Public Safety Committee - Special Meeting

Good afternoon, and welcome to the public space public safety meet committee meeting of Tuesday, 01/27/2026. The time is now 01:30PM, and this meeting may come to order. Before taking roll, I will provide instructions on how to submit speaker cards 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 no later than ten minutes after the start of this meeting or before the item is read into record. Registering to speak via Zoom is now due twenty four hours prior to the start of this meeting. This meeting came to order at 01:30PM, and speaker cards will no longer be accepted ten minutes after this meeting has begun, making that time 01:40PM. We'll now proceed with taking roll. Council members Brown? Oops,

sir. Present.

Council member Fife is excused. Council member Houston? Present. And chair Wong? Present. Thank you. We have three members present, one excused Fife. Chair, before we begin, do you have any announcements at this time?

No. I don't. Let's go ahead. Oh, yes. Thank you. I will be just switching the order of the agenda. That way, the item number four is going to be addressed as the third item.

Thank you. Noting the changes made to the agenda, we will hear item number four after item two. Starting

off

with item one, there are no minutes to be approved. That's this is a special meeting. Item two, determination of schedule of outstanding committee items, and we do have one speaker that signed up.

Let's hear from councilmember Brown first.

Yes. Thank you so much chair. I wanted to put on your radar also the to the administration. During our council budget process in 2025 I know that the body had set aside some dollars to help support with human trafficking. I think it was 350,000 in the first year and likewise in the second.

And I think what I'm hoping since we're going to be engaging on an item related to human trafficking today, I am interested in a informational report from OPD on how those funds were utilized I guess in the first year.

Okay, Yep. And I've been thinking similarly so we'll get that scheduled. Public speakers we'll move to that. Folks we'll have two minutes.

Miss Asada Olubala we have you signed up for item two.

I'm recommending that you have a report on Oakland police officers' mutual aid with cities that are not sanctuary cities. So, the following cities are not documented sanctuary cities: Livermore, Pleasanton, Dublin, Walnut Creek, Lafayette, Danville, San Ramon, Alamo, Brentwood, Orenda, and Moraga. So that means if you send your officers into the cities, those cities, for mutual aid, their jurisdiction practices have to be followed, not Oakland. So y'all need to have a discussion about that and how you wanna proceed. A report on the ambassador program, You the city I'm sorry.

The police department has just received $900,000 to return to the cadet program, and you need to know how that's gonna work based on OUSD has the George Floyd resolution, which means there's no working with the Oakland Police Department. And those candidates for the cadet program would come from a large percentage of them. And to emphasize the purpose of the program, because they didn't give me an answer to this in a police commission meeting, is to encourage Oaklanders to become police officers since we only have 90% of our officers we have living outside of Oakland. We need a report on the FBI investigation that resulted in nine members of an organized gang, illegal gang involved in 24 murders. We need to report on some things that are going on with the cartel, MS thirteen, and these other illegal organized crime and gang members here.

And

Thank you for your comments, chair. That concludes all speakers on item two.

Council member Houston.

Council member chair Wang, I wanted to do I heard my council member Brown say I wanted to do an informational report too. Can I ask for that now?

Sure. Sure.

Yeah. What's the information? Trinity Hall. Can I have my assistant come up? Trinity, you know exactly what to say. Can you come up and ask for that information report please that I need that we spoke about in our huddle this morning?

Good afternoon to the chair. We are requesting an informational report regarding individuals who engage in sex purchasing crimes and related other activity.

We are

requesting demographics regarding age, race, sexual orientation, gender, and any other relevant information that might paint a picture as to what exactly is the state of sexual violence in the state in the city of Oakland.

Okay. Yeah. I think that's great and we've been in conversations with OPD about that information so we'll schedule this into one package.

And I wanted a specific year and I wanted it between what did I say Trisha? Believe '23, '24.

2023 to 2024.

Yes.

Will work

Thank on you.

Alright, thank you both colleagues. Anything from the administration on that? Nope, okay.

Alright. Excellent. I'll I'll make a motion to go ahead and move this item along.

Thank you. We have a motion made by council member Brown, seconded by council member Houston to accept the determination of schedule of outstanding committee items as is. On roll council members Brown. Aye. Five is excused. Houston. Aye. And chair Wong. Aye. Thank you.

Item number two passes with three ayes one excused five to accept the pending list as is. Now reading in item number four, adopt an ordinance amending Oakland municipal code nine point zero eight point two six zero to conform, sorry, to conform to state law by one, by repealing the offense of loitering for the purpose of engaging in prostitution, two, adding loitering for the purpose of purchasing commercial sex as an offense, three, allowing for the administrative assessment of fines against sex purchasers, sex traffickers, and properties for used prostitution and for creating a human trafficking survivor support fund, and we have about 19 speakers that signed up.

Okay. Wonderful. Well, I'm going to ask staff to and that staff member is me so I will go on and present the Okay. All right. So we first actually want to play a video just to capture the problem that we're seeing and the nature of it. Meta, are you able to tee that up? Okay, thank you.

The history of slavery in our world isn't over. Prostitution, the world's oldest profession, is actually a horrific trade of human flesh. Over eighty percent of victims are women, and most of them are children. Most people only think that this is happening in Asia, in countries like India, Thailand, Vietnam, and Cambodia. But in reality, hundreds of thousands of these children are at risk every single day for being trafficked into sex slavery here in The US as well. As girls living in the Bay Area, where 40% of all of America's sex trafficking takes place, we wanted to find out where the fastest growing criminal industry in the world all starts here in our backyard.

On the average, some of these exploiters have as many as 10 girls that they are exploiting. And it doesn't take very much for an exploiter to lure a child into his business by just saying a few nice things to them.

There's this whole underground world that OPD basically discovered in 1999 of young girls being sold for sex in our own backyards. Really, when you look at how it's happening and the deprivation of liberty that's that takes place in order to accomplish the crime, it is modern day slavery.

These children are beaten. They take their clothes away. They take all their their property, their phone, their identification. They'll move them to places where the child doesn't know where she is. These kids are sexually assaulted by the exploiters. They are raped and sodomized, children being chained to the heater vents. At the end of the workday, the kids' clothes are taken away from them, they're left naked in rooms so they can't escape.

She needed money and she doesn't know any other way to get it. And she thinks about it and especially when times get tough at home because home is not a place where she likes being. A woman's body is what is kind of what you barter on and is what we trade on and that has is kind of cultured into, you know, part of our mentality.

What ends up happening is once you strip all the makeup and you strip off the nails and you give back the layers, they're just a kid. People always ask us, you know, how does a 12 year old or 13 year old girl go from sitting in an eighth grade classroom to, you know, selling her body to 20 men per night? Most oftentimes, the exploitation on the street is not the first act of rape that they've ever had. And so when you come from such neglect and you come from such risk and your uncle or a trusted family member has been molesting you since you're five years old and you really believe that your body is a sexual object and that what it's there for. When a 30 year old man pimp comes along and tells you that you know he loves you and you're the beautiful thing that he's ever seen. It's really easy for a grown man to talk a 12 or 13 year old girl who's been through the things that she's been through into doing that.

Pimps, exploiters of human take advantage of these girls and their histories of abuse to use them as economic pawns. Over 70 of all girls being trafficked for sex have escaped abusive homelands as runaways, and almost all of them have been sexually abused and raped before adolescence. They take girls who have never known love and trick them into selling their bodies. Girls are also abducted off the streets by pimps.

They don't have any empathy for another human being. That exploiter will get tired of the child, so he'll sell her to another pimp or exploiter. Her psychology ability to even evaluate what's safe and what's not is completely diminished.

She does not understand her victimization and the only thing that we can really compare it to is Stockholm Syndrome or Battered Wife Syndrome. The fear and the guilt and the shame and the physical and emotional pain that comes along with having to be exploited every day, you know, by by grown adult males and for really for no gain for no gain for them whatsoever. She stands there every day and takes all the risk. The risk of being killed, the risk of being infected with AIDS, the risk of going to jail. She takes all the risk and has absolutely no power over her life or her decision.

We have to try to to engage them and encourage them to to get involved so we can find out who the pimps are, who are pandering them, who's who's forcing them into child exploitation, and try to find the reason why they're not in their homes and what their parents are doing. You know, when I first started over twenty years ago, you would see in the twenties and thirties what I see now, and as young as 13 years old, seven days a week.

Human slavery isn't over today. Women and girls everywhere are suffering. They end up under the control of a pimp who promises to take care of them. Soon, however, the master and slave relationship is established and maintained through even more abuse and violence. And at that point, they're completely at the mercy of these men. The exploiters doing this need to be stopped. Help us bring an end to the abuse, to the pain, and to change society, so that it is no longer all right to buy sex from a child. It all starts now.

Thank you Meadow and you know the thing is that when this documentary was produced that was before actually it's now exploded this problem in in District 2, the the community that I represent. And so I I remember driving down International Boulevard around midnight on a Saturday night. It's probably a 100 to 150 women on a three minute stretch. Women and girls and yeah, clearly minors too on that stretch. I do want to tee up just one more video.

We had a press conference for human trafficking prevention month. And if we could just tee that up, just a short explanation for this clip. And I think Brianna's actually in this room but part of what she's talking about is not only AB three seventy nine which I want to make clear is not what I am introducing that is a state law but she's speaking to the importance of really tackling demand which is we don't have the supply unless the demand didn't exist. We can tee

that up. My name is Brianna Price. I'm a survivor of human trafficking and an advocate and an advocate. I along with many other survivors worked to help pass AB three seven nine and I'm in strong support of it. I wanna be very clear. I'm here speaking from my lived experience. The first time I was trafficked was at the age of 13. And then from the age of sixteen seventeen, I was trafficked both online throughout the Bay Area and on international. I was a child. I was not making choices.

I was not empowered. I was not consenting. I was exploited by adults who knew exactly what they were doing and buyers who chose to purchase me as if I was a commodity. Without buyers, there would be no traffickers. And without demand, there would be no supply.

That truth is uncomfortable for many people, but discomfort is nothing compared to what what me and many other survivors had to suffer. Some opponents of the bill argue that the penalties could be too harsh for buyers, but I want that statement to sit with you. Harsh compared to what? Because what was taken from me and many other survivors, that was harsh. My innocence was stolen.

My teenage years were stolen. While other girls and boys were attending school dances, thinking of prom, worrying about grades or crushes, I was just surviving a trauma that no child should ever have to endure. Those years do not come back. At the age of 31 today, I am still healing from some of the things I experienced as a teenager. Trafficking doesn't end when exploitation ends. It lives in your nervous system. It affects your

relationships, relationships, your your sense sense of of safety, safety,

your body, your mind. Healing is an ongoing lifetime work, and my story does not stand alone.

Thank you. And Meta, if we could tee up the presentation. And thank you Breanna for having the courage to share your story and for being here today too. So the question is of course what do we do about it? Here is the proposal that I'm proud to to put before this committee.

The other thing by the way that I just want to acknowledge is that I think members of the public as well as my colleagues have this packet before you. There's language in here for example that I would honestly prefer not to use because I think the the preferred term that I would exploited persons. But it has been in a back and forth with our city attorneys that we need to use the language that has been used so it matches up with the state penal code. Otherwise we run the risk of none of this being enforceable and that and so it has to match. So what I am proposing today is a set of amendments to our municipal code nine point zero eight point two six zero and the creation of OMC 9.08265.

This in essence accomplishes a few things. It's going to be really establishing a set of administrative fines and I'll go more about why that is an important component of this model as well as shifting burden of this responsibility is really on the demand side particularly the buyers which we've heard on repeat is really key to actually addressing the human trafficking problem as well as using that to create a restitution model for survivors that is going to be funds for many of the organizations here local to Oakland that do not have enough resources to provide exit services as well as the support that is needed because as Brianna had spoken, the PTSD, the trauma that results from being trafficked is immense. Some context here, so Oakland is ranked among the top three cities in California, the top 25 cities in The United States for human trafficking. We are this is not a list that we want to be at the top of but we are here. So we are a national hotspot.

This has been recognized by the FBI, the Department of Justice, and a number of organizations. Some background too on what this means for our young people because I've also heard anecdotally by the way that we have traffickers circle around our high schools as well as even our middle schools looking for vulnerable youth because they're looking for the child that does not have the support system that you know is the victim of choice for this. Nationally, just a reminder, the average age of entry into the sex trade industry is 12 to 14. It is a minor. There is incorrect perceptions in terms of you know that these are prostitutes on the street.

These exploited you know women and girls also boys and men that happens as well. But I think that average age of entry tells you everything about what is happening in this industry. In Alameda County furthermore, fifteen eight percent of those screened vulnerable youth show clear signs of commercial sex exploitation. We're actually at double the California average. The other thing is so many of the victims are coming from foster care.

You can see that fifty five percent based off some recent data were foster youth. And if they're not foster youth, they're likely as said in the video runaways from abusive homes. And again, much of it is tied to the fact that these are our most vulnerable young folks whether they're a minor or you know just because you're 18 doesn't mean that suddenly you know you're still vulnerable especially if this has been your history. The other thing is that this is obviously a racial justice issue. While black residents are 20 around 20% of Oakland's population, black women and girls represent sixty one percent of recovered victims.

The other thing to note is you know, of the youth identified nearly for sorry, excuse me, for every youth identified nearly 10 more remain in the shadows. We have screening tools. There's been over 900 youth identified in the country but this far exceeds the law enforcement arrest numbers. And the thing that I really want to emphasize and I've heard it from students too is that it is their classmate. It is their classmate who is also likely a classmate who is vulnerable, may not be showing up to class every day, who is that person.

And we do have cases happening within our school system. I also want to describe here in terms of the blade. Now this is a problem that happens across the city of Oakland but what we have in District 2 is what is called the blade. It is International Boulevard. I wanna point out some things about the makeup of this community.

First of all, you can see in the bottom left that is a map that shows that there's concentrated poverty in this corridor. It's also a corridor that is mostly people of color. It's Southeast Asian. This is where Little Saigon is if you can see in the upper left corner where that purple is. In the middle, you can see that throughout there we have representation from black residents and then we also have Latino communities who on the eastern portion of the corridor.

So it's it's basically an immigrant, people of color, low income. You can see that most people also rent in this corridor and this is where the activity has been proliferating. It doesn't happen in the wealthy part of my district. So why this legislation in particular in front of you? First of all as I said demand, we have to target demand.

I think it sounds easy for example, why not just crack down on the traffickers? It's actually much more complicated given the dynamics between the exploited and the trafficker and to provide evidence. And this is why targeting demand is so important because also if we don't target the source that fuels this industry, what's been found in other places that have been trying to tackle this issue is that you just keep on, it's more survivors circling through the same cycle instead of really addressing the source of the problem. The other thing is part of what's novel about this is that we are using an administrative enforcement. This is the proposal before you with fines.

This is going to be faster, more certain accountability that will also fund much needed survivor services. We already use administrative enforcement to do fines for illegal dumping, for blight, for all kinds of reasons that this is a key municipal tool. This would be novel in the sense that we are using a city fine model to ensure this kind of victim restitution. And so because so often I think the criminal justice system is very black and white. We have not had any purchasers or it's very rarely even though in the books on state penal code purchasing is against the law, very few get charged and that's part of the problem, right?

And so we need to create a third path, another tool that can be used by the city of Oakland. And not only that is it's going to fund survivor services here in Oakland whereas at the state level, we have no guarantee that those funds are going to come back to the service providers that can help us take our women and girls off the streets on the blade. I also want to note too that this is of course just about conforming to some of the state law changes, not only AB three seventy nine actually but also SB three fifty seven. So colleagues for those of you looking in the packet actually sections a through d, I would just say those are really not up for debate. These are just conforming to the state law.

In fact, were we to try to change the language or add things, we risk having our own local ordinance being preempted and struck down. So even though that is a subs you'll see a lot of strike throughs, additions, this is all about conformance. It's almost housekeeping just to make municipal codes reflect our state penal codes. And then of course just dismantling this business. Sorry, wrong direction.

Couple things that I want to note too just about the demand and the sex spire because I think all too often it gets characterized as, you know, men will be men. It's not like that. We have to stop the demand first of all according to national data, the buyers are predominantly middle to upper class men. From our own local data here in Oakland, 70% of the buyers are residents that are from outside of Oakland often commuting in from our suburbs to come here to Oakland. And of course the socioeconomic advantage, if you're paying for sex, do have some money, okay?

And the other thing I will just note that is not on the slide is it's often coming also from people who may have addictions like a sex addiction or it may also, you know, and it's it often I don't want to I wanna make sure that my colleagues understand that the behavior is often violent. What you heard in the video is that buyers are often, you know, they're not yeah, it's violent. Okay, so a couple of things. As I mentioned, sections A through D in this are just actually updating our municipal codes to match state penal code and to also distinguish because we've had some changes in the way that we are that we were thinking at the state level to around victims buyers and making that distinction occur. Also some changes that have happened at the state level includes removing loitering with the intent to sell.

So our municipal code now conforms to that as well as including now the changes at AB three seventy nine where it is now a crime to loiter with the intent to purchase sex. And the state laws also have some language around what are the behaviors that are indicative of purchasing. But for the most part, again, I just want to emphasize this is a cleanup exercise even though it takes up perhaps some of the most space in package. Now this is really the substantive of, the substance of what are we changing here in the city of Oakland. A couple things, first of all it's a set of administrative funds.

So you can see this starting on section F administrative enforcement. Here's a few things. So first it's fines of up to $4,000 for the buyers for the first offense and for every subsequent offense that fine goes up to $8,000. Anything involving a minor would be tripled. For traffickers, for the first offense is $10,000 and every subsequent offense is now $20,000 and again anything involving a minor is tripled.

The other thing I want to clarify is a single offense counts as a single victim as well as a single day. So if you have trafficked someone in an ongoing period and there's enough civil evidence that this has been happening each incident or each day would count as a separate violation and would therefore increase the fines. The other thing that this contains and this is in section E is we're also adding an amendment. These are around these problem businesses. So these are motels, massage parlors and we now have heard actually of the smoke shops that are international.

Some of them have back rooms that facilitate this activity and so we would be now including a penalty to fine the owner of the property up to $2,500 per day as a public nuisance. That owner would also get notified so they should not be surprised and they have an opportunity to abate. And then the other thing that I want to mention is that we included a provision around affirmative defense as we know that sometimes victims can under the force of coercion may carry out some of these activities themselves and so someone who was doing that under the force of coercion would be given an opportunity at court to provide defense that they were victim of sex trafficking. Now this is the restorative justice core of really this ordinance. So a 100% of the fines and this was really important to me because I will say this is a this is a differentiator between how our other fines are structured most of which get deposited into the general fund.

I wanted to make sure that these funds are really reserved for a special restricted fund that goes back to fund our local survivor and victim services. These uses would be anything from emergency and transitional housing, medical and mental health services, workforce development and job training, legal support and street outreach. I think the street outreach is likely going to be key here as if we pass this the ripple effect on the market as well as undercover operations to apprehend buyers and traffickers and that's included in part because even though this past budget cycle we did get that dedicated funding, I don't think necessarily ten years from now we have that guarantee. And just looking at the long game of this ordinance. Yeah.

A couple things on the fiscal impact and enforcement. You can here see that it is the administrative costs would be absorbed by existing departments. We've discussing already with finance, with the city attorney, with OPD all on the administration side of things. The projected revenue, this is an estimate and it may actually increase. It's hard to tell really what would happen once we pass this but it could be around 250 to $450,000 annually.

And then as I stated before, the enforcement mechanisms have all been worked out. So in conclusion, the intent of this is to make this an impossible market for sex fires as well as a fortress of support for survivors. The desired impact is reducing the street level violence. This corridor has also become one of the most afflicted by gun violence in the city of Oakland because again it's a violent industry. Safer schools, there's also Franklin elementary, there's a number of schools that are also in this area and those children should not have to those those families do deserve better and a self sustaining fund for victim restoration.

And so the call to action colleagues is that we go ahead and adopt this proposal and establish not only the fines but also the survivor support fund. Thank you. I'll take questions. Councilmember Brown.

Thank you. I think my preference would be to hear from the public first.

Let's hear from the public.

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 for the record and before making your comments. And as standard practice, if you're on Zoom, please raise your hand if you're if you hear your name, and we will hear you after the in person speakers. Brianna Katrina Price. Sorry if I, mess up your names as well.

Emeril Rugo, Janice Jacobs, Asado Olavala, Maribel Tadeo, Sarai Sarai Mezaregos, Tood and daughter, Leanne Trung, Edwin Hagler, Yufen Telati, Jennifer Tai, Jennifer Tran, Chen Wen, Grace Houston, Blair Beekman, Nolan Wong, Nihisha Smith, Annabel Velasquez, Liz Sullivan, and Vanessa Russell. In no particular order, you can come up to the podium. Please state your name before you begin.

Apologies. Since we have Oakland Police Department leaving shortly, my colleague has a question for Oakland Police Department. Can we first have that address and then we'll move to public comment?

Yeah, thank you. I know you already called members of the public and so my preference would be for them to speak and if possible if OPD needs to leave maybe you can answer our questions virtually. I just know that my questions are pretty detailed.

Okay he can stay. Okay great. Thank you. AT.

Okay. Hello my name is Grace Houston. I'm 16 and I go to St. Mary's College High School in Berkeley and I just want to start off by saying when I was 12 I was working with Nancy O'Malley based on sex trafficking and transportation and if it wasn't for my guardian I could have been sex trafficked too. So my question is to you, how are you guys going to address this topic with sex trafficking and transportation because I will be working with the city, state, and county based on it. Thank you.

My name is Brianna Price. I know you heard some of what I had to say in the video, but I am a survivor of trafficking and also an advocate. I was trafficked from Sacramento to Oakland and I just wanna share the first time that I was ever trafficked in the Bay Area. I was sold online and my trafficker told me for the first time that he was gonna be selling me. I refused and was beaten in the car.

I then was told to get out and go upstairs of the apartment of my buyer. When I got up there, I had blood stained hair, blood on my face, my face was starting to swell and he acted as if nothing had ever happened and proceeded to rape me, to buy me, and put the money on the counter as if nothing had ever happened. My story is not a one off story. There's so many other victims and survivors that are enduring right now the same things that I went through. Buyers constantly tried to take my life, they beat me, I had to jump out of cars.

My sister was 23 and she lost her life as a result of being trafficked. So this fun would help to restore those or it'd be a drop in the bucket to help him restore those who've been victimized so that they can live prosperous lives. I'm 31 now and I'm still healing from some of the effects of what I went through. Thank you.

My name is Edwin Hagler, Community Brothers. I've been supporting the Saigon area for the last three weeks in a row. We also took a walk with Charlene, and what I saw was terrible was a pimp approached city administrator and told him what it would be for a charge for a sex trafficking worker. And, to me, that was kind of odd. So, my thing to this is to step up the protocol when it comes to this type of behavior, and it shouldn't be tolerated in Oakland because, you know, we are Bay Area, we are a beautiful city, and having this gone day after day after day is just too much.

And, that's my opinion of being out there and knowing this thing type of thing is going on like an everyday process. And, it's like, it shouldn't be a part of the nature of having young children see the sex workers out there with half nude, with barely clothes on, little kids, you know, schools around that area is not shouldn't be tolerated. So, that's my opinion.

Hello. My name is Lin Chong. I am the owner Sun Hao Park Market and 5th Avenue 501, Detroit Street. I lived there. I worked here for thirty five years. I never see the kids and the trafficking go around every day. It was very noisy. My mom lived there. Every night I get out and saw a lot of people around the car and it noisy to get busy with so many girls. I really obsessed.

I want to support the children Wong to help us from little Saigon to do safety, we can work and live there. And safety. Thank you very much.

My name is Emerald Marubio. I'm a licensed marriage and family therapist and I've been serving survivors since 2016. I'm an advocate. I'm an holder of healing circles for survivors for the past five years. I also have lived experience of decades of physical, emotional, and sexual trauma. You did a very beautiful slide deck. I just felt like you shared my life story right there. Most of the all the traumas were at the hands of people who were supposed to keep me safe. This distorted what actual what I saw as actual love, safety, trust, and protection really meant. Being groomed, molested, and sexually assaulted in my childhood home starting at the age six taught me that love and safety was transactional.

As a runaway teenager, I became a survivor of sex trafficking for simply a car ride. I didn't get money. It was just for a place to stay for the night and then I have to find out who else I can hit up for a place to stay for the night. Nobody should have to decide that or determine that or figure that out as a 16 year old. Statistics tell me that I should be addicted, in jail, or dead.

Came close to all three. I can't put a timeline on how long it takes for a survivor to heal from such traumas. In my circles, they have to learn safety. We survivors, we have to learn safety, boundaries, healthy friendships, relationships, environments. We have to manage our fear, anxiety, and bitterness, all the while trying to figure out how to detect danger at all costs, learning how to trust people again, cultivate support support tribes, and completing all the while completing school, pursuing careers, building safe relationships, parenting kids, it's it's a lot.

We're trying to create a life and a legacy for ourselves, not only for our children, but for future generations to come. In in serving survivors of commercial exploitation and being a survivor myself, I learned that the healing process can be across the lifespan. According to California Victim Compensation Board, they have predicted have said that it's over $200,000 per survivor to recover from such things because it requires such specialized sustained and trauma informed care. Thank

you for your comments.

Hi. I'm Janice Jacobs. Let's get real. Oakland has long been a destination for sex tourism and the impact is being seen in our schools. According to case management at Oakland Unified School District, there were more than 300 case meetings last year about kids that had been trafficked.

That video, International Boulevard, was produced fifteen years ago and the problem is worse now than it was then. And it's not due to committed and talented professionals that have been dedicated to this issue for many years. It is, I've been an activist for the past fifteen years in Oakland and I worked on prevention education legislation, starting task forces, billboard campaigns, documentary films. And over that time, I've seen multiple city leaders get up on the dais and say we're gonna stop trafficking. We're gonna end this.

And the truth is is that you know we can't end this. You know, there's only this is a business and traffickers and sex buyers are make trafficking profitable. And with any business, like any marketing plan, there's supply and there's demand. And the only way to obliterate supply is to obliterate poverty in Oakland. And we know from the Oakland budget that we don't have the resources.

We don't have the housing. 15% of our homeless people are are youth and only 5% of the housing is for youth. So if we cannot obliterate poverty in Oakland, then we have to focus on demand. And that's just, you know, that's just

Thank you for your comments. Your time is up.

Hi. My name is Yufantalati. I'm one of the volunteers from Shiji Foundation. And every Sunday, we offer math tutoring to the student from Franklin Elementary School, and we also have high school and college students come over to tutor those students. And it's very scary for those, you know, college and high school kids to come over and to provide the tutoring to the students.

And over the weekend, I took my family to have fall, fall in the neighborhood, and it's just every corner I see those girls, and it's very sad. And for my kids to see it, it's just and for the business to, you know, run-in a business over in that area is I think I'm sure we we definitely had to find a solution for the safety and the business economy in the area. Thank you.

Hi, council member. My name is Jennifer Tai, and I'm the director of the Tzuji Foundation in Oakland, and we are a nonprofit organization. For over twenty years, we have proudly served the Little Saigon community. We're providing free medical services, back to school backpacks, vision care, and an ongoing support to the local elementary school and thousands of residents and students each year. We deeply love this neighborhood. However, I have to be honest with you. With the ongoing issue of human trafficking, crime, and unsafe condition are putting my ability to remain here at risk. I am increasingly challenging to reassure my volunteer,

my

donor, especially my leadership that there's still hope in this community when sex buyer continue to operate openly, while resident children and senior and business have to suffer the consequences. This audience is critical because it holds buyer accountable, not victims. We are seriously if we are seriously about ending trafficking, we must address the demand that drive it. Failing to do so, sending a travel traveling message that safety and dignity of our community is not a priority. We are here today respectfully as you stand with us.

Please show our community that Oakland is committed to protecting its residents, its children, and the organization that serve them. We urge you to pass this ordinance and take meaningful action today. Thank you very much for your time and for listening. Thank you.

Good afternoon council. My name is doctor Jennifer Tran. I'm the president of the Oakland Vietnamese Chamber of Commerce. I'm an Oakland native and I'm just really grateful for you taking time to listen to all of us. The 94606 zip code is not only a diverse neighborhood, it's one of the highest concentration of monolingual, bilingual residents in the city of Oakland.

It's also home to 19 X, beat 19 X, which has the highest crime rates outside of homicides. And it doesn't matter what language you really speak. When you walk into when you walk onto East 12 or International 247, the experience is a harrowing one for not just the refugees who moved here fifty years after the Vietnam war, but the folks who are being trafficked, the young women, rain or shine. We say that Oakland is open for business, but this isn't the type of business that we can support. We say that we stand with victims and survivors of human trafficking, and yet we are approaching the January, and we still don't have this ordinance passed.

We are a week away from the Super Bowl. City of Oakland continues to celebrate the wonderful things that are happening with the collaboration of our council members, council member Wong, council member Brown, and the others for an AI economic zone, an activation zone, a little Saigon zone. But we can't do that as long as we are siloed right now. And two weeks ago, all of our communities came together as residents, as small businesses, as community organizers, as survivors and victims of self trafficking to come together and say this is not about one community, but a host of communities that are sinking because of exploitation of vulnerable communities. So we stand here on behalf of all of our communities to ask you to pass this ordinance so we not wait another day, another week to support those who are affected by this issue.

Hello. My name is Sway. I am from Shade Movement in support of prohibition of code nine zero eight two six zero. Sexually exploited victims need support, not punishment. Those who should be punished are buyers and traffickers. They are the root cause of this problematic issue. During outreach with Shave Movement, we give safe care bags and I have went to school with many of the girls that I see on the Oakland blade. They have always been known for their intelligence and their high capabilities but sometimes when you are vulnerable girls it can be very easily to be manipulated. They simply need help not judgment.

Hi, Sara Rai. I'm Sara Rai with Shave Movement. We're a survivor led organization. I support the city ordinance to address the demand of human bodies being sold for sex. This ordinance helps disrupt the buying of women and children on the streets of Oakland, the blade.

We're here to protect and hold those accountable that do harm and at the same time educate to change. This is a fresh start for the city of Oakland to truly address sex trafficking, commercial sexual exploitation, and provide effective services to victims and survivors. It's important that we build a sustainable survivor center ecosystem of prevention, intervention, and healing. We must reduce conditions that allow trafficking and exploitation to thrive in our city. Thank you.

Hi my name is Maribel Tadel and I'm a survivor shaped by the mental and physical realities of gender based violence in the Flats Of Oakland. We've long imposed I'm sorry it's my first time here.

You got it.

I'm gonna

start over. Sorry but

Can we restart the clock?

Name is Maribel Tadeo and I'm a survivor shaped by the mental and physical realities of gender based violence that the Flats Of Oakland have long imposed on its native residents. Today, I also stand before you as an advocate fighting for survivors of labor and human trafficking with shade movement. I have been given the opportunity to fight on the front lines alongside survivors supporting them as they navigate the systems that often fail to protect them. I'm here to voice my support for the recent change to the penal code that holds individuals who solicit sex accountable for their actions. Oakland's decision to implement this law immediately is both necessary and appropriate.

Accountability is essential. People must take responsibility for the harmful choices they make, especially when those choices contribute to exploitation, violence, and trafficking in our communities. This policy change is an important step towards addressing harm at its source and reinforcing Oakland's commitment to survive versus safety and dignity. I stand in full support of the law, of this law and its enforcement. Thank you.

Good afternoon. My name is Nolan Wong. I'm an ex business owner in the Little Saigon community as of last year. I I had been a business owner at my location on 9th And International for twenty six years. I'm here now as a community member because this area deserves better and still needs my support.

Among the many issues that this area deals with, sexual trafficking, as was stated, has exploded in the past few years, and it's been allowed to become the red light district in Little Saigon. And it brings a lot of bad elements to the area that make it extremely difficult for businesses and families. When it when when it was stated that it's a violent industry, it really is. In the past two years, I've had two attempted murders right at my intersection. Okay.

Cases where pimps were shooting at each other. It creates a dangerous environment, and I feel bad for the businesses that are still there, the residents that are still there, that have to deal with this outside of their doorsteps. Loyal customer, just last week, called me up and asked me, okay, because there's a commercial space open for rent. And she asked me, okay, about, you know, the price and everything. And one of her main concerns was actually, you know, as she put it, the ladies that were up and down her street.

And it was deterring her from opening up business there. So what can we do? Police have not been able to address this, and I know it's a problem that won't go away anytime soon, but we need to do what we can to discourage the trade. So I support council member Charlene's proposal on how to address this issue. It's not an issue that can just be ignored. Businesses and residents can't afford for it to be ignored. Thank you.

Good evening, council member Wing and all other council members. My name is reverend doctor Kenneth Anderson. I'm the senior pastor of the Williams Chapel Baptist Church located at 1410 10th Avenue. We are the first church on international and so much has taken place that has allowed me as a community leader, not just a pastor, to speak on this matter. Every week our members report seeing all of the installation and loitering for the purpose of buying sex and people being exploded right in front of our church and nearby businesses.

We are the godparents to Franklin Elementary School. Our church is building 67 units of affordable housing for seniors as well as a partnership now with Head Start. So we wanna make sure that we get this community better and striving and making sure that we know that our area needs to be safe. So I welcome the city's proposal shift towards focusing enforcement on buyers and traffickers. I recognize this has taken place throughout the bible days, I get that.

Some things we we cannot erase. However, we can be bold and we can also make it known that children should not see naked girls on the street. Men, women, seniors should not see all this violence taking place literally right in front of a church house, right in front of a clinic, right in front of a school. So we support what's being done on this day. Thank you.

Hello. First of all, I want to say thank you to Councilwoman Charlene and Bridget for creating this space for survivor voices and for also giving me this platform. I'm deeply honored to be here and to be included in this conversation. My name is Annabelle Velasquez, and I am a survivor of human trafficking, sexual assault, domestic violence, sexual exploitation. I'm here today not just for myself, but for so many survivors who wanted to be here and could not.

This meeting is during the workday, but they're trying to survive because the system hasn't exactly made it easy for their voices to be heard. So I'm speaking for them too. Survivors' voices have been muted for far too long. We've screamed into the darkness and nobody has listened. We were punished instead of protected. We are silenced instead of supported. But today, we actually have a chance to change that. I didn't need handcuffs. I needed help, safety, and a way out. This ordinance matters because it finally stops blaming the people being sold and starts holding the buyers and traffickers accountable.

It recognizes what survivors already know, that exploitation is not a choice. It's a survival is not consent and demand is what fuels trafficking. But here's what's important to understand. California's a b three seventy nine already allows law enforcement to arrest buyers and traffickers for loitering with the intent to buy sex. What Oakland is doing now is updating that municipal code to match a b three seventy nine so the city can do something very unique and wonderful.

This ordinance allows council member Wang to create fines for buyers, traffickers, and nuisance property owners and to put those fines directly into local victim and survivor services funds. That means the people that are creating them harm are the ones funding the healing, not the taxpayers. That is smart survivor centered policy and we already see that this approach worked. Just this month, OPD increased

Thank you for your comments. Your time is up.

Alright. Hello. My name is Chen Nguyen. I'm a former business owner in the Little Saigon District and a parent of a child who attended Franklin Elementary School, which is located a block away from the Blade and now goes to Roosevelt Middle School, still located in the San Antonio District. I currently work at Clinton Park located on 7th And International in the midst of the Blade.

For the past ten years, I've commuted up and down International Boulevard almost every day. I've watched our community change what used to be something you only saw at night, women dressed discreetly to hide what they were doing, is now out in the open all day long. Today, I see women in see through lingerie, high heels from the time I drop off my daughter to the time I pick her up. There's no filter anymore. This is this doesn't just affect one group, it affects everyone who lives and works here.

It impacts school enrollment. It forces parents to answer difficult questions from their children. It affects community programs that struggle to keep participants. It hurts local businesses because customers choose to shop and eat in other areas that don't have these issues. Our police beat, 19 X, has the highest crime rates of all of Oakland police beats for the past three years, largely because the blade is located in 19 X.

Now I know some of you up there may feel different about this ordinance, but and it's understandable because it doesn't affect you or your district. It only affects Little Saigon and San Antonio area within District 2. You don't see street level sex trafficking in Districts 143456, or 7, but you do in District 2. We live with it every day, every day. So we got ten seconds, but I wanna, you know, commend Charlene for bringing this issue forward and really talk about sex trafficking because it

Thank you for your comments.

I've asked my a team of advocates to join me that are involved in outreach on a daily basis and provide housing to survivors of human trafficking. My name is Vanessa Russell. I'm the founding executive director of Love Never Fails and so grateful to be here. A Bay Area study revealed that ninety four percent of sex trafficking victims are female, forty nine percent are minors, and seventy two percent are girls and women of color with the largest group being black. I think council member Wong has covered most of these stats but I'll reinforce the demand for sex has escalated.

Our streets are overrun with individuals being trafficked in front of schools and businesses in broad daylight. It is absolutely heartbreaking and it impacts us in so many ways. In 2024, there were fifty one human trafficking cases in District 2 alone. Ironically, sexual assault cases also grew at the same rate as human trafficking. That is not an anomaly.

Where you allow human trafficking, you increase sexual assault. Also, sex trafficking was contributing to the kidnapping of our children. In 02/2023, we were urging the city of, Oakland to declare a state of emergency because there were so many missing children. And in fact, council member Treva Reid pulled a report from OPD which said that there were 1,500 missing people of which 400 were black women. Human trafficking combined with Oakland's historical high poverty, homelessness and crime tell the story of a city, a beautiful city that needs a change.

Did you know also that seven percent of homicides in Oakland are attributed to gender based violence? So there is a cross section with all of these issues. And what I want to share with you is human trafficking survivors are being beaten, their ears torn, noses torn, stomped out, lost pregnancies, collapsed trachea, dislocated retinas, loss of hearing, head trauma. These $4,000 does not even begin to reach into the impact that is being done. I support.

Hi. Hi. Thank you. Blair Beekman. Thank you for this item.

I I had more to say. I can't remember what I was gonna say, unfortunately, but I do I I was a basic thought that I'm living in San Diego now. They work on their trafficking issues a lot. There's a lot of issues in coming up from the border that is should be of interest in how to consider trafficking issues. And originally being from the San Jose area, think their their county, Santa Clara County has done some really good work on human trafficking issues that as you're addressing this item today can be a really good resource and reference to work with them and communicate with them about best practices.

They've been doing some important work in trafficking things. So I just thought I'd mention that. Thank you for your time. Good luck.

I want to compliment you. Everything about what you're trying to do is correct. The only issue I have is it's not complete. What I mean by that is, once you identify certain changes or mending of codes, as well as adding fines and enforce where's the enforcement? The component of enforcement, how it takes place.

If necessary, what has to be provided in terms of services and programs, okay? My biggest issue with a lot that we attempt to do, it's a lot of times it's not being done right. And, let me give you an example. In 2018, there was the beginning of an attempt to help girls 12 to 17 to have safe living spaces from six to 18. It was called Clare House.

It was supported by then district attorney and Catholic charities. It was placed in a it was supposed to be placed in an area that was not the right place to have it. It was on the site of an elementary school where they were going to con a Catholic school that was now a charter school and was converted converting a nun's house into a safe space. Very inappropriate. It never opened because the proper licensing wasn't done by Catholic charities.

Lot of money went into it, nothing ever happened. And, I see this happen a lot. We have opportunities to get work done for whatever cause and it's not done right. And then we don't get what we need to happen as results. Lastly, I wanna say when police officers are here, they have to be given the opportunity to come before you because we have a shortage of officers.

Thank you for your comments, miss Olubala. If your name was called and you would still like to speak on this item, please come up to the podium or raise your hand on Zoom.

My name is Nancy Morton, live in District 1. I've offered to help you, Charlene, with this problem. I can't raise money, I can't do any of these things, but I can house somebody that needs respite care.

Hello, everyone. My name is Latoya Gicks. I am the the executive director of Divine Interventions Inc and one of the founding members of the Bring Them Home Initiative. And this funding is extremely in this ordinance, it's extremely important because the Bring Them Home Initiative is about the missing and exploited youth and we go all throughout the state of California looking for a lot of them and a lot of the things that we run into is cost with funding. When we need to relocate them and put them in a hotel, we need funding. When we need to take them and fly them back to their homes, we need funding. When we need to put them in a new location because they know where all their family lives and they know where their house is, they need funding. So I just wanted to say that and I appreciate you guys in this time. Thank you so much.

Thank you for your comments. Sure. All names have been called and that concludes all speakers.

Okay. Great. I did wanna actually address some of the public comments right off the bat. There was a question around how are we thinking about transportation and trafficking. I will say separate from this effort that I am working with community groups such as EBC to think through how we can use crime prevention through environmental design to look at International Boulevard in terms of what are the the things that we can do like closing down side streets.

So buyer behavior that often relies on driving into the grid system that is in place to force them into the light so to speak. Using just track transportation interventions to shut down those side streets. I also wanted to discuss a little bit about the fine amounts and how we landed on those. Essentially I sought out, I sought to maximize those fine amounts in a way that would not trigger a potential challenge in in the court. So that was something that our city attorney's office had told us is that if we go too high that this would trigger a challenge and so those were the amounts that we were to get.

And by using tools such as per violation, per day, per victim, we can maximize just the fine amounts that would ultimately go to survivor services. Okay. Council member Brown, you have a question?

Absolutely. So comment first. I think I just wanted to just really thank all of the members of the public who came whether it was a personal testimony or just talking through the experience of just kind of living in and around this type of environment. And then also wanted to thank you Councilmember Wong for just your courage and your leadership and really trying to address this issue. I think many of you may know that prior to me stepping into this role I did have the opportunity to work alongside Assemblyman Robonta in the legislature and I just think that and you know yes we're talking about Oakland but we know that this issue is you know throughout the state of California and I think I've just found that you know not too many legislators really have the courage to try to address this issue.

And there have there has been some baby steps if you would in trying to address the matter such as AB what is it seven three, seven, nine. And so I guess that kind of leads to my questions that I have. I know that you mentioned that OPD does need to leave so I will start off with questions directly to OPD. I also have a finance question, also a question

to

the DVP if they happen to be available as well. But I guess just to jump start I am you know curious you know how this piece of legislation really interacts with AB seven thirty nine and if OPD could actually walk us through this enforcement process when it comes to just identifying the violators all the way through like the assessment of the fines.

That sounds good. And this, in essence, this is a, the administrative fines will sit in parallel similar to how we do have for example with illegal dumping. There's a misdemeanor crime for illegal dumping but there's also the administrative fines that we have. But I will turn it over to OPD to talk through how this would be enforced.

Good afternoon everyone. Marcos Campos. I'm the lieutenant of police in charge of the special victim section, oversees the human trafficking unit, the vice child exploitation unit. 653.25 that was signed in through a b 379JanuaryFirst2026. So it has the same elements as the ordinance.

Obviously, the ordinance hasn't been signed yet. But for six fifty three two five, we began the process of training the officers as new law. We created a PowerPoint that was approved by the district attorney's office. After that, we did line up training with all of the patrol officers. And after that, for all of the patrol officers that work in Area 3 District 2, we actually had the vice officers ride with them in the uniform capacity to show them what to look for.

They to fulfill the elements of the crime, the vice officers have specialized training that allows them to recognize sex trafficking. So it enabled these officers to to be able to understand and the correct lens and to conduct enforcement. With the ordinance coming in play, once it does get signed in, we would do the same process. The plan is to do another PowerPoint, provide the training, and then do physical ride alongs with the vice unit where they would they would get a so once they would identify identify the the behavior, behavior, they have the option of arresting individuals taking to Santa Rita Jail for $6.53 $2.05. They also have the ability to cite them because this is under the ordinance they would get a citation.

So they could do and or both. They'd have the citation and I think we've begun discussions on how the administrative process would communicate with the district attorney's office. But they have the ability to do both, to enact both and enforce both.

Excellent. Thank you for that kind of detailed explanation. And so would there actually, I know you said you know teeing up a PowerPoint to complete the training

but would there actually be a standard operating

teeing procedure? And the reason why I'm asking that because you know you know I've lived here my whole life and some of us know that yes at this time this is happening in District 2 but we also know that prior to that it was also in another part of the city of Oakland, right, when it came to sex trafficking. And I guess I'm curious how do we ensure that all of our officers are you know operating and have an understanding of you know I guess what the vice team knows around the vice and the team that specifically is working in and around this this space in this area to make sure that they're every officer I guess is trained properly?

So every officer when they do get this training they have to sign off on it. It's called the power DMS. So it's our it's our training portal. So every officer has to understand and then we do a physical lineup where every officer has the opportunity to ask questions. We have had the six fifty three two five enforcement ramp up this year already. Already. So we've made 30 arrests. There's been zero complaints. There have been zero issues with racial profiling. And 70% of the suspects that have been arrested have been from outside of Oakland as well.

So 30% has been from Oakland residents and we've admonished. So you've read the rights to each suspect and given them an opportunity to give an explanation on on the arrest of you know, so there is an opportunity for officers to make discretion if there's if there's any reason that they legally were suspected of, you know, committing this activity and there's an illegally legal binding reasons behind it. So we do offer an opportunity for the subjects that get arrested to to provide. And there has been occasions, I've seen in myself several times with investigators that if they do find a legal reason to let someone go they will let them go.

Mhmm. And then how what does collaboration look like with the with the DA's office?

So most of these cases, 30 arrests, because they're misdemeanors, they are due for arraignment I believe February. All of these arrests, these 30 arrests, they're due in February as of right now. The DA's office has a team looking into the cases but they have not specifically charged any of them.

Okay. I see. And then you do you have an understanding and then maybe council member Wong you know the answer to this but since AB seven thirty nine kind of creates this state fund and then now we're operating with this potential ordinance will will folks be paying into both of the funds with the fees?

It's going to be, for example if the DA does not charge then this would be a tool that is then invoked so basically they would be paying into the city fund instead. And the reason that this is actually important is because A, this is really something that's going to assure that the funds go to our local state organization or sorry, excuse me, local organizations. The state fund, that has no there is absolutely no guarantee that any of those funds that are happening at AV 379 are gonna go to help the survivors that are happening, that are there on the blade, right? So that's one thing. But yeah that's just one important thing.

And then b, because that is a misdemeanor arrest very often just as as I had pointed out before, very few purchasers are actually being charged especially with the backlog court system and so having an administrative process is actually going to allow for more certain accountability.

And I guess just I'm going to ask the question again. So basically for these penalties not only so not only do they pay into our local survivor support fund but they also have to pay pay a fine that is going to support the state as well. I think it would depend on how the

officers charge them, right? And so but very often it would actually, if the DA does not charge they would not be paid to that state fund and so the funds would they would only be charged with local citation. I see

and then what is the and I know you know AB three seventy nine you know just just got signed signed into law and implemented and we're working on this. But what is the what is the outcome if these fines aren't paid?

If they are not paid, so it would actually go to finance department to handle through collections and this is again part of how we set the fines amount but those individuals would be taken to small claims court. Interesting and then what happens, you aware of what happens with AB three seventy nine when someone doesn't pay those fines? Like a hotel you able to comment on that?

So like council member Wong brought up that you basically cannot charge both of them. It has to be one or the other. And in 2025, I'm going roughly around my numbers. I think we had around 51 misdemeanor arrests and I think only one was charged to the district attorney's office. And that's through six forty seven b.

That's our solicitation for prostitution. As far as the the collection of the fines, when it comes to the criminal courts, right now the trend that I was being told is through the criminal courts, Most of these misdemeanors are not getting charged and even if they do get charged, the judge can opt for them to get diversion and they would not pay any funds that go through the state. So the local ordinance was, I think is the one that mandates you to pay but that state fund doesn't necessarily receive anything if the judge upfront at arraignment orders diversion.

Okay. Alright. I think I think I think I get that. Okay. Sounds good. Thank you so much. I'm not sure if my colleague has any questions for OPD. I do still have a couple more questions but I can pause at this moment. Okay. Council Member Houston.

Through the chair. Thank you Council Member Brown. How is the OPD working with the Alameda County Sheriff?

Through the sheriff's department, they when it comes to human trafficking, the Oakland Police Department conducts their own vice human trafficking operations. The sheriff's department, even though they oversee the county, they don't they do not commit in any enforcement operations in our city. They do they're routine patrols. They sometimes do high visibility policing around International Boulevard but they are not part of human trafficking operations.

So again, this is to chair Wong. The the this polish under this a b seven I mean, three seventy nine passed and amended by the governor at 07:30 twenty five. Right? And it was went into effect 01/01/2026. Why why couldn't we just enforce this because it came down from the governor instead of doing what we're doing here. I'm just saying could it have been done? So

I'm of the opinion it's a both and. So that is absolutely this is gonna and we've been working with OPD to enforce the new state provision that is the AB three seventy nine but he just provided the charge rate. It's just because given the level of cases that we see many of those cases don't get charged. And as I said before, through the state fund, this is the state law, there is no guarantee that those funds are going to be used to get the women and girls that are on international off of the streets. That's it goes to a state pool, right?

There's many other cities that are challenged in California with this problem. We've got LA, San Diego, Sacramento that we're all competing for that same set of funds And you know we do need to address. We do need more services here in Oakland that can you know take the women and girls that we see on international out of this industry.

Through the chair, yes. But the they're victims. I mean, we should be going after the buyers and the traffickers because it says here in assembly bill number three seventy nine punishable by a misdemeanor imprisonment in the county jail not for more than one year but not to exceed $10,000. It says something really good here or what does this mean? Or a felony by imprisonment in the county jail.

That's why when I say county jail, was wondering how we were working with the sheriff For sixteen months or two or three years we need to send they butts to jail. Right? You heard the lady that come up and said $10,000 is nothing. Right? So why are we implementing this bill three seventy nine as it stands? I don't I don't understand it. Do we just need training because it just was

So it is being implemented. Lieutenant Campos, do you want to speak to the implementation of AB three seventy nine? So it is being implemented but so often people fall through the cracks and this is the this is the purpose of the municipal ordinance because as we know you know something can be on the books that doesn't mean it's gonna be enforced. So it's creating another tool.

So the chair so where is it for campaigning for like putting them on blast? Like you know how do we put these people that are committing these crimes, buyers and traffickers on these billboards. Just put them on blast, embarrassment and in jail. So is that is that something that we're gonna be doing?

Yeah. I mean, we definitely wanna look into that. I will say that we are bumping up against some first amendment rights and so let's work on that in the future council member Houston but I do ask for just for the focus to be on this particular ordinance for this discussion and passing this.

Oh yeah we're gonna pass it. I'm just saying I want to be able to.

Sounds good.

Sounds good. Yeah.

I just I just wanna this has been going on way too long and like council member Brown said it was on San Pablo for a while, moved down to East 14th, he went forward then it's now over in your district. So it's just moving around. It's where the hot spots there or where they can take advantage more. Right? Certain areas, they can't come and do it the same way they can do it in Little Saigon because they they bullies. Right? So on that note, I'll let council member Brown take you take you back. I got one more question after you council member Brown.

Excellent. And and I think that leads me to my next question that's just around enforcement. You know I continue to be 100% concerned for the victims right that are enduring this. And so I guess one, do you have an example of how like of those 30 arrests or do you have any examples of how we are holding like the hotels and motels accountable? I know that kind of outlined in this ordinance you know there will be a penalty.

So I kind of have a question. Yes I'm curious about that and then I guess like you know what does it look like if this you know in a way goes underground right? Whether you know maybe it's observed that you know this is taking place in a in homes or apartments. How does this new ordinance kind of interact with that dynamic?

So we conduct so primarily Oakland unfortunately is an open r open air sex market where most of our prostitution, where the sex workers are being manipulated onto Oakland City streets on international Opposed to other cities like Hayward where most of their activity occurs in the hotels. So if it does go, the activity moves to brothels or hotels, My vice team is prepared to do operations into those hotels and be able to seek these buyers or to try to rescue sex workers. But but most of our violence, most of our activity still occurring in open air.

I see. And and do you feel that your current team has the operational capacity to really move forward with with the work that's needed kind of in passing this ordinance?

Based on the operational tempo we have right now, we have in January, we were doing two operations a month. I'm sorry. Two operations a week for the month. That's what created the 30 arrests. Moving forward, obviously staffing is always is gonna be a challenge but I think our team is up for the challenge and we're also talks of trying to be involved in a county task force moving forward.

And I've discussed with chief Beer the enforcement of this ordinance would actually also go to the patrol team and that is there on you know the blade every single day, every single day. So it wouldn't just be limited to the vice operations unit but the vice operations unit as Lieutenant Campos has explained is critical to training the patrol unit to make sure that you know they understand the buyer behavior to enforce this ordinance.

Okay and then I think the other question that I had was you know how does this ordinance really kind of integrate into Oakland's existing violence prevention and kind of like youth supportive strategies and services. So I don't know if there is any feedback like from the DVP. Like did you get a chance to talk with Doctor. Joshi

this Yeah, absolutely. Don't know if Doctor. Joshi is here but she has been a member of the task force and we've also had discussions on just how early you know we wanted to make sure that this ordinance or I'll speak for myself. I want to see this ordinance pass first and then our next step once this passes is to work with the DBP to figure out the types of services that we would want to fund with this and to in particular fill gaps. So I am of the philosophy that unfortunately the resources are scarce and so the goal is not I know unfortunately I don't have a better analogy but we can't have like the gold Cadillac for every victim but really it's about figuring out how we can design services that can reach as many people as possible especially on the blade.

Hi, good afternoon. I'm here for any questions about the DVP.

Excellent. Yeah I would know would love your thoughts and feedback. My question was you know how does this ordinance really integrate some of Oakland's existing kind of violence prevention and you know strategies already in place to help support victims. And correct me if I'm wrong perhaps maybe last year there was a grant that we supported that supports like love never fails and I think there was a couple nonprofits and so just kind of wanted to get your feedback.

Yes, absolutely. Thank you for that question through the chair. Currently the Department of Violence Prevention is funding over 10 community based organizations, some of them working together under one grant scope of work and some of them with their own independent contracts. But our current investment is $3,800,000 for the year. That is what council signed off on that you're speaking of and that funds crisis navigation, hotlines, life coaching, emergency housing, transitional housing, healing supports, and legal services to include some of the organizations that were in here today speaking about trafficking.

So love never fails, family Violence Law Center, Young Women's Freedom Center, SHADE, the LGBTQ Center, Mujeres Unidas, sister to sister, Ruby's Place, Covenant House, Andy Bacy. Excellent.

Thank you. And then I guess maybe my last point on this is, Chair Wong, how do you intend to receive, like how can, yeah, how do you intend to receive data and updates

on the work? Yeah, so that's actually something that I will be introducing an amendment and I would urge my colleagues, I want to every day that this doesn't get passed means another day that we're not using this opportunity to enforce this ordinance and actually again collecting funds that could fund survivors services. But I will be introducing an amendment if this goes to full counsel to just speak to having a report both on how the funding is being used because we do need some transparency around that. And then also you know who is being arrested as it relates to $3.79 and then who's being fined as it relates to this ordinance.

Yes I think my rec and I can send you this in writing but I think my recommendation would be just a informational report maybe every six months and I can send you a note of what parameters and maybe demographics or just information that we should include in that report.

Sounds good. Council member Houston.

Through the chair I'll finish up and I'm ready to move move it. I wanted to ask DC Tedesco that's I I really respect that officer so much. Is he around? I'm not putting you on the spot, officer Tedesco, but I just always love your input on everything because you so you know, is this bringing clarity to being able to apprehend these buyers to stop the sex trafficking with these children? I know it's not a fix all but I just wanna get your input on it because I respect when you when you speak.

Through the chair, I'm deputy chief Anthony Tedesco. And, yes, I believe this is an additional tool, to help, I think. There needs to be criminal penalty for this behavior, but there needs to be additional mechanisms for a system that when we're seeing 30 arrests and we're seeing a gap in charging, we need additional mechanisms for the city to be able to pursue penalty for the people that are doing this injustice in our city. I see this very similar, as to, I think it was referenced earlier, to the penalty system for illegal dumping. We can pursue criminal charges, but we can also pursue civil penalty so that the city can recoup the cost and repair the damage.

Thank you to the chair again. Those additional mechanisms and gaps, can you just not right here, but give us some input because you you on the ground, you're the one. You know what's going on. Can you give us those those additional mechanism and and and gaps so we can add that later?

Through the chair. I will continue to work on this issue. Absolutely.

Thank you. Thank you Tedesco.

You ready

for motion to move this?

Thank you. And I'll second that.

Thank you. We have a motion made by council member Houston, seconded by chair Wong. To approve the recommendation of staff and to forward this item to the February 3 city council agenda On roll, council members Brown? Aye. Council member Fife is excused. Council member Houston? Aye. And chair Wong? Aye. Thank you. Item number four passes with three ayes, one excused five to forward this item to the February 3 city council agenda on consent. Now reading in item number three. Received the twenty twenty four to twenty twenty five annual information report from the community policing advisory board and we do have five speakers that signed up for this item.

Let's Felicia, if you're able to go ahead and present. Thank you.

Good afternoon council member Wong and members of the committee. I'm Felicia Burden, assistant to the city administrator and I want to introduce Colleen Brown who is a chair of the community policing advisory board. She the community policing advisory board is providing their annual report. Chair Brown has been involved with community policing for many years and is an expert in the area. She's a neighborhood watch block captain, a neighborhood council chair, and and very engaged in this work. I also want to introduce the vice chair of the community policing advisory board Jacqueline Long and I will turn it over to them to make their presentation. Thank you.

I wanted to thank you for giving the opportunity to speak to you today on and give the community policing advisory board. My name is Colleen Brown, and I am the current chairperson of the Community Policing Advisory Board. I'm a forty year resident of Oakland, but I've been involved on and off in public safety and other entities for, thirty years. You have before you, you have a report but I will be giving a presentation which summarizes our needs and what we would like. It's just a summary.

The community policing's mission and annual focus is mainly we are an advocate for robust community policing.

Oh, council member Houston, we you can bring your lunch to the dais.

So we're an advocate for a robust community policing and engagement. We represent our 46 neighborhood councils and over 800 neighborhood watch and merchant watches. The purpose of our annual report is to highlight the key actions, challenges, and recommendations for Oakland. This report is long overdue. I don't recall when we had our last one, but I believe it might have been before the pandemic.

So in that regard, we are out of our own the resolution. And we are have a commitment to community partnerships. We want to strengthen and collaborate with the city council, OPD and our local stakeholders. Community policing as it sits now was adapted first in 1995. Resolution 72,727 established community policing as the city policy.

The ex in 2005, the resolution was expanded which defined the roles of the block neighborhood and the city's levels. And it mandated certain key components name namely the neighborhood councils, the community policing advisory board, community policing officers now known as community resource officers, and neighborhood watch and merchant watch. All of these entities are to work together to solve, common, goals. It is a three tiered community safety of citywide neighborhood and block levels which coordinate efforts. It's driven at the base at the block level which is supposed to feed into the neighborhood councils and which work together with the city agencies and OPD.

The key roles and responsibilities are filled by the CPAB, our neighborhood councils, the CROs, the neighborhood watch, and the block captains. They all drive the engagement. However, in 2025, the neighborhood services division was disbanded where everyone was laid off. And the loss of neighborhood services coordinates has affected our support and equity. Despite our setbacks, the community policing has reorganized in order to get back to our root focus of supporting the neighborhood councils and neighborhood watchers.

In 2024, 2025, we've had strategic planning retreat where we were trained and we established our 2025 goals. The CP we have enhanced neighborhood engagement where we've assigned all the community policing advisory board members to observe neighborhood council meetings and report back on what they see and what their struggles and what they need. We've also improved in our enhanced relationships mainly in trying to build relationships getting email lists and stuff. And we have found out that the email list that the city had was woefully inadequate. So we were sending emails to people who are no longer active in their neighborhoods or even we don't even necessarily have active for the neighborhood council leaders.

The community policing advisory board, we reestablished our committees in order to better serve our stakeholders. And we have begun the long awaited neighborhood council recertification. This is a triannual process in which we will we have a form in which we contact all the neighborhood councils and we ask them information. We show that they're in compliance with seven nine two three five. They have bylaws.

They have elections in their outreach and we're also solicit questions on what their needs are. The challenges facing community policing. This we have had significant staff reductions and with this neighborhood services division eliminated and OPDs and the seed CROs temporarily disbanded. City has eliminated the neighborhood council funding. Previously, we had a $50,000 towards neighborhood council funds, but that has been eliminated.

And the breakdown in communication is caused by the the loss of the neighborhood services division, and it's disrupted the coordination between neighborhood councils and the city agencies. And we have reduced support for our leadership. We have no staff to assist the neighborhood council leadership, no staff for neighborhood watch block captains and neighborhood watch steering committee leaders. So if someone wants to form a neighborhood watch, there is no active phone number. So there is no way to to gain more.

Or if a person wants to telephone to get in touch with their neighborhood council, that is also not working at all.

If we could just let the presenter continue. Okay.

So the impact of the neighborhood services division is we have no staff for community coordination. The 46 neighborhood councils and the 800 neighborhood watch groups are lacking city support. When they abruptly eliminated these, we had a loss of the records. So we have neighborhood councils who no longer have their email lists. So continuing onward and forward with their neighborhood council meetings has been a problem.

And unfortunately, these are the neighborhoods that probably need the most and that's underserved area where they need where the neighborhood services coordinator was doing most of the work. And among the neighborhood councils that we had questioned all responded saying that the loss of the neighborhood services division was their biggest setback. With regards to our CROs there have been significant reductions in the CROs. The CROs have decreased from 57 which was in the original resolution down to 35 down to eight where we currently have zero citywide. No commune and this leads to strained community relationships and no CROs has weakened engagement with the neighborhoods.

The frequent reassignment of CROs is is a problem because it diverts it to noncommunity policing duties, And there's been challenges for neighborhood councils. They're with difficulty addressing priorities and concerns. It's frustrating because now we have neighborhood councils who basically saying if there's no money and no CROs coming to their meetings why should we continue? And I don't want to see this go forward. Additionally, among the CPAB, we have had persistent board vacancies.

We have six open positions including mayoral and agency reps. This has impacted our the board functionality and it hinders the ability to have a quorum and delays key decisions. And we have an urgency for appointments to expedite the selection appointment and council approval needed to restore our full board capacity. So what we would like you to do with the city council is reaffirm your commitment to community policing. We want to strengthen adherence to resolution 79,235.

Also, we would like to integrate community policing in the safety planning. We want to partner with OPSBAC, which is the Measure NN Oversight Board to ensure community engagement is central. We would like to restore and reassign staff support for neighborhood councils and neighborhood watch. We want to head hire dedicated staff to assist neighborhood councils and neighborhood watch merchant and block captains. And we would also like you to reinstate funding for neighborhood councils and to allocate 50,000 annual for the operations and outreach.

We would like to request a minimum of $85,000 for staff support. The 85,000 is for a PSD two. 50,000 is for neighborhood council operations. And one of our mandates of the community policing advisory board is we are supposed to co sponsor the annual safety summit. And at this point, there is no money, no resources, so we are unable to do it.

So we would like you to give us support in which we can work together with you and the mayor in order to reinstate the summit. The key takeaways and next steps, community policing is did I miss one? Oh, I did. Okay. Action items.

We want to allocate funding and hire staff, assign CROs to every beat, and we want to ensure the community resource officers attend the neighborhood council meetings and address the priorities. Again, reinstate the neighborhood council funds and engagement support. And we want to cooperate with OPSBAC on safety planning to integrate community policing into their four year safety plan. The key takeaway, community policing is a foundation for safety. It empowers residents to address local concerns collaboratively.

We want to restore the critical resources by reinstating staff and funding and its essential free effective engagement. We want to strengthen our board in partnership and we want need to fill our vacancies and partner with the city council. And we believe that will revitalize our efforts. And we are asking for council action to help rebuild community trust and participation. And we hope to be back sometime later this year with an update on another report.

Because like I said, it was far overdue and we have to be answerable to you and our neighborhood council community. And myself and Jackie are here to answer any questions that you may have.

Okay. Colleagues, any questions? Council member Houston.

So to the chair for the public, can you share what a CRO is?

A community resource officer.

Okay. Yeah. Because, you know, I when I used to hear all those acronyms, I'd be like, what are they talking about? So so people are clear. How do we interact how do you interact with let me look this up real quick. We have the community policing oversight. We have the community policing review agency. We have the community advisory board. We have the police commission. We also have the office of the inspector general. We got all these police police police. How are we all inner inner inter acting? I mean, are we working together?

Each of those groups actually has a specific focus. So ideally they should all be intertwined but they kind of have their own lane to speak. The measure and oversight for example is primarily going to be in the funding aspect as far as well as programs. Even though measure n n does mention community policing, there's only five members in that board. There's no way that they can be overseeing and working with the neighborhood councils, neighborhood watch and make recommendations.

That's why we want to collaborate with them. With regards to the police commission, they're involved with overall greater leasing strategies, not necessarily in the depths of the neighborhoods. Although they do have a subcommittee on community policing, they just are not really asking for it. Am I answering your question?

Yeah. You are. It's too many. And we need to come together and have, you know, one group that's gonna do it where it's like this, that, this, so to the chair anyway. That's all I wanted to say. I'm looking at all these committees but yeah.

Well, in our report, I didn't mention it but we are asking to reinstate something that was at least when it was the previous rendition of measure n where the police commission, the CPAB, the city council would all meet together to talk about a common issue at least once a year.

Yes.

And we're asking that you continue that.

Okay.

Not it's not necessarily mentioned with measure n n but I would highly recommend that that we do something together to address common issues.

Right. Right. To the judge. Hey, Jackie. How are you, miss Jackie? You want something to say?

I just wanted to mention with the police commission also. I know in the before they were actually organized, it was the citizens police review board and they actually were more discipline focused where the police commission took a broader picture. So they started doing a little bit more but I do wanna say with their community policing subcommittee that was something that the citizens police review board did not have in the past. And the Community Policing Advisory Board took the lead when it came to community policing in Oakland working with the neighborhood councils, working with Neighborhood Watch and Merchant Watch.

But to the chair, we don't have neighborhood council any longer though. I mean, know the neighborhood, NSCs, yeah.

We don't have correct. They were eliminated last April if I remember right. And so one of the things that we did ask for in this report was staff support. One of the staff was reassigned to department of transportation and so instead of hiring, I know that the police department has they would be willing if that person was transferred from Department of Transportation back to the police department, the full position was transferred back. Then you would have a staff person who is already trained on training neighborhood watch groups, training merchant watch groups.

He is a trained CPTED inspection. He does he's trained to do CPTED inspections. And so that position was transferred back where the Oakland Police Department had previously had oversight of neighborhood watch, merchant watch, and the neighborhood councils and neighborhood services coordinators in the past. You would have a staff person who could interface because right now there's nobody to interface with the with the neighborhood watch, merchant watch and the neighborhood councils.

So to the chair, you guys hear all that knowledge? That's why she just got reappointed. So thank you.

I'm sorry sir. If you have a comment you have to go up to make public comment. Okay. Excuse me. Order in the chamber. Councilmember Brown.

Okay. Excellent. Yes. Thank you so much for this report. You know, I had the opportunity to work pretty closely with Creighton.

I'm sure you all know Creighton. And you know I and during the pandemic I know he worked really hard to really support and make sure that the various, you know, neighborhood groups, you know, had everything that they they needed, right? And so I know that at this time you know just given you know financial difficulties you know that the city has had you know there were various cuts made. But I recognize that the work that you know the neighborhood groups, know the NSCs, the CROs that you all were able to do in community. This is like the community link to just the various issues that are happening in our city and it really helps departments, council staff to get an understanding of what's happening right.

And you kind of have that in line to really express what the needs are. And so I think that you're know, I think that your timing is perfect, right, as we go into the mid cycle. And so if anything I think that the report really stated very clearly what some of the asks were, right? And so I think maybe one question, I have one question. Just curious I know you made the recommendation around I guess kind of engaging with the committee that is set to allocate funds and create a program plan under measure NN.

I guess I'm just curious to see if you all have had the opportunity to meet with that committee and introduce yourselves. And then I think also as we approach the mid cycle you know really reaching out you know right now on public safety you just have three of my counsel just myself and two of my other counsel colleagues. But I think more than anything just really making sure you outreach to every single council member and just you know even sharing this report yes it's on Legistar but you know just making sure that they have an understanding of the gap and what your specific asks are and then seeing But as I mentioned you know we know that we have some fiscal restraints at this time right? But I do think that your presentation and your ask were just, they were quite clear. And so on that note you know just making sure that the advocacy continues around why you know whether it's the NSCs, the CROs or just even the funding that went to support the neighborhood councils why it was so crucial.

Order in the chamber, go ahead.

I am hoping to rectify and actually start meeting with the neighborhood with the you council members because it is a partnership and, there are members of the community policing advisory board who represent each of your districts. And minimally I would be hoping that they would be meeting with their respective appointing authority. Yeah.

I was gonna say I just think that, you know, I've received feedback that a lot of the neighborhood councils you know I think it goes to the larger question of you know they don't feel supported in this moment right with some of the efforts right. There's no CROs that's coming to the meetings and there's no the neighborhood services coordinators were very just well situated in the various communities that they were representing, right, to really help support. And so there's just some missing links at this time and so I think more than anything as I mentioned as we approach the mid cycle just really picking up that advocacy and putting it on the minds of all of our colleagues on the council.

Okay. Sorry. Sir this is your third warning. Please I I will have you removed if please. You can make public comment. We have an open forum but please no spontaneous commentary. Okay I do have a couple of questions. Is actually D. C. Tedesco still here?

Thanks Eti. So I know one thing that I think would be helpful for the public and for counsel to understand is we all know that we have an understaffing crisis but why do the CROs, why do those positions get cut? And that was something that was highlighted in the report.

Through the chair, the police department's core function is 911 So when people of the community call 911, it is the duty of the police department to respond. So we must staff our patrol division to be able to keep up with the volume of 911 calls. And we have seen, based on city auditor report and state and state report, that the police department is falling behind, though I think we have improved recently on our 911 response. And so we cannot allow our patrol division to go understaffed. Additionally, there is a duty of the police department to then follow-up on the reports that our patrol division has taken.

When we go out and take a report because somebody is the victim of a crime, that then goes to our criminal investigations division for follow-up. We must staff investigators to be able to actually follow-up on the crime when there are pleads available so that arrests can be made, so that evidence can be recovered, so that property can be returned, so that justice can be done. Preliminary investigation alone is often insufficient to have a case criminally prosecuted. So it needs follow-up investigation, and that is the job of our of our criminal investigations division. And in in current situations, both are understaffed and understaffed to a point where we have trimmed specialized units across the police department and to the point where our community resource officers were just no longer able to staff it.

It is something that we believe in for all of the reasons that have been listed here today, but it is just something that we cannot currently staff and support nine one one and follow-up criminal investigation.

Yeah. That makes sense to me and given that we recently got a report from the city auditor's office on our lengthy 911 wait times that is of the utmost importance. I would say that it's fair to say that understaffing of the police department directly undermines our ability to do community policing. Yeah. One question I have for the board is given that the understaffing is what undercuts our ability to do community policing.

Are you all undergoing an effort to help us recruit police officers? And if not, I'd like to request that you do that because I think it's just incumbent on especially given that we want community policing, we need more officers to have community policing.

I don't think that's anything that we're opposed to.

Okay. Well that's great and I'll definitely reach out and see how we can partner on that since the police recruitment is something that I've been engaged on. My other question is just some of the recommendations that you all made. You noted the police service technician level two being something needed. Is that just one position that you're saying is needed to staff

your all efforts? At this moment we were requesting the one position because currently there is someone who's fully trained who again who was transferred from neighborhood services when it was eliminated to the Department of Transportation. And so he would be able to come in and be able to work at the police department as a fully trained staff and already knows what to do with Neighborhood Watch, Merchant Watch, and with the neighborhood councils.

Okay. That's helpful. Historically, has there been more than just one?

Correct. Okay. I think when they were disbanded, and I apologize because I don't know the exact numbers, but I believe that there was one manager who was housed in the City Administrator's Office. Well they were all in the city administrator's Office, let me correct myself. But there was a manager, two supervisors, and if I remember right there were four neighborhood services coordinators, two police service technicians, and one administrative assistant.

And of course we would love to have more positions. We'd love to have all of them back or even more because in the beginning when it originally started there were 19 neighborhood services coordinators. There were plans to hire 25. But as the budget has just the budget has impacted the hiring and unfortunately staffing decreased over the years.

Okay. Gotcha. Understood. Okay. I know we have oh, council member Brown.

And then I just wanted to provide some clarity. I know that a couple of the NSCs that and of course through the chair to the administration if administrator Navarro Navarro knows but it's my understanding that the NSCs that were moved to other departments are operating in different roles under that umbrella. I know of one who's currently with the Department of Transportation and doing functions that are specific to that particular role not equal to kind of what they were doing in the past. And so it would be under and I think it's a specific funding source to which they are being paid as well. And so I don't know if there's the ability to actually like transfer them back to you know then do an additional role.

But I'm happy to add more. I asked a lot of questions about this during the budget last year so I'm happy to update you as well council member Wong. And then I think just for clarity council member Houston, think the report this is simply an informational report. So we would just be receiving and filing it. But when you look at the last page of the report there's a list of like seven or eight I guess asks that the CPAB wants us to keep in mind. I would say as we approach the mid cycle just in summary. So I will make a motion to receive and file this report in committee.

Okay. Great. We do have some public comments so let's move to that before we take a vote on this. Council member Houston?

And I'll second that, but, DC Tedesco had mentioned some things is what he mentioned is in the back for he asked because I heard him asking. I just couldn't follow it all the way. He had mentioned some stuff that he needed, and I wasn't

yeah. Go ahead. I believe he I think the question that council member Wong prompted, the chief was Yeah the chief was just adding clarity that at this time given OPD staffing levels it's challenging to actually like have CROs. Right. That's The the

ask is really that we need to hire more police.

Right. So we got the budget coming around so we gotta listen, hear what he's saying so

Which you know in in my understanding we've allocated you know for the police academies and various things so we've got to build up our police force and I think that that is

the goal and also I would say need to figure out some of the holdups. One thing that my office and myself have been looking at is because for example that academy marketing for the academy that we had gotten as a budget amendment, it has still not been spent. And it's in part because there have been issues with procurement. I don't know, Sofia if you're able to speak to any of that but things that we need to work on urgently that way when we fund those academies there's actually individuals in it.

Thank you.

And also which is why my request to you is you all help us because it actually will further your own goals around community policing. Okay. I do wanna listen to the public comment so let's move to that. Calling in the

names that signed up to speak on item number three. In no particular order, you can come up to the podium or if you hear your name and you're on Zoom, please raise your hand. Asada Olubala, Blair Beekman, Donald Dalky, Rajnimandal, and Jennifer Finley.

Yes, good afternoon. Hopefully some of my testimony will help address why this agency is different than those other agencies we talked about. My name is Donald Dalky and I live in Maxwell Park. I'm also a board member on the Maxwell Park Neighborhood Council. And I served with Creighton on the CPAB several years ago.

The report is an excellent report. I think it documents all the issues tremendously well. Oakland has basically abandoned its neighborhoods and the hundreds and thousands of volunteers who work to keep their neighbors on their block safe and also come to neighborhood council meetings to identify and prioritize and try to work on solving public safety and quality of life issues in their neighborhood. They're supposed to have a neighborhood services coordinator who is a city staff to help them work through the city process. Also, OPD, they help them work on public safety issues within their neighborhood council.

So they work work cooperatively with the city and the OPD. The council and the administration has allowed this proven public safety strategy to be decimated as as the report also says through the years by continually decreasing the funding for neighborhood services division. It's even been eliminated recently. And, the community resources officers that are part of OPDs that support the public safety aspect of neighborhood councils. This has been particularly damaging in the underserved neighborhoods of color that experience the most significant crime and public and also quality of life issues, both in East And West Oakland.

That's where most of the support is really needed. I'm a realist though and I acknowledge that there's serious budget deficits that the city is facing. However, I am urgently asking the members, and, unfortunately, it's not gonna be as I understand, this is just informational, asking the members of this committee to forward to the full council

Thank you for your comments. Your time is up. Thank you for your comments.

Hi, Blair Beakman. Thanks a lot for this item. It is large. It does a lot possibly. You know, the past few years in Oakland, council was spending a lot of time on on community issues, to deal with, you know, more than just law enforcement, how to deal with our neighborhoods to address our issues.

And I guess we're at the point now where we're asking how can, you know, community policing services be a part of that work of the past few years. And I mean, there's a broad number of subjects that community policing covers. I hope you guys can be addressing it. You've got a good beginning list and it can be worked on. I think there's a certain feeling that community policing is somehow the part of the man and it doesn't really serve people who who need it most or a lot, who need it.

And it just serves that wonderful the regular community and not people who are in a bit of trouble. And so people may shy away from it. How do we make that more inclusive for all of Oakland to work on? I'm really hurt that you that you have let go of the two previous community police review commissioners who in this body, this community policing body is offering a very broad picture that can bite all parts of the community you're trying to work for. The police review people that you let go of, they had a very specific good mission that was very, very focused.

And I think they were learning how to really use that to be a create part of the full community process you're going for in Oakland at this time. They could have offered really good advice to this process and we need their voice in how you're gonna build the future of these community policing things. Good luck. This can be a really good project. Good luck in your efforts. Thank you.

I think it doesn't do well to not recognize that as it relates to the shortage of staff, you need anywhere from 800 to a thousand police officers to perform the safety that is adequate in this city. And I encourage this body to take a step back and say what's important is that we have officers available to respond to 911 and don't continue to advocate for something that you're not going to be able to have because it's it's not possible at this point. So why keep bringing up we need the community resource officers? You can't have them now because we don't have enough officers for patrolling. So put that on the side for a little while and it's gonna be a long time.

Now, I appreciate the the the opportunity for people in their community to sit down and discuss what are the issues in my community that need to be addressed, and I have the power to say this is important and to do something about it. So, in the report, I would have liked to see in in any form or fashion what last year did you do related to areas and what were the issues you dealt with and some that got done and some that didn't get done and identify why they were successful, why they weren't. That's what I wanna see. I think this board needs to be reconstructed. There's just too many people, three members by the mayor, eight appointed by the city council, one appointed by the OHA, one appointed by OUSD, two members appointed by the N.

S. Neighborhood Watch Group. That's just too much. So but these people work hard. And the new chair

Thank you for your comments, miss Olavallat. Moving to Zoom user, Rajni Mandal, you can unmute yourself and begin your comments.

Rajni Mandal, District 4. CPAP was created to oversee a community policing structure that no longer exists in practice. Neighborhood services division has been dissolved, neighborhood services coordinators eliminated, and CROs basically reduced or reassigned. The institutional framework that CPAP was designed to support has effectively collapsed. Against that backdrop, this annual report documents internal activity, work plans, committees, outreach materials, but does not demonstrate concrete improvements for neighborhood councils or the public.

There is little evidence that CPAP has improved communication, restored community policing capacity, or addressed the operational gaps neighborhoods now face. In my outreach to neighborhood councils after the dissolution of the neighborhood services division, most reported that they have been operating largely on their own for years. City support was described as largely technical, just Zoom and OWL setup, while substantive coordination and problem solving fell to volunteers. Longtime North Hills leaders who attended CPAP meetings reached similar conclusions. It was encouraging discussion but little measurable impact.

Today, community policing in Oakland is hyper local, driven by dedicated residents and increasingly direct engagement with council members' offices. Those direct relationships have been proven to be more responsible and accountable than a citywide advisory layer. CPAP's report also references potential grant funding but doesn't explain how the funds would be administered, monitored, or evaluated, particularly as police beats and neighborhood council boundaries are actively being reassessed. Given these realities, I believe CPAP has run its course. Council should focus instead on strengthening direct neighborhood to city engagement and supporting the volunteers already doing this work. Thank you.

Thank you for your comments, chair. That concludes all speakers on item number three. And we do have a motion on the floor. And a second.

Okay. Actually, I I have a few more questions, just before we move to vote. Just on the request for funding, is that listed out by your priority? Like is in fact even the police service technician role helpful if we don't have CROs for example? I'm just wanting to understand if because we are in a budget deficit. So it would be important for this body to understand if you had to choose what are the most important things that would make an impact.

Historically, the neighborhood council funds were divided equitably among the each of the police beats so that if a neighborhood council had one community policing beat, it would get one fifty seventh of the dollar amount. If they were a combined beat, they would get twice that amount and three. We had certain guidelines in order for administrating. We didn't mention it until today, but we are working on a funding program in which it would be grant based and perhaps more focused on visions and what they can do. But it was not it was just an equity.

But that doesn't mean that it can't be changed in the future to become more need based versus equity.

Sorry. Just to clarify. My question is more around you've identified three The either the staff, so one police service technician, funds for the neighborhood council funds which I've heard that's actually been, that is being paid for by PG and E but the funds are difficult to access at least from my local, the ones in the District 2 and then the citywide safety summit if you had to rank.

Through the chair? Yeah. If we had to rank it would

be the staff. Okay, okay thanks. Great. Alright. Let's move to the vote.

Thank you. We have a motion made by council member Brown, seconded by council member Houston to receive and file this informational report in committee on roll. Council member Brown? Sorry. Aye. Council member Feife is excused. Council member Houston?

Aye.

And chair Wong? Aye. Thank you. Item number three passes with three ayes, one excused by to receive and file this information or report in committee. Moving on to open forum, we do have three members that signed up to speak. Calling in the names that signed up to speak for open forum in no particular order you can come up to the podium or raise your hand. Missus Sato Olavala, Blair Beekman, and Rajne Mandal.

Sandra Massey, Brianna Taylor, Tatiana Jefferson, black women killed in their homes. One in bed, one playing with her nine year old nephew, another just holding a pot of water. I'm very sorry that people are going through the same thing we've been going through and that is if you encounter people who are enforcement officers you can get killed. So, I'm gonna recommend something to stop that process. Historically and traditionally, African American families go through a process called the talk.

And, that process, we warn our family members, when you encounter people who are disrespectful when they handle you, you have to be careful of how you interact with them or you can get killed. And, this last individual who was killed in Minnesota, the day before his mother gave him the talk, and it didn't work. So I wanna encourage people who are dealing with ICE. You cannot approach these people and have the expectation that your life will not be at risk. It will be.

And, we've been having this conversation for decades with our black boys and men. So, I hope at some point it stops, but this is just history repeating itself for another group of people. And so I hope it can be ended in some form or fashion, but we need to be careful of how we deal with people who will take your life, and it means nothing.

Hi. Thank you. Nice words. Good luck that we're we can all be addressing Minneapolis more clearly now in our future. A person offered a public comment sheet also here. Hopefully, he can be speaking as well if needed, if possible. Some in Oakland may want a start over of the Oakland public meetings and its public meeting decisions from this fall. I feel in the very least we need to better learn public meeting clarity and explanations for Oakland public meetings in 2026, and for ourselves in Oakland to be more open and clear when a council agenda item is being overly rushed for approval. Hopefully we can see that. And that we can be more openly question ideas of council agenda urgency.

It can be okay to slow it down. As one thing should be clear in looking for an upcoming new AOPR vendor, positive good options, choices, and decisions can always be addressed and available for the future of the Oakland public process. Thanks for your work on working on a new flock vendor, a new AOPR vendor besides flock. That it was a form of compromise. It's been really interesting, think.

And however you you work that compromise, if flock was somehow involved for some of their own PR, It took a lot of commitment from yourselves as counsel and as city of Oakland to really bring a compromise anyway. And to work for that, it it it does deserve merit. Good luck that we really wanna continue working on it. I can see us growing half hearted about it at some point. Trump has obviously proven you guys made a great decision that we are working together as a community to address our issues that we can have control. And it's really nice what you guys have been doing. I'm gonna be moving back to San Diego in February. I'll try to continue to attend meetings and thank you for your time.

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

Rajni Mandal, District 4. I wanna raise a concern about process and transparency in public safety leadership. Recently, the police commission selected a permanent director of the community police review agency in closed session choosing the interim director without public recruitment or any opportunity for community input. While the charter permits the commission to hire the director, this departs from past practice. For a body called the Community Police Review Agency, community trust depends on just not just on who leads it, but on whether the community has visibility in how that leadership was chosen.

This matters as we now turn to the search for a permanent chief of police. Chief Mitchell announced his resignation about three and a half months ago, and yet we are here with no job posting, no candidate pool, and no clear timeline, only ongoing discussion about hiring an outside recruiting firm. Oakland has been here before. The last chief search took over a year, leading the city in prolonged interim leadership. Many in the community are asking a basic question.

Why slow this down? Why not immediately post a position and invite qualified candidates, especially internal leaders who understand Oakland's complex oversight, accountability, and organizational structure to apply? An open posting could readily produce three strong candidates and move this process forward now. Process discipline matters, community confidence matters, and delay has consequences. Thank you.

Thank you for your comments, chair. That concludes all speakers for open forum.

I know council member Houston, wanted to close this session with, in in honor and recognition of of someone if council member Houston, go ahead.

Yeah. I wanted to close this meeting in honor of Bridget Cook. She was a chief of staff for District 3. She's been ill, stage four cancer for a long time and spoke to her every week. Right? Every week she gave me advice on how to behave. And the last time I spoke to her last week she was saying, Ken, I'm not good. I'm not doing good. I'm not good. She was always at work and she passed. So I wanted to close the meeting under her name, Bridget Cook.

We'll bow our heads in silent for thirty seconds. Okay. Thank you so much council member for alright. And with that, this meeting is adjourned.