CITY OF OAKLAND BUDGET MEMORANDUM
DATE: July 7, 2022TO: City Council and Members of the PublicFROM: Council President Nikki Fortunato BasSUBJECT: Council President’s Policy Directives tothe FY 22-23 Mid-Cycle Budget andProposed Budget Amendments Dear City Council Colleagues and Members of the Public, My Budget Team, composed of CMs Kalb, Fife and Gallo, thank you for approving our mid-cyclebudget amendments for FY 2022-2023.
I would like to clarify an item in the adopted budget:● Line C4 - $750,000 to Oakland Housing Secure - Legal services for low-income renters. Thenote should clarify: “In addition to $1M already in the proposed budget, $250,000 of the amountin the Proposed Budget must be allocated toOaklandHousing Secure forDirect RentalAssistance to Renters.” I would like to propose the attached amendments of unallocated General Purpose Funds.● $10,000 toPLACE (People Linking Art, Community, &Ecology) for Sustainable Living per CMKalb. This amendment was mistakenly not included on June 30th.● $75,000 for Plumbing for the City's E 12th Lakepoint homeless intervention project, per the staffreport at the July 7th Council meeting (22-0548) and CP Bas.● $1,915,000 for a Labor Contingency for union contracts.
Below are our proposed Budget Policy Directives.
Budget Policy Directives● Housing and Homelessness○ Lake Merritt Lodge■ Purchase of Lake Merritt Lodge - Direct the City Administrator to purchase LakeMerritt Lodge as a permanent transitional housing City-owned resource and seekadditional funding and grants, and/or collaborate with the City’s partner andoperator Housing Consortium of the East Bay to purchase the Lodge to continueserving Oakland○ Care Campus - Direct the City Administrator to investigate a $5 million grant to LaoFamily Community Development for the acquisition of the CARE Campus (former Motel
6 in East Oakland) property to set aside 100 fully furnished units annually for 30 yearsfor Oakland’s unsheltered residents.○ Programming new housing and homelessness funds — Per City Policy, the followinggrants shall come to Council for review and programming and shall support, to thegreatest extent possible, homeless Transition Aged Youth and homeless LGBTQindividuals.■ New $1.1 M Grant from HUD-ESG/SHP/HOPWA■ New $9.4 M Grant from Cal HCD● Community grants— As noted in the FY 2021-2023 BudgetPolicy Directive and in theApril2022 Staff Report, the process for awarding directcommunity grants by the Council and theMayor should be more transparent and accessible. I included direct community grants in theadopted budget to meet immediate needs; however, starting next year as we prepare for the nexttwo year budget, I urge us to implement this uniform process for budgetary earmarks.● Early childhood development—The city council encouragesthe Measure AA ImplementationPartner and the Children’s Initiative Citizens’ Oversight Commission to allocate a $2 millioncontingency from the initial allocation of Measure AA funds toward an emergency fund tosupport Early Childhood Education Providers, and to fund Headstart to ensure the effectivenessand sustainability of the program.● Summer Foods Programs— Direct the City Administratorto increase equitable access tonutritious meals by outreaching to, and supporting the capacity and participation of communitybased partner sites as well as by increasing the number of open sites through OPRYD andcoordination with Head Start to ensure unhoused and housing insecure families are serviced.● Wilma Chan Park— With the renaming of Madison Parkin honor of the late SupervisorWilma Chan, we encourage the City Administrator to collaborate with the community and ensureexisting staff supports programming activities at the Park, in coordination with Lincoln Park andRec Center staff, as the Park is publicly renamed this Fall and as Lincoln Rec undergoes futurerenovation.● Arts and Culture— We encourage the City Administratortoprioritize hiring open positions toensure Cultural Affairs can achieve its goals and directives, and explore ways the Administrationcan subsidize artist performances across the city, for example by identifying what locationswould be available for performances that the city owns or are available to rent.● Public Safety and Violence Prevention— There areseveralpolicy directivesfrom last year’stwo year budget that still need attention and implementation, including:○ Independent Audit of OPD○ Recommendations from the OPD Calls for Service Analysis — There must be robustdiscussion and follow up on the recommendations with the goal ofredirectingnon-criminal and non-violent calls from OPD to other departments in order to prioritizeviolent and serious crime, as indicated by the findings of the OPD Calls for ServiceAnalysis.○ Second Phase of Reimagining Public Safety to Include Restructuring of PoliceDepartment to Focus on Serious and Violent Crime Item No.:________Special Council MeetingJuly 11, 2022Page2 ○ Increase Capacity to Investigate and Solve Crimes and Produce Higher Clearance Rateson Homicides, Missing Persons, and Other Serious Crimes by RestructuringInvestigations Units○ Significantly Stand Up MACRO As An Effective Alternate Response System as FirstResponders to Non-Violent and Non-Criminal Calls for Service○ Moving responsibilities of the Internal Affairs Division to the Community Police ReviewAgency (CPRA) Increasing transparency and accountability is the first step to mending the frayed relationship betweencommunity and law enforcement. Our policy directives above, and the addition of a policy analyst whowould work primarily with the Council Offices, as well as with the Budget Advisory Commission, aimto do this through implementing systems and policies that increase transparency and accountability inthe Oakland Police Department.
This analyst position will assist in gathering and publishing relevant datasets, including calls for service,as recommended by the OPD Budget/Staffing Workgroup from the Reimagining Public Safety TaskForce and endorsed by the Budget Advisory Commission. We direct the City Administrator to establishregular performance metrics related to 911 response times for priority 1 calls and clearance rates,especially for violent and serious crimes; and regular reporting of information on the above to the PublicSafety Committee and the full City Council.
Bolstering alternative response systems that put community first will minimize the chances of negativeor violent interactions with police and reducing the number of arrests continues to be of highimportance. A key way to do this is through our policy directive to expand the Mobile AssistanceCommunity Responders of Oakland (MACRO) program citywide. We direct the City Administrator to:○ Begin the process of connecting dispatch to MACRO and directing some non-violent andnon-criminal 911 calls to MACRO.○ Secure the necessary funds (public and private) to make the program sustainable.
Further investments in violence prevention — During the biennial budget process, we investedsignificantly into the Department of Violence Prevention (DVP) for various programs and services.While those investments were historic, we need to make sure we invest even more towards DVP’sefforts to address community needs and provide trauma informed services in order topreventcrime. Wedirect the City Administrator to:○ Identify funding for the next bi-annual budget cycle.○ Support community ambassadors, adding additional ambassadors throughout the City.
Reform beyond the Negotiated Settlement Agreement — On May 12, 2022, U.S. District Judge WilliamOrrick ruled that OPD is in substantial compliance with the NSA and has achieved full compliance with50 of the 51 original NSA tasks. OPD has now entered a one-year “sustainability period”, a probationaryperiod before the end of federal oversight. While this indicates major progress, the department mustItem No.:________Special Council MeetingJuly 11, 2022Page3 continue to make the necessary reforms to not only comply with the “sustainability period” but torebuild trust with the residents of Oakland long-term through transparency and accountability asdescribed above and per the recommendations of the Reimagining Public Safety Taskforce.
Thank you again to the City Administrator, Finance Staff and other Department Staff for supporting ourbudget deliberations.
Respectfully Submitted,
______________________________Nikki Fortunato BasCouncil President, District 2 Attachment: Budget Amendment
Item No.:________Special Council MeetingJuly 11, 2022Page4