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Oakland City Head Start Advisory Board December 19, 2024
Transcript Hi. I've never Thank you. Thank you. Thanks a lot. You can. It's it's good. It's good. Thank you. Yeah. Please. Good afternoon. Good afternoon, everyone. Welcome to the City of Oakland Head Start Advisory Board meeting. We're gonna go ahead and get started. The meeting is being, called to order on December 19, 2024 at 3:40, PM. Can you hear me? Can you hear me now? Really? I'll just speak loud. Kate Chopp will fix it. So what we'd like to ask is if, our translation support, International Connect I'm sorry, International Contact could, present the international contact, instructions for interpretation, with miss Lucia. Yes. Of course. Yes. Hello, everyone. This is Luciana from International Contact, your language host for today. We have Spanish and Cantonese interpreters for this meeting and interpretation channels have been created. 1 moment while we 1 moment while we provide instructions. So, Vanessa, can you go ahead? Yes. Okay. Now, Olive, can you provide instructions? Cantonese. Cantonese. Thank you. Alright. Alright. Now for English virtual participants, please go to the English channel. Go to the world icon in the lower part of your screen and select English or e n. If you are using a smartphone, click on the 3 dots and select English. This is very important if you want to hear the interpreted comments into English in the latter part of the meeting. Reminder for English speakers is to, please, speak slowly so interpreters can keep up with you. So please keep that in mind. Now, interpreters will be asked to come to the microphone to provide instructions there as well and after instructions are finished, we, the multilingual instructions will be concluded. So now Vanessa, Olive, please, go to the mic. Rita Ma from Zoom? Or do you want me to go up to the mic? Everyone can hear me. To the mic? E either either either place is fine, Vanessa. Okay. Okay. Thanks. So do you want me to repeat everything? Yes, please. Okay. Thank you. Olive, please. Thank you. Alright. So this concludes the multilingual instructions. Thank you. Thank you, international contact team. So I want to, at this moment, let the, members know that there will be 3 different opportunities to speak, in the meeting. 1 will be a call for public comment. You'll have 1 minute to ask a question or make a comment. The next will be during the meeting, where discussion might occur, comments can be made, questions asked before an agenda item is voted on. And then at the end of the meeting at, open forum, members of the public or members here in the room, can make, you know, make a statement or ask a question that is not on the agenda. Each opportunity will be about 1 minute. So at this moment, I'd like to call roll. Chair Molly Tafoya. Thank you. Chair vice chair Lisonbee Bondi. Excused. Member doctor Jave Ross. Here. Thank you. Member Kevin Bridal? Present. Thank you. And member doctor Mari Tomarath? Present. Thank you. Member doctor j j Watkins? Excused. Member me Christina Michaud? Here. Thank you. Member Julia Forte Bridal is So we do have quorum. Thank you. At this time, I'd like to ask, chair Tafoya if you have any announcements you'd like to make. Nope. Okay. Thank you. Then we can proceed with the business of the day. We do have call for public comment. Wanna make sure we do that. Are there any interest in making comments or asking questions here in the room? I see no hands raised, on on Zoom. So at this moment, no public comment. Great. Thank you. Thanks to everybody for joining. We have Quorum, and it's almost a holiday bridal. Home stretch. So thank you for being here. First up for agenda items, review and approval of today's agenda. Are there any additions or edits to this agenda? I do believe that there is an edit under the financial report, for the financial 23 sorry. The final 2324 reconciled report for children's initiative. Is that something that we wanted to, present in January? Okay. So that was the only, staff request. Great. I move to approve the revised, December 19th board meeting agenda. Can I get a second? Kevin, do I have a second? All those in favor, please say aye. Yes. Aye. Aye. Aye. Approved. Great. Review and approval of the board meeting minutes from November 21st. Just a reminder, you did not have to be in attendance to review and approve. So we have quorum to approve those. Are there any edits or comments on last month's board meeting? Just that you were missed. I'm sorry. That's all. Sick kiddo. It happens, as you know. Well, then I will not move. Don't let somebody else move to approve the board meeting minutes. I move to approve the November board meeting minutes. Christina. I second the approval of the November 21st minutes. All those in favor, say aye. Yes. Aye. Great. Thanks. And then review and approval of the special advisory board meeting minutes from November 14th. Any amendments, comments, edits? Thank you for your participation. Thank you to staff for convening that. I know that was extra, and we appreciate you. I'll move to approve the advisory the special advisory board meetings from November 14th. Can I get a second? Kevin Vermont, second. All those in favor? Yes. Aye. Aye. Great. Thanks. Next up. We're on to action items. Advisory board officer elections. And Divina, I think that's you. Do you wanna take this 1? So this agenda item is actually for you to decide, when you would like to do the officer elections. The parent policy council, voted to move their elections to January because they didn't have they had just about making quorum. And so what they chose to do at the meeting was to actually just review what the different officer positions are, look at who has been in them, and give an opportunity for those current officers to just speak to what those roles are. So we can either go into office elections now or you can, choose to follow that similar pattern that the policy council chose. But we need we need a vote either way about which way which way you wanna go. We do. So we are missing 2? We're missing 3. We're missing 3 folks. So how do how do folks feel about waiting until January if we have more of a robust quorum? Okay. And, do we feel like we need a review of the positions, or do we Do we have it in the packet, Tracy? Not in the packet there in the bylaws. Yeah. Though. I think the the positions we vote on are just the 2. It's just chair and vice chair. So, I don't know if folks feel like they need an updated overview. I I don't, but I've been here a minute. We can do it again in at the elections. Yeah. And there is room to add any other office positions that you'll see fit. Yeah. So if, for example, you wanted to add fiscal or anything else, you're welcome to do so as well. So I just put that out there for you all to consider for January as well. So then we'd just ask for a vote on that. I actually think it might be helpful to know for the January meeting if we've if this advisory board has had any other positions between besides chair and vice chair? I don't recall anything else....
Oakland City Discipline Matrix Ad Hoc Committee (12/18/2024)
Transcript We're now live. Thank you for joining us today for our discipline matrix ad hoc committee meeting. The time is 6:0:2. We have our chair, Ricardo Garcia Costa, who is in transit. We have our captain Bridal Hubbard, and we have deacon Reginald Lyles. Let me see if there's anyone else in the audience that we should acknowledge. We have 1 participant from our from the public, miss Bridal. Welcome. And, we're going to get started. I'm gonna turn it over to captain Hubbard. Alright. Thank you. Hello, everyone. I we're gonna start with, like, we left off last week talking about custody of prisoners, and I'm sure that will take up most of our time this evening. But I do wanna go back to 38470. If you can see my screen here, subversive organizations. I made some changes to it. I'll read it again. No member employee shall knowingly join, affiliate with, or support any organization, group, or gang involved in illegal activities, or designated as subversive by a competent authority within the Oakland Police Department, including the chief of police, CPRA, or an authorized designee. Such groups include, but are not limited to, organizations that seek to undermine, disrupt, or overthrow any form of lawful authority, whether that authority be vested in federal, state, or municipal government, city councils, or or other recognized lows local governing bodies or laws and regulations legitimately established under the jurisdictions of California, the United States, or other lawfully constituted entities. Additionally, any organization engaging in illegal acts against public order and safety may be considered subversive. The designation of a subversive organization will be based on a preponderance of evidence demonstrating that the organization actively participates in activities intended to undermine, disrupt, or overthrow such lawful authority or commit illegal acts against the public welfare, Membership or affiliation for any purpose related to advancing lawful objectives is strictly prohibited, except when such involvement is essential for official duties supported by a lawful investigative purpose and authorized in writing by the chief of police or a designated official. A long 1 there. The main change here is right in the middle. It was requested last week that we expand on what lawful authority is. That 1 is subversive against and included federal, state, municipal, city, local laws, California, United States, etcetera. And, as I stated last week, California Post, you'll see it here on the side. They have government codes that govern them. It doesn't explicitly address affiliations with subversive organizations. But it does talk about being in good moral standing. So 1, assumably, would not be hired if they're part of a subversive organization because that would not be considered in good standing. Questions on that section? Excellent. I I definitely appreciate the the hack at this. This is pretty, pretty layered. The 1 thing that's kinda standing up to me is the area in the first paragraph at the end, the bolded area where it says designated as the the mercifully competent authority within the Oakland Police Department. Can we also the way it's written right there, I have no problem with that. But in terms of law enforcement, can we also expand it to, like, any other kind of, like, law enforcement, you know, folks that are not whether it be, like, an FBI or federal agent. I mean, there might be, like, a submersive gang that's in a database with the FBI that's been located, but maybe OPD doesn't have it on their radar yet or something. You know? Sure. Yeah. I mean, that that would be the only thing I would add on that, but that I like that. That that looks pretty good. But that probably won't be my final I'll write that better, other law enforcement IDs to include, maybe. Okay? Like, you know, DOJ, all that type of stuff, Ryan. Yeah. Okay. Alright. Well, if if an organization decided to to, to have a march and demonstrate against, let's say, the Oakland Police Department for what they thought was some unfair practice or some decision made by some court or whatever, and they marched in the streets. Let's say, like, it was the NAACP. That would be a legal act marching in the street. Could they be considered subversive? What is what are what is their I think if if it's not illegal against public order or safety, I would say no. Well, you know, every demonstration that happened in the past was an illegal act. Every 1 of them. Either they had them trespassing, or, they were didn't have a permit to march in the street or not. So what they were doing was illegal. There's no question about that. And, so, you know, I you know, some of us may be so young that we don't remember those days that we think we take for granted that, someone or a group exercising their, free speech and demonstrate it, I just don't want them to be considered as being subversive. See, I thought the Suburbs Act was not against overthrow of lawful authorities. I thought being subversive was was overthrowing governments in cities, municipalities. You know, you know, I think you ought to have a right to be able to demonstrate against the police. If the police have done anything, as long as it's peaceful, and you ought to be able to come out in the street and protest, for whatever reason you wanna protest. But if you're out protesting, then you then now we say, hey. You're a subversive organization. I thought subversive means overthrowing a government. And it seems like it's blended here in my reading of it is, you know, just, being disruptive against the lawful authority. Well, as a police officer, I'm a lawful authority, And and people have a right to demonstrate against, the the police. Or maybe you think they don't. So it appears that we're hung up on seek to undermine or disrupt, if it just says overthrow. Is that Yeah. I don't I don't see I don't I I think you ought to be able to disrupt. I think that's free speech. I think that's first amendment stuff. And, but I'm not trying to overthrow the government. I just think that the the police are acting in a way that I wish they did not act. But I don't wanna destroy the government. I'm not subversive. I'm I'm a citizen exercising my first amendment rights. I don't think there's a disagreement on the citizen side. I think this speaks to membership like the officers. So do we want officers doing that? And if I'm if I'm hearing correctly, I'm a say okay. Go ahead. Go ahead. Okay. No. No. No. You go ahead. Go ahead. Go ahead. Okay. I yeah. Gotcha. An officer, an Oakland police officer, right, who's off duty and demonstrated against a agency in Modesto that did something that was untoward. Can can we now say that this officer's, is subversive? I don't think he is. And I think he has a right to demonstrate if if he's protest protesting against, you know, against, you know, spilling of oil in the bay or, environmental issues or fresh air, are you saying that if an officer does any of those things, they're subversive? I don't think they're subversive. They I think they're demonstrating, and I think they have a right to do that under the first amendment. And, so I think disrupting is, is a little too goes a little too far. Yeah. So as long oh, I'm sorry. Go ahead. That's my I'm I'm I'm done. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. And then and along those same lines, I also agree with you. Like, where does like, a slippery slope. Like, where do we draw the line, or where do you go from, like, exercising free speech or the right to gather legally, right, to now you're becoming submersive. Now you're disrupting public order. Right? I mean, what if you had a peaceful protest and now folks end up breaking property and disrupting the bridge and shutting down the street? Now they're doing illegal activity. Could that be interpreted as now you're being submersive to, like, government order and law? Right? I don't think you'd be I I think it's wrong I think you're right. To deem a police officer off duty exercising his first amendment rights. And and and for that person to be deemed subversive. I thought this this subversive would be being part of a group, you know, criminal enterprise, you know, some some gang that is making, you know, illegal activity or some group that wants to overthrow the government Yeah. Or overthrow law enforcement. I have a problem with that. Yeah. Like January 6th. Like January 6th. Thank you very much. That At what point at what point, captain Hubbard, just kind of on a side note, just I'm trying to just process stuff. If if a cop is just out exercising their free speech, you know, the example Dekelau said, like, let's say, like, an oil spill in the bay and there's, like, a group that's protesting a oil company or, you know, has nothing to do with, like, law enforcement issues or anything like that. Right? And they're out there exercising their speech. And then at some point, let's say and and, again, I'm not saying I'm not suggesting that this is subversive, but just on a side note, in terms of just, like, illegal behavior, like, let's say a group starts splintering off, breaking property, disrupting traffic, doing things that are basically, could be classified as, you know, you get cited for or arrested for. Right? At what point, not suggesting that it's subversive, but at what point is an officer like, okay. Maybe I need to walk away from this situation because if I get photographs next to a person breaking glass, they identify me as OPD. This could now be a negative reflection or bridal real repute to the organization. Like, is there a point now that you have responsibility as an officer that, like, there's laws being broken around you that you kind of, like, step away from that? So you so you so that there's not a perception that you're a part of that. How does that work? Just aside from the subversive issue, just just on a side note. How does that work? Yeah. I mean, we have an obedience to law section and and if you're the the evidence will have to support your involvement in this, but the the initial allegation would be obedience to laws where you're you are there, you are participating and can and what then turned into illegal behavior and the officer can be charged with that. If to take it further, that group is considered subversive by, let's say, a competent authority, but more of more over preponderance of evidence that they're trying to overthrow something, undermine it to where it collapses, if you will, then the added charge would be subversive organization. Sure. Gotcha. Okay. So there is a lower level of just being around legal behavior, and that's not necessarily with this clause. This right here, 3838471 is really around the immersive, like, the intent to over like, I would under I would I would think it's more around seeking or the intent to actually convert an established system or institution or government. You know? Yeah. That's what this is what it's speaking towards. Right? I just wanna make sure, to **** and Lyle's point, that we're not creating something that's meant for that, And then it ends up impacting people's free speech, you know, and and right to assemble and things like that. Well, again, here it says undermine or disrupt a lawful authority. And and I and and disagreeing with a police officer is not subversive. Or disagreeing with a police agency is not subversive. Overthrowing the city government is subversive. Planning dynamite, disrupting the the, the government process, you know, that could be deemed as subversive. But disagreeing with a police officer is not subversive. I don't have to disagree with agree with the lawful authority even when I'm wrong. I'm innocent to proven guilty. So III just think that the the the way a lot you know undermine disrupt overthrow any form of lawful authority. Now, you know police officers can be disagreed with. We can disagree with There's too much of a slippery slope is what I'm hearing. I'm sorry? There's too much of a slippery slope is what I'm hearing then. Because anything could get interpreted as I wanna be ******** on this. Police officers are not governments. They're not always right. They are agent of the government disagreeing with a police officer. You have a right to do that as a citizen. The the government, the citizens, the police and the the the the government has to prove me guilty. I'm innocent and I have a right to protest to say no, I'm innocent. You know, I have a right to do that. And so now if you have, it written in here, this could be interpreted that, well, I'm a lawful authority. You disagreeing, you're disrupting, a lawful authority. Well, we got enough laws on the books, to deal with that 148 and all of that. You know, you can use 148 P. C. You don't have to have this in your teaching folks that anybody who disagrees with you, you know, is subversive. They're not subversive. They're innocent until proven guilty. It just indicates to me how far we've come in this country, And it's scary to me. How far we've degraded from my political perspective. You know, police officers are are not absolute, you know, they're not governments. They're agents of the government, but they all lawful authorities, and I and and we can we can disagree with them....
Oakland City Planning Commission December 18, 2024
Transcript Good afternoon to our 1 guest in the room, but in addition, we do always have a TV audience. I will note that you can see we have a quorum of planning commissioners. We are waiting for our chair. It is 3 o'clock as soon as the chair is here and ready to start. This will be the December 18, 2024 Planning Commission. And if the 1 member of the audience would like to speak on any item you're welcome to fill out a, card. It looks like you already have. And if you parked, and this is for the commission as well, if you parked in the garage at 250 Franco Gowa Plaza, you may use the promotion that the city offers for free parking, which is posted next to Hanifa. Thank you. Thank you, Catherine. All right. It is what? 302 and I will call the December 18th planning commission meeting to order. Let's do a roll call. Alright. Commissioner Maurice Robb. Here. Commissioner Shahar Shirazi. Here. Commissioner Josie Aarons. Here. Commissioner Alex Randolph. Here. Vice chair Natalie Sandoval. Here. Each chair, Jennifer Rank. Here. You have a quorum. Thank you. Okay. So let's go right to commission business. Is there any agenda discussion? No agenda discussion. Is there a director's report? No director's report. Any informational report? Oh, I sorry. I'm I thought that bylaws would be under information report. No information report. It's actually further down on the agenda. Oh yeah. Gotcha. Okay. All right. So no committee reports. I don't think any committees have. No committee has met since your last meeting. So that takes us to commission matters. Number 1, the, commission bylaws. Right. And, apologies. Yes. So we put this as number 1, so it's identifiable on our webpage with, staff reports, etcetera, although it's not specifically a public hearing. This is the, proposal which you've already seen once, the proposal to adopt new planning commission bylaws. And a reminder that first of all we'd like to thank Aaron Lemur who brought the draft bylaws to this body, quite a while ago. Aaron, I will note on the side, Aaron is actually not in the Bureau of Planning. He helped us out tremendously when we were significantly understaffed by taking on this project. He was also our, our Landmarks Board Secretary at that time. And so he while we have been working on staffing, Aaron held onto this project, which is to draft and work with you, the planning commission, to adopt bylaws, and the reason we had this as an important item over the past year you have bylaws but they're pretty old and they do not allow for hybrid meetings. And the state has noted to all municipalities that in order to have hybrid meetings, we need every board and commission who would benefit from that. They must have bylaws that allow hybrid meetings. This was an opportunity to, look at our bylaws overall and improve them, make them more efficient, responsive to our times and how we actually operate. And Aaron brought the proposal to you again. I can't I can't exactly remember when May 15th May. And he heard your questions and he worked with the city attorney to revise the proposal and he's bringing back a staff report with responses to your questions today on those proposed bylaws and our hope is that you will be willing to consider making a motion and approving those bylaws today. And with that, I know that Aaron Lehmer does have a presentation for you. Thank you. Thank you so much, Catherine. If we could get this slide up. Thank you so much. Yeah. And, good afternoon, chair rank and, commissioners. This is again the second reading of the proposed bylaws, for the planning commission and, just wanted to do a quick, recap of what they intend to do. Basically, they want to establish, you know, an updated framework for you all to conduct your business, and to conduct decision making. They wanna they wanna clarify roles and responsibilities, for both you as commissioners, and support staff, and they also clarify processes and procedures, for hosting hybrid meetings. And, lastly, they, help to clarify, processes that must be followed for remote or hybrid meetings. Going on, I'd like to, respond, to the, requests and some of the issues that were raised at the May 15th meeting, at the first reading of these bylaws. The first issue concerns the role of, the commission around reports. I believe it was, chair Shirazi, raised these, issue that there could be greater clarity around that particular point. And so, in the, article 2 duties of commission 4th bullet item, what we've done is, proposed to modify that language, basically to say that the commission shall also provide recommendations to be included in staff reports on subjects requested by the city administrator or the city council. So just to clarify that we are talking about staff reports, and that you would be making recommendations around those. So that's the first, proposed, revision. Second, the issue around, when planning commissions may begin, hosting hybrid meetings here in Oakland. That, was raised by commissioner Sandoval noting that, hybrid meetings have also been, you know, underway at city council and that there have been, you know, staffing, done provisions made for those particular meetings. However, we wanted to kind of further clarify, I think, where we're at with the planning commission, namely that in terms of readiness, we think that we need to meet at least, 3 key conditions. Number 1, having the appropriate technologies ready, installed, here at at city hall, which thanks to the great work of, KTOPS has already been done. Secondly, as Catherine was mentioning, we wanna make sure that the actual bylaws, which codify those processes are adopted by the commission. So that's something you can, do here today. And thirdly, that there is, sufficient, city resources that are allocated to, fund support staff for the hosting of those hybrid meetings, particularly to make sure that, remote attendees can participate in an equal manner with respect to, in person participants during the course of those meetings. And so that would mean, you know, there would need to be the support staff that would be assigned, trained in those processes, and available during the course of regularly scheduled planning commission meetings using, Zoom or whatever comparable platform we have available. The 3rd issue that was, raised at the May 15th meeting, concerned the accessibility for persons with disabilities. And we think that there's a natural place for, for including that within the bylaws under Article 3, meetings of the commission on page 3, paragraph 2, by adding the following language. All regular and special meetings of the Planning Commission should be open to the public and will be accessible to all persons in accordance with local, state and federal law. And lastly, we wanted to, I think, address a question that, commissioner Randolph had, posed around, you know, what commissioners can do to request to participate in remote meetings. And, staff just wanted to note that, you know, once the planning commission begins hosting hybrid meetings, then commissioners can check with the secretary or support staff, for further instructions on that process. And we just really wanted to note that, you know, there are there are only special circumstances under which those are allowed and those are, outlined in the city attorney's frequently asked questions document that we included as attachment D in a supplement to the staff report. So, with that, again, I'll just echo, I think, Catherine's, urging that to move forward here with all of these processes, we really do need to have codified approved laws from you as the planning commission. And, if there are any questions concerning these and or the issues raised, please let us know. Thank you. Thanks, Aaron. Appreciate that. Are there any questions? No? All right. I will go ahead and open public comment. There's no public comment for this item. I will close the public hearing and bring it back up for discussion. Is everyone, I'm guessing those that commented in May are satisfied. So so, does someone want to make a motion? We might, beat our record of the- at the last hearing. I can make a motion to approve, adopt the bylaws as revised. Motion by vice chair Sandoval. I'll second the motion. And a second by, I was about to say chair, but commissioner Shirazi. Commissioner Robb. Yes. Commissioner Shirazi. Yes. Commissioner Arons. Yes. Commissioner Randolph. Yes. Vice chair Sandoval. Yes. Chair rank. Yes. Motion passes unanimously and these will be posted in a number of places on our planning commission web page. We will plaster it all over the website where appropriate. And we'll keep them in our city files for use into the future. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks, Erin. Okay. Do we have a city attorney's report? No city attorney's report. Okay. Open forum. I'm guessing there are no speaker cards. Yes. We have 1 speaker. Okay. Yes. And it's Christian Rock, Bach, I mean. Christian Bach. You may come up. Please state your full name for the record, and you have 2 minutes. Over here. Oh, right here. You should be able to simply speak into the mic. Is it working? Yes. It's working. Because not everyone brought their hearing aid. Okay. So hi, guys. My name is Christian Bok. I am just a regular citizen. Currently, we live in San Diego, and we bought, land in the Oakland Hills, property that has been vacant, or empty since the fire of 91. And I'm here because I'm trying to find access or just an open door for someone to help me out with my issues with, the planning and building department. We are trying to get the building permit for a new residential home, and currently, we are supposed to work with someone, who when she first introduced to us, when we submitted the paperwork, said that she was probably not going to be the 1, who was working on the on the case because she didn't have experience. And then later on, once we started submitting, she is actually the person who is, working our, building application. And currently, we have issues, where the planning department announces that the time frame for, the permit would take 12 to 14 months. And currently, she's requesting the lady that we're working with is requesting a creek permit or a creek protection permit. And my understanding is that, creek protection permit is only required once per property. And in order to prove to her that this has already been done in the prior, building application from a previous owner, she wants us to submit again an application. So, like, those are the issues we're facing here. And, apart from the fact that I think we're living in a digital age, for me, it's very difficult to talk to people in the planning department when there is no 1 to talk to. The, in person meetings that you have on Sorry. Your time is up. You may complete your last statement. Okay. So, regarding what what you guys are doing here for for Zoom meetings, etcetera, When we are trying to talk to people from the city, sometimes we have well, not some we don't have an an opportunity to talk to them in person, so they scheduled Zoom meetings. And during the Zoom meetings, they don't even turn the camera on. So sometimes you feel like you're you're not in a Zoom meeting, but you basically have a conference phone call. And I don't know if that's something that you guys I mean, it's what you're doing is is fine, and I don't think that's an issue here for you guys. But overall, I think should be important to notice that, like, if you're having a meeting with someone over a Zoom meeting, that they should be present and visible. But that's just what we have. So I'm really just here to see if maybe after the meeting, someone can approach me and tell me if there is an open door or a way for me to start communicating with someone regarding that matter. Because we feel, if we're investing here, I don't know, this house is probably gonna be, like, 1,600,000. That's money that's going into the local area since we're building here. And I think that should be an important issue for the city also that people that are willing to invest in Oakland, you know, should, you know, try to get some help. And so my name is Christian Bok, but that's that's all I have to say. Thank you. Okay. Thank you so much. Catherine, is there a way that we can try to facilitate something for him to in terms of someone to talk to, or how do we handle that? Yes. So my email address is on the web page. It's probably how you found out about this meeting, and it's probably listed on the agenda too. I'm not looking at the agenda....
Oakland City Mayor’s Commission on Persons with Disabilities (MCPD) Meeting, December 16, 2024
Transcript Good evening. It is 5:37, December 18th or 16th. Sorry. And we will now begin our December session of the of mayor's commission of people with disabilities. We'll start with the in person meeting logistics and rules read out by staff. Okay. Remember, no food or open drink are allowed in here in room 1 to maintain a clean and professional environment. Drinks must be in a closed container, like Fatima has, to prevent any spills or accidents. When commissioners speak, please press the top red button that says Mike. And when you are finished, please press the button again. To ensure clarity and transparency, when commissioners speak, please state your name before speaking. When a member of the audience is speaking or commenting, please first state your name and any affiliations you may have. Restrooms are located outside here in room 1 near the elevators. We will now move on to roll call and determination of quorum. Here. Vice chair, part 2. Here. Commissioner Cloyd. Here. Commissioner Rowe. Commissioner Foote. Here. Commissioner Creswell. Commissioner Wilson. Here. Commissioner Saint Julian. Here. Commissioner Arey. Here. Commissioner Carter. Here. And with that, we do make quorum. Oh, nice. Perfect timing. Alright. Well, can I share that it was here too? Okay. And with that, we definitely make quorum. We'll now move on to item 3, open forum. Any person may directly address the commission on any items within the jurisdiction of the commission not on the agenda for today. Speakers wishing to address a specific item on the agenda may do so when invited at the time the item is being considered. There's no discussion allowed during open forum. Please raise your hand if you wish to comment and wait to be called on. Which 1? It doesn't matter? Okay. I think it's this 1. Yeah. Hi, everybody. Lenore Gunst. I am Lenore Gunst, and I chair the mayor's commission on aging. And it's, a pleasure to be back here to see you all, although I wish the circumstances were less dire than they are. As you may know, the city is in a fiscal crisis. And, as a result of that, the city council tomorrow will be making, a decision about implementing some mid cycle budget reductions, which will have a drastic, really, severe impact on seniors, persons with disabilities, and veterans who live in the city of Oakland and utilize, Oakland's, senior services. So of the people that attend, sir, use the services most and attend the senior centers, are mostly low income people and people of color. So it's an equity issue, and it's also, critical services that a lot seniors rely on, for for their safety and well-being. And among the probably the biggest 1 is the closure of the senior centers. We had a meeting last week and, and have attended every hearing, and have been advocating on your behalf as well as senior's behalf. And, we were just shocked when we learned that, that a set of, well, the city administrator proposed a set of cuts and and did so, saying he had the confidence of the, directors of all the departments in adult and aging services and human services, who had, offered these cuts as being something that they could live with. And that really was not the case. Adult and Aging Services had not been consulted. And this included, rotating actually, I heard a question about the the centers, not opening West Oakland right away. It's still under construction apparently. But, the other centers would have 1 center director and they would, this person would rotate among the the 3 others that are open, and it would be open 1 day a week. So Oakland's a big city. It's hard enough to get around and I'm sure I'm preaching to the choir about that, but, you know, to get from West Oakland out to East Oakland, for 1 day a week, it just isn't tenable. Not only that, but they're, the downtown Oakland Senior Center, for instance, is the, head start program runs there. The veterans administration runs out of there. Essential programs like, case management. All transportation and script is available at, for people that need help to get to doctor's appointments and all are, available at the senior centers, as well as meal and food distribution. So, we have been lobbying very hard for, an alternative plan or at least, something that that, would mitigate the impact to seniors and persons with disabilities and veterans. We are hopeful that tomorrow at the at the meeting that, we will have gotten our message through. We have just had tireless efforts. So last week, we had an opportunity to meet with the city administrator. And, and we had a rousing meeting. We had buses come and pick seniors up from all the senior centers and brought them there. Over a 100 folks were there. And, he did acknowledge at the end of that meeting that there was still time to see whether or not they couldn't mitigate some of the impacts that they were anticipating. So, we'll see. So tomorrow, we have a rally. And, so we're not just gonna take that for an answer. We're gonna go the to the end, to the end of the line here with everything we've got. So it will be out at Fracagawa Plaza, and it's going to start just before the city council meeting starts at 3:30. So we'll be out there at about 2:30. And, Anwar is going to be speaking. We have, folks from Mercy Brown Bag, from SOS Meals on Wheels, from the Senior Services Coalition. We are hoping, very hopeful. We're gonna have somebody from, supervisor Nate Miley's office will be there, United Seniors of Oakland, and, we're hoping 1 of the council members will come out as well. We know we know at least 2 or 3 that are really sympathizing with us. But, you know, fire and police are important, and that seems to be where the city has, has really hedged in terms of being able to cut too much of those resources. They're union they're big union jobs, and so, you know, that's another complication in in the works. But seniors are important. You know, we're the fiber of, I think, of Oakland. And, we take advantage of what Oakland has to offer, and we've lived and worked here for, for many for their whole lives, and people wanna stay. And the senior centers play an important role in that, as do senior services, as do all of you. So, so I'm here just to give you that update. We're gonna have we're kind of waiting out with bated breath to see what happens tomorrow. There it will be the last opportunity. You know, in addition to all that, the over half the city council's turning over, including the mayor. So, so, you know, we'll be back at it in the beginning of the year, virtually starting over with our advocacy and relationship building with, several of the council members. But, it's all worthwhile. So, so anyway, I just wanna give you that update. I wanna thank you very much for your support. Come on out tomorrow if you can't. If you do have a relationship with a council member, you know, shooting an email, there'll be public comment available, during the meeting. You can submit a a card if you come in person. It may be too late to do it on, any comment, but, certainly, you can just email council members if they get them and just let them know that, that you really support, not closing the senior centers and retaining some of the, some of the other programs that seniors rely on. So any questions at all? Yes. You spoke of well, I know the West Oakland 1 was closed. I know a lot of people that used to go there. So you said they remodel, and they couldn't be remodeling if there's no money. So what are they doing with it? Yeah. So there's something called, carryovers, in the budget, and most of those are for capital improvement projects. So, so construction is well underway. And, so yeah. I know. It's kind of a slippery slope there. There is money. I mean, there's money. Oakland's got money, but, you know, a lot of it is not discretionary. It's it's restricted in how it's used. And a lot of I think a lot of the the concern that the city councils, had, in their decision making is that the fiscal, where the city ends up in all of this will, will certainly impact their credit rating. So the city floats bonds to finance a lot of the capital improvement projects. You know, I live on Broadway Terrace. The road has not been paved in 50 years or something. It's, you know, it's there's other, infrastructure improvements and all that. So the funding for those are, those funds are earmarked and they're there. But, yeah. Right? You'd think that we would take care of Oakland's most vulnerable people first before some of these other, you know, projects and things, get taken on. But, Do you have any excuse me. Would do you have any idea which one's closing or just? Well, they would all, right now, they were all gonna close. So last last Tuesday, we learned, like, that they were eliminating 6 and a half positions out of adult and aging services, and we pressed and pressed and pressed to find out what they were, and staff didn't even know what they were. And it turned out it was all the senate directors. Is Oakland the only 1 that's broke, or is it just, you know, is it just the Bay Area period? Is it just Oakland? That's a good question. I, you know, I honestly don't know. I, I heard, council member Jenkins talk about San Diego. I guess he's been down there a couple of times and, you know, talking to people there about it. We I remember the city of Vallejo went, you know, went into bankruptcy. Yeah. So I'd I'd like to limit conversation too much. I I do know that other cities also suffer from problems of things like police overspending and bunch of problems, but that's discussed for another time. Yes. Exactly. So any other questions that that anybody has? Any yes. Sorry. I may have missed this, but did you say they're voting on this tomorrow at tomorrow's meeting? That's correct. Okay. Yeah. Thank you. Great. Well, thanks again, everybody, and I wish you all a happy holiday. Yeah. Yeah. Are there any other speakers? I'm Sheila Gunn and I'm laughing because this is this is always the way. I'm I'm wearing 2 hats today. Thank you, Lenore, for talking about tomorrow's meeting. I will be there virtually. I think that when we destroy the infrastructure, the social infrastructure that helps people on a daily, weekly, monthly, yearly basis, maintain their health and well-being both physically, spiritually, emotionally, mentally, whatever. If we destroy that then that means more emergency room visits, that means delayed doctor care, that means not getting transportation to where they need to go for medical and social things, and that means isolation. So if there are people not in this room, who, feel that this is important, they should come on out tomorrow. It won't be cold inside and the rally will only be an hour, so, come and be here and and do what we need to do. I want to switch gears though. There was a tornado in Santa Cruz, Scotts Valley. There was almost a tsunami in San Francisco. We are in we are definitely in climate change times. And, how, communications about said tsunami and who should move to where for what and all that was rather confusing even from supposedly trusted sources. I choose KCBS when I need to know what's going on and NOAA Weather Radio isn't enough. So and and NOAA Weather Radio did say pretty much what KCBS said, but I didn't know that my house was at 126 feet above sea level. I don't I don't I don't, what do what do you call it when you drop the stick in the in the sea to to see how to depth depth sound sound the depth. Anyway, and so that was a very loud and clear wake up call. By the way, I did not hear any Oakland sirens. Apparently, Berkeley did some stuff and Alameda Alameda moved some people around. And so I think it's time we had a hot wash after this cold rain. So I would like to see a thing like that. I think that's it. Everybody be safe for the holidays. I know that the Berkeley shelters are open. I've been sending things out to the Oakland disabled list about that. I don't know where to get Oakland shelter information. I would send that out if I had it. And we will CIL will amplify things when we know they're needed....
