The Special Community & Economic Development Committee of the Oakland City Council convened at 1:34 PM on April 21, 2026, in the City Council Chamber (3rd Floor) at City Hall. Chairperson Rowena Brown (At-Large) presided. Present were Councilmembers Janani Ramachandran (District 4), Zac Unger (District 1), and Carroll Fife (District 3, noted present at 1:36 PM). The committee heard four action items and public testimony. All items were approved unanimously (4-0) and forwarded to the May 5, 2026 City Council meeting for consent. The meeting adjourned at 2:33 PM, after briefly transitioning into a special full council meeting at 2:23 PM due to a quorum of the City Council being present.
Good afternoon and welcome to the community and economic development committee meeting of Tuesday, April 21st, 2026. Then the time is now 1.34 p.m. and this meeting may come to order. Before taking roll, I will provide instructions on how to submit a speaker card for items on this agenda. If you're here with us in chamber, would like to submit a speaker card, please fill one out and turn one into myself or a clerk representative before uh no later than 10 minutes after the start of this meeting or before the item is recorded read into record. Online speakers were due 20 uh 24 hours prior to the start of this meeting. This meeting came to order at 134 p.m. and speaker cards will no longer be accepted ten minutes after, making that time 144 p.m. We'll now proceed with taking roll. Councilmember Fife is absent right now. Councilmember Ramachandran here. Councilmember Unger here. And Chair Brown. Present. Thank you. We have three members present, one absent five. And Chair, we before we begin, do you have any announcements at this time? Uh no, it no announcements. Thank you. Okay, starting off with item one. As this is a special meeting, there are no minutes to be approved. Item two, determination of schedule about standing committee items, and we have one speaker that signed up. Thank you so much. Um so to the administration, do we have any changes for our pending list? Um administrator Baker. No. All right, thank you so much. We can hear from the public speaker. Ms. Sada Olabala. Okay. I'm gonna mention just one item, and it's uh your sanctuary city status and how being a sanctuary city is impacting the economics of our African American community. And we don't have information sufficient enough to actually do a data-driven look into who is coming to this city via legally through uh work visas. Who's coming through this city without any legal uh acquirement of documentation? But they're getting jobs, and people say you against uh immigration, you're against people who are here trying to make a living. I'm only against if if it's impacting my people. In my contention, it is impacting because nobody has an unemployment across this country like African Americans. And this city it's nine percent unemployment, and you don't give any uh data, it's hard to keep up with stuff because you you keep data hitting unemployment because people who are not here legally get jobs. The highest representation of that is in the construction industry here in this city, as well as in the hotel uh tourist or restaurant business. So when Barbara Jordan said in 1994 to President Clinton, we have to look at immigration status of how we're allowing people to come into this country because if it continues to be at the level it is now in 1994, African American males are not gonna have jobs, and that's just what's happening. So if you don't weigh in on that issue, and I have gotten to the point where I know you're not gonna weigh in on it. I know you're not gonna do anything about your sanctuary city status as far as having a discussion. I see you got in your elevator anti-racist academy. Why are you having that? This could be considered racing. Chair, that concludes all speakers on item two. All right, thank you so much. Um I did want to share with the body that um uh thank you, uh Mrs. Sada for consistently bringing up um the need for us to bring an informational report from the Oakland Housing Authority. And so I would like to know that that item will be coming towards the end of May.