Public Safety Committee - Regular Meeting

Good evening, and welcome to this meeting has come to order. And welcome to the Public Safety Committee meeting of today, Tuesday, December 9. The time is now 06:01PM, and this meeting has come to order. Before taking roll, I will provide instructions on how to submit a speaker's card for items on this agenda. If you are here with some chambers and you would like to submit a speaker's card, please fill one out and turn it into myself before the item is read into record.

Online speaker requests were due twenty four hours prior to this meeting, making that time yesterday at 6PM. The meeting came to order at 06:01PM. Speaker cards will no be accepted ten minutes after the meeting has began, making that time 06:11PM. With that, we now proceed to take roll. Council member Brown? Present. Council member Fife? Present. Council member Houston? I apologize. Thank you. And chair Wong?

Present.

We have four members present. And before we begin, chair Wong, do you have any announcements for today?

Just that this is the final committee meeting for this year, so let's make it a good one team.

Thank you. Moving to our first item, item one, approval of the draft minutes from the committee meetings held on 07/08/2025, July 22, September 10, September 30, October 14, and the special meeting on 11/18/2025. And you do have one speaker for this item. When I call your name, please approach the podium, Blair Beakman. If you are participating via Zoom, please raise your hands so you're easily identified.

And that concludes your public speakers for item one.

Okay. Colleagues, any comments on the okay. And a second. Oh, this is back to me now.

Alright. Go ahead council member.

I just I move the item. Second.

Thank you. I have a motion made council member Houston, seconded by council member Brown to accept the draft minutes of from the committee meetings held on July 8, July 22, September 10, September 30, October 14, and the special meeting on November 18. On roll, council member Brown? Aye. Council member Fife? Aye. Council member Houston? Aye. And chair Brown? Chair Wong?

Aye. Aye. The motion passes with four ayes to accept the draft minutes of the committee meetings on July, September 10, September 30, October 14, and a special meeting on November 18. Moving to item two, determine determination to schedule outstanding committee items, also known as your pending list, and you do have one speaker for this item. Okay. We'll go to public comment. Miss Asada?

Miss Asada, would you like to thanks.

Okay. I'm trying to find my notes. I've got so much going on right now. Okay, yes. So this is your last meeting and you're going to court in January with the NSA and what's gonna be presented to you before you go to the courts?

Nothing. Okay. Then we have identification of gangs in this city has been really surprising to me that we have the Mexican mafia, the prison mafia, MS thirteen, the cartel, and we've never had a discussion about these organized criminals in our community. And, I don't think ceasefire is going to get this changed any as an intervention strategy. So, we need to have a discussion about one gang, the Mexican mafia involving 24 murders in Oakland?

And, I'm just hearing about it?

Okay. Thank

you for your comment, miss Lozada. Okay.

From the administration?

We we we do have some changes in particular to tonight's meeting of of deputy chief Hosmus.

Chair and public safety committee. I am deputy chief Lisa Ausmus and I am going to ask that item six be withdrawn from the agenda tonight and then we'll represent beginning of next year hopefully. We just need to get some updated information.

Yeah. That's accepted. That's accepted. And just for context for the rest of the committee, the reason that we are withdrawing this item is in part because or because the surveillance use requires that this to be a resolution that we need to approve as a council rather receive an informational report. Yep. Council member Brown.

And then I guess on this one just for the record I know practice for this item to also be presented to the privacy commission as well and I think that you know I guess one flag you know I don't know you know it should be pretty easy to fix the item so that it's presented properly. But I think my other flag is just ensuring that I know that there was delays in this being presented to the privacy commission and so I just want to ensure that you know, we get the information timely.

Through the Can you

speak to that?

All of these reports were presented to the PAC in the summer. So the delay was between then and now. So they actually were all approved unanimously by the PAC I believe at the June meeting. All of these, yes, yes. And then there was a bit of a delay bringing it forward to the public safety committee. So I think your agenda was impacted over the fall. I think OPD was still doing some work on them but the pack and did we're and now we realize we're talking substance. But these did all go to the pack at I believe the June meeting.

Yes. Okay. Council member Brown.

Okay. Thank you. So I had gotten that information from lieutenant Orkiza that he was unable to present this item so.

Council Okay. Member Houston.

Yes. So when it does come back to the chair when it does come back I saw something and it was I read something about arrest, amount of arrest on the flock technology. Can you when you do come back can you add in there on charges and convictions, not just arrest? Because you can arrest, be arrested and be let go this next day. I wanna know what the charges and the convictions, if possible.

Through the chair. Yes, sir.

Go ahead.

Chief Just through the chair. I'll make that note Okay. And have it in the information.

Wonderful. Thank you so much. Okay. I think with Okay. Keith Housmus, are free to go.

Thank you. I appreciate

it. Not

you, council member Houston. Stay put. Okay. And we do need a motion.

Okay. I'll make that motion to withdraw. Is that is that what the motion is for? Yep. Okay.

We don't need a motion unless someone has an issue, right, from the So since nobody had issue with withdrawing the item, we're just withdrawing it and we can move to the subsequent item.

To Okay. Accept this item.

Motion to accept the schedule. Yep.

I accept that or yeah. I second it.

Thank you. We have a motion made by council member Brown, seconded by council member Houston to accept the determination to schedule outstanding committee items as amended. Withdrawing item six from today's agenda on roll. Council member five I mean, member Brown? Aye. Council member five? Aye. You. Council member Houston? Aye. And chair Wong? Aye. This motion passes with four ayes to accept determination to schedule outstanding committee items as amended. Once again withdrawing item six from today's agenda moving to item three. Okay. Let's move to the staff presentation. I will need to read the item into record.

Oh, thank you.

And you do have public speakers as well. Adopt a resolution authorizing the city administrator to accept and appropriate the fiscal years twenty four to twenty five state of California citizens options for public safety for one state COPS grant allocation in the amount of $850,072 to fund helicopter maintenance, computer technology upgrades, market marketing supplies, workforce supplies, asset management technology, workstations, and two state COPS allocation in the amount of 529,937 to fund the helicopter maintenance, crime lab, equipment upgrades, training, and computer upgrades. And once again, you do have two speakers for this item.

Okay. We'll move to the staff presentation.

Good evening chair Wong and members of the committee. LaRaja Marshall, the fiscal services manager for the Oakland Police Department. Before you, the state cops grant funding allocation for '24 and '25 with a combined total award of $1,381,009. The state cops grant is a state funded program that supports local law enforcement. OPD has been the recipient of this grant approved annually by city council for the past six years.

State COPS funding supports departmental needs including approved technology, upgraded equipment, helicopter maintenance and supplies. As outlined in the report, the 2024 state COPS allocation for a total of 851,072 with allocations for helicopter repairs and maintenance, computers, technology upgrades, refurbished workstations, marketing and workforce supplies. Lastly, the asset management, the twenty twenty five state COPS allocation for a total of $529,937 with an allocation for continued helicopter repairs and maintenance, crime lab, equipment upgrades, training, continuing emerging technology. This funding allows OPD to support operations without impacting the city's general fund. This concludes the presentation for 2024 and 2025 state COPS grant allocation.

Welcome any questions.

Colleagues? Councilmember Brown.

Excellent. Thank you so much for the brief report. The items in the agenda were super clear. I just had a couple questions. I think maybe one of the things that I was able to notice is that year over year the allotted amount that has come from the state was like 200,000 and it looks like this go around it's 851 and so there's actually and let me know if I'm off base but I clicked on all of the other resolutions over the years and so it looks like there's there's some additional funds you know kind of coming in and so I think I wanted to kind of call out and ask with this additional $200,000 in comparison to I think in the past it was like 600,000 whereas this go around it's $8.51.

What are the I know it was outlined you know this is going to helicopters etcetera and some of these other things but I think I was curious like with this additional funding that's being allocated from the state what are the additional line items that you all are choosing to fund this go around?

So this go around we're choosing to fund the crime lab upgrades which is 200,000.

Okay.

Yes. Excellent. Alright thank you so much for that. And then I guess maybe lastly just by observation I was reading through you know what are some of the eligible things that could be covered under this program. And it does mention here like it also could include like hiring officers. So I just wanted to just make sure everyone had that awareness. And I'm not sure if that's something that we've used in the past but you know if the funding continues to increase I think I would be curious how we can maybe even use some of the funds under that umbrella as well. It says hiring officers training, vehicle upgrades, k nine units, community program, etcetera.

Yes, through the chair. We are using $50,000 is going to be allocated to marketing so basically to recruit for academies.

Excellent. Yes. Thank you so much.

Council member Fife. I encourage any tactic that would support increased public safety in the city of Oakland. I am curious as to how a a COPS grant through the chair would support that understanding for for hiring, understanding like cities like Alameda are offering from what I'm hearing from my area captains yesterday, a $150,000 signing bonus on top of the base salary. So would and the same thing for Albany and other Bay Area cities that are offering massive bonuses. How does the city of Oakland use a cops grant to compete with you know what?

Never I

saw your

face. Never mind. That's okay.

I would need to do more research

Don't worry about it.

Information. I'm willing to provide it at a later date.

That that's a big question that I don't think anyone has been able to answer. How does Oakland compete when so many law enforcement agencies are experiencing low numbers because I think Alameda has a sworn authorization of around 88 and they have maybe in their sixties for the number of officers which is why they're recruiting right now. But no one has the budget challenges that we have. So I'm not I'm not expecting you to answer that question, it's something that we have to wrestle with as a administrative and legislative body of the city. Thank you for trying.

Thank you.

I I will say I sit on the mayor's police recruiting task force and I have brought up this topic of signing bonuses and I think one challenge like we should absolutely do it is that they said it it would require meet and confer and anyways things that we should we should probably talk about offline but that was that was something that came up. Councilmember Brown.

And I think maybe lastly the one thing I want to flag too is that it also says that you know this funding could be used for community service officers which are also what we call CROs. So just kind of sharing some of the expansiveness that we could utilize these funds especially if it seems to be very reoccurring.

Staffing crisis is really one of the top things and you know can we allocate more of this money to that instead of you know, I'm not sure how much the helicopters repairs slash maintenance for example matters but I'm wanting to understand just the justifications behind each of these categories.

So the spending plan, the chief and the assistant chief they approved the spending plan based on past history. I will say for the helicopter that the contract is $850,000 and a lot of this funding supports that contract for the maintenance.

Okay. I understand but I think just And I'm just taking the helicopter as an example and Joe perhaps you can comment but it's not I'm not taking on the helicopter alone but just if there's ways that we could be funding things that could help our police staffing crisis, why not fund that instead of some of the items that we see laid out here if we could get more justification?

Sure. I was gonna speak to helicopter maintenance. We actually have the subject matter expert here as well. But you you you have to have the helicopters maintained to have an air presence. And and we had this debate at a prior with the prior council just about the the the fact that there is the the fixed wing aircraft idea would be a better way to be in the air, but it's a we got a $5,000,000 price tag in our current budget situation.

We can't and it takes a year to retrofit once it's purchased. So we have to keep these birds, if you will, maintained in order to provide that air cover that OPD finds very important and the subject matter expert may wanna hop up and talk about that. The only other thing I would point out as far as actual police staffing is, you know, these amounts of money, you know, again, it it varies each year, but but it's even though it's ongoing, we we we the department gets grants every year. The the the total cost of a fully loaded officer, based on the size of these grants, you wouldn't be paying for more than two or three officers. And frankly, because the grant amount varies each year, you present a potential budget problem if you're using one time costs to fund a position that you expect to be on the force for a long I think that's why for the department it's safer to purchase supplies, technology, equipment, things like that, and to stick to the funding of officers through our general fund.

There were times historically in the in the in the way past, like I remember during the the administration or the Dellums administration, we did receive a substantial COPS grant to pay for officers and it it really shot up our ranks. But then when that money ran out, the city was in a huge bind.

Okay. Yeah. Makes sense. Did you want to add more to that?

Good afternoon or evening council members. My name is Brandon Martin, officer with the Oakland Police Department assigned to the Air Sport Unit. Just to kind of break it down a little bit further as far as the grants versus the general purpose funding to fund the maintenance contract for the helicopters. So council, year and a half ago now, authorized a two year maintenance contract for $850,000 a year. Dollars 480,000 of that comes from this COPS grant funding and the remaining comes out of the department's general purpose fund.

That contract will be up for renewal at the end of this fiscal year. We're in bidding process and RFQ for that and we'll be bringing those resolutions and agenda reports to you guys in the coming months. As has been brought up, the fixed wing has been a topic of discussion for a few years now. As was brought up, it does have a significant price tag upfront, but there are significant cost savings going forward. Due to the age of our aircraft, both of them being in excess of 30 years old at this point, they do have an operating cost of roughly $1,000 an hour.

Whereas the airplane that we proposed at this point has a maintenance cost of about $350 per hour. Significantly less fuel, runs off the same type of fuel that we're currently using, which we receive like a government pricing on. Some of the other aircraft that are available that some neighboring agencies use, they utilize a different type of fuel, which is becoming increasingly more expensive. Additionally, there's currently state and national guidelines that are changing that they're trying to do away with that type of fuel in a lot of environments. And California is one of the forerunners to try to move away from that fuel.

So if you were to buy an aircraft that utilizes that type of fuel, we could potentially be running into problems in the near future where that fuel may be unavailable and then we're paying high retrofit costs to change the engine to accept whatever new type of fuel becomes available. I'd be more than happy to answer any other questions you have. I do have agenda reports and presentations that I can bring to the committee at a later date. If you'd like more details or specific questions answered, I'd more than happy to work with your teams or whoever you'd like.

Sounds good. Thank you. Council member Houston.

Yes. Student chair, how are you? You said 800 it was allocated 850,000 before and now it's like it's like cut down to, am I right, 225,000? It's like went down almost 4%, percent. 400. No.

Think that's the allocation in year one versus year two of the grant.

No he just the gentleman just said the officer just said it was allocated from it in the past was 850,000. Now it's 225,000. Is that what?

So through the chair to the council member. So our our maintenance contract every year is for 850,000. So we had a two year contract for 1,700,000.0. But of that 850,000, 480 roughly comes from grants. The remaining portion of it, the 370,000 comes from usually the department's general purpose ten ten fund. So our allocation of the money has not changed year over year. Now what the city and the department has received from COPS does, correct me if I'm wrong, fluctuate from year to year.

Thank you. I'm a I'm a make a little joke a little bit, know. So growing up in East Oakland, you know, I had to deal with the BART, had to deal with the the railroad, had to deal with the tunnel. Can we make the helicopters a little quieter? Because this, it is loud coming over my, over where I live.

Mean

It's a real issue.

It is real. But I wanted to lighten it up just a little bit. But yeah, so because I had to deal with the BART. I had to deal with the railroad. I did not got to deal with that helicopter, that noise, that noise. So if you can use some of that money to quiet it down that'll be great.

So through the chair, it's even louder inside I can tell you that. But I understand the helicopter is loud. We currently fly at a lower altitude than some of the outside agencies because we are viewing everything either with the naked eye or using binoculars. Our camera is, as has been brought up before, our camera is far equivalent to an old iPhone. So we we are able to view better by just looking out the window versus other agencies are using cameras which do come with an expense, but we would be able to operate at a higher altitude.

And a fixed wing would operate at a higher altitude even above what we could with a camera on the helicopter. So if you look at some outside agencies, their helicopters typically operate from 12 to 1,500 feet. So it greatly reduces the noise pollution over the city. But for us, we're typically at 700 feet. Outside agency fixed wings may operate in excess of 3,000 feet and are virtually silent to those

Let's give some fixed wings to the chair. Okay.

Well, we we gotta find some $5,000,000 lying around but let's let's try to do that. Council member Fife.

I would definitely encourage the members of this body to review through the video some of the conversations that the public safety committee has had on fixed wing aircrafts. I think it started when I was chairing public safety

Indeed.

Yes. Several years ago.

Yes.

And

there are benefits, a lot of benefits speaking to some of what council member Houston just raised, but the it's all there. We've talked about it ad nauseam and it is not something that the city can afford at this particular moment. Can you have some billionaires that can buy us a No, I'm kidding. Since we're making jokes tonight. But I definitely wanna reiterate that there's a lot of information that's been presented to this body that is available to review for anyone interested in the conversation on fixed wing and it is not something that can be covered by this COPS grant.

Yeah. No. And I know council member Kaplan as she was working with the budget team as we were transitioning. She was advocating for that fixed wing aircraft too. So we it's it's on our mind. So I before I entertain a motion, I do want to just follow-up very quickly on the signing bonus item. Joe, if we could work together. I think the problem I always see is it's we could do the meet and confer and then it's going to be like well we don't have the funding and so why bother having this conversation and I want to have Can I request an informational report that's on what are some external funding resources that could fund signing bonuses?

Well, chairperson, you can request an informational report on just about anything. Yeah. I mean, I think we could work with you and maybe check-in with the leadership about crafting a rules request to really get you the answer that you're looking for. Yeah.

Okay. Yeah. Let's do that. Alright, I'll entertain a motion. Okay, I guess I

That's fair. I'll make the motion to

approve. Okay. It

is actually adopting the resolution. So adopting the staff.

Yep. Like listening to council member Houston. I'll make a I'll make a motion to accept staff's recommendation and receive this grant's funding for cops and he'll thank you.

Everyone's a little loopy. It's okay. It's it's the last meeting. I know. Council member Brown and I have been here since finance and management at 09:30AM.

Moving to our public speakers, miss Asada and Blair Beakman, if you're participating via Zoom, please raise your hands so you're easily identified.

So you've been here since 09:30. To park in that parking lot, you have to be there for 07:30. That's how long I've been here or else you don't get a parking space.

Are you warmer now though miss Asada? I think it is warmer.

Okay. My first I'm sorry. My first question is, is there any way any of these funds can be used related to the NSA? See, all are not going to talk about the NSA, but I need to know if that's possible. Then the other question I have is Crime Lab.

I've heard in the past that we've had a backlog with rape kits. Is this a possible funding for rape kits to be accommodated? And I don't know if it's that we need the kits or we're not able to do the evaluation. I would like more information and I'm acting like I'm gonna get an answer. Y'all don't answer these questions, I'm gonna act like I'm gonna get an answer. Training, what are we talking about when we say training? What are we talking about when we say supplies? What are we talking about when we talk we're saying workforce supplies? And what are we talking about when we're talking in the area of marketing?

Thank you for your comment. That concludes your public speakers for item three.

Okay. I I do think actually the public speakers questions were pretty pretty good. Can somebody from OPD respond to those three questions?

Good evening. I'm Bonnie Chang. I am one of the biology unit supervisors for the crime laboratory. So, I do manage the backlog reduction grants for our crime lab. We do have a small backlog on sexual assault kits, only about 30 right now.

We are mandated by the state to test every single kit that is collected. So we are doing our best, in trying to meet their timeline of a hundred and twenty day turnaround business days. So that we have grants specific for that. The training that the crime lab will be receiving from the COPS grant grant is for our accreditation assessment. So that's that's not really training per se but it's more of our, to meet our accreditation assessment review. Okay.

Thank you. And chief Alsmis, if you're still here on the, whether cops can pay for NSA compliance. Good evening. D. C.

Alsmis for the Bureau of Risk Management. I am not sure, ma'am. I don't believe so. I think that has to come out of the another fund. I don't think a grant could pay for it. Keeping that in mind, can I'll find out. We can probably try to bring something else forward.

Okay. Okay. Thank you. Sorry.

Thank you. We have a motion made by council member Fife seconded by council member Houston. We

have council member Brown raising her hand.

Excellent. Thank you so much. I just wanted to get real quick clarity because I know it was mentioned that some of this funding is going to support the crime lab. So I guess more specifically under the umbrella of the crime lab does that that include the rape kits in that work? I just wanna make sure we got the answer.

It does not. The COPS grant specifically is, 175 is allocated for a GCMS which is a gas chromatograph mass spectrometer for the drug unit. I have separate funding from the backlog grants to help our operation for the biology unit.

Okay. Excellent.

Thank you. I think we allocated recently on a non consent or consent item that had an urgency finding. Alright. Thank you. Okay. Alright. Let's move to the vote.

Thank you. We have a motion made by council member Fife, seconded by council member Houston to approve the recommendations of staff, and this is to be forwarded to the December 16 city council agenda on consent. On roll, council member Brown. Aye. Council member five. Aye. Council member Houston. Aye. And Chair Wong. Aye.

This motion passes with four ayes to approve the recommendations of staff and to forward this item to the December 16 city council agenda on consent moving to item four. Adopt a resolution one authorizing a city administrator to enter into a professional services agreement with Bright Research Group Inc. For training and capacity building services from 01/01/2026 to 12/31/2026 for a total amount for a total contract amount not to exceed $75,000 in waiving the competitive request qualifications requirement and two, authorizing the city administrator to enter into professional services agreement with ROCA Inc for cognitive behavioral theory training services for a term of 01/01/2026 to 12/30/2026 in the amount not to exceed $36,000 and waiving the competitive request for qualifications and local small local enterprise program requirements and you do have two speakers for the side only.

Okay. Let's move to the staff presentation and do you mind introducing yourself? I'm realizing I'm seeing new presenters today in committee and I would love to know your names.

Good evening. My name is Veneta Thomas and I'm the training manager with the Department of Violence Prevention. Nice to meet you. Alright. So today as was just said, I'll be talking to you guys about our resolution, a contract with Bright Research Group as well as ROCA Inc for training and capacity building services.

With this resolution we're asking for $75,000 to contract with Bright Research Group from 01/01/2026 to 12/31/2026 and with this resolution we are also asking to waive the competitive bidding process due to this contractor's specific areas of expertise. In addition, we're asking for $36,000 for ROCA Inc. To provide cognitive behavioral theory training from 01/01/2026 to 09/30/2026 and we're asking both for the competitive bidding process to be waived as well as the small and local business enterprise program requirements. As you all know DBP's C Spire lifeline is a evidence based data driven public safety strategy for reducing group related shootings and homicides and one integral part of that is our violence interrupters and life coaches. They're really key to implementing this strategy and part of that comes from providing ongoing trainings that equip and reinforce skill sets required for them to do their job successfully.

In 2024, we received two external grants to expand our lifeline services and capacity building for the ecosystem of community violence intervention workers in our community. One of those grants was Kaiser Permanente. It was $3,500,000 over the course of three years and it covers three of our life coaches, violence interrupter, one training manager, and it also specifically names Bright Research Group as a contractor to provide life coaching and training services. That second grant is from the Bureau of Justice Assistance and it consists of $2,000,000 over three years and it allows us to have three life coaches on our staff. And this grant agreement also specifically names ROCA to provide a training on cognitive behavioral theory for our violence interrupters and life coaches.

So one of the reasons we are Bright Research Group was not one, many of the reasons Bright Research Group was selected and named in our grant is because they have a long standing history of providing capacity building and learning services to the department back even back when it was Oakland Unite. They managed our life coaching certification fellowship which is a nationally recognized fellowship, a nationally recognized certification and over the last almost ten years we've had over 50 frontline staff graduate from that fellowship. They've also brought in guest speakers from our community and nationally that have talked to frontline workers workers about topics such as gender based violence, healthy masculinity, and using motivational interviewing when they're out in the field. And they've also hosted network convenings and learning collaborative learning sessions and staff retreats for us before. And ROGA Inc is actually a nationally recognized organization.

They are based in Boston and they are the founders of Rewire CBT which is a trauma informed intervention they created in partnership with Massachusetts General Hospital. Since they created this program, over a 100 community based organizations throughout United States and over 10,000 frontline staff have participated in this Rewire CBT training. And over ninety six percent of participants of this training have reported back how it has helped them with their work.

Okay. Thank you so much. Colleagues, council member Houston.

I had one to the chair. What's healthy masculinity? Explain that to me. I didn't

Yeah. I think that is a great question.

That is a great question. I'm gonna

let chief take that. Because

I'm gonna speak to to the chair. I'm speaking to some some some men tomorrow so I I might wanna use that healthy masculinity in my conversation so share that with me.

Good evening everyone. Holly Joshi, chief of the department of Prevention through the chair for council member Houston. That is a term that is utilized in the gender based violence field to illustrate the need to bring men and male allyship into the space of awareness around the root causes, solutions, interventions for gender based violence?

Can you send me something on that?

Of course I can. Yes sir.

Alright. Thank you. Through the chair. Thank you.

Just to follow-up on that, I thought there were a couple of phrases that I could just understand more like motivational interviewing. How does that tie and as well as I mean I know I've heard of the term CBT but how does this all actually ultimately help with violence prevention work?

Yeah, so motivational interviewing, cognitive behavioral therapy, those are typically terms that you hear in therapeutic environments either LCSW, social workers, workers, LMFTs, psychologists, but the ways in which ROCA and the ways in which we have brought it to Oakland for community violence intervention work specifically has been specialized to utilize those types of techniques in a non therapeutic environment. So it really is about a strength based approach to working with clients. But again to Vanetta's point, ROCA really is the national expert and the folks who have translated these cognitive behavioral therapeutic approaches to working with clients including motivational interviewing to a street level outreach worker and a street level life coach language and approaches.

Okay. We have public speakers so we'll go to that.

Thank you. Wanna call your name, please approach the podium. Miss Asada and Blair Beakman, if you're participating via Zoom please raise your hand. Thank you.

So it's my understanding that life coaching is a skill set and you have to have certain skills that are almost natural skills. It's I don't think you can be trained too much, but what is the tool that is used by this department to qualify any individual to be a life coach? I know that there's no official credit accredited program for life coaching, I think I read that. So, what is the tool? And, it is not it cannot be assumed, and I hope it's not assumed, just because you went to prison or you live in the streets, you can be a life coach.

It has to be more to that. So what is the more to that component?

Moving to our Zoom speakers. Blair Beekman, please unmute yourself and begin your one minute comment.

All right. Thank you. Blair Beekman, thanks for this item. I think it was at council last week, and now it's back here, which is kind of nice that you're giving it some of these items are going around and getting conversations, so thank you for that. I think this sounds like a really interesting item and a really good use and purpose of of working on practices to address crime that don't involve law enforcement.

And so I'm always appreciative of that and would love to learn more and more about that and have these several items here at council more often. Obviously, we've made really good strides, in how to address that, and it's helped. I think we need to ask that more, you know, of our federal agencies and say, look. We're doing good jobs with crime issues because of programs like this and and ask how we can continue the the funding and and these sort of good programs like this item. So this is really important to have at this time, this item. Thank you. Good luck in this continued good work.

That concludes your public speakers for item four.

Thank you, clerk. Seeing as my colleagues don't have any other questions, can we have an answer to the question posed by the audience member around what is the certification for life coaching?

Through the chair, I appreciate the question. So in the beginning of community violence intervention work Oakland, there really actually was not a lot of training that went into it and to Ms. Asada's point there was an overreliance in my professional opinion on people's lived experience alone. And the reason why the life coaching certification that Veneta spoke about that was built out, through Bright Research Group and Oakland Unite was created in the first place over a decade ago was in response to frontline workers' demands for some more professional experience and and professional opportunities to get trained. And so the life coaching certification course that Veneta was presenting on that has trained over 50 life coaches in Oakland at this point was built because of the demands of frontline workers who are lived experience workers and were expected to have an overreliance just on their lived experience alone.

And of course, of them did not have access to traditional pathways of education. So we really do take it very seriously our responsibility to provide them with professional experience and professional opportunities to get certifications. So that Bright Research Group life coaching certification, we just ran it again for the first time in four years. It had been paused. The DVP did not have a budget for it for some time.

We prioritized it and we graduated I think 12 life coaches during the last cohort including city staff life coaches and some life coaches from the community based organizations. So in addition to the life coaching certification, we also offer ongoing and rolling trainings around the things that we're talking about such as ROCA rewire, motivational interviewing, cognitive behavioral therapy approaches, etcetera. So we really are trying to build the base of trainings that we offer in Oakland. I think you all have heard me speaking before about the million dollar investment that we got from the Greenlight Fund in order to build out Oakland's first Community Violence Intervention Peace Academy which will also have additional training opportunities and a sixteen week certification opportunity for lived experience workers.

Okay. Great. Thank you. I'll entertain a motion. Council member Brown.

Alright. I'll make the motion to adopt this resolution and for it to go to the December 16 meeting on consent.

Okay. Great. And I think that's council member Fife second Thank

you. We have a motion made by council member Brown, seconded by council member Fife to approve the recommendations of staff and afford this item to the December 16 city council agenda on consent. All roll. Council member Brown? Aye. Council member Fife? Aye. Council member Houston? I will unmute you. Council member Houston?

Tiara Wong? Aye. The motion passes with four ayes to approve the recommendations of staff to forward this item to the December 16 city council agenda on consent. Moving to item five. Adopt a resolution one, amending resolution number nine zero seven three two to correct the business name from University of Pennsylvania Crime and Justice Policy Lab to the trustees of the University of Pennsylvania, and two, amending a professional services agreement with the trustees of University of Pennsylvania for the term starting 07/01/2025 to add 362,087 for a total not to exceed 439,952 and to extend the end date to 12/31/2028 to evaluate the city of Oakland's ceasefire lifeline strategy, and three, waiving the city of Oakland's local and small local enterprise program requirements and competitive bidding process.

And you do have four speakers for this item.

Good evening. My name is Jillian Kaplan. I am a program planner in the department of violence prevention overseeing our group violence contracts. The resolution that we're putting forward is to add $362,087 to a contract with University of Pennsylvania and to extend the contract term by one year, which we hope to significantly enhance the valuation of the city's ceasefire lifeline program. I did have perfect.

So with that, the new contract amount will be $439,952, and the term will be extended from 07/01/2025 to 12/31/2028. We are looking to also waive the competitive bidding process and the local and small local business enterprise program requirements due to the unique expertise of the evaluators as well as because the evaluation was already in progress with the specific evaluators that we're speaking about today. To provide some background, background, in May 2025, city council approved a contract with the University of Pennsylvania for $77,865 to evaluate the ceasefire lifeline program strategy. And this contract, is a requirement of DVP's Bureau of Justice Assistance grant, that Vinetta mentioned earlier, and funding was available in that grant. And we are looking to reallocate some salary savings from that BJA grant and the Kaiser grant that Vannetta also mentioned to significantly augment the evaluation scope and timeline.

So just to give a little bit more background for the grant funding and requirements, that BJA grant is a $2,000,000 grant for three life coaches. This grant requires a final evaluation report and includes that up upwards of $300,000 for the evaluation. The Kaiser Permanente grant is a 3,500,000 grant for the three life coaches, one violence interrupter, and one training manager. That also requires an evaluation plan and a final evaluation report and includes upwards of 120,000 for the evaluation. So the enhancement to the evaluation, you'll see on this chart, that the original scope was more of a descriptive analysis, of people who receive direct communications, trends, and monthly and yearly counts of homicides and shootings.

Adjusted contract will significantly enhance the evaluation to do more of an impact analysis of the outcomes for people who received a direct communication versus those who did not. So this significantly enhances it making it an impact evaluation because it will be doing an analysis of percent changes in shootings and homicides attributable to ceasefire lifeline and, like I said, outcomes for people who receive this direct communication versus those who do not. Additionally, the original scope only had descriptive analysis of those outcomes and this new scope would have an impact analysis as well as qualitative interviews with the life coaching enrollees. So it really is a a pretty significant difference in the evaluation given the extensive amount of money that we're increasing it. Also, the timeline of the contract is extended by one year which also helps with an impact evaluation.

And it allows us to track outcomes for a year after individuals complete life coaching services or receive a direct communication. So the reason that we're asking one of the reasons we're asking to waive the competitive bidding process is because of UPenn's Crime and Justice Lab extensive expertise in this area. The lead researchers will be doctor Anthony Braga and doctor Lisa Barrow. Again, I wanna mention that this is also because the the evaluation was already started with the UPenn's Crime and Justice Lab prior to the amendment. But wanted to just highlight a few things about, doctor Anthony Braga and doctor Lisa Barrow.

They have led prior ceasefire evaluations, in the city of Oakland from 2012 to 2017. They have completed three problem analysis of gun violence, the most recent being in 2023. And they have a strong working relationship that already exists with OPD and DVP and have completed evaluations of ceasefire in both San Francisco and Stockton. And then I have one more slide. Yeah, that was kind of perfect.

Additionally, the California Partnership for Safe Communities has also joined the UPenn Crime and Justice Lab. Reagan Cunningham and Von Crandall are, you know, extensive or or have expertise in this work, national leaders in this work. This the CPSC is located in Oakland. You know, Reagan was the director of Oakland's ceasefire strategy from 2013 to 2018, and CPSC conducted the audit for the reimplementation of ceasefire that is that currently exists. Thank you.

I think we had public comment. Right? So let's move to that.

Wanna call your name. Please approach the podium. If you're participating via Zoom, raise your hands so you're easily identified. Miss Asada, David Boatwright, Jennifer Finley, and Blair Beekman.

David Boatwright, District 4. I haven't attended all the the safe public safety meetings, but I still don't have a good appreciation for our learnings or our benefits from the violence prevention efforts like these where we spent 5 and a half million dollars and now another half million dollars to evaluate the analysis or whatever that was. If there's a way to get that kind of information, I think it would make a lot of people more comfortable that this money is being well spent. Thanks.

Constantly hear that ceasefire is evidence based and data driven and I don't see the evidence and I don't see the data. So where is it? Where

is

the data that demonstrates that ceasefire is working? Now we got a dynamic that just came to my attention and the community's attention that ceasefire cannot work for all gangs. You can't tell me you're working with the cartel. You can't tell me you're working with MS thirteen, the Mexican mafia, or the prison mafia. You're not working with gangs, you're working with some.

So ceasefire is a partial component that works with gang violence. Then you can't tell me that the number of people that are coming from Stockton who are gang members committing crime in Oakland that you have an intervention strategy for that one. Or the ones coming from Antioch or the ones coming from some of these others.

Council member Houston.

Through the chair I wanna say thank you for explaining why the waiving of the SLBE was so thorough. Yeah I just want to say thank you for that because you know I'm all about Oakland. I'm local. Okay thank you though.

Okay. I do have a question. So for me I think ceasefire, I'm compelled that it is something, a strategy that works but is Are we going to evaluate as part of this people that are not being reached by our current ceasefire strategy? Like I think about sometimes when we hear about a gun violence event and in retrospect do we Can we look at you know this in some of the individuals and their life circumstances and why isn't that our program was not able to reach out to them in advance of them committing the act?

Through the chair, I think this is a really important question. A couple things just as a reminder about the ceasefire lifeline strategy is that it isn't meant to be a silver bullet that addresses all violence or even all homicides and shootings in the city. It's very specifically focused on disrupting retaliatory shootings and preventing shootings after we do conflict mapping with very specific gangs and groups in this city. So I, you know, have always said that. I wanna reiterate that that that is what ceasefire does and we do have to have multi prong approaches and strategies in this city when we're talking about violence and even gun violence.

As far as the ways in which we utilize shooting reviews for ceasefire lifeline at this time is really to do a strategic review of every shooting and homicide each week with an eye towards intervention. I think what you're asking for is another level and also an important review which sounds more like a fatality review similar to the fatality review for domestic violence that the county currently hosts. And ironically, this morning, I met with the county public health department and the county's office of violence prevention, and we were having this exact conversation about this gap in terms of what does it look like to review every fatality that happens. They're saying the county, of course, I'm concerned most about Oakland, with an eye towards what were the system misses in that person's life that we can all learn from because it's also not just a criminal justice system conversation. Right?

A lot of folks that are at high risk for for fatality are coming into contact with many systems. They're coming in contact with public health systems, mental health systems, CPS, social service systems. So there's a lot to learn, I think, when when we lose a life as an ecosystem of systems. And so that is something that we were just talking about today during my meeting with Kimmy Watts, the head of public health for the county.

Okay. Great. Thank you. Colleagues, any questions or I'll entertain a motion to adopt. Council member Fife.

The the the public safety is a really challenging topic especially in a in a city like Oakland where there are people want us to have zero crime when that's just not a reality for any urban city. Any city probably, I don't I don't know. But I want us to have an understanding that we can't put our fingers on there there is no one silver bullet and we have to get a different analogy I think since we're talking about being nonviolent. But a different way to analyze what's working and what's not working and I recognize the benefit that ceasefire has brought to the city of Oakland especially over the last couple years since it was reimplemented. But for the members of the public to continue to have questions about it signals to me that we need to do more explanation or have something available that people can go to to get a better understanding of how these different programs work together.

Because the reality is we can make the same arguments that we make about the Oakland Police Department and why we still have why does crime exist when we spend hundreds of millions of dollars each year on officers but crime still exists. It's because there are multiple factors that go into this issue and people I think are scared of new things. Although there are professionals like yourself, Reagan in the in the field who've been in OPD that are are professionals that are explaining this is why it makes a difference. And I appreciate you for chief Joshi for saying that this is not intended to solve everything, every homicide that exists. There are very specialized types of incidents that occur that we need specialized tools to deal with, but I want to appreciate the work that you've done since you've been back at the city of Oakland to address preventing escalating violence when there is group when there are group dynamics.

So I will make a motion to accept this contract and to move this item to the December whatever next Tuesday is. Sixteenth. What day? What day?

Second.

That day for full city council on consent.

Thank you. We have a motion made by council member five, seconded by council member Brown to approve the recommendations of staff and to forward this item to the December 16. City council agenda on consent on roll. Council member Brown? Aye. Council member Fife? Aye. Council member Houston? Aye. And chair Wong?

Aye. This motion passes with four ayes to approve the recommendations of staff and afford this item to the December 16 city council agenda on consent. Please note that item six regarding the OPD surveillance has been withdrawn from this agenda during item two. Moving to and we do have public comment for this item. When I call your name, please approach the podium. Blair Beekman and Jennifer Finley. If you're participating via Zoom, please raise your hand so you're easily identified.

You did? Okay.

And Ms. Asada. Thank you.

Thank you. You you can I go first? See, the problem I'm going off script with this. The problem is that you're using ceasefire, but you are making ceasefire appear to be the reason why violent crime is down. And, it's not.

There was a document that was created in 2019 by the police department where violent homicides, the reason why these homicides took place. One of the reasons was gangs. The other reasons were like retaliation, relationship disputes, and they had a whole bunch of categories. So, as it related to gangs, of all the homicides, gangs constituted like 20 to 25%. So, you gotta stop presenting to the public like cease fires in all for violent crime.

It's a part of it. And that is the problem. She said that. And that's the one that's when I really get ticked off. Seasfire is

Moving to our Zoom speaker, Blair Beakman, please unmute yourself and begin your comment.

Really interestingly, the city of San Diego, the city council is going through this same use item policy at this very moment. It just got through within four hours of a comment where the public and, you know, they have a surveillance technology ordinance much like Oakland that states that they can't, you know, ask for its end if if it's agreed upon.

Okay. Mister Beekman, we're having trouble hearing you, or are you done with your comment? Okay.

Thank you for your comments. Moving to item s seven. This item requires an urgency vote as it was added to the three day agenda. I just need a motion.

I'll I'll make that motion.

Second.

Thank you. We have a motion made by council member Brown, second by council member Fife to approve the urgency finding. I will now read the item into record, adopt a resolution authorizing the city administrator to, one, waive the city of Oakland's local business enterprise requirements and request for proposal, competitive process, and to enter a professional service agreement with Linda Moran from the January to December to provide the removal of abandoned, direct, excuse me, and sunken vessels in the Oakland Ostuary for the total amount not to exceed 1,456,258. And you do have one speaker for this item.

Okay. We'll move to staff presentation.

Good evening council and public safety committee. My name is officer Smith with the Oakland Police Department. I've been newly assigned to the marine unit and I'm here to speak on the resolution seeking to authorize the city to waive the competitive bid process and the local business enterprise program requirements and enter into an agreement with Lynn Marine to provide the removal of abandoned derelict and sunken vessels in the Oakland Estuary for a total amount of $1,400,000. Currently, in the Oakland Estuary, there's about 40 sunken boats kind of scattered throughout the estuary with about another 20 to 25 abandoned vessels. These sunken boats and abandoned vessels not only pose hazard to the various entities that utilize the Oakland Estuary, but also a huge environmental hazardous impact because of the continuous hazardous waste and hazardous materials that continue to leak into the estuary which eventually flows into the bay.

We are seeking to utilize grant funds from both the state grant and the federal grant and utilize the Lynn Marine Marine Services to assist the police department in removing these abandoned and sunken vessels. We're seeking to waive the competitive bid process because this is a very specialized field of And the Lynn Marine Services provides the most environmental friendly and timely response to help us with this issue. The Bay Conservation Development Committee can impose fines on the city if we don't comply. So this is why this is an urgent request to push this resolution through.

Sorry, what was your name?

Officer Ryan Smith.

Okay. I think I've heard good things about you from Alameda Councilmember Jensen. So kudos to you for your work by the way. So yeah. And just I wanna add on the commentary and the urgency findings since my district is very much impacted by these abandoned vessels that the worry too is that if we don't clear these out before the wintertime that it's it's really going to put us into a critical mass mass with this problem. Okay. Council member Fife. I just I'm sorry.

This is your district. I don't

know if you wanted to make a motion. Happy to make it.

Yeah. I do wanna make a motion so I'll make a motion to adopt staff recommendation.

Second.

Moving to our public speaker, miss Asada. That concludes our public speakers. We have a motion made by chair Wong, seconded by council member five to approve the recommendations of staff and to afford this item to December 16. City council agenda on consent on roll. Council member Brown? Aye. Council member five? Aye. Council member Houston? Aye. And chair Wong. Aye. Motion passes with four ayes. To approve the recommendations of staff and the four decide on to December 16 city council agenda on consent moving to open forum. We do have one speaker, Blair Beakman.

Please unmute yourself and begin your comment.

Hi, Blair Beakman. I'll try again. I don't know what's going on with my Zoom lately, but it's cutting out on me. I don't think it's you guys anymore, but who am I dealing with that that's doing this to me? Thank you for the previous item that it's blight issues, basically. You had a good garbage issue earlier today at a different committee that it was nice to hear. You you you're finding different ways to work on garbage issues around the city. That's important and much more important than, your upcoming, housing, unhoused way of working that you wanna be addressing. I think you're finding ways to do that better with these smaller items. So good luck.

And to continue, thank you that you allowed public comment on the surveillance use policy things. We can you know, we have many negotiation tools to develop a new system besides flock. I hope we're interested in working on those systems. That's basically what I what I wanna say. Good luck. We can work on.

That concludes your public speakers.

Alright. Well, with that, this meeting is adjourned. Thank you.