Public Works Committee - Special Meeting

Good morning, and welcome to the Public Works and Transportation Committee meeting of today, April 21. The time is now 11:30AM. 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 your speaker's card, please pull one out and turn it to 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 11:30AM. Speaker requests will be due no longer ten minutes after the meeting has began, making that time 11:40AM. With that, we would now proceed to take roll. Council member Gaia?

Present. Council member Houston is excused. Council member Wong?

Sorry.

Present. Thank you. And chair Unger? Here. Thank you. We do have three members present and one excused. Houston. And before we begin, chair Unger, do you have any announcements?

No announcements.

Thank you. Moving to our first item. As a reminder, item one, no minutes to be approved. This is a special meeting. Moving to item two, determination to schedule outstanding committee items. This is also your pending list and we do have one speaker for this item.

Anything from my colleagues or staff on the pending list? No? All right, let us hear from the speaker please.

Thank you, calling in our first and only public speaker, Ms. Asada.

So I just saw you on Instagram talking about illegal dumping. Nice job.

Thank you.

I wanna talk about the trees again. And I saw Instagram video where they, the individual was outraged that we're supposed to be cutting down 70 trees which are owned by BART with the issue being that we're gonna have some housing development, Mandela project, but when did these 70 trees get approved for being cut down? I'd I'd the question they've got the each tree has a red sign on it with if you have a question about cutting down the tree, a number to call. And all in all, we're talking about 70 trees in inner city. Now the last time these people were here talking about the love of trees and the need to have more trees in inner urban communities, we're getting ready to cut down 70 trees owned by West BART BART in West Oakland.

So who permitted this? And under what circumstances, understanding that this is a serious issue, it's not the the kind of tree that's there, it's the need to have trees that create health, growth, and so forth. And just as to the aesthetics, I don't see a clock, so you wanna stop me, darling, whenever you need to? Okay. Thank you.

The other thing I'm concerned about is we're putting up traffic lights and we're not turning them on. There are traffic lights that have been put up at Keller And Mountain, and also at the beginning interests of College Canyon Road, and that that's been there for years, traffic lights, and they're not on.

Thank you for your comment, miss Lozada. That concludes your public speakers for item two.

Alright. I will move the pending list. Do we have a second?

We do have a motion by chair Unger, seconded by council member Wong to accept the termination to schedule outstanding committee items as is on roll. Council member Gaio? Aye. Council member Houston is excused. Council member Wong? Aye. Thank you. And chair Unger? Aye. This motion does pass with three ayes.

One excused Houston to accept the determination of scheduled outstanding committee items as is. Moving to item three, adopt a resolution accepting the public infrastructure improvements directing the filing of the unconditional certificate of completion for the McArthur Transit Village phase, one improvements per the subdivision improvement agreement for deferred construction on the public infrastructure improvements in making CEQA findings. We do have two speakers for this item.

Alright. Let's hear from staff first, please.

Morning. This is a Reginald Basile for Oakland Department Of Transportation. Sorry, I just ran up the stairs. It this is an item to encourage council to adopt a resolution approving a issuing of a certificate of completion for the McArthur Transit Village. It's at 39th And Telegraph.

Okay. Colleagues, do you have questions? Let's hear from our public speakers then.

Okay. When I call your name, please approach the podium. You do have two minutes, miss Asada and Zach Thayer. And please state your name for the record. Thank you.

So hi. I'm Zach Thayer. I got a question for you. Bar ETFs bar ETFs. So AC Transit bar ETF aren't qualifiable applications for a municipal infrastructure.

Polynomial, binomial efficiencies do mitigate quadric expiration in Hadley v Moore. Senate bill five eight nine three showed a tax compliance when they were going through it. Some of us are really weird. Russian Breeze scans, you know, Korean Breeze scans, French Breeze scans, Yiddish Breeze scans, Finnish Breeze scans, Norwegian Breeze scans, and Handy Breeze scans. And when we ask it in Spanish, we don't ever show in the BART ETFs when we hacked your shit, excuse me, for the city and the counties don't ever ask what the polynomial binomial range would be, which would mean that if you guys what we were stating in the previous, just randomly talking, if it's a $30.80 dollar bond ETF based on the infrastructure cost of what you're granting, each city would have that ability at a 3 to probably 7 to 9¢ range.

One six isn't specific to the two year, three year three two equation. And what is known as the five to the ten year wouldn't be the allocation of capital at the city and the county. Polynomial range. Will this city, while granting administration and allocation of capital, take that into consideration based on forward projects tied to it as a budget to allocation of of of capital. I have a question with that based on construction processes and construction costs. Thank you, and have a great day.

I'm I'm trying to understand I'm trying to understand the length of time involved or the timeline of this project. When you read the report, it says that it was first the date start 03/15/2006. Then it says approve 2008. Then it says revise in 2017. So what is this long period of time that has contributed to moving on this project?

It says also that this project has five stages of development, each subject to a fund development a final development permit. Is that a standard practice when you're doing housing development that you have five stages of development, each stage subject to a final developmental permit? And if it's not a standard procedure, why is it being used in this particular project? It says that this resolution that you're you will free up funds, and declining to adopt the proposed resolution will require the developer to tie up funds that will otherwise be used for further McArthur Transit Village phases, phases resulting in added delays. I mean, how many more delays can you have with this project if it started in 2006 and was revised in 2017 and now we're in 2026.

I mean, we can't have projects related to development of housing, and this is commercial development as well. We can't have these delays because we're trying to catch up on affordable housing. So I don't know what your discussion would be about, but mine would be why is this project been delayed for so long, and why is it that we have to have all of these final five stages of development would be two main points.

Thank you. Council member Wong, did you have a question?

Hi. Yeah. This looks like it's an important TOD project. I think just one question. What really is the purpose of the UCC and why do you need to come to counsel for that?

Good question. It's usual and customary to come to counsel. The approval itself is ministerial. So, ODOT has inspected and accepted all of the public infrastructure improvements that have been made. So the release of the UCC is a ministerial adjuster but we do come to counsel so that we can have a public discussion about what is going on.

Okay. Gotcha. Well, I'll move to adopt staff recommendation.

I could speak to the question from the public about the the project and the long timeline. This project has been around for a long time. It took seven acres of surface parking and converted it into 900 use units of housing including 90 affordable units. Took quite a while. Developers come and go. Business cycles go up and down. There was the abandonment of some streets on the city's behalf and the creation of new streets by the developer. So it's been quite a complicated project, but it is done.

Council member Gallo.

Yes. Yeah. Thank you for that information. Under the item fiscal impact, can you, for the for the members of the public, define that? And clearly, that means, it says staff costs for processing the UCC are covered by the fees set by the master fee schedule and have been paid by the developer.

Yes. Thank you, council member. I am the division manager for the right of way management division in Oak Dot. Our division issues permits for the use of public space. So we issued permits to the developers of this project for all of the public infrastructure that they created. The streets, the sidewalks, the street lights. All of the work that my unit does has to be covered by the fees that we collect. That is in the Oakland municipal code and we take it very seriously. For this project, we collected I believe some $400,000 in fees. So that would cover my time, the time of my staff, issuing and more importantly reviewing permits.

Because among the things that we have to review are the plans for the public infrastructure. So if they're creating a street, sidewalks, street lights, all of that has to be reviewed and then ultimately inspected by my staff.

So when you collect those fees Yes. Where are they deposited? Where's the where's the the money from the developer deposited within the budget of the city?

It's $24.15 is is the fund. Yes.

Okay. So it falls okay. So it covers your staff expenses?

Yes. It

does. And the land development?

I'm sorry. Can I No?

I'm I'm just trying to be clear. As we're going through a lot of budget discussions debate, I wanna know exactly if I'm working with a contractor, are we receiving the the funds that we should be and where are they being budgeted? Right? Because I know real soon we're gonna come up by well, guess what? You guys have a budget deficit. But I wanna know exactly where the money that is being collected, where is it going? And is that going that funds that are being collected for this activity being directed back to, for example, the planning department to do x y z? Or is it just for your salary?

I'm I'm happy to answer that, council member. So $24.15 is a cost recovery fund. So it covers the cost of permitting from permitting departments such as planning and building, DOT, and others. So it's simply cost recovery.

And so will if this whoever represent this area, if they wanted to know exactly out of this project what was generated, they'd be able to see the numbers?

Yes. Permit fees and amounts paid are public information.

Alright. Thank you. Yep.

Any anything else from council members? Alright, and we've heard the public speakers already. I think we can move to vote. Ready? I'll second that.

Thank you. We have a motion made by council member Wong, seconded by chair Unger to approve the recommendation to staff and afford this item to the May 5 city council agenda, noting council member Houston present at 11:37 p AM. On roll, council member Gallo? Aye. Thank you. Council member Houston? Aye. Thank you. Council member Wong? Aye. And chair Unger? Aye. This motion does pass with four ayes to approve the recommendations of staff and afford this item to the 05/05/2026 city council agenda and through the body. Would that be on consent or non consent?

Consent,

please. Thank you. Moving to item four. Adopt an ordinance authorizing the city administrator to negotiate and execute an agreement to purchase an easement for public public right of way, street and utility purposes over a portion of the real property located at 260 Oak Street, Oakland, California from the Vucosan Family Limited Partnership in the amount of 255,000 and adopting CEQUA findings. And you do have two speakers for this item.

Excellent. Let's hear from our staff first please.

Hello council members. My name is Michelle Stevens. I'm a civil engineer and project manager for Oak Dot's Major Projects Division Team. Our project, the Embarcadero West Rail Safety and Access Improvements Project will improve the railroad crossing at Embarcadero West and Oak Street for emergency vehicle access, pedestrians, and other vehicles. The project needs to acquire 992 square feet of property at the corner of 260 Oak Street and the acquisition of the easement will be funded through previously accepted and appropriated grant funding including CALSTA assembly bill 128 grant funds.

Excellent. Let's hear from our speakers please.

Thank you. Calling in our public speakers, Ms. Asada and Kevin Dolly.

Kevin Dally. I think this is an exciting project. It's a route that I would use cycling to and from the Amtrak station right in the neighborhood. I think this is part of the parking lot in front of it, but I'm not a 100% positive. Probably doesn't require tearing the building down. In that case, it it seems like an easy yes. I'm looking forward to having having a safer route across the tracks.

Okay. So this was being purchased for Eastmont for public right of way street, and this has to do with a railroad crossing, right? Railroad crossing, alright. So I looked up who is responsible, and when you have railroads, the the railroad owner has certain responsibilities, and the city has certain responsibilities. So as far as this project is is concerned, it says we are responsible for maintenance, the the keeping up of the road leading up to the tracks, ensuring traffic safety is in place.

So what are we doing here? Is this officially our responsibility or what we're talking about includes the railroad owner making a contribution as well is is is what I'm trying to concern. Because after the what happened with the $700,000 for the Oakland roots facility that was supposed to be shared by the city of Alameda and the city of Berkeley, we ended up paying the whole $700,000. So the only point I'm trying to make is, are we officially responsible for everything, or is the railroad owner also making a contribution? That's that's the only thing I'm concerned about.

Okay. Okay. That concludes your public speakers for item four. Council member Wong.

Thanks. Through the chair. So this project is my district. First, just thank you for your work on this. This is a really important one both for economic development and, you know, goods movement from the port as well as just safety.

I noted something in your report about this rail corridor experiencing frequent delays from vehicles inadvertently stuck on the tracks which is terrifying to just grapple with. But my main question is just around you know, because this is not the first easement and compensation to the property owner that's come before us. How do we determine the value and how do we know that we're purchasing these things at a fair price to the city and the taxpayer?

Yeah. An appraisal was performed by our consultant and there's a full appraisal report as well. We didn't attach it to this document but it was provided to the owner.

Okay. Alright. Thanks. And I'll move to adopt staff recommendation on this one.

Okay. I will second it and then go to council member Gallo.

Yeah. Just for the public's information, again, is the expense will be covered by the railroad, state of California.

Oh, sorry. The expense will be covered by our grant funds, the CALSTA assembly bill one twenty eight.

The CALSTA. Mhmm.

Okay. CALSTA.

Alright. Thank you.

Thank you. We do have a motion made by council member Wong, seconded by the chair Anger to approve the recommendations to approve the recommendations established before deciding to the May 5 city council agenda on roll. Council member Gaia? Aye. Thank you. Council member Houston? Aye. Council member Wong? Aye. And chair Unger? Aye. The motion does pass with four ayes to approve the recommendations of staff and to for this item to the 05/05/2026 city council agenda. And through the body, would that be consent or non consent? Consent, please. Thank you.

Moving to item five. Adopt an ordinance one, reappealing ordinance number one two nine six zero and replacing it with the addition of Oakland municipal code chapter 15.8 to serve on the city's newfound flood flood lane management ordinance with the inclusion of the reference of the flood hazard maps to authorizing the city administrator to designate a flood plain administrator to administer and develop regulations in a support of the chapter and adopting appropriate sequel findings. And you do have three speakers for this item.

Good morning, chair Unger and members of the committee. Cece Moila, deputy director and chief building official with planning and building. Today, we're presenting the proposed flood plain management ordinance required for FEMA compliance and continued participation in the National Flood Insurance Program or the NFIP. The city participates in the national flood insurance program pursuant to federal regulations. Participation requires adoption and enforcement of local flood plain management regulations consistent with FEMA standards.

Specifically, FEMA requires local jurisdictions adopt and enforce minimum flood plain management regulations, and standards. Failure to adopt, compliant regulations could result in one or all of the following consequences, suspension from the NFIP, loss of access to flood insurance for Oakland residents located in the flood plain, ineligibility for certain federal disaster assistance for our constituents. And so today, we are looking to propose an update to our ordinance. FEMA periodically updates flood insurance rate maps also known as FIRMS and requires participating jurisdictions to adopt conforming ordinance as already mentioned. The city's existing regulations require updating reflect current FEMA mapping and regulatory requirements related to building code standards.

Currently, peer jurisdictions including the cities Francisco, San Jose, Sacramento, and Los Angeles have recently updated their flood plain regulations to incorporate FEMA requirements and additional resilience measures such as freeboard and enhanced permitting standards. Adoption of this proposed ordinance is necessary to maintain the city of Oakland's participation in the NFIP which enables owners to obtain federally backed flood insurance and ensures eligibility for certain forms of federal disaster assistance. This ordinance updates the Oakland municipal code to reflect current FEMA regulations and best practices that are adopted and, and a comparable to California jurisdictions. And we have worked quite extensively with, the city attorney's office as well as the public works department and the state department, so that we can make sure that our ordinance aligns appropriately with FEMA standards. The proposed amendment established updated building and construction standards including elevation and flood proofing requirements.

It clarifies our permitting procedures for development within special flood hazard areas while enhancing climate resilience and protecting vulnerable communities. And it aligns with the city's local hazard mitigation plan as well as it designates administrative authority for implementation of the ordinance and building and construction standards. So there is no fiscal impact. However, adoption prior to or no later than 05/26/2026 is required by FEMA. Failure to adopt, federal and state compliant floodplain management regulations does result in loss of access to federally backed funding for our constituents.

It does increase potentially disaster recovery costs and it could potentially adverse have adverse impacts on property values. So staff's recommending adoption of the proposed ordinance as it achieves compliance while maintaining reasonable development standards and authorize the city administrator or designee to take actions necessary to implement the ordinance and maintain compliance with NFIP requirements. This proposed ordinance will have two readings, one on May 5 and one on May 19. Thank you.

Alright. This sounds like critical timeline important so I will move this item. Alright, let's hear from Do we have any questions from our colleagues here?

Thank you. Through the chair. Just one thing I was wondering because I remember looking actually at a FEMA flood risk map about a year ago and it did strike me that wide swaths of our flatlands are at actually pretty high percentile risk for flooding. I think the attachment for the rate map just it didn't provide like the before and after. Do you happen to know like what the changes are? And and also just wanna thank you for tracking and monitoring this and making sure that we get ahead of this before the deadline.

Yes. Thank you. Through the chair, we do have city attorney Brian Murray on Zoom that can walk us through the maps online but also my colleague Terry Fashion is here and she could provide an update on the mapping as well.

City attorney Brian, you may unmute yourself and begin.

Good afternoon through the chair. Brian Mowry from the city attorney's office. I can share my screen. I think I need to send a request though, and I can show an example of a map. The maps are done in panels, and so I can show one panel in Oakland.

I I can tell you that one of the panel shows, Saucele Creek, and many of the properties along Saucele Creek as it goes through District, 5 and District 4 are in the flood prone area. So that's, you know, properties in that area would be, you know, obviously wanna make sure they have flood insurance and so that that's what this ordinance would enable. Also, as you may imagine, along the Jack London Square area and the new residential development in Brooklyn Basin is also covered as well as Estuary Park, which we are, you know, in the process of developing as a community benefit for the city. So those are areas that, you know, do you know, would be would benefit from flood insurance and I'll try to share my screen here. Okay.

So here's here's an example. We know it. So the brown is a 0.1 to 0.2% which actually is is by FEMA standards a high percentage chance of flooding in an annual in a year. So that you'll see a long Jack London. The the blue shading is where there's even a higher percentage chance of flooding because it's at base water elevation.

So you see along the channel, you know, and as the channel spills out toward Jack London Square, And then you you also see Estuary Park area, Clinton Basin, and all of the new development at Brooklyn Basin as well as the Park Township Commons in that area out there as well. So that's this is one panel. You'd have to go you go to FEMA's website and then you pull the panel sections of the city of Oakland, but you can see that these are the flood prone areas and then I can I also have a panel map showing Sausal Creek as well and I can share that?

Are

you sharing something else?

I should be sharing do you all see it?

No. Okay. Hold on a second.

Here we go. It's going to share momentarily. And, again, you've you've we're limited a little bit in this view because you've gotta take it in panel sections, but you'll see all along Sawsel Creek, this residential area. And as it extends downward in the next panel, it's also seen as a, high risk area as well. So in East Oakland here, these residences would all be affected.

And where it's actually important and there's practical import is if we don't have a compliant ordinance on file, then anyone who buys a home and goes to get a federally backed mortgage needs to show federal flood insurance. And so we you know, the city has to be enrolled in this program in order for federally backed flood insurance if you're getting a federal federally backed mortgage.

Okay. Thank you for that Brian. Council member Houston, question?

Yes. I'm not sure if it's a question or just a statement. It's real interesting. It's raining now and I got a text and I received a text that said, send me the website on how to contact the city of Buffalo. I totally forgot. I was totally flooded out again. Does this, address drainage issues too, similar to what, was repaired at Tyrone Carney Park? It was a serious, drainage issue over there. This is just flooding. This has nothing to do with drainage.

I believe this is for more catastrophic flooding.

It is. Yes. Through the chair. Yes. Okay.

Alright.

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

Moving to our public speakers, Zach Thayer, Miss Asada, and Kevin Dolly.

So how you doing? How you doing again? So catastrophic fail flooding was never modeled in our tarp bailout program. When that deviates in Zion Bank to Fifth Third and asset holding, you can can show it in Bank of Marim to what was wondered in Wells Fargo Bank of America and SVB. How that models and allocation of capital shows it specifically in default loan abatements and shows it as collateral efficiency standards.

How I specifically have questions to that is not as a property owner, as a and but as a sales agent and a commercial litigant, as a patent holder for free fishing docks where hydro turbines two free fishing docks, solar panels sit on top of the hydro turbine, and the generator, you call it left labia, right labia, don't understand gender differences in the top. If that was the view of the state, I wouldn't be asking abatement and zoning and planning based on the allocation of capital to the view of the state, to the view of allocation of resources. I I am a personal person. I am

an

individual, but I am also a patent holder and a commercial entrepreneur. That that is my personal abatement. In the view of James Hunt Merkel v the office of the impeachment of the president, I do own a patent where that was supposed to be wondered across the city, state, and county, where I could ask that commercial enterprises. In the view of protection against my life, there were orange bu buoys that sit on the city of Alameda is a receiver and a canister that is the same great design of the airplane when once you head out onto the base. That is specific in view of proclamations of the articles of impeachment.

Thank you.

Catastrophic. So there's nothing more catastrophic than what happened with Coliseum Connection apartment complex in 2023 when a 110 units had to be evacuated because of stone drain blockage. They tried to act like the developer was at fault, but what was at fault was the drain system failed and the water went into the building and caused a lot of problems. But the whole solution was on the back of the the developer when it was the city's draining system didn't happen. So here in Oakland, catastrophically, it could be a big issue for West Oakland.

This year 37.1% of the properties have risk of flooding. The primary areas of flooding in Oakland are along the shoreline of the San Francisco Bay, the Oakland Esquiry, and San Leandro Bay. But in East Oakland, we have flooding of what I consider catastrophic in Havens Court, the South Of Eastmont along the 66th Avenue, and large areas near 880. So don't you didn't bring up all of these areas in the inner city where poor people live and black people and Latino people live, but we acting as if this is targeted, but it's bigger than that. So catastrophic is anybody that can potentially lose their property or have damage to their property.

And I don't think we covered everybody that could be under this banner of being harmed by flooding.

Kevin Dally. Appreciate the information on areas at risk of flooding. Is there information how does FEMA look at the future of climate change and how that affects the flooding risk? Is it looking at current data ten years out, fifty years out, and what areas might be included that aren't currently included? Previous item, 260 Oak Street, it's right on the edge of the flood plain, and I know Capitol Corridor is well within it.

Capitol Corridor definitely has plans of mitigating the risk possibly moving or raising the tracks. What is Oakland doing in this area to not only look at the risk of flooding but do something to reduce the risk. Brooklyn Basin, why was it allowed without clear funding, flooding risk plans back, what was it, ten or fifteen years ago? And what will we do with future development in areas that are currently in the floodplain, including future Brooklyn Basin, but areas also that will be in the flood plain as ocean levels rise. Thanks.

We do have a motion made by council member Unger, seconded by council member Gallo to approve the recommendations of staff and to forward this item to the 05/05/2026 city council agenda unroll. Council member Gallo? Thank you. Councilmember Houston? Aye. Thank you. Councilmember Wong? Aye. And chair Unger? Aye. This motion does pass with four ayes to approve the recommendations established before this item to the 05/05/2026 city council agenda due to body. Would that be on consent or non consent?

Consent, please.

Thank you. Moving to item six. Adopt a resolution one approving the ongoing cooperative purchase agreements exceeding $250,000 for Oakland Public Works Bureau of Maintenance Internal Services, commodity goods and services contracts as outlined in table one in an amount not to exceed, 16,815,000, and two, adopting appropriate CEQA findings. And you do have two speakers for this item.

All right. Let's hear from mister please.

Thank you, chair Unger, committee, city staff. I'm Richard Battersby. I'm the assistant director of the Bureau of Maintenance Internal Services of Oakland Public Works, primarily comprised of four divisions, facilities, equipment services, sewer, and storm drain. And through the chair, council member Houston, if you'd like to advise your constituent with flooding, submit a request through Oak three one one, and I can follow-up through it then with the storm drain division. We're kinda busy, but this is what we do.

I'm here today to talk to you about equipment services. And the agenda report and resolution before you is for 33 contracts in the amount of $16,000,000. And these are critical contracts necessary for ongoing repair and maintenance operations, fuel, equipment and commodity supplies, some communication equipment, software. It's the full spectrum of services we need to operate equipment services. And some of these contracts will actually be used by other departments or will use other department funding if the amount seems pretty excessive.

Our strategy lately has been to ask for contract capacity that will last, that's sustainable because due to staffing issues, we find ourselves forced to outsource more activities lately. This particular agenda report is kind of unique and I just was going to give you it's got some actual performance metrics and data in it related to the contracts. I wanted to just share some performance metrics related to why these contracts are so critical. And with me here today before I jump into that, I've got the acting equipment services manager, Angelo Fulan. In case I wander into any minefields or get in water over my head, he's gonna save me.

And I wanted to acknowledge Erica Vasquez who's our management assistant who prepared this agenda report along with our colleagues in purchasing city attorney and risk management. We find ourselves at unique convergence of crises with the staffing snarl that you heard a lot about last week and now we have what I'm calling the contract crisis. And fundamentally what's happening is because we don't have the internal staff, the mechanics, and service workers to perform the work, we find ourselves having to outsource more. What that means in the real world is we have five vacancies or frozen positions in heavy equipment mechanic or service worker currently And we've also had those positions reduced by I think five FTE. So we're short staff on the floor which means we have to outsource to third party vendors, some of which you will see in this agenda report.

Unfortunately, that costs about 50 to a 150% more and it incurs more downtime. But this is the environment we operate in. Currently and at any given time, this could be accurate and these are not solicited data points. These are issues that were brought to externally. We have 13 sewer and storm drain flusher trucks in the fleet between sewer and storm drain.

Right now, 12 are unavailable. We have a single sewer flusher truck available to respond to any flooding emergencies or even more importantly, sewer sanitary sewer overflows. We're under a federal consent decree, and we have no leeway responding to sewer overflows. So this is actually a critical situation where we've been forced to rent one flusher truck, and they cost about $14,000 a month. And we're considering renting a second one.

Out of the 17 street the street sweeper fleet of 17 vehicles, typically, we average eight to 10 available on any given day. So we're running about a 50% availability rate on street sweepers. Out of the nine animal services truck, we've got seven available, maybe eight. I'm not sure if they got the nail out of the tire that Joe DeVries was bringing to my attention. We have two lightning loaders in service with KOCB, keep Oakland clean and beautiful.

These are our force multiplier dealing with illegal dumping. At any time, we could have both of those vehicles unavailable and and not able to respond. And then finally, and perhaps more critically, as we approach overnight and weekend shifts, I've noted we have a single ready reserve fire department apparatus with no spares. And these are situations that cause me a great deal of alarm. And I'm hoping that the council recognizes and can help work with us and other city staff to find a solution.

Contributing to the issue is there's been no significant vehicle replacements in the last four years other than the 78 Oakland Police Department patrol vehicles that we were able to requisition, which proved quite problematic to bring into services. So you can kinda see because of the staffing issues, we were having to outsource more, having to have more contracts. And that's why we've got a list of 33 contracts in front of you. And you will probably see me, probably not before the end of the fiscal year because there's not time, but you will see me in the future coming before you to talk about contracts. And, oh, by the way, with those five vacant or frozen FTEs in the mechanic positions, we've got requisitions submitted for all of those.

So I'm here to answer any questions you might have.

Colleagues, questions? Council member Gao.

Thank you for that information, and, certainly, this is long overdue. And what what is holding up the one is filling the mechanic positions. I mean, we drive by whether it's at the Coliseum Public Works yard or at the other yard, and and you see a good number of trucks, vehicles, fire trucks that are sitting there waiting for service. And then here we're talking about, you know, illegal dumping in a beautiful city, in a safe city, but we don't have the vehicles or tools to get the job done. So what what what I mean, what is it that what is it that this council working with administration need to do to get the tools necessary to do all the policies and and all the statements we're making about having a clean, city.

So what is it that's missing today that we need to take action to replace the vehicles, service the vehicles, to service our streets. What's holding us up?

Yep. Through the chair. Thank you, council member Gayo. I think as we heard last week, our colleagues in DHRM need additional staff and resources just to churn through the volume of vacancies that they have currently. I don't know if that means they necessarily need to have to hire FTE. It kinda feels to me like they need an all hands on deck. Maybe look at outsourcing some temporary help. For us on the mechanic shop, it's not so easy. I wish there was a temporary help solution for mechanics, but there isn't. We just have to hire full time FTE or explore ELDE or TCSE opportunities, which are less attractive to mechanics in this market who pretty much can get a job wherever they wanna work. But

okay. Okay. So this is not the first time that we brought this issue before the council. Right? And but but I need the vehicles to have a clean city. And, certainly, I need the the mechanics. I don't need more administrators to doing more talking and walking around because I never see one of them pounding me pick up piece of trash in the neighborhood. But yet they're gonna tell me how to do it. So what how do I I mean, what is it that this council needs to do to get the vehicles and the personnel necessary to have a clean city?

Yeah. Again, thank you. Through the chair, clearly funding is an issue. I understand we're operating in a a resource constrained environment. So working with our colleagues in finance, we're exploring potential funding opportunities.

We've also gone out, seeking grants to help us acquire equipment. But there aren't that many vehicle related grants available. We've been very successful, being awarded grants for electric vehicle charging and infrastructure. I think fundamentally, we need to figure out what our priority is and then, have a collaboration to determine how best do we move forward. I think we've got some great plans, to tackle illegal dumping. But I am concerned, and I hope it came across presentation today. I am concerned that we will not have the necessary vehicle and equipment support to sustain this.

Yep.

All of our mechanics are working as much overtime as they can handle and frankly, they're turning down overtime opportunities. So I just you know, I wish if it was an easy solution, I think we would have had it, council member Gallo.

Thank you. Well, I'll go ahead and follow-up because, you know, we can do a lot of talking about a safe, clean city, but I don't have the tools and the personnel to get the job done. And that's a reality, city administration. And, you can make all the policies you want, but take a drive down the Colosseum Way and look at the parking lot with all the trucks sitting there. And then the mechanics, where are they?

Well, sir, I can't repay we lost a lot of mechanics that retired. And so but anyways, I'll follow-up because it's not the first time we've heard this report about not having vehicles, not just for public works. But you go and you look at the police vehicles that are damaged sitting there, that we have to go rent out a police vehicle to be able to provide the public safety. And so I will follow-up, and thank you for that information. It's not your first time presenting this, but certainly being out there every day and not just talking about a clean city, but being out there with personnel that we need to get the job done.

And so I value the work of our employees, but we need to give them the tools. We need to give them the tools and vehicles to get the job done and not just create more policy after more policy. And, and that's what's missing here in the city of Oakland. Thank you for that information.

Thank you. I think that's a compelling argument for this, item.

Yes. The administrator. And through the chair, council member Gallo, public works will be bringing, a very welcome, I think, item to you shortly, which is spending for a spending plan for vehicles, around illegal dumping. So stay tuned. Coming shortly.

Well, you know, we've been waiting, hearing about the need for many, many months and years now, and we're still talking about it. Alright. Thank you.

Council member Wong.

Thank you. So first, I I know that director Garland had reached out to me and said that he had picked up on a number of my comments around needing more metrics. I know especially around the cooperative agreements, must say that I've seen a lack of data that justifies enormous contract expenditures. This is the first time I've seen this. So I do want to just thank the administration for listening to those comments and providing that.

I mean, especially because this is a lot of money that's being requested at $16,800,000. My other question is just when it comes to the funding source there's a number of equipment funds noted. Are these tied to the general fund or where are we getting this revenue that goes into each of these funding codes?

Through the chair. Thank you for the question. The majority of the funding is going to be from within the 4,100 fund equipment services, internal service fund. But as I mentioned, some of the other expenditures could come from other department fundings. And just as an example, we've got clean energy fuels.

They're our renewable natural gas provider. Multiple departments will be contributing to that particular line item. When it comes to enterprise rental car, again, most of the rental cars come from external departments using the equipment services contract. Golden Gate or excuse me, Golden State Emergency Vehicle Service and Golden State Fire Apparatus Incorporated, Oakland Fire Department utilizes that vendor as well. Hunt and Sons, their bulk lubricant, primarily that's in equipment services, but other departments purchase off that as well.

Same with LaCal equipment, Leer Auto equipment, their patrol vehicle equipment upfitting and supplies. I'm not gonna read them all. Telepath, again, Motorola products. So we're talking about the MDTs, the mobile data terminals, and potentially radios for OPD. The 16,000,000 is not all within the 4,100 fund equipment services fund. It will be utilized by other departments as well.

Okay. Yes. Yes. And because public works is essentially almost like a provider of fleet, know maintenance, all of that across the departments and I gathered that from this report. I think, I mean I really do wanna dig into this whole hiring crisis that we're having.

I don't know if this is the correct way to estimate the billable labor hours. So it states in the report 52,300 billable labor hours. If we take 16,800,000 and divide that, that's 321 per hour. That probably doesn't account for, you know, the cost of purchasing certain equipment and all of that. So I want to acknowledge that as, you know, flawed math but to your own point, it's a 150% higher than compared to doing that in house.

One of the things that HR has pointed out is, or from their perspective, let's call it that, that departments have not been submitting requisitions. Do you have a perspective on that coming from the public work side of things? I noted in the HR vacancy report that public works has an 18% or 17 to 18% vacancy rate and what is preventing the hiring of more of these positions into public works?

Yep. Thank you for the question through the chair. Again, I think it's a staffing, a resource limitation at DHRM. Our requisitions are in frankly sometimes before the employees even departed if we try to get them to issue us a letter of resignation. It's very important. We track it very closely in public works and actually had a meeting about it this morning just to ensure that we weren't dropping the ball. That being said, DHRM is overwhelmed by the significant number of vacancies. And when faced with a challenge like this, I think you just have to tackle it at the beginning and work through it to the end. Their staffing augmentation, obviously, we can't staff for peaks. We're in the same situation in public works.

So we try to have additional resources like some of these vendors you see here. They accommodate peak need within, public works, especially especially the the equipment equipment services services shop. Shop. Perhaps there's some sort of an arrangement with the HRM or some sort of alliances with other municipalities in the area who maybe aren't in the same boat. I kinda feel like everybody is in the same boat though. Those that's about as creative as I can get in my expert opinion. I think DHRM is is doing a fantastic job with the resources that they've got, but they just need some help so they can help us.

Okay. Thank you.

Council member Houston.

Question. Good morning. I wanted to find out out of these 32 vendors. I couldn't find their addresses. Are they Oakland vendors?

Through the chair. Council member Houston, we on the table in here, I I think we noted three are with when within Oakland. I was hoping we would have the actual municipality in which these vendors are located because quite a few of them are in close proximity to Oakland. But this is something we're paying a lot of attention to, and I I don't wanna divert too much from this agenda report. But moving forward, you're going to see more RFPs coming out of our shop and less co op.

The co op, you're limited to the vendor that's established that contract already either with another municipality, which probably means it's not within Oakland or a government purchasing organization, a GPO such as Sourcewell or HGAC. Going to the RFP model, we found is actually faster than working coops through the procurement process, and it will give more opportunities for Oakland based business to bid on these contracts because we want Oakland based vendors supporting us hopefully as much, if not more than than you. And I know you're the strongest advocate I've seen so far for local Oakland based businesses.

Thank you. I just wanted to know because I was looking at these and we're gonna be talking about it later on today at, Life Enrichment. So thank you for your your your your service.

Council member Gayle.

Yes. One more for the the members of the council here that are new to the council. Can you share with us right now, we're are we still leasing the Public Works yard from the Singh family for 3 to 5,000,000 a year? Because at one time, we were trying to merge with the Oakland Unified Facilities Department because they have the land and the space, But, politically, we got in mixed up with that. So how much are we still paying for the lease of that property to have our vehicles and everything there?

Yeah. Through the chair, I don't know the number off the top my head, and I'm not sure of the property owner, but that's correct. We leased the properties at 5050 Coliseum and 750 50th as well. I can get you that information shortly after this meeting if you like.

You could share that with the council members, that would be so we have an understanding the cost and the value when it comes to having a clean city, what we're investing in. Alright. Thank you.

Okay. Remind me where we are. We need to hear our speakers, public speakers. Right? Let's do that.

Thank you. And I'll call your name. Please approach to podium. Zach Thayer and miss Asada.

Hey, Zach. Yes. They're your fathers. I'm married. Oh, I'm j 50 Coliseum Drive. I don't know about you, but Sheldon Eldon Anderson's generation skipping the state wasn't enough to keep the raiders. Zodus and Dolores with the Upjohn Foundation wasn't enough to keep the ace. How much we wondered and a dev girls basketball team wasn't a commercial developer enterprise and took the forty niners championship away because of it. How this is wondered as the city Eaton Johnson Controls Seaman. I can't believe I've been asking this for over eight effing years to this board and to this city.

How this is wondered to the management and allocation in LKQ, you can scrap that more. How that is wondered more appropriately, what I wondered as LWR reactors is a seven twelve seven seventeen eighty compared to a thirteen twenty LWR, PWR based a pebble based reactor in natural gas. This community could do a hell of a lot better job. When this is an allocation, the other thing that I ask this community to consider, we do not how how the military bases wonder to diesel mechanic based jobs. All of diesel mechanic based programs at the city of Alameda College, at Berkeley College, at USFF College have been taken away and have been earmarked.

I can show that. How that is wondered to the Oasis commercial development to Ladira, I did propose with a five and an eight senior housing and a a residential housing and using the back application to fix fire trucks and diesel mechanic based program as a question. I did propose that. I did petition that as a county, as a commercial developer. I again ask that that be understood.

So this is an item that is called cooperative purchase agreement. And what does that mean? It means spend you're going to spend over $16,000,000 by bypassing the solicitation process. The solicitation process gives you an opportunity to look at cost comparative components, the possibility of spending less, and the possibility of having a better quality product. You're eliminating that.

To say we just gonna go with what we have without a performance evaluation of what you have. You also have, like you question, you have 33 vendors, only three are Oakland vendors. Of the 33 vendors, 16 contracts have expired. So what you're doing is you're giving money to companies that have a contract, the contract has not expired, but you've given them additional money. You also have, like in the case of Cal Line Equipment, that contract ended 09/30/2025.

When it ended, you had not used $15,513. All of these contracts, if you look at the data provided to you, they were given a contract for a certain amount of money, they didn't spend all of the money, they still have money left from the existing original contract, but you are now giving them more money even though they haven't spent the money that they originally were given. This doesn't make sense. It doesn't make sense. So

thank you for your comment, miss Lozada. That concludes your public speaker for item six.

Council member Houston, you have another question.

It just I just wanted to making some notes in this through the chair. Did we say three are from Oakland and the other 30 aren't? Was that what I just wanna make sure I got these numbers right in my head when I'm writing these notes down.

There's a table in the agenda report that indicates that. I looked at it right now. There's three that indicate they're from Oakland of of the 33. So

that bothers me. I mean, yeah, okay. Thank you.

Council member Wong.

Hi. Thanks to the chair. Funny thing I was starting to scrutinize those same timelines. Miss Asada, I just want to make sure because again this is a lot of money that is being asked for. I'll I'm just looking at the first line. For example, we've got Asset Works. It says that the end date is 08/31/2026. That's in a couple of months. The amount used at a one point about $2,000,000 contract is 694,000. They still have a balance and there's a proposed increase.

I don't see this being noted in the report. Are we extending the timelines for this or is are we giving more money to the vendor and their contract end date is still going to be the same here of August 31?

Yeah. Thank you for the question through the chair. Just to clarify adding contract capacity to a contract is not committing to spending with the vendor. It's giving us the ability to make those expenses should we need to do so. And we cannot increase an expired contract. We can't take any action on it. So I would assume including with the, increase is also an extension of that contract, but I don't have the information here in front of me. And I do believe that these, contract renewal processes were started a significant time ago. So some contracts were at the verge of expiring, some expired while we're working through the process. And then to the point where we are moving to an RFP model.

Let me say that again, we are moving to an RFP model. The co op model is too time consuming. Frankly, contracts that the council approved back in December 2025, including the ABC security contract that's set to it was just an extension until June, that just got approved this month in April and we have others that haven't. So the the the co op process just isn't working for our unit, so we are moving definitely to the RFP model, which will increase hopefully Oakland based company participation and thus awards to Oakland based companies.

Okay. Alright. And so just just to be crystal clear, ACCETWORKS will continue to do approval of this resolution means that ACCETWORKS, for example, will continue to do work for the city of Oakland for the public's works departments after 08/31/2026.

Yeah. Absolutely. Through the chair, AssetWorks is our fleet information system provider and provider of our automated fueling equipment where operators don't have to key in numbers or use cards, the sensors on the truck. So this is a vendor we've been committed to. They're pretty much, incorporated into our day to day operation, the fleet information system that issues all of our work orders, that integrates with our GPS system. That's all provided by AssetWorks. So they're not gonna go away anytime soon. We're not gonna start spending, additional funding with them. We just don't want to have to keep coming back to the committee and council because we didn't ask for a significant significant enough contract increase. As this is a lot of work to do these 33 contracts.

As you can imagine, we can't return every year trying to renew these.

Okay. Thank you for the clarification.

Council member Gaia?

Yes. I'd I'd like to to make a motion to approve staff's recommendation. And I appreciate the work, and let's get the work done on the streets. Thank you.

I will second the motion.

Thank you. We do have a motion made by council member Gallo, seconded by chair Unger to approve the recommendations of staff and to forward this item to the 05/05/2026 city council agenda. Council member Gaio? Aye. Council member Houston? No. Council member Wong? Aye. And chair Unger? Aye. We do have three ayes and one no. Houston, to approve the recommendations of staff and to forward this item to the 05/05/2026 city council agenda. And that will be on non consent. Thank you. Moving to item seven.

Non consent. He voted no.

Adopt a resolution one, amending resolution number eight eight three seven nine to increase the professional services agreement for architectural and engineering design services with k t k two a Mary McGrath associate associated architects for the Fire Station 29 project by an amount not to exceed $700,000, bringing the total contract amount from $1,800,000 to $2,500,000. Two, waiving the competitive request for proposal and qualification requirements. And three, adopting appropriate CEQA findings. And you do have one speaker for this item.

Alright. Let's hear from staff, please.

Good morning, chair Unger, members of the committee. My name is Alan Chan. I'm the current public works project manager for this item. Back in 2020, the city authorized k two a, Mary McGrath Architects, a joint venture local and small local business firm to design a new 16,000 square foot replacement on a city owned parcel at 905 66th Avenue. That contract was for an amount of $1,800,000.

Since then, the city directed the architect team to take on work that wasn't part of the original scope, utility relocation studies, environmental clearances, a significant level of community engagement that went beyond the scope, six community engagement sessions, a design workshop, 16 advisory meetings. Now after the community engagement was done and design was underway, the state and the city executed an agreement for the middle mile broadband initiative to construct a fiber hut on the project site. That agreement required us to pause design, conduct additional environmental review, and we coordinate the site civil and utility engineering. Now we accommodated the state's initiative because East Oakland has some of the lowest broadband connectivity rates in the city, and this project site was identified as a critical investment, critical node in the state's network. The delay was necessary to co locate two public investments on one city owned parcel, a new fire station and broadband infrastructure serving a community that needs both.

On top of all of that, the 2026 building code cycle required a structural and energy redesign and overhaul of the fire station. Additionally, we also had a large swath of easement conflicts on the site that needed new plats and legals. This $700,000 covers replenishment of fees slated for design support during construction that was consumed by the additional scope. Additionally, the new fee covers the code redesign, the easement work, and cost escalation from the extended schedule. We're also requesting the waiver of the competitive RFP process because k two a Mary McGrath Architects was competitive selected in 2020 for the planning, design, and construction administration of the fire station.

Bringing in a new firm at this point would delay the project and cost the city more money. Design is currently at 65%. And that concludes my talking points and I'm happy to answer any questions.

Excellent. Questions from my council colleagues. Council member Houston.

I'd like to move the item.

Okay. I'll second it. And we can hear from our public speakers, please.

Miss Asada?

I'm sorry. I was just telling your staff member how great her presentation was on the encampment policy. Yeah. She did a nice job. Alright. I'm concerned about this property in District 6. Let me see if I got this right, y'all. I am sorry I am sorry to get y'all off. Am sorry. There's some deficiencies at this station, lack of adequate space, seismic resilience, deferred maintenance, reasons why the system has deteriorated so long is because we haven't been effective in maintaining the property.

That's an issue. And so we can't avoid that. The code requirements that are gonna have to be put in place, can the report reduce the cost that's involved in that code requirement issue? The other thing is the design and construction administration, you have a design method that I forget the name for it, design lease, design bill, where one of them limits change orders. And has the city start using that method because that method brings in the contractor and the designer, they complete their role, then you bring it to the council with a price, and you can agree on the price or not agree on the price, but you don't wait for the project to proceed with all of these change ons.

And so you you look like you know what I'm talking about and I know this because the school board does this. Okay. Alright. That's the only thing. Trying to think of ways of money that can be saved if we use a design method that is starting to be used frequently to eliminate excessive change orders.

Thank

you to our speakers. I think we're ready to vote.

We have a motion made by council member Houston, seconded by chair Unger to approve the recommendations of staff and this is before to the 05/05/2026 city council agenda on roll. Council member Gallo? Aye. Council member Houston? Aye. Thank you. Council member Wong? Aye. And chair Unger? Aye. This motion does pass with four ayes to approve the recommendations of staff and to forward this item to the May 5 city council agenda and through the body, would that be on consent or nonconsent?

Consent, please.

Thank you. Moving to item eight. Receive an informational report on the status of city compliance with the municipal regional storm water permit trash reduction requirements, and you do have two speakers for this item.

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

Ben Livesey, watershed program specialist in the watershed and stormwater management division of the public works department. I have a short presentation for you today. As directed by this committee, each year we provide a progress update on the municipal regional storm water permit trash reduction requirements, changes to these requirements, and any forecasted challenges ahead on meeting future requirements. I'll refer to the permit as the MRP in this presentation. Trash on the streets of Oakland can be washed into the storm drain system and end up in waterways such as Courtney Creek sorry, Cortland Creek and Lake Merritt where it affects both water quality and aquatic life such as those shown in the picture of Lake Merritt at the bottom of this slide.

The MRP is issued by the San Francisco Bay Regional Water Quality Control Board and requires the city to prevent pollution from entering waterways through the city's storm drains. The city takes enormous efforts to meet these regulations, not just for water quality but also for the quality of life of the citizens of Oakland. Last fiscal year, the city achieved the 100% trash reduction compliance requirement. However, the MRP became more stringent this fiscal year and now it eliminates several trash reduction categories the city has relied upon including product bans such as plastic bags, a problematic litter source, phases out other categories such as volunteer creek and shoreline cleanups, and credits for illegal dumping and homeless encampment abatement cleanups. Based on these reductions in trash compliance compliance credits, we currently stand at 79.3%.

It should be noted here that on page one of the agenda report, it incorrectly lists our current trash reduction status as 75.1. We expect to reach 85.1 at the end of this reporting year, which is short of the 100% trash reduction requirement. At the 2025, we provided update to the regional water board as required by the MRP and let them know we needed more time to achieve compliance with the 100% trash reduction benchmark. Staff have been working with the regional water board and expect that we will have until December 2030 to achieve the 100% trash reduction benchmark. To achieve compliance, we plan on expanding existing trash reduction programs such as illegal dumping and street sweeping, installing 300 to five twenty five additional small trash capture devices in the storm drain system, and in partnership with Caltrans, installing three more large trash capture systems.

An ongoing challenge for the city is the maintenance of hundreds of trash capture devices to prevent clogging, continued implementation of existing trash cleanup efforts, and adapting to future regulations. So how is compliance determined? The 100% trash reduction compliance benchmark is related to a trash generation rate developed in 2009. Trash generation is a term to describe the levels of trash deposited onto land areas that could potentially be transported to storm drain systems and waterways. For example, the picture on the right shows trash in the curb and gutter that during rain events would be washed into the storm drain and deposited to water bodies such as Lake Merritt and the Oakland Estuary.

Here's what the baseline trash map looks like. Each color corresponds to a trash generation level. Red is very high, orange high, yellow moderate, and green low. The trash generation rate for every part of the city was calculated using a formula that includes land use classifications, median household income, and observed trash levels. As you can see, areas of high density, commercial land uses, and transit corridors such as Market Street, Grand Avenue, and West McArthur generate very high levels of trash.

At the end of twenty twenty five, we provided sorry. New actions such as the installation of trash capture devices or enhanced online activities such as illegal dumping and other litter cleanup efforts are compared against this benchmark to determine MRP compliance credits. The city must install additional trash capture devices to achieve the 100% trash load reduction requirement. We install large devices such as the one shown on the upper right under Mandela Parkway completed in 2024 that removes trash from a 600 acre area. The picture on the bottom right shows a large trash capture device with significant amounts of beverage containers and food fast food debris that would otherwise be transported to water bodies.

As discussed, the city will be installing three additional large trash capture devices in the next few years with Caltrans funding. Here you can see an example of a small trash capture device called connector pipe screen. The trash flows into the device and clean storm water flows out. These small screens are secured in storm drain inlets and while they are relatively cheap to install, they clean smaller areas and have a high maintenance cost compared larger devices. The city receives a large amount of trash reduction credit, currently 56.1, from existing programs such as those listed on the slide.

To calculate trash reduction credit in this category, the city must conduct on land visual trash assessments of streets and sidewalks and compare the results against the 2,009 baseline trash levels discussed earlier. Earlier. Actions the city takes such as illegal dumping abatement and street sweeping result in cleaner conditions providing valuable trash reduction credit. As described earlier, we expect to be at 85.1% this incoming reporting year based on full trash capture device installations and continued implementation of other land control trash control measures. We will need to make up 14.9% trash reduction credit by 2030.

There are many challenges to achieving and maintaining 100% trash reduction benchmark. One challenge will be to maintain hundreds of trash capture devices two times per year in high and very high trash generating areas. Another will be to maintaining the existing level of effort for on land cleanup actions such as illegal dumping, abatement and street sweeping. Finally, the Regional Water Board is working on the next iteration of the MRP. Provisions in this new permit could impose more costly requirements to track and prevent trash and storm water.

If you want to learn more about trash reduction compliance programs or other actions the city is taking to meet the MRP, you can read through our MRP annual reports posted on our website. These annual reports provide a comprehensive summary of how the city is doing in meeting its storm water quality regulations. Thank you. I'm happy to answer any questions you have.

That's great. I like the sound of a 100% trash reduction. Colleagues, questions? Council member Gayo.

Yes. Thank you for that information. I tend to walk with my family at least once a week at Lake Merritt and known Lake Merritt for a lifetime and certainly haven't seen it at this condition that it is today. It was always the jewel of Oakland. It was the cleanest, safest location that we can take our children and families to.

Walk around it day in, day out, the lighting and all that other. And and we anyway, so what what is what what is holding us I mean, the trash in the water as you walk around the lake is out of control around the whole lake. And what what is it that we need to do to bring it back to a condition where it was clean on the regular basis? Yeah. Yeah.

Thank you, council member Gaye. For Lake Merritt specifically, we prioritized the installation of additional small trash capture units throughout the city, based on trash reduction credit we can receive. We will be citing that'll be between three to 525 additional trash capture units, some of which would be around Lake Merritt. Of course, those trash capture units only capture trash that goes through the storm drain system. As you know, around Lake Merritt, have the walking path and the biking path Yeah. Where sometimes trash is directly deposited in the lake.

Yeah.

We also have a work with the Lake Merit Institute who helps to remove trash and through their volunteer network. So, hopefully, over time, we can, you know, work towards creating that, jewel that you speak of back to that condition.

You know, working with the volunteers, is that on schedule? Because it used to be that you would see us on a boat on a regular basis cleaning it up. Right? Picking up the bottles, the trash all around Lake Merritt. So I'd like to, you know, if you can share that with us, I'd like to go back and join that effort, you know, that that you would have volunteers cleaning it up so it doesn't look as bad as it is today. Anyways, thank you. I look forward to working with you on that project. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah.

Council member Wong.

Thank you. By the way, this presentation was, very well put together. I think the visuals really help illustrate what your intent is. I do have a question. So in 2024, since this is related to the EPA, the EPA fined us about $280,000 because we were dumping raw sewage into our waterways. Has that been resolved?

Through the chair, this is Tribute Macht acting assistant director. I'm my permanent position is a principal civil engineer in charge of the sewer program. It was actually a 2014 sewer consent decree that we we started with with the EPA as well as the state water control board. And right now it's we're still in the middle of the consent decree. It ends in 2036.

We're currently fully pretty much compliant with the annual goals that we have with maybe a little bit of a shortfall in rehabilitation of our sewer system. But we're we're constantly working on replacing our pipes and reducing sanitary sewer overflows through the maintenance program. It's an annual report that we also provide and look out for an upcoming informational report about the consent decree progress.

Great. Thank you. I look forward to that presentation. And then the next question I just have is around so I have issues in my district. Will say that large swaths of District 2 were in that red map that you showed.

Again alarming but very helpful and informative. But where the trash is actually accumulating over the storm drain and so it's not actually even getting into the storm drain itself and what it's causing is flooding. And I get concerned because it is dangerous because you see cars have to drive out of the way. It's this kind of safety concern I have. So do you all have plans or how can we solve that type of trash that remains at the surface?

Yeah. So through some of our online cleanup efforts such as street sweeping that would get the trash from that curb and gutter area, that could prevent some of that clogging. Our drainage maintenance department does address, you know, the need to inspect every storm drain throughout the city once per year. And so hopefully over time that could reduce flooding. As well as, you know, when flooding does occur, you know, citizens should report it through our 311 system to make sure that we're aware of that. And we also have our adopt a drain network where citizens can adopt a drain and essentially help to keep it clean to prevent flooding.

Okay. I did not know about these programs. And they basically adopt a drain to help maintain it and clean up the trash that accumulates over these drains?

Yeah. So both the trash and leaf and other debris that could clog the actual drop inlet structure and and Okay. Develop flooding problems.

And it sounds like there's no existing technology that or infrastructure improvements that can help solve that that issue other than what you've just

named? Yeah. Hello.

Through the chair. Thank you chair Unger. I'm Terry Fashing. I'm the division manager for the watershed and storm water division. We are working on a storm drainage master plan right now where we're really looking at the entire storm drainage system and identifying locations where the pipes are undersized and then recommending projects to increase capacity.

So sometimes we do it is a capacity issue and then other times it could be a clogging issue, you know, and it really just depends on where in the system you are. But we will be our plan is to complete that study and we'll be presenting to the council on that. We'll actually provide a bit of an update I think in June But, then the full results of that of that plan and that study will be provided probably in early twenty twenty seven.

Okay. Gotcha. Thank you so much.

Council member Houston.

Yes. Thank you. Through the chair, is you guys did a trash collection on Cary Avenue in in D 7, and it's right around address of what, 659 Cary With A C. My question was, like supervisor Nate Miley always says that illegal dumping has no boundaries and I always say that illegal dumping is a crime against my community. And, not like like, you know, Lake Merritt and other areas that are further up, their illegal dumping is a little different than District 56, And 7.

Right? So, I wanted to find out, do you guys identify the items that are collected so we'll know, contaminated and hazardous, items that are collected? And on that collection that was on was that the smaller one or the larger one?

Through the chair. Thank you for the question. Yeah. So on Cary Avenue, it was a large trash capture device that does capture trash that goes through the storm drain system. For illegal dumping materials, we know some of that cannot get into the storm drain system. Maybe it's large mattresses or even refrigerators, other things. And so when Keep Oakland Clean and Beautiful, when they do pick up illegal dumping piles, they do do things to characterize that or to identify things that could be hazardous that the Oakland Fire Department might need to deal with. So the trash capture device on Cary Avenue is a large trash capture device, but it only captures trash that goes through the storm drain system.

So, through the chair, let me educate you just a little bit, not in a bad way, just in a good way. The things that are dumped, the needles, the batteries, the asbestos, all these things go out. I mean, I have data to back that up. Right? So I wanted to know all those things are small things that go in the drain. I've cleaned them out. Right? I use the sweat process with the bottles and the and the strainers and things like that. And I know it's collected because it's going through the actual drain. And when I pull out the the screen, you have needles, you have batteries, you have trip chipping a bestow, so whatever.

All these hazardous and contaminated. So I wanted to know the things that do go through those drains, you know, the oils, the the it's so see, my district is totally different. Like I said, no boundaries. They have no boundaries, right, what they dump. So I wanted to know those items that are collected and that the the the small items, are they identified on what is actually being dumped near the drains that are being collected so we'll have that data. Because data is everything. I've I worked with the county and they made me do everything with data. Right? So is that data collected so we know what's being dumped and collected in my district which is a crime against my community?

Through the chair. Thank you for your question, council member. We don't characterize on an individual cleanup event what types of trash are in that. We do collect information on the volume of material that's collected. So it could be we collect in gallons.

And so we do have that material. We do have that data. In the past, through the municipal regional storm water permit, we did studies on the types of trash that we see on the street, whether it's plastic bags, cigarette butts, food, fast food containers, things of that nature. That was done on a region wide level, so the nine barrier counties that encompass the San Francisco Bay region. That has been done in the past, but we do not collect the information, that you're speaking to on an individual cleanup event, what types of material that we're finding.

Okay. And what last question? Through the chair, when you say cleanup event, does that mean was collected and gathered out of that that that unit?

Through the chair, yes.

Okay. Okay. Alright. Thank you.

Okay. Let's hear from our public speakers, please.

Miss Asada and Kevin Dolly.

So when I was volunteering at McClyman's picking up trash, there was a homeless person across the street with a camper and he would use the drain as his bathroom waste disposal system. And so his human waste was going in there and at some point it created a stench that was horrible. So I'm saying all of that to say from that experience I'm assuming that it's a possibility that we have from our homeless community and maybe others, human waste going into those drains. And is that a issue for concern health wise, contamination of the waters wise? I don't know.

I think a little bit more work can be done because I did I was gonna offer that we need to create like Oakland Beautiful, you know, clean your drain. But he's saying there's a a program I didn't know about it, but maybe we need to do a little bit more outreach to people. I have a drain outside my house and whenever I go out, I look for trash and I look at the drain, if there's something there, I pick it up. That's automatic. But we gotta change the culture of responsibility of our people who live in this city.

You contribute to helping to keep this city clean and safe. It's just not the city's responsibility. And once you take on that responsibility, we're gonna have a whole lot more effectiveness. What concerned me in the report, it says that SAES are confident that the compliance target will be met. However, maintaining compliance targets will be challenging since there is not adequate or sustainable funds for ongoing maintenance of underground full trash capture. So looks like the report is saying we got a funding component that we need to deal with and how will we deal with it.

Hi. Kevin Dally. Appreciate the report. In Glenview, some of the storm drains don't have grates. They just have horizontal bars that are many inches apart. I think that's more likely to lead to trash going into the storm drain. It's also risk to cyclists and pedestrians because you suddenly have a multi inch drop on what looks like smooth asphalt. I know that not only Glenview has those around East 38. I've seen them in Rockridge as well, and I suspect quite a few other neighborhoods. Are they going to be replaced as Oakland goes through this, storm drain improvement, process?

Thanks.

Okay. I would like to move this item.

I second it.

Council member Gaia, would you have a comment? Yes. Yes.

I just wanna share one more comment with the Jerry Brown was mayor of the city. He hired me to be the parks manager for the city. And but he said, Noel, I'm gonna locate you at Lake Merritt. I want Lake Merritt to be the cleanest, safest spot in the city of Oakland, but I'm gonna give you a pickup truck. And every day, you gotta come back for your pickup truck loaded with stuff you picked up from Lake Merritt.

So I think we gotta get into that attitude that if I'm there working at the lake, we gotta maintain it. Because even the park rangers used to help me keep the lake clean. But I you know, it's but getting back our personnel that's sitting there, make sure that that lake is clean daily because the, you know, the people that I see walking when I'm out there walking, many some come from out of town, but most of them are with children and families, and and we gotta have a a safe, clean lake to enjoy. And I'll be happy to work with you on that. Thank you.

Okay. We have a motion made by council member Unger chair Unger. Excuse me. Seconded by council member Houston to receive and file this in the Public Works and Transportation Committee. On roll, council member Gallo? Aye. Council member Houston? Aye. Thank you. Council member Wong? Aye. And chair Unger? Aye. This motion passes with four ayes to receive and file this in the Public Works and Transportation Committee. Moving to open forum, miss Asada, Kevin Dolly, and Zach Thayer.

So

let's go back to the tree issue that we're dealing with in May. Some things I took notes on. It was stated that the fire department y'all know what I'm talking about, The trees that the guy's being charged in the hunt $900,000 fine. The trees were the owner was told they had dead trees on the property and the fire department told him he had to get rid of them. The property has erosion issues because it has been neglected based on this issue not been timely met with.

The issue of race. This is property owned by two people, a black man and a white woman, but we keep alluding to the black man being at fault and not holding the white woman accountable for because she's owner of the property as well. The property is identified as residential. Okay? The neighbors activists, something is wrong because the owner wasn't accountable to them when they asked questions.

On after 23 trees were cut, no action was taken. So we had trees cut that the public works department should have intervened and we wouldn't have 30 something trees cut. The notice of violation did not happen until July 2025 because the planning department identified that this issue had to be dealt with. It didn't come from public works. Planning department notified public works.

The property owner has been paying the vacancy tax because you wouldn't allow him to bill on it, but because his property is vacant and you made him pay the vacancy tax. Okay? Not clear if the property can be used for property development. It's residential, but you're acting like you're going to have to replace those trees as a part of the fine payment. The city did not have a a measurement, direct measurement method, you used an assessment method, you didn't use the official method for coming up with the fine. And you came up with three different methods.

That concludes your public speaker's open forum.

All right. I believe we are adjourned. Thank you, everyone.