Council Rules Committee Accepts Slim Excuse for Last Minute Scheduling to an Agenda the Council President Had Already Labelled Too Impacted for Even One More Item
Significant legislation affecting Oakland’s tax base, fire code, campaign finance rules and legislative process were already spilling over the top of Council’s agenda for the last meeting of the year when the Rules Committee voted to add OPD’s request for a massively expanded Flock contract on Thursday. Though the Flock contract legislation is a new legislative item, it's a virtual legislative photocopy of the original proposal that was stalemated at a previous Public Safety Committee meeting. At the December 2nd Council meeting, Jenkins told the other CMs that the 12/16 meeting would already be so so impacted it warranted suspending Council's rules of procedure to keep even one more item off of it [by hearing that item with little notice in the current session].
Dr. Carlo Beckman, OPD's IT director, brought the new Flock attempt to the Rules Committee last Thursday, arguing urgency as the item may not have been allowed to be scheduled to a meeting three days later in a regular process. In his request for the Rule 24 urgency exemption, Beckman described the urgency finding:
“the Flock contact has expired and without a contract, OPD will not be able to pay the vendor and continue to utilize the Flock camera system”.
There were no attempts to get clarity by Rules members who voted to schedule the Flock legislation, given Oakland's current complicated relationship to Flock.
Beckman’s statement is open to several interpretations, but none of them seem to require urgency: OPD’s MOU with the CHP is for three years, ending in March 2027, per a record’s release that requested Flock associated contracts and memorandums. OPD’s MOU with Flock is open ended, and reflects CHP’s contract with Flock. CHP’s contract with Flock was for initially one year, ending in March 2025, but was renewable for two one year terms without a new contract negotiation. As OPD has continued to use Flock since March, CHP has almost certainly entered into its second year option that would not end until March 2026—and even so, another one year option would be available afterward. In response to this publication's queries about the agreement Beckman referred to, OPD's communication unit, OPD Media, told this publication by email: “The joint agreement between the state, the City, and Flock ended at the end of March”. OPD Media did not respond to requests to clarify the statement, given the MOUs do not appear to have terminated, and Beckman did not mention the joint agreement at all.
Legislation having profound effects on Oakland’s campaign finance rules, fire code and revenue are on the Consent Calendar, surprisingly, where they are likely to get minimal discussion due to the same impaction Jenkins warned about on December 2nd. All that legislation will be competing for the public’s attention with an also deep Non-Consent Calendar. Non-Consent includes controversial changes to Council’s rules of procedure that already failed once and that Jenkins said were so urgent, he wanted to suspend current rules to hear them on December 2nd. There's also a contract extension worth millions for the City’s controversial security provider, ABC—a now habitual lone-survivor of the ongoing sequential collapses of Oakland's security contract bidding process.
Given it is a special meeting, much of the discussion on consent items will happen at 1pm instead of 3:30pm—there is also no 5pm designated time for non-consent items, they will be heard immediately after the Consent Calendar and public hearings, regardless of time.
On Non-Consent
OPD Community Safety Cameras Policy And FLOCK Agreement
Residents opposing OPD’s attempt to institutionalize and expand Oakland’s relationship with Flock may have been shocked, though unsurprised, by the return of the item to Rules on Thursday for scheduling. After a public outpouring of opposition that exhausted at least one council member to the point of slumber last month, the item deadlocked on the committee vote. Normally, when an item crashes like this, the city agency that brought the item will at least attempt to address the issues that generated controversy at the committee and bring a new item with modifications. The biggest contentious issue for CMs was the provider, Flock, that has a long history of errors, dishonesty, security failures and backing by right wing investors aligned with Trump. As more and more of these have become national, more municipalities have ended or suspended their contracts with the controversial full-spectrum surveillance company amid headlines so pervasive that even backers of Flock have had to take a step back and acknowledge them.
While a recent poll from Oakland's Chamber of Commerce suggests that residents are broadly supportive of some surveillance under civilian oversight—the poll was completed before Flock became headline news, and never mentioned the company, nor the unlimited scale OPD intends for the project. Not surprisingly, few residents have spoken out at meetings in favor of Flock—public comments in favor of the contract number under a dozen total for the entire legislative discussion over several months in both the PAC and Committees, per this publication's count.
Despite concerns specifically with Flock from the ACLU, Electronic Frontier Foundation, the Privacy Advisory Commission and a panoply of other oversight advocates, OPD refuses to consider another vendor for its ALPR and video surveillance plan. Instead, OPD seeks a Council waiver that would obviate city laws on open bidding so that it may award the contract to Flock with no paper trail about the criteria.
A the Committee meeting where Flock failed several weeks ago, CM Carroll Fife voiced her discomfort with the company, especially its investor profile and their rhetoric, as well as the many, many visible problems cities experienced in controlling how the technology’s surveillance is shared. As a result of local media records requests that showed OPD’s porous data sharing policies, OPD has admitted that with dozens of agencies making requests, it can’t vet the requests, not in real time or in a regular full audit structure. Local reporting shows that OPD allowed other agencies to look for license plates in the OPD Flock database when visibly citing federal sharing. CM Rowena Brown also seemed moved by the concerns of the dozens of residents who almost to a one opposed Flock’s ALPR and camera platform at the meeting, although her positioning was neutral right up to the moment of her vote. CM Fife, in her refusal to forward the item, mentioned the potential to review it again favorably if OPD opened the item to bid first.
But OPD has no changes in mind–the new legislative package contains some additional supplemental information, gathering in a one pager its claims policies to add additional guarantees. But nothing else has changed and the OPD continue to seek a sole source contract with Flock. The legislative packet has 14 attachments, none are labelled—and because the item is new, not a continuation of the previous legislation, none of the attachments have date references to signal what is new or old.
During the Rules scheduling meeting, CM Houston spoke to the Committee at public comment, supporting a vote to send the item to full council after it failed the committee meeting he had attended virtually. Houston has requested the privilege of influencing Rules scheduling regularly since he began his term in January and it has been invariably granted him by Rules Chair Jenkins. Committee meetings with the participation of non-member Houston have been called into a “special meeting” of the City Council, which is essentially a full meeting of the Council, ostensibly to avoid violating Brown Act requirements. Staffers from the office of CMs Charlene Wang and Zac Unger also signaled their support for scheduling.
During his comments, Houston thanked CM Jenkins for scheduling the item, causing protestations from Jenkins that he had not had a role in scheduling the item.
At the Rules meeting, about a dozen residents spoke out against the renewed scheduling at the last minute, and you can see those here. For more about the Flock contract process until now, please read here. The Flock contract is the fourth item on the non-consent calendar.
Violation Of Protected Tree Ordinance, Public Hearing
Despite seeming to be a minor issue, these hearings and adjudications are indeed a requirement for council, are taken very seriously, and often become quite involved. Tree hearings have been deliberated over hours and have in the past been a source of contention in the Council when a defendant contests a decision. The defendant is accused by the City of uprooting 38 protected trees after their permit was denied, both on their own parcels and on parcels that belong to others, including the City of Oakland. That person has requested the hearing to adjudicate the claims.
Amend And Restating The Council’s Rules Of Procedure
The saga of this item continues. See previous OO reporting on the initial absurdist process that deadlocked the legislation, Lee’s refusal to break the tie, and subsequent ironic attempt to suspend the very rules in question in an attempt to pass the legislation with minimal public notice—with the magguffin that the 12/16 meeting is too impacted for another item like the Rules Procedure change. Not only has the Rules procedure ended up on that agenda, but the same agenda now has the Flock agreement, which took nearly three hours all by itself during committee due to overwhelmingly negative comment.
Amend ABC Security Services Contract, Increase Spending Authority And Authorize Payment For Past Due Invoices
Furor about ABC’s Security’s possible connections to Mario Juarez and improper influence on bidding processes has died out completely over the past year. Now ABC stands poised to receive the latest in several non-bid renewals for the City’s lucrative security contract.
ABC has netted tens of millions in city dollars since its officially bid contract termed out—even though it was set to lose out on its renewal bid in 2022. The City threw out that bidding process for several reasons and then had no other options but to continue paying ABC. The band-aid re-ups continued through 2023 and 2024, as the next iteration of the open bidding process faltered. Finally, in 2025, ABC again came in last in the open bid grading as Council seemed poised to award a new contract to Allied Security instead. But Council balked at going with Allied, a global behemoth with a checkered history and involvement with ICE contracting. In the aftermath, ABC again will have to shoulder the new bidding process that will take at best estimates, over a year. The legislation allows the City Administrator to pay ABC tens of millions of dollars owed for its continuing work at City Hall and other City properties.
On Consent
The Oakland Business Relief Program Proposed Ballot Measure
Passage of this legislation would put a tax measure on a June ballot that would give a tax break of a full year to business grossing under $1 MM, and no taxes at all in the first year to any corporation opening up a business in Oakland. For most small businesses grossing under $1 MM in these categories, the savings would be in the hundreds of dollars.
As with the logic of most tax-breaks, the legislation assumes that the significant losses—from $1.5 MM to $3 MM in lost revenue already budgeted for in 2026—will be offset by more energetic economic activity, job creation and indirect economic stimulus. But the data on tax incentives is mixed, and continues to show they do not make up for the lost revenue or create enduring economic improvements. It’s surprising to find it on Consent, as passage will put it on the ballot, and it will affect the City’s revenue as stated.
Ordinance Amending The Oakland Campaign Reform Act
Ongoing attempts by CMs Janani Ramachandran and Jenkins to increase contribution limits, including for office holder accounts that would allow donors to give higher amounts than currently allowed. The Public Ethics Commission, which has a requirement to review such legislation, does not support the increase to office holder limits and is divided on the increased duration of the extension of the increase to campaign limits. Surprisingly, this item is also on Consent, despite fundamentally expanding the way donors will interact with legislators.
Terms to Negotiate Toward An Exclusive Negotiating Agreement for Costco at the Oakland Army Base
The legislation would direct the City Administrator to begin conversations with developer Decca and Costco on the potential for building a Costco outlet at the former Army Base. The City had been in a long-standing development agreement with California Waste Solutions for the site, but the company had missed several milestones obviating the agreement, and the CAO dumped the company earlier in the year. The legislation would be a very first step in a conversation that precedes even an Exclusive Negotiating Agreement [ENA], which itself is a very preliminary agreement to explore viability of a development.
OPD Citizens Options For Public Safety (COPS) Grant
The state grants equal a little over $1.3 MM dollars and will mostly pay for helicopter maintenance and fuel. The issue of continued helicopter maintenance of nearly $1 MM a year brought up the question of the OPD’s brief investigation of Fixed Wing Aircraft as a cost-effective replacement for the aging helicopters at the Public Safety Committee. But the OPD has had to put those aspirations on hold during a budget crisis.
Lind Marine Contract
A confused report seems to indicate that the OPD will use the $1.5 MM in contracted Lind Marine tow services to interdict anchor-outs, but in a committee deliberation, OPD representatives only suggested the towing of derelict and sunken vessels.
Amendments To The Oakland Fire Code
Bicycle and pedestrian activists have opposed the OFD’s insistence on hard-coding wide street layouts in future fire regulations, which will diminish the potential to narrow streets as to reduce speed associated vehicular collisions. OFD has argued that it requires the space for large or tall structures, but advocates say that the OFD can leave the width open and take it on an individual basis. OFD’s views have won out, and the Committee forwarded the legislation to Council on Consent.
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