Good morning, and welcome to the Public Works and Transportation Committee meeting for today, May 12th.

The time is now eleven thirty-three, and this meeting has come to order.

Before taking roll, I will provide instructions on how to submit a speaker's card for items on this agenda.

If you are here with us in chambers and you would like to submit a speaker's card, please fill one out and turn it to a clerk representative.

This meeting came to order at eleven thirty-three.

So motion.

And then we go to roll.

Councilmember Gaio.

Aye.

This is roll call.

A rule.

Thank you.

Councilmember Houston.

Here.

Councilmember Wong?

Here.

And Chair Ungar.

Here.

Thank you.

We have four members present moving to our first item of the day, which is Councilmember announcements.

Do you have announcements for us today?

Yeah, I'd like to uh move item five up to the front, please.

Thank you, Chair Unger.

Noting we will move, we will take item five after item two.

Moving to our first item of the day.

Item one.

Approval of the draft minutes for the committee meetings of March 24th and April 21st, 2026.

And you do have one speaker.

No speakers for this item.

This is the pending list to have anything.

Approval of the draft minutes.

Approval of the minutes, sorry.

Uh so moved.

I would approve the minutes.

Thank you.

I have a motion made by Councilmember Chair Unger, seconded by Councilmember Wong to accept their approval of the draft minutes from the committee meetings on March 24th, 2026, and April 21st, 2026, as is on roll.

Councilmember Guyo.

Aye.

Thank you.

Councilmember Houston.

Aye.

Councilmember Wong.

Aye.

And Chair Unger.

Aye.

This motion does pass with four ayes to accept the draft minutes for the committee meetings of March 24th and April 21st, 2026 as is moving to item two.

Determination of schedule outstanding committee items, and this is also known as your pending list.

You do have one speaker.

Okay.

Any any uh changes for the pending list?

Okay.

Council member guy.

Members of the council, members of the public.

But I like what I'm requesting is that we place on the agenda and the as soon as possible, a report back from waste management that provides our del our delivery of services here in the city of Oakland.

And what I'd like to specifically have a better understanding in terms of how we're using the franchise dollars that we are collecting from the taxpayers besides the waste their waste management service bill that they have because my record that what I have, what waste management collects in addition and returns to the city monthly is two point eight million dollars per month, but annually they collect 34.6 million dollars to give right back to the city, and my understanding from the beginning was to be able to utilize that money to make sure that our streets are are safe and clean and the garbage is being picked up, but I like to hear from administration how are we using that money?

That most of the time goes to the general purpose fund, but I want to make sure that that money goes back into making sure our uh streets are safe and clean, and I'd like to get an administrative report.

How are we using that franchise fee?

Because it's been challenged legally many times, but we're still collecting that money, and where is that money going to specifically uh to support the streets in Oakland?

Thank you, Councilmember Guy, I think uh if you want to schedule an informational report through the rules committee, I'm sure the staff would be happy to respond.

Councilmember Guy, I'm happy to work with you and staff to um bring it to roles and pick a time.

Moving to our public speaker, Mr.

Sada.

Thank you, uh, that's a good one.

No, that's a real good one.

Uh I'm asking based on the fact that we had a recent issue with a violation, a notice of violation being uh submitted to the violator three years late.

So I'm requesting that what is what are the list of uh violations that can be noticed by public works, and what are the fees and fines related to those violations because obviously something is wrong when we have a violation and it takes them three years to notice the violation.

I'm all concerned of a report out on the commitment we made to do the work of Caltran with using our employees, how that works out.

Because I didn't think we should be doing that.

Since it's the responsibility to take care of all public buildings coming from public works, I want to report out on the police administration building and how we are facilitating the maintenance of that poor building that should be demolished.

And what are we spending to keep that building in place?

I think we spending a lot of money instead of demolishing that building.

I would like to see a report out on the process for a commitment to cut down 70 trees over by West Oakland Bart, because the trees were being cut down, supposedly cut down, were also on the side of the BART train station, not just across the street.

So uh I'd like to see also lastly a project like the one taking place across the street where they were supposed to paint after they fixed the bike lanes.

It took a month to put the white paint down.

When you have a project, everything that needs to be done in totality should be a part of the project, not broken up in pieces.

Thank you for your comment, Ms.

Sada.

Thank you.

That concludes your public speakers for item two.

Uh can I entertain a motion?

I'll second that.

We do have a motion made by Councilmember Gaio, seconded by Chair Unger to accept the termination schedule outstanding committee items as is on roll.

Councilmember Gaio.

Councilmember Houston.

Aye.

Councilmember Wong.

I and Chair Unger.

Aye.

This motion does pass with four eyes to accept the termination of scheduled of outstanding committee items as is moving to item five.

Adopt a resolution acknowledging the urgency expediting actions to the remedy illegal dumping through an illegal dumping expenditures action idea plan.

One authorizing the city administrator to A implement the idea plan by negotiating entering into a contract grant agreements expeditors to set forth in the table one and a total amount not to exceed one million one hundred thousand dollars, and B pursue partnerships with the county, regional, and state agencies to enhance these efforts to waive to the extent necessary the city's advertising competitive bidding and the multi-step technology acquisition requirements for the contracts and waiving the local small local business enterprise program requirement for the big truck rental contract, three appropriating and allocating an amount not to exceed one million one hundred thousand dollars from budgeted funds and fund 1720 cleanup fund from these purposes, four accepting and appropriate appropriating additional funds from public and private sources and authorizing city administrator to actively seek and apply for such funds and to amend existing contracts into new contracts consistent with the purpose of this resolution and a further error further errors of the plan in the amount total amount not to exceed value of such additionally appropriated funds, and five directing the city administrator to return to council within one year of the adoption of the resolution to provide information report on actions taken, funds received expanded, and contracts awarded pursuant to this plan and the authority granted for this resolution, and you do have two speakers.

Okay, why don't we hear from our speakers?

Ms.ada and Dwayne Nelson.

You want to hear from Staff first?

Alright, we can hear we can hear from SAF first.

Yeah, I'm here.

Uh good morning, Chair Unger and members of the committee.

I'm Kristen Hathaway, Assistant Director for Public Works, and I am pleased to present our proposed illegal dumping expenditures action plan that Public Works developed in collaboration with the city Administrator's Office.

And this item is also sponsored by council members Wong, Fife, Houston, and Brown.

Um so we're really pleased that this item has broad support.

Um we have a short PowerPoint for this item.

Great, thank you.

So the city the staff is proposing a series of expenditures to utilize the 1.1 million dollars that council set aside in its fiscal year 2527 budget to address illegal dumping.

These proposed expenditures follow the city's strategy of addressing illegal dumping through eradication, enforcement, and education.

Next slide.

So to address illegal dumping through eradication, we're proposing to use up to 190,000 to rent two lightning loader trucks.

These are large trucks that allow crews to clear large debris rapidly.

We're also proposing to expend up to $95,000 for additional equipment to support KOCB crews, including pickup trucks, trailers, and things that are needed to support daily operations and increase capacity.

Third, we're proposing to re-start some bulky block parties where residents can dispose of large unwanted items in block parties that facilitates when they can't bring it to Davis Street or schedule a curbside pickup.

And also, we're proposing to use $150,000 for the Airbits contract, the aerial camera imagery that was approved through previously through council resolution 9 1112.

Next slide.

These items fall in the bucket of eradication and enforcement.

So we are proposing to use additional staffing resources to strengthen our proactive zone-based surges.

Additional staff time would also go to reviewing camera images and putting up our illegal dumping cameras.

And so we're proposing up to $300,000 for that.

Similarly, we'd like to invest in new technology technology systems like software and applications to improve data management for violations, improved routing for eradication and proof systems to issue and track citations and penalties, up to $50,000.

Next slide.

To improve enforcement, we're proposing to use up to $50,000 to purchase technology such as tablets to improve data management for illegal dumping violations, to better issue and track citations, and that our environmental enforcement officers could issue citations in the field.

Next slide.

In the realm of education, which is really important to the overall strategy, we're proposing a $40,000 grant to nonprofit Keep Oakland Beautiful, specifically to assist us with targeted outreach to the community and education around preventing dumping and utilizing bulky services.

And we're proposing up to $60,000 to contract with a local Oakland firm for outreach and education support around proper waste management and ensuring people are aware of and utilize bulky services that are available through our waste management contract.

I believe that's the last slide.

I'm available for any questions.

Council colleagues, do we have questions?

Let's start with Councilmember Brown.

Excellent.

Well, thank you so much.

Also, thank you, Chair Onger, for allowing me on the committee.

Thanks to staff.

I've really been waiting for this item because uh last year when we were working on the council budget.

Um myself and my team along with um the budget team, we worked really hard to dive into what were some of the allowable uses for some of the various funds.

And so um fund 1720, we identified as an essential fund to help support these efforts.

And so really grateful for um just the whole team uh that has put a lot of thought into this expenditure plan, so just really want to um uplift that.

I do have a couple questions about some of the allocations.

So I'm having a look at um the fund 1720 and some of the allocations, and so there was uh for technology we set aside 800 and 850,000.

Um, and so if I'm doing the math right with some of the items that we've seen maybe prior, perhaps that has been fully um ex um expended.

Um also had some follow-up questions about some of the other items that we also funded under 1720 environmental enforcement officers, seeing if there's any updates there, and then in addition, a handful of other positions, so just had a question on that.

And then in the staff report, um I was delighted to see uh that some of the uh I believe it's a hundred thousand dollars, but correct me if I'm wrong, would be going to the nonprofit keep Oakland Beautiful.

And I just had a question of the specific outreach and education that they would be completing.

Um, sure, I can start with that.

So it's actually a 40,000 grant to keep Oakland Beautiful, um, and that's for a collaborative effort, collaborative effort with Keep Oakland Beautiful and Oakland Public Works to do targeted outreach around utilizing bulky services.

So looking at neighborhoods where maybe uh bulky services uh um that's available through waste management is not utilized as much as in other areas, so looking at high priority areas and doing targeted outreach through social media posts, mailings, um, community events, that kind of outreach.

I see.

Okay, and so then the other uh 60,000 is this bulky waste outreach, and it just says a local Oakland firm.

So is that yet to be determined?

And then how would that 60,000 actually be utilized specifically?

Right.

So we we have a an existing contract with a firm who can do this kind of work that are a local Oakland vendor, and they would be doing outreach directly to uh property managers of multifamily dwellings, so that they it would be on-site one-on-one direct outreach to make sure that those property managers and property owners know how to make sure that their waste sorting is done properly and that they're fully utilizing bulky services that are available through waste management.

I see, and so with the current timeline of kind of getting this through council, do you anticipate um these organizations being able to start um by July 1 or do you have a time frame?

I don't have an exact time frame, but I don't anticipate it would take more than a couple months to stand up.

Excellent, okay.

Thank you so much.

Yeah.

And noting the presence of council member five at 11 44 a.m.

All right, council member Wong, you're next in the queue.

Oh, great.

Uh thank you.

First of all, this is um, you know, really thoughtful work.

I've been in touch with uh you as well as uh uh Rebecca Kaplan on this, and just really appreciate the the thoughtfulness on this, and I'm excited because I know we increase those fines, and one of my main things is let's make sure that it's not a symbolic increase, but actually ensure that there's the enforcement that coincides with that as well as the necessary outreach.

So, for example, people who are renters who are actually using our bulky waste uh pickup services.

Uh, one thing I wanted to note since we've had this um in our private conversations just for uh uh public knowledge is that we have only 36 cameras dedicated at this point, but this expenditure plan is actually going to double the number of cameras, including the solar powered cameras, so they can be moved around since the audit that came out had noted that a number of our cameras are not actually even placed in a legal dumping hotspots, and that may be because of you know wiring and all the challenges that come with camera placement.

Can you just confirm that or explain that to the public?

Yeah, so we want to test out solar-powered cameras to test their efficacy and make sure that they can um operate for they can hold enough charge to operate through the night when dumping a lot of dumping happens.

So we want to place those in a couple of hot spots and see if they're effective.

And if they are, we would probably move to more solar-powered cameras.

Additionally, we want to purchase additional cameras to place them at more hot spots.

And then the overtime funding that's in here would also support additional overtime for moving cameras around.

So sometimes staffing availability is a limitation, as well as the availability of electrical polls.

Right.

Do we have a sense of for the now doubled number of cameras?

What is like the radius of the coverage and how many hot spots we have across the city?

Um, well, we have hundreds of hot spots across the city.

Um, so yeah, it's it's a limited amount of cameras, but um they are they're spread across the city, and I'm happy to share with council members the locations of the cameras.

Um they are they're spread throughout all districts.

Okay, yep.

Um, and then I know one really important thing is just the additional staff time.

Um, is this going to fund also additional positions since I think we have what uh five EEOs, or can especially with the budget conversation coming up?

How many EEOs do we have?

Does this fund additional staff, or just ensuring that those folks have over time to have to have more coverage?

Yeah, this isn't not proposing to fund any new positions.

Um we have seven budgeted EEOs, five of them are filled, one uh one is frozen, so we had eight, one is frozen.

This is not proposing this funding is not proposed to unfreeze that position, it's proposed so that those staff have overtime to do additional work, right?

Okay, and my final comment is just I was looking or reading through the audit today, and I think one thing that was noteworthy to me is that the keep Oakland Clean and Beautable division is separate from the environmental services division in which the EEU, like the environmental enforcement unit sits, and I don't know how much the folks who actually do the cleanup communicate with the environmental enforcement officers, but I have to think that those the folks who are doing the cleanup are often seeing, you know, the the dumping in the field or seeing the addresses, all the things, and I wonder if there's opportunities to ensure that the folks that do the cleanups in the field can actually supplement or augment what the environmental enforcement officers are doing as they're they're already out there cleaning it up if if this is not already happening.

Yeah, so they do talk.

So if we have staff in the field and they see a piece of mail or other piece of evidence, then they are instructed to contact the environmental enforcement officers.

Um, and so we're working on systems to make sure that that communication is strengthened.

Both divisions are within Bureau of Environment.

Um, and we we meet uh every other week to talk about how to collaborate.

Okay, great.

Thank you.

Okay, councilmember Fife.

Thank you, Chair Unger, and thank you for allowing me to sit on this item today.

Anytime.

Um, this issue is so critical to my district.

And before I say anything, I want to ask uh Rebecca Kaplan to come up because I want to thank you personally for working with my office to identify real ways we can address illegal dumping, particularly in the flatlands where you don't have as many people necessarily calling in like you do with the hills, it's uh some of the illegal dumping that we are plagued by that is consistent, persistent, always comes back.

Um, you know, we don't always have the same response in terms of people calling in, like like other places in the city, more weather wealthier areas, and you have made it a priority to um work with my office to communicate what's going on, and I want to thank you for that.

And to to Kristen, you as well.

We've been trying to figure out and wrestle with how to deal with district three areas, particularly the hot spots around San Pablo, our business corridor around Ramondi Park, and I think these are ways that we can really um get to the heart of what's going on.

I do want to encourage you when you uh are looking for uh organizations that can communicate and educate the public on illegal dumping to also include education on privacy and privacy concerns, because as we will be utilizing drones in this particular program, there may be some concerns that people have around um their privacy, and I know Airbit has done a lot of work and they don't use facial recognition software.

They don't collect license plates, so I think it's important to let the public know what what that means as well in this education process.

But I also want to give a shout out to Liam for going on a tour with me in my district and seeing some of these hot spots and why this is so critical to district three, who you know, we are we bring in a bulk of the revenue to the city that often gets used in other parts of the city as well, and it's important that residents of Oakland feel good about being here, and trash just really spoils that.

It's a beautiful city, and trash just makes it trashy, and so I I encourage this committee to send this to the full uh body on consent.

Thank you.

All right, councilmember Houston.

Um good morning.

Through the chair, I am so so happy about this.

This been fighting for this for over 15 years, and I'm glad they picked up uh supervisor Nate Miley has been leading this, leading this with the three E's eradication, enforcement, and education.

Um, before I get to a couple of the questions that I have, I wanted to find out piggyback on my council member brown, what she had mentioned about the consultant, um, the consultant firm, uh providing resources um for directing education, Oakland residents.

Um, what firm was that that you said?

This local firm, I know you said local, but what's the name of that firm?

Yeah, the um we have SCS and R3 as a subconsultant.

Um, and I can send you more information about them.

Okay, and have they worked with us before?

Yeah, that we have them currently on contract doing uh work around our solid waste and recycling requirements.

Okay, all right, thank you.

So when we go back to um our budget priorities for 2025 to 2027, they were real simple.

They were just so simple.

They were public safety, homeless and housing, which I've addressed, and beautification of Oakland.

And and we have um spearheaded um for fines, and I appreciate that.

I really appreciate the fines.

However, fines have not been working, and then my budget priorities under three, and you can go as public record is um beautification of Oakland bullet point four.

Um EEOs need hazmat training to collect intensive data to collect environmental for misdemeanors and felonies.

And and we have put some money to the side to get them trained for this, because the city attorney can only submit fines, but if we collect the data, if you go back to the data that I've collected over 10 years, Councilmember Unger, they have obestos.

I mean, they have things that they dump that the waste manager won't even take, right?

So we have to protect our EEOs and our community and our waterways at the same time.

How do we do that?

Yeah, my budget priority is was to add for the EEOs to be hazmat and contaminated trained to protect them and our community so they can collect this data.

Councilmember Brown, so they can collect this data so not just finds these individuals will be prosecuted to committing crimes against our community.

So I'm gonna talk to the city administrator about that because I knew it was some money put to the side on that.

Umforcement.

And I'd like to thank um council member um brown, I mean council member Unger and the mayor for that enforcement on dumping um 26-0527 that measure.

Um, I mean, because it it piggybacked on measure RR that um that I did along with um Councilmember Cobb, and I also like to to thank Senator Jesse for doing his about um the um DMV.

It was all right here in my simple, my simple um uh priority.

So I really appreciate that.

Um, but we do have to protect the EEO, so I want to know where that's at, and we have to collect the data, everything is data driven.

If you can collect the data, get that in the proper form and fashion to the DA, the district attorney, she said she will prosecute, and the individuals that are committing crimes, and I'm gonna say this, public four, that are committing crimes against my community and my council members' community, we will prosecute you to the full extent of the law, because it has to stop, it's been going on too long.

So I'll yield the floor, council member guy.

He's gonna it's not about what we say, it's about what we do, and sometimes we some of us writing policy and recommendation.

I never see you on the street picking anything up, and I've been here for many years, but I never see people out there, but they're gonna tell me how to do it, what to do and when to do it.

So those are realities you can shake your head and growl, but the reality is I have seen Oakland in many different ways, and one of the realities that we're facing, we have a contract with a waste management company that can deliver the service to allow Noel to go dump at waste management and not create a bulky pickup where I won't have all my workers doing overtime work, you know, with uh dumpsters and trucks where I could go to waste management like other cities do.

I go to Tucson, Arizona, I get to go if I have a bill, I go straight to the dump yard, waste management, and they only charge me $300, not $30, not $300.

So I don't have to go to the public works yard, and the public works yards got to go to the waste management yard.

So I think that you know, for those that wrote these policies, come please come out and help me.

We're out there every day, we've been out there every day for 10 years picking it up.

I'm not sitting here just making more excuses.

All right.

So the reality is that we have to deal with waste management, and what the city's not doing is city employees are not doing administratively, sitting here at City Hall, because there are many businesses in Oakland that don't have a garbage license.

So what they do is they come and leave it on the corner down the street so we can pick it up, and we're not charging any fees, and certainly at one time, waste public works used to do that on a daily basis early in the morning, clean the streets up, pick it up and make it be not only dealing with graffiti, but dealing with garbage, but dealing with the graffiti.

You never saw graffiti throughout the city because we used to have cameras at certain places, and the police department would go with me at nighttime to capture those doing the graffiti and arrest them, and I still get people from the sheriff's department that come volunteer with me because they illegally dump or they did graffiti, but they're coming from the city of Freemont, Castro Valley.

I don't see any people in Oakland getting arrested or cited to come work off their tickets, and they're coming from other cities in Alameda County.

So what I'm asking the city administration, where is that franchise fee dollar going?

That illegal we're like one or two cities in the state that ever did that because we they went to court and sue the city because I was illegal, because the voters never pay for that or voted for that, but we're still collecting 28 million.

Where is that money going?

It's supposed to be going back to keeping our streets clean, and so if you need to report that, not only that fee, but also the cannabis operations.

Because I still remember when I was here when we started that, they used to bring their trucks and give us millions of dollars, and but now we change the process.

So where is that money going?

To city administration to keep this city safe and clean?

So for me, it's um, you know, we can do a lot of writing, a lot of talking, but I want to see those that wrote it and put her together.

Come on the street and help do it, so you know what the hell's going on in the neighborhood.

You can see it yourself.

Get your hands dirty.

It's easy for me to sit here all day long writing, do this and do that, and over here and feel sorry.

But the reality is we need to hire more people within public works, and if you go to public works today, right now, you're gonna see trucks, 50 60 trucks that are not working because we don't have the mechanics.

We used to have 10 mechanics, but I only have three.

And the trucks are sitting because I drive city trucks every weekend and throughout the week.

But most of the time they're not working, and our people are not able to go on collect the trash and do what you're saying we should be doing.

So for me, it's is we need to get Oakland needs to get his act together and public works, transportation, we need to have that cooperation, not just with waste management, but California waste solutions, because they used to bring their big trucks on Saturdays to volunteer and help me clean up, but now they don't do that anymore because the city, well, somebody something's going on with negotiations.

So for me, it's um whether you're in West Oakland and East Oakland.

I think what we need to do is improve the delivery of service.

I don't need more more laws and more ordinances.

I need to get the job done as we've done in many years in the past, and so the only other recommendation I have for you, you want to do education?

Well, we used to receive that information in our high schools.

No, it's not okay for you to throw your trash out the window as we're doing today.

And it's not okay for your school to be like it is in the condition today, because the youngsters used to volunteer to keep it clean every day, and that's my high school years.

I used to, once a month, they make us all work around the school inside the school, in the neighborhood, to make sure the neighbors saw us caring for the community.

So I think that there are many ways to get this done, but at the end of the day, waste management has a dump yard that we can go and dump our trash like we do when we pick it up during the week and during the and it's over.

It's clean, but waste management, California waste solutions, civic core, would be out on the streets daily unloading your trash cans, picking up whatever's on the sidewalk and on the streets, and so we need to get back to the work attitude.

And that's what one of the things that's missing in all these policies that I'm creating, doing this and that, but it's about work, it's about cleaning Chinatown.

I can write all the laws I want, but unless you get out and go clean it, it's not gonna change.

So, so what I ask is that you know, be able to report back in terms of what is the condition of Oakland of public works, what is their need for to re to fix those vehicles?

How many more employees do they have?

Because many are not here anymore, and as an example, and I'll leave you without go to the public works yards and Coliseum Way.

You've been there lately in front of Oakland Public Works Yard, it should be the cleanest area around as a demonstration of cleanliness.

It is dumb left and right.

You come out with your truck is the whole street, even though I asked them to put no parking at any time, it is filled with garbage and trash, and we allowed that in front of our property, and that's in that role model that we need to correct that.

But go take a look, go take a look, and then you can decide what to write and what to do.

But at the end of the day, I need more individuals working with public works and make sure that their vehicles are repaired and are able to assist the workers that we do have.

So, anyway, so thank you.

I I know I don't mean to express my frustration, but Oakland's got to get his act together, and it's not about how many laws and rules I have.

We gotta go get it.

Look at Lake Mary.

You I used to help me with Lake Mary.

Look where it is today, not like where it used to be.

Where you had Olympic trials, people went into high school because all rolling at Lake Merritt.

But nowadays, well, I'm not going to go to Lake Meredith, go somewhere else.

So, anyways, thank you.

But and I do value that, and it's more than more about than just one million dollars.

Gotta remember that through waste management, they collect $36 million a year in my garbage spill on top of the garbage bill I have to pay on a monthly basis.

Thank you.

Thank you, Councilmember Guy.

Uh Councilmember Wong.

Uh, thank you.

I will soon make a motion to second uh Councilmember Houston's motion, but I just had some final questions I had just on implementation.

So is this once we approved this, are we poised to immediately implement this or uh because I see a number of specific vendors' names, so it sounds like you don't need to do now like a lengthy RFP after this.

So when can we expect to see this executed to Councilmember Houston's poise?

Yeah, through the chair.

So to that point, no, some of the many of these things are already underway.

So we um, you know, we've queued up to purchase tablets, right?

And we just need the funding approval to purchase the tablets.

We are already working on a new city works module um for tracking illegal dumping citations, our asset management system, um, and we're working with finance department.

So um, and we've already identified, for example, the lightning loader truck.

So all of these items are already in the works.

There's nothing that we're starting from scratch on, and so as soon as this is approved, um, many of these things will be able to be implemented very shortly.

Okay, great.

And um, I'm just wondering to how we can measure our success.

Um, I know with this new drone system that perhaps there's an objective way to actually measure the piles.

The other measurement is Oak 3 or the 311 um or or the work orders, which I'm not sure is actually an objective measure.

So I would love to see in like a year's time frame to see if what we're implementing today is in fact making inroads in the legal dumping issue and and how we can actually uh find a metric or a methodology to measure um the the uh illegal dumping piles.

Yeah, absolutely uh through the chair.

So when we return uh for our annual report on this item as is called for in the resolution, um we'll make sure that we're reporting out on the success of that uh pilot program for Airbitz, and we are developing KPIs for that so that we make sure that we are um having um metrics that we're trying to hit, and we'll report on how well we how well we did that.

Okay, great, and then um I would just say too that I agree with council member guy's comments that I would also love to have this sort of in-depth of thought around the graffiti issues, uh, and with that I'll I'll second the motion.

All right, thank you.

Councilmember Houston.

I just have one more comment.

You know how ridiculous this sounds.

We're talking about illegal dumping in other cities, aren't talking about their talking about other issues.

Why is that?

Why is that?

Is because we're just cleaning up, cleaning up instead of deterrence.

Why are we spending all this time and resources on what?

Cleanup, it's called deterrence.

The city of Oakland has the same equipment that waste management has.

I don't know other cities that have that.

That's ridiculous.

Sitting on this council, I'm the only council member here that's prosecuted a graffiti vandal and an illegal dumper through Nancy O'Miley with Supervisor Nate Miley, and we had stopped and slowed it down.

Then after Nancy left, the prosecution stopped.

Now that we have another district attorney.

She's willing to prosecute.

She's running for office right now.

We have to deter this crime, Councilmember Unger.

It's not called clean up, cleanup, cleanup, fine, fine, fine.

And that's why I said the information that the EEOs are very, very important to this system.

Because they're the ones that are on the ground that need to be protected.

They're the ones that are on the ground that will collect and go through the inditia to find out the individuals that are committing this crime against our community.

So if they have the information and the data that they can turn over and in the proper way to the district attorney, we can prosecute these individuals that are committing crimes against our community.

Illegal dumpers and graffiti vandals, which is a visual cue of deterioration that attracts illegal dumping.

Let me give you a story.

Ten years ago, it was some huge, huge illegal dumping on San Landro Boulevard.

I went out, it was like 12 30, 1 o'clock at night.

Saw this guy dumping.

I said, Hey, you know, I want to.

What makes you want feel that you can dump here?

You know what he said to me?

He said, if they can tag and do graffiti vandalism for 30 minutes, I can dump it in 10.

Right?

So my message is this cleanup is fine.

We have to clean up and keep it clean because Noelle's been out there all the time cleaning up, cleaning up and spending his time just cleaning up our city.

It's unacceptable.

He could be doing other things, right?

We need to deter these individuals that are committing crimes against our community.

And I'm gonna say it one more time.

In my priorities, real it was real simple.

It was three public safety, homeless and housing.

I addressed that with the EAP, beautiful of Oakland, and public safety.

We need to address it in a way that we can spend our time worrying about our seniors, worrying about our children, worrying about our homeless individuals that need um housing instead of talking about dumping, which people should know better to do it anyway, because I'm gonna tell you, much of the dumping in my community is coming from my community, from down the street with bags and stuff.

I don't know if it's beside because of the size of the garbage bag or the garbage containers or not.

We're working on that also.

So my main point right now is to get money, that money that was promised for the EEOs to be safe, for themselves to be safe, and to be able to be trained to identify hazardous and contaminated materials so that information can be documented and turned over to the district attorney so these individuals that are committing crimes against our community can be prosecuted, because it is hurtful that I have to walk through this, my children, my seniors.

It is sad.

Okay, we've got a motion and a second.

Do we have some comment from the public?

Want to call your name, please approach the podium, state your name for the record.

If you're participating via Zoom, please raise your hand so you're easily identified as practice.

We will take in person before Zoom.

Mr.

Sada.

Right.

Kevin Dowley, I think I'm on the list too.

I double checked and I see an email unless I misread it.

Kevin Dally, you signed up for item five.

I believe so.

Um, thank you.

You've been legal dumping expenditure plan.

I think that's the right one, right?

Okay.

Thanks.

I thank council member Wong for asking my questions about how do we reevaluate uh success.

Of course, we're doing a lot of things at once, so it might be difficult to pull out what works and what doesn't.

You'd be good to see maybe a six-month rather than wait for a full year before the first evaluation with traffic calming.

I also like to look at results.

We do some stuff.

Is it really slowing down the streets or not?

If it isn't, what can we do?

How can we get back and change things?

Councilmember Gaio mentioned something that I thought was interesting.

Are there actually businesses that don't pay for pickup?

This morning's finance uh committee discussed how the finance department is improving data on businesses that don't pay business taxes.

Can the same data be used to decide what to find out whether those businesses pay for uh garbage pickup, waste pickup, either directly or possibly through the property, through their landlords or whatever.

I think that's something the finance department might be able to do if this really is a problem.

Thanks, my name is Dwayne Nelson, District 3 West Oakland resident.

And I hear that you're going to develop KPIs and then report on them.

Because typically you develop them and you agree on them and then you report on them later.

I mean, you don't just say, oh, we're gonna decide what success is and then deliver it.

I mean, I don't I don't understand that.

So outside of that, uh, you know, when I came over here this morning, I stopped by uh West Street, and we have a pile of trash drawing open up service quest 2169 4603.

It's on West Street, West Grant and West Street, it's right under a chain link fence uh with a uh a sign that says no dumping.

We have a camera right there.

I don't understand what's going on with that camera.

I emailed Rebecca Kaplan about that to find out if that camera is uh is working or what the purpose is.

So I don't know why we have dumping there all the time.

Uh if we're not using the cameras we have, the 36 cameras that we have, I don't know what's gonna happen if we're gonna get additional cameras, how that's gonna be helpful.

So I don't know what's going on with that.

And I think with 311, you know, I have a uh just so many issues with 311.

I mean, just putting aside the poor user experience you have when you fill out that uh when you fill those out.

I have requests you know from June 3rd, 2025, still open, still showing as acknowledged.

I have other ones, um, you know, the three weeks open.

I don't know, like if I submit a service request today, but then 50 people uh in the hills uh fill one out.

Does theirs get closed first before mine?

I mean, you know, I think uh in West Oakland, you certainly feel like we're the caboose end of this train.

Um I'm glad nobody's mentioned equity today because I think we're not getting any equity.

I think inequity is what we get in West Oakland, so definitely say that.

And I think lastly, I would just close by saying uh everyone agrees that the multifamily residential units uh are not using bulky pickup, and I think education is an issue there, but I think uh all the members of the council, all of the constituent services, you can uh be involved in education of that as well.

Thank you.

One of the reasons why you have been in the NSA for close to 23 years, is because you can't get your police department to have culture change.

This issue is gonna continually be an issue where you think of ways how you can pick up trash, how you can educate people, but not completely eliminating the problem because you have a culture who embraces this behavior, and there exist cultures that don't display this kind of behavior.

Japan is the best example.

My sons are going to Japan.

This my one is this is his third trip, the other one, and the two boys are going there to observe the culture of Japan.

And the most outstanding thing my child told me about Japan is there is no trash on the street, no trash cans on the streets, you don't eat in public, you eat in the restroom.

It's all kind of cultural behaviors where the the communities are clean.

People are respectful and they believe in respecting their community and keeping it clean.

It's not just a force to do it.

You embrace it.

That's culture.

So you can go in any store, go in loss, target, and look on the floor and see how people just throw clothing, items all in disarray.

It's a culture of we don't respect each other's communities, private commercial property, or our own homes.

You'll have people with trash out in front of their house, and they don't even go pick it up.

It's a culture change that we cannot create.

So all we're going to do is keep up coming up with ways of picking up, you can say fine them.

Culture is not gonna change.

Thank you for your comment, Mr.

Sado.

Moving to our Zoom speaker, Blair Beekman.

Please unmute yourself and be in your one two-minute comment.

Hi, Blair Beekman.

Thanks for this item.

Um I I didn't sign up for the next item that can be related to this.

Uh so I uh to offer a few words on that other item, other items, how it can relate to this one.

Um, if I it's Caltrans funding for litter issues, if I'm understanding something of that nature, and uh council person gallo really nicely described back in January how we can be working a system of getting Caltrans uh funding and that they can do a lot of uh litter cleanup themselves.

Um that money in January became allocated to the city of Oakland so they could have more freedom and choices of how to pick up litter.

It was a good plan, but it's it's funding is gonna be running out around May, around this time actually, and uh so you know.

I um I at that time you guys were talking about how to work with a community effort and what that could mean, and I hope that's going well.

Um, because I'm really hopeful what you guys can be doing well.

I'm I'm not so much into the punitive side of things, but how like in San Jose, you know, where I was living the past 10 years before moving down to San Diego, um, you know, they'd have dumpster days on Saturdays where the whole neighborhood they put a dumpster in a neighborhood and just all parts of the community would come out and and put their garbage there, and we could do the same thing in Oakland that I think um I'm sure you guys know the concept.

Uh I think it would be great, and especially bringing it down to you know the areas where the track is worse.

It could be a good way to bring uh community together and cut and government, you know, and you guys can just uh co-mingle and talk and um I think good conversations can happen, and uh it's a good camaraderie, and that's that's what we need to be going for.

What's the camaraderie?

What's the uh neighborhood feeling that we're trying to build?

It isn't a punitive concept as Kevin.

Well, as Kevin said, it's got a lot of ideas going.

I think you should go for more of a community effort instead of punitive things.

Uh good luck with your efforts.

Uh with this item.

Thank you for your comment.

That concludes your public speakers for item five.

We do have a motion made by Councilmember Houston, seconded by Councilmember Wong to approve the recommendations of staff and afford this item to the May 19th, 2026 City Council agenda on roll, Councilmember Gallo.

Hi.

Thank you.

Councilmember Houston.

Can I want to make a statement?

Um, it's gonna be on consent, because I spoke to the president because I wanted to extend it and get more men.

Okay.

Councilmember Houston.

Aye.

Councilmember Wong.

Aye.

And Chair Unger.

I this motion does pass what four eyes to approve the recommendations of staff and afford this item to the May 19th City Council agenda and through the body.

That would be on consent or non-consent.

Consent.

Thank you.

On consent moving to item three.

Adopt a resolution awarding a construction contract to the Bay Area Lightworks Inc.

for H S IP 9 Rectangular Rapid Flashing Beacon Project.

Project number 1005461, the lowest responsible and responsive bidder in accordance to the project plans, specifications, state requirements, and the contractors bid and the amount of 304,900.

And you do have three speakers for this item.

Okay, let's hear from staff, please.

Good afternoon.

I'm Joe Wang, Safe Series Division Manager.

Oak Dot.

Before I start, I'd like to request the change to the title of the resolution for this item.

You all have a copy of it in front of you.

So you'll just go ahead and read it in.

Yeah.

And then after you're done presenting, one of the council members can make a motion to accept your changes, and then we'll go from there.

We'll do resolution awarding a construction contract to Bay Area Lightworks Incorporated for HSIP 9.

Rectangular rapid flashing beacon project, project number 1005461, the lowest responsible and responsive bidder in accordance with the project plans, specifications, state requirements, and the contractor's bid and the amount of 304,900 and adopting appropriate California Environmental Quality Act CEQA findings.

Go ahead with your report, sir.

Sure.

I have the I might be saying I'll put you in the rest of the I believe Mr.

Parks has a copy for you.

You want the presentation now?

Yes, please.

Yeah.

Um the H the Highway Safety Improvement Program or HSIP is a federal transportation grant administered by federal highway administration through Caltrans.

OakDOT applied for and was awarded uh cycle nine funds in the amount of two hundred and fifty thousand dollars.

The funds will be used to construct pedestrian safety improvements, specifically rep uh rectangular rapid flashing beacons or RRFBs at two Oakland intersections.

98th Avenue C Street and Oakland Avenue and Moss Avenue.

Now RRFBs are yellow flashing beacons that have a proven record of improving pedestrian crossing safety.

Both locations we're looking at have unprotected crosswalks, meaning their crosswalks without any traffic control like stop signs or traffic signals to protect pedestrians.

These are crosswalks across multiple lanes of high volume traffic.

The federal disadvantaged business enterprise or DBE program was established in 1983 to assist small business formation and growth and to provide them an advantage to securing federally funded public right-of-way projects.

However, in October of last year, the U.S.

Department of Transportation suspended all contract goal setting under the DBE program.

And as a result of these changes, the DBE participation was reduced to no requirement and was not a factor in our determination of the lowest responsive and responsible bidder.

The project received six bids with San Francisco based Bay Area Lightworking Light Lightworks coming in as the lowest responsive and responsible bidder.

The bid was $300,900, which is 26% lower than the engineer's estimate.

The decision today for council is whether or not to adopt a resolution to award the construction contract to San Francisco Lightworks with no DB participation.

And I should mention that there are additional projects from our department in the pipeline in the same situation where uh the these projects are funded by federal money, and we have to you know uh comply with the new DBE rules.

That ends my presentation.

Thank you, sir.

Any questions?

Questions from council members?

Councilmember Houston, please.

Through the chair, AC Lake.

When a federal funds are included.

Can you answer that question for me?

Um with and we enforce small local business or um minority contractors.

What can happen if we say no, we don't want to use this because um we want to uh utilize small local businesses?

What can happen?

I think our choice is either that we accept the federal money and the terms by which the federal money must be spent, or we don't accept the federal money, and we work closely with the city attorney's office to make sure that that those were our only options.

I'm happy to turn it over to the city attorney if there's anything additional.

No, I'm here today as parliamentarian, and any additional legal questions can follow the ordinary process, and so so through the chair again to ACA Lake.

Um, if we don't if we just if we try to enforce the small local businesses on that, we can lose the money, correct?

Is that what you're saying?

Correct.

Okay, all right.

I got my answer.

Councilmember Guile.

He's gonna name this.

What are the streets?

And the you made reference to 98th Avenue and what streets are we?

I think it was 98th and C in Oakland and Moss.

In Oakland and Moss, correct.

98th and C Street.

Okay.

And Oak Street, you said Oakland Avenue and Moss, Oakland.

Okay, okay.

Thank you for that information for your work, and I'll make a motion to approve Steph's recommendations.

Councilmember Wong.

Um, just to confirm, because there's a distinction between the federal government revising the DBE participation requirement to zero percent, and saying we cannot consider DBEs, it is the latter that the new rules are from the federal government.

I believe so, yes.

Okay.

All right, okay.

We have a motion, we have a second.

Moving to our public speakers, Mr.

Sada and Kevin Dolly.

So Oakland Avenue and Moss is in District 2 near District 1, and 98th and C is in District 7.

So I would assume having this money, you had a list of streets and intersections that could have fallen under the need to address this.

So how did you conclude these two streets?

What method of fairness and equity brought you to have these two streets and as the ones that would be targeted?

Because you have to constantly address fairness and equity.

You have an abundance of certain districts whose issues are addressed more than other districts related to streets, pavements, sidewalks, tree cutting, whatever you want to call it.

And that's evident if you just go look at the streets, and at some point we need to see what's going on with the payment of streets.

Because where are these people?

Are they doing undercover work that we we never see them?

Uh we just need to see that.

The other thing I'm concerned about is this area of what that money could be used for, flashing beacons, permanent markings, drain pipes, curved ramps.

It's a list of a large list of how that money could be spent.

How did you come to use the money for this particular area?

The needs of where we have uh storm drain pipes, for instance.

To me, that's a very high priority.

So I don't know how you decided on the areas.

I don't know how you decided on what specific places of where we could spend the money, how we made those decisions, but you have the responsibility of creating the highest priority being addressed.

So if they're gonna just paint the streets, thank you for your comments.

Thank you, Madam Clerk.

That concludes your public speakers for item three.

We do have a leave.

Yeah, just through the chat, just like to share.

I'm so happy that they did choose 98th and C Street.

There were multiple um accidents there.

Um a young lady got ran over, she got killed further down, but left behind four kids.

Another young lady, little girl was was ran over, and this is real critical location because this is an underserved location.

It's been underserved for years.

I mean, Elmhurst Park is right there to Tennis Court through the city administrators' office.

We just um did a soft closure on that park where they had individuals living in there, burning fires, burning trees for the last seven years.

We just cleaned it up.

Um we did a soft closure on it.

We're gonna reopen it, we're gonna get arborists out there to actually um cut the tree or repair the tree if it can be repaired, and that park is gonna start uh bringing a lot many children, many families there.

Um so that's going to be a very, very critical um location.

So I'm very happy that they did choose in district seven, ninety-eighth and sea street because we're gonna have a lot of activity there, so I appreciate that.

Thank you.

We have a motion made by Councilmember Gallo, seconded by Councilmember Houston to approve the recommendations of staff and afford this item to the May 19th 2026 city council agenda.

On the roll, Councilmember Gaio.

Councilmember Houston.

Aye.

Councilmember Wong.

Aye and Chair Onger.

I this motion does pass with four ayes to approve the recommendations of staff and afford this item to the May 19th 2026 city council agenda through the body.

Would that be on consent?

Yes, and I'd like to um make clear that it is approved as amended, thank you.

I'll restate your motion.

We have a motion made by Councilmember Gaio, seconded by Councilmember Houston to approve as amended the recommendations of staff and afford this item to the May 19th 2026 City Council agenda on roll councilmember Gaio.

I councilmember Houston.

Aye, Councilmember Wong.

I and Chair Unger.

Aye.

The motion does pass with four ayes to approve as amended.

The recommendations of staff and the four decided to the May 19th, 2026 City Council agenda and through the body that was on consent.

Moving to item four.

Adopt a resolution authorizing the city administrator to enter into a cooperative purchase agreement with Cray Gray Bar Electric Company for the acquisition of electric lighting data communications security productions and related supplies in an amount not to exceed $1,500,000 for up to five-year period expiring no later than June 30th, 2031, pursuant to the Oakland Municipal Code 204080.

And you do have four speakers for this item.

You look just like the guy who spoke on the last topic.

Um good afternoon again.

Uh Joe Wang, uh Oak Dot.

Uh the proposed resolution would allow the city administrator to enter into a co-op agreement with Grey Bar Electric Company through the city of Kansas City, Missouri, uh to acquire electrical communications and data management hardware equipment.

This contract will be used by departments of transportation, public works, and information technology.

As the city continues to prioritize doing business with Oakland-based vendors, we're establishing contracts with other vendors, including those that are not based in Oakland to keep the operation going.

So this is a contract that is a bridge or necessary bridge to get us to the point where we have a purchase contract with an Oakland vendor.

Grey Bar is a vendor that we've used before who has a who has met our purchasing needs and offered competitive pricing.

Establishing a new contract with them through a co-op agreement is the most efficient way to bring back a vendor with a proven track record.

And this contract does not lock up funds or hinder our ability to establish contracts with Oakland vendors as they become available.

Adoption of this resolution is not a commitment to spend $1.5 million dollars with gray bar, but an approval to spend up to $1.5 million in purchasing capacity.

That concludes my presentation.

Thank you.

Questions?

Colleagues.

First of all, let me thank you, Joe, Mr.

Wang for being with us.

Uh you certainly know the history of Oakland and appreciate you staying with the city of Oakland.

Um, secondly, uh this funding amount is coming for what funding source.

So we've identified funding, but we're not dedicating funding to the contract, which is seeking approval for purchasing capacity.

So we have to prove that the money is there, but we're not necessarily locking up the funds.

It's not until we make actual purchases that we have to encumber funds to pay for the for the so at this point, we don't know where what level where the funding center be coming from, whether state, federal, or no, it's it's it's state and locals 20.

So we have a hard time remembering 2218 and 19, which is um state funding.

Yeah, yeah, it's it's it's uh uh uh gas tax and sales tax.

Okay, all right.

Thank you.

I'll make a motion to approve the item.

Thank you.

Council Member Houston.

Through the chair.

Um St.

Louis, that's where they're from.

The firm is based in Missouri, but the co-op agreement is through Kansas City.

So the city of Kansas City has an agreement currently with Grey Bar, which is also based in Missouri.

So through the chair, we don't have any electrical contractors that can do this out here.

I mean, we have many electrical contracts.

I can understand if it was a specialty uh through the chair.

So this is not a contract, it's a purchasing contract.

Yeah, so about a year ago uh we solicited bids for a very similar contract for electrical supplies, and we received no bids from Oakland vendors.

So, you know, it was disappointing, but it's an ongoing effort.

Um, but I I think you know, back to the point that this is we gotta we have to maintain operation in the meantime.

We have literally keep the lights on because we repair street lights and traffic signals, and we have to buy parts to do the work.

So again, this is a bridge to that point in time when we will be able to establish contracts with Oakland vendors, and through the chair, I mean Oakland, Bay Area, California, but then outside of the state.

I just can't grab it.

I mean, I understand it.

We should have some vendors that can supply this in the Bay Area at least.

I mean, uh, we do.

I think there are vendors in the Bay Area, but our focus was on Oakland vendors.

Yes, yes.

Okay.

Councilmember Wong.

Uh, thanks through the chair.

Um, so I've I've been railing on the the status of our street lights for a while.

It just uh it's been really bad.

The repair time has been outrageous.

So this is a new cooperative agreement, so you anticipate that this should bring down the the time that it takes because we have I've flagged things myself to like 311 and it's like six months to to repair these things, so can you just confirm that?

Yes, this is only a small part of the overall improvement.

We're just securing a vendor so that we can purchase the parts that we need to make repairs.

Okay, are there commitments in this contract in terms of you know volume of work?

And I have directed this question to a number of departments when we pursue the cooperative agreement model because every report I get on cooperative agreements, it's very like we're just gonna get some work, it doesn't specify uh uh a level of service that we're expecting.

It's a purchasing contract for for product and and goods.

So they're not doing any providing any service for us, just selling us parts that we need to make repairs within households.

Oh, I see.

Okay, well, then even with the equipment, it's I guess what are we expecting to purchase with with this cooperative agreement?

So the um good question.

It'll be shared by three different departments, okay.

Uh we'll be purchasing um electrical communications and data management hardware equipment for Department of Transportation, Public Works, and the uh Department of Information Technology.

Okay, I I I just want to go on a soapbox a little bit because I have like street lights in my district that are not functional.

It's like creating um like uh the potential for a traffic accident.

I'm surprised it hasn't happened yet, and then even around Lake Merritt, finally the lights turned on after I don't know how many months we've been flagging this for, but I gotta say, even now that they're on, it's a little wonky.

It's like now the lights are on during the daytime, which I don't think was like that before.

So um I I will make a motion to adopt this because I think anything to improve uh the lighting, the street lights, the um, you know, the traffic signals is all incredibly important because I have noticed uh a deterioration over the last uh year, okay.

Uh any more comments from my colleagues.

Do we have a second?

Or just a motion?

We need a second still.

Council Member Houston's got the second.

Thank you.

Calling in our public speakers, Miss Asada, Blair Beekman, Kevin Dolly.

To bring up something I brought up in finance.

I'm seeing projects that are being taken on by the city, but they're not complete.

So this project of street lights.

I know there are streets lights that in the last couple of months have been placed at Keller and Mountain, but they're not on.

When are you gonna turn them on?

For years, street lights have been at Keller and Canyon Oaks Drive, not on.

So why do we have projects that are not totally bought to completion?

Everything that was a part of the project is done, and I request what projects do we have in this city that have started and not been completed related to public works.

Everybody on the dais should understand a cooperative purchase agreement.

You just recently agreed that you're gonna participate in that process.

This one is from Kansas City, Missouri, and the company they're using, we're gonna use based on the similar terms of the contract.

What I don't understand in the in the report is the electrical equipment that we're gonna and accessories will be used for public streets, private streets, and highways.

Could you somebody would want to know what are we talking about with private streets?

Do we participate in providing public work services to private streets related to this or anything?

And what highways are we talking about that this item would be inclusive of?

Kevin Dali.

Thank you.

Moving to our Zoom speaker, Blair Beekman, you may unmute yourself and begin your two minute comment.

Hi, uh Blair Beekman.

Um thanks a lot for this item.

Um it's kind of related to uh items you had at the first meeting today that were um important uh on lighting issues, and that was mentioned by community uh working on better uh uh civilian ideas of policing that included you know our our street light repairs, and that that could be a more reliable uh source uh for our public safety efforts.

Um I I offered on that item that I was have a bit of concern that I as I work with tech accountability that you know there has to be good civil rights practices and review, and I think that is possibly what gets in the way a bit and slows things up with smart street light issues um and street light issues overall and being from San Diego these days.

It's a big concern and they're really trying to develop a more efficient system to do all of that.

Um so good luck what you can be working on it and figuring out uh in in the process of both, you know, working on fix it uh priorities, public safety, and uh civil rights and civil protections with around uh responsible tech practices.

Um it's a combination and we have to have that conversation openly.

I'm a bit fearful we don't have that conversation openly enough.

I think those are the pieces of the puzzle.

We just have to be more clear uh in the open public space that those are the pieces, and uh so good luck how you can do that.

I I think that's the the order of things, uh formula of things, and it's just important we talk about all of them.

They're all important and uh how we develop uh our better uh uh community feature.

Thank you.

Okay, that concludes your public speakers.

Councilmember Wong.

Um I'm reminded that we also have this plague of copper wire out of our street lights being stolen.

I would just urge if this particular vendor has uh it looks like there are like types of wire that are designed to deter theft.

And if we can purchase that through these folks, I would very much like to see that since it I think it'll help prevent some of the outages that we're seeing across the city.

Thanks.

Thank you.

We do have a motion made by Councilmember Wong, seconded by Councilmember Houston to approve the recommendations of staff and afford this item to the May nineteenth city council agenda on roll, Councilmember Gaia.

Councilmember Houston.

Thank you.

Councilmember Wong.

I and Chair Unger.

I this motion does pass with four ayes to approve the recommendations of staff and afford this item to the May 19th, 2026 city council agenda and through the body, would that be on consent?

Yes, please.

Thank you.

Moving to item six.

This item is needs an urgency motion as it was added at the agenda on a three day posting from the rules and legislation committee.

I just need a motion.

So moved.

Thank you.

We have a motion made by Chair Unger, seconded by Councilmember Houston, to receive the urgency of this item on roll.

Councilmember Gaio.

I councilmember Houston.

I.

Councilmember Wong.

Aye.

And Chair Unger.

I this motion does pass with four eyes.

I would now read the item into record.

Adopt a resolution authorizing the city administrator to accept and appropriate grant funds in an amount not to exceed $300,000 from the California Department of Transportation Community Cleanup and Employment Pathway Grant Program and to execute related grant agreements.

Two waiving the city of Oakland's advertising and competitive request for proposals requirements for the C C E P funded services.

Three, amending city council resolution number eight nine seven six two to increase the agreement with the youth employment partnership by two hundred and fifty thousand dollars for a total contract amount not to exceed two million one hundred and twenty-five thousand dollars and four amending city council resolution number eight nine seven six one to increase the agreement with the Lake Mary Institute of fifty thousand dollars for a total contract amount not to exceed one million two hundred and twelve thousand and five hundred dollars and five.

Adopt an appropriate SQL findings, and you do have two speakers.

Do we have a staff report?

Good morning again, Chair Ungarn, members of the committee.

I'm Kristen Hathaway, Assistant Director with Oakland Public Works.

I have a very short uh PowerPoint PowerPoint presentation.

Okay, next slide.

So we're uh requesting council to adopt a resolution um accepting and appropriating $300,000 in grant funds from the Caltrans Community Cleanup and Employment Pathways Program.

Um this would allow us to increase the contract with the youth employment partnership nonprofit that runs Team Oakland by $250,000 for total uh contract uh value of one point one two million, and then the Lake Merritt Institute we're requesting to add $50,000 to their contract and adopt CEQA findings.

Next slide.

Um so thank you for uh um agreeing to the urgency finding.

We are anxious to get started on this grant implementation uh that started on April 15th.

Um it supports community cleanup work and youth uh workforce development.

Uh the youth employment partnership runs Team Oakland that employs uh youth and young adults aged 18 to 25 um in doing beautification activities and job training um and largely uh focuses on on youth that um are at risk and have been otherwise shut out of job opportunities.

Um Lake Mer the Lake Mare Institute focuses on cleaning and education efforts around Lake Merritt and the Team Oakland youth working through this program would be doing work at Lake Merritt and in other identified high priority neighborhoods.

This expands Team Oakland from just a summer job program to year-round, which um would increase the uh length of job opportunities for the young people.

Um so we'll be doing additional litter and graffiti removal, um, working in public spaces, like I said, job training for youth and at risk individuals and building skills for those youth in environmental uh stewardship, safety, teamwork, and leadership and ledger uh leverages state funding.

Next slide.

Um, like I said, we were notified in February of receipt of the grant, and we need to begin program implementation as soon as possible.

Um, and so we would like to um confirm the partner partner roles, begin recruiting and training of the youth participants, and the grant uh fully expires in November 2027.

Last slide.

So that's all I have.

I'm available for questions.

Thank you.

That's great, thank you.

Councilmember Houston.

Dude, Chair, I really like this.

Um, on the Caltrans money of the $300,000, their scope of work, and I think and I think page two, paragraph two, last bullet point, was um this monies was for individuals who are just as impacted and unhoused, um, experience and homelessness, or children at risk.

So does that mean that monies that they appropriated for this are the children's at risk for being just as impacted and unhoused?

Because that was set with that $300,000 is for this coming from Caltrans.

That's right.

This this money is coming from Caltrans, and it will fund Team Oakland and Team Oakland does specifically recruit youth um in those categories for participating in the Team Oakland program.

Okay, and since it was waived by the City of Oakland advertising, I wanted to get I wanted uh um to get some information back quarterly or or or let me look at this real quick and see what it's saying.

I wanted some data back on that on what who did they actually reach out to and you don't have to say names, but who did they and what did they train?

What skill sets did they train so they can have these skill sets, these wraparound skill sets.

Um can I get a report back for that?

Yeah, I mean, I'm sure we can uh provide uh a report on on Team Oakland in general.

This is Team Oakland, um, you know, we have an existing contract with youth employment partnership for this program uh that we have been running for a couple decades.

Um, and I'm we can provide you information on on Team Oakland's um as a program and and yeah.

No, through for this act, I wanted an action item just for this specific money.

I'll make sure that money is going to what Caltrana wanted it for.

That $300,000, because it's going to be $250 to one program and a 54%.

For the Lake Merritt Institute, yes.

Yes.

Through the chair, yeah, yeah, through the chair, if I may.

Uh does the grant already have reporting uh out requirements?

And if so, let's include that.

Uh the council members in that report.

It does, yes.

So we will do that, absolutely.

And include the information requested by Councilmember Houston.

Yes.

Councilmember Wong.

Uh, thank you for hopping on this quickly, by the way.

Um, and you know, Lake Merritt is uh in District 2.

It's it's really important that we uh treat the Jewel of Oakland like uh like it is.

So thank you.

Um, and also uh YEP as well as Lake Merritt Institute.

I think it's that's on the border of District 2, YEP is in district two, so um, yeah, and I know that they do fantastic work.

One thing I would just urge, I understand that it's not just Lake Merritt, it's also going to be the EJ neighborhoods that uh get um these services that I really uh with Chinatown.

I've been working with the economic workforce development department, and it is shocking, uh, especially given the language barriers where you are 311 app is not available in other languages, and yet somehow China has Chinatown has more uh reports on graffiti than like the entire city combined, and so uh if the for Chinatown, I really the graffiti removal piece is really important to me.

Uh and with that I I do um make a motion to accept staff recommendation.

Thank you.

Councilmember Gaia, thank you for the information, and certainly I know both organizations extremely well with the youth employment program.

I've known them known them from the beginning, they're out there helping me weekly, clean the neighborhood, and then the youngsters that are in the program, our neighborhood youngsters um, uh not only learning work skills but also receiving their high school education, and so I really want to thank uh youth employment partnership.

Uh, but at the same time, beyond the cleanup, they all are also building tough sheds, little sheds for for homeless people and created a housing opportunity for those that are uh homeless that are in college college right across the street.

So I'm extremely grateful to the youth employment partnership program and also with the Lake Merritt Group.

I started well, they've been calling me to show up on weekends, Saturday or Sunday, uh, to help beautify Lake Merritt, and certainly we're doing that, and um, and look forward uh to working with them directly and thank you for the recommendation to these two organizations.

Thank you.

I'll second the motion.

All right, thank you.

Move into our public speakers, Kevin Dolly, M.

Sada.

Lake Merritt is uh proud part of Oakland, but at some point we've got to look at the amount of money we spend on Lake Merritt.

It is exceptionally a large amount, and whether or not uh we are not adequately equitably and fairly distributing the needs that Lake Merritt gets to other parts of the city.

I'm concerned about uh the nonprofit Lake Merit Institute, a total of 1.2 million dollars to help clean Lake Merritt.

You guys freely give money to nonprofits with no accountability about work done if it's done right, and I can speak to the uh consorted the housing consortium of the East Bay.

I think that's the name of that group that was over the Lake Merritt Lodge and over the tiny homes by Lake Merritt and completely allow for the destruction of that property.

And the Spanish speaking unity council with that money that they owed in 2016.

And I don't know who y'all how y'all decided to pay back the money that they owe to neighbor neighbors' works America.

You do things with these nonprofits that are very unappropriate.

Lastly, the youth uh employment, job readiness.

Now it's okay to have children out here picking up litter and doing litter abatement and graffiti abatement, uh, but when are we gonna move on to find opportunities for jobs that are really gonna have some purpose for them moving in their careers?

And right now, carpentry electricians and plumbers, uh, they are the ones when you're talking about non-professional jobs.

They have they put they they we can get some work done with these young people, but we gotta move beyond picking up trash, as far as I'm concerned.

Thank you for your comments.

No problem, thank you.

Kevin McDowell.

That concludes your public speakers for item.

Chairperson, just for the public's uh questions, uh youth employment and training, they do provide uh you know development in terms of construction work, the electrical work.

They have a supercomputer uh program, and they also preparing meals and all that.

They do cooking and all that, so it's a multitude of services they provide uh the young people in the neighborhood.

Yeah, okay, thank you.

We do have a motion made by Councilmember Wong, seconded by Councilmember Gallo to approve the recommendations of staff and afford this item to the May 19th.

City Council agenda on roll, Councilmember Guyo.

Aye.

Councilmember Houston.

Aye.

Thank you.

Councilmember Wong.

Aye.

And Chair Ungar.

Aye.

This motion does pass what four ayes to approve the recommendations of staff and afford this item to the May 19th City Council agenda through the body.

Would that be on consent?

Yes, please.

Thank you.

Moving to open forum.

We do have four speakers.

Kevin Dali, Blair Beekman, Mrs.

Sada, and Mike Patoof.

If you're in chambers, please approach the podium.

If you're participating via Zoom, raising your hands here, easily identified.

We will take in person before Zoom.

Are we on two minute timer?

Yes.

Again.

Following up on a recommendation from our the Oakland Budget Advisory Commission about paving and trenching, and also uh speaking as a citizen of district four and a registered uh professional civil engineer.

I'm happy to see that Oakland is moving forward with paving.

Congratulations on the council for your fiscal discipline to get our credit rating and bond moving.

Um, congratulations to this committee and Josh Rowan and his team for getting paving moving.

We have an adjacent action item that I think needs to be agendized for future uh meetings, which is trenching.

So we're paving our roads, but at the same time, we're tearing them up with trenching.

And many cities uh that I've experienced personally have standards that before you can trench in the public right-away, you must place a financial deposit with the city.

It does a lot of things, it makes it easier for Josh and his team to fix if it doesn't go right, but it also makes the low bidders know that there's something hanging over their head, they have to place a bond, and they can't just do a quick, a quick, quick and dirty job.

What happens is the trench trenches get made for legitimate reasons, but if they subside, it creates uh a gap in the pavement that creates water and it undermines the whole pavement.

I can I have a whole report I could show many, many examples citywide.

So there's two things we need to do.

One is a measure to support Josh and his team that would allow with a permit is granted that someone provides financial surety to make sure that that gets cleaned, and then separate it gets gets fixed and separately that we coordinate our paving schedule and our utility undergrounding schedule uh to make this work.

I can say from my own experience, having done development earlier in my career, I remember the city public works manager of City of Fremont saying, Mike, since uh Prop 13, we don't have extra money in our public works budget to fix contractors' messes.

We need you to put a deposit.

City of Ramerville tells me you can't drill a hole in the sidewalk to support this historic building while you're building it unless you put down a deposit and show us you're gonna fix the sidewalk so you drill the hold in.

Cities around the Bay Area re respect the public right away, put requirements.

Thank you for your comment.

Thankful that people uh organizing against measure E.

So this group called Citizens Oak uh Oakland has six findings about what your measure E tax is proposed to be about, or your all of your partial taxes, voter-approved special tax revenue has grown six times faster than inflation.

The city has failed to meet voter mandated minimums, and three of the last four partial tax measures.

Extreme fiscal necessity has been used continuously to evade those minimums.

City spending has nearly doubled while measurable services output has not.

Flat rate partial taxes hit Deep East Oakland homes 48% harder than Rock Ridge.

You heard that, Mr.

Houston.

Partial taxes are substantially passed through through to renters and under certain circumstances.

So let me go back now with the last of my time about the trees.

When you guys dealt with those that tree and that $900,000 fine, you took no responsibility to hold your staff for taking three years to act on that violation.

I was totally installed by Mr.

Houston asking the man to apologize when the property is owned by two people, a black man and a white woman, and nowhere during the discussion did you hold her accountable.

The whole while you had the discussion, it was all about the black man.

And those two people own the property, and they were both fine.

So that looks that looks pretty bad.

Then the people were paying the vacancy tax.

The property has eroded because you took so long to act on it.

But don't come here and ask a black man to apologize, and his white wife is just as responsible, and you don't ask her to apologize.

Thank you for your comment, Mr.

Sado.

One more reminder, Thursday is the bike to where every day.

I'm hoping that I make it to 81st Avenue Library at 7.15 in the morning to ride in with council member Houston, but everyone can ride with an elected or being elected riding with everyone else, and then the happy hour this evening, sorry, Thursday evening in old town, should be more relaxing, and you're not required to have a bike for the happy hour.

Thank you.

Moving to our Zoom speaker, Blair Beekman, you may unmute yourself and begin your two minute comment.

Hi, Blair Beekman.

Thanks for the meeting.

Um I'm 57 years old now, and um in the mid-80s, uh there was a law under the Reagan administration, technically in the state of California, um, but uh it just seemed so much part of the Reagan administration philosophy that uh English only uh was passed, and we had to only speak English in California in our legal system.

And um it was really really annoying, and it's been on the books like for that long, and it's like a regular part of our lives.

And I think it has something much to do with why 311 is currently only in English in Oakland, which thank you for that information from Council Person Wang.

Uh it's kind of shocking uh to think consider that that how many people are excluded from you know good social services and and community services.

Um it's it's excluding a major portion of the community.

And um, good luck in dressing addressing our fears, and um we have to acknowledge uh Oakland has a has a problem with English only laws.

They don't know how to be uh offer multi-language uh ideas without um feeling it's upsetting something, and I hope we learn to get past that San Jose can give you really good examples they've done a lot of good work on that um so check them out and how to do that well uh good luck with San Jose ideas um with the garbage issues also it was uh it was all parts of income levels uh get gathering together on Saturdays for trash collection.

That's an awesome idea you know in local neighborhoods.

Um and um thank you for the cell bright issues uh coming back in a year's time for a review of the process is important.

I hope we can come back in six months with with different choices and just have that conversation ready to go and good luck always your public speakers for open forum.

All right meeting adjourned thank you all thank you.