Oakland Observer Week Ending 7/23/23: Protracted Mayor's Salary Spectacle Nearly Cost Quorum Necessary for Coliseum Connections Aid; Tenants Round 199th Day of Displacement with No End in Sight, Resources and Patience Dwindling

Protracted Wrestling Over Mayor’s Salary Ordinance Puts Coliseum Connections Aid at Risk

Within minutes of the introduction of the Mayoral salary issue Tuesday night, Council Member Carroll Fife presented a quick resolution–give the lowest possible raise, move forward on shifting the charter-mandated process out of Council's hands. Regardless, debate on the issue endured for over two additional hours in what grew to become a ten hour meeting that extended past midnight. CMs quibbled late into the night over the details of an additionally proposed charter amendment process to reform the way the Mayor's salary is calculated and raised, despite being in near-agreement of how to proceed.

Following resolution of the lengthy deliberation and conflict, the Council came close to losing the quorum necessary to allocate emergency aid for Coliseum Connections [CC] tenants. Had Council President Nikki Fortunato Bas failed to remind CMs Noel Gallo and Treva Reid of the impending vote on emergency aid that required 6 affirmative votes to go into effect immediately, the two would have left the meeting directly after the mayoral salary vote, the video record shows. CM Janani Ramachandran left the meeting, regardless after Bas' reminder and did not return until after the CC emergency aid item had been deliberated and voted on.

A Quick Solution to the Dilemma Followed by Lengthy Deliberation

A staff representative from the Human Resources department began the deliberation with a short presentation on the Mayoral salary, explaining the process to arrive at the recommendation. HR explained that the staff recommendation to allocate the highest salary in the range reflects best practice of having a director’s salary set at 15-20% higher than their subordinates–the Mayor currently makes less than subordinates in her staff.

Shortly afterward, CM Carroll Fife put a motion on the floor that should have dispatched the salary issue with ease–raise the salary to the lowest necessary to fulfill the charter-mandate, direct the City Administrator to develop a potential charter amendment to make the Public Ethics Commission [PEC] the body that oversees mayoral raises. Measure X,  developed by CM Dan Kalb similarly shifted responsibility for the City Auditor and City Attorney salaries from Council to the PEC, among several other charter alterations, and won with 80% of the vote last November.

“This particular item has become extremely politicized and the reason why the other positions…the City Auditor and the City Attorney are out of the hands of the Council and in the hands of the PEC, are to avoid the very thing we’re experiencing right now,” Fife said, explaining her proposal.

Before the Council could dispatch the legislation and move on to a packed agenda with the CC vote and four public hearings still ahead, CM Ramachandran said she would continue with a planned slide presentation that reiterated many of her criticisms of both City staff’s recommendation to award the highest salary in the range and the charter process, including basing the range on a survey of local City Managers. After the presentation, Ramachandran put forth a substitute motion to combat Fife’s proposal, directing the City Administrator instead to come back with a range of options to change the way the Mayor’s salary is calculated and which body adjudicates it. Ramachandran explained she did not believe the PEC is capacitated to set salaries.

CM Treva Reid also took up a significant amount of time asking many questions about the history of the charter mandated role and the City Council's process. And Noel Gallo gave a rambling speech in which he ignored the issue of the charter-mandate completely and complained about city failures on public safety and dumping instead.

Reid confirmed with Finance Director Erin Roseman that the Council had reviewed and found the Mayor's salary in the appropriate range in every year between 2013 and 2023 except for 2021. Roseman noted that in 2020, the Mayor's salary was still within the allowed range. Notably, at one point, Reid asked if there would be a penalty if the Council simply violated the charter by not voting for any raise. City Attorney Ryan Richardson responded that there is no penalty for violating the charter, but "outside parties" would be able to pursue legal action on a charter violation.

Media-Stoked Controversy Fails to Live up to Hype

As confirmed by the City Attorney, the Finance Department and the Human Resources Department, the Mayor’s salary hasn’t been raised for a decade because it had not fallen out of the allowable range in the calculation again until this year. But the issue of the Mayoral office raise nevertheless poked the ire of local conservatives after it was introduced at committee for discussion and deliberation earlier this month.

Local corporate media ginned up the concerns, misleading the public in several ways: misrepresenting the fact that the raise is for the Mayor’s seat, not Thao; omitting the fact that the charter mandates that the Mayor’s salary fall within the range and only the Council can set it; implying a false quid pro quo with the newly appointed City Administrator, and falsely stating that Thao's recent City Administrator appointee Jestin Johnson introduced the raise. The legislative record clearly shows that Ian Appleyard, the outgoing Director of Human Resources, both created and submitted the legislation to the City Administrator for introduction. Local reporting was also devoid of context of the upper levels of City wages–for example, in 2021, public records showed that nearly two dozen City employees made more than the Mayor. Many Oakland police officers make more than the Mayor's regular salary in overtime alone.

Despite threats by the Oakland NAACP to protest the raise, only a handful of NAACP representatives attended the meeting, and few spoke. NAACP Oakland President Cynthia Adams in her public comments said she was in support of “the three council members going against this raise.” But only Gallo opposed the raise in itself; Ramachandran and Reid supported the raise as a charter mandated process*. Despite the great amount of sensationalism, only 17 members of the public spoke on the item in total. More than half supported Fife’s solution in their statements, according to a count made by this publication. Several members of the public complained about the waste of Council time and priorities on the issue.

The Mayor will receive a $13 K raise as a product of Fife’s legislation, the minimum required by the charter rules. According to Transparent California, at least a dozen other employees at the City of Oakland will continue to have a higher base pay than the Mayor, including current interim OPD Chief Darren Allison, Deputy Police Chief Drennon Lindsay and Assistant City Administrator Latonda Simmons. Ian Appleyard, the outgoing Human Resources director who agendized the item, and whose retirement ceremony was held at the start of the same meeting, leaves behind an annual salary higher than the Mayor’s new salary.

Elsewhere on the consent agenda, at the same meeting, Council authorized two settlements for OPD violence of $800 K each. The items received no scrutiny or deliberation, despite being brought up in the context of the focus on the mayor's raise as a fiscal issue by members of the public.

Politicized Distraction with Real World Consequences

As if to highlight criticisms that the salary controversy had distracted Council from more important issues, the public video record shows that immediately after the vote, CM Gallo informed the clerk that he would be excusing himself.

As Gallo grabbed his briefcase and began his departure, CM Reid also announced that she would be leaving the meeting due to the time zone change at her teleconference location, which is in a time zone three hours ahead. The absence of the two CMs would have left Council with exact number necessary to pass immediate-acting legislation to aid CC tenants.

When Bas reminded Council Members that the CC item had only been paused during the Consent agenda and remained to be voted on, and it needed six positive votes to go into effect immediately, Gallo and Reid both agreed to remain. Bas scheduled a five minute break before taking the item, but Ramachandran left her seat and did not return for the CC item, despite Bas’ advisory earlier. Had Gallo and Reid left as they originally intended, the Coliseum Connections aid item would not have had enough votes to enact immediately, and would have required a second reading with at least a five day separation between the meetings.

Coliseum Connections Tenants Rage as Displacement Moves in to 7th Month with No End in Sight

Ramachandran had also missed the original Special Council deliberation and vote that created the new allocation of CC funding several weeks ago; both Ramachandran and Gallo left that meeting early. Though CC funding was not agendized at that meeting, CC tenants came to speak before Council, telling CMs that market rate renters hadn’t yet received relocation payments.

During that meeting, CMs Rebecca Kaplan, Treva Reid, Dan Kalb, Carroll Fife and Nikki Fortunato Bas began crafting a proposal to direct some money from an affordable housing fund before them for the market rate tenants and for more aid for tenants remaining in hotels. But the legislation needed more work and was forwarded to the July 18 meeting. Eventually, legislation to direct an additional $650 MM in affordable housing funds, with a waiver on the income limit, was crafted.

That brought the six and a half month long saga of Coliseum Connections back to Council Tuesday, with tenants demanding more from the current efforts as well as accountability for Johnson, the CEO, owner and founder of Urban Core, the company that owns the building. Several tenants reminded the council that they have been displaced from the building for a staggering 199 days with forecasts to return constantly pushed back.

"From January 1st to April 15th, my partner and I shared a one room hotel, and during that time the move back date was changed five different times. So we decided to move out, we were like I'm not going to let Michael Johnson ruin my life...we did that in April when the move back date was moved twice in the same week. It's been changed four times since April," said former CC tenant Damion Scott.

Scott added that he believes the financial assistance City Council was considering would be necessary for others seeking to move on with their lives.

"Rent in Oakland is high and the cost of moving out of my fifth floor apartment with no electricity and no elevators was expensive and time-consuming," Scott said.

Another tenant told Council she was pregnant, and dreaded giving birth in her hotel room.

Scott, like several others, asked Council to remove the deadline to accept the funds, and to allow those who choose to remain in the hotels waiting for CC repairs to also benefit from the funding. During the meeting, staff confirmed that the outside date for repairs completion has been moved back from the end of July to September and possibly beyond.

Complicated Funding Mechanisms to Replace Urban Core’s Financial Responsibilities Now Add up to Over $3 MM in City Spending

The most current legislation adds more money from City controlled funds to help the tenants, many of whom have been in hotels since late December when the Coliseum Connections building flooded without warning during torrential downpours. Johnson has refused to pay city-mandated relocation funds to tenants throughout the process. The City stepped in and paid the fees to tenants, according to City's relocation ordinance which directs the City pay if the building owner fails to. With the current payments, the City will have paid $3.7 MM to both aid tenants and help pay for certain repairs of the building. Around $2 MM of that is for hotel payments that are reimbursable from a FEMA grant, but the rest, most of which has gone to cover relocation assistance which Johnson failed to provide, is not.

Several issues have complicated that process as well: because the relocation funding came from affordable housing funds, only low income tenants were eligible for it. The City Council approved the $2 MM in payments to cover the hotel stays with the understanding that most of that would be reimbursed through a FEMA grant intended to prevent imminent homelessness after a disaster. Staff are concerned that the City may become ineligible to recoup funds from the FEMA grant if the City Council were to grant the request to allow tenants to stay in hotels after receiving relocation funds. Thus, a requirement that CC tenants currently staying in hotels must commit to moving out by early August to receive the funding [which was amended by Kaplan and pushed back until September].

Johnson’s Urban Core also received $300 K in aid to make repairs, contingent on Johnson paying the City back for the relocation expenses. But Johnson has not repaid, and has communicated to the City he doesn’t believe he is required to according to the legislative report. The fact that there appears to be no mechanism to obligate Johnson's Urban Core to repay; be held accountable for potential breaches of its BART lease; or to speed repair has created frustration for the tenants who have protested at Johnson’s residence several times.

Unusual Process

The Coliseum Connections item was a departure from typical council business. Though the item was not transferred to the non-consent agenda, CMs discussed it as an independent item regardless, and even paused the vote until after the non-consent calendar items [such as the mayoral vote] to give time for tenants to discuss things more directly with city staff and a council member. Council President Bas also allowed a tenant representative to have conversations on the dais with staff and with council people. At one point, Jasmine “Dream” Braggs, the CC tenant representing other tenants before the body, had an unmediated discussion at the dais with both Interim Director of Housing and Community Development Emily Weinstein and Planning and Building Director William Gilchrist about the funding and the state of the building.

Several tenants told Council people that some of the low income tenants who’d initially taken relocation funds were now facing homelessness as their current living situation was precarious. One tenant called in to the meeting saying they’d originally accepted the funds and moved into a situation that was no longer tenable, and they were facing homelessness.

As the City Attorney noted, as well, only minimal amendments could be made in the legislation without jeopardizing its quick passage. As an emergency ordinance, staff could move ahead on cutting checks for the funds immediately if the item received six votes. But the item could not be voted on as an emergency ordinance if substantive changes were made; it would have to be resubmitted. For that reason, only CM Rebecca Kaplan's amendments to push back the deadline to accept the funds to September was added.

The item passed with 7 votes, Ramachandran was absent.

Kalb and Jenkins Schedule Legislation to Change Elements of the Enabling Ordinance for Police Commission and Associated Bodies

At Thursday's Rules committee, CM’s Dan Kalb and Kevin Jenkins scheduled legislation that would enact a number of amendments to the original enabling ordinance for the Police Commission and its umbrella of agencies. The original Measure LL that created the Police Commission hasn't been updated since the passage of Measure S1.

Measure S1 updated some of the language in the charter for the Police Commission, but a new enabling ordinance was never proposed by Council. The item is scheduled for September, but it is unclear at this point what will be changed. During the brief submission, members of the Coalition for Police Accountability confirmed that the organization has had a role in drafting the language. The suggested changes come as disputes culminating in a lawsuit have roiled the commission. You can read more about that here.

Council Recess:

Council will recess until September

* Reid had acknowledged that the raise itself was charter mandated by the time public speakers came to podium, but still voted no on the salary ordinance. She and Gallo were the two no votes, but Ramachandran voted yes with the majority. In turn, Reid supported Fife's motion to have the City Administrator come back with proposed ballot measure language to change the Mayor's salary process after also voting  yes for Ramachandran's substitute motion to have the CAO bring back a range of options.