Oakland Politics Week in Review 5/22/2023:

Oakland Politics Week in Review 5/22/2023: Becker Boards Accusations Viewed Skeptically by City Staff as Committee Forwards Legislation to Council; City Staffers Warn a Staffing Crisis Could Cost City Millions in Lost Grants; Mayoral Budget Study Session Coming Tuesday to Council

Last-Minute Presentation by Becker Boards for Billboard Contract Challenged by City Staff; but CED Committee Unanimously Forwards Favorable Billboard Legislation to Council

Despite vocal skepticism from City staff about the underlying facts of a presentation by Becker Boards, the Community and Economic Development [CED] committee nevertheless forwarded to full Council legislation granting Becker Boards and Outfront Foster Interstate a contract for new billboards along City and private property adjacent to Oakland freeways*.

Throughout the recent process, City staff from the Economic and Workforce Development department have maintained that the Becker/OFI deal is inferior to a competing one from Clear Channel, claims which are included in the agendized report for the item. EWD claims that Becker/OFI has “below market” rates and an inferior revenue “escalator” for the 31-year contract period that would see decreasing benefit compared to a competing deal from Clear Channel. EWD also notes that the City could structure its own community benefits agreement with the Clear Channel revenues and still have more General Purpose Fund revenue after splitting the funds with the groups through whatever process the Council chooses.

During the deliberation, however, Becker’s Director of Land Development, Nema Link, was allowed to give a 13-minute presentation, complete with graphics, that refuted the EWD claims about Clear Channel. Link argued that most of Clear Channel’s sites were not tenable, due either to contractual issues or legal ones with Caltrans. During the presentation, Becker’s lobbyist Isaac Kos-Read held up graphic cards for the audience. Throughout the presentation, Link impugned Clear Channel.

“They’re willing to inflate the numbers that they’re offering to the City just to make their proposal look better,” Link complained to CMs in one of many critiques of Clear Channel’s proposed signage.

Brendan Moriarty, the City's Real Property Asset Manager, told committee members that he’d only had access to the Becker presentation report for less than 24 hours, and had his first opportunity to review the information with Caltrans the same morning of the committee meeting. Moriarty noted at several points throughout the meeting that his conversations with Caltrans indicated that few if any of Becker’s claims were substantive.

“We’ve spoken with the Caltrans office that regulates billboards along freeways…a number of the representations are just not accurate from our analysis and from what Caltrans has told us,” Moriarty told the body.

Representatives of various storied local nonprofits came to the podium extolling Becker’s community engagement process and the deal, including Children’s Fairyland, Clinica de la Raza and Native American Health Center.

Kymblerly Miller, the executive director of Children’s Fairyland, one of several organizations that would receive revenue and free advertising in the deal, told CED that the deal would allow “better access to tools to help share the magic of Fairyland with more children and families.”

Chirag Patel, the director of planning and development for the Native American Health Center, another community group named in the benefits agreement, told CED,

”This initiative is particularly exciting for Native American Health Center, as we’re looking to develop a dental clinic with an affordable housing component built on top of it in the Fruitvale District; the revenue that we generate from this project would greatly support that effort,” Patel said.

Representatives for Clinica de la Raza and other organizations also spoke.

Among those rooting for Becker at the meeting were some of Oakland’s most notorious lobbyists and political personages, including Zach Wasserman–the Chair of the Oakland Chamber of Commerce, Chair of the SF Bay Conservation and Development District and former fundraiser for Lynette Gibson-McElhaney, among several other notable roles. Wasserman is also an attorney specializing in navigating clients through the City's development process, and was a focus in an investigation by the PEC several years ago when he claimed to have given bad advice to a large developer that prompted the developer to give unlawful campaign donations to Libby Schaaf.

Last year Wasserman raised over $600K for an independent expenditure committee opposing Measure T, as leverage to reduce tax rates on Oakland’s wealthiest businesses in the final version of that measure. Wasserman succeeded in his gambit, cutting the potential revenue for the City of Oakland by nearly half, close to $20 MM annually.

Wasserman has identified himself at previous meetings as Becker’s legal representative, but did not speak at Tuesday's meeting.

Port Commissioner Michael Colbruno, who has no clear link to Becker or OFI, recounted his time at Clear Channel during his speaking time, where he implied that he’d carried out dishonest practices for the corporation. Colbruno, a Port commissioner and long-time Democratic Party fixture in Oakland is also a lobbyist and partner with the influential firm the Milo Group, whose founder controls the powerful OakPAC campaign finance committee. Colbruno was fined $10K in 2020 by the Public Ethics Commission for failing to report his lobbying–the PEC argued that Colbruno had attempted to mislead the body.

“I was vice president of Clear Channel for government affairs for 12 years … I believe what’s before us today on the counterproposal is smoke and mirrors, and I would know because I was part of a lot of the deals from Clear Channel back in the day,” Colbruno told the body.

Colbruno’s fellow Port Commissioner Andreas Cluver–treasurer for the Alameda County Building Trades, an organization that lobbied the City, Council, and ALCO Board of Supervisors to take any deal the A’s offered–also spoke on behalf of the Becker/OFI deal. Cluver stated that Clear Channel does not use union labor, a claim refuted by both Schmidt and clear evidence of labor agreements with the Teamsters and Laborers Local 304, the latter of which is a constituent member of the Alameda County Building Trades.

Kos-Read, a local lobbyist known in Oakland for representing charter school interests and local polluter Argent Materials, spoke on behalf of the deal but failed to identify himself as a paid lobbyist for Becker. In the midst of his public comments, Kos-Read dramatically turned to direct his comments at Clear Channel executive Schmidt, who had spoken briefly about Clear Channel’s community work and inaccuracies in Link’s presentation.

“[Clear Channel] has also lied to and deceived the City into thinking this last-minute offer they’ve thrown out is worth more than the page-and-a-half corporate letterhead it was sent in on just a few weeks ago, I mean, can you believe the audacity.”

Kos-Read then turned toward the area where Schmidt was seated and yelled “shame on you!”

Before the vote, Kalb amended legislation to increase revenues by half a percent, and reduce the escalator periods to 5 years, though it's unclear whether the deal is competitive with Clear Channel's on the given merits.

Due to the discrepancies in the parties’ claims, the committee requested an informational report on Link’s presentation, which will be included in the packet when the item goes to Council on June 6. But the item remains on consent, and it’s possible the report won’t be mentioned unless one or more CMs ask for more focus on it during the meeting.

Committee Round Up:

Finance Committee:

CM Rebecca Kaplan introduced her item Monday, saying the item "[requests] the support of the City Auditor to track down the status of millions of dollars that were intended to help local small businesses primarily in East Oakland,” referring to an $8MM state grant funneled to the company via the City of Oakland.

Kaplan also spoke to the issue of ESO Ventures getting a $75K grant from the City of Oakland, despite being a for profit venture. Kaplan noted that the item had been screened by the City Auditor and was in accordance with the agency’s capacity and mission.

The item does not direct the City Auditor to conduct the investigation, but only requests an investigation. The item was scheduled to June 6 Council meeting, where it will be on the consent calendar–meaning it could receive no direct discussion.

Public Works Committee:

City Staff Warn Public Works and Transportation Committee That Staffing Shortages Have Created Critical Crisis

In response to questions about a no-bid contract for a Lake Merritt cleaning and maintenance service, Mark Arniola, Public Works’ environmental program supervisor, told Public Works committee members that the City’s Capital Contracts Division “is not working,” and thus Public Works was unable to solicit competitive bids for the contract. The department was thus forced to seek a waiver of the City's competitive bidding requirements.

Lake Merritt Institute, the department’s chosen contractor for a no-bid contract, is a nonprofit that for several years has been the City’s service provider for litter removal around the lake, as well as maintenance of the boom and lake’s oxygenators. Arniola noted that whenever the contract is about to be renewed, Public Works reviews the company’s qualifications and issues a competitive bid notice to the public, with LMI usually winning out against what is usually rare competition. But this time, Arniola said, Public Works was unable to get the request for bids through the City’s contract services departments:

“We prepared a traditional RFP [Request for Proposals] for this contract last year. When I say this is a crisis of staffing within contract services, that’s exactly what it is, bold and underlined. We submitted it, we did our best, we couldn’t do it–it wasn’t for lack of planning or putting it in ahead of time. We anticipated some issues and we still went through the process, but it’s not working right now.”

“What we’ve been told and what we’ve experienced is that, let’s say a staff of multiple people was reduced down to one, and the one person was [so] stressed that they left, and we’ve had turnover on a regular basis since. So it’s a challenge right now to get any contracts through for Public Works and DOT. ”

Derek Lee,  Environmental Services Division Manager, added,

“We developed the RFP in December of last year. And the process is that then the capital contract service division has to take it, review it and then run it through the central contract services people in the City, and they advertise it. And they did not have the staffing to support that process, so we could not get the RFP out to bid it out.”

After the Committee accepted the rationale, voted affirmatively on the contract and moved on in the agenda, the issues of staffing in that department and others came up again only minutes later. In another item, OakDOT Director Fred Kelley read a report to Council that highlighted risks of losing both a RAISE grant and Calsta grant due in large part to short-staffing in the Capital Contracts Division along with vacancies in OakDOT's new Major Projects Division, the OakDOT department created last year to carry out projects envisioned for Howard Terminal and other large-scale developments. Kelley told council members that the Major Projects Division had succeeded only in hiring one of seven engineers envisioned for the division since passing the legislation last year.

Kelley's report reads:

“These delays were further impacted by staffing shortages at OakDOT and OPW’s Capital Contracts Division. The new OakDOT Major Projects Division developing these projects hired its first engineer in December 2023 and has six vacancies - only one of seven engineers is on staff today. In addition, winter storms and the ransomware attack caused further diversions of capacity and staff…

…If the City does not enter into the proposed design contracts, the City would most likely have to return the $14.5 million federal RAISE grant, jeopardizing the City’s ability to deliver the projects and win future discretionary federal funding across all departments and disciplines. Similarly, with the CalSTA deadline, urgent action must be taken to meet design deliverables and maintain the significant $259.5 million funding."

At Council Tuesday:

Council Study Budget Session:

At a Special 1:00 pm Budget Meeting on Tuesday, Council will review and discuss the Mayor’s budget. The item contains numerous reports from departments about their proposed budget, its implications for their departments, some of them mildly critical of the Mayor’s proposed changes. The Housing and Community Development breakout document, for example, notes that the Thao budget doesn’t represent a proposed consolidation of the City’s homelessness services into HCD. HCD is also concerned about a capital operating deficit and a high vacancy rate, which the report claims hinders the agency’s work. The report also notes that to successfully merge homelessness services, HCD will require consultancy assistance.

Despite Thao’s claims about merging departments, the departments designated for merging have little commentary on the process or what will be required in their reports.

* city and state laws require that signs be removed to put up new ones in the City of Oakland

Thanks to Rachel Beck for Copy Editing!