Good morning and welcome to the Finance and Management Committee meeting of Tuesday, June 9th, 2026.

The time is now nine thirty AM, and this meeting may come to order.

Before taking roll, I will provide instructions on how to submit speaker cards for items on this agenda.

If you're here with us in chamber and would like to submit a speaker card, please fill one out and turn one in to myself or a clerk representative no later than ten minutes after the start of this meeting or before the item is read into record.

Registering to speak via Zoom is now due 24 hours prior to the start of this meeting.

This meeting came to order at nine thirty AM, and speaker cards will no longer be accepted ten minutes after, making that time nine fifty AM.

We'll now proceed with taking roll.

And Chair Ramachandran.

Aye.

Thank you.

Item one passes with four eyes to accept the committee meeting.

Committee draft minute meetings.

Minute meeting minutes.

For May 26, 2026.

Reading in item two, determination of schedule of outstanding committee items.

And we do have two speakers on this item.

Okay, anything from the staff?

Nothing at this time, thank you.

Okay.

Um, we can move in a minute to public speakers.

Calling in the names that sign up to speak on item number two, Mrs.

Olabala, and Blair Beekman.

According to your schedule, you have the annual report listing all purchases and contracts authorized by the city administrator or designee within the city administration's control authority.

That's on your schedule.

You haven't had a report since 2023, and on your agenda, you have the next report scheduled for March of 2027.

What is the issue?

I brought it to your attention several times.

As it relates to some of the properties that you own, like the ice ring, you'd need to have a report on what are the revenues that you receive.

I understand that you had a contract that was approved with uh shark management in 2026 without any fees being paid by them, but it takes they take 70% of all revenue in excess of $73,000.

What is the revenue you receive, if any, and where's the report from any of the other ferry land, February River Camp, the zoo?

Do we get any revenue or are we paying without getting any revenue from these nonprofits or these organizations or the property that we own sharks agree to pay for field trips for at least 1,000 school students, as well as offer every student enroll a uh after school program free trip.

Now here's the one that I found out about that you give parking free parking validation at February at the ice rink.

Monday through Friday from 4 to 1 o'clock in the morning, validated parking, free parking for anybody going to the ice rink.

How much money are we losing because you give this free parking?

And you have on Saturday from eight.

Thank you for your comments, Miss Olaballett.

Thank you for your comments.

Zach Thayer, you can um come up to the podium to speak on item two.

Um, good morning.

Um, I know I'm gorgeous.

Uh Donald, or I mean Hans Alexander, Goring Luttenberg von Ridden Trump.

Um, Sir Keir Starmer.

You know, there's a thing called the Tusk, uh Trump and Tusk.

You can, you know, that a little bit.

Um I have a little bit of an issue in the uh view of the state on the determining the outstanding committee uh notes and view of HR 1096 Senate Bill 5896 challenges and measure Q measure O Minister and and the view of Senate Bill Um uh 8196 shows a term differences uh based on the application, Michigan B, the EPA, Calorado River Basin B the US, Dove, Rubenstein, Hensley, I'll be the NRDC.

I, um, Zachary John Thayer and Doe, in view of procedural application in GV Australia, and quantifiable review of standard deviation.

I his gorgeous uh Mr.

Slade, I am New York pistol and rifle, and am challenging the right of review under the complimentary review of the NEAIEA hearings tied to the NRC in view of delegation of authority of command.

I, his impeachment agent, the interim president under the 46th administration, am I requesting that a state-sponsored sponsored measure be identified in view of an LBR reactor as an improvement to economic development in view of private wealth management.

I wish to challenge that in this committee and these draft orders.

Thank you.

Thank you for your comments, Chair.

That concludes all speakers on item two.

We just need a motion.

All right, I will entertain a motion.

Thank you.

We have a motion made by Councilmember Brown, seconded by Councilmember Unger to accept the determination of scheduled outstanding committee items as is on roll council members Brown.

Hi.

Unger.

Aye.

Wong.

Aye.

And Chair Ramajandran.

Hi.

Thank you.

Item two passes with four eyes to accept the determination of schedule outstanding committee items.

Now reading in item three: receive an informational report on the implementation and performance of the City of Oakland prompt payment policy.

And we have three speakers that sign up to speak on this item.

Good morning, council members and members of the public.

Under the Oaklands Municipal Code 2.06, prompt payment penalty interest is owed to Oakland vendors and grantees who submit a valid invoice but are not paid within 20 business days.

These penalties are calculated automatically in the city's financial system and are administered by the accounts payable unit in the controllers bureau within the finance department.

As shown in table one of the report before you, over the past five fiscal years, approximately 96% of all payments subject to the ordinance were issued within the required timeline.

This indicates that prompt payment penalties are relatively rare occurrence.

While the overall compliance rate is high, performance does vary across different departments, and table two in the report provides a summary of departmental compliance rates.

As you can see in the table, departments with larger complex or construction-related contracting activity tend to have lower compliance because they're managing complex contracts, multiple funding sources, and high invoice volumes.

But even so, most departments maintain compliance rates above 90%.

We see a parallel pattern in the dollar impacts of prompt payment penalties as well.

Over the past five years, the city has issued nearly 1.8 billion in total payments, and the prompt payment interest totaled only approximately $394,000, which is about 0.02% of the total payments.

Additional detail on prompt payment penalties by department and vendor over the last five years is included as an attachment to the report.

While reviewing the data, we identified several common causes of payment delays, including incomplete or incorrect invoices that are submitted by vendors, um, departmental approval bottlenecks, contract compliance uh reviews, and funding or budget um issues.

The report also outlined several opportunities to strengthen the prompt payment performance, which include expanding vendor participation in the city's centralized invoice submission portal, which will improve efficiency and enhance departmental accountability for timely approvals, um, and also continuing on the city's ongoing implementation of of the virtual pay system, which will reduce um and accelerate payment issuance.

In conclusion, the city maintains a strong overall compliance rate with the prompt payment ordinance and continues to implement improvements that support efficiency accountability and vendor service um that concludes my presentation for today but I'm happy to answer any questions you may have thank you um I had brought this item forward firstly because of the experiences of city vendors that we here in the community um certainly for contracts issued to organizations in that I work with including in my district this does not reflect um the experiences you know folks wait seven eight nine plus months to get payment on their contracts executed so um I'm a little confused with the discrepancy and we have people coming into city council not at a 9 30 a.m finance meeting but to council meetings regularly talking about they've been waiting six months nine months a whole year for payment and so can you explain the differences because the vast and then we also heard in the equity report uh in the racial and the racial disparity study um a couple of months ago that failure to pay promptly specifically minority and small businesses was one of the biggest concerns that harmed our commitment to equity and contracting um so can you explain the differences between what's here versus what the experiences of the majority of city contractors face so what is presented here is just data based on the numbers we were able to pull from our system um and I'm assuming that the experiences we hear here are individual experiences of people but what is presented in the report here is just looks at the overall total payments that are being made by the entire city and so it just seems like maybe when you look at the overall picture it doesn't look like the impact is that big as it looks like the compliance rate is still 96% but the individual experiences of the 4% that that's where the um invoice delays are probably what we've been hearing in in the meetings and I don't know Brad if you want to add something sure I'll dive in a little bit more many of the many of the payment problems experienced relate to the fact that non-valid invoices are submitted prompt pay only applies when we receive a valid invoice and I'm just gonna give you a specific kind of example if a department has agreed and let a vendor start working and we do not have a contract with them we cannot pay the invoice and we've seen a number of circumstances that we're trying to remedy with that but until there is a contract we do not have a valid invoice or ability to pay and so that would be an example of where you might see a vendor working still through the contract process after having performed work and they may be waiting a long time because our contracting process will take that time it would not be subject to prompt pay because again no work should be performed by the city uh through a contract or grant agreement until a valid grant agreement or contract document is signed.

And so that's part of what we're working on not so much in Pooja's shop but through our contract and procurement unit about ensuring that we do not have work done on the city's behalf prior to execution of a contract agreement prompt pay would then apply to the valid invoices submitted from that point onward and I know a lot of what I've heard sort of anecdotally and I I don't want to downplay that because it's real from our vendors relates to that prior issue they are still getting into contract with the city they don't have a contract yet and that is why we cannot pay an invoice.

Thank you and just to follow up on that the contracting process procurement unit is that within finance or various okay um well I will pass it to my colleagues in a minute, but I think I have a number of follow-up questions, so my interest would be to hold this in committee um till after the August recess.

So we can pull together a little more information, perhaps including some specified questions to other departments.

Um, but I will pass it to my colleagues.

Council member Ron Dunwong.

Excellent.

Um well thank you so much for the report.

Um so I guess I'll I'll start off with the positive.

I did a compare uh compare in contrast to when this report was brought in 2024, and I found that uh this time around there were more um specifics um because in the twenty twenty twenty twenty-four report, it just you know, lists number of interest payments paid from twenty twenty-two to twenty twenty-six and it didn't really go into as much uh detail.

Well, it was from 2020 to 2024, and it didn't really go into as much detail, and then it just listed out um a handful of departments that um were I guess had the highest percentage of not meeting this prop payment uh falling into this prompt payment penalty.

So I would start first there.

But I guess I am curious, I guess, through the chair to um to Bradley, um, in answering Council Member Ramachandran's question, I just wanna clarify that the information in this report is actually reflective of um it it's not this isn't a situation where um uh there was an issue with the invoice.

Like the data here in the current report is not a situation where the invoice that was provided had an error.

Is that correct?

Right.

This is prompt pay only occurs when we have received a valid invoice against a valent contract instrument and we have not paid within 20 business days.

So it's like these are the spaces where we have had all the valid instrumentation and on the back end it uh we have not paid in time.

Sometimes there are issues with the invoice, but not typically I would say they're not typically vendor issues.

Most of the delays that we're seeing often will happen with um sort of receipt mail processing type issues.

It's really really common.

Um if an invoice sits on someone's desk when they're on vacation as opposed to being received centrally through our portal, which is why our controller mentioned the fact that solutions to this process are about centralizing the intake through our advan uh accounts payable portal and getting online or uh e-check systems that we can reduce the one or two days to issue a paper check on the back end.

I see.

And in this data, are we able to really figure out where the accountability lies?

Because when you look at like the various departments, I I I think I just heard that the compliance rate uh being in compliance for this is if you are over 90%, and so um there are um well, not many, um, but there are handful of departments that are under that 90% threshold.

And I guess I'm curious, um, are have we been able to really drill down like is it actually departmental or is it actually um the the issue maybe lies somewhere else within the city?

It's a combination of issues.

So I think what you're seeing the lowest compliance rate is easily with our CIP program, like very, very clearly is with our CIP program.

Those are complicated construction contracts, they often involve draws of trustee funds in order to make the payment.

They are more complicated transactions and they typically involve split funding.

And so those are spaces where you see a delay in payment.

They often also require a different kind of certification for work done.

So before we pay an invoice against a contract, we want to actually make sure that we have received the good, had the work done, etc.

And so construction projects often have a little bit more of a check in them, and so that's part of the reason why they tend to be more delayed.

Um, related to the other departments where you see the delays or the impacts.

Those canal departments have a high volume.

What I would note there is part of what you're seeing is some departments are processing a greater number of invoices from vendors and grantees than the others are.

Um and so that element is also at play here.

Um, I do think centralized intake and processing is your is the answer here because that allows us to um with proper technology have greater accountability for where the state where the problem lies, um, because we would actually be able to track things in the system by it coming in.

But we are, while we have an AP portal right now, it is not as robust as we'd like it to be, um, and it doesn't integrate as sort of seamlessly with our financial system as we would like it to.

I see.

Um, and so I just have two more questions.

Um I was reading the 2014 resolution, and it states that each department should have this business liaison to ensure the prompt payment.

Is that um do we have that within each of the departments?

I do not think we have the equivalent of business liaison.

We have a fiscal manager for each department, okay.

And that is normally the person who would be responsible for this sort of activity, but I will happily look back at the ordinance to ensure that our fiscal managers are aware of the responsibilities under that ordinance as well.

Okay, excellent.

Um, and then I guess lastly, as I was digging into that resolution and just some of the specifics, um, given that it was from 2014, um, do we have an awareness of if there and then I was comparing it to the California um prop payment um uh law.

And so I guess I'm and and updates have been made at the state level around compliance and what those standards are, and um, and then I think I heard you say that our current com compliance for this is above 90%.

I guess I would be curious.

I mean, since this no the the um the uh in the increase pay the interest payments that we have to pay, no matter what, these are tax dollars.

And so I think um it could be most appropriate that we shorten that percentage to ensure a higher compliance.

And so I guess my question is do we have an awareness of if any local cities have moved that threshold to like 95%?

Um, I I'm not aware.

I would uh have you seen anything where you've seen changes in local uh the assumed compliance rate for other local jurisdictions?

No, I have not.

And the 90% that uh was presented in the report is just what we see now uh based on the data.

There is no I'm not aware of any requirement of of the 90%.

Um excellent, thank you.

Thank you.

Um before moving to Councilmember Long, just also a note of gratitude for bringing this report forward, with again, like Councilman Brown mentioned, um, quite a bit of detail compared to before.

I think I would like a little more and a little time to flesh out um some follow-ups that including some of Councilman Brown's questions and that of others, but um I do appreciate what you have collected from the data that's there.

Um, Councilman Long.

Thanks.

And um thanks to the chair for agendizing this item.

I think uh maybe the disconnect that I'm seeing with this report is that even though the fine the financial impact of the city is insignificant, right?

But for the experience of the individual where you have a small business, it's significant for the delay.

Um I think one thing I just have a question around is it does seem like we're actually sliding backwards according to the report, um, because uh 2026 year to date, we have 231 interest payments, uh, and this is payments processed through May 11th, so you know, back of the envelope mo math, we get 400 plus by the end of the year.

Um, is there a reason for that?

It's just challenges that we've had with our own internal processes or more vendors that we're we're bringing online, but um it yeah, it just looks like we're we're on track to hit a higher number compared to 2023 in in table one.

I think most of what we see as you can see in the table is that the interest penalties and the number of interest penalties do go up and down uh from year to year, and that has to do a lot to do with timing as well.

It depends a lot on like when the grant agreement was signed, um, when the actual payment was made.

So some years might not be so heavy based on when the grant um agreement aligns with the timing or when the construction actually happens versus another year.

So a lot there's a lot of different factors that goes into play.

Um the other thing I'm wondering about on a good note is planning and building seems to be doing a good job of driving down their late payments.

They in prior years had been in 12,000, 26,000.

Um were there process improvements that they pursued that there's lessons to be learned across the departments?

Um that's a great question.

I think we can bring this uh back up to and kind of figure out if they have implemented anything in the last couple of years.

Um as of now, uh, we're not aware of anything specific that they have done.

Um so I think we can go back and see if it just has to do with again the variation of timing or if they specifically implemented something system-wise or something like that that the other departments may be able to learn from.

Okay.

Um, and I will say, since you all have noted the capital improvements, it it just strikes me as like the number is much higher this year compared to the prior years.

We were at uh 3,000 last year, but year to date this year we're at 17,000.

Um, so I I hear you all on the you know the need for more checks in the capital improvement side of things, but why are we setting seeing such a substantial increase this year?

I do think that some of this, as Pooja mentioned, varies year to year to year.

There's just some sort of inherent variation in it.

I knew CIP more recently has done, there's been more work being happening.

I think over the past CIP year, especially due to bond draw funds.

So I think that may be an element of it if you just have more work happening.

Um, one of the things that I think is really important that is sort of underlying all this data is the variances that different departments have at various times with the amount of fiscal staff they all have on hand.

If you are short staff in your fiscal unit, your compliance rate will fall typically.

You have fewer people trying to process invoices, they're gonna be less timely at doing that.

And so one of the things that I know happened in the case of like planning and building, as our deputy seen as ministry mentioned is one thing that's happened is planning building has gotten a more full fiscal staff in that time span.

And so just the number of people that you have able to work and available and processing invoices does make a difference in terms of your timeliness, especially when you're talking about a 20-day uh business day turnaround.

Okay, got it.

That's helpful.

I think there was a motion on the floor by the chair, I'll second that.

Thank you.

I'll restate my motion, and that is to continue this item to this September 22nd finance committee meeting.

And if there are questions that you would like answers to, um, please direct them to the finance department or my team.

Thank you.

And it's a public comment.

Thank you.

Calling the names that sign up to speak on item three, in no particular order, you can come up to the podium, state your name for the record, and make your comment.

If you're on Zoom, please raise your hand to be easily identified.

Zach Thayer, Asado Olabala, Kevin Daly, and Blair Beekman.

Thank you, Donald.

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Um as the impeachment agent of Donald John Trump.

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In view of private enterprise, the chairman of Lehman International, Lotus Capital, uh Operations Analyst and Janice Capital and Royce Investments as the principal and TSO Capital and Division Head and Main Street and the foundational and controller of that as an entity.

In the view of the division, the 10.92 mitigated and removed out of the bus estate or out of the Dolan estate in 6.97 moved out of uh the um um bus estate.

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In the view of the state, I am mitigating cost recommendation and emitting as the chairman as well of ocean technology, Revion, and regeneration.

I, Princess of England, the next monarch of England, I, Patrick Hannibal, Xavier Uling Volonovich, Melaninchkov, Elton Anderson Cromwell challenges the right of the state in the view of fiduciary responsibility.

I will be liquidating that for procedures of active combat under the Department of War help.

Kevin Daly, uh, appreciate the report uh that from the finance department and council member Ramachandran for requesting the report, and the questions from Councilmember Brown and Wong as well.

But in my interest is to see more local businesses bidding and receiving contracts, and I'm wondering why, you know, obviously an oak dot for me, public works and elsewhere.

So, if we see that this record for prompt payment looks pretty good, but the council members are still receiving complaints about a lot of payments that aren't prompt.

Is it possible we're looking at the wrong metrics here?

That finance department's doing a great job once the contract is valid and everything submitted of paying, and that that's good.

Uh at least we know the fault is mostly not there, but it would be good to track down a few examples that the council members have received of contractors complaining about not payments that aren't prompt.

Why is this happening?

If it isn't, isn't because if it doesn't fall under the prompt payment policy, where does it fall and what can we do to get the vendors receiving correct uh good payment?

And probably it isn't just the prompt payment policy, there's probably a whole lot else that we need to help the vendors submit the correct invoices and receive correct uh contracts.

Now, why are people working on contracts that aren't valid yet?

I mean, it's great for the city, but not necessarily for them.

Thanks.

So I'm still in a quandary about the payment that is due for the 37 police vehicles, 2025 Ford vehicles that are currently sitting on the lot at San Leandro doing due to an ongoing dispute of agreement, and it says that the funds are being held up because uh the city finance director stated that the Oakland can Oakland cannot tap into its equipment service fund to pay for the cost due to federal regulations.

So what situations are you not able to pay because you're not in compliance with some area of regulation rules, whatever?

So the payment is not due because the payment for whatever reason is not happening, not because you don't have the money, it's because of some other issue.

So, did the report validate that every situation of non-payment had to do with lack of funds, or did it have to do with some other issue why payment was not being made?

So so uh I don't know if you are also interested in the fact that since we don't have the ability to pay promptly, what is the interrupting factor related to services or programs or whatever because we can't pay our vendors or pay on these contracts?

It's a more in-depth conversation besides, oh, we just didn't give them the money, but because we didn't pay, we have loss services, staff, whatever.

So in the future, maybe we could have a more in-depth report when we're not able to pay promptly.

Thank you for your comments.

Chair, all names have been called at this time, and we do have a motion made by Chair Ramachandran, seconded by council member Wong to continue this item to the September 22nd Finance and Management Committee meeting on May I just add a quick comment.

Thank you.

Um, and I think what we will submit questions on will be related to outside of the prompt payment policy.

What are related bottlenecks and contracting and procurement?

Um I completely hear that sometimes organizations begin to execute contracts before they get the money.

But speaking from experience of organizations that I know, sometimes it is time sensitive that the project starts when it comes to public safety and certain timelines that the community has been informed certain tasks will begin.

I speak from experience of certain organizations that have felt compelled to do to do this because of various reasons and frustration.

Again, that yes, probably the the issue is the contract not being executed, but a little more clarity on that.

It's not just organizations are going ahead and starting their projects, knowing a I'm sure that's some of the case, but I know in a lot of other cases, there are organizations that want the contract executed, so where the bottlenecks are for that, but are otherwise because of reasons related to them getting this money in a very public way, needing to expend that at certain times.

Um, you have to start start the project at certain times.

Um so we will follow up with questions when it comes to that contracting and procurement piece.

And this is uh Molly McPherson from the City Attorney's Office.

Uh so the scope of the current information report is on the performance of the prompt payment policy.

Would you like to request a through scheduling a second information report that's more related to the contracting information?

Or are your questions going to be limited to the prompt payment policy itself?

I think it's relevant to the prompt payment policy and identification of relevant related factors.

Okay, I just want to make sure that we're scoping this appropriately for the information report.

And through through the chair, the administration could provide a more comprehensive report if you were to bring a separate scheduling item that articulated some of those other components of contracting, if if that's preferred.

Yeah, well, maybe let's continue this for now, and if we we have a little time, so if we want to bring another scheduling item to replace this, I'd be happy to after thinking it through.

Council Member Wong, um, I I have a question.

Just based off of the discussion that we've had as colleagues, um, I'm wondering if just I think the report is helpful, but we need to dig in one more layer, which is what is the compliance as it relates to small and local businesses and see if the compliance rate is much lower for that set, that subset, and it might uncover specific challenges that these small local um either businesses or nonprofits that are encountering if it's it's possible to carve out that data.

And I'll through the chair, I'll just note that um, you know, the prompt payment policy doesn't apply to the subcontractor component, right?

So we pay the prime contractor.

Sure.

So in terms of like data availability, yeah.

Yeah, I'm talking about the prime contractor meaning small local business, if it's possible to carve that out.

And I and that's that's one aspect of the small local business enterprise program, but certainly another component is when we have larger contractors who then engage small con subcontractors to comply with this small local business enterprise.

And so if you're trying to understand that, just will advise that the report may end up also then showing a gap of information that you are interested in, but that a prompt payment policy doesn't specifically address.

Okay, that's okay.

I think that that layer is actually an important thing for us to understand.

Thank you.

Okay, we have a motion made by Chair Ramachandran, seconded by Council Member Wong to continue this item to the September 22nd Finance and Management Committee agenda with direction to the committee to provide their questions to staff.

On rural council members Brown.

Hi.

Wong.

Hi.

And Chair Ramachandran.

Hi.

Thank you.

Item three passes with four eyes to continue this item to the September 22nd Finance and Management Committee meeting.

Reading in item number four.

Adopt the resolution authorizing the city administrator to waive the competitive solicitation process and enter into an indefeasible rights of use.

Sorry.

Rights of use agreement with SonicNet LLC, a wireline internet service provider in an amount not to exceed $720,000 for a term of 15 years to lease dark fibers to complete the city owned network, Oakland Connect.

Two enter into a memorandum of understanding to connect to the city owned network and at no charge for a term not to exceed 10 years with the following housing providers or affiliated entities to a Oakland Housing Authority, Fruitvale Development Corporation, and Bridge Housing Corporation.

And three, waiving the competitive solicitation process and entering to a fiber lease agreement with another corporate ISP LLC DBA Monkey Brains, a local internet service provider to access and integrate city fibers into a service network to enhance broadband availability for Oakland residents at a rate of zero dollars for a term of 10 years.

And we have two speakers that signed up to speak on this item.

Is there a staff presentation?

Good morning, everyone.

We do have a presentation, I believe.

So this actually represents a major step in the Oakland Connect project.

If we could go to the next slide.

Oh, I have a clicker right here.

Nice.

Okay.

So a little bit of background on this uh project.

It is uh as I said, this is a major step in years in the making.

So starting around 2023, um my department led uh an application for what was called a uh technical readiness grant program, and we were awarded $500,000 from the California Public Utilities Commission to develop uh broadband plans in anticipation of them releasing um what was called the last mile grant um in the future.

So we started planning for that in 2023 and we made our application uh our grant submission in late 2023.

Uh and in 2024 in July, the CPUC awarded the city of Oakland um 14 million dollars, 14.1 million dollars through the application that our department submitted.

Um the project is called Oakland Connect.

The city has a two million dollar measure you match, so it's a total of 16 million dollars for this project with the goal of building a fiber optic network that will connect into multiple affording affordable housing um locations throughout the city as well as provide a backbone um to provide free or low cost internet service throughout uh East Oakland, West Oakland, Downtown, and Fruitvale.

Those are the primary primary areas that we're looking to serve.

Um so in 2025, we completed our broadband master plan, um, which really brings all of these projects all of the thinking behind these projects together and outlines a roadmap for it, which we're now executing.

And we also executed a contract with Kimley Horn for the design and engineering of the construction.

We are currently in the middle of negotiations with the state of California to access their middle mile, which is a separate project that was funded by the state.

And that our design and engineering for construction is around 60%.

When we reach 90%, we'll be going out to bid for that.

That'll be a $10 or $11 million construction project that'll build the fiber network.

That is a separate item that we will be bringing forward after the recess when we are ready to award that contract.

And presently, what is in front of you.

So that's all the background, the context.

Presently, what's in front of you today is several pieces of legislation which all connect to this and tie together.

These are agreements that would allow us to access our nonprofit partners' locations to construct on their private property, would grant them access to our fiber network, would name an internet service provider, Monkey Brains, who would provide the internet service.

We the city are not going to be the internet service provider.

We're going to have a company do that on our behalf.

And we're also working with Sonic, which is a separate internet company, but they have a lot of fiber in the city that they've already built.

And rather than construct some fiber in certain locations in East Oakland, we determined it would be better to get the IRU with them, which would give us access to that right away without having to go through the construction.

So that would complete our segment.

Our broadband master plan is available online.

Our design and engineering plans will be published when we go out to bid.

So you can see these construction plans and what the full network looks like.

I don't have that available now.

I'm going to talk specifically about the legislation in front of you.

So as I said, we're we're recommending actually there is no less than five agreements that this resolution will authorize.

The first one I'm going to talk about is the Sonic Indefeasible Rights Unit, which you don't see that too often, but it's used in the fiber optic world.

It's just a legal agreement that gives us access to their fiber for a period of time.

They will fully maintain it's, you know, they take care of the fiber, they maintain it, but we have access and we can use it in any way that we want to to connect into our network.

That is the first agreement.

We are recommending that that be moved for the authorization for the city administrator to execute that agreement.

And it is in the amount of I think $720,000.

Again, this is all grant-funded.

This is funded through the grant that I just discussed.

And we are seeking a waiver on the competitive bidding.

We did do informal bidding.

It is not very easy to do bidding for fiber, dark fiber in a certain location.

Only so many people have it.

We did get information from ATT and ZEO, and we did cost comparisons, not just cost, but also terms, access, the type of usage we would have, the locations that they would connect us into.

And we determined through that process that ZEO, the agreement with Zao for $720,000 for 15 years, was by far the best plan for us.

So we're recommending to move forward with that and waive the formal competitive bidding on that.

And again, that completes a critical segment in East Oakland of the Oakland Connect Network.

The second, we put these together as affordable housing provider MOUs or memorandums of agreement.

These are actually three separate agreements with three separate affordable housing providers in Oakland.

The largest of which, of course, is Oakland Housing Authority, who has been a number one partner of ours throughout this.

They were our partner when we submitted our grant in 2023.

They were committed and all in with us and they remain committed, and this is the culmination of that work.

So here we are two plus years later, two and a half years later, seeking authorization to enter into a formal agreement with Oakland Housing Authority to make this partnership official.

They are doing the same thing with their board to get authorization to enter into this memorandum of understanding with us.

And so in short, it does a couple of key things.

It allows us an easement to go onto their property to do construction, you know, because it's private property.

We have to pull our fiber into their buildings to deliver service to the residents.

And it will also allow us to do some in-building wiring upgrades.

We identified some affordable housing units that the actual wiring in the building is not really suitable for fiber internet.

So we're going to upgrade that as well.

And it we are going to commit to provide sufficient fiber to Oakland Housing Authority for the future at no cost to connect additional housing units as they become available.

So it's a commitment on the city to ensure that Oakland Housing Authority has access to this fiber network for the future at no cost.

So that's really a substantive agreement.

That's with Oakland Housing Authority.

We're doing very similar agreements with bridge housing on a couple of sites that they have.

And Unity Council, which is their official title is Fruitvale Development Corporation.

They all have locations on that will be on the network when it is constructed.

I want to say there are something like 16, Patrick could tell me 15 or 16 different um affordable housing unit sites that will be connected through these agreements.

And you know, thousands of actual units will be connected with this free internet service, which Monkey Brains will deliver.

And so, of course, Monkey Brains is the final agreement.

So this is an agreement with Monkey Brains that would give them access to the fiber network so they can use this to connect into their service as a service provider, and then they would actually deliver the free internet service through this agreement.

They would commit to delivering free fiber internet service into all of these affordable housing units, and they would provide wireless internet service on top of that, capped at no more than I believe it is $50 a month, it might even be $40 a month, but they would commit to that for the foreseeable future to have a affordable internet option anywhere this service is available, and our backbone network would uh make that expansion possible.

So it's a very strong public-private partnership agreement.

And again, we're seeking a waiver of the competitive bidding here.

We did do a request for information in late 2022 in anticipation of all this happening, and we asked internet service providers to propose ideas to us about how they might connect and serve uh this the city of Oakland and the community, and Monkey Brains was by far the strongest, and they have verbally agreed to commit to low free internet service for internet house for the uh affordable housing units, low-cost wireless service in the surrounding area, so they really can expand deep into the community with that.

And uh in exchange, we'll give them access to our fiber network at no cost.

We you know that that that has a value, and so it's an exchange, which makes it a public-private partnership.

So those are all the agreements.

It's a little complex.

It's a resolution with five separate agreements, um, but it represents multiple years of work and the culmination of a lot of people I want to recognize um Patrick Mesek and all his work and Luisa Calumpong, who couldn't be here today, she's out of town, um, the broadband manager and ITD.

Um, they really have spearheaded and led so much of this work in our partners, OHA, Bridge, Unity Council, Monkey Brains, and Sonic, they've all been um all in with us all the way.

So we are uh recommending that these be moved to the full council for consideration at an upcoming meeting.

Um, I can stop here.

Oh, we should have been going through the slides.

Sorry, you can go to the next.

That's okay.

We're actually past time.

We lost that.

We are past time, but thank you for the presentation.

Uh colleagues, questions, council member Brown, Unger than Monk.

Excellent.

Um, well, thank you so much um for the report.

Um, I had the opportunity to be very supportive of uh the letter of support when I was working at the state level for Assembly Member Bonta, and then Patrick's here in the in the space.

And so just always so grateful for your advocacy and just really delighted to see uh this project moving forward.

Um so just wanted to start there.

Um, did have a couple questions.

Um, because I you know I was also working for the city during 2020 2020 when there was a major investment that was made um in broadband infrastructure around like Oak Wi-Fi, and I just wanted to ask this question of uh, you know, I think the comparable difference is is that I guess maybe the investment for Oak Wi-Fi was uh, you know, maybe around four million dollars.

This project is about sixteen million, and so wanted to ask the question of like how can we ensure that some of the I guess obstacles that uh were presented or some of the the impacts of the Oak Wi-Fi and how like I believe Oak Wi-Fi isn't even being utilized because uh some of those fibers were cut, and so how can we ensure that with this state investment that we're not having the same um uh impact of what happened prior.

Yeah, through the chair to council member Brown.

Um it's a very important question, the Oak Wi-Fi project.

Um, you know, I was not here for that personally, but I'm very familiar with it and certainly worked on it when I uh came into this role in 2022.

Um, and I think it is not operational right now.

It is not for a lack of effort or a lack of trying, it is for a lack of sufficient infrastructure to power the system.

And as you um had alluded to, there were several fiber cuts over the years that rendered the backbone system um inoperable.

And that backbone system was the bus rapid transit BRT system.

So when the BRT network was built, um there was fiber installed along International Boulevard, which would have been a pretty great um backbone.

Unfortunately, it was very vulnerable and it was installed very shallow in some places just a few inches deep and thus susceptible to those types of cuts.

Um so despite our best efforts to try to repair it in 2023 and 2024 to bring the system back up, we were unsuccessful.

Um we actually have amended our CPUC grant to not utilize the BRT network at all, precisely to your point to avoid this type of situation in the future.

Um that's also one of the reasons why in East Oakland um we're recommending to do the IRU with Sonic um to get those key locations that are around International Boulevard um rather than rely on the BRT system.

Um it is unfortunate, but we have made plans around that to ensure that the Oakland Connect network is sustainable, and one of the key pieces of that is building, you know, rings and loops and making sure you know that there's interconnectivity through those.

And in a design standpoint, you know, if you have a ring, if you get cut somewhere, the traffic just goes in the other direction and it can still get to where it needs to go, which is why fiber networks are built in rings like that.

When they're designed for broadband, so I think the difference is is that Oakland Connect is purposely built for you know broadband service, whereas um, you know, other sys other fiber that the city has was not, and and so when we try to use it for for broadband, we run into situations like that.

So um we were also working with the department of transportation, which I should have mentioned to ensure that you know we're um doing construction methods that are suitable for broadband, you know, the the conduit is deep in the ground.

Um it's gonna be protected, it's gonna be monitored, um, things like that.

So I see.

And but the agreements that we have in front of us right now is not the construction, correct?

No, yeah, no.

The IRU was a as a critical segment, and and Sonic will maintain that um fiber throughout the agreement.

Um, but no, the construction project itself is is still underway.

Okay, um, sounds good.

And then the reports, and so is that the international boulevard from 66th Avenue to 98th, then that is specifically um, that sounds about right.

Okay.

Yeah.

Yeah, that's the sonic link from there.

So we we're gonna have fiber come around the top down MacArthur and uh 98 to connect there, and then that we'll use that sonic piece as the interconnect between 66 where the city fiber will end and 98th where the city fiber will end.

Okay, and then in the report, um there's a sentence, I'm not finding it right now, but it it um it basically made the statement that um other locations like as determined who who would determine additional locations.

Like it was in the sentence around like you know, Oakland Housing Authority, and like it was actually naming out various locations, the town center, like etc.

And then it there's a sentence that said like in other locations, who who would determine additional locations?

No, that's a great question again through the chair.

Um I think that language is intentional to leave open the future possibility of future locations, say a location that doesn't exist today gets constructed in five years.

We would want the ability to bring that online if it were near the network.

You know, so so all the sites that are named are going to be on the network.

They're on the streets and intersections and and thoroughfares where the network will be constructed.

Um, but we wanted to leave open that possibility that there could be future things, and so as we learn about those through either our housing um department who's working on projects, or if we learn about those two partners who are building projects, you know, any kind of new developments or any other kind of opportunities.

I would really call it more opportunistic in the sense that you leave open that opportunity because we don't know what might happen in five years or ten years, and if something comes along, you want to be able to connect it.

Yeah, absolutely.

And there's an amazing project being uh built, um uh partnership with the Black Cultural Zone and at Oakland Housing Authority, um, right on uh Bancroffen 73rd, I believe that is, and so you know that could be a possibility, right?

As far as another location, given that OHA is a partner.

Through the chair, so we are working, we have already worked with the housing and community um development department to get a list of upcoming projects, and we're aware of that.

And we're we're going to install conduit in those locations to make future connections available.

So they're already considered in the project.

Awesome.

Um, I like it.

And I feel like I have one more question.

Uh oh, it's just more of a statement just for my colleagues.

Um, well, first off, thank you so much for, I know we don't consistently always see um uh an attachment that includes like all of the providers that um you know applied, and so I'm always grateful to see like okay, what was this way of the land?

Um, and I've been a customer of Monkey Brains since 2020, and um I would say that the the service is just really reliable and no hiccups, and so I think that um Oaklanders are whether it's East West Oakland or wherever they will be providing service, uh, they are very reliable, so just wanted to make that plug.

Awesome.

Thank you.

Yeah, thank you, Council Mr.

I may have misheard, so just to clarify, I think you said the agreement to provide free and low cost service was a verbal agreement.

Oh, yes, no, and and it's we're this will make it a formal agreement.

So what we have is talked to to Monkey Brains and discussed what a partnership would look like.

Um so I don't mean to use a like legal term verbal agreement, I just mean that we've presented some ideas of what a partnership would look like, and they are very eager to work with us and very committed.

So that would be a subsequent resolution if we agreed to do that with them.

No, no, no.

Or this agreement.

We have something in writing now.

Yeah, no, we don't this we need the authorization from the council to execute the agreement.

So the agreement with this monkey brains fiber agreement would include that.

Okay, thank you.

It would formalize it.

Thank you, Councilman.

Uh thank you.

Uh this is fantastic work.

So thank you for doing this and you know, incredibly important initiative.

Um question I just have is um or actually a comment.

Um I just wanted to know when we talk about the downtown area being underserved, it's actually really Chinatown, and I just I don't want that neighborhood to be rendered invisible in this because one in five households in that neighborhood does not have internet access.

I see it matches up with your own data in terms of the highest need, and I think it's just important to call that out since many people do not know the the extent of lack of internet access in that neighborhood.

Um the other question I just have is: how are people going to sign up for the actual internet service?

How can we support you as council office since the traditional means of outreach through the internet are obviously not going to work with the intended recipients of this service?

Yeah, through the chair.

Um thank you for the awareness of uh Chinatown.

We can certainly talk to Monkey Brains about um how they can you know continue to serve and expand in that area, and I think um with their addition of wireless internet on top of the fiber internet, it really does allow that kind of expansion cost uh effectively.

Um so we can certainly talk to them.

So the second point about how we kind of communicate and help.

I think the housing providers will be the number one partner as we get into the affordable housing units.

So they'll you know work with the residents of those locations to ensure that when we roll those services out in those locations that the residents become aware, they know how to connect, it's free.

So and monkey brains will play a large part in that too.

I think there's a larger opportunity in that expansion service, that wireless low-cost service that they'll be able to provide on top of the free fiber at affordable housing units, and that's where we we can probably play a role in making this more visible and more aware.

Where Monkey Brains has has a presence and can connect to small businesses or to um you know any kind of housing affordably, there would be there could be potentially be a role for us to help raise the awareness of that in the community that there is this alternative and it's low cost and it's you know reliable.

Yeah, I would love to be helpful so if uh you need any support and outreach to district two communities, I am here to partner.

And then final question is just is any of this going to require um just uh digging up like uh trenching the wires and digging up some of the roads is the coordination happening with Oak Dot.

And this isn't just to you, but I I've noticed just around the district and the neighborhood that there isn't that coordination happening between uh utilities being dug up and and the paving and neighbors expect, oh, we're gonna have our roads paved, not so.

It's we're just digging up the road and that's it.

Yeah, um, no, we're we're coordinating very closely with the Department of Transportation and Public Works on the plans, and we have modified our plans per their feedback to ensure that our methods, as I said, construction methods are compliant with what they're recommending, and we're also gonna follow their procedures very closely.

Um so what we have also done with them is coordinate across what their um road pavement plans are so that in many locations we're able to go in before where we know they're gonna do paving, we'll go in before, and we'll do our work and then they'll come in and pave later.

Um, and then in the areas where they're not doing that, we're gonna do the pavement as part of our project.

So we're trying to, you know, be as efficient as possible and realize a lot of efficiencies.

Um again, I'm I don't have that data in front of me, but I know there's been a lot of route modifications to say, hey, we're doing paving over here, why don't you move over one block and then you can do your construction, and then a year later we can do a fresh repave over it.

Um so that type of coordination has been very um beneficial, and I'd say we've done a lot of collaboration with DOT through this to make the project as efficient as possible.

In terms of the second part of your question about kind of the impact to the community, I think that's something that I I hear and I would want to track as we move through this to make sure that residents kind of understand what the impacts are, you know, small businesses understand if there's going to be construction.

It's not intended to be like deep trenching, okay.

It's more micro trenching and underground construction.

Right.

Okay, great.

Thank you so much.

I'll move the item.

Great.

Um, and I will second that.

I do have um two quick questions.

So, as far as well, firstly, thank you for working on this.

I think it's a very exciting initiative.

Um, what is the timeline for it to be ready to be used by residents?

Thank you, Councilman.

Chandra.

Um, the timeline, so we are looking to bring the construction project for consideration later this year.

The construction projects anticipated to take about a year to complete, with service plan to come live as locations come live.

So we would be constructing, and as soon as the location is connected, we could turn we could turn on service there.

So service would be turned up as the project is happening, so that by the time the project is done, all the service would be live.

So we're probably looking at late 2027 for our final completion of the entire project.

Okay, thank you.

And approximately how many housing units would this serve?

In our total plans, there are 2500 units, uh, 1400 of which are going to get direct internet service from this project.

The other ones will be what we call fiber ready, meaning that there's fiber at the building for future connection.

Got it.

Um, and so the proposal is a 10-year plan after that.

Would we need to re-up payments?

Would there be another CPU C contract or how does that work as far as I mean the fibers are in place, but I imagine there's maintenance costs and all of that.

Yeah, no, that's a great question.

Um, and so I think there would we would need to leave open the ability to you know do an extension of the um agreement with monkey brains, um, and also the monkey brains will need to have agreements with the housing providers themselves, which we will the city will not be part of.

Um, but yeah, that there's uh after 15 years when the IRU ends and we need to continue that.

There could be a need to consider then how to you know maintain that connectivity.

So that's something we have to think about.

Okay, thank you.

Um, yeah, call public comment calling in the names that sign up to speak on item number four, Mississippi Olobala and Blair Beekman.

Uh I do see that the matching funds of 2 million dollars is coming from measure you.

Uh when was that agreed upon?

Was that in the budget uh for 26 27?

Um I don't know, but when was that approved?

You have to really pay attention to, and I think Ms.

Brown alluded to this.

Actually, when you have groups like the Fruitvale Development Cooperation and Bridge Housing Cooperation, where they're producing developments and who's going to be impacted.

So fruitvale, uh 3357 international is the development 2700 international, 2610 international, and east 12th Street 2 developments.

Nothing being developed by them in Deep East Oakland, but the statement is made that they have developments in East Oakland.

Uh, you also have the bridge housing cooperation, their developments is in West Oakland.

So nothing in the uh the uh housing authority.

When y'all have that informational report, you uh alluded to uh receive and uh report.

But you're not you're not going into that report.

They deal with 18,000 families, but they are part of I don't understand all of this, and y'all need to get to the bottom of it.

The City of Oakland Housing Authority has connection with the federal government HUD voucher program, also with the state of California, and you're creating financial support for them coming from us, but they get money for from other sources other than the city of Oakland.

Thank you for your comments, Chair.

All names have been called, and we have a motion made by Councilmember Wong, seconded by Chair Ramachandran to approve the recommendations of staff and support this item to the June 16th City Council agenda.

On roll council members Brown.

Aye, Unger, I won.

Aye, and Chair Ramachandran.

Aye, thank you.

Item four passes with four eyes to forward this item to the June 16th city council agenda on consent.

Moving on to open forum, calling in the names that sign up to speak on open forum, Missisada Olabala, Kevin Dolly, and Blair Beekman.

Kevin Daly.

It looks like measure U is failing, which means we need to take a look at whether there's any other way we can increase revenue.

There aren't a whole lot of possible taxes on the potential agenda right now.

Now I know there's one coming up in rules.

But we need to look what are the what are the odds of it passing well council first, but what are the odds of it passing the city in the vote afterwards?

I always like the transportation network company tax to tax lift Uber and Waymo, especially as Waymo's coming in.

The vehicles make the sit streets more crowded even while they do provide useful services.

Councilmember Kaplan introduced TNC taxes quite a few times so it could be yanked out probably not in time for November unfortunately but maybe for the next round so I asked you if you get any revenue from the ice rink.

You do you're supposed to at least you get base rent the city collects an annual base rent of three hundred and thirty five thousand dollars offset by required one hundred thousand dollars annual capital contribution from the city towards facility maintenance percentage rent Oakland earns seven percent on all annual gross revenues generated by the facility that exceeds 4.3 million advertisement revenue sharing the city receives 50% of all net advertising revenue generated at the rink after operator retains the first hundred thousand when y'all gonna give a report on this when you're gonna give a report on this so again I say you are not fiscally responsible until we get a picture of all revenue.

Thank you for your comments chair that concludes all speakers on open forum okay thank you this meeting's adjourned