OO Week: City Continues 2 Tiered Encampment Evictions; Q3 Rev/Exp Report Predicts Deficit, and Effective Balancing Actions; Correction of OPD Budget Error Opened Additional Fire House; Accurate OPD Budgeting Suggests Flat Staffing for Years to Come

City Continues Two-Tiered Homeless Encampment Eviction Process on East Oakland's 12th St.

Alongside the much higher profile eviction of a long-standing homeless encampment at the E 12th street median last week, the OPD and OakDOT also posted no parking notices at a largely vehicle-centered encampment about a half mile further east, in an area geographically separate from the higher profile median. Today, Monday, the OPD led an eviction of that encampment.

While disputed, the City claims that all E 12th median-residents have been made an offer of housing at the newly acquired city-owned Extended Stay America, redubbed Mandela House. But the E 12th encampment between 25th and Fruitvale Avenue was not included in that operation, and no offer of housing or any services was made to residents, this publication has confirmed in half a dozen separate interviews. According to residents, notices went up on May 8th along the corridor, giving a 16 day period from May 14 to May 30 during which there would be “no parking” at the site. This isn’t the first time the encampment has had an all-OPD led eviction action—in January, OPD also came and stickered vehicles with a 72 hour notice, and towed some unregistered vehicles, but never returned for a full scale eviction. 

On Monday morning, May 19, OPD returned to the site and told residents living in the area between 25th and Fruitvale Ave that they would have to leave or be towed. OPD would not answer questions to this reporter at the site about the extent of the eviction, how it was being handled, how residents could retrieve their belongings or whether there was some limit to who would have to leave.

One resident this reporter spoke to who asked to remain anonymous said police banged on his trailer door Monday morning and told him that the same fate of the E 12th median community awaited him if he did not move his trailer and vehicle. 

Another pair of residents, who are mother and daughter, told this reporter that they found out about the eviction was imminent only yesterday from an Operation Dignity worker who was passing food out on the street, but who was not outreaching about the coming eviction—they were told they would not be offered rooms at the Mandela House site, nor services or rehousing. 

Oral Report on Extended Stay/Mandela House Raises Questions

The reality of the today's evictions stand in contrast to an oral report given to the Life Enrichment Committee last Tuesday where city staff updated Council members on Mandela House, Oakland's newest housing intervention. Mandela House, was funded by a state Encampment Resolution Fund grant [ERF] and was directly connected to the eviction of three large and long-standing homeless encampments. The City’s original goal was to purchase the Jack London Inn with funds from the ERF grant to house residents evicted from homeless camps, beginning with a large-scale clearing of an encampment at the MLK and Grand Avenue area. The City’s months-long negotiations with the owner of the facility fell through with no purchase and the City fumbled the eviction at MLK which had a public facing narrative of rehousing through the ERF grant in a progressive transitional housing program. No one from MLK ended up being housed through the ERF grant.

Months later, after the City had already dispersed residents at MLK, and rehoused some in its community cabins program, the City was able to use the ERF to purchase the Extended Stay America site at the Oakland/Emeryville border. With the Extended Stay, now dubbed Mandela House, Oakland proceeded to evict two long-standing targets, one of which had been an intended target for eviction and demolition since 2023, the E 12th median community—and the other at Mosswood Park, which had not been an initial target. The City is finishing the eviction process at E 12th this week. 

Human Services’ Lead Program analyst for the grant, Nicole Banks presented the oral report to Council. She told council members that Mandela House follows a “housing first” model and has 105 rooms, yielding housing for 150 individuals. Banks told CMs that as of May 12, after notices for a potential eviction of the E 12th vehicular encampment had been posted, 62 individuals were housed in 49 rooms at Mandela House, with 54 rooms to fill. Despite the lack of offers of housing for the new eviction on 12th and the previous eviction at MLK, the City appears to have rooms to spare at Mandela House.  

City staff had trouble explaining the issues around Mandela House’s ongoing failure to house residents evicted from encampments. Banks told CMs that 82 people had lived at MLK according to the City’s census—only 45 had accepted other housing or respite care. Regardless, the City is only trying to rehouse 6 [now 4] individuals who “requested alternative housing when it became available” during the MLK eviction. Apparently, the City is not trying to relocate those who already accepted other city accommodations into the site. The four remaining MLK residents won't be housed at Mandela House until the E 12th encampment transition is completed. And no resident in the area between 25h and Fruitvale was offered any sort of rehousing option.

To complicate matters, several previous residents of the MLK encampment objected to the claims by the City at the meeting, and countered that they’d never been offered the Mandela House option before being displaced from the MLK encampment. A woman identifying herself as Brittany told CMs that MLK residents were told they needed to go on a list for housing, but were never contacted.

“When Project Dignity came out, when they was moving us from Sycamore [and MLK], we asked them, are y'all here to offer us services? They said no…they said we got to go on the list,” Brittany told CMs. 

Donald Sims, a former resident of MLK, said he was unsure of whether or not he was on the list, but he was still homeless. With voice breaking, Sims voice broke as he recounted the conditions after being displaced. 

“I just want to know if I can get some shelter with running water. I'm getting all kinds of getting paid for parasites, all kind of rats…I’m trying to get some help, and I am willing to work,” Sims said. 

The Oakland Observer repeated its queries to the City Administrator’s office about today’s eviction of homeless residents on 12th but as of this writing has received no response.

On a somber note, during the eviction of the 12th/25th to Fruitvale encampment eviction, according to eyewitnesses, a resident of one of the RVs on the site was found deceased in their vehicle. The OPD sent the following response to OO's query, confirming the death. Note, it's unclear when the death occurred, 12:45 appears to be the time OPD found the deceased:

"The Oakland Police Department (OPD) is investigating a death that occurred just after 12:45 p.m. on May 19, 2025, in the 2800 block of East 12th Street. Officers were working a special enforcement assignment in the area when an unresponsive individual was found. Paramedic personnel responded to the scene and confirmed the individual had died."

Q3 Revenue and Expenditure Report Continues to Predict Deficit at FY's End But Finance Department Says Balancing Efforts Will Prevail

The City’s FY 2024-25 third quarter revenue and expenditure report has been published and will be discussed at the May 27th Finance Committee meeting. In the report, the Finance Department is still projecting a large deficit at fiscal year’s end. But regardless, this report, like the last one, maintains that the City’s balancing actions undertaken late last year will balance out almost all of the deficit. 

Generally, the third quarter data is viewed as an accurate read of where the City will end up in the 4th quarter with a majority of spending and revenues in hand—though there can often be significant differences that aren’t known until months later. Now with at least two additional months of balancing efforts since the last report which covered up to the end of December, the Finance Department nevertheless still projects a deficit—with revenues underperforming by $30MM and around $24 MM in spending above the expenditure budget. With some noteworthy additions and subtractions—City started the fiscal year with a negative fund balance of $6.8 MM, and has to pay legal settlements and other costs, and there’s an $8.3 MM refund from the Equipment Services Fund—City ends the fiscal year at a negative balance of $57.7 MM. 

That’s actually a reduction in the previous predicted shortfall—the second quarter report projected an over $80K negative imbalance. But much of the 2nd quarter calculations reflected data to the end of December—before much of the City Administrator and Council’s balancing actions had had time to impact the budget. The imbalance persists in year-end projections made with more months of data, albeit at a smaller, but still significant number. Nevertheless, the report maintains that the balancing actions will reduce the imbalance to relatively negligible amounts of about $300K. 

OPD and OFD Overtime are the Bulk of the Overspending

Most of the expenditure overage is from the OPD and OFD’s overspending, as nearly every other department generated savings by coming in under budget, even after most of the City’s non-sworn layoffs were rescinded. In fact, the other departments combined saved a total of $30MM off the total expenditure budget, according to the report, significantly reducing the impact of OPD and OFD* overspending.

OPD’s overspending is predicted to be somewhat lower than it was in the Q2 report. The total overtime spending project in the Q2 report by year’s end was $55 MM vs the new figure of $47 MM—owing to a concerted effort in the CAO to reduce spending by 20%. As reported by OO, the CAO initially set out to reduce overtime spending by around 50% late in December, an attempt that failed immediately as OPD had already surpassed that level of spending. Even in the new projection, OPD still outspends both the contingency budget reduction, which was $22 MM and the initial budget of June 2024, which was $42 MM. OPD is overspending its contingency overtime budget by around $25 MM and it's original budget by around $4 MM.

The City also received a small boost from a projected increase of Business License Tax revenue [BLT], which had initially been projected to come in under budget in previous quarterly reports. According to the report, the BLT will come in $1.2 MM over its budget due in large part to increased payments from rental property businesses. The report attributes the increase to better outreach via the City’s nascent rent registry. But the increase follows the passage of a city ordinance that would bar attempts to evict or raise rents by landlords who are behind on BLT, though the ordinance isn’t cited as a reason for the increase in the report. Property Tax also performed better than expected. Sales Tax, Real Estate Transfer Tax, Parking Tax and Transient Occupancy Tax all continue to perform below projections. 

OPD Budget Correction Provides Funding to Keep Firehouse Open in FY 2025-26; City Leads with Realistic Police Staffing Projections for Budget Deliberations

As previously reported by OO, the City of Oakland and Mayor’s office made significant errors in its costing of police staffing when it published its FY 2025-27 biennial budget last week—an errata published last week notes OPD was budgeted at an additional $13 MM in FY 2025-26, and $17 MM in FY 2026-27 due to an error that set a far higher budgeted staffing level than the OPD is capable of achieving.

A fire engine company [fire house] that was slated to remain “browned-out” in the first iteration of the FY 2025-26 budget book, is now opened in the errata—Budget Director Bradley Johnson told this publication that the firehouse was refunded with the recouped savings from the OPD correction. The budget book has not been corrected as of this writing, though the errata is linked on the City’s budget page. Thus, contrary to the published budget book, only one station will be browned out in FY 2025-26.

In the new errata, as OO reported in an update to previous reporting, the City also has more concrete and accurate projections for OPD staffing than its typical offerings. The City presents two projection models against a constant of 5/month average officer attrition: one an academy graduation rate of 67% and one “optimistic” model with 80%. But in both cases, the City predicts the 678 staffing level won’t be reached at any time in the 2 year budget. In the most optimistic scenario, OPD briefly rests at 672 officers after graduation of the last academy of the biennial in May 2027—only a handful of officers more than the current 667—before falling again in June. In the less optimistic scenario that number is 650, significantly fewer officers than OPD currently has. 

The new transparency, absent in previous fiscal year projections that were based on 100% graduation rates, will likely be a sobering response to an upcoming City report that suggests Oakland needs an OPD staff of nearly 900 officers to meet public safety needs. Regardless, even these new projections may be an overestimate, because those graduation rates are based on a starting class of 35, a number the City has not achieved since 2022.

Declaring April Election Results; Seating Lee and Wang on Tuesday

Mayor Elect Barbara Lee and D2 Council Member elect Charlene Wang will be seated in their respective positions at a special meeting on Tuesday morning at 10 am along with certification of ALCO’s election results. 

New Committee Appointments/JPA

After Lee and Wang take their seats at another Council meeting that begins at 1pm, current Interim Mayor Kevin Jenkins will return to his role as Council President, replacing Gallo. Some reshuffling will be necessary and new roles will be voted on through this resolution. Some or all of the committee chair positions may also be changed. As outgoing D2 interim CM Rebecca Kaplan is an appointment to the Coliseum Joint Powers Authority [JPA], a new appointment will be made to that body as well in another item.

Rare Eminent Domain Action by City of Oakland Seeks New Site for Fire Station 4

In what is likely the first effort of its kind in decades, the City is proposing to acquire an East Oakland site currently occupied by a family-owned, nearly century-old business as the new location for Fire Station #4. Fire Station #4 is currently located several blocks away in a decaying, 115 year-old building that the city says can’t sustain the retrofitting and renovation necessary to continue serving that purpose. Previously, the City sought to relocate the firehouse at a new location in San Antonio Park, but community opposition stopped the project. 

The “resolution of necessity” will start the eminent domain process—but it's unclear whether the owner of the business, East Bay Blueprint and Supply Company, is fully on board. At the CED Committee meeting that reviewed the legislation before forwarding it to Council, Grace Von Querner the current owner and daughter of the founders of the company, voiced concerns. Von Querner said that she had not been able to speak with her district council member, at the time, CM Nikki Fortunato Bas, about the eminent domain process because “she was advised not to speak with us.”

Von Querner said the first official contact she’d had with the City about the eminent domain process was from the City’s contracted representative, Brad Kuhn, an attorney at Nossaman LLP specializing in Eminent Domain law. Von Querner told council members,

“My impression is that no one from the city has been upfront and honest with us about this matter,” Von Querner said. 

Wildfire Oversight

In November 2024, Oakland voters passed the Wildfire Prevention Financing Act (Measure MM), approving a special tax to fund wildfire prevention in the city’s Wildfire Prevention Zone. Council will now move to create an oversight body to ensure accountability in fund use on Tuesday. 

The 7-member body will oversee the use of approximately $2.7 million annually and advise on the vegetation management plan–at least one member must have subject matter expertise in wildfire prevention or be a current or former firefighter. 

On Tuesday, City Council will also hold the following honorifics

—A resolution recognizing the Little Saigon community in Oakland as a cultural and economic center, honoring the journey and contributions of Vietnamese and Southeast Asian people.

—A declaration of May 2025 as Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander (AANHPI) Heritage Month, celebrating the vital role these communities play in the city's vibrancy.

—The establishment of April 12 as "Derbing Alvarado Day" to honor his life, legacy, and contributions to the community.

—A resolution recognizing Councilmember Rebecca Kaplan for over 17 years of distinguished service to the City of Oakland.

Budget Meetings Schedule:

5/28: Budget Study Session 9am to 4pm, potentially continued to Thursday, May 29 at 9am

6/11: Council President Budget Amendments Presented, 9am

6/17: Final Budget Deliberation, 9am

6/23: Additional Budget Meeting if Necessary, 9am

*as the report notes, typically OFD overtime overspending is balanced out by vacancy savings, even often to the point of coming in under budget, but the report is unclear about whether that is currently the expectation.