Good afternoon and welcome to the community and economic development committee meeting of Tuesday, June 23rd, 2026.

The time is now one thirty-five p.m.

and this meeting may come to order.

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

If you're here with us in chamber and would like to submit a speaker card, please fill one out and turn one into myself or a clerk representative no later than 10 minutes after the start of this meeting or before the item is read into record, whichever occurs first.

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

And this meeting came to order at 135 p.m.

And speaker cards will no longer be accepted ten minutes after, making that time one forty-five p.m.

We'll now proceed with taking roll.

Excuse Council Member Ramachandran.

Thank you.

Councilmember Unger?

Here and Chair Brown.

Present.

Thank you.

We have three members present, one excuse.

Chair, before we begin, do you have any announcements at this time?

Yes.

Um, so first off, thank you everyone for joining community and economic development committee meeting.

Um we have several um important and exciting items for consideration today.

Um, I did want to begin by extending a warm welcome to um my office's um newest internships interns for the for the summer.

So wanted to welcome Sanai from Stanford University as well as Jakari um from Southern University, which will be they will be with us uh for the summer, and so hopefully everyone can uh greet them and engage with them during their journey in the at-large office.

Um you gotta raise raise your hand.

They're shy.

There we go.

Excellent.

And then also um council member uh Rama Chandan, did you have an announcement as well?

I do.

I also wanted to welcome the interns in my office, Aaron and Nalin from Cal.

Thank you.

So welcome.

Excellent.

And so then also in addition, um, in order to ensure that our meeting stays on schedule with all of the uh committee meetings to follow, um, I will limit public comment to just one minute.

Um then in addition, um, I wanted to make sure that council member five is here for item number three.

So I'm going to modify the agenda where we take um item number four first, followed by three, five, and then six.

Yeah, we'll do the bid.

Okay, thank you.

Thank you.

Noting the modifications to the agenda to hear items one, two, four, three, five, then six.

Starting off with item one approval of the draft minutes from the committee meeting of June 9th, 2026.

And there are no speakers.

We just need a motion.

Excellent.

Thank you so much.

Colleagues, I'll entertain a motion.

So moved.

Second.

Thank you.

We have a motion made by Councilmember Unger, seconded by Council Member Ramachandron to approve the draft minutes from the committee meeting of June 9th, 2026.

Also noting the presence of Councilmember uh Fife at 1 38 p.m.

On roll to approve the draft minutes.

Council members five.

Aye.

Ramachandron.

Aye.

Unger?

Aye.

And Chair Brown.

Aye.

Thank you.

Item four.

Sorry, item number one passes with four ayes.

Reading in item two.

Determination of schedule of outstanding committee items, and we have two speakers that signed up to speak.

Excellent.

We can um through uh to the administration.

Any changes?

Uh through the chair, none.

Excellent.

And we can hear from the public speakers.

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

Sado Olavala and Blair Beekman.

So it's my understanding at some point, uh, I think with item five, we're gonna have a discussion that will have some detail uh around code enforcement.

And I want to remind you about the ghost ship fire, failure for code enforcement to be implemented, and people died.

The Coliseum Connection, failure for city to take responsibility for your drains being clogged up that caused the flooding in the Coliseum Connection unit, and almost over a year it took you to do corrective action around the developer when the corrective action should have been around the city of Oakland.

Uh I need to see a report on the Lau Family Program Motel 6 transitional housing, what's going on?

When you go online, you don't see anything about what they're doing.

So what's happening there?

I need to see, and I'll go into deeper discussion about your sanctuary city status.

Thank you for your comments.

Switching to Zoom user Blair, you can unmute yourself and begin your comments.

Hi, Claire Beekman.

Uh I will be attending the meeting today.

I'm listening in on Zoom.

Uh I don't know if I'll quite have public comment, but I just wanted to I I put in the my uh speaker cards as needed and uh I may or may not raise my hand, but I'll be listening and attending uh thanks for the meeting today.

Thank you for your comments chair.

That concludes all speakers on this item.

Excellent, thank you so much.

Um I'll entertain a motion.

So moved.

Second.

Thank you.

We have a motion made by Councilmember Unger, seconded by Council Member Ramachandran to accept the determination of schedule of outstanding committee items as is on roll.

Council members five.

Aye.

Ramachandran.

Aye.

Unger.

Aye.

And Chair Brown.

Aye.

Thank you.

Item two passes with four eyes to accept the determination of schedules of outstanding committee items as is.

Excellent.

And so due to the presence of council member five and and staff that um potentially have other conflicts.

We'll go ahead and proceed with item number three and and all of the agenda items as scheduled.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Proceeding with item number three.

Adopt a resolution authorizing the city administrator to negotiate and execute an exclusive negotiation agreement with Costco Wholesale Corporation for development of a Costco store on city property located at 101 Admiral Robert Tony Way and 2308 Wake Avenue for a 24-month term conditioned on a $300,000 exclusive negotiation payment with two additional six-month administrative extensions, each conditioned on payment of an additional twenty-five thousand dollars, waiving competitive bidding under Oakland Municipal Code Chapter 2.42 and adopting California Environmental Quality Act findings, and we have a couple uh handful of speakers that signed up.

Excellent, thank you so much.

Um, and so I'll go ahead and turn things over to Councilmember Fife, followed by comments from the office of the mayor, and then a brief presentation from our EWD team.

Thank you, Chair.

Could you clarify um um what you meant by us not or potentially having to leave?

Oh um, I was waiting to have to hear this item until you arrived, and so I had switched the agenda, but we just switched it back.

Okay, thank you.

Um, well, I appreciate the opportunity to speak.

Honestly, I really don't have much to add on top of what the info reports in the packet have to say, but I did want to first and foremost say thank you to our real estate team who has worked tirelessly on the direction given by this body uh several months ago to negotiate an ENA or an exclusive negotiating agreement with the individuals from Costco.

This is a major step forward in a process towards attracting this retail giant, and the money that Oakland loses to shoppers who live in Oakland but go outside of the city to spend their dollars is immense.

And a report done several years ago at that time estimated that it's upwards of one billion dollars a year that people who live in Oakland spend outside of the city.

So not only will this project bring in desperately needed uh revenue to the city that we're spending as Oaklanders in other places anyway, it's also slated to bring in hundreds of jobs, good paying jobs, and um retail that will attract other businesses to the city of Oakland who are looking for that anchor that shows that Oakland is serious about its business, and so again, I'm grateful for all of the individuals who attended the monthly town halls that my office sponsored.

So Brendan Moriarty has been a treasure to work with.

I want to give a shout out to um Chuck Johnson, who also was uh at Chuck Johnson, who was also Baker.

Why am I thinking about soul beat right now, y'all?

Um Chuck Baker, I apologize, who was on the panel and answered lots of questions from the community, to the mayor's office, who's also been really supportive, and um my colleagues who you know saw the benefit in moving this forward forward several months ago.

This is the first step, so hopefully I can get unanimous support of it leaving committee and going to the full city council for our entire body to deliberate on.

Um, but you know, I want you all to let the community know everybody doesn't agree that we need a Costco or we should even have a Costco, but the importance of this process is to engage in the democratic process.

So I encourage all voices, whatever side that you fall on, to let your voice be known to this body and the full city council when it comes forward, and I am done talking.

Thank you all.

Excellent, thank you so much.

And I believe the office of the mayor.

Thank you, Chair Brown.

Uh pressing Tobor, Deputy Chief of Staff to Mayor Barbara Lee.

Um, thank you, Councilmember Fife, for your comments.

Um, so on behalf of Mayor Barber Lee, I'm pleased to be here today in support of this exclusive negotiation agreement with Costco Wholesale Corporation.

Um, this ENA, as as the speakers will share briefly, is gives Oakland the opportunity to explore a transformative economic development project that could, um, as the report mentions create approximately three million dollars in annual general fund revenue, which is critical.

Create around um potentially 400 high-quality jobs, um, with competitive wages and benefits, and provide Oakland residents with a locally accessible source of affordable groceries, gas, and other goods, um, all aligned in the report.

Um, the mayor would like to recognize and thank council member Fife um for her leadership and hosting multiple community meetings, uh, I believe four specifically, and giving residents a real voice in this progress and an ear as well.

Um, huge thank you also to the city administrator's office, the real estate team, economic and workforce development, planning and building, finance, and the city attorney's office for their work in bringing this resolution for or this ENA forward.

Um, and again, this ENA is not a final approval, it is the continued continuation of a serious structured conversation.

Um, and the mayor looks forward to that work to that work continuing on behalf of Oakland residents.

Um, so thank you all again, and I'll hand it over to Kelly Khan, Assistant Director at EWD.

Thank you all.

Good afternoon, Chair Brown and CED members.

Um I'm Kelly Kahn.

I'm the Assistant Director of Economic and Workforce Development.

Thank you to Councilmember Fife and Mayor Lee for your sponsorship of this item.

Um, I'm pleased to be here just to open the item, which is seeking approval of an ENA for Costco, consistent with council's direction last December.

Um, and I wanted to first just provide some quick context on where we are in the process, and then I'm gonna hand it to my colleague Brendan Moriarty to present the details of the item.

Um, so before you today is the ENA exclusive negotiating agreement, which is the first step, as Councilmember Fife said, in the process to bring a new Costco to Oakland and with it significant economic and community benefit.

Today, though, is not the approval of a specific project or a binding real estate transaction yet.

Rather, the ENA provides time, in this case, up to 12 months, for the city and Costco to commence focused negotiations around the terms of a ground lease and for Costco to undertake community outreach and importantly to start its planning approvals and its sequel review.

And then at the end of that ENA period, staff must return to this body and to the full council to seek authorization of a binding ground lease and disposition agreement.

And assuming that is assuming that all we've reached terms with Costco on those real estate transactions and that they have completed their CQA review and their planning approvals.

So with that framing, I'm gonna hand it um to Brendan Moriarty to talk through the specifics of the ENA terms.

Thank you.

Thank you, good afternoon.

Brenda Moriarty, Director of Real Estate and Special Projects.

So I have a brief PowerPoint presentation.

I'll try to move through this fairly quickly.

So the site in question is in the former Oakland Army base area, the portion of it that's owned by the city of Oakland, and specifically the North Gateway portion.

That's the red block you see in this map here.

It's west of 880.

And this map provides another point of view.

It's two parcels in question, parcel one and parcel two.

So the blue and the purple.

There's a little extension of the purple below parcel one.

That's actually an easement that the city holds underneath the freeway structure.

So all of that would be included in this negotiation with Costco.

And it totals about 23 acres.

This all of this, the land that the city received from the federal government years ago that is the subject of discussion here today, is uh has restrictions on it that prohibits housing, the due to the historical use of the site as a military base.

And there the city council years ago passed a couple of development frameworks here that are irrelevant in 2000, the redevelopment plan, which basically established this should be redeveloped into a productive economic asset.

And then a couple of years later, with the OAB final reuse plan, which emphasized employment and economic activity, transforming the site into a modern commercial maritime and industrial center.

The city council revised those plans in 2012 to include the idea of relocating two specific recycling companies from the West Oakland neighborhood into this area of the North Gateway.

So that's specifically California Waste Solutions or CWS in CAS.

And so from that point forward, for the for a better part of about 15 years, those parties were engaged in discussions and negotiations about that relocation.

This first was through an ENA in the early years jointly with CWS and CAS.

I was in February 2012.

We were for four years in exclusive negotiations.

We had additionally an ENA with CAS in September 2021 that went for a year and a half.

We even got to the point of a lease disposition and development agreement with California Waste Solutions in 2021.

So that would be the binding real estate transactional agreement that could lead to the construction of the facility.

But in none of those efforts actually resulted in uh in a project outcome, no construction.

So the site is vacant today.

The final thing to say about this City Council this month passed a resolution that directed the city administrator to study and come up with a program in the planning code that would set forth a process for moving those recycling companies out of the West Oakland neighborhood.

So no longer as a transactional exercise, but rather a land use regulatory exercise.

And so the administration is working now through the end through December of this year to come up with that program and would be reporting back.

There is one interim use on the site today, parcel one, the eastern portion is leased to UCSF Benioff Children's Hospital for a temporary helipad, while the hospital in North Oakland is under construction.

The helipad will then move back to the hospital when it's when the renovation is done.

And there we don't anticipate any conflict with the Costco timeline.

This interim lease would be done before any Costco project would break ground.

Now, with respect to Costco, the city's actually been here once before.

In 2005, City Council authorized an ENA with Costco that obviously did not for this very specific site that did not result in in the construction in an agreement or the construction of a Costco store.

This past year in 2025, the city was approached with an unsolicited proposal to discuss a bringing a Costco store to the site.

And that resulted in city council passing a resolution in December of 2025 that directed the city administrator's office and city staff to negotiate the terms of an exclusive negotiation agreement or ENA.

So in other words, come back and with this is what we're doing today, the set of terms under which the city and Costco would now just be working exclusively and in a focused way with each other on the negotiations and the planning to actually make this happen.

These are the terms that we've worked out for that ENA.

It's a 24 month, I think Kelly might have said 12 months, she meant 24 months, initial exclusive negotiation period for which Costco would pay the city $300,000 in non-refundable revenue.

There would be two six-month administrative extension options for which Costco would pay an additional $25,000 each if the parties needed that additional time.

This would be for again exclusive negotiation over two things: the terms of a lease disposition and development agreement or LDDA and the ground lease itself.

The LDDA is kind of like having a purchase and sale agreement if you were selling property.

It's the binding real estate transactional document that says we're going to sell you the property under these terms.

The ground leases are the thing that then emerges from that and then lives for years to come and is the basis upon which Costco builds a project.

During the ENA period is when Costco would actually develop the specific plan for a store on the site.

Where would be the where how big of a building?

How much parking, where is all of that, where is the traffic, where is the access?

That specific plan would be developed during the ENA period.

It would undergo a CEQA analysis based on that project plan.

The planning department for the city would review that, and then that would come back to the city council in the future once we return for authorizing an actual LDDA and ground lease.

Also during the ENA period, Costco would get all the entitlements taken care of as well with the planning department.

There is an existing community benefits package that is applied to all of the projects passed and contemplated in the Army base that address things like jobs and labor union participation and environmental considerations, hiring, all of these things.

It's a consistent package, and we would intend to negotiate for that package here.

The resolution from this past December, as well as the municipal code, required us to also do an analysis and come back with information on how is this in the best interest of the city.

That finding would need to be in the resolution authorizing a transaction with Costco because of it emerging not from a not from a competitive process.

So we've done that analysis.

The staff report has it in detail.

We did find that it's in the best interest of the city.

Some highlights I'll just name right now, is that we believe that this store would generate $3 million in general fund revenue just from taxes.

It would be larger than that because we would also be negotiating a ground rent under the lease.

We don't estimate what that would be right now.

That's subject to negotiations during ENA period, but $3 million is not just the lower end, it's below the lower end of what the city would get in the general fund.

There would be we estimate 400 and high quality, 400 new ongoing high-quality jobs with competitive wages and benefits, and then new access to affordable goods and services, both for Oakland residents as well as Oakland businesses.

With respect to community, Councilmember Fife did host a series of workshops in late 25, early 26.

Um staff, uh Minister of Staff were there and was able to take in a lot of public comment.

Our observations is that they were overwhelmingly positive.

Um a lot of people cited that they were members of Costco, look forward to having better access to a store, cited Costco's reputation as a good employer and corporate citizen.

Um the concerns that we did hear less than the they were less than the positive comments, but they were generally related to traffic concerns.

Um what would happen to those recyclers where we have been discussing for for some number of years that they might move here, and then what would be the impact on local businesses.

Um almost done here.

So alternatives.

Um obviously the alternative here is to not pursue an ENA with Costco, keep it available for other uses, such as the recyclers.

We have received over uh from time to time unsolicited expressions of interest in the site is obviously a large development site.

Um, but none we none with the anticipated economic impact that we that we foresee with the Costco store.

So this is it.

Uh, we do recommend approval.

Um it would fulfill the objective of the 2025 uh resolution.

Uh we found it to be in the best interest of the city.

Um after the EA negotiations, we would come back again to city council and to this committee with uh recommended set of terms for an LDDA in Groundleys.

Thank you.

Excellent.

Thank you so much.

Um, and just um it it's it appears that there has been just so much community engagement on this item and just so much intentionality around um really trying to get impact um uh input from community as well as just kind of outlining all of the details of this agreement, especially on page four of the report where it lists the community benefits and job policies and everything that kind of goes into that, and then I also notice how it says community benefits as needed and feasible, such as support for the West Oakland fund.

Um so I think that there's just so many parameters of this um you know item that's before us, and I'm I'm a hundred percent in support.

And so thank you so much, Councilmember Fife, for your leadership and and staff for your leadership on this item.

Um, Councilmember Fife.

Thank you for that, Chair Brown.

I just have one slight correction, but I could be wrong.

In the slideshow, it said that there was a community meeting hosted by the district four council member.

So I want to ask through the chair to Councilmember Ramachandron if you had a no, okay.

I think it should say district three.

Apologies for that.

No worries.

You hosted those community meetings.

No worries.

Thank you.

Yeah, I was I knew that was a typo.

Excellent.

Um colleagues, any questions or comments?

Um we can go to the public speakers.

And the names that signed up to speak on item number three in no particular order.

You can come up to the podium, state your name for the record, and begin your comment.

Ms.

Sado Olabala, Chris Nikwan, uh Stephen Labange, Lamar Bell, and Christina Testado.

I'm not from here, but it amazes me how y'all love trees and hate coal, but you are willing to uh ignore that the CIPRA analysis has been done.

And it stated that the environmental conditions of the army base is not favorable for human habitation and would require a time consumption, an expensive process to secure regulatory approval and mitigate the environmental hazards, the salt contamination that's on that property.

And it was never brought up in the presentation.

I will not go there.

I'm having that fight at McClyman's to remediate.

Bart is engaging a project on a parking lot to build housing.

The first thing they're doing is mediating or medigating the soil contamination issue.

Nobody brought it up in the presentation.

That this is and 400 jobs.

Who's gonna get them jobs?

Not black people, not black people, tensive.

Good afternoon, Chair Brown, Councilmembers Chris Norn, representing myself as someone who grew up in West Oakland, Affia at Lowell McClamen's High School, and deep respect, Mrs.

Sada's comments as well.

I'm here and in favor of continuing negotiations with Costco.

You know, a lot of people in our city don't know.

West Oakland is resource rich in some ways and resource barely poor.

In West Oakland, there's not a single supermarket.

There's a market, right?

In West Oakland, there's not a hospital, there's a clinic.

And in Westing, West Oakland ain't a single bank.

And the credit union just moved.

So bringing more resources to Oakland and Costco as a start is incredibly imperative, not only as somebody from West Oakland, but somebody who provides social services and working community in West Oakland.

Let's stop having our people go somewhere else and keep the money and the resources here at home and in the end of this West Oakland corridor well, right?

So that's it.

Thank you.

If your name was called and you wish to speak on this item, please come up to the podium.

Chair, at this time, all names have been called.

Stephen Labange, I'm here on behalf of Costco.

Can you guys hear me all right with a few other people?

Just want to thank uh Councilmember Five, the mayor's office, uh, administrator uh Baker and the and staff.

We are very excited to be here.

Um we're we're kind of at the start line where there's still a long ways to go.

But uh we appreciate your time.

And uh I'll be sitting right over there with uh some other colleagues.

So if there are any questions, we can pop up and answer anything you want.

Excellent, thank you.

Thank you very much.

Thank you so much.

Good afternoon.

Uh my name is Lamar Bell.

I'm the warehouse manager at the Richmond Costco, and just here to um first of all, thank you guys for your time.

Um and here to answer any questions that you may have about operations of a Costco.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Hello, everybody.

Um I would like to get the rest of Lamar's time and Steven's time, if that's okay.

I was told through the chair to the member of the public.

Once the person speaks, they cannot cede their time as they did use their time to speak.

So you will have one minute.

Okay, perfect.

Uh good afternoon, everybody.

My name is Christina Tostado, also known as Tina from the town.

I'm currently an Oakland Library Commissioner, a mentor for Life Goes On, where we're trying to end senseless gun violence.

I'm also a board member with reading partners.

I do so much work in the city of Oakland.

I actually got my birthday, July 30th, proclaimed Tina from the Town Day.

Most people actually think I work for the city of Oakland, but I've been working for Costco for 20 years.

One of the things I haven't mentioned before is last year, Costco donated 1.9 million dollars to children's hospital in North Oakland.

Um they have high paying wages, uh, 401k.

Uh they pay time and a half on Sundays.

They pay for new parents, um, paid sick leave, comprehensive medical dental vision coverage.

Um, they just raised the price to $200 a year for glasses and uh contacts.

I bought a house in the Bay Area by myself by being a part-time supervisor at Costco.

I would appreciate your support to bring it in to the greatest city in the world.

Thank you for your comments.

Chair that concludes all speakers on this item.

Excellent.

Thank you so much.

Uh Councilmember Fife.

If we could bring um Brendan, if you're available to come and speak to the issue of uh the contamination, I will say I I think it was my first year in office where I was recommending that site be utilized for homeless housing, and I went through uh a lot of conversation with the Department of Toxic Substance Control, the Environmental Protection Agency, um, several environmental groups, and I fought.

I fought our city administration, and I fought a lot of different people inside of the city to be able to utilize that space for resident residential construction, and the level of uh cleanup and remediation that has to be done for people to live there 24 hours a day is different than it has to be that than has to be done for um retail use.

There will be remediation at that site, but I wanted to um bring up staff to to speak a little bit about the type of remediation, the difference, the difference between residential life and commercial use.

Yes, through or maybe we should have a presentation by the public since they know more than we do.

Or order in the chamber, order in the chamber.

So through the through the chair.

Um first of all, just say this is um it's not like a super fun site.

This is not like the most toxic place, you're right.

It just it does have a history of military use.

There is known contamination in the soil, it is characterized, the state and regional regulatory bodies uh uh have required that the site, because of that contamination not be used for housing because to have people uh particularly young people like children or or people that are uh uniquely vulnerable actually living 24 hours a day on a site is a you you really do need to have a much cleaner standard there.

You can't you have to really limit the human exposure.

That's a lot different than having people come and shop.

And in addition, um, when a project, a commercial project such as Costco is designed for the site, there would you design the project in a way that makes uh that you address the contamination so that it is safe for shoppers, it is safe for that use, it is safe for employees.

There would presumably be a cap placed where needed on the site so that that there is you know no permeability.

All of the all of that would be addressed during the ENA period.

The city would share all of its environmental information with Costco.

Costco would then you know design its project around the unique characteristics of the site.

Excellent.

Um and then just while you're there, um, just for clarity, that it's actually during this um negotiation time frame that the CEQA um kind of analysis will be complete.

Is that correct?

Yes, uh through the chair, uh we don't know what this project looks like yet.

I couldn't tell you how big the building is, where it is, etc.

So it's impossible to study its environmental impacts.

So, yeah, during the ENA period, we'll actually get the project description from CEQA.

Our colleagues in the planning department who do this, you know, day in and day out, uh, we're working through a CEQA consultant actually do the environmental assessment during that ENA period, and then those findings we brought back to you as part of the whole ENA package.

Part of the whole package, and that's just pretty standard.

Correct.

This is standard operating procedure here.

Yeah.

Thank you.

Councilmember Fife.

I wanted to um just reiterate to the public that because of racial segregation segregation, industrialization, and all of the impacts that certain industries have had on this city.

Um, West Oakland is largely polluted, and I'm working with environmental organizations.

It's it's part of what I've been doing even before I was a council member is to mitigate those impacts, which is why amortization that is not directly related to this topic, but tangentially um related is something that I'm also pushing for at the same time.

It's why I maybe I should say this or not.

I oppose coal in the district.

It's something that I do in my leadership and in my role as an elected official, as stated by um Mr.

Moriarty, these are things that will be studied in this ENA process.

So we're not just moving forward haphazardly, we are studying it.

That is what the ENA is about.

So part of this process is also about listening and learning, and if we don't have the ability to do that, then we're gonna be stuck where we are.

I would like to make uh a motion to move this to the next full city council meeting.

I believe um it would be July 7th.

Is that significant?

I mean, for staff, is that feasible?

Is that yep?

July 7th to the full city council meeting.

Excellent.

Thank you so much, Councilmember Fife.

Um, uh administrator.

Well, Council Member Ramashandran and then administrator Baker.

Oh, I'll be brief.

I just want to express my support for this project.

I think it's exciting the number of jobs that can be created.

And I really hope Miss Tina from the town's uh t-shirt logo can be uh plastered on a side of the Costco.

That would be very cool.

So thank you to Councilmember Fife, Mayor Lee and everyone else who's brought this forward.

Thank thank you so much.

Administrator Baker?

Uh through the chair, thank you.

I just wanted to address um the additional um sort of discussion that's ongoing with remediation and the North Gateway parcel, um, which is under consideration for the Costco store, is part of a clean site that several agencies have cleared, including the California Water Board, and that any development will require site-specific environmental review.

CQO will be required within the ENA period to ensure that no residual soil or ground router groundwater risk remain before construction begins and any soil disturbance from evacuation for building utilities will require testing and oversight under existing site controls, specifically excavation requirements documented in environmental documents.

And so we will be, as the councilmember five said, as well as staff, be ongoing.

This will be an ongoing discussion with monitoring, and we'll get this right.

I appreciate that.

Excellent.

Um, thank you for everyone's work on this.

Um, I'm happy to second the motion, and we can go ahead and call the vote.

Thank you.

Thank you.

We have a motion made by Councilmember Five, seconded by Chair Brown to approve the recommendations of staff and to forward this item to the July 7th City Council um agenda on roll council member five.

Aye.

Ramachandran.

Aye.

Unger and Chair Brown.

Aye.

Thank you.

Item number three passes with four I support this item to the July 7, 2026.

City Council agenda on consent.

Reading in item four.

Adopt the following pieces of legislation.

One, a resolution approving the fiscal year 2025-26 annual reports of the Lakeshore Lake Park Business Improvement Management District of 2022, the Jack London Improvement District, the Temescal Telegraph Business Improvement District, the Laurel Business Improvement District 2025, the Korea Town North Gate Community.

Oh, sorry, Community Benefit District 2017, the town, the Oakland Tourism Business Improvement District, the Downtown Oakland Community Benefits Benefit District 2018, the Lake Merritt Uptown Community Benefit District 2018, and the Chinatown Community Benefit District 2021 Advisory Boards.

Two confirming the continuing annual assessment for each said district and levying said assessments, three increasing the 2026-27 assessment by 5% for the Jack London District to Muscal District, Lakeshore District, Lake Merritt Uptown District, and Chinatown District by 3.2% for the downtown Oakland District, and by 3% for the Laurel District and the Korea Town District.

Authorizing payment of the City of Oakland uh comulative fiscal year 2026-27 fair share assessment in an approximate amount of 509,669.34 cents for City of Oakland owned properties in the Jack London district, the Tomescal district, the career town district, the downtown Oakland District, the Lake Merritt Uptown District, and the Chinatown District.

Sorry, the Chinatown District and renewing agreements with the districts for administration and disbursement of funds and two a successor agency resolution authorizing payment of the Oakland Redevelopment Successor Agencies Cumulative Fiscal Year 2026-27 Fair Share Assessment in an approximate amount of three uh three thousand three hundred and seventy-one dollars and thirty-four cents for one Oakland Redevelopment Successor Agency owned property in downtown Oakland Community Benefit District 2018.

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

Um thank you so much, madam clerk.

Um such a long title.

Appreciate you.

And so and then now we will hear from our EWD team for a brief presentation, about five minutes, please.

Thank you.

Committee, uh my name is Eric Samunza with EWD, uh economic and workforce development.

Uh the item before you would take the those following actions approving the annual reports, confirming the assessments, uh, approving the assessment increases, and authorizing the payment of uh assessments on city owned properties, uh and an orstad-based property.

The city resolution exhibit contains the annual reports submitted by each bid.

And in 2024, the annual report format was redesigned and migrated to an online platform.

Uh beyond the budgetary information required under the city's bid ordinance and state law, the updated report captures a broader set of data points documenting the measurable impact of bid activities.

With three years of data now available, staff can identify trends and track changes over time.

This presentation highlights a key finding from the annual reports to illustrate the collective impact of Oakland's bids.

And so we'll start.

Let's see if it working.

Okay.

Here we go.

So Oakland has 11 bids in total, eight property-based bids, one tourism bid, and two business-based bids.

The Rock Ridge and Montclair business-based bids were established under separate legislation and operate on a different reporting schedule, so they are not included in this council item or in the analysis here.

So here are some key aggregate statistics from the 2025 self-reported annual data.

There's about 2,500 businesses supported, over 5,100 parcels covered, just under 1,900 occupied storefronts, and over 19,000 residents served.

So here we're going to look at staffing levels over time.

In 2025, Oakland's bids collectively employed the equivalent of 117 full-time staff members.

Cleaning ambassadors and workers accounted for 40% of those positions.

General admin was 25%.

Remaining staff is consists of public safety officers, security and hospitality ambassadors, business outreach coordinators, and seasonal or part-time workers.

Staffing levels have increased over the past two years, particularly in the cleaning and ambassador roles.

It's largely attributed to uptown and downtown bids transitioning to dedicated cleaning and hospitality teams rather than cross-functional teams handling both responsibilities.

However, for most districts, the bid ambassadors continue to be cross-trained and they may be shifted to different roles as needs require.

And in addition to paid staff, bids engage more than 300 volunteers in 2025.

Good strategy to strengthen community involvement in the improvement of business corridors.

So Oakland's eight property-based bids provide four primary service categories: safety, cleaning, beautification, and marketing.

We'll start with cleaning.

Three of the cleaning metrics measured here have more than doubled since 2023.

For you can see trash collected, the rise over those that time period, and here for illegal dumping incidents addressed, and pressure washing hours also increased over 100% in that time.

Graffiti removal incidents by contrast have declined significantly.

This can reflect a shift in focus towards security, as well as a reduction in graffiti incidents from the attention given, or a combination of both factors.

Terms of safety, there's some safety metrics that are have been tracked since 2023.

That includes 9-1-1 calls made by bid staff, patrol hours, merchant check-ins, and security cameras that are maintained.

The non-patrol hours increased significantly, while the patrol hours, merchant check-ins, and camera maintenance showed more modest growth.

Based on feedback gathered at a bid workshop, our definite the definition of merchant check has been refined to refer specifically to scheduled outreach visits or check-ins not initiated by a service request.

We have a new metric now, service responses, which is added to capture visits made and just direct responses to specific requests from business owners.

Bids continue to invest in beautification and streetscape enhancements, including planters, tree wells, banners, lighting, trash cans, plazas, and public art installations.

Bids also play a key role in marketing and promoting their districts.

Collectively, Oakland's bids gained nearly 21,000 new Instagram followers in 2025.

Visit Oakland alone maintained maintains an audience of over 89,000 Instagram followers.

Across all bids, outreach touched more than 39,000 email subs.

So some selecribers and over 20 million social media accounts.

Lakeshore bid invested significantly in sidewalk cleanliness through power washing, trash collection, landscaping and gardening.

Temascal reported strong cleaning metrics shown here, 2100 graffiti removal incidents, 121,000 pounds of trash collected.

Laurel bid here, in addition to cleaning services, hosted 20 public events and festivals, drawing an estimated 25,000 visitors to the district.

Here for Koreatown, we see the completed uh planter cleanups you can see on the left.

Um on the right, the the beautiful beautified all tree wells uh along 25th Street between Teleprof and Broadway.

Um we also partnered with Yelp to celebrate the one-year anniversary of Black Forest Kitchen, uh, a restaurant that originated as a first Friday vendor, seen in the in the middle.

Uh the Chinatown bid uh documented measurable reductions in graffiti and litter through uh uh which you can see through the before and after photography on the on the bottom left.

Uh they also reported stronger attendance and sponsorship levels for for uh signature district events.

Uh the Oakland Tourism Bid, or otherwise known as Visit Oakland, uh reported 3.2 million visitors to Oakland in 2025.

They generated 554 million spending.

Um this activity sustained 5,291 jobs, produced 82 million in visitor-generated tax revenue, and contributed uh and collectively 740 million dollars in total economic impact.

Uh the downtown bid hosted the inaugural Oakland holiday coffee market at the Rotunda Building, drawing over a thousand attendees and spotlighting local businesses.

Uh the uptown and downtown bins collectively, their uh clean clean and safe program metrics included things like six thousand linear feet of medians planted um and maintained and 128 hanging planters installed and maintained.

And you can here see here a quote from a staff member from the Oakland School for the Arts uh that's credits to the ambassador presence on the streets uh with improving her sense of safety when walking home.

Uh and then on for the Jack London Improvement District, uh, last but not least uh they have activated merchant participation through vintage clothing and vinyl pop-ups and block parties, um, and also commissioned local artists to paint storefront windows for the holiday season.

Um and here's just the last slide.

Um speaks more broadly to the corridor safety ambassador program.

Uh, this continues to fund many commercial corridors throughout the city, including those that have bids and those others that do not.

Um Jacqueline Improvement District was awarded $300,000 to provide safety ambassador coverage to support multiple surrounding districts that included Chinatown, the Arts and Garage District, Uptown, Koreatown, and the Black Sartre Black Arts Movement District.

And that's the end of the presentation.

I'm here for questions.

Excellent.

Thank you so much for the very comprehensive presentation and the slides that really showcase all of the amazing work that the bids are doing um in their various um zones.

It was really really nice to see.

Um we can go to, if no questions or comments from my colleagues, we can go to the public speakers, if any.

Calling in the names that signed up to speak on item number four.

Daniel Swafford, Edmiss Asado Olabala.

You doing that.

Oh, go ahead, do you want to be called?

That's right.

Okay, Chair Brown, members of the committee, uh Daniel Swafford for the record.

I'm here in the capacity of the administrator and executive director of both the uh Temescal Business Improvement District and the Laurel uh District Association.

I would just like to uh extend my gratitude to the collaboration over now 20 years for both of those two organizations respectfully being renewed uh in the last two years with over 80 percent uh support in the renewal uh balloting.

Uh and as you can see from the reports, very um proud and privileged to be able to serve community in this way, and just wanted to uh appreciate economic development and their partnership, of course, all the city departments, public works, DOT, and just uh just can really show what an organization on the ground can do in partnership with local government and appreciate that opportunity available.

If you have any questions.

Thank you.

And and while you're there, Mr.

Swafford, I did have a quick question.

Um, some of the data that was um uplifted both in the Temis, we'll take the the two that you mentioned, the Timuscal and the Laurel.

How is that information community communicated um to residents, like the impact of the bid in these areas?

Yeah, of course.

So, yeah, actually holding, you know, the I guess the public version of the annual report, as Eric mentioned, you know, the jot form that we submit the data through is um, you know, very good at capturing data but not um doesn't have the the images and some of the easy ways to maybe ingest some of the you know some of the the aggregations um so we try to publish that in our newsletters um out to the general public which in Temscale have about over five thousand subscribers and Laurel over three thousand posted on social.

It's always kind of cashed on the website um and then we tried to tell those stories over time as well so with spotlights throughout the year just to be able to call attention to the cleaning ambassadors or the safety ambassadors for example um of course the events you know we always want to you know take credit for our work and sometimes people don't know the origin of why these things are happening so hopefully our branding is able to tell some of that story also and they can attribute it uh to the contributions of the assessed property owners and to the collaborative work of the district staff and the community that shows up as you saw with the volunteer numbers in a in a big way.

Excellent thank you of course thank you.

In its original form this process only assessed commercial property.

Some way along the lines some of these um business improvements uh associations have started to assess residential property if you live within the certain perimeter of the commercial property I think that's grossly unfair and I think that should be reevaluated.

I looked at this item and I see that the city of Oakland has to pay for some of these assessments.

So in Chinatown you have nine properties that are city owned properties for which you pay the city a certain amount of assessment 10 in downtown uh three in Korea and I won't go on but you also pay for the Oakland ice rink thirty two thousand nine hundred and seventy dollars and nineteen cents a year uh y'all give a lot of money to that Oakland ice rink and you also have thank you for your comments chair that concludes all speakers on item number four excellent um thank you thank you so much um I don't necessarily have a question um but I just wanted to uplift that in the in the slide deck um you're we're able to see the impact on social media of like of the various bids and I think that some of this in addition to the publicity around the different events that are happening in the bids I think it would also be amazing to showcase in spotlight just the impact of like whether it's the graffiti removal, trash pickup and all of those things also to the public so that um everyone can really just see the impact.

And so I hope that um all of the the folks that manage the various bids if you all are listening I feel like the impact is so dynamic and so hopefully we can showcase this impact to the public so that you know community members can really see the value add here.

Counts Councilmember Ramashandrin.

Thank you just want to express my gratitude well to all the bids but certainly um the one in my district the Laurel bid does so much for to improve the vibrancy of the stretch of the laurel all of the events all of the work the ambassadors do um I mean there's been notable decreases of crime during the holiday period over the years when the first um round the clock coverage ambassador pilot was um put in in late 2023 compared to the year before crime decreased by 35% which is significant I've seen these ambassadors in actions I've seen um not just during the holiday period but the all the other folks that work with the bid really engaging with the community in an authentic way um I think there's more foot traffic on the Laurel now certainly than it's been in a long time coming back post pandemic and I think the bid is um well respected by a lot of community members and you should come to the Laurel Street Fair on August 8th to see it in action.

Excellent uh any other additional questions or comments.

Anyone wants to move the item as well.

Council member Fife sorry.

If I could just um through the chair from Eric get some clarity around uh the difference between commercial and business uh you know assessments because I I think there's uh maybe clarity needed explaining to the public the difference what why are residential what type of residential units are included in the assessment.

Sure.

So let's see there's um there are two different kinds of bids there's the business based bids where the uh business owners are being assessed and then there are the property based bids where the property owners being assessed for the um for the property-based bids um there are it it is fairly standard for um uh some residential property to to be included there is a requirement uh by state law that um no land zoned residential uh zone strictly residential can be assessed but um uh apartment buildings as well as um uh condos uh are are very typically assessed for uh property based bids um throughout the state and throughout their country um yeah um and but because of the the the benefits that the that the accrue not just to the business owners but to the um to the residents as well so for the property based bids um like the ones that exist in the laurel is it specifically for any property owner or is it for rental housing uh property owners rent rental and uh ownership uh rental and and and condos okay um there there are often um some of the bids uh when the uh assessment rates are developed um they'll will will be can be some variation in rates and sometimes there are specific rates for for condominiums and then my last question is what kind of oversight if any does the city have I have several bids throughout district three um and there have been some questions that I've received from business owners around the responsibilities of the bids to perform certain activities um what type of oversight or inquiry can the city for the city council specifically engage to ensure that the contracts are being met do we have any jurisdiction there?

Yeah but I mean we we we have the through these um items uh every year to to renew or not renew the um uh assessments um you know we have the they are required to report uh on an annual basis um and in order to then levy uh their assessments for the uh the following year you know they they need to report and have their reports accepted by by the city council but that's the only time line or that that the city council can engage is whether we renew or not to renew.

If if there is a if there are findings of um say um financial mismanagement uh malfeasance um a dissolution process uh can can be um instituted by uh at uh at any time for by the city that seems extreme i the the folks who've reached out to me are just asking if there are things that have been promised to be done contractually and they haven't been done what is the recourse uh let's see I I I would I think as staff managing the program um if if those are brought to our attention um that that that can help that we can certainly work work it work things out with uh you know try to address them with with the um uh the bid staff but uh I think with with that and you know with our when we review our annual reports um you know we we do we do review to to to make sure that um what the are what the bid is spending on is in line with uh the management district plans that were set up for that bid.

Um, so we we do monitor them to make sure that that that they are um doing what they are have or were we're formed to do.

Um so if there are complaints or anything about um uh those sorts of issues, um the first the first step would be going to the the bid management itself, but then they can involve uh staff as well.

Great.

I will definitely refer them to you.

Okay.

And that said, I I do want to say that in district three, there are so many things that the bids do that improve the quality of life for residents, for shoppers, for um businesses that the city just can't do right now.

So I'm I'm very appreciative of the extra hands that they provide to ensure that Oakland is a clean and safe place and um look forward to moving this forward.

I'm not sure if there was a motion already.

I'd be happy to offer a second.

Sure.

Um excellent.

And and then I guess also just for clarity, um, during the bid renewal process, um it's renewed by the input of the business owners, and so ideally um ensuring that they are you know doing all the things that are kind of map out mapped out, that is also the nexus to ensure that like it's renewed.

Is that correct?

Right.

Uh so yeah, what would the the property-based bids all have a uh a defined term, and in order to extend past that defined term, um there is a uh petition uh there needs to be a petition effort um and a ballot initiative.

Uh, we know once the ones they meet the petition threshold of 30 percent of the property owners, uh, then we can form uh issue a resolution attention to form the to renew or form the bid, um, and then uh they're uh all of the the property owners in the in the um the set boundary are then um sent ballots with with that with that management district plan to vote on uh the service the service plan that's been set.

Exactly.

Awesome.

Thank you so much.

And so what who um do we have a motion in a second?

Okay, perfect.

Thank you.

Thank you.

We have a motion made by council member Ramachandran, seconded by Councilmember Fipe to approve the recommendations of staff and support this item to the July 7th City Council agenda.

On roll council members five.

Aye, Ramachandran.

Aye.

Unger and Chair Brown, aye.

Thank you.

Item number four passes with four eyes to forward this item to the July seventh city council agenda and to the makers of the motion.

Is this on consent?

Yes, thank you on consent.

Reading in item five.

Adopt a resolution accepting and appropriating a total amount of sorry, a total award of United States Department of Housing and Urban Development Grant Funds in an amount not to exceed 14,674,799 and seven cents for community development block grants, home investment partnerships, emergency solution grants, and housing opportunities for persons with AIDS, uh programs for fiscal year 2026 to 2027, authorizing the city administrator to prepare and submit to the to the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development, the annual action plan for fiscal year 2026-2027, appropriating any available revolving loan program income for housing rehabilitation activities, authorizing the city administrator to award agreements for activities as set forth in exhibit A and the list of eligible backup activities to be funded with funds that become available as a result of projects being completed, under budgeted or under budget, delayed or canceled, attached here to inclusive um of prior year funding availability, subject to compliance with any applicable competitive bidding requirements and authorizing the city administrator to city administrator to designate certifying officials, uh official or designee of the certifying official for the purpose of title 24 part 58 of the code of federal regulation and submit to the United States Department of Housing and of Housing and Urban Development, and we have 25 speakers that signed up to speak on this item.

Excellent.

Thank you so much.

And on this item, we will hear from our H C D team.

Thank you.

Thank you, Chair and uh committee members, Zulko Ramirez, Deputy Director, Oakland HCD.

Uh Hannah uh Batesh will be presenting uh today's presentation, but I'd like to introduce both her and our new leader of the community development and um community development and engagement unit, Glaudia Flores.

And Hannah Batesh will be presenting.

Thank you.

Excellent.

Thank you so much.

All right, good afternoon.

I'm Hannah Batesh.

I'm a monitoring and evaluation supervisor in the Department of Housing and Community Development.

I'm going to go through our department's annual action plan to the U.S.

Department of Housing and Urban Development.

I don't know if there's okay.

So I'm gonna walk through what this plan is and why we do it.

We do it every year, and then what activities we're proposing to use our HUD funding for.

I'm gonna close with some context about the opportunities and limitations of federal funding, which represents, I just wanna say one part of how our department funds safe and stable housing for our neighbors.

So this is a sliver of how we do what we do, and there are a lot of strings attached, and so that informs what we do with the funding.

So this is the text of the resolution that we're asking council to adopt at its July 7th meeting, essentially accepting the federal funds and giving us flexibility if we need to make minor adjustments to how we use them.

So for example, if one project is delayed and another is moving faster, then we have the option to fund the faster project at a higher level than planned.

So that's all that is.

So a little about the city's HUD funding.

We're what's called an entitlement jurisdiction, which means we get funding based on our population level and demographics.

We have an ongoing cycle for planning and reporting on that funding.

So that's shown here, and what we're doing today is the part in purple.

So at the top, every five years we create a consolidated plan to HUD, the con plan that lays out what we're going to do over the course of five years with our HUD funding.

That's in alignment with broader city and county goals and planning around homelessness.

So again, this is just one piece of it.

Our current con plan goes through 2029, and as part of developing it last year, we did a lot of community engagement around housing, homelessness, and economic development.

So that's the top part.

Today, what we're doing is the annual action plan.

So there's a one-year plan submitted each year that maps to that con plan at the top.

It represents our annual commitment to what we will do with our HUD funding in the coming fiscal year, and that's what we're presenting for approval.

The last part of the cycle, which I understand there's some interest in, is that at the end of every fiscal year, we submit a report about what we did to achieve everything that we laid out in last year's annual action plan.

So today's just about that middle part.

We will have a separate presentation about what we did last year, separately for that other report.

In the interest of time, I'm not going to go through all of the highlights from our current five-year con plan, but these are the needs and goals that we try to achieve every year with the different activities that we fund through our annual action plan.

And again, this is not a strategy setting document.

So for that, we look to local plans like the department wide strategic action plan, as well as the city's homelessness strategic action plan and the anti-displacement strategic action plan.

So HUD funding is just one way that we support broader strategic visions that are laid out in other city plans.

So the HUD funding that we do get is in these four grant streams.

The exact amounts are announced every spring, and it's a congressional appropriation based on a formula that's tied to our population size and demographics.

And so, as you can see, most of the funding is for capital improvements rather than for services.

So that's a limitation of the funding that's important to name at the outset.

The first two grants are administered by our department, the second two are administered by community homeless services division in the human services department.

And the amounts that we received this year are similar to what we got last year overall.

By grant streams, there might be some amounts that are a little higher and a little lower, but overall the funding amount is very similar.

So a little about what we anticipate using each of these four.

So for CDBG, you can see that these are examples of both services that we have funded in the past and services that we plan to fund again this year.

So we do this process every year.

We also fund fairly similar services, and so these are some examples of what we plan to do with our 26-27 allocation.

We also use those funds for other activities funded through CDBG.

So in addition to rehabilitation activities, we also do a lot of anti-displacement and tenant stabilization work, like the programs that you see up here.

For the home funding stream, we mostly aim to fund new construction like these projects.

Again, any reports on the progress of these projects would be in a separate plan.

That's a separate presentation.

So that's not what we're doing today.

Today we're talking about how we plan to use the funds moving forward.

And then we also have our HAPWA funding stream.

These are the kinds of services that we've funded in years past, and we plan to fund these again.

We have funded these services in years past, and we plan to do so again.

A little bit about the limitations of these funds that I just want to make sure to go through as we're considering how we're planning to use them moving forward, is that there's a lot of restrictions around how and when we spend it.

So we have to spend it by a certain date, and we also need to be really clear about how we might reprogram so that we don't find ourselves locked into having to do specific things on a specific timeline and not be able to move money around.

If, for example, one project is moving faster than another, we want the flexibility to pivot if we need to.

Another thing I want to call out is that there's also a lot of restrictions on how we use them.

So again, we have to mainly use these for capital improvements.

It is much harder to use them for direct services and administration.

So that's why you may see more capital improvement funding than direct services and administration funding is that that's a requirement of the funding source.

Because they all have a lot of different requirements, and when you layer them on top of each other, it can get fairly complicated.

All of this is to say this is why we are funding a lot of projects that we have funded in the past because we've already done the thinking around how to do this in a way that gives us maximum flexibility, and you know doesn't lock us into doing things in the particular way that doesn't give us the flexibility to pivot.

And so that's also why we have historically included broad authority in our resolution like the one today to enter into agreements to execute activities in our spending plan without having to go through any additional processes if those change slightly.

So next steps for what we will do with the annual action plan.

It is available for 30-day public review on our website.

A public hearing will take place on July 7th, at which point the council will consider adoption of the resolution to accept the funds and appropriate them and submit the annual action plan to HUD.

So this is the same process that we do every year, we're just doing it again this year.

And then after that, um, we will have our consolidated annual performance and evaluation report um for last year.

So that's when we will report on things that happened with the projects that we funded last year, is in that separate um report, and that will happen in September.

Um so if there are questions about specific projects and what is going on with them, the time to get those questions answered will probably be in September when we present those findings.

That is all.

Thank you.

Excellent, thank you so much.

Um we can hear from the public speakers.

I'll go read in the names of those that signed up to speak on this item.

If you are seating time or have time seated to you, the person must have a card filled out, and they must be present to acknowledge that they are seeding their time.

If you need translation, the person speaking will get one minute and then an additional minute for translation.

In no particular order, you can uh line up, state your name before beginning.

Asado Olabala, Buffalo Souljourn, Alberto Para, Richard Taylor, Christina Justo, Janice uh Slatten, Taihua, Isabel Ruiz, Linda Wade, Lovetta Montjoy, Marcus Garcia, Teresa Salazar, Christine Sue Miller, Jasmine Hurt, Sharon Greenpeace, Greg Slaughter, Valerie Bachelor, Kathy Harris, Bruce Conte, Lucretia Flemings, Ron Williams, Janet Clintzos, Samuel Raimi, Eddie Isarte, Emily Wheeler, and Rochelle Miller.

Are you ready for me now?

Greatness, friends, enemies, and political operatives.

Most of you weren't here when uh administration of information gave us word, and we delivered.

Uh they said uh the truth is a light, check yourself for you wreck yourself.

That's why you have so many new city council members, but on this item five, it's kind of hard to separate five from six.

Uh, here we got a public hearing, and I hear we have a time to get the draft of plan, but I'm just a homeless guy.

Where do I go to get the draft of plan?

And how will the public hearing be held?

Where?

It's nice that you're gonna have a public hearing, knowing the where and when of it.

Yes, you lag.

Uh Oakland and its housing authority could not pass the Section 8 inspection by Hood on a bit.

No less than 50%.

Thank you for your comments, Mr.

Sojourn.

No need to do it.

Okay, so we're gonna go.

How are we doing, Chairman Queen Brown, and the other council people?

Okay, my name is Gregory Slaughter.

I am a member of Ace Oakland.

I live in District 7.

I've been in Oakland all my life.

On Sunday, I'll be 73 years old.

When I first knew about rent, my parents was paying a hundred and twenty-five dollars a month for a two-bedroom house.

Okay, backyard, car, garage, everything.

Now for a two-bedroom house, you're paying four thousand dollars a month for a place where you got rats, roaches, and everything else in there.

Okay.

You have been out to open station, you know, this out there for us, okay.

We're gonna need you again, though.

I'll tell you about that later.

But code enforcement need to step up and start doing inspections every I'll say at least once every year, get these landlords off the behind so they can take care of their business the right way because these houses are not being inspected in the property here.

Good afternoon.

Thank you for having us.

This is a difficult time.

I got a uh a paper from the company saying sorry to the member of the public, please state your name.

I passed your time.

Please state your name for the record.

Lovely to Mount Joy.

Okay, thank you.

Your time will continue.

Um I got uh got a uh paper saying that I hadn't paid my rent.

Getting still I have exp uh I have uh statement of it.

So I had to go back and tell them that I did pay my rent.

That's just one little thing that they they do.

Say you're having a uh a problem.

I got roaches.

Anybody come?

Oh, yeah, we got uh somebody come in and do something about it.

Next morning they were still there.

This is how I live every day.

It's not a fun thing.

I don't know who to go to ask for support, but I just live there.

Good afternoon, everyone on the chair.

My name is Richard Taylor.

I'm a resident of the previously Oakland senior station.

Now it's just Oakland station.

I've been there since the beginning of this building, and my opinion is that the building is being mismanaged by Con Am.

I don't know if any of those funds about what went on last year.

I'd like to know were any of those funds spent on management of our property.

Our property has deteriorated.

We have a gate that has been broken for at least eight months.

They have perpetuated the situation that's going on in Oakland Station, the management company, Con Am.

They allow people to come in.

You don't need a pod to get up the elevator.

Anyone can walk in, and we wonder why we're having crime there.

We wonder why we have people perpetrating on our seniors.

They stole my wife's walker, they stole the fire extinguisher in front of my apartment now.

I don't have fire extinguisher, and we wonder why.

Uh electro-domesticos are graves.

Meanwhile, anytime we ask our landlord for request, we're just ignored.

We, the residents of Oakland and tenants, demand that the city invest in the proactive rental inspection program to ensure that landlords are maintaining their properties.

Necessitamos tener stabilidad for nuestra vivienda.

Necessitamos the viviendas dignas como inquilinos que pagamos nuestra viviendas.

Refuerse.

La mera verdad no se toma mucho inquieto.

Or los inspectores simplemente no has been su trabajo.

Hello, everyone.

My name is Christina, and I'm here today to urge the city council to implement the proactive rental inspections to ensure follow-up on violations.

As tenants, we pay a lot of rent, and we need to ensure that the city is making sure that all units are habitable and safe places to live.

Thank you.

Good afternoon, Council members.

My name is Marcus, and I'm an organizer with ACE, working with tenants across Oakland.

I'm here because our current compliant-based complaint based system is failing.

Too often tenants are forced to choose between staying silent and unsafe housing or risking retaliation just for asking for basic repairs.

I've seen families live with bold mold, broken heaters, leaks, and other serious conditions for months or even years because they're afraid to report them, or when they do the retaliated against.

A system that depends on tenants making complaints does not protect the people most at risk, especially immigrants, seniors, and families with children.

When people fear harassment, eviction threats, or worse, dangerous conditions go unaddressed.

That's why we need proactive rental inspections.

The city should not wait until tenants suffer before acting.

We need a system that identifies and fixes hazards before they arise.

They become crises.

Why is it that we are the persons?

Sorry, do you deter to the member of the public?

Please state your name for the sorry, let me start again.

The whole entire world for what is given to us through our tax paying money.

I have nothing else to say.

I am here with my neighbors and my fellow tenants calling for urgent action on housing crisis.

Across our city, renters are living with unsafe conditions, including mold pests, broken appliances, and serious halibility violations.

Um while many repairs go unanswered, and landlords continue collecting rent without accountability.

We have mice.

Just a week ago, we had a dead dog in our garbage room for five days.

That is unacceptable.

All we want to do is live our golden years golden.

But we can't do that living in this surrounding with the mice, the cabinets falling apart, appliances not working.

Elevators that are used aren't working.

We just want to live in peace.

We want to have a clean environment.

I'm a 25 year breast cancer survivor.

I can't live in that building much longer without my health being jeopardized.

Thank you.

And I've been standing in these departments.

And when I first got there, they try to cover up everything.

The oven was dirty.

The cabinet had bugs in there.

All kinds of roaches.

And then the, and then in the bathroom, they had some bugs in there.

And you know when you're supposed to clean the place up, it wasn't clean at all.

And then now the place is already don't have no cleaning up in it in the whole deployment anyway.

I'll pick it up.

Oh good afternoon, everyone.

My name is Linda Wade, and I've been attended at the Oakland Station for only about 14, 15 months.

The worst 15 months of my life.

However, I feel like I was betrayed as nothing like it was presented to me.

You know, I always thought that human rights, housing, was a human life for us.

But this has become a fight.

I'm having to fight for my human rights at the Oakland Station for my safety, for my dignity, for my respect.

I'm not for sale.

I refuse to be treated in this most inhumane manner.

We're finding more dead bodies in that building than a cemetery has.

You know, people just doing all sorts of things.

I don't feel safe there at all.

I'm afraid for my life.

I'm ready to go and get armed up because I want to come because when I walk on my door, I don't know what's standing.

I could not use none of the so-called benefits entities that they have, such as the laundry room.

Thank you for your comments.

Your time is up.

Hello, my name is Jasmine.

I'm an organizer with the Oakland Ace Office.

Um, I grew up in Oakland.

I've been organizing all around Oakland.

I'm currently now in um West Oakland, and it's clear that the habitability in these housing units and in our apartments is just horrible.

There are people that are living with mold pest control, no heater, leaking ceilings, leaking roofs, and when they're reporting it, nothing is happening.

We need more investment and proactive code enforcement to ensure that these conditions are changed.

Housing is not just about affordability, it's about safety, dignity, and stability for the people who are already living here.

Thank you.

Good afternoon, City Council members.

My name is Valerie Bachelor, and I'm a Proud District 6 resident as well as the director of Ace Oakland.

And as you heard today, from deep east all the way to West Oakland, we have a housing crisis, and that's really a habitability crisis.

When tenants have to deal with mold, have to deal with pests, have to deal with broken appliances and serious habitability violations.

Students can't go to school.

Folks can't go to work, our elders are disrespected.

And again, we have some of the strongest tenant protections here in Oakland.

We need a code enforcement department that is proactive, that makes it so that landlords actually fix these units, not just document these units.

And I'm glad that some of these resources are going to be used towards those types of programs and that we're supporting that work, but this is just a drop in the bucket.

We need more resources to support tenants.

We need more resources so that disasters do not happen.

Fires, floods, and famines are happening all over Oakland, and we must stop this from happening, and you have the ability to do so.

Good afternoon.

My name's Eddie Eduarte, and I am with uh Oakland Tenants Union.

Um, you know, tenants are really the lifeblood of Oakland.

But would Oakland be without our tenants?

Um, and I would like to um recognize or uh I see I do see that uh people from uh X Ace are here and also folks from the uh kids rising uh uh uh are here so I think we should um should thank them for this appearance here um and also especially the folks from the senior center at 105th street.

Um, this is a fairly new project, and ever since this project um came into existence, we've heard complaints about them over and over and over again at the Oakland Tenants Union, and that's a scandal, and I would want the city to clean that place up and to make it uh uh uh uh friendly to tenants that live there because this is the disaster.

Thank you for your comments.

Okay, so um I okay.

Sorry, give me one moment.

Emily, you're ceding your time to him.

Okay.

Okay, so um one of the things that Oakland really needs and more of is we need adequate instruction, adequate education of our tenants that live in Oakland.

We have some fairly good laws, the rent control law, which could be improved on the state level, and also other just cause eviction law, another good laws that the tenants union along with ACE and other groups over the years have gradually made it better, but they have to be enforced.

They have to be enforced, and hopefully some of the funds from uh this effort will go to that.

Um, and also we really need education of tenants because tenants don't know what the rules are, what the laws are, and over and over and over again tenants come to us, they say, hey, I'm getting evicted just because my owner is the owner is selling the building.

No way.

That's not part of the of the uh eviction law.

So it's stuff like this.

They got great uh lying attorneys that somehow the city ought to find out who these people are and then.

Thank you for your comments.

Your time is up.

I do apologize.

We have speakers that are still waiting to speak.

Your time is up.

Thank you.

Good afternoon, City Oakland.

My name is Simuel Rain.

I'm the national union of the Homeless women's Health Outreach for independent living.

Uh I'm over the housing of this country.

All shelters.

From now on, my mom and down, y'all can come see me.

I have a direct line.

Three, four weeks we're going to leave LA.

I haven't gone around.

I told me, you know, come here.

We were lost, and he's coming up, though.

We've been cleaning house.

Y'all ain't right.

They shouldn't be like this.

Y'all will let me build a senior system home for them.

It's already paid for.

The house.

I didn't plan to sleep in all streets.

I mean, I'm going to see I don't build.

A shelter.

69 years old.

I got funding the building.

Y'all won't let us.

Boom.

Got plenty of 5.8 billion.

I'll give any more of my king.

We're gonna finish straighten this country out.

We're gonna clean this country out and get rid of this corruption.

Let's tie.

I've been big.

Thank you for your comments, Mr.

Raimi.

Hi, my name is Rochelle Miller.

There was a point of clarification.

My name was called per agenda item number five when I asked to speak on agenda item number six.

Okay, thank you.

We'll move it to item six.

I don't know why you put in the report, the Phoenix is not available.

It was finished in November and it's still not open, 111 units, because the developer hasn't paid the contractor.

So stop putting in your reports false information.

We need to have an identification of a timeline once a complaint is made by any tenant or individual related to code enforcement within that time of the beginning of the complaint to the end.

What is that period?

It must be resolved.

If it's not resolved within that timeline, you stop paying rent until it is resolved.

Or you pay penalties.

But we can't continue to have people do this.

I've seen this before.

Where community members come and it goes on for months and months and months and nothing is happening.

That's because you don't have a regulatory process that creates a timeline for resolving of the issue.

Mandated.

And when it's not resolved.

Thank you for your comments.

If your name was called and you still wish to speak on this item, please come up to the podium or raise your hand on Zoom to be easily identified.

At this time, all names have been called.

Excellent.

Thank you so much.

So first off, I just really want to thank the members of the public that showed up, the leadership of Ace, Oakland's tenant union as well, and all of the community members that came from Oakland Station.

Um all had a visit to the property.

And you know, uh, not to put you on the spot, Administrator Baker, but I do believe that we need to have a follow-up with some of the the Yeah, with some of the items that um we needed to follow up under the code inspections.

And so I look forward to happy to have you chime in, but I look forward to um further discussions.

I know that our former city administration administrator Johnson also was trying to um make a lot um uh create some momentum to ensure that this um con am I believe it is uh um to ensure uh you know that they address the ongoing issues that have been taking place at this residence.

Not sure if you have any updates or um knowing that we need to follow up.

Oh, sure, and thank you, uh Chairman Brown.

Order order in the chamber, thank you.

So, through the chair, I want to begin by thanking all the tenants and ace who spoke tonight, or today.

Um what you're experiencing.

I personally witnessed a lot of it, along with members of the staff, which included planning and building, um, the fire department and other key officials.

We saw that animals, we saw soiled carpet, doors left unlocked, and unsanitary common areas.

We took photos.

This is completely unacceptable.

And your outrage is absolutely justified.

Our staff has done the following.

Obviously, we walked the building, we prioritize that, and we actually confirm these violations through our regulatory code, including pet infestations and the broken gate, which is allowing anybody to come in there.

It's completely unsecure.

The mail room is unsecure.

The mail boxes have been broken into.

And so we found other conditions that while deeply concerning based on the current code, and that does not mean that we aren't going to work on reforming it.

But it falls outside of some of what code enforcement can do at this time in terms of the legal steps that we can take.

But as we've done with other code enforcement reforms, as of a month ago, we can do everything we can ministerially, fines, pressure on Conam, etc.

to accelerate this issue.

And the biggest priority right now that we heard is that you gotta need to lock the gate and you need to lock the mail room.

And so we need to prioritize the most important fixes, okay?

And so that's what we've identified as one of the most important ones is to secure the building.

Okay.

So we would encourage you to file police reports.

If you file police reports, if you uh file 311 complaints and you complain on your on your own on very specific issues specific to locking the gate.

We believe that locking the gate and securing the mailroom is the most pressing security issue, notwithstanding the health issues.

Um criminal activities such as trespassing, theft, and solicitation, which we know is happening, should be documented and addressed through OPD, our police department through uh police uh calls, um, police reports, um, and that needs to happen.

Um, and so we need to ensure that the property management is also reporting these incidences.

And so we hear you again, we see the conditions ourselves, and we are committed to using every tool available to protect your safety and dignity.

Thank you.

Excellent.

All right, thank you.

Thank you so much, um, Administrator Baker.

Um, staff for council member Houston's office is also here as well.

So following the meeting, we look forward to uh further connecting to walk uh walk through next steps, and so thank you so much for your for showing up and consistently sharing with us what these issues are so that it's top of mind for all of us, and so that we can seek to really make the changes that are that are needed.

So thank you.

Um council member Fife.

First of all, I've heard about the conditions that you all are experiencing far too often sitting up here, and you I don't have to tell you that you deserve none of this, none of this, but you exercising your rights.

I seen y'all on the news.

I've I've heard some of the organizing that you're doing.

It is so important that you stay active because the power is always with the people.

I was encouraged to hear that you have taken legal action, but don't just come to City Council and don't just come to um, you know, just work with an attorney.

You have to show up, and thank you for speaking to me outside in the hallway.

Show up at their places of employment.

Take direct action.

I've supported individuals in your exact same situations towards real solutions.

Real solutions, it can happen, but in the meantime, do not lose hope because it is possible.

And if you need me to come to some of your direct actions when you're chanting down these landlords or you're going to their places where they are, I will be with you because I've done it before.

I will do it again because you deserve the right to live like human beings.

I've seen the deterioration of this space.

It's not my district, it's not my district, but your pain is important to me.

I've paid out of pocket for folks that were members of your organization to be relocated to other spaces.

I worked with the folks at in the other place, Mississauga knows the other place in East Oakland when they flooded.

So I've been through this, and I got y'all back.

Just tell me where to show up, and I will be there when y'all get ready to do some direct actions.

That's all I wanted to say.

Excellent.

And so, and so for the item before us, um, thank you so much to our amazing HCD team for the presentation and the update.

I know that this is an annual report, um, and so I'm happy to uh move the item and just need a second.

Second.

Through the chair to uh to the chair, is this um requested to be forwarded to the July 7th City Council Agenda as a public hearing?

Yes, please, thank you.

Thank you.

We have a motion made by Chair Brown, seconded by Councilmember Fife, to approve the recommendations of staff and to forward this item to the July 7th, 2026 City Council agenda as a public hearing.

On roll council members five.

Aye.

Rama Chandran.

Excuse.

Anger.

Aye.

And Chair Brown.

Aye.

Thank you.

Motion passes with three eyes, one excused Ramachandran to forward this item to the July 7, 2026.

Uh City Council agenda as a public hearing.

Reading in our last action item, item number six.

Adopt an ordinance amending ordinance number one three one zero four CMS, which authorized the sale of a city owned parcel at 319 Chester Street to the Alliance for West Oakland Development, authorized seller financing by the purchase price, authorized the construction loan, and authorize a disposition and development agreement with a developer to develop the parcel with a two-family home for sale to one convert the project into a into an affordable rental project, and consolidate the city purchase and construction loan into a long-term affordable rental loan.

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

Excellent.

Thank you so much.

And then we will hear from staff on this item.

Good afternoon, Chair Brown and committee members.

My name is Trisha Gonzalez.

I'm a housing development coordinator with the housing and community development department.

Thank you for allowing me to have this time.

Staff is requesting authorization to allow the project at 319 Chester Street to move forward as an affordable rental project rather than the originally approved two-unit home ownership project.

This amendment would also consolidate the city's existing 94,000 seller financing loan and a 400,000 construction loan with a new one million loan, resulting in a single long-term affordable rental loan totaling 1,494,000, structured as a standard 55-year residual receipts loan.

The additional 1 million will be funded from measured EU resources already allocated to the acquisition and conversion to affordable housing program, which have sufficient available funds for this purpose.

The financing structure is both consistent with current city practices and necessary to move the long delayed project into construction.

The project at 319 Chester Street was originally approved in 2011 as a two-unit affordable home ownership development supported by a city land sale, a 94,000 seller financing loan, and a 400,000 construction loan to the developer alliance for West Oakland Development, also known as AWOD.

However, due to rising construction costs, organizational disruptions within AWAD, and the passing of their founder, the project stalled and the site has remained undeveloped for more than a decade.

In early 2026, AWAD returned to the city with a revised proposal to convert the development into an affordable rental project, which is now the more financially viable approach.

The homeownership model is no longer feasible because of increased rehab cost, limited subsidy availability, and the lack of capacity to pursue mortgage subsidies for low-income buyers.

Transitioning into a rental model aligns with current market conditions and provides a more realistic path to completing the project.

AWAT has strengthened its development capacity by assembling a qualified project team, including a development consultant and technical assistance from the Housing Accelerator Fund.

With these partners in place, the project is ready to proceed with permits and construction.

The additional one million in city financing will address the significant increase in construction costs since 2011 and support key construction activities such as drywall installation, flooring, kitchen cabinetry and countertops, bathroom fixtures and tile and exterior painting.

To conclude, the proposed amended ordinance will allow the city to finally move forward with the development at 319 Chester Street by converting the long-delayed home ownership project into an affordable rental development.

This will restructure the city's existing loans into a single 55-year residual receipts loan and increase the loan amount by one million to fully fund the project's completion.

These actions align with the city's standard affordable housing financing practices and provide a feasible path for delivering long-awaited housing affordable to households earning up to 80% of area meet and income.

The updated financing terms and strengthened strengthened development team ensure the project can move into construction after more than a decade.

Thank you.

And I'm available for questions along with our deputy director Faye Darmawi through the chair.

Excellent, thank you so much.

I know that this is located in District 3.

I'm not sure if you had any questions first, Councilmember Five.

Yes, thank you.

The questions I just I had um I got clarity speaking with the director of HCD, but I will ask for the record so that everyone is clear.

This seems like a lot of money.

Can you speak to for a small uh development project?

Can you speak to why it's why the department is moving in this direction to complete this project at this time?

Yep.

Through the chair, this is in large part due to the economies of scale.

Our partnership with the Housing Accelerator Fund has been beneficial.

They performed some research analysis on our in our existing ACA portfolio with CoStar data, and it's totally in line with our current underwriting terms.

One to nine units.

We have set aside up to 500K per door.

And we've also engaged in a series of stakeholder meetings with our developers since May 2024, and a lot of our emerging developers have a really hard time finishing these projects under the 500k per door because of the lack of the lack of being able to leverage any other state funds.

And this project uh it started in originally in 2011, I believe, and over time the cost also of equipment, the cost of labor has gone up, and they lost the original um lead for the project, Mr.

Cox.

I knew Mr.

Cox fairly well.

We organized together back in the day.

But can you, with $500,000 per door with two units that equates to the million dollars, and that's similar to new construction, which is about a million dollars, well, not similar, but new construction is about a million dollars per door, correct?

For new construction.

In the chair, yes, that's correct.

And so this falls in line in terms of the amount of that is standard in the industry, it falls inside of that um kind of framework for how much it costs for rehabilitation.

Through the chair, yes, or development that's correct.

Um, some questions that I didn't get to ask Director Weinstein earlier today were about details on the actual contract, so I wanted to know if you could provide information around the the construction company, not the construction company, but the developers' commitment to securing strong property management.

How do we have kind of oversight over that process?

Yes, through the chair.

Thanks for that question.

Um we've done our diligence with AWOD in partnership with the housing accelerator fund to ensure that they do have a AWOD has a property management plan in place.

Um they are going to procure an experienced property manager, and they're also very eager to expand AWOD and willing to take property management courses, receive the nurse necessary training to be able to manage the project once it is stabilized.

I appreciate their desire to want to do that, but is there anything that the city can do to make sure that that happens?

Like what kind of accountability levers do we have?

Through the chair, we can ensure that we monitor and just work closely with a developer as we do in our ACA program.

We're often faced with challenges, yet our goal is to support emerging developers and actively seek the technical assistance they may need or just ensuring they have the correct programs in place.

That makes sense.

Okay, and then my last question is what would be the repayment schedule for this project, including the amount in timeline just from my um cursory look into this project.

It looks like it might be about $2,500 a month over 55 years.

Is that accurate or and then how do we ensure that uh the repayment obligations can actually happen with the cash flow from this project?

Through the chair, I may have to get back to you with the details of the amount per month.

However, it is structured as a 55-year residual receipts loan, and that's our standard practice of our program.

And that goes back into the revolving loan fund when you get those resources?

Yes, yes, okay, thank you.

Of course.

Excellent.

Thank you so much.

And just for clarity, so the 55 year repayment term, that's a standard process?

It is for all of our affordable housing projects.

Actually, it's set up as a 55 year residual receipts loan.

Okay, interesting.

Excellent.

Thank you so much.

Um, Councilmember Unger.

Um, on those 55 year loans, do we generally get paid back on those or do we treat it as sort of a write-off?

Through the chair, I'll allow uh deputy director Fadar Mobi to answer that.

Hello.

Uh Fay Darmaui, Deputy Director of HCD, uh, through the chair.

Uh council member Unger.

We structure all of our long-term residual receipt loans as 55 years, and we do sometimes get repaid on them, but it is residual receipts, so it's on a cash flow extra cash flow basis after the primary debt is paid off.

So we should think of this as a gift rather than a loan.

No, it's uh it's a loan.

And but we don't necessarily get paid back, we don't necessarily get paid back, but it's the term the terms of the loan is that if there is excess cash flow after we pay the hard debt on the first deed of trust, the waterfall allows us to get repaid occasionally, occasionally but not regularly, not regularly, okay.

Um we were talking about the number of 500,000 a door.

Have we already put some money in to this prior?

Yes, we put uh 494,000 in previously, 94,000.

When we the city sold the land to AWOD, we gave them the loan to buy the land.

We also lent 400,000 for them to uh initiate uh developing a homeownership project in 2011.

So it's $500,000 a door in new money, but we've already put money in.

So it's not cheaper than another project necessarily.

I mean, we're we're probably approaching $750 or a million dollars a door, correct?

Um do we have other cases in the city with so much city money into such a small project?

We do these ACA projects have on the smaller side half a million to 700,000 dollars per unit development costs in terms of loans per project.

I think this is the outlier.

Okay.

And generally when we work on projects, we have partners with other funders.

Are there other funders involved in this?

Okay, so the intent of the ACA program is an anti-displacement strategy.

It's really not a production shop.

And these projects are small and medium-sized apartment buildings that we take off the speculative market.

Uh they are very challenged because it's very difficult to leverage other funding for these ACA projects.

Um we uh don't typically have other public subsidies, and it doesn't, and they do not support private debt.

However, um the state of California recognizes the track record of the housing accelerator fund in San Francisco and our emerging track record, and they are considering creating a huge um fund statewide to attack this issue.

So the housing accelerator fund is providing technical support, but not money in this instance.

Okay.

So the ACA program has two phases.

The first phase is a bridge loan during the construction or rehab phase, and in that phase, in the bridge loan pool, uh the housing accelerator fundraises over 75% of that pool.

So the city of Oakland is 25%, and half fundraises 75%.

That's during the bridge loan phase.

Then there's a second phase, which is the permanent loan phase.

In the permanent loan phase, that's when we're 100% of the financing most of the time.

And this is what you're considering today, is during the permanent loan phase.

The city comes in and quote unquote takes out the bridge loan.

So we come in during the permanent loan phase, which is what you're approving today with a 55-year residual receipts loan, and we are typically um 90% to 100% of that financing.

And the the million-dollar number that that's not the kind of number you normally see on a pro forma, usually it's 996, and 324.

Like, it's a pretty round number, like it was rounded up.

There was a very peculiar number very close to it.

Just for ease of documentation, we rounded it up to a million.

Okay.

Um so you know, this project has languished for 10 years because the group didn't have good technical assistance.

We're confident that this is a better, a better bet now.

We are confident that with the housing accelerator fund and with new management at AWOD that this project will get done.

Okay.

Um I'll yield back to the other council members, excellent.

Thank you so much.

Um, I know that there was some public speakers, but um, council member five.

No, I'd like to hear from the public speakers.

Okay.

Excellent, thank you so much.

Take your time, Sarisa.

I know it's just you.

Thank you.

Calling in the names of the speakers that signed up to speak on item number six, Rochelle Miller, Amber Cox, Asado Olavala, Buffalo Sojourn, and Simeon Raimi.

I find it amazing.

When anything comes up that has to do with a black developer, y'all got a thousand and one questions.

So this is black folks.

They're gonna be working on this project.

It's been delayed.

Just like the Jazz Museum has been delayed, just like the developer who was who was originally gonna take care of the 12th Street development and couldn't get the money together, you took it away from him.

Just like the black liberation zone project is still up in the air, hasn't got any movement.

Okay.

So why all the questions?

When I just told you over and over again, the Phoenix project has been completed, and the East Asian Development Group owes money, and you're not asking no questions about that.

You got this uh motel six transitional.

Thank you for your comments, Miss Asada.

Yeah, Buffalo Sojourn again.

I'm sort of kind of field secretary for a uh group organized to address the issue of homeless that got stomped to death by millions of the city some time ago.

I know that's not your fault.

Oh, congratulations, city administrator.

I heard you say code enforcement.

You mean you're finally going to try to be real about that?

Do you know how many elevators are broken in the senior citizen buildings that black people live in?

And the rest of you are military team.

These people started in 2012 and they got a million dollars.

You're gonna pay their salaries.

Hey, also I found out about this housing acceleration fund.

Can you apply that to Oak No?

Who's responsible for the fact that the allocated money for Oak Noel Senior Development has evaporated?

Do I have to press charges?

Me.

Here's a nice phrase.

Thank you for your comments, Mr.

Sojourn.

Once again, my name is Simon Rain.

I'm with the National Union of the Home and Familiar Health Outreach Program for Independent Living.

Our Chicago and Chicago, no, national headquarters.

I'm running chop here, okay.

But it's it's sad.

Why y'all gonna pay these people sorry?

You don't go do the work.

Just don't be all they're getting paid.

Why is your work being done?

When it comes to us, it's like the same thing.

You see y'all done.

I mean, I had to make a fish wall, they've been wanting to fix the wall.

What's that?

And the money is there.

You instead, you can't be dumb out of top 10 cities, top 10 city, I mean, Trump Street College, five of them is in the Bay Area.

So you ain't dumb.

You say you you went around and say, We got y'all got 50 billion there in there.

You ain't poor, you being cheated.

Y'all cheating the American people.

Y'all robbing still from American people, your taxpayer worked all his life.

But y'all won't give them a scene.

I got the money.

Thank you for your comments, Mr.

Raimi.

Greetings.

My name is Rochelle Miller.

I'm the program director and Purple Heart veteran spouse and an AWAM member, board member since 2010.

And the 319 Chester Street Project traces its origins back to City Council File 10-0096, which is adopted in 2012.

We've secured an experienced property management company, Black Holding Diamonds for Property Management.

Over the course of the project.

We've navigated extraordinary circumstances, including a force major with the loss of our executive director, the COVID pandemic, and a significant funding disparity.

In 2014, the available project funding equated to approximately $82 per square foot, when the construction costs already approached $145 per square foot at that time, showing that it was 50% underfunded at the start of the project.

Furthermore, the affordable housing language was amended, omitted from the final adoption and resolution limiting both the affordability mechanisms like agenda item number five and the CDBG funds and other opportunities that reduce that that has caused the project's tax bound.

Hi, I'm Amber Cox.

Um I stand before you not only as a board member of AWOD, but also as a daughter of Bruce Cox.

He was my father, he was the uh the originator of this organization, um, and this was his vision.

And so um I've been around uh with uh from the start of this project, in and out while I was in college, um, now as official board member.

Uh, some of the delays that you're seeing aren't technical issues.

There were a lot of city delays, and I have to put that out there.

We have worked volunteer time, and I've been on the board for the past seven years, endless time, uh staying in communication with the residential lending department, getting no response during COVID.

I it took me a year before it went uh after Lloyd Ware left.

It took a year before I was able to get in contact with anyone to even see who was gonna assist us with our project, who was overseen, who could we get in contact with?

We tried to raise additional funding for this project, but like Rochelle stated, due to uh verbiage within.

Um go ahead, keep going.

I just want to hear.

Um, did you have something additional to say?

Yeah, just um, so we did try to get additional funding.

So it's not like we sat here and waited.

We've have worked diligently and resiliently, uh, for seven, at least for me, seven years and Rochelle longer.

Volunteer time to see this project through.

We've met several safety issues where we've put ourselves in dangerous situations to maintain that project, which is located across the street from BART.

We have worked extremely hard.

Um I can't tell you how many police reports that I've had to make to evade squatters, to evade people trying to take over our properties by putting their pit bulls in our yard and locking the gate so we don't have access to our own property from even some of the neighbors uh sending things information to the city to try to get that property taken from us, and we've stood strong through it all.

We've worked really hard, and I'm thankful for have for working with us to try to get to this point where we are now.

This is a big thing, not just for the city of Oakland, just for the with the housing crisis, but for me personally, this is my father's legacy.

So I've been a part of this and I stand strong, and I'm continue to be resilient with this.

This means a lot.

And to the West Oakland community, I also am a resident of West Oakland.

And I also want to see more housing get developed.

Our project is almost done.

It's not in the you know, just shambles.

There were a lot of additional costs that came up, but this project, it's almost it's near completion, and we want to address that housing.

Excellent.

And in this moment, do you feel like you have all the tools to see the project through?

Absolutely.

Excellent.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Excellent.

Okay, thank you so much to the public speakers.

Um, Councilmember Fife.

Yes, I was uh a part of the community individuals that brought forward the ACA program.

It was named something different at the time, but it was myself as a director of ACE.

Um Steve from the Oakland Community Land Trust and Justin as my staff brought forward this program because we knew that preventing displacement from low-income communities was difficult to fund.

And for units that are 25 uh buildings where are 25 units or less, it's it's extremely difficult and extremely expensive because it's not um something that can be scaled.

I also know that the pipeline of projects that are similar to this to this that the uh city has dwindling, and there aren't that many projects left outstanding that fall into this particular category of um needing bridge loans or that started years and years ago that still have to be completed.

So I do want to say that I'm I'm happy to move this forward.

It is expensive.

Housing in California is expensive.

There are not that many more projects like this that we need to get off the books.

Um it will serve the need that we have with our regional housing needs allocation, and I trust the city staff's um suggestions on the pros and cons of moving this particular aspect forward after having that conversation with uh Director Weinstein.

Um I'll be happy to move this item forward.

And I do want to end with that when I was organizing for a jobs policy at the Oakland Army base.

Um, it was through the organization of Oakland Works, and Bruce Cox was a member of that organizing project.

I learned so much from him.

His vision is still alive.

What he was trying to do for uh formerly incarcerated folks and ensuring that they had access to good paying jobs through construction is something that I admire, and I want his vision and legacy to be fulfilled.

Um, this is expensive, and we've paid way more money for lay way fewer um benefits to our gentrifying district.

So I'm I'm happy to move this forward.

Thank you so much, Councilmember Fife.

Um I also think that this is an important investment that we need to make, so I'll second the motion.

Thank you.

We have a motion made by Councilmember Pipe, seconded by Chair Brown, to approve the recommendations of staff and support this item to the July 7th, 2026 city council agenda on roll council members five.

All right, Ramachandran's excused, Unger.

Aye, and Chair Brown.

Aye.

Thank you.

Motion passes with three eyes, one excused, uh, Ramachandran, and to the chairs is to go on consent or non-consent.

Consent.

Okay, thank you.

Uh, that completes our action items.

Now moving on to open forum.

Calling in the names that signed up to speak for open forum, Simeo Ramey, Buffalo Sojourn, Asada Olabala, Blair Beekman, Ann McLean, and Robbie Ayala.

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

Once again, my name is Samuel Raimi.

I'm with the National Union of the Homes with Outreach Program for independent.

We have a national program.

How long they've been lying to us.

Hey, Torah.

That's a basic looking terminated.

All of them.

Now I often put cost process about this.

So it can't be contaminated.

What about the base housing?

I had that for one shelf.

Keep caution, no?

They stopped their program.

You got vets out of your homes.

I want to fix it up for a living.

That's there.

They fought for that.

They earn it.

Yeah, I won't give them a shit to move in.

Yeah, I ain't having nobody to need people that don't need.

This is the problem here.

Read my right.

Everybody gets something don't need.

Well, you need to see running around home and begging, begging for something to go, something to do.

We can't get no service and none of that.

This is sad.

And in base government property has housing.

Thank you for your comments, Mr.

Raimi.

You know, this position that you are sanctuary city is a joke.

Because people who live in here, born in this city, have to struggle to get things done, particularly African Americans.

So the meeting coming up, the next meeting, Oakland Fund for Children, and you watch all of the who gets the money.

Same people over and over.

Friends of Parolto Hacienda, Friends of the Lincoln Rec Center, Spanish Speaking Unity Council, the Lau Family, Family Bridges, East Bay Asian Development Company.

All the time.

Same people getting money.

You get one group come here, never been here before, or you got questions for them.

You got to have some accountability because it's a million dollars.

And that seems quite high.

You are a sanctuary city, but you have no idea who's in here who doesn't go through a process.

Well, I know y'all are tired of my mouth, and I'm tired of y'all this obfuscation.

Although I have to admit it's nice to know that the city administrator has visited some of the substandard buildings.

Are you aware of the amount of dead elevators in the building supposedly for senior citizens?

And this year, uh this child has been making a living for 10 years, going for the million dollars.

All I got to say is I know Oak No was set aside for senior housing.

I know that money was allocated.

Now, who misappropriated the money?

You can't blame it all on Larry Reid.

You cannot continue the corruption of your predecessors and expect smiles.

I'm embarrassed for you.

Item six.

Thank you for your comments.

Switching to Zoom user.

Blair Beekman.

You can unmute your mic and begin your comment.

Hi, thank you.

Uh, Blair Beekman.

Uh, with one minute.

Um, thanks for the meeting.

Um, I'm concerned about strong mayor issues.

Uh, the election coming up uh this November.

I like the Democratic process involved.

Uh there's choices to be made.

I'm trying to figure out a language how to better talk about that.

Um I'm just concerned.

I've described in San Diego that we have an IBA system already and it's not working.

We need uh a different organizational model at this point.

I don't know if Oakland can uh they can work well, possibly in the beginning stages of such a thing, but I don't know if it'll be sustainable over time.

And um, I also wanted to offer that uh previous council person Lynn Macalini.

She suggested the ideas of a small city manager with a small C, you know, back in 2016 and 17.

It fell through, it never came through, but it was obviously on the table.

Uh organized.

Thank you for your comments.

Anne, you can unmute yourself.

It looks like we have you signed up for two.

I'm guessing the second Anne McLean is Robbie.

Anne.

And I have your hand raised.

Sorry, you uh went to the wrong computer.

Um so my name is Robbie, I can go first.

Okay, so go ahead, Robbie.

Okay.

Hi, uh, my name is Rabia Yellow.

You will not be receiving a petition for removal from the bid from Theodoro Ortiz.

He sold his property this year due to excessive assessment on his property on 35th Avenue.

He was assessed by the Laurel bid in the amount of 1,434 in addition to all his other Oakland assessments.

He's Spanish speaking with limited English comprehension.

He was one of the residents who did not submit a ballot.

Early efforts to speak to him in English about the importance of balloting or feeding.

I was assigned to speaker with him in Spanish, although there was no language barrier.

He could not understand the importance of balloting and its significance.

This year I spoke with him about signing a petition for removal from the bid, but was informed by him that he sold his property earlier this year.

He said he wished he understood what I was talking about because he wasn't able to understand the materials that were sent to him by the Laurel bid.

The 35th Avenue Corridor is not a commercial district, but rather a residential neighborhood, and we are petitioning to be removed from the laurel bid.

Thank you for your comments.

Anne, you can unmute yourself and begin your comment.

Okay.

I'm Ann McLean, one of many residential property owners on 35th Avenue.

I'm submitting two more petitions for removal from the Laurel Bid.

One from Mr.

Wu, owner of a single-family dwelling, and one from AFL properties on an eight-unit apartment complex on Delaware, approximately 40 yards away from 35th Avenue.

We are a diverse group.

We have communicated to property owners, I have communicated in Spanish, Chinese, and Vietnamese.

I have provided you with the face sheets of the two brochures presented to 35th Avenue Properties last year, both in English separately now.

Earlier this year, the treasurer of the bid proposed a 5% increase in assessment.

Rep allows only one less than 1% this year.

We are completely unlike the Laurel bid, and we want out.

We do not want to pay over $30,000 to have the dust blown off our sidewalks.

Thank you for your comments, Chair, that concludes all speakers.

Excellent.

Thank you so much, everyone.

This meeting is adjourned.