Public Safety Committee - Regular Meeting

Thank you.

Good evening and welcome to the Public Safety Committee meeting of Tuesday, July 14th, 2026. The time is now 6.02 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. Online speaker requests were due 24 hours prior to the start of this meeting. This meeting came to order at 6.02 p.m. and speaker cards will no longer be accepted 10 minutes after, making that time 6.12 p.m. We'll now proceed with taking roll. Council Members Brown. Present. Fife excused. Houston. Here. And Chair Wong. Present. Thank you. We have three members present, one excused. Fife. Chair, at this time, do you have any announcements?

Yes, I do First of all We are since we have a packed agenda today committee I just ask that everyone keep their comments succinct and They should be pointed and important and then I'm also going to limit public comment to one minute We do have a packed agenda and I want to make sure we get through all the items The other thing I just wanted to mention as announcement is we do have a new police chief, of course, a permanent police chief. So congratulations to Chief Beer. And I also want to acknowledge that there was an officer involved shooting yesterday on International Boulevard in the afternoon. And so there's an ongoing investigation. And so I'm not able to provide additional comment, but that is an incredibly important thing to acknowledge. And then yes, final piece is we will also be moving the item eight. This is the OPD surveillance technology 2024 annual report to item three. Since I know that many of the public commenters have come here for that item.

Great. Okay, noting the change of, sorry, noting the change to the order of the agenda to hear item number eight after taking items one and two. Moving on to item one, approval of the draft minutes from the committee meeting of June 23rd, 2026. There are no speakers on this item, so we just need a motion.

I'll move the meeting minutes

Thank you, that's a motion made by Council Member Brown, seconded by Council Member Houston. To accept the committee meeting minutes of June 23rd, 2026, on roll, Council Members Brown. Aye. Fife, excused. Houston. Aye. And Chair Wong. Aye. Thank you, item one passes with three ayes, one excused. Fife, to accept the draft minutes from June 23rd, 2026. Reading in item two, determination of schedule of outstanding committee items, and we do have two speakers for this item.

Okay, we'll go to public comment.

Calling in the names that signed up to speak on item two, Jesse Rosemore and Blair Beekman.

Hi, how are you, Jesse Rosemore? The first item on this pending no dates specific list is to adopt a resolution directing the city administrator to implement approved processes for civilianizing certain sworn positions from the OPD to improve public safety services to our communities and create millions in cost savings by reducing overtime hours. This has been the longest one on this pending no date specific list. It's been there for over a year. We demand that you schedule this now. Having this be the longest item yet to be scheduled shows that Oakland doesn't have a budget problem, it has a leadership problem. This goes beyond malfeasance. We need to save money. We have a city council that is defunding Oak Dot, defunding the CPRA, and just doing abjectly, corrupt things, as pointed out by several city employees, 555, according to a city author.

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

Hi, Blair Beekman. Important public safety meeting tonight. Thank you. I guess with upcoming agendas, I hope agenda items, we're going to be wanting to address surveillance technology, flock technology. What are our choices besides flock? How can those conversations start to become a little bit more public and regular? It's important what we're doing with the subject. We really have a chance to address the future of warlike practices of corporations and ask for practices that work more towards peace, basically, open democracy, clear accountability. Good luck how we do that. We have to start making those asks a bit more public and regular at this point, I think. What we start now, this time next year, you know, the January, we're supposed to have a new AOPR vendor by next fall.

Thank you for your comments, Chair. That concludes all speakers on this item. Great. Anything for my colleagues?

No, administration? Great, I'll take a motion.

Perfect. I'll motion to move the pending list.

I second it.

Thank you, we have a motion made by Council Member Brown, seconded by Council Member Houston to accept the determination of schedule of outstanding committee items as is. On roll, Council Members Brown. Aye. Five excused, Houston.

Aye.

And Chair Wong. Aye. Thank you, item two passes with three ayes, one excused. Five to accept the determination of schedule of outstanding committee items as is. Reading in item eight, noting that there was a change to the order of the agenda, Adopt a resolution accepting the 2025 annual reports for the following City of Oakland Police Department surveillance technologies. A, automated license plate readers. B, crime lab biometrics DNA analysis technology. C, forward-looking infrared. D, live stream transmitter. E, unmanned aerial systems. F, forensic logic coupling crime tracer systems. G, pen register. And H, celebrate. And two, making a determination regarding whether the city should continue to use each of these technologies, and there are 16 speakers that signed up to speak on this item.

Okay, great. I will turn it over to you, DC . If I pronounced that correctly?

Absolutely.

Okay, all right. And then, I know that you are requesting a modification to this item, if you want to state that up front.

Absolutely. So again, Acting Deputy Chief Daza Kiddos from the Oakland Police Department. So OPD is requesting that the ALPR automated license plate reader for 2025 annual report be removed from the agenda as apology changes recommended in the report and accompanying revised department agenda order I-12 ALPR policy are not contained within the resolution related to this item. The concern around the resolution was identified by OPD and then brought to the attention of the city attorney's office for clarification. OPD is requesting to reschedule this specific item after the legislative recess to allow for the presentation of the annual report in conjunction with the amended policy. This will allow for a more comprehensive discussion around potential policy changes that reflect the ongoing analysis of the ALPR program. The movement of this item will not impact the presentation of the annual report within the designated period. It will also not impact the department operationally.

Thank you. And since I had some back and forth discussions with OPD colleagues, does that make sense to you? The ALPR section is being withdrawn. This is item listed eight in the agenda sub item A. Okay, please go ahead.

As everyone knows, the Oakland Police Department is short-staffed, but we are actively recruiting for additional resources, but we rely heavily on technology, and this technology has assisted us greatly in solving crimes, identifying potential people of interest, and also assisting our community and the victims of crime. We have utilized our unmanned aerial system, which are our drones, forensic logic, cop link, crime tracer, pen registers, cell bright, to assist us greatly in our investigations. I know everybody has had a chance to review these annual reports, and we can go in depth in each one. If you would like, we can go through each one, and if there's specific questions, I can answer them. to make it easier because I don't want to answer questions that you might already have

I think DC . There we go. That's a better pronunciation. I think it would be good if you could provide just a quick overview of each of the technologies for everybody in this committee.

Absolutely. We'll make that easier. So again, we have an insurmountable amount of technology in our department. One of the things we have is our unmanned aerial system, better known as drones, that have assisted us greatly in our department. These drones, our program began in 2022 and we have deployed in 2025, 131 incidents. This, we present, I'm sorry. It says 130 times, but it's actually 131, and I clarified that with the Privacy Advisory Commission already. But the drones have assisted us greatly in being able to provide real-time intelligence, give us unknown information where we can't see, and also be deployed and be able to give us a better response time. If there is an incident where a suspect flees from us and goes into a yard, we can deploy the drone, give us some real-time intelligence just so we don't send officers in there. So it mitigates uses of force, gives us real-time intelligence, and also assists us in being able to get that person safely out and for officers to safely take that person into custody. Thank you. I provided several incidents in here where they have assisted us. I can go through those 10 different types of incidents that we've had. But as you can see on pages eight, nine and 10. These were some incidents that were very dangerous. There are barricaded suspects. There are specific incidents where people are armed with firearms and all of these incidents resulted in the safe apprehension of armed suspects and also the mitigation of uses of force. We do have our flare, which is our forward-looking infrared. We do have somebody here from Argus, which is our air support unit. This technology was not used in the past year, and I believe it's also outdated, so there's not much to report on that, unfortunately. The next one is our live stream transmitter feed where we utilize that for active protests. We did not deploy that again in 2025, as you can see in the annual report. The next thing is our mobile forensic extraction device. Basically, this is OPD's mobile forensic extraction device. It's basically a tool used to extract data from seized mobile phones and tablets. So it performs a one-time data extraction and doesn't conduct live surveillance. You could see that we extracted 738 devices and Five were related to internal administrative OPD searches and 733 were related to criminal investigations. I know one of the things that has been brought to our attention is making sure that we look at outside potential different vendors. I can't tell you that we have been testing two different vendors. I'm not gonna specifically mention those names of those vendors. But one of the vendors has had a 3% success rate. The other one has had a 62% success rate, while our current Selbright has had a 95% success rate. And again, these are a device that we utilize in assisting us in violent crimes. So if there's a homicide, a robbery, a home invasion robbery, a sexual assault, somebody who is being placed and victimized on our streets for prostitution activity and we're looking for pimps, these are a device that we utilize to assist in our investigations and they've been extremely helpful. The other system we have is a pen register system. That's basically a real-time surveillance tool that records meta information about ongoing and incoming phone communications, such as dialed numbers, time stamps, and call frequency. It doesn't capture the content of communication, which is really important for everybody to understand. We currently utilize the Gladiator pen register system to receive and analyze this data. We utilized that data 86 times last year for 47 separate investigations, and we obtained search warrants for 80 of the 86 installations, and six of those installations were conducted under exigent circumstances. The majority of them were violent crime. Six of the exigent uses occurred in two incidents. One was where a suspect ambushed and shot at uniformed officers, and the other one was a threat of a potential school shooting. And then lastly is Crime Tracer, formerly known as CopLogic. Basically, just to make it easier, it's kind of like a Google platform database system where it assists us as somewhat of a one-stop shop that assists us in being able to research and look for across law enforcement records for calls for service field interviews arrest and booking records and citations and police reports it does not contain any automated license plate reader system and as discussed and was discussed at the privacy privacy advisory commission and i believe also passed at public safety and city council is we are moving forward towards peregrine different database system which is similar still similar to a Google platform but basically it is cities across the Bay Area have now moved away from crime tracer and have gone to Peregrine additionally there is a better auditing system on Peregrine and we can also limit access and we can limit who sees this information and who it's shared with whereas crime tracer was kind of a free-for-all anybody could have access to it Basically, those are our surveillance annual reports. Again, whether we should continue the use of such technology, Oakland Police Department strongly urges you to obviously vote yes. And I agree that this technology does assist us in assisting the victims of violent crimes, but also helping to identify suspects who have committed these crimes.

Thank you so much, colleagues. And then I do wanna turn it over to public comment since we have many folks here. Council Member Houston.

Through the Chair, how are you, sir? That's amazing when you spoke on the Penn Register, you said help stop a school shooting and a shooting at an officer?

Yes, let me get back to that report.

No, take your time, take your time, because I got a couple of just, that's amazing. School shooting, wow.

Yes, so for the school shooting, we actually have a listed incident here where we used it to facilitate, identify the location of the individual making the threat for a school shooting. So you can obviously just considering the fact of how dangerous and just nationwide trying to prevent such incidents from occurring, how this can assist us greatly.

Yeah, threats become real. And what about the shooting at the officer?

This one we very we had some limited information and it still opens. We're not talking too much about it But we did apply and it did assist us in the investigation.

Okay last thing about that. I'm so bright you had two vendors I know you said you couldn't mention their names. What was the percentage the two percentages? And what was the sale by percentage? I

Absolutely so celebrate has shown us to have a 95% success rate in downloading information from cell phones while the other 2 vendors one has 3% and one has had 62% success rate.

We're not stopping there we're still looking at other vendors understand last question to the chair and you said the the drones said a 131 times it was used in 2025.

Uh, yes, Councilmember Houston. Yeah, we had 131 times. I had listed 130. That's my mistake on there. Uh, prior to that in 2024, we had 126 and prior to that we had 220 and I like to bring that to attention because one of the things we discovered obviously was 2023 was our first full usage of utilizing drones, but you can see that it's gone down. So it has to be approved by a commander on scene. So just because an incident may warrant a drone, each commander will identify the incident and determine whether or not a drone is still needed. So just because we have this technology doesn't mean that we deploy it every single time. We look at it case by case.

Good, and thank you, because I talked to the county, and they're telling me that it's working perfectly with the Sheriff Department, so thank you.

Council Member Brown. Excellent, thank you so much for the report and the update. I had a couple questions about the drone usage. Are you able to share what progress the department is making on the training of the drone teams? Because I guess I'm curious if that actually is contributing to the lack of usage.

Um, so currently right now, I believe off the top of my head, we have 20 FAA 107 certified pilots. Um, we also have them. So every, these are ancillary positions, so it's not full time positions. So a lot of these officers are working different assignments, whether you're in patrol investigations, working in ceasefire working in our special resources section or different obviously assignments so whenever they're hearing for a call for service if someone is not there they're trying to respond to that location the other thing we have a is that our drones are depleting in a sense. These are the same drones that we've had since 2022. These drones were donated to us by the lovely community of Oakland. So we had two separate donations totaling $100,000. And these are the same drones we've had since 2022. So we're also being cautious too on when we deploy them and how many times we use it. Just like anything else, it is a car and they break. So fortunately for me, I have some intelligent people on our team that are able to also become mechanics and try to fix the drones themselves as little parts break. So it is a depleting resource as far as mechanical and also financial. So we are looking at other ways to purchase new drones, which we are working on right now. But that's mainly the biggest issue right now.

Thank you so much for that. And what is the current life of a drone?

You know, it depends on the battery life. So we've had to purchase additional batteries and the drones we have are from 2022. So the problem we're seeing right now is those purchasing those batteries are extremely outdated and they're not lasting as long as they normally do. So the charges aren't holding as long as they are. So they're constantly having to purchase new new and new batteries, if that makes sense.

Yeah, absolutely. And then my next question had a little bit to do with the data around like the Cellebrite usage. And I just wanted to confirm that in order to use the Cellebrite technology, it actually requires a warrant. Is that correct?

That's correct. It does require a search warrant.

Yeah. Okay. Thank you.

Thank you, Council Member Brown. Before we turn it over to public comment, just to confirm, is this a comprehensive list of all those surveillance technology, like I noticed that ShotSpotter is not included in this set of reports? Why is that?

I believe that goes at a different time. We haven't presented ShotSpotter.

Okay, so we'll get it at the next set of reports. Okay, great.

Okay, let's turn it over to public comment. Calling in the names that signed up to speak on item number eight. In no particular order, you can come up to the podium, state your name before making your comment, or if you're on Zoom, please raise your hand to be easily identified. Aris D. Don. jesse rosemore daniel hoffman kendra ferguson cherry bogue asada olabala aaron fenyus adam wolf zarina diaz madeleine stacy elizabeth Cochran, Noel Forrest, Blair Beekman, Owen Haupt, Angela Maddox, and I have one filled out under Tech Workers Coalition. And if you are ceding time or have someone ceding time to you, they must be present or on Zoom to acknowledge that they are ceding their time to you. You go ahead.

Thank you very much. All of these proposals and all of the research done on these surveillance systems is a gross misuse of funds for the people of Oakland. It's a dangerous escalation of surveillance on the people of Oakland. We do not need to encourage a surveillance state. These drones and cameras only act as a Band-Aid solution to sources of crime. By Flock's own research and by your admission, the so-called benefit is between 10% and 20% for usage in completed cases. This statistic does not indicate that these cases would have gone unsolved without Flock intervention. For such a widespread implementation, the residents deserve more than a one in five involvement of these devices in resolved crime cases. Mind you, that's not crime prevention. You did mention crime prevention, but only for specific instances. uh merely crime resolution for most cases flock full short at every metric by their own numbers for comparison i'm out of time uh the we know what works it is giving money to health care and housing for the citizens of oakland next speakers you guys can come up to the podium hi i'm sorry i accidentally signed up for number three instead of number eight because it got moved around what's your name riley i'm gonna cede my time to danny

To Daniel? Yeah. Okay, just noting that you will no longer be able to speak on item three. And Daniel, give me one moment to adjust your time.

Yeah, go for it.

You can begin.

All right. My name is Daniel Hoffman. I'm a District 1 resident, and I work over at Livermore with Acute Clearance for working on nuclear weapons. So I first and foremost think that this item should be on a ballot. If you look at the recent ballot with Measure D and Measure E, Both of those combined are not as heavily weighted as what we're talking about now. But to talk about starting off as drones, the UAS system, I acknowledge that it has its indoor use for barricaded and hostage situations.

I acknowledge that it... Ms. Assata, I need you to... Can we pause the clock? Ms. Assata, this is your first warning. You will be issued three warnings or you will be removed. We need to respect the speaker. First warning. Council Member Wang, you know. That is your second warning, Ms. Assata.

I think it's important to note that we wanna make sure that we give everyone's voices heard and so everyone will get the opportunity to speak at the mic and so. I mean we listen to you 24 seven, thank you.

Okay, Mrs. Security, can you please speak with Ms. Sada? Thank you.

Daniel, you can continue with your comments. Your time will continue.

All right. So acknowledging the barricaded and hostage situations, the overwatch for active scenes and fires, that makes sense. That is a tactical advantage. But I believe that we should establish some kind of limiting operating radius of maybe like a quarter mile. It gives you enough situation to go around a block without it being this scary step towards surveillance state infrastructure. One thing I do want to applaud is the crime lab biometric security. Storing all the data on the internet and encrypting information end to end should be the standard for all of this information storage and transfer. Not so much an SD card on a drone or say manually inputting the drone log on a, what is it, the Microsoft Teams Excel sheet, I believe. Can we pause again?

Security, can you escort Ms. Asada out, please?

Okay.

Okay.

Excuse me. Could you please, if you don't have any room in the room, if you could give the opportunity for the four people to talk. Thank you.

Do you feel ready?

Okay.

Let's do it. All right. So lastly, I was complimenting the biometric security. ALPRs, I know it got moved, but let's talk about some statistics. In their report, it had 638 million scans, but only 1.1 million hot list alerts, which is... If you divide the 1.1 by 138 million, that is a 0.17% utilization rate. So let's say that's one scan per hot list alert. If we multiply that by 20, that's still only a 30% utilization. We're at 97% waste. $1.2 million, we're not getting a 97% refund on, and we're building essentially a panopticon that only works 0.1% of the time. This is unfortunately not even a fig...

Thank you for your comments. Your time is up. Next speaker, you guys can come up to the podium. Please state your name before beginning.

Cherry. I think the fact that you chose to remove ALPRs at the last minute from this agenda shows exactly why we cannot trust these kinds of technologies and why there's a lack of transparency when you brought all these people here and most of them are here to talk about the surveillance state and flock cameras on their corners. Let's see, Oakland already budgeted 2.25 million to flock back in December. Imagine all the social services that could have been funded if those funds went to somewhere else rather than the surveillance state. Policing at this level of everyday life goes beyond the panopticon and transforms lived actions into data by which people are watched Their behaviors are predicted and then demonized based on their skin, location, and socioeconomic status, making every corner the wrong place to be at the perpetual 24-7 wrong time. Oakland already has a habit of violating SB 3-4 and unlawfully sharing surveillance data. May every flock camp.

Good evening, Adam Wolf, Oakland resident. Your duty under OMC 964 is not to just accept paperwork, it's to approve the usage against the cost to civil liberties. The scale of the scanning that's happening, 638 million license plates scanned, 150, 162 success stories. That's .001%. The 99.977% is all just non-constitutional obstruction to civil liberties in Oakland. And also approving this report, Oakland PD is not following the rules. There are six currently approved usages for flock, but apparently the 33 usages have been in their system able to be selected for the last year. I would really love to have you ask about that and see are they using these usages already? Because you have not voted on this yet.

I'm Kendra Ferguson, I live in Oakland, and I'm opposed to the OPD expanding the use of flock. I think that mass surveillance in a country that lawfully strips rights from repressed people, that lawfully incarcerates families based off of their ethnicity, and that lawfully murders people in the street will only bring harm to the people. I think that funds should be going toward programs that uplift humanity and not those that criminalize humanity. I'm a descendant of the survivor of the Japanese concentration camps from World War II, and that measure was taken then for safety and was a safety measure, and they incarcerated 120,000 people for the basis of being Japanese Americans. Yeah, in reality, all safety measures sometimes do not do what they're meant to do, right? They're actually meant to just harm humanity. And so I would hope that we are choosing not harm, but choosing humanity. Thank you.

i'm zarina i oppose flock to the council members here do you believe the citizens of oakland have a right to privacy from 24 7 warrantless surveillance why is it that you continue to support the vendor flock when the public you serve opposes this The way that you and OPD continue to sneak flock funding into agendas every month reflects an allegiance to the police above your constituents. I've seen high schoolers, unions, immigration advocacy groups, church groups, and constituents all come here practically every month to oppose flock. The optics of you all continuing to consider funding flock, The optics is corruption and collusion with OPD.

Hi, Aaron Fenyus, District 5 resident. I strongly oppose any contract with Flock Safety. Flock indiscriminately collects enormous volumes of video footage. In Illinois, Flock has been caught breaking state privacy law by sharing that footage with out-of-state law enforcement officers, including Customs and Border Protection agents, and a Texas sheriff tracking a woman who had an abortion. Flock's sloppy license plate readings have led to false accusations, and Flock's careless security practices increase the risk of hackers stealing footage. When it comes to public safety in Oakland, I trust local violence prevention programs, not unaccountable tech companies or increasingly brutal and lawless federal agencies. I urge you all not to accept any expansion or extension of Oakland City contracts with Flock safety, not now or not ever.

Hey everyone, I'm Mark. I think I'm the person who put down Tech Workers Coalition so apologies for that if I forgot to fill out my name. I'm a District 3 resident and I just wanna say that I guess I am a little happy that the flock thing ended up getting moved to last month because I definitely did look through those documents and was kind of surprised. by how messy and how many data and things were missing from it. And I appreciate, you know, I appreciate OPD for pulling that stuff off, but I can't give them too many flowers for being the people who presumably submitted that stuff in the first place. And so I would really urge that especially if this is the way that they're going to like handle their own data that, you know, we really treat, we treat them with a little bit of skepticism when they say that they are going to be good stewards for ours. And I also think that fundamentally, you know, it is not surveillance or nothing. You know, obviously when you, you know, when you compare lawlessness to surveillance, surveillance wins, but I think ultimately there is another option, which is actually taking that

Hi, Jesse Rosemore. Of the absurd things that I've heard the pro-flock hawks on the city council say, from Councilmember Wong, I have heard you say that if ICE deploys here, we will just turn the cameras off. So, you know, these cameras collect commute pattern data. So if you just turn them off, it will be too late. ICE will have that data. They will use it to do targeted objections of our neighbors when they go to Dublin, when they open Dublin, and when they pursue that to fill up that... So what I would like to know from you is what is the plan when ICE does here what they did in Minneapolis to warn every person that could be targeted by ICE and the Trump administration that they need to immediately change their commute pattern data or have targeted abductions at them? That is a big task. Who is going to do it? Are you going to do it? Which department is going to do it? What is the plan? When are you releasing the plan? Because this leaves us in danger.

My name is Anaya and I accidentally sound up for three instead of eight. Thank you. I am not going to repeat the statistics or the information that it's all really good that my companions or they're not my companions, but the people who feel the same way as me, which is I strongly oppose flock. I oppose celebrate. I oppose surveillance. I am shocked that this is like probably the fourth time I've been in front of either this committee or the full city council talking about this. You listen to us, you listen to the lies of OPD and you just go right ahead. So I just don't know what to say about it. I do wanna say that we are supposedly a sanctuary city and it should be very clear to each one of you at this point that that ice can get into all of these. Certainly they can get into flock. So it just seems like corruption to me.

Madeline Stacy, ALPRs provide indiscriminate retrospective location data of any person, no intermediary, on demand. That is a search without a warrant. With capability to track and follow someone to sensitive locations such as the hospital, Immigration lawyer, hospice, churches, their home, their doctor, Planned Parenthood, their therapist, their lover's home. And it can be used against lawful protesters. Celebrite will be used extra judiciously. In the report attached to the agenda when the original contract was discussed by the city council, it states in addition to warrants, it will be used with documented consent to search the mobile device by the authorized possessor of the device. And we know how consent is obtained. All this data is sensitive and does not prevent crime. Stop the surveillance state. Cancel the contracts now.

Hello, my name is Angela Maddox and I'm against us having any contract with Flock. I've discovered a lot of really scary things about this company. They claim that they don't know where their data is being processed in the AI centers. It's an Amazon AI center. Amazon says they do it globally, depending on whatever the local laws are. So if it's illegal here, they can do it in a different country or China, and we don't have any control of who's looking at the data on that end. They don't claim any liability for the abuses in the system or try to build any way to stop the abuses. They retroactively band-aid stuff and say there was no data breach because basically several months ago there weren't even passports on these cameras. And the partnership that they have that give the data to ICE, they claim that they don't keep the data, but then they claim that they have royalties to the data indefinitely, meaning they are keeping it. They might not be doing it now, but they might sell it in the future. They might be bought by a different company in the future. It would explain why they're not scared of liability because they plan on selling or just selling our data.

Welcome back, everyone. I am pleased to see that after 100 plus open outreach.

Can you state your name for the record?

I'll say it in a second, yes.

Excuse you.

Hi, my name is Bria Woodland. I use she, her pronouns. I'm a constituent for District 3, and I am very pleased to see that after 100 plus- One moment, through the chair to the member of the public, I'm pausing your time.

Ms. Asada, do you give her your time? Okay, ma'am, you can proceed.

Can you start me over then?

You can proceed. Ms. Asada's giving you her time.

All right. I'm going to scratch off that first part then, because if you can't tell, I'm very ecstatic to be here today, to not only repeat myself, but to also hear my peers repeat themselves as well. I hope that you don't take my sarcasm as disrespect, but try to put yourself in my shoes, right? That as a young black woman, a fourth generation Oakland native, that you as my representatives have decided to continue the flock expansion and explicitly express the complete disregard for my privacy. That despite our budget deficit, unutilized resources, habitual and historical lack of police accountability, you still like to dump money into the system of enslavement and policing that was created to and effectively harms me every single day. The privacy lawsuit against Flock should have been enough. The Oakland budget deficit should have been enough. And simply the outrage of your constituents should have been enough for you to say no in November and should be enough for you to say no now. I don't appreciate the interruption and I don't appreciate you guys cutting...

Thank you for your comments. Switching to Zoom user Blair. Please unmute yourself and begin your comment. Okay. We need to move to the next speaker. Thank you so much.

No. No. Hello. Hello. Am I here? I'm here. Blair Beekman.

Hi, Blair. You can continue.

Thank you. Boy, thank you. Hi, I had to kind of be moving and to get into a good position to speak. I'm outside in public. Thank you for this item. I'm trusting your choice of police chief. I'm not trusting how you're talking about flock. When you voted for flock in December of last year, was it the intention the police said they had to get the contract signed immediately? Where is the contract signing process right now? Is it actually been signed? It was at least till May it was not signed. That's part of why you're not talking to us right now, and I feel you owe that conversation if it's signed or not. We could have been working – you have a very good plan to leave the future of PLOC in two years' time. We could have been working on a one-year timeframe, but you guys are putting things off, and you are being incredibly unaccountable with some really basic good ideas. Can we bring together good ideas and you guys be more accountable to the process? I think waiting until September, October is kind of a...

Thank you for your comments. Your time is up. Simone, please unmute yourself. Did you sign up to speak on item number eight? And if so, what name did you sign up under? It should be Simone Rene. I'm sorry, I do not have a speaker card filled out for you. I'm calling in the names that signed up, the remaining names, Elizabeth Cochran, Noel Forrest, and Owen Haupt. Okay, at this time, all names have been called.

Council Member Brown.

Excellent, thank you so much. I just wanted to ask a clarifying question because I know that when we were discussing, I think all of these items, one of the things that we requested was like an annual report back. And I know that these reports customarily go through the Privacy Commission, right? And so can I just get some clarity as far as why we have this item before us today? And I feel like the title is, in a way misleading because it says to under item number two, making a determination whether the city should continue its use. What was the report back from the Privacy Commission around the annual reports?

As far as all the annual reports when we presented to the Privacy Advisory Commission, I know all were approved and passed forward. As far as the delay in time, I'm not too sure why. I know there was some scheduling issues, but as far as any more specifics, I'm not sure.

Go ahead, Council Member Brown.

Okay, and then my next question, since we pulled item, since a portion of the item was pulled, item A, and this was supposed to be an update for the 2025 reports and we're gonna get this now even later where we've already well into the fall, what's the status of the reports for I guess like six months into 2026 or when will we get a report on this year?

i think normally and i could be wrong we normally present to the privacy advisory commission i've lost my voice usually in april um that's if that's something we need to reevaluate we can but usually we prevent we present in april so this 2025 report was presented to the privacy commission in april this year i have to double check that thank you

Do you have another question or do you wanna? Sorry about that.

Okay, yep. I know I authored this report. It says May 7th, 2026. Okay. I have to double check to see exactly when it was scheduled and presented.

Yeah, I'm just raising that because by the time we get this information and data, we'll be on standby, really interested in what the data is for the current year. So that's just my feedback.

Okay, thank you, Council Member Brown. Council Member Houston.

Through the chair. How you doing, sir?

We'll see if I can still talk, but yeah.

As a representative of District 7, I get emails, calls that support this flock. I mean, I don't get that many that do not, right? what if through the chair councilmember brown have you got you know emails about it from my district i'm not saying i'm talking about my district from the hills to the sheffield village to below the second railroad tracks they saying they want it they want the protection um so i'm hearing totally different and so i want to know who who's out in the audience is from district seven district seven district say you're from district seven So Ms. Sada, how you feel about the flock? Okay, so I'm saying this, that my district wants flock, right? So I wanna move this, I wanna move this.

Okay, and to be clear, we are gonna be, Council Member Houston, if you could move the item without exhibit A, actually, or exhibit, subsection A, exhibit E, which is the ALPR item because the request from OPD is to actually present this in the fall time, or later this year. That's correct. So it's exhibit E, it's the attachment exhibit E, but it is item, like sub-item A. that we are removing.

All right, I like to move it like that, because I'm telling my people want it, so I'm gonna move it.

Okay, and just so the public is clear, this vote actually removes the ALPR item from today's vote. We will return to this in the fall time. One day. And I will, to be determined, I will second that.

Thank you, we have a motion made by Council Member Houston, seconded by Chair Wong to approve as amended the recommendations of staff and to forward this item to the July 21st City Council agenda with the amendment to the legislation removing section A regarding the automated license plate readers and exhibit E labeled as attachment E. On roll. On roll, Council Members Brown.

Aye.

Fife, excuse, Houston. Aye. And Chair Wong. Aye. Thank you, and to the makers of the motion, is this on consent or non-consent? Consent, thank you.

My mic doesn't seem to be working. Oh, there we go. Through the Chair, I just wanted to clarify that the title also changed to remove the ALPR information, thanks.

So noted. Now going back to the original order of the agenda, reading in item number three. Adopt a resolution authorizing the city administrator or designee to enter into an operational area agreement with Alameda County to participate in an intermediate level of the state of emergency services organization that will comply with the state of California standardized emergency management systems for the period from ratification through December 31st, 2035. And we have three speakers on this item.

Okay, do we have a representative from OFD here? Hello. Good afternoon, oh, good evening.

Good evening. I'm Olga Crowe, I'm the Assistant Emergency Manager for the City of Oakland from the Fire Department.

Okay, fantastic, please.

Please go ahead, the floor is yours.

So the Oakland City Council has adopted this original 10-year-old operational area agreement in 1995, and then subsequently on January 11, 2006, and that one has expired on December 2025. Alameda County has just approved their agreement with Alameda County agencies, both government, non-government, non-profit, to participate in this organization. There is no cost to the city of Oakland. It is really for coordination of the resources, information, and mutual aid during disasters and emergencies.

Great, I'm not seeing any comments or questions from my colleagues, so let's first go to public comment.

Calling in the names that signed up to speak on item number three, Jesse Rosemore, Asada Olaballa, and Blair Beekman.

Hi, sorry, on that last item in that deliberation just now, I'm Jesse Rosemore. It seems like you guys couldn't even get straight what you snuck into the agenda in such a long, lengthy packet. I don't know, one of our public speakers had it printed out, could see how thick it was, and you gave one minute per person for all of that. Okay, so for this item here, Page two says the Alameda County Sheriff will be the operational area coordinator and that we will have to count on them in the case of a disaster. Since we care about flock, we care about what's happening with flock in Alameda County and we have seen the Alameda County Sheriff lie point blank to the public about what is happening with flock and what they've done around their public outreach on that item. It is in page two, I know you're looking, it's in page two. It says that that's who we're gonna be counting on for these emergency services. They, in public outreach, said that nobody had any concerns about flock when they ran this through the Alameda County Board of Supervisors and several public commenters called them out for lying.

So one of the, one of a big, that is a big challenge is when we have evacuation procedures and it involves our students. OUSD is not a neighborhood school district. It is a choice district. We have children scattered throughout the city, and that's going to be more challenging than neighborhoods. When I lived in New Orleans and we had an emergency, parents were called and they would run to come pick up their kids. Can't do that here, except the larger percentage of our children are spread throughout the city. What happens to those children? when they separated from their parents. And we have to do something to protect them, house them, get them back home. That's challenging. Skyline, 1,400 students, no evacuation process in place, except a shelter in place on the football field in the case of a.

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

Hi, Blair Beekman. I'm in agreement with the first public comment. A lot of important items on the previous agenda item. It really needs like a minute 30. That additional 30 seconds could be a lot of help. I hope you can learn that sort of flexibility in future public meetings. And a minute 30 is definitely needed when the item is brought to council. Good luck in that effort to consider that concept. We have to use 1.30 a bit more, I think. Not all the time, just a bit more. I wanted to comment for this item that... Yeah. Uh, you know, the work that, uh, council person, uh, Wang is doing on, um, the international Boulevard issues around 12th street. And so, um, can office of emergency services at the California state level be of help? And I suppose this sort of item can be helpful in working with Alameda County and such, if it's towards, you know, not law enforcement. And that's why I thought of the Office of Emergency Services to address, the California Office of Emergency Services. Good luck in such concepts. Thank you.

Thank you for your comments. Chair, that concludes all speakers on item three. Thank you, Clerk.

Yes, so thank you for bringing this item before us. I do have just a question around how often the mutual aid comes to Oakland versus when the city of Oakland is supporting our neighboring jurisdictions.

There's mutual aid agreement for like fire and police, and this is not part of that. This is for emergency services for planning response and recovery purposes only. And this board, the Alameda County entity was created after the 1991 Oakland fires. And this is in the California code. to ensure that we as all agencies in Alameda County, both government, non-government, and nonprofit, and special districts, that we all have a way to coordinate with each other, to create mutual trainings and exercises, which enhance our capacity to respond. And according to SEMS, the Standardized Emergency Management System, National Incident Command System the way it will work the disaster is always local it starts in in the jurisdiction so in this case say Oakland then once we exhaust our resources in Oakland in all or some capacity then it goes to the operational area which for us is the county and that is what a stop is established by the California Code following the 91 Oakland fire and then If the county is out of resources or can no longer support us, then it goes to the region and then the state and then federal. So that's the progression of response. Us being closely connected to the Alameda County ensures that we as all cities can support one another. If we are affected and others are not, then the resources can come from them through the Alameda County coordination. So that's an important part of this partnership. plus training and plus exercise because no one jurisdiction has the capacity or the finances to create enough trainings and exercises to train city staff, to train our partners and to train our community.

Okay, great. So that's a helpful clarification. So this is really pertaining to natural disaster planning. It sounds like not so much mutual aid as it pertains to either law enforcement. Okay.

That's a separate issue altogether, different code.

Okay.

So no, this pertains to preparedness, readiness, response, recovery, and mitigation. So we all work together to ensure our collective readiness, not just for natural disasters, manmade as well.

um cyber attack that we experienced a couple of years ago we were heavily relying on the county and also other jurisdictional experience with similar attacks to ensure that we take the right steps and employ right partnerships okay great um one final question then i'll turn it over to councilmember brown is just have you all been looking into just the use um or coordinating of like the text alerts and just notifications to residents in the case of a serious incident

Absolutely. In fact, we're getting ready to deploy a campaign for AC Alert, which stands for Alameda County Alerting System. And many of such tools are available through the county because, again, the municipalities don't have the resources to buy platforms and so forth and coordinate them. So we do have AC Alert in the city of Oakland. We have two levels. It's an opt-in system, so people have to sign up. We have one that is specific to the City of Oakland staff, or when we have something that is important to staff based on location or an incident. And then we also have a resident alert. And in fact, those who were signed up for AC Alert on July prior to July 4th prior to July 3rd would have received two alerts indicating the street closures for July 4th celebrations and any other important information that needed to be distributed so our residents and our visitors knew where where and how to get around the city so we do deploy AC alert regularly both for internal staff for things that matter to a particular department or entity and to our residents when It doesn't have to be a disaster. July 4th was a celebration, so.

That's good to know, thank you. Council Member Brown.

Excellent, thank you so much for the report. I'm very familiar with the emergency management kind of protocol and system. I got to take a handful of courses on emergency management. And so I know that is very complex, but it also requires, as you mentioned, working across all of our governmental systems, right? to ensure its success. So my question is one of, can you just at a high level maybe share with me, given that we're gonna enter into a contract that is about eight years long, pretty lengthy, can you walk me through like what are some of the coordination efforts that will kind of take place to ensure the success you know, just continued coordination. Like, are there, you know, six month check ins or like what what is the how how is the relationship like genuinely maintained?

Absolutely. Easy question. Thank you. So this this agreement is between us, the city of Oakland and Alameda County and every other jurisdiction, government, non-government, nonprofit special districts are also entering into this agreement on their behalf. So are on their own behalf. So what happens is we meet quarterly. And by we, I don't mean necessarily I go, but somebody from my team will go to the quarterly meetings. We also have monthly check-ins just with the government entities, so that's specialized for government. We have joint training opportunities several times a year. A little bit hard to quantify. Sometimes it's two a month, and then sometimes it's every other month, you know, that sort of thing. But we probably have... about a dozen training opportunities a year just through our county. So Alameda County is who takes it on, who runs the expense of it, the organization of it, and all of it for us to take advantage of it. We also have multiple exercises a year. Some are big, some are small. What also the county does for all of our jurisdictions, they organize planning. One of the plannings that we've had so far this year was for tsunami response. And before anybody says, we are at risk for tsunami. Maybe not a huge risk, but at risk. So we, city of Oakland, participated with the city of county and the contractor that they hired to create Oakland Alameda specific tsunami plan. If it happens, what do we do? And the county, other county agencies were involved, Berkeley and so forth. Then additionally, we just completed planning how to train elected officials on emergency response. We haven't rolled it out. The work has just been completed, but at some point, all of our elected officials will get a very nice booklet that spells out if this happens, this is what is needed. If that happens, this is what is needed, and we'll conduct the training for just the City of Oakland elected officials. Those are just a few examples of how county supports the City of Oakland and other jurisdictions.

excellent thank you so much and i know last year some of us myself and some of the other offices attended a training at the eoc around you know there was a handful of things that we that we got the opportunity to learn so um if my colleagues haven't had the opportunity to do it it was very insightful and the team that we have working at the eoc they are phenomenal excellent so thank you so much for the report i'm happy to move the item

Okay, great. I will second that, but I just have one more comment to make. I was making the connection to what actually my questions before around the alert systems. I remember reading about Maui and when there was that wildfire and the fact that the sirens did not deploy, and I think it looks like in San Francisco, Because there has not been the funding the siren system is currently offline I don't know the status here in Alameda County, but I do think that is something for us to ensure that we have that up and running and since we know with climate change a Natural disaster is inevitable as you have all as you yourself have stated with the tsunami risk wildfires everything and so I want to make sure that we have that in place and that we are we are ready as a county and as a city and

Did you need me to answer that?

Sure, yeah, absolutely.

So the county in this particular case wouldn't have anything to do with this. The city of Oakland maintains its own siren system. We test sirens every month on the first Wednesday at noon. We test one sound for a minute or so. If you hear the siren on any other day of the week, any other time, there are three types of tones, but we don't expect everyone to remember them. If you hear something, then go to the official news resource. Most of our sirens are fully functional and operational. We have a couple that are currently in maintenance status, But the siren schema around the city is such that even if one is out, there are others around the area that would sound. So nobody is without any sound. And we do test them regularly, and we have three agencies, so to speak, that are responsible for activation in case needed. And that would be through the fire dispatch, police dispatch, or emergency management, or the radio group at Public Works.

Great. So it sounds like unlike San Francisco, our siren system is in fact working.

Correct. And we do work with our radio shop from Public Works and with our Public Works electricians and PG&E and so forth to ensure that all of our sirens are in operational condition. But yes, it is an aging infrastructure. So every now and then, for one reason or another, one or two sirens will go offline, but we are maintaining them. We are upgrading them by we, I mean the city. And majority, as I said, there's only two of them that are currently in maintenance.

Great, thank you. Let's move to the vote. Thank you, we have a motion made by Council Member Brown, seconded by Chair Wong, to approve the recommendations of staff and to forward this item to the July 21st City Council agenda. On consent, on roll, Council Members Brown. Aye. Houston.

Aye. And Chair Wong.

Aye. Thank you, item passes with three ayes, one excused, five. To forward this item to the July 21st City Council Agenda on Consent, reading in item four, adopt a resolution accepting the Department of Violence Prevention's 2026 Apricot Annual Report and approving the amended apricot use policy as approved by the Privacy Advisory Commission on June 4th, 2026. And there are four speakers that signed up to speak on this item.

All right.

Go ahead and take it away. The floor is yours. Thank you. Good evening, council members. Jenny Lynchey, deputy chief of grants programs and evaluation for the Department of Violence Prevention. I will wait for my slides. Great, so I'm presenting on our Apricot 360 annual report and updated use policy. High level overview, Apricot 360 is a cloud based system developed by Bonterra for use by social service providers to track service delivery and grant management tasks. This is the system that the Department of Violence Prevention uses for our own internal direct service staff and also for the agencies that we fund to enter information about service delivery. The system was first approved by the Privacy Advisory Commission and City Council in July of 2022. It was then customized and implemented by the DBP in January of 2023, replacing our old system, CitySpan. And since then, we've had annual reports and use policies approved by the Privacy Advisory Commission every June, so June 2024, 2025, and most recently, 2026. The system has multiple uses for direct service staff, both employed by the DVP and by the agencies that we fund. The system can be used to track enrollment, service engagement, milestones, and outcomes for individuals who are engaged in services, and then additionally for agencies that deliver group level services, it tracks information such as attendance, duration, and content of group services. For supervisory staff, again, within the DVP and our funded agencies, they can use the system to review the services that are being delivered by the individuals they supervise to monitor service delivery and track performance metrics. Grant management staff, both within the DVP and our funded agencies, use the system to track budget spend down, so we have reports that are automatically generated every quarter to show how expenses are being spent down in various categories. It's how we track progress on contract deliverables, so we also have a standard report for every contract that's based on the service deliverables in Scopes of Work, and it shows exactly where agencies are supposed to be every quarter, and then where they actually are. And then we use it to receive and process quarterly invoices. So every quarter, agencies input information about what they did that quarter, about their expenses. We review all of the information. That's how we process invoices. A few select program staff within the DVP use the system to coordinate services between agencies and support effective implementation. So a good example of this is the violence interruption services. We fund for community-based organizations to deliver violence interruption services in Oakland, but the DVP also has internal VIs who kind of quarterback that work. And so the ability for them to see updates that are being entered by the various agencies is very helpful in coordinating the response. And then lastly, data and evaluation staff use the system to summarize service delivery information for reports to council, to commissions, to funders, to monitor consent form completion and eligibility criteria. So we have standard eligibility criteria for our gun violence services, for instance, and so our one data specialist makes sure that those criteria are being met. And then if there are data entry errors, there's regular checks on that. For the annual year of 2025, the system was used by approximately 36 staff from the DBP and 170 staff from community-based organizations. There were also individual records entered for about 2,400 individuals participants in services. In terms of data sharing, de-identified data for all participants and then personally identifiable information which means name and date of birth for individuals who provided their affirmative consent was shared with the same party in two different occasions. One was Urban Institute for their evaluation of Measure Z funded services and one was Urban Institute for their evaluation of a state grant that we have. We have had no complaints or concerns raised about the system regarding its protection of civil rights or civil liberties and our data analyst is in frequent communication with grantees about a number of things and when he receives feedback on ways to improve the system or additional things that they want collected, we're happy to make those changes or develop reports that would be helpful for them to monitor service delivery. Service delivery information in APRICOT is limited to high-level information, so it's number and duration of contacts and service outcomes. Personally identifiable information is only required for adults who are receiving services related to gun violence. It is not required for youth at all or for individuals who are receiving services related to gender-based violence. This is a high-level overview of the race-ethnicity breakdown of individuals who are entered and neighbor-caught, being served by DVP or DVP-funded organization services. If you take away the missing, these percentages are actually slightly higher. So the majority of individuals being served are African-American or Latino. That closely mirrors the breakdown of race-ethnicity for individuals impacted by gun violence and domestic violence and commercial sexual exploitation in Oakland, which is what we're charged to reduce. We regularly review audits. There have not been any violations or potential violations of the use policy to date that we're aware of. There have also been no data breaches or unauthorized access, and we have had no public records requests pertaining to the system. The annual cost of the system in this upcoming fiscal year is $125,000. Approximately half of that will come from our general purpose fund, and then we try to write in a portion of that into every external grant that we get. So about half of that is funded by external grants. In terms of efficacy, Apricot 360 is invaluable in our work in many ways. It's allowed us to ensure alignment with best practices, specifically relating to ceasefire lifeline. So our chief, Holly Joshi, our deputy chief, Daniela Medina, who oversee all of that work, they receive weekly performance reports where they are able to see exactly what all of the life coaches and violence interrupters are doing to implement the model and ensure that they're having the high touch points that are required to achieve impact. It's also how we, as we've discussed in prior meetings, how we hold CBOs accountable, it's how we track their performance metrics to make sure that they're meeting what we said that they were going to do and their scopes of work. It's how we coordinate service, or it supports, rather, coordinating service delivery within the group strategy, as I mentioned specifically around violence interruption. It allows us to easily summarize, share data with groups like city council, oversight bodies, public funders, And then, of course, it is the source of data that we use for impact evaluations. So for the Measure Z funded evaluation from Urban Institute, this is the source of the data. For any future evaluations that are funded by Measure NN, this is where the data will come from. And then lastly, we're proposing one amendment to the use policy this year. The current use policy states that personally identifiable information, again, name and date of birth is not entered for individuals receiving services related to gender-based violence. We would like to just change that language to say is not required. We would like to, just as we do for youth, give them the opportunity to opt in to sharing data because it's so powerful and helpful for evaluation purposes. That was one of the findings from Measure Z evaluators was that they simply didn't have enough, they didn't have data at the individual level to be able to do impact evaluation for gender-based violence services. So with this change, we would simply be giving people the opportunity to say yes or no. Of course, they could always say no and still access services. There would be no bearing on that And that concludes the presentation.

I'm happy to take questions Councilmember Brown Not necessarily a question but more of a comment. I Just in reading and reviewing the report. It seems very clear that this the program and like the system is working very well and it also has a clear nexus to when you all come back and share hey how are these community-based organizations doing with the program services and it also sounds like maybe we should duplicate it and other departments could utilize it as well because it just really seems like the it a lot it's a great tool to really collect the data and get the the clear feedback but thank you so much for the report really appreciate it

Yeah, through the Chair to Council Member Brown, just to add, it is a great tool. It's far superior to the former tool that we were using, and it allows us to, again, not only track the data, but create all kinds of customizable reports that are really helpful for implementation. One thing that's very exciting is that we were able to, about a year and a half ago, poach our former technical assistance provider from Bonterra, and he's now an employee of the Department of Violence Prevention, so we have lots of capacity to do really cool things. If for some reason another department adopts the technology, we would be happy to lend his expertise.

Wow, that's phenomenal, thank you. I'll make a motion to move the item too.

Well done, what a way to fill our vacancies. Council Member Houston.

Through the chair, what tool were you using prior to this and the one that you were using prior, how was it being done before?

Through the chair to Council Member Houston, we were using CitySpan. It is still being used, I believe, by the Department of Human Services. Was not we were not able to enter personally identify or like individual level data from the Community based organizations that we fund and then us be able to summarize that into. deliverables and to reports that we're able to easily see. So the agencies were instead entering already summarized data. So there would be boxes that say how many individuals did you serve rather than entries of individuals served being summarized in reports that we can see. It gives us a little bit more accountability. And also support with service coordination.

Okay, all right.

Okay, and then before I second the item, I just have, well, one comment, which is I do agree with my colleague. It sounds like this system has some use, say, for example, human services that we know has some challenges around reimbursements. Does this system actually support the reimbursements of the providers, or this is simply sort of tracking performance metrics?

We use it to prepare the invoice that is then submitted into the AP portal. So the AP portal is still the system that is used to actually process the invoice and issue payment, but we use this to prepare all of the documentation that goes into the AP portal, including the itemized spend down of expenditures and the summary of deliverables achieved.

okay interesting and then just with regards to the amendment I'm sure that you've thought of this but I just would like to vet this is given of course the data the special data privacy needs for like a domestic violence victim or a trafficking victim what privacy controls are or privacy protections are included in the system to ensure that that's the data can be misused

So the data are only accessed, every user of the system has very specialized permissions. So any staff member at a community-based organization, for instance, can only access data that they enter, not that anyone else enters. And that's the case for everyone. The exception to that is the data specialist who works for the DVP and myself who have slightly broader credentials. But for the most part, individuals who access the system only have access to the data that they enter. Somewhat related is in terms of providing consent for their personally identifiable information to be entered. They provide that consent. It is not by any means required as part of service delivery and that complies with the VAWA expectations, which is that you give individuals the ability to consent or not and don't make services contingent on that. So those protections are in place. Okay, great, thank you. Second.

Calling in the names that signed up to speak on item number four. In no particular order, you can come up to the podium. State your name for the record. Almasy Indigo, Jesse Rosemore, Asada Olubala, and Blair Beekman.

Hi, Jesse Rosemore. DVP provided a well-written report compared to OPD, who did not provide a well-written report. We get one minute to speak on this item, where for item eight, we also got one minute to speak on this garbage, as Rowena Brown mentioned. nonsense that we had. Only one minute to speak on. This city council, three of the members of this body, seven members of the city council itself, will give OPD anything it wants and its austerity and means testing for everything else. Councilmember Wong, you're pretending to care about data privacy when it comes to DVP. Why don't you issue that same care about privacy to Flock, which so many people came to speak on, which is very clearly not popular with your constituents and with everybody in Oakland. We have a city council that serves Piedmont landlords and the OPOA. We should be funding violence prevention and safety, and we need a city council that doesn't do austerity,

So there's some clarity that needs to be explained. The report says that you have participant records 2,300, program enrollment 2,500. What's the difference between the two? Thank you for the numbers of what you provide as services. Employment, 37. family and victim support, 17, and I'm not gonna be able to go through all the numbers, but what I didn't see in the report, and you gotta distinguish between services and referral. Referral means you identified a source. Service means you actually got something in terms of a need. But you didn't identify anything that accommodates trauma recovery, mental health care, anger management, drug treatment. And those are areas that need to be addressed when you're talking about some of the issues that...

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

Hi, thank you. Blair Beekman. This is another item that can serve Councilperson Wang's work on the International Avenue Boulevard really well. It was nice to hear. It was nice to hear that this is really based on DVP, social services, and not so much law enforcement. It wasn't too much mentioned, and that was really helpful. It's a place, it's a resource place. You know, the meetings we had on... the International Boulevard issues a few weeks ago. The people there, the women there, they need resources. That's what was being said by the public. And this seems an item that helps provide those concepts, which is just, it's just a way to work our system, how we're going to understand this best. So thank you. It was nice to hear this item and what its intentions can be. Good luck. We can live up to its potential. Thank you.

Thank you for your comments. If your name was called, please come up to the podium. Chair, at this time, all names have been called. We can move to the vote, yes? Yes, we have a motion made by Council Member Brown, seconded by Chair Wong, to approve the recommendations of staff and to forward this item to the July 21st City Council agenda. On consent, on roll, Council Members Brown? Aye. Five? Aye. Houston? Aye. And Chair Wong? Aye. Thank you, item four passes with four ayes. To forward this item to the July 21st City Council agenda on consent. Reading in item five, adopt a resolution authorizing the city administrator to enter into a professional services agreement with the Bright Research Group, Inc. for the training and capacity building services for the Department of Violence Prevention from September 1st, 2026 through December 31st, 2028 for a total contract amount not to exceed $513,000. And there are three speakers that signed up to speak.

Okay, great, and I'll turn the floor over to you. I know that we have about half an hour left till we get to 8 PM, so I would love to, if you could make it succinct, thank you.

No problem. Good evening, my name is Venetta Thomas. I'm the manager of the Trading Bureau within the Department of Violence Prevention. So I'm here today to talk about adopting a resolution to award a contract of $513,000 to Bright Research Groups. for training and capacity building services from September 1st to December 31st, 2028. And service DVP's mandate, as you all know, our mandate is to reduce gun violence, domestic violence, and commercial sexual exploitation. And we do that through supervising and deploying direct service staff within our community, funding and coordinating community services to deliver violence interruption services, and building the capacity of the ecosystem of community violence interventionists. In 2024, the DVP received $3.5 million from Kaiser. Part of this funding included hiring a training manager, myself, to build and maintain an infrastructure for training CVI workers. In addition to that, last year, DVP received investment from the Green Light Fund to develop and launch Oakland Peace Academy. This will be a fellowship for community violence interruption workers through a partnership with Urban Peace Institute. The purpose of the training bureau is essentially to be a hub for, aim to strengthen, professionalize, and sustain Oakland's violence interrupters, life coaches, gender-based specialists, et cetera. And our vision is to do this through leadership development the Oakland Peace Academy, and through capacity building. And that can be a variety of things, trainings on harm reduction, self-care, dealing with compassion fatigue, supervision, managing a budget for organizations. It's just capacity building for both leaders within organizations and within the DVP, as well as for the direct service staff. In February, a request for qualifications went out for a contractor to provide services to support the training and capacity building efforts of the training bureau. There were five submissions. Of them, two were passed through the city's procurement process, and of the two that passed, only one vendor, Bright Research Group, met all of the minimum qualifications that were listed in the RFQ. Bright Research Group has over a decade of experience providing services to various departments within the city. They are a research capacity building design firm that's owned by women of color and based right here in Oakland. And some examples of work they've done with DVP, formerly Oakland Unite in the past, is they actually were the organization that recommended and helped curate the Healing-Centered Life Coaching Fellowship, which is an internationally recognized certification. They've helped support DVP network convenings, which brings together the grantees. It's a time for networking and collaborative learning. They've developed train-the-trainers models where CVI professionals learn to be peer facilitators. And they also just have a lot of familiarity with Oakland's CVI ecosystem and has a lot of trust of the organizations that we partner with. Thank you. Do you have any questions?

I'll start off with a comment. I just want to commend you for your work on this. I think this is exactly the work that ensures that Oakland continues to be on the front line of community violence approaches or interruption approaches. So thank you.

Council Member Brown.

Excellent, thank you so much for the report. I only have one question. I'm looking at the funding table and I'm noticing that the half a million is coming from the general fund and then it said project re-imagining public safety. So my question is, was this something that was budgeted in the budget or is this an additional allocation?

This is in the budget. We tried to get the RFQ out before the current fiscal year started. Unfortunately, there were a lot of, there were holdups, and so we were able to carry forward that money, and so it is within our budget.

Okay, perfect. Thank you for the clarity. I'm not sure if there's a motion on the floor, but I'll second it if.

Oh, so yes, through the chair, Council Member Brown, you asked my question, so good job, young lady.

Thank you. All right. Great. Sure, I made a motion, and Council Member Brown made a second. Let's proceed.

Calling in the names that sign up to speak on item five, Jesse Rosemore, Asada Olaballa, and Blair Beekman.

Hi, Jesse Rosemar, I'd just like to point out that unlike the OPD, the Department of Violence Prevention in this case actually did an RFP and an RFQ and didn't ask you all to skip all of it so that they could have their preferred vendor for this thing. And we know that in the future they're gonna write an RFQ that's geared specifically so that only FLOC could get it. We had a nice presentation from someone who did a great job Whereas with the flock item, if I'm not mistaken, that was done by Omar Daza Quiroz, who was involved in an officer-involved shooting against someone who was then killed, and he wanted to get lethal, and that cost the city tens of millions, $10 million, I believe, in a lawsuit. So it's interesting that you're having that person speak on flock. I'm glad to see Department of Violence Prevention doing a great thing. We should have less officer-involved shootings. We should have less flock and more violence prevention. How about that from a city council with, you know.

So you said these are women of color. Everybody got color. Some have more melanin than others. But this ability to separate us so white people feel like they are a specific group, they in the group with the melanin group, they just have less melanin than everybody else. So stop with that people, women of color, whatever color, and just say women. And I got a problem with this issue with women here, with this Department of Violence Prevention. I don't see no men. and how this group that's women and most of the people you gotta deal with are African American men. And so these women gonna deal with them. Or they say in their report, when you look at them online, that they hire men. Okay, but we got a lot going on with this department with women being in most of the roles of leadership.

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

Hi, Blair Beekman. Hopefully women in leadership isn't so much of a problem. I'm hoping with this item that because, you know, ICE is really stepping up their raids process again. And guess what? People are dying from it again. So there's a lot of outrage. I think we can be prepared in Oakland and And I'm hopeful in what Councilperson Brown and Wang have been studying in data collection rights that we can be ready. I think we can be ready with this sort of work and effort of this item. We have a bunch of programs like this that simply, I think, create something pretty important that is respected at the federal level. And we have to continue to share what we know and what we want to practice is how to address our issues as a community. This can keep ice away. So keep up the good efforts of this type of item. It really accomplished a lot of things on a lot of levels. Thanks for this.

thank you for your comments chair that concludes all speakers and we do have a motion made by chair wong second by council member brown to approve the recommendations of staff and to forward this item to the july 21st city council agenda on consent on roll council members brown aye five aye houston aye and chair wong aye thank you motion passes will pour i support this item to the july 21st city council agenda on consent reading in item number six Adopt a resolution authorizing the city administrator to apply for, except inappropriate, Edward Byrne Memorial Justice Assistance Grant funds up to $324,324 for the fiscal year 2025 grant award period of October 1st, 2025 through September 30th, 2028. to support the department-wide training equipment technology and operational enhancements. And we have four speakers on this item.

Okay, great. Please take it away.

Yes. Good evening, Chair and members of the committee. LaRosha Marshall, the Fiscal Service Division Manager for the Oakland Police Department. Before you is the Justice Assistance Grant, JAV funded for 2025 with a total allocation of $324,324. The JAV grant is a federally funded program administered with partnership with Alameda County, which applies for the grant on behalf of the department. And the funding allocations are based on the population. OPD has been the recipient of this award approved by council since 2005. Given the department's 7.8 million decrease in operation and maintenance, as outlined in the report, the department proposed the following. 25,000 for training and professional development, which would promote ongoing training that's not related to POST, which would support training such as women's leaders in law enforcement, national Asian peace officers. Secondly, there is $66,891.56 that's allocated to technology upgrades supporting replacements of aging computers that cannot support Windows 11. along with updated software, IT hardware, and other technology. Lastly, there's $200,000 allocated for the helicopter and marine maintenance, which helps support the contracts. One of the contracts is actually being reported on tonight, and so this helps with the vital services for the department. These funds allow OPD to support operations without impacting the city's general fund. This concludes my presentation.

All right, thank you. And I do appreciate since one of my questions to OPD in advance with this was providing more specificity on those categories of funding. Any questions for my colleagues? Let's go to the public comment.

Calling in the names that sign up to speak on this item. Eris D. Don, Jesse Rosemore, Asada Olaballa, and Blair Beekman.

Hi, Jesse Rosemore. You can see OPD's disdain for the public in the first paragraph of page five of this report. It's pretty sloppy. There's even a grammatical error on the last sentence. This is, of course, the race and equity part of the report, and helicopters have a history of being used in putting noise pollution in predominantly low-income and black neighborhoods. This is completely not looked at by the OPD, whereas the Department of Violence Prevention actually filled out the race and equity portion of this and actually cared to care about that part, and also care about our privacy, which OPD obviously does not. I'd be interested in what approvals there are for helicopters, because you just tried to match OPD's use of flock, match the use policy of flock to OPD's use, rather than the other way around. So what's happening here?

Before I begin, I have a point of inquiry, if that's okay. There is mentioned in this report the use for the maintenance of the helicopter, but that is also another agenda item, agenda item number seven. So I do believe there might be some overlap with that. And also, we don't need to provide more funding for equipment for the Oakland Police Department. They are vastly overfunded because right now, by the Oakland Police Department's admission, they are understaffed. We do not need to give them more money for equipment that they do not need and will not use. And in addition, these resources are actually not something that will actually help prevent crime. The Nevada Sentencing Commission released an eight-page document in 2022 that outlines three methods of increasing public safety and crime prevention rates of up to 51% in multiple different categories. And none of them have to do with increasing equipment budget.

I continue to ask you, when any grant comes before you, look at the other ways that grant can be used. So this particular grant can be used for crime prevention and education, drug treatment, crime victims assistance, witness assistance, mental health programs, behavior programs, veterans court, and risk protection order programs. That money can be used for all of that. So we are gonna be using it for training in police equipment technology, but is that the higher priority? So you have a responsibility anytime you see anything on the agenda, if there's options, to look at the options and ask, why didn't you consider this? Crime victims or whatever, drug treatment, mental health.

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

Hi, thank you, Blair Beekman. I think traditionally JAG funding has been used for more severe law enforcement techniques, helicopters and things like that. Nice to hear the items that Miss Obala offered, really good thinking. how jag can be considered uh uh in in more better terms and um the ideas of it being used for office equipment uh and not uh dipping into the general fund it's really nice to hear things like that so thank you uh at least in those terms um the work on this item thank you thank you for your comments chair that concludes all speakers on this item thank you councilmember brown

All right, well, thank you so much for the report. I know that the application was a joint application with Alameda County. It is interesting to note that Oakland received the second largest amount of that allocation. I do think that the comment from the public speaker around other eligible uses would be something that maybe we could consider. And when we get to the helicopter item, I know we're not there yet, but I do recall in recent conversations that that has been an ongoing expense and maybe we need to invest in, I think I've heard just issues with the helicopter. We can talk more about it. But I would be interested in some of the other eligible uses for these funds. Because that list that the public speaker kind of named out was very intriguing. And we know that all of those things are services that our community could be in need of. But all in all, thank you for bringing the item. And we accept free money, right? We accept the money. So happy to move the item along. Council Member Fife.

Yes, thank you. Through the chair, I'm also interested in how we're determining the breakdown between marine and aviation equipment. And the reason I'm asking is because it feels like i don't know the house of dragons came through and burnt up all the ships in the estuary and there's all these abandoned boats and they are there for a very very long time and i'm not sure if it's staffing that's the issue or why can't these um boats be cleared out because then it leads to environmental pollution in the water and so i'd like to understand how those funds are being I guess divvied up between those two those two areas and I would agree I brought an item three years ago around a fixed wing aircraft that is better and well it's debate debated the environmental impacts but definitely the sound because ghetto birds are loud in the hood and we got to do better but and we're spending like so much money on maintaining equipment that is just past its useful life I wouldn't I would like to see going to support clearing our waterways and using, but anyway, the point is, how are you divvying up those grant funds?

So through the Chair, actually there was just a contract just landed with Land Marine for $1.4 million that would do the vessel removals for the Marine. This is actually to just work on the boat, and so there's $100,000 allocated for that, for maintenance for that, and then the other $100,000 is for the helicopter.

For what though, $100,000 for a helicopter, that's a drop in the bucket, why?

So the total contract is $850,000, so we're going to use some general purpose funds, and then we're going to use some JAG funds as well, our grant funds.

For the helicopter? For the helicopter. We'll get to the helicopter questions on the next item. Okay. Thank you.

You're welcome.

I'll add to the helicopter question. So I think in the reimagining public safety effort, it was established that a helicopter in terms of regular operational cost is about four times the amount of the fixed wing aircraft. Is the department starting to explore how to move towards the fixed wing aircraft model?

Good evening, Councilmember, Captain William. Welcome Police Department. Indeed we are. We've actually proposed to the City Council on several occasions a very detailed and robust document of the fixed wing aircraft, its expected life expectancy as well as maintenance costs. And Councilmember Five is correct. It is a significant reduction in operating costs over the long term for that aircraft. It would result in substantial savings long term versus a rotary aircraft.

And so what is the holdup?

At the time, the discussion was we cut to the portion of financing the aircraft. Aside from that, the proposal was complete.

Okay, let's talk about this more in the next item. Do I have a second? Or otherwise I'll second that.

I want to also explore, as I've said now for six years, alternative uses, particularly if there's any way that we can investigate rape kits or any way we can um look into supporting more investigations i'm not sure if that's possible with these funds and perhaps you can answer that before i offer a second to start clearing some of these cold cases particularly around um dv and um you know some of the rape kits that have not been processed with opd i would like to see that if possible for additional uses

We could use the funds for those. We did in the last grant that was awarded in December, we allocated funds for that, so we covered that in the last grant.

Covered it like?

Like we allocated, I wanna say, the crime lab was awarded 200K for funds for just different things in the crime lab.

Yeah, I would like continuation of that type of processing of grant funds, and I'll offer a second.

Thank you, we have a motion made by Council Member Brown, seconded by Council Member Five to approve the recommendations of staff and to forward this item to the July 21st City Council agenda. On roll, Council Members Brown. Aye. Five. Aye. Houston. Aye. And Chair Wong. Aye. Thank you, motion passes with four ayes to forward this item to the July 21st City Council agenda on consent. Reading in item number seven. Adopt a resolution authorizing the city administrator to enter into professional services agreement with Roto Craft Support Inc. to provide helicopter maintenance services to the Oakland Police Department for the period of July 1st, 2026 to June 30th, 2028 in an amount not to exceed $1,700,000 with an option to extend the agreement for two additional years to June 30th, 2030 for a total contract not to exceed $3,400,000 and waiving the local and small local business enterprise program requirements, and there are four speakers on this item. Okay, great.

You have a few minutes. I know we are close to 8 p.m., so it would be great to keep it succinct.

Thank you. John VanWergen, Oakland Police Department helicopter unit supervisor. I've been the supervisor for 17 years, been flying helicopters for 17 years. Here today for the maintenance contract for the helicopters. Helicopters are maintenance intensive and specialized maintenance. We put out an RFQ. We're asking for the same $850,000, the same budget that we've had for the last six years with no increase. Although labor costs and park costs have increased, we have not increased our budget. It's just meant reduced flight time. The two-year extension is not automatic. We'll have to come back before you to ask to do the two-year extension. It took city staff Eight months to get this to you. So having that extension in place will eliminate that. So that's very helpful. Also, it does lock in the manufacturer to that labor rate for four years. So can save us money. That's it. That's what we're here for. It's gone.

I'm not seeing any council member five. Go ahead.

I just wanted to state because I've heard now this presentation a few times since I've been on council. I think it's imperative that this body prioritized a fixed wing aircraft for fiscal purposes. but as well as the environmental impact that it has on communities that frequently have high-speed chases, which are extremely dangerous and highly restricted throughout the state of California as being potentially deadly, and how a fixed-wing aircraft could serve those uses that would take patrol cars out of out of use when needing to engage in a suspect versus potentially causing harm that comes from high-speed chases. And since we're on the topic of high-speed chases, I want to say that the chase policy was not a city council policy. that was something that was stated repeatedly over and over again it is a policy that is a police department policy but that said I think it's it's important that we prioritize in the next biennial budget a fixed-wing aircraft to save money, to save lives, and to address this outpouring of funds that are consistently occurring from trying to maintain a piece of equipment that is clearly outdated until we figure out what to do about incidents that do require pursuit. to eliminate all needs of pursuit, we're going to have some type of need for equipment. And I think it, we've been presented with the information time and time and again, and just the fiscal savings alone, I think are important for us to consider with our fiduciary responsibility to this body and to the city that said, I will move this item forward, but I just want to, again, just point out that we are hemorrhaging money from trying to maintain an old piece of equipment that we still have use for and it was you know councilmember Houston and I were talking about it and he was like you know that's what drones are for I do want to point out that in inclement weather conditions drones are not useful we also have the issue of privacy when it comes to drones I know it would go through the privacy commission or what have you but I just we've been presented enough times that this is a fixed wing aircraft would be a better use of resources for the city and I just wanted to state that for the record and the information is all there you can go to previous council meetings previous info reports Joe DeVries and I worked on it a couple three years ago and so the information is all there we just need to make it happen and we need to prioritize it

Councilmember Houston.

How you doing? Good to chair. How you doing? Good. Good. So I'm just going to sort of public adhere this. What's the helicopters for? What are they for? What are we using them for?

There's many things we use them for. Primarily, we see them as a patrol car in the sky. Whatever dispatch sends us to, we'll go to and cover. So you pick the call, we can assist on it.

So if we have drones that they say were outdated, we can use that money for the drones. I mean, they should be able to have drones that can fly in bad weather technology. We can go to the moon, come back, you know, do all this, right? Along with the flock cameras, can't they? I mean, if we got flock and it's following through the city, what do we need the helicopters for if our technology is being upgraded? So...

covering a bunch of things there and i'm happy to talk about airplanes too drones and helicopters are two items in your toolbox drones can't do what helicopters can do helicopters can't do what drones can do so for instance drones are limited on the distance they can travel the length they can stay in the air a helicopter can stay up for an extended period of time and go a farther distance so drones can also get you right close right they can come you know the altitude right down by the house or the yard or wherever the call is and obviously a helicopter can't it's going to stay farther up so they both have their own unique distinct uses and and what they can be used for and what they can't but they're not interchangeable so so i have you can't use drones for a pursuit

Go ahead.

Sorry, Councilmember. I think one of the other important mitigating factors is that the drone technology, as good as it is today, sir, it simply cannot maintain any type of vehicle pursuits at speeds over 25 miles an hour. And as Councilmember Fife had mentioned this too, they are succinctly susceptible to inclement weather and those limitations. The helicopter or a fixed-wing aircraft would not be limited by those. So at this point in time, technology-wise, drones are certainly... They're up and coming very quickly in terms of their technology and increases of usage and speed and things of that nature, but they're not there yet, and they won't be there for the foreseeable future where the need for an aircraft would be optional for replacement.

So last question to the chair. Have we ever used the helicopters for like emergency saving someone's life? You know how you see it on TV and they save people off the mountain? That's a great question.

The helicopter is not a simple usage item for local police department. It's a city tool. And a great example was just recently, Sergeant Vanna Wiegand was flying. We had a young lady. She fell. She was on a hike up in the hills. She had fell in a ditch. She requested assistance, and thanks to his expertise as well as coordination with the patrol division, the air unit actually found her in the ditch who had fallen, directed units in, and actually assisted her back to safety.

So through the chair, you have to share those stories, right?

And it's ironic, council member, that the PIO is actually putting that story out hopefully tomorrow.

Okay, okay. So those are things that people need to hear. Those are real life stories that you go like, wow, you just saved somebody's life, generationally, mom, cousin. Those stories need to be heard. So this is why we need the helicopter, all right? Okay.

Council member Brown. All right. Well, I don't I'm not going to try to put a downer on this, but I'm going to uplift some some some research that that we were able to find on this item and kind of as it was already stated, sounds like we need to move towards this investment in the in an alternative. but I just wanted to flag for everyone's awareness that this particular group, RSI, in 2000, maybe it's on your radar, they actually, there was a $15 million wrongful death lawsuit from a fatal crash that happened in the Hills Fire in Fresno, and it had to do with maintenance issues around hydraulic issues before the crash. And so in investigating that, they actually found that it was in fact a wrongful death due to some maintenance complications. So just wanted to put that on the radar that I know that we continue to invest time and time again and keeping this helicopter operational. But I do think that we may be at a point where we want to invest in something that would be better long term. And yeah, I just wanted to say that for the record. I'm not sure if that case was on your radar. It happened in 2000.

The air unit has a very strict policy in terms of maintenance and operational modality. Every day, Sergeant Vanden Wiegand and his team, they go out, they inspect the helicopter, do pre-inspections, post-inspections, which, again, lends to the fact that the helicopter is not simply a maintenance cost situation, but it's also a labor-intent situation. But we do appreciate you bringing that. through decades of experience have actually learned and they have in fact caught maintenance challenges before they go up in the air. So we're very cognizant of that for public safety.

Okay, great. Thank you colleagues. Council member Houston.

One more question to the chair. What year is that helicopter?

So two units, sir. The first one is 1990. That was when I was in middle school. And the next one, sir, is 1993.

Okay, cool, cool, cool. So I have a question. What is the cost of a new helicopter, top of the line, top of the line?

So the replacement cost of a brand new helicopter, sir, would be $1 million more than a fixed-wing aircraft.

$1 million more?

correct $6 million or 6 million correct.

And how much does it cost to maintain that helicopter per year. But it goes to those to $850,000 850 OK.

So we just in how long we've been doing this. There are 37 years over 37 years.

OK. All right. So I got it. I know what to do.

And for the fixed-wing aircraft, what is the upfront cost versus the annual OPEX? $5 million for an airplane.

And we fully support. We'd love to have an airplane also. Okay.

And what is the annual ongoing maintenance cost of the fixed-wing aircraft? It'll be a third. One third. Okay. So 850,000 divided by three, correct?

Correct. The preliminary calculation that we did is that the fixed wing aircraft, depending upon financing options, should actually pay for itself in as little as 15 years. But if you paid for it in cash, it would be significantly less. The maintenance savings are so significant that by the time the 37 years that we've been paying for rotary aircraft, you could have two. aircraft in service at the city of Oakland with a life expectancy of over 40 years each as opposed to 10.

That's noteworthy. Just to play a little bit of devil's advocate, I support the idea, but I guess it's hard for me to understand for a fixed wing aircraft, do we need an airplane or an airport? How does that work in terms of deployment? Because I imagine a helicopter can lift off from a helipad, but an airplane requires more runway. So how does that work? Does it require more travel time then for OPD in the case of an emergency situation?

Our helicopters are currently based at the Oakland Airport, and the airplane will also be based there.

Okay, great. And then in the scenario that you described, which is rescuing the woman from the hills, can a fixed wing aircraft, because again, I'm imagining this is just a civilian, where a helicopter can stay static above the person? Can the fixed wing aircraft do something similar or does it do we require still helicopter equipment to do some sort of rescue like that?

The airplane will fly in orbit and they will be able to look and direct ground units to the victim, but no, they will not be able to do the actual rescue.

The rescue, okay. But it sounds like ground units could have the capacity to do that, correct? Certainly. Okay. Go ahead, Council Member Houston, and then let's wrap it up.

No, last question. The mobility is different. I mean, if you're in a helicopter, you can just stop, you can back up. In the aircraft, you gotta go around and around and around, right?

That's part of the noise aspect also, so the airplane is gonna be significantly higher, fly significantly higher than what the helicopter does, so you're not gonna hear it. But the airplane is gonna have a significant camera on board, and that's how the job will be performed, is that the camera will look down and make the radio calls.

Okay, last question. So who's going to operate this, what you call it, fixed wing? Who's going to operate that?

Our pilots.

Okay, how many pilots do you have? Two. Okay, and would they rather, the ones that's operating, would they rather have a fixed or a brand new helicopter? Come on.

I would say the fixed wing. Sir, I've been working on this project with the council as well as... Sergeant and a week and of course the helicopter is one of those tools that is it's fun to drive okay it's it's unique it takes a specific skill set so it's actually in terms of just job satisfaction it is fun the aircraft is so advanced it's a twin engine aircraft with a very low profile that it is so safe it practically flies itself you want to second that councilmember Houston

Moving to speaking, sorry, moving to public speakers, calling in the names that signed up to speak on item number seven, Eris Dawn, Jesse Rosemore, Asada Olabala, and Blair Beekman.

Jesse Rosemar, I'm sorry, the OPD just said they want these helicopters because they're fun to drive. 1.7 million for what? Like I said at the beginning of the meeting, we could be civilianizing desk jobs at OPD. We could be looking into their overtime fraud, and then we could have the money that you're going back and forth about and debating about. Their staff report says on page three that these helicopters will be used to surveil and intimidate protesters. It's right in there. So they're going to do that with these helicopters, just like they're doing with Flock. Councilmember Wong, you want this meeting to end early, but you snuck Flock onto the agenda. And I think you were here when Ken Houston flipped us off and fell asleep on both of those two meetings when Flock was here before. So here we are again. How do you expect this meeting to end at 8 o'clock when there's such nonsense by the OPD? this agenda who does this council serve Sam singer or the people of Oakland that's what we want to know we're seeing what's happening here

Hello, Council. Eris Dawn. I do love that Councilmember Brown and Councilmember Feith, you want to lower the costs of what we are spending and make it so that we are actually helping the people of Oakland. There are ways to, quote, lower emergency room visits by 80%, reduce the number of jail days by 130%, reduce probability of committing crime by 80%, and increase the probability of employment by 24%. None of them are funding helicopters. None of them are funding surveillance cameras. What they are is public income programs, things that will actually provide income through employment or public benefits to the people of Oakland. Access to care, whether it's health care, mental health services, and substance abuse use, substance use treatment. All of these things have actual researched effect that are beneficial for the people of Oakland. And I think those should be prioritized over equipment that is fun to drive for the people of Oakland. For the people of Oakland, this is what we need to do.

Thank you.

So thank you for your service. I got a lot of issues with police, but I realize we need your service. See some of these people out here, when certain things happen, you know who they gonna call? They gonna call you.

Right.

If they get robbed or there's something going on. But anyway, I appreciate your conversation about the chase thing. That's one of the most important aspects of having the availability of these cops because we can't do the chase. They can cover a broad spectrum of territory. If somebody's kidnapped or we got an Amber Alert, they can follow. They are drawbacks with the expenses that is involved with it. But we have cities like Los Angeles, San Diego, San Jose, Sacramento, Stockton, pasadena and other cities that have invested in this and it does have a service quality service that exists it's expensive though and from my perspective if we can keep it i would like to keep it thank you for your comments miss olaballa switching to zoom user blair you can unmute yourself hi we're big ben

We're talking about important policies with the feature of helicopters for this item. I really hope, you know, City of Oakland, City Council, and OPD really take the time and care to want to better explain to the public what exactly is going on with the current block contract process. You guys are keeping that really, really fuzzy. Please try to practice how to be accessible with the public on the subject and accountable. This item is so-so. It's my personal feeling that helicopters can be a bit more flexible than fixed-wing aircraft, but I don't know the full story. It sounds like fixed-wing has been slowly developing here in Oakland for a while where I haven't fully understood it yet. And so I'm just starting to, but I hope we can respect the maneuverability and flexibility that helicopters can offer.

Thank you for your comments. Chair, that concludes all speakers on this item.

Yeah, go ahead, Councilmember Houston.

I just want to thank the officers for coming in and sharing with them that there's nothing wrong with enjoying your job. Nothing wrong with that, sir. And I do support the pursuit and the chase policy because it has been effective.

Okay, great.

Let's move to the vote.

Thank you. We have a motion made by Council Member Fife, seconded by Council Member Houston. So approve the recommendation. Before we move, Council Member Fife, do you have a comment or question on this item?

I just need to extend the meeting. Ah, okay. Make a motion to extend the meeting. Don't we have to? What time? Okay, sounds like we don't have to do it until 9 p.m. 9? I'll make it for nine because we're going to be here till nine. I'm kidding. Let's take the vote.

Thank you, we have a motion made by Council Member Five, seconded by Council Member Houston to approve the recommendations of staff and to forward this item to the July 21st City Council agenda. On roll, Council Members Brown. Aye. Five. Aye. Houston. Aye. And Chair Wong. Aye. Thank you, motion passes with four ayes, to forward this item to the July 21st City Council agenda on consent. Item eight was already dispensed with, now reading in item number nine. adopted resolution authorizing the city administrator to enter into a memorandum of understanding with the california highway patrol to submit vehicle accident reports electronically pursuant to vehicle vehicle code section two zero zero zero eight and there are three speakers on this item

All right. Somebody much taller than me was up here. Good evening, council members and members of the public. My name's Lisa Ausmus. I'm the deputy chief for the Bureau of Risk Management, and tonight I'm presenting to you and requesting council to enter into a memorandum of understanding with CHP regarding our collision data. So I'm not sure how many of you or where everybody understands where we're at with our record management system. We are doing an upgrade to our record management system long overdue at least my career of 26 plus years we've had the same system so now we're upgrading to mark 43 which will be the overseer of our record management system and in doing that we're going to have crash data which is a piece of their mark 43's program What this is going to allow us to do with this memorandum of understanding is right now, currently, we literally have a person that makes photocopies of each and every one of our collision reports, puts it in an envelope, puts a stamp on it, and puts it in the mail. right this will now allow us to send this data electronically so as soon as the report is approved by the investigators and any sites citations that are issued from the collision that all gets put in it literally gets sent to the system and it's electronically sent to chp this is important because this is where dot gets all of their information through switters which is the statewide integration traffic reporting system right so this is where we get our high injury network data this is where we draw from what intersections are the most dangerous what can we do to make them better how do we slow them down so this is just absolutely it's no cost there's no cost involved with this it literally just takes our handwritten reports makes them digital and we get to send them to chp so it'll save us a lot of labor hours so that they can do other things within traffic and catch up so i could try and answer i have a technical advisor that'll help me with any technical programming officer dave poland who's helping with that but that's basically it i'm trying to make it fast so i did it as quickly as i could

Great and is this actually there was some reporting earlier this year on you know an excessive amount of overtime was it connected to actually the collision reports that were yes is actually meant to solve for it will help it won't solve all of it but it will help the actual investigation takes the man hours to actually go through.

and figure out what caused the collision, who cited, what was the problem, right? So that part, not gonna help as much, but it does help with then taking it and processing it, and then getting it to the systems that we'll give all the information, sorry, to give all the information a little bit better. So we'll definitely help with that because then that person can maybe start helping with some of the other parts in traffic with some of the grants and some of the other things that are going on. So it'll save many, many hours per day.

Great. And then one other question I just have is, as we look to civilianize certain positions, is it required by law? It says that OPD is required to submit collision data to the CHP by law, and then it references California Vehicle Code. excuse me, 2008A, does it require a law enforcement agency to do those submittals or is it possible to have the Department of Transportation at some future date take on a portion of this work?

I'm not sure if the DOT could do it, but we have professional staff that does it right now. So they're the ones that actually make physical copies and send it up. So that part's already done, but it does require a sworn officer to investigate it and issue the citation. So that's where that part comes in. Okay, that's helpful clarification, thank you.

Okay, let's go to public comment. Calling in the names that signed up to speak on item number nine, Jesse Rosemore, Mrs. Sada Olabala, and Blair Beekman.

Hi, Jesse Rosemore. You brought up the overtime fraud issue. It's a good one. Why don't they do an electronic thing for timesheets? They totally could. They don't want to. Why don't you demand that they do it and make them come with a proposal to submit their timesheets electronically so we don't have massive overtime fraud by this department? When is that going to happen? um council member wong you said as we look to civilianize certain positions as i mentioned at the beginning of this meeting the longest item that has been on the on the pending no date scheduled list is council member fife's item to demand that we civilianize these positions why don't you schedule it it'll save millions and millions of dollars and we can see with this council refusing to do it that you guys are in the pockets of opoa Piedmont landlords and all kinds of other right-wing actors. We have one council member serving the city of Oakland and seven frauds. The staff report lies about ALPR adherence to SB 34 and admits that this data is going to.

So it mentions in the report, once you submit the data, related to the collisions, you have to strip the report of the name, address, social security number, driver's license number. What are you submitting? I mean, come on, y'all. What are you submitting to CHP? A picture of the car? I don't get this sanctuary city stuff, this privacy stuff, you can't submit any information. Y'all don't want nobody to know nothing about you, but you got these telephones and this equipment that y'all use and everybody knows your business. So privacy, come on y'all.

What are you submitting?

Switching to Zoom user Blair, you can unmute yourself and begin your comment.

Hi. As this is an item with CHP, I feel it's important, it can be an important time to simply remind that CHP has a large part in the current flock situation with OPD and why that contract is or is not being signed at this time. Really good luck on working on accountability and explaining that to the public before the upcoming OPD meeting now in September or October on these items. For this item, yeah, hopefully it can help with efficiency, but what is that efficiency going to help with overall? Good luck how our policies can be clear with each other and that we want to practice well. Thanks.

Thank you for your comments, Chair. That concludes all speakers on this item.

Do I have a motion from this body?

So moved. Second. Thank you. We have a motion made by Council Member Brown, seconded by Council Member Five to approve the recommendations of staff and support this item to the July 21st. City Council agenda on roll. Council Members Brown?

Aye.

Five? Aye. Houston? Aye. And Chair Wong? Aye. Thank you. Motion passes with four ayes support this item to the July 21st City Council agenda on consent. Moving on to open forum. Sorry, clerk.

Before we move on to open forum, I am making a request of the parliamentary end. Can you recap what the amended title is for item eight? This was at the city administration's request.

Absolutely through the chair just clarifying for item 8 the motion title was to delete the ALP our reference from the original resolution So that was the subpart a being stricken and to delete the reference to the attachment e which was the ALP our report which is contained in the Resolution at the first resolved provisions.

So those items would be stricken Thank you Thank you moving Moving on to open forum, calling in the names that signed up to speak, Madeline Stacey, Nita Bede, Jessie Rosemore, Joyeus Morale, Eris Dawn, Asada Olavalla, Blair Beekman, and Celica Thomas.

Hi, Jesse Rosemore. When we consider the corruption and feckless malfeasance of the city council, I wonder about some of the council members who didn't campaign on being in the pockets of Sam Singer and the OPOA and Piedmont landlords and a body of Chamber of Commerce's. And I think specifically about you, Rowena Brown, I've been gaslit by several people on the city council when it comes to flock. I've been gaslit by Charlene Wong's office. I've been gaslit by Zach Unger. Janani Ramachandran doesn't want to respond to anything. Your office is completely unresponsive now. You say that you serve everybody. You seem to serve nobody. And what I would like to know When did you turn to become this kind of council member? When did this happen? Who said what to you to make you serve those interests instead of the people of the city? I would like to know that. Thank you.

My name is Nita B. I've been a street vendor here in Oakland since I was 19 years old. From what we've seen over the past two and a half months, the city's treatment of unhoused, wrong meeting, the city's treatment of street vendors has been unsafe. The city needs to stop all raids on street vendors and do a serious legal review of Oakland's enforcement practices and the vendors and their advocates have collected enough factual support to let you know that an investigation whether Oakland exceeded its legal authority or deprived vendors of its property without adequate process is due. Both permitted and unpermitted vendors have been impacted. Our legal representative requested documents. He was ignored. He requested them again. He was ignored. I requested them. My request was redirected. No documents were given. And either way, either the documents don't exist, which is a problem and unsafe, or the documents are being withheld. And then what is also unsafe is that my daughter got... Hello, PDS.

Joyous Morali, I wanted to talk about a few things. One, I don't support the flock cameras, and two, y'all were talking about public safety, but never have I ever heard y'all talk about a bunker that we can go to in case of any type of like, people saying a tsunami's gonna happen or something like that, so I feel like that's something y'all should put, of like, where do we go if our city is destroyed? Are we on our own? The rich and historic street-vending culture and neighborhood-based economic system within the Oakland community should not be criminalized or erased. It is part of the Oakland identity and should be protected and supported. This is a quality of life for working class and black and brown folks now because all of us have multiple jobs and side hustles to be able to exist in the city we were born in and raised in. Our culture and quality of life keeps getting negatively impacted by and for people who are not from here and can't figure out how to fit in. There has been talk about the trash and loud noise at the lake. We vendors all agree, and we have asked the city for cardboard trash can.

Hi, Aristotle.

Councilmember Wong, Councilmember Brown, Councilmember Feith, and Councilmember Houston, I sincerely hope that you consider what it means for a community to be safe. Does it make a community safe if we have cameras at every corner? Does it make a community safe if we have multiple helicopters above our heads? Does it feel safe to have men with arms and weapons on constantly patrolling every street corner, whether it is ICE or Oakland PD? I do not believe that is safety. Safety starts with community. Safety starts with housing. Safety starts with health care. And it starts here in this committee. But you consistently tonight have shown that you will neglect the safety of Oakland citizens, of the people of this town, because you do not care for the safety of the residents of Oakland. And multiple of you have ignored multiple public comments tonight.

Madeline Stacy, I'm opposed to the recent direction the city has taken against our street vendors. It is violent gatekeeping. The courts have already decided over and over again across California your approach is a violation of street vendors' constitutional rights. The state government recently passed the Safe Sidewalk Vending Act, SB 946, which decriminalized street vending statewide, shifting enforcement away from criminal penalties. What the town is doing is in direct violation of both the series of lawsuits decided with street vendor rights and SB 946. Every dollar spent policing vendors should be redirected into small business grants, equipment subsidies, and technical assistance programs. Street vendors are entrepreneurs. and masters of making something out of nothing, their skillsets should be recognized, respected, and honored, not criminalized. Street funding is not just about food or commerce, it's about dignity, it's about who gets to exist in public spaces. To criminalize or over-regulate this ecosystem is not just bad policy, it is a betrayal of Oakland's identity.

Hello City Council, my name is Celica Thomas and I would like to address the three murders by gun violence on January 3rd, 2026 on 85th Avenue and another three murders plus five victims injured on 85th Avenue by a hit and run on May 16th, 2026. I first send my condolences to the families and to the victims. 85th Avenue has always been known for its tragic traffic collisions and crime, so can we please add speed cameras, speed bumps, and a redesign to slow down traffic in that area to reduce crime. and may we also please reinstate the blitz program for automatic trash cleanup in that area and for all of oakland hotspots so that we don't have to wait on anyone to report it thank you and i just want to say that all of you are doing a very good job and oakland has came so far even with the murders we are down from about 130 murders per year and we're down to 57 and

So this is one thing I know, because I'm here all the time. I know that Ms. Brown works hard and does her homework and makes contributions that are valid. And sometimes we go at it, sister, but you my sister. So I'm standing here wanting to talk about something else, but I have to defend you. You are very efficient, just like Ms. Fife. We fall out all the time, but you my sister. And anybody say you don't do work, you do. Just like Ken Houston, you do the work. Even Ms. Wong, you do the work. You know we fall out all the time. But I respect that you do the work. It might not be the work I want, but you work. And so don't nobody come in here and tell you what are you doing. She's doing hard work, Ms. Brown. And thank you, all of you. Okay, so we gonna fight some more. Y'all gonna call the police on.

Thank you for your comments. Ms. Olabala switching to Zoom speaker. Blair, you can unmute yourself and begin your comment.

Hi. Thanks for the meeting today. I'm pretty disappointed, however. I'm thankful the new police chief sounds pretty interesting. He's been around Oakland for a while. He knows the importance of community and participation of community. that's good for ourselves i'm i'm getting a sense that city administration is understanding that concept as well at this time and for as much as they want to practice their their form of policy making they're understanding the community's role in what they've developed for police oversight and other things I think that's starting to happen more. Good luck, we can talk more about block accountability. And that we can talk about the concepts of not just better accountability with block, what's exactly happened with their contract things, but we start to really address the concepts of more strategic placement of our tech that can reduce tech each year in small amounts. And that can...

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

Council Member Fife.

I thank you, Chair Wong, for allowing me the privilege to just clarify for some of the public speakers about my contribution to community in Oakland. And I'll be brief because I don't talk about what I do. I am not a social media maven where I am always in the public sharing what I do. And part of the reasons why I don't talk about it is because the conditions that I want to see change in the community are not solved yet. So I don't go out and celebrate the fact that I've been a part of a study groups, political study groups to provide political education to the community or safe houses when there are incidents with Nazis and other issues in our community where my people have had to go into hiding because of being docs for the work we do in community or the birthing centers or the medical training or the, um, independent schools or I could talk about the things that I've done in this city that most of you all haven't even thought of. to support my communities. So before the public gets up here and talks about what I'm not doing or what anybody's not doing, I suggest more research. I don't disagree with the public being able to state what they want to say or what they want to see. But I take it personally when somebody comes up here talking about what I'm not doing in the community. And that's how I heard you, my friend. Everyone has the right to point out the criticisms or the critiques or the challenges. But what I'm saying when it comes to Councilmember Fife is I was an organizer in the streets of West Oakland for almost 30 years before I got here, which is what put me here. So check my record before you come up here talking about me. because I got it from the mud and I will continue to do what I need to do. And for my people, for black people in Oakland, we got to do both. And we can't talk about the utopia that we want to see if we haven't created the systems for that in the community. And I'm very well aware of what is needed, about what is studied, what is researched, and what we need to keep people safe. But the difference between me and most people, especially people who are just talking in meetings, is I put the work in. And I never, this is the first time I ever have talked at length about III. But sometimes y'all come up here and get it twisted. I have like, we have, my collective, we're about that shit. And y'all should know that. Thank you.

Of course, Council Member Houston.

yeah i just wanted to just say i'm glad councilmember fife said what she said um because i'd like to say just a few things about just on the strength that um only people could tell me that i'm doing wrong is district seven if they from district seven i don't give a rip what they say but the reason why i said i'm saying this is because uh councilmember brown That's my girl, right? I mean, she guides me through. She's doing a lot. She's across the city, and I'll stand up for her any day of the week. So, Council Member Brown, you're doing a good job. Keep it up. And if you ain't from District 7, you know what I feel.

All right. Thank you, colleagues. I think with that, this meeting is adjourned.