About to start this very deep meeting that includes Flock, and a change to Council rules of procedure, as well as other non consent that won't even be discussed. Meeting was changed to 1pm, that could thin out comment, but chambers are full anyway https://x.com/hyphy_republic/status/2001031622624469329?s=20…

Meeting has started, all CMs present.

Jenkins "we are going to run into time issues, so every speaker will be one minute..." they are going to hear Flock first. No surprise on this one, supporters of Flock organizing for this somehow knew the item would be heard first, despite it actually being the fourth item

They are already into the consent calendar...the rules of procedure item will be heard second on agenda.

No CMs made any move to put items on non-consent

A regular here told me that the parking garage was empty at 12, and was completely full by 12:30

The chambers are completely full.

On the Costco item, staff is adding a further resolved clause to clarify..."a disposition is exempt from SLA if property has a restriction not imposed by the city that prohibits residential..." like this property, enviro contamination, only DTSC can lift the prohibition

Staff says that it would take several years to develop a remediation plan that could still be turned down by the DTSC, at a cost of over 100k.

Now on to public speakers on non consent. I counted about 40 speakers, several with multiple items, so this comment hour will take around at least an hour or more.

Fife asking staff to clarify that the CAO is in support of the Costco negotiation, and why the SLA does not apply to it [for residential development or uses]

EBRHA member is speaking on vacant parcel tax...supports the changes that would require a statement of facts when granting exceptions.

There's been an ongoing consent dais battle about an awarded bid, Mcguire and Hester wants it, based on mentor relationship with Cooper Construction...and that's continuing today.

Several other speakers on 27th street contract bid, which is currently being disputed. Mcguire and Hester wants it, but it was initially awarded to another compmany

Stephanie Tran of Chinatown Chamber also supports Mguire and Hester getting the 27th contract

Redgewick is opposing the arguments by Mguire and Hester's claims about Cooper and mentor program, saying that MH didn't offer enough work hours to qualify for SLBE, and would cost 1 MM more than Redgewick's bid.

Speaker read litany of bad council leadership to applause

Another speaker complained about campaign finance rules being changed on the Consent calendar, where it will have no discussion, and said "this meeting is sleazy"

Several speakers have also noted that Public Ethics did not support increasing office holder limits...another speaker said that best practices don't support it, because it gives incumbents an unfair advantage in elections.

Gene Hazard was escorted out of the last meeting by police after criticizing the way the rules of procedure change was occurring, outside of public comment

Just FYI, I will be starting a new item for the Flock and Rules Change items when they are called in, then going back to this thread for the rest of the meeting, in the interests of those two items being more readable.

Several speakers have spoken out about the fire code changes, mostly the 26 ft. option in appendix D.

Jennifer Findlay speaks out, listing again the lack of transparency in loading up an agenda at 1pm with numerous important issues that won't even be deliberated, including campaign finance rules, and tax breaks, and fire codes.

Its strange to me that when the CASS and CWA DDAs were abrogated earlier in the year, there was no concern expressed at council meetings about it

*cwa...

That's it for public comment, Jenkins says that all items have gone through committee "this is one of the first times that every single item has gone through committee..."

Fife has a few questions about the 27th st item for OakDOT, "fiduciary responsibility of the city...and [the explosion that happened in Hayward] that occurred to a company we are giving a contract to in this consent calendar...does the company Redgewick has all insurance...

OakDOT says he doesn't have any information about Redgewick's involvement in the explosion. Fife asks if there's a way to delay the contract until the investigation is complete, what impact it would have.

Rowan says that it would cause a delay on this specific project..."I just see a potential headline on this...if there's anything that comes out that could implicate city of oakland..." asking if it would have any impact if we wait...

Rowan says that the existing conditions would continue

Fife: "that's the concern...I don't want to cause any more strain on residengts who are expecting a deadline...I'm not saying vendor had responsibility at all, but I want to know before giving 10 MM to an org when there's this investigation ongoing"...I would ask we pull the item

Fife says that she needs more time to think about the direction. "So if we could pull the item from Consent at very least", OCA says its too late for that in the meeting, but she says they could defer it to another meetijng...Fife makes that move.

Houston now asking about the SLBE "why are we waiving SLBE and LBE...we need to be embracing these SLBEs and LBEs..."

Motion that would pass the consent calendar and would continue 27th complete streets to next meeting in January passes.

Will be covering Flock on a new thread.

Back for the rest of the agenda here. On to the tree hearing, will be mildly reporting on this one. CIty says the defendant tore up 38 trees without a permit, including from parcels that don't belong to them, including one owned by City of Oakland.

City inspector: "in my 34 years at city of oakland, this is the most egregious tree removal case" really sounds like he's not exaggerating..."defendant instructed workers to not listen to the city guy, ignored my presence and cut down the last of the trees" worth 9k

The defendant brought up the fact that the process took 3 years, JR followed up on why...the tree guy basically said, because the city laid off all the inspectors. Another rep came up and said they followed the process completely

Defendant said he only cut down 8 trees, not 38...JR [the CM of the district] asked why he didn't stop once he was informed that he was breaking the law.

Defendant also disputing the tree inspector's complaint about defendant telling workers to ignore the city inspector, he says he didn't know who he was

Staffer is confirming there's 4 police reports on Houston's question. They're in the packet, as I can confirm as someone who bothered to read the packets.

Jenkins is showing a lot of disrespect in his response, making fun of the entire process. Unbelievable.

The item was continued to first meeting in February, based on idea there's still a lot to confirm.

on to RTTF delinquency liens

Now the new Rules of Procedure, amendments being added on the dais: no change to pulling an item off of consent, to non consent, that would remain with just motion/second. Status quo on committee mtg splits going to non consent.

A little over 20 speakers to my rough count.

Gene Hazard, who was escorted out of room when he complained the last time, says that the Council was not allowed by state law to continue the item after Lee declined breaking tie, even with suspension of Rules.

Several speakers have opined that the rules of procedure change should have failed when Lee refused to break the tie. That would have meant that someone on the "no" side, would have had to reintroduce the item.

That's it for speakers.

Brown asks for clarification of the amendments to the Rules changes.

The fact that people remained after a 5 hour deliberation Flock, for this equally controversial item, is pretty exemplary, but not a ton did, as the apparent goal of Council in passing rules changes that will limit public comment.

Theres a motion and second on the floor to pass this with the amendments.

Fife: "I am not exactly sure how this is here today after it failed so spectacularly...it feels like this is exactly what the public is saying, it's being rammed through" Fife says her tenure on council is being disrespected, public being disrespected

Fife: "the way that this is dealt with each time it came before the body, was so disrespectful..." Fife says that she's being silence on council as a reflection as the public. She says she will vote no: "the community should pay attention to what is happening here"

Jenkins says he's driven a bus, and package handler, and says in none of his jobs could he participate in a city council meeting

Jenkins says there's not "magical" time where city council can participate, and lauded Houston's video as a way of having people participate.

Fife pushes back on Jenkins: "I'm not just talking about a magical time when people can participate, I'm talking about breaking our rules to create new rules...I'm talking about listening to the people who literally came here to speak to us"

Fife has noted several times that she's been overlooked as substitute chair when Jenkins is not here. "I will leave it there, it feels like the decisions on this legislation have already been agreed to...but I'm verry disappointed by this today"

Gallo says he will also vote no, he says he feels disrespected by the current council and that the current structure is better for the public.

Surprise to everyone that Gallo is still pro-tem, he has been pushed aside regularly...

I am glad that JR confirmed that there are no changes to pro-tem role, which is why I didn't report these comments, it was in an original version, but was dropped a while back.

Gallo, Fife, Wang voted no, and the legislation changing rules of procedure passed with 5 votes

Taking a mental health break during the auditor's presentation. This meeting is normatively an embarrassment to good governance IMHO, but its the way the current council has chosen to roll, confident that tv news will ignore it. Staying for ABC contract, then that's it for me

On ABC, the organization's prominent lobbyist, Mario Juarez is in the chambers. Not sure if he will speak.

ABC has failed to win the bid in at least 2 normative bids since 2022 w/a rigorous criteria, but because of several reasons, none of them related or w/deliberate intent, city has had no choice but to continue w/them. Will be close to 10 years in role by the time this one ends.

I will have to circle back to the Saba grocery issue---the org says they were unfairly impugned by critics taking the city auditor's report out of context. Haven't had badnwidth...

Several of the bilingual Spanish speakers here tonight, low income, immigrant, supporting SABA commented against Flock and I do not believe that was their primary goal, to Houston's comments that portrayed them as inauthentic and unimportant.

those immigrant voices have been here unpaid for several hours waiting to speak on this, while Houston posted a video he did not create in lieu of making an argument, and ate lunch paid for by the city [I also did not eat lunch, because of this process, but I expect that]

I have never felt less empowered to stop reporting live at these meetings, given the stated dismissal and lack of concern with the public at every turn. At a time when there are more reporters needed sitting here, the Oakland Observer is the only record.

Can't believe their leaving the ABC contract to last. Taking PFRS ballot measure that is likely the least consequential thing in the agenda.

Fife brings up how the ballot measure on the tax break ended up on consent, while the PFRS was on non consent. Now that its put this way, it's pretty wild.

Now the ABC Security contract. It will authorize CAO to pay ABC bills generated since June, and extend a month to month contract to September 2026, meant to cover for the new competitive bid process after the one that produced Allied fell apart in rancor

Jenkins asked for security bid timeline. CAO Johnson, "realistically on the conservative side it will take 5.5 months or so to get to a new solicitation process..." A note, that the contract is being taken out of the hands of Public Works and being done by the procurement office

Ramachandran asks to have it being month to month only up to six months, not 9 months as requested.

Apparently, it's fine to rush this procurement process but not the Flock one. If you hang around these processes long enough, you eventually see the opposite standard logic used in the same meeting from one item to another depending on the relationship of CMs to vendor.

Finance Dept Director notes that its actually a one year contract, back dated to June...

Fife: "this is the second time this has been in front of me since I've been on council...I would like to know the cost for going out to bid each time...why do we have to go out to bid if we have a list of vendors"

Staff doesn't have the bidding cost. Fife makes a substitute motion: "instead of going out to bid, that we go back to the existing list that applied and were responsive bidders on this contract"

City Attorney noting that it may not be a proposal that can get into this reso, which is to pay a vendor and continue month to month..,.

Fife suggests that they can just turn down the item, and go back to the list of vendors, and bring them to council. OCA noting that can't all be done from this legislation.

Johnson basically saying it would be better to go through a full competitive process.

Staffer noting the City needs to pay about three months worth...

So Johnson clarifies that the amendments would be to verify whether the current list is still fine to go to RFP.

Unger is arguing now that the RFP process that Council chose to leave behind was the original problematic thing to do, and that's how we got here.

Unger argued that the RFP process is what keeps the Council from falling into a corrupt process, despite just arguing that the OPD didn't need to go through an RFP process for Flock. Like I said, one hundred percent the opposite argument from an hour ago.

Fife: "I think that its extremely problematic that we appear to be here again...rejection of Black contractors when they are being considered for the city of Oakland..."

Fife we need to go back to the process and find out why their bids were rejected.

Fife's motion is to accept paying bills for current vendor, extend ABC contract until the City can find out why the other companies lost [no one has mentioned Marina, but that's the vendor in question, that came in second]

Wang said she also did not want to go with Allied, and voted to reject that contractor, not sure why Marina, the second, did not come back for a vote.

Wang asking if the bid is too stale, she says she also doesn't understand.

Wang says she was troubled by Allied, about how wage and labor violations, controversies, "it was actually shocking", and she asked if that was a criteria in the RFP, it was not. "we need to vet for that going forward"

Wang says she had asked for interview notes on Allied, Jenkins is saying that this is getting out of the Brown Act noticing

It is true that Allied should never have won a contract in the city of Oakland, given it has contracts with ICE as well through a subsidiary. This is messed up through a number of issues.

ABC item has quickly become a mess.

Unger backed Allied, and was not concerned about the various issues