Board of Supervisors - Regular Meeting

Good morning, everyone, and welcome to the Tuesday, September 15th meeting of the Alameda County Board of Supervisors. Thank you for joining us. I'd like to call to order and first ask that everyone rise if you can and join me in the Pledge of Allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, This is our first meeting after our recess. So don't you all feel special? Thank you for joining us. I think we have some new equipment in the room. I hope you like it. Would the clerk please call the roll?

Supervisor Marquez?

Present.

Supervisor Tam? Present. Supervisor Miley, excused. Supervisor Fortunato-Bass, excused. President Halbert?

Present.

We have a quorum.

Thank you all. We now have an opportunity for supervisors to make remarks. Supervisor Tam, Marquez, anything to report out on, remark about?

Supervisor Halbert, I know that we can... talk about adjourning meetings at the end of the meeting, but I would like to adjourn today's meeting in memory of Deborah Chan from the Oakland Chinatown and part of APEN. Deborah Chan.

Okay, very good. Supervisor Marquez.

Thank you, Chair Halbert. Good morning and good to see everyone. I would also respectfully like to request that we adjourn the meeting also on behalf of Irma Linda Renteria, a beloved community member who is very active in the city of Hayward as well as the region. And also want to invite the community to Science in the Park, which is going to be on Saturday, October 3rd. This is a free family event that my team is hosting. at California State University East Bay on Saturday, October 3rd. We're going to have over 100 vendors, an egg drop challenge, interactive STEAM activities, educational animal programs, environmental programs, air rockets, health screenings, Lego activities, robotics, and much, much more. So encourage everyone that is interested in STEAM and exposing their children to not only STEAM, but also what it's like to spend time on a college campus. Please join us on Saturday, October 3rd. For more information, you can follow our Instagram or also learn more on our website, which is acscienceinthepark.org. I hope to see you guys there on October 3rd. Thank you.

Very good. Thank you. I note that Supervisor Fortunato-Bass is not with us today. She sends her regrets. We will see her next week. We now move to the next item on the agenda, which is public comment on closed session items. A chance for any member of the public to make a comment on items that are on our closed session listed. This is not for the regular calendar or set matters later this afternoon. Do we have any speakers either online or in person for closed session items? We have four in-person speakers. Let's just call all four of them and they can come. Please join us at the podium. Peter Mazziak.

Yeah.

Peter Mazziak, Hannah Joy Wershing, Jason Quinn, and Suzanne Farrar.

Good morning, supervisors. My name is Peter Mazziak. I'm the East Bay field director for SCAU 10 to 1 and the chief negotiator at the bargaining table. I'm standing here today representing over 4,100 SCAU 10 to 1 members in Alameda County. The reason why this room is in pact with them today is because it's 930 on a Tuesday. They're working for the county right now, doing all the work that we really want them to be doing. The bargaining team, some of the members are here today. We've also been trying to make sure that they can have their presence known as well. We'll be bargaining in a moment, and we see this as sort of part of that sort of bargaining experience to come out here and advocate for these positions. We have right now over 30 tentative agreements, some going back to like January and February, but we can't get any of that stuff implemented and living in the day-to-day experience of workers in the county until we overall reach a TA and are able to ratify it. And I'm coming here to you today because we are right on the verge of that. And we're asking for the Board of Supervisors to do your work to help us push this over the goal line and get us a deal. One of the main things that we're dealing with right now is health care. Management has been asking to move The SAU 10 to 1 is the last group that's at an 88-12 healthcare split. Everyone else at 85-15. The county has been asking us to move to an 85-15. We've agreed to that. In principle, we've agreed to that. All we've said is that the county should not profit off of switching healthcare costs to workers. We're asking for the money that is going to be saved by the switch to be reinvested in the county allowance to offset those increases. So the effective rate paid by workers maintains the same rate that it is now. In order to do this, your bargaining team, my bargaining team has come up with an ingenious solution, which is to tier that amount where we provide the most support to the people who need it the most. So where working families who are on family health care are provided a more significant county allowance increase to offset those costs. We are not asking in this proposal for any additional money. All we are asking for is a reallocation of the money that the county would be saving by the current health care switch. The county has already put most of that money into county allowance, but they're doing it across the board, which benefits greatly the single people at the expense of working families. So all we're asking for is a tiered system in order to sort of address that, deal with the retroactivity issue. The reason why our workers- Sorry, your time is up.

Okay, I'll let other people say that. No, thank you. I appreciate the time. I would say almost verbatim, the same explanation your team has provided. David, is David here? Done a great job. Almost verbatim.

I just try to reiterate what David is already saying.

Well, you're doing a great job. Thank you so much. It's clear.

Great. Clearer now. Thank you. Really appreciate it. And again, step by step. And we are at bargaining today and Thursday. We hope to close this out and move forward. Understood. Thank you.

Thank you. Okay. Who's next?

Good morning. My name is Hannah Joy Wershing and I've been a child welfare worker with Alameda County and a proud member of SEIU for the past six years. For the majority of the time that I've been working for the county, we have been dangerously understaffed to the point where children are being harmed and families are not getting the support they need to safely care for their children. Alameda County states that they are actively trying to increase hiring and retention. However, they are also trying to raise our health insurance premiums by 25%. People come to work for Alameda County to serve the county, not to get rich, but a strong benefits package allows people to stay in this work, knowing they and their families will always have the health care they need. If the county takes that away, current workers will have less incentives to stay and new workers will have less reason to want to come work here. The staffing crisis will worsen, leading to an increase in bad outcomes for children. We work really hard every day serving our county's most vulnerable populations, and we deserve to have affordable health care for ourselves and our loved ones. If Alameda County cares about children, families, and the people who serve them, they will not raise our premiums. Thank you.

Morning, supervisors. My name is Jason Quinn. I'm the president of the Alameda County Prosecutors Association. I'm coming today to ask you to help us kind of close the last of the gaps we have on our negotiations for our contract. We have been out of contract now for what is rapidly approaching going to be a year and two months. So we've been 10 months out of contract. We've been negotiating for well over a year at this point. A couple years ago, the public here in Alameda County voted quite strongly that public safety is an incredible priority for this county, and it should be. We in Alameda County, unfortunately, have a gun violence problem that surpasses every other Bay Area county, and it's not even close. We are very lucky at this time to have a department head, a district attorney that values that, and my members are being asked to work harder now than they ever have to, one, service the public and close a lot of the backlog that we have from COVID and other issues that we've been dealing with for the last couple of years. We really would like to see the county help us at the bargaining table to sort of match that emphasis that if we're going to work harder to be a leader in that sort of public safety goal, that our contract matches that. And I think we are close. And what I'm really asking the board to do is to focus on closing these things so we can get this done before the end of the year and hopefully in the next couple of weeks um because uh we were owed raises over seven months ago and uh you know my members at the gas station at the grocery store these things are going up in cost these everyday goods and uh You know, it's not waiting for our contract to end. So our members are waiting. Everyone has been working hard on this, but it's time for us to really focus and get this settled and done. And hopefully we can do that in the next couple of weeks. And so I just hope that the board can take their time and turn their attention to that. So thank you very much.

Thank you for your comments. If you could, the point about gun violence and our comparisons versus other Bay Area counties. get with my office offline, please. I'd like to understand that better. Absolutely. Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker.

Good morning, Supervisor Susanna Farber with Teamsters 856. I, along with my colleague John Varga, represent the district attorneys and also the probation officers here in Alameda County. We all likewise have been at the bargaining table for, I think we are the longest ones, 15 months we've been at the bargaining table. The increases being offered by the county are not enough to keep up with the rising costs of living here in the Bay Area and would significantly keep our probation officers behind market. We were in a longer contract than others and did not get a 654 in the last three cycles. We are behind market within our own HHS case type work and along with out of market in other Bay Area counties. Another point I would like to raise is that Teamsters 856 has offered a competitively priced healthcare plan through our Taft Hartley Fund. Teamsters 856 is in a good position to be able to offer very affordable healthcare plans to working families. Your chief negotiator from IDEA has told us that The county's response is that non-teamster members cannot be in these plans. That is untrue because he himself, as a non-teamster, is in that plan. We have non-teamsters in that plan in Marin County, City of Santa Rosa, Contra Costa County, West Contra Costa Unified School District, and these Taft-Hartley plans are work very well to spread risk. So you don't have the situation like you currently have with UHC that increased your premiums by 20% last year, and I think 22% this year. So these UHC premiums for your PPO are unsustainable. And so we are inviting the county, we've been trying to get the county to engage We're happy to continue those conversations. We don't want to hold up contract negotiations on that point, but we would like to be able to explore that in a real way, meaningfully with the county to see if that's an option for moving forward. So next year, we are not in the same position of another 20% increase from United Healthcare. Thank you.

There are no more speakers. Thank you. I would like to call Peter back up if you have a second, because... I have a follow-up question. We generally can't allow speakers to have more time than others. Otherwise, we have to let everyone have extra time. But I had a follow-up question, which is you were summarizing, I think, why you're asking for the things you're asking. Just another few seconds to finish that thought.

So for the longest time, the county has been asking SEAU 1021 to move from an 8812 to an 8515. We moved from 9010 to 8812 in 2019. We moved then, and then management tried to get that last bargaining, and it didn't go. We knew coming in they were going to ask for this. Not a single proposal that we've ever put across the table has been us saying, well, we are unwilling to go to an 88-15 split. All we've ever been asking for is the offset. And based on the projections provided by management of healthcare costs in 2029, when they're proposing the switch, we've identified that that switch, the value of that switch, that 3% is about a $2.9 million cost shift from the county to the workers, right? We do not believe it should be Alameda County's position to be making money by shifting healthcare costs to workers. But we do understand the importance and the county's desire to have all bargaining units 85-15, helping them with negotiations and with unions and also helping them with negotiations with Kaiser on getting rates, right? We understand that. We appreciate that. So all we've ever said was that do not save money by shifting healthcare costs. Reinvest that $2.9 million into the county allowance. Okay. The county has always been proposing doing it across the board, a flat rate. The problem with the flat rate is that would be a massive increase to the county allowance for people who opt out of health care, who aren't seeing an increase in costs. And it would result in a negative, lower health care rates for single people, while families would be paying more for health care. Great. Thank you so much.

If there are no other speakers, then we have concluded public comment on closed session items. We will now adjourn to closed session. I think we're going to stay here for a brief photo opportunity with our public safety people and department heads, but we're recessed. I'd like to reconvene to open session. I'll ask the clerk to call the roll.

Supervisor Marquez. Present. Supervisor Tam. Present. Supervisor Miley excused. Supervisor Fortunato-Bass.

Present. And I am participating remotely under government code section 54953.8.3 C4 travel while on official business of the county.

Thank you.

President Halbert?

Present.

We have a quorum.

Thank you. County Council, anything to report out from our closed session?

Yes, Mr. President, I do have a few items to report out, although we have not completed closed session. The first item to report is in the matter of Hernandez Amuda versus County of Alameda et al., Superior Court of California, County of Alameda, case number 24CV092693. In closed session on July 14th, your board approved a final settlement of $320,000. The vote was unanimous. With yes votes from Supervisors Hobart, Tam, Miley, Marquez, and Fortunato-Boss. In a second matter, styled as KP by and through her guardian ad litem, Terry Williams Park et al. versus County of Alameda et al. United States District Court for the Northern District of California. Case number 3-22-CV-01817. On May the 12th of 2026, by unanimous vote, your board approved a settlement of $3 million. the vote was uh yes votes from supervisors hobert tam miley marquez and fortunato boss um today in closed session september 15 2026 in a claim by the county of alameda on behalf of the alameda county flood control and Water Conservation District versus the East Bay Municipal Utility District and the Pacific Gas and Electric Company, we resolved a settlement with the payment by East Bay Mud and Pacific Gas and Electric to the Water District of the amount of $3,917,233. Sitting as the fire department board in the matter of Earhart v. Alameda County Fire Department, Superior Court of California, County of Alameda, case number 26CV195530. Your board authorized the retention of outside counsel, the firm Atkins and Andelson, to assist county counsel in that matter. There's no further action to report at this time.

Thank you, with that said, I welcome Supervisor Fortunato-Bass joining us while on business travel. We had to make that announcement to include her in our quorum. We will now recess into closed session. Good afternoon, everyone, I'd like to call. our board of supervisor meeting back into open session. I'll ask the clerk to call the roll.

Supervisor Marquez.

Present.

Supervisor Tam. Present. Supervisor Miley. Supervisor Fortunato-Bass excused. President Halbert.

Present.

We have a quorum.

County Council, is there anything to report out from closed session?

No, Mr. Heschel, there's no further action to be reported from closed session other than what was previously announced.

Very good, thank you very much. With that said, we will proceed with the rest of our agenda and note that our next item is public comment on all items that are on today's agenda, except for those items listed as set matters. So anything on the regular calendar. I'll ask the clerk, do we have any hands raised? If you are online, now would be the time to raise your hand for the regular calendar items, not the set matters at three o'clock. And then if you're in the room to please fill out a speaker slip, if you would like to speak, I'll ask the clerk to please call speakers. First three in the room and then next three online rotating back and forth.

Um, first two and only two that have submitted speaker slips, Jean Moses and Jane Kramer.

And Kramer, um, just in reference to the concern that this board had about, um, I don't want to call it unmanned vehicles. I see on the agenda the Sheriff's Department is sponsoring several individuals to go to such conferences, Commercial Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Expo in Las Vegas, and again, individuals to the same conference and Item 169, again, a conference on drones. The reason I bring it up is you're concerned about it, and I think maybe the public ought to be included in that concern, seeing as they seem to be rather terrified of the issue itself. So maybe the sheriff's department can put together a program or some kind of a statement at this particular meeting that would outline what they found when they went to these conferences. Thank you.

There are no more speakers.

Very good. The next item then is approval of the consent calendar items 101 through 115.

I'll move the consent calendar.

I'll second. Motion's been made by Supervisor Marquez, seconded by Supervisor Tam to approve the consent calendar items 101 through 115. Roll call vote, please.

Supervisor Marquez. Aye. Supervisor Tam. Aye. Supervisor Miley. Supervisor Fortunato-Bass, excused. President Halbert.

I vote yes. Clarifying question from Supervisor Marquez.

Thank you, President Halbert. I'm just flagging that we received many minutes in our packet for today's agenda. However, I don't see adoption of minutes on our agenda.

Was that just an error? It's been moved to the consent calendar.

Oh, I didn't catch that. Is that a change in our agenda formats?

Yes.

Okay. Cause I wanted to modify a request. So county council, we already adopted the consent calendar, but I wanted to make a note and ask to hold off on approving the minutes for Tuesday, August 4th with respect to, I'd asked for an update on AB 1185 and, In the minutes, it was noted that I asked for the update, but it didn't reflect the response we received from the HR director.

So you're looking to have a motion to amend the motion approving consent to make that clarification?

Well, I would prefer that the clerk go back and review so it's accurately captured. So I basically just Don't want to adopt those minutes. So I apologize. I was used to our old format where the minutes were separate on the agenda and I didn't realize they were coupled in consent. So if that.

So that's not on this one-on-one item D for August 4th, regular meeting. And you're asking for that to be withdrawn from your prior motion. If I could please. Yes. Cause I was in the motion in a second.

The Senator agrees.

Thank you.

And so everyone else in consensus to withdraw that from the prior motion?

I agree. Withdraw just D. Okay. And then so I will move to adopt the consent calendar. Excluding D. It's item 101 sub item D. 101 sub item D. I'll second. Thank you.

Motion's been made by Supervisor Marquez, seconded by Supervisor Tam. to accept the consent calendar with the exception of item 101D. Roll call vote, please.

Supervisor Marquez. Aye. Supervisor Tam. Aye. Supervisor Miley. Aye. Supervisor Fortunato-Bas, excused. President Halbert.

I vote yes. Good catch on the change. I think it makes our meeting flow more efficient. With that said, we move on to the mass motion, our regular calendar items. Is there?

Mr. President, I just want to announce on your regular calendar, item 45 has been pulled by the department.

Item 45 has been pulled from our department. Okay, any other recusals to note? Or when we get to that point, we'll do that. Then we're ready for the mass motion.

Mr. President, I will move items 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9. Comments on 8 and questions on 9.

10, 11, 12, 13, 14, questions on 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25.

26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50, 51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57, 58, 59, 60, 61, 62, 63, 64, 65, 67, 68, 69, 70, 71, 72, 73, 74. Questions on 74. 75, 76, 77. 78, 79. Questions on 78. 80, 81, 82, 83, 84, 85, 86. 87, 88, 89, 90, 91, 92, 94, 95, 96, 97, 98, and 99.

We might have to have a one-minute rule for supervisors to have questions. What would the audience think about that one? 30-second rule for the supervisor matter. Okay. First item is question. Do you want to second my motion? Eight seconds. The motion has been made by Supervisor Tam, second by Supervisor Miley. The first question item that we have questions on, the first two, Supervisor Marquez, questions on items eight and nine.

For eight, this is more commentary. Just wanted to thank the collaboration between our Child and Welfare Services Department under SSA, working in collaboration with the Alameda County Office of Education, probation. So if you don't mind, Director Ford, we have two Director Fords here today. Welcome. Good to see you both. If you don't mind just kind of summarizing for the public what these efforts mean and how this is geared towards children. stronger partnerships and collaboration in helping serve young people that come under our care under social services.

So this is item eight in which we're going to make comments. So it's a question now.

Just comments. If you could just provide a quick kind of summary for the public on what this MOU entails. Okay.

AB 2083, which is Children's System of Care. It was signed by multiple department heads in 2022, and it ensures collaboration for the safety of our youth who are served in multiple departments within the agency. Probation, AC Health, and SSA are key partners with that MOU. We will be bringing a revised MOU to your board in July of 2027, which will expand the partnership and the requirements in that MOU.

Within this MOU, are we legally required to have regular meetings with the partners that have signed on to the MOU?

Yes, that's the interagency leadership team, and they meet on a monthly basis. Then there is a subcommittee of the interagency leadership team, and they call themselves IOT, and they might meet more frequently. And then there is a Children's System of Care Council committee that is attended by myself, Chief Ford, Anika Chowdhury, AC Health Director, in addition to Kristen Spano's First Five, regional center, um, of the East Bay representatives and Alameda County office of education representatives as well.

Great. Thank you so much for that overview. I'm glad to hear that these lines of communication and frequent touch points are, um, occurring. Um, the next one that I have questions on is item number nine. And this is when in regard to, um, working in collaboration with the District Attorney's Office, Social Services Department, AC Health, Chief of Probation with respect to the impacts of commercially sexually exploited and sex trafficked youth in our county. Wanted to know if we have data in terms of what's the prevalence in this county, are there any trends? And then in the report, it also mentioned bringing updates to the board, but it didn't specify to the full board or committee. So if you could just kind of address some of that background information, please.

Thank you for your question, Supervisor Marquez. I don't have the data available today, but I can certainly get that information for you. And the presentation to the full board or

It didn't specify. So in the past, did those updates come to a specific committee?

To the Board of Supervisors Social Services Committee.

Okay. And is there a requirement on the frequency? Is this like an annual update, biannual?

Annual and as needed.

And do you know the last time there was an update to social services?

I think it was January of 2026, but I can't be certain. But I can also confirm that information for you as well.

Thank you.

Next item for questions is Supervisor Tam, item 14.

Thank you, Mr. President. I just need to get some clarity and understanding on the penalty of the $831,834 that we're paying to the California Department of State Hospitals for exceeding the number of individuals found incompetent to stand trial. on felony charges, did we exceed this cap because of a calculation or why are we being penalized?

Good afternoon, Supervisor Zuniga Chaudhary with Alameda County Health. So the state establishes a baseline each year, and it has to do with how much funding they're going to support for the program. And so it could just be that in our evaluation, we exceeded that baseline because we had more people who needed those services or were found incompetent to stand trial. And so it's funding that needs to be paid back to the city, and that's partially because the state then wants to redirect those to, they'll collect the penalty and then redirect it to counties to invest further, sorry, reinvest further into mental health treatment.

So we received the money from the state and because we didn't meet a certain threshold, we have to return the funds to the state?

Right, or we exceeded the threshold in this case.

Okay, thank you.

Supervisor Miley, I think it was 49, 52, 54.

Thank you, President Hubbard. I appreciate the board's indulgence. So the first item, 49. I just think it's important that the staff have an opportunity to report out on the highlights of our A1 efforts over the last couple of years. Because A1, the ballot measure was passed November of 2016. We've had some significant progress there. And, you know, we'll eventually want to try to get funding from the public in the future. And I just want people to continue to know what A1 has meant for this county. So maybe if the agency director could just cover some of the highlights of A1 from June 20th through June 2022.

Thank you, Supervisor Sandy Rivera, Community Development Agency Director. We do have this annual report. We are behind, but this does cover from June 22nd. And our reports are coming shortly after. So we'll be all caught up by the end of next year. But in terms of highlights, Measure A funding has been extremely important and effective during the period of time. We leveraged dollars, $6 for every one invested. During this period of time, we only had a total of 1,266 affordable homes, but the entirety of the program right now, we have nearly 4,300 homes or units that have been added. So the rental development program added 926 units, and that was 10 projects. We committed $77.2 million, which is 97% of all A1 funding is now committed. And we exceeded the goal of 3,800 units. And like I said, from the point of today, our count is nearly 4,300. So we have far exceeded that. Additional accomplishments are that... We have $90,000 per A1 supported unit. So that is less than the million dollars that we talk about per unit, but we've leveraged that. We also have online affordable housing portal. We have the AC doorway, which also transitioned into the regional doorway project.

And if I could just mention doorway, the metropolitan, well, the Bay Area Housing Finance Authority, of which I serve on, The Metropolitan Transportation Commission picked up Doorway, and it's expanded throughout the entire region. And it offers opportunities for folks to get affordable housing throughout the entire region. But they got that from Alameda County. Exactly. It's not in the report, but I wanted to emphasize that.

Right. We were on the forefront of that. Now the region is following in that partnership. And so now our program is through the Bay Area. Through a bag. So we also have the AC boost program which is a down payment assistant loan program, and we have 800 plus people attended over nine application workshops, and we have about 222 completed applications, and 100 applications have been approved so we have 62 households that have purchased homes. So, another plus for home ownership. We also have. 19.36 million reserved for applicants who are conditionally approved and they're shopping around for a home now. We also have AC Renew, also called HPLP, Homeowner Preservation Loan Program, and that's for rehab of homes so folks can stay in their homes. So 12 homes are completed, 15 homes are under construction, and 34 homes are completed with $3.5 million loaned. And then we also have the acquisition fund, which, you know, is part of the hotels, the homeless hotels that we have in Oakland. And that's 244 homes unhoused for individuals. And Supervisor Riley was there during a groundbreaking.

And Measure A1 was about $600 million. And it leveraged...

$6 for every $1. Right.

And then in addition, I know Supervisor Marquez and I here in the pro and con committee, how Measure A1 did all this stuff, but also provided jobs as well, put money back into the local economy through those jobs. So this has been a significant success story for the county.

Right, and we're winding down on the funding for this, and we're looking to hopefully, if you will, renew the bond program.

So not only did it provide housing, rental assistance, all those things, jobs, help the local economy. So I just think the voters should be very pleased with their support of A1. And it's not quite over yet, but it's close to coming to the finish line. So thank you for that update. Now, the next item I wanted to highlight today is item 52. I know I didn't pull it out, but 52, I think that's the community development agency as well.

Yes. Yeah, 52 and 54. Supervisor Miley, 52 is community development, 54 is GSA.

Yeah, and with 52, can you just talk a little bit about this procurement? Because I think First Pres, First President Hayward, but it's actually in Castro Valley. You know, we're very proud of them and the work that they've done and the fact that they're the only shelter in the unincorporated area, but We're extending the contract.

We're extending the contract now. They started as a shelter, but they have a variety of homeless services as well, a job training. They have the tiny homes. They have, say, parking. So they've really been a partner and fairly integral to the homeless community. and housing services that we provide in the unincorporated area. And so they've been a continued partner. This contract extension, though, is basically the bridge until we switch to H&H or AC Health shelter program, which they'll be putting an RFP out in January. But this extension, vendor or contractor. They've also partnered when it came to the downtown streets where they closed down. They also partnered to make sure that that gap was filled using our contract and hiring the folks on downtown streets. So they've been really important to the services that we provide in the unincorporated area.

Yeah. The thing is the... I was really pleased that they picked up the work with the Downtown Streets team. I mean, that was a proven strategy intervention where the homeless actually received services and gave back to the community and got compensation for that. So that was extremely important. You know, the fact, you know, I do value the other bidders on this, Love Never Fails, Women on the Way, and Building Opportunities for Self-Sufficiency Boss. I mean, those are quality organizations as well. So my hope is that this is transitioning over to H&H. Housing and homelessness?

The shelter portion of First Press. Now, CDA will also augment for the other services that may not be covered in the shelter portion.

Yeah, so I just wanted to really... spotlight on first press in Castro Valley, but of Hayward. And I'm hoping that these proven interventions and strategies in these organizations that are doing quality work continue to have our support.

I want to second that.

They do great work.

I almost want to say that I'd like to bring them in, explain to us at a work study session on how they do what they do, what works well, what can be improved system-wide. They really get it. Either that or maybe we take a field trip out there one by one. I think they're top-notch.

And they were the first to provide tiny homes in the county, and it started in the unincorporated area.

Yeah. Yep. I think they do great work.

Thank you. 54 is General Services Agency. Now, I didn't want this to go by without the board and the public knowing this. We are converting the white cotton cottage... That's on the Fairmont campus in District 4. We're converting that into office space and space for the community to gather to hold meetings and events and things of that nature. The District 4 office, which is currently my satellite office, you know, one of... to, yeah, share one with district one. So whereas Howard, you would not know that, but I do have an office in Pleasanton. I will be moving my Castro Valley office to this location once it's completed, getting out of rental space into county owned space. And this is gonna be a really significant destination point for the community. But I just wanted the agency director to talk a little bit about this.

Thank you, Supervisor. Kimberly Gassway, GSA Director. We're very excited about this project. Often, we don't have many opportunities to renovate historic facilities. This particular building was constructed in 1903 and served as through the 1950s as the original home for the superintendent of the hospital that time. And then from the 70s to 2000, it was an office building and then it has been vacant literally for 26 years. And I know I took Supervisor Howard when early in my time as director and Miley, we went out there and it's been in pretty sad shape and now we're pretty excited. This historic building, the Historic Commission is very excited about this as well because it is a historic landmark and it's being renovated. And as Supervisor Miley said, his office will be there, but also it is a place for the community to come. And the Historic Commission has had input on the project. So we're excited to move this forward.

And as you all know, this is on the Fairmont campus, which the county has a lot of services. You know, John George is there. Fairmont Hospital is there. We have other services there. We have Tiny, not tiny homes, but we have Fairmont housing there for the homeless as well. Safe parking is across the street. There's just many services on this campus. So now we'll be located in the hub of this campus.

Great. Yeah, very busy campus. And I encourage anyone to go on the website. It's on the Historic Commission's website. you can Google this property and learn more about its historical significance.

Okay.

Any other questions? No. The next item I have questions on is 74. Is our tax collector online? So, I mean, questions that I have are around, this is almost a $400,000 contract to extend for two years on investment advice. I'm curious how this consultant has been, what performance measures we have in place if we've evaluated him in the last two years. If the tax collector's not on, can we continue this item? I'd like to continue the item then till the next meeting. With that said, the next item is Supervisor Miley. Again, item 77.

Yes, the county administrator. This is from the county administrator. I need to understand what's the significance of our sponsorship for the Oakland Tech Week? I've read the staff report for this hackathon, but I'm still trying to see how does this benefit the county?

So there's an all-city hackathon that we'll largely be focusing on a number of the county's challenges in public service and bringing in the public to help us come up with innovative ideas around that. So we have several county departments are involved. Last year, ITD and East Bay EDA were involved in Oakland Tech Week. They've expanded their reach this year, so it's more countywide. And we're participating primarily in the hackathon on Saturday, but there's a series long of events, and the city is also a partner.

from our participation in the past, has it generated any benefits, any good results?

Well, this is the first time they're doing a citywide hackathon. And they've asked us to identify some public sector problems. We've worked with departments to do that. And so our hope is that it both connects the public more with the county, as well as help us come up with some solutions.

Yeah, because in the report it says focus on homelessness and employment, creating a forum for community input and collaboration. So we're hoping to get some good stuff out of this. We should.

We hope so. And we'll be able to own the ideas after and make a determination as to what we want to implement.

Okay. Thank you.

The next item for questions is Supervisor Marquez on item 78. Okay.

Thank you so much. This is with respect to declaring the surplus property authority. So that's the action that's being asked of us today. And I understand that this item had already gone to the Transportation and Planning Committee for early review. Could you just help me understand if we approve this, how long is there? Basically, how many days do we have to have the surplus authority notification out to allow affordable housing developers to respond? What's the legal requirement?

It's 90 days. 90 days. And so we would notify HCD as well and notify all, put out notice that the property is available for Surplus Lands Act.

Okay. And so this will come back to us after the notification.

After we receive offers or if there's anyone who's engaged in the negotiations, we'll bring that back to the board.

Okay. So 90 days. So we'll definitely hear an update before the end of the calendar year.

Calendar year.

Okay. Thank you.

Just a point of question. We've notified the city of Dublin of this activity?

Okay.

Thank you.

Can I ask a follow-up? Can you give me a sense of how many people are on that notification list? Is it hundreds, less than a hundred? Do you have a sense?

No, I don't at this time, but we can let you know. I'll follow you up with that.

Okay.

Thank you.

Next item. Two of them, Supervisor Miley, 86 and 96.

Yeah, you just have a lot of good stuff on this agenda for the recess. So 86, that's the Sheriff's Department, the mass notification, because I really do think, you know, We can't stress the importance of this enough. So the report talks about how AC Alert will do all these wonderful things. But if the undersheriff could just speak a little bit about the importance of this. And I have a couple of quick questions.

Yeah, thank you for the question. Supervisor April look at the me under sheriff Alameda County Sheriff's Office AC alert is instrumental to providing disaster preparedness alerts to all those in Alameda County. Each city is responsible for their own alerts, but our Office of Emergency Services kind of over overhauls the entire contract for the for the county. So it is a great information tool. Citizens can community members can opt into the use of AC Alert. And it's based on where you live. So you don't get alerts for Oakland if you live in Livermore and vice versa. So it's a great tool for all folks to be informed. AC Alert also provides information regarding other emergency preparedness activities that are happening in the county. So people can opt in for those additional alerts as well.

And thank you, Sheriff. So it said right in the report, there are 543 registered users in the system and 199 with the ability to send alerts to over 1 million recipients. What's the capacity? Or is there a capacity?

I don't believe that there's a capacity. So I could probably get a more definitive answer for that. But I don't believe there's a capacity. I think everybody in our county is able to opt into the use of AC Alerts.

So are these good numbers in terms of the number of folks that are registered, or do we want to get more people? we always want to get more people.

So even if you're not signed up for the alerts with AC Alert, we can also do, you know, when you get those emergency pings to your cell phone based on your radius of where your location is, you can also get those alerts through AC Alert as well. And so these are the alerts that the registered numbers that we have available. Like I said, the cities also have their own registered folks to AC Alert.

Right. And, you know, President Halbert chairs the along with the Sheriff's Disaster Council. But as it talks about in the report, the system provides critical information quickly in a variety of situations, such as earthquakes, fires, severe weather, unexpected road closures, missing persons, and evacuations of buildings and neighborhoods, as well as a plethora of other things. And we do know, as I constantly say, it's not... If a disaster is going to happen, it's just a question when we need to be on top of our job. And this helps us because we know even like with the Altadena fire, the towers went down so they couldn't send out alerts and stuff. So we're constantly learning that this is important stuff.

Absolutely. And I would encourage everyone to go on to AC Alert and register and at least get involved in your community and some other disaster preparedness activities that are happening around the county, especially that it's Emergency Preparedness Month in October.

Would you give a shout out to the actual website? Do you know it off the top of your head?

I believe it's acalert.gov or acalert.com, but I can confirm that.

We tried both of them. Okay, great. Surprise Marquez, you had a follow-up question on this?

Yes, thank you so much for the update, and I have done a plug. to encourage our community to register for AC Alert through our newsletter and social media. So thank you for that recommendation. We'll continue to do so. I know this is a one-year extension. Just wanted to see if when we discuss in the future, if we could look at expanding to other languages. It's my understanding right now, it's just English and Spanish. So if we could make a request for the next go round to see if we could expand to the threshold languages here in the county. And then just wanted to verify, I don't know all the specifics, but I know there's new rules around ADA compliance when it comes to technology. So I don't know if you could speak to those two matters.

Yeah, absolutely. So our folks are already aware of that and are working on not just the ADA, but the language accessibility stuff. So they are working on that, not just with AC Alert, and it's acalert.org, not just with AC Alert, but with all of our emergency preparedness information that goes out across the county. So we are taking that on. Thank you, Under Sheriff.

Of course. Next item is Supervisor Miley with questions on 96.

Yeah, it's not, well, I don't know if Public Works is available. Is Public Works online? Because the resolution in support of the East Bay Greenway multimodal project is something, you know, we've been waiting for this for, I don't know, years and years and years through the Alameda County Transportation Commission. And to finally get this underway, I think is going to be a very strong testament. So if the public works directors on board, they just want to get a sense, when do we expect the project in the unincorporated area to start? Because I know we've got the East Bay Greenway and it goes from Oakland. And here we'll talk about going over to Niles Canyon, connecting with the Niles Canyon Trail. And that's down to Fremont. So it goes from Oakland to Fremont. And we've been waiting patiently in an incorporated area to get this underway. So is the public works director on?

Yes. Daniel will definitely bet. There he is.

Yeah. Good afternoon. The project currently is under design. We've been working with ACTC. As you know, this was an extension of the Greenway project that we could not go through all the way in the portion of our incorporated area under the BART train. So we are actually using East 14, what we used to call phase one. to be the connection for the remaining improvement that we have made to the greenway. So I think we expect the project to, the design to be completed within the next year or year and a half. And assuming this grant is going to be available, the construction cost is estimated at about $10 million. We're asking for 8.9 with about a 20% matching fund. So if all goes well, we should have that thing under construction within a couple of years.

Very good, Daniel, because I'd like to get done while I'm still in office.

waiting for this for a long time the other thing daniel is who's going to maintain it i think that would be within the roadway right away so that portion will be our responsibility the county will maintain it uh because it is entirely within east 14 uh public right away okay thank you that completes

questions so far, unless there's any others. Seeing none, I'll call for roll call vote.

Supervisor Marquez? Aye. Supervisor Tam? Aye. Supervisor Miley? Aye. Supervisor Fortunato-Bass excused. President Halbert?

I vote yes. Do we have ordinances or recused items?

Item 45, there's a recusal.

Supervisor Miley? 34, right? 45 was pulled.

34, you're correct.

34. Oh, yes. So, item 34. 34, Roman numeral 6.

I have to... Out of abundance of caution, I always recuse myself when I'm dealing with United Seniors of Oakland and Alameda County, not because I receive any compensation, but because I am the president of the organization and also my daughter works for the United Seniors of Oakland and Alameda County as of last year. So whenever there's funding from the county going to that organization, I always like to recuse myself. So I'll be stepping out of the room. Thank you.

Seeing that Supervisor Miley has recused himself and left the room, is there a motion to approve item 34?

Second.

Motion's been made by Supervisor Marquez, seconded by Supervisor Tam to approve item 34. I just want to say, while Supervisor Miley's not in the office, in the room here, cannot hear us, I really support, appreciate, and thank him for his work with the United Seniors of Oakland and all of Alameda County I'm very supportive of the annual healthy living festival. And so I'm proud to support this item. I'll ask for a roll call vote, please.

Supervisor Marquez. Aye. Supervisor Tam. Aye. Supervisor Miley has recused himself from discussing or voting on the item and left the room. Supervisor Fortunato-Bass excused. President Halbert.

I vote yes. If that item passes, we'll welcome back Supervisor Miley and proceed to our ordinances.

You have item 66 as an ordinance as the first reading of salary ordinance amendments.

An ordinance amending certain provisions of the 2025 through 2026 County of Alameda salary ordinance.

Mr. President, I will move to waive the full first reading and introduce the salary ordinance amendments as described in item 66A, Roman 1, 2, 3, and 4.

Is there a second? Second. Motion has been made by Supervisor Tam, seconded by Supervisor Miley. Roll call vote, please.

Supervisor Marquez?

Aye.

Supervisor Tam? Aye. Supervisor Miley? Aye. Supervisor Fortunato-Bas, excuse. President Halbert? Aye. I vote yes.

Your last ordinance before your set matter is item 93 second reading of the public works recommendation related to traffic regulations in the incorporated area.

An ordinance amending chapter one relating to traffic regulations County had ways of title 6 relating to vehicles and traffic of the Alameda County public works ACP W traffic code.

Mr. President, I will move to waive the full second reading and adopt an ordinance omitting Chapter 1 relating to traffic regulations.

Second. Motion has been made by Supervisor Tam, seconded by Supervisor Miley. Roll call vote, please.

Supervisor Marquez. Aye. Supervisor Tam. Aye. Supervisor Miley. Aye. Supervisor Fortunato-Bas, excused. President Halbert.

I vote yes. That item passes. With that, We will proceed with our three o'clock set matter. For members of the public who are here, we will have a staff report. Then we will have public comment. If you'd like to make public comment, please give the clerk a filled out speaker slip card. If you're online after the staff presentation, raise your hand and we will take public comment after the staff report, then we will proceed with questions from the board and deliberations. I believe that our registrar will be giving us a brief staff report, perhaps assisted by CDA.

Good afternoon, members of the board.

Thank you. Good afternoon, members of the board. I'm Cynthia Cornejo, the interim registrar of voters. And I'm here today for you to approve one of two actions permitted under section 911-8 of the California Elections Code regarding countywide ballot initiative to amend the county code of ordinances to establish a minimum wage for specified employees. The recommendation is to approve one of two actions. Adopt the proposed minimum wage ordinance without change or submit the proposed ordinance without change to voters at either the March 2028 primary election or at a special election on December 15th or December 22nd of 2006. Deferred to Sandy.

Sandy Rivera, Community Development Agency Director. So on August 4th, your board had requested that an impact study, potential impact study be conducted before you acted. And Cynthia had just noted what actions that are before you. But before that, we did conduct a a study impact study as requested it was in a compressed time frame and the community development agency uh does contract with economic consultants through our economic development department and uh so we have the strategic economics that were on board and they have a sub-consultant a bae urban economics who conducted the study and we did that in a compressed time frame and it was completed and the report was posted online and distributed to your board and the public on September 3rd. So I also would like to thank all the departments that helped pull this complicated report together. Human Resources Department, GSA, we're talking about a lot of county properties as well. as AC Health and First 5, who've also contributed to the report. So I have here with me is Paul Penninger, who's the principal of BAE, and he'll be providing a summary of the report.

Thank you, Ms. Rivera, and good afternoon, Mr. President and members of the Board of Supervisors. As was mentioned, BA was retained by the county to prepare what's called a 91-11 impact analysis related to the proposed minimum wage ballot measure. This study does not include recommendations for a legal or policy analysis, but rather it's an impact analysis prepared in compliance with state law As was mentioned in a 30 day timeframe and with the help and valiant assistance of many people across various county departments. Now we'll attempt to use the slide show. As directed by you, by the board, the impacts that we were asked to look at include four major buckets of potential impacts. Let me go back. I advanced it too fast. It's a little slow to react. Should I point it this way? Okay. All right. four major buckets of types of impacts. First, the potential fiscal impacts of the measure on the county's general fund. This includes expenditures made by county departments to comply with the proposed ballot measure. The second bucket of impacts are really economic impacts, which means the measure's impacts on businesses, consumers, and workers, and also the broader economy. We were also asked to look at impacts that included effects on nonprofits, on unions, on the county's childcare system as funded through Measure C. And finally, and very importantly, we were asked to look at issues related to socioeconomic and racial equity as they relate to the proposed ballot measure. I'm first gonna provide an overview of the ballot measure and a description of the unincorporated county's economy, and then review the report's findings with respect to each of these four major types of impacts. Let's see if I can advance this without going too far, okay. So a quick overview of the ballot measure, which I'm sure you're all very familiar with. The measure, as written, would raise the minimum wage across the unincorporated county to $30 an hour gradually by size of employer, small, medium, and large. It would apply to all public and private sector employment, as well as to county owned and leased properties throughout the county, not just in the unincorporated area, but rather across all jurisdictions in the county. The phase-in schedule is shown on this slide, and as you can see, the measure provides for the wage increase to phase-in over time by all three tiers of employer size, converging into a single uniform minimum wage by 2037. Family child care providers would be covered by the small employer schedule, whereas janitorial workers would be covered under the large employer schedule, regardless of employer size. Importantly, the measure would not allow employers to offset wage increases required by the measure by cutting benefits or pay to other non-management employees. There's a little bit of a lag in the slide presentation. This is a more detailed view of the phase schedule by employer size. And I'm really included here in case there's any questions later on as to how this works over time. It is quite complicated. And when you layer on state and other local jurisdiction requirements, it's even a more kind of complex policy framework. So we will put this in reserve in case you have questions about the phase and schedule in the Q&A. In order to set the context for the study, we worked on a profile of the unincorporated county. Now, of course, you're already doing a comprehensive economic development strategy, and so we had some data to start from. We also collected our own data from the U.S. Census, from Esri Business Analyst, from Lightcast, and other public and private data sources. And what we wanted to do is to provide just a general overview of the economy so you can get a sense of the types of businesses and workers that are present in the unincorporated county. There are, of course, 150,000 approximate people who live in the unincorporated county across a really diverse range of types of jurisdictions. And there are 26,400 total private sector employees in the county, about 2,100 public sector employees and 3,100 private sector businesses. What's interesting about the distribution of businesses is that based on our analysis, 76% of all businesses would be considered small businesses under this measure. At the same time, about 80% of all employees are employed in either medium or large size businesses. And there would be a range of impacts over time as the ballot measure was phased in. We looked at how this would affect different categories of workers. And just as an example, 53% of all employees currently working for a large employer would receive a pay raise by 2030, which is a very significant number of workers in that category. Of course, this varies by small, medium, and large employers, but we do know that there are a significant number of workers right now who are earning below what the minimum wage standards would be as they phased in over time and that it would represent a significant pay raise for many categories of workers. Moving to the impacts, the first category of impacts that we looked at were fiscal impacts, which means impacts to the county's budget, specifically your general fund budget. And we did this in a compressed timeframe and we did it working very closely with the various departments that are affected. And what we tried to do was to understand what are the potential fiscal impacts to the county would be of mainly personnel expenditures and also cost to county leased and county owned buildings. So let's start with the fiscal impacts related to personnel expenditures. We looked at existing categories of employees who are making less than what the minimum wage would be in a stabilized year for a large employer, which the county would be, which is in 2030. And our estimate is that at minimum, there would be additional costs of $28.1 million for budgeted positions in 2030, assuming that the county would be counted as a large employer. Depending on when the measure goes into effect, there would be a phase-in period during which the county would need to adjust all of its affected job classifications. In total, the analysis estimated between 32.9 and $343 million in annual fiscal costs to the county in a stabilized year. As noted in the report, these costs would likely be partially offset by tax revenues generated by increased wages and consumer spending associated with the measure. Another set of fiscal impacts that we were asked to look at were impacts related to the Oakland Coliseum complex and the Alameda County fairgrounds. Should the county retain an ownership interest in the Coliseum complex going forward, it's likely that the measure would result in increased annual subsidy needs for ongoing operations and maintenance of the complex. The fairgrounds, however, is managed by a separate nonprofit entity. that is responsible for managing the fair and does not receive direct subsidy on an annual basis from the county. So the fiscal impacts to the county of increased wages at the fair would likely be none or very minimal. As noted in the report, however, there would be some significant economic impacts to the fair in terms of increased operating costs and increased ticket prices that would be borne by consumers over time. So economic impacts as a result of the ballot measure, but not fiscal impacts to the county, unless the fair comes to the county in the future and requests some form of subsidy or support. The second major bucket of impacts that we looked at were economic impacts. And generally, when we look at minimum wage policies across the country, which have been studied widely and extensively over the course of decades, there is no one conclusion as to the long-term impacts of minimum wage measures on a local economy. On the positive side, in this case, we can say that benefits would include higher wages for workers, improved employee retention, improved household financial security, and some increased spending that circulates throughout the economy. The potential risks of the measure include cross-border effects. That means that some businesses would choose to relocate to areas that have lower minimum wage standards. So those are called cross-border effects in the literature. And these could harm potential business retention and attraction efforts in the unincorporated county. It also could result, depending on the exact makeup of the businesses in the local economy, in reductions to local jobs for lower wage workers, and in additional disincentives to investment in underserved areas. The exact responses of employers to the minimum wage measure would depend heavily on business type, size, and market conditions, and would need to be analyzed almost on a case-by-case basis to really understand what the impacts would be over the course of the phase-in period. Beyond fiscal and economic impacts, as I mentioned before, we were asked to look at the impacts of the ballot measure on nonprofit organizations, on unions and collective bargaining agreements, and on childcare. In terms of nonprofits, there are a couple of different potential impacts. On the one hand, obviously increasing wages for workers and nonprofits would lead to increased operating costs, which could over time would cause nonprofits to need to seek revenues or fundraising from other sources to cover their increased operating costs and might increase or rather decrease employment in the nonprofit sector. On the other hand, the research from other places nationally suggests that when the increases in minimum wages are relatively modest, that the impact on the nonprofit sector is accordingly also relatively modest. In terms of unions, really, you know, the research says that Collective bargaining coverage generally remains stable following incremental minimum wage increases with statutory floors and negotiated wages tending to move together. That is up. So it's important to note here that the measure also provides a collective bargaining waiver so that existing collective bargaining agreements with wage agreements between workers and employers would be exempt from the measure according to the specific regulations. as I understand it, the specific language in the ballot measure. Okay. Another critical issue we were asked to look at was the impact of the measure on childcare providers in the unincorporated county. The measure would apply to all childcare sites in addition to the specific provisions related to family childcare providers. So that means that all childcare sites, whether they're run by for-profit or nonprofit or family businesses, would be covered by the measure. First Five estimates that increasing compensation to $30 an hour for teaching staff and family childcare owners at childcare sites serving children up to five years old would increase annual direct compensation costs by approximately $7.8 million. They also note that there is no clear legal guidance currently on how this measure may direct or restrict use of Measure C revenues over time. And representatives from First Five are here to answer any questions that you may have about those specific impacts. There we go, okay. We were also directed by you to assess the impact of the measure on socioeconomic and racial equity in the unincorporated county. Now, most obviously the measure would provide a pay raise to people of color employed in the unincorporated county in lower wage occupations. This is particularly relevant for black and Latino workers in the unincorporated county, the vast majority of whom earn below a survival threshold for affording basic household necessities. Also related to equity, we were asked to assess the potential effects of the measure on exacerbating already underserved areas in terms of goods and services like pharmacies and grocery stores. It's difficult to predict with certainty, but in that the measure would increase business operating costs, it could constrain food retailer expansion or relocation in the unincorporated area, particularly for businesses that are operating with already very thin margins. Finally, we wanted to give you a sense of how other jurisdictions statewide have approached raising minimum wages. And there are really only three counties in California that have passed a countywide minimum wage ordinance that applies to the unincorporated counties. So that's L.A. County, San Mateo County, and San Francisco, which is, of course, a city and a county. And the most sort of well-established and longest-term ordinance is in L.A. County. So we have the most evidence about how it's worked there. This chart shows a comparison of how the Alameda County ballot initiative compares to LA's ballot measure and ordinance, the County of San Mateo's ordinance, and then also the City of Hayward's minimum wage ordinance for the reason that Hayward is probably the jurisdiction which there might be the most broad cross-border effects with, meaning that businesses might be in Cherryland or Ashland, for example, might be incentivized to relocate to Hayward under certain circumstances. Looking at across the different jurisdictions that have adopted minimum wage ordinances, this ballot measure for Alameda County is relatively expansive in a couple of different ways. One is that it applies not just to private sector employees, but to public sector employees. That's a critical difference. It also applies to all county-owned or public agency-owned leased properties and tenants and properties outside of the jurisdictional boundaries. So it is relatively expansive, is very inclusive in terms of the types of employers and employees that would be affected, and relatively broad in that sense. This chart also gives you a sense, at least in the case of LA County, what the ongoing monitoring and enforcement costs are associated with implementing a minimum wage policy in an unincorporated county. To conclude, just a few key takeaways. One, the ballot measure would likely add an estimated $32.9 to $34.3 million in annual county costs by 2030 across budgeted personnel tap positions and building operating expenses and leased and owned properties. In terms of economic impacts, it would definitely lift earnings for a substantial number of workers and increase consumer spending. Increased operating costs, on the other hand, could create a competitive disadvantage for local businesses compared to neighboring cities. Other important impacts and considerations include real questions related to nonprofit operations and sustainability, measures in childcare funding, and possibly collective bargaining dynamics, although in general, we think that the impacts on those will be relatively minimal from this measure. In terms of socioeconomic and racial equity, communities of color and lower income areas stand to benefit economically from increased wages, at least for those employees who remain employed and are currently employed in the unincorporated county. But the measure could exacerbate existing geographic or rather pre-existing geographic and racial disparities in access to employment and opportunities. I wanna say thank you for the opportunity to present the findings of our study. This is a complex and nuanced area of policy, and I am sure that there will be many questions about our study that we can address in the Q&A. Thank you.

Thank you for your report. We'll go to public comment and then deliberation and discussion. May I ask the clerk, how many speaker slips do we currently have? How many hands are raised online. If you'd like to speak, fill out a slip. If you'd like to speak online, raise your hand. We will freeze the line in a bit based on how many we have submitted.

I have 13 slips for in-person and six online.

Okay. So 13 and six, 19, two minutes for each speaker will be fine. So we'll call the first three in person and then the next three online and back and forth.

First three in person, Jason Gordon, Sam Jaram and Sarah Lynn Colbert.

I'll also note that we have a 4.30 stop time for which we will have to stop this meeting, start another meeting and come back to this meeting if it takes us that long. If we can get done by 4.30, we will avoid that interruption. First three speakers, come on up, two minutes each.

Hello, Jason had to go to work. My name is Sara Jayaraman. I'm the co-founder and president of One Fair Wage, which is part of the Living Wage for All Coalition and also an attorney. So California State Election Code 14059118 requires the County Board of Supervisors to vote either to adopt the measure or put it on the next statewide election without qualification. The way that the agenda item has been presented to you abrogates that legal authority because it specifies a date which is not supposed to do. It's incredibly clear and this has been actually the subject of litigation for other counties. It is incredibly clear in the California code that a qualified county initiative shall be held at the next statewide election occurring not less than 88 days after the date of the order of election. It does not say the next scheduled currently scheduled election. So you have no right to determine March, 2028, because last year, California had a special statewide election. And if there is a special statewide election before March, 2028, California legal election code legally requires you to put this initiative on the next ballot 88 days after it has been certified. Therefore, if you vote today to say March, 2028, you are opening up the county to litigation, which we will definitely pursue. The county cannot determine that March, 2028 will be the next statewide election. It doesn't know that. If California holds another statewide election before March, 2028, and that election occurs at least 88 days after the board's order, which anytime next year would qualify. 1405, section 1405 requires the initiative to appear at that election. The legal error is clear. The county converted a statutory requirement tied to the next statewide election into a fixed March, 2028 election date. March, 2028 may ultimately be the next applicable election, but the county cannot legally presume that.

Thank you, next speaker.

Hello. My name is Sarah Lynn Colbert. I'm one of the canvassers that worked with One Fair Wage to collect the sufficient signatures. And I also assisted in the verification and validation of those signatures as well when we turned them in. We collected over 100,000 signatures and turned in sufficient number to qualify. And you know, as someone who is part of this community and a young person, it is very clear that the cost of living in this county is just absolutely not survivable. A lot of the canvassers are also members of this community and we wanted to create a future for ourselves and for the rest, our families. And by choosing to delay this, you'll be putting more stress on people who already don't have enough money to survive. And by the time it does pass because it is incredibly popular. And so it will pass. Um, you'll be putting more strain on small businesses because they will have to make a much bigger change rather than allowing this to go as gradually as it should. And as this was laid out and planned, um, And as Saru put a lot of effort into making sure that this ballot measure was clearly stated so that it would work for everyone as best as possible and make the county a little bit more affordable for those of us who still have a lot of time to live here. Thank you.

Thank you. Next speaker.

John Howard.

Good afternoon, supervisors. My name is John Howard. Myself, I was a canvasser and also a coordinator on this campaign. And I also went to a lot of people's homes. So I actually talked to, like, personally to a lot of voters, hundreds of people in a week. Like, you know, every week that we did this, probably 50, 60 people a day or whatever that would personally sign my personal petition. This is... This will make a huge impact in our community. And I believe that, like Senator, I mean, Supervisor Miley, you are for affordable housing and for jobs and things of that nature. But why does the people that have to work have to be squeezed? If we're going to work, we should have affordable or adequate ways that we're going to work for, right? Affordable housing is great. Rental assistance is great, but we like to pull ourselves by our own bootstraps and work for what we want, right? Why can't we assist ourselves and have adequate wages? So just, I feel like as voters, as a voter in this community, and as a supporter of this campaign, I would like to see this go on the ballot as soon as possible. Thank you.

Thank you. Next speaker.

Michael Wright. Please unmute.

Yeah. Am I audible? Can you confirm? Yes, go ahead. Thank you. Okay. My name is Michael Reich. I'm a longtime professor of economics at Berkeley, University of California, Berkeley, and I specialize in the economics of minimum wages. I'm going to make one main point in the time I have. And that is a balanced assessment of this policy should examine the benefits and the costs. I think the benefits are quite substantial and they have not been incorporated into the BA report. A few are, some are, but not some important ones. I think in fact, the policy will improve the county's budget overall. And along with that goes of judgment that the cost estimates are too high. I go into all this in more detail in the statement that I have sent yesterday to the board for review. The benefits, well, of course, minimum wages raise standard of living, but they also increase access to jobs that are farther away because minimum wage workers typically buy used car, look farther for jobs. It also improves mental health, reduces homelessness and crime, reduces the number of residents who are eligible for the county's means-tested program. There's particularly important effect among childcare providers. Turnover is gonna go quite a bit down. Everything you say, by the way, is based on research, not just on my opinions here. Improving the continuity of the caregivers could enhance the emotional and intellectual development of young children. I think it's a very important benefit. Alameda County currently spends $1.25 billion in contracts for direct services to 271 community-based organizations, of which about $800 million goes to behavioral health services, $138 million for the health system, 440 million for housing and homelessness programs. And then there's also 180 million or so in direct assistance payments to residents. If these policies, if this policy, I should say, reduces these costs by only 1%, the county would save almost 18 or about $18 million. On the cost side.

Jacob Brent, go ahead.

Good afternoon. My name is Jacob Brint. I'm the legislative and regulatory manager for the California Retailers Association. We represent retailers big and small from independent shops to grocery stores and larger retailers. I'm here today to thank the Alameda County Board of Supervisors for making the decision to study the economic impact of the proposed $30 an hour minimum wage. Retail really matters here. About 2,500 jobs and 368 businesses in the unincorporated county nearly 12% of local establishments, many of them small, family-run stores. A decision this consequential for that many local businesses should not be rushed to the ballot. The study is clear that this wage schedule would substantially exceed neighboring jurisdictions, putting local retailers at a competitive disadvantage and raising the risks of business closures that simply can't relocate. On behalf of the retailers we represent, thank you for taking the time to study the proposed initiative, and we respectfully ask that you give retailers and the public the time to fully absorb these findings before moving forward by placing this initiative on the March 2028 ballot. Thank you for your consideration.

Thank you. Dublin Chamber of Commerce. Go ahead.

Good afternoon. My name is Inga Houston. I am President and CEO of the Dublin Chamber of Commerce. We represent over 12,000 member businesses across member representatives, employees amongst our businesses across the Dublin and Greater Tri-Valley. I want to thank the Board of the board for its decision back in August to study the economic impacts of this initiative. A wage increase of this magnitude carries consequences that extend well beyond Alameda County. And we appreciate the diligence this proposal has received thus far. While Dublin is an incorporated city and would not be directly subject to this ordinance, we would not be insulated from its effects. The economic ripple effects of this wage increase will still be felt in Dublin local economy and across the state. Small businesses are the backbone of our local economy. An increase of this scale would put them at a severe competitive disadvantage, threatening jobs, and in some cases, forcing our local partners to close their doors. For these reasons, I respectfully urge the Board to place this initiative on the March 28 ballot, giving voters the time they need to understand what is on the ballot and what is at stake. Thank you for your time.

Sanika Bryant, Jonathan Mitchell, and Tenzil Cholji.

My name is Sanyaka Bryant with the Black Organizing Project. I am urging you all to really put this on the next ballot. Do not delay. People have been, I mean, it's already a shame that we had to do the report, but the information is out there now put it on the next ballot uphold the the will of the people. Folks just don't have the time to just keep this keep this process going and keep a delay on getting getting the will of the people heard. So please put this on the ballot and follow follow your legal obligations and not not open yourself up to the litigation that was mentioned earlier. Thank you.

Thank you. Next speaker.

Hello, everybody. My name is Jonathan Mitchell. I'm with the Black Organizing Project, part of the coalition with Living Wage for All. And I'm the membership coordinator at the Black Organizing Project. And as a person who speaks to like the most marginalized people in the community, It is really important to have this on the ballot. We shouldn't normalize people figuring out if they should pay the rent or pay for food. We shouldn't normalize people working three to four jobs just to make ends meet. And we shouldn't normalize people trying to figure out how they can support their families versus going back to school. So thank you.

Hello, my name is Tanzil Chowdhury. I am a researcher and an educator at UC Berkeley and serve on the executive board of United Auto Workers Local 4811, the union of 60,000 higher education workers across the University of California. I'm here representing UAW Region 6, which represents 120,000 active and retired members all across the West Coast, including over 10,000 here in Alameda County. Thank you, President Halbert and the Board of Supervisors for giving us the opportunity to speak on this. I won't repeat what's already been said about the ongoing affordability crisis and the need for higher wages. The UAW is strongly committed to the idea that we need strong wages, affordable healthcare, and to win back more of our time from backbreaking labor. What I will say is that there's a very important choice for the board to make here when it comes to the timing of this measure. And I really urge you to either adopt it or place it on the ballot as soon as possible, because ultimately what we'll do if we, you know, stretch this out longer and longer going into March of 2028 is we will just be kicking the can down the road and actually making those impacts on businesses and communities much worse over time because it will be a faster ramp up to that $30 minimum wage. Our polling shows that 70% of Alameda County voters are in support of this measure. We know that tens of thousands of people signed on to the petition. So I think, you know, I very much urge the board to either adopt it or to put it on the ballot as soon as possible in order to, you know, follow the will of the voters in Alameda County and to ensure that everyone benefits from this measure. Thank you. Thank you. Next speakers.

Sarah Thomason.

Hi, my name is Sarah Thomas and I'm with Movement Economics. I'm one of the authors of a separate study looking at the likely economic impacts of the proposed ballot measure. We find that if adopted in the unincorporated areas by 2030, the policy would increase the earnings of nearly three out of 10 workers, that's about 7,000 workers, by an average of 19.2%, while having no measurable impact on the number of jobs. Our finding aligned with a broad range of perspective and retrospective studies have found that local minimum wage increases do not lead to job losses, but do have a large positive impact on workers and their families. Our study applies a model developed by Michael Reich, who just presented, and other professors at UC Berkeley. It's been used to project the impacts of many proposed local and state minimum wage policies here in California and across the country. And our final report was reviewed by economists at both the Economic Policy Institute and the UC Berkeley Labor Center. I want to point out that, as Michael Reich mentioned, the BAE urban economics report commissioned by the county greatly overestimates the likely fiscal impact related to county employee wages specifically, because it's assuming that the wage level proposed for 2030 would go into effect right now. And in reality, the policy will be phased in over multiple years, during which time we would expect the salary ranges to be adjusted for the cost of living. We know that for workers covered by the 10 to 1 contract, those increases have been between 4% and 6% annually in recent years. I recalculated Table 2 in the BAE report with a conservative assumption of just a 3% cost of living increase annually through 2030. And that reduces their estimate of $28 million to only 8 million. There are additional problems with this estimate that I'm happy to discuss if there are questions. But I just want to share that overwhelmingly research has found that local minimum wage policies.

We saw flowers.

Hello. Can you all hear me?

Yes, go ahead.

Okay, wonderful. Thank you. Good afternoon. My name is Isabel Flores. I'm a legislative coordinator with the California Restaurant Association here representing neighborhood restaurants throughout the county of Alameda. While the CRA appreciates the intent of the minimum wage proposal, it's vital to consider the potential impacts on the community, job climate, and county expenses as well. Rising wages already make up more than a third of restaurant operating expenses. And this ordinance, coupled with inflation and rising costs across the board, would only heighten the economic pressure that restaurants in the county are experiencing. As a result, it could potentially force the closure of more neighborhood eateries that contribute to the vibrant culture of Alameda County and who are major generators of local sales tax that help fund critical county services. The measure's estimated direct cost to the county of over $30 million is also enormous and could put the county's finances in a precarious position, so For these reasons, and due to the unprecedented nature of this measure, the CRA and our members respectfully urge you to place this measure on the March 2028 primary election ballot. Not only would this save the county precious dollars when compared to calling a special election, but it would also give voters the adequate time to consider the impacts of such a drastic proposal, and also to decide for themselves whether to support this measure or not. So once again, thank you for your time. And we respectfully request that you let the voters decide on this measure in 2028 rather than to rush this through today. Thank you.

Sound the intro chamber.

Hello everybody, this is Emily Grego and I'm President and CEO of the San Leandro Chamber of Commerce. As a Chamber of Commerce, we directly hear from businesses about the cost of doing business and the decisions that they have to make about hiring, expanding, investing, and staying in the community. We need to understand whether this proposal could make Alameda County a more difficult place for businesses to invest or grow. We also need to look at the effects on the people and organizations that provide essential services. Child care is already a significant expense for families, many of whom have two incomes. And if child care providers face higher labor costs, what portion of that will ultimately be passed on to those families? And what about our senior citizens and others living on faced or limited incomes? If businesses and service providers face higher costs, we need to understand what that could mean for the prices consumers ultimately pay. Nonprofits are a part of this conversation as well. They provide critical services in our communities, and higher operating costs can mean fewer resources available for those programs. An initiative of this scale, we believe the board and the voters deserve a clearer understanding of the broader economic consequences before making a decision. I respectfully urge the board to place this initiative on the March 2028 ballot, giving the community more time to understand the impacts and make a fully informed decision. Thank you.

Next in-person speakers are Malcolm Harris, Ray Parks, and Michelle Brown.

My name is Malcolm Harris. I am co-organizing director with the Oakland Black Organizing Project. And we're a proud steering committee member of the Alameda County Living Wage for All Coalition. One job. This job, this work, this job allowed many campuses to only work one job during their signature gathering efforts. Since then, they have gone back to multiple jobs to be able to live and support their families here across the county. Over 100,000 Alameda County registered voters signed and qualified this ballot. They signed and qualified this ballot after polling because of deep needs across the county. Respect those signatures and the work that has been put in by them. The county's finances and working communities have been on the edge for years. What solution have you identified to address the deep needs across the county? This has happened on your watch. The impacts that you all point out, which are extending the valid date, et cetera, we have worked out a timeline. This is going to be voted on. The only issue that will happen here is the further that you extend this, you will create a gap. a buildup in that timeline, which will create even deeper pressures on Alameda County businesses. Those same businesses that you all, in particular David Halpert, made clear that he clearly represents and is the voice for. We ask you to vote and push to make this happen, to do the right thing, to address decades of needs that Alameda County communities, including businesses and working families and individuals have pointed out that there's needs for. We ask that you vote for passage and adopt the initiative in respect of voters and don't create more economic impacts on an already stretched county.

Craig Parks and Michelle Brown.

Hello, everybody. I'm 65 years old on Social Security. Rent is so high here. That $30 minimum wage, it would go great. I've been working all my life. And I started working, making $3.15 a week, you know, an hour. They're not doing $30? Man, that's great. Rent is high. Grocery is high. And I'm a senior citizen. It's hard for me to live. I'm still trying to find somewhere to stay. You know, they need that $30 an hour. Because it just don't make sense that for myself to be a senior citizen, I worked all my life and I still can't find me nowhere to stay. You know, and then I get Social Security and if I work over what I make, they take my Social Security away. Now, how do I supposed to pay rent? You know, I need that $30. but they telling me, oh, you can't make over this. You ain't giving me nothing to pay my rent with. Why I can't work and make $30 to pay rent, grocery? You know, I went to the store and looked at a dozen eggs, almost $20. I said, I'm going to go home and lay me some eggs then, you know, to have my own eggs because it don't make sense. You know, it just don't make sense how high grocery is. And, you know, and I didn't know this guy was standing next to me when I said it, but I was just, it just spoke out. But we need that $30. to go through because for myself and my grandkids in the future, I would like for them to go to a job making $30 an hour and then be able to pay this rent. This rent is ridiculous. So that $30 minimum wage is for me. Please let it go through because we need it, especially as senior citizens because we barely can eat today.

Thank you. Rayu Amani.

Good afternoon, board and board members. My name is Orayu Amoni. I am a part of the Living Wage for All Coalition. It's a pleasure to be here with you all. I just want to highlight a couple of things. I won't regurgitate a lot of the stuff that's been said here. But one, I think as a board and as a body that's looked at as sort of distributors of high quality information, you should be careful of the numbers that you put out there. Because now everyone's going to say it's going to cost the county $30, $28 million, whatever that number is. And that's not actually true. That was pointed out by some economists that came on. But also, many of your employees are under a collective bargaining agreement. The measure has the collective bargaining carve out. And we did that specifically for these type of situations. This is a coalition. It's made up of labor. and community. We thought through, we talked to all the stakeholders about what they would want to see in a ballot measure. This wasn't something that we just woke up one day and decided to put together. We did the thorough investigation. We did our research. You all have done the same. You all have been said, now they're saying, don't rush, don't rush. Well, you guys took time to do a study. So how many studies do we need to do to know where we need to go with this? We have 100 years of data on minimum wage and their effects. What are we doing here? This gives you all an opportunity to take leadership. This is what we elect you all for, leadership. Take this opportunity, adopt this measure so that we don't strain our small businesses. Many of them who are, you know, minority owned, right? So if we care about them, let's do the right thing. Let's give them the 10 years. Small businesses have 10 years to implement this $30 minimum wage. Any delay is going to cut that down. And we'll be here talking about the same things over and over again. Thank you.

Edward Escobar.

Edward, go ahead.

Hello, I'm Edward Escobar. I'm founder of the Unincorporated Strategic United Coalition, and I'm here to deliver this without sugarcoating. The 30 per hour wage initiative targeting only unincorporated Alameda County is an attack on our communities. This measure does not apply to cities. It does not apply countywide. It targets us unincorporated residents as the testing zone. We are being singled out for a policy experiment that no other part of the county is forced to absorb. A sudden $30 wage mandate in one isolated area is not economic justice. It's a political maneuver with real consequences. That's business closures, job cuts, reduced hours and economic displacement. Childcare centers, restaurants, family run shops and longstanding employers cannot survive a wage spike while competing directly with neighboring cities operating under normal wage laws. When businesses shut down, workers lose When jobs leave, families lose. When policymakers treat unincorporated communities like a pilot program, the entire community loses. We are not a testing ground, we are not a policy experiment, and we are not collateral damage. This initiative is targeted, it's reckless, and economically destructive. It threatens the stability of our workforce, our small businesses, and our community identity. As the Unincorporated Strategic United Coalition, we stand firmly and we say no to this $30 an hour measure. Protect our jobs, protect our businesses, protect our community. Thank you.

Robert Abudaka.

Robert, please unmute.

Good afternoon. My name is Robert Apodaca. I'm a resident. I have been a resident of Alameda County for the past 45 plus years. And I'm also the executive director of a group called United Latinos Action. I was here to speak with you in early August at that board meeting. I expressed concern about the nonprofit organizations that do work for the county and whether they would be able to absorb this enormous increase in wages. And I'm concerned about the families who would be affected by the loss of services provided by those nonprofit organizations, because many of them would have to cut back. And some of them would, quite frankly, go out of business. And unlike the private sector, those nonprofit organizations would have to rely on more fundraising, which is impossible these days. There's just not enough money to go around. So I asked you in August to do the study and to postpone putting this on a ballot. And I'm here again today. And so the study did verify my concerns. And it's just too much for them to bear all that tremendous cost increase. And so I'm here today to ask you to place this item on the on the March 2020 ballot. Thank you.

Mia B, please unmute.

Hi, can you all hear me? My name is Amia Brizendine. I'm the school site organizer at the Black Organizing Project. And I'm not a resident of East Oakland. I have ancestral history here. And I think it's very telling that business owners often have a very different perspective on raising the minimum wage and the work that they employ. Opponents I'm hearing tonight claim they're speaking on behalf of black and brown workers, seniors and working class families. But those very same people have consistently told us that they need a living wage, right? $30 an hour because they simply cannot afford to live in this county. So who exactly are you speaking for? We're also told that businesses won't survive if workers earn a living wage, but businesses also can't survive if working class people can't afford to patronize them. So who really loses? The answer is all of us. Yet it seems everyone is being protected except those who are most impacted, which are the marginalized, working class, black people. and other low-wage workers struggling to stay in the communities that they call home. I urge you to pass this measure and make it a law in the county. Thousands of voters signed our petitions because they overwhelmingly support a living wage and believe that no one working full-time should have to choose between paying rent, buying groceries, or keeping the lights on. At the very least, if you choose not to attack it today, put this measure on the next ballot as required by law and let the voters decide. Thank you.

Next three in person, Timothy Evans, Guy Houston, and Robert.

How you guys doing? My name is Timothy Evans, and I also work with these ladies and gentlemen right here. But I'd like to say that, for one, I'm from Baltimore, Maryland. And our pay rate, even though it's lower out there, but our rent is also cheaper as well. And I believe that this bill should definitely get put on there because you guys keep going up every year on the rent out here. Just keep going up, keep going up, keep going up, but not going up on our pay. And it's not fair to middle class type of people like us to be having to suffer like everybody else is talking about as well. And that's like, even though you guys are getting the big bills and big checks and all that, but us people here, we're not. And you guys are not struggling like how we are struggling. And that's that's making it real difficult. And all we asking for is a chance to at least do something. and put that on the bill so at least we can get some type of money to make our families and take care of the business that we have to take care of without struggling out here. You know what I'm saying? Because everybody can't move back and forth like I can. Like I said, I'm from the DMV area, so I know how cheap it is out there, and our payment is low. You know what I'm saying? But we are able to afford this stuff because they're not going up on the rent like you guys are every year. So that's all I have to say. And please pass this bill. Thank you.

Mr. President, members of the board, Guy Houston here. I represent the Economic Development Committee for the Dublin Chamber of Commerce. And I want to thank you and compliment you for taking the time to step back and do that analysis. And the report was great and give the voters time to really understand what the impacts are really going to be. The minimum wage was raised for our fast food workers and there is a net reduction in workers in California because of that. And so I guess it's a great deal if you have a job. But by you stepping back and saying, hey, let's look at the facts first also gives people in the community time to evaluate that and If the next election is in March of 2028, so be it. Uh, that's the appropriate thing to do. And I thank you very much for taking the time.

Good afternoon, everybody. Uh, my name is pastor Robert Lacey. I was just saying, Andrew missionary Baptist church. I serve in a ministerial community, um, leading nationally, locally, statewide, and also manage a restaurant here in Alameda County with fewer than 25 employees. So today, I stand before you for the worker and for the small business struggling to keep its doors open. I respectfully ask that you pass this $30 minimum wage now. There's a 10-year phase-in that was mentioned. that will actually give small businesses time to prepare for this increased time to adjust and time to survive. Delaying this, as mentioned by one of my partners, could mean nearly a $4 increase in one year. So supervisors, we ask that you recognize that you don't have to sacrifice the business to bless the worker. We can lift wages without closing doors. We can honor workers without breaking small businesses. We're part of a bigger project. The bigger project is to make a man a better man. We've dug deeper than the mole. We flew further than the eagle. We're trying to shine brighter than the sun. And now we have an opportunity to bring up individuals that are unable to bring themselves up. So by passing this, we actually give an opportunity and we start actually joining the project that others are doing so that people can actually live where they want to live and not be pushed out. So if there is a small time frame on giving small businesses a chance to raise minimum wage, then we will find businesses going to other borders. So let's give them opportunity. Thank you so much.

There are no more speakers. All right, we'll bring it back for discussion and deliberation. I recognize Supervisor Miley, Marquez, and Tam.

I think, Mr. President, I want to thank the speakers. I know their hearts and their intentions are in the right place. question is, what shall we do? So, County Council, the issue around the date, is that, do you have any legal response to that? If a special election were to be called, like next year, would that be the date, even if we decide to go with March of 2028, would we then have to alter that and go with that date? Do you want to opine on that?

There we go. Okay, so the speaker was correct about the statutory language. It says the next statewide election. There is, of course, no statewide election scheduled before March 2028. But if there were a special election called and it were a statewide election, then yes, this would have to go forward on the next statewide election.

So we could we could pass a motion. um stating that i go on the the march of 2028 election or the the first uh statewide election uh prior to that something to that effect something to that effect yeah okay so i thought okay now um the um uh the registrar uh can you come back up here So the signatures were validated. The signatures were gathered countywide.

They were gathered countywide.

So they weren't just signatures gathered in the unincorporated area. They were gathered countywide. Do you have a sense where the signatures came from?

I do know they were all over the county. I don't know specifically in any one area or the other.

Yeah, because it, I mean, clearly if the measure applies only to the unincorporated area, there are 14 cities in the county and signatures could be gathered anywhere in the entire county, but the measure only affects the unincorporated area. That's correct. And so stay there for a minute. So back to county council. The law states that signatures can be gathered countywide to impact only that incorporated area.

In short, yes. So when people are collecting signatures for anything that's going to go on the ballot, countywide, they can collect signatures countywide as well.

So if people were gathering signatures for a measure that was going to affect, let's say, give me a city on Berkeley, the signatures gathered to affect the measure in Berkeley, those signatures that have to come from Berkeley, they wouldn't gather them throughout the entire county to affect Berkeley.

So for, yes.

That's correct. So why is law different when it comes to an incorporated area that they could gather signatures countywide that only impacts the unincorporated area?

Well, because the body that governs the county is, of course, your board. And so the geographic jurisdiction that your board governs is the Alameda County in total.

Okay. Now, the vote on this measure will be a countywide vote. Okay. 50% plus one. Yeah, that requires a majority, right? I suspect that most of the signatures didn't come from the unincorporated area. That's my suspicion. And so... Guys, it's not a public dialogue here.

Please don't interrupt. Because if we do, we're going to just...

to stall we'll we'll have to uh resume the meeting later okay so that's my suspicion now you know i support a minimum wage but i might not support this particular measure because i think it applies in the corporate area unjustifiably so now county council can you speak to any legal pitfalls that we feel are potential with this particular measure? I know there's some things that you can't say that are confidential, but do we have any legal concerns about this measure?

As the ballot title and summary alluded to, there are some concerns about the interaction between this measure and measure C. There are some other concerns, but we're not going to get into that.

Right. Okay. But I just want the public to know that we do feel there's some legal concerns with this measure. So I just want that to be stated and we will. We will disclose those should the measure pass. Now, let's go back to the comparisons. Oh, wait, before I go back there. So, Cynthia, what would the cost be for us to do if we were to put this on the ballot in December? What's the cost for a countywide election?

A standalone special. We've estimated about $9.8 million.

Wait a minute. Repeat that.

9.8 million for a special standalone county election.

And if we wait till the next special statewide election or the next statewide election, wherever that might be, what would be the cost?

So we've estimated for the March 7.8 million.

How much? $7.8 million. Okay, so it's a difference of about $2 million. About $2 million. Okay, $2 million is a jump change. It could be significant in terms of providing services. I think that's all I have for you, Cynthia, so thank you. So let me get the gentleman up who provided the study. The comparison of other minimum wage ordinances, so most of the other minimum wage ordinances, I'm looking at, in terms of the comparison, there's at least one, maybe two or more, maybe even three distinct things in this particular measure that the other ordinances don't.

Yes, it's relatively expansive and it's in its coverage there's a couple compared to there's only three counties in California that have minimum wage ordinances that apply to the unincorporated county. One is San Francisco. So, of course, San Francisco is a city and a county, so it doesn't really matter. But the other direct comparisons would be San Mateo County and L.A. County. And L.A. County is the one that is the longest standing ordinance that covers approximately 1.5 million people in an incorporated L.A. County, so 10 times the size of San unincorporated Alameda County, and it applies to all private sector workers and doesn't cover public sector workers. It also doesn't apply to county of L.A. owned or leased properties in other jurisdictions, which if you know about county of L.A. owned or leased properties are in the hundreds across L.A. County. So there are there are some distinctions there. It's worth noting that L.A. County has really successfully implemented this measure by standing up an office of labor equity that oversees and enforces the measure across L.A. County.

And that was interesting that because this measure doesn't call for any governmental, you know, doesn't opine on whether or not we need to set up. some type of administrative body to oversee its implementation? Was that contemplated?

I'm not sure. I'm not aware of any language in the ballot measure that mentions an agency or an office that would monitor and enforce the minimum wage standard in the unincorporated county. San Mateo County, when they originally passed their ordinance, did not establish an office of labor equity or other such office, and they relied upon the state to do the enforcement. They've since stood up an office, which includes different representatives from different departments and attorneys to enforce the minimum wage standard in the unincorporated county in San Mateo County. So I think that to answer your question, I'm not sure whether it was contemplated by the ballot measure organizers, but I think that the ballot measure is silent on it. And so I don't have that answer.

And with your analysis, you didn't look at... Any cost implications relative to that?

Well, there would be some if the county were to decide to set up a department of labor enforcement or labor equity, there would be obviously some additional personnel costs and ongoing costs that are not contemplated in the very conservative estimate of personnel expenditures that we provided in the study.

Then your one other slide talked about a lot of stuff here, but under the economic impacts, it talked about the potential risk of substantially exceeding neighboring jurisdictions. Wages could raise operating costs in an incorporated area and affect business retention and attraction. Could you further expand on that?

I think some of the speakers have already mentioned it. And really, to do this properly, to really understand what the costs and benefits are and what the trade-offs are, you would need to do a very extensive survey of local employers. Obviously, we're not going to do that for this. So we relied upon national research, and there's been... As has been said, decades and decades, 100 years of studies on minimum wage ordinances. And it really does depend on the types of businesses, the types of workers, and the competitiveness of neighboring jurisdictions. So I can imagine that for certain small businesses that have the ability to locate to a lower cost jurisdiction, that they would do so. There are also some employers for a variety of reasons because of fixed assets, existing investments, their labor shed, their markets, that they're not going to have the option of relocating whether or not the minimum wage ordinance is passed. So it's really across the board. The reactions of individual employers are going to vary a lot by type, by size, by their labor force, by their markets. And so what the cross-border effects are, that's what they're called when one jurisdiction has lower operating costs, are unpredictable.

Okay. Yeah. So I'm going to have to take a recess so that we start our four 30 meeting, go back to this, that who should only take a few minutes. We're going to recess this meeting, ask the clerk to make a quick technical switch. That might take a couple minutes and then we will resume this meeting shortly. We're in recess of this meeting. We're going to reconvene our regular meeting. And I'll ask the clerk to call the roll.

Supervisor Marquez, excuse. Supervisor Tam. Present. Supervisor Miley. Supervisor Fortunato-Bass, excused. President Halbert.

Present.

We have a quorum.

Thank you. We'll pick up where we left off. Supervisor Miley, you had some additional questions or comments?

Yeah, I think I might have finished all my questions, I believe. I hope I did. But in terms of my comments, once again, And I do think a minimum wage is important. My issue is that this particular measure only applies to the unincorporated area. And since I represent most of the unincorporated area, I also represent a healthy portion of Pleasanton, as well as about a third of Oakland. I know Supervisor Tam and Bass represent portions of Oakland along with me. It's troubling that this measure just applies to the unincorporated area. And I think the unintended consequences of this measure applying just to the unincorporated area would be detrimental to the unincorporated area, even though, like I said, I do feel a minimum wage approach is very, very important. I think I said earlier when this came to us, back before recess, I'd much prefer a measure that's either statewide in terms of minimum wage or countywide that's really legitimately countywide and not just focused on one portion of Alameda County. I know we have no discretion about whether or not we can alter the measure or anything like that. So, you know, I'm going to support putting the measure on the March 2028 ballot or the next state. election after, would it be after like December 2027?

It would be 88 days from today. So after 88 days from today, so roughly December of this year.

Okay. Yeah, so I think when you're ready for a motion, I just want to make sure, I'll check with county council how I should word it, but that's kind of what I think we should be looking at, the March 2028 ballot or the next statewide election after December of 2026. The That's the motion I'm gonna support. But in addition, I'd like to see if the board would also approve that this concern be referred to the Unincorporated Services Committee. And the Unincorporated Services Committee for the Board of Supervisors specifically looks at items that impact the unincorporated area. That's our charge, that's our mission. And I'd like the minimum wage to be referred to our committee so that in our committee, we could be looking at, and the committee is composed of Supervisor Tam and myself, we could begin looking at putting it together or exploring putting together a competing ballot measure that might more appropriately be reasonable and legally defensible, as a competing measure with this measure whenever it occurs in the ballot, if it's March 2028 or sometime before March 2028, but after December 2026. Because I do feel there are unintended consequences with this measure, both economically, physically, legally, et cetera. And I do feel a measure that's going to impact the unincorporated area should germinate and have significant input on its crafting from folks that would be stakeholders, community, labor, business, et cetera, who are vested in the unincorporated area, and that's the body that I would be working with through the committee to craft a potential competing measure and bringing that back to the Board of Supervisors and the public for your review. And finally, I just want to say one other thing. I know people talked about folks needing to have a minimum wage and working hard. And that's important. But I just want to state, when I was growing up, my dad worked two jobs. My mom worked. And we did that. So we did that. We did that. So, Mr. President, can I?

I'm going to ask that we keep the meeting discussion up here, please.

My dad worked two jobs. My mom worked.

That's the third warning, sir. And I'm going to ask that you just be removed. Unless you are going to promise to keep quiet because you're interrupting our meeting. And it's been three warnings now. So which is it going to be? Or we could just... Okay. We're going to take a five-minute recess. I'd like to call our meeting back to order. Will the clerk please call the roll?

Supervisor Marquez.

Present.

Supervisor Tam. Present. Supervisor Miley. Present. Supervisor Fortunato-Bas, excused. President Halbert.

Present. Supervisor Miley, you may proceed.

Okay, thank you. So once again, you know, my story is not everybody's story. But my story is my dad worked two jobs. My mom worked. And my parents didn't take no mess. And we worked hard for me to get to where I am today. So I believe firmly in people having a living wage, a minimum wage, but I also look at the unintended consequences of good intentions. And I know this is good intentions, but there are unintended consequences. And I was elected to look at the entire forest, not just the trees. So that's why my position is when the board's ready for the motion, I'll make a motion. Hopefully there'll be enough support for it. But I think folks understand that I'm very protective when it comes to the unincorporated area. So that's all I have to say at this point.

If this is referred to unincorporated, it's for the purposes of discussing a future ballot initiative that would be competing. same time frame but it would be only intended to compass unincorporated alameda county okay very good supervisor marquez then tam

Thank you. If our consultant can please come up just for some additional questions. Thank you for the work. I know this was a quick turnaround. Appreciate it. Just wanted to know, I don't see it in the report, but just want to make sure that I'm not missing it. Was there any type of analysis at looking at if the wages of our community members increased? Would that save the county money in terms of people no longer qualifying for, let's say, CalFresh or Medi-Cal or some of those public benefits?

It's an excellent point. We do mention it, but we don't quantify it. And there, you know, as I think Professor Reich mentioned, there would be quantifiable benefits to increasing minimum wages that would result in lower county expenditures on necessary services, including on things related to food, etc. So that is part of the equation in the time. And with the data that we had, we weren't able to quantify that. But it is a real concern.

Okay. And then with respect to... Just lost my thought. I was going to ask you something about the businesses, but... With respect to the other counties that have the minimum wage in place for unincorporated, they're not necessarily the same comparison because I heard you say specifically LA County, it's only for private business. It does not apply to the public sector.

It doesn't apply to public sector employees.

And then how long has that ordinance been in place? 10 years.

It's 2016. And then San Mateo is more recently. San Mateo is more recent. I can't remember the exact date. I know that Initially, the organizers in San Mateo County were really attempting to align the county's minimum wage standards with neighboring jurisdictions. And also, if you know about unincorporated San Mateo County, it's a lot of agricultural areas. So it covers farm workers, service workers, tourism workers who tend to be lower paid. So it represented a big pay rise for that cohort of workers.

Okay, and then the language in this measure, I keep on wanting to say ordinance, but it's a measure. The language in this measure does not speak to whether or not there is identified city county staff to monitor the implementation, correct? It's silent on that?

That's my understanding, and that's my understanding from county staff and county council.

Okay, so whoever can answer this question, the next question, who legally is required to monitor compliance if we don't have a built-in department-identified employee? Is it the state? How are those complaints handled? Help me understand if a measure like this were to go into effect, who's legally required to monitor for compliance? Okay.

So under the ordinance, the ordinance allows for private enforcement, which means aggrieved workers or employers or others in the private sector could sue civilly. Or if your board does create some sort of an administrative body, the proposed ordinance also contemplates, I should say, it gives the option of creating an administrative body within the county to enforce. It doesn't require it, but it says that we have that option.

Okay. And then with respect to the language about janitorial services, um, Do we know specifically if there's hotel workers, individuals cleaning individuals' homes, would that be classified as janitorial or is it a specific description? I wasn't clear on that.

I don't know. It just says janitorial workers. I think the implication is that if that's your occupation, regardless of who your employer is, that you would be covered under the large employer standards. So your wage would go up at that phase schedule. Just to answer your question.

So even if the employer, their business wasn't established and unincorporated, if that's just your designated position?

No, it would be unincorporated. It would be an unincorporated county.

It has to be a business within unincorporated with that specific job title. That's right. Okay.

Okay. Just to give a little bit more kind of flavor on how other counties have done this, in San Mateo County, The initial decision was to use the California Labor Commissioner's Office and employees' private right of action to enforce the minimum wage ordinance, but they replaced that approach in 2025 and have now appointed representatives from the county's executive office, the attorney's office, and the district attorney's office to enforce county labor standards because they found that just relying on private action in the state of California was not enough to ensure compliance.

And every employer is legally required to have information in terms of the commission contact, right? It is their right to know who they need to call if they're encountering any issues with pay. Okay. With respect to measure C, can you kind of elaborate more on the discussions with first five and kind of just highlight what is known and still what remains unclear?

I'm going to turn it over to my colleague from first five, who is the expert on this topic.

Well, thank you. Welcome. Take your time.

Hello. Jenna Marconi. I'm a senior advisor fiscal and policy strategy at First 5 Alameda. Kristen Spanos, our CEO, is unfortunately unable to join. Happy to answer any questions I can.

Yeah, so what was the collaboration like with conducting this study? I know we wanted to get clarity on the impacts of Measure C, which was passed in 2020, correct? But we just started implementing a little bit over a year ago.

Just adopted in June of last year, yes. So we're now in our second year of our five-year plan with the board. So the consultants reached out to us. We shared data that we had in terms of childcare workers, and child care sites within the unincorporated area. Once they shared their analysis of how they were calculating the cost impact to the county, we mirrored that and did an analysis based on what we know of current wages for child care workers. Those are countywide. We don't have data specific to that incorporated area. So what we know in terms of average current wages for assistant and lead teachers at childcare sites, and then did the similar analysis to mirror what's in the rest of the report of showing the difference to get to $30 an hour, and then that annualized cost to get to the 7.8 million.

Okay, and then... Because this is a voter approved measure, measure C, if this were to pass, do you have to reallocate your funding source and come back to the board to kind of reappropriate the buckets of funding or help me understand? We know the value, but how does that impact the other components of measure C?

I think it's too early to answer that. I think if it were passed, we would need legal counsel and advisement on that interaction. I can speak broadly that measure C has a lot of goals, right? We're trying to increase access to childcare. We're trying to raise wages for childcare workers. We have investments in professional development and quality and facilities. We estimate about a billion dollar need across the early care and education sector here in Alameda County. Measure C, while a wonderful local revenue is about 150 million a year. So it's a finite resource and there were trade-offs. We had an extensive community process, listening sessions. We have a Brown Acted Community Advisory Council. We surveyed families and providers. and had a really collaborative process to outline what we would prioritize within the limited measure C dollars. And that is part of the adopted five-year plan that includes investments to raise wages, increase access, and all of the other areas. So we would need to revisit that if this were enacted within future plans and direction from the board and council.

And the plan, would it legally have to be amended then?

I think we would have to see that at the time it was enacted in the timelines and different impacts. Right now, within Measure C, the wage increases that are built in, it's limited eligibility in terms of how it's designed within the five-year plan. So not all child care providers within that incorporated area would necessarily be eligible for Measure C funding under the current approved five-year plan.

Okay, thank you for that. I'm going to ask, I think our county team, do we conduct an analysis? I'm clear on the unincorporated and leased properties that are managed by the county, but does that include any type of relationship with Alameda Health System in terms of the minimum wage impacting employees that work at Alameda Health System?

We did discuss that Alameda Health System is a leased facility and county-owned property. So I want to be clear, it's all county properties, whether they're in the unincorporated area or not. So all of our leases.

So that's factored into the $30 to $32 million a year. And then the CBOs?

No, the $30 million is the impact to the county budget. So the county does not fund labor for HS. So they would the impact. It's separate. I don't know the dollar amount or if they were able to look at that, but that would be so all in addition to what the counties.

Okay.

Correct.

Okay. What about the relationship with their CBOs? Can you help define it? Does the CBO have to, their headquarters have to be in unincorporated or is it solely if the employee doesn't work in unincorporated? Can you clarify that distinction?

Sure. As the ordinance is written, it would apply certainly to CBO employees working in the unincorporated areas, regardless of where the CBO is headquartered. It would also apply to CBOs that are located in the unincorporated areas where their workers may work in the unincorporated areas or elsewhere at certain times. So it would apply in both directions as it's written.

And then just to clarify the comment made by our first speaker earlier today, the concern was specifying a specific date of an election rather than just saying the next statewide election. And I think I heard your response to Supervisor Miley that can be adjusted in the motion orally when that's made. Is that correct? Okay, thank you. Those are all my questions. Thank you.

Thank you, Supervisor Tam.

Thank you, President Halbert. I appreciate all the speakers, and I do have some questions that are more tailored to first five as it was reported in the study. So I think Supervisor Marquez asked, prospectively, I want to ask retroactively, did you, did the proponents of this ordinance consult with First Five when, because you had presented a five-year plan to the county, including budget amounts that looked at minimum wage increases that are tied in measure C, did the proponents contact First Five to see if there's a way to coordinate some of that? No, we were not consulted regarding this measure and interaction with Measure C. Okay, so when the report estimates that it would cost approximately $7.8 million in increased direct compensation for family and child care owners and child care sites in the unincorporated area, was that anticipated in the budget in some shape or form?

No, there are eligible child care sites within unincorporated area as part of the current five year plan. Those sites would need to apply, comply with measure C guidelines to receive the funding. So some some of that cost may be covered within the existing approved five year plan, but not for all child care providers within that incorporated county.

OK, those are my questions on the first five aspect of it. I'd like to follow up on some questions about the study itself. So the counties that had passed a minimum wage ordinance, like you mentioned in San Mateo and Los Angeles County, I mean, when you look at the economics, usually the employers have to find some way to get an increase in their revenue or their income in order to pay for the increases in the minimum wages. And so usually, whether it's grocery workers or people that are working in the restaurant industry, they would need to either increase their cost because of increased costs associated with food and energy and labor. In those counties that have these increases in minimum wage, do you know whether or not there's been a significant increase in goods and services?

The answer is, based on the research that we have, no, there hasn't been a significant increase in goods or services. It depends very much on the structure of the ballot measure of the specific minimum wage and also the types of businesses and the types of industries. In the case of L.A. County in particular, It was designed very much with the idea of avoiding cross-border effects, meaning that the minimum wage rate and the way that it was phased in was meant to mirror or match the city of Los Angeles. So when the ballot organizers were trying to design the ordinance in Los Angeles County, it was specifically with the idea of avoiding cross-border effects. But I believe that the research shows that there have not been negative impacts on businesses or workers in the unincorporated county in L.A. County as a result of increasing minimum wages, in large part because they're really comparable to what neighboring jurisdictions already have in L.A. County, most importantly, the city of Los Angeles.

So when Los Angeles was looking at this, the other surrounding cities already had? The city of LA already had a minimum wage ordinance, yeah.

And other cities, there are, I forget how many hundreds of cities in LA County, but other cities in LA County also had minimum wage ordinances. So there was a concerted attempt to to study and to try to avoid any potential negative consequences of increasing minimum wage standards in the unincorporated county vis-a-vis other jurisdictions.

Okay. This is helpful. Thank you. So when I talk to the community members, we have this issue in our county like the city of alameda is different than alameda county and the unincorporated parts of alameda county are different than the entire county so did los angeles run into that problem because if the city of la already had a minimum wage but it didn't really apply to the unincorporated parts of la county when it went to the voters did they make and a distinction between the county, the city and- I don't know that I can speak to that.

I know that there were concerns at the time that LA County was considering increasing the minimum wage that workers in the unincorporated county were not making living wages that they needed to afford to live in Los Angeles County and that their wages were lower than what were being provided by employers in the city of LA and in other jurisdictions. But I really can't speak to the psychology or the campaign elements of it. I'm not an expert on that aspect of it.

Okay, thank you. Appreciate that. That's all I had. So, I mean, I... agree with many of the speakers that we are facing an affordability crisis. It's primarily driven by a number of factors, including energy costs with geopolitical events. you know, we sit on the health committee and the social service committee, and we know that people are going to be losing Medi-Cal coverage and their CalFresh coverage because of HR1. There's 130,000 people expected on the Medi-Cal side. And I am concerned about the parameter of using the county name, expecting that it's the whole county and not just the unincorporated. So I'm in agreement with Supervisor Miley that we should have a referral to the unincorporated service committee to engage that community to help them understand what that ballot measure does and how it applies to them. And so I'm amenable to the motion that you're thinking about developing.

Very good. Thank you. I actually have a question from the proponents. Who is best to answer? Because a question was made, this only applies to unincorporated Alameda County. Was that the intent? And It was pointed out by Supervisor Miley that 100,000 signatures were collected. And so was that in unincorporated Alameda County or where? How do we reconcile all of Alameda County voting on something just applicable to on Incorporated Alameda County, was that the intent? And indeed, how many signatures came from an Incorporated Alameda County? And I know you might not be able to know exactly off the top of your head, but just anecdotally, wide guess, if you can answer. I don't know if I was very clear with my question.

I will try my best to answer as best as I understood. The intent, so as you all know, and I'm sure council can elaborate on this, Cities within a county have the option to opt in to, you know, this potential ballot measure. They would have the potential to say, city of Berkeley would say, you know, now that the county has passed this ballot measure, we will opt into that. They also have the option to not opt in, right? And so we collect the signatures in a variety of spaces. We collect the signatures for the entire county. We also collect the signatures for the city of Oakland. The signatures for the city of Oakland are currently being reviewed. right now so you potentially would have for the next election a ballot measure for the county of alameda and a ballot measure for the city of oakland which is the largest city in the county as you know to have the same minimum wage increase on the same timeline so that this cross-border effect as our expert witness was mentioning you know sort of uh plays into into that effect in terms of the where we collected the signatures. We collected the signatures in all of the county as is available to us by law. But most of the voters are in particular cities just by the nature of, you know, where the voters are at. So, you know, a lot of the vote or ballot or signatures came from city of Oakland, you know, but we did collect a lot of in unincorporated areas as well. And they were also just as energetic in terms of, you know, signing on as our Oakland voters, as our Berkeley voters, as, hayward voters etc so you know i think it's uh you know the energy level we are when our signature guys would go out they would never come back and say to us folks in unincorporated were less enthusiastic about this measure so the cities could just

adopted by ordinance too so can so as you all can as well okay so are you going to go if you collected signatures in berkeley would are you going to look to put it on the ballot in berkeley or you would have to collect signatures again for berkeley and for oakland you collected signatures for oakland they're currently reviewing it those are separate from the signatures you collected for this ballot so every city you would collect separately right okay um thank you Supervisor Miley, I hope that's helpful for you too. You had that suspicion. We talked a little bit, Supervisor Miley asked questions about this stuff is complicated. Writing a ballot initiative is complicated. It's complicated just to write a question to go ask people to sign something. It's not easy. I get you. What are the And so my experience is you can, you really have to have an attorney look at this stuff. We have looked at this stuff. I think Supervisor Miley asked a couple of questions about the legality of some of the components. What can you say about that, if anything, about where there might be things that if this, because we can't, if we put it on, a ballot has to be exactly as written, we can't change it with, I think, as I understand, the exception of a couple, maybe grammatical errors or whatever, citation errors, changes that need to be made. But what other things, if this were to go on the ballot, would be prone to litigation, I guess, is what my concern would be if this goes on and then we get sued over it.

Yeah, thank you, Mr. Rafferty. I want to be very careful about how specific we are regarding our legal advice. Obviously, that's privileged communication. We have had conversations with your board in closed session, which is permitted. But as you know, we have identified a number of concerns that we have from a straight up legal perspective regarding the proposed ordinance as drafted. I think in the last meeting, I called out the question that we had raised in the impartial analysis related to specifically to measure C and indicated it doesn't even clarify which pot of money from Measure C would be allocated for the purpose of this ordinance in particular family childcare providers. And as you know, Measure C has two buckets of monies. One is for specifically healthcare and the other is for childcare. And so there are at least 20% of all measure C monies that are coming in there that are going to children's hospital for dedicated purposes. And so there's lack of clarity on that very issue about does this ordinance, if adopted, would it take all of the measure C money, not just monies allocated to childcare, but potentially healthcare dollars as well. And we don't know the answer to that question, which is why in the impartial analysis we indicated that there may be a need for a legal opinion from a court telling us how to address that. Setting aside that issue, which we have spoken about publicly before, there are a number of other issues that we have concerns about and would suggest that we not go into any detail about them at this time.

So without going into any detail, I think I can say I have concerns about the legalities of the language, and I would perhaps encourage the proponents to investigate that and leave it to them to do that? Is that fair? If I want to make that comment?

Yeah, you certainly can make that comment.

Okay. I thought it was important that one of the speakers talked about going to the store, finding that deviled eggs are $20 and decides to make her own. But yet a carton of eggs is $12.50. Everything's expensive. Everything's gone up. We are in a high inflation area point in time. Everything has gone up. And so I feel, I feel for that person. Groceries are up. Rent is up. Gasoline is up. Will it ever come down? I don't know. And indeed, Over time, everything has to go up. Whether government is the right person to make everything go up, I'm not sure. I think the best ways to make sure that people have enough jobs that can make a living wage is that a community would attract and retain high paying jobs. We attract and retain high-paying jobs, and that means we recruit companies with highly skilled, highly paid jobs, and we keep them. Fortunately, Oakland has lost a lot of jobs that are high-paying. Alameda County has lost jobs that are high-paying. We also have jobs coming in. I hear that AI jobs are coming into West Oakland and I think that's great. If we can attract and retain high paying jobs, that's how we win. I think that we provide affordability when we increase our stock of truly affordable housing. I'm not sure spending a million dollars on an apartment unit for each apartment unit and then providing it to somebody at a lower cost that we can afford enough of those, we need to make more units of truly affordable housing so that people can live a spectrum of housing. And I'm not sure we provide enough truly affordable housing and we can't build enough of them at a million dollars a door. I believe that we make life affordable by reducing needless regulations and fees which cost everyone passed on to the consumer in their goods reduce costs that increase regulations and fees that increase costs and that if we keep inflation low some of that is out of our control the national economy is what drives inflation and when needed when needed i think a strong community will provide shallow subsidies. We do that with rent subsidies, shallow subsidies. We do that for other vital life-saving services, emergency food, healthcare, which we're doing. Supervisor Tam mentioned people losing healthcare coverage. We're backfilling that elder care, the things that are truly life-saving, we need to provide, and we do. But we should be avoiding, I think, the unintended consequence of this is, and we heard it, the concern jobs will be lost. Companies will find substitutions, automation, whatever AI technology we will end up with people losing their jobs. We will have perhaps the highest paid but unemployed people. $30 an hour paid if you can find it, but unemployed because you can't. Those jobs will go away or a large portion of them. I'm deathly afraid of having the highest paid unemployment And so I am skeptical of raising the rate to $30 an hour and then have jobs go away and people be unemployed. And so what I would say is, however, I do respect what the speakers asked for, that this would be placed on the very next available statewide ballot. I believe that's defined as March 2028 or sooner, or after December 88 days, all the way up until the next sure one, March 2028. If another one comes along, great. So I'm very supportive of that, but I have to say that I'm concerned we will lose jobs and more people will be unemployed. And it will not be the notion that everyone makes enough money that they won't be on public assistance, where we have more people on public assistance. So, Supervisor Miley, with your question of competing ballot initiatives, out of deference to you, sir, I'm happy to support that going to your committee, unincorporated service committee, that's you and supervisor Tam. I'm not sure that I think it will have much merit, but I hope you can convince me otherwise. I hope you can convince me otherwise. Again, I just don't think that it's the right thing to do. So with that said, I think we've all kind of given our comments. Is there any more dialogue before we have Supervisor Miley make his motion? Anything else? Supervisor Miley, go ahead.

Okay, thank you, President Halvard. And I confer with County Council. So I'll be making two motions. The first motion is this. I move to submit the proposed ordinance to the voters without change at the next statewide election, which currently is set for March 7th, 2028.

I'll second.

The motion's been made by Supervisor Miley, seconded by Supervisor Marquez. Any further discussion? Roll call vote, please.

Supervisor Marquez? Aye. Supervisor Tam? Aye. Supervisor Miley?

Aye.

Supervisor Fortunato-Basic excused. President Halbert?

I vote yes. That motion passes unanimously. Supervisor Miley, you have another motion?

Yes. My second motion is I move that the board refer the issue of the exploration and potential competing ballot measure around a minimum wage to the unincorporated board of supervisors, unincorporated services committee to work with staff in the community and bring back to the board either a competing measure or the results of our efforts.

I'll second the motion.

Clarifying question, Supervisor Marquez.

Can you just remind the public how often Unincorporated Services Committee meets in the day of the week? I don't know if it's like the third Wednesday, or can you share that, please? And then I have a follow-up question.

Sure, sure, I can share that. What's that? I said, sure, I can share that. Thank you. So the Unincorporated Services Committee meets the fourth Wednesday of every month, except for... November and December because of the holidays. And the meetings take place at six o'clock and the meetings are hybrid. So you can come in person or participate virtually. And the meetings are at the San Lorenzo library.

Thank you. Do you want to also mention the max as part of the unincorporated?

Well, I don't want to confuse people.

I appreciate that, but, uh, The community can also participate, not just at the unincorporated services committee meeting, but each of the municipal advisory committees that are within the unincorporated, the Castle Valley MAC, the Fairview MAC, and the Eden Area MAC. And I understand Sonoma and East County also have their meetings.

Correct, but this motion is to direct this discussion to be held at unincorporated services committee, which is made up of two supervisors, the Macs are like advisory bodies appointed by the boards want to make sure everyone's clear on that distinction. So my follow up question is, would it be respectfully asking that within the first or two within by the second meeting that this is brought up at unincorporated services, I think it's really important that we have a timeline with specific deliverables. So it's very clear that the community that we are working on this in earnest and what are those dates and touch points. I know there may be some adjustments, but I think it's really important to give people a roadmap that we are serious about this and like to see that bound by specific dates and deliverables.

Yes, we can do that, Supervisor Marquez. Thank you. Because I do think, once again, the issue is not to avoid having a minimum wage. The issue is to put something together that hopefully we can get concurrence through the unincorporated community, both business, labor, The broader community that represent lives in works in the corporate area that would be the intention and then also with a competing measure, we have the ability to do both competing measure and put it on the ballot and then. can County Council speak to if with both measures on the ballot, if we move, if we have two measures on the ballot, the voters would vote countywide on the measure and the measure that would receive the most votes would be the prevailing measure. So could you speak to that?

That is generally correct. I think there are sometimes some exceptions. But when you have two measures that speak to the same issue on the same ballot, the measure that receives the greatest number of votes is the prevailing measure.

And further, I'm suggesting the board can pursue this approach because if we crafted our own ordinance and voted on our own ordinance and acted on our own ordinance, our own ordinance could be superseded by This measure that when the voters vote on it right.

That's correct if if the measure that you just placed on the March 7 2028 ballot has the greater number of votes that it would prevail over anything that you play something on the ballot or adopt outside of a ballot measure to your own boards actions.

So that's why I'm suggesting instead of us crafting our own measure and enacting it through the board, that we put a ballot measure so the voters can vote on it. And hopefully our measure would prevail because the voters would see the merit in our measure.

I'm happy to support this motion. I'm not going to repeat all our comments and questions, but clearly this is really complex. And I think we all support this in principle, but there's still more analysis and information we need to have. So I truly hope that And those that worked so hard to put these signatures together will cooperate and work in earnest with us so we could try to find a path forward. I'm not going to get into detail because obviously the discussion hasn't even started. But I think this vote demonstrates that we hear you loud and clear. We want to vote. bring something forward to increase the wages of our community members and unincorporated but there's still a lot to sort out so this gives us the mechanism to spend the time and conduct a little bit more analysis to get to that place so i'm happy to support the motion with those comments that were made earlier thank you motion has been made by supervisor miley second by supervisor tam any more discussion roll call vote

Supervisor Marquez. Aye. Supervisor Tam. Aye. Supervisor Miley. Aye. Supervisor Fortunato-Bas, excused. President Halbert.

I vote yes. That item passes. Very good. We have one more item, which is public comment on items not on today's agenda. Before we then adjourn in the honor of a few folks that I will ask to be repeated, is there any comment on items not on today's agenda? Rand's raised. or in person, seeing none, we'll go to adjournment, but we will adjourn in honor of memory of, and I'll ask Supervisor Tam, then Marquez to reveal those, and we'll have a moment of silence.

Thank you, President Halbert. I would like to have us adjourn our meeting this evening in memory of Dong Hua, or known as Debbie Chen, who's a devoted wife and mother, compassionate caregiver, and a dedicated community leader. She came from the Taishan Province in Guangdong, China in 1994, and she devoted herself to caring for the elderly and the vulnerable residents through in-home supportive services and advocated for immigrant families, workers, environmental justice and healthy communities. For more than a decade, she served with the Asian Pacific Environmental Network, also known as APAN, and was also leader with the Asian Immigrant Women Advocate Group and a member of the Toisan Benevolent Association and SEIU 2015 and an active participant in Healthy Friends. Debbie brought tremendous warmth and joy to those around her for her love of singing, dancing, Tai Chi, photography, traveling, and her sons all lovingly remember her as the life of the party. So on behalf of the board, I'd like to extend our deepest condolences to her husband, her two sons, her family, friends, and the community, and adjourn this meeting in her memory and honoring her lasting legacy of love, courage, service, and community that she leaves behind. Thank you.

Thank you. I'd also like to adjourn our meeting today in memory of Erma Linda, affectionately known as Linda Renteria. Linda is a longtime Hayward business leader. I apologize, was a longtime Hayward business leader and dedicated community advocate. Linda was an engineer by training and a trailblazer in traditionally male-dominated fields. For 33 years, she co-owned and managed Casa Sanchez Foods with her husband, Robert Sanchez. Linda had deep roots in Hayward community, serving on the Hayward Chamber of Commerce, St. Rose Hospital Foundation, Chabot College, Hayward Unified School District, and the Alameda County Workforce Development Board. She was especially passionate about STEM education and creating opportunities for young people, regularly sharing her experience with students interested in engineering, manufacturing, and entrepreneurship. Linda was also a lifelong learner. At the time of her passing, she was pursuing her doctorate in educational leadership for social justice at Cal State East Bay. My deepest condolences to her husband, Robert, their three children, her family, friends, Hayward community, and the region, respectfully asking that we adjourn today's meeting also in memory of Linda Renteria.

Would you please join me in a moment of silence? Thank you all. With that said, we are adjourned.