Good afternoon and welcome to the City Council meeting of Tuesday, June 2nd.

Before I call roll against speaker card instructions, we will have translation instructions from Mr.

Misa.

Mr.

Misa, please unmute yourself and give the translation instructions.

At 332.

So your last opportunity to turn in the speaker's card will be at 532 or before the item is called for discussion.

Whichever comes first to fill out a speaker's card, you can get one at the front table and turn it into the clerk representative at the front table.

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

Present.

Councilmember Fife is excused.

Councilmember Guilla.

Present.

Council Member Houston.

Excused.

Councilmember Ramachandran present.

Councilmember Unger.

Here.

Councilmember Wong.

If you're here, excuse me.

Sorry.

And Chair Jenkins.

Present.

Six members present to excuse Houston and five.

Do you have any announcements before we begin?

Okay.

Uh welcome, welcome, welcome.

So because of the amount of speakers and because of the amount of agenda items and our ability to maintain quorum, we're going to reduce speaker time to one minute.

Council members' speaking time will be reduced as well.

For any agenda item, normally it's eight minutes, it will be five minutes, and we're going to ask the presentations to be brief as well.

Sorry about that.

Thank you.

Yes, and five.

Thank you for that.

Now going to item three modifications to the agenda and procedural items.

Yes, because of public interest, we will take 5.2 at the beginning of the agenda, and then after that, 5.5, and then we will continue in the regular order of the agenda after that.

So noted changing the order of the agenda.

We will start with item 5.2.

Reading item 5.2 into record, adopt a resolution submitting to the voters at the November third, 2026 General Municipal Election, a measure that would amend the Oakland City Charter to, among other things, make the mayor the city's chief executive officer responsible for managing city affairs, empower the council to confirm the appointments of the directors of finance, human resources, public works and transportation.

Empower the council to create an independent budget and legislative analyst office, supervide the council fiscal and policy analysis that is objective and nonpartisan, affirm council members' right to request information and relay constituent concerns and city officials' duties to respond promptly.

Empower the council to hold legislative hearings and issue subpoenas, create a mayor or veto with a line item budget veto and council power to override any veto.

Require council members to work full time and not engage in outside employment, empower the public ethics commission to align the mayor and council members' salaries with those of comparable, excuse me, comparable full-time public officials, and require the publication of ordinances within 15 days of passage, and direct me to the city clerk to take any and all actions necessary under law to submit this measures to the voters at the election and making appropriate sequel findings.

While we're waiting on a presentation to the council members and to the public, by charter, we have to hear any charter amendments twice.

And so this would be the first time we're hearing this, and the action item would be to continue this to the next meeting, not an up or down vote.

It would be a vote to continue this to the next meeting.

Okay.

We're trying to get them now.

Okay, good afternoon.

First, let me thank you, Council President and members of this body, and to all of our residents.

Thank you for being here.

I'm here to present on item now.

It was five, two.

Is this item five, one now or is we still five, two?

Item five, two.

We moved it to the beginning of the agenda.

Okay.

Yeah.

Okay.

Uh, which is the proposed ballot measure to reform Oakland's city charter.

And I want to thank the rules committee for moving this proposal to the full city council.

Now, Oakland, as I said earlier, it's at a turning point, and the status quo needs to change.

Residents across our city are asking three fundamental questions about their government.

Who is responsible when something goes wrong?

Who has the authority to act?

And who should voters hold accountable at the ballot box?

Again, as I mentioned in the rules committee, our residents do not have patience for a government that cannot figure out where the buck stops or why the delivery of core services is lacking.

That is why I announced charter reform in my first 100 days.

Now, before I begin to discuss the substance of this proposal, I'd like to address several points directly, but because this is really important to cut through all of the misinformation that has been out there.

First of all, the Charter Reform Working Group recommendations, they're not a power grab.

As described by those who have promoted misinformation.

Their proposals preserves checks and balances, this ours, the one we're presenting, while creating clear authority and accountability and helping to ensure the delivery of critical core services.

The council will retain full legislative authority, budget authority, deliver on key constituent services, oversight authority, confirmation authority, and the ability to override a marrow veto by two-thirds vote.

What changes is that Oakland residents have a clearer understanding of who is responsible to deliver solutions and who the public should hold accountable when government succeeds or excuse me, falls short.

I also want to address the attempts to undermine the credibility and integrity of the charter reform working group itself.

Those attacks really are unfair, they're inaccurate, and they do a disservice to the people who dedicated countless hours and months to this effort.

The working group was convened and facilitated by the League of Women Voters of Oakland and Spur, and included a broad cross section of Oakland voices, labor leaders, former city officials, public servants, members of the business community, small businesses, policy experts, civic leaders, and longtime Oakland residents.

These individuals brought different perspectives and viewpoints to the table, engaging in months of serious analysis and public engagement before arriving at their recommendations.

Now, regardless of where one stands on these proposals, the integrity of the working group's process and the commitment of those participants should be respected and not undermined.

I also stated that this rules committee, but I want to at the rules committee, but I want to once again speak about the tone and the rhetoric of parts of the public conversation.

Reasonable people can disagree about governance structures.

That is a healthy part of our democracy.

But some of the rhetoric that we have seen in recent weeks and months has really crossed the line.

There's a long history in this country of describing black leaders, particularly black women leaders seeking executive authority or structural reform as dangerous or unqualified.

We should be honest enough to recognize when rhetoric begins to echo those patterns.

Governance, reform, charter reform without referring and resorting to language that attempts to demonize leadership.

We're trying to do the work of solving problems and moving this city forward.

There have also been accusations that this process was rushed, which is not accurate.

Over six months, the working group conducted more than 60 interviews, held 14 meetings in every council district, and engaged more than 750 Oakland residents.

This was a transparent, community-driven process grounded in public engagement and expertise.

And I want to thank the working group, the League of Women Voters of Oakland, Spur, City Workers, every council member, and every resident who contributed to it.

And I also want to recognize that reasonable people can disagree about governance structures.

The working group examined cities operating under strong mayor systems and cities operating under council manager systems and other hybrid forms of systems.

Every governance structure involves trade-offs.

But after months of research and public engagement, the working group concluded that Oakland's challenges require clearer executive leadership, stronger fiscal coordination, and a governance structure where residents can clearly identify who is responsible for implementation and citywide outcomes.

Across districts, neighborhoods, and stakeholder groups, residents express frustration with a system where responsibility is often unclear and accountability is difficult to assign.

These recommendations are a direct response to these concerns.

Now, when I became mayor, I already knew there was confusion about roles and authority inside Oakland's government because I had experienced it firsthand also.

Even while serving in Congress after securing funds for Oakland, there was uncertainty inside City Hall what to do, who I needed to communicate with to coordinate and follow up.

Now, as mayor, I see clearly how this structural ambiguity affects our ability to deliver for residents.

Too often it's unclear where the buck stops, who is responsible for operational decisions, and who voters should ultimately hold accountable for results.

Over time, that confusion erodes trust in government itself and makes it much harder for council members to effectively represent their constituents.

So the working group had three goals only, and that is a very narrow framework with the which they looked at to clarify roles and responsibilities of elected officials, to strengthen financial management systems, and to improve accountability and transparency.

And that was a very narrow scope of their work.

The working group had intentionally given a focus scope and its recommendations reflects months of research, deliberation, and public input within that framework.

As this measure moves forward, it's important that we remain faithful to those recommendations.

Expanding the measure beyond the working group's scope risks undermining the extensive public engagement that informed these proposals, creating more confusion for voters and shifting the conversation away from the core governance questions, which residents were asked to consider.

If there are additional charter changes that this body wishes to consider in the future, there will be opportunities to do so.

But this measure should remain focused on the community driven process that brought us here today.

So let me briefly explain what's actually in the measure before you.

The mayor serves as the chief executive accountable for ensuring effective city operations and service delivery.

This charter language also allows flexibility for future mayors to determine how they lead, delegate managed responsibilities, and surround themselves with people who have expertise in specific areas, including the delivery of city services.

Different mayors can be flexible and can bring in specific and needed expertise to ensure a professionally run city.

But the principle remains the same.

The buck always stops with the mayor.

That's the elected person at the head of the city.

The council will retain full legislative authority, budget approval power, and meaningful oversight, while also being empowered to be much more effective advocates for their districts and to ensure that services are actually delivered to their constituents and communities.

The mayor would have a general veto and a targeted budget line item veto.

The council retains the authority to override by a two-thirds supermajority.

The authority is designed to create a more balanced budget process and stronger fiscal discipline.

It encourages collaboration and negotiation between the executive and legislative branches while preserving the council's ability to override a veto when sufficient consensus exists.

A permanent independent office to strengthen the council's fiscal analysis and policy research and oversight capacity is included.

The intent is to create flexibility within the charter that allows the council to establish the structure of this office while preserving the independence necessary for it to provide objective fiscal and legislative analysis.

This office is specifically designed to strengthen the council's oversight role, not weaken it.

A targeted confirmation process for senior department heads within the Office of Finance, Human Resources, the Department of Transportation, and the Office of Public Works.

Council approval of these directors reserves meaningful council oversight while avoiding prolonged vacancies.

The charter would formally recognize council service as a full-time job, service, public service, and align compensation through the Public Ethics Commission as a public service is accessible, so public service, excuse me, is accessible to working people from all backgrounds.

Section 218 reform.

The new section is designed to strengthen constituent service functions and improve responsiveness for residents seeking help from their elected representatives.

Council members would have clear communication channels with city departments while preserving prohibitions against directing staff on administrative matters.

It's also important to clarify what does not change under this proposal.

The city administrator remains a central part of Oakland's governance structure and would continue providing professional management expertise while operating within a clear governance structure and would continue to manage the finance and human resources department and under the current system.

Quite frankly, the mayor would, it's the same as now, would nominate a city administrator, subject to council confirmation, and major contracts would continue to require council approval.

Council oversight is in fact strengthened through confirmation authority over department directors, including finance, human resources, department of transportation, and Office of Public Works.

Two of these three two of these departments are under the city administrators, HR and Finance and DOT and OWW, OPW are two of the largest departments that sit city infrastructure relies and finds itself under its jurisdiction.

These are the departments that deal with the city's infrastructure.

I also want to be clear that no governance structure eliminates the potential of misconduct, eliminates the possibility of potential misconduct.

However, the working group's recommendation preserves existing safeguards, including the Public Ethics Commission, the city auditor, transparency laws, recall provisions, council oversight authority, and independent police oversight.

May I have an additional three minutes, Mr.

Thank you very much.

The council oversight authority and independent police oversight authority would remain.

The police commission's appointment structure and authority would remain unchanged.

Preserving independent civilian oversight of policing while strengthening accountability for city operations.

Let me address the concern that this proposal weakens the council.

It does not.

This measure strengthens the council's institutional role through independent oversight tools, legislative authority, budget authority, and clear constituent service functions.

Council members are empowered to serve as strong advocates for their districts while retaining full power and meaningful oversight authority.

A strong executive and strong city council are not competing ideas.

They are complementary parts of a balanced and accountable government.

Our current charter blends elements of a strong mayor system and a council manager system in a way that diffuses authority and obscures responsibility.

Too often this hybrid structure creates confusion, weakens accountability, and contributes to a vicious cycle where residents struggle to get the core services that they deserve.

Replacing one hybrid with another would only continue those same problems.

Residents already expect the mayor to have authority to act and the council to legislate, provide oversight and deliver services to their constituents.

Too often our structure does not match these expectations.

The proposal before you does not impose a new form of government today.

It simply allows the voters of Oakland to decide what type of government they want.

I urge you not to take away Oakland's residents' opportunities to weigh in and to provide voters the opportunity to vote on this measure.

The question before us today is not whether every member of this council would have reached the same conclusion as the working group.

The question is whether we will respect the integrity of a many months-long public process and allow Oakland voters to consider the recommendations that emerge from it.

I believe that we should.

Now I've spent my entire career fighting for democratic accountability, transparency, civil rights, and checks and balances.

This proposal is not about concentrating power in the hands of any one elected official.

It's about structural change, clarifying responsibility so the public knows who is accountable when action is needed and how government can more effectively deliver constituent services.

And ultimately, this decision will not be made by one mayor, one city council.

It will be made by the voters, mind you, the voters of Oakland.

So I want to close here where I began with those three questions.

Oakland residents are asking their government who is responsible when something goes wrong.

Who has the authority to act?

And who should voters hold accountable at the ballot box?

Hundreds of Oaklanders participated in this process because they want a government where those questions have clear answers, where responsibility is understandable, oversight is meaningful, and accountability is visible.

They want a government that is responsive to constituents and structured in a way that allows both the mayor and the council members to effectively deliver results for our communities for our town.

This proposal is designed to answer those questions more clearly, and I respectfully ask this body to move the measure forward and allow Oakland voters to make the final decision.

Thank you again for your support and thank you for giving me a chance to be with you.

Thank you, Mayor.

Are there any amendments coming from your office?

Pardon?

Are there any amendments coming from your office?

Yeah.

Good afternoon, Council President Kilboard, Deputy Chief of Staff to Mayor Barbara Lee.

Yes, so the mayor intends to move amendments not at this meeting but the following meeting.

We're still waiting.

We're working with city attorney to draft some language that we'll be sharing.

But for this meeting, one to share verbally with you all what those are.

So if you go to section 218A, the request that we've received is to remove section 218A, which is each department under the mayor's or city administrator's jurisdiction shall maintain at least one designated council liaison for council inquiries, and the mayor, city administrator shall ensure coordination.

The next one that we've been requested to amend is in section 218D.

Add not, add not have the power to, and so that the following language reads: council members and their staff shall not have the power to direct, give orders to, or attempt to coerce any department head or any other subordinate of the city under the jurisdiction of the mayor, city administrator, or other appointed or elected officers in respect to any administrative action.

And the last one comes from the public ethics commission that was unanimously voted on two weeks ago.

And this one is revising the new language revising the language, the new language in section 603C to clarify that the public ethics commission has the option to seek the assistance of the city administrator and/or outside consultants at its discretion, but is not obligated to do so.

And the thinking around that one is that we want to ensure the independence of the ethics commission, so don't want them to have to rely on the city administrator, but they have that um ability to make that decision themselves.

And again, so I just want to read these into the record.

We are working with city attorney to draft them and we'll bring those formal formally to you at the next meeting.

Thank you so much.

And it's the public ethics commission here.

Uh, can you run the clock for two minutes, please?

Hi, thank you.

I'm Suzanne Doran, executive director of the public ethics commission.

Um, good afternoon, council members and mayor Lee.

Um, under City Charter 603H, the public ethics commission must review and have the opportunity to comment on any amendments to laws the commission has the power to enforce before they can become law.

So pursuant to that duty, we met on May 20th to review and provide comment on the amendments proposed by Mayor Lee to sections 202, 218, 300, and 603, a formal letter from the chair conveying the commission's comments and suggested amendments to the language that is included in your agenda materials.

But I'll give a uh brief summary of the commission's position, and I'm happy to answer any questions.

So the commission voted unanimously to take the following positions on elected officials' salaries.

The commission supports the proposed charter amendments to sections 202, 300, and 603 with the following amendments.

The first is that the commission would like it that the salary setting for all elected officials occur in the same year, so that the PEC duty of setting the mayor's salary and the revised method for setting the salary of city council member would take effect in 2028, the same year as salary setting for the city attorney and city auditor.

And secondly, that the new language in 603C clarify that the PEC has the option to seek the assistance of the city administrator andor outside consultants as discretion, but is not obligated to do so.

Um, the commission also wanted me to convey a suggestion that city council consider an amendment that salary setting for all elected officials occur every four years rather than biannually, both to further depoliticize the salary setting process and also to conserve staff resources.

So secondly, on um section two eighteen, that's currently non-durning.

Your time is up.

Oh sorry.

Okay.

Can you wrap it up in 30 seconds, please?

Okay.

Very quickly.

Um in the revised section 218.

There's three additions there.

The way it's written currently, in its entirety, it would come under our enforcement authority.

Uh the commission believes that the we're not against the three additions clarifying the role of council, but we don't think it should fall within our enforcement authority.

We don't think that's properly within the role of an ethics commission.

Um so we're requesting that our enforcement be maintained only to the new section two eighteen D, but A B and C not be included as part of our enforcement role.

Thank you so much.

Uh with that, we're gonna go to the public speakers, and then we'll have council member comments and just reminding council members we will be running the clock.

Uh we said five minutes.

Hopefully, it's more around four minutes.

Calling in the public speakers as I call your name, please approach the podium in any order.

Please state your name for the record before beginning.

I will call the names in chain.

I mean, we will take the speakers in chambers first, and then move on to the Zoom speakers immediately after.

If you have time ceded to you, the person must be in the room or on Zoom.

And just note if you do cede your time, you are giving up your opportunity to speak.

Kevin Daly, Nancy Falk, Stephen Falk, David Boatwright, Mindy Pachunik, Gerald Pachunik, Liz Hartka, Cynthia Duggan O'Malley, Gail Wallace, Brad Morgan, Ben Gould, Nicole Netic, Richard Fuentes, Barbara Lafiti Olowale, Helen Hutchins Hutchinson, Jane Esposito, Mr.

Hazard, Pamela Drake, Corey Cook, in any order, and the council president has reduced the time to one minute.

Ready.

David Boatwright, given the recall of a recent mayor, a strong mayor charter gives too much power to a single person.

Therefore, I encourage the council to vote against the strong mayor charter.

I believe a strong council overseeing a city administrator can both provide adequate accountability, and through including the mayor and the council, multiple benefits can be achieved.

Those benefits are a citywide elected official, the mayor would be the council's leader.

The city needs a mayor that is participating in city management and legislation.

Having a mayor and council working together can lead to better and more efficient outcomes.

My perspective is that we don't need a veto.

Uh a veto again puts too much power in one person's hands, and I don't agree that the public ethics committee should be moved under the mayor.

My first choice is council manager, but strong second choices is strong mayor with some small amendments.

But that is not actually what the charter amendment says, and I suggest that the charter be changed to reflect that that Article 6, section two, subsection B have three and four that specify that the director of transportation and the director of public works are among the directors that must be approved by council.

I'd also like to request that the city attorney state whether the council can specify departments setup, including say transportation, and whether the city attorney, or sorry, city administrator or mayor is allowed to change that without input from the council justice as the city administrator had tried to merge public courts and transportation about a year ago without council approval.

Like to know that.

Thank you, Ms.

Adally.

Your time is up.

Thank you.

Hi, Mindy Petrinook, candidate for Oakland mayor, and it's sad that we've come to this point that we do need a charter reform.

I'm 100% for a charter reform, but a strong mayor is not going to work.

It's not going to work for Oakland.

We needed to have a situation where the mayor was part of the city council in deliberation with you all.

Because that would produce a different respect for the whole country of the whole city.

It would actually create a situation where we wouldn't have everything so separated and decarbonalized, where people don't see what they don't see is the city working together as a whole for the people of Oakland.

And this is about the people of Oakland.

And if we're going to actually make it clear what's at stake in this charter reform, people need to be much better educated to what is actually at stake.

So this is where I think I would call on all of you to really think about what would have been better for the city.

And I don't think it's a strong mayor.

Thank you.

Yes, this is Gerald Petchenuk.

I want to quote my old friend from Chicago, Harold Washington, who would say this process is clearly reprehensible.

And the way you know it is if you're going to have a commission, it should have been chartered through the city council.

It should have had input, public hearings, not a mayor's thing which avoided the Brown Act.

Let the sun shine in, and had recommendations by the mayor for the mayor of the mayor.

That ain't sunshine.

It has nothing to do with race color creed.

No sunshine is no sunshine, and that is reprehensible.

We don't need of and by and for the same person.

We need a discussion of the entire city council.

Thank you, sir.

Your time is up.

Hi, my name.

I'd like to cede my time to Gail Wallace.

Good afternoon.

My name is Gail Wallace, and I'm speaking on behalf of the League of Women Voters of Oakland.

First, I want to thank Mayor Lee for prioritizing the charter in the first hundred days of her administration and asking the league to co-facilitate.

I also want to acknowledge the many, many people who participated and brought insight, curiosity, and generosity to this process.

Of course, those people included the working group members who produced a report that is unique in outlining Oakland's history, our challenges, and the ways in which we could do better by giving Oakland officials defined jobs with clear authority.

Your support was also key in organizing meetings in every one of your council districts.

You've heard the number, 750 participants.

The number is impressive, but the reality was even more so.

People understand we can do better.

They were ready to take on the esoteric topic of charter reform to find out how.

Oaklanders to make a choice.

The legislation offers a clear option that, if approved, would result in an internally coherent model of municipal government, which Oakland has lacked for more than 20 years.

This legislation will not deliver the sun and the moon.

Oakland has many challenges that will be addressed in a myriad of ways.

What it does address is one foundational issue clearly.

It would allow voters to vote decisively.

We strongly urge you to allow this process that mayorly initiated to come to fruition.

Let's hear from Oaklanders how they want their government to work.

Please move this forward.

My name is Brad Morgan.

I'm in District 4.

And I just want to say I strongly support charter reform.

Yeah.

But I don't know if I trust every mayor to come after this.

And I don't think we can build a system dependent on a single mayor.

I think a better path is a council management form of government with a strong mayor with that.

I'm worried because Oakland voters have rejected strong mayor systems in the past that could come again.

And we do need reform.

I think everybody agrees to that.

I do urge you to put something on the ballot in November.

I prefer the city council with an empowered mayor.

But something is better than nothing in this, as long as there are the appropriate checks and balances.

Thank you.

Hello, my name is Cynthia O'Malley, and I've lived in Oakland for 47 years.

I'm one of the hundreds of residents who participated in the process of charter reform.

I'm speaking in favor of the charter reform ballot measure.

The process has been transparent, thorough, and clear.

I believe the meetings have been conducted with integrity.

I respectfully request the council act to move the charter reform measure to the November ballot for the Oakland voters to decide.

Thank you.

Good afternoon.

My name is Helen Hutcheson, and I'm a longtime member or a longtime resident of Oakland.

I support this proposal, moving it forward to the ballot.

It's sensible, it's based on established best practices and to listening to Oaklanders about who we are and what we need.

The Public Ethics Commission proposal changes also make sense.

They're really small tweaks that will make an already strong proposal even stronger.

Thank you.

Good afternoon, Council.

My name is Nicole Medich.

I'm here today representing Spur.

We had the great privilege of helping co-facilitate this process with the League of Women Voters, and I want to thank the mayor for organizing this as well as all of you for helping to participate and bringing people to engage in this really important topic.

Oakland residents deserve the chance to vote on a governance structure that would make their government more legible and more accountable to the people that it serves.

A lot of people engaged in this process.

Every governance model carries both risks and benefits, and the working group really looked at both of those.

What was recommended and what was moved forward, a strong mayor system with an equally strong council, balances power between both branches, and most closely aligns with Oakland with what Oakland residents expect of their city government.

We need a decisive mayor, we need somebody.

Hi, my name is Corey Cook.

I'm a political scientist, and for more than 30 years, I've researched, taught, and written about urban politics, local government, and political reform.

During that time, my role has been to provide context, explain trade-offs, and separate what the evidence shows from the claims of advocates.

In debates about political reform, people often cherry pick evidence.

They blur trade-offs, and they sometimes speak as though they're a perfect solutions, and they're not.

There's no perfect voting system, no perfect form of government, no perfect institutional design.

Every institutional reform and every institutional choice involves trade-offs.

I've never endorsed a candidate, I've never endorsed a ballot measure in my career.

But I think it's important to speak plainly about what the empirical evidence says.

After months of study, public engagement, expert consultation, and reviewing decades of research, the working group of which I was a member reached a clear and humanimous conclusion.

Oakland's current system is a fragmented hybrid that blurs responsibility and weakens accountability.

The evidence points to a balanced system.

Good afternoon.

My name is Ben Gould, and today I'm speaking as an individual and a member of the Oakland Charter Reform Project.

We recommend that you reject this proposal and consider a council manager from a government instead.

Giving future mayors the authority to hire, fire, and oversee virtually every department head in the city is a huge risk for Oakland.

Most Oakland mayors historically have had little to no experience managing a large organization like the city.

Even under Jerry Brown, the city departments have been appointed and overseen by an experienced and professional city manager.

This proposal would relegate the council to just passing laws and adopting a budget with no formal authority to ensure that your constituents get the services they deserve.

If you do not believe this proposal is in the best interest of your constituents, we recommend you should vote against it and put your opposition on the record.

If you still want to give the voters a chance separately, you can bring it back for reconsideration later.

There's plenty of time.

Thank you.

Good afternoon.

My name is Barbara Lafitte Olawale, and I'm a uh representing Faith in Action East Bay.

And I'm here because I love Oakland and I want a city government that actually works for me and our residents.

Right now, when something goes wrong in Oakland, it's hard to know who is really responsible or who to call on to get it fixed.

Services are too often delayed or inconsistent, and it's easy for people in power to pass the book.

Oaklanders deserve better.

This charter reform proposal is about clear accountability.

It aligns power with responsibility so that the leaders, voters who choose, have the power and have the tools to fix problems, and can be held accountable if they don't.

It's not about anyone or mayor, any one mayor or any one council member.

It's about building a structure that will work for future leaders and future generations.

This measure was shaped with residents through one of the most extensive charter outreach processes in our city.

Thank you, ma'am.

Your time is up.

Okay, wake up, council president.

My name is Pamela Drake.

I'm with the Wellstone Club, and I gotta say the Wellstone Club completely supports our mayor Barbara Lee.

We're thrilled that she's our mayor.

We have not, however, taken a vote on this issue, and I have particular concerns about it.

I feel that a mayor, any mayor, as mayor as good as Barbara Lee in terms of political ability to rouse people and make people understand what the problems are and what the good solutions are.

That mayor should be seen on the council every time the council convenes.

People need to see their mayor, they need to see their mayor deliberating, and they see need to see their mayor going through negotiations in public with the rest of the council and coming up with solutions so they know how their mayor is engaged and how their mayor thinks.

They don't need to have a mayor who's sitting in the room going over who's doing what shift and who's going to head up a project.

That's not a mayor's job.

A mayor's job is to be a political leader, not.

Thank you, Mr.

Drake.

If your name was called and you're in chambers or on Zoom, please approach the podium.

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

Jean has it go to CleanOakland.com.

Bad news.

Do not go forward with this.

Oakland is a business.

And it requires your CEO to have academic, education, and professional experience.

That person is supposed to be neutral.

Do not have political interests.

A strong mayor would be very partisan.

And whoever that mayor is gains that favor with that group of partisan individuals.

Now, yeah, it may have to go to the floor.

Thank you, Mr.

Hazard.

Your time is up.

Moving to the Zoom speakers, Nancy Falk.

We have a in person.

Buenas tardes.

My name is Richard Fuentes.

I'm an executive uh board member and PAC Chair of Council 57, representing 35,000 ASME members.

Our members work here in Oakland at East Bay Parks, East Bay Regional Parks, AC Transit, at BART, OUSD, just to name a few.

I'm a member of the working group, and I could tell you that we heard from our residents.

We heard from members of the public that they want to hold somebody responsible when their potholes not being filled.

We didn't hear from residents about a third option, but we did today from Bendy, the Republican MAGA supporter.

That is the third option.

The third option is supported by Republicans, not by brown people, not by black people, not by working people.

So I urge you to please put this matter in front of the voters and allow the voters an opportunity to make a decision so they could hold somebody accountable for our city services to be delivered on time.

Thank you.

Thank you for your comments.

Now moving to the Zoom speakers.

Nancy Falk, you are first.

Please unmute yourself and begin your comments.

Thank you for the opportunity to comment.

My name's Nancy Falk.

I'm a proud Oaklander, a co-founder of the Oakland Charter Reform Project, a board member of Walk Oakland Bike Oakland, and a retired Kaiser Permanente executive.

Thank you very much for considering a proposal to reform Oakland's city charter.

I'm grateful that there's public deliberation of the issue.

I'm disappointed though that we've essentially missed the opportunity to bring the proven best practice for high performing cities to Oakland during this calendar year.

We missed the opportunity to bring the highest performing option to Oakland when leaders opted not to consider a council manager system to bring forward to the voters.

It is truly a missed opportunity in my view.

I'll continue to be a proud Oaklander.

I'll continue to believe that Oakland can be a high-performing, safe, and vibrant city.

And I'll continue to hope that we can absolutely make Oakland better.

Thanks for listening.

Thank you for your comments.

Moving to the next speaker, Stephen Falk.

Please unmute yourself and begin your comments.

Council members, uh members of the public, my name is Stephen Falk, co-founder of the Oakland Charter Reform Project.

I'm grateful to the council for your uh service to the public.

You work hard and it shows.

Over the last 18 months, each of you carved time out of your busy schedule to consider our proposal for a government led and supervised by the city council, not by the mayor alone.

And I am confident that you understand the matter before you today.

The gravity of this decision, the likelihood that the system you choose, if approved by voters, will last for years or decades, and the fact that any charter amendment will affect not just you, but all who succeed you on the diet.

And so please accept my best wishes now as you make your choice today.

And again, thank you.

It has been good getting.

Thank you for your comments.

Blair Beakme, you are next.

Please unmute yourself and again your comments.

Hi, Blair Beekman.

I hope I can I have a lot to say on this item.

It's my belief that you know, I've been I've lived in San Jose, and you know, the entire uh the large majority of the east side of San Jose and San Jose itself voted against the strong mayor and wanted uh, you know, city manager council as a participatory process with community and so strong mayor serves money.

And that's simple as that.

Um, I think we're trying to understand in San Diego uh what good governance means and that an IPA system that you want to install here, I don't think quite manages and organizes day-to-day government task that you're trying to work towards.

That's what's really needed here in Oakland.

And I don't know if the IPA petition you're creating will necessarily do that.

And I think it needs to be more regularly questioned.

Um yeah, I I'm I'm really for uh the city council process, and that we can create ideas that can work that way, and that we don't have to be afraid of that.

Thank you for your comments.

Jane Esposito, are you in the chambers?

If you wish to speak, please approach the podium or raise your hand.

Otherwise, at this time, all names have been called for this item.

Thank you so much to everybody who came out to comment.

As I stated before, this is the first opportunity to hear this um charter amendment.

There needs to be two hearings, so a vote today by council would mean to move this board to a second hearing.

With that, I'll open up to council member questions.

No questions.

Councilmember Unger.

Um, so you know, it's it's no secret that I've been working on putting together a strong council manager ballot measure, and I was pretty happy with the work that I did and the product we produced in conjunction with the city attorney.

But quite frankly, I failed to muster enough support on the council to bring it to the voters, and that's on me.

Um, and while I am perfectly comfortable with uh futility, I'm not a big fan of the knowingly futile gesture, and uh I'm not gonna bring forward a measure that's destined to fail just so I can say that I did it.

I've got other windmills that I prefer to tilt at, and I think that we need charter reform, but a failed effort here would set the project back.

So I still have strong reservations about the strong mayor system.

We all pay lip service to the fact that the job of the council is legislation and budgeting, and that the actual job of getting stuff done is under the purview of the administration.

But the reality is that what our constituents want from us, 90% of the email that I get, is to perform constituent services, fix that pothole, get me a stop sign, make that dog stop barking.

So when the charter commission interviewed me, I told them that the main thing I wanted as a council member was the greater ability to perform constituent services.

What they brought me back was a plan that reduced my ability to perform constituent services.

So that didn't feel awesome.

Um, you know, currently we can come at constituent services sort of indirectly, inefficiently in a kind of orthogonal way via budget and legislation.

It's not great, but it's what we've got.

Um, but this proposal diminishes the already minimal power that we have as council members under this new plan.

The mayor, who will now directly control the city administrator and that office's entire sort of get it done staff, would also be able to control budgeting and legislation with just a minority of the council.

I'm gonna say that again.

Instead of a majority of the council making decisions, under strong mayor, a minority of the council could make those decisions.

And look, I want to agree with the mayor that this none of this is a power grab.

Nobody here is Trump, nobody here is acting in bad faith.

This is a pure good faith policy disagreement, and I appreciate all the interaction I've had with people both uh for and against.

And of course, none of this is a slight against our current mayor, who I think is the very model of a modern major mayor.

Um, and I don't think the public should need to have intimate knowledge of the org chart, right?

They they want to call their council member to get stuff done.

And I believe in the competence of our professional staff, career, long-term, non-political professional staff.

Um, the council members under strong mayor would continue to be the face of futility, even greater futility than we already are, and will essentially become shields for all of the failures of the administration.

Um, if council members lose primacy on budgeting, lose primacy on legislation, lose even more juice on constituent services, then what is a council member even for than to act as a punching bag to absorb bad vibes.

And I'm pretty good at taking a punch, but I don't know why anybody would want that job.

So, you know, if you're keeping score at home, yes, I would prefer a strong council manager system.

If strong mayor is where we end up, if that's where this council and this electorate ends up sending us, I will work hard to optimize that system and make it the best it can be for all Oaklanders.

But I just want to say this that you know, for every complicated question, there is an easy answer that's usually um very neat and tidy and also wrong.

And anyone who thinks that strong mayor or strong council manager is the panacea for what ails us is deluding themselves.

So bad personnel and bad budgeting can ruin the best systems.

I'm excited about the personnel we have now.

I'm cautiously optimistic about the budget we have now, but we're gonna need a lot more than charter reform to make the city run the way that we all hope it should.

Thank you.

Thank you, Councilmember Unger.

Council Member Guillo.

Thank you, and thank you to all of you for the information and the time uh in the community.

I was there at the meeting when this item was being presented, being discussed, but I just want to make it very clear and get to the point that I'm in favor of a strong city council, city manager form of government.

I support a city council, city manager form of government.

Uh I was here when Jerry Brown took it to the voter and became the mayor form of government.

And we've had some challenge from there to today in terms of delivering the services that we need to deliver to the community.

Now, if you look at the cities in California, 97% of the cities in California have a city council, city manager form of government.

And the Bay Area where we live in in the Bay Area, all the cities except San Francisco have a city council city manager form of government.

And the only reason, one of the reasons why San Francisco is since San Francisco is a city and county.

We're a city under the Alameda County.

And so I value the recommendations that are being presented presented on the both sides of the issue.

But I was here when Jerry Brown, I worked for Jerry Brown as manager of parks and recreation.

I saw what happened in terms of the change when at one time the mayor sit there at every meeting of the council had.

But we worked together.

And I still remember the directors of public works transportation, including me that manage parks, would sit there where every council member once a month to hear from you to take on the issues that impacted your district, your community.

And so I think that's what in saying that I can go on, but in saying that I am a strong supporter of a city council, city manager type of government, and to deliver the service to the city and have control of the future and the the budget, and but most of all, be able to have the cooperation from the city manager and our city public works directors and so forth, and have the mayor sit at every meeting, and we work together to move this city forward.

Thank you.

Thank you, Councilmember Guile.

Council Member Fife.

I want to thank the individuals uh who made themselves available to meet with us around charter reform.

It's one of the most important things that I believe needs to happen in this city.

So I want to not only thank the charter reform committee, but most of all the league and spur and the team that did these multiple community meetings to get input on uh this measure, as council member Unger stated, the majority of the obstacles that I've run into over the last six years have been constituent services, and I always feel like a terrible legislator when I have to tell constituents I can't make sure that gets done.

That is not my responsibility in actuality, it's a violation of the charter.

If I tell city staff to go pick up that illegal dumping in front of your church or in front of your community center or the host of things that constituents say, and it's just my perspective at this particular time, although I actually was one of the individuals that recruited Mayor Lee to run.

I think she is one of the best mayors the city has ever had, and I'm deeply grateful for your leadership, Mayor Lee.

Um I believe that we are coming out of some some deep challenges in the city, and we don't have the trust right now to invest in a single leader because of all of the ups and downs that Oakland has faced, and to further concentrate power in the hands of one individual is the perception that a lot of Oaklanders have right now.

So then we are then once again fighting an uphill battle about trust in local government with this ballot measure.

I it's obvious that residents agree that we need charter reform, and some individuals have expressed a desire for a strong mayor, and I want reform.

I know I want that to happen, but I'm also deeply concerned about giving away some of our powers in order to get things done in the city of Oakland.

If we're gonna place charter reform on the ballot, I think it's important that we give people options because there are other options in the state of California that are uh working, and I think that a council manager model and a strong mayor model would allow people to choose from multiple options, and that would be the ideal, I believe, um opportunity to have in things for people to choose from because we we know democracy is not simple, but it's the system that we've all committed to, and as such, we need to empower voters by placing options on the ballot.

That is my perspective.

Thank you.

Thank you, Councilmember Five.

Council Member Ramachandra.

Thank you.

Um, I too want to express my utmost appreciation for Mayor Lee for initiating this incredibly important effort that has been discussed for quite a while, but she actually put the time and resources forward to make a thoughtful process happen.

I have a lot of respect for the working group and for countless volunteer hours that you put in as well.

There is widespread agreement that what we have now isn't working.

But in my perspective, echoing what some of my colleagues just said, when it comes to the issue of service delivery of core constituent service delivery, my personal belief is that the council manager system would be better to be able to do that.

Like Mayor Lee said in her opening remarks, reasonable minds can disagree.

We are living life in Oakland in in the flesh.

This is not a political science textbook.

This is not a theoretical experiment.

This is a decision that could very seriously impact 440,000 lives here in Oakland, and I don't take it lightly.

Um I am grateful that this conversation has begun, and I think we have a ways to go to get something on the ballot.

So today I will not be supporting this proposal.

Thank you, Councilmember Ramachandra and Councilmember Wong.

Um, so I've only been in office for well, one year and one week.

Uh, and I I will say that um my blunt assessment of our city service is that it is dysfunctional, and we can all agree that you know Oaklanders deserve better.

Like we cannot even deliver the most basic of services.

We are challenged as a city.

And I think because the current system more closely mimics the council manager form of government, and I didn't, I was actually I arrived very skeptical around the strong mayor form of government based off of some of my own I would just say run-ins, honestly, even with the city administration where we had disagreements.

Um I think we need to empower a mayor to be a real change maker and to break through red tape and and the bureaucracy, and we need to empower them to make change.

And yes, there is always the chance that there could be a uh a really problematic person that we vote into office, but we cannot legislate for the worst case scenario.

We should put in guardrails, but I I also am concerned that we are then going to just calcify our existing system.

I mean, I think we can all agree that what we have right now is dysfunction.

And I think if we allow the current system to calcify in the power vacuum that currently exists, we we are not going to see improvements in to our service delivery.

Um, and I and I think given all the work that was done, we should have some version of this proposal to go before the voters.

Um I do want to see some enhancements though, some further guardrails for the worst case scenario.

Um what I see in the most fallibility in the strong mayor proposal is the potential for a mayor to hire incompetent and unqualified friends to become those department heads.

Um I did um I want to thank the mayor and her team for incorporating some of my suggestions, which allows council to essentially confirm a number of the appointments, which include human resources, the department of transportation, public works, uh as well as um finance, and that was based off of my own research when New Orleans did a charter amendment and they did a peer review around 25 strong mayor cities that showed that out of 20 of those cities, it was actually common practice to allow council then to confirm those appointments, which allows us it first of all, it allows transparency.

The other thing that allows for though is for council to vet, ensure that these department heads, because we've all seen it for ourselves, department heads that don't feel any accountability to us, and I'd like to change that and make sure that through that vetting process, they feel like we as elected officials are the boss, okay?

The collective boss.

So I'm I see some goods, I see good stuff in this proposal that it will shift the power away from unelected bureaucrats towards us wholesale as elected officials, because I think there needs to be that we hear the complaints all the time from our constituents, and I think that's just something for us to think about.

So I I just wanted to put my defense of the strong mayor proposal, strong mayor with some amendments that I'll be working on to introduce to in the second reading.

Thank you, Councilmember.

Councilmember Houston.

Through the chair, as you know, I've been um tin toes down with Mayor Barber Lee from day one.

Um this 218 is is a problem for me.

The things that I've done and I've accomplished in the 15 months I've been office under strong mayor wouldn't have happened.

I've been threatened with the 218 many times, right?

Um I want to ask the city attorney or staff of the mayor.

What's the difference between the two eighteen now and a two eighteen?

I mean, that that you're proposing.

I have a question, Councilmember.

Yeah, so the to your question on section 218.

A lot of the language currently in the charter is a lot about what council can't do.

Um, the intent from the mayor's charter reform working group of the mayor was to make it very clear around what um council can do.

And so one of the things that is in the um in the language um if you remember is that uh that um if a council reaches out to a certain department or director and kind of overstep certain bounds, that um there could be kind of certain penalties and included in that.

Wouldn't take that out and have to be very clear of like here's the things that council can do with respect to working with city departments.

We actually worked with council member Unger to include some language related to um ensuring that council we're not telling council you can't talk to city um departments or city staff, et cetera, but saying that you can talk to all staff and and coordinate with them around the various priorities that you're working on.

And then the last piece is we we did want to include the include the non-interference clause.

Um that's something that the charter reform working group, when they looked at cities across the the state and the country, is something that's pretty um it's pretty uniform in the charter just to protect city workers from interference.

But that was the thinking of so through the chair today, there was something in my district for the last eight, nine years that I had done and I had removed because it was a crime against my community and it's a public health and safety issue.

And if something comes up, they might say I did a 218 on that.

That's a what a misdemeanor?

Yeah, council member uh thank you for that question.

We in essence repeal section 218.

We eliminated a council member uh charge of a misdemeanor.

If in fact you actually uh asked for something to be done, a service to be performed in your district that has been taken out.

We put in more and more revisions per council member Unger's suggestions that council members can affirmatively talk to departments, and the only provision that's held, which is important for most cities, is no coercion in terms of attempting to be an executive to co to coerce and demand that a and city administrator do something, the demand the coercion, but in terms of any type of contact with the city administrator to ask for services to be delivered in your district, we as being a misdemeanor, that has been taken out totally, and section 218 has been completely um revised.

Through the chair, thank you, Mayor.

So I think that if we were able to hire and fire the city administrator, it'd give the power to city council to be able to move these issues that council member five, council member uh Wang mentioned about not able to get things done in our community because it's difficult.

I mean, it's a few times that did that some of the staff and called me and say, Can't what can I do for you?

And I say, Man, if I tell you, I'm gonna get a 218, right?

Um so I believe a strong manager, strong city council is is in options like my council member Fife just said to give the public options because I don't want to hold anything up that you you're doing, Madam Mayor, because it's is is you you put a lot of work in it.

I believe in you as my leader.

Um, but I think to give the public um an option would be better because they can make a choice if they wanted to do a strong mayor or a strong council manager form of government.

Um I have a couple more things to say, but I'll let my council member Brown I'll see my uh speak.

Are you ceding your time?

No, no, no.

No, no seed, I'm um so you you have two minutes and thirty seconds.

Okay, but I'm gonna let council member brown speaker.

But you're not ceding your time.

I'm not seeding my time.

Okay.

And in terms of uh what you said, council member Houston, thank you for your remarks, but this is not um about myself personally.

This is about a structural change that would give residents the understanding and clarity about who's where the buck stops.

Also, uh I have worked with council member Unger to strengthen city council's roles, responsibilities, oversight, and the ability to confirm or not confirm a variety of positions that currently are not in the charter in terms of the the key department heads that I know that you would want to be able to uh confirm or not.

And so I just want to be clear that this is not about myself, this isn't or the type of uh mayor that you would want to see uh presenting this reform it's a structural reform that ensures that there's accountability transparency the delivery of services and a mayor someone has to be responsible for the overall direction of the city the city manager slash administrator is a professional person who is managing the operations of the city the city under strong mayor the mayor makes sure that the city administrator and the departments are doing their job and that's the role of a strong mayor to have the administrator the city department heads do their job uh another hybrid in Oakland would create more confusion for residents in terms of who's responsible for what and so the residents decided and the reason I'm here again today is asking for a vote just to get it to the voters to make their own decision.

Thank you again thank you and through the chair every everybody and I'm a I'm gonna say this for myself everybody is sitting on this dice and everybody in this audience we believe in you.

So if if if we can make it a strong mayor then when you decide not to run then it comes back to us that's good.

So but what I'm saying is because we believe in you but what about that next person they'll elect the democracy works okay when people vote for who they want as mayor okay and I still got another minute so it's not personal.

Councilmember Houston are you complete?

Yeah I'm looking at the clock you got about one minute left okay all right council member Brown and then Councilmember Wong I think you have about two minutes left.

Excellent well first off I do want to just start by thanking um everyone that was a part of the mayor's working group the league spur um and as you all know when you can't when we came and you all came and presented in rules I had a lot of feedback about the proposal and so I just really want to thank the mayor and Preston for working really closely with myself and also council member Unger because you know both of us were working on the alternative the the council manager but I think it is important to note that a lot of the the changes that we were interested in in having are actually reflected in a lot of 218 and so I just wanted to to share just in case um council member houston you weren't able to um kind of see some of the things that actually I feel like most of the council was talking about of what it's like to try to get the constituent services done within the city and so in 218 it specifically says that council members and their designated staff may communicate directly to the mayor the city administrator department heads of departments and you know follow up on service requests and then in C, in section C, it also specifically says that there's C states shall provide timely and reasonable responses to council inquiries constituent service requests and shall provide council members with information necessary to perform constituent services and functions right and then as the mayor mentioned removes misdemeanor altogether right so that whole section has been appealed.

And so I think one of the public commenters mentioned the goal here isn't to provide the sun and the moon even though maybe that's what we want but I in this moment I feel that one of the most reasonable things that we can do is put the item in front of the voters so that they have the opportunity to decide um what form of government that they want to move forward with.

I also want to thank uh the mayor and the team for also um uh considering around uh citywide representation and how crucial that is um and removing that from the recommendations as well.

And so I'll you know, I'll make the motion to move this item to the next council meeting.

Um I believe that's what it would be, right?

Thank you.

And a second, Councilman Moon.

Uh I I just wanted to address to this idea around hiring and firing a city administrator and us losing our power, because I also initially thought, you know, that's an important piece of power.

But I think my conclusion, and I think you have all seen it for yourselves.

Okay, I'm all I want to surface some of the dysfunction that we have all seen collectively in our own experiences and in interacting with some of these departments is that um the dysfunction goes beyond just the top guy.

You could get rid of the city administrator.

We but we have department heads who are overseeing multi-million dollars, right?

And so I think the ex accountability needs to extend to those individuals as well, and that's how I see the system could potentially give us more authority to do that, and why I think it's important.

We even know of some department heads that I will remain unnamed, where our city administrators say they can't control them, they can't get them to come along.

So that's all I'm saying.

Okay, um, I'm gonna leave it at that because I see council president is giving me a face, but it's it's true, it's true.

This is the dysfunction that all of us are witnessing all the time.

So I just think there is I know that there was a lot of work embedded in this proposal, and I think um, unless we have two counter, which I'm open to putting both on, but I think we should leave it to the voters to vote on the strong mayor proposal.

So that's all I wanted to that I wanted to address.

And we've also seen, okay, how professional city administrators can are fallible themselves, right?

Just because they're professional doesn't mean that they can't also be flawed human beings.

So that's all I'm saying.

Thank you, Councilmember Wong.

Councilmember Houston, you want the rest of your minute.

I want to I want to say through the chair, you say somebody told the city administrator that they're not gonna do it.

They need to be fired.

That's what needs to happen.

So that's where the leadership comes in place.

You have to be bold, you have to have courage, and you have to do the right thing just in the best interest of the community.

That wouldn't happen under my watch.

Somebody told me as city administrator that they're not gonna do something, they're gone.

So um I'm done.

That's why the buck has to stop somewhere.

Uh and it has to stop with the person who's been elected to be the head of the city who people democratically elect with council's consent and uh you know, input and also it's important to recognize that and I want to conclude by just saying with the input of several council members, this is a strong mayor, strong city council, and we would not mislead the public or diminish the role of city council members, or I would not come here saying that we have increased the authority of city council members to interact and deliver services to their constituents, uh, if in fact they were not true.

And you can read it and the charter is a very um, in many ways, academic kind of document, but the sections that uh we're talking about in terms of the role of elected officials, finances, accountability, and transparency, those very narrowly focused sections have been written in a way, and the community weighed input from quite uh over 750 residents to really go through this.

And in fact, uh it does enhance city council members' authority to deliver services, oversight, budget analysis, and creates a government, a system of government where there are checks and balances and not chaos and not council members and the mayor in public trying to uh make decisions where no one knows where the buck stops.

And so it's very important that the council have their authority to override vetoes, the legislative authority, the authority authority to deliver services, and the mayor is the person who executes the agenda of the council with professional staff and expertise that is responsive to both the mayor and the city council.

Thank you, Mayor Councilmember Fife, and then we'll go to a vote.

And I'll make this quick, Council President Jenkins.

I just had some clarifying questions regarding the independent budget legislative and legislative analysts if I could get a couple answers.

We are currently in the mid-cycle budget process, and I know this analyst is not intended for this particular cycle, but for upcoming budget cycles, I want to understand how would this position with their subsequent staff impact council staffing levels and budgeting, and would that uh the the cost of these additional um staff persons come out of the general purpose fund?

How are we envisioning or how are you envisioning this independent budget and ledge analyst being funded and operating?

And who is who would lead the process?

Would it be uh city administrators' office, the mayor's office, the council?

The council members the council would lead this because it's an independent uh analyst, which the council would lead, but uh Preston will give you the details on the rest of it.

Thank you, Councilmember Fife, President Kilower, Deputy Chief Stafford Mayor Barber Lee.

Yeah, so to your question in the in the in the charter section, um, on the budget legislative analysts, the intent was to create some flexibility with the um how council envisions the budget legislative analyst.

In the existing language, it allow it allows council to uh, assuming the measure passes and is on the ballot to draft legislation to create that um that office in the way that reflects their vision for it.

Um, we wanted to keep that language somewhat broad so that we're not tying kind of council's hands on the back end to how they want to frame it and uh create it within the charter section, one of the items that is actually exempt from the veto is the creation of that budget legislative analyst office and the hiring of that one position that's included.

Um any other positions that that um the council would want to include would have to be negotiated in future budget processes, um, but I I do want to say that um uh council does have a um it's part of the charter language, there's a budget line on in veto, but that can be overridden by a majority of council, or sorry, a supermajority of council, and so if there was a wish to include additional staff at a future date, that's something that could be negotiated through the budget process going forward.

But the in terms of bringing on this position, if it's led by the council, then we are uh you know held by the Brown Act.

So, would it come from then the council president that would have a group of council members working with them and then come to council?

How what is the process about how we you envision it rolling out?

Yeah, I think the response to that council member Fife is that it's really up to council in terms of figuring out how they would want to lead that process.

If that's something that the council would wish to lead through the president's office, um, the language is very flexible to allow you to be nimble in how you would uh move that process forward.

Okay, well, I I think I was given two more minutes to speak, so I'm probably at 30 seconds.

I'll just end by saying that I have been coming to this chamber for over a decade, and um, before I was an elected official, and many of those occasions, I see some people in the audience that were here with me shutting it down because of our lack of ability to get things done in this city, and now being on this side of the dais, it is much harder than I thought than when I was over there, and that makes absolutely no sense that in 20 years, what it takes to get things done for the city in a way that benefits this city is so challenging.

And so whatever it takes that we can do as elected officials, I want to be a part of that process.

And so I am fine to put this in front of the voters because I think the voters deserve an opportunity to choose.

And my perspective is that a council manager form of government would best fit the city, but this is not my decision to make.

It is the Oakland voters, and that's what I'm comfortable moving today.

Thank you.

And as a reminder to all the council members of vote today is to move this to the next uh council meeting.

So, madam clerk.

There is a motion by council member brown, second by council member Jenkins to continue this meet this item to the next city council meeting, which will be June 16th.

Councilmember Brown, aye.

Councilmember Fife, alright.

Councilmember Gaio.

I'm for a city council, city manager form of government.

My answer is.

No.

No, thank you.

Councilmember Houston.

I had a question.

Okay.

No, I really did because let me tell you why.

Through the chair to the parliamentarian.

We're in the vote, so your discussion time is past past.

So I or no.

Let's let's start the vote over.

Councilmember Houston.

You got to get your questions in beforehand.

So we can make revisions.

We can make we can add some things to this.

It's just moving it to the next meeting, and then we can add some changes or some small revisions, correct?

It's not uh brown back requirements.

We've been uh discussing with a couple of council members' input into the charter uh and revisions, amendments uh based on the requirements of this body in terms of the Brown Act uh is moving to include ideas and amendments based on however many limits we have.

And we also we have some time frames, okay.

Go on, right.

So to add to what the mayor said, there's a limit to how many council members can work with the mayor's office on revisions because of the Brown Act, but any council member can work with our office if they want to introduce their own proposed revisions.

Right, thanks.

So we will start the vote over.

Are you complete?

All right, and before we start the vote over, because I know you're dying to know through the chair.

If you are submitting amendments to this item, they are due to my office Thursday, June 11th by 4 p.m.

Going to the vote.

Councilmember Brown.

Aye.

Councilmember Fife.

Aye.

Councilmember Gayo.

No.

Council Member Houston.

I'll move it.

Aye.

I mean, yeah, aye.

Councilmember Ramachan?

No.

Councilmember Unger?

No.

Councilmember Wong?

Aye.

And Councilmember Jenkins.

Aye.

Motion passes with a vote of five ayes, three no's.

Councilmember Gaio Anger and Ramachan.

As we are still taking items out of order, going to item 5.5.

Noting after item 5.5, we will return to the regular order of the agenda.

Item 5.5 adopts a resolution waiving advertising and competitive bidding and authorizing the city administrator to increase the construction contract change order amount for the East Oakland Arts Center project with CWS construction group from 25%.

C56% of the original contract amount of one million seven hundred eighty-five thousand dollars for a total contract amount not to exceed two million seven hundred and eighty-four thousand six hundred dollars.

And you have one speaker on this item.

Thank you so much.

Maybe just two minutes.

Does that work?

Thank you.

Yep.

All right.

Good afternoon, Council.

My name is Tess Kavanaugh, Public Works Project Manager for the East Oakland Arts Center, formerly DACA.

In Council District 6.

We are here today to request City Council approval to increase the construction contract change order amount for the East Oakland Arts Center project from 1,785,000 to 2,784 600.

During construction, the project suffered an incidence of major vandalism, which generated a significant change order, which is causing this request today.

The city team is also pursuing an insurance claim to reimburse the city for the damages caused.

So depending on how that goes, the city funds that go into this change order will be reimbursed.

Excellent.

Thank you so much, colleagues.

Any questions?

Councilmember Houston.

Yes, through the chair, I'd like to thank Director Garland for inquiring about that insurance to see if they can cover it instead of the city having to cover that and bringing that change order up to 50 over 50 percent.

So I appreciate that.

So I like that.

Thank you.

Excellent.

Colleagues, any further questions on this one, or we can go to the public speakers.

For item 5.5.

The public speaker is passing for this item.

Excellent.

Councilmember Houston.

Move it.

Excellent.

And prior to 5.5, moved by council member Houston.

Seconded by Councilmember Ramachandran to approve the staff recommendation.

Councilmember 5.

Is excused.

Councilmember Gaio.

Aye.

Councilmember Houston.

Aye.

Councilmember Ramachandran.

Aye.

Councilmember Unger.

Aye.

Your mic isn't working.

Councilmember Wong.

Aye.

And Councilmember Brown.

Aye.

Motion passes with a vote of six ayes to excuse Jenkins and five.

Going back to the regular order of the agenda that will take us back to item 5.1.

Excuse me.

No, item 4.1.

Item 4.1.

I'm gonna need a motion to open the public hearing.

So moved.

On the motion to open the public hearing, move by council member five, seconded by council member Gaio.

Council member five.

Aye.

Councilmember Gaio.

Aye.

Councilmember Houston.

Okay, he's gone too.

Councilmember Ramachandra.

Councilmember Unger.

Aye.

Councilmember Wong.

Aye.

And Councilmember Brown.

Aye.

Motion passes with a vote of six ayes.

To excuse Jenkins and Houston.

I would now read the item.

Conduct the public hearing and upon conclusion.

Adopt a resolution adopting the 26th through 2031 Oakland Local hazard mitigation Plan as an amendment to the safety element of the Oakland General Plan and adopting the appropriate sequel findings.

And there's one speaker on this item.

Excellent.

Thank you so much.

Will five minutes work?

That would be great.

Thank you.

Excellent.

Yeah, thank you.

Good evening, members of City Council.

My name is Veronica Cole.

I'm an emergency planning coordinator with the Oakland Fire Department.

If K-Top could load our presentation, that would be appreciated.

Great.

I'm here to talk to you about our 2026 local hazard mitigation plan.

I'm joined by members of our steering committee who have done great work to help to put together this plan and guide it.

To reduce risk and increase resilience equitably, the mission of the City of Oakland local hazard mitigation plan is to establish and promote a comprehensive mitigation strategy and efforts to protect the whole community and environment from identified natural and human-caused hazards.

The local hazard mitigation plan has been developed in collaboration with city staff from multiple departments, neighboring jurisdictions, community members, and other stakeholders.

It includes profiles of the hazards that are likely to impact Oakland and also includes a mitigation strategy for steps to take to reduce the impact of hazards.

An updated plan is required to access certain types of pre- and post-disaster funding.

Here you'll see an image of the City of Oakland local hazard mitigation plan with a city landscape and city logo.

New in the current, the 2026 to 2031 LHMP that's uh different than the prior one, and this is a partial list.

We have a mission goals, objectives, and actions that have been revised with a stronger emphasis on equity, updated hazard profiles and capabilities analysis with new equity analysis content.

Climate change considerations are now incorporated into the hazard profiles instead of being a standalone hazard.

And we've updated a risk ranking methodology to account for resident displacement, impacts of the economy, environment, and transportation.

Using this risk ranking, we've ranked hazards in Oakland as follows.

At a high level, we have earthquakes, severe weather, and wildfire.

Medium, we have drought, flood, landslide, and sea level rise.

And at a low level, we have dam failure and tsunami seich.

And in case you're wondering, a size is a sloshing of water in a contained bodies such as Lake Merritt or San Francisco Bay.

The LHMP has close to 75 mitigation actions, the final number is 72, that have been developed by city departments in the Port of Oakland.

It includes an annual maintenance plan that will track Oakland's progress in these actions, which will progress the city towards defined mitigation goals and objectives.

FEMA Cal Fire, US EDA, and state climate adaptation grants may supplement city resources for these projects.

Here you'll see a map of Oakland with equity priority communities and zones of liquefaction susceptibility interlaid.

In this version of the LHMP, we're including uh equity analysis and mapping, and to do so we're using the environmental justice communities that have been defined in the environmental justice component of the element of the general plan, and we have that cross-referencing.

We conducted robust community and stakeholder outreach for this effort.

Uh it was expanded from our efforts in 2021 that obviously were limited due to the pandemic.

We've conducted outreach to over to approximately 300 individuals through presentations and forums for public comment.

We've held multilingual in-person meetings at trusted locations in equity priority communities, including West Oakland, Chinatown, downtown, Fruitville, and East Oakland.

We conducted online community forums during our public comment period, and we held a multilingual public survey that received 131 responses and maintained a website and email interest list.

I want to talk a little bit about AB 2140 compliance.

This requires that the general plan safety element to adopt the LHMP.

If we're compliant with AB 2140, additional post-disaster funding related to federal public assistance may be available, but note that this is not guaranteed.

As an example, typical local cost share, if federal public assistance is activated, is 25%.

Through the California Disaster Assistance Act or CDAA, the state can pay up to 18.75% of this cost share.

And if we're fully compliant with AB 2140, the state is allowed to pay the remaining cost share, which could bring Oakland's cost share to zero percent.

I have a timeline here, but we have an update.

May 1st we did submit to Cal OES.

I'm sorry, Cal OES submitted the LGMP to FEMA.

Since this time we've received a FEMA approval pending adoption note uh letter.

So we do have that.

Um May 20th, we've been to the planning commission.

We visited and presented to the public safety committee on May 26th, and we're here tonight to talk to you on June 2nd.

On an ongoing basis, we're going to be implementing these mitigation actions, and we'll hold our first annual update in progress report process in the spring or summer of 2027.

And there's a website here to learn more www.oaklandca.gov slash oakland hazard plan.

This concludes my presentation.

Excellent.

Thank you so much for the update.

Um colleagues, any questions?

Excellent.

And we can hear from the public speaker.

That's a caring name, please approach the podium in any order.

Please state your name for the record.

Please raise your hand on Zoom so I can easily identify you if you submitted a card for this item.

I have one speaker, Juan Carlos Hernandez, and I believe he's on Zoom.

Mr.

Hernandez, please unmute yourself and begin your comments.

Good afternoon.

My name is Juan Carlos Hernandez.

I'm an attorney with Arms Davis Law in San Francisco.

I'm here today on behalf of my client, Jose Gloria Reyes.

Mr.

Reyes is a local construction worker who works in the city of Oakland.

His vehicle was hit by an Oakland fire department truck in October of last year, requiring over $20,000 in repairs.

In February, my firm sent a public entity claim to the city attorney's office inside the public entity claim.

We included a police report, which found Oakland Fire Department to be at fault as well as repair bills.

Four months have passed since we submitted the public entity claim with no response.

Our firm is being forced to pursue civil litigation where damages and liability is clear.

In fact, I have a complaint ready to be filed in superior court.

The city will spend time and precious tax money defending a claim that they will lose.

Before this, I asked the city council and the city attorney's office to make this right.

Thank you.

Thank you for your comments.

That was the only speaker for this item.

Excellent.

Thank you so much.

Councilmember Wong.

Um, I'll just say since this came through the public safety um committee.

Thank you for your work on this since I know that this work will basically unlock the FEMA funding that we very much need.

So I appreciate it, and I do want to go ahead and move the item.

Thank you.

Excellent.

And that's also to close the hearing as well.

Excellent.

Thank you so much.

Councilmember Unger.

Second.

Through the through the chair to the parliamentarian.

I'm not sure if you caught the public speaker.

What was that?

Or if there's anyone that can share with me the litigation claim that was just made.

Uh through the chair to Councilmember Five, I did hear the comment, but I don't have information on that claim.

So it's nothing that the city has received to date that you are aware of about whatever was just stated.

Oh, is it related to this item?

It didn't sound like it that it was.

I didn't catch the full comment, that's why I'm asking.

I'm not aware of how it was related to that to the item.

Thank you.

Excellent.

Um council member Guile.

Okay, excellent.

So we have a motion and a second.

There is a motion by council member Wong, second by Council Member Unger to close the public hearing and adopt the resolution.

Councilmember Vi?

Aye.

Councilmember Gaio.

All right.

Councilmember Houston.

Aye.

Councilmember Ramachandran.

Aye.

Councilmember Unger.

Aye.

Council Member Wong.

I and Councilmember Brown.

Aye.

Motion passes with a vote of seven ayes.

One excuse Council President Jenkins.

Moving on to item 4.2.

I need a motion to open the public hearing.

Second.

The motion by Councilmember Gaio, second by council member five to open the public hearing.

Council Member Five.

Aye.

Councilmember Gaio.

Aye.

Councilmember Houston.

Councilmember.

Councilmember Ramachandron.

Hi.

Councilmember Unger.

Aye.

Councilmember Wong.

Aye.

Councilmember Brown.

Aye.

Motion passes with a vote of seven eyes.

I will now read the item into record.

Conduct the public hearing and upon conclusion, adopt an ordinance, amending ordinance number one three eight four eight.

Which adopted the fiscal year 25 through 26 master fee schedule as amended to establish modifying delete fees and penalties assessed by the city of Oakland for fiscal year 26 through 27.

I don't have any speakers on this item.

Excellent.

Thank you so much.

Um five minutes work.

I'll make excellent things.

Yeah, good afternoon.

My name is Chuck Maurer.

I'm a principal revenue analyst in the revenue bureau with the finance department.

First off, want to say a quick thank you to uh Jonathan Lowen, Jose Secura, two of my other team members who worked on sort of coordinating and putting together the departmentals uh departmental submissions for the MFS update here.

Uh if K-Top could uh put up the uh PowerPoint presentation belief for you, and I will quickly go through the different slides here.

Thank you very much here.

The following item presented recommends the city council to conduct a public hearing and upon conclusion to adopt an ordinance to admit and the master fee schedule ordinance 13848 for fiscal year 2627.

Public outreach was conducted via newspaper 10 days in advance of this hearing.

So the master fee schedule for 2627 documents fees and charges imposed by the city to recover its costs providing services.

The proposed amendment amends the 2526 MFS includes new fees, deleted fees, and fee increases.

Um decided that their fees were not going to be changed in for this 2627 master fee schedule cycle.

These are the fees that these were the departments that decided that their fees were going to be um changes needed to be made made to their fees here.

Uh the they were direct departments were directed to include a 3% increase to be um defray some of the increases in health care, workers' comp and opeb expenses that the city incurred for the next fiscal year.

So the next following slides are just kind of some highlights of some of the fee changes that were made in the master fee schedule.

The complete changes in the fees can be found in your packet here.

So some of the some of these are just some highlighted fees here.

So for example, animal services added administrative citation collection referral fee.

Um the city attorney um did uh increase their neighborhood law attorney fees by about 43% pursuant to their ordinance.

City clerk did reduce its uh election some election filing fees.

Um the finance department um moved the excess litter fee from the finance department over to public works.

Um the fire department did put on a new platinum check processing fee for planning permits, and they made a reduction in engine company inspection and reinspection fees.

Parks and rep, they uh modestly increased their swimming fees to better align with uh what's being charged in neighboring cities, and uh public works did decrease some fees based upon some benefits overhead as well as adding a creek protection permit fee.

Um housing and community development, the road uh rental adjustment program or wrap fees, uh, were unchanged this year, and um planning and building uh decreased did increase some fees uh due to system improvements uh over the past year.

Information and technology, a lot of the fees haven't been charged in years, so they've just discontinued their fees that they that they've charged.

Um, did uh in increase some parking fees above that three percent and uh workplace and performance standards removed two fees um as the funding changed to the internal service funds.

At this point here, we have um representatives from the different departments here.

We have some different sorry Brad.

Um we have we have representatives from different departments.

So you if you guys have specific questions for departmental fees, um through the chair, what I'll do is I'll invite uh the department representative to go up so they can give you kind of more like detailed uh answers regarding their fees.

Um Brad, I can just turn it over to you.

Thank you, Chuck.

Bradley Johnson, director of finance.

I do want to note a technical change in one of the exhibits, um, to make sure this is read in the record under the economic and workforce development department on this is on page M of your attachment under the nuisance enforcement unit item G, overtime service fee for reinspection after failing secondary inspection for one the cannabis officer and two the special activity permit inspector that currently is 550 and 447 per hour.

They should read it's 550 and 447 per incident.

So I want to make sure that that's understood.

Um that's a technical direction we'd like to make and read into the record now.

Thank you.

Excellent, thank you so much.

And are you complete?

Yes, I'm complete.

Thank you.

Perfect.

Um, I do have a couple questions.

If I was just to start it off.

Um, so the first question that I had, if someone can explain a little bit more about the transfer of the excess litter fee into public works, sure.

No problem.

And through the chair, I would like to, I guess, bring up someone from finance, Brad.

Would you be the best person to answer that question?

And administrator Lake also has.

I will defer to the the acting city administrator.

Yes.

So the excess litter fee program is being rolled into public works overall strategy around um illegal dumping.

So it's being moved from our office to OPW.

Excellent, but no um shifts and changes to the fee itself because that actually requires us to go to the voters, I believe.

Correct.

Okay, perfect, thank you.

Um, and then the other question, um, I just kind of want to raise this as a flag, which is under the OPRYD, and increasing the fees for swimming specifically for our seniors.

I just wanted to get some more clarity around that increase.

Sure, no problem.

And through the chair, I would like to uh bring up a representative of OPYRD, which would be today, which would be let's see, good afternoon.

Excellent, thank you.

Um, and so I I believe that I brought this question up last time when the master fee schedule came, um, and then may perhaps it was explained that when the seniors come to uh any to receive any kind of resource within the city of Oakland.

Is it true that if they're paying the membership fee, maybe they're not paying this additional fee?

Um, maybe you can add clarity.

Because I guess I'm just concerned with the cost going up.

Right.

So it it depends on the on the facility.

On the depends on the facility that they had sent.

If they, for example, they're in the sports, Stokeland Sports Center, Larry Reed Sports Center.

Um, their swimming, it's already included in their membership.

Okay.

If they go to an outdoor facility, there are different uh memberships.

And so it depends on the amount of uh laps they're gonna they're purchasing through that membership.

I see, and so is the only swimming center that has a membership, the one in District 7 in comparison to the other pools.

So that membership is for the whole uh facility.

It is in the district seven, and includes not just the pool, but again, the whole facility, which has a weight room and other amenities.

I see.

And then do you have some insight into why we decided to increase the fee?

Just to uh match our neighbor cities and also the city, the the fees have now been increased in the past decade, um and the the cost of uh maintenance for the pools.

Um thank you so much.

Um I also believe that we increased the fee during the last last year.

Uh so just maybe maybe you can double check right.

I yeah, yeah, because I was looking at the master fee schedules side by side, and and that's how it came out with the whole uh rationale that hasn't been include uh increased.

Okay.

But we can double check for sure.

Okay, excellent.

Well, I um I see that most of my colleagues' mics are on, and so if you want to double check on that one just to double check, because I thought that last year I asked the same questions and I kind of had the same flag about the increase.

Um, and so we'll start with council member Gaio, Councilmember Unger, and then Councilmember Wong.

I was oh okay.

Can you turn on his mic?

Thank you.

Councilmember Guyo, Councilmember Ramashandran, Unger, and then Wong.

Thank you.

The question that I have has to is regarding animal services if there's a representative here.

Uh certainly I appreciate that the development and the growth this has occurred, and for the members of the public, uh, the majority three percent increase in fees, what does that apply to?

Sure, no problem.

Uh through the chair, I'd like to bring up Joe DeVries for animal services to answer your question.

Thank you.

Ah, and I was just notified that Joe DeVries from Animal Services is not here right now.

Okay.

Sure, and the chair to Councilmember Gaio, the 3% increases are generally to cover the standard cost increases that we saw between the prior fiscal year and the current fiscal year.

We do this retrospectively one year back.

Um, and so those are uh being applied to a series of fees across the board and crop in the city, and so that's a general increase you would see to keep up with the cost of providing services across the city.

Uh the increase in animal services is not due to any particular item uh or increase if it's at simply the three percent number.

So simply the call the cost of doing business to help us with our staffing needs that we have staffing, supplies, materials, etc.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you, Councilmember Gaio, and then Councilmember Ramashandran.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Um, couple of quick questions.

What led to the 40 something percent increase for the neighborhood uh law core fees?

Is this in the course of litigation to uh account for their increased billing rate?

Like what's what's that increase for?

Sure.

And at this point, through the chair, I would like to defer to uh the city attorneys represented for the master fee schedule member.

Yes, through the charity council member on Chandra.

Was your question about the neighborhood law core fee increase?

Yes, this is pursuant to um an update in the salary ordinance.

So this was this increase was already adopted by council by prior ordinance.

So we're simply updating the fees to make it consistent with that.

Okay, thank you.

And then the new fee around creek protection, can you explain that one a little more?

Um, yes, I'd like to defer to the department who has this fee.

Thank you.

Good afternoon, Tom Morgan Public Works.

Um, the addition of this creek protection fee is for level three and level four reviews of creek protection permits, because previously there were um there was no fee for the public works part of the uh review of the plans.

Thank you.

But just to clarify, someone would need to apply for this creek protection permit if they're voluntarily doing creek restoration work.

No, it's part of the um construction.

Okay, okay, great.

Thank you.

And then my last question is around street parking.

There's a number of parking proposal, modest increases to various things, but what about um is there any proposal to metered parking on the street?

Uh through the chair, I'd like to defer the department that brought up the uh street fees.

Good afternoon.

I'm Doug Mount on the DOT.

And I work specifically with uh can you make sure you're speaking into the mic?

Yeah.

I beg your pardon?

Can you make yeah, let's make sure that's it?

I'm Doug Mount, I work with DOT.

I specifically work with the off-street parking program, and I think your question is about rates for parking garages.

No, metered parking on the street.

Uh I don't think I can answer that actually.

What was your question though?

Perhaps I can.

Was there an increase from street metered parking?

I don't believe there's an increase, no.

Okay, thank you.

That's it.

Excellent.

Thank you so much, Councilmember Unger.

I said there was no increase.

Okay.

Okay.

No change.

Uh this might be the same department before you go too far.

Um, I have a question about um towing of stolen vehicles.

We've had some some complaints about folks who are asked to pay inordinate fees for their stolen vehicles to be after they're towed, it's sort of the adding insult to injury fee at somebody who had bought a motorcycle for $1,500 and was charged $1,500 for towing or $500 to abandon it.

Sure, no problem.

Um to the chair, could you give me just a second to see what department that I should bring up to actually be able to uh answer that fee for a sec?

Very fake.

Um, in the meet did you have more questions, Councilmember Unger, or just that one?

Okay.

Well, while we look for a representative, maybe Councilmember Wong.

Did was your hand up?

Yep, thank you.

Um I think it's less of a well, I've a question directed at finance in in general because this cuts across a number of the departments.

I I do have some concerns just in general about the fee schedule.

I have been getting a number of emails and complaints about um some of the high cost of these fees, and my own experience, I'll I'll just say, is I had work with the Department of Transportation, and I do see that work being reflected in this, but then that to me shows that there's opportunities to lower fees.

So, colleagues, just for your awareness, um, within the Department of Transportation, we have a fee that was uh the encroachment permit.

So essentially be given some of the crimes that we've experienced here in the city of Oakland, especially crimes by which people drive cars into storefronts, and then you know it costs a lot of money.

There were a number of small businesses that were interested in storefront hardening, essentially putting in like a planter box, something like that in in the front, and the fee for that, if you look at it, is actually around uh 1,994 dollars.

But we have worked with the Department of Transportation to actually create something called like a minor encroachment, bringing down the collective fee down to like 400, which you know, for a small business that is challenged with all the costs of running a small business.

Um, I know we have, you know, we have restrictions, right?

We have to buy state law, do cost recovery, but that was to me an example of where there are opportunities to create minor versions of the permits and lower fees for the businesses and residents and for so many of the things, whether it's building housing, and I hear about thousands of dollars out the door, not for the construction costs, but for all the fees that are added.

I just think that there I I want to push the departments overall to look at these fee schedules.

Look at really are we lowering this to the most that we can?

Um, and uh yeah, I just wanted to see if that was part of the directive that was given to departments or not, really.

It was more of a we're we're going to index this based off of CPI.

Right.

What they what they were directed to do is if they see any this because of the increases to things like OM, you know, PG<unk>E is up a lot, you know, everything's costing a little bit more, uh, the fringe benefits, our health care.

We looked at those fees and said, well, you know, we need to bring them up a little so we can capture those fees, and we're not, you know, these fees are just purely for cost recovery.

We're not trying to make a profit off of them, but we're just trying to recover those fees, and because our fees, you know, we didn't have a we didn't have a cola increase last year, so there was no fees on there that that because of inflation as we all see and those sorts of things, and you know, that there was a decision in finance, Brad could probably thresh it out a little bit more to raise it up to to capture like that OMM, those fringe, those health care that just naturally go goes up each year.

And I understand that, but I think what I'm pointing out is that for example, this new miter encroachment permit.

The department realized that reflected the actual staff time that we were to allow a small business to put in a planter box, it wasn't going to cost the two thousand dollars that we would have otherwise charged them.

So um, you know, and there's other things like uh the the cost of putting up a an event in a park.

I was helping a nonprofit look at San Antonio Park.

It was like $381 to, you know, to have this event, every food free truck on top of that is another $381.

It really adds up, and I just I want to push departments in general to do that same sort of opportunity searching that Oak Dot did, and I don't know if I see that reflected in this document.

So uh to respond broadly to your question around that, Councilmember Wong.

The direction in general as regards to master fee schedule is to ensure that we're Prop 26 compliant, which means that we have to uh charge fees that are within the reasonable cost of the provision of the service.

There is inherently some some level of aggregation that has to happen in that process.

As departments go through and reevaluate programs, it will often reevaluate fees directly, but that normally comes in hand in hand with programmatic looks at the specific operation.

The departments don't have the internal capacity to reevaluate all of their services and programs collectively every single master fee cycle, so the specific fees that you see being changed often by more or less than the notes the amounts noted are often have had that analysis, and that's typically what you see for the broad set of fees.

Normally we would see the a broader increase in those amounts to capture the full cost of providing our services, which is consistent with our roadmap to fiscal health and our effort to ensure that we have full cost recovery for all city expenses to the extent possible.

Excellent.

Councilmember Wong, are you complete?

Yeah, I'm complete.

Excellent, thank you so much.

And I believe there was an outstanding question.

There was an outstanding question.

I have uh Jonathan right there trying to take a look for the towing they specifically towing fees, which I'm not sure I would have.

Thank you.

And through the trader council member unger, the tow fees that were mentioned are actually not city fees.

They're fees that are actually related to our towing vendor, and the appropriate point to address those if there is concern is in the renegotiation of our tow contract.

So they're not city fees, they're the vendor that's a selected fees, and the towing contract is the place to address them.

When does that come up?

I do not know off the top of my head, but I think it's relatively soon.

Cool, thank you.

Excellent.

Um, thank you all so much.

And then I just wanted to follow up on my question about the fees for the swimming, and if it was annual, like, do do we last year did we increase the fees for um the swimming pools for our seniors, and then this year we're also doing the same?

Because that was the statement that was made.

Right.

I think and I I'll defer once again to OPYRD to see if they their memory had they have additional information on that.

Thank you for your patience.

Uh so after checking the notes, the fees were increased three years ago.

Um, and so with the current fees, we're looking about less than uh than three dollars for a 30 swing pass for seniors.

Um in addition to that, currently the East Oakland Latter Vita Support Center, uh it's intake in insurance uh programs, such as uh Silver Sneakers, One Sign Pass, and Silver and seal rent feed, would help the seniors subsidize their memberships and the times they go on to um onto the sports center to take your suites.

Excellent.

Thank you for that update.

Um and then I also heard that there was a subsidy, I believe that was provided through Kaiser, but there was some there was some issues in trying to move that forward, so hopefully, so that is the one pass.

Okay.

That is the one pass, and and so it's participating.

And if the seniors want to move that service to any other pool, we will have to open up the whole process that it took a while to, but there is a lightning, yes.

Okay, excellent.

Okay, thank you so much for that update.

Um Council Member Wong.

Thank you.

Sorry.

Uh this is a question for Oak Dot.

I noticed some substantial increases in some of the parking garage fees, and um, you know, I think we've collectively gotten a lot of questions around our parking policies and the increases in the fees, such as you know, the removal of Sunday free parking, and I know that we have challenges with the budget, but um it looks like these are being driven by our garage operators.

Can we hear more about why we're doing that?

It just we're competing with Walnut Creek, who you know you go over there and you get completely free parking.

So, um, I I would love to just hear more about this.

Right, and uh through the chair, I'd like to defer to the departmental representative.

Um good evening, Jamie Parks, assistant director with DOT.

Thank you for the question.

Uh, in general, the parking garage rate changes are increasing the maximum to provide additional flexibility to work with the operators.

In most cases, the actual amounts charged will be lower than that.

Uh, but we haven't in we have not increased the maximum fees in several years, and so it's keeping up with the market to to give us flexibility to set the rates.

Excellent.

Is that good?

Council Member Wong?

Sorry, it does, and then I have a question for planning and building, which is just there's some extremely high fees under planning and building in the thousands, and and we know that we can always engage with the departments in larger discussions as well, and a lot of these items come through CED, um, and so I welcome partnering with you with any of the questions around like with the departments that are kind of under that committee, so planning and building, economic and workforce development, um, as well as HCD, just in case, but they're here okay, right.

And I'd like to uh defer uh through the chair, I'd like to defer to the departmental representative through the chair, uh Albert Moretta Director for Planning and Building.

Thank you.

Yeah, so there are a couple of fees in here, especially for like rezoning, um, where it's upwards of thousands of dollars.

Why, why is that?

Which fee in particular?

Uh well, I mean, give me a moment while I pull it up.

No public speakers, okay.

So I mean, these are just very obscure things.

Uh, they're very obscure, but in collect in collective, what I hear is from people who are trying to build out like create more housing, you know, create new businesses is that these fees become a lot.

And so uh I'll I'll give an example where it's like this zoning condition of approval compliance.

I have no clue what this means.

It's we're actually bringing that down.

Okay, um, and there are a number of fees uh, I believe it was uh council member Ramatra uh that brought up the question.

We are constantly looking at our fees and improving our processes and seeing how we can bring them down.

If you look at our recommendations, there are a number of fees that we're bringing down because we have made some process improvements that has allowed us to bring them down.

Okay, that's good.

What is this planned final question?

Then I know we need to move on.

Planned unit development.

This is $25,000.

What is that about?

Which one is it?

And I know this is not a substantial increase, but why is it just so high to begin with?

Applications under the Oakland zoning regulations, planned unit development preliminary, $25,000.

So our fees are directly related to the cost that we have to incur to provide the service.

So we did a fee study where we had an independent consultant that came in and did the fee studies.

So what the fees that you see are reflected on that study that they did, and I can send that over to you.

I think we brought that to council right before you joined us.

So I'll get that to you so you can take a look at it.

Excellent.

Thank you so much.

Okay.

Thank you.

And so I believe we have no um public comment on this item.

So I'll make a motion to go ahead and to close the hearing and move this item.

Just need a second.

Thank you.

Oh, with the um amendment.

This item was moved by council member brown, second by council member guillo to close the public hearing and approve on introduction as amended.

If this um is voted in the affirmative, the final passage will be June 16th.

Council Member Brown.

I'm sorry, not Councilmember Brown.

Council Member Five.

Aye.

Councilmember Gaio.

Aye.

Council Member Houston.

Aye.

Council Member Ram.

Councilmember Ramachandran.

Councilmember Unger.

Aye.

Council Member Wong.

No.

And Councilmember Brown.

Aye.

Noting Council President Jenkins is excused.

Motion passes with a vote of six ayes.

One excuse Jenkins, one no wong.

And again, final passage for this item will be June 16th.

Going to item 4.3.

I need a motion to open the public hearing.

So moved.

Second.

Another motion by Councilmember Brown, seconded by Council Member Gaio to open the public hearing.

Councilmember Five.

Aye.

Council Member Guill.

Aye.

Council Member Houston.

Aye.

Councilmember Ramachandran.

Aye.

Councilmember Unger.

Aye.

Councilmember Wong.

Aye.

Councilmember Brown.

Aye.

Motion passes with a vote of seven ayes, one excused Jenkins.

I will now read the item.

Conducts a public hearing, and upon conclusion, adopt a resolution confirming the Oakland landscaping and lighting assessment district fiscal year 26 through 27 engineers report and the levying of assessments.

And I don't have any speakers on this item.

Excellent.

Thank you so much.

We'll hear from staff on this.

Um and I believe we've well, I think we've heard this maybe a couple times, so maybe just two minutes on this.

Sure, yeah.

That works.

So good afternoon, council members and members of the public.

Through the chair, I am Jose Segura, Assistant Revenue Tax Administrator with the Finance Department.

Today I am presenting a resolution to confirm the fiscal year 2026-27 Engineers Report for the City of Oakland's landscaping and lighting assessment district, commonly known as the LAD, and to levy the fiscal year 2026-27 corresponding assessments.

The LAD is authorized under California Landscaping and Lighting Act of 1972, which allows local governments to fund the maintenance of public landscaping and lighting improvements.

For fiscal year 2026-27, there are no changes to district boundaries.

There are no changes to assessment rates.

The LAR uh does not include an annual inflationary adjustment.

So any increase in assessment rates would require voter approval.

As a result, annual assessments for single family residential properties will remain at 102.64 cents in zone one and one hundred and eleven dollars and 111.54 cents in zone two as shown on table nine of the report.

The total assessment revenues estimated at approximately 18.75 million.

And our assessment engineer from Francisco and Associates is also available via Zoom, and we are available to take any questions.

Thank you.

Excellent.

Thank you so much.

Colleagues, any questions?

Councilmember 5 and then Councilmember Guillaume.

Just really quickly, is there an annual escalator in our lab?

No, it will require for uh to go back to the voters in order to escalate.

So it hasn't increased since 1993.

Fiscal year 9394 is the last time that there was an increase in the rates.

Wow.

Okay, thank you.

I make a motion to approve staff's recommendation.

Second.

And is that same motion to approve the resolution and close the public hearing?

Thank you.

We have a motion by Councilmember Guy, second by council member Brown to close the public hearing and adopt the resolution.

Council Member Five.

Aye.

Councilmember Guy.

Aye.

Councilmember Houston.

Aye.

Councilmember Ramachandran.

Hi.

Councilmember Unger.

Aye.

Councilmember Wong.

Aye.

Council Member Brown.

Aye.

Noting that Councilmember Jenkins is excused.

The motion passes with a vote of seven ayes.

I believe that was your final public hearing.

Moving to the non-consent portion of this agenda starting with item 5.1.

Adopt an ordinance authorizing a fiscal year 26 through 27 increase in the rate of property tax imposed by excuse me by voter approved measures and fixing the rate of property tax and levying a tax on real and person and personal property in the city of Oakland for fiscal year 26 through 27 for the emergency medical services retention act of 1997, measure M, the Paramedic Services Act of 1997, Measure N, the Library Services Retention and Enhancement Act, Measure C, the Oakland Community Violence Reduction Act, Emergency Response Act of 2024, Measure N, the 2018, Oakland Public Library Preservation Act, Measure D, the 2020 Oakland Parks and Recreation Preservation, Litter Reduction and Homelessness Support Act, Measure Q, the Children's Initiative Act of 2018, Measure AA, the 2022 Oakland Zoo Animal Care Education Improvement Ordinance, Measure Y, and the Wildfire Prevention Financing Act of 2024, Measure M.

You have two speakers.

Excellent.

Thank you so much for bringing this item.

Will five minutes be enough or do you need more?

Okay, thank you.

Good afternoon again through the chair, uh, council members, members of the public.

I am Jose Sayuda Assistant Revenue and Tax Administrator Administrator with the Finance Department.

Uh the proposed ordinance implements the annual cost of living adjustments for voter approved local measures for fiscal year 2026-27 under the Oakland City Charter ordinances are considered over two reading two readings at separate city council meetings.

So today's action constitutes the first reading of the proposed ordinance.

The proposed rate adjustments range from 2.2% to 6.4%, depending on the measure and the corresponding provisions approved by the voters.

The measures are expected to generate approximately 186.6 million dollars in total revenue across all nine measures in fiscal year 2026-27, including approximately 9.4 million in additional revenue attributable to the annual rate uh adjustments.

Um Francisco Associates who assisted in preparing the calculations for this rate increases is also available via Zoom, and we are available to take any questions.

Thank you.

Excellent.

Thank you so much.

Um, colleagues, any questions on this item?

Uh Councilmember Guillo.

Yes, um, for the public's information, these are rates that have been approved by the voter.

Correct.

So uh through the chair, so each measure has a certain escalator that that was um authorized or approved by at the time that the measures were um voted on by the uh public.

So because that allows the annual uh potential annual increases, uh we we are not required to go back to the voters.

And the funds that will be allocated will be allocated to specifically what the measures call for.

Exactly.

Yeah, they are restrictive for that for those purposes.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you, Councilmember Guyo.

Um Councilmember Wong.

Hi, thank you for this item.

Um I have I have some concerns.

Um, so uh the way that I read some of this report is that the council has the authority to raise these taxes up like up to like there were some where we're raising them in the proposal like five to six percent, and that basically that was the max.

And so instead of um we were basically using that discretion to take the max in this set, correct?

Uh in this particular year, yes, that is correct.

So because we are living in uh um high inflationary times, um, oftentimes the um or over the last couple of years the rate increases have come close or at the maximum allowed.

Um in some cases it's capped at five percent, in other cases it's based on CPI or the um per capital uh um income in the region.

And so because we are living in high inflationary times, uh the uh rates are um essentially being at the maximum level um in this current period, um, but it it's not always the case.

Um in other years it could be lower, and it typically ranges between two and five percent, usually.

Right, and uh so what was missing in the report for me was whether we're actually spending down all of these measures.

It was, for example, measure Q as I understood it.

Now, although the last time I talked to Director Garland, maybe the money was being spent is that there was a lot of money that we're collecting, and then we're not actually spending them, and then we're gonna raise the taxes on folks.

So I just I need assurances that for every single one of these measures.

Look, I'm I will I'm I'm someone who is a proponent of taxation as long as we're going to give people the services that they deserve, but I'm not gonna be a proponent of raising taxes if there is not the demonstrated need, and so that is something that I need to see at the second um reading of this, is to see what is the what is in reserves for each of this.

Is it being completely spent down?

Is it actually needed in order to for me to vote for this?

So thank you.

So uh through the chair, so this is more on the um expenditure side.

Um so I'm not sure if Director Johnson can um maybe the chair to Councilmember Wong uh Brown Johnson's director of finance.

So I will note that these expenditure increase these revenue increases are included in your proposed budget.

I don't know that your budget document contains the details of both the fund balances and proposed spending plans for all these measures, which is the space where you would see any of that detail.

So it's uh we typically have not included that in each of these reports because they're tailored to the space of the revenue raising on the measure per the Muni code and the text of these measures.

However, the budgetary spaces where we would look at one usage of the funds to expenditure of the fund balance, and those funds should it exist for any particular purpose and noting the introductory and projected spending on any of these funding sources, and then I guess while while we have you, Brad, um I know that sometimes depending on the fund, uh it boils down to project delivery, and then that is one of the main reasons why uh things can move slower.

It is absolutely true.

There are numbers, there are a number of these funding sources where we will see funds committed over a multiple year time span.

We may have a maintenance project that operates across fiscal years, so we may not have spent all the money in one year and it's because it's moved into next year to complete set project.

You may see the same thing with investments in large materials and supplies in our libraries and other similar things.

So it's not uncommon that you'll see multi-year spending through the carrier forward process that eventually result in a full spend.

Excellent.

Thank you so much.

Um council member Wong.

So in reading the budget document and then comparing it to these tables, how can we know if that there may be a situation like you just like mentioned?

If if it looks like there's remaining funds and you're saying it may not reflect that we actually do need to nonetheless raise the rates on this.

So I would say, as a general rule, you would want to see whether or not you're seeing uh one, does the particular measure have a positive fund balance or negative fund balance to begin with?

That would be your first clue.

And then two, from the beginning end, is that fund balance rising, falling, or staying the same?

That would be the first clue I would give to it.

I would note that as a rule, the largest cost of most of these measures is um personnel costs and then secondarily utilities.

I'm gonna give you one specific example because you mentioned measure Q.

Measure Q's largest component, about two-thirds of it is spent on park maintenance.

The other major source of parks maintenance funding is the LAD, which is the item you just approved on your agenda, and we noted talking to council member as council member Fife answered asked, does not have a CPI.

And so one of the things that you see happening in measure Q is measure Q is actually absorbing a lot of the fact that the services provided by the LAD do not are not able to be maintained by the LA because the LAD has not been increased in its rate since 1993.

And so that kind of interplay exists across multiples of these measures when we're looking at a your budget process that has to consider all of these services collectively, and often you see uh a service effort funded in multiple spaces in order to provide its current level of service.

Right.

No, and I completely agree.

I want to make sure that the the services that we need the funding, but I'm like, I don't know, is the zoo struggling, for example?

These are the things that I um that I question, but I I will look at the budget book for the next time we have this item.

I'm happy to engage with you more with questions offline.

Okay, so we're looking for a motion.

So moved and to close the public hearing.

Second.

On the motion by Councilmember Brown, seconded by Council Member Ramachandran to approve this ordinance on introduction, Councilmember Brown.

Aye.

Council Member Fife.

Aye.

Councilmember Gaio.

Aye.

Councilmember Houston.

Aye.

Council Member Ramachandran.

Aye.

Councilmember Unger?

Aye.

Councilmember Wong.

Aye.

Chair Jenkins.

Motion motion passes with a vote of eight ayes going to item 5.3, as we've already dispensed with item 5.2.

We see an information report from the chair of Oakland Mayor's Commission on Persons with Disabilities regarding their status and recent activities.

I have three speakers on this item.

Thank you.

Thank you for coming to see us.

Can you put four minutes on the clock?

Okay.

Hi, I am Anwar Perudi.

I chair Oakland's Commission on People with Disabilities.

Joining me in the chamber are our vice chair, uh Fatima Are and our AA programs division head on Wynne.

Um, in case we haven't met before, the Commission on People with Disabilities is a city commission established in 1980 to serve and address issues of people with disabilities, where an 11 member body of uh volunteers with domain expertise on people with disabilities across all fields, many fields.

And while our report det uh details our many accomplishments and correspondences over the past year on uh giving feedback on individual projects all the way up through long-range planning and working with outside groups.

Um, I am here today to address some of the challenges that we also bring up in the bring up in the report, uh, chiefly on the staffing of our ADA programs division.

Um that division right now has two full-time employees according to a report we commissioned um from an outside consultant, Michael Baker International, in 2016 as part of our um transition plan, uh we clearly we clearly need at least four employees for the uh division to be properly staffed.

Um we have tried to we have tried to fund those positions in the past, but that funding um was frozen and even within the past year, those positions were moved elsewhere and essentially eliminated, meaning that we have gone backwards and funding our um services for people with disabilities in Oakland.

Um to uh talk about how critical that is, I can give like some personal examples of how this um has impacted me recently.

Just last week, trying to walk to a friend's house on the sidewalk, I ran head first into some improperly parked construction equipment.

Um, an eminently avoidable problem, struck my head, which is still injured, um, was stunned from the um like physical trauma, bleeding on the street with uh no one around.

Um, and feeling shocked, frustrated, and humiliated at my inability to like just walk around my own city.

This is a regular occurrence for me and for many other Oaklanders.

Um, in our outreach for the general plan, we heard from Oaklanders and wheelchairs that a full 25% of the trips that they attempt to make um end in failure, that they just have to turn back after starting because of some unexpected um obstruction or construction or things like that.

Um, these are issues that are eminently avoidable and that our uh division is built to prevent if it's properly staffed.

Um the fact that it is not properly staffed also has massive financial implications.

Uh a quick look at the city attorney city attorney's uh annual reports demonstrates three to eighteen million dollars that we're paying per year in litigations and settlements on infrastructure alone.

Um, that is not including the massive landmark quo round settlement that we uh reached in the past year, nor the ongoing Smith litigation and who knows what else, other like sidewalk and ship and falls and things that are constantly happening.

Um, mitigating even one of those lawsuits um from staff from hiring additional staff would cover their salary for anywhere from one to twenty years by itself, not including the other critical services that they provide.

A failure to do so, on the other hand, after we have been publicly addressing it for the past decade, is a demonstration of insincerity on this matter to Oaklanders with disabilities and even to the courts.

Um I'm happy to provide further details on the architecture associate and the program analysts that we're asking to have funded, along with any other uh other services that we as a commission or as uh the ADA programs division provide, um, and answer any other questions about our work if you have them, but I am asking uh to have the council move forward uh to work with the city administrators' office and the finance department to find funding for these two FTEs.

Uh, we also uh recommend working um in the past we have tried to get that money exclusively from DOT, as that used to be where the ADA programs division was placed.

But given that they have a city wide system.

So, your report time is that okay.

Um, we asked to fund it um using cost-sharing method that draws from all departments.

Thank you, and I'm happy to take any questions.

Thank you so much.

Let's go to the public speakers first.

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

Please state name excuse me, please state your name for the record before beginning.

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

Kevin Dally, Blair Bleakman, and Simeu Ramsey.

I appreciate the report uh Mr.

Burdy gave and want to encourage the hiring.

Remember, city approved not that long ago in ADA consent decree.

It agreed that we would provide access for persons with disabilities.

As part of that, you know, now we're going through the budget.

This is the time to consider it when the budget comes back before council.

The other positions that we need is to unfreeze the parking enforcement dispatch positions, which have been frozen for years, and we ticket the people that are parked on the sidewalks.

And we need to add extra positions for evenings and for weekends.

It is difficult to get around right now for many persons with disabilities.

Thanks.

My name is Jimmy Ring.

I'm with the National Homeless Union, mental health Outreach for Independent Living.

Good, got you.

Long as you've taken care of the people.

They say the disability people is done.

This is already funded.

We have five point eight billion dollars.

You told me anything else I need I can get for the people.

I'm working in Chicago right now.

We work with seven days a week in Chicago.

We have $58,000 plus homes running around Chicago right now.

I had to go there in January.

It's 10 degrees, two degrees.

A man CGO died froze, yeah.

We're in the house, no heat.

In fact, we're hot with no heat.

So we have a problem in this country.

And so buy money aside.

Donald Trump is fine.

He's not gonna touch it.

You think he's not?

Of course, this is serious news.

You got all these people homeless in this country.

It don't make no sense.

So you got that, brother.

Since you heard, and it's not trying to, he's turning over.

He's coming over.

He's next to come to open.

He's going over the home.

Thank you, Mr.

Raimi.

Your time is up.

Moving to the Zoom speaker, Blair Beekman.

Please unmute yourself and begin your comments.

Hi, thank you, Blair Beekman.

Uh thanks for the presentation.

Um it's really important for myself to understand how there can be a uh a bringing together of mobility issues, uh, bicycle issues and tech accountability.

I think all of those uh groups working together can do something really interesting for the future of the city.

Um Kevin Daly, um, he works with bicycle issues a lot, and he has a really nice language when he works on this bicycle issues to also know how to mention you know the tech needs involved and how to address the tech needs in that process.

It's really nice to hear and and mobility can be doing the same thing, and it's uh an all votes can rise kind of thing that I I think it builds the ideas of sustainable sustainability really well.

That uh it's nice to see that these kind of things grow together over the next few years, and good luck how we can be doing that in Oakland in the coming years.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr.

Beekman, for your comments.

That was the last speaker.

Council Member Guy.

Yes, I'll make a motion to approve staff's recommendation.

To receive and file this report.

Okay.

There is a motion by council member guy, second by council member Wong to receive and file this report.

Councilmember Brown.

Aye, Councilmember Five.

All right, Councilmember Guillo.

Council Member Houston.

Aye, Councilmember Ramachandran.

Aye.

Councilmember Unger.

I and Council Member Wong.

Aye.

And Chair Jenkins.

Motion passes with a vote of eight ayes.

Going to your next item, which is item 5.4.

Adopts a resolution approving the 26th through 2030 community violence reduction plan as required by the Oakland Community Violence Reduction and Emergency Response Act of 2024 Measure N and approved by the Oakland Public Safety Planning and Oversight Commission.

You have four speakers on this item.

So I'm making a motion to actually continue this item to the next meeting.

I think given that today is literally the day that we we haven't found out the results of Measure E, and I think that's important to know what are the results of that in order to contemplate this four-year community violence reduction plan, given that measure E is going to be determinative in terms of how much funding we will get in the general fund.

So, okay, it's the parliament's hearing.

So did you guys I am making a motion to continue the item to the not next full city council meeting?

Um I agree with the and the reason I am doing that is because this is a critical spending plan that determines how we spend around forty-five to forty-seven million dollars a year.

I think it is important that we know the results of um this vote on measure E, um, as part of our vote on the spending plan.

Council member.

Councilmember Brown.

Excellent.

Um, I think just for the entire body's awareness, we had a very robust conversation in public safety on the item.

And so I guess just for clarification so that everyone understands like what the steps are.

Um, I guess through the chair to the parliamentarian, can you explain um kind of the goal that is at hand um with this particular proposal today?

Yes, through the chair to council member Brown, um, Measure N N, which was adopted by the voters, uh, provides that um or requires this plan that's before you, and it requires the council to approve or reject the plan.

Um, and there is a requirement to spend measure and funds in accordance with the plan after it's adopted by council.

Excellent.

Thank you.

Councilmember Guile.

I'm sorry, I don't um, you know, you turned your mic on, and so uh council member Wong is your idea for us to hear the report, hear public comment, but then continue the item.

Fine, I thought you wanted to in our offline to, but we can go ahead and hear the report.

Um, but yeah, I I think for us as a council to be to make informed decisions, we should wait until after measure E has been, we know the results of that.

So we still have to hear public comment.

Okay, of course, that makes sense.

Then let's do that.

Okay.

So let's hear Ms.

Felicia.

Um, good afternoon, Council President Jenkins and members of the council, uh, police often, assistant to the city administrator.

Uh the today's um presentation, the uh the chair um and the vice chair are here to make the presentation and they have been waiting uh for the past few hours to present this item to the council.

Please feel free uh to the council member writing up something.

That's okay.

You know, I was just gonna say for the record that um I think uh although we heard the item in public safety, I think that it's been scheduled for the full body to hear it, and so I would I think that we should move forward with that.

Okay, we will hear the item.

Councilmember Houston.

I just wanted to concur with the Council Member Brown.

Thank you.

So the chairs will come up.

Can you put five minutes on the clock, please?

Okay, thank you, Council President Jenkins, the members of the committee, um, the council.

Thank you.

Good evening, Council members, and to all the community members who are here.

Thank you so much for the opportunity to present.

We do have slides, so I'm gonna ask K-Top to share our slides real brief.

My name is Iwana Chukleva.

I'm the former chair of the OPSPOC, the Oklahoma Public Safety Planning and Oversight Commission.

And with me are the current chair chair Julia Owens and the current vice chair Carrie Gutierrez, as well as Deputy Chief Tedesco, as well as Chief Joshi, as well as Chief Covington and the Bright Research Group who are amazing strategic planning partners, Bright Star Olson and Lauren Cardoso.

Um we are here tonight to present very briefly our plan to all of you.

And since we have such a short period of time, I'm gonna ask that we just go to the next slide.

Um I'm gonna provide a brief overview of what Measure N mandates and just to highlight the Measure N is completely separate and independent from Measure E.

Measure N has specific language mandating the creation of this plan, and we hope that you will consider this um plan for that purpose.

Measure N was approved in 2024 by over 71% of voters.

It has three specific objectives to reduce homicides, robberies, carjackings, break-ins, domestic violence, and gun-related violence.

Number two, to improve emergency response times as well as the quality of their the response.

Number three, to reduce the incidence of human trafficking, including the sexual exploitation of minors.

It raises 45 to 47 million in annual funding per year, divided between the Oakland Fire Department, police services, violence prevention services, and he created our commission in order to provide oversight of NN funds, develop a community violence reduction plan and track progress towards that plan.

Accountability to the community is our mission and our DNA as a commission, and our vision is an open planning which everybody can thrive and feel safe.

Before we get into the process of developing the C VRP, I would like to call Bright Star to the mic to do some table setting.

Good evening, Bright Star Olson with Bright Research Group.

We were the strategic planning consultants selected to facilitate and develop the community violence reduction plan.

I do want to set a little context about the C VRP and what it is and isn't.

Measure NN legislation mandates that the commission oversee the development of this plan of the community violence reduction plan.

It provides a strategic roadmap for how the city aims to reduce violence over a four-year period.

It establishes measurable goals and provides a framework for evaluation and monitoring based on the performance metrics for each strategy.

A separate evaluation plan will be developed and implemented after the plan is approved.

The legislation requires that the plan include and reflect department priority spending plans and lay out the major bets for achieving the goals of the measure.

It is important to note the CVRP is not making budget allocations.

It in no way supersedes the council's authority or the city's existing processes for budgeting.

The plan also does not direct programming or implementation.

That is within the purview of departments.

With regards to achieving the minimum OPD staffing levels, NN requires that OPD develop a separate plan annually and that this plan be approved by council.

This is also separate from the CBRP.

The commission per the legislation is charged with developing the community violence reduction plan in collaboration with the three main agencies that receive funding.

The city departments are then responsible for operationaling this operationalizing this plan.

Can we go to the next slide?

So here you can see on this slide strategy and sort of broad strategic approach for your impact goals for reducing violence and improving emergency response is what this plan contains.

Operations happens elsewhere, and budgeting happens elsewhere.

Let's see.

We will include the budgets as an addendum to the plan because the legislation requires that we include a four-year budget for how NN funds will be spent, but that doesn't quite align with your budgeting timeline and process.

So if you go, can we go to the next slide?

I think there's uh forward.

There we go.

So uh you're gonna hear about 12 strategies tonight.

Um, these are the kind of major bets that the departments have prioritized to achieve significant gains in reducing violence in our city.

Um, and so the question before you tonight is uh does this make sense?

Do these need to be our major bets?

And do you endorse these?

Um, the question is not how resources will be spent.

If you as a council have specific priorities for how NN resources are spent, that is addressed through the regular budgeting process.

It's important to note that not all strategies are funded each year, some are one time expenses, and that is handled elsewhere.

Okay.

Can we wrap up the next minute, 30 seconds, two minutes?

Councilman Word.

I'd like another.

Okay.

A couple more minutes.

I keep four minutes on the quiet.

Okay.

Excuse me.

We have about four minutes, you said.

Thank you so much, Council.

Eight minutes.

Eight minutes.

Okay, thank you so much.

Thank you so much for that time.

Um, so for the language of the measure, the four year violence reduction plan had to describe community needs, set specific goals and strategies, and lay out outcome metrics related to the those goals and strategies.

And so, how do we go about developing this plan?

We met extensively with the Oakland police department, the fire department, and department of violence prevention to set our goals and strategies.

We consulted with the city agencies, with the department, with the finance department, department of race and equity, with the city attorney's office, with the mayor's office, because we wanted to make sure that we were soliciting feedback from everybody who's impacted by this plan, and we wanted to make sure that we're following and complying with city processes.

We also held focus groups with CBOs specializing in gender-based violence and human trafficking, and the Department of Violence Prevention Direct Practice and Program Officers, as well as the measure and coalition.

In March, we refined our strategies with departments and then drafted the plan that's before you.

In April, we held five community listening sessions, one online and four in-person in West Oakland, in at the Fruitbow, in Deep East Oakland and at City Hall.

And in May, we revised the plan, including feedback from many stakeholders, including some of you.

We're here to today to present the final plan.

And just want to stress for all everybody who's present here today that per the language of the measure, City Council can vote to approve or reject the plan but not modified it.

And also for the legislation, the plan has to go into effect July 1st.

We received guidance from the city attorney's office that unless this plan is approved and adopted by June 30th, which is only, you know, at the end of this month, the measure and end funds will not be dispersed to those three departments.

And as you know, through Department of Violence Preventions, there are many community-based organizations that are also relying on those funds, as well as all the strategies that we have been using to keep Oakland safe for a while, these funds will be uh stopped until a plan is adopted.

And as Bright Star said, your vote today for approval sets the broad broad strategic roadmap uh for violence prevention in the city.

It does not limit your authority to work with the departments and set specific activities or budget allocations as long as those fit within the overall umbrella of the plan.

And I think that's really critical to remember because you still have all the authority of city council members with the budgeting process with the continuous collaboration with departments with the procurement processes, etc.

And with that, I'm gonna pass it to Vice Chair Gutierrez.

Thank you so much, Joanna, and good evening, council members.

Uh my name is Carrie Gutierrez, and I have the honor of serving as a vice chair of this commission.

Um, it's important that we start with a brief snapshot of violence and crime in the city of Oakland.

Uh, this commission has reviewed the publicly available data on crime uh over the last 10 years in Oakland to better understand the state of the problem in the city and the community needs the C VRP seeks to address.

So, what we're seeing right here is that although the plan itself goes into much more detail, this uh slide sheds slide on the current state of violence in Oakland.

After a significant spike in violence that began in 2020, Oakland has experienced a steep decline in violent crime since 2023.

In fact, in 2025, the homicide count in Oakland was the lowest the city ever had.

Although this is a promising trend that the C VRP seeks to sustain, the plan was also developed with the understanding that violence still persists, that gender-based violence, including commercial sexual exploitation, is a visible crisis in our city, and that violence disproportionately affects communities of color and residents in east and west Oakland.

Although the C VRP cannot do it all, the strategies laid out in this plan are designed to sustain and build on the momentum that the city has made in violence reduction, accelerate improvement in areas requiring greater investment, and ensure reductions in crime and violence are experienced equitably across Oakland communities.

Next slide.

It's not working.

Thank you so much.

Okay, so now we're gonna share with you the C VRP's four-year community violence reduction goals and an overview of the 12 strategies designed to achieve these goals.

So starting with the first goal, reduce homicides and non-fatal shootings annually by 10% through 2030.

The second, reduce domestic violence, sexual assault, and commercial sexual exploitation crimes by 10% by 2030.

Three, it's to improve clearance rates for violent crimes named under Measure NN, including homicides, robberies, carjackings, domestic violence, and gun-related violence by 10% by 2030.

Four, it's improve feelings of safety, resilience, and reduce trauma among people served through direct services funded by Measure NN by 2030.

Five, it's to improve 911 answering speeds such that 90% of all 911 calls are answered within 15 seconds by 2030.

6.

Improve OPD response times to meet the state average of five minutes for violent crimes by 2030.

And lastly, seven, to maintain a sworn police force of at least 700 police personnel and at least 480 firefighters by 2030.

I'd now like to pass it to Chair Julia.

Thank you.

Good afternoon.

My name is Julia Owens, and I have the honor of chair of serving as the chair for this commission.

May we have more time or how much time do we have left?

I just have one more section for y'all and a couple comments by the chief.

A minute and 45 seconds.

Oh my.

Okay.

I'll talk fast.

Okay.

These strategies represent the commitment the departments have made to reducing violence and improving 9-1-1 response.

They are a set of strategies that will be implemented by the three departments, working towards achieving the minimum staffing levels required by the measure.

These are the set of strategies that will be implemented while working towards achieving minimum staffing, and this represents the commitments of the departments over the next four years.

The majority of funding is allocated to strategies one through four, which are direct interventions for people impacted by violence led by DVP and OPD.

Strategy one supports direct wraparound services for people at highest risk of gun violence, including outreach, hospital-based intervention, and life coaching.

Services supported under this strategy are provided by DVP staff and CBO grantees.

Strategy two supports OPD's implementation of ceasefire, the city's focused deterrence strategy.

It funds sworn personnel to conduct enforcement operations and collaboration to reduce street group and network-related shootings and homicides.

Decrease recidivism and incarceration for individuals engaged in violence and strengthen the trust between communities and public safety partners.

Strategy three funds development of crime reduction teams within OPD.

CRTs operate as a cross-functional resource within OPD, leading complex high-risk operations and providing essential support to ceasefire.

The special victims unit, homicide robbery, and local and federal task force.

Strategy 4 supports the provision of direct services to survivors of domestic violence or commercial sexual exploitation.

Similar to the CVI strategies or services in strategy one, these direct services are provided by DVP staff and CBO grantees.

Strategies five through nine strengthen Oakland's public safety systems.

Strategy five supports multi-pronged recruitment and retention efforts to achieve and maintain the minimum staffing levels of sworn and non-sworn personnel, including 911 dispatch, as required by Measure NN to improve 9-1-1 response.

OPD is responsible for developing an effective staffing plan separate from the C VRP development that is to be adopted by the city during the biannual or mid-cycle budget process.

Strategy six supports activities designed to foster and sustain trust between OPD and the residents of Oakland, which may include community engagement activities, communication efforts, and internal practices that strengthen transparency.

Strategy seven supports increased capacity to pursue grants and new funding opportunities that align with Measure NN objectives.

Strategy eight supports capacity building and training for the ecosystem of nonprofit providers and DVP staff providing community violence intervention and gender-based violence services.

Strategy nine supports OPD's efforts to increase enforcement and strengthen collaboration with other agencies in order to interrupt commercial sexual exploitation, including the sexual exploitation of minors.

Strategies uh 10 through 12 focus on improving emergency response.

Strategy 10 invests in efforts to improve the quality and efficiency of Oakland's alternative response programs in an effort to support these critical services and free up bandwidth of the 911 response.

I have two more strategies.

I'll be done real quick.

Um, strategy 11 expands capacity for emergency response through staffing, personnel, and training supports partnership activities with Oakland youth and residents in order to enhance and expand Oakland's capacity to respond to emergencies.

Finally, strategy 12 funds equipment upgrades for OFD and OPD, including dispatch, and that improve the speed, quality, and equity of 901 response and protect the health and well-being of Oakland's first responders.

Thank you for listening to our presentation on the CVRP.

I want to reiterate that a vote for approval of this plan is a vote in support of these strategies and goals.

Strategies and goals as the high-level roadmap for uh to reduce violence in the in Oakland over the next four years.

Know that if you vote for approval of this plan, you are not changing any of the budgeting procurement or other financial processes that the city already has.

Departments still need to develop their budgets and spending plans with the help of the finance department.

The plan simply sets a strategic roadmap for the kinds of impactful innovations or initiatives that measure NN dollars will support over the next four years.

Once again, Measure NN requires that city council approve or reject the C VRP in its entirety by June 30th.

We have received guidance from the city attorney's office that funds may not be dispersed without approved community violence reduction plan.

Oakland has made great progress in community safety, and a vote to approve this plan ensures that these vital efforts continue uninterrupted.

Thank you so much.

We're gonna go to the public speakers first, and then we'll go to the council members with time.

As I call your name who's opposed the podium in any order, please state your name for the record before we begin.

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

Blair Beekman, Dr.

Petway, DeMore Truck Evans, and John Jones III.

In any order, please.

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

And public, my name is Dr.

Nicole Petway, Director of Reentry and Community Violence Intervention Programs with Boss, building opportunities for self-sufficiency, an organization that has been providing Oakland and Alameda County services for over 50 years.

I'm here regarding the 26 to 2030 Community Violence Reduction Plan and the recommendation to award 38.1 million in violence prevention funding.

While 21 organizations were recommended for funding, Boss was not included, and communities most impacted by violence, particularly Deep East Oakland and East Oakland appear underrepresented.

Oakland voters approved measure in with the expectation that resources would reach neighborhoods with the greatest uh excuse me with the greatest need.

Before this plan, oh my phones.

Boss, we I'm sorry, Dr.

Pittway.

Your time is up unless someone is CDE time.

Okay, thank you.

These communities continue to experience some of the highest rates of violence in the city, raising concerns about whether the funding recommendation aligned with the city's goals of equity and community impact.

Boss respectfully request that the council direct the Department of Violence Prevention to provide a e a geographic equity analysis identifying which Oakland neighborhoods in zip codes are being served and which are not.

Deep East Oakland and East Oakland deserve transparency, equity, I want to be clear that this is about the spending plan for uh Measure NN and not the allocation of funding by the Department of Violence Prevention.

I believe that will come June 9th to the public safety committee.

Am I correct?

Chair and Vice Chair, June 9 to the Public Safety Committee.

Thank you.

I want to urge you all to please address this item and vote on today, because to your point, Chair, this is about the strategy.

And I just want to say a lot of work went into this.

So I definitely want to thank all the members of the oversight body, those who are here, as well as Commissioner Wynn and Commissioner Dixon, and also all the departments that were involved, right?

There's Chief Joshi and Chief Coveton and even Deputy Chief Dedesco back there.

Probably didn't think I was going to say thank you, but I was following.

I want to thank you all.

And I just want to say this real quickly.

Um the backdrop to this, there was a lot of stuff that was going on, right?

We had this historic recall.

It wasn't the smoothest process, but I just want to encourage us because we go get another opportunity, right?

This is a four-year plan.

So I don't want people to I want to urge people to not get caught up in the details, don't get too weedy, because we have an opportunity to make things tight.

But at the end of the day, I just want us to find ways to continue to restore faith and trust.

And I'm on this note, I want to thank you all for the amazing job you all are doing.

I had a chance to share that with the mayor.

I want to share that with you all because again, thank you for what you're doing.

Thank you very much.

Thank you for your comments.

Moving to our only zone speaker who submitted a card.

Blair Beekman, please unmute yourself and begin your comments.

All right, thank you.

Uh, in one minute to try to summarize what I was understanding from the public safety committee a week or two ago on this subject.

I think we all had a good learning experience how NN is actually starting to really function in Oakland.

Uh thank you for that.

I thought it was gonna come today for uh a bit of uh amendment ideas from uh council staff.

Uh from I mean from council persons that could help and then along as a committee process.

It has a lot of strength that works on its own, separate from council.

And it was my understanding that council would make uh recommendations today.

I hope I can hear that, and then uh it can be brought back after the measure E things for better clarification is my thinking.

And also at the public safety um council person brought up uh accountability issues with T1 spending.

Uh I'm understanding that T1 can actually be it's really difficult.

Uh there's a lot of failure rate in T1 to begin with.

So accountability may be difficult.

Thank you for your comments, Mr.

Beekman.

That was the last speaker for item 5.4.

Okay, so we'll go to the council members in the queue.

I agree with council member Wong and uh thank the committee for working on this.

You guys have worked diligently worked with uh community worked with council members.

You guys have gone up and beyond to communicate um and ask council members for input uh in supporting council member Wong.

I don't see a harm in waiting.

I realize that no funds can be allocated until we accept or reject.

We have no place in modifying this, but I have no uh problem in waiting, although we realize Alameda County is very slow when it comes to counting votes, and they might not be done until next month.

Uh so we have to take that into consideration as well.

Did you want to speak again?

Yeah.

Uh thank you.

Uh Council President.

Um, yeah, and I I want to thank you guys, by the way, for your work, truly.

I know it's been um, you know, you guys are volunteers and it's it's been a labor of love and a lot of uh engagement with the the department heads.

Um, but you know, I also see my job as city council to absolutely hold any spending plan to the highest, highest of standards, right?

And my evaluation is that this spending plan is a B.

I want to just reach it to the to A plus.

And it's not just at you.

If you haven't seen my how I conduct myself, I am just someone who enacts um rigor, and I want to see that across the board because I think our residents deserve that.

So when it comes to this spending plan, part of the reason that I had concerns is because there were spending allocations like ranges that are presented in the attachment that were not part of the presentation that we just saw.

And yes, while this spending plan is not a line budget allocation, I actually think it's at this area in these ranges where it is council is most appropriate to weigh in.

Because to be honest, we all have uh we've gone through the budget process.

Council ultimately tinkers at the edges of what the mayor and what the departments put forward.

We don't do large wholesale, and we also do not have the expertise to really provide line level changes to their budgets, right?

Do we know if it should be a supervisor two versus a supervisor one that should be in the budget?

We don't.

We are actually not the subject matter experts.

But where we should be weighing in is the big picture goals.

What are the priorities for the spending that we want to use given that we raised we raised taxes?

I know it was also a content continuation of the Measure Z funding, but this is where I think it is actually most appropriate for council to weigh in and be look at it critically with a critical lens and say, does this speak to what your residents expected when they um voted on this parcel tax?

And for me, one of the key things that I don't see reflected in this, it doesn't have its own strategy and its own spending range, is an allocation to really address the 911 dispatch issue because 911 dispatch is an issue, it was one of the uh the core things that people have brought up in the reason that they voted for this, and I know that it's embedded in it, but it's weakened because it does not have its own spending range identified, and so when it comes to budgeting decisions, as we all know in the city, when you don't have a public document that makes a commitment, that's the thing that's going to get the least amount of priority.

So this is why I'm scrutinizing this.

I also think that given again that we haven't seen measure E, we haven't seen the results, that that may change how we may want to spend this public safety measure.

So and the other thing I will note too.

I already spoke with uh the city attorney uh and finance.

They are gonna be able to uh fund uh some of the strategies in this with general fund, so it it can be done.

I don't know if Director Johnson wants to speak to that, but it's not going to hold up, it's not going to say ceasefire is not going to be able to be implemented because we don't vote on this today.

Thank you.

Council member, you have a minute left.

You want to use the rest of your minute?

Um I will reserve my minute for another comment in case there's some back and forth.

So but that's what I have to say.

Yeah, 50 seconds left.

Council member Houston and Council Member Ram Chandra.

And Council Member Guy.

I'm the vice chair of public safety.

She's the chair, and I don't want to override the chair.

I wanted to get from the parliamentarian, how would this hold this up?

And and and I'm saying this in open right now.

Every one of my council members just got that email from the police.

That's my district.

That's my district to starving is dying.

We're killing each other because of what?

No opportunity.

Economics, it's about money and opportunity.

Did you see those two pictures?

Did you see those pictures?

That's weapons of war and drugs of destruction in my district.

I need my tier two, I'm a tier ones addressed, because those are the ones that are actually committing these crimes and they're doing it in a desperate way.

I want to ask the parliamentarian.

How would this slow, would this hurt anything or slow anything up if we um if we took um my council member on Wang's uh recommendation?

Would this hurt anything?

Um, okay, so what it can say is the measure provides that council, as but it's been stated, council may approve or reject the plan, but not modify.

The measure also provides that if council rejects the plan, it will return it to the commission with specific recommended changes, and then the commission will submit a new plan to the council, which the council can then accept or reject, but not modify.

And then so you have to go through the process until there's a plan, the council must adopt a plan before actually spending any of the measure and and revenue.

Okay, so through the chair, is there something that you wanted to add to this, Councilmember Wang, to make some changes, some so you can be happy about this?

Because I want I need this for my community.

My community is dying.

Hold on, hold on.

My community's dying.

My community, this ain't happening in your community, and I'm not saying it in a negative way.

You saw those pictures.

You got wars of destruction like that.

You got you got you got um, do you did you see those pictures?

Okay, I'm just saying, okay.

No, that's not this.

So you have some recommendations that you would like them to see, right?

And you want okay.

Okay.

Councilmember Ramachandra, and then we'll go council member.

Um, I mean Gail.

Thank you.

Firstly, I want to thank the commission.

Um, you were incredibly thorough with your outreach, um, consulting not just council members but community groups, subject matter experts.

Um, you were very communicative, which doesn't always happen in these community-led processes now.

For the course of almost four years, I've seen some good ones and some awful ones, and you guys really did a great job as far as outreach goes.

So thank you for that.

Um, the one thing I I want to just start with the thing that strikes me as really important and often overlooked, the way that you have tried to weave domestic violence as a lens to view various issues.

I spent the first 10 years of my career working with survivors of domestic violence in different capacities, including many of the orgs here in Oakland, and this is and when we think about violence prevention, it's so often overlooked.

I mean, last year we had the city of Oakland had five domestic violence related homicides, and that is an increase from I believe to the year before in all over Alameda County.

DV-related homicides are increasing, and we're not talking as much about it.

So, as far as DV prevention, survivor trauma informed support, all the things that your report mentions, I just want to appreciate that you're incorporating that lens.

Um violence prevention holistically, and I think that at just at the end of the day, there are strategies, there are recommendations, but the amount of money that goes to OPDOFD and violence prevention is set in stone.

OPD should be getting 23 about 23 million a year, violence prevention 17 million, fire about 3 million.

So I do think that this framework, I personally, I think it's a great framework.

Um, but at the end of the day, if if there are colleagues who are concerned with OPD needing to get more money or less money, that's already written in stone.

So I don't see a problem with passing this today because it hits on many issues.

I mean, I can only talk about domestic violence because that's my own background of work, but for all of the issues where I'm not subject matter experts, you've talked to those subject matter experts on gun violence and all these other things.

So I I feel comfortable passing this today.

Thank you, Councilmember Ramachandra.

Uh Gail, thank you.

Can you do this mic?

One second.

Justing one through, there you go, Son.

I want to thank you for the information, and certainly when it comes to violence prevention, one of the priority that has to be clearly not just talked about or planned out is the human trafficking and the prostitutions occurring.

Young women, you go right now, any day, any time in your district.

Sixteen girls, young girls, um, not only on the sidewalk on the corners, but on the middle of the street.

You and I see them, the police see them, the fire people see them, and we allow that to continue.

Meanwhile, we sit around here at council talking, talking about the problem, making excuses for the problem.

And we have these young girls out there with people, adults, the pimps and all that other bread on the sidewalk.

And we're just talking about it.

So we lived through this in the past, where they used to be up there by the Kaiser and MacArthur.

We kicked them out of there, they came to Fruitville.

Or in East Oakland, we kicked them out of high street in that area in Fruitville, they went to this other district now.

But they're all so we just keep, you know, to doing a lot of talking about about it.

But meanwhile, I think you know, we would certainly, and the chief Yoshi understands that very well, knows that experience, but we need to, you know, quit talking about it and get the cooperation of law enforcement to address it, and because there's no excuse or reason for for open to allow that behavior because you don't see that in Alameda, you don't see it in San Leandro, you don't see it in other city, but hell, go to Oakland.

You can dump trash and do whatever you want to.

But most of what the saddest thing is seeing those young women out on the street.

Uh and so certainly we would need your your your direction and cooperation, uh, getting law enforcement to do their job.

Thank you.

Thank you, Councilmember Guy.

Council member um Brown and Five.

Oh, um Councilmember Fife, do you want to go first?

Actually, because you were you were way polite of you.

I have been waiting for a long time.

I'm not sure why the council president is treating me like this today.

But I would like to um, and does it to the vice chair of public safety?

Oh no.

I just wanted to make uh a motion to adopt staff recommendation to move this item forward.

I think this team has done an amazing job under all kinds of obstacles.

It's been extremely thorough.

I started feeling bad because I wasn't returning their phone calls, and I had to tell folks that no, they were doing a really, really good job, and we are not debating the particular allocations tonight.

So I want to make sure that when this comes to public safety, that we invite other council members who want to share and have some uh additional commentary on this item to come to the future public safety committee meeting for additional discussion.

But in terms of what we're tasked with today, I'm making a motion to move this forward.

So uh council member, something just very procedural.

If you can, I'm gonna second council member.

Um, I'm gonna second council member wongs if you can make a substitute motion.

So if you can make a substitute motion.

Is there a second?

Oh, so she made the motion.

Council member Wong make a she made the first motion to continue.

I'm gonna second that.

And you can make a you can make a second.

I apologize, I forgot about that.

It felt like it was 12 hours ago.

You could I'm sorry, I waited so long.

Um, you can make a substitute motion, though.

Are you doing that?

I will make a substitute motion to adopt staff's recommendations.

Okay, is there a second to okay council member Brown, then Houston, then Wong.

Excellent.

Um, just want to echo what Councilmember Fife um uplifted.

Um, thank you all so much for all of the hard work.

We know that just the establishment of this committee was taking place at a very um challenging time, and all of you stepped up and was able to um come up with this very uh you know, in my opinion, I think a very robust plan.

Um, a part of the conversation that we had in public safety.

Um my notes are a little wonky, and so um I believe it's on page six of the report, it does state that not all spending strategies will be the same in each year.

Um, and so there is some flexibility, right?

As it relates to the departments, and then as was mentioned already, um, as far as the dollar amount, it's not going to shift and change.

It's already in stone, how much OPD, OFD, DVP will receive, and keeping in mind that most of the dollars that the DVP receives actually will be going out the door to community-based organizations, right?

So and that was my second to Councilmember Fife's motion.

Councilmember I'm a children already second, but Councilmember Houston.

So to the chair.

And I agree with everything they're saying, but she's the chair, and I want to respect that as her being the chair.

I'm the vice chair of public safety.

We don't come to nobody else's chair, their committees and tell them what to do.

I'm a follower.

Even though I want to do it the way I want to move it, she's the chair of it.

I'm gonna respect what she said.

So do you still want to move, you want to hold it?

So make a substitute motion and I'll second.

Well, there's no there's no second substitute motion.

So I it's and can can I can I also um I want to make comments my issue to be care clear, colleagues, is not the statutory allocations.

That is statute.

I'm not here to debate that.

The actually the component of the spending that I have the most concerns around is actually the OPD spending, it really is.

Um I don't think that what I see reflected in this department.

Like, do you think Oaklanders feel satisfied with OPD's level of service?

This is where I think this is our role to push the department.

Especially, I will say, when it comes to things like recruitment and retention, because I'll give an example.

I was reflecting on the conversation that we had in public safety on some of the recruitment conversations that we had, and the OPD recruiter, what did they their major recommendation is they needed a website, and I'm sorry, in reflection, they don't need a website.

We can get a student from Laney College to design a website for like, you know, 10k a pop.

I I'm I'm somewhat exaggerating, but what I need to see in this plan is I want to push the department to be more innovative, and to really because I don't see a I don't see that people are satisfied outside.

People are calling 911.

I experienced that myself last week.

I was on hold for five minutes.

That's unacceptable.

So I am just asking that we do our due diligence as a body to say this is a great starting point.

I just want to see, though, that we do our due diligence as a body to say, how can we make this even better?

Because are people out that out those doors getting the services that they deserve?

They don't, they're not.

And we've heard it from our communities.

Mucho violencia.

I mean it.

I don't get emotional opt-in, but the communities out there really deserve better.

And so I'm asking that us as a body, we do our oversight role into OPD to push them to do better, and we actually get the safety that this city deserves.

That's all I'm asking for.

And I think we need to know whether Measure E, like we need to know the full picture.

And so I'm asking Russ for us to delay and to really deliberate.

That's it.

Thank you, Councilmember Ramasandra.

Thank you.

Um, to my through the chart and my colleague, Council Member Wong, I hear your frustrations, but respectfully, this is under $50 million we're talking about, and we have a $2 billion budget.

There are a lot of other ways that I do believe this that we, as the current council and current administration and current mayor, are trying to address some of the things you're talking about.

To me, this is passing a framework, not saying how much money OPD needs to spend on recruitment or how much money should go into human trafficking.

Those are very valid issues that we're we can't address through this one measure alone that's less than 50 million dollars.

It's it's a framework that I think is holistic in a way that a lot of our thoughts, in a way that we've not always been thoughtful as a city in addressing violence prevention, and I give this body a lot of credit as well as Chief Joshy, who's been doing an excellent job as well to think intersectionally.

But there are so many other sources of funding and efforts ongoing.

We're not there yet, we're nowhere near where we need to be to address 911 issues, but there's a lot of other efforts going on.

60% of our general fund goes towards public safety.

There's a lot of other things going on that we have to improve, but I don't think that takes away from what this body has done to present a plan that hits on some major points.

So, Councilmember Wong, I'll let you have the last word, then we will vote on Councilmember Fife's substitute motion.

To do some things of substance, it really is.

And the taxpayers entrusted us, they entrusted us to spend this money as wisely as possible.

We're seeing the pushback with measure E.

We are, and and to me that says it's not that I endorse measure E.

Okay, I want to see the money come into the city, but I also think that we need to show scrutiny into the spending and that we hold our departments at the highest standard.

That's all I am saying, and and that absolutely includes OPD.

I have I want to see the department to be more creative.

I've seen a lack of innovation at times.

I really think this department could do better.

And so, anyway, that is where I stand, and I've I've made myself clear as to why I want to see uh this to be after measure E until we know the result, and then we can have a discussion whether we vote it down or not, even though I've telegraphed clearly where I stand.

Thank you, Councilmember.

We're gonna go to a vote.

And what she has a second, so no, you can't make a substitute motion to the substitute motion, please.

On the substitute motion moved by council member five, seconded by council member Ramachandran, which would be to um approve the staff recommendation.

Councilmember Brown, aye, councilmember five aye, councilmember Gaio, aye, council member Houston, no.

Councilmember Ramachandran, aye, councilmember Unger, aye, councilmember Wong, no, and Chair Jenkins.

And supporting my colleague, no.

Motion passes with a vote of five ayes, three no's.

Thank you guys for all your work.

Thank you all so much.

Moving to item 5.6, that was as we've already dismissed with item 5.5.

Adopt an ordinance authorizing the borrowing of funds and the issuance of sale of 26 to 27 tax and revenue anticipation notes and a principal amount not to exceed 200 million dollars payable from revenue received for or accrued to the general fund of the city during the fiscal year 26 through 27 and approving certain related matters.

Brad, can you get this done in four minutes?

Thank you.

Thank you, Council President.

I'll get it done in far less than that.

This is the second reading of an ordinance that you've already adopted.

We had a poll that rules to go back to non-consent because per government code you have to adopt anything related to borrowing money in on your non-consent agenda versus your consent agenda.

This is the same report provided you last time.

This allows us to do short-term borrowing to prefund some of our obligations and hopefully save us some money.

I would ask your approval.

I'm complete.

Second.

Public speaker.

Mr.

Hazard for item 5.6.

The public speaker has passage.

Councilmember Brown.

Aye.

Councilmember Fife.

Aye.

Councilmember Gaio.

Aye.

Councilmember Houston.

Aye.

Councilmember Ramachandran.

Aye.

Council Member Unger.

Aye.

Councilmember Wong.

Aye.

And Chair Jenkins.

Aye.

Motion passes with a vote of eight ayes.

Going to your consent calendar for members of the public, those are all of item six.

Item 6.1, approval of the draft minutes from the meeting of May 19th.

Item 6.2, a declaration of a local emergency due to the AIDS epidemic.

Item 6.3, a declaration of a local cannabis emergency.

Item 6.4, a resolution for a declaration of a local emergency on homelessness.

Item 6.6 an ordinance for easement at 260 Oak Street.

Item 6.7, a resolution, renaming the intersection at 99th Avenue to RTE Thompson Way.

Item 6.8, a resolution for the city auditor appointment to the cannabis regulatory commission.

Item 6.9 a resolution for district 2 appointment to the budget advisory commission.

Item 6.10, a resolution for the District 4 appointment to the budget advisory commission.

Item 6.811, a resolution for appointments to the library commission.

Item 6.12 appointments to the privacy advisory commission.

Item 6.13, a resolution recognizing May 2026 as A N HPI Heritage Month.

Item 6.14, a resolution for claim of BCAL LMP properties.

Item 6.15, a resolution in support of Senate Bill 1095 to expose data to portion deportation centers.

Item 6.16 had multiple pieces of legislation regarding the City of Oakland investment policy for fiscal years 26 through 27.

Item 6.17, a resolution for collaborative and clean creeks agreement.

Item 6.18 included multiple pieces of legislation regarding a construction contract award to SJ Amorso Construction Co.

LLC and Professional Services Agreement PSA amendment to Shah Kawasaki architects for the Lincoln Recreation Center project.

Item 6.19 included multiple pieces of legislation to accept an appropriate fiscal year 26 through 27 external funds.

Item 6.20 also included multiple pieces of legislation regarding the sub-regional shoreline adapt adaptation adaptation plan for grant funding.

Item 5.21 an information report for the annual housing programs information report for fiscal year 25 through 26.

Item 6.2 resolution for approval of new WIOA services contract for fiscal years 26 through 29 and amending existing contracts.

Item 6.23, a resolution for OFCY City Span Technology Contract Extension.24, resolution for amortization to relocate industrial recycling facilities.25, a resolution to amend resolution 90310, fiscal year 24 through 25, programmatic changes, the youth employment partnership.

A resolution for OPD PA PMAM contract.

Item 6.27, a resolution for PSA with elite corporation solutions, LLC, and your final consent item and ordinance for amending and reenacting Oaken Municipal Code Chapter 3.08.

And we do need an emergency vote for item 6.15 as it was added.

You can, I believe you can take care of it in the voting of the consent calendar.

Just saying that you're accepting the urgency.

Okay.

I'll look entertain a motion for urgency finding on 615.

Okay.

Let's take that.

With the urgency vote for item 6.15 moved by Councilmember Guile, seconded by Councilmember Brown.

Council Member Brown.

Aye.

Council Member Five.

Aye.

Councilmember Guyo.

Councilmember Houston.

Councilmember Ramachandron.

Hi.

Councilmember Unger.

Aye.

Councilmember Wong.

Aye.

Council President Jenkins.

Aye.

Motion passes with a vote of eight ayes, and that was for the urgency for item S 6.15.

Okay.

So we're from Councilmember Houston, then we'll go to the public speakers.

Yes, through the chair.

I'd like to um invite Maya Turner up and um her two supporters behind her.

This is a commemorative um plaque that I um putting up on 99th in East Oakland for uh Mr.

Arthur E.

Thompson.

He's his his facility, uh he's 96 years old.

His facility's been there since I was a kid.

I'm about to date myself, right?

So it's been there, and that's all I know, is his facility.

He's been there.

So I have a few words that I wrote up that I just like to to share.

I usually go from the cuff, but I wrote this up because this was important.

Um I'm proud to sponsor this resolution to designate an installation of a commemorative plaque for Mr.

Arthur E.

Thompson, the founder and operator of Thompson Funeral Home.

For nearly 60 years, Mr.

Thompson served the people of Oakland with compassion, with dignity, and unwavering dedication.

His business operations spanned across the tender of six district seven district seven council members from from Frank Ogawa to currently me, Ken Houston, since establishing the funeral home in 1969.

Am I right?

1969.

Mr.

Thompson has become a pillar of East Oakland, witnessing the difference of seasons.

Oakland has experienced while becoming a trusted source of comfort, support, and countless families navigating their grief and their loss.

Maya, can you say a few words, please?

Pull that pull that mic down.

I want to hear you.

I don't hear.

I don't hear.

Okay.

Okay, this is Robert L.

Porter Jr.

He's actually the new owner of Thompson Funeral Home.

And when I came on board, it was very important to him to honor Mr.

Thompson.

The things that he's done for the community, as I'm going through doing research, I'm amazed.

Um there's so many things I I told you guys about that people don't know, but just um Jim Jones.

When the families came back, he actually took care of the families and charged no one.

Um to this day, we have stacks and stacks of files of families that he just took care of.

He wasn't worried about money, he's just worried about putting your family member away with dignity and care.

And Mr.

Thompson is now or Mr.

Porter, I'm sorry, is now continuing that.

Um so it's very important to us that we honor him, especially while he's here to see it.

He's actually 90 years old, um, and 95.

I'm sorry, 95 years old.

He shows up every day, suited and booted.

You can every day.

He's comes in ready to go, still helping families, still going out to the community, still doing whatever he can.

So again, thank you so much for honoring him, and we greatly appreciate it.

Thank you so much.

Thank you complete?

I'm complete.

Thank you.

Okay, thank you.

Let's go to the public speakers.

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

Please state your name for the record.

Please raise your hand so I can easily identify you on Zoom.

Carl, excuse me, Carla Guerrera, Jeff Levin, Blair Beekman, Mr.

Hazard.

I have you with multiple items, Justine.

Is it?

I'm can't from Oakland Divest.

Richard Day Hugari, Maria Ramirez, Samuel Ramsey.

I have you with multiple.

Raimi, I have you with multiple items as well.

In any order.

It's so fitting for this recognition of Mr.

Thompson.

But I don't want to forget his wife, because she stood by him this whole time.

It's both of them together.

But you still have yet to deal with the public health crisis related to fit now.

I don't understand why you are not dealing with a deadly opiate.

Carrie Navalo, because that helps in preventing a death for those who ingest this deadly opiate.

And you don't want to make it a public health crisis, shame on you.

You know, you could talk about when we talked about that ballot measure.

Let me tell you what the function of the legislative body of municipality enacting laws and ordinance, zoning, public safety, ethics, established public policy.

If there's a dysfunction in this town, it's you, because the city administrator falled under your supervision, and you want to pass the bucks as though everything is dysfunctional.

It's you.

That you have, I just read what your functions are, which includes the supervision of the city administrator.

The city administrator is the enforcer of your policies, but you want to play like you're helpless.

The council manager form of government is what you need.

You can assume the responsibility that part of your functions, but every time I sit here and listen to.

Thank you, Mr.

Hazard.

Your time is up.

Your time is exceeded.

Your time is up.

Okay.

Good evening, members of the council.

I'm Richard Day Howardy from the Open Private Industry council.

I'm here today with several of my colleagues.

Myra Ramirez, Raymond Langford, Edmund Hagler, excuse me, Edwin Hagler.

And uh we're here just to say thank you for moving this item forward on the workforce innovation and opportunity act awards.

These services are so vital to our communities of color who are desperately in need.

Our the demand for our services has increased by 35% in one year alone.

So we thank you for moving this forward because this way the services can continue uninterrupted beginning July 1.

And this is so very important.

Thank you from the bottom of our heart.

If your name was called and you was to speak on consent, please come on up.

Otherwise, we will be moving to the Zoom speakers.

So if your name was Connor, you're in chamber and you want to speak on item six, please approach the podium.

Carla Wera, Guerrera, please unmute yourself and begin your comments.

Thank you.

Good evening.

My name is Carla Guerra.

I am the policy and advocacy senior manager at the Unity Council.

And I'm here to comment on item S 622.

The Unity Council has served fruit bill for 60 years, where 54% of fruit deal residents identify as Latino, one of the most impacted communities by federal policies in this city right now.

The Latino community is being hit from every direction, federal funding cuts, attacks on immigrants' families, state budget cuts, the dismantling of programs that have held our neighborhoods together for generations.

We are in a moment of crisis.

These RFP explicitly prioritized immigrant and vulnerable communities.

Fruitville is one of them.

We appreciate the one-time allocation, but this is not the amount we apply for, and it's not a multi-year contract.

Staff who have dedicated their careers to build this program will face layoffs.

And on responsive determination was made without examining the proof, we submitted and vulnerable community members will be impacted.

This is the real cost of what happened here.

We need your support.

No more.

Jeff Levin, you are next.

Please unmute yourself and begin your comments.

Thank you.

Good evening, Jeff Levin, speaking for East Bay Housing Organizations on item 6.21, the annual housing programs report.

First, I just want to say we are actually disappointed to see that this is on consent and therefore there is no staff presentation and no discussion by uh council.

Um this is a remarkably comprehensive report about the progress the city has made on its strategic action plan, its funding strategy, uh an overview of who actually lives in the city's housing portfolio by race and income and much more.

So I hope you all will read it.

I do want to call attention to the very last page of the report, which shows the unfunded pipeline of uh new construction projects for 240 something million dollars.

Um this relates back to the discussion we had yesterday at the budget hearing, which is that the budget proposal contains no new measure U funding, and this pipeline will be frozen unless the council actually directs that measure U funds be released for this purpose.

Blair Beekman, you are next.

Please unmute yourself and begin your comments.

Hi, Blair Beekman.

I had uh thank you, three items to speak on, so thank you for the three minutes.

Uh item six point uh eleven, uh 13 and 23.

So for 6.11 is the uh AANH, uh PI issues.

Uh, I wanted to remind once again that um, actually 613 and 6.15.

I wanted to speak to you that the item, the AA items uh is um in Hawaii right now, there is issues of um uh uh on Lahaina on Maui.

Um there is um because of the fires, the big fires they had, they're rebuilding, and they wanted to be rebuilding in in terms of uh, you know, the original indigenous culture life that was there, and it's it's uh big back and forth uh and how that's gonna take place.

And just to bring that up here at this time, I hope it can help, and and I think it's important to work towards that original uh cultural ideas of how uh Lahaina can uh be redeveloped and rebuilt in the future.

So good luck in those sort of efforts and thinking, and I just wanted to remind ourselves that it's time to the item.

6.15 is um a really interesting item by council person, um Wang and uh Brown, who are working um uh with data uh collection centers, so they don't share information on uh undocumented people, I guess.

Basically, uh so you know, large data fusion centers.

And being from San Diego, they had one of the first data fusion centers.

Um, and uh they there's a big debate on how that you should move forward into the future, and uh so I've been learning important lessons how to do that.

I know systems like Clets is ways that uh data collection can be found about um uh, you know, uh the undocumented and things and and to make make that like a soul source.

I guess that's the goal here with this item.

I think it's a good intentions and a good idea, good luck in its efforts and how to do that.

I'd like to learn more about it and learn its process and uh good luck in that.

And finally with the OITY items, I think it's called uh for youth and children's services things.

Um you've had a lot of those lately.

Um it's been really nice to see here at at uh council and committee meetings, and San Diego really needs the help uh in those kind of issues with their current budget uh austerity concerns that we've been going on with, and um, a lot of similar things going on between San Diego and Oakland that I hope I can talk more about.

I can write letters to yourselves about uh how to deal with strong mayor issues, the IPA issues, IBA issues that were starting to be discussed here about the future of strong mayor and council use.

Um a lot of similarities.

Um good luck in how we can have good conversation.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr.

Beekman, for your comments.

All names have been called.

Thank you all.

Councilmember Fife.

I just have a quick announcement for anyone who has availability tomorrow at 2 p.m.

Um my office is hosting a town hall on the future of First Fridays, and really it's just a conversation about um nightlife in the uptown-downtown area, not specifically first Friday only.

So I'm inviting everyone to come out and participate in the conversation.

We'll have comments from the mayor and presentations from um our different department heads around how we make sure that Oakland is safe and enjoyable for everyone who visits.

So that is tomorrow, 2 p.m.

at uh cloud park at 1911 telegraph, inviting everyone.

Thank you.

Is that a motion as well?

No, we do you use this a little early.

So that's a motion by five seconds by Jenkins.

Let's run the role, and then we'll go to announcements after that.

Well, Councilmember Fives are already done with her announcement.

There was a motion by Councilmember 5 seconds by Council President Jenkins to adopt the to approve the consent calendar.

Council Member Brown, Council Member Five, uh, Council Member Guillo.

Councilmember Houston, aye, Councilmember Ramachandran.

Aye, Councilmember Unger.

Aye, Councilmember Wong, and Council President Jenkins.

Motion passes with a vote of eight eyes.

Now we're on council member announcements.

Okay, it was too important to stop you.

I mean, I think First Fridays, and as we are trying to rebuild first Fridays and make sure that it's a safe event for everybody that wants to come to Oakland and supported that we attend this event and where can we find out more about it?

It will be on your social media.

Yes, and thank you for sharing that.

This is again not just about one day a month, it's about every night in our downtown uptown area.

And it you can find information is pinned on my Instagram page and Facebook, wherever.

Okay.

So please attend the event and follow Councilmember Fife on Instagram.

Any more announcements, any adjournments?

Okay, let's go to First Fridays.

I mean, let's go to open forum.

As a carry name, please approach the podium in any order.

Please raise your hand on Zoom so I can easily identify you.

Blair Beekman, Mr.

Boat Wright, Linda.

I'm sorry, Lita Ojo, Kevin Daly, Tiffany Ing, and Mr.

Hazard.

I'm going to continue the laundry list of what your functions are.

Oversight of the executive branch.

If the council, uh manager, uh cities such as Oakland, the council generally appoints and evaluates the city administrator.

And so y'all don't say anything and you let this continue to function, you got to elect the city attorney that misleads you.

And if it wasn't elected, thanks to John Russo, then you would have some calls to gripe.

But you let the city attorney gives you misleading information, as they did on measure A, the transaction and use tax.

And now the city is collecting an unconstitute constitutional and a legal sales tax.

That was never a sales tax, it was a use tax.

You approve on June 3rd.

Thank you, Mr.

Hazard.

Your time is up.

Before sending the charter to voters as the only option, remember that former mayor Shung Tao was elected by 700 votes by less than 50 percent of eligible voters.

Another item city dysfunction has been referred to several times today.

Lack of oversight and follow-up are examples.

A good example of this need is an item on the next uh week's public safety committee agenda.

That item has a recommendation to award seven million dollars in grant out the door to several CBOs, those and all other grants awarded by the city need oversight and follow-up to ensure these grants are resulting in measurable and significant results.

Another area, another area requiring oversight and follow-up are uh as city authorized measures.

An example is measure M, uh, which a lot of time has been wasted because there's things that haven't been done in and we're a two and a half year or a year and a half into that process.

Okay, Mr.

Boatwright, your time is up.

Good afternoon, uh, council members.

Thank you for your service.

My name is Lida Ojo.

I'd like to speak to you briefly about an opportunity to support our youth through a community-based program that addresses both the academic achievement and career readiness factors that we so desperately need.

Many of our students struggle with uh foundational reading and math skills and many lack opportunities for uh career exploration and workforce preparation.

So um, despite our budget limitations, I believe the community can work together, college students, nonprofits, businesses, retirees, um, to and to support literacy and training, and the city wouldn't uh could could focus primarily on the question.

That's fine, take your time.

Thank you.

For the uh could focus on primarily on the coordination of that.

I'm just asking you.

Is there something else you want to say?

So take a look at it.

No, is it was there more that you wanted to say?

Go ahead.

Um I had a question for her.

Yes, I'm I'm done.

And what's the name of the organization?

No, no, I'm not an organization.

I'm presenting an idea.

I'm presenting uh a proposal.

I'm just a I'm presenting a proposal on an idea.

I'm willing to work free.

Yes, okay.

Thank you for all you do.

Thank you.

Moving to your Zoom speaker, Blair Beekman.

All right.

Uh Blair Beekman.

Thanks for the meeting today.

Uh, thanks that uh city clerk staff was able, there was a snap through with a public comment issue for myself and uh on the Granicus uh website.

They were able to help me out today.

Thank you.

So thank you for public comment.

It's Argus.

That was one of the first major data collection centers in San Diego.

That uh they started the whole thing.

And they're going through issues right now that I'm learning good examples of how you know to ask what uh council persons Brown and Wang are asking for.

So thank you for their efforts.

Uh it'll be a good learning experience.

Um, a good learning experience about the strong mayor issues today, uh, how to develop that.

I hope there can be compromise still and good uh a good process can develop.

Um the amendments have to be in by uh nine days from now, so really work on them if you can.

And uh good luck to Alumina County working on uh their own flock issues, leaving flock.

Thank you, and I believe we have one more.

Tiffany.

Hi, Tiffany Ng of Friends of Lincoln Square Park.

Just thanking you for approving 6.18, Lincoln Square Park, and OPRYD's newest recreation and resilience center.

Uh 2026 marks the 30th 30 years since the city's current open space plan first called to expand this center.

We've waited long enough.

Please do everything in your power to complete construction quickly without any delays or reduction in scope.

Keep all park programming going through construction.

Keep the community informed throughout that process.

And really, I just waited all night to really just say thank you to you all and the staff and all of the departments who have brought us here today, navigating a disappointingly long process over the three decades.

Uh, we look forward to working with the city and contractors to respond to community interests and concerns during the construction.

Um, we're grateful for your final vote here today for Oakland Parks and for Lincoln, and we'll see you all at groundbreaking.

Thank you.

Thank you for your comments.

That was the last speaker.

Thank you.

This meeting's adjourned.