.

We arrived in Oakland, it was dark at night.

It was close to midnight as I recall.

And Bill Keating was the pilot.

The idea of bringing them out of there and getting them away was certainly in all of our minds and all of our hearts.

By this time, the airport had spread far beyond its origins at North Field.

In 1961, the port of Oakland broke ground on a new passenger terminal south of the old one with a 10,000 foot runway and a 10-story control tower.

It would be called Metropolitan Oakland International Airport.

Metropolitan Oakland International Airport is an airport for the jet age.

Oakland wanted to have a jet airport, it wanted to have an international airport.

And as soon as that airport was built, they began to get the newest generation of jetliners coming in.

As those jets began using Oakland, air traffic here took off.

By the end of the 60s, a million passengers a year passed through here.

Much of that traffic on short flights ran by PSA and AirCal.

Oakland in the jet age has always excelled as a commuter airport.

Short range uh jet transports uh carrying people up and down the Pacific coast or within California.

But there were simply too few flights out of Oakland to satisfy the demands of the Bay Area's travelers.

That all changed in 1978.

In 1978, we won a stunning victory.

The CAB ruled in our favor and granted unlimited access into the Oakland market.

Once again, they saw an opportunity and ran with it, and they did very well.

By the 1980s, they needed a whole new terminal to handle specifically that kind of air travel for TSA, and now it's all Southwest Airlines.

That new terminal opened in 1985 with PSA and Air Cal as its primary tenants.

By the late 1980s, those two airlines, West Coast Service, was phased out.

So Oakland began courting other airlines, asking them to come to the newly spacious airport in this underserved market.

In 1989, Southwest did that, and the rest is history.

They're all over the country, they are the most profitable airline, and they began the low-cost era at Oakland.

At the same time, Oakland's unmatched history with cargo airlines continues.

Today we have FedEx, UPS, and DHL, all major cargo operations here at Oakland.

We have a long history of cargo operations here and expect great things from cargo in the future.

More and more passenger airlines came to Oakland too.

One of the latest is Jet Blue.

And we really look forward to Jet Blue and other carriers providing expanded service destinations in the future.

The airport's future looks just as bright as its past when so many events came together to write the story of the Oakland airport, a story full of historic firsts.

You know, being the first of anything, achieving against great odds.

It is the most historic airfield in the world.

It's the story of an airport that takes advantage of its opportunities.

With five new gates, the plans call for more spacious ticketing, security, concessions, and baggage claim areas.

And once that new terminal is finished, the airport promises even more improvements.

A whole different airport from when it was in the old days in 1927.

The uh runway out here was just a dirt runway.

But not any longer.

Today, nearly 15 million passengers go through Oakland each year on more than 200 flights a day, offered by a dozen airlines.

Maggie G, who learned to love flying while watching the planes at Oakland, is today part of this mural at the Ontario Airport, sharing space with the Wright brothers and Sally Ride and Amelia Earhart, Maggie G still lives nearby.

Today, uh it the Oakland Airport's very important though, because it's I can leave this community to go elsewhere, and it's in my backyard.

Another plane, another plane.

I still to this day when I hear a plane, I look up and uh and look in the sky and just think how wonderful it is.

Dinner was good, babe.

Thank you.

You're welcome.

Dishes are yours.

Those don't go in there, babe.

They go in that green compost bin I just got.

That's what that is.

So all the food scripts go in there?

Even the bones?

Yep.

Even if we didn't have that green pail, we can use a paper bag as composting.

And we can throw the whole thing out in the green composting bin outside.

What else can go in there, Mom?

Most of these things over here, like coffee grounds and filters, tea bags, soiled paper, like this pizza box.

Even our shredded paper can go in there.

Oh, really?

I thought the green bin outside was just for your trimmings.

Hey, we can compost just apple.

That's right.

Composting is like nature's way of recycling.

All food is rich in nutrients.

The stuff that makes life grow.

Well, that's pretty cool.

And not only is it good for the planet, it's the law.

If we don't compost right, we can get a contamination surcharge.

Well, aren't you the expert?

Gotta keep up with the times.

And we just dump our compost in the green bin outside, right?

That's right.

Composting.

I got this.

To learn more about composting and Oakland's commitment to zero waste, go to Oaklandrecycles.

Good afternoon and welcome to the community and economic development committee meeting for today, Tuesday, December 9th.

The time is now 1:30, and this meeting has come to order.

Before taking roll, I will provide instructions on how to submit a speaker's card for items on this agenda.

If you are here with the Cent Chambers and you would like to submit a speaker's card, please one out, please fill one out, turn into a clerk representative before the item is read into record.

Allow our speaker requests were due 24 hours prior to the meeting starting.

Excuse me.

Present.

Present.

Thank you.

Councilmember Ungar.

Sure.

And Chair Brown.

Present.

We have four members present.

And before we begin, Chair Brown, do you have any announcements for us this afternoon?

Yes, thank you so much.

Well, good afternoon, everyone, and welcome to our last community and economic development committee meeting of 2025.

It's truly been a pleasure working alongside all of the amazing departments that present to this committee.

So housing and community development, economic and workforce development, planning and building, as well as the amazing partnership of our city administration, Betsy Lake and team, as well as the city attorney's office.

And so as a first-year council member, your partnership and professionalism has really made this first year both productive and impactful.

And so as we're looking to 2026, I'm excited for the work that we'll be able to do around anti-displacement implementation, the city's economic action plan, as well as continued exploration on how we use Oakland spaces and land for public good.

Um and then lastly, I did want to make the announcement that in order to ensure that we complete uh conclude our meeting on time today, we will uh be limiting uh public comment to one minute per speaker.

And so thank you all so much, members of the public for being here, and so we can go ahead and get started.

Thank you, Chair Brown, for your announcements and noting one minute for all public speakers for every item, including open form.

Moving to item one approval of the draft minutes from the committee meetings held on October 28th, 2025, and the special meeting on November 18th, 2025.

And you do have one speaker for this item.

We can hear from the public speakers.

Moving to our public speaker.

If you're here within chambers, please approach the podium.

If you're participating via Zoom, please raise your hands here, easily identified.

Blair Beekman.

Excellent.

And I'll entertain a motion.

Councilmember Unger.

So moved.

Second.

We have a motion made by Councilmember Unger.

Seconded by Councilmember Five to accept the draft minutes of the committee meetings on October 28th, 2025, a special meeting on November 18th, 2025, as is on roll.

Councilmember Five.

Aye.

Councilmember Ramachandran.

Aye.

Thank you.

Councilmember Ungar.

Aye.

And Chair Brown.

Aye.

Motion passes with four ayes to accept the draft minutes of the committee meetings held on October 28th and November 18th, 2025.

Moving to item two, determination to schedule outstanding committee items.

And this is also known as your pending list, and you do have one speaker for this item as well.

Okay, excellent.

And so to the administration, any um items for our consideration.

Other than she's on.

Excellent.

Thank you so much.

And so I'll make the motion to move this item.

And is there a second?

Second.

Excellent.

And we can hear from the public speakers.

Thank you, Ms.ada.

So the upcoming uh World Cup is supposed to be an opportunity for us to benefit economically.

But as I said in the finance committee meeting, uh, we, as public members, were not given correct information related to how we would share with the other cities and county members, the responsibility for the $700,000 that was submitted to implement uh the facility needs and hosting the team.

Uh in a meeting in July, the Alameda City of Alameda agreed to come up with $150,000.

The responsibility for this project is totally with Oakland routes.

We should have gotten some commitment from the city of Berkeley, the County of Alameda, the City of I'm sorry.

Thank you for your comment, Mrs.

Sada.

We do have a motion made by Councilmember Brown, seconded by council member five to accept determination to schedule outstanding committee items, also known as your pending list, as is on roll.

Councilmember five.

Aye.

Councilmember Rama Chandran.

Aye.

Councilmember Onger.

Aye.

And Chair Brown.

Aye.

The motion passes with four ayes to accept the termination and schedule outstanding committee items as is moving to item three.

Adopt a resolution authorizing a city administrator to enter into a memorandum of understanding with the city of San Leander establishing that the city of San Leandro will process planning and building entitlements for improvements on the existing structure and parking lot at one East 14th Street 10701 International Boulevard, a proper property located within their both jurisdictions and act as a as a lead agency for the purposes of review under the California Environmental Quality Act, and you do have one speaker.

Thank you so much.

And so I believe for this item um we can put five minutes on the clock, and then we'll hear from planning and building.

Good afternoon, Council members.

My name is Jana Wismer.

I am a consultant for the planning department, and I've been working with the City of San Leandro and our city attorney's office to bring this to fruition.

And could we have the PowerPoint, please?

As was mentioned, this is a memorandum of understanding between the city of Oakland and the City of San Leandro.

The project location is located right on the border of San Leandro and Oakland.

This is a map showing the parcelization.

And to the lower side of your screen, that is the portion that was within the city of San Leandro.

The three parcels to the north of that border are all within the city of Oakland.

And here's an aerial view.

The building that is on site is entirely within the city of San Leandro.

All of the area that is within the city of Oakland is just a bare parking lot.

There are no structures currently on this on the Oakland site.

As I mentioned, it's comprised of four Alameda County Assessors' parcels and straddles the border between the cities of San Leandro and Oakland.

Again, there are three on the Oakland side, one on the San Leandro side.

And the majority of the properties of the parking lot is in within the city of Oakland, 58%.

42% of the property is located in San Leandro.

And there's an existing structure on site, a little over 28,000 square feet, again located entirely on a portion within the city of San Leandro.

The building is vacant, and I believe former in former years it was used as a towing company.

And the project will not include the construction of any structures on the existing parking lot.

So there will be no structures proposed within the city of Oakland limits.

The project would be required to apply for a conditional use permit through the city of San Leandro.

However, if this were going to be the opposite way, if Oakland were to retain jurisdiction over both properties, it would also be a conditional use permit.

And through the conditional use permit process with San Leandro, uh the City of Oakland would have the opportunity to comment and make suggestions.

And with this memorandum of understanding, San Leandro will be the lead agency for all lands use approvals, including building permits, plan check, uh certificates of occupancy, building inspections, and all the fees to be paid for the city of San Leandro.

And emergency services to the site will also be provided to the City of San Leandro portion and all also the area located within Oakland.

And with that, we recommend that the City of Council adopt a resolution authorizing the city administrator to enter into a memorandum of understanding with the City of San Leandro, establishing that the City of San Leandro will process planning and building entitlements for improvements to an existing structure and parking lot at one East 14th Street and 10701 International Boulevard, a property located within both jurisdictions and act as lead agency for the purpose of review under the California Environmental Quality Act.

That concludes my presentation.

Excellent.

Thank you so much.

Any questions or comments, colleagues?

And then Councilmember Michandran.

She have her hand up.

Okay.

Okay, excellent.

Thank you so much.

We can hear from the if there's any public comment.

Thank you, Ms.ada.

So with the majority of the property being in Oakland, why is San Leandro taking the lead on the property?

And with a property like this, do the owners of the property pay any assessments to the city of Oakland?

Or do all of it go does it all go to the city of San Leandro?

Is it split?

How does that work?

So do they pay uh partial taxes or where do you vote?

Uh with the city of San Leandro, the city of Oakland.

And it just leads me to my final comment.

You have uh the need to have a contract with the city of Piedmont, as it relates to the City of Piedmont being able to use Oakland libraries.

That has been without a contract for over 20 years, and they have had access to our libraries.

They give us money, but they give us the amount of money they want to give us every year for that.

They don't you have to have a contract, and you don't, and I've brought this to your attention several times.

It also all right, thank you so much for your comments.

Um I do think that the um report was uh very clear um given that this property is um a parking lot, a part of the parking lot, and so um colleagues, I'll entertain a motion on this.

Councilmember Unger.

So moved.

And council member Fife.

Second.

We do have a motion made by Councilmember Unger, seconded by council member five to approve the recommendations of staff of this to be forward to the December 16th, 2025 City Council agenda, and that is on consent.

On roll, Councilmember Five.

Aye.

Councilmember Ramachandran.

Aye.

Councilmara Ungar.

Aye.

And Chair Brown.

Aye.

This motion passes word for eyes to approve the recommendations of staff and forward this item to the December 16th City Council agenda on consent.

Moving to item four.

Through the chair to the public speaker, it is past the time to sign up for public comment.

Yeah, just emphasize that the time is expired.

Okay.

Read it in item four.

Adopt a resolution.

One authorizing the city administrator to negotiate terms for the exclusive negotiating agreement with Costco Wholesale Corporate and DECA companies.

The develop to develop a Costco wholesale and retail general merchandise facility and the North Gateway development area of the former Oakland Army base into declaring the property exempt surplus land.

And you do have 19 speakers for this item.

Excellent.

Thank you so much.

So I believe for item four, Councilmember Fife, you will be presenting on that.

And then for my colleagues, also available to answer any questions on this item would be Brendan from EWD as well as Administrator Johnson.

So Councilmember Fife, does uh eight minutes work for the presentation?

That is fine.

Is staff here?

Is Brendan here?

Oh, I see.

And if there is not an opportunity, I know we're well.

I just want to articulate to the public and um to Mr.

Kidd who came to speak just on time.

I will definitely make space for you to have those comments that you wanted to share in a public forum when we come back to this location to have our greater community meeting.

So I want you to understand that your voice will be heard on this topic.

Um that said, I do want to share a little bit about this opportunity so you can start my time to explore the possibility of developing a Costco warehouse in the city of Oakland.

Today's resolution is preliminary step that will allow the city administrator to begin discussions with Costco Wholesale Corporation and DECA companies LLC around terms for an exclusive negotiating agreement to develop a Costco facility in the North Gateway development area of the former Oakland Army base.

This large parcel has remained undeveloped for far too long, which is a loss for the city of Oakland on many fronts.

The city must explore all avenues of opportunity and bringing a warehouse has the potential to generate significant tax revenue, jobs, and easier access to goods for residents.

Additionally, the resolution also makes findings that the property is exempt surplus land because a property is subject to a valid legal restriction not imposed by the city, which prohibits any residential housing there, and there's a feasible method to satisfactorily mitigate or avoid the prohibit prohibition on the site.

And I want my colleagues and the community to understand that this item opens the door for discussions, but it is not a binding agreement with any party to any project.

An actual ENA, if terms are agreed upon, will have to come back to the full council for a vote, and there will be extensive community engagement before a formal agreement is established.

So people are asking why Costco.

And I want to give a couple of facts.

Costco is the third largest retailer in the world with over 800 warehouses and over 300,000 employees worldwide.

Significant new sources of annual tax revenue will be available to the city.

There would be hundreds of jobs with competitive competitive wages in West Oakland.

There will be localized spending as residents will be more likely to shop in Oakland.

A membership warehouse with a diverse selection of goods and competitive prices is something that hundreds of Oakland residents have asked for.

And this opportunity has the potential to fill the gap for affordable groceries and essentials for our impacted communities.

Why this particular parcel?

This large undeveloped parcel is situated at a location that will have minimal impact to residential communities close to freeways, and any mitigation that comes with transportation impacts will be done as a part of this process if approved.

Who is DECA?

DECA is a real estate investment and development firm with a proven track record of major development projects across California, as noted in the agenda report.

DECA currently has 15 active projects with a total of to a total development value of 10.15 billion dollars.

DECA has approached the D3 Council office, expressing an interest in developing their experience, leveraging their development experience to help bring a Costco to Oakland.

And there are several individuals in the exact community in the neighborhood where Costco would come that have expressed concerns about other uses, and I want those to be on the table for discussion.

As noted in the agenda report, two recyclers were meant to be relocated to the North Gateway parcel within the city and entering multiple agreements with the parties as far back as 2012.

However, these recyclers have not met the requirements needed to move their operations to the site, and currently there is no agreement in place with the two entities.

There's also been a concerted effort led by my office to use this parcel for the purpose of addressing our very real crisis of homelessness.

Unfortunately, due to legal restrictions around residential use of the site, the resources required to get a waiver from the Department of Toxic Substance Control and the extensive in environmental remediation needed, not to mention the funds needed to actually pull something like that together, is neither feasible nor timely.

And it is also important to mention that this location has been uh discussed within the city of Oakland for over 20 years, and the issues that were uh a problem for moving forward 20 years ago have been rectified over time in the city of Oakland.

So I want to reiterate that this resolution will only allow for discussion of terms and is not binding.

Additionally, I'm committed to ensuring community engagement at every level is central to any formal agreement that comes before the city council should discussion lead to an ENA.

In fact, our first community meeting will be on December 18th, and I encourage everyone interested to come.

It will be 6 p.m.

right here in the council chambers, so please join us.

We'll have information on my social media for uh the details.

And with that, um, understanding we have public comment, I'll entertain a motion on this item.

Um excellent.

Thank you.

Thank you so much, Councilmember Fife.

Um, I would like to hear from the public speakers first, and then we can open up questions to my colleagues.

Thank you.

When I call your name, please approach the podium, state your name for the record, and as reiterated, you do have one minute.

If you're participating via Zoom, please raise your hand so you're easily identified.

We will take public speakers in person before Zoom.

Sanford Forte, Sanford Forte, excuse me, Kevin Dolly, Stephanie Tran, Petra Brady, Raymond Gallagher, Kathleen Tribe, Philip Tran, Sean Granberry, excuse me if I'm mispronouncing your first or your last name.

Christina Tostada, Alex Ishuron, Derek Barnes, Rodolfo Bacrezio, Travis Duncan, Tony Bethley, Stephen Labange, Isaac Kesreed, Kesrod, Ms.ada, David Boatwright, and Prescott Chair, and lastly Derek Barnes.

We have you for twice.

You can sign up, no particular, or you can approach the podium.

Thank you.

The ENA will weaken any leverage with two major pollution polluters in Western.

Through the chair of the public speaker, please state your name for the record.

Okay, Sanford Forte.

Thank you.

DNA will weaken any leverage with two major polluters in West Oakland who have prior indicated strong interest in the North Gateway location.

Claims if those polluters are no longer interested in the North Gateway are unfounded.

How do I know?

I've asked.

Costco will bring tens of thousands of additional car trips through West Oakland every week.

Consider the human cost of increasing microplastic and air pollution caused by Costco traffic.

Tens of thousands of trips a week.

Microplastics from tires are the major source of urban microplastic pollution.

Already we see care for communities spreading the lie that this isn't environmentally neutral development.

Projected tax revenues and employment from Costco do not take into consideration loss of tax revenue and local jobs when consumers shift their purchase patterns from currently existing West Oakland businesses to Costco.

How many local jobs will be lost versus gained?

How much tax revenue lost versus gained?

I've spoken with Costco's real estate division.

East Oakland citizens use the San Leandro location.

North Oakland drivers are a mere 12 minutes away.

Thank you for your comment.

Hi, Council members.

My name is Stephanie Tran.

As an Oakland resident and small business owner, I am in support of bringing a Costco to Oakland.

Um I want to see our city invest in projects that deliver real value, projects that create long-term economic activity, drives revenue, provide stable job opportunities, and serve everyday families and small businesses.

As a small business owner, I also rely on Costco for basic supplies.

Having a reliable, affordable and efficient place to purchase goods and bolts, help entrepreneurs like me stay competitive, keep costs stable, and continue serving our customers.

Costco also has a track record of contracting with local suppliers.

I hope this project will create opportunities for Oakland businesses like myself to become part of these supply chains.

So thank you, Councilmember Five, for bringing this forward.

Let's keep moving this along so that we can negotiate a strong community benefit that will strengthen all of Oakland.

Thank you.

Good afternoon, Council members.

I'm Petra Brady.

I'm here representing the Oakland American Chamber of Commerce.

I wanted to say thank you, Council Member Fife, for presenting this uh idea to bring Costco to Oakland.

I think it's a wonderful thing personally.

I think it's a wonderful thing for our businesses.

I want to do whatever I can as myself and as an organization to support this because it is another way to improve the narrative around Oakland.

We support it wholeheartedly.

Thank you.

Hi, my name is Ray Kidd.

Thanks to Mrs.

Sada for seeding me her time.

Um I live in the uh Costum McClyman's neighborhood of West Oakland, which is the same neighborhood that Cass Metals is in.

Cast Metals is one of the entities that was going to be moved, it should be moved and hopefully will be moved to the North Gateway.

It is a very polluting industry.

It will have at the North Gateway, it will have very updated all to the all to the current regulations, environmental requirements met, and it will be a much less environmental impact on the community.

Currently, it's the the um the pollution that comes out of that, the air pollution, the the particles, the fumes, all of their all of their operations are open or unsheltered or have no roof on them.

They will that this will be remedied.

It would to leave them there now, would be a situation of environmental injustice.

And if Costco, if Costco in the North Gateway preempts calves from moving there, we will we will be living with that pollution forever.

Hello, I'm Travis Duncan, and I have uh three people who are ceding their time to me.

Uh Rodolfo Baccarizzo, uh Tony B.D.80, and Steven Labongay.

Are they in the chambers?

Please identify yourself.

Thank thank you.

Great.

Uh again, so thank you.

I'm Travis Duncan.

Uh, I'm here representing DECA, the proposed developer of this potential project.

Um, want to say first off, thank you, member to Council Member Fife for your leadership and your commitment to your constituents.

It's very noble.

We really appreciate it.

Um, and thank you for all of you for taking the time to chat here today.

Um, I thought a little bit on us, um, DECA.

Um, we're based in San Francisco, we're a California focused mixed use master plan developer.

This is exactly what we do.

Um, we search for opportunities that are steeped in complexity, and then we work with leaders like you all with the community to try and craft solutions that ultimately result in win-win solutions.

Council member did a uh phenomenally good job sort of outlining where we are in the process here.

It's early in the stage.

This is an opportunity to have a discussion about a maybe uh deal.

Uh, we're really excited about that potentiality, and we think this is an amazing location to do something that could be transformational.

Um, opportunities for cheap groceries in a food desert is an opportunity that we're really excited about.

Um, and we think that the jobs and the tax revenue associated with that are very uh interesting, exciting, articulate this moment in a challenging uh economic climate.

Um, we have other projects that we're working on that would be helpful background.

One of them in Southern California, the redevelopment of a Phillips 66 refinery.

We're in active negotiations with Costco on that opportunity involves industrial and retail in a similar configuration of what we're talking about here.

We have other mixed-use master plans in the city of Paris and the city of Bakersfield that are conceptually similar, you know, industrial type districts, but retail components, and how do we balance those competing priorities in a very similar way to this?

Um, this is what we do, um, and we're really excited to do it here.

Um, one of the things that that you hear from people in our industry uh is time kills all deals, and we really appreciate you all considering this item today to move forward with the discussion and see if we can craft um a project that has broad-based community support that um folks from all parts of Oakland and uh walks of life can comment on and and participate in the process.

We're really looking forward to the meeting in a couple weeks with the council member.

That's just the start of a very long process to maybe get to an agreement and then bring forward a project that we can all support.

So um I'm here to answer any questions.

If there are any, I would love to answer them.

Um, this site has been vacant and unused for a long time and is amazingly well connected to regional transportation in a way that is very hard to replicate.

I appreciate the gentleman's comments about additional trips.

Trips means people are coming, that's a good thing.

Parking lots are full, people are spending money, that's a good thing.

Uh this location allows for those people to get in and out of a very heavily trafficked transportation corridor and spend money in Oakland, which is a phenomenal opportunity.

Um I'll just conclude with saying thank you again for taking the time to review this to talk about it and to hopefully give us the opportunity to talk formally with the city administrator and staff about this.

Uh we think it's transformational, and uh, thank you all.

I'll be here for questions.

If I called your name, you would still you still wish to speak, please approach the podium.

If you're participating via Zoom, once again, raise your hands you're easily identified.

David Boat Ride District 4.

Uh some rhetorical questions here.

Uh, who has indicated current interest in this site?

Uh if Costco indicated interest in this site in the early 2000s, what happened then?

Was San Leandro Costco built after Costco indicated interest in this site previously?

Sean Granberry, uh Oakland resident.

Uh I'm just following up on um something we've been working on for us born and raised in Oakland, about showing up and stepping up.

So I'm here today.

Thank you, Councilmember Fife.

Uh we know Oakland needs this.

I mean, we could argue about uh, you know, pollution and all this kind of stuff, but we need jobs in Oakland.

We need a Costco in Oakland.

I was there on some of these negotiations with IKEA and with Costco when it went to San Leandro.

So I'm old enough to have been a part of some of those some of those talks back then.

So um I support this 100% uh and I will rally all my uh crew to support this 100%, and I just want to say thank you.

Let's keep moving Oakland in the right direction.

Thank you.

Good afternoon.

I'm gonna be using Isaac's time as well to be added.

Isaac, can you please raise your hand?

Thank you.

I'm shorty.

Good afternoon.

My name is Christina Tostado, but most people know me as Tina from the town.

I'm a proud daughter of the city of Oakland, born and raised in East Oakland.

I am currently an Oakland Library Commissioner, a mentor for Life Goes On, where we're trying to end senseless gun violence, a board member for reading partners for the Oakland Ed Advisory Board.

I was a former board member of the Oakland Latino Chamber and volunteer liaison for Mayor Livy Schaff.

I pour so much time and energy into this city.

Most people actually think I work for the city of Oakland.

But I am actually a supervisor for Costco wholesale.

I have been working for Costco for almost 20 years.

I started at the Costco San Leandro in May 2006 as a part-time employee while attending Cal State East Bay.

The company works for the employees with their school schedules, and because they supported my goals, I was able to earn my bachelor's degree in communications and advertising.

Costco also, they have strong wages, meaningful benefits above minimum wage.

We have a 401k with company match, Costco stock, and twice a year bonuses, time and a half pay on Sundays, paid sick leave, paid holidays, paid bonding time for new parents, comprehensive medical dental vision coverage, including 150 dollars a year for glasses and contacts.

We have access to SmartDollar, financial leader literacy program.

Because of the financial literacy my father taught me combined with Costco's strong wages, I was able to purchase my own home in the Bay Area over 13 years by myself.

This is economic stability.

This is this stability changed my life, and every family in Oakland deserves that same chance.

This year, last year they donated three million dollars to our town babies in North Oakland.

I just want to say that I would love to see Costco and in the greatest city in the world.

Hello, my name is Kathleen Yuribi, and I am uh Oakland resident, District 5.

I have a background in being a chef for production companies, and I have uh currently transition into being a wealth management uh professional for seven years now.

And I want to say that um oh I'm also a Rotarian and I love being on the Oakland Rotary Club.

And what I would like to say is I love Costco's ethics, politics, policies, everything this wonderful woman just said before me went into detail of what I thought I knew, but I did not know.

I just think this company offers amazing uh jobs and resources to the community.

And like I said, I love their politics.

I love shopping there.

Um my sister and other uh parts of my family live up in Seattle where Costco is like their corner store, and I would love to see that happening here in the Bay Area because I love everything Costco provides.

Thank you.

Good afternoon, committee members, Derek Barnes, D3 resident.

Um, and a property owner.

I'm here to support moving forward with the resolution authorizing the negotiation for potential Costco in West Oakland.

Let's be clear about what this vote is.

This is not an approval for a project, as councilmember five said, is a decision to finally explore a viable use for a long neglected site that has sat dormant for two decades, as a council member said, through multiple failed proposals, scandals, and missed opportunities in Oakland.

West Oakland has lived with the consequences of uh disinvestment, environmental burden for generations while also being asked to wait patiently.

That time is over, it's time to move.

The proposal offers a realistic path forward, hundreds of permanent jobs, as we've heard construction job site, significant tax revenue for the city that is needed desperately.

Saying yes, does not lock us in.

It is just the beginning.

Thank you, Councilmember Five for bringing this to our attention.

Moving to our Zoom speakers, Marcus Johnson, please identify what name you signed under to speak.

Please identify what they have you signed under to speak.

The Prescott chair, PNC chair.

Okay, thank you.

Please begin your one minute comment.

Yes, Costco is great, but I'm not reading any language that suggests Costco has committed any interest in this site.

Therefore, in absence of that, and since we're in a discussion only phase, I respectfully request that the resolution for the non-binding ENA with DECA Costco be amended to instead authorize a request for proposals that would allow other real estate investment firms, including DECA, to submit competitive proposals that must be robust and transparent in their process.

CWS and Cass Meadows would also be able to re-engage.

Thank you.

That concludes your public speakers for item four.

Excellent.

Well, thank you so much for the members of the public that were able to come and speak on this item.

And I think that it's been presented very clearly that we're really this this resolution is uh, you know, clearly to uh begin those conversations, um, and so I think also at the same time, um, the feedback that we've received as a body, both via email and even today, um, from the public speakers, um, kind of voice a couple things, um, and so I think it is uh, you know, to Councilmember Fife, um, you know, uh, I just want to uplift a couple of the things that I heard, um, that as we begin these, if we are successful in passing this through the committee, as we begin to have those discussions, you know, what will be um the impacts to the West Oakland community around the traffic of the trucks kind of coming in and out of West Oakland, that's kind of a concern, so just overall environmental impacts.

Um, and then a couple questions that I did have is around um, I I think you answered that the first community engagement on this item will be taking place uh December 16th.

Um, I am curious if there will be um any other larger discussions uh outside of just this one that's in December, given that it is the holiday season and people may not be available.

Um, and then my other question is um I am curious if there is a projected timeline for this um, you know, bringing this to fruition.

I just want to point out, um, I I will get to your questions.

I was at McClyman's high school last week, meeting with a group of young people who were um continuing their credits to um graduate.

It was juniors and seniors, and there was a great deal of depression with that group, but they came alive when they talked about opportunities for employment, and they were even looking for opportunities to do paid internships, and they were like, if we could just make sixteen dollars an hour, that would make a difference between kids who are out here robbing and bipping, and kids who are trying to do something positive because they don't see any opportunities.

And I'm raising that because we don't have enough opportunities in West Oakland for our young people, and I see this as a potential, and this is just a conversation to start a conversation.

There is no elected official in the city of Oakland that has done the type of community work and outreach that I've done.

So to even entertain a possibility that I would not have community engagement on this process, I want to just put that to bed because that is what I do and that is who I am.

This is one of many conversations I'm having with the public that will continue throughout this process.

I'm also deeply engaged with um environmental justice groups to the point where I'm classified as in just incorrigible because I'm supporting uh clean air and water in my district.

So that is also something I want to put to rest.

That was it's something that I'm working with our real estate department and our city attorney's um office to address the polluters that have been in West Oakland for decades.

We're going to address that too.

So I I want to be clear to those who are my juniors in this work that I'm going to continue being Carroll Fire in my district to support what the majority of my district needs, not a vocal minority.

Um that said, the timeline will depend on the city administrator's office and and city administrator Johnson.

I welcome you to weigh in with your perspective because you've been integral to moving this forward and supporting my office with this work and conversations with DECA.

Um, but it will depend on the city administrators' office and how discussions pan out from there.

But I will continue to include my residents, my constituents in this process as we move forward.

Uh through the chair, Councilmember Fife One, thank you uh so much for your comments and feedback.

And you know our staff, me personally, and the team, we are very supportive of um your legislation and the Costco item that's being brought forward.

Um, significant tax benefits to the city as well as high quality jobs.

And quite candidly, I know one of the things that we consistently talk about is the need to be aggressive when it comes to economic development.

And if we have opportunities that present themselves, well, we're gonna take advantage of it and we're gonna push hard in ways that we haven't in the past.

And so I certainly want to welcome the opportunity for our staff to come up if there are any technical questions that that may come up.

I know one of them is sort of a timeline.

I think it's probably uh mid-Q1, end of Q1.

But if Mr.

Moriarty is is here, he can certainly you know color give me a little bit more context with some more specificity.

But I really appreciate the fact that we're here and we're having the public discussion and debate and also the community engagement aspects of what's being presented, and again, to have a conversation is where we are, and we look at competitive communities around us that we aspire to.

Well, quite frankly, this is what they do, and we have to move forward as an organization because like you, we get the same calls about employment opportunities and and the fact that many of our residents are spending their uh their money in other communities that are taking advantage of the tax dollars that could be coming into Oakland.

So I appreciate the opportunity for us to do the work, present all the facts so that you all can collectly make an informed decision.

And so um I'll defer to Ms.

Rarity, who can um certainly provide a little bit more context with respect to the question that you that you asked.

Thank you.

To the chair, Brenda Moriarty, Director of Real Estate, and just on the question of timing, um, can't make total total commitments because there's two parties involved, obviously.

But um, that we're not negotiating the deal as a result of this, were it to pass, we would simply be negotiating the elements of an exclusive negotiation agreement, which then that's really the time to negotiate the deal.

So there's not that much is my point that needs to be negotiated, uh, as a result of the resolution.

I don't imagine we'll take that much time.

Um, you know, I think what the city administrator said about Q1 is probably the right time frame to have in mind.

Excellent.

Thank you so much.

Um, colleagues, Councilmember Unger.

So I I support this idea of bringing a Costco to West Oakland.

I think it's the kind of jobs and retail that we need, and I appreciate Councilmember Fife for her hard work in trying to make something good happen at that spot that has been fallow for so long.

Um my only question is um if somebody could make the case for me about why we should be exclusively with DECA at this point rather than doing um an RFP for somebody else to perform this work.

And I don't know if that's for for Council member Fife or for Mr.

Moriarty or you through the okay, go ahead.

Um through the through the chair I can take one um stab at that and uh in addition others if they want to um I mean I think you know the OMC does uh generally require a competitive process for the disposition of property for development however you know it's also um I think mindful of the fact that the the market is what it is and you have to seize opportunities at times so there is a process described in the OMC for waiving the competitive process if it's in the best interests of the city that does require um analysis and a um and a finding by the city administrator and so as part of the process uh you know responding to this resolution and coming back with terms for an ENA we would do that analysis and be able to provide that uh at that time for city council to consider is is it in the best interest of the city what are the considerations you would want to have in mind at that point in time so you you're still undergoing the process of figuring out the elements of why we don't need an RFP that's right if this passes we would then do that analysis to give you the information so you could see as the decision making body is it in the best interest of the city to accept these the proceed with the ENA as now presented or actually are the other considerations should we pump the brick should we do something else at this point in time we don't have that analysis done but we do it as a result of this so you could come back with a desire to broaden the field.

Yeah I think we were to do that analysis and find that oh actually this is maybe not in the best interest there's some compelling things that need to be considered we would we would raise those uh considerations for you okay that makes sense to me thank you excellent thank you so much council member unger for the question uh councilmember Ramachandran any questions um not at the moment okay excellent um and council member five did you want to make the motion on this I made the motion earlier but I do want to uh just comment briefly on the retail and um estimated economic loss that the city of Oakland experiences from uh retail dollars going to other cities there was a um a consultant that the city hired in 2008 to do a study uh and I I will bring more of this information to the public once we go through this process but um conley estimated that oplander should be spending 1.5 billion dollars in the city of Oakland 1.5 billion dollars and this was in 2008 and a lot of that retail leakage was going to cities like Emoryville and Berkeley and San Leandro and with all of the legislation that's moving forward next year from a ballot initiative to several other uh things that have recently passed through CED if we are going to be aggressive about holding those dollars in the city of Oakland I think this is a first step uh towards that process and in terms of the the issues that are faced by West Oakland residents and what we need this is something that is desperately needed as been has been communicated to me communicated to me by by several individuals and we will do our due diligence as a city of Oakland comparing uh the different proposals that have come forward but I want to state for the public no other organization no other company no one has reached out to me outside of DECA for Costco there have been no phone calls no complaints until um recently people talking about truck traffic or car traffic which will be mitigated in any analysis that the city does so um I wanted to state that for the record and reiterate that I personally believe that this is in the best interests of my district and in the best interest of the city of Oakland to have a Costco warehouse inside of our city limits and I will reiterate my motion um to move this item forward excellent thank you so much council member five uh councilmember unger I'll second it we have a budget made by council member five seconded by councilmember unger to approve the recommendations of staff and afford this item to the December 16th.

City council June, and that is on consent.

Well, I am suggesting that it be on consent, but that is up to the body.

On roll, Council member 5.

Aye.

Council member Ramachandran.

Aye.

Councilmember Onger.

Aye.

And Chair Brown.

Aye.

This motion passes with four eyes to approve the recommendations of staff and afford this item to the December 16th City Council or did that on consent.

Moving to item five.

Receive informational report on the city of Oakland's cannabis equity program.

And you do have two speakers for this item.

Okay, excellent.

Okay, thank you so much.

And so on this next item, um, we will hear from Kat Torrio, and then also online to answer any questions is also uh Darlene Flynn from the Department of Race and Equity.

Excellent.

Um, and will eight minutes be good?

Yeah, it might be less than that.

Okay, excellent.

Thank you.

So hello, thank you so much for um taking the time.

I'm Kat Torrio, um managing the special activity permitting division, which houses our cannabis um program.

Um this is a report, um, an informational report on the city's cannabis equity program, which um was asked um that we would bring this forward to um before we start spending any of GoPis 6.

So I do have a short presentation that we'll just work through.

Can move it forward to the next one.

Thank you.

So on March 18th, um City Council accepted um the um 2,074,369 of the GoPis grant funding from the state to support the city's cannabis equity program.

Um, as part of that, um, there was a provision added to the resolution that requested that we come with um should we turn to city council with an informational report on the status of the equity program?

This report serves to honor that request.

Um a little history.

We'll go to the next slide.

The equity program has to be um we started um the city of Oakland established it, and this is the nation's first cannabis equity program in the spring of 2017.

Um our pioneering efforts and equity analysis that um was done by the um Department of Race and Equity here at Oakland created the cannabis equity program.

Um it also inspired jurisdictions across the country to pursue and support similar programs.

In 2019, the state of California set aside annual grant funding to support local jurisdictions cannabis equity programs, and as of December 2025, we have 211 equity cannabis businesses in Oakland.

Next slide.

So a little bit of history for what we've been awarded.

Thank you, Donnie.

Um since uh 2019, um we have come in first and second.

Um, we there is a matching requirement for these funds, so um coming in third in the 2526 year, which is the um just over two million that we were awarded for GoPis six, um, and that is due mostly because we have matching requirements, those matching requirements were put into place starting with that grant.

So we are really hoping that we can get this money out the door quickly, and um we can move to the next slide.

We do an annual um survey for our equity program.

Uh we got 52 responses in 2024, and just wanted to go through some of the points that we um asked on that survey.

So there's 41 currently operating businesses, um, eleven are pending working through the permitting process.

Uh 34 um identify lack of capital as a barrier for operating, and we know this.

We know it's very difficult to do business in general.

It's even more of a disadvantage to do cannabis business as there are many barriers, um banking and a few other things, and and um it's federal.

Not able to write off taxes, so we're asking operators to act as regular businesses, and they are truly at a disadvantage.

Um, there are 45 prior recipients to either a grant or a loan from the city.

So we are actively getting this money out into people's hands.

32 stated that funding made it possible for the business to continue operating.

Um, these grants cover a lot of expenses, and we'll go over that a little bit later in some of the slides, but first I wanted to just um talk about who the program serves.

Next slide.

One of the application survey questions for applicants is has any owner, partner, board member, or your business or any immediate family members, parents, siblings, spouse, child, been convicted or incarcerated for any cannabis related charges.

This is one of the key elements of the equity program.

We wanted to target and make sure that people who had been put through the system before because of cannabis violations of some sort, that they had an opportunity to have a business.

And so you can see here it's 25.48%.

Yes, they have experienced this in their time and now are able to have participate in the legal market.

Next slide.

As far as the demographics, we do ask that.

Of course, it's optional, so but you can see most of about 38 of our applicants on the again 51 that responded are African American, nine Hispanic, Latino, nine white, eight Asian, and declined to state six and so on and so on.

Native American three, Hawaiian one, and others not listed.

So we have diversity as Oakland is very diverse, and we're very happy that we are targeting and getting new people in every year.

We're hoping to continue to grow this program.

I just want to shout out, I'm not sure if everybody's going to be able to speak, but we do have two operators that have been very successful stories here.

We have Josh Chase from O'Connor here, and we also have Ricky McCullen from Rooting and the 510 here, and they are equity operators doing their work here in Oakland and have great businesses and very much are very proud of the work that they've been able to do here and the people they've kept employed in the businesses that they have.

So I just wanted to make that point.

Next slide.

We are expanding some of the uses of the grant funding.

We've listened, we recognize that cannabis is a difficult business in general.

It needs every year to be kind of looked at to see what is changing in the industry and how we can meet those needs.

So we have listened and we have set aside some money for startup grants to encourage some new applicants to come to the table.

We're giving out 15,000 for new equity businesses, and this would go to applicants who haven't received any grants in the past.

So truly, we want you know some grassroots new businesses to come to the table, and we hope this will help them.

We also have grants to support conversions or creation of cannabis cafes.

We so far do not have one.

There is models that we can copy that are in San Francisco.

We're hoping that we can encourage with some of this funding to have dispensaries that have on-site consumption lounges if they can convert into a cannabis cafe, which allows food and entertainment.

We think that will really help our industry and kind of help lessen the stigma that cannabis has.

Um the rest of the items that are listed on here are items that historically we have supported with grant funding, and we will continue with GoBiz 6.

The last slide we have supporting equity ownership.

We have also heard that it's difficult for folks to stay in business.

A lot of times they take on partners.

Of course, the city can't monitor always what those agreements are with partners, but we do have technical assistance, and we also have legal assistance that are eligible expenses for grantees.

So what we have changed and what we can offer to kind of help with this is that if application is 100% equity owned, 100% of the city permit fees will be waived.

That's something we've had ongoing.

We'll continue to do.

That serves for our matching portion, which we're able to submit to Go Biz and get those matching funds as far as how much we can get for the grant.

Applicants, what we're moving to forward to do is to require annually that applicants must provide a copy of the business agreement, reflecting the current percentage structure of the partnership.

So we want to see that on an annual basis, make sure that it's not changing and that we haven't been notified.

Applicants will maintain correspondence with City of Oakland through the equity applicant.

This is really important.

We want to make sure that we're having conversations with the equity applicant on a regular basis, that they are actively involved in the business, and that there's plenty of opportunity for them to tell us any changes to the business and report any any things like that.

So if there are reported changes in the business, we ask that um that our department is notified within 30 days.

We do have a transfer process for any equity business to sell to a general or any transfer of any business in general.

They do have to go through that entire process through our department before it's finalized, and we also notify the state of that.

So that is all I have for this presentation.

Happy to take any questions.

Excellent.

Thank you so much.

Um we can go to the public speakers first, and then I have a couple questions.

Thank you.

Want to call your name, please approach the podium.

And please state your name for the record.

Ricky McCullough.

And my experience with the process uh has been very undaunting.

Um they made it very easy for you know all equity applicants to be able to receive these funds.

Um, very easy process.

I'll explain my process here really quickly.

Um they send out emails uh notifying all applicants that uh there's funding available coming from the state.

After that, there's some subsequent uh emails come out uh sending out surveys to all equity applicants to get feedback.

Once the data is received, uh, then they will then send out another email notifying what funding is available uh along with the application process.

Um during the application process, uh, there's a uh grant schedule that notifies our obligations as an applicant to be able to.

I'm sorry, can I get you can continue?

Okay, thank you.

Um notifying our obligations and responsibilities for that grant.

Um application is really easy, as I mentioned before.

Um, it's meant to for an applicant like myself or owner operator to be able to uh process this application without any professional counsel.

Um, we have a wonderful department here that also supports us.

Uh all equity applicants.

Nancy really does a great job with helping us with this, uh, getting through this process.

Once there's multi-tier process as well, uh for the grants, so you don't have to be fully operational to be able to access these funds, which is a really great thing.

Uh it's multi-tiered uh that coincides with multi-uh tiered uh funding.

So it allows for multi-entry points.

Once you completed the process, um, uh the city will notify you uh if there's any things that you need to submit.

Um, but it's pretty easy.

Submit your your documents and uh they'll notify you to get your check, and you're open.

Thank you so much for your comment.

Unfortunately, we have we have a lengthy agenda, so um I gave you an extra minute.

Thank you.

I remember very vividly when this process started, the room was full with opportunity, anticipation, and something says, Oh, I got a chance now, and then little by little, as the process was being reviewed, people will come in and saying it's not working for them, it's not working.

The struggles, the competitiveness of the bigger uh cannabis groups, they were being pushed out, and they needed help, and they weren't getting it.

So I don't know how this is considered successful when I need to see the evidence and the data that says how many people started and were able to maintain over a substantial period of time being in business, and I don't think it's that many, and um I've seen people come here and say, we really want this, and that's I'm going to that concludes your public comment for five.

Excellent.

Thank you so much.

So thank you so much for the presentation and the information report.

I know that when this item came before us earlier in the year.

Oh, is there still another public comment?

Did were you able to sign up to speak?

All right, that that's that's fine.

And through the to the public speaker, please state your name for the record.

Joshua Chase.

So my name is Joshua Chase.

I uh went to Oakampoa School District my whole entire life.

I've been in the city for most of my life.

And I just want to say just for the record that this grant program has been great for most operators in the city.

I would not be where I am today without the city of Oakland, without Nancy Marcus, and without this grant program.

Life is full of optimistic and pessimistic.

You can see opportunities at half being full or half being empty.

Anything given to an entrepreneur that is not earned by himself particularly or herself particularly is a positive.

And without this program, I wouldn't be where I am.

I'm an operator owner.

I own a hundred percent of my business.

I do not have partners, I do not have anything like that.

I'm able to do that.

I supp I employ uh 20 local people, um, people that are um one-third of our staff is LGBTQ, half of them speak Spanish, and we are Oakland operators.

I just want to say that the city of Oakland has the best program in the nation.

Thank you so much for your comment.

Um very um nice feedback.

Um and so kind of as I was mentioning, I know that um this item is before us today because when you all came in, I believe presented the grant to us earlier in the year.

Um I think um some of my colleagues have requested that we um do a report back.

So some of the specific questions that I had, um I think maybe one of the maybe the easiest one here is um do you know offhand how much of the grant funding will be going to support um the cannabis cafes?

Well, it's tied in with um operator grants, so anybody there's only a few that actually have to have a cannabis cafe, you have to have an on-site um consumption, so you have to be dispensary.

So um I think we have four total um that are equity owned.

So if any of those wanted to transition, we would move them, we would move funding to support that, but it's really up to them.

So um, if there's a new dispensary that wants to open up, I don't think we have that process open right now, but we are talking about um looking into how we can open up um to have more dispensaries and seeing if that's a possibility.

Um we have to work at planning and building and figure out zoning, if if that's you know, even feasible and how quickly that could be.

Um so there isn't a specific amount, but any any qual any eligible um dispensary that wanted to turn into that was equity would be eligible for these funds.

Okay, excellent.

I see.

Um, thank you.

And so um on page eight of the report, it outlines um just some of the um goals of staff around implement um implement implementing um to you know help prevent some of the predatory partnerships that were occurring.

Do you know offhand which one um you know staff is you know, I guess focused on implementing right away?

Um both we only have two um uh technicians that are are focused on cannabis and both of them will be involved in that process.

Of course, Nancy um Marcus leads um that section of the division.

Um every situation is different.

Every owner agreement, operator agreement is different.

So we're really um have to get into the weeds and kind of case manage a little bit on this, um, which we're willing to do, but it does take time.

Um so right now the state has changed some of their rules.

They are eliminating provisional licenses.

So anybody who hasn't transitioned to an annual license, um their provisional will go away.

Um so they will really have to work with local jurisdiction to um get they have to get to their annual license in order to stay within our permitting division.

So we might have less folks, the folks who are deciding to leave the table, they're not going to continue to pursue trying to open up.

And so we're hoping that as we we see how these changes at the state affect how many applicants we are dealing with on a daily basis.

We're hoping we can do more case management for the ones that are staying on.

Excellent.

Thank you.

And then maybe the last question would be: are you all collecting geographic data as to understand where in Oakland applicants live so that we're ensuring that we're actually reaching some of these priority like neighborhoods and communities?

Yeah.

Darlene, I don't know.

Did you want to talk about the zip codes and any of that portion of it?

Sure.

Darlene's group really put together how they they worked on the different zip codes and what qualifies as eligible for equity.

And I think that that we are tracking those, and we do we definitely have an idea.

So from the beginning, eligibility to participate in the equity programming required geographic uh connection to Oakland and proof.

And this was one of the barriers in the beginning as well for some people who couldn't necessarily document their history of residency and that you know, people move around, they kind of we made it as broad as we could so that people could get in.

It was like 10 years out of the last 20 or something like that.

That we required, we required documentation.

And Nancy, as far as I know, we're still doing that.

The qualify it's still the same guidelines to qualify for these supports, and so yes, we do have those records because it's part of the application process.

And so, so I guess you know, maybe when we come and present um in the future, maybe we can have uh, you know, a graph that outlines where we're where we're hitting in some of those zip codes, just to where people came from, yeah.

Not necessarily where they are now, but where they came from.

Sure.

I think that's probably possible if you'd like to have that kind of data displayed.

It could be done because it is part of the process.

Um and that's just mostly, you know, really being interested in you know how this program, how we're reaching, you know, some of these key zip zip codes across the city, and if we're you know how we're doing with that.

Yeah.

Can I just add one thing about the program itself and how it's developed?

What you see now is a program that is built out at an extensively higher level than it was originally.

When we began this program, we had zero dollars, and we knew that capital was critical, it's critical to any new small business.

Um, and so um a lot of creativity went into how to create opportunity for marginalized entrepreneurs to get into the business before it got absorbed by more dominant groups, right?

And it was a very creative approach, you can read about it.

It was very cool, it was temporary, and eventually we were able to phase it out because we knew that as cannabis revenue came in that we would be able to fund some of the kinds of programming that we have now through cannabis revenue through new revenue, basically.

And fortunately, the state of California followed our suit and started their own program where they pushed revenue down from the state and they're still doing it, as you saw in the report.

We were already established as an equity program.

So we got the f the bulk of those first grants because we were the only city at that time set up to get them.

Now we compete for them with other cities.

But I just wanted to highlight what an incredible um leading edge thing this was for Oakland to do for the council at the time to do, and it was the first project I got to work on when I got here nine years ago.

So I'm particularly proud of it that it's still going and that it has had the impact it's had.

That being said, starting a small business is no small thing.

50% of all small businesses fail.

Uh, and so the idea that we would have had the audacity to say we're going to make a pathway for people who are least likely to succeed because they don't have the community resources, and basically, you can't go to the bank to get a loan for a cannabis business for obvious reasons.

So if you don't have community resources to draw on to start a dispensary or a cannabis business, then you're kind of out of the market and out of the competition.

So we didn't eliminate all competition.

There's plenty of competition out there, it's not all equity businesses, but we know that we created a meaningful on-ramp, and the program continues to improve.

So it has changed greatly over the years.

It's been expanded.

We do listen to the feedback from the businesses, whether they succeed or not.

We we take that in and have been able to fill more and more gaps as time has gone on.

I don't expect that that will stop.

Thank you.

Well, thank you both for your leadership on this item.

And then I also in Nancy, and then I also believe that one of the trailblazers in this space was Greg Minor.

I could not have done it without Greg Minor.

I was brand new here.

Greg Minor had been working here for quite some time.

He'd been working in the cannabis space, and when it was medical cannabis before it was recreational, and we formed a great partnership.

He had the you know that that sort of cannabis um awareness, and then we were able to put the equity analysis on it, which untangled some problems that the legislation had run into.

We were able to fix it and get it passed and get it rolling with no dollars in the beginning.

So yeah, thank you for bringing up Greg's name.

He's you know he's gone on to another city, but but uh without him, I don't know.

But between he and Nancy, I don't think this would have happened.

Excellent, thank you.

Council member Fife.

I just have a couple questions, and thank you, Director Flynn, for bringing up the origin of this program, and thanks, Kat, for just all your work.

I know you're real you really want this to be a successful program, and I think pointing out some of the challenges doesn't mean we don't understand how this program is moving forward, but there's still some things that we need to address.

And I can't talk about cannabis equity without talking about the pioneer in Oakland's cannabis equity, and that's council member Desley Brooks for creating this program in the first place.

So, shout out to her.

Um, but I I want to understand the staffing needs for the department to effectively manage this program, and I want to understand what interdepartmental coordination looks like to support uh cannabis equity in Oakland.

Yeah, okay.

Well, one thing that we're doing that's gonna help a lot, especially with record keeping and being able to spit out really clean reports quickly is a seller moving this on to a seller.

This has been a huge lift because cannabis is so complicated and it's got fingers in every single department.

So we've been working with the seller for almost two years straight to get this up, and we are in the last phases of testing it before it can completely we can migrate all the applicants over to it.

And again, with um the the changes in the state law, seeing who's really on board and who's really moving forward, and um then we can look and see if we can grow and open it back up for dispensaries and other businesses to have opportunities in cannabis.

So that's one thing.

Um we're hoping that that's really gonna be in full effect by spring migrating folks over, and um in the fall, we're hoping that we've vetted and tested all the hands that go into the other departments as far as fire and planning and building and making sure that those systems all correctly work.

Um the other thing we're doing is we've proposed that we want to get a program analyst for um the cannabis for strictly for the cannabis program to really help us with um the grants.

Um at one point um we had three grants running at the same time, and poor Nancy was doing it all, and it's a nightmare if you're you're trying to keep track of that many things, that many reports.

Each grant has its own eligibility and criteria and and and things that um the budget allows.

Um, so we really need um one person, one staff member focused on that.

Um, it's also a lot of case management.

You you don't just you know it it's not just a couple emails, you're talking with um applicants constantly getting other information, letting them know that this is what you submitted isn't correct.

I need this instead.

Um, there is a lot of interaction.

Um a lot of the equity applicants don't aren't necessarily so business savvy, they haven't had businesses before.

This might be their first venture.

So there is a lot of hand holding as far as like what documents are required and and what types of insurance are required, what levels of insurance.

So those types of things we're hoping if we have one person focused on this, then it will make it much easier to track, much easier to get the reporting done effectively, and it will allow us to look and ask for more money.

Um, so those are some of the the changes that we're looking to implement in this next year.

Thank you.

Uh my last question is um earlier, I believe it was earlier this year.

Uh, I worked with council member Kaplan to bring forward on-site consumption permits, and you you said that there were four.

I believe in your presentation you said that there were four equity ones.

I believe there's only four that um are equity.

There's other consumption uh dispensaries that are non-equity that are general, but yeah, four that are equity.

That was my question.

Or were they equity or um just overall?

So there are four that have applied for this particular license in our they haven't applied.

They just have they are dispensaries with um on-site consumption, so they are eligible to become a cannabis cafe if they choose to.

Understood, thank you.

Excellent.

Um, thank you so much.

Um council member Ramishandrin.

Um, any questions on this item?

No, I'm just really glad to see the program's success continue and knowing that we are one of the strongest in the state and continue to get funding for this, you know.

Just um excited to see it grow and for other cities to take our lead on something like this.

Excellent.

Thank you so much.

Um, and so for this item, I believe that we just um, so thank you so much.

Um, I believe with that we would just um I'll make the motion to receive and file this in committee.

Is that right?

Um, unless staff wants this item um forwarded to the council meeting.

I'm sorry.

Um, so we can either just receive and file this report or um does staff uh want this item forwarded to the city council.

Um just receive and file this file.

Excellent.

Um do we have a second on that motion?

I'll second that.

Thank you.

Thank you.

We have a motion made by councilmember brown chair brown, seconded by councilmember Unger to receive and file this in the CED community economic development committee on role, Councilmember Brown.

Councilmember five, aye.

Councilmember Ramachandran.

Aye.

Councilmember Unger.

Aye.

And Chair Brown?

Aye.

The motion passes with four ayes to receive and file this in a CED committee.

Moving to item six, this item requires an urgency vote as this item was placed on a three-day agenda.

I would just see the motion.

So we ready to make a motion.

And at the presence of councilmember Wong.

So I believe for this item, um, we would hear, we can hear from council member Wong, but then also on hand is the sustainability team, right?

Yes.

Excellent.

Item also requires an urgency vote.

Okay.

Excellent.

So we just need a motion at the presence of councilmember Wong.

We just need we would need to convene.

Yeah, the urgency finding on this one was made in rules, um, but we need to adjourn into a special meeting.

Councilmember Unger.

So move that we adjourn into a special meeting, please.

Second.

Thank you.

We have a motion made by Councilmember Unger, seconded by Chair Brown to adjourn the committee economic development committee meeting and to convene into a special meeting of the full council at 250 p.m.

on roll.

Councilmember.

Councilmember Five.

Aye.

Thank you.

Councilmember Ramatra.

Hi.

Councilmember Ungar.

Aye.

And Chair Brown?

Aye.

This motion will pass this word four eyes.

We're now we are now into a special meeting of the full council.

And I will also need a motion for the urgency finding.

Um it's my understanding that the urgency finding was made at rules.

And it's I can I make comment around the urgency.

One second.

Well, I'll go ahead and make that motion.

Second.

Thank you.

Thank you.

We have a motion made by Chair Brown, seconded by Councilmember Five to approve the urgency finding on role.

Council Member Five.

Aye.

Councilmember Ramachadron.

Aye.

Councilmember Onger.

Aye.

And Chair Brown.

Aye.

The motion passes what four eyes.

I would now proceed to read the item into record.

Adopt a resolution and supported the Bay Area Air District timely implementation of rules 9-4 and 9-6 to establish a zero emission building appliance standards with the appropriate flexibility to ensure equity, equity, and business development.

And you do have three speakers for this item.

Excellent.

Thank you so much.

And so now we'll hear from Councilmember Wong and I guess the team in sustainability as well, if needed.

Sounds good, yes.

Nick is uh Courtish is here to answer any uh questions, the subject matter expert.

Um, but today I am bringing forward a resolution in support of the Bay Area Air District's timely implementation of rules 9-4 and 9-6, uh, the rules that establish zero emission, building appliance standards with the appropriate flexibility to ensure equity and protect our residents and small businesses.

So let me begin why this matters.

Across the Bay Area, gas burning appliances, the water heaters and furnaces inside our homes and apartments are a major source of harmful air pollution.

They emit nitrogen oxides, fine particulates, carbon monoxide, even benzene.

These pollutants contribute to asthma, cardiovascular disease, and they shorten lives.

Every year in our region, this pollution causes an estimated 85 premature deaths and 15,000 asthma attacks and nearly 890 million dollars in related health care costs.

And we know who bears the brunt of this harm.

It's black immigrant and low-income communities who already face disproportionate proportionate pollution sources.

It's the appliances burning inside these buildings that threaten our commitments to public health and environmental justice.

And we know that climate change is not abstract.

Burning fossil fuels in homes accounts for roughly 11% of our statewide climate emissions.

Heat pumps, which are clean, safe, and far more efficient, reduce lifetime emissions by up to 93% compared to gas systems.

And this is also about basic public safety and fire risk.

Gas lines are prone to rupture during earthquakes.

I don't know if you've all noticed.

We've had a couple of earthquakes in the last couple of months.

Fires often follow earthquakes when gas infrastructure breaks, and we need to be preparing for the worst.

So that's why in 2023, the Bay Area Air District adopted groundbreaking standards to gradually phase out the sale of gas water heaters starting in 2027 under Rule 9-6 and gas furnaces starting in 2029 under Rule 9-4.

These standards only apply when appliances already broken or being replaced.

No one is being forced to remove working equipment.

This timeline is deliberate.

It gives our residents time to plan, it gives the trades and industry time to train workers, expand supply chains and build capacity.

Immediately after adoption, the Air District, in recognition of the practical challenges associated with this transition, began working on 2026 flexibility amendments to ensure that these rules account for individuals like low-income homeowners, including convening an implement implementation working group that includes cities, environmental justice working groups, environmental justice groups, and economic justice partners to ensure that this transition is fair and practical and takes into account exemptions for low-income homeowners, small businesses, and homes that would need major upgrades to accommodate the transition.

So tomorrow, and this is why this was urgent, the Air District is uh achieving a major milestone in this rulemaking process with the December 10th hearing regarding these so-called flexibility amendments.

The rulemaking, while slated to continue, uh we have the fossil fuel industry and its allies exerting enormous pressure on this regulatory process to go back on its 2023 decision.

And so it's important for Oakland to join cities like San Francisco and Berkeley to make clear our stance at this critical milestone early in the rulemaking process before it reverses.

Passing this resolution ensures that Oakland makes clear that we support timely implementation and not only the original standards adopted in 2023, but we support the process to adopt amendments that ensure that this transition avoids undue burden on low-income homeowners and renters, small businesses and building professionals, and it includes flexibilities that really prevents unintended harm while also advancing clean air, climate, and safety goals.

This is exactly why, with our equitable climate action plan, the ECAP adopted unanimously in 2020, which sets a target for all existing buildings to be efficient and all electric by 2040.

Rules 94 and 9-6 are the policy tools that make that possible.

We provide the market certainty that contractors, manufacturers, and workforce partners need to prepare for this transition.

And as for Oakland residents, this is an opportunity.

Heat pumps save energy.

They lower utility bills over time, and when paired with solar and weatherization, they make homes safer, healthier, and more comfortable, especially during extreme heat, wildlife smoke events, and also, as I mentioned, earthquakes.

So today we are not simply endorsing a regional policy.

We are advocating for Oakland's public health, climate safety, and economic future.

So with that, let's show that Oakland stands with science, clean air, equity, and with our regional partners.

I respectfully ask for your support.

Excellent.

Thank you so much, Councilmember Wong, and for your leadership on this item.

And so I'm definitely in support.

Um I just had one, I guess, technical question.

Um, you know, I know you mentioned that there's the meeting on December the 10th.

Yes.

Um, but do you have more insights into the Bay Area Air District's timeline for implementation?

I believe that maybe the meeting on the 10th, um, is more um as a like maybe an informational, and there will be a series of meetings before actual implementation.

Yeah, it's uh it's a major milestone.

It's kicking off this process.

Um, there is the risk, as I said, given some of the pushback that, and which is why we should weigh in now that um rulemaking could be uh reversed, things like that, and so we want to make sure that doesn't happen.

Uh, Nick, do you want to comment on uh more on the timeline that's ahead of us?

Sure.

Uh Nick Kordash from the Sustainability and Resilience Division of the City Administrator's Office.

The timeline we're looking at uh starts in 2023 when the district first uh passed the this uh this legislation, and then they're looking at the first bit of implementation in January 2027.

So between now and then, it's a rulemaking process where we as staff will provide letters, comments uh to that committee.

Excellent.

Thank you so much.

Uh Councilmember Fife.

I just want to say through the chair to Councilmember Wong, I really appreciate your thorough um laying out of the information here and appreciate your expertise with your background in the EPA and uh all your other environmental work.

I'd be happy to support and champion this.

I know it was discussed in rules about the urgency and how it was moving forward with the air district, and I wanted to know if um through you if there will be any other requirements from the council other than a vote in order for you.

Well, I want to know how you plan on representing the city on this item, if at all, when it comes forward there, and um I'd be happy to make a motion to accept.

I just wanted a couple answers to those questions.

Yeah, no, I I that's a great question.

Um, so assuming that we passed this today and then goes before the council, I think with that I noticed there's a number of cities who've submitted comments and that we could use that to then submit a letter of support where the rulemaking is collecting uh comments from the city.

So you'll notice uh a number of letters of support submitted by um, I think it was city of uh San Francisco, Berkeley, and probably and some others that I'm missing.

Okay.

I made the motion, so we can go ahead.

Thank you.

Thank you for your responses.

Excellent.

And I'll second it and council member Unger or Ramachandran.

Any questions?

Uh just a quick comment.

Um, thank you for bringing this forward.

I did already send a letter of support on this item from my district for office, and happy to move this and signed a petition as well, and happy to move it to that it's it is moving forward.

Thank you, Councilman.

I didn't notice your letter in the comments as I was as I was reviewing that today.

Excellent, thank you.

And then we can hear from the public commenters.

Thank you.

Want to call your name, please approach the podium.

If you are participating via Zoom, please raise your hand so you're easily identified.

Derek Barnes and Miss Asada.

And Sam Fishman.

I'm almost sure this is a noteworthy pursuit.

But it frustrates me as it relates to environmental issues in this city.

How you keep identifying things, but you never complete anything.

So you have lead paint.

That's been spoken about over and over again, and how uh Oakland has the highest risk for children being exposed to lead paint, and we haven't worked through that issue.

We have the police administration building, and we have several buildings that are seismically unfit.

That building has got to be demolished.

You haven't done anything.

I'm sure you doing the same thing, going through the same thing, lead in the water in these pipes.

OUSD has exposed that problem.

You haven't even brought that problem up.

My point is you're bringing up so much stuff, even like with uh over at the army base.

There's so much pollution over there, and you're having a free discussion and eliminating you not serious.

Thank you for your comment, Mr.

Sada.

If I called your name, you can approach the podium, state your name for the record.

You do have one minute.

Thank you.

My name is Sam Fishman.

I'm a sustainability and resilience policy manager with Spur, the local public policy organization in the Bay Area.

We've been working on the air district rules for many years now.

We're part of the implementation, we were part of the implementation working group on these rules, and I just want to emphasize how broad the engagement and how deep the process that the air district is going through to ensure that these rules are equitable and affordable for Bay Area residents.

Um a number of exceptions to these rules are being proposed right now to ensure that they're that no one is um that folks are able to adopt clean equipment and that folks who are struggle have additional time.

And we're really um just thrilled to to see support from cities at this moment.

We really are seeing last minute actors jumping in and threatening to undo these rules that are really historic and are putting the Bay Area um in a in a position to really influence the rest of the country to adopt similar standards.

So it's really uh a critical time for cities to jump in and show that they support these rules.

Thank you for your comment.

Oh my last but not least, Derek Barnes.

Um good afternoon, city council members again.

Uh I just wanted to say most support uh Oakland's climate and clean air goals.

I think they're great.

The support and transition to zero emission buildings, fantastic.

Reducing air pollution saves lives as we know.

But I want um to offer a note of caution.

I think some of these items were brought up before from a housing and community development perspective.

Uh most of Oakland's naturally affordable uh housing is old.

Um multifamily buildings on average in Oakland are like over 70 years old.

And so just know that there's a significant retrofitting that has to happen in those um environments, and so when there's uh a failure of a of an appliance, uh it's usually an emergency, and sometimes that takes time to resolve itself.

So I think we're all supporting uh most of us support this, but we want to make sure that there are guardrails that allow uh owners that um may not have the resources or the time uh so that there's a lot of level of flexibility so they can work through the issues that are going on.

Thank you.

Got to conclude your public speakers for item six.

We have a motion made by Councilmember 5, seconded by Councilmember Chair Brown, to approve the recommendation of staff and to forward this item to the December 16th City Council agenda, and that is on consent.

On roll, Councilmember 5.

Aye.

Councilmember Ramachandra?

Aye.

Councilmember Unger.

Aye.

And Chair Brown.

Aye.

This motion passes with four eyes to approve the recommendations of staff and to forward this item to the December 16th City of the Council agenda, and that is on consent.

Moving to item as seven.

As this item what needs an urgency vote, as this item was added at the three day agenda as well.

I just need a motion.

I'll make that motion.

Second.

Thank you.

We have a motion made by Councilmember Chair Brown, seconded by Councilmember Ramachandran.

To approve the urgency finding for this item on roll, Councilmember 5.

Aye.

Councilmember Ramachandran.

Councilmember Ramadan.

Aye.

Councilmember Unger.

Aye.

And Chair Brown?

Aye.

This motion passes with four eyes.

I would now read the item into record.

Adopt emergency ordinance.

One reappeal repealing current Oakland Municipal Code Chapter 1512, the Oakland Fire Code.

Two, adopting and making local amendments to the 2025 edition of the California model building code, California Code of Regulations, Title 24, Part 9, also referred to as the California Fire Code.

Three, recoding said code as an Oakland Municipal Code, Chapter 1512, and for adopting qual California Environmental Quality Act finding.

And you do have three speakers for this item.

Excellent.

Thank you so much.

So I believe on this item we'll be hearing from our fire marshal white as well as assistant fire marshal Smith and then Michael Hunt is also on here as well to answer any additional questions.

Thank you.

Good afternoon, members of the community economic development committee.

My name is Darren White.

I'm serving as the current interim fire marshal for the Oakland Fire Department, and it's our pleasure to be here with you this afternoon and thank you for giving us the opportunity to present and share some information about the adoption of the 2025 California Fire Code.

Um we have uh proposed amendments, and I'm just gonna briefly speak to you about a couple of the benefits of the 2025 fire code adoption, and then I'm gonna turn it over to assistant fire marshal Javen Smith so he can do the bulk of the presentation.

But the first thing I want to emphasize is that the Oakland Fire Department is seeking to ensure that we can continue to provide for public safety by preserving our operational necessity as outlined in some of the code amendments that were proposing to be adopted.

I also want to stress that we've actually been working closely with the Oakland Department of Transportation going back a few years now, and my predecessor, uh the former fire marshal Felicia Wands O'Brien, along with assistant fire marshal Smith and others have been working collaboratively to review the design and the proposed projects that have been coming forward for uh the safety of our community and our streets and the general public and their goals of uh reducing risk and potential injury to that public.

And then lastly, um one of the benefits is that we're seeking to provide the guidance necessary to ensure that we reduce any potential delays in our permitting processes by ensuring that uh developers and others um can rely on the fact that we have uh standards that have been adopted and certain provisions of the code that have been adopted.

This is supported by not only Oakland Fire Department Fire Prevention Bureau, but also the Oakland Department of Transportation as well as our planning and building uh partners, and then lastly, I want to just give appreciation to the bicycle pedestrian, bicycle and pedestrian committee and their willingness to uh listen to us to share their concerns with us as we continue to try to design and do the things that we believe achieve as much flexibility as we possibly can while preserving our operational necessity.

And so at this time, assistant fire marshal Smith will give an overview of the importance of the adoption of the code that we're requesting.

Good afternoon.

Uh my name is Javen Smith.

I'm the assistant fire marshal uh for the city of Oakland, as mentioned.

Um, we have a slide presentation that we'd like to share with you.

Uh PowerPoint that will help describe our situation.

So this is as was mentioned the 2025 California Fire Code amendments presentation.

If we go to the first slide, we'll talk really about what it is.

Just so we have an overview.

So the California Fire Code is part of the California Code of Regulations.

Triannually, it's published and updated.

We must adopt it.

That is a fact.

And so we do.

However, this document is a statewide document and therefore is intended to be modified for specific jurisdictions because every city has different issues, problems to face.

And so built into the code is this ability to amend it, and that's over here.

We're on that three-year cycle, and so we're going to need to make the amendments.

The majority of the amendments carry over from previous cycles.

If we go to the next slide, you'll see there's really only four uh new things to discuss.

The first two uh bullet point genotes there.

Um I won't get into the weeds too much about them.

The first one is just color-coded fire department connections.

What that just means is we're requiring the connections in buildings that allow us to pump water into them, will be color-coded so that our responding um uh apparatus and members a very clear understanding what they're pumping into.

That's all it is.

Very minor change.

The second one there you see is inspections of smoke dampers in commercial buildings.

Um, this is uh already in the code that are required to inspect these dampers.

However, the language is vague as to who should do that and um how is that presented to uh the jurisdiction that has authority, which would be us.

And so all we're doing is just modifying the existing code to require certification by someone who um is in a position to make this examination, which we already do in other areas of the fire code.

For instance, fire escapes have to be certified every five years, stamp pipe systems, sprinkler systems, every so many years.

In a very similar way, we're just requiring that there is inspection of these smoke dammers in commercial buildings, smoke dampers control flow of smoke in the HVAC system if there was a fire.

The second two items on this slide um are topics that have come up before that we've had part of the code or proposed to be part of the code.

That's section 503, which talks about the minimum width of fire access roads, it defines it as 20 feet, um, and then appendix D, which adds to Section 503 with more detail and talks about the need for even wider widths for some streets where um buildings are tall and therefore require taller ladders.

So the next following slides are in there to discuss these two um amendment changes.

So, section 503.

Uh chapter 5 of the fire code is adopted by the state, except for one section, which they leave to every jurisdiction to decide if they would like to adopt or not, and amend or not, and that's section 503.

You'll find it in previous amendments of fire code 2022.

Uh, section 503 was there.

However, if you just go back one slide, that word adopt, we've included in the language because the language is a little vague.

It showed that we amended 503, but we place adopt an amend to clear up any misunderstanding to show that yes, we are adopting this one particular section that the rest of the state um has to adopt specifically.

It's not done automatically when you adopt the code.

So we just want to show that word, it's important, small but important.

The next slide talks about a specific area in 503 that is very important, and this is the width of roadways, fire apparatus access roadways, how wide should they be?

Well, the code um dictates 20 feet, and there's a reason.

This has to do with the ability for apparatus to park at a scene, operate at a scene, and still leave room for other emergency vehicle apparatus or other vehicles to pass.

Um, and in some slides coming up, we'll see why that's very important.

So that's why this dimension of 20 feet is a very important uh number to have, it gives us a minimum width that would allow us to operate in a safe manner and access buildings throughout the city.

And that is that is we are adopting that section 503.

Now the next slide moves into appendix D.

And I just copy and pasted this language from the first paragraph of Appendix D to show that what appendix D really is is it just adds more detail to Section 503?

It gives a little bit more direction.

Now, specifically, appendix D, its major use, not its only use, but its major use has to do with planning and developing multifamily residential developments, large subdivisions, we're building bigger buildings.

What do the roads need to look like in these areas?

Brooklyn Basin, Wood Street, right?

Large buildings with large amounts of population require access roads that are wide enough.

And in times of emergency, these large buildings, and appendix D talks about buildings that are 30 feet in height or larger, require access by aerial ladder.

Therefore, we need 26 feet, a little bit larger to access these buildings.

Go to the next slide, that's the section of Appendix D that we feel is very important.

An unobstructed width of 26 feet because of the need for aerial apparatus access.

When we deploy uh the outriggers which stabilize our aerial trucks to then throw a ladder to a building, that takes up some space.

And that's why appendix D prescribes 26 feet.

So these are these are two uh amendments to the code that we we feel are absolutely necessary for our operational needs.

If you go to the next slide, you'll find this is not unique to Oakland.

Region around this region, fire departments adopt 503 in Appendix D because of the operational need that exists for them as well.

So you'll notice cities surrounding us, out in the county, Berkeley, Fremont, Richmond, Santa Clara.

We took, you know, a heat map kind of the Bay Area.

This is a this is a general practice.

So this is not something unique that we're proposing or an amendment that is out of the norm.

This actually is the norm.

And if you go to the next slide, you'll see visually what we're talking about.

So on the left side of the screen there, you'll notice there's an aerial truck, its outriggers are extended.

Um, but we still have room for an engine, which you know has hose and water and equipment to operate at the same scene.

And this becomes very important.

What it's you should notice about this picture also, there's still room for parking.

You notice there's a white vehicle park there on the right side of the screen, but this is not a high rise.

This is a one-story warehouse in East Oakland.

Sometimes there's this misunderstanding that the only need for an aerial ladder is to get to a tall building, and that's not true.

We raise these area ladders for all types of operations, and one of them is defensive operations, like you see here in this picture.

And having room to do that is very important.

If you go to the next slide, it's a fire from Chinatown a few years ago.

You'll notice that yes, aerial ladders are thrown, but there is room for our engines to operate within that space next to the trucks.

And and again, this is not a high rise, but this is a building that requires quite a bit of personnel and equipment to be brought to the roof to do a large amount of work, and for our aerial apparatus to get to these places, we need the room to work.

And so 26 feet is what is required by the code to make that happen, and that's what um we plan to follow.

The next slide takes us into that high rise environment.

Again, this is West Oakland, two years ago.

Um, and the reason we wanted to show this slide is oftentimes the focus on this 26 feet or the 20 feet has to do with, oh, can a rig get by?

Yeah, fire truck can a fire truck get by?

But that's really doesn't encapsulate the whole complexity of of what we're trying to accomplish on these streets.

What you'll notice there in the foreground of that picture is the number of apparatus at this high-rise incident.

It's over a dozen engines, trucks, medical um apparatus, supervisors, battalion chiefs.

So the space to operate is not just about a lane, high-rise response requires quite a bit of space.

And this picture is very telling.

And the importance of this kind of operation is seen in the next slide, where we come to understand why this is this is not a light issue, or this is not something we can kind of shove to the side.

This really involves the lives of individuals who, because of the ability to operate and throw these area ladders, we're safe from what could have been tragedy.

So we wanted to see these photos to understand the space that's required to do the very important work that we're doing.

So then that leaves a question though.

You know, is this everywhere?

Are these street widths, you know, just kind of blanketed across the city?

We're supposed to enforce these, and the answer to that is no.

The reality is there are needs of many in this city, our bicyclists, our pedestrians, our motorists.

Of course, emergency response, and so how do we know where we should enforce uh the code strictly, where we have room for latitude, and if you go to the next slide, you'll see that really the the beauty of what we've developed is the collaboration between Oakland Fire Department and Oak Dot.

The work that we've been doing over the last few years really has been massive because by putting us together in the same room and developing the relationship that we've developed, we meet regularly, we exchange data, we talk about what's needed, we go out into the field, as you can see there, look at the streets, look at how our apparatus will operate in those streets, and that allows Oakdot to come up with designs that meet the needs of whether it's BAC, other entities in the city, but takes into account the org uh response needs that we have.

And so this collaboration has been very effective, um, and we're very proud of the work they've been able to do in designing streets that really are holistic and encompass everyone's needs.

If you go to the next slide, um you'll notice that this collaboration isn't just in the field, it's in the design process.

So as projects um are put on Oak Dots desk or come to fruition, we discussed them with them, and we've done multiple.

Um it mentions here 33 projects to date, but this slide is some months old, so it's quite a bit more than that.

But we all come to the table to make sure that our plans really include the needs of everyone.

Now, I want to just back up a little bit and the next slide kind of back out kind of wide angle a little bit because it's not just about you know, appendix D, Section 503, and the fire code is not just about Oak Dot and Oakland Fire, it's much bigger than that.

It's about the city as a whole.

And because of new state laws that have really increased housing development and has lessened the opportunity for uh fire, I mean, planning and building department to place conditions on approval of these projects on a case-by-case basis, having the fire code, sections like appendix D and 503 as part of the fire code is an absolute necessity to answer the development questions that come up.

Um, when planning uh construction and building, where these buildings are gonna go, what's the density like?

Is this something that the city of Oakland is going to benefit from or be harmed by?

Having these regulations are very important.

Um, appendix D and 503.

And additionally, and this is what I think we're for this particular committee, I think is an important point.

You know, development and building and seeing Oakland grow is extremely important.

And streamlining processes, permitting processes, and make sure that businesses and developers can actually successfully work here is an extremely important point.

And having regulations like 503 appendix D does that, it streams lines it.

It gives us minimums that they have to work within, and they can go ahead and and plan and build as opposed to let's leave out, let's say, a minimum number and let it be a discussion.

Well, now we've just extended our process of plan review by weeks where we discuss and talk about on every case by case basis how wide the street should be.

It's very frustrating for developers, and it's very difficult for us as a city.

And then finally, you'll notice the very high fire hazard severity zone is listed as a point here.

And this is where, especially when it comes to planning and building, these fire codes become very, very important because with the state laws allowed to increase housing development, overpopulating certain streets, dead-end streets, tight streets in the Oakland Hills in the very high fire severity zone poses a very, very serious emergency issue.

And evacuation routes and ingress and egress and our ability to uh work in those areas is of high concern.

And so having appendix D and 503 as part of the fire code really just allows us to do that job that much better, allows planning and building to uh um do their job much easier, and allows us to work with Oak Dot and plan the street design that's really going to be best for the city as a whole.

And so that's why the last slide you'll notice is our recommendation to just adopt the uh 2025 California Fire Code amendments as we've proposed, so we can get to the business of uh making the city safer.

And so I appreciate your time, and if you have any questions, I'd be willing to answer them.

Excellent.

Um, well, thank you so much for the comprehensive breakdown.

Um, really appreciate it.

Um we can hear from the public commenters first.

Thank you.

Want to call your name, please approach to podium, state your name for the record.

Kevin, Dolly, George Spees, and Miss Asada.

Hello, George Speeds with Traffic Violence Rapid Response.

I want to thank the fire marshal's office um for the uh their engagement with Oak Dot on developing um the appropriate per project requirements for uh traffic safety balanced with um emergency response.

And in fact, I like it so much that I'd like them to continue in that process primarily focusing on what does this project need here?

What about this block right here?

Because as we as we go through this process, we see that each location offers its own unique necessities, and so codifying these specific requirements into the rules that um that um Mr.

Smith has been talking about um gets us to a place where um that flexibility kind of comes off the table.

I don't want to get in the way of doing what is necessary for making the city safe and for allowing the professionals in the fire marshal's office to do their jobs, but I also want to make sure that um, thank you for your comment.

Kevin Dally transport Oakland 60 seconds is tight for a hundred and fifty page document.

Uh, but this is not an emergency.

These amendments encourage wide streets which lead to speeding, which lead to death and injury.

Let's pull out appendix D and ICC section 503.

Three years ago with council member Fife's uh help.

We pulled out Appendix D and Senate to Public Safety Committee.

It was to be heard early 2023.

OFD decided not to hear it.

They decided Appendix D was not necessary and they could function perfectly fine for the last three years without D.

Why do we need it now?

And why is it an emergency when it wasn't an emergency three years ago?

ICC Section 503, 20 foot width, state code already requires 20 foot, but allows shoulders to be included when it is safe.

Thank you for your comment.

Does that conclude?

Oh, one more.

Sorry, Mrs.

Sada.

Don't forget about me now.

Um I know over at St.

Benedict's there was a consideration of the width of the fence, had to be a certain uh width for the fire truck to get into the property because the property is completely surrounded.

So within the code, is there identification?

So the width of the if in the case of a fencing, okay.

Okay.

All right.

So I guess we work that out.

The other thing I'm concerned about is gated communities.

Uh I used to live in a community in order to access the property, you had to put in the code.

And we called the fire department and they had to wait for somebody to let them in.

So is there any guidelines for gated community where you have to have access to all codes?

Don't answer me because the you're not supposed I'm gonna act like you're supposed to answer me, but you're not, you don't have to.