At Council, 7/7/2026

It’s a pretty packed agenda at Council in what will likely be the second to the last Council meeting before the end of the legislative cycle in late July. Because last Thursday's Rules Committee meeting was cancelled, a few issues will land on the agenda in a state of flux. Those items were placed on the agenda using Rule 28, the rule that allows last minute placements on the agenda with the coordination of Rules Chair and City Administrator.

Non-Consent and Public Hearings

First off there will be the GHAD items. This is an annual co-meeting on the Geologic Hazard Abatement District Board for Leona Quarry, a small assessment zone carried over from an almost now forgotten legislation. The small budget is meant to fund a very narrow set of maintenance processes in the area around the quarry. These items have already been put off once, so they will likely add significant time to the meeting.

There are also a number of statutorily required public hearings:

—2026/2027 Annual Action Plan To The U.S. Department Of Housing And Urban
Development (HUD)

—Delinquent Business Taxes 2026

—Delinquent Real Property Transfer Taxes Assessment Of Liens

—Mandatory Delinquent Trash Fees 2025-2026

—General Plan Update Phase 2: Draft Land Use Framework (Draft Framework)

Also on Non-Consent

Temporarily Restricted Street Closure Off International Blvd

CM Wang’s resolution that would close several streets below 12th ave is technically a public hearing, but would also have ended up in non-consent, regardless. The City has used traffic barriers to circumvent traffic after heavier policing drove sex traffic off of International avenue and into residential areas blocks above it in the San Antonio neighborhood. Those traffic diversions are what drove the traffic further into Wang’s district in the first place, an irony pointed out by several commenters at committee.

Two items requested by CM Houston on EAP:

—the list of City properties available for potential homelessness interventions. Most of the sites that are usable as interim interventions have either been used already, used and abandoned due to costs or requiring significant investments.

—a report back on the operations of the new EAP, including hierarchy charts and actions. The EAP was put on hold for 90 days when it was passed, and its not clear if the included chart on actions to date includes actions under the previous legal regime.

Mayor’s appointment of Elizabeth Lake as Interim City Adminsitrator

One of the items that was still pretty controversial as of last Thursday when Rules was cancelled. During that meeting, CM Kevin Jenkins implied that he would hold the item at Rules to force the appointment of another individual to the role, using an upcoming financial deadline as leverage. But whatever happened on that issue, it appears Lake is still the Mayor’s appointee. Like the other Rule 28 items, it requires a ⅔ majority vote to hear it, and its possible that there could still be some leverage there for Jenkins and his partner in the endeavor, Ramachandran, but it seems not very likely.

Wang’s Foreclosure Tax Ballot Measure

also comes to the agenda a bit hot, owing to the cancellation of the last Rules meeting where several CMs said they would make their final decision about the legislation. At the previous Rules meeting, Ramachandran said she had several reservations. And Jenkins made his intention clear to downvote it if it got to Council. Fife also voted no for moving it forward for another round at Rules.

Consent

Reaffirming Sanctuary City Policy

Surprisingly, an item that should by any metric have landed on Non-Consent is on the Consent calendar, Wang’s legislation that essentially consolidates existing iterations of the Sanctuary policy with additions of Mayor Lee’s executive orders barring the use of city facilities and participation in immigration-specific actions. The legislation would continue the Sanctuary policies of denying direct support for federal immigration enforcement—but OPD would still be involved in indirect support and crowd control for them. Other issues that many have tried to agendize–such as OPD’s protocols when during acts of federal officer violence–failed to make it to the legislation.

The item had much support at the Public Safety Committee, but the meeting devolved into a bizarre back and forth when Ken Houston demanded unspecified changes to the legislation and threatened to deny quorum to the meeting to get them.

The item now appears with new “whereas” clauses that note contributions of Black Oakland residents, but no resolved clauses that would add extra protection from federal harassment and arrest for Black Oakland residents. It’s not clear if including the latter was Houston’s goal, however.

Also on Consent:

—Eminent Domain Settlement for New Firehouse

—Costco ENA

—BID Annual Reports and Approval of Assessment Payments

—Certification of June Election Results

—Council President Jenkins’ request to hear the AC Transit Budget and Service Update

—Setting the election date for November