What's Up at Council Committees This Week

Finance, Tuesday 9:30am

Cancelled

Public Works/OakDOT, Tuesday 11:30am

Moeller Brothers Repair Contract

The Committee will consider a three year, $1MM/year auto body/collision repair company with Moeller Brothers in San Leandro, the provider of those services for the City’s heavy and light vehicle fleet through the Public Works service department. The backstory on this is that the City has had a four year contract with Moeller that ends in December of this year, but has already expended the funds nearly a year early and requires a new contract and budget for the services. The City requested bids as required by law, but Moeller is still the best bidder, per the report. The new contract, if passed as requested, would be for an initial three year contract that also allows the City Administrator to extend the contract by two years without returning to Council.

FEMA/BRIC Sea Level Rise Grant

Committee will review a request by the City Administrator to apply for, receive and disburse a $56 MM grant from FEMA’s Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities [BRIC] for flood mitigation as sea levels rise in the East Oakland watershed and waterfront. The grant, if won, would also require a 1 MM matching grant and a yearly investment of $118.5 over five decades—the City intends to either use Measure U funds for those costs, and/or pursue non-federal funds to cover those costs. The seal level rise program is run in partnership with several regional entities including Caltrans, the Port of Oakland, East Bay Regional Parks District

Community and Economic Development, Tuesday 1:30pm

Measure U and other Affordable Housing Funding Allocations

Committee will review a request to allocate $22MM in Measure U funds to the 2023 NOFA recipients, and $22MM in city-administered state loans, in addition to $88MM allocated last year to affordable housing builders in Oakland.

Liberation Park DDA and LDDA

The proposed 119 affordable unit development at the current Akoma Market in two lots adjacent to the Eastmont parking lot and transit hub continues on its slow path. The project is on city owned land, and is also slated to include a three story mixed commercial/food market hall. Committee will review plans to give a Lease Disposition and Development Agreement [LDDA] for the housing, and a DDA for the sale of the lot for the commercial project. The report notes that ground is not currently foreseen to be broken before 2026, and Eden Housing and Black Cultural Zone, the development principals, are from their financing goals.  

Public Safety, Tuesday, 6pm

OPD Semi-Annual Staffing Report

The semi-annual report has been updated with data through December, including the number of attritions for 2023. Some highlights:

—The attrition rate is lower this year than last, at about 3.75 per month. The City currently has 714 or fewer officers. 

—A total of 45 officers left OPD in 2023. Most of the officers who left OPD last year retired, disability-retired, resigned/were released during field training. 6 left for another Law Enforcement Agency, and one sworn officer resigned. The report would suggest that no officers were dismissed, despite several stories that suggest several officers faced dismissal this year; it's likely those officers continue on the force while they appeal their discipline.

—The departing 45 officers in 2023 include those recruits that washed out during field training, so there was a net loss of 13 officers in 2023. Per statements made by OPD administrators at Police Commission meetings last month, there were 714 officers as of late January, fewer than there were during 2023-25 budget deliberations.

—The five officers that resigned during field training, and three fired during field training equal 22% of the personnel in the two academies that completed field training for the year. 

—In all, the City graduated 35 recruits from two academies by December, per other OPD statements; the last academy graduating in early December doesn’t appear to be counted in stats, likely because field training began so late in the year as to be counted in 2024, or did not begin until 2024. Each academy is funded for 33 trainees, a recruit goal the City has not come close to filling in years.