Oakland City Council Meeting Preview, 9/19/23

What's on the Agenda:

Several items on Tuesday's agenda will appear familiar, including the Mayor’s salary ordinance. That’s because most legislative items require two readings at separate meetings. They usually pass without commentary in the Consent Calendar and OO doesn’t focus on those here.

With three public hearings, one of which is for the Environmental Impact Report for the General Plan, and another a battle over Head Royce School expansion, along with what looks to be an intense discussion of public safety goals and options, expect this meeting to go late. Acknowledging the lengthy agenda, Council President Bas has called for an earlier start date of 2pm, although the non-consent calendar can’t be heard before 5:00pm. Here's a quick and dirty breakdown of the noteworthy legislative items.

Kalb Resolution Prioritizing Public Safety [Non-Consent Agenda]

–Dan Kalb’s timely policy package is mostly direction to the City Administrator to return with legislation and policies Kalb says are necessary to combat the current uptick in property crimes and violence. Kalb has some obvious suggestions, many of which are being implemented, such as a study and plan to increase 911 recruitment and retention [Mayor Thao announced $2.5 MM funds for 911 recruitment and retention last week].

Much of Kalb's proposal directs the City Administrator to request more state, regional and federal participation. Kalb wants the city to request more federal agency and regional help in Oakland crime-fighting as well as adding CHP officers in the agency’s current Oakland participation in traffic policing [OPD's current federal MOU's are coincidentally reviewed in the same agenda in yearly reports]. Kalb also suggests the state Department of Transportation place surveillance cameras on Oakland freeway on ramps and the City fund independently owned business district surveillance cameras. And Kalb suggests more help from Alameda County to increase re-entry services for formerly incarcerated residents.

Kalb's legislation also includes an analysis of "expanding" Ceasefire, but what an expansion of Ceasefire would entail is not discussed. Ceasefire was once given the credit for reducing the number of shootings and homicides in Oakland, but since 2020 the program has been largely ineffective in preventing an increase in lethal violence. Kalb also wants an analysis of MACRO referrals and probation and re-entry services augmented.

Some of the Kalb requests can be implemented without council approval, especially those that only require increases to already established partnerships–like FBI or CHP support.

Though surveillance is always a thorny issue in Oakland, probably the most immediately contentious proposal in Kalb's legislation is a push for a lateral academy, a move that would require additional spending and direction from Council. Early on in the budget deliberations, Kalb also advocated a lateral academy addition, but he dropped that pretty quickly.

A lateral academy is an odd inclusion in the legislation, as the idea has been shot down by successive police chiefs for years and a 2021 Council-directed attempt to create one ended in failure. Former Interim Chief Susan Manheimer is on the record advising Council to forego laterals, describing them as the choice between taking on  recruits with a checkered past or failing to fill a viable class.

Former Chief Leronne Armstrong was more willing to give laterals a try, but at least twice reported to Council that attempts to recruit a viable lateral class failed. Not enough prospective applicants could pass Oakland's background checks.

OPD seemingly gave up on laterals nearly a decade ago after little success in recruiting viable candidates. A retrospective report in 2010 showed that the most successful lateral class over five years worth of laterals graduated 13 officers–but that was a high outlier. The average graduation class over 6 laterals discounting that higher number was 4.

In 2021, Council gave direction to the City Administrator and OPD to attempt to fill a lateral academy as part of a focused effort to rebuild the OPD after historic attrition. But by 2022, OPD Chief Armstrong returned to Council to report that they’d failed to recruit enough officers for the expense–only three passed background checks.

Shelter Crisis Ordinance [Non-Consent Agenda]

–Council declared a Shelter Crisis Emergency in late 2017 and has been renewing them ever since. Though there is always some confusion between the Shelter Crisis and the City's declaration of a Homelessness Emergency, there's significant differences. Municipalities can declare a shelter crisis through state law when a significant number of residents are without adequate shelter. Declaring the emergency allows the city to bypass laws and standards that would normally disallow quick, temporary mitigations. Among the mitigations allowed by the Shelter Crisis ordinance are Oakland’s safe parking sites and the Homebase site where residents live in trailers.

The Shelter Crisis Emergency declaration lasts two years and the current iteration will terminate September 21. The City is moving forward to renew it for another two years at Tuesday's meeting. In 2021, the last time the Council renewed the legislation, the body included language that limited the towing of vehicles that are deemed to be serving as dwellings for homeless residents. Human Services staff now recommends removing that part of the legislation and approaching the issue with more flexibility as a different piece of legislation to be introduced in the coming weeks. The tow language is missing from the proposed legislation. The City argues that the legislation has led to the inability to tow vehicles that aren’t serving as dwellings.

DVP FY23-25 Grant Agreements [Full Allocation on Consent; Workforce Allocations on Non-Consent]

–Last Tuesday, amid impassioned testimony from dozens of supporters, workers and beneficiaries of the Department of Violence Prevention's workforce programs, Council members announced that Mayor Sheng Thao and Council President Nikki Fortunato Bas had worked with DVP to find additional salary savings to keep the work programs funded at their previous levels this fiscal year–an additional $2.4 MM worth for six non profit organizations that do the work. The legislation is arriving in two parts, one allocating and disbursing the entire two year allocation for all of DVP’s community grants, and another specifically allocating the workforce grants for a one year cycle that ends in December, 2024. Oaklandside dug in to the process here.

The DVP has a two-year funding cycle, staggered so that the funding is granted three months after the biennial budget is finalized. Measure Z, where a large chunk of DVP funds come from, however, will sunset in 2024. A successor ballot measure will likely be introduced by Council to replace it, but there are no guarantees it will pass.  

Appeal Of The Head Royce School Planned Unit Development Project [Public Hearing]

–The Head Royce expansion has been in the works for years, but it's opposed by the immediate neighbors, pitting an affluent group able to pay half a million each for their children’s k-12* education against their hills neighborhood where the median price for homes is $1.2 MM.

H/R received Planning Commission approval to expand it's current 14 acre site to an 8 acre site across the street, the former Lincoln Children's Center. The new South Campus would have 11 new buildings and create enough space to increase the student body by 30% to 1,250 within 20 years. Classical NIMBY's in the neighborhood opposing the expansion formed the "Neighborhood Steering Committee" to oppose the expansion, and have lodged two appeals against the project which will be heard Tuesday, one for the EIR and one for the permits necessary to expand.

Planning and Building staff has recommended denying the appeal. These hearings tend to be very long, and often do not result in an immediate resolution.

Mayoral Appointments to Commissions and Boards: [Consent Agenda]

–The Mayor appoints most of the residents who serve on Oakland’s boards and commissions, but the council has to ratify those appointments with a majority vote. It’s almost always a pro-forma ritual, but has at times produced issues, though likely none will present on Tuesday:

Budget Advisory Commission: Reappointment of Armand Bryan & John Mckenna

Business Tax Board Of Review: Reappointment of Nick Peraino [Perraino is on the agenda twice, for another similarly named board. That appears to be the same board, with an erroneous name. Likely an error.]

Cannabis Regulatory Commission: Reappointment of Hellen Harvey, Javier Armas, And Chaney Turner; Appointment of Yulie Padmore And Tariq Ikharo

Library Advisory Commission: Appointment of Gabrielle Sloan-Law; Reappointment of Cristina Tostado

Commission On Persons With Disabilities: Reappointment Cathy Eberhardt; Appointment of Linda St. Julian and Mohamad Anwar Baroudi

Youth Commission: Reappointment Of Darby Hatfield; Appointments of Calupe Kaufusi, Ana Xu Li, Areli Chavez, Anohki Mehta, Katie Liang, Steve Nguyen, Amber Johnson, Michelle Wong, Haniel Kebede, Olivia Richardson Feldman  

Police Commission: Karely Ordaz and Wilson Riles [Ordaz is currently a mayoral appointed alternate who was selected by the community based selection panel for appointment to full Commissioner status. Her alternate term will end in October, and with this vote, her new full selection panel appointment will begin]

Lawsuits [Consent Agenda]

–the City will vote on settling slightly over a million dollars in lawsuits Tuesday. The largest settlement for $600k is for dangerous road conditions that allegedly led to serious injury. The next highest is a $190K suit for an OPD-caused collision. Several smaller suits are for dangerous road conditions and one for an Oakland Fire Department collision. Though rarely a subject of news inquiry, the City Council sometimes votes to settle millions of dollars in suits a month.

Direct Community Grants [Consent Agenda]

–one of the bigger issues at the start of the budget process was a proposed reduction in direct City of Oakland community grant awards. Council not only managed to maintain funding, but is disbursing it in a novel way to the City's non profit organizations–each City Council representative was allowed to designate equal shares of $93K to local community groups. Each CM has designated FY 23-24 funds to organizations working on issues of homelessness, rehousing, arts and youth, with organizations in their district. Another process will occur for next year’s disbursement. You can see the CM choices and the goals of the grants here [opens to direct download of PDF].

Non-Binding Legislation of Intent to Enact Recommendations from the Black Reparations Taskforce [Consent Agenda]

–the legislation would direct the City, Council and Mayor to work collaboratively to implement elements of the taskforce recommendations to the State of California. A list of the recommendations is included in the legislation, as is a link to the California Reparations Taskforce Report.

OPD Grants [Consent Agenda]

–It was big news this week that Oakland’s Economic and Workforce Development Department blew an easy win of public safety dollars by failing to turn in the paperwork for a state public safety grant in time. To rub salt in the wound, it was a grant that nearly very agency in the Bay Area applied for and received [including the ALCO DA]. But this week, Council will nevertheless vote on accepting about $1.5 MM in grants for OPD, including, the Byrne Grant for procedural justice training; STEP Grant for additional DUI and traffic safety enforcement; and the DNA Backlog Grant, to fund DNA profiling in the city’s backlog.  

Oakland GO Bonds, Series 2023 Measure KK And U Sale And Projects [Consent Agenda]

–the required legislation, if passed, will permit the City to take on debt for the issue of the bonds that drive both Measure KK–which is now on its last ebb of funds–and the new Measure U. As part of the legislation, the amounts anticipated to be spent on each project in U and K series are designated in both the report and legislation. See this article for more on this.

Two Contracts for Sewer Services to Enable the City to Comply with a Consent Decree [Consent Agenda]

–see more here and here

OMSS LDDA Extension Amendment [Consent Agenda]

–the Lease Development and Disposition Agreement [LDDA] for this Port area classical truck stop–with showers, convenience store, gas, and wash services, as well as logistical services and potentially a mobile hydrogen fueling facility–may finally be moving forward after nearly a decade of negotiations and false starts. This is third extension of the agreement, but commentary at last week's committee meeting indicate that the developer, Oakland Maritime, may be ready to break ground soon.

Contract For Tenant Representation At RAP Proceedings [Consent Agenda]

–This item was voted unanimously at the Community and Economic Development Committee without amendments, see this article for more on it

Exclusive Negotiating Agreement With Oakland Pro Soccer LLC For The Malibu Property [Consent Agenda]

–This item was voted unanimously at the Community and Economic Development Committee without amendments,see here for more.

Community Facilities District [Public Hearing]

–Updates around the Brooklyn Basin Community Facilities District legislation that creates a special tax for the owners of Brooklyn Basin. The tax revenue pays for the park and other public use areas around the development. With ongoing development, the legislative vehicle for creating the funding source has to be updated; this legislation will do that. The legal process is fairly complicated and lengthy. The landholding parties in the district must vote to create the CFD, but those are actually the developer in this case–Signature and Zarsion America–so it's essentially a formality with a long timeline. The City receives the public spaces to run as it would any park or public space, with the ongoing CFD funds backing maintenance.

• The General Plan and its EIR are also on on the agenda. OO doesn't have the capacity or knowledge base to evaluate the City’ General Plan or its ENA, unfortunately. Hopefully, another publication or writer is picking this up

*some readers objected to the claim that a H/R grade school ed costs about a half a million dollars. Grade school here was meant to capture the entire k-12 years. With H/R's escalating tuition, that's $570,750 in 2023 dollars, or about half a million dollars. Acknowledging grade school only goes through k-8, not high school years, so the claim is incorrect, because the terms used were inadvertently inaccurate. But even so, that would have been close enough to half a million for most parents doing the math to enroll their own child.