This is the spanish interpreter.

Isidra.

I have not been placed in the interpretation channel.

Good afternoon, Maria.

We would like to get the good morning, everyone, and welcome to the special council meeting of Monday, June 1st.

Before our call roll and give speaker card instructions, we will have one of the translators give instructions for those wishing to listen in Spanish.

Back to you.

Thank you so much.

I will go ahead and give speaker card instructions.

If you would like to speak on any agenda item, please fill out a speaker's card before the item is called for discussion or two hours after the start of the meeting.

So your last opportunity to turn in a speaker's card will be at eleven ten or before the item is called, whichever comes first.

If you're looking to turn in an online speaker card, that time has passed as they were due 24 hours before the start of this meeting.

Present.

Council Member Guillo.

Present.

Councilmember Houston.

Council Member Ramachan.

Council Member Unger.

Excuse Councilmember Wong.

Present and Chair Jenkins.

Showing six members present at this time.

Do you have any announcements before we begin?

No announcements.

Going to item three.

Modifications to the agenda.

No modifications.

Going to item four.

Receive an information report on the fiscal year twenty-six through twenty-seven mayor's proposed mid-cycle budget.

You have 21 speakers on this item.

We are going to kick off this meeting with a presentation.

I will introduce the mayor in a second, but Kate Top, could we bring up the first PowerPoint?

Thank you.

My name is Brad Johnson.

I'm your director of finance.

Today's agenda will go have some premium remarks by Mayor Lee.

I will then provide some context and background regarding our fiscal situation, and I'll hand it over to our acting city administrator to talk more about the budget and its major service impacts.

And without further ado, I would like to welcome Mayor Lee to the podium to provide you some opening remarks.

Well, good morning, members of Oakland City Council, members of the public.

And as a former member of the House of Representatives Appropriations and Budget Committee, that was the framework upon which I viewed federal budgets now, our city budget.

And let me just uh commend our finance team.

I want to thank Bradley, our department heads for assembling a fiscally sound budget that is balanced, built only on revenue that we can reliably project, and that discover delivers our core services to our residents.

Now let me be clear, it does not include parcel tax revenue because Measure E has not been approved by voters.

The amount of one-time money used for ongoing services has fallen dramatically in this budget, and this budget does not include any layoffs of our city staff.

Residents rightfully want better and more efficient services, and we need staff to deliver core services to Oaklanders.

At a time when many local governments are laying off staff, this budget recognizes that Oakland's workforce is essential to maintaining public safety, responding to homelessness, keeping neighborhoods clean, and delivering the services that our residents rely on every day.

These budget items, line items are foundational for economic development and for creating jobs here in our city.

But the foundational issues must be addressed.

Public safety will continue to be my top priority and is heading quite frankly in the right direction.

This is a result of coordinated community-wide strategies, and this budget is built to protect the momentum.

Now we certainly are not taking a victory lap, but through the trajectory is going in the right direction.

Through this mid-cycle budget, we are making some minor adjustments to increase impact and effectiveness of every city dollar on providing the essential services that Oakland residents deserve.

Here's what the budget does in summary for Oakland residents.

Public safety.

We're addressing, addressing and investing in violence prevention and emergency response.

And I've asked the acting city administrative to create a dedicated HR team focused on one thing, and that's hiring more police, firefighters, and violence prevention workers faster.

We can't keep the city safe if we can't fill these jobs.

So we have to move at a faster and more efficient pace.

Regarding clean streets, we're restoring illegal dumping cleanup, bringing back street sweeping, and putting more enforcement staff on the ground.

People want and deserve clean neighborhoods.

This budget moves in that direction.

We're expanding the mayor's summer jobs program for our youth.

More Oakland youth need more summer opportunities.

Senior centers get an extra day per week.

Libraries get their staff and their books back.

And we're adding peer navigators at the main library and the MLK branch.

Real people helping patrons connect to services and keeping those spaces safe and welcoming.

We're also restoring animal services staffing.

Now we have to confront the challenges as leaders in this city.

We must confront them head on.

Federal and state money is drying up.

Now over the last two years, Oakland has absorbed at least, mind you, this is at least 24 million in lost or delayed federal funding.

And we're facing a $5 million state gap in homelessness funding, meaning 190 shelter beds go offline this summer, and mental health wellness centers will close.

That's real harm to real people who are most vulnerable.

Costs keep growing faster than our revenue.

Think of it like a household.

Everyone's working hard, picking up extra shifts, but rent and gas keep going up faster than paychecks.

Every month you're forced to cut something, and that's Oakland's reality.

This budget is balanced and reduces the structural deficit, but it doesn't solve the underlying problems.

Our equipment is failing.

Our fire engines and trucks are past their useful lives and are at risk of breaking down.

If they fail, we end up closing fire houses.

This means slower 911 response levels.

And in a disaster, it could be catastrophic.

Our dumping crews are hampered by broken down equipment that can't get the job done.

This is unacceptable.

And I hear every day from residents and small business owners who are frustrated.

They're not asking for miracles.

They want trash picked up, 911 answered quickly, and streets they can walk safely on.

And so we do have to earn their trust back.

So I'm not satisfied with what this budget alone can deliver, but it is balanced and it does begin to reduce the structural deficit.

But you shouldn't be uh satisfied either.

You have the measure E splending spending plan before you.

If residents in Oakland approve Measure E, those funds will go directly to some of the issues that I just mentioned, replacing failing fire equipment.

So no fire highs excuse me, fire houses closed, and 911.

We need to increase our response time with 911, sustaining the crime prevention programs that are actually working, getting people off of the streets and into shelter, housing and mental health services, fixing the dumping crews machines and equipment, and cleaning up our parks and streets and more.

But this budget is a solid step forward, but getting Oakland where it needs to be requires more local resources and continued fiscal discipline.

We owe it to every single resident who shows up, pays taxes, and believes that this city can do better.

Oakland's strength comes from the people who love the city and refuse to give up on it.

So let's build a safer, cleaner, and stronger Oakland together.

And I want to ask Bradley now, Bradley Johnson, our finance director to come over and where's Bradley and lay out the details of the budget.

Thank you again, members of the council.

We'll do the PowerPoint.

Thank you, Mayor Lee.

I'm going to provide you a little bit of context as to how we get here got here, and then I will hand it over to our acting city administrator to go through some more details regarding this budget.

For years, our city has had a structural deficit.

As the mayor mentioned, our revenues have not grown as fast as our expenditures, primarily driven by rising personnel costs like Medicare medical benefits and pension contributions.

While revenues continue to grow, again, our expenses grow faster.

And this data up on the screen, which came from a report not developed by your finance staff but by Spur, shows that detail.

In the past years, prior to sort of the end of the 20 teens, the city had numerous operating deficits.

Toward the end of that time sparing, a strong economy, fiscally prudent policies brought us back above the line.

COVID took its toll, but then the presence of the ARPA funds helped the city make strides toward a structurally balanced budget.

However, we need to return back to those practices.

In many of our years, the city did not comply with its own policies regarding paying down its liabilities, establishing reserves, ensuring that one-time resources were only used to support one-time activities.

As a consequence of this, the city took many actions to balance its budget.

You can see going back to the 28th financial crisis, many of these found on expenditure reductions impacting services to residents.

From the layoff of AD police officers to using one-time ARPA funds to using our rainy day fund to freezing to increasing parking rates, etc.

City also had many efforts that increased our revenue side again to deal with this balance this imbalances, including measures O, Y, AA, Q, etc.

We are in a fiscal landscape that is moving quickly with the circumstances changing gradually.

As we began developing this budget, we were not in a war in the Middle East.

There are many things coming out of DC and happening with the broader economy that are not knowable.

We don't know the impact of AI in terms of both what it will do to our workforce in the local Bay Area context, what the boom in AI will do to our local economy, what a potential pullback of AI might do in the AI investment might do to our economy.

We don't know what the long-term impacts of higher gas prices or long-term tariff policies may be.

And again, monetary policy at the federal level is also varying.

But this budget does balance is balanced and it does sustain investments in our core key local services, maintaining them under our control.

Oakland is not just facing a structural deficit financially, it's also facing a deficit of services.

It's the facing a deficit of deferred maintenance seen in the poor quality quality of our infrastructure, our public facilities, and it's facing a deficit related to our equipment and technological systems, which are many times old, outdated, and inefficient and unhelpful for providing services.

As it relates to that service deficit, the city has often not been able to in recent years make the matching funds required for our locally adopted ballot measures.

Measures Q and N, measures C and D, which support the library, etc.

Again, these measures often had valid, validly adopted provisions by which the council could waive these requirements through its findings.

But nonetheless, our roadmap to fiscal health, which I'll discuss next, mandates that we look at coming back into compliance with these matching requirements.

And again, that's an expensive proposition.

This budget builds on past progress.

It sustains the fiscally disciplined practices that resulted from our balancing actions during fiscal 2024-25, including expenditure controls and improved revenue collections.

It builds on the current year budget, where we successfully issued a bond, including front loading both biennials years worth of affordable housing money to the tune of 180 million dollars to ensure that we've continued our work to reducing homelessness and providing affordable housing.

Our current year projections show our spending and revenue in the general purpose fund are balanced, that we have a small but healthy fund balance, and that we have recovered from prior actions.

Our roadmap to fiscal health is our long-term window to ensuring that the city continues to build on its fiscally sustainable practices.

And this budget is just a component part of that.

As the mayor mentioned earlier, it is balanced, it dramatically reduces our structural deficit, and those are the first two key things that you're seeing in that roadmap to health.

Again, fiscal health executive team, regular progress, and the structurally balanced budget.

We are working on long-term plans regarding pension and other benefit costs on implementing fiscal policies, which will come back to you.

We provided a report to you on vi on voter-mandated staffing levels that was delivered to finance and management this February.

And we are working on plans on investments in Vincent structure fleet and equipment and technology.

I'm going to turn it over to acting city minister Betsy Lake to talk more about the details of what is in this balanced and more structurally balanced budget proposal.

Thank you, Bradley.

All right.

So for our budget overview, we have a total of $2.27 billion across all funds.

And you'll see from this chart, we have an expenditure amount of $812.9 million.

This is actually about $44 million less than we anticipated in our initial two-year budget, but as you can see from the chart, it is more than we had in this current fiscal year.

Next slide.

So what does this budget do for our services?

We have our core emergency services and community safety operations.

And this is generally a budget of preservation and restoration.

So we're preserving all the sworn staffing.

We're maintaining all the fire engines and stations.

We are establishing a constitutional policing administrator, and that is to continue the good work of our OPD under our NSA.

And it maintains violence prevention and ceasefire related staffing and coordination.

For homelessness and neighborhood cleanliness, we are maintaining our homelessness outreach efforts.

I think people have seen that the point-in-time count had a 20% reduction of homelessness in the city of Oakland.

We are restoring our illegal dumping cleanup.

A lot of focus on that and time to move to implementation.

We are restoring environmental enforcement for quality of life.

We are continuing special activities permitting enforcement.

We are extending the senior center open hours.

I think the mayor mentioned that in her remarks.

She also mentioned that we're restoring the mayor's summer jobs program and just in time.

And we are restoring branch staffing and funding at our libraries, as well as restoring funding at our Oakland Animal Services.

It increases our measure U capital improvement budget.

It allocates measure U funding towards street paving, invests in our complete street projects, and maintains existing KK funded investments.

It funds facility improvement projects and supports our safety and security projects.

So where are we now in our mid-cycle process?

The budget was submitted by the mayor May 15th.

We are in the first of the special council budget meetings.

There are two more, one on June 12th and one on June 17th.

And by June 30th, this council is tasked with adopting a budget.

So what can all of you do?

Please stay engaged, be engaged, volunteer on a commission or a board like our budget advisory commission.

Uh, make sure you tune in to our finance and management committee meetings and stay engaged with your council members as we go through this mid-cycle budget.

Thank you.

Thank you so much.

Any more?

All right, thank you.

So I I want to get to the public speakers unless somebody from council has something to say, but if the housing staff can come up, I think it's very important to clarify the affordable housing bonds and where we are.

I know there's been some emails that have gone out.

Um Director Weinstein is here.

If not, Betsy.

Oh, I think she's that's pretty athletic.

Can you clarify where we are with affordable housing bonds?

Yes, absolutely.

Uh Emily Weinstein, Director of Housing and Community Development.

Um, so as part of the biannual budget, uh in the first year, the budget included a hundred million dollars of measure you.

The second year included eighty million dollars of measure you.

That tranche of of funding, that's the second tranche, was all sold this past year, and therefore all of that money has been awarded to projects so or programs.

So we have no more funding at this point as part of our budget proposal.

We proposed to include the third tranche in the this year's in the mid-cycle budget.

Um, that is not included in the budget that's before you.

So unless additional funding is added, we would not be able to award any more funding to projects until probably late 2027 or early 2028.

Okay.

So it's a good thing that we got the money out the door to help people as soon as possible, correct?

That is a great thing, and then we'll be waiting to do that again for another couple years.

Okay, thank you.

Councilmember Houston.

Yes, through the chair.

I heard restore, restore, restore animal services, restore.

Um, I heard in nothing about restoring my seniors um back to regular hours.

Um, because I heard everything about restore, restore, but none of my seniors.

Um, and also um restructure environmental enforcement, and that's due to Chair to Betsy.

How are we restructuring the um enforcement for the EEOs?

Because that was supposed to be done prior.

Thank you.

I'm gonna ask Director Garland to come to speak to that.

Good morning.

Liam Garland, public works director.

What the proposed budget does is it unfreezes an environmental officer position, and so we'd move from seven authorized positions to eight, which would help us with the uh essentially the implementation of the new citation amounts and making sure that we are citing folks who are legally dumping in our streets and sidewalks.

Okay, one more question through the chair.

Me and my council member um Rowena Brown are working on it because the enforcement uh officers, they were supposed to be trained for in um hazardous and contaminated, so we can prosecute.

And let me share this one more time.

Instead of just finding that go straight to the city attorney, we need to prosecute and collect the data so we can send it to the district attorney's office for full prosecution to the full extent of the law, right?

So um, where is that at?

Where they're training not only for hold on a second, not only training them to collect the data to actually protect them from the issues and the conditions that are out there because the things that are being dumped on our streets, waste management won't even allow to come to the dump.

So I want to find out how is that training because that was supposed to be done 12 months ago when I first got in office.

That was one of my main ones.

So I'm really stern about that.

Councilmember Houston, thank you for your focus on this.

And uh I believe you and your council colleagues did allocate dollars for that training of our environmental enforcement officers.

We've been trying to rebuild or restaff that unit.

We've got a couple vacancies in it now.

We'll have another if this uh proposed budget is approved, and we're saving that training for when we've got those EEOs all on staff.

So it's important to us.

Uh we wish we could have done it faster, and we think there is a route with these hires over the next several months that we will get that training uh conducted and we'll we'll head the dire uh direction you're uh you're sharing.

Okay, and it wasn't towards you, Mr.

Garl.

You're doing a great job.

I'm just saying that when I first got in office, I had three major things as my seniors, homelessness, illegal dumping when it comes to the crime against our community that the mayor knows about.

She wants to say something too, I think.

No, no.

Thank you, Councilman Houston.

I just wanted to respond to the uh senior centers, because they are extremely important to our seniors to our communities, to all of us.

Currently, senior centers are open three days a week.

I want to restore them to five days a week.

This budget restores them to four days a week.

Thank you.

Okay, and one more.

So the four days a week is good, but can we do it from nine to five?

Because now they're um they close at one.

Yeah, we right now this budget is only adding the additional day.

I'd like to see how we could extend those hours, but we have to, you know, and when you look at the budget, uh the council has the chance to scrub it.

Uh I would say I'd like to do that, but I'd like to get them to five days also, uh, given the current hours.

I'd I think, and I would have to talk to them about would they prefer five days with the current hours or the current hours, you know, and expanded hours for four days.

So we're working on that.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr.

Garland.

Thank you.

Councilmember.

Oh.

And then through the chair, I was asking to let council member Houston know that we do have a strike force right now with um OPD, OPW, and the mayor's office and the city administrator's office to pursue illegal dumping um prosecutions with the DA.

So that is underway.

So, so it's clear through the chair.

So it's clear we need to have them trained so they can collect the data to show hazardous, contaminated.

So when it's documented and it goes to the district attorney's office, the district attorney can actually prosecute, not throw it out because I've seen it happen many times where the data is not collected properly, so it's just thrown out, and these people are able to keep committing this crime against our community.

So, uh what I might suggest as part of the budget process, maybe a policy directive.

Uh to staff might be appropriate so you could get in exactly what you want, mayor.

Yeah, no, I just wanted to comment on that.

Councilmember Houston, in order to uh increase penalties from a misdemeanor to a felony, we need to be able to de to uh ensure that these environmental specialists can identify the pollutants as being toxic.

Thank you.

Councilmember Gaio.

Yes, thank you.

Thank you for the information.

And for some of us, we've been through this process for many, many years, many times.

And it comes down, it's not about what we say is what we do.

I can sit here and write all kinds of budgets, give you all kinds of reasons, but the reality is that I I want to, Mr.

Bradley, I need to be very clear in terms of the funding that's available that the citizens provided the city, that we need to take a second look.

One for me, the issues that are priority in my neighborhood having grown up in East Stoken and Surly is public safety and a clean city.

So for me to have a clean city, I need to invest in the vehicles and the staffing to get the streets clean, like we used to have.

I used to have people at Lake Merritt cleaning Lake Merritt.

I used to have people assigned to our parks cleaning our parks.

But the reality, what I'm asking for, where is the money?

It's an example of $36 million that we're collecting as a franchise fee from the taxpayer.

It's an extra fee to support us with the environment, with the cleaning of the city, cleaning of our parks.

And I don't see that happening because when I I have five of my employees in my city, I'm not making more policies.

I don't need more policy and more laws.

I have plenty of those.

I have to be able to enforce them.

So what I'm asking for, where is that money that the franchise fees collecting for me as a taxpayer on my garbage bill?

Where is that money going?

Is it in being invested to make sure that I have the vehicles, the trucks?

Because go to a Coliseum Way.

How many trucks are sitting there?

They could be on the street.

If it's not 50, it's more than that.

Because I drive your city trucks every weekend, and my five employees drive city vehicles.

So we see it hands-on.

What is happening in our local neighborhood?

Then the other one that I'm asking for is so where I'm collecting that extra fee with waste management.

Where is that money going to?

And secondly, and secondly, when it comes to public safety, I see now that I'm gonna go hire someone to, and then another administrator to oversee constitutional policing.

What do I have the police chief there for?

Why do I have all his lieutenants and captains there for?

I don't need more administrators, because if you look at what is the staffing level at the mayor's office right now, I've never seen that many employees at the city council or at the mayor's office working.

So we need for me, it's I need we need people on the neighborhood doing what the taxpayers being paid the police chief to do, the fire department, because the reality is what is the number of officers, they don't even live in Oakland.

They just come here and then they go home, and I worked eight years, ten years in San Jose, and I remember doing that.

Ran to San Jose, ran back, come to all the special things.

Well, I'm not there.

So for me, I I need to have some very clear numbers.

City administrator, you've been here for many, many years.

All right, and I have never seen Oakland the way it is today.

And I cannot sit here and make excuses for it, and I'm not gonna ask the voters for more money when I can't prove what I did with the money I have.

So the other one that I have for this mayor in the city, where now we're gonna return back to work Monday through Friday, because I'm paying your salaries to be here in Oakland providing a service for my business community, for my libraries and all that other services that I'm asking for.

We're not we're returning back to work five days a week, and secondly, you know, I think that you know we talk about human trafficking, violating women, violating young women, and here we're making excuses because I remember removing them from district five and the chief was here, and I needed the FBI to come help me do that, and other federal agencies from the sheriff to the fire department to be able to help us with the public safety and not just sit here talking about and making more excuses that we need more money, we don't have this, we don't have that, and that it goes for department of transportation.

So, anyway, so for me, I want to be very clear on the numbers that I have with the budget and where is that money going to?

And secondly, within each department, I want to know how many a city um how many attorneys do I need?

Do I need 35 city attorneys?

Or do I need 35 people helping me clean the streets?

Do I need six employees at the city council level?

Or do I need them in the streets doing the cleanup?

So we don't sit here talking about it, but and so that's what with all due respect.

Having been through this process before, I want to stay balanced, but at the same time, I want to demonstrate to my neighbors that the money they're investing is going directly back into the neighborhood and not sitting here at City Hall making more policies and more laws and more rules.

And so I so at the end of the day, for me, it's not about what we say, it's what we do, and so I'm asking my council people that we need to make some serious decisions within our council as well, including all the administration, what we're doing, because I'll leave you at this.

I have people doing illegal dumping, but I never see them out there picking up trash, but they're telling me how to do it and when to do it, and so we need to be very clear on the investment of the dollars that I have to support my children and my families, and uh, anyways, with all due respect, thank you.

Thank you, Councilman McGuire.

And I took parsed a few things from there.

Uh one, the franchise fee.

All right, right?

And where's that going?

Is it going directly back into a legal dumping?

And there's also always the opportunity.

Yeah, right.

There's always opportunity for a policy directive to say, hey, I want all of this funding going towards illegal dumping or cleaning the streets.

Second, I heard constitutional policing officer, third, I heard mayor staffing, fourth, I heard city attorney, fifth.

I heard return to work.

Does that does that some ice?

Does that get where you want?

Yes.

Be very clear.

Where's the cannabis money that we used to get millions of dollars?

Where's that going?

I mean, I can smoke weed.

Anyways, thank you.

Thank you.

Okay, Bradley.

To what you can get from.

Thank you, Council President.

I will try to answer a couple of those questions.

And if I have any of my colleagues behind me who should chime in, please do.

Regarding your waste management franchise, the largest allocation of that is to your fund 1720, which is your comprehensive cleanup fund.

That fund supports illegal dumping operations, environmental enforcement, and street sweeping.

And so when you look at the waste management franchise, the vast majority of it comes back into that fund.

And again, it funds the operations, which include uh the staffing and the equipment and any related services for clean city activities.

Again, dumping environmental enforcement and street sweeping.

I believe Councilmember Gaio's point, if we're collecting a franchise fee at 35 million dollars, is that is 35 million dollars going into that?

Is that correct, Council Member Guile?

I can get you and I can get you the specific details and breakdown of how that is broken down.

Absolutely.

The um, yes, another question around at right at the end there, they'll do revenue allocation first.

On your cannabis resources, your cannabis business tax is a type of business tax, it accrues to your general purpose fund and your general purpose fund is primarily about three quarters of it is public safety spending.

So the largest uh users of that amount would be proportionally your police and fire departments for their public safety 911 responses function.

So it's primarily goes to police and fire again.

Your cannabis tax is a business license tax, and so it's a general fund revenue source.

To the constitutional policing administrator, Chief James Bureau of the Oakland Police Department.

Um, so just I know Councilmember McGayo, thanks for asking the question, but the council, the constitutional policing advisor, uh is not an additional supervisor of the chief of police, it's actually um a position uh that's very described into the submission as someone that's helping with policy, the best practices in policing to ensure that the police department is working with all city departments and they've actually kind of um helped the communication piece, um, and it's a huge help with actually coordinating other city departments so we can you know respond more holistically as a city, um, and they also help with the communication with the mayor's office.

Thank you, mayor's office.

Yes.

Let me just comment on a couple of things.

Uh, council member guy.

One is with regard to the constitutional policing.

You know, we've been under the uh negotiated settlement agreement for 23 years, uh, and that uh for for a lot of reasons we have not been able to exit it, which of course costs the city quite a bit of money.

And so, in order to be able to complete the tasks, the 51 tasks which we have completed this year.

We did completed the three toughest ones.

We had to have a strategy from the city and with the police department working with the monitor to be able to move forward based on the court's requirements to exit the NSA.

That required a constitutional policing staff person to help us develop the strategy, which has not happened in the past.

And so the city could be coordinated.

So hopefully uh in September, if we continue to move forward and not revert backwards, uh, we'll be able to exit the oversight of the police department.

We need to make sure that we don't revert back.

And the judge has been very clear that we have to move forward and not see any backslip sliding because we're not the police department of 23 years ago, but we have to make sure that the structural changes that have been made remain.

And so that's an important position to have so that we can move forward and make sure, and we've seen progress this year.

I hope you believe that, and we're almost completed with this process.

If in fact we continue on the track that we're on.

Secondly, with regard to human trafficking, and that's a priority of mine.

Um it's it's horrendous, it's immoral, it's wrong.

And I want to thank Councilmember Wang.

Uh, we established in the last year's budget a $750,000 uh budget item to establish the task force.

She works with the uh DA and prosecutions, arrests and and finding the services that these young girls need and coordinating with the city and with council member Wang is working, but we have to do a lot more.

But this is the first time we've had a strategy, a public health uh public safety strategy which addressed the uh human trafficking, and we need to do more, but we've at least begun that.

And whether you believe it or not, it's something that the work is taking place, but we have a lot more to do.

And finally, just with regard to my staff, we have a very um expert, efficient staff that's helping this city reduce and break down these silos in this uh city, they're delivering core services, they're augmenting a lot of what the city administration is engaged in, and also uh bringing in millions of dollars in public and private partnerships.

There's no way we could have had our event, for example, uh celebrating a Lisa uh Leo had it not been for my staff.

There's no way we could have been designated as the only watch party city for the NFL uh during the Super Bowl if it weren't for my staff.

So we do a heck of a lot to help this city move forward, and I'm very proud of the work that they do.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mayor.

Yes, can you turn this mic on?

Can you turn one second?

We need to turn your mic on.

Let's turn your mic on one second.

It's green.

Yeah, we got you.

All right.

So look, we've been at this for a number of years, Chief.

You you understand that.

All right, the federal monitor mayor that we've had has been costing us millions of dollars.

But you know what?

Five other cities in the US fired him.

He should have been fired long time ago, but we keep making excuses.

Well, with this, what we that, and the judge, because I met with the US Marshal in San Francisco to get rid of the monitor.

And he said, Well, it's up to the judge.

But the reality is we keep just talking and investing and giving money, police chief.

You're hired to do manage the department.

Why do I need someone to tell me what constitutionally I need to do?

Because that's all just a political social excuses that we're making.

Mayor, and we've been through this many times where oh, you got another you got one more item to do.

Oh no, you got two more issues to do.

The next year comes back.

Well, no, you got five.

So the bottom line is, you know, we need to really move forward and get people on the streets.

There is no excuse.

Mayor, you want to go by her area?

There's 16 girls that are underage out there prostituting every day, every night.

Police chief, you see them, and we need to be able to address that.

And we're just sitting here doing more talking politically, as opposed to dealing with we can smile and laugh at it, but then I'm at the other end complaining about how I'm treating young ladies, and we're allowing that to happen in this city.

Do you see that in Alameda Mayor?

You see that in San Leandro?

Nope.

So it's not about what we say is what we do, and the dollars that you have from that we're investing in, we need to make it clear is about safety, and it's about cleanliness.

And I'll leave you with one example from years being here when Robert Bob was the city manager.

Every administrator, I manage parks, but he said, No, well, I'm gonna put you where the neighbors are at Lake Mary.

I don't want you sitting in City Hall talking, and I'm gonna give you a pickup truck because every day you got to have a truckload of stuff you picked up to so an example to the other workers that that's your task.

But you know, I don't want to sit here with my suit and I don't wear my suit and ties no more because I'm out there cleaning the streets every day.

So I think that that's what we need to be able to communicate that if you're an administrator, no, I want you on the street so you can see what's really happening.

Police chief, you drive down, you see 15 girls every day, right?

Oh, that's is that a norm?

Is that an excuse?

But yet, you know, I can sit here with complaining about how we treat ladies.

Anyway, so so I hope that we we take more of a proactive, include the fire department, they're sitting right across where the girls are going.

So we're all into public safety, and we need to protect Oakland, and for those of us that don't live in Oakland, need to make sure we contribute and respect because we're paying your salary.

Thank you.

So remember Guy, um, for the first time in the history of the life of the NSA, Chief Warsaw and the monitoring team actually place the Oakland Police Department in full compliance.

That's never happened before.

Also, at the same time, the plaintiff's attorneys uh had a joint statement with the city saying that they're confident with us going forward, but for us to keep going forward, it's not about getting out of the NSA, it's getting it.

If the judge uh deems that we're out of court oversight, the NSA is never gonna go away.

Chief Warsaw and his team, if we're out of court oversight, they'll go away.

But we need the constitutional advisor to ensure that we continue to uh uphold to the stat the standards that the NSA is, and it's the best policing practices in the country with regards to the human trafficking.

Yes, it's an issue.

I live in Oakland, you know that, and I've taken my kids to St.

Anthony's throughout their lives growing up, and it has been for generations.

Human trafficking is a problem.

It's a problem in major cities.

Um, Oakland's highly affected by it for sure.

San Francisco, LA have the same type of issues and problems, and what happened during the pandemic just really exasperated it, right?

And then you had certain tools that were taken away from law enforcement where they pretty much legalize certain activities that went alongside with prostitution.

There is a current shift.

Um, I do say, you know, with the mayor's leadership, and you know, partnership with other law enforcement agencies, the federal bureau of investigations on board, we have long-term investigations, we're starting to be able to hold people accountable again, which is what needed to be done, but that is a long road ahead, and there's always gonna be people out there to exploit our our young children.

Um, but with the DA and the federal government, we're actually charging people on a federal level that we haven't done in years, so it's gonna be a long road ahead, and I agree with you.

It's gonna take the whole city as as a as one team to address it.

Um, and then we're not gonna, again, we're not gonna arrest our way out of it.

That's just one piece, but it is also the education outreach, but ultimately it's holding the people accountable that come from other communities in our city to exploit our children and then leaving.

They need to be held accountable, they need to go to jail, there needs to be stay away orders, and we need if you're here to pick up a child underage person, then you need to be you need to actually be held to the fullest extent of the law.

I'm lockstep with you on that, and we're seeing some a lot of progress that we haven't seen in in quite some time.

And I think there's the legislative change is gonna help us with that as well.

Yeah, thank you.

Uh, Councilmember Guy, I respectfully uh beg to differ with you in terms of political talking.

Uh, we're doing the work, Councilmember Guyot.

This is a challenge city.

We're doing the work, we put the money in just on human trafficking, which is a moral disgrace, and we have a strategy, and we're working.

Before last year, it was peace piecemeal.

Now there's a full public safety strategy on human trafficking, and secondly, let me just say that uh we have many, many people on our staff who are out working every weekend helping to keep the town clean, and so people are doing the work.

So, yeah, people talk, but I want you to be assured that I see and I'm doing the work.

People are doing the work.

We're just not talking.

I wouldn't be here if it were about just talking because I believe we have to have action in this city, and we have to do what we say we're gonna do, and we have to be accountable.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mayor.

And then we'll get to some other council members.

But Bradley and the Hopper, uh we Councilmember Geigle's point.

Are we still counting the monitors' fees and the budget going forward?

And how does that, if not, how does that offset with the constitutional policing administrator?

We have for purposes of being uh conserved and responsible continue to include the uh payments in the monitor.

Should we be able to exit the NSA and exit the monitor's contract more rapidly, those resources would become available to this body for other purposes?

Thank you.

Councilmember?

Brown and Wong.

Excellent.

Um, thank you so much.

Um, so first off, just want to really start by thanking um the finance team and of course the mayor's team as well.

Um, and you know, I personally found the online portal to be very user-friendly um and outlining um all of the shifts and changes um that will be taking place um across various departments.

So I just have um a handful of questions.

So I'm gonna start first with um, I guess the statement that was made around the senior centers.

Um the language online says restores full-time operating hours four days a week for the senior centers, as well as reopens the West Oakland Senior Center.

So I wanted to just get some clarification because I know I heard hours 9 to 9 a.m.

to one, I mean, yeah, 9 a.m.

to 1 p.m.

And so I just wanted to get some clarity around like uh how we are defining full-time operating hours four days a week.

So that's the first question that I have.

Um, and then the second question uh outlined in the budget, it says um some of the reductions.

Um, so myself and the council budget team last year, we had set aside two million dollars of reserves for federal and state grant loss.

However, in this budget, the two million dollars was reallocated, and so I wanted some specifics around how how that funding was reallocated.

Um, so whoever can answer that question, and then uh also in the prior budget we set aside, I believe it was about two million dollars to help support um ITD um with advancing various um uh in uh innovation and technology within the department.

Uh however, in this budget, it does eliminate various roles within ITD, and so I'm curious about uh potential service impacts uh to uh technology that we may be trying to move forward.

I think we're all aware that we need to focus all of our energies on improving technology within the city of Oakland, so um was curious about that.

And then lastly, uh the budget also outlines the transfer of uh various positions uh in Oak Dot uh to finance also in this budget, and so wanted some clarity around uh that as well.

Thank you.

Thank you through the council president and council member Brown.

Um please, if I forget one of those questions, let me know.

I'm gonna have our information technology uh director come up to speak to his positions.

Uh taking the last one first regarding trans transition of positions from finance to uh from DOT to finance.

This budget does include a reorganization of the city's parking functions to remove to take the collection functions to finance, leaving the enforcement and operations functions within DOT.

So things related to the parking mobility assistance center, PMAC, uh parking meter collections and the back end collection processes will move to the revenue bureau within finance for enhanced collection practices, whereas on-street enforcement and vehicle enforcement will remain purviews of the Department of Transportation.

Regarding your question regarding the reallocation of the two million dollars in uh contingency funds for federal grants.

The mayor mentioned earlier we've seen numerous um withdrawals on the federal level in terms of grant funding.

This particular allocation was used to support the ongoing resources needed for our urban search and rescue and urban area security initiative program.

Those are USAR and UWASI.

If you want the acronyms, those fundings heavily operate within our fire department to ensure that we have the ability to respond as a part of I think it's Task Force 9.

If I remember correctly, urban search and rescue program, and the Urban Area Securities Initiative is heavily tied into our EOC or Emergency Operations Center funding.

Those were more those funding sources were more in jeopardy as they are through the Department of Homeland Security, which is a more vulnerable funding source for the city of Oakland given uh policies at the national level than many others.

I want to be clear, we may see further cutbacks in federal funding.

This is not I don't in my mind is not over, but those were sustained at their current level in that particular way.

I'm gonna have our IT director come up and speak to the IT questions and I'll get back to you.

Thanks.

Uh through the chair to Councilmember Brown for the question on uh ITD.

Um the budget, as is, does provide um ongoing maintenance, ongoing support, so there isn't a direct reduction in our existing services.

There's not um funding there for really new initiatives, but but overall I do think that the the department is uh the the budget provides a very healthy baseline for the department.

Um that said, uh there is a redu uh frozen position in the budget that uh we'll have to absorb.

Um this is an information system specialist three, which is really a senior level uh journey level class, um, and those were cybersecurity and infrastructure positions.

Um so we had two vacancies that we were trying to fill for really high-level cybersecurity and infrastructure roles, uh, and one of those is proposed to be frozen.

Uh that will have a direct impact on our ability to grow and maintain and continue to mature our cybersecurity operations.

Um so I do want to be transparent about that.

Thank you.

And to Councilmember Brown's question on the senior centers, I'm just making sure that we're I just reconfirmed it.

It is a four-day, full day operation, so it's roughly nine to five.

There's a little bit of a flexibility around the closing hour time on that, if that makes sense.

Like I think it maybe end up being like 430 ish in terms of closing hour, but it's effectively a nine to five operation of four days a week is what we have funded.

Okay, you're complete.

Councilmember Moore.

Thanks.

I uh was I do want to talk about the issue of homelessness.

Since in the budget, if measure E doesn't pass, 190 shelter beds are slated to close, correct?

Um, can someone who's been following uh the county's measure W spending and just in general the approach to homelessness approach the podium because I've been finding it very challenging to um see that like the county I don't think has been transparent enough.

It's not clear to me whether um like the funding for measure w seems to be coming out very slowly.

Uh I know that with federal cuts, uh, if someone can speak more to that, whether we anticipate them to actually be expanding their interim capacity since one of the presentations I saw is they were only in test anticipated to bring on 300 shelter beds online over two years.

Is that correct?

Um, because I know they're also, you know, increasing the funding to you know for the current shelter bed, but I just in spite of the pit count in my district at least, the homelessness is not getting better.

It's it's gotten way worse, actually.

I uh I have a park in my district that I swear to God is gonna become the people's park of um of Oakland the same way that we saw in Oakland, unless we have an intervention and we don't have enough, uh we really don't have enough open shelter beds.

And so uh I I would love to hear from someone who has been following closely what is happening at the county and and whether we need to look at more of our at our own budget to ensure that we're not gonna move backwards, especially with this anticipated closure.

Hello, through the chair, uh Emily Weinson, Director of Housing Community Development.

I can't speak specifically to our transitional bed strategy.

Um that falls into the community homelessness services unit.

Um, but I can speak a little bit to Measure W, and then that how would that impact our uh homeless strategy?

So Measure W is rolling out in different kind of tranches.

Um my understanding right now is that most of this next wave of money is going to be going to existing shelter beds to increase that's right county-funded shelter beds and increasing the the daily bed rate.

Um, what that does is it may not increase the number of beds, but with increased funding for the services, it allows more services for those beds, and so people ideally will be cycling through those shelters more quickly into the permanent housing.

So, right, it's all about like the flow of people from interim to permanent, which is why that balance is really important.

Um there will be some money, my understanding from Measure W that goes towards capital, and that will include both transitional and uh maybe another tranche of permanent, but there are looking at kind of mimicking a little bit of the way we've done R2H2, which is our local version of Home Key.

So the potential to transition um hotels or motels or existing facilities in as quickly as possible, although it depends, uh, into transitional facilities is something that will be coming with measure w support either later this year, like probably in the fall, is my understanding.

Um, and so what we would need to do is have actually matching funding or some amount of money in our coffers to uh attach to expand the number of transitional beds.

Has the county put any?

I I have not been able to see anything around like a unit, like their projected units or how many beds or any how many spots they anticipate to bring online, and so I have not seen that, and so it's totally unclear to me if we're actually going to make inroads and reducing homelessness at this rate with your own anti-displacement policy highlights how many people are falling into homelessness every year, and it just I am getting increasingly frustrated.

I'll just say that.

And from your perspective, is there a need to identify some like is there more room to push the county?

Uh, especially given you know HR1 cuts and all of that, or do we need to look at our own funds?

I'm I'm just trying to understand the dynamics between the county and the city as it relates to homelessness specifically.

I mean, I would say all of the above.

Um definitely we're continuing to work with the county.

The county will be rolling out the next sort of version of the home together plan, and measure w funding is supposed to align with their home together plan.

So it's the funding source to help support the strategies in their home together plan.

We influence.

Oh, and cube it is here.

So um, so we work with the the county um to inform both the Home Together Plan as well as Measure W spending, and we are working uh with the mayor's support to push on the county to make sure that Oakland gets its uh fair share of Measure W.

Um, but we need to have yeah, more funding towards prevention, which hasn't rolled out yet across the county.

We need to have more funding towards transitional and and shelter services, and we need to have also the permanent housing so that the whole flow and system can function.

Thanks very much.

Just a couple of things.

We have we established the new Office of Homelessness Solutions, and uh we have our director here who will speak to this in specifics, but let me just mention a couple of things.

The county I'm a member of the Alameda County uh mayor's association, and we fought for 80% of the Measure W funding as a county.

Our formula here in Oakland for Measure W money is this.

We're about 22% of the county, about 58% of the unsheltered population in the county reside on the streets in Oakland, and over 70% are black, and so there's a racial inequity issue also.

And so the formula that we have developed, we have raised with the county, so that the sip we have projected that it's approximately 64% based on the formula and based on equity with the other cities in the county that Oakland should be in line for approximately f 64%.

That's our formula, and so we're in the process now of negotiating what that overall would be.

Also, we have half funding at the state level, and we're at risk now of losing half half funding.

We look at uh maybe a $5 million gap in homelessness uh funding from the state, which is again why it's so important that we raise new revenue.

Uh if in fact we don't pass measure E, we're at risk of losing about a hundred and ninety uh shelter beds, and so we're right there at the brink of being able to move forward or backwards, but the it has been slow with the county, but the county and we have a very um good uh we we have good allies with the county who are helping us.

The RFP process has to be adhered to.

Uh the criteria in the RFP has to be such that it's fair for all cities, and so it's been a slow process, but remember we're just now gearing up with that, and so I just want you to know it is a priority.

Uh, and even though the homelessness, the point-in-time count had us reducing homelessness by 20 percent, we need more resources because we need more interim shelter, we need more supportive shelter, and we need more permanent housing for people, and that's what we have to do is build more permanent housing, but we have to have the shelters and the interim and the supportive until we can get to making sure that we have the permanent housing, but it is a funding problem.

Um, do you want to come?

Yeah, can we restate the question?

I so, in general, since this budget, if measure E doesn't pass, actually takes 190 shelter beds online.

I was just commenting in general, in spite of the pit count showing a reduction, uh, visually, I don't see that in my district.

If anything, I've had a couple of incidents at Lincoln Elementary, actually, Wilmachan Park looks like it's gonna become the new people's park.

And what I know is that in spite of what people think, it's not that we don't have enough, it's not that people don't want to come indoors.

So a subset, sure, but actually we have very few open interim beds right now, and that's where we have to place people when we close down an encampment, and so I am trying to I found it incredibly challenging to follow the county.

The Measure W money seems to be coming out very slowly, and the other thing is uh they haven't put out any, as far as I can tell, um, any numbers around this is the projected number of units they expect to put online.

This is how this is how much they expect to decrease by my own modeling, they're not going to actually make as much progress as we'd like, but I'm just making my own assumptions based off of you know the 40 to 50,000 for the um what is it per per year for an interim bed, some of the you know the standard models that are out there per cost, but I haven't seen it, and so it it then becomes very difficult as a policymaker in the city of Oakland where we have the biggest challenge with with homelessness to say do we need to identify more funding here at the city, or do we have room to fight for money at the county and how to what is our strategy around homelessness?

Sure, yes, yes, and so to the mayor's point previously in the point in time count, it showed that reduction was in the city of Oakland, but to the mayor's other point is that a majority of the unhoused and unsheltered population is still within the city of Oakland.

So that's going to be that 58 to 54 percent, and of that of the uh total unhouse population that happen to be African American, 75% is going to be in the city of Oakland.

So when we're looking at how we're going to advocate with the county, there have been a lot of conversations, and we have had that similar conversation where not only how much is it going to cost per person per bed, but also what are the areas that you're going to be focused on.

One of the things that we have is our homelessness strategic action plan that actually puts numbers to what we're advocating for.

But to the mayor's other point, one of the things that we're pushing for is a very clear association between city of Oakland's needs and the available resources.

So that is an ongoing conversation.

I will say that in the city of Oakland, we do have our numbers in the homelessness strategic action plan and the cost associated with how much we believe it is going to be to respond to the needs right now.

So we do have very clear data, and that data is supported by a report, and that report breaks down how much it costs for long-term and interim sheltering to make that dent that we're looking for.

Just one more point, one thing again.

With regard to my staff, you know, we're working on outside uh investments from philanthropy and the business community because that's been a big part of what we do.

Uh council member guy in my office is try to identify public and private resources, and we do have some resources uh online.

Uh hopefully we'll be able to make some announcements with regard to that uh much later in the fall, probably, but just know that we we're not just waiting on the county, and we're not just waiting on the state.

We're looking at philanthropy and also private sector investments to address uh homelessness.

Thank you.

Uh, just one more question, and this is actually unrelated to homelessness.

This is directed to uh Bradley Finance.

This is just around the administrative administrative citations.

I have found through my own work in the human trafficking and uh passing that ordinance that across the board we have challenges related to enforcing administrative citations, not just human trafficking um citations, and so I've seen that in other cities they have, you know, either it's technological uh investments or they have the processes in place, like we're not enforcing as I understand it, drunk driving citations, we're not enforcing side show citations.

Um, there's just a whole series of ordinances where we have administrative fines or civil penalties on the books.

We don't actually enforce them, and I see we see it with the legal dumping, and so I think it's part of a systemic issue.

I'm trying to understand do we need you know an investment in some technology, like what would make a difference?

And I and I know that right now the processes, the departments are the ones that submit the invoices.

I don't know if that's what is actually the right thing to do versus centralizing it within your department, frankly.

Uh so to the council president, councilman Wong, one of the things that has happened since the Great Recession, I would say, is in an effort to preserve services, successive budgets have eliminated most of the administrative capacity of most departments.

That is the first place that many of our departments have looked at over the last 20 years in terms of reducing costs and expenditures and or the balance.

And it is those administrative staff that have the cap provide you the capacity to do things like administrative enforcement of citations.

I know OPD is particularly heavily hit in terms of its fiscal unit in terms of being able to do that, regardless of whether or not it was rebuilt centrally or rebuilt with an OPD, it requires significant new additional resources to have a team dedicated toward focusing on administrative citations.

Again, we used to have within many of our departments this administrative capacity, but when it uh often you see in OPD, I think you'll see it in many of our department spaces when push comes to shove, the decisions have been over time to preserve the on the street ability for those departments to perform direct services as opposed to often that administrative capacity.

And so that's part of that sort of technical hole we're dealing with.

And I mentioned that technical deficit, you brought that up as well.

We do have outdated technology and systems.

We haven't invested in them, and the ones we do have aren't integrated, they don't talk to each other well, and so that is another challenge that we have to move forward with as well.

And so all of that would require significant new resources and needs to be part of our roadmap in terms of bringing things back to a level of capacity to be do able to do that uh enforcement action.

So, Councilmember Houston.

Yeah, so through the chair, um, and this is to my council member Wayne Wong.

Um, the county's willing to work, they're ready to go with Measure W.

We have friends there, and the mayor was correct about the percentages.

Um, this message is is this question is to uh Mr.

Cubit and Mrs.

Lake about the 77th that's in District 6 that safe parking space, they're waiting on us to bring that operational so they can do what they have to do.

Where are we at with that?

Yeah, so uh after our analysis, uh I think all we need to do is meet with the county because one of the things that we looked at was the infrastructure for those who might not be familiar.

71st was the demobilized safe parking uh uh safe parking space.

We also are looking at prioritizing it.

We're going for an ERF application.

I think the critical deliverable here is where's the funding going to come from?

So we're more than willing, we're happy to have that conversation with the county.

Um, and so we can get to that this week.

One of the other things is that we just want to be sure that the county is aware of our methodology, they agree with it, but we can engage in that conversation.

Okay, thank you, because I spoke to them.

You know, we got friends at the county.

The counties willing to work with us, they love the city of Oakland, um, and they're willing to roll on that.

So I just want to make sure because I'll sit down.

I'll have the meeting with them.

They're ready to go with that.

They just need it operational again, and then they can use the measure W monies for that.

Already spoke to them.

Perfect.

Yeah, and Councilmember Houston, thank you for show giving us some options in terms of locations, and we're working very closely with the county.

And what I want to mention also is that we have this alliance now between the governor's office, my office, Caltrans, and the county, and we meet uh periodically every couple of months to develop our plan with regard to all of the partners who have a responsibility to not only uh keep the city clean but also to move forward with our housing assistance and our strategic plan on homelessness, and so that alliance is there, and we're working together to try to move forward to do this.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you, Councilmember Fife.

I think about 12 hours ago, we said we'd hear from the public.

That's what I'm really interested in doing.

I do have questions, but I'll wait till the public speakers are complete.

I have questions as well, but I'll wait as well.

All right, let's get to the public.

As I call your name, please approach the podium in any order.

Please state your name for the record before you begin.

If you're on Zoom, please raise your hand so I can easily identify you.

You will have a minute and 30 seconds to address the council, and you can approach the podium in any order as with standard practice.

We will take the speakers in the room first and then move on to the zoom speakers immediately after.

Tim Dunn, Millie Cleveland, she Yeah Azuma, Ali Cashani, Jack Woodruff, Colin, P.

Pike, Shiva Haddon, Noelle Pond Don Juk, Chase Fowler, Elliot Goodrich, David Amaral, Paul Shorter, Darren Lowndes, Mari Kane Simon, Cody Meshberger, Kelsey Caldwell, also if you have time seated to you, please let me know before you begin.

Also, the person must be present in the room or on Zoom to get the time.

And if you do seed your time, you are giving up your time to speak.

Thank you.

Good morning, Triva Hatton, Local twenty-one member, um, and member of the bargaining team.

Last week, the city proposed changes to local twenty-one's contract that would deny the city's essential workers any cost of living adjustment, increase our contributions for health care and retirement benefits, and deny us the right to telework.

This is unacceptable.

The city waited until the very last day to give us these proposals, which effectively reduce our pay while cost of living soars.

This bad faith bargaining shows that the city does not respect its workers or the services we provide to residents.

We are the ones who keep the city running.

Local 21 members have been highlighting simple actions that the administration can take to save the city millions of dollars, such as making common sense changes to OPLA's contract that have long been recommended by the city auditor, and civilianizing desk jobs in OPD.

A reduction in pay from my position in safety and training with the City of Oakland Public Works and Oakland Department of Transportation would have a direct impact on my ability to continue providing high quality service to Oakland residents.

My role supports the safety, compliance, and training needs of employees responsible for maintaining Oakland's infrastructure, streets, facilities, parks, and public spaces.

When compensation fails to keep pace with the demands of the position or decreases, it creates financial strain that can affect employee retention, morale, and the city's ability to attract and retain experienced staff.

Local twenty-one, uh we're angry, we're disappointed, and we're mobilizing to fight for a fair contract.

Morning, my name is Chase Fowler.

My name is Chase Fowler, I'm a proud member of IPT Local21.

I'm here today to comment on the proposed budget.

I and many others have stood up here on multiple occasions to speak to the importance of civilization.

Despite the administration's and council's claims that they are seriously pursuing civilianization, this budget seriously undercuts that claim.

As Triva mentioned, civilianization is a common sense effort that will help put officers out on the street and save the city money.

And if this council is serious about moving forward with civilization, we need to remove those restore those positions in the budget.

Last year's budget council provided a budget policy directive that directed the administration to form a task force and produce a timeline and plan for civilianization by June 30th of this year.

And we have not heard anything about who is on that task force if they've even met.

Show that you're serious about civilianization and restore those positions within CPRA.

The mayor, Finance Director Johnson, CMGO spoke to rising costs within Oakland.

If we want our city workers to actually live in Oakland, we need to be able to pay them to live here.

Right?

The budget includes no cost of living adjustments at a time when inflation is higher than ever.

In addition to that, it also forces additional health care costs and hello city council.

My name is Colin Petey.

I'm a proud local 21 member.

I want to tell you about my coworker who recently left to the city of San Ramon because he's underpaid here.

He left to receive a higher salary.

Commutes from Pittsburgh.

You know, he's electing for a worse commute to get more money and our what is already a very not great commute.

So I want I want you all to focus on paying us enough to actually live in the city that we work in, and to pay us enough that competes with other cities.

You know, we're continually losing people to this churn when we can't provide city services because people are doing multiple people's jobs.

You know, and then also to speaking to OPD, uh, you know, we're looking at our budget like, oh, we're paying 200 for groceries, like 200 for transportation, 3,000 for artisanal candles.

Like, what are we doing with OPD's butt like overtime budget?

You know, it's uh $55 million is what they spent, which is more than our paving budget.

So we really need to look at the elephant in the room when it comes to our budget.

Thank you.

Hello, good morning, council members.

My name is Noel.

I'm a proud IFPTE Local 21 member and a member of our bargaining team.

I'm here to today to talk about Oakland's budget and fair compensation for Oakland workers.

But really, this is more about it's about more than city employees.

It's about Oakland residents.

Every day, as city employees, we show up to provide the essential services and infrastructure that Oaklanders rely on.

Many of us are already stretched thin.

We're covering vacancies.

We're taking on additional responsibilities, and we're working through burnout to keep this city running.

If we want responsive, effective public services, we need to be able to retain experienced staff, and we need to be able to support workers who deliver them.

When the city invests in its workforce, it invests in Oakland.

Many of you have described yourselves as labor friendly leaders and labor organizations have worked really hard to help elect many of the people sitting around in this room.

We're asking you to demonstrate that commitment by standing with the workers who keep this city functioning every single day.

A strong contract is an investment in the workforce that keeps the city running and the residents who depend on our services every day.

Thank you for your time.

Good morning, Elliot Goodrich, Local21.

So let's talk about the structural deficit that Director Johnson referenced.

We keep coming to council with solutions for fixing structural overspending in OPD.

We're reducing overtime, fixing the OPOA contract, and reducing and civilianizing desk jobs.

And yet there's a reduction in three CIPRA positions in this budget that Chase referred to.

And I would encourage everybody to read the equity consideration descriptions for freezing these positions on the budget page.

And yet, last year, OPD overtime spending was the equivalent of, to Councilmember Gaio's point, 300 public work staff that could be cleaning up the streets.

I believe that you all are running from these structural problems.

These are dark times, and what we're seeing across the country is that the only ethic that will get us through this is by putting workers first.

The ethic is facing these structural problems head on and using the windfalls to invest in the city's workforce.

Mayor Lee, Councilmember Wong, Councilmember Rama Chandran.

I stood in a photo with you before I knocked doors for Measure E on Saturday.

Will you stand in actual solidarity with us now, with your workforce?

To the other council members who have received support, endorsement from the city's unions.

Will you stand in solidarity with us?

Your actions are what matter now.

Thank you.

Hello, uh my name is Cody Meschriger.

I'm an engineer with uh construction management division and DOT.

I'm a proud local 21 uh member.

As of late last week, the city administration's bargaining team has requested that uh Oakland City workers not only receive no cost of living adjustment as well as reduced health care pension and other benefits.

They have rejected our telework proposal, which is a no cost proposal.

At the very least, they should be able to accept something that's no cost.

Uh we're asked to work for less and with less.

Uh the administration has offered these takeaways to most bargaining units, and people are so upset, all I've heard is whispers of the S word, strike.

This is not a threat.

The strike uh does not benefit anyone, especially the citizens of Oakland.

Citizens I have spoken to want their city workers to be fairly compensated and respected, just as they want to be well taken care of and respected.

Local 21 positions are 25% vacant.

Please respect your city workers, support our work.

The mayor has put across a balanced budget with no cuts or takeaways.

There's no reason to show this disrespect to workers as we make the city run.

It makes it harder to hire and harder to retain workers.

We request that you show your support and investment in the city workers.

Thank you.

If your name was called, come forward.

There's people behind you all who would like to speak as well.

Please come forward.

Approach the podium, please.

Thank you.

Good morning, council members.

My name is David Amarall, and I'm the director of research for all home regional nonprofit focused on disrupting the cycles of poverty and homelessness in the Bay Area.

For several years, all home has worked closely with city staff and the housing and community development department and the new Office of Homelessness Solutions.

Our analysis is part of what guides the investment priorities and the new homelessness strategic action plan.

A plan which emphasizes the need to continue expanding affordable housing in the city.

The 2026 points of time count results mentioned earlier indicated a 20% reduction in Oakland.

And so we're moving in the right direction.

And in large part because of the affordable housing made possible by Measure U.

Essential housing that does not get built without a funding source like Measure U.

But homelessness remains the most pressing humanitarian crisis we face, and so now is not the time to pull back.

It's the time to double down.

We urge the council to allocate the third tranche of funding from Measure U to HCD's budget so we can continue making progress on this most vital issue.

Thank you.

Good morning, council.

My name is Jack Woodruff.

I'm representing Rooted, an affordable housing program of the Oakland Fund.

We recently closed on an educator housing acquisition, our first and the nation's first of its kind.

I think we know that the issues showing up on Oakland Streets that you're all talking about today are downstream from what we're doing for our kids in our schools.

I don't just want to offer support and urging for including affordable housing funds in the next measure U Tranche.

I want to offer a little data.

I wouldn't speak against the other priorities for measure U funds.

They're high priorities.

I think what's unique about housing in this time is that there's a unique market opportunity for affordable housing organizations in Oakland that we have not seen in decades and are unlikely to see for decades to come.

According to CoStar, a real estate data broker, the cost per unit for multifamily housing in Oakland is now 100,000.

That is down from 400,000 just pre-pandemic and into the first year of the pandemic.

This is not going to last.

Vacancy is trending downward.

It is now at 7% from its crest at 9.

Rents are starting to pick up.

This is an opportunity right now for Oakland to own Oakland.

Your affordable housing dollar goes much much further at this moment, and I urge you not to miss the moment.

Thank you.

Thank you for your time today.

My name is Paul Schroeder.

I work on behalf of the Unity Council.

I'm voicing my concerns regarding the current state of the budget.

I understand that this council and the city has many competing priorities and problems it needs to address, especially now with funding landscape and the state and federal governments.

However, as Mayor Lee pointed out, our budget is a moral document and reflects our values and priorities for the city.

It currently includes zero dollars, zero dollars for the construction and preservation of affordable housing units, which is crazy for a 2.7 billion dollar budget, zero dollars.

My question to you all is are you committed to affordable housing?

Still, the current answer is no.

Please listen and heed the advice of your housing and community development office and ensure that at least $50 million of that third tranche is in the city budget.

Needed for upcoming ACA and R2H2 funding programs.

It's crucial to ensure that the city leverages funds for upcoming opportunities for the new state HCD funds for 2027.

Every dollar we spend this year can be used for additional funds.

Allocating zero dollars in affordable housing is not only a missed opportunity but digs deeper, a deeper hole for us to dig ourselves.

Good morning, my name is Ali Koshani.

I want to remind the council that Oakland secured 140 million dollars in home key funds in the last four years, which created 600 housing units, permanent supportive housing units.

We have participated on acquired hotels and created 220 of those units.

And to do a 50% reduction.

So it's really imperative that you consider doing the third tranche of the bonds, at least $50 million towards producing more permanent supportive housing.

Proposition one that created about a billion dollars for housing and homelessness, the home care program still has unused funds.

So the Oakland we have an opportunity to apply and get those monies, and your money is leveraged three to four times.

Whatever dollar you put in, we leverage it with the state funds three to four times to create housing.

That money is available right now on the first come, first um served basis.

And if we don't allocate funds, the Oakland would lose the opportunity to create more affordable housing in the next two years.

Thank you.

But those tasks are to become standardized within the operations of the police department.

When the what the judge is saying is if the monitor goes away, the responsibility is transferred to the inspector general.

But what this budget is doing is uh allocating 450,000 for a full-time constitutional administrator when that work should go to the community independent inspector general, which is not fully funded.

So while it's correct, council member Wong is concerned about losing shelter beds, you are duplicating the work of the inspector general into a position in the city administrator's office with no guarantee for transparency, only accountable to the mayor, only accountable to the city manager.

This is not a reflection of the values of the city that voted for an independent police commission that needs to be funded.

If the monitor is not being funded, that's good morning.

Um Mary Kane Simon, I'm a member of your Oakland Library Commission.

I just want to congratulate you, Mayor Lee, and thank you for restoring the funding, but full measure of funding to the libraries.

And I just want to add the libraries are more than just books and librarians.

They are hard-working, multitasking employees who do so much for our community.

And just to give you a few examples from what I've seen in the last year, children going into the library a safe, happy, clean, perfectly free, open space where they can play and they can learn and be safe and find knowledge that uh uh the librarians help bring to them in a way that they can understand.

Put a value, put a price tag on that.

Students can find a clean, safe, practical place to go and learn how to fix their bikes.

Madam Mayor, did you know you can go to an Oakland public library and learn bicycle mechanics they do that for people put a price tag on that one accident saved you know the whole budget is justified there um adults in the past year I saw a skilled trades job fair if just one or two people came out of that with a skilled trade career that can support and sustain a family put a value on that um adults get language support they can it is a place where you can go to find knowledge and information on how to fix your house some people can't use the internet they don't know how to access the services you can go to an Oakland public library thank you ma'am your time is up and get help thank you good morning Chiazuma District 6 resident and chair of the library commission I'm here today to express my appreciation for the mayor's proposed make year budget adjustment especially as it relates to restoring the library's full allocation of the general fund this is the first time since 2013 that the library's been fully funded with the 14 and a half million dollars in general funds that was committed to us in measure C and just briefly this this will enable us to hire more library staff to to deliver services to the public we have more money now for library materials and we also have are now able to pay for a new safety pilot for the main and the MLK library locations and most importantly this saves us from reaching into our scant reserves and we've been making do with the limited funding that we've had so again thank you to our council member council members for your continuing support for the libraries I assure you dollar for dollar money spent on libraries is one of the most cost effective ways in which to support the well-being and safety of our neighborhood and our communities thank you Kevin Daly first no city council is not actually my senior center it just seems like it I'm concerned about parking policy I really thank uh the city administrator and the mayor for keeping parking policy with oak dot including enforcement it'll make the street safer from traffic collisions I want to make sure that parking enforcement dispatch positions are restored and expanded before COVID if I saw a car on a sidewalk or blocking cut I could call a phone number within an hour there was there was usually a ticket placed on the car.

The ADA consent decree requires the city prevent blocking of sidewalks so not only do I want to restore the two positions that have been frozen for ages but bring back or bring evening and weekend enforcement as well I'm also looking forward to working with the fire department to choose new fire trucks that can maximize emergency response as well as traffic safety.

There's some amazing new tech out there that I think will be really interesting to use hoping we have money for that and let's sell more major U bonds thanks good morning city council my name is Matt Schreiber and I'm representing Eden Housing, a local nonprofit housing developer.

I'm here today to urge you all to release the third tranche of Measure UMonies for affordable housing development.

As Director Weinstein mentioned, the city has committed nearly 200 million dollars in measure you funds over the past two years, including 63 million dollars last year these the city's prior approach has created large, meaningful awards for many projects, including Eden's partnership with the black cultural zone at Liberation Park.

And our ask today is to keep that momentum going.

If adopted as proposed without any allocation for affordable housing, many pipeline projects, including our partnership with Williams Chapel to bring 67 units of affordable housing for seniors in District 2 that includes a set aside for previously homeless residents.

Will be further delayed and forced to forego any county or state funding opportunities until a local award is attained.

Local funding from cities is a prerequisite for 100% affordable housing projects to receive county and state awards.

And without a measure U funding allocation from the city, we cannot move these important developments forward.

Just to put a final point on it, Eden and Williams Chapel have already been forced to return $1.5 million to the regional center of the East Bay, and we were ineligible for Measure U Measure W funding at the county since our project had no local funding commitment.

These consequences are real, these delays are real, and Oakland needs to provide more affordable housing in this current budget cycle.

I urge council to consider this allocation and thank you for your time.

Good morning, Chairperson Jenkins and City Council members.

My name is Darren Lowndes, Executive Director of HCEB.

I urge you to continue to fund emergency and interim beds.

Due to city budget cuts in the current fiscal year, interim and emergency shelter programs have already been closed, and further closures will exacerbate the problem.

And the data is clear.

Reductions in funding shelters, interim housing, and permanent supportive housing lead to spikes in the number of unhoused living in encampments throughout the community in subsequent years.

Any recent reductions in unsheltered homelessness will be reversed in the next couple of years without necessary program capacity.

And any further cuts to emergency and interim housing programs will have a devastating effect on our neighbors currently unsheltered and living on the streets.

In addition, the city must find ways to fund permanent supportive housing.

Permanent supportive housing creates exits from the emergency and shelter system as well as allowing people with extremely low incomes and disabilities to become leaseholding tenants directly from the streets.

City investment will allow Oakland to continue to leverage state capital, such as the home key program that's mentioned earlier, while it is still available, adding critical, deeply affordable permanent supportive housing.

Please commit 50 million in funds in this budget from the third tranche of Measure U towards permanent supportive housing and please fund emergency and interim shelter beds.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Moving to the Zoom speaker, starting with Asada Olabala, please unmute yourself and begin your comments.

Ms.

I see you are you're unmuted, but we cannot hear you.

I will come back to you.

Going to Carla Vera.

Please unmute yourself and begin your comments.

Thank you.

Good morning, City Council.

My name is Carla Guerra.

I am the policy and advocacy senior manager at the Unity Council and local affordable housing developer.

We want to raise our concern regarding the mid-cycle proposed budget and its housing investment policies.

We urge you to ensure that at least 50 million in Measure U is allocated in the city's budget to support new construction, the acquisition, conversion, and rehab of affordable housing programs.

This budget currently includes zero dollars for the construction of or preservation of affordable housing units.

Again, zero dollars.

This is not a reflection of the values of DCD.

Allocating funding now will allow HCD to launch a 30 million NOFA this fall, positioning projects to compete for 2027 tax credits and state funding opportunities.

We cannot afford to lose momentum.

We urge you to prioritize at least 50 million in Measure U funding for housing.

Please lease into your HD department.

Housing developers advocates in Oakland residents.

Thank you for your time.

Alex Regala, you are next.

Good morning.

My name is Alex Ragala, and I'm a senior policy manager with Midpen Housing.

Midpen is a nonprofit developer manager and provider of affordable housing and on-site residence services throughout Northern California.

And in the city of Oakland, we have 469 homes across five different properties, along with 88 more units in the pipeline.

These 88 units are part of our 1707 Wood Street project in West Oakland, which will create deeply affordable rental homes and homeownership opportunities in partnership with Habitat for Humanity.

The project has received immense support from the community and city staff as we prepare to submit for entitlements in the coming months.

However, the project is in need of local funds in order to compete for state and federal resources in 2027 and move towards construction.

We've been closely tracking efforts at the state level to reform the affordable housing system to be more streamlined and efficient.

And in this new financing system, local funds will play a critical leveraging role in setting up projects to compete successfully statewide.

Similarly, similarly, as has been mentioned, we also know that measure U funds will allow allow projects to be eligible for county measure W funds for permanent supportive housing.

So therefore, to advance projects like Wood Street and the City's Affordable Housing Pipeline, we urge the council to allocate a minimum of 50 million of Measure U funding to new construction programs.

Thank you.

Thank you, trying Miss Olabala again.

Please unmute yourself and begin your comments.

Can you hear me?

Yes.

Thank you.

Good morning.

I have some concerns about the following issues.

It's stated that no new initiatives will be a part of the budget, but you're implementing a pilot ambulance program and you're establishing a constitutional police administration position.

The limited funding for homelessness, services lost of homeless programs, state homeless funding cut in half next year.

After July 31st, 2026, two programs at risk of closing.

You're not uh you can't speak to Measure W without specific numbers because a lot of the advocacy around Measure W was to prevent homelessness.

The spending of that money would be around that initiative.

Uh the statement that you make in the uh presentation that the budget will improve race and for race and equity.

Uh that's not true.

Uh Oakland police administration building safety issues not being addressed.

Uh you have issues of over 30 police uh cars uh that you bought that you have been unable able to pay for.

You are using Measure U money that could be used for homelessness and for affordable housing for uh and as well as KK funds from the Lincoln Rec Center.

Uh, you also have over 5,000 waiting lists in the Oakland Housing Authority identified.

Moving to the next speaker, Tano Chaschenberg, please unmute yourself and begin your comments.

Good morning, council.

My name is Tono Trachtenberg, and I'm the senior policy manager at the Nonprofit Housing Association of Northern California.

I want to urge the council to allocate uh funding from the third tranche of measure U dollars, the amount of at least 50 million to HCD.

Um, this morning you've already heard from many of our members, including Mid Pen, Unity Council, Eden, and others.

They've all made clear how critical local match funding is to be able to compete for regional dollars like Measure U, Measure W as well as state and federal resources.

And I hope the council will take those concerns and comments seriously.

Oakland is genuinely well positioned right now.

The city has a robust pipeline of shovel ready projects that could produce over a thousand units of affordable housing.

And with these local dollars, it has a competitive advantage with state funding and within the region where other other cities' local funds have dried up.

Uh, but both of those assets depend on on these local dollars, and without the allocation, the edge at Oakland has erodes.

So I want to acknowledge that the council and staff worked really hard last year to accelerate bond sales.

We were here advocating for that.

That was the right call, but the value of those resources depends on putting them to work, and it would it would be unfortunate to wait a year to do that.

So voters delivered this funding to build housing and allocating funding this year to HCD is how we make good on that.

Thank you so much for your time.

Jeff Levin, you are next.

Please unmute yourself and begin your comments.

Thank you.

Good morning, Jeff Levin, Senior Director of Policy with East Bay Housing Organizations.

We urge the city council to ensure that the next track of Measure U bond sales includes a minimum of $50 million of the remaining housing funds.

The city already has a pipeline of unfunded new construction projects requesting nearly $250 million in city funding.

That pipeline will remain frozen without new funding and delaying funding to future years will increase the cost of these projects and reduce the number of homes that can be made available.

Inclusion of housing funding in tranche three of measure U bond sales would make possible the following funding for new construction, acquisition and conversion of existing housing to permanently affordable housing and rapid response homeless housing.

Positioning the city to leverage tax credit funding in 2027 and new funds that would become available if the proposed $10 billion state housing bond is approved, ensuring that the city has local matching funds for measure W for both interim and permanent supportive housing, taking advantage of the current softness of Oakland's real estate market, which presents a unique and unparalleled opportunity to pursue acquisition and conversion opportunities while prices are low.

Continued progress in uh carrying out the city's affordable housing and homelessness plans depends on an ongoing stream of local funding.

We urge the council to make sure that those uh funds are available this year.

Thank you.

If your name was Connor, you wish to address the council, please raise your hand or step to the podium.

At this time, all names have been called, okay.

We have one more, two more.

Tim Dunn, please unmute yourself and begin your comments.

Hi, good e uh good morning, council.

My name is Tim Dunn.

I'm with Mercy Housing.

Um, the largest nonprofit housing organization in in the country.

We are currently um developing building um 96 units of affordable senior housing um fully subsidized with HUD subsidies in uptown neighborhood of Oakland.

Um we are urging you to release the 50 million dollars for measure you funds.

It's really critical.

Um we're only able to um build the housing that we're building now because there was money available last year.

Had the money not been available last year, we would have missed this opportunity to receive these HUD phone HUD funds.

It's it's essential that the funds are available when the NOFAs come out from other sources like the state, etc.

So please support affordable housing.

Thank you.

Kelsey, please unmute yourself and begin your comments.

Good morning, Mayor Lee and Council members.

My name is Kelsey Caldwell, and I am a former Oakland Animal Services volunteer and longtime dog advocate.

I'm sure this room holds many dog lovers.

I am here in support of the staff and volunteers at OAS, Oakland Animal Services.

For years, they have done everything they can with too few resources, too little space, a building falling apart, and way too much responsibility.

Taxpayers, volunteers, fosters and donors have been forced to subsidize what should be an adequately funded public service.

The recent tragedy involving Miranda's rescue in Fortuna, California, exposed a crisis, many of us have warned about for years.

Miranda's rescue was a transfer partner that OAS sent more dogs to than any other shelter in the state of California.

This rescue was a scam and was telling OES, dogs were adopted out when instead these dogs were actually being shot in their faces.

I believe this investigation in Humboldt County will bring to light thousands of dogs were killed this way.

It has been crushing for our community.

It was the result of a system stretched beyond its limits.

The city plays a direct role in that.

OAS has struggled with overcrowding and a lack of safe placement options for years.

It has been, it must be adequately funded.

What are you doing to prevent odor surrenders?

What investments are being made in spay and neuter services?

The animals, taxpayers, and volunteers deserve better.

I urge you to fund OAS for the reality it faces.

That was the last speaker at this time.

Thank you to everybody who came out and spoke about varying issues that our city is facing.

Thanks to the city um workers that came out and spoke as well.

Colleagues, I'm gonna lay out a timeline that we have for passing the budget amendments and such.

So the first opportunity to pass the budget will be the 12th.

For that meeting, your amendments would need to be in by Friday.

What time, Clerk?

Yeah.

They need to be in Thursday by four.

So amendments to this budget, if the budget is to be passed on the 12th, need to be in by this Thursday at 4.

The second opportunity to pass the budget will be the 17th.

And when would amendments need to be in by then?

Preferably.

The latest we could probably accept is Monday, the 15th.

You guys don't have to write this down, Misha, we'll send this out to everyone.

So the first date to pass budget is 12th.

And for that, you need your amendments in by Thursday at 4 p.m.

The second opportunity to pass the budget will be the 17th, and the clerks want that in on Friday, the what?

I apologize for your Friday, the 12th meeting year, but your amendments need to be in by Monday, the 8th by noon.

Okay.

Monday the 8th by noon.

Yeah.

And so we'll send this all out in an email.

The final opportunity to pass a budget without like an extension will be the 30th, and hopefully we will be done by then.

If I could share my screen, yes.

So we're this is the one that I respond and react to, right?

This right here.

Yes.

I mean, I've seen four or five different people and it's online as well.

Okay.

So this is the one.

Okay.

All right.

All right.

So a number of the speakers came in and talked about civilianization, the NSA.

Uh, I had the pleasure of going to court with council member Houston and the mayor was there, and the judge was very um optimistic, right?

That we have not only been in compliance, but that we can keep up constitutional policing in our city.

And the constitutional policing officer administrator is uh the judge raved about that position and the city's commitment.

If I could share my screen, Madam Clerk.

Okay.

So I want to point my colleagues to Oakland Municipal Code 245.100.

And this talks about, here we go.

Right there.

And so this talks about how the council needs to staff the OIG.

This is our municipal code.

This is what we're supposed to be governed by.

So section C, the council, the city shall allocate sufficient budget for the OIG to perform its functions and duties set forth in section budgeting one full-time staff position comparable to the position of police program and audit supervisor, and then in section D within 30 days after the first inspector general is hired, the policy analyst position and funding funding then budgeted to the agency shall be reallocated to OIG.

Bradley, are we funding those positions right now?

Those positions are not included in this budget.

What positions do the OIG have funded?

Does that OIG office of the OIG have funded?

There is a project manager two position that is funded.

If I'm recording it to two position, maybe a three up in the OIG budget.

There is also an administrative assistant and a public information officer.

Thank you.

As Miss Midley said, it's important for the OIG to conduct audits as we're getting out of the NSA and not have to contract out to do uh the audits.

And so I think it's something that we should look at in this budget, making sure that the OIG has what is mandated by uh Oakland Municipal Code and also positions that are necessary to perform the functions of complying with the NSA after we're out of the NSA.

Thank you.

Councilmember Houston.

Do the chair.

I'd like to say, yes, we went over to the federal building of me and Council President Jenkins caught the Bard over.

We had a good conversation, and I really appreciate what the Mayor said.

Everything there that was said was positive.

Just total positive energy.

I appreciate it.

I appreciate the mayor.

I appreciate Chief Beard.

Um hopefully he can be our permanent chief.

Um so I appreciate what they say.

So which is positive, and I appreciate the mayor.

Where's she at?

Thank you, Mayor.

Um, thank you, President.

Okay, if that's all.

Uh Councilmember Fife.

Just regarding the statement that you made, are you suggesting that the uh Office of Inspector General be funded through this uh through budget amendments?

In addition to the 450,000 for the position in the city administrator's office.

So uh not suggesting anything, just alerting council to the fact that OMC is there, and these are the positions that it says we shall budget, also to um my good friends at the coalition for police accountability stating that the auditor needs to be able to do his job, and I I agree.

I he should he shouldn't contract out to do the audits, right?

The audit should he should do the audits and he should have somebody on staff that should do his the audits.

So just alerting the council to that fact, council member guy, press your button.

I mean, we have we have so many.

Can you hear me okay?

Testing one two.

It's regarding the public safety we discussion we're having.

Can you also share with we have so many public safety advisory committees and commissions?

We specifically created the police commission to move forward and have that evaluation take place.

Uh, but you know, we keep hiring staff more staff and more staff when I need people on the street doing the work.

And uh just let uh mean we have one advisory commission after another after another, trying to give oversight, given information, and just share that with my my council people here how many we have and what are the responsibilities, and so we don't keep adding and adding and adding and come up with the same result, and uh we need people on the street getting the work done, and um, and we don't need more administration to be involved, and certainly I've been to all the federal court hearings from the past, and certainly you know the judge comes up.

Well, you know, you gotta wait till September this time.

Well, no, we got two left.

Well, no, you had one last time, and it keeps going on and on, but but just invite invite the council.

How many advisory committees and commissions that our police department has to go through.

Thank you.

Thank you.

So someone definitely.

If there's nothing else, nothing else.

Oh, one more thing.

Two more things.

Twenty.

Twenty more things, all right.

Yeah, I'm just gonna run through a couple questions.

Not all of the questions, several were answered by some of the presentations that we have, but I do have a couple specific questions about positions that are added and deleted.

Um through the chair to our finance director.

Hopefully you can help.

Uh regarding the deletion of, well, addition in operations, and the city administrator's office, we recently discussed um a disparity study, and there's 782,000 uh being added to address ONM and implement policy and programmatic changes.

What study um is that related to?

There is some ongoing work regarding improving the procurement process, which would be tied to a disparity study.

So it's the broader procurement process in general, and how much of that allocation is specific specifically for that disparity study work?

Do you know?

It's all sort of I would say it's a related project in order to address the disparities, they have to also address the other concerns we have with procurement and the procurement cycle.

So it's being looked at sort of in a holistic basis.

So it's the outcomes in terms of disparity, but it's also the um if one's gonna address those, one has to look at the input processes that flow into it, not just um the results, but what is the you know bidding process look like?

What are the approval process looks like?

How do we get then how do we get more competitive veterans in how we ensure compliance with our other code elements, etc.?

And so it's a part of a broader look at the full life cycle of procurement, and so but it will address the findings from the disparity study that is the goal to address yes, um, and then specifically maybe this is something Director Weinstein can support with.

I'm deeply concerned about the lack of funding for affordable housing as well.

We're not seeing um resources in California right now for uh market rate housing, and we it as many of the speakers said, we have a unique opportunity to take advantage of this moment, and without measure you funding, I don't know how we're gonna have the match.

So um how do we balance out?

Well, I'm gonna make an amendment just so we're clear.

I'm gonna make an amendment around um the affordable housing dollars because we do need that in order to continue to even address homelessness, right?

But I want to be clear about the 400,000 dollars of miscellaneous personnel for outreach and homelessness, like how do we what are we doing outreach for if our budget was reduced for homelessness?

What are we what are we actually communicating?

What is that 400,000 for?

I will uh direct that to our office of homeless solutions administrator regarding the outreach budget, and I can speak to some of the housing allocations if Director Weinstein's not here.

Yeah, with so many shelter beds closing, is it to I I think I saw something about letting the public know that we're closing them.

So if you could just explain.

Yes, thanks, uh, council member for the question.

So this is specifically in regards to the new encampment abatement policy, high visibility, low vulnerability areas.

I see.

Are those uh on another note?

Are the updated maps available and who is creating those updated maps?

So it's an internal.

Uh thank you for the question, uh, council member.

It's an internal process.

We are currently undertaking that because of the influx of the amount of emails we're receiving from all over Oakland were going to be very intentional.

I can uh respond at a later date with that timeline right now.

We're meeting this week to have that internal conversation about the mapping and the vulnerability areas.

Thank you.

Um I'm gonna move to um ITD because I was here when we had the ransomware attack, so um, through the chair, I don't see our IT director, but I will say that um I I'm does the position that I think there were two frozen positions, and one is still being frozen.

So does the position being frozen mean that we don't actually need the work?

I'm very concerned about the vulnerabilities of the city of Oakland specifically because all of our information is on the dark web, right?

We had lawsuits as a result of that happening.

So I want to the director said that there are impacts, and I want to be clear about how serious those impacts are if he's around.

I do not see him here, and Councilman, we're happy to get back to you with a written response to that question to make sure we address the security concerns if those impacts are related to the security architecture of the city's IT systems.

Okay.

And then with um the Department of Violence Prevention.

I see that we're adding one full-time uh violence prevention services supervised.

First of all, the DVP has been smashing it.

I don't know if anybody's seen it in the news.

I want to just give a shout out to you, Dr.

Joshua, for the work that you've done with the Department of Violence Prevention.

Um I just was curious about the repurposing of $539,000 in OM for ceasefire lifeline positions because of I I believe there was a decrease in the budget from some other sources that you had anticipated.

Is this or will these be one-time funds from this particular budget allocation?

And is that sufficient for you to continue the the work that you're doing?

Yes, ma'am.

Thank you for the question, Holly Josh, chief of the Department of Violence Prevention.

We did uh decrease our ONM budget in order to uh piecemeal uh the budget that we anticipated having from the state grant Cal VIP, which we did not receive this year, and so in order to safeguard those direct practice positions, that is what you're seeing there.

Is it one-time funding that you're moving from OM?

And do you anticipate getting CalVIP in the future?

Will it continue?

We can apply for Cal VIP again in two and a half years.

So over the next two and a half years, we will be doing what we do, which is fundraising and writing other grants in order to keep the work moving forward.

You know, we do have Kaiser still at this point.

We still have a federal investment.

Of course, that is always up in the air and extremely nerve-wracking considering we just received word last week that one of the federal grants that we have to support the school VIP program was slated to end September 30th of this year, but the feds are canceling it four months early because it no longer meets the federal guidelines and is no longer within um the purview of this administration's beliefs about how to keep schools safe.

Um so we were flagged um during a review of federal grants, and so I say that to say that grant is ending four months early.

The other grant that we have that supports Department of Violence Prevention staff is slated to go through the 20 some summer 2027, but I do think that we should be braced and ready to get a call about that one as well.

Wow.

Is there a is there a list and and perhaps Director Johnson you can help?

Is there some uh database of all of the funds that we are potentially losing from the federal government and the departments that it impacts?

I believe so.

I believe that's part of the grant our citywide grant coordinator's role.

And I see it uh city administrator Betsy Lake saying yes.

Administrator Lake, thank you for that.

Yes.

Do we have access to that?

And if not, when will we or when could we?

I'm happy to work with our grant coordinator to get that to you.

Do you think it will be before we're done with this process?

I would assume they know what we're okay.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Um, and director, Director Johnson, uh, through the chair, there are positions that are currently in parks and rec.

There's one oh, IT.

Yeah, sorry, through the chair to Councilmember Fife.

I believe there was a question about the uh frozen position in the department.

Correct.

It sounded like that was a really critical senior level position that is intended to address cybersecurity.

If you could just expand on that, yes.

Sure.

Um tell me the impacts, because you said it could potentially have impacts.

What are those?

Yeah, again, through the chair.

Um, so the the position is an information system specialist three, which is the highest level non-management position in the department.

So it's the highest classification in the IT kind of hierarchy.

Um, and it's focused on cyber security and infrastructure, it's very uh highest skill level.

Um this is a position that would be um in overseeing duties like remediating threats, responding to threats, scanning for threats, um, staying abreast of the changes in the in the landscape in the industry, um, coordinating with vendors, um, leading projects, leading initiatives around cybersecurity, such as improving um, you know, systems and tools to respond and monitor the network, monitor um accounts, uh also filling in gaps where we may have gaps in our current services, um, identifying those gaps and then proposing projects and solutions to fill them.

So it's really uh a key position that would help grow the team.

The team is is still pretty small right now, as we're talking about maybe three or four people who are directly responsible, although those duties do disperse out into the larger department.

There are really only the team, the information security team is really only three people, and uh so this these two roles uh which have been vacant in the department for quite some time, and we've been trying to fill them.

Um, we're going to come directly into that team and kind of grow it.

So the loss of that position would result in the reduction of our ability to do those that kind of growth.

We would really be keeping what we have now stable and secure, but not really growing and expanding the way that we could.

When was the cyber attack?

What year was that?

The ransomware attack?

That was February 9th, 2023, a date that I'll never forget.

Tito.

Wow.

I will say that that is significant for me because um when I was first elected in the orientation that we had in January of 2021, the then um ITD director warned of a pending cyber attack, and that he said that the city of Oakland was extremely vulnerable.

Um, and they that we didn't have the resources to adequately address what we were up against, and so that's why you know experiencing this attack um was very impactful for us.

It was a really scary time in the city, and I don't want us to you know continue down that pathway if possible.

So I just appreciate you sharing this information, um, and we'll take that into account.

Appreciate that.

Um, thank you.

So through the chair to Director Johnson.

If if there are staff positions currently in one department, um, that I'm looking at moving into potentially another department.

There's there's a position in public works that can take care of all of the community gardens in the city of Oakland, and it's a part-time position.

Um, but because they're in parks and rec and parks and rec is one of the most under-resourced departments in the entire city, they often end up not being able to maintain our community gardens, and we lose the capacity to feed our our neighborhoods if they were maintained.

Uh is it possible to move positions?

I know this is not necessarily inside of the budget, but I'm I'm wondering if there would need to be a budget reallocation in order to make this person full-time in um another department, perhaps public works.

That would be that actually is a budget amendment, like to be clear, that is absolutely dreaming within the budget as it relates to uh people.

There is often a need for meeting conferred depending on the bargaining uh the bargaining unit for that particular individual and what's going on with them individually.

Um so there may be requirements based on the MOU that we have to then do administratively, but reallocating positions between departments is the purview of the council within the budget amendment process.

And I hear you saying that it is germane to the conversation, but is it Tito?

Never mind, excuse me um so positions are currently um positions currently vacant doesn't necessarily mean that there aren't service impacts so I'm I'm gonna move to head start because as a life enrichment chair I have to you know scrutinize that a little bit more do the service impacts or the deletions and is there anyone here from human services and this is particularly sensitive because there have been so many um changes in the department I'm the interim director for uh HSD have we met?

Not sure I've been here four days four days and what is your name sir?

I'm Greg Elliott.

It's a pleasure to meet you Mr.

Elliott very nice of you can you answer these questions?

I can get back to you with the answer.

There you go that's a great answer.

That's a great answer.

I just want I just wanted to know if um reductions of vacant positions in HSD are going to have an impact on head start uh there they've been vacant so Bradley's back there saying some things.

Thank you and thank you to interim director Elliott we're gonna get we're working to get him up to speed on all the details with his budget in this cycle um we do not believe we'll see any on the ground impacts from the from the freezing of the vacant positions within Head Start.

There are some also changes of positions within Head Start when we got our last Head Start grant allocation we often had a number of placeholder job classifications and our human resources department has been working through the process of creating permanent job classifications and so some of the deletes and ads in this budget are actually us going from a placeholder job classification to a real job classification so that it can then be filled on a permanent civil service basis which is part of the processing when we um did this most recent round for Head Start there were a number of new roles of the federal government through its process said we need to create and so some of that is that continuing ongoing process.

Understood thank you.

Thank you Mr Elliott what he said what he said absolutely um I have I have a lot of questions I I think what I will do is I because I I feel like I'm talking too long I will summarize the questions that I have I'm deeply concerned about the impacts to our workers and some of the public comments that I heard today about not being able to afford to live in Oakland and then also having to do the jobs of multiple people I don't know how we get our arms around the increased costs of health care and all of the things but I'm not sure what's being proposed is the answer but I also don't know what the answers are so that's something that we have to wrestle with as a body um but I'm also I guess I should say that I'm very happy with the mayor's work on this budget.

I would not want to be the mayor of a small big city uh like Oakland ever so I want to just congratulate the mayor for her work on this and one of the things that stands out to me is something I'm happy about is restoring part of the film rebate program that I worked on a few years ago it's a m minor addition to the initial allocation that we budgeted but um I just want to make sure that the staffing is there to support this program.

We just saw I if you haven't seen I love boosters definitely go check it out it's a local filmmaker in the city of Oakland boots Riley who has a commentary on a lot of things in Oakland and we want to produce more boots Rileys right the film rebate program will allow us to do that but we also on our end have to make sure that we have the staff to monitor this program and for all of the uh other questions that I have and the concerns that I have I will work through your office, Director Johnson, to make sure that we have answers to um the questions that I have.

And I will be bringing budget amendments that will not be available Thursday so um I just want to state that for the record, you'll get it from me a little later.

Thank you.

Hi.

Thank you.

I uh did uh if Cupid could come up to the Diocean.

I wanted to follow up on the comment that uh my fellow council member made uh Houston on the fact that the county is willing to step in on some of the shelter beds that are poised to close.

Um I want to make sure it's not just lip service for the if measure E does not pass and we do need to close the 190 shelter beds, it is the county going to magically step in.

Is there a plan or actually are we going to see 190 people out on the streets?

Thanks, council members.

So one of the things that we've done with the county is to talk about the gap funding that would be available.

We're having a similar conversation about the federal funding that might not be available also.

So a part of our conversation is if there is a lack of resources, would the county be able to and willing to step up?

And what is the methodology that they're going to use to determine how much they're going to assist?

So that is actively a conversation that we're having.

Okay.

I'm not hearing that this is 100% though, that the beds that we would have to close if measure E doesn't pass, it's a guarantee though.

Yeah, it's not a guarantee.

So this is an ongoing conversation that we and I I would suggest that we have that at a higher level, higher than my level, but a conversation with their electeds also because we have continuously said how is a measure E going to be a measure W going to be allocated, and if there is any gaps, what is the methodology that you're going to use to make a decision on if you're going to support making sure that these beds stay available?

Okay.

Thank you.

Um I have a question for uh Bradley.

On I noticed in the budget too that because I I'm pretty sure in public works and transportation we had held up or paused the transfer of the parking uh positions from uh transportation to finance, but I see that within this budget there is that transfer of 17 positions.

I I just have not heard the justification why this is going to somehow improve our parking citation collection.

So why is that in this budget?

Sorry, and I will note that there will be a report back to the full council coming, I believe, on the 9th that details all that.

Uh the proposal is to move the collection functions from uh the Department of Transportation to the Finance Department where they did reside more recently.

If it's not, it's one of the more recent moves to DOT, and the goal is to enhance and the collection enforcement practices on that side of it.

So it's to ensure that we have better compliance and better utilization of our uh DMV intercept program of our tax intercept programs in terms of ensuring that we have a better collection rate on citations outstanding, and those in now would include the uh speeding camera citations.

So there's a collection process back in process, and we think that that those would be better housed within finance, we would have better compliance.

And what do we mean by compliance?

We were able to ensure that people who violate our local municode or the state laws regarding them uh appropriately and timely pay their citations and whatnot.

Okay, I I think just in this report, as I had noted in the last one, I it was not robust enough.

Like I've seen your work, you do incredible thorough reports in that report that we had before public works and transportation.

It was not to me, it did not really justify the transfer, and I think that is incredibly important uh for this council to move forward with that.

So um, okay.

Um, then I have a question actually to OPD.

Uh so Chief Beer.

So I also want to note to this body that tomorrow we are voting on measure, we're also voting on the measure and n spending plan, right?

And one of the things that was noteworthy in that measure and end spending plan is that uh 30 to 34 percent is dedicated to measure and then.

Is there no general fund allocated to the ceasefire staffing?

And and the reason I bring this up is because I think there's more and more scrutiny by the general public on each of our parcel measures and whether we're spending the money in ways that reflect their wants and their desires.

And the number one thing that came out of the measure N advocacy was bring down the 911 response time.

I don't see that reflected enough in the Measure N spending plan.

I do see a lot of ceasefire and don't get me wrong, I think ceasefire is incredibly important.

I want to maintain that.

I just wonder if are we not funding that with our general funds, or are we solely relying on Measure N to maintain our ceasefire staffing with an OPD?

No, ceasefire is not completely dependent on measure N.

However, ceasefire greatly assists with all of our violence reduction, which is contributing to the highest reduction of homicide since the late 60s.

So it is a very important arm in our ceasefire strategy, and that's one of the reasons why we leverage them, not just when it comes to organized.

Um is the staffing for the officers assigned to ceasefire are uh funded by measure NN, but the overtime isn't.

So overtime is coming from the general fund, yes.

Okay.

Alright, thank you for that clarification.

Are you complete?

Okay, Councilmember Guy Elton Houston.

Um for the violence prevention director, if you can please uh join us.

Um, I have a specific question that I considering the problem the the challenge of public safety when it comes to human trafficking prostitution, and you and I, when I started, we worked together and you were on the street helping us out, making sure that Oakland did not experience that, and right now is the violence prevention department involved with the human trafficking prostitution because I mean 20 girls you drive anybody who drive down the street, and you'll see the young ladies 20 years and younger on the street, and some of these are and I work with you directly with when we clear prostitution out of my area.

And so the question that I have is violence prevention involved with that effort, because you know, through your leadership, we were able to connect with the Catholic church that housed a lot of the young girls and and uh in different locations through your leadership, but also I still remember flying them back home, right?

You know, if I if you know my friend here was doing that, well, I flew you back home to wherever you're from.

And uh you were you were a very instrumental in doing that, and I was just wondering or asking for the public.

Are you involved with that?

Because the one the complaint that I'm getting now on a week daily basis, we have prostitution going on the abandoned boats that I have on the estuary, Jack London Square and throughout by the Coast Guard where prostitution is happening in nighttime, and the police cannot address it because they don't have the police that used to help me with the abandoned boats, right?

Or the stolen boats that are out there on the water.

And just so the question is are is your department involved with that directly?

Yes, Mr.

Guyo through the chair.

Thank you for that question.

As you mentioned, my involvement in this city in the issue of sex trafficking goes back to 2004.

And so many things have changed in the landscape of the city since 2004, both in terms of the ways in which uh exploiters move girls around the city, um, both in terms of the the laws and OPD can speak to that a bit more.

Uh, but in terms of the Department of Violence Prevention's current role, we definitely currently play a significant role, although it's much different than the one that I was playing when I was running the human trafficking union at OPD, and we are working together.

It really is about intervention.

And so one of the things that we fund is a hotline, 24-hour hotline that anyone experiencing sex trafficking, domestic violence, or sexual assault can call to get supports, and that is picked up by a live person who can immediately begin to triage that survivors' needs.

The other thing we do have is crisis intervention and crisis navigation.

The community-based organization that we're currently funding to provide that crisis navigation support is Family Violence Law Center, and they most oftentimes are working directly with the Oakland Police Department during operations, or if OPD patrol officers happen across a survivor, particularly a juvenile in the middle of the night, who needs supports who needs to be uh reunited with their family, or unfortunately, you know, uh uh put into the child protective services system.

So we have that crisis navigation and 24 hour response available, which we did not have in 2024.

So we pivoted back to fund that really important support crisis navigation uh and intervention.

We also have relocation funding, which you're speaking about, which we used to do uh very well, which is making sure that the adults, if they need uh a quick relocation into a hotel, we can do that.

Of course, we can't do that with juveniles and minors.

They need to be reunited with uh safe adults or um placed in CPS custody.

But we also have a travel fund, so if people do have a family to get back to, or a family that's willing to support them and getting out of the life, we can pay for buses, all of that.

And then, of course, the longer-term care that is necessary for survivors to continue making healthy choices and to heal includes therapeutic supports uh that we pay for one-on-one, talk therapy, and then group and peer supports, long-term case management, pathways through and to employment, etc.

So again, I say all of that to say the Department of Islands Prevention is involved and in up to and including some street outreach, but it is a very different role than I was playing when we were working together.

So thank you for that information.

I am involved back involved with Victory Outreach now again and been having lunch with some of the young ladies that are on the street, and they're not from a well, like before.

They were being busted and flown in through the airport, and and um, but anyways, I'd like to continue to work with you to address that issue.

Because they're under the age, some of them were 15, 16 years old.

But anyways, thank you, and I'll reach out to you.

Thank you, Councilmember Gaio.

Then we'll go to Houston and uh take a motion after that to um receive and fowl this report as we have another item as well.

Councilmember Houston.

Yeah, my understood the chairs real brief.

Um, I'll page 567, the third paragraph, as the vice chair of public safety and my chair, um Wayne Charlena is the chair of public safety, uh, get all these calls from from um Councilmember Five's district and and and um Charlene's district about this graffiti vandalism that we spend millions and multi-millions of dollars a year this visual cue of deterioration from our businesses.

I'm not talking about the business owners are saying they're gonna leave because of you know they can't rid it because of that visual cue.

Um when back in the day it was like nine individuals that worked under Bradley.

Um now it's only two that does the abatement and two in the queue waiting to get hired.

I didn't see anything about that, because that's a real huge piece, and it should be handled just like um illegal dumping and the same, not just debate, abate, abate.

This should deter it where we can use these millions and multimillions of dollars that we spend every year.

I mean multi-millions.

It can go to our seniors, you can go to our children, it can go to our libraries, right?

So we only have two individuals that are actually doing that across the city, and we have two individuals that are in the queue.

What's happening with that through the chair?

I'll defer to our public works director on anything more directly related to the graffiti abatement program, but the budget does not reduce the graffiti program, it does not enhance it from its current level.

And director Garland, would you like to speak more to what our current status of those positions is?

Sure.

Thank you, Liam Garland, Oakland Public Works Director.

Uh yes, uh Council Member Houston, the proposed budget essentially continues our existing level of service.

There are vacancies in our uh painters, especially the ones working in the right of way, and we're working hard to fill those.

The hiring requisitions have been uh submitted.

Uh we anticipate over the next couple months to get those hires made.

Um but those position-the the total number of positions from this current fiscal year to next would stay the same.

It's just my hope is we fill those painter positions so we can um bait more graffiti.

Does that make sense?

It it does due to chair, but like I said, we need to do it like we do the legal dumping.

We need to prosecute our deter deter it because spending millions and millions of dollars, which can go other places.

Where's the what's the strategy for this?

Are we just gonna go paint at the tracks and traces and not go after these individuals?

Because many of them are coming from out of town and out of the state, right?

Um it's called graffiti tourism.

So, and I presented that to Charlene.

Um, so we need to do more to that so we can use those funds, something else because we only have two across the whole city that's doing this.

Thank you.

Thank you.

I'll entertain a motion to file and report this.

So moved.

Report and file.

Receive and file.

On the motion by Council Member Ramachandra, second by Councilmember Brown to receive and file item four.

Councilmember Brown.

Aye.

Council Member Five.

Aye.

Councilmember Guyo.

Aye.

Councilmember Houston.

Aye.

Councilmember Ramachanjan.

Aye.

Councilmember Unger is excused.

Councilmember Wong.

Aye.

Chair Jenkins.

Aye.

Motion passes with a vote of seven ayes, one excuse Unger.

And just before we go to the next item, let me clarify the due dates for your materials for the June 12th meeting.

The materials are due June 8th at noon for the June 17th meeting.

Your materials are due June 12th at 4 p.m.

I know that there's a meeting that day, so they will be due when they're due.

June 30th, your materials are due um June 25th at 4 p.m.

One more time in June 12th.

That's the first opportunity to pass the budget.

June 17th is the second opportunity to pass the budget.

Going to item five, receive the budget advisory commission report with recommendations related to fiscal year 26 through 27.

Proposed mid-cycle budget.

You have 11 speakers on this item.

Council President, I'd like to introduce Mike Petahoff and Ben Gould from the Budget Advisory Commission.

They are a group of residents from here in the city of Oakland who help advise you on issues related to budget.

We are happy to receive their feedback report.

I want to thank them for all their work.

Mike and Ben, go ahead.

Thank you.

I'll do some introductions and then we'll jump in.

I also chair the working group on public safety and economic development.

I'll be returning in a moment to talk about some of the issues we've talked about today related to structural deficit and the long-term uh roadmap to fiscal health.

Commissioner Gould will be talking about uh some of the issues directly related to the um mid-year budget review.

Uh and I'll say that um it's really been a three-person group.

This is a report from the whole back.

Karen Roy, who was also part of that that ad hoc group could not join us today, but Ben and I will be presenting on the on those topics.

So I'll return a moment to talk about long-term recommendations for reducing the structural deficit, and now here's Commissioner Gould.

Thank you, Commissioner Pethoff, and good morning, Council members.

Um can K-Top pull up our presentation, please.

Great.

My name is Ben Gould.

I serve as the FMC liaison the finance and management committee liaison from the budget advisory commission.

I'm here to present our short and long-term budget recommendations while Commissioner Petahoff will present other additional long-term recommendations.

So just to for bit of brief context, our commission had about our working our ad hoc had about five days to put together the recommendations, so please forgive us if we couldn't cover everything.

We tried to be as comprehensive as possible, but due to limited time, we can only do so much.

Um I will give a brief overview that the proposed budget is generally healthy and largely consistent with the city's adopted fiscal policies.

We didn't find any major discrepancies or changes or unusual behaviors.

So we think this is generally a pretty good budget overall.

Most of our feedback is in the nitty-gritty details where we think the city could improve some of its decisions and possible processes around um uh maintenance vehicle requirements, revenue assumptions, things like that, as well as some long-term forward-looking approaches to help make sure we're prioritizing the robot to fiscal health and improving transparency and performance metrics as well.

Our budget advisory commission has these guiding principles we use to help guide our recommendations.

The first one is to ensure adherence to the consolidated fiscal policy.

That's been largely met.

We'll have one recommendation on that note.

The next one is to focus spending on community priorities.

And the our BAC last did a community survey, I think it was last year, 2025, for the previous two-year budget cycle.

And so those priorities found that the community priorities are public safety, cleanliness, and housing.

So we were looking at recommending priorities around those.

And we think part of those community priorities also includes adhering to the requirements of voter approved measures.

So we hear about measure C and D, the City Auditor's Office, Measure Q, Measure N, and so forth.

We also want to ensure the budget follows best practices from other cities as well as keeping equity considerations at the forefront of the decision making.

So our first short-term recommendation focuses on the voter approved measures.

I wanted to highlight the success that this budget fully funds the requirements for libraries and the city auditor under measure C and D and the city charter.

So we meet the full 14.5 million general purpose fund requirements for the libraries, plus the full 14 FTE for the city auditor.

We do not meet the budget requirement for the full 700 sworn police officers for measure NN.

We are currently budgeting for only 678.

However, it's also worth noting that the police department's staffing report from January 31st said that current staffing was only 607 sworn officers, with 80 odd of those out for long-term leave, so only 520 available for active duty.

So we think that this number is low, and even if we can't budget for more officers, we hope council will look at ways to either increase the number of officers we actually have on staff, have deployable, or have out in the field and not doing civilian desk jobs.

Another issue is there's no funding for democracy dollars, but I did want to highlight that this budget includes funding to develop the software to make democracy dollars possible.

So even if there was money available for the program, it wouldn't be usable because there's no way for people to submit the require the requests for democracy dollar allocations.

So this pro this budget does help move that program towards reality.

And the last issue is a 1.9 million dollar shortfall for measure Q, that's parks required funding.

There's, I think about 20 million dollars in unfrozen staff position, new contracts, new other programs and initiatives, and another 97 million dollars worth of vacant but fully funded staff positions.

So we think there's opportunities here for council to look into the details of these of these items and potentially find at least 1.9 million to fully fund Measure Q, if not other ways to improve compliance with the other voter-approved measures.

The next recommendations are on contracts and grants.

We noticed this issue last year in the two-year budget, and it still persists.

We have about 37 million dollars in proposed contracts and grants for which the actual use is not identified, specifically.

Most of this is in human services.

We understand there is a new interim human services director who's been here for four days, so none of the blame goes to him.

But hopefully, this is something that can be looked into, and staff can provide additional details on these unidentified contracts and grants prior to adopting the budget.

We want to highlight another success around revenue.

There's no Coliseum sale in here waiting to fund the whole budget.

You know, we have pretty conservative revenue projections for many of the largest sources of funding, including property tax, business license tax, and real estate transfer tax.

However, we did notice that some revenue streams may be overestimated.

Specifically sales tax is projected to grow 12% year over year or about 10 million dollars, and the utility consumption tax is projected to grow about 7% year over year or about $5 million.

This is worth noting because a few things here.

First of all, in our last recommendations last year, the BAC noted that some overestimates on property tax, which have now been realized because property tax projections were based on previous years of growth, but we haven't seen the kind of real estate uh development we used to see or transaction values to lead to higher reassessments.

So our previous recommendations led to sort of the current, you know, aligned with the current reality of property tax revenue.

Um, with sales tax, we currently see that in the second half of 2025, after we adopted the measure A sales tax increase, our sales tax revenue was actually lower than before we adopted the sales tax increase.

We don't know if this is because the sales tax increase or because businesses have left Oakland due to potentially crime concerns or residents just spending less from economic concerns, or what is it?

But it's worth noting that sales tax revenue was down in the first half of this fiscal year compared to the year prior.

So we're concerned about overly ambitious projections for sales tax revenue.

Similarly, this current fiscal year projected 75 million in UCT utility consumption tax, but only saw 70 million.

That's because we heard from FMC last week that utility rates are not increasing as much as they have been.

This budget still maintains the 75 million dollars projection from previously that has not been realized this year.

So we're concerned that that may also be overestimated.

So we'd encourage council to look carefully at these revenue projections, ask staff for additional details, and potentially identify contingency plans in case about 15, maybe 20 million revenues do not actually materialize.

We had a couple of short-term findings on restricted and one-time funds.

There is about 1 million of Measure N dollars for post-b use for equipment in the fire department rather than services.

Measure and ends text is pretty clear, and I believe the intent of the voters is that it be spent on direct services and programs rather than equipment.

The contracts identified in the budget actually don't identify the full one million proposed for fire contracts.

Only about 725,000 in total contracts, of which 650 is equipment.

However, the fire department does have some positions in firefighter positions and 911 dispatch positions being added to general fund expenditures.

So our recommendation is to rather than moving those existing filled staff positions to the general purpose fund, move them to measure NN, use general purpose fund money for the one-time equipment expenditures to make sure that you can prove compliance with the measure.

Should be relatively straightforward.

Another issue we saw was that the budget stated there was use of one-time funds for ongoing expansion expenses, but we did not hear what that was.

We just heard this morning some of that is Department of Violence Prevention, filling up backfilling grants that are missing, but it'd be great to hear from staff a full list of use of one-time funds for ongoing expenses in this current year budget and the proposed plan to restore the vital services stabilization policy, which is the policy to have enough reserve funding that if there is a shortfall, such as in sales tax revenue, for instance, there's money available to backfill that gap without having to cut services mid-year.

We have some long-term recommendations as well, looking forward to this in the next fiscal year.

We wanted to first and foremost reemphasize the importance of the city's uh long-term roadmap to fiscal health, which I think Bradley spoke to a little bit earlier.

The key actions listed for the fiscal health in this current budget cycle is to review and update the city's governing financial policies.

It's a consolidated fiscal policy.

The BAC has one recommendation outstanding on that.

We should be hearing about that, I believe, later this year, maybe October time frame-ish.

There's already recommendations to develop long-term investment plans for the city's infrastructure, fleet, and systems, looking at additional revenue collection maximization approaches, so business license tax, we heard a little bit about our parking revenue and citations there, and then strengthen the city's revenue base through economic development efforts, which Commissioner Pedahoff will speak to additionally as well.

I also want to flag that in the next fiscal year, FY2728, the roadmap to fiscal health highlights structures needed for city and contract or service delivery and accountability, including around contracting, procurement, prompt payments, and all that kind of stuff.

So we really wanted to emphasize the importance of this long-term maintenance planning, as we heard from some of the conversations around measure E.

The city has numerous decrepit and aging equipment vehicles.

We also know about IT is underfunded and out of date.

And so we really want to make sure that this fiscal year, council and staff work together to put together a long-term needs assessment and maintenance and replacement plan for all city assets, including vehicles, non-vehicle equipment, like you know, lawnmowers, that kind of stuff, facilities, infrastructure like our roads and storm drains, and software and IT services.

We think this is really important because we keep hearing time and time again about oracles out of date, so we can't manage police overtime.

Our vehicles are breaking down, so we can't pick up litter or dumping dumping.

You know, and so it's really important to have a long-term plan for this, and then when possible, figure out a budget for it or go back to the voters for additional funding to implement that long-term plan.

We also wanted to see better transparency and tracking of voter-approved measures.

Right now, it's there's one spot in the budget report that sort of highlights where you're meeting or failing, but it's not really a clear overview of how we're doing, how we've been doing, what's planned, and where you know what the performance of those measures is, and the voters understandably are concerned that the money isn't being spent appropriately and effectively, and so we think that having some sort of dashboard and very focused transparency be transparency-driven approach to making sure that those expenditures, the performance metrics are very clearly identifiable will be really helpful for improving voter trust.

We also suggested improving data collection on the populations served by the city by adding in age metrics.

So right now the city collects data on race and gender of who's getting served.

We recommended also adding age metrics because we have, you know, the Head Start program and children's services, we have senior centers and those services.

We have transitional aged youth who are looking for violence prevention or community college programming.

And so better identifying who the city is currently serving across departments would help better identify where there might be shortfalls or additional needs and what funding supports those services and how that can be expanded if necessary.

And our last long-term recommendation around the budget specifically is to improve the use of performance metrics in the budget.

The cities started to use performance metrics, but we think they could use some improvement.

We think that a dedicated effort by staff to review department level performance metrics and improving transparency and alignment between performance targets and budget decisions and what those metrics really are.

So, for example, right now the police department's metric is number of 911 calls.

Not responded to a percentage, it's just like they want a number of 911 calls to respond to.

They also have number of homicides.

Um, public works is a number of creek permits to respond to Responded to.

So these aren't necessarily regarding service quality or timeliness or efficiency, it's just volume of service.

And so we think a careful look at these performance metrics over the next year can help make sure that city departments are meeting quality of service that the council and the community is looking for rather than just the volume.

We think that we also notice that proposals for service expansions, staffing changes and contracts are not linked to the performance metrics, so we don't know why they're being proposed in terms of if our goal is to you know reduce 911 response times or reduce homicides.

How is this proposed staffing change or contract going to help achieve that outcome?

What's the expectation?

And then if we do it in the past, if we have renewing a contract, what has the outcome been for that past contract?

And we think that the lack of clarity around departmental goals can contribute to poor service delivery.

If police if no one's sure what their job exactly is, you're gonna have things going all over the place, and so it's best to have a clear directional uh clear direction from council and from senior leadership in the city departments to make sure that departments know what they're trying to achieve and how they're gonna achieve it, and it's gonna be counted for every single year with the budget.

And with that, I'll pass it off to Commissioner Pedehoff to cover the last additional long-term recommendations.

Thank you, Commissioner Gould.

So let me first speak to the timing of these.

We really wanted to plant the seed on what we think are some important issues.

We have this persistent question of uh budget shortfall.

Uh so what do we do about that?

We think it's not good to wait until next budget cycle.

Let's start now because some of these need staff collaboration.

Some of these may need some public education.

What you can do as council members is somewhat limited by what your constituents support and understand, and so we may need to do some education.

The BAC has in previous years done a good job of surveying residents.

Um we may actually be able to do some education and provide some new information that may inform some some newer and bolder moves than we might be able to do at mid-year.

Uh the comments I'm making are certainly on this slide.

They're also in our narrative report, starting on on at page 15.

There's an addendum, which is a package that would be able to be put forward.

What we'd like to really do is reconvene as soon as the mid-cycle uh measures are completed, the election is done, and begin thinking now uh in in this summer about long-term measures uh that we can adopt eventually in the next budget cycle.

But it requires that advanced planning.

So, in the um in the report in the addendum and the links on page 15 provide more information on these.

So, let me start with um on this page, the bottom one, which is probably the most substantial.

So it's really the idea of looking at two of our biggest issues, which are economic development and public safety together and seeing the synergy between them rather than looking them at competing budget line items.

Let me talk about economic development and public safety and where we think there's some great opportunities.

So we're seeing our our revenue budget comes from the economic vibrancy of the city and our ability to tax that.

We're seeing Oakland significantly behind California and California significantly behind the rest of the United States in COVID recovery.

We are still having post-COVID recovery.

Economics reports from the Chamber of Commerce and many others show our area to be behind.

Yet we've cut our economic development budget by 60% in the last few years.

So if we want to change that circumstance, we need to invest in economic development.

One interesting measure is retail leakage, sort of a measure of trade imbalance between cities.

Our retail leakage is about 1.5 billion dollars of Oakland wealth that's going to surrounding cities.

Why is that?

We're doing a survey this year.

We're considering asking residents why do you shop here?

Why do you shop elsewhere?

Understanding that.

We think certainly one issue is do people feel safe?

Now the irony here is Continent's magazine readers rated Oakland as the number one foodie destination in the United States.

Two years in a row.

Not the editorial staff, but the readers.

Yet our own residents go elsewhere.

And so what would motivate our residents and visitors to come to Oakland?

We think public safety is part of that.

So these problems need to be to be addressed in tandem.

A key part of this nexus is research.

We've collaborated with the Goldman School of Public Policy at UC Berkeley, the University of Chicago Crime Lab, our own auditor's office, uh Ashley Cannot, our our um development director, um, and and um the chamber of commerce to really pull together some good recommendations.

One is focused workforce development that can reduce crime.

Research from the School of Public Policy shows by Professor Stephen Rafael, what common sense would tell us is that especially property crime is influenced strongly by unemployment.

So we've taken the extra step of mapping the unemployment in Oakland by police patrol.

How much apologies?

How much more time do you need?

About three minutes.

Three minutes.

Yeah, four minutes.

Maybe five minutes.

Yep.

We're gonna run out of quote.

We're going to hit quorum issues pretty soon.

So if you could wrap it up in two minutes, okay.

We do appreciate you coming.

So we would like to reconvene and talk more deeply about these issues, extending public safety ambassador's focused economic workforce development.

Four of the recommendations.

One is a trenching standard.

We congratulate the council for your fiscal prudence to get our interest rates low.

We have paving in progress, but we have the need for trenching, which tears up the paving, and we can make our paving dollars go much further if we have a trenching standard and the ability to make contractors pay if they don't do it right.

We coordinated with Director Rowan, he's in support of this, but they need council authorization.

We can bring back a brief actionable report on that.

We also have the ability to coordinate with Oakland Fire to coordinate ambulance service in a way that gives better service and also revenue from that.

Cities have have uh and counties that have done this have gained tens of millions of dollars in revenue, and that could be another place of path part on our path to fiscal uh solvency.

Um, overtime management has been talked about, we can talk about that before, and also contracting management, all issues that we think we can focus on over time to increase our long-term uh uh viability and our our financial sustainability and reduce the structural deficit on our roadmap to fiscal health.

We'll be available for any questions if needed.

Thank you.

Let's go to the public speakers first.

Thank you.

As I call your name, please approach the podium in any order.

Um please state your name for the record.

If you are participating here via Zoom, please raise your hand so we can easily identify you.

As usual, we'll take those who are participating here in chambers first, and those who are participating online following that.

We have Millie Cleveland, Matt Sherber, Asada Olabala, Kevin Daly, Tano, Tretchenberg, Chi, Zuma, Ali Cashney, Jack Wooford, Chance uh Fowler, Mary Kane, Simon, Jamaica Moon, Tesla, E.

Caro, in any order.

If I called your name, please approach the podium.

If you are having time, seated to you, please state that first.

Thank you.

Hi, everybody.

Good afternoon now.

My name is Jamaica Moon.

Um, I'm a public works supervisor too and keep Oakland Clean and Beautiful Division.

I've been here 13 years and plan on being here for the rest of my career.

Um last year's budget advisory committee report spoke to the need to establish real overtime controls for OPD as a way to stabilize as a way to stabilize the city's budget.

This was in response to the survey results direct from the residents calling on the city to put more civilians into these desk jobs and put more sworn officers back on the streets.

And yet, OPD overtime spending has actually increased since last year.

This year's report acknowledges the importance of proper vehicle maintenance in order to provide basic city services such as clearing illegal dumping and sweeping of our streets.

How can we meet these goals if we don't follow through on what we know needs to be improved?

If we don't control the police overtime overspending and put in controls to maintain in the long term, there will be no ability to invest in vehicle maintenance.

Councilmember Guile said it.

Where is the money?

And um, I think we all know where the money is.

So thank you.

Thank you.

Next speaker.

Um, Millie Cleveland with Coalition for Police Accountability.

Uh I too want to stand with Labor on the issue of uh the elephant in the room, which is OPD's overtime.

I see the recommendations uh reference labor's white paper called Smarter Public Safety, but none of the recommendations are included.

I would strongly recommend that perhaps in the public safety subcommittee that you actually agendize labor's uh smarter public safety and allow the unions to make the presentations that they have they can make based on the research that they have done to show how you can curtail OPDs overtime.

So I strongly recommend that you do that, as well as the auditors' recommendations.

So please, the elephant in the room is OPD's overtime.

And since OPOA is in negotiations right now, it seems to me that it would be wise for you to be more on top of the recommendations so that you could advise the city administrator on how to negotiate those issues, Kevin Dowley.

I'd like to thank the commission for pointing out that uh performance metrics for parking enforcement need to be improved.

Number of tickets and revenue is not enough, but these metrics that are being planned is still an improvement over the no metrics of today.

Sometimes you have to start small and slowly work the way up to better metrics.

It'd be great to have people just not parking illegally, and we don't give out very many tickets anymore.

That would be a success.

Curb cuts, bike lanes, etc.

Last week, coming home from the council from a council meeting.

I was threatened by a driver who was fully blocking a 14th Street protected bike lane in front of the library.

I'd love to just not have that happen anymore.

Uh thanks again for the report.

Thank you for your comments, next speaker.

Mary Kane Simon again.

Um, Giazum.

I'm seeding my time to Mary Kane Simon.

We just wanted to talk with you a little bit more about the uh and thank you again for restoring uh the full maintenance of effort to the public libraries and wanted to talk with you a little bit more about um just the concept of maintenance.

When you maintain something, it's cheaper than buying new, right?

You want to maintain the libraries, which are our great civic buildings of Oakland.

There are great meeting places where people can go for free.

Hot, thirsty people in the middle of summer can go into the public library, sit down, and cool off.

So you want to make sure that the air conditioning works in those buildings and that the there is clean filtered water for people to drink.

That only happens with proper maintenance.

You don't want to have the library's air conditioning breakdown in the middle of summer.

Please spend money to maintain our buildings.

Um, uh, in terms of uh planning for the future.

Also, it's cheaper.

We all know it's cheaper to clean out your gutters so that water does it back up onto your roof.

You know, a new roof is really expensive.

Cleaning gutters is cheap.

So why do we have weeds growing out of govern uh out of the uh roof gutters and half of the libraries of Oakland?

Nobody's cleaning the gutters.

I asked why that uh was it happening, and there hasn't been a clear answer why the city is not doing this basic maintenance that should be performed by people you already have working with you, you have trucks and ladders, it's a lot cheaper than buying a new roof and buying replacing water damaged books.

You want to have secure, safe places where people can go in to use the bathroom, clean sanitary toilets.

This is where a lot of our unhoused population go, they spend their days, they read, they recharge their devices.

There is no excuse to not have clean, safe, sanitary bathrooms.

In the words of a little girl who filled out a suggestion uh sheet in the main library.

Please put the soap where the little children can reach it.

You know, have a place where children can step up and wash their hands.

You uh there's been a lot of talk about sustainability, uh, uh uh uh having a uh a budget where you plan for the future.

Uh maintaining what you already have, and what you have in the Oakland Public Library is it's really thank you, Mary.

Your time has ended.

Thank you so much for speaking.

Uh all names have been called.

If you signed up in here in person, please approach the podium.

Otherwise, we will move to our Zoom speakers.

All right, we will now go to Zoom speakers, Miss Olavala.

You've been unmuted, you may begin.

Can you hear me?

Yes, thank you, madam clerk.

Uh, some issues, proposed grants of 37 million uh dollars and contracts, whack detail, measure in in amount inconsistent.

2018, Oakland Equity.

I'm sorry, 2018, Oakland Equity Indicator Report is used for data.

The 2024 unemployment U.S.

Census uh in Oakland black men 20 to 24 years of age, uh, roughly uh 23% of them are unemployed in this city.

Violence prevention programs should be further developed.

Unemployment has shown to be highly uh related to crime, especially property crime.

17% of police officers on payroll are unavailable for deployment.

Uh you need to improve the micro program because Oakland faces structural deficits, shortfalls.

You are doing something that relates to the uh expansion of services and staff.

I don't know what that means.

Propose, um sorry.

The next thing is we shut up.

Uh measure in and requires that the city budget have 700 sworn officers.

You don't have that.

Um, expenditures of nonprofits, that's for sure.

37 million dollars of grants and constitutional lax details, and my time's thank you for your comments, Miss Olabala.

All names have been called.

If you are participating in chambers, we actually should approach the podium if you participate in Zoom.

Um, all names have been called.

Thank you to the public speakers, Councilmember Houston, Councilmember Guile, Councilmember Five.

Through the chair, thank you for the recommendations.

I like to make a recommendation to you.

Um you said something about the second year in a row.

It was what?

Can you share that again?

Please, Ben.

I believe that we said that our recommendations last year highlighted two things that are repeated this year.

So one of them was that proposed contracts and gas and grants lack detail.

We highlighted about 70 million dollars worth of contracts and grants last year, which is a two-year budget.

30 million still remain, which is about half of the two year budget.

So it doesn't look that's been a fixed there.

The other area we recommended um high recommendations that were sort of consistent was that last year recommended that some uh revenue projections were overestimated around property tax revenue.

This year we're looking at utility consumption tax and sales tax revenue pension being overestimated again.

I think those are the issues you're looking at.

Got it.

And through the chair and the gentleman, I'm sorry, I didn't remember your name.

I'm sorry, Mike Petalhoff.

Mike, so you said something about Oakland for the second year was foodie the best for food.

Would you say?

Yes, Continent Ask Magazine, sort of a travel uh magazine has voted Oakland as the number one foodie destination in the United States.

In other words, our cultural diversity, our interesting food is a great place to come visit.

So according to those people, but our own residents are going elsewhere, and and people may be afraid to come here because of the the reputation of crime.

So let me share this to my members.

Is marketing?

We're trying to market within ourselves and do it on Facebook, Instagram, or whatever.

We need to hire somebody that's inside but outside of the city to market these great things in the change of public safety because it's getting safer.

We got the best food, we have the best weather.

We need to have someone that is from Oakland, but outside of the city to do the marketing.

This is a broad a great time to do that.

So I'll make a recommendation.

Maybe that seems like a policy directive that you'll put and turn into the clerks by um next Thursday.

Thank you, President.

If I if I might add through the chair, um, one avenue is also collaborating with the chamber.

The chamber does have some pretty uh good efforts.

We're hoping to find out why people may be reluctant.

We think public safety is one issue, it could be parking other issues.

I'll also say on your comment about repeat recommendations.

The overtime was also a repeat recommendation in the links at the page 15 of the report is a report done by S SEIU.

There's two sort of landmark studies.

The auditor did a 2019 uh study of police overtime, and then more recently SEIU did a more detailed study in 2025, and that is at the link in it on page 15.

Okay, thank you.

Council member.

Yes.

Okay, or is your I all of the lights are green?

Yeah, my council member five.

I just have uh a couple questions.

Thank you for this presentation.

I think it was very informative.

How does the city rank on incorporating your recommendations into our processes over time?

I don't know if we have a specific ranking, but we do, and there's a link on page 15 is a a brief uh PowerPoint deck that talks about other cities.

Um, for example, um uh Boston has had a great experience with hiring um youth in the summer, uh similar to the mayor's program, and it's had statistically significant reduction in crime.

Uh Detroit has had an intervention uh program.

They've kind of come back from the brink, a city that was not having good economic uh outcomes.

Um so there's many others we can compare other cities that have done similar things.

A notable comparison is city of um San Jose, who has less officers per capita and less officers per square mile, but markedly less crime.

And this is in the deck that's at the link.

Um, not only do they have less crime than us by not 10 or 20 percent, but by several fold, they were voted the safest large city in the United States with less officers per capita and per square mile.

We think it's not just the number of officers.

Certainly, measure and is important.

That gap is three percent.

The those not hired is nine percent.

Those not those on payroll but not deployable is 17% by the chief's own report as of February.

So we think the deployment needs to be looked at um in terms of so we have compared with those cities.

I don't know if we can give you numerical numerical ranking, but San Jose actually, our city auditor pointed us there because he came from there and said, look there at number not just that he calls it uh pop per cop.

It's not just the number of head count of sworn officers, but how effectively you're deploying them.

He's also observed, if we compare to other cities.

Our bureau structure is somewhat self-limiting.

So the uh 911 response times are very important, but the um the bureau structures are sort of a self-imposed limitation.

We could through meet and confer solve uh address that issue and improve our non-on-one response time to make them more equitable and with before we consider more resources.

So there's several comparisons to other cities without necessarily the ranking that are in that report, and we could if we reconvene, we can bring many more of those as well.

What I wanted to understand is if the recommendations that you all bring on a regular basis to council have been implemented from what you've tracked or perhaps they haven't been tracked, because the they seem to be common sense recommendations, and so I don't it I don't know if Director Johnson is still over there, but I would like to figure out how maybe you can answer the question.

Do we incorporate um some of these budget recommendations?

And if not, do they need to come through a council process?

Because uh a needs assessment is just seems common sense to me.

We talked about potentially adding software so that there could be a longer runway of um budgeting, so it's not just we're operating in these two-year chunks.

Um, something we discussed in the past, but how would we bring forward some of these recommendations that just seem like they make sense?

I'm happy to talk with you about any of them in specific.

Most of them uh would require some kind of funding allocation and a project plan to implement, so and would need to be dovetailed with other efforts.

So I'm happy to talk to you about them specifically.

Um I do think some of them are in progress.

I'll note that our fiscal roadmap has a number of these items already part lined out in it, and they kind of that kind of details our sort of order of plan.

So the tenure capital plan, the idea of an equipment plan and a technology plan are already in that roadmap space.

Um, so it's a combination of we might need resources for them, and then it's a capacity question as to which one of these things do we want to bite off first.

I would love to see a dashboard that's available to the public so they can see where how we're tracking um our ballot measures or our especially voter approved measures that you know it when we've changed some of the allocations because of fiscal emergencies and things like that.

Just a dashboard would be really good.

And I know we again talked about potentially looking more long-term, so we're not doing all of these piecemeal kind of um policies.

Uh I so they said, sir, and with the you both have glasses.

Yeah, the last speaker, I know Ben.

Um, what's your name?

Mike Petahoff.

Mike.

Um Petahoff.

Petahoff.

Did I say that correctly?

Sounds like Petadog.

Okay, got it.

Um, you said that if we if you come back after June, after the ballot measures pass and things like that, then we can discuss maybe a pathway for some recommendations we may have on the city's roadmap to fiscal uh uh solvency.

Certainly there are many things going on, but we have some some input to that.

Some which we think we want to do early because they may require staff collaboration.

It may require public education that would help you to be able to adopt these measures in the budget next year.

For example, if you said workforce development is a crime fighting measure, people may not think of that.

So they may, when they think of crime, um, think of number of sworn officers, which is certainly an important variable, but helping people understand these other variables.

We actually have research that shows the importance of libraries in reducing crime.

I would like to get that calendar.

I think that's something that that resonates with me.

I do believe that jobs can be a crime fighting measure, and I wanted to understand more about the map that you said where you can overlay um unemployment data with potential what crime data.

Do you have that now?

Yeah, in the in the in our report that we is on the agenda on page 15 are several links, and after that is an addendum, and it's got two maps in it.

One is the mapping of unemployment to police beats, the other is the coverage of public safety ambassadors currently and where we think they might be extended.

We recommended and council approved extending the two public safety ambassador programs last year to broader.

We've mapped out where crime actually is and suggest looking at that further.

Okay, I'll I'll look at that.

So it's in the addendum.

Thank you.

And then I think the the 1.5 billion dollars in retail leakage you mentioned came from a 2000 um eight study that was commissioned by then council member Jane Bruner from the consultant that said that Oakland loses approximately 10 point, I mean 1.5 billion in retail leakage.

I do want to um just put in a little footnote to my council members that I look forward to the support of Costco because I think that will help with that retail leakage and bringing additional tax revenue to the city.

So I look forward to your unanimous support on that item when it comes forward.

But I would assume that it has it has increased since 2008.

That's when the study was initially done, correct?

There are several studies, but using that one as a reference, um, if you take the the dollar escalation from 2008 to now, it's about 1.56 billion.

Um general estimates run from 1.4 to 1.6, but it's a large number.

And if because you mentioned safety, people feeling safe.

Yes, how do you deal with facts over feelings or feelings over facts?

Because if Oakland is getting safer and people still don't feel safe, what do legislators do to address feelings that might not be based on reality?

Good question.

I think reducing actually reducing crime.

We've had great progress, but since our crime is so much higher, it's not 20 30% higher, we have a ways to go.

I also think the way we market it and articulate uh communicated is important, but also public safety ambassadors we've seen not only quantifiably reduce crime but give a greater sense of comfort.

Um I think Commissioner Gould, you may have a sure.

Yeah, so Oakland is absolutely getting safer.

I think we're seeing improvements in that area.

I think the challenge is that looking at the data in 2024, the most recent data we had available, Oakland's per capita crime rate was between five and ten times higher than other comparable California cities like Fremont and San Jose.

So a 20 or a 40% reduction in crime still means we're two to three times higher crime than those cities were two years ago.

They've likely improved since then as well.

So perception is one thing, reality is a second thing, and some of it's also just cleanliness and appearance, right?

Like I think that's an important part of it too.

People there may not be crime, but if it looks dirty and grimy and and it looks unsafe, that's a factor as well.

So I think sort of everything Commissioner Path is talking about, plus the legal dumping, plus marketing, plus economic development, all of it's important for council members and the city to support.

And I want to just uh co-sign what council member Houston said about that marketing piece.

I think that's exactly right, particularly when you have the Oakland Police Officers Association that are intentionally putting out information that contradicts what the stats are, what that contradicts what the truth are, they have a public information officer that is consistently um undermining the movement of the city, and if we don't have a communications team that's doing the same thing or are putting out what is actually happening in Oakland, we're going to consistently see a situation where we're fighting ourselves.

This is not, you know, I'm not about what you all are talking about, but we have to have an intentional and proactive uh marketing strategy for the city of Oakland that uplifts that we are the best food city in the world, we have the best wet weather in the region in the country, and all of the amazing things, and yes, we do have to address uh crime and we have to do the upstream um strategies to address those things like jobs and housing and um making the city make sure the city is cleaned.

So I am complete.

If I may respond through the chair, um I think this is a public education issue.

When people think of crime, the first reaction is number of sworn officers.

That's an important variable.

There's there's there's a report, staff report done by Chief Kirkpatrick that shows Oakland varying anywhere from 600 to over 800 officers in 2009 uh to 2018, and we've actually looked at the variance in crime for that.

There is some, um, but but it I think the conclusion is we can't.

This as Commissioner Gould pointed out, the numbers are so much different.

We can't solve it by policing alone.

We need to do some of these other things.

It's a natural human response when you're threatened to reach out for safety.

And so people say, give me more officers.

I want to honor our men and women in uniform.

I I spent years in uniform myself.

I'm a member of the VFW post here in here in Oakland.

Um so I honor our our sworn officers, but I think we need to have a more comprehensive approach.

You asked about ranking with other cities, the cities that have done well have a more comprehensive approach.

It's not the only thing, and let me just say you mentioned we're in in negotiations.

If we look at one of the links talks about the BACS assessment of last year's deficit, and what we saw happen was that the budget report said there's a deficit, we added up the numbers and said the the revenue shortfalls are only forty percent.

There was actually a cost increase, and we realized that there were negotiations, MO New negotiations conducted exactly in the window where it now between men's cycle and elections.

And if you have negotiations then, there could be some a lot of influence.

Um and those in that influences on the uh fair political practices uh commission website, you can see it.

But we may want to think about the timing.

At that c in that case, those MOUs were not due for expiration.

We're not disclosing the budget report, yet they made commitments, sort of a one-time funding, but actually wasn't one time funding because the one-time funding for the COVID grants had expired, and those agreements continue today.

So I think we need to think about with all of our MOUs being open, do we have the funds to do that?

Otherwise, in the next budget cycle, you'll already be spent.

Personally it felt disingenuous to me to ask all the residents for their input on what we should do with the budget when we'd already spent it.

Um and so we want to be thoughtful about that and about that timing of MOU negotiations relative to elections and and funding cycles.

It's hard as as council members know to raise money.

Um it's easy to write a check if if you're in a different position.

So I just say that as a political reality that we should think about.

I think it's probably one of the most persistent dynamics that affect Oakland over many council cycles over many, many decades.

Thank you.

So I'm I'm gonna take chair's privilege.

I want to have a special welcome to Mama Houston, Councilmember Houston's mother, who came to join us for the meeting.

Everyone say hello to Mama Houston.

Yeah, you could be anywhere else, but you came here with us.

So we appreciate you.

Council Member Guyle.

Yes, thank you, and thank you for that information that you provided us.

Um, but what I what I'm gonna be asking you for is to also provide present the business perspective and the management of the city of Oakland where we are today, and one specifically, there are many properties that we're leasing.

Example the public works yard on Colossian, what we're paying what, three to five million dollars to lease a property.

Then we have a a parking lot behind us, been sitting empty for years that we could under business be able to lease it, manage it, do something with it, it's supposed to be in vacant, right?

And another example when it comes to business, you talk about the library, right?

The Fruitville Library, they're charging you or at least they had they were trying to get the library out of the fruitville village because we weren't paying our rental monthly or annual fee of a million plus dollars because that property is owned by BART and the Unity Council manage it.

But if if we can identify properties that we have from the army base all the way to East Oakland, that we need to do a better job managing to to earn you know a revenue from those.

And uh, some example I have prologged in my area that's building a site that's been dead for many years, but they're gonna create 300 plus jobs, they're gonna create revenue for the city, but we're growing the city, and we're just not focused on the city government, bah baba, talk, talk, talk, talk.

We need to create the revenue at the same time, and we have the facilities, the properties that if we utilize them well, that you know, there would be a positive for what you're saying in terms of job creation, public use, and a revenue source for the city.

And that's what's missing.

If I make you the chair, um it's not an area we're currently examining, but we could certainly uh look into it.

I think we would need the data that we've come from staff.

So I might suggest we would we plan to have discussions, collaboration discussions with staff um to to bring that to their attention.

I think we we would certainly wouldn't have the database to know all the property, but it's certainly an area that we could explore uh and bring together.

Thank you.

And that would include the port of Oakland as well.

So within the city of Oakland.

They're part of our effort in in the future.

How do we work together?

We talk about the county, the county's neglected Oakland more recently with the stadium, the Coliseum property.

We all have, they own that, but you know, we do a lot of talking.

Yeah.

Right, and it's opposed to the city taking control, that's a great investment, you know, not just job generation, but an opportunity for Oakland to grow.

And why aren't we doing that together within the politicals and it's been a challenge.

Anyways, thank you for that information.

Definitely has been a challenge.

I'm gonna go to Ramachandran and Wong, hopefully it's rapid fire as we are um went into issues we're gonna start losing people.

Thank you.

Just want to express my appreciation for your work you are all volunteers you pour your blood sweat and tears.

You did this in a incredibly rapid turnaround in time.

This is now my fourth budget cycle and I know that council has not always listened to and respected your recommendations but I know last year and this year certainly the budget teams look looks forward to really diving deep including into the appendices which I know there are some very interesting information there.

You know not only in this budget cycle but as part of our long-term fiscal planning as well because none of these things are going to be fixed overnight um but over the years I know we've worked closely on issues like thinking about holistic public safety efforts including safety ambassadors immense appreciation not only for that recommendation here but over the past few budget cycles whether or not they've been funded you've continuously pushed creative solutions to our public safety crisis in a holistic manner as well as authentic reasons um ways in which we can um promote fiscal responsibility again I know your recommendations have not always been heated but currently I know that we are grateful for your work and we'll do what we can not only in this cycle but as far as long term planning goes um there were some very interesting points about some of our projections and other things that I'll note as well and very much excited to look forward um to diving a little deeper before we pass the budget thank you for your efforts.

Thank you council member I'm trying to council member and then you can make a motion okay sounds good um I just have a quick question since you guys have been digging into economic development have you seen a relationship because when I go into my business corridors the feedback I get is crime is coming down but foot traffic continues to be an issue um especially because of some of our parking policies and I'm wondering if you see a relationship where if since we are pursuing you know for example pay parking on Sundays if there's a relationship with with uh an inverse relationship with parking and then sales tax where we could actually recruit more from our sales tax have you done any analysis on that I can address it this way and picture may have other thoughts too we have an action that's proposed not yet adopted that in this year's um survey resident survey we would ask them what makes you dine and shop in Oakland what makes you dine and shop elsewhere we we think that we've heard from merchants is is certainly the public safety issue is there are the customers going to get mugged um that sort of thing um we've heard shoplifting is a concern uh is is parking a concern to go to walnut creek that's a nice parking garage um you know so so we're trying to get more tangible data and and it has not been adopted as a separate committee that's working on that but we think it's an opportunity to gather more information about what makes customers like like Oakland or or go elsewhere so we're we're working on that to understand okay great thank you I'll make a motion so I got a motion to receive and file in a second.

Thank you for that and it was a motion by Councilmember Wong seconded by Council Member Rama Chandrin to receive and file item five um apologies one moment while I pull up the right screen on roll for this item council member brown aye council member fairy aye council member guy council member houston aye Ramachandrin aye uh councilmember unger is excused council member wong I and Sherry Jenkins aye item number five is approved with seven eyes one excused council member unger that now takes us to open forum as I call your name please approach the podium in any order.

I will take those who are in person first.

Please again state your name for the record before you begin um for those who are participating in the Zoom, please raise your hand so I can easily identify you.

Miss Asada Olabala, Kevin Daly, Millie Cleveland, Faith, uh Kirkpatrick, and uh Cameron uh Salazar, in any order, please.

I wanted to make a suggestion.

It appears that since the city administrator is the one that hired the consultant for the police chief search and seems to be telling the police commission how to handle debt search.

That um maybe they want to reconsider not having a candidates form for police chief.

A decision was initially made that they wouldn't disclose the names because some people may not want their employer to know about it, but since Chief Beer announced his candidacy for the job, the uh process is tainted.

So maybe you could talk to the city administrator about the importance of community engagement and transparency with this process and reconsider the idea that you should have a thank you for your comments next speaker.

All names have been called Carmen yes thank you so much.

And do you need translation?

Yes we do have those um we have do have um translators participating via zoom so we're gonna take them off of zoom so they can translate you want Maria to do it I'll volunteer Maria all right you hear that translators we have an in-person translator thank you so much.

Good morning my name is Carmen Salazar Good morning everybody el motivo que me trae aquí is porque well is acuerdo al verde para lo que realmente está echo que servir a la comunidad a few items bring me here the number one is uh in regards to the budget I'm not agreeing with it I'm not happy with what the way it's been um spent um and that's one of the items and service a la comunidad is todo lo que se presenta sea la segurida sea el area publica sea lo que es la vivienda sea lo que la persona devenir aquí al concilio de tener traduction lo que no ofrecen el hecho de poder honrar cada trabajo no solo somos una planilla another thing is that there are services that are not um being taken care of like um having an interpreter here that's not a service that um the city council provides um public safety um casa uh reunion is local yeah offer more services as uh public safety um housing allow people or um people for people to learn how to come here to council meetings look you stay observando aquí is que no han hecho nada for bajar los tickets estacionamiento el de ahora que son como three dollars que no es lo que quenta la población you said mismo los poning ahí cuando la gente viene hablar sobre homeless y sobre que cada percentage que puede caer in las calles nuevamente another thing is parking fees um nothing is below eighty dollars um uh and also is not the three dollars that they say per hour uh when they come and speak to homelessness and um items like that um they need more services to be provided so they can come and speak to it thank you so much we give two minutes for translation well one minute for the person to speak in one minute for translation in open forum so your time has seated and let um it lapsed so uh we would need to move on if I go ahead and la possibility for looking derecho de una manera consciente there's something that she wishes for the council um to address is for people to be able to come and express themselves about how they feel and uh give them more opportunities to be um known um of every changes in the council thank you so much for your comments and just to note for the record there is information on the back of the agendas to how to request for translation they're usually available on you have to reach out five days in advance of the meeting so um you can do that by looking at the back of the agenda and calling five days in advance and then we will have translators um available via zooms thank you so much thank you thank you so much thank you so much you can chat with her afterwards anybody else yes we do have sorry your time has lapsed and we have miss Asada Olabala and Faith and Kevin Dally thank you so much Miss Asada you've been unmuted you may begin thank you madam clerk can you hear me yes ma'am I just want to make it clear the negotiated settlement agreement has nothing to do with constitutional policing the settlement agreement has to do with police brutality excessive force racial profiling uh fraudulent reporting of investigations keep it in that spectrum also 32% of your employees uh city employees live in Oakland that means uh 67 do not live in Oakland this e initiative by the union has mostly presented by people that don't live in Oakland your union employees the false way you represent this to be a citizen's initiative I hope it fails tomorrow continue to go forward with integrity stop trying to manipulate the spending and creation of funding for this city and stop not addressing your sanctuary city status how it is budgetarily affecting particularly African Americans economically have been called for open forum thank you this meeting is adjourned