Public Works Committee - Regular Meeting

Good morning, and welcome to the Public Works and Transportation Committee meeting for today's date, March 10. The time is now 11:34AM, and this meeting has come to order. Before I take roll, I will provide instructions on how to submit a speaker's card for items on this agenda. If you're here with us in chambers and you would like to speak on item on this agenda, please fill out a speaker's card and turn into a clerk representative to my left, your right when the before the item is read into record. Online speaker requests were due twenty four hours prior to this meeting, making that time yesterday at 11:30 a AM.

This e this meeting came to order at 11:34. Speaker cards will no longer be accepted ten minutes after the meeting has begun as well, making that time 11:44. With that, we will now proceed to take roll. Councilmember Gayo?

Present.

Thank you. Councilmember Houston?

Aye. I'm here.

Present. Thank you. Councilmember Wong? Present. Thank you. And chair Unger?

Here.

We do have four members present and with the present and councilmember Brown, we will we will need to adjourn into a special meeting.

I will make a motion to adjourn into a special meeting.

We have a motion made by chair Unger, seconded by council member Gaio to adjourn this meeting of the Public Works and Transportation Committee and to a special meeting of the full council at 11:35AM. On roll, council member Gaio? Aye. Thank you. Council member Houston? Aye. Thank you. And council member Wong? Aye. And chair Anger? Aye. We will now proceed in the special meeting, and now the council member announcements.

Yes. So many announcements. First, because we have so many folks here, we're gonna do one minute of speaking time each and that gives us a maximum of five minutes if we are ceding time. We're going to hear item six first because I think there are a lot of commenters here for that. And then item four, we're going to withdraw. No date specific, but we will still hear the public comment. And then the last announcement is sit down, make yourselves comfortable, stay for the party. And yes, five minutes max time seated. Yeah.

Thank you for your announcements. Chair Unger, moving to our first item, approval of the draft minutes from the committee meeting held on 02/24/2026. And you do not have any speakers for this item.

Alright. I will make a motion to approve the minutes.

We have a motion made by chair Unger, seconded by council member Gallo to accept their approval of the draft minutes from the committee meeting held on 02/24/2026 as is on roll. Council member Gallo?

Aye.

Thank you. Council member Houston?

Aye.

Council member Wong?

Aye.

And chair Unger? Aye. Thank you. This motion passes with four ayes. To accept the draft minutes of the committee meeting held on 02/24/2026 as is. Moving to item two, determination of schedule outstanding committee items, and this is also known as the pending list. And you do have one speaker.

Anything from staff or colleagues for the pending list?

Nothing at this time. Thank you.

While we're taking out we're taking item six out of order and we are putting item four back on the pending list with no date specific. So let's hear from our speaker please.

Thank you, caller miss Asada.

So we have a discussion about the parking for the individuals who attend the meeting. There's a great deal of confusion going over there with that parking for the public. Last year and the year before, I got three tickets, three tickets that I had to go through the process of eliminating those tickets because I'm supposed to be able to park over there. I come 07:30 in the morning to get a parking spot because if I come later than that, I'm not gonna have anywhere to park. And so what do I see?

I see city cars coming into the garage parking. Do we have a way that city cars can be taken home by employees? Because that's happening. Also, I see when I stay late at night, I see these people who are coming to use the gate, the the skate ice skating ring, they don't pay, they just get out of their cars and walk up and go skating. So we got some issues over there and today, I come in, they take a picture of my license, then another person comes in and they told they have to go through the kiosk some kind of way and get a code.

So I hope I don't have a ticket on my car when I go back, I'm a be here all day, but that confusion has to stop. The second thing is those white lines, are we out of white paint that you all got to put white tape on the streets? And where I live up Keller, we don't have any white lines, they had faded away. What's happening with the the whoever is supposed to be putting white lines down there? Get that tape off of the ground.

Is my time up, sister? Because you said one minute. And I think

you

were I didn't wanna I had some other stuff, but

I think my time is

up. Right? Yeah.

I will make a motion to council member Wong.

Comment on just now that it's pending. I I have been working with the Department of Transportation or Oak Dot on this item and part of the reason that we are withdrawing this item is because the Oakland Alameda access projects that construction started last week because of the lack of coordination with our city teams. At least 20 people have been displaced from under the highway and moved into both Jack London into the Chinatown downtown area. And I just think it's we have got to do better. So it's just not acceptable to displace people like this with no plan in place and and we need to go that do that going forward.

And I am not comfortable moving forward with signing an agreement with Caltrans until we improve our processes.

Okay. I will make a motion to approve the pending list as amended. We will have public comment on four.

We have a motion made by chair Unger, seconded by council member Gaia to accept determination scheduled outstanding committee item as amended. What the amendments is withdrawing item four from this agenda regarding the informational report on the proposed Department of Transportation parking and placing it on the pending list, no date specific. On roll, council member Gaia.

Aye.

Thank you. Council member Houston. And as a reminder just to take roll we do need you in your chair. Councilmember Houston? Aye. Thank you. Councilmember Wong? Aye. Thank you. And chair Unger? Aye. Thank you. This motion passes with four ayes to accept as amended. Moving to item six.

Alright. Just, oh, go ahead.

I'll now read the item into record. Receive an informational report from the city administrator on the proposed reorganization of the Department of Transportation parking division, including one, the rationale of the proposal two, a fiscal impact statement, including any new and unfrozen staff costs and an analysis of operational cost savings three, a summary of the outreach of the occurred to the Department of Transportation staff and the public and the business community and, four, on how the change would impact the parking division's collaboration with other departments. And you do have a number of speakers on this item.

Okay. Just, for the the sake of the public, we did receive a bunch of emails, I I wanna be clear that the the committee is not voting today on the restructuring of the parking division. We are just hearing information and asking questions. That is not, a question that is before us today. So why don't we go ahead and hear from staff first, please?

Thank you. Jerry Red Johnson, director of finance. This is a supplemental report to your prior requested information report regarding the reorganization of parking at the prior public works and transportation committee. There was a request to provide this body a full a supplemental report with data broken down for meters, garages, and parking tax as long along with parking citation fines, data on sales tax over the same times period, data on abandoned vehicles, and any data or information related to collections and timing. The report in front of you is designed to provide that information.

It provides you a from the year fiscal year 2020 sorry. '20 02/2004, through to the prior closed fiscal year information on parking meters, information on parking garages, information on the city's parking tax, information on fines and penalties along two different methods of citation collections, information regarding the city sales tax, information that we have available for us, which is over a more current period regarding vehicle enforcement along with concerns noted about, collection timing. So the data is designed, to note for you, any information that might have been there. I will say as a high level, the data shows sort of the trends you might have seen in our revenue collection data. There's always a big drop in almost every one of these categories related to pandemic and then various levels of recovery on the back end.

That's kind of a consistent pattern you'll see across all of them. And then again, there's a number of notes that were delivered, created by my collection division regarding parking and parking related items. I'm happy to hear any questions that you may have in related to the supplemental report.

Okay colleagues, do you have questions? Do you want to do public comment first? Okay, we can do public comment first.

Thank you. I will call your name in batches of 10. Please line up with no particular order. As practice, we will take in person speakers before Zoom speakers. As a reminder, you do have one minute.

As another reminder, seating time up to five minutes for each item. Miss Asada. Jennifer Finley, Simli Lee, Brian Culbertson, George Spees, Kevin Dolly, Ralph Brown, Jeff Brooke Levin, excuse me, Michael Ford, Al Marshall, and Tim Grayson. Please line up in no particular order. State your name for the record.

I'm calling in about just a ten.

Good morning. My name is Michael Ford. I have three individuals. They weren't actually called in your batch city clerk. I believe Doug Mount, George Gonzales, and Juan Perez have submitted cards.

Doug Mount, George Gonzales and Doug and

Juan Perez. Yeah. So Doug Mount, George Gonzales and Juan Perez.

Okay. Let me adjust your time.

Thank you.

You're welcome.

So again my name is Michael Ford. I am a local twenty one member. I'm a resident of District 2 and I'm here to share my thoughts on this item. These are my own opinions. They're not the opinion of the department.

I work for Oak Dot, but these are my personal opinions. I've worked with my colleagues who are also local twenty one members. And once again, we've prepared a written response to the the city's report. Anybody who is here or online, you can go to tinyurl.com/parkingtakeover and you can access this report. You could access the previous report and all the supporting documents.

And I have about a half a dozen extra copies for the public here if anybody wants them. So a lot that I could talk about, but reading the supplemental, the thing that really jumped out at me is the attention that is being given to certain issues that in my experience and my opinion, should be and routinely are handled at the staff level. These these are not issues that rise to the level of city council or to the city administration that would require a reorg. And our written report addresses some of these things. For example, when it comes to the item where the city has reported some of the issues that the collections division has listed.

I wanna note that in response to the request for data on collections timing, the city provided no data. They provided a laundry list of issues identified by the collections division. No

data.

One of the recurring themes reorganization is that the finance department is better positioned to collect parking revenues. It's important to note based on the data provided that 98% of the revenues collected by parking operations are currently being done by Oak Dot. 2% of the collections are being handled on average by the finance department, and yet all of the city administrator's attention is being directed to the finance personnel, not to Oak Dot. Why? I think that's highly problematic.

Then there's the question where we get into the details. So why are not liens being put on cars that have multiple citations? Why this delay? It's costing the city money. No. That is not the case. The process that is in place has been in place since 2011. When the finance department or its former revenue bureau was responsible for putting the current contract in place, The lien structure was put in place for good reason. Why? Two reasons.

When the city puts a lien, a DMV lien on a car, it costs money. Second reason, it is a proven fact in the industry that when you put a lien, a DMV lien on a car, and the registration is not due for another three months, you won't get paid. So if you put a lien on a car six months before the registration is due, you will incur six months of expenses and not get paid until month six. That's why there's a delay.

Thank you for your comment.

Thank you. George Spees? Thank you. So this this is an example, and we can look at each of these points that the so called issues raised by the collections department, the collections division. Okay?

These are non issues that could be handled at the staff level. If the finance departments believes that we need to revisit the standards that they put in place and have been in place for fifteen years, let's do it together. Let's not drain all of these resources, your time, the public's time, and let's focus on the things that are really important to the city. Finally, I wanna point out that the the staffing do not create more management positions. Create frontline positions for our heroic staff.

I want you to hear these numbers very quick. 2003, there were 24 public service representatives. 2010, there were 18 public service representatives. Twenty eighteen, there were 14 public service representatives. Today, there are four.

Kevin Dally from Transport Oakland. The latest report from the city administrator still does not give a rationale for moving parking enforcement to finance and abandon auto to the police. In 2021, the council approved a report from our reimagining public safety task force that suggested parking enforcement should stay, should be in Oak Dot, and abandoned auto should follow. If they are making a change, we need to know what the reason is for abandoning the report from reimagining public safety.

Well, I'm having a tremendous problem supporting the union, particularly how you have negotiated with the city to put this partial tax on the ballot in June coming up with $200,000 from SEIU '12 10/21 and from the International Association, a $150,000 that has to do with firefighters, and there's another group of y'all. How how underhanded can you be to do that? So I don't care what happens to you all, because you are manipulating to take care of you by saying you are citizens initiative, and you're not, you're union initiative that you're putting down on that ballot. And if you are willing to do that kind of sneaky underhanded stuff, what other stuff you're doing that's sneaky and underhanded? So whatever happens to whatever you decide, go ahead on and do it because

Thank you for your the

property I'm not a property owner.

Calling in our next batch of public speakers, Sharnell Smith, Lakisha Montavo, excuse me if I'm mispronouncing your first or your last name, Monique Ussuri, Akasha Newman, Akasha, thank you, Lisa Jones, Kenneth DeCroasta. Savlon Hauser. Jimmy Blueford. Keith Sherholi, excuse me if I cannot pronounce your last name, Shala Azimi. If you heard your name in person, please line up in no particular order.

State your name for the record, you do have one minute. If you heard your name and you're participating via Zoom, please raise your hands or easily identify it. As practice, we will go with in person before Zoom speakers. Thank you.

Give my time to Chanel Smith. Miss Matavo conceding her time.

Can you name all the people that you're that's ceding your time to you, please? And it's up to five minutes.

Lisa Jones, Lakisha Matavo, and who else? And Ms. LaMajar Lee.

So we have Lisa Jones, Lakisha Masata.

And Ms. Holmes.

And Ms. Holmes, thank you.

And Ken Da Costa.

So you have five minutes. Thank you.

Thank you.

You're very welcome.

Good afternoon. My name is Sharnell Smith. I am a homeowner here in Oakland. I've been working for the city of Oakland for over thirty seven years. I'm here representing the DOT department, and I would like to make it clear today. We in DOT would like to stay in DOT. I know Oakland is going through a lot of problems and troubles these days, but in DOT, it's not one. In DOT, we're thriving. In DOT, we're getting better. So you guys are thinking about reorging?

Let's not start with DOT because in DOT, our problem has not been disorganization. Our problem has not been the fact that we're not doing the work. Our problem has been that we've been short staffed. We've been short staffed since the pandemic and before the pandemic. Like before, in PMAC, we had over 14, almost 24 workers sometimes at that location. In meter collections, we've had up to 10 people in that location. In parking enforcement, we've hired over 20 people in that location this year long. So my my saying here is that we've been understaffed, not underperforming. Let me give you example. I've been describing my job as a will.

It's a part of a will that makes the system works. So in parking enforcement, let's say me as a parking enforcement officer, I patrol an area, and in that area, maybe every ten minutes, I'll write a citation. And within the hour, I'll have about six citations. But since the shortage of staff, that area that I will patrol from Embarcadero to Grand Avenue, there's about 10 beats there. So instead of me patrolling my one beat, I'm covering the whole site.

So instead of 10 people working that area, you now have two people working that area. And although that one person is still doing what she was doing, the other nine people that would have been around her is no longer there. So there's your shortfall. I go down the block, and I have four customers. There's the customer that's gonna pay the meter because the meter's there.

There's the customer that's gonna pay the meter because they see someone patrolling the area, and they know there's a consequence. There's a customer that's only gonna pay the meter when I stop at their car to issue them citation, and then they'll drop a quarter in the meter because I'm there. And then there's the customer that will not pay at all, and then that person will get a ticket. So from that one block of enforcement, once I go down that block, they're either gonna collect money from the meters where the citizens have paid, they're gonna collect money to go to the PMAC where the citizens have not paid, or we're gonna collect revenue from me patrolling the area. And if you break down the amount of enforcement officers, you're breaking down your revenue.

So what I'm asking you is that you do not reorder us, just restore our our value, restore our our workers. We've been working short all the time. So let's make it clear here today. In BEU, the vehicle enforcement unit, what we want is we wanna stay in DOT. In PMAC, what we want is we'll stay in DOT. And meter repair, what we want is we wanna stay in DOT and the meter collection. What we want is

stay in

DOT. So I wanna make it clear across the board. We're not asking just for our jobs. We're asking for all our jobs. We're asking you to restore the dignity and respect that we wanna give to the city and the citizens. We're not just asking for ourselves. We're asking for Michael Ford as well because a lot of this a lot of this came when Michael Ford came. We're here, and we're able and willing to do the work. Give us a full staff. Fully staff us. Let us see what we can do because Oakland does have a lot of problems, but right now, parking in DOT is not one. Ask our councilmen, Houston, Gallo, how much help have we been to the city? How much progress have we made through the city? I'm asking you, don't cut us short. Don't cut the city short.

We need the revenue that we can bring in, and we need the efforts of the city. And this year alone, we brought over 20 people in parking enforcement. Don't let them pull the wool over your eyes and saying this reorg is what did that. Know your restaffing is what did that. Your restaffing is what's bringing up those numbers, not a reorg. So don't shortchange yourself. Don't throw your diamonds away. We're diamonds in the rough, and please appreciate that. Thank you.

And please state your name for the record.

Hi. My name is Siflon Hauser. I'm the chair of the Oakland Bid Alliance, and I have an incredibly tough act to follow. I just wanna say how floored I am by this process and these amazing people showing up. I don't think I've ever seen this number of city employees coming and being engaged in.

It's it's it's just really remarkable to me, and it just shows true alignment with the mission of the organization that they're in in department in the department of of transportation. So as I mentioned, I'm Sablan. I'm the chair of the Oakland Bid Alliance. We are proud to 11 districts in the city Of Oakland, reinvesting over $13,000,000 representing thousands of businesses and in partnership with you all, the city of Oakland, taking care of stewarding our streets and commercial districts. Parking and enforcement is an integral part of transportation and mobility in Oakland.

It is critical to our success in commercial districts and its effective response to encampments and support of businesses. These are key objectives with in with DOT in line with other cities, and they have done a stellar job. There has

Thank you for your comment.

Monique Ussery. I'm a sense my time to Keith. Boots on the ground.

Thank you.

How are you doing? My name is Jimmy Blueford. Evening council members. Over the past three years, the vehicle enforcement unit has operated independently from the Oakland Police Department, and the progress has been remarkable. Since stepping out from under OPD, the unit has become more efficient, more responsible, and more accountable to the community.

Before the transition, the average response time for removing abandoned vehicles was over seven weeks or months. Today, the time has been cut by more than half. The unit now removes thousand of vehicles each year and increase of nearly 30% compared to when it was managed by OPD. City work service request has herged to an all time high, jumping from 10,000 to nearly 28,000 since the VU took over, proof that the residents are engaging more and that the system is working. Residents have noticed the difference.

Many have reached out to express their appreciation, praising the team for their quick action and dedication to keeping the neighborhoods clean and safe. Their feedback reinforced that this is working and is making a real impact in the community. By allowing the vehicle enforcement unit to fully focus on their mission, we freed up the police resources for critical public safety work while delivering better service to residents. The results show that the independent model is working and is making a visible difference across Oakland. Thank you.

Clearly. Hi. Hello. My name

is Keith Scherholz. Think I have an

extra Yes. My apologies. I thought the Keith boots on the ground was the one prior to you. Thank you.

Hi. My name is Keith Scherholtz. I'm a city employee of twenty six years. I've worked for Oak Dot for the last eight. This city is in crisis.

Oakland faces a 120,000,000 budget deficit. Our police lieutenant, one police lieutenant, took home $711,000 last year while Oak Oakland Police Department blew $31,000,000 over its overtime budget, and the city can't track where half those hours went. City hall has an entire bank of elevators that's been out for over a year, and now broken elevators have spread to every downtown city building. A homeless person broke into this very building, lived in the building, and stole the mayor's car from her own office getting the keys. This city has become a laughing stock.

And yet, in the middle of all of this, the administration wants to strip parking from a nationally recognized leader against the wishes of an overwhelming number of staff people, dozens of businesses, and transit advocates. We should ask who benefits from this reorganization because it isn't the public, it isn't the staff, and it isn't the city's finances. With all the problems this city faces, it's absurd to spend any time at all seeking to break up Oak Dot. Leave the department alone.

Good afternoon. Shaulazimi with Oak Dot parking division. I'm here to remind everybody that Oak Dot Parking Division has been at its best for the past several years. If something is not broken, why fix it? We need to focus on important issues that the city is facing at this time, not just fixing parking that doesn't need to be fixed.

All we need with despite of limited resources, we have done incredible work for the division. So what we are we need, we are asking resources. If the city is working together and we are all together in it, why don't you just pour in some help and give us an let us work together, not just because we are not finance or DOT. We are all siblings. All Oakland division departments, they are all siblings. So let's help us what we need, but not focus on something that we don't need to focus. Auckland citizen, we all as public servants need to

Hi. My name is Shauntae Denham and I wanna say I want us to stay with DOT. I have started off as a TPT and without DOT I wouldn't be fully charged.

And miss Denham I do have a card for you?

Oh yes, Shaunte Denham, yes.

Thank you. Hold on one second.

I want to say I want us to stay with DOT.

Give me one second please.

Looking?

You got it? Okay, you ready?

Thank you.

Okay, let's go. Oh, my history? Okay. Well, I started here when I was 18 and I was a security guard. It wasn't for Michael Ford he came and got me and said this position will be good for you which is parking enforcement. I've been here eight years but I started off as a TPT. If it wasn't for DOT I wouldn't be full time. I would have been temporary part time for three days. So not only that I don't want us to go but it's a good opportunity. He opened up doors for us for overtime, me making more money and he cared for us so we don't want to leave. We want to stay with DOT.

Thank you for your comment. Calling in our last batch of 19 speakers, Ruth Meza, Tammy Byrd, Bengaz Cross, excuse me if I mispronounced your first name, Carlos Rosas, Artisha Rose, Ben Matthew, Kirby Olsen, Jobon K. Howard, Razu Eugene, Douglas Mooney, Philip Sweet, Kinsha Johnson, Charlotte Niles, Lamajani Lee. Thank you. Michael Ford has exceeded his time.

Charlotte Niles Birx, excuse me if I mispronounced your last name, Ayanna Riss, and Janaeore. You may proceed. Thank you.

For the record, Kirby Olson, I have four people ceding their time to me. They are Ben Matlaw, Carlos Rosas, Darnell Robinson, and Ruth Mesa.

Thank you so much. Give me one second to adjust your time. So you have your five minute max. Thank you.

Thank you, Kirk. For the record, Kirby Olsen. I'm a Local twenty one union member and a concerned Oakland resident. The administration says this is all about money. They've now had two opportunities to show their work, to demonstrate what cost savings they could find, what efficiencies they can bring out of the system and calculate that for us. And yet, they've demonstrated no such savings. They couldn't point to a single dollar that they would save the city nor to a single dollar of new revenues that they would bring in. Meanwhile, the costs are a staggering $750,000 per year in unnecessary and duplicative management positions. Council member Wong rightly asked for data related to collections timing. The thing that they supposedly need to take over DOT in order to improve.

We didn't get that in this report. Once again, we got no data, no facts, no actual evidence to back up their claims. It's just more of the same trust me bro, and a laundry list of petty complaints. Each one of which are addressed in the unofficial report or by talking to the PMAC staff and hearing their side of the story. To the extent that any of these issues actually exist, they're caused by the severe understaffing that this administration itself has helped cause by freezing frontline PMAC positions through the budget.

So while I'm as disappointed as I'm sure you are with the lack of data in this report, I'm also heartened because it shows they have nothing. If this were a poker game, they just showed their hand and it's a seven two off suit. Any issues that remain after addressing the severe understaffing of frontline positions should be brought to DOT leadership to address, not handled through a reorganization. Most of the complaints report are related to collections. And yet revenues from collection payments account on average for less than one and a half percent of total citation revenues.

They are doing this whole thing, over one and a half percent of revenues. And somehow, they want you to believe they are better with money. Any first year accounting student can tell you, you don't risk 65,000,000 in revenues over three hundred eighty thousand in collections. At the pre previous committee meeting on this topic, council member Unger, you stated four criteria by which you would judge whether this reorganization is justified. I'm gonna address two of them.

Number one, our revenues strong and growing? And number two, are the workers themselves safe, experiencing high morale, and being given the agency and dignity they need to do their jobs well? On number one, revenues. You can see from the data that the administration provided and the unofficial report provided, in fiscal year twenty four, twenty five, we saw a 30 increase in parking meter revenues and a 35% increase in fines and penalties compared to a 2.8% decrease in overall sales tax revenues. That tells you that the parking system is doing much better than the overall economy.

So far for fiscal year twenty five, twenty six, revenue is up a similar amount year over year. And I wouldn't be surprised if we break all time records. 3035% annual increases count as strong and growing in my book. I believe you have your answer there. On criteria two, I think it's pretty clear that we as staff are all here because we are not being given dignity and agency. This decision was made behind closed doors by a small cabal of department heads and a consultant. Their plan was to not let DOT staff or anyone else have a say in the decision. Decision. Only thanks to the heroic efforts of council members Unger and Brown are we even having this conversation. That is not agency.

Staff were told we couldn't even ask questions about why the decision was made. That is not dignity. So in terms of morale, all I can say is that everyone in this room behind me will be extremely disappointed in the leadership of this city if this goes through. It would cause our great city to become a monument to corruption and nepotism once again. If the administration can win with a hand this poor, then we know the house rigged the game.

And no one likes to be cheated. Council members, I ask of you just three things at this time. Number one, listen to your staff from both SEIU and Local twenty one who are standing here united along with the BPAC, our bike and ped advocates, and our business improvement districts to oppose this. Number two, forward this full this report onto the full council on non consent once again. And number three, vote no on the parking administrator salary ordinance when that comes to finance committee on March 24. We already have a fantastic parking manager in Michael Ford, and we don't need another overpaid and duplicative management position during this budget crisis. Thank you.

My name is Artisha Rose. I'm gonna concede my I'm going to concede my time to Tammy Byrd.

Let's have one speaker at a time, please.

Artisha Rose to miss Tammy Bird. Thank you. Give me one second to adjust your time.

All right. Let's have let's have order in the chamber. One speaker at a time, please.

Good morning. My name is Tammy Bird. I am the Park and Meter Collection supervisor. I've been with the city of Oakland for sixteen years. I've been on both sides of the spectrum. I worked in finance, and obviously, I'm in DLT. So just to give you a small little breakdown, parking meter collections, we support parking infrastructure. What we do is we go out and collect coin revenues from secured infrastructure from meters. What we what we also do is we report broken meters, damaged meters, and we work in conjunction with meter repair. The reason why I'm telling you this, if we separate and go back to finance, the communication breaks down with other units, you units, which is meter repair.

Also, when it comes to collections, we also identify problems in the field and meter repair restore functionality so the public can continue to pay and revenue continues to flow. Placement matters. With due all respect, I remember under you mentioned place about you don't care where parking is placed, but it matters. And I'm saying this with due all respect because this hinders our our career advancement. If our jobs are in the field, what cross training will finance provide for parking meter collections when 80% of the job is in the field?

All our job functions, they are aligned with outdoor outside functions. So we're exposed to meter collection, streets, sidewalks, parking enforcement, and things like that. So it give us more advancement. Also, just in fact, in 2021 in June, finance itself stated in agenda report parking meter collection aligned better with DOT operations. I'm trying to understand the I'm trying to understand what operational change have occurred since the justification and what different conclusion comes today if nothing has changed. Also, lastly, I would just like to recognize the parking meter collection unit who I've been having a frozen position for over three years, two people collecting the whole entire city with no delay. Thank you.

Thank you.

Hello. I'm Philip Sweet, parking meter collector. I'm just here to give some insight on how collection works from the employee standpoint. 80 of what we do is actually in the field. It's a field based operation as my supervisor has said.

While we are out there, not only do we collect money, we also troubleshoot the equipment, we provide reports to other significant issues that may arise as we come into contact with them in real time. And also because of that, taking us away from DOT would break down communications and productivity in the field. That being said, it doesn't make sense for us to be anywhere else but with DOT, and I feel like that would actually hurt the progress we have made so far. I would like to urge counsel that they actually vote for non consent because we are more effective with DOT, and I like to continue the progress that we have made so far. Thank you.

Hello. Hello. My name is Razu Angan, a resident Of District 5. I'm here to speak against this reorganization. We first heard about it through the Bicycle and Pedestrian Advisory Commission late last year, seemed half baked at the time. We asked for more information. The The more information we get, it still seems half baked. And I would like you to draw attention to the letter that the Bicycle and Pedestrian Advisory Commission sent to this body and to the council requesting that this this reorganization be put on hold and be thought through. At this point, there doesn't seem to be a good reason for it, so we would oppose it. Thank you.

Hello. My name is Dante Hollowell. I'm not I didn't get to submit a card, but Janae Orr is conceding her time

to me.

That would be up to the discretion of the chair.

That's okay.

Please state your name for the record and whom is ceding their time to you.

Dante Hollowell and Janae Orr.

Is Janae in the thank you. Let me adjust your time to two minutes. You may proceed.

So again, my name is Dante Hollowell. I'm actually a SEIU ten to one shop steward and first and foremost a parking enforcement officer. I would first like to say that SEIU ten to one is. I'm sorry SEIU ten to one members are satisfied with the current structure and we support our members of course. We're comfortable with the status quo.

As many of them have said, since being in DOT, they've had better working conditions, promotional opportunities, a lot of which was supported and spearheaded by Michael Ford. So, yeah. That's some of the background. Additionally, I wanna say that in 2012 when they proposed a reorg, the council also requested that administration consider any revenue revenue producing concepts from the staff in the parking department. I would ask that we consider that as well this time because last year I took the time to partner with Trader Joe's on Lakeshore, a CVS in East Oakland, and Sprouts off of Broadway to enforce private property.

And by partnering with those local businesses, I was able to produce a full day's worth of work on my overtime days. And that's just one idea from one person. And there's an entire team of individuals behind me that probably have similar ideas that can help with revenue generation or whatever other concerns that may be encouraging this transition. Yeah. Lastly, I'd just like to say yes. We, as parking enforcement and vehicle enforcement unit, we would appreciate standing DOT. We wanna stay in DOT.

Thank you for your comment.

Good morning. My name is Benique Eskross. I'm a senior public representative in the parking mobility assistance center. I've been with the city since 2017, all in the same unit. So I've been in finance, been in the department of transportation.

Under Michael Ford's leadership, our ability to to make new changes and be be more effective has has improved greatly. He's very facilitating and open to empower and encourage us to to contribute in ways that maybe we haven't done before and he's definitely enhanced our ability to do our work effectively. The biggest problem we have is staffing. When I first started in the unit, there were 10 people, now there's four of us. It's impossible to do everything with minimal staff.

What we really need is staff. And what really concerns me about this reorganization is the narrative that has been created and pushed by collections is is troubling. They're complaining about the same thing they did when I started, like the reconciliation process, know, things the things that are Thank

you for your comment.

My name is Anaya Rose and I live in District 1. My main concern is moving this over. I totally oppose this. My main concern would be moving it over to the police department that already has way more overtime costs and just way too much costs. And it will just incur increase the cost with that's what you're all are trying to deal with. I also think that separating enforcement away from planning and policy will just make it more difficult for all three aspects of it. And I I I think that if the police department is going to have control over this, then it's more likely there's gonna be more towing and what we need is safe streets, not more towing of people's cars. Thank you.

Hello again. It's good to see you guys. Thank you guys for your time. I just simply just wanna say just

to Can you please put your name for the record?

My name is Charlotte Niles Burks. Parking control technician for the city of Oakland. Very proud to be a parking control technician. And so that's why I'm asking for us to remain a DOT at this time and for you guys to please vote no when when it comes to the budget and the reconciliation because that is the way that you guys have the power of the purse so that you guys can reevaluate because the I had a chance to look at the report that they responded to. They're missing out other information about OPD's numbers, but then they give a number for VEU.

And so all of the numbers are not adding up. So I'm asking you to take a delve into the answer that finance finance just sent back because there are a lot of things that are not true and those numbers can easily be, answered by staffing, by by, moving other things around, but you do not have to dismantle a whole department just for one or two things. So please vote no.

And we're moving to our Zoom speakers. If I did call your name, you're participating via Zoom, please raise your hands so you're easily identified. Moving to Brooke Levin. You may unmute yourself and begin your one minute comment.

Thank you very much, chair Unger and members of the committee. Brooke Levin, and I'm speaking in my own capacity as former public works director. I asked questions the last time I spoke, which were what is the purpose and the benefit of the reorganization? Why is it happening outside of the budget cycle, which all reorganizations in the past have happened through? What are the real costs?

There's been no fiscal analysis that I have seen in the response or in the original report to what this is actually gonna cost to move these functions to the police department and the finance department. That is critical. New high level people are being added. New responsibilities are being incurred, and there's no fiscal analysis. And then what are the existing vacancy savings in the parking division fund ten ten and the multipurpose multipurpose garage fund seventeen fifty. It was referenced in the original report, but there has been no detail given of that. It was not in the supplemental, so please counsel ask

Thank you for your comment. Moving to our next Zoom speaker, Brian Culvertson. Brian, please unmute yourself and begin your one minute comment.

Hi. My name is Brian Culbertson. I'm a Oakland resident in with ZIP code 94607. I am commenting against the change of moving parking to Oak Dot from Oak Dot. The purpose of parking policy and enforcement should not just be myopic revenue stream.

The purpose of, parking policy enforcement should be a tool for supporting our local businesses and for ensuring traffic safety. This change is being pushed through without, a significant rationale. The real issues that we hear that need to be improved is to improve staffing at OkDot to handle, like, the parking call center issues. We don't need new management positions. We need new positions in OkDot to address any of the issues that were brought up. Parking and invented autos in Oak Dot has made Oakland more accessible, productive, and livable for the past eight years. Let's keep it

Thank you for your comment. Kian Bliss, do I have a speaker card for you? And if so, under what name? Kian Bliss? That concludes your public speakers for item six.

Okay, thank you to all the speakers. I appreciate you taking the time. So we have director of finance here. And let me start off with a couple of questions. First, what gives you confidence that this will increase collections if we make this move?

I think we can improve the sync and the timeline between the collections process and the citation issuance and addressing issues noted in the report regarding timely movement into the proper collection cycle, timely reconciliation of that of the reports noted to make sure that people aren't in dual collection processes, again in a more timely and immediate follow-up.

I can understand moving collections to finance, but why move metering and ticketing to finance?

I think the idea was to move the and again, I'll defer to the city administrator on responding to whatever he thinks is appropriate in the space. I think the context was that the full collection the full cycle from collection of the field would move into finance to ensure the continued sync between those those functions within the parking operation.

And in finance, who will oversee the street level operations?

We would continue to use a parking enforcement supervisor two position, is currently overseeing the street enforcement levels. That would be a classification we continue to use the oversight of it. So that offer that would not change in terms of its structure organization.

And that's a newly created position?

No. That's one of the existing positions right now. The current the parking enforcement technicians report up to parking enforcement supervisor ones who then all collectively report to a parking enforcement supervisor two and that is your sort of tree within the actual on the ground meter enforcement.

So we won't be creating new positions? That's not

that there are new positions being thought through, but that is not one of them specifically. The new position we're think that we were talking about is related to the oversee overseeing of the total unit. And that's would be an ad delete from the PM two to a parking administrator to align with the other administrators and finance. And then the other position requested in the prior report to be added is a parking supervisor for the direct oversight of the parking citation assistance center.

So is council going to be asked to fund new positions as a result of this reorg?

The the

budget proposal would include the full funding of those two positions. The we have existing resources to do that in the current year through salary savings with and cost savings within the unit.

So what what is the cost of those two new positions?

The I'm sorry. And I think it is in the prior report, give me a second. One second. The change to the parking administrator would be roughly 16, 17 so $16,500 fully burdened. And the fully burdened cost of the parking supervisor is $209,000.

So those two together, 240,000 something like that. That that's it? That is that is the full extent of the new positions?

That's as of as of what's been proposed right now, that's what we're that's what we're thinking we need in terms of staffing up the unit.

So we'll have to we'll have to increase collections by 240,000 just to get to zero. Correct. Is that right? Correct. And then moving on to the other piece of this, the the OPD piece of this. We heard a lot of discussion in the finance committee this morning about how short staffed OPD is. And are you confident that OPD can handle this increased workload?

I'm gonna defer to the seat measure on that.

Through the chair, members of the committee. So in conversation with the leadership in Oakland Police Department, they did offer a level of confidence that gave me comfort that they could take on this additional responsibility as has been communicated with me to me from the department about 80% of the vehicle tolls are handled by OPD. So this is an additional threshold. I mean, coming from the information that we received, that's the feedback that we have and so based on a conversation with leadership within the department, they did convey that, yes, it's something that they can handle.

So will there be any sworn officers taken away from police work and devoting their attention towards parking and towing?

Yeah. Through this year, I think, if I'm not mistaken, it was at one sergeant that it would fall under that particular purview. But with respect to removing someone from patrol to oversee this function, that was not the intention or the design of it going into the department.

What's that sergeant doing now that that they have capacity to add this?

To yeah. So to answer that question, I can't say specifically what is that sergeant doing right now. That person has not even been identified. I think there's a lot of work that's being done here before we even get, you know, get to that point.

Finance director?

Yeah. Sorry. Chair to maybe directly more interesting question. My understanding from OPD is the, parking enforcement supervisor to position, which would be overseeing the VEU report directly in my my understanding is to the lieutenant over the traffic division. So there would be it's lieutenant level actually that where there's already a traffic unit with an OPD. This would be an additional unit that report up through the existing civilian supervisor position to that lieutenant.

Okay. I may have some more questions later but let's go to my colleagues. Councilmember Brown.

Excellent. Thank you so much. Just first off I want to thank all of the you know staff that showed up to kind of speak in and state you know why you all would prefer to stay in DOT. So really I'm grateful for the for you all showing up. I've been really focused in on the the page four of the report just kind of showing the reorganization because it does see appear that kind of the primary concern is around the citation collections process And so I just have a few questions about, well I guess one, it's my understanding that during our last budget cycle we actually added more staff for the parking technicians I believe.

So I just wanted some clarity around if that's under the I'm looking at the org chart. It's under parking enforcement. Is that the 63 FTE? So just wanted and and what is the status of bringing on? Because I because I believe I heard from staff that there continues to be areas of opportunity around staffing to to get these various jobs done. So just wanted some clarity there and and what is the status of of hiring?

To the chair to council member Brown. So if we're talking about the 63 FTE, those are your parking control technicians. Those are your on the ground people that are day to day enforcing the meter operations. I do know that DOT has an active list for those positions and they've done one recruitment. We've moved a lot of those people into permanent, from permanent part time and part time positions. I do expect them to I do expect a second round of recruitment once permanent appointments are made to the vehicle enforcement unit. So once that is done, I would imagine that that list would remain act would remain because that list remains active, there would be more appointments immediately based on that active list into those places. And yes again that's the place you have 63 FTEs and I think that was recently augmented.

In the budget but I guess maybe more specifically did did was there any clarity that we gave in that budget allocation around what specific positions it would fund?

To the chair of council member Brown I don't remember specifically. I'm happy to go look at that. I don't remember specifically if there were specific details around that.

Well because the reason I'm asking kind of for two reasons if you can help answer this around some of the comments had to do with like career advancements and there being the possibility of you know not being able to advance. Can you walk me through how that would work with with this proposed change?

Sure. Within the context of the finance unit side of it. So the current progression for the vast majority of people in the unit, the largest units, the parking enforcement unit And the natural progression is from parking control technician to parking enforcement supervisor one to parking enforcement supervisor two. That's sort of the natural progression. And then to that would that tree under the parking citation assistance center, it would be from public service rep to senior public service rep to the new position of parking supervisor we're including here.

So there would be now actually, as there's a new supervisor over that unit, you'd have an advancement career there. Within meters collections, it's meter collectors to meter collection supervisors. And then there's also an admin. There's an admin unit as well. And so the idea would be you'd have a tiering. That would be your normal advancement progression. I think we would continue to, within finance or wherever it would sit, to want to do internal advancement. I think that's generally the best practice within the organization. And then I would say within the traffic section, again, not the section coming to finance it would be from the parking control technician two roles that were recently established up to parking supervisor one to parking supervisor two.

So basically in short no impacts to the ability to kind of grow in the role?

From our line workers up to like higher level mid management roles no. Would continue to have all those tiers and structures.

I see. And then I guess my final question as I was reading through the report I began to think a little bit about the city's new speed camera system in that implementation. And eventually we will come to the point where we're collecting fees from those citations. Does that fall anywhere here?

Absolutely. So DOT's plan when we applied for the speed camera program was to have the parking citation assistance center actually be the entity that would be reviewing and looking at the speed cameras. One of the key reasons why finance and DOT, regardless of the organization chart, are really, really pushing the staffing up at PCAC. And one of the reasons that we're recommending a supervisor there is that's actually a fair amount of additional work for PCAC regarding that new program and structure. As I said in the prior committee meeting, regardless of organizational structure, there's a strong recommendation that there be a supervisor over PCAC for the purposes of getting the existing work done.

And again, that the current plan had been or has originated in DOT for that program to live heavily in PCAC. And again, it's a fair amount of additional work. So fully staffing of that unit and providing it as designated supervisor would be a clear recommendation.

Yeah. Because I think my observation would be that there's not enough staffing if if we are if that's something that we know that we are expecting in the coming months.

I I would fully concur with that. And again, as with all elements of regardless, again, of organizational structure, we need to be analyzing all structures in the city for adequate staffing, again, within our resources constraint. And I think this is a key space that we need to be looking.

Alright. Thank you. Those are all for now.

Council member Wong.

Thank you. So just looking at my emails, I I was wondering. I will I have verified through my emails that my policy director did ask the question around whether the parking tech a technician number two position would be eliminated in this restructuring. Is is that happening or not?

Our current plan is not to eliminate the PCC2 classification. Would want an advance in space. I know there's some conversation about the background checking of that group should it go into OPD but as contemplator, RE ORG does not eliminate that right now. And obviously, that is a conversation we would have to have in conjunction with our labor partners as well as this body. I think no one wants to eliminate civilian or professional staff as they would call it within PD operations of this unit. I don't think there's any desire to have that be sworn enforcement. So that that's definitely not contemplated as the city administrator mentioned earlier one way or the other.

Okay. My other question is, is this the numbers that we see in the supplemental? Is that adjusted for inflation? I just want to make sure that we're really comparing apples to apples.

Right. To know why we did not, inflation adjust numbers. We normally not to say that we can't we normally don't inflation adjust your revenue data. We normally show you your actual data. I'm happy to try to I can deflate it with a CPI deflator if you want that.

It's not wouldn't be super difficult to do. I would say the trends you're seeing on most of your items and just I wanted to be clear about what they all were. Your on street parking meters, to be really clear, that is the data regarding coin collection and credit card collection of meters in operation. I do want to note that on in twenty twenty four, July one, it has a note at the bottom there, we increased the rates from $2 to $3 an hour. So there's a 3% increase in the rate and only a 30% increase in the collection amount.

So actually it fell off a little bit related to that in that last year. It's a keynote there. Your garages, which is your next page, was the next set of information you had. I think there was a public comment around this. I just wanted to be clear. This is Fund seventeen fifty. So that is actually the fund this is all received into. We noted it by revenue category, but this all goes into Fund seventeen fifty. And you can note the more recent trend on pandemic that you should see that same trend just about everywhere. Although on this particular category, we're still far below sort of where we were pre pandemic.

Many of the other categories have returned to near where they were before. Your parking tax revenue, and this is an important distinction, you did ask for it. I want to be clear, this is not collected by the parking unit. This is actually already collected by our revenue bureau. So we collect this. This is the tax that you pay for all parking operations of structured parking within the city. So a private garage pays your parking tax. And actually it's useful data because it tells you what happens in the parking space across Oakland overall. The bigger drivers of this though, just to be very clear, is parking at the airport. That's like the largest driver of what you're seeing right in this category.

So it is a little bit different. And this one has stagnated unfortunately, but it has kind of returned to preterminate levels. And then your last chart is your fines and penalties. This is your collection data. This is actually the citations issued. And again, you have a fall off yet a little bit of a fall off over the, pandemic, not nearly as much, although sort of a little bit of a flat lining, in sort of more recent years. And then your sales tax data is provided here citywide.

Yep.

I I will note that this is citywide sales tax. This is driven by several things that are not related to parking. If I were trying to explain to you the drivers on this trend because you did ask for it, I would say parking for better or worse is not the major driver on what of these trends are. There's tons of other things that drive this but we wanted to be complete and respond to your questions.

Yeah. No, that makes sense. I will say I went ahead and actually did it. I did my own inflation adjusted chart and I think some of what I observed in that is the the fact that that as you had said, the pandemic has made a huge impact, but I think it's best to compare maybe the Oak Dot. There was a transition in 2017 to Oak Dot and to look at the, the department's operations in the period right before the pandemic.

And some of the trends I'm seeing, is parking tax went up. I see again inflation adjusted, the garage revenue actually went up and the meters also went slightly up not at a huge rate. I will say that the sales tax revenue that I'm looking at at the peaks the peaks and the nadirs actually I'm seeing even though there's many things that goes into the sales tax, I'm seeing some of what our bid alliance representative Salon has pointed out to which there is when there are dips in parking revenue, we actually see some peaks in sales tax and vice versa which I find is an interesting trend since I think it says something about parking driving consumer behavior. And then I I think the one thing I I will note to be fair is I'm seeing that the parking fines have seen a have seen a decrease and so we're not doing as well on the enforcement side of things compared to the to the rigor that happened in 2017. But I think we need to have a fair evaluation and that's what really my goal with the this data is to uncover what is working and what is not.

Council member Gallo. Thank you. Thank you. And thank you for the information and thank you for your work with the Department of Transportation, parking meters and so forth. It's What's happening in our neighborhood is a lot different than what city hall recognizes.

You can do a lot of city hall discussion and talking and planning and direction, but what's happening in the neighborhood is completely different. And so I value the work that you're doing because at one time, when I was here, I was here on this council when we made some changes to to the Department of Transportation. As an example, we wanted to make sure, since you're on the street daily, to make sure that you recognize what the improvements of our our streets that are needed, what's needed in front of our schools to make sure our children can get to schools safely and come back home safely, and that's why we changed a lot of direction. And why it's an example, the crossing guards. The crossing guards used to be under the police department, And we took that that action and brought it under the Department of Transportation.

Because you see the children, you know what the needs are, and you made those corrections to make sure the lighting worked, the crossing guards were there, and so forth to improve the safety. Where sometimes those of us sitting in a hall, we never see that. And that's what's happening with government today. Alright? So for me, it's very clear that we need to continue to to support the Department of Transportation.

Because when I make those calls and I'm out there on the streets daily cleaning and make sure my streets are clean and safe. But now considering what Oakland Unified is going through, now I'm actually cleaning around the schools, making sure they're safe and clean. But the the the issue is here today for the this city council that didn't see what happened in the past, that we need to continue to provide the safety for our children and families directly. Because when you look at what's happening with OPD today because I met with the chief yesterday. Well, they're down to 600 officers.

When budgeted, they should have 678. Oh, but at the same time, given day, there's 497 people on on leave. And yet, when I call on an emergency, sir, can you please come and help me? Because somebody's blocking somebody's driveway. They don't come.

It's not an emergency. But when I run into the parking, attendant that's on the street, they come right directly. And whether it's the hoodie or the neighbor or the people in the they highly respect that individual. Alright? And when I have to make sure that my cars are not parked on a Wednesday because the street sweeper comes by, then the public recognizes peacefully and not makes an issue by having an officer sitting there arguing with you and threatening you and all that other stuff.

So I value that. I value that so when I get the calls from my schools, transportation, the officers, you know, take care of it and we move on. When I need to remove a homeless individual that's sitting there, the people on the on the sidewalk on the street, well, you know, I called the the ladies that helped me in my area with transportation, gets done. Not a fight, it's not an issue, and it's not an argument, it gets done because the laws policies are very clear when it comes to my children and families in my schools, and and that's what we need to adhere to enforce. But so we're getting back to the so to the administration, I think we need to continue to strengthen that activity.

What is best for the children and families in the neighborhood? Alright? And and so the only thing with my finance department, my advice to you with all due respect, I wanna make sure that the numbers you give me, financial numbers are accurate, I don't have to be hiring consultant after consultant to help me understand what numbers I have. Because I've been through this before. Oh, yeah. We're we got a balanced budget, and three, four months later, somebody comes up like, oh, what? We got a $100,000,000 deficit. And I don't wanna go through that experience with this city. I don't wanna have the finance department come by a month or two months and guess what? We're $30,000,000 short or we're 40 millions dollars short.

I wanna make sure that we maintain the numbers, and the only other advice that I would give you is an example what we went through this week. Right? I I read about we're not collect you know, we're providing illegal dumping citations, but we're not collecting the fees. So who's doing that? Who else who is supposed to be doing that?

And so I think through the finance, we need to strengthen that activity. But most of all, the responsibility is to make sure that the numbers that you have and give to this council, you have a balanced budget. And don't surprise me three, four months from now, as we have in the past, so guess what? We have to cut so many positions and lay off so many people and change what's happening in the neighborhood. So the and and I'll leave you the reason you and I are here.

We are here because of the taxpayer paying our salaries to provide a quality service, and we cannot forget that and get caught up in the administrative debates. Thank you, and I support thank you for the work that you do, and I value it, and I can I'll continue to support the actions that you're taking. Thank you.

Any other questions? Council member Houston.

Yes. I'd like to to echo my council member Noel Gallos. I value everyone out here. I know two thirds of them so I'm in a tough situation. I might I might have to recuse myself cause I know everybody out here. So, I'm, that's a joke. But, I really appreciate it cause I've worked directly and I always use my personal experience. Every time I speak I'll use my personal experience. I've worked with DOT. We removed just, what, three, four weeks ago, 36 cars.

Two of them were felonies where the police had to come out and actually take them away so they were working together. So, thank you for your hard work. I really appreciate you guys. And ladies and gentlemen, I appreciate you. So, through the chair, I like to say, you said something, you said you didn't have an issue with collection going under finance. That that you said that?

I mean, have a my my preferred solution would be that finance runs the collections and billing and the customer service counter, the DOT continues to operate meters and ticketing and rights of way and that OPD tow truly stolen cars and that DOT retain truly abandoned seventy two hour cars. That would be my preferred solution, but what I'd like to do is move this to the full council on 03/16 on non consent, understanding that it's a special meeting so that might change. But I I would like to ask you all to make the strongest affirmative you case you can for this move because right now, you know, if I'm reading the mood in the room right, I don't see a lot of support for this. I think I think that But I I think that I think it seems to me my colleagues remain skeptical and and we need a a strong affirmative case made for why this would be an improvement.

So, chair Unger, thank you for that. I wanna ask a question to mister Johnson, please. So, mister Johnson, how are you? So, I saw something here that that I needed to just need some clarity where it said joint responsibility DOT and finance where it says a parking meterparking fee collection technology expansion, installation, repair, including associate associated contractors, apps, machines, contracts, payment options. Joint responsibility, anything I see that's always joint always is a problem. It's either one department handles it or the other. Can you explain that a little bit?

Absolutely. So, if we are with the organization structure proposed, we want to make sure we consultively have a conversation around the vendor contracts where we need to renew our parking citation contracting vendor at some point. When it relates to technology, a key element that DOT has put on that would remain a DOT responsibility is related to parking policy. So technology would have to be any sort of technology put on the street would have to be able to do, for instance, demand responsive parking if that's a parking policy pushed by DOT. Again, there are apps used like ParkMobile, which is the one that's used in the garage right now.

So So we would have to have compatibility with ParkMobile with, again, the other systems both for use in the field, but also to reinforce the parking policy elements that are the responsibility of DOT. So prior to getting into a new contract or renewing a contract with any vendor, one would imagine that consultation would be necessary. And I would say that we routinely have contracts with vendors that are multi departmental in general, but we also routinely have contract processes by which we have consulting departments on board when we do a vendor let. So as we review a contract or we're approving a new piece of technology, there'd have to collaboration. And I think candidly as it relates to a lot of these systems right now, I would hope actually we have collaboration between finance even under the current structure on a number of these items as it relates to the feasibility of collections integrations with Oracle and our POS system.

So that's not an unusual thing to see calling out on the report just to note it.

Okay, through the chair. The only thing I see here that I agree with is with the chair is about a collection with finances. I just don't see it. So I'll just leave it like that and if I have any other questions I'll ask.

Alright. I've got a motion on the floor to move this to the 03/16 meeting on non consent. Alright.

Thank you. We have a motion made by chair Unger, seconded by council member Houston to receive and forward this item to the March 16 special city council agenda. On roll, council member Gaio?

Aye.

Council member Houston? Aye. Council member Wong? Aye. And chair Unger? Aye. This motion passes with four ayes. To receive and forward this item to this March 16 special city council agenda and as a request for non consent, moving to item three our regularly scheduled items.

I just want to flag that we have a couple more items in a short period of time so if I could ask everyone to be brief in a way that I did not hold myself to that would be appreciated.

Thank you. Reading the item into record receive an informational report from BART addressing BART's current fiscal outlook addressing revenue and rideshare decline, its plans for addressing the fiscal challenges and parameters, BART set the accepting the loan in the state of California. And you do have two speakers for this item.

Alright. Let's hear from our BART representatives, please.

Is the mic on? There we go. Good afternoon, council members, staff. Thank you all for the opportunity to present. My name is Victor Flores.

I'm

the district.

I'm sorry to interrupt. Let let's hear from council member Wong first who brought this

item. But

I wanted to schedule this because, just this is clearly, an incredibly important thing. I wanted to I think all of us deserve to understand what is at stake if the November ballot measure does not pass. So thank you.

Great. Thank you.

We appreciate that opportunity. My name is Victor Flores. I'm the district director for District 7, which includes West Oakland, North Oakland parts of the hills. And we have my colleague, director Rayburn, who covers the flatlands from 20 3rd all the way down to South North Hayward. So is there a slide deck?

Just want to make sure you all can see what we're looking at. So next slide. We'll this is 2026 is gonna be a defining year, I think, not just for BART, but the whole Bay Area. Before we can really talk about our budget, I wanna make sure that we talk about some of the things that we're doing to make sure that BART is safer, cleaner, more reliable for all of our customers. So

one of the

things that you may have noticed is that we have the next generation fare gates that have been an absolutely major game changer for us. Not only are the are the gates reducing fare evasion, they're preventing unwanted behavior, and they're keeping the stations cleaner for way longer than before. The hours that we spent on corrective maintenance within the paid area in our stations has actually reduced, like, incredible. I wish we had the bar graph because it went from this to this. So just having that visual would be great.

But our overall crime has plummeted 41% in 2025. So we're making great strides in in increasing safety. The hard work of BART PD to boost visibility presence has shown its effectiveness. And not only that, but we've also deployed our ambassadors and crisis intervention specialists. And you can really feel that difference when you hop on one of our trains.

Because we're also not just present, but we have a brand new fleet of the future that has better lighting, better HVAC systems. All of our legacy cars are gone. And because of the new fleet and their design, we are actually able to clean those not just twice as often, but they're far more easier to clean. So how can we tell that we are satisfying customers? Nine out of 10 of of those customers surveyed say that they would recommend BART to a family or a friend.

So we're also embracing new technology to meet the real world needs of our riders. Tap and ride, which we announced a few months ago, allows people to simply tap their credit card or debit card onto the reader to access the the train system. No more you don't need to have a clipper card anymore. No preregistration. If you're a tourist or you have family and friends, they could just tap and ride.

And it's become really popular with our tourists who typically tend to use internationally. We've also just implemented Wi Fi at our five busiest stations, but we do plan to deploy to all 50 by early twenty twenty eight and making sure that they're accessible on our moving trains. And the official BART app has also been updated. So not only does it feature our trip planner, but also real time train departures so that's easier for you to plan out your trip, and you can also pay for parking on the app instead of at the kiosk. So we like to say that we that BART is getting a real glow up, and it's not just about the service and the new trains.

It's also about the stations. LED lights are being installed to brighten up all of our stations. A simple change, like better lighting, really makes our stations so much more welcoming. We've also been working hard to replace our oldest and most heavily used escalators in our system. We've replaced 23 out of the 40 escalators just in Downtown San Francisco stations.

So one of the things that we wanna do is also invite the community into our spaces. So we just had the second version of the Vallen Train a few weeks ago. We also had Sketch Fest, a comedy train sketch program on a BART train where comedians did their routines in different train cars. We also had our Let's Glow Animal Fest Anime Festival at Warm Springs, which drew thousands of customers and fans to celebrate BART and what it means to our communities. But on top of all that, there's some pragmatic improvements that we're working on with the region.

For transit to really work with our riders, it's important that all of our agencies collaborate as one team. We do have 27 agencies, transit agencies, in the entire Bay Area. Our BART general manager leads a weekly meeting with all of the Bay Area transit agencies to make sure that we're staying on the same page. What this looks like, for example, is the big sync. So this is when we all release our updated schedules at the same time to make sure that services transfers are all aligned together.

These changes so these changes streamline transfers and save our customers time. And on top of that, with the new Clipper two point o, we have implemented a free fare transfer. Really, it's a discount, but it's basically free. So if you go from BART to AC Transit or from BART to Muni, you should have that transfer that discounts your ride and saves an average of 1,000 per rider per year. So Cal students recently also voted to join Bay Pass.

That's the region's universal transit pass. Now all students there get to they pay a low monthly fee and get unlimited rides on all transit agencies. Riders with Bay Pass have actually been shown to increase ridership by 35%. So that's one of the big things, but you can see the new wayfinding that we're working with at the region. It's it's supposed to be more standardized visual but also more user friendly across the region.

So it is currently in its pilot phase, and you should see more of that over the next couple months. So BART is making these improvements all over the Bay Area, but we're also deeply invested here in Oakland, where we are headquartered. 19th Street Station, for example, was recently renovated, and it's one of the most welcoming stations in the system. It's one of my stations. Transit oriented development also helps communities, and transit agencies increase sustainable transit ridership by placing all riders right on top of our stations.

So this helps us increase ridership, increase housing affordability, also enhancing the regional quality of life and strengthening our economic competitiveness, which I know is important for all of our cities right now. In October 2024, BART celebrated the groundbreaking of the Chinatown TOD senior housing at the Lake Merritt Station, beginning the construction of 97 units of subsidized affordable housing for seniors. The Lake Merritt Station plan also with the Balti and Strata Investment Group also calls for another five fifty seven units, with 35% of those being affordable. And then in West Oakland, we have the Mandela Station, which is about to break ground soon. So now we get to talk a little bit about the budget.

So remote work has absolutely changed how the Bay Area residents live, work, and travel. While millions have returned to BART, they are riding it less frequently. Where before, they used to ride five times a week. Now it's one, two, maybe three times. This means our fare revenue is down 300 to 400,000,000 compared to pre pandemic, and we face a $370,000,000 deficit beginning in fiscal year twenty seven.

While we and other agencies have relied heavily on fares, but we do need a new funding model that is similar to how transit is supported elsewhere. And people always ask, why don't you guys operate like a business? Well, I would argue that we have because 70 to 80% of our fare of our operating budget used to be funded by fares. So this is especially important for us as we have the highest working from home rates. So we are seeking additional source of so on top of that, we are also making sure that BART is running efficient service. BART is one of the lowest operating cost per passenger mile out of all of our peer transit agencies.

Director Flores, are you able to much more time do you think you need? And director Rayburn,

how much time do you need? We're almost yeah.

Almost We have twenty minutes left in the meeting and another item after this.

Okay. We should be wrapping up soon. If you wanna take a look at the slides on costs and compare our revenue, I do just do want to highlight on this slide really quick before we pass it to Director Rayburn a little bit. The blue bars, those are our expenses, and those are the ones that scale with service. So if you want to save money by reducing service, that's where you look at.

And there's really not a lot of wiggle room there. And you can see on the right our revenue. So our fares, that gap is being supplemented by the emergency assistance, which is running now at the end of this fiscal year. So what I'll just highlight, some of the things we've been doing to cut service or cut costs, freezing 56 positions, eliminating six seventy two vacant positions, reducing train cars to save on energy costs, and then looking out for additional revenue models and operational efficiencies. With that, I'll pass it to Director Abram.

Thank you very much for having us here today. Let me click the top. No, let's see. Potential, there we go. BART is not alone in facing a deficit.

Since 2024, lawmakers in Sacramento have recognized the need for a reliable long term funding source for transit operations. Not just BART, but all Bay Area transit. Senator Scott Wiener and Senator Jesse Arrigan passed into law Senate Bill 63. It allows a citizens initiative to put a five county sales tax measure on the ballot this November. That won't be enough to fill our projected deficit.

It's projected to provide $310,000,000 in operating funds annually to BART. The measure also provides funding for other transit systems throughout the Bay Area. You might have heard about a state loan that the governor recently included in the state budget. We have also made avail, we also have available a federal loan. But we're taking a very conservative approach towards loans.

The loans primarily serve as a cash flow in the scenario the measure that the measure passes. We will use the loan money to run service while we wait for the sales tax revenue to become available. If the funding measure does not pass, we can't use these loans because we won't have a way to pay them back. There's great uncertainty as we plan for multiple futures. But at the core of everything is our ongoing efforts to deliver a high quality service and increase ridership using the emergency funds we have.

We are currently running service by using these funds but will run out this year. And reducing costs are our highest priority. February ridership was 12.6% higher than a year ago. That's great for BART and helpful for our bottom line. It is important to keep in mind that each 5% increase in ridership translates to about 13,000,000 a year in new fare revenue.

To close our ongoing structural deficit from just fair revenue, ridership would need to more than double. Moving forward we have a plan for two futures. A future where a revenue measure passes and the BART board will have a base budget with no cuts to service or station closures. The BART board's budget work needs to be done by July of this balanced fiscal year twenty seven budget. Because we are in this unprecedented financial planning scenario, the board needed to give direction to staff for how to plan for the future.

The board approved an alternative service plan that outlines the very specific cuts and financial strategy strategies that would be needed to close the $376,000,000 deficit. This wasn't an easy plan to develop and I didn't run for the BART board to vote on scenarios like this. But we have a fiduciary responsibility to do this work. The plan also includes a combination of cuts. Each of them are needed because rail has fixed costs. Cutting a certain percentage of service does not result in the same percentage of savings.

I'm sorry, director Ribbon I'm gonna need to cut you off pretty soon.

I'll walk you through the cuts. This is bleak and I'm sorry. We will know by the November election whether we pass or not. The very next day we will meet with our labor partners if it fails. We will begin to implement these steps that you see on this slide.

The first of which would happen in January just ten months from now. We would close at 9PM seven days a week. That would be That is because running service after 9PM cost Bart more money than the fare revenue it brings in. Weekend service would be spared but it would We would open on Saturdays at 8PM, 8AM. The map shows the revised service.

We're only running one line all from Richmond down to Berryessa. The green and red lines are curtailed except during the peak hours. We would raise fares 30%. We would make cuts to safety and cleanliness. Those dividends that we so love right now. Over 800 employees would be laid off. This will impact our safety. And we're drawing down our our reserves. There's going to be nothing left by

I'm so sorry. We have an appropriations item that we have to get to.

Okay. It gets worse.

You can have one more minute.

And by fiscal year twenty seven, twenty eight we will be making additional cuts if we see it's possible. Personally, I have my doubts. The final cut is that BART would end service. And that is incredibly bleak. And so at this point we can't say exactly what those final cuts would look like.

We don't even want to go there. But we're not making decisions about station closures today. We've made decisions about what the total amount of the cuts we need to make are. And it will be a major impact on the entire Bay Area. Thank you. Thank you. We have another item to get

to so if you can keep it short. Council member Houston.

Move to receive and file this item. So I just wanted to keep it moving. But I did wanna say one quick, it's a little funny but it's not, that BART was built by my house when I was a kid and I'm still dealing with sleep deprivation from that noise. It's true. It's true. It's like I could hit it with a rock but anyway I moved that.

Council member Houston or Gayle.

Yes. Thank you for that information. But this is an example for administration to provide a service plan in terms of our budget. And and it's very clear in terms of the the measures don't pass, this is what we have to do. And if they do pass, this is where we are. But the last question that I have for you, is your plan still to close the airport BART connection?

Again, we have 50 stations and we are not naming any one station. We expect about 15 stations

But right now the BART to the airport is open for the people to use.

Of course.

Because that's a question I keep getting.

Our goal is to continue quality service throughout.

Thank you. Thank you.

Alright. I'll second council member Houston's council member Wong.

Oh. I just wanted to verify for the three line closure or the three lines that would be continue to just be the yellow, orange and the blue ones. Is that the only ones? Are we reading that correctly? Yes. Okay.

Initially in the next phase when we reduce our track miles by 25 miles, it's likely that even the blue line goes away.

Okay. Thank you. We need that ballot measure to pass.

Thank you. Let's hear from our public speakers please.

Wanna call your name please to approach the podium, Miss Asada and Kevin Doller.

Anybody coming to speak? Okay.

That concludes your public speakers. We do have a motion made by Councilmember Huston, seconded by Chair Unger to receive and file this in the Public Works and Transportation Committee. On roll, Council Member Gallo? Aye. Council Member Houston? Aye. Thank you. Council Member Wong? Aye. And Chair Unger? Aye. The motion passes with four ayes to receive and file this item in the Public Works and Transportation Committee. Moving to item four, as a reminder, this item regarding the Oakland Alameda project was withdrawn under item two, which is the pending list. We will take public comment. Ms. Asada? And she passes. That concludes your public speakers for item four. Moving to item five.

Just just I just I know this is in Council Member Wayne's district. Why do we withdraw item four? Because I

She explained at the outset that there are negotiations ongoing with Caltrans still.

But that Okay. It's it's it's it's your district so I'll leave it alone.

Alright. Okay.

Moving to item five. Adopt the following pieces of legislation. One, a resolution authorizing the city to accept an appropriate loan and grant funds under the state of California's round eight twenty four to 25 affordable housing and sustainable communities program at Liberation Park project in an amount not to exceed $44,661,404, and two, a resolution authorizing the city to accept and appropriate loan and grant funds under the state of California's round nine twenty five through 26 affordable housing and sustainable communities program for the 285 12th Street housing project in an amount not to exceed $35,873,066. And you do have two speakers.

Thank you. Let's hear from our staff please.

Good afternoon. Craig Raphael. I'm a project manager with the Department of Transportation. We are seeking council approval to accept and appropriate over $80,000,000 in affordable housing and sustainable community state funds to deliver new affordable housing and fund priority transportation projects. These funds have already been received by the state and we just need council approval to affirm our compliance with state requirements. In the interest of time, I'll leave it at that but happy to answer any questions.

Outstanding. We love accepting money. Questions, council members. Council member Gaye. I

will second that. Moving to our public speakers. Miss Kevin mister Kevin Dolly and Asada.

That's being said that will be the end result of this project. It talks about low and low income. 25% of the units will be for special needs, eight units will be for home occupation space for smaller home artists. They will have 41 bed units, thirty three two bed units, thirty two three bed units, building parking garage, bike parking, community room, office space for property manager, amenity space for residents. It's just a lot.

And I don't know if we're going into detail. I just I just got very confused on how much stuff is going into this project, but they're not identifying how many parking spaces, how many a lot of things. But it's a good project. That space has been vacant a long time.

Thank you for your comment, miss Asada. We do have a motion made by council member Magallo, seconded by council member Wong to approve the recommendations of staff and to forward all pieces of legislation to the 03/16/2026 special city council agenda. On roll, council member Gaio. Aye. Council member Houston. Aye. Council member Wong. Aye. And chair Unger. Aye. The motion does pass with four ayes to approve the recommendations of staff and for all pieces of legislation to the March 16 special city council agenda and through the body, would that be on consent or none?

On consent, please.

On consent. And moving to open forum. You do have three speakers, Jennifer Finley, Kevin Dolly, and Ms. Asada.

So I told you about PRAC, and on Wednesday PRAC is voting on allowing collection of a registration fee, they are voting on accepting $47,000 to put a fence around Joaquin Miller Park area, they are voting on spending, they are voting on approving things, and they are supposed to be a recommendation group. Now, what I got from this discussion today, I'm wondering, are you all working together to allow them to get what they want because you all going to get that ballot, you all work together on the ballot measure that you're gonna put on in June? Is that's why you were so conciliatory to understand what these union people were saying? That's what goes through your head when you do these kind of things, when you collaborate with each other. And then a part of the collaboration to put the ballot measure on is when you want something, oh, I'll help you get what you want because we're working together on that ballot measure.

And and you're wishing to speak on open forum? That concludes your public speakers for open forum.

Okay. This meeting is adjourned, but don't go far. We're right back here in five minutes. You can join.