OO will be live reporting committees on Tuesday, these are the highlights, and most critical items the public should be aware of going into the meetings, but by no means exhaustive list.
Community and Economic Development Committee
—Fife’s Direction to Begin to Negotiate Terms for a Future ENA with Costco at the City-owned Oakland Army Base
CM Carroll Fife proposes very preliminary negotiations between the City and Costco and developer DECA to explore the potential construction of a Costco at the Oakland Army Base. Previously, Fife had suggested creating an interim housing site for homeless there while California Waste Solutions completed its proposed processing center there, but now appears to be leaving the idea behind as unfeasible due to the long process of identifying and remediating toxics at the site. The opportunity to use the site for Costco comes after the City terminated its development agreement with California Waste Solutions in the wake of failures on the part of CWA to live up to its agreement in early 2025, while it pursued more favorable terms. The latter was also implicated as a potential goal in the Duong family's alleged bribery scheme.
—Fire Code Amendments
Though the OFD claims these are minor amendments, traffic, bike and pedestrian advocates warn that the changes will lead to wider streets, increasing accidents, injuries and fatalities and ironically increasing the OFD’s work load
Public Safety Committee
—State COPS Grants
Two back to back COPS Grants equaling about $1.3 MM include about $500K for helicopter maintenance but no mention of the Fixed Wing Aircraft that would ostensibly be replacing OPD's helicopters next year per a previous timeline. Now an open question if that will happen—the idea was floated because Oakland spends close to $1MM per year on helicopter maintenance for its over 30 year old helicopters and says it can’t afford to buy new ones, given a prohibitive cost of $5 MM. The funds would also be used to buy a system to keep track of OPD’s militarized hardware to keep up with city and state law requirements and a computer upgrade for the OPD as a whole.
—OPD Annual Surveillance Technology Report
The OPD's mandated surveillance technology reports were presented, with significant alarm, to the Privacy Advisory Commission earlier this year. The ALPR report notes the OPD records about 47 million license plates per year, out of which only a small fraction of 60K have an alleged relationship to criminal activities, about .1%. The report was written before local media uncovered significant issues with the way OPD shares its data with outside police departments, including potential sharing with federal agencies, which is banned by state and local law. But only the initial randomized audit presented to the PAC is included, not the more robust release of all the data that was made available through a public records request.
—Lind Marine Contract
It’s hard to tell what this contract legislation is really intended to do from the legislative report. The legislation itself does two things: awards a contract for $1.4 MM to Lind for removal of sunken, abandoned and derelict boats; and two, waives competitive bidding in favor of the contract with Lind. Without much evidence, OPD argues that Lind is the only company that can do the work, while noting that other area companies indeed do similar work. The rationale for urgency and lack of typical procurement process is that the SF Bay Conservation and Development Commission could fine Oakland 6K per day under the exigencies of current law if it doesn't abate derelict boats. Oakland has been threatened with that 6K fine previously, when it pursued a closure of an encampment at Union Point Park. But BCDC does not appear to have agendized any such enforcement in any commission meeting going back to September—the claim seems to rely on the fact that BCDC COULD fine Oakland, though it hasn’t in over a decade of the persistent issue of abandoned vessels. Previously, when BCDC threatened Oakland with action over the Union Point Park issues, it sent a cease and desist order ahead of action and no action was ultimately taken, despite months of delayed action.
In its informational report, the OPD conflates “abandoned and derelict vessels (ADVs)” with live-aboard anchor-outs—that suggests the Lind contract is also meant for Lind to accompany OPD when evicting live-aboard residents under the City’s previously passed Nuisance Vessel Abatement law. And while OPD says that Lind has a long history contracting for Oakland, this would be the first council-passed contract, meaning that if it's true, previous contracting has happened under the CAO’s minimal contracting authority. The contract would be paid with two grants, one from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric administration for estuary clean up, the bulk of the funds. The other funds come from the state's Surrendered and Abandoned Vessel Exchange [SAVE] program.
In a last bit of confusion, Wang, who has seemed dedicated to ensuring that her committee rarely be involved in oversight of OPD contracts, introduced the item on the dais for urgency placement directly on the Council consent calendar under her own sponsorship using Rule 24. Questions about the propriety of that revealed that the item is actually from OPD. It’s a strange twist that makes it appear Wang has a backchannel with OPD on obviating the PSC for legislative items.
Oakland has been successfully sued for towing and destroying live-aboard vessels and giving the owners no time to reclaim boats before destruction, paying $280K settlement to the victims.
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