OO's Committee and Council meeting previews got off track over the past month, mostly due to primacy of reporting on the mid-cycle budget and the "strong mayor" ballot measure. It's back for the rest of the 2026 term, hopefully, but will be scaling in-depth analysis back to only the most important or controversial items.
Finance Committee
—Human Resources is seeking to create the position of Employee Labor Relations Analyst. They say the new position will not be union-represented and will thus have no conflicts of interest.
—Council Member, City Attorney and City Auditor Salary Increases. The Public Ethics Commission is recommending salary increases for these positions, as they must according to law. For City Attorney and City Auditor, the increases keep a 15% buffer between staff at the agencies and the director. For City Council, salary increases are proposed every two years based on CPI. This period’s recommended increase is 5%. CMs can decline the raise.
Public Works and Transportation Committee
Five separate contracts for construction, purchase, and disposal worth from 500K to 20 MM.
Community and Economic Development Committee
–The Costco ENA would start what could still be a long path to potentially establishing a Costco on the Oakland Army Base, after development agreements with California Waste Solutions and CASS have fallen through.
—Sale of 319 Chester St. Legislation that seeks to stabilize a former City investment in an affordable housing purchasing project. The City engaged a sale agreement of a property to a local organization, which then was unable to meet the project parameters for over a decade. The project would now become an affordable housing project on a very small scale with an additional 1 MM loan from the City’s Measure U program.
Public Safety Committee
It’s a Wang show this evening:
–CM Wang is proposing yet another CPTED intervention along Oakland’s ever-shifting sex trafficking International corridor. This one would block off several street access points to International.
—CM Wang is proposing amending the City’s standing sideshow ordinance in ways she argues will make it more effective–it includes increasing the impound period, including dirty bikes and ATVs. Wang also says her ordinance will exclude media and viewers, but the current legislation already excludes geographic proximity alone to a sideshow as the basis for pursuing any of the penalties or enforcement on organizing a sideshow.
—CM Wang and Gallo also bring a new Sanctuary Policy ordinance they say will consolidate all of Oakland’s disparate lawmaking on federal immigration immigration. It’s not clear if the legislation would substantially change the City and OPD’s procedures through the Sanctuary Ordinance and a Mayoral Executive Order on dealing with immigration enforcement. For example, a prohibition on supporting ICE operations, would still allow the OPD to initiate crowd and traffic control around the operation while barring OPD from interfering in the operation in any way.
–CM Wang has also requested a report on the progress to hire a Chief. Several weeks ago, a slate of candidate was submitted to the Mayor from the Oakland Police Commission and now the decision is Mayor Barbara Lee’s. The process is on the mark of the proposed timeline, and the presentation appears to be the same one given to the OPC several weeks ago.
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