Public Safety Committee - Regular Meeting

Thank you.

Good evening and welcome to the Public Safety Committee meeting of Tuesday, June 23rd, 2026. The time is now 6.05 p.m. and this meeting may come to order. Before taking roll, I will provide instructions on how to submit speaker cards for items on this agenda. If you're here with us in chamber and would like to submit a speaker card, please fill one out and turn one into myself or a clerk representative no later than 10 minutes after the start of this meeting or before the item is read into record, whichever occurs first. Registering to speak via Zoom is now due 24 hours prior to the start of this meeting time. This meeting came to order at 6.05 p.m. and speaker cards will no longer be accepted 10 minutes after making that time 6.15 p.m. We'll now proceed with taking roll. Council members... Brown. Present. Five is excused. Council Member Houston. Here. And Chair Wong. Present. Thank you, we have three members present, one excused. Council Member Five. Chair, at this time, do you have any announcements?

I do, because we do have many people in the audience and we want to get through this meeting as well as all of the items, I am going to put on a one minute public comment time limit just so ensure that your comments meet that requirement and then we're also going to modify the agenda so item number six the informational report about the police chief recruitment is going to go after item number two by request by the administration

Thank you, noting the modification to the order of the agenda to hear item number six after item number two. Going into item number one, approval of the draft minutes from the committee meeting of June 9th, 2026. There are no speakers on this item, we just need a motion.

So moved.

I'll second that. Thank you, we have a motion made by Council Member Brown, seconded by Chair Wong to accept the draft minutes from the committee meeting of June 9th, 2026. On roll, Council Members Brown. Aye. Fife excused. Houston. Aye. And Chair Wong. Aye. Thank you, item number one passes with three ayes, one excused. Fife to accept the draft minutes from the committee meeting of June 9th, 2026. Reading in item number two, determination of schedule about standing committee items, and we have two speakers that signed up for this item.

Okay, we'll go ahead and move to public comment and then I'll make my, with Maya, with own withdrawal.

Calling in the names that signed up to speak on item number two, Mrs. Sadaolabala.

Oh, sorry, we actually have three.

Mrs. Sadaolabala, Rajni Mondal, and Blair Beekman.

So obviously you don't have a lot of interest in the negotiated settlement agreement that has been in place for 23 years dealing with majority African Americans being the victims of police brutality and excessive force. But a part of the negotiated settlement agreement requires regular stop data reports. I have never seen a stop data report brought to this body. But you're interested in sanctuary city issues. I have not seen a report that reflects the patrol rifle program. You have your officers, very few of your officers have access to rifles. You need to find out, is it adequate, is it enforced in terms of providing rifles for officers and the training that they need to have? You need to have a report on your ABC security, the security.

Thank you for your comments, Ms. Olaballa. Moving to Zoom users, Rajni, you can unmute yourself and begin your comment.

Hi, Rajni Mandel, District 4. I have concerns about placing quarterly reports on the IAB to CIPRA transfer on future Council agendas because they focus on implementation rather than readiness. At last week's Police Commission meeting, Director Lawson clarified that the proposal would likely apply only to the categories of cases CIPRA is already required to investigate under the Charter, not all internal affairs investigations. That is an important clarification. The City Administrator can report on planning but cannot direct CIPRA or ensure it has policies, training and technology and oversight needed for the transition. Under our Charter, that responsibility belongs to the Police Commission. Yet nearly 10 years after CIPRA was created, audits continue to identify many of the same governance and operational deficiencies. So I encourage Council to ensure that these reports evaluate whether CIPRA is truly ready, not simply whether implementation milestones are being completed. Thank you.

Thank you for your comments. Blair, you can unmute yourself and begin your comment.

Hi, thank you. Blair Beekman.

I wanted to quickly comment that

Good luck to Councilperson Brown and Wang working on the concepts of better data collection at the state level and how that process can work. I think that can be good lessons for all of us, how we move forward with our data and tech future in Oakland. And your last item that you'll be working on at some point is entering an MOU with USC about to create internship opportunities for graduate level work into the OPD. I hope that project's going well. It has some interesting ideas. I really like the idea of somehow bringing it to a regular social service program within Oakland first, and then they go to OPD. I hope you guys are thinking in those terms and why it's on a bit of a hiatus still in figuring it out. I hope you're working in those kind of terms with

Thank you for your comments, Chair. That concludes all speakers on item two. Okay, thank you, Madam Clerk.

We are going to move item four to the pending list, no date specific. Can I get a motion?

Absolutely, so moved.

I second it.

Thank you, noting the modification to, sorry, the change to item two is to withdraw item number four regarding the sideshow penalty ordinance and scheduling it to the pending list, no date specific. We have a motion made by Councilmember Brown, seconded by Councilmember Houston to approve the determination of schedule outstanding committee items as amended. On roll, Council Members Brown. Aye. Houston. Aye. Bife excused, and Chair Wong. Aye. Thank you, item two is approved as amended with three ayes, one excused, Bife. Going to the order of the agenda, which is item number six. receive an oral informational report on the recruitment process for chief of police, and we have three speakers that signed up to speak on this item. Okay, great.

Before I pass off the mic, I just wanted to agendize this item because this is one of the most critically important decisions that we have as a city to make, and so I wanted to shed some transparency for this body as well as the members of the public on the recruitment process, and with that, please take it away.

Thank you, Chair Wong, and council members. So my name is Daniel Hahn, and I'm a senior consultant with Ralph Anderson and Associates, and I'm currently facilitating the recruitment process for your next police chief here in Oakland. I have been a senior recruiter for Ralph Anderson for a little over four years now, and I conduct executive recruitments, primarily police chief positions throughout the country. Prior to me working with Ralph Anderson, I served as a peace officer for 34 years, predominantly in Sacramento. The last 11 years of my career as police chief in both Sacramento and Roseville, California. So tonight I'm here to, just as the chair said, provide you a report and update on the recruitment process for your police chief. So on May 28th, the Oakland Police Commission voted and approved a slate of final candidates to forward to the mayor's office for the position of police chief in your city. This is the culmination of a detailed process facilitated by the Police Chief Search Ad Hoc Committee of the Oakland Police Commission. After numerous meetings, the police chief search ad hoc committee developed a comprehensive search process, which consisted of six community forums throughout Oakland and online survey in order to receive the input of those who couldn't attend the forums. And in addition to that, I was also provided contact information for several stakeholders to individually interview regarding to what they feel is important in your next police chief. So the ad hoc committee selected six locations across Oakland. The committee members were present at every community forum. There was a couple council members at some of the forums also. Each community forum was also accessible on Zoom for community members who, again, couldn't attend. And there was translation services at selected meetings. The community survey was also developed by the ad hoc committee and placed online, and it was also advertised in local media and on flyers at every one of the community forums, the link to that survey. The police chief ad hoc utilized the information from the community along with their own knowledge and experience to determine which candidates to interview, develop the interview questions and the process, and ultimately select a slate of candidates to move forward to the mayor. When the position for your police chief closed on March 30th, we had a diverse group of 18 candidates who had applied to serve as your next police chief. So I wanted to go a little bit over the timeline and what the dates and the actual activities matched pretty good with the timeline that the ad hoc committee came up from the beginning. So as soon as the timeline finalized by the ad hoc, it was posted on the police commission website and advertised at all the community forums. The police chief position was posted publicly on Friday, February 20th, and closed five weeks later on March 30th. So all the applicants had to apply by March 30th. This was a national search, and we placed the ad for your police chief position with the brochure that was approved by the ad hoc in numerous publications and entities across the country, just to name a few to give you an idea of what kind of organizations those were. It was placed in the California Police Chiefs Association, the Hispanic American Police Command Officers Association, International Association of Chiefs of Police, Major City Police Chiefs Association, National Association of Women Law Enforcement Executives, NOBLE, the National Organization for Black Law Enforcement Executives, Northern California Asian Peace Officers Association, and several others. The community engagement has taken place from the beginning and the process with the purpose of informing the police commission what the community feels is important in regards to added attributes, skills, abilities, and backgrounds for your next police chief. In April, the full police commission was provided access to all the applicants, so that would be their cover letters, their resumes, and any other information they submitted. The ad hoc committee reviewed these resumes, cover letters, and public articles for each candidate and selected 10 applicants to interview that they felt best represented the qualifications needed to be your next police chief. The ad hoc developed the interview questions utilizing the community input and the community forums and the community surveys and stakeholder interviews. After the ad hoc conducted the 10 candidate interviews, the ad hoc committee deliberated on each candidate with the full commission in order to fulfill the police commission's charter mandate of forwarding at least three candidates to the mayor's office. On May 28th, the full commission voted and forwarded a slate of four finalists to the mayor's office for consideration. The mayor's office, as we speak, is conducting her process in regards to narrowing it down to whoever she selects as your next police chief. So again, the public process, a little bit more on that. Starting in February, I conducted several stakeholder interviews with business leaders, community-based organization leadership, religious leaders, union leaders, and many more. I also spoke with every police commissioner. This constituted over 25 one-on-one interviews. We, myself and the ad hoc committee, facilitated the six community forums throughout Oakland beginning in March and concluding on April 2nd. There was also an electronic survey, as I mentioned earlier, that was open through middle of April. And the purpose of the outreach, again, is so the Oakland community could have their voice and inform the people that were making the decision on who to forward to the mayor. The six community meetings. These are the locations selected by the ad hoc. So 81st Avenue Public Library, the East Bay Church of Religious Science on Telegraph, Imani Church on MacArthur, Fruitvale Area Library on East 12th Street, the Fremery Park Recreational Center on Adeline, and the Oakland Asian Cultural Center on 9th Street. So just to go over the themes that were expressed in all these public venues for your community to provide input. So the first question asked in all these venues was what are the top priorities for the Oakland Police Department in general? So not specific to the police chief, but to the department in general. So the first most common theme was a well-managed department. And within that, people said things like fiscal management, address over time, efficient use of resources, ensure accountability, build trust and community engagement, and improve community relations. Second common theme, staffing. And within that, people said things like address recruitment and retention, ensure a positive environment within the police department, and examine non-police response models. The third most common theme, constitutional policing and transitioning out of the negotiated settlement. And within that, people said things such as ensure constitutional policing and complete tasks and exit the negotiated settlement. And then lastly, under that question, the most common theme was public safety in general. And some of the comments under public safety were things like improve response time, address serious crimes such as sex trafficking, address violent crime, property crime, sideshows, I see some of those items are on your agenda tonight. Address unhoused issue, bring back foot patrols, and find ways to utilize technology.

And I'm so sorry. By the way, I so appreciate the thoroughness of this report, but given that I know that there's a lot of people in the audience eagerly waiting to make public comment, if we could just, how many more minutes do you need? How about that?

Well, I can even go faster if you'd like.

Okay, go a little faster. That would be great. Thank you so much.

So I'll just flip through these because these themes were also presented at the police commission. So these are the themes for the second question, good communication skills, understanding Oakland, have character, be courageous. The third question themes were have a heart for Oakland, care about Oakland, community engagement, management and leadership experience, be a good communicator. Next question, what are the top priorities specific to the police chief? The negotiated settlement came up in every setting, community engagement, staffing, and public safety again. And I believe this is the last question. Um, people said they prefer that the person have Oakland or Bay area experience. Um, but if they don't come from a urban large, uh, city similar to Oakland and have experience with civilian oversight and experience with the consent decree or negotiated settlement or monitor oversight, something like that. So I'll flip through these really quick. These are very similar to the community forums. These are the survey responses. So you see the top response to the top priorities for the department as a whole is faster 911 response time, timely emergency response, and you can see the other answers. The top answer for what attributes, skills, and abilities needed in the police chief. The top one was a proven leadership in a large department and ability to drive change. Um, next question, most important leadership qualities. The most common response was the ability to fix problems and improve the department and top priorities for the police chief themselves. Number one was reduced violent crime and improved public safety. And then lastly, on the qualifications and backgrounds, the top, the top answer was experience, improving departments and implementing reforms. So with that, that concludes my presentation. I'd be happy to answer any questions you might have.

Council Member Houston, go ahead. Chair, who were the four top finalists?

Those are still confidential, so the mayor's still working through that. So I wish I could tell you, but I can't yet.

I was tricking you, Mr. Daniel. I was trying to get it out so the public can know. So I'll pass.

There is four of them, though. I can tell you that much. Okay. Yes.

Councilmember Brown. Excellent. Thank you so much. I almost thought you were going to answer.

It's not my first rodeo. Yeah.

Thank you so much for the very, very thorough presentation. One of the things and then also just learning a little bit more about your background in history as well. Right. Really being, I would say, like an expert in this space. One of the things that caught my eye in the report is around innovation, right? The ability to also be a leader in this space and a proven history of innovation, right? And so when I think about that, I think about like the different advances in technology that we definitely want to utilize to help keep our community safe. And so my question is, with the experience that you have, in the recruitment process, how do we actually identify if someone seeking this role has that ability to innovate a department?

Great question. And I would add to 100%, the community said exactly kind of what you're saying in terms of wanting somebody that's innovative when it comes to technology. But I'd also add to that they also want innovative in terms of response too, as you heard in some of those, a collaborative response or a non-police response. So innovative in those ways too. The reality is the applicants that apply for a position like this have been in law enforcement for many, many years, probably 20 plus years on most candidates that apply. And they've been in leadership positions. So the interview process, I interview them, the police commission interviews them, the mayor has a process that typically includes an interview. And that's where you can dig into their background to see if they don't only have the answer you want to hear, but they've actually done it in a previous assignment. So that's what's great about having a group of people that have done this sort of work for 20 plus years, you can see what they've done.

I see. And then I guess with your experience and kind of background in this space, and this is just, I'm asking this question mainly out of curiosity, are there any jurisdictions that you would look to and say, hey, you know what, whether it's across the country, here in California, that you feel like they are modeling an innovative police force and an innovative leadership style? Just curious.

Yeah, I would say there are many examples across the country on specific items. So I would say when you review other departments for innovative things, you'd look at multiple departments. There might be one department that works with social services really well. There might be another department that has a different response model. So there's several departments that have an expertise in a specific area. I see. And so you can look at multiple departments to kind of develop your full strategy.

I got you.

Thank you. Thank you, Council Member Brown. I have just a couple of quick questions, and then let's turn it over to public comment. I am curious. One thing that I had thought noteworthy from the community input surveys is, one, people really want to see faster 911 response and better emergency response times, which is also one of my priorities, as well as one of the notable qualities that people are looking for is the ability to implement reform. how are you able to assess that through the interview process or at looking at resumes? Like how do you really distinguish whether someone is capable of doing those things? So, cause I do think that it can be easy to lay out these things on paper, but how do you really distinguish and how do you feel actually about the candidates? You can't tell us who the names are, but how are you able to finalize this set of candidates to match up with these qualities that the community asked for?

Yeah, I think it is really a process, many steps in the process where you're looking at what this person has done in their past, both by talking to them and them telling you, but also anybody that's been in a leadership position in law enforcement has numerous articles, public articles that you can look them up. And so if they really did something innovative in some areas, there's probably several articles about it so you can see if they really did it or not. And so I interview them and I utilize what the community said to direct the questions I ask them. And then the ad hoc committee developed their questions largely based on what they heard from the community and their own experiences. So if the community said they need to be innovative, there's probably some questions on the interview panel about innovation. What have you done in that space?

Great, super helpful. Let's go to public comment. GO AHEAD, COUNCILMEMBER HOUSTON.

I HAVE ONE MORE QUESTION. WHEN I GLASS THROUGH THIS, IF YOU LOOK OUT IN THE CROWD, YOU'RE GOING TO SEE DIVERSITY TO A WHOLE OTHER LEVEL. WHAT QUESTION DID YOU ASK THIS CHIEF, THESE TOP ONES ABOUT DIVERSITY? BECAUSE OAKLAND IS DIVERSED TO A WHOLE OTHER LEVEL. SO WHAT WAS THAT QUESTION?

Yeah, there was questions both by myself and by the ad hoc in their interview process about their experiences, where they were at, what was the diversity like in those jurisdictions. Not to mention, when you look at their resume and see where they're from, you can easily Google to find out what the makeup of their cities that they were in, because that was definitely a strong answer from the community that if they're not from Oakland or the Bay Area, they should be from a community that's urban and diverse, similar to Oakland.

Okay, thank you. Okay, great. Thank you, Council Member Houston. Let's go to public comment.

Calling in the names that signed up to speak on item number six, Ms. Assata Olaballa, Rajni Mandal, and Blair Beekman.

This current process is not the same as the last process. The last process, once the four candidates had been identified, I think it might have been three, the police commission interviewed them in front of the public. asked them questions i was able to see for myself what candidate i thought was best unfortunately that that person wasn't chosen so why didn't we do that this time why is this we don't know the names when the last time we didn't know the names and we knew we had background on those persons i am in support of what the mayor of new york has done the mayor of you know new york appointed a police sheriff or chief, I don't know what they call them, but this individual was a whistleblower and he was harassed for doing it. That person comes into the department with no fear of holding people accountable.

Thank you for your comments, Ms. Olabala. Switching to Zoom user Rajni. You can unmute yourself and begin your comments.

Rajni Mandel, District 4. Last week the police commission decided to extend interim chief Beer's appointment while the mayor completes her selection process. Chief Mitchell announced his resignation more than eight months ago, yet Oakland is still led by an interim chief as the department prepares to exit over two decades of federal oversight. This is the second consecutive police chief recruitment process to take many months, raising broader questions about whether the current charter process is working as intended. The city auditor raised these concerns in a 2020 audit recommending the city review the police commission's role in selecting and removing the chief. Once this recruitment is complete, I hope Oakland evaluates the entire process as part of future charter reform discussions to ensure it is transparent, accountable, and timely. Thank you.

Thank you for your comments. Blair, you can unmute yourself and begin your comment.

Hi. Thank you, Blair Beekman. Thanks for the words of Councilperson Wang describing the importance of 911 calls, what we're going to do with that kind of item in the future. There's public safety concerns that have to be addressed. On top of that, I'm trying to learn how to better grasp and talk about the subject here in Oakland, the concept of public participation and the public's role in the future of the process. You guys have been working really hard to streamline and make clear the role of administration. Well, to take it out of administration, but put it into the mayor's hands to put things into council hands. There is, you know, and that's why our police chiefs keep leaving because of public participation, basically. And we have to acknowledge the power of the public. And you guys are trying to fight that right now. And I think we have to learn to work with it more. And that's how you decide the next police chief. And that's where the police chief will stay instead of leaving.

Thank you for your comments, Chair. That concludes all speakers on this item. Okay. Can I get a motion?

Excellent. So moved.

I second.

Thank you, we have a motion made by Council Member Brown, seconded by Council Member Houston to approve the recommendations of staff and to receive and file this informational report. On roll, Council Members Brown. Aye. Fife excused, Houston. Aye. And Chair Wong. Aye. Thank you, item number six passes with three ayes, one excused. Fife to receive and file this informational report in committee. Going back to the order of the agenda to hear item number three. Adopt a resolution authorizing the city administrator to temporarily close to through, sorry, temporarily close to through traffic 9th Avenue, 10th Avenue, and 11th Avenue between International Boulevard and 15th Street for a period of six months pursuant to California Vehicle Code Section 21101.4 to disrupt persistent activity associated with sex trafficking, and we have 11 speakers on this item.

Okay, this is my item, so I will go ahead and start this presentation. And while the, ah, thank you. All right, one thing I just, before I get into the specifics of what we are doing here, I wanted to actually thank the community. This has truly been a community-led process, and the community actually has really pushed myself and my office to do this. So I wanna thank the East Bay Asian Youth Center. for being such a vocal advocate for the community in trying innovative ideas to address what has really been an unacceptable moral issue on International Boulevard. um so what you'll see actually uh in this particular slide is that what we are proposing here oh the other thing that i want to provide contact context as to why this is even being presented by california vehicle code we're actually required to do a public hearing so if we move this it'll go to a july 7th public hearing at city council What you'll see here too is that this is a proposed temporary closure for six months. It's a pilot at 9th, 10th, and 11th Avenue to disrupt the sex trafficking happening on an international boulevard. And what you see there is an image of Franklin Elementary, which is the school that is right adjacent to each of, to these avenues. And really it is just, it's unacceptable that children have to see this day in and day out, right? And this is why these streets have been chosen for this pilot. I want to get through this quickly since I know we also have other very important community-led items to get through. So just very quickly, this is a crime prevention through environmental design approach. You can see there in the upper right corner that really the nexus and the reason that a street closure is being proposed because that may seem bizarre to individuals who have not been working closely on this human trafficking issue is that the behavior of the buyers relies on these side streets to really facilitate these transactions in these side streets. And that is why closing these side streets is a pilot that we want to pursue. The hope, too, I will say is that this is not going to disrupt or actually undermine the patrols that are being done by the Special Victims Unit, but actually supplement the enforcement done by Lieutenant Campos, who is here with us, and I want to thank him for being a strong partner on this. The other thing I just wanted to mention is that there have been proven case studies in Houston. The closure of the Bissonette track, which was essentially their human trafficking corridor, actually really brought about transformational changes. As you can see in these stats on the slide, 98% reduction in prostitution solicitation arrests, 88% overall decline within the district. Anyways, you can see the statistics for yourself. And so while many people, there may be people who are skeptical, I think it is an approach worth trying. So in conclusion, and just for awareness, the police department has been a partner in this. Thank you, OPD, the fire department as well. So thank you to OFD as well as AC Transit. All of these stakeholders were consulted on these intersections and the decision to close these streets. And we will be doing an evaluation through the six month trial period to see if this is effective or not. Okay, and that's it. Colleagues, any questions? And I know we have public comment, so maybe we can keep it brief and then we can move to public comment. I'll wait for the public speakers. Okay, sounds good. Council Member Houston, you have anything urgent?

Nettergen, I just wanted to share with you, I applaud you for trying this. We have to try it, right? But what I'm gonna, I shouldn't say but, I should say however. It's just pushing it around. It shouldn't be around where our children, it's appalling. It's appalling that our children have to see this. It's appalling that the girls are being sex trafficked like this also. And it's just pushing them around, but I'm willing to help you try until we can come up with another solution. It's almost like illegal dumping. All they're doing is clean up, clean up, clean up, clean up, instead of prosecuting, stopping it, deterring this problem, right? The other cities don't have to deal with this. Why should we have to deal with it? We have to prosecute to the full extent of the law. I was just talking to the chief, and he was mentioning something about if someone is getting caught, state legislation said if someone gets caught, they just go to a John school, get a fine, and then it gets, what, dismissed from the record? The diversion. Yeah, sounds crazy. We're going to prosecute these people, but I'm willing to support with what you're saying, so I'm down with it. Let the public speak.

Thank you, Council Member. And for the members of the public, just to be clear, too, this is not the only strategy that my office is pursuing to combat human trafficking. In addition, I'm a strong believer in the enforcement against the traffickers and the johns. We are coupling this with that alongside exit services for the women and girls. That is a critical piece that we cannot. We cannot forget in any sort of human trafficking enforcement strategy. Okay. Well, thanks, everyone, and let's go to the public comment.

Calling in the names that signed up to speak on item number three. In no particular order, you can come up to the podium, state your name before beginning, and make your comment. If you are ceding time, the person that's ceding their time to you must have a card filled out and must be present to acknowledge that they are giving you their time. Raymond Pisano, Liz Sullivan, Evelyn Gina Lark, David Kakashiva, sorry if I'm pronouncing names wrong, Yami, Teresa Salazar, Asada Olabala, Blair Beekman, John Jones III, Yesenia Ortiz, and Lin.

Good evening. My name is Liz Sullivan. I'm a community organizer, and I'm speaking in support of item number three. The commercial sexual exploitation of women and underage girls on International Boulevard is deeply harmful to the women and girls involved and also to the neighborhood and the community in which the activity occurs. We lost St. Anthony's School, a 130-year-old institution, because enrollment plummeted when East 15th Street became the blade. Now the client base at the San Antonio Clinic is declining, and we're in danger of losing another community institution. So we want to try out these barricades, because we want to see if we can move the activity away from these cherished neighborhood institutions, not only the clinic, but also Franklin Elementary, Franklin Recreation Center, and the Head Start. And so I ask you to please vote in favor of this because we need to do something. We need to act to protect the neighborhoods.

Good evening City Council members of Public Safety Committee. My name is Evangelina Lara and I am an East Bay Asian Youth Center staff and a San Antonio Coalition member. I have lived in Oakland for the last 27 years. We can all agree that Oakland has its ups and downs. I really love Oakland and the community and I truly believe Oakland has more potential to grow. The one thing I would like to see a change in my city is to see that sex trafficking is solved because it has affected a lot of lives, including mine. As a mother, I'm affected because my older son and my daughter left Oakland looking for a better environment for their kids, and I don't see them as much. I am here today encouraging you to approve the crime prevention through environmental design pilot program as a strategy to protect life in DC too. Thank you.

Good afternoon, consulate members. My name is Teresa Salazar, and I have lived in International Boulevard and on 23th Avenue for 32 years. And I am a member of San Antonio Coalition. As you know, sex traffic is a massive problem occurring around the clock. My request is that the proposal to temporarily close to the affected area be approved in this emergency strategy to protect the most vulnerable residents, especially children, please. Thank you.

Good evening, my name is Raymond Pisano. I live on East 15th and have witnessed firsthand the terrorizing effects of the street level sex business. I observed the surge when it began in 2018 and the ferocity of its growth during the pandemic. We didn't expect that the sex traffic would miraculously disappear when the traffic diverters were installed. We didn't know if they would have any effect at all. The traffic diverters came about as a result of committed exchange of ideas, from closing the street entirely to strategic roundabouts, from slow streets to even a pedestrian mall, from community celebrations to reclaim our neighborhood to the ineffective installation of speed bumps. Some of us wanted the traffic diverters at every corner. We agreed then to try them at just three intersections. The result, the quality of life for an entire district metamorphosed unimaginably. We don't know exactly what will happen if a few avenues are closed from entry from international.

We do know how the... Hi, good evening, city council and council members. My name is Linh. I am... I am speaking on behalf of a local business owner along International Boulevard. I have been a business owner in this company almost 40 years. During that time, I have seen how prostitution and human trafficking have In fact, it's local business, our customer and overall environment and our neighborhood. We want a safety and welcome to community where family feel comfortable for business shopping and supplement local business. Why for local business? Why a local solution regarding? to work and believe this pilot project deserves.

Thank you for your comments. Your time is up. Thank you, Lynn.

Okay, good evening, community listener. So my name is Yemi Leung. I am a community organizer from EBC, and I am speaking on behalf of the residents and parents from the San Antonio neighborhood. And for many years, our community has worked with the city to address an ongoing problem of human trafficking. While we understand that no single solution is guaranteed to solve this issue, we believe this pilot program deserves a chance. As the parents, we continue to witness open solutions while driving or walking our children to school. This expects the safety of our neighborhood and the environment in which our children grow up. We believe it is important to try new approaches rather than accept these standard reports. We respectfully ask the committee to support this pilot program and vote yes. Thank you for your time and considerations.

Good afternoon, everyone. My name is Yesenia. I have lived on 10th Avenue for over 20 years, and as a resident, I have seen how sex trafficking has become an issue and is only getting worse. I used to walk my son to school, but as he's gotten older and started seeing the ladies standing there almost naked, he started asking questions, and I knew walking to school wasn't an option anymore. Now I have to drive him to school and go around certain streets hoping there's none of them standing in the street. As a mom having to drive him to school because of the issue we have going on and not being able to enjoy walking our streets, I am here this evening to encourage you to approve the crime prevention. And as someone who grew up on 10th Avenue and didn't get to witness the issue we have now, I don't think it's fair for our children. I think our children deserve better. Thank you.

good evening council members my name is david kakisuba i work with the east bay asian youth center our organization is a member of the san antonio neighborhood coalition we have been working on the issue of street level sex trafficking in our neighborhood since 2000 since 2022 And we have been, this approach, the septet approach, is something that in addition to the Houston model, we have the East 15th Street model. I just want to emphasize the comments from the previous speakers that after the installing of the traffic diverters on East 15th, uh within a few weeks the sex trafficking activity was completely eliminated it did move out of the neighborhood but on east 15th and life for those residents became much better and completely different we appreciate

John Jones III, for the record. I might have to change my name. I'm feeling personally attacked here. I'm neither for or against this, and I'll share why through the chair. And I want to echo something that Councilmember Houston said. Historical context and institutional memory is so important on this issue. I was born in East Oakland 52 years ago, and I know there's a tendency to just shuffle this population around, right? Councilmember Noel remember when it used to be on the other side of High Street by that little taco truck? I'm from deep East Oakland. It used to be on East 14th Street. we should call west mac the meat rack my point is even with the brt the construction international pushed it off so my point is i'm concerned this is going to push it somewhere else it doesn't solve the problem i understand that you want to do something about it i'm acknowledging that but i think it's important for us we got to have a real comprehensive strategy because what ended up happening is the residents got to suffer i appreciate it's 15 but it to me it's an eyesore to see these barricades there and it's not really helping those people out there so

The report that came out as a result of the barricades being put on 15th Street says this. The city tested a street barricade approach on East 15th Street in the past, but officials noted the problem often just shuffled to different blocks rather than disappearing entirely. That's what a lot of people are saying. So what you're doing is just moving the problem someplace else. And if that is gonna be of some significance, then explain how. to put it in somebody else's direction. It also says that the barricades often create problems for emergency vehicles response and cause traffic congestions and it becomes an inconvenience to local residents in terms of trying to get into their areas to park. And the most important thing is the need for more comprehensive victim centered

Thank you for your comments. Switching to Zoom user, Blair, you can unmute yourself and begin your comments.

All right, thank you, Blair Beekman. Difficult item. I think you had something similar earlier today, a committee item that you've been talking about recently about how to end right turns onto a street. So I didn't know it had to do with this sort of item, but boy, a lot to work on. um barricades uh can be difficult uh to navigate uh just it's a lot to work with good luck how we can uh all consider it and work on it and uh thank you thank you for your comments chair that concludes all speakers on this item

okay thank you madam clerk one thing that i just also wanted to to mention both to the audience um as well as my colleagues is that um you know i had actually voted down this recent budget and i you know want to acknowledge my own role in adding things on the floor but the reason i did that is really because of the comments that you just heard i'm always going to be fighting for san antonio it is the most working class part of my district and the other rationale around why I wanted to get more funding for this project in particular, is actually building out more of this instead of just those three intersections that we have as this pilot would have actually ensured, my theory being that it was less likely to actually displace the problem, but actually help supplement the enforcement that way. And the reason why the enforcement is so critical is because I have implemented or we have put on this ordinance that actually any enforcement against the traffickers and the johns funds 100% survivor services, better enforcement actually provides more funding to the survivors and the victims too. So I just I want to explain that and I just asked for my colleagues that You know, I'll be introducing a future budget resolution I just would like your support in that because it's directly relevant to this project and that's all Councilmember Brown go ahead

Excellent, well I wanna first start off by just really thanking you for all of your work in this space because I know that yes, there's the item that we have before us now around these traffic diverters, but Council Member Wong has really been hitting the ground running trying to tackle this issue that has been impacting this neighborhood. during your entire time on the council. And so I just really wanna applaud that effort. And so some of the questions that I'm going to ask are just simply just trying to make sure we're covering all of our bases. And so I know that the agenda report mentions the partnership and collaboration of both the Oakland Police Department, Oakland Fire, also mentions Oak Dot, as well as AC Transit. And so just wanted to confirm, can you walk me through how these agencies will be working together to collect the data? And what is the specific data that is going to be collected?

Yeah, so it's going to be OPD and DOT specifically that are going to be doing the data collection. The other agencies really just weighed in when we were choosing which streets to close down to see, you know, what would be the impact to the BRT? Would there be impacts to emergency response? And so this is how OFD as well as AC Transit were consulted in the process. And then when it comes to data collection, some of it's going to be on just traffic impact, so what does it look like when we close down these streets? And then the other component, and Lieutenant Campos can speak more to this, as you know, Councilmember Brown, he is already doing the data collections piece on just the human trafficking activity and the enforcement related to that, and it's just, you know layering over these two things to see if are we seeing a reduction what what is the impact on the human trafficking activity is it effective as it as it has been in Houston okay

Thank you. And so OPD and OakDOT will be in charge of collecting this data. I imagine that you got sign-off from those departments to do that work.

Yes, absolutely. And is Megan Weir here? I knew that. Hi, Megan. You want to... Speak to this.

And then since Megan is joining us, I did have a question about how will this project be funded and then how soon will there be implementation? And then my last question is just making sure that we've engaged with the parents of students at Franklin Elementary, making sure that they have an awareness of the street closure as well. And is that something that's been done?

Yeah, that is coming up on our radar. We've done a number of community engagement sessions. Next up, once this is passed, is continued community outreach that includes specifically to the Franklin community.

I see. Excellent. Excellent, and so good to see you, Megan. I rarely get to see you because I'm not in public works committee. So through the chair, I asked the question around how soon can we implement this project and then how will it be funded?

Sure, sure, and I know you also asked about data collection. So knowing the importance of this pilot, our team has already been doing data collection on volumes and speeds and turning volumes on key proximate locations that could be impacted by traffic diversion. and then we'll plan to do the follow-up post data collection. My colleague from AC Transit's also here, so they'll be monitoring impacts on buses, and then the fire department has a CAD model that they use to assess impacts on emergency response times, so they also ran it and did not anticipate major impacts, but we'll be continuing to monitor through the pilot, and that's just the type of coordination that we'd wanna do for any type of street closure impact. With respect to the funding, Council Member Wong is using her discretionary council funds for the pilot and for implementation, as many of the speakers today have noted after This goes through council. We will work with the council members office for additional outreach to impacted schools and businesses and then aim to have an implementation in early fall of the pilot.

excellent um thank you so much um and i know that um when the former council member of district 2 was in office there was various kind of street diversions that were implemented during that time i believe that the the ones mentioned maybe by some of the public speakers are on east 15th and so do we currently have data that we've collected from that those diversions

yeah that's a great question so the east 15th pilot was implemented by the same team that implemented the diverters that will be implementing this pilot and we had a lot of lessons learned that initial pilot was more qualitative data collection but we worked again with the council office to both engage with residents before that as described really informed the pilot And then three months afterwards, there was a community meeting led by the council office out at the diverters to get feedback. So that feedback was more qualitative in addition to just getting feedback from emergency responders and OPD. But in this case, we're really invested in a quantitative data collection as well.

Excellent. So that sounds really good, and it sounds like we have a roadmap to go off of. So excellent. I'm happy to support.

Thank you, Council Member Brown. Yes, Council Member Houston.

Yes, through the chair. So Megan, I mean, how much is this gonna cost? How much is it gonna cost, and how many K rails? Are they water-filled? What's the specs on those?

We are, the entire pilot's estimated at 98K, and that includes both the water barriers. There'll be, I believe, six. We're also gonna be doing signage. We're gonna need to modify some signals. We're gonna be doing some pavement markings just to ensure safety, since this is, and particularly given it's right off International Boulevard. The cost estimate also includes the data collection that we'll be doing, the pre- and post-data collection. So 98K.

So through the chair, so what has been the pluses and the minuses of those water-filled K-rails? Have people punched holes in them, or what's the weight, and have they been moved around? Let me share why I'm saying this, because I believe in what you're trying to do, Council Member Vaughn. because you've been 10 toes down, you're fighting for your community, and I know what it's like. I know what it's like. They're gonna be happy and you have other people unhappy because it's just gonna move over to their block. But you gotta start somewhere. You have to do something. So I support your courage. So that's why I'm asking is because I wanna be able to support you to the maximum. That's why I said, what is the ups and downs of the water-filled K-rails? Because if the concrete blocks and K-rails work better and they're harder to move around and I can save you some money, I might be able to help you out with that. And I told you about that. So what was the ups and downs for the water-filled K-rails?

Sure, I think with any with any there's a council member Houston as you astutely point out with any intervention there's pros and cons with respect to the barriers we chose water. Barriers just given that this is a pilot so with respect to being able to have our traffic maintenance crews install them. And then we'll be learning over the six months whether or not they would become more permanent, and in that case, we would reassess what they would be installed in. So on East 15th, which is a great example, given the positive reception of the diverters, one and increasingly more of those locations are becoming permanent installations. But right now, given that it's an initial pilot, we're gonna be using the water-filled barriers, which are just frankly more nimble for installation. also through east 15th we through residents learned that for example some vehicles were trying to push the barriers out of the way so in that case we had our sign crews get out there relatively quickly to install like signposts and other deterrents to kind of bust buttress the water barriers So we anticipate with any pilot, frankly, we will be doing a lot of learning by doing, and that's why having close communication with the council office and the impacted residents and businesses will be critical for our success.

And one more question through the chair. Since this is in your district, are there water K rails in those areas already somewhere?

We started East 15th with the water barriers as well.

And how have they been? Have they been pushed around?

Well, we work to fortify them with signposts and other hardening and just adjusted the installation. So now that we've learned through that pilot, we'll plan to do some tweaking once the pilot gets in the ground again in response to what we see on the ground.

Okay, so whatever help you need, just let me know. Okay.

Thank you. Much gratitude to both of you. Yeah. Thank you, colleagues. Someone want to make a motion? I'll make a motion. I am making a motion to adopt my own recommendation. Second.

Thank you, we have a motion made by Chair Wong, seconded by Council Member Brown to approve the recommendations of staff and to forward this item to the July 7th, 2026 City Council agenda as a public hearing. On roll, Council Members Brown. Aye. Fife excused, Houston. Aye. And Chair Wong. Aye. Thank you, item three passes with three ayes, one excuse, Fife to forward this item to the July 7th City Council agenda as a public hearing. noting that item number four was withdrawn and scheduled to the pending list no date specific i will still read in the title and take public comment on it I will go ahead and read in the title. Adopt an ordinance amending Oakland Municipal Code Chapter 10.74 to increase penalties for sideshow participants and spectators, broaden the definition of motor vehicles, strengthen impoundment authority, and create enforcement exemptions for certain members of the public, law enforcement, and media personnel. And there were three people that signed up to speak on this item. We will take public comment. Asada Olavalla, Blair Beekman, and John Jones III.

Through the chair, I wanna begin by saying, again, please do not take anything I say, I respect your efforts. My frustration come as someone who's a single father. My son just graduated from Garfield Elementary. Through the chair, Councilmember Houston, I went to my first side show in 1986 at Eastmont Mall. 40 years ago, it seemed like every three to five years, there's this effort to let's do something about side shows. And that's my frustration because back then it was understood that if the participants kept the activities confined to the parking lot and not allow it to disperse into the residential areas and kept the violence down, it was a green light. Mayor Harris was the one that disrupted it. And when you decentralized the sideshow, it pushed it off into these residential areas. So now we're being very reactive. At the end of the day, I was going to do this. I'm not going to do it for you. If y'all get a chance, please listen to Richie Rich from Oakland, California, has a song called Sideshow in 1990, which is 36 years ago. Listen to them lyrics.

When it comes to the side shows, there are three areas that need to be considered, and they involve the drivers, the observers, and the promoters. My concern are with the observers, because these are very young people, the majority of them, and they are participating in blocking interceptions, intersections, vandalism, destruction of property, hitting cars. They're also involved in looting in some cases, vandalism, and violent assaults on each other. And that particular issue of the observers and how we get to make that situation better hasn't been dealt with with the intensity it needs to be dealt with. These are very young people. I remember they turned over a bus, they broke into a store and stole items.

Thank you for your comments, Mrs. Sada. Switching to Zoom user Blair. You can unmute yourself and begin your comment.

Hi, Blair Beekman. I guess I got it wrong. I've been going in and out of meetings all day. And maybe there wasn't the previous item was on an agenda previous today. I'm sorry about that. But it has been a committee recently often about the right turn issues. I wanted to comment, Ms. Osada was trying to describe where participants are at with this and why there's new penalties on participants. I don't understand it fully. I am not in favor of those sort of issues. Possibly impounding the vehicles, those sort of issues I can relate to, but when you start impounding people, know that's difficult and we got to make sure to have good uh equity rules in place for when vehicles are impounded how that process can work i don't know just to mention those things um i'm trying to learn so thank you uh balance please offer respect thank you for your comments mr biegman chair that concludes all speakers on this item

okay and um i will make a motion to oh you have a comment first councilmember houston go ahead or can't drawing it oh okay sorry uh because uh i'm moving to withdrawing uh to withdrawing the item councilmember houston uh we'll have to save your comments either offline or when we do hear the item so i am making a motion to move this item to the pending list with no date specific

Can I just point of clarification through the chair to the attorney? This item was already pulled and so I think at this time we're only hearing public comment and so I think that no further action is needed.

For clarity's sake, we're recommending just doing the motion here as well. just because the pending list might be separate from an agendized item, so we did need to hear public comment because it was an agendized item, but for safety's sake, we're suggesting making a motion here, withdrawing it, and moving it to the pending list, no date specific, just to make sure we're okay for clarity's sake.

Excellent, so then at that point, we could actually make a comment.

Okay, is that a second, or Councilmember Houston, do you want to make a second?

He just said I could. It doesn't make sense. If I wanna speak to what John Jones just said, I should be able to speak to it. You let the public speak. Thank you, Council Member Brown.

Okay, all right, you can make a comment, Council Member Houston. Sorry, just trying to follow the rules.

I understand, but the rules need to be clear. Fair enough. On that note, John Jones had mentioned something. I feel insulted when they say sideshow. These aren't sideshows. We gotta change the terminology. When I was growing up at Eastmont Mall, it wasn't the vandalism that's happening out here, it's destruction. We were showing, I was there. We showed our cars. It was no violence. It was almost like what they do out in San Jose when they do the slow rolling. They drive down to show their cars. So I feel insulted when they mention sideshow, because this is not a sideshow. This is destruction. This is vandalism. Because like John Jones just said, when we were growing up, it was not like this. It was not like this. You know, so I just wanted to make that comment and make it clear. We need to distinguish between sideshow and vandalism and destruction.

Did you get your motion? Okay, second. Thank you.

Thank you, we have a motion made by Chair Wong, seconded by Council Member Brown to withdraw item number four and schedule it to the pending list under no date specific. On roll, Council Members Brown. Aye. Fife, excused. Houston. Aye. And Chair Wong. Aye. Thank you, item four passes, or motion passes with three ayes, one excuse, five, to withdraw and schedule this item to the Public Safety Committee pending list under no date specific. Now moving on to item number five. Adopt an ordinance reaffirming the City of Oakland Sanctuary City Policy collectively found in resolutions number 63950, 80584, 86498, 87036 CMS and ordinance number 13515 CMS to prohibiting the use of city property for non-city purpose, setting parameters for responding to civil immigration detainer and notification request and consolidating, codifying these provisions as chapters of the Oakland Municipal Code and designating this ordinance as the City of Refuge Ordinance. And we have 35 speakers on this item.

Oh, that's right. Okay. And, uh, K top, can we get the presentation loaded up and, uh, great. And, and before we get into the presentation, this is truly, I must say an evening of community led, uh, processes. So, um, I, I just want to thank again, actually, uh, faith in action, uh, for everything that you have done to advocate for our undocumented communities. really I have to commend you it wasn't its organizing capacity that you have done but you was you have also done the legal research that informed a lot of what we're seeing tonight and what is being proposed tonight so just thank you for all of the work I know especially when people are just trying to survive it is advocates like you all that provide true safety to our communities so thank you I also want to thank Councilmember Guyot if he is still in the audience. Okay, hey, Councilmember Guyot, thank you, who is a co-sponsor of this and also someone who has led the way with many of the preceding ordinances that came before the one that is being introduced today. I want to thank Bridget on my team, Rosa on Councilmember Guyot's team, as well as Amadis and the city attorney's office who labored over this piece of legislation that we are introducing. Okay, tonight we are introducing Councilmember Guy and myself a strengthened City of Refuge ordinance. This has come out of a lot of listening to the community where it's made clear that the undocumented community does not feel safe. and is often doesn't feel safe enough to go to the grocery store, doesn't feel safe enough to go to their healthcare appointments. People are cowering in fear. And so this, it was a comment upon us to make a strengthened version of what is already, um, not on the laws, but also to go further. And we'll go ahead and walk through what this ordinance, the proposed ordinance achieves. Just some national context, what you can see here is that immigration detention in California has really surged under this federal administration. There's been a 114% increase in detention rates, and what has been noteworthy is that 73% of these detainees have no criminal record. So this is really just the cruel and inhumane deportation of communities and families who are just trying to survive. The other thing that I want to make clear is that what is happening into the undocumented community has impacts for all of us, not just the undocumented community. There's impacts on African, Latino, and Asian immigrant communities. We know that this administration is one built off of white supremacy. and it is incumbent to show real solidarity across people of color and across immigrant communities to take a stance. The other thing I want to note is that because of the policies that we're seeing at the federal level, US citizens Not just immigrants are being arrested. They're being mistakenly arrested due to these database inaccuracies and name mismatches. Unsurprisingly, this is an administration that is incapable of basic competency, and just having a name that sounds a wrong sort of way is enough to result in your detention. I also want to note that this is undermining public safety for the entire community. As you can see on the slide, 18% of crime reporting, we've seen a decline because witnesses do not feel safe coming forward. When we don't have, when undocumented communities do not feel safe calling 911, when they do not feel safe speaking to the police and speaking their truth in terms of what they've witnessed, it undermines safety for all of us. it also undermines our city services and the delivery of our city services when it comes to our school funding our state funds are based off of attendance and what was noteworthy is that when agents arrived on coast guard island the federal agents we saw english language learner absences spike from 700 to 1 100 just in that week alone And finally, just in terms of broader economic harm, the Bay Area Council estimates that the region could lose up to $67 billion in regional GDP and $8.4 billion in annual tax revenue from immigration enforcement efforts. So it does not make sense for us as a region just in the broader economy. This particular ordinance is also building off of a legacy of what's put into place. We've had, in 1986, the first city of refuge policy was established by resolution that was brought in in 2007. In 2019, an ordinance was passed that formalized non-cooperation with ICE. In 2026, we had an executive order. However, what we really need is codification into the municipal code because what we do see and what we have seen in the current administration is when administrations change over, policies can change radically. This is why we need to codify this into Oakland city law to really ensure the protection of undocumented communities forever from starting from Today and it's and I hope the eventual passage of this ordinance. I Very quickly, I want to know what this ordinance does. I hope my colleagues have read our packets, but a couple of things are codified in this ordinance. First of all, it is non-cooperation for all city staff, not just OPD. to state that all city staff cannot conduct federal civil immigration enforcement or assist in federal civil immigration or use city resources to investigate immigration status. The second important thing that this proposed ordinance accomplishes is data privacy, which we know is something that is of key concern for undocumented community. This prohibits the collection of immigration status, including city applications for various services that the city offers, unless it is required by law. I want to note actually that currently under OPD departmental status, they do not collect immigration status, but this is broadening this to apply to all of our city agencies because we have a number of city agencies, parks, departments, housing, for example, where we provide services to the undocumented community in states that this information should not be collected. The other thing that this states is that it codifies, this is already stated in executive order, but it makes clear in, again, in our Oakland City law that ICE agents may not enter non-public areas of city facilities without a valid judicial warrant. and that no city staff member can consent to that voluntarily. Finally, what this establishes, and this has been one of the components that has been most important to the community, is the civil detention piece. What it explicitly states in this proposed ordinance is that OPD employees shall not detain an individual on the basis of a civil immigration detainer alone, especially after that individual becomes eligible for release from custody. And I also want to make clear that This does not prevent OPD from enforcing against anyone who has committed a real crime, right? This is just about stating that we cannot detain an individual on the basis of their immigration status or a request from the federal government to detain that individual. I did want to note actually a couple of amendments, particularly on this civil immigration detainer section. This is actually in respect of some requests from OPD, which actually strengthens the civil immigration detainer section. Essentially what you can see on this slide, I'm sorry, excuse me, I realized I need to pass out to my colleagues the paper versions I have. so under the civil immigration detainer section this is within the section that has additional prohibitions for opd employees it strikes out the language that is essentially subsection 2 that states that there are some exceptions to the there's some scenarios where there could be an exception where opd could could detain an individual And the reason I don't know if AC Johnson is here to explain why they want this language struck is because it could actually just add some confusion There are no exceptions. And so This is definitely a friendly amendment from my perspective. I And similarly on page seven in the full agenda packet, uh, we are striking out the section that provides again, some exceptions to not re or to not responding to a federal immigration officer's notification request. It just strikes out that whole section. So it is just as simply stated an OPD employee shall not respond to a federal immigration officer's notification request. Okay, and with that, the presentation is finished. Council Member Guyot, did you wanna say anything before we turn to public comment?

Thank you, fellow council members, city administration, and members of the public. I'm here to respectfully urge this public safety committee to vote yes and advance the city of refuge ordinance to the full city council for consideration and approval at our next city council meeting. Oakland has taken proactive steps to protect their residents by establishing their protections and education and become a sanctuary city. Passing the city of refuge ordinance will establish clear operational rules for the Oakland Police Department and all city employees, including rules governing data collection. It will prohibit federal immigration enforcement or operations on city property. This is about public safety and community stability. When residents fear that contact with law enforcement may lead to civil immigration consequences, they become less likely to report crime, compensate, Compensate and support the investigations, and seek help with emergencies. Thank you for your service, and support the City of Refuge Ordinance, and it's the right thing to do for the City of Oakland. Thank you.

Thank you so much, Councilmember Gallo, for your partnership on this.

Okay, yep. Calling in the names that signed up to speak on item number five. In no particular order, you can line up. If you are seating time or receiving seated time, please state that before beginning, and the person that is giving you their time must have a card filled out and must be present to acknowledge that they are giving you time. If you have translation, you will have one minute to speak, and the person translating will have one minute to translate for you. Yeah, so I will go ahead and read in all the names. Asada Olabala, James M. Wood, Cristiano Llamas, Blair Beekman, Christopher Martinez, Lorelei Bosserman, John Brockett, Elsa Stevens, Karina Gomez, Millie Cleveland, Romaine Charlight, sorry if I'm pronouncing names wrong, Francis E. Kendall, John Jones, Anne Jenks, Yasmin Martinez, Dr. Ida, or Ida Oberman, Bruce Conti, Nacho Ignacio, Marcus Garcia, Alberto Parra, Teresa Salazar, Greg Slaughter, Valerie Batchelor, Zarina Diaz, Courtney Redis, Joan Solita, Pamela Alston, David Gerardo, Bill Joyce, Madeline Stacy, David Conrad, Becky Hom, Avery Arbach, Linda Torres, and Claudine Gonzalez.

Please state your name before making your comment.

Elsa Stevens, Secretary of Faith in Action, East Bay. I commend you for City of Refuge Ordinance. ISIS crime wave. is morally wrong and really bad for business. According to Bay Area Council, at least one of their reports, ICE's margin of error used to be 20% and at one time it was as high as 80%. Judges have ruled that 80% of detainees are not only innocent, they have never been charged with anything. The billions made by concentration camp profiteers, GEO and CoreCivic are pirate booty. Don't be an accomplice, vote yes.

My name is Dr. Pamela Alston. I'm a member of Sacred Heart Catholic Church and a retired dentist. As a dentist previously working at Eastmont Wellness Center in Oakland, I saw how fear of detainment and deportation, despite Oakland's commitment as a sanctuary city, at times kept too many patients from seeking the dental care they needed and to which they are entitled. It is time for Oakland's existing sanctuary policies to be codified into an ordinance. I support the full city of refuge ordinance, including the civil detainer provisions, so that all residents can go to school, church, work, and receive medical and dental care without fear, with the protection that the ordinance will provide. Please vote yes on the full ordinance. Thank you.

Good evening. My name is James Wood. I'm a member and leader of Faith in Action. I'm also a member of St. Jarla's Parish in the Fruitvale. I'm an attorney. I provide free legal services to the community of St. Jarla's, which reflects the community of Oakland. African American, black, Latin, across the board, represent the 109 dialects spoken in Oakland. Passage of this law, passage of this law, Passage of this law will help dispel the fear that is very real that I hear from the community of St. Charles representing the city of Oakland. The data is that during the 10-month surge of ICE, more than 7,000 Asians were detained, more than 2,400 people from Africa, Caribbean, and black were detained as well. Passing this ordinance will help dispel the fear of these individuals I hear about every day. I'm not gonna call the police. I'm not gonna call the police. I'm not going to.

Excuse me, Mrs. Sada, I need you to be quiet. Let's pause the clock for just a moment. Ms. Assata, I need you. Can we add some time to the clock? Okay, we'll let you speak a little over time and go ahead, Jim.

The ordinance as it is in its entirety will help dispel the fear that I see every day at St. Charles, the people of all races, colors, and creeds. We will have reassurance that Oakland is safe, Oakland will protect you, and that will help dispel the fear of all individuals in Oakland and help everybody make this city a safer city. Thank you very much.

Buenas noches. Mi nombre es Corina Gomez y vivo en el Distrito 1 y también soy miembro de Fe en Acción del Este de la Bahía. y apoyo esta ordenanza porque refleja realmente lo que significa que Oakland sea una ciudad de refugio. Oakland adoptó esa identidad por primera vez en 1986 y esta ordenanza por fin convierte esa promesa en una estructura clara dentro del propio código municipal. Dice que los servicios de la ciudad no dependen del estatus migratorio. Que el personal de la ciudad no puede ayudar en la aplicación de leyes migratorias civiles. Que ICE no puede entrar a áreas no públicas de la ciudad sin una orden judicial. Y que la propiedad de la ciudad no se puede usar para ayudar en la aplicación de leyes migratorias federales. Eso es lo que significa una ciudad de refugio en la práctica. No solo palabras bonitas, sino reglas, responsabilidad y protección real.

Good evening, my name is Courtney Reedus. I'm a member of Faith in Action East Bay and St. Augustine Catholic Church in North Oakland. I urge you to vote in favor of this ordinance. I'd like to cede the remainder of my time to Dr. Eda Oberman.

Sorry, do the chair to the member of the public. Once you speak, you cannot cede your time.

Good evening. My name is Dr. Ida Oberman. I'm a faith and action leader for the past 20 years, as well as an Oakland educator. I'm also a proud immigrant, and it was only very recently that I became a binational, also U.S. citizen. But many, many years before, I started what is now a worldwide respected school in our own San Antonio area. with Faith in Action East Bay Community School for Creative Education. And I'm not alone. Immigrants and rich. And for this reason alone, I say Oakland is fortunate that as it called itself a city of refuge since 1986, this ordinance finally gives that commitment a single enforceable structure. Please vote yes. Thank you.

My name is Bruce Conti, honorable councilman and councilwoman. Ever since the czar of ICE was dismissed publicly on television, it needs to change. We got too much pressure coming from our fine police officers. They risking their lives for us. It's hard. It's gotta stop. All the neighborhoods, regardless of race, creed, and color, they need to be protected from all your districts. This has got to stop. We got violent teenagers. We got people taking care of us. And we got law enforcement, whether they be ICE or whether they be our fine officers. Too much pressure and not a big enough budget to take care of them. We got governors, the biggest list of governors ever, I don't know who's going to get picked, of course. No one can pick the future. But I'm telling you right now, I hope they all lift up to say what they're going to do for this fine nation and our cities and states.

Good evening. My name is Linda Torres, and I'm a member with Faith in Action East Bay. Building peace through justice, a true peace that is born from justice. How to humanize the world through truth, work, and freedom. And this is with this ordinance to be adopted. Section 2.21030 makes two things crystal clear. First, no city employee may assist with any investigation, detention, or arrest public by federal immigration authorities relating solely to civil immigration violations. Second, no city employee may cooperate with information gathered conducted by foreign governments, exception for a corporation related to actual criminal law violations. This is consistent with the California Attorney General's January 2026 guidance affirming local law enforcement independence. The civil detention provisions in section 2121040 enforce the same principles for Oakland Police Department specifically. Please adopt this full ordinance. Once again, to humanize the world is the truth, the work, and the freedom. Thank you.

John Jones the third for the record this item I wholeheartedly support I'm here to publicly acknowledge a promise I made to two people one as a member of the Garfield school site council to all the undocumented parents there I share with them that I affirm their right to raise their children here in America the second promise I made to my own son One of his friends was impacted, and he said, dad, why are they taking my friend's parents away? Then he said, dad, what if somebody tried to take you away? We should not have to have this conversation with our children here. So I'm speaking here as a parent. Garfield and Oakland's diverse. I welcome my son to have friends of all walks of life. So when he hurt, I hurt. So again, I'm here to publicly acknowledge the promise I made to them this day and forward. I support this, so thank you for your leadership on this.

Good evening, members of the Public Safety Committee. Please pass the ordinance before you today, reaffirming Oakland's sanctuary city policy.

The primary function- To the member of the public, please state your name.

Oh, my name is Cristiano Llamas. Thank you. And the primary function and mission of OPD is to ensure the safety of Oaklanders and to protect the constitutional rights of Oaklanders. But in the midst of ICE agents and other federal agencies, how will OPD operate? Are they instructed to make agents provide identification? Will they do crowd control to protect ICE? How will they respond and how will they enforce laws if ICE agents are breaking laws? There's a lot to answer, and there's a lot to answer because currently no policies are in implementation that gives any guidance or direction to OPD officers on how to engage with ICE and other federal agencies. Over the past year, there's been numerous problems. Let's address them. Identifying and verifying credentials of federal agents is key to ensure public safety. We are a sanctuary city. Please put this on your agenda and address it. There's nothing to wait for. Thank you.

Anne Jenks, District 3. Please pass the City of Refuge Ordinance today. But for over a year, residents have asked for clear direction to OPD when ICE or other federal agents are in Oakland. We do not have answers to basic questions whether OPD officers will work to identify individuals claiming to be law enforcement. Whether OPD will engage in crowd or traffic control in support of ICE activity. whether OPD officers will respond if called to a potential kidnapping. It is unfair to OPD officers to be placed in complex situations without clear directions. It's unfair to the community. OPD officers have reported that there are some officers who are excited to have ICE in Oakland to do what they're not allowed to do. If you do nothing, there will be no accountability for officers that decide to help ICE individually. Please place this important public safety issue on your agenda.

Good evening, my name is Yasmin, and I'm here to support this ordinance because it reflects the full commitment of what it means for Oakland to be a city of refuge. Oakland first adopted this identity in 1989, about 40 years ago, and with this ordinance, it establishes an enforceable structure in a municipal coal. Quote, stating clearly that the city services are not contingent based on one citizenship status, city employees cannot assist civil immigration enforcement, ICE cannot enter non-public city spaces without a judicial warrant, and that city property cannot be used to assist federal immigration enforcement. This is how a city of refugee looks like in practice, not just symbolism, but with accountability and protection. As part of coalitions that are working to make sure that no detention centers are open in the Bay Area, we need to make sure that Oakland is protecting our citizens. Thank you.

Ms. Asada, this is your second warning. If I have to issue a third warning, I will have to have you removed, okay? I need... Order.

I'm Bill Joyce, a long time resident of Laurel District, and I'm a representative for St. Columbus Public Safety Committee with Faith and Action News Bay. I volunteer at Alameda County's largest food bank distribution site in East Oakland. which draws about 400 residents every week, many if not most of whom are undocumented, and coming from, often decades ago, from countries south of the border, but also Africa and across Asia. The line is convivial, but the fear is tangible among the many grandparents and mothers of small children who come weekly. Fortunately, we've been able to prepare contingency plans in case ICE shows up. With that perspective, I urge this committee to adopt the City of Refugee Ordinance's current form. It delineates responsibilities for every employee in every department. The folks in our food line know they could be snatched by ICE.

Thank you for your comments. Your time is up.

Hello, my name is Joan Sofleta. I'm a Faith in Action East Bay leader and a member of St. Columbus Church. Thank you for your public service, first of all, and I want to encourage the adoption of the City of Refuge Ordinances in its entirety. I don't want to use the Oakland resources to be used for federal immigration purposes. Also, protect the data sharing. Minneapolis took over a year to organize. This is our time now. You know what? Oakland has the most diverse families, and they are not just all Latino or all black. They are multicultural families. They are bicultural families. They're multi, you know, just very diverse. What is done to one is done to all. What could be done to one?

Romaine Charity, District 6, community organizer with the Oakland Alliance Against Racist and Political Oppression. We helped to lead a 500-person march against ICE the afternoon that community members, pastors, reverends were shot in the face with pepper spray by federal agents, had their foot ran over by CPB trucks. and I want to say that I'm in support of this ordinance. I respect that you are trying to put some type of barrier, reaffirm this city's stance, but I don't think it goes far enough as you said that you wanted it to. I think that doesn't do enough to sanction OPD from crowd and traffic control for ICE and federal agents. That's something that I would like to see future agendas. I also feel like this council is not doing enough to address issues that Oaklanders actually care about, that the police union does not want you to talk about, such as police overtime civilianization and the upcoming contract. So thank you.

Good evening. My name is Claudia Gonzalez. I am fed action leader. I'm an apparent. I'm a neighbor of Oakland. My my kids born here. I asked him in this committee. They passed the city of Refuge Ordinance in its entirely tonight. This ordinance puts into be biting love. what Oakland as law promise it. No city money, no city resources, no city personnel shall be used to investigate question, detect or apprehend someone who only violation is a civil immigration matter. Thank you for listen us.

Me llamo Teresa y soy miembro de ACE. Estoy aquí para expresar mi apoyo a la ordenanza de Ciudad Refugio de la ciudad de Oakland, la cual reafirma y fortalece nuestras políticas de santuario. Al mismo tiempo, deseo expresar mi preocupación por tecnologías de vigilancia, como FLOC, Herramientas como FLOC plantean riesgos reales para las comunidades inmigrantes y pueden utilizarse de formas que socavan las protecciones de santuario, incluyendo el intercambio de datos y una vigilancia ampliada que puede poner en peligro a los residentes que la ciudad se ha comprometido a proteger. Si Oakland realmente aspira a ser una ciudad refugio, no podemos mantener contratos que aumenten la vigilancia y la exposición de las familias emigrantes. Insisto al Consejo a aprobar esta ordenanza y a dar paso a...

my name is teresa salazar and i'm a member of ace i'm speaking in strong support of the city of oakland city of refuge ordinance reaffirming and strengthening our sanctuary policies at the same time i want to raise concern about surveillance technologies like flock tools like flock create real risk for immigrant communities and can be used in ways that undermine sanctuary protections including data sharing and expanded surveillance that can endanger residents the city is committed to protecting. If Oakland is serious about being a city of refuge, then we cannot maintain contracts that increase surveillance and exposure for immigrant families. I urge the council to adopt this ordinance and to take the additional step of cancelling the flaw contract.

Thank you.

Good evening. My name is Alberto Parra. I am a member of ACE. I am here to express my support for the Ordinance of the Refugee City of Oakland, which... La cual reafirma y fortalece nuestras políticas de santuario. En un momento que las familias inmigrantes se enfrentan a una mayor actividad de control inmigratoria por parte de ICE, a detenciones y al miedo de la vida cotidiana. Oakland debe de mantener su postura clara a nuestra ciudad. No debemos colaborar con las autoridades federales de inmigración. Apoyemos a nuestras comunidades inmigrantes. Gracias.

My name is Alberto Parra, and I'm a member of ACE. I'm speaking in strong support of the City of Oakland City of Refuge Ordinance, reaffirming and strengthening our sanctuary policies. At a time when immigrant families are facing increased ICE enforcement, detention, and fear in their daily lives, Oakland must continue to be clear. Our city does not collaborate with federal immigration enforcement, and we stand with our immigrant communities. I also want to lift up that sanctuary policy is only meaningful when it is enforced in practice. That means ensuring city systems are truly safe and accessible where tenants and residents can interact with city services without fear, retaliation, or immigration consequences. My name is Marcus, and I'm an organizer with ACE and here to support this ordinance. I'm here today because I've been listening to families in our neighborhoods, the ones who are terrified to drive their kids to school, who skip appointments, and who don't report crimes because they're afraid of what comes next. Oakland has said it's a city of refuge, but words on paper don't protect anyone if the system's beneath them. keep working against us. I have sat in living rooms where parents ask me if I call and report my neighborhood concern to the city or request an inspection of my unit, will that information be shared with ICE? That question shouldn't exist in Oakland, but it does. Because while we talk about sanctuary, we're also buying surveillance equipment like Flock that tracks our neighbors and documents their movements. We've already seen in cities across the country that this data has been accessed by immigration despite cities and jurisdictions with so-called sanctuary policies. This is a contradiction we cannot live with. Being a true city of refuge means more than a nice language in an ordinance. It means auditing every contract, every tool, every partnership that we have. It means asking, does this help us protect people or does it expose them?

Good evening. My name is David de Gerlando. I'm a parent, a neighbor. I'm a leader with Faith in Action East Bay, a parishioner at St. Augustine Catholic Church, and I'm an immigrant. I'm asking this committee to pass a city of refuge ordinance in its entirety tonight. We've all seen what's happened in Minneapolis, in Los Angeles, in many other cities across the country. It could happen in Oakland, and if and when it happens, we need to be confident that the city is equipped to respond and to protect our neighbors. We need to know that city employees will not be allowed by law to assist the deportation machine, that data will not be available, city property will not be available to federal agents. So please pass this ordinance in full tonight. Thank you.

uh... my name is millie cleveland i live in district four uh... i also am here in support of the ordinance but i also think we need to have more direction given to our police department it's not just good enough to say that they will not interact or collaborate with federal agencies. What we do need them to do is when they show up, because they will show up, we need them to request an OPD supervisor immediately if one is not present. We need OPD to verify the identity and agency credentials of the federal agents involved. We need to verify the identity and agency credentials of any person claiming to be an enforcement officer. We need to verify the basis and documentation upon which agents are attempting to detain an Oaklander. We need to capture that verification.

Thank you for your comments, Ms. Milley.

Okay, my name is Gregory Slaughter. I am a member of ACE. Okay, I'm here because I speak in strong support of the city audience, of the refuse audience, and to strengthen our sanctuary city. My thing is we need to get rid of our flock. I don't know who's up there that supports it. You need to stop, okay? Flock is the main reason why a lot of these immigrants are going to jail. One of my neighbors got hunted down by Flock. Once we get rid of them, we're gonna be all right. That's what I believe. Okay? You guys need to really sit down and think about what you're doing when you make that vote about putting it back on the streets again, because it's no good. They said the flock did something for sex trafficking. What did it do? Nothing. It has not done nothing. I want to say something to this man over here. Ken, you are so right. I used to be at them slideshows back in the days. Richie Rich, E40, Drew Down, Too Short, all been...

Okay. Ms. Assata, order in the chamber. Order in the chamber.

Amen.

Okay, go ahead, Valerie. Hi, my name is Valerie Bachelor. I'm the director of Ace Oakland, a District 6 resident, and I'm here to support the City of Oakland City of Refuge Ordinance. This is a strong policy that, again, continues to make it clear that Oakland will not collaborate with federal enforcement, and we will protect our community members. But as the previous speaker said, at the same time, I want to raise concerns about the surveillance technology like Flock. Tools like Flock put immigrant communities and now those that are protecting immigrant communities at risk because it undermines the city's sanctuary policies and protections and it shares data with folks outside of our city. If Oakland is really a sanctuary city, if we're really a refuge city, we must curtail these types of contracts to make sure that immigrant families are not exposed and folks that are supporting immigrant families are not exposed. As we're seeing throughout the country, other community members that are supporting our immigrant families are also being surveilled.

My name is David Conrad, and I'm here to speak in strong support of passing this bill. You've heard it all before. You all know what to do. I'm not going to waste your time. Vote for the bill.

Hi, I'm Zarina Diaz. I'm here in support of this ordinance. It protects access to city services, limits ICE access to non-public city space without a judicial warrant, and bars the use of city property and city staff to support federal immigration enforcement. What are you going to do when city staff and police do collaborate? I've seen SFPD support ICE enforcement in San Francisco. So you may pass this ordinance, but what are the consequences for people who break it, for people who actively want to hurt immigrants that do work for the city? Secondly, flock is an issue. We have seen ICE use flock in other cities and other states. If people end up in concentration camps because ICE accessed flock in Oakland, that blood is on your hands.

Hello, my name is Becky Hom. I'm the Oakland political manager at Asian Pacific Environmental Network. I'm also speaking in support of the City of Refuge ordinance because it's important that It expands from just police not cooperating with ICE to all the city services, all the city departments, including contractors that work with the city. I appreciate all the specifics of it, including data sharing and all the information, because we know bad actors are able, we don't want them to have access to information that can be used against community, thank you.

Hello, my name is Avery Arbaugh. I'm here to speak strongly in favor of the City of Refuge Ordinance. I'm an organizer with ACE in District 2, and I work closely with a lot of ACE members in District 2, many of which feel unsafe because of ICE's attacks on our communities. This ordinance would move us closer towards safety, but it does have a clear blind spot in that it fails to address our contract with Flock, a contract that has already been violated in cities across the nation. Our communities will not be safe until this contract is canceled. As a result of this, I am strongly urging the council to, yes, adopt this ordinance, make our communities feel more safe, but also take the additional step of canceling the flock contract so that we can offer sanctuary throughout our city's processes. Thank you so much.

Madeline Stacy, I want to speak to the core of this ordinance, the idea that Oakland is not merely a sanctuary city in name, but a true city of refuge and structure, law, and daily practice. This ordinance is powerful because it understands that refuge is not one policy, it is a system. It means the value is reflected in each and every department, every building, every policy, and every employee. I want this council and the public to always remember this council's commitment to this value when it comes to labor and fair pay, OPD interactions, healthcare access, housing, access to education, and surveillance technology, as many others have mentioned, all surveillance technology. Please remember this commitment and this value, and adopt this ordinance in full. Thank you.

So 23 years ago, The courts told you you had to stop your police department from police brutality and racial profiling of African Americans. 119 people filed the case, 118 were black. In that 23 years, you never filed an ordinance to protect black people from your police department. In those 23 years, you never had a committee like the Privacy Committee to have oversight of your Sanctuary Committee. You did nothing, nothing to protect black people from your police department. But now you want to keep ICE from coming in here and protect other people. And guess what? The cartel is thanking you. MS 13 is thanking you. Because you haven't taken the time to say, at least, at least, we don't want these criminals in here. You won't say that. And you can boo all...

Thank you for your comments, Ms. Olaballa. Switching to Zoom users. Blair, you can unmute yourself and begin your comment.

Hi. Okay, order in the chamber, everyone. Can I speak?

Sorry, Mr. Beekman, please hold.

Okay. Order in the chamber. Okay, Ms. Assata?

Okay, thank you. Mr. Beekman, you can...

Continue. Yes, hi. Thank you. Thank you for restarting my clock. Blair Beekman, thank you. As I spoke at one of the earlier committee meetings today, it sounds like the community is really wanting to talk about clock. We're at month six in what is supposed to be a final 18 months of clock, where we're supposed to be working as a full community process to work on a new ALPR vendor. How is that process going? The community here sounds like they'd be ready to start a community process now to really talk about what are better choices for a future ALPR vendor besides block. And I think it would be a great community conversation to start right now. I hope we can be. And I thank Councilperson Wang a lot and Brown for working on matters of data collection overall at the state level with immigration issues. This is a good learning process for all of us. Good luck, we can talk about block issues and that we can end block controlling new data.

Thank you for your comments. Lorelei, you can unmute yourself and begin your comment.

Hi, my name is Lorelei Bosterman. I support this proposal and I also want to ask you to do more. Please put something on the agenda for a future public safety committee meeting discussing how OPD is going to get instructions for responding to ICE or other federal agents. Because I've heard, sorry, I've heard repeatedly from OPD spokespeople at meetings that they can't do anything to interfere with federal investigations. And they say all kinds of things about, no, no, no, we won't support ICE. But when push comes to shove, they say, oh, we can't interfere. But what I want to know is, how do they know that it's ICE? Are they willing to check the IDs? If someone calls and says, someone claiming to be ICE is accosting me, will OPD do something to protect people? Will they check the IDs? Or will they take the other side and do crowd or traffic control in support of ICE? They need specific instructions. Thank you.

Thank you for your comments. Christopher Martinez, you can unmute yourself and begin your comment. Christopher, I see that you're unmuted, but we are not able to hear you. Last call for Christopher. Charles Idelson please unmute yourself. Charles.

Okay, we've got the last two chair that concludes all speakers on this item One thing I just wanted to mention by the way just in response to some of the the public comment some of the things that were out of scope out of this ordinance that is before us I If anyone was... Anyways, I just have to say that I really tried to put forward a number of ideas that were made in the comments into this ordinance. However, we have real legal restrictions. There's constitutional supremacy. There are many things. Some of these ideas are frankly not legal, as it turns out. I tried. You know, the other thing is that this body is a council actually does not have the authority to say weigh in on OPD policy. Now separately through the police commission, there is a separate ICE policy moving its way through an ad hoc committee. I have actually provided my recommendations to that committee because I actually found the draft ICE policy that OPD presented that it was inadequate. I provided my recommendations to strengthen that. But I just wanted to note that in terms of what is being addressed in this policy versus what needs to be addressed through a separate body. And the other thing I wanted to note too is that in terms of some of the comments around contracting, that is also outside of scope. I tried to get some of the contracting provisions within this in ordinance, but there is a separate sanctuary contracting ordinance that must be addressed in a separate effort. So I just wanted to provide some clarifications both to my colleagues and to the public comment. Council Member Houston.

through the chair, I'm a little upset right now. I don't like the disrespect that just happened in this chamber. I don't like them booing Ms. Asada. And let me tell you why. Let me share with you why. I understand her frustration, I understand the pain. I could ask every individual in here who's black and Mexican mixed in this chamber. I wanna raise a hand who's black and Mexican. It's two people, right? I understand the frustration. I got a black mom and a Latino father, right? I understand her pain. I understand since 1986 I've been supporting this because I have DACA cousins. I have immigrant families. When my family passes away in Mexico, I have to fly over there in 24 hours or they're buried, right? Who has to do that? I understand both sides of this coin to a whole nother level. I go home to a black and a Latino family. How many people do that, that sleep and eat with them at the same time? I understand the passion. I understand the pain. And if you can't speak to that, you can't speak to what I'm about to speak to. You cannot. You're not in that space. So what I want to say is this. I'm not happy with her being disrespected because booing her is disrespectful to me, and I don't take that light. So let me share this. And if you got something to say, say it to me now. So let me ask you, Chair, how does this... differentiate that just be different from the mayor's executive order because i did a side-by-side and i looked at ordinance one three five one nine two thousand eighteen Because when I look back at it, and I did all my research, in 1986 it was established, and then something came up, it was an ordinance or a resolution in 2007, then something came up in 2016, and another one came up in 2016, then 2017, 2018 was a reso, then it turned into an ordinance. So, I've been supporting this from day one, so I wanna know what's the difference on, let's read them out, OPD cannot assist ICE in civil enforcement. In 2018, that's a yes, and this is a yes. So when I go down this whole list about OPD traffic support prohibition, that's yes. Reporting requirements of OPD, it says ICE, that's a yes. Apply to all city employees. When it says all city employees, I understand what you're saying because this only applied to OPD, but you're saying this applies to like Oakland Public Works and things like that? Is that what you're saying? Okay, I just wanna make sure. collection of immigration status information. They report, and that's in section, page four, in section four in the mayor's executive order. So how does this, it's different than the mayor's executive order that she put up except for the last one, consolidating all the priorities.

yeah absolutely so the way that this is distinct from the mayor's executive order is some of this codifies this permanently first of all in terms of what is all what is in the executive order but we cannot count on the fact that we are always going to have a mayor that supports undocumented communities right and so the codification ensures that this remains in law and would require undoing by an entire City Council instead of just with the difference of a mayoral election, right? Where we could have somebody who doesn't support undocumented communities becoming the mayor. Then specifically, there's a couple of items that are not addressed at all in the executive order that are addressed in this piece. It is the data collection piece, which is ensuring that city departments, not OPD, but also no city departments are collecting any information related to immigration status. And the second piece being really the civil immigration detention piece. What I've heard over and over from the communities, the reason that this prohibition on OPD responding to a civil detention immigration request is really because we need to go beyond just broad statements around OPD non-cooperation with ICE, but really drill down into specifics that say, That the detention piece operationally, it's the operationalizing of that non-cooperation.

I have a question, so how do we do something similar of refuge for my black folks? I mean, I'm just saying, how do we do that? I mean, I've supported it from 86 to now, so how do we do something that's gonna help out my, you were out here when NN came up and all the youngsters from East Oakland was talking about they got shot, they were killers.

Yeah. I am totally with you, Councilmember Houston. I think we should separate. First of all, I want to also make clear that this particular ordinance is race neutral, and we have many African immigrants who are being disproportionately impacted by the Trump administration's policies, and especially because of the color of their skin. So that's one thing I want to note. But separately for you, because you're referring to African-American descendants of slaves. Right. And I'm talking about really regressing here. That's right from here. And I'm absolutely with you that we need to come up with policies to make right by the African-American community. But I also think that. We need to get away from the scarcity mindset and it's not about either or. This is about a time when we need to have cross racial solidarity and really lift each other up because all of our communities, immigrant communities, African American communities, black American communities are under attack under this administration.

So how do we do this in conjunction? So how do we do that in conjunction? How do we do that in conjunction with a refugee ordinance for black and Latino, both sides of my family? I mean, I gotta go home to both sides of my family right now. You're fighting for my Latino side, I'm fighting for my black side. How do we do that together?

Well, Councilmember Houston, I would welcome any ideas that you have on amendments, but also I would say let's do this outside of this ordinance. If we do not have an amendment to add to this, is to immediately get this passed, because there is urgency around this. I'll say the community has been waiting for this for a long time. This has been, if I'm going to be truthful, a painful, like it's been a long... Journey to get to this point to get this legislation forward. It really has required extensive legal review it has taken a long time and so either I would recommend we we get in an amendment that can be addressed or let's address this outside of this ordinance and

I wanna hear from Council Member Brown because I have another comment that I'd like to hold this in committee until I feel that both sides of my family is taken care of. I'm talking about the ones, both sides I go home with. I want it in conjunction. That's what I want, Council Member Brown.

Council Member Brown, go ahead.

Excellent, thank you so much. Well, first off, I just wanna start by thanking just all of the community members that are here this evening, and then, of course, Faith in Action and your advocacy. I had the opportunity to meet one-on-one to discuss this ordinance and its updates. and just really hear firsthand a lot of the impacts that immigrant communities, and the truth of the matter is it's very broad, right? We're not 100% talking about Latino communities, right? We're also talking about African immigrants, et cetera, right? So it's not a single focus, and so I just wanna really call attention to that, and I think that, you know, I believe one of the public speakers mentioned it, that really in this moment, the truth of the matter is we need to do more, and we need to do more to support all of our communities. And at the same time, I recognize the value of reaffirming our city's stance and really laying this continued foundation around what our Oakland Police Department will and won't do for the sake of our community. So I think that that's very important. And then I guess to address some of the sentiments that Councilmember Houston is mentioning, and even for yourself, Councilmember Wong, I just don't see this as a either or approach. I think that it's both and and additional things because the truth of the matter is is that across our communities, we have to do more, right? We have to do more. Prior to me stepping into this role, I spent three years working alongside our state assembly member And at that time, they were moving forward with AB 2020, which was a bill to study reparations for African Americans, right? Just to study it, just to study it, right? And a three-year process, it has moved with multiple pieces of legislation helping to right the wrongs against our community. And so when we talk about... So when we, it was not, and so when we talk about, Council Member Houston, when you talk about, hey, we gotta do something for our African American communities in East Oakland that were just here in public safety with us, talking about the help and the support that they need, I think that there are multiple avenues that we can go about really righting those wrongs. But then in this moment, I think what we are really addressing is just this reaffirming of communities here in Oakland, that here in the city of Oakland, this is a sanctuary city for all of our immigrant communities, and this is what we, these are our values. And so I just, I personally don't approach it in a manner of like, it's either or, but both and. And also the more that we need to do Ms. Assata, I'm... He didn't... That's not true. They're working on it. They're working on it.

Ms. Assata, I... Okay. I need you to just... Okay. All right. Council Member Houston.

So you got the, no matter what, you gotta get order in the court.

Yeah.

No matter what, whoever it is, you gotta get order in the court.

Order in the chamber. Order in the chamber, Mrs. Sada. Okay. Get order. I need everyone in the chamber to just quiet and do not respond to Mrs. Sada either, please. All right, Miss Assata. I'm sorry. At this point, your continued disruption means that it will result in your removal guard.

Mhm.

Get order, no matter what you do.

Gardner, can you please remove Ms. Assata? I will not stop.

I will not stop. I will disrupt everything. That's why.

Just keep going.

Just keep going.

Gardner, I. And everything.

I have been a part of it.

You have been a part of it. Okay, I see. Councilmember Houston, are you leaving?

Because then we lose quorum.

And you're going to. If you don't hold it in committee, that's what you're going to have to do. I'm telling you right now. I'm telling you right now what I'm going to do.

All right. Can you please sit down? Thank you.

All right. I want it held in committee.

all right so I'm gonna make a motion to adopt second thank you okay yes alongside the amendments we have a motion made by due to the absence of councilmember Houston we have lost quorum councilmember Houston

There will be no action taken on this item due to a lack of quorum.

Council member Houston, please, you are the vice chair. Can you come back to the dais? We are so close. The motion is to advance this.

Thank you.

I want to say something. I want both sides of my family taken care of. I've been supporting this since 1986. I have DACA relatives. I live in my house. I have undocumented relatives. and I have black relatives. I want both of them took care of equally. District seven has been underserved for so long. My brown and black cousins have died in these streets. Their blood is soaked in the asphalt of East Oakland. The trauma that I've seen without opportunity is devastating. What I want, and I'm asking and I'm begging, I want it to happen at the same time. I got a black mother looking at, on TV watching me right now. I got Latino cousins watching me right now. You stand up for both of them, they say, right? I want this to be in conjunction. I want my black family and my Latino family taken care of at the same time, in conjunction. I don't understand what you guys are saying, but I know that they're not being took care of equally, and I want them equally taken care of.

And I hear, I completely hear what you're saying, Council Member Houston, but the analogy I would use is that the boot of oppression right now is falling on both sides of your family right now. And this ordinance before you takes just a little bit off that on your Latino side. But if we wait to address both sides of the family, that means we're gonna be waiting here for another year. But why don't we first pass this and then let's move with urgency to address the other side of your family. You have my promise and my commitment to do that. But we've, I would say it's, right now it means keeping the thumb of oppression on the other half of your family until the other side, until we can come up with a solution there. And you know, you've been through the ordinance process. It takes months, if not a year, to put something on this floor. So let's pass this and then we can move with urgency to address the other side of your family.

Can I listen to what you gotta say?

Oh, I was just gonna offer that any additions that you're interested in bringing, Councilmember Houston, you could bring them before the next council meeting for our consideration to see how you are looking, how you're looking to merge So I just wanted to offer that up, Council Member Houston, that what you're looking to merge into this ordinance, bring that forward when we address this to the full council. That's always an option too.

Yeah, let's go to the vote.

We have a motion made by Chair Wong, seconded by Council Member Brown to approve as amended the recommendations of staff and to forward this item to the July 7th City Council agenda with the amendments read into record. On roll, Council Member Brown. Aye. Council Member Fife is excused. Council Member Houston. Aye. Aye. Thank you. And Chair Wong. Aye. Thank you. Item number five passes with three ayes, one excused by. To forward this item to the July 7th City Council agenda and to the chair, is that on consent or non-consent? On consent. On consent. Now moving on to open forum, calling in the names that signed up to speak on open forum. Rajni Mondal, Blair Beekman, Asada Olavala, Madeline Stacey, Ann Jenks, and Millie Cleveland. If your name was called for open forum and you wish to still speak, please come up to the podium. Thank you.

So by law, you brought up the law, by law there's no such legal term as sanctuary city. You brought up data. You don't collect any data on immigration populations that come to the city. You don't know who is here that needs protection because there's no data to support it. You don't have no data. So how is this a valid way of doing things? Legal terms. Now for African Americans, you've done nothing. African Americans are 70% of the homeless, 10% unemployment because other people are coming in here and taking the jobs. We have education issues, eviction issues, foreclosure issues, redlining issues, issues with gentrification. Never been brought up, none of these issues. None of them. And you see how they're clapping? Because they're clapping.

Thank you for your comments, Ms. Olaballa. 2K top, can you turn on the public's mic?

Trustee. My name is Millie Cleveland. I'm here as a member of the Coalition for Police Accountability. I'd like to remind everyone in the chambers that due to the misconduct of the Oakland Police Department that was going around killing black people, planting drugs on black people, beating up black people, particularly in West Oakland and deep East Oakland, that the people in Oakland decided with 80% of the vote to create a civilian police commission. So for those who are concerned about the treatment and mistreatment of black people, I expect you to stop your attack against the police commission. I do not expect to see any more resolutions that tries to weaken the police commission that was put into existence to protect primarily black people.

Madeline Stacy, three things. One, this is a perfect time to echo what people have already stated, and that's canceling the FLOC contract. Not only FLOC, but Peregrine and Celebrite. Any database that compiles sensitive information in a highly concentrated way that has front door, side door, and back door access vulnerabilities is unsafe. It's never going to be okay to congregate all that data, sensitive data about our citizens, and we need to cancel the contracts. None of the companies we have the contract with are acceptable or on the up-up anyways. Secondly, everything that's going on, like Millie said, with the police commission and Oprah, we need to have those in full force, fully staffed, If we want to have a police department, we need police oversight and federal police oversight just ended. If you wanted to not have police force, there are lots of groups that would love to talk to you about that, but if you're gonna have it, you need to have oversight and then.

Thank you for your comments.

Anne Jenks, District 3. So the chair was explaining why other things couldn't be addressed that residents have been raising for over a year. But number one, that's not what I've been told by lawyers in terms of what can be addressed. And the way to deal with this is to have a public discussion about it with the specifics so that we can see for what the legal impediments are to policies that direct to OPD and how they will engage when ICE and other federal agents are present because there are policies that can be created. I'm a little confused that the city council thinks they're not allowed to write policies for OPD because they get deeply involved when they want to. The other thing that's notable is when the consultant was here, they were talking about things that people had said they were interested in at the public meetings. Those are issues that have never come to the agenda of public safety. Alternate.

Thank you for your comments, Ms. Jenks. We will be switching to Zoom users. Rajni.

Hi, Rajni Mandel, District 4.

I need you to delete, thank you. Order in the chamber.

Rajni, you can continue.

Thank you. Rajni Mandel, District 4. I'd like to briefly follow up on this committee's February discussion about the Skelly process. Last year, Council approved 200,000 for CIPRA to expedite Skelly hearings, and at last week's Police Commission meeting, Director Lawson clarified that this funding was intended for outside hearing officers and said CIPRA was not notified before it was removed. Since that funding was approved, however, OPD, HR and the Office of the City Attorney have made significant improvements and now OPD reports 21 trained Skelly hearing officers, fewer pending cases and shorter wait times. At last week's Police Commission meeting, the City Attorney also reported no increase in arbitration cases or arbitration losses associated with these changes. i think both facts are important departments should be consulted before major budget decisions are made but those decisions should also reflect current performance data and measurable outcomes as conditions change thank you thank you for your comments blair you can unmute yourself and begin

Hi, Blair Beekman. Thanks a lot. A really interesting meeting. You guys went for ideals. Good luck how we can really make our ideals practical. Good luck in those efforts. I'm interested how we need to continue asking how FLOC can like start, they can rewrite and create their own programs right now and add to their ALPR things right now without any sort of oversight by council. Can we work on measures like that in the next 18 months? And I can't stress enough the importance that we need to start working the community process to look for a new AOPR vendor or perhaps no new AOPR vendor at all and find different formulas in how we do our data collection. I hope our community wants to have those conversations and realize what they can create, a future without flock, what sort of AOPR vendor they really want. They can have that in the community process. Make those asks and demands. Good luck in that effort.

Thank you for your comments, Chair. That concludes all speakers. Okay, great.

And with that, let's adjourn this meeting. Thank you, everyone.