Thread by @hyphy_republic

The Special Budget Meeting, 6/24/2021. Bas begins the meeting by announcing that there will be simultaneous interpretation [after popular demand]. Bas will present today's agenda order, and then go to public comment [which I assume will be big]

Bas announces that the four budget related items will be discussed together, those are 5, 6, 7, 8. Items 3 and 4, which are ARPA budget adjustments and City union MOU's will be taken after the budget decisions. Public Comment beginning now.

Several young speakers have called in to support the creation of a Dept of Children, Youth and Families. Bas' budget has an allocation of 50k and direction for the City Administrator to pursue analysis and development in second FY

A spanish speaking member of ACCE asking council to support affordable housing and good jobs that will prevent people from slipping into a life of violence and crime.

Bas asks to stop the public comment, language selections may be erroneously switched. She says Chinese has been on the English channel.

Liz Suk from Oakland Rising thanks Council for simultaneous interpretation. She says that the Council heard the voice of the community last weekend. But the problems with the channels have unfortunately persisted according to Bas.

Suk finally starts her comments. She asks Council to reject Taylor's amendments that would restore academies, which have low graduation rates. She says that covid funding should not be used for OPD, as it appears to be intended in Taylor's proposal.

A speaker for a community org supporting 88th Avenue Mini Park calls out Schaaf for sharing the group's Go Fund Me, but not supporting the park for a disadvantaged community with real budget dollars. She says she's also written a CIP community application for funding...

Not surprisingly, Finance Dept has provided its last Q&A literally today, smh. But one thing some people have wondered about, how much of OPD increase is due to their raises in FY21-23. $6 MM in first year, $7.5 MM in second, total 13.5 MM--or, the 1 yr budget of Oakland Library

Not surprising bumpy start for multi-casting in different languages...English speakers must access the interpretation function to hear other languages in English.

One caller after another taking Taylor to task for appearing to be using ARPA funds for his academy proposal. It's not clear how ARPA fits into it, because ARPA will be used regardless to make up for differences in revenues and expenditures.

More from the Q&A. The cost to provide toilets and staff to supervise them for homeless residents is nearly a million annually. Another way the City would rather throw money away than find a just solution for homeless people.

Not surprisingly, Tashomb Thomas of the Chamber of Commerce calling in support of Taylor's amendment. Claiming to support MACRO while demanding increased funding for police is a real thing [and I assume, the original intent for the program]

In mid-cycle budget amendments, Council and City moved to civilianize certain positions in the OPD. But now, City reveals that those civilianized positions were never filled and are now frozen 👀

Brook Levin Chair of Measure Q committee says that Q is being used for one time expenditures and/or overtime, not on-going service to parks.

First caller that supports another set of amendments, not Bas'. They appear to believe that those amendments preserve police services, but they do not, only Taylor's separate amendments do. But also illustrative of how much Schaaf's emails pull--first caller backing her/Taylor

Just to be clear, the Thao/Reid/Taylor amendments have no police funding allocations. It's Taylor who struck out alone on his issue.

Several callers have mentioned the Lake Merritt shooting as an example of how the number of police have little effect on violent crime. Over 60 police were at the park, Armstrong himself said that even 200 police could not have prevented it.

Saabir Lockette mentions that neither police or Schaaf offered condolences to the family of the young man who lost his life at Lake Merritt, but rather appeared to suggest he was responsible in his own death. He thanks Bas for not doing that.

Caller Michael Goldstein recounts the story of being shot during a robbery while a police officer sat in his car nearby. He says that police can't stop crime. When people intent on violent crime see police drive by, they just wait until the have passed.

I don't necessarily think comments at City Council are necessarily reflective of popular opinion--I mean, popular opinion is usually accompanied by indifference to political process. But it is worth noting, despite several Schaaf emails, only one caller has backed her vision.

One thing to remember about MACRO. It would today be stuck as a very small program with minimal impact in a non-scalable third party org if the Council hadn't blunt hammered it into the OFD. Many people who say they support MACRO supported only the former, not the latter.

Another caller who thinks the Thao/Taylor/Reid proposal is a "compromise" on public safety. It isn't. There isn't any OPD amendments in there. But this makes only three callers who don't support Bas' amendments

I wonder what kind of impact that has on the actual support of the amendments, because they're actually pretty decent for the most part, outside of the surveillance amendment.

Just fell into the interpretation wormhole and didn't realize it was interpretation!

Looks like the Thao, Reid, Taylor has a 125k addition for the 88th mini park.

Taylor is a lapdog, drink!

Two more callers in favor of increasing police. Still, a tiny minority. One of them said that if APTP wants police who live in Oakland, they should prompt the council to build more affordable housing. Quite a statement.

Maureen Benson, who worked on one of the RPSTF Advisory Board says that the cost of sworn personnel is almost double for non-sworn, more expensive than other cities, more expensive to train a cop than a Harvard education.

Benson made an excellent normative point, there's only two options for police, reducing salary, something union would never allow, or reduce number of officers.

Caller, a neighborhood council member, in support of Thao, Reid, Taylor amendments--this one gets it right, it has significant funding for traffic calming, parks and neighborhood councils. He also supports Bas' amendments, as well.

Taylor has gotten mileage out of a proposal by 5 members of RPSTF to make one of guiding principles of TF not replacing policing until options are proven effective, & one of the callers just mentioned it. None of the decisions of TF was made with that principle, because it failed

Another supporter for Thao, Reid, Taylor amendments. It's true that it has an increased focus on D6 and D7 quality of life, including traffic calming, but it does not have OPD amendments. This caller also thinks that it includes OPD.

I'm interested in seeing what kind of support Taylor's lone amendment will get. Initially, I thought Gallo & Reid might support it. That's still not enough. But now I wonder if he'll get them at all. Reid keeps her head low on policing. Gallo is on another trip since re-election

Keisha Henderson calls in support of the Thao amendments, and in support of Taylor's amendment. She says she also supports the reinvestments in DVP. She was a leader on RPSTF who backed the failed directive to not replace policing until options are proven.

RPTSF member James Burch, cites polls conducted 87% of Black men, majority in East Oakland, say they don't feel safe when they see police; flat land respondents in another poll similar

Burch says he's a Black member of the TF who lives in D7 and he worked with other Black members on TF who also believed that other paths work better than policing. He says that the Council needs to also state that the principle Taylor keeps referring to failed.

Liana Molina speaks about young men who were killed in her neighborhood, but says that data shows that redirecting resources from police to prevention are the way to go.

Lorena Vinegas of Mujeres Unidas y Activas says there's been violence from police and individual actors, but we need housing and care for community. She says she supports Bas' amendments, and supports additional investment in MACRO.

Naomi Schiff asks to evaluate academy results before we invest in more, actual police hired is quite low. She says if there's money, invest it in homeless water and sanitation services.

Tierra Allen says she was at Lake Merritt during the shooting, ran for her life, and says she's still traumatized. With all that, she says, she still wants to redirect police funding to community solutions, supports audit of OPD and thinks Bas' amendments should go further.

Self-identified contractor who worked on the fitness centers in Oakland parks says there's no play structures in some of the parks, example, Lowell. Also says that the academies are waste of money due to wash outs.

Another caller from ACCE, says he was born, raised in Oakland, raising kids in Oakland. He says we don't need another academy paid for by ARPA. We need jobs and job training, and more city services, cleaning, street lights, response to community needs.

Three hours into this meeting and we're still on public comment, whew. I hope the Council is all on point and this meeting doesn't go til midnight.

Luz Hernandez, who lives near the Lake, says that OPOA, Schaaf exploited the trauma of the shooting to push forward police funding. She says they can only respond to violence. She says mother of deceased was not informed by police and learned from a tweet that her son was dead.

Several speakers have mentioned the disinterest by City officials and police in the lives and deaths of the people who were injured and killed in tragedy at the Lake on Juneteenth

People are mentioning potential construction of a new OPD PAB building at a half billon cost. Worth noting that an A's stadium IFD tax revenue could logically go toward that. Given history, far more likely it would be spent that way.

Thank god they created MACRO so that people who support increasing police funding can mention it to show that they also want community investment

Another caller who wants more police funding who thinks that the Thao/Reid/Taylor amendments are an OPD compromise. Once again, it's Taylor that struck out on his own on that one, and doesn't appear to have the support of Thao and Reid, although we'll see.

Speaker says there hasn't been any consideration for the PTSD that comes from poverty, doesn't support even researching a new police building.

Civils Service Commission member Beverly Williams says the blight in D7 make it look like "we're here, but not here", too much homelessness, and not enough home ownership. She says there needs to be investment in business corridor.

Yulisa Eleres, D7 born/raised community member, says she supports Bas' budget, says she had luck of finding good union jobs, but there needs to be investment in community. She says union job helped her get out of poverty, but her brother who didn't, ended up in jail

Daniel Rubelo says that the City has become a dystopian police state, with shanty towns and crumbling infrastructure. They have lied about rising violence, and cuts in budget even tho none have happened yet, gives long list of "epic, brazen" lies from OPD over several years

Reissa Jaffe says that Bas' budget is a disappointment, and a significant compromise, so she's speaking to those who do not even support that. She also mistakes the Thao, Taylor, Reid amendments for the solo Taylor one. Many people confused about the division

Worth pointing out that Taylor had to go out on his own to make this amendment. Thao and Reid seem focused on the micro-investment role of their amendments and don't appear to have wanted to bring them down with controversial OPD amendment.

Executive Director of Missey, org that supports sexually exploited youth and victims of violence, says she supports Bas amendments. She says orgs that are meant to serve those forced out into streets don't have resources. She says 4 girls org serves were murdered, youngest was 12

Carol Wyatt another member of RPSTF says she supports Thao, Taylor, Reid amendments, unaware that these amendments do not include OPD. She says that they need to fund police services.

She played a recording, but it's not clear what it was.

Ana Maria Garcia, East Oakland resident says this is an important discussion. She asks them to honor the spirit of the Sweetened Beverage tax, which needs more investment than the amount the tax generates to address bad health and diet issues so that communities can thrive.

I think it's neat that Garcia said she has been listening to meeting since 10:30 am and finds it fascinating--even parts not necessarily germane to her issue. I would imagine, given she gave her comments in Spanish, possible due to the new language interpretation. That's cool.

Rex talks about Schaaf's failed policies, that have created shanty towns, says they have not received rent relief, says there's an unprecedented housing and jobs crisis. Not surprising violence is up when people's needs aren't met by neo-liberalism/capitalism

Omar Escalante says he's been abused by police because he's profiled as a gang member. He says police make the problems worse. He says they are funding a war that patrols residents. The money could be used for better things, no attention to root causes.

Escalante says that Homies Empowerment and programs like that are necessary to show people love and make them feel valuable.

Rounding out hour four of public comment. It's been overwhelmingly for CP amendments. Many have opposed Thao amendments, but don't seem aware that Taylor has his own pro-OPD amendment the others didn't sign on to...

There's only been a handful of commentary in support of Taylor's amendment. Taylor having to strike out on his own on that amendment, and no one heeding Schaaf's request to call in to Council...is she lame duck already?

Jesus who works with CURYJ talks about being profiled by OPD, says there's too much to fix in OPD. He says the money should go to youth for help with housing and employment, and not OPD.

Final speaker is Sonya Karabel with EBASE, member of Refund, shouts out her D1 rep Kalb for supporting Bas amendments. Says that Bas' amendments are significant departure, will go toward violence prevention

Okay, here we go. That was the last speaker, so let's get into the budget. Bas says that four hours of public comment may be a record for residents wanting to participate in budget deliberation.

5, 6, 7 and 8 are being taken together as budget items. The vote for each will happen separately.

These will include all the Bas + Thao + Taylor amendments and the Mayor's budget [which also has been amended since it was initially released last month]

Bas says they will review the Council President's budget, amendments made since and policy directives. She says that DVP Chief Cespedes will also speak briefly about the changes he intends to make with amplified budget. Then discussion with Council.

Bas says she's proud of the budget she created with Fife, Gallo and Kalb. Lists: 4 total academies, divert non-violent, non-criminal calls to criminal responses. Calling for report on academies on completion rate, and to make sure more than 10% are Oakland residents.

Bas says the CP budget focuses police on investigation, and on crime prevention. She says that they are committed to equity in budget process, and supporting most disinvested communities.

Bas will share some amendments made since Monday, she says they've been influenced by other Council members. These amendments were not published before today to my knowledge, last update was 6/21/2021

Bas says she's emailed the spreadsheet to other CMs.

Bas says the last spreadsheet itself was amended, with changes in yellow. The new additions are in orange, she says they were made after consultation with other CMs

First change is allocation for "hybrid meetings" zoom + public, and for translation 175k

One of the previous changes was additions to MACRO to have six teams in the second year to expand to west oakland.

Bas says they've decreased "labor contingency", funds set aside for contract/wage increase for city unions.

Some more Measure Q funding in changes. She says they've added some of the amendments from Thao et. al for parks into the amendments

These updates to the updates are always confusing, because they then don't discuss what the original was, nor what's the real change, nor what was in the original budget.

Most of the changes are updating Bas amendments to incorporate Thao et. al amendments on things like parks and public works...nothing has changed in the DVP, OPD funding scheme.

Bas says that after they saw the Thao, et. al, budget they did their best to incorporate their amendments, but if they didn't hear back from City about whether they were permissible uses of fund balances, Bas etc didn't incorporate them.

I won't be able to include all the changes to policy directives as follows, but will try to hit the important ones.

Bas added this from the Thao, etc, amendments. These are all mostly in the form of City Admin studies of how to change processes. Not earth-shaking

Kalb, who appears to be glowing from inside, says that the Bas, et al budget has more money for sanitation in homeless encampments, MACRO, violence prevention, job training.

Kalb says that discussion up to this point has always been, we support community investment BUT we have to pay for OPD. He says that he himself has made that argument, but it's time to start a transition now, he says the transition will take years, as will the effects to emerge

Kalb also says that he's happy to add things from the Thao budget, both in the previous version from Monday, and in the current changes in the amendments that incorporate some of the Thao amendements.

Gallo's comments now. His participation in the Bas budget feels like a departure from a lot of his rhetoric. But he says it's the best proposal yet to be able to invest in neighborhoods with greatest needs. There's funding for additional hours for Cesar Chavez library in budget

Gallo says he doesn't agree with everything that's in the budget, but it's the best thing for Oakland right now. He says it's not about reimagining or defunding, but doing better with what we have, and invest money to go further for children and families.

Fife says it was a challenging endeavor for her being involved on "this side" of the dais, but says that she agrees with Gallo, they're not doing anything radical, it's just doing better with the resources they have.

Fife says it's first time she has seen Council saying we have to reinvest in community, but there's still so many 100s of millions going to OPD. She says we're seeing disconnected individuals harming their own communities due to trauma, there's a history of disinvestment there.

Fife: This budget does not even begin to scratch the surface...there's hysteria and propaganda coming from media and city. But if we don't start now, we'll not get anywhere, we have to say our babies are worth it.

Fife says we can take care of our parks/children and have police doing what they're supposed to do, focus on violent crime.

Bas makes a motion to adopt the CP amendments, along with policy directives. Fife seconds. But there's still a way to go on this. Cespedes will now speak about DVP strategy with new $17 MM in Bas budget.

Cespedes he will show four slides about what they will do short term this year with the new funds, and longer term over the second budget year

Cespedes: first year, double number of violence interrupters; increase services to partner violence; city wide community ambassador pilot; 6 to 7 "town nights" to activate and reclaim Oakland parks [cool]

Peter Kim going over more specific service additions to DVP, highlight, school based restorative centers at 4 schools...80% increase in violence interruption and crisis response

More from Kim on specifics broadly described by Cespedes

Sarai Crane says she's excited about the expansion in gender based violence prevention + crisis intervention, multi-lingual services, 24 hour bed-side advocacy for victims of gender-based violence, culturally relevant therapeutic support for families

DVP finishes their presentation and opens to questions from CMs

City Attorney Barbara Parker first with comments on process today. She says that they cannot make any substantive amendments on floor today, they can only consider amendments made by June 21. But they can combine elements of already published proposals.

Parker says that the only way they could make changes otherwise, if they could prove that there's: new information impacting budget by at least one million, it came after publishing deadline of three days ago, and finding that immediate action is required

I'm not sure this affects anything going forward today. Most of Bas' changes were simply incorporating the amendments made by Thao et al, which were already published. Looks like everything that would be discussed today was published by the deadline of 6/21.

There's a current discussion about using Measure BB funds. Bas says they had agreed via resolution to have deeper discussions about how they would spend the funds.

Looks like a lot of the traffic calming and safety amendments proposed by Thao et al are proposed to be funded by Measure BB. Finance just said there's only about 4 MM available to be used, not apparently the 6.5 MM proposed here.

DOT director Russo also cautioned that they may not have the capacity to do all these things either.

Gallo asks Reiskin if the budget amendments are balanced, he says to the best of his knowledge, it is balanced [what a difference from last year's discussion]. He says there's worrisome reliance on one term costs, but says that Schaaf's did also, it's "structurally imbalanced"

Just to let viewers at home know, there's so far been no discussion of Taylor's amendment yet.

It is definitely looking like the big ticket traffic calming items in the Thao budget may be post-poned until a future meeting, as the fund balances they are based on aren't vetted yet.

Thao clarifies the motion, asks if its the one that only has two academies per year. Bas says yes, it's the version with only two police academies. So far, no joy for Taylor's amendment.

Kaplan says she's prepared to move on the motion.

Kaplan says she wants to work on why academies are failing so dramatically. [yeah, looks like Taylor's amendment is going from a scream to a whisper]

Bas clarifies that this vote will also approve the CIP budget as presented. That means the 1 MM in feasibility studies for OPD, the OPD 5 MM office space and 10 MM in PAB/Eastmont upgrades.

Taylor is up now. Says he appreciates the amendments and process. Taylor says that the budget is balanced from a dollar aspect, but not geographically. He says that Measure Q allocations do not seem to jive with the 29% geographic area of D 6, D7

Taylor also implies the MACRO investment is premature. But he agrees with the DVP investment.

Taylor says he's concerned about equity aspect of arts funding, not a lot of events in the east.

Taylor hasn't mentioned his academy proposal yet.

Taylor thinks that there are some BB traffic calming, safety amendments from their amendments that should be take up now. Taylor says there should be more focus on Arroyo Viejo and its surroundings.

Taylor has spoken more than any other CM so far.

Taylor says we have some "reimagining public safety" recommendations that we are working on, he says that even TF realized we wouldn't get that over night. He says that a number of residents feel they are being forced out of an airplane and sew their own parachute with process

He says MACRO isn't ready to take load of public safety, and neither is ambassador program. He says that they're telling residents that they have to figure it out themselves. Here come the academies...Bas letting taylor know he's running out of time.

Taylor says his proposal is misunderstood. It's two-fold. He says that the four academies in Bas' budget are budgeted. He says first step is to put one of the academies in the first year, making three academies

He says the academy in year 1 would be cheaper. He says there's no drawing down of covid relief funds as people have been claiming.

Taylor says the second aspect is to direct City Admin to allocate future dollars that may come in higher than expected to an additional academy. Taylor asks Chief to come in to talk about academy performance, and says he wants to hear about impact of having fifth academy

It's clear that Taylor is asking the Chief to repeat their dicey numbers about academies and attrition rates, despite the vast evidence now that they aren't providing the Council with the right numbers.

After Taylor speaks, Bas says she takes issue w/budget not supporting equity. She says she put a policy directive to make sure equity is added. She says that feedback she's getting from cultural affairs is that they should listen to them, instead of council making direct grants

Bas says it's been problematic to let council members make their own allocations for cultural affairs, it's not transparent or working well. Bas invites Roberto Bedoya, City Cultural Affairs manager, to comment on Taylor's issues.

Bedoya neighborhood voice for individuals and groups. He says funding that went to D6 and D7 respectively, was proportional, but there could be more.

Taylor is taking up a lot of space. He wants to ask questions of Armstrong on academies, how they are structured, impact on response times. Bas says she wants to hear from other CMs, mentions Assistant Chief Allison's report on the same issue.

Reid says she also wants to hear from Armstrong.

Armstrong says he made changes to academy to address concerns heard today. He says he's changed command staff, including commander, to bring down attrition rate in academy. He says it is too high, but they've assessed there were subjective exercises at end that were washing out

Armstrong also says that prior to any trainee being washed out of academy, he gets to have a last look to see if there's anything that can be done to keep trainees. He says they've lessened target practice and focused on de-escalation practice, as well.

Armstrong says that preliminary testing was only provided in Santa Clara County with a fee, now its free of charge at Merritt College so that more Oaklanders can apply.

Armstrong says they're focusing on retention of cadets. he moves on to Allison who's going to present attrition rate information.

Allison says that without the additional academies the OPD personnel rate might get to 679 officers. Taylor and Allison are saying that they would no longer have Measure Z funding. Bas jumps in, says that Allison's presentation last week said the low was 688.

Bas says that they need to increase the retention rate, says there's only 17 out of 32 officers. Bas says she's not interested in backing a system that does not seem to work. She really shut down Taylor's shenans [IMO, really disrespectful and ill-intended]

Thao is up now. She says public safety is her primary focus, but that means that people feel respected, their parks are in good conditions. When people feel occupied instead of protected, they don't feel safe. She biggups Ceasefire, MACRO. Thao also not into Taylor's performance

Thao says that they need to reject the false divide between police and community investment and response. She says they will spend 10 million more on OPD in Bas' budget, same academies as previous budget. She says they can always come back and fund an academy

Thao says that if she felt that an extra academy would keep her child safe, she would vote for it.

Gallo called for the vote, Bas was ready to call the question, but Reid objected and said she hadn't been allowed to speak. Reid saying "I need to process" she was a bit pissed.

Reid thanks constituents. She is giving a speech about issues in her neighborhood, she says they want housing and workforce programs and youth services in East Oakland and they want to feel safe and have peace.

Reid says she supports MACRO and wants it to be 24/7 in D7. She says that she fully supports the 17 million additional funds for DVP.

Reid says that she appreciates that some of the amendments in the Thao/Reid/Taylor amendments have been absorbed into Bas'...she begins talking about CRO's , which Bas says are retained at their current level.

Reid is going thru things in Bas' budget she doesn't think are equitable & includes the cams Thao et al wanted, which are not in Bas' budget. It looks like they are trying to move on to a vote, so seems like that won't be included [it would've faced barriers to pass legislation]

Up until a short time ago, it still seemed that some more amendments from Thao could be put into the budget, but given the quickness that Bas was moving on, maybe not? Reid feels they are moving on too fast without including her priorities from the Thao budget.

The resistance on BB seemed to come more from DOT and Finance.

Bas says that the environmental officers may not be payable from Development Services Fund, so that's one that needs to be postponed. Bas says that Youth Uprising and Black Cultural Zone, complaint from Reid that they aren't included in the budget, have received funding already

Reid comes back to make more comments on OPD. She says faith & community health partners, including Roots, says they can't believe there will be less policing. Reid says she has heard from Black women & seniors who think budget won't give support when they need it.

Reid says there hasn't been clarity on strategy for public safety. She says that Armstrong is one of the most progressive chiefs...she is really gliding around this, it's not clear what she's asking for here.

Reid says she wants to make a motion to amend the proposal to add three academies in year one, but did not mention the directive to do the fifth academy in year two.

The motion to add the third academy in year one was made by Reid.

The motion was seconded by Taylor. Bas says her proposal maintains the current level of academies, and says those academies only add 17 to the OPD, and only 10% are Oakland residents. Bas says she wants to focus OPD on responding to the most serious crimes, filling Ceasefire

Bas says she takes it very seriously, including trauma, she says her district also includes the flatlands, she says San Antonio area is one of the most violent areas in the City.

Bas quotes Armstrong on one to two hundred officers at lake not making a difference. She says an extra academy in year one doesn't accomplish goals, she does not support Reid's amendment.

Kalb says Taylor's proposal is two things, moving the third academy to year one, and directing fifth academy for year two if funds are available. Kalb says he doesn't support the fifth academy, but will vote for the motion of the third academy in year one, 1 academy in year two

Kalb said he'd been on the record for supporting the third academy in year one, but not a fifth academy in year two for several days.

Kaplan says that if the success rate of the academy were remedied, it would accomplish the same thing. She says its more effective to improve the academy performance.

The only person I can see voting besides Kalb, Reid and Taylor on a third academy is Gallo. But he seemed to want to take the vote a while ago without that, so who knows. He's very suggestible...

Thao says we're enrolling candidates into academies with high rate of failure. She says they should allow for Chief to move forward on his new structures before they move forward. She says stacking the academies will diminish quality of candidates and retention.

Thao says they shouldn't be irresponsible with tax payer dollars, they should do the two/two standard academies

Reiskin is up now, for some reason, I don't even know why they are letting him speak, but here he goes.

Reiskin says he sent a memo out to CMs this morning, proposed changes on directives, he says there are 27 directives and there is a challenge for City staff keeping up with policies, resolutions etc already

Incredible whenever Reiskin mentions lack of bandwidth.

Reiskin says that after recess he would like to come back to prioritize the directives, but he's largely supportive of them in principle.

Reiskin says he feels obligated as City Admin to express...he says that they can't wish away the reality of disinvestment all at once. He says they have an under-sized police force, and it's not fully staffed.

Add nod to MACRO while suggesting more funding for police @yesmsbenson

@yesmsbenson Reiskin says that six academies were put in to address vacancies [why did they try to delete 29 OFD vacancies? Why wasn't that of critical importance?]

@yesmsbenson Reiskin says they don't want just anyone to become a cop, and some of the weeding and vetting is happening during academy, and that's a good thing. He says the drop off after academy in field training is concerning [first time they have mentioned that, as a testament to honesty]

@yesmsbenson Reiskin says that Bas amendments will not be able to fill the Ceasefire units and other units, and as numbers dwindle they'll have fewer officers who want to work. He says that the amendments will reduce 911 call response by 12%

@yesmsbenson Reiskin opposes the Bas amendments on police, he spent five minutes talking about it.

@yesmsbenson Reiskin says that police services can be reduced over time, but not in a year.

@yesmsbenson Reiskin acknowledges that the support for Bas' amendments is there, but he suggests adding the third academy in the first year.

@yesmsbenson I can pretty much guarantee that if they add the third academy in the first year, they'll do two in the second year.

@yesmsbenson Bas responds to Reiskin. She says that two academies is consistent, the change would happen in the second year. She says she's troubled by continuing to feed a system that isn't giving the results that Oakland needs

@yesmsbenson Just OPD and Reiskin never mentioning that the number of useable officers after each academy is 17 is suggestive of how bad faith their arguments are. They don't even care enough to use the real numbers.

@yesmsbenson Fife says there's a lot of misinformation. She says it's a consistent pattern that the same CMs stick to the status quo agenda. Fife says if they're telling people they're going to be safer with an academy that won't produce graduates for a year, they're lying to them

@yesmsbenson Fife says there's a difference between being safe and feeling safe, and that having three academies back to back. She says she's flustered about how long CMs talked about passing legislation against what speakers want.

@yesmsbenson Fife says that at some point they have to call the issue that Mayor and City Admin cut budget to police in December, blamed it on Council.

@yesmsbenson Reid responds directly to Fife, says she's the CM for the district most ignored by city government, she says she's not deceiving people, she's fighting for community.

@yesmsbenson Fife says whoever is perpetuating that the police will be under-funded is lying to the public. Whoever makes that claim.

@yesmsbenson Kaplan getting in on this. The decisions to cut Ceasefire and foot patrols was made by the City Admin and Mayor. Nobody on Council had anything to do with previous cuts. She says Council has voted to take police out of special events

@yesmsbenson Kaplan assuring she's not going to vote for third academy. I note Gallo has been very quiet, tho. Kalb up again, he says he doesn't want to get into back and forth, and wants to focus on amendment.

Kalb says "reasonable people are disagreeing". He says they'll adopt the budget either way and they'll be fine.

Kalb says its getting blown out of proportion and reasonable people can disagree whether its a good idea or not. He calls for the vote.

Thao jumped back in. Right now, we know that Kalb, Reid and Taylor will vote for third academy in first year. If Gallo votes for it, it will be a tie, hm.

The amendment is for having three academies in first year, one in second. Fife, no, Gallo, no, Kalb, yes, Kaplan, no, Reid, yes, Taylor, yes, Thao, no, and Bas, no, so it fails.

Now they will vote on the main motion, which is Bas' FY 21-23 budget and policy directives, plus additional amendments and policy directives from Thao et al. The resolution includes a directive to come back to the items that couldn't be included due to questions on funds.

First back and forth between Parker and Kaplan, there's a question about the Development Services Fund and what it can pay for...this means that the Thao amendment on environmental officers won't go through until it is vetted at some point in future.

Bas clarifies that the reason that the traffic calming funding in Thao et al budget can't go through right now is possible lack of capacity from DOT, and issues of which agency has jurisdiction.

finally vote on the main motion, which is Bas' FY 21-23 budget and policy directives, plus additional amendments and policy directives from Thao et al. Resolution includes a directive to come back to items that couldn't be included due to ? on funds. Reid and Taylor voted no 👀

On the passage of CP FY 21-23 budget amendments, Reid and Taylor voted no, everyone else voted yes, so it passes. Many of the amendments from Thao et al included, but not Taylor's academy amendment. Worth noting the two no votes.

This is basically Reid staking her claim on council. Until now she's played it close to the vest on police funding, but I think when push comes to shove, she is more pro-police than alternatives

I can finally pee.

They are on to the ARPA item. It turns out the City had higher than expected revenues, and so less ARPA had to be spent to cover the shortfall. They have to revisit the April budget amendments now to allocate more city funds and less ARPA funds, and all the other tangential stuff

Stephen Walsh Controller says that the item is required to comply with ARPA. They need to do a title change, because the amount is wrong. It's 30.6 MM, not 36.6 MM

I looked away and they voted for the ARPA item, no discussion. Wow. The Controller really thought he was going to give a presentation there, ha, ha.

They are on to the city union contract extension. It's for IBEW, IFPTE and SEIU, a couple of other smaller unions, and "unrepresented" employees, who basically ride along on the contracts despite not being represented, including directors

Ian Appleyard clarifying that these are contract extensions and not new contracts. They expect to return to negotiations next spring. I'd like to know the story here, but unions have not really spoken about it...

Fife says this is only a little bit of what city workers deserve. Bas says extending the contract with a cola raise is the least they can do. Bas calls the vote, it passes unanimously. Must be noted, Schaaf initially did not budget for raises.

Bas adjourns in name of Dashawn Rhoades, the young man shot to death at Lake Merritt

Fife says that the family of Dashawn Rhoades was not able to find his body. She says that she didn't know her son had been killed for four days. She thanks Armstrong for moving quickly once he found out.

Just FYI, June 29 Special Mtg cancelled due to passing the budget today. It was scheduled several weeks ago as a last minute meeting in case deliberations during this meeting failed. Done now, tho.