Due to the elections Tuesday, the meeting was rescheduled as a special meeting for Monday.
—City Administrator Gives Cautious Support for Bringing Measure U Bonds to Market in Fall in Council Report
Council, OakDOT and Housing and Community Development have been anxious to receive news about whether or not the City Administrator’s Office will take Measure U bonds to market. Measure U, affirmed by a large majority of voters in 2022, promised to use parcel taxes to secure $850 MM in bonds and bring in $85 MM annually in revenue to infrastructure and affordable housing projects. Today at Council they are likely to hear mostly positive guidance around selling the bonds.
Although Measure U bonds were sold in 2023, City Administrator Jestin Johnson cancelled a scheduled selling of the bonds in Fall 2024 on the advice of Finance Director Erin Roseman due to the lowering of Oakland's bond rating. That decision was unilateral, but Council had already agreed to remove Measure U funding from the OakDOT and HCD budgets for the fiscal year in a late 2024 contingency budget amendment. Nevertheless, in December Council provided direction to the City Administrator's Office to sell the bonds in the coming calendar year that appears to have gone unheeded.
With no Measure U bond funds in the budget, OakDOT has had to put the brakes on its continued paving and pedestrian, bicycling and vehicle infrastructure. And HCD is warning that current affordable housing projects could lose grants they applied for with the promise of Measure U funds as leverage—and that HCD’s funding guarantees could lose credibility with state agencies going forward. Both city agencies, and a majority of CMs, want the bonds to go to market in calendar year 2025.
In the report requested by Council, the City Administrator recommends waiting until 2026, after the City’s audited budget report for fiscal year 2024-25 has been approved by Council late this year. Johnson argues that the additional due diligence will have an effect on the bond sales and on the rate at which parcel taxes are paid and that an accounting of the City’s current finances and long-term outlook is required by law to issue the bonds, regardless.
But the City Administrator also suggests that the City could move faster, with potentially negligible downsides, issuing the bonds by Fall after a specially prepared Official Statement of the City's financial conditions and long-term outlook. At a previous meeting D1 CM Zac Unger said that in his conversations with a third party bonds analyst, at worst Oakland taxpayers might pay an additional “five to seven dollars a year” by moving more quickly. The item is up for discussion at Monday’s special meeting.
—First Members of Measure NN Oversight Commission Appointed
On Monday, Council members will be asked to ratify the appointments of the first resident Commissioners on the new Measure NN oversight committee, Oakland Public Safety Planning And Oversight Commission [PSPOC]. The PSPOC is the successor of a similar committee empowered by Measures Z and Y, its forerunners. The appointees are an eclectic group, though only one of the five lives in East Oakland:
Billie Dixon: A pastor and long-time Ceasefire participant.
Julia Owens: A mental health care provider who specializes on the criminal justice system-involved.
Yoana Tchoukleva: An attorney, activist and restorative justice advocate who was centrally involved in the movement to pass anti-genocide declarations at City of Oakland and Alameda County Board of Supervisors meetings. She is a former ALCO Democratic Central Committee Member
Eric Karsseboom: Karsseboom, a former OPD officer, achieved some level of notoriety by being at the center of a criminal trial that revealed the OPD was using Stingray technology to surveil cellphone users, after Karsseboom was shot by a suspect. Karsseboom is currently an investigator under SF DA Brooke Jenkins.
Robert Nichelini: Nichelini is a former Oakland police officer and Vallejo Police Chief and attorney. Nichelini has two sons that are worth noting in regard to this role. One of his sons is an OFD Assistant Chief, and the other is Vallejo’s police officer’s union President. Michael Nicheleni’s was previously fired from Vallejo PD for alleged threats to a Chronicle columnist, as well as an incident where he posted an item on social media that bears a swastika-like image. But he prevailed in arbitration and got his job back, represented by Rains, Lucia, the same firm that represents the OPOA. Now Michael is suing the City of Vallejo, claiming that the City used the discipline as a pretext to remove his opposition to police reforms.
—City, County Say Removing Coliseum Sale June 30 Partial Payment Deadline Unites Parties, Furthers Goal of Closing Coliseum Deal
City Council will consider removing a key portion of the legislation that committed the City’s sale of its 50% share of the Coliseum to African American Sports and Entertainment Group [AASEG] at a Special Meeting on Monday. The legislative amendment would remove a June 30, 2025 due date for partial payment of funds from the AASEG/Loop Capital LLC, Oakland Coliseum Acquisition [OAC], to the City. The Council voted to pass the deal last June, with a minimum payment in the 2024-25 fiscal year. As the legislation currently stands, AASEG/OAC would have paid at least $60 MM to the City this fiscal year ending June 30, toward the sale.
The move adds another confusing turn to a deal that most parties predicted would be complete on both County and City side by late last year. But in the meantime, AASEG/OCA and the A’s themselves have run into several hurdles in negotiating the reassignment of the Development Agreement necessary to close the deal and buy the County’s portion of the Coliseum site.
The delays at the County level prompted the City and AASEG/OAC to renegotiate their contract last year—with the sale price increasing and due date changing last. The new contract required a $5 MM deposit, and then a $10 MM down payment by February, with the entire remaining $95 MM paid by the end of May. AASEG/OAC has paid the $5 MM deposit, but due to the ongoing hold-ups at the County level, has withheld the $10 MM. The new legislation reflects the mutually accepted reality that the County deal will not likely be closed in time to make any payments by the end of the fiscal year, June 30.
The increasingly lengthy negotiating period with the County to take over the County's development agreement is a stark shift from the deal originally offered by the county to John Fisher’s A’s. The Fisher deal glided easily through the process with almost no requirements from the County, nor retention of leverage for the City or County while Oakland continued negotiations on the Howard Terminal stadium development.
Despite the change in the terms of the contract last October, full payment by the end of May would have satisfied the legal requirements of the resolution, because AASEG's last payment was meant to have occurred by June and was well over $60 MM. But with the deal dragging on at the County level, the language of the resolution would have required AASEG/OAC to pay at least $60 MM of the total amount by June 30, even as it remained in default under the current contract for the entire amount.
For reasons that have not been made public to any real degree, the County and AASEG remain stuck in a negotiating holding pattern. The set of conditions have only vaguely been made public, but it remains clear they were not conditions Fisher’s deal was held to.
The updated terms may be a product of the addition of Supervisors David Haubert and Nate Miley observing—though not participating—in the closed door County negotiations. In an initial statement, a member of Jenkins’ staff said that the move to remove the payment requirement is at the request of Haubert and Miley on behalf of the Board of Supervisors [BOS].
The BOS appears to be asking for a timeline that could last all the way up to the defeasement of the County’s bonds in February 2026 to reflect the “complexity” of the deal and need for “flexibility”, though the Supervisors say the deal could still be completed in this calendar year. The City’s bond was defeased in February and is currently closing the process,but AASEG/OCA are seeking an early defeasement of the County’s bonds before their scheduled closure in February 2026.
In his own statements, Jenkins described the changes as a request from Haubert to “work together with the county to close the deal".
“And so [Haubert’s] asked that we extend this through the Purchase and Sale Agreement to align with the county, so that we can get to a place where we can close at the same time…and this will be an alignment with the defeasements of the bonds at the Coliseum in 2026—I know the public is anxious for us to show something with this deal, and I think this is a step in the positive direction,” Jenkins said.
A statement read by Jenkins’ staffer before he spoke also suggested he believes the deal “could close much sooner”.
CM Carroll Fife, who works with Haubert on the Alameda County Transportation Commission, noted the County’s desire to work more closely with the City on the deal. But Fife also stressed that the item could be an opportunity for a County official to come to Monday's meeting and update the public.
“...potentially [we could] have someone from the county come to the meeting at that time so [the public ] can hear directly from the county on where they are with this process. I think that's critical. So the public has all of the information and is up to speed, and gets the council up to speed as well,” Fife said.
The removal of the language will also remove the sale completely from any defined budgetary role.
Amending Local Election Law on Non-State-Consolidated Elections
State laws governing the City’s declaration and certification of a non-state consolidated election conflict with state law governing the Registrar’s process. Under current state law, the City Council would be required to certify the election by the fourth Friday after the election. But the Registrar under state law has 30 days to certify the results—longer than this deadline. Retooling an existing ordinance would align the two timelines, with the Council certifying the vote at the next regularly scheduled meeting or special meeting for the purpose.
Also:
—Oakland Ballers Lease Extension
—Summer Youth Employment Contracts
—Laurel business improvement district renewal
As Election Day Nears, Extremely Low Number of Mail-In Returned Ballots
The Alameda County Registrar shows a very low number of returned Oakland mail-in ballots by Monday, April 14, one day before the ballots must be handed in. Only D4 is anywhere near the scale of a typical turnout, but the number of returned votes city-wide suggest that the nature of the off-schedule elections have hindered turnout—and exacerbated the flatlands political divide. D5 and D3 have the lowest returns, followed by D7. By comparison, the combined turnout in D1, D2 and D4 is nearly double of D3, D5, D6 and D7 combined. Ballots can be returned by mail with postmark of April 15, or in ballot security boxes throughout the city.
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