CITY OF OAKLAND
CARROLL FIFE
CITY COUNCILMEMBER - DISTRICT THREE
CITY HALL • ONE FRANK OGAWA PLAZA • 2ND FLOOR • OAKLAND, CA 94612 (510) 238-7003 • [email protected]
BUDGET MEMORANDUM
DATE March 17, 2025
TO: Mayor Kevin Jenkins, City Council, City Administrator, and Finance Director FROM: Councilmember Carroll Fife
SUBJECT: Fiscal Year 2025- 2027 Budget Priorities
My budget priorities continue to reflect calls from District 3 residents, businesses, and visitors for a clean and safe city. I remain committed to working with the community, staff , and the City Administrator’s office to get back -to-the-basics of service delivery in key areas while advancing more creative initiatives to improve conditions in the long -term. Trust is built with consistency and creating the infrastructure for consistently showing up for Oakland stakeholders is my prime objective.
In order to equitably build the city we all want and deserve, we must work together to identify how to serve diverse community needs as well as uplift “democracy in service of human flourishing”.
In other words, if the policies resulting from the budgets we pass don’t improve the lives of those who live in and visit Oakland, we need to re-assess our work.
Following are District 3 priorities to the aforementioned ends:
Housing and Homelessness
• With partnership with County and State support, stand up interventions to address unsheltered homelessness with supportive services on vacant municipal property; this applies to County, school district, and State-owned spaces within the City of Oakland with no immediate plans for use or warehoused for sale
o Clean up and environmental remediation for use of the North Gateway parcel and other City -owned parcels to accommodate homelessness interventions, such as modular homes
o Partner with the County of Alameda to utilize tax defaulted properties in arrears over 6+ years to house critical populations
• Support a day labor and/or entrepreneur program for unsheltered individuals • Bolster legal services for tenants to match the growing number of eviction cases • Increase in funding to support first-time homeownership program • Create a process for commercial-to-residential conversion in the Uptown/Downtown area • Advance a Social Housing program for the City of Oakland utilizing a hybrid Chicago Housing Trust model
Community Safety
• Fully fund Oakland’s Ceasefire strategy
• Fully fund Oakland’s Head Start program
• Fully implement the community-led traffic safety program for traffic controls/street calming with a focus on high traffic areas with frequent incidents of injuries and fatalities • CEPTED supports for small business and areas hit most frequently with robberies and burglaries
Economic Revitalization
• Fully fund the film incentive program
• Create self-renewing funding source for cultural affairs, i.e., ticket surcharge on events • Increase year-round workforce opportunities for youth and other critical populations • Fund a citywide branding and marketing strategy; Contract with professional branding firm to invest in narrative shift
• Build out small business incubators in partnership with the 16th Street Train Station, Port of Oakland, Peralta District and City of Oakland
• Establish the West Oakland Enhanced Infrastructure Financing District (EIFD)
Code Enforcement
• Improve code enforcement activity to support downtown/uptown and recover lost revenues from D3’s entertainment district
Sincerely,
Oakland City Councilmember
Carroll Fife, District 3