At Life Enrichment, a crowd came out to show support for Carroll Fife who has been under attack by right wing groups aligned with recalls, led by Dominique Walker, "thank you for all that you do for us", listed Fife's accomplishments and help for community with homeless families. Shereena Thomas recounting how Fife helped her through health problems and disability. "I don't know any other person who has been in the trenches...I don't know of any other Cm who has done for community as she has. The record speaks for itself and I have receipts"

🚨As I seem to be the only reporter interested in, and covering, the closure of this year's budget gap now that its confirmed the Coli sale won't cover FY 23-24s deficit, here's what the City Admin now suggests for closure, along with substantive changes from previous plan🧵 The CAO previously proposed 30 MM in cancelled carry forwards, transfers to other funds & etc to close about 20 MM of gap. That would have been 30 MM, but CAO left a 10 MM buffer contingency just in case. That left about 42 MM, which was meant to be covered by portion of Coli $$.

I'll revise this: in their ignorance of the politics, OPC got Chief Mitchell and a staffer to acknowledge what Council never will:
Mitchell: "the police dept is slowly shrinking..."
OPD budget staffer: "cola increases in staffing, that makes up the difference [in increase]"

https://twitter.com/hyphy_republic/status/1801435214356615517

Mitchell returned to the subject and made it completely clear: "the cola increases built into the OPOA contract" increase the costs of the police, while the OPD is shrinking.

@Mikey_G_93 @Chris_Moore4Sup @Kaplan4Oakland Ask Moore, not CMs what the source of this is, because I guarantee you as a reporter on these processes, it has absolutely nothing to do with reality @Mikey_G_93 @Chris_Moore4Sup @Kaplan4Oakland The Facts: Oakland police current strength is around 708 police. The last 3 academies produced a total of 52 officers. During that time, the OPD lost around 60 officers, with an attrition rate that is around 4-5 per month.

Here @ a Special Council Meeting , very budget focused, with focus on budget-closing solutions this FY, and the introduction of the Mayor's budget, with other budget-related stuff. 5 item agenda. There's some ceremonial items, but everything else will be on Non Consent, discussed First up, recognizing Oakland's High/Oakland Tech basketball

At Finance now, Director Erin Roseman: "reduced revenues and overspending in police department..."

City's revenues are trending downward from last year, the most significant being Real Estate Transfer, then Business License Tax...some are trending upward, but not enough to counteract the declines"

Despite never numbering more than twenty people on the ground, the finance/real estate backed Price Recall rallies always attract a large share of media, often more than 50K protesters taking over a freeway. Ask why, and you have the answer to many of Oakland's problems.

https://twitter.com/KTVU/status/1724633362235621468

These rallies are the only ones where I'm ever actually over on my head count. It's not even twenty, and I said two dozen earlier as a mocking joke, but they were just above one dozen.

There definitely is this weird cottage industry in sports where fans love to follow pundits that get everything wrong time n again, with Howard Terminal as the clearest example of that. None of these doofs ever knew what they were talking about, they still obviously don't. Case in point, I believe these grant numbers are inflated & City never provided an in-print total, Regardless, they reveal dishonesty of pundits & even Thao, who claimed Oakland is "88 MM" or "100 MM" away. Assuming these numbers aren't also invented--a big if--it's nearly 200 MM

The special meeting to introduce Council President Bas' amendments for the budget has begun. That's the first item. Not likely there'd be a vote today at all on the whole budget Bas is introducing the amendments, she says there've already been hard decisions made. Going through the list, I've already covered this in threads. Reversing the OFD brownouts, adding 2 MM in DVP; ambassadors for biz corridors; traffic safety 1 MM; 2 civ police investigators

Who is going to write the counter-memory hole article about the last 3 years of ugly negotiations? 🧵

https://twitter.com/MayorShengThao/status/1669009190021656578

Just after beginning serious negotiations, Kaval/Fisher broke them off to instead launch a pressure campaign with sports/mainstream media more than willing to help

At Public Safety, OPD recounting new IAD policy practices as a result of the Armstrong issues: It's an absolute fact that thanks to dumbing down by corporate media for decades, no one actually understands how police are made, how an academy is created and the actual fact that the number of people who want to be police AND CAN is extremely finite.

About to start this City of Oakland Mayor's Budget Study Session, start time is 1pm, will likely get zoom up in a minute The budget study session is the main thing on the agenda, two other symbolic items only. But I have a feeling that there will be a lot of public comment about the budget priorities, a coalition of groups want less money for OPD and more social and public services

Tong La another speaker, calls himself a "small housing provider", says tenant hasn't paid rent in a long time. Cesar Cruz of Homies Empowerment calling in on Town Nights, which has a budget increase and adding two new orgs to implement, East Oakland Boxing and Family Bridges, praises the program

City Council of 3/21 will start in a moment: on agenda, reupping the City's internal mask mandate to July; a very helter skelter rushed Measure U forward allocation; probably what will be a subtantial convo on Council District budget priorities. 🧵 The Zoom portion of the meeting hasn't started yet, although the KTOP has begun broadcasting. I assume they are waiting on the meeting to officially begin before Zoom.

I'm pretty concerned about the way Council/Mayor will go about things if this is any example. Fife and Kaplan actually rejected the proposal to do just this last week, forcing HCD to rush in their own legislation to appropriate the other Measure U monies. patreon.com/posts/80247975 It did not appear like some kind of joint process, but rather one in which council members literally rejected inserting in their own legislation what HCD proposed--giving additional monies to other NOFA participants.

The Rules Committee meeting is having issues. They couldn't get the Zoom stream up, and then just now, the KTOP feed cut. In retrospect, it was pretty obvious they'd have issues.

I think they're tripping if they think that the same people aren't going to be bring up the recount process itself as a way to continue to call the result legitimate unless the outcome is reversed. They're taking a vote on continuing the Covid emergency item.

Reporting thread for today's Alameda County BOS Special Meeting, starting at 9:30 am. The Board will begin with public comment on the closed session items concerning possible pursuit of litigation, preparation for anticipated litigation, then RCV status update from Registrar. The meeting's started. All supervisors present. So, I said there's be public comment on closed session; but staff claims there's no public comment possible, since the items aren't disclosed or disclosable "there's nothing to have public comment possible"

Bothers me Oaklandside refuses to report this correctly. Taylor moved to amend initial legislation to extend moratorium, giving it end date of July. Kalb was able to change that to August--then Kalb, Bas and Parker brought a new resolution in July. It's a matter of public record Here's Taylor making the motion at the May 19, council meeting

https://twitter.com/hyphy_republic/status/1444033085591285760?s=20&t=0spucKi1xCK1ACZ70xEjbA

At Commission today, Jim Chanin said Schaaf is asking Monitor to let Sustainability Period play out and not defer Task 5 due to the "troubling" investigations. Chanin implied that the City was hoping clock would run out before the investigations were resolved. Monitor said no. On disparate discipline for Black officers, Chanin sounded a bit pessimistic; he implied he didn't believe OPD were taking it seriously enough.

I'm at the Emerald New Deal forum at East Bay Dragons HQ. Event is getting started a bit late--the END legislation was contentious at Council and that could or not reflect in the proceedings What a backdrop tho