City Council - meeting_joint_special

Good afternoon and welcome to this special city council meeting of Tuesday, 12/16/2025. Before I call roll, I will go over speaker card instructions for this meeting. If you like to speak on any agenda item, please fill out a speaker's card and return that to a clerk representative before the item is called for discussion. As the rules of procedure have established, you have two two hours I'm sorry, hour and thirty minutes to sign up from the start of this meeting. This meeting started at 01:03, so that time will be 02:33PM.

If you're looking to submit an online speaker card, they were due twenty four hours before the start of this meeting. On the roll for this meeting are council member Brown. Present. Council member Fife.

Present.

Council member Gayle.

Present.

Council member Houston. Present. Council member Ramachandran. Present. Council member Unger.

Present.

Council member Wong. Present. And chair Jenkins.

Present.

Showing eight members present at this time. Before we go through the agenda do you have any announcement?

Absolutely. There are a number of people out here to speak. I know everybody is excited about the PFERS conversation but we are going to run into time issues. So, speaker will be given one minute. The order of the agenda will be as followed: Consent, followed by FLAC, followed by Rules of Procedure, then we'll take the agenda in order after that. FLAC will be first. Okay. After consent. Consent, FLAC, rules of procedure, then we'll go in order from there.

And just a reminder as you are entering the chambers you are required to have a seat. If the chamber is full and there are no seats available you can go to Hearing Room 1 for overflow. You will be able to view the meeting there. And if you signed up to speak, you will have time to come back to the chamber to address the council for public comments. Moving to item four modifications of the agenda and procedural items.

Any modifications? Seeing none.

Moving to item five, which is the consent calendar starting with item 5.1. Approval of the draft minutes from the meeting of 12/02/2025. Item 5.2 is a resolution regarding a declaration due to the local AIDS emergency. Item 5.3, a resolution regarding the the declaration of medical cannabis emergency. Item 5.4, a resolution due to the declaration of a local emergency on homelessness.

Item 5.5, an ordinance for vacant property tax amendments. Item 5.6, an ordinance for the Oakland Municipal Code chapter 10.2, speed limits, administrative updates. Item 5.7, an ordinance for economic activation zones. Annum 5.8, an ordinance for planning code amendments to streamline conditional use permits. Item 5.9, an ordinance for flex streets program.

Item 5.1, a resolution for the twenty seventh Street Complete Streets Construction Contract Award. Item 5.11, resolution for Oakland Public Works Sewer Division cooperative agreements. Item 5.12, a resolution regarding the Oakland Business Relief Program. Item 5.13, an ordinance regarding amending the Oakland Campaign Reform Act. Item 5.14, a resolution honoring the life of the the extraordinary coach John Beam.

Item 5.15, an information report for performance audit of the Kids First Children's Fund. Item 5.16 includes multiple pieces of legislation regarding amendments to ordinance number one two one eight seven, the salary ordinance. Item 5.17, a resolution for HDL software LLC, local tax software solution in printing and mailing services. Item 5.18, an ORSA resolution for the ROBS payment schedule for fiscal years '26 through '27. Item 5.19, a resolution awarding a professional services contract to Francisco and Associates.

Item 5.2, a resolution regarding updates to environmentally preferable purchasing policy. Item 5.22, a resolution for sustainable fleet transition grants acceptance match appropriation and purchases. Item 5.23, a resolution regarding the purchasing contract for traffic maintenance materials. Item 5.24, a resolution ensuring a competitive market for Prowl Construction. Item 5.25, a resolution for electric bike lending program.

Item 5.26, a resolution for acceptance of funding and technical assistance for Bay Renn decarbonization showcase program. Item 5.27, a resolution for MOU between the city of Oakland and the city of San Leandro. Item 5.28, a resolution for terms for an ex exclusive no negotiation agreement. Item 5.29, a resolution in support of the Bay Area District zero emission building appliance rules. And a 5.3, a resolution for grant agreements with friends of Peralta Hacienda Historical Park.

And a 5.31, a resolution for an addendum to affiliation agreement between University of San Francisco and the City of Oakland. A 5.32, a resolution for OPD citizens option for public safety grant. Item 5.33, a resolution for a contract with Bright Research Group and ROCA for training services. Item 5.34, a resolution for contract amendment with the University of Pennsylvania for ceasefire lifeline evaluation. Item 5.35, a resolution authorizing the city.

Order in the chamber.

Item 5.35, a resolution authorizing the Lynn Marine contract. Item 5.36, an emergency ordinance for amendments of the Oakland Fire Code. Just noting that approval of this item it will be introduced in final passage in the same meeting and that is your final consent calendar.

Security, please make sure that everyone has a seat. If there are not enough seats, please direct folks to the overflow room. Any comments on consent? Seeing none, let's go to public speakers. Oh, come on up director.

Workforce Development. Let's see. I gotta figure out which number this is. I'm sorry. This is in regards to item 5.28, terms for an exclusive negotiating agreement.

I want to thank council member Fife, and then staff just wanted to expand on one of the further resolved clauses that is already in the draft resolution just as a point of clarification, and that is with respect to the Surplus Lands Act. A disposition is exempt from the surplus lands act if the property is subject to a valid legal restriction which prohibits residential housing and if that restriction is not imposed by the city. It must also be true that there's no feasible method to satisfactorily mitigate or avoid the prohibition on this site, and in this case, the North Gateway property is encumbered with such a restriction due to the presence of environmental contamination. This existing deed restriction can only be lifted by the California Department of Toxic Substances Control, DTSC, and only after DTSC approves a plan to remediate the site and only after that plan is implemented. And we believe that it would take several years and cost the city at least $120,000 to develop a plan that DTSC might approve.

However, there's no guarantee that DTSC will approve a remediation plan and commit to granting a waiver. If DTSC did approve a remediation plan, the remediation itself would also be time consuming and costly, but the actual timeline and costs are impossible to predict at this time, and the cost and risk to the city could be significant. And there's more information about this in an informational report that was provided to the city council on 06/07/2022.

Thank you. Anything else from the administration? Anything else from staff? Alright. No staff coming up. Let's go to the public speakers.

As I call your name, please approach the podium in any order. Please state your name for the record so we can assign you the appropriate amount of time. As with standard practice, speakers in the chambers will be taken first. Zoom speakers will be taken immediately after. Please raise your hand so I can easily identify you if you are on Zoom.

Sanford Forte, Prescott Chair, Kevin Dally, Juan Canem, I have you for two items. Josephine Guzman, I have you for two items. Jennifer Finley, I have you for four items. Jack Fleck, Hannah Zuckerman, George Spees, David Peters, I have you for multiple items. David Gasman, Colleen Corrigan, Brian Culberson, miss Asada Olabala, multiple I have you for multiple items.

Derek Barnes, David Boatwright. David Boatwright, I have you for looks like two items, Bob Raahebi. Sorry if I said that incorrectly. Kevin Hester, Javier Gonzales, Ira Dixon, Blair Beakman, have you with multiple items. Isaiah Daniels, Eric Turner, Stanley Cooper,

Keith,

Batcher, Butcher, maybe with curbside trucks trucking, Miguel Lopez, Arnel Price, Ralph Cans, I have you with multiple items. Mister Hazard, I have you with multiple items. Stephanie Tran and Raffini. I'm sorry. I can't read the last name. It looks like g maybe or Raffini. In any order, please begin. Mister Borbright, have you with two cards.

So how much time do I get? Two minutes or one minute? Two? Okay. While item five thirteen seems to level the spending ground for current office holders, it is imperative to encourage good, strong potential candidates to run and support their debate participation even if they lack significant funding.

While it doesn't initially result in flashy, expensive pamphlets, it can lead to word-of-mouth support, more practical and positive ideas and less money. Demonizing the other candidates is what we need. And then on item five twenty eight, the Costco item, I think it's a great revenue generator. It sounds like the city is not for it given the comments that were just made. But any word on the informational meeting we were gonna have? That's it.

If your name was called and you were in chambers, please approach the podium if you wish to address the council. To make it quicker, you were able, please line up if you're able and just come to the mic.

Council member Fife.

I just wanted to clarify through the chair to the public, if if I may, because we had our director of economic and workforce development speak. Is is our staff still here? Director I think thank you for for speaking earlier. If you could just clarify for the public there. I think there's a misunderstanding of the statement that you made. I wanted to clarify that director Kanet spoke in support of the Costco item and just re reiterated what was stated at the community and economic development department meeting that we had earlier. So if you could, without stating the entire frame, can you just summarize what you wanted to state for the public please?

Yes. The administration is in support of the item and I was just trying to clarify why the surplus lands act does not apply to this item.

Okay. Thank you. And before the public speakers, security please make sure that everyone has a seat in the chambers. If not, please direct people to the overflow room. Again, please make sure that everyone in the seat in the chambers has a seat. If not, direct them to the overflow room. Thank you. Please proceed.

Hello, City Council and fellow friends of Oakland. My name is Javier Gonzales and I'm a small business owner in Oakland. I'm a housing provider in District 5 and District 3 and also a member of the Rental Housing Association. I also volunteer assisting Spanish speaking housing providers in Oakland understand and navigate the housing laws. I want to speak today on the vacant parcel tax.

Regarding the agenda item on the vacant parcel tax, I want to say that I'm encouraged that there's a resolution requiring that the vacant parcel tax independent hearing officer provide statement of facts when rendering his written decision on formal appeals contesting the city fines. I'd like to ask the finance director, the city administrator, the city council to also require the SCI Corporation. The SCI Corporation is the company that writes the initial appeals or responses when Oaklanders receive this vacant parcel tax. I'd like to ask that they carry on this statement of fact.

Just a reminder to those on the black excuse me, on the back wall, if you cannot find a seat, you do need to go downstairs to the overflow. There are a couple seats to my left. If you can find seating, you cannot stand against the back wall. It is a fire hazard. Please find a seat or go to the chain I mean, to the overflow room. You will have ample time to come back up to address the council if you signed up to speak.

One second, mister Beakman.

If you are giving public comment comment, come up towards the middle just to line up to access the mic.

Please proceed, Beekman.

Thank you. Hi. Blair Beakman. I wanted to speak to items 5.7, 5.1, 5.24, and 5.33. For 5.7, that's economic models coming up for the Downtown Oakland area.

We've all suffered from the era of COVID. You're going to be trying new things for the downtown area. I'm really hopeful that by 2027 or so, we were really talking before the era of COVID about new economic models altogether. The current mayor of New York is talking about, you know, free transit service, a system of working where where everything isn't just tax and spend, and we get services, and then we're highly taxed for those services, we're really developing new we should come back to the ideas of new economic models as we're passing through this COVID era or leaving it. And for the downtown area, it's got a lot of tech involved.

There's gonna be tech involved with these projects. We have to be open and accountable with that process. We have to have it as a community process. You guys are not offering good examples of community work today for tech issues. I hope we can be learning lessons today.

Item 5.1 is complete streets and 5.24 is PROW construction. These to me are kind of connected in that there's a real importance in the ideas of, there'll be a lot of tech involved. And for the future of our mobility issues and overall complete street issues, to have just good policies in place for for advocacy, for, you know, pedestrian accessibility, for them to be working towards best practices with the tech involved also, and same with bicycle people. Good luck, we're working on those things in Oakland. It really is a holistic process in building our good future.

And and these are the open good things that we do together. We shouldn't be canceling each other out and fighting amongst ourselves. I hope we can be working together on this stuff. And finally for item 5.33, Bright Training Research. Really nice item.

It's been around, going around counseling committee for a while now. It's, it's like cognitive learning training in some ways to help with violence prevention issues. And this, this kind of item is so needed at this time when we're dealing with so much tech. When we have been building really good, you know, violent prevention practices, you know, around social services, around macro, and if we continue those good efforts, I mean, we can be really asking federal agencies for continual funding because we're doing these programs so well. And that's it's a fair ask.

And that's building, you know, a community not based on law enforcement. And I think, believe it or not, the Trump administration will actually respect it. They respected the work of of San Francisco and San Jose mayors on the same subject. Good luck what we can do as well. Thank you.

Good afternoon. My name is Kevin Hester. Born and raised in Oakland, California. I work for a company McGuire and Hester founded in McGuire founded in Oakland a hundred years ago next next or this coming year. Just wanna say that ten years ago, McGuire and Hester embarked on a mentor protege in the city of County Of San Francisco with Bruce Geron and Geron Construction.

At the time Bruce was had doing about 2 to $3,000,000 worth of work and had about 10 employees. Ten years later, Bruce has over 50 employees and I don't know his whole numbers, but I want to say it's somewhere probably the 40 to $50,000,000. McGuire and Hester would like the opportunity to replicate this with Cooper Engineering on a project in the in the city of Oakland where both of our companies are founded. We need the city of Oakland to invest in this opportunity for the mentor protege. Thank you.

Hello. My name is Isaiah Daniels.

He

was kind of tall. Hello. My name is Isaiah Daniels and I'm a superintendent for Cooper Construction and Engineering. I'm presently working here in West Oakland over on the WASS program, some of the neighborhoods in that area on the West Side. And so, I also in favor of McGuire and Hester getting this contract. We've been working alongside of them doing city sidewalks. They not only had an open door for us, but once we walked through that door, it's a small Oakland raised company. As we walked through that door, they were welcoming, assisted us in everything that we needed, And, we're looking forward to continuing this relationship that we have with them. I know we have a lot of don't have a lot of time, so I'm gonna cut mine short here. Thank you.

Good afternoon. My name is Eric Turner. I'm a local apprentice from Oakland, born and raised. I'm also in favor of McGuire and Hester getting the contract for the 27th Street Improvement. Cooper Construction gives us opportunity gives opportunity to people like myself to grow and to learn different trades within construction. This contract will help a local construction company grow and hire more residents like myself.

Hello, my name is Ira Dixon. I am born and raised here in Oakland, California. I'm an apprentice with the Local three hundred and I am for McGuire and Hester retaining the 27th Street contract. I just want to speak about the kindness that mister Cooper and his business offered to me when I was fresh out of school and trying to attain an apprenticeship. You know, I called around for too many different companies and none of them were willing to give me the chance to work with them.

And then, I met mister Cooper, he gave me that chance. I kindly appreciate it. Companies like Cooper Engineering are important because they give people who are overlooked the chance to succeed and further their career. Thank you.

Good afternoon, council members. My name is Stephanie Tran, I'm a resident of Oakland, also born and raised here. I want to express a little bit of my disappointment that the city is not supporting more local and minority owned business. Sorry, I mentioned item 5.11 Oakland has many skilled and qualified people from Oakland like everyone here with Cooper Construction and Engineering that is ready to do this work and yet they were overlooked. When city contracts bypass local workers and minority owned business, we miss an opportunity to invest our public dollars back into our communities and our people and to advance equity in a real and measurable way.

Supporting local contracting should not just be a talking point, it should be reflected in outcomes. So I urge the city to do better. Let's strengthen our accountability and outreach and contracting practices so Oakland based and minority owned businesses are prioritized and involved in the bidding process.

Hi, good afternoon. My name is Keith Butler with Curbside Trucking LLC, a district three l b e. Testing.

Through the chair, you have your hand covering the tip of the mic. So just pull the mic up and speak into the mic.

Hi, everyone. My name is Keith Butler with Curbside Trucking LLC, a district three l b e right here in Oakland. I support McGuire and Esther being awarded this contract based upon their commitment to work with Oakland l b e's. Sometimes it's not about the lowest bid and the lowest number, it's about what's good for the community. Excuse me.

So, in saying that, I support McGuire and Hester. They've been working with me on a couple of projects here in Oakland. Wouldn't it be good for the community to build up the community? So let's work together. Let's build Oakland together. Let's do something impactful. Thank you.

Hello. My name is Rifiloye and I'm yielding my time to Stanley Cooper for item five ten.

Through the chair before you go, there is no seating time during the consent calendar. So you can't give away your minute.

Take the microphone. There you go. Thank you so much. That I'm also in support of the city investing in the community. It's actually why I came out to speak on another item today. And so I'm very much in support of Stanley Cooper and his team being invested in by the city that they live in. Thank you.

Okay. Hello city council members. My name is Stanley Cooper, the owner of Cooper Construction and Engineering. And like you heard from everybody, we are we really want to invest in the community. I personally want to thank the city council and their staff.

I'm in favor of McGuire and Hester getting the contract for 27th Street. What we'll do is it would allow companies like myself and others, I have a mentor protege already set in place so I can learn a lot from a company that's been here for over a hundred years and I applaud them for that. According to the Alameda County grand jury, the SLBE and the LBE has not been utilized. It's been over ten years since a mentor protege has been used. This will help local companies like myself grow. I have a strong presence. I'm a member of NAMAC and a lot of others. And so I really hope that

Hi. My name is Bob Raheby. I'm with Redgevic Construction Company. I just want to clarify that the Mentor Protege program was not established by McGuire and Hester. And Cooper Engineering, they needed to meet 30% requirement participation.

By Cooper Engineering, they did not. They were at 15.5%, 1,500,000.0 short of what would be considered a Mentor Protege. Our price was $10,418,000 and McGuire and was $11,368,000 That's a million dollar difference that the city would be paying to go to McGuire and Hester. Rejvik is an Oakland firm located in Oakland since 2012. I urge the city to take the $1,000,000 and give it to all the advocates that are sitting behind me that are desperately looking for funding instead of giving it to another company that's actually a large company like McGuire and Hester.

Hello, I'm speaking about item five thirty. Good afternoon council members, my name is Miguel Lopez. I'm the executive director of Friends of Parolta Hacienda Historical Park. I'm here to I'm here in strong support of this resolution. At Paralta Hacienda, our work is about creating real opportunities for young people who are often overlooked.

Through paid internships, environmental stewardship, history, and cultural education, and leadership development, we help youth build job skills, confidence, and a sense of direction. Many of our teens enter our programs unsure of themselves, and over time, they become mentors, educators, and community leaders. These opportunities extend beyond youth alone. Our park connects families to food through a weekly distribution serving over 150 households, and it brings the the community together through cultural celebrations and communities and volunteer stewardship that keep our six acre public space safe and cared for. This funding sustains pathways for young people to learn, earn, and lead while preserving a historic and cultural site that belongs to all Oaklanders. Thank you for continuing to invest in this opportunity of equity and the future for our youth.

Good afternoon, council members. I'm speaking for item five thirty. My name is Angel. My name is Anel, and I'm and this is my first time being involved with Peraza Hacienda. I started in the water keepers program this past September.

Before joining, I haven't really done much work like this, but I've really enjoyed learning about guarding and taking care of the park. Being part of this program has helped helped me see things differently, spending time outside working with my hands, and learning how the park is cared for has made me think more about my community and my future. It also helped me realize that I want to keep being involved and continue learning new things. The staff has been really supportive to me and others from the beginning. They care about me and take the time to guide me and help me figure out my next steps.

Through this program, I'm starting to build work, skills, and confidence, and and I feel encouraged encouraged to keep going. I'm grateful for the opportunity up opportunity to be part of Parata Hacienda, and I hope you continue supporting

Please let him continue. Excuse me. Sir. Did you have anything else to say?

Slow down.

My bad. I'm grateful for the opportunity to be part of Peralta Hacienda, and I hope you continue supporting programs that help young people like me grow and find direction to stay in the right path. Thank you.

Thank you for coming to City Council. Please don't make it to your last time.

Hi. My name is Jesse Rosemarin. Thank you. I've pulled out multiple cards. I figured Kevin Jenkins made us all take a day off work so we could try to beg you all to protect our communities from ICE and the Trump Administration. So you have a lot of really crazy stuff on this consent calendar so I'd like to speak to some of those. First of all, the Oakland Fire Code item 5.36. I actually work with transportation. I talked to a very strong transportation advocate about how troubled they are by a minimum length or width of these streets of 26 feet. This is problematic because this will keep people from being able to design streets that save lives of bicyclists and pedestrians.

And what I would like to know is where is the Bicycle and Pedestrian Advisory Committee's input on this item? Why is it nowhere in the agenda packet? Did they get enough time to review this item? Because I am noticing a pattern, one in which the privacy advisory committee is fully ignored and their input on something that will endanger our community to to the Trump administration and to ICE and all of these things that all of you are looking down and don't seem to care about, where's their input on where's the advisory commission's input on that item? Where's the advisory commission's input on this item?

And how do you expect anybody to join any of these advisory commissions when you continue to ignore them over and over and and over over and over again? How do you expect anyone to join any advisory commission when you ignore them when it's something as strong and as important as this? Our descent into fascism, our our our communities being vulnerable to ICE, and all of these things. And I'd also like to speak on this campaign finance reform thing that you guy you guys put up in the middle of this consent calendar too. We have open ethics violations and multiple Brown Act violations by multiple city council members, and I know you're not paying attention, but whatever.

He's not even in his seat. Well, guess what? You've had you've had a lot of people talk about your your blatant foregoing competitive bidding processes, and we know that that that someone's hand is in the middle of that. We're seeing you go overgo these competitive bidding processes when it comes to a corrupt out of state vendor that is gonna endanger our communities and is leaking their data to ICE. And you are all complicit in this, in giving everything to the Trump administration and making our communities vulnerable to violent abductions. You know what I'm talking about. I talk to you directly. You're not even looking at me. You know exactly what I'm talking about. You made me take the day off work for this.

To defend our communities, you need to take responsibility and do that. You need to defend our communities. It shouldn't be my responsibility, it's yours. So where is this? This is shameful. Lies, lies, lies, over and over and over and over and over and over again.

Thank you for your comments.

Juan Cannon, I should have three minutes.

I'm sorry, can you say your name one One more more, two minutes.

Say your

name one more time.

Juan Canem. I'm Juan Canem, I'm a D4 resident. I'm here because, well, I'm here because you made me take a day off work, you're wasting everyone's time and nobody wants flock here but there are two items on the consent agenda you're trying to put through. One, as the previous speaker mentioned, is unnecessarily wide roads make the streets less safe. Fire department spends more time responding to vehicle crashes than it does to fires and while I appreciate the need for like large trucks and their ability to get places, it is also important that we narrow the streets which means less car crashes, which means more police time to do proactive, not, more fire department time to do proactive enforcement.

Like, here we live in the shadow of the Ghost Town fire or the Ghost Ship fire and previously I lived in London, lived in the shadow of the Grenfell Tower and both those, like literally and figuratively, both those incidents could have been completely avoided if there was more proactive inspection especially when there are shitty landlords who don't keep their premises up to code and the first you know about it is when the building is literally on fire. So, we fire free by the time by having less traffic accidents, that would make everyone a lot safer. Also, the ridiculous campaign finance reform, basically trying to build up personal allegiances rather than do things through the city. If something's important enough to be done, it should be done openly and transparently. I know Janani that is bringing this ironically ran on making City Hall more transparent yet these personal fiefdom pockets of wallets of money to hand out is very like late stage Rome Republic shit.

It's trying to build up your personal brand over the future well-being of the city. Yeah, I think that's what I got to say. Thank you.

Hi, my name is Ian.

Order in the chamber.

Hi. My name is Ian. I'm here to speak in opposition of the FLAC contract. It's

Please very

pause this time. We're not on the FLAC item.

Oh, I was told this was the FLAC item.

This is not the FLAC item. Thank you.

Good afternoon, Ralph Cans. I get three minutes. Good afternoon, Ralph Cans. Vacant property tax, I spoke to previously. As your earlier speaker noted, there are problems with the vacant property tax and these changes are not gonna solve the problems you have with the vacant property tax.

In fact, this is a subsidy for house flippers in this oak in Oakland by automatically eliminating the tax when a house is sold. The LLC comes in buys it, and they go in and they start flipping it without permits. As an example, right now twenty nine zero one Seminary has gotten written up, they've got stop work orders, they keep working. They claim they're doing 8,000 worth of work. Right now you go in that house there's not it's nothing but bare studs.

They've already spent over 8,000 and they keep working even with a stop work order. There's a whole lot of problems around the vacant property tax and what's going on with house flippers. Now regarding the office holder accounts, some previous speakers have mentioned this problem. There's something missing out of the report from the Public Ethics Commission, and that is in 1998, the Alameda County grand jury said, office holder account should be eliminated because they create an unfair advantage for incumbents. Period.

This does nothing, nothing to clean up the mess. It just continues the mess. And it's a mess that is become every meeting of this council now because of the way you're doing it like this meeting today is sleazy. It's a corrupt process. And it's gonna lead to a corrupt result because you had to go and schedule a special meeting so you could shorten the noticing requirements for the meeting.

Let me tell you, twenty five years ago there was no consent calendar at the City Council. If there had been a meeting today it would start at 06:00. Every item that was on the agenda at 06:00 would have been previously fully heard in a committee, and it would be fully heard by the city council that night. Plus, they were meeting every Tuesday night, not once or twice a month as in last month when you only met once. When are you gonna work for the people of Oakland and not for yourselves?

Mister Hazard and Derek Barnes, do you wish to

You can go to cleanoakland.com, and you'll see a lot of vital information. First of all, why do you keep having cannabis as an emergency item? The federal government is now reducing cannabis to a schedule three, not a schedule one, but yet you don't do anything with fentanyl. Forty nine thousand deaths occurred in '24 on fentanyl, and you don't do anything about it. But to keep cannabis on this agenda, you need to and you approved fentanyl to be in crisis in June 2024.

Shame on you. Also, you have and the Public Ethics Commission did not support what you have on the agenda consent calendar, increasing the office holder account. Mister Kent just told you, it's a sham. You get paid by the council, by the administration when you go on these junkets, But the public never hears the results of those of those meetings, but you get paid. So why do you need office holder account?

You're gonna take advantage of candidates when you could dole out to individuals whatever you wanna dole out to. Also, you got so why do you have waiving the small business LBE? You got six items that you waive that. Why even have it if you're gonna waive it? I thought the intent of that was for local businesses, but you waive it every time.

Look at it. And then you put it on the consent calendar. If you're gonna waive it, then put it on the non consent calendar. Sometimes these things don't even go through committees. You use 24 or 28 to bypass committees.

Shame on you. Later, I'm gonna speak to what I gave you on item eight regarding rules, procedure that I was unceremoniously extricated by the president at the council meeting because I wanted the the parliamentarian to give the rules. You got the rules right here. Pull the item. Pull item number eight because I'm gonna come back and read, and I'm gonna give you the case law so you don't have any excuse.

Pull the item. Don't do it because I'll be prepared to take the next legal step, and the courts will

You're a tough act to follow. Derek Barnes with East Bay Rental Housing Association. On item I think I have a couple of items. Thank you. On item 5.4, I've said many times that we can't build our way out of this housing crisis. Not that we should stop building either, but having a good balance of renter protections and owner and property preservation and sustainable production is critical. We have legacy owners who already provide units well below market rate. I have members that are providing units at five hundred and seven hundred dollars a month, and those are the shitty landlords that someone made a comment earlier about. How? Because they can make the economics work, revenue minus all expenses.

Any positive gains ideally go into to the reserve fund that it's necessary to for unexpected costs that rise when you're managing, maintaining older homes. We already have models that build subsidized housing and provide incentives for developers, the part of the production equation that work works well if there's a political environment to support it. And as we all know, you know, you what you want less of, you tax. What you want more of, you provide incentives. And about 80% of our homes in Oakland are over 70 years old, and it costs a lot to keep them maintained and habitable.

So just keep that in the mind in the back of your mind when you're presenting legislation. Both private and public nonprofit housing owners are facing very similar situations. So on item 5.29, many of us share the Sierra Club's desire for cleaner air and healthier communities, but I'm deeply concerned that a structure without needed resources and time allowances for small businesses could unintentionally undermine the region's already fragile housing ecosystem. So especially for small owner owner operators with buildings that still provide the bulk of our naturally affordable housing in the city. Thank you.

Thank you for your comments. Again, if you were in chambers and your name was Connie, wish to address the council, please oppose the podium. We are now moving to our Zoom speaker starting with Sanford Forte. Sanford, please unmute yourself and begin your comments. Brian Culbertson, you will be after him.

Yes. Good afternoon. My name is Sanford Forte. This is about public health. Costco is about public health, toxic environmental impacts, environmental injustice, and West Oakland experiencing some of the highest rates of respiratory illness in California.

Support for Costco at the army base instead of Cass leaving West Oakland by default supports the continuance of this catoxic inheritance. This time letting Cass continue polluting the developing bodies of West Oakland's children and an increase in pollution in West Oakland due to 100 of thousands of additional auto trips monthly over and through West Oakland neighborhoods. Projections are for an $830,000 tax sales tax take from Costco, which is a mere four hundredths percent of our next budget. Thus, we're selling out the health of West Oakland's children and others in District 3 for far less than 1% of our annual budget. What's a child's life worth in Oakland?

Thank you for your comments, Brian. You are next. Kevin Dally, you are after Brian.

Hi. My name is Brian Culberson. I'm a pedestrian safety advocate with traffic violence rapid response. I'm speaking on 536 about the fire code. Oakdot and OFD have built a good working relationship over the past three years in the absence of appendix d.

Adopting appendix d, which requires wide roads, threatens to upend this positive relationship. Traffic safety advocates will be watching very closely to make sure that with the adoption of appendix d and the requirement for wide streets, that the agencies of Oakdot and OFD will continue to work cooperatively deliver on the shared goal of safe streets. Some of projects that have been really useful for this compromise is the International Boulevard Safety Project. When we added those plastic posts, we went from seven pedestrian deaths in one year to zero. So we need this working relationship.

Kevin, go ahead and begin your comments.

This is yeah. Kevin Dally, Transport Oakland, fire code 5.36. I have three areas of the fire code where the legislation needs clarification or fixed errors. Legislation says chapter five section five zero three will be adopted. Is this California five zero three or ICC five zero three?

If ICC five zero three is adopted, how do we resolve the conflict between California title 24, three point o five, and five zero three point two point one. Both sections require a 20 foot wide street. California allows you to include shoulders. Lastly, there is a major copyright violation in the legislation. The full text of appendix d is included. ICC owns that copyright. They will not be happy. They do sue. It should be removed and only reference. Reference only should be

Thank you for your comments, George Spees. You run next after George's Colleen Corrigan.

Hello. I'm George Spees. I'm a pedestrian safety advocate also with traffic violence rapid response. Measure U bonds have now secured us a fixed pile of money to improve our streets. Selection of contractors based on transparent and defined process is especially important on these large projects that run into many millions.

If we want different results, we should amend the process and the requirements. Until then, counsel should not interrupt the staff process and only exercise oversight. We really need to avoid politicizing this process. Allowing lobbying only encourages corruption, especially after staff has already completed their selection based on the defined process that council has set up. So let's stick with allowing staff to use defined processes and not change things after the fact. Thank you.

Colleen, you are next.

Hi there. My name is Colleen Nolan. I'm not sure if I'm the correct speaker. I would like to speak, but I would not like to take the time of the other Colleen in question.

Okay. I'm sorry. I thought you were that same Colleen, so I don't have a card for another Colleen Colleen, so you will not be able to speak at this time. Oakland Chamber of Commerce. Please state your name.

Hi. Yes. It's Josephine Guzman.

Go ahead, miss Guzman. You have two minutes.

Great. Thank you. Hey, everyone. My name is Jospee Guzman, public policy manager for the Oakland Chamber. I'm here just in support of both items 5.12, the Oakland business relief program, and item 5.7, establishing the economic activation zones.

Together, these items represent a coordinated approach to economic recovery and growth. The business relief program lowers the barriers for small and new businesses to open and to invest and stay in Oakland. At the same time, the economic activation zones create the foot foot traffic, vibrancy, and the customer base those businesses need to succeed. And these policies just send a clear message that Oakland is working with its business community, embracing the creativity, and taking the meaningful steps to be open for business while centering local and small businesses. The chamber looks forward to continue partnership with the council and the mayor's office to strengthen Oakland's economy and support these vibrant and inclusive neighborhoods. Thank you.

Thank you for your comments, miss Asada. You are next. Please begin your comment.

Thank you, madam clerk. I'm starting with item 5.6, modifying or changing speed limits without enforcement components does not make sense. 5.7, economic activation zones need to have a component that activates ending the 9% unemployment of African Americans in the city of Oakland. 5.8, amendments would exclude support for African American vendors at Lake Merritt. On 5.1, you have, seven safety improvement projects for Lake Merritt.

And while some areas of the city, there are no safety improvement projects. Five point five point twelve. You need to stop putting any more taxes on the ballot for property owners. They are the the property owners are outraged with the amount of property taxes they have to pay. 5.16, you should not pursue hiring a democracy dollars manager for the cost of over a $140,000 annually when we need an Oakland Works in workforce manager, and we need someone to manage the homeless situation.

5.25, who does the enforcement related to ebikes regulation? You have no one. 5.26, you need contracts with the city of Piedmont related to the use of our libraries. You've gone over almost fifteen years without contracts in place. The city of Piedmont pays you whatever they want to use our libraries with no contract.

Five point two seven. Former oak the Oakland army base is insulting that we are fighting right now to try to get the soil toxic hazard contamination issue at McClyman's to be remediated, and now you coming up with the army base can be used for commercial purposes without remediating the hazard and contaminated soil. That's outrageous. 5.3. Friends of pro Peralta Hacienda constantly comes to the city council, and you constantly fund them while other commercial and nonprofits don't get the same kind of support.

5.34, ceasefire. You're doing ceasefire will not help the mafia Mexican mafia gangs, the prison gangs, the Asian gangs that you have here in Oakland? The fire station issue, in on Skyline Highline, no plan to evacuate those students.

Thank you, miss Olabala. Moving to David, can you please confirm your last name so I can give you the appropriate amount of time? David, can you please unmute yourself and say your last name?

Hello? Can you hear me?

Yes. Can you confirm your last name, please?

I said Peters. Can you hear me?

Yes. Go ahead and begin your comments.

Thank you very much. I just wanna give a shout out to all the prior speakers. Oakland speakers are are passionate and informed, And I was reminded that I'm excited about the economic activation zones that are coming online. I wanna thank council member Brown for shepherding that through the process. And then no.

Because of my love for people that are from Oakland, for real real, for really from Oakland, man, Jean has a what is a weed emergency anyway, bro? What are we doing? We got real stuff that we need to talk about, like this amendment or or this ENA, principle ENA for Costco. And so I'm looking at the report, and I wanna point out something in the report for everybody that I'm I'm surprised that there was no pushback from council on. So it says under sustainable opportunities, environmental, no direct environmental impact.

And so hundreds of jobs to increase the tax city's tax revenue significantly at North Greatway, and you really you think that's really credible that there's no environmental impact from hundreds, hun thousands of car trips a week and trucks? This report is deficient. And I'm grievously disappointed that in the wake of Obot building a coal terminal here that we have not can to learn enough to care about the West Oakland community when some corporation comes dancing in front with a couple of dollars. We're ready to get sold out. We get we endure the fires at Schnitzer.

We've got a coal terminal coming. We've got an aggregate pile coming. And now you're gonna propose instead of allowing cast who which has been we have wanted to move there for decades. People in this community have been fighting for decades to get that gross polluter from out of their backyard onto that site, because that property is now just given away to a trillionaire corporation. Now I'm all for jobs. I'm all for tax revenue. I'm all for all of these things for Oakland. But why is it that West Oakland always gets the doo doo and city hall gets the revenues? So I get why people are excited to have Costco in Oakland. I'm excited to have Costco in Oakland too.

But my mama said, it ain't always what you do. Sometimes it's how you do it. And this process has not been doing well by the people in West Oakland that have been in this environmental justice fight for us and our neighbors and our mamas and our daddies and our kids for decades. So where is that report from 2022 that the city council got that talked about the exception to the surplus lands act? Where's the information that the developer was distributing in council chambers last week? There'll be a meeting held in a couple days that any of us who are out of town won't be able to attend. We haven't seen the presentation. We don't have the information. Slow down. Engage with the community. No more coal in Oakland. No more gross polluters without community engagement.

Thank you for your comments. Jennifer Finley, you are next. I have you with multiple cards for the maximum amount of time. Please unmute yourself and begin your comments.

Jennifer Finsley, District 2. Council member Wong, I'm, watching your votes as well. I'm very disappointed thus far. Really disappointed with the council's it's despicable. It's absolutely despicable.

There are 36 items on this consent calendar. 36 items. People get matched three minutes to speak on all of this. The it's one more way that you are trying to bypass public input and public awareness of what council is up to so that you can pass through whatever you like with whatever rules you're making up at the time. You've got local emergency on homelessness, but we are pushing the encampment abatement plan.

We're trying to get rid of encampments. It doesn't even mention the people. Business tax relief. Why why are we doing this? Campaign reform, why are we putting more money into elections and politics? Do we need more mailers? Do we need more corruption? What are we doing here? I support the Costco ENA. There's a CUPS grant on here for helicopter a million dollars of helicopter maintenance nearly.

What happened to the fixed wing aircrafts and the plan to retire the helicopters because they were too expensive to maintain? The the fire code, I just wanna echo what the advocates said earlier regarding the width of the streets and the safety. I we need more traffic calming and road diets. We don't need to be widening streets right now. That's just bringing up risk.

And because of the timing of this meeting and because I don't know that I'm going to be able to be here later, I will also ask through the chair, why isn't the privacy commission report about the flat cameras in the agenda packet? We've got 14 attachments on an item that was brought in with almost zero notice because of how you're spitting the rules after it was voted down multiple times after hundreds of people have spoken. Why isn't the privacy report privacy commission report that where they voted down voted down this recommendation with a number of concerns and a far more detailed discussion than anybody has had a council? What are you doing here? This isn't okay.

Council member five, you have been holding it down for us. You have a fight. We are with you. Please stand firm today. I'll leave it there.

Thank you for your comments, miss Finley. Moving to our next speaker. Just gonna confirm. Ralph Brown, did you submit a card? If so, under what name?

Yes. I did under Ralph Brown given that this

Do not have a card for you. I apologize. Moving to our next speaker who signed up, Jack Fleck. Please unmute yourself and begin your comments.

Yes. This is Jack Fleck. I'm with 350 East Bay, and I just wanna thank the council for moving item five twenty nine up to a resolution today. And and I'd just like to encourage all of the council members to read the excellent staff report by Shana Hirschfield Gold that explains why this is consistent with the Equitable Climate Action Plan and why it's important for Oakland to pass this. And, also, I want to just mention that in regard to the concerns about equity that have been expressed by at least one speaker, there is a phrase appropriate amendments that would allow appropriate flexibility to ensure equity and business development.

So urge you to vote for item five twenty nine. Thanks a lot.

Thank you for your comments. Mike Marcus Johnson, you are next. Please unmute yourself and begin your comments.

Thank you. My name is Marcus Johnson. I have provided, and sent an email to council members and staff with recommendations about 5.28, And I'm hoping that the council members and staff will take the time and read the email with the letter that identifies some concerns that I think are worthwhile for, considering this ENA. Thank you. That's it.

Thank you for your comments, mister Johnson. Colleen Corrigan, you are next. I have you with one card. Please unmute yourself and begin your comments.

Thank you, everyone. Good afternoon. My name is Colleen Corrigan, and I'm here to comment on item five twenty nine. I work for the Civic Policy Research and Advocacy Organization, SPIR, and I'm also an Oakland resident and public health professional. I wanna thank the city council for championing this issue and prioritizing the health, safety, and sustainability of Oakland for future generations by supporting the Bay Area Air District rules nine four nine six.

The transition to Xerox appliances is projected to avert fifteen thousand asthma attacks and up to eighty five premature deaths annually in California with a total annual health benefits of up to nearly $900,000,000. You'll hear people in industry opposition like those today say it can't be done or that it's too complicated or difficult, but the evidence in the marketplace and workforce is pointing in the absolute opposite direction. And the flexibility amendments discussed last week at the Air District Stationery Source Committee meeting will provide much needed exemptions for space and electrical constraints as well as low income residents. These equity mechanisms will reinforce broader adoption of fair access. Thank you again for your leadership in spearheading this important work.

So, Colleen Nolan, did you have a card under a different name?

No. I did not.

Thank you for your honesty. Nita, did you submit a speaker card or if so under what name?

I did not but I would like you to explain how I can please.

Please email cityclerk@oaklandca.gov and we can assist you with speaker speaker card instructions.

At

this time all names have been called.

Thank you. Thank you for everybody that came out to speak. I am happy to say this is one of the first times every single item has gone through committee with the exception of 5.1 which is the meetings, meeting minutes, 5.2 which is a standard declaration of AIDS academic, 5.3 declaration of cannabis health emergency, and 5.4 the local emergency on homelessness. So, item on the agenda went to committee. So everyone had an opportunity to comment on every item that was on consent.

So appreciate that and noting the amendments with 5.28 if there are no comments to the from the council members, I'll entertain a motion. No. No. No amendments. I'll entertain a motion.

So moved.

Council member five. I

wanted to ask you to clarify what you said about 5.28 for the Costco item.

So I thought there were amendments from the staff but those were not amendments.

That's why I wanted the staff to clear clarify. That was not an amendment. It was a just a reiteration of why there was not we didn't need surplus lands act exemption for residential construction. I I did have some some comments to make. I I was hoping that the Department of Transportation staff could answer a few questions about one of the items on consent.

I'm trying to find the exact number for the I think it's item 5.1 regarding the 27th Street construction if we could have Department of Transportation staff answer a few questions.

Is there someone here from DOT that can respond to the council members questions? Gayle that was president Pro Tem Gayle that was the second, is that correct? Thank you. Director Rowan.

Thank you for being here. This this question is specifically about the fiduciary responsibility of the city and what I'm sure many in the public have seen with an accident that occurred near Hayward, California with the company that we are giving a contract awarding a contract through this consent calendar and I just wanted to get your feelings around if the the company Redswick has all of the appropriate insurances and and different things as they were the company that was working in Hayward when the explosion took place and for I'm not exactly sure of what happened. I was just asking for you to give us your confidence in choosing that provider and to let the city council know if there's anything that we should be concerned about with the process that you went through for selecting the the vendor.

Through the chair to the council member, I I actually don't I'm I'm presuming you're talking about the gas line explosion in Hayward. We we don't have any details on what's happened there. I think that's an active investigation. As far as the contract goes with City of Oakland, that's that is all vetted during the contract execution process that they provide the necessary bonds, they provide the necessary insurance that to meet the the city's requirements.

So is there any urgency to award this contract immediately? Would it have any impact if we were to wait for that investigation to conclude to ensure that we are making the right choice company that we choose?

I I would leave that to the the discretion of the city council. I I have I have no knowledge of what happened in Hayward and I I I don't think it's wise to ascribe fault at this point during an active investigation.

Sir, no no no. I didn't do that. I'm asking is there an urgency? The question this very specific question that I asked was is there an urgency in this moment to award a contract and wait for the conclusion of this investigation?

Urgency.

There's no urgency?

Correct.

Okay. So what what impact would it have on projects in the Department of Transportation if we were to wait until the conclusion of this investigation to find out what happened there?

You would just see it through the chair, you would just see a delay on this specific project.

And what is the totality and I'm I'm asking chair, I apologize. So that we are doing our due diligence and ensuring that I I I just see a potential headline after this. If if there is anything that comes out that could implicate the city of Oakland in this decision. The the scope of the project would not have any negative impact if we were to potentially wait to go into contract with this particular vendor?

Through the chair. The the only the only negative impact would be delay, but it's not like this is part of a series of projects. This is a a complete street safety project. So the the existing conditions as it stands today would just continue.

Okay. Thank you.

Council member, are you inclined to not vote on this right now? I do believe this is in your district and I believe as the council member of the district you should have priority in saying what we should do. Is that the will?

Well, and see that's the concern because I also don't want to cause any particular strain on residents that are expecting a certain timeline, but I that was a major incident and I want to understand what happened and who was at fault. That is we will never know. And I'm not saying that the vendor had any responsibility at all, but I'm saying I want to know before I make a decision to give $10,000,000 to an organization when there's there's this investigation that's ongoing. So I would ask that we pull that item for now. This this is in my district.

I need this this incident just occurred. I didn't expect it. So I need a little more time to kind of think about the direction. So if we could pull the item from the consent calendar at the very least and have a little bit more conversation with the body about how this moves forward, I wanna find out if that's possible through the parliamentarian.

The opportunity to move things from consent to non consent is under modifications of your agenda. So the time for that has passed which of course if it's the will of the body you could pull this item or defer it to another meeting at a later date.

I think I would like to do that. Council president Jenkins.

Absolutely. To the motion and the seconder, are you guys okay with that? Okay. Alright. So noting 5.1 will be removed and put to the next city council meeting. Is that January 8? Sixth. Sixth. Oh, that's early. Alright. Council member Houston.

Yeah. Mine is just a little bit different than I heard the the audience, and I don't agree with mister Hazard much, but about waiving why are we waiving and continually waiving the SLBE and the LBE. Mine is a little bit different. 2001, we came up with the SLBE and the LBE twenty four years later and you saw these young men coming up here with opportunities getting these opportunities from Oakland. And that's what we need to do.

We need to be embracing these SLBEs and LBEEs that's gonna give our youth, you saw them, they got up there and spoke. The opportunity to build a skill set so we don't continue continue to wave this over and over and that's my pet peeve.

Thank you. Any more comments from the council members? Seeing none we have a motion and a second as amended.

Just noting that the motion now moved by council member Ramachandra and seconded by pro tem Gayo to approve the consent calendar and continuing item 5.1 to the next meeting which will be January 6. Council member Brown? Aye. Council member Fife? Aye. Council member Gallo? Wait a minute. Council member Gayle?

Aye. Council

member Houston, you're in the queue. Did you need to speak again?

Was that no. I'll say aye.

I'm sorry. Aye. Council member Ramachandran? Aye. Council member Unger?

Aye.

Council member Wong? Aye. And chair Jenkins?

Aye.

Motion passes as amended with a vote of eight ayes. Going to we are moving out of order. Going to item nine. Adopt a resolution approving the Oakland Police Department surveillance use policy, section d g o, sections one through 32.1, community safety camera system and the acquisition of security cameras and related technology awarding a two year agreement to flock safety for acquisition of automated license plate reader and pan tilt zoom cameras, operating system technology and rate related services at a cost not to exceed $2,252,500 in waiving the competitive multi multiple step solicitation process required for the acquisition of information technology systems and waiving the local and small local business enterprise program requirements. You have a 142 speakers on this item.

Please proceed. Whose you or Josh? Who's taller, you or director Rowan?

Got to check. Not sure. Good afternoon everyone. I am Lieutenant Gabriel Arquiza from the Oakland Police Department's Real Time Operations Center. I'm the commander of that unit, as well as working within the ceasefire section. I'm here to present the community safety camera system policy, as well

as

the flock contract related to ALPR and the flock operating system. So just a little background on this. The AOPR system was originally approved back in 2023, but wasn't enacted until July 2024. At that time, was a rather unique circumstance where CHP actually paid for the initial year subscription for the service as well as the installation of the original 290 ALPR systems within the city of Oakland. CHP also installed their own set of cameras on freeway, on ramps and off ramps.

Since then this system is operated, the data still belongs to the city of Oakland, but that initial year of service was provided by CHP. Just speaking about the actual ALPR system that exists now, the cameras are designed to take photos of the rear of the vehicle and capture that license plate of the vehicle. The data that's captured by flock al p r is owned by the customer, in this case the city of Oakland. The data is retained through the flock safety system for a or for thirty days. If the data is determined to be related to an investigation, it's downloaded and then retained as evidence through a separate system consistent with other electronic data evidence.

The data is only downloaded or saved if it's determined to be evidence of an investigation. California law enforcement agencies wishing to access OPD's data must complete a sharing request. The requesting agency is then required to affirmatively confirm they will follow state law related to the use and sharing of AOPR data in relation to senate bill 34 and an s b 54 that is the California Values Act. Federal and out of state agencies are prohibited from accessing OPD's data through FLAC. Originally, the department itself was managing to make sure that did not occur.

The system now is in place where federal agencies or out of state agencies cannot even request to access OPD's data or any department within the state of California. I don't think my clicker's working. What ALPR does not do. So flock ALPR is not designed to capture photos of people. It does not utilize facial recognition technology on any of its platforms.

The data is not searchable by demographic data. And then flock ALPR does not include any personal identifying information. And then as well Flock ALPR does not contain or capture DMV data or Oakland Police's own record management system data. So it's not accessing, it doesn't have access to any of our reports information that would be connected to a particular vehicle.

He's

lying. Order in the chamber. That is your first warning. Next warning you will be asked to you will be removed.

As I said, the system was put into place in July 2024. There was an annual report that was conducted related to the use of the technology between July 2024 and December 2024. And doctor Beckman from OCA police is here to discuss that annual report and the information that was contained.

I'm Doctor. Carlo Beckman, project manager at the Oakland Police Department. So the annual report that we did covered the time period of July 2024 through December 2024. During that time, there were a 88964975 license plate reads. The top five alerts that we had were stolen plates which came in at just over a 187,000, non owned custom hot list alerts which created alerts created by other agencies using flock and shared with OPD.

That was 28,600. Stolen vehicle alerts were 23,000 a 179. And hits from OPD custom hot lists were fifty seven ninety nine with 2,300 over 2,300 felony vehicles. At the time of the report, OPD had shared access with 50 agencies. Based on crime data and identifying main egress and ingress locations throughout the city, the 290 cameras were originally deployed within their six respective areas as follows. Area one had 44 cameras. Area two had 57. Area three had 23. Area four had 55. Area five had 51.

And area six had 60. OPD conducted an internal audit, a statistically relevant audit of three ninety eight internal historical searches. 99% of those included a report number or incident number and 97% included the penal or vehicle code as required by our policy. At that time we had about two forty six users who had been trained and a random statistically valid sample of those 25 users found that all had completed the required training. At the time of this report, OPD logged a total of two forty enforcement actions based on part of FLOC.

Based on these actions OPD was able to generate a 112 leads, 55 were cleared by arrests, 34 were cleared by other means such as vehicle recovery, 31 were at the time in progress investigations and eight warrants were issued. The summarization of all of these outcomes showed that we made 98 arrests, recovered 32 guns, sorry, recovered 32 vehicles and 29 guns.

And one important thing to note is that we didn't fully release this to the entire department until around January 2025. The initial rollout was intentionally slowly done throughout the department starting first with admins moving to criminal investigation divisions to our specialized units cease fire and our special resource sections. And then once we felt we had a good grasp on the auditing and controlling the system, we released it to initially supervisors and patrol, the commanders of or watch commanders, and then eventually to patrol officers. And that began in January 2025. Just an update.

So since since that time or during the entire period, there's been 232 arrests that were linked with the AOPR alerts. 68 firearms were recovered in that time period. There were 17 arrests that were specific specifically related to homicides, a 108 arrests specifically related to robberies, and then 573 successful outcomes that were logged through the system, which included 400 for twenty twenty five year to date. One of the main intent of putting the system in was to address specific robbery series and carjackings. So we did an analysis related to robbery series as we put the system in place and then for this year.

So if you looked in 2024, Oakland experienced 14 different robbery series incidents and these are series robberies that include four or more robberies. Of those robbery incidents that included a 172 separate robberies. Of those series, ALPR was utilized in 10 of those 14 series. Series. In eight of those 10 cases, ALPR directly contributed to the recovery of suspect vehicles as well as the arrest of suspects from those cases.

Looking at twenty twenty five's data, the number of robbery series dropped from 14 to six. The series of six included 46 individual robberies. An ALPR played a critical role in all of the investigations related to those series and five of those investigations led to the identification and arrest of those involved. The other practical use of this system is by agencies that partner with us within the city Of Oakland. The two main agencies that we speak about the most is the Alameda County Sheriff's Office and the California Highway Patrol.

There is a specific unit that's addressing stolen vehicles within the city Of Oakland and also the rest of the Bay Area. That's a task force that includes Alameda County Sheriff's OPD and CHP. With utilizing ALPR data, they made a 110 separate arrests related to stolen vehicles. They've recovered approximately 1,100 vehicles and estimated that a quarter of those vehicles that were recovered unoccupied were as a result of falling up on an ALPR alert. One thing that's important to notice through or from 2024 we had a 42% decrease in stolen vehicles overall within the city of Oakland.

And if you look at compared to 2023, that's a drop from, that's a 58% drop where we had 11,986 stolen vehicles in 2023 compared to 2025 where we saw 5,025. So moving on to the community safety camera system. So just background on this originally, I wasn't involved in the beginning of the Flock LPR acquisition. I was brought in later when we were talking about implementing the system. But then part of that was talking about integrating community cameras from the downtown business bids.

And that was work that had been in progress for probably the last five or six years at least. Talking about how we can integrate those systems, how they can best be used, and then the privacy concerns surrounding them. So the community safety SAMR system is separate from FLOCK ALPR. They both run under the flock operating system. I try to compare it to something like a phone. The phone is the platform and the operating system that runs it is what allows you to use separate apps on that device. So there's three elements. There's private owned camera or managed devices. There's department owned managed devices. And then the integration platform itself that allows those devices to be shared within one system.

Related to the community or privately owned devices, it requires an affirmative opt in to share access to historical and real time data. And what's very important to note is that the owner or manager of that device continues to retain ownership over that data. So that data is not being saved through the flock operating system, that's being saved by the owner of that device and is basically providing a window for OPD to access that related to specific investigations. That data is only saved and downloaded if it's determined to be evidence related to a specific investigation. And then like I said with ALPR data, if it's downloaded from this system, it's placed into a separate cloud storage platform consistent with other electronic data.

Participants do not have access to the OPD system or any of the other participants data. Only OPD has direct access to the data captured by its devices. These would be 40 additional pan tilt zoom cameras that would be placed within the city to basically support or supplement existing camera systems in areas that don't have significant camera infrastructure. The data is only retained for thirty days unless determined to be evidence. Never retained on a separate storage system.

And then unlike FLOC ALPR, the data is not searchable by any other agency. So any camera that belongs to the department itself is only accessed by the department and any cameras that are sharing into the system would only be accessed by the department.

That's a warning. The next one you will be removed.

The flock operating system itself, so it's a technology platform allowing for the integration of the community safety camera systems. That's both the department managed systems and the part or camera systems that are owned by the community. There's a potential of integrating additional systems in the flock operating system for a more comprehensive and cohesive approach to addressing crime within the city. CS camera system data is not searchable or accessible by any other agency. And then within the agency itself that access is tiered where tier one personnel would be able to access live and historical data.

With tier two access allowed for only historical data consistent with how we do physical canvases for video currently. As part of this we did extensive data analysis related to crime. The real time operations center began kind of as a concept at the 2023 where we saw a large increase in specific crimes, specifically carjackings and robberies. We continue to dealing continue to be dealing with a high rate of homicide. We had 125 homicides in 2023.

So part of that was determining why there had been such an increase since 2019, where we saw low homicide numbers between 2016 and 2019. What strategies we had been using at that time. How we could reallocate existing resources to address those challenges, or if we could replicate that presence in the community utilizing technology. So specifically we're looking at the role of data as far as where we could put our efforts and which communities, which areas that were affected the most. And using data that influence our strategy as far as where we were placing units or where we could potentially place technology.

As referred to earlier, we specifically started with homicides. If you see between 2017 and 2019, we had 75, 75, and 78. And then we saw a steep increase in 2020 with the highest in 2021, and then a continued similar level of violence with 2022 and then 2023. And as you can see we implemented flock midway through 2024 and you see a significant drop off immediately following. Related to carjackings, this is one of the other intended uses for the system.

We saw in 2023 there was 513 carjackings, armed carjackings. In the first six months of 2024, we were actually averaging 40 carjackings per month. As soon as the system was turned on in July we saw a steep drop to 24 carjackings per month. We've seen that continue into 2025 where we're averaging 17 and we've seen single digit carjackings in months where we haven't seen that since pre COVID. This is year to date data.

I try to keep this consistent with the previous reports. So this is from 2023 up until October and similar for 2025. But there are 568 carjacking robberies in 2023 up until October. And then you in 2025 there was 192 through the same time period, which shows a 66% decrease in carjackings. In 2025 there's been a 41% decrease overall in robberies, and down 53% overall from 2023 to 2025.

It's important to note that that 53% difference is 3,047 robberies in 2023 versus 1,416 in 2025. As part of the analysis we are looking to other cities to see how they may be affected by similar challenges. As part of that analysis we saw that Oakland was far higher in the robbery rate than other cities in the Bay Area and also throughout the country. If you see the robbery rate per 100,000 in Oakland was six fifty four, where San Francisco was two fifty four, Chicago was 89, and then other cities like New Orleans were 131, Cleveland was I think the closest to us at 382. But it just showed that while we were seeing progress, we were still continuing to deal with challenges specifically related to robbery which was rather unique to Oakland itself.

Looking at further who was most affected by those robberies. In 2025 up until October, 55% of the total robberies in Oakland were targeting Latino members of the community. And we saw that they far led any other group. The second most impacted group were black members of the community with 19% of the total robberies affecting that community. This illustrated that robbery had a far greater impact on particular communities of color.

And which was kind of counter to some of the narrative that we've seen before. Specifically related to shootings, this is 2025 data through October. We saw that black members of the community had been shot 158 times. These were for injury shootings not just regular shootings. That was sixty four percent of all shootings, which was followed by Latino members of the community which was the number of 62, which was right around twenty percent.

Overall we looked at the communities that were most impacted by homicides. We've looked at this before as part of the ceasefire strategy, but we wanted to do a reassessment over this time period from 2023 until now. If you looked at 2023, a hundred and twenty five of those homicides, a hundred sixteen of those victims were people of color, which represented ninety three percent of all homicides. In 2024, that number was eighty five. We saw seventy five of the homicides were people of color, which represented 88% of all homicides in Oakland.

And then looking at through September 2025, 51 of those homicides, or there were 51 homicides, forty nine of those victims were people of color which represented ninety six percent of total homicide. Where we saw that we were making progress, if you looked at October 2023 there were 104 homicides. And then through October 2025 there were 55 which is a 47% decrease. Since that time we're up to 63 homicides as of the last report. And we're down from 120 which is still 47%.

The use of technology continues to be utilized for addressing violent crime, but it's also still being committed to the multi pronged and holistic approach by the entire city of Oakland in keeping with the cease fire strategy. And I just made this chart. One of the primary uses of this technology is specifically for deterrence and an enforcement where deterrence is ineffective. But the concept of deterrence is leveraging technology and allocating resources that demonstrate OPD's capability of detecting and addressing violent or disruptive criminal activity to the point that those involved in those activities choose to either discontinue their involvement or operate elsewhere. Related to accountability, we're focused and using focus and precise accountability for those who are specifically involved in violent and criminal activity by way of informed and focused enforcement with an emphasis on mitigating collateral impact on the community.

And we intend to use technology and leverage technology to continue that focus and dedication to the ceasefire strategy. The overall goal for us is to get to this long term violence prevention with this extended holistic approach. And then we see the parallel, but also relevant efforts of DVP and other community based organizations to address violence within the community by providing intense social services to the most at risk individuals. Individuals. Related to the fiscal impact, OPD intends to utilize February over two years in city funding for the flock safety software.

That is the flock ALPR cameras, the 290 cameras that already exist, the additional 40 PTZ cameras that would be managed by the department, and then the operating system itself to support all of those camera OPD had authorized $1,500,000 over this year and the next fiscal year specifically related to the flock. So no additional funding has been requested from the general purpose fund. The funds were already allocated in the OPD fiscal year twenty five twenty six budget. Related to contract safeguards, the data collected is property of the city of Oakland and shall not be shared with any other entity without the consent of the city. Any violation of this clause would represent a breach for contract allowing the city and department to terminate the contract and then seek potential damages.

As part of the proposed contract, FLAC has agreed not to collect anonymized aggregated data for the purpose of machine learning. That specific clause was something that was brought up during the privacy commission meetings. And we added it to the contract and FLAC agreed to follow that. There's additional language within the contract that allows termination of the contract for the following reasons. Federal assumption, this is an extremely unlikely event that the federal government comes and takes control of whether the department or the city where we no longer can act with our own agency related to our data.

In that case the contract would terminate. As far as contracting with the federal agency, if FLoC enters into a contract with a federal agency that invalidates or compromises the city's sole ownership of the city data, that would be grounds for termination. Additional safeguards that were put into So the city, the department continues to be aligned with the principles of the community and the city of Oakland related to immigration enforcement. By the department and city policy, OPD does not assist with any immigration enforcement regardless whether it's technology or physical assistance. The community safety camera system shall only be used to access by members of the department who are authorized to use it.

No outside agency is authorized to use the flock community safety camera system. One of the things that came up I think during the last meeting that's been brought up during privacy commission, specifically concerns surrounding legal orders. So any data that's captured by any electronic system is potentially susceptible to legal obligation, e g court orders, search warrants, subpoenas. This not isolated to the flock operating system or flock a l p r. This includes all social media platforms, cell service providers, personal and smart phones, cloud storage platforms such as iCloud and Google, and privately managed camera networks.

As the city is the owner of the data captured by flock devices, the city of Oakland would be served the legal order unless prohibited by law. The city of Oakland city attorney office would have the ability to challenge, contest the legal order when appropriate. It should also be noted the state attorney general office has shown a willingness and ability to challenge federal overreach by way of legal intervention. Related to staffing, we looked at staffing from the last two years. In January 2024, OPD sworn personnel levels were at seven eleven, that's seven eleven on paper, which is 89 fewer than the last proposed staffing study suggested.

In October 2025, OPD sworn levels were down to 636 sworn officers with an operational staffing level of 509. Since that time we have dropped down to six eighteen sworn staffing positions with four ninety seven operational staffing. At these numbers we've had to start disbanding many of our specialized units And with this trend that will continue into next year. Part of the urgency for us was how quickly our progress can be released or reversed as was demonstrated in 2020. If you looked at the 2020 or 2020, there were 37 homicides.

If you looked at 2020 you saw a large spike where we had 72 homicides occurring in that six month period. The trend continued into 2021, 2022, and 2023.

You're out of order. Second, you're out of order. Please please please remove her. Please remove. Please proceed.

In conclusion, OPD has seen a tremendous progress related to overall crime since we put the system into place. We believe that continuing to leverage technology will allow us to continue the progress that we've made and hold the numbers at least at what they are with the intent to push them down further. We understand that there's important balance between privacy and public safety. We remain committed to that and reassessing this system not just annually but quarterly to look and see where there can be improvements or if there are any vulnerabilities to the system itself. And with that, are there any questions?

So council members do we want to go straight to public comment? I know that the public there's a 145 members of the public that want to speak to this. Council member Houston.

Yes. I'd just like to thank you Gabriel for your thorough report and the clarity on our reports. You did a good job. Thank you.

Thank you so much. So we're gonna go to public speakers. I do wanna remind the public, no matter what side you are on this issue, please respect others that have differing opinion. We wanna be able to be sure to hear everyone and as much as possible we wanna be respectful of everyone here. So madam clerk with that please call the 145 speakers in order.

As a before I be call I call the names, I will be calling the names in batches. So please don't step up until your name is called. If you have someone ceding time to you, please state their name as you before you bring your comments so we can give you the appropriate amount of time. It is easier if you have their yellow slip and you can hand the yellow slip to the clerk representative at the table, so we can give your you your time. Again, I will be calling the names in batches so I can manage.

Please do not step to the podium until your name is called. As with standard practice, Zoom speakers will be taken after the in chamber speakers. So if you can just raise your hand when your name is called and we will get to you after all the speakers in chambers go. Francis, Francois Luong, Jennifer Tu, Hannah Zuckerman, James Birch, Jennifer Finley, Becky Ham, Brian Culberson, Miss Asada Olabala, Marcus Johnson, Nikhil Sheel, Malcolm Jen, Linda Warwick, Laura Hill, Keon Bliss, Larry Levitt. I have that you have time seated to you by Carol l Van Steenberg.

Carol, when Larry goes, I need you to stand up to acknowledge your presence that you are giving him your time. Linda Linder Durvian, I see that you have time ceded to you by Alexis Schroeder. Alexis, you will need to confirm your attendance and state that you are giving him your time. Ali Obad, Tuan Go, mister David Boatwright, Michael Devine, Ahmad a d or Amar d a d, Teodros Haile, Chris Moore, Deborah Gelber, Mindy Petunik, Jim Breeden, Jeffrey Angerman, Elaine Demasi, Griselda Almanza, Elizabeth Ann Corcoran, Julianna Deer, Willow Holiday, Storm Weiner, Alan Brill, Rael Atlas, Ron Strahalik, Alex, Mark Wesley Dudley, Blair Beekman, Alexandra, Jesse, Nathan n, and I will stop there. And again, please state your name before you begin.

Please let me know if you have time seated to you. People seating time must be in the chambers or on Zoom and acknowledge that they are giving you their time. Go ahead, sir.

Hi. My name is Francois Long. I am a resident of District 3 and a member of East Bay Democratic Socialist of America. I'm here to oppose the expansion of the FLOG contract. The entire process to bring this item forward to the council has been nothing but shameful and lacking in FX.

The presentation that preceded public comment was misleading at best. The officer failed to demonstrate any meaningful correlation between the decreasing crime and the use of FlockOS. And it is also misleading to imply that FlockOS is limited only to ALPRs when, as demonstrated by the officer, we are planning to expand its use to private business cameras and ring cameras. As it is also misleading to say that the data would be sequestered to select officers of p OPD when OPD is a participant of

David Boatwright, District 4. Given the recent number of tragic news reports and the high percentage of crimes impacting the less advantaged residents in Oakland. Broader installation of flock cameras will help our understaffed police department more effectively reduce crime and make Oakland safer and more attractive play and a more attractive place to live and do business. No cameras will be aimed at private residences. I look forward to hearing rational comments against these cameras. Thank you.

My name is Michael Devine. I'm a member of the Jewish community here. I and I've been the victim of a crime a couple times in Oakland as well. I come to speak in favor of expanding and extending the flock contract. We're seeing a major uptick uptick especially recently in in violence, anti Semitic violence against Jews.

We've had one major slaughter in Australia. We have another one that happened in Brown, which is was potentially a terrorist act. And that, just per recent news that I looked at while waiting, there's an interesting fact in there. They're lacking, in the Brown University mass shooting, they're lacking sufficient surveillance footage to actually find who did it. There's been already one false accusation, and and a person was taken into custody. And just recently now, the Internet is going after a Palestinian activist without evidence right now too. So this will protect us all. Thank you.

My name is Mindy Petronuk, candidate for Oakland mayor, District 4. And I wanna give my total thanks to the Oakland Police Department because what they're doing is tremendous and what they just put forward is absolutely the truth. And right now we need these flock cameras. As demonstrated, it does stop crime. The the net the narrative that says this is gonna deport people has gotta stop.

Because right now Oakland could become a beautiful city. We can become an a great city. But we need to have these flock cameras. We need them to both for the robberies, the crimes, the drugs. And if we stay take this as a first major step, and this is why I'm calling on the city council to absolutely support this and pass it now.

We have to be very tough on crime. We've been too soft on crime. And right now, you know you know, I grew up in New York City, and I can tell you we can make Oakland great. I'm Deborah Gelber, district four Oakland, and I'm here to do to support the flock flock cameras and yeah. It just that was a tremendous presentation.

One thing that I find extremely upsetting is the flippant attitude towards people dying. Deaths from crime. Violent crime. Gun violence. You know, you don't think that carjackings don't kill people? Yes, they kill people. The destruction of lives through crimes against people's businesses, home invasions. I have a dear friend that lost a son because he walked in on someone burglarizing his apartment. He was shot and killed. You you don't the flippant attitude about this, you know, because you think it's cool to be against police, you know, it's it's cool. You know, it's disgusting. It's a you need a

Please pause time.

Moral orientation.

Please pause time.

That's what I wanted.

Please remove the gentleman over there. He's been giving me two, three warnings. Please remove him. You were removed. Thank you.

Ma'am, ma'am, when you have fifteen seconds for you have fifteen seconds remaining. Please address the chair.

Okay. So I just wanted to say to other people who wanna talk about the question of privacy, your cell phone invades your privacy more than any flock camera is ever going to. It follows you everywhere, folks.

Good afternoon. My name is Ali Obad. I'm the president of the small merchant chamber of commerce. Also, as a business owners, that is the least that we can ask from the city council to approve the flag cameras to deter criminals from doing crimes in Oakland. There's no such thing as for ICE, FBI, or other federal agencies that that hold p that hold people information get hold get a hold get a hold of people information from the fly cameras data.

All the agencies already have knows what time you sleep, what time you eat, what time you you take a shower. TVs at homes are sharing your information. Phones are sharing your information. Credit debit card shares your information. If the city councils don't approve the flight cameras, then we will be headed to Washington DC to ask Donald Trump to send us the national guards. And one more thing is regard and one more if you don't approve it, we will ask Trump to send the national guards. So there's no way that you cannot prove it.

Thank you, miss Raleigh. The flag the

flag comes.

Your your time's up, miss Raleigh.

Massey in District 1. Do I have a timer? Thank you. I'm Elaine Damassey in District 1. I'm here to oppose contracting with FLOC. And let me address one thing I've heard supporters say over these months of meetings. They say that our concerns for unintended releases to border patrol are unsubstantiated. No. The University of Washington Center for Human Rights reported The US Border Patrol conducted thousands of searches using data from 31 police agencies in Washington state, often without the knowledge of those agencies. Four zero four media reported last May that a locals that local and state law enforcement agencies and flock systems, Sorry for the interruption.

Law enforcement agencies and flock systems used flock systems for over 4,000 federal searches. And it's not only newspapers and watchdog agencies that have been reporting on this. A cyber attack that breached border patrol data, releasing license plates and also photographs of faces, that was reported

Thank you, ma'am. Do you have time to speak to you? Can you state the name?

So I just wanted to

finish

the Can you state the name of the person that's seating time to you?

George Littman.

George Littman.

Thank you. Our concerns are well substantiated with a bibliography that we can supply to council members if they need it and our concerns are growing so we wanna help the council members protect our privacy.

Hi, please state your name for the record.

Raffi Atlas, District 5. I'm gonna actually start by stating that I and many other folks here have come out in the middle of a work day, taking time off of work to do something that is not our job because you are refusing to do what is your job. And you are showcasing a blatant lack of respect by refusing to make eye contact with the speakers, by walking out of the room, having side conversations, not paying attention when this is your job. You are paid to be here. The rest of us have taken our sick time.

We have taken our PTO to be here, to do what you are not doing. You've heard all of the arguments. You have the facts. You understand that Oakland does not feel safe with flock, with these surveillance cameras. You understand that. But I don't think you are interested in listening or being persuaded.

When Oakland failed

Please state your name for the record.

My name is Tuan Ngo and I'm seated one minute from that gentleman over there. His name Seneca Scott.

Seneca, I do not have a card for you. I apologize.

He's in the system. So

you have your one minute.

When Oakland failed to get the retail death grant, governor Newsom stepped in and sent us CHP who wisely intervened to stop crime by installing Fox safety cameras which have been extremely useful at stopping repeat robberies, at helping us solve shootings and homicides, at catching bad guys on our streets. I am an immigrant. I want to be clear. No. We are a sanctuary city.

No immigrants have been deported from Oakland because of flock safety cameras. However, many criminals, violent robbers have been taken off Oakland streets. So to say and to use the ICE Trump false narrative fear mongering on us immigrants, I'm sorry, you're not even immigrants. I was here, the lone voice at city council, at privacy commission, talking about the rent

Thank you, mister Tuan. Thank you, mister Tuan. Tuan, thank you.

Hello. My name is Larry Levitt, and I live on Rosecrest Drive in District 4, and Carol Von Steenberg has ceded a minute of time to me. My wife and I have lived here for more than thirty years. We've raised our family here, and we love this city. In the last few years, our home has been broken into once. Our car has been stolen for the second time. We're happy to see that crime is on its way down this year in Oakland. This year, only 1,100 people got their homes broken into. Only 6,000 people had their cars stolen. Only 1,600 robberies happened this year, and only 550 people experienced armed robberies.

Only 225 people got carjacked while they were driving across town. Only 700 of our businesses got robbed, and happily, there were only 2,800 aggravated assaults and only four thousand seven hundred victims of violent crime. All told, we're on pace for over 26,000 crimes committed in our city this year, which will be celebrated as a good year. Let that sink in. We know every council person cares about crime and the tolls taken on our businesses, our residents, and the reputation of our city.

Crime may be down, but we all know it's still way too high. Each of those 26,000 crimes this year has a person and a family or a business on the other end. We applaud OPD for continuing to do their best with an underfunded and understaffed force. Flock cameras are helping them. Let's assure that the flock cameras are used responsibly, but please don't take away this key tool which is helping OPD reduce crime in our city, which we all know is way too high. Thank you.

I'm Lynn Dardarian. Alexis Schroeder has ceded her time to me. I'm the vice president of the Oakmore Homes Association in District 4. I speak for over 200 residents, some of whom are here with me today, who voluntarily donated money to install flock LPRs following armed robberies and a brutal armed assault in our neighborhood. We believe that if we had had flock cameras at that time, the crimes might have been prevented and the criminals apprehended sooner.

Oakland has one of the most transparent civilian governed camera systems in the country. California state laws are among the most stringent and restrictive data sharing laws in the nation. As safeguards to privacy and civil rights, Oakland system has been modified and technically hardened against illegal access and data sharing in partnership with FLAC. The new FLAC contract and OPD use policy carries strong measures to protect the civil rights and privacy of everyone. Don't let misinformation deter us from using state of the art tools that help the understaffed OPD do their jobs more effectively.

Focus on facts and accountability, not fear and speculation. Flock cameras have helped to reduce crime in Oakland. That is a fact. Please vote yes. Thank you.

Hello council members. My name is James Montgomery. I want to say that for the people here supporting FLOC and the council members supporting FLOC, you are doing more to advance Trump's agenda in Oakland than anyone else. You are being foot foot soldiers of a fascist regime. They are not license plate readers, they are AI enabled surveillance cameras with a documented history of heinous privacy violations.

OPD is lying to you and you're choosing to believe a department that has scandals like Celeste Guap, Fong Tran giving out bribes. Michael Chung destroying evidence. This is the department that you're choosing to believe. Flock is a billion dollar company with a vested interest in advancing a fascist agenda and you are not listening to the Electronic Frontier Foundation, these civil society groups, all of these organizations that are saying this is a heinous move and you are being anti democratic in the way you are forcing this through.

Good afternoon. My name is Jeffrey Engerman. I'm a thirty five year resident of Oakland and live in District 1. We're here today to talk about crime, not somebody else's agenda. Police department's down I don't see the camera. I wanted to make sure I didn't go over my time. There we go. Police department's down 200 officers. We're struggling on the police budget. We're struggling on the city budget. We need to work smarter. We've got technology. The police department's presentation shows that it works. We don't want that to go away. We wanna help increase it. There are personal protection provisions in place in the ordinance to to for personal privacy and things like that. The city's gonna spend excuse me. I believe I have time. Oh, I'm sorry. Was that you?

I thought somebody behind you made a comment. My bad. I apologize.

Please proceed. Please proceed.

I'll go real quick.

So you guys wanna spend 1 to $2,000,000 to help small businesses grow. Right? We wanna waive the business tax and see if we can grow our our way out in revenues and not just cut expenditures. So let's help those small businesses by attacking crime.

Plea please proceed. Somebody's rude chief of staff, like, statue. So Pardon me? No time.

I'm right where I was. I thought it was

Thank you.

The people in the back. Alright.

Thank you.

Council members, Heather Thomas, district four. Oakland is facing a severe capacity crisis. OPD is operating with roughly 500 officers citywide, about 28 on control.

Chair, if we can pause, can you please wait till I call your name in the batch before you approach the podium?

Sorry. I thought you called my name. Sorry.

If your name was called in this first batch, please approach the podium. Again, we have a 145 speakers, so please help me out by coming out in the batch that you were called. If your name was called in the first about 45 speakers that I call, approach the podium. One

second, one second. Do we have someone to translate? Thank you. Thank you Director Bachelor.

And through the chair you will be given two minutes so she will have one minute to address the council and then you will have one minute to translate.

Thank

you so much city council. I'm here to oppose the cameras because I believe that they are unjustly put in areas where there are high populations of immigrants to surveil our community. I believe that we are workers and we need to be respected in our communities and I don't believe that these cameras work and that they should not that you should be putting your efforts forward to things that actually work in our communities and not surveillance of immigrant communities. Thank you.

I'm Chris Moore. Gentleman Fritz Hochfelner also ceded his time to me.

Fred, are you in the chamber? Please raise Thank your you. Say the last name again,

My name is Moore, Chris Moore, and then his is it's h o c h f e l l n e r.

Can you just hand the yellow sheet? Thank you.

Alright, thank you. Thanks for letting me speak today. You know, just just a couple of facts about FLAC camera. They do stop robberies. They they help and you can see, by the way, thank you OPD for your presentation, recover stolen vehicles, stop shootings and homicides, catch repeat offenders, and reduce high speed chases.

We know that factually that's that's true information. You know, I get into East Oakland quite a bit and in the little Saigon district and the gentleman back behind me, doctor Kenneth Anderson with the Williams Baptist Church, He's at the start of where all the sex trafficking, sex crimes, and all of the the other broken windows and other activities happen. Flock cameras, and they're supportive of that of course because flock cameras are known to help the community and help the people and help the majority of the community to help stop crime and be able to feel more comfortable coming out in the streets again. We know from polling, 67% of the community, that's 300,000 people, but the chamber polling has said 67% of the community want more safety cameras in our community. Why do they want that?

Because they're tired of the crime. They're tired of the bipping. They're tired of their favorite stores being robbed. And the fact is on of of the miss versus fact is FOX systems capture vehicle information, not personal data. We can't hear all these all this non factual information when we know talking to OPD that we have facts, it does not capture personal data. Flock also with the data sharing settings are controlled by OPD and they follow Oakland's sanctuary ordinance. And then lastly, in 2025 alone, flock cameras helped OPD make over a 100 arrests, recovered 30 vehicles, and 30 firearms. Thank you. Please support.

Hi. My name is Amrdi Braad, AD.

Doctor Anderson, are you seeding your time? Yes. Okay. Doctor Anderson, and then state your name for the record, sir.

Amurdeep, a d Broad.

Please proceed sir.

Thank you. Again my name is Amriti Broad and I'm here from the business community. And I'm here to support the flock camera systems. And I wanna thank city council for a consideration today for taking your time to consider this piece. We need to support flock cameras in the system as a tool to the OPD which is understopped and need help as any systems out there.

We need to ensure our local stores, mom and pop stores, our local businesses stay out here at City of Oakland to support the tax revenue, support the tax dollars. We need to support the, we need to stop the crime tourism which is coming to Oakland because of the lack of infrastructure we have in place. So that's where we need all kind of tools including flock system to support OPD. So we could outnumber the people who are coming to Oakland and causing all the damage. We don't want national guard here in city Of Oakland. We are a century city and we very well can defend it. Thank you again.

Good afternoon. My name is Becky Ham, and I'm with Asian Pacific Environmental Network. I also live in District 5. I'm here today to bring up concerns with about the FLAC company and the ability of Oakland to guarantee the safety of our community. FLAC is not a secure system.

On the technology side, the cameras and website are very easy to hack. Flock is an untrustworthy company. Denver City Council recently voted against renewing their contract with Flock stating that the company has demonstrated such disregard for honesty and accountability. One example of this comes from an Illinois Secretary of State audit where it's discovered that flocks secretly had been had worked with customs and border protection on a pilot program. This sort of behavior puts our immigrant community at risk. Please consider the impact of your vote.

Good afternoon. My name is Hannah Zuckerman. I'm a D Two resident. The flock's contract is terrible for Oakland, and it does not keep us safe. We are seeing cities moving away from flock. I believe Santa Cruz just canceled their flock contract, paused their readers because of safety concerns. Folks have gotten up here claiming that flock cameras prevent crime. They catch the crime after it's happened. Why don't we really prevent crime by funding DVP? Violence prevention programs have been proven to slow to stop crime.

I have spoken with the Fruitvale Merchants Association and they a lot of them don't believe that this contract is the right contract. They want cameras, but they don't want cameras that share data with ICE. They're immigrants. They wanna bring back the community ambassadors and see people on the street, see lights, bring back people to the Fruitvale, bring back people to our businesses, and that will help prevent crime. Okay? We do not need data being shared and license plate is personal data. It is. You're sharing personal

Hi. I'm Blair Beekman. It was stated at the October 2 PAC meeting that current CHP ALPR still have a three year MOU process in Oakland. As there may not be urgency, can Oakland City government please suspend this rush, confused AOPR public process and come back with this item in February, March 2026? By then, we can be working towards a more inclusive comprehensive community plan that can better consider neighborhood public safety, social services, and current best practices with tech and data.

I've written many recent letters that a new flock contract can be for three, six, or twelve months at this time. This can begin a community process of looking for a new ALPR vendor in the next year, we can then quickly end any new short term flock contract when a new ALPR vendor is found. If a two year flock contract will be approved today, please work with all parts of the community in the next year to begin looking for a better principled new ALPR vendor. Thank you.

Hello.

My name is Elizabeth Corcoran d two. Flock is a company backed by the same billionaires that backed president Trump. If we build this surveillance system in Oakland, it will be used to target our community members as it has been in other cities. In Oakland, we have made a commitment to be a sanctuary city, and that commitment includes OPD, and it includes all of you. Lastly, I have worked in public health and violence prevention for almost a decade.

I have also been a victim of violence in Oakland. But I know, as I suspect you do too, that surveillance does not improve public safety. I urge the council to consider the measures that we know actually prevent violence. Improving streets with lighting and transportation options, parks, funding, employment opportunities, youth engagement, employing safety ambassadors and violence interrupters. These is what our dollars should be funding. This is how we prevent violence, not targeting my neighbors and lining the pockets of billionaires.

Hello. Ron Strohlich, District 4. My parents were holocaust survivors. They were hunted like animals by an authoritarian white supremacist regime that hated my people because we were different. My parents were imprisoned in slave labor and extermination camps under harsh and inhumane conditions.

We're seeing a frighteningly similar playbook in The US today with another white supremacist regime that hates immigrants and is willing to defy all decency to have them gone. Flock has shown over and over again that it cannot be trusted with the sensitive data it collects, that it is used by ICE and other agencies to detain and deport our immigrant neighbors. A yes vote on the flock contract will make you complicit in this horror show. I can assure you that history and voters will not judge you kindly. Like Richmond and Santa Cruz, I urge the Oakland City Council to do the right thing, reject this nefarious technology. It's being used against immigrants today and could easily be used against any of us tomorrow. Please vote no and reject this contract. Thank you.

My name is Jesse Rosemore and I wanna get ahead of any amendments that you're about to propose after we all give public comments. We know that FLOC proposes these amendments for feckless politicians like many of you to give cover for what you're gonna do and sell out our community to ICE and the Trump agenda. I have been working very hard to reach out to you in good faith individually, all of you, to try to warn you of the dangers of FLOC And in that process, Kevin Jenkins, have you had the time to read the three page letter from Ron Wyden saying expressly and succinctly how dangerous this is? You've told me that you don't have the time for that. And Charlene Wong, your chief of staff told me that that my that because I didn't do a specific public records request that my claims are are invalid.

That's absolutely not true and he was gaslighting me. And Zach Unger, me and my other District 1 residents have gotten dismissive and disingenuous arguments from you at the what you call engagement. Yet when I introduce you to a to a subject matter expert from the Electronic Foundation, you are suddenly silenced.

Thank you for your time. Thank you for your comments.

Hello. My name is Tedros Hialeah, District 5. Okay. We have two big challenges in Oakland, limited funds and limited police officers. Flock bridges both of these gaps and provides our city with a huge return on investment.

Number one, we leverage the power of the Flock database covering the Bay Area, and in other words, we get access to all of the assets of multiple cities and jurisdictions at no cost. Number two, we capture actionable intelligence that OPD's skeleton crew does not have to canvas for. So with the investment of $2,250,000, we get tens of millions of dollars of safety funding in return. On the flip side, if we abandon flock, we become the one glaring surveillance hole in the Bay Area, which is a huge invitation to you know who. So, at the end of the day, crime affects all of us, the documented and undocumented, and if we don't have a vibrant, busy, safe city, none of us have anything. Thank you.

Thank you. Before the next speaker begins, I'm going to call some more names.

Is your name called in the first batch?

Jessica Chin, Michael Kennedy, Broadhead, Jose Dorado, Emily Ks or Kaiz, Morgan Pike, Lou o, Michelle Williams, Zeta Mays, Nita, Marta Isabelle, Ralph Cans, Adam Wolf, Maggie Wolf, Ream Sullivan, Cat Brooks. I'm sorry. I'm gonna say your name incorrectly again. Refillay? Refillay.

Thank you. James Breeder, Jim Donatelle, Phoebe, Jane. It's a duplicate. Michelle Dundrawood. I have a card with no name. 4204 Highland or I'm sorry. High Knoll, Fritz, Hoffelander, Rick Bellen, Josephine Wee, Tony Trinh, g Wiz, Elizabeth duplicate. Julie Anderson, Audrey e l, Caleb, Navi, Anun Awan,

Alexandra, District 3 or District 2. People have wrongly stated that two thirds of Oakland wants flock when the poll statistic that that data comes from never even mentioned flock. The 2025 Oakland Chamber of Commerce poll found that to varying degrees, 66% or two thirds of respondents quote favored using security and surveillance cameras with civilian oversight end quote. They did not poll for approval of the flock company, so it is a false and disingenuous claim to say that two thirds of Oakland residents support flocks or support this contract. Rather, city councilors heard a vast majority of public commenters on this item say no to flock and no to this contract.

Vote no on this contract and start over with a process that addresses the concerns that surfaced through this public oversight process. Thank you.

My name is James Breeden, I just want to clarify something first. I thought I was called in the first batch under Jim Breed, but then in the second you just said my name again in the second batch. James Breeden district two. I'm the president of Lakeshore Homes Association which installed eight cameras about two years ago. I just wanna talk about one of the serial robberies that he mentioned.

About a year ago, we had a woman getting out of her car in front of her home, where she was accosted by a man at gunpoint. That man and several other young men walked her into her home, where she was held at gunpoint and they spent the next half hour ransacking her home while she was looking at a gun. She was worried her kid was gonna come home from school the whole time, walk into that mess. That is the kind of serial robbery that Flock has stopped. It doesn't stop crimes, gets them after the fact, but it keeps them from preventing more crimes. The police, when we we were able to tag this car because we knew the time it left and we had it off our camera, the victim was informed that

Thank you for your comments.

Councilperson Jenkins and council members, my name is Jessica Kim. I'm working in a community bank and former nonprofit, executive in Chinatown. Today, I'm here to urge councils to prove the, flag agreement. Here are the reasons. Currently, OBD has less than six fifty sworn officers.

We should try to get them up while we are trying to hire more officers. Second, when we try to arrange various program to prevent crimes, we should also bring peace of mind to our citizens. Third, although it's very important to keep the individual's privacy, it's more important to provide evidence to prosecute crime and support the innocent victims. When I worked in Chinatown chambers, we were able to install some cameras at the intersection in Chinatown. It helps with some cases until today. Therefore, I would like to ask you to support the Flock cameras. Thank you.

Morgan Pike, district four. I work in IT for a large healthcare organization. We have many terabytes of medical data and financial data in our custody. Securing that data is of paramount importance to my team and to me. So it is with some hesitation that I support renewing the contract with Flock, a company that has shown it cannot be trusted.

Oakland has done its due diligence with the Flock contract, there's still a chance that our data will be leaked out in the various third parties. That's a risk worth taking because of the potential benefits of the system. The data at risk after all are not medical records or financial records, it is activity on public streets. An intangible benefit will be to show support for our police department. At a time with severe understaffing and high turnover, giving our police this tool will not only help them do their job, but will also show that this body and the public trusts them to use it appropriately. Thank

Hello. My name is Zeta Mays. I am a resident of District 3, a voter and an ACE member. I'm here to urge you to vote no on the flock surveillance contract. The surveillance technology has already caused real harm here in Oakland and all over the country.

The flock system collects a vast amount of metadata that will be further empowered by analytical AI to not only identify license plates as their claims but can also be used to track individuals through identifying markers such as tattoos, marks of any kind, clothing and can be given to law enforcement and other agencies. For peaceful protesters, mass surveillance like this kills freedom of speech. The license plate readers and Cameron Ericks have already been used across the country to monitor lawful demonstrations, identify participants and retaliate against people for exercising their constitutional rights.

Hi. I'm Maggie Wolf from Maggie Takuta Hall. I live in District 1, and I'm a parent here urging you to reject Flock in Oakland. As an author for young people, I talk to them a lot, and it breaks my heart that most of them have no faith in democracy anymore because they're watching the adults around them sand it down. I keep telling them that we have to fight. They keep asking me if it'll do any good. I wanna tell them that it will, but actions like those taken by this city council has in regard to flock has made me look like a fool. So let's be clear. Oakland has already spoken. We said no to Flock.

It died in committee multiple times. It has required procedural resuscitation to revive this Flock contract. It is highly likely that councilman Houston tipped his hand and accidentally admitted to violating the Brown Act at a previous meeting, which exists to protect the people's interests in order to push this through. Whether or not you personally, as a voting member today, agree think that plot cameras should exist in Oakland is irrelevant. You have a sacred duty to represent the people who the will of the people, not just the special interests of

My name is Adam Wolf. Ray is seating time.

Ray, you Ray.

Can you give him your yellow for sheet because I cannot hear you.

Ray Ray Ray K.

Sorry?

So we're gonna start you with your one minute while we move through these cards to see if there's a Ray K.

I kinda wanna know which version to read.

Through the chair, do you wanna let the next person go first? Sure.

Hi, my name is Michelle Dudgenwood, District 2 And I wanna start by asking why are we even here again with this. This has been rejected a number of times, and yet we're back here again arguing a non point. One thing I've noticed today is a lot of smug responses from the people up here. Some of you are very engaged and watching and listening and paying attention, and I appreciate that. I have been watching and I've seen several smug smug looks on your on your faces while you're listening to people who are against what you're promoting here.

I think it's deplorable that we're having this meeting here on a Tuesday at one in the afternoon. We're either taking time off work or we're getting we're not getting paid to be here. This should be happening with enough announcement and in the right amount of time so that people can be here. We need to follow the money while you're

Hello. I'm back. Adam Wolf, District 1. A little a little out there. I wanna focus on the logic being used to justify this expansion because I think it is deeply flawed. We're being told that because the city needs to keep the current camera system running, we must urgently expand it. But renewal and expansion are two separate decisions. The urgency here is about continuity, yet it's being used to bypass due diligence on whether expanding surveillance is actually justified. That urgency is largely artificial. We've known for a year that this contract was expiring and realistically if Oakland did not approve this expansion tonight, FLAC would absolutely work with OPD to allow interim access while the city reworked a new deal.

They do this all over the country. The idea that cameras would suddenly go dark unless we rush through an expansion just doesn't reflect how these vendors actually operate. I've also heard concerns that if cameras were paused or reduced, criminals from across the Bay Area would suddenly flock to Oakland. That claim sounds intuitive, but it is not supported by evidence. Crime displacement, the idea that criminals actively seek out cities with ALPRs, has been studied extensively in The US and The UK.

The consistent finding is that displacement is rare, often absent entirely, and when it does occur, it's partial, not a mass migration of crime. There's no data showing criminals monitor ALPR coverage and reroute their behavior accordingly. So pausing expansion is not reckless. It's unlikely to interrupt OPD's use at all. And even in the worst case scenario, the fears being raised aren't grounded in research.

I'm probably not like most speakers tonight. I do believe that some form of interconnected surveillance is inevitable in modern society. But who builds it, who controls it, and what incentives they operate under matters enormously. Flock is a growth driven start up whose contract terms make clear this data can be compelled and turned over through legal process far beyond Oakland's control. We've already seen ALPR systems used for stalking, tracking abortions, and sharing

Hi, my dear honorable council person. My name is Josephine Hui. I am the vice president of the Taishan Family Association. I am here this afternoon not not only representing myself, I am representing my my patroller team. We established in February, and we have been patrolling every day down in Chinatown to make sure the the street are safety for our residents, and and we create a good business environment for our merchants.

And today, I have to thanks the OPD. They did a very good job on reporting the the report. And and we are here to support the op Oakland Police Department. We need to have cameras.

Miss Hui, your time is up.

Thank you for your comments.

Hello. My name's Richard Ballou, district one. And, I see us talking about trust. Trust. The lack of trust in flock is appropriate.

They have clearly demonstrated they can't maintain their own data. We're now talking about trust in this body. It has been brought to the privacy advisory council and got thumbs down. It got brought to public safety and got thumbs down. I don't know how many times we need to tell you a 100 of us at a time that this isn't the kind of security we want.

There are other vendors. There is time to find a well engineered system to accomplish the same purposes. Ben Franklin said, those who would give up liberty for security

Hi. Can I start now? Emily Katz, district one. I love this city and I've been a victim of crime in this city and I vehemently oppose flock. You know, I I appreciate the safeguards that the police department has included in the contract but I don't think they're sufficient and I don't share their trust in their vendor.

Why are we shortcutting the diligence process? As others have mentioned, there's plenty of opportunity to find a better vendor to do the things that our community wants. I also, you know, I think that the the things that that we can do if they share our data in ways that we don't want, termination of the contract, all of that is after the horse leaves the barn, right? Once the data is collected, it is stored, it persists.

And

so, you know, our recourse then to terminate the contract, the flock, is that sufficient? Does that undo harm to our community? You know, companies like FLAC and Palantir clearly share information with federal agent

Thank you, ma'am. Your time is up.

My name is Phoebe Jane. I am an executive director of ReproCare, a national abortion hotline nonprofit. We supported 4,500 abortion seekers this year and I live in Oakland. Oakland should not be setting up systems that will be used to surveil pregnant women driving to California. There is no way to exempt people having abortions from flock surveillance.

When police criminalize pregnancy, they rarely cite abortion laws. They claim to investigate charges like child endangerment and murder. Abusive men use abortion bans and threats of police to terrorize their victims and flock is a great tool for them. Cops in Texas have already used flock this way after an abusive man reported his partner for getting abortion pills from California. The police used a flock search with data from other states for a death investigation into the woman's fetus then lied and said they were searching out of concern for her safety. Oakland should be a safe haven from these attacks on reproductive rights We are giving Texas cops a direct line into our streets.

Audrey District 3 opposed. This proposal fails on every promise. The data is clear that creating safer communities comes from supporting community based organizations, affordable housing and violence prevention not partnering with bad tech that profits off the creation and use of surveillance infrastructure that will be exploited by federal immigration enforcement and undoubtedly other parties. The Trump administration has stated their willingness to use force to access this kind of information to attack anyone they can profit from. Considering that flock has proven itself an untrustworthy company with no credibility, this contract leaves all of us vulnerable to technology facilitated abuse.

This is not about keeping us safe, this is about wealthy people finding another way to benefit at the expense of Oakland residents, wealthy people who care so little about Oakland they would bring in the national guard over a car break in who clearly don't know or have forgotten what actual harm to a community looks like. No bad contracts that hurt Oakland residents to appease the wealthy. For the third time, no flock.

Hi, everybody.

My name is, Tony Trinh. I am the executive director for the Oakland Chinatown Improvement Council. I represent over a thousand properties, 300 businesses, and 15,000 residents of Oakland Chinatown. I'm here to support FLOC OPD and City Council's amendment to to FLOC's renewal of the contract. You know, wanna tell a personal story. About thirty years ago, my grandfather got shot in Oakland Chinatown. I was on America's Most Wanted. We never caught those guys. Two years ago, I almost saw my mom die to with eight gunmen robbery, and they never got caught. And then I see the similar robberies that happened in San Francisco, San Jose, and they all have flock system, and they catch up within a week.

And in Oakland, the message here is very clear. Do the crime and you're not gonna get caught. Because we don't have the technology, we don't have the infrastructure. I started this job because I was sick and tired of seeing this happen. And I'm very proud of the city council here. I'm very proud of the leadership because you guys are on the right track. So please continue this. This is the best thing that's happened for Oakland. We just need to make amendments in

Julie Anderson, District 1. I'm speaking in opposition to FLAC. I understand the importance of reducing crime in Oakland but FLAC is not the way. FLAC is a private company out of Georgia. They have shared data with ICE and border control in the past. I do not believe they will honor agreements with Oakland. Tech companies have a history of lying. FLAC is a tool of mass surveillance. The ACLU oppose opposes FLAC and so do I. Thank you.

Hello. My name is Jim Donatell, twenty year resident of Oakland District 2. I'm also the flock administrator for my homeowners association's Nest of eight cameras. What I wanted to share with you was an incident we were able to help OPD with, a large violent sideshow. Between 02:30 and 03:30AM, 116 cars came into our neighborhood, shooting firearms, fireworks, dangerous car driving.

We took 337 scans, 5050% were tied of the scams tied to four cars. We packaged the information, gave it to OPD. They took three of the cars off the street. That's technology that works. Let's support OPD.

I believe I was called, I don't know if it was pronounced Caleb Morin or Marrin. Was that Thank you. Caleb Morin, District 3. Let me say the quiet part loud. The law only bends when we break it first. The Rules Committee December 11 violated the Ralph Brown Act. Its president reneged on his promise and used his powers to hide from us. But we know how Jenkins and Houston work. They break what won't bend and confuse us for people who won't do the same. I will not repeat what thousands warn.

I will restate what we know. Each flock camera is a weapon. Destroying it is self defense. How one brings down cameras does not concern me. Legality stopped mattering Thursday. Today decides only what Oakland will face, which law her people break next.

Thank you for your comments. Moving to the next group of speakers. June Liu, Samantha Wise, this is a duplicate, Crystal Alejandes, Valerie Bachelor, Alberta Parra Parra or Dara, Kilo Motson, Derek Barnes, Linda O, Young, Claire Rupnow, Reen Lopez, maybe Carmen, Ash w, Gina Goldblatt, Jonathan Birch, Alejandro Garcia, Paredos, Ian Bailey, Emily Rachel Coogan, Johnny Castro, Brenman Turner or Bretman, William Tamayo, Brenda Grisham, Bradley Morgan, Rajni Mandal, Heather Thomas. Is this a duplicate? James Tran, Tracy Rosenberg, Sonal C, Sierra Warwick, Rebecca Gurney, Ralph Brown, Rajni Mandal, Kevin Dally, Juan Cannon, believe that's a duplicate, Kelsey Herbert, Kate Steele, and just in case you're wondering, yes, I do have one more pile.

So if I haven't called you, you're probably in the last pile.

Good afternoon, my name is Rifeelaway. I am here once again standing in coalition with multigenerational, multiracial community from Oakland who is once again asking you to say no to the flock contract or asking you to stand with the people of Oakland and not the fascist government in office in the White House or the billionaires that are backing some of the community members who aren't even from the town that are in the room. A lot of folks aren't even trying to cover up the fact that they are in line with these fascist powers that be, saying things like they want to make Oakland great again, right? Reiterating these talking lines that say that people like myself don't matter in a city that I'm from. The first time I ever looked at a city budget was in 2012 when this city was looking to close a number of our public libraries.

And the entire time I sat here I've just been thinking, man, I wish our libraries could take up this kind of time, time, energy, and effort. Libraries that provided me shelter and support and resource as a community.

Well, good evening, good afternoon, city council people. I am delighted to be here. I didn't mind taking off from work because this is important and I didn't show up before but I need to show up now. I'm here. My name is Samantha Wise. I live in District 6. I have a business in District 3 and I have a rental property in District 7 so I'm all over the place. I've been in Oakland for fifty six years so I know what it looked like and I know what I want it to look like today. And I'm here in support of approving the flock safety camera program. As a lifelong Oakland resident, business owner, nonprofit leader, mother, grandmother, all of these things, safety is important.

And I know it's not gonna deter crime, but when I was against it originally until they told me they stopped a car that had somebody's daughter in it, She was being trafficked. And when they were able to pull that license plate and pull that guy over, that girl was brought back to her family. And so for me, it's about safety. And for me, it's about you guys doing the right thing. If we can save somebody's child and bring them back home from being trafficked

Good afternoon. My name is Valerie Bachelor, and I'm a District 6 resident, voter, and director of ACE Oakland. I wanna remind this council that this surveillance technology has already been illegally used right here in Oakland. A lawsuit filed in Alameda County confirmed that OPD illegally shared flock license plate data with federal agencies including ICE, including FBI, and including the DEA. According to the report by the Oakland Standard, OPD allowed the database to be used 200 times for federal investigations including explicitly ICE cases.

That means immigrant families in my district and across this city were exposed to deportation risk without being suspected of a crime. Again, as other folks have also mentioned, this is putting women like myself at risk because, again, this is creating a paper trail in order for folks that are seeking abortion care and also for protesters that are peacefully protesting and using their first amendment rights. So as a District 6 voter, I refuse.

Thank you, miss Bachelor. Your time is up.

My name is Alberto Parra, and I am from District 5. And I'm a voter and an ACE member, and I'm here to urge you to vote no on the FLAC contract. This surveillance technology has already caused harm in our communities and all over the country. For immigrant communities, systems like FLAC have been used to track people for deportation even in sanctuary cities. Oakland residents should not fear driving to work, church, or school knowing that this data is going to be fed to a national system that's accessible to ICE. As an Oaklander, I don't want my city to track, target, and endanger my neighbors. We are a sanctuary city that protects civil rights and I want you to reject this contract.

My name's Linda Louisa, Oakland resident. I stand against flock in Oakland. We're not fooled for a minute here. We know this information will be used by hostile agencies like the FBI, ICE, and with the orange madman in the White House, we can be sure this information will be commandeered by him. On 08/1525, the ACLU released a report that in this orange madman correction, ICE released a report that ICE is using flock to help Trump in his deportation program.

Four zero four media reported that Texas law enforcement used FLOC data to track down women leaving the state to get abortions. We are increasingly turning into a big brother state. These cameras are just another invasion of our privacy. In Evanston, Illinois, Flock

Thank you, ma'am. Your time is up.

Hello. I am Kylo Matson, and I'm a D Five resident and small business owner in D One, and I strongly oppose FLAC. I would like to address the statistics manipulation that OPD put in the supplemental presentation today. The supplemental presentation that was attached to today's meeting agenda and OPD's proposal for this $2,000,000 investment tries to cite that FLAC security can reduce crime. However, FLAC itself has made claims that their systems reduce crime by 70% in San Marino, California, yet other outlets show that crime increased there by 5%.

OPD cherry picks pandemic era data and tries to say that crime was reduced by 41 to 53% after the installation of flock cameras in 2024 in California, and that in between and between 2023 and 2025, there was a 66% decrease in carjacking and robberies. Except when you compare this pre 2020 statistics to '25, there's no statistical difference. Thank you for the time. Please vote no on Flock.

My name is Gina, District 2. And I just wanna point out the wording of urgency that we've brought this meeting again today for the third time when it has been turned down by Oakland people and that is what is urgent to the folks that are pushing this forward. So I would just like to turn the gaze at the people who see that as urgent. What is actually urgent right now is that we keep ice the fuck out of Oakland. That's not happening.

And also, I would like to remind you that we are not stupid and that we know history. There is a history of folks being corrupt on this body and using this as a way to put money in their own pockets. So who is whose payroll are you on? The people pushing this forward? That's what I wanna know, and we're watching for that.

Hi. My name is Brad Morgan. I'm a resident of District 4 in Oakland and I love this city. And thank you all for your time here. Our neighborhood invested in flock cameras, and these have already helped identify suspects, car thefts, break ins, and other incidents. And, OPD having access to this has been a critical part of that. Now, I understand concerns about privacy. It's worth noting that mobile devices prove more against privacy than do FLAC cameras. Yet, we all use smartphones daily. Let's keep perspective when we debate public safety tools.

Alright. FLAC has a strict policy against this. It only captures license plate. National studies have shown that it actually helps solve roughly 10% of crimes across the nation. These technologies are going to be used. We rather than ignore it, let's use them for the public good with clear oversight and privacy protection as is in the contract.

Thank you.

My name is Jonathan, District 2. Thank you for my one minute, your majesties. I wanna start by sincerely thanking you, Carol, for being the only city council member here with a semblance of integrity. To the rest of you, we will remember this when you're up for reelection. Now I wanna know why you keep changing the times for this meeting.

Why does it feel like you're trying to pull a fast one on us, and why does it feel like you have such disdain for us, especially when we make the obvious connections between Palestine, Palantir, and the pigs we have here. You won't gaslight us into believing this is about local public safety when in Dublin, as we speak, they are having comment on turning the disgraced women's detention center into an ice slaver ice slave labor camp. This is what these cameras will be used for. In conclusion, it doesn't matter what you look like. If you as a politician cede power to a fascist Nazi regime, guess what that makes you? A Nazi. And if you choose to do bidding for the CEOs of Palantir, I wanna tell you you're not on their team and you're not on their level. They don't usually walk among us, but you live in our neighborhoods and will remember your faces. Thank you.

My name is Heather Thomas. I'm a District 4 resident and I'm asking the city to choose evidence over ideology when it comes to public safety. Oakland does not have the staffing to respond in real time. OPT has 500 officers citywide, roughly 28 on patrol per shift, zero in my neighborhood. That is our reality. When response isn't possible, evidence matters. Flock cameras are vehicle focused tools. They are not facial recognition and not people tracking. They capture cars and license plates with time and location giving police a way to identify suspects when officers cannot be there, which is most of the time. Residents support using technology to improve safety.

67% support monitoring privately owned cameras, 66 support automated cameras, 59% support drones. Safeguards matter. I urge the council to approve OPD access to flock data, choose evidence over ideology.

Thank you.

My name is Young. No on flock. The city of San Jose is facing a APLR lawsuit brought by ACLU and EFF on behalf of an immigrants rights group. In the complaint, cites that SJPD allowed 4,000,000 searches in their ALPR database over a period of twelve months. This is like Oakland, San Jose brags itself on being a sanctuary city.

You're you're going down the same route as San Jose and facing another lawsuit. The second point I want to make is that flock fearmongers about only, or one type of crime, street crime while ignoring the costly white collar crimes like identity theft. And AARP reports that the cost of identity theft to individuals amounted to 43,000,000,000 in 2023. And so FLOC is its predatory business model in

Hello. My name is Marin Lopez, District 3, and I've lived in the East Bay my whole life. The way to decrease crime is to create social programs that uplift impoverished communities by meeting their basic housing, health, and food needs. OPD is trying to use identity politics to say they're protecting victims of color while conveniently ignoring that the vast majority of people they do and will incarcerate are black and brown. Prison is not accountability for criminals.

It is punishment in the form of slave labor. We need to think critically about what crime is. Why does OPD only investigate property crime but not the billions of dollars in wage theft that is stolen from the working class every year? We must adamantly reject the narrative of understaffed police departments when the historical reality is the police across the country have never had such lavish budgets and fancy toys of violence furnished by Israel. By pushing this through after being rejected time and time again, you prove that you have a class interest in maintaining poverty because it reproduces conditions that lead people to a life of crime in the first place, which is profitable for the corporations and landowners you serve.

Hello. Hello. My name is Alejandro, District 3. I'm here to encourage you all to vote no on The Democratic Party does not serve working people. They serve our tech oligarchs. Notice what was omitted by that fluff filled presentation. There was no mention of ICE accessing our data before. There are no mentions of the false positives of these cameras, and there is no mention of Flock's connection to Palantir. Our democratic politicians, which is the entire council, right, are are serving us on a platter to the prison industrial complex. This is intentional. These council members are self serving so they can enrich themselves. The USA wants to create Palestine in all our cities. We need to prevent this. Right? We can't be reactionary in how we deal with crime.

Right? As other people have more eloquently stated, we need social programs. Prevention is the key. What how do you prevent? Why do people do crime? Cause they're impoverished. We we deny dignity to tens of thousands of people in the in the city. How do you expect them to survive? And you guys don't care. There's no eviction moratorium. You're not doing anything productive to help working people, and that's your MO. Shame.

Hi. My name is Brennan. I just wanna say,

first of all, if we have

a skeleton crew, what gives us the oversight resources to enforce protections on this contract? You have repeatedly met opposition on this contract from both committees and from the general public. I noticed that you've rescheduled this meeting to the middle of a weekday, and you still ended up with almost the same amount of people coming to comment as November. The public safety situation you claim to be addressing with this contract is as real as you claim it is, so why are you choosing to bypass basic democratic standards to push for this wildly unpopular company that again a simple request would tell you has illegally leaked data as we have seen in Evanston, Illinois. You have failed to address these concerns as well as the suggestions from police response call time auditors to implement the preexisting no cost GPS technology in police vehicles to reduce call times.

The refusal to hold a democratic open competitive bid for similar technology companies with legitimate privacy practices at the suggestion of council member Fife is

Hi. My name

is June Lu. Earlier I heard the cops say that license plate readers don't track faces and are not tied to AI. This is a myth they're trying to sell you. The way it works is license plate readers currently might not do that but as we heard FLoC is an operating system that retains all of our data and FLoC does work and use AI. It also uses facial recognition.

It actually allows all the existing cameras. So we're looking at ring doorbells, we're looking at these license plate readers that are in place as these sort of lenses and they as the back end will use AI to watch all of us to see what we look like, how we walk and retain all that data. We live in a fascist society right now if you believe there's anything worth pushing back against all these people will be criminalized and disappeared and they're going to rely on flock to do that.

Hi. My name is Ian Bailey. I would like you to consider that Flock is a private company with closed code closed source code on their application and devices that are not available to the consumer market. So if there is a security exploit in their hardware or their software, you're not gonna know about it. And there's no one looking over that stuff besides flock.

And they aren't too keen on reporting any exploits in anything they make. Also consider that you could hire any company to operate your big brother cameras if that's really what you wanna do. Till I get my mic cut, I'm going to tell you about my favorite, or least favorite security vulnerabilities. One is that you can pause the app in runtime and inject malicious code. Another one is that you can enter the camera into debug mode by pressing the button in the back in the right sequence. Once you do that, you can add

Before the next speaker goes, Seneca Scott, we do have a a card for you. I mister Twan said you're receiving his your time to him. I don't know if you wanna give it to him or if you wanna take the time for yourself. We do have a card for you.

For me? Oh, a second. I'm Juan. Unlike some of us, I am an Oakland resident. Several council members ran on cleaning up city hall and making it more transparent and yet you're bending over backwards changing your own rules in order to push through a no bid expansion of a no bid contract.

This is why voters in d seven and d 80% don't bother voting. Why bother when city council is just gonna rubber stamp whatever OPD asked for? It's not exercising your democratic authority over the budget which is what you're elected to do. This is an abdication of your responsibilities. None of the data that was presented by OPD in any way justifies the 20 fourseven pan and tilt cameras they intend to deploy.

I moved home in 2004. Should I get credit for the decrease in crime? Should I get 2,400,000.0? Maybe OUSD should get 2,000,000 to teach OPD how to demonstrate trends. If this passes, we will foyer the number plates of council members because that seems to be something you're all okay with. Thank you.

Good afternoon. Derek Barnes, d three resident and someone running a business in Oakland. For me, public safety is violence prevention, social and economic justice, protecting the youth, and ultimately saving lives. Oakland needs to improve in all of these areas. Pay attention to public commenters and the cities, organizations, and districts they represent.

As a black man in one of this country's most targeted groups, what I don't want to return to is the nineties war on crime ethos that falsely accused innocent people, locked up millions a la mass incarceration, didn't solve crimes or apprehend real criminals. FLAC helps to level this playing field. In a resource constrained city, OPD needs help and FLAC in just one of many tech tools with guardrails Oakland can use to help Oakland rise. Please advance this ordinance to give OPD the resources to build strong cases while minimizing unethical enforcement tactics. Thank you.

Buenos noches, my name is Jose Antonio Dorado. I'm here to speak against flock cameras, but the question is not about flock cameras, the question is what side are you on? Are you on the side of big money and the hills and downtown interests or are you on the side of the people? The majority that live in your districts. Brown and black, low income, working people.

So that's the real question, what side are you on? And many, anybody that comes up here and says that they speak for the community and are in favor of cameras are liars and hypocrites, plainly speaking. There's only one thing that you have to think about and that is how can you best serve your community and the community you see are right here and you've heard very clearly that they do not want fly cameras.

Hi. My name is Alan Brill. I've seen in my forty five years here in Oakland, dozens of you sitting up here. Hi, Noel. And I wanna say that I don't wanna talk about justice.

I don't wanna talk about crime control. I don't wanna talk about what's the ethical thing for you to do. You've heard that hundreds and hundreds of times, but you've chosen, a majority of you have chosen to come here today behind the democratic process to try to get something done. I'm been around long enough and I've been an activist for long enough to say that I just wanna talk about your future. Your future. Yeah. Do some of you wanna be around for a little while? You have some aspirations for the future? I wanna tell you, you passed this and we will not let you forget.

Mister Twine, please proceed.

Time was ceded to me. One minute. I spent an entire day walking the streets of Oakland and talking to residents. Many residents and businesses cannot be here because they are working and taking care of their family. But the vast majority of people I talked to were impacted by the violence of crime on Oakland streets.

I talked to immigrants. None of the immigrants have family members that were deported. In fact, zero family members have been deported in Oakland and Flock has been in operation for over a year, not only in Oakland, but in all neighboring cities of Oakland, as well as over 40 cities across the Bay Area. Flock is not some fly by night company. It has wide footprint across the entire state and the entire country and has solved over 7,000 crimes, including last month in Berkeley putting a child sex trafficker that was torching a little girl and lighting her on fire, setting her on fire.

Thank you, Tuan. Your time is up. Thank you. Calling the last batches

Hold on. Wait. Wait. Wait. Please respect speakers regardless of where you are on the item. We've done a wonderful job thus far. We're almost done.

And just to be clear, through the chair to the members of the public, he did not speak twice. He did have a minute seated to him by mister Scott who was over there and I did not see the card at first. Thank you. Julia, this this is the last, batch of names again. If you're in chambers, step to the podium if your name was already called.

If you're on Zoom, please raise your hand, we will move to you after. Julia Feinberg, Juan Albinell, Charlotte Vimish, sorry if I said that incorrectly, Chase Fowler, Christopher Kaplan, Emily Loper, 4205, High Knoll, last four four digits of the phone number 1429. Again, Oakland Rising, last four digits of the phone number 1822. Susan Seagal, Matthew Shepard, George Watson, Abigail Ilan, Rakim Naylor, Nick Carter, Ray, it might be Lewis from Urban Peace Movement, Andrew Gross, Cholito, Greg Slaughter, Carlos Tuna, Stanley Cooper, Dante Altamiro, Stephanie Tran, Ori Lowinger, Ramesh Sherrittaran, Andy Gee, Samantha Kanofsky, David Shore.

So that had to be the coolest entrance I've ever seen in City hall here coming up on the scooter.

Well his legs are too short to walk from the bus so.

Please proceed.

Alright. My name is Emily Coogan from District one. This is

Athena. Hello.

Alright. So we're here to speak against the flock. Plenty of people have already covered ICE complicity. I'm gonna talk about the polling data. I'm pretty sure they've been calling me and also my friends from mister Jenkins district across town. We aren't answering because we don't know what they're doing with that data. And so I understand that pollsters generally have statistical tools to address who is responding and not responding, but I'm skeptical that they adequately considered the fact that people who are against this were way less likely to respond to those calls. So a lot of your constituents are against this who were hanging up on that poll. So

Yeah. What do

you say, Athena?

Athena's waited a long time even if he doesn't know what to say right now. So thank you very much. Thank you.

My name is Rakeem Naylor, and I'm here on behalf of the Urban Peace Movement. Flock is making temporary fixes, not permanent solutions. Instead of installing cameras, install wealth into our youth, into the broken bumpy roads we walk on every single day. Install healthy foods into our children's schools. Instead of the public, you'd rather not clean up the public with your $2,500,000, you would not rather put preventatives, you rather put the probers of privacy.

OPD, do you care for us, the people? OPD, do you care for more of the cameras? OPD, make more jobs, not gels. Get the flock out of Oakland. Get the flock out of Oakland. Us, the people, want flock out of Oakland. Change will never make change.

Good afternoon. How was your lunch? My name is Chaney Turner, I represent District 7, also Oakland Rising. I'm really disappointed that we are here again today. How are we supposed to trust this body when you all continuously, well, majority, continuously to betray constituents?

Ken Houston fell asleep last, at the last meeting, here eating lunch. Since October, majority of community has asked you all to reject it. FLOC was rejected by the privacy advisory commission, FLOC was rejected by public safety committee, FLOC was rejected by rules and legislation. But yet, again, we are still here. Who does the Oakland City Council serve? Berkeley, Piedmont, out of state investors, and keyboard MAGA racist? Why are majority of you still pushing this item? Are you afraid to be recalled by them?

Thank you, Chaney. Your time is up. Chaney, your time is up.

Chaney. Chaney, your time is up. Hello.

My name is David Shore. I'm a d one resident and I'm a member of the Bay Area Jews for Justice. We also had other members including Samantha Kanofsky who was here earlier. She can make it but I don't need her time. Essentially, we're here to oppose this flock contract.

Our organization is made up of hundreds of Oakland Jews including a ton in District 1 Of Oakland and we'd love to follow-up with you, Councilman Unger about this. We are committed to standing alongside our immigrant neighbors and this community coalition who's been here today who came out with almost no notice for 01:00 on a Tuesday as all of them have talked about. We wanna give everything we can to support these communities who are under attack from ICE and other federal officials. They should not be under attack by our own city. They should not be under attack by our own city's police department.

It is beyond disappointing to see our city doing anything to put these communities at risk and not doing everything we can to stand against them and against these federal officials, especially as we are a sanctuary city. I hope that you can give us a Hanukkah miracle by vote.

Alright. Good afternoon, council members. My name is Stephanie Tran, president of the Oakland Chinatown Chamber of Commerce. I'm here speaking on behalf of over 300 business members in a wide range of industries. Public safety is urgent for our small businesses, residents, and visitors.

Many of our businesses are minority and or immigrant owned, and safety directly impacts whether these businesses can stay open, whether employees can feel secure at work, and customers can feel confident coming back to shop and dine. The Oakland Chinatown Chamber of Commerce operates over 50 cameras throughout Chinatown. These community led systems have supported over a 100 cases of investigations from robberies to arson, car accidents, theft, break ins, and homicide. Cameras have been a tool of safety and is especially needed at a time when we are facing a staffing, police staffing shortage. Responsible use of camera system must also be guided by clear and responsible rules.

So we urge counsel to support the adoption of the OPD camera use policy and implementation to safeguard around the use of technology.

Thank you.

Hi. I'm Dante Altamirano. I'm from District 3. Too many crimes in Oakland go unresolved because there's not enough evidence to hold offenders accountable. When cases cannot be proven, repeat offenders face no consequences and law abiding residents suffer.

Flock cameras are a limited practical tool that establish facts and accountability without targeting innocent people. Council member Faith, I am speaking to you as a District 3 constituent and you're chilling over there, and on behalf of the majority of Oaklanders. 67% of residents support the, police, and more police presence. If if not for me, then do it for black and brown residents who are disproportionately victims of violent crime and often denied justice. Do it for the Asian small business owners who are repeatedly burglarized without accountability.

Do it for the elderly neighbors who are afraid to leave their homes because of the risk of violence. These communities deserve safety, evidence, and justice. Flock hammers are a necessary step towards putting Oakland first. I believe in putting America first doing

Thank you, sir. Your time is up.

Please stop order in the chamber. Order in the chamber. Please stop jeering.

Hello.

My name is Ramesh Shreedharan. By way of introduction, I hold a PhD in computer science from MIT. I teach data science at UC Berkeley, and I've worked in the technology, AI, and software industry for about ten years. So I teach my students about when x causes y. If any of my students tried to do what OPD did and show a graph like that with a trend line and say, this caused that, without thinking about the other causes like ceasefire, I would give them a failing grade instantly.

This is not acceptable. I also want to oppose FLAC on the ethical grounds of collecting that much data. Anytime you have that much data in one place, there is always the temptation for actors to use it for other purposes. We heard about Texas where cops could search data about women who had abortions. We have seen reporting from the SF standard that OPD, in violation of state law, accessed data on behalf of federal agencies like ICE. This is not acceptable. We've also seen from security researchers that this kind of information can be hacked from FLAC cameras. In conclusion, please reject FLAC.

Hi. My name is Susan Siegel. In an email exchange, I recently sent Zach referred Zach Unger to an excellent article that was in the November issue of Street Spirit, which debunked a lot of the claims FLAC makes about how it reduces crime and exposed many of the ways that it has been misused in the ways that a lot of people have talked about. So I would urge everybody to check out that article. It was great.

The man who spoke on behalf of the police department presenting Flock earlier, while well meaning, I think was extremely naive when he talked about the highly unlikely possibility that the federal government would try to access any of this. Given our current federal government, this is extremely likely. I also just the other day got another notice about a breach.

Hello. My name is Alex. Myself and several comrades who will speak after me have prepared a collective statement to share today. We are a group of residents from all over Oakland united in our understanding that flock technology poses grave dangers to our community. Let there be no doubt why we are standing here today.

It's because some of you have already lined your pockets with big tech money and decided to sell us out to fascism and mass surveillance. Despite our very own privacy advisory commission's recommendation against flock proposal, despite it not passing through the public safety committee, and despite the huge and undeniable outpouring of community opposition rooted in well documented facts and evidence concerning the harms and failures of this technology, you are still considering partnering with a company that has aligned itself with fascists in no uncertain terms. We are going to walk you through these details once more for the record. We want you to know that Oakland is watching each and every one of your votes today, and we won't forget who you side with. The people of Oakland or big.

My name is Claire Repnau. I'm in District 1. In a time when politicians across the country are being voted out for being soft on fascism, you too should be prepared to pay the political price. You have already heard from over a 100 members of the public including privacy experts, immigration advocates, teachers, lawyers, tech workers, parents, small business owners, students, and many others about the numerous dangers of FLAC. We don't need to go into every detail, but we do want to highlight the timeline of FLAC's expansion that shows just how rotten to the core Oakland's collaboration with FLAC is.

In 2024, you quietly approved an agreement with CHP and flock without public input even though privacy advocates like e e e f f, a c l u, and your own privacy advisory commission members were already raising flags about potential issues of these. In May 2025, Johnson County Sheriff's Office in Texas searched the nationwide network of flock cameras to target and criminalize a woman who saw

George District 2. In June 2025, Cal Matters reported that law enforcement agencies across Southern California violated state law more than a 100 times by sharing information from flock automated license plate readers with federal agents. It's important to note that OPD explicitly lied to the public safety committee about this fact when they spoke last month. In July, less than a year after the cameras were deployed, we found out that flock data from San Francisco and Oakland had been shared with federal law enforcement including ICE over 200 times violating state and city laws. Later that month, those concerns were brought to the privacy advisory commission both by the public and by commission members when OPD brought forward a proposal to expand the network.

OPD and FLOC promised you that everything was okay lying through their teeth. In August, congress members Krishnamurti and Garcia, members of the House Oversight Committee launched a formal investigation into FLOC Group Inc over its role in enabling invasive surveillance practices that threaten the privacy, safety, and civil liberties of women, immigrants, and other vulnerable Americans. At the same time, it came to light that FLOC had launched a secretive pilot program giving border patrol access to 80,000 FLOC

Luo, District 1. At the same time, it came to light that FLOC had launched a secretive pilot program giving border patrol access to 80,000 FLOC cameras nationwide, sometimes without the knowledge or consent of the the local police departments. In September, in response to public pressure led by Berkeley cop watch and immigrant rights advocates, the city manager pulled Berkeley's proposed flock expansion plan and has not reintroduced it since. In October, Oakland's privacy advisory commission rejected the OPD proposal by a vote of four to two explicitly saying that Flock could not be trusted to keep Oaklanders data safe. Also at this time, the Berkeley Public Safety Committee discovered that BPD had attempted to cover up the fact that quote, an external agency had searched ALPR data for the purposes of federal immigration enforcement.

Later that month, California attorney general Rob Bonta sued the city of El Cajon over its sharing of license plate data with federal and out of state law enforcement agencies. In November, the Electronic Frontier Foundation published data showing that flock was used for hundreds of searches related to the fifty five zero one

February, the hands off protest in April

Hi. G Riz. In November, the Electronic Frontier Foundation published data showing the flock was used for hundreds of searches related to the fifty five zero one one protest in February, the hands off protest in April, the no kings protest in June and October, and other protests in between. Associated Press published a separate report that The US Border Patrol is monitoring millions of Americans' drivers national nationwide in a secretive program to identify and detain people whose travel patterns it deems suspicious. Through Flock alone, Border Patrol had access to at least 1,600 license plate readers across 22 states, and some counties have reported looking up license plates on behalf of CBP, including California.

Accordingly, both police chiefs in Capitola and Santa Cruz reported that they had unintentionally shared camera data out of state. From June 2024 to October 2025, 32 law enforcement agencies performed

Thank you. Your time is up.

Laurie Lowinger, district one. Also in November, tech expert Ben Jordan published a forty minute expose showing just how easy it is for hackers to get the sensitive data stored on a flaw camera. Included in this video are photos pulled from the hardware showing the cameras which shouldn't trigger on anything but cars, have loaded images of people in the factories where they were assembled. This same month, lawmakers also called on the Federal Trade Commission, FTC, to investigate FLAC for allegedly not enforcing multi factor authentication MFA in violation of federal law. This demand comes as reporters have noted FLAC accounts for sale on a Russian cyber crime forum, multiple instances of flock related credentials for government users and info stealer infections, potentially providing hackers and other third parties with access to at least parts of flock's surveillance network.

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