At Committees This Week, 7/14/2026

Pressed for time on this preview, unfortunately, so I will keep it to the items of most importance tomorrow. I’ll observe all of the meetings [except for Life Enrichment] tomorrow and will have live reports.

Community and Economic Development Committee

Seminary Point Loan Forgiveness, Line of Credit Forgiveness, Rent Forgiveness

Those terms may seem like eye-popping gifts to Sunfield Properties, the current leaseholder of City-owned Seminary Point, but they don’t actually cover the entire sheaf of forgiveness actions the city is proposing for the property’s leaseholder, non-Oakland resident Siavash Afshar. Afshar’s companies, Athena MT and Sunfield, have never paid any rent to the City over the 10 year old development. The project was exempted from rent payments for the first seven years of the contract and has only been required to pay rent since 2023, but Afshar has not paid any of the required and extremely generous $1K/month rent. Sunfield owes $40K in rent, and that too would be forgiven. The City argues that all of the forgiveness is necessary to create a clean slate for the leasehold so that Afshar can sell his lease and get the site out from under the mounting problems.

Afshar entered into a Lease Disposition and Development Agreement with the City for the property that became Seminary Point in 2016, with extremely generous terms. The City offered Afshar’s companies a $2 MM low interest loan and a $1.5 MM line of credit to leverage another loan from Silicon Valley Bank. The city loan, carried by another Afshar company, Athena, was meant to be paid off from the Seminary Point’s profits after operating expenses and debt services [to other loan carriers]. Sunfield did so poorly, apparently, that left nothing over to service the city’s loan.

Walgreens, locally owned restaurant Sweet Fingers, a coffee shop and a local WIC service center, among others, have all been located at the site over the years, one of the only shopping centers in that area of East Oakland. Walgreens, one of the main anchor tenants, has closed that location as it did hundreds across the country in a downsizing move. The site has visibly become emptier over the past two years. Sweet Fingers left Seminary Point several months ago and transitioned to a downtown location. Before departing, the restaurant's co-owner launched into a scathing critique of Sunfield's operations at City Council.

The Economic and Workforce Development report for the item suggests that difficulties during Covid left Sunfield unable to effectively run the property. EWD suggests that the only remaining option for Sunfield is to sell the leasehold and allow another company to take it over. Forgiving the loan, line of credit and rent debt is the only way to provide a clean leasehold for a competitive sale to another entity. The report argues that if Afshar is unable to sell the property, the city will be unable to recoup any funds anyway, and the site will continue to slip into disrepair and lose tenants. Any leasehold purchasing entity would assume the City’s existing lease terms.

The debt and line of credit forgiveness, along with interest, equals about $4.75 MM, accrued rent is $40K.

Public Safety Committee

OPD Block Annual Surveillance Equipment Report Contains Request for Expansion of Flock Allowable Search Terms for Database

A legally required OPD annual surveillance report contains a request for a significant change in the number and types of search terms that OPD would allow to be used in its Flock database portal. The report is one of several that must come before Council annually for approval and are usually presented in a block master report under the Surveillance ordinance. The Surveillance Ordinance allows OPD to request a change in the authorized use policy for the Flock ALPR system within the report.

The change OPD requests is as follows:

“OPD has drafted an amended Use Policy for ALPR (attachment B). The OPD Use Policy is documented under Departmental General Order (DGO) I-12. I-12 has been amended to expand the allowable uses to better align with the council's directive towards I-32.1 which was documented in Oakland City Council Resolution 91008 C.M.S.

The primary changes to DGO I-12 include:

1. A comprehensive list of allowable search reasons within the ALPR system to include illegal dumping.
2. Specific prohibitions of the use of OPD ALPR data for gender affirming, reproductive health, and immigration related activities.
3. Implementation of a two-key approval process for new sharing agreements with outside agencies to allow access to OPD ALPR Data.
4. Amended Sharing Agreement Form, which affirms the above as well as requires outside agencies to affirm that they will comply with OPD Policy for searches as well as SB 34 and SB 54. This document has been produced in conjunction with the City Attorney’s Office.

The major change to the legislation would be a significant expansion of listed allowable search terms, from a handful of detailed uses focused on serious crimes or missing persons searches, to a much longer list that includes some terms that are not criminal and several that are not serious crimes, with an attached appendix:

• Animal Offenses (cruelty/neglect)
• Arson
• Assault/Battery Offenses
• Assault/Battery Offenses (Domestic)
• Burglary/Breaking & Entering
• Child Abuse/Neglect
• Criminal Motor Vehicle Offense (incl. Road Rage/Reckless)
• Destruction/Damage/Vandalism of Property
• Driving Under the Influence (DUI/DWI/OWI/OVI)
• Drugs/Narcotics
• Hit and Run/Car Accident
• Homicide/Death Investigation
• Human Trafficking
• Illegal Dumping/Littering
• Indecent Exposure/Lewd
• Kidnapping/Abduction
• Larceny/Theft Offenses
• Material Witness
• Missing/Endangered Person/Runaway
• Motor Vehicle Theft/Stolen
• Obstructing the Police (Fleeing/Eluding)
• Pornography/Obscene Material
• Property Recovery (Civil Enforcement)
• Prostitution
• Robbery
• Sex Offenses
• Stalking
• Stolen Property Offenses
• Terrorism/Terroristic Threats
• Threats/Harassment
• Wanted Person (Arrest Warrant/Fugitive)
• Weapons Offense (Guns/Shots Fired)
• Welfare Check

The report has already been reviewed and positively forwarded to the Council by the Privacy Advisory Commission, which had a very cursory discussion about the changes. The OPD report argues that the changes were mandated by the City Council resolution that approved a transition to an Oakland-based contract with Flock—that is in keeping with Lt. Gabriel Urquiza’s verbal characterization of the changes at the PAC as involving only an expansion for use in illegal dumping investigations. But the changes obviously go much further.

During his presentation to the PAC, Urquiza appeared to imply that the search terms are already being used and had trouble explaining why certain terms were being used. At one point, Commissioner Henry Gage III asked Urquiza why “terrorism” is included in “terroristic threats”. Urquiza suggested that other agencies still use the term “terroristic threats” for statute of criminal threat of violence, but could not explain why the word “terrorism” appears in the same line as an option.

The report will be heard as more and more jurisdictions have jettisoned Flock after security concerns, inability to control searches from network partners, and dishonest claims from Flock.

Over the weekend, it was widely reported that LAPD will not renew Flock’s contract after several issues with the company and its technology—but that outcome could only be a temporary pause. This month, two of five ALCO Supervisors declined to vote to renew the ALCO Sheriff’s Flock contract after the ACSO revealed it suffered from a state-wide security protocol breach that allowed another agency to search for undocumented persons.

At the meeting, Sheriff Yesenia Perez confirmed that ACSO had locked that agency and others, such as LAPD, out of its sharing network. Notably, Urquiza specifically singled out LAPD as a barometer for the potentials for misuse of Flock, and told CMs that they had been reassured by LAPD’s safe use of the system. At a PAC meeting in early July, Urquiza told commissioners that OPD had locked NCRIC out of its sharing network in late 2025 after noticing a failure to hew to state law.

Despite authorization by Council to execute a contract with Flock, it appears that as of May, Flock had not done so. Repeated attempts to confirm the status of the contract by this publication have not been answered since June.