Life Enrichment Committee
October 22, 2024
AGENDA REPORT
TO: Jestin D. Johnson FROM: LaTonda Simmons
City Administrator Assistant City Administrator
SUBJECT:
Oakland Youth Commission
Annual Report For FY 2023-2024
DATE:
September 23, 2024
City Administrator Approval Date:
RECOMMENDATION
Staff Recommends That The City Council Receive An Informational Report For The Oakland Youth Commission’s Annual Report For 2023-2024.
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
This informational report presents the Oakland Youth Commission (OYC) Annual Report for FY 2023-2024. This report includes a summary of activities, annual accomplishments, policy issues, and recommendations that OYC has focused on throughout the year.
BACKGROUND / LEGISLATIVE HISTORY
On February 5, 1985, the Oakland City Council passed Ordinance No. 10545 C.M.S., establishing the Youth Advisory Commission (YAC), created to advise and make recommendations to the Mayor and City Council to address policy priorities impacting Oakland Youth ages 13-25.
The YAC has a total of 25 seats (filled with between 17- 25 members), whose members are appointed by the Mayor and confirmed by the City Council. YAC represents approximately 50,000 youth in Oakland and is committed to prioritizing Oakland youth from geographically and culturally diverse backgrounds. In 2015, the YAC co-convened 75 youth in a forum that led to the creation of #OYACGivesBack, a five-year mini-grant to support improved relations between youth and law enforcement. The convention led to the formation of an Oakland Police and Community Youth Leadership Council (OPC-YLC) in 2019.
In 2020, the YAC appointed two (2) youth members to the Reimagining Public Safety Task Force, who also chaired the Youth Advisory Board to propose youth -oriented solutions to re -invest in community programs.
Jestin Johnson (Oct 11, 2024 05:43 PDT)
Oct 11, 2024
Jestin D. Johnson, City Administrator
Subject: Oakland Youth Commission Annual Report For 2023-2024 Date: September 23, 2024 Page 2
Life Enrichment Committee
October 22, 2024
During the 2021 -2023 Biennial Budget, the YAC advocated for allocations to enhance youth leadership development and equity for low-income Black, Indigenous, and People of Color youth.
In addition to advising the City on policies, the YAC creates and executes its community events and drafts its policies to be considered by the City Council.
In May 2022, the City Council of Oakland adopted Ordinance 13690 to amend Ordinance No. 10545, 11461, and 11869 to change the name of the Youth Advisory Commission (YAC) to the Oakland Youth Commission (OYC) and amend the quorum requirements.
ANALYSIS AND POLICY ALTERNATIVES
The OYC has been effective and has accomplished a great deal in building youth power and transforming Oakland. OYC strongly believes that youth know what is best for them, and with the support of adult allies, that can positively influence their community. In total, this term the OYC worked on 6 campaigns and projects, conducted 6 media interviews, attended 4 actions, and 6 community events, and 14 out of 17 of our youth commissioners gave public comment at least once on a policy initiative.
Among these duties, the OYC advises the City Council on the unmet needs of youth through a variety of methods. These include researching sources of funding for youth programming, reviewing, and commenting on policies which affect youth, holding forums on matters affecting youth and working with existing youth organizations. Each term, the commission undergoes a series of leadership development and political training, which prepare the OYC to identify community partners, think strategically about our priority focus areas, and make informed comments and recommendations that articulate our positions and requests on various issues or proposed legislation of concern to youth.
Citywide Priorities are built into the OYC strategic planning areas as described below:
• Holistic Community Safety . The Oakland Youth Commission doesn’t have a specific campaign or project focused on community safety and violence prevention. However, all of our projects are focused on youth empowerment and lifting up the rights, needs, and resources for Oakland youth, which has an indirect impact on improving community safety, specifically as a form of violence prevention. We welcomed Dr. Holly Joshi, Chief of the Department of Violence Preventi on, and Elliot Jones, Director of MACRO, to our commission meetings to inform us of the groundbreaking work the city is doing to reduce violence and promote community safety. Our commissioners were deeply inspired and excited to learn of the innovative cit ywide effort and leading the rest of the country to a more holistic approach beyond policing and punishment.
• Housing, Economic, and Cultural Security. The Oakland Youth Commission continued to partner with the Career Technical Education Hub Coalition in Oakland, to advocate for the development of this housing project. The Youth Commission launched a research project analyzing Oakland youth’s transitions from high school to adulthood to better understand the needs and gaps in services for youth at this critical juncture in their lives.
• Responsive, Trustworthy Government. The Oakland Youth Commission continued its partnership with the Youth Vote Coalition in efforts to advocate for the implementation of Jestin D. Johnson, City Administrator
Subject: Oakland Youth Commission Annual Report For 2023-2024 Date: September 23, 2024 Page 3
Life Enrichment Committee
October 22, 2024
Measure QQ at the City and County level. OYC Staff have written and created a civic engagement pilot curriculum to be implemented in Oakland high schools to get Oakland youth registered, informed, and motivated to exercise their right to vote.
FISCAL IMPACT
This item is for informational purposes only and does not have any fiscal impact.
PUBLIC OUTREACH / INTEREST
No outreach was deemed necessary for this report other than posting on the City’s website.
COORDINATION
This report was prepared in coordination between the Youth Commission Staff and Youth Commission members.
SUSTAINABLE OPPORTUNITIES
Economic: The work of the OYC provides the youth with valuable skills and experience that are transferable to future employment opportunities. Our current youth -led research (YPAR) project on transitions to adulthood after high school is analyzing how well Oakland youth are able to access resources to prepare them for an economically stable future. We look forward to identifying some key areas in the City that can deepen the support of our City’s youth at this critical juncture in their lives. Additionally, our work advocating for digital equity in the State, and specifically, the investment in new broadband infrastructure in East Oakland, is to ensure that our City’s most marginalized and economically disadvantaged youth are afforded the same opportunities and resources to be competitive in our cont emporary society that relies on the internet. Our collaboration with Recast provided our youth training in philanthropy, grant writing, and grant making as well as the opportunity to invest in youth who are working to address and heal from the effects of trauma.
Environmental: This year, OYC welcomed the Department of Transportation and CalTrans Vision 980 to present to the commission and solicit community feedback and youth input on their transformational work in the city. Caltrans has invited members of t he Youth Commission to join the Vision 980 study and a few youth commissioners have expressed interest in working on this project for the 2024-25 term.
Race & Equity: This past year, OYC welcomed the Department of Race and Equity (DRE) to present before the Commission, as well as worked on five core campaigns and projects to empower and improve the conditions for Oakland youth across the city. The Youth Commission works towards systematic change and is intentional about weaving race and equity into all our work on our ad-hoc committees as outlined below:
Jestin D. Johnson, City Administrator
Subject: Oakland Youth Commission Annual Report For 2023-2024 Date: September 23, 2024 Page 4
Life Enrichment Committee
October 22, 2024
• Oakland Youth Vote: OYC continued to advocate for the implementation of Measure QQ and honor the will of Oakland voters who passed the youth vote in 2020. As right -wing attacks on youth vote came at the Board of Supervisors from residents seeking to suppress youth vote on racist, adultist, and classist arguments, OYC mobilized our youth commissioners to speak back to these baseless claims at several City Council and County Board meetings.
• Voter Education Curriculum: OYC also worked on creating a curriculum to be implemented in Oakland high schools this fall to educate, empower, and register young voters who are typically left to the margins in elections. Our curriculum included an overview of the long history of voter suppression tactics that are ongoing and aimed particularly at Black communities. OYC also included a section geared towards undocumented students and current political opportunities to make an impact in spite of being unable to vote in elections. Our youth commissioners, as well as several Oakland teachers and students in OUSD, were involved in the creation of the curriculum.
• Adultism Training: The Oakland Youth Commission Staff and youth co- created an adultism training that we offer annually to the City of Oakland employees and to a variety of community organizations and schools who are interested. Our training is rooted in understanding adultism as a form of Institutional Oppression and includes an overview of how intersectional oppressions, including racism and more, operate to reinforce adultism as it is specifically targeted at youth of color, young women, LGBTQ youth, etc.
• Digital Equity Advocacy: OYC advocated for digital equity in Oakland through the investment in building new broadband infrastructure in East and West Oakland, where our city’s most marginalized and digitally “disconnected” populations reside.
• Resiliency in Communities After Stress and Trauma (ReCAST): Several youth commissioners joined the ReCAST youth cohort to oversee Youth to Youth mini - grantmaking for our city’s youth who submitted proposals for ideas to promote resiliency and healing from trauma.
• Youth Participatory and Action Research on Transitions to Adulthood: This year, we launched a youth- led research project on how Oakland youth are experiencing the transition from high school to adulthood in order to better understand the needs and gaps in how we are preparing our city’s youth for this critical juncture in their lives. Following our presentation from Amy Ferguson-Yep at our Youth Commission Meeting. • OYC is developing an inclusive community outreach plan for our data collection that ensured we were reaching key populations of marginalized Oakland youth including Black, Latino, Asian, working-- class youth from neighborhoods that experience higher rates of violence and poverty.
In addition to embedding race and equity into our work towards systemic change, OYC also considers race and equity when admitting youth onto the Commission.
Jestin D. Johnson, City Administrator
Subject: Oakland Youth Commission Annual Report For 2023-2024 Date: September 23, 2024 Page 5
Life Enrichment Committee
October 22, 2024
OYC prioritizes Oakland youth from geographically and culturally diverse backgrounds to build youth power and transform Oakland. OYC has maintained a majority of Black, Latino, and Asian youth on the commission (over 80%) for the past two years.
Over the past two years, we have made an increased effort to do outreach in OUSD public schools and thus doubled the number of commissioners who attend OUSD public schools to adequately represent the experiences of the majority of our City’s youth.
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Jestin D. Johnson, City Administrator
Subject: Oakland Youth Commission Annual Report For 2023-2024 Date: September 23, 2024 Page 6
Life Enrichment Committee
October 22, 2024
ACTION REQUESTED OF THE CITY COUNCIL
Staff Recommends That The City Council Receive An Informational Report for the Oakland Youth Commission’s Annual Report for FY 2023-2024.
For questions regarding this report, please contact Robin Love, Manager, Children & Youth Services Division, at (510) 238-3231.
Respectfully submitted,
LaTonda Simmons (Oct 9, 2024 17:56 PDT)
LaTonda Simmons
City Administrator’s Office
Assistant City Administrator
Reviewed by:
Robin Love, Manager, Children & Youth
Services Division, Human Services Department
Prepared by:
Sara Tiras, Program Analyst II, Children &
Youth Services Division, Human Services
Department
Cindy King, H & HS Program Planner, Human
Services Department
Attachment (1):
Attachment A: Oakland Youth Commission Annual Report FY 2023-24