This Week at Oakland City Council: Gaza Ceasefire Resolution; Good and Bad News at Finance Committee

It’s an outlier week for Council. Normally there’d be only a designated required Council meeting with the public safety boards and commissions on Tuesday. But because of a special meeting scheduled to hear a ceasefire resolution and a Special Finance Committee meeting on Monday there’s actually three meetings instead.

Special Meeting on Gaza Ceasefire Resolution 11/27, 4 pm

You can read more about CM Carroll Fife's Gaza Ceasefire resolution, the only item for the special meeting, here and read the resolution here. The meeting and resolution follow an unexpectedly eventful City Council meeting of November 7th, when Gaza Ceasefire advocates filled City Council chambers following weeks of frustrated advocacy with individual council members.

Despite impassioned pleas at that meeting, only one Council person publicly nodded to the efforts, Council President Nikki Fortunato Bas, who vowed to find a way to get a resolution before Council. But those efforts seemingly failed to produce a direct effect, as at least one opportunity to place a resolution on an agenda went by several days later.

In the following weeks, Council Member Carroll Fife announced on social media that she was seeking a special meeting to put a ceasefire-advocacy resolution before Council.

Council Members Who Supported Ukraine Silent for Gaza

The resolution would seem like a common sense and quick deliberation supporting a halt to the incalculable, undisputed loss of Palestinian life rendered by the US-backed attack on Gaza over the past six weeks. Within a week of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, for example, Council had already put forth a resolution in support of the beleaguered nation.

But no such resolution emerged for Gaza, week after week of Israel's staggering attack following a deadly strike and hostage taking by Hamas that by some accounts killed over 1,000 people. The death toll in Israel's subsequent six week invasion of Gaza exceeds that of the Russian-Ukraine war over the entire nearly 2 years of war in that country. The still increasing Palestinian death toll has reached nearly 14K dead, over a third of the Palestinian dead are women and children and nearly half are children, according to estimates from Gaza's Health Ministry. In more conventional conflicts like the Russian-Ukraine war, children make up only about 5% of those killed in the combat.

Regardless, Ukraine has been the subject of two Oakland City Council resolutions—CM Dan Kalb was the sole author of the second support resolution for Ukraine which he brought to Council with no co-sponsors. It appears Kalb's original resolution likely went further than simple support, and celebrated Ukraine's military effort, as the item was scheduled with the title "Honoring The Ukrainian Resistance Of Russia’s Invasion". That means that it was likely the original title of the first legislation Kalb attempted to schedule.

JCRC, Run by Former AIPAC Leader, Lobbies Against Resolution

The Bay Area Jewish Community Relations Council [JCRC], a local chapter of a national advocacy and lobbying organization, has issued a call out to local residents to oppose the legislation. JCRC on its website argues that the resolution “says nothing about the atrocities committed by Hamas”, despite the fact that the resolution clearly notes the deaths in Israel and urges a release of the hostages and respect for security of “all innocent civilians”.

Tyler Gregory, the SF JCRC’s Director, has spent his professional life in non-profit lobbying organizations with the specific focus of Israeli-American relations. Gregory was AIPAC’s Deputy Political Director, Pacific Northwest from 2012 to 2014, and the director of a Wider Bridge, an organization that seeks to link LGBQT issues to Israel from 2014 to 2020. He became director at JCRC in 2021.

Though JCRC’s stated mission is to advocate on "issues of vital importance to the organized Jewish community”, JCRC does not advocate for Jewish Americans who oppose Israeli policies, an internet search reveals.

JCRC has included a script for the meeting's public comment on its website that suggests advocates of a Gaza Ceasefire at the November 7 council meeting endangered attendees and suggests that attendees at Monday's meeting will be in danger.

“I ask you to take the proper steps to protect all attendees and condemn hateful and antisemitic rhetoric heard during public comment in real time.

Everyone must feel safe and welcomed to attend the meeting, and we demand the resolution be amended to condemn Hamas and call for its removal from power.”

Kalb Outspoken Against Resolution, Other CMs Show Support

Kalb has been one of a handful of Council people to speak out on issues involving the nearly two month old Israeli invasion of Gaza. He spoke at a rally, alongside Gregory, condemning a recent Oakland Teachers Association resolution on the conflict. During his comments, Kalb characterized the US-funded and diplomatically-backed military assault on Gaza as something going on “halfway around the world” and called OEA’s ceasefire resolution “hurtful and harmful”. Despite having himself authored a resolution in support of Ukraine, and voted affirmatively for two, Kalb called such resolutions “irrelevant”.

Council President Nikki Fortunato Bas, and Council Members Kevin Jenkins have both issued social media support for a ceasefire in the past several weeks. Jenkins and Bas were reportedly working on a version of a ceasefire proposal weeks ago, but Fife is the sole author of this ceasefire resolution. CM Treva Reid advertised the meeting, along with another meeting Tuesday on her Instagram account without comment.

Special Finance Committee 11/27, 10 am

Some notable items follow:

Vacant Property Tax Collection Report

Some data, but very few insights from a report on the collection of the Vacant Property Tax that was passed by Oakland voters in 2018 as Measure W. Ballot measures require an enabling ordinance, but the roll out of the tax was delayed by deliberation on setting the rates and allowing exemptions to avoid over-taxing vulnerable populations or people who own difficult to monetize property—Oakland didn’t begin to collect the taxes until January 2021 for the previous two years. This report gives some details about the number of parcels identified as vacant, and the amount of taxes collected—there were an average of 1,544 parcels identified yearly between 2019 and 2021.

That should have resulted in an average of $7,432,000 MM in vacant property taxes collected yearly, but average yearly revenue is only about $5.3 MM, according to the report. The disparity between those two figures gets very little attention in the report, except for highlighting the 10 exemptions Council added to the tax law—but there’s no data on whether assessed property owners are failing to pay taxes.

Measure T Progressive Business Tax Collection Report

Oakland collected its first progressive business tax this year after the passage of Measure T last year which designated higher tax rates for the wealthiest companies, while keeping—and sometimes reducing—tax rates for more modest companies and businesses. This report details some of the outcomes, costs and processes.

The City collected about $17.6 MM in additional taxes from the wealthiest corporations subject to an increase, which is about $3.3 MM lower than the estimates predicted in the ballot measure put before voters. The City will spend about $1.3 MM implementing the new tax structure. The City collected $58.3 MM with the new progressive tax rates—last year, under the old structure, the City collected $40.7 MM in business tax revenue.

FY 2022-23, First Quarter of FY 2023-24 Financial Report

The Q4/Q1 revenue and expense report usually comes out around this time of year and is important because it wraps up the preceding fiscal year, and gives insight into the coming one. Heavy caveat that a 1st quarter projection is not very reliable, and much can change in the next quarters, and the quarterly reports don't start to accurately predict until the end of the third quarter. More on this after the discussion on Monday, but some highlights:

—OPD May Exceed Budget by Tens of Millions with Projected Record Overtime Expenditure in FY 23-24: While many departments are predicted to have vacancy savings in 1st quarter projections, the OPD is projected to exceed its budget by $32.4 MM, all of it, apparently, in overtime spending. Some of the spending may be compensated by $5.9 MM in projected salary savings due to staffing shortages and reimbursable overtime, according to the report, bringing the overage down to $26.5 MM.

If the projection of even the lower amount proves to be accurate, however, the resulting audited overtime expenditure of over $50 MM would be Oakland’s largest overtime expenditure to date and one of its largest budget overages as well.

—FY 22-23 Expenditures were $69.15 MM lower Than Budgeted When Adjusted for ARPA and Other Inputs: The report is cagey about giving credit to Thao's hiring freeze from March for some or any of this, but Oakland has run a very high vacancy rate regardless.

—OPD Overspent its FY 22-23 budget by $11.4 MM: Though the budgeting of ARPA funds continued to obscure police spending [the last year it will do so], the report clearly notes that the Oakland Police Department overspent its budget by $11.4 MM, despite historically low staffing throughout the 2022-23 fiscal year.

—Oakland’s Revenues May be Lower than Projected, Expenditures Higher in FY 23-24 in Preliminary Projections: While 1st quarter predictions are very unreliable, the 1st quarter report suggests that Oakland’s revenues are performing more poorly than expected, while expenditures are going to be slightly higher than predicted.

—Real Estate Transfer Tax Revenue for FY 23-24 Projected to be Far Lower Than Budgeted: Lower than expected RETT is one of the factors contributing to a shortfall. RETT in FY 23-24 may be about $20 MM lower than what was assumed in the FY 23-25 budget making process, according to the report, a relatively large shortfall of 18.8%. The smaller figure reflects a cooling of the Bay Area housing market due to external economic forces. The report claims that the projections for FY 23-24 were made before a decline in home sales was noted in late FY 22-23, But the report also notes that there’s some indication the housing market will rebound. As always, RETT remains unpredictable, and generally fluctuates, especially if a large commercial property changes hands.

Special Concurrent Meeting of the Oakland City Council, CPAB, SSOC, and Police Commission

This is a required meeting of the Public Safety and Services Oversight Commission, the Community Policing Advisory Board, the Police Commission and the Oakland City Council. It is technically a Council meeting, but there will only be one topic, a regular overview of Measure Z. The meeting could have some novel input, however, as Z sunsets in 2024—unless the City Council proposes a ballot measure for the next November's ballot, millions in public safety funding will evaporate going forward.