Good afternoon and welcome to the council meeting of Tuesday, June 16th.

Before I call roll, I will have our interpreter give instructions in Spanish to participate in this meeting.

So the translator giving instructions, please go ahead.

Everyone needs to choose a channel if you're watching online, and it has to be either English or Spanish.

If you could make me interpreter now, thank you.

Thank you.

I now go over speaker card instructions.

If you'd like to speak on any agenda item, you must fill out a speaker's card.

You must fill it out a speaker's card before the item is called, or two hours after the start of this meeting.

This meeting was called to order at 342.

Excuse me, 332.

So your last opportunity to turn in a speaker's card will be at 5 32 p.m.

If you're looking to turn in an online speaker, that time has, excuse me, online speaker card.

That time has expired as they were due 24 hours before the start of that meeting.

So again, if you're looking to speak on any item, please submit your speaker's card as soon as possible before the item is called, or two hours from the start of this meeting.

As this meeting was called to order at 342 p.m.

On roll, Council Member Gaio.

Council Member Five.

Council Member Houston.

Here.

Council Member Ramachandran.

Present.

Council Member Unger.

Here.

Council Member Wong present.

And Chair Jenkins.

Present.

Showing eight members present.

Do you have any announcements?

Yes, Councilmember Raman Chandran, how are you participating today?

And is your camera on?

And do you have anyone in the room over the age of 18?

Uh nope, no one in the room at all.

Participating under AB 2449.

Thank you so much.

Also, because of potential quorum issues, speaker time will be cut to one minute.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Going to item three, modifications to the agenda and procedural items.

Are there any modifications to this agenda?

Yes.

And 5.2 will go before 5.1.

Strong mayor item 5.2 will go before 5.1.

So I'll entertain a motion to continue 6.1 and 6.2, the GAD items.

Second.

And the public still will have an opportunity to speak on those items if you did sign up for speaker card on the GAD items.

On the motion to continue item 6.1 and 6.2 to your next meeting, which I believe is July 7th.

And I believe that was a motion by Councilmember Brown and Councilmember Gayo.

Councilmember Brown.

Aye.

Councilmember Fife.

Aye.

Councilmember Gayo.

Aye.

Council Member Houston.

Aye.

Councilmember Ramachandran.

Aye.

Councilmember Unger.

Aye.

Councilmember Wong.

Aye.

And Chair Jenkins.

Aye.

Motion passes with a vote of eight ay.

So noting items 6.1 and 6.2, the GAD items are continued to July 7th, and noting that item 5.1 will be taken before item 5.2.

No other way around.

5.2 will be taken before 5.2.

Yes, I'm sorry.

We'll be taken before 5.1.

Moving on to item 4.1.

Conduct a public hearing and upon conclusion.

I'm sorry, we need a motion to open the public hearing.

Actually, can we take 5.2 before 4.1?

So starting the agenda with item 5.1.

5.2.

5.2.

Then 4.1.

Then the 5.1.

Yep.

Okay.

Is the mayor here?

Taking item 5.2.

Adopt a resolution submitting to the voters at the November 3rd, 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, who and resources, public works, and transportation.

Empower the council to create an independent budget and legislative analyst office to provide the council fiscal and policy analysis that is subjective and nonpartisan.

Affirm council members' right to request information and relay constituent concerns and city officials' duty to respond promptly.

Empower the council to hold legislative hearings and issue subpoenas.

Create a mayoral veto with a line item budget veto and a 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 member salaries with those comparable full-time city officials.

Require the publication of ordinances within 15 days of passage, and direct the city clerk to take actions necessary under law to submit this measure to the voters at the election and making the appropriate CEQA findings.

Thank you very much.

First of all, council um president Jenkins, members of the uh Oakland City Council, also to the working group, uh Spur, the League of Women Voters, of course, my staff, uh Preston, Mia, and my entire team.

Thank you all, especially our residents who have been with us every step of this process.

Let me thank everyone, and I mean everyone that has put in hundreds of hours to develop this comprehensive report, especially again the League of Women Voters Spur and our working group.

I want to thank them for this measure.

To the council members that have been partners in this work, and many of you have been.

I just want to thank you all for working on some amendments with my office, and quite frankly, about 90% of them have been incorporated into this reform.

Now, let me just be clear with you, council members in the public.

This measure is not about me, and it's not about any of us in this chamber.

It's about whether the people of Oakland get to decide the future of their own government.

That's all we're being asked to do to trust our residents with that choice.

More than 750 Oaklanders participated through 14 community sessions in every single council district.

There were surveys, workshops, and interviews.

The League of Women Voters and Spur co-facilitated more than 60 conversations with current and former city leaders, governance experts, and officials from peer cities.

Every step was documented, it was public, it was transparent.

All of the research, the comparative analysis, and community input were published and remain available for anyone to review.

And so for those who have spent years in community engagement in Oakland, this was by far and by any fair standard the most comprehensive charter reform process in our city's history.

The working group's conclusion was clear, and we narrowed this very narrowly because it's not a full charter reform effort.

This was very narrowly directed and framework was put within the context of governance, transparency, accountability, and our financial systems.

And so the working group's conclusion was very clear.

Oakland's current system too often makes it impossible for residents to know who is responsible when things go wrong.

Authority is divided across the mayor, the council, and city administrator in ways that diffuse accountability without securing the benefits of either governance model.

When services fall short, residents tell me time and time again, they don't know who to hold accountable.

Is it the mayor?

Is it the council?

Is it the city administrator?

When legislation comes before you, many residents ask me who drafted the legislation?

Is it the mayor?

Is it the council members?

Is it the city administration?

Who drafted the legislation?

Too often there's just no clear answer.

And that's a structural problem.

It's a structural problem that requires structural solutions.

So this reform creates clear lines of responsibility so residents know exactly who to call, who to hold accountable, and who can do what to help them make their lives better in our city.

We see the consequences of unclear accountability every day.

Just yesterday, the Alameda County civil grand jury examined Oakland's response to illegal dumping.

One of the issues that residents raised to me most often and to our council members.

The grand jury recognized that the city's effort to address the problem was a priority, of course, while noting that Oakland's current weak mayor system limits the mayor's authority over city departments and day-to-day operations.

Even as Oakland spends millions of dollars each year responding to illegal dumping, residents still want to know who is responsible for solving the problem.

Clear lines of authority make clear lines of accountability possible.

Let me be equally clear about what it does not do.

It does not eliminate checks and balances.

It does not weaken oversight, and it does not take a single power away from this council.

You retain full authority to pass laws, set policies, serve constituents, amend and approve the budget, new powers to confirm appointments, and to represent your districts.

Some have raised questions about the role of executive authority given to Oakland's recent history.

Now, let me just be direct.

What happened under the prior administration occurred under our current hybrid system.

One where lines of authority were already blurred.

The accountability that ultimately materialized came from our democratic institutions, the voters, the city auditor, the public ethics commission, and existing ethics and transparency laws.

Those systems worked because responsibility was identified.

It could be held to account.

This new system makes it clear who has responsibility, and those lines are not blurred.

This reform does not remove those safeguards.

It adds clarity, clarity so that when problems arise, it's easier, not harder, to know where responsibility lies.

And again, those oversight tools are only strengthened, but we also are adding new powers as well.

I also want to speak very plainly to a distinction that matters for good governance.

The difference between oversight and pre-approval.

When we require legislative confirmation before the executive branch can act on a personnel matter, especially in involving personnel matters involving misconduct, fraud, or a situation requiring immediate attention, we are not strengthening accountability.

We're creating delay at precisely the moment when decisiveness is most critical.

A process requiring public deliberation, agenda notice, and multiple votes before the mayor can act just does not slow things down, it can compromise active investigations, open the city to lawsuits, and expose victims and witnesses to risks.

The reform provides the council with robust tools such as subpoena authority, formal oversight hearings, budget powers, and resolutions of no confidence.

Those tools are real and meaningful.

They allow this council to investigate, question, push back, and put its position formally on the record without tying the executive hands in a crisis.

That's the right balance.

Similarly, when we add procedural conditions on executive powers that are already addressed elsewhere in the charter, we risk creating not stronger governance but more confusing government.

That's not accountability.

It reintroduces exactly the kind of ambiguity that this reform was designed to solve.

What we have now.

We don't want another hybrid form of government.

The residents don't want that.

And that's what we have right now.

On council compensation, it's been reported that the council will receive a hundred and twenty-five percent salary increase.

And let me just tell you, that is not accurate.

This measure does not give the mayor control over salaries.

It does not allow the city council to set its own pay.

Instead, it creates an independent, transparent process through the Public Ethics Commission to review compensation for all city elected officials based on peer crisis and objective criteria and makes it consistent with what the ethics commission already engages in.

The attempt is also about equity.

We are working class city.

We want working class Oaklanders, people like some of you, who can't subsidize public service with outside income or through their pensions or retirement to be able to just serve on our council.

So equity is a big issue here in Oakland.

And also there's been some misinformation about the veto.

As I've mentioned previously, I also want to be clear that this proposal does not simply concentrate power without checks.

It preserves a strong check on the mayor through a six-vote override of any veto.

The working group spent months studying these trade-offs.

They examined Oakland's own history, our governance model across California and cities nationwide.

They look closely at both strong mayor cities and council manager cities.

While they acknowledge the council manager systems have strengths and work well in some places, they ultimately concluded that Oakland's current challenges and Oakland's residents' expectations that someone be accountable for results are best addressed by these reforms.

It was for a system where executive authority is clear, legislative authority is protected and clear, and also the delivery of core constituent services would be better delivered much better than now.

Uh, would be delivered in efficient and effective ways.

And the section 218, I've received many suggestions from council members, which again have been included in this reform, including the repeal of the majority of Section 218, and also making sure that the misdemeanor provision is taken out.

That's that's a huge step in making sure that the council can better deliver the services to their constituents.

The working groups meant months doing research because of how important this work is.

The charter is the governance document of our city, and the last thing we want is a charter measure that includes amendments that will blur the lines of authority.

Reasonable people can disagree about specific provisions.

What should unite us, though, is that Oakland residents deserve the opportunity to weigh in on the charter reform working groups legislation?

The question before you is not whether every member of the council agrees with every line, it's whether the people of Oakland should have the chance to evaluate this proposal and make their own decisions at the ballot box.

And I want to be candid about about what this vote represents, and I'm respectfully asking the council to not preserve the status quo at its core.

This is about whether Oakland residents should have the opportunity to decide if they want a system with clearer lines of responsibility and greater accountability.

Quite frankly, I trust the voters of Oakland to weigh the facts, to consider the arguments, and make the decision for themselves, allowing voters to make their choice.

That's how democracy is supposed to work.

So let's at least let the voters make an informed decision, let's trust them with that responsibility.

Again, that's what democracy asks of us today.

And so thank you again for giving me a chance to be with you.

Thank you, Mayor.

Do any of the council members who have amendments want to introduce your amendments before we go to the public speakers?

Uh yeah, uh, included within this uh resolution, I'm um, or excuse me, this charter um amendment is uh just the amendments that I had discussed uh last time we discussed this item, which is in a in essence that uh in order to increase more transparency, that we actually add a council public vetting process for for a number of department heads that are included uh in your packet.

So uh that is the the extent of this provision.

Um, I'll talk more about it after the public comment.

Thank you, council member.

Councilmember Houston.

Yes, and um, thank you through the chair, and I had a couple of amendments that I sent to the city attorney, amendment one under article to the council section 207.

The city council shall confirm the mayor's appointments of the role of the city administrator by a minimum of five votes.

Um, mayor's action to remove or reprimand the city administrators subject to confirmation by the city council of a minimum of five votes.

And the reason why I put that in there, President, is because the mayor actually sends a recommendation for the city administrator, and we approve it.

Um, so I think that we should do the same thing.

We should be able to disapprove it or reprimand the city administrator, not just um approve the city administrator, that's number one, and I know my um my city attorney is gonna have something to say about that one.

Um, amendment two, article to the mayor, section 305, except the order to veto any item.

Um I feel that is um unfair.

It's just my opinion, my reality, that if this council right here makes a decision to give Oakland or you some money or you know, just we make a decision.

If you voted down, I'm good with it.

I'm good.

If you voted up, I don't think anyone should veto anything we put on the table.

That's our that's our duty.

I remember when I first ran for council, it says city council's duties.

I see uh five bullet points here.

And the one that really caught my attention was um number one says we vote on ordinances and resolutions.

So if I put something on the floor and you guys approve it, I expect it to stay that way.

Not somebody to not, I'm not talking about this mayor, I'm talking about any mayor to veto something that we put on the ground or on here.

So let me finish this one up.

Except that in order to veto any item, the mayor must personally, and I made adjustments on this, personally attend all of the discussion of said item in the meeting, where the council votes to adopt an item, including both first and second reading of the ordinance.

Uh, for purposes of this section, the mayor attend may be remote, so long as the mayor's remote attendance meets the same Brown Act requirements that apply to the council members.

So I'm making a I don't want the veto, but this is what I would accept for my amendments, but my real one is that city administrator.

We should be able to, and you want to come up, um, counsel.

I mean, my city attorney and ask me why I can't do that, because in it says among other things, and I believe that falls amongst other things.

Thank you.

Uh Ryan Richardson, city attorney through the chair.

So uh, to council member Houston.

Uh Councilmember Houston introduced three amendments, one of which our office was able to sign off on, the other two of which we're unable to sign off on.

The amendment that we're able to sign off on has to do with requiring the mayor to attend meetings or to attend items that that he or she may veto.

So the idea is as a prerequisite to vetoing any resolution or ordinance, the mayor would have to have been in attendance at the meeting or meetings where that resolution ordinance was adopted.

Um that is a change that we're able to sign off on.

It is within the scope of the title of what we notice the public uh is on the table.

The other amendments having to do with um requiring the mayor to get approval from the city council before removing or reprimanding the city administrator, unfortunately are outside of the scope of what the public has been noticed in the title.

We to council member Susan's point, the title doesn't list every single change that's in the in the proposed resolution, but it does list every single major change that's in the resolution.

That's why that title is so long.

Um the title does not put the public on notice that one of the things that could be on the table in this resolution is would be to require the mayor to get council approval for removing the city administrator.

That's what's on the table is essentially a strong mayor proposal, and that is a hallmark of a council manager form of government.

So through the chair, when I hear when I read among other things, I feel that that could fall in there.

Um here's one other thing I like to share.

Is that you know I didn't want to break the Brown Act, so I just heard rumor that um Unger, Councilmember Ugger, and Council Member Ramachan Chandra, um Johnny was bringing something forward to bring the those both to the to the public to vote on, which was strong mayor, and the other one was what strong counsel, strong manager.

And I heard it was coming, but now heard it's not there.

I think that is the democratic way to allow the public.

The public's not stupid.

They're watching this very closely.

Not just one that's put on the ballot.

So where is that at?

And if can we bring that forward?

And is there enough time to bring both for the public to choose, right?

Because I feel that the public should be able to choose and they understand the difference.

Because we know why we're in this.

What did she what do we call it?

A hybrid mayor.

Why?

Because Jerry Brown didn't want to sit on a council.

We know that.

We know this.

Come on.

So I talked the truth.

So here's what I like to know.

Since I didn't want to break the brown act, I'm always getting into something.

So I wanted to find out can council member Unger's what he was putting together with Gennati.

Is there enough time to put both of those on the ballot so the people can make a choice?

Through the chair.

So there are a number of requirements that the council has to go through in order to put any measure any measure on the ballot.

When it comes to a charter amendment specifically, it has to be heard at two council meetings, and those council meetings have to be at least 10 days apart.

That's in the charter.

After that, once a resolution, once the council passes a resolution to say we want to put this charter amendment on the ballot, the council has to adopt an ordinance that lists all of the offices and all of the ballot measure that the city wants the county to put on the ballot.

It's basically the city's instructions to the county of what we want our section of the ballot to look like.

That has to be done by ordinance, and that takes two readings.

Those readings have to be at least five days apart.

As of today, the council has two regular meetings left before the deadline for our office and the clerk's office to transmit all those materials to the county.

So to answer your question, Councilmember Houston, yes, there is enough time technically, but in order for the council to introduce a new charter amendment, have two readings of that amendment and then pass the ordinance and two readings, the council would have to add several special meetings to its its agenda before the end of July.

So through the chair, a special meeting that the president can make, and I think it was already vetted through the city attorney's office.

Is that right, Councilmember Ugger?

So I did uh work on a strong council manager uh measure with the city attorney's office.

Um we did not finish that work because it became clear to me that we had reached a point where there was not enough support on the council to get there, so that measure is incomplete.

I do favor a strong council manager system.

I also don't believe that it's a good idea to have two competing ballot measures on the ballot at the same time.

I think the uh the math of that just doesn't work.

If you have a a hundred people in the electorate and 49 vote for one system and 49 vote for the other system, and two don't vote or vote no on both, you end up with nothing.

I think that uh if we are if this council decides to put strong mayor forward, the public should have the opportunity to do a clear up or down vote on strong mayor on one system alone.

I I don't I don't favor putting two competing ballot measures on the same ballot.

Councilmember Houston, may I respond very quickly?

All right, let me just clarify something.

Uh the League of Women Voters and Spur conducted a very thorough democratic process.

There was no predetermined conclusion.

They engaged with over uh 750 people.

This was one of the largest community engagement ever, efforts ever as it relates to charter, and this was the recommendation out of this democratic process.

Had it been another recommendation, that would be the recommendation that the Spur and the working group and the engagement process would have brought forward.

But that this is the one that was brought forward, and so this is the one that uh we're asking for the vote so that the residents and the voters can vote this up or down because the process was very it was transparent.

Uh it was engaging, people had many many questions about both and other forms of governance, and this was the uh conclusion, and so uh I would encourage you to look at this very carefully because the status quo is just untenable.

Thank you again.

Thank you to the chair.

Um I want to make sure that the city attorney addressed what I was saying.

So you're saying that my amendment number one, among other things, it doesn't fall in there, among other things, when uh for the city administrator being able to hire and fire the city administrator because that's huge.

That's huge for us to be able to do that as a body, and I don't want no veto through the chair.

I agree that it is huge, and that is precisely why the public would have been put on notice that that type of proposal would be on the table this evening, and it's not in the title, so among other things is for more technical edits that are not as as big.

I want to hear the audience, thanks.

Thank you.

Councilmember Fife.

I wanted to know if Councilmember Houston would require a second uh for the veto amendment that was approved by the city attorney's office.

Um when this body is ready to make a motion, it can um debate the amendments that are in the packet or other amendments that are on the floor.

Um, and yes, any uh motion would require a second and then a full vote.

And I also wanted to get clarity on how there would be uh through the chair to council member Unger, how would you come to a conclusion about the votes being necessary for a strong council city manager form of government?

How would you come to that conclusion?

I just think if we have two competing ballot measures on there, the odds of both of them losing are much higher than I understand.

But you said you came to the conclusion that the there was not a desire for this body to pass or to put something forward for strong city council.

The folks that had within my Brown Act bubble who I thought were with me were no longer with me.

Okay, change their minds.

Understood.

Um, I and I just wanted to say before we go to the public speakers.

I, as I stated in our previous um council meeting, order in the chambers.

As I stated in our previous council meeting on this topic, I support the voters of Oakland being able to determine what if they want to vote up or down a strong mayor model.

I'm not going to stand in the way of that democratic process.

I believe there are some weaknesses here that are based on uh misinformation and the very real reality that voters in Oakland feel um let down by city government by by their local government.

Some of those reasons are valid and some of them are not, but the reality is what's working, the status quo.

I mean, the status quo is not working, period.

We know that.

Um, and I believe that this particular measure, as it's drafted, will be weaponized against the mayor as she's running for her re-election.

I just have to say that publicly because I don't think it's valid, but I believe that it will happen.

And it has to be uh uh made very clear what this measure does and does not do what it will and will not do to say that it will not impact the the ways that this council engages when it comes to our powers, is largely true, but by have by allowing a mayor to veto a budget or other legislation and requiring a supermajority to override that is a bit of a usurpation of this this body's powers.

That's the reality.

But I will not again stand in the way of allowing the voters to choose, and based on that vote in November, I think this body needs to be prepared.

If it doesn't go the way that my base, my base literally has asked me not to support this, and I have to go against the people who put me in office to move this forward.

And I've made that commitment to do that, because I believe that the voters have a right to decide whether they want a strong mayor or not.

And it stands to reason that with the other uh jurisdictions surrounding Oakland that a straw strong mayor model may be what we need in this particular era.

I don't know.

The voters will choose if they choose no, then this body needs to be prepared to come with the legislation that you say your your allies or your brown acted group um stepped away from to put to put another model on in front of the voters, because again, what we have does not work, and we need a better system.

And I just wanted to say that, but in respect for the mayor and all of the work of Spur and the League of Women Voters and everyone who and myself, I wonderful presentations in District Three about this particular ballot measure.

Um I'm just concerned about who comes after Barbara Lee, who comes after Barbara Lee.

We're seeing massive changes to billionaires being able to buy elections and to put people in office that they want to run.

I had a uh um a tech billionaire who put a bunch of money against me in my race, say I'm going to continue to do this in perpetuity because I believe I deserve to set the table, not to have a seat at the table, but to create it.

So let's be clear about what's happening in Oakland.

And this is not about our current mayor, because I have so much respect for you, and I appreciate everything that you've done in terms of the changes that you've brought to the city of Oakland.

I'm concerned about what comes next.

Thank you.

And through the chair, before Councilmember Houston begins, if I could.

You cannot find a seat, you can go down to the first floor.

You will have plenty of opportunity to come back to speak if you are speaking to the council.

Although I do see some empty seats in here, because you are not supposed to stand on the back wall.

That is as it is a fire hazard, and there are still seats in the chamber.

So please find a seat.

Council member Houston, the mayor, and then we're gonna go to public comment.

Yeah, we will.

So, and through the chair, I'm gonna echo my council member uh Fife.

This has nothing to do with my mayor, and I'm gonna say my mayor, Barbara Lee, up ten toes down, I'm worried about after, after my mayor, right?

And who's gonna come after me, after you five council member five, after you, Councilmember Brown, after you, President Jenkins, Wayne, and Uger.

So I'll yield the floor.

Thank you very much, and thank you very much, uh Councilmember Fife and Councilmember Houston.

But let me clarify just a couple points.

One is with regard to the veto, it's only a line item veto for the budget.

So if the fiscal condition of the city says that we can't afford $10 for X, Y, and Z, because I have responsibility for the budget as with you all, then I would say and make a an argument that this line item that $10 uh should be placed elsewhere, given the budget kind of scenarios and the comprehensive view of the budget.

So it's not vetoing the entire budget, it's a line item.

And with regard to uh the structural change, this is a structural change that, regardless of who is mayor, the accountability systems, and I hope you read this really carefully, because the accountability systems of checks and balances are much much stronger than what they are now, regardless of who comes after myself.

And it's so it's not uh based on anybody, it's not based on any council member, but it's based on on uh the foundation of the city to make sure that the chaos and the confusion is uh is is minimized in terms of good governance in terms of accountability and delivering of course services.

So thank thank you again.

Yeah, yeah, of course.

I I appreciate that um that response, uh madam mayor, and that's exactly what I was thinking about in terms of a line item budget because if tech interests and business interests and chambers of commerce come together to say they want to veto what the council says about, say the police budget, uh, with the police already being the highest expenditure that we have in our general purpose fund.

If there's a line item veto where the council says, Well, we want to move some of these funds into community or um services, and it the a mayor after you was like, Well, no, I think we need to do this.

I think that could have a massive impact.

And if I'm members of the council, uh council member, if they bought the mayor, they're gonna buy the council.

I hear you, I hear you.

Again, I'm not I as you stated in your earlier comments.

Reasonable people can disagree.

I I see the trajectory of the city, I've seen its impact on my district.

I've been organizing in the streets of Oakland.

I see a lot of folks I've been organizing with for the last three decades, and I've seen the changes for the good and the bad.

Um, and again, I'm not gonna hold up this legislation.

I'm going to vote to support it, moving in front of the voters, and again, we will have to regroup or may or may not based on the outcomes in November.

That's all I have to say.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Let's go to public commenters.

As a car, please approach the podium.

And if in any order, if you are participating via Zoom, please raise your hand so I can easily identify you.

Ryan Mizick.

Karan Talak, Corey Cook, Helen Hutchinson, Blair Beekman, Kevin Daly, Mr.

Hazard, Gail Wallace, Miss Asada Olabala, Steven Falk, Mindy Bachunik, Gerald Pachunik, Nancy Falk, James Murphy, Steve and David, I'm sorry, Stephen, David Khan, Nicole Nedich, Ayende, Mark Sawicki, Daniel Motley, Keith Brown, Isaiah Tony, Angerius Culver, Cluver, sorry, Raymond Lankford, Sean Ella Byrne, sorry if I said the incorrectly, Ben Gould, Deborah Scheffler, Cynthia O'Malley, Sujata, Sarafstava, Simeo Remsey, Buffalo Sojourn, Meg McAdam, Lynette Diaz, Barbara Lafite Alahule, Richard Fuentes, and again, please let me know if you have time seated to you so we can give you the appropriate amount of time before you speak, and if you do have seated time, the person must be present in chambers or on Zoom.

And again, this is for item 5.2.

Good afternoon, council members.

I'm Keith Brown, resident of District 5, and here um today representing the voices of over 45,000 union households in Oakland under the Alameda Labor Council who keep this city running every day.

And when our services are inconsistent, it's the working people, our teachers, our grocery workers, our transit operators who pay the price.

This charter reform proposal isn't about politics, it's about establishing clear executive leadership so that the person we elect has the authority to deliver results and the accountability if they do not workers and residents alike benefit from a governance structure that establishes clear executive leadership.

Um working families should not have to navigate through a maze of the Sorry, Mr.

Brown, your time is up unless you have time ceded to you.

Good afternoon, Council President and Council members.

My name is Danielle Motley Lewis and the president of the Oakland Berkeley chapter.

BOWAPA has already submitted our formal letter of support on behalf of this measure.

So I will keep my comments brief.

Too often, when something goes wrong, as already stated, we never know who is in charge.

This proposal provides an opportunity to create clear governance structure and allows Oakland voters to decide whether this is the direction they want to travel.

Tonight, I'm simply asking that you trust in the community engagement process that's been put before us, and allow Oakland voters to place to vote when you place this measure on the ballot.

Let them decide.

Thank you.

Hello, my name is Cynthia O'Malley from the League of Women Voters, and I cede my minutes to Gail Wallace.

Thank you.

Hello, I'm Deborah Scheffler.

I'm also from the League of Women Voters, and I cede my time to Gail Wallace.

Thank you.

Good afternoon.

Gail Wallace, on behalf of the League of Women Voters of Oakland.

This is the moment when we tend to lose the forest for the trees.

I want to remind us that there have been distinct and independent phases to this process, and the tasks and the players have differed at each stage.

Throughout the league has adhered to its position on governance that emphasizes the goals of a responsive, effective, and transparent government.

We have worked to facilitate the bringing of one or more choices for Oakland.

We want those choices to be complete and internally coherent.

In the first phase, the working group deliberated efficiently to analyze why the charter contributed to Oakland's dysfunction.

We all know their conclusion based on extensive input was that the lines of authority and accountability have been blurred.

They, for the first time, gave Oakland a coherent public report about our history and when and how the charter authorities were muddied.

They explained two prevailing models of municipal governance, and they daylighted experiences in different cities as well as the consensus of experts that either model could work if well executed.

I want to underscore their advice, which was to do something, because the worst outcome of this process would be to do nothing.

Since the working group's report in January, Mayor Lee and Council President Jenkins have led a second phase.

They have produced legislation that clearly articulates one model.

It happens to be the model that research suggests is the one likely to function well in cities like Oakland, where there are grave disparities, where there's a highly engaged civic culture, where there are complex intergovernmental relationships to manage, and where a city confronts significant fiscal challenges.

As we've heard, it would have been possible for others of you to also present legislation for the alternative model.

That didn't happen, happily it's not necessary because one clear ballot measure will clarify which model of governance Oaklanders prefer.

We are at the final phase where the process is in your hands.

Sometimes I liken this process to passing the baton in a relay race.

The working group members collectively were the lead runner.

The mayor and council president Jenkins took the baton and have produced solid legislation.

Now, this is in your hands to confirm that this legislation clearly articulates a choice for the voters, not necessarily that it's the model you personally might have preferred.

I would argue that your role is to safeguard the integrity of the legislation and present that choice to the voters.

The voters should run the last lap here.

Please refer this measure to the ballot.

Good afternoon.

My name is James Murphy, and I'm an Oakland resident for over 30 years, and I support this measure in this ballot, and I make uh please the recommendation to move this forward.

Um I did have a little bit of a prepared speech here, but having listened to the mayor, and um one thing I wanted to bring up is I trust this mayor.

I earnestly trust her professionalism and their experience.

And we should vote to move this forward, one, because it trusts her that structural change needs to happen.

If you don't move this forward, as I will continue to live here probably for the next 30 years, we're gonna say, what happened?

City council voted for the status quo, put it to the voters.

I think a lot of people here have talked about um how well thought out this was, how the community was brought into the process, and uh it's not about the current mayor, it's about structural change that's needed.

Thank you.

Uh good afternoon, President Jenkins, City Council members and staff.

My name's Andreas Kluver, and I'm here not only as head of the Alameda County Building Trades Council and second vice president of the Central Labor Council, but also as a long-term resident of Oakland.

One thing we can all agree on is the way we're structured now is not working.

So we need the change.

So you need to be bold here and make a movement.

The other thing, too, is that this charter is the people's charter, the residents of Oakland.

It's not the mayor's charter, it's not the council's charter, it's not the C administrators' charter.

It is the people's charter.

And the working group process has been an extensive, comprehensive, inclusive, and participatory process of which labor was a big part to come up with the recommendations.

And we strongly urge you to support those recommendations.

There may be some changes that you may need to make, but you need to follow the spirit of a document that was crafted with full participation.

So with that, take action, be bold, and we'd like you to support the recommendations of the working group.

Thank you.

I'm Sujata Shrivastava from Spur.

I'm gonna cede my time to my colleague Nicole Nedic.

Good afternoon.

My name is Nicole Nedich, and I'm here today representing Spur.

We've had the great honor of helping co-facilitate the mayor's working group over the last year, and we urge you today to move this measure to the ballot and let voters decide.

As you've heard, so many Oaklanders took part in this process because they love this city, they want better for the city, and they want a city that is designed to work.

Everyone that we talked to agreed that Oakland's current charter is not working.

It blends a council manager form with a strong mayor form of government without securing the benefits of either of them.

We have a mayor that the people vote for to lead our city, but that doesn't have a vote on council and lacks veto power that they would have in a strong mayor city, a power that ensures that the CEO of a city can weigh in on important policy decisions that impact the operations of the city.

We have a council who takes the majority of constituent complaints, but that doesn't have a way to hold the administration accountable.

And we have an unelected city administrator who holds all of the responsibility currently for executing laws and policies, but who's unaccountable to the people of Oakland and who takes conflicting directions from the mayor and the council.

The result, a system where everyone is pointing fingers at one another, and we need a change.

This was the first recommendation of the working group.

Do something.

The working group ultimately recommended the strong mayor structure because it's most aligned with Oakland specific needs.

It's highly engaged residents, its need for strong citywide perspective, and its need for visible accountable leadership.

The mayor's office did the hard work of picking these recommendations up, working with you all on reasonable amendments that preserve the integrity of the recommendations and moving this process forward.

Well, you could have brought other legislation forward, you didn't, and so we please ask you right now to support the incredible momentum and work that went into this, um, and move this to the ballot for voters to decide the next step.

Thank you.

Thank you.

And to the security guards, one in, one out.

There has to be a seat for some.

If we're if more people are coming in, please make sure there's a seat for them.

If not, please direct them to the overflow room.

One in, one out.

My name is Corey Cook.

There's no perfect form of government.

Every institutional design involves trade-offs.

The working group understood this.

We began the process with different views, different perspectives, and different preferences, and yet we ended it with their unanimous series of recommendations.

Our recommendations were unanimous because we concluded that Oakland's greatest challenge is a system that fragments authority, blurs responsibility, and weakens accountability.

If we had concluded that a city manager council system would be better, we would have adopted that.

And I would be here today recommending that.

Instead, we concluded that Oakland will be best served by a balanced system, and with the chief executive is elected by and directly accountable to the voters, and whether the council is strengthened as a co-equal legislative branch with robust oversight responsibilities.

I recognize this may not be everyone's first choice, but I hope that you'll ask that yourselves the same question that we asked ourselves on the commission, which is not whether this proposal is perfect, but whether or not it is substantially better than where we are today.

We unanimously concluded that it is, and we ask that you please allow the voters to make their determination.

Mindy Pechnook, candidate for Oakland mayor, and the buck has to stop here.

The rhetoric about just throwing it out to the voters is not going to work.

You have to own up.

The system today doesn't work, but putting through a strong mayor is putting through another system that does not work, and that's not a solution.

And Ken Houston, to you, council member Houston, you know.

I think that you all have an ability now to actually go and get your mayor on the city council.

That's your solution.

You need to have your mayor functioning with you on a daily basis when you're meeting, in dialogue, in discussion.

And if you don't have that, Oakland will go down the hill.

So right now I am calling God before you do not pass this strong mayor.

This cannot go on the ballot, and let's fight for what will work and have a city that's actually going to be a beautiful great Oakland.

That's why.

My name is Meg McAdam.

I'm an Oakland resident, small business owner, and the founder of Human and Pet Initiative and Oakland-based nonprofit.

I support charter reform.

I believe strongly in civic engagement, which is why I attended the community meeting.

I assumed that I would support the strong mayor system, but I came away believing a council manager system would be better for Oakland.

Others may reasonably disagree, but that's the point.

Mary Lee, I hear you saying that this measure should go to the ballot so that Oakland residents can be heard.

But there's a difference between public engagement and public selection.

If Oakland residents are capable of deciding who should be mayored, then why are we not capable of deciding which form of government we want?

We lived with the current structure for 22 years.

Most of us agree it doesn't work.

I applaud the mayor for starting this initiative, but because we've also waited 22 years to have this conversation, we need to adopt the structure that will shape the city of Oakland for the next 20 years or more.

Why aren't voters being given the opportunity to make that choice?

I don't want to.

Thank you, ma'am.

Your time is up.

Good afternoon.

Lynette Diaz.

I'm an Oakland.

I've been a Oakland resident for 25 plus years.

I'm also a downtown business center for over 20 years.

The recommendations before the council are the result of a thorough, objective, community-driven process.

They reflect extensive community engagement, not a top-down agenda by the mayor.

The working group's charge was to simply assess and make recommendations about how Oakland's government structure could better serve its residents all, all and that is what they did.

And those recommendations, as modified by the mayor in consultation with many of the council members, are what are before you tonight and or this afternoon, and they will provide the the citizens of Oakland a balanced separation of powers, clear executive authority that increases accountability, making misconduct more visible and attributable.

A council that maintains full legislative and budgetary powers and gains power to override any veto with a supermajority.

Thank you, ma'am.

Your time is up.

Good afternoon, Councilmembers.

My name is Ben Gould, and I'm speaking as an individual.

I encourage you to vote no on both this ballot measure and on the amendments.

A strong mayor system only works if the mayor is given a dangerous level of power to implement their agenda.

They must stand or fall on their own.

These amendments would risk yet another dysfunctional government.

I am sympathetic to the concerns that these amendments are trying to address, which is why I recommend you work towards a council manager form of government.

You had no say in who was appointed to the working group, and you are not required to put forward just any ballot measure that comes across your desk.

That's what the signature initiative process is for.

Our democratic process, your voters, require you to use your judgment and expertise to represent and advocate for the best interest of your community.

In November, the voters will not see your concerns or hesitations here on the dais.

They will see the council voted in support and they will trust their elected officials.

If you do not think this proposal is in the best interest of your community, you should vote no.

Thank you.

Good afternoon, Council members.

Mark Sowicky, resident of district one.

Um, thank you to the three council members who voted no on this at the last meeting, and especially for council member Unger for trying to bring forward the council manager form.

Um I'd be very interested in hearing from the four council members who expressed reservations but still voted no.

What do you have against the council manager form of government?

Why not put a competing measure on the ballot?

Um, if if you have two measures on the ballot, which everyone gets the most votes, as long as they're both a majority, is the one that you move forward with.

It's very simple.

Let the voters decide.

Thank you.

Hi, council member um Jenkins and to the rest of the council members.

I'm Pastor Lankford.

I'm a 64-year resident of Oakland, and I want to concede my time to Mr.

Fred Blackwell.

Hi, Fred Blackwell.

Um, proud member of the workforce and really happy to be here before you and that this is really being talked about right now.

Just wanted to say a couple of things.

One is that uh we did not start this process with a predetermined outcome.

Uh, the mayor did not put her uh you know finger on the scale.

This wasn't something that was uh pre-baked, it was something that started with the question how can we deliver uh for the residents of Oakland the kinds of results that they deserve.

Uh, folks before me who mentioned the fact that we have uh worked with a Frankenstein version uh of city government for a while now that has not delivered results, and I think that while the charter uh work and reform work is not a panacea or silver bullet.

Uh it represents progress, and I think the most of all, I think the voters deserve the opportunity to weigh in on this.

So I'm respectfully urge your support.

Thank you.

This thing about seating time.

Do you seed all your time?

Can you see half your time?

How does that go?

You have a new operating system, the Brown Act.

How does that go?

We'll answer after you're done.

We'll answer after you're done.

Go ahead and get all your time, and then I'll have the parliamentarian answer.

Oh, in other words, I can't see my order in the chambers.

Through the chair, I have on your card written, Mr.

Soldier, that you're ceding to Mr.

Hazard.

Is that correct?

Yeah, you see the start.

Uh, see my time.

I saw he was trying to.

I thought I was trying to add.

Kevin Daly.

If the council does put this initiative on the ballot, I'd like to give one last look at override a veto, especially the budget veto.

For a non-budgetary veto, the city clerk is ordered to put the override of the veto at the next council meeting, no matter what.

For a budgetary override, there is no such uh order, and there's only seven days to override whether or not there is a council meeting on the agenda.

I think there should be a similar rule for budgetary override to have an automatic veto.

Sorry, automatic override going on the next council meeting.

I still prefer a council manager, but I reluctantly think strong mayor is better than the current system, which is a strong administrator.

Item 5.1 parking reorg on the agenda soon is an example, hello, council members.

My name is Steve Cohn.

I'm a long-term resident of Oakland and homeowner in District 1.

And you are our voice in government, and you are we are your constituents, so uh I had received a letter from the working group uh saying there was a QA at the end of the uh message, and it said, question, does the council lose any of its current powers?

And the answer was no.

The proposal does not reduce any of the council's existing formal powers and instead expands their powers.

So with a two-thirds majority, you can override a mayoral veto.

But right now there is no mayoral veto.

So my concern is will we lose our influence if this measure passes, and I ask you to vote against it.

Thank you.

Hello, my name is Nancy Falk, and I'm a proud Oaklander.

Um I just need to reiterate that I'm deeply disappointed that Oaklanders will not have the opportunity to consider the proven best practice in municipal management for high performing cities should this event should this move forward.

Uh we missed the opportunity to bring the highest performing option, which is the council manager form, based on a number of external studies, um, when leaders opted not to consider and bring forward the council manager system, which I strongly prefer.

Um so I wish you well.

I'm gonna continue to be a proud Oaklander, um, and um I'm hoping we can improve the governance system and bring the highest performing best practice to Oaklanders.

Uh members of the city council, greetings.

My name is Stephen Falk.

I'm the co-founder of the Oakland Charter Reform Project.

In California, there are 483 cities, and five of them use the strong mayor system, every other one uses a council manager system.

And that is for a reason.

Over the last 20 years, not a single city has successfully changed from a council manager form to a strong mayor, and that's for a reason.

Two have tried.

San Jose tried in 2014 and at 2020, and were uh Sacramento tried in 2014 and 2020 and were unsuccessful, and those votes were 56 to 45, which is the same uh vote that Measure E just got recently.

San Jose tried in 2020, uh, on a proposal from Mayor Sam LaCardio, but there was so much pushback from the public about concern of concentration of power that the council and the mayor decided.

Good evening, Council President Jenkins, members of the Oakland City Council.

My name is Isaiah Tony.

I'm an organizer with Faith in Action East Bay and speaking in support of the uh current proposal before you and bringing it to the voters in November with whatever amendments you see fit to approve uh this evening.

Um just wanted to ask folks to keep in mind that while the council manager system uh certainly has merits, and it there are uh shortcomings as well.

I think we all remember a number of uh scandals that happened in Oakland under the council manager system, and especially this year, we're eager to make sure that we don't have any new dissent uh consent decrees coming up.

Um the other thing I wanted to mention is that uh if you want to have a process for the public to give more input on a council manager system, uh we will have to have a community engagement process for that system.

Who's gonna do that?

Are you gonna ask the task force to repeat their work, create a new commission?

Is there staff for that?

Is there a budget for that?

Good evening, council members.

I am Barbara Lafitte Oluole and representing hundreds of leaders from Faith in Action East Bay, and I'm here because I love Oakland and want a city government that works for its residents.

Today, when something goes wrong, it's often unclear who is responsible or who has authority to fix it.

That lack of clarity frustrates residents and makes it harder to hold leaders accountable.

This charter reform proposal addresses that problem by creating clearer lines of responsibility so Oaklanders know who is accountable for delivering results.

It's important to be clear.

This proposal does not weaken the council or take away its legislative authority, it strengthens the power of the council.

The council would still pass laws, approve the budget, provide oversight, and represent residents.

However, they will have stronger tools to now do that.

This measure simply clarifies executive responsibility and strengthens accountability.

I urge you to honor the spirit of the working group's recommendations by placing this measure on the ballot and allowing Oakland voters to decide what time.

Uh yes, my name is Gerald Petchenuk, the other Petchenuk.

And I would like to give you what I got in my left hand and give you what I got in my right hand.

So you can get two barrels.

First one, everyone who came up here and said, I'm in the working group and I've been working hard on this, and we had transparency and blah blah blah blah blah.

Forgot to mention who appointed them to the working group.

Barbara Lee.

That's who appointed them.

Decision to appoint a working group instead of an official city advisory body.

That means they didn't have to have open meeting.

The Brown Act, the City Council, the committee, and the advisory bodies must post agendas up front.

That didn't happen.

Okay.

So that's all bald rash.

Second, there's a pot at the end of the rainbow.

The charter could be changed.

Everyone sitting up here and get an extra.

Thank you, Mr.

Pachunik.

Your time is up.

By pushing this proposal forward, my name is Ayende from an island.

By pushing this proposal forward, you further the distrust that is already present because I personally don't trust any of y'all.

But the bottom line is if you create further distrust, all the people who came up here have undermined the president system for the last 30 to 40 years.

They're now at the point where they seize an opportunity or see an opportunity where they could jump in and do something different because they've managed to undermine and cause Oakland to be where it is now.

So now there's a need for a change, so they want the opportunity to have this so-called strong mayor who will further the distrust in Oakland.

I support a Fife Houston proposal for the ballot on November 2nd.

I didn't know this until I read the Oakland report.

But the problem is the process.

So the process calls for you don't have to be in compliance with the Brown Act.

So there was no public agenda with this working group.

There was no public deliberation, no minutes, no video.

The mayor picked the working group.

She picked the questions.

Members were mostly her supporters.

We had listening sessions, but listening sessions are not the same as deliberation opportunity to participate in the deliberation, which the public didn't have.

Where is the fiscal impact study that has to be done around that?

You can't put anything on the ballot without a fiscal impact study or report.

Thank you, Ms.

Orlamala, Mr.

Hazard.

I have you with time seated by Mr.

Sojourn and Mr.

Raimi, and I know they're both here, so you have three minutes.

How many five minutes?

This is a joke.

The League of Women Voters and the other folks, in 1998, they clamored because we had a reincarnation of Christ, Jerry Brown.

That's why they voted for the strong mayor form of government.

Now they come up here and want to switch to the game.

Councilmember Houston was correct.

Put two measures on the ballot.

Wait till the spring of next year.

That's real simple.

Let the voters, if you're concerned about the voters, we want the voters to sign.

With all due respect to the mayor, because she said this is not about personality.

This is about a structure.

So, and the city attorney, we know the city attorney misleads you, because we'll be in court on June 25 on the ballot measure last year, where he altered the text of the Measure A, which is the transaction and use tax.

For 366 days, I've been fighting them.

Okay.

I put this document together after they did it on June 1.

On June 12th, I had this finished.

Got it to the paralegal, and we found it Friday.

Do not vote for this.

And you could come up here with all these glorious deliveries, but you're being misled.

And this is one of them.

If you're concerned about all due respect, Councilmember Fife or the voters voting for it, then let's have like council member Houston said, put two things on the ballot.

It's no right.

And we're talking about the negligence of this council.

The charter right now is clear.

But you don't follow through with what's in the charter.

And right now, if you look at what's proposed here, you become caretakers.

That's all you are.

Caretakers.

Your power has been stripped.

Read it.

Don't go for the Oakie Doke.

Do not vote for this.

And all of you who do, and you're up for re-election, you're gonna be called on the carpet, Jenkins.

Just like you did on uh uh uh rule 29 when you and Ramachandra, after the mayor, didn't vote for the tie.

That was legal.

I got that all written up, but I had to deal with this one first, okay?

Because that's coming back door, the writ, because what you did was suspending the rules last November 4th and December 16th.

That was all illegal, and the city attorney and the parliamentarian should have told you that.

You ignore, and guy, you always turn around and say, Well, the city attorney tells me the city attorney be lying to you.

Okay, I give you the law, and you don't want to look at it.

The charter is clear with regards to your responsibility.

You're not adhering to your responsibility.

You're negligent.

Because it's easier to take under.

Thank you, Mr.

Hazard.

Your time is up, thank you, Mr.

Hazard.

Honorable council members, good afternoon.

My name is Sean Illsburn.

I have the privilege of serving as the president and CEO of the San Francisco Planning and Urban Research Center Spur.

Uh, it has been our true honor to work with so many people to get this proposal in front of you today.

Uh, I just want to uplift a couple of points.

What's been said has already been said.

I don't need to restate too much.

Um, let's give the voters a chance.

Let's give the voters an opportunity to weigh in.

And I want to uplift Gail's comments earlier.

I love the analogy of passing the baton and running the relay race.

We're now at that stage where we get to continue the element of civic education.

Continue the element of talking about the city of Oakland's charter, how we should be governed as a city.

That's what happens between now and November.

That has been the biggest benefit of the outreach we have done so far.

The huge number of members of the public that have learned how their government has operated and how it could operate.

Let that process continue.

Bring this to the voters, and let's let the voters weigh in at the end.

Thank you very much.

When I start this, my name is Richard Fuentes.

I'm an executive board member with ASME Council 57.

I have members that work throughout the City of Oakland, East Bay Regional Parks, the Oakland Museum or USD, AC Transit, BART.

Just to name a few.

But I'm here today to really urge you, as a member of the working group, to please allow the voters, the public, to vote on this proposal.

As a former City of Oakland employee, I saw how difficult it was to provide resources to answer constituency calls because we can't deliver, because we don't know who's in charge.

We don't know who's in charge of filling the pothole.

We don't know who's in charge of trimming our trees.

The public is looking to hold somebody accountable, and I think this allows an opportunity for the public to make a decision.

I urge you to please put this on the ballot.

As a small business owner, I urge you to allow the voters to vote and happy pride.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr.

Fuentes.

Moving to the Zoom speakers, starting with again, I will be calling the names only of those who submitted a card for item 5.2, starting with Helen Hutchinson.

Please unmute yourself and begin your comments.

Good afternoon.

My name is Helen Hutchison.

I'm a resident of District 3.

Um, Oakland's current governance system is dysfunctional.

The proposal before you today is to adopt a standard strong mayor model of government.

Some people, including some council members, prefer the other model, the council manager form of government.

However, despite a lot of talk, no one has produced the language to make that a viable option for Oakland voters in November.

There are also calls for a new process, one they would call more public than what has happened.

I'll point out that this kind of process, a formal charter review commission, is what brought us the current state of dysfunction.

The time now is to decide do we do something or do we do nothing and continue in this current dysfunctional state of affairs?

Thank you.

Moving to the next speaker, Karan Salak.

Sorry if I said that incorrectly.

Please unmute yourself and begin begin your comments.

Good afternoon.

My name is Karun Saluk.

I'm the vice chair of the public ethics commission.

I'll focus my remarks on two aspects that are fairly small in the grant scheme but very important to the commission's work.

First, we welcome the opportunity through this proposal to set the mayor and city council salaries in the same manner as other elected officials.

However, that process and those factors take considerable commission resources.

At a minimum, we would request that the proposal start the setting of those salaries in 2028 to align with the city attorney and city auditor so that it would efficiently use the commission's resources.

Second, the changes to Section 218 stray far from the Commission's mandate of ethics and transparency and don't really belong in the commission's enforcement jurisdiction.

If they are to remain in the enforcement jurisdiction of the commission, and this proposal were to pass, the commission would need additional resources to set standards to meaningfully enforce those provisions.

Thank you very much for the opportunity to comment.

Blair Beekman, you are next.

Please unmute yourself and begin your comment.

Hi, Blair Beekman.

Good luck with this item.

I've spoken um often.

You know, I I'm hoping that we really want to work for a good organization and uh good governance together, that that can be a guiding light in however we're going to talk about this issue in the next few months.

I heard some few ideas about uh from the strong mayor position how this wants to be on the ballot that uh is interesting.

But I've just described before, being from San Diego, you know, we have an IBA system already, and it isn't working.

We need to move, we're trying to find ways to move past that because it isn't working.

And I would hate to think you guys are gonna do this system and it doesn't work or it won't be sustainable.

I think it may work at first, but over time, is it going to be sustainable?

I think we need to trust what uh the council manager hybrid system can offer, and that we can still practice the strong mayor system within that, and that shouldn't be feared.

Uh I don't know what else to say.

Um, good luck that we work on this together for organization.

That's that's thank you, Mr.

Beekman.

Is Brian Missick in the chamber or on Zoom?

If you're on Zoom, please raise your hand.

Otherwise, at this time, all names who have submitted a card for this item have been called.

Thank you to everybody that came out to speak on this item.

We're gonna open up to council members.

Council member.

Yep.

Um, yeah, still so grateful for all the community feedback.

I know that at least for myself, um, I've I've uh I guess set through the presentation of these amendments maybe three or four times times so far.

Um, and um I know that from the start, uh I had a lot of apprehensions.

And um, kind of following that first discussion, I had the opportunity to work um closely with the Office of the Mayor and and their team to try to um include some amendments to section 2218 and various other sections, and so um as was stated by uh my other council council member Unger, um, I do not um I'm I'm not interested in having both of these items appear on the ballot, and I think that in this moment we should move forward with what was proposed.

Um, and and then also there's gonna be a true test of when we say that there has been community engagement on this item.

Um, we're gonna be able to see that, right?

Um, and so um, you know, I'll make the motion to go ahead and move uh the mayor's proposal as is um at this time.

Thank you.

Second, Councilmember Wall.

Um, so well, we there's a motion on the floor, but I do want to explain the amendments and the authority that it gives this council body and why I do think that we should adopt uh the amendments that I've uh put forth.

So just in general, I've established already that um sorry, excuse me.

One sec.

Uh I've already uh discussed the last time we discussed this item.

Why I do think that we need elected executive authority, because so many of the dysfunctions we experience in the city are related to the implementation and execution of our policies, uh, not the legislative issues that we have.

Um, however, um, one thing that's really important to me is to actually increase the transparency in our current processes, department heads actually don't get any vetting before this legislative body.

The amendments that I've added change that.

Uh, and and to be clear, I want to thank the mayor uh and her team because they had already uh incorporated a subset of the department heads to uh formal council confirmation hearing.

So this was the head of finance, the head of HR as well as the departments charged with public works infrastructure streets, so that would in the current day would be Department of Transportation as well as the Department of Public Works.

However, I don't think it goes far enough, and and to be clear, this does not conflict with a strong mayor proposal.

I did a peer review of around 25 cities.

It is commonplace to have uh essentially council vetting process.

Uh, when I reviewed about 25 cities, so part of what I've added is an amendment to this gives us the option, it is not a mandate, it gives us the option to bring forward any newly appointed heads to come before this body in an informational session.

I think one danger of the strong mayor system is that I a mayor could put in place an unqualified friend of theirs who has no business being you know the head of, you know, whatever department.

I I'm not gonna name a specific department, but the key thing is that I think one of our duties is the city council is to actually surface questions, um, force transparency uh into the public sphere in terms of what are the qualifications, what is the background around a department head that a mayor is appointing.

And so I have added um a number of I haven't put in the departments by name because it'll leave um it it just leaves more flexibility in case departments merge and there's changes over the course of you know the next decades of uh the city government, but and as in essence it includes the department heads of housing production, fire, uh protection and response, uh parks, uh included in that.

Um yeah, anyways, a number of those departments included as part again.

It is our it is open to us whether we want to vet these department heads or not, and we would define the exact procedure through an ordinance that way we don't need to go through the ballot measure again to define what exactly that informational vetting would look like.

And I'll just say this that I think that adopting this without that extra layer of transparency would be problematic.

We we should do that.

I've talked to the mayor's team, they're they're good with this amendment.

Uh if anyone wants to speak to that, but I think it is important that we actually show to the voters that this is a movement to additional transparency compared to what we have right now.

Thank you.

Uh council member, who's next?

Oh, Kyle.

Thank you.

Thank you, and thank you for all of you that uh joined joined us this afternoon for the presentation.

Uh I certainly, I mean, I support uh a strong city council, city manager form of government.

Uh was witnessed when Jerry Brown was mayor, because I worked under Jerry Brown when he went to the voter to become stronger and run the city and become the mayor form of government, and it had a great impact in terms of what happens in the neighborhood.

It had a great impact in terms of how the council functions, because at one time the mayor was present at all the city council meetings.

He was present, she was present, and they were actually able to discuss, debate, and work together with the council as one.

And um, and so when you take a look at the majority of cities in California, they're a city council, city manager form of government.

The only one in the Bay Area is Oakland and San Francisco because they're a county city form of government.

And but you don't see any other city here in the Bay Area that has a mayor form of government.

So certainly, you know, I will continue to support the city council, city manager form of government, and um, because I think we have a greater responsibility to get things done and not hold more press conferences every day to how great a job we're doing when we're living if you live in the hood.

Well, hell, you're going through a different experience and not having press conference.

Oh, we're doing such a great job here, we're doing this, we're doing that.

But my children are afraid to walk to school and because they may not return back from school, home, and therefore we'd have a different attitude today in Oakland and and for those of us that grew up here in Oakland and East Oakland, we haven't seen Oakland the way it is today.

So we need to get back and uh reestablish a city council, city manager form of government, because at one time all the city administrators would meet with each council member once a month, because you would give them direction what needs to happen in your district, and they would have to report back in terms of what they did or didn't do, and uh, and I didn't have to face the grand jury because I'm micromanagement the city system here as it is today.

So anyway, so my vote today will be no on this matter, and we need to re-establish the city council city management.

Thank you, Councilmember Guyo, Councilmember Unger.

Uh question to the city attorney.

The mayor's office submitted a bunch of amendments between the first reading and the second reading.

Are those all automatically included and would be passed if this measure passed?

Um yeah, so through the chair to Councilmember Unger and to the maker and the seconder of the motion, um, you need to clarify whether you're adopting uh the legislation as indicated um in the supplemental legislation um dated 612 2026.

And I believe the mayor's office is here to speak to the amendments that were included in that legislation.

I'd like to hear that.

Thanks.

Thanks, Councilmember Unger.

You beat me to it.

Um President Kilgar, Deputy Chief Staff to Mayor Barbara Lee.

So, yes, to read these some of the amendments that were uh mentioned last week or two weeks ago on the record.

Um, I'll go through those very briefly.

They are on legislatar for your all public your public viewing.

Um, but if you go to section two sixteen, effective data resolutions and ordinances subdivision D, um we are amending uh section two sixteen D, specifically adding or is otherwise required by law.

Um, amendment two is uh section two eighteen, non-interference, right of inquiry and access for constituent services.

Um for this one, we are removing section two eighteen a um both specific languages, each department under the mayor's or city administrator's jurisdiction shall maintain at least one designated council, is on for for council inquiries, and the mayor or city administrators shall ensure coordination.

Um amendment three, um, under section two eighteen, non-interference, right of inquiry and access for constituent services.

Um for this one, we're specifically adding um per the recognition from council is um under 218C, shall have the power to.

The full sentence is council members and their staff shall not have the power to um 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 administrative action.

Um, the next amendment we have is amendment four, section three oh five R functions, powers, and duties of the mayor.

Um the civic language under for this one is under 305R to perform such we're adding to perform such other duties as may be prescribed by this charter or by ordinance or resolution.

The last two amendment five section 502 um this was one requested by city attorney at section 502 acting city administrator um section 502 acting so we are specifically adding acting city administrator the city administrator shall designate two or more of the city administrators' assistants or department heads in the sequence in which they are to serve as acting city administrator to serve as city administrator in the temporary absence or disability of the city administrator in the event of the removal resignation of the city administrator the mayor may designate one of the city ministers' assistants or department head to temporarily serve as acting city administrator an acting city administrator shall have all the powers and duties of the city administrator the last one and thank you for bearing with me is amendment six section 603 Celected official salary increases.

So this one um there's one small line that came from the public ethics commission that we are happy to accommodate is the full set or the language we're adding is at the discretion of the executive director um and so the full sentence is elected official salary increases the public ethics commission with the assistance of the city administrator andor outside consultants at the discretion of the executive director shall set the salary for the for all elected offices um as provided for in charter sections 2020 401 and 4031 thank you for bearing with me appreciate you uh thank you for that um so process question so the amendments from council members wong and Houston would we have to vote on all of these amendments together or is there a way to separate them out there can be an alternative motion but if there are individual if there are individual if you want to vote on them we I guess we can do a straw poll.

Is that that that's up to you I mean my my where I'm coming from is I believe that the mayor's office should have the opportunity to write the ballot measure that they want I'm not in support of it but I believe that this is their measure so I would support their their ballot measures or their amendments rather um what I don't want to do is sort of try to graft a partial strong council system onto a strong mayor system.

I believe that at that point then we wouldn't know what the voters were telling us if they voted it up and down in November so I would uh not like to add partial strong council provisions to the strong mayor provision so I am in support of the mayor's amendments um and not in support of the other amendments thank you for uh council member heuston so it's easy for other council members to say this I represent I'm the public servant and I'm gonna say this clear I'm the public servant of the most underserved community in Oakland is district seven and I want to be able to move to the highest level for my people that's been under served for years and decades right and this is not going to allow me to do what I have to do I'm already breaking the charter when I do things like move things that I should move direct people I do it I do and I'll call it out that way they can do whatever they want to do to me let me say this because I'm gonna represent my people to the highest level I'm built from a different cloth.

So if I can't represent my people as being underserved for so many years I'm gonna say and if my amendments don't go on this I'm gonna say no.

So what did you say council member president that my amendments aren't in this you said if your amendments aren't in there you're not gonna say I'm gonna say no yeah yeah my amendments aren't in there my my vote is no okay thank you.

Councilmember Wong.

Yeah.

I also want to make myself myself clear here that I think look, we the consolidation of power and of executive authority is both something that we need, but without the added layers of transparency, I cannot be on board.

And the other thing I will say is this is that this is not some sort of freaky hybrid scenario.

The amendments that I proposed, New Orleans did a charter amendment and they did a study where they actually gave council members confirmation authority.

Out of 25 cities that have a strong mayor system, they have this council confirmation system.

I think that's it's an important that we as a body stand for transparency, that we show that we're willing to do our jobs to vet uh any department head, and that we ensure that we don't have unqualified people heading up multi-million dollar departments.

I and again, this leaves the option for us to pursue this.

This is not mandating it, it simply gives us the option to do this, and I think that is a type of authority that I don't think that we should strip away from ourselves.

Thank you, Councilmember.

Council Member Houston's out of our seat, out of the city.

Yeah, sorry, uh no, yeah, sorry.

Councilmember Brown.

Excellent.

Um I just wanted to just say publicly, um, similarly, um, I'm not supportive of the additional amendments for a very clear reason that there has been much months of community engagement around the specif around the specific around the specific um items that are before us, and from the very first time the working group in the office of the mayor presented to us months ago.

Um, following that discussion, I had the opportunity to weigh in, make my recommendations.

So I think in this moment, which I would say the 12th hour to have an item that hasn't gone through the same level of scrutiny around um these proposed changes.

Like I I just I can't get on board.

So let's go back a little bit.

So are you is your recommendation as amended?

So as amended by the mayor's office, okay as amended.

On the motion, so just through the chair for clarity, the the motion and the second is to adopt the recommendation.

Um the supplemental legislation submitted by the mayor, data at 612 that's in your packet.

Okay.

Now I'd just like to weigh in very quickly with regard to an amendment that we had had uh to clarify we had accepted council member wong's amendment uh in terms of the vetting issue that she just laid out at the at the just now at the council meeting.

We had discussed this prior to today and have accepted that for the record.

Councilmember Brown.

Uh, quick question um through the chair to the mayor.

Um I know that there were some substitute some significant changes that were added around the department heads prior to this, and so I'm just looking at the item that I'm seeing in front of me now.

The department heads uh initially uh prior to today, we had discussed the council approving certain department heads, finance, public works, uh transportation, and I believe it was one more.

Those would be subject to council approval.

The ones we're talking about today that council member wong has suggested would go through a vetting process where the those individual department heads would come to the council per the council's request to question them to ask questions about their background or to make some recommendations to the mayor, not approving necessarily, but making sure that their background and experience and credentials were uh presented.

Okay, thank you.

Thank you.

Are you going to amend your motion to add council member wong's?

Are you gonna amend your motion to allow for council member wong?

Oh, council member Pfeiffers.

I just want to I want to get clarity, and I I appreciate the mayor speaking to this, but I want to understand how transparency about someone's resume, because that's how I'm reading this amendment is allowing the city council to vet these other department heads.

How does that play out in the functionality of having stronger department?

I don't understand I don't understand this amendment.

So through the chair, um to council member Wong, how does this strengthen the council's powers?

And how does it determine that we'll get better department heads?

And then will we have to go start a whole new recruitment process if the council votes it down?

I don't understand how this strengthens the outcomes of what my constituents want to see, which is better delivery of services, because what it comes down to me is enforcement.

I've been told by one department head in particular, we're going to do five different things around the legal dumping.

And when I asked four months later, where are those, where are the outcomes, where the enforcement to these things that you said you were going to do, and I was then accused of directing staff by asking what happened four months ago.

A complaint was filed against me, if you all didn't know, for asking what was going on with illegal dumping in my district, and I don't see how vetting their resume could have impacted that situation.

So help me understand how this strengthens our powers and getting.

For example, um, I think it was the police commission appointments, right?

I think that was something that was a vigorous discussion in rules committee.

It allows at least some the surfacing of whether this person is qualified or not.

And while this does not give us formal appointment powers for this subset of department heads, it can create the political pressure to uh for this particular mayor not to hire a department head if it's made clear that someone is being appointed who is not qualified to take on that role.

I hear you, I hear you.

I don't see I don't see how this does that.

People come with their best foot forward in presentations and interviews.

I've seen it a million times for commissions, and we don't know until they actually get in the role and start engaging in that role.

I feel like this increases the administrative burden on the council, where I don't want to micromanage um the the mayor or the city administrator and who they hire.

I want to determine by what they do when they get in the job that they are qualified by what they are actually doing, not what they're saying.

So I don't I personally understand um what you're trying to get at.

I just don't think that this is the amendment that gets us there.

Again, I want to see results, and we're not gonna get that by what people say in front of us at a microphone.

Councilmember, may I through the chair?

Uh councilmember Frank, the reason that uh I thought this made sense was that any mayor would see this as a red flag, uh, the vetting process, and if that red flag, I mean, that would be uh something that would add a layer of scrutiny for any appointment.

So let's go to go.

And the intent is not for again this is a pre-appointment vetting process.

So it's not the intent is not to micromanage anyone, it's really to say, you know, if there's some doubts by this body and we would like to vet someone before they get into the role, we're actually preventing the micromanagement later down the line.

It just allows us again the option to vet an individual.

That's it.

It's not mandatory.

Thank you, Councilmember.

I'm gonna go to Houston.

Unger Brown, and then we'll call a question.

Through the chair, I just want to say I agree with you, Councilmember Way.

Um Council Member Wong, I'm concerned that a lot of times people apply for jobs without telling their current um employers that they're applying for jobs, and so if everyone has to come to us before they've gotten the job, uh that's gonna have a chilling effect on who's gonna come want to apply for those jobs.

Yes, I mean we just okay, let's go to council member wong and then we'll go to Brown.

So we discussed that scenario, Councilmember Unger.

That is again why the language is deliberately left flexible so that we have the option of bringing someone before us.

Uh it is not it is not mandatory, and so we're were it to undercut the uh our ability to hire someone on a competitive nature, the language has been deliberately designed to uh for us to uh formulate an ordinance that would address that.

Thank you, and then let's go to Brown.

Yeah, I think my question or the red flag that I'm seeing in this is the issue around there being an option, because wouldn't you want to ensure that there is actually like an analogous process, like a process that is the same and not driven by one to two uh maybe council members that feel that you know X, Y, and Z, what you're trying to articulate, and so for a department head A, we you know, two uh a couple council members feel that there's a red flag about their um you know um them being qualified, whereas maybe you know, weeks later there's another department head or something that's hired and they don't go to that through that same scrutiny, and so I guess maybe I'm asking more of like a legal question in on this item.

Like, is this actually legal?

Well, it was vetted by the city attorney, so it's definitely legal through the through the chair to the office of the city attorney.

Sure.

Through the through the chair Ryan Richardson, city attorney.

So uh Councilmember Wong's amendment or proposed amendment would be to allow the city council at a later date to pass an ordinance, and that ordinance would set out the process for for vetting or not vetting certain department heads.

That ordinance would also list which department heads would be subject to the vetting.

It would specify whether that vetting takes place pre-appointment or post-apointment.

But to answer your question, Councilmember Brown, it's that ordinance is what would provide the certainty as to which department heads are or are not subject to vetting.

I don't the idea is not that for each appointment, the council would just decide on a case by case basis whether that individual is subject to vetting.

The council would have to make a decision about what their process was going to be and then apply that process consistently going forward.

And then um so after passing that ordinance and we make a determination of you know the said department heads, um, what what is the outcome through through this open session?

Like, are we voting on this as a body?

Like, okay, well, five of us think that you know, you know, this vetting is you know, we we approve, or like what what is our outcome and like what it what is the yeah, what is the outcome?

So the the it would differ, it would not be a confirmation process.

So it would not be the case that the appointment would be subject to council approval.

It would be much more like an informational report where the count the council might provide feedback on an individual basis, but they would really just receive the information.

Got you, and is this taking place after like the person is still in the hiring process?

Is that what it is?

It could take place pre-appointment or post appointment.

That is a decision the council would have to make in the ordinance of whether it wanted to do that process pre-appointment or post, but so the council could decide um that it's better to do this process to have this informational session after the person is appointed.

I see, and then with the ordinance also be doing the same thing if there's multiple candidates, the mayor would submit their one their when a their prospective appointee.

It's not a it's not a interview process or a vetting process for multiple candidates.

It would be that the person the mayor intends to appoint or has appointed would come before council.

I see.

All right, thank you.

Council Member Ramachandran, you have your hand raised.

Yes, thank you.

Um I don't support this amendment either because even though it might be legal on paper, it if we're gonna go with the strong mayor system, then it should be neatly that.

This leads to the idea that council can discriminate against certain types of department heads, certain people, certain backgrounds, certain identities that that individual holds, and in a not uniform fashion.

I think that it is dangerous to give council some power to have this discretion, and then and what happens after this process is still unclear, but not give that same level of scrutiny to everything across the board.

You know, if it was neatly a council manager system, you would have that you'd have much more discretion across the board, but if it's a strong mayor system, I don't think it's right for council to get to pick and choose which type of people who get selected for certain departments, and again, we don't know who's gonna sit in these chairs in you know a decade from now who might choose to discriminate against certain characteristics, and I think that sets a dangerous precedent.

So that's just a statement, not a question.

Thank you.

Thank you, council member.

Um so I'm gonna ask for the end of debate and council member brown.

Are you gonna accept the amendment from council member wong?

Okay, madam clerk call the role and what we're calling the role on, is uh mayor's strong mayor as amended in the supplemental, calling the vote on item 5.2 as amended, including amendments in the supplemental, council member brown, aye council member five, aye, council member guy no council member Houston, no council member Ramachandran.

I couldn't hear you one more time, no council member wong why my I'm sorry, Councilmember Unger.

No, council member Wong uh yes council member Jenkins aye.

Motion fails with a vote of one, two, three eyes, one, two, three, four.

I'm sorry, it's a tie four and four, is the mayor available to break a tie?

Yes, Mr.

President.

President Jenkins, I'd like to break the tie on this.

How do you vote?

I vote yes.

Thank you.

Motion passes with a tie-breaking vote by Mayor Lee.

Moving on to item 4.1.

Going back to the regular order of the agenda.

Starting with item 4.1, I do need a motion to open the public hearing.

So moved.

Second.

I can't hear.

Was that Unger and Brown?

Thank you.

On the motion to open the public hearing, council member, move by council member unger, second by council member Brown.

Councilmember Brown.

Aye.

Council Member Fife?

Aye.

Councilmember Gaio.

We're on item 4.1 motion to open the public hearing.

Open the public hearing, yeah.

Yes.

Councilmember Houston.

On the motion to open the public hearing, are you aye or no?

Something is still going on.

So while something is still going on.

So why are we going to open form?

We're going to open public when we have something still happening right over here.

Your previous item is complete.

So are you on item 4.1?

Are you voting yes to open the public hearing or no?

No.

Councilmember Ramachandran.

Councilmember Unger.

Aye.

Council Member Wong.

Aye.

Chair Jenkins.

Aye.

Motion passes with a vote of seven ayes, one no.

Houston reading the item into public.

I'm sorry, reading the item into record.

Conduct a public hearing and upon conclusion adopt an ordinance as recommended by the planning commission amending title 17 of the Oakland Municipal Code.

Updating the accessory dwelling unit regulations for consistency with state law providing written findings pursuant to government code 66326 part B, revising discontinuance standards for non-conforming activities.

Removing applicability of S10 Cynic route, combining zone zone discretionary standards to ministerial design review, permitting recreational setback in D-Co-2 zone, removing a review deadline from development agreement procedure in section 17.138.030.

Revising utility screening standards in appropriate.

I'm sorry, revising utility screening standards in section 17.124.045 incorporating conforming and clerical revisions and making appropriate SQL findings.

You have three speakers.

So here are the just the uh three categories of amendments that the planning is proposing.

The first uh is ATU related amendments.

Um the city's ADU ordinance has evolved over time to remain consistent with state law.

Most recently, the city received a findings letter from state HCD evaluating the city's ADU regulations for consistency with the state law and to remain consistent with the state law planning stop proposes the following three minor changes, mainly to remove subjective terms such as visible, predominant, or visually similar, because um only objective design standards may be applied to ATUs.

Um findings that were addressed by the planning staff with state HCD during a meeting uh on April 20th, and these uh do not require code amendments.

Um and the city is fully complied with the state law.

Um so here's the summary of the proposed other uh related to ADU code changes.

Um these amendments were discussed and addressed at the city council.

Um at the CD, I'm sorry.

Um and finally um here's just a summary of um uh some examples of of uh um uh uh clerical uh revisions to correct errors and inconsistencies um in the code.

Um and these did not raise any uh questions at CED.

Um so this concludes the summary of the proposed changes, and I will leave the uh staff and planning commission recommendation up on the screen.

Um and playing stuff is here.

Happy to answer any questions.

Thank you.

Thank you so much.

Let's go to the public speakers.

Thank you.

And as I call your name, please approach the podium.

As usual.

We'll take those who are in person first.

As you um come to the podium again.

Please state your name for the record.

And um for those who are participating online, please raise your hand so we can easily identify you.

I have Kevin Daly, Mrs.

Sala Olabala, and Maven Griffin.

In any order, if you're a participant in the chambers, we'll take you first.

And then following that, we will take those who are participating online.

Again, I have Maven Griffin, Kevin Daly, and Miss Olabala.

All right.

I don't see anyone appropriate.

Oh, I do see Miss Griffin.

Good afternoon.

Maven Carter Griffin, Wood Street People's Collective, and also a steering member of the homeless advocates working group.

I am a longtime resident of Wood Street.

And I'm looking at this briefly to see what's going on.

But here's the thing is that you guys are running the unhoused out of the neighborhood that was specifically localized, and the unhoused from the area had moved into the zone.

And we had a plan for a campus.

Our campus was supposed to be a business campus that included live work, teach, learn, and that was initiated in 2019 with Joe DeVries, which gave us rights to use the land that was predominantly right behind us at Wood Street.

That would be the Caltrans land.

During that period of time, there was uh COVID and we were put on hold.

And many people were looking forward to be working at this location and living at this location and bringing themselves by their bootstraps up out of homelessness.

We were crushed.

We were totally.

So uh the planning department submitted to the California Department of Housing and Community Development.

Certain code changes or what they wanted to do with certain codes, many several of them were found to be uh inconsistent or out of compliance, whatever.

So you had to go back and make corrections.

That's what's happening now.

You made the corrections.

What I'm concerned about, there was a statement in the document that says fire safety.

South Pete Mont is served well with bus stops related to evacuations.

They name the buses 646, 652, and 682.

Those buses are school supplemental buses, they're not the regular routes.

They only come in the morning to pick up the students, and they come in the evening to take them back home.

It's misleading to say that these buses will be available for events.

Thank you for your time, Miss Asada.

Our next or last speaker that signed up for this item, Kevin Daly.

Are you participating here in person?

Or are you on?

Kevin Daly is passing.

That completes your speakers for this item.

I'll entertain a motion.

So moved.

Second.

And that's to staff recommendations and to close the public hearing.

Yes.

Thank you for that.

And that again was I apologize.

A motion by Councilmember Unger, seconded by Councilmember Brown to close the public hearing and approve staff recommendations.

Um on item 4.1 on roll for this council member Brown.

Aye.

Fife.

Is out of her seat.

Guile?

Aye.

Councilmember Houston.

Aye.

Ramachandran.

Councilmember Ramachandran.

Aye.

Thank you.

I call your vote.

Councilmember Ungar?

Aye.

Council Member Wong.

Aye.

And we will go back to Councilmember.

Councilmember Fife, how do you vote?

And Council President Jenkins.

Aye.

Item number 4.1 was approved with eight eyes.

Or yes, eight eyes.

That concludes that.

That concludes your public hearings.

Moving to item 5.1.

Receive an informational report from the city administrator on the proposed reorganization of the Department of Transportation's parking division, including the rationale for the proposal, a fiscal impact statement, including any new or unfrozen staff costs, and an analysis of operational costs, a summary of fiscal impact statement, including any new or unfrozen staff costs, and an analysis of operational cost savings, a summary of outreach that occurred to Department of Transportation staff, the public and the business community, and information on how the change would impact the divisions collaboration with other departments.

Sorry, six speakers on this item.

Hey Brad, how much time do you need?

Two minutes.

Thank you, Council President, members of the council, Brad Johnson, Director of Finance.

Before use informational report regarding the reorganization of parking functions within the city that was approved in your recently adopted budget to really at a high level summarize per this reorganization, the Department of Finance, my department will take on board responsibility for the parking mobility assistance center, including its administration of uh parking citation and back office affairs, uh, things related to the collection and again back office management staff, uh, operations of the meter coin collection process, issuance of residential parking permits again based on the established zones, management of the garages, off-street lots, and management of technology required for collections.

The Department of Transportation will retain written for responsibility for parking enforcement and management of all associated staff on-street parking infrastructure installation like meters or multi-both multi-space and single space, all matters pertaining to traffic zones, right-of-way management, traffic policy, including on and off-street policy in accordance with your parking principles, including center and meter rates, garage rates, modifying zones, and we'll retain key staff members related to those ongoing activities, and they will also retain uh enforcement of abandoned auto assignments.

There's more information in your report regarding the positions that are funded in order to facilitate this.

Um they are noted in table one, and again, these were all collectively approved in your budget.

Uh this report was prepared by the Department of Finance, but in conjunction with the Department of Transportation, who is on board with this reorganization, and we hope to move forward in partnership in a way that will maximize our ability to collect revenue and deliver efficient responsive customer service.

Thank you.

Thank you, Brad.

Let's go to the public speakers.

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

Please state your name for the record.

If you are on Zoom, please raise your hand so I can easily identify you if you wish to speak.

Blair Beekman, Kevin Daly, Mr.

Hazard, Miss Asada Olabala, Michael P.

Ford, Aleya, Anna Sarina Ford, Yasamin Bridget Ford, Shahala Azimi.

I do appreciate the way that this proposal has finally reached the city council.

However, I have extreme disappointment with the way it was handled since October, where staff were getting regular announcements that their job is moving to finance, or maybe it isn't, or maybe the deadlines passed.

This city council years ago decided to separate parking, sorry, transportation from finance, and city administrators shouldn't be ripping it apart unless they come back to council for permission.

I'd like to know what the current city administrator and any future city administrators are planning to do to make sure this type of destructive actions does not happen again.

Thank you.

I don't think you have ever had all of the public awareness of parking revenues and what those revenues are.

When y'all were having discussion last week on the Oakland Ice Center, I brought up that they get people get free parking over there.

I was told by a representative of the administration that the Sparks Management Group pays for the parking.

I have never seen a document that totals up or gives a summation of how much money we've collected from the parking in the garage where there's free validated parking for those who use that ice center.

Haven't seen it.

I don't know how you came to the conclusion that the two garages in Montclair can be managed by the Montclair Business District, and why you are not managing it, and why you don't have oversight of it, as well as the revenues that are brought in in that garage.

So y'all need to do.

Thank you, Ms.

Olabala.

City Clerk, my name is Michael Ford, and I have two people seating uh time to me.

Alele Ansarinho Ford and Yasimon Ford.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Yeah, again, Michael Ford, I'm an Oakland resident and a city employee represented by local 21.

Speaking for myself, the decisions on this reorganization have already been made.

In February, I was removed from managing the parking and mobility division.

And last Thursday, I was removed from managing the abandoned auto unit.

On Friday, council approved four new permanent positions for parking management costing 1.2 million in general purpose fund dollars.

Three of those positions have already been filled with interim appointments.

Those recurring expenses and the breakup of the parking and mobility division is the administration's solution.

But what exactly is the problem?

According to the report, customer service center is experiencing backlogs, delays, and gaps.

But these are symptoms of the problem, of the real problem.

What is the real problem?

The real problem is that citation issuance has doubled over the last three years while our customer service staffing levels are at historic lows.

That's a math problem, not a management problem.

More citations means more revenue, but also exponentially more work, payment transactions, disputes, refunds, phone calls, emails.

My team was asked repeatedly to do more with less.

December 2024, restore parking enforcement for revenue, we delivered.

Spring 2025, enhance parking enforcement for revenue and services.

We delivered.

When staffing dropped to only two public service representatives, we were told carry the load for 11 months and we delivered.

Extend customer lobby hours without additional staff, we delivered.

Implement the speed safety camera program without additional staff.

We delivered.

And the administration's response: invest one point two million in middle management rather than frontline capacity.

I'm speaking today to create a record.

My team did extraordinary work under extraordinary pressure, and the administration's response was to organize to reorganize instead of investing in the people who are doing the work.

That's what I wanted you to know.

Thank you.

Good afternoon, Shalazini within parking mobility management.

I would like to take a moment to highlight some of the accomplishments, and that parking division has achieved given the past few years when parking mobility division took over the division from finance.

Our division's achievement is in recent years shown the dedication, professionalism, and hard work and tireless work by the front light staff.

With limited resources, even with limited resources and small team, the division continued to provide critical services to the community and carried a large workload and took the extra responsibilities.

Thank you, ma'am.

Your time is up.

Mr.

Hazard, are you wishing to speak on this item?

Gene has it.

Go to CleanOakland.com.

You know, the parking division is one department that generates dollars.

When are you going to do an audit?

You know, parking fees go up, and the public only finds out after they go to the meter and it's expires.

And now you see you got $38 versus 24 before.

So when are you going to request an audit from the auditor's office?

It requires that.

So we can see how much is coming through parking fees, whether it's from the meters or from the parking lots.

So stop being negligent.

We know the city's in fiscal crisis and ask for an audit so we'll know how much is being taken in.

Thank you, Mr.

Hazard.

Your time is uh moving to the Zoom speaker, Blair Beekman.

Please unmute yourself and begin your comments.

Mr.

Beekman.

Yes, hi, Blair Beekman.

Thank you for this item.

I wish I understood it better.

I have not.

And um that is my fault.

That's my problem.

Um I can I can explain where this item was at months and months ago, and I hope uh we progressed to move forward, and that the item can be stained uh within transportation, and um good luck in such a process.

Uh, I've been around Oakland enough to know that uh as you've been trying to move the the parking issues to finance, that's kind of a regular practice in Oakland to make those kind of moves and ships uh of departments into uh strange other departments.

But um, I mean I uh there's a certain logic there, and I just hope that the Department of Transportation can still be uh we can still be a respected source, and um it's with that said, uh good luck on on.

Thank you, Mr.

Beekman.

All names were called.

That was the last speaker.

Thank you for that.

There's no comments from the council members, held an attendance motion.

So moved.

Second.

On the motion by Councilmember Brown, second by Councilmember Unger to receive and file this report.

Councilmember Brown.

Aye.

Councilmember five.

All right.

Councilmember Gayo.

Councilmember Houston.

This is Council Member Houston in the back.

Is excuse Councilmember Ramachandran.

Councilmember Unger.

Aye.

Councilmember Wong.

Aye.

Chair Jenkins.

Aye.

Motion passes with a vote of seven ayes, one excuse Houston.

We've already dismissed with item five point two.

Going to item 5.3.

Adopt a resolution awarding grants to 21 community-based organizations for community violence intervention services set forth in tables one and two for the period of October 1, 2026 to September 30th, 2029, in a total amount not to exceed 38 million, 100,000 and authorizing the city administrators to negotiate and enter into grant agreements with the name grantees with authority to extend the terms of the grant and modify the grant amounts as set forth.

You have 58 speakers on this item.

Okay, mercy.

How much time do you need?

Okay.

Director, how much time do you need?

About 15 minutes, please.

Okay.

Thank you.

I'm ready for the slides.

Good evening.

The Department of Violence Prevention is here this evening to present our recommendations for community grants for 26-29.

As I stated at the beginning of the public safety committee meeting last night, I understand the advocacy in the building this evening.

I've been in the agency director's shoes working to keep the doors open and services flowing in an Oakland-based nonprofit.

It is not an easy job.

It is important to put tonight's presentation and our conversation within the context of the funding landscape that we are all facing as community violence intervention practitioners.

The field of community violence intervention work, despite a growing body of research that speaks to the efficacy of our work, is underfunded.

We know what is happening at the federal level with the closure of the White House Office of Gun Violence Prevention and large cuts to CBI grants across the country that have impacted us here in Oakland.

CBI is underfunded by the state, and in Oakland, our total investment in CBI is approximately 22 million dollars to include five million dollars from the general purpose fund and the measure NN dollars that we are here to discuss this evening.

Considering these realities, the resources we have available to us to allocate to the CBOs through this process clearly do not adequately address all needs, and yet we are tasked with the challenge of running a competitive bidding process and reviewing rating and selecting the agencies most aligned with the city's current approach to community violence.

Questions have been raised about the RFP process, and our presentation this evening will answer some of those, and of course, we're prepared to engage with council's questions as we move through this evening.

The grant period that we are recommending is October 1st, 2026 to September 30th, 2029, in an annual amount of 12.7 million and a total amount of 38.1 million dollars.

Just a bit about measure N, it passed in November 2024, and of course was a replacement for Measure Z.

And just as a reminder for the council, although the voters did agree to a tax increase for measure N, that tax increase did not translate into additional funds being being delivered out the door to community-based organizations.

Because in past years, the city of Oakland had additional funding coming from the general purpose fund.

We were in a different financial situation during those years, and so there was actually more money allocated out the door to community-based organizations than we have in this current uh measure NN allocation.

Measure N is a continuation of a public safety investment that the residents have been making in the city for 20 years.

It is not new dollars per se.

And of course, with this current iteration of the public safety legislation, it allocates approximately 40% of the annual revenue to violence prevention services, and 75% of that funding must be allocated to the community-based organizations.

So for this upcoming fiscal year that begins July 1, Bradley Johnson has estimated that about 16.9 million dollars have come in, and 12.7 million of that, which represents the 75%, should be allocated to community-based organizations, 4.2 to be kept by the DVP to administrator the grants and to fund lifeline services.

So just a bit about the spending plan that informed the RFP process.

Measure NN legislation requires each department covered by the legislation to develop three-year spending plans.

The questions that have been raised about the N Oversight Commission's legislative duties to oversee and direct the DVP have been answered.

We have discussed at length with the city attorney and addressed with the Oversight Commission.

They are clear about their responsibilities and the boundaries of their authority, and we are as well.

We have built a good working relationship with that body, and we were here supporting their presentation of the four-year public safety strategy along with police and fire a few weeks ago.

To be clear, the NN legislation gives that commission the responsibility of ensuring that the DVP, FIRE, and OPD are spending NN dollars according to the activities listed in the measure, but does not give the commission the authority to create our spending plan or make contract decisions about which agencies receive awards.

Per the NN legislation, the DVP was required to present that spending plan to the NN Commission within four months of them being seated.

We did just that.

In fact, we developed the spending plan and presented it to both the SSOC, which was the previous body, and the current commission.

It was well received by both bodies and, in turn, informed both the NN Commission's four-year strategic plan and the RFP that we are here to discuss today.

In addition to the civilian oversight duties that do belong to the NN Commission, all DVP planning strategies and implementation activities are aligned with the mayor's public safety strategies and created with the oversight of the city administrator's office.

For our spending plan, it focuses services on individuals who are at the highest risk of gun violence or gender-based violence in Oakland.

You can see some of the eligibility criteria here for gun violence.

This addresses some council members' questions about us making sure that we are able to serve tier one highest-risk individuals in this city.

And so the eligibility criteria asks these important questions, which is connected to the individuals' connection to street cruiser groups, whether or not they themselves have been intentionally shot, stabbed or shot at, their connection to the criminal justice system, and then whether or not they've had a close friend or family member shot or arrested for a shooting in the past six months.

And this eligibility criteria was created in collaboration with our consultants at the California Partnership for Safe Communities to be in alignment with our ability to serve those at the highest risk.

With that explanation of NN and the spending plan process, I'm gonna turn it over to Jenny Lynchie, the deputy chief of the department to discuss the request for proposal process.

Thank you.

Good evening, Council members.

Jenny Lynchy, Deputy Chief of the Department of Violence Prevention.

To award Measure NN funding to community-based organizations as required by the legislation, we conducted a competitive request for proposals or RFP process following the city's standard RFP process developed by the citywide contracts team, which is applicable to all city departments.

It's important to note that there are two parts to any RFP process.

The first part is a technical review of application elements by the citywide contracts team.

After applications pass that initial screening process, they are forwarded to departments for a thorough review of the grant content and scoring.

So with that framing in mind, the DVP released an RFP for community violence intervention services funded by Measure NN in December of 2025 with a closing date in February of 2026.

When the citywide contracts team completed their initial review of the applications that were submitted to that RFP, only 27 of the 41 agencies that attempted to submit applications would have been forwarded to the DVP for further review because they met the initial technical requirements.

That is a 34% failure rate.

The Department of Violence Prevention felt that that failure rate was unacceptable.

It was clear that the instructions regarding submission, the technical submission steps, were not clear enough.

So we convened with the citywide contracts team and the city administrators' office.

We were told that our only options were to accept the 34% failure rate or to cancel the RFP entirely and issue a new one, which, although it is rare that an RFP is canceled, it is fully within the discretion of the city to cancel an RFP at any time for any reason.

We elected to issue a new RFP, which was released on March 13th and closed on April 1st.

This was a three-week period because the sole intention of the second RFP was to allow the agencies that prepared applications to the first RFP to correctly submit them.

There were absolutely no changes to the services being requested or to the required application components.

There were simply more instructions about how to submit properly in iSupplier.

The DVP received from the citywide contracts team following their initial review of the application elements 40 responsive applications.

That was a 9% failure rate.

So there were 44 agencies that attempted to submit applications and 40 passed the initial screening and were forwarded to the DVP for review.

It's worth noting that all of the agencies that passed the initial screening the first time and would have been forwarded to the DVP for review did so the second time as well, and their applications were read and scored with the exception of one agency, and that is the LGBTQ center.

Once the DVP received those 40 applications, we conducted a review using three reviewers for every application, two internal reviewers, the DVP, one direct service staff member, one grants or program staff member, and then one external staff member.

It's also worth noting that the city does not require departments to use any external scorers, but the DVP elected to do so out of one of the reviewers.

All applications were reviewed and scored out of a maximum of 205 points.

And another thing worth noting is that the all reviewers were required to sign a conflict of interest form, attesting that they have not received income or gifts from any of the agencies that they were reading and scoring applications for within the past year, that they do not have ownership interests or direct investments with those agencies, and that they are not currently an employee or a board member.

And all of those things apply not to just to them but to their immediate family members as well.

As Chief Joshi mentioned, we are advocating for funding for a three-year period, October 1st, 2026 to September 30th, 2029.

At the public safety committee, last week, the recommendation was made to shorten that length to two years.

We are still advocating for a three-year period for a few reasons.

The first is service stability for participants.

It can be very disruptive to be changing the agencies that are delivering services every two years, especially since some of the services themselves last at least a year.

Having consistent funding over three years can be very impactful.

From evaluation purposes, it's much easier to evaluate services that are rendered by the same agencies over a longer period of time.

The three-year funding period also aligns with the three-year spending plan that we were required to complete as part of Measure NN legislation.

The total funding over a three-year time period would be $3.1 million, $12.7 million per year, with $22,875,000 going to gun violence services, $15,225,000 going to gender-based violence services, and we are awarding funding to the same number of agencies that we currently fund, which is 21, which it also should be noted that our prior city administrator was strongly advocating for us to reduce that number, but we are keeping it consistent at 21.

We are keeping funding for gun violence services relatively consistent.

We currently fund those services at 7.5 million dollars per year.

We're looking at a slight increase to $7,625,000 per year.

We conceptualize our gun violence services into core services, which result in the identification and initial engagement with individuals who are at highest risk for gun violence.

Those services are violence interruption, hospital-based intervention, life coaching, and youth diversion.

And then we have our support services, which are primarily available to individuals who are engaged through the core services based on their unique needs.

So we have emergency housing relocation, we have housing, we have employment, we have healing services, and we have family and victim services.

But it is critical that the Department of Violence Prevention fund specific versions of these services that are tailored to the unique needs and constraints of individuals who are at highest risk for gun violence.

So individuals at highest risk for gun violence face unique circumstances that make them not able to access traditional services.

For instance, they cannot move freely throughout the city and access offices and service locations wherever they are, so services need to be mobile and move to them.

Another example is that they cannot be in group services with other individuals who they may be in conflict with.

So any group level services have to go through a deconfliction process to make sure that people in conflict with them are not together.

A final example is for both housing and employment.

Oftentimes it makes the most sense for those services to be accessed outside of Oakland because of the unique safety concerns facing this population.

For our core services, we're looking at investing $4,550,000 annually, which would fund 24 direct service staff, full-time direct service staff, and 288 individuals.

This is actually probably closer to 200 unique individuals because we anticipate that many of the individuals served by hospital-based intervention will then be referred into life coaching.

Apologies, don't want to interrupt, just let you know you have one minute left.

Thank you.

Is there any way I can get any?

No.

Okay.

Um, okay.

Maybe I'll just skip very quickly then to our performance management work.

So based on concerns raised by members of this body, we are strongly emphasizing performance management as part of this process.

We will have service deliverables articulated in scopes of work in contracts.

Um agencies are held to those deliverables.

If they are falling short, we respond with coaching and technical support.

But if they continue to fall short, we do have the ability to withhold funding based on that, and ultimately, if necessary, we have the ability to end contracts early and reallocate money.

We are also administering now participant surveys, which are new to come to receive feedback from individuals who are receiving the services on the quality of the services and the impact of the services rendered.

We will be performing annual program site visits and fiscal audits to ensure that we are being good stewards of public funds, and that is unfortunately in response to prior experiences where funds were not used appropriately.

And then lastly, we will participate and support any impact evaluations that are commissioned by the Measure N commission, which um is required by the legislation.

Thank you, and we're happy to entertain questions.

Thank you.

We're gonna go straight to public comments.

Thank you.

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

Um state your name for the record.

If you have time seated, please state that as well ahead of you speaking.

Um I will call those who are um here in chambers first, followed by those who are participating online.

If you're participating online, we ask that you raise your hand so we can identify easily identify you.

And if you are participating in a group, make sure the entire group is um with you as you approach the podium again.

Please state your name for the record.

I have quite a few speakers, so bear with me as I read these names and apologies in advance if I mispronounce.

Um McNeil, Richard, Raymond Earl Langford, and Leah Village, Jean Hazard, Miss Isada Olabala, uh Kelsa Sneed, Nicole, Pettiway, Feeney Johnson, Denise Itwa, uhende, Jonathan Jones, uh Kay Shabaz, Jennifer Lake Letty, James Delgado, Jonathan Broomfield, Kevin Phillip Phillips, Neiman Kane, uh, Lizer uh Cavara, Martin Hortado, Harris Kane, Millie Cleveland, uh Lee Jones Loggins, Brenda Inshama, Gabriel Garcia, Cindy Rejos, Sarah Kane, Nufina, Yasmin Hassim, Kay Tom, Kalia Thomas, Annx, Christino Lamas, Kelly Dillon, Jante Gambo, Killens Martin, Terrence Washington, DeLeo Neal, Daryl Alums, Caesar Johnson, Desmond uh Desmia Evans, Dwight Hasklin, excuse me, Carlton Crossley, Sarah Nazel, Rick Forteberry, Lynette Higara, Andrew Dayus, Tanya, Carvelda, John Jones the Third, Figny Johnson, Tim Davis, Sierra Sai, Bex, Baleba, and then there is a group of eight.

Uh Dr.

V, Uchi, Louie, Almez, Yogo, Desmond Terra T me, Desmond Iman, Foto Nezim, Jennifer Anyeta, Tanya Givens in that group of eight.

When you guys do approach the podium, we ask that you will get a total of eight minutes at once.

So make sure you guys are all together.

So if I called your name in any order, please approach the podium.

Again, please state your name for the record.

And if you have time seated, please state that at the beginning.

In any order, please.

We approach the podium again.

I have time seated by Lee John Loggins.

Okay.

Good afternoon, each and every one of you.

I am here, Brenda Grisham.

And first of all, I want to thank the Department of Violence Prevention because I found out recently that I was in your book and you guys thanked me for my input as the chair of the VPC.

My daughter is from here.

My daughter left her school where she was going to get a degree to be a doctor to come and work in violence prevention here in the city of Oakland.

So violence prevention is very important to me.

Violence prevention is the basis for why I do the work that I do to make sure that other families don't go through the same thing that I went through with the loss of my son.

The holistic change that we're trying to make is not a balance.

We have to do both.

So where is the balance?

The balance is in the CBOs that actually have boots on the ground.

And I say this each and every time because I don't get funded by none of y'all.

And I don't want to because I'm going to be able to move how I want to move.

But if I need to call somebody, I could call Daryl Allams.

I could call Andrew Park.

I could call Youth Alive because my daughter works for Youth Alive.

And these are the people that are not getting funded.

I could get calls at three o'clock in the morning and I could call somebody and say, I got a girl right here that wants to go home and I could call my friends and we put money together and put them on planes.

We put them on trains.

Is that a part of what they're talking about in the spending plan?

Because I have never ever been able to call DVP and get help for anybody.

So if we're gonna help people, we got to help everybody because this city, we've had murders, what, almost every day?

Almost every day.

Who's on first with those killers?

Who's on first with them?

Because if somebody's losing their, it's a summer, everybody knows in the summer, crimes go up.

Fund these people.

Thank you for your comments.

Brenda, next speaker.

My name is Gerald Allen.

Um Caesar Johnson is Caesar's size to me.

He's right here.

Um I've lost family members, I've lost cousins, uncles, and I have lost a son.

And I'm standing here today on speaking because I'm from a foreign country called Deep East Oakland.

And in those recommendations, there are no East Oakland organizations being funded.

In the recommendations, they're cutting this the CBRs from almost 28 to 6 to 8 CVIs in the streets.

If you take 20 officers from the police department, if you take 20 firemen from the police from the fire department, then you're gonna have some trouble.

That's the same thing with the CVRs.

Now I don't know if you guys are parents.

I don't know if you guys have lost loved ones in these streets, but it's it's not a it's it's not a good feeling, right?

And then this ecosystem that we have helped build for the last five, six years.

So I'm a founder of the Department of Arms Prevention.

I sit here many nights to fight for that to pass through for two years.

I was in this building, right?

And I'm standing here today to say that I already know that y'all probably gonna pass this, but what I'm asking the city council members to do is to find additional fundings for these other CBOs.

And so these CVIs will not be cut on September the 30th.

I'm asking you to find the money.

Now, if it was nine million dollars, just donated to the city of Oakland for trash, don't tell me my people ain't better than trash.

Don't tell me East Oakland ain't better than travel.

Just like Ken Houston just said, I'm from this club, and I'm real about this.

I'm not getting funded from DVP, Barbara Gatina, do this work out here in these streets.

A license to operate in my neighborhood because the community has said so.

The community has vote you into these seats.

It's your responsibility, not relationships on who your partner is, who your friend is, but who does this work in the community?

So I'm just like, I'm not sure.

Thank you so much.

Your time is up.

Next speaker, please.

My name is Cesar Johnson.

I was just seated uh time for Mama Sada.

Uh I just got a couple questions.

I'm sorry, who who said from Mama Sada?

I just got seated a minute.

Yes, I'm a side.

Um I got a couple questions for uh the people over at the DVP.

Uh y'all, we going from 20 life coaches, violence interrupters, right, down to six.

But usually the teams is ran by like six people in an organization's high work.

What you gonna do with with that many interruptors with a city with 400,000 people, it's just like when Libby Shaft cut the shots butter off for them two weeks back in the day.

The city went crazy, cut it back on.

She said crime was down, and it was more bullshit.

Like, this summer, how many lives are we gonna have to lose?

Like, I'm not saying you gotta give up the money, but the money gotta come from somewhere.

You know, we've been here, we've been there, we've been there.

We like this shit gotta stop.

It gotta stop, and and it's really not about how you feel because people's lives, these kids are losing lives.

The feelings is out the way.

It's like we gotta put preventive measures in place and policies and funding in ways to be effective.

This is not being effective.

Nobody cares about how you feel.

I've heard these mothers cry and how they holler when they lose their kids.

It's not okay.

I lost three generations out of my house.

It's gonna be worse than this if you don't put the money out so they can fund and wrap around these.

I apologize.

People don't have cultural competency.

I mean, we can go over in minutes.

I know I'm just saying you sees her.

Yes, I seated um your time.

She just seated me a minute.

Okay, okay.

Okay, you can't see it.

Okay, thank you so much.

Your time.

We can still hear it say all day.

We can keep talking.

I could just keep talking, and y'all can pull me out of here, but it's serious though.

Thank you.

Because these kids is dying, though.

We have to take the next speaker.

Thank you so much for your time.

I mean, Bobby said, motherfuckers, right?

You know what I'm saying?

How these people that's not on the brain, I never seen many people in the hook.

They might be here when we outside.

Right up, straight up.

I took 13 bullets behind this shit from all the police officers.

You can't tell me nothing about the back of the order in the chamber.

Order in the church.

Yeah, I don't want to hear what you're talking about order in the chamber.

That's your that's your that's your second warning.

Come on, wait a minute, I'm not telling you.

So, please proceed.

Please proceed.

Fiani Johnson, founder of the RMNA Ross Foundation.

I'm here today because I believe any conversation about measure in violence prevention, public safety must include the people who built this work.

East Oakland's violence prevention movement was not created in a boardroom.

It was built by violence interrupters, credible messengers, community healers, survivors, grieving parents, and community organizations that showed up long before this work was popular long before funding existed.

Many of these individuals put their lives on the line to help make East Oakland safer.

They walked into conflicts when others walked away.

They answer calls in the middle of the night, they build trust where trust did not exist.

So if we're having a conversation about the future of violence prevention, those individuals should be an after, shouldn't be an afterthought.

They should be at the table.

Nothing about violence prevention should be decided without the people who have spent years doing the prevention.

As someone who works with people returning home from incarceration, I know many of these preventionists personally.

They are people who transform their own lives to choose and dedicate themselves to help.

I apologize, Fanny.

Your time is up.

Thank you so much.

Your time has ended.

We need to go to the next speaker to allow everybody their time to speak.

Thank you so much.

Next speaker, please.

Hey, my name is John T.

Gamble.

I'm representing boss.

Um I'm a violent interrupter.

Um before I was a violent interruptor, I was in the streets.

So I did a lot of things I wasn't supposed to do, but I'm reformed now.

So I got shot, right?

Not only did I get shot, I lost a child to uh gun violence.

So who better to do this work besides people that actually come from the trenches?

You know what I mean?

It's a lot of other organizations that wasn't counted in here that should be here because we are actually in the field late night, daytime.

We do this work, and I mean we do funerals when the y'all got to understand when they're picking up their bodies.

We there with the family.

You know what I mean?

In the time of crisis, you know what I mean?

When ain't nobody else there.

You don't understand how giving somebody a bottle of water when their child just passed is will help.

You know what I mean?

So I ain't here to beg, I ain't here to borrow.

But if you cut off an octopus, there's arms, you just left with some puss.

That's my thing.

I like y'all.

Thank you for your comments.

Next speaker, please.

How y'all doing?

Um, I'm Dwight Haskling.

Um, I'm a VI for boss.

Um, I'm also born and raised in East Oakland.

Um, I just became a VI uh last year in October, but before that, I was actually a peer of my community.

Um, and I just love doing what I do.

Um, not disrespecting our our our, I'm not even finna talk about the other organizations, but I feel like boss is very important in this field um in this community of uh East Oakland because uh we we really in the streets.

You know, we're not just at work on the computers like we're really in the streets.

We're talking to these youths, we talking to young young killers out here, you know what I'm saying, to make them know that it's a better way.

Uh well, like my man just said, we we out here like we see the funerals, we go to the funerals, we go to the wakes, we doing all this.

Not saying the DVP don't, but it's other organizations that actually care about this city as well.

And I'm a part of boss.

Thank you so much for your comments.

Next speaker.

My name is Jon DeBronfield, uh safe passengers.

Um, from Deep East Oakland to West Oakland.

Uh, we've been able to use DVP to actually serve our youth night, day, weekends, all year round.

Um, we just ask that one, we honor the RP process for sure, but we just ask that no interruption or uh decrease of services happen because we actually decrease violence in the town through this initiative.

We've been doing it for years.

Um, just being somebody who's grown up in the town from East Oakland, um, we've done this countless years in a row.

So we're not begging for money, we're just trying to make sure it doesn't get disrupted.

Thank you.

Thank you for your comments.

Hello, good afternoon, Council members.

My name is Kyria Shabazz.

I'm with Roots Community Health.

The data is clear in Alameda County.

Gun violence has killed an average of three people and injured 12 every week with East Oakland neighborhoods bearing the highest burden.

We've also seen that community-based interventions work.

Oakland has reduced shootings and homicides by over 30% in recent years through these investments.

But right now, no East Oakland CVI organization has its contract renewed, putting one of the highest need areas at risk and losing critical violence prevention capacity.

If we disrupt what's working, we risk reversing progress.

We urge you to align funding with the data and invest where the need is greatest.

We also respectfully urge you to pause and condition these contract decisions that require greater transparency and equity, specifically a clear funding map, full RFP scoring and audit details in a geographic equity service gap analysis.

Thank you.

Thank you for your comments.

Next speaker.

Good evening.

My name is James Delgado with Safe Passages.

Um, we honor the RFP process.

Um any disruptions within the process could increase violence in Oakland.

Um DVP has been uh very detrimental to us and the youth that we serve throughout the Beast Oakland, East Oakland, and West Oakland.

Thank you.

Thank you for your comments.

Hey, how are you guys doing?

My name is Nimrod Kahn.

Life Coach with Safe Passages from East Oakland, born and raised fifth generation, 1997.

I was a victim of violent crime.

I lost my kidney in the neighborhood that I'm from.

So I grew up going to a lot of programs, and I just want to say we honor the process.

I know uh culturally relevant programs, some of them who uh you know work with with um BVP, you know, those kind of things save people.

I went to all types of programs, got a with safe passages as a kid, and I came up through the pipeline, they helped me get through college.

They got me a salary, uh, you know, they got my mind right because you know I could have did A, B, and C, but instead I'm not, so thank y'all.

Thank you for your comments.

Next speaker, please.

My name is Hadis Kahn from Safe Passages.

I just want to say that we want to honor the RFP process because any disruption to the process will increase violence, and I want to emphasize the impact that we've had in reducing violence through DVP.

Thank you for allowing us to serve our community.

Thank you for your comments.

Next speaker.

My name is Millie Cleveland and with Coalition for Police Accountability.

I want to raise that I think the council is being fiscally irresponsible.

People are searching for money when you know OPD's overtime is the main contributor towards the budget.

I gave the example last time of Tim Nolan making 490,000 in overtime that would have paid for three violence interrupters to this day.

OPD overtime has not been agendized on anybody's counsel or anybody's committee.

Thank you for your comments.

Sierra Nazel ceding my time to Andrea Diaz.

Andrea Diaz, I am here with Missy.

We are one of the organizations that is being funded.

Um and we would like y'all to consider moving forward.

We are excited to be back in community with the city of Oakland.

We have been doing this work for over 20 years.

Um, and over the past few years, it has not been putting through the city yet.

We have continued to serve the city as well as the rest of Alameda County.

Our work includes housing, um, providing basic needs such as service such as food, um, respite, um, hygiene kits, as well as coaching and case management for young people in Oakland and throughout Alameda County.

We primarily focus on youth impacted by commercial sexual exploitation, those that are at risk currently being exploited, as well as those that have left and need ongoing support.

Our work has also expanded working with Oakland Unified School District for prevention services, including leading 13 cohorts of prevention workshops across Oakland Unified School District.

Um, our work, I think is important as we know that exploitation and trafficking spans across all of Oakland, and youth deserve to have services that center them that really are culturally responsive and are not just broader parts of gender-based violence and gun violence because the youth we serve are impacted by all these things, yet they are not often served throughout all these services and are often excluded from these services and not seen as victims, but rather blamed and seen as responsible for what is happening to them.

Um, so we can appreciate and really I would like for y'all to consider moving this forward.

We think our work is important, and it hasn't been highlighted and present in Oakland's budget thus far.

Thank you for your comments.

Next speaker.

Hi, good afternoon or good evening.

My name is Lynette.

I'm a youth engagement specialist at Missy.

We serve girls, gender, and expansive youth ages 12 to 24 who are impacted or at risk of sexual exploitation as well as violence.

Right now, I am working with a young person who survived being shot multiple times by her exploiter.

She's currently in a safe place.

However, the trauma did not end when the shooting stopped.

She lives with physical and emotional impact of that violence, which affects her safety, trust, and ability to move forward.

She's constantly living in fear.

This is just one of the countless stories from the people that I work with.

Funding makes it possible to provide housing and housing assistance, transformation coaching, and long-term stability stabilization stabilization services for the vulnerable youth.

Community-based organizations like Missy are addressing violence before it happens and helping young people build stable futures.

In my experience, I have seen them move from crisis to stability.

I apologize, Lynette.

Your time is up.

Thank you.

Hello, my name is Analia Velagra, and I am with Bay Area Legal Aid.

We are grateful to the DVP for supporting legal services for low-income survivors.

We are proud to be a part of the Oakland community and to have been providing these services in Oakland for decades.

Bay Legal works with DV survivors who need help with restraining orders and child custody to escape abuse.

And through our uniquely holistic legal services, we also work with clients to address legal issues, including housing, public benefits, immigration relief, and re-entry services, such as getting arrests sealed and convictions expunged when survivors are wrongly arrested for defending themselves.

Access to civil legal aid significantly reduces incidents of domestic violence and homelessness.

This work saves lives.

Our thanks to the city and the DVP for recognizing the importance of legal services for survivors.

The need is much greater than the funds available can support, and it is our hope that the city council can identify additional funding to expand the available availability of these critical legal services.

Thank you so much for your comments.

Next speaker.

Hi, my name is Cindy Rios.

I'm the director of programs at the Dream Youth Clinic.

I am born and raised in Oakland, just a few blocks away from commercial sexual exploitation that occurs on international and where Dream Now holds its mobile clinic.

First, I want to thank the council for investing in community-based solutions to address the violence impacting our neighborhoods.

We recognize and honor the competitive process that was established to allocate these funds.

Many organizations like ours dedicated significant time and effort developing comprehensive proposals to address critical community needs.

We also acknowledge the frontline evaluators, uh review committees, and city staff who work diligently to ensure thoughtful selection process.

The funding awarded through this process will allow us to expand healing-centered intervention services for youth experiencing gender-based violence, sexual trafficking, and exploitation.

We respect the work being done by all organizations committed to violence intervention intervention across the city, and we believe it's important to uphold the integrity of the process that was established and carried out for these awards.

We look forward to partnering with fellow community organizations.

Thank you so much for your comments.

Hello, my name is Nafea Hassan, and I am the reproductive justice programs coordinator at Dream Youth Clinic.

I was raised by a single mother throughout Oakland, and today I have the privilege of supporting and advocating for young people across our community.

At Dream Youth Clinic, I lead programs focused on preventing and intervening in gender-based violence, including human trafficking, where we serve unhoused youth, foster youth, LGBTQ plus youth, and young people who are experiencing some of the most significant barriers to safety and stability.

Last year, our youth led a survey collected responses from over 230 young people in Oakland.

What we heard was clear.

Young people are experiencing violence, exploitation, housing instability, mental health challenges, and a lack of access to trusted adult and supportive spaces.

Many reported witnessing and experiencing unhealthy relationships, community violence, and situations that put them at risk for trafficking and exploitation.

These aren't just statistics.

These are realities of our young people that they are navigating every day.

Through our mobile clinic, we provide direct services to youth in areas where exploitation is prevalent.

We bring health care.

I apologize enough.

Okay.

Uh Sarah Kane is still in the Sarah Kane.

Okay.

One more minute.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Many reported witnessing and experiencing unhealthy relationships.

Or, well, here we go.

Through our mobile clinic, we provide direct services to youth in areas where exploitation and trafficking is prevalent.

We bring health care, STI testing, harm reduction supplies, referrals, and support directly to young people who might never walk into a traditional clinic.

At Dream, we have created a safe haven where youth can access free medical care, therapy, showers, laundry facilities, mills, and caring adults who are committed to their success.

Our health advocates help youth access housing, education, employment opportunities, and other critical resources.

We also invest in youth leadership.

The young people in our programs are learning how to advocate for themselves and engage in policy work and speak in civil spaces like this one today.

They are becoming leaders, organizers, and change makers in Oakland.

When you invest in Dream Youth Clinic, you are investing in prevention.

You are investing in intervention, you are investing in healing, and most importantly, you are investing in the young people before they become another statistic.

I urge you to continue funding organizations like Dream Youth Clinic that are doing the work.

Thank you for your comments.

Next speaker.

Anne Jenks.

So police overtime.

That's one aspect.

But the greater aspect is the absolute lack in curiosity and unwillingness to do any oversight on your largest budget items, like the OPD budget.

You won't look at civilianization of staff, although you will take a staff person from oversight and give it to OPD and call that civilianization.

There's 50 positions you could civilianize tomorrow.

Put more officers on the street and save money.

There's overtime, but generally you're just incurious and uninterested in doing oversight on your big issues while you leave folks scrambling over the scraps and the pennies.

You know, OPD uh stated what how they were going to use the NN money.

It's supposed to be 50% for sworn officers and 10% for non-sworn.

It's very clear that the majority of the money is for sworn officers and just well under 10% for unsworn.

And you thank you for your comments.

Good evening, Kelsey Sneed from the mentoring center.

Mentoring center has served youth and young adults for 35 years and specifically have been has been doing intense violence prevention work with the city of Oakland for over two decades.

The public procurement process in which the Department of Violence Prevention engaged remains opaque and fraught with inconsistencies, unclear procedures, unprecedented recall of the first RFP, no clear appeals process, among many other problems.

Therefore, I'm asking the city council not to adopt the recommendations as put forward and to find the additional funding to support the organizations that continue to do the work.

Oaklanders, including Oakland voters who are supporting a $30 million investment, deserve a process that is transparent, fair, equitable at every stage, and that has been effective and reflective of the organizations that have been doing the work for years.

The council's justified concerns about disruption and critical services can be addressed by extending the current contracts with organizations who have been.

I apologize, Miss Sneed.

Your time is ended.

Thank you so much.

Next speaker, please.

Hi, my name is Sierra C and I see my time to Jennifer.

Hi, my name is Bex Beloba.

I work for Missy, and I also cede our time to our ED Jennifer.

And I'm sorry, your name was what?

My name is Bex Beloba.

I work for Missy.

Hello, my name is Jennifer Lyle, and I'm the executive director of Missy.

And for nearly 20 years, we have served Oakland youth impacted by violence, exploitation, and trafficking.

We are survivor experiencer organization, meaning we are representative of the people that we serve.

We are based in East Oakland and we serve the entire Oakland community.

Last year alone, we served more than 730 young people through housing and housing assistance, emergency support, food, school-based support, transformation coaching, and our drop-in center.

I want to thank the Department of Violence Prevention and acknowledge the many community organizations doing this critical work.

I also want to address a concern raised earlier regarding three-year grants.

Multi-year grants are not unusual.

The federal government funds organizations, three, four, and even five-year grant cycles.

The state of California does the same.

Multi-year funding is a best practice because it allows organizations to retain staff, plan services, build partnerships, and focus on outcomes rather than constantly reapplying for funding.

Not every organization received funding, and difficult decisions had to be made.

The larger issue is not the process, it is that the need in Oakland exceeds the resources available.

I urge you to continue strengthening the Department of Violence Prevention and investing in the community-based solutions that are creating safety, stability, and opportunity for Oakland's young people and families.

I also encourage the council to trust the leadership and expertise of the Department of Violence Prevention.

Chief Joshi has is a respected leader in the field, not only in Oakland but nationally.

The DVP team brings deep experience, data, community relationships, and a firsthand understanding of what it takes to reduce violence.

None of us will agree with every funding decision.

That's the nature of a competitive process.

But if we are going to ask experts to conduct the thorough review, engage the community, evaluate proposals, and make difficult recommendations, then we should also trust their professional judgment.

Oakland has invested years in building the Department of Violence Prevention into a nationally recognized model.

We should continue to support that work, strengthen it, and give it the resources necessary to succeed.

The organizations here today are part of a larger ecosystem, working every day to make Oakland safer.

The question before us is not whether the need exists, we know it does.

The question is whether we are willing to invest at the level necessary to meet it.

Thank you for your comments.

Next speaker.

And if I may, is this um Desmond?

Is this the group of eight?

Yes.

Yes, so you will get a total of eight minutes on the clock.

So you guys need to share that time evenly.

So one your minute is up, please go to the next person.

So we have eight cards here, and if they can state their name.

Thank you so much.

Thank you.

So my name is Kiwi.

I am from District One.

Good afternoon to all.

Displacement, family separation, violence, and migrant yet, culturally representative mental health services remain difficult to access.

Too often families struggle in silence because of culture language barrier, stigma, and a lack of providing who understand their culture, their culture and experiences.

That's why is why are requesting funding for African immigrants, mental health, mental health, and community healing.

Three years African immigrant community stabilizing initiative funding four thousand four hundred and fifty thousand.

Again, four hundred and fifty thousand annually.

Should not depend on whether a community can afford mental health.

Thank you so much.

Good afternoon, good evening, Council.

My name is Desmond Jeffries.

I live in District 6.

The council budget team has identified public safety violence prevention, but public safety violence prevention, reducing homelessness, and core city services as a top priorities for the city of Oakland.

Those are our priorities too.

African immigrant families experience housing instability, violence, trauma, language barriers, and barriers accessing services.

As I even go to your city website on immigration, these are the languages I see: Arabic, Armenian, Chinese, English, Hindi, Japanese, Korean, Persian, Pujambi, Russian, Spanish, Tagalog, Vietnamese.

We don't see one African language listed.

Not Tegrina, not Maharich, not uh Swahili.

So as I move on.

When we are not yet, when we are looking for looking at the funding recommendations, we do not see a dedicated investment in the African immigrant community.

We are not asking the city to create a new priority.

We are asking the city to include our community within the priorities it has already established.

That is why we respectfully request 450,000 annually for three years to support housing stabilization, mental health services, and case management for the African immigrant immigrant families.

For years, GCA has been part of Oakland's violence prevention journey.

We supported early advocacy, community research, evaluation conversations with urban strategies and public testimony before city commissions and council.

We helped elevate the need for a stronger violence prevention system, including a dedicated department and leadership connected directly to the mayor.

We believe this work will lead to a more equitable strategy.

That is why it is deeply heartening to see 3.81.1 million in measure and violence prevention funding move forward while African immigrant communities remain largely invisible and invisible to the process.

Good evening, House.

My name is Dr.

Jeffrey Anyene.

I run a church in Oakland for the past 11 years.

Your budget includes funding for public safety, homelessness, service, temporary shelter beds, hotel vouchers, community safety programs, and violence prevention.

Those investments matter, yeah.

But there is a difference between funding a program and ensuring everyone can access it.

African immigrant families face unique barriers, including language access, immigration-related stress, cultural isolation, and challenges navigating public systems.

Without culturally responsive support, many families remain disconnected from the very services intended to help them.

We are asking, therefore, the city to recognize African immigrants as a community that deserves visibility, partnership, and investment through a three-year African immigrant community stabilization stabilization initiative funded at 450,000 annually, because equity is not just about what gets funded, it is also about who gets included.

We support case management, housing stabilization, family conflict, gender-based violence, concerns, community healing and crisis responses.

We currently manage three housing sites through master leases because public system have not met the need.

Much of this work has been subsidized by the continuity itself.

Alameda County First Five has become an important partner in supporting our families, emergency and transitional housing programs, and we are grateful, but GCEA receives no dedicated city or state funding.

We respectfully request a three-year African immigrant community stabilization initiative funded at 450,000 annually to support two case managers, an African immigrant mental health clinician, house stabilization property management called NETO, and culturally responsive healing services.

If Oakland is serious about violence prevention, African immigrants cannot remain invisible.

Thank you.

My name is Alma Zitego.

I'm also from the African Resource Center.

During the uh during the campaign, many of Oakland elected leaders committed to support the African immigrant community through housing, um, through housing, language access, public safety, mental health services, and culture responsive programs.

We appreciate that commitment.

Today we are asking for action, for action.

GCA current service no dedicated city or state funding, despite providing housing support, family stabilization, community healing, system navigation, crisis response, much more services for the at the African Resource Center and then in the African community.

No time.

We are not meaningfully invited into the community conversation, and we do not see African immigrant communities reflected in our outreach language access or funding outcomes.

We ask for your help and making sure that the African community is able to thrive, get the support they need.

They are in your district.

They are in your grocery stores.

They are in your restaurants that you go to.

They have their own businesses.

So if this is going to continue, we're gonna explore this.

Thank you.

Thank you so much.

Thank you so much, you guys, for your comments.

On to the next speakers.

I don't see 200,000 dollars.

So you may begin.

Hi, my name is Ayende.

I'm sorry, Miss Joshi and your group over here.

I heard your guys' whole program.

None of that is prevention.

That's a bunch of reactionary bullshit.

The bottom line is where are after school programs?

Why in Oakland our kids don't have anywhere to go?

There's no summer youth employment program, there's no trio programs.

That's how you prevent violence.

Is earlier you do prevention.

You don't wait till somebody becomes at risk.

You do it early.

And none of that is happening through what I just heard.

And I'm going with what I just saw.

Their department put up there.

None of that is prevention.

You have to do things for these young people.

Go into the schools.

Where is their program going into the schools?

Where is their program where they're going to families?

Like Boss does.

You don't do any of that.

What you guys do is wait and be reactionary until after the horses get out the barn.

We need a true prevention program, and Boss is the only one who's answered that call.

Thank you for your comments.

Next speaker.

Good evening, members of the council.

I'm Richard Day Howard again.

I'm from the Oakland Private Industry Council.

We just want to appear here today to thank you, and we are honored to have been a recipient for one of your awards for our employment training and workforce development program.

We're one of the few that got awarded in that regard.

And so it's an important area of intervention and prevention to have jobs for young people.

And we're excited to be able to work together with Chief Joshi and her staff to continue our cohort training, a 16-week training that has been going on under a pilot program, and we graduated 88% of the people that are in it, a 16-week program.

It's remarkably successful.

Thank you very much.

Thank you so much for your comments.

Next speaker.

Is that helping my?

Yeah, my name is uh Rick Ford and Berry.

I'm with Oakland Pig.

Um I'd like to say hello to you, to you guys.

Uh we work with uh some of the strongest worst youth that comes through Oakland and we do what we call a 16-week curriculum for Chief Josh.

We did it for the first time, and it went really well.

And we what's important is that in these cohorts, we sit around with with these young guys, and they get hope.

Most of the time we lose our hope as a man to do things in this world to make a change for our family and our community.

What these young men are here is learning not just job skills, but how to be a man, how to shake a man's hand, how to stand up and look a man in the eye, how to dress for an interview.

Those kind of things mean a lot to these young men.

And I'm just grateful for the life coaches that Chief Josh has her team.

Thank you so much for your comments.

Next speaker.

Hi, I'm Pastor Lankford, and I also want to, I have the time of Jonathan Jones.

Um, I want to start with Jonathan.

I'm sorry, is Jonathan Jones here?

Okay, thank you so much, Mr.

Lankford.

Um, I want to start by I have been a part of the violence prevention program since day one.

Um, and I say this, but I don't think a lot of people hear me.

I have buried 100 people in Oakland who have been murdered.

Pastor Lankford has, and I have helped to raise most of the money to bury them.

I have buried 19 of my own family members who have been murdered in Oakland.

I am so thankful to have met Sarah Bedford, and I'm so elated that this council has hired Chief Josie because the violence prevention work and many of the staff I have employed formerly through Healthy Oakland, but it gives me something to do.

I walk the streets of Oakland, I drive the streets of Oakland more than anybody in this chamber, and no one at the end of the end of the day wants to get the word that you've lost your mother, your father, your sister, your brother.

That is something that Oakland has been dealing with, and we're getting better at it.

And the answer is into the structure, the organization that has come forth, especially with Chief Josie, her leadership.

She's from Oakland, she's from East Oakland.

She was a former police officer.

The sister gets it, she understands.

She has hired some incredible men and women that are from Oakland who have been formally incarcerated, who live the life, who's doing what's right.

Um, the challenge is we don't have enough money, and I want to say that the Oakland Private Industry Council, yeah, we get funded, but I fund a lot of things out of my pocket and will continue to do so.

But this is a time for us not to point the fingers, but this is time for us to continue to reach out to corporations, to athletes, entertainers, and others to invest in Oakland so that we can save lives, and so that the great work of Oakland will continue to be done.

I want to thank the council for your thank you so much for your comments, Mr.

Lankford.

Your time is ended.

Next speaker.

Yes, good evening, council members.

My name is Gabriel Garcia.

I'm the policy and advocacy director for Youth Alive.

First, I want to express my gratitude and appreciation for the funding being proposed for Youth Alive so we can continue our services for victims, survivors, and interrupt cycles of violence in East West and Central Oakland.

At the same time, we recognize that there are many great organizations, programs, services that are not being included in this round of funding.

And as somebody that helps write and pass Measure N, I would again reiterate to this council that Measure N is the floor, not the ceiling on the city's ability to invest in violence prevention, intervention, and healing services throughout Oakland.

As somebody that's helps bring millions of dollars of investment from the state of California from the federal government to community-based violence and reventure programs here.

I fully support the council working with us, working with the community to do that, bring in additional investment so that the great work that's happening through many services programs in Oakland can continue.

Thank you.

Thank you so much for your comments, Mr.

Hazard.

This discussion is very interesting.

There'sue is equitable distribution of the resources.

We could give money to other cultures to come in the black community.

Some of them may hire some black folks, but they don't have uh oversight of the dollars and cents.

You give money to the law family.

They hire some black folks, but they oversee the distribution of the money.

You could give money to the Asian uh local development corporation.

They have some black folks.

You could give money to the Spanish speaking council.

But when they're gonna give equitable money to black folks who are hurting and dying, we represent 70% of the unshelter, but we only 21% in this town.

Thank you, Mr.

Hazard.

Your time is up, excuse me, Mr.

Hazard.

No, no, no, we don't need it.

If your name was called, please approach the podium.

At this time, all names have been called, and we do not have any Zoom speakers, or if you are on Zoom and your name was called, and you wish to speak, please raise your hand.

Thank you.

Thank you for everybody who came out to comment on this.

Thank you for everybody who's doing work, the city of Oakland to reduce violence.

With that, we're going to pass it to Councilmember Wall.

Thank you.

Through the chair, um, since I chaired the committee that saw this item, I just wanted to provide some uh context to the rest of the body about uh why we actually proceeded with this with an amendment uh for this to be um advanced to this full body as a two-year contract rather than uh three-year contract.

Um, and but but before I get that, I do want to thank uh DVP Dr.

Joshi for her just um amazing um work that is always on the forefront of community violence uh prevention.

Um but there we had this lengthy discussion in the committee around how there was uh an aberration that was really more around the upfront procurement process that resulted in not one but two times that uh the RFP was conducted and there was some uh there was discussion about it, and so anyways, this is how we landed on advancing it to this committee uh with an amendment of two years instead of the three years that was originally proposed.

Uh and the other thing I just wanted to mention is that there were um included in this just uh more information on how people were evaluated and what were the criteria, and so I want to thank the team for just providing um some of this additional information that sheds more light and transparency into what happened with this procurement.

Uh that being said, I have just uh a couple of actually just one question to Dr.

Joshi.

Um, just looking at the this is supplemental attachment A.

This is on the healing on gun violence strategy.

I just noted that I think one of the recipients here was rated.

Um this is the SARE group, they were rated uh a little further below, but they got the funding.

Was there a reason?

And I have to be clear, the people who rate uh ranked above them.

I have no relationship with these groups, I'm just asking out of fairness for the process.

Sure.

Absolutely.

Thank you for the question to the chair.

We in that particular instance, we chose to recommend skipping down to that entity because they specifically represent immigrant rights and have significant language access for survivors.

Okay, great.

Yes, and I was actually very happy to see the consideration for those items in the valuation criteria.

I know there were some comments in public safety committee around our re being culturally responsive, and I saw that that was evaluated, so thank you.

That made sense.

I suspected that was the reason why, but I just wanted to clarify.

For gender-based violence specifically.

Yeah, yes, okay, great.

Um, and I will I'll actually make a motion to adopt the recommendation with the amendment.

Thank you.

Councilmember Houston, and then Brown.

Mr.

Ramsey, Ms.

Ramsey.

Okay, go ahead.

Through the chair.

Um these are my folks talking.

They're from that foreign country that Darrell said is East Oakland.

And I'm gonna look at each and one of my council members, and I'm gonna ask you, the crime that is happening is not happening in your district, like mine, your district, your district president.

It's not like my people.

I have friends and family that have been murdered and have murdered, right?

And it's what's economics, it's economics.

They don't want to commit, they don't want to be in the underground economy, right?

And my question is this: if we can find money for everything else, why can't we find money for my people?

And what I mean by that is find additional monies, you know, and Mr.

Hazard said equitable, truly equitable.

Let me share this with you.

The organization that did not qualify for the technical services, right?

Just because they didn't qualify for the technical services, the people that are doing that working for them will not be able to work.

It's not their fault that organization didn't make it through the technical service.

Um, and then then it went to the scoring and review.

So my thing is I want to ask, I want to talk to every council member on here.

How are you gonna help us find some money, some additional money for these young men and women that came up here to speak that's gonna be affected because that organization didn't qualify, how we gonna do this?

I mean, if we can find the money, you heard them speaking.

You can find the money for overtime for police, you can find money for illegal dumping, you know, and that's my thing.

We could find, but but I'm saying we gotta let's let's find some money for my folks.

This is my people.

I was elected to represent district seven, and I'm going to I'm gonna I'm gonna represent like they want me to.

And I'm I'm gonna say this.

I'm serious too.

I'm serious, just like they are.

And I tell people I just look like this, I'm from a different cloth, right?

So I'm saying how and I'm obeying you and I'm not I'm threatening, I'm not pushing, I ain't bullying.

I'm saying, can you help me?

Can you help me find some money that's gonna help the individuals that's gonna be affected because the organization didn't qualify?

You heard them speak, you know.

We all human, right?

It's like, let's help them.

You heard them shot.

They didn't say, young man that came up here said he just what was his name?

Country was his country that came here last time.

Was it country?

He said he's works for Boston, he's in school, he's about to get his his degree, and he wants to come and work for you.

Let's be humane.

Come on, you guys, you I know we could do something if we can find some money for overtime on police.

They're 20 million dollars.

So I'm just saying what I'm saying is this.

What I'm saying is this.

Let's find some additional funding.

That's all I'm saying.

Mr.

Mr.

Ramsey, they ain't called order in the chambers, order in the chamber.

Okay, council member brown then Kyle.

Right.

Um, well, as council member Wong stated, um, in public safety, we uh had a very robust conversation where we really dived into the details of just the the process.

Um and I think we we all were able to determine that there were definitely some areas of opportunity.

Um, but one of the one of the biggest takeaways, of course, including all of the public speakers that came and recognizing uh some of the gaps in services um that we will see as it relates to some of the East Oakland providers, also uh the lack of a service provider specifically focused in on the LGBTQ community.

We also heard from the African resource community as well.

And so we so we heard those comments, and then also at the same time, there was kind of this awareness that was made around how in the past uh the general fund used to supplement uh some of this violence prevention work.

And so I think that to answer your question, Councilmember Houston, I think as a body, we really need to, of course, we don't want any laps in services as it relates to the strategy that uh Dr.

Joshi and the team has laid out, um, and so we want to move these current contracts forward so that we can continue the work.

But I do think that as a body, we we need to um we need to really ensure that um there's no you know gaps in service as it relates to those who are providing services in East Oakland and some of our other vulnerable communities.

And so that's why in the amendment that we made, we're moving forward with a two-year contract um instead, and a request for I just want to make sure I say this on the record, in a request for a six-month report back from the DP DVP on the impacts of funds granted and the impacts of funds not awarded to the current grantees in our current cycle, while we as a body um work to try to identify additional funds that may actually be outside of the current scope that it that we're moving forward.

Thank you, Councilmember, and then uh we're gonna was it at a second?

Okay, there's a second, and then council member guy.

Yeah, thank you, and thank you for the opportunity.

And I want to first of all thank some of the speakers that were here this evening, Youth Alive, um, restorative justice, uh the pick uh representatives from the private industry council, and uh also Missy.

I haven't seen uh Missy was extremely helpful in my district for many many years, assisting the girls that are on the street, teenagers, you know, young people.

We do a lot of talking, but what happens in our neighborhoods in East Oakland throughout the city with our young people, and I think we need to create some leadership, some support, and I'm gonna ask you the well, for it's an example, the youth employment program on 23rd and international didn't get funded.

They've been around for many years, but they have youngsters not only providing the training, the job opportunities, but also their high school degrees, and these are kids from the neighborhood that if they weren't at YEP, well, they wouldn't be in our schools.

So I for me, it's you know, the what I guess my request is how did you know what do we need to do to include programs?

Because my my understanding, some of the evaluators have no understanding what Oakland is all about or have lived in Oakland.

That's right, and understand our behavior, right?

And that's what I see a lot of people that are working in Oakland.

Well, they're commuting to Oakland.

And so for me, it's it's really important to look at the organizations that have delivered delivered a service because YEP not only are there in school learning how to build, how to construct, but they're also on the neighborhood helping me clean the neighborhood.

And these are African American youngsters, all right?

They're not white people, then people from the neighborhood.

I don't want to hear no excuses, because we are fooled, all we do is make excuses.

So, anyways, YAP, I would love to, you know, us to reconsider and find a different way to support the young people that are there writing in East Oakland.

Thank you.

So through the chair, I think there are a few questions in there from Councilmember Gaio.

The first thing I'd like to address is the fact that the competitive bidding process is a competitive bidding process.

It does not ensure that the same agencies get money for decades.

Because on the flip side of the conversation, the critiques that we often hear from community-based organizations, and that we often hear from African American-led organizations and smaller organizations, is that the city's competitive bidding process consistently favors what is called legacy organizations that have been receiving money from the city for 20 to 30 years.

So what the DVP endeavored to do at the direction of the city administrators' office is to run a true competitive bidding process in which everyone had an equal chance to get money.

In that competitive bidding process, I want to be clear.

So the very large majority of the organizations that we are requesting to be funded are run by black and Latino people who we all know in this city are disparately impacted by violence.

Black folks are murdered in this city at a higher rate than anyone else, and unfortunately, Latinos are catching up to us.

And so the investment in the organizations that we are asking to fund considers that fact.

The other thing that I'd like to say specifically about YEP, Mr.

Guile, since you brought it up, is that we absolutely honor the work that they do with at-risk kids.

They are receiving funding from the workforce development in this city and from OFCY.

They did not score the highest in the DVP's RFP process, which was specifically focused on finding a partner that could serve ceasefire lifeline clients that are the highest risk for violence.

You heard OPIC discuss the 16-week fellowship that we've designed with them.

That is for ceasefire lifeline clients, and they ranked the highest in this competitive bidding process.

Thank you.

With that, we'll call the roll.

There was a motion by Councilmember Wong, second by Councilmember Brown to approve this item with the amendments made from the public safety committee.

Councilmember Brown.

Aye.

Council Member Fife.

Councilmember Guile.

Councilmember Houston.

Councilmember Houston.

Don't tell me to have come on.

Because it's principal two here.

Councilmember Unger.

Aye.

Councilmember Wong.

Aye.

And Chair Jenkins.

I motion passes with a vote of seven ayes, one no.

Houston.

That completes your non-consent portion of this agenda.

Moving to item six, which is the consent calendar, noting that items 6.1 and 6.2 have been removed from this agenda.

Oops.

If you signed up for these items, you still would be allowed to give public comment.

Are you taking that separate or with the consent calendar?

Okay.

So you can come up for the consent calendar.

So just noting that the GAD items, item 6.1 6.1, which is the Leona Quarry GAD annual budget for fiscal year 26 to 27.

And item 6.2, the Oakland Area GAD annual budget for fiscal year 26 and 27 have been removed from this agenda and are going to the next meeting.

Reading in item 6.3 approval of the draft minutes from the meeting of June 1st and June 2nd.

Item 6.4 resolution regarding the declaration of a local emergency due to the AIDS epidemic.

Adam 6.5, a declaration of a medical emergency due to due to cannabis.

Adam 6.46, a resolution for declaration of a local emergency on homelessness.

Item 6.7 is final passage for an ordinance amending the fiscal year 25 through 26.

Master fee schedule for fiscal year 26 through 27.

Item 6.8, final passage for ordinance for measures M and C and N D, QAA and Y, and M for fiscal year 26 through 27, cost of living tax adjustment.

Item 6.9, an ordinance amending and reenacting Oakland Municipal Code Chapter 3.08.

Item 6.10, a resolution for Becker Boards Agreement Adjustments.

Item 6.11, a resolution for retirement for Nicola Desburg.

Item 6.12, a resolution for National Caribbean Heritage Month.

Item 6.13, a resolution for national homeown homeownership month.

Item 6.14, a resolution condemning the war on Iran.

Item 6.15 includes multiple pieces of legislation for a settlement for a city of Oakland versus Stephen O.

Kerner.

Item 6.16, a resolution for settlement for Raven Loke versus the City of Oakland.

Item 6.17, a resolution for Oakland Connect Fiber Network Partnership Legislation.

Item 6.18, a resolution for summarily vacating public utility easement at 747 52nd Street.

Item 5, sorry, excuse me, 6.19, a resolution for Owen Equipment Sales Inc.

Purchase Contra.

Item 6.20, a resolution from MOK Junior Way Streetscape Improvements.

Item 6.21, an ordinance for Oakland Ice Center Lease and Capital Project.

Item 6.22, an information report for the General Plan and Housing Element Annual Progress Report for Year 2025.

Item 6.23, a resolution for camps and common rental agreement.

Item 6.24, a resolution for multi-purpose senior services program.

Item 6.25, an ordinance for bike share franchise amendment.

And that was your last consent item.

You have approximately 58 speakers on this item.

Let's go to public speakers first.

As I call your name, please approach the podium.

I saw a hand raised.

You said just because you have a relics.

Oh.

I just wanted to register a no vote on the billboard item just because I don't believe it should be on consent.

I think it's something that should have been discussed in the full council.

And I also want to just express again my support for the Oakland Ice Center and everything they do for Oakland.

Thank you.

Thank you.

And yes, on the rest of the consent count.

Yes, on the rest of the consent calendar.

Councilmember Wong.

I actually wanted to pull S 6.25 off consent.

We discussed this in public works and transportation.

And you know, I remember at the time feeling like when we were looking at that map of the bike share stations that it they weren't equitably distributed around the city.

It was notable how much those bike shares were really skewed towards uh north and west Oakland and how few stations were out in East Oakland and that was confirmed by a note that was then sent in by Tanya Love.

And I I think it's worth the worth at least a discussion with this wider body.

Council member the appropriate time is item number three modifications to the agenda to pull things off of consent.

Yeah.

So no vote for 6.25.

Um council member Ungar.

I'd like to register a no vote for item 6.10.

Thank you.

Thank you.

anybody else?

Councilmember Houston.

No vote on 6.25.

I registered no vote on 6.10.

I believe the city should get 100% of the money.

All right.

With that, let's go to the public speakers.

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

Please state your name before beginning.

Please raise your hand on Zoom if you still wish to speak.

And as with the council rules of procedure, there is no seating time on the consent calendar or open forum.

Isaac Cos Reed, Blair Beekman, I have you with multiple items.

Derek Barnes, I have you with multiple items, Kevin Dally, Mrs.

Sada Olabala, have you with multiple items?

Ayers, Renee Lilly, Mr.

Hazard, I have you with all the items on consent.

Christopher Powell, Carla Guerrera, have you with two items?

Kathy Adams, I have you with two items, Kaheri Gutiérrez, Colin Hughes, Latashia Perry, Randy Munman, Samuel Ramsey, have you with two items?

Alex Isaran.

Sorry if I said the incorrectly.

Gary Zee.

Stephanie Tran, I have you with two items.

Kathy Adams, I think that was a duplicate.

Petra Brody.

Kaheri Gutierrez, two items, Alfred Lee, two items, Jennifer Trend, the duplicate.

Peter.

Gemis.

Preston Pinkley.

Two items.

Allie Obad.

Two items.

Len, is it Candy Martinez?

Two items.

Daniel Swafford, two items, Chadwick Spell.

Ryan Nolan, two items.

Ari Curry.

Ryan Austin.

Someone from Coco Breeze.

Joe Pertita.

Amber Childress.

Hey Amber.

Bridget Kane.

Rosemand Velasco.

Sorry if I said the incorrectly.

Amelia Wilson.

Sherry Vance.

Marisa Marissa Lyons.

Nema Link.

Vanessa McGeehee.

Petra Brady, Tiffany Jordan, Chris Hellyer, Heather Siglin, Angela Hackney, Kimberly Miller, Christine Tostado, Arthur Levisy, Juan Gong Lee.

Is it Renee Johnson?

Elizabeth Wynne.

Supreme Ayahi.

Charles Johnson.

David Walker.

Mr.

Hazard, have you multiple items?

You have three minutes.

Thank you.

I don't know why you keep carrying 6.5.

Adopt a resolution renewing the city council's declaration of a local public health emergency with respect to safe affordable access to medical cannabis in the city of Oakland.

Why do you keep having this?

And you don't put a medical public health safety around fit, no?

Cannabis, if you didn't know it that you approved, it's legal.

You approved a cafe.

It's legal.

So why are you carrying this?

That's the negligence on your part.

I gave you all what I filed on Friday.

In opposition to the city's demur, a demur for those who don't know, is trying to dismiss what I filed back on May 19th, 2025 on the special election regarding measure A.

The transaction use tax.

And the city attorney altered the text on the ballot measure.

And so 366 days.

I've been dealing with this procedural crap.

But they weaponized me by filing this demur on June 1.

I was waiting for that.

Now we'll be in court on June 25.

Let me read what's here.

And how hopefully it's going to, we shall prevail.

Responded Ryan Richardson's demur should be overruled in its entirety.

The demur ignores the unusual procedural posture of this case and attempts to capitalize upon the clerical error.

Well, let me tell you what happens with the clerical error.

The clerical misclassification, despite being a writ proceeding, the clerk of the court improperly classify the matter as a general civil action and assign it to Department 23.

Should have been Department 24, not 23.

They handle rents.

Thank you, Mr.

Hazard.

Your time is up.

Kathy Adams, President of the Oakland African-American Chamber of Commerce.

To uh President Jenkins, as my time started, and uh Oakland City Council, thank you for your service, and thank you for your commitment and your time.

Becker Boards has provided enormous opportunities for our members to advertise their businesses.

The Billboard programs have brought enormous exposure to the community.

The visibility is invaluable.

We need the billboard program.

We need something that's positive for our community and our businesses.

Businesses increase customers, they grow revenue, they create jobs with the billboard.

We urge you to vote yes and know that you're making an impact.

I want to say thank you to all of our members of all the multicultural chambers.

A lot of us arrived here by 3 30, and a lot of people had to leave because of other activities.

But we urge you to support it.

Thank you.

Good afternoon, or maybe even good evening.

My name is uh Peter Gamma's president and CEO for Visit Oakland.

At Visit Oakland, our job is to tell a story to visitors, meeting planners, sports fans, investors, and future residences.

We know that perception matters and visibility matters.

If people don't see Oakland, they don't think about Oakland.

If they don't think about Oakland, they don't visit Oakland.

Last year, Oakland welcomed approximately 3.4 million visitors who generated more than 583 million in visitor spending and nearly 779 million in total economic impact, supporting over 5,500 local jobs.

Tourism is one of Oakland's most important economic engine, and it relies effectively on ways to reach people where they are.

Becker Boards helps us do exactly that.

Billboards are often the first invitation someone receives to attend an event, visit a restaurant, stay in a hotel, or simply take another look at Oakland.

The help business grow.

They help organizations communicate and they help tell us the city's story.

As someone who spends every day competing for visitors and attention in a crowded marketplace, I can tell you that visibility is not a luxury, it's a necessity.

Becker has been a strong community partner, and Visit Oakland is proud of support their continued investment in the city.

Thank you.

Good evening, Council members.

My name is Carrie Gutierrez, a D6 resident, and I'm here on behalf of the Unity Council to express our support of the Becker Boards partnership.

I have a lot of uh wonderful examples to share with you all about the impact of Becker Board's partnership to the community.

The first one that I'd like to share with you is that we've used this platform to promote our annual Dia de los Muertos Festival, which brings over a hundred thousand people from all over the Bay Area to the Frueville in Oakland.

This boosts our local economy and it preserves culture.

During these especially challenging times, this billboard has also become a critical public messaging tool.

In collaboration with our resilient Fruville partners, we shared know your rights resources, legal support, and safety planning for immigrant families.

Most recently, we also partnered with El Team Pano to make sure that the messages that we shared were also in Spanish in the native language of a lot of our immigrant communities.

I'm proud to say that we also thank you.

Your time is up.

Hi, Eric Oliver, Becker Boards.

Thank you, Council President and Council members.

Uh, like I said, my name is Eric Oliver, Director of Community Engagement for Becker Boards.

It has been my pleasure to work closely with Oakland Small Business, Nonprofit and Business Improvement District Community.

I'll keep this brief.

Since November 2024, the Becker Boards Free Community Ad Program has provided nearly $3 million.

I'll say it again, $3 million in free advertising through 582 free ads to over a hundred local small businesses, nonprofit organizations, and business improvement districts in Oakland.

Over the last week, you have seen support pour into uh from every corner of the city from only a small fraction of the people who have directly benefited from this program.

We do good work in Oakland and we are proud of it.

The decision in front of you is clear.

A vote yes is a vote for the community.

Thank you for keeping your community support and all your hard work.

Thank you.

Good afternoon, council members.

My name is Lily Ayers, and I am a business owner in D3.

And for some reason, my council member won't face me.

Moving on.

Um, so here we go.

Um, I was born at Highland Hospital.

I went to Casamont, and yesterday a meteorite hit my shop.

The sky is falling.

The sky is falling.

The sky is falling.

What does this mean?

At least that's what the people are thinking these days, right?

With everything they see in the media, all on television, right?

So, what am I here for?

For nine years, I've been in downtown Oakland helping to heal people, and I would like to tell my story about the meteor in my store.

Crystals, pyrite crystals that are landed in in my store from uh uh what is it?

Mount Shasta.

Okay, I want to tell stories like Shakari Designs.

He's is a business owner that I lift up other business owners in our city.

And yeah, I have a lot of people who are visibility matters.

People can't attend an advantage that they never hear.

All right, good evening.

Uh council members.

My name is Stephanie Tran, president of the Oakland Chinatown Chamber of Commerce.

Um, I'm here today in support of the proposed amendments to uh Becker Boards Agreement.

The Oakland Chinatown Chamber is part of a coalition that supported the creation of the Billboard program because it represented an innovative partnership between public, private, and nonprofit sectors.

It's demonstrated that we can create solutions that benefit community organizations, small businesses, and the city of Oakland at the same time.

And over the years, Becker Boards has become more than just a billboard program, it has become a valuable asset and community resource that helps promote local businesses, public awareness campaigns, and neighborhood initiatives.

And for many organizations and small businesses, this type of visibility would otherwise be financially out of reach.

And as a chamber representing hundreds of small businesses, we know how important it is for small businesses.

Um, we know how important it is to help local entrepreneurs reach customers and compete in today's uh marketplace.

And Becker Board has helped us connect residents and visitors with businesses, events, and organizations that make our city unique.

And as Oakland and the city continues, and you all have to navigate this uh fiscal challenge, we should be looking towards really opportunities to support partnerships that promote economic activity, strengthen community engagement, and contribute to the long-term success of our city.

And so for these reasons, um, the Oakland, Chinatown Chamber of Commerce respectfully urges all of you to support um the Becker Boards Agreement.

Thank you.

Uh good afternoon, good evening, Council members.

My name is Alex Isveron, and I'm a co-owner of the Oakland Fortune, one of Oakland Chinatown's oldest and longest standing businesses.

Uh next year will be our 70th year.

And as a small business owner, I can tell you that Billboard Advertising traditionally has been not accessible to small businesses like ours.

Uh, we're not a big corporation, even though we've been around for a long time.

Um, and we don't have a marketing team, so having an opportunity to work with Becker Boards and have access to something that a lot of people get to see is uh is a great opportunity for us and my family.

So uh through Becker Boards, for the first time in 70 years, we were able to uh have our have an advertisement go up and have people along the 880 and 580 see it on their way to work, and I was lucky enough to see it maybe once or twice.

Uh so um just wanted to urge the council members to uh support this and um thank you very much for your time.

Do I start now?

Wang Gong from Hong Kong that went to elementary school here in Lincoln.

But I'm here as a member of the chamber and also a member of our Chinese school in down in Oakland that's been around for 70 years.

Pandemic really killed us.

Our enrollment from a thousand kids went down to 500.

With Becker Board, let us let us expose ourselves to the general public that come down the freeway that usually don't stop in Oakland anymore because there's ranch 99, the other large box store that sells Asian goods, and put us back on the map.

There's an Asian culture in Oakland, Chinatown that you could participate, send your kids to.

So I really thank Becker Board for letting us preach to the public that drives down 880.

We, as a nonprofit, we can't afford this type of advertising.

It's been very effective for us, and our enrollment right now is up to 600 kids a day.

So thank you, Becker Board.

Thank you for chamber for supporting all of us.

Good evening, council.

Thank you so much for hearing this item.

My name is Nima Link with Becker Boards.

Uh, unfortunately, a lot of our speakers had to go.

Most of them are small business owners.

And so they had to go.

And I think, in fairness to them, I'd like to read their names.

Twenty-two speaker cards here that filled out their cards and weren't able to speak.

And we understand the reasons.

There's pressing issues that the council had to discuss.

Heather Siglin, Chris Heller, Tiffany Jordan, Vanessa McGee, Petra Brady, Ryan Austin, Joe Partita, Bridget Kane, Amelia Wilson, Rosemary Velasco, Sherry Vance, Marissa Lyons, Ryan Nolan, Ari Curry, Chadwick Spell, Daniel Swafford, Candy Martinez, Ali Obad, Preston Pinkley, Jennifer Trenn, Gary Scheer, and Angela Hackney.

I want to thank them for not they're not here, but thank them.

Every health center that was affected by this, and we understand that they'll be affected in the next few years, has sent a letter of support stating their acknowledgement and acceptance of this change.

It's unequivocally better for the city, and the city will make more money.

Thank you for support.

I urge for your yes vote.

Thank you.

So let me clarify something.

68% of the victims of homicide and the suspects are African Americans.

I don't know what the rising Latino rate is, but presently that's the number.

Asians are not gonna let black people take care of their needs.

Latinos are not gonna let black people tell them what to do.

So why do you think it's appropriate that other people like the Lau family and all these other groups?

Your unity council can take care of anything having to do with African Americans.

Item 6.8, cost of living adjustment.

What that means is you're gonna increase the amount of money people pay on all of these measures on their property taxes, and you don't take under consideration some of the challenges people are going through with mortgages, with home insurance, with foreclosures, and so forth.

Every year you just you just increase it with no consideration of the challenges for homeowners.

Item 6.9.

You're deleting something related to the ballot measures having to do with the city manager and the I'm sorry, the city attorney and the city clerk.

No discussion, you're just changing it.

6.10.

Nonprofits that benefit all the time are Asian and Latinos, very few African American nonprofits get the same attention.

That was demonstrated with this violence prevention thing you just dealt with.

6.15.

If you own property, you have uh this is a lawsuit, but you're allowing property that you bought, you're allowing the person that you bought the property from to stay on the property for 12 months.

Now that's where you're supposed to be building the fire station, and you're also extending that you can do it six more months, that the owner of the previous owner of the property can stay on the property.

I don't know what that's about.

That's crazy.

6.21 Oakland Ice Center.

Now, y'all, this leasing, parking, validation of parking, who's paying for that?

Where's the money?

You also hired a refrigeration engineer to go work on the problem.

We're paying for that, to go work on the problem at the ice rink, River Camp, Feather River Can 6.23.

You got some inequities going on.

Who's going to those camps?

Mostly white people.

That's who's going to those camps.

Now going back to the I got time, yes.

Going back to these uh fees, your fees have to make sense.

When you buy a piece of property for a hundred and twenty-five thousand dollars, and then you have a fee for nine hundred thousand dollars, make that make sense.

When you have a vacancy tax and thank you, Ms.

Olabala.

Your time is up.

If your name is Connie Iron Chambers and you wish to speak, please approach the podium.

Otherwise, we will be moving to the Zoom speakers, starting with Christopher Powell.

I have you with one card for one minute.

Please unmute yourself and begin your comments.

Chris Powell.

Yes.

Good evening, President Jenkins and Council members.

My name is Chris Powell.

I'm an attorney of Nancy Bridget.

I'm speaking on behalf of Alfred Foster Interstate.

We ask you to pull item 6.10 from consent.

This is not a routine contract amendment.

It's a fundamental retrade of the 2023 Becker deal on terms far worse for the city.

It cuts Becker's guaranteed payment from $750,000 a year to $250,000 a year dependent on unaudited self-reporting.

It reuses takedown credits Becker already used once to add new billboards, a net increase that contradicts your own general plans billboard reduction policy.

It eliminates Becker's roughly $500,000 poll cover obligation and clause back payments already made to community health nonprofits.

It also cannot lawfully be approved as exempt from CEQA, raises equal protection concerns, and also risks and unlawful gift of public funds.

I submitted a letter yesterday by email that I asked to be included in the record.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr.

Powell.

Moving to Isaac Haas Reid, I have you with one card.

You two have one minute.

Please unmute yourself and begin your comments.

Good evening.

Can you all hear me?

Yes.

Council President Jenkins and amazing council members.

First of all, thank you for your hard work listening in tonight, the whole meeting.

I appreciate more than ever your public service.

Thank you also for considering the Becker board revisions and for recognizing what Becker has done for Oakland.

$3 million in free ads for nonprofits and small businesses.

Anyone who works in communications or politics knows how huge that is.

Over 100 small businesses and community-based organizations served as well.

This is something that has never been done before by the big to corporate billboard monopoly here in Oakland.

These revisions will ensure that the free ads continue.

They will also preserve the city's money and most likely lead to greater funding for both the city and community over the life of the agreements.

That's why everyone of the nonprofit community health centers supported, and why you should too.

Thank you.

And hello for my wife's home country of Guatemala.

Thank you for your comments.

Moving to Mr.

Beekman, I have you with multiple cards.

You will have three minutes.

Please unmute yourself and begin your comments.

Hi, Blair Beekman.

I had uh comments for items 6.8, 6.9, and 6.14.

6.18 is first the um working on uh NN issues, uh, many of the measures.

Um I wanted to quickly comment that uh with Major N.

Thank you that in uh the month of June you're gonna be working on the financial matters of NN.

And I hope those can be important lessons of accountability.

We're truly trying to understand accountability.

Um I've learned a lot from your uh previous meetings on it, and I hope those conversations are more open and clear and good good work that you're doing it uh very openly overall.

Uh also uh for item 6.9, is items about um you're going to uh create a more efficient process for voting?

Uh, and the city clerk's job can be easier, but I don't think it's necessarily that much easier in what you're doing.

I think you're actually limiting uh the public process.

You have a few cute rules that that uh allow the city of Oakland to somehow have some sort of power over the public process of information, and that's somehow okay.

And I think that should be questioned.

You don't want to put information on voting ballots because it's the city of Oakland item.

I really seriously question that as being sound, efficient uh government, and and it should be questioned.

And finally, to conclude, uh thank you uh much to Councilperson Unger for his initiative and wanting to limit war and to follow the examples of our current U.S.

Congresspersons.

I feel Councilperson's Ungar's initiative along with uh many people in Oakland across the country are working much the beliefs of peace and dialogue are just as important as current U.S.

Israel and uh other Middle Eastern country beliefs in using continual war, terrorism, and violence is how to solve their differences.

With Council Person Unger's initiative, I hope Oakland uh in Oakland we can continue to more sensibly balance and address and share clearly Israel's existential worries, the future of Gaza within inclusive Muslim and C Mike terms, and to develop Oakland's own city government projects and policies more and more with the within the ideas of peace, open participatory democracy, and dialogue.

This is the depth of Oakland's love-like philosophy, and that can simply be good examples of best practices and sustainability for our California state and national level, and it's good help for Israel and then for the Mid East itself at this time.

Good luck, Anita, good effort to peace, not war.

Thank you.

Thank you everyone for your comments at this time.

All names have been called for the consent.

Thank you to everybody who's participated today.

Today has been quite a long meeting.

Uh, quite the meeting, but this is what uh democracy is about.

People being out being able to come and participate.

Uh Councilmember Guile or well, to approve the consent count.

Councilmember Brown.

Excellent.

Um, I'll also second that, but I also wanted to call attention to two items, um, six twelve and six thirteen, uh similar to what one of the public commenters mentioned.

Uh, there were um community members here to speak on 613 around uh the resolution that I brought around it being home ownership month and the declining home home ownership within the city of Oakland and just and and it and it being more of a call of call to action on our part and city departments to really try to um move this along in a more positive direction and so um working closely with the office of councilmember Unger as well as the Office of the Mayor around um what we can do around home ownership in our city um and the data shows that this is um these declining levels uh are mostly found in black and Latino um communities.

And then I also wanted to call attention to it being National Caribbean Heritage Month.

Um Chef Ann was here uh from Coco Breeze.

Um and I'm sure you all also know Nigel Jones of Calabash.

And so uh there is an event that will be taking place on June 28th in Brookdale Park.

Hopefully, all of you can join us as we celebrate um Caribbean Heritage Month.

Bradley.

Thank you, Council and President Brad Johnson Director of Finance.

Regarding item 6.7, we have a clarification item that the city attorney would like us to read into the record.

The supplemental materials related to item 6.7 in your agenda packet, which are supplemental attachments A and attachment B.

Reflect your four floor edits from your first council reading of this ordinance.

No further edits are being made to the materials today, and the council may vote to adopt the ordinance previously amended upon adoption.

The changes in the supplemental attachment B will be reflected in your final exhibit A.

And that's just a clarification for the record.

Okay, so do we need to do anything else?

Just clarification for the record.

Just want to highlight 614.

Thank you, Councilmember Unger, and I'll be uh hopefully going to see council member.

I mean, our representative in DC, uh, thanking her for her support.

And with that, let's go to the roll call.

Well, the consent calendar was a motion by Councilmember Guile, second by Councilmember Brown, noting no's on item six point ten by council members five unger and Jenkins, and on item 6.25 no's by council members Wong and Houston.

Councilmember Brown, aye.

Councilmember Five is excused, Councilmember Gaio.

Which one uh the consent, right?

Yeah, consent.

Yes.

Aye.

Councilmember Houston.

Aye.

Councilmember Ramachandran.

Aye.

Councilmember Unger.

Aye.

Councilmember Wong.

Aye.

And Chair Jenkins.

I know the consent calendar passes with a vote of seven eyes, one excuse, five.

We are now on council member announcements.

Let's go to open forum.

Open forum.

As I call your name.

Please approach the podium in any order.

Please raise your hand on Zoom if you still wish to speak.

Councilmember, I'm sorry.

Mr.

Hazard.

Council Member Miss Mrs.

Sada Olabala, Millie Cleveland, Simeon Remy, Jeffrey, Anneath.

I can't read the last name.

Alma Zadego, Foto Zim, Ushi Juliet Ely, Mavis, Maeve Griffin, Ann McLean, Blair Beekman, Robbie, excuse Robbie Ayala, Kevin Daly, Desmond Jeffries, and Joyce Clean.

In any order.

You're not going to out talk me on anything that's legal, because I'm gonna do my research.

Let me read the conclusion.

The 366 days delay resulting from the clerk's administrative misclassification of petitioner's ex parte rent proceeding cannot be permitted to extinguish substantive rights.

California law is equivocal that the law respects form less than substance.

Civil Code 3528, CCP 473D, and California long-standing Jewish prudence require the correction of clerical errors whenever necessary to ensure the court's record accurately reflect the reality and the litigants received due process.

Therefore, the court should order immediate correction of the record, recognize the matter according to its true substance, and grant all appropriate relief.

So the city has an illegal sales tax that was enacted on October.

Thank you, Mr.

Hazard.

Your time is up.

Thank you, Mr.

Hazard.

Good evening again.

So I just want to also, you know, address Ms.

Councilmember Guilla, Councilmember Houston, Councilmember Brown, all of you, actually, all of you, you already know that when we came here, we are African Americans, and that that the violence also affects all of us.

Also, our organization is not on the east or in the west.

We are serving the whole Oakland and Alamida County community.

So please, I I know you passed the bill.

I mean the grant for the Department of Violence Prevention.

However, as you promised, as you promised, you need to look for other funds to support the organization left out.

You know, all this, my friends that they've been advocating here from East Oakland to West Oakland, and then the African immigrant, and on Messi, all of us that we left out, need to be supported.

So you need to do.

Thank you, ma'am.

Your time is up.

I'm gonna address two matters.

One is with uh regarding GCA, the African Resource Center.

She's advocating for funding because one thing she is passionate about is there's been violence and death in the community.

There has been one individual that's been hung over in the diamond district, and they tried to rule it as suicide.

But we know that individual didn't commit suicide, but that's what the coroner and the police OPD ruled.

There's been multiple shootings, individuals that are shot, domestic violence.

So we are advocating for funding, some of the violence prevention funding.

Next, once you give up power, it's hard to give it, get it back.

If you look at the top cities, Beverly Hills, the city of Piedmont, even Lexington, the founding of the founding of the nation was, they have a council manager form of government.

You guys might want to give yourselves more power so you could be more effective and efficient, and you could guys could do away with the manager's offering.

Thank you.

Your time is up.

Hello.

I am one person resident of Oakland, but I know there are four African who are killed in East Oakland, East uh East Oakland.

Yeah.

And I know one person by name that I'm close to.

So yeah, let's not forget them.

So one thing that I always say, as African immigrant, we get by our melanin, we get black problem.

By being immigrant, we get immigrant problem.

So yeah.

So don't forget us.

We live in this great city from north, east, and west.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Ms.

Asada.

I might want to make an announcement for people to pick up a trash.

This illegal dumping going on in here.

Um South Africa is having a tremendous issue dealing with the uh protests that are going on related to the South African community believes that unemployment is high because of the number of uh illegal migrants who are taking their jobs.

So the South African president has intervened this week with some measures to deal with it.

They're going to crack down on immigrations who are not in their country legally, they're gonna strengthen the border security, they're gonna stamp out corruption within the immigration system that's allowing this to happen, and some other measures all over the world.

People are talking about this, particularly in Europe.

You're not talking about this.

You got illegal immigrants, a percentage of them all criminals that you are protecting from being held accountable by the legal system.

You have to deal with the first CD.

Thank you, Miss Olabala.

How do you have to America?

Education, after our new comments and we're glad to go to the phone with the speaker.

Thank you, Ms.

Olabala.

Moving to our Zoom speakers, starting with Mr.

Beekman, please unmute yourself and begin your comments.

Alright, we're beakman, thank you for the meeting today.

Important meeting today.

Um, yeah, I hope we can uh yeah, I'll save my comments for Thursday on today's meeting uh for the rules.

Uh for this uh I just wanted to quickly comment that uh good luck with NN things and that uh you really are can be working towards accountability, and that city council persons can have a part in that accountability process.

Uh the commission process is really important for NN things.

It'll be interesting to see how city council persons can add their two cents to it, and I think that may be uh helpful if uh it's positive and constructive.

Good luck how to uh define and consider those terms.

And uh I thought I've heard earlier, if not uh I think last week that uh by putting uh parking citations into the transportation department's job instead of the police department, it could save a lot with overtime issues.

Man, it was so nice to hear that.

I don't know how accurate that is.

It sounds like it could help a lot, and I just wanted to.

Ann McClane, you are next.

I have you under two people with Anne McLean.

I'm guessing one is Robbie, but please unmute yourself and begin your comments.

Am I on?

I'm Ann McLean, rental property owner on 35th Avenue, and one of 18 property owners newly added to the laurel bid last July 1st.

We comprise 61 rent control departments, seven condos, three single family dwellings, one property in transition to housing, and one Chevron gas station by Highway 580.

Last year, all 18 of us were forced into the Bad District, and we're built a new additional assessment.

We were never asked if we wanted to join.

The San Diego Company put us in the district.

We were added without so much as a hearing.

Of the eighteen of us, only one condo owner voted yes.

A few owners didn't vote.

The remaining ninety-five percent of us voted no.

We want out of the district now.

If you can't carve us out, then I am requesting a disestablishment of the entire district.

We on Thirty Fifth Avenue do not want, need, or derive benefits in any way commensurate with the duplicative duplicative assessments.

We are charged for belonging.

Thank you.

Robbie, please unmute yourself and begin your comments.

Hi, can you hear me?

Yes.

Okay, perfect.

I attended the city council on July first of last year.

And when is Daniel Swafford executive director of the Laurel Business Improvement District fly by mislabeling the thirty-fifth Avenue corridor as commercial?

Well, the board president also falsely accused a thirty fifth Avenue properties abandoned.

Both last year and this year, I compiled the photos included in the package provided to you.

The thirty fifth Avenue properties have consistently presented as a well-maintained residential neighborhood.

While the Laurel consistently presents as a slums.

We heard you Oakland, you want more connected neighborhoods and better access to housing jobs and everyday essentials.

The draft lands use framework for Oakland's general plan shows how we can make that vision real.

The framework focuses on achieving key community priorities like housing and services near transit and jobs, well-maintained open spaces, and transportation that gets people where they need to go.

Does this plan reflect what your community needs to thrive?

Scan the QR code or follow the link to review the framework and share your feedback today.

There are many different ways that language access services can be used throughout the city, from brochures and fact sheets that are in multiple languages to bilingual staff that can provide live translation services.

Here are some of the ways that the City of Oakland can help you get more out of your city government.

And city staff can call an interpreter over the phone for the language assistance you need.

With our city website information is available in multiple languages with the click of a button.

What if you're at a city facility but need language services?

The public can request translation or interpretation just by talking to city staff they come in contact with at the library or by reserving an OPRYD facility for a birthday party.

If you need assistance, just let a staff member know.

All you have to do is ask.

You can minimize wait times for interpreting by requesting language assistance in advance.

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