Council Commitees and ALCO BOS Preview, Week of 11/13/2023

What’s at Council and ALCO BOS This Week

Special Council Meeting to Appoint Police Commission Alternate

The Council must act with urgency to appoint a new alternate Commissioner to the Oakland Police Commission [OPC] to replace Angela Jackson-Castain, the selection panel alternate who was elevated by vote of the Oakland Police Commission at its previous meeting on October 26 to the position of full commissioner. This special meeting was called by CM Dan Kalb, substituting for Rules Chair Nikki Fortunato Bas last Thursday. The meeting will take place Monday, 11/14 at 3:30pm.

The OPC has floundered with the bare minimum Commission for quorum, 5 commissioners, since the resignation of Rudy Howell last month and the subsequent OPC meeting on November 9 was canceled without explanation.

Jackson-Castain, prior to being elevated to the position, applied for the permanent role but was bypassed. During her interview with the Selection Panel in July, Jackson-Castain admitted that she lives in another city [sources say London] for significant time periods. Jackson-Castain became an alternate commissioner during Covid rules for public meetings, which allowed her to use Zoom for all requirements to fulfill quorum.

But in March of this year, the state of California's previous rules that allowed full Zoom attendance for commissioners and council persons were terminated. Jackson-Castain had already missed several meetings after the inception of the new rules, and has missed every Commission meeting since she was bypassed by the selection panel in July. The new rules on using teleconferencing like Zoom, prohibit members of bodies to use Zoom in lieu of in person attendance except in just cause matters such as personal illness or a family member’s illness or emergency—and even those causes are limited in scope. Even if, as an alternate, Jackson-Castain were to be able to Zoom in, she would not be able to replace an in-person absence to make quorum, according to the rules.

Though Jackson-Castain appears to have met the predicate for removal from the body due to repeated absence, the Commission instead chose to elevate her to permanent status, a roundabout way of replacing her as alternate. When an alternate commissioner is permanently elevated, the Selection Panel is charter-mandated to name an alternate commissioner from a pool of reserves from the former selection process. In this case, Ricardo Garcia-Acosta, a current director at CURYJ, was selected. Garcia-Acosta unsuccessfully applied for one of the positions eventually filled by Wilson Riles and Karely Ordaz. The Council’s vote will confirm Garcia-Acosta as an alternate. In its presentation to Council of the need for urgency on the matter, a city staff person stated on the record [with additional prompting from Kalb] that the OPC would not be able to meet quorum at its upcoming meeting, with an NSA requirement on agenda, without the appointment.

City Staff: "in order to remain in compliance with the NSA they need to appoint an alternate police commissioner..."

Kalb: "...in order to have a quorum for this necessary meeting that's coming up in order to meet required deadlines"

City Staff: "yes, sir"

Recall Ballot Measure Legislation Proceeds at ALCO BOS

Proposed legislation to place a ballot measure replacing Alameda County’s charter recall process with state of California recall process arrives for a second reading Tuesday. Along with the second reading of the legislation, an additional version of the legislation is being provided for consideration—this legislation would add BOS appointed officials specifically to the ballot measure language for greater clarity. In its rationale for adding the additional option, the County's Counsel Donna Ziegler offers that County officers could be read to include appointed officers. The original Charter language applies to both elected and appointed officers, as well. Such appointed officers would include any interim District Attorney appointed by the board to replace DA Pamela Price should a recall effort reach the ballot and win. This would be the first reading of the alternate legislation, requiring a subsequent second reading.

There is also an FAQ on the ACgov site on the ballot measure’s impact on the current recall effort. According to the FAQ, the new charter rules would only go into effect after the State has certified the changes, and after the BOS has received the notice that a recall effort has met the bar for proceeding. This means that the current ballot requirement—about 73K—would remain as-is for the current attempt to recall Price. The most likely changes following the passage of a ballot measure altering the recall process would be applying the state’s rules to the scheduling of the election, which would mean the election could occur sooner than November, but not as soon as allowed in the Charter.

Committees Tuesday

Finance 9:30 am, Tuesday

Budget Advisory Commission Evaluation of The City Of Oakland’s Biennial 2023-25 Budget Process

The Budget Advisory Commission’s reports were mostly ignored by Council this year in the lead up to the FY 23-25 budget process, so this feedback report may also receive short shrift. One of the most salient critiques to the budget-making process is that the Council and Mayor added to the deficit by opening up the OPOA contract early and adding raises and benefits for years to come—without public input or notice.

Grant Agreements to Non Profit Organizations Specified in Budget

Council will direct the $1.4 MM in funding allocated in the FY 23-25 budget to non-profit organizations, including Centro Legal De La Raza, Conservation Society Of California, the Vietnamese American Community Center Of The East Bay and others.

Informational Report On All Emergency Purchases And Contracts Authorized By The City Administrator, During Fiscal Year 2022-23

Council approved several areas of emergency spending this year, but the City Administrator can exceed the normal 250K limit on purchases without Council authorization when the OCA deems an issue to be an emergency. The OCA must present a report of the expenditures to Council. The report includes a snapshot of the aftermath of Oakland’s ransomware attack in February with some line items that will likely bear more discussion during the meeting, including the rebuilding of a vaguely described OPD CCTV system. The OCA spent $9.5 MM in FY22-23—almost half of that was expenditures related to amplifying existing city homelessness interventions to accommodate those fleeing the eviction and demolition of Wood St encampment, another issue that will likely prompt discussion.

Also:

Resolution Approving Additional $19 MM in City Administrator contracts for the Public Works department, in addition to nearly 100 MM already approved in spending.

Public Works 11:30am, Tuesday

Addition Of Docked Electric Bicycles To Lyft Bike Share contract

The new amended contract with Lyft would add 510 docked electric bicycles [e-bikes] and 19 new bike share stations and accept a $150K Metropolitan Transport Authority grant for staff overhead for the expansion. The existing contract for Lyft bikeshare requires that 20% of the shares be placed in “communities of concern", but neither the report, nor legislation contain information about where the share stations will be placed. Lyft's provision of the e-bikes will be subsidized by a $1 MM grant from the state's Clean Mobility Options Voucher Program [see correction below]

Though Lyft will be the purveyor of E-bikes, Grid Alternatives, a 501c3 alternative energy company was initially intended to provide Oakland’s e-bikeshare program. Grid has been replaced by Lyft without further explanation. According to minutes from a recent Oakland Bicycle and Pedestrian Advisory Commission [BPAC] meeting, Lyft may not place any bikes east of Fruitvale. As such, BPAC voted to issue a statement that the body “does not support the current status of the Oakland E-Bike Lending Pilot Program” due to the lack of equity access.

[Correction: text in parenthesis above incorrectly drew a link between the Lyft e-bike expansion and another e-bike pilot program in East Oakland for which a $1 MM state grant has been allocated. Lyft's program expansion is wholly different from this program; however the same issues of access remain. Lyft has no current plans to place e-bike stations in East Oakland, although that could change. The Bicycle and Pedestrian Advisory Commission's Robert Prinz criticized the program's scope at the Community and Economic Development Committee meeting Tuesday on it's issues providing regular bikes, and presumably, e-bikes, east of High St. As always, OO strives to be as accurate as possible, and will always correct errors promptly as they are identified.]

After Nearly a Decade, $296K Remediation Contract for City of Oakland Owned Parcel Shedding PCB’s into Creek

A parcel the City of Oakland acquired from Honeywell International and Purex nearly 20 years ago—and previously remediated by the companies—was discovered to be bleeding PCBs into San Antonio Creek by the state Department of Toxic Substances Control [DTSC] in 2015. But after the City of Oakland awarded a contract to Pacific States Environmental Contractors [PSEC] in 2018 to remediate the ground soil, the DTSC dropped the ball for several years. Now, the City is finally getting around to remediating the site, adjacent to the Coliseum and across the street from the Coliseum BART station, nearly ten years after the DTSC findings. The previous contract to PSEC has to be increased to add additional scope of work, from $229K to $296K.

Community and Economic Development Committee

The Rent Adjustment Program is requesting an extension for the 2024 deadline to the new Rent Registry program from March to June, 2024. RAP says it needs time for more outreach, noting that only a little more than 50% of landlords have so far registered with the registry by the 2023 deadline. RAP says it also has staff vacancies and problems maintaining temporary staff due to civil service restrictions, and an unexpected number of paper registrations that require more time to input.

RAP is also requesting changes in Oakland’s rent laws and rules for RAP, including changing a limitation that tenants must be up to date on rent before filing a petition with RAP against landlords. RAP says that it's the only rent control body that has such a limitation and that RAP does not cover a tenant’s payment of rent, and so therefore, should not adjudicate such a matter. The updates also include an extension of the restitution period for decreased housing services from 90 days to three years, giving tenants the right to contest certificates of exemption. There’s also changes to RAP’s hearing processes. All of the changes can be found here.

Also

Ordinance allowing cannabis equity loans to be converted to grants, and removing limitations on special event permits involving cannabis-related events.

Life Enrichment, 4pm, Tuesday

Authorization for Oakland Head Start to apply for over 7 MM in state funds

Public Safety [Cancelled]