Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Okay, good morning everybody.

Good morning.

Good morning.

We're still waiting on a couple of technical issues up here, but I do have a couple of quick announcements.

We are going to move the parking issue to first in the queue, because I believe that's what most of the folks here are here to talk about.

And because we have such a large crowd, we are going to do one minute per speaker.

And I will wait until you say, oh, and then I'd also like to adjourn into a full council meeting,

because we are joined by additional council members who are not on the committee so we'll do that in a second

okay so we're not we're gonna do the public comment first and then and then we'll adjourn

and just okay

all right

are you ready to go ahead call this to order

we've got three

good morning and welcome to the public works and transportation committee meeting for today

february the 10th the time is now 11 39 and this meeting has come to order before i take roll i

will provide instructions on how to submit a speaker's card for items on this agenda if you

are here with the 10 chambers and you would like to submit a speaker's card please fill one out and

turn into a clerk representative to my left your right before the item is read into record online

speaker requests were due 24 hours prior to this meeting this meeting came to order at 11 39 a.m

speaker requests will no longer be accepted 10 minutes after the meeting has begun

making that time 11 49 a.m with that we will now proceed to take roll

council member gallo thank you council member houston is excused

Council member Wong present and chair Anger here we have three members present and one

excuse Houston and chair before you begin you can announce your announcement thank you

nope just that we are going to move the parking item to the front

and and we will adjourn into a special special full city council meeting we need to take a vote on that

I will make that motion that we adjourn into a full council.

Thank you.

Due to the presence of council member Brown, we will adjourn this into a special full council.

with motion made by council member chair unger seconded by council member gallo to adjourn the

meeting of the public works and transportation committee meeting and to convene into a special

meeting of the full council at 11 41 a.m on roll council member gallo aye council member houston is

excused council member wang aye and chair unger aye thank you we will now proceed as a full council

moving to our first item item one is approval of the draft minutes from the committee meeting

on january 27 2026 and you do have you do not have any speakers for this item

i'll move that we accept the minutes

we do have a motion made by chair unger seconded by council member gallo

to accept the draft minutes of the committee meeting on january 27 20 26 as is

on roll council member gallo council member houston is excused council member wong

aye thank you and chair unger aye this motion passes with three eyes one excused houston

to accept approval other draft minutes of the committee meeting on january 27 2026 as is

moving to item two determination schedule outstanding committee items and this is also

known as your pending list you do have one speaker for this item okay do we have any uh updates from

staff or councilman none this time all right let's hear from our speaker please miss assada

i'd like to request that if there is a report that can be given on the ticketing of stolen

vehicles that are parked, a report on where we stand when we have to store RVs and cars

that have been towed related to the homeless encampment issues, a report on how we are

storing our homeless items because they're saying that's not working correctly.

We need to have a report on the effectiveness of street cleaning, and I'm asking that because

many of the efforts to street clean involves cars that are parked and the street personnel

has to go around so we're not being very effective with that. A report on how we are storing

hazardous materials or dealing with hazardous materials that are part of the illegal dumping

component. We need to look at Caltrans announcement this morning of the closing of 980 as a recommendation

recommendation from Caltrain because of the homeless situation being untowardable.

We need a report on.

Thank you for your comment, Mrs. Sada.

And please note the presence of Councilmember Houston at 1143 AM.

Thank you.

do we have a motion to accept the pending list all right I'll second that we have a motion made by

Councilmember Gallo seconded by chair Unger to accept the termination schedule outstanding

committee items as is on roll councilmember gallo aye councilmember houston aye councilmember wang

aye and chair unger aye this motion passes what four eyes to accept determination schedule

outstanding committee items as is as discretion of the chair moving to item five

i will now read an item into record re receive an information report for the city administrator on

on the proposed reorganization of the Department of Transportation Parking Division,

including one, the rationale, the proposal to a fiscal impact statement,

including any new or unfrozen staff costs in an analysis of the operational cost savings.

Three, a summary of the outreach that occurred to the Department of Transportation staff,

the public and the parking division's collaboration with other departments.

And you do have 40 speakers for this item.

OK, 40 speakers. That's great.

So I want to appreciate everyone who came out today. There's been a lot of sort of

sturm and drang around this potential change to the parking division and I

just wanted to take this opportunity to get some answers, some transparency and

highlight what's going on here. You know I'm not the kind of person who gets

wedded to any particular org chart. I care about the functionality of the

department and in the case of parking you know I have a few criteria. Obviously

Are revenues strong and growing?

Are abandoned autos being removed efficiently and quickly?

Is the public right of way being maintained clear and safe?

And are workers themselves safe, experiencing high morale,

and being given the agency and dignity they need to do their jobs well?

If those conditions are met, then I don't really care

if the parking division reports to the old woman in the shoe

at Children's Ferry Land,

as long as we're doing everything that we need to.

But I don't know yet whether this reorg satisfies those conditions,

and that's what we're here to find out today.

So I appreciate the city administrator and staff

for being here for preparing this report.

And I think it's important to recognize that parking is

about a lot of different things.

Obviously, revenue is a big piece of it,

and I'm not going to give short shrift to the fact

that we need to do everything we can to maximize revenue.

But it's about more than that, and I think that's why we see advocates

here today from our business community who want to make sure that there are safe routes

to their shops and that there is adequate turnover in parking.

And we also have advocates here from bicycle and pedestrian world who probably will say

that parking isn't about money at all, but it's about how we maintain the right of way

in the safest way possible.

So I have some initial feelings about this, but I think we can get into questions there.

And I appreciate all my colleagues for having questions.

So I want to thank you again for delaying this until after the sort of chaos of Super

Bowl weekend and delaying the move until after we had a chance to ask these questions.

So thank you for that.

So why don't we hear a report from our staff first, and then we can move to questions.

Thank you to the chair, and I will certainly give space for Director Jonathan, as well

as we have Deborah Edgeley on the line.

I think she's on the Zoom call as well.

So I certainly want to echo your sentiments with respect to the acknowledgement of the fact that there's been a lot of work put forth and a lot of transparency with respect to conversations that have been had as we started this process, which began with discussing it with leadership from both the Department of Transportation and the Department of Finance to figure out is there a path forward that we certainly want to explore.

acknowledging the challenges that we've had historically when we talk about you

know our parking operations but also recognizing the opportunities and the

benefits that we've realized over the last several years with respect to you

know the transition into the Department of Transportation so I have to make sure

I acknowledge that but also acknowledging the fact that there has been a lot of

work that's been done with respect to over the last two cycles the

acknowledgement of the collection of revenue which this body has certainly in

the public has really placed a lot of emphasis on making sure that the

revenue collection side is certainly top of mind but also with that being said

wanting to acknowledge the realities that there are those levels of internal

controls and customer service that we have to make sure are in place and

continue to be maintained I won't still director Johnson's thunder but just very

quickly the acknowledgement that this report you know proposed shifting the

day-to-day parking operations to a couple of areas into the Finance

Department as well as the Oakland Police Department while keeping overall parking

policy and curb management in the Department of Transportation who quite

candidly do a fantastic job of doing that and also the acknowledgement there's a

minor addition in staffing costs which you know director Johnson can certainly

speak to as we get into deeper into the presentation or even just some of the

questions that you all may have the administration certainly proposes the

reorganization to the city's parking functions so that finance can you can

work towards addressing the enforcement component customer service

citation collections, coin collection, garages, slash off-street parking lots, and residential

parking permits. And as I already stated, you know, DOT retains the policy curb slash parking

infrastructure in OPD, which anecdotally, as I understand it, about 70 to 80 percent of the

abandoned auto operation is handled in many respects by the department, by the Oakland

police department so i will pause there and certainly give some space to director johnson

and also um deborah edgeley who is on on the line thank you chair the proposed reorganization does

transfer some functions currently housed within department transportation to finance an opd

the key element is to align with the existing functions within those departments i'll start

with opd as the city administrator mentioned roughly 70 of the operations related to abandoned

auto or housed within the police department. The hope for realigning abandoned auto functions there

is to ensure that there's continued and built capacity for ensuring that our right-of-ways are

clear of vehicles that are not operable and that our neighborhoods are clean and secure.

And OPD has the functions by which to do that. This would involve moving the unit that's currently

working on that in total over to the police department, including the supervisors over that

unit. As it relates to my department, the finance department, the functions that would be moving

are related to day-to-day parking enforcement, that is sort of the ticketing and collection

functions, meter collections, the parking citation and mobility assistance center,

and some of the administrative operations over garages and other similar issues. The idea behind

the alignment with finance is to align with best practices in collections that do already exist

within finance and to synergize that.

I'll give you some examples as it relates to a patron coming in and paying a parking ticket.

That patron, while maybe not so super happy to pay that ticket, deserves from the city

of Oakland an efficient, fair, and speedy collection process on that ticket.

They deserve seamless access to our methods of payment, including payment plans, and the

The city deserves an efficient collecting process to ensure that we are able to rapidly

collect on that revenue via DMV, interceptor, or other mechanisms.

When it relates to revenue collections, time is money in a very specific way.

Delays increase delinquency.

And having very tight and clear collection practices is super important to ensuring that

we're maximizing our revenue.

That's both from citations and garages.

I will note that the Citation Assistance Center is also under planning to handle the ticketing

operations or the review of ticketing that are coming from our new speed enforcement

cameras.

And so additional oversight of that operation is necessary as we increase the work and bandwidth

of that.

And that's a plan that was a grant that was proposed and received by our DOT, thankfully,

to increase public safety.

And so we want to ensure that all these operations on the customer service and financial side

are really aligned, do align with what we do in finance.

And we want to build those synergies to ensure that we have, again, good customer service,

good and timely collections process.

There are some fiscal impacts that are tied to this proposal.

There are two key ones we're looking at.

The first one, we will, as it relates to the Department of Finance, parking would come

over as its own bureau, and so we would need a new bureau lead over this particular item,

so we would be creating a bureau administrator position.

There's a small delta between the current lead job classification and a bureau administrator

of about $16,000 annually that we would need to make sure is done to ensure that that bureau

administrator aligns with all the other bureau administrators within finance.

The other position, and that candidly I would recommend, regardless of whether or not this move takes place, is to include that we have a parking supervisor directly over the parking citation assistance center.

That center has right now three senior public service reps and three public service reps that are reporting directly to the manager of the whole division.

As I mentioned earlier, the citation camera program review of those tickets is coming into this unit.

And candidly, that function had always been, that function deserves a dedicated supervisor to oversee it on a day-to-day basis and provide support to those staff.

For a little bit of history, and I'm sure Ms. Edgerly will jump in and add additional color to this,

parking used to sit within the finance department. It was reorganized at the same time the redevelopment agency was dissolved.

At that point in time, the Citation Assistance Center and Meter Collection stayed within finance,

while enforcement operations went to the police department and the then Oakland Public Works Department handled meter repair and some of the other functions.

when Public Works and DOT was separated, one of the first actions that happened as a result of that

was parking enforcement was transferred from police to DOT,

and then subsequently the Citation and Sentence Center and Meteor Collections were moved from finance to DOT.

So this is to say, and I understand the concerns of our staff members,

there has been a lot of ping-ponging of these organizations.

I understand that that can be disruptive.

I will say both on behalf of myself and speaking for the chief of police, we really value the work that these employees do.

As potential new members of our departments, we really respect their work,

and we are looking forward to engaging with them and ensuring that they have the tools, equipment, and support they need to provide their functions.

I'm happy to take any questions that you may have as a body or wait until after your public commenters.

Thanks. Let's do questions first and then public comment.

Yeah. Ms. Edgerly, are you, have your hand up?

Ms. Deborah, you may unmute yourself.

We can also wait and if there are

specific questions that she'd like to jump in on.

Did she have something prepared or?

Okay. Yeah. Yeah. We do have Ms. Edgerly on.

So a couple of questions.

I think we want to start with the problem we're trying to solve.

On the revenue side, how have parking revenues

been in the last year?

So we have not generally achieved our targets

as it relates to parking overall.

We did a little bit better on citations last year.

But we have, over the last couple of years,

seen some declines in that particular space that are not

entirely, and I would say this is not entirely due to staff

space.

Some of these are economically driven.

It's not entirely the pandemic that did affect us.

But we do note that we have some delays in process,

which I think are our larger concerns on the collection side.

I would note that the timeline to get a parking citation into collection

is, again, really, really important for delivery

beyond just citing the parking patron

that may have violated one of our immunity codes.

I would also argue, similar to that same space,

We have seen a decline into greater and greater negatives in the fund balance in our multipurpose reserve fund,

which is the resources that are supposed to be self-sustaining from our parking garages.

Again, this is to a large extent an economic factor driven by the pandemic,

but we need to ensure that we have good management of those contracts

to ensure that those move back to being a space where they're at the very least cost-covering,

if not revenue-generating for the city.

And can you help me understand how there are not going to be additional costs accrued by these new positions?

Because I believe that the person who was overseeing parking before has been moved elsewhere, so his salary still exists.

So we'll be creating essentially two new positions.

So we have enough salary savings within the current fiscal year to cover this and just about any other reorg.

When we move an employee in over to another vacancy, you actually sort of cover that vacancy.

And so you do create a new vacant position.

That is what we're at, deleting.

I will note that the new supervisor for the parking citation center is a new cost.

I've like fully understood that that is new cost.

But again, it's one that I would recommend we would do regardless of this particular move.

and in my opinion as a manager,

that unit does need a dedicated supervisor

to oversee it on a day-to-day basis.

So in our previous committee, I think we...

No, I didn't.

In our previous committee, I think we cognized

that a lot of the reason why our Q4 report was better

than expected was because we had so many vacancies

and the hiring freeze.

So obviously we can hire all sorts of people,

But this does seem to me that we are going to, instead of having one person doing this job,

we're going to have one person still being paid to do a different job and two new people create it.

So we're going to have to, collections are going to have to increase by the amount of both of their salaries in order to get to zero.

I think we can achieve some additional revenue collection targets with the additional integration within finance.

I do think we can get some better performance.

So, you know, DOT presented this plan at the last budget, and that was incorporated into our budget.

And so did you have confidence in the plan six months ago?

Why are we changing it now in the middle of the year rather than at the fiscal?

I would note that finance is taking direction from the city administrator's office in terms of sort of that timing and whatnot.

I know we don't want to wait on opportunities as it relates to revenue collection for this body.

You've made it very clear to us in our

conversations at our prior finance committee meeting and over the course of the cycle that collection practices are really really important to you.

We know that they're very important to the organization. They support the salaries and wages of our employees across the organization.

And so this is a priority I know for the city administrator. I defer to him if he has any additional comment on that particular time.

Sure, through the Chair, members of the body, and that's correct.

Just the recognition that in our Finance Committee, whenever there is something that needs to be addressed,

I think this body has consistently said, hey, look, when are we moving forward?

And so the identification of the revenue collection piece,

and it's certainly not to say that there isn't confidence of what was presented six months ago,

it's just the reality that, look, we're trying to move as aggressively as possible

with the recognition of what's still outstanding.

And so if we have the opportunity to address those issues,

to go ahead and move forward with the implementation

of key internal controls.

That's certainly important to us, so we want to move

as quickly as possible to do so.

Okay. Moving to the abandoned auto piece,

and if that moves over to OPD,

does OPD have the capacity to do that?

I realize they're doing a large chunk of it now,

but asking them to do more.

I think reports show that when DOT was doing abandoned auto

removal, the numbers of abandoned autos removed went up.

And we're also seeing the numbers of abandoned autos that we have going up every year.

So does OPD have the capacity to do this?

And do they have the capacity to do this without devoting any sworn officers to oversight?

Like I understand we can move the 15, you know, people over there,

but we can't afford to have any OPD officers who are taken away from police work to supervise this.

Through the chair, and I'll certainly defer to Ms. Edgerly, who I know met specifically with the chief,

One of the things I want to acknowledge, as I understand, historically, when it was in the Oakland Police Department,

as I understand, there were four individuals that were assigned at that time.

I think over the years and the wisdom and the leadership within DOT acknowledged and really advocated for increasing the number of folks that are doing this work.

So that has helped tremendously.

But I will say that within the Oakland Police Department, Chief Beer was very clear.

you know we're doing a lot of this work anyway so this does increase their

ability to do a lot more one of the things that also that we're mindful of

the fact that that it has been stated consistently that there is a safety

component and this is coming directly from within within the Department of

Transportation that has been stated there is a safety component and there

are concerns for our employee safety when we are addressing some of these

abandoned autos and so that's something we acknowledge and realize that but I

don't want to miss edge Lee can certainly chime in because she did have

I don't want to speak for her but I want to give her the space kind of chime in

on that conversation as well I miss Deborah I have allowed you to speak

please unmute yourself and begin I just unmuted myself can you hear me we can

thank you all right thank you yes I met with the chief and his staff to

see if this request to move abandoned auto was feasible for his department and I expected someone

from the police to be there they said they would but however the chief felt that it was beneficial

that it would be better coordination between the two departments we talked about the fact that

sometimes people will call the Department of Transportation and it turns out and they wait

for however long they have to wait and then find out that it's really a stolen vehicle.

So it ends up in the police lap anyway. I specifically asked him about additional sworn

staff. He said it would not take any additional sworn staff. They would, the three supervisors

that are coming over with the unit would report directly

to the current lieutenant that is handling that.

Okay.

Sort of moving to the question of finance,

do you all have the capacity to do this work?

That's a lot of additional responsibility.

We are prepared.

I have the pleasure of dealing with an incredibly resilient department.

I think we do have the capacity to do this, to take on this work at this current time.

We're going to continue to connect what would then become the parking bureau

and integrate it with our revenue and operations bureau.

That particular bureau has a lot of the experience, and again,

with our synergy across those two operations,

I think we can actually get some immediate wins

and some key performance metrics met in this space.

And so I'm really looking forward to ensuring that we have that alignment,

and I do think we have the capacity to bring this particular function in as a separate bureau.

And I very much believe that you have the capacity to do the collections and the call center and all that.

It's the boots on the ground piece that I'm a little more concerned about,

like whether you have the expertise and the ability to oversee that kind of sort of day-to-day ticketing and meter collection work?

No, I think we...

Bradley, do you mind?

Absolutely.

Let me just say, let me say two things.

I'm a real proponent of fiduciary responsibilities belong in the department, in the department of finance.

So that was kind of my first, when I first looked at this.

in terms of boots on the ground, the Department of Finance ran parking enforcement for over 23 years.

So we understand boots on the ground.

We have noncompliant officers that go out to businesses.

That's boots on the ground.

And the other thing for me was when I came back to the city, the citation center operations were 1030 to 130.

And I just found that to be, you know, in terms of customer service, you want every opportunity for customers to come in and give us this money, their money.

Now, as of December 8th, they do have longer hours.

But in finance, we run business tax and other operations that are very forward-facing.

So I don't think having enforcement officers on the ground is going to be any different than what we did for 23 years.

Okay, thank you.

Moving on, I think the fullness of this room is testament

to public interest in this.

I've gotten a lot of reach out

from the business community around this.

Did you all engage with the business community

or the sort of bicycle pedestrian advocacy community prior

to announcing this move?

Through the chair, we did not.

Yeah, I know there was a request from the bike pad committee

or coalition for some engagement, but quite candidly,

I'm very much a proponent of the fact that there's still staff work that needs to get done

so we're not going to get into a space of having a broader public conversation when the staff is

still trying to do their work and put the plan together and have the requisite conversations

with the department with labor etc so we were not and I did not give them the direction to have

those conversations so no if this moves forward I think it's important that we engage with both the

the business community and the bike ped community to make sure that you know

there there are concerns that we might not be thinking of and what they need to

you know especially make the right of ways clear and safe through this year so

I don't disagree with you I think at this point now that we have this thing

the courtesy is given to the council first okay but I also am committed to

having those conversations now that you have something more substantive in place

that we can have a fuller conversation with right with the state holders

outside and I did have a very brief conversation with someone from the

uptown downtown bid on this weekend about this so I think that's an important

discussion to have and I think it clarified some misinformation that was

being communicated so that conversation was helpful and along those same lines

have you completed to the satisfaction of all parties any meet and confer or

labor discussions around this through the chair I'll certainly defer to miss

edgerly because i know both she and brad have been having a number of conversations and i do

recall that back in december there was a request for meetings and there was a large gap in time

by which we were given dates as i understand but miss edgerly please feel free to add any more

color and context okay yes we have i have met and bradley has met with both seiu and local 21 i think

21 we've had three meetings and answered a number of questions i think around 26 27 questions

and with seiu we have met and we are going to meet with the staff seiu requested that we meet

with the staff, and that meeting was put off, but we're going to finish that, and so we

should be complete once we do that meeting with the enforcement officers.

Okay, and then just wrapping up, two questions.

Are you aware of other cities that house parking within finance?

I did not do a survey of other cities in terms of that operation.

And then finally, how will we measure the success of this?

It's not just revenue.

There are other factors.

How will we measure that if this change goes through?

Absolutely.

I think we need to, so it's not just the revenue collection.

I think we need to actually ensure we have good metrics consistently done on our time to collection,

our compliance with our internal cash handling policies.

I would candidly, in my perspective, even the subjective opinions, candidly, of our staff

are really important to me.

I would hope that at the end of a transition window, we have gotten some good buy-in and

some good thoughts and some additional feedback from them that we're moving in the positive

direction around this, and I think that's a continual assessment that every manager

needs to do.

I would want to see improvement on our performance as it relates to our garages.

I would want to see us successfully delivering on the new proposal that has come out regarding speed cameras

and ensuring that we are accurately moving through that ticket quantity and backlog.

I would want to ensure that we have any backlog of tickets that is currently existing performed.

I would want to ensure that our voided ticket process is both audited, collected, and resolved,

because there's a backlog in that space.

So there's a couple of these spaces where we have some technical backlogs.

On the OPD side, I'm sure that the chief would say

he would want to see the volume and number and speediness

by which we have vehicles moved off the street and moved.

And we would want to ensure, and this is really important,

that we maintain connection with DOT in these spaces.

DOT remains the policy arm in this space.

Which curbs should be painted blue or red?

Where should we have a residential parking permit?

we will need to maintain an ongoing and clear line of communication with DOT to successfully operate these programs,

both between OPD and within finance within DOT.

So those are all metrics of success that we will need to achieve as we move through this transition.

Yeah, I'm not sure how we measure the success of the bicycle and pedestrian safety piece of this,

but I would encourage you to work with some of our advocates to see if they have any good ideas.

So those are my questions.

I want to turn it over to Councilmember Brown as co-author of this informational request and then we can go from there.

Excellent. Thank you so much, Chair Unger.

And also, you know, thank you to Administrator Johnson and Director Bradley Johnson for just, you know, giving us the space to have this public conversation,

especially given just outreach from employees,

wanting some more transparency in the process.

So I have a couple questions.

I would love to actually start kind of where

Council Member Unger started around,

what is the problem we're hoping to solve?

And I just want to pick up on something that you mentioned,

Director Bradley, around the timeline for the collections.

collections. You mentioned that very briefly. I guess I'm curious around what is currently

occurring and what is the goal?

So the optimal timeline, and I don't have my collection people here on me, but the key

timeline that we would want to move is we want to move through no more than three months

to trying to get to a final collection space if at all possible. That's kind of the magic

window for collections. For us, that means interacting with a parking patron as soon

as we possibly can, moving through the appeals process quickly as it relates to anyone that

has filed a valid appeal, moving to D in the intercept or other collection process, or

ideally moving to everyone to a payment plan. We do offer payment plans within the city.

We have a number of circumstances where we have had some customers, unfortunately, subject

to dual collection where they're receiving both a payment plan and they've been sent for DMV

intercept I want to ensure that that sort of thing is not occurring because that's not good

for our parking patrons to boast and there's fees that accrue when that sort of thing happens is

that helpful sorry yes definitely helpful I'm hearing that the goal is a three-month collection

and what's currently taking place now and we're seeing things that are delayed sometimes beyond

six or seven months in terms of the collection window one of the things that

one of our first steps is to actually open up and ensure that we have a really

detailed look at the backlog of where we sit we know that we're seeing a

backlog and the data that we're able to receive right now as it's transferred

over from finance just in terms of the dates of the collection obviously as we

the function would move into finance we do a lot more detailed analysis around

what needs to be looked at there I see and I also know that there's some

historical precedent around you know this particular division kind of moving you know at one point it

was in finance and then it went to OPD and now it's in Department of Transportation. I guess I'm

just curious do you have an understanding of kind of in in that first move why like why did it move

from being in finance in that first time to then OPD and then to ODOT.

And then I guess maybe the follow-up question there is, you know,

so what were the learnings so that now we're kind of circling back

and it's back here with the goal of it being in finance?

I totally understood.

So to come back to that time span, that is 2012.

That was probably the largest set of reorganizations we did in the city.

That's the point in time actually where we broke down the redevelopment agency, but some of you will remember we used to have an agency called CETA, which was actually the combination of your housing, planning, and economic development departments.

Those actually were separated in that moment.

So there's a very, very large series of reorganizations that happened across the city at that time.

Then State Administrator Santana wanted to see a different org structure sort of broadly across the organization.

she felt at that point in time that, and I think the specifics was that the enforcement operations,

this is where I think the driver was if I remember correctly,

the enforcement operations should be co-located with police in terms of driving additional one revenue collection

and enforcement of public order.

That was her sort of perspective I think at the time.

I'm doing that off of memory.

It's been a while.

at that point in time the revenue the citation collection and meter collection

did stay within finance they were actually incorporated into our revenue

management bureau and again the meter infrastructure elements had gone over to

public works which then ended up transferring over into DOT when it was

when DOT was separated from public works in terms of lessons learned there is no

such thing as a perfect organizational structure like that goes without saying

maintaining the connective tissue between elements of the city is really

really important I want to make sure that at the city of ministerious

direction you know based on this reorganization that we maintain that

connectivity that we have units that are specializing in what those key

functions are in my mind DOT is very clearly the policy lead arm on how

parking policy should work and they should be able to lean in and focus on

that function. As Ms. Edgerly noted, I think we have some particular advantages related to revenue

collection and customer service within finance, and we've noted earlier that there's a lot of this

operation related to abandoned autos already happening in OPD, and synergy in that operation

should hopefully allow for greater efficacy and more delivery of services. I see. Thank you. And

that kind of leads me to my next question that was going to be around just like policy decisions,

but it also reminded me that in our last budget cycle,

I know that the council made huge investments

in ensuring that we could bring on

more parking technicians, right?

And we know that as a result of that,

that of course would further increase revenue as well.

And so I guess I'm just curious with even,

well, if you know the status of how that hiring is going,

and then also how does that kind of encompass

this switch over to finance and being able to manage an even larger staff.

Absolutely. I want to thank DOT for doing a really, really aggressive job of getting the list set up for parking control technician.

That's probably the bulk of the FT in this group. We do have a list.

We have every intent to hire everyone that's qualified and eligible off that list to fill our vacancies.

DOT has also done a large work, which I think is really important, to moving our parking

control technicians who want to from part-time status to full-time status.

That's been a long-term desire of both our bargaining partners and SEIU and of this body

to ensure that we have where people want to be full employees of the city, that they're

able to do that.

So we have, DOT has made really good progress over the last six months in doing that.

We do have a list.

We do, the intention would be, regardless of the entity, to fill those vacancies.

They are revenue-generating positions.

I will note there also is a list created for parking control technician 2 to help support the abandoned auto work.

There's some questions around that that we're still having with our bargaining partners,

but DOT has been really, really important in getting that classification established and getting a list for it as well.

I think we'll want to double down and ensure that we have good lists.

Also for the public services reps who serve in our citation assistance center,

we right now only have a three-person meter collection unit for the entire city.

That's another space that I think we'll want to look at as we go into the budget process.

I'll be, as a director of these entities, make sure we have clear evaluation of any spaces that are,

of any needs that are happening here.

Again, this unit is largely revenue delivering, and with that as a lens, should augmentations be necessary,

they should be able to more than cost recover if we find those needed in the future.

But again, we have really good statuses on hiring, and DOT has done a really good job of setting us up for success in this unit.

I see. And so ultimately, it's still a work in progress to get those technicians hired.

We just did a hiring round, if I remember correctly, for the parking control technicians.

There'll be another round that will be necessary when we move staff permanently into the abandoned auto roles.

They're currently sort of dually occupying their prior spaces, parking control technicians, and their new roles until we get permanent assignments.

The second those assignments happen permanently through internal promotion, we'll have a series of vacancies, and we'll move really aggressively then to fill those as well.

but there is a list which is the key thing to being able to move.

Okay.

And let's see, I just want to see which question I want to ask.

I guess I am really curious around like the joint responsibilities

between, you know, the finance department and also Oak Dot

and just really having an understanding of how those would be managed.

I believe the report states, you know, parking meter,

parking fee collection technology, expansion, installation, repair, also

included associated contracts, apps, machines, contracts, and payment options

listed as joint responsibilities. So key elements of those joint

responsibilities, if you think about a single space meter, right, there is both

a meter head that would remain DOT's job in terms of servicing, and there's

actually a collection box, and that actually sits within the collect the

meter collection unit and even when these were separated units we have to

make sure that those are we're using the same technology we're aligned with it you

typically do those through master contracts and so we would collaborate

in that process we use a number of apps to ensure that we have the ability for

patrons to pay for parking across number number of a number of spaces we would

want to maintain that sort of diversity of ability for people to pay for meter

collections, but also to drive the parking policy that DOT is responsible for.

So as we would look to onboard new apps, we would want to make sure that they are not

only efficient and compliant with sort of revenue collection practices, which is really,

really important, that we have good audit logs, good trails.

We make sure that any vendor that's remitting resources to us is doing so in a financially

responsible way, but also has to meet obviously our parking policy goals across the organization

and be properly audited.

And so those are spaces where we would need to collaborate.

Again, even in small spaces, DOT will still be responsible for submitting

and making sure we have properly established residential parking permit zones.

The citation center will issue those permits.

We obviously have to interface with one another to know, is this a new zone?

Are we changing the zone boundaries?

Who's sitting there?

Do we have the right permit to be issued?

So there's lots of communication that will continue to happen.

I see.

And I think maybe the question that comes to mind, maybe it's twofold.

Do we have the internal infrastructure to manage that and the staffing?

I know the staff reports only mention the staff that you're going to bring on,

which is ensuring that we have the infrastructure to actually go about that joint responsibility.

I think we're not, DOT remains, DOT is maintaining its engineer positions that do a lot of this work

and its policy people.

We in finance will have the current staff coming over.

I mentioned the one ad immediately is the supervisor of that citation center.

So I think can actually do a lot of work to ensuring a lot of this collection activity happens.

We won't necessarily have a person in that role right away.

Although I would move pretty quickly to get some interim support and coverage over that unit.

As I mentioned earlier, these are the bare minimums in my mind for taking over this function.

Again, I think the biggest one is the one position ad that I would recommend one way or another.

I reserve the ability to assess this whole function as it comes in and make recommendations to this body through that budget process.

Should we find anything else that is necessary like I want to reserve that capacity as we see it?

I want to make sure that we're maximizing

Our ability to comply with our parking policy generate revenue and be customer friendly

And so if there is something especially something that I think is cost covered

I will make sure we propose it to you as we get through this process

So this is what we've been able to sort of see on the front end that we would need to do an immediate move

If there's anything else that we discover in this process

We'll want we'll want to get to that as well

excellent thank you all right we have councilmember Wong next in the queue

thank you through the chair and thank you for scheduling this item I think for

me it's just really important that the city as the city we engage in data

driven decision-making above all and you know I've heard some compelling reasons

as to why we might reorg, but I don't see it in the report.

And so I will be blunt.

I found the report to be inadequate in terms of providing the rationale for doing this shift.

I would like to see in a supplemental that we can see the historic parking revenue generation,

including before and after the reorg that happened in 2012,

I'd like to see a breakdown of meters,

how much was collected through meters, garage, tax, fines.

And then to Council Member Unger's point,

I've heard a lot from the business community.

I would actually, I know this is not necessarily

a direct causal relationship,

but I've been interested in seeing overlaying

the sales tax revenue alongside that

to see if there's an inverse relationship at all

between parking revenue generation as well as sales tax.

And then there were some things that were commented on, abandoned vehicles, collections time, parking fines that were not collected.

I just, I want to see the data that substantiates this and see what were the collections time before the reorg versus now?

What was the abandoned vehicles?

How many vehicles did we tow before the reorg versus now?

And that's just my main goal is I want the transparency of the data.

And I think that's important.

for a decision of this type.

Council member Houston.

Good morning, Mr. Bradley.

Through the chair, many of my questions

was asked from council member Unger and Wang.

I just wanna, for the record,

are we moving the towing over to the police department

DOT is that what we're doing to the chair yes yes because let me share this with you from my

personal experience last week i had worked directly with DOT to remove 38 that i moved off a city

property 38 stolen vehicles two of them was in felonies and that happened for about a couple

of days and i would not want the police to be out there removing these cars and data collecting the

the data that you just asked about council member way I wouldn't want that

to happen so I just wanted to hear if that's what we're trying to do I totally

disagree with that part but I do want to hear from the public first before I ask

any more of my questions

councilmember guy yes thank you and thank you for the information it's about the

delivery of service to the community, not the collection of resources. We've got to

make that very clear. Because I was here when we made some changes. Not only did

we deal with transportation, but we also dealt with the crossing guards. Why did

we take the crossing guards from the police department and gave them over to

transportation? Not only for the safety issue, for the delivery of service with

the schools, but at the same

times the police department had

gone and reduced in numbers,

what are we now today? 500?

When I remember we started here,

we were at 850, 805.

And we don't have the capacity

to be able to

be on the streets

like our parking

assistance through transportation.

The community has a lot of

respect and don't listen and don't see it

as an intimidation.

Right? And the only time

Being in the hood all the time doing delivery service and not sitting at City Hall talking about it,

what helps me out a lot, you talk about abandoned cars.

I can call transportation and go there immediately.

The police, well, I've got to give a hundred reasons why I've got to have a police officer there.

And so that work is done.

But then at the same time, we're at a new time where when we made the change and where we are today,

we didn't have the bicycle program with the new lanes, the new this, the new that.

And some of our business areas became AC Transit related.

They became red zones, but the Department of Transportation were able to respond to my calls

to address those needs and were not challenging or intimidated because 90% of the time the police

said, well, they're too busy.

and the only time that an officer will respond to me

that if a vehicle is blocking your driveway,

that's the only time they'll come,

sir, you got to move your driveway

so the gentleman can get out of his home.

But for me, I want to hear from the public,

but we made some changes to make sure

that the public and the residents received a service level

that was not intimidating,

that was, you know, people were there on time, that were respectful, and that's why we are

where we are today with the Department of Transportation and Parking.

Right? And I'll leave you with this last thought. I still remember you weren't here.

When I used to have the motorcycle officers with a number of good 16, they went down to eight,

and now they're down to how many? I never see them around.

but at the same time when there's an issue of parking violation,

parking on the sidewalk,

it's the department of the vehicle right here that come out respectfully.

He says, sir, I'm sorry, but you cannot block the sidewalk.

And people move.

We don't have to have a confrontation and a challenge

that if I send an officer, well, it becomes a whole different discussion.

So anyways, I want to hear from the public,

but I think we have to recognize why we made these changes in the past thank you

councilmember Houston yeah through the chair I do want to make it clear that

when those 38 vehicles that I removed personally and had D.O.T. to take them

away the police department did come out and they did work in unison with them

to get the cars that were felony charges like shooting homicide it was two of them on that lot so I do want to hear the public.

I've got one more question you know it um obviously I'm not an expert in these processes but it just strikes me as someone looking from a bit of a remove that the

A structure whereby DOT does the actual boots on the ground work,

finance does the collections and call center,

OPD does the stolen vehicles,

and DOT does the true abandoned 72-hour vehicles,

strikes me as sort of a natural division of labor.

Are you willing to consider other structures than the one you've presented today?

I'm going to say the finance will do as is instructed by our city administrator.

I do want to defer to him and his wisdom in terms of what would be done there.

If there is a request through him or through action that is taken at the policy level,

finance will make sure that we deliver as best we can services in whatever structure.

But city administrator, please.

Sure. Through the chair and members of the bodies, we're certainly open to exploring all options.

I think the analysis that was done initially to get us to this point, we looked at through a specific lens,

but certainly open to explore a multitude of options that will make this, like you said, a natural division of labor.

But in its current form, I think there is an opportunity to explore something a little bit more broader.

Councilmember Gallo.

Just one more example.

All right.

Okay, we have a young lady that was hired to work here for the city of Oakland for the city council.

Her car was stolen in broad daylight in front of the city hall.

She tried to call the police to come and get a report.

They never came.

So she asked me five, six days later, Mr. Gallo, I've tried to get a report, but I've got to get my insurance.

Somebody stole my car in front of the city hall.

So I made the call.

Didn't get a response.

So I had to get her in my car, drive down to headquarters

so I can get to the police chiefs who get someone to give her a report

to get her insurance because the car was stolen, wound up in San Jose,

wound up in the parking lot, and I had to get the towing truck

and get the mechanic to take it out of there and get it serviced

where the service from the city that should have been delivered,

stolen right in front of City Hall.

Police never came and gave her a report of what happened for her to collect the insurance.

And that's an example of what's going on throughout the city, throughout my neighborhood.

We're not getting the response of the services that we're due from the public safety issue.

Thank you.

Okay.

Seeing no more blinking lights, let's hear from our public speakers.

Thank you, Chair Unger.

I will call the speakers in two sets of 20.

Please approach the podium in no particular order.

State your name for the record.

You have one minute to speak.

If you are seating time,

you will receive one minute of speaking time

for each seating speaker.

For the first set to 20, it's Ms. Asada,

Brooke Levin, Noel Pono-Danchik,

excuse me if I mispronounced your name,

Ms. Ruth Meza, Keith Skrholz, Carlos Rosas, Derek Kilgore, Ms. La Majana Lee, Tammy Bird,

Benquez

Shayla Azimi

Sevlon Hauser

Michael P. Ford

Dana A. Irving

Dante Hallowell

Andrew Jones

Those are the first sets.

Once again, please line up in no particular order.

State your name for the record.

You do have one minute if you are seating time.

You receive one minute per speaker, up to five minutes.

and if you're participating via zoom please raise your hand so you're easily identified

and we are taking zoom speakers after in-person speakers thank you

hello my name is brooke levin 26 year employee of the city of oakland i retired as public works

director i'm pretty familiar with the parking enforcement function as when i first came to

to the city, I believe it was in public works.

Why is this large reorganization happening outside the budget process?

That's my major question.

Every reorganization I know of in the city of Oakland has happened with the budget

process so you can dig in and get all those financial pieces lined up.

There's a lot of things and a lot of moving parks here.

I don't agree with this proposal, but it should be done with the budget process

so you can actually see the dollars and cents on paper.

What are the real costs?

What is the existing vacancy savings in the parking division under 1010?

And what is the existing vacancy savings in the multipurpose fund, which is 1750?

That was not in the report.

It said that some of this cost would be covered by that, but I think that should be defined.

And it would be if it was in the budget cycle.

The abandoned autos.

I was on the reimagining public safety task force.

Thank you for your comment.

Hi, everybody. I'll try to go fast.

Savlan Hauser, I'm the chair of the Oakland Bid Alliance.

Please state your name for the record through the chair.

Apologies. Savlan Hauser, chair of the Oakland Bid Alliance,

representing 11 districts, reinvesting over $13 million

and offering daily stewardship of our commercial corridors

in partnership with the city.

I really appreciate the city administrator

and our electeds' willingness to discuss this publicly,

given its gravity.

Parking and enforcement is an integral part of transportation and mobility in Oakland.

It is also critical to the success of our commercial districts, our effective response to encampments, as well as safety, access, and mobility for all.

Feedback is severed if functions are disbanded and is out of alignment with other cities.

Finance also does not oversee building permits, by the way, even though there are revenues collected.

These key objectives are a mandate of our DOT.

They have done a stellar job.

It is huge progress in responsiveness and public trust, as a council member was mentioning from previous operations.

Revenue collected should not be the only metric of a successful parking system, but the DOT has reached record revenue levels.

This is a bright spot in Oakland government.

Oakland's commercial districts are to the cultural, social, and economic lifeblood of our city.

Any restructuring of parking management should strengthen rather than...

Thank you for your comment.

Good morning, Michael Ford, and I'm requesting that three other public comment cede their

time to me. It's Derek Kilgore, Lemie Jeanne Lee, and Doug Mount. Other president chambers

are online. Please state your name for...

Thank you. You will have up to three minutes. Thank you.

Yes, thank you. Okay. Thank you very much. I'm going to go off script here. I actually present,

I prepared a four minute talk, but I'm going to go off script in order to address some of the

great questions and the information that we received from the administration and Director

Johnson in particular. One of the things that really struck me when I was listening to Director

Johnson, who I have a great deal of admiration for, and I think the city is very lucky to have

him in the role he's in right now, is he said that there's no such thing as a perfect organization.

I would beg to disagree. I think that what this administration is proposing to dismantle is the

closest thing that this city has to a perfect organization.

Moreover, I want to pick up on what Brooke Levin started to say before she was cut off.

This department and this division in particular are the product of 10 years of public processes

and council authorized decisions that build this.

Second, as far as the capacities that Director Johnson can bring to bear in terms of finances

ability to improve cash handling, increase the turnover time of collections, all of these

things should be happening now.

They should have been happening the last 10 years that I've been responsible for overseeing

parking enforcement.

We are here ready and willing to work with you.

We don't need to be reorg'd.

Third, the fact that the administration is attempting to solve problems by adding two

management positions when every problem they've identified apart from those that finance can

help with are actually due to severe staffing shortages on frontline employees.

So if we are not answering the phone, if we are not turning around administrative reviews,

it's because we're at historically low staffing for our public service representatives.

Third, abandoned auto.

Thank you so much for talking about abandoned auto.

DOT recovers stolen vehicles.

We help our city recover stolen vehicles quickly.

We have a clear division of labor as Councilmember Houston explained.

We took 36 stolen vehicles and OPD came in to take the two that had felony warrants associated

with them.

We've been doing for four years.

Now I want to get to my actual original points.

There's two and I'll talk about them briefly.

First of all, the city's plan is to delete my project manager to position.

It is a protected position.

As your parking manager, I have spent the last 10 years talking to people in power and

telling them no.

I can't do anything about your citation.

I cannot give you special privileges when it comes to monthly parking.

I'm able to do that with the confidence that nobody can take me out.

And that I can consistently uphold the law and city policies.

If you put a parking administrator at a bureau level, they will be at will.

And the next time they will be tested, they're going to have to make a decision.

Is my career more important or is the interest of the city more important?

Finally, I only have 10 seconds left, but I want you to look very carefully at the unofficial

supplemental report that Local 21 staff has prepared.

It tells the story about the revenues.

Look at the revenues as they were presented last.

Thank you for your comment.

Good afternoon, Chair Anger and City Council, City Administrator, Sha'ala Azimi with the

Department of Transportation.

I wanted to just mention over the past several years that I've been with the Department with

the Parking and Mobility Division in Ogdott, it has undergone a remarkable transformation.

Since the vision moving to the Department of Transportation, we have seen stability,

improved performance, accountability, and extremely engaged team.

The proposed move back to finance does not address a performance problem because there

is no performance problem to fix.

Instead it risks disrupting a high-functioning team, undermining morale, and reversing hard-earned

progress.

The organization always carries consequences, and in this case, those consequences are clear

and avoidable.

We truly recognize and support finances critical role in fiscal oversight.

However, oversight does not require.

Thank you for your comment.

Hello council members.

My name is Ruth Mason.

proud AFPTE Local 21 member and a resident of District 2.

I've been with the city for six years and serve as a transportation planner in the

major projects division in OakDot. Thank you, Councilmember Unger and Brown for

requesting an informational report for the parking reorg. I'm here to request a

pause for the parking division reorg for several reasons. Parking plays an

essential role for Oakland's transportation system. It falls under

traffic safety and helps provide safe access and mobility for everyone, as

as everyone has already mentioned.

It's a tool for supporting local businesses,

which in turn supports our local economy.

The revenue we get from parking enforcement

is a useful byproduct, but managing our curb holistically

is an essential part of how we create vibrant,

accessible, and safe streets.

There's no evidence that realigning parking

under finance department will increase revenue,

but there is evidence parking revenue has grown

and consistency of parking enforcement has improved

under OakDot leadership.

There needs to be more information on the cost

transition and analysis on how this move would affect staffing project delivery thank you for

your comment hello council members my name is keith sherholtz and i'm a proud ifpte local 21 member

i've been with the city for 26 years and serve as a public service rep 3. thank you council members

ungar and brown for requesting an informational report on the parking reorganization proposal i'm

here to request a pause in this reorganization parking plays an essential role in oakland's

transportation system it's about traffic safety accessibility supporting local business not just

revenue collection moving parking from oak dot to finance disregards our hard work building public

trust and reduces our employees to fee collectors the numbers prove parking has thrived under

Oak Dot. Citation revenue is up 50%, meter revenue is up 30%, and assistance center revenue is up 37%.

There's no evidence that this move will increase revenue, but there is clear,

there are unclear impacts on staffing, service delivery, and costs. I urge council members to

examine why this enormous change is being proposed. Thank you for your comment.

Good afternoon, Council Carlos Rosas. I see my time to Kerby Olson. My name is Dana Irving,

and I also concede my time to Kerby Olson. Morning, Council members for the record. Kirby Olson.

Across three minutes. You may begin for the record. Kirby Olson speaking as a concerned Oakland

resident and local 21 union member. Thank you to council members Brown and Unger for bringing this

item to the committee. The administration's report says they want to reorganize the parking division

in order to align parking with revenue and collections. This directly contradicts the

council's own direction when you created OakDot in 2016. That direction was to align parking with

transportation where there is a much stronger nexus and where every other major city in America

places their parking divisions. The administration also wrote in their report that there are high

rates of delinquent citations and some unnamed customer service issues that justify the reorg.

Yet they offered no data or evidence to back this up. In fact, they provided no data or evidence at

all. They're basically saying, trust me, bro. The most misleading part of the report is about staff

costs. They want you to believe that the staff costs of this reorg include only the marginal

costs between the current manager, Michael Ford, and the new manager they're going to hire. But

Michael, who you ironically just honored for his Parking Innovator of the Year Award,

still works for OakDot and will continue to do so after the rework.

Therefore, the full cost of the new manager to replace Michael must be included in any staff cost calculation,

bringing the total new management cost to about $750,000 per year.

The administration conveniently didn't mention at all in their report the two staff

who would need to be moved out of DOT overhead and project funding and into the general fund

at a cost of an additional $660,000 per year.

When you add this cost to the two other net new management positions,

you're looking at a general fund hit of $1.42 million per year in additional staff costs.

I'm sure you have better ideas for what to do with $1.42 million per year

than Game of Thrones style hostile takeovers between departments.

So now the question becomes, if you agree with all of us speaking here today

with the 83 parking division staff who signed the petition opposing this,

with your business improvement districts, with your bicyclists and pedestrian

advisory commission, and with your transportation advocates that this is a

bad idea, what can you do? We ask you three things. Number one, forward this

informational item onto the full council on non-consent so all council members

can have a chance to make their opinions heard. Number two, use your power of the

purse and publicly state that you will refuse to fund these unnecessary

positions and budget transfers. And number three, if necessary, reassert your

charter authority under section 600 to provide the form of organization through

which the functions of the city are to be administered. Under the charter the

council not the city administrator provides the form of organization and

you can pass an ordinance to define parking as an integral division within

the Department of Transportation. We don't need to go back to the way things

were in 2008. We don't need to go back to the days of cronyism and nepotism. We

need to stop this reorganization now.

And to the public speakers, in order to see time, every member of the public must fill out a speaker's card.

Thank you. Please proceed.

Hello, my name is Dante Hollowell.

I'm the SEIU 10 to 1 shop steward, and I'm also a parking control technician.

I would actually like the opportunity to speak as both.

I have 50 seconds.

SEIU is currently still in the impact bargaining stage with the city, yes.

But I would also like to state that moving parking enforcement under finance raises the risk of increased pressure to generate revenue

instead of prioritizing parking compliance, fairness, and safe interactions with the public.

A lot of people don't know that we are literally under physical attack due to the strain that this department is perceived to produce money and punish citizens.

And doing this, like Council Member Gallo stated, could be seen as intimidation or antagonization to the citizens and could put our members in real danger.

Yeah, and I would also, yeah.

That's it.

My name is Beniquez Cross. I've been with the city for eight years. I'm a member of the Parking

Mobility Assistance Center. I just want to express my concerns about this reorganization. I don't

understand the point of it. We work really hard to get the work done. I want to acknowledge my

co-workers who definitely are are doing everything they can every day to

accomplish and move mountains. It's really been the past five years have

what we've been able to accomplish in the midst of the pandemic with very

little resources. I'm just very amazed and and impressed with what we've been

able to do and so what we really need is additional resources. When I first joined

this team there was 10 10 people on the staff we're now five people a year ago we had four people

and so of course if there are concerns with processing we need more people you know we

can't do we can't do everything thank you for your comment

Traffic violence rapid response.

We stand with IFPTE in their report to council analyzing the poor reasoning, higher costs,

lower efficiency, and dubious legality of this proposed move which ignores the recommendations

of the Reimagining Public Safety Task Force.

And this is all from an annuitant employee who was fired as city administrator by Mayor

Ron Dellums in 2008 for mismanagement.

And we underscore council's power through ordinance and resolution as well as through the budget power to organize the departments of the city as it sees fit and can grant or revoke permission to the CAO to make these changes independently.

Given the demonstrably poor decision making of the CAO here, council has the power and the responsibility to step in and correct this error of government and potential malfeasance.

Parking is transportation and the enforcement is an intrinsic part of any

policy and the two must be kept together for their mutual

coordination. Thank you.

Kevin Daly, Transport Oakland. I repeat, parking enforcement is policy but mostly

I'll talk about process here. January 2016, the council created Oak Dot.

Thank you, council member Gallo, who supported it.

And at that time, they decided the right time to move parking enforcement

was at the end of the budget process.

It was delayed for a few months so they could make sure everything was in line.

After that, 2021, I'm sorry, 2017, there was a report from the auditor that encouraged the change of combining the combining enforcement along with policy.

There were some problems the way it was in the police, the public safety task force.

But let's jump ahead. January this year, the BPAC Policy and Legislative Committee,

city administered refused to provide staff. I'm looking forward to seeing you talking to you in April at our next meeting. Thanks.

Calling in our next set of speakers. Once again, if you hear a name and you're participating via Zoom,

please keep your hand raised so you're easily identified. Mr. Al Marshall.

Mr. Newman, Acias Newman, Robert Prince, Brian Colbertson, Craig Raphael, Charlotte Niles,

Artesia Rose, Ben Matlaw, Colin Peith, Michael Ford, Enshante Denham, Lakeisha Montavalo,

monique usery in no particular order you may line up at the podium and you do have one minute

thank you good afternoon ladies and gentlemen of council my name is al marshall uh just retired

last year in july after 37 years i've been through at least five or six reorgs um i want you guys

everybody's talking about everything else but there's one very important thing i actually

that you guys focus on is the women and men that's in parking enforcement.

Please ensure that they have a feeder class system from PC

ones to PC twos so that they can elevate and continue to bring in

greater incomes for their family.

Please don't miss that boat because you guys are focused on everything else.

But it's imperative that even if they go to OPD,

that they still be allowed to be the feeder class to go over there

so that they can continue improving their salaries and conditions for their families.

Thank you for your time.

Good afternoon, Council President and members of the Council.

My name is Acacia Newman, and I am a 27-year Oakland employee with the parking enforcement.

I've been through reorgs.

This makes no sense.

We are directly affected by the proposal, and I respectfully urge you to reject moving parking

enforcement under budget and finance. Parking enforcement is a field-based operational service

focused on safety, accessibility, and community mobility, not a revenue function. An organizational

placement signals policy priorities. Moving enforcement into a finance structure risks

enforcing the perception that our work is revenue-driven, which undermines public trust and

conflicts with Oakland's equity goals.

Operationally, it removes us from aligned field functions

and may weaken coordination and responsiveness.

It also appears to add two new supervising positions

at substantial salary levels during serious budget

constraints, increasing costs without clear operational

benefit.

Please align.

I'm sorry.

Thank you for your comment.

Good morning, council members. My name is Artisha Rose, and I have been a proud member of parking

enforcement for the last 29 years of my life. And I have also been out of the 29, I've been a

supervisor for three. So yes, I have been boots on the ground, and I have been able to make sure

that the new class, which I have eight people now, they are also being trained to be boots on the

ground to bring in the money. Again, before you guys decide to make that move, let's, before we

start thinking it's going to bring in money, you need to know that it's going to bring the money in.

And just because you move from one department to another, that does not mean you're going to bring

in extra money. You have to have the boots on the ground. You have to have the information.

So please, before you decide to make that move, look at everything. There should not be anything

that you guys are not aware of and we're hearing that you are not aware of certain things.

So again, before you move, take a look.

Thank you.

Hi, good morning.

My name is Craig Raphael.

I'm speaking as the project manager of the automated speed camera program and as a representative

employee of Local 21.

As part of this reorganization, the finance department will assume responsibility of speed

camera citation administration and management of associated staff. I'm

concerned that this transfer could undermine our ability to deliver the

speed camera program from a management and customer service perspective. Right

now there are several related programs currently run by OakDOT, parking

citations, residential parking, automated speed enforcement, and a potential

future red light camera program. And there's customer service and project

management benefits from these functions being contained within one department.

When you remove some functions and place them in another department, you risk

putting programs in jeopardy. There's also potential misalignment between

finance and transportation since revenues from speed camera

citations must go into a dedicated fund for traffic calming and not the city's

general fund. And so I urge you to consider the impacts of this change as

it relates to the speed camera program. It took years of lobbying from

this body to get the program off the ground and we really want it to succeed.

Thank you.

Hello, council members. My name is Colin Peethy. I am a proud Local 21 member and OakDOT employee,

co-chair of the race and equity team with Ruth Meza. You know, I want to ask what so many folks

have been saying here. What are we doing? You know, we don't have a data-driven rationale for

this proposal. You know, we're not considering the employees. Under OakDOT's leadership, we saw

a great share of those employees go from part-time to full-time, you know, receiving much-needed

benefits and improve salaries. There's no guarantee that the finance department could

deliver these improvements to our staff. You know, and I also want to remind you all, I don't,

to my knowledge, I don't think there's any other city that does this within finance. You know,

it makes sense for OakDot to do this for the multiple reasons that people have already mentioned.

You know, I really urge you to oppose this proposal and keep

parking enforcement within OakDot. Thank you for your time.

Hello, council.

I'd like to, my name is Noel Pondantek and I'd like to cede my time to Ms. Charlotte

Niles.

Hello, City Council.

Thank you for your time, Unger and Brown, for bringing this up.

Firstly, I'm asking you to please pause this as until we have the data, also to use your

purse string in order to not fund those positions and also to see who is in

charge of making these decisions it seems to we keep referring back to

Edgerly and I don't know if we've went asking questions and I don't know if

that budget has been even put down how much that's gonna also cost the city

under under transportation we've become 24-hour service we engage

with the community we also have have a way of going from parking and control

technicians one to parking control technicians two and a lot of these

things were done within the last eight years finances they had us for 23 years

and none of the things that I've given you and sent to you have been done under

that department when a person comes to you if there's a house that has a window

that maybe needs to be fixed or has a little bit of hole in their roof.

And an architect comes and says, hey, I can fix that for you.

And they don't give you any blueprints.

They say they have this person that's going to fix it.

And they keep telling you it's going to work out.

The house will be okay.

Sometimes that might seem like a gift, but oftentimes, in my experience, it winds up being a grift.

So be careful.

Watch our purse.

It's your responsibility to make wise decisions when it comes to moving departments around.

They're undermining your ability that you have already voted these things in.

And now they want to go back to even bringing back boroughs and divisions.

That's what the power you had before.

And now that was taken away, and now the administrator can make a unilateral.

Please, please look into this before you make any decisions.

Thank you.

Good afternoon, Councils.

Monique Ussery, I'm going to give my time to Chernell Smith.

Lakisha Montalvo, I'm also going to give my time to Chernell Smith, but I would like

to say one thing.

We are trying, you're trying to make the DU go to OPD.

opd already sent one of their pcts to our division so how are they

the chair to miss miss unfortunately you ceded your time thank you

and please state your name for the record my name is chanelle smith i believe i was

to be called in the next group but these two ceded their time to me so i wanted to be present

Ms. Smith, you filled out a card of the speaker request?

Yes.

Okay, you do proceed with your three minutes.

Thank you.

My name is Chanel Smith.

I'm a resident of the city of Oakland.

I'm an SCIU member.

I've worked for the city for over 35 years in parking enforcement.

And you guys say, oh, we're just going to reorg.

That doesn't make a difference.

It makes a difference.

It doesn't make a difference on paper.

But let me tell you, we've been to OPD, and we were just a kid in a closet.

They really never paid attention to us.

True enough, we were under finance.

But again, they really never paid attention to us.

All we were are the people to go out and write tickets and come back.

But under the last eight years, we've been housed under DOT, where they paid attention to us.

They've improved our work abilities.

They've brightened what we do for the city.

We've created a whole new department where we're now a theater group for the PCTs, where we have somewhere to go.

We have momentum.

We have somewhere to hope for a different position.

So we've had growth as a unit in DOT.

We've had movement. We're better able to serve the citizens. I've heard it said that we don't tow stolen cars.

My co-worker who just ceded her time to me, Keisha Montalvo, for the first time in over 30 years,

someone in our department was recognized as Employee of the Year because she towed over 500 stolen cars out of the city of Oakland.

For the first time in over 30 years, our department head was recognized for the innovation that he's done in our department,

where we're now able to drive down the street and have our vehicles read the license plates,

where we're now able to get clock tickets on the screen and see that new camera thing that I haven't even done.

There's our improvement, better ways of the way we serve the community.

And boots on the ground, that's parking enforcement.

We were boots on the ground after that earthquake when we monitored the city in 89 to see what were the damages that needed retention right away because our resources were widely spread.

We monitored the grounds when that freeway fell on Peralta and we needed to go around to see what was safety and how that affected the neighborhood.

We monitored the grounds when the fire in the hills happened.

We monitored the grounds when the riots were happening and the protests.

We were always boots on the streets.

We are here to serve the community.

Our department has always been consistent in what we do for the city regardless of where we're at.

But never have you put this much into the employees of that department.

Never have the city paid attention to the growth of me as an employee in the city of Oakland.

And now in DOT, this is something we have.

We're not only serving the community, but you're serving your employees.

And this is something that has touched the morale of our department that we haven't had in over 20 years.

So they say a happy life is a happy wife, a happy and rich city.

Thank you for your comment, Ms. Smith.

moving to our zoom speakers brian culbertson please unmute yourself and begin your one minute

comment hi hi my name is brian culbertson i am with uh traffic violence rapid response and i'm

here to comment against this change, you should put a pause.

And I'm going to tell you about why this matters from a public

safety and traffic safety perspective. The purpose of

parking policy and enforcement should not be just a myopic

revenue stream, but it is a useful tool for supporting our

local businesses and for ensuring traffic safety on our

streets. Since parking and abandoned autos and abandoned

autos had moved to oak dot oakland has been more uh accessible uh productive and and livable for

the past eight years you've heard from the workers you've heard from uh the businesses you've heard

from everyone that the program has been way more successful in its current incantation than what

it was prior to that um please put a pause to this change as uh and keep the current program thank you

thank you for your comment moving to our next zoom speaker

east bay bike east bay please state the name where you filled out your card under

hey this is robert prins advocacy director with bike east bay

thank you so much please proceed with your one minute comment thank you uh bike east bay was

also part of the reimagining public safety task force in 2020 2021. the outcomes included

recommendations for moving some responsibilities out of OPD, which don't require a badge and a gun,

allowing the police to focus more fully on violent crime response. One of these actions

included moving abandoned vehicle response from OPD to OakDot. The result was faster response times

at lower costs. So this was a big success. But the main issue was that after that first year,

funding for OakDot to operate this program wasn't continued. The currently proposed

reorganization takes us backwards. What we need is to find more opportunities to move

responsibilities out of opd and make sure that sustainable funding is also committed with these

moves and i just want to note personally while i was waiting for public comment today i got an

email from an oak oak dot staffer um promised to expedite a removal of a abandoned car that's just

a few blocks away from city hall right now in 14th street blocking the protected bikeway that's the

type of customer service that people have come to expect from oak dot on these issues in which we

want to see continue thank you thank you for your comment chair unger that proceeds with all of your

public speakers. Okay anything else from council? All right I would like to make a

motion that we forward this to the full council on non-consent.

Thank you.

Councilmember Wong, did you want something more on this?

Okay. Did you ask for a supplemental?

Okay, so what is the timing for that to the city staff?

I'm not sure that I can get the list of Councilmember Wong supplemental questions.

You had a number of data, different questions, and I would also request that you do email us those so we have them in writing to you.

I tried to write them down as you were talking.

I don't think we could have that published to make the packet for Thursday supplemental, which would trigger your next council meeting.

I just think that that's probably not doable, so it would probably be the subsequent one.

So where does that leave us?

Two council meetings from now?

I don't know the date off the top of my head.

All right March 3rd with the supplement are you okay with that?

All right let's do March 3rd non-consent with the supplemental.

Oh can you state the supplemental on the record?

The supplemental information I'd like to see includes parking revenue,

and specifically I'd like to see it inclusive of prior to the reorg,

just the historic parking revenue generation that dates back to prior to 2012.

I'd like to see it broken out by meters, garage, as well as the parking tax and the fines.

I'd also like to see along the same timeline the sales tax collected during

that same period. I'd also like to see the abandoned vehicles that were towed.

Any data that we have related to collections timing since that is part of

the rationale for the move as well as parking fines that were not collected.

okay councilmember Brown and and I guess through the chair to the administration

it's more than okay to submit the questions via email right okay excellent

I'll do that councilmember Houston did you have something excuse me through the

chair I just wanted to see the supplementals I wanted to hear about I

want to see them I want to see them in writing that was all I was gonna say

okay so we have a motion and a second am i right that the council member Wong did you second it

okay thank you we're a motion made by chair Wong chair Unger seconded by council member Wong to

receive and forward this item to the March 3rd city council agenda and through the body is that

for consent or non-consent non-consent please thank you city council and non-consent with the

supplemental stated by council member wang on the rec for the record on roll council member gallo

council member houston

aye

council member wang aye and chair unger aye the motion passes with four ayes to receive and forward

this item to the march 3rd city council agenda on non-consent with the supplemental included

by council member wong that was stated on record moving to the regular schedule agenda which is item

three adopt the resolution to increase the change order limit for the contract with mcguire and

hester for project 1006337 city-wide pavement rehabilitation from 25 to 27.5 percent of the

of the original contract for their total contract amount,

not to exceed 19,232,418.75 cents

and waiving the competitive process

for the extent necessary.

And you do have one speaker for this item.

All right, I guess the crowds don't wanna hear

about the change order.

That's right, let's hear from staff here.

Yes, Mr. Chair, Josh Rowan, DOT director. This is really just a housekeeping item. There

were a number of items that we experienced on this contract that were unforeseen that

we had to address at the moment we discovered them. And as such, we needed, we didn't need

an additional about $300,000 to close this contract out.

Got it. Questions from my colleagues. Councilmember Houston.

Yes, through the chair.

Is this, this is for change orders, correct?

Through the chair, yes, sir.

Okay, so when it comes to SLBEs, when they do this, these change orders, how are they helping in building the, because this is for McGuire and Hester, right?

How are they building the SLB ease with these change orders because if they have a certain amount of money that they

Appropriated for their estimate and now you got this millions of dollars of change orders. I need to hold every

Contract I don't care who it is across the board. How are they are they helping with the SLB ease with this change order piece?

That's what I want to know

through through the chair so that the participation levels don't change with a change order

this specific item is actually we we exceeded the change order amount due to unforeseen conditions

so i i don't know which slbes would have been helping with things like high ground water table

and excess rails that we encountered on this project so through the chair how can we talk to

them not force them but suggest that that this is a certain this is extra money right how can we

suggest to them to say you know embrace small local businesses that come up with that skill set to

the to to work within those scopes of work not forcing them just say how can they make

more money build some skill sets how could we do that through the chair uh through the chair the

council member i'm i'm not prepared to say they haven't i just don't know their numbers on this

this contract it was a it was a big paving job oftentimes we struggle with the paving because of

the cost of the mix is so high but we could we could easily give you a breakdown of the the total

contract but but I think we're we're agreeing with each other that we want to be promoting the

program even when we experience change orders okay thank you councilmember gallo yes yes sir

Thank you.

Am I on?

Okay, there you go.

Thank you for the information, and certainly I know McGuire and Hester for many, many years,

and certainly he has included local vendors from the paving to other work they've done.

And so with that, I appreciate the work they're doing, the inclusion of the neighborhood,

and I'll make a motion to approve the item.

Thank you.

councilmember houston and i'll second that also but i want to just say i see my youngsters out

there the future of oakland out there they came to visit us to city hall and i just want to recognize

you guys out there councilmember wong oh i do have some questions um it's noted that their

performance of mcguire and hester was uh evaluated as as satisfactory how are we measuring

these contractors and their performance.

I think my concern is just of all the departments,

this is the committee where I wind up voting

on like consistently multimillion dollar contracts.

I don't always see like measurements

associated with the added money that's being asked for.

This one I do, but I just want to make sure

that we're not just, you know,

we're just giving more money to contractors and we're not as part of the original contract that

they were held to specific accountability metrics to deliver on. So through the chair,

typically we're looking at fairly basic performance measurements. Are they meeting their schedule?

Are they maintaining a safe work site? Traffic control is a big thing. I would add that again,

And these are items that were unforeseen.

And so it's actually a benefit to the city

to have an experienced contractor.

They jumped in and addressed these issues

that needed to be dealt with immediately.

And so we do have evaluation forms that we do on them,

but McGuire and Hester typically is acceptable.

We seldom have problems with them.

The only times we do maybe are when they're busy

other places not in oakland and it might schedules might slide a little bit but they've they've been a

a good contractor for the city for quite some time okay thank you

moving to our public speaker miss assada and that concludes your public speakers for this item

we have a motion made by council member gallio seconded by council member houston to approve the

recommendations of staff and afford this to the february 17 city council agenda and would that be

on consent or non-consent thank you on roll council member gallo aye council member houston

aye council member wang aye and chair unger aye this motion passes with four ayes to approve the

recommendations of staff and afford this item to the february 17th 2026 city council agenda

and that is on consent moving to item four

adopt the resolution awarding a grant of measure dd bond funds in an amount not to exceed 843

875 to the cigar t land trust and the purpose of acquiring the property for the conservation

and restoration of the proportions of the saucel creek and sequa act findings and you do have five

speakers for this item. All right let's hear from our staff first please. Good

afternoon my name is Mike Perlmutter I work for the watershed and stormwater

management division of Oakland Public Works and we brought this item we're

recommending that council make this award of $843,000 $875 to the Segurite

Land Trust to acquire and permanently protect approximately 16 acres of

undeveloped forested beautiful Creekside Canyon at 2 Blatchford Court. This property is near

Joaquin Miller Park in the Piedmont Pines neighborhood. It's at the headwaters to Cobbledick

Creek which is a tributary to Saussel Creek and which runs through the parcel. The funds

we're talking about are designated specifically for the acquisition of watershed protection

easements on Oakland's ecologically valuable lands and waterways. Oakland already has spent

more than $2.2 million of funds in this category to acquire other properties such as Butters

Canyon, Beaconsfield Canyon, properties in Diamond Canyon, Diamond Park, Glenico Park,

and also near the Dunsmuir House.

We did a very thorough analysis to find the best use of these Measure DD acquisition

funds.

We analyzed every property in Oakland for its natural resource conservation potential.

We focused on undeveloped properties which typically have higher natural resource potential

and lower purchase price.

We considered presence of creeks, wetlands, rare plants and animal habitat, potential

to expand existing protected lands, and regional conservation targets.

We also reviewed historical prioritizations, reviewed the county assessor tax defaulted

property auction list, and consulted with partners such as Friends of Sausal Creek,

Writers Canyon Land Trust and the East Bay Regional Park District.

From our priority properties, we needed to find a willing seller,

someone who is willing to sell the property to the city at no more than the fair market value

and at no more than the funds that we have available.

We found a match with the property owner at 2 Blatchford Court, the APN 48D-7268-1-12.

The landowners love the canyon and they have owned it and stewarded it for many years.

They want to see its natural beauty and function preserved in perpetuity and have been coordinating

with us permanently to permanently protect the canyon.

The owners did a comparative market analysis to assess how much the land was worth.

They did that in August 2024 and it was estimated to be worth $1.295 million.

The landowners value the protection of the land and are willing to sell under market to

us for the $800,000 that we have available.

Our next match that we made was with the Seguritay Land Trust, which is a local indigenous-led

nonprofit that facilitates the return of indigenous land to indigenous people and includes members of the confederated villages of Lishan.

The Chochenyo-speaking Lishan Ohlone people have lived in this land in Huchin or what is now known as the East Bay for thousands of years and continue to live here today.

day. In January 2023, the city returned stewardship over to a spot in Joaquin Miller Park known

as Reneemupulti-Irechnu. Not saying it right, but is formally known as Sequoia Point. That

was through another city council ordinance. Funding the land trust purchase of the property

offers both short and long term efficiencies to the city.

In the short term, the land trust is going to assume

the administrative logistics of the sale,

such as negotiations with the property owners,

conducting site investigations and other due diligence,

and they'll coordinate close of escrow.

In the long term, the land trust will own and maintain

and steward the land in perpetuity,

managing it for fire fuel maintenance,

managing against encroachments,

and managing it for natural resource value and habitat restoration.

The long-term maintenance of the land would be especially challenging for the city to

do on its own because it eliminated its open space maintenance program in 2008.

At the closing of the sale, a restriction would be recorded against the title to ensure

that the property can only be used for watershed conservation restoration.

The restriction would ensure the city has the right to monitor the property and enforce

the restriction, which could include the right for the city to transfer the property to another

qualified nonprofit or take title to the property in cases of unresolved violations.

This would ensure consistency with Measure DD.

This plan aligns with the intent of Measure DD acquisition funds, also aligns with the

open space conservation and recreation element of Oakland's 1996 general plan, the creek

protection ordinance, Bay Area regional conservation initiatives, and general practices and principles

to conserve and protect nature for wildlife and watershed health.

The plan also aligns with Oakland's race and equity goals by conveying

land ownership back to indigenous Jochenyo-speaking Lishchanaloni,

which have lived on this land for thousands of years.

Sir, are you close to being able to wrap up? We hope you approve the plan.

That's it. I got you right at the right time. Thank you.

Questions from my colleagues. Councilmember Gayo.

Yes, thank you, and I certainly know the Sawada Land Trust from the very beginning,

and when you make reference to Joaquin Miller Park, Salsa Creek and the other creeks along the area,

know them extremely well, and thank you for bringing this forward, and I'd be honored to make a motion to support the item.

Thank you.

Thank you.

I'M SORRY WAS THERE AN AMENDMENT DID YOU SAY?

OK.

COUNCIL MEMBER HOUSTON.

I UNDERSTAND THAT THERE'S A CLERICAL ERROR ON THE FIRST WHERE AS CLAUS JUST LIKE A TYPO

THAT NEEDS TO BE ADDRESSED.

WOULD YOU MIND PROVIDING SOME CLARITY AND THEN THE BODY CAN VOTE AS AMENDED?

YES.

THANK YOU.

There is a typo in the first whereas clause.

The amount that's referenced for Measure DD

should be corrected to $198 million, $250,000.

It says 192.

So it's just a historical correction.

So then the body would then vote as presented.

I will make a motion to make that amendment.

Do we have a second?

Second.

All right.

Let's take that vote roll. Calling in our public speakers.

Ms. Asada. Oh, do we need to vote on the amendment first?

No. Okay. All right.

Then let's hear from our council members then.

Council member Wong. Thank you.

Through the chair, I just wanted to commend you on this effort.

I think this is a really exciting and beautiful project.

I used to work on Native American issues at the EPA,

and I think this is such an important process

to rematriate the land back to our indigenous communities.

So that's it.

Council Member Houston.

Through the chair, long time, Michael.

How you doing?

Got that new look.

I like it, I like it.

This is in District Four, right?

And environmental justice looks a little bit different

in my district in District Seven.

Just looks a little different.

And I wanted to know, you know,

We got creeks in District 7, too,

so I'd like to see if we can do some of the same things

in my district that's been underserved for so, so many years.

And you know about the San Leandro Creek.

You know about all that.

So I just wanted to say, think about my district

that's been underserved for so many years,

my children and my people.

Just like all these youngsters out here,

I want to say it again.

Some of you guys weren't out in here.

I want to thank you for coming,

because you are the future, all right?

So thank you.

for sure okay anything else from council let's go to our public speakers then

please thank you so much miss Asada Francis

Rinstead Brady Moss Ariel Lucky Nikki Alexander and Ben Metlaw if you heard

your name please approach the podium in no particular order you do have one

minute if you're participating via zoom please raise your hand so you're easily

identified thank you good afternoon council members my name is Frances

Ranstead and I'm the land back coordinator for Segura Tay Land Trust I'm

also speaking on behalf of the Confederated Villages of LaShawn Nation

whose territory we are on today over the years Segura Tay Land Trust and the

city of Oakland have built a positive working relationship and we are

committed to continuing this work together for future generations to come

I'm here to ask you to vote yes on the agenda item for Measure DD Grant Agreement,

awarding Segorite Land Trust for the acquisition of property to conserve and restore portions of the Salsa Creek area.

Segorite is the first Indigenous women-led land trust in the country,

and this funding supports real environmental restoration, long-term conservation,

and Indigenous stewardship of this watershed through an easement with the City of Oakmont.

We appreciate the City's partnership, and we ask that you pass this item today,

so we continue this work in a good way for the land, the water, and future generations. Thank you.

Good afternoon, Council. My name is Ariel Lucky. I'm here with my co-worker, Francis. I'm the

Development Director at Segura Tay Land Trust. I've also been born and raised in Oakland and

lived here my entire life. I'm here to urge you also to support this motion to allocate Measure

DD funds to the acquisition of this land.

Segura-Tay has existed here based in Oakland in the East Bay for 10 years now.

We have a number of different land sites that we're stewarding, including the almost four

acres that Michael referenced in Joaquin Miller Park, Renimu Pulte-Orikne.

We've been working there with Cal Fire to do really important fire restoration work

to reduce the fuel load.

We have a lot of experience taking care of land, planting native plants, restoring creek

ecosystem and restoration projects.

This is what we do.

And it's my understanding that this is what the money is for.

And so we encourage you to pass this motion and approve the process.

Thank you so much.

Good afternoon, council members.

I'm Nikki Alexander, Executive Director of Friends of Sausal Creek.

I'm hearing strong support of awarding Measure DD funds to the Seguritay Land Trust for the

acquisition of the referenced property.

Protecting the headwaters of a creek is crucial to maintaining watershed health, safeguarding

water quality, and supporting climate resilience downstream.

The potential acquisition represents one of the most important conservation actions ever

taken on behalf of Sausal Creek.

Opportunities like this are rare, and once lost, they are lost forever.

We appreciate the opportunity to partner with the city and Segorite to help establish and steward a headwaters preserve that protects vital headwaters while honoring the land's cultural and spiritual importance.

This proposal reflects the best of Measure DD's intent, restoring ecosystems, honoring indigenous stewardship, and investing in land for long-term public and environmental benefits.

We strongly urge the council to adopt this resolution and move this pivotal conservation effort forward.

Thank you for your leadership and your commitment to Oakland's watersheds.

Brady Moss, Land Conservation Professional

with 25 years in the field, currently working part-time with Trust for Public Land, and I'm

here today as a consultant to Segorite Land Trust in support of the measured DD item before

regarding the acquisition of property to Blatchford Court.

From a land conservation standpoint, this property is highly significant.

It is a rare, intact, forested canyon containing the headwaters of Cobbledick Creek, a tributary to Saussel Creek,

and protecting land like this safeguards water quality, wildlife habitat, and directly advances the original intent of Measure DD

to preserve Oakland's most ecologically valuable lands.

Segura Tay Land Trust is an indigenous women led intertribal and community centered urban

land trust based here in the Bay Area.

And this project fits within the broader land back movement.

Oakland has already shown leadership through its prior transfer of land in walking Miller

Park to Segura Tay.

Thank you for your comment.

Strongly support approval of the item.

Thank you.

That concludes your public speakers for item four.

We do have motion made by Council Member Unger,

Chair Unger, seconded by Council Member Wong

to approve as amended recommendations of staff

and afford this item to the February 17th, 2026,

city council agenda and through the body,

would that be on consent or consent?

On non-consent or consent?

Consent.

Thank you.

And that's on consent on rope,

as amended with the amendments to the whereas clause,

striking 192 million and replacing with 198 million on roll council member Gaia

council member Houston I council member Wong I and chair Unger I this motion passes with four

eyes to approve as amended the recommendations of staff and afford this item to the February

17 city council agenda and that is on consent moving to open forum

We do have two speakers, Kevin Dolly and Mrs. Sada.

Kevin Dolly, Transport Oakland.

I do appreciate that the parking changes have been moved to the council meeting coming up soon.

what I would like is reassurance from the city administrator that these changes will not happen

before the council meeting. As you know, this this item was originally on the agenda two weeks ago,

so the administrator suggested changing the parking reorder to today's meeting, and the staff

got the announcement that the change would happen this last Saturday. It was great. The city

administrator delayed it but let's get a verbal guarantee that we won't have

another change before this comes to council thank you that concludes your

public speakers for open forum all right and we want to hang around or

should we councilmember Houston a question we got all these youngsters out

here i don't know are we gonna stop the session we what did they come to say something i mean

do you guys want to say something at open forum or something you can they came i just didn't just

sit in here to watch us talk all right i think i think they're going to stay through to i think

they're going to stay through to the next committee okay all right i didn't know i just i'm not i mean

if you can do it yeah can they ask a question we we're already 15 minutes okay all right

committee wait to the next one i just didn't want them to be overlooked that's all i didn't know

what was going on but i'm not yeah yeah we're already over there they're going to hang out

for a minute all right all right cool all right let's adjourn here all right thank you

Thank you.