PLA Amendment Roundly Opposed; Council Preview

Proposed PLA Amendment Roundly Rejected

A proposed amendment to Measure U [MU] funding legislation that could have impacted affordable housing development brought out almost 60 speakers who opposed it at Tuesday’s Community and Economic Development Committee meeting. By the end of the meeting, no speaker, city staffer or council member had made any commentary to support the amendment to the main legislation that authorizes releasing a second tranche of Measure U funds. No committee member moved to introduce it. At a Rules meeting Thursday, one of the amendment proponents, Council President Nikki Fortunato Bas, publicly stated that she and the other proponent and CED committee member, CM Kevin Jenkins, had told Committee Chair Dan Kalb they would refrain from introducing the amendment ahead of the meeting.

Original Legislation Authorizes Grants of $101 MM in Measure U Funds

The original legislation earmarks a $101 MM tranche of MU funding through the City’s regular Notice of Funding Availability [NOFA] for affordable housing developers who meet the City’s qualifications. But the amendment initially proposed by Jenkins and Bas would have required those developers to sign on to an as yet-undeveloped Project Labor Agreement [PLA] with the Alameda County Building and Trades Council [ALCO Trades] to get the funds. The amendment was inserted into the packet on September 5 by Jenkins, just a few days ahead of the meeting. But apparently, shortly before the meeting, according to Bas, she and Jenkins had already abandoned it. During the meeting, Jenkins, a committee member, was attending a Black Caucus event in Washington, DC and Bas, who is not a member of the committee, did not attend or call in.

The amendment would have been a crucial component to the attempt to add a PLA requirement to Measure U funding, a year long goal of the ALCO Trades as attested to by commentary by the organization’s Secretary-Treasurer Andreas Cluver, throughout the public process. Council will soon consider the PLA as one of several options for Measure U labor standards in a non-action item report on "recommendations" for "labor standards" for Measure U funded projects—the CED committee recommended in July that the Council add the PLA requirement to Measure U funding allocations as the overriding set of labor standards.

But even If the Council were to accept the recommendation, the introduction and approval for a PLA requirement for all Measure U funding would still be weeks away and a stakeholder negotiation process could span over a year according to some estimates. Thus, a PLA requirement would almost certainly miss this year’s NOFA for Measure U allocating the second tranche of Measure U bonds unless the NOFA were to be delayed to accommodate it—and possibly also miss next year’s. The Bas/Jenkins amendment would have backdated the PLA to acceptance of this year’s NOFA, requiring all of the recipients to sign on to an as yet non-existent PLA with the Trades.

Speakers against the amendment came from a wide range of interests, unified by their exclusion as significant actors in the process. Members of the Norcal Carpenter’s Union, a major labor representative in the Bay Area, said they oppose the deal, because their membership won’t benefit and haven’t been included in stakeholder meetings to date.

“The memo suggests to the colleagues on the council that the negotiations will be done in a month. What negotiations? We haven't been invited to any negotiations,” Scott Littlehale, Executive Research Analyst for the Norcal Carpenters, told Council members.

Both several affordable housing development representatives and Black contractors, led by the National Association of Minority Contractors, said that PLA’s actually diminish Black participation in the affordable housing construction workforce.

Nevada Merriman, Vice President of Policy and Advocacy for Midpen housing, recounted that experience at Brooklyn Basin, where a latter phase of work with a PLA was far less diverse than previous phases that hadn’t required one.

“For the first three phases of Brooklyn basin, we had a high union participation at 90% or over. And we also had up to 20% participation amongst the SLBE and minority and minority subs. For the one phase at the end that was subject to a PLA that [latter] number really dropped, and dropped by a factor of 50%, so there was an inverse relationship,” Merriman said.

Mario Wagner, the Vice President of NAMAC, recalled a recent development that had only one Black sub-contractor, and warned that a PLA would decrease participation, rather than increase it.

“The way we increase [the Black construction workforce] is by including people who don't otherwise have the ability to be able to do so. It's an investment that needs to happen in the Black and Brown community, and we need to try and figure out how to get that done. So ultimately, we do not support a PLA, especially when it comes to us moving forward without an equity portion that goes along with it. So no PLA, we don't support it,” Wagner said.

Developers also complained that adding a PLA to development already under way could jeopardize other funding sources. Tim Dunn, of Mercy Housing, explained that any delay in the start of construction by a PLA could jeopardize other funding sources.

“We're currently developing 97 units of senior housing here in 21st and telegraph we got a award from HUD for $11 million...as well as as annual subsidy of over a million dollars a year so that tenants will pay no no more than a third of their income in rent… to keep this award, we have to meet a deadline. We have to be able to start construction by the end of 2025; any delay caused by the PLA could possibly jeopardize our accepting this award. Likewise, we have an application into the tax credits, which will be worth $41 million roughly—if we are not able to start construction by the end of next year that award would…drop by about $9 million,” Dunn said.

The aborted legislation could be a last gasp of the Trades-inspired effort to add a PLA to the Measure U funding, which would allow the union advocacy group to get a higher proportion of guaranteed contracted work from affordable housing developers for its constituent union members. The effort began with a direct attempt to link the coming NOFA to the PLA by Bas and Jenkins, obviously originating with the Building Trades.

But after pushback from organizations like NAMAC and others, the request was downgraded to a policy report and recommendation from the City Administrator’s office on how to add labor standards to Measure U allocations—including a menu of standards that already exist at state level and are not very different than those already used at affordable housing projects.

Bas backed away from direct involvement in the process, but Jenkins was active in creating a platform at Council, including introducing ancillary legislation that favored the ALCO Trades position and introducing the motion that led to forwarding the recommendation for a PLA to full Council that will be heard in October.

Given the influence of the subject matter CED committee recommendations to full Council, a PLA legislation has a high chance of being introduced following the deliberation. But much of the Measure U funding for affordable housing would have already been allocated by the time such a PLA is negotiated, the scenario intended to be avoided with the amendment.

At the same Rules committee where Bas made a note about the withdrawal of the amendment, the Committee also scheduled the report with accompanying recommendation on a PLA to an October meeting.

At Council Tuesday, 9/15/2024:

ABC Security Legislation and Tie-Breaker:

In July, the City Council failed to pass a bridge contract that would have allowed the City to continue to pay ABC Security for services at City Hall and beyond for up to a year while the process to find a new security company continues. That contract legislation failed with a tie vote of present council members–no tie-breaking vote would be possible before the start of Fall Council sessions due to rules requiring mayoral tie-breaking votes be scheduled to regular meetings.

That means that for the past two months or so, ABC Security has continued to provide security services at City sites without a contract, and with an accumulating bill. It also potentially forced Mayor Sheng Thao into an uncomfortable vote in order to continue having security services in City Hall and other locations. Reports from the East Bay Times and Oaklandside highlighted links between the owner of the company, Ana Chretien, and Mario Juarez, the current locus of an FBI investigation into Thao, the OPD and other actors, making a potential Mayoral tie–breaking vote a barometer of rumors of influence.

But the City Administrator has issued new legislation that would do two things if passed: it settles the bill with ABC, which includes unpaid fees from an increase in security requirements from early 2024 as well as the unpaid summer services; and it renews the contract on a month to month basis for up to to a year, just as the previous contract extension legislation would have.

It’s not clear whether Thao is required to vote to break the tie on the previous legislation, now made moot by the newer legislation. But if she does she could vote against the legislation, allowing the matter to be taken up in the new legislative format, without appearing to show favor one way or the other or affecting the course of the contract. If Thao were to vote favorably on the older legislation, the new legislation, which settles bills old and new with ABC, would still need to be taken up and deliberated, regardless.

Temporary Closure of 23rd St/Brush Dead End

CM Carroll Fife has introduced legislation that would close 23rd street from West Street to where it dead ends with Brush to be heard Tuesday. Fife argues that the structure of the quasi cul de sac has allowed untenable dumping—52 dumping reports—but that closing the stretch with fencing would prevent the dumping. The proposal was developed in conjunction with City Attorney, OakDOT and the City Administrator’s office.

Homelessness Intervention Programming Funding FY 24-25

Some 10 MM in homelessness intervention and facility funding from various City and County, State and Federal Funds of around $10 MM will be presented to Council for deliberation.

Private Property Flex Streets Reinstatement

The City began a program for allowing businesses to operate on city sidewalks, and to allow temporary street closures called Flex streets during its pandemic response under emergency measures. The program gradually became permanent through subsequent legislation, but one element of it sunset last year, which allowed business owners to apply for expedited permits to use their own outdoor sections of property for business. Fife’s legislation would reinstate it.

Public Works Purchase of $4.5 MM for 68 OPD Vehicles Replacement

An extended and confusing process to purchase OPD vehicle, which began with a $5 MM dollar allocation request during budget deliberations from the General Purpose Fund for OPD in June, returns.

The request was withdrawn, and replaced with a request for $500K right before summer break from the same fund, the fund had apparently been cut by half in budget crunching. The $500K allocation was paid without council approval by the City Administrator using their inherent authorization* powers and logged in the Mayor’s recess agenda.

A new request for the remainder $4.5 MM now appears on this week’s agenda: the fund sources have changed and are now bolstered by Public Works funds earmarked for equipment replacement, which now constitute the majority of the available funds for the purchase. In the Department of Public Works Committee** on Tuesday, a DPW representative explained that the original $5MM request failed to get approval from the Budget Office due to the heavy work load during the budgeting period. An initial allocation of $500K was requested instead to pay for 7 vehicles that were ready to be purchased, which was paid directly by the City Administrator. The current amount has been approved by the budget office for Council consideration.

The total purchase will replace 68 of the OPD’s 112 remaining fleet of Crown Victoria police cruisers; during the meeting, DPW’s rep told Council members that on top of age and wear, transmissions for the model are no longer available from Ford, requiring complete rebuilds.

*The City Administrator’s independent spending authority is 250K, but during council recess periods, when the Council is not available to authorize payments or contracts, the amount is increased to $500K.

**the committee was canceled due to lack of quorum, but still heard reports and took public comment, as allowed by the Brown Act.