As election results continue to trickle in, Council returns to session after a week off due to the election. Here are some things to look at out for. The items here on the Consent Calendar aren't likely to be discussed at all, although Council members could pull any one of them for discussion.
On Consent:
Contract Amendment For Owner Representation At RAP Proceedings
One of Loren Taylor’s last acts on Council was to temporarily sideline a tenant Rent Adjustment Program hearing support grant with Centro Legal de la Raza so that an expanded set of landlord hearing support could be added by HCD. The CLDLR grant passed, but after Taylor left Council, the landlord grant idea came back to Council, with definitions of the property owners that could qualify for aid, those who owned 8 or fewer total units and made less than $100% of the area median in total salary [Taylor originally proposed conditioning aid on earning less than 100K from the units, not total income and the income derived only from units in Oakland]. The grant was eventually awarded to East Bay Rental Housing Association [EBRHA], whose Director, Chris Moore is now a political partner for Taylor in several organizational projects, including the one to recall the Mayor. The $150K year-long grant was awarded in mid-2023 and expired August 31,2024.
According to an accompanying legislative report, 423 RAP rent adjustment petitions were filed by landlords and tenants—but EBRHA provided help to only 16 landlords—and only 4 in hearings—apparently because no others met the requirements for aid. Thus, the contract still has an unspent $53K in funding.
Now the contract is coming back for another year’s approval. It will be up to Council to agree how to proceed—the report recommends extending the contract for another year to allow the expenditure of the unused funds or seeking another provider. EBRHA was the only provider that responded to the request for proposals initially last year.
The report has other interesting information. EBRHA was required to conduct a census of its served population, but didn’t. Instead, EBRHA offered a standing census it has for all property owners in Oakland—80% of which refused to specify their race.
Corridor Safety Ambassador Grants
During the contentious budgeting of June and July 2024, CMs Janani Ramachandran, Treva Reid and Noel Gallo took what they claimed were principled stands against Mayor Sheng Thao’s budget, arguing it spent money that the City doesn’t have, based on a precarious Coliseum deal. But during the negotiations, the three CMs also proposed and fought for a $900K expenditure addition of their own that was only possible in Thao’s budget, not the budget they still claim to have favored.
Thao's administration had only proposed funds for a limited safety ambassador program in Jack London Square and the downtown area, and, with budget dollars scarce, offered no others. Ramachandran made winning the funds a central part of her public persona for several months in the lead up to the budget, going as far as scheduling a ceremonial item honoring the Laurel Business District Centenary Anniversary where all the business owners appeared intent on talking only about high crime in the area, not the honorific.
Last night CM Ramachandran brought forth an item honoring Oakland's Laurel District on 125th anniversary. But recipients on the dais were business owners, who, in a quest to influence CMs to fund ambassadors, made Laurel sound awful. Nina Moore of E&J sounded only positive note pic.twitter.com/sFf4nbi7zu
— Jaime Omar Yassin (@hyphy_republic) June 13, 2024
Eventually Dan Kalb provided the bridge to the amendment during a last minute huddle in the July meeting, proposing a cut to the self-insurance fund, and city administrator departmental and other funds, that freed up the $900K for ambassador programs for the Laurel, Fruitvale and Hegenberger Corridor in each of the districts of the CMs.
Now, the grants themselves are coming before Council for approval, a total of 1.5 MM including the original proposal expenditure. The grants come at a time when the City is contemplating significant budget cuts while funding from the AASEG deal is stalled due to County foot-dragging.
Amendment to the Operation Dignity Service Agreement Adds "Clinical Care Team" with Additional $200K of Measure Q Funds
The legislation would increase Operation Dignity’s current contract to add $200K for a "Clinical Care Team". The CCT would consist of three caregivers and outreach specialists, and would be funded with $200K from Measure Q. The contract is currently funded with Measure Q and state Homeless Housing, Assistance and Prevention [HHAP] funds.
Extended Stay Purchase for Supportive Housing with $7MM Encampment Resolution Fund Grant
The City has found a target building for its troubled state Encampment Resolution Fund [ERF] grant. The state grant originally granted $7.2 MM, which the City told state funders it would use to purchase of the Jack London Inn [JLI] as a shelter program for residents of the MLK/Grand area homelessness during an upcoming eviction. Housing Consortium of the East Bay [HCEB] was the original third party provider/recipient of funds. But the site never materialized.
JLI was also designated to relocate Lake Merrit Lodge residents, confusingly, via legislative directive earlier in the year. Later, there were protests by local businesses about the intended use of the JLI—but the deal fell apart instead in negotiations with the owner, according to several sources. Since then, the City has found a new location for Lake Merritt Lodge residents, and now has its sights set on the Emeryville border-located Extended Stay America site, which can house 150 residents. The site would still cost around the same amount.
Some changes to the original proposal: adding Memar Properties, a Berkeley based affordable housing developer to the legislation, as a HCEB partner. And the option to provide the funds in the form of a 55-year loan or a straight grant. An additional $5.5MM would be provided to HCEB to run the program—that funding also comes from non Oakland sources. The programming funding includes $4.8MM from the Permanent Local Housing Allocation program, a state managed fund derived from a real estate based fee. Another half million comes from California Opioid Settlement funds.
Non-Consent Calendar:
No-Smoking Ordinance
Kalb’s proposal would extend Oakland’s anti-smoking ordinance to ban smoking and vaping inside multi-unit buildings and in the patio areas of bars, where its currently allowed. The changes would allow the smoking of cannabis, however—at the CED meeting there was some pushback on the exclusion.
Ordinance Modifying Maximum BID Term from 10 Years To 20 Year
The proposal would increase the allowable Business Improvement District [BID] term to 20 years from 10, with argument that it allows greater stability and planning. But BID’s would still have to change their own policies allowing the longer terms to take advantage of the change. The Rockridge and Montclair BID annual reports and regular process for levying the yearly BID assessment is also on the agenda in other legislative items.
Responses to 2023-2024 Alameda County Civil Grand Jury Report on Becker Billboard Contract & OPD Technology Practices
City Council President Bas and the Mayor’s Office of Sheng Thao present the required rebuttal to the Grand Jury report on a billboard deal with Becker Boards and OutFront Foster Interstate [OFI] earlier this year. The rebuttal corrects some errors in the Grand Jury report. Although the report claimed that Community and Economic Development Committee member Noel Gallo had conflicts of interest in the negotiations on awarding the multi-decade contract to Becker/OFI, that’s not the case by Oakland’s own conflicts legislation. The report also takes issue with the description that the deal occurred out of the public view.
This publication reported on the deal, and noted that the the CED committee members appeared more disposed to the Becker/OFI deal from the outset. Becker cultivated relationships with local non-profit organizations and presented a deal with a community benefits package that would have the funding going to local non-profit groups as a guaranteed public subsidy from the licensing profits. During the public presentations, CED allowed Becker/OFI a long editorial presentation critiquing the competing Clear Channel deal in often bombastic rhetoric. Though Council members placed the basis of the critique in the legislative packet several days earlier, the Economic and Workforce Development Department [EWD] had little time to study it and was not prepared to rebut any of the claims and the CED committee forwarded the item to the full Council unanimously. Council members passed the contract with little discussion when the item came to Council, and with few amendments from CM Dan Kalb, when it was introduced–but importantly declining to address the EWD’s rebuttal report.
Some of the Grand Jury’s critiques land afield of Oakland's rules, practices and laws, according to Bas—the contract process was completed in full view of the public, there was substantial public input. Though the appearance of Gallo’s conflict exists, it’s not against the City’s rules on conflicts of interest, and the Council and other legislative bodies often introduce legislation based on significant input from third party stakeholders [with the Building Trades’ most recent Measure U PLA a significant example.]
But the Bas/Mayoral report does accept the potential to change Council practices on accepting lobbyist content into legislative proposals, and the presence of family ties that may not initially trigger City laws on conflicts of interest.
The OPD and City Administrator also has a response to the Grand Jury report on OPD’s lack of technological planning. The report itself, according to review by this publication has several fatal flaws that hint at the need to view Grand Jury findings skeptically in general going forward. For example, the report’s timeline and understanding of the process that replaced the OPD’s standing ALPR platform with a Flock system is factually incorrect, though the City does not contest it. And the report shows a misunderstanding of the concept of ALPR itself and how it is used by police in standard operating procedures.
But the OPD agrees with the report’s findings that the department should create a written policy for responding and using its ALPR and Shotspotter technologies and create a more coherent technology management system along with the City’s Information Technology department.
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