The Oakland City Council met on Tuesday, January 6, 2026, at 3:34 PM to consider a special municipal election measure for the Police and Fire Retirement System (PFERS), approve a consent calendar including a disputed construction contract, and hear public comment on various issues. The meeting was adjourned in honor of Assistant Chief John Speakman.
The consent calendar included 12 items (6.1–6.12), covering approval of December 16 minutes, declarations of local emergencies (AIDS, cannabis, homelessness), salary ordinance amendments, Campaign Reform Act amendments, the 27th Street Complete Streets construction contract (6.7), a settlement (Twombly v. City), and several commission appointments.
Speakers addressed topics including ALPR vendor procurement transparency (Blair Beekman), lead remediation at McClymonds and lack of projects in West Oakland (Ms. Olabala), the legality of suspending Rule 29 (Mr. Hazard), and the unhoused crisis at Wood Street (Mavis Carter-Griffin).
Thank you. Welcome back. Bye Houston. Bye Houston. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. good afternoon good afternoon and welcome to the city council meeting of Tuesday January 6 2026 happy new year everybody before I take roll I will go over speaker card instructions if you'd like to submit a speaker's card on any agenda item please fill out a speaker's card before the item is called or two hours after the start of this meeting this meeting was called at five I'm sorry 3 34 p.m. the last opportunity to submit a speaker's card will be at 5 34 p.m. or before the item is called for discussion to submit a speaker's card you can grab a card at the front table and submit it to one of the two ladies at the front table before the item is called or before 5 34 p.m. if you were looking to submit an online speaker card that time has passed as it was at it was 24 hours before the start of this meeting on roll our council members Brown excuse councilmember Fythe president councilmember Gallo is participating under the assembly bill 2449 participation rules so i would defer to the council president for that council member guyo are there any adults in the room with you 18 or over no no there isn't thank you okay and a reminder your camera has to be on thank you it is can you hear me it's on okay okay thank you councilmember thank you councilmember guyo councilmember houston president councilmember ramachandran president also member hunger president councilmember wong president and chair jenkins president showing seven members present at this time do you have any announcements before we begin no announcements no announcements moving to item three which is modifications to the agenda and procedural items any modifications CNN boys going to item for consideration of items with statutory public hearing requirements there are none on this agenda moving to item 5 which is action on the non-consent calendar starting with item 5.1 adopt a resolution calling giving notice for the holding of a special municipal election on june 2nd 2026 for the purpose of submitting to the voters a measure that would amend the city charter section 2601 to among other things expand the eligibility for members of the police and fire retirement systems board and change the board meeting frequency from monthly to no less than quarterly requesting consolidation of the special municipal election with the statewide direct primary election to be held in the city of oakland on june 2nd 2026 directing the city clerk to take any and all actions necessary under law to submit these met this measure to voters at the june 2nd 2026 election and making appropriate sequel findings you do have two speakers on this item council member you presented this before how many minutes will you need three minutes All right. This is the PFERS ballot measure, which we have presented a few times. PFERS is a closed-end pension fund for police and fire that has been closed for many, many years. We have fewer than 600 members in that account now. It is almost 99% funded, I believe. so that the the money is there but what's happening is that because the members are elderly we are having trouble getting them to regular meetings