Public Works Committee - Regular Meeting

Good morning, and welcome to the Public Works and Transportation Committee meeting for today, May 12. The time is now 11:33, 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 us in chambers and you would like to submit a speaker's card, please fill one out and turn it to a clerk representative, my left, your right, before the item is read into record. Online speaker requests were due twenty four hours prior to this meeting, making that time yesterday at 11:30AM.

This meeting came to order at 11:33. Speaker requests will be due no later than ten minutes after the meeting has begun, making that time 11:43. With that, we will now proceed to take roll. Council member Gaio?

Present.

Thank you. Council member Houston? Present. Council member Wong? Present. Thank you. And chair Auger? Here. We do

Here.

We do have four members present. And due to the presence of council member Brown, we would now convene into a special of the full city council. I just need a motion.

So moved.

Thank you. We have a motion made by council member Unger, seconded by council member Gaio, excuse me, to adjourn the public works and transportation committee meeting and convene into a special meeting of the full council at 11:35AM. And now we go to roll. Council member Gallo?

Aye.

This is roll call.

A roll.

Thank you. Council member Houston? Here. Council member Wong? Here. And chair Unger? Here. Thank you. We have four members present moving to our first item of the day, which is council member announcements. Do you have announcements for us today?

Yeah. I'd like to, move item five up to the front, please.

Thank you, chair Unger. Noting we will move we will take item five after item two. Moving to our first item of the day, item one, approval of the draft minutes of the committee meetings on March 24 and 04/21/2026. And you do have one speaker. No speakers for this item.

This is the pending list. Do you have anything?

Approval of the draft minutes.

Oh, approval of the minutes. Sorry. So moved. I would approve the minutes.

Thank you. I have a motion made by council member chair Unger, seconded by council member Wong to to accept the approval of the

draft minutes from the committee meetings on 03/24/2026 and 04/21/2026 as is on the roll. Council member Gaio?

Aye. Thank you. Council member Houston? Aye. Council member Wong? Aye. And chair Unger?

Aye.

This motion does pass with four ayes to accept the draft minutes from committee meetings on March 24 and 04/21/2026 as is. Moving to item two, determination to schedule outstanding committee items, and this is also known as your pending list. You do have one speaker.

Okay. Any any changes to the pending list? Okay. Council member Gayle.

Members of the council, members of the public, what I like what I'm requesting is that we place on the agenda and the as soon as possible a report back from waste management, that provides our our delivery of services here in the city of Oakland. And what I'd like to specifically have a better understanding in terms of how we're using the franchise dollars that we are collecting from the taxpayers besides the waste their their waste management service bill that they have. Because my record that what I have what waste management collects in addition and returns to the city monthly is $2,800,000 per month. But annually, they collect $34,600,000 to give right back to the city. And my my understanding from the beginning was to be able to utilize that money to make sure that our streets are are safe and clean and the garbage is being picked up.

But I like to hear from administration, how are we using that money? That most of the time goes to the to the general purpose fund, but I wanna make sure that that money goes back into making sure our our streets are safe and clean. And I'd like to get an administrative report how are we using that franchise fee because it's been challenged legally many times, but we're still collecting that money. And where is that money going to specifically, to support the streets in Oakland? Thank you.

Council member I think, if you wanna schedule an informational report through the rules committee, I'm

sure the staff would be happy to respond.

Council member Gallo, I'm happy

to work with you and staff to, bring it to rules and pick a time.

Moving to our public speaker, miss Asada.

Thank you, ma'am, Gayle. That's a good one. That's a real good one. I'm asking based on the fact that we had a recent issue with a violation, a notice of violation being, submitted to the violator three years late. So I'm requesting that what is what are the list of, violations that can be noticed by public works, and what are the fees and fines related to those violations.

Because obviously something is wrong when we have a violation and it takes them three years to notice the violation. I'm all concerned of a report out on the commitment we made to do the work of Caltrans with using our employees, how that works out because I didn't think we should be doing that. Since it's the responsibility to take care of all public buildings coming from public works, I wanna report out on the Police Administration Building and how we are facilitating the maintenance of that poor building that should be demolished. And what are we spending to keep that building in place? I think we're spending a lot of money instead of demolishing that building.

I would like to see a report out on the process for a commitment to cut down 70 trees over by West Oakland BART because the trees were being cut down supposedly cut down were also on the side of the BART train station, not just across the street. So, I'd like to see also, lastly, a project like the one taking place across the street where they were supposed to paint after they fixed the bike lanes. It took a month to put the white paint down. When you have a project, everything that needed to be done in totality should be a part of the project, not broken up in pieces.

Thank you for your comment, miss Asada.

Thank you.

That concludes your public speaker's item two.

Can I entertain a motion? I'll second that.

We do have a motion made by Council Member Gallo, seconded by Chair Unger to accept the termination of scheduled outstanding committee items as is on roll. Council Member Gallo? Aye. Council Member Ray Houston? Aye. Council Member Wong? Aye. And Chair Unger? Aye. This motion does pass with four ayes to accept the termination of scheduled of outstanding committee items as is.

Moving to item five, adopt a resolution acknowledging the urgency of expediting actions to the remedy illegal dumping through an illegal dumping expeditioners action idea plan. One, authorizing the city administrator to, a, implement the idea plan by negotiating and entering into a contract, grant agreements, expenditures to set forth in a table one in a total amount not to exceed 1,100,000, and b, pursue partnerships with the county, regional, and state agencies to enhance these efforts to waiving, to the extent necessary, the the city's advertising competitive bidding and the multistep technology acquisition requirements for the contracts and waiving the local small local business enterprise program requirement for the big truck rental contract. Three, appropriating and allocating an amount not to exceed $1,100,000 from budgeted funds in fund seventeen twenty cleanup fund from these purposes. Four, accepting and appropriate appropriating additional funds from public and private sources and authorizing the city administrator to actively seek and apply for such funds and to amend existing contracts into new contracts consistent with the purpose of this resolution and in further air further errands of the plan in the amount total amount not to exceed value of such additionally appropriated funds. And five, directing the city administrator to return to council within one year of the adoption of the resolution to provide information report on actions taken, funds received, expanded, and contracts awarded pursuant to this plan and the authority granted for this resolution.

And you do have two speakers.

Okay. Why don't we hear from our speakers?

Miss Asada and Dwayne Nelson.

You you wanna hear from staff first? Alright. We can hear we can hear from staff first. Yep.

I'm here. Good morning Chair Unger and members of the committee. I'm Kristen Hathaway, Assistant Director for Public Works. And I am pleased to present our proposed illegal dumping expenditures action plan that Public Works developed in collaboration with the city administrator's office and this item is also sponsored by council members Wong, Fife, Houston, and Brown. So we're really pleased that this item has broad support.

We have a short PowerPoint for this item. Great. Thank you. So the staff is proposing a series of expenditures to utilize the $1,100,000 that council set aside in its fiscal year twenty five twenty seven budget to address illegal dumping. These proposed expenditures follow the city's strategy of addressing illegal dumping through eradication, enforcement, and education.

Next slide. So to address illegal dumping through eradication, we're proposing to use up to a $190,000 to rent two lightning loader trucks. These are large trucks that allow crews to clear large debris rapidly. We're also proposing to expend up to $95,000 for additional equipment to support KOCB crews, including pickup trucks, trailers, and things that are needed to support daily operations and increase capacity. Third, we're proposing to restart some bulky block parties where residents can dispose of large unwanted items in block parties that facilitates when they can't bring it to Davis Street or schedule a curbside pickup.

And also we're proposing to use a $150,000 for the air bits contract, the aerial camera imagery that was approved through previously through council resolution nine one one one two. Next slide. These items fall in the bucket of eradication and enforcement. So we are proposing to use additional staffing resources to strengthen our proactive zone based surges. Additional staff time would also go to reviewing camera images putting up our illegal dumping cameras and so we're proposing up to $300,000 for that.

Similarly, we'd like to invest in new technology systems like software and applications to improve data management for violations, improved routing for eradication, and improved systems to issue and track citations and penalties up to $50,000 Next

slide.

To improve enforcement, we're proposing to use up to $50,000 to purchase technology such as tablets to improve data management for illegal dumping violations, to better issue and track citations and that our environmental enforcement officers could issue citations in the field. And we're proposing to enhance our contract with Security Lines US, our camera vendor for more cameras, solar powered cameras and monitoring assistance. Next slide. In the realm of education which is really important to the overall strategy, we're proposing a $40,000 grant to nonprofit Keep Oakland Beautiful specifically to assist us with targeted outreach to the community and education around preventing dumping and utilizing bulky services. And we're proposing up to $60,000 to contract with a local Oakland firm for outreach and education support around proper waste management and ensuring people are aware of and utilize bulky services that are available through our waste management contract.

I believe that's the last slide and I also wanna mention as is mentioned in the resolution, we are proposing that we are allowed to apply for and accept funding to address illegal dumping through this resolution and to enter into partnerships. I'm available for any questions.

Council colleagues, do we have questions? Let's start with council member Brown.

Excellent. Well thank you so much. Also thank you Chair Unger for allowing me on the committee. Thanks to the staff. I've really been waiting for this item because last year when we were working on the council budget myself and my team along with the budget team, we worked really hard to dive into what were some of the allowable uses for some of the various funds.

And so fund seventeen twenty we identified as an essential fund to help support these efforts. And so really grateful for just the whole team that has put a lot of thought into this expenditure plan. So just really wanna uplift that. I do have a couple questions about some of the allocations. So I'm having a look at the fund seventeen twenty and some of the allocations.

And so there was for technology we set aside 850,000. And so if I'm doing the math right with some of the items that we've seen maybe prior, perhaps that has been fully expended. Also had some follow-up questions about some of the other items that we also funded under seventeen twenty environmental enforcement officers, seeing if there's any updates there. And then in addition, a handful of other positions so just had a question on that. And then in the staff report I was delighted to see that some of the, I believe it's a 100,000 but correct me if I'm wrong, would be going to the nonprofit Keep Oakland Beautiful and I just had a question of the specific outreach and education that they would be completing.

Sure. I can start with that. So it's actually a $40,000 grant to Keep Oakland Beautiful, and that's for a collaborative effort with Keep Oakland Beautiful and Oakland Public Works to do targeted outreach around utilizing bulky services. So looking at neighborhoods where maybe bulky services that's available through waste management is not utilized as much as in other areas. So looking at high priority areas and doing targeted outreach through social media posts, mailings, community events, that kind of outreach.

I see, okay. And so then the other 60,000 is this bulky waste outreach and it just says a local Oakland firm. So is that yet to be determined and then how would that 60,000 actually be utilized specifically?

Right, so we have an existing contract with a firm who can do this kind of work that are a local Oakland vendor and they would be doing outreach directly managers of multifamily dwellings so that they it would be on-site, one on one direct outreach to make sure that those property managers and property owners know how to make sure that their waste sorting is done properly and that they're fully utilizing bulky services that are available through waste management.

I see. And so with the current timeline of kinda getting this through council, do you anticipate these organizations being able to start July 1 or do you have a a time frame?

I don't have an exact time frame, but I don't anticipate it would take more than a couple months to stand up.

Excellent. Okay. Thank you so much. Yep.

And noting the presence of council member Fife at 11:44AM.

Alright. Council member Wong, you're next in the queue.

Oh, great. Thank you. First of all, this is, really thoughtful work. I've been in touch with you as well as Rebecca Kaplan on this and just really appreciate the thoughtfulness on this and I'm excited because I know we increased those fines and one of my main things is let's make sure that it's not a symbolic increase but actually ensure that there's the enforcement that coincides with that as well as the necessary outreach. So for example, people who are renters who are actually using our bulky waste pickup services.

One thing I wanted to note since we've had this in our private conversations just for public knowledge is that we have only 36 cameras dedicated at this point. But this expenditure plan is actually going to double the number of cameras including the solar powered cameras so they can be moved around since the audit that came out had noted that a number of our cameras are not actually even placed in illegal dumping hotspots. And that may be because of wiring and all the challenges that come with camera placement. Can you just confirm that or explain that to the public?

Yeah. So we wanna test out solar powered cameras to test their efficacy and make sure that they can operate they can hold enough charge to operate through the night when dumping a lot of dumping happens. So we wanna place those in a couple of hot spots and see if they're effective. And if they are, we would probably move to more solar powered cameras. Additionally, we wanna purchase additional cameras to place them at more hotspots. And then the overtime funding that's in here would also support additional overtime for moving cameras around. So sometimes staffing availability is a limitation as well as the availability of electrical poles.

Do we have a sense of for the now doubled number of cameras, what is like the radius of the coverage and how many hot spots we have across the city?

Well, we have hundreds of hot spots across the So, yeah, it's a limited amount of cameras. But they are spread across the city and I'm happy to share with council members the locations of the cameras. They are they are spread throughout all districts.

Okay. Yep. And then I know one really important thing is just the additional staff time. Is this going to fund also additional additional positions since I think we have what five EEOs or can especially with the budget conversation coming up how many EEOs do we have? Does this fund additional staff or just ensuring that those folks have overtime to have more coverage?

Yeah, this is not proposing to fund any new positions. We have seven budgeted EEOs, five of them are filled, one is frozen. So we had eight, One is frozen. This is not proposing this funding is not proposed to unfreeze that position. It's proposed so that those staff have overtime to do additional work. Right.

Okay. And my final comment is just I was looking or reading through the audit today and I think one thing that was noteworthy to me is that the keep Oakland clean and beautiful division is separate from the environmental services division in which the EEU like the environmental enforcement unit sits. And I don't know how much the folks who actually do the cleanup communicate with the environmental enforcement officers but I have to think that those folks who are doing the cleanup are often seeing you know the dumping in the field. They're seeing the addresses all the things and I wonder if there's opportunities to ensure that the folks that do the cleanups in the field can actually supplement or augment what the environmental enforcement officers are doing as they're already out there cleaning it up if this is not already happening?

Yeah. So they do talk. So if we have staff in the field and they see a piece of mail or other piece of evidence then they are instructed to contact the environmental enforcement officers. And so we're working on systems to make sure that that communication is strengthened. Both divisions are within Bureau of Environment and we meet every other week to talk about how to collaborate.

Okay, great. Thank you.

Okay. Councilmember Fife.

Thank you, chair Unger, and thank you for allowing me to sit on this item today.

Anytime.

This issue is so critical to my district. And before I say anything, I wanna ask Rebecca Kaplan to come up because I wanna thank you personally for working with my office to identify real ways we can address illegal dumping, particularly in the flatlands where you don't have as many people necessarily calling in like you do with the hills. Some of the illegal dumping that we are plagued by that is consistent, persistent always comes back. You know, we don't always have the same response in terms of people calling in like like other places in the city or more wealthy whether wealthier areas. And you have made it a priority to work with my office to communicate what's going on and I wanna thank you for that.

And to to Kristen, you as well, we've been trying to figure out and wrestle with how to deal with District 3 areas, particularly the hot spots around San Pablo, our business corridor around Remondi Park. And I think these are ways that we can really, get to the heart of what's going on. I do wanna encourage you when you, are looking for, organizations that can communicate and educate the public on illegal dumping to also include education on privacy and privacy concerns. Because as we will be utilizing drones in in this particular program, there may be some concerns that people have around their privacy. And I know AirBits has done a lot of work and they don't use facial recognition software.

They don't collect license plates. So I think it's important to let the public know what what that means as well in this education process. But I also wanna give a shout out to Liam for going on a tour with me in my district and seeing some of these hot spots and why this is so critical, to district three who, you know, we are we bring in a bulk of the revenue to the city that often gets used in other parts of the city as well. And it's important that residents of Oakland feel good about being here and trash just really spoils that. It's a beautiful city and trash just makes it trashy. And so I I encourage this committee to send this to the full, body on consent. Thank you.

Alright. Council member Houston. Good morning to the chair. I am so, so happy about this this been fighting for this for over fifteen years, and I'm glad they picked up. Supervisor Nate Miley has been leading this leading this with the three e's, eradication, enforcement, and education. Before I get to a couple of the questions that I have, I wanted to find out, piggyback on my council member Brown, what she had mentioned about the consultant, the consultant firm, providing resources for directing education, Oakland residents. What firm was that that you said? This local firm. I know you said local, but what's the name of that firm?

Yeah. The we have SCS and r three as a subconsultant, And I can send you more information about them.

Okay. And have they worked with us before?

Yeah. We have them currently on contract doing work around our solid waste and recycling requirements.

Okay. Alright. Thank you. So when we go back to my budget priorities for 2025 to 2027, they were real simple. They were just so simple. They were public safety, homeless and housing, which I've addressed, and beautification of Oakland. And and we have spearheaded for fines, and I appreciate that. I really appreciate the fines. However, fines have not been working. And in my budget, priorities under three, and you could go as public record, is beautification of Oakland bullet 0.4.

EEOs need hazmat training to collect intensive data to collect environmental for misdemeanors and felonies. And and and we have put some money to the side to get them trained for this because the city attorney can only submit fines. But if we collect the data, if you go back to the data that I've collected over ten years, council member Unger, they have asbestos. I mean, they have things that they dump that the waste management won't even take. Right?

So we have to protect our EEOs and our community and our waterways at the same time. How do we do that? And my budget priority is was to add for the EEOs to be hazmat and contaminated trained to protect them and our community so they can collect this data. Council member Brown. So they can collect this data so not just fine, these individuals will be prosecuted to committing crimes against our community.

So I'm a talk to the city administrator about that because I knew it was some money put to the side on that enforcement. And I'd like to thank council member I mean, member Unger and the mayor for that enforcement on dumping 26 dash o five twenty seven, that measure. I mean, because it it it piggybacked on measure r r that that I did along with council member Cobb. And I also like to to thank senator Jesse for doing his about the DMV. It was all right here, my simple my simple priority.

So I really appreciate that. But we do have to protect the EEO, so I wanna know where that's at. And we have to collect the data. Everything is data driven. If you can collect the data and get that in the proper form and fashion to the DA, the district attorney, she said she will prosecute. And the individuals that are committing crimes, and I'm a say this public forum, that are committing crimes against my community and my council members' community, we will prosecute you to the full extent of the law because it has to stop. It's been going on too long. So I yield the floor.

Council member Gale. He's gonna need his

It's not about what we say. It's about what we do. And sometimes we some of us writing policy and recommendation. I never see you on the street picking anything up. And I've been here for many years, but I never see people out there, but they're gonna tell me how to do it, what to do, and when to do it.

So those are realities you can shake your head and growl, the reality is I have seen Oakland in many different ways. And one of the realities that we're facing, facing, we have a contract with a waste management company that can deliver the service to allow Noel to go dump at waste management and not create a bulky pickup where I wanna have all my workers doing overtime work, you know, with, dumpsters and trucks where I could go to waste management like other cities do. I go to Tucson, Arizona. I get to go if I have a bill, I go straight to the dump yard, waste management. And they only charge me $300, not $330, not $300.

So I don't have to go to the public works yard, and the public works yard's gotta go to the waste management yard. So I think that, you know, for those that wrote these policies, come please come out and help me. We're out there every day. We've been out there every day for ten years picking that up. I'm not sitting here just making more excuses.

Alright? So the reality is that we have to deal with waste management. And what the city's not doing, city employees are not doing administratively, sitting here at City Hall because there are many businesses in Oakland that don't have a garbage license. So what they do is they come and leave it on the corner down the street so we can pick it up, And we're not charging any fees. And certainly, one time, waste public works used to do that on a daily basis.

Early in the morning, clean the streets up, pick it up, and make it be only dealing with graffiti, but dealing with mean, garbage, but dealing with the graffiti. You never saw graffiti throughout the city because we used to have cameras at certain places, and the police department would go with me at nighttime to cap capture those doing the graffiti and arrest them. And I still get people from the sheriff's department that come volunteer with me because they legally dump or they did graffiti, but they're coming from the city of Fremont, Castro Valley. I don't see any people in Oakland getting arrested or cited to come work off their tickets, and they're coming from other cities in Alameda County. So what I'm asking the city administration, where is that franchise fee dollar going That we're like one or two cities in the state that ever did that because we they went to court and sued the city because that was illegal because the voters never paid for that or voted for that.

But we're still collecting 28,000,000. Where is that money going? It's supposed to be going back to keeping our streets clean. And so if you need to report that, not only that fee, but also the cannabis operations. Because I still remember when I was here, when we started that, they used to bring their trucks and give us millions of dollars.

Right. And but now we changed the process. So where is that money going? To city administration to keep this city safe and clean. So so for me, it's you know, we can do a lot of writing, a lot of talking, but I wanna see those that wrote it and and put it together, come on the street and help do it so you know what what the hell is going on in the neighborhood.

You can see it yourself. Get your hands dirty. It's easy for me to sit here all day long writing to do this and do that and over here and feel sorry, but the reality is we need to hire more people within public works. And if you go to public works today, right now, you're gonna see trucks, fifty, sixty trucks that are not working because we don't have the mechanics. We used to have 10 mechanics, but now I only have three.

And the trucks are sitting because I drive city trucks every weekend and throughout the week. But most of the time, they're not working, and our people are not able to go and collect the trash and do what you're saying we should be doing. So for me, it's it's we need to get Oakland needs to get its act together in public works, transportation. We need to have that cooperation, not just with waste management, but California Waste Solutions because they used to bring their big trucks on Saturdays to volunteer and help me clean up. But now they don't do that anymore because the city well, somebody something's going on with negotiations.

So so for me, it's, whether you're in West Oakland or East Oakland, I think what we need to do is improve the delivery of service. I don't need more more laws and more ordinances. I need to get the job done as we've done in many years in the past. And so the the only other recommendation I have for you, you wanna do education? Well, we used to receive that information in our high schools.

No. It's not okay for you to throw your trash out the window as we're doing today. And it's not okay for your school to be like it is in the condition today because the youngsters used to volunteer to keep it clean every day, and that's my high school years. I used to once a month, they make us all work around the school, inside the school, in the neighborhood to make sure the neighbors saw us caring for the community. So I think that they there are many ways to get this done, but at the end of the day, waste management has a dump yard that we can go and dump our trash like we do when we pick it up during the week and during the and and it's over.

It's clean, but waste management, California Waste Solutions, Civic Corps would be out on the streets daily unloading your trash cans, picking up whatever's on the sidewalk and on the streets. And so we need to get back to the work attitude. And and that's one of the things that's missing in all these policies that I'm creating, doing this and that, but it's about work. It's about cleaning Chinatown. I can write all the laws I want, but unless you get out and go clean it, it's not gonna change.

So so what I ask is that, you know, be able to report back in terms of what is the condition of Oakland of of public works. What is their need for to re to fix those vehicles? How many more employees do they have? Because many are not here anymore. And as an example and I'll leave you with that. Go to the Public Works Yards on Coliseum Way. You've been there lately? In front of Oakland pub o o the Public Works Yard, it should be the cleanest area around as a demonstration of of cleanliness. It is dumped left and right. You come out with your truck.

It's the whole street. Even though I asked them to put no parking at any time, it is filled with garbage and trash, and and we allow that in front of our property, and that's a role model that we need to correct that at. But go take a look. Go take a look, and then you can decide what to write and what to do. But at the end of the day, I need more individuals working with Public Works and make sure that their vehicles are repaired and are able to assist the workers that we do have.

So anyway, so thank you. I I know I don't mean to express my frustration, but Oakland's gotta get its act together, and it's not about how many laws and rules I have. We gotta go get it. Look at Lake Merritt. You I used you used to help me with Lake Merritt. Look where it is today. Not like where it used to be, where you had Olympic trials, people running the high school kids all rowing at Lake Merritt. But nowadays, well, I'm not gonna go to Lake Merritt. I'll go somewhere else. So, anyways, thank you.

But and I do value that, and it's more than more about than just $1,000,000. Gotta remember that through waste management, they collect 36,000,000 a year. In my garbage spill on top of the garbage spill, I have to pay on a monthly basis. Thank you.

Thank you, council member Gao council member Wong.

Thank you. I will soon make a motion to second, council member Houston's motion, but I just had some final questions I had just on implementation. So is this once we approve this, are we poised to immediately implement this? Or, because I see a number of specific vendors names so it sounds like you don't need to do now like a lengthy RFP after this. So when can we expect to see this executed to council member Houston's points?

Yes. Through the chair. So to that point, no. Some of many of these things are already underway. So we, you know, we've queued up to purchase tablets. Right? And we just need the funding approval to to purchase the tablets. We are already working on a new CityWorks module for tracking illegal dumping citations, our asset management system. And we're working with finance department. So so and we've already identified, for example, lightning loader truck. So all of these items are already in the works. There's nothing that we're starting from scratch on. And so as soon as this is approved, many of these things will be able to be implemented very shortly.

Okay. Great. And I'm just wondering to how we can measure our success. I know with this new drone system that perhaps there's an objective way to actually measure the piles. The other measurement is oak three or the three eleven or or the work orders which I'm not sure is actually an objective measure. So I would love to see in like a year's time frame to see if what we're implementing today is in fact making inroads in the illegal dumping issue and how we can actually find a metric or a methodology to measure the illegal dumping piles.

Yeah, absolutely. Through the chair. So when we return for our annual report on this item as is called for in the resolution, we'll make sure that we're reporting out on the success of that pilot program for airbits and we are developing KPIs for that so that we make sure that we are having metrics that we're trying to hit and we'll report on how well we how well we did that.

Okay. Great. And then, I would just say too that I agree with council member Gallo's comments that I would also love to have this sort of in-depth of thought around the graffiti issues. And with that, I'll I'll second the motion.

Alright. Thank you. Council member Houston.

I just have one more comment. You know how ridiculous this sounds when we're talking about illegal dumping and other cities aren't talking about they're talking about other issues. Why is that? Why is that? It's because we're just cleaning up cleaning up instead of deterrence.

Why are we spending all this time and resources on what? Cleanup. It's called deterrence. The city of Oakland has the same equipment that waste management has. I don't know other cities that have that. That's ridiculous. Sitting on this council, I'm the only council member here that's prosecuted a graffiti vandal and a illegal dumper through Nancy O'Malley with supervisor Nate Malley, and we had stopped and slowed it down. Then after Nancy left, the prosecution stopped. Now that we have another district attorney, She's willing to prosecute. She's running for office right now.

We have to deter this crime, council member Unger. It's not called cleanup cleanup cleanup fine fine fine. And that's why I said the information that the EEOs are very, very important to this this system because they're the ones that are on the ground that need to be protected. They're the ones that are on the ground that will collect and go through the indicia to find out the individuals that are committing this crime against our community. So if they have the information and the data that they can turn over in in the proper way to the district attorney, we can prosecute these individuals that are committing crimes against our community, illegal dumpers and graffiti vandals, which is a visual cue of deterioration that attracts illegal dumping.

Let me give you on the story. Ten years ago, there was some huge, huge illegal dumping on San Leandro Boulevard. I went out. It was, like, 12:30, 01:00 at night. Saw this guy dumping. I said, hey. You know, I wanna hey. What what makes you want feel that you can dump here? You know what he said to me? He said if they can tag and do graffiti vandalism for thirty minutes, I can dump it in ten. Right? So my message is this, cleanup is fine. We have to clean up and keep it clean because Noel's been out there all the time cleaning up, cleaning up, and spending his time just cleaning up our city. It's unacceptable. He could be doing other things.

Right? We need to deter these individuals that are committing crimes against our community. And I'm a say it one more time. In my priorities, real it was real simple. It was three, public safety, homeless and housing.

I addressed that with the EAP, beautifying of Oakland, and public safety. We need to address it in a way that we can spend our time worrying about our seniors, worrying about our children, worrying about our homeless individuals that need housing instead of talking about dumping, which people should know better to do it anyway because I'm a tell you, much of the dumping in my community is coming from my community, from down the street with bags and stuff. I don't know if it's because of the size of the the garbage bag the garbage containers or not. We're working on that also. So my main point right now is to get money, that money that was promised for the EEOs to be safe, for themselves to be safe, and to be able to be trained to identify hazardous and contaminated materials so that information can be documented and turned over to the district attorney so these individuals that are committing crimes against our community can be prosecuted because it is hurtful that I have to walk through this, my children, my seniors.

It is sad. I yield the floor.

Okay. We've got a motion and a second. Do we have some comment from the public?

Wanna call your name. Please approach the podium. State your name for the record. If you're participating via Zoom, please raise your hands so you're easily identified as practiced. We will take in person before Zoom. Miss Asada, Dwayne Nelson, and Blair Beakman.

Kevin Dally. I think I'm on the list too. Double checked and I see an email unless I misread it.

Kevin Dally, you signed up for item five?

I believe so.

Do have you. You.

May proceed. Dumping expenditure plan. I think that's the right one. Right? Okay. Thanks. I thank council member Wong for asking my questions about how do we we evaluate success. Of course, we're doing a lot of things at once, so it might be difficult to pull out what works and what doesn't. It'd be good to see maybe a six month rather than wait for a full year before the first evaluation. With traffic calming, I also like to look at results.

We do some stuff. Is it really slowing down the streets or not? If it isn't, what can we do? How can we get back and change things. Council member Gayle mentioned something that I thought was interesting.

Are there actually businesses that don't pay for pickup? This morning's finance committee discussed how the finance department is improving data on businesses that don't pay business taxes. Can the same data be used to decide what to find out whether those businesses pay for garbage pickup, waste pickup either directly or possibly through the property, through their landlords, or whatever. I think that's something the finance department might be able to do if this really is a problem. Thanks.

My name is Dwayne Nelson, District 3 West Oakland resident. And did I hear that you're going to develop KPIs and then report on them? Because typically you develop them and you agree on them and then you report on them later. I mean, you don't just say, oh, we're gonna decide what success is and then deliver it. I mean, I don't I don't understand that. So outside of that, you know, when I came over here this morning, I stopped by West Street and we have a pile of trash going open up service request 21694603. It's on West Street, West Grand and West Street. It's right under a chain link fence with a sign that says no dumping. We have a camera right there. I I don't understand what's going on with that camera.

I emailed Rebecca Kaplan about that to find out if that camera is is working or or what the purpose is. So I don't know why we have dumping there all the time. If we're not using the cameras we have, the 36 cameras that we have, I don't know what's gonna happen if we're gonna get additional cameras, how that's gonna be helpful. So I don't know what's going on with that. And I think with three one one, you know I have a there's so many issues with three one one.

I mean, just putting aside the poor user experience you have when you fill out that when you fill those out. I have requests, you know, from 06/03/2025 still open, still showing as acknowledged. I have other ones, you know, the three weeks open. I don't know, like if I submit a service request today, but then 50 people in the hills fill one out, does theirs get closed first before mine? I mean, you know, I think in West Oakland, you can certainly feel like we're the caboose end of this train.

I'm glad nobody's mentioned equity today because I think we're not getting any equity. I think inequities what we get in West Oakland. So definitely say that. And I think lastly I would just close by saying everyone agrees that the multi family residential units are not using bulky pickup. And I think education is an issue there, but I think all the members of the council, you often can see joint services, can be involved in education of that as well. Thank you.

One of the reasons why you have been in the NSA for close to twenty three years is because you can't get your police department to have culture change. This issue is gonna continually be an issue where you think of ways of how you can pick up trash, how you can educate people, but not completely eliminating the problem because you have a culture who embraces this behavior. And there exist cultures that don't display this kind of behavior. Japan is the best example. My sons are going to Japan, this my one is this is his third trip, the other one and the two boys are going there to observe the culture of Japan.

And the most outstanding thing my child told me about Japan is there is no trash on the street. No trash cans on the street. You don't eat in public, you eat in the restaurant. It's all kind of cultural behaviors where the the the communities are clean, People are respectful and they believe in respecting their community and keeping it clean. It's not just you're forced to do it.

You embrace it. That's culture. So you can go in any store, go in Ross, Target, and look on the floor and see how people just throw clothing, items all in disarray. It's a culture of we don't respect each other's communities, private commercial property, or our own homes. You have people with trash out in front of their house and they don't even go pick it up.

It's a culture change that we cannot create. It's not gonna happen. So all we're gonna do is keep up coming up with ways of picking up. You can say, fine them. Culture is not gonna change.

Thank you for your comment, mister Asado. Moving to our Zoom speaker, Blair Beakman. Please unmute yourself and bring in your one two minute comment.

Hi. Blair Beekman, thanks for this item. I I didn't sign up for the next item that can be related to this. So to offer a few words on that other item other item and how it can relate to this one, If I it's Caltrans funding for litter issues, if I'm understanding, something of that nature. And councilperson Gallo Gallo really nicely described back in January how we can be working a system of getting Caltrans funding and that they can do a lot of litter cleanup themselves.

That money in January became allocated to the city of Oakland so they could have more freedom and choices of how to pick up litter. It was a good plan, but it's it's funding is gonna be running out around May, around this time, actually. And so, you know, I I at that time, you guys were talking about how to work with a community effort and what that could mean, and I hope that's going well. Because I'm really hopeful what you guys can be doing well. I'm I'm not so much into the punitive side of things, but how, like, in San Jose, you know, where I was living the past ten years before moving down to San Diego, you know, they'd have dumpster days on Saturdays where the whole neighborhood they put a dumpster in a neighborhood and just all parts of the community would come out and and put their garbage there.

And we could do the same thing in Oakland that I think I'm sure you guys know the concept. I think it would be great, and especially bringing it down to, you know, the areas where the trash is worse. It could be a good way to bring, community together and and government, you know, and and you guys can just commingle and talk. And I think good conversations can happen, and it's a good camaraderie. And that's that's what we need to be going for. What's the camaraderie? What's the neighborhood feeling that we're trying to build? It isn't a punitive concept. As Kevin well, as Kevin said, it's got a lot of ideas going. I think you should go for more of a community effort instead of punitive things. Good luck with your efforts, with this item.

Thank you for your comment. That concludes your public speakers for item five. We do have a motion made by council member Houston, seconded by council member Wong to approve the recommendation to staff and afford this item to the 05/19/2026 city council agenda. On roll, council member Gallo.

Aye.

Thank you. Council member Houston?

Can I I wanna make a statement? It's gonna be on consent because I spoke to the president because I wanted to extend it and get more minute.

Okay. Thank you. Council member Houston? Aye. Council member Wong? Aye. And chair Unger? Aye. This motion does pass with four ayes. So to approve the recommendation of the staff and to forward this item to the May 19 city council agenda and through the body, that will be on consent or non consent?

Consent.

Thank you. On consent, moving to item three. Adopt a resolution awarding a construction contract to the Bay Area Lightworks Inc. For HSIP nine rectangular rapid flashing beacon project, project number 1005461, the lowest responsible and responsive bidder in accordance to the project plans, specifications, state requirements, and the contractor's bid in the amount of $304,900. And you do have three speakers for this item.

Okay. Let's hear from staff, please.

Good afternoon. I'm Joe Wang, safe streets division manager, Oak Dot. Before I start, I'd like to request a change to the title of the resolution for this item. You all have a copy of it in front of you.

So you'll just go ahead and read it in?

Yeah.

And then after you're done presenting, one of the council members can make a motion to accept your changes and then we'll

go from there.

Will do. Resolution awarding a construction contract to Bay Area Lightworks Incorporated for HSIP nine, rectangular rapid flashing beacon project, project number 1005461, the lowest responsible and responsive bidder in accordance with the project plans, specifications, state requirements and the contractors bid in the amount of $304,900 in adopting appropriate California Environmental Quality Act, CEQUA findings.

Go ahead with your report, sir. Sure. I believe mister Parks has a copy for you. Sure.

You want the presentation now?

Yes, please. Yeah.

H the highway safety improvement program or HSIP is a federal transportation grant administered by Federal Highway Administration through Caltrans. ODOT applied for and was awarded cycle nine funds in the amount of $250,000. The funds will be used to construct pedestrian safety improvement, specifically rectangular rapid flashing beacons or RRFBs at two Oakland intersections, 98th Avenue and C Street and Oakland Avenue and Moss Avenue. Now RFBs are yellow flashing beacons that have a proven record of improving pedestrian crossing safety. Both locations we're looking at have unprotected crosswalks, Meaning they're crosswalks without any traffic control like stop signs or traffic signals to protect pedestrians.

These are crosswalks across multiple lanes of high volume traffic. The Federal Disadvantaged Business Enterprise or DBE program was established in 1983 to assist small business formation and growth and to provide them an advantage to securing federally funded public right of way projects. However, in October, the US Department of Transportation suspended all contract goal setting under the DBE program. And as a result of these changes, DBE participation was reduced to no requirement and was not a factor in our determination of the lowest responsive and responsible bidder. The project received six bids with San Francisco based Bay Area Lightworking Light Lightworks coming in as the lowest responsive and responsible bidder.

The bid was $304,900 which is 26% lower than the engineer's estimate. The decision today for council is whether or not to adopt the resolution to award the construction contract to San Francisco Lightworks with no DBE participation. And I should mention that there are additional projects from our department in the pipeline in the same situation where these projects are funded by federal money and we have to, you know, comply with the new DBE rules. That ends my presentation.

Thank you, sir.

Any questions?

Questions from council members. Council member Houston, please.

Through the chair, AC Lake. When federal funds are included can you answer that question for me? With and we enforce small local business or minority contractors, what can happen if we say, no, we don't wanna use this because, we wanna, utilize small local businesses? What can happen?

I think our choice is either that we accept the federal money and the terms by which the federal money must be spent, or we don't accept the federal money. And we worked closely with the city attorney's office to make sure that that those were our only options. I'm happy to turn it over to the city attorney if there's anything additional.

No. I'm here today as parliamentarian, and any additional legal questions can follow the ordinary process.

And so so through the chair again to ACA Lake, if we don't if we just if we try to enforce the small local businesses on that, we can lose the money. Correct? Is that what you're saying?

Correct.

Okay. Alright. I got my answer.

Council member Gayle. He's gonna need his

And you made reference to 98th Avenue and what streets are we I

think it was 98th And C and Oakland and Moss.

In Oakland and Moss. Correct.

98th And

C Street.

Okay. And Oak Street, you said?

No. Oakland Avenue and Oakland. Moss. Oakland.

Okay. Now thank you for that information, for your work, and I'll make a motion to approve Steph's recommendation.

Council member Wong.

Just to confirm, because there's a distinction between the federal government revising the DBE participation requirement to 0% and saying we cannot consider DBEs. It is the latter that the new rules are from the federal government?

I believe so, yes. Okay.

Alright.

Okay. We have a motion. We have a second.

Moving to our public speakers, miss Asada and Kevin Dolly.

So Oakland Avenue And Moss is in District 2 near District 1, And 98th and C is in District 7. So I would assume having this money, you had a list of streets and intersections that could have fallen under the need to address this. So how did you conclude these two streets? What what method of fairness and equity brought you to have these two streets in as the ones that would be targeted? Because you have to constantly address fairness and equity.

You have an abundance of certain districts whose issues are addressed more than other districts related to streets, pavements, sidewalks, tree cutting, whatever you wanna call it. And that's evident if you just go look at the streets, And at some point, we need to see what's going on with the pavement of streets. Where are these people? Are they doing undercover work that we we never see them? We just need to see that.

The other thing I'm concerned about is this area of what that money could be used for, flashing beacons, permanent markings, drain pipes, curved ramps, is a list of of of a large list of how that money could be spent. How did you come to use the money for this particular area? The needs of where we have, storm drain pipes, for instance. To me, that's a very high priority. So I don't know how you decided on the areas, I don't know how you decided on what specific places of where we could spend the money, how we made those decisions.

But you have the responsibility of creating the highest priority being addressed. So if they're gonna just paint the streets

Thank you for your comment, Falkin.

Thank you, madam clerk.

That concludes your public speakers for item three. We do have a

Excuse me. I believe council member Houston would like to speak.

Yeah. Just through the chat, I just like to share. I'm so happy that they did choose 98th And C Street. There were multiple accidents there. A young lady got ran over. She got killed further down, left behind four kids. Another young lady, little girl was was was ran over. And this is real critical location because this is a underserved location. It's been underserved for years. I mean, Elmhurst Park is right there, the tennis court, through the city administrator's office.

We just, did a soft closure on that park where they had individuals living in there burning fires, burning trees for the last seven years. We just cleaned it up. We did a soft closure on it. We're gonna reopen it. We're gonna get arborists out there to actually, cut the tree or repair the tree if it can be repaired. And that park is gonna start, bringing a lot many children, many families there. So that's gonna be a very, very critical, location. So I'm very happy that they did choose in District 7 98th And C Street because we're have gonna a lot of activity there. So I appreciate that.

Thank you. We have a motion made by council member Gallo, seconded by council member Houston to approve the recommendations of staff and afford this item to the 05/19/2026 city council agenda. On the roll, council member Gaio?

Aye.

Council member Houston? Aye. Council member Wong? Aye. And chair Anger? Aye. This motion does pass with four ayes to approve the recommendations of staff and to afford this item to the 05/19/2026 city council agenda through the body. Would that be on consent?

Yes. And I'd like to, make clear that it is approved as amended.

As amended. Thank you. I'll restate your motion. We have a motion made by council member Gallo, seconded by council member Houston to approve as amended the recommendation of staff and to forward this item to the 05/19/2026 city council agenda on roll. Council member Gallo? Aye. Council member Houston? Aye. Council member Wong? Aye. And chair Unger? Aye. The motion does pass with four ayes to approve as amended. The recommendations of staff and the four decide until the 05/19/2026 city council agenda and through the body that was on consent. Moving to item four.

Adopt a resolution authorizing the city administrator to enter into a cooperative purchase agreement with Cray Graybar Electric Company for the acquisition of electric lighting data communications, security productions, and related supplies in an amount not to exceed $1,500,000 for up to five year period, expiring no later than 06/30/2031 pursuant to the Oakland municipal code 204080. And you do have four speakers for this item.

You look just like the guy who spoke on the last topic.

Good afternoon again. Joe Wang, ODOT. The proposed resolution would allow the city administrator to enter into a co op agreement with Graybar Electric Company through the city of Kansas City, Missouri to acquire electrical communications and data management hardware equipment. This contract would be used by departments of transportation, public works, and information technology. As the city continues to prioritize doing business with Oakland based vendors, we're establishing contracts with other vendors including those that are not based in Oakland to keep the operation going.

So this is a contract that is a bridge or necessary bridge to get us to the point where we have a purchase contract with an Oakland vendor. Graybar is a vendor that we've used before who has met our purchasing needs and offered competitive pricing. Establishing a new contract with them through a co op agreement is the most efficient way to bring back a vendor with a proven track record. And this contract does not lock up funds or hinder our ability to establish contracts with Oakland vendors as they become available. Adoption of this resolution is not a commitment to spend $1,500,000 with Graybar, but an approval to spend up to 1,500,000 in purchasing capacity. That concludes my presentation.

Thank you. Questions, colleagues? Council member Gaye. Yes, sir. First

of all, let me thank you, Joe, mister Wang, for being with us. You certainly know the history of Oakland, I appreciate you staying with the city of Oakland. Secondly, this funding amount is coming for what funding source?

So we've identified funding, but we're not dedicating funding to the contract. We're just seeking approval for purchasing capacity. So we have to prove that the money is there but we're not necessarily locking up the funds. It's not until we make actual purchases that we have to encumber funds to pay for the

for the goods. At this point, we don't know where what level where the funding's gonna be coming from? Whether state, federal, or

No. It's it's it's state and local 20 I always have a hard time remembering. Twenty two eighteen and nineteen which is Yeah.

State funding? Yeah.

It's it's it's a gas tax and sales tax.

Okay. Alright. Thank you. I'll make a motion to approve the item.

Thank you. Council member Houston.

Through the chair. St. Louis, that's where they're from?

The firm is based in Missouri but the co op agreement is through Kansas City. So the city of Kansas City has an agreement currently with Graybar which is also based in Missouri.

So to the chair, we don't have any electrical contractors that can do this out here? I mean, we have many electrical contractor. I can understand if it was a specialty, to the chair. So this is

not a contract. It's a purchasing contract. Yeah. So about a year ago, we solicited bids for a very similar contract for electrical supplies. And we received no bids from Oakland vendors. So, you know, was disappointing but it's an ongoing effort. But I I think, you know, back to the point that this is we gotta we have to maintain operation in the meantime. We literally keep the lights on because we repair street lights and traffic signals and we have to buy parts to to do the work. So again, this is a bridge to that point in time when we will be able to establish contracts with Oakland vendors.

To the chair, I mean, Oakland, Bay Area, California, but then outside of the state. I just can't grab it. I mean, understand it. We should have some vendors that can supply this in the Bay Area at least. I mean

We do. I think there are vendors in the Bay Area but our focus was on Oakland vendors.

Yes. Yes. Okay.

Council member Wong.

Thanks to the chair. So I've been railing on the status of our street lights for a while. It's been really bad. The repair time has been outrageous. So this is a new cooperative agreement so you anticipate that this should bring down the time that it takes because we have, I flagged things myself to like 03:11 and it's like six months to repair these things. So can you just confirm that?

Yes, this is only a spot part of the overall improvement. We're just securing a vendor so that we can purchase the parts that we need to make repairs.

Okay. Are there commitments in this contract in terms of volume of work? And I have directed this question to a number of departments when we pursue the cooperative agreement model because every report I get on cooperative agreement it's very like we're just going to get some work. It doesn't specify a level of service that we're expecting.

It's a purchasing contract for product and goods. So they're not doing any, providing any service for us. Just selling us parts that we need to make repairs within

the household. Oh I see, okay. Well then even with the equipment it's, I guess what are we expecting to purchase with this cooperative agreement?

So the good question. It'll be shared by three different departments.

Okay.

We'll be purchasing electrical communications and data management hardware equipment for department of transportation public works and department of information technology.

Okay. I I I just wanna go on a soapbox a little bit because I have like street lights in my district that are not functional. It's like creating like the potential for a traffic accident. I'm surprised it hasn't happened yet. And then even around Lake Merritt, finally the lights turned after I don't know how many months we've been flagging this for.

But I got to say even now that they're on, it's a little wonky. It's like now the lights are on during the daytime which I don't think was like that before. So I will make a motion to adopt this because I think anything to improve the lighting, the street lights, traffic signals is all incredibly important because I have noticed deterioration over the last year.

Okay. Any more comments from my colleagues? Do we have a second or just a motion? We need a second still. Council member Houston's got the second.

Thank you, Colin. And our public speakers, miss Asada, Blair Beekman, Kevin Dolly.

Need to bring up something I brought up in finance. I'm seeing projects that are being taken on by the city, but they're not complete. So this project of streetlights, I know there are streetlights that in the last couple of months have been placed at Keller And Mountain, but they're not on. When are you gonna turn them on? For years, street lights have been at Keller And Canyon Oaks Drive, not on.

So why do we have projects that are not totally bought to completion? Everything that was a part of the project is done. And I I request what projects do we have in this city that have started and not been completed related to public works. Everybody on the dais should understand a cooperative purchase agreement. You just recently agreed that you're gonna participate in that process.

This one is from Kansas City, Missouri, and the company they're using, we're gonna use based on the similar terms of the contract. What I don't understand in the in the report is the electrical equipment that we're gonna and accessories will be used for public streets, private streets, and highways. Could somebody would want to know what are we talking about with private streets? Do we participate in providing public works services to private streets related to this or anything? And what highways are we talking about that this item would be inclusive of?

Kevin Dolly. Thank you. Moving to our Zoom speaker, Blair Beakman, you may unmute yourself and begin your two minute comment.

Hi, Blair Beakman. Thanks a lot for this item. It's kind of related to, items you had at the first meeting today that were, important, on on lighting issues. And that was mentioned by community, working on better, civilian ideas of policing that included, you know, our our streetlight repairs and that that could be a more reliable, source, for public safety efforts. I I offered on that item that I was have a bit of concern that I as I work with tech accountability that, you know, there has to be good civil rights practices and review.

And I think that is possibly what gets in the way a bit and slows things up with smart streetlight issues and streetlight issues overall. And being from San Diego these days, it's a big concern, and they're really trying to develop a more efficient system to do all of that. So good luck what you can be working on and figuring out in in in the process of both, you know, working on fix it priorities, public safety, and civil rights and civil protections with around responsible tech practices. It's a combination and we have to have that conversation openly. I'm a bit fearful we don't have that conversation openly enough.

I think those are the pieces of the puzzle. We just have to be more clear in the open public space that those are the pieces. And so good luck how you can do that. I think that's the order of things, formula of things and it's just important we talk about all of them. They're all important in how we develop a better community future. Thank you.

That concludes your public speakers.

Council member Wong.

I'm reminded that we also have this plague of copper wire out of our streetlights being stolen. I would just urge if this particular vendor has It looks like there are like types of wire that are designed to deter theft and if we can purchase that through these folks I would very much like to see that since I think it'll help prevent some of the outages that we're seeing across the city. Thanks.

Thank you. We do have a motion made by council member Wong, seconded by council member Houston to approve the recommendations of staff and afford this item to the May agenda on roll. Council member Gallo?

Aye.

Council member Houston? Aye. Thank you. Council member Wong? Aye. And chair Unger? Aye. This motion does pass with four ayes to approve the recommendations of staff and the four decide until the 05/19/2026 city council agenda. And through the body, would that be on consent?

Yes, please.

Thank you. Moving to item six. This item is needs an urgency motion as it was added at the agenda on a three day posting from the rules and legislation committee. I just need a motion.

So moved. Thank you.

We have a motion made by chair Unger, seconded by council member Houston to receive the urgency of this item on roll. Councilmember Gallo? Aye. Councilmember Houston? Aye. Councilmember Wong? Aye. And chair Unger? Aye. This motion does pass with four ayes.

I will now read the item into record. Adopt a resolution authorizing the city administrator to accept and appropriate grant funds in an amount not to exceed $300,000 from the California Department of Transportation Community Cleanup and Employment Pathway grant program and to execute related grant agreements. Two, waiving the city of Oakland's advertising and competitive request for proposals requirements for the CCEP funded services, three, amending city council resolution number eight nine seven six two to increase the agreement with the youth employment partnership by $250,000 for a total contractor amount not to exceed $2,125,000, and four, amending city council resolution number eight nine seven six one to increase the agreement with the Lake Mary Institute of $50,000 for a total contract amount not to exceed one million two hundred and twelve thousand and five hundred dollars and five, adopt an appropriate sequel findings. And you do have two speakers.

Do we have a staff report?

Good morning again, chair Unger and members of the committee. I'm Kristen Hathaway, assistant director with Oakland Public Works. I have a very short power pan PowerPoint presentation. Okay. Next slide.

So we're requesting counsel to adopt a resolution accepting and appropriating $300,000 in grant funds from the Caltrans Community Cleanup and Employment Pathways Program. This would allow us to increase the contract with the youth employment partnership nonprofit that runs Team Oakland by $250,000 for a total contract value of 1,120,000. And then the Lake Merritt Institute, we're requesting to add $50,000 to their contract and adopt CEQA findings. Next slide. So thank you for agreeing to the urgency finding.

We are anxious to get started on this grant implementation that started on April 15. It supports community cleanup work and youth workforce development. The Youth Employment Partnership runs Team Oakland that employs youth and young adults aged 18 to 25 in doing beautification activities and job training and largely focuses on on youth that are at risk and have been otherwise shut out of job opportunities. Lake the Lake Merritt Institute focuses on cleaning and education efforts around Lake Merritt, and the Team Oakland youth working through this program would be doing work at Lake Merritt and in other identified high priority neighborhoods. This expands team Oakland from just a summer job program to year round, which would increase the length of job opportunities for the young people.

So we'll be doing additional litter and graffiti removal, working in public spaces, like I said, job training for youth and at risk individuals, and building skills for those youth in environmental stewardship, safety, teamwork, and leadership, and leverages state funding. Next slide. Like I said, we were notified in February of receipt of the grant and we need to begin program implementation as soon as possible. And so we would like to confirm the partner roles, begin recruiting and training of the youth participants, and the grant fully expires in November 2027. Last slide.

So that's all I have. I'm available for questions. Thank you.

That's great. Thank you. Councilmember Houston.

Due to chair, really like this. On the Caltrans money of the $300,000, their scope of work, and I think and I think page two, paragraph two, last bullet point was, this monies was for individuals who are justice impacted and unhoused, experiencing homelessness or children at risk. So does that mean that monies that they appropriated for this are the children's at risk for being justice impacted and unhoused? Because that was that what that $300,000 is for that's coming from Caltrans.

That's right. This this money is coming from Caltrans, and it will fund Team Oakland. And Team Oakland does specifically recruit youth in those categories for participating in the Team Oakland program.

Okay. And since it was waived by the city of Oakland advertising, I wanted to get I wanted to get some information back quarterly or or or let me look at this real quick and see what it said. I wanted some data back on that on what who did they actually reach out to and you don't have to say names, but who did they and what did they train? What skill sets did they train so they can have these skill sets, these wraparound skill sets? Can I get a report back for that?

Yeah. I mean, I'm sure we can provide a report on on Team Oakland in general. This is Team Oakland. You know, we have an existing contract with Youth Employment Partnership for this program that we have been running for a couple decades. And we can provide you information on on Team Oakland as a program. And and yeah.

No. For this act I wanted an action item just for this specific money. I'll make sure that money is going to what CalTran had wanted it for, that $300,000 because it's gonna be $2.50 to one program and then 54

For the Lake Merritt Institute. Yes. Yes.

Through the yeah. Yeah. Ahead. Through the chair, if I may. Does the grant already have reporting requirements? And if so, let's include that, the council members in that report.

It does, yes. So we will do that, absolutely.

And include the information requested by council member Houston.

Yes.

Council member Wong.

Thank you for hopping on this quickly by the way. You know Lake Merritt is in District 2. It's really important that we treat the jewel of Oakland like it is. So thank you. And also YEP as well as Lake Merritt Institute.

Think that's on the border of District 2. YEP is in District 2. So yeah and I know that they do fantastic work. One thing I would just urge, I understand that it's not just Lake Merritt, it's also going to be the EJ neighborhoods that get these services that I really, with Chinatown I've been working with the economic workforce development department and it is shocking especially given the language barriers where you our three one one app is not available in other languages and yet somehow China has Chinatown has more reports on graffiti than like the entire city combined. And so if the for Chinatown I really the graffiti removal piece is really important to me.

And with that I I do make a motion to accept staff recommendation. Thank you.

Council member Gayle. Thank you for the information. And certainly, know both organizations extremely well. With the youth employment program, I've known them known them from the beginning. They're out there helping me weekly clean the neighborhood.

And then the youngsters that are in the program are neighborhood youngsters, not only learning work skills, but also receiving their high school education. And so I really wanna thank Youth Employment Partnership. But at the same time, beyond the cleanup, they are also building tough sheds, little sheds for for homeless people and created a a housing opportunity for those that are homeless that are in college right across the street. So I'm extremely grateful to the Youth Employment Partnership Program and also with the Lake Merritt Group. I started well, they've been calling me to show up on weekends, Saturday or Sunday, to help beautify Lake Merritt.

And certainly we're doing that and look forward to working with them directly. And thank you for the recommendation to these two organizations. Thank you. I'll second the motion.

Alright. Thank you.

Moving to our public speakers, Kevin Dolly and Miss Asada.

Lake Merritt is a proud part of Oakland, but at some point we gotta look at the amount of money we spend on Lake Merritt. It it is exceptionally a large amount. And whether or not we are not adequately, equitably, and fairly distributing the needs that Lake Merritt gets to other parts of the city. I'm concerned about the nonprofit Lake Merritt Institute, a total of $1,200,000 to help clean Lake Merritt. You guys freely give money to nonprofits with no accountability about work done if it's done right.

And I can speak to the, consortium the the housing consortium of the East Bay. I think that's the name of that group that was over the Lake Merritt Lodge and over the tiny homes by Lake Merritt and completely allowed for the destruction of that property. And the Spanish speaking unity council with that money that they owed in 2016. And I don't know who y'all how y'all decided to pay back the money that they owed to neighbor Neighbor's Works America. You do things with these nonprofits that are very inappropriate.

Lastly, the youth unemployment, job readiness. Now it's okay to have children out here picking up litter and doing litter abatement and graffiti abatement, but when are we gonna move on to find opportunities for jobs that are really gonna have some purpose for them moving in their their careers? And right now, carpentry, electricians, and plumbers, they are the ones when you're talking about non professional jobs. They have they they they we can get some work done with these young people, but we gotta move beyond picking up trash as far as I'm concerned.

Thank you for your comments, Lisanna.

No problem. Thank you.

Kevin Dolly? That concludes your public speakers' item.

Chairperson, just for the public's questions, youth employment and training, they do provide, you know, development in terms of construction work, electrical work. They have a a supercomputer program, and they also preparing meals and all that. They do cooking and all that. So it's a multitude of services they provide the young people in the neighborhood.

Yeah. Okay. Thank you. We do have a motion made by council member Wong, seconded by council member Gallo to approve the recommendations of staff and before this item to the May agenda on roll. Council member Gaio? Aye. Council member Houston? Aye. Thank you. Council member Wong? Aye. And chair Unger? Aye. This motion does pass with four ayes to approve the recommendations of staff and to forward this item to the May agenda through the body. Would that be on consent?

Yes please.

Thank you. Moving to open forum. We do have four speakers, Kevin Dolly, Blair Beakman, miss Asada, and Mike Patoof. If you're in chambers, please approach the podium. If you're participating via Zoom, raise your hands so you're easily identified. We will take in person before Zoom.

Are we on two minute timer?

Yes. Begin.

Mike Benahoff, District 4. Following up on a recommendation from the Oakland Budget Advisory Commission about paving and trenching and also speaking as a citizen of District 4 and a registered professional civil engineer. I'm happy to see that Oakland is moving forward with paving. Congratulations on the council for your fiscal discipline to get our credit rating and bond moving. Congratulations to this committee and Josh Rowan and his team for getting paving moving.

We've got adjacent action item that I think needs to be agendized for future meetings, which is trenching. So we're paving our roads, but at the same time we're tearing them up with trenching. And many cities that I've experienced personally have standards that before you can trench in the public right of way, you must place a financial deposit with the city. It does a lot of things. It makes it easier for Josh and his team to fix if it doesn't go right, but it also makes the low bidders know that there's something hanging over their head.

They have to place a bond and they can't just do a quick a quick quick and dirty job. What happens is the trench trenches get made for legitimate reasons, but if they subside, it creates a gap in the pavement that creates water and it undermines the whole pavement. I can I have a whole report? I could show many many examples citywide. So there's two things we need to do.

One is a measure to support Josh and his team that would allow would a permit is granted that someone provides financial surety to make sure that that gets cleaned. And then it gets gets fixed. And separately, that we coordinate our paving schedule and our utility undergrounding schedule to make this work. I can say from my own experience, having done development earlier in my career, I remember the city public works manager of city of Fremont saying, Mike, since prop 13, we don't have extra money in our public works budget to fix contractors' messes. We need you to put put a deposit.

City of Remyville tells me, you can't drill a hole in the sidewalk to support this historic building while you're building it unless you put down a deposit and show us you're gonna fix the sidewalks that you drilled a hole in. Cities around the Bay Area re respect the public right of way, put requirements

Thank you for your comment.

Thankful that people, organizing against measure e. So this group called Citizens Oak, Oakland has six findings about what your measure e tax is proposed to be about or your all of your partial taxes. Voter approved special tax revenue has grown six times faster than inflation. The city has failed to meet voter mandated minimums in three of the last four partial tax measures. Extreme fiscal necessity has been used continuously to evade those minimums.

City spending has nearly doubled while measurable services output has not. Flat rate partial taxes hit deep East Oakland homes 48% harder than Rock Ridge. You heard that, mister Houston? Partial taxes are substantially passed through through to renters under certain circumstances. So let me go back now with the rest of my time about the trees.

When you guys dealt with those that tree and that $900,000 fine, you took no responsibility to hold your staff for taking three years to act on that violation. I was totally installed by mister Houston asking the man to apologize when the property is owned by two people, a black man and a white woman, and nowhere during the discussion did you hold her accountable. The whole while you had the discussion, was all about the black man. And those two people owned the property, and they were both fine. So that looks that looks pretty bad.

Then the the people were paying the vacancy tax. The property has eroded because you took so long to act on it. But don't come here and ask a black man to apologize and his white wife is just as responsible, and you don't ask her to apologize.

Thank you for your comment, Asado.

One more reminder, Thursday is a bike to wherever day. I'm hoping that I make it to 81st Avenue Library at 07:15 in the morning to ride in with council member Houston, but everyone can ride with an elected or be an elected riding with everyone else. And then the happy hour this eve sorry. Thursday evening in Old Town Should be more relaxing, and you're not required to have a bike for the happy hour. Thank you.

Moving to our Zoom speaker, Blair Beakman, you may unmute yourself and begin your two minute comment.

Hi. Blair Beakman. Thanks for the meeting. I'm 57 years old now, and in the mid eighties, there was a law under the Reagan administration, technically in the state of California. But I it just seemed so much part of the Reagan administration philosophy that English only was passed, and we had to only speak English in California in our legal system.

And, it was really, really annoying. And it's been on the books, like, for that long, and it's like a regular part of our lives. And I think it has something much to do with why three one one is currently only in English in Oakland, which thank you for that information from council person Wang. It's kind of shocking to think consider that that how many people are excluded from, you know, good social services and and community services. It it's it's excluding a major portion of the community.

And good luck in dressing addressing our fears. And we have to acknowledge Oakland has a has a problem with English only laws. They don't know how to be offer multi language ideas without feeling it's upsetting something and I hope we learn to get past that. San Jose can give you really good examples. They've done a lot of good work on that.

So check them out on how to do that well. Good luck with San Jose ideas with the garbage issues also. It was it was all parts of income levels gathering together on Saturdays for trash collection. That's an awesome idea, you know, in local neighborhoods. And thank you for the Sellbrite issues. Coming back in a year's time for a review of the process is important. I hope we can come back in six months with with different choices and just have that conversation ready to go and good luck how we

That concludes your public speakers' role for forum.

Alright, meeting adjourned. Thank you all.