Community & Economic Development Committee - Regular Meeting

Good afternoon, and welcome to the community and economic development committee meeting of Tuesday, 05/12/2026. The time is now 01:32PM, and this meeting may come to order. Before taking roll, I will provide instructions on how to submit a speaker card for items on this agenda. If you're here with us in chamber and would like to submit a speaker card, please fill one out and turn one into myself or a clerk representative before the item is read into record. Online speakers, speaker requests were due twenty four hours prior to the start of this meeting.

This meeting came to order at 01:32PM, and speaker cards will no longer be accepted ten minutes after that, after making that time 01:42PM. We'll now proceed with taking roll. Council members five? Present. Ramach andran?

Here. Unger?

Here.

And chair Brown? Present. Thank you. We have four members present. Chair, before we begin, do you have any announcements at this time?

Yes. Thank you so much. So first, I just wanna take a moment gratitude for the strong attendance today. Definitely encourage everyone to continue showing up for our community and economic development committee well into the future given that this committee plays a critical role in shaping the vibrancy of economic development in our city, workforce opportunities, zoning, and housing policy. And so with that in mind and in an effort to ensure that the committee wraps up in a timely manner, I would be allotting just ninety seconds for public comment today. Thank you so much.

Thank you,

chair.

Now reading in item one, approval of the draft minutes from the committee meetings of 03/24/2026 and 04/21/2026 and we have no speakers on this item.

Excellent, thank you so much. I'll entertain a motion.

So moved.

Second.

Thank you. We have a motion made by council member Unger, seconded by council member Ramachandran to accept the draft minutes from the committee meetings of March 21 and 04/21/2026. On roll. Council members five. Aye. Ramachandran. Aye. Unger. Aye. And chair Brown. Aye. Thank you. Item number one passes with four ayes. Reading in item two, determination of schedule of outstanding committee items and we have one speaker that signed

up to speak.

Excellent thank you so much. So to the city administration any changes for our pending list? No. Okay excellent. Colleagues, excellent and so we can hear from the public speaker.

Calling in the name that signed up to speak on item number two, the pending list, miss Asada Olubala.

At some point, I don't know why you won't have this discussion, but you are a sanctuary city. And being in that status, you have allowed people to come into this city illegally. People who have come into this city illegally, it is estimated that it's over 200,000 in this city. State of California, it's 2,000,000. The population of California black people is 2,300,000.

You have as many illegal immigrants in this state as you have black people, but they are getting the jobs. They are getting the housing. They are getting access to education. They are getting health care. Black people, we are not getting much of anything.

The City Of Oakland unemployment rate is over 9%. The same thing is true for The United States unemployment for black people close to 9%. I will not sit here every meeting and allow you to ignore the negativity, the disproportionality of what's happening in the City Of Oakland as a result of your sanctuary city status. Barbara Jordan told you in 1994 when she was a part of the immigration investigative committee on how we should look at immigration in the future, they said you should put a limitation on it because at some point, it was gonna impact low level unemployment.

For your comments, miss Olevala. Chair, that concludes all speakers on this item.

Excellent. Thank you so much. And I'll end entertain a motion on the pending list.

So moved. Second.

Thank you. That's a motion made by council member Unger, seconded by council member Pfeif. To approve sorry. To accept the determination of scheduled outstanding committee items as is on roll. Council member Pfeif. Aye. Ramachandran. Aye. Unger. Aye.

And chair Brown? Aye. Thank you. Item number two passes with four ayes to accept the pending list as is. Reading in item number three, adopt a resolution authorizing grant agreements with service service providers competitively selected for Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act program services for fiscal years 2026 to 2029 in a total amount not to exceed $2,650,000 for fiscal year 2026 to 2027 to provide comprehensive adult and dislocated worker, one stop operator, business engagement, and youth services, and amendments existing WIOA agreements to extend contract terms through 06/30/2027 and increase funding in a total amount not to exceed $584,109.

And we have 11 speakers that signed up

to speak. Excellent. Thank you so much. So for this presentation we will be hearing from assistant administrator Sophia Navarro. Good

afternoon. Just to correct my title, Sorry. Deputy city administrator, but thank you. So through through the chair, to counsel and to our public, Sofia Navarro, and here also going to be co presenting with Honorada Lindsey who's acting capacity while transitioning out of workforce development to city administration. So thank you again for this opportunity to present.

So we are bringing forth to council approval of 2,650,000 in new WIOA. So WIOA Workforce Innovation Opportunity Act service contracts for fiscal year twenty twenty six through 2027. Also authorizing renewals through fiscal year twenty twenty nine based on performance and funding availability. Approved 584,000 a 109,000 in amendments to extend current WIOA service contracts through 06/30/2027 and support continuity continuity of workforce services during transition to the new procurement cycle. And I did wanna also note that this presentation was also provided to the Oakland Workforce Development Board, and the funding recommendations that are presented here were approved by that board on 02/26/2026.

So quick overview. Actually, do I have a PowerPoint? It's no. Oh, thank you. Do you have the clicker? Okay. Appreciate that. So going into the just the overview of recommendation actions. So the new WIOA contracts, it's a competitive procurement conducted for adult dislocated worker youth business engagement, which is a new category in this process, and the one stop operator services. Recommended awards based on were based on scoring, geographic coverage, operational capacity, and system coordination.

And also these contracts support citywide workforce service delivery that would begin 07/01/2026. Contract amendments and transition stability was something that we felt was needed to make sure that the workforce system continued during this procurement process. So this extends current provider agreements through 06/30/2027, applies a portion of increased fiscal year 2025, 2026 WIOA allocations to maintain, as I mentioned, continuity of services and supports uninterrupted participant services during this transition again to the new procurement cycle. So why this investment matters? So the Oakland workforce system supports residents seeking employment training advancement opportunities.

This item implements a new competitive procurement cycle while maintaining continuity during this transition. These contract extensions also help prevent disruption to workforce services for job seekers, youth, and employers. The recommendations prioritize equitable geographic access, individual services in historically underserved communities. Also, WIOA funding, as mentioned earlier, provides an opportunity to stabilize provider operations and strengthen service delivery citywide. And this recommended approach balances procurement integrity, operational continuity, fiscal stewardship, and community impact.

So just a little bit about workforce system outcomes in the last procurement cycle. So every three years, we we are mandated to put this out for procurement. These dollars are federal dollars. They come from the Department of Labor, go to employment development department, and then get allocated to local jurisdictions. So in 2022 through 2025, more than 1,100 Oakland residents were served across adult, dislocated worker, and youth programs over the past three program years.

Training participation increased by 12% over the three year period. Employment outcomes increased by 10% across WIOA funded programs. The median wages increased from $24.50 an hour to $26.90 an hour. Obviously, we wanna continue to see that grow because it's expensive in the Bay Area. Youth median wages increased from 19 an hour to 21 an hour, and cost per employment remained consistently below 5,000 despite flat funding levels.

So competitive and transparent Sorry. We, of course, had a competitive and transparent procurement process. So open and competitive request for proposal process was conducted. I wanna just note that we were really intentional of starting this RFP process last year. Our whole intention was to make sure that we started the process earlier so that we could get ideally through our board, our committee, and city council so that we can start these contracts on time, July 1.

We're still aiming and focused on that timeline, but again, we wanted to make sure that our providers had contracts starting on time because traditionally, as we've heard oftentimes in counsel, that contracts don't get executed until three to six months sometimes after the fact. So again, we were really thoughtful about this process. Technical assistance was provided to support equitable applicant participation. Independent review process was conducted by workforce development professionals and subject matter experts. There was a two step evaluation process which focused on compliance review and qualitative scoring.

Score was on program design experience, methodology, cost reasonableness, and responsiveness. Recommendations reviewed in alignment with the Oakland Workforce Development Board priorities and federal requirements by the Department of Labor. And we also did have a formal appeal process that was completed in accordance with the RFP. So just briefly on the appeal process and procurement integrity, which is something that we did provide as far as this process goes. All proposals were notified of funding recommendations and evaluation outcomes.

Applicants may request formal debrief regarding proposal scoring and process. Appeals are limited to procedural concerns related to the procurement process. Appeals must be submitted in writing within the designated appeal period, and final determinations are issued in accordance with city procurement and WIOA requirements, and that did happen in this process. So just real quickly with the recommended new awards for 2026 through 2029. So this procurement process had three categories, and that first category is a comprehensive AJCC.

AJCC stands for categories. Thank you. Sorry. Look at the screen. So category one is comprehensive American Job Centers of California. The two recommended providers for funding there are the Oakland Private Industry Council, which would cover the downtown. They have a downtown location and a West Oakland location. Lao Family Community Development, they have a location in Central Oakland and East Oakland over at the Eastmont Mall. Those were the, again, two organizations that were being recommended for funding for the comprehensive American Job Center of California. For category two, we have the one stop operator.

We have the Oakland Private Industry Council who's being recommended to provide system wide support to our workforce system. The category three, and this, again, I mentioned it briefly earlier, but business intermediary, this is actually a new component of this RFP process. When we were in the process of putting together this RFP, we did have community stakeholder convenings in addition to connecting with our business community. And one thing that was called out is that we wanna make sure that through the workforce system we are really intentional about collaborating not only with the chambers in Oakland, but our own business development division and really just connecting more directly with businesses. And so the way that we looked at this RFP process was business first model.

And what that means is not diminishing the role and the need and the focus for our job seekers, but really making sure that we are engaging employers more intentionally, really focused on the high growth sectors that we often talk about. We talk about health care, IT. And so this role would really help us make sure that we're connecting with those businesses, bringing in those opportunities for our job seekers so that we're getting our job seekers into more high quality paying jobs. And so that organization was recommended to be the Spanish speaking Unity Council. They would provide citywide services and be working very closely with the providers that you see here.

Category four is our youth services component, and the organizations recommended for funding are the youth employment partnership, Lao Family Community Development, Spanish speaking Unity Council, Oakland Tech Exchange, and Youth Uprising. So why these providers? So these providers were the highest ranked proposals within the service categories. They've demonstrated demonstrated capacity to deliver compliant, high quality workforce services. It also represents a strong geographic coverage across Oakland, including East Oakland, Deep East Oakland.

The focus on system coordination was also a key priority for us, employer engagement and participant outcomes. And lastly, balanced fiscal stewardship with continuity and equity considerations. We wanted to make sure that as we were recommending organizations for funding that we were really ensuring that there was coverage throughout the city of Oakland. So in order for this to to be realized, it also requires a contract amendment to really again support the transition stability of the transition. So recommendation of extending current provider agreements through 06/30/2027 so that we can prepare for for transition for maybe some of the organizations that are not being recommended to be funded in some of the categories as they had before.

It applies 50% of increased adult, dislocated worker, and youth allocations to direct services. Prevents disruption during transition, as I mentioned, to new contracts, maintains participant access and provider capacity, and again, supports continuity for employees, youth, and job seekers. So just to reiterate why the extensions are needed. So Oakland received approximately 1,400,000 in increased WIOA formula funding. This is a onetime allocation.

Sorry? For 2526. For 2526. New providers require transition and implementation time, so that is something that was put into consideration because we wanna make sure our job seekers are are being transitioned appropriately and have access to services. Extensions prevent disruption of services as I just mentioned.

Also, employer engagement, youth programming, and AJCC operations. So the recommendation applies approximately, as mentioned earlier, 50% of increased adult dislocated worker and youth allocations to stabilize services during transition. So this slide, sorry, it's a little tiny for folks in the public, but this is really just showing those recommended increases to incurrent providers for fiscal year twenty five-twenty six. And so you'll see the increase there based on the proportional percentage. I'll go through that.

Excellent. Just wanna comment. We've given you ten minutes plus two, so twelve. How much more time do you need?

Can you give me two more minutes?

That sounds good. Okay.

I have

a few more slides. So equity and community impact. So we so this recommendation expands access for underserved communities and priority populations. So in this process, we wanted to make sure that priority populations and areas that are historically underserved are being served, and those tend to be our East Oakland, Central Fruitvale, and West Oakland locations. We also want to support youth, low income residents, and individuals facing barriers employment barriers.

We know that the unemployment rate across our black community, Latino community are increasingly high. And so our focus and our priority is to make sure that we are providing resources where needed and trying to impact that gap. So this also promotes economic mobility and pathways to quality jobs and strengthens coordination across the workforce system. Again, super tiny map, but I wanted to just reflect where services for 2022 and 2025 have been provided. So this shares really via ZIP code, how many individuals were served in the various locations.

And what you can see in this map is that we hit our mark of making sure that we again, it's continuous work, and we need more dollars so that we can make more investments. But it does show that we have been serving the areas that we've been wanting to impact, which are, again, are the East Oakland, Central Fruitvale, and West Oakland locations. And lastly, lastly, just regarding the fiscal impact. So, again, approximately 3,200,000 in fiscal year twenty twenty six and '27 workforce investment dollars. It includes the 2,650,000 in new awards and the $584,000 that I mentioned earlier.

And, again, this I'll just wrap up with the initial one year term with up to two year renewals based on performance through 2029. So when we talk about accountability on regarding performance, the way that we go about this, it is a three year procurement cycle, but our contracts are yearly so that we can monitor and review the performance. And if there are opportunities to adjust or if an organization's not meeting their numbers, we do go back and we have a process where we provide technical support. And if needed, sometimes we do have to do a corrective action plan to make sure that folks are getting back on track to meeting their numbers. And so usually that's last resort.

We never wanna go there, but we do wanna make sure that we are good stewards of these federal dollars, and so we do our due diligence to make sure that there's accountability in this process. So with that, I will yield my time.

Excellent. Thank you so much. We will hear from the public speakers.

Calling in the names that signed up to speak on item number three. In no particular order, you can come up to the podium. State your name before making, your public comment. Miss Isata Olubala, Tiffany Loscato, Sarah Atkin, Yolanda Bronson Davis, Derek Barbosa, Carla Guerra, Chris Iglesias, Gabriela Pingarron, Theresa Newsom, Raymond Langford, and Richard De La groni. Sorry if I butchered any names.

Excellent. Please come on up.

Okay. Good afternoon, members of the committee. My name is Tiffany Rose Napati Loxardo. I'm the chief program officer at the Unity Council, Oakland Reyes, and resident of D6. On January 16, the Unity Council submitted three proposals through the city's iSupplier portal. For each proposal, our team uploaded two files as required. After loading, uploading and downloading each file from iSupplier to verify the correct documents were in the system. We did everything right. Despite that, OWDB reviewers downloaded our service category one budget package. ISupplier delivered a different file.

Our proposal was evaluated on materials we did not submit. We appealed, OWDB asked contracts to review, and contracts said there were no system errors but didn't provide any proof. We are asking the committee to not finalize the adult award while the question is still open. You will hear from our speakers today on the specifics of the technical error, the Unity Council's impact on the workforce system, the consequences of being excluded from this process due to a system glitch, and the procurement integrity concerns this raises for every applicant who uses EyeSupplier. Thank you very much.

Hello council. My name is Sarah Aiken and I'm with HTA Consulting. I'm a grant writer, a proposal writer, and I've worked with HTA for nearly fifteen years submitting proposals to the City Of Oakland on behalf of local nonprofits including the Unity Council for the recent WIOA submission. I've submitted five proposals for the WIOA application on behalf of two separate organizations. One of those proposal files had this technical issue that Tiffany described.

In submitting proposals on iSupplier, I submit both of the required files accuracy. And I have time stamped file records that show both files for Unity Council's adult WIOA submission were submitted on time with the correct file name and correct file contents. This information was submitted through the appeal that Tiffany just described. I as a member of the community, I would encourage the council to to look at at the procurement related issues for this submission because the Unity Council has been delivering the WIOA adult

Okay. Oh.

Oh. If you want more time, you have it.

For more than twenty years, and it would be a shame for their proposal not to be considered on its merits due to a technical issue with iSupplier. Again, our submitted documents show that they were submitted on time with the right file names and right file contents. Thank you. Good

afternoon. My name is Yolanda Davis. I'm the workforce director for Council. Wanna emphasize that our organization risk of losing WIOA funding is not due to poor performance, lack of compliance, or failure to serve the community. This issue stems from a technical glitch

Can you pause the time? Miss Asada, I'm gonna ask for the first time, let's allow everyone in the room to be able to give their public comment. Okay? Thank you. Go. Okay.

Again, we are not, losing our funding due to our poor performance, lack of compliance, or felony in our community simply to a technical glitch during the procurement application. Unfortunately, these consequences of this issue could have devastating impact on our community we serve every day. Our organization has been a trusted provider in the community. It has been a hub of the Fruitvale District for over sixty years, serving primarily Hispanics but also underserved population who already face significant barriers to employment, education, language access, economic stability. We do more than provide services.

We're culturally responsive, trusted relationships. Our AJCC alone last year served over 2,700 individuals. We provide services in five languages to ensure community members have access to support. This level of accessibility is critical for the for the reasons mentioned above. I respectfully ask the board to consider the full picture and of our track record being a service provider in our community and allow for us to resubmit the application. Thank

Before you begin, if you have a speaker card and are looking to speak, that's fine. Go ahead and line up so that we can go ahead and do this in a orderly fashion. Thank you.

I'm good to go. How y'all doing? My name is Derek Barbosa, and I'm the new career services coordinator at the Unity Council. I was born in Oakland and raised in the Fruitvale District, and I'm working in the headquarters of my life. Being familiar with the area, I have seen firsthand how the services and resources provided by our AJCC has helped residents in the city and in the community matriculate in numerous capacities.

A lot of people who we serve need these resources, and to deny the residents of our community these essential resources over a technology glitch will cause a major disservice to the thousands of residents who are depending on the resources and services provided at our AJCC. Oakland is in a better position to thrive as a whole when our residents have access to the numerous resources and services that our AJCC provides. These options, residents will be left with without access to RHACC will have negative impacts on the community in Fruitvale, multiple ethnicities, and also in the city of Oakland. I thought the plan was always to do what was needed for Oakland to shine bright as we possibly can. And I would appreciate it if our request would be heard out so that we can continue to serve the community and continue to help Oakland get better as a city.

Thank you very much. Good

afternoon, CD committee members. My name is Carla Guerra. I am the policy and advocacy senior manager at the Unity Council in District 5, and I'm a resident of District 3. We believe in the values of transparency, accountability, and equity. And we believe that when systems fail, institutions have a responsibility to make it right.

We are here today to raise a procurement integrity concern, and many eyes are on the city of Oakland today watching how you hold the city and its departments accountable to that process. Oakland's procurement process must be fair for everyone that participates in them. And when the city's technology system fails and there's a glitch, it needs to provide solutions, not barriers. What happens when technology fails? How is this committee gonna respond today and will set a precedent for how the city manages technology and failure concerns and in its procurement systems?

This is not about an RFP. It's about the standard Oakland holds itself to when it comes to systems fails. And this is just, you know, the WIOA grant is specially designated to serve underserved and priority populations such as Fruitvale, and that is a population that will be impacted by a technicality. We submitted a public records act request and a file level audit request on April 8. That request was due on April 20. We requested an extension, and as of today, that request remains unresolved. We're asking this committee to do the right thing, allow category one to have a due process. The communities we deserve the communities we serve deserve a due process, and that is not optional. Thank you.

Good afternoon, madam chair, council members. I'm Chrissy Galessius, the CEO of the Unity Council. It's wonderful to be in your beautiful home here today. So I just wanna give a shout out to the city staff for running a wonderful process, timely process. And we wholeheartedly agree with the whole process, at least 99% of it. Right? We think it was very well done, everybody had a chance to compete. But we are concerned about just 1% of the process and that is the glitch with iSupplier. And again, I think this is more much more of a technical issue that should have and could have been resolved before this meeting. And we were really hoping that would happen.

But we understand that we have to go through the process. So we're here today with the team and our and some of our partners. Honestly, in my opinion, we think I think you should have just extended this contract until 01/20/2029, which is the end of the current Trump administration. We are under fire. We are a large federal contractor. We're already already dealing with a lot of issues like constantly with our existing federal grants. So like you guys are, we're all partners together here in Oakland. So we just wanna find a common ground here. We know it's there. You have wonderful leadership with Ms. Sophia Navarro and her team. But again, we just, we're hoping we'd find some kind of resolution on this. So thank you.

Good afternoon committee members. I'm Richard DeHowergi. I'm the chief operating officer at the Oakland Private Industry Council. We were one of the fortunate awardees and we thank both Sophia and her staff and the Oakland Workforce Development Board and this committee for that award and the recommendation. One of the things that I've heard so far about this particular RFP was everyone concedes that the process itself was unfair, but there was a glitch of some kind.

Well, you know, I certainly sympathize with the Unity Council and their concerns. However, there are nine other awardees here who are hanging fire. We are getting very late in the time when our new fiscal year is to begin. Services are going to be interrupted if we are not able to move forward on July 1. You can move forward without a contract, you can't move forward without an award.

So these awards are all being held up. So if there's a way to work this out, this problem, it should be called out and the rest of the award should move forward because there's no objection to the rest of the process. And I again wanna compliment Sophia and her staff on running a very fair and well run RFP. Thank you.

Good

afternoon madam chair, to other distinguished members of the council. Want to acknowledge the great work of the Oakland Workforce Development Board. I am pastor Langford. I'm the CEO of the Oakland Private Industry Council. I'm a resident of Oakland.

I recently moved from West Oakland to North Oakland, but I love you both. But I'm I'm here because this is a very delicate moment and situation. I first do wanna acknowledge that the Unity Council is a very strong long term partner of the Oakland Private Industry Council. I want to acknowledge that the problems with iSupplier is certainly beyond the the control of the Oakland Workforce Development Board. When you think of work and and training in Oakland, the Oakland Workforce Development Board is one of the leading agencies in this city and their ability to work with very diverse, aggressive, assertive, supportive, agencies.

And we appreciate their leadership. However, there are many other grantees that rely on this award for the work to go forward. And we encourage this council to allow those other awardees to be worked out while the issue between the central issue is addressed. But, again, I wanna thank all of you for leadership. Wanna

Miss Brown, I really respect your work and I'm gonna try harder to do better. This history with the Spanish speaking Unity Council of Alameda County was brought to my attention in 2016 when a member of the Fruitvale community showed me evidence that the Spanish Speaking Unity Council had misused money under the umbrella that they were a part of NeighborWorks America. They misused $500,000 for NeighborWorks America for maintenance and operation of their organization. They came to you, the city of Oakland, and you gave them $500,000 to replace to pay back from a project that they were supposed to be having to do with senior housing, I think. Then after that, you continue to, on a regular basis, ignoring what they had done to give them money.

Year after year after year, they get money with no accountability. Another project they had with Wells Fargo was to help with the issue of redlining. They would create with Wells Fargo first time ownership. They gave it those those ownership potentials. 99% went to Latinos or Spanish. Very few went to African

Thank you for your comments, miss Olavallet. Calling in the name that signed up Gabriela Pingaran do you still wish to speak? No. Okay. Chair all names have been called at this time.

Excellent. Thank you so much to the public speakers. I do have some questions for Sofia and team, but I see your hand. Council member Fife, if you wanted to start us off.

I just wanted I I just had two questions through the chair to DC Navarro. Number one, can you just give a little more clarity on this new function of the business? What is the connector? What is it called? Intermediary. Yeah. The intermediary. What is walk me through how I, as a member of the public, would participate with that body.

So this function would be mostly focused on engaging with the business community. And so this entity, which would be the unity council who's been recommended to recommended for this role, would be engaging and and they actually already have a business center, so they this would be expanding upon those efforts essentially. But they would be engaging with the Oakland the Oakland chamber, the ethnic chambers represented throughout the city in addition to engaging with employers, particularly focused on our high growth sectors industries. And so they would be doing that outreach, connecting, identifying what are the opportunities that are available within their their businesses so we can start identifying career pathways for the job seekers. So essentially they would also be coordinating with the providers that are providing the service.

And so as they're making those or creating those relationships, creating, you know, those opportunities, that there's also a conversation and a partnership with organizations that are working with seekers. And so ideally, there would be warm handoffs. There would be conversations with these businesses to say, okay, how many positions do you have available at your business? What are the requirements, you know, to get into x job? And so as they are gathering that information and building those relationships, they're communicating that with the service providers as well so that, again, we are building, if needed, basically roadmap or pathways, sorry, into these opportunities that are available through Oakland businesses in the in the city.

So How is that different than the one stops?

So the one stops also do some of that work. So the the one thing that we had not, so our one stop career centers do also have that function, but it's not coordinated. So yes, they do individually reach out to employers and have those relationships, and there are times when on a monthly or maybe even quarterly basis, they come together, but we haven't had it be an intentional approach to really have and and a holistic coordinated approach to really reach out to all the businesses and really leverage city resources, city partnerships, and really leverage the workforce system as a whole to bring everybody together. So this would allow for there to be a point function and an entity that's coordinating those services. So it would enhance the current workforce system right now as we have it.

So right now it's very limited and across the organizations that do provide this function, there's like one staff person, but this would allow for more resources and more dedicated and again coordinated approach to really engaging the business in this process.

And so on that, based on what I'm hearing from the public speakers today, the Unity Council will have that particular contract, but not their other service provider contract?

Currently, the recommendations have the unity council getting two of the three categories. So it would be the business intermediary, which is, again, new new effort, and youth allocation, not the adults. They're not being recommended for the adult category.

And what steps were taken to confirm whether or not there was an eye supplier issue? I I did read that the director of EWD spoke to that issue, but can you tell us what was done to investigate the claims that are being made?

So through the chair to counsel member. Oh my god, five. Sorry. Was gonna say my mind's over here. What happened is when we went to when we received and did the funding recommendations, we went to our board. At that point, it was identified and the unity council through that presentation was notified. There was also an expression to share that there is an appeal process. The unity council did provide an appeal that came to the workforce board email, our general email. The board then forwarded that appeal to contracts and purchasing, and then they went through their process of investigating the the appeal that was submitted.

Is that complete?

So that is complete. So when we received a response so once we submitted that appeal to contracts and purchasing, they did their investigation, then they provided us a response, a determination of that appeal. That appeal was then communicated to the unity council.

Oh, but it wasn't

It but it is complete.

Was it communicated to the council? The city council. City committee.

So it was that appeal yes. I mean, that was in part of the report as far as

the I see that a final determination concluded that there were no adverse events in iSupplier at the time of submission and user error. Is that what you're Correct.

Yeah. So that process and that that determination was complete and was communicated, and then we went back to our workforce board to share the determination of that because part of their recommendation for us to move forward was to they approved the recommendation but were also telling us that if this appeal did come back sustained that we would have to go back to that process. But if it did not, that we would be able to move forward and bring it here to CED for recommendation and approval. Thank

you. Excellent. Thank you so much council member Rifai for the questions. I also had a handful as well. First off I do want to thank staff, our city staff for just their due diligence in the process and the work.

We heard from the public speakers saying that you know 99% of the process they were happy with and I think that that is that's much to be applauded, right? So I really appreciate the hard work there. I do want to uplift I have a really good understanding of like the WIOA contracting in this work because I had the opportunity once I graduated from undergrad to actually work at one of the career centers to know and understand some of the work. And so as I'm looking at the various allocations, it's my understanding that this first category, category one actually makes up most of, let me know if I'm wrong. I believe it makes up the bulk of the work of services to the community because that I guess like by the definition of workforce innovation you have the opportunity to provide services to dislocated workers.

I think also under that category could be like formerly incarcerated right. Like I think that there are a handful of definitions right. And then can you walk me through, because I guess the thing that I'm looking at is you know the city of Oakland, know we have our various districts and just wanting to make sure that we are actually providing services across the city of Oakland. And so when we're looking at this like allocation I know that historical precedent is that both Oakland Pick, Lyle Family, and the Unity Council I guess in the past were the providers of this particular category. But can you share with me how many applicants did we actually have and then maybe some details about the scoring and how the various entities were scored.

So I'm gonna hand that over to Anuradha Lindsey to answer.

Hello, good afternoon. Anuradha Lindsey, acting executive director of Good Workforce Development Board. I did spend a lot of time through the RFP process and can kinda help explain some of the proposal scoring. And so there was a two part evaluation during the scoring process. One was a compliance review.

That compliance review was scored in four different categories. Oh I'm sorry, five different categories. Then in addition to that there was a qualitative review where we actually assign points after we did the compliance review. So the compliance review was primarily done by contract staff and then city staff to ensure that they met all the initial requirements of the RFP. And the qualitative review was the evaluation criteria that I'm not sure if I'm so sorry.

I'm looking through my documents here if, that information was listed here on the report, but I do believe it was. Those evaluation criteria were around responsibility and responsive, program design, approach and methodology, qualifications and experience and reasonableness of cost proposal. So our raters reviewed criterias A through D and then when it came to the reasonableness of cost proposal that is where workforce staff had reviewed to arrive at the combined final scores for each of the providers. And so each proposal in each category was evaluated separately amongst raters and reviewers. And so no rater and reviewer were reviewing, they were all reviewing the single category.

So among that our first scoring criteria once we got back the scores was who received the highest score. And then once we evaluated who received the highest score, we then evaluated okay are we surveying the geographic location that we intended to serve? And then so we took all of those items into consideration. We took into consideration performance history, administrative capacity, and in addition to some other things, and that's how we came up with our score. And unfortunately for Unity Council, absent of a budget, we were not able to evaluate that piece and is why they scored where they did score.

Unity is a great organization. In previous years, we did have them there in our workforce network. They are still going to be a part of our workforce network through this really exciting opportunity as the business intermediary. We are providing a transition year for current service providers, including community council, so there is no disruption in services. That is part of the recommendation today. And so for this next year, we do plan on doing a soft handoff from transitioning our current service providers into our new system that's presented here.

Excellent. I I appreciate that answer. But my question was I will get Okay.

Cool. Yeah. So just to to follow-up, you had asked, chair, what were the nine applicant so we received nine applications for the adult category. And just to name those. The Oakland Private Industry Council, and their category, again, adult, but, for downtown services in the amount of 385,000, their final score was 94.8.

Again, Oakland Private Industry Council submitted a second one as well, and that was for the West Oakland services for the amount of 385,000. That application was 85, was scored at 85. Allow Family Community Development submitted an application. They submitted two, one for central central Oakland services. Proposed budget amount, 385,000.

Their final score was 83. Their second application of to to cover East Oakland. Again, a budget amount that they put in was $385,000. Their final score for that application was 80.7. The fifth organization, Roots Community Health Center, they didn't put a category, but they're in East Oakland area.

Proposed budget amount for 385,000. They their final score was 80. The Spanish speaking unity council, and, again, just to to note, the, the application that we had received did not have a complete document, did not include the budget. So, therefore, their score with the information that we had at that time, which was before the appeal, was 79. The International Rescue Committee Inc, the seventh applicant for a proposed budget of $3.85.

Their final score is 78.2. Swords to Plowshare, the eighth applicant. Also, adult and dislocated worker services, they're located in the closer to downtown area. Their proposed budget was 114,410. Their final score was 61.7. And then finally, the Oakland Career Training Depot, their proposed budget was 384,995 and their final score was 45.

Excellent. Thank you so much for providing that that that input. One thing that I noticed in the report was that this go around of WIOA funding there was a 1,400,000 increase. Did we consider actually like expanding the services to more providers across the city versus what we've historically done? I'm I'm just curious.

So that 1,400,000 increase that was to the current year's allocation, our '25, allocation, it's being recommended today to extend current service provider contracts. That's what that $1,400,000

is being used for. Is a one time funding. Yeah and through the chair that is again to support the transition period for stability purposes.

Okay. Well, you so much for the input. I do think it's interesting that in the scoring, the unity council only kind of without producing the one document, it was only one point shy. And then we also I think it's interesting that I guess Roots Community Health that would be a new provider to the services that they weren't considered?

It's not that they were not considered. We are considering all of these providers based on the scoring but it is very difficult because they are so close and there only is a limited amount of funding. For next year, so this past year I believe our budget to our service providers was around $3,300,000 And for next year, based on estimates from what we're getting so we haven't received our WIOA allocation from the state yet. But the estimates that are coming the feds is that they're going to be a really large reduction for adult and dislocated worker funding. And so the way that we reorganized our system was be able to maintain services across the state.

And, you know, within the allocations that we've been given by the state. And so, you know, taking a look at the scores where Lao did come in is that they have been in East Oakland for over a decade providing services. In addition to that, they have, you know, really great performance within the WIOA system. They have strong administrative controls around the funding. And so all of those items were taken into consideration where Roots is coming in as a new organization.

They don't quite have the history with WIOA. And administratively, according to the notes they're not quite set up yet administratively to support the full function of WIOA. And ultimately based on ranking we were only able to fund for and scored and recommended the top four applications.

Thank you.

Alright, thank you so much. So colleagues when we look at these contract amounts I think it's important that we recognize the responsibility and opportunity that they represent especially with various community stakeholders and just ensuring that there is that our community members are actually you know they're comfortable and they have the trust of those who are providing the services as well as just overall cultural competency. Because we know that these community members are going to submit, going to receive services whether it's like new career training, resume writing, career navigation, multiple services that can be provided. We also know and understand that there are concerns with iSupplier and access and transparency and accountability in the city's procurement services. And so I am interested if you have a look at the document in our reports page four table one, you'll find that there are categories one through four.

And so I am interested at this time in making a motion to adopt staff recommendation to categories two through four and then have staff return with different allocation for category one and that to come back to CED by June 23. Council member Ramachandran?

That was the second.

Thank you. Council member Fife?

What impact, chair Brown, would that have on the other service providers', budget allocations?

Yes. And so, Sofia, are you interested in answering that? But I believe that the But the goal is making sure that these are complete by July 1. Right? Is that our

So through the chair to council member five's question as far as the impact. So if if I understand the ask correctly, the ask is to pull category one and reevaluate? Reallocate. Reallocate. So then that would mean that we would need to figure out how we'd have to have conversations with the providers that were currently recommended because those amounts would then likely need to decrease in order to be able to consider the other two Amazoo roots and the Unity Council.

Yeah.

The the top. The the top the top five. Sorry. Didn't have the list. The top six applications. So we would definitely those amounts for that are currently being provided as recommend recommendations would need to decrease in order to be able to provide support to Roots Community Health Center and the Spanish speaking Unity Council. So we would have to go back, have those conversations, renegotiate essentially, and then adjust scope of works, conversations that we'll need to have. Right? So that will be limited. That would change, I'm assuming, the plans and for OPIC and Lau family that they previously had.

So and that would also I do wanna just name that these are so for the Oakland Private Industry Council, they've mentioned their downtown operations and West Oakland operations, allow family Central and East Oakland. So that would also impact, I mean, their service delivery in those locations if they're getting less resources. So it will be an adjustment and it will have impact. But

But but is it actually less in comparison to the year years past given that the unity council historically was receiving the funding as well in this category?

Through the chair. So if the ask is to the total amount to be split evenly, then it roughly might be close to what they have on average been receiving. However, that would be part of the conversation if it would be less or not. Oh, there's actually a a comment by our contracts administrator, Laura Woodward, that she wanna comment real quickly on Okay. That process.

Sure. Thank you. You're the chair to the committee. Good afternoon. I'm Laura Gonzalez Woodward.

I am the contracts and purchasing administrator. To share if you were to ask staff to reconsider the evaluation for category one for adult services. I do wanna highlight that unity council's proposal did not meet the requirements. So they would not necessarily be considered if they were if you're asking staff to reevaluate proposals. So when we did our analysis due to the sensitivity I had our contract administration supervisor conduct the analysis and research and connect with our IT department to investigate what was quote unquote called the glitch.

Through findings, it was determined that that was not a glitch. The excuse me. The file that was uploaded was in fact a technical proposal versus the budget proposal. We've done our investigation. And so in that case they were not moved forward with evaluation.

However that was determined after the team had already established their evaluation. And so they paused and I think in full transparency they were bringing forth the technical scores but they are not to be considered as far as meeting the requirements of the RFP. So if staff were to go back and reassess and reevaluate the other providers they would only be assessing the five that met the requirements.

Excellent, thank you so much for the through the chair to the administration. Is that something, do you have any feedback on the process that we could consider Administrator Baker?

Thank you. And to the chair and to the committee, I understand that the current process has been settled. And so to reallocate the current process would do exactly what Laura just said, which would be to reallocate within those that are in the finals, if you will, that were past the technical sort of step to even be eligible. There is possibly another process that could potentially augment these outcomes that you're looking to sort of resolve. But that process would not be the one.

So that's the one process that is settled. So that's that's pretty much, you know, where we're at.

I see. And then I know that there was a conversation around like ongoing like public records requests and that information not being received and that's still being I guess like under under consideration. Is that something that we also should be taking into account?

I can share that when we have an active RFP, we don't release information as it pertains to scoring criteria valuations, and whatnot until the contract's been executed.

I see. Thank you. Sure. Council member five, do you have any additional questions? Or

To understand the motion that's being made, if it means taking away money from the Private Industry Council and Lyle family and its reconsideration because in the further discussion, it sounds like if we go with the motion that was made, the unity council still would not be considered in that deliberation. Correct. So the the what those public speakers were asking for will still not be considered with this secondary process?

Correct.

So why would we need the motion to do what's the purpose? I guess that would be to the chair, but she's predisposed. Can you just then, through the chair, tell me what is the typical allocation that Anuradha, you might may know maybe for Lao family and Unity Council and OPIC?

Yeah. So in previous years and this is across adult, dislocated worker, and youth. I know we're only well, okay. Let me just pull out the the youth the adult and dislocated worker numbers. So for both Unity and Loud they were about 300,000 each and then PIC at the time.

So our current system is actually structured very differently than the way that we're bringing forward this time. Our system was inclusive of one comprehensive which was OPIC but they also operated a satellite office, AJCC and so they got funding for that too. So OPIC's allocation for theirs was $1,100,000 Because what we're looking at this time around is that we're looking at all of our adult and dislocated worker sites to be full comprehensive sites, we asked for four to make sure that we have access throughout the entire areas in Oakland. And because of OPIC and Lao receiving the four top highest scores. We were actually knowing that we're getting a reduction from the state in this upcoming year.

We were able to actually reduce their ask for shared administrative duties. So the amounts that you see here are actually because OPIC and Lao family won the four sites across Oakland and then we were able to combine some of the administrative shared duties for operating those four contracts.

So if if the unity council would have been considered, would they I I don't even know if this is a question that can be answered. Because if you if staff are saying that their application was not responsive, can you

I can't even consider the Okay. For funding.

Understood. Thank you.

Thank you.

Alright. So the the current motion is still on the floor. And so, did you wanna clarify,

Through the chair, Nari Chan with Oakland City Attorney's Office. There is a motion from council member Brown that there be an an alternative funding recommendation that goes from CED to the upcoming city council meeting. It would be to remove category one comprehensive AGCC in the amount of $1,420,000 so and then to have staff return to the June 23 CED with an alternative funding recommendation for that category $11,420,000. I think there is additional time that both the city attorney's office and the city administrator's office would like to kind of confirm the iSupplier RFP process But in the meantime, council member Brown's motion still could move forward which it would be to read into the record for the city clerk. It's on the top of page two.

There is a whereas. It would read based on proposal scoring and system considerations council or the city council is recommending awarding new grant agreements in an amount not to exceed $1,250,000 to selected providers to deliver WIOA program services beginning 07/01/2026. And then there will be a new recital, whereas the city council requests staff return to the June 23 Community Economic and Development Committee with alternative funding recommendations for the equitable distribution of $1,420,000 for category one, comprehensive AGCC WIOA total title adult and dislocated worker funding service categories consistent with community representation and historical disbursements. And then a similar result then in similar in table one, there would be a strike through of the category one to OPIC and Lao family in the recommended awards right now because that would be under reconsideration. And then in the resolve clause on the top of page four, there would be a new one that would read further resolved, and this was similar to the recital.

Further resolved that the city council request staff return with alternative funding recommendations for the equitable distribution of $1,420,000 for category one comprehensive AGCC. We owe a title one adult and dislocated worker funding service categories consistent with equitable community representation and historical disbursements. The same recommend redlining would need to happen or change title change would need to happen on the page one at the top, and I can provide a red line for you, city clerk. It would read because you would be taking the 2.65 and taking out the 1.42. So it'd be a resolution authorizing one, grant agreements with service providers competitively selected for Workforce Innovation Opportunity Act, WIOA program services for fiscal years 2026 to 2029 in a total amount not to exceed $1,250,000 for fiscal year 2026 to 2027 to provide comprehensive adult and dislocated worker, one stop operator oh, sorry.

It would not be comprehensive adult and dislocated. It'd be for fiscal year twenty twenty six, twenty twenty seven to provide one stop operator business engagement and youth services, and two amendments to existing WIOA agreements to extend contract terms throughout through 06/30/2027 and increase funding in a total amount not to exceed $584,109. So that would accomplish what chair Brown is that she's asking that category one be removed and reconsidered, brought back at June 23, but categories two, three, and four, and the proposed amendments to existing contracts would move forward to the council. And this will be part of, like, a supplemental packet. And so then before council, they would have two options.

They'd have staff's recommendation to move as is and they would have Chair Brown's proposed recommendation as an alternative funding recommendation.

And I know council member Unger had you had your hand up too.

Yeah. Frankly, I'm confused. So if we vote for council member Brown's amendment, sounds like from you all, that wouldn't do anything for the Unity Council. Then I I don't I don't know what Is there any way

I I think in this moment, council member Unger, that there is a cross between communications because I was communicated something differently. And so I think at this time I would like the opportunity to consult with the city administrator and come back. Unfortunately. Because I the amendments that we were able to make, I was leading in a different way based on what is being kind of said right now that the unity council is not eligible. And so I would like to consult with the administration to confirm what would actually be the next steps for consideration for category one.

And that's why I was uplifting the question around the point system. Like who how many points were received from the various applicants that that applied. And so it was a one point difference between the Unity Council and Roots.

And through the chair to council member Unger and Feife there is also a request from the city attorney's office and city and city administrator's office that we have additional time to run through these assertions about the points and whether or not Unity Council can be considered. There's additional time that we're requesting so we can run that through the analysis further.

So thank you for that. So through the chair to our parliamentarian, has the city attorney's office and the city administrator's office not been in conversation with staff? Because it feels like we're not on the same page.

We just learned about this information from contracts right before this meeting. So you need additional time, please.

Oh my goodness. Okay. I do I do want to state for the record, I'm very happy with the services that are provided by OPIC in my district. Anuradha, you I've been seeing you with at WIOA meetings since 2014 as a part of this process and I understand how it goes. I just this is so messy. It the only reason I would support this secondary motion, if I understand it, is so there can be more clarity and communication between the city administrator's office

The attorney.

And the city attorney's office Mhmm. To find out if there was an error with our system?

Not to understand how unity counsel and the other propose the other proposals that were received, how they can whether or not they can be considered. We need additional time to look and vet that question.

Councilmember Unger, do you have some additional questions?

Well, I mean, are you gonna confer with staff and city attorney now? Like, as I mean, I I just don't know what we're doing here.

The request is that chair Brown's recommended alternative funding language to pull out category one and to have staff return to the June 23 CED that would move forward if that is at the decision of the CED committee. So that would allow the remainder of the contracts to move forward but there would be additional time for everyone to understand how the 1.42 can be redistributed. And

to staff if we do delay it to June 23, know some of the other OPIC folks thought that would be too late to get the projects going.

Through the chair to council member Unger. So program year starts 07/01/2026. So that's in ends 06/30/2027. So it's always June 1 through June 30. So so, yes, if no contracts are in place, no work can take place without a contract, and so there would be an impact and disruption services.

And the and but then but then as it relates to the current contracts that we are moving forward, those can move forward. Correct?

The if I'm hearing the business intermediary and the youth ones, I'm not would that yes. That would be able to move forward.

Your question. Excellent. Can you restate your answer, Sophie?

The first part of the yeah. There we go. Thank you. So through the charity council member five, the first part of the question is that if we have to go back contracts will not start July 1 because of the delay. We have to go through the process and make sure that we're going through that effort. So in order to get contracts in place, I mean, that will take some time, but there won't be any work that can happen without a contract. But our program year does start July 1 through June 30. That that's the cycle. I think the other part of the question

Was what are the if we move forward forward with categories two Yes. Through four

So we would be able to move forward with the business intermediary contract and the youth, programming contract is what I'm hearing.

I'm I think I'm clear.

Okay. So can we call the vote? Thank you so much.

Oh, sorry. Through the chair, just a quick clarification. Is it that you want the staff to return in this proposed alternative resolution is it that staff return no later than the June 23? So if they are able to come back May 26 or June 9 then they could do that? Okay so it's no later than June 23 CD. Okay Thank you. Thank you so much.

Thank you. We have a motion made by council member Brown, seconded by council member Ramachandran to approve as amended with the alternative recommendations as stated on record, to forward this item to the May 19 city council agenda with the request to return back to the CED committee no later than June 23. On roll, council members five? No. Ramachandran? Aye. Unger? No. And chair Brown? Aye. Thank you. Motion fails. Two noes and two ayes.

Alright. So at this time, colleagues, do you all have an I need to turn my mic. Do you have an alternative motion? Mhmm. Council member Unger, council member five.

I think this is unfortunate but I think we have to proceed with the award as staff recommended. So whatever that motion would be.

Alright. And is there a second?

Yeah. I the original, staff recommendations is what I support. So if I don't know, council member Unger, if you made the motion, I'd be happy to I second

mean, again, this is this is unfortunate, and I think it's a shame that we are in this position we're in, but we have to we have to pick someone, and and it doesn't seem like picking it doesn't seem like, the original motion of council member Brown would actually achieve what we wanna achieve. So, I'm gonna go with staff recommendation.

Okay. Thank you. We have a have a motion made by council member Unger, seconded by council member Fife to approve the recommendations of staff and to forward this to the May 19 city council agenda. On roll, council members Fife? Aye. Ramachandran? No. Unger. Aye. And Chair Brown. No. Thank you. Motion the alternative motion fails with two ayes, two nos.

Is there does the city administrator's office have any creative ideas to break this logjam?

This is a complicated matter because I think we all have the same sentiment. The question is legally and with the timelines that we have which are very tight, how do we get funds administered to the groups that won the award and at the same time try to understand the first item, number one, in a timely fashion. So that's what we're attempting to achieve. In terms of one of the options which is which was contemplated which is to re RFP if you will, the first award that would not meet our time frames. Which is is one of the driving factors behind the the amended motion which was to sort of pull it out and reevaluate it.

It sounds like what we found out was that the application regardless of score was unresponsive. Which is a binary yes or no. It's not oh we can go back and reevaluate and award it. It sounds like there's a there's a step there that was never taken which is that it never made it to the second step because it was unresponsive. So that's what we're faced with today because we thought that we could reevaluate the pool of applicants that would be eligible.

And so what we're asking for is additional time to sort out the creative sort of solution and it's difficult to do that without having all the facts. So with the motion failing to give us time to reevaluate it because that would then push the timeline outside of the funding time frame, we now have to see if there's another motion that would speed that up. We could potentially huddle for a couple minutes to see if there is something creative, but that's where we're at right now.

Council member Rama Chandran.

Thank you. Since there's more communication that has to happen, clearly, because I do think that there are there's gaps in what's being communicated to different parties, but we need this money out by June 30, or we need an approval by June 30. We know that with our contracting issues. No one's getting their money by June 30, and which is a whole which is another item that we're gonna hear. But what if we voted to hold this in committee till the next c d meeting, is the twenty sixth, which then gives enough time to figure out another option in that could go to council, the full council.

And, you know, certainly, I will if by the twenty sixth we're in good luck, I would vote to move this forward to the full body at least to have it considered so it doesn't say stuck in committee. But I would like some of the communication channels to be bridged bridged. And, also, I do think it is concerning that the response to public records weren't submitted. And even if it's a we can't give this information, some kind of response, I think, in that time as well would be helpful. But my motion would be to hold this in committee till the twenty sixth.

I can second that. Council member Hunger.

I I'm okay with that. I feel like there's gotta be a way for us to reach some sort of decision, you know, through the administrative process and we can't do it up here. So I'm willing to give it another couple of weeks if staff thinks that that would still be enough time at that point to get get the programs going.

So through the chair, to councilmember Gerrard, I think that we will I mean, we will definitely have the conversations, and I think at least bringing it back and making sure that we're all on the same page, everyone has the same information, and we can figure out how, you know, to move forward with that without impacting service delivery starting, that would be great. So we will take the extra time to have the conversations, and then we'll move from there.

Okay. I'm okay with that.

Council member

I I have to ask through the chair again to staff, will a delay impact the service providers who did win their awards?

Through the chair, to council member five, yes.

Right. And so that's why in my original motion I was trying to move forward the majority of the contracts minus the one. So that's what my motion included. Was so that there wasn't significant delays especially in the implementation of a new program, the business intermediary and also providing the youth services while we figure out the details of category one. But I think, I feel like at this time we've kind of exhausted the subject matter and so I would like the opportunity to come back on May 26 so that we can all be in alignment instead of moving it forward. Because that was my original motion so that there wasn't like significant delays in all of the

services. Yeah. Understand that. And it is significant the the services that are provided by Lau family and the private industry council. And I'm also concerned about violating procurement rules and and a host of other things when staff that does this work every day is saying that the service provider did not do what they were supposed to do. This is a mess. And so but again, I don't want to delay the services going out to the community that are funded through OPIC and LOW. And if we need to to call the vote, I I think you all know what my vote is gonna be.

Can we can we hold just the one until next CED? I mean

Through the chair to councilmember Unger. So chair Brown's original motion was trying to do that. She was trying to have all of the other contracts not affected by category one move forward and then hold the category one and then there there is if there is a failure to get to a majority vote under your rules of procedure rule five subsection three d if there's a failure to approve any recommended action in which case the item shall not be forwarded to the next meeting of the full City Council and the failure to approve that item would be recorded in the minutes provided that if the item is urgent rules has the jurisdiction to place that item on the supplemental agenda for the next regular meeting or on an agenda for a special meeting upon making an urgency finding that no action was taken because the committee was not able to approve any recommended action. So and then also on top of that any item not forwarded by the committee may always be subject to consideration if pooled by a council member right at an appropriate council meeting pursuant to rule eight eight. And so there are other mechanisms where if the rest of the council would let where the rules want to come in and put it on the next council, they could and would be as is recommended by staff.

So if we continue deadlock here, the rules committee could put it to full council for which meeting?

They could exercise that for the next council meeting or a

future one.

Or a future one,

yeah.

May 19.

It is up to the discretion of

And would May 19 give us time to if a decision was made at the May 19 full council meeting about this, would that give us time to get the programs going? It would because that's what we're that's what we would have done today had we forwarded it to full council.

Sure. So through the chair to council.

If you were to vote at

the next meeting and it was successful, we could move forward with the July 1 start date on the contract. But it's pending. Yeah. Consent.

Alright.

If there's no, further, input on this item, I believe that it will now just go to the the rules committee.

So through the chair it's officially the the staff's recommendation and chair Brown's amended proposal have both failed. So the item would be noted as such in the minutes.

Okay, all right and we can move on. Thank you so much.

Okay now reading in item number four. Conduct a study session to receive an informational presentation and report on the draft land use framework development as part of the general plan update phase two process and receive public comments and provide feedback to staff on the land draft land use framework. And we have 20 speakers that signed up to speak on this item.

Excellent. Thank you so much. And so now we can hear from director Gilchrist in the planning and building team, believe.

Thank you. Good afternoon chair and may it please the committee. I'm Bill Gilchrist, director of planning and building department, city of Oakland. And we find ourselves in the second phase of a project that started several years ago. Many members of this committee served on the council when we went through phase one of the general plan update.

Staff in their presentation will go through some more details of what a general plan constitutes. But for the state of California, for our cities, we are mandated to keep general plans updated for the purpose of governance. They are essentially considered sort of a constitution of land use development and certainly one of the most important aspects of the oversight and prerogative of council and the planning commission. We are halfway through the phase two. We completed phase one back I believe in 2023.

And to the commendation both of this counsel to the administration, to the staff, and mostly to the community. We were one out of 17 out of a 109 jurisdictions that actually made our submittal on time with compliance. And And for our housing element, that was a very significant milestone. So again, we appreciate the cooperation and engagement that we've had in this forum with our past work and look forward to engaging it again. One thing I do wanna make very clear, we are about a year plus out from this phase coming to conclusion.

And we wanted to get in and should be engaging in conversations with this forum and with the community well in advance of that deadline. So I know we had many many reactions and responses. Many of you who've had a chance to review the staff report and attachment b in particular can see a sample of the range of both how we receive comments, what the natures of them were, And all of this is critical, critical, critical for us to stay on point and to move this plan forward correctly. I do wanna say, as as we said in other places I've worked in this kind of arena, this clay is still wet. What was put out there for public response is by no means a final adoption, and the reason it was put down to paper was to effective effectively give constituents, stakeholders, community, and you all an opportunity to react to something.

And through that reaction, give us better guidance and focus on how this plan should proceed. So we look forward to the opportunity to engage you in this forum. We will be presenting through the strategic planning unit of the planning and building department. Laura Kaminski, has been before this body in the past, will be presenting the lion's share of of the content. Ed Manassi, who is the deputy director of the planning bureau is here. And I also want to commend the work of the team who've done outstanding job, Kahlilah Haynes, Daniel Finley, and others in that unit. So having said all that, I turn it over to Laura Kaminski.

K Top, if we can have the presentation. Good afternoon, council members and the public. I'm Laura Kaminsky, the strategic planning manager for the city Oakland. So today we're gonna discuss the general plan update and the draft land use framework. So first of all, what is the Oakland general plan?

I'm sure you're familiar with general plan, but I'll provide some background. The general plan is the the guiding document for how the city grows and develops like a constitution. It lays out a city wide vision with goals, policies, and implementation measures to guide long term growth, preservation, and stabilization. The journal plan reflects on past challenges and accomplishments to help ensure consistent direction for future development. And also with this update we are being very intentional on using this as an opportunity to address racial inequities and promote inclusivity by ensuring meaningful engagement with communities that have been traditionally left out of the planning and decision making general plan will advance racial equity by establishing more just policies related to land use, parks, open space, and transportation.

The guiding principles are to make sure people are housed, healthy, and safe and celebrate rich Oakland's rich cultural history and diversity, support good jobs and economic opportunities, have better connected neighborhoods, ensure everyone can have access to essential services. The general plan update is taking place over two phases. So in phase one, you may recall that we came to you with the housing, safety, environmental justice elements. In phase two, we are focusing on four elements which include the land use and transportation element, open space, conservation and recreation element, infrastructure, and capital facilities as well as noise. The land use and transportation element will set the rules for what gets built, where, and works to create an inclusive multimodal transportation system that balances mobility, safety, and connections.

The open space conservation and recreation element will build on equitable accessible parks network by also protecting existing open spaces and improving access to them. The infrastructure and capital facilities element will focus on keeping essential systems like water, sewage, electricity, and Internet reliable and resilient and ensure public facilities such as schools and libraries are well maintained and equitably distributed. The noise element will work to reduce and mitigate noise pollution and its impact on health. So last summer, we came to the council to discuss the options report, has three big picture ideas for how Oakland could grow and develop. We used the community feedback we received to craft one preferred option for growth which is laid out on the draft land use framework.

So the draft land use framework is at its core a guidance document. It lays out key strategies and maps for achieving community priorities in the general plan. These strategies will serve as the basis for development, developing the detailed policies within each of the phase two elements. So we've done a lot of community engagement over the last year in collaboration with our community partners from the deeply rooted collaborative reaching over 1,300 people directly through meetings, workshops, walking tours, and more. We estimate that we had about 1,600,000 views through advertising as well.

This photo shows some participants at a walking tour and also at the a pop up at the Oakland Museum. So for some of the key community priorities that have surfaced from outreach include investing in Oakland's artistic culture, creating equitable neighborhoods with access to everyday needs, ensuring accessibility of streets and transit for all users, capturing new jobs while supporting existing businesses, improving our infrastructure, streets, parks, and community facilities, and supporting affordable housing and jobs. To achieve all of this, the draft land use framework proposes an overall strategy which draws largely from the city of neighborhoods originally proposed in the options report. It also includes preferred strategies from some other option report concepts. The framework focuses on fostering complete walkable neighborhoods throughout the city where people have access to transit, green space, and neighborhood amenities.

Downtown San Antonio, Fruitvale, and Coliseum will serve as major senators with downtown being the largest and most dense. We're proposing to increase density and mixed uses along major quarters and near BART stations to create vibrant quarters and transit hubs. This is paired with improving walking, biking, and transit connections between neighborhoods. We've also created a new technology and research land use category to support in green industries, advancing manufacturing, and artisan production. So this map represents the overall strategy.

The neighborhood centers are shown in pink polygons and the technology and research areas are Upper West Oakland and West Of The Coliseum are in purple circles. Major centers and red polygons in Downtown Fruitvale, San Antonio near the Coliseum. Green circles represent proposed locations for new parks and thick green lines show proposed Greenway network. Now I'll get into some of the specific land use and transportation strategies. We're presenting these together because the land use and transportation strategies support each other.

Creating mixed use walkable neighborhood hubs requires things like improving walking and biking connections, making it easier to use transit and building safe, easy, and accessible connections between neighborhoods as well as making sure to locate parks and open space close to homes, reducing vehicle speeds, and creating more public spaces and plazas. Creating mixed use centers and high density housing near transit ensures people are closer to the things they need and can make more trips without a car. It's about giving people more choices. The framework also highlights optimizing bus service to meet Oaklanders' needs and improving services on key routes and support is supported by allowing higher densities along major corridors and the core of neighborhood centers, creating a new transit oriented mixed use land use designation and laying the foundation for a future infill BART station in the San Antonio neighborhood or a transit hub. We also want to minimize conflicts between homes and industry, protect tribal resources, embed disability inclusion and accessibility in design and construction processes as well as continue to collaborate with communities to get to more detailed policies.

For the industrial lands, there's different categories. So these are low impact industry that is to create a buffer between residential and heavier industrial uses that accommodates a mix of industrial and commercial businesses with low environmental impacts. Light industry supports industrial and commercial businesses of various types in enclosed buildings. And general industry has areas of heavier industry that have good freeway rails, seaport, and or airport access. We also looked at Hegenberger as a gateway corridor.

The Hegenberger Corridor is an important part of our city anchored by the Oakland International Airport, IA 80, and the Oakland Coliseum. The general mix of businesses in the area are related to visitor services, transportation, logistics, and warehouses serving as a high volume gateway for the movement of people and products. These strategies focused on fostering Hegenberger as a thriving hub with a variety of businesses, uses South Of I 880 including hotels, offices, research labs, and other compatible business uses. And to the North, a mix that includes housing, creative industries, and small scale manufacturing. The proposed technology research hubs is in East And West Oakland aimed to attract green, forward thinking jobs, support the creative economy, and focus infrastructure improvements to support flexible industrial uses.

These land uses would be supported by workforce development programs to build a career pipeline of Oaklanders to work in these hubs. And the photo shows workers welding at the Longshot Aerospace startup in West Oakland. It was taken from a recent Oakland site article. For supporting arts, and history, we want to integrate arts, culture, and history into neighborhood centers for planning and place making processes, provide spaces and supports for artists, cultural workers, and institutions, and protect tribal cultural resources. So the map here shows how land uses are laid out across the city.

Each color on this map represents a different land use designation. For the dark yellow, gold, and dark brown areas, they represent increased density around quarters which corresponds with quarters for increased transit frequency. Dark purple represents new technology and research areas. Light purple shows transit oriented mixed use areas near BART stations. And light gray is new green low impact industrial category.

One of the key parks and open space strategies is creating network that connects communities, promotes active transportation and recreation. Greenways also improve natural habitats, increase access to green space. Investments will be prioritized in environmental justice communities and we will set standards for increased maintenance and programming to meet the needs of different communities. We also want to protect our natural resources like our creeks, find opportunities to use open space for protection of tribal cultural resources, and support unhoused residents who live in our parks. This map shows the parks and open space strategies.

The the green circles represent proposed locations for new parks. The thick green lines show proposed greenway network. The green dash lines are the city's city's existing bicycle boulevards. Dark green areas are parks, and light green areas are for resource conservation. In our engagement, we received a lot of feedback related to housing, economic development, and arts and culture.

Some of the strategies we are proposing in these include developing affordable housing near transit and amenities, supporting supporting small business development, ensuring community serving businesses have access to commercial space as well as integrating arts, culture, and history into neighborhood centers through place making and strengthening cultural districts. Related to infrastructure and environment, the draft land use framework proposes deploying new strategies to address illegal dumping, prioritizing funding for resilience hubs, finding other funding sources for infrastructure projects, planning for sea level rise, and supporting urban greening projects. So for engagement on the draft framework, we had interactive online document that had 833 comments, 1,162 total readers, close to 2,000 total commenters. There was four workshops in partnership with council members, eight boards and commission meetings, 27 community presentations that included pop up events and deep listening sessions, and 76 emails and comment letters were received. So some of what we've heard is for land use is to address illegal dumping and overall cleanliness, prioritize affordable housing and support unhoused residents, support existing businesses, small, commercial, industrial, improve maintenance of public facilities like libraries, develop strategies to prevent displacement and gentrification, support Port Of Oakland and port serving businesses, plan for climate change impacts, and support arts and culture.

For transportation, we heard to create protected bicycle lanes, improve roadways, prioritize disability access, set a comprehensive vision for transit service and improve efficiency of public transit, establish a goods movement policy and update truck routes. For parks and open space, to improve park maintenance and park programming, increase equitable access to parks and open spaces, plant more trees, native species, improve biodiversity, and more parks and greenways in East Oakland. So just as a reminder, the general plan equity goal and guiding principles that are guiding this whole process is to advance equity by establishing more just policies related to land uses, parks, and open spaces and try making sure to people have homes and feel healthy and safe, celebrate Oakland's many cultures and identities, support good jobs, create better connected neighborhoods, and ensure that all communities can access essential services and resources. So that leads to the discussion. So for council, does this accomplish the overall strategy of achieving a city of neighborhoods and supporting the guiding principles that I just mentioned in the previous slide.

Do these strategies help achieve the council's priorities? What ideas for specific policies do these strategies raise, and is anything missing? And so next steps in 2026 the staff response to comments will be published on the website. There'll be additional focus group meetings on various aspects. In the 2026 we'll be releasing the draft general plan elements which will then have further engagement and feedback that will go through the 2027. And then the 2027 as we anticipate getting the final general plan elements to bring to council for final adoption. And that concludes the presentation.

Thank you.

Excellent. Thank you so much.

Just very quickly if I may, and I know that's a lot to take in and with the attachments and other information, we will have much to discuss. But again, we are really in the middle of this phase right now of the general plan phase two. And this is an opportunity again to make adjustments, to catch things we may not have identified with as much focus urgency or priority or to perhaps focus on areas or note areas where we might need to recalibrate some of the thinking. This is where we're looking for some early feedback. And it's a it's a one of the more interesting aspects, at least I have found, of working with cities is when we have these moments to really look at what they will be and to have that conversation collectively as a community.

And in Oakland, I cannot imagine an environment more rich with different types of of benefits, of of aspects of assets of opportunities. And really it is all on all of us to focus on how we ensure that the city can leverage what it has. I mean, it is an amazing focus of culture known throughout the world. It is a remarkable port known throughout the world. It is a remarkable confluence of of people.

And all of that reflects again that this city is a gateway. It is a thriving, thriving place for those of us who live here and for the rest of the world that connects in, you know, through culture, through as a destination, again, to the port and transportation. So we wanna make sure that we are serving, first and foremost, our residents, our businesses, our institutions well in looking forward. And also, we do that. We will again hold and maintain our reputation and our focus as an amazing place among cities in the nation and again in the world.

So we're very, very happy, very excited to be at this point of conversation with all of you, with the community, with the communities with whom we've spoken and look for some guidance at this moment. And as the schedule shows, we will be having more conversations. This is not the last one by any stretch.

Absolutely. It's a draft. Right? Since our public speakers have been waiting some time, let's go ahead and go to the public speakers. Thank you. Council member Fife.

Before you leave director Gilchrist through the chair thank you, chair Brown. Will there be an opportunity to respond publicly to the questions that the port sent over and Omast and some of the workers?

Yeah. We've had some conversations with them, but we can certainly have public responses to those as well. And what we can do, we can put those out, but also with an understanding that we will be working with these groups in process moving forward.

So it's ongoing?

Oh, yeah. So yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And again, I I wanna stress the point one one more time. I won't say it's the last time. This is still wet clay. We are still in process. One of the reasons that we really value this kind of feedback that we've gotten from the port, we've that gotten from OMAs, that we've gotten from the communities, that we've gotten from the institutions, is that it gives us a chance now, because we're more than a year out

Okay.

Before we finalize this

Thank you.

To be able to, you know, craft and adapt and change in order to meet the objectives and needs of the community.

Understood. Thank you. Thank you, Trevor.

K. Calling in the names that signed up to speak on item number four. In no particular order, you can come up to the podium. State your name before making your comment. Asada Olavala, Skyler Wanakot, Mike Jacob, Peggy Ibuhai, Jerry Morrow, Susan Ransom, Randy Soso, Jubilee Martinez Brumbo, Diego Gonzalez, Matt, Blaise, Kevin Finnegan, Mark English, Chris Van Coven, Linda Huthern, Drew Hess, Jay Haglin, Bob Connor, Danielle O'Leary, Brianna Morales, and Sarah what Wiltbong.

Good afternoon. Thank you, council members and staff. My name is Linda Hodom. We submitted, comments for review, and I'm delighted to hear that we can help you calibrate. By way of background, in 1984, my late husband, Ron Hodom, and I purchased our first industrial property in East Oakland and have grown that to a number of three.

In 1990 from 1990 to 2008, we operated a third party logistics company, PACAM. We operated the Oakland Foreign Trade Zone for several decades. In 2008, we sold our logistics company to Matson Navigation and continue to be the landlord. We have supported international trade for almost forty years in Oakland employing well over a thousand employees. We, have looked at the proposed zoning and find that our facilities would no longer be able to provide logistics services in our locations on San Leandro Street and 98th And Independent Road.

It isn't supporting existing businesses. It will ruin our business. I would like to highlight the difference between distribution and green logistics services that includes solar, e forklifts, etra

Thank you for your comments.

Good

afternoon. My name is Jubilee Martinez Bramba. I'm here on behalf of Communities for a Better Environment out of East Oakland. I'm gonna read quickly. Thank you for the opportunity to provide you with feedback on the draft land use framework.

As we shared with the planning department in our written comments, we are concerned that if the phase two elements adhere to the draft land use framework, the elements will perpetuate environmental injustices and unfair housing practices that shape the uneven geography of opportunity in Oakland. First we are concerned with the draft land use frameworks proposed zoning designations that ask East Oakland residents to live amongst or adjacent to pollution generating industries. The parameters of housing and business mix, green low impact industry and technology and research hubs do not prevent or mitigate land use conflicts that expose residents to increased air and noise pollution and soil and water contamination. These burdens would only add to the disparate pollution burdens East Oaklanders already carry. If Oakland wishes to reverse rather than perpetuate the negative health outcomes associated with residing in East Oakland's EJ communities, the city must revise its proposed zoning designations.

Second, to avoid violating fair housing law, Oakland should consider what other meaningful actions it can take to ensure that forthcoming elements remedy rather than enable race disparities. We provide more specific recommendations in our comment letter. Third, with regard to transit, the draft land use framework should elaborate how the city plans to facilitate the delivery of a high frequency transit serve

Thank you for your comments.

Diego Gonzalez with the Port of Oakland. Thank you committee, and thank you for the planning staff for meeting with us as well as administrator Baker for meeting with us and with the industry. Appreciate the opportunity to comment on the draft land use framework, and we absolutely support the city's goals around sustainability, economic growth, and equitable development. And our concern is just to ensure that the general plan reflects the long term needs of Oakland's airport, seaport, and logistics and industrial sector that supports tens of thousands of jobs and regional goods movements. Like our letter mentioned, we're particularly concerned with the proposed green low impact industry designation, which appears incompatible with existing industrial and logistic uses, including recently remediated and heavily invested sites that could effectively be left stranded under the new framework.

Modern logistics and industrial operations should not be viewed through an outdated lens. The industry is rapidly transitioning towards zero emission trucks, electrified equipment, and cleaner technologies with state law already driving this transition over the next decade. The question is whether Oakland will create the conditions for those industries to modernize and remain here, or whether we continue to see investment in jobs move elsewhere because of uncertainty and lack of support. So we appreciate planning's work and listening to our concerns. I think they would agree it definitely incited a little bit of a reaction. We're looking forward to working with them and working with the council. Thank you.

Hi. Good afternoon, chair Brown, council members. Mike Jacob with Pacific Merchant Shipping Association. We represent ocean carriers, marine terminal operators, port tenants on The US West Coast. We're proud to be headquartered here in Oakland.

I'd like to associate myself with the comments just delivered by the port, and we're obviously also members of OMAs and have submitted some pretty significant written comments as well. And I'd like to thank the staff for emphasizing the iterative process moving forward, which means we have time to address some core concerns that we still have with respect to really embracing and laying out all of the assets that we've already invested in publicly and privately in the city of Oakland to support goods movement, to create good blue collar high paying union and non union jobs in this city. And the character of what we've done over the last hundred years at the port. The port's hundredth birthday is gonna be next year. And we have done a great job of marshaling a lot of capital and creating a lot of good jobs in the city, focusing that primarily in places where you create jobs by moving goods, facilitating a lot of growth.

We wanna keep that going. We're very, very proud of those investments. We want the general plan to reflect us having pride in what we've done and keep doing it well. We wanna do it obviously in conjunction with all.

Good afternoon, council members and chair Brown. I'm Peggy Egbuhay. I'm the senior director of public affairs for Union Pacific Railroad. We are the largest class one railroad serving the Port Of Oakland, and we're very proud to be here and we appreciate the staff and, you know, the openness to have these conversations. They're very important.

Know, I think the the rail industry, the the industrial industry and its footprint is is really misunderstood and you know, being able to have these discussions and talk about what we do bring to the communities. We are a very proud 160 year old, you know, plus company that has employed many City Of Oakland residents and we want to employ more of them. We can employ college, you know, high school graduates without a college degree making a 160,000 a year. There's not a lot of industries that offer that kind of a job and the Port Of Oakland is is really underutilized and what this plan does is it continues to degrade what the economic engine that you guys have here today. Something else missing from the the general plan is really an emphasis on the infrastructure.

And you guys have heard me say this, council members, Adeline Bridge, we we need a replacement in addition to the seismic retrofit. It you know, we have 65 trains that travel under that bridge every day.

Good afternoon, madam chair and members of the committee. My name is Skyler Wanecott, and I'm here on behalf of the California Business Properties Association as well as NAOP, San Francisco Bay Area chapter. Chapter. CBPA represents California's industrial logistics office and retail commercial real estate advocating for over 10,000 members statewide. We are concerned that the Phase II draft framework includes the rezoning of industrial land to residential uses.

That concern is heightened when viewed alongside recently enacted statewide policies that have already placed major land use restrictions on warehouses and logistics development throughout California. Policies like AB 98 enacted in 2024 create significant new requirements on logistics facilities near sensitive receptors tied to residential uses, while bills like SB 79 continue to encourage residential development in historically industrial areas. When industrial land is converted to residential, it creates additional sensitive receptors that can trigger even more restrictions for warehousing, distribution, and goods movement uses in the future. The cumulative effect of these policies working together need to be carefully considered by staff before considering permanently rezoning industrial land near the port, airport, and major transportation corridors. These areas remain critical to Oakland's economy and overall to the goods movement and supply chain in California.

Good

afternoon. My name is Kevin Finnegan and I'm here on behalf of Curb Industrial, formerly Bridge Industrial. We own the property located at 5441 International Boulevard. We are here today to respectfully object to the proposed redesignation of parts of International Boulevard from the general industry and transportation to the green low impact industry. We became involved with this project after the city rejected General Electric's proposed demolishing of the property and capping and leaving contamination in place at the property.

We have invested over $100,000,000 to remediate the property, obtain approvals, and build our building along International Boulevard, a major private investment made in direct reliance on the city's approvals, direction, and desire to see this property cleaned up and reused. The staff report recognizes that Oakland must continue to support existing businesses, sustain industrial jobs, and preserve important logistics and good movement functions and notes the importance of evaluating truck routes, overweight corridors, and last mile connections. We worked together last year with the city and the port to create to authorize overweight truck permits along International Boulevard. And this effort was specifically aimed at business retention, port related logistics, and preserving Oakland's ability to accommodate modern class a warehouse and logistics users. We respectfully ask that the committee direct staff to remove International Boulevard from the proposed green low impact redesignation and maintain its current general industry and transportation designation.

Thank you for your time.

Good afternoon council members. Thank you for the opportunity to speak today. My name is Matt Blaise, and I work for a company named Toronto Realty, and we own 1720th Street in West Oakland, a 92,000 square foot warehouse distribution billing. I'm here to express our opposition to the city's plan to rezone our property to a technology and research district. We believe in Oakland and its long term future and the vision that the plan has of building large campus sized technology and research parks is a fine goal to have in the long term.

But when you look at the Bay Area as a whole, there's a limited amount of large technology campuses and even smaller number of technology companies that would actually occupy a full campus. When you step back and look at the life science research market, it has been overbuilt. Several of these large life science campuses in South San Francisco were completed two to three years ago and are still waiting for their first tenant to move in. Right now, the buildings designated in this future technology and research district are industrial buildings which are designed to support industrial and logistics uses. If the city moves forward with the rezoning plans, which would prevent traditional industrial uses from operating in these technology and research districts, it will massively impact our ability to release this property.

If the building is vacant for an extended period of time, it will have a negative impact on our business as well as the surrounding businesses in the neighborhood, and it will certainly lead to an increase in crime around the building. We strongly urge city council to rethink their approach to rezoning plans because there is a solution where we can keep both the permitted industrial uses.

Thank you for your comments.

Research.

Good afternoon, council member. Susan Ransom, client relations manager for SSA, Oakland chamber member, born in Oakland, live in Oakland, committed to Oakland. SSA historically has been one of Oakland's largest revenue generators with SSA at the top of that chain and supporting thousands of good paying jobs across California. We feed the world on movement of goods. So here I stand before you today to say good movements is still not recognized or included in the current general plan after years of asking.

I would never understand why the port has to constantly battle to be recognized. It should be celebrated in Oakland. I'm very passionate about it. Freight movement of goods needs to be part of the general plan. SSA Marine is committed in advancing sustainable terminal operations in partnership with the Port Of Oakland customers and local communities. Across our Oakland facilities, we are investing hundreds of millions of dollars in innovation, infrastructure, improvements that reduce emissions, prioritize safety, and support a thriving workforce in addition to negotiating a long term lease with the port. We really appreciate the open conversation and look forward to more, and I appreciate your time. Thank you.

Good afternoon. My name is Jerry Morrill. I'm representing the Harbor Trucking Association. The general plan update fails to address many of the concerns regarding goods move is that we have been repeatedly raised with the city. Establishing standalone good movement policies with the land use and transportation element, a formal policy is necessary to protect the over over extended overweight corridor and ensure the truck access is prioritized on designated routes.

Without this, the city risks truck spillage into residential neighborhoods. Adopt a comprehensive truck map as part of the framework, key transportation strategies that distinguish between various weights and modes. Reevaluate the city's proposed bikeway network and feasibility based on right of way of with an interaction with existing truck routes and proposed design that maintains safety for all all roadway and all users concerned. Overlaying the city designated truck routes and all land use and transportation diagrams without these overlays. There is no technical basis for the city comments and managed industrial parcels in relation to the truck routes.

And I'm with the lady over here, the first one that extended corridor between 98th And High Street on San Leandro Boulevard. Without that, we're in jeopardy.

Good afternoon. Thank you for having us here today and thank you for holding this session. It's really helpful. My name is Mark English. I'm here on behalf of Leyline.

We are a locally Oakland based real estate investment company and we are headquartered here and work here. I want to first say that we fully support the outreach process and the extensive groundwork that the city staff have done to get us to this point. I think as it relates to the industrial sector the two most important goals here are to capture jobs in forward looking industries while supporting existing businesses and entrepreneurs to support the inclusive economic growth and reduce conflicts between residential and industrial land uses. Oakland's industrial base is largely obsolete. It's obsolete in terms of its functionality for the businesses that work there and it's also obsolete in terms of its relation to the communities surrounding it.

Oftentimes you have industrial and residential and indirect adjacency to each other. Other cities in the Bay Area and across the state have tried to regulate and improve the situation through restrictive land use policies and zoning and it hasn't worked. It's actually had the opposite impact. It has served to basically freeze in place what's already there which we all know is not what we want going forward. So I would encourage this council and staff to instead of taking that zoning approach to this to focus on the development characteristics of these new projects and that in turn will spur the investment to achieve the city's goals. Thank you very much.

Hello. Good afternoon council members. My name is Randy Soso. I'm an Oakland property owner of seven industrial properties and I've invested here for over forty years. I am also the president of the Medford Industrial Park Owners Association, which is a 15 acre site adjacent to 98th And San Leandro Boulevard.

I'm here to ask that you retain the current industrial zoning of the Medford Industrial Park and in lieu of some combination of residential and light commercial. The park is not a vacant redevelopment site, it's a functioning employment district. Across more than 18 units, the park supports an estimated 200 jobs which includes small contractors, warehousing, automotive and logistics services, manufacturing and engineering support, and environmental waste services. My request is that the planning department be required to mail notices to the actual industrial property land owners who have been excluded and many of which had no idea that this monkey business was going on. So they should be notifying the actual owners and business owners.

Thank you.

Danielle O'Leary, I'm with Prologis and we're a property owner in town. Good afternoon, committee members, city staff, community development director. Thank you for the work that has gone into the framework and the opportunity to comment. I wanna focus on one concern, the relationship between the proposed land use changes, the Port Of Oakland, and the logistics network that supports the port function. The plan, as we read it, would redesignate a significant amount of industrial land uses into not allowing warehousing, distribution, and trucking.

They are not hypothetical future uses. They are many existing operating businesses. And if they become nonconforming, that will limit their reinvestment ability, modernization, and long term viability within the city of Oakland. The city is being tasked to consider significant land use changes now while the analysis of how those changes may affect the goods movement, the port function, and the broader economy seem to be deferred. Before final major land use changes, we respectfully urge the city to complete a goods movement or an economic analysis to quantify how much industrial land would be affected and to evaluate how existing businesses could become nonconforming and eventually have to exit the city.

Supporting the port means supporting the logistic system that allows the port to function. And I thank you for your consideration of our comments today.

Good afternoon. My name is Brianna Morales and I am with the Housing Action Coalition. We are a member supported organization that advocates for housing at all levels of income. I'm also here speaking as an Oakland resident who loves the city and does hope to stay in it. But as you all know, California is currently in a housing crisis where a part of that ramification is that families are being pushed out, workers have to travel long commutes in order to get into the Bay Area, and the people who created this culture are no longer able to stay in place.

The framework gets a lot right including encouraging housing near transit and being able to create neighborhood centers that invest in the vitality of Oakland. We hope to see that the land use framework continues to build upon and sort of address the crisis and the emergency status that we're currently in. We hope to see density and hope to see housing so that families can stay and that workers are able to build and create a life where they live. We hope to also have further conversations like this and would love to be able to remain in the conversation and to help inform these future plans. So thank you for this time and have a good afternoon.

Afternoon. My name is Drew Hess, small business owner here in Oakland. I've lived here locally for thirty years. And, over my career, I've actually focused on logistics real estate up and down the West Coast, not just the Port Of Oakland, but around the ports of LA, Long Beach, and Tacoma, and Seattle. And I've been investing on behalf of, teachers and firefighters and trade unions, and their pensions my whole career.

Just a couple quick point points. We're so lucky to have the Port Of Oakland here, and it was really fun to hear the railroad, the port, the owners, the users all talk about this. So I just wanna I support all of their com comments and just the the port jobs are good jobs and many union jobs and and the jobs the community actually holds. So I I just wanna underscore that. And then as it relates to building new buildings, the interesting thing about trying to limit down uses is it will, pinch off and constrict supply.

Whereas if you're kind of inclusive of all uses, it gives the ability to build these new flexible buildings that can be used for manufacturing. Cause we all want the manufacturing jobs and we want more jobs but we need good new buildings to move businesses into and grow them. So if you're looking to move Oakland forward and support the local community, these proposed changes don't help. They cement in. What's

So you've been asked over and over to discuss the issue of lack of jobs for African Americans. In this country, unemployment for the entire country is 4.3%. For African Americans for the entirety of the country, it's 7.3%. The whole state of California unemployment for African Americans is 9.7%. Since December 2025, Unemployment for African Americans in the city of Oakland is 9.9%.

That increased from the following year. Increased unemployment for African Americans and no discussion about how we deal with this. One of the ways you have to deal with it is your sanctuary city status. Your sanctuary city status, you have unemployment for Hispanics only at 5.9%. Everything in this city has decreased for African American.

There is no district, no district, no neighborhood in this city where African Americans are the majority. East Oakland at one point when I came here in 02/07 was 60% African American, now it's 40% African American with the majority be group being Hispanic. We have a situation you are not dealing with. Unemployment, housing. Somebody just got up here and talking about housing displacement. Homeless 70% African Americans, you say it's in the fifties. Displacement, everything that you can talk about in terms of how to

Thank you for your comments. Switching to Zoom user, Sarah, you can unmute yourself and begin your comments.

Thank you. Good afternoon. My name is Sarah Wiltefong, I am here on behalf of the Supply Chain Federation, a national trade association representing ports, warehouses, transportation, retail, labor, and other other critical links of the supply chain. Oakland plays a critical role in the regional and national supply chain. The port and its surrounding industrial ecosystem provide essential economic benefits to both the city and the broader region.

We are concerned however that the draft current framework, the current draft framework does not fully reflect the operational realities of this sector. For instance, the proposed redesignation of significant industrial areas to uses that prohibit warehousing raises concerns. These areas are strategically located near major freight corridors and limiting warehousing in these locations risks reducing capacity and pushing essential supply chain activity out of Oakland. This may have unintended consequences including job displacement, reduced economic output and impacts the city's tax base. Furthermore, the framework lacks necessary consideration for truck routes and transportation.

Ensuring industrial areas remain compatible with rail access and port operations is essential to maintaining efficient and safe goods movement. Given the scale of these changes, we respectfully encourage the city to carefully evaluate the potential impacts of proposed industrial land use changes, ensure alignment between land use transportation freight network needs, and conduct a comprehensive economic impact analysis of the proposed changes, including impacts to jobs and city tax revenues. We appreciate your consideration and remain available as a resource to the council. Thank you.

Thank you for your comments. Chair, at this time, all names have been called.

Excellent. Thank you so much to the public speakers. I know we received a lot of valuable insights. So at this time, it is about 03:49 recognizing that LEC starts at four. And so my apologies, chair Fife. And so hopefully, can have the opportunity to just uplift some feedback that we've had. Council member five, I wanted to give you the opportunity to share some thoughts, then council member Unger, and then I'll go last.

I guess the most encouraging thing, thank you chair Brown, in this conversation is the reminder by director Gilchrist that this is still in progress and that we have time to incorporate the input that so many public speakers had today. We ran out of time? According to director Gilchrist, we have time. And I and I see that you wanna respond to that director Gilchrist.

I was just gonna say to the chair, you are not gonna get me arguing with that good from from New Orleans. I I know this lady.

Okay. But I I definitely wanna encourage that conversation. I wanna be as participatory as as necessary or possible, particularly around the impacts of truck transportation infrastructure in West Oakland, our port properties. We are doing a lot of work in District 3 to attract research and development, light industrial, and and some of those spaces that were previously heavy industrial. And so I did have a specific question around land use designation from this particular framework that transitions heavy industry to low impact light industrial because you know we're working on the amortization of of a couple heavy industrial sites in the district in West Oakland.

So is is there a specific area for this this shift or is it just overall the industrial areas in in Oakland altogether? And how will nonconforming uses be addressed where heavy industry exists in residential neighborhoods with no buffer?

Right. Well, I'll give a quick response and turn it over to miss Kaminsky. No. It's not everywhere, council member. I mean, it's not a ubiquitous change.

And we recognize that there's nuance and and different categories, different types of businesses and industries, and that we benefit from diversity and diversification, you know, along those industry types. One thing I just I just wanna mention, and I'm gonna do a little bit of exploring with staff and some of the folks we received comments from, is looking at the I'm paraphrasing, but looking at the physical design and character of some of these building types or use types to see where they may be able to be made more compatible with other use types than just going by the zoning. We have I'm getting a little nerdy here, but in terms of zoning, we have zoning on land. And pretty much what is developed there is determined zone, zone, zone, zone. There are also some approaches to development and we would wanna test them especially in a dense urban environment where perhaps it's not just about the use but it's about how the facilities are designed.

That they can be designed in a way that a range of uses can happen that might end up being compatible with each other in ways that we might not be considering at the moment. But I think one of the commentators made a a comment along that line, statement along that line. So there's some things we can look at. I think the bottom line is that we will have different opportunities for different kinds of development under the zoning. But where we do have some adjacencies or want some more flexible development on property, we can have some different approaches towards that which we'll explore.

Yeah, I would add to that. I think some of the things that we were looking at which is exactly what you were talking about is areas where we have these conflicts between heavy industrial and residential. So those are the areas that we were primarily looking at trying to create a buffer area where you would have lower lighter industrial uses that are not causing those issues being right next to residential. So that was one of the biggest things that we looked at. As well as there are some areas in Oakland where there's some industrial areas that are completely surrounded by residential. And so, you know, that is a historic injustice that we wanna look at trying to remedy that situation. And so there are some changes we're looking of those areas as well.

Council member Unger.

Director Gilchrist, I think I echo everyone here when I say that I appreciate you framing this as a clay is still wet situation with, you know, giving us something to react to. And, you know, my reaction is that I wanna focus in on the specific situation that a lot of folks are here to talk about today is that we revise and develop the plan to include the port and industry in as pragmatic a way as possible, right? There's definitely potential conflicts between industry and trucking and environmental and cyclists and pedestrian concerns, and those are real, but they're probably also solvable if we confront them head on. And I don't personally know what street is right for what particular usage, but I know that nobody in these, any of these stakeholders groups is interested in getting it wrong. So we have diverse businesses and industries and that's a strength for us.

So let's have a general plan that includes that in a realistic way. And we're not gonna solve the externalities of those potentially conflicting uses by just wishing we didn't have to confront them. So I would ask that we, all of us, put the work and the emphasis into recognizing that the port and goods movement are still central to our city and our economy. We're still an industrial city. Specifically, would like to see an actual map particular to the truck routes so that we can see them alongside the map of the greenways and the pedestrian improvements and see if we can make all of those more compatible.

And then for industrial uses in East Oakland, I'm certainly not an expert on that but I would like to make sure that we drill deep into that to make sure that we're not, I don't know the word, zoning existing industrial businesses out of existence because we certainly can't afford that. And I know the the port submitted you a list of questions, that's probably the same ones they sent me and that's a good place to start. So I don't necessarily have any questions for you. I must just like the sound of my own voice, but no questions but an ask. And the ask is that we fully cognize the industrial uses and incorporate these stakeholders fully.

And an ask to all of these industrial stakeholders that you all continue to engage and be patient and help us craft these workable solutions. So I know we can find them if we look for them, and at the risk of subjecting all of us to more meetings, I think this is totally doable, but we have to do it and I'm ready to help in any way I can.

Alright. Through the chair, council member Unger, thank you very much for everything received.

Excellent. And so the good news is is that we will be moving the item to a public hearing, right, of the full the full body. So we'll have an opportunity to ask more questions as well. So first off I did want to just really thank the planning and building team for kind of undertaking this work. I know that it was a lot.

I was really delighted to read in the report how many community engagement activities across the city was there. And then also in attachment B I think it was over a 100 pages of community input that I thought was really good. And so I guess at a very high level of course appreciated the feedback that we received today from OMAs and the Port Of Oakland specifically around goods movement. There were some notes around how we're supporting the Hagenburger Corridor that I thought were very important in community feedback. I also noted some remarks.

The fellows that you all had go out and engage and do some community engagement, when they were talking with young people they really emphasized the need for more lighting in our city as well as park safety. So just wanted to uplift that. I did think that the note was very interesting from the BAC around funding and accountability. I know in my one on one with the planning and building team, I had brought up that, you know, so many of us serve on other boards and commission. For example, I'm on the Alameda County Transportation Commission, as is council member Fife as well.

And we get the opportunity to oversee various projects that help support our roads in the city. And so I think I'm curious how this plan can intersect with with these other efforts as well.

Yes. And again, to the chair, very quickly. We certainly look at the plan as being a template of opportunity for grant related support and regional support. This is a this is a very standard approach towards being able to get funds for roads, for transit, for other infrastructure by showing that they are part of an adopted and intentional plan when one competes with other jurisdictions for consideration that typically moves one to the top of the list. I've been on those selection and that's often the kind of conversation that ensues.

The other thing I wanna note is that, and we didn't get into much detail here, but we'll be tracking it through the remainder of the exercise, is that we do have a a capital project infrastructure element as well. And I wanna give credit to deputy director Manassi over planning. This was something he was very, very adamant that we consider this go around. It's not been done before. That will be very helpful also in getting to the point you're making, that we're looking at having the capital program projects, road streets, libraries, fire stations, etcetera, identified in a constructive priority with the general plan.

And that gives us an opportunity both to know where we're leaning. Now we've had enough conversation to know what some of those priorities are. When we're ready to pursue funding for them, either through our own capital budget, through bond programs, through whatever funding may be left from other agencies that are focused on transportation or infrastructure, we'll have the strength of a plan that leverages an indication that we really thought about this, that this is a priority, we're ready to do it, and we understand the consequences of that choice.

Excellent.

Is responsive? Absolutely. Okay. Thank you.

And then the last thing I was gonna mention, there was also some community members and also public comment here today around anti displacement efforts and how we're going about that. And so I know that our goal here is to make sure that we're supporting all of our residents, our natural environment, industry, businesses, all that are super crucial to the city. And so definitely look forward to engaging on this item further. And so at this time, I would make a motion to move this to a public hearing. And then I actually want it to go to the Tuesday, June the second city council meeting.

That's fine. And thank you if I may very quickly to the chair for again recognizing that this is many many constituents, many many issues and we will be finding our balance, all of us

Yes.

As part

of this exercise.

Excellent. Thank you so much. And may I have a second?

I'll I'll have a second. I just wanna understand the agenda for June 2 because I felt rushed and that I didn't get to ask all of the questions that I wanted to ask in this meeting. So is it will we have the adequate time

to It's the least impacted.

So I had to look. Second. K.

Thank you. We have a motion made by chair Brown, seconded by council member five to approve the recommendations of staff and to forward this item to the June 2 city council agenda as a public hearing.

Yes. Thank

you. On roll, council members five. Aye. Ramachandran excused. Unger? Aye. And chair Brown? Aye. Thank you. Motion passes with three ayes, one excused Ramachandran to forward this item to the June 2 city council agenda as a public hearing. Moving on to open forum, calling in the names that signed up to speak. Miss Asada Olubala, Robbie Ayalin, Blair Beekman, and Anne McLean.

One of the things I'm not gonna allow you to do or anybody else is act like nonprofits like the Lyle family and the Spanish speaking unity council supports African Americans. Here's what the Low family has on their website. The Low family concentrates on refugees, immigrants, and low income individuals with limited English. Their programs, refugee health, marriage health, willingness for Asian wealth wealth, healthness for Asian families, help for seniors with diverse refugee immigrant and limited English. That's what they do.

But they come here and they get funding to support the whole community of Oakland, and they don't do that. The Spanish speaking unity council has an arrangement with the o u s d to support Latin American youth, and that's what they do. That's why they call the Spanish speaking unity council, and they bring and it's hot. They bring I've never seen them bring black people in here before to have them speak as if they all that diversity going on. Okay?

So please, whatever you're doing, do what you do, but don't act like you're helping black people when you're not. I have no problem with any group supporting their community. That's what you're supposed to do. The problem is when you make it seem like you support my people and you're not really doing it.

Switching to Zoom user Anne McLean, you can unmute yourself and begin your comments. Anne McLean, you can unmute yourself and begin your comments. Anne, you can unmute yourself.

Hi. Can you hear us?

Yes.

My name is Ravi Ayala. I'm gonna be ceding my time towards Anne McLean. I'm here with her as well.

But I don't have I'm trying to find just say I have to find my

Anne, she's also looking for

her speech. Is it possible to skip us and move to us towards the back?

Not at this time. At this

time, you are the last speaker, Anne. You can use your two minutes and thirty seconds if you'd like.

No. No. This is terrible.

Give us we'll be right there in ten seconds. I'm getting it set up.

I guess you just let it run.

Okay. We'll go ahead and let the two minutes and thirty seconds run. Within that time, if you wanna give your speech, you can. Otherwise, once your two minutes and thirty seconds is up Your time is running. Go ahead, Anne. Okay.

I don't think that the city council or the c d d committee, look for my papers, understand the importance and impact of the city clerk's lack of due process of the city's lack of due process in regard to the addition of new properties during the renewal of a business improvement district. I will use the Laurel Business Improvement District as an example. The Laurel Business in it was initially formed in 2005. The district was clearly defined on the MacArthur Commercial Corridor from 35th Avenue to High Street. The businesses were and are highly dependent on public patronage and the purchase of goods and services.

The city the city, when a when a new district is formed, there is no there there must be a mandate for the, a CED committee to convene to hear out new members, that are being brought into the district. In this 2005, 2025 renewal, 18 properties were brought in, 16 of which were single family all of them residential. 16 were single family dwellings, condos, and twin no. 61 rent controlled apartments and one commercial property being converted to proposed to be converted to residential and only one gas station. We had no opportunity to the city must have a a way of of giving renewal newly brought in people to the district to be able to speak before a CED committee.

Otherwise, our our voices were completely out numbered by the, MacArthur Boulevard Commercial District, or we might as well have not voted. We we were a 90% vote to come into to not come into the district, only one yes to come into the district, And several people

Thank you for your comments, chair.

That concludes all speakers for open forum. Excellent. Thank you all so much. This meeting is adjourned.