City Council - meeting_joint

Good morning, good afternoon. For those who are here to participate in the council meeting, council members, we need you to your seat as we're about to begin. all right good afternoon and welcome to the uh city council meeting on this tuesday september 15th the time is now 3 34 and this meeting shall come to order before we give instructions excuse me before we begin and call roll i would like to give instructions on how to submit a speaker card for items on this agenda if you are here participating in person would like to submit a speaker card please follow the speaker card on my right your left and turn it into a clerk representative on your left my right or excuse me on my left your right before the item is read into record or two hours after this meeting began. Again, the meeting began at 3.34, so again, speaker cards will be due either two hours after this meeting began or before the item is read into record, whichever comes first. Participate, submitting a speaker card online was due 24 hours before the meeting began, so we will not be taking speaker cards at this time for online speakers. With that, I will call roll. On roll for this meeting, Council Member Brown.

Present.

Council Member Fife.

Present.

Council Member Gallo.

Present.

Council Member Houston is not in his seat. Council Member Ramachandran. Unger. Here. Wong. Present. And Council President Jenkins.

Present.

So we have seven members present and one excused. With that, I would like to make an announcement for those who are participating here in chambers or would like to speak to an item if you signed up. For an item that is not on this agenda, that's not germane to the items on this agenda, your speaker card will be moved to the open forum section. So if you are signed up to speak and you are not speaking to an item that's listed on this agenda, you will be moved to the open forum section for those who want to speak to items that are not listed on today's agenda. With that, Council President Jenkins, do you have any announcements before I go to the first item?

Oh, I forgot how to use this. No announce, ooh, Rusty. No announcements, welcome back.

Thank you so much. Oh, and one more announcement, my apologies. We are having some issues, some technical issues with the closed captioning, so if you are on the broadcast and trying to get closed captioning and it wasn't working properly, you can sign up via Zoom and you should be able to access it there or we will have the closed captioning active once the medium is played back.

And one moment.

Because of the amount of speakers, speaker time will be limited to 90 seconds.

Thank you for that, for that announcement. And we will now move on to the first item on the agenda, item number three, which is modifications to the agenda and the procedural items.

So I would propose to council to move items, item 5.1 to the top of the agenda, 5.2 after that, and then here

four point one after that hearing no opposition so noted we will take the agenda out of order as called by the chair item five point one will be heard first followed by item five point two then five point four and the remaining balance of the agenda so we are now going into the order as changed under item three and that will take us to item five point one moment item five point one consists of several pieces legislation adopt one of the following pieces of legislation one resolution accepting the police commission selection panel slate uh... to commissioners uh... ricardo garcia costa and joey harrison to serve on the oakland police commission or Two, a resolution rejecting the police commission selection panel slate of two commissioners, Ricardo Garcia Acosta and Joey Harrison, to serve on the Oakland Police Commission. And there are several speakers for this item.

Thank you. Will five minutes suffice for the both of you? Yeah, okay. Madam Clerk, please put five minutes on the clock, please.

Hello, Council. My name is Bert Jones. I'm a part of the city administration. I'm going to try to read as quick as I can, and I do have a visual aid for you about the process for the selection panel. Pursuant to Oakland City Charter 604 , which states the selection panel with the assistance of the city administrator will solicit applications from those willing to serve on the commission. The selection panel will review the application and interview applicants to serve as members of the commission. In February, 2026, the city administrator assigned me to staff the police commission selection panel and assist the body with the recruitment and application solicitation process. That support included expanding and diversifying the application pool, which updated the recruitment flyer and created a brochure in four languages to increase accessibility and outreach across every council district. The recruitment was promoted through the city of Oakland and members of the city council social media, nonprofit and public meetings and forums, senior sitters in Oakland libraries, Main, Rock Ridge, West Oakland, Diamond, Fruitvale, and Eastmont. Materials were distributed at neighborhood businesses throughout Oakland, including Chipotle on Lakeshore, High Wire Coffee, Hudson Bay Cafe, Prescott Market, It's a Grind Coffee House, and Sana Cafe, along with other community gathering places. Those efforts ultimately resulted in 45 submitted applications. During March 19, 2026, the selection panel established an evaluation process, agreeing that each panelist would independently review the application using the panel's approved rubric and submit their top 10 to city admin staff, establishing the first round of the two-round selection process. During the April 16th, 2026 meeting, the selection panel established the remaining timeline for application review and interview process. All applicants submitted by April 30th deadline were provided to all panelists for independent review, evaluation, and ranking. The panelists' evaluations were then compiled and the results were agendized for discussion and action at the May 13th special meeting. At the May 13th special meeting, the panel reviewed the results and agreed to advance the candidates who received the strongest collective support. The remaining advocates did not advance. There was a three-way tie for the 10th and final interview spot between Ricardo Garcia-Costa, David Newton, and Maury McFadden. The panel voted to resolve the tie and finalized 10 candidates who would advance to the interview round, the panel also approved the interview question and structured for the next phase of the process. The candidates receiving the strongest collective support were Jean Kwan, Cynthia Muniz, Ann Wells, Michael Johnson, Nicholas O'Brien-Cavare, Joy Harrison, Katie Fahey, Tyron Jordan, and Douglas Wong, with Ricardo Garcia-Costa, David Newton, and Mari McFadden tied for their final spot. The three-way tie that involved Ricardo Garcia-Costa, David Newton, and Mario McFadden, the panel conducted an additional vote to determine the final interview position. Ricardo Garcia-Costa received the most votes in advance, while David Newton and Mario McFadden remained tied. The panel also considered what would happen if a selected candidate withdrew before the interviews. Rather than returning to the full application pool, David Newton and Martin McFadden were retained as the next candidates eligible to advance. That decision became important almost immediately before the interviews began. Two selected candidates withdrew, resulting in David Newton and Martin McFadden being elevated to the interview pool. The interviews were conducted over two meetings. On May 28th, the panel interviewed Gene Kwan, Cynthia Munoz, Douglas Wong, and Ricardo Garcia-Costa. On June 4th, the panel scheduled to interview Katie Fahey, Joy Harrison, Michael Johnson, Nicholas O'Brien-Cavare, Mari McFadden, and David Newton. On the day of the second round, one of the candidates withdrew after being selected to serve as Alameda County Judge, reducing the interview pool from 10 candidates to nine. The panel then had to decide whether to elevate another applicant into the interview pool or continue with the nine candidates already in the process. The panel decided not to elevate another applicant and to proceed with the nine. The panel also agreed that it would first determine whether it could identify four finalists from the nine candidates. If the four finalists could not be identified, the recruitment process would remain open. mrs sada welcome back you're out of order at the end of june 10th meeting the selection panel moved into final stage of the selection process following the interview the panel reviewed the remaining candidates considered the interview results and discussed the results of the reference checks the panel determined that it had a sufficient candidate pool and identified his final four, Nicholas O'Brien-Cavarri, Gene Kwan, Ricardo Garcia-Costa, and Joy Harrison. The remaining candidates, Cynthia Munoz, David Newton, Katie Fahey, Mari McFadden, and Douglas Wong were retained in the reserve pool. From February through June, the process The process progressed from recruitment and application review to independent panelist scoring, top 10 selection, interviews, reference checks, and deliberation, ultimately rezoning in the panel's final four candidates for the two slides.

Is that it? That's it. Oh, that was thorough. If there are no, oh, Council Member Gallo. Oh, you gotta hit, oh, there we go. Yeah, it's on.

Microphone on? Yeah, it's on, it's on. Thank you. With that information, I'll make a motion to approve item 5.1, Ricardo Garcia Acosta and Joy Harrison to the Police Commission.

Beautiful. If there are no questions, Council Member Houston.

But I have a question for the Chair, Alex. If you can come up, please. So on the next election, these are coming together, and I approve both of them, too. I'm gonna second that, both of them. But on the next one, why couldn't we separate them instead of, so say for instance that one of the council members didn't approve of one of the selections, right? You would have to say yes or no against them, not like this one. This one, I'm good with both of them. Why couldn't we separate the next one, and when is that coming up?

No, that's a good question. So originally we tried to do that, and with further legal counsel, apparently in the OMC, you're just not allowed to have them separate.

So through the chair, I want to ask the city attorney, what would be the reason why we could not separate them for the next one? Because this one we may all agree, and it seems like we all agree.

Yes, through the chair to council member Houston, charter section 604, I think it's 604C3 specifically, provides that the appointments shall be submitted to the council as a slate of names, and the city council can either accept or reject the entire slate. So it depends on the term dates of the appointees, how they come to the council, but the charter does require those that align to be submitted as a slate.

Thank you. One more question, Chair, through to Chair Alex. So what if we turn down the next two that comes up? What's that process and how long would that take? Would that disrupt the police commission?

Yeah, I mean, it would be a little disruptive, honestly, but we have a reserve pool for that reason, so we changed things around a little bit and just wanted to make sure in case it happened again, we have a reserve pool that we can pick from.

So last question through the chair, how would it disrupt? I need to know before, because I don't want to disrupt the peace.

We meet monthly, and so it just takes a while for us to all come back together. As opposed to having everything already done, we'd have to set further appointments and meetings of the commission to figure out the scheduling. I mean, it wouldn't be like a six-month disruption, but it would just put us back a little bit.

okay so through the chair i just want to make sure that all my colleagues understand that you do have a pool in case we don't select the next ones right okay is is ricardo here oh he's got it in the back all right no more questions all right let's go to let's go to public comment and then uh oh councilmember uh marma chandra Joey, did you wanna come up and have something to say? Is Joey here? You wanna have a couple words to say hello? Is Ricardo here? Okay, so.

My microphone's on now. I was just gonna second, since there hasn't been a second.

Yeah, so Councilmember Houston for the second. Okay, Joey, then Ricardo.

Hello honored to be here. And thank you all and you know honored to be a part of the. Been selected, you know so.

Beautiful. I love brevity. I Ricardo you there.

You're muted, you may begin.

Good evening, council members. Thank you for having me today and considering my application to serve on the Oakland Police Commission. This last two and a half, roughly two and a half years that I've been serving, it has been a great honor. One of the greatest things that I've personally done within my hometown city of Oakland, it's been an extremely challenging position. I think I've been real, just proud of the hard work of all of the commission, our city leadership, the police department. I can truly say that over the course of these nearly three years that I've been serving on this oversight body, truly seen a shift within the department, within the leadership. And, you know, I just want to, you know, have an opportunity to continue to build on that. Serving as chair for the last two years and being unanimously elected by my peers has also been a great honor to have their trust, to be able to have conversations, meetings, and be able to move the work along has been a great And with that, I'm really proud of the work that we've done. But the work isn't over yet. As you all know, we're going to be heading in front of the judge, the federal judge soon. We're very close to finally achieving the goal of getting off of federal oversight. And we have, you know, not only the commission, but myself as chair, just an individual that's extremely dedicated and is gonna do anything he can to get us across that finish line and bring oversight home to the city of Oakland and have something that the whole city could be proud of. So thank you all for the opportunity and for your consideration and happy to answer any questions as well.

Thank you, Chair. Council Member Fife.

Thank you, President Jenkins. Y'all ready for this? It's a new season. I have two questions, only two questions for both Ricardo and Joey. And if we could have Mr. Harrison come back to the microphone, I would appreciate that. And while he's approaching the microphone, I will begin with Ricardo. I just have two questions regarding this new iteration, this new season of the police commission. What do you think is the number one priority of the Commission I heard you just speak to getting out of the NSA But I want to know from both of you. What is the immediate goal of the police commission and can those can that goal or number of goals be Accomplished with the existing structure of the Commission Anyone

I will agree, getting out of NSA. And like I said, I want to get in and see exactly where I can, what I can bring best to them. Number one is getting us out of NSA and then getting us to work closely together and working with PD and building trust with the community.

And can the goals that you just listed be accomplished with the existing structure and funding for the police commission?

As far as now, I believe it can.

Okay.

Ricardo.

Yes, thank you. Council member five of the y'all could hear me. Okay. So a few things I think will, you know, I alluded to some of the incredible strides that we've made and, you know, it's not just blowing smoke I'm, I truly see every day, the work that command staff and, and some of the patrol. officers and division level folks are doing to lead the department. And there's a few things that are really important. At this point, we've made some good strides. We need to continue when it comes to standardizing discipline. When I first came on board, the commission and the department and CPRA were in total different opposite directions in terms of how we saw discipline, how we're implementing discipline. And that led to a lot of conflict. It led to a lot of cases in arbitration, just a lot of loose cases. And so over the time, we've been doing a lot of work in whether it's been through the discipline metrics ad hoc, whether it's been through certain working groups with CPRA, the department, the commission itself, to really work hard on standardizing discipline, updating the manual rules section so that it's up to date, so that we get all this old verbiage of like typewriters and stuff. There's some policies and some stuff that hasn't been updated in 20 years. And so really modernizing that work And then getting everybody on the same page around what discipline looks like, what are violations, and what do we sustain on things? And the proof is in the pudding. Over the last few months, the CPRA and the chief have been agreeing on discipline, and there hasn't been a need to pull in the commission to arbitrate and to do final rulings on disciplinary hearings. Contrary, when I first started, we were doing disciplinary hearings almost every month because they couldn't agree. And so I think when we're all as a city looking at these issues through a common lens, and we could get to a place where we're giving our officers clear instructions, they know the understanding, what the consequences are for breaking certain rules, and then we can really determine what the difference is between mistakes and misconduct. and make sure that we're smart when mistakes happen and that we utilize teachable moments. And then when there's misconduct, that we weed that out and we make sure that the leadership at the top is taking the bull by the horns and is weeding that stuff out of the department. I think the IAB transition is incredibly important. Building capacity of OIG is also important as well too. And then also looking at a bunch of policies that we've been looking at. We've done the J4 pursuit policy. We're currently looking at the immigration policy. We're gonna be looking at the sexual harassment policy, looking at community policing. And so there's a number of things that are like key indicators in terms of how the department is operating and how everyday Oaklanders feel their experiences with their police department. And to answer your question, Council Member Fife around the resources, it's been quite a controversy over the last three months of prepared to possibly enter the federal oversight. We've heard a lot of pressure from the community from both ends of the aisle. folks saying that we shouldn't exit federal oversight without the proper funding for the commission. And then we've also had folks say, no, we have the structure, the city's making the strides and doing the things they need to do, investment to oversight. We need to bring those million dollars home that we're farming out to the federal judge and bring them home back to our localized civilian structure here. And so.

I agree, Chair Ricardo. I think that gets to Council Member Fife's question, does it?

No, not at all.

No, no, no. So just to wrap things up, let me go ahead and land this plane. Sorry about that. So, you know, essentially what we have now is I want to say we're operating off of maybe 60, 70% capacity. We took some mid-year budget cycle cuts, you know, about a year and a half ago. And And then we're able to restore some positions, restore some funding. So I like to use the analogy that we're driving a Toyota Camry right now, right? Would we like a Lexus or a Cadillac and fully be funded and have the full resources to be able to maximize our efficiency and maximize our oversight? Of course. Do we have the resources to do what we need to do now to ensure long-term compliance? Yes, kind of, right? We do need bodies more than anything. We need commissioners so that we don't have multiple commissioners on multiple ad hocs and we can spread the work out more. And when it comes to resource- Chair Garcia? Yes, ma'am.

We have to move the agenda. I was looking for a concise answer about your goals for the police commission, as well as can you achieve those goals with the existing resources?

The answer is yes, but slower. If we had more resources, we would achieve them more efficient and faster.

Thank you for that. Thank you for that. I appreciate it. And so I know there's a motion and a second on the floor, two seconds. I just wanted to let the public know that I believe this entire process for the selection panel was extremely problematic and extremely politicized. And even even Alex, I know you initially interviewed Omar Farmer and saw that he had an exemplary resume and background resources. So I'm perplexed as to why it came back with all of the extensive review about who he was after you interviewed him and found he was exemplary. That tells me that something else was happening and I'm deeply disappointed with this process. If it's about questions, we should be able to question not only the police department and the police commission, but every single director, department head, staffer, council in this city to ensure we're getting the very best of what the city has to offer. I don't believe this process yielded that and for that reason I will not be voting to support the motion on the floor. Thank you.

Thank you, Council Member Phyfe. I will have questions after public speakers. Let's get to our public speakers.

As I call your name, please approach the podium in any order. If you're participating via Zoom and I call your name, please raise your hand so I can easily identify you. And as stated by the chair, the time has been adjusted to 90 seconds. Yes, 90 seconds. All right. Mitra Zerba, I apologize if I mispronounced the name, Jean Hazard, Mrs. Asada Olabala, Madeline Stacy, and Brenda Gershom. In any order, if I called your name for item 5.1, we've taken the agenda out of order, and I've called your name, and you're in the room, please step to the podium. If not, we will move on.

sorry apologize for missing your name is brenda good afternoon to council my name is brenda grisham and i am here for item 5.1 um i agree with councilman houston the process would be better if it was separated um mr acosta he caught a bullet because it's not separated and people should be graded on their merit But I'm asking today that you guys approve the slate that's before you. I think it's going to work out fine and it's going to benefit the police commission. Thank you.

Thank you for your comments, Ms. Grisham. Next speaker. Good afternoon. Good afternoon, Ms. Assata.

Good afternoon. Where's my time?

Give it a second. It should be up.

Okay. Thank you, ma'am. So let's go through what happened. twice the former selection panel recommended omar farmer twice y'all rejected him so we know what you did you got a new selection panel to make sure that omar farmer would not be selected 45 applications The members of the new selection panel, not one of them saw fit to put him on the list of 10 from the 45, not one. But they did put on the list a person that you rejected from the mayor because they didn't feel that they were competent enough to handle the job. But this new selection panel put Doug Wong up there. This man, accomplishments, last time I went into him, But you can see that you have targeted Omar Farmer for whatever reason, a black man who's been very efficient. Last night he ran the ad hoc committee on the NSA. The NSA being done correctly is under the leadership of Omar Farmer. He also led the commission of the body that had to do with the money, that was the money that we used for the, violence prevention. What is wrong with you people?

Thank you, Mrs. Sato, your time is up. Thank you for your comments, next speaker.

Madeline Stacy, keep it brief. I just want to say that Alex did interview Omar and as Fife has pointed out, found him exemplary. And Alex was actually appointed by Councilmember Brown, yet she voted down the recommendation made by the person that she appointed. So to Fife's point, Councilmember Fife's point, this whole process has been questionable and concerning, and we really do need to have a full, robust police commission.

Thank you for your comments. Good afternoon, Mr.

Hazard. Mr. Farmer has all the requisite qualifications. And all of you sit there, rejected, just like the panel did. What's wrong with you? You want mediocre folks sitting on these panels. Ones who go along to get along. It's okay if somebody disagrees with you. We all can't agree on something. Isn't that right, Ramachandra? You can look up, I'll get to you the president later on. Omar Farmer is eminently qualified. What would you do if I was a candidate? Huh? What reason would you give to reject me? And Omar Farmer is far more qualified than I. I have some modest qualifications. Now, I can speak to the issues. Mr. Farmer speaks to the issues. Y'all don't speak to the issues. You get into these politics. I don't like the way you wear your hat. And, Guile, you always say, it's not what you say, it's what you do. That's going to come back to bite you.

Thank you, Mr. Hazard. Your time is up. We have one last speaker who signed up, going once, going twice, and we have Mitra, Mitra. Oh, she is waving her opportunity to speak. Thank you so much. That concludes your open, there's speakers for item 5.1.

So thank you to everybody that came out for this. I have a question for this election panel. How many applicants did we get the previous time and how many do we get now? How many applicants did we get the first time around versus how many applicants did we get for this last process?

I don't know off the top of my head. I think the first time was something around like 11, like nine to 11 or something really small. And we only actually interviewed, I think, four or five people of that.

Okay, I think it was stated that people don't apply when there's incumbents, but it seemed like there was a robust process in which we went to almost every district, did we use billboards?

we didn't use we didn't use billboards we did try to use billboards but the process was a little cumbersome for the time frame yeah but we did go to every district and we tried to go to libraries in every district we tried to go to community stores in every district and just uh regular like coffee shops in every district okay thank you for that and then i have a question for chair the chair is he still online

If you can, let me see, raise your hand.

And a brief answer would be great.

Yes sir, sorry, multitasking over here at work, so. No, it's all good.

It's all good. So question, and I've asked you this before, when it comes to the ad hoc committees of the police commission, ad hoc committees per the Brown Act are supposed to be temporary in nature and some have been going on for years. If reappointed, would you address this issue and bring any standing committee to city council?

Yeah, I think, yeah, there's been some extensive discussion around this. And certainly if it warranted a standing committee, we would definitely bring it to city council. Part of the problem with the ad hocs is that we have very limited amount of commissioners. And so meetings get canceled. Folks are worn out and pulled in different directions. And so often ad hocs drag out a little longer than they actually should be dragging out just because the issues are so complex and we only have an hour to discuss very complex issues. So they kind of just go on for a minute. But we've recently brought our discipline matrix ad hoc to a close. We'll be bringing our immigration ad hoc to a close as well. And yeah, we're really trying to keep some eyes on keeping them temporary, not only for the sake of commissioners, but also oftentimes we have professional staff and members of the police department that are joining us. And we want to be very sensitive of their time and overtime that they may be using.

and so of course yeah we want to limit those as much as possible and if there's an absolute need to have an extensive more standing meeting then certainly open or bring that to council thank you and then a question for you and joey joey thumbs up will be good will you guys pledge to um will you guys pledge to ensure that there's no interference interference from council or any other stakeholder in your decision making You're out of order, you're out of order. And Omar, I mean, I'm sorry. Ricardo?

Yes, absolutely. You know, I think independence is a key thing that we need to always have as a commission.

Thank you, looking forward to supporting the two of you. Councilmember Houston.

But his independence does not mean working not working in coordination with the city as well too. There's there's often times that that gets conflated that we need to be adversaries and I think that there is a balance that we could keep our independence and how we operate but also you know have good communication with all city stakeholders.

Thank you. So councilmember Houston then Wong and then we'll call the vote.

President, this selection panel is only recommendations, right? And that's why I had mentioned that they should be separated because it'll make it a lot easier for council to appoint or to say yes or no on it. So it's only recommendations, President.

Yes, absolutely. If you wanna accept that section of 604, you'd have to go to the voters. Council Member Wong.

Thank you. First of all, Alex, I know that you recently became the chair, and so I want to commend how thorough and just proactive, as well as thinking through some of the contingencies around this, so thank you for doing that. One question I just had for Chair Garcia-Acosta is, can you provide some updates to the council on how the ICE policy, the revisions to that are going?

So that's, can you make it germane to this process? The ICE policy is not germane to the selection panel appointing police commissioners?

Well, I have an interest in hearing from the chair, potentially, who is being recommended as part of this process, in terms of how he's handling the updates to the department's ICE policy, considering that is a top of mind for many members of the public.

Through the chair, the council president already stated the principle that the topic needs to be germane to the item before us. So as long as the question and the response can be tied back to this appointment, then I think.

Well, part of my vote, I suppose, is contingent on hearing how the chair has been approaching this question around updates to the ICE policy, considering members of the public, including myself as the chair of public safety, want to ensure that this policy is done, the updates to this policy are done thoughtfully, so.

Chair, 15 seconds.

Ricardo, are you answering that?

Yes, great, just got unmuted. Thank you, appreciate that question. Let me tie it back to this process here, because leadership absolutely matters, and relationships matter. This has been a hot topic, and we were treading very lightly in how we wanted to approach this. Because of relationships, we got OPD to agree to even stand up on ad hoc and hear from community members. And it was really great that we did because it was some good foresight because we had to align the policy with the City of Refuge. We took comment from City Council Public Safety and from community, and we've been trying to work with the department to include as much of that input as possible. And that's realistically what it's gonna get through city attorney and through the meet and confer process as well. And so it's almost tied up. We have about a couple more meetings left, but I think we're gonna end up with a good policy that's up to date and aligned with the rest of the city.

ordinance and the mayor's executive orders thank you madam clerk can you call the well thank you and there was a motion by council member gallo seconded by council member houston to approve item 5.1 option number one um with that on roll council member brown aye council member fife no council member gallo aye houston aye ramachandran aye Onger? Aye. Wong? Aye. And Chair Jenkins? Aye. Item 5.1, option one was approved with seven ayes, one no. And that concludes item 5.1. We will continue on to 5.2 as requested. Item 5.2 consists of several pieces of legislation. Adopt the following pieces of legislation. One, a resolution approving the tentative agreement for the MOU between the City of Oakland and the Oakland Police Officers Association representing employees and representation units PP1 and PP2. PT1, covering the period of July 1st, 2026 through June 30th, 2031. And two, a resolution approving the tentative agreement for the MOU between the City of Oakland and the Oakland Police Officers Association, representing employees in Representation Unit UN2, covering the period of July 1st, 2026 through June 30th, 2031. June 30th, 2031. And three, an ordinance amending the salary schedule of ordinance number 12187 CMS to provide a wage increase for employees pursuant to the MOU between the City of Oakland and the Oakland Police Officers Association representing employees in representation units PP1 and PT1. The Oakland Police Officers Association representing employees in representation unit UN 2 and for the unrepresented police sworn public safety employees and classifications in unit you in one and I have 18 speakers for this item

Good afternoon, Council President Jenkins and members of the council. My name is Mary Howe and I'm the human resources director. I am pleased to bring before you this new tentative agreement that we just reached with the two units represented by the Oakland Police Officers Association, the rank and file unit and the managers unit. Before diving in, I do want to thank our partners at the OPOA, particularly OPOA president, We Win, and other members of the bargaining team, including Omar Daza-Quiroz, Tim Della Vega, Cesar Leyva, Wendy Ferofino, Anthony Tedesco, and Alan Yu. We also want to thank their chief negotiator, Rocky Lucia, from the Rains Lucia firm. So we have a five-year agreement as the clerk just read from July 1st, 2026 through June 30th, 2031. During the term of this five-year agreement, employees will receive a 14% base wage increase. They will also make incremental contributions to health and additional contributions to pension. Those contributions will help pay for some of the improvements that they will enjoy in longevity pay, which is greatly needed to retain our officers at all levels of tenure. In addition, we have negotiated clarifying language regarding the process for using non-sworn employees as well as a re-opener of the contract when the OPD reaches the end-to-end staffing levels to discuss how overtime is calculated under the Fair Labor Standards Act. And finally, one of the features of this agreement is a me too clause. Generally speaking, parties enter into a me too clause for groups that settle their contracts first so that there is no disadvantage for coming in first. And so the finance director, Bradley Johnson, can definitely speak to this better than I, but effectively we look at the cost overall for these agreements, including any contributions or to various programs such as health and pension in addition to their wages and other benefits that are negotiated and we take that net difference and compare it and if if any of the other outstanding tables come in in excess of that then the opoa will also enjoy that difference so i've kept it brief because i know you have a heavy calendar and i'm happy to answer any questions

Thank you. Any questions from my colleagues? Council Member Gallo.

Am I on this? Thank you, and thank you for that information, and certainly I will support the recommendation by staff, but the question that I have you know, it's been in front of the public for a long time. That's the issue of overtime. And, you know, we do have the Fair Labor Standards Act that's very clear about minimum wage, about overtime expenditure. And, you know, in terms of, you know, they're public funds. And, again, the overtime can be defined as an illegal public fund use. And it's been on the... Limelight for on and on with the police department in terms of the overtime that we're allowing to take place where people making what five six hundred thousand a year and Have we corrected the process and the approval? for the overtime process to our public officials specifically the police department and

So through the chair to council member Gaio, I think certainly overtime has been a hot topic for OPD in general, but I will say that under the leadership of chief beer that overtime spending has significantly decreased and also I think that the other the other sort of Challenge here that the OPD faces is the is the staffing level of the police officers and I think that there is an all-out effort right now to to increase that staffing. We heard loud and clear from members of the OPOA at the bargaining table that if given the choice, they would not take the overtime because they would like to spend time with their families as well. But I think given the staffing shortage and the need to respond to critical safety matters within the city, they do have to work those overtime shifts.

Thank you. Thank you. And with that, Mr. President, I'll make a motion to approve the item.

Thank you, Council Member Gallo. Council Member Fife.

understand that this is a resolution and it doesn't require two readings but this is a very significant resolution and it's been so much time in negotiations so I want to respect the time that that our staff as well as everyone that's been at the bargaining table has put in I'm a little concerned about the ongoing impacts to the budget with this level of increase. It's five years? It's 14%. And I know it's technically considered a win that there will be contributions to medical and pension, but I'm concerned about the Me Too clause, so I was wondering if you could explain a little bit more in detail how that will work with the Me Too clause and what differences will be enjoyed from that. If officers want to spend more time with their families. And we're going to rely on overtime to continue to fill the gap while we wait for the staffing levels to improve. I just wonder why we couldn't then include some safeguards to what council member guy was saying in about over time i don't see staffing increasing anytime soon staffing levels across the country for police departments are at all-time lows like with military every branch of the united states military so i don't see how we're ever going to bridge that gap so so bear with me as i have several questions inside this question um I don't understand how the staffing levels are going to change. I understand that our recent academy had a severe difference in the number of people that applied versus the number of people who washed out. So I'm concerned about that. The cost of those academies, the resource drain because of those academies, but also reopening an MOU if our civilian if our civilian units receive increases to their weight. I need you to explain that. Reopening the MOU if something changes with our civilian staff. So the two questions I want clarified are the Me Too clause, how that will work in real life, the impacts to our budget, and how the MOUs will be reopened if it changes with our civilian units.

Thank you, and through the Council President, Brad Johnson, Director of Finance. So speaking in total regarding your budgetary item, when we're doing a budget allocation, we are looking at the total outlay from the city of Oakland to provide a service. And as I think I have mentioned to this body before, for both of our sworn units, police and fire, we actually pay more out for a dollar worked in benefit costs than we do in salary. It's actually a higher amount over $1 of benefits for every dollar in salary. We care in the context of assessing the viability of any contractual arrangement and whether or not it's affordable about the total outlay from the city. And so as it relates to the particular item before you, the additional savings and ongoing savings the city has regarding those benefit costs, specifically the 3% pickup and retirement costs, and the rolled in 10% pickup of healthcare costs more than offset the additional increases that are seen in some of the other cost items, leading to a total package that over the course of the five years is affordable within a reasonable estimation of the city's budget. The total package sits within an element that is affordable, that we can manage, not easily. You all know me, I would love to save every single penny we possibly can, but it is a realistic and fair award, and it's something that we could manage in total. Managing the total number is really what we have to figure out. As it relates to, so I do think that this is affordable on a budgetary basis, on an ongoing basis. Again, primarily because of those benefit cost pickups. As it relates to how we calculate, and I'll mention overtime specifically. There are two significant elements of this agreement that I think are really important as it relates to overtime. One, there is a cap that we've arranged something that's similar called compensation time, which will actually provide some cost savings and is a recommendation from your city auditor that we've made progress on in this agreement. So some of those limitations on compensation time are real progress for the city in terms of managing ongoing costs. I will note that the particular details of the OPOA MOU put some of the additional savings from those benefit costs into longevity. And that actually is a major mechanism toward us increasing our staffing level. I'll be direct. An officer that sits with the Oakland Police Department often will look to leave the department typically within four to six years. That is a really, really high space where we see departures from the department. By moving more of our compensation into a longevity premium, where if you decide to leave our department and come back later, you start back at zero, we create a major disincentive for officers to leave Oakland, go to another department, maybe work over there for a while, and then come back. and without being too direct that is a dynamic that we have seen before and we thought we would be seeing going further the most uh cheap officer for us to employ is the officer we're already we have on the force and so it allows then those academies to do work on increasing number versus backfilling uh vacant positions that have come from officers leaving for other departments So adding the longevity component, again, within the total cost that we're allowed, is a really key mechanism for retention of officers and reducing the likelihood of us needing to retrain officers through a new academy and use those academy classes to replace. And again, it's really expensive to get new officers in. Council Member Five, I'm missing one other question you had. I think you had one other question. It might have been around civilianization. I think was your last question.

That was not, but I would love an explanation on civilianization.

I'm sorry, I'll happily go there too. The re-opener, when we achieve the measure and end staffing levels, we do have the ability to re-open our agreement and negotiate around the paradigm of how we determine overtime calculations and to come closer to the Fair Labor Standard Act floor. labor agreements for OPD and all of our other bargaining units are more generous than the federal standard, and that's allowed. That's a legal paradigm that can be negotiated. We have retained the ability to discuss with OPOA, and they have agreed that once we hit a reasonable number of officers to the point where our overtime is under control and they're basically not being mandatory to provide basic patrol services, that we can have a conversation about the recalculation of that overtime number to something closer to that FLSA floor. And that is a major win for us to be able to have and trigger that discussion at a later point. Again, negotiation is, I think, our... human resources director mentioned, is a two-way space. There's major progress we've made on all these fronts. Again, many of them recommended by the auditor. The last one I'll note for you is we've clarified the process for civilianization of roles in this MOU, and we have a clear paradigm by which we can move forward with the civilianization of roles. It is a process, it does require steps, but that clarity of roles and procedures that we would go through in order to civilianize roles is also key relief what we've been looking forward to as an organization. So as this body looks to allocate resources towards civilianized roles, we can engage in that process and move forward those roles that make sense to have non-sworn staff reform.

So if I'm understanding you in this, and I misspoke earlier, I said resolutions, I was not referring to amending the existing salary ordinance. So I just wanna clarify that. But are you saying that in this MOU, the framework for having non-sworn officers perform the work of existing officers is,

later the procedure for us to move forward that is very clearly laid out now in this mou it's clear what steps the city would need to take in order to put that in place so if we were to wanting to move forward with civilianization of roles the procedure and pathway to do that is clear again it's not We can do it whenever we want. There is a process and a procedure we need to engage in, but that procedure is clear and direct. And so in the key spaces that are most important for this, that this body has communicated are important for us to move forward on, we as staff now have the ability to move forward in that direction and accomplish those, accomplish that task under a clear procedure and framework.

And is that tied to the Me Too clause?

That is not tied to the Me Too Clause.

Because that was my other question.

Got it. Civilianization is not tied to the Me Too Clause. What the Me Too Clause's Director Howe mentioned earlier really says, and it's fairly standard in contractual arrangements, when one bargaining unit settles first, there can be a temptation to hold out. Well, I want to wait and see what everyone else gets. In order to not penalize someone from coming in first and saying we have an agreement that I'm comfortable with, there's often an agreed me too clause such that if there is a later agreement signed that provides better collective compensation or whatever it may be, that that bargaining unit can enjoy the benefits of that too. So it's not to create a disincentive of settling an agreement. And so what the MOU with OPOA has is a me too clause that basically means if we were to agree during this cycle to compensation in total, so that's the net of wages and benefits minus any contributions to things like health care retirement that is better than what OPOA was able to garner based on a formula that is articulated in the specifics of that me too clause then that would also be enjoyed at the appropriate time by OPOA members again is not to create a dense incentive for them to have agreed to an MOU Educate me.

This feels like apples and oranges because some of our highest paid staff are in the Oakland Police Department. So how do we compare that with someone in SEIU who is working at a library that's a temporary part-time worker? I don't understand how we can open up an MOU because... $70,000 a year is a lot different than $200,000 a year. So I'm not understanding. Help me understand.

Absolutely. So it's an easy way to think about it, and it's actually articulated in the IMO and the Me Too language. It's percentage basis. What we do is we convert the compensation in each of the packages into a percentage, what would effectively be a COLA equivalent. And so if one imagines, if one were to look, if one were to ignore all the contributions, right, if I were to simplify this arrangement like very, very, very simply, right? And so this is not the model before you, but I'm gonna use a very simple example. If OPOA's benefit is 14% over five years, and we were to engage in another five-year contract that provided 15% over five years, then that additional 1% would be what OPOA would agree to, would be allowed. So it's all percent... Say that. Yep, I'll say it again. Staying strictly with, again, like that COLA line to make it really simple, because we have ins and outs, and we're converting dollars into percentages, but if you just stay with a simple percentage example... if the OPA contract was simply 14% over five years, and we were to settle a different contract for 15% over five years, OPOA would then be awarded the 1% differential between the 14% and the 15% to not disincentivize them for being able to agree now to the 14. So if we agree during this negotiation cycle to agree to another union's award that is more generous, they will see the award for that agreement. And the way that that's done, again, I use those percentages, the total compensation of all the packages is computed and turned into a percentage, and then those percentages are compared. So it all turns into sort of the collective cost if it were just a straight COLA, and then we compare those, and that's the additional amount that's garnered.

Yeah, I get it, I get it. I just disagree. I appreciate the explanation because I just feel like, and I've stated this ad nauseum, that there are certain groups in the city of Oakland that never have to come to council, petition leadership to get the benefit of raises, of consideration, of anything in the city. And don't get me wrong. I have a family member who is a police officer that was killed in the line of duty. So this is not about who do I hate, who do I like. What I know is that we have a deficit in employees in almost every single department in the city of Oakland. And when my constituents call me, they're calling me about why aren't my lights on on Mandela Parkway? Why have we passed all of these pieces of legislation around homelessness and it's increasing? Why is there illegal dumping continuously occurring? And the people who do that have to beg us and are out of contract right now because we cannot figure out how to make them whole. And that is deeply concerning to me. And now if there's a me too clause that says that the OPOA, if our other unions that are still bargaining, still trying to get their basic needs met, who did not receive a COLA in our last budget cycle, are saying, you know, if OPOA is like, okay, well, If the public works trash workers get something additional, if it's a 1%, 2% or whatever, we want that too, but they're the highest paid employees in the city. I don't understand what is the cost benefit analysis of why, how is this going to... pan out over time because i'm looking at and i've asked you for um for this several times the long-term financial health of the city and if our pension obligations are going up if the cost of health care is going up then it's going to go up higher for our higher paid employees and i'm i'm pleased that they are going to pay into this in the future that said How are we requiring the same thing for people who don't make as much? And what is the financial benefit to the city long term if we are, at the end of the day, gonna do the same thing, which is increase the benefits for everybody with this Me Too clause? Help me understand the long term financial benefit because I hear oftentimes that the reason that the city is in a financial deficit, consistently having to deal with financial problems, and I apologize, Council President, this is my last question, but this is a significant piece of legislation that we're discussing today. It's literally the foundation of everything that the city does, because the bulk of the cost that we outlay are employee costs, right? For any business endeavor, it's the cost of employees. So if the cost of employees is going up, But people are consistently saying it's poor management at the city of Oakland about how we do our budgets. I want to make sure that the decision I make today regarding one of the most expensive departments in the city of Oakland is a prudent decision. So how does this benefit us long term? And how will this not cause those future budget gaps where we have to do all these emergency measures pull from ballot initiatives to cover salaries um if we're giving this type of increase and we're we haven't even gone over the other units yet we still have fire 10 to 1 21 um all the other units this is significant

I would 100% agree this is significant, and as I'm sure told this entire body, the most important financial decisions you make are regarding the largest single cost in the city of Oakland, which is the cost of our staff. That is the most important thing in terms of driving the long-term trajectory of our city. I've said that to you repeatedly. Speaking specifically to the terms of this deal that's before you, which again is a negotiated deal, I will always caveat, as your finance director, I will always look for a way for us to pay less to get the same service. That's kind of my job. That's the element of doing it. This is a negotiated agreement that both parties agreed to. I will say the most important elements on this, from my perspective, the ongoing 10% contribution to healthcare is huge for the city of Oakland. our healthcare costs are probably the primary, ongoing, outstanding driver of additional cost increase. Healthcare inflation is huge. In a space where we are moving, again, just even to a 90-10 pickup model, that is, in an average year, that could result in a half percent or three-quarters of a percent savings to City of Oakland, and that doesn't sound like very much. but half a percent or three quarters of a percent across the entirety of our police personnel is significant money, especially when you compound that year after year after year. And that'll be an ongoing savings amount that we can count on. How much? So a half percent, and I will come back with a specifically costed number, because I do have it, so I will get that to you in a second. But... If one were to simply do a 1% increase over $200 million of police personnel costs, if I'm doing some round numbers right, that could be in itself a million dollars a year just in a delta that we don't have to absorb. Otherwise, based on our prior trajectory, we would just be absorbing year to year. So that kind of change in our dynamic is really, really, really important. The additional 3% pickup on our retirement contribution is also super important. As we shift those costs over, those are costs the city will not have to endure on an ongoing basis. And again, so that spreading of that cost increase is really important. But as I said earlier, when you're looking at this or any other MOU consideration, I would say the most important thing is to look at the bottom line number. What's the net between the outlay, any contribution you receive? And again, this results in an ongoing expenditure trend that, sure, it's higher than I would like to see. I would like to see the number be zero or negative, but again, I'm your finance director, that's my job. This is, yeah.

With the increase, they can afford to contribute to their retirement.

That's actually the dynamic that you're seeing played out, that net increase. If you were to look at the wage amount, that 14% is in part being paid for by the contribution. That is exactly the dynamic that you're seeing in this contract. That COLA amount is being paid for within the contract by the contributions to healthcare and retirement. That's the dynamic you're seeing within it. And again, for your budgeting purposes, that bottom line number, the overall increase between one to five, I would love for that to be lower, but this negotiated amount, again, between both parties, is something that is within the realm of what you would see. It aligns with the cost of inflation that you would see across the economy. It's in that range of the kind of increase that the city, again, hoping for reasonable economic growth and reasonable circumstances, can budget for and maintain.

And are we expecting all the other units to do the same thing?

I will be careful about, and Mary will caution me, to not speak too much about our other negotiating tables other than the fact that we're in, continue to be in active negotiations.

Scratch that. Is this a model that you think is beneficial for the entire city as a whole?

As your finance director, I would love to see a model like this replicated across the rest of the city.

I'm complete. Thank you.

you council member uh let's go with council member long then uh brown okay uh thank you so you've expounded upon the benefits of in particular the pay-fors for health care benefits my understanding is because many of our officers are dropping off at around the five-year mark is that the health care pay for may not actually be saving the city as much as we would like Is that $1 million per year that you just expounded upon, that is based off of our current personnel as well as the current attrition rate that we're experiencing at OPD?

Yeah, our health care benefit should be experienced regardless of an officer's tenure The city plays currently for the full value of a Kaiser plan either for a single person a couple or a family Regardless of that element the 10% pickup as it phases in would apply The benefit applies to officers no matter what their tenure is And so the pickup contribution is the same for all officers no matter their tenure whether or not they were hired 20 years ago or yesterday so that That benefit should and it should continue for future offers in perpetuity So that particular benefit should not actually vary on the tenure. That should be the same across the entirety of the Union

Okay. All right, one other thing that I've been getting a lot of questions around is this longevity pay. And I know that the rationale is really, it's around preventing attrition, right? And we talked about the expenses associated with the police academies. Have you actually modeled, first of all, how much the longevity pay is going to cost us as a city? I think one of the things that was discussed is that there's not that many officers that, for example, have reached the 20 or more years of service or the 15 to 19 years of service, but I would love some numbers because those premiums do look significant, and so what it looks like as an impact to the budget.

Absolutely, so we in order to come up with a total bottom line cost on your contract We absolutely modeled what we thought longevity would look like that is exactly how we costed it as it it's a new benefit So that is not just we didn't just assume that that was to be there. That's a real cost and again, it's a Significance cost of this agreement. It's a real cost and it is being borne in large part by the value of, again, those contributions to health care and pension, absent the longevity amount, I would say that the longevity amount is smaller than the combination of those two things, but it's a significant increase, but again, it's being effectively fully paid for by those contributions. And again, it strategically moves your compensation as opposed to it showing up sort of broadly across all tenures of officers to structure it in such a way where it rewards officers staying with the department. So it moves from sort of blanket across the board compensation, which you might otherwise see in the context of exchanging a benefit for a wage package, into specific targeted compensation for officers in agreement to stay. And again, I'll note that longevity is not just your term with the department, it's your continuous term with the department. So it discourages officers from leaving, trying their hand at another agency and then trying to come back later, hopefully meaning that we can maintain our current officer workforce and, again, reduce the cost to us of running additional academies for the purpose of trying to replace officers we currently have on so that those academies do the work of increasing staffing or eventually when we get there, maintaining it.

And other cities have found that the longevity pay actually makes a difference in reducing attrition because I don't want to approve this and you know, three years from now we're still seeing the same rate of attrition of losing six officers per month.

I think longevity is a really common way that you see for addressing a retention issue. It's probably the standard practice. I'm looking at our human resources director. In the industry, when you have a retention problem, this is the normal tool one would look at for trying to address a retention problem. I would note that our friends across the Bay have agreed to an MOU that has similar dynamics to ours in terms of its term and duration and it also has significant elements of longevity for the same reason so as it relates to our local dynamic longevity is a really really important way to stop employees that are vulnerable from being poached to maintain them for the duration within an organization okay thank you thank you council member wong council member brown

Excellent, well thank you all so much. The only question that I had, I know that we discussed at great length about what it would take to ensure some of the positions within OPD could potentially be transitioned into maybe non-sworn. I was curious if either you or Brad could share, especially for the public, what was the specific language that needed to change in the MOU that was preventing us from taking action in the past?

Certainly. I will say through the chair to Council Member Brown, the language for using non-sworn staff already existed in the labor agreement with OPOA. However, there was some confusion possibly based on how it was written or introduced as language in there. So we added a couple of sentences in the beginning to specify when we want to pursue this process. These are the steps that we will do. So it was really just an introductory and carefully worded sentence to point directly at the provision.

Excellent, and so now in this MLU that we will vote on this evening now that specific language is there outlined?

Correct, key steps. But the process already existed, but there seemed to have been some confusion about its utilization, so.

All right, thank you.

Thank you. Council Member Houston, or you want to go to the public? Deep in thought.

Okay. Council Member Five, I did want to answer your specific question. And by year five of the contract, there's a $2.1 million savings from the healthcare amount. So by year five, that should be our savings amount, and that will continue to grow as the cost of healthcare grows. Thank you.

Let's go to the public.

Thank you. As I call your name, please approach the podium and state your name for the record. If you have time seated to you, please state that as well. If you are participating via Zoom, I ask you to raise your hand so we can easily identify you. Jennifer Foster. Ari Gonzalez, Jean Hazard, Grace Marion, Joshua Estes, Mitra, Millie Cleveland, Anne Jenks, John Jones III, Noelle Lily Pond, Maxine Visaya, Glenn Peath, Shochil Ortiz, Mitch Pacheco, Ms. Asada Olaballa, Nate Adams, Mathis Jean Locks, and Madeline Stacey. Again, in any order, and please state your name for the record, and if you have time seated, please state that as well. Good afternoon.

Hi, my name is Mike Pettahoff. I'm actually chairman of the Oakland Budget Advisory Commission, and I'm actually vice commander of the VFW post of the city of Oakland. I'm wearing my hat, my funny hat today, in respect for our sworn uniformed officers. Let me comment and say our officers are vital to our public safety structure, and it's important they be well compensated. And I applaud the modest cost of living kind of increase and the healthcare contribution. That's really great. But I'd also say that typically the compensation discussion happens in parallel with what about performance. And I think we really need to be serious about meet and confer. City of Austin decided to defer their MOU approval for a full year to enter into serious MOU. So whether we do it in parallel, or other ways, we need to be serious about meet and confer. If we approve this in November, we could still have the first pay raise take effect in January. Yes, we should talk about civilian positions. It's not just civilianizing existing positions. We have sworn officers in defined civilian positions. It's been happening for years. Yes, we should talk about overtime. 16 of the last 18 years, we've had overtime overruns regardless of crime rates or staffing levels. But two other issues are super important. One is the 17% non-deployable that are on payroll. We need to have an earnest discussion about the causes for that. Some of those are workman's comp and other issues. Some is parallel discussion. And also patrol draw. The command staff cannot assign the officers where they're needed most. They assign themselves by seniority. We need to have visibility on what

impact that has to the efficiency of officers thank you for your comments mr mike your time is up thank you good afternoon good afternoon madam city clerk uh through the chair john jones the third for the record uh i just want to study this and again um The issue for me is always overtime, and I just wanna lay a quick framework, and I'll be as quick as possible. I remember being before you all in June during the mid-cycle budget, and you were deliberating on a use of $200,000, right? The choice was, do you fund our much-needed senior centers here in Oakland, or do you use that funding for lead abatement policies in OUSD? In 2024, at least 27 OPD officers earned more than $200,000 just in overtime alone, 27. We heard about one of those who made nearly half a million dollars. If he would have just made less than that, we could have funded both programs. So I think it's very important that we understand the severity of this and why it's so crucial to hold the overtime spending accountable. And I want to ask something real quickly. Does this notion of accountability by some people being used as simile hatred toward the department just utterly ridiculous? Stop that narrative. It's not about hate. It's about we got to make sure we're doing what's best for the city. And I know what's best for my soon to be 12 year old son. It's not just throwing tons of money at OPD because there's other needs that our children need as well in this city. So I want to thank you for your service and please hold them accountable on this. Thank you.

Here are the facts. 60, 70% of your police officers live outside of Oakland. But let me tell you what happened during the Dells administration. And half of you weren't sitting on that council. Half of you weren't even looking at council meetings. Fact. During former Mayor Delham's administration, the historical record indicates a very substantial reduction, approximately 50% between the high point 2007 to 2010. 2007, 2008, spent approximately 25 million on overtime, about twice the amount budgeted. 2009, police overtime was approximately 14 million, more precisely elsewhere as about 13 million. That represents a reduction of over roughly $11 million, 44%. So don't vote for this until Mr. Johnson, or the city auditor, brings back to you a report that states why was there such a reduction during the Dellums administration? All this stuff he's talking about, it was reduced by 50%. Get a report. If you don't, you're negligent.

Thank you for your comments, Mr. Hassell, your time is up.

Hi, Joshua Estes for the record. I quit a job two weeks ago after going three months without pay. My previous employer now owes me over $7,000, and the only recourse I have is to file a claim with the DLSE. After filing that claim two weeks ago, I learned that there is an 18-month backlog for cases to open. By law, it's supposed to take 30 days. In the meantime, how am I supposed to get by? If it weren't for one generous grandparent and his kindness, I could be facing eviction. I could end up living on the street. I can't call the cops on an employer who won't pay me. He's breaking the law, but I'm paying the price. This is how people end up on the streets. Underfunded and understaffed city services drop the ball, and then you all pay cops to bully people who are already at rock bottom. I am asking the city council to get more creative in how they spend the limited money in our city's budget. The police don't need more money. They already have generous salaries. Please vote against item 5.2. Bargain with the police union as aggressively as you bargain with the people who get underpaid to keep the city running. The people of Oakland need you to fund support systems, not police overtime. Thank you.

Thank you for your comments.

Hi y'all, Grace for the record. I urge the council to pause approval of the police contract and reject it as currently written. One point worth highlighting that some of y'all were talking about is that there are no controls on overtime until we meet the measure and end staffing levels. Like Carol Fife said, that's simply not gonna happen. Staffing is low and it will continue to be because people aren't interested in becoming police officers. The department acknowledges there's a problem, but claims it cannot fix it while we don't have enough officers. Isn't the time to conserve resources precisely when we have a deficit? Or was fiscal responsibility an empty gesture from all of you and the police department to pretend something was being done? Historical data suggests increasing police staffing has not reduced overtime spending in Oakland, even when it was going up. OPD spent $55 million in overtime in fiscal year 2025, $31 million over the budget while OUSD gets cuts. Staffing will always be down. This contract also fails to recognize the distinction between necessary overtime, which again, OPOA claims is all overtime because there aren't enough officers. That is not a staffing shortage. There is a spending problem, and it deserves scrutiny before we lock in a contract. We deserve a contract that reflects actual priorities of the people in Oakland. So while other city workers suffer and you wait on them, you only bargain fairly for police officers, our highest paid people. We need to civilianize rules now, and you need to reject this. Thank you so much.

Hello, my name is Mitra. I'm a member of East Bay DSA and Stop Cop Nation. We actually held a press conference earlier before this meeting and we saw two city council members walk by while we were talking about OPD overtime in this contract and I wish that they sat down to listen for what we thought for a little bit. From my perspective, there's just simply no need to pass this right now, like at all. We have two other city worker unions that are without a contract, and we need to focus on the priorities of who is actually working Oakland. Did we forget that OPD spent $55 million in overtime last year? Did we forget that increased staffing does not fix overtime? did we forget what actually solves crime, which is supporting healthy neighborhoods, well-funded schools, having affordable housing, having a well-living income. Something else that you can do right now instead of passing this is to civilianize the roles that OPD currently partakes in. It's so easy. Just do it. There are other employees that deserve this type of pay, that deserve this type of support. like librarians, transportation workers, macro, social workers. That's who runs our city. It's not the police. If you pass this today, it will be a betrayal for the working class people of Oakland. I urge you to pause and reflect and think about the other workers on the line and our community members. Thank you.

I'm Millie Cleveland from Coalition for Police Accountability. I think the thing that's most glaring to me about this discussion tonight is how uneducated the council members are about what they plan to vote on. People have been asking for public discussion about the OPOA contract for months. It could have been on the agenda for the Public Safety Committee. You don't have to be at the negotiating table to hear from the community what we think are key issues that need to be negotiated. I also want to clarify what meet and confer is. Meet and confer is negotiations. There is no reason why you couldn't have resolved the GPS issue during negotiations. There is no reason why you couldn't have negotiated the civilianization. There is no reason why you couldn't negotiate any of the 21 recommendations that city auditors have made on how to control OPD overtime. the only reason that you're not taking these issues up is because the police union doesn't want to talk about it and this council always conciliates to whatever the goddamn police union wants and the last thing that you have not even asked a question about is how does longevity affect the city's liability for the increase in pension costs you are not asking intelligent questions

Thank you for your comments, Ms. Jenks. Your time is up.

Cleveland, sorry.

Good evening, council. My name is Sochi. I'm a proud local 21 member and a resident of District 6. This proposal is egregious and unacceptable for many reasons. It is financially irresponsible for council to accept an agreement with OPOA that ignores concerns highlighted by city audits, particularly OPD unlimited overtime. In 2019 alone, auditors found approximately 14 million per year over budget just due to police overtime. One-third of officers worked over 500 OT hours per year. The new contract still sets no overtime cap. San Jose's police department is over twice the size of Oakland's, yet OPD has nearly five times more officers on administrative leave as misconduct charges are being investigated. Across years, police spending has gone over budget and it is council's responsibility to sign a contract that addresses this issue. This proposal is unfair to city workers and the public. Local 21 is forced to fight for tiny increases at the bargaining table and told time and time again that there is no money for us, not to mention staff working in conditions with little money available to do the important work necessary to improve and maintain our city, such as funding affordable housing. Regarding the Me Too clause, if civilians win better terms, OPOA automatically gets a different suit. This is not equality. It is a one-way ratchet that guarantees OPOA always comes out ahead. The city forecasts $120 million per year shortfalls through 2030. This contract's five-year cost is $29 million, which is a quarter of that gap. This is ridiculous, considering the staff vacancies that exist and necessary projects that go unfunded.

Thank you for your comments, Ms. Oshie.

uh good evening council members my name is noelle i'm a d3 resident a proud member of the local 21 bargaining team and i'm asking you tonight to pause before ratifying the opoa contract tonight as you know the city auditor first flagged opd's overtime practices as the main driver of our city's budget shortfalls back in 2015 and these audit or report recommended changes have not been addressed in this agreement I'm happy that these issues are being looked at, but ultimately tonight's agreement does not fix any of this. It doesn't set a hard cap on overtime hours. It doesn't change the cap on comp time hours, and it's silent on the practice of selling back comp time. Meanwhile, last year, one officer worked an average of 64 hours of overtime per week. That's not a negotiated oversight. It's a decade of the same recommendation being ignored contract after contract. As a Local 21 member on our own bargaining team, I've watched this play out in real time. We've been at the bargaining table twice a week since March, told time and time again that the city cannot afford to pay us any cost of living adjustments, cannot pay for things like a bus pass. Meanwhile, here we're seeing OPD officers set to get a 14% base pay raise over five years and longevity pay up to 15%. plus this me too clause that says where if seiu or ifpte or the other non-sworn units or firefighters win better terms opa automatically gets the difference this is not a floor to keep police pay comparable it's a ratchet that guarantees the opa oh thank you for your comments your time is up

Hello, council. My name is Colin. I'm a proud Local 21 member and Oakland resident. So we're talking about a police department that continually spends nearly $14 million over its budget every year. A police department whose overtime budget alone was more than our paving budget, $55 million last year. Why do we continue to literally rewarding them for bad behavior? So this contract here has no cap on overtime. There's no meaningful tools to prevent the dysfunction we continue to see. And I wanna thank you, Council Member Fife, for pointing out the hypocrisy of this contract compared to other bargaining units. We need to lift up our workers who are earning nearly poverty wages for important work that keeps city services running. So I strongly urge you to reject this proposal, thank you.

Hi, my name is Maxine. I'm a city employee, a resident of District 6, and I'm here to ask you to also not approve this proposal. You know, I think about the Me Too clause that's in there, and I'd like to know if it's seen, you know, this model is supposed to be seen as I'd like to see it across the city. Local 21 has a vacancy rate of 21% where Oakland's sitting at like 6%. And you have these longevity clauses to incentivize people to stay, but I have yet to see in my time in the city an offer of longevity to stay and do the work that our people need. So I'd like you to consider that. Thank you.

Thank you for your comments.

Hi, Council. I'm Jennifer Foster. I am president of Local 21's A&W chapter, a longtime District 6 resident, 25-year city employee. Clearly, we are in unprecedented times. For the first time ever, Council is allowing a Me Too for police to benefit from wages and benefit improvements of all other unions without having to feel the pain. i want to know do they have to give back lost wages if we have to strike because we're forced to do so by admin who won't give us a contract it is really Really interesting to see that admin is burying police colas in premium pay. Longevity is moving from a flat rate to ongoing percentage of base salary, raising from 2% to 15%. which is all pensionable increases, on top of the annual COLAs. I hope my workers get COLA plus 10% too year after year for five years. Bring that home to me. My workers need it. I'm thankful council's prioritizing, retaining, and onboarding staff. It encourages me that you realize the sacrifice and loyalty of workers. We need this incentive like longevity plus COLA formula brought to our tables. All we get.

Thank you for your comments. Your time is up.

Ann Jenks, District 3. Um, so the longevity bonuses in this agreement are being explained as necessary for retaining police officers. If officers are most likely to leave OPD in the five years of service range, how does this strengthen retention to give the largest longevity bonuses to 20 plus year veteran officers? What's the anticipated impact of senior officers receiving these massive longevity bonuses? This will increase their pension, which is based on their most recent salaries, and the longevity bonuses are included if they retire. Is there an analysis that the bonus will encourage them to stay longer than they otherwise would have even though they'll lose the pension bump they would have gotten from the bonuses? It does not appear the staff report reflects the increased city pension obligations at all. Although the staff report says unrepresented employees in UN1 unit will receive the same provisions, the staff report does not reflect these costs. Every time there's a public outcry about unmanaged overtime, OPD brings it down temporarily. There are no changes to the substantive concerns raised by the city auditor on managing overtime or lowering caps on comp time. The city council's been more focused and committed to undermining independent police oversight that leads to accountable and effective policing than understanding or managing OPD and the finances.

Thank you for your comments. Ms. Jenks, your time is up.

Madeline Stacy. So Mr. Johnson, excuse me, Mr. Johnson mentioned that the police provide a service. What do we think that the unions with outstanding contracts do, the city workers of Oakland? They've been negotiating for months and the IFPTE specifically has been out of contract for two months. The prioritization of finalizing the MOU with the OPOA shows just that, who this council prioritizes. And it's not the city workers and it's not those who provide real on the ground services to the people of Oakland. OPD does not need greater pay packages. Oakland needs community services, housing. We need to fill the gap of food since the federal government's taking that away, so that benefits. We need well-funded schools, things that other people have mentioned. So my question is this. Who do you serve? The people of Oakland or the OPOA?

Matthias Lukes yields his time to me.

Is Matthias still in the building? Okay, thank you.

Good evening. My name is Nate Adams. I'm an Oakland District 2 resident. I wanna make very clear that all city workers deserve a fair contract. So why is OPOA being rushed through while our city workers are being blocked? The council says it wants a clear, balanced budget. But this MOU does exactly the opposite. On top of a 14% raise, longevity pay quietly layers in another two to 15%. For some officers, that's 15% on top of the 14% COLA adjusted increase. $72 million, to answer your earlier question of what does longevity expand into this budget, $72 million is the additional spending this contract commits us to over five years. Well, we still can't even fix our own potholes or pick up our city's trash. The me too clause is irresponsible budgeting. If city workers win real demands, real raises through their own negotiation, OPOA gets even more automatically. Our city council is fast tracking one negotiation while stalling the negotiation for the workers who pave our roads, who manage our parks. Make that make sense. Oakland deserves effective governance, not whatever this is. Stay accountable to our neighbors and vote no on the MOU until you've reached a contract with our civilian city workers. Thank you.

Thank you for your comments. Next speaker, please.

So if this process had been well vetted, the proper way would have been, it would have gone to finance committee. It would have gone to public safety committee. It would have been reviewed by the budget finance committee with recommendations. None of that happened. This is a rule 28 item. That means it wasn't done correctly. So you are rubber stamping it. So when I had a job for 31 years, I didn't automatically get a pay raise. A part of my raise was job performance evaluation. Job performance of this police department is best represented in the agendized item for tonight, item 6.9. lawsuit against the Oakland Police Department where you are awarding $17 million. When you read the document of what happened when there was unauthorized chase of police officers, the document says two officers made inappropriate remarks and left the scene, returned later and attempted to obscure their involvement in the events leading to the crash. Job performance, 23 years of the NSA, job performance. You're currently dealing with a lawsuit for which a NFL player was killed by the police. Job performance.

Thank you for your comments, Mrs. Sato. Your time is up. All names have been called. There's an Ari, Glenn, and Jennifer. If you are not in the room, we can move on. All speakers have been called.

Thank you for everybody that came out to speak. Public comment has commenced. Any more comments from my colleagues? There's a motion. Is there a second on the floor? Second from Houston. Roll call.

Thank you for that. There was a motion by Councilmember Gallo, seconded by Councilmember Houston, and if I may, and the parliamentarian may chime in, just to reiterate in regards to these three pieces of legislation, the third piece will be two readings, so I just wanted to make sure that that was clear, that it will be, the second reading will occur on October 6th, if this is passed. All right, with that on roll, my apologies, let me just pull up my roll, okay. On roll, motion by Councilmember Guyal, seconded by Councilmember Houston to approve. Councilmember Brown? Aye. Bife? No. Guyal?

Aye.

Houston?

Aye.

Ramachandran?

Aye.

Unger? Aye. Wong? Aye. And Chair Jenkins? Aye. Item 5.2 in all three pieces of legislation were approved with seven ayes, one no. Councilmember Fyfe, again, as I stated, part three will be approved on second reading on October 6th. That now takes us again out of order as requested at the beginning of the meeting. One moment as we move to item 4.1, our one public hearing. all right moving to item number four point one our only public hearing and if I may get a motion to open the public hearing Kyle five that was a motion by councilmember Gallo seconded by council number five to open the public hearing and with that motion councilmember Brown I fight I Kyle are you Houston I Ramachandran? Aye. Unger? Aye. Wong? Aye. Chair Jenkins? Aye. Item 4.1 was opened with eight ayes. I will now read in the title. conduct a public hearing and upon conclusion receive the 2025-2026 informational consolidation annual performance and evaluation report for the community development block grant home investment partnership emergency solutions grant and housing opportunities for persons with aids and i have three speakers for this item shall five minutes suffice all right five minutes on the clock please

May I have the slides, please? Good afternoon, council members. Claudia Flores, Housing and Community Development Unit Manager. I'm joined here by Hugo Ramirez, Deputy Director of Community Development. So every year we hold a public hearing as required by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, or HUD, for the Consolidated Annual Performance and Evaluation Report. A brief reminder about HUD's funding cycle. represented in this slide. Every year the city gets formula grants as an entitlement jurisdiction, which means we do not have to apply for the funding. We're entitled to it based on our population level and other factors. HUD cycle for planning and reporting on this funding is that starting with the first box at the top, every five years we create a consolidated plan. It lays out our five year approach for HUD funding in alignment with broader city and county goals and needs around homelessness, housing, and community development. Our current comp plan covers 25 to 2029, so this capers the evaluation of that first year of the comp plan. The second box is the annual action plan, which is a one-year funding plan submitted annually that maps to the comp plan and represents what we will do with our HUD grants in the coming fiscal years. So we were here this past summer for the plan for the current fiscal year. And then the last part of the cycle, the purple box, is that 90 days after each fiscal year ends, we submit the CAPER, which reviews how we did in achieving the outcomes we laid out in the prior fiscal year's annual action plan. So that's what we're presenting to you today for receipt, so we can submit to HUD in two weeks. As a reminder, the comp plan and the annual action plans reflect the city's housing and other strategic priorities of the three piece of production of new affordable housing, preservation of existing affordable housing stock, and protection of Oaklanders from displacement. These HUD grants and plans also cover homelessness solutions and economic development support. Just a little bit more about this caper. As a HUD compliance document, it reports on the progress towards the commitments in the planning documents and the city's impact and activities carried out with our four annual grants during fiscal year 25-26, which total a little over 14 million. In 2025, you as a council accepted and appropriated the following funds, approximately 8.1 million of community development block grant, which includes reinvestment of our loan repayments from our revolving loan program. And I'll say a little bit more about the breakdown of this in the next slide. And the next grant is close to 2.3 million in home investment partnerships used exclusively for affordable housing construction. Also 3.7 million for housing opportunities for persons with AIDS, which is used for a variety of housing and supportive services and administered by the Human Services Department's Community Homelessness Services Unit on behalf of the eligible metropolitan statistical area, which includes Alameda and Contra Costa County, and the split is close to 80% for Alameda County based on HIV prevalence. Finally, $657,000 in emergency solutions grants, which is also administered by CHS for a variety of homeless services. Just a little bit more about CDBG funding breakdown. It is restricted to capital uses primarily, which is why we allocate the majority to production and preservation activities, including our new construction NOFAs and our homeowner-occupied rehabilitation grant and loan programs. In fiscal year 25-26, we allocated about 1.1 million to homelessness solutions, primarily capital improvement of homeless facilities. About 2 million was allocated to anti-displacement activities, which includes key people house, fair housing, legal services, and code compliance relocation. Lastly, 600,000 towards economic development and small business support administered by the economic and workforce development department. This slide, which I won't read in the interest of time, it just includes some of the highlights that were included in your agenda report, but it's some specifics on actual projects, jobs, households served. Next steps, this CAPER is available for review until the end of this week. Comments from members of the public will be included in the submission to HUD in two weeks. In early summer, back to that cycle slide I went over, we will return with the annual action plan for next fiscal year. And to that end, HUD requires that we allow the public to comment on community housing and economic development priorities for next year's formula grants. And as a reminder that the use of the grants, as I said earlier, is primarily restricted to capital and there are strict caps on direct services and admin costs. So there are only some kinds of activities that are eligible, but we like to hear community priorities to inform the development of the next annual action plan.

that concludes my presentation and i'm available for questions thank you so much for your presentation council member fife just briefly when i first got to office i drafted with my staff legislation for a social housing pilot i was wanting to utilize cdbg funds and i just wonder if all of the funds that are are in this particular presentation are allotted for Ugo, maybe you can help. Is that something, and it was subsequently added to our general plan as something the city is interested in pursuing. So in terms of creating some type of social housing pilot, I know we need a development authority like we're working on with the BAFA process right now, but is there something that the city can do on a smaller scale to pilot a particular program or location perhaps in District 3 that perhaps could be used for artists, perhaps maybe the Malanga Center as a social housing pilot with these funds?

Hugo Ramirez, Deputy Director, Oakland HCD. Through the Chair, thank you for that question, Council Member Fyfe. As Claudia mentioned earlier, generally, these federal sources really pale in comparison to our local sources, for example, our bond and other local sources. and generally align with these other city strategic priorities. So for example, we have our new construction NOFA, Notice of Funding Availability, and that's the competitive process through which we deploy all of our dollars, federal and otherwise. So I would say in response to your question, to the extent that social housing becomes part of the city's overall strategy, CDBG, HOME, even HOPWA could be potential sources. But again, it's just one source, or three sources in this case, of federal sources for the city's broader strategies of our three Ps, our new construction, NOFA, et cetera. And this is also a retrospective. So this is an end of year report for last fiscal year. Certainly for our next annual action plan, to the extent that there are kind of modifications to our production and preservation strategy, then these would be sources available for that end.

Thank you.

Seeing no more questions, let's go to the public commenters.

Thank you for that, and as I call your name, please approach the podium in any order and state your name for the record. If you are participating on Zoom and you signed up for item 4.1, please raise your hand so I can easily identify you. I have Ms. Asada Olaballa, Christy Davis, and Derek Barnes for item 4.1.

Okay, are you clear if this process requires a verification procedure when administrating the funds? If that is the case, that you have that procedure in place, what is it? There have been new guidelines from the federal government related to the Home Investment Partnership Program that requires verification of immigration status under these guidelines. You also have the same thing as required with the HOPWA. There is no verification requirements related to immigration status on the Emergency Solution Grant. Now y'all are proud sanctuary city people. So let me say this again. Your sanctuary city status may have, because you never will have the discussion, an impact on particularly African Americans, and I gotta use that term, now we are, what do we call ourselves now? Foundational black Americans. I'm going with that term. Foundational black Americans. Is there a waiting list where foundational black Americans are denied opportunities based on these grants and people who are non-citizens get use of the grants and we don't?

Thank you for your comments, Ms. Asada. Your time is up. Next speaker, please. You signed up for item 4.1. I have Derek Barnes and Davis. If not, we will move on. That concludes our speaker's talk, 4.1.

The public comment has commenced. Council Member Fife.

I will make a motion to close the public hearing and accept the recommendation to receive this informational consolidated performance evaluation report.

I'll second that.

Thank you for your patience, and there was a motion for item 4.1 by Councilmember Fyfe, seconded by Councilmember Guyal to close the public hearing and approve item 4.1 on roll. Councilmember Brown? Aye. Councilmember Fife? Aye. Guyal?

Aye.

Houston? Aye. Ramachandran?

Aye.

Unger?

Aye.

Wong? Aye. Chair Jenkins?

Aye.

Item 4.1 has been approved with eight ayes, and that now takes us to the regular order of the agenda, which is our consent calendar. One moment. I will read in the consent calendar and I will read in the short titles for these items. Item 6.1 is approval of the draft minutes for the committee meetings of July 13th, 2026 to July 21st, 2026. Item 6.2 is a declaration of a local emergency due to AIDS epidemic. Item 6.3, a declaration of medical cannabis health emergency. item six point four declaration of a local emergency on homelessness item six point five an amendment of the cultural affairs commission's enabling ordinance and that is it will be uh... approved on final passage item six point six is uh... uh... to point uh... seminary point uh... debt in rent forgiveness and this too uh... will be proved on final passage Items 6.7 and 6.8, excuse me, 6.7 regarding the professional services agreement with Radico for signage. This item was removed from this agenda via rule 28. Item 6.8 is celebrating Oakland pride and honoring LGBTQ plus leaders. Item 6.9, a state of Lolomani-Sokaya et al. versus Walde-Albadeez, my apologies for mispronouncing it, et al. Item 6.10 is honoring Lisa Day-Lovely. item six eleven is people at all versus one rose unity llc at all item six twelve is one million dollar grant for workforce development in interim housing and pilot project from kaiser permitted permanent a national community benefit fund at e b c f and six thirteen is transformative comic communities round six funds item 614 is recognizing september 2026 as hunger action month item 615 is proclaiming october 2026 as domestic violence awareness month item 616 is district district 6 appointment to the community policing advisory board item 617 is reappointment to children's fairyland board item 618 regarding appointment to the head start advisory board this item was removed from this agenda via rule 28 item 619 regarding opd tf excuse me atf um mou renewal has also been removed from this agenda via rule 28 item 6.20 regarding the opddea Task Force MOU has also been removed from this agenda via Rule 28. Item 6.21 is the OPD-US Marshall MOU. And Item 6.22 is the reappointment to League of City Delegate and Alternate. And that concludes your consent calendar.

Thank you. Colleagues, any comments on the consent calendar? Council Member Fife.

Just want to register a no vote on item 6.9, the estate of Lomania Sakai et al. And I believe in the state of gross negligence and malice on behalf of any department of the city that taxpayers should not be on the hook for the liability to pay for that type of misconduct. So I'm voting no.

Thank you, Council Member Fife.

Anybody else? All right.

Council Member Ramachandra.

Thank you. I want to take a moment to honor the life of Nisha DeLovely, and I know we'll have some speakers sharing a little bit about her powerful work in Oakland as a poet, performer, playwright, author, healer, and community leader in many ways. She used her voice as a survivor to uplift countless others in need through her art, through her service as a case manager with local nonprofits, and her work in faith and healing in art communities. Nisha founded poetry parlors, performed in countless works of social justice theater on a national and international stage, and was a compassionate giver. One of the things that really struck me learning about her story was out of her own pocket every week, she'd go into the streets and provide women in need with menstrual supplies and hygiene supplies, and that really exemplifies the kind of person that she was and what she did for many of our communities. I'm excited to, I'm honored to be able to share this small token of appreciation to her family and community of loved ones and declare September 21st Nisha de Lovely Week. Thank you.

Thank you. Council Member Brown-Dangayo.

Excellent, thank you so much. So I wanted to first comment on item, I had it. Yes, item 6.8. First, thank you to all of my colleagues for showing up as we honored LGBTQ leaders from across the city of Oakland yesterday evening. It was a beautiful celebration. That also included the mayor as well So just wanted to comment on that. And then in addition, you will eventually, you will also hear some public comment for item 6.14, recognizing September 2026 as Hunger Action Month. as Hunger Action Month and raising awareness of the growing challenges of food insecurity facing Oakland residents. And so you'll hear from Maria who is just an outstanding individual who is really leading the charge with so many others to help provide food for those who are in need in our communities.

Thank you Council Member. The consent calendar the motion to approve the consent calendar noting councilmember five six point nine Which should I vote on six point nine and seconded by Houston? Yes, let's go to the public commenters

Thank you, and as I call your name, please approach the podium in any order. State your name for the record. If you are participating via Zoom, please raise your hand so I can easily identify you. Henry Simons, Maria Hart, Jean Hazard, I have you signed up for several cards. Miss Asada, I have you signed up for the entire consent calendar. I have Ken Landewitzki, Derek Barnes, I have you signed up for three items, Madeline Stacey, Venus Morris, Harry Williams, Lajon Loggins, Rashid Norton, Setia Franksher North, Ron Muhammad, Ethan Gunk, and Sarah Amir. In any order, if I called your name, please state your name for the record, thank you.

on August gene hazard, and go to CleanOakland.com. On August 13, 2026, Oakland operation involving the five arrests and more than 3.8 kilograms of fentanyl. The underlying incident is confirmed. On August 13, Alameda County Sheriff's Office Narcotics Task Force detected executed warrants at two located residents. At the residence in the 2400 block of 13, 13th Avenue, five people were arrested and approximately 15,000 in bundled cash was found. And the second location in the 2700 block of 78th Avenue, investigators found what authorities describe as sophisticated fentanyl processing operation sees more than 3,800 grams of fentanyl. There is no official city of Oakland announcement identifying specific 2026 date for city-sponsored events called FITNL awareness. There are no single publicly reported figures for the total number of FITNL-related arrests. And so you don't have FITNL as a public health crisis? What's wrong with you? Guile? They confiscated... on the border of your district and Wong's district, five arrests. They got a huff of fentanyl. It ain't coming from Mexico. It's coming from right here in Oakland. And you don't make it a public health crisis. And the police department here doesn't even report it. And people are dying. What's wrong with you? You always say, it's not what you say, it's what you do. Okay, then do something. Make this a public health crisis. The city needs to sponsor a health awareness on fentanyl, just like San Jose, just like Santa Rosa, and all these folks. But you don't even recognize it as a public health issue. I gave you the facts. I also gave you this item here. So Kevin Jenkins will be in Shane Towles' trial right here. Also, last year when the president had me removed from the Council unlawful suspension of Rule 29 by Council President Kevin Jenkins and City Council Member Janani Ramachandra. That was illegal, and you went for it. They couldn't do it. And the people listening, they could go to my website. I got this all there. Also, with regards to that special election last year, I'm on my way to the appeals court, okay? My paralegal is doing this right now. And you gotta copy it.

Thank you, Mr. Hazzard, for your comments. Your time is up. Yes, you are. Thank you, Mr. Hazzard. Okay, I will see you then. Thank you so much. Next speaker, please.

Good evening, council members. My name is Henry Simons. I'm a principal government community relations representative for BART for where I cover Oakland. Today, BART would like to express our support for the two transformative climate communities grant applications being co-led by the city of Oakland. These grants would fund work to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, strengthen the local economy, and improve public health. Oakland is the heart of the BART system with nine stations more than any other cities. And when areas around our station thrives, BART thrives. We look forward to working with the city of Oakland, Seventh Street Fund, the Black Cultural Zone, and West Oakland and East Oakland communities to plan for a resilient and inclusive future around our West Oakland and Coliseum stations. And as we work to grow ridership, we're committed to partnering with the city to improve access to transit, expand affordable housing, and support local businesses. Thank you.

Thank you for your comments. Next speaker.

Hi, my name is Ethan, and I'd like to cede my time to my friend Sarah.

Hello, my name is Sarah.

Yes, there's no seating time during consent calendar. My apologies, thank you so much.

It's all good, okay. Hello, my name is Sarah. I'm here to talk about item 6.4, declaring of a local emergency on homelessness. I find it kind of crazy that y'all are willing to declare it as an emergency. but also as a criminal offense at the same time, is a crazy concept. You criminalize the most vulnerable, raid safe spaces and whole communities. You call them beautification sweeps, as if our people are ugly, like they need to be erased. And in the same breath, call it an emergency. Calling homelessness an emergency and passing the EAP, the encampment abatement program, is contradictory. The encampment abatement policy, you have shrunk the geographical area of where unhoused people can live, cracked down on people who live in vehicles without the obligations of providing resources or shelters. The people of Oakland are way tired of your empty declarations. The city of Oakland is directly complicit in the displacement of its citizens, of whom are majority black people as well, since y'all like politics that much.

Apologies, Ms. Sarah, your time is up. Thank you for your comments. Next speaker, please.

Good evening, my name is Marie Eldoretti and I'm the founder of Community Kitchens, a food justice organization feeding those not supported by traditional food security programs. Over the past year, I've been a part of Supervisor Bass's Alameda County Food Sovereignty Roundtable, which includes a coalition of over 40 food security organizations in Alameda County working to address the growing need in our community. I'm here today to ask for your support for agenda item 6.14, designating September as Hunger Action Month for the city of Oakland. The history of redlining and institutionalized racism continues to create disparities in hunger, housing, and healthcare in our community. Furthermore, recent federal snap cuts will disproportionately impact black and brown community members. Please help us raise awareness for this critical issue. Thank you so much.

Thank you for your comments.

Next speaker.

Madeline Stacy, also speaking on 6.4. I know it's a recurring declaration that is included in the agenda for city council, and I just wanted to ensure that the declaration of the emergency due to the existence of homelessness is not that it's like it's a blight that needs to be solved, because these are people, human beings. They don't need to be swept. They're not trash. They're our neighbors, our relatives. But also when we talk about money and came to my mind, we talked about, you know, the opioid contract and all this money. You have to take that money from somewhere. And the encampment abatement and management team cost a lot of money for the performance audit of the city of Oakland's homelessness encampment management interventions and activity presented by the city auditor Courtney Ruby. Oakland was spending in 2021 when this presented $1,500 an hour doing sweeps with all the different staff, both on the ground and administrative. Thank you for your comments. Next speaker.

Hello, my name is Harry Williams. Honor and respect to my District 4 representative, Councilperson Janani Ramachandra, and all the members of the Oakland City Council. Oakland is a most unique city. In its streets, I have met legends, giants who have loved on the disinherited and the abandoned. Nisha the Lovely was such a luminary. I remember standing on the corner of 83rd Avenue on International Boulevard on a chilly winter's day. Nisha had set up a clothing rack right on the block so that she could offer people garments with dignity. Nisha was an award-winning poet. She was a playwright. She was an advocate and a Harriet Tubman figure for the victims of human trafficking and domestic violence here in Oakland. One of her greatest gifts was her brilliant smile and delightful laugh. I am grateful for this daughter of Oakland who loved us so. Thank you.

Thank you for your comments.

What happened to the 90 seconds? Okay. So I want to start by thanking the council for understanding. I'm going to go very fast.

I'm sorry. Can you just state your name before you begin?

Oh, yes. I'm Satia Fraser North. Thank you. Yes. I want to start by thanking this council for understanding fairly quickly who our sister was. Nisha received her flowers while she was here, we made sure of that, but she is still ever deserving, ever deserving of flowers, of space, of time, and I wish she had more. Ever deserving of peace in her own terms, ever deserving to dance, celebrate, to give love, and be loved that. I asked a question in my own work, who's keeping our recipes? Nisha was a recipe keeper, artist, poet, painter, griot. She kept the recipes of this city and gave them back to us. She was a wild child. A soul searcher, a revolutionary, she loved Oakland fiercely, so much she's embedded in its soil. She loves her people, and she loved them passionately. I didn't know Nisha as long as many people in this room, but I knew her knew her. And I know she carried so much for so many for so long. She did a lifetime of work, the kind that lasts multiple lifetimes. She needed rest. She's needed rest for a long time. She's earned it. She didn't leave instructions. She just knew. She told her mother, those who love me will show up for me, will celebrate me the way they want to. They need to.

Apologies, Ms. Satia. Her time is up. Thank you so much. Thank you for your comments.

What's up with y'all? My name is Venus Morris. I'm from Oakland, California. I'll be speaking on behalf of 6.10. My sister, Nisha DeLovely, was a beautiful spirit. She did so much work in Oakland to really change the narrative. She helped people, she healed people, she helped save lives. I helped save lives with her. As a human trafficking advocate, Against children and commercially sexually exploited minors and people all creeds She stood ten toes on that and she wasn't even from here She came here and she brought Oakland and her whole heart here So I just wanted to acknowledge that and I also want to speak on behalf of mama Regina Evans She's not here at the moment. She lives in in New York, and her statement is, the beautiful thing that I will always remember about Queen Poetess Nisha is that she instilled within us the notion of being fully cherished, fully loved, and fully nourished. She taught us how to thrive with joy.

Apologies, Ms. Venus, your time is up. Thank you so much. Next speaker.

Thank you for this opportunity. My name is Lee Jean Loggins. Last time I addressed to you, I was talking about the legacy that I would like to leave here after a lot of deaths that I've been going through. I'm so honored that Janani Ramachandran took this time to honor Nisha Delovely, for all of us. She was a mentor to me and many others in a space as an artivist. I'm going to truly miss her because of the many lessons, the sacrifices, even in her illness of her giving her time to many victims, sex traffic, domestic violence, and I'm just lost for words, and she's gonna be someone really missed in this community, and I hope that the city really understands that that's a bar I would like to aim for. In her trauma youth, she lost her voice, and when she regained her voice, she's used her voice to save many lives, and this life she saved, and I'm forever indebted to Nisha.

Thank you for your comments. If you signed up for the consent calendar and I called your name, please approach the podium.

So I found in item 6.6 that I thoroughly support some language that I want to share. This item is dealt with because there's a need to take immediate action to avoid a substantial adverse impact that would occur if actions were deferred. Now, that language applies to the foundational black Americans in your city. You need to take some immediate actions on economy, jobs, police brutality, housing, and so forth. but you haven't been doing it. The next item is item 6.11, public nuisance and tenant harassment. It appears in this item that the city attorney filed a lawsuit in violation of numerous housing laws. That's great, but why didn't you do it for the Oakland Station people that came here? Why didn't you do it for the Coliseum Connection people that came to you? Why didn't you hold the Housing Consortium of the East Bay that screwed up the Lake Merritt Lodge and steward up the 12th Street tiny homes? Or the people called Boss Management that screwed up Wood Street in their management? Do for others as well. I'm glad you're doing this, but you could have did that for many other people. a $4.12, a $1 million grant. Now that grant is only gonna involve 20 homeless people, 20 homeless people. And then you're talking about we're gonna have housing subsidy, payment for part-time jobs, case management, job training, but you really need another $2 million for this initiative to be complete, but you don't have the $2 million. So don't bring stuff to the table incomplete. If you really need another two million, when you get to two million, bring it here, because you're gonna have to stop something in the middle, perhaps, and you don't identify where. You say you're gonna get it from donors. I don't know. Is my time up? No, okay, I still have a little time. Let me turn my page here. See, I'm old school. I write down everything. I don't do that AI, put it in the computer. Okay, so item 6.13 is a rule 28, a grant that involves West Oakland and East Oakland, and I appreciate that large sum of money, but the differentiation in the amount going to West Oakland and going to East Oakland, some kind of discussion should have been had how that was determined that

yeah thank you so much for your comments mrs sada if i called your name for item six the consent calendar i still have a few cards in my hand um ron muhammad if you're still in the building uh derek barnes if not we have concluded our public commenters for consent calendar

Thank you to everybody that commented on the consent calendar and my fellow foundational black American, Ms. Asada. We got a motion. Is there a second? Noting Council Member Fives, 6.9?

6.9, yes. Okay. I had a motion by Council Member Aguayo, seconded by Council Member Houston on the consent calendar. With that on roll, and with the amendment of the no, sorry, with the no vote for 6.9 from Council Member Fife. With that, Council Member Brown? Aye. Council Member Fife? Aye. Council Member Gallo? Aye. Houston?

Aye.

Ramachandran? Aye. Unger?

Aye.

long aye and chair jenkins aye the consent calendar has been approved with eight eyes and noting the one no vote on item 6.9 from council member fife that now takes us to i believe it's announcements item number seven which is council acknowledgements and announcements and just noting that we have 71 speakers for open forum now just skip the announcements out the way

not ready anybody else have announcements foundational please councilmember yes i want to just make an announcement about two public town halls that i will be hosting one this sunday at first presbyterian and district three um on ai and and data centers it's a conversation that uh has been percolating in the public space. And I just want to make sure that people know about this forum that I'm having as well as give an intro to the legislation that I'll be bringing forward shortly. The following Monday, I will also be holding a town hall here around homelessness and the impacts of the encampment abatement policy on District 3. And so I just welcome folks to attend both of those events.

thank you thank you so as part of oakland tech week uh in collaboration with northeastern not mills sorry councilmember brown open oakland will be having an ideathon right so where people can come in and have their ideas heard about how they would address illegal dumping so that would be tuesday september 29th one to five at northeastern councilmember brown

Excellent, thank you so much. Likewise, I am working closely with the organizers of Oakland Tech Week to bring three events, one also with Mills at Northeastern, as well as a conversation on AI and the responsible use of it with all of our three partners at Laney Community College, Mills at Northeastern, as well as the Unity Council. And all of the events for Oakland Tech Week can be found online. The calendar is there. There's over 80 events taking place in the city of Oakland during the week of September 28th through October the 2nd. And if anyone in the audience has any additional questions, anyone from myself or my team can continue to answer any questions because there will be a lot of robust conversation around this subject. Thank you.

I think you have no more comments. We can go to public, oh, Council Member Wong.

Just for my colleagues as well as the members of the public just as a friendly reminder This Saturday is actually Oakland's 31st annual Creek to Bay Day That is a major environmental cleanup day And so there are six events happening in district two alone, but many more happening across the city So if you're frustrated by illegal dumping By the state of blight across our city please contribute to the

help us out so you can find more information online Thank You councilmember Wong seeing no more councilmember announcements let's go to open forum

All right, as I call your name again in advance, please forgive me if I mispronounce your name. As I call your name, please state your name for the record. And if you're participating via Zoom, please raise your hand so I can easily identify you. I have Alik Howe, Dohee Kim, Warren Sari, Nate Adams, Miss Asada Olaballa, David Boatwright, Mina Kuchi, Audrey Luna, Kahad Hudson, Khalid McKay, Julian McKenna, Jean Hazard, Ken Parker, Madeline Stacy, Constance Yance, sorry, Andreas Anderson, Isa Alshama, Ellie French, jessa alejandra um uh beer no matthew uh pinky ash um her her tato victoria beckley eric leakland Angela Matches. Mimi Chan. Alejandrina, I believe that's the second card. Ellie Noyes. Melissa Lewis Wong. Matthew Polk. Priya Aman. Megan Montani. Tongin Tran. Chinese Whitley, Shelby Supring, Michael Seldon, Nita Lifta, Hayton Jared, Margarita Domina, Hammond Calvin Danny st. Arlette Jake Ling Pradeep Kish Kershie Renee Cole Eric J Ethan Gird Jason Zoe Rubina J Sarah Amir Hashim Huston, Emily Gu, Lima Wigner, Megan Phillips, Michaela Joyce, Hillary Chin, Vail W. Almost there guys, one moment. Anna Rabia, Kristen Richiello, Sandra Ira, Jeanette James, Grace Aguilar, Victoria Parra, Mitra Lex, Angela Roberts, Don Roberts, Imani Dawson, Sarah O'Connell, Cal, Angelica Guerrero, and look at that, a card with no name. The last card, I'm sorry. Yes, support, it doesn't have a name, just says council. Thank you so much.

And to remind them of our rules of procedure, rules of procedure says open forum is one minute.

one minute thank you for that clarification chair jenkins thank you guys so much again please state your name for the record good evening i just want to remind these young people in the room that on june the 23rd at the life enrichment committee meeting there's a section for scheduling and i ask that the scheduling of the impact of data centers be put on the agenda y'all late Now I want to tell you while from now on I'll be using the term foundational black Americans. We have people who have come to this country who look like me in skin color and have determined that African Americans are lazy, African Americans don't work hard, blah, blah, whatever. But now we have decided that we are the people who came here as enslaved people and the reason why the word is foundational because we are the foundation for the infrastructure of this country, for the economy.

Thank you for your comments, Miss Assata. And that's why I'm wearing.

We made America great already. That's what this mega is. We made America ready already. Black folks are the foundation for this global economy. Also, no on the data center. Written law has meaning only when those entrusted to administer it faithfully represent the truth and faithfully apply the law as written. That's for the court. It's also for this body here. Administer the law. Stop shucking us. And that's what you continue to do. I will be in court on my opening brief for the appeals court on that crap you did last May 15th, May 19th. Also, make fentanyl a public health crisis. Who's coming up for this hub on manufacturing?

Thank you, Mr. Hazard. Your time is up. Next speaker, please.

Can I start? Yes. Okay. Good evening. My name is Constanza. I'd like to start by first saying that we are grateful to Councilmember Fife for introducing the moratorium on building a data center right here in Oakland. This is a matter of asking ourselves who is gonna be in control of the future of Oakland, whether that's gonna be billionaires or its residents. We do not want billionaires running our city. Oakland is not a testing ground for data centers that drain our water, strain our power, and drive up costs for residents who are clearly already struggling. All for what? So that a handful of techs can profit off of us? It is clear already that these facilities bring very few local jobs, they consume massive amounts of energy and water that our communities need, and they lock cities into contracts that serve just corporate interests and not the public's. We urgently demand that the rest of the council follow the will of the people and vote no on AI data centers in Oakland permanently. This moratorium is a good first step, but we are asking that you put your community first and not the billionaire.

Thank you so much for your comments.

Yeah, my name is Khalid Mekki, Khalid for Cali. I was a writing candidate for governor of California. And to get on the ballot, I had to get a petition signed. And I went everywhere. I couldn't get nobody to sign my petition because most of the people in the Bay Area got them funny visas. So you guys here in Oakland is the only where I got anything signed. What that showed me is that Oakland is the thin blue line for democracy, for anything that counts because everyone else who works in the tech industry do not really feel the right to have anything to say about anything. So that's why the tech, the AI companies are ran by these white supremacists, but all the engineers are brown people. It's really funny. But the point I'm trying to make is this, is that when they said that AI is going to kill all of us, That means that you're the actual thin blue line to protect us and the whole humanity, because here in Oakland, in Silicon Valley, we just put you in a book.

Apologies, Mr. McKee, your time is up. Thank you so much for your comments.

Hello, this is Mitra again. We come to you about Flock, you don't listen. We come to you about the Israeli software Celebrite, you don't listen. We come to you about the EAP, you won't listen. So tell us, what will make you listen to us? If you keep acting this way, more and more Oaklanders are going to feel the betrayal. As we're criminalized, ticketed, surveilled, swept, facing eviction, dealing with exploitative jobs, what will you do? You know we're the majority. You know how I know that? It's because your ears are glued to the hip with several powerful figures behind the police union, real estate lobbyists, and Power Oakland. It's likely that the number who spoke tonight outnumbered the people who stashed money in your pockets. If you're not going to treat public safety seriously, we will. So here's my message. We'll be back, and we as voters and as organizers will do whatever we can for you to listen and actually do something.

madeline stacy um most of you tout yourself as progressives and speak to progressive values especially when on the campaign trail but seven out of eight of you consistently vote against those very values against what oaklanders want as you already mentioned you voted for the eap for flock expansion for pear green for celebrate you continually vote in opposition to what the people of Oakland want. And the people of Oakland are educated. They're coming here with facts, with knowledge. We have experts. We're not talking out of nothing. People are talking real, serious, knowledgeable, informed information. And the people continually speak, and you continually vote in opposition of what Oaklanders wants. So I want everyone to remember that we vote these people into office. We are the constituents. D2, Wong, D4, Ramachandran, and D6. Jenkins are all up for reelection this November. You don't have to vote for him if there's not. Thank you so much, Ms. Stacey.

Good evening to all of you honorable city council members and ministers. My name is Reverend Dr. Jeffrey M. Parker Sr., senior pastor here in the city of Oakland. And I'm here this evening because I'm deeply concerned about the proposal to bring large-scale AI data centers operations here in our city. Let me be clear, I'm not against technology, I'm not against innovation, and I'm not against economic development. However, I am against Oakland becoming a place where powerful technology companies can come into our community, consume enormous amounts of resources, and potentially leave Oakland residents to deal with the consequences. What we must ask ourselves is what does Oakland actually gain from this? And in my conclusion, I just wanna say that innovation should serve communities. Communities should not have to serve innovation. Thank you.

Thank you for your comments.

Oh yeah, I'm just making sure this thing's on. My name's Hashim, and I would like to say, starting off, Oakland is resilient, Oakland is strong, And it would be a disservice to the legacy of those who came before us to give in to the billionaires and continue allowing working class people to be displaced as if they didn't matter. So the people who built this city, who worked here, raised families here, fought for Oakland, deserve to have a voice in what happens next. And that includes everybody in this room. And I'll close with this. So tech billionaires who want to bring the AI industry to our city, trying to determine our future, they shouldn't. We should be the ones that decide what happens to Oakland, what it becomes. We get to decide. So thank you.

Good evening council members, my name is Asa. I'm a resident of Oakland District One. I was a teacher for three years before I left the profession because of understaffing and underpayment. Earlier the auditor said that police officers in Oakland leave after four to six years, and that's why they need a raise. 50% of teachers in Oakland Unified leave every single year. Our city spends too much on police and not enough on schools. And now we're witnessing tech billionaires make moves to build AI manufacturing plants and data centers in our city. It seems to me like the funding of police budgets is meant to clear the streets, literally, for billionaires to raise the prices in our city and develop at the cost of residents. We don't need more money for police. We need money for public workers. We need money for teachers and public services. I commend Council Member Fife for standing up against increased police budgets, and I urge the City Council to follow her lead and to pass the data center moratorium. Now is the time for all of you to stand up for Oaklanders. Please. This is our fight together, and we're asking you to join us. Thank you. We'll be back here next week to join Council Member Fife in calling for this moratorium legislation. Thank you.

As an Oakland District 6 taxpayer, I say no to Flock, no to Celebrite, and no to data centers. We see what data centers are doing around the world and we voted you in to protect our communities and not suck them dry and sell us down the river. We've seen what the people told you about money to the police and you shut them all out, ignored them and still passed it. We know that AI destroys jobs. It will do exactly what the tech bubble did by displacing all of us working class people. And it doesn't matter what size the data center is. It will fuel the climate center that is killing our earth. I support passing a moratorium on data centers in Oakland. The people of Oakland demand it. Listen to council members.

Thank you for your comments. Can you please state your name for the record?

My name is Free Palestine Fuck Flock and Fuck Ice.

Next speaker, please. Thank you so much.

My name is Melissa, and I'm here as an Oakland resident, but also as an artist and arts worker. I am in strong support of the 45-day urgency moratorium on data center approvals in Oakland and urge all city council members to approve it. Having personally talked with so many residents and business owners in a range of Oakland neighborhoods these last few weeks, it is strikingly clear that the people of Oakland see the question of an AI data center in the heart of the city, not only as a threat to the already sharp challenges of day-to-day life in Oakland, cost of living, affordability, increasing utility rates, gentrification, housing scarcity, lack of spaces that normal people, artists, families, children benefit from, but also as an existential threat to the agency and self-determination of Oaklanders to shape the city into a place for their thriving. So as an arts worker, I'm here to urge the city council to remember their responsibility to think and work creatively beyond the boring, uncreative narrative.

Thank you for your comments, Miss Melissa. Your time is up. Next speaker.

hi ellie french i'm an oakland resident and substitute teacher and i'm here to talk about the data center in support for carol five's moratorium on building the one in downtown oakland because i believe that it speaks to the opening up of this industry in our city and the dangers of it data centers have been shown to significantly reduce the quality of life for nearby residents they put pressure on electricity and water supplies. And as our city government, you are responsible for keeping us protected from these things. You are responsible for the livability of this city and not pricing out low income families and black and brown families. We oppose the introduction of such a dangerous and unprecedented sector into our city. It's a really good way to make it miserable, unlivable, and drained of culture. We've seen the effects of this in San Francisco. We've seen the effects on the wealth gap. Not only this, but AI is literally engineered to replace jobs.

Thank you for your comments, Ms. Ellie. Your time is up.

Hello, my name is Alec, and I'm a resident of District 6. I am asking that you pass a moratorium on the data centers in Oakland. They solely benefit tech billionaires, specifically Elon Musk, and real estate developers. Once we have a few data centers, they don't stop coming. They're a virus. which may sound good for some of y'all, but it's not great for us as Oaklanders. This will lead to our displacement overwhelmingly affecting poor black and brown residents and in this situation affecting residents of Chinatown, which will be a five minute drive from here. Data centers push massive demands on local power grids and local water supply. The average 20 milliwatt data center consumes enough electricity to power 16,500 average US homes, and their cooling systems consume up to 110 billion gallons of water per year, which is 14 times the average consumption of a large commercial buildings. Meter rates will skyrocket and noise pollution will, with time, force Oakland

Thank you for your comments, Ms. Alec. Your time is up.

Hi, my name is Ash Hurtado, and I work in theater, so I have experience with infrasound. Infrasound is a low-frequency sound that is too low for humans to hear, but we can feel it. And it is used in theater to make you feel a sense of dread and anxiety and sometimes nausea during scary scenes. Data centers are known to emit this frequency and it can span several blocks, which would certainly include my home where I live with my family. And I really don't want us to feel a sense of dread and anxiety and nausea all the time. I love my community. I love my local cafe. I love Oakland School of the Arts. I want you, I urge you, I ask you, I plead that you protect us from this mental and physical health hazard. by not allowing data centers, please. Thank you.

Thank you so much for your comments.

Hi, my name is Ivaraj. I'm an Oakland resident. This is my first time at any kind of city council meeting. There is a lot of technology that has made my life better. I should love all of the AI stuff, but the life of every single person I know, including me, has been made worse because of this industry. The leaders of this industry tell me that they will do everything in their enormous amount of power to continue making all of our lives worse, and I believe them. Every single new data center, no matter how small, in service of this industry, will make my life worse. I support the moratorium on the data centers, and I would like to see a complete ban as well. Thank you.

Good afternoon, my name is Nate Adams. I'm an Oakland District 2 resident. We know from other cities that the jobs that are created by AI data centers are temporary and few and far between, but the jobs that they displace are permanent. Teachers who grade with care, triage nurses who listen to their patients replaced by systems that are error prone, biased, and unaccountable, except to corporate billionaires. Right now, they are guzzling water, skyrocketing our PG&E bills, and increasing noise and air pollution. And I do not want to see the same happen in Oakland. We already pay too much in rent, gas, and groceries, and we don't need our utility bills in our region going up too. So a handful of tech companies can build a server farm that employs almost no one. Oakland deserves better than this. Thank you, Council Member Fife, for starting this conversation. I look forward to each council member voting for a moratorium on data centers with no size exemption. Thank you.

Hi, my name is Andres Anderson. I'm an Oakland resident in District 2, and I'm a social worker. I'm here today to ask for support for the moratorium of the data center development in Oakland. It's clear that most people across the political spectrum oppose data center development. We see the way unregulated tech companies ravage communities. We don't have to look far to see what happens when government prioritizes corporations and billionaires over people. Whether this is hyperscale or not, we know that all data centers are linked the same way that all communities are linked. We know that data centers are speeding up climate change and polluting the environment. We know that climate catastrophe does not care about zip codes. I stand with all communities in their fight against data center development, and I urge City Council to pass Councilmember Fife's moratorium proposal. Oakland is not for sale. This is home, not for billionaires and their corporations, but for us, the people of Oakland. Thank you.

Good evening, council members. My name is Alejandra Oreño-Simón. I live and work in Oakland, and I'm here on behalf of the Local Clean Energy Alliance as well. And I'm here to support council member five's proposed moratorium on data centers. I'm deeply concerned about the enormous energy demands that data centers would place on our city and our communities. And as someone who lives here, I already see how increasingly expensive it is to live in Oakland and keep up with utility costs. The last thing Oakland needs is another industry bringing enormous resource demands into our city while those costs and impacts are ultimately going to be passed down to residents and rate payers. I also don't want to see Oakland become another place where tech billionaires just come to set up shop, profit from our resources, and then leave working people like us to deal with the consequences. I urge the council to please support a moratorium without exemptions and to move toward permanently banning AI data centers in Oakland. Please listen to the people who live and work here and put our communities before the profits of big tech. Thank you.

Hello, my name is Shelby. I'm here to talk about the data centers. And I'm young, I'm new in politics, and being here, this is my first city council meeting, and I don't have much more data points or personal stories that I think will just add to even more of what people are bringing up. But I will say that coming here and seeing the amount of people that have dedicated their time to come here and talk about this is very touching to me. And also I hope that, I don't know if you guys have seen this a lot, but I hope this isn't jaded and something that you see and just kind of put away. This is very impressive and I'm proud to be a part of a coalition of people who want something and want to be here and make part of the change. So I please plead with you to appreciate this and listen to us and no data centers. Thank you.

Hello, my name is Megan Phillips. I'm a District 3 resident and a student at Laney College. I commend Councilmember Fife for drafting an emergency moratorium, and I urge all other Councilmembers to follow Fife's lead and pass the urgency moratorium on data centers. This is the first step towards a citywide permanent ban on data centers of all sizes. Billionaires are trying to buy Oakland's future and turn it into a playground for big tech. We know that private developers and tech billionaires don't care about us everyday people. They care about profit. So no, this is not about opposition to technology. This is about opposition to the capitalist development of AI. This is about community control of community resources. It's about putting the future of Oakland into the hands of the people because we should be the ones deciding the future of our city, not big tech.

Hello, my name is Priya Amin. I live in downtown Oakland in District 3, and I'm here speaking in support of Council Member Fife's proposal for a 45-day moratorium on all data center development of any size. I urge all council members to support this proposal as well and to expand it into an immediate and permanent ban on all data centers in Oakland. I'm a process engineer. I formerly worked in climate technology, so I know firsthand that under a capitalist system, workers like me who develop technology don't get a say in how that technology is used. And we're seeing that exemplified perfectly in the rapid, unregulated development of AI at the whim of billionaires and solely for billionaire profit. These billionaires who are coming in, treating Oakland like a playground, they have no regard for the people of Oakland who are going to have to suffer the consequences that many have already spoken about, job loss, electricity hikes, rent hikes, et cetera, and other potential long-term effects that are not even known. There's a clear popular demand for a ban on Oakland data centers, and if we lived in a true democracy, there'd be no doubt that we'd have one.

Apologies, your time is up. Thank you so much for your comments.

Good evening members of the council. My name is Jason and I live in District 2. I'd like to talk a little bit about why despite studying AI at UC Berkeley, despite having worked on self-driving cars and other tech industry staples, despite looking on paper to be the exact type of person who should be for these data centers, I'm standing here as a staunch opponent of the proposed data centers and capitalist development of AI. I learned very well firsthand the patterns the US tech industry follows, so let me echo what this is all really about. The consolidation of power through amassing more profits. Running private companies is profitable, renting infrastructure as a service is profitable, and cutting jobs is profitable. Billionaires and the ruling class know the people are ready to fight for a change. Why else would they be selling us a false narrative and a false solution? But we, the people of Oakland, are done with all that. We are ready to fight for the future we deserve, and we urge you to stand with us. Thank you, Carol Fyfe, for introducing the critical 45-day moratorium, and I urge other council members to support it.

Good evening, my name is Ethan. Like many others here, I want to urge all of you to pass a moratorium on data centers in Oakland because I don't want tech billionaires and real estate developers to be enriched at the expense of the Oakland people. Investment in AI strips thousands of people of their jobs and their livelihoods for the benefit of the ultra-wealthy few. In addition, data centers, regardless of their size, are deleterious to the environment. Even if the proposed Bering facility is not of hyperscale, it still requires the training of AI models at other data centers in order to operate. This means that the environmental destruction caused by other data centers is the price that other communities pay in order for models to be run at smaller facilities like Bering. Furthermore, the United Nations Environment Program recently published a report stating that global temperature rise is well on track to cross the 1.5 degree Celsius threshold. This will have unfathomable consequences, worsening natural disasters, causing more severe droughts and heat waves, diminishing biodiversity, and directly jeopardizing human health. In fact, millions of people throughout the global south are already suffering the brunt of these impacts, and creating more data centers will only make things worse. With this in mind, I would like to commend Council Member Pfeiffer for introducing a citywide moratorium on data centers.

Thank you so much for your comment.

Hello, Council. My name is Matthew. I'm a resident of Oakland. I'm speaking in favor of Council Member 5's urgency moratorium for the proposed data center downtown. Before I moved to Oakland, I lived in Seattle, a city I hold near and dear to my heart, and a city that has similar problems to Oakland, which is widespread housing insecurity, unaffordable cost of living, a struggling downtown. rapid gentrification of the Central District, which is the city's last remaining historically black neighborhood. Seattle is also a city whose development has been directed by the likes of Amazon, Meta, Microsoft, Google, and Salesforce for the better part of the century. And the reason why I bring this up is that allowing development in Oakland to be directed by the likes of Tesla, Prometheus, or whatever tech corporation happens to be in the neighborhood will not solve Oakland's housing insecurity, our cost of living, the state of our downtown, or the displacement of black and brown families from Oakland We can clearly see from Seattle that this is not a recipe for solving these issues and I urge that.

Thank you so much for your comments, Matthew.

Hello, my name is Mimi Chan, and I live in District 5. I'm an organizer with the Party for Socialism and Liberation, and first I want to thank Councilmember Fai for her leadership on the 45-day moratorium. And as a resident of Oakland, I do want our public services fully funded. I want our city workers paid well. And I also don't want the data centers to be paying for it. I don't want the property, you know, the raising the property taxes. I want all of these things, and I don't want to sell out our long-term futures for these short-term gains. Same with the AI facilities in West Oakland as well for researching robotics. If they succeed, workers in Oakland will suffer. And so I support the moratorium and I hope we can expand to a total ban on data centers in Oakland.

Hello, my name is Jack. I live in Oakland, and I'm a tech worker. That's giving me a front row seat to how giddy billionaire venture capitalists are about AI super profits. The thing is, the data center proposed by Bering is not a problem of technology. It's a real estate play to jack up property values in one of the most unaffordable cities in the world. People in Oakland actually want innovation. And tech workers, they want to work on technology that helps society. But there's nothing innovative about displacing people. There's nothing innovative about destroying jobs with no plan for meeting our community's needs. The capitalist development of AI is a dead end for society and the planet. It's workers who should control how tech is developed. So I urge city council to listen to us and ban data centers permanently beginning with the moratorium. Thank you.

Hi, my name is Emily. I live and work in Oakland, and I strongly urge City Council to pass Councilmember Five's 45-day moratorium on data centers. The people of Oakland overwhelmingly do not want a data center of any size. This is part of a larger nationwide fight against the tech industry to exploit our land, homes, water, and electricity to make profit without benefit to us, the everyday people. AI will not bring jobs and development to Oakland. AI destroys jobs. The autonomous fleet of vehicles proposed as part of the stack development will put Uber and Lyft drivers out of a job. Any tech jobs brought in by the AI startups will be temporary until they code themselves out of existence. I know of many tech workers who have been laid off because of AI. Please show your loyalty to the people of Oakland by banning all data centers.

Hello, City Council. Let me introduce myself. Death to data centers! Woo! I am an Oakland resident in District 3. I'm also a public health nurse for the last 16 years. I am requesting a moratorium and supporting Carol Fife's request. 45 days is not enough time for review. We need a permanent ban to data centers. We also need this information up front, not finding out public health impacts a decade later. This is not how we revitalize downtown Oakland. We do not need big tech. They need us. This deal will not fix the deficit looming. AI CEOs are warning us now. This goes beyond data centers in our backyard. This is an environmental issue. This is a war issue. This is a labor issue. This is a morality issue. As a public health nurse, we directly see the environmental conditions shape a patient and patient population health. Look at the COVID.

Can I, your time is up, but can you please state your name for the record? Death to data centers. Thank you.

Good evening, council members. My name is Ravina. I work as a math educator at Laney College. I'm here with No Data Center in Oakland to reject the proposed contract with Bearing Company. Every day I work with students who embody the soul of Oakland. They're working class people fighting to survive the housing crisis, support their families, and build a life for themselves by earning their associate's degree at Laney. This past June, the majority of Oakland approved Measure A to renew community college funding from our own pockets. But funding this data center will hurt Oakland's working residents to benefit wealthy outsiders. Corporate tax breaks for data centers will eat up public funds that our community colleges, K-12 schools, and city infrastructure rely on every day. Oakland belongs to its people, not to any real estate developer. I urge you all to reject this contract and follow Councilmember Fife in introducing a permanent data center ban. Thank you.

Good afternoon. My name is Matthew. I live in Oakland. I'm originally from Louisiana. And I want to support the 45-day moratorium on data centers. I also want to push for a full ban on data centers. I want to start by saying a lot of the issues I notice in Oakland are similar to back home in the state of Louisiana, where the needs of corporations are put over the needs of the working class people. And these data centers, this data center that would come to Oakland isn't going to benefit people who look like me. In fact, it's going to hurt people who look like me the most. It's going to drive up energy costs, and it's going to drive up the cost of rent, which is going to push people out of Oakland. Back at home, a lot of the time, corporations were put first and that just led to people just like I said before just being hurt and I I've came all the way out here for a better opportunity at life and I don't want to see the same issues affecting the bay you know just persisting like how they did back at home and if you want to be better than those politicians back in Louisiana please vote against this

Hi, my name is Elena and I live in District 2 and I'm here to show my support for passing a moratorium on data centers as well as a call for a permanent ban due to my concerns over economic development and impact to local businesses. When it comes to economic development to our city, AI is not the answer. AI will not support the job growth that we need and will only raise the cost of living and operating businesses. Our priority must not be with tech billionaires but investing into our locally owned businesses that support our community development. Our small business community has been suffering for way too long, and the priority of our city must be on supporting these locally owned spaces rather than pricing them out. What does it say about Oakland if we welcome in big tech before we can fill the 3,500 storefront vacancies and lots that are in our community? These are 3,500 opportunities for culture, food, art, community spaces, and locally owned wealth by Oakland for the people of Oakland. And our focus must be here and not for billionaires, which is why we must oppose these data centers.

How you doing? My name is Shanice and I'm from the deep east part of Oakland. And I damn well know we don't need no data centers at all. Oakland has suffered so much, I have sat back and watched it. And many of you don't understand, it's very sinful. Your morality, your compassion, it's gone. You have no more. You don't realize that you breached your fiduciary obligation to the American. And I'm an indigenous American, an indigenous black American, a foundational American. My mother was a sharecropper. And it's a shame to see what you guys are doing with the money and how you're doing Oakland. And I want to remind you, like I said, you breached your fiduciary obligation. You perform malice, harm, and oppression on the people. You do malice, fraud, and oppression on the people. It's treacherous, and it's considered treason. We all know how severe the consequences are.

Thank you for your comments. Your time is up.

Good afternoon, council members. My name is Hillary, and I'm a resident of District 3 in Oakland, and I want to thank, like many others, Council Member Fife for drafting an urgency moratorium in opposition to the proposed data center in downtown. And I implore the entire City Council to support Fife in passing this temporary moratorium, leading to a permanent ban of AI data centers of all sizes. The city of Oakland should not be serving big tech and real estate's greedy capitalistic agenda, especially when in doing so, it will harm the physical and financial health of its citizens. I lost my job in tech due to AI six months ago, so I can speak on a personal level to AI development, destroying jobs and displacing working people. And having been working within the tech industry, I can also confirm firsthand how tech executives and leaders are soulless and hollow beings who do not care about anything except the money in their pockets. I love Oakland because of the city for the people, not for these tech millionaires, so let's keep it that way.

Hi, I'm Kristen Riccitello from District 1 in Oakland. The proposed data center is a way for others to profit off of our city with no benefits to its residents, while causing financial, environmental, and health problems for the residents of Oakland. Please listen to your residents. Do not put Bering Company's proposed data center in downtown Oakland. Please pass Council Member Fife's 45-day moratorium on data centers so we can work towards a full ban on all data centers in Oakland. Let's give Oakland the future it deserves and continue to support its residents towards a healthier and more survivable future. Thank you.

Hello, hello. Hi, council, my name is Teague Tran and I moved to Oakland in 2024 and every day I learn about how this city was built by hardworking people and the resilient people of this city. However, AI data centers and the tech billionaires threaten our communities all for profit. Time and time again, it has been shown that data centers are environmentally damaging, use power that can be utilized by families, take up space that can be better used for the community. And additionally, this unneeded invasion of tech into Oakland threatens to increase rent and local community members and displace hardworking people. I am for this moratorium and this 45-day moratorium, and I hope to permanently ban all data, sorry, all data centers in Oakland.

you should be able to just give it a second and they will turn on the handheld mic go ahead hi i'm angel and i'm here to support the moratorium of carol fife and urge a permanent ban for data centers uh the The repercussion of having data centers be implemented and imposed and disenfranchised neighborhoods, especially as evident across the country. There is evidence that it's not. Helping it's not procuring any type of health benefit, it's not it and. In actuality, it's doing the exact opposite. Talk socks, toxifying the regions that they're put in. they're causing sickness they're causing um so much more complication and a restriction of vital resources such as fresh water that our future constituents will be deprived of and so my question is like for you my apologies angel your time is up thank you so much for your comments

Hi everybody, I'm Don. I'm a teacher here in Oakland. This is like seven years I've been teaching here and I'm tired. It's right after work, but I'm here showing up because I care about my students. I care about my community. I wanna show them that showing up hopefully maybe works and that we could show that we care about them by protecting the environment for them and the planet for them. These data centers are not a long-term feasible plan. I mean, it's like 15,000 households worth of energy that these data centers are using up. And what could that space be used for? What's the opportunity cost? Well, we could have housing for some of our kids, some of our families, and instead of kind of harming their future environment for them. All right. So let's protect our futures so that we care. Please. Thank you.

Hello. My name is Pradeep. I'm an Oakland resident, a software engineer, and a student at Laney. I'm opposed to any data center of any size being built in Oakland, but I do support Carol Fife's 45-day moratorium. Thank you, Councilman. I want to be clear, I am not opposed to innovation. As a software engineer, it is my livelihood. We need modernization across every sector, like healthcare, civil services, all of it. What I am opposed to is what innovation becomes under this economic system. A tool to line the pockets of billionaires, not to serve the people who make the city run. Under capitalism, innovation doesn't mean better lives for working people. It means that their jobs are made redundant and they have no safety net. Tech oligarchs are using Oakland as a testing ground for AI systems we never consented to so they can be perfected and the technology will be used against us. You know what I don't see billionaires proposing downtown? I don't see them proposing to build schools, to build grocery stores with food we can afford.

Thank you so much, Pradeep, for your comments. Your time is up. Next speaker.

Thank you.

Hi, I'm Sandhya. This is my first ever council anywhere in the world. So the first thing is I work in AI. I am an AI executive for one of the consulting firms. And I think it is very, very important for me to speak here tonight just because, I mean, I'm not opposed to the technology, but it needs to be used and also built in a very safe and responsible manner. The question is, do we actually need a data center here in Oakland to take up all our resources? Exactly. Although they say that this is a smaller facility, it only covers about 1.5% of the overall campus. That's actually the problem, because being smaller is what lets them skip through all of the reviews that they need to go through. And if we let one small facility come in, then we're gonna have next and the next pile up. And they call this, in fact, my colleagues call this democratize.

Thank you so much for your comments. Your time is up, next speaker.

Council members, the time is now to act with your Oaklanders. My name is Dohee Kim, Energy Democracy Campaign Organizer with the Local Clean Energy Alliance, fighting alongside Oaklanders who are powering their own clean energy, green economy, and just futures. I wholeheartedly commend and strongly support Council Member Carol Fyfe for her critical leadership, foresight, and timing with this 45-day data center moratorium that would provide practical tools and protection for our beloved city and community. She has heard our demands and transformed them into real people's policy and action. The cost of electricity in Oakland is 97% higher than the whole nation. The proposed data center, a 20-megawatt proposal, could instead power 16,500 affordable social housing homes rather than disrupting our environment. I'm a West Oakland tenant that experiences how pollution and history of redlining and gentrification have affected generations of our neighbors here. We are here with people of conscience. Look at the victory at Gilroy.

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

Hello, Council Members. I'm Khaled. Thank you for staying and listening to our voices. I live a 10-minute walk from the data center that's being planned. I'm really worried about it. I'm worried about my PG&E bill rising for the 11th time. I'm worried about the birds in Lake Merritt. I'm worried about the people I love being displaced when rent raises yet again. Because of this, I deeply appreciate Council Member Fyfe introducing this 45-day moratorium, and I strongly urge the Council to expediently support this. But to me, it's not just about a permitting process. It's about the quality of investment and who has power to decide things in Oakland. This is being framed as an investment in Oakland that will benefit its people, but this is a high-risk investment. I currently work in tech on AI stuff, and I used to work on global financial markets. Let me be clear, there is a large consensus outside the Bay Area that AI is a financial bubble. Who's affected when the bubble bursts? It's not the CEO. They already made their money. No, it's the community that's stuck with the useless asset. It's the council members that got tricked. So please, no data centers, no billionaires.

Hello, thank you for allowing us to speak at this hearing. A data center is an enterprise of centralized hyperscale low latency compute. As an industry, it is racing on money that doesn't exist to build information infrastructure that is capable of surveilling and arguing against neighboring citizens on its own behalf. It is destroying the ability of citizens and small to medium businesses to acquire affordable RAM to run their projects and businesses on their own terms. A data center benefits being located in a big city because it can access much needed public infrastructure to generate local information leverage and access and access to the most aggressive business models and highest bidders. Data centers being a private instead of public resource means that instead of a more functional city, we get a more viable city. Big tech has openly discussed aspirations to replace public institutions that give them flack with the technocracy so the wealthy can watch and control their world without friction. most jobs created would be temporary construction jobs and most taxes would be dodged let's be smart and remember that there is nothing more fundamental to democracy democratic societies than trust thank you thank you can i have your name excuse me can i have your name your name thank you hello my name is renee ko and i live in oakland district 2.

The last time I was here was when this council passed council member Fife's ceasefire resolution in the middle of the night after hundreds of public comments. I was so proud to be an Oaklander that night, to be surrounded by organizers and activists and elected officials, many of those people are here or have been here today, who wanted Oakland to stand on the right side of history and who were ready to join together to fight against Israel's genocide, and the global war profiteering industry. And I'm grateful to be here again today to support council member Fife's urgency moratorium and to urge every member of this council to stand against the same tech billionaire class that is arming Israel with AI killing technology to carry out the genocide of Palestinians. The people profiting from AI don't care how many people they...

Apologies, thank you.

Hi, my name's Val. I'm an Oakland resident in District 1, and I work in District 3, a few blocks south of a warehouse that was recently bought by an AI business that is a subsidiary of Amazon. So you can understand why I am in particular very concerned about this. I work in produce distribution, a nonprofit that provides free produce to some of the most vulnerable members of our community, including expecting mothers as well as the elderly. So, I'm sure you know this, you have to refrigerate your produce. You also likely know about the energy draw that data centers cause. I'm originally from Reno, a lot of my friends and family still live there, and they've complained about these sudden blackouts. In one situation, a friend of mine, his mom has cancer and was left at home during a heat wave with no air conditioning. So I'm worried about this not only happening to the produce I'm trying to deliver to our neighbors, but also to the folks that we deliver to. I know of an elderly woman in particular who lives very close to us, and I'm worried about her. I don't want anything to happen to the members of our community. Now is a really good time to step up. Thank you so much for your comments.

Hey, y'all. I'm Kunal. I'm a first-generation immigrant, but also a resident of Alameda County for the past 20 years. I love Oakland, defended with my life, but it gets harder, too, when I hear about how we're putting up flawed cameras in majority black and brown neighborhoods and also increasing police budgets to harass street vendors and other immigrants that now somehow have questionable legal status. I am in support of council member five's moratorium on the AI data centers. I do believe that the real estate agency bearing has a lot of questionable practices going back to their 2020 to 2024 construction of a luxury condo where they were sued for $20 million for not paying their workers. So their promises to fund the workers or the jobs that will come from this are not that relevant to me. Energy grid, all that fun stuff.

Thank you so much for your comments, Cundall.

Hello, my name is Angela Maddox. of Oakland. I'm here to support the Momentorium on data centers. Well, the tech industry likes to say to move fast and break things. Right now, things would be humanity. We are not things, we are people. They don't care about us. They laugh about AI maybe killing us, and the idea that we are perpetuating this is just insane to me. We share our water resources, strained water resources, with the nation's breadbasket, and we need to protect that. We can't be extracting more. Above anything else, we need food and water to survive. The government's supposed to serve the people, not the billionaires and the tech overlords They can do better with the data centers if we make them. We should not let them come in and we should say no to this. Thank you.

Hello, my name is Danielle St. Arnold. I'm a resident of Oakland and I work at an elementary school here in our city. I am here to express my support for a moratorium on data centers in Oakland because data centers do not provide any benefits for working people. It just puts money in the pockets of tech billionaires and real estate developers. The people of Oakland are here today united in our stance against billionaire development of AI. And so city council members, I am here to implore you, please hear your constituents' voices and follow Council Fife's lead and support this urgency moratorium on data centers in our town. And thank you so much for taking the time to hear us.

Hello, my name is Kevin Simon. I'm operations manager in a nonprofit solar based in Oakland, giving free solar to the people that need it the most. I'm here to speak on the motion of a moratorium for the data center. I know it feels like AI integration is inevitable, but that doesn't mean we can't control it or mitigate its impact in our community and our planet through democracy. which is why we're here. It starts with us, us the people, we the people. It starts with your vote on this motion. It starts with the leadership hearing the words of its constituents. I urge you all to move forward for the moratorium in order to, for both we the people and you all the council to gain more information on all items in question. Items such as, items like environmental impacts such as proposed water usage, noise pollution, and taxpayer utility rate increases. We deserve clear, transparent changes from its original use to this upgrade that Behring proposes. Please vote for this moratorium to allow us, we the people, the transparency we deserve. Thank you.

Hi, my name is Lex. I'm a resident of West Oakland, and I'm seeking in support of the moratorium on all data centers in Oakland. Oakland is a city built by the people that care about it, and the construction of data centers would disproportionately and negatively impact the working class black and brown community members that make Oakland the city that it is, with increasing rent prices, negative health impacts, and environmental destruction. I work in experimental science and I believe in the power of innovation, but every day I see the people who once loved the creativity and opportunity that science has offered lose touch with what they loved because they are constantly urged to give in to AI agents in the name of profits. The advertisement of innovation and opportunity remains purposely vague because it's not going to Oakland residents, but instead cycles back to the wealthy tech minority who are ignorant to the communities they are destroying. My hope is that the city of Oakland would choose to invest in the people that love it rather than the technology that actively works to drain it of the life that makes it. Keep Oakland human, thank you.

Hi, I had the blank card. My name is Casey. I'm a friend and supporter of Oakland residents. I'm in support of Carol Phyfe's moratorium and a permanent ban on data centers in Oakland. I'm concerned about the potential health impacts of surrounding residents, including lung damage and asthma attacks, especially when those very residents overwhelmingly oppose the construction of these data centers. I am also concerned about data centers' contribution to the climate crisis. All data centers, including data centers on a smaller scale, use thousands of gallons of water for cooling and to contribute to greenhouse gas emissions. Every one of you will feel the effects of climate crisis just like all of us if we don't fight for a livable planet. The people of Oakland deserve a public review and a voice over the fate of their own community's land and health. Thank you.

Hey there, I'm Hadar Jarrell from District 3, Oakland. I oppose any data center being built in Oakland, big or small. I appreciate and support Council Member Five's moratorium. I'm not opposed to innovation, but we need to be in control of this technology that has the potential to change the whole world as we know it. We need to be in control of our lives. We need to rein in the oligarchy that's destroying our country. We need to pump the brakes. Thanks, bye.

Hello, my name is Eric. I'm from District 2. I'm here because I'm worried about data centers and I'm worried about the unaccountable powers behind them. I'm here as a father, a father in Oakland. I'm worried about the future of AI and what it means for the safety of my children. I'm here as a researcher in AI safety and a former strategist, a civil servant at the Pentagon and the Department of Defense, who's committed his career to this mission. I'm worried for those reasons too. Lastly, I'm worried as a citizen of Oakland. I want democracy to work in due time, on pace, and that's why I support a moratorium. Thank you.

Hello, my name is Sarah, and I'm a teacher, an OUSD middle school teacher. And in my day to day, thank you, thank you. In my day to day, I see the way AI is limiting the processing and capability of our students. It demotivates the effort and the productive struggle of learning, because you could just find everything easy. Speed running the gentrification of Oakland and contributing our resources and energy to harmful technology is a problem. Council Member Fife, I imagine you don't remember me in the friendliest way, but I commend you for your introducing of a moratorium and willingness to actually hear us out and like hold these faces. This is true praxis. The only thing I'll push back on is the idea that council members or community leaders are the only ones who get things done in Oakland because look at us, we're here and we're loud. I urge the council to take notes and respond to the will of the people, unlike your continuous efforts to not to, since y'all only follow the money. Stop selling Oakland out, please, thank you.

Good evening.

I come to you as a city of Oakland. See, I'm a little nervous. First time ever. I'm a resident of the city of Oakland. I'm a community activist. I'm a student. I'm an instructor. I'm a lover. And unfortunately, I'm a fighter because I do not want to see these AI data centers being built in my hometown. What I think about when it comes to AI is you guys are sacrificing our natural resources for convenience. And as other states that I've toured, other states that I went to go visit family and friends, for example, I've been to Detroit, I've been to Flint, I've seen Gary, Indiana, and do we want Oakland to be just like that? We have the opportunity to not fall in those same patterns. So in order to not be just like Flint or Gary, Indiana, I think we should look into other things outside of supporting these AI data centers. That's what I gotta say so far. Fuck AI. Thank you.

Can I get your name? Excuse me, can I get your name, sir? Can I get your name?

Oh, fuck AI.

Hello, my name is Ursula, and when I saw that the data centers were coming, it was like what that person said about anxiety and all that. I've heard nothing but bad stuff about data centers. And I'm glad that Councilmember Fife did the 45 days moratorium. I've heard a lot of great speakers today with a lot of great points. and i hope that you guys listen and uh take it into effect because i don't see any good um there was a movie on last night channel 9 independent lens and it was about ai and it's called uh ghost in the machine so they repeat it a couple times it's very interesting i think everybody should check it out just because it's what we're talking about um thank you for listening thank you for the eye contact thank you for thank you so much your comments

Hello, my name is Sarah. I'm a resident of District 2. I stand behind the moratorium and a permanent ban on data centers in Oakland. We don't want any data centers extracting and draining our people or our resources to serve billionaires and developers. It's techno-colonialism. Three generations of my family have lived in Oakland before me. My great grandparents came to Oakland from Ireland because it was under colonial rule. Today, Ireland is living a new version of it. Data centers consume a quarter of the country's electricity. Land and people treated as infrastructure for someone else's profit. Same extraction, different empire. I'm a therapist here in Oakland. Every week I sit with people who are already stretched thin. Gentrification is not an abstraction to the people I work with, my community, or myself. I got other stuff, but you know what? Who profits from?

Hi, my name is Juliana and I'm a resident of Marin County. I support passing a moratorium on data centers in Oakland because I don't want a data center of any size in our communities. I don't believe they belong anywhere based off of their environmental consequences that leave our communities uninhabitable for all life. This is a gross safety concern and the technology qualities itself do not justify its cost. I say this because of its noise pollution, which would raise mental health issues with all Bay Area citizens, as well as harm wildlife, who will be disoriented with this technology. Another concern is water. We've seen the quality of drinkable water turn gray and smelly in communities that have data centers. These data centers intend to expand into every community, and this is predatory by design to every American. This is a money grab from people who don't want to be regulated to do their work safely. That ill intent has no place in the Bay Area or anywhere. Lastly, in the words of Hayao Miyazaki, AI is an insult to humanity. The quality of AI is poor and will low.

Thank you so much for your comments.

Hi, my name is Nessa Niemer. I'm third generation born in Oakland. My family originally came from Lebanon and ended up here. I also am in favor of the moratorium and a permanent ban on data centers. Don't let Oakland be a microcosm of our country because you guys work for us. We pay your salaries, and overwhelmingly across the country, people are vehemently opposed to these data centers. AI is being forced down our throats, and for what? For a tiny group of oligarchs to profit while the rest of us, our life keeps getting harder and harder. We're losing our jobs. Our environment is being destroyed. This is unacceptable. Half of you don't even look up when people are talking. You're not listening. You're on your phones. Wake up. Pay attention to us. Listen to the people. We don't want this. Nobody wants this. Americans on both sides of the aisle don't want these here in our community or any other communities. And if you guys don't start listening to us, we will make sure you're all voted out.

Okay, so thank you to all the speakers who came before me. My name is Grace.

Can we start her time over? Can you speak closer to the mic so we can hear you? Sure, yes.

My name is Grace, and I use computational resources for my research in biology and healthcare, and I think that I can use any computer server, any stack anywhere in the country, specifically in Texas. It doesn't have to be in Oakland. I work for the federal government. I do lifesaving research on Google servers. It doesn't have to be a data center in Oakland. in beautiful Oakland. It's a wonderful city. I'm a member of the community of this Oakland city, so I am in favor of the moratorium, deposit, and a permanent ban on data centers in Oakland. Thank you.

Hi, we're back. At the invitation of Councilmember Fyfe, she invited my son to wave at the camera.

And my son also just whispered something in my ear. Do you want to say something for the future? Oh, okay. He's worried about artificial superintelligence and the arrival of artificial general intelligence and those risks as well. Thank you.

Hello, my name is Michaela and I am an Oakland resident of District 3. Thank you Council Member Fife for hearing the people of Oakland and proposing an emergency temporary moratorium. We urge the rest of the City Council to approve of this moratorium and continue to deliberate the impact that new data centers will have on Oakland and do right by the people and pass a permanent ban. The harm of big tech and billionaires to Oakland's working class people is only going to become more undeniable and the number of your constituents rallying behind this movement is only going to grow. The bottom line is that Oakland is not and will not be another plaything, sacrifice zone, or tech company campus for the billionaire class. The people of Oakland refuse to accept the billionaire's agenda for our city. Oakland's future should be prescribed by and for the people because When a data center comes to the town, what do we do?

Shut it down. Hey, y'all. I'm a little nervous. This is my first city council meeting, and I didn't come to speak. I came to listen and learn. Oh, my name, ooh, where's my guy? Fuck AI. That's my name, for the record. But no, I saw. I'm sorry, what's your name, ma'am? I saw, I said, my name is No Data Centers.

Because I learned today. We need to know your name so we can make sure we record it. It's for the record for the public.

But I learned today that you can do that. I also learned today, it's my first meeting. I also learned today that I'm in Mr. Unger's district. I didn't know that either. And I didn't know any of this because I'm busy and I'm doing stuff. And you guys are busy and you're doing stuff. But 71 people came out. There are flyers everywhere. This is really important. I learned first edition books are being destroyed. It's anti-art. There's issues with electrical power and water, anti-environment. The sound, one with the sound frequency, anti-health. And lately, AI employees are saying, y'all going to be dead in less than 10 years. So even if you're getting money, you can't spend it if you're dead. So it's a no-brainer. Moratorium. Thank you for your comments. Your time is up.

Good evening, Mr. Bo Wright.

David Boatwright, District 4. I've sent a detailed email to all of y'all about Measure MM. If you haven't seen it, I hope you ask your staff for a copy of it to look at it. And after almost two years now, we need some oversight of Measure MM. I implore you all to look into it in more detail. It deserves your time. Thank you.

Thank you for your comments. All names have been called for open forum. If I've called your name and you haven't come up to speak, please do so now. If not, we will end open forum.

Thank you. Thank you. Since there's no discussion on open forum items, thank you all for speaking. This meeting is adjourned. There's no discussion on open forum items. But if there's no discussion, there's nothing agendized. You can be acknowledged, but I just said the meeting's adjourned, so it's adjourned.