City Council - meeting_joint

Thanks for watching! Thank you. Thank you.

Good afternoon, good afternoon.

And welcome to the city council meeting today, July 21st. The time is 3.37 and this meeting shall come to order. Before I call roll, I would like to give instructions on how to submit a speaker card for items on this agenda. If you are here in person and participating and would like to submit a speaker card, please fill out a speaker card and turn it into a clerk representative, either before the item is called into record or no later than two hours after the meeting began. Again, the meeting began at 3.37. So again, online speaker cards are, online speaker card submission is due 24 hours before the meeting begins, so that has closed. So once again, if you would like to speak to an item on this agenda, again, fill out a speaker card, turn it into a clerk representative either before the item is called into record or two hours after this meeting began, whichever comes first. With that, I will now call roll. On roll, Council Member Brown. is excused. Councilmember Feith is excused. Councilmember Guyo?

Present.

Councilmember Houston?

Here.

Councilmember Unger?

Here.

Wong? Present. And Councilmember Machandran?

Present.

We have five members present for, excuse me, three excuse with that before I move on to the first item. Chair Ramachandra, do you have any announcements?

Thank you, yes. I have two quick announcements. Because we are in a very tight quorum situation, we will be, with only five members present, we will be reducing speaker time to one minute. There's also a request from the administration to pull item 5.1, which will be the first on the non-consent calendar. Thank you.

thank you for that so with that um item three is modifications to the agenda i'm assuming the council chair just noted that but is there any additional um any other modifications no okay that now moves us um through the agenda item number four is consideration of public hearings there are no public hearings on this agenda today we will now move to our um non-consent items uh five so item 5.1 i will read the item into record and it is adopt one of the following pieces of legislation one a resolution accepting the police commission selection panel slate of two commissioners ricardo garcia acosta and johnny harris to serve on the oakland police police commission or a resolution rejecting the police commission selection panel slate of two commissioners ricardo garcia costa and johnny harrison to serve on the oakland police commission i do have three speakers for this item

Thank you. To the administration, please go ahead.

Good afternoon, council. We're asking that the item is withdrawn from the agenda. The selection panel hasn't had the opportunity to consider the background checks prior to submission to council, and we would like to note that the city charter provides that if the city council does not accept or reject the slate within 60 days after completion of the background checks and submission by the selection panel, all designated replacements shall be deemed appointed However, the Oakland City Municipal Code requires that the appointing authority, here the selection panel, considers the background checks prior to submission to the council, and that has not happened yet. As such, the background check process has not yet been completed, and this recommendation is not properly before the council at this time, and therefore the 60-day time period cannot start to run.

Thank you. Madam Clerk, I know we still have to read in public comment, even though the item is pulled. We want to make sure all the T's are crossed and I's are dotted before voting on anything. So please read it in the public comments.

Will do. Thank you for that, Chair Ramachandran. so I will read in the speakers. For those who are here in person, please step up to the podium when I call your name. Please restate your name for the record. If you are participating online, please raise your hand so I can easily identify you. We will take those who are in person first, followed by those who are online. I have Blair Beekman, Jennifer Finley, and Ms. Asada Olabala. Welcome, Ms. Asada. In one minute is the allotted time at this time.

Something is going on that's not right. 45 people applied to be on the police commission. One of those was Omar Farmer. Omar, 10 were selected from the 45. Omar Farmer was not selected by any selection panel member. Omar Farmer has been on the Police Commission. He's been on the Commission that deals with Measure X. He has been on the Task Force for Reimagining Policing. He has been a part of the Veterans Issues. He's been a part of the BART Security Committee. Omar Farmer has been a relevant participant. He helped to develop the false alarm system with then-Councilmember Kaplan, and nobody saw to put him as one of the 10 candidates. That black man is being targeted. He's being taught.

Thank you for your comments, Ms. Olabala. We will now move to the Zoom speakers. I have Blair Beekman. Please unmute yourself and you may begin.

Hi, Blair Beekman. Really nice words from the previous public commenter. She offers an interesting point of view. I also think there's a point of view that you're trying to allow one of the previous candidates who was supposed to be a part of the future of the police review process You're giving him another chance. Omar, not so much, but this other person, you are. These are both people who were supposed to be there that administration did not want. But you're still trying now anyway. It's going through more time now. Thank you that you're trying. It's really important that we try. I've tried to make clear that community has had a really important role in creating a good police review commission in the past 10 years. We don't, I don't wanna ruin that, I don't wanna end that, and administration's a bit over tinkering with it, it sounds like, when they maybe shouldn't be. So thank you, it sounds like you are trying to address this, and good luck you can.

Thank you for your comments. The next speaker I have, I do not see their hand raised in the queue, but I do see another name, let me see if they have signed up. What name did you sign up to speak for and what item?

Hello, yes, can you hear me? I was speaking to this resolution about Ricardo Garcia Acosta.

Did you sign up? I'm sorry, go ahead, your name?

My name is Judy Stroyer.

I apologize, we don't have a speaker card for you for this item. So that concludes our public commenters for this item.

Thank you, and there's no action needed. It has been withdrawn, so we can move to the next item.

Thank you so much for that.

Through the chair to the body if we would need a vote on the action to withdraw this item.

Okay, great I will make the motion to withdraw this item on the request of the city administration There was a motion by council member Ramachandran seconded by council member Houston to remove withdraw item 5.1 on role Councilmember Brown, excused. Councilmember Feith, excused. Councilmember Guyal.

Aye.

Houston.

Aye.

Unger.

Aye.

Wong. Aye. And Chair Ramachandran. Aye. Item number 5.1 was withdrawn with five ayes, three excused. That now takes us to item 5.2. One moment. And bear with me while I read in this lengthy title. Item S 5.2 is to adopt a resolution authorizing the city administrator to award contracts to one Ron Dupree Ford Inc. in the amount not to exceed $1,400,000 to provide collision repair and body shop services for light vehicles for a three-year term. September 1, 2026 to September 1, 2029, and two one-year options to renew in response to the RFQ. Two, quality body and fender in the amount not to exceed $1,050,000 to provide collision repair and body shop services for light vehicles for a three-year term. and two one-year options to renew in response to the RFQ. Three, Falcon Collision Repair, Inc., in the amount not to exceed $525,000 to provide collision repair and body shop services for light vehicles for a three-year term, and two one-year options to renew in response to the RFQ. Four, Muller Brothers Body Shop, in the amount not to exceed $525,000 to provide collision repair and body shop services for light vehicles for a three-year term and two one-year options to renew in response to the RFQ. Five, Muller Brothers Body Shop in the amount not to exceed $1,750,000 to provide collision repair and body shop services for heavy vehicles for a three-year term. And two one-year options to renew in response to the RFQ, Falcon Collision Repair, Inc., in the amount not to exceed $1,750,000 to provide collision repair and body shop services for heavy vehicles for a three-year term. And two one-year options to renew in response to the RFQ. Seven, making findings under Oakland Municipal Code section 2.04.050 and 2.04.051 and waiving further formal advertising and bidding requirements to the extent necessary and adopting appropriate California Environmental Quality Act findings. And I have two speakers for this item. Three speakers, sorry.

Thank you, Mr. Bedrosky. How many minutes will you require approximately?

Three minutes.

Okay. We don't need to put the clock on. Thank you. Please go ahead.

Thank you. Richard Battersby, Assistant Director, Bureau of Maintenance Internal Services of Oakland Public Works. I'm here before you with contract for collision repair. I brought this before the Public Works Committee previously. It's approximately $7 million. It is exactly $7 million contract capacity in total for three years with two one-year extensions. The original proposal was to make multiple awards to the six vendors noted. During the discussion of Public Works Committee, there were some concerns raised by council members related to having more Oakland-based businesses involved in that RFP. So there's a resolution attached to this agenda report that's recommending award to Quality Body and Fender, the only Oakland-based body shop on this agenda report. We do have some new information I thought it was important to share with council. Council Member Houston, as we looked into the matter, I'm not sure if your questions were answered. by purchasing, but as we researched with Quality Body and Fender, we discovered that they're a smaller body shop. They're only able to take one job at a time from the city of Oakland. So we've currently got 25 vehicles in accident repair status, 23 of those are OPD. If we only award to quality body as proposed in the other resolution It will slow down the body repairs that we're able to perform and also it's been brought to my attention We have two hundred and eighty thousand and outstanding invoices to Moeller brothers Which I'm not sure if we have contract capacity to pay all of those invoices plus the work that's currently at their shop So there's a bit of more information now than we had at Public Works Committee and with that I'm available to take your questions. I

Thank you, Council Member Houston. We are fixing your Mike situation. But if you can, if but the clerk will unmute you since you know your hand is raised. Oh everyone.

Okay, good. So, through the chair, I have a real issue with this, and I understand you did your research about quality body, but what about Pacific collision and D7 and turbo auto body that I have out in the audience right now? The problem that I have... I can take this. The problem I have is with this, it's not with you, it's with the situation. When I got into office, it was always waiving the small local business. URGENT, EMERGENCY, RIGHT? SO WHEN YOU'RE DEALING WITH BODY AND FENDER, THIS IS NOT MECHANICS, BECAUSE I UNDERSTAND WHAT COUNCIL MEMBER GAYO ALWAYS SPEAKS ABOUT. WE HAVE ALL THESE CARS IN THE YARD THAT'S NOT BEING FIXED. SO LET'S REMOVE THAT. This is body and fender. This is not some high tech, right? And through the chair, I'd like to ask the city attorney a question about when they have to, when we get a contract from the feds, we can't use small local body, I mean small local business participation. Is that true or not?

Through the chair to council member Houston, we can get back to you on the specific item.

So I'll give you the answer. The answer is we cannot.

The answer is that we cannot, and I'm not talking over you city attorneys, just that we cannot use the small local business when it comes to that. This is not something that's, it's an urgent matter or we have to go out to a specialty, it's not. We have, in Wang's district, we have many body shops. In Noel's district, we have many body shops. In mine, we probably have the most body shops in Oakland than the whole Alameda County. I have a problem with spending $7 million outside of the city of Oakland. So, with this quality, with this quality, you said it's small, but I can have, where's my guy, Turbo Auto Body, because he wasn't even notified, and he's a vendor in Wayne's district. Wasn't even notified. They said that he had to go online or something like that. This is a request for qualification. Enoch, are you here? Come on up here real quick. Can I have him come up through the chair?

When we move to public speakers.

Okay, hold on. So my issue is this. We gotta stop rushing all these projects outside of our city. Because when I look at this, I see here that on the light duty, it was 10 companies that we reached out to. Five was out of the city of Oakland, and five was in the city of Oakland.

On the heavy duty, I see 10. There were three

seven is seven outside and three inside of the city of Oakland, right, that was requested for qualification. I have a problem with this, and there's some other issues that's coming on that does not have to do with you, that we keep going outside of the city of Oakland to give up this work. And I understand it now, I woke up in the middle of the night, I woke up, and I was like, why is it so easy for people to give contracts out of my city?

Because they don't live here.

And I saw it. I've been watching it move. So I don't want this to go through. I want this to be redone where we go out to companies like Enoch, companies like Pacific Collision, all the body shops in our city and keep this $7 million in our city. Because I'm not going for this any longer. I got it now. I got it now. So.

Thank you really quickly. Council Member Houston, your three minutes are up. Eight minutes, okay, sorry, okay.

Thank you, because I did my research on that one too. I know how many minutes I got. We had a fight when I first got in office about my minutes, but not towards you, all right. So what are we gonna do about this, council members? Are we gonna take this $7 million out and give it to others when we can keep it inside our own city? What are we gonna do? I'm gonna ask you this. I don't want this to go out to no other body and fenders. This is not some tech. This is body and fender, right? So I wanna keep it here, right? I want Enoch's business to be, he wasn't even reached out. He's qualified. He's a SLBE. He said he wasn't even notified for it. And he was, he was, had a serious situation. A car crashed into his business. stopped his business, now he's back up. We're fining him $4,000 for some reason, I'm gonna find out about that too. And he had the encampments in his area which was harming his business. Now it's time to be able to embrace him, embrace these companies, That's what I want to do. And I'm going to stand 10 toes down for the companies in Oakland, California, my small local businesses, my Latino, my black brothers and sisters. That's where I'm standing. I'm going to yield the floor, and I want to see what my council members have to say about this.

Is that a motion, council member, to... hold this item, to dispense of this item and ask Public Works to come back with other recommendations, or?

Yes, that's my motion.

Okay. To the parliamentarian, what is the right way, oh, to the city administrator, please.

Thank you, I just wanted to clarify one thing, that right now the Public Works is bringing back the proposal that was approved by the committee, which was to limit the approval to the local the local company called Quality Body and Fender. So that is the proposal in front of you. I did want to also encourage you to consider adding item five, the Muller Brothers contract, because we do owe them money. And then the remainder of that money, Public Works would come back and do another proposal based on further outreach to local businesses.

Council members, we will come back to you, but I just want to clarify in the packet, the supplemental legislation does have what seems to be reflected from the committee. So all of these other companies, except for the one that's from Oakland, Quality Body and Fender, has been removed if we vote on this item. And we can take into consideration if we want to add back one of the non-Oakland companies because we owe them money. Council Member Wong-Van Unger.

Thank you, and yeah, I just wanted to Support my councilmember fellow councilmember Houston's comments. I think for me the concern is who gets the invitation, you know in the first place, right? The fact that we have if you go down International Boulevard many many auto body shops now I've learned that a number of them actually have the city's SLB certification and and they did not get the invitation, that is concerning. I think it's something that I would just agree that we need to do better and we need to make sure that these small and local businesses, if, you know, of course we want to make sure they can do the job, but when people don't get the invitation, right, that automatically puts them at a disadvantage to not even respond to the RFQ in the first place, and that's not right. I just a point of clarification for the city administration for the the is it Mueller brothers is it item four and five or just for that I think you could go with just item five just with item five okay

then one one other clarification in terms of who gets the invitations um opw is not i will be working with purchasing which is the entity in the city that puts out the rfp so it's not opw it's purchasing and i'm happy to be working with them in concert with the council members to be sure that we have the appropriate list thank you okay thank you thank you councilmember hunger

so my understanding is we're voting on the amended resolution as amended by councilmember Houston and the rest of the committee to just go with the local vendor because if we don't do that we will not be able to repair any of our vehicles until the until after the recess so I think this is reasonable to just go with the the local vendors that we can you know limp through the recess and then Public Works will bring us back, but I would also like to make a motion to add in item five.

Okay, thank you.

Madam Chair, if I can make one clarification, both the committee's recommendation and the original item are before this body for your full consideration, just to clarify. So you can also consider the original item as proposed.

No, no, no, I would like to go with the item as amended by Council Member Houston and committee and add in item five.

Thank you, Council Member Houston.

Yes, I understand, through the chair, I understand what you're doing, Council Member Unger, is paying the individuals from Mueller so they can get paid, correct? Their company, how much are they owed through the chair? How much are they owed?

Through the chair, 280,000 in outstanding invoices and potential work that has not been invoiced yet that's currently in their shop.

And how much is that?

I don't have that information.

They don't give you estimates?

Not at the assistant director level.

Okay, so they're in San Leandro.

Yes.

Okay. Yeah, I did my research. Dan San Leandro. So I'll accept that, giving Mueller that money and the cards that's already in there that we committed to. Makes no sense to pull something. I agree with that. But moving forward, I'm not agreeing with none of that other. None of that other. So I'll accept that. Let's move it, like you said, Council Member Unger.

Thank you. And Council Member Unger, would you like to second that motion with your amendment?

Second.

Okay. Before we move to public comment, I have a clarifying question. So I'm in full support of moving forward with the contract with the one Oakland company on this list, Quality Body and Fender, and adding in Moeller Brothers because they have an outstanding amount owed. What is the approximate timeline, or perhaps as the city administrator, of looking into other Oakland vendors?

will be working with purchasing over the recess so we can bring it back hopefully on the first or second meeting okay thank you thank you so much as I call your name please approach the podium if you're here in person if you're online please raise your hand so I can easily identify you we'll start with those who are in person miss Assata Olaballa enough Shin and Blair Beekman In any order, you may approach the podium if you're a person and I called your name. And apologies if I mispronounced your names.

Hi, my name is Enoch Shin. It's always good to see council members. Honored to see you guys. And I run business in Auckland over 36 years, and I work with the community labor. And also I have a, our OJU is, fiscal OJU is 1722 International Boulevard. And I recently know that the city has auto-collision repair program. So if you knew it, I applied it too. So anyway, I will appreciate your consideration in allowing Turnbull and Weishaupt to participate in the city auto-collision program. Thank you very much.

Council Member Houston. I apologize, madam clerk, I think Councilmember Houston's mic is the only one that I can't tap on.

All right, there we go, through the chair. I wanna know if you have anything else to say, because I would like for you to share with them just real briefly about the condition that your company was in and the things that it had to endure with business and then that accident that happened where that car rammed into your building and shut you down. And you're an Oakland company that had been here for how many years, 36?

36 years, over 36 years.

Over 36 years. Do you hear that, audience, do you hear that? 36 years. Shouldn't we be supporting our businesses that was here in the good and bad times of Oakland, California, where we live, most of us. Go ahead.

Yes, actually, I love Auckland. You know, Auckland is my hometown. Two years ago, I... So one of my lady, young lady, also lose control, corrupt our building. And I have a very hard time. I lost last two years over $60 million gross income. I have more than 32 workers. Now it's 14. And we tried to pull it out of the city of Oakland. Also, city shut it down, our electric line. And I talk to here and there. I almost crossed out. And it take me two years. And then I have a lien from . Also, I rent power line for Sun Bear. Every month, I pay for over $2,000. And I'm losing money for even this year. If I keep going like this, I may have to close down our business. I cannot continue to lose money to this. So I have now 14 people work for me.

Thank you, thank you. And through the chair. So I'm gonna say this to the audience and to all the people that's listening. You can sit down now. Do we wanna treat our Oakland businesses like that? No, we do not. 36 years in the game, supporting, hiring our folks, and he had to suffer like this. We need to embrace businesses so they stay and do not leave. Let me share this with everybody. I got it now. It takes me some time to get it. But when I got it, I got it. And I'm about to fight for my folks. And let me share this with you in closing. My cousin Daryl Carey used to say this. And I remember he used to say it to me all the time. He said, if you're not mad now, when are you going to get mad? And I'm mad because I'm going to fight for my folks. Thank you.

Thank you, and if I may, just acknowledging the presence of Councilmember Brown, who is now participating remotely at 4.06.

Thank you. Thank you.

And we have one more speaker for this item.

If we can pause to allow the parliamentarian to ask any necessary questions of Councilmember Brown before she is allowed to proceed remotely.

Yes, pursuant to the Brown Act, participating remotely under the just cause basis requires the member participating remotely to disclose whether there is anyone in the room with them that is 18 years or older.

No, there is not.

Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you for that, and our last speaker is, my apologies, is Blair Beekman. You've been unmuted, you may unmute yourself and begin your comments for item S5.2. I apologize, I'm sorry.

I apologize. We've lost quorum. No, now that. Just for the council members' reference, even though we have Council Member Brown online, we need five members present at the diaspora quorum. If any council members need to take a break, we can call a short recess. So just let me know. Thank you.

Blair Beekman, you may resume your comments. Thank you.

Well, thank you. Blair Beekman, I don't have any public comments. I passed for this item, so that can help with things right now. Thank you.

Thank you so much, Blair. And that concludes your public commenters for item S5.2.

Thank you. I believe there's a motion and a second.

Thank you so much. So on this item, we have a motion by Councilmember Houston, seconded by Councilmember Unger to approve item 5.2 as amended, approving committee's recommendations from the July 14th committee meeting of... Noting that we're keeping contract quality body and fenders only and the Additional amendment added today in Council of the Muller brothers body part five of this Title and with that motion on roll for this item as amended councilmember Brown Councilmember Brown I Councilmember Fife is excused councilmember Guile Councilmember Houston. Aye. Councilmember Unger. Aye. Councilmember Wong. Aye. And Chair Ramachandran. Aye. Item number five is approved as amended with six ayes, two excused. And we are now going to move to item S5.3. The resolution appropriating and allocating $50 million of proceeds of the sale of the city of Oakland's undivided 50% interest in the Coliseum complex to California public employees retirement systems for a discretionary payment of the city's unfunded accrued liability for retirement benefits. And there are quite a few speakers for this item.

And Madam Clerk, we do need an urgency finding under the Sunshine Ordinance for this item.

And I think staff is here to provide the basis. Thank you. I will make the urgency finding. No, staff will make the, yes. Apologies. We will request an urgency finding and then vote on it.

Thank you to Chair Arntrond and Brad Johnson, Director of Finance. The urgency for this item is should the city agree before Council's return from its recess and conclude the sale of its transaction with OAC for the sale of the Coliseum, the city would be behooved to transmit that funding immediately to California Public Employees Retirement System to maximize the savings in our long-term costs from the CalPERS system by accruing appropriate returns in the CalPERS system from this supplementary investment. I should note that this particular item was included in the fiscal impact summary of your ordinance approving the Coliseum sale. On the advice of city attorney, we have pulled it apart separately just so that we have clear directive and advice on this item. But this was the anticipated use of the sale proceeds. I will also note that the item itself does not include any allocation of the city's savings in ongoing cost from the operating costs of the Coliseum GPA, nor does it preclude a particular cost on the revenue sharing agreement that is also a component of that item. This is simply on the sale of the arena. I would be happy to answer any questions, and again, the urgency for the item is to get it to PERS immediately so that it can begin to earn a return and maximize the city's long-term savings.

Thank you for that urgency. We need a motion so we can call roll for the urgency.

Now I will make the motion. Is there a second? Second.

And there was a motion by Council Member Ramachandran, seconded by Council Member Unger to approve the urgency motion stated on record. Council Member Brown?

Council Member Brown?

Aye. Thank you. Council Member Fife is excused. Council Member Geil? Aye. Council Member Houston? Aye. Council Member Unger? Aye. Wong. Aye. And Chair Ramachandra.

Aye.

Item number, excuse me, the urgency finding for item S5.3 was approved with six ayes to excuse.

Thank you. Now we can move to council member comments? Yes. Okay, thank you. So I will start with a quick question. How much pension liabilities does the city have right now?

The city has over $2 billion in liabilities attached to the CalPERS system.

Thank you. And a quick follow-up question by us paying $50 million of it. What's the benefit to the city of starting to pay this down?

As the city begins its pay down process, we will achieve savings and I would liken this to paying down the bill on a high interest credit card. The sooner you make a payment, the lower the payments you will make over time is. You will accrue the savings on your future bill because your minimum payments will be less. This will provide future ongoing savings to the city in future fiscal years.

Thank you. Colleagues, any questions? Okay, we can move to public speakers.

Thank you so much. As I call your name, if you're here in chambers, please approach the podium in any order and state your name for the record. If you are participating online, please raise your hand. We will take those who are in person first. David Peters, Blair Beekman, Dominique Riley, Talani Bersamo, John Santos, John Jones III, Asada Olaballa, and Jean Hazard. In any order, again, if I called your name and I mispronounced your name, I apologize in advance. But if you are participating in person and you want to speak to item S5.3, please approach the podium. And if not, we will go to those who are online. But if I called your name and you signed up for this item, thank you.

Good afternoon, everybody. My name is John Santos. I'm a Bay Area resident for 71 years and an Oakland resident for the last 36. If we citizens, workers, and artists of Oakland have come to understand anything at all, it's that the arts are not only irreplaceable, but are absolutely and urgently necessary for our sanity and for our very survival. Nothing's more important, effective, and powerful as a generator of unity and love in our efforts to confront the absurd and open hostility of the federal government towards people of color across the nation and the globe. The arts must be a priority if we have any hope of Oakland continuing to rise and represent real justice and solidarity among working class communities both locally and internationally. Wholeheartedly supporting the arts is the most logical investment you can make. You'll be generating jobs, revenue, wide-ranging collaboration, civic pride, great beauty, and real hope. Please set a glowing example and do the right thing by designating all or most of the Coliseum.

I apologize, Mr. Santos, your time is up. Thank you so much for your comments. If I called your name, I have Ms. Asada, John Jones III, Jean Hazard. John Jones III is waiving his opportunity to speak at this time for item 5.3. Thank you.

Okay. I'm going to take this time to make a statement. We had a public safety committee meeting and somebody videoed my participation in that meeting and they, the video was misrepresenting what actually happened. It made it seem like council member Wong was victimizing me. Council Member Wong had every right to request me to stop disrupting the meeting. She did nothing wrong. The video is being shown as if Council Member Wong was attacking this old black lady. That is not the case at all. If I'm a victim, I know how to defend myself. I don't need no video out there circulating, trying to help me. This was an effort to attack her, but it was not anything that she did wrong.

Apologies, Mrs. Sada. Thank you. Mr. Hazard, are you going to speak to item 5.3? If not, we will move on. Mr. Hazard, are you speaking to item three? Okay, thank you. One moment while we're having technical issues online, then we'll go to those. Oh, Mr. Hazard is now speaking to item 5.3. Thank you.

I'm glad this first phase of the Coliseum has been completed. But we have a long way to go. This is not gonna happen overnight as a hoopla would have us to believe. This is gonna be a long process. Breaking ground, ribbon cutting, shoveling the ground. My guesstimate, and it's only a guesstimate, eight, maybe 10 years before we see anything, So I would only caution you going forward, because this ain't gonna happen just like that. Took a long time to get where we are, it's gonna take a long time to get where we're supposed to be.

Apologies, Mr. Hazard, your time is up. We'll now need to move to the Zoom speakers. If I called your name and you are here online, please raise your hand so I can easily identify you. Blair Beekman, you are unmuted. You may unmute and begin.

Hi, thank you, Blair Beekman. Very brave words from Ms. Olubola. Thank you very much. I wanted to comment that I'm interested in how isn't the Oakland Arena deal part of the A's county process, part of the sale, whereas Oakland is the stadium's part of the sale? How is the negotiation process going with Alameda County and the A's? Can we count on them to come through with this plan, retirement plan for the Oakland community? I really hope you can. We're working on tax lien forgiveness ideas that I think can be a good negotiating tool with Alameda County towards best practices for everyone. Good luck on those efforts, and good luck that we address retirement plans. This is a really important item for Oakland. We can't end our retirement plans for Oakland City workers. Can we take a cut and pay? Fifty bucks a month translates to $600.

Thank you for your comments. I have, hello, if you signed up to speak for an item under 5.3, can you state your name?

My name is David Peters, can you hear me?

Thank you, Mr. Peters, you may begin your time.

Thank you very much. I want to remind this council of the work that other prior councils did. I believe in 2014, this council passed as part of the Consolidated Fiscal Policy Resolution that directed that the net gain of the city's share of the net gain from this property and other similar properties would go to the Affordable Housing Trust Fund. Clearly, that 2014 council was much more cognizant and willing to direct money to affordable housing. And so I think now we have a lot of people that talk about what they're going to do for affordable housing. But when the opportunity comes to actually direct these $50 million to the Affordable Housing Trust Fund, as designated by prior councils, these councils drop the ball. And so it's very unfortunate that we say what we were going to do about homelessness and affordable housing. When the money is actually there, we decide to spend it elsewhere.

Thank you for your comments. All names have been called for this item, but if I may, through the chair, there is some technical issues on the live streaming right now, so I don't think that is accessible, so we just need to make that noted for the public that our online streaming is currently having technical issues, and we're trying to get that up. So if you search KTOP, my apologies, if you search KTOP online, it's live, but the link on the website is not accurate, but it is currently streaming live, you just have to log onto it, so just noting that, the link online. So again, that concludes your speakers for this item, 5.3.

Thank you, I will entertain a motion to move the item.

So moved.

Second.

Thank you for that. I believe we got a second from Council Member Guyo. So there was a motion by Council Member Unger, seconded by Council Member Guyo to approve item S5.3 as is on roll. Council Member Brown. Aye. Fife is excused. Council Member Guyo. Aye. Council Member Houston.

Aye.

Council Member Unger.

Aye.

Wong. Aye. thank you miss Assata can I say that okay and chair Ramachandra item s point 5 s 5.3 was approved with six ayes and two excused that now takes us to item to the consent calendar will read in the short titles to the consent calendar item 6.1 is approval the draft minutes for the committee meeting on July 7 2026 item 6.2 declaration of a local emergency due to AIDS item 6.3 a declaration of a medical cannabis health emergency item 6.4 declaration of a local emergency of homelessness Item 6.5, League of California Cities 2026 Annual Conference and Expo Reimbursement. Item 6.6, Congressional Black Caucus 2026 Legislative Conference Reimbursement. Item 6.7. is the consolidation of the city of Oakland's November 3rd general municipal election. This ordinance is approved on final passage. Item 6.8, amendment to the ordinance number 12187, the salary ordinance for the various classifications. And this ordinance was approved on final passage. Item 6.9, amendment to the ordinance number 12187, salary ordinance for the council member, city attorney, and the city auditor. This ordinance is approved on final passage. It is the sale of the 319 Chester Street. This ordinance will be approved on final passage. Item 611 is reaffirming the City of Oakland Sanctuary City Policy. This ordinance too will be approved on final passage. Item 6.12, this is the 2026 Municipal Planning Code amendments. This ordinance will be approved on final passage. item six point thirteen a resolution in support of a b fifteen eighty eight item six point fourteen consists of two pieces of legislation and this is the final contract map number eight six nine seven a subdivision map and final track map subdivision map on oak knoll parcel ten Item 615 is the Bay Area Urban Areas Security Initiative 2025 through 2030 MOU. Item 6.16, District 6 appointment to the Cannabis Regulatory Commission. Item 6.17, appointment to the State Advisory Board. Item 6.18 is a reappointment to the Children's Initiative Citizens Oversight Commission. Item 6.19 is an appointment to the Cultural Affairs Commission. Item 6.20, an appointment to the Privacy Advisory Commission. Item 6.21, a resolution in support of SB 954. Item 6.22, amendment to the Cultural Affairs Commission enabling ordinance. This ordinance is approved on introduction. Final passage will be September 15th. Item 6.23, encampment management and abatement operations. Item 6.24, Ray Muller versus the City of Oakland. Item S6.25, second amendment to the Coliseum complex and sale agreement this ordinance is approved on a final passage item s six point twenty five the grant funds for the Oakland fund for the purpose of the technology audit this item item s point six two seven the physical year 25 through 28 citywide strategic plan one year update item s 6.28 the parking operations contract extension item s 6.29 is the reimbursement resolution general obligation but bonds item s six point three zero professional services agreement with weaver until tidwell l l four l l p four forensic audit services item s six point thirty one is a c transit fruit bill avenue corporate cooperative agreements Item S6.32, Municipal Facility Energy Assessment Professional Services Agreement. Item S6.33 is $750,000 Bay Area Air Quality Management District Grant. Item S6.34, the Broadway Streetscape Improvement Construction Contract Award. Item S6.35 is the REAP 2.0 hit funds for the West Oakland UVM pilot. Item S6.36, the city's response to the 2025-2026 Alameda County Civil Grand Jewelry Report. Item S6.37 is the Professional Services Contract Amendment with the Alta Planning and Design Inc. for the 7th Street Connection Project. Item S6.38 is two pieces of legislation, and it is the Charter 8 Tax and Sale Authorization. Item S6.39, Seminary Point Debt and Rent Forgiveness. This consists of two pieces of legislation. The first is approved and the second piece, the ordinance, is being approved on introduction. Final passage will be September 15th. item s six point forty professional services agreement with the rado call for signage and uh... wayfinding services item s six point forty one is acceptance and appropriation of workforce development lines for the fiscal year twenty six to twenty seven item s six point forty two this is a construction resource center grant agreement for uh... motor uh... prestige program support services item s six point forty three is the head continuum of cater program Item S6.44 is the AO CAP 2026 of CSBG resolution. Item S6.45 is the Oakland for elderly and disabled program measure BB funds for the 2627. Item S6.46 is the OPD surveillance technology 2025 annual reports. Item S6.47 is the operational agreement between the City of Oakland and the Alameda County period from ratification through December 31st, 2035. Item S6.48 is the APRICOT 2026 Annual Report and Amendment Use Policy. Item S6.49 is the contract with Wright Research Group for training in capacity building services. Item S6.50 is the OPD fiscal year 2025 Edward Breyer Memorial Justice Assistance Grant. Item S6.51 is the OPD RSH helicopter maintenance contract. Item S6.52 is the MOU between the City of Oakland and the California Highway Patrol. Item S6.53 is the Grand Performance Mural, which will need an urgency finding read into record. If staff is available to state the urgency. One moment, Council Member Unger.

I'm sorry, which one is this?

this is item s 6.53 the grand bear Wong Oh councilmember Wong there's needs to be an urgency finding as this item was added to the agenda at the three-day sorry excuse me I was not following can you repeat the question I'm sorry item s 6.53 the grand performance mural this item was added to the agenda at the three days so there will need to be an urgency Oh, yes.

For my colleagues, thank you, Clerk. The reason we need an urgency finding is we have a set of artists and muralists who are interested in restoring the Grand Performance mural in District 2, and they need to meet. They would like to do this in October, September. They need to do it before the wintertime and when the rainy season hits, so this is why we need the urgency finding. Thank you. I hope my colleagues agree to this.

Okay, and that was a motion by Councilmember Wong, seconded by Councilmember Houston to approve the urgency finding. As stated on the record, Councilmember Brown? Aye. Thank you. Councilmember Fife is excused. Councilmember Guyal? Aye. Councilmember Houston?

Aye.

Councilmember Unger? Aye. Councilmember Wong? Aye. And Chair Ramachandran? Aye. The urgency finding was approved with six ayes to excuse for item S6.53. We will now move to... the last consent item s 6.54 the contract agreement for james beer as the oakland police chief and this also will need an urgency finding from staff i see them approaching thank you so much

Good afternoon, Council. Preston Kilgore, Deputy Chief of Staff, Mayor Robert Lee. Yes, so we're requesting an urgency finding for S6.54 for this item to be on the July 21st agenda to ensure the city promptly executes an employment agreement with Chief James Beer following his appointment as Chief of Police prior to the City Council's summer recess. Timely approval of this agreement will allow the city to move forward with the terms of the chief's employment and compensation and support the city's ongoing public safety priorities. Thank you for your consideration.

And that was a motion by Councilmember Gallo, seconded by Councilmember Houston to approve the urgency finding stated on record. Councilmember Brown. Aye. Council Member Fife is excused. Council Member Guile. Aye. Council Member Houston.

Aye.

Council Member Unger.

Aye.

Wong. Aye. And Chair Ramachandran.

Aye.

The urgency finding for item S6.54 was approved with six ayes and two excused. And that concludes the reading of the consent items on this agenda. We have quite a few speakers for this item.

Thank you. I will first call up the mayor's office to make two requested amendments.

Good afternoon again. President Kilroy, Deputy Chief of Staff Mayor Robert Lee. The Mayor's Office would like to request a minor amendment to item 6.19, appointment to the Cultural Affairs Commission. We would like to make a request to amend the resolved line for Nia Jacobs to the existing language is Nia Jacobs to serve a three-year term on the Cultural Affairs Commission beginning July 1st, 2026 and ending September 30th, 2029. We'd like to change that to Nia Jacobs to serve a three-year term on the Cultural Affairs Commission beginning October 1st, 2025 and ending September 30th, 2028.

Thank you. Oh, we'll vote on them together, but we will note the amendment. Thank you. And your second amendment?

Thank you, Council Member Ramachandran. So the second one is item 6.20, 6.20, appointments to the Privacy Advisory Commission. Another minor amendment, Ronald Busby, the language we're changing is Ronald Busby replacing the vacant seat previously held by Heather Patterson. Ronald is actually replacing the vacancy previously held by Sean Everhart. And so the language is Ronald Busby replacing the vacancy previously held by Sean Everhart.

Thank you.

Thank you.

And I will second, but we do have to go to public comment and council member comments. Council Member Unger.

Yes, I'd like to register a no vote to item 6.40, please.

okay thank you um council member houston i like through the chair i wanted to make sure that that amendment on s 6.28 was added because i didn't hear it because member in in your committee i didn't like the three year to two year the month to month that's added into that yes i will i will clarify so in finance committee we heard the item regarding the parking

operator contract extension. Is Director Johnson here actually to just reference the changes briefly that we made from committee that we're going to adopt today if this passes? Thank you.

Brad Johnson to the chair. The revised language only extends the contracts for the garages to the end of the calendar year, and the staff report, supplemental report provides the additional information that was requested by the committee, and there will also be an informational report that will be provided to the finance committee on the 22nd, and that has already been scheduled through rules.

Thank you, and I just, for the record, I wanna clarify that there was, most of us in not all of us in finance committee when this item was discussed had some deep reservations about um the performance of these contracts and we welcome the initiative that the finance department is trying to put forward to improve performance of our existing parking garages not only in collecting revenue, which is certainly a problem, but also safety, accessibility, hours that are there available open to the public. So there were a number of questions that we did bring up in committee that when the informational report about the planned overhaul of our parking garage system comes up, I look forward to hearing in September. Council Member Houston, please go ahead.

And through the Chair, thank you for your leadership for seeing that, right, and that Texas company

texas company so thank you i appreciate you okay um council member wong uh yes thank you um i will also just log a no vote for item s 6.40 as well thank you okay thank you and we uh council member houston

Just one more, can we speak on a couple of these items or do we want the public to speak?

Go ahead, you can speak.

Yeah, I just wanted to speak on the Sanctuary City piece. I wanted to thank Councilmember Gallo and I wanna thank Councilmember Wayne for accepting my amendments. And as I always say that my mom is black, my father's Latino, And I was always wondering, since 1986, when my Latino side of my family was being represented for 40 years, I had to go home and see my friends pass away and die, and we weren't ever a part of this sanctuary or refuge city. And I wanted just to share a couple of things that I had wrote down. Let me pull it up real quick. I should have been ready, but I was not, and I apologize. So in 1986, Oakland was first declared as a refuge city, 1986. 1983, just remember this, 1983, National Journal referred Oakland as what? The crime capital, crime capital. Our revolutionary leader, Huey P. Newton, was killed in 1989. I seen a bunch of my friends die in 1989. And then in 92, during the per capita homicides in 1982 a record a hundred and seventy-five homicides and many of them were my friends my classmates people that I knew my cousin so I appreciate you accepting my revisions of bringing in A REFUGE AND A SANCTUARY FOR MY BLACK RESIDENTS, RIGHT? BECAUSE WE WERE LEFT OUT FOR SO LONG, SO LONG, AND IT'S HISTORIC, 40 YEARS, 40 YEARS. WE WEREN'T A PART OF IT, BUT NOW WE'RE A PART OF IT. SO NOW WE GOT TO PUT MONEY TO THAT, RIGHT? SO I'M GOING TO SAY THIS. I THANK YOU, COUNCILMEMBER WANG. THANK YOU, COUNCILMEMBER GAYO, FOR ACCEPTING THAT, BECAUSE I FEEL THAT 40 YEARS OF US BEING LEFT OUT ON MY OTHER SIDE OF MY FAMILY BEING LEFT OUT WAS, was hurtful for what I had to go through and what my family and many of the people that's out here in the audience right now seen it. So thank you so much on that one.

And then the last one I'd like to speak on.

Thank you, thank you. The last one was... You know what, I spoke on that one. So I'll let it go. Thank you so much, appreciate that.

Thank you, Council Member Wong. since we're talking about the sanctuary city policy and of course I want to also thank you councilmember Houston because truly a true city of refuge must acknowledge both the contributions of the black community as well as A lot of the ways that the black community has been disinvested has been subject to systemic discrimination and blocked from opportunities. And so it is only just to add those amendments that you added, so thank you. I also wanted to just think because this body for supporting the sanctuary city policy. I want to thank the faith in action Community that really pushed us and has been the the primary advocate for this piece of legislation I also want to thank councilmember guy Oh for his partnership as well as for being the legislator for much of the preceding Sanctuary city policies that lead to this day. So thank you everyone

thank you madam clerk oh last comment for today okay i promise you almost i'll hold you to it on 6.23 uh encampment abatement management team operation that was supposed to be on non-consent um but i'm gonna bring that back and it's okay that it was it it went to consent but i'm gonna bring it back because i need all my council members to hear this i need jenkins to hear it he's not here I need Brown to hear it, and I need Fife to hear that, so I'm gonna bring that back, because that was supposed to be on non-consent, and Omari was here to present it, and that was this one right here, Office of Homeless Solutions. It was supposed to be brought up, and that's my mistake, but I will bring it back, so everyone can see what's going on with the encampment abatement policy.

Thank you, Council Member and Madam Clerk. We can read in the speakers.

Okay, thank you so much, Council Member Houston. Thank you, Chair Ramachandra. As I call your name, please approach the podium in any order and please restate your name for the record when you approach the podium. If you are participating online and I call your name, please raise your hand so I can easily identify you. Please again note that the speaker time was reduced to one minute due to quorum issues. So if you signed up for multiple items, it'll be the max with one minute starting. So we have Jennifer Finlay, Dan Cobb, Damian Rennie, Blair Beekman, David Peters, Madhu Stacey, Jyoti Singh, Ranice Stratton, Moose Kosapa, Vanessa Wong, Betty Robinson, Tolini Versamo, Samantha Wise, James Wood, Robert uh... medley abudoy acting at um... uh... all age on santos john jones the third uh... chisel baha barakas uh... asada olaballa uh... daniel galvez elise stevenson stevens uh... net Natasha Near, Spring Victoria, Jamal Truelove, Kiana Gims, Charlotte Eno, excuse me. Porel Gomez, Arlington Tungwell, Allison Wall, Jennifer Atwood, Ted Russell, Alana Lipset, Jean Hazard, JK Flowers, Carissa Gutierrez, Armando G, and Laura Wash. In any order, please state your name of the record, and if you're getting time seated, please also state that. Good afternoon, John Jones III.

Good evening, Madam City Clerk. Through the chair, for the record, John Jones III. I want to begin by thanking the city clerk's office. Your team is so amazing. You're so professional, courteous, patient. I come in here, I don't know what I'm doing half the time, but y'all help me out. So I appreciate y'all. And I want to say real quickly, item 6.49, I support Bright Research Group. 6.11, it's a sanctuary city one. I support that one wholeheartedly. I wanna thank council members Wong, council member Gallo, and council member Houston. And I wanna say this, I'm born and raised in East Oakland. The thing I love the most about the town is the diversity. So it's important that we don't get caught up in how the system will separate us, because we're not enemies. We gotta do a better job of identifying how the system pits one against another. Now, with that being said, in item number 6.25, the Coliseum, I wanna start by thanking city staff, everyone who played a role in this. A lot went into this. And I wanna thank all the council members, because right now, we gotta be real. There's a lot of hating going on right now. There's a lot of people who hate the city of Oakland, and I'm glad you are wise enough to see through that. It's one thing to disagree on a proposal. Everyone have a right to their opinion. But when it's coming from people who seemingly celebrate whenever there's a tragedy or challenge in the city of Oakland, that don't represent the spirit of Oakland. Anytime there are people who openly speak in a manner that's misogynistic, homophobic, and transphobic, that does not represent the values of the city of Oakland. And quite frankly, I don't respect nobody who can't come in here and put their words and put their name and their face behind what they gotta say. Because we gotta stand here. We stand on business. We've been doing this for a long time. I just wanna add one thing on a personal note for folks who may not understand. My involvement with the Coliseum goes back to where I was still at the end of my 30s. I didn't need glasses, I was 35 pounds lighter, I didn't have any gray. I was working on the minimum wage. I was making $10 an hour working at the Burger King that used to be at 13th and Broadway. And I heard about Coliseum City. Now as someone who born and raised here and loved sports, I got involved then in meeting with the developers. And then when it got to a point to where it was clear that the Raiders wanted to move, there was an effort led by Ronnie Lott, and that's where I met my brother Ray Bobbitt. And we met with Council Member Magallo. It was an effort to buy the Raiders. That didn't work out. So then the next step was to sue the NFL. So again, with the support of Council Member Magallo, he was always there with us. Former City Attorney Barbara Parker, there was an effort to sue the NFL for violating the relocation policy. So I want people to understand that this didn't just happen out of nowhere. There were six entities in 2020 who vied for an opportunity to enter the ENA with the city of Oakland. None of this happened through closed doors. And at the end of the day, I want to encourage people. All this happened during the pandemic. All these meetings are recorded. So there's no excuse for people to keep spreading lies and misinformation. We love Oakland. If you don't love Oakland, get the hell up out of here. Because I'm here.

Good afternoon, Council. My name is Dr. Betty Robinson-Harris. I'm here as an educator to support cultural arts. I was deeply dismayed to learn that Oakland Arts funding had been gutted. and the Cultural Affairs General Fund contribution was eliminated at the end of 2024. What a shame. Research is adamantly clear about the developing brain, the healthy brain, and how the healing brain is positively influenced by the arts. The Coliseum cell presents a rare opportunity to secure a permanent funding source. As a resident for over 40 years, I was present at the opening at the Alice Malunga Arts Center for Performing Arts in 1982. I have personally visited that building weekly to date. Oakland is a natural, has a natural reputation as an arts magnet.

I apologize, Betty. Your time is up. Thank you so much for your comments. Next speaker.

Good afternoon. My name is James Wood, leader of Faith in Action East Bay, and I'm here today to celebrate. I'm anticipating a vote. I'm anticipating an 8-0 vote on Sanctuary City, but I'm here to say that this is a day that all of us should be proud to call the city of Oakland our home. And in this, I am grateful to the tenacious leadership of Council Member Gallo over all these years, for the leadership and direction and power of Council Member Wong, and to thank Council Member Houston for opening all of our eyes to the need of a sanctuary city in the broadest possible sense. I am proud to be Oakland, I am proud that you are representing us in Oakland, and thank you for your vote today.

Thank you so much for your comments.

Hi, I'm Laura Walsh. I'm a policy manager at the nonprofit Save the Bay. We're a regional organization protecting and restoring San Francisco Bay, but I work right across the street where our office is, and we're really happy to see 6.21 on the consent agenda. That's the resolution in support of SB 954. We're super glad it made it this far, and we really urge your support today. The purpose of this is in support of a cleanup bill in the state legislature, and that bill is in response to a really devastating bit in a trailer bill that was passed last year that essentially removed advanced manufacturing projects from the CEQA process, meaning that if you were to build a battery recycling facility or a data center or other refinery here in our Bay Area, you'd no longer have to go through the CEQA process. Those are obviously projects that are known for causing environmental contamination and public health impacts. The CEQA process is what people use to understand.

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

Thank you. Good afternoon, Council. My name is Alana Lipset. I'm a District 1 resident and a member of the Cultural Affairs Commission, speaking on behalf of a few other of my fellow commissioners who couldn't be here, including our vice chair. I wanted to congratulate you on getting to this point of the sale of the Coliseum. Undoubtedly, it will benefit the whole city. and I'm in support of a vote for the sale agreement and wanted to ask that the council invest the new 6% ticket revenue share from the sale into the arts, cultural, and creative economy. And doing so would repair years of disinvestment. Like you heard earlier, our budget is effectively zero now for making grants. This is not a novel idea. Other cities from Columbus to Portland to Seattle add a ticket fee to support the cultural infrastructure that makes those cities desirable to begin with. And I emailed you all a report yesterday about the benefit that investing in the creative economy has on the overall economy and would allow us to bring back programs like the cultural strategist and government programs.

Good afternoon. My name is Roberto, but I am the former cultural affairs manager for the city of Oakland I was in that position for seven years and I experienced the highs and lows around budgets and One thing that didn't go away is the dynamic element of our cultural community and they've been here in front of you guys Many times to talk about its value. Here's an opportunity for you to remedy that pattern, bad pattern of a broken record and actually invest in finding a dedicated revenue stream for your cultural community. This money that could potentially come out of this sales agreement is a way to affirm what our cultural community brings to us, to affirm that we are a city of belonging and our artists belong here, and confirm that you validate us and not be...

Apologies, Mr. Bodoya. Thank you so much for your comments. Hope you're enjoying your retirement. Next speaker, please.

Hello, my name is Jyothi Singh. I direct a dance company called Dunia Dance and Drum. I'm a resident of District 5. And I'm also on the Cultural Affairs Commission, though I'm here speaking on my own behalf. The sale of the Coliseum is an incredible opportunity to restore local arts and culture funding with the ticket revenue stream and without burdening taxpayers. Investing this revenue stream in artists makes good business sense. Artists are small businesses, like myself, and we bring business to this city. As a place that takes immense pride in Oakland-raised talent, we must walk that talk and invest in the arts sector, which makes Oakland the culturally rich place that it is. We need this ticket revenue to support artist grants, arts in schools, cultural strategists in government, and more. And we've been defunding the arts in Oakland for years, and now we have the opportunity to enhance the lives of all of our residents by investing this ticket revenue back into the arts. Thank you so much.

Thank you for your comments.

good afternoon council members my name is roni stratton i'm the executive director of oakland art murmur and a fellow for california for the arts i want to speak to item 6.25 as you consider the future allocation of the city's new six percent ticket revenue from the coliseum i urge you to make a dedicated investment in the artists cultural workers and organizations that make oakland oakland i know you all how to make incredibly hard difficult budget decisions and i appreciate all the work you've done to improve our city's finances and arts and culture was extremely impacted by that. Currently, the budget is only $300,000, more or less 0% of the total budget. That matters because culture powers Oakland. It defines our town's identity, it drives our economy by supporting local businesses and attracting visitors, improves our well-being and mental health, and it strengthens the public safety by making neighborhoods safer. This is a chance to create a sustainable funding source for the culture and infrastructure that powers our city. Thank you.

Thank you so much for your comments.

Good afternoon, council. My name is Ted Russell. I own a home in District 1 in Temescal. And today's vote on the Coliseum sale is historic. And one of the most important things we can do, even though you're not deciding the allocation today, is to dedicate the full 6% to arts and culture. As you've heard, the Cultural Affairs Division has been starved for decades. The funding peak was actually in 1992 when it was $1.6 million. That's nearly $4 million in today's funds if you consider inflation. General fund contributions were zeroed out since the end of 2024. And my main point here is that the arts are not a luxury line item in the budget. They contribute to public safety, neighborhood vitality, the education of children, youth, and adults. And I would just want to point out a recent national report that was released just last week by SMU Data Arts, a national arts researcher, and it found that public investment in the arts is.

Thank you for your comments, Ted. Next speaker.

Hello, my name is Charlotte. I live in District 2. I'm speaking on 2.3. Before you hear the report, I want to put in a couple of things. Enclampment closure is a euphemism. What it actually is, is it's a sweep, it's an eviction. That might seem like semantics, but I think that makes a difference. If you actually go to Sweep and talk to the city administrators, talk to OPD, they know that it's a dirty job. They know that people might lose their RVs, their home, their documents, their medication. They might lose contact with loved ones. They might come home from work and find that everything they own is gone. They also are very clear, these same officials, on the fact that where people go next, what they do next, is not their problem, not their job to worry about that. I don't think they would dispute that. The people being swept are clear on all this, and they're also clear on wherever they go next, it's not going to be to perturb businesses, perturb house neighbors, it's going to be to survive. So when you hear this report, I hope you really, really drill down on how much does this cost? What could be done with that money? Why are there so many vacant lots and vacant buildings in Oakland, and why is the rent so high? Thank you for your comments.

Hi, my name is Allison Wall. My doctorate is in opera performance and I love living in a town where my representative is also a singer. Oakland has so many artists to be proud of and the revenue percentage from the Coliseum complex can provide sustained support for Oakland's creative powerhouse and will create opportunities for the next generation of artists right here in our town. Other cities already do this. It's not a novel idea. So let's refill the artistic cup of our community, keeping that revenue here with our artists who are making music and art and dance and all types of culture here, especially in light of the recent cuts that have been made. Thank you very much.

Thank you. Good afternoon. My name is Daniel Galvez. I'm an Oakland resident and muralist, and I'm here to say thank you, thank you, and thank you, most especially to Charlene Wang in giving us the go-ahead to do the restoration of this beautiful mural painted over 40 years ago, the Grand Performance Mural. They gave us an opportunity now to move forward. it's been funded publicly there's been no city money foundation monies well actually yes zellerbach family fund gave us money and and the um national uh uh mural award so a hundred thousand dollars was raised uh by the people by the community in uh helping get this mural restored and i'm very thankful for your support and uh with all going in order as we are now october 1st will be the restoration beginning of grand performance and that's at the 580 Freeway underneath Grand Avenue and MacArthur Boulevard, and we'll see you out there and give a honk. Thank you.

Thank you for your comments, Daniel. Next speaker.

I'll be interpreting for Corina.

Good afternoon, members of the council. My name is Corina Gomez and I am the leader of Fé en Acción del Este de la Bahía. I ask you to approve the Refugee City Ordinance in the second reading and turn it into law in Oakland. This ordinance is important because it not only repeats values, it encodes them in the Oakland Municipal Code and replaces scattered solutions with an applicable chapter that clearly protects the civil and human rights of residents. La ordenanza establece que los servicios de la ciudad no dependen del estatus migratorio y prohíbe que empleados municipales usen dinero, recursos o personal de la ciudad para hacer cumplir leyes federales de inmigración civil. Eso significa que las familias pueden ir a la escuela, buscar ayuda, denunciar daños y participar en la vida cívica sin miedo. Una ley así genera confianza, mejora la seguridad pública y fortalece a toda la comunidad. Gracias.

Good afternoon, council members. My name is Corina Gomez and I'm a leader with Faith in Action East Bay. I urge you to pass the City of Refuge Ordinance on second reading and make it law into Oakland. This ordinance matters because it does more than repeat values. It codifies them in the Oakland Municipal Code, replacing prior scattered resolutions with one enforceable chapter that clearly protects the civil and human rights of Oakland residents. It says city services are not contingent on citizenship status, and it bars city employees from using city money, resources, or personnel to enforce federal civil immigration law. That means families can go to school, seek help, report harm, and participate in civic life without fear. A law that builds trust, improves public safety, and strengthens the whole community. Thank you.

Elsa Stevens, with Faith in Action, item 611. Letting your tourist or student visa lapse is equal to letting your parking meter run out. ICE thugs don't care about your immigration status. ICE has jailed Native Americans for the crime of looking or sounding foreign. Their new targets are Syrians and Haitians. Ignorant white supremacists have no clue of what a Syrian or a Haitian looks or sounds like. We must prepare for a new wave of kidnappings of our family members, friends, and neighbors. Over 65,000 people rot in American concentration camps today for the crime of not looking Aryan. Many die there. Please enact the ordinance.

Good afternoon, council members. My name is Natalia Neira, speaking on item S6.25. I serve as co-executive director of Emerging Arts Professionals, representing a network of more than 3,000 artists, arts administrators, teaching artists, and cultural workers in the Bay Area, many of whom live and work in Oakland, such as myself, District 1. I urge you to approve the Coliseum deal and dedicate the city's 6% ticket revenue share to rebuilding Oakland's arts and culture sector. Years of limited public investments have destabilized Oakland's arts ecosystem. Organizations have reduced programming. Artists and cultural workers are leaving the field. getting really hard to stay here as organizations are going through their reserves. And many are struggling to sustain institutions that make Oakland a vibrant, creative city. Without dedicated funding, we risk losing an essential part of Oakland's identity and economy. Please seize this opportunity to build a sustainable future for Oakland's arts and culture sector. Thank you so much.

Thank you for your comments.

Good evening, Council Member. My name is Moose, and I'm a leader of Faith in Action East Bay, and I'm also an IBW Union electrician. I just want to remind everybody that the purpose of ICE is less about immigration and more about getting citizens accustomed to living in a police state. I urge all of Oakland to take a stand against atrocities, because my own son, a young black man, that left work just looking for a meal, a suckling Chinese meal, was stopped by ICE demanding his birth certificate. He was terrified. Are we gonna take a stand against this, or are we gonna just watch the train come? Because nobody in here is safe. If a young black man, born and raised in the Bay Area, was stopped by ICE, what's gonna stop him to stop anybody else? You know, it's like, how do we defend ourself against that? So, you know, protect Brown, protect black people, protect all people in Oakland. Thank you. Thank you for your comments.

Council members, my name is JK Fowler. I'm a resident of D3 and I'm here as part of the Oakland arts and culture community representing Nomadic Bookshop, Nomadic Press, and Bay Area Book Festival to urge you to allocate the full 6% Coliseum ticket revenue share to arts and culture. We have a new recurring public revenue source in front of us, and it's far from abstract. It's people in seats at the arena and stadium, generating dollars that can be directed into the creative infrastructure that makes Oakland a place people want to live, visit, and root for. Arts and culture brings tens of millions of dollars to our city in direct and indirect spend, but Oakland's cultural affairs division has been cut to the bone. core grants to artists organizations festivals and youth programs have been stripped away we're surviving an ingenuity and exhaustion not on the level of support a city of this cultural magnitude deserves dedicating the six percent to arts and culture is a smart self-sustaining investment it stabilizes cultural organization supports arts and schools and youth programs strengthens downtown and neighborhood corridors and keeps oakland's creative workers in thank you so much for your comments

I was, excuse me, I was going to speak on four items, and I'm not sure what that means time-wise. Apologies.

Can you please state your name for the record? Yes, Vanessa Huang. Okay, you get a total of three minutes? Three minutes. Okay, thank you so much.

Yes. Thank you for this opportunity to speak. My name is Vanessa Huang. I'm the chair of the Cultural Affairs Committee. commission for another minute and um i one i wanted to speak in support of 619 the appointment of nia jacobs to the cultural affairs commission we have long sought someone who has the knowledge bandwidth and commitment to sit on both the commission and the public art advisory committee and so we have that in nia and so i look forward to working with her with your support. I also want to thank you for hopefully supporting 622, a slight change in our enabling ordinance to the commission to allow us as a body to elect our chair as most other commissions do, and this is in line with what the mayor desires, so thank you for that. Also, I would like to thank I have often spoke to you about the heart and soul of Oakland and the importance of our cultural life in this city. And so I also know that you have very important duties around the budget. And so I do want to share with you that there was a 2024 national study from the School of Public and Environmental Affairs at the University of Indiana that found that this is a nationwide study. The arts and creative industries comprise 4.4% of U.S. GDP, and that is greater than the percentage of construction in this country, greater than transportation in this country, and greater than agriculture. With three different analytical models, they've shown that the growth in the arts sector positively impacts the growth of the overall economy, not just our sector. And then also the arts sector The economy is resilient. The share of the economy derived from the arts sector has been consistent, consistently in a range between four and five percent of GDP since 2001. And that time span includes three recessions. So I do want you to take the idea of the potential of using that 6% from the ticket sales from the arena and stadium very seriously, not just as an investment in the cultural sector, but also in the entire city. And I want to also thank you very much for 6.11. council members, Gaio, Houston, Wong, for the push to renew us as a city of refuge when we're seeing people in this nation virtually being executed without due process, accompanied by threats from our highest offices. And so I thank you for your courage in standing for what's right. And also, that's also about the culture of all of our community.

Good afternoon, Council Members. My name is Jen Atwood, representing myself personally, speaking on 6.25. I live in District 1. I'm an arts professional who has worked in arts grantmaking in San Francisco, Pittsburgh, and cities across Massachusetts. Oakland is the only city where I've lived and worked that is not currently making direct public investment through arts and culture grantmaking, and I'd love to see that change. I'm respectfully asking that the council earmark the 6% gross ticket revenue from the arena and stadium for arts and culture in Oakland because the arts are essential to Oakland's future. Public investment in the arts pays dividends in returns. As a grant maker, I've seen how direct public arts funding leverages private investment while creating local jobs and economic activity. Also, students with access to community arts and music programs are five times less likely to drop out of schools. oakland's artists and cultural organizations are already doing the work but face capacity limitations from covet debt recovery federal and state funding cuts and rising inflation costs i apologies miss atwood your time is up thank you so much next speaker

Good afternoon, council members. My name is Carissa Gutierrez, an arts and a culture advocate, culture bearer, and community organizer. I'm speaking on item S6.25 because Oakland's cultural ecosystem is at a breaking point. Years of disinvestment culminated in the total elimination of general fund grant dollars for arts and culture and leaving the community spaces and artists who hold the city together on life support. As my colleague stated, culture isn't a luxury. It's our identity, our resilience, and the heartbeat of our youth education. Approving the Coliseum deal gives us a historic opportunity to protect this ecosystem. By dedicating the 6% ticket revenue share, we create a self-sustaining stream where live entertainment directly reinvests in local culture makers. It makes sense that if you enjoy the pie, you pay your bakers. Reinvesting this revenue will stabilize neighborhood anchors like Destiny Arts Center and Eastside Arts Alliance and keep Oakland a vibrant creative powerhouse. Please vote yes. Thank you. Thank you for your comments. Next speaker.

Hi, my name's Dan Kolb. I'm here representing a broad coalition of environmental, environmental justice and labor organizations supporting agenda item 6.21. Thank you Council Member Wong for bringing this forward. This is to support a bill SB954 that is working to protect impacted communities from over industrial expansion and make sure that we don't, that we protect those communities from being polluted even more than they already are. I'm just gonna read a bunch of the organizations supporting this bill. Clean Water Action, Communities for a Better Environment, Save the Bay, APEN Action, Sierra Club California, Alameda Labor Council, California Nurses Association, State Building and Construction Trades Council, Green Landing Institute, West Oakland Environmental Indicators Project, Blue Green Alliance, Center for Environmental Health, Urban Habitat, 350 Bay Area, League of Conservation Voters East Bay, United Auto Workers Region 6, Planning Conservation League, and more than 100 other organizations. Thank you for supporting SB 954.

Thank you for your comments. Next speaker.

Good afternoon, council members. My name is Arlington Tugwell. I'm a leader with Faith and Action East Bay. I'm here to ask you, matter of fact, let me just urge you to pass the city refuge ordinance. It's not just for me. It's not just for you. It's for the people. The people put you in power and they trust you with this knowledge. And when you make this step forward and you open up this door, you're leading. You're not following. You're leading the people down a path that they chose. And I ask and I urge you again, please continue to push forward because there are other cities watching and growing with you. And we, as a team, you guys have shown teamwork to come together to bring this for a second viewing so that it can pass, so that it can be the footprint to better living, safe. People can go to school. People can stay in their home. They don't have to be scared to come out. Continue to do the work that you're doing for the people.

Hi, I'm Adam Alloy, and before I begin speaking, I do want to disclose that I'm a volunteer with Jamie Joyce's Congressional Campaign, but I'm coming here as a private citizen, and these are my own opinions. I'm a working filmmaker, I'm a working artist, and I would highly support the full allocation of the 6% gross into arts funding and grant funding. I really would like to thank you for the tax incentives that you all have worked hard to fund. And if we have additional grants towards filmmaking in Oakland, we can bring a lot more production here. We can fund more production, and that is job creation, and that is more business and more eyes on arts in Oakland. And I think very important, and I think there's a big opportunity here to make Oakland and the East Bay into kind of a second film hub in California and that this could help support that in addition to supporting youth programs and lots of other amazing things. Thank you.

Madeline Stacey. I'll start talking, thank you. We previously received a vacant property report from Cupid Alexander. There are about five parcels of viable open public land where our unhoused neighbors would be able to exist without fear or threat of being swept, where water and electricity could be provided, where medical teams and other outreach and housing navigators could find them. We don't want encampments in front of businesses and schools and churches. OK, a sensitivity zones map is being developed. All right. Then we must give our neighbors somewhere to go. What do we need to do to make this land ready and available? It's viable. It may cost a little money, but we cannot keep spending money on sweeps without having someplace for people to go. Because when someone remains on shelter, the cost does not disappear. It shifts to the most expensive and least effective parts of the public system. Police departments, emergency rooms, shelters, correctional facilities, sweep operations become the default response. These systems absorb the cost that would not exist if housing were provided. And right now, we're not even asking for housing, just land. Let's please make these parcels available. Year to date of the 78 encampment management and abatement team operations, there were 59 full closures and five partial closures. 64 of 78 is 82% of their operations. This costs money. And to be clear, a closure is a sweep. It's what the city now calls abatement. You abate asbestos, not people. Because what the city is currently doing is continue to sweep away any community they've built, away from their resources, from their foundation, from their live-in vehicles. Each sweep deteriorates one's mental health, steals and trashes most of their possessions, and makes it so navigators and advocates cannot find them to connect them to resources. Each sweep, the harm compounds and even results in death. People are dying as a result of sweeps. This is not hyperbole. This is really happening to our neighbors, our community members, Oakland residents. We need to do better, invest in solutions, not sweeps. And now this, 646, ALPRs provide indiscriminate retrospective location data of any person with no intermediary on demand. That's a search without a warrant. With capability to track and follow someone to sensitive locations such as immigration lawyer, hospital, hospice, churches, Planned Parenthood, their lover's house, et cetera. It's a violation of the Fourth Amendment to me. That goes for drone footage too. And Celebrite will be used extra judiciously. It will. In the report attached to the agenda with the original contractors discussed, in addition to warrants, it states that it will be used to search mobile devices by authorized possessors with their permission and consent. We know how that consent is often obtained. All of this data is sensitive and does not prevent crime. Stop the surveillance state. Excuse me. Stop the surveillance state. Cancel the contracts now. Thank you.

Armando, speaking on the encampment policy. Your report says this item promotes health and wellness and access to interim and permanent housing, but that's not true. Your most recent encampment policy does nothing to increase shelter, interim housing, permanent housing, or health care delivery. To the contrary, you've been closing hundreds of shelter beds. Just publishing a list of land doesn't provide housing. There are people on some of that land right now providing housing for themselves. Are you going to keep sweeping them? Confiscating tents and vehicles, making wide swaths of the city inaccessible to a certain class of people, banishing, secluding, and dispossessing them does not promote health and safety. Your report gives lip service to equity, but a recent UC Berkeley study found that since grants passed, you've been pushing encampments deeper into black and brown low-income neighborhoods. contradicting your stated equity goals. Black and indigenous people are represented in the unhoused population double what they are in the general population. Don't talk about racial equity while you're subjecting them to state violence.

Thank you for your comments.

Hello, my name is Spring Kelsopa. I am a fourth generation Oakland resident. My kids are also fifth generation District 1 voters. I proudly support the sanctuary ordinance. I'm a descendant of stolen Africans and European immigrants, and ICE targets people who look like me, people who look like my family members, people who look like my neighbors and my community. I do not support this war against immigrants. It is nothing but racial terrorism. from slavery to mass incarceration to mass deportation we do not need scarce oakland resources that are already far too sport sparse going to colluding with ice we don't need oakland residents and community members living in terror afraid to shop afraid to live afraid to take their kids to school afraid to patronize their businesses afraid to go out on walks. We need the support of the council members and to stay 10 toes down for the community and support this ordinance.

Thank you for your comments.

Hello Council, Jamal Truelove here. I am the founder of Bay Area Film Night. I'd like to acknowledge Mayor Lee, City Administrator Betsy Lake, President Jenkins, and Council Member Ramachandran for the leadership in moving this historic deal forward. And congratulations to the African American Sports Entertainment Group on being one step closer to owning the Coliseum complex. With regard to the 6% of annual gross ticket sales that was earmarked for community benefits, I believe that those funds should go towards art and culture, more specifically a portion going towards making movies right here in Oakland. If Oakland is to be a town of art and culture, It needs to use the number one distribution of it, and that's film. And I am happy to share ideas with President Jenkins and Council Member Brown, Rahma Sandra, and any of you that will ultimately hear me out. We need to be making the movies if we want people to be visiting Oakland. The influence is through the film. And I implore everybody to come here. Barry Phillips.

Thank you for your comments.

uh... my name is chris mckay i'm with the embarcadero neighborhood association uh... recently the city did uh... a cleanup in the park they did an excellent job tons and tons of garbage was removed uh... and they were smart about planning uh... follow up uh... cleanup after this so that it wasn't gonna be the same story it's been over the past five years, is chase people out from one place to another. They need something permanent, and it's not what they're getting when they're chased around. So without enforcement, when there's a cleanup, without enforcement, it just happens again and again. A ton of garbage was removed, it's now piled up, it's now being sorted through again, and being spread all around the neighborhood. We have a school in our neighborhood that's really important, and right now, that's being occupied by people living on the railroad tracks.

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

Kyle, you always talk about, it's not what you say, it's what you do. How long is it gonna take you to fix the Kurt Fred Field? But you could bring emergency legislation for cultural arts. Look how long it's taken for this black Kurt Fred Field in your district Thank you, Councilmember Houston, for bringing to the attention the historical reference related to black folks in this town, which you knew, Guile. Stop it. Wayne got an excuse. She's only been on the council for a short time. And that's no real excuse. So what are you going to do about fentanyl? the most deadly opiate on the street, but yet you want to talk about a public health crisis for cannabis. Did you know cannabis is illegal? And they got cafes so you could smoke in the back. So when are you gonna deal with fentanyl? Y'all are so hypocritical. and you give these elaborate speeches. They don't hold with me. They don't hold with a lot of people in this town. But because you sit where you sit, you think you can give us a bunch of crap. Well, I'm gonna bring it to your attention. Stop it, Guile. You know how long black folks have been suffering. And what Council Member Houston said about the prime capital of the world, we ran parallel with East Palo Alto. And that police chief came over here. I think it's Davis. You knew that. Every time it comes to black folks, you don't step up to the plate. At all. And then when I try to confront you, oh, I got to rush back in there. I don't have time because of city attorney. It's the city attorney told me, city attorney be lying to you too. Ask him. When he altered the transaction and use tax by inserting sales, and I'll address that in open forum.

Thank you for your comments. Your time is up.

Related to the police chief, I do not support the process of the selection of the chief. The last process, we got to see every candidate. We got to hear from every candidate. We didn't have that same process. I don't know who else was out there. I might have wanted somebody else. I do not support this process of not knowing the other candidates. You have an item on here that's grant funding from the Department of Homeland Security. It never went to committee. You don't know what Homeland Security grant money requires you to do related to people here unauthorized. But you're rubber stamping it. You really care about your sanctuary city status? I don't think so. related to parking. How does the Oakland Ice Ring validate free parking? You've never accounted for how free parking goes on over there. you have on the agenda a forensic audit to be done. You don't identify why, but a forensic audit is done to uncover evidence for legal proceedings, fraud, embezzlement, asset misappropriation. In committee, you didn't discuss what this forensic audit is about. You have a grant for 350 dislocated workers. I don't know what that means, dislocated workers, but I do know African Americans are 10% of the unemployed in this city. Everybody else is close to 4%. HUD housing, that's another one. HUD housing, you don't have any information on who's unhoused. Oakland Housing Authority identified there's 5,000 people on their waiting list for housing. You have an item, anti-poverty grant. The county says you have 1,040 people who are identified as below poverty, and you're only getting $1.3 million. How you gonna decide who gets the money? Will it be some citizens? Will it be non-citizens? I don't know. Sanctuary City. Sanctuary City, 42 to 46% of people who are here in this country unauthorized are here because they have expired visas. You protecting them? So are you protecting them as well? That's 42 to 46%. Sanctuary City, background checks. Are you gonna do like OUSD, not have any background checks required for volunteers to protect unauthorized people? You have an increase of salary of council members, city attorney, and city auditor on the agenda today. You can refuse to take a pay raise. These people, they don't read the agenda to say something else. All they wanna talk about is sanctuary cities. There's a lot of stuff on here y'all need to be talking about people in the audience, okay?

Yes, thank you so much, Ms. Assata. All names have been called for those who are participating via Zoom or in person. If I called your name and you're in person and you haven't approached the podium yet, please approach the podium. Otherwise, we will move to Zoom speakers. With that, we will go to our Zoom speakers. We have up first, Blair Beekman. You are unmuted. You may begin.

Hi, Blair Beekman. I had 10 plus items on consent I wanted to speak to. I'll try to get through them all. I probably won't, though. To speak to first item 6.46, the surveillance technology ordinance. You're having items of ALPR things being brought back to public safety committee either September, October, November. I think it shows that there's a serious problem going on with accountability about the ALPR issue and that, you know, for as much as you put off signing the contract for what I could guess is some actual good reasons for the community, you can't be accountable here in July and you've had to push this off until late the fall. I think that signals a problem. And I think you guys as councilpersons really have to work to create an accessible, understandable, informational process why you guys are not signing the contract and why you haven't. If you have at this point, why did you wait so long to? And what are the benefits of that compared to signing the contract immediately and working through our problems that way as Alameda County has done? They're going through the same RFPF process as you guys are, at this time for a future ALPR vendor, yet they signed the contract to go through it. Are you guys vulnerable to lawsuits now? Are you more vulnerable? Are you less vulnerable? Those sort of questions. Can you make clear to the public what are the advantages of putting off signing the contract? Please work on that. Please make it clear to the public. With that all said, to try to go back to the remainder of the item, 6.7, consolidation of the municipal election. I'm not in agreement of city government having some sort of say, but they don't have to say what's on agenda items for voting time. There's legal ways that that is, but it doesn't make anything more clear. It just gives you guys superiority, and it's not a good system. 6.8 and 6.9 are salary ordinance things to try to offer to try to clarify what i said previously um if city workers take a 50 cut and pay each month 600 a year for 200 uh two point uh No, for 200,000 workers, or what is it? Yeah, 200,000 workers that work for the city, whatever the number is. Is it 20,000? I'm sorry. Whatever that number is, that works out to about $2 million in savings in just a small pay cut per year. And that allows you to continue the retirement fund things and the health benefit things. I think that's a more important goal, and it's worth taking a 50-buck cut and pay a month. It just creates a better morale, I think, for people. Man, there's so many items I wanna talk to. Thank you for the sanctuary city things and working on that through Wang and the other council person. And I hope they can work on the street issues. What is that, the street?

Thank you so much for your comments. Wocan, we are on the consent calendar. If you signed up to speak for the consent calendar on today's agenda, can you state the name that you signed up for? All right, no response from Wocan. We will go to the next speaker. You are unmuted if you signed up on today's agenda for the consent calendar. What name did you sign up for?

S6.25.

Under what name?

It should be Kareem Muhammad.

Kareem, unfortunately, I do not have a speaker card. Oh, it is, I apologize. You are unmuted. You can go ahead and give your comments.

Thank you. My name's Kareem Muhammad, and I'm an original founder of the African American Sports and Entertainment Group, speaking in my individual capacity regarding item S6.25. On Monday, July 20, co-founder and co-plaintiff Brian Dixon and I submitted a formal written notice concerning unresolved questions about the relationship among the African American Sports and Entertainment Group, AASEG Land, and Oakland Acquisition Company, including the authority for advancing the Coliseum transaction through these entities. These matters are connected to a pending arbitration and related Alameda County Superior Court action. We are not asking the Council to decide the merits on those disputes and we are not opposing responsible redevelopment within the City of Oakland. We respectfully ask the City Council to pull and continue the item S6.25 before authorizing or completing any irreversible sale, transfer, recording, or closing.

Thank you for your comments. I will give Wocan, who I believe is David Peters. If you are unmuted and you hear me, you can unmute yourself and you can begin. All right. We will go to Jen. If you signed up to speak for an agenda item on the consent calendar, can you state the name that you signed up for?

Hi, it should be under Jennifer Findley.

Thank you so much. You may begin.

Thank you. Yeah, 57 items on the consent calendar today is a lot. I wanted to talk mainly about the intersection of the sanctuary city ordinance, the encampment abatement policy, which is a ridiculous offensive name, and the OPD surveillance tech report. We'll start with the supposedly urgent flock contract from roughly January that is still not been executed. What's up with that? I had questions. Blair Beekman covered them pretty well. Thank you for that. Regarding the tech surveillance report, first question is why is OPD still not turning on GPS that would help response time? Are they opposed to being surveilled in some way? I saw last week's OPD stats. Crime continues to go down across the board. They seem to be doing well with their low staffing right now. I have to say I oppose the encampment abatement policy, which targets the same people who are being targeted by ICE, who might unknowingly be sleeping under a flocked camera. I'm happy to see the new ordinance, but does the city of refuge apply to our unhoused neighbors? How does that overlap with the EIPA? A yes vote on Flock is a polar opposite to a yes vote on a sanctuary city. The Flock CEO I heard this morning specifically has said the company has no opinion on immigration, and if the states want to, they can use it for that. It's about so much more than immigration. It puts us all at so much risk. In the past, there's a reason that in the past 13 months, people have, people rose up. Nearly 60 municipalities have cancelled contracts, is what I heard on Democracy Now! this morning. Many more, they're fighting to take the cameras down. They're trying to get the contracts cancelled. They say that they're not going to access the data. You think they can't access the data? That might be what they say, but one, you've got to believe them for that. And two, it only means they can't access it yet, or they're going to get hacked. Some of them don't even need to be hacked. Ben Jordan has done great work on this, and he found many cameras that actually required no login for the public to access, including baby monitors. things pointing at playgrounds, and these were available for the public to livestream and to stream later like they were watching Netflix. I don't want these cameras pointed at me or my neighbors. There was also an instance of someone recently being prosecuted in Texas for a, quote, self-managed abortion because they were found via this network of flock cameras. We don't talk about the stories of harm, the police stalkers, the flock mistakes, the drivers stopped at gunpoint.

Thank you for your comments. Next speaker, West Oakland Cultural Affairs Action Plan. Is this David Peters?

That is. And thank you for giving me the unmute button because it wasn't showing up to mother two times. So thank you. Can you hear me fine?

Yes, we can. You may begin.

Thank you. My name is David Peters. I am the founder and executive director of the West Oakland Cultural Action Network. And I have been going to, before I go down that path, I heard an earlier speaker talk about encampment abatement program in the context of racial equity. The racial equity analysis around the encampment abatement program and so many other programs is missing, lacking, and this council has yet to direct an appropriate, fair, and equitable racial equity analysis for anything. Because if you fail to analyze the impact on my neighborhood and other black and brown flatland neighborhoods from the 100 percent occupation by folks who are claiming public territory as their private property is unjust. The belief that black neighborhoods, black businesses, black babies, black elders and black residents do not deserve to live in environments free from encampments that are out of control, that have become nuisances full of litter and other kinds of problem behaviors because it's not the encampments. It is the behaviors. We are doing a grave disservice to our historic neighborhoods. And I need them people who come in here and talk like that to assess their impact and the role they play in pushing poor Black people from shelter to the streets. Because y'all did it right now. What about that? Look, I've been going to Coliseum longer than any place than my grandparents' house. And every time I go in that place, I think of my grandma, because that coliseum is so much of our history and culture, whether it was the Soul Patrol, P-Funk Landon, the Mothership, or Nelson Mandela coming here on his tour, that complex. has meant so much to the history and culture of this town. And we cannot begin to forget how much of that culture came and was influenced us in that city and how much of our history as well. We must have a museum. Not just to the people who played at the Coliseum, but to so many of the great Oaklanders who have passed through the sports field, including Bill Russell and Frank Robinson, who were respectively the first black manager in the NBA, first black coach in the NBA, and first black manager. in Major League Baseball. Both were teammates at McClymonds High School. You would not know that or many other things if the Black Liberation Walking Tour had not been funded. People all over the world have been on this tour. It's nationally recognized. It attracts people to come here. We must continue. We must dedicate funding, dedicated stream of funding to our arts and culture community because Oakland is known for one unique thing. Our history and our culture are unparalleled. And a whole bunch of y'all came here and moved here because of us.

Thank you for your comments, David Peters. That concludes your public comment speakers for item six.

Okay, thank you. I will pass it to City Administrator Lick.

Thank you very much. The administration is requesting that item S6.40, the professional services agreement with Beretta Company for signage and wayfinding services, be continued until the next meeting, September 15th.

Thank you. Colleagues, any questions? Councilmember Gallo, then Houston.

The agenda.

Thank you. Okay.

And that was a motion by Councilmember Gallo, seconded by Councilmember Houston to approve the consent calendar as amended on roll.

Same things Yes, okay.

Thank you so much chair appreciate it I did want to address a couple more items in the agenda first of all on six point or s six point two one Thank You Dan cow first of all for your service to the city I'm especially a leader in environment and in on the environment and thanks for bringing to my attention as well as councilmember Brown's attention SB 954 and I just hope that we can continue your legacy of environmental activism here in the city of Oakland I also wanted to do a shout out to Braxton Guttner I see in the audience s 6.20 I look forward to your expertise on the Privacy Advisory Commission The other item I wanted to address very quickly on S6.25, I know that we are not making a decision around how the revenue for the Coliseum sale is going today, but considering the voices in the audience, I did want to just log some support for a portion of the revenue going to arts and culture, especially when I think about this vision that we have around the Coliseum and it positioning to become Oakland to be a music city. I think about Austin, Texas, Nashville, and these other music cities. What they've done well is to bring up homegrown talent. I also think this is a smart economic development decision that is going to bear out return on investment. We've had Tupac. Kalani come through city of Oakland. I'd like to see more of that homegrown talent make it on to You know an erzing a soft stage Finally, I just want to address a six point four six. This is the info the technology OPD reports first of all, there was some misinformation just Look, I think we should have worthwhile debates about flock. I also think there's been some misinformation posted around how there was a deliberate intention around item, sub-item A. This was the ALPR item. That was truly, there was a, OPD came to me because they realized there was a legal issue with how it was posted. And so it would have been an issue for us to adopt it. So to be clear, we are not adopting anything related to ALPRs. Today, that was stricken from the record and taken down. I just think that when we have these debates, let's at least ground it in the facts. Finally, since I wasn't able to address Ms. Assata before, since it wasn't actually part of this, I really want to thank you. You didn't have to do that for me, so thank you. I think the thing about Miss Assata is that you and I have had our disagreements at times, but I really think, Miss Assata, first of all, you do more reading on these items than anybody on the City Council. You really do, and you actually sit on the school board meetings, the county meetings, you are reading every single piece. I actually think people need to do a documentary about your life, your life story, truly, and where you came from, New Orleans, and just your history, and how you came to come to Oakland, all your contributions. And I think for me, I actually want your voice and your perspective to ring through clearly when it comes to public safety. Unfortunately, I also have an obligation, even when I agree with your point of view, to just maintain order, even when I think your perspective is incredibly important. But let's chat afterwards. And again, thank you. You really didn't have to do that for me. So I just appreciate you.

Thank you, Council Member Wong, and thank you, Ms. Assata. Council Member Houston, okay. We have a motion and a second.

Thank you once again so much for that. So we have a motion by Council Member Gallo, seconded by Council Member Houston to approve the consent calendar as amended. On roll, Council Member Brown. Aye.

Aye.

Thank you. Council Member Fife is excused. Council Member Guile.

Aye.

Council Member Houston.

Aye.

Unger.

Aye.

Wong.

Aye.

And Chair Ramachandran. Aye. Item number six, the consent calendar is approved as amended with six ayes and two excused. That now takes us to...

that now takes us to the uh item seven council uh council acknowledgments and announcements okay colleagues any announcements um well there was a public speaker who started to mention this event which i will gladly highlight right now on Thursday, July 30th, right here in council chambers. My office is working with Bay Area Film Night to screen two amazing local made films. There will be a panel discussion after the event, which I will moderate. Thank you to Jamal Trula for being here today and for putting on this event. and bringing speakers who are fantastic filmmakers as well as the executive director of the San Francisco Film Commission. It is a free event. Sign up online. We hope to see you next Thursday at 6 p.m. at Council Chambers. Any other announcements? If not while I'm here, please do consider attending the Laurel Street Fest on Saturday, August 8th. It's going to be beautiful. Tons of performances. Really, really, really amazing time. Again, another free festival. And if there are no other announcements or adjournments, we will move to open forum.

Thank you so much. We are now on open forum. As I call your name, please approach the podium in any order. State your name for record if you're participating online and you would like to speak. Once I call your name, you can raise your hand as well so I can easily identify you. We'll start with those in person. Jennifer Finley. Damian Rene, David Peters, Natalie Neera, John Jones III, Mrs. Sada Olabala, Umberto Ratana, Wendy Bloom, Martha Krull, Tracy Tolles-Williams, Alexandra Ridge, Wendy, Martha Cole, Madeline Stacy, and Jean Hazard in any order. Mr. Hazard.

Thank you. I was in court on June 25, 2026, related to the transaction and use tax, the special election of April 15. The court, the city, after 378 days, They filed a demur. The only thing they filed since May 19th to dismiss my case. The court sustained it without leave to amend. I'm preparing the opening brief for the appeals court, which I was already prepared for May 19th, 2025. But what's interesting with all of this, I have two documents, the draft and the proposed ordinance. There's no introduction for what the council approved on January 9th, 2020.

Thank you for your comments. Your time is up.

Hi, Chair, for the record, John Jones III. I just wanna say a few things. I wanna appreciate the comments made by Council Member Houston. I think it's important to review all the contracts, right, and look at how many times those SLEP requirements been waived. I know there's a tendency to do so, and I do believe that we should support local as much as possible. Another thing I wanna share that's very important, with all the vacant and abandoned buildings and parcels of land we got here. When I was walking down International for the BRT, I noticed that, first of all, a lot of these buildings are not even owned by people from this country. So the merchants sometimes, it's a challenge for the owner to transmit information to the merchant. My point is, as a city, we should be in the business of acquiring assets as much as possible, because we don't know when the next pandemic might occur. We've seen what happened with the parcel on Eddie 3rd in MacArthur, how it was sold. So I want to encourage you all to do that work. Let's connect with the county assessor and let's use eminent domain for properties that are owned by people who are doing nothing with it. So thank you. Thank you for your comments.

Thank Miss Candace, I'm gonna miss you. I'm gonna miss you so much. We always have a ability to put people in groups. And I have put people into the groups that I understand. The people who are in this country are in three groups. The indigenous people, the original people. The people who immigrated to this country. And the third group is the people who came here against their will, the enslaved people, better known as African Americans. That's the group I'm talking about every time I come here. We are not the same as those other two groups. We have a lot of things that are not in place for us. in terms of jobs, housing, in terms of education. I appreciate what you did at that resolution, but that identifies the issues of African Americans in this city. We have no action plan to deal with those.

Apologies, Ms. Assata. Your time's up. Next speaker. Thank you.

Hello, my name is Humberto Retana. I am a psychotherapist at Children's Hospital of Oakland. I'm also an UPD union member, and I'm here to talk about Measure C. But before I get to that, I want to extend some thank yous, first of all, to Zach Unger for coming out to support us on July 9th. We had an action there in front of the hospital. Second of all, we want to thank Mayor Lee, who somehow found it in her way to persuade Nicholas Holmes, the CEO, to have a conversation with us, us meaning labor. As you may know, Measure C has to cut out 20% for the hospital, 5% of which we are supposed to have some say-so with respect to how it gets spent. Until recently, Nicholas Holmes would have nothing to do with us, making up one excuse or another. Now, let me cut to the chase. We're here to ask you to do something because we think that the hospital's misusing Measure C money. How do we know? It looks like they're taking care of Oakland residents, Alameda County residents, over into the city, healthcare. And we also think that they're taking jobs that we do.

Apologies, Humberto. Thank you for your comments. Next speaker.

Hello, my name is Tracy Tollesoy. I'm a clinical licensed scientist at Children's Hospital Oakland. And I just want to, I've been working there for about a good 10 years, and we recently received a letter saying services will be moved out to China Basin, which is over on the West Bay. So we are getting services cut. And there are several things that are detrimental for children at Children's Hospital. So one being blood cultures. If blood cultures are moved out, we've had a case or a scenario where the blood culture turned positive in less than six hours. pretty common for rapid for different type of organisms but if it turns positive and is in route to being set up over there we could lose at least six to eight hours and that's really detrimental for children because you know they're a really sensitive population and this patient just happened to be a hemoncology patient so we would actually lose the ability to for susceptibilities thank you for your comments tracy next speaker

Hi, my name is Wendy Bloom, and I'm an RN, and I've been at Oakland Children's Hospital for the last 39 years. Since the affiliation with UCSF that started 11 years ago, we have seen a steady decline in services offered in Oakland. UCSF receives funds from Alameda County's Measure C. That funding should be used for the hospital services provided in the Oakland campus. We want transparency and accountability for those funds. Please listen to the staff in the trenches and don't follow for UCSF's glossy PowerPoint presentations. We do not want to see the further loss of needed services for the families in Oakland. We've already seen the bulk of our bone marrow transplant program is moved to Mission Bay in San Francisco. We are seeing the shift of oncology services as well as complex cardiac surgeries. Our sickle cell program is world renowned through the long time guidance of our physician, Elliot Fizinski, and we really have fears that Medi-Cal hits will cut those programs for the adults as well as the children's services. So please help us keep care in Oakland.

My name's Martha Kuhl, and I've been an RN for 45 years. Of those years, I worked 40 years at Oakland Children's, caring for the sick and injured kids, and specialized in care of kids with cancer. I'm retired, but remain active in our community for healthcare rights. When UCSF Health first affiliated CHO in 2014, UC promised so much, but you can't trust them. We have all witnessed a diminishing level of services and care over time with the transfer of specialties across the Bay. Not only that, they unilaterally cut our contracts and transferred us into a substandard contract that they don't even honor. More importantly though, This has caused harm to many workers and families, and working conditions have deteriorated. Morale is very low. More importantly, good working conditions are always the foundation that makes it possible to give great patient care. Without this, patients may be at risk and all try to give, even if we all try to do the best. They must be held accountable.

Thank you so much for your comments. Next speaker.

Good afternoon, everybody. I'm Mateo Ridge. I just wanted to give a simple introduction about who I am. I'm a 14-year-old. I live in El Sobrante, and I am interning with Kohl's Reed Group. I'm shadowing Mr. Isaac right here. You guys, many of you may be familiar with my grandmother, Jane Garcia. She's the CEO of La Clinica de la Raza. Driven by that same spirit of community service, I am deeply involved in local advocacy at my school district, West Contra Costa Unified School District. And I would like to thank you, Mr. Gallo, for giving my nana a treat. Thank you.

Thank you for your comments. Next speaker.

Madeline Stacy. Today we had quite a packed agenda in terms of the consent items. There usually is a packed agenda, but I've noticed a trend in the past few months that every city council committee and every concurrent city council meeting has made the public comment time cut down to one minute, whereas it's now essentially defaulted and we all expect to only have one minute. And I'd just like you to think about and consider how the public isn't really fully able to give a voice to everything we want to, especially with consent items where we had a maximum of three minutes when many of us wanted to comment on a handful of the items. It's just simply not enough time for public input to actually be heard and considered.

Thank you for your comments. Next speaker.

Hello, Damian Rainey. First of all, thank you very much for the grand performance mural. That's one of those things that always is a rooted, it always rooted me back in this city whenever I would come back home from traveling or whatever. the aerial view of the lake and then being able to see that mural. And then as far as the Coliseum, I think it'd be very interesting if the city was able to, during this break, to take a look at the other big projects that we wanted to accomplish that didn't happen and really identify where the city fell apart and try to get started on getting the infrastructure right like mr hazard said it's going to be a while before everything gets going but it'd be great if the city had some things in place and on that note also thinking about the idea of a music city it can operate from the top down, but I think there's also some foundation that needs to get put in place so we don't have to wait for that 6% to start rolling in. Thank you.

Thank you for your comments. All names have been called. If you signed up to speak and you're in person, please approach the podium. If not, we will go to the Zoom speakers. Blair Beekman, you are unmuted. You may begin.

Thank you. Really awesome words. Blair Beekman here. Really awesome words that you guys have made it overly efficient, the public comment time. I hope we work on that and come back in the fall with a better plan. Thank you for the person's words. I also wanted to comment. It's the sideshow issues that I hope that Councilperson Wang and Houston can, again, get together on. Councilperson Houston has some interesting ideas on sideshow things. I hope that can be a work. I'm really hopeful. I heard how the movie business can be of help to Oakland. I think if we practice good tech accountability for the upcoming downtown development projects, that would be really helpful and just give people good reminders that best practices simply makes people feel good with technology and good luck in those efforts. And finally, Councilperson Wang, you had a good meeting today. There's a really important goal with tech accountability that we learn to be more clear, honest, and straightforward with each other in our conversations, and I don't think you did.

Thank you for your comments. If I called your name and you are on Zoom, we ask you to please raise your hand. If not, all names have been called for open forum.

Thank you so much. Before council members head off and we adjourn. Oh, sorry.

My apologies. I do see one of the Zoom speakers raise their hand. I believe it's David Peters. You may unmute yourself and begin.

Thank you, Madam Clerk. This is David Peters of West Oakland. And it is a fine day in West Oakland right now. I hope you all are finding as much joy in this beautiful, fine July afternoon as I am over here. because I'm optimistic. I think that for the first time in a while, I think that we're pulling together and we're pulling in the right direction. You know, we've seen some significant outside investment at the Coliseum property in a deal led by four brothers from the town. We continue to make strides in public safety. Our budget cliff that we seem to almost tumble over last year, perhaps there's a path forward. I want to remind everybody that everything we accomplish is due to the culture and the spirit of this town. Come out on the Black Liberation Walking Tour this Saturday, August the whatever it is. And again, the last one of the July, whatever it is, the last one will be on August 15th. CEO Dellum.

Thank you for your comments. That concludes our open forum speakers.

Thank you. Before we lose quorum, Madam City Clerk, please go ahead.

Thank you, I just, as the council gets ready to go on recess, as Ms. Asada said, this is Candace Evans' last meeting with us as she is moving on, and I just want to thank her for her great work and good service. We've seen many great people move through the city clerk's office, and she is one, so I just want to thank her today for her service, and just wish her the best as she moves on to do great things.

Thank you so much, Ms. Candice, wishing you the very best in your future endeavors. This is often a thankless and hard job that the clerks do. They just read in a single breath 55 items on consent, plus several others in this meeting, and you help run these meetings smoothly, and everyone who works in the clerk's office does incredibly important work for transparency and access here in Oakland and getting our agendas clear and moving forward. So thank you, Ms. Candice. And Council Member Houston.

Through the Chair, change is hard for me Change is hard, you leaving and I'm used to you here, I'm used to your movement, I hate change, but I wish you the best, and I'm used to you, I'm used to everyone, right? When somebody go, Ryan, I'm just used to everyone and I'm used to structure, so I congratulate you, but you're messing up my structure, I want your structure here, so I appreciate it though, I love it though, thank you.

Thank you. And enjoy recess, everyone. I know we're all still be here working, but this meeting is adjourned. See you in September.