Public Works Committee - Regular Meeting

Good morning, and welcome to the Public Works and Transportation Committee meeting of today. Today is March 24 on Tuesday. The time is now 11:34AM, and this meeting has come to order. Before taking roll, I will provide instructions on how to submit a speaker's card for items on this agenda. If you are here with us in chambers and you would like to submit a speaker's card, please fill one out and turn into a clerk representative, my left your right, before the item is read into record.

Online speaker requests were due twenty four hours prior to this meeting. This meeting came to order at 11:34AM. Speaker request would no longer be accepted ten minutes after meeting has begun, making that time 11:44AM. With that, we will now proceed to take roll. Councilmember Gallo?

Present.

Thank you. Council member Houston?

Present.

Thank you. Council member Wong? Present. And chair Unger? Here. We do have four members present. And before we begin, chair, do you have any announcements for us today?

Thank you. Thanks to everyone for being here. We got a a bunch of different, items. We're gonna take things out of order. We're gonna go four, five, seven, eight, six, three. There's gonna be a lot of trash talk today, so I appreciate everyone being here for that, and, it's a good thing.

Thank you for your announcements. Please noting that the agenda will go in order item four, item five, item seven, item eight, item six, and item three will proceed after item two. Moving to our first item of the day is approval of the draft minutes for the committee on 03/10/2026, and you do not have any speakers for this item.

Alright. Do we have a motion?

There is a motion made by council member Gallo, seconded by council member Houston to accept the draft minutes of the committee meeting on 03/10/2026 as is on roll. Council member Gallo?

Aye.

Thank you. Council member Houston? Aye. Councilmember Wong? Aye. And chair Unger? Aye. This motion passes with four ayes to accept the draft minutes of the committee meeting held on 03/10/2026 as is moving to item two, determination to schedule of outstanding committee items also known as your pending list, and you do not have any speakers.

Okay. Do we have a motion for the pending list or anything from anything from staff first or council members? Yes. Okay. Mister chair,

am I on? Am I on? Yeah. Okay. What I'd like to do is request that that our public works department bring back to this council not only the staffing level, but also the vehicles that are available to do the job on the streets.

With staffing levels, I'm not talking about just those that pick up the trash, but those that service our trucks. Right now, if you go to Colosseum Way or you go to at the other public works yard, you're gonna see vehicle after vehicle, thirty, forty, 60 vehicles that should be working are not in operation because we're short still 10 mechanics within our service area. And, so I'd like to get our administration to come back and provide a vehicle report and staffing report, for public works, at the next city council meeting. And we can talk all about illegal dumping, but if I don't have the people to do the job, it's not gonna get done. So anyway, so I wanna make sure that we get that information back from administration.

Okay. Do we have a motion for the pending list?

So move.

Thank you. Have a motion made by council member Gallo, seconded by council member Wong to accept the termination of outstanding committee items as is on roll. Council member Gallo? Aye. Council member Houston?

Aye.

Council member Wong? Aye. And chair Anger? Aye. This motion does pass with four ayes to accept the termination to schedule outstanding committee items as is. Moving to our first item of the day is item four.

Okay. Item four. And at

11:38 due to the presence of council member Brown, a quorum of the full council has been noted. I just need a motion.

I would like to adjourn into a full council meeting with council member Brown on Zoom. Do we have a second?

Second. Thank you. We have a motion made by chair Unger, seconded by council member Houston to adjourn the meeting of the public works and transportation meeting and to convene into a special meeting of full council at 11:39AM on roll. Council member Gallo? Aye. Council member Houston? Aye. Council member Wong? Aye. And chair Unger? Aye. Alright. The motion passes with four ayes. Item four, let me read the item into record please. Receive your information report for the bicyclist and pedestrian advisory commission twenty five activities and you do have one speaker.

Alright. Let's hear from our BPAC, please.

Go ahead.

Go for it.

Testing. Alright. Let me start my clock here. Good morning, council members, chair Unger, and, committee members. My name is David Ralston. I am the immediate past chair of the Bicyclist and Pedestrian Advisory Commission. I'm very pleased to be able to present our annual report to the city council as per our role on our commission. I'm also accompanied here by several of our other BPAC commissioners, commissioner Schmidt and cochair of one of our committees, Kevin Daley. Wanna acknowledge them. I'll try to be as succinct as possible because I know you have many other items.

For this report, I will give you a quick overview of the BPAC, our year's work and successes, and then focus on our seven key recommendations highlighting takeaways on how you all in your leadership role can help support this work. First, I wish to acknowledge with gratitude and appreciation the tremendous work and dedication of Oak Dot staff. I think we got to see most of the staff over the year. And I see, director Rowan and assistant director Weir, as well as Jason Patton and Noel and Pierre. Thank you very much for your support in facilitating our meetings.

I cannot reiterate enough how happy the BPAC is to see Oak Dot continuing to build their staff of talented transportation professionals. Thank you, guys. We are gonna also also we all also wanna acknowledge the role the work that you as council members have done in your district, and the policy decisions which have made a difference for safer, more accessible, and more connected future to Oakland. And finally, also want to especially thank and acknowledge the support and tireless work of our advocacy community such as Bike East Bay, Traffic and Violence Rapid Response, Walk Oakland Bike Oakland, and Scraper Bikes, and others who have shown up and participated as volunteers in many of our committees. We've had a productive and successful 2025, but we couldn't have done it without you.

Okay. First of all, real quickly, who we are. The BPAC has just completed its eleventh year as a city commission, and 2025 marked the thirtieth anniversary of the very first BPAC meeting. Our nine member commission, we meet in person on the third Thursday of each month. Unfortunately, we cannot do hybrid, though we would love to get hybrid, so we can get more people involved.

As city council members, you are always invited to come to our meetings, and chair Unger has been, and is the official liaison to this committee. For those who don't know, the BPAC is formally established to provide input to the Department of Transportation regarding bicyclists and pedestrian policies and projects. We serve as a two way conduit of information between the community and and interested public and city staff and decision makers. We we work as a bridge of sorts between the often nuanced and technical wonky infrastructure and policy details and impacts that they may have on the lived experience of people on the ground, especially those living in high injury and historically underserved areas. We strive to be strong advocates for cycling pedestrian safety to not only hold the city accountable, but also to hold all of us accountable to a shared goal of accessible, interconnected, walkable, and bike friendly city.

So let me highlight briefly some of our collective successes for 2025, which have been really quite remarkable and a testament to our collective power. Not on this list, I would like to highlight our expanding community engagement efforts. We expanded our footprint in Oakland holding regular meetings at the eighty first branch library in Deep East and the, Jose de la Cruz Carmen Del Flores rec center in Fruitvale in addition to participating in several neighborhood general general plan walkabouts in the San Antonio District, West Oakland, Me, and Melrose District. All told in our meetings, we received 40 53 open forum comments made by 20 different individuals, which is a growth of engagement over the last several years. We supported OCDAP by writing advocacy letters on seven infrastructure grant proposals, helping to develop stronger plans for equity driven transportation planning, major major street redesign projects.

We support and celebrate the lifesaving quick build interventions such as the dramatic improvements on International Boulevard. We supported and celebrate the completion of a long way to San Leandro Creek Greenway in East Oakland. We actively worked to make key bike ped recommendations to the city general plan update, and we led productive interagency discussions with Caltrans, AC Transit, MTC, and Oakland Fire Department. And finally, we celebrated the cordon coordinated actions on street speed reduction enforcement technologies that do not require police intervention, which can often cause unintended reactions, chases and so forth, and the speed limit policy work of ODOT including better data collection. Okay.

Next, let me get into the meat of this report. I wanna summarize our seven key recommendations for you all and ask that you carefully consider as part of your legislative policy and budget oversight capacity. Number one, advocate a citywide greenway network in the city general plan update. This map that you see before you boldly shows a robust interconnected dedicated network of protected bike ped greenway paths, what this can look like, where every neighborhood in the flatlands is within one half mile of these often naturalized tree lined linear park like corridors that can incentivize comfortable restorative active transit, walking, connectivity to transit, jobs, and open space resources. Oakland likes to emphasize our great sustainability achievements, but in truth, we lag behind other cities such as Minneapolis, New York City, or even San Francisco in these regards and planning and implement implementing this type of game changing comprehensive green street green infrastructure.

The BPAC has been working with the city planning staff who I also must truly commend for their forward thinking openness and effort to pull pull in our each our environmental justice element, our equity and climate action plan, and neighborhood plans into the update the general update as part of the the infrastructure element. This right here gives you some ideas of what this vision can look like. Perhaps some would say it's a little bit grandiose, raises questions of viability, but this is really about a twenty year vision to help achieve a meaningful mode shift, reduce vehicle mile traveled in our city. And already many of these segments that I show on this map are already being realized in part with active neighborhood organizations reflect goals that have been thoroughly and consistently advocated in prior general plans. So here is visually what this can look like, connecting topographical features of our creeks flowing from the hills to the bay and opportunities for crosstown parkways, bike boulevards, bike highways, and trails.

So I just wanna shout out here. You see here, San Leandro Creek Greenway, which just completed on the left. You see the you see the, Sausal Creek, you see the Cortland Creek Park, which was just completed, Bancroft Avenue median, the Laurel Maxwell Park to Mills project. And we even have opportunities for perhaps using gondolas as they do in Columbia and elsewhere. Imagine getting access from Northeastern Mills and the 580 up to, Merritt College and Campus Drive.

Recommendation number two, stopping fatal injurious traffic crashes, especially along the high injury corridors. For the people who who died on Oakland Streets walking or biking last year, they are not simply to be seen as collateral damage to our car culture. Each meeting, we explicitly call out the names of those who suffered fatal injuries the prior month. We recognize and often discuss the circumstances of these often preventable tragedies that have deep and lasting impacts on Oakland family and communities and keeps us anchored in why we do this. And thankfully, again, to all of our work, these numbers have been going down.

We saw an amazing heartening reduction from 2024 down to a near five year low of eleven fatalities in 2025, let eight pedestrians and three bicyclists. But, of course, we must do more and keep moving this trend line downward. As you all know in the statistics, know black Oaklanders are two to three times likely to be victims of traffic violence. 30% of streets in the majority of Asian census tracts are are city high injury network, the highest percentage of any ethnicity. Older Oaklanders are two times likely to be killed and crashed, and most occur while walking, like trying to cross streets.

Traffic violence is widespread for those who wish to bike in the hills to the flatlands, trying to cross busy streets to get to a bus stop or just get home or those wishing to take the children on a Sunday ride around the lake to the park. Dangerous streets not only threaten our community's health and safety and undermine our quality of life, but they also ultimately lead people to less frequently, try to walk or bike causing anxiety in many people simply using public spaces. And there's a map of the City High Injury Network which you all should be familiar with. How am I doing on time? Let's see. Okay. Number four. Number three, implementing immediate trafficking interventions.

About how much more time do you need?

Five minutes. Okay. Let's Okay.

Try to keep it to that. Alright. Thank you.

Here we highlight efforts to create slow streets and the ongoing efforts to provide a safe Oakland street framework facilitating traffic calming in a shorter quick build timeline than larger streetscape projects. Interventions include high visibility crosswalks, flex post speed humps, raised crosswalk, centerline hardening, and traffic circles. Along with the proposed city greenway slow slow streets from a neighborhood based network for human power movement and play. And the BPAC has been advocating that such slow streets and quick build interventions be community driven, initiated and supported in Oakland's neighborhoods most in need. For example, slow street designs can be part of reinvigorated neighborhood level planning work with existing entities like neighborhood councils.

And we also wanna emphasize, speaks to a need for a city a bench of of preapproved local small contractors to help install such neighborhood initiated quick build projects. Number four, prioritize building. Complete streets. This is pretty self evident what we really see very visibly transforming much of our key streets, make them equally accessible, attractive, and comfortable for pedestrians, bicyclists, children, seniors, well as transit riders and slow automobile traffic. You see Lake Merritt and you see Fruitvale Live gap closure projects.

Number five, we wanna recognize both traffic safety and emergency response safety. This is an active policy area for the BPAC that has come to the council, and I wanna thank the efforts of Kevin Daley, our policy and legislative co chair, and the members of the traffic violence rapid response. We need to find ways to balance traffic and emergency response with safety concerns, and we've been working proactively with the fire marshal and the BPAC. We strongly advocate the Oakland Fire Code be more in line with the International Fire Code when it comes to road width minimums and road access for fire equipment. Wider roads may be needed in a specific circumstance for fire trucks operations, but in general, have negative impact of enabling faster car traffic.

And we are doing a tour, members in Oak Dot are doing a tour tomorrow with the fire department. Number six, establish fast fast track waterfront connections to East Oakland. This has been a recommendation we've been vocal about for many years, and the reality is there's still no safe direct access to the waterfront East Oakland where people walking or biking must contend with burials of railroad, freeways, and freeway on ramps, truck infrastructure, lack of sidewalks, dangerously poor, lit trash, debris filled under crossings, and so forth. This inequity, historic lack of intention attention applies to the whole East Oakland five to seven miles from the estuary to the San Leandro border. We need to make these connections as equity for all for all East Oaklanders.

And here are some just videos so you get an idea of what people have to contend with, as you all know, to go down 60 to to the Martin Luther King shoreline, overlooking the Tidewater Park at 50th Avenue where there's no connection and the the card design bridge at 16th Avenue, which is not hospitable hospitable to walking or biking. So we need to make these connections. And finally, this all speaks to the need for coordinating interagency with folks like Caltrans, Union Pacific, AC Transit to make this happen. We must advocate fearlessly when it comes to such regional state and federal interventions, and we are here to help support this process with you all. In addition to Caltrans and UPRR, we also recommend working with East Bay Regional Park District and our business improvement districts and business communities.

You all as legislative leader leaders are of course key in promoting and setting expectations for the health, well-being, and mobility equity of our city. This concludes this report. You have a full copy and the slides in your packet. I'm happy to answer any questions or direct them to staff as need be. As a key takeaway, we need and ask for your bold visionary leadership and innovative thinking to help keep the momentum and move us forward on these recommendations that you've heard in this report.

Please help us work together to achieve a connected and safe Oakland for all. Thank you very much. And don't forget, we look forward to riding with you all in the next bike to wherever day. We biked with a council member last time, that will be May 14. And also for everybody out there, please visit the Oakland BPAC blog, oaklandbpac.org. And special thanks here goes to our former commissioner Diane Yee for building and keeping the BPAC blog for numerous years. Thank you again on behalf of all of us in our commission.

Thank you sir and thank you to the entire BPAC. I appreciate all the work and all the ideas. Council members, do we have questions? Council member Wong.

Just first of all, thank you so much. I'm lucky that you are both a district two appointee and you're also the chair. So so thank you so much for your service, David. I think one question I just have is around, I know sometimes there's community resistance at times around bike lanes, things like that. I think it's noteworthy that, by the way for my colleagues, how many of the high injury network streets are in Chinatown which is, an area that I represent. And, do you have recommendations for how the department can how can there be improvements to bring communities along on that front?

To bring sorry to hear

On on both, complete streets. Right? That's a really important thing that we need to have as well as, movement on vision zero at the same time. Think there can be resistance to those ideas because unfortunately we live in a very car dependent society. So any ideas on improvements or resourcing that the department needs in order to bring folks along?

Yeah, well this is a tough question. Mean that's you know, central to our our work and engagement because we often hear from folks that this bike and walking infrastructure is, you know, is hurting business districts. It's it's making car drivers frustrated and actually makes the streets safer. And this is like a a culture change. We really wanna help people understand that this is gonna improve our quality of life across the board.

But to get to there, we're really looking to the kind of engagement such as our walking tours, getting people out on the street. I think when we did our general plan walking tours, it's really good just to get staff out there, get business people, get community residents together and think how these can be win win solutions and not just pitted pit against each other. And I really think that's that's the way forward. I've really been impressed with some of the engagement work that Oak Dot has done on this front and wanna continue that. And it's, you know, it's it's an acculturation process that we're just gonna keep we're just gonna keep pushing.

And I think as people see these these infrastructure in real life and get out on their their bikes walking around, and and feeling safe, that that will speak for itself. But, yes, it's not there's no easy way forward just to keep the engagement.

Council member Gao.

Yes. Thank you, David. I haven't seen you in a while, man. Thank you for that information. Know this guy since a young guy out on the street helped getting involved and so forth. Hey. Look. So so just for the public's information, who is what department is ultimately responsible when it comes to biking, bike lanes, and curbs?

Just

the Department of Transportation. Who's responsible for the coordination with AC Transit, BART, Caltrans, Bay Trails, because, you know, they're out there developing and there's bike lanes that could be there, should be there. But when I go to San Francisco, Santa Cruz, I see the bike lanes in those areas. Is that the Department of Transportation that needs to follow-up and coordinate that activity with those those governmental bodies?

I mean, I I I think you raised an excellent point, council member Agayo, and I don't know those interagency coordinations.

Okay.

That think I don't know. That's something that we need to find out because not just a coordination with these other entities. It's also things like stewardship and maintenance of bike lanes and trees and all these things that come into so we don't have the trash and debris. Right. And I'm looking kind of at Oak Dot staff, but

Okay.

We do have the opportunity with our general plan and our implementation element to really find out how these can be better coordinated as we go forward so it's not, you know, siloed and

and Then then also the question about that I get, you know, reservations from the neighborhood is about the rental bikes that are being located throughout the city. Some are taking your parking spaces. Some are your in in the way with the business community. Who authorizes the the rental bikes? And who generates that money directly so I can see in my budget directly?

Where is that rental bike location? And who's getting the money? And city administrator, what is that money being used for that's generated from that activity? Besides riding my bike, that's a business decision that we need to make and understand that if I'm gonna continue to grow expand and maintain the safety Mhmm. You know, where is that money going to from the rental bikes that we have throughout the city? Yeah. And that keeps growing and growing, and I keep getting reservations from some of the people that are there. Yeah. And because they we took we took their parking spaces.

So who's that? Due to chair, council member Gayle, I would love to, extend the invitation for you to come to the BPAC and raise these questions and and let's have that discussion and invite staff in, and and let's dig into that. I think it's an excellent question.

So I like to see where the money's being generated, but where is it going to. Mhmm. And that's up to the administrator that if it has to do with generating money regarding biking rentals, it should go back to help us maintain the safety of the bike pedestrian avenues that we do have. And the last one that I'll recommend to you, since you're on the commission, it used to be I graduated here from Oakland Public Schools in high school. But I always remember that I couldn't graduate on my senior year unless we took the driver education class that the high schools offered.

And that taught me all the rules and regulations about driving and getting your driver's license, but also the safety in the streets. And this would be a good special good discussion or information from my schools and high school because we're biking. We're biking all over the place, and sometimes we follow the rules and some most of the time, we don't know what the rules are. And that I would advise you that working with Oakland Unified to provide an informational class or time where we can share with our student body, these are the rules about, you know, biking and and take us all through that process as once And not just about driving your vehicle, but also, at this point, about the safety you have in your helmet and all that other stuff on. I would also invite you to or welcome that, and I'd like to join you in that effort to make sure that our young people have the information and the knowledge when it comes to safety on biking and so forth.

But thank you for this information, sir.

Thank you. We would love to have we would love to have you. Okay. Thank you. Yeah. Thank you.

Council member Houston.

Hello, David. Lunar chair. How are doing? Good. Can you go back to slide two for me real quick?

And while you're pulling that up

And as we're waiting, I just wanna flag for everyone that we're thirty five minutes into a two hour meeting and we're on item one of six.

Okay. I'm just gonna say something real quick because it's really important to me, council member

No. Myself included. That's a caution to me.

And and and it's about the item that says black Oaklanders are two times

Oh, yeah.

Killed. I mean, I'm I'm very, got my eye jumping right now. I'm very troubled behind things like that. We get the most trash dumped in our community. We we get the less contracts in the city of Oakland as being black, and then we die the most on not just this violence. Right? So what's the ages? Do you have the statistics on how old they are? What districts they are? Are they children? Because our culture is a little bit different. We ride to get somewhere. We ride to have fun. Others ride for health and to get other places. But what's the cult what what's the ages of these people?

Two times two times black dying? Yeah. I mean, that's disturbing. I mean, we don't get no contracts. We we we get the trash dumps in our neighborhood, and then we're dying from violence, and now we're dying from this.

Yeah. To the chair, council member Houston. Yes. I apologize. I don't have the citations, but I will happily track those down and and get you that information.

Okay. Thank you. Yeah. Through the council chair, thank you council member Unger. It just disturbs me, man. I got my eye jumping when I see that.

Absolutely. Thank you for that comment. Do we have public speakers?

Calling on our public speaker, Kevin Dolly.

Thanks, Kevin Dolly. One of my roles is co chair of the BPAC policy and legislative committee, though as a community member. And another goal, of course, is to nag the public works and transportation committee to encourage safer pedestrian cycling and to forward information that the BPAC has. I'm gonna mention something council member Gayle meant said on the coordination between trying trying to make it brief. Coordination between various other agencies.

Three of the four members of this committee are also members of the AC Transit interagency liaison committee. And as part of that, we at least know as an attender, you can bring up issues on coordination, and one of those items was drastically decreasing the death rate on International Boulevard where Oakland's Temple line runs. And I'm gonna briefly mention council member Gayle mentioned bike rental bikes and parking. It actually might save parking because each slot that has six or eight bicycles for rent reduces the number of cars that are traveling there, so you might actually have a net win for parking spaces. And definitely we can get you together on some biking classes with Bike East Bay to do safe biking.

Anyway, let's continue to work together, Public Works and Transportation, BPAC, and other interested people to make the streets of Oakland safer. Thanks.

Thank you. I would like to make a motion to receive this in committee and file it. Is there a second? There

is a motion made by council member Gaio, seconded by council member Houston to receive and file this in the public works and transportation committee. On roll, council member Gaio? Aye. Council member Houston? Aye. Council member Wong? Aye. And chair Anger? Aye. This motion does pass with four ayes to receive and file this in the Public Works Transportation Committee. Moving to item five. You. You.

Counsel and thank you and chair Unger for accommodating this report.

Item five, adopt a resolution in support of senate bill s b twelve eighteen to amend the California vehicle code to require payment of resolution of illegal dumping fines before vehicle registrations can be completed and there is one speaker for this item.

Thank you for this. I will briefly introduce item twelve eighteen. Our intention is once this makes it out of committee and we are not worried about quorum or majority issues, to be able to add council member Houston at the full council meeting because we can't do it here and have a quorum of the members here, but we will do it at the full council meeting. So as we all know, going after illegal dumpers is incredibly difficult. At the moment, we have to not only identify the vehicle, we have to also identify the person and then come after them criminally.

What we want to do is be able to come after folks civilly through the DMV. If any of you have ever gotten a parking ticket, as I know I certainly have, you know that you end up paying them because if you don't, you can't re register your vehicle. So we are today supporting the great work of state senator Jesse Aragine who has brought this bill forward in consultation with many of my colleagues here on the council to allow the DMV to collect these fines. It will make enforcement quite a bit easier. So we are proud to support this, and we hope that our friends in Sacramento will pass it quickly.

Council member Gallo.

For the public's information, for those that are caught doing illegal dumping today, who at the city collects the fines? Because, you know, what I've heard from the previous budget, we we have many fines, but we never collect them with different activities, negative activities that are happening throughout the city. And so who is doing the current collection of the fine? Because my experience has been that I turn in the the the video or the picture to I my direct give it to the city attorney. The city attorney gives it to the county attorney.

The county attorney gives it to the judge. I gotta stand in front of the judge to say, yep. That's him. I saw him doing it. That's illegal dumping guy. And a lot of our residents don't wanna show up to court to point the finger at anybody. So so who is doing the collection, first of all, in the city? That we clearly have told the public that we're not collecting the fines and the fees like we should be that we have done in the past.

Do do we have somebody from Yeah. Do we have anyone from staff who can answer that about current collections? I I think that I'm sorry. Are you is that public speaker? Okay. Good

afternoon members of the public works Committee. Rebecca Kaplan, project manager for legal dumping in the city administrator's office. The current practice is that the Oakland Public Works Environmental Enforcement Unit issues the citation. Some number of people pay them at that point. If people do not pay them at that point after that it goes to the collections team in the finance department to collect.

As has been noted, some significant number of people still do not pay at that point. We multiple solutions we are proposing to solve that including better tracking of the data. This bill that you are discussing right now under item five would significantly help that process because if people do not pay when the city seeks to collect, it would then go to the Department of Motor Vehicles to collect. And when that is done for other things like parking tickets, it more than triples the rate of people paying initially. So if people know that the DMV could collect, more of them will just pay it to the city immediately, and most of those won't even have to be sent to the DMV. So this bill, is designed to help with that very problem.

Thank you.

So but who gets the money that's collected by DMV? Does it took if it's if the action happened in Oakland, does that money from DMV go back to the city or it just stays with the state?

Comes back to the city.

You sure about that?

Minus the processing fee.

Okay. I've just Thank you.

Council member Brown on Zoom, please.

Council member Brown, you may unmute yourself.

Excellent. Thank you so much. Hopefully, you all can hear me very well. I'm super just grateful for this legislation, s b twelve eighteen. And I think that, you know, the question that council member Gayle has, is an important one around, like, hey.

Where where do these funds go? But I believe it would be similar to when a parking ticket is issued. And if you don't pay that parking ticket, once it is collected by the DMV, that rolls back to the city. And so one thing that I really like about state legislation is that when we set a, like, a tone and a precedent in this manner of, you know, this is what we need for our look in our local cities, especially around accountability for illegal dumping, it also creates that same wave of accountability because we know that so many community members both in West And East Oakland have been gravely impacted by illegal dumping. It affects impacts your mental health and just your ability to take pride in the community to which you are from.

And, also, on that note, we know that there are other communities, here in the East Bay, also in Southern California, that are experiencing these same impacts of illegal dumping. And so, that is one of the one of many reasons why I'm supporting, twelve eighteen. And and and just to note, given my past kind of working in the legislature, I hope that, you know, the letter of support that the city of Oakland provides for this legislation, is going to be important. And, also, let's make sure that we reach out to, you know, just the different folks that we know in other cities and even across the state of California to really push on this item, because I believe that it's going to, need all of the support, as possible in order to ensure that it passes through the legislature. So I just wanted to say that, and thank you council member, Unger and the leadership of the mayor's office, for supporting, council, supporting senator Aragine on this as well.

So thank you so much.

Council member Houston,

please. Thank you. Through the judge, just like a statement is that being, doing this illegal dumping for twelve, thirteen years, My district is a little bit different. District 7, I'm a support this because, you know, Jesse, I'm senator Jesse. I'm a support it. But in my district, we know that the people that dump don't have a license plate. We know that they cover it up. We know that they take it off. We know that they use stolen vehicles. So it's really not gonna affect it's gonna work, and we have to do something.

We have to do things. But in my district and other districts, the ones that's really doing the major illegal dumping that's hazardous, contaminated, and a crime against our community, this is not gonna affect them, but it will catch some individuals that are slipping and don't even understand what this is about and just maybe dump something just small, maybe a couch or something like that. But the people that affect my community, the illegal dumpers that affect my community, this this this won't have that much of an impact, and I have more to say on the next ones that we talk about. So I do support it. We have to do something, but I wanna just thank supervisor Nate Miley for spearheading this this this years and years and years with the illegal dumping task force that went county, now a state, and I have more to say about that.

But I do support this because we have to do something, and I do support senator Jesse.

Council member Wong, please.

Thank you. So I fully support this the state legislation. I wanna thank the senator Erdogine for pushing for this. I do think that the devils are in the details in terms of implementation just to add on to actually council member Houston's comments. First, just on the front end, I think one thing I want to ask the city staff is is there a need because I know one thing that, we've been deliberating or my office has been deliberating is whether we need ALPR, like license plate readers, tied to these illegal dumping situations where if we don't currently connect the vehicle information, like do do we need to ensure that that is happening?

Or are our systems actually built to tie an illegal dumper to the vehicles? And then on the back end, the other thing that I would wanna just make sure is that whether having an unregistered vehicle in the city matters. We disbanded our traffic enforcement unit at OPD due to the lack of staffing, and I I wanna make sure that, you know, whether it's our parking division or or something that, I mean, we will have CHP helping to enforce against unregistered vehicles, but that it there are actually consequences because the inadvertent consequence if we don't have our enforcement, up and running is that we just have people running around with unregistered vehicles and there's no consequence there. So these are just the things I wanna figure out. So this piece of legislation does the thing that we want it to do.

Oh, okay. Do you have a are you looking for a response from staff?

Yeah. I'm looking for a response especially on the front end, is do we need any additional investments or changes to our, use policies to ensure that when we have an illegal dumping fine that it is it's easily connected to the to the vehicle registration or our systems already equipped to actually run with this legislation?

Good afternoon. Kristen Hathaway, assistant director of Public Works. In our, illegal dumping cameras that Public Works has, we do have LPRs. So that helps us identify the license plate of a vehicle that is caught on the camera dumping. In terms of not catching, vehicles that don't have license plates, That is something that that perhaps council member Unger will speak to in the next item because there is an amendment in the next ordinance that addresses us being able to more easily catch people who are, dumping without a license plate.

Okay. That's good. How many cameras do we have anyways right now?

We currently have 36 cameras.

Okay. Thank you.

Council member Gayo.

Yes. Just for the for the record then. So so the recordings or the information that the city of Oakland gets or has regarding illegal dumpers, that information will go straight to the state of California DMV. Can you answer that? So you're gonna provide that to DMV state of California?

Under the proposed legislation, twelve eighteen, if someone does not pay their bill to the city of Oakland, it would then go to the DMV much like parking tickets. So parking tickets don't first go to DMV. They first go to the person to pay. Only if the person does not pay, then it goes to DMV. But the fact that people would know that it would go to DMV to collect if they don't pay it would increase the rate of people directly paying the city as it is significantly higher for parking tickets already. Okay.

Thank you. Effort does the city make to collect the fee?

The city Yes.

It's just one time and move on if you don't pay it. I mean, this is a process we're going through with other challenges that we have in Oakland. We're not paying our fees because we're not making a second effort to collect it.

Correct. Typically, the collections team within the finance department makes the second effort to collect. And if the collections effort by the city is not successful, then it goes to the outside body.

And then the state will reimburse the city for the collection?

Correct. So this will make it stronger, and it will make people more likely to pay the city right away because they'll know that there's an additional process. And, of course, in the other legislation later today, there's further steps being taken to strengthen that effort. Thank you.

Okay. Seeing no more questions from my colleagues, I'd like to go to public comment, please.

When I call your name, please approach the podium. If you're participating via Zoom, please raise your hand so you're easily identified. Miss Mary Forte? And, miss Mary, you may unmute yourself and begin your comment.

Yes. Thank you. Can you hear me?

Yes. Yes, ma'am. We can.

Yes. My name is Mary Forte. I'm a lifelong East Oakland native over seventy five years. I all of you know me on the, committee. My pleasure to be here today.

I do support s b twelve eighteen. I attended the press conference a couple of weeks ago, representing the illegal dumping organizing committee along with block by block organizing committee. I feel this s b twelve eighteen offers a practical and equitable enforcement mechanism by connecting unpaid illegal dumping citations to vehicle registration renewal. I agree 200% with council member Houston. The problem that's not being addressed here is that there are vehicles that drive up and down the street and have not been registered for years.

Trucks, whatever. So again, because we don't have what is it that traffic unit in OPD enforcing and giving tickets for people that don't have that their their license, it's how do you get those people? That is my concern. But I do feel this is also a statewide. In, initiative, and so I do think it's necessary. Thank

you. Okay. Thank you. Are there other comments?

That concludes your public comments.

Alright. I would like to make a motion that we forward this to the April 14, 03:30 p. M. Meeting on consent.

Do have a motion made by chair Unger, seconded by council member Houston to approve the recommendations of staff and to forward this item to the 04/14/2026 special city council agenda at 03:30PM on roll. Councilmember Gallo?

Aye.

Councilmember Houston? Aye. Thank you. Councilmember Wong? Aye. And chair Anger? Aye. This motion does pass with four ayes to approve the recommendations of staff and to afford this item to the April 14 special city council agenda at 03:30PM. On consent. Thank you.

Moving to item seven. Adopt an ordinance amending Oakland municipal code chapter eight one one, illegal dumping to one, increase penalties for illegal dumping two, make transporting waste in the vehicle without a license plate as an offense, and three, increase enforcement against legal dumping. And you do have three speakers for this item.

Great. Thank you. K Top, if you could pull up our presentation please, I would appreciate that. Thank you. So I just want to introduce this item briefly.

This is a whole day of items on trash. We all understand that Oakland has a problem with illegal dumping and we need to begin to get our hands around it even more than we already have. This item here is just one piece of the puzzle and I want to be really clear about that. I do not expect that this item is going to solve all of our problems, but it's going to begin to chip away at some of the problems with illegal dumping enforcement. And I am excited by the work we've all done to try to hold people accountable for the illegal dumping.

So I can begin with the presentation, if I've got the clicker here. So I'm gonna gloss over this part pretty quickly. I don't think I need to tell anybody that we have an illegal dumping problem in Oakland. You've all seen it. You all live here.

We are picking up two or three times as much trash per capita as our neighboring cities. However we never make any headway because the pace of illegal dumping absolutely overwhelms us and we struggle to hold illegal dumpers accountable. That's a graph. There's a lot of dumping. What this ordinance does is we are going to double the existing fine structure to 1,500, 2,500, and 5,000 for first, second, and third offenses.

We need to put some teeth into this illegal dumping. We need to be holding accountable the people who are trashing Oakland. And to council member Houston's excellent point and to the, point from the public speaker in the last item, we are going to make it a violation to transport waste without a license plate. You're right. Council member Houston, people take their plates off, they use somebody else's plates, they tape over their plates. It is now going to be a violation to transport waste without a license plate. Importantly, we are tying enforcement to the vehicle, not the driver. Right? We have a problem with people who get caught saying, oh, yeah, that might have been my truck, but, I wasn't driving it. You know, that that's not gonna fly anymore.

It's gonna be more like a a parking ticket. I don't care who is driving your car. You got the ticket. You're gonna pay it. This dovetails incredibly well with Senator Aragine's bill twelve eighteen so that we will be able to actually collect those fines through the DMV.

There is an appeal option in ordinance that we're putting together, and then there is also an ability to do community service rather than fines. It's gonna have to be hefty community service to make up for $5,000 worth of fines, so be prepared to be wearing that orange vest for a while. We are targeting illegal dumping, not incidental littering. This is not for, you know, folks who throw a candy wrapper out the window of their car, although don't do that either, your grandmother would not approve. So, but we are going after the illegal dumpers first and foremost.

Again, this is just one piece of the puzzle. The next item, we'll also talk about another piece of the puzzle, And I want to there's some pictures of all of us picking up trash as we all do in districts. And I want to just finish by thanking everyone who worked on this. Office of the mayor was instrumental, supervisor Nate Miley and Aaron Armstrong from his office, the city attorney's office, the city administrator's office, our finance staff. In particular, I want to highlight Matt Malson, Rebecca Kaplan, Patrick Behrs, Nicole Welch, Liam Garland, Kristen Hathaway, and Wanda Redich.

We I am certain that I am leaving somebody out, and I apologize. But I thank everyone who worked on this, and I believe that, there is someone here from the mayor's office who would like to speak about this item.

Thank you, chair Unger. Preston Kilgore, deputy chief of staff to mayor Barbara Lee. I'll be very brief, but thanks for your your comments, chair Unger. So I'm here on behalf of the mayor Lee to share her strong support for the amended illegal dumping enforcement ordinance that, chair Unger just described in detail and the broader package before you today. As all of you know, this ordinance is a critical step forward in strengthening Oakland's ability to hold bad actors accountable.

As Chair Unger mentioned, increases penalties, closes loopholes like vehicles without license plates and gives the city stronger tools to deter illegal dumping that harm our neighborhoods. Importantly, the amendments included by Director Flynn, which we're grateful for with the Office of Race and Equity and the Privacy Advisory Commission for the air bids item that you'll get to in a little bit, make the legislation even stronger. They reinforce an equity centered data driven approach by requiring the use of the geographic equity toolkit that some of you have already mentioned and also ensure that enforcement is paired with a root cause analysis so that we are not just reacting to dumping but addressing why it's happening in the first place. The legislative package before you today also lifts up the urgency of the issue, but also the importance of aligning enforcement with smarter deployment of resources and long term solutions. And that's exactly what the package before you all represents.

So in summary, this ordinance works hand in hand with air bits pilot that you're going get to, which will help the city move to proactive detention. I think it's important to understand that those two items are really connected in a lot of ways with the amendment that requires the city administrator to develop a more comprehensive strategy in addition to the enforcement piece. At the same time, as many of you mentioned, SB twelve eighteen, sponsored by Senator Aragine and Mayor Lee, will help ensure that repeat offenders face real statewide consequences. I'll close with this. As all of you know and it was brought in the presentation, legal dumping is not just a quality of life issue, it's an equity issue, it's a public health issue and a matter of dignity for our communities.

And once again, thank you Chair Unger for your office's coordination, particularly Matthew, who's to my right, our city administrator team, public works, all of you, public works and transportation committee members and Rowena Brown, who's or Councilmember Brown, who's tuning in virtually. But then lastly, with the item next, thank you to AirBits and Faith in Action East Bay for all of their coordination as well and and really pushing the city to to be responsive. So with that, thank you all so much.

Thank you, sir. Let's go to council member comments. Council Council member member Gallo, please.

Thank you for the opportunity. And certainly, we've been at this for many, many years, and specifically in certain neighborhoods. And I think we need to recognize that we also have a homeless encampment management policy that's greatly challenged. Because what I've done, I mean, having done this for twelve years, it it all comes down to enforcement. At one time, the city of Oakland, we had the cameras where we would locate them, whether it was regarding graffiti, the dumping, the another crime in the neighborhood, especially in East Oakland and other parts, West Oakland.

Alright? So the reality is was that those cameras that the police department were responsible in their enforcing the law, not just recording the video and all. We forget about it. And that's one of the what's happening throughout the city. And and secondly is we don't have the personnel within public works that we used to have, that would used to clean Lake Merritt, clean the park, clean the streets.

And I still remember that because we didn't have people just sitting in at city hall making more laws and more rules, but we need people to enforce them. And that's an area that this this city of Oakland is slacking is the enforcement. Because starting out with the homeless encampment, I used to bring the huge dumps dumpsters that were allocated. But on Monday, waste management would call me and say, mister Gayle, we need to help you come unload the dumpster because we can't take it, overload it. So we will be out there helping unload.

That's when I'm not used to dumpsters anymore. Because now I have my five individuals in my office Monday through Sunday. All we do is pick up trash. Six in the morning, you get to see what happened the night before. You get to see it early in the morning who's doing it.

And we have a direction, a direction that, you know, the city has to follow when I submit it, but that's not being done. So I can turn in the video from this weekend. I can give you the pictures, but we in government needs to follow-up to be able to prosecute and challenge those that are doing it. But and then, Ken, I'll leave you with this last thought. It used to be because I used to manage parks and recreation.

But at that time, people didn't sit at city hall just talk and making more policies. They were on the neighborhood streets. My city manager, Robert Bob, he was with me every month out in the neighborhood. He saw it, didn't make stories about it. He was helping keeping the streets clean, but then I'll give you this last thought, Kent.

He said, Noel, I'm gonna hire you, but we're gonna give you a pickup truck, a city truck, and every day you gotta have that truck come back loaded with stuff from Lake Merritt. Because we want Lake Merritt to be the jewel of the city, the cleanest, the safest, and but it it'll take our city employees, including our administration, be out on the street to really see what's going on and who's doing it and how we can make that correction. And that's the advice that I would give you. We can talk about it making more loss, but we can't enforce them. And the last one I heard this week, the the police officer that would help me with the encampments that would be present to deal with encampments, they removed them.

Now who is gonna in the police department, they're gonna help us enforce that. You don't have an officer I can call to help me deal with that because they're no longer that's not their job. And so so within city government here in Oakland, we need to really consider, you know, what we need to do. But those that are involved in writing the laws and the policies, you got you gotta be on the street picking it up so you see it. Show up early in the morning, show up at night, and that's what we used to in the past. But thank you for that information. Thank you.

Council member one. I I do have an amendment to offer, so I'll actually let my colleague go first and then I can explain.

Council member Houston.

Through the chair. So what I'd like to do is just piggyback on council member Gayle. We've been suffering way too long and and and we need to pull back and know the history of this. Right? Council member Cobb me and council member Cobb passed a policy back in 2020, measure r r, that allowed this to happen. Right? Because in 1968, they had a policy that it couldn't go over a thousand dollars. It could not go over a thousand dollars. Right? So that was passed.

Now this can happen. I've seen something here that it said the level of fines is way too low. I believe that a person that puts a bag of trash on the street should be $2,500 and person that put, I mean, fifth $5,000, and a person that puts contaminated should be 10,000, and a person that puts hazardous be 20,000 in jail time. So it's easy to say these things about these price levels right here if you haven't been affected. My community has been underserved for so long.

It's so so sad. It's so sad that they have to live amongst the trash. I got a couple of pictures back here that that that that my mother had to deal with. Now this right here is in front of my mother's house. My mother.

This is before I was elected in front of my mother's house. Our children, our seniors, we've been underserved for so so long. It it it it hurts me. It hurts me, council member Unger. It hurts me.

I feel that if we slap them on the hand, which we've been doing, it's gonna stay the same way. We need to prosecute them $5,000 that put throw a bag into my neighborhood, $10,000 for contaminated and for anything hazardous because they drop it. They drop it. They drop asbestos, batteries, all types of things. It should be $20,000 and go to jail.

We should we gotta put down the hammer. We have a new council that have the power for legislation and take the lead of supervisor Nate Miley. He'll say it's a crime against our community. And then we have a DA right now that's willing to prosecute because our city attorney can only do fines, council member Unger. But if we collect the data, the proper data that I actually put into my my budget, which was to a million dollars was to train the EEOs to collect hazardous, collect contaminated so we can have the data to actually prosecute to the level that we need to, council member Unger.

Without that so say, for instance, somebody comes to my neighborhood and does a drive by shooting, which happens all the time. What they do is they'll pick up the bullets, mark them. They data collect. They don't just pick it up and throw it away. They data collect.

So I feel that the individuals that drop off one bag, my my community has suffered way, way your community has suffered way, way too long, way too long, that they need to be harsh penalties. And when I say harsh, we have a DA willing to prosecute right now if we bring the proper data. I'll pass it to my council member, Wayne, to see what she wants to say about some amendments because I might have to piggyback on that with these these these the penalties because I feel that that that penalty is too low. We're just slapping people on the hand for doing bad deeds against my community. It's a crime against my community.

And you saw what my mother had to live with. My mother. My mother, 89 years old. And this is just her. What about the other seniors, other children? So I'm a pass it to Wayne.

Council member Wong.

Thank you. And, yeah. I mean, first of all, thank you to the chair for, and everyone who worked on this for putting forward this legislation. We we really need to come more in line with our peer cities in terms of these fines. And I will say that what I had experienced with the human trafficking legislation is we're not allowed to set penal code as city councilors.

What we can do is set these municipal fines and that is what I see. This is an effort, it's not a replacement for holding someone accountable with jail time but it allows the city to have another tool in its tool belt. Now I will say that one of the things as I was reading through the details of this legislation, if you look on page six, this is the section on the civil penalties. In the prior ordinance or the current ordinance that has not yet been amended, There's a provision around there that allows for daily civil penalties and I think this speaks to your some of your concerns council member Houston on on ensuring that we have the highest level of consequences available on these fine amounts. But there is a provision that allows for daily civil penalties of up to $1,000 per day.

And this is really important because this is where we really need to tamp down on the illegal dumping is where illegal dumping constitutes a commercial quantity or contains harmful waste. I mean this is the corporate pollution, people who are making profit from doing this dumping that we need to address. Now I understand it from the staff that part of removing this is because there was the inability to measure that daily rate and so it was preventing us from holding people accountable in general. Myself and my team have spoken with the staff as well as the city attorney to find a way where we can restore that tool so that way we retain this tool so it will be added to the fines that you have authored chair Unger. So if we can put it up on the screen and you guys have it in front of you.

Essentially this is under section five. There's a section on a time calculation for an assessment of penalties. In the current amendment, we had removed that because again there was issues with actually measuring the daily amount that one needed to be held accountable for. So it's a pretty simple amendment. It just adds a section a to this time calculation for assessment of penalties, where the dumping constitutes a commercial quantity, contains harmful waste matter,

is a

mattress, upholstery furniture, appliance furniture, electronic waste, additional daily, additional. This is the change from what it was before. Additional daily civil penalties of up to $1,000 per day may be assessed. And so this just gives the option for our staff to go ahead and pursue those daily fines in addition to the ones that council member Unger, and chair Unger, you have, proposed in this legislation. So we're not removing that tool because we don't have the adequate enforcement tools.

And then I think we need to work on ensuring that we have the right enforcement tools so, you know, we put in these fines but we have to be able to actually enforce.

We're trying to locate where what page was this on?

For this amendment would be on page seven of the ordinance.

Okay. I'll accept this amendment as friendly.

Okay. Thank you.

Council member Gaia. Yeah. Thank you. Just for the public's information from the council and all the staff members that are here that don't do this on a regular basis. One of the things that I do wanna share with you since we're out there Monday through Sunday, I get not volunteers.

I get people assigned to me on weekends from the sheriff department. They're coming in from the city of Fremont, Castro Valley, San Leandro, Alameda. They were cited in those cities for illegal dumping. They were arrested for those illegal dumpings in those cities, and then the sheriff sent some of Noel, they gotta work off volunteer with you for twenty five hours to work off their parking ticket or their citation. And but there's other neighboring cities that do it's about enforcement.

And many of us growing up here in East Oakland, the only thing we understood was pushback. You can feel sorry for me and make excuses, but until I had to push back, it wouldn't change my discipline. So so I think just for you to know is the enforcement's extremely key. Because coming with me any weekend or even during the week now, I get through the sheriff's department and some even come out of they they came out because they were doing graffiti. They got caught.

Mister Gallo, I'll help you with anything, but I won't touch the graffiti because that's what I got arrested for. And and then I do get people through a program, public works used to have, working with Santa Rita, the Santa Rita County Jail where we would get individuals to help us clean the neighborhood, and some of these individuals were being arrested and cited for what they were creating in their cities. But that's another opportunity that we ought to pursue and work directly with the sheriff department, and the county to be able to get that assistance to make sure that we have, additional support. Because when you look at public works today at the employee numbers, and weren't the numbers have reduced tremendously than what it was in the past, Ken, when you and I started. And there are vehicles that need to be repaired.

There's vehicles sitting all over the yards that need to be serviced, we can't pick up the trash because we don't have the vehicle. So that that's another challenge, chairperson, that we need to look at. I saw your financial report. What? You laid off 800 and some people? I mean, then a lot of those had to do with making sure our our cities are maintained. But, anyways, thank you for that, and hopefully, we do more than just talking and more policy writing. And for those that did it, come out and volunteer with me. You'll really see what's going on and who's doing it to get a better sense of how do we correct this in Oakland. Thank you.

Council member Houston.

Yeah. Last thing to the chair. K Top, I sent you a email. Just like we passed that, in 2020, that measure RR ordinance that actually allowed this to happen, this is just information I'd just like to put on the record. This I have to put this on the record being a subject matter expert on illegal dumping.

We have individuals, that actually know that this information is going to be dumped on the street, and they take advantage of certain individuals and say, hey. Come and pick this up. And they know it's gonna cost more than $50 to dump it on the street. I sent this email back in 2019. I redacted some things because I don't wanna put people on blast. It says, hello. As discussed a few weeks ago, and this was in 2019 at 08:46PM, and I'll speak to this. I just want this on the record. Back from my walk in visit, can you please give me a few dates where we can meet with director Blank? This meeting will be discussed to add a process that we feel would be beneficial to the cold compliance department.

I was working with council member I mean, not council member, but Nate at that time. Cold compliance and the illegal dumping issues Oakland faces today. Can you please give me three dates to choose from so I can coordinate with Alameda County DA environmental department that will be accompanying me in this meeting. I apologize for the delay with the meeting request because I did a request number, a public request number, response back and never got a meeting. And let me explain to you what's happening here.

What happens is this these the the department will if somebody make a complaint just say, for instance, council member Unger, you make a complaint about council member Noel Gallo has trash in his name in his in his in his front yard. What'll happen is is that whole compliance will go out and look at it, take a visual, and just say, okay. It's closed out, and the person can say it's closed out. However, where did that trash go? Where did that trash go? Do they have a receipt? Do they have how much they dumped? Where they dumped it? Or who they hired? And I followed many of these complaints, many of these complaints that ended up on the streets.

And people take advantage of the individuals that may be a o d'ed or, you know, alcohol or other drugs or in a bad situation and say, here, go ahead and dump this. Here's $50 and it ends up on our streets. This is happening a lot. So this is a co compliance piece that we are missing since 2019. See that date?

2019. This is before I was a council member, and this is before we pushed measure r r. So I wanna say this, and it came from me with through the legal dumping task force of Nate Miley. And I'm a say this, supervisor Nate Miley is a soldier at this. He's been spearheading this, and we should give him all his praise for sure because many of these things and another one that's coming up came out of his off came out of this illegal dumping task force.

So this piece that I just put on the record is critical for individuals that are moving out, individuals that are cleaning out their garages or council member Unger or get a violation. Right? So they do not have to show a receipt. They don't show where it went from what came from or went or who actually they hired, and it ends up on our street. All it is is a visual drive by and it's closed. 2019, council member. 2019.

Thank you for that. Do we have public speakers?

When I call your name, please approach the podium. If you are participating via Zoom, please raise your hand so you're easily identified. As practice, we will take in person speakers before Zoom speakers. Mary Forte, Kevin Dolly, and David Boatwright.

David Boatwright, district four. We can talk about this all day long, but I haven't heard a word said about who's gonna enforce this and whether they've got the time and the money to do so. In addition to that, I've called the DMV locally and in Sacramento, and I've even called the city about this when I I walk around a lot. And I see I used to see even more, but there's still a lot of cars out there that don't have registration. Nobody cares. We gotta get people to care about this subject, and we gotta get somebody that has the time and the money to enforce it as you've said several times today. Or this is just a bunch of air in the wind.

Kevin Dally. Thanks for all the work the council members have put into these resolutions. I want to call out one point, the progressive violations where you raise the price of each subsequent violation is a good idea. And I think this will work with council member Houston's concerns about it not being high enough. And if it doesn't work the first round, you come back to council and raise it again. I'm hoping we can do similar things with some of the parking violations where you raise the violation rate with each subsequent violation. Some we have some of the same problems with in that area, but definitely, I'm looking forward to a cleaner Oakland.

Moving to our Zoom speakers. Miss Mary Forte, please unmute yourself and begin your comment.

Yes. Thank you very much. I really appreciate this discussion. I have wondered why this committee has not had illegal dumping discussions in the last year. First of all, I'd like to give credit to the January 12, public action held at Allen Temple Church because we brought that ordinance to the public that there were close to 1,000 people there that they heard about this ordinance, and credit needs to be done for that work as well.

Even though we did ask to have a part in writing the ordinance, it never came about. I am concerned, also to another point on the the fee schedule. The fee schedule that came from this county that, supervisor Nate Moiley proposed were administrative penalty fees. First offense, 2,500. Second offense, 5,000.

Third offense, 10,000. So the city of Oakland is less than that. I do believe I heard from Rebecca Kaplan that we the city had a max or something like that, but I I don't know. So we it does need to be relooked at. The last thing in terms of funding, I'm concerned about the number of enforcement officers. My understanding, there's currently seven positions.

Five of

them are filled, two vacancies. How long is it gonna take to fill them? How long is it gonna get them up to speed? And I have been picking up trash. Noel Gallo knows this since the nineties when there used to be, like, 18

Thank you for your comment.

Council member Wong, did you have a comment?

Yeah. I was going to offer first of all, just on the public comment, I completely agree that we do need to ramp up our actual enforcement capacity. We just heard from Kristen Hathaway at Public Works that we only have 30 cameras across the city. I mean we have way more illegal dumping hotspots than 30 spots that are linked to the LPRs that are necessary to link individuals to that vehicle registration. But I do think that this is a step in the right direction and so I will make a motion to advance this to the full counsel with the daily fines with the amendments.

That will be the regular meeting on the afternoon of April 14, whatever we're calling that meeting, on consent if that's amenable, if you're amenable

to Yeah, I'm amenable to that.

I'll second it.

We do have a motion made by council member Wong, seconded by chair Unger to approve as amended the recommendations of staff and to forward this to the April 14 special city council agenda with amendments made by council member Wong on page seven of the ordinance under assessment of penalties, section five. Number four, time calculation for assessment of penalties, adding a section a, where the dumping constitute a commercial quantity contains harmful waste matter is a mattress upholstered furniture, appliance, furniture, or electronic waste, additional daily civil penalties of up to $1,000 per day may be assessed. Section b, penalty of citation days for the purposes of calculating the number of days for assessment of the civil co civil penalty, the days start to run when the illegal dumping is first discovered by a witness subject to the ev evaditionary presumption below and the end when the cleanup is complete, and section c, burden other producing evidence when the when as to when illegal dumping occurred if the city does not direct evidence as to when the illegal dumping occurred and assessing penalties, the act of illegal dumping shall be presumed to have occurred five days prior to its discovery and the burden of the producing evidence as to when the occurred shall be on the dumping violator.

The presumption may be rebutted by contrary evidence. On the roll, council member Regaio?

Aye.

Thank you. Council member Houston? Aye. Council member Wong? Aye. And chair Unger?

Aye.

This motion passes with four ayes to approve as amended the recommendation to stat and to forward this item to the 04/14/2026 special city council agenda at 03:30PM, and that will be to the body on consent.

Yes, please.

Thank you. Moving to our next item. Item eight. Adopt a resolution approved, one, approving the surveillance impact report and amended surveillance use policy incorporating recommendations of the privacy advisory commission for their ARBIDS system. Two, authorizing the city administrator to negotiate and enter into agreement with the ARBIDS Inc.

For a pilot program to detect and report illegal dumping. Three, waiving the local and local small local business enterprise program and competitive multi step acquisition requirements. And four, directing the city administrator to return within one year of the adoption of the resolution to provide an informational report. And you do have four speakers for this item.

Thank you. Let's hear from staff, and I'd like to ask everyone, myself included, to keep it brief. Thank you.

Okay. I promise we're gonna be short here. Alright. Greetings, chair Unger and members of the committee. I'm Kristen Hathaway, assistant director with public works.

We're requesting that you approve the surveillance impact report and amended surveillance use policy and authorize us to enter into an agreement with AirBits Inc, an aerial photography company that has the technology to identify the exact locations of illegal dumping piles. The air bit system can also estimate the size and volume of the piles with a high degree of accuracy and characterize the waste in the pile to determine the nature of the materials such as tires, mattresses, etcetera. Public Works believes this technology will be incredibly helpful for deploying our Keep Oakland Clean and Beautiful crews to collect the waste. We believe it will make it easier for us to send the appropriate size of crew and equipment for the job and route the crew on the most efficient path for collection. KOCB currently relies primarily on reports from the public to locate debris piles.

In many cases our staff have to perform site reconnaissance before we can collect the debris to ensure we have accurate information on what's there. This leads to inefficiencies in deployment. While we are grateful for all the reports that we receive through our call center, the report based system inherently misses debris piles when they are either not seen or when residents may not have the time or resources to report the information. The air bit's cameras will spot every debris pile on its flight path ensuring that all the illegal dumping in that area is reported. It is a more equitable system for collecting debris location information.

The air bits technology can also verify if there's no longer a debris pile where one was reported which sometimes happens when multiple reports come in for the same location and our crews have already retrieved the debris. This over reporting contributes to a backlog of service requests which take time to clear and slows our overall response time. By removing duplicates from our system and clearing missed reports, our crews can focus on the debris that is still on the streets. As will be described in more detail in a moment, this technology is designed to protect privacy by making masking out images of private property and not collecting any personal identifying information. This proposal was reviewed by the privacy advisory commission on March 5 and the recommended use policy for the technology was adopted by the PAC with minor changes as shown in the red line version of the use policy attached with the packet.

So I also wanna mention since Nate Miley was mentioned, we learned of this technology at Nate Miley's illegal dumping conference. And the inventor of the technology, Brian Johnson, has a very short five minute presentation to further describe the technology. Thank you.

Thank you council members. My name is Brian Johnson and I'm the founder of AirBits. I'm a resident of the Bay Area. I live in San Francisco and I started this in response to illegal dumping in my neighborhood. So AirBits is a privacy first technology designed to measure and report abandoned waste.

What I discovered when I was in when I was we have a pretty bad dumping problem in my neighborhood as well. What I discovered is that a lot of the dump sites on our streets are not reported. I did a couple experiments and I found that if I could if I reported the dump sites, the public works department would come and clean it up within their SLA. And so I built this system in order to provide equitable but also accurate data about the dumping in in a large area because driving around or even riding my bike around takes a long time and it's not very efficient. So you can't manage what you can't see and you can't clean up the things that you don't know about.

The way the technology works is that it's one pilot can use one drone to cover one square mile in thirty minutes. You can use AI to detect all of the dump sites in that area. You can classify what's in each pile and measure the approximate size of the pile. You get precise GPS locations that are centimeter grade accurate. It's privacy first, so we have no facial recognition technology, no license plate readers.

We mask out all private property and we and only save data that covers the roadway and the sidewalk. That's what it looks like. As you can see, there's a person in the second photo. You cannot make out the identity of that person. The resolution just isn't high enough to be able to get any facial information.

In addition, the drone is approximately a 120 to a 150 feet in the air and isn't isn't isn't is aimed directly down as you can see in these photos. And then we use AI technology to mask out all vehicles and all private property. What I found in my experiment in my neighborhood is that consistent reporting resulted in cleaner streets with reduction in the amount of garbage on the streets within a month. Continuing to do this, that that kept the number of garbage piles down and this was with one person, one drone, and this app and this software. The AI additionally finds what the eyes miss because it can see behind parked vehicles and on the sidewalk.

It's also covering comprehensive area every single spot in that geographic region. And this is some data from a period of I think six days where the dump sites on the first day were 118 and on the last day there were five. The way it works is there's a it's very fast and efficient. It's a pre programmed flight path that can be repeated so we can get really consistent data over the course of the pilot. The pilot will cover fourteen forty linear miles which would be really difficult to cover in a vehicle and be quite expensive.

Regular monitoring catches recurrence so we can find when a pile is growing. The hope is that we actually clean these piles up and so when new dumping comes we can see that it's new dumping. In addition, if it were follow on dumping we'd be able to measure that day over day. The pilot is $150,000 It's point 6% of Oakland's 24,000,000 dumping spend and it would be a massive data upgrade. It's a six month pilot with 72 flights covering fourteen forty miles linear miles worth of roads.

And this is a photo showing some of the hotspots in Oakland where illegal dumping is reported to be the worst and we hope to bolster that data with the high quality aerial data. And this is our ask is is to approve the amended use policy which includes additional privacy protections where we would only hold the original images for one week and then the redacted images which include no personal information, no private property and just the streets and sidewalks for six months and then the actual pictures of the garbage themselves for six months. Thank you council members.

Excellent. Questions, council members to either of the speakers. Council member Houston.

Again, through the chair. Thank you, mister Johnson. This came through the legal dumping task force supervisor Nate Miley. Legendary on blight, legal dumping. It came through there, and I I was there when you did that, presentation. So I'm I'm I'm good with it. I'm good.

Thank you.

Council member Gayle.

Yes. Thanks for that information. So you're you started in San Francisco.

I live in the Bayview neighborhood in San Francisco, and I started in my neighborhood.

Beyond San Francisco, is there other cities that you've presented this program? So I

did present it at the illegal dumping conference, and there were, I believe, 10 about a dozen cities there.

Yeah.

I have not, this would be the first city.

Yeah. Because I know recycling waste solutions in San Francisco well. I mean, one time we tried to bring them here, but it didn't work out. So so the other question or comment I have for for members of the council, you gotta recognize that the city of Oakland has the most expensive garbage bill beyond the state of California. The bill that I pay at my home to pick up my trash is super expensive.

If I go to dump my trash at Waste Management, dump, it's hell of expenses. It'll cost me $300 plus to take my mattress and couch, but I go in other cities like I did, you know, clearing my grandmother's in Tucson, it was $30. But here, I have to pay $300. So, therefore, you you a lot of people are choosing to throw their trash out on the street because waste management who does you we had a monthly remember the monthly program? Well, we cut it because we were paying too much.

What is it? $3.50 a month that we were paying for city workers to be on overtime and bring the trash and go to waste management? So and that include that picked up more dumping on the streets because the reality is this, that we have to recognize since we're working on the contract with waste management that, one, waste management not only pay charge higher fee, but they also collect, what, $3,540,000,000 dollars a year franchise fee to give back to the city. The voters never approved that, but I'm waste management is collecting that within their system to give back to the city to use that money and however you wanna use it. And so, you know, it's just in Oakland, the garbage, the waste management, we gotta review that so we can eliminate some of the dumping that's going on in our streets.

And we did have cameras before, and we can have more cameras now, but it's the enforcement afterwards. If I catch Ken doing the dumping, besides just telling him to be good, don't do it again, we have to be able to follow through to make sure that through your documentation, the rules get enforced. So I'm looking forward to working with you on that. But I know San Francisco well. And, you still have some of the dumping because I see it. And, but anyway, so I, you know, I look forward to you making a difference in the city of Oakland. Thank you.

Thank you, council member.

Council member Wong.

Through through the chair. And, I just I am encouraged to see this. I have definitely seen for myself just how inequitable our current systems are by relying on Oak or Oak three one one. I've seen how in the San Antonio area in the little Saigon area where there is by far the worst illegal dumping in my district, there's like five reports. Again because our 311 app is not available in any other language but English.

And then I look at the wealthier parts of my district and there's like 400 reports for something that is much less problematic. So I I think this is really tackling that equity issue and so I'm encouraged to see this. I I do have a couple of questions just to to ensure how how much coverage we would get since slide the the map says open wide scale, but there's a couple of, like, areas that are highlighted. So I just wanna make sure. It says 1,440 road miles covered. Is that basically the whole city or what's the what portion of the city is being covered through this pilot?

Yeah. So for the pilot, we're really focusing on a small area to prove out the the working relationship and also like to prove to Oakland the technology. And it would cover approximately five to 10 square miles for that. But the technology is designed to cover, to be able to cover the entire city of Oakland. And at scale, the cost would actually be favorable compared to what the pilot program's costing. So City Of Oakland has approximately 1,500 square miles total of linear roads and that's something that with the appropriately designed deployment plan we can cover that on a continuous basis throughout the year.

Okay. And it says, so we have 72 scheduled flights over a six month pilot. That's around 2.7 flights per week just at the back of the math envelope. And so is that going to ensure citywide monitoring every or what what does that mean actually?

Yeah. Yeah. I can take that. So again, it's this is a pilot test. So we will pick a couple of areas in the city to to test this out with, looking at the hottest hot spot areas. And so those will be our test areas. And if approved, then we will develop a study design for the pilot test that specifically focuses in on the areas where we wanna we wanna do the testing. So the pilot test will not cover the entire area of the city. Okay. But if it does prove to be a successful technology that the city wants to use, then we will look at how we might expand it.

Okay. And I assume we're not gonna be using Oak three one one data to pick those priority spots since that would be, you know

We will it's not gonna be service requests. It's gonna be work order requests which are a mix of reported and proactive work. Okay.

So Okay. That works. Thank you. I'll make a motion to adopt staff recommendation.

Aye. I will second that, and then we'll go to council member Houston, then public comment.

Yeah. I just have one question through the chair. Where's can you pull that map up? Where is it at? Where are you gonna do the pilot at?

We have not picked the exact location yet.

So how does that get decided?

Well, we can have further conversations, with, any council member who's interested, and we're gonna really be looking at, where we have the worst areas of dumping.

Yeah. I like to know where that's gonna be at. If it's gonna be in my district and and and council member Feife's district or Wayne's district, Noel's district, I wanna know where that's gonna be. And I have one question for mister, Johnson. And and you said you was in Hunters Point?

Yes. More in the in the industrial area in Bayview, from between 3rd Street and, Candlestick.

Have you did any of your, drones get shot down? Never. Okay.

I've never had a drone drone shot at. Okay. I wanna know. Most people don't actually even notice the drone.

You said how far are they up?

They're approximately a 150 feet in the air. 100 to a 100 sometimes 200 feet in the air. Depends on the on the side zone.

But I like to know where that pilot is gonna be before it's launched. And I know probably my other council members would too.

Moving to our Zoom speakers, David Boatwright, Mary Forte, and Kevin Dolly.

David Boatwright, District 4. Verse, the same as the first. Nobody's talking about enforcement here. Not even this famous idea of how we're gonna enforce this. Technology is not the answer.

We got cameras coming out the wazoo. We got people calling in, even if they don't call in from every place with the same level of of numbers. When are we gonna wake up and realize that this is an enforcement problem and and dedicate some money from this city to to get it done? The the other recommendation is we go back and look since 2019 at all the new organizations, entities, and people we've hired in this city and find out those that are not really contributing to the bottom line. I mean, coming up with good ideas that make this city better and take that money and put it into enforcement.

Whether it's in the police department or a separate entity, we need to do something different and not the same thing over and over again.

Moving to our Zoom speaker, miss Mary Forte, you may unmute yourself and begin your comment.

Yes. Thank you. I support this. I was at the, illegal dumping conference in 2023 when Brian presented this. I think it is good. It is not about this is not about enforcement. This is about cleanup, proactive cleanup of illegal dumping. We can't even get our hands on, picking up enough. We can't pick it up fast enough. It it comes back.

And, Brian, I don't know if you remember me, but at at the end when we were walking out, I did kinda say to you at the side. I said, I really like this idea of the technology. I would like to know, has the city of San Francisco public works, have they? Why haven't they used this or whatever? And my other question would be is that when it it will be identifying illegal dumping at encampments, I believe.

And, you know, we don't just go. We, being public works, just doesn't go in and clean that up. They send certain crews. So I just I'm not quite sure what my question is around the encampments, but that would need to be addressed. But but thank you. I at least support a demo, and please pick something in District 6 or 7 or or area. Thank you.

Thank you for your comment. We do have a motion made by council member Wong, seconded by chair Unger to approve the recommendations of staff and the four decided to the 04/14/2026 special city council agenda at 03:30 on roll. Council member Gallo? Aye. Houston? Aye. Thank you. Council member Wong? Aye. And chair Anger?

Aye.

This motion does pass with four ayes to approve the recommendations of staff and afford this item to the April 14 special city council agenda and to the body that at 03:30. That will be on consent. Thank you. Moving to our next item, item six.

Alright. Item six where the trash talk is over. We're on to on to good stuff.

I will now read the item into record. Adopt a resolution one honoring bishop Chaney Charlie Hames junior, excuse me, for his distinguished service for the sixty sixth bishop of the Christian Methodist Apostrophe Church and his transformational leadership as a senior pastor of VB Memorial CME in Oakland and his lifelong commitment to faith, community services, social justice, commemoratively renaming this intersection of 39th And Telegraph Avenue as bishop Charlie Haynes junior way and authorizing the installation of the commemorative plaque of five of or sign honoring bishop Charlie Haynes Haynes junior pursuant to policy and procedures established by the Oakland City Council resolution number seven seven nine six seven. And there are no speakers.

Alright. Go for it.

So good afternoon, chair Unger, honorable council members. My name is Ashley Jamat. I won't be before you long, but I am the deputy policy analyst within council member Zach Unger's office. I also am here with the senior pastor of BB Memorial, and I will give him a moment to speak about a little bit about the church and about who we will be honoring. I just wanted to come before you quickly and say that we came to public works and transportation because we will be having to work closely with the Department of Transportation as well as potentially AC Transit seeing as how Beebe Memorial sits directly on a bus line.

So we did wanna come and let you all know that. We know that honoring Oakland's legacy and culture is really important, hence why we are doing a commemorative street renaming. We want to be able to recognize the community impact of those individuals who have played significant roles within our communities. We also wanna ensure that

we're advancing equity and representation in a visible way throughout the city of Oakland. And finally, we want to

who have pride in a place of belonging within our communities. We know that it is a lot of work and a lot of cross departmental collaboration in order to do collaborative and commemorative street renaming, but it is also a sense of pride and community building. So with that being said, I will hand the mic over to the senior pastor of Beebe Memorial Church, pastor Miller.

Thank you, Ashley, and thank you all for this time to be able to speak on bishop Charlie Haynes. As you know, as she stated, I am the senior pastor of Beavermore. I've been there a little over a year and a half. I have restored I have basically inherited one of the historical churches in Oakland. It's been around for a hundred and one years. It is one of the pilot churches that that is focused on social justice. It has has persons like Ted Kennedy, Shirley Chisholm, Kamala Harris has come to this church. Bishop Haynes was basically one of the ones who was, instrumental in having some of those leaders to come to the church. Like I said, he served there over twenty years. He was in great partnership with our current mayor Barbara Lee.

He also was in, in partnership with Steph Curry where he launched his first the Christmas with the Currys at BB Memorial Cathedral under his leadership. For him to be elected as a bishop in the CME church is a great milestone. And so this is one of reasons the why we wanna represent we want to basically have this community placard for in his honor for him being the sixty sixth bishop of the Christian Methodist Episcopal Church. He's also one of the first ones to be elected out of this the state of California. And so this is one of the reasons why we're pushing for this initiative because of the impact he had on this of the city of Oakland and the impact he had in the community where B. B. Moore resides. So

So thank you so much, pastor. So we are hoping that you all will forward this to the special, our special city council meeting that will be happening on, I believe, April 14. On consent, we will have to be working, again, like I said, very closely with the Department of Transportation and potentially AC Transit to to be able to pull this off in a relatively short timeline. And we are now open for questions. Thank you so much for your time. And it's 01:24. We might just make it.

Questions, council members? Second. Alright. I have made the motion for April 14 for the 03:30 meeting.

Thank you. That is a motion made by chair Unger, seconded by council member Gallo to approve the recommendations of staff and to forward this item to the April 14 special city council agenda at 03:30PM. On roll. Council member Gaia?

Aye.

Council member Houston? Aye. Council member Wong? Aye. And chair Unger? Aye. The motion does pass four ayes to approve the recommendations of staff and afford this item to the April 14 special city council agenda at 03:30PM on consent. Yes. Moving to our next item.

And very quickly before everyone leaves the room, just one point of personal privilege. Ashley Jamat, who's standing up there, has worked with me since I took office. She is moving on to bigger and better things in the city of Oakland. She's not going far. She's gonna be working in the human services department and she's promised that she will continue to take my phone calls, and I'm gonna hold you to that. So I just wanna thank you for all of your work and all of your service to our city.

Thank you very much, sir. I appreciate it.

Congratulations, Ashley.

Thank you.

Moving to item three. Receive an informational report regarding progress in 2023 through '25 on implementing the 2030 Equitable Climate Action Plan. And you do have one speaker.

Alright. Staff, I'm sorry to rush you, but we have a little bit of time that council member Brown has has given us into her committee. Go ahead.

Good afternoon, I think, chair and members of the committee. Quick primer, very quick, on Oakland's Equitable Climate Action Plan or ECAP. The ECAP was adopted by council in July 2020 with two overriding goals set on a backdrop of racial and economic equity. First, do everything within our control to stop the climate crisis, reducing greenhouse gas emissions 60% relative to 2005 levels by 2030. And second, use all legal and regulatory mechanisms available to adapt to the effects of the climate crisis, effects that are already here and accelerating as we speak.

It's an ambitious plan and also practical. It came out of two years of analysis that looked at current technologies, local supply chains, our legal and regulatory spheres of control, available resources, and more. The result is a set of 40 actions spread across seven themes: transportation and land use, buildings, material consumption and waste, adaptation, carbon removal which includes urban greening and trees, and then city leadership and port leadership. So turning to the report, if you look at the very last page, the last attachment, you'll see a graphic breakdown of where we are at this midpoint of implementation. Again it's a ten year plan and this report covers the three year calendar year period ending at the 2005.

So that graphic shows that we're progressing well, especially well given our budget limitations and the ongoing COVID recovery that really colored the first few years of ECAP implementation. Back to the beginning of the report, table starting on page three is a summary of progress over that three year reporting period of each of the 40 ECAP actions. New in this report, different from the last progress report, are summaries from two plans that really emanated from the ECAP, that's the Zero Emission Vehicle Action Plan and the Environmental Justice element of the general plan update. And then finally there's a narrative look ahead at our implementation focus for the next two to three years. That will be focused really on leveraging and building more public private partnerships, bringing in more funding to the city, and doubling down on the linkage between climate action and local economic The innovation team or I team that is housed in the mayor's office is emblematic of that focus as the ECAP really was the crux of our application in securing the I team and the related resources.

In closing, few highlights of progress from the last three years of ECAP implementation. So first a shout out to the port. The Port Of Oakland has reduced black carbon and particulate pollution and more than 50% since 2017 with more than $300,000,000 in new investments still to come. And there's no better example of how climate action and health equity are intertwined than that. Second example, new construction in Oakland has been all electric really since the ECAP was adopted and that's thanks in part to our strong building codes which were adopted again last fall and the obvious business case where it is cheaper as well as healthier to build all electric compared to building with electricity and gas.

And now thanks to our permitting reform and permit streamlining through the building bureau, it's actually easier than it ever has been before to renovate existing buildings to switch out gas for clean electricity. Our measure is producing $2,700,000 a year to add more vegetation management in high fire areas. We replaced more than 110 gas water heaters with high efficiency heat pumps at city buildings thanks to partnership between the sustainability and resilience division in the city administrator's office and Oakland Public Works. And then lastly, a transportation highlight because transportation accounts for two thirds of our local greenhouse gas emissions. The ECAT makes it clear that to reduce our transportation emissions, need to first make it easier for as many people in activities to get out of vehicles as possible, and that's by making it easier and safer to walk, bike and use transit.

And then

secondly, electrifying all remaining vehicles on the road. Today we have over 200 miles of bikeways in Oakland and over 12,000 bike parking spaces and we're seeing public electric vehicle charging stations approved at a record pace. So again we need more resources, we're working on that but we're moving forward. I thank you for the opportunity to present and I'm happy to ask questions or answer questions.

You can ask questions too.

Don't have any further questions.

Council members, questions, comments? Council member Wong.

Yeah. Thank you so much for your work on this. I think my only commentquestion is just around the importance of the energy transition as a job creator. I noticed that in some of the status updates it seems like that's more early stage rather than some of the other items where we've made more progress. And I know with the inflation reduction act funding drying up that can absolutely be, a huge impediment.

But, I was encouraged to see that that is your top priority that you listed and I would love to hear more about, how we go about doing it, how council can support because, I think it's really important that we bring along communities, especially those who don't have college degrees as part of this energy transition. And we're well positioned given our location with the port and just, you know, the environmental investments coming from across the bay too to take advantage of this.

Excellent. Do we have speakers?

Moving to our public speakers, Kevin Dolly.

Hi, Kevin Dally. Thanks. This is a really impressive document. There's a couple things I want to point out. Oakland stuck with state laws and incentives.

B two, the moving existing buildings to natural gas, it's still somewhat painful especially for low income. I'm not low income myself, but my renter is so I get an 8,000 rebate on a $13,000 expense. But if you're a low income homeowner, you have to put up $8,000 and wait for months for the incentives to come back. Permits are still a pain. Unfortunately, Unfortunately, I'm I'm stuck stuck with with a passing on the permit and I can't figure out what's wrong.

Another thing Oakland should look at is the California PUC has now made it not financially advantageous to have solar panels on multiunit buildings. But if you put panels on a single meter, you get paid only for avoidable costs. That's next to nothing. The next unit over has to pay full price to use energy at the same time. That's something the PUC could change, and maybe Oakland could push to have it done. And thanks for pointing out all the transportation issues. That was great. I was gonna do it if you didn't.

Thank you. I would like to make a motion that we receive this in committee and file it here.

To allow on Highway 580, the the huge packer trucks that are Port Of Oakland bound on 880. I see what position has the city taken on allowing that behavior to happen. I'll check-in with you. Thank you. Bless you. But I'll second the motion.

We do have a motion made by chair Ongur, seconded by council member Regallo to receive and file this in the Public Works and transportation committee. The roll, council member Regalia? Aye. Thank you. Council member Houston? Aye. Bless you. Council member Wong? Aye. Thank you. And chair Unger? Aye. The motion does pass with four ayes to and file this in the Public Works and Transportation Committee. Moving to open forum. Wanna call your name, please approach the podium. If you're participating via Zoom, please raise your hand. Kevin Dolly, Mary Forte, and David Boatwright. Kevin Dolly passes. David Boatwright also passes. Moving to Zoom speakers.

Mrs. Forte, please unmute yourself and begin your comment.

Yes. Just quickly, for the city council people, if you do not have April 20 on your calendar at 06:30, There will be a follow-up meeting on the public from the public action on January 12, and we hope that there will be lot it it will be a progress update to which we are making progress, but please put that on your calendars. Again, that's Monday, April 20, location to the BT term. Of the things that we did ask for for the ordinance was a formal oversight committee. So that has not been addressed, and we would like that formal oversight committee to be in place to see and ensure that the ordinance is implemented properly.

Question, where is the funding coming from for the Arabic pilot? And lastly, I saw that the mayor and two council people were in DC last week. And one thing they said, they were there asking for money. And one of the things they were asking for money for was illegal dumping. Can we get a report back on that? And I do feel it's very important that this committee have illegal dumping on their agenda on a regular basis. Thank you.

That concludes your public speaker's open forum.

Alright. Thank you everybody for hanging in there. This meeting is adjourned.